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By the time the free agent market opened Tuesday at noon, it was a fait accompli for Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli that Jarome Iginla was as gone as the winter snow.
By the time the free agent market opened Tuesday at noon, it was a fait accompli for Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli that Jarome Iginla was as gone as the winter snow.
Chiarelli spoke with agent Don Meehan on Monday night and again Tuesday morning, but the sides were being pulled in opposite directions by the business of the hockey world. The Bruins were hamstrung by the salary cap and couldn't offer more than a one-year deal; Iginla wanted the security of a long-term contract as he plays out the back nine of his career.
As a team source noted Tuesday afternoon, shortly before Iginla's new three-year contract with the Avalanche was announced, the Bruins knew "long ago" that the ship had sailed on bringing the 560-goal scorer back for a second season.
Iginla's new contract is for three years and $16 million, and includes a no-movement clause. They are numbers the Bruins could have matched only by moving out at least one body, a salary purge Chiarelli was not willing to undertake.
"I really wanted to try and keep most of this group together, and I wouldn't have been able to do that to sign Jarome," the GM said. "Those are hard decisions that sometimes you have when you are cap challenged, but I kind of like where we are."
Chiarelli had his eye not just on this summer, with entry-level free agents Torey Krug and Reilly Smith still in need of contracts for this season, but next summer, when the Bruins will have to break the bank to retain some of their stars. Johnny Boychuk, David Krejci and Carl Soderberg are unrestricted free agents, Dougie Hamilton a restricted free agent. In 2016, Milan Lucic is a UFA. All are significantly younger than Iginla and deemed to be bigger pieces of the Black-and-Gold puzzle.
"These are good players, so I have to be cognizant of that," Chiarelli said. "So that is one of the reasons why we didn't do it and I decided not to make those moves."
There are two options to replace Iginla. One is on the trade market. Chiarelli noted that with David Warsofsky ready to make the jump to the NHL, the Bruins are now carrying nine capable defensemen and will need to shed themselves of at least one. The Bruins have their rods in the water on "a couple" deals, but may wait until preseason to sort out which blue liner is the odd man out.
The more likely route to filling Iginla's shifts is bumping Loui Eriksson up from the third line to play alongside Milan Lucic and David Lucic.
With Lucic and Krejci, Iginla was adding ketchup to an already potent burger. He and Lucic formed a powerful duo up front intimidating defensemen on the forecheck and loosening pucks up along the boards with their caveman strength. Iginla scored 30 goals playing in straight lines off Krejci's puck-handling and patient delivery.
Eriksson puts mustard on the patty — a complement, but of a different style. Where Iginla is known for the one-timer, Eriksson is a sweet disher. Eriksson is better in front of the net, but won't win as many puck battles. The Swede prefers to move laterally and around the ice.
The Bruins got a taste of a Lucic-Krejci-Eriksson line late in the season. With Iginla resting minor injuries down the stretch, Eriksson played three games with Lucic and Krejci. In a Saturday matinee against the Flyers, Eriksson had four assists.
"It's a different look [with Eriksson], but he's a very smart player," Chiarelli said. "He's a great two-way player. He plays a very smart game. I saw him play with the Sedins [for Sweden at the Olympics] — he can play at that level. … If you watch how Loui plays, he plays a real give-and-go game, and he's very smart, passes to areas. He's very compatible with [Krejci]."
The trickle-down effect is the loss of the devastating third-line combination of Carl Soderberg and Eriksson, the core of the Bruins' best line in the postseason. Soderberg and Eriksson chewed up and spat out Detroit and Montreal's third defensive pairs. The two Swedes had natural chemistry.
A Providence potpourri of prospects will get a look in training camp at filling in alongside Soderberg, a group including Matt Fraser, Justin Florek, Ryan Spooner and Alexander Khokhlachev. Daniel Paille could also move up to the third line. Chris Kelly, Spooner and Khokhlachev, all natural centers, may see ice time on the wing.
"There's a lot of ways you can look at it," Chiarelli said. "I see four or five guys that are going to vie for two spots, as of right now, and I'm kind of excited about it."
Iginla wasn't the only player who officially became an ex-Bruin on Tuesday. Shawn Thornton signed with the Panthers for two years and $2.4 million. Andrej Meszaros got one year and $4.25 million from the Sabres. Chad Johnson moved to the Islanders for two years at $2.2 million.
Iginla was the big fish though. Not that Chiarelli seemed too worried about it.
"We had a Hall of Famer in [Jaromir] Jagr," the GM mused. "A few years before, we had a Hall of Fame player in [Mark] Recchi, or will be. … We usually manage to rebound."
Dan Cagen can be reached at 508-626-3848 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanCagen.


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Wofford fullback Eric Breitenstein repeated as Offensive Player of the Year for Southern Conference football Tuesday.
Breitenstein, picked for the honor in voting by both the league�s coaches and media members, became the fourth player in conference history to earn the honor in back-to-back seasons.
And that meant he denied Elon University receiver Aaron Mellette again.
Mellette, a senior who delivered another prolific season of production, finished as the runner-up to Breitenstein, a senior, in the coaches� voting for the second time in as many years.
Breitenstein rushed for 1,653 yards and 16 touchdowns to rank first in the league and third in the Football Championship Subdivision in those categories. In September, he piled up a Southern Conference single-game record by running for 321 yards in a rout of Elon.
After a first-round bye this weekend, Wofford (8-3 overall, 6-2 league) continues its season Dec. 1 against New Hampshire in the FCS playoffs.
Elon (3-8, 1-7) ended its season last week. Mellette remained a bright spot, leading the league and ranking second in the FCS with 97 catches and 1,398 receiving yards. He hauled in 18 touchdown receptions, one shy of the Southern Conference single-season record held by Randy Moss.
Mellette was the Phoenix�s only first-team all-conference selection.
Elon quarterback Thomas Wilson (by the coaches and media), offensive lineman Justin Ward (by the coaches), linebacker Jonathan Spain (by the media) and kicker Adam Shreiner (by the media) were second-team picks.
Wilson, a senior, led the league with 3,149 passing yards and 25 touchdowns. He completed more than 65 percent of his passes and reduced his interceptions to 10 this season after being picked off 23 times last year.
Ward, a senior, started all of Elon�s 11 games. Spain, a sophomore, collected 120 tackles, the second-best total in the conference.
Shreiner, a senior, led the league with 16 field goals and an accuracy rate of 72.7 percent. He went 27-for-27 on point-after kicks.
Elon running back Tracey Coppedge landed a spot on the all-freshman offense, a team picked by the coaches.
Among the Southern Conference�s other headlining award winners, the media picked Chattanooga defensive end Davis Tull as Defensive Player of the Year, Appalachian State receiver Sean Price as Freshman of the Year and The Citadel�s Kevin Higgins as Coach of the Year.
Tull, a sophomore, registered 12.5 sacks and 18.5 tackles for lost yardage, essentially lapping the field in those categories.
Price, who has played in nine of Appalachian State�s 11 games, led all freshmen in the FCS with 68 catches, 1,029 yards and eight touchdowns. The Mountaineers (8-3, 6-2) play host to Illinois State on Dec. 1 in the FCS playoffs.
Higgins picked up his first league Coach of the Year honor after guiding Citadel (7-4, 5-3) to its most conference victories since 1992. Along the way, the Bulldogs pulled off shocking upsets of Georgia Southern and Appalachian State on consecutive weekends, and climbed as high as No. 10 in the FCS polls.
In the coaches� all-league voting, Tull and Appalachian State linebacker Jeremy Kimbrough shared the Defensive Player of the Year award. Kimbrough, a senior, led the league with 128 tackles. He�s the 10th Appalachian State defender to earn a piece of that honor since its introduction in 1989.
The Southern Conference coaches chose Higgins and Samford�s Pat Sullivan as co-winners of the Coach of the Year award. That also marked Sullivan�s first league Coach of the Year honor. He steered Samford (7-4, 5-3) to its best record since joining the conference in 2008. Samford moved into the FCS national rankings for the first time since 1995 after four straight victories to open the season.

subset: commoncrawl


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We are now moving into a target region that I provided over a year ago when we were trading within the 1250-1300 region. While I was not positioned long in the S&P 500 for the move this week, I have said before that I am willing to sit out this rally, unless a low-risk entry developed, as the downside now seems to be of greater risk than missing some of the upside. However, I do not see the top as being in place just yet, and it may take several more weeks until this wave is completed.
With the move up we saw this past week, it made it clear that the last pullback was a more shallow corrective wave than I wanted to see in order to enter a safer long in this market. But as I have been saying in our trading room over the last week, the drop on April 23 has given me issues with how to appropriately count this last structure, and has made me much more uneasy about trading the upside.
As many of you know, I get much more conservative when I do not have a count upon which I can confidently rely, especially if that is within a 5th wave, and would rather sit out a market move in that case. While that may anger some, I would rather remain in cash and miss a final move than be positioned wrong and lose money, especially since there is always another bus coming if we miss the current one. In fact, there are many traders that only wait for a larger degree 3rd wave to trade, and sit out a 5th wave entirely.
So, for now, we have moved into the target zone we set well over a year ago for a potentially meaningful top in the market. And, as I said in a market update this past week, when we do these wave counts, we want to see the technicals match up to the counts to confirm our larger degree wave counts. We know that the heart of the 3rd wave usually shows us the strongest technicals, and we can see that the heart of wave iii of (3) of 3 exhibited the highest RSI point on the daily chart. It followed with the top of wave iii providing negative divergences, and the top of wave v of 3 providing even further divergences, with the peak of the RSI in that section being the 3rd wave of wave v of 3.
As we are now coming up into our long-term target box for the SPX, we can clearly see the negative divergences that have developed in the RSI, which is what we see in 5th waves. Furthermore, when you see the VIX positively diverging, as we now do, that is another sign of a 5th wave.
As for the 5th wave count, again, as I have mentioned before, the April 23 spike has caused me some problems with the count, but it seems that the wave iii of (3) was not very large, as we currently have it counted. Since we usually see wave iii of (3) provide a significant extension, when it does not, it usually means that wave v of (3) will be the larger extension, which will display the stronger technicals.
This is why I am counting this current rally as wave v of (3), which has not yet completed. In fact, the ideal target for this wave (3) would be the 1622-1627 region. But I will need more confirmation over the next week to make certain that the technicals will confirm this count, and then we can start looking for further smaller degree confluence for the significant top we would expect up in this region.
As for larger degree confluence, note that wave 1 of this current structure, which began last November, was approximately 100 points. And since this 5th wave began around 1535 in the cash index, a Fibonacci 1:1 relationship between waves 1 and 5 would provide a top in the 1635 region.
But before I call that as a top, I need to see how the structure and technicals develop over the next week. Of course, we can still see extensions take us up to the higher Fibonacci extension around 1672, which would be where the 5th wave would be equal to 1.382 times the size of wave 1, but, again, I need to see how the structure develops over the next week to have more confidence in a topping confluence point based upon multiple wave degrees. For now, 1594ES and 1575ES are the primary support levels for the current rally phase.
As many of you also know, I do not trade a market based upon correlations. But there is something that I am seeing when reviewing many different markets that is worth noting, so I want to take a moment to address the focus that many have on the emerging-markets move off the bottom, as well as the strong rally we see in Japan. When I look at both the iShares Inc. MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund EEM, -1.41% and iShares MSCI Japan Index Fund EWJ, -1.14% charts, the one thing that I see them having in common with the S&P500 is that they are all looking to be topping soon, but in different degrees of waves.
Whereas the EEM seems to be completing a wave i of a c-wave off its recent lows, the EWJ seems to be completing a wave 3, along with the S&P 500. The important information that I glean from these charts, when viewed from an overall perspective, is that each of these charts will be looking for a pullback in the not too distant future — the S&P 500 and EWJ a wave 4, and the EEM a wave ii. This would then set them all up for three more waves higher to complete their much larger patterns into the spring of 2014; EWJ needs waves 5 of (3), (4) and (5), EEM needs waves iii, iv and v, and the S&P 500 needs waves a-b-c for wave 5 of its large Ending Diagonal.
All of this is not even mentioning the fact that Apple AAPL, -3.20% may be resurrecting as a potential "market leader" once again, as we are also now tracking AAPL for a top in a wave 1 off its lows. This would also leave AAPL needing 3 more waves for completion — waves 3, 4 and 5.
So, while I am looking for a larger degree pullback potentially starting later in May, or even as late as June, I still see the potential for all worldwide markets to see much higher levels, with the EEM potentially setting up the more technically powerful move coming up into later this year, which makes it a prime candidate for a buying opportunity on its wave ii retracement.
See charts illustrating wave counts for the Emini S&P 500, INX, EEM & EWJ.


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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 1, 2012
CONTACT: Kent Love, 517-432-6959, email@example.com
MSU Law Clinic Sues to Ease State Prison Restrictions on Lawyer Visits
East Lansing, MI — Michigan State University College of Law Professor Daniel Manville is seeking to remove barriers to confidential meetings between attorneys and inmates in a lawsuit filed this week against the Michigan Department of Corrections.
Manville, who directs the Law College's Civil Rights Clinic, filed the class action lawsuit in response to MDOC restrictions on attorneys' visiting hours and their ability to have private meetings with inmates.
In June 2011, MDOC ended its long-standing practice of allowing lawyer visits from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. Lawyers now must meet with inmates during standard visiting hours. Most prisons allow visits from either 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. or from 2:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.; visits are not allowed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Limited exceptions are allowed for "extenuating circumstances," with prior approval.
According to Manville, the new restrictions create an unreasonable hardship for attorneys. "In the past, an attorney from Detroit could leave at 8 a.m. and meet with different clients at three or four prisons by the end of the day," he says. "Under the new rules, it now takes two or three days for an attorney to accomplish what previously could be done in one."
The lawsuit also alleges that prison officials are interfering with lawyers' ability to speak confidentially with clients and witnesses by denying access to private meeting rooms. "This is an extremely important issue," Manville says. "Prisons now are telling attorneys that they must sit in the regular visiting room, surrounded by other inmates, prison staff, and visitors who can overhear your conversations."
The case, Civil Rights Clinic v. Washington, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Monday, May 28, 2012.
The Civil Rights Law Clinic at MSU College of Law represents civil rights litigants in federal court, with a focus on assisting those who are incarcerated in Michigan prisons. The clinic is one of several practice areas within the MSU College of Law Legal Clinic—a high-energy, small law firm environment in which students apply their knowledge of the substantive law to real-life situations under the guidance and supervision of licensed attorneys. The growing roster of Legal Clinic practice areas also includes Chance at Childhood, First Amendment Law, Housing Law, Immigration Law, Plea and Sentencing, Small Business and Nonprofit Law, and Tax Law. Student clinicians provide an important service for the betterment of the community while discovering their niche in the field of law.
Michigan State University College of Law, a leading institution of legal education with a long history of educating practice-ready attorneys, prepares future lawyers to use ethics, ambition, and intellect to solve the world's problems. As one of only a few private law schools affiliated with a major research university, MSU Law offers comprehensive interdisciplinary opportunities combined with a personalized legal education. After 100 years as a private and independent institution, the affiliation with MSU has put the Law College on an upward trajectory of national and international reputation and reach. MSU Law professors are gifted teachers and distinguished scholars, its curriculum is rigorous and challenging, and its facility is equipped with the latest resources—all affirming MSU Law's commitment to educating 21st-century lawyers.
Law College Building
648 N. Shaw Lane, Room 320
East Lansing, MI 48824


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Edited by Charles W. Eliot, L.L.D
Ben Franklin was many things, but perhaps more than anything else he was a politician, and there is no more reason to expect an unbiased autobiography from Franklin than from any other politician. In a 1961 introduction, L. Jesse Lemisch wrote, "Franklin of the Memoirs and of Poor Richard is by no means the whole man. This Franklin is a persona, a conscious literary creation presented for our emulation."
But if you can't find the unvarnished truth here, you can certainly find Franklin. It is Franklin's voice that makes the book worth reading, and his descriptions of the world he knew are not to be missed. The EServer edition is in eight parts...
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8
A Note on the text: The EServer edition of Franklin's autobiography originated with the Gutenberg Project text, from an edition originally edited by Charles W. Eliot, L.L.D., and published by P.F. Collier & Son Company, New York in 1909.
Charles W. Eliot was the president of Harvard University for forty years, and editor of the fifty volume Harvard Classics, a collection that educator William Allan Neilson called "a reading course unparalleled in comprehensiveness and authority." Franklin's autobiography was the first work in the first volume of this set; it served to illustrate Eliot's ideal of the self-educated citizen.
Changes for this edition include the use of HTML format, the addition of margins and italics, and the division of Franklin's text into eight parts. (The original work did not have chapters.)
This edition copyright 2001-2006 by Richard Lenat
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I have toyed with the idea of a self made barcode stuck to the underside of each wagon to identify it and reading this with an IR LED and detector, but don't know how to detect the start of the read cycle and how to control the timing of reading each bar. Although the speed will be quite slow, it may not be constant.
RFID tag on each train and a reader at the track?
Ir LED on each blinking at different rates.
Assuming you've rigged up your IR reflectance sensor right (and that's a big assumption), it should trigger low when the white label of the barcode starts as hopefully the barcodes are the only reflective thing passing over the sensor.
A little mirror with bits of evenly spaced black tape.
I don't know these guys but it looks like a ready hardware part of the solution:http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?product_id=1102_0OTOH, knowing that black and white reflect differently you can try making your own sensor and yes, tape a bar code under each car.Consider using white stripes (more reflective) for data and black stripes as reference widths. A zero would be a narrow white stripe and a one would be 3x as wide a white strip. The black stripes would all be narrow. You would be reading perhaps 10,000x a second, keep count of how many reads the last black stripe was and if the next white strip is less than 1.5x as many then it's a zero bit but if 2.5x or more then it's a one bit.Then start your data sector with an attention section of 8 narrow b/w stripes followed by a wide black stripe, the next white stripe begins your data.The boffo setup would read the same no matter which direction the train is going, attention section at both ends and each car's ID being symmetric. You could get away with 2 number / 4 white stripe codes that would read 0000 0000, 0001 1000, 0010 0100, etc.
Adafruit has a bunch of RFID tags and several readers.The tags are programmable. Each also have a 4-byte unique ID that is not changeable.http://www.adafruit.com/category/55
I was thinking of making my own detector by mounting the IR LED and IR detector in 5mm ID brass tubes with the tops of the tubes level with the track bed and the LED and detector some way down the tubes (think optical rangefinder). That way, I can make the detector more sensitive and focused on a narrow area.


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Eventually, I moved on to further classes. They mostly covered press conferences and "advance communications," a vague summary of different techniques that
you might want to use in general PR activities.
At no point did the courses actually address the media.
This was nearly a full year before Twitter would launch. Facebook wasn't available outside colleges. Jon Gruber had been writing for three years, and
TechCrunch would launch not too long after. Thus we completely missed a chunk of the "social" aspect that makes up the new world of PR or, indeed, the
importance of bloggers.
Regardless, reading over current PR courses and many textbooks used in courses, it's clear that PR undergrads are being taught to do things that are not
part of most PR people's days. Yes, it's very exciting to be taught that you'll be handling big campaigns, or "handling webinars," or how important AP
style is, or how to handle a press conference—one of the most irrelevant skills that you'll find before a career in high-end corporate PR.
Though it may not be deliberate, this is a horrible misrepresentation of the industry as a whole and is leading students down a dark, dark path. The reason
behind the failure at the educational level is simple: Many of these teachers are either not active practitioners, or others are fundamentally not good at
major parts of the current world of PR. It's easy to become obsolete if you're teaching but not practicing.
After some research, I've come up with what I believe are the core elements that should be applied to just about every PR curriculum. They are:
The realities of PR
PR is no longer about event management. It is not press conferences. It is not glitz and glamor and fancy parties. At least, not initially. The world of PR
they are entering is cold, overstaffed, overworked drudgery. It takes place mostly behind a computer, and the salaries are lower than ever. It's
potentially immensely lucrative if you become well connected. It does not start that way.
These core lessons should be ingested immediately:
Media relations
Many PR professionals on many blogs say media relations isn't the core of PR. It isn't a thing that you "have" to do. I'm sorry, but it is. It always will
be, especially for new PR people.
The core elements of media relations are:
The essentials of social media
Social media is taught in a dishonest manner by the education system. It's really exciting to talk about social media in a way that suggests it's the new
golden goose—that a single tweet can spread your news faster than anything else, and that, you too, could have thousands or millions of followers who will
share your news in the most passive and useful manner.
Ragan's biggest social media conference returns to the Walt Disney World Resort in April!]
Ragan's biggest social media conference returns to the Walt Disney World Resort in April!]
Social media classes should teach:
This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything they should know, but the core problem with PR education is that a 101 class should give the
basics—the groundwork from which a real PR professional should theoretically grow.
In the same way that medical schools exist to give the factual and theoretical ideas that will be used in treating patients, PR courses should provide the
theoretical foundation and background knowledge that today's PR professionals will need in their day-to-day work.
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Gov. Perry, Sen. Cornyn, Sen. Cruz: Texas stands firm against Medicaid expansion
Gov. Rick Perry, Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Ted Cruz held a roundtable followed by a news conference to discuss the flexibility needed by states to enact meaningful reforms to the existing, broken Medicaid program.
They were joined by Congressmen Joe Barton and Michael C. Burgess, M.D., Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Kyle Janek, as well as the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF). Several Texas lawmakers and groups also joined in support of reforming the current Medicaid system and providing flexibility.
"Medicaid expansion is a misguided, and ultimately doomed, attempt to mask the shortcomings of Obamacare. It would benefit no one in our state to see their taxes skyrocket and our economy crushed as our budget crumbled under the weight of oppressive Medicaid costs," Gov. Perry said. "Texas doesn't need another mandate, but the flexibility to care for our own in a manner that makes sense both effectively and financially."
Gov. Perry sent a letter to and met with the Texas Congressional Delegation last month to ask for their help in securing flexible federal funding that would allow the state to implement reforms to the existing Medicaid program, which already consumes a quarter of Texas' budget. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission projects Medicaid expansion alone would cost tens of billions in combined state and federal funds over the next 10 years.
"Medicaid is a broken system that is failing Texans and overwhelming the state budget. The program must be fundamentally reformed, and Texas - not the federal government - is best suited to design a health care program for its poorest and most vulnerable residents," Sen. Cornyn said. "The time has come for Congress to allow the states to do just that, with a block grant of federal Medicaid funds."
From 1990 to 2010, national Medicaid expenditures rose from $73.7 billion to $401.4 billion, an increase of about 445 percent. Over that same period, the national Medicaid caseload increased by 135 percent, from 22.8 million to 53.6 million individuals. Only three in 10 Texas doctors are currently accepting new Medicaid patients.
"I am proud that Gov. Perry and other Texas leaders are standing strong to oppose Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, while so many other states are giving in," Sen. Cruz said. "The Supreme Court made clear that the Constitution does not allow the federal government to force states to expand Medicaid, and doing so would impose crippling pressures on the Texas budget for decades to come -- pressures that would crowd out other vital state priorities like public education, infrastructure, and law enforcement. In the long term, we need fundamental reform of Medicaid, so that it can truly help the most vulnerable among us. Texas knows best how to care for Texans, and Medicaid should allow States the flexibility to design healthcare programs to help those most in need."
Statements by members of Congress, Texas leaders and groups standing in opposition of Medicaid expansion and in support of Medicaid reform:
Congressman Joe Barton:
"Medicaid is a vitally important program that helps tens of millions in need, but ObamaCare blindly expands the program leaving already cash strapped state budgets to deal with crushing costs and a more burdensome bureaucracy. Instead of expanding an already broken system, it is imperative that we give states more flexibility than ever to run and reform the programs they best way they see fit. We are working in Washington to make sure Texas is able to provide medical care to the people who need it most, while at the same time being good stewards of taxpayer money."
Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D.:
"When President Obama decided to implement a government takeover of our health care system, there wasn't a focused discussion on what would happen if Medicaid was expanded to fill coverage gaps. Instead, a system that was created in 1965, and for a small population, was deemed the best option to provide health care coverage for low-income Americans. If we really want to reform our health care system, we need to look at a range of solutions that will address the fundamental issues and examine the benefits and drawbacks. Possible options are out there, and vary greatly in their approach and scope."
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst:
"Medicaid is a broken, unsustainable federal program that could eventually bankrupt Texas and all states, and it's nuts to expand it. I've spoken with our Texas Senators about examining all the best ideas being considered nationwide on Medicaid, but I'm not willing to consider going forward unless we can agree on a solution that is right for Texas. That solution would require cutting the federal strings and allowing us to structure a program that gives our state the flexibility to administer a Texas solution for our unique Medicaid population, and the freedom to pull out of the program if the federal government fails to honor its word, which frankly, I'm very worried about."
Rep. Lois Kolkhorst:
"I appreciate Gov. Perry, Sen. Cornyn and Sen. Cruz as we continue to the important conversation of government-funded healthcare. This debate will shape our nation's debt and financial future for generations. That's why I'm honored to play a part as we seek Texas solutions. When we reform the Medicaid system, Texas can lead the way to a brighter future here at home, and across the country."
Brooke Rollins, TPPF:
"Medicaid was established nearly half a century ago to serve the neediest among us. Today, in Texas, it no longer fulfills that purpose; instead, it provides poor care that's even been proven in some cases to be worse than no insurance at all, and over two-thirds of Texas physicians won't accept new Medicaid patients. Yet instead of reforming the program, Washington, D.C., under ObamaCare wants to expand it, and pour more money that it doesn't have into a program that doesn't work. There is a better path: Texas can reform Medicaid without expanding it, under ObamaCare or any other scheme, if only D.C. will get out of the way.


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Animal Clip Of The Week: Dog Viciously Attacks A Trapped Possum
I put the carcass in the trash receptacle outside but the possum was no longer to be found the next day.
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Mayweather marvelous in easy win
Champ remains unbeaten in 44 fights
Mayweather marvelous in easy win
Champ remains unbeaten in 44 fights
Floyd Mayweather Jr. fought as if he had never left the ring, coming back from a year's absence Saturday night to win a unanimous 12-round decision over Robert Guerrero in their welterweight title fight.
Mayweather was masterful at times, landing thudding right hands and bloodying Guerrero's face in a performance that mimicked some of his best fights. Mayweather hurt Guerrero on several occasions, including a series of right hands near the end of the eighth round that buckled Guerrero's knees.
All three judges scored the bout 117-111 in Mayweather's favor. The Associated Press had Mayweather winning 119-109.
Mayweather remained unbeaten in 44 fights, while handing Guerrero only his second loss as a pro.


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What prompted this realization was a Power of Moms event we held last Wednesday called "Live Deliberately: Dare, Dream and Do." This event involved 82 wonderful mothers gathering to share their ideas and dreams. We heard powerful talks by April Perry, my wonderful Power of Moms partner whose dream came true when we recently published the book Deliberate Motherhood (all about reaching our motherhood dreams), by Whitney Johnson, one of our advisory board members who wrote the book Dare, Dream, Do and shared some powerful concepts from that book, and by my dear mom, Linda Eyre, who I think is the ultimate example of living her dreams while being an amazing mom and involving her children in her dreams while supporting them in theirs. Macy Robison (creater of the CD, Children Will Listen) sang a gorgeous song about dreams (seemed liked it was written just for this evening) and shared some of her story. We gathered in small groups for facilitated discussion on what dreams we're pursuing, what dreams we're saving for later, what dreams we've decided to let go of, and what we're doing to pursue our dreams. And we ate delicious treats.*
There was serious electricity in that room as it buzzed with smiles and hopes and ideas.
Here are some of the 40 fabulous women who help us run Power of Moms and who were able to attend this event. They are helping so many dreams come true for so many moms around the world.
Here are the speakers at the event: Macy, April, me, my mom, and Whitney
Here are some of the 60 moms who helped write our book, Deliberate Motherhood. Some of them we met in person for the first time on Wednesday night! What a powerful book they helped to produce.
But as we talked at the event, I realized that while so much of what I do each day, be it preparing for an event or doing the regular "mom" stuff of making dinner and getting the kids ready and picking up carpools, doesn't feel very "dreamy," it all adds up to some amazing dreams that have come true and continue to come true. I like the quote by Robert Schuller that says, "Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation." Truly, our lives as mothers are full of "unspectacular preparation" that can lead to the little and big achievements that fill our hearts and souls.
I shared this story at the end of the evening:
The night before the event, as I was tucking my kids in bed, I reminded them about how things were going to work while I'd be gone for the event the next afternoon and evening. Isaac asked me what this event was going to be about. I sat down with him and Silas (they share a room) and told them that we'd be talking about our dreams and how to make our dreams come true. Silas said "What are you going to say your dreams are?" I have tons of dreams and I feel like my kids see me doing work towards them all the time - they see me doing all the "mom" stuff like helping with homework and volunteering in their classrooms and cooking dinner that's related to my big dream of having a family and they see me working on my computer and heading off to events for Power of Moms to support my dream of helping other moms be the moms they really want to be. But I realized that perhaps I don't really explain all this action as working towards dreams.
In a moment of inspiration, I took Silas's face in my hands and said, "YOU are my dream. I always dreamed of having wonderful, beautiful, fun kids and you turned out even better than I dreamed." I went on to tell Silas and Isaac how I have tons of dreams and many of them have come true but that THEY, along with their siblings and their dad, are the most important and most precious dreams of my life.
My heart was so full of love and joy when I shared this truth with my sweet boys that when I left their room, I decided to share the same truth with each of the other kids as I tucked them in bed. I was met with beautiful smiles and hugs and experienced some of my best-ever moments in motherhood that night.
So I went into this event on Wednesday starting to really realize something I should have realized long ago: I'm living my dream. And it's harder and crazier and more complicated and deeper than I dreamed it would be. But it's also more beautiful and better than I dreamed it would be.
I'm living my dreams. I really am. I choose this. I hoped for this. I dreamed this. And now, here I am, reaping the consequences, both hard and good, of the dreams I set in motion.
And I'm going to start reminding myself of this every day.
* We're so grateful to our fabulous sponsors:
Zupas (our favorite place to go out for a meal as a family) sponsored delicious chocolate covered strawberries
Sweet Dreams (in Spanish Fork, UT) donated gorgeous, yummy cupcakes
Paradise Bakery (downtown SLC) donated super tasty cookies


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Low Fare CalendarThe best airfares for a year ahead
1Choose your destination
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or Round Trip
3Set the duration
of your trip
4Сalendarwill show
the best flight deals
Travel Tips to Rhodes (RHO)
Book your flights to Rhodes and enter a city bathed in sunlight, perfumed by fresh salt air, and silently guarded by majestic medieval battlements. Rhodes provides its visitors with the best of Greece and the Aegean region. Reserve your tickets to Rhodes and visit this largest of the Dodecanese islands.
Top Things to Do in Rhodes
- Stroll through one of the oldest landscaped parks in the world. Rodini Park was once the site of the ancient School of Rhetoric and even now calls to mind times of deep thought with its streams and cool green flora
- Lounge next to the Aegean Sea on one of Rhodes's many beaches, considered some of the best in Europe
- If traveling during July or August, walk among the beautiful butterflies in the lush valley of Petaloudes
Discover Rhodes
Take a boat ride around the coast of Rhodes and observe this pearl of the Aegean Sea in all its glory. Some tours will take you to Lindos, one of the most beautiful villages in Greece.
Rhodes's Pleasures
Plunge into the gorgeous natural wonders of Rhodes's interior with a visit to Seven Springs. Surrounded by lush greenery and forest suitable for walking, Seven Springs is a relaxing excursion. A few more kilometers away in the city of Kalithea are the Kalithea Springs, a perfect melding of wild landscape and monumental architecture. Many cheap hotels in Rhodes offer accommodation near these attractions.
Plan Your Rhodes Holiday
Because of its location in the Aegean Sea, Rhodes has a warm and temperate climate all year long. June through September are the warmest months and thus the peak time to visit. Rhodes's winters are rainy but mild – still a lovely time to travel and enjoy the island's delights. Visit flydoha.net for flight deals to Rhodes any time of year. Ensure a smooth trip to Rhodes by flying on FlyDoha.


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To the editor:
In a recent article, �North Carolina abortion law an unfair burden,� the author says the North Carolina abortion law is unfair and places an undue burden on women.
This state�s abortion law requires women who are seeking an abortion to first undergo an ultrasound. It requires that the doctors show the women the ultrasound and describe its details to the women. (The women could look away, but the doctors are required to give it.)
I believe this law is not unfair and does not place an undue burden on women. In fact, every state in the U.S. should require it. These women need to know exactly what they are doing. They need to see that it is not a blob of tissue, but a living baby. They can choose not to hear it, but they need to be confronted with the reality of what they are doing.
This is how the Lord sees it. In Genesis 4:10, the Bible records that �the Lord said (to Cain) Listen! What have you done! Your brother�s blood cries to Me from the ground!� What does it cry? (Rev. 6:10) �How long Sovereign Lord....until you judge the inhabitants of the Earth and avenge our blood?�
Some people say by aborting babies we are preventing dictators like Hitler, mass murderers like Charles Mason and rapists like Jack the Ripper from being born. How do they know these children will grow up and do evil? Maybe they are preventing brilliant people like Einstein, inventors like Edison, and political leaders like FDR from being born.
Who are they to judge? Doesn�t the Bible say, �Judge ye not, least ye be judged?� (Luke 6:37)
I searched online for abortion and looked at a You Tube video website which featured an abortion procedure. It was ghastly. I saw what looked like a twelve-week old infant screaming when a probe was inserted into the womb. It avoided the probed and seemed to open its mouth.
Women in every state should be made to know what they are doing and then perhaps the 4,200-a-day abortions performed in America would be greatly reduced or even cease.
Catherine Jarvis


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The alley can be a place forgotten. The shadow of the garden psyche. Trash cans, debris, weeds ... sometimes nothing but the raw edge of a fence line. However, we have realized in the nine years of living in this space that our alley is the only reliable full sun in our yard. We've grown veggies in the alley (cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, and eggplant have all done well) but the neighborhood dogs show no discernment between the edible and non-edible in their criteria for "plants on which to pee and poop."
Therefore the veggies were moved just inside the fence and now our alley is home to ...
Two baby dwarf Arkansas Black apple trees, lavender, sun flowers, stargazer lilies, gladiolas, nicotiana, two large compost bins that are overflowing with pumpkin vines, and two new raspberry bushes.
Aren't the pumpkin vines out of control? I weeded out so many but had to leave some. We get such a kick out of seeing the "trash" of last year becoming the bounty of this year!
We frequently enter our yard from the alley - upon returning home from a bike ride, dog walk, or stroll to the library - so I wanted some fragrant flowers to welcome us.
The lavender bed is new as of this spring and seems to be thriving. The nicotiana (that's what it looks like, right?) are volunteers - they may or may not bloom, I'm not sure at this point.
The lilies have gone by and the glads are about to begin.
And the sunflowers! There is a constant commute of goldfinches to these unnamed sunflowers which are grown from seed saved from year to year.
I know the apples and raspberries violate our "nothing edible" rule for the alley, but the apples will be raised off the ground and the raspberries should be fairly well protected. All the same, next summer when we harvest our first raspberries, we will make sure to wash them!
In a small city space, simply ignoring the alley is not an option. Every inch of possible garden space must be exploited. It's taken us quite a bit of time to find the best way to use this space, but I think we're finally on the right track.


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About the Special Event
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting is the world's largest general science gathering and attracts upwards of 6,000 people from over 60 countries each year – including leading researchers, educators, policy makers and science communicators. The AAAS Annual Meeting provides hundreds of opportunities to attend seminars, workshops and networking activities across a wide range of scientific topics. Only a few plenary sessions and special lectures are held each year, which are reserved for major figures such as Al Gore, Stephen Chu, Larry Page, Mamphela Aletta Ramphele, John Holdren and now, Mike Lazaridis. As Founder and Board Chair of Perimeter Institute, Mike helps lead efforts to create the world's foremost centre for foundational theoretical physics, uniting public and private partners, and the world's best scientific minds, in a shared enterprise to achieve breakthroughs that will transform the future. "It is my great pleasure to introduce an inspiring visionary," said William Press, AAAS President-Elect. "With his history of innovation and building an ecosystem for the technologies of tomorrow, it is no wonder that among Mike's many awards, he was named Canada's Nation Builder of the Year in 2002 by readers of the Globe and Mail newspaper, and honoured as an Officer of the Order of Canada and Member of the Order of Ontario."
Key Remarks by Mike Lazaridis
On Friday, February 17, 2012, at the Vancouver Convention Centre, Mike Lazaridis shared insights on the power of ideas through a series of personal recollections from his boyhood and university years on the value of science and education. He also offered important lessons from history on the high impact of breakthroughs through theoretical physics. The online AAAS video recording is available here. Highlights from the forty minute presentation include:
On Science
"We need to commit not only to good science, but great science. Breakthrough science. Ultimately, that means supporting the best, from all over the planet, to go in the directions that their curiosity leads them, and to pursue their most ambitious ideas.
It's inspiring to go to the Perimeter Institute cafeteria and simply sit and listen – not to the science, which I only begin to understand – but simply to the languages. You're standing in line for coffee and you're likely to hear one language behind you and another in front of you. It's amazing and inspiring to me that science can join all these people together in pursuit of these really big ideas.
Science, I believe, is the first successful global democracy. Scientists govern themselves through a (mostly) peaceful system of peer-review and ultimately through scientific experimental verification. They are bound by their allegiance to reason and curiosity, committed to looking honestly at evidence. They share a common language – mathematics. They unite across differences of age and gender and race, across all the cultures and geographies of the world, to solve problems – some of the most difficult problems."
On Education
"Education is a form of time travel. We are sending our kids forward in time, to a future that doesn't exist yet. They'll hold jobs we've never heard of, in industries yet to be invented. What can they take with them?
I think it must be the very biggest of ideas, the very broadest of skills. A hard-won physical intuition for the way the world works. A handful of really big ideas, and the space to tinker with them. Great problem-solving skills. A willingness to take risks, to fail, over and over again until they succeed. A great education."
On Impact
"Ladies and Gentlemen: if I could say just one thing to you today, it would be this: Times are hard, and in such times it's tempting to cut back. But we can't afford to cutback. We have to have courage and think big and be bold.
We cannot be so blinded by the urgency of our problems that we take for granted how important, how powerful, the combination of curiosity and reason really is. That is the tradition of science.
And don't ever forget what history has proven time and time again. Although history tells us that the impact of scientific breakthroughs can't be predicted, it also says that impact will come. We can be quite sure of that. Make a breakthrough, and impact will come. And the impact will improve everything."
About AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an international, non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association. In addition to organizing membership activities, AAAS publishes the journal Science, as well as many scientific newsletters, books and reports, and spearheads programs that raise the bar of understanding for science worldwide.


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The Elizabeth Chandelier by Julie Neill – The Giveaway.
The Julie Neill Designs chandelier giveaway was extremely popular! I had a funny feeling it would be. Almost 1,000 readers entered, making it one of the biggest Cote de Texas giveaways ever, along with the lantern giveaway from BROWN this past July. I only wish I had more chandeliers to give away. These giveaways serve two purposes – first, they are a way for me to give back and thank you for supporting the blog. And, second, for the donor, it's a way to advertise their company. In addition, the owner learns something about their merchandise with these giveaways. I always require that in order to enter, you must first visit the company's web site and look at their product. Then, in the entry comment, tell what you liked best and why. Your responses go a long way in helping the donors understand what particular product in their line is liked and why. Giveaways on blogs are secret pleasures. Even in a popular giveaway, the odds are great that you might win. When entering a contest, odds of 1 in 1,000 are much better than 1 in 50,000 odds you might find in a magazine contest. But on smaller blogs or less popular giveaways, your odds might be 1 in 35 or 1 in 100!!!
The Ingrid – the contemporary choice in the giveaway.
Today, I am happy to announce the winner in the Julie Neill Designs chandelier giveaway! The winner is also a blogger – THE CLUTTER DIVA. She is a real estate agent turned home stager who hails from San Antonio, Texas, home of the Alamo. Congratulations to The Clutter Diva! Hopefully, we will soon see pictures of her new chandelier hanging in her home. Some people have asked how I choose the winner. First, I go to the web site www.Random.org HERE and enter the number of the total entrants. The web site then generates one number which is the winner. I go back and pick out the comment with the same number. This time, The Clutter Diva was the lucky one!!
The Mollie Chandelier by Julie Neill Designs
As the giveaway rules state, The Clutter Diva left her winning comment on my blog after first visiting the Julie Neill Designs web site. There, the Clutter Diva said one of her favorite designs is the Mollie Chandelier – pictured above. This Italian styled chandelier has become the trendiest look in hanging fixtures, after lanterns, so I am not surprised this was her pick.
As for the giveaway chandelier, I wonder which design she will chose – The Elizabeth or the Ingrid, the more contemporary fixture. I have a feeling The Clutter Diva will be choosing the Elizabeth.
I want to thank the beautiful and talented Julie Neill once again for her wonderful generosity in hosting this Cote de Texas giveaway! Thank you Julie, so very much!!!!
And, in other giveaway news:
The last giveaway before Julie Neill Designs was the Harrison Howard print. Harrison, an artist, has a wonderful web site HERE filled with all his creations. The giveaway was one print of the winner's choosing. The winner of the Harrison Howard print was Kwana Jackson, the very popular blogger of Kwana Writes fame HERE. Below is the print that Kwana chose for her giveaway.
"Afternoon Watering" by Harrison Howard
Kwana told Harrison that she picked this particular print, Afternoon Watering, because it reminds her of her and her husband. As soon as the print has been framed and hung, Kwana promises us a picture of it, in situ! Congratulations Kwana.
inally, in the Paris Hotel Boutique HERE giveaway, Lynn Goldfinger Abrams most generously donated this beautiful antique convex mirror!!! Much to my surprise, the winner lives about 1 mile from me in Bellaire, Texas, which is right next door to my own hometown West University Place. Yes, we both technically live in Houston – just a few miles from downtown Houston in fact – but our addresses are in these two incorporated cities within the boundaries of Houston. Both of our cities, West University Place and Bellaire, have their own mayor, police and fire departments, but we share school districts with Houston, amongst other things. The winner of the Paris Hotel Boutique giveaway who goes by the name "Camplkidz" emailed me today to say her mirror has arrived and will be up shortly. In the meantime, she sent me a picture of it awaiting its final placement.
The giveaway mirror waiting to be placed at its Bellaire, Texas home.
I want to take this time to tell all of you who have entered these giveaways - thank you for your support. I started writing Cote de Texas in 2007 – and it has turned out to be so much more than I ever envisioned or hoped for. As must bloggers say, I only expected my friends and husband to read it, but truthfully, my husband rarely if ever reads it, and only a few of my friends do. Yet, somehow, over 70,000 people a month do read it, a figure that staggers and profoundly humbles me. The vast majority of readers are people I have never met – most are from Texas and the United States, but there are many from Australia and other parts of the world I will never have the privilege of visiting. Writing the blog has been a lot of fun and a lot of hard work too. It's not easy to come up with something worthwhile to say every week, but I do try to be original and interesting. Sometimes it is, sometime it's not. Your positive, and even those not so positive comments, are what keeps me motivated to continue. When I first started, I tried to answer each and every comment – which back then was a manageable feat. Today, the comments are numerous and I have spent many hours feeling guilty about not being able to personally respond to all of you. For that I can only offer my apologies and hope that you understand. I wish I could still answer each and every comment, but know that I do read and digest them all.
As for personal emails, I get an amazing number of emails a day – most are spam or cookies driven, but sometimes personal emails get lost in the shuffle. If you have emailed me and I haven't responded within a week, please email me again. It's probable I never saw the original message. It's hard to believe it's already November and the holidays are quickly approaching. I have a few more smaller giveaways planned for the end of the year. I wish I could have one each week!
The interior design of Greet Lefèvre, the woman behind the Belgian Pearls blog.
On another topic, there is a new Skirted Roundtable interview now available with Greet, the talented interior designer and cabinet maker from Belgian, who writes the only blog from that wonderful design conscious country: Belgian Pearls. To listen to this interview, please go HERE.
And finally, speaking of lost emails, will the person who sent me this picture below please email me again! I don't know who sent these pictures!!!


text: Get ready to defend your turf with this intimidating T-Rex Light Blazer starter kit! It includes everything you need to start your adventure: Handle, Blazer, T-Rex Head, Hand Guard, Connector, and Pommel. Simple assembly required. Purchase accessory packages separately to reconfigure your blazer for a whole new look. Fully assembled light blazer is 24" in length. Box set dimensions 23-1/2"L x 4"H x 7-3/4"W.


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The Eiffel Tower, celebrating its 126th anniversary, was not always revered as an icon of love and beauty.
With the Apple Watch debut only months away, legacy timepiecemaker Swatch made waves with the announcement it is set to drop its own smart watch, that won't need to be charged, in the next three months.
Apple is reportedly developing a streaming music service that would integrate with iOS, iTunes, and Apple TV, but also with Android devices. Could this integration launch Apple to streaming music stardom?
Eero, a sleek white box that offers a seamless 'mesh network' of Wi-Fi could mean the end of buffering troubles and tricky set-up configurations. Will the promise of good Netflix woo people?
Torrent website The Pirate Bay went back online on Saturday after being shut down by Swedish police in December. But a new question arises: will cheap streaming websites tempt people away from free, though illegal, download websites?
Phorm, a new iPad Mini case from Tactus, adds raised keys to your screen at the slide of a button. Not only will this solve flat surface finger slips, it could improve the iPad as an educational device.
Will a double curved edge screen on the upcoming Galaxy S6 Edge be enough to bring Samsung back to the top of the global mobile game?
Flipboard adds a desktop app with splashy designs and hooks from social media.
By packaging a free virtual reality headset with its LG G3 phone, LG will make virtual reality a reality for the masses.
A Mandarin duck swims in Central Park in New York on Dec. 5. In the weeks since it appeared in Central Park, the duck has become a celebrity.
Privacy experts pushed Verizon Wireless to suspend its required use of 'supercookies' – automatically regenerating data tracking cookies that create advertising profiles of its customers.
Telecoms (and even a few private equity firms) aggressively bid for a host of newly released short-range wireless spectrum from the FCC. But the competition is just getting started.
For the first time, Apple is expected to announce that last quarter more iPhones were sold in China than in the US.
Through an agreement with T-Mobile and Sprint, Google is on its way to becoming the newest wireless carrier in the US, according to reports. What does this say about Google's overall ambitions?
Should app makers be held to the same non-discriminatory practices as telecoms in the net neutrality debate? Blackberry says yes. Many industry experts say no.
Users of the third party WhatsApp service WhatsApp Plus found themselves booted from the service for 24 hours. Why the crackdown now?
Google is making its interest in education known with an app that allows students to turn in homework through their smart phones. But what are the implications of this tech behemoth standing in the back of the classroom?
Though Google and Apple regularly top list of best workplace, the tech giants are currently settling a lawsuit alleging several Silicon Valley companies made secret no-poaching agreements that prevented workers from lucrative job offers to the benefit of companies.
In his first appearance in Detroit in two years, Elon Musk laid out his projection that Tesla will be in the big leagues of car production in a decade.
Elon Musk says SpaceX has a 50 percent chance of landing a rocket on the next launch. Musk says SpaceX is attempting to land the rocket on a floating ocean platform off the coast of Louisiana.


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Glasses Malone - Eastsidin (Crip)
"Glasses Malone's "Beach Cruiser" hits stores on
August 30th via Suburban Noize/Cash Money and
features guest appearances from Snoop Dogg, Akon, T-
Pain, Rick Ross, Jay Rock and Birdman.
The album is available for pre-order online at
http://itunes.apple.com/us/preorder/beach- cruiser/id453990886
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L397 Panaqolus/Panaque sp
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All assigned numbers:
Brazil: Pará, near Alenquer
Peaceful and unproblematic fish, suitable for community tanks and show tanks with easy to stress fish like Discus or Angel Fish, as well as other bottom-dwelling fish. May become a bit pushy during feeding time, or if not enough hiding places are offered, but if the tank is properly aqua-scaped it is not aggressive, even towards its own kind.
Sexing and Breeding:
The male has a larger head and much more odontode growth on the body and pectoral fin ray.
This is a wood-eating catfish, like all species from the genus
(including those known to some as
) and
. Therefore, a good supply of bog wood is necessary in the tank: not only does this fish extracts certain elements and nutrients from the organic layer which forms on the wood over time (also known as "Aufwuchs"), it actually eats the wood itself, possibly for digestive reasons. As wood does is not very rich in nutrients, it means the L397 consumes vast amounts of it, and produces an almost equal amount of waste (because of which a very strong filtration system is an absolute necessity).
Besides wood, the diet can be supplemented with vegetable matter (cucumber, lettuce, egg plant/aubergine, zucchini/courgette, etc. as well as algae and catfish pellets)
Water parameters:
Temp 25-29 PH 5.5-7.5
This small catfish-species prefers a dimly lit tank with a good number of hiding places, either created with plants, drift wood, rocks or artificial (pleco spawning) caves. To keep more than one specimen in the same tank, or together with other bottom dwelling fish, you need at least a 40x16" (100x40cm.) tank: this fish can be quite territorial, and when suitable hiding places are lacking, it can be aggressive towards other bottom dwellers. When kept as only catfish in an aquarium, a tank size of 32x14" (80x35cm.) is sufficient.
Typical for South American catfish, this species does best in soft, slightly acidic to neutral water, good oxygenation and a good amount of currents. It can however adapt to harder, more alkaline water, but whether it will reproduce under such conditions is questionable.
Max Size:
Bred by:
lealea, Brengun
Breeding Log:
See post below. For all comments please use original thread here
Keeping and breeding the L397
Additional Comments:
Diet and water parameters information from
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L397 Panaqolus/Panaque sp
Keeping and breeding the L397
In April 2008 I decided I just had to have some L plecos and the L397 were my first choice. I bought 6 4-5cm fry from Lealea which I estimate were 4 to 6mths old. At that time it cost $500AU for the 6 of them.
I set them up in a 3ft tank with part glass bottom and part gravel, driftwood with anubias and caves. There was an Otto 2400Lph canister, Eheim pickup power filter, and air sponge filter. Temp was set on 26-28C (around 80F) and pH around 7.2 as that is my town water pH.
I had planned this tank well and had been especially cycling it for a month prior to getting my first L's. It was the start of my pleco love affair which has lasted now for years.
They were just breathtaking, so pretty, and not that shy as far as plecos go either. Apart from wood, I fed them Hikari algae wafers, Sera Flora flake and cucumber.
Look at that cheeky little face.
By January 2009 just after their estimated first birthday they were 7-8cm and looking fairly sexable. I had 3males and 3 females. They were still as attractive as ever. This is a female.
The males tend to have longer side whiskers over the gills, hairy pec fins and later when more mature, their whole solid tail area becomes hairy and raspy to feel.
At this time the males were starting to get quite territorial and while watching them chase each other around the tank at night was entertaining, some were starting to get some nasty scratch and bite marks on the body so it was time for a new bigger tank.
I set them up in a 4ft x 12" x 18" tank with their old Otto 2400lph filter and power head. I also at this time set up an under gravel filter for extra filtration and air. With the gravel also being a filtration media I figured when and if they bred I would need all the good bacteria I could get with fry being born. It would mean I would not have to move the fry too early in life and they could be raised until quite large 3cm in the fry saver before they needed to go to their own grow out tank.
With the increased size of the L397 originals also came bigger waste so I also added a second power filter in the opposite end of the tank and blowing the debris to the canister intake. Each male had his own cave spaced a foot away from the next cave plus a few spares which the females would sometimes camp in when they weren't off chewing on driftwood.
Here is an exert from another forum of my fry success as I lost the information from pleco fanatics when the site went down.
Fri Sep 11, 2009
Miracle L397 fry
I call it a miracle because I didn't know I even had eggs! I had gotten lazy and let nitrates rise to 10 for 3 days before I did a water change. I turned the heater down to trigger spawning for a whole day, not knowing the deed had already been done.
I did a 30% water change with gravel vac and fortunately didn't kill the one fry kicked out of the cave with fright.
I couldn't find a fry saver to fit under the limited access of a bottom tier tank so I used a net saver and popped the whole cave, dad, fry and all into the net but the cave pulled the frame apart so I had to prop D caves up under it to hold it together. I made a custom fry saver to fit the fry but silicon needs time to cure. That was yesterday.
Tonight I checked nitrates and they were still up on the 10 mark so I thought I would do a little water change with stored, warmed and aerated water. I looked at the net saver and the frame is nearly torn adrift again. There is a L397 whizzing around the net saver instead of sitting in the cave tending the fry and there seems quite a lot of poop in the net.
Ok, drastic action. I rinsed the (touch wood) hopefully ready custom fry saver and got it ready. Took out the L397 and put it back into the tank. Took the cave out of the net saver and opened it to put any fry gently into a container and then to pour them into the new fry saver. Whoa there!
There is a hairy male in the cave with the fry. The other L397 must have been a female in the cave with the male and the fry and getting ready to lay. I thought that one I took out of the net saver looked a bit fat come to think of it.
So dad got put into the tank as well, and the fry into a container. There were 16 of the cutest little things you've ever seen.
Couldn't resist a few baby photos before I added the fry to the new fry saver.
Dad has his cave back so he can woo the girl again. Hopefully all goes well but gee I seem to have done everything wrong so far lol.
So there you have it. They had bred at approximately 20months of age and done it before any temp or water changes I had made.
I should add, I had changed from town water of pH 7.2 to rainwater for a little while prior to then which was in the low pH range of 6 so that may have contributed also to their breeding.
I lost quite a few fry in those earlier days of breeding, either because the first couple of spawns were weak or likely I got overzealous with the feeding of them.
I have figured out it is a good thing to always leave a couple of fry from earlier spawns in the fry saver as they seem to show the new fry how to eat wood, cucumber, Hikari algae wafers and Sera Flora flake properly. Only when fry are almost 3cm do they score something a little meatier like Sera Vilforma and even then its only one tab to several dozen. When fry are present with traces of egg sacs still attached, I feed very sparingly to the saver and withhold even the Hikari algae wafers for a few days until everyone is eating the cucumber, wood and flake properly.
I now use a fry saver from "thefishcave" which has a full sponge at one end and an air pump pumping debris out of the fry saver into the main tank. I also have a small air stone and a tiny 4watt power filter which I rinse in the old water every week during water changes. Only when the fry are nearing 3cm do I move them to a grow out tank of their own. This means at times I have had over 100 fry on one 9" x 6" x 8" fry saver so you can see why the extra air stone and power filter comes in handy.
Here is a photo of today's tank, a 4ft x 15" x 12" tank housing 2m/2f L397 plus the fry in the saver.
I sold off one pair of the L397 as I just couldn't cope with so many fry and one male was having 2 girls spawning in his cave so he never really got a rest from breeding.
The tank is elevated a bit to make it easier to siphon water out and gravel vac.
It a darkish dingy bottom tank which seldom has the light on and instead has diffused light from the overhead room lights.
I always fry save the fry and do not allow fry all over the parent tank as it disrupts the parents breeding when I need to take fry out to the grow out tank. I have also found I have more losses with fry loose in the main tank as opposed to the fry saver where nowadays I seldom have any fry losses.
On occasion I have made a booboo when to take the fry from the logs and the male has a clutch of eggs as well as fry ready to be taken to the fry saver. Now I just stick the eggs back in the log and the male and he accepts them and continues his fanning but on one occasion I took the eggs and artificially hatched them on another tank using an egg tumbler. Basically its sort of a specimen jar with an air stone in the top to draw water up past the eggs to keep them clean and aerated.
After 5 to 10 days (forget which) the eggs hatch but the fry still carry a large egg sac and cannot free swim about yet. They will not eat while they carry the egg sac.
Fry day 1.
Day 3.
Day 4.
Day 8.
By day 8 the egg sac is absorbed and the hungry little fry are ready to eat.
Hairy tail male in log with female waiting to be let in to breed.
Male with fry.
Fry in grow out tank turning my wood into Swiss cheese.
Fry at 4 to 6mths ready to be loved in their new homes.
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text:
Marc Payot was born in Antwerp, and he also attended the Academy of this Flemish city. He was one of the early artists working for the magazine Kleine Zondagsvriend, drawing the comic strip 'Tom Potter van de Geheime Dokken-politie' in cooperation with his brother Tom under the joint pen name Pam in 1945 and 1946.
Starting in 1962, he worked with Paul Ausloos on a comic strip starring 'Het Manneke', a character created by Belgian comedian Jef Cassiers, for newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws and the magazine Kwik. He was mainly an illustrator and he also formed the literary cabaret De Koperen Haan. He was furthermore a set designer for the Belgian broadcasting company BRT, Nederlands Kamertoneel and K.V.S. In the 1970s he was head of publicity with a savings bank, while he continued to produce publications for the Antwerp city counsil.