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Creating a horror movie-themed photo composition in Photoshop can be a lot of fun. Choosing the right photos is an important step in the process, but it is also important to blend those photos together in a realistic and believable way. In this tutorial we will show you how to do this using the appropriate light balance, use of midtones, depth of field, blending, and more. Let's get started!
Tutorial Assets
The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial.
Step 1
First of all let's create the document we are going to work in. We will use a standard A4 format canvas at 300 Pixels/Inch in RGB Color.
Step 2
Drag the Room stock photo to the canvas. Before placing it, right – click and select Flip Horizontal so we have the light focus on the right side.
Hold Shift key to keep the aspect ratio and then enlarge the image so the bottom room gets placed in the center of the canvas. Right – click and select Distort to correct the perspective a bit. Drag to the center the top vertical pointers of the transform box. When you are done, press Enter and name this layer "room."
Step 3
We cannot fix the perspective using only Transform tools, so we are going to take advantage of a brand new feature available in Photoshop CS6 version. Go to Filter > Adaptive Wide Angle. This tool is used to fix fish eyed photos, but we will use it instead to make the perspective lines straight and perpendicular to each other. First of all, click at the bottom of the left side of the doorframe and do a second click at the top of that line.
Then Shift – click in any of the circumference points (you will see an eyedropper and plus sign icon). The line will become straight and perpendicular.
Now just repeat the process in all of the most important perspective lines. Use the screenshot below to get some guidance. Click OK when you are done!
Step 4
Drag the girl stock photo to the canvas. Allow it to have vertical full-size, press Enter and rename this layer as "girl".
Before being able to do something with this image, we have to cut out the girl from its photo background. Due to the colors used here, it seems that our only option is to use the Pen Tool (P). Select this tool in Paths Mode and click in any edge area of the girl. I'm going to start on her right shoulder. Just click over it.
Then click and hold in a near area. You will notice that the new line between the two anchor points is straight. Move your cursor to adapt it to the shape we want to select.
That's pretty much all. Just repeat this process over all the edges of the girl, always holding your cursor while adding an anchor point so you can adapt it. Once you get in its flow you'll see it is more intuitive that it seemed at first!
Try to create your path leaving some pixels outside the selection, so we will avoid the fact of selecting them later.
Create your path as usual when you reach the hair, no need to create weird shapes. We will be able to create a perfect hair selection using other tools later.
Once you've reached your starting point, click over it to close the path.
Right – click and select Make Selection:
Go to Select > Refine Edge (Alt + Command/Ctrl + R) and use these settings to enhance our selection:
Click on the Brush icon on the Refine Edge window. This tool will add again the values we have entered to anywhere we paint over, so this is a very special tool to select hair. For example, brush over the hair flocks on the right and you will see how the background disappears!
Take a look at the selected areas on the screenshot below to know which zones you'll need to brush over. When you are done click OK and Add a New Layer Mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection) to this layer to hide the background.
Step 5
The stock pic we are using comes from a rainy scene, but there will be no water at all in our composition, so we have to get rid of the falling drops. We are going to use the Patch Tool (J) for this matter. Set the Patch to Content-Aware and the Adaptation to Very Loose, and draw freehand selections over the falling water drops. Then, grab your selection to a near area that have similar colors/lighting, and release the selection, so the drops are substituted with new pixel information.
Take a look at this screenshots to find some keys areas to work on with the Patch Tool. The procedure will be the same:
Step 6
Let's place the girl the right way, but first of all, we need to know in which kind of composition we are working on. I have chosen the rule of thirds for this image, so we have to divide the canvas in nine equal rectangles. To do so, go to View > Rulers or press Command/Ctrl + R to make them appear. Right – click over them and select Percentage. Use the Move Tool (V) to drag Guides from the Rulers. You have to set them at 33.3% and 66.6% both in vertical and horizontal.
Once we have this done, let's see what would be the best place to put our girl in so it becomes or focal attention point.
Considering that the human eye reads from top to bottom and left to right, it's important to keep in mind finding our focal point over the right – vertical ruler. Place the hands of the girl as shown below so they'll become our reference point. You will need to use Free Transform, also (Command/Ctrl + T or Edit > Free Transform) to make this layer smaller. Remember to hold the Shift key to keep the aspect ratio.
Step 7
Hide the Layer by pressing Command/Ctrl + , (comma). Go to Image > Adjustments > Shadows/Highlights. This is a very useful tool to get that film movie look, because it decreases the maximum whites and blacks, and leaves our image with an emphasis in the midtones. We will be using this adjustment many times during the making of this image. Use the settings depicted in the screenshot below if you need some direction:
Step 8
We are going to start setting some basic lighting. Select the "room" layer now and press Command/Ctrl + J to Duplicate it. Set this layer's Opacity to 75%.
Pick the Burn Tool (O) and select the Highlights Range. Use a 0% Hardness brush, and just a quick note: all the brushing tools we are going to use during this tutorial have to be set to 0% Hardness, always. So then, start using a big brush to darken the wall on its right side, because it's grabbing so much attention from our focal point.
Switch to Midtones Range and repeat the process
We are going to add some depth, so we have to darken Highlights and Midtones on what seems to be a bottom room, right behind our girl. Brush over also the left side of the wall.
Step 9
Go to Layer > New > Layer (or press Command/Ctrl + Shift + N) to add a new one and name it "lighting". Place it above all layers. Select the Gradient Tool (G). On the Tool Menu bar (under the Main Menu) double – click on the gradient bar and select the Black, White preset, then select Reverse on the Tool Menu.
With this gradient we will set the light direction, so click a bit out of the canvas and drag your mouse until somewhere at the top of the bottom left canvas corner, getting a similar result to this:
Set the Blending Mode to Soft Light. Now it seems to be clear where our light is coming from, achieving some more realism on our photo manipulation.
Step 10
Now that we have some basic lighting, we need to cast a shadow for our girl, so we are going to paint it using the Brush Tool (B). Press F5 to display the Brush Options panel, then use these settings if you are using a pen tablet.
Create a New Layer (Command/Ctrl + Shift + N) under the girl one and name it "girl shadow". Pick the black color and use a small, soft brush to paint the border of the shadow under the feet (this will be the darkest area of the casted shadow).
Then use a bigger brush as you go further from the shadow's origin, decreasing both Opacity and Flow in the process.
Keep on increasing your brush Size while you go further. At the end your shadow should look more or less like the one below:
Step 11
Due to the girl's position and the light focus, it seems that we are going to need another shadow over the left foot, casted by the right one. Create a New Layer above "girl" and name it "foot shadow". Command/Ctrl – click the "girl" Layer Mask to load its selection, then start brushing over with low Opacity on our new layer:
Remember that the darker area must be the instep.
Step 12
Now that we casted some light, we have to refine our "girl" layer again by going to Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlights, decreasing the Highlights a lot to avoid having so much contrast when the light, in fact, is lower.
Step 13
Use the Burn Tool (O) again, we will darken up the left areas of the girl, following the light directions. Use Midtones Range.
Use smaller brush sizes for details, like the pleats, mouth, fingers, hair, and so on. Remember to brush over the left side of each element, as light is obviously coming from the right.
Step 14
Ok, basic light adjusted, let's keep going. Now we are going to create the depth of field of our image, so it will look more three dimensional and will enhance our focal attention point. For that reason, duplicate "room copy" layer by pressing Command/Ctrl + J and go to Filter > Blur > Lens Blur. This tool allows us to re-create a similar depth of field captured by a camera lens, and it's more accurate than using other kind of Blurs. Use these settings:
Add a New Layer Mask (Layer > Layer Mask > From Transparency) and use a big, soft black brush to paint over the areas we are not interesting in keeping blurred. As you can see in the layer mask icon of the screenshot below, I have deleted the bottom area of the layer and a bit over the right side of the wall. To achieve this, select the Brush Tool (B) and the black color. We use Layer Masks because we can modify our layers with black color but we can restore the original pixel information switching to white, in case we commit errors or change our minds after doing something.
Go to Image > Adjustments > Levels and move the midtones arrow to the dark ones, brightening the layer up a bit.
Step 15
We are going to add even some more depth. Duplicate again "room copy" and go to Filter > Blur > Lens Blur. Use these settings:
Place this layer above the last "room copy" layer we created. We want the back room to look further, so add a new Layer Mask and paint everything black but that rectangle.
Adjust Levels (Command/Ctrl + L) again to brighten up this layer.
Step 16
Duplicate the original "room " layer (Command/Ctrl + J) and place it above the third copy. Then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. We are doing this to homogenize the depth of field, because, if you Zoom In, you will see a small conflict between the hard edges of everything from the original layer and the overlayed blurs. When you are done mask the floor area.
Step 17
We could leave the atmospheric post-work for the end of the tutorial, but I think it will be refreshing and fun to start doing a part of it now, so it will encourage us to keep going. Create a New Layer and name it "dark blue" and fill it with the color #004168″ (or any other similar of your liking!) using the Paint Bucket Tool (G). Then set its Blending Mode to Soft Light with 75% Opacity. This room looks colder now!
Step 18
Add another new layer named "Difference" and fill it with #028a9e, then set the Blending Mode to Difference, 10% Opacity. This way we are able to tint in blue the darkest and brightest image tones. They are usually tinted in film movies, as you will hardly notice any pure blacks while watching them.
Step 19
Go to Layer > New Adjsutment Layer > Curves or just click on the Add New Adjustment Layer on the icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette. We are going to adjust the overall color tones of the image. Use these settings:
Our adjustments are a bit hard, so they will look better with only 25% of Opacity.
Step 20
Add a New Adjustment Layer of Gradient Map, then click on the gradient bar and select the Black, White preset, click OK and select Reverse to raise a bit the overall contrast while preserving most of the scene in midtones. Set the Blending Mode to Luminosity and Opacity to 85%.
Step 21
We are going to finish this "adjusting break" adding a new Selective Color Adjustment Layer and using these settings, that will take care of balancing all tonal ranges, specially warm ones that are only slightly present here.
Decrease its Opacity to 65%.
Step 22
And now it's painting time. We are not going to create anything very complex, so these steps are perfectly suitable for mouse users. Load the custom brushes by Adonhis by selecting the Brush Tool (B), right – clicking, and then clicking over the wheel icon, then select Load Brushes and import them from your computer. Once you're done, pick the following one:
This custom brush is very useful to create clouds or fog, and we want to add some of the second. Create a New Layer (Command/Ctrl + Shift + N) above "shadow foot" and name it "fog" and start painting over it. If you are using a mouse, avoid dragging your cursor to paint: instead, do random clicks so the scattering and opacity effects of the brush can prevail. Start painting over the bottom left corner:
Use the screenshots below as guidance. We want to add fog but we have to avoid giving so much opacity to it, because it would grab much attention and that would distract our viewer from our focal point. Use lower Opacity and Flow as you come closer to where the girl is. Paint some fog over her, too.
Step 23
Add a New Layer named "fog 2" under the "girl shadow" one, so the overall fog scene won't look like pasted over the main image. Paint right behind the girl, covering the doorframe and what's inside of it.
You can give some final touches selecting the following brush and painting over some details of separate fog here and there, making our image look with more depth.
Step 24
What's an horror movie without blood? We are going to add some hints of it but our viewer won't know where they are coming from, increasing the suspense of the image. Select this brush from the Adhonis custom brushes and pick a red color of your liking (I recommend a slightly dark red).
Add a New Layer above "fog" and name it "blood girl". If we place it below the "fog" layer it will be hardly visible, so we are going to prefer to paint over the fog, but taking some care. It's up to you where to add the blood, but I think that some over her thighs would look nice. If you want to avoid painting outside the girl, Command/Ctrl – click on the "girl" Layer Mask to load its selection:
Below are some examples of where you could paint. Remember to switch your brush size depending in how wide is the area you are painting over.
Just don't cover her completely with blood, it will be more interesting to leave only some touches here and there. Change this layer's Blending Mode to Multiply, so the blood gets integrated with our lighting and color tones.
Since this was a hard brush, we have to blur it overall by going to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and using a small Pixel Radius to homogenize it:
Step 25
Still having any bloody needs? Create a New Layer and name it "blood room", right above the last one we created, then right – click your brush and select this one:
Again, it's up to you where to put the blood hints. Just don't paint randomly, select which items you'd like to have blood over and paint some strokes on them. Here are some suggestions:
Try to paint also over small items, such as the drum stick on the floor. Small details will add realism and credibility to our image.
Again, set the Blending Mode to Multiply when you have painted enough:
Step 26
Let's add the last two items of the scene. We will use an armchair and a baby carriage to form a sort of pyramidal composition around our main subject, placing each one at the girl's sides. Put the Armchair stock photo in your canvas and name this layer "armchair".
You will need to Zoom In quite a lot to create a selection for cutting the armchair out, using again the Pen Tool (P). If you need to refresh your mind take a look at Step 4.
With your Path closed, right – click and select Make Selection. Press Command/Ctrl + Shift + I to Invert the selection and press the Delete key to erase the background.
Use the Move Tool (V) to place the armchair as follows:
Step 27
But our armchair has some problems. Perspective is wrong, as well as brightness, colors and lighting. It's time to make some hard editing. Go to Edit > Transform > Distort. Grab the top left pointer further from the center but do the opposite with the bottom left one.
Step 28
Go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation (Or just press Command/Ctrl + U) and decrease the Saturation of this layer, so it looks a bit more integrated.
Step 29
Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to adjust the sharpness of this item:
Step 30
Adjust lighting by pressing Command/Ctrl + L to display the Levels window. Darken midtones and highlights, so the layer loses contrast:
Step 31
But still, this need some manual adjusting. Use the Burn Tool (O) to darken the Midtones of this layer. Knowing where the light is coming from, brush over the areas depicted below:
Burn over with small brushes also to create some details and switch to Dodge (also in Midtones Range) to paint some tiny details that will set the maximum brightness parts of the armchair, coinciding with the light direction, that is hitting over the areas shown in this screenshot:
Step 32
Add a New Layer under the armchair and name it "armchair shadow". It's pretty obvious what we need to do now, right? Use the Brush Tool (B) with black color picked to cast a diffuse shadow to the left that will finish more or less as it gets in touch with the girl's right foot. Remember to use smaller brushes with more Opacity under the armchair, and increase size / decrease Opacity as you go further.
Step 33
Now go to "fog" layer and Add a New Layer Mask. Select black color, as we are going to slightly erase some spots of fog above the armchair, so we can bring it closer to the girl. Guide yourself by the screenshot below. You can use a basic round-shaped soft brush, or you can choose the same one we picked to paint the fog at first.
Step 34
Time to add the stroller. Place it on the canvas and right – click to Flip Horizontal, so it follows the light direction. Name this layer "baby carriage" and place above the "armchair" one.
Now that we have a plain background, we can use an easier tool to select it, so choose the Magic Wand (W). Use about 40 pixels of Tolerance (Point Sample), uncheck Contiguous and click over the white background to select all white on this layer.
Click on the Refine Edge Button on the Tool Menu bar and use these settings to get a more accurate result. Click OK and Mask this layer to cut it out.
It was easier to select all the background parts as we did, but we deleted this way some white spots inside of the trolley. Use the Brush and the white color on ther Layer Mask to restore these spots, they are almost everywhere on the trolley:
Step 35
Press Command/Ctrl + T for Free Transform, hold Shift key and decrease the size of this layer, placing it as follows:
Step 36
Adjust its sharpness by going to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur:
Step 37
Yet again, let's go to Image > Adjustments > Shadows / Highlights. Decrease specially the Highlights to adapt the light spectrum of this layer to our scene:
Step 38
As usual on each item, adapt the lighting manually using the Burn Tool (O) in Midtones Range. Darken the areas on the right as there should be some sort of casted shadow from the girl.
Step 39
Go to "fog" Layer Mask and use the black color to paint over it with the Brush Tool (B), deleting some aras right over the baby carriage, so it becomes more visible:
Step 40
Create a New layer under the "baby carriage" one and name it "shadow carriage". Use a small, soft black brush to paint the casted shadow of the wheels pointing to the left. Remember to make them diffuse and with less opacity as you go further. There should be also a smart portion of shadow on the right side of each wheel, too.
Step 41
Select this custom brush for the Adhonis brushes and use these settings (press F5 to open Brush Options panel):
Return to "blood room" layer and use a dark red color to paint over the trolley. If you add blood ove the wheels, remember to keep the coherence by painting a slight trail stating the direction the trolley has come from.
Step 42
Return to "fog" layer and select this custom brush to paint over some fog coming out the baby carriage, adding some more depth to its placement. Don't use much Opacity nor Flow.
Step 43
Once more, adjust the girl's lighting (Image > Adjustements > Shadows/Highlights) to decrease Highlights again. Usually you need to repeat this step while working on atmosphere and lighting, to adapt your main element a bit more while the image evolves.
Step 44
I think that keeping the doll inside the baby carriage isn't doing any good, so let's get rid of it. Use the Patch Tool (J) in Content-Aware mode and Very Loose Adaptation. Create a freehand selection over the doll's head, and when you are done drag it to the left, so it gets substituted:
Use this technique to make it disappear completely. Zoom In and look for other areas that remain: the doll's body and/or any of its edges touching the trolley hood, and so on. If your patching doesn't come out perfect, use the Clone Stamp Tool (S) to refine some patched areas.
Step 45
It's time to add the final touching in terms of lighting. We have our light focus and our items with mostly midtones, so we are going to reflect some light following the directión of our light focus that is outside of the composition, and that might be coming from a near out of focus window. Create a New Layer (Command/Ctrl + Shift + N) under the "dark blue" one and name it "lights". As the procedure with brushes has been explained quite some times during this tutorial, it should be clear that we are only using osft brushes, never using 100% Opacity or Flow and using small sizes to prevent big errors.
The light is coming from the right, and slightly from the top as well. Use the white color and paint over the nearest areas of the girl to the light focus (the head and right shoulder), keeping special care of tiny items,detailing them as good as you can. Try to carefully paint over any hair flock or pleat, and don't forget that your brush Opacity must be decreased as you go further from the light focus. Keep an eye over the red lines on the screenshot below to know where the light is hitting directly:
You might want to use bigger brushes to create the right contour of the girl, and then switching to smaller ones to paint over the hands, pleats and so son. Using a mouse for this step should be done carefully, as pressure cannot be controlled, so it would be better to work with very very low Opacity. It's better to give some more strokes than trying to give one with more opacity and undoing our actions until it comes in the right way.
Apart of the girl, we have the armchair, that we will illuminate almost like if the light is coming from above and from behind. Over the trolley we will only paint some areas above the steel bars on the left side. Switch the Blending Mode of this layer to Soft Light, so the white isn't white anymore and gets blended with our composition, enhancing lightings of the original colors. Play with the Opacity if it pops out too much.
Step 46
So the very end of this tutorial is coming, so what's left is to work a bit more on the atmosphere and post-production of this piece. Add a New layer named "light blue" above the "difference" one and use the Gradient Tool (G), with Foreground to Transparent preset selected, and choose a light blue color. Create a Radial Gradient coming exactly the same way as the light focus, and set the Blending Mode to Linear Dodge and the Opacity to 10%, to tint the light coming from the source in cold tones, and hence affecting the whole image:
Step 47
Create another New Layer, name it just "red", pick the red color and create another Foreground to Transparent Radial Gradient, having its center on the center of the baby carriage. Don't make it too big, because we just want it to tint the trolley with some warm tones, so it ends up with some more contrast, giving the composition a bit more heterogeneous colors. Use the Eraser Tool (E) to delete the areas outside of the carriage and switch this layer to Soft Light, 50% Opacity.
Step 48
Add another New Layer above the last one and name it "green". Check the Reverse option, still with the Gradient Tool, and choose a dark green of your liking. Created a Radial Gradient, again coming from the light source. But this time, as we checked the Reverse option, it will fill the opposite area. Set the Blending Mode to Vivid Light and Opacity to somewhere below 10%, to tint shadows as well. The green tones will give a creepy feeling.
Step 49
One of the best techniques I always use to enhance atmosphere, giving a subtle dreamy touch to my images, is to add some blurs over the entire composition. Press Command/Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E to Stamp All Visible Layers. This will generate a brand new layer containing all the info of our document. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use a big pixel Radius:
Set the Blending Mode of this layer to Screen. This will blur specially the bright areas and will brighten our piece. Duplicate it by pressing Command/Ctrl + J and then set the Blending Mode to Soft Light, to get the opposite effect (using Multiply, in case you ask, would mute our previous effect. Overlay and Soft Light helps to increase the dark tones without covering the bright ones in this case). Select both layers (Command/Ctrl + click on each one) and decrease Opacity of both to 10%. Then, we have got a subtle blurry effect over the scene, without loosing much sharpness or hiding any elements in our composition. Also, this effect enhances the blending of pretty much everything. You can name these layers "screen blur" and "soft light blur". Just in case: they have to be placed above all the layers we have already created.
Step 50
We have learned that to achieve a film – like effect, we need to get rid of maximum blacks and whites, trying to get as most midtones as possible. We are going to homogenize the effect we have achieved during this tutorial by using the Shadows/Highlights Adjustment, but using another method. Press Command/Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E again to Stamp All Visible Layers. Rename it as "light correction2", press Command/Ctrl + I to Invert it and Command/Ctrl + Shift + U to Desaturate it, then set the Blending Mode to Overlay. As you can see, now we have the whole image in midtones, except for two non important spots.
The trick is to blur this surface so the new light values can blend between the ones of this image, increasing midtones but, unexpectedly, increasing the contrast of the image, achieving at last the film effect. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use 29 pixels Radius.
Anyway, the effect is way too strong to keep it full, so decrease the Opacity to 15%.
Step 51
Add a New Black & White Adjustment Layer and use the Green Filter preset. Set the Blending Mode to Luminosity.
Step 52
Let's make sure that our colors are as best as they can get, so add a new Selective Color Adjustment Layer and use these values.
We have enhanced warms tones (again), brightening up a bit the illustration.
Step 53
To homogenize once again our photo manipulation, we need to add some film grain to it. Some might think that Noise would be better, but movies are recorded using analog film reels, and grain is different than noise.
Stamp All Visible Layers (Command/Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E), name the layer "grain" and go to Filter > Filter Gallery > Sketch > Reticulation, but be sure that your foreground and background colors are black and white, since Sketch filters use those to work from. Apply these settings:
Click OK and set the Blending Mode to Luminosity, Opacity to 3%. The grain will be specially noticeable on the blurry background areas.
Step 54
Our last adjustment will be a layer on top of everything called "temperature" and filled with the Paint Bucket Tool (G) with the color #14b3db, set to Soft Light at 15%, like if we were using camera lens color filter.
So, if you have come this far and have finished this tut, congratulations! Remember that the important parts of this tutorial are the tiny tips that you can put in action in your own creations… Enjoy!


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14 Mar 2012 Occupy Occupy D.C. Creates Graveyard of Obama's Crony Capitalist Failures Near White House
Citizens to Pay Respects to Their Misspent Tax Dollars at Freedom Plaza
Washington, D.C. – After so many taxpayer dollars were redistributed to businesses favored by the Obama Administration — businesses that later went bankrupt or failed to live up to expectations — members of the National Center for Public Policy Research's "Occupy Occupy D.C." street team will set up a graveyard to memorialize the squandered money used to further the crony capitalist agenda of the Obama administration.
Graveside visitation has been scheduled for noon Wednesday, March 14 in Washington D.C.'s Freedom Plaza (13th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW).
"Solyndra. Ener1. Fisker. We knew them well. They happily took our money, and now it's gone. We will never see it again. Now is the time for mourning," said David Almasi, executive director of the National Center for Public Policy Research and director of the National Center's "Occupy Occupy D.C." project. "Obama seems to think all it takes to succeed in America is money, and he decided to take ours to chase his green energy dreams. He obviously didn't realize the free market does not abide crony capitalism. This is the graveyard of Obama's broken stimulus dreams. This memorial will hopefully give the taxpayers closure, letting them come to terms with the billions spent in their names to try to further the Obama political agenda."
The National Center's crony capitalist graveyard will cite at least 20 examples of companies that were given taxpayer dollars that either declared bankruptcy or suffered layoffs or similar other crippling circumstances. Each instance will be marked with a headstone and the amount of money lost.
"Wind, solar and geothermal companies may play a vital part in America's energy future, but only by competing in the free market," added the National Center General Counsel Justin Danhof. "But green energy subsidies are bothersome because they are akin to borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. But it's the direct taxpayer investment to prop up Obama's green energy cronies, the failures of which are memorialized in this graveyard, that is the real tragedy here. Despite the unnecessary risks and the poor results, Obama has taken no responsibility and has left taxpayers flailing in the wind."
The National Center has obtained a five-week permit for Freedom Plaza in order to share the plaza with left-wing "Occupy D.C." protesters. Since February 13, it has sponsored noontime events every weekday.
The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a non-partisan, free-market, independent conservative think-tank with over 100,000 recent supporters. Contributions to it are tax-deductible and greatly appreciated.

subset: commoncrawl


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In their second meet of the season the Cal State Northridge men's and women's cross country team competed in the UC Riverside Invitational Saturday morning. The CSUN women finished 12th while the Matador men finished a disappointing 25th out of 30.
Once again the Matador women were lead by junior Lilyana Morejon, who placed fifth in the 5K race, giving her two top five finishes in her first two meets, with a time of 17:07.1. Morejon ran 19 second faster than last week's race in Irvine.
Junior transfer Zitalic Ley also had a faster time than last week 5K race, finishing with a time of 18:12.0 and placing 64th.
Morejon, Ley and the rest of the Northridge women saw tougher competition in Riverside, which is why they didn't place as high as the prior week. Overall CSUN ran an average time of 18:22.42, a 20-second improvement from the first meet.
Sandra Velarde, Nanci Velarde and Mallory Day all finished in the top 100.
The Matador men also improved their time, posting an average time of 26:08.10, two minutes and fifteen seconds faster then last week's meet.
For the second consecutive week Juan Olea was the highest Northridge finisher, placing 105th in a time of 26:17.3. Masis Hagobian was second for the Matadors clocking in at 27:48.3 and placing 213th.
Even though the CSUN men improved time wise they need to start placing higher in meets, if they want to be respected in the Big West Conference.
Saturday the Matadors head up north to race in the Stanford Invitational.


text: The last couple weeks has been very busy writing content and planning world domination. Ok really just writing content and a trip to go spend time with folks in The UK to talk about business. I've mentioned that I'm working with a mentor that is based in the UK, and he runs a Facebook group … Read more


text:
The Digest: April 28, 2011
Untitled from Fools Fury on Vimeo.
Naming Conventions: Over at Parabasis, Isaac Butler takes strong disagreement with the Deborah Pearson's Exeunt essay on narrative I linked to a few weeks ago and praised; George Hunka had a pair of more positive takes on it. Butler's critique is scathing but mostly in an editorial fashion, and in the process he sets up a bit of a straw-man argument, but at heart he's got a very valid point: one of the challenges I've faced trying to make a similar point comes down to how we name things. "Narrative" is far too broad a category, and those of us throwing bombs (myself included) at contemporary theater practices need to learn to be more clear and specific. That said, people who disagree with us might also at some point choose to defend their position, which defines "theater" as the way things are done now in the mainstream–playwright driven, standard production process, using a set of production and performance techniques taught in colleges and studios all over the country and indeed most of the advanced Western world. Everything else is apparently an attempt to radically deviate from what's in reality just the mainstream conception of performance today. And furthermore, of course, more people need to deal with the reality of theater as a live art, and distinguish the text from the text-in-performance (in other words, Shakespeare today ain't Shakespeare in Elizabethan England, anymore than Greek drama in an NYC theater is truly akin to Aeschylus at the Festival Dionysus). Point us, read all of these pieces on narrative if you haven't already, because this is actually a very rich and fascinating discussion, and check out the comments.
O Solo Mio!: Okay, that's a really bad pun but cut me some slack–yesterday was my birthday and my head's not really in the game. Over at HowlRound, playwright and occasional solo performer Susan Miller has an essay on how she came to solo performance, and it's definitely worth the read. I have a real love-hate relationship to solo performance: I've seen some truly amazing stuff, and I've also seen how it's often a formulaic, even ossified, form that mainly serves to scream, "Look at me! I AM!" Too much of it is painfully autobiographical, and I occasionally find outright uncomfortable to get to see the artistic process by which violence is done to true-life experience to make it fit a fictive convention that may or may not move an audience. But I always stick with solo performance and subject myself to it because often, it's solo performance to which creatively stifled actors and writers turn when they begin to realize standard theater conventions today don't permit them to create the sort of work they want to do (and I want to see more of). In fact, the health of solo performance depends, I'd argue, on how close-minded most theater practice is, but that's a different story. Also, I'd like to plug at the same time Seattle's Solo Performance Festival, about half-way through its run. It's a kick-ass, up-by-the-bootstraps fest of often exciting work performed on a shoestring budget, and my former site The SunBreak is one of its media sponsors this year, and we have coverage of pretty much the whole fest.
Furious Fools: Very cool bit o' news out of SF–foolsFURY Theater is putting together their own festival of ensemble-driven theater work, one of the only fests of its kind in San Francisco. FURY Factory goes down starting June 7, and features companies like Pig Iron (Philly), Theater Movement Bazaar (LA), and Band of Toughs (Denver). It's a fascinating and ambitious line-up, and we should all be nice and help contribute to their Kickstarter campaign to fund it all.
Dance Schtuff: We got…nothin'. Really. Come on people, help us out–surely somewhere out there on the Inter-tubes there's a bunch of bunheads screaming at choreographers about something, working out ideas online and discussing the fine and vibrant art-form of dance. But honestly, this author hasn't found too much yet. There's itch journal (not online), Critical Correspondence, Dance magazine, and…? Help us out!
Odds & Ends: Andrew Haydon on King's Head pub theater's amazing In-Yer-Face Opera, where Mark Ravenhill is updating Monteverdi – Dance magazine profiles choreographer Andrea Miller – Guardian theater blog on contemporary playwrights' lack of artistic ambition – Upstaged looks back on the history of making Anything Goes PC (we like musicals, too) – Lynn Nottage's new meta theater piece, on Wicked Stage – Exeunt on the one-on-one theater festival, another cool thing London has more of than the US – Bellyflop interviews emerging performance artist Stacy Makishi


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Build your own Arduino retro handheld game console
This project is maintained by sy2002
The newsest stable release version is TeleBall Version 1.4, you will also find the release notes here.
TeleBall is implemented in a C / C++ mixture (more C than C++) as this is rather typical for Arduino projects. You need the Arduino IDE to get started.
All sources are located below the
src folder, which contains the following
file and folder structure:
archive Historic TeleBall software releases
TeleBall As per Arduino convention, the "Sketch" that contains
the source code is located inside an own folder that
has the same name as the Sketch itself: TeleBall.
Compile TeleBall.ino and upload it to create TeleBall's
libraries.zip This ZIP contains the 3rd party libraries that
TeleBall.ino needs to compile in a proven-to-work
TeleBall is using two 3rd party libraries. As mentioned above, the GIT repository contains a ZIP with versions of these libraries that are known to work with TeleBall. We strongly recommend that you use these versions. If you prefer to use newer versions, you can find them here:
Instructions for how-to install these libraries are here.
TeleBall.ino or open it manually in the Arduino IDE
File/Upload or press the "=>" icon: The upload should start
Hint: USB is not strong enough to power TeleBall. Particularly the analog inputs are not calibrated correctly when running on USB. That means: USB power is good enough to check, if flashing the firmware (uploading the firmware) worked, but not for much more.
The software implementation of TeleBall relies on three main ideas:
TeleBall works a lot with global variables and constants as we are in a single instance scenario and therefore encapsulation is not necessary.
The whole TeleBall application is written in a way, that in (nearly) no function or situation
we have a blocking state. That means, that the main loop (Arduino's
loop() function) is
always running, i.e. called again and again, like a heartbeat. This leads to:
The main loop is essentially executing the following steps:
Universal Button)
The GameMode models the macro state the device is currently in: Are we playing BreakOut or Tennis for Two? Are we currently in any configuration menu?
enum GameMode
//standard configuration menu
//advanced configuration menu
//EEPROM: store current settings or reset to default
There is a global variable called
game_mode which reflects the current state of
the game. GameMode is modeled as a classical state machine (FSM), whose state progressing is
like described in the following;
b(x) means
button pressed as long as x:
[gmBreakOut | gmTennis] => b(1sec) => [gmSpeed]
[gmSpeed] => b(quickly) => [gmBreakOut | gmTennis]
[gmSpeed] => b(4sec) => [gmBrightness]
[gmBrightness] => b(quickly) => [gmPaddleLeft]
[gmPaddleRight] => b(quickly) => [gmEEPROM]
[gmEEPROM] => b(quickly) => [gmBreakOut | gmTennis]
[gmBreakOut] => successful pairing => [gmTennis]
[gmBreakOut] => unsuccessful pairing => [gmBreakOut]
[gmTennis] => timeout => [gmBreakOut]
The button-press related state changes are done in the function
All other state changes are scattered all over the code, because changing the Game Mode is
an essential thing to do that can be necessary in a lot of situations.
Tennis for Two is implemented using a Master/slave concept. That means, that as soon as the Pairing finished successfully (see below), one device will become the master and one the slave:
Master: The master is rendering the whole game mechanics including the ball position, "ball physics" and ball impacts like hitting the wall or the paddle. Furtheron the master is also counting the score and telling the slave when to play which sound.
Slave: The slave is basically just a display device showing the ball and the paddles exactly at the positions that the master defines and playing sounds that the master defines. It is additionally transmitting its own paddle position and the status of the button.
This approach has the big advantage that no additional device synchronization is necessary - it is implicitly achieved due to the fact that the slave is doing nothing without the master. The master/slave approach also fits best to the radio chip's architecture: The nRF24L01+ can not act as a real bi-directional transceiver, instead the recipient of a data package (slave) is able to send payload inside the acknowledge package to the sender (master).
As we only have 8x8 pixels, implementing real ball physics is near to impossible. This is why TeleBall is doing it according to the following rules:
The current state of the ball is comprised of the X and Y position stored in
BallX and
BallY as well as the relative ball speed in both directions, stored
BalLDX and
BallDY. All of the he above mentioned mechanics are implemeted
by the following two functions, that are used within BreakOut as well as within
Tennis for Two.
calculateBallMovement(...): Move the ball according to
BallDX and
speeds and respect playfield boundaries, i.e. reflect at walls.
calculatePaddleImpact(...): Implement the above-mentioned rules when the ball
hits the paddle. This is mapped to rather straightforward code. There is one
exception, though: Due to the fact, that for a smooth gaming experience, the paddle
movement is completely decoupled from the ball movement, a very special case can
occur, where the paddle is moved "under" the ball after according to the current
calculation iteration, the ball was already lost. But loosing the ball now would
feel very unnatural to the player as he has the feeling, that he just in time
moved the paddle under the ball, so this special case is handled correctly
and the code for that is not that straightforward as it undos the last
movement iteration.
There are multiple situations in BreakOut as well as in Tennis for Two, where the ball is stopped for a while and "waiting", before the game continues. Some examples are: at the beginning of the game; when loosing a ball before the new game begins; after switching to Tennis; after switching back from a configuration menu to the game; etc.
The waiting is implemented by setting the velocity vector
(BallDX | BallDY) to zero.
calculateBallMovement(...) is then only adding zeros to the ball's
position and the ball is waiting / standing still.
At each
playBreakOut() and
playTennis() game loop iteration, the function
respawn_management() is called. It checks, if a certain timeout period set in
the variable
respawn_timer is over and if yes, it sets the velocity vector
(BallDX | BallDY) to (BallDX_tbs | BallDY_tbs); the suffix
_tbs stands
for "to-be-set". This "respawn management" mechanism is not only used at actual
respawns (i.e. a ball was lost), but also to pause the game, as shown in
Due to the way how we wired the MAX7221 to the KWM-R30881CBB, where the rows are the
cathodes, we need to mirror the x-axis. This is why
putPixel(...) is doing the
following: `Matrix.setLed(0, 7 - x, y, on)
The Arduino Nano only has about 2kB of SRAM, so it makes sense to use the program
memory for storing constant values. This is done by the
PROGMEM keyword. Data
retrieval is done by specialized functions having the
_from_PROGMEM suffix.
Hint: Declaring a global variable
const is not enough to move it to the program
memory because the ATmega328 CPU needs special machine commands to read data from
Upon each device start, the TeleBall device fingerprint is checked. If it is there, then TeleBall assumes valid data for the other variables. Otherwise it assumes a factory new device and initializes the EEPROM memory with factory default values.
|TeleBall device fingerprint:
{'T', 'e', 'l', 'e', 'B', 'a', 'l', 'l'};
|unsigned int
|Ball speed
|Display intensity
|unsigned int
|Leftmost poti position
(calibrate paddle user experience)
|unsigned int
|Rightmost poti position
(calibrate paddle user experience)
BreakOut's game loop is part of the main
loop() as it is called from the inside the
switchstatement there.
playBreakOut() must not disturb the "heartbeat", therefore
also no function there shall be blocking. An excpetion is the case, when a player
wins or looses the game. Here, the game loop comes to a halt and the programm is looping
in a tight while loop.
It is worth mentioning, that the movement of the paddle is asynchronously
decoupled from the movement of the ball:
handlePaddle(...) is called with the
maximum speed that the Arduino can run through the game loop. On the other hand,
calculateBallMovement(...) and
calculatePaddleImpact(...) is only called, when
an amount of milliseconds specified by the variable
Speed has passed since the
last ball movement. This mechanism ensures, that the paddle movements feel natural
to the user, independent from the game's current speed.
const byte Levels to the actual amount of levels that you have.
1 and
0 as shown below. Each
1 represents
a brick and each
0 is an empty space.
bricks_levelheight array to reflect the amount of
lines / rows that the actual level is having.
4 is the hardcoded maximum height of a level. If your level has a smaller
amount of rows, then fill it with 0
as shown in the below-mentioned code snippet's
first level. We do not reccomend to have a larger amount of rows than 4`.
In the first two minutes after turning the device on - or to be more precise: until the
milliseconds counter of the Arduino reaches the value specified by the global constant
RadioPowerSaveTime, TeleBall is scanning for another device / another player, that
could be a potential partner for Tennis for Two. After that time period, for saving
battery power, the radio device is put into a low-power mode (switched-off).
The scanning itself has two functions: Find another device and determine, who is master and who is slave. It works like this:
Wait a random amount of time as specified by
RadioWait_Min and
currently this is between 500 and 850 milliseconds.
Check if in the meantime - between the last check and the random wait time - a package with the Master Token arrived. If yes, then there is another device: We acknowledge (ACK) the Master Token with the Slave Token, which means that we are now the slave and the other device is the master and we continue with step (4).
If no Master Token was recieved, the radio chip is switched into sending mode and we are sending a Master Token. If we receive a Slave Token as ACK then we are now the master and the other device is the slave and we can continue with step (4). Otherwise we switch back the radio chip into receive mode and go back to step (1).
Switch the global
game_mode to
gmTennis, which means that from now on
the Tennis game loop will run and that the master / slave state machine will
Ask each user, if he wants to play Tennis for Two, by showing a "?" and let
the user answer the question by turning the paddle. Right means yes and shows
a "!" and left means no and shows a "?". If no: Stop scanning for other
TeleBall devices by setting RadioMode to
rmIgnore and go back to BreakOut.
This functionality is performed in
As soon as a player answers "!", i.e. yes, the state machine takes care,
that the loop executes
tennisWaitForOtherPartyToJoin(), which
does what the name suggests. Additionally, it implements a timeout, so that
after ~9 seconds of no answer, the device goes back to BreakOut mode and
also stops scanning via
If both players accept, the Tennis for Two game is started.
The above mentioned master and slave tokens are technically 32bit numbers that are unique within the TeleBall radio protocol.
Note, that this whole Device Pairing process happens kind of asynchronously,
i.e. the whole operation is not blocking but part of the main
loop() via
radioScanAndDetermineMode() function and part of the
game loop via "Radio Modes" (see below).
This algorithm, as well as the way the current whole TeleBall firmware talks with the radio device is not capable of handling more then two TeleBall devices in radio range; the behaviour would be undefined.
TeleBall is currently hard coded to "channel 76". The nRF24L01+ has a channel width of 1MHz on the 2.4GHz band, i.e. we are sending on 2.476GHz. Due to the fact, that the 2.4 GHz band is pretty congested (WLAN, BlueTooth, microwave ovens, etc.), we should implement some smarter behaviour and also in general there is definitly room for improvement, when it comes to the current shortcomings of TeleBall's radio range as described in Play: We could reduce the transmission speed, increase retries on failed sends, use a better CRC mode and so on. Future versions of TeleBall will/should implement this.
For establishing links between two radios, nRF24L01+ works with so called "pipes".
Pipes have addresses and only, if two pipes are having the same address, the sender
and the recipient can communicate with each other. Also this property is hardcoded;
in TeleBall's current firmware, everybody is sending into and listening to a pipe
TELEB, i.e. having the 5-byte address that corresponds to the ASCII code
The payload size as well as the ACK payload size (see below) is set to 4 bytes
length. In the code, we map this to
unsigned long int values that we send
and receive.
The radio hardware is working fully asynchronously from the Arduino by using a send FIFO buffer (TX FIFO) and a recieve FIFO buffer (RX FIFO). When the connection is established, the FIFOs will be filled in the background and TeleBall's firmware code can check, if for example a new package arrived in the RX FIFO or if there is still something in the RX FIFO which means, that the recepient did not ackknowledge, yet for a multitude of reasons.
The TeleBall implementation of the receive function
is currently always emptying the RX FIFO which means, that messages
from the master can get lost not only due to radio problems but also
due to timing problems. Also, there is no TX FIFO for ACK messages
built into
radioReceive(...), so also messages from the
slave to the master can get lost. This opens room for improving the
communication / radio performance and robustness of TeleBall.
As described above, our radio chip, the nRF24L01+, is not offering a real bidirectional communication mode. But it offers an advanced unidirectional communication called Enhanced Shockburst. The most important feature of it for our purposes is the fact, that the sender gets not only an acknowledge (ACK) from the recipient, that his package was well received, but he also can get payload within the ACK packet.
In our master / slave model, the master is always the sender and the slave always the recipient. In other words: The slave can never directly send something to the master, he can only wait for receiving something and then use the ACK payload to send to the master. So the master always needs to poll for the slave's data and the slave always needs to be listening if a new package from the master arrives.
In normal game operation, we are using two global
32bit (4 byte) unsigned long int
values to implement this:
RadioGameDataFromMaster is sent from the master to the
slave and
RadioGameDataFromSlave is the ACK payload package that is sent from the
slave to the master. Both variables are implemented as bitfields, so that we
can conveniently treat these 32bits / 4 bytes like a struct.
In other operation modes, e.g. during Pairing or during configuration, the nature
of the 4 byte packages changes to "Tokens" (as described above) or to simple
unsigned ints like in Speed Set mode.
The two main functions for implementing our pseudo-bidirectional communication
aka sender pools and recipient answers via ACK payload are:
radioSend(...) and
Both functions are resetting the timeout counter on success, that means that they need to be called very regularly, otherwise the timeout function of the main loop will be activated. Therefore, even when "nothing is happening", master and slave need to communicate with each other. This is why for example in Tennis for Two even the "won or lost smileys" are not leaving the main game loop: Communication is kept alive and therefore the timeout will not happen.
The master / slave mechanism is implemented using a second state machine on
top of the Game Mode state machine: Radio Mode. The basic Radio Mode states
are handled in the main game loop of tennis called
playTennis(). Other
Radio Modes are handled at
adjustSpeed() and at places scattered all
over the code, similarly to the Game Mode.
The following state changes are for the sake of simplicity shown by only using the master as an example. They work the analogical at the slave's side:
[rmNone] => found slave => [rmMaster_init]
[rmMaster_init] => answered: yes => [rmMaster_wait]
[rmMaster_init] => answered: no => [rmIgnore] & game_mode = gmBreakOut
[rmMaster_wait] => other joins => [rmMaster_run]
[rmMaster_wait] => timeout: user => [rmIgnore] & game_mode = gmBreakOut
[rmMaster_run] => b(quickly) => [rmMaster_reset]
[rmMaster_run] => b(1sec) => [rmMaster_speedset_by_Master]
[rmMaster_run] => slave: SpeedSet => [rmMaster_speedset_by_Slave]
[rmMaster_reset] => master: reset => [rmMaster_run]
[<any state>] => timeout: radio => [rmNone] & game_mode = gmBreakOut
[rmMaster_speedset_by_Master] => b(quickly) => [rmMaster_run]
[rmMaster_speedset_by_Master] => b(4sec)
=> [rmMaster_speedset_by_Master] &
game_mode cycles through:
[gmBrightness] => b(quickly) => [gmPaddleLeft]
[gmPaddleRight] => b(quickly) => [gmEEPROM]
[gmEEPROM] => b(quickly) => [gmTennis]
[rmMaster_speedset_by_Slave] => slave: Flag_Leave => [rmMaster_run]
Explanation of state changes:
found slave" indicates a successful step (3) as described above in Device Pairing
answered" condition is related to the "?" / "!" choice.
other joins" means, that while being in the the
tennisWaitForOtherPartyToJoin() function,
the master received a
RadioSlaveWaitA token when querying (polling) for it using
RadioMasterWaitQ token, i.e. that the slave joined the Tennis for Two match.
timeout: user"" means, that the master answered "!" and started waiting
and the slave did not answer at all even after the timeout of ~9 secs, or answered "?".
b(x)" means the red button on the master device was pressed as long as x.
slave: SpeedSet" means slave sendet a speed set request via ACK and the
master acknowledged it [!sic] by setting the flag
master: reset": master has performed a reset and sends a reset command to slave
timeout:radio" means, that the radio connection between the devices broke
down; this is why the new state of the state machine is [rmNone], i.e. the devices
try to connect again, instead of [rmIgnore].
timeout: radio happens.
The master / slave concept implies that both devices are functioning completely differently, as already described above. In short: The master "does / calculates everything" and the slave is just a "dumb display device". This is reflected in different game loops for master and slave.
RadioGameDataFromMaster and recieve
RadioGameDataFromMaster and send
RadioGameDataFromSlave via ACK
The current version 1.3 of the TeleBall firmware shows during the first two seconds of the "question mode" (in Device Pairing), while the "?" displayed statically, if a device is a master or a slave device:
TeleBall's current firmware is only using about half of the program memory of the Arduino Nano. That means there is plenty of room left for software extensions. As an inspiration for you, here are simple games, whose gameplay can be kind of adapted to the 8x8 LED display:
If you want to add more games we suggest, that you do it like described here:
Use the concept of Multi File Sketches to stay
updatable: If you put the main code of your new games to separate files with no file extension,
e.g. you add the file
MyNewGame (no file extension) to the folder
src/TeleBall, then
you are able to use everything from this file inside the main file
TeleBall.ino. Even
though you will need to touch
TeleBall.ino, this way of working minimizes the code
merging in future. You might need to declare function headers (one liners) in each of
the files so that the compiler finds everything.
Add a new mode to the
GameMode enum as shown above and extend the main loop's
switchstatement by a new case, something like
gmMyNewGame. Be mindful, that
no function should "block", so if something takes longer, implement it asynchronously.
Furtheron, add a custom reset routine and add it to the
switch statement in
Last but not least, write some routines that are able to backup and to restore your
game state and call them inside
backupGameState() and
Exending the behaviour of
readUniversalButton() seems to be a good place to add
the entry point for your new game. Alternately or additionally, you can change
game_mode_default to let TeleBall start with your new game instead of with BreakOut.
There is plenty of room left in the EEPROM, too, so it is safe to create new
constants and to extend
eepromWriteSettings() accordingly. We suggest you keep to the convention and
use the suffix
_defaultfor factory default
const variables.


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I've been really strongly encouraging pre-listing inspections this year. It's a trend that I certainly hope will catch on. I really believe that only good can come from it. But let's look a little deeper at this from a homeowner's perspective.
Recently, a smart seller decided to have an inspection before listing their house. (Woo Hoo!) That inspection uncovered about $10,000 worth of damage from a dishwasher that had been leaking into the crawlspace (Oh No!). The repairs required the removal of the kitchen cabinets to replace the subfloor. Then they had to put the kitchen cabinets back in. What a nightmare, right? I was extremely grateful that the seller found this before listing the house so that it could be fixed and not freak a buyer (and seller) out when the buyer's home inspector found it. Typically in situations like that, the buyer usually either wants to walk away or wants repairs so extensive and expensive, it's just not feasible for the seller. And the seller loses all control of how the repairs get done and by whom. Deals fall apart for things like this every year, every month.
But prepping your home for sale is not my point here. This latest experience got me thinking. Maybe there is a place for not just pre-listing inspections, but inspections just because. Inspections to check out, periodically, those places you don't typically go (or want to go) like the crawl or the attic or the roof. That leak under the dishwasher had probably been going on for several years. What if a $350 inspection had caught it 5 years ago? Would a $10,000 repair have become a $2000 repair? So, I'm going to start a new trend. Home inspections just because. Every 3 years. Just because. Because it's smart to protect your huge investment. Because it's smart to be prepared. Because it's smart to be able to plan ahead and be in control of your destiny. And because I said so.


text:
November 17
Please vote for 5thingstodotoday in the category of Blogger of the Year in the Dot London Small Business Awards
5 Things to do Today has been selected as one of the 6 shortlisted finalists for the Dot London Small Business Awards in the category, Blogger of the Year.
Now it is time to vote for us!
We would be very grateful if you could cast your vote by clicking here and following the instructions. It is very simple!


text:
For people who have had little previous experience with the court system, attending a divorce hearing can be a stressful and daunting situation. Emotions already tend to run high between spouses who are in the middle of a divorce, but the prospect of attending a court hearing about a contested issue can be downright frightening. One of the most common questions about attending a court hearing concerns what you should wear to a court hearing.
Some courts have specific dress codes, but more often, it is up to you to determine what you should wear. First, avoid any obviously inappropriate clothing, including bikini tops, halter tops, very short shorts, and jeans that are ripped to shreds. You also should avoid wearing your pajamas and slippers to court, which happens more often that you might suspect. Flip-flops that you normally wear to the beach and excessive make-up, likewise, are probably not the best idea. Finally, wearing t-shirts with inappropriate sayings or curse words is not a good idea.
On the other extreme, there is no need to dress as if you were attending a wedding. Formal gowns and dresses are unnecessary, as are tuxedos and overly high heeled shoes. Dressing for church is often the guideline that lawyers use to advise their clients measure their dress by when attending a court hearing. However, as long as your appearance is generally clean and neat, you probably will be dressed appropriately for court. Clean jeans and a button-down shirt or polo shirt are acceptable for men. Casual business wear and clean jeans and a nice shirt also are acceptable for women attending court hearings.
Pacific Northwest Family Law knows how to handle all of the different issues that Washington divorce cases involve, including issues that require you to attend divorce hearings. We understand how stressful these types of cases can be, which is why we are here to help guide you through your divorce proceedings as simply and efficiently as possible. Contact our offices today to set up an appointment with one of our Washington divorce lawyers and see what we can do to help with your case.


text:
Population PKPD Analysis of CD4 and ACR Response after SC Administration of Tregalizumab to Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis
Mats O. Magnusson (1), Elodie L. Plan (1), Angela Remy (2), Martin König (2), Silke Aigner (2), Veit Braun (2), Daniela Zipp (2), Xuefei Zhou (2), Ralf Wolter (2), Jörg Schüttrumpf (2), Andrea Wartenberg-Demand (2), Benjamin Dälken (2), Faiza Rharbaoui (2)
(1) Pharmetheus, Uppsala, Sweden; (2) Biotest, Dreieich, Germany
Objectives: Tregalizumab (BT-061) is a non-depleting anti-CD4 antibody with antagonist effect on effector T cells and agonist effect on regulatory T cells. Upon completion of the latest phase IIb trial with tregalizumab, Study 986, in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients with an inadequate response to methotrexate, a modeling analysis was performed. The aim was to describe the relationship between tregalizumab exposure, or dose, and the response in modulation of cell surface CD4 expression, as well as in clinical efficacy endpoints (American College of Rheumatology [ACR]).
Methods: This population PKPD analysis was based on data from 4 phase II clinical trials with tregalizumab in RA patients (studies 962, 971, 979 and 986). The PK properties of tregalizumab following single and multiple intravenous (IV) and subcutaneous (SC) administrations were first characterized using data from 4 other phase I and phase II studies in healthy volunteers and psoriasis patients (961, 967, 973 and 985). The final PK model was based on 697 samples from 159 subjects. The PK model was used to derive individual PK profiles for all subjects. The data set used in the population PKPD analysis consisted of 3848 CD4 measurements from 489 subjects, and 3726 ACR measurements from 530 subjects. The analysis was performed using non-linear mixed-effects modeling implemented in NONMEM 7.3.0.
Results: The final CD4 model was a direct effect model, where a maximum effect (Emax) function described the relationship between the tregalizumab dose and the inhibitory effect on CD4. The typical CD4 reduction was estimated to 52% in the 200 mg dose group. The final ACR model was a direct study-specific effect model between tregalizumab dose and the discrete probabilities of transition from a responder Markov state to another amongst: non-responder, ACR20, ACR50 or ACR70. In comparison to placebo effect (methotrexate only) at 12 weeks, the 200 mg dose in study 986 was predicted to lead to an 11% (absolute) reduction in the transitions from ACR20 to non-responder and an increase in the transitions from ACR20 to ACR20, ACR50 and ACR70, of 6%, 5% and 0.5%, respectively.
Conclusions: The tregalizumab dose-CD4 relationship, as well as the tregalizumab dose-ACR relationship, in studies 962, 971, 979, and 986 were well captured by the developed PKPD models. The models predicted that at the highest dose level studied, 200 mg, the maximal effect in CD4 was not reached whilst minor ACR improvements were achieved.


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Fans are widely used in industrial and commercial applications. From shop ventilation to material handling to boiler applications, fans are critical for process support and human health. Fans are also found in many wastewater treatment plants and are essential for the activated sludge treatment process. In the U.S. manufacturing sector, fans consume approximately 79 billion kilowatt-hours per year, representing approximately 15% of the electricity used by motors[1].
In manufacturing, fan reliability is critical to plant operations. As a result, system designers often oversize fans to mitigate uncertainties in production. However, this creates problems that can increase system energy and maintenance costs while decreasing fan reliability.
Energy-efficient operation of industrial fan systems requires attention to the needs of both individual equipment and the entire system. A "systems approach" takes into account how the individual components interact, thereby shifting the focus from individual components to total system performance.
Top Five Energy Efficiency Measures for Fan Systems
- Shut down fans when not needed by manufacturing processes
- Use variable speed control on fan motors instead of modulating dampers or inlet guide vanes for airflow control
- Ensure uniform airflow before fan inlet and after fan outlet to avoid swirls and vortices in the ducts
- Replace standard V-belts with cogged belts
- Operate close to Best Efficiency Point
You can read related TIP SHEETS AND PUBLICATIONS to improve performance and save energy, accumulated over time by the DOE Advanced Manufacturing Office.
Learn more with the FAN SYSTEM INFO CARD, explore additional resources specific to Better Plants partners, and connect with the fans-subject matter expert below.
[1] Improving Fan System Performance: A Sourcebook for Industry. April, 2003.
Learn about innovative, replicable fan system-solutions and best practices implemented by Better Plants Challenge partners.
Spurred by a successful pilot project at its facility in West Virginia, Toyota implemented a comprehensive heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system upgrade at its Georgetown, Kentucky, plant that is expected to result in over $700,000 a year in energy savings or about 2.5% of the plant's total electric spend.
The fan systems sourcebook was developed for the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO). AMO undertook this project as a series of sourcebook publications. Other topics in this series include: compressed air systems, steam, process heating, pumping, and motor and drive systems.
Improving Fan System Performance: A Sourcebook for Industry
Access free software tools to help assess your fan system.
Fan System Assessment Tool (FSAT)
The Fan System Assessment Tool is a free online software tool that helps industrial users quantify energy use and savings opportunities in industrial fan systems. Use FSAT to understand how well your fan systems are operating, determine the economic benefit of system modifications, and establish which options are most economically viable when multiple opportunities exist for system modification.
Pre-In-Plant Training Webinar (Fan Systems)
This pre-In-Plant Training webinar for the Better Plants Program covers the basics of finding energy savings in industrial fan systems.
Subject Matter Expert - Thomas Wenning
Thomas Wenning is a program manager for industrial energy efficiency at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). As a member of ORNL's Energy and Transportation Science Division, he manages ORNL's domestic and international industrial energy efficiency technology assistance and deployment activities. He also supports the DOE's Better Buildings, Better Plants program and the Federal Energy Management Program by providing industrial sites with technical assistance activities, energy assessments and training, and energy management guidance. Tom also manages the student activities for the US DOE's Industrial Assessment Center program. He has led numerous international industrial energy efficiency workshops, trainings, and assessments on behalf of the US DOE. Tom is a registered Professional Engineer, a Certified Practitioner in Energy Management Systems, an SEP-Performance Verifier, and a DOE Qualified Specialist in the areas of steam, pumps, and fans.
You can reach Tom with fan systems-related questions at email@example.com.


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When you take a look at the Jets' schedule, you can make a strong argument that they've played three quality games: Week 2 against New England, Week 3 against Miami and Week 4 against Buffalo. Those games might not have been perfect, but they can be reasonably seen as "New York Jet games," wins in which the Jets played the way they planned to, when Rex Ryan's blueprint worked as he drew it up. (And even those games had Darrelle Revis at less than 100 percent.) Otherwise, the Jets have just been a little off all season, not all parts clicking at once, struggling to make all parts move in unison. And still, the Jets are 7–2, tied with New England and Atlanta for the best record in the NFL.
Yesterday's 26–20 overtime win over the Browns was similar to the win over the Lions the week before, and not just because the game went into overtime on the road. (The Jets became the first team in NFL history to win two consecutive OT games away from home.) The Jets faced a fired-up, insurgent home team, held off all their charges, and finally sneaked out the win late, this one on a streaking Santonio Holmes on a slant route, a touchdown that looked shockingly easy. It avoided the Jets' first tie since October 2, 1988, and kept us from having to type an extra two characters anytime we mentioned the Jets' record the rest of the season.
The second half yesterday was as close to ideal as the Jets have had all season, until Colt McCoy's game-tying final drive in regulation. The defense was a bit woozy in the first half — Peyton Hillis seems beamed here from a planet designed solely to make football color commentators happy — but clamped down in the second, and all told, this game shouldn't have been nearly as close as it was. Kicker Nick Folk had an awful game, missing three field goals, any of which would have kept this one out of overtime. We love the "all right, you're not an asshole" reaction shots of a kicker after his team has bailed him out with a win. Poor kickers.
Mark Sanchez played well, and the receiving corps the Jets surrounded him with in the off-season is starting to pay dividends. The Jets are inching, closer, to the goal all along. Still, there are those Patriots, who went into Pittsburgh and hammered the Steelers last night and are still tied with the Jets atop the AFC East. That Monday-night December 6 game in Foxboro looms larger every week. At the beginning of the year, this two-week road stretch against Detroit and Cleveland looked like a breather. Now, knowing how much both teams (especially Cleveland) have improved, it feels like an exam survived, an impressive pothole avoided. The Jets have two home games against teams under .500 the next two weeks. It's starting to come together. They could use a nice old-fashioned blowout, though. This is getting exhausting.


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Recent Posts
- CLLEAR seminar Friday 6th October: Prof Tania Ionin 26/09/2017
- TNS Workshop 6th July 19/06/2017
- CLLEAR Thurs 25th May @ 4pm: Prof Jennifer Smith and Dr Sophie Holmes-Elliot 22/05/2017
- CLLEAR Seminar Wednesday 17th May: Prof Alessandro Benati 11/05/2017
- CLLEAR Seminar Friday 5th May: Dr Neal Snape 27/04/2017
Tag Archives: culture
Explore and experience Portuguese food cultures
Foodways of Knowing: Culture and Identity in the Portuguese Diaspora Join us on Monday 6th March at 5pm in Avenue 65/1163 for an evening of exploring and experiencing Portuguese food cultures, with Dr Rhian Atkin, Senior Lecturer in Portuguese and Lusophone Studies at Cardiff University and Principal Investigator of Calouste Gulbenkian-funded research project 'Pão e […]
Posted in Events, News, Uncategorized
Wine and Tea Study Day 11th March 2017
We are what we drink: Understanding drinking cultures from the perspective of French Wine and Chinese Tea 11 March 2017, 10:00 – 16:15, Avenue Campus We are what we drink! What does tea tell us about the Chinese or Burgundy about the French? What does drinking means to the people who consume or, equally tellingly, refuse to […]
Posted in Events, News, Uncategorized
New research story available: Mapping knowledge in culture and science by Mary Orr
Mapping knowledge in culture and science Research story by Mary Orr Mapping – cartographical, cultural, linguistic, scientific – has been central to development of European networks of knowledge and exchanges with other cultures, but saw a period of particularly important development in the early nineteenth century. Bitter military rivalries such as the Napoleonic Wars are […]
Posted in Research stories


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SO Percussion
Since 1999, So Percussion has been creating music that explores all the extremes of emotion and musical possibility. Called an "experimental powerhouse" by the Village Voice, "astonishing and entrancing" by Billboard Magazine, and "brilliant" by the New York Times, the Brooklyn-based quartet's innovative work with today's most exciting composers and their own original music has quickly helped them forge a unique and diverse career.
Excitement about composers like John Cage, Steve Reich, and Iannis Xenakis – as well as the sheer fun of playing together – inspired the members of So to begin performing together while students at the Yale School of Music. A blind call to David Lang, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and co-founder of New York's Bang on a Can, yielded their first commissioned piece, the so-called laws of nature. So's recording of the so-called laws of nature became the cornerstone of their self-titled debut album on Cantaloupe Music (the record label from the founders of Bang on a Can). In subsequent years, this relationship would blossom into a growing catalogue of exciting releases: Steve Reich's masterpiece Drumming; So member Jason Treuting's amid the noise; Treasure State, a collaboration with the electronic duo Matmos; and Paul Lansky's Threads.
So's ongoing body of original work has resulted in exciting new projects such as the site-specific Music For Trains in Southern Vermont and Imaginary City, a fully-staged sonic meditation on urban soundscapes commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the Next Wave Festival 2009 in consortium with 5 other venues. So's next theatrical project where (we) live is slated to premiere in Fall of 2012.
So Percussion is increasingly involved in mentoring young artists. Starting in the fall of 2011, its members will be Co-Directors of a new percussion department at the Bard College-Conservatory of Music. This top-flight undergraduate program enrolls each student in a double-degree (Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Arts) course in the Conservatory and Bard College, and exposes them to both traditional western conservatory training and a variety of world traditions. The summer of 2009 saw the creation of the annual So Percussion Summer Institute on the campus of Princeton University. The Institute is an intensive two-week chamber music seminar for college-age percussionists featuring the four members of So as faculty in rehearsal, performance, and discussion of contemporary music for students from around the world.
So Percussion has performed their unusual and exciting music all over the United States, with concerts at the Lincoln Center Festival, Carnegie Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Stanford Lively Arts, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and many others. In addition, recent tours to the United Kingdom, Russia, Australia, Italy, Germany, Spain, and the Ukraine have brought them international acclaim.
With an audience comprised of "both kinds of blue hair… elderly matron here, arty punk there" (as the Boston Globe described it), So Percussion makes a rare and wonderful breed of music that both compels instantly and offers rewards for engaged listening.
So would like to thank Pearl/Adams Instruments, Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth drumsticks, Remo drumheads, Black Swamp Accessories, and Estey organs for their sponsorship.


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5 Comics You Should Be Reading For Halloween!
It's October again and you know what that means... Halloween is fast approaching! Between making your costumes, watching scary movies, and decorating your houses, don't forget to read some comics to keep up the Halloween Spirit. Here are 5 comics you should be reading for Halloween this year!
Written by Joshua Williamson with Art by Mike Henderson
Why exactly has the town of Buckaroo, Oregon been the birthplace of so many of the most notorious serial killers in American history? The question runs deeper as a government agent must team up with the Buckaroo resident and most recent notorious serial killer The Nailbiter! What seems like a play on The Silence of the Lambs is at its core a sly satire on that and the romanticism America has on the macabre inner workings of the criminally deranged. The book is filled with some shocking moments and tells one heck a story that is part noir, part thriller, part horror, and all terrific.


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The Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who was called Julius II (1503-1513) when he became Pope, built this castle between 1483 and 1486 to protect the last bend of the river Tiber. This site had an important role for the control of the customs traffic along the river and for the salt pans that were in control of the Roman Curia.
The castle is one of the first example of military Renaissance architecture and the works were made by an architect form Florence called Baccio Pontelli. He used a lot of material coming from the excavations of Ostia Antica. It was chosen a particular plant with a triangular shape because of the conformation of the ground and the river Tiber, but also because it was important to preserve a pre existing tower which was built there by the Pope Martino V (1471 – 1431) to defend the area.
All the architectonic complex has a system of "casemate" (rooms for soldiers where they could shoot and where it is still visible a small bathroom). This links the main tower to other two towers, a small river and a big moat all round. All the entrances had drawbridges and the one on the small river still has a rolling shutter.
During the age of the reign of Julius II, the castle was used not only for defending but also as a residence on the west side of the building, on the court yard; it was also added a big stairs, with three flights, on which sides and ceiling it is still possible to see frescos of Baldassarre Peruzzi.


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A TWO-day programme designed to help business owners maximise profits by sharing the skills and knowledge of their peers starts in Glasgow next month.
The Time4Marketing™ programme, based on a new concept of 'collaborative marketing,' encourages businesses to talk to each other about their ideas and best practice to enhance profitability and to create a strategy for success.
MEDIA RELEASE posted by Mike Ritchie Media. You too can post media releases (aka press releases) on allmediascotland.com. For more information, email here.
Contact: Mike Ritchie
Phone: 0141 423 6939 / 07974 420862
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Website: http://www.mikeritchiemedia.co.uk


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What is said or happens during a meeting is confidential.
You do not have to speak.
Sometimes just making it to a meeting is enough.
Give TCF meetings at least three trys before deciding if TCF is or isn't for you.
Chapter meetings are usually run as follows:
Meetings start at 7:00 P.M.
Come early if you are newly bereaved so that we can meet each other.
- An introduction and greeting by the chapter leader.
- The chapter leader acknowledges any "Newcomers" to the circle.
- Chapter and national business and announcements.
- Introductory circle. Each member states their name, their child's name followed by a brief statement of the circumstances of the child's death.
- A short break for bathrooms, refreshments, and taking a deep breath.
- Sharing circles. Depending upon the circumstances and the number of attendees, the meeting will break into two or more sharing circles of 10-12 members each. Four or more "newcomers" warrants a sharing circle specific to "newcomers and "second timers", which the chapter leader facilitates.
- The sharing circle is where you may share the issues and concerns that you have about your child's death. It is also the time where you will get a nugget of information that may help you in your grief journey.
- At about 8:45 the meeting will be completed. Each chapter differs, but some will form a circle of silence and remembrance.
- Cleanup. Please assist in leaving the meeting room and outside areas as clean as possible.


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It's fascinating how it the Villagers can't get rid of the ZOMGTHEDEFICITWILLEATUS frame. It's all they know, even though it's wrong and they're stupid.
Villagers think the deficit will kill us all. Right now, if Congress does absolutely nothing, a deficit reduction plan that is current law will be enacted. This fiscal cliff will also kill us all, because deficit.


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Therapeutic Massage is essential to your health and wellness. Escape to our office or let us bring the relaxation to you.
111 England St., Ashland, VA 23005 | Phone: 804-357-2117
Copyright © 2023 · Designed by Creative Visual Design · Log in
Photography by: Ed Ip Photography and iStock Photo


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South Asia Partnership Canada and Operation Eyesight Universal
Cordially invite you to
A multimedia presentation on
Signs of Change in the Slums of Mumbai
By Dr. Gopa Kothari
Day: Wednesday, 18 June, 2003
Time: 12.00 to 2.00 P.M.
Place: CCIC Board Room (Third Floor), 1 Nicholas Street, Ottawa
Dr. Kothari is a senior member of the Mumbai medical community. Dr. Kothari has spent more than 20 years in the service of some of the world's most vulnerable people.
Her story is a dramatic example of international cooperation, community development and street-level initiative.
A pediatrician who specializes in community health, Dr. Kothari has a close relationship with Operation Eyesight, which supports her work. Through the encouragement of clean communities and proper nutrition, blindness has been averted in thousands of people, especially children. As well, her work involves education and training for micro enterprises. This has had the effect of fundamentally changing the lives of women in the slums, and their status in their own society.
Run largely by female staff and volunteers, the Child Eye Care Charitable Trust provides for the eye health of children and training for nurses, while contributing to education, nutrition, sanitation and literacy needs. These efforts are having a dramatic effect on local living conditions. Merchants in the area are encouraged to stock Vitamin A rich foods like green vegetables, which are crucial in the prevention of blindness. Young mothers can now read food labels, and small business projects have allowed them to earn money to buy the things their families need. Residents are taught to grow their own vegetables in large tin cans and plastic buckets. This improves the local environment and, in turn, the health of the community improves.
The program is truly sustainable – once Dr. Kothari has a local team in place to maintain the effort, she and her organizers move on to introduce the program in a neighboring area. There is a clear, measurable difference in the health, sanitation and prosperity of the areas where the project operates.
Among her credentials, Dr. Kothari has lectured at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, and was a senior physician at one of Mumbai's major hospitals. She has turned down many professional opportunities to focus instead on improving the lives of the desperately poor, especially women and children.
For more information and other speaking dates, see Dr. Kothari's Canadian tour web page http://www.operationeyesight.ca/what_events.html#story2 .
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The Northern Contaminants Program aims to reduce and where possible eliminate long-range contaminants from the Arctic Environment while providing Northerners with the information they need to make informed dietary choices, particularly concerning traditional/country food. To achieve these objectives the NCP conducts research and monitoring related to contaminants in the Arctic environment and people. Monitoring efforts focus on regular (annual) assessment of contaminant levels in a range of media, including air, biota and humans. Environmental research is conducted into the pathways, processes and effects of contaminants on Arctic ecosystems while human health research focuses on assessing contaminant exposure, toxicity research, epidemiological (cohort) studies, and risk-benefit assessment and communications. Main gaps: Contaminant measurements in Arctic seawater, toxicity data specific to Arctic species. Network type: - Thematical observations: Contaminants levels and relevant ancilliary parameters - Field stations: Atmospheric observing stations at Alert, Nunavut and Little Fox Lake, Yukon. - Community based observations: Numerous communities throughout the Canadian Arctic participate in sample collection - Coordination: National coordination of the program provided by the NCP secretariat, which also acts as liaison with AMAP.
Sarah Kalhok
Concentrations of inorganic elements (focus on mercury) and organic pollutants in air, biota (lake trout, burbot, charr, thick billed murres, northern fulmars, caribou, ringed seals, beluga whales, narwhal, walrus), and humans (blood). Numerous other measurements are made in and related to air, including basic meteorological variables and concentrations of particulate and halogen species. Basic morphometric measurements are made on biota along with determination of age, lipid content sampled tissues, and concentrations of stable isotopes of nitrogen and carbon. Numerous human health endpoints are measured along with the assessment of contaminant concentrations in human blood.
National coordination of the program provided by the NCP secretariat, which also acts as liaison with AMAP. Networks: Stockholm Convention Global Monitoring Plan (Stockholm Convention Global Monitoring Plan), Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW), Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP)
Numerous communities throughout the Canadian Arctic participate in sample collection


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Ep. 66: MOVE PEOPLE with Leadership
John Graham was born to lead and his career, from the Navy to the high tech world, is proof of leadership's powerRead more
Ep. 59: MOVE PEOPLE with Technology
Austin may be a tech-hub, but Barbary Brunner is working to make it significant.Read more
Ep. 44: MOVE PEOPLE with Values
Hearing him talk, it's easy to understand why SailPoint CEO Mark McClain's employees like him so much.Read more
Ep. 28: Move People to Authenticity
Tim Hayden wants you to connect betterRead more
Ep. 10: Move People Across Cultures
A conversation with tech executive Larry SmithRead more
Ep. 3: Move People with a Pinch Gesture
A conversation with Ute Baldwin, Founder of PlumRead more


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Name: DayCor Soldier Minilights
These DayCor Soldiers are full color printed. The Soldier stands 47″ tall. There are 3 versions of the Soldier. You can get it for bullets or with no holes at all. Or you can get it for minilights if you just want to add white lights (check it out under LED Minilight section)
- Works with minilights
- 47″x16″
- Total 100 count
- Super fast and easy installation
- Available in full color printed
- 100% American Made from Material, Design, and Fabrication


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Brilliant Answers to the Most Common Job Interview Questions
Congratulations! You've been invited to interview for the position you really, really want. Now all you have to do is make a great impression on the hiring manager. Here's how to come up with brilliant answers to three of the most common job interview questions.
Why do you want to leave your current job?
The key here is to be honest—while always remaining positive about your current employer and colleagues. Emphasize that you enjoy your work and have accomplished a lot with your current company. Then frame the reason you're looking to leave.
For example, as The Balance Careers advises, if you want to advance into management, you could state something like, "I've been successfully leading projects for the past two years, and I believe I'm ready to move into a management position. However, my employer already has very talented managers in place who aren't looking to leave."
Or if you're no longer interested in the projects your company's working on, you could say, "When I started with this employer, my interests were very much aligned with their product. However, over the past year, I've learned more about this new technology that you're working with and I'd love the opportunity to focus my energy here."
What interests you about this role?
To answer this question properly, you need to have done your homework about the job you're applying for and the company you're applying with. Research what you'll be doing in the job and how your work would tie into the company's mission.
Let's say you're applying for a role as a marketing manager for a startup. A good answer would be, "I'm excited about the opportunity to lead a small group of talented people and create an effective go-to-market strategy that truly shows how unique your product is. It's uncharted territory, and I'm up for the challenge."
Why should we hire you?
Here, it's important to show your passion by demonstrating that you go above and beyond what's expected of you. It's also advisable to emphasize the fact that you have high standards when it comes to your own performance and enjoy working with a team of like-minded individuals.
For instance, using the example above, you could say, "I've completed additional courses on my own time, and as a result, I now have a good grasp of both content marketing and paid search. You can see on my résumé how my knowledge helped my current company increase sales by 20 percent over one quarter. You see, I set the bar high for myself, and I enjoy working with others who are equally aspirational."
Prepare properly for the job interview
Before your job interview, take some time to review your achievements and how they helped your past and current employers. In addition, determine how you could best put your talents to use in the position you're applying for. If you prepare in this manner, you stand a good chance of acing the interview and getting the job.
Our strong, long-term connections—with the most admired companies—mean a new world of possibilities for your career. Find your new job today!
Search thousands of contract, contract-to-hire, and full-time positions.
Receive monthly career tips.


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Lisa Ann Walter
Lisa Ann Walter is a classically trained actress as well as a singer and comedian. She initially made a name for herself as a popular act on the comedy circuit, then became the star and creator of the ABC series, LIFE'S WORK, which took a comic look at the life of a frantically busy lawyer doing the '90s plate-spinning act of juggling job and family. She also received acclaim for her performance in the Fox Network comedy, MY WILDEST DREAMS. Recently she starred opposite Emeril Lagasse on EMERIL and on the critically acclaimed drama BREAKING NEWS on Bravo. On the feature side, Walter was seen in co-starring in BRUCE ALMIGHTY with Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman and in THE PARENT TRAP as the nanny to Dennis Quaid's daughter. Prior to that, Walter played Whoopi Goldberg's sidekick in the comedy EDDIE.
Note: This profile was written in or before 2005.
Read earlier biographies on this page.
Read earlier biographies on this page.
Lisa Ann Walter Facts
|August 3, 1963 (60)
|Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
|5' 4" (1m63) How tall is Lisa Ann Walter compared to you?
Selected Filmography
|Drillbit Taylor
|The Parent Trap: Special Double Trouble Edition
|War of The Worlds
|Bruce Almighty
|Stuck On You
|Shining Through
|Shall We Dance?
|Man on the Moon


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Bill Ward III is steering his Airstream rental business into a new direction.
Where he once rented the aluminum-clad campers to families and music festival attendees, he's now going corporate with Living Airstream.
Ward has been buying up vintage Airstream shells from the '50s, '60s and '70s for cheap – between $5,000 and $7,000 – and repurposing them as event venues instead of campers.
"We're putting more of a focus on the corporate event type of rentals because corporations have extra money they can put towards these events," Ward said. "Some of these corporations can sustain rentals for months and months."
That's some significant income, Ward said, considering it costs up to $3,600 per month to rent one of the Airstreams; day-trippers pay closer to $220 a day.
"Even though we did do that before, this year we're actually creating specific Airstreams that are made for these events, whereas last year we just used normal models," Ward said.
Renovation can cost between $15,000 and $20,000 depending on the model, Ward said. The trailers are between 28 and 31 feet long, and vary in size between 200 and 230 square feet.
Ward estimates that renting to businesses currently makes up about 15 percent of the company's income.
Ward got the idea when he began renting Airstreams to commercial real estate developers in 2012. The developers would use the Airstreams as swanky on-site sale centers.
But Ward isn't taking his eye off of the nostalgic customer.
"We do Coachella, Burning Man – anything you can think of," he said. "We have half a dozen trailers booked for going up to Red Rocks this summer."
Every one of Living Airstream's available trailers will be making the trek to Nevada's Black Rock Desert for Burning Man at the end of August. And there are 25 more people on the wait list.
The majority of Ward's private clients – about 90 percent – hear about him online. The rest comes through word of mouth, he said.
Living Airstream owns 20 trailers now and hopes to be up to 25 by the end of August. The company is based out of Denver, but maintains locations in Los Angeles and Scottsdale. The company made $275,000 in revenue last year, up from $122,000 in 2013, Ward said.
Ward also owns a credit card processing company, a market research consulting firm, and buys and sells real estate in addition to being the sole owner of Living Airstream.
He said he got into the rental business by accident.
"It was literally a mistake. I bought my first one five years ago. I was with my family on the East Coast and I walked out the door and my dad asked where I was going – I said I was buying an Airstream. He asked to go in half with me," Ward said. "I was driving to look at it, and a buddy from Denver asked what I was doing. I told him I was buying an Airstream, and he asked if he could go in on it with me, as well."
Ward said he started working on a website to rent the first Airstream out for tailgating. At the end of 2010, he'd finished the website and started getting calls from people who wanted to use it for travel.
"I did something right and it just clicked," he said. "Next thing I know, I'm getting calls from magazines to do stories, and all of a sudden people started finding me and it just blew up."


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Meet The Chalo. "Chalo" means "Let's Go" in Hindi — need we say more?
This versatile piece can be worn over the hair as a headdress or as a classic headband. It may also work as a choker (the fit will vary from neck to neck). We made only 3 pieces in this color (Red Blackened), each with a different stone.
The Chalo is 100% hand-knotted in Rajasthan, India. Made with hand-dyed, waxed nylon string. Closure is adjustable. Free size.
reign_wala artisans are treated like true business partners and receive a portion of profits when goods are sold.