text:
The earth gives us so much in the Pacific Northwest and everywhere for that matter.
At Alpine Ductless we were happy to find a product we believe in so much for the comfort of our customers and the relief it provides on their utility bills. But just as important, we love Ductless Heating and Cooling Systems for the reduced impact they have on the environment.
Ductless Technology Has Less Impact on the Electrical Grid
Homeowners that opt for a Ductless Heat Pump contribute to the good of the environment by choosing a heating and cooling alternative that reduces their home's impact on the electrical grid. By using less electricity, it frees up the electrical company to use that surplus in places with higher demand WITHOUT having to build more power plants. This reduces the negative impact on the planet.
So if you already have a Ductless Heat Pump, thank you for contributing to the greater good. If you don't have one yet, but want to make an impact, contact us today to talk about more reasons you and your family should go ductless.
Watch our video explaining how your ductless system is helping the environment
Our Personal Words on Why We Are Dedicated to Ductless Heating and Cooling
Hi, we're Cory and Janette from Alpine Ductless. When we first discovered ductless heating and air conditioning, we saw an opportunity not only to help the customer save money on their utility bills and get comfortable in their home, but also to reduce their homes impact on the electrical grid.
By reducing the power that they use, the power company ends up with a surplus. With that surplus, they are able to help take care of their demands on additional growth without building more power plants. By not building power plants, they reduce the impact on the planet. Our customers love the fact that they're not only more comfortable and saving money, but they're helping save the planet.
Thanks for watching. We proudly installing Ductless Heating and Cooling Systems in Thurston County including Olympia, Tumwater, Lacey, Yelm and more! You can learn more about Ductless and get a free consultation by contacting us here today.


text:
The Origins and Evolution of the Triple Crown
The Triple Crown.
Few phrases in thoroughbred racing evoke the same thrill those words do.
"He is moving like a tremendous machine…"
The Kentucky Derby.
"And, here it is, the thirty-seven-year wait is over…"
The Preakness Stakes.
"Affirmed and Alydar, heads apart…"
The Belmont Stakes.
The colors of the Triple Crown are familiar many to many of us: red roses and the devil red of Calumet; the yellow and black of the black-eyed Susan and Seattle Slew's silks; the white carnations of Belmont and the white blazes that cascade across the faces of Sir Barton and Secretariat, Gallant Fox and Affirmed. The sounds of "My Old Kentucky Home" still bring a tear to many an eye as we look to another year of promising three-year-olds parading from paddock to post, ready to load into the starting gate and send us on another year of chasing the Triple Crown. We have had thirteen in 100 years; will 2019 bring us one more? As we count down the days to the Derby and the celebration of a century of the Triple Crown, this becomes a perfect opportunity to explore the journey that brought us all to seek another elite horse to take home our American classics.
The concept of a Triple Crown began with popes. By the eighteenth century, the head of the Catholic Church, the Pope, wore a triregnum, three crowns stacked on top of another as a ceremonial headdress for solemn occasions. The British adopted the term 'Triple Crown' for their own classics, the Epsom Derby, the St. Leger Stakes, and the Two Thousand Guineas. West Australian was the first horse to win all three of the English classics in 1853, but it would be another decade before Gladiateur would duplicate his feat. That year, the Guardian published an article anticipating the 1865 St. Leger Stakes at Doncaster with a reference to the possibility of Gladiateur "emulating the fame of West Australian, who alone has secured the Triple Crown." By the early 20th century, Americans would associate the term 'Triple Crown' with the English classics, but racing's visionaries, hoping to capture the same renown of the English Triple Crown, were working on creating an American version as well.
New York racing officials hoped to make the Withers Stakes, the Lawrence Realization, and the Belmont Stakes, three races that most closely mirrored the distances of the English classics, a Triple Crown for the New York area. However, the challenges of shipping horses from state to state made such a sequence impractical for those based in Kentucky or Maryland. Anti-gambling legislation in the early 1910s shuttered racing in 1911 and 1912, effectively ending any momentum that Gotham-based Triple Crown might have had. By 1918, with World War I in its last days, America was still without its own Triple Crown series while the British counted thirteen winners since 1863. All of that changed when War Cloud, chasing boosted purses, ran in the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes, winning only one of the three, but taking home enough money and prestige that Commander John Kenneth Leveson Ross would send his own Sir Barton on the same path the following year.
In thirty-two days in 1919, Sir Barton won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes – and the Withers as well, a feat only Count Fleet would duplicate – earning $65,350. His dominating wins in those races inspired others to follow the same path and the industry responded. It would take time, though, for that path to take on its iconic name.
Within a year of Sir Barton's Triple Crown, the Kentucky Jockey Club and the Maryland Jockey Club sought to have another horse pursue those dual victories in Louisville and then Baltimore by increasing the time between the two races. As the classic schedule evolved, the name Triple Crown flirted with this trio of races. The story of Charles Hatton originating its use is only partially true: the Daily Racing Form's earliest references to Sir Barton's Triple Crown came in 1923. That next year, W. C. Vreeland took a cue from the Form and referred to the three races as the American "triple crown." Within only five years of Sir Barton's triumph, what had started as three separate prestigious stakes races had transformed into a pursuit of enormous value.
By 1930, William Woodward, himself an admirer of English racing and the traditions of their own classic races, saw his own Gallant Fox dominate in the Preakness first and then the Derby and then take the Belmont with ease. While Gallant Fox's triumph did have the term 'triple crown' attached to it, it would take wins in the same three races by Gallant Fox's son Omaha to begin the marriage of both the accomplishment and its moniker. In 1935, as Omaha blazed the same trail that his sire Gallant Fox and Sir Barton had traversed, turf writers like Hatton covered the colt's domination of the American classics using the name 'Triple Crown' for his triumphs. The phrase was now part of the mainstream, trumpeted across the front of the Daily Racing Form the day after Omaha's Belmont win. With three horses now taking all three of our classic races, America finally had its own triregnum, a metric for measuring elite horses to this day.
The Triple Crown's prestige had become so great that even Samuel Riddle, who famously held Man o' War out of the Kentucky Derby, sent his War Admiral to victory in Louisville. This son of Man o' War then went on to win the Preakness and Belmont to become Triple Crown winner number four. If Samuel Riddle could get on board with the concept of these three classics being something to aspire to, then this had to be something historically special.
The 1940s added four more names to this roster: Whirlaway, Count Fleet, Assault, and Citation. In 1950, the Thoroughbred Racing Associations decided that it was time for the Triple Crown to be recognized for its place in the sport of horse racing. They commissioned Cartier to create a trophy to commemorate the three races and then awarded one to each of the eight Triple Crown winners to that point, with one more awaiting the next winner. Twenty-five years after Citation's 1948 victory, that trophy finally had a new home with the legendary Secretariat. The 1970s then added Seattle Slew and Affirmed to the list, bringing the sport to eleven on this list of the elite.
Now, one hundred years after Sir Barton first won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes, the Triple Crown has become an essential part of American sports culture. When American Pharoah and then Justify won the Belmont Stakes, completing the 12th and the 13th Triple Crowns, 90,000 people crowded into Belmont Park to witness history. Millions of Americans tune into the Triple Crown races each year, waiting for another super horse to blow them away like Secretariat did. The Triple Crown, with its rich history and iconic performances, has become the symbol of the best that this sport has to offer. Each year, as we eagerly anticipate which three-year-olds will show themselves to be the top of their class, we look for the next horse with the right balance of talent and heart to take home our three most coveted races and wear that Triple Crown.
Jennifer Kelly's book Sir Barton and the Making of the Triple Crown, published by the University Press of Kentucky, is available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller. Check out her blog The Sir Barton Project for more on Sir Barton and his era as well as for information on Jennifer's upcoming appearances.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Bill Martell
Bill Martell is a brilliant teacher.
Tell me his book on Hitchcock isn't going to be amazing. Seriously, this is one of the most informative and information-packed movie-making hours on the Internet.
Posted by Andrew Bellware at 1:46 PM
No comments:
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
Natú is considered a hybrid project due to its horizontal as well as it´s vertical composition. The design is based on the idea of creating a building that adapts to the terrain, thus modifying the natural topography as little as possible, which creates views towards "Parque del Este". Likewise, it is proposed to incorporate green areas to each housing unit through garden slabs. The aesthetic value and functionality of the building is favored by the presence of its natural counterpart, seeking to provide a particular experience through the integration of natural ecosystems as circuits within the project.
The location of the project is highly regarded, due to the qualities of "Parque del Este"; This park is a green area with steep slopes and natural routes, because of this, the project is inscribed within the perimeter of the tree-lined area, functioning as a visual connection.


text:
AMD HIRED a Brit who worked at Sun and IBM to oversee its worldwide marketing.
Nigel Dessau was senior vice president of storage at Sun, and before that worked for Storagetek and prior to that IBM.
He's from Nottingham. He doesn't appear from his picture to have the flamboyant taste in ties that marked Henri Richard out as a semiconductor peacock.♦


text:
This will definately be an interesting TF for sure.
Date: 7/15/2007 Views: 64127 Favorites: 231 Comments: 20
One of the 3 transformation sequences I did for IoDM, in this case Gallen being turned into a Ocelot/Dace fish combo. Since the shop closed I decided to simply post everything and break the suspense
To add a comment, please sign in or create an account.
This will definately be an interesting TF for sure.
I agree! I cant wait for more sequences!
"ocelot/fish" I am very sorry, that's just about the dumbest thing i've heard today.
Then move on and find other stuff to look at. Nobody needs your negativity here.
Feefers, please be more constructive on your critizism. If you knew the story line behind IoDM then you'd know they have a mixed serum thing as well. Perosnally, I find it different than the normal stuff. If anything, I find him looking very cute, and I wonder how it'll go at the end.
Dumb? Maybe -- but I'm willing to entertain a concept with the artwork to back it up. This looks great. +Favorite :)
If you think for a second you won't find it so dumb. I like doing weird combos and it's quite a challenge when you try to combine 2 completely different creatures and still make it look natural. And if it wasn't the amount of research I made to figure out the anatomical similarities between mammals and fish for this one, then Sid's sequence wouldn't be half as good
the third frame is great, but the first two look out of proportion. intresting idea, and like i said it seems to improve as it goes on.
A very interesting idea, and I look forward to how this one works out.
Aww, he's such a cute little genetic freak...!
Yay finally 100% :3 Awesome work Birvan
Haha - I love frame 4
The entire sequence is amazing!!
Man, Gallen is both cute and cool looking at the same time in frame 5, and frame 4 is very funny.
I love the expression in the last panel!
SO FR**KIN AWSOME DUDE! I LOVE YOUR TF's AND ART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lol cat fish!
Awesome td
Lol, he's a catfish!
I get it! Catfish!


text:
Counted among the list of premium smartphone brand Blackberry mobiles is in news shores once again. A new entrant named as Blackberry A10 has been leaked online with complete details and specifications. As per the rumors, the codenamed of Blackberry A10 will be dubbed as Aristo. It is a bouquet full of latest trending specifications and features.
This smartphone will now join the line up of large screen sized smartphone offered by the range of premium smartphone manufacturers in the gadget industry. Few month ago, company had introduced Blackberry Z10 which was the company's first big screen smartphone which gained success and popularity overseas (though not very much) and now to continue this winning legacy further company is in plan to introduce Blackberry A10 . Although, details are not confirmed, we can consider it more as a rumour than actual verified news (just to be on safe sid). Blackberry A10 will be the second element launched by the company till date in the arena of large screen smartphones by RIM. Coming towards it's technical details and specifications so far leaked online, in terms of frame up this device will sport a huge 5 inch of OLED HD WXGA capacitive touch screen display with 1280×720 of pixel resolution.
In terms of software specifications, this device will run on blackberry 10.2 operating system. Processor support is still a mystery but could be powered with dual core processor (Dual Core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) MSM8960 Pro, Quad Core GPU (Snapdragon S4)). Enumerating it's photography specifications, this device is expected with both the primary and secondary snapper options. On the back, it will have 8 MEGAPIXEL of primary camera and on the front side a 2 MEGAPIXEL of secondary camera. Briefing its storage specifications, this device will be offered with 2GB of RAM which makes the speed of performing several tasks more faster and quicker. Internal memory could be 16 GB whereas the expansion of the memory can be done via micro SD card slot up to 64 GB.
Connectivity wise, we assumed it to be enriched almost all the latest connectivity measures. It will support 4G, 3G, 2G, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, micro USB, micro HDMI out, ambient Light, proximity, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, altimeter and many more. To power it up, it will comes with 2800mAh of integrated battery.
Blackberry A10 specifications and features
- 5″ OLED, HD/WXGA, 1280×720, 24-bit color, S-Stripe Pixel Arrangement, 295ppi
- OS: BlackBerry OS 10.2
- Camera: 8.0MP Rear Camera with flash, IS 5X / 2.0MP Front Camera IS 5X
- Memory: 2GB DRAM
- Storage: 16GB + 64GB uSB (hot-swap)
- Connectivity 4G, 3G, 2G, WiFi: 802.11 a/b/g/n (4G Mobile Hotspot)
- Battery: 2800 mAh Integrated
With all these specifications and features and a brand name of Blackberry how much should be the price of this device. Share your view with us.
For more information on technology, stay tuned with us.


text:
Infusing edibles with CBD oil is a trend sweeping the nation due to potential health benefits of what some call a new "superfood." CBD is commonly used to manage anxiety, stress and depression. The new collection of CBD oil smoothies is part of Fuel's mission to offer a fast, fresh and even healthier dining experience for customers.
Fuel's new Dream Smoothies come in three flavors and are available in all locations as of this Friday, October 5, 2018. Just like the rest of Fuel's smoothie bar, the smoothies will come in three sizes, including 16oz ($6.95), 20oz ($7.95), and 24oz ($8.95).
The smoothies are available in three flavors:
Green Dream (Vegan) – Kale, Ginger, Pineapple, Spinach, Honey, .5ml CBD oil
Berry Dream (Vegan) – Strawberry, Mango, Apple, Banana, .5ml CBD oil
Orange Dream (Vegan option available) – OJ, Banana, Vanilla, Non-Fat Yogurt and .5ml CBD oil
Additionally, customers can add a half millimeter of CBD oil to other smoothies for only $2.95.
As someone who has been curious to try CBD oil, this sure is intriguing and seems like an easy way to ingest it. If you go to try these, let me know what you think.
Food enthusiast. Travel lover. Social media maven.
Independent Journalist. Food marketing/PR expert.
Email: email@example.com


text:
Antec P9 Windowed Mid-Tower Chassis Review
Peter Donnell / 7 years ago
Antec is one of the most recognisable names in the chassis business, having a long history of creating many affordable, durable and award-winning chassis. It's very likely that most of our readers at one point or another have owned an Antec chassis. With that in mind, we're eager to see their latest chassis, the P9 Window, and take a closer look at what it has to offer.
"Don't let the sleek, understated exterior fool you. The P9 Window is loaded with builder-focused features that deliver performance, Quiet Computing™, and future-proof expandability right out of the box. The interior volume, the variety of cooling options, and the modular HDD cages are just a few of the features that make the P9 Window stand out in the Performance One series." – Antec
The P9 Window is certainly well equipped, and comes with extensive water and air cooling support, as well as coming with the pump and reservoir mounting brackets so you can quickly and easily get your custom loop hardware installed with ease. There are modular hard drive bays, rear SSD mounts, room for huge graphics cards and much more, so let's get it out of the box and see how it looks!


text:
top of page
In an effort to assist with travel planning, the agenda has been provided as a reference tool. The agenda includes confirmed speakers. However, the timings of events are subject to change but your travel schedules can be arranged around the timelines provided.
Click the button below to download a pdf version of the agenda.
bottom of page


text:
Red Hat Training
A Red Hat training course is available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2.4. cpio
The cpio packages provide the GNU cpio file archiver utility. GNU cpio can be used to copy and extract files into or from cpio and Tar archives.
- The cpio utility uses a default block size of 512 bytes for I/O operations. This may not be supported by certain types of tape devices. If a tape device does not support this block size, cpio fails with the following error message:
cpio: read error: Cannot allocate memoryTo work around this issue, modify the default block size with the
--block-size longoption, or use the
-Boption to set the block size to 5120 bytes. When the block size supported by the tape device is provided, the cpio utility works as expected. (BZ#573943)


text:
The honey bees arrive one spring during blossoming—a wild swarm. On the south side of the house, near the orchard's edge, they hang in a pink-dotted branch, a heavy, dusky clump like some brown-clotted fruit. We watch them from a distance. We are warned not to throw anything, not to annoy them. We don't; we have all been stung. Though we sometimes sit on the southeast porch and watch the hive evolve, we leave them alone. These bees are nothing like the neat white hives in the beekeeper's backyard.
After two days the bees find the rotted spot at the porch corner where the fascia meets the farmhouse siding—a small ice-crafted hole, which now leads them into the uninsulated darkness of our walls. We watch the dark humming line disappear under the clapboards. My father shakes his head, but he values bees. Their work is a boon to every farmer, and he has no time to move them from the house. He leaves the hive alone. In the years that follow, those orchard trees closest to the house always bear heaviest. My father tells us the bees are wild because they are afraid of nothing—part truth, part warning.
In fact, the bees don't mind the activity of the orchard and yard, and once they settle, the character of the hive seems calm. In summer, we play under the mock orange bush, through which they hurtle like tiny bears, trundling in halting, circular movements through every flowered thing and then, like slow escalators, they rise to the hive at the porch's roofline. They rarely sting, and in the seven years they live in the house, they swarm again only once.
That first summer I am so little, I don't understand their sound. Bees work all the time—even in the dark. Behind the curtain of night birds, summer breezes, insect and moth patterings, I hear their hum like dark cream. It is so much a part of everything that it seems like a sound from my body. As one summer follows another, their hum assumes the quality of foam, haze and dozing. In the walls, the bees purr through heat waves and storms. And each April, with the first false warm days, the walls breathe and no one can name it until one breakfast, Dad will say, "I heard them last night." We realize they are awake again and working. We love them for the deeper sleep they bring.
It is my younger brother, Rick, who brings their demise. Rick, who leaves his south bedroom window open and his door shut; Rick, who through all the summers, in the shuffle of scrapes and cuts, by some freakishness of the fields, rarely gets stung until the summer when his bedroom window is open and his door is shut and he is sleeping through the summer dawn when the bees swarm. Out of the corner of the porch where they have worked peacefully for so many years, the hive divides, shimmers out in a dusty, buzzing cloud. A portion of them swarm thickly through the open window and into the bedroom.
Rick rolls over in the hot sheets onto a half a dozen bees. He tosses, scratching and slapping in his sleep. He wakes to a room with bees crawling over sills, bees in curtains, bees on his pillows. He listens to the hum and thinks it is louder than usual, even for a hot day. He opens his eyes and watches the bees teeming in the room. He knows them. These are the bungling insects that get into his cuffs, the ones he must watch for when he walks in a field of tufted knapweed.
He feels sick lying there among the sheets, and he realizes he has been stung, perhaps more than once. Silently, he crawls from his bed, scattering bees onto the floor, brushing away the frantic, stinging creatures. Before he is even aware of the bees gathering force, he shuffles to the door, opens and closes it behind him. He staggers downstairs. Our mother, the woman who knows there is enough danger and crisis in the world not to invent any—and who therefore has underplayed every catastrophe—drops the basket of wet laundry, scattering clean white sheets onto an unswept floor, and sweeps the boy into her arms. She does not say his face is twice its normal size, that his eyes are already nearly swollen shut, that his heart is racing so fast she can feel it under the damp cotton of his pajamas. She merely runs, calling for the truck, for any means to get him away, to get him where there is an antitoxin for his tight, rasping breath against her neck.
Dr. Verbanic is shaking his head as he returns to the waiting room. "You'll have to keep antitoxins around. He should wear a metal bracelet that says he's allergic." He looks at the slim woman, her thick hair prematurely gray, her pale eyes exhausted. He knows this look, common among the farm people he serves. Too much work, too many children in too short a time, and then that Catholic weakness for guilt.
"He's going to be fine. With a few precautions, he will be in the fields again before you know it."
She holds her quiet.
He tries again. "There's no way you could have anticipated this."
She stares at him. The silence moves across the room until finally he asks, "Ruth, what is it?"
She looks up at him. "The bees live in our house."
"In your house?"
"In the walls of our house."
After a long pause, he says softly, "Then you'll have to get rid of them."
The beekeeper lives in a tiny shack covered with brown asphalt shingles. Behind his home, among the dandelions and crab grass, neat box hives sit in rows like miniature churches. He has red hair and smokes Salems. He rarely wears the heavy screened clothing that other beekeepers wear, but prefers sleeveless cotton T-shirts with short-sleeved plaid shirts over them, work pants and boots. He is wiry and so slim he looks elfin. He is chain smoking the day he comes for the hive. I ask him if he ever gets stung.
"Lots, that's why I don't have any arthritis."
He goes to work, smoking the hive until the bees are stunned. Then he climbs the ladder and with a black crowbar, begins tearing off the clapboard. The squeal of the boards is like a knife each time he yanks down a board. He pulls off another, then another.
"God, this thing is big," he says as he passes down the boards to my father. Each time he pulls a board away, it reveals more dark-clotted comb. "And old. Black honey means it's been there a long time." Our honey is like that—black, then stormy gray, dark brown and golden brown. Two, four, eight feet down from the eaves, and two, then three studs to the side. I imagine it going on in the walls of our house, circling us, this massive dark-combed, ancient honey.
When he climbs down, he nods, "Rich hive."
His words clink together like pocket change.
My dad and the beekeeper talk, scuffling their boots in the grass. The small negotiations move back and forth in understated tones. When the bee-man climbs back up the ladder, he works more carefully. After he has identified where the queen is, he leaves that section alone, but begins to pry out the old combs with a wide paint scraper and a small shovel. The combs are like the topographical maps I study in geography—irregularly shaped, brown continents clinging to the inner lath of
our house. Without ceremony, he breaks off, pulls down and one by one, drops these dark masses into a wheelbarrow sitting under the eaves of the porch. When he finishes, it is overflowing. He spends a final hour climbing up and down the ladder,
carefully tacking each piece of clapboard back into place.
"I'll be back in a week or so," he says. He leaves the wheelbarrow, packs his things and drives away, the smoke of his Salem lingering in spirea. I move closer to the wheelbarrow. I am unsure how it is to be done.
The bees return and discover the disaster. But they view it as lush work. They gather on the old combs, a dense, woolen blanket. They layer it with their bodies, waddle over it with their warm fuzz, and then, having laid the claim, they work it. They work it until they take it back. Through it all, their sound is fierce. They have never been so loud. At night now, the hum enters our muscles, the hollows of our bones where our marrow is held thickly as old honey. I sleep like the dead.
It takes them ten days.
When they are done, the wheelbarrow is not even sticky. Only when I run my finger along the edge and stick it into my mouth do I taste anything like the sweetness that belongs where so much sweetness has been. I look at this thing which was full and see an empty basin, and then I look back at the chipped siding of the house.
The day he returns, he is smoking and his hands are nervous. This time he brings the square white box with a black cover. He climbs the ladder, opens only one part of the clapboard, the place he left untouched the first time. He works very gently as he takes the queen of this wealthy hive and as many of the bees close to her as he can. He takes the combs in which she lives and the workers and places them into the square-slatted box and lets the bees find her and gather around her until he can put his hand inside and they cover him with bee fur.
"That means they're safe," he announces to us. When he puts the cover on, their hum becomes mute. He closes the box and carries it to the open trunk of his car.
When this is done, he and my father open the side of the house again. My mother is there now, and on the porch benches, she has spread newspaper and sterilized Mason jars. The men pull the boards. The walls reveal pale-blond, nearly perfect new honey. It shines. A few bees buzz frantically around their heads, but the men pull the combs carefully away from the inside lath of the house, picking out bits of plaster that cling to the new clumps, and they pass them down to my mother who, standing in the shade on the porch, packs them into jars, wipes the jars clean and seals them. The nearly 30 quarts of honey from the hive will sweeten our cereal and coffee for three years.
Once, they hand down a comb dripping with clear syrup, "Nectar honey. It's sweeter," he says. "Off the top of the hive. Got more moisture and floral residue."
She calls us and we come like puppies to the teat. She cuts the comb and hands us each a dripping piece. The rich amber floods my cheeks, and as I suck, I wonder what I am tasting. With each lick, it occurs to me that when they took down the honey, we could tell how old it was by the combs' darkness, but now, all the years are blurred—the year Tom ruptured his spleen, or that Mike died, or the year we learned to swim. Was I tasting the year of the bumper cherry crop, or the year the apples froze? The year of my first communion? I realize all the summers I have lived run together in these golden combs. And I am just old enough to wonder if there is something wrong about the loss of the old island-like combs. What does it mean to remove the order of years from inside the very walls of our house? What is it we suck when we suck this nectar, this honey from the top, this transformed syrup?
Though nothing bad happens for the rest of the summer, I sleep restlessly. I toss, longing for their hum. I have no words for why I wake at night or for why the dark feels sharper, the nights cooler, the leaves in the silver maple too shrill. The house is quiet, except sometimes I wake in the dark to hear the soft plunk as the last of the stray bees die in the hollow walls.
Anne-Marie Oomen chairs the creative writing department at Interlochen Arts Academy. Find her books at annemarieoomen.com. This essay was featured in the May 2004 edition of Traverse, Northern Michigan's Magazine.


text:
S3PlusV2 is the second batch release from axioo's S3Plus series. Using the exact same spreadtrum chipsets and cpu as of s3plus series, the only difference is the LCD display that now using 1280×720 resolution and 2200mAh battery from another vendor. On software side, this v2 already using marshmallow while v1 still on lollipop, which unfortunately […]Read More
Posts tagged sc7731
custom rom lollipop axioo picopad S3Plus
It's not the fresh latest release model from axioo, it's been quite some time, but just got a borrowed device for some project I working on. The project is done and now I have time to build a custom rom for this model and share it here. The device is quite nice on lcd resolution […]Read More
custom rom lollipop 5.1 axioo PICOpad S3L
Another tablet model PICOpad S3L from axioo that accommodate spreadtrum sc7731 chipset with 512mb mem and 1024×600 screen resolution. Not much difference with the stock rom except for root and bloatware free. Here is the custom rom feature : Android 5.1 lollipop Rooted, busybox, zipaligned Latest Playservice gapps bloatware free SuperSU (thanks to chainfire) … […]Read More
custom rom lollipop 5.1 for axioo M5
Another spreadtrum chipset sc7731 model from axioo named as M5 was launched just recently. It has 720×1280 ips display and 1Gb memory. This smartphone physical, basically trying to mimic iphone 5se in design, including single home button at the bottom center, which I don't likes that a lot. Especially if this is intended to be […]Read More
custom rom lollipop 5.1 for axioo PICOphone M4N
This is another release from axioo that using spreadtrum chipset sc7731 too same as M4P model. The screen resolution also at 720×1280 but this M4N only equipped with 1Gb ram while at m4p is 2Gb. I dumped this rom from someone device and create my own version, adding root, remove all bloatware and packing it […]Read More
custom rom lollipop 5.1 for axioo PICOphone M4P
Finally had a chance to hack this model. It's a quadcore 5inch 720×1280 M4P model from axioo that using spreadtrum sc7731 chipset. Took the base from stockrom dump, add root, updating gapps and of course removing bloated software. Because we doesn't have custom recovery for this spreadtrum chipset then I build this in spreadtrum flashtool […]Read More


text:
2015•12•20 Bonn
The 2014 class of the joint master program "Geography of Environmental Risk and Human Security" of the United Nations University/University of Bonn went on a trip in December to the European Commission Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (DG-ECHO) in Brussels, Belgium as part of their studies.
The educational trip was marked by seven seminars geared towards creating an understanding of the work of the DG-ECHO to the students. The first seminar introduced students to the Emergency Response and Humanitarian Assistance functions of the DG-ECHO. The core mandate of the DG-ECHO is to provide humanitarian assistance, relief, and protection to people in third world countries. The second seminar focused on the structure and functions of the Emergency Response Coordination Center (ERCC), of the European Commission. The ERCC is been referred to as the "Operational Heart" of the EU's Civil Protection Mechanism enables the EU to respond to devastating events, either natural or man-made in a timely and efficient manner. The main duties of the ERCC includes the collection and analysis of real –time or up to date data on disasters, monitoring of hazards, the preparation of plans for the deployment of emergency relief experts, teams, as well as equipment. The third seminar was on the Copernicus Emergency Management Service, which has been operational since 2012 and its functions include the provisioning of maps and analysis based on satellite imagery, before, during, and after a disaster. It also provides warning systems for floods and fires.
The second day in Brussels was marked by four more seminars. The first highlighted the World Humanitarian Summit to take place in May 2016. The second seminar introduced students to the INFORM project, which is a global or worldwide open-source risk assessment for humanitarian crisis and disasters. The third seminar for the second day was on the "EU Aid Volunteer Initiative". Finally students were briefed on the world of work within the European Commission. The recruitment procedures alongside requirements for specific jobs were clearly spelled out to students.
(Article by Issaka A. Sule, Masters Student, Geography of Environmental Risk and Human Security 2014)


text:
There's a whole lot of potential in a ball of yarn. It can inspire, or bring simple joy, or become something meaningful and transcendent in the right hands.
Summer is barely upon us, but for once, it feels like spring melted into summer in Edmonton back in early May. Personally, I have loved every bit of the unseasonably warm weather, but our province has suffered tremendous loss as a result of the hot, dry weather spring brought. Fort McMurray, a city north of us, was evacuated and devastated by wildfire, and lives have been completely and often permanently changed due to the tragedy.
While at first, I heard daily reports of the heroism and bravery of the firefighters, I soon had to turn off the radio and limit my exposure to the news, because the thought that my own family could have been in the same circumstances, had the fire been here, haunted me. I kept making mental lists of what I would grab on my way out the door, if we were suddenly told to leave.
I wanted to help in some way, to make a small contribution to the massive effort across the nation to support the brave people of Fort McMurray.
One afternoon, while at a get-together of local fibre artists, I overheard a spinner talking about all the yarn she is likely never going to use, and I thought of all the yarn in my own stash that, let's be honest, I'll never actually use, although it is great yarn. Most of it was purchased before I learned to spin, and before I learned the advantages of natural fibres over synthetic. I figured if I personally was stuck in a situation where I didn't have the comfort of my own home, I would be going crazy without something to keep my hands busy, and likely others would be feeling the same way.
Six of us pooled our yarn, patterns, knitting needles and crochet hooks together, and we put out the call to anyone from Fort McMurray who wanted to come and take yarn and tools.
Now, I've spent my career in a helping profession, and I spend many hours volunteering in my community every year, but I have to say, I haven't been so personally touched by a small act of kindness toward my community in a very long time. I had the privilege of being the connection point for the ladies who came to get yarn. I got to meet them, hear their stories, see pictures of the devastation of their homes, have coffee with them while their children watched cartoons with mine. Our contact was brief, but it was sweet. There was a shared understanding that we are people who create with our hands, and no amount of external devastation can take that from us.
I came away with new friends: quality people with resilience, courage and the readiness to be "Alberta Strong," because that's who they were long before they had to be.
After each person left with their bag(s) of yarn, a quote from a childhood story resounded in my spirit: "kindness always comes back." It didn't take much effort for each of us to share our extra yarn. In fact, our craft spaces were probably overdue for a good spring cleaning. And sure, it was kind of us to share. But I was so blessed by the return of kindness. I got to see, up close and personal, the generosity of the community of crafters I'm privileged to be a part of. Each girl showed up at my door with a box of yarny goodness, and an eagerness and excitement to know that their gift was making a difference for a fellow crafter. And personally, I came away with new friends: quality people with resilience, courage and the readiness to be "Alberta Strong," because that's who they were long before they had to be.
Now that all the yarn has been given, I like to think on the beautiful things that'll be made as a result of these brief connections: baby things, children's accessories, maybe even little gifts to themselves. The only limit is really the imagination of these strong, capable, creative people. Because, really, there's a whole lot of potential in a ball of yarn.


text:
Anaheim Cross Country Moving Company | Affordable, Full-service & Custom Moving
Living in Anaheim means having access to much of the best that Southern California has to offer. In addition to the temperate year round weather of Orange County, Anaheim is part of the Los Angeles metro area and is easily within driving distance of San Diego. Anaheim also offers opportunities to enjoy the best of the California outdoor experience, with mountain ranges and the Pacific Ocean both nearby.
Here are some of the reasons we are Anaheim's most requested local and long distance moving company:
- Home, office, business and commercial local & interstate moving
- Storage facilities available in most cities in the U.S.
- We supply all moving supplies & equipment
- Insurance coverage is included with every price quote
- Flexible, affordable moving plans and pricing
- We use only experienced industry-certified Anaheim cross country moving professionals
- Modern moving trucks with air-ride suspension & satellite tracking
- Custom moving plans specifically designed for your home or business
Get a FREE & CHEAP Anaheim cross country mover quote right now by using the form to the right! Call us with your questions or if you'd like a complementary moving consultation from one of our professional movers!
Home, Business & Specialty Long Distance Mover In Anaheim
Most local and interstate moving requests can be categorized as home, business or specialty moves. This section briefly describes each of these types of moving and what types of local or cross country mover services fall into each category.
Home Moving – From apartments to condos to houses, our home moving specialists have a service that's perfect for you! Whether you need everything in your home moved across the country or just a few things moved to a new city, our movers will get you there on time and save you money. We carry all necessary moving supplies and equipment and offer storage facilities in most major U.S. cities.
Business Moving – For business moving to or from Anaheim, we have a selection of moving services that offer the perfect balance between affordability and convenience. We are capable of moving all types of business assets, files, merchandise, office equipment and electronics to any location around the world.
Specialty Moving – As a general rule, specialty moving services include anything that falls outside of standard home and business moving. It could mean that you need to request a rush job or express moving, or it could be requesting help to move a heavy or difficult-to-move item like a safe, hot tub, piano or pool table. We move it so you don't have to!
Have a local or long distance moving request? Get an instant & cheap quote for FREE by filling out the form at the top of the page or calling us to discuss the best and cheap moving options we have available in Anaheim today!
How far away from Anaheim, CA ?
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to Atlanta, GA
|31 h 20 min, 2,169 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to Boston, MA
|43 h 10 min, 2,980 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to Charlotte, NC
|35 h 10 min, 2,407 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to Chicago, IL
|29 h 25 min, 2,013 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to Cincinnati, OH
|31 h 7 min, 2,178 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to Denver, CO
|14 h 31 min, 1,011 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to Houston, TX
|21 h 20 min, 1,533 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to New York, NY
|40 h 8 min, 2,787 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to Omaha, NE
|21 h 44 min, 1,592 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to San Francisco, CA
|6 h 5 min, 407 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to San Jose, CA
|5 h 30 min, 366 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to Seattle, WA
|17 h 17 min, 1,163 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to St. Louis, MO
|26 h 12 min, 1,824 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to Tulsa, OK
|20 h 5 min, 1,430 miles
|Moving from Anaheim, CA to Washington, D.C
|38 h 14 min, 2,664 miles
Are you looking for the best and cheap Long Distance Moving Company in Anaheim, CA? Dial 1-888-316-9603 for the professional mover services.
Anaheim Moving Resources
Anaheim Livability Score – From area vibes, the livability score for Anaheim. There's also neighborhood maps, a forum and reviews of and rankings for cost of living, crime, education, employment, housing and weather.
Best Places To Live In Anaheim – General information about living and working in Anaheim and Orange County.
Conducting Business In Anaheim – The official website for the City of Anaheim has information about starting and conducting business in the city.


text:
I believe the key to thriving in the ever-changing landscape of the economy is to be flexible. When one thing is no longer working for you, try something else. So I"m taking Lorraine in a new direction. She is about to become a published author. Thanks to Amazon and Kindle, Lorraine will soon self-publish a […]
A Change In Direction
Posted on August 7, 2013 ·
Filed Under: From the Author ·


text:
Denise Coates: Billionaire boss of gambling firm Bet365 sees pay rise to £265m
The head of the online sports betting giant which also owns Stoke City football club is Britain's best-paid boss.
Wednesday 21 November 2018 15:12, UK
Bet365 boss Denise Coates has seen her annual pay rise to £265m, the gambling firm's latest accounts have revealed.
The billionaire's pay packet in the year to 25 March increased by £48m from the £217m she received the year before - which had already made her the UK's highest-paid director.
It comes at a time when the gambling industry is facing intensifying public scrutiny and political pressure for a crackdown on the industry.
The size of the pay packet was criticised by Luke Hildyard, a director of the High Pay Centre.
He said: "Obviously, people who build successful companies need to be rewarded for their hard work, but how much is too much?
"Denise Coates is already a billionaire. Surely this payment could be shared more evenly across the company's workers or with the wider community.
"People are sick and tired of a business culture that enriches those at the top while doing very little for low and middle income earners - a billionaire taking hundreds of millions more from a company that profits, in part, from other people's addictions does nothing to dispel that perception."
Ms Coates's pay is more than 1,700 times that of the prime minister and nearly three times the total wages of £98m paid to players at Stoke City - the club owned by Bet365, which was relegated from the Premier League earlier this year, and suffered a £21m loss for the year.
The Bet365 accounts revealed Ms Coates was paid a base salary of £220m, plus the half-share of a £90m dividend paid out by the company.
It reported a 28% rise in pre-tax profits to £660.6m for the year as the total amount wagered by punters climbed to £52.6bn.
Ms Coates said: "I am pleased to report that the group continued to experience significant growth during the period."
She also acknowledged the issue of problem gambling, saying the company was "committed to improving its methods of identifying harmful play" and was seeking new ways to "promote safer gambling across its entire customer base".
Bet365 also paid £75m to the Denise Coates Foundation, a charity which has funded work including Alzheimer's research.
Ms Coates's brother John and father Peter are also directors at the company and the family is already one of Britain's richest - with an estimated fortune of £5.8bn according to the Sunday Times rich list which ranks them at 21st.
Bet365 was founded in a car park in 2000 and has grown rapidly to become a global online sports betting giant, employing more than 4,000 people and boasting of 35 million customers worldwide.
Ms Coates was awarded a CBE in 2012.
It broadcasts TV ads fronted by actor Ray Winstone during high-profile sporting events.
Sky News revealed earlier this week that gambling groups including Bet365 were considering a series of voluntary curbs on their advertising amid mounting political pressure and the potential threat of legislation.


text:
I open you up and crawl inside
your belly, petite frame
where your organs
should be. Heat builds
in your bowels,
soaking into bone.
I run my hands along your
insides, fingers scolded with
blisters: the air warm,
visible, trembling against
your yellow ribs. I try to protect
my bare flesh, shifting
to gain relief. I stretch,
skin tight from dry air
as I become leather.
I collapse, body
spread among your stomach,
my arms and legs slipping
into your hooves.
My parched lips let out a
shout, a low groan escaping
your throat. The roar
of the crowd outside rattles
our bronze bones,
smoke billowing through
our nostrils,
as I melt
from the inside out.
Melinda Dubbs hails from Fishers, Indiana and is earning a MA in Social Work at IUPUI. She earned her BA in English and Psychology at Indiana University Bloomington. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tipton Poetry Journal, Prairie Margins, Glass Mountain, and Nanoism, among others. Her poem "Indiana Night" placed first in the 2012 Melba Geoffroy Poetry Contest. Her outside interests include red pandas, spelunking, and playing indie games "you've probably never heard of". Visit her blog.


text:
Public Health Emergency - Leading a Nation Prepared
Similar to individual HCOs, the coalition (Tier 2) has an EOP that guides actions during response. However, the Tier 2 EOP emphasizes coordination among coalition members (via the MACC) rather than direct management of individual assets. This reflects the fact that HCOs retain their management autonomy during a response, while they collaborate with other medical assets to strengthen overall MSCC in the jurisdiction or region. In addition, the EOP should guide members on how to incorporate Tier 2 tenets into their respective HCO EOP. For example, the coalition EOP might provide instructions on such issues as how to request and integrate mutual aid assets into an HCO's incident operations, and what designated communication methods to use between HCOs during response.
The management organization of Tier 2 is less structured when compared with individual HCOs (Tier 1) and the jurisdiction (Tier 3) because decision authority is based primarily at the management level of each coalition member. For example, an HCO may grant or deny a request for mutual aid based on perceived ability to adequately maintain its own operations. Decisions that affect all coalition members are made by consensus through moderated meetings or teleconferences. Major strategic or policy-level decisions necessary during incident response may be relegated to meetings or teleconferences between the senior executives of the participating coalition HCOs. This forum may be designated as a MAC Group function to distinguish it from the MACC coordination function accomplished by the other Tier 2 activities. An example of a MACC activity might be the development of a consistent strategy for patient evaluation in all Tier 2 HCOs (e.g., risk/prophylaxis stratification of potentially exposed victims after a biological incident). An example of the MAC Group function may be a decision by all HCOs to buy an expensive technology necessary to address a newly recognized illness in the community. Despite the diffuse decision authority at Tier 2, each HCO should recognize the importance of its response actions and public message being consistent with those of other HCOs in the coalition.
Depending on incident circumstances, the Tier 2 coalition may elect to write a comprehensive incident action plan (IAP) that summarizes each participant's HCO IAP (Figure 3-1).[7] This is most likely to occur when the response will be drawn out over an extended period of time (days or weeks). In other cases, the coalition IAP may simply aggregate action plans from individual HCOs into a pre-designated format. At the Tier 2 level, this is typically accomplished through a clearinghouse function that receives data from HCOs, collates them, and returns the aggregate data to HCOs.
Figure 3-1. Tier 2 Coalition Action Plan
The Tier 2 coalition IAP developed for each operational period requires approval by each coalition member. This type of unifying document, which describes common response goals and strategies, the situation at individual HCOs, the resources available, and other parameters, could facilitate integration with incident management at the jurisdictional level (Tier 3).
The Tier 2 coalition clearinghouse function ensures that HCOs have the information they need at a level of detail that enables them to provide adequate MSCC in situations where jurisdictional incident management (Tier 3) may not yet be involved. Its primary function is to gather, collate, and disseminate aggregate information; it is not intended to analyze or filter information to make independent jurisdiction-level decisions (which is the purview of Tier 3).
The Tier 2 coalition must have adequate systems in place to collect data from HCOs and rapidly return aggregated information to coalition members. Communication procedures should be as simple as possible. For example, it may be beneficial to develop spreadsheets that allow data to be electronically collated and the aggregate data quickly returned to the HCOs. To promote integration with jurisdictional incident management (Tier 3), the clearinghouse function must have a mechanism available to simultaneously provide data/information to Tier 3 for processing and further analysis. This "real time" flow of information enables HCOs to rapidly assist each other during response and to identify common needs and issues for presentation to jurisdiction support assets.
Some important preparedness phase considerations include:
Mutual aid is assistance between HCOs through the provision of facilities, equipment, personnel, or supplies when individual resources cannot meet the surge demands generated by a specific incident.
Mutual Aid Memorandum of Understanding: Operational Description:
The term mutual aid refers to the establishment of a formalized compact between response entities from neighboring jurisdictions. Historically, this agreement allowed for the provision of emergency services, on a reciprocal basis, when individual resources were inadequate to deal with a specific incident. For example, the Emergency Medical Services System Act passed by Congress in 1973 identified mutual aid as one of fifteen essential components in the formation of EMS systems in the United States. This "helping hand" concept has become so incorporated into the fire service, EMS and law enforcement communities that failure to implement and update such agreements can constitute a violation of State regulations.
The HCO mutual aid memorandum of understanding (MOU) is commonly a voluntary commitment (not a legal agreement) by each participating HCO to share information and provide available assistance in a major emergency or disaster. The MOU describes a systematized approach to HCO response for disaster events, whether external or internal to an institution(s). It addresses the exchange of medical personnel, supplies, pharmaceuticals, and equipment, and the evacuation or admission of patients to or from any member facility in the event of a disaster. The mutual aid system is not a replacement for any individual hospital's emergency preparedness plan; rather, it is meant as a supplement that will augment an institution's capabilities. The MOU assumes that the HCO has implemented its own EOP prior to activating the mutual aid system, and that the adequacy of the affected organization's response has been exceeded. Any event requiring activation of the mutual aid system is expected to be of a magnitude that it also involves municipal emergency services and the jurisdiction's department of public health.
The Tier 2 coalition should identify mutual aid possibilities and formally establish mutual aid processes for a jurisdiction or region during preparedness planning.[8] Important provisions in this arrangement include:
Once the mutual aid process is established and documented, coalition members should be educated and trained on how to request and/or receive support. This includes knowing the proper procedures to follow, which personnel should make a request, whom to notify, and how to receive and financially account for donated resources—the latter being important for reimbursement after response. A short briefing should be prepared for staff members who volunteer to deploy to other facilities.
<< Previous --------- Top of Page --------- Next >>
Home | Contact Us | Accessibility | Privacy Policies | Disclaimer | HHS Viewers & Players | HHS Plain Language | Vulnerability Disclosure Policy
Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), 200 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20201
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services | USA.gov |
GobiernoUSA.gov |
HealthCare.gov in Other Languages


text:
Demand for workers with software development skills has never been higher. The biggest companies in the world are paying top dollar for the top talent, and many people are making career changes to more tech-oriented roles by going back to school or taking a programming bootcamp course to earn more money, stay relevant in the workforce or to do what they love.
Regardless of your reason, don't you want protect that job and the perks that come with it, like a higher income? Most disabilities occur due to illness rather than injury, so even if you spend most of your day sitting behind a computer writing lines of code, you could become disabled and be out of work — and a paycheck. Long-term disability insurance is the best way for software engineers to insure their income and make ends meet when they're unable to pull down a paycheck.
Note: We'll be talking primarily about software engineers, but will call out a few other computer-related roles. Workers can become disabled no matter their role or title: software developer, programmer, coder, software architect and so on. We don't mean to imply that these roles are interchangeable – just that everyone in these fields benefits from disability insurance.
Why software engineers need disability insurance
Unlike some professions, like lawyers and dentists, software engineers have a relatively cheap educational path. This partly has to do with the fact that an advanced degree isn't a requirement for many jobs (a bachelor's degree is typically the minimum, and a lot of employers value experience over a degree).
CollegeCalc lists the average annual out-of-state education cost for a software engineer at $37,631. The average annual cost for a computer science degree is $40,722. That means while would-be software engineers will likely graduate with some student loan debt — it's hard to avoid these days — it's a far cry from the $300,000 that isn't uncommon for dental students.
However, there's a huge upside in terms of income when it comes to computer professions. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median pay for software developers in 2016 was $102,280 (the actually salary depends on whether you're looking at applications or systems developers, and BLS doesn't have a category specifically for "software engineer"). Computer programmers had a lower, but still respectable, median salary of $79,840.
This means developers can earn high incomes early in their careers, and they don't have to dedicate much of it to student loan debt. A long-term disability insurance policy ensures that if they become disabled, which one in four workers will at some point in their career, they won't have to sacrifice their goals or lifestyle because of it.
Best disability insurance companies for software engineers
30 years old
40 years old
50 years old
$110.76/mo | $1,281.40/yr
$176.76/mo | $2,048.80/yr
$271.65/mo | $3,152.20/yr
$125.90/mo | $1,447.29/yr
$211.45/mo | $2,430.35/yr
$281.55/mo | $3,236.39/yr
$132.09/mo | $1,585.13/yr
$201.87/mo | $2,422.50/yr
$305.69/mo | $3,668.26/yr
$136.68/mo | $1,562.00/yr
$206.02/mo | $2,354.50/yr
$304.54/mo | $3,480.50/yr
The Standard
$127.51/mo | $1,457.30/yr
$184.84/mo | $2,112.47/yr
$276.88/mo | $3,164.31/yr
$105.19/mo | $1,237.20/yr
$162.26/mo | $1,896.88/yr
$260.81/mo | $3,036.20/yr
Mutual of Omaha**
$126.80/mo | $1,449.00/yr
$190.48/mo | $1,896.88/yr
$291.59/mo | $3,332.41/yr
Note that these rates are based on $5,000 monthly benefits for a male non-smoker in New York. The sample policy has a 90-day elimination period, benefit period to age 65, and features own-occupation, partial disability, future purchase, non-cancelable and automatic increase benefits. To learn more about these features, see our in-depth look at disability insurance riders.
Talk to a licensed expert to find the policy you need for your specific situation, and what it will cost you.
What software engineers need to know about disability insurance
No matter your specialty, software developers can benefit from having disability insurance. However, there are a few things to keep in mind to make sure you get the best coverage at the best rates.
New professionals can qualify for a higher benefit amount
Because software engineers are typically high-earning careers, it's possible for even new professionals to qualify for higher benefit amounts due to their earning potential. Look for companies that offer a future purchase option or automatic increase benefit, which let you purchase more coverage without going through underwriting or automatically increases your benefit amount, respectively, so your policy can keep up with your income growth.
A private disability insurance policy gives you employment flexibility
Some employers offer disability insurance as a workplace benefit. One of the problems is it's tied to your job. If you leave, you're out of a disability policy. There are new startups popping onto the scene every day, and it's not unusual for software engineers to switch jobs often or work as a freelancer or consultant for companies. A private disability insurance policy gives you the flexibility to work where you want without worrying about going unprotected.
The right degree can get you the best rates
Looking to get the best disability insurance rates? A computer science degree can help (BLS notes that computer science programs are the most common for software developers, "because they tend to cover a broad range of topics"), as can having three years experience when you apply.
Insurers will also consider your income. If you're making at least $75,000 a year, you'll likely qualify for better rates than workers making less than that.
Don't discount working for established companies
Startups are all the rage, but if you want the best rates, another thing to consider is working for an established company – some insurers will reward you with a better rate. Plus, you may be offered disability insurance as a benefit, and you can buy a supplemental policy that you can use if you decide to go off on your own later on.
When you think of software, you probably don't think of disability. But it can happen to anyone, and software engineers are in the unique position of getting great rates to protect their income. Talk to an expert about getting a long-term disability insurance policy today and give yourself the flexibility to pursue your dreams and start the next great tech company.
Not a software engineer? Find the best disability insurance companies for your career.


text:
Clovis school board meets Tuesday
The Clovis Municipal Schools board of education is holding a special meeting 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the district's board room.
The board will meet in executive session to discuss personnel matters related to the position of superintendent.
The meeting is closed.
An agenda for the meeting may be picked up from the superintendent's office 24 hours prior to the meeting.


text:
Essence of Motown Literary Jam & Conference Nov 9-11, 2012! RSVP NOW!
Join Readers, Authors, Writers, Poets and more November 9th – 11th to celebrate the written word. At various locations around Detroit, join MotownWriters Network and the Literary community for three days of book signings, writing, publishing & marketing workshops, film & theater seminars and genre panels, All Male literary panels, giveaways,independent film showcases, book drives, open mic and so much more.http://motownliteraryjam.com or http://bit.ly/EOM2012
click flyer to register now!
For Immediate Release
October 3, 2012
Media Contact:
AND Communications
Andrea Daniel
Motown Writers Network Announces
9th Annual Essence of Motown Literary Jam & Conference
To celebrate the written word in Metro Detroit with every reader and writer around!
DETROIT – October 3, 2012 – "Literary Digital Detroit" is the theme of the 9th Annual Essence of Motown Literary Jam and Conference, hosted by the Motown Writers Network, in partnership with the non-profit organization, Detroit Impact. The conference is November 9 through 11, 2012 at multiple locations around Detroit. The goal is to celebrate the literary arts in the digital age with Detroit area authors, writers and avid readers.
The three-day event opens at 6 p.m. on Friday, November 9 at the Lafayette Lofts, 1301 Lafayette, with networking, and poetry by the InsideOut Youth Poets, followed by the Passion Fruit Poetry Festival hosted by EchoVerse at 7:30 p.m. (must be 18 years and older to attend) with Comedian Mic Larry bringing the laughs. On Saturday, November 10 the conference starts at 8 a.m. at the Northwest Activities Center, 18100 Meyers, and includes writing, print publishing and electronic publishing, business and marketing workshops (must be registered to attend), a Poetry Panel Discussion on the history of spoken word in Motown, and an all-male Literacy Panel Discussion. Sunday, November 11th, conference attendees are invited to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History Museum at 5pm to see the play "Chatline," produced and written by Detroit playwright, Raquel L. Draper."This is our 12th year as an organization, and our ninth conference. As it grows every year, it confirms how important literary and literacy work is in our community," says Sylvia Hubbard, founder of the Motown Writer's Network. "Our All-Male Literacy Panel Discussion returns this year to continue the conversation we started last year on increasing literacy in our community, and how literacy is impacted in the digital age."
Related articles
Sylvia Hubbard
Author of Romance & Suspense and Internet Marketing for Writers & Business
See all My books in paperbacks, ebooks and more! CLICK HERE
The 9th Annual Essence of Motown Literary Jam and Conference is November 9 through 11, 2012, at the Northwest Activities Center, 18100 Meyers. For information on tickets, sponsorship and vendor opportunities please visithttp://www.motownliteraryjam.com/ or call (313) 289-8614. You can also send an email email@example.com.


text:
I've been conscious that it's been a while since my last blog post but I was rather taken aback when I saw that it's been almost two weeks. Where on earth has the time gone? It's most definitely time for a quick update.
Aside from being incredibly busy at work, I've of course been working hard on the book, writing and testing recipes and weaving them together with words in the chapters. The other day I printed out the manuscript, or rather, typescript, as the Art Director at Absolute Press pointed out to me that it's now known as (sorry Matt!) and as I read through it I, dare I say, quite liked what I'd written. Not all of it, naturally, and the pen was busy with crossing out and adding words, but nether the less I felt that this was a book in the making that I, at least, would like. And I guess that's the best I can do. I'm something of a perfectionist and as such I'm my own worst critic, so this was a rare and nice moment for me.
I have more blog posts somewhere in the junk room that is my head: I want to tell you about the launch of a new cruise ship that I was invited to and the meal I had on board (until then you can read about it here, here) and here), new cook books I've recently bought or been sent to review, how the UKFBA market stall has been going, and what I've been cooking lately. I also have a video post to put together of a recent trip to Whitstable. So, lots coming up in the next few weeks.
And now, with my glass of white wine and the scent of vanilla floating under my nose from the candle on my desk, I bid you a good night and turn back to the book.


text:
POLITICO Playbook: A Rosenstein scoop, plus the Kavanaugh aftermath
SCOOP … HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP has agreed to bring ROD ROSENSTEIN to a closed, private hearing in the next few weeks to discuss the GOP's litany of issues with the embattled deputy attorney general and Justice Department.
GOP REPS. MARK MEADOWS (N.C.), JOHN RATCLIFFE (TEXAS), JIM JORDAN (OHIO), TREY GOWDY (S.C.), BOB GOODLATTE (VA.) and KEN BUCK (COLO.) are on the panel that will talk to Rosenstein. If Rosenstein doesn't show up, they'll subpoena him, sources told us late yesterday afternoon. This move has the full backing of the Republican leadership. They are trying to give Rosenstein a private hearing to avoid a public spectacle.
THE CRUX OF IT … BRETT KAVANAUGH is still a slight favorite to be confirmed. Why? Because, at this point, he seems to have the public support of all Republican senators besides JEFF FLAKE (ARIZ.), SUSAN COLLINS (MAINE) and LISA MURKOWSKI (ALASKA). (And MIKE ENZI of Wyoming, but it's not fair to put them in the same category.)
-- BURGESS EVERETT and JOHN BRESNAHAN: "GOP barrels toward Kavanaugh vote with key Republicans undecided"
-- TODAY: THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE VOTES … The 11-to-10 panel that questioned KAVANAUGH and CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD will vote him up or down this morning around 9:30 a.m. The only wild card is FLAKE. REMEMBER: Even if the Judiciary Committee votes him down, SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY.) can still bring his nomination to the floor.
-- SATURDAY: The Senate will hold a procedural vote around noon on Kavanaugh's nomination. That needs to pass with 51 votes -- VP MIKE PENCE would break any tie. This is where Collins and Murkowski come into play. Democratic Sens. JOE DONNELLY (IND.) and JOE MANCHIN (W.VA.) have signaled they're still mulling which way to vote.
-- MONDAY AND TUESDAY: Should Kavanaugh get past Saturday, the Senate will vote on cloture Monday and have a final vote for his confirmation Tuesday.
ONE FOR ALL AND ALL FOR ONE: BURGESS EVERETT (@burgessev): "Donnelly, Manchin, Murkowski and Collins are all expected to vote the same way, per senators and aides."
MCCONNELL'S LINE: "It would be imprudent, unfair, and unjust to delay proceedings even further on the basis of uncorroborated allegations which have been weaponized by others at the last minute for political purposes.
"I am glad Chairman Grassley has scheduled a committee vote for tomorrow. I will be proud to vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh when the full Senate votes on his nomination in the coming days."
Good Friday morning. THE HOUSE votes today, and then recesses until after the election. TODAY marks the one-year anniversary of the return of REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA.) to the Capitol. 55-second video from his office
-- THE SENATE IS NOW THE HOUSE. The normally cool and collected chamber collapsed into a cacophony of chaos yesterday, with the Judiciary Committee resembling the House Oversight Committee. Gone, for the most part, were the niceties. The cooling saucer became the frying pan.
-- DEMOCRATS BELIEVE THEY'VE BEEN TURBOCHARGED IN THE MIDTERMS. This hearing -- and all that it represented to Democrats and women of both parties -- will have immediate impact in 2018, according to top lawmakers and operatives in both parties. Republicans and Democrats say that Ds have the enthusiasm on their side. Watch what this will do, they say.
-- IMPEACH KAVANAUGH? It's possible that dumping Kavanaugh will become a rallying cry on the left, as Democrats see him as clearly unfit for the bench, and many have already intimated they believe he was not truthful under oath.
-- THIS WILL CHANGE NOMINATIONS FOREVER. We always hear from Ds and Rs that it's harder to get people to accept confirmable jobs than ever before. We have to imagine -- based on conversations yesterday -- that this will aggravate that dynamic.
GRAHAM BEAR-HUGS KAVANAUGH -- @KFILE: "Lindsey Graham changed his Twitter picture to a photo of him [with] Brett Kavanaugh today." The tweet
-- BY THE WAY … WHEN GRAHAM went on his tear against the process, there were cheers at the Capitol Hill Club, the Republican hangout near the Capitol.
ABOUT RACHEL MITCHELL -- "Rachel Mitchell's disappearing act confirms GOP blunder," by John Bresnahan, Rachael Bade and Josh Gerstein: "Senate Republicans thought that bringing a female prosecutor to question Christine Blasey Ford would help them avoid looking like they were ganging up on an alleged victim of sexual assault.
"But once the hearing was underway, they seemed to quickly regret outsourcing their work to former sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell. She lasted through the first part of the hearing featuring Ford, but was quickly relegated to the sidelines once Brett Kavanaugh started testifying, never to be heard from again." POLITICO
THE GOFUNDME campaign to help Ford has raised $473,622 as of early this morning. The biggest contribution: $10,000 from Phil Lesh, the former bassist from the Grateful Dead.
FOR THE HISTORY BOOKS … NYT, A1 (three stories and two photos): "HIGH-STAKES DUEL OF TEARS AND FURY UNFOLDS IN SENATE: Blasey Praised for Her Courage — Trump Applauds Kavanaugh's Rebuttal … She Said. Then He Said. Now What Will Senators Say? … On Planes, in Bars, Around Phones, a Nation Is Transfixed" A1 PDF
-- WAPO FRONT: "Charges, denials fuel emotional hearing" A1 image
CLICKER -- "Scenes from Ford's testimony against Kavanaugh," by Scott Mahaskey and Lily Stephens: 12 pix
A1 NEWS ANALYSIS … NYT'S PETER BAKER: "She Said. Then He Said. Now What Will Senators Say?"
TRUMP'S VIEW -- ANNIE KARNI and ANDREW RESTUCCIA: "Trump thrilled at Kavanaugh defiance": "President Donald Trump and his aides were ebullient Thursday as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh defiantly rejected charges of sexual misconduct — a mood that reflected some relief after Trump officials conceded that his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, offered a compelling performance in the first half of the day.
"Trump and senior officials were impressed by Kavanaugh's combative defense before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which the Trump nominee, alternating between fury and tears, called several misconduct charges against him a 'calculated and orchestrated political hit' and 'national disgrace' that had devastated his life and family." POLITICO
-- WAPO'S ASHLEY PARKER, JOSH DAWSEY and PHIL RUCKER: "At a fundraiser at his hotel … Trump said Kavanaugh 'knocked it out of the park' and called the hearing 'painful' to watch. He did not comment on Ford, the attendee said." WaPo
FROM 30,000 FEET: JOHN F. HARRIS -- "American Politics Is Boofed": "There have been other days -- lots of them, actually, when you stop to count -- over the past generation when Washington has had the nation gaping at its screens, squirming at the sight of private lives sliced open for public judgment while simultaneously thrilling to the spectacle of it all.
"Those earlier are-you-watching-this?! moments, when politics and culture collided on live television amid revelations and recriminations, were inevitably accompanied by furrowed-brow commentary gravely asking, 'Where will this all lead?'
"Now we know: This all leads to a hearing room in the Dirksen Senate Office building, where Brett Kavanaugh and senators of both parties over eight hallucinatory hours on Wednesday served up the distilled essence of a potion -- a toxic mixture of foaming malice, self-righteousness and conspiracy theory -- that has been brewing for nearly three decades.
"No single exchange broke new historical ground. Kavanaugh's furious denials of sexual misconduct and denunciations of his Democratic accusers were no more florid than Clarence Thomas's similar performance 27 years ago this autumn. Valley Girls would have found the discussion about gang rape and efforts to define 1980s vernacular like 'ralphing' (to vomit) and 'boofed' ('It refers to flatulence,' the nominee said solemnly, though the Urban Dictionary begs to differ) to be grody to the max. But the proceedings could hardly shock the sensibilities of anyone old enough to remember Bill Clinton's cigar.
"More notable was the casual fluency in which all the Washington actors -- Kavanaugh very much among them -- spoke in the language of contempt toward their adversaries. The insults and assertions of bad faith -- Democrats manipulated the timing of Christine Blasey Ford's allegation going public for political purposes; Republicans are purposefully stifling a full investigation -- flowed like second nature." POLITICO
STILL … THERE ARE CALLS FOR DELAY -- @sahilkapur: "NEWS: The American Bar Association—whose 'well qualified' rating has been cited by Kavanaugh—calls on the Senate to delay a vote on his SCOTUS nomination until after the @FBI conducts a background check on the Ford allegations." Letter
-- ALAN DERSHOWITZ for Fox News: "Postpone Kavanaugh confirmation until FBI can investigate accusations against him"
NEW YORKER'S SUSAN GLASSER: "'If They Can, They Will': The Ford-Kavanaugh Hearing and the Angry Politics of Now: There are two Americas, growing more enraged by the minute, and they are not listening to each other."
SPOTTED: Michael Avenatti at the Driskill Hotel in Austin Thursday night, as the Texas Tribune Festival kicks off.
TRUMP'S FRIDAY -- The president will sign the spending bill at noon (closed press). At 1:45 p.m., he will welcome the president of Chile to the White House, where they will hold a bilateral meeting. At 2:55 p.m., the president will participate in the send-off of the Chilean president.
"Face the Nation": Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif … Michael Lewis … Michael Gerson
"Fox News Sunday": Brit Hume, Donna Edwards, Kim Strassel and Mo Elleithee. Power Player: Denzel Washington and Malachi Haynes, the Boys and Girls Club National Youth of the Year
"Inside Politics": Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Seung Min Kim, Phil Mattingly and Josh Dawsey
DEM LEADERSHIP WATCH -- Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) is running for assistant Democratic leader if Dems win back the House in November. In a "Dear Colleague" letter, he writes: "As a former mayor of a major city, I have the skills that are necessary to build coalitions and deliver results. And as one of only six openly LGBT members of the House, I believe it is crucial that our leadership team represent and reflect the diversity and strength of the Democratic Party." The letter
BUSINESS BURST -- "SEC Sues Elon Musk for Fraud, Seeks Removal From Tesla," by WSJ's Dave Michaels, Susan Pulliam, Tim Higgins and Michael Rapoport: "U.S. securities regulators on Thursday sought to force Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk out of the company he helped get off the ground about 15 years ago, alleging he misled shareholders when he tweeted he had funding for what would have been the largest-ever corporate buyout.
"The complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission came after a last-minute decision by Mr. Musk and his lawyers to fight the case rather than settle the charges. The filing by the SEC in federal court in Manhattan threatens to deal a severe blow to the Palo Alto, Calif., electric car maker. …
"Tesla wasn't named in the suit as a defendant, but the SEC is seeking to bar Mr. Musk, Tesla's largest shareholder and its top executive, from serving as an officer or director of any U.S. public company. Tesla shares, which have been under intense pressure amid questions about the firm's financial strength and Mr. Musk's behavior, tumbled 9.9% to $277 in after-hours trading Thursday on Nasdaq." WSJ
MEDIAWATCH -- "Fox News Fires Contributor Who Called Kavanaugh Accusers 'Skanks,'" by Mediaite's Aidan McLaughlin: "Fox News fired Kevin Jackson on Thursday, hours after the contributor called Brett Kavanaugh's accusers 'lying skanks' in a Twitter tirade. 'Kevin Jackson has been terminated as a contributor,' a network spokesperson told Mediaite. 'His comments on today's hearings were reprehensible and do not reflect the values of FOX News.' Jackson, a pro-Trump personality who frequently appeared on Fox News and guest hosted shows like Outnumbered and Fox & Friends, tweeted frenetically about Thursday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings." Mediaite
-- "Gil Schwartz to Retire as CBS Communications Chief," by Variety's Cynthia Littlejohn
-- SETH MANDEL is joining the Washington Examiner as executive editor of the magazine. He most recently worked as op-ed editor of the New York Post.
SPOTTED at Trump's "Protect the House" fundraiser dinner last night at the Trump hotel: Harold Hamm, Don Jr. and Corey Lewandowski.
BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Scott Mulhauser, founding partner of Aperture Strategies. How he got his start in politics: "As a D.C. kid, national news was local news and activism was part of growing up. My family would head down to the National Mall to stand up for what we believed in as history happened, from marches and protests to presidential inaugurations. It was an inspirational way to grow up and provided all the impetus I would ever need to jump into everything from campaigns, public service and more in the years to come." Playbook Plus Q&A
BIRTHDAYS: Steve Schmidt, who recently started as co-host of the "Words Matter" podcast, is 48 … AP's Andy Taylor … Helen Aguirre Ferre, director of strategic media and public affairs at the National Endowment for the Arts and a Trump WH alum …WaPo's Emily Heil ... Laura Quinn, CEO at Catalist (hat tip: Jon Haber) ... filmmaker Nadia Szold … Poppy MacDonald, managing director of USAFacts … POLITICO's Patrick D'Silva and Suhani Sanwar … Antonio Weiss is 52 ... Ayelet Cohen, the social secretary at the Israeli embassy … Paul Nedeau ... Jen O'Malley Dillon, co-founder of Precision Strategies (h/t Stephanie Cutter) ... Texas Tribune D.C. bureau chief Abby Livingston … Brent McIntosh is 45 ... BuzzFeed legal editor Chris Geidner … Gabi Renz ... former Rep. Curt Clawson (R-Fla.) is 59 ... Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) is 61 … Google's Mattingly Messina ... Bloomberg's Evelyn Erskine ... Kat Kane, principal at Fenway Strategies ... Phil Gallo … Laura Santucci ... Susan Storrs Lloyd ...
… Jon Summers, president of Summers Strategies … AP alum Jeff Barnard is 68 … Brian Rogers, SVP of Definers and executive director of America Rising Squared (h/t Colin Reed) … LA Times' Del Wilber ... Molly Crosby of Planned Parenthood ... Hortense Goulard ... Jane Abraham ... Calley Means ... Ron Meyer … Rohan Patel ... Matt Corridoni of Team Moulton ... Will Thompson of the Charles Group ... Dorothy Lutz ... Rory Murphy of Squire Patton Boggs ... Vanity Fair's Joanna Brenner ... Steve Largent … Darren Grubb … Katie List … Katie Smith … Bhavna Ghia … WaPo's Julie Bone ... Steve Largent ... Peter Well DiBella … Dave Davis ... Kyle Ashby ... Simon Winchester is 74 … Tony Case ... Marty Machowsky ... Kimberly Butler … Brandon Hynes ... Martin Edwin Andersen ... Kate Sheckells (h/t Teresa Vilmain)


text:
Dairy-free herby mushrooms
Getting a serving of veges in at breakfast time is a great start to the day. That said, creamy mushrooms on toasted sourdough makes a delicious, easy dinner, too!
You can use either goat cream or coconut cream to substitute cow cream here. If you decide to use goat cream, this recipe isn't dairy free because goat milk is still an animal milk and contains lactose and milk proteins, just like cow milk.
However, people who are allergic or intolerant to cow milk can often enjoy goat milk, cream, yoghurt and cheese without adverse effects, perhaps because goat milk contains less lactose and much less of the protein Alpha S1 Casein (cow milk has lots of both).
If you're unsure about using goat cream because you have a dairy allergy, use coconut cream instead.
Serves 2, prep time 15 mins
Olive oil for frying
250g (a small packet) of chestnut mushrooms, preferably in season
125ml (one small tub) of goat's cream OR half a can of coconut cream
Handful of parsley, finely chopped
A juicy lemon
Sea salt and pepper
Sourdough bread, for toasting - if you're gluten-free, use GF bread or skip the bread and add scrambled eggs
-Rinse or wipe any dirt from the mushrooms and slice thickly.
-Fry in olive oil on a medium-to-high heat until golden brown. You want the mushrooms to keep their shape and not become sloppy, so reduce the heat if this starts to happen.
-Add the goat's cream or coconut cream and salt and pepper to taste.
-Allow to simmer for 2 minutes.
-Squeeze the juice of half a lemon into the creamy mushrooms and add the chopped parsley.
-Serve with toasted, buttered sourdough bread, or scrambled eggs - or both!
Leave a Reply.


text:
Friday Open Thread
Wedgwood teacher, Kelly Clark, has been given the 2014 Civic Educator of the Year Award. From Rep Gerry Pollet's office: The award is sponsored by the Washington State Legislature to honor outstanding instructors in civics education.
Other SPS honorees:
Other SPS honorees:
• Lori Dunn, program manager for Physical Education and Health Literacy, will be presented a Fellow for Professional Excellence at a convention sponsored by the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD).
• Gayle See, coordinator for Physical Education for Progress, will be acknowledged at the same convention for her outstanding contributions with an Honor Award, Non-college/University.
Article from Crosscut by City Councilwomen Jean Godden and Sally Bagshaw about the long-promised playground at Seattle Center. They are looking for input on its design.
The project team will begin its robust community engagement process, inviting children and adults alike to join team members in a Kick-Off Community Design Presentation and Workshop from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 1, in the Next 50 Pavilion at the Seattle Center.
Additional community workshops will be scheduled around the city throughout the spring of 2014. Our goal is to create a family play area that is unlike any other, a place where children will beg their parents and grandparents to take them. We can only imagine the whimsical additions Seattle's children will suggest.
Once final plans are completed, there will be a community ground-breaking. Construction of the playground will get underway later in 2014, with a completion date expected sometime early in 2015. It took a while, Seattle-style, but the prospects are as exciting as the possibilities.
What's on your mind?


text:
Table of Contents
Wise Marketing Secrets Interview Series with Suzanne Baran
Suzanne Baran is an industry-leading Content Strategy and Digital Marketing expert. During her 18-year career she has driven digital strategy for the world's most beloved brands such as Yahoo!, AT&T, Intel, Toyota, Cisco, Scottrade, DirecTV, FIJI Water, Sony, and other Fortune 500 and 100 companies. She helps brands become better, more efficient publishers.
Suzanne has established content strategy as an essential practice for agencies across many industries. She's a two-time panelist at the Digital Growth Summit, a guest speaker for Women in Technology International, and a seminar co-leader at General Assembly.
Her recent talks include Content Governance Essentials for Innovation Enterprise. Upcoming speaking engagements at Multiple Listings Services focus on helping real estate agents get leads via social channels. She's been featured in podcasts and publications and hailed by Hubspot as one of "15 Smart Marketers." Suzanne has been named #4 of The 100 Tech and Women Business Speakers You Need at Your Next Event (The NextWeb).
Some of her career highlights include managing and programming content for one of the world's largest audiences: 189 million unique visitors at Yahoo! She exceeded impression totals for Yahoo's TV property from 850,000 to 18 million in three weeks.
Suzanne has created and co-created content strategy departments and teams at top interactive agencies including Level Studios | Rosetta, Brighter Collective, Single Grain and Saatchi & Saatchi.
At AT&T Advertising Solutions, she created and implemented the first content marketing plan across five digital platforms. She managed vendor relationships, provided SEO, editorial and strategic recommendations on a shoestring budget. The audience has grown from 3,000 PVs daily to nearly 500K.
An avid fitness enthusiast, Suzanne is an amateur bodybuilder who has shared workout equipment with Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Mecca – Gold's Gym in Venice Beach. She recently competed at the Ferrigno Legacy bodybuilding event in October. Suzanne also volunteers for the Sokka Gakki International, a lay Buddhist peacekeeping organization.
How did you start out as a marketer?
Post 9-11, I moved to sunny Los Angeles to pursue a better overall lifestyle. I was a financial journalist in NYC and lost half my office in the attacks. Other deaths occurred the same year, notably my brother and best friend.
When I arrived in LA, financial reporter opportunities were in short supply. I didn't have a network and began working at a series of odd jobs, one as an office manager for models and photographers. Shortly thereafter, I delved into magazine subscription sales for Magmall and learned SEO best practices in 2002.
Yahoo took interest after my two-year stint at The Hollywood Reporter and I was hired in 2007 as the lead entertainment homepage content programmer. I created, promoted, packaged and measured content for interior properties like movies, music, games, omg, kids, TV and others. Our audience grew to 189 million unique visitors on a monthly basis and each property began vying for homepage real estate to drive traffic to their interior pages. I negotiated prioritization and strategy to grow each property to the #1 destination, beating competitors like AOL and MSN.
Content boot camp at Yahoo set the stage for my future.
Looking back what is your hardest struggle when it came to delivering results?
Herding cats is what I might call the main impediment to marketing strategy unity. The ability to commandeer a team and get buy in from silo-ed departments is a difficult undertaking. No matter how large or small an organization may be, a silo mentality is a top-down issue, which trickles down from management.
It's frequently a business model within marketing and sales teams where some assignments or projects exist in both groups. Gearing a company or department toward a single goal can foster collaboration and a sense of like-minded purpose. This fuels interaction and in turn, conversions and results.
How did you get your first client back then, and what kind of service did you do for them?
My first official freelance client was a Disney.com's Family page. They requested research and written snippets on all competitors in the space. It was offered to me during an interview with the company for a position I didn't receive.
What do you find most rewarding about what you do?
My greatest passion and joy in my work is inspiring potential consumers to try a service or product they otherwise might not have discovered. Hopefully, it suits their needs and solves their personal pain points. Optimizing content, messaging, their experience and journey online is always a fulfilling enterprise.
Influence aside, to lead is to inspire. When I help brands socialize their message through governance, Omni-channel strategy, workflows, style guides, SEO, SEM, CMS migrations – you name it – this creates a brand new ecosystem. All the pieces within the assembly line converge to form the perfect experience. The art of learning to socialize different industries' and business verticals' messages promotes their content in the form a universal ecosystem. If users return for this content, and create a relationship with a certain experience, well that's a huge win.
We have a lot of readers who are bent on becoming freelancers, aside from freelancing how else can someone earn online, and what is your advice?
Be willing to take risks and talk to everyone. Use meetups, LinkedIn, friends and family to connect you to mentors. Study your field and abandon any sense of entitlement you have about boosting your ego to land work. In LA vs. NY, it's more whom you know sometimes and less what you know. Become a champion of a cause, product or service and submit proposals for blogging, writing, etc. to companies and brands that inspire you.
If you were given the chance to build your career all over again what would you do differently so that you will achieve your dreams faster?
I might have pursued a consulting career earlier on if I knew what I know now. I might have taken more classes in diplomacy and politics because most of the corporate world is about surviving turf wars vs. doing the work and as a doer, you get overlooked even if your work is stellar and has a lasting impact on a company's legacy.
What recently developed marketing strategy, technique or tool interests you the most right now?
We're in the dawn of a new era of computing—The Cognitive Era. This new age will change the way we make decisions as consumers and technology will play a key role in helping humans make quicker decisions, at that. With this, we will usher in a new way to create, manage, and deliver content.
Cognitive computing and automation involves self-learning via data mining, recognizing patterns, and language that mankind uses to imitate the way our brans work. Essentially, it simulates human thought processes in a computerized manner.
Adept at calculations and number crunching, machines will now take on the final frontier – cognitive systems. Understanding our natural ways of communicating and speaking, computers will be able to recognize unique objects nested in images, too. Search engines will transform to voice-enabled queries. We will sit in our cars and speak our requests to a multitude of different tech systems and products.
Companies will need to be more agile than ever to leverage their existing systems into a salient plan for digital transformation. Governance will play a large role in building upon a stable foundation. Master data management is crucial as well.
Of course, a savvy marketer will contribute best to this era of innovation. A growth hacker who is by definition digitally successful (not simply savvy) –combines creativity, big data, and techie skillsets. Traditional marketing is brand awareness centric, but growth hacking is centered on creating a massive cultural wave of experimentation, which garners actual results via metrics.
I'm obsessed with this newfound shift in focus from trying to innovate and "do it all" to focusing on moving the needle in one specific area which will yield a significant impact. Brands like Apple need to focus on what they do best versus doing it all, for example.
A call to arms for management by objective, the old Andy Grove philosophy – really works. I've been a director at a startup that refused to implement this vital strategy. I tried to spearhead the initiative and provided educational and informational sessions, but the millennial CEO who lacked prior experience, preferred a haphazard waterfall structure that eventually led to widespread layoffs.
What do you do to stay up to date with new marketing techniques?
Liaising with co-speakers at conferences, and being on panels has dramatically contributed to my cutting-edge knowledge of trends. I'm pumped to be speaking at Information Development World in the Silicon Valley in May. Some of the best thinkers and forerunners of digital marketing will be present.
I'm a fan of content curation sites and apps. I also scan LinkedIn headlines, Wired, CMI, Hubspot, Smashing Magazine's newsletter, Business Insider, Engadget, Design Milk, and psych publications and blogs daily.
Can you tell us about a project you're most proud of from your past work history?
During my tenure at California Psychics, a leading advice service ($33 mil in revenue) I spearheaded and managed the entire content marketing strategy. My efforts in migrating content from a homegrown CMS to WordPress, and redesigning the newsletter and processes / workflows, hiring new staff, freelancers and providing content pillars paid off.
I quadrupled blog traffic from 80K UVs per month to 500K UVs per week. Newsletter open rates increased from 2% to 8% for 3.5 million subscribers. Click through rates skyrocketed from 34% to 74-95% inside of one year. New customer referrals increased weekly from 50K to 400K.
My social strategy paid off – the company has a twitterscope service and a substantial presence on Facebook, which they originally eschewed. I took the taboo out of psychic advisors and made them columnists and advice specialists, linking their blogs to the front page of the site via API. Call volume spiked and the content factory I created is being maintained and upheld nearly 9 years later.
If there's one Marketing Guru you'd recommend who and why.
Neil Patel and Kevin P. Nichols. They are disruptors and educators in the space. Their blogs, books, templates, tools and talks are better than seminars I've taken. They're innovative, thoughtful and ego-less to the degree that information transparency and dissemination trumps success secrets. Patel and Nichols are entrepreneurs in the educational practitioner space, a novelty to me. Neil's Sprout blog, KISS metrics analytics product and Forbes blog are forever changing the landscape. He covers conversion optimization, marketing and sales topics.
Nichols is an author, innovator and disruptor within the customer journey and content strategy discipline. He's been my mentor for years and hired me to work at SapientNitro without having met or spoken to me. His faith in my experience and skillset propelled me to greater heights.
Through the MGM Grand project, I learned and then implemented digital asset management governance and strategy (for a team of 30+ stakeholders in 3 months). We migrating assets from multiple proprietary systems into CQ5 and I alone provided and presented findings and solutions.
I also furnished a 45 page recommendation and governance guide on everything from improving workflow use cases to controlled vocabularies, metadata standards, business requirements for users and permissions levels, and the like. It was my first foray into the complex world of Adobe Experience Manager, a CMS that's here to stay and includes intense customizations for companies who require advanced templates and components to accommodate localization and personalization best practices.