text:
Courteney Cox's daughter Coco was so excited when her mum's boyfriend asked her if he could marry the actress, she insisted on planning a magical proposal that night.
Snow Patrol star Johnny McDaid presented the youngster with her own diamond ring after asking her if she'd be OK with him asking her mom to be his wife - and she was thrilled.
Cox explains, "He got down on his knee, and she said, 'Great, I'm going to camp tomorrow, let's do it right now!'
"We went to (pal) Jen's (Jennifer Aniston) house for dinner because it was Coco's birthday and she's godmom, and they made a plan to count down from three and when they get to one he was to get on his knee and say, 'Will you marry me...' and they planned it out, they found the perfect tree with three branches that led to one trunk. It was just beautiful.
"No one knew this was gonna happen... Coco got a little bored, as she does, and right after we were at the bar having a drink, she said, 'three, two...' She kept jumping the gun, and then finally, she waited until after dinner."
The rocker proposed to Cox in July (14).


text: One is a review of the story that has them highlight key points and main ideas that will correlate for the end-of-unit weekly Trophies test. The other is the D.O.L. that they can practice using grammar marks to enhance his/her revising skills. The last activity will help with working on matching the weekly vocabulary words with the definitions. #Wiki-TeacherLiveOctober10

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Category Archives: In Depth
Beginning his speech with "Namaste", US President Barack Obama declared, "India and US are not just natural partners but I believe America can be India's best partner." Obama was addressing a gathering of about 2,000 students at the Siri Fort auditorium in New Delhi. He addressed, "W
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle were present at the two-hour long parade, which typically showcases the country's military might as well as its diversity. The year marked the first time ever that an all-woman contingent from the Army, Navy and Air Force marched in the Republic
"I bring to you the friendship of the American people. There were times when I was treated differently because of the colour of my skin. Even if we live in a world of terrible inequalities, there's hope that a tea seller can become PM." "India and the United States are not just natural p
Making this year's theme as "Women Empowerment", the 34th India International Trade Fair (IITF) opened on November 14. President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated the 34th edition of India International Trade Fair 2014 at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. The first five days i.e from Novembe
Chinese President Xi Jinping and China's first lady Peng Liyuan being welcomed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at The Hotel Hyatt in Ahmedabad. The two leaders will oversee signing of three MoUs between government representatives of both the nations. The meeting of China's President Xi Jinpi


text:
I've been working on this personal project for a while, and now I am glad to share the Sketch file with all of you guys in this great professional community. I hope you guys can get some use from it.
Press L if you like it. See more of this project here.


text:
Wed, 23 December 2015
This week we go over some uber-hot clips the Operator has found for xmas hotness that will keep the fapping fires burning bright. Sean is surprised by his other half. And beef makes some arrangements for the future. Yes its down to business this week on WA and business is good. Join us!
Direct download: WA.197.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:45pm CDT
Thu, 17 December 2015
Honestly it doesn't matter what this show is about this week. Why is that Sean? I'm glad you asked that valued listener! In truth it doesn't matter what this show is about because its not Star Wars. And because its not Star Wars but is released on the same day as Star Wars it is not important - trust me on this one. Don't download this tonight, you should be watching Star Wars.
Direct download: WA.196.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:34pm CDT
Fri, 11 December 2015
This week on the show we decide to catch up on some much needed listener questions. So we take a little time to run down a few great ones from you guys!
Direct download: WA.195.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:40pm CDT
Fri, 4 December 2015
Sex back in the day vs. Sex now. It doesn't seem like it'd be that much different and the act itself really isn't. It's the attitude towards it that's changed a great deal. This week we go over how that has really affected us as humans.
Direct download: WA.194.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:39pm CDT
Fri, 27 November 2015
Prepare to witness the power of this fully armed and operational podcast! We talk crazy sex news, we read you listener letters, we get our ass totally handed to us with the best letter ever from a girl that really does exist, we make fun of Beef. Generally a good time is had by all.
Direct download: WA.193.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:58pm CDT
Fri, 13 November 2015
Without Beef on the cast this week the Operator and Sean decide to do nothing but porn this time out in tribute. And so they did: hot vids, strange vids, naughty vids, bondage vids, cosplay vids, and of course werewolf yeti vids. You heard me, werewolf yeti. Enjoy.
Direct download: WA.192.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:06pm CDT
Fri, 6 November 2015
With beef headed off to exotic locales we take a quick look at a few listener questions: everything from how to improve traffic to facials. Because we know what kind of thing peeps tune in for we've got a few fine vids in the show as well. Plus just because Beef loves you he comes the net for a few classy stills to study. Join us this time around for Wholesome Addiction!
Direct download: WA.191.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:58pm CDT
Fri, 30 October 2015
It's Halloween here at Wholesome Addiction and we do it up the same way we do it every year - by reading the Snack Witch stories. Also we talk about sexy things and porn, you know, to change things up a bit.
Direct download: WA.190.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:28pm CDT
Fri, 23 October 2015
This week on the show we do what we do best - talk randomly about sex and porn. However unlike all those other crappy weeks in the past we do it this week. So... yeah. Also this week, Kama Sutra Burger, Michelle Dugger does sex advice, Otaku sends us links, and a Russian wife surprises her husband with a submissive. All this and more on episode 189 of Wholesome Addiction!
Direct download: WA.189.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:33pm CDT
Thu, 15 October 2015
The realities of VR Porn. We discuss the future and present of this form of media and what we think the real effect upon the human race viewing it will be. Join us for this and some great naked pics this time out on Wholesome Addiction!
Direct download: WA.188.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:05pm CDT


text:
Considering of updating or upgrading your home office? Then you've come to the right place! Any upgrade or update helps make any space function better. It also helps it become more efficient with a more functional flow. My home office (craft room for others) is the selling point and heart of our home. While several areas of a home may …Read More »
How To
How To Lose Weight With 3 Simple Tips
Happy New Year everyone!!! If you are looking to loose (the holiday) weight fast … these following tips will help you achieve your goal. As you probably already know there are many weight loss programs in the market that offer fast results, a high percentage of people who use these programs do notice fast results however as soon as they …Read More »
How to Save Money on Food
Saving money on your food budget is one of the most important steps you can take in reducing your monthly bills. Food can easily cost over $1000 a month, and more if you have a large family. If you have young children, it can go up even higher because of all the special food you have to purchase for them …Read More »
How To Cook With Olive Oil
Of all the choices of cooking oil, that from the olives is one of the healthiest you can find. Other vegetable oils are the healthy, too; compared to butter, margarine or lard. However, if you want to get most from vegetable cooking oils, olive oil should be on your top list. Olive oil has a very high smoke point. This …Read More »
How to Have a Vegetarian Barbecue
Vegetarians often feel unwelcome at a BBQ party. While everyone is chowing down on thick juicy steaks and yummy ribs, they are left sitting on the sidelines hoping for something to eat. Quite often they have to politely decline all of the food that comes off the grill. If they're lucky, there might be a section on the serving table …Read More »


text:
- Worldwide Rank #115,663,693
- Follower/Following Ratio 0.63
- Daily New Followers 0
藍夢 Twitter Stats
@0109Ramuzou - Tracking 藍夢 Twitter profile since June 10, 2013
三代目▷岩田剛典GNERATIONS▷片寄涼太♥たからもの▷azu.konomi.kanna.mizuho.mio.ayumi 諦めない気持ちが大事。
藍夢's story
藍夢, also known as @0109Ramuzou has a reasonably significant presence on Twitter and is ranked by us in the 30% percentile for account strength. Active on Twitter since May 2013, 藍夢 made it to having a respectable 67 Twitter followers and to being ranked 115,663,693 for number of followers among all Twitter users.
The plot thickens when considering 藍夢's follower-to-following ratio, which is 0.63.
Tweeting is apparently one of @0109Ramuzou's favorite pastimes, with an average of 0 tweet(s) per day in the past 30 days. That's pretty consistent with a total of 2,798 since @0109Ramuzou joined Twitter.
This account is tracked by us for quite some time now, actually since June 2013. As of August 16 2018 we track 290722354 Twitter accounts, so feel free to search for other accounts you're interested in and reveal their Twitter story!
藍夢 Tweets
@0109Ramuzou has posted 0 tweets in the last 14 days, which translates to an average of 0 tweets per day.
藍夢 Twitter Followers
@0109Ramuzou has 67 followers on Twitter.
This account is #115,663,693 in the worldwide rank of the most popular Twitter users.
藍夢 Following on Twitter
@0109Ramuzou is following 107 Twitter accounts.
Last month this account followed 47 users.
藍夢 Predictions & Milestones
@0109Ramuzou will hit 67 followers in the next 3 months, and 67 in one year.
You are on 藍夢's Twitter stats page
We track these Twitter stats since June 10, 2013 . You can see how many followers 藍夢 lost or gained and what the prediction is for tomorrow or the next 15 days, together with all kinds of other stats like rank compared to all Twitter users, tweets etc.
Why don't you give it a try and compare 藍夢 to yourself ? Or if you are 藍夢 get even more feature rich & up-to-date stats with our premium Twitter Stats.
Twitter Counter is the #1 Twitter stats site powered by Twitter. It all started in June 12, 2008 and we grew rather rapidly because of our Twitter Counter badge. The button is a nice small image that shows your visitors how many followers you have on Twitter. Within a year the button was on many many blogs around the world and we displayed more than 100 million buttons in one month. We track follower stats for over 290.722.354 users now.


text: Miranda Kerr, Alessandra Ambrosio and Lily Aldridge all turned out to view the 2011 Victoria's Secret Show at a special viewing event held in California. With special angel-themed cocktails, sweat treats and more for guests to indulge in as they watched the show for the first time, the pink-themed viewing party celebrated another amazing Victoria's Secret show that went off without a hitch. Take a look inside the amazing party after the cut and see the girls themselves too.


text:
Connect Here
Cart: 0 Products (USD $0.00)
- Home
Browse Our Store
Manufacturer List
Manufacturer List
- Featured Product
- Manufacturer List
- Promotions
- Sell Your Products
- About WestCMR
- Contact Us
- Blog
- Credit Application
Cut for a Cure 2018WestCMR is proud to be a part of the WestCMR Global family. Philanthropy and giving back are very important to us. Watch our video and visit our Vlog for more about who we are and how #WestCMRGivesBack!
WestCMR specializes in helping the Veterans Affairs restock their Synthes sets as they use them. Purchasing through WestCMR, the VA will receive 2nd Day shipping.
Proactively manage your inventory. Buy supplies in the quantities you need. Sell supplies you no longer need. Turn surgical disposables into capital. We make your job easier. Reach us online, phone, or fax.
Why Choose WestCMR?
Just What You Need Just When You Need It At a Lower Price
Answers to Your Questions
What products can I sell? Where will my surplus end up? How quickly can I get an offer? What kind of return can I expect on my supplies? We're always available to answer these and other questions by phone: 800-565-6385.


text: Being a London children's photographer, scheduling sessions in the winter outdoors can be quite a challenge. Mother nature doesn't always make it easy for us, and in fact you can't even properly see the faces of the little ones with all the scarves and hats necessary to carry around. So while outdoors photography sessions wait for the warm months ahead (I really hope they're coming), I had a beautiful little visitor in my photography studio today. And while the wind was howling outside, I was able to enjoy photographing his lovely bare baby legs… Meet baby Jacob!


text:
Are you making minimum payments on your credit card?
Are you taking new credit to pay off old credit?
Are you getting sleepless nights wondering how you can pay up existing debts?
If your answer is "yes" to even one of the above questions, you need to seriously look into getting out of your current debt situation. There are 3 steps to debt elimination:
The reason why people can't get out of debt is simply because they keep adding to it. Stop financing anything using credit immediately, especially using credit cards to purchase things that you can barely afford. Never buy anything that you don't have excess funds in your bank account to pay for it. Credit card is the worst form of credit facility available. With 14% to 24% annual interest charged by credit cards, it is not difficult to comprehend why people who have accumulated a sizable amount of debt with their credit cards seemed so difficult to pay off the outstanding balances. Don't bring your credit cards along when you go out if you can't control credit card usage. Savvy credit card users carry their cards for the convenience of not having to carry too much cash. However, they avoid the exorbitant interest by paying the balance due in full every month.
2. Build an emergency fund
Some may ask: "Why save up before I even pay off my debt?" The logical answer is, if you don't save for emergencies, you'll not be able to cope with the unforeseen expenses that could hit anyone. Don't use your credit card as an option for emergencies for reasons I've already explained earlier. It is wiser to save cash for times of emergencies instead. Open a savings account solely for your emergency fund. Keep this money liquid, but don't tie your emergency fund account to a debit card. Ensure that this account is not easily accessible as people tend to be easily tempted to spend the money as the savings grow. Don't sabotage your saving efforts by spending the money in the emergency fund account on non-essentials (such as wine, restaurant meals, LV handbags or the latest iPad). It would be best if you could ask your bank to automatically transfer a comfortable amount from your earned income to your emergency fund account every month.
I know this may sound like mission impossible, especially so if you're currently mired in debt. But trust me, you can do it! I recommend building 6 to 8 months' worth of living expenses as your emergency fund. Once this amount is achieved, proceed to the next step to clear your outstanding debts.
3. Put debt snowball into action
Depending on how big your debt is, this final step could take months or even years. Most financial consultants advise that debts should be paid off from the highest interest rate to the lowest interest rate. While this may sound logical mathematically, using debt snowball method to eliminate debt makes more sense from a psychological point of view. Your morale will be much higher when you see your debts eliminated one by one in the process.
Debt snowball involves the following steps:
1) List down your debts from lowest balance to highest balance.
2) Allocate a minimum payment on all debts except for the one with the lowest balance.
3) Pay all you can afford on the debt with the lowest balance.
4) When that lowest balance debt is gone, the same amount is used to pay the debt with the next lowest balance.
5) Repeat Step 4 until all debts are cleared.
There are other actions that could be implemented while you're working to improve your money situation. Focus on the fundamental wealth building formula which requires you to spend less than what you earn. See what you can do to increase your income and reduce unnecessary expenses at the same time. Differentiate between "needs" and "wants", then proceed to cut expenses attributed to your "wants".
Getting out of debt is a step-by-step process. Exercise discipline and take one step at a time (no matter how small that step is at the beginning) and you'll eventually get there. Most importantly, don't procrastinate and start your debt elimination process now!
Also Read:
Assess Your Financial Health Using the Personal Finance Score
The Biggest Reason Why Most People Can't Get Rich
Three Steps to Secure Your Financial Future
Recommended Books:


text:
Pak bans Indian TV content, films from being screened
NEW DELHI: Even as Pakistani theatres decided not to show Indian films in the wake of the current tensions between the two countries, that country?s media regulator has asked all channels in the country to "immediately" stop broadcast of illegal Indian content amid theongoing tension between the two nations.
Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) in a statement said it has been receiving complaints that several local private channels were showing Indian talk shows, reality programmes and dramas without permission.
"The complaints have shown serious concerns on this issue (illegal Indian content) in the wake of current situation between India and Pakistan. Complainants have urged PEMRA to impose immediate ban on broadcast and distribution of illegal Indian channels and illegal Indian DTH," PEMRA said in a statement.
PEMRA said that it had already taken steps to stop illegal broadcast of Indian channels and warned that all distribution networks and TV channels should follow the laws and "immediately" stop the broadcasting of Indian contents.
"This will send a positive signal to the public about the satellite TV channels and distribution networks' commitment with rule of law and the country ? about which a huge number of talk shows preach daily," it said.
According to PEMRA rules, local channels can only show five per cent foreign content but it has been seen that several channels mostly rely on foreign contents, mostly Indian, Turkish, American and European.
Interestingly, the only Indian general entertainment channel which was showing Pakistani content, Zee?s Zindagi, has also decided to stop such broadcasts from 2 October.
Last week, Raj Thackeray-led MNS issued an ultimatum to Pakistani artistes and actors, including Fawad Khan and Ali Zafar, to leave India by 25 September or else they would be "pushed out". Concerts of Pakistani singers Shafqat Amanat Ali and Atif Aslam scheduled in Bengaluru and Gurgaon, respectively, were also cancelled.
And though actor Salman Khan backed Pakistan artistes following the ban on them by the Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association, Pakistani cinemas have stopped screening Indian films in ?solidarity? with the country?s armed forces.
?We have stopped screening Indian movies at our cinemas from Friday till the situation improves and normalcy returns,? said Nadeem Mandviwalla, whose Mandviwalla Entertainment runs eight cinemas in Karachi and the capital, Islamabad, according to a report in a New York-based Indian newspaper. Indian films had been popular both at the cinema and on pirated DVDs in Pakistan.
Pakistan?s domestic film industry has seen a revival in recent years, but is dwarfed by India?s Bollywood. Pakistani actors have increasingly been appearing in big budget Bollywood films in the last few years.
Super Cinemas General Manager Khurram Gultasab confirmed his group would also not be screening Indian films. He said the move had been made by cinema owners themselves, rather than on government directions. The group runs ten cinemas in cities across Pakistan?s Punjab province.
Other Pakistani cinemas posted on social media saying they would not be showing Indian films after Thursday?s violence.


text:
Bittereinder - The Making of 'Dans Tot Die Dood' Documentary
- Written by Press Release
- Published in News
This quirky film by Louis Minnaar documents the making of Bittereinder's fourth album 'DANS TOT DIE DOOD'.
In the winter of 2015, the three Bittereinder boys disappeared into the mountains of Mpumalanga, removed from their lives in the city, and made magic music together for a week. This is the first Bittereinder album that features no outside collaborations, and is a true musical and thematic symbiosis of Peach, Louis and Jaco's skillsets. Also, having an acclaimed filmmaker as a band member has obvious benefits, and Bittereinder is almost as excited about releasing this documentary as about releasing the album itself. Humorous and insightful glimpses into the band's creative and personal chemistry have carefully been crafted into something between a memoir and a process guide. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is the official making of documentary of Bittereinder's DANS TOT DIE DOOD, with English subtitles (for those who struggle with Afrikaans even more than Bittereinder does).
Watch THE MAKING OF 'DANS TOT DIE DOOD' DOCUMENTARY here!
Buy DANS TOT DIE DOOD on iTunes here!


text:
DUBAI SEVENS: BlitzBoks stutter past Uganda
The South Africans, who are the defending World Sevens Series champions, will face Canada and Kenya in their next two matches on Friday.
There were also wins for some of the other big teams in Round One.
Round One wrap:
Pool A:
(South Africa, Canada, Kenya, Uganda)
Uganda made life difficult for the BlitzBoks in the first-half of their opening game, but tries from Ruhan Nel, Philip Snyman ensured the South Africans had a 14-0 lead at the break.
Uganda continued to make things hard for the champs after they opened the scoring with a try in the second half. But the Boks hit back almost immediately with a try from Tim Agaba.
Uganda never gave up and they were the last to score at the death before going down 10-19.
Kenya and Canada kicked things off in Pool A in an intriguing encounter.
After Canada took an early lead, Kenya ran in three unanswered tries in the rest of the first half to go into the break leading 19-5.
There was no way back in the second half for Canada with Kenya scoring another two tries. However, the Canadians did show promising signs in the second half.
South Africa 19-10 Uganda
Canada 15-29 Kenya
Pool B:
(England, Scotland, France, Spain)
England looked rusty in the opening minutes of their game against Spain, but they eventually found their rhythm to score two tries and lead 14-0 at the break.
England managed to score another two tries against the feisty Spanish in the second half for a 28-0 win.
The match between Scotland and France was a real arm-wrestle.
It was only a two-point game at the break with France leading 14-12 after both sides scored two tries.
Both teams could not find a way over the tryline in the first six minutes of the second half before Scotland finished the game with two tries to win 24-14.
England 28-0 Spain
Scotland 24-14 France
Pool C:
(Fiji, Australia, Wales, Russia)
There were two big wins in the opening two matches in Pool C on Friday.
Australia kicked things off in the pool with a match against Wales and it was one-way traffic throughout.
Wales had no answer to the Aussies dangerous ball-runners and they were eventually smashed 7-38.
It was more of the same in the match between Fiji and Russia with the Pacific Islanders running in four tries in the first-half to lead 26-7 at the break.
Fiji ran in another four tries in the second half to eventually win 50-7.
Fiji 50-7 Russia
Australia 38-7 Wales
Pool D:
(New Zealand, United States, Argentina, Samoa)
New Zealand got their campaign underway with a tricky encounter against Samoa and they did not have it their own way.
Samoa showed their intent in the first half and they went into the break leading 12-5 after outscoring their opponents by two tries to one.
However, the Kiwis turned on the gas in the second half, running in another three tries to pull away from their Pacific neighbours.
In what was the first match of the day, Argentina upset the United States of America 22-14 in an entertaining match.
The Argentinians outscored their opponents by four tries to two, but a lack of successful conversions meant they only held a slender 17-14 lead going into the final minute of the match.
However, try from Franco Sabato in the final seconds took the game away from the USA.
USA 14-22 Argentina
New Zealand 24-12 Samoa


text:
Ayesha Chowdhury
Contact Details
Ayesha Chowdhury
Graduate Teaching Assistant0113 81 27305 email@example.com
About Ayesha Chowdhury
Ayesha Chowdhury is a Graduate Teaching Assistant which has seen her law PhD funded by the Law School. She is a non-practising qualified Barrister (Lincoln's Inn).
Prior to her completion of the BPTC at Northumbria University in 2012, Ayesha obtained an LLM in International Commercial Law from Coventry University. This is when she discovered her drive for research.
Ayesha has taught a number of subjects at the Law School, including the Law of Tort, Public Law, Human Rights Law and Anti-Terrorism Law.
Research Interests
Ayesha's motivation for embarking on a PhD was driven by her desire to have a combination of academic and professional qualifications in her profile. Her PhD is on the topical subject of International Terrorism.Her research is about the preventive detention of suspected terrorists and she very much hopes to contribute academically to her area of research in the future.


text:
Words that end in garophyte
Found 1 words that end in garophyte. Browse our Scrabble Word Finder, Words With Friends cheat dictionary, and WordHub word solver to find words that end with garophyte. Or use our Unscramble word solver to find your best possible play! Related: Words containing garophyte
- Scrabble
- Words With Friends
- WordHub
- Crossword


text:
CANCER VICTIM Adhesive notes made Steve Jobs's face on the Apple Store in Munich. Christof Stache/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images
The New York Times, November 1, 2011, by Denise Grady — Was Steve Jobs a smart guy who made a stupid decision when it came to his health?
It might seem so, from the broad outlines of what he did in 2003 when a CT scan and other tests found a cancerous tumor in his pancreas. Doctors urged him to have an operation to remove the tumor, but Mr. Jobs put it off and instead tried a vegan diet, juices, herbs, acupuncture and other alternative remedies.
Nine months later, the tumor had grown. Only then did he agree to surgery, during which his doctors found that the cancer had spread to his liver, according to the new biography by Walter Isaacson. Cancer eventually killed him.
The sequence of events has given rise to news articles and blogs based on 20/20 hindsight, speculating that if only Mr. Jobs had had the surgery right away, doctors could have caught the cancer early, before it spread, and saved him.
But there is no way in this life to know what might have been — not in politics, baseball, romance or the stock market, and certainly not in sickness and health. Mr. Jobs's wish to avoid or delay surgery was not unusual. And given the type of tumor he had and the way it was found, his decision to wait may not have been as ill considered as it seems at first blush.
His wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, declined requests for an interview and for permission to speak to Mr. Jobs's doctors. But she did allow one of them to comment briefly: Dr. Dean Ornish, a friend of Mr. Jobs who is also a well-known advocate for using diet and lifestyle changes to treat and prevent heart disease.
Dr. Ornish said that when the diagnosis was first made, he advised Mr. Jobs to have the surgery. But in an e-mail message, he added:
"Steve was a very thoughtful person. In deciding whether or not to have major surgery, and when, he spent a few months consulting with a number of physicians and scientists worldwide as well as his team of superb physicians. It was his decision to do this.
"This type of surgery is a big deal and not to be taken lightly. He had surgery when he decided it was what he wanted to do. Nobody could have been more thoughtful and intelligent about how he went about this.
"No one can say whether or not having surgery earlier would have made any difference because of the possibility of micrometastases."
Micrometastases are the tiny cancers that form in various organs when a tumor starts to spread and seed itself around the body. Dr. Ornish's comment means that in theory, Mr. Jobs's tumor could already have spread invisibly to his liver by the time it was first diagnosed. If it had, operating earlier probably would not have made a difference.
Dr. Edward M. Wolin, co-director of the carcinoid and neuroendocrine tumor program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said that among patients with the kind of cancer Mr. Jobs had, "when they are first found on a scan, about 60 percent of the time it's already metastasized to the liver."
Another expert, Dr. Steven K. Libutti, said that based on his reading of the new biography, it seemed likely that Mr. Jobs's tumor had spread by the time it was found, and the delay in surgery probably did no harm. Dr. Libutti is director of the Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care in New York and of its neuroendocrine tumor program.
(Neither Dr. Wolin nor Dr. Libutti treated Mr. Jobs or knew the details of his illness.)
The tumor was a rare type. The usual type (which killed the actor Patrick Swayze) is notorious for its high death rate and rapid progression: After five years, only 5 percent of patients are still alive.
But Mr. Jobs had another disease: a neuroendocrine tumor, meaning that the cancer affected the cells that make hormones like insulin. Neuroendocrine tumors account for only about 3 percent of the 44,000 cases of pancreatic cancer each year in the United States.
Neuroendocrine tumors are much less deadly than the usual type of pancreatic cancer. Some can be cured. Patients' five-year survival is much higher, 50 to 60 percent, and many live 10 years or more, Dr. Libutti said.
In Mr. Jobs's case, the tumor was discovered almost by accident, when he had a CT scan for something else.
The increasing use of CT scans and the improving clarity of the images mean that more and more tumors too small to cause symptoms are being noticed incidentally in various organs, including the pancreas. Deciding what to do about these growths, and whether it is ever safe just to watch them, is something that "the field is wrestling with now," Dr. Libutti said.
Most doctors would advocate removing a neuroendocrine tumor of more than two centimeters (about three-quarters of an inch), Dr. Libutti said, though he said size alone was not a foolproof gauge. Small tumors can be vicious, big ones innocuous. A biopsy can give clues to how dangerous a tumor is. (Information about the size of Mr. Jobs's tumor has not been made public.)
"The real challenge for us with better CT scans and incidental findings is if you get a small one-centimeter tumor in the pancreas, do they all have to be removed right away, or can you just observe them?" Dr. Libutti said. "I don't think anybody has an absolutely comforting and soul-satisfying answer right now."
Dr. Wolin said he recommended removing any neuroendocrine tumor in the pancreas within a few months of the diagnosis. "If you find it early, that's the time to do it," he said. "Just because it has a really good prognosis and it's small doesn't mean you should ignore it."
Some doctors opt to wait if there is uncertainty and the surgery would be extensive, Dr. Libutti said. The pancreas has a head and a tail, and tumors in the head require more arduous surgery. Mr. Jobs ultimately had a type of operation that normally involves the head of the pancreas.
Dr. Libutti said that when a tumor is discovered incidentally, by a scan for a symptom like back pain, patients sometimes oppose surgery — arguing that without the scan the tumor never would have been found, and maybe it will never bother them.
"It's not magical thinking," he said. "In some ways it's common sense. We can't say 'Yes, it absolutely will kill you, and if we take it out, it won't kill you.' "
But if the tumor is large, he said, he will try to talk the patient into removing it.
"Some physicians are more comfortable saying 'Take them out; at least we've done everything we could,' " Dr. Libutti said. "Others say, 'What if you're taking it out for no reason, and there are complications, even though complications are rare?' That's why guys like me lose our hair."
Why the Algorithm Might Soon Be The Only Game in Town
Decoding the Brain's Cacophony
Filed Under News | Leave a Comment
Dr. Michael S. Gazzaniga Photo by George Fousham
The New York Times, November 1, 2011, by Benedict Carey, ST. HELENA, Calif. — The scientists exchanged one last look and held their breath. Everything was ready. The electrode was in place, threaded between the two hemispheres of a living cat's brain; the instruments were tuned to pick up the chatter passing from one half to the other. The only thing left was to listen for that electronic whisper, the brain's own internal code.
The amplifier hissed — the three scientists expectantly leaning closer — and out it came, loud and clear.
"We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine …."
"The Beatles' song! We somehow picked up the frequency of a radio station," recalled Michael S. Gazzaniga, chuckling at the 45-year-old memory. "The brain's secret code. Yeah, right!"
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Michael S. Gazzaniga is a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Michael Gazzaniga, in striped shirt, with his family in 1945.
Dr. Gazzaniga as a student at Caltech in 1963.
LEFT BRAIN, RIGHT BRAIN Dr. Gazzaniga with his colleagues John Sidtis and Jeffrey Holtzman, in lab coats, in the van they used at Dartmouth for studying the brain's hemispheric division of labor.
Dr. Gazzaniga, 71, now a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is best known for a dazzling series of studies that revealed the brain's split personality, the division of labor between its left and right hemispheres. But he is perhaps next best known for telling stories, many of them about blown experiments, dumb questions and other blunders during his nearly half-century career at the top of his field.
Now, in lectures and a new book, he is spelling out another kind of cautionary tale — a serious one, about the uses of neuroscience in society, particularly in the courtroom.
Brain science "will eventually begin to influence how the public views justice and responsibility," Dr. Gazzaniga said at a recent conference here sponsored by the Edge Foundation.
And there is no guarantee, he added, that its influence will be a good one.
For one thing, brain-scanning technology is not ready for prime time in the legal system; it provides less information than people presume.
For another, new knowledge about neural processes is raising important questions about human responsibility. Scientists now know that the brain runs largely on autopilot; it acts first and asks questions later, often explaining behavior after the fact. So if much of behavior is automatic, then how responsible are people for their actions?
Who's driving this submarine, anyway?
In his new book, "Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain," being published this month by Ecco/HarperCollins, Dr. Gazzaniga (pronounced ga-ZAHN-a-ga) argues that the answer is hidden in plain sight. It's a matter of knowing where to look.
The Split Brain
He began thinking seriously about the nature of responsibility only after many years of goofing off.
Mike Gazzaniga grew up in Glendale, Calif., exploring the open country east of Los Angeles and running occasional experiments in his garage, often with the help of his father, a prominent surgeon. It was fun; the experiments were real attempts to understand biochemistry; and even after joining the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity at Dartmouth (inspiration for the movie "Animal House"), he made time between parties and pranks to track who was doing what in his chosen field, brain science.
In particular, he began to follow studies at the California Institute of Technology suggesting that in animals, developing nerve cells are coded to congregate in specific areas in the brain. This work was captivating for two reasons.
First, it seemed to contradict common wisdom at the time, which held that specific brain functions like memory were widely — and uniformly — distributed in the brain, not concentrated in discrete regions.
Second, his girlfriend was due to take a summer job right there near Caltech.
He decided to write a letter to the director of the program, the eminent neurobiologist Roger Wolcott Sperry (emphasizing reason No. 1). Could Dr. Sperry use a summer intern? "He said sure," Dr. Gazzaniga said. "I always tell students, 'Go ahead and write directly to the person you want to study with; you just never know.' "
At Caltech that summer after his junior year, he glimpsed his future. He learned about so-called split-brain patients, people with severe epilepsy who had surgery cutting the connections between their left and right hemispheres. The surgery drastically reduced seizures but seemed to leave people otherwise unaffected.
Back at Dartmouth, he couldn't stop thinking about it: Totally unaffected? Combing the literature, he found that the best attempt to detect an effect had found no changes in thinking or perception among 26 patients who had had the surgery at the University of Rochester.
Could that be possible? Mr. Gazzaniga was so eager to test the patients' perceptions himself that he wrote another letter, this time to the surgeon — and got permission to do so.
"It's spring break, I get all my gear together, I get all the way over there, and the guy changes his mind," Dr. Gazzaniga said. "Like, 'Hey, buddy, go home!' "
After graduating, he headed straight for Caltech.
"It wasn't just ambition, it was something else — he was gutsy," said Mitch Glickstein, who was in Dr. Sperry's lab at the time and is completing a book, "Neuroscience: A Historical Introduction." "Here's this junior in college, he knows all about the split-brain patients, and he's ready to do original research. At 20 years old."
Caltech in those days was like a frat house for Nobel Prize contenders. Here's Richard Feynman, the physicist, parking himself in the lab unannounced and making wisecracks about the experiments. There's Dr. Sperry, annoyed, wondering how to one-up Dr. Feynman. One afternoon Dr. Sperry's young student scrambled out into the hallway on all fours after an escaped lab animal and nearly kneecapped Linus Pauling, the eminent chemist. ("Why don't you try anesthetizing a bowl of jelly instead?" Dr. Pauling remarked icily.)
And then there were the experiments, each one a snapshot into the dark box of the brain. In the early 1960s, Dr. Gazzaniga, then a graduate student, teamed with Dr. Sperry and Dr. Joseph Bogen, a brain surgeon, to publish a string of reports that dramatically demonstrated hemispheric specialization in humans.
The researchers devised a way to flash a picture of a bicycle to the right hemisphere alone. When split-brain patients were asked what they saw, they replied, "Nothing": Because of the severed connection, the left hemisphere, where language is centered, got no visual input and no information from the right hemisphere. So the right hemisphere — which "saw" the bike — had no language to name it.
But here was the kicker: The right hemisphere could direct the hand it controls to draw the bicycle.
In other studies, the three scientists showed that the right hemisphere could also identify objects by touch, correctly selecting, say, a toothbrush or a spoon by feel after seeing the image of one.
The implications were soon clear. The left hemisphere was the intellectual, the wordsmith; it could be severed from the right without loss of I.Q. The right side was the artist, the visual-spatial expert.
The findings demolished the theory that specific functions were widely and uniformly supported in the brain. It also put "left brain/right brain" into the common language, as shorthand for types of skills and types of people. Still, in a field defined by incremental, often arcane advances, the Caltech team had achieved a moon shot.
Dr. Gazzaniga, now all of 25, could write his own ticket. He soon had a grant for a study to record the electronic chatter between the two hemispheres in the brain of a cat.
The Interpreter
The Beatles song that surged through the receiver in that experiment provided Dr. Gazzaniga with something almost as valuable as insight: a good story. Yet it also served as a rude reminder that he and his colleagues were missing something important in their assumptions about the brain.
"The question, ultimately, was why?" Dr. Gazzaniga said. "Why, if we have these separate systems, is it that the brain has a sense of unity?"
Even as he built his early triumph into a career, moving from Caltech to U.C. Santa Barbara and eventually to Dartmouth, with several stops along the way, the same question hung in the air, without a satisfactory answer. In the late 1970s, with the psychologist and linguist George A. Miller, he founded the field of cognitive neuroscience, a marriage of psychology and biology aimed at solving just such puzzles.
It didn't happen, at least not quickly. In the decades to follow, brain scientists found that the left brain-right brain split is only the most obvious division of labor; in fact, the brain contains a swarm of specialized modules, each performing a special skill — calculating a distance, parsing a voice tone — and all of them running at the same time, communicating in widely distributed networks, often across hemispheres.
In short, the brain sustains a sense of unity not just in the presence of its left and right co-pilots. It does so amid a cacophony of competing voices, the neural equivalent of open outcry at the Chicago Board of Trade.
It turned out, yet again, that people who'd had the split-brain surgery helped provide an answer. Dr. Gazzaniga, now at Dartmouth, performed more of his signature experiments — this time with an added twist. In one study, for instance, he and Joseph LeDoux, then a graduate student, showed a patient two pictures: The man's left hemisphere saw a chicken claw; his right saw a snow scene. Afterward, the man chose the most appropriate matches from an array of pictures visible to both hemispheres. He chose a chicken to go with the claw, and a shovel to go with the snow. So far, so good.
But then Dr. Gazzaniga asked him why he chose those items — and struck gold. The man had a ready answer for one choice: The chicken goes with the claw. His left hemisphere had seen the claw, after all. Yet it had not seen the picture of the snow, only the shovel. Looking down at the picture of the shovel, the man said, "And you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed."
The left hemisphere was just concocting an explanation, Dr. Gazzaniga said. In studies in the 1980s and '90s, he and others showed that the pattern was consistent: The left hemisphere takes what information it has and delivers a coherent tale to conscious awareness. It happens continually in daily life, and most everyone has caught himself or herself in the act — overhearing a fragment of gossip, for instance, and filling in the blanks with assumptions.
The brain's cacophony of competing voices feels coherent because some module or network somewhere in the left hemisphere is providing a running narration. "It only took me 25 years to ask the right question to figure it out," Dr. Gazzaniga said.
"One of the toughest things in any science, but especially in neuroscience, is to weed out the ideas that are really pleasing but unencumbered by truth," said Thomas Carew, former president of the Society for Neuroscience and dean of the New York University School of Arts and Sciences. "Mike Gazzaniga is one of those in the field who's been able to do that."
Dr. Gazzaniga decided to call the left-brain narrating system "the interpreter." The storyteller found the storyteller.
Emergent Properties
Knowing the breed well, he also understood its power. The interpreter creates the illusion of a meaningful script, as well as a coherent self. Working on the fly, it furiously reconstructs not only what happened but why, inserting motives here, intentions there — based on limited, sometimes flawed information.
One implication of this is a familiar staple of psychotherapy and literature: We are not who we think we are. We narrate our lives, shading every last detail, and even changing the script retrospectively, depending on the event, most of the time subconsciously. The storyteller never stops, except perhaps during deep sleep.
But another implication has to do with responsibility. If our sense of control is built on an unreliable account from automatic brain processes, how much control do we really have? Are there thresholds of responsibility, for instance, that can be determined by studying neural circuits? Dr. Gazzaniga and his wife, Charlotte, raised six children, so like any parents they had to determine levels of responsibility on the fly, just to get someone to set the table.
Yet questions like these became increasingly difficult to ignore for Dr. Gazzaniga, as he took on a more prominent role advising policy makers on the applications of brain science. He was appointed to a Congressional technology panel in 1991; in 2002, he took a position on the President's Council on Bioethics. And in 2007, he became the founding director of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Research Network on Law and Neuroscience, which tracks and evaluates applications in the legal system.
There, in particular, brain science has had a growing impact. In recent years lawyers have begun to present brain images as evidence, usually to mitigate responsibility for a crime or to test veracity of testimony, as in a polygraph; increasingly, those images have been admitted. And more are coming: In imaging studies, for instance, neuroscientists have identified cortical areas that are highly active when people suppress impulses or other behaviors.
But there are clear shortcomings in the application of each of these methods in courtrooms. Brain images are snapshots, for one thing; they capture a brain state at only one moment in time and say nothing about its function before or after. For another, the images vary widely among people with healthy brains — that is, a "high" level of activity in one person may be normal in another. Can brain science tell exactly where automatic processes end and self-directed "responsible" ones end?
Not now and not likely ever, Dr. Gazzaniga argues in his book. Social constructs like good judgment and free will are even further removed, and trying to define them in terms of biological processes is, in the end, a fool's game.
"My contention is that, ultimately, responsibility is a contract between two people rather than a property of the brain, and determinism has no meaning in this context," he writes in "Who's in Charge?"
Like generosity and pettiness, like love and suspiciousness, responsibility is what he calls a "strongly emergent" property — a property that, though derived from biological mechanisms, is fundamentally distinct and obeys different laws, as do ice and water.
Dr. Gazzaniga is not the first scientist making this case. It is far from a settled matter, in part because researchers do not yet have a complete picture of how automatic and deliberate systems interact biologically.
"I see Gazzaniga's point, and it would indeed be easiest if we could ignore conclusions derived from brain science and psychology when it comes to legal issues," said Ap Dijksterhuis, a psychologist at Radboud University Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, in an e-mail. "However, I do not think we can do this forever, and at some point, some key legal concepts such as accountability or responsibility will have to be redefined."
Until then, Dr. Gazzaniga's advice is to look for them where they've always been: in the hearts and moral intuitions of human beings, in their laws and customs.
And, it should be said, in their stories.
Michael S. Gazzaniga (born December 12, 1939) is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. He is one of the leading researchers in cognitive neuroscience, the study of the neural basis of mind.
In 1961, Gazzaniga graduated from Dartmouth College. In 1964, he received a Ph.D. in psychobiology from the California Institute of Technology, where he worked under the guidance of Roger Sperry, with primary responsibility for initiating human split-brain research. In his subsequent work he has made important advances in our understanding of functional lateralization in the brain and how the cerebral hemispheres communicate with one another.
Gazzaniga's publication career includes books for a general audience The Social Brain, Mind Matters, and Nature's Mind. He recently published The Cognitive Neurosciences III, from MIT Press, which features the work of nearly 200 scientists and is a sourcebook for the field. His book The Ethical Brain was published by the Dana Press in June 2005.
Gazzaniga founded the Centers for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis and at Dartmouth College, the Neuroscience Institute, and the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, of which he is the Editor-in-Chief Emeritus. Gazzaniga a member of the President's Council on Bioethics. He also is the Director of the Law and Neuroscience Project, a project to study the intersection of law and neuroscience.
Dr. Michael Gazzaniga
Gazzaniga Key Study
Key Study Sheet
Area of Psychology: Split brain. Split brain is a procedure when there is severe epilepsy in one hemisphere of the brain and the surgeons cut the corpus callosum to stop the spread of epileptic seizures from one hemisphere to the other. In general, this procedure is successful as the patients' seizures are reduced and sometimes eliminated.
A brief introduction to split brain and split brain patients:
Title of Study: Gazzaniga (1984) Split brain observations. This is a natural experiment.
Figure 1: The Dual Brain Development
Figure 2: The Split Brain
Researchers: Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga. Michael Gazzaniga (born December 12, 1939) is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. Some of his famous books are The Social Brain, Mind Matters, Nature's Mind, The Cognitive Neurosciences III and The Ethical Brain. He worked under the guidance of Roger Sperry, with primary responsibility for initiating human split-brain research. Roger Sperry (August 20, 1913 – April 17, 1994) was a neuropsychologist, neurobiologist and Nobel laureate who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work with split-brain research.
Figure 3: Professor Michael Gazzaniga
Figure 4: Roger Sperry
Aims: To investigate hemispheric specialization with split brain patients. A split brain patient's two hemispheres are functionally isolated, in effect, their right brain doesn't know what their left brain is doing (and vice versa). "Each hemisphere is indeed a conscious system in its own right, perceiving, thinking, remembering, reasoning, willing, and emoting, all at a characteristically human level, and both the left and the right hemisphere may be conscious simultaneously in different, even in mutually conflicting, mental experiences that run along in parallel".– Roger Wolcott Sperry, 1974
Procedures: In one of Sperry's experiments, split brain patients were asked to stare at a spot on a projection screen and then draw/name the objects he saw as they flashed up on either side or both sides of the screen. Therefore split brain patient 'Joe' was asked to look at a screen with a dot in the middle of a computer screen and then name/draw the objects he saw as they flashed up on either side or both sides of the screen.
Figure5: A split brain patient asked to stare at the dot on the projection screen
Figure 6: The conflict between your right and left stare at the dot on the projection screen brains (hemispheres)
Here is a video of the split brain patient 'Joe':
Findings: In Sperry's experiment when pictures of various objects were projected to the right of that spot, they could name the object. And, with their right hands they could pick them out of a group of hidden objects. However, when pictures of objects were shown on the left side of the screen, something changed. Patients could pick out the objects by feeling them with their left hands, but they couldn't say what the objects were! In fact, when asked objects they saw on the left side of the screen, split brain patients usually said "nothing". So, when Joe focuses on a point (right visual field), everything to the right of the point goes to his left brain, the area associated with language and speech. When a word or picture is flashed on the right side, Joe is easily able to name it. When information to the left of the point (left visual field) goes to the right hand side of his brain, Joe is unable to name the object but he is able to draw the object with his left hand (which is controlled by the right half of his brain).
This can be easily understood through a GAME:
Figure 7: Experiment on split brain patients
Figure 8: Another experiment on split brain patients
Conclusions: The different hemispheres have separate functions (left- language/right- spatial tasks). The mind is made up of several independent agents and they can carry out activities outside of our conscious awareness, they are integrated at one point, which Gazzaniga believes is in the left hemisphere. Part of the explanation for these strange results lies in the fact that nerves cross over before entering the hemispheres. The left cerebral hemisphere receives information only from the right side of the body and the right half of the visual field. So the left hemisphere can match an object shown in the right visual field with information received by touch by the right hand. Conversely, the right hemisphere of the brain receives information only from the left side of the visual field and the left side of the body. So, the right hemispheres can match an object shown in the left visual field with information received by touch from the left hand.
Figure 9: Description of the split brain and split brain patients' experiment
Criticisms/ Evaluation (MECG): It was a natural experiment so there was a lack of control over variables. The participant's mental abilities may have been atypical before the operation. There are also theoretical problems like; more recent research has revealed differences between the left and right handed people. This research was carried out on a right handed participant.
Why can't split brain patients name an object shown in the left visual field?
For the great majority of people, language ability is concentrated in the left cortex of the brain. In most split brain patients, the right hemisphere of the brain cannot verbally identify the object that is "seeing" in the left visual field, even though the object can be picked out by touch using the left hand.
The results of these and other tests indicate that the two cerebral hemispheres not only are connected to opposite sides of the body, but also specialised in different functions. For example, damage to the left hemisphere often results to severe language problems, whereas similar damage to the right hemisphere seldom has this effect.
Split Brain Research
Right Brain vs Left Brain
The Social Brain
The Interpreter
Free Yet Determined – Michael Gazzaniga
What We Are – Michael Gazzaniga
The Distributed Networks of Mind – Michael Gazzaniga
The God Debate
Evolution of Mind and Brain


text:
Defense Information Systems Agency (12/2012 – present)
Ft. Meade, MD
Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) provides enterprise services, and protects and defends the DoD and Intelligence Community's Defense Information Systems network, including internet boundaries, long-haul telecommunication and satellite communication services. Given position to spearhead projects for strategic planning and policy for the DoD and DISA; brief seniors; develop and maintain relationships across agencies and with vendors to qualify their products and services for DoD data-related initiatives; and supervise and perform in-depth analyses for major data initiatives.
- Pioneered new approach for integrating intelligence with cyber by applying big data analytics to acquire timely actionable relevant data; it improved predictive analysis of systems reliability with cyber events which will be used for future creation of log file strategies for enterprise capabilities.
- Forged consensus with international standards bodies while leading cross agency teams in enterprise engineering standards and data for the DoD, other federal agencies and international partners which resulted in co-authorship of the DoD data framework used by all programs to achieve interoperability with the enterprise environment.
- Influenced the future DoD Joint Information Environment (JIE) for all DoD and Intelligence community components by analyzing the effects of National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) and recommending modifications to the JIE's reference data model which were subsequently accepted to improve functionality and ability to share intelligence.
- Envisioned Data maturity model for DoD and advised the DoD's CIO on data collection (acquisition) strategies and the Reference Data model to be used in JIE to ensure interoperability with other data systems.
- Advised DoD CIO on interoperability, data standards, and data management of enterprise architecture and recommendations were incorporated into the DoD Instructions 8310, 8320 and 8330 to facilitate the sharing of timely, actionable and relevant data across agency boundaries.
- As a leader in DISA's mentoring program and actively working to build future leaders for DISA, led mentees in analytic activities for their personal, professional and technical growth.


text:
When I first started blogging in 2012, you would have laughed. My first post was a picture of the sunset in San Diego and happened to be one of my first pictures on Instagram.
It was too gorgeous not to share, so I created a blog on WordPress.com and published it. From there, blogging became a sporadic habit, firstly because I love writing, and secondly, I was curious to see how many likes and followers I could gain. The more the better, right?
As I started reading other blogs, I realized my beginner blog wasn't as polished and professional as it could be. The wheels in my head started turning and I began to think I needed some sort of education to fix my blog.
If you're feeling the same struggles with your blog, like it's not up to par or there's more you could do to market it, read on for 10 ways to improve your blog.
Listen to your audience before choosing your topic
If you want your blog post to be an instant hit, you need to write what people want to hear.
Wait…what does that mean?
Well, the reason this blog post came about was during lunch. I was chatting with a coach about her business and she asked me: "What tips would you recommend for bloggers?"
Although there are several blog posts about blogging and getting started, she wanted to hear from me specifically.
Someone else asked me about landing page conversions and how to improve them.
Members of a writerly Facebook Group I'm in asked several questions about planning a book launch.
A new freelancer wrote about having a hard time marketing their work and needed to create a marketing plan.
All of these blog posts are now live on my site, because I listened online and in person, to the digital marketing related pain points people have.
That's not to say you can't write the blog posts you want to write, in fact, you should!
I'm a huge fan of writing for yourself, and it's the motto for my fantasy novels: write the book you want to read.
Since blogging is vastly different from writing a novel, you want to ensure you are listening to your audience and writing both the content they want, and the content you already know they need.
Use keywords
If you're a newbie to search engine optimization (SEO), it's a way of using keywords to allow your blog posts to filter to the top when someone searches for a particular word or phrase.
Here's now to maximize keywords:
- Use them in your blog post title. For example, the keyword for this post is "improve blog" and yep, it's super generic, but that's the keyword.
- Use the keyword in the first sentence and sprinkled throughout your blog text.
To be honest, I sometimes find it awkward to include the keyword in the first sentence of my blog post, so I skip it.
I use the plugin Yoast SEO to ensure my keywords are on point. You can also use OnPage.org to ensure your blog is in the best shape possible. They even have a free step by step course to help you use SEO to improve your traffic.
Incorporate high-resolution images
One of my huge fails with my early blog posts was not using visuals. Photos were hard to find, they weren't free and there was that whole copyright issue.
If this is your thinking, here are my favorite sites to find copyright free images to use on the blog. You may see some familiar ones as you browse through.
Images are imperative to your blog because of social media. If you have a catchy, fun headline and an appealing photo that goes along with it, you're golden and well on your way to gaining more readers and shares. Here are the various images I recommend:
- Include images that will be seen on Facebook and Twitter – these are the horizontal images at the top of my blog with the name of the blog post. You'll notice all of mine use my brand colors. This wasn't always the case, sometimes it was a quote or simply a plain image, you'll need to determine what will work best for your audience.
- Include an image that can be pinned to Pinterest – you'll notice not all of my posts have a vertical image for Pinterest. While I'm not a huge fan of Pinterest yet and haven't figured out how to get 100,000 page views from it, people do pin my blog posts. So, I'll let them work on getting that traffic for me by providing the correctly sized image.
How do I create these images? Use Canva.com, it's a lifesaver and has saved me hours of time and energy creating visuals.
Add your own watermarks
Can anyone steal your images? Yes, they can. All it takes is for them to right-click and hit "Save Image."
This isn't something I'm too worried about, but if you are, especially if you're a photographer and use your own images, make sure you watermark them!
This can be as simple as adding text over your image. You'll notice most of the photos on my blog say "Angela J. Ford" or "www.angelajford.com" somewhere on them.
This is to remind people where the original post came from, and if the photo isn't clickable, they can at least run a Google Search to find my blog.
Make your social media buttons easy to see
One of the biggest mistakes I see, especially on Squarespace sites (sorry Squarespace fans!), is that social media buttons are hard to see. If you want your blog posts to be shared, you need to make it a no-brainer for your readers.
Currently, I have social media buttons at the beginning and end of each blog posts. If someone is reading it, the logical conclusion is to leave a comment or click one of the social media buttons to share it! These buttons are big, beautiful and easy to see on both a desktop computer or smartphone.
The second mistake I often see is, when I Tweet out your blog post, your Twitter handle (for example @aford21) isn't included. This allows you to know when your posts are being shared, plus, most social media sharing buttons allow you to add your Twitter handle.
Not sure what plugin to use for social media buttons? If you're using WordPress I recommend using Monarch by Elegant Themes.
Add Click to Tweet links throughout your content
One of the best ways to get people to share your content for you, is to make it dead simple. We're all busy, but if you read something fantastic and all it takes is the click of a button to share it, you're likely to do it.
Click to Tweet is one of the best ways to do so and it's free. If you're using WordPress, you can simply install the plugin Click to Tweet. If not, go to www.ClicktoTweet.com and sign in with Twitter. Regardless of whether you have a huge audience on Twitter, this is worth it because others will Tweet your blog post for you.
Add email signup options in the sidebar or below your blog posts
Email lists are a way to ensure you have the details of your biggest fans, so you can contact them at any time. Regardless of whether you have 1 person on your list or 100,000, you should be sending out emails.
If you're a blogger and simply want readers to consume content, send out an email when a new post goes live. I don't know about you, but I don't constantly keep up with all the blogs I follow to see when a new post is published. An email in my inbox is the quickest way to get my attention (other than tagging me on Twitter or Instagram).
If you want the attention of your readers, or if you have a special incentive for joining your email list (a free guide, a checklist, or promotional offer), feature it!
Sidebars are the perfect place to feature email options, ads, and affiliate links. However, if you aren't a fan of sidebars, don't fear, you can easily add an opt-in box at the end of your blog post.
You'll notice throughout my blog I alternate on using both. If you want an easy way to make your email optins beautiful, I recommend using Bloom by Elegant Themes. I use it on my fantasy website, you can preview it here: The Four Worlds Series
Currently, all of my email optins and landing pages were created using MailerLite.
Promote your blog posts more than once
Have you ever published a blog post, sent out an email, shared on every social media channel and called it day? Well, that's the #1 way to cause your blog traffic to sink.
Last year I discovered CoSchedule, a content calendar and sharing tool that keeps me accountable to sharing my blog posts more than once. When I started implementing their recommendations, I saw my blog traffic jump! Here's what I suggest:
- Share your blog post on every social media channel when you publish it.
- Send an email to your email list announcing the new post – or just include the entire post in the email.
- Email or tag any influencers you featured in your blog post. For example, my book launch guide features several editors and designers, so I sent them messages on Facebook and Twitter to let them know. Of course, they loved that and shared it with their audience. Winning!
- Schedule your blog post to be reshared the same day after publish, 7 days later, 14 days later and 30 days later.
- Reset your schedule every month
- If you're using Twitter, the hashtags #MondayBlogs and #SundayBlogShare will help your posts get more views
If you're worried about sounding repetitive with your blog posts, change the caption. You don't have to say "10 Ways to Improve Your Blog" every single time. Try something new like:
- Are you sharing your blog posts more than once? Find out why you should:
- Not getting the engagement you want with your blog? Try these tips:
- Improve your blog with these 10 tips:
Asking questions, sharing a quote or making a statement are all way to differentiate the content you share.
Collaborate with other bloggers
If you haven't read my blog post on the power of community, you should! It's imperative to ask other people to help you meet your goals. When it comes to improving your blog presence, don't be afraid to ask to guest blog on other sites.
If you don't like writing for others, allow them to guest blog on your site, or become a guest on their podcast. There are several ways to collaborate with other bloggers and business owners, and most of the time, it benefits both of you.
One of my favorites is getting podcast interviews because I enjoy talking a little too much.
I've created a Media page so it's easy for podcasters to find out more about me.
If you're interested in doing the same, view my example here: www.angelajford.com/media
Use links to your advantage
Ever wanted to know when others are talking about you? I do! I created a Google Alert so anytime someone mentions my name or book series, I get an email with the details. Several companies use this technique to monitor their online reputation, and it's a tactic you can use to your advantage. If you blog about a product or service, make sure you link to it, this helps your search engine optimization (SEO). You can also tag those companies on social media to let them know you mentioned them in your latest post.
Another way to start bringing in passive revenue is to use affiliate links in your blog posts. If you're talking about a product or service that's relevant to your audience, include the link and make some money off of it. I've heard of people making thousands a month off affiliate links. While I'm just getting started in this area, I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
Check out the Resources page for all of my affiliate links for products and services I love and use every single day.
Well, that's a wrap. What top tip are you using to improve your blog? What recommendations do you have? Share in the comments below!
Want more? Take the Blogging Bombshell Course, perfect for bloggers who need in-depth, step by step guidance!


text:
When President Barack Obama comes to Charlotte today to tour Celgard, a battery-parts maker that has received $49 million in stimulus money, he's sure to tout how government money will put people to work.
He's visiting a company that hasn't yet spent any of its stimulus money, according to federal documents. But his visit highlights the administration's focus on using stimulus funds to create green jobs and push energy efficiency.
Celgard wouldn't talk Thursday about its plans or the specifics of its grant. The governor's office has said the money will help create about 300 jobs over the next five years.
Nationwide, the federal government says that stimulus spending created up to 2.1 million jobs as of Dec. 31, including 62,000 in North Carolina. But figuring out how many jobs were actually created by the stimulus has proven difficult.
Critics say the government's job tallies can be misleading, because companies are confused about how to report the data and because the government's instructions are prone to make them over-report the number.
To read the complete article, visit www.charlotteobserver.com.


text:
Each the Same
Michelle Worthington
Publication Date:
21 May 2013
Ambassador International
The cows are in the milking shed, the horses are in the stable and the sheep are in the field. They all have their jobs to do to help make the farm a happy place to live. Someone s squelching in the mud and it s not the pigs. Who can it be?


text:
Laptops are some of the most innovative computers. As with many other products, there are laptops that have already been used. They are sold at a lower price than the newer laptops. However, there are certain disadvantages that come with the lower price tag. For one thing, you can't expect used laptops to last as long as laptops that are bought straight from the store. There are a few problems that can come with used laptops that can even outweigh the advantage of a lower price tag. Before emptying your wallet on one of those laptops, it is important to know if they are worth the risk.
Besides the lower life expectancy, there is plenty of other risk factors that you have to look out for. Among those are batteries. Some used laptops have reduced battery life or batteries that can no longer hold a charge. However, this problem could be remedied. There are ways that you can have a battery replaced so that you can have a longer lasting battery life. This gives you plenty of more time to do what you need to do without having your laptop plugged into the socket at all times.
Other problems that you are vulnerable to are faulty inputs and sockets. On used laptops, there could be sockets and inputs that have either blown out or have been damaged. Potential problems that could be caused depend on the type of input that is not working. Problems could be as minor as a headphone jack that doesn't work. Some laptops might have a faulty USB slot, this would get in the way of you being able to save something to your flash drive. If your used laptop have other slots that are working then you might be able to make through until you save enough for another laptop.
Some laptops might have a bad hard drive. In the case of a bad hard drive, there are plenty of hard drives that are for sale that can be bought at a low price. Other drives you have to check are disk drives. One way to test your CD drive is by trying to burn every format that the drive should be able to handle such as CDR, DVD, blu-ray, and any other format.
Another thing you should check for when buying a used laptop is any damages to the screen. These damages could range from cracks to discoloration. If there are any problems with the screen, it could cost plenty of money to get it repaired. It is probably better to skip the used laptop and look for one that is in better condition.
In some cases, it is not possible to handle all of the potential problems by yourself. This is when you should try to get some help in order to check out the system. You can have a professional or someone who is very knowledgeable about computers and laptops look into the system. He will have better knowledge about the potential problems this laptop has and whether or not it is going to need fixing.
When buying used laptops, the most important issue should be how well it works. Any superficial or cosmetic damages such as chips or cracks off of the body work are not really anything to be concerned about as long as the computer is working well enough.
The trick to buying used laptops is to know where to look. Electronics stores and mass merchandise locations are not likely to carry used laptops. Pretty much every laptop that is sold is new. Your best bet in buying used laptops is to look online. There are plenty of sites that list used laptops for sale. Other places you can visit are pawn shops and certain second hand stores. However, their laptop selections tend to be very small.
Are used Laptops worth the Risk? It really depends on a lot of factors, one of them being the previous owner. Used laptops are only worth the risk if you take the time to research the items that you are interested in. They are rarely in as good condition as a newer laptop. That said, a lot of owners take good care of their laptops before they sell them.


text:
Make your own handles for your bedside tables. This is an IKEA hack using Malm drawers.
Start by drilling holes where you want the screws to go. I found it easiest to make a template and use the same one for both drawers so they line up perfectly.
Choose screws that are long enough and bolts that fit.
Punch holes through the leather strap with the correct size hole. I just bought leather belts from the dollar store and liked the look of the back of them. After measuring how long I wanted the handles to be, I cut them to size.
Once the holes are made in the drawer and then leather, just pop the screw through and tighten to bolt at the back. Done! Updated drawer handles :)


text:
The nerves of the knee
F001/9064 Royalty Free
Please login to use the price calculator
Credit: MEDICAL RF.COM/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Release details: Model release not required. Property release not required.
Keywords: 3d medical illustration, anatomy, back view, colour, human, illustration, knee, knee nerves, landscape, nerve supply, nerves, nerves of the knee, realistic, side view, tibial nerve, white background, with skeleton
Licence fees: A licence fee will be charged for any media (low or high resolution) used in your project.


text:
Status: Closed
Know more about this business than we do? Cool! Please submit any corrections or missing details you may have.Help us make it right
Your Beauty Is Our Business
Be the first NJ.com user to add photos or videos of Gallery A Salon
Great expertise and great people! I have come here for over 10 years! Love this place
I love the Gallery A Salon! Patty is the one that does my hair & she always does such an amazing job. Very happy with this salon all around. I went off all the positive reviews on Yelp & glad I did. Thank you to all the women at the Gallery A Salon for being so talented!
The Gallery A Salon is a quality provider of salon services, and we proudly partner with GOLDWELL and KMS CALIFORNIA professional hair products. We offer a wide range of retail brands, including Kerasilk, Dualsenses and StyleSign. The Gallery A Salon has been offering salon services in Wayne, NJ for over 36 years and remains dedicated to providing our customers with the best experience...
The Gallery A Salon is a full service Hair and nail salon.


text:
San Japan was held in San Antonio Labor Day weekend, which fell on September 2-4. Well, it was held the weekend before Labor day but it didn't extend into Labor day. San Japan doesn't really have a banner with their logo (except for the really tall one), so I just pulled something from their website. Their actual banner that wouldn't really work as my headerimage is this one:
After doing A-Kon, I already had a pretty high bar for Texas conventions but this one was almost equally amazing! They were so well organized, sales were great, and attendees were so incredibly friendly. Now that I'm attending so many large cons, I'm starting to see repeat artists which is really neat. There were a few things in AA I really wanted to pick up, but I never got the chance because Mags was at the smash tournament (he got 2nd place but still won like $250 or something?!) for most of the weekend or playing smash. I didn't mind too much because yay he won! And he had a lot of fun and got some valuable experience, considering how strong this region is. Anyways, normally I would get a little lonely or bored but I met some awesome people at San Japan. My neighbor on the right in particular (her name is Linda) was so friendly and I really clicked with her so I chatted with her all weekend long. This was my first convention that I started playing music, so it was fun listening to my own personal playlist which was a mixture of jpop, kpop, and some edm. Linda and I had a lot in common, too, and her art was amazing so we ended up doing art trades. ^__^ Follow her stuff here! I have one of her Love Live prints currently on my wall and I admire it every time I see it. 🙂 My neighbors on the left were also soooo friendly! They were a group of 3 iirc. They had so many cute charms and other merch but I forgot to trade with them!! So sad. I hope I run into them next year if we go to SJ!
Anyways, the actual venue was very spacious. Maybe a bit too spacious? Only half of the building was actually used, I believe. But the half that was used was very full! I think the other half wasn't used because apparently there was some sort of event that was supposed to happen there alongside SJ but due to issues, it got unexpectedly cancelled. We originally entered the wrong entrance because I was a bit confused, but after the long walk down the hall, we found check in for artists and everything was very smooth. We went directly to the convention center from the airport to check in and drop off our things so we didn't have to lug it back and forth from our Airbnb. The airbnb we chose was incredibly confusing to get to at first because the road's name was also under the same name of the interstate it ran alongside. >_> Our hosts tried their best to help us and finally we managed to find it! It was a shared house and we were renting a few rooms there so when we got in, the house was HOT. The air conditioning for the common areas was typically turned off when no one was there, so because it was just our group, we had to wait up for our rooms to cool down. Also!! Delta ended up losing our stand so we had such a huge fiasco with getting it back. It ended up arriving around 2AM and the delivery person also had trouble finding us. I was too stressed to handle it, so Mags did it for me. =_=;; So when we originally went to the con the first time for set up, we organized everything and prepped so that all we'd have to do was tack everything onto the stand.
When we arrived the morning of the first day, we also realized that I had left out a few prints from our display because we had to pick it up at the UPS inside the con. The only problem was… THEY WERE CLOSED?! Their holiday hours listed they would open 1 hour before the convention opened but there was no one there until like 2pm?! So the first few hours, we didn't have our newest prints available. By this point, I was so frustrated but I got over it. Things like this happen all the time but all I can do is either just fix and or be patient until I can fix it!
So I did mention that sales were good here, but man were they great! I was so busy all weekend long. Mags actually has a HUGE fanbase so all weekend long when he was at the tournament, I got bombarded with his fans asking where he was or if I was him. I had to repeatedly tell them no but he'd be here later to sign stuff. So many people asked for his autograph, it was really cute. Linda even commented that he was so popular because he had so many people asking for him! Yay, that makes me really happy!!
Cosplays here were really nice! I had such a great time chatting with attendees and admiring cosplays. Even though I was so incredibly busy all weekend long, I managed to take a lot of pictures.
So many cosplays!! And that Kancolle group.. I was so sad I didn't cosplay as Iku that day. T___T HUHUHUHU it would've been so cute! I was chatting with them and they told me that their Iku had backed out that weekend cuz she got sick or something. ;( Oh well, maybe some other time!
Food in San Antonio was really good! We didn't eat much at the con, but we did try out a lot of places. There was this little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant about a 15 minute walk from our Airbnb that we decided to go to. It doesn't look appetizing in pictures, but it was delicious! First authentic Mexican food experience I've had.
We also explored a little bit of San Antonio! We didn't go see the Alamo but we did go to the zoo and Tower of Americas. The zoo was small but very fun! They had this adorable butterfly exhibit and I know butterflies are especially dear to Mags, we had a lot of fun just playing in a garden full of hundreds of butterflies everywhere. I have never seen so many butterflies and didn't realize how aggressive or big they can get. Some would be zooming by my face and I'd duck each time because I was so terrified it was going to attack me. Lol. My friends were actually holding some and petting their wings, but I was too scared!! The staff member their even spent a few minutes trying to calm one down enough to have it crawl onto my arm but as it got closer, I shrieked and couldn't handle it. I felt bad because I must have scared it off, but that thing was bigger than my hand! I'm not even exaggerating, the wingspan of some of them were larger than my face.
The view from the Tower of Americas was breathtaking! We got there for happy hour because the food was supposedly really good and cheap but stayed and just watched anime for like 2 hours. Lol. We continually ordered food, though! So it's not like we just ordered a few things and stayed there for several hours. Here was the progression of our view throughout the day:
So lovely! We stayed at the bar but apparently if you sit at the tables which were on the floor below, they continually rotate so you get a full view of the city. It's especially beautiful at night! I bet it would be a great place to go on a date.
We also spent a day shopping at the mall where I got my cute backpack that I use a lot now! The mall was also having several exhibits throughout showing various US landmarks or buildings with legos. It was really awesome! It was only there for a short period of time, so I was happy I got to see them.
If you look hard, you see the Lincoln memorial inside too! It was so detailed, you really had to see it in person to appreciate how cool they looked. This was also where I tried the Cheesecake Factory for the first time. The pasta I got was really good and but I ended up being so full that I couldn't eat any cheesecake.. Sigh. I would've bought some to go, but I think I forgot or got lazy? Or something. Maybe I didn't feel like holding it because I wanted to browse the mall and then got lazy to pick it up before we left. Lol.
Well, that about sums up my trip to San Antonio for San Japan. I'm really happy I started writing up these posts because it really puts into perspective how inexperienced I was in the beginning. Looking back at my impressions for the earlier cons, I think I would've been really angry or upset if I had a repeat experience. I suppose each event we are continually doing better and better so what I considered "amazing sales" earlier this year or last year would've been abysmal or probably not worth it to return. But because I'm experimenting a lot more and am pulling in a lot more clients to work with, I learn from each event and everything is just getting better and better. I'm curious about when I'll reach the point that we'll move from the artist alley to the dealer's room. I feel like that point is coming soon, too! I feel very blessed and happy with how things are going for myself and the artists I've been working with. I feel especially thankful for the friends I've made within the last 1.5 years. I know I still have 1 more con to write up my thoughts on for 2016, but it's currently 2017 and I feel very content with how this year is going and look forward to a successful year! ❤


text:
Hotels in Gondang, Indonesia
Search & Compare Gondang Hotels
Save up to 40%!
Get instant savings with Secret Prices
Best hotels in Gondang
Gondang overviewA stop at places like Bangsal Harbor and Gili Air Docks will create some memories. Whatever you're into, Gondang has something for you.
Where to stay in GondangWhether you're planning to stay for a night or for the week, the area around Gondang has accommodations to fit every need. Search for hotels in Gondang with Hotels.com by checking our online map. Our maps display the areas and neighborhoods around all Gondang hotels so you can see how close you are from landmarks and attractions, and then refine your search within the larger area. The best Gondang hotel deals are here with our lowest price guarantee.
How to get to GondangFly in to Lombok (LOP-Lombok Intl.), 31 mi (49.8 km) from downtown Gondang.
What to see around GondangSome recommended attractions include:
- • Bangsal Harbor
- • Gili Air Docks
- • Gili Meno Harbor
- • Gili Turtle Sanctuary
- • Taman Burung
When to visit GondangWondering what time of year to travel, or what clothes to pack? Here are seasonal norms to help you with your planning:
Seasonal temperature averages
- January-March: 86°F day, 72°F night
- April-June: 86°F day, 69°F night
- July-September: 86°F day, 68°F night
- October-December: 87°F day, 71°F night
- January-March: 0.79 inches
- April-June: 0.39 inches
- July-September: 0.08 inches
- October-December: 0.43 inches


text:
What if the electric guitar would have been invented in 1895? My client asked me this question, which plunged me onto this fantastic imaginary journey through an alternative past, mashing up actual historic events to science fiction and fantasy. The Captain Nemo guitar surprised myself too – not only by how fascinating ways history and fantasy entwined together in the design, but also by the outstanding tone of the Valvebucker® that I developed together with Jorma Kostamo, the father of Jyrki, my long time team member. Anyways, the conceptual design of the Captain Nemo ended up as a mashup of the Unicorn design and features of violin and classical guitar. I built the guitar personally, except the beautiful tailpiece and headstock wood carvings were made by Jani Rinta-keturi.
This guitar taught me one hell of a lesson. I dived into the project head first, without really considering if it made sense or not. I was just so absolutely fascinated with the story of it. You know, digging up old historic facts of what was going on in the end of 19th century, and conjuring up "the first electric guitar in the world". It was great fun! The project took over five years to complete, and in one way it was completely senseless. But at the same time, it lead me to the very source of creativity – fun, childlike play. And as a result of all the fun, I happened to stumble on a novel idea of a vacuum tube powered pickup. First I thought it was just a hilarious steampunk gimmick, but it turned out to be so much more. We're working on new developments on the topic, and if you sign up on my newsletter you'll be the first to know when I'm ready to tell you more.
The lesson I learned? To trust my gut feeling and not hesitate on taking crazy challenges that don't necessarily appear to make any sense. Sometimes it's scary to go where you haven't gone before, cause you can never quite know what you find until you take the leap. But hey, that's the trick – if you don't take the chances, you won't ever stumble on the coolest ideas, either.
Anyways, here's a little photo gallery for you, hope you enjoy it!


text:
Mercedes-Benz Arena, Shanghai has a wealth of experience delivering world-class entertainment and hospitality. Whether it is offering the best VIP seating options for A-list international or domestic live music and sporting events or providing customized food and beverage packages, our VIP seating program is in a class of its own. So get involved – entertain important clients, impress investors, reward star employees, or treat friends and family. These memories will live on forever.
We have 82 VIP suites in total, located on level 3 and 4 and can accommodate from 12, 21 and 30 people.
VIP Suite Opportunities include:
VIP tickets to all public events including concerts, family shows, sporting events and more
Parking Passes granting access to a special VIP parking lot
An opportunity to decorate your suite and brand it
Access to exclusive suite holder events organized by Mercedes-Benz Arena, Shanghai
Pre-order and customized your food & beverage provided by world-class catering company Kofler & Kompanie
Suite Service Manager to support all questions and requests
Limited number of VIP suites available for 2017.
Please call our Suite Sales Manager today:
+86 21 38996690
Already a Suite Holder? Or an invited guest to one of the VIP suites? Here's everything you need to know
Your dedicated Account Manager will send you the tickets a week in advance.
Our venue is open 90 minutes before the show
Click here to learn more on how to get to our arena
Looking for Parking Space? Click here
Looking for the VIP Entrance? Our Virtual Tour will guide you in finding your way
Professional Suite Catering by Kofler and Kompanie: Food & Beverage can be ordered through Kofler and Kompanie for additional cost or check with your Account Manager if this is already included in your package.


text:
Located in Padej, Castle Schulhoff offers an outdoor pool and free bikes. This self-catering accommodation features free WiFi. Accommodation will provide you with air conditioning, a balcony and a patio. There is a full kitchen with a dishwasher and a microwave. Featuring a spa bath, shared bathrooms also come with a shower and a bath. […]Book Now
Novi Palas is located in central Krusevac a stone's throw from the bus station and close to Lazar s city. It features an in- house casino and free parking with 24-hour video surveillance. Rooms at the Hotel Novi Palas are equipped with free Wi-Fi, cable TV and air conditioning. There is a seating area, a […]Book Now
This 4-star Niš hotel, just 1.5 miles from historic central Sebia, offers free Wi-Fi access and rooms with satellite TV. Parking is free and an open-air restaurant is on site. The spacious, bright rooms at Hotel Tami Residence have cable TV and a work desk. Each private bathroom is stocked with a bathrobe and slippers. […]Book Now
Offering an outdoor pool, Chalet Horizont Goč is located in Jablanica. Free WiFi access is available in this chalet. The accommodation will provide you with a balcony and a terrace. There is a full kitchen with an oven and a refrigerator. Featuring a shower, private bathrooms also come with a bath or shower and a […]Book Now
Holiday Home Kisačka is located in Novi Sad. Free WiFi access is available in this holiday home. The accommodation will provide you with air conditioning and a hot tub. There is a full kitchen with a microwave and an oven. Featuring a shower, private bathrooms also come with free toiletries. You can enjoy city view […]Book Now
Situated at 1650 meters of altitude within Kopaonik National Park, Putnik is a 15-minute walk from the town centre and the ski-lifts. It features a ski school with equipment hire and storage. Rooms at the Hotel Putnik Kopaonik have large windows offering panoramic city views on Suncana Dolina (Sunny Valley). They are equipped with satellite […]Book Now
An entirely renovated historic building in the center of Novi Sad, the CitiHotel Veliki offers stylish rooms in quiet surroundings. Free Wi-Fi is available. The rooms and apartments are colorfully styled and feature parquet floors, air-conditioning and flat-screen satellite TVs. Every morning you can enjoy a buffet breakfast or you can have it served to […]Book Now
Located in the center of Kopaonik Ski Resort, Hotel Club A offers an indoor pool, jacuzzi and various massage treatments. Recreation facilities include a small sports court and ski rental. All rooms have modern furniture and hardwood floors. Rooms include satellite TV and a radio. Each room has a large safe and a work desk, […]Book Now
The palatial-looking Hotel Prezident in Palic offers guests a fitness and spa area with an indoor pool, hot tub, sauna and hydro-massage facilities. The hotel grounds also have a large outdoor pool and Palic Lake is just 50 metres away. All units have a private bathroom, air conditioning and a flat-screen TV. Several have views […]Book Now
Offering an outdoor pool, Holiday home Komjenic is located in Novi Sad. Free WiFi access is available in this holiday home. The accommodation will provide you with air conditioning and a balcony. There is a full kitchen with a dishwasher and a microwave. Featuring a shower, private bathrooms also come with a bath and a […]Book Now
Located in Belgrade, about 2.5 km from the central Republic Square, Radisson Blu Old Mill Belgrade offers a sauna and a fitness centre, both available free of charge. Free WiFi access is provided throughout the property. The stylish rooms feature floor-to-ceiling windows, designer furniture and individual climate controls. A Nespresso® machine is provided in all […]Book Now
Only 650 ft from Tisa River, Hotel Tiski Cvet offers a pizzeria and a cafe bar. There is also a summer terrace and a nightclub. Wi-Fi is free in public areas. Air conditioning and cable TV are standard room facilities here. Each room has a work desk and a spacious bathroom. The Tiski Cvet is […]Book Now


text:
By Mark Lamport-Stokes
AKRON, Ohio (Reuters) - Australian Steven Bowditch gave his Presidents Cup hopes a timely boost by firing a sizzling seven-under-par 63 in the third round of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational on Saturday.
Bowditch, who has long targeted a first appearance in the biennial team competition, racked up eight birdies and a bogey to shoot the best score of the week and climb into an early tie for second place at the elite World Golf Championships event.
The 32-year-old was especially impressive after the turn, taking advantage of slightly more receptive conditions at Firestone Country Club with three birdies in his last five holes.
"From there (the 14th tee), I didn't miss a golf shot," Bowditch told reporters after posting a five-under total of 205. "I hit it dead where I wanted to hit it basically. Hopefully, I can carry it into tomorrow.
"I'm just trying to go at my targets. There are definitely some tough pins out there, but if you hit it in the right spots, you can make some nice putts."
Bowditch currently sits 12th in the Internationals points standings and the leading 10 players after the Deutsche Bank Championship ends on Sept. 7 will automatically qualify for the Presidents Cup.
International captain Nick Price will then add his two wildcard picks the following day and Bowditch would dearly love to make the 12-man team to take on holders the United States in South Korea from Oct 8-11.
"I dare say I'm probably not going to be a pick," said the Australian, who clinched his second victory on the PGA Tour at the AT&T Byron Nelson in May. "We all know what we've got to do.
"It's something that I really want to do. It will be a dream of mine, and I haven't had too many. To play a British Open at St. Andrews, got my (PGA) Tour card at the page of 30 and now to play a Presidents Cup."
Watching the Internationals lose to the U.S. in the 2011 Presidents Cup played at Royal Melbourne in his native Australia convinced Bowditch to do everything he could to qualify for the team competition.
"That was when I thought, 'Yeah, it's really, really time to try to have a go at this.' When it's all said and done, I'd love to be able to say that I at least represented the International team one time," he said.
(Editing by Larry Fine)


text:
Aunty Acid is the sassy senior from Ged Backland @ The Backland Studio. Created to give 'the crazy old lady in all of us' a voice that can be heard from ten blocks away, Aunty Acid was launched solely on a social media platform in April 2012.
Now offered as cross stitch patterns designed by DJ's Dreams in cooperation with Backland Studio. Everyone's favorite mischievous character, Aunty Acid, shares a little known fact about chocolate and its effect on your clothing.