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Since you've invested a small fortune on your wardrobe, it makes sense that you want to protect it. Treat your closet to quality hangers that will help extend the life of your clothes. Consider these options when you're in the market for new hangers.
Tubular Hangers
Heavy-gauge, plastic tubular hangers are the backbone of any closet. These hangers are perfect for T-shirts, polo shirts, dress shirts and blouses. When you are refitting your closet, you should have several dozen tubular hangers to tackle these lighter items. It's very important to check the quality of the tubular hangers before you buy them. Many discount retailers sell hangers constructed from only 34 grams of plastic, compared to The Container Store's 52 grams. The 52 gram hanger will handle the weight of your garments and last much longer.
Suit Hangers
Thick, curved hangers are best for tailored suits and jackets, as well as knits and sweaters, robes, and eveningwear. Thicker hangers do not take up any extra space in a closet. In fact, it's the garment itself, by the nature of its tailoring, shape and padding, that needs the extra space. The curves of these hangers will protect the form of the garment and will give heavier suits and jackets the support they need.
Cedar Hangers
Available in a variety of sizes and styles, these hangers can be used instead of wooden or plastic coat/suit hangers when pests such as moths, or moisture is a problem. Cedar is a natural pest repellent and works to absorb excess moisture.
Metal Hangers
Metal hangers are not only strong and durable, but they make a chic addition to the coat closet, the office reception room or the guest closet. They're available in a variety of attractive finishes.
Commercial-Quality Hangers
Similar to the hangers you see in department stores, you can use these to group outfits together, thanks to the small hook on each hanger that allows you to connect them together.
Padded Hangers
Padded hangers are a great option for delicate knits or evening wear and are available in a variety of attractive colors. Our padded hangers are unique because the padding is wrapped all around the hanger, not just on the top. Use padded hangers to pamper special outfits, jackets and even costumes!
Multiple & Tiered Hangers
These hangers are ideal for closets where space is at a premium or where access to the contents is limited. They hold multiple garments in a small amount of space.
Oversized Hangers
Standard-sized adult hangers measure 17-18 inches. Our oversized hangers measure 19" wide, giving more support to the form of plus-sized garments.
Clamp Hanger
Use the clamp hanger to hang skirts from the waist or to hang pants securely from their cuffs — all without leaving marks or wrinkles!
Children's Hangers
Using hangers that are specifically designed for kids will prolong the life of the clothing. Larger adult-sized hangers may stretch out children's clothes. Children's hangers often feature hooks and slots that are perfect for the loops on kid's clothing or for storing accessories.
Post time: 09-23-2016


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Rock band 30 Seconds to Mars has launched its new single, "Up in the Air," in a memorable way — they sent a CD to the International Space Station. On Monday, they got to watch their CD spinning weightlessly through the air on the ISS.
"That's a moment that we'll never forget right there," said frontman Jared Leto. "Thank you so much for spinning that around."
Leto and Mars bandmates Shannon Leto (Jared's brother) and Tomo Milicevic were at Mission Control in Houston on Monday, where they were piped in to the ISS and spoke with U.S. astronaut Tom Marshburn. The band's single is released Tuesday, and their new album, "Love Lust Faith + Dreams," will be out May 21.
"Do you ever listen to music up there?" Jared Leto asked Marshburn.
"I do, during workouts," he said and noted that the space station's Canadian commander, Chris Hadfield, is a musician and had been playing and recording music at the station. "Music is a very much a part of our lives up here."
Besides Hadfield and Marshburn, the space station's Expedition 35 crew includes Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko. The three men began their space station duty in December and are set to return home in May. In the video above Marshburn describes a typical day at the space station.
Leto asked Marshburn about his most memorable moments in space and aboard the ISS.
"There are two … 20 years from now I'll still be thinking about," Marshburn said. "One was my last few seconds on my spacewalk." Marshburn had been on his way to the space station, he said, when he went on the space walk. "Looking down between my feet at Earth," he said, "that was a spectacularly beautiful moment. I didn't know if it would be the last spacewalk I'd ever do and as it turns out it probably was." He said he'd also remember looking down on a lightning storm from above. He and colleagues watched "the greens and blues and yellow and oranges in the lightning…. It was just breathtaking."
He said he'd also remember the beauty from his perch in space of the aurora borealis and a shooting star.
Leto passed on a question from a Twitter user: If you could live in space or on Earth, which would it be?
"I spent my whole life being curious about space," he said, "but as wonderful as it is up here … we look back at the Earth and we fall in love with the Earth again."
— Amy Hubbard | @AmyTheHub
Spiders! Bat death traps on all continents but one
Comet Pan-STARRS? Just wait till you see Comet ISON
Exoplanet atmosphere offers clues of far-off planet's formation

subset: commoncrawl


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Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.
Vintage photos of:
"Game of craps. Cincinnati, Ohio. August 1908." Back in the good old days when kids made their own low-tech fun. Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.
Washington circa 1928. "Christmas tree. No caption information, title devised by library staff." Click here for a closeup of the train set, which has a duck pond and a birdbath. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.
Washington circa 1922. "349 22nd Street." National Photo. View full size.
December 1961. Maybe people who lived in the Hollywood Hills or in the pages of Sunset Magazine dwelt in high-concept Case Study homes, but regular young marrieds of this period were more likely to have furnished their abodes from the Early American section of the Montgomery Ward catalog. Here is a classic example of its kind, down to the ubiquitous braided rugs.
My nephew Jimmy, on the right, is visiting his cousin Bobby, and apparently I came along to record the event on this 127 Ektachrome. Jimmy is pulling the talk string on his Casper the Friendly Ghost, one of about a billion times he did it that year. "I'm co-o-o-o-ld." After 47 years that sound still echoes in my brain. Bobby's got himself a Mr. Machine, who didn't talk, but the TV commercial jingle still resonates. "Here he comes, here he comes, greatest toy you've ever seen, and his name is Mr. Machine!" I know that because at the age of 15 I was still watching cartoons on TV every day. In addition to the incredibly cool army truck, somebody has gotten a "Super Sonic Jetliner," whose wings were cleverly designed to deliberately detach. Someone else, presumably, has gotten the gift box of Kools up there on the end table. View full size.
October 1908. Fairmont, West Virginia. "These boys (and one other small one) and their father work in Monongah Glass Works. Father gets $1.75 a day, one boy $1.25 a day, four get 80 cents. Total $6.20 a day. Live in a tumble-down house. What is the trouble?" Photo and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.
July 9, 1925. "Boy Scouts, Camp Roosevelt." National Photo Co. View full size.
July 1942. Fairfax bomber plant, Kansas City. "A wing brace for a B-25 bomber being prepared for the assembly line at North American Aviation. With plenty of speed, a 1,700-mile cruising range and a ceiling of 25,000 feet, the B-25 has performed as a medium bomber and as an escort plane. General Doolittle has called the ship the best military plane in existence." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer, Office of War Information. View full size.
Circa 1920. "Houck Christmas tree." Everyone gather round for eggnog and carols! National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.


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Version: beta
Platforms: Series 60, Series 80, Series 90, Symbian OS, UIQ
Distribution Type: Freeware
Downloads: 11152
File Size: 134 Kb
| MovaMessenger provides you with a fast and effective solution for accessing all your existing instant messaging services without investing in an expensive dedicated device.
Note! This application may be not compatible with your device S80 7.0


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As part of the update and expansion of the state-wide Water Plan, The Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB) and the Water Research Institute at Oklahoma State University (WRI) recently announced a series of hearings to give citizens the opportunity to provide input on the water needs for the future of Oklahoma.
"The WRI is excited about the process we are about to embark on and we look forward to hearing from Oklahoma citizens," said Mike Langston, WRI Assistant Director. "The stakeholder input portion of the Water Plan update is a unique endeavor designed to allow citizens a voice in planning for the future of Oklahoma's water resources."
The Water Research Institute at Oklahoma State University will be conducting 42 local input meetings throughout the state. The purpose of the meetings is to record issues, concerns, questions and suggestions citizens have regarding Oklahoma's water resources. The first meeting will be held April 12 in Beaver, Oklahoma, at the Beaver County Fairgrounds Pavilion at 1107 Douglas. The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. and is open to all area citizens. Participation by all parties interested in the future of Oklahoma's water is encouraged.
"We all use Oklahoma water whether in our homes or to make a living," said Jeri Fleming, WRI Stakeholder Communications Specialist. "I think most of us take water for granted, that it will always be at our fingertips, but that may not be the case if we don't start thinking about the future now."
The Oklahoma Water Resources Board is required by law to develop a Comprehensive Water Plan and update it every ten years; this is the third revision of the plan. The WRI is working with the OWRB to facilitate stakeholder input into the Water Plan.
Information sheets about water law as well as some regional and statewide issues will be available prior to the April 12 meeting. A record of discussion and all reports will be posted on the WRI website. Citizens will have the opportunity to make comments at the meeting or may fill out an input form and turn it at the meeting. The input form will also be available on the website or can be faxed or mailed.
"We want the process to be fair, inclusive and transparent. There is no set agenda for the water plan now, the agenda will be set by the people of Oklahoma," Fleming said.
For more information and a schedule of meeting locations visit the WRI website at http://okwaterplan.info or e-mail the WRI at [email protected].


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Two of Georgia's public shooting ranges located on Wildlife Management Areas will close for a short period of time beginning later this month, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources Division.
The two ranges are the Richmond Hill WMA Shooting Range and the Wilson Shoals WMA Shooting Range:
— Richmond Hill WMA Shooting Range, located in Bryan County, will temporarily close May 14 for safety reasons due to nearby timber management. Current plans are to re-open the 100-yard range by June 15.
— Wilson Shoals WMA Shooting Range, located near Gainesville in Hall County, will close May 22 so improvements can be completed on the 75-yard firearms range. These improvements include installing seating for waiting shooters, constructing a sign-in area, upgrading the restroom and installing a gun-cleaning station.
Georgia has 18 public shooting ranges (firearms or shotgun ranges) and 11 archery ranges. To receive free updates on ranges be sure to "click" on the red envelope at this link and sign up!
Range visitors should note that most areas require possession of a Georgia Outdoor Recreational Pass or other qualifying license prior to use. Be sure you have the appropriate license before visiting. Click here for more information on shooting ranges in Georgia.


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Hokies fade late in 85-57 loss at No. 3 Duke
JOEDY McCREARY
Mar. 06, 2013
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Erick Green and Virginia Tech were in prime position to ruin the final home game for three Duke seniors.
And then the Hokies had to play the final 12 minutes.
The third-ranked Blue Devils used a late surge to turn a tight game into another rout, beating Virginia Tech 85-57 on Tuesday night.
"We were right there, but we didn't put a 40-minute game together," Green said. "We played 30 minutes, and then they just blew us out."
Green scored 25 points on 10 of 19 shooting and Jarell Eddie added 13 for Virginia Tech (13-17, 4-13 Atlantic Coast Conference). The Hokies closed to 53-47 with 12½ minutes left on Eddie's jumper.
Duke outscored Tech 32-10 the rest of the way, scoring on 15 of its final 16 possessions while the Hokies missed nine of their final 13 shots. The Blue Devils also were plus-12 on the boards in the second half of their second rout of the Hokies in 13 days.
"We just weren't able to make the plays down the stretch that we needed to make," Virginia Tech coach James Johnson said.
Seth Curry scored 20 points with five 3-pointers, and Ryan Kelly added 18 points with team bests of nine rebounds and five assists in his second straight strong performance since coming back from an injury.
Mason Plumlee finished with 14 points for Duke (26-4, 13-4), which shot nearly 52 percent yet struggled for a while in a classic trap-game scenario.
"We're emotionally spent," coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "We're not as physically spent as we are emotionally. It's been a heck of a thing. ... I'm proud of our guys. I thought the three seniors just asserted themselves in the second half."
"That's a point of emphasis for us, period," Kelly said. "Rebounding's obviously something that, in the past, hasn't been our biggest strength. And if you can take your lesser strengths and make them bigger strengths, you can be a really good team."
The Blue Devils improved to 17-0 this season with Kelly — a 6-foot-11 floor-stretching threat who missed nearly two months with a right foot injury. He scored 36 points last time out in his first game back, a 79-76 victory over then-No. 5 Miami three nights earlier.
"Kelly gives them a whole other level," Eddie said. "They're really able to spread the floor. It's tough to guard all those guys."
Quinn Cook also had 14 points while Curry — the son of former Virginia Tech and NBA sharpshooter Dell Curry — hit a handful of 3s against his dad's alma mater for the second time in 13 days.
"We were there, coming behind those screens, and he was shooting behind them, just making tough plays," Johnson said.
There were traps aplenty in this one for the Blue Devils, who had a tough time generating the same high level of emotional energy that they had against the Hurricanes.
Couple that with rival North Carolina looming ahead this weekend, and it might have been easy for Duke to look past a last-place Virginia Tech team that the Blue Devils had beaten by 32 in Blacksburg yet quietly entered having won two of three.
"We definitely had to be (wary), and I think we were," Kelly said. "We knew we had to be prepared."
Cameron was energized for the Senior Night festivities — but not much else — during a first half surprisingly led for much of the way by the Hokies.
Duke outscored Virginia Tech 26-11 during a 9-minute stretch to turn a seven-point deficit into an eight-point lead, but led just 38-35 at the end of a sluggish opening 20 minutes. Duke pushed its lead to 12 slightly over 4 minutes into the second half on a Curry 3 before Green briefly brought the Hokies right back.
"You have a different type of emotion coming into the game — you want to play well really badly," Curry said. "You don't want to be nostalgic and think about it being your last game, but you can't help it. I think that's why we got off to a slow start."
Follow Joedy McCreary on Twitter at (at)JoedyAP.


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Your kids are dying to dress up as policemen, or a swash-buckling pirates…but do you let them go all-out with toy guns and swords?
Costumesupercenter.com has two developmental experts weigh in on this hot-button issue on their blog. Kathryn Snyder, and art therapist and licensed professional counselor, says fake weapons de-sensitize kids to the real thing, and hit too close to home for those who have been affected by gun violence.
Plus: The Halloween Danger Parents Need to Know
Christine Hoskins-Tardibone, a school counselor, says weapons can be appropriate. She stresses that guns have been in our lives always; we were exposed to them as kids, and we turned out alright. Also, would anyone really be alarmed by a 3-year-old packing obviously fake heat?
What's the rule in your house: would you allow a costume that included a weapon? Leave a comment.


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This has been a tough year for formerly displaced Ugandans trying to rebuild their lives in their northern homeland. Helen Oyela and her family are already facing drought and soaring food prices. A cut in WFP food aid because of a funding crunch has made matters worse.
KITGUM, Northern Uganda – On the days when the family fails to find food in exchange for casual labour, Helen Oyela walks off to a nearby refuse area to pick pumpkin leaves. Sometimes these leaves are their only meal.
The abrupt cut in WFP food aid in April couldn't have come at a worse time for Helen and her family. The stop -- forced by a larger funding shortfall affecting WFP programmes worldwide -- meant they would get no support through the May-June lean season.
Like many people displaced by the conflict between government forces and the Lord's Resistance Army, the Oyelas' have a garden which was given them to help them restart their lives.
But the gardens are withering from a drought that is partly responsible for soaring food prices. All over the region there are stories of little and late rains – likely leading to a meager and delayed main harvest. For thousands like the Oyelas, their normal source of food is literally drying up.
"Sustain the family"
"Growing food is what we know," Oyela, 40, says. "That is how we sustain our family."
Helen Oyela and her husband have 11 children – not all of them their own -- three cooking pans, two wash basins, a mattress and a straw broom. The couple also owns a jerry-can, a mosquito net and three water pots.
As we cut through thickets to get to her garden, Oyela describes how her millet failed to germinate in April. "When the rain came, we scrambled to plant, only for the crop to die," she says. "We'd now like to plant cassava and peas if someone can give us seeds."
Programmes hobbled
The lack of funds reaching WFP in Uganda doesn't just affect food distributions. It also hobbles programmes such as cassava multiplication and fish farming, meaning that people's recovery from the 20-year conflict will be slower than hoped. Learn more about WFP's funding shortfall
A July survey found that people in this area were eating smaller, fewer meals consisting mostly of starches and wild vegetables. In Kitgum district, where the Oyelas live, some 38 percent of people are scraping by this way -- compared to five percent in July 2008.
As Oyela arrives home from the garden, she gently calls to her youngest child. "Wake up, wake up," she says as she pulls out a tired breast to feed him.
The strain shows.


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The 2012 Liberty Flames
The defending Big South champion Liberty Flames men's soccer team will open defense of its title as the No. 3 seed, facing No. 6 seed Winthrop in the quarterfinals, Tuesday night at Osborne Stadium. The conference announced the seedings and pairings for the 2012 Big South Men's Soccer Championship, after the close of the regular season earlier this evening. Closing out its 2012 regular season on a nine-game unbeaten streak (6-0-3), Liberty finished in a third-place tie in the conference standings with the Campbell Fighting Camels with 21 points. By virtue of their 1-0 victory on Oct. 5 over Campbell, the Flames claim the No. 3 seed for the tournament, while the Camels receive the No. 4 seed. As one of the top four finishers in the conference standings, both teams will host Big South quarterfinal contests on Tuesday. Liberty finished the 2012 regular season with an 8-6-3 overall record and a 6-1-3 mark in conference play. Meanwhile, Winthrop posted a 5-4-1 Big South record and will enter Tuesday evening's match with a 9-7-1 overall mark. The two teams played to a 1-1 tie on Oct. 20 at Eagle Stadium in Rock Hill, S.C. Liberty and Winthrop did not meet during the Flames' run to the 2011 Big South Championship title. The 2009 Big South Championship title game was the last time the two teams have squared off during tournament play, with the Eagles taking the contest, 2-1, on Nov. 15 in Boiling Springs, N.C. The winner of Liberty-Winthrop will advance to Friday's second semifinal game at Bryan Park in Greensboro, N.C., the host site for this year's tournament, against the winner of No. 2 seed Radford and No. 7 seed Gardner-Webb. Match time is scheduled for 7 p.m. Coastal Carolina, ranked No. 9 nationally, claimed the top seed for the Big South Men's Soccer Championship with a 10-0 Big South mark and 30 points. Radford garnered the second seed with a 7-2-1 record and 22 points. After Liberty and Campbell, High Point posted a 5-3-2 league record to finish with 17 points to collect the No. 5 seed, followed by Winthrop. Gardner-Webb claimed the No. 7 seed with a 3-5-2 conference record and 11 points, while Presbyterian College rounds out the field with a 3-7 league record and nine points. The 2012 Big South Men's Soccer Championship quarterfinals will be played at campus sites on Tuesday, before moving to Bryan Park in Greensboro, N.C. for the semifinals and finals on Nov. 9 and 11. The quarterfinals and semifinals will air on the Big South Network, with the finals airing on ESPN3. The Big South's Tournament champion receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Men's Soccer Tournament. The conference championship schedule is as follows: Tuesday, Nov. 6 (at Highest Seeds) Game 1: #4 Campbell vs. #5 High Point, 7 p.m. Game 2: #1 Coastal Carolina vs. #8 Presbyterian College, 7 p.m. Game 3: #3 Liberty vs. #6 Winthrop, 6 p.m. Game 4: #2 Radford vs. #7 Gardner-Webb, 6 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 9 (Bryan Park, Greensboro, N.C.) Game 5: winner game 1 vs. winner game 2, 4 p.m. Game 6: winner game 3 vs. winner game 4, 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 11 (Bryan Park, Greensboro, N.C.) Game 7: winner game 5 vs. winner game 6, 2 p.m.
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Mobile phone users have fewer brain tumours
Epidemiologists appalled, demand more funding
Analysis Mobile users have a lower risk of developing brain cancers than non-mobile users, a ten-year €19m study by the UN has shown. But the epidemiologists are doubtful about the results, which aren't alarmist enough, and have called for
more funding additional research.
The study by the Interphone International Study Group, which began in 2000, was supervised by the UN's WHO arm and conducted in 13 countries. Researchers examined the occurrence of four kinds of tumours: two brain tumours (glioma and meningioma), tumours of the acoustic nerve (schwannoma) and cancer of the parotid gland. Regular mobile phone users saw a lower chance of developing brain tumours, with relative risk ratios (ORs) of 0.81 for glioma and 0.79 for meningioma.
"ORs were < 1.0 for all deciles of lifetime number of phone calls and nine deciles of cumulative call time," says the WHO in a summary. The highest the team could find occured in just one decile, where the hazard ratio for developing glioma tumours was 1.40. This is statistically insignificant: a relative risk ratio of less than two is not considered worthy of attention, the National Cancer Institute said in 1994, and an RR of 3.0 or higher is usually necessary.
Successive studies have shown no association between mobile use and cancer, an outlier being a Swedish researcher who found no link for most groups, but RRs of 5.2 for under 20s - only with a very small sample.
End of story, then?
You must be joking.
The group rubbishes its own work saying that lower odds may reflect "participation bias or other methodological limitations", which you think they might have worked on over ten years. "Biases and errors limit the strength of the conclusions that can be drawn from these analyses", they insist.
Meanwhile Christopher Wild, director of the UN's cancer quango the International Agency for Research on Cancer, made what sounds like a bid for permanent employment.
"An increased risk of brain cancer is not established from the data from Interphone," he admitted. "However, observations at the highest level of cumulative call time and the changing patterns of mobile phone use since the period studied by Interphone, particularly in young people, mean that further investigation of mobile phone use and brain cancer risk is merited."
Of course. They need to torture the numbers until they confess.
The WHO acknowledges that newer and better technology means lower RF emissions, as does "the increasing use of texting and hands-free operations that keep the phone away from the head".
The EU-funded MobiKids survey will report in a year's time on phone usage amongst young people. More at the WHO on EMF over here. ®


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Surveys: 7th Survey District[Record group 90-7]
Agency Function
- Unavailable
- Agency History
- The 7th Survey District originally encompassed the original 20th Ward, which was broken up by 1890 into the 20th, 29th and 32nd Wards. In 1917, this area was given to the 4th Survey District and the 7th District was transferred to Southwest Philadelphia, where it encompassed the 40th Ward, south of Elmwood Avenue and 56th Street. In 1932, it was enlarged to a northern boundary of Woodland Avenue and Warrington Avenue. In 1941, with the abolition of the 11th Survey District, the 7th District covered all of West Philadelphia. In 1949, a new 10th Survey District was carved out of the 7th District, encompassing all of the old pre-1941 7th District territory.
- Archival Records
- No holdings
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Send your comments to firstname.lastname@example.com
Last updated on November 8, 2000


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ANALOG OCTAVE OC-10 - Octaver per chitarra - Loft Series - Pedale mini - Chassis in Lega di Zinco - Modellato sul suono del leggendario OC-2, con accuratezza e precisione moderne - Controlli: Oct1 + Oct2 + Direct Level - Switches: On/Off Bufferizzato - Alimentazione: 9 Volt DC - Consumo: 10mA - Dimensioni: 94x48x39mm - Peso: 280g.
Buy Now Valeton OC-10 Analog Octave at Musicarte Musical Instruments
Codice Prodotto (sku): 0122329
Musicarte can pick up your used gear. Request an evaluation of your used item and buy one or more available products (also for online shopping)LEARN MORE
We're a real shop with more than 1000 square meters of exhibition space,, more than 7000 available products, online store and assistance 24/7, for a total of more than 20,000 items.!
Musicarte Store is an online musical instruments shop. New and used musical instruments at the best price. Guitars, Amplifiers, Drums, Keyboards, DJ Equipment, Home Recording, Print Music, Audio Gear, Lighting. Musicarte is a real shop too, with more than 1000 squared meters of exhibition space! Everything you need for the musician in you. All our musical instruments are ready to be shipped. We ship everywhere in the world, as soon as the order is made, and we deliver within few working days. All our new music gear is under a 3 years warranty, one year more than the italian standars, while ex-demo and used gear have a 2 and 3 years warranty, respectively. Find what you need to make your sound real!
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Buy online with PayPal and PayPal Express, Credit Card or Bank Transfer, Musicarte offers an insured shipping service, too. Do you live here in Italy? Then you can pay in cash on delivery too! And if you are nearby and you want to visit us, why don't you place your order online and then you pick it up at our store? You'll like it for sure!DEALS USED GEAR


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Mlais Lai Shi MX68 HD MHL Demo
The Mlais Lai Shi MX68 is one of the latest beast phone from
27 Aug 2013
HDC Galaxy S4 Legend Dis-assembly Guide
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to disassemble the HDC
26 Aug 2013
Download Ainol Novo 8 Discovery/Find ROM
Here's the link to the Ainol Novo 8 Find (Discovery) ROM.
25 Aug 2013
TCL Idol X S950: MTK6589T 5.0-inch FHD Android 4.2
TCL got something really interesting under its sleeves with the TCL Idol
28 Jun 2013
Newman N3 now available for pre-orders!
The Newman N3 stayed long in the rumors-scene but at last,
28 Jun 2013
Onda V711s: 7-inch Quad Core Tablet for just $109
Onda is a popular brand of Chinese Android tablets. Its popularity
28 Jun 2013
ZTE V987 – Specifications Review
The ZTE V987 is a new attraction in this Chinese Android phones
28 Jun 2013
Where to Buy Touchscreen Replacement for Chinese Android Phones
If you are looking for touchscreen replacement for your Android phones,
28 Jun 2013
ThL W8 Specs Review: Quad Core S4 look-a-like
The ThL W8 is one of the hot buys under quad-core
30 May 2013
Haier W860: budget friendly Quad Core listed
The market is now flooding with 5-inch and quad-core Android phones.
12 May 2013
Mei Lai Shi MX58: 5-inch FHD Quad Core just $166
The Lai Shi MX58 is a 5-inch Full HD quad-core Android
25 Apr 2013
Bovo "filial piety" is a $97 4.3-inch Android phone for the elders
Bovo just started selling its Bovo "filial piety" phone, (that's how Google
25 Apr 2013


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The Walrus Says
These letters were sent overnight express so they would arrive at Santa's in plenty of time before the elves started packing the jolly one's sleigh.
I want a John Deere tractor and a Crash 'N Go speedway please.
Santa, I'm doing good behavior!
Santa, I love you.
Santa, I am going to give you a kiss!
Love (Signed) Matthew"
"Dear Santa
I would like a Lego race car and truck set and a remote contol car
(This letter has sketches illustrating the above toys.)"
"Dear Santa,
I want a racetrack and a white cat that is pretend and makes noise. I want the racetrack to be big for my remote control cars.
Love, (Signed) Evan "
"Dear Santa Claus,
How is Mrs Claus? Is she happy with you? I love Mrs. Claus and Santa Claus. Are you both having a good time together in the Noah Pole with the reindeer?
I am being real good. My brother and I really like each other and sometimes hug and kiss each other. Our favorite show is The Backyardigans.
You and Mrs. Claus are stars. I hope you have a good time when you got married.
Here are my presents I would please like:
1. Barbie boy doll
2. Coloring books with Princesses or Fairies
3. Barbie gowns 4. Backyardigan things
5. Barbie house
You and Mrs. Clause - I love you!
Bye, Bye, Santa Mrs. Claus
(Signed) Julia
Much thanks to Jamestown Postmaster Charlie Burns for sharing these delightful letters with all of us. Also for making sure they received a reply.
Merry Christmas, Charlie.
And, what do other islanders want?
Katrina Westall - a horse.
Patrick Welsh - a Patriots hat with the tag on it just like the one Randy Moss wears.
Laura Brown - wants her daughter Sara to live closer.
Sam Albaugh - a big-screen TV.
Paula Noll - central air. Ashley Amiot - a panda. Alyson Yeomans - snow.
Courtney Westall - a car.
Mike Schnack - a life-changing lottery hit.
Alice Dunn - A week alone in Belize.
Grandson Tom - a new Yamaha YZ 85.
The Froberg compound on North Main Road is all decked out for Santa.
The drive home from Davisville last Thursday was a scary one-hour ride. Routes 1 and 1A in North Kingstown, the Jamestown Bridge and North Road had not been touched by the DOT four hours after it had begun snowing.
Rocket Dawg A.O. Gutierrez has joined the ranks of proud grandparents. His son, Josh, and daughter-in-law Ryan are the beaming parents of Owen Pierce Gutierrez, born in Cambridge, Mass. last Wednesday.
The word is that all are doing well, especially GrampsDawg.
Don't pass by that big red kettle, the Salvation Army does the best job out there.
Some yuletide fun from B.J. Whitehouse. It's called Christmas Song First Lines and the point is to figure out the Christmas song by using the clue based on the first line of the song. The clue contains the first letter of each word in the opening lyric.
For example: Otwoifbtfisd would be "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" (Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful)
OK, here we go! 1. OcocEarci 2. Tfntadswtcpsifatl 3. WwyamCWwyamC 4. OtfdoCmtlgtmapiapt 5. CroaofJFnayn 6. IsmkSCutmln 7. IdoawCjltoIutk 8. Csbsdihs 9. Dttsiaohos 10. HthasgttnK HO!HO!HO!
Dr. Joshua Hatch of the Jamestown Animal Clinic says if you plan to take Fido on your winter vacation there are certain things you may have to do now. "If you are traveling with your pet to warmer climes then make sure to contact your airline well ahead of time to find out what requirements are in place. Most pets will need a health certificate issued by a licensed veterinarian a few weeks prior to travel. Your pet should also be up to date on his vaccines and deworming prior to flying.
"If you are traveling internationally there is often a significantly more involved process including more paperwork and restrictions. If you are leaving the country then you should contact the U.S.D.A., the country you are planning to travel to, and your veterinarians office as soon as possible in order to arrange your plans correctly ahead of time and make sure your time line is adequate to get all your paperwork done. Some countries, especially island nations, have very specific restrictions and quarantine periods and knowing those in advance will help insure everyone has a safe and stress-free vacation."
In reply to our poser last week, Larry Lewis writes, "I'm thinking two songs may qualify as answers to 'If this isn't love, then...' but in each case, the wording slightly differs from your version. First up is the far more visible artist, Elvis Presley, as:
'If that isn't love, Then heaven's a myth, There's no feeling like this,
If that isn't love.'
'The other answer might be by the vocal group Pandora:
'If this isn't love, Tell me what is it then,
Maybe something above what we can't understand"
Patty Vandal had the lyrics we were looking for:
"If this isn't love, Then the whole world is crazy. If this isn't love, I'm daft as a daisy."
Patty would also like to thank the Good Samaritan who plowed out her driveway Sunday afternoon. "Whoever it was, I thank them and say a great big 'Bless You'."
And, from Barbara Morinho: "Let's see how many readers remember this song: 'Hang up the baby's stocking, be sure and don't forget, for the dear little dimpled darling, has never seen Christmas yet.'
My mother used to sing this song when I was a little girl."
Another moment of mirth with Beth:
A Sunday school class was studying the Ten Commandments. They were ready to discuss the last one. The teacher asked if anyone could tell her what it was. Susie raised her hand, stood tall, and quoted, "Thou shall not take the covers off thy neighbor's wife."
The full moon on Christmas Eve is the Moon Before Yule or Long Night Moon.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a great life!
Be true!
Call in your stuff for this column to 423-0383 or 829-2760. You can send an e-mail to us at firstname.lastname@example.com or drop your items off at the Jamestown Press office.


text:
You know, I often joke with my hubby that one day he's going to come home and I'll have #1 NYT bestselling author tattooed across my forehead.
I'm seriously not joking. It is the most miraculous and surreal thing imaginable to me. Kind of like when they handed my sons to me after they were born and actually let me leave the hospital with them. What? Are you people nuts? I don't know what I'm doing with this. OMG, it's leaking out both ends! Help!
I wish I could say publishing was easier than parenting, but it's really not.
I spent many years attending writers conferences as both a published and unpublished writer, sitting at big round tables, wondering… well A) will I ever be published and B) what would it be like to have the honor of being a keynote speaker.
I have to say it seriously doesn't suck… but it is very scary.
And as I sat down to think of what all of you might want or need to hear, it forced me to walk back through my life and my career. Something I honestly try not to do because well… I always say there are two things you never want to ask me about. Publishing and pregnancy because I'll scare you off both.
But the theme of being a writer is stories. Everyone has one and so I wanted to share mine along with some unvarnished truths. We are all the heroes and heroines of our own lives. And as Kalil Gibran once wrote "Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all." Of course, he's also the man who said, "Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." Anyone who's been in publishing for five minutes knows the truth of this.
You can't look at anyone and tell what they've been through. Ever. The deepest scars are never the ones that mark our skin. They are the ones that mar our souls. Unknown and unseen by everyone, but felt deeply by those of us who bear them and we can never fully escape their wrath.
Like the characters in our hearts, they whisper in our ears as a constant companion. They tell us we're not good enough. Smart enough. Talented enough. That we don't deserve our dream. That we're stupid. Fat. Ugly. Those voices are the hardest thing to let go of. Twice as hard when critics and others, especially those who claim to be well meaning, give an exterior voice to them.
Other people say that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. What they never talk about is finding the courage inside you to pursue a dream when it seems like even heaven itself has conspired to keep it from you. When obstacle after obstacle is not only thrown at you, but dropped on top of you with such force that you feel like Wile E. Coyote. But notice, Wile E. never once stopped pursuing the Road Runner. No matter how badly squashed he was, he always dusted himself off and kept going after his dream.
If you take only one thing away from this speech today, I want it to be a belief that you can achieve any and every dream you hold in your heart. That you have the power to be whatever is it you decide.
Your living isn't determined by what life brings to you as it is by the attitude you bring to your life. It is hard to make lemonade out of lemons. No one knows this better than I do.
But you have to keep fighting.
One of the family stories we have is about my great grandfather who ended up in a fight with another man who pulled a knife out and stabbed him. He ended up with an infection and was told that he only had days to live while the other man was virtually unharmed. At sixty-three years old, he snarled at the doctor, "Ain't no man gonna kill me and live to tell it." So he got up and went to the man's house to continue the brawl. This time, the man tried to shoot him and in the scuffle for the gun, my great grandfather killed him.
He went on after that to live another thirty-four years.
If that's not tough, I don't know what is.
As a girl, I was never allowed to complain about anything. You have to remember, my father was a drill sergeant who believed that no matter how hard you worked, you could always do better.
And that was my sympathetic parent.
My parents had one basic belief. The world will not take mercy on you. Your enemies will not take mercy on you and I will not be doing you any favors if *I* take mercy on you.
That was from my mother which tells you a lot about my childhood. I wish I could say it was happy, but it wasn't. It was the kind of childhood people use to justify criminal behavior.
But that which does not kill us… serves as a motivational speech for others.
Every statistic I ever heard or read growing up said that I was destined to be a teen mother. A drug addict. Drop out. Most likely end up in jail at some point after having relationships with men who abused me. Some people brag that they were the first in their family to go to college. I'm one of only two in my family who graduated high school. As I said, you can't look at anyone and know what they've been through.
One of many things no one can tell by looking at me now is that I grew up with one of the worst speech impediments imaginable and I had a thick Appalachian drawl.
I was so mocked for my accent and speech by others over the years that I learned not to talk to anyone. And my husband can verify this. In college, even when class participation counted for an entire letter grade, I refused to speak in class. So when I say I'm nervous about being up here, it's on many levels.
In addition to not being able to stand up here and speak, I shouldn't be able to read… never mind write a novel. I am severely dyslexic. So severe that it even manifests verbally, especially when I'm tired. Another thing I was relentlessly mocked for and called stupid over. The only reason I can read today is because my older brother took me aside when I was in first grade and said, "I've already got one ignorant sister, I ain't having another. You gonna sit there, girl, until you're literate." And with a crumpled up Spiderman comic book, he taught me how to read.
I became a writer as a small child because it was how I coped with the trauma of my childhood. There is no worse feeling than to be completely at the mercy of others and to have no way out. For those of you in this room, and I know some of you are here, who know what I'm talking about, I am so sorry that you do. I wish I could make that better for you. But I made a vow to myself that if I could, by some miracle, make it out alive, I would never put myself back in that situation.
Oh but Fate was never going to make that vow easy on me.
I wrote because in fiction, I could eviscerate all the evil in my world. I couldn't fight the real bullies and villains in my life, but I could slay them on paper. And I did.
I still do.
When I was five years old, before I could even read a book, and back when I was already drawing pictures to tell stories, I told my mother that when I grew up, I was going to be a New York Times bestselling author. My mother looked over at me with a mask of disbelief that I can see to this day and asked if I even knew what that was. "Nope. No idea. But it's on the front of a lot of the books you read, so I figure it must be good and since I want to be a writer when I grow up, that's the kind of writer I want to be."
She laughed, and she by far was not last one to do so.
But the one thing my childhood and family taught me was to fight for what I wanted.
You never could say to my father that something was difficult. If you did, he always countered with, "Girl, you don't know what hard is. You try taking two bullets in the chest. One in the leg and then belly crawl over the bodies of men you call friends to get to help while enemy bullets fly over your head. It'd have been far easier for me to lie down and die that day in a blood soaked field than it was to get to the medics who were pinned down by gunfire and save my life. You don't wait for others to come help you. You take responsibility for yourself. Life ain't never easy. It ain't supposed to be. But you do what you have to do to survive it. So don't you dare tell me how hard you think it is."
That battle my father talked about… he was one of only ten in his unit who survived it and he was only nineteen years old.
I think about that a lot whenever I want to whine about something. As my mother always said, as bad as you think you have it, trust me there's someone out there who would change places with you in a heartbeat. My mother at sixteen gave birth to a daughter with severe cerebral palsy. The doctors told her that my sister wouldn't live to see age fifteen and that she'd never walk. It took my mother nine long hard years, but she taught her to walk. Trisha will turn sixty-one this year and she's walking to this day.
Sometimes impossible just means you have to try harder.
Growing up, I wrote through all the arrows outrageous fortune shot at me and by no means was I ever spared. And I was lucky, I published my first piece in a local paper when I was in third grade. And I made my first professional sale at age fourteen. I used that money to buy a subscription to Writer's Digest magazine. I was on the school paper and yearbook staff. Anything I could do to be published, I would do. I guess the experts were right after all. I was a junkie, but my drug of choice was publishing.
Contrary to all the experts and odds, I made it to college where I was the editor for our school paper, and one of the three jobs I had to hold down to pay for it was as an editor for a small SF magazine. By then, I'd made numerous sales to national magazines. But do you want to know why I don't have a degree in Creative Writing or Journalism?
They wouldn't let me in the programs. I applied three times to the Creative Writing department and even though I was already published, the professor told me that I didn't write well enough to be admitted. On the third try, she told me not to waste her time by applying anymore as the slots in her program were reserved for students who actually had futures as professional writers and that my writing… well, sucked. I couldn't make it in Journalism because they had a typing requirement and my right hand is partially paralyzed. I can't type on a regular typewriter so I couldn't pass that test and they wouldn't let me in even though I was an editor for the paper and a magazine.
While you may be able to measure a person's aptitude or even their talent, what you can never measure is a person's determination and their resilience. As my brother so often said it's not about the size of the dog in the fight, it's about the size of the fight in the dog.
My personal motto is: over, under, around or through. There is always a way to get to what you're trying to reach… just ask any toddler who wants a cookie from the top shelf. The only person who can stop me is me and I don't think enough of myself most days to let me be much of an obstacle.
At 20, I'd decided that I was going to finally write a novel and submit it. Don't get me wrong, I'd written dozens of novels by that point and I do mean dozens. But I was an editor so I knew they reeked. I spent what little free time I had writing the draft. During Christmas break, between my jobs, I diligently typed those pages on a typewriter that I'd borrowed from my older brother's roommate.
I will never forget when my brother, who as a teenager with a driver's license, had spent his entire summer teaching a six year old how to read, came to get the typewriter. "I know it's going to be a winner, baby. I can't wait to see it in print."
He died a few days later. Out of everything that had happened to me in my life, that was the hardest blow. He'd been my only light in many a bleak darkness. Needless to say, I trunked that book. I couldn't stand to look at it. I chucked all my writing. I crawled inside myself and to this day, a part of me died with him.
But fate wasn't through with me. My husband who had been my boyfriend before my brother died returned to my life with a vengeance. I always three people saved my life and kept me sane.
My brother who will always be my hero. My best friend Kim who gave me a copy of Kathleen Woodiwiss's The Flame and the Flower when we were thirteen. A book that gave me hope and showed me that a bad past didn't have to define the rest of my life. God bless romance and Kathleen Woodiwiss. I shudder to think where I'd have ended up had Kim not introduced me to a genre that finally empowered me. That showed me I didn't have to be a victim and that I could defy all odds. That even I could be loved by someone who would cherish me for who I was. Happy endings are possible even for those of us who don't really believe in them.
And the last, is my husband who showed me that heroes aren't just on paper. Real men are out there and they will stand by you and hold your hand through hell itself. And believe me, that poor man has been tested.
When I was moving in with him, he found my old notebooks with the manuscripts I'd written for years. He looked up at me and said, "I remember before we broke up that you were always writing something and plotting a new book or story. Why don't you do that anymore?"
I couldn't tell him then that after my brother's death, I didn't believe in dreams anymore and that I honestly expected him to abandon me at any moment like everyone else in my life had done or turn into a ferocious monster who abused and belittled me.
But that darn fate was still there and she wasn't through with me.
Have I mentioned that I really hate that bitch?
Anyway, like most newlyweds, we struggled hard that first year and honestly many years after. But that first year, I couldn't find a job even at McDonald's. I've never felt more worthless, which given my past is saying something.
In my darkest hour, my best friend who happened to be an editor for a magazine did the most incredible thing of all. She offered me work. "Now I know you haven't written in awhile, but if you're willing to do it…"
Oh my God, are you serious? I can get paid and not take off my clothes? I'm so there.
I hung up and went to the closet where my husband kept his old typewriter. Then I sat down on the floor– we had no furniture in our apartment at that time- and the moment my fingers touched those keys the most amazing thing happened. Every character. Every voice I'd silenced on that cold winter night when my brother had died, came back with a screaming clarity. I had no choice but to write.
When my husband came home that night, he was horrified and I don't blame him. He'd gone to work with a normal wife and come home to a stark raving lunatic. I was still sitting on the floor with tears streaming down my face and crumpled up pieces of paper all over.
"Um honey, are you okay?"
"Yes! I'm writing!"
In that moment, he saw his future and his nightmare. My husband has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. So to keep from killing me over the paper mess on the floor, he, who has never believed in using credit for anything, took me out that night and charged a word processor, rickety card table and a ten dollar steno chair that he set up in the living room of our two room apartment. It was there I wrote my first ten novels.
Contrary to what I wanted, they didn't sell right away. But I joined RWA that year. I was finally going in the right direction again.
And I did what most of you have done. I entered contests and waited patiently by the phone, hoping some publisher somewhere would take pity on me. I wish I could say I'd finaled in the Golden Heart or Maggie or something, but I didn't. As an unpublished writer, I only finaled and won one award and that was the Mara.
Those were long hard years. I always say that it's easy to write a book when you have a contract. The hardest thing in the world is to write one when you don't know if it'll ever sell. At first, everyone's excited for you. You're writing a book- woohoo and then as time goes on and you don't become Nicolas Sparks overnight, that support dries up. In fact, one of the last things my father said to me before he died was that I should spend the money I was wasting on writing to buy lottery tickets. At least with lottery you'd win once in awhile.
But then the miracle happened. On Feb 3rd, 1992, I got the call that every writer dreams about. Well okay, even that was backward. I've never done anything the way I was supposed to. Instead of the editor calling me, I called her to interview her for another magazine I was working for. She mentioned my mss and I quickly assured her. "I'm not calling about that." I was terrified that she'd think I was harassing her.
"Oh, well I was going to call you later today about it. I want to buy it."
I was stunned. Ironically that was the same book I'd typed on that Christmas break that my brother had been so sure would sell. And in the next year, I went on to sell a total of six books. When they came out, they hit bestseller lists and at my first signing, I sold through all of my books in under 45 minutes. They went so fast that the writer sitting next to me kept gaping and asking if I was someone famous. "Who are you?"
Like most writers would, I thought I had a career.
But keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final. As quickly as it came to me, it left. And that was hard. Harder still was the fact that most of my writing friends abandoned me too as if they were afraid that what I had was contagious and they might catch it if they stood too close.
And when it rains, it pours. I've noticed that whenever a writer has trouble in their career, they have it in their personal life, too. I was no exception. My father died just after my first book came out. My mother was diagnosed with the same cancer that had killed him. My son was born prematurely a few weeks later. I was told twice to pick out funeral clothes for my baby. And I remember standing in the NICU telling God he could take anything from me. My career, my house, my car, just don't take my baby.
It was a bargain He accepted.
Because of the medical bills and the fact I'd lost my job due to the days I'd missed with him, we lost everything. I *was* homeless with an infant who had horrifying medical problems. While my husband was at work with our one and only car, my son and I would stay in the hospital waiting room, just in case, and because it was the one place you could stay for hours on end and no one thought anything about it.
When we were lucky enough to have a roof over our heads again, it was a roach infested apartment next door to drug dealers. I could not write this stuff, people. I wouldn't do this to my worst villain. We'd sold everything we had except my 286 DOS computer with a whopping 24 MB hard drive that used a 5.5 inch floppy- this was 1997- I had that as my computer until 1999. The only reason we still had it was that no one would give us anything for it. We didn't have cable TV. No internet. No phone. We couldn't afford it. I'd managed to hold on to my RWA membership only because my family and friends would take up collections at Christmas and buy it for me.
Nietzsche said that hope is the worst of all evils for it prolongs the torment of man. At times, he's right. And I was running out of hope. By 1998, it'd been over 4 years since I last sold a book. I'd tried every genre and every story I could think of. If a new line opened, buddy, I was there for it.
Desperate, I sat down and wrote the most marketable book of that time. A regency set historical romance. How could I lose? My critique partners at that time were NYT bestselling Regency historical authors. It had every element that had made numerous authors famous. My critique partners loved it. My agent thought it was one of the best books she'd ever read and she eagerly sent it out.
Then one by one, the rejections rolled in again. Until the day my agent sent the worst one of all. And if any of you ever get a worse one, dinner's on me. That rejection? "No one at this publishing house will ever be interested in developing this author. Do not submit her work to us again."
Yeah. It devastated me. But you know what? I am grateful to this day for that editor and for those words. 'Cause I am Southern, y'all. The best way to fire me up is to try and kick me down. As my uncle Carlos so often said. We are Cherokee and we don't run. Sometimes we want to. Sometimes we ought to. But we don't run.
I decided right then and there that I would rather be a first-rate version of myself than a second-rate version of somebody else. If I was going to fail at this, I would do it on *my* terms and I'd do it writing the books *I* wanted to write. I have never since that day chased a marketing a trend and I never will.
So after I unpacked the 286 computer I'd packed up in the box and swore I'd never touch again, I started writing the book I wanted to write for the first time in years. Now I knew that thing wasn't marketable. It was a pirate book set in 1791 and this is long before Pirates of the Caribbean. I sent it to my critique partners who read me the riot act and I don't blame them. They were right. No publisher had bought a pirate novel in years and even when they did none had been set in 1791. Was I out of my mind?
Well, of course I was. I'm a writer.
But that's never stopped me before. I sent it on to my agent who promptly reiterated everything they'd said and that I knew. More than that, she told me that we'd had a good run but that it was time to go our separate ways. I don't blame her. She was a great agent and she'd stood by me longer than most.
But without her, I had no way to submit. I couldn't afford to. Plus, my supportive hubby had become burned out after almost a decade of a fizzled career. And he had every right. I'd wasted a lot of money chasing a dream that kept eluding me at best and at worst, kicking me in my teeth. How could I take another cent from my family for this stupid dream?
I was through.
Until one fateful day when I pulled the RWR out of my mailbox. In it was a market update with a name I knew. Laura Cifelli had been added to the HarperCollins staff and was looking for submissions. My heart started pounding. I knew Laura. She'd been an editor at Dell, and for two years had tried to buy one of my books but couldn't sell the unusual Dark-Hunter idea to marketing.
But I'd promised my hubby that I wouldn't waste anymore money. I debated and agonized and finally decided that I would give it one more shot and one more only. If Laura said no, I'd never, ever try again. So I sat down and wrote the most pathetic query letter you've ever seen. It actually started with, "You probably don't remember me." Laura had been my agent years back when I'd been selling and I was her first client. But I had no ego. I still don't.
In that query, I pitched her two novels. The pirate book everyone had told me would never sell and the one she'd held on to for so long about a Greek general who'd been cursed into a book that I'd written in 1994 as an option book for Daemon's Angel.
I'll be honest, I actually stole a single stamp out of my husband's wallet. I didn't dare take two because I knew with his OCD, he'd know they were missing and he'd know exactly what I'd done with them. Not to mention, if it was a rejection, I didn't want to see it. I didn't think I could take another one.
Three days later, I was changing my baby's diaper when my neighbor came running over. "There's a call for you on my phone and it's someone in New York."
I think I had a small stroke as I handed my baby to June and ran to catch it. It was Laura. Since the paranormal market was completely dead and Laura knew Julian's book was tied to a vampire series- something no one would touch back then, she passed on Julian's story. But she wanted to see the pirate book. I was too afraid to even hope. Not to mention, I didn't have the money to submit a partial.
But June was kind enough to offer to loan me the three dollars I needed. I worked on it all night long, after my hubby went to bed, and sent it off the next day with a lump in my throat.
Laura called back to offer me a three book contract. To this day, I'd throw myself under a bus for her. And that book with that pirate that I was told wouldn't sell. Is still, thirteen years later, in print. For one twenty nine cent stamp, my entire life was forever changed. Sometimes our lives are defined not by the big decisions we make, but by the small chances we take.
And for the record, my husband forgave me for raiding his stamp and I did pay June back.
Laura did so much for me. She helped me to get a great agent who did an awesome job, but who didn't want to handle the paranormal stuff. For one thing she'd never handled it before and for another, it still wasn't selling. No one, other than Anne Rice, had hit a list with a vampire novel in over twenty years. She asked me why I wanted to write the same stuff I'd been writing when my career tanked.
But I believed in those Dark-Hunter books. And I finally wore my agent down after much begging. She began submitting them and again, over and over, rejection from every corner. Until Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martins saw it. When I heard Jen was willing to buy those first two books, I sat down and cried. There was no market for paranormal. No one was writing it then, no store wanted to carry it and everyone was convinced we wouldn't sell more than ten copies.
Against all odds and expectations, ten months before Night Pleasures came out, it had an overall Amazon sales ranking of #6. I was the first writer to take a paranormal novel to number one on a major list. I was the first one to take a historical paranormal novel into the top ten of the New York Times and thanks to my wonderful, incredible fans, I have since placed more at number one than any other paranormal author currently writing. I am the first genre author to put an SFR novel at number once since Johanna Lindsey did it in 1993 and I put two of them there last year and they were books out of the first series I'd ever sold. The same series that tanked my career on the first go round.
That being said, I am also the first author in RT history to get a one star rating- they used to only go down to three stars. As my luck would have it, they dropped all the way down to a 1 the very month my first book was published. And in spite of the successes I mentioned, and having placed over 50 novels on the NYT with twenty percent of them being number ones, I have never received an RT career achievement award.
I've never once finaled for a Rita. The closest I came was an anthology I was in where every writer in it finaled, but me.
And I'm really okay with that.
I only bring it up to show that careers aren't perfect.
I live my life by one principal. Do no harm.
Unfortunately, others don't share that and in this industry, we come across them a lot. But don't you dare let them win. Don't let them hurt you or stop you from going after your dream. The one thing I learned from my family is that there are people out there who can never be happy for someone else. They're only happy when they spread misery and attack others.
I could go on all day about writers who have tried to ruin me. I have been plagiarized, betrayed by people I thought were my friends, and very publicly ridiculed and attacked by some of the biggest writers in the business for no reason whatsoever.
Too many people think that the only way they can rise is to tear someone else down. But it doesn't work that way. No publisher ever stopped buying an author because someone new came along. No reader stops reading an author because a new one is published. They stop reading an author when that author disappoints them. One person's success has no bearing on anyone else's except to say that a rising tide will float all boats. We have a paranormal genre today because a tiny handful of us carved it out when it didn't exist. We proved it was viable and we opened the doors for many others and I am proud to be a part of that.
But unfortunately, no matter who you are or where you are in your career, someone is going to be jealous and they will attack you. They're going to say hurtful and mean things to you and about you. But don't despair. Just remember this old Japanese proverb. If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.
My entire career has been built on the island of Long Shot. Believe me, no one is more stunned to see me standing here than I am. In fact, the first time I hit a major list, I was the one who called my editor to tell her. She actually didn't believe me. And she was stunned that I wasn't lying.
No, it's not easy for any of us at any level. But you know why we do this?
We do this… well mostly because we're insane. But we do it for those characters who live inside us. Only you can give them their voice. Only you can tell that story. Don't let them down. They're depending on you.
And we do this for all the readers out there who mean so much to us. Books saved my life. They gave me laughter when I needed it and they were my haven through many storms. And I want to pay that forward.
There is nothing more wondrous than having a reader tell you how much your story meant to them. If I could have one wish, it would be for all of you to have an easy rise straight to the top of the lists and to stay there until they engrave your name in that #1 slot. You can do it. I know you can. Remember that "Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal."
I hope the best seller fairy moves in and leaves you gifts constantly. But until she does, remember, it's not the hare that won the race. It was the ever diligent turtle who didn't stop for anything.
Never give up. Never surrender.
For every career that was built overnight and skyrocketed to the top, there were dozens more that took years to build and that list includes a writer named Dan Brown.
We Cherokee have a saying: There are many paths to the same place. The important thing is to make yours the happiest trail possible.
Thank you all and good luck. Now go write those books! I always need a good one to read!


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The date was April 20, 2005-a day known nationally as "4/20" and a holiday for those who partake in the simplicities of life, who indulge themselves in the alternative art of bonging and/or the newer urban practice of "getting blunted." Well, snowboarding seems to follow in the same alternative fashion, and for too long has this date been missing out on an event based around the aforementioned principal. Welcome to the 2005 Grenade Games, an event without any agenda except for having a good time. So drink a few beers, have a hot dog, make some new friends, and watch as some of the best riders in North America smoke a perfect pipe.
9:00 a.m.: The parking lot at June Mountain, California was packed. Driving in I had a bad premonition that there would be a problem with the lifts facilitating all of these patrons. I say this because June had been closed for a week, and the chairlift was scheduled to only run from 9:15 to 10:00 a.m. However, I suddenly had the feeling that the gods were on our shoulders-then I realized it was just another THC-induced hallucination … shit, the lift had started up.
In a raw estimate, I'd say there were around 420-plus people waiting to get up the hill. Things were going to get brutal fast, and time was running out. The lift finally shut off with about 150 people stuck at the bottom. Now, what was interesting about this, as The Dingo and I watched from the bottom, was that it didn't matter who you were, if you weren't on that lift while it was running, you weren't going to get up there. I saw Giacamo Kratter and his buddy Zima bumming around trying to figure a way up. Markku Koski and Mathieu Crepel, Torah Bright, and some of the most reputable film, photo (including TWS's Nick Hamilton), and industry bros were denied. You didn't get on the chair-tuff shit. The funny thing was that a plate of hot wings got to go up, the lucky bastards. Soon rebels headed to their trucks to get their sleds-this is how Grenade works, you make your own destiny. Eventually, June looked like a scene out of Mad Max on snow, as snowmobile shuttles started. Those who didn't have sleds began to hike-everyone was getting up there somehow. Finally, the sled rides got shut down, and like after any big blackout, the power got turned back on, allowing the lift to bring the remaining few to the top.
11:00 a.m.: As the snowmobile went over the final hump to where the terrain features were visible, I got a very warm feeling in my stomach. The pipe was going off, it was a jam session for all times. Also, there were two boxes that kids were beginning to hike and a whole mess of people partying at the bottom. It was perfect, I think everyone knew it, too: this is what snowboarding is. There was no discrimination between who was pro and who bought their gear. We were there to snowboard and snowboard we did. However, there were those who stood out from the rest, such as Pat Moore, who was getting really high with his frontside 1080s and also backside alley-oop threes. If there was a title for rider of the day-which there wasn't-Pat would have been graced with its honor. Of course, Danny Kass was getting lifted, as well, putting together a couple ounces of fresh runs. Nate Farrell had some nice air-to-fakies, and Wyatt Caldwell put on a good show, too. Over on the jibs, Hana Beaman took one for the team on an up-box-gap-to-steep-down box. I think what happened was the result of a contact high, concluding with the top corner of the box being inserted into Hana's bum-bum.
As the day wore on, I think everyone faded away into a smoke and beery haze. Everyone got down from the hill safely and went over to the Propaganda skate shop for a mini ramp session and to look at an art show by Lindsey Jackson. Later that night, there was a party at Mexican Tony's house, where Retard Riot played to a full house of satisfied individuals. Big thanks to Joe, Pet, and Oren at June Mountain, Red Bull, and of course, Grenade Gloves. We hoope to see you next year, unless your eyes are too squinty. Peace, man.


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Denial. That's what I felt when I heard that Pete Seeger died in the waning hours of January 27. Pete Seeger can't die. Pete, like your childhood home, was always supposed to be there. Forever. Pete reminded us we're "just passing through," but who believed that? We might die, but not Pete.
In 1994, Bill Clinton called Pete "an inconvenient artist who dared to sing things as he saw them." You can trust Slick Willie on that one. Whenever we thought we had life figured out, Pete inconveniently sang about a worthy cause we had overlooked. When Seeger believed in something, he didn't ask whether it was practical to get involved. When I was in Vermont in the 1980s, some friends agreed to organize a benefit concert for Central American literacy projects. The first choice was Bob Marley, who wanted 10 grand up front, first-class everything, and a cut of the house—too rich for our blood.
We called Pete and he said, "Sure, I'll be there." A half hour later the phone rang. Pete wanted to know if it would be possible to reimburse him for gas! When told we intended to pay him, Pete had three demands: mail the check to his wife Toshi, don't tell him the amount, and "make sure it's not too much."
Since the 1980s, I've written for the folk music publication SingOut! Magazine, which Pete cofounded in 1950, and for whom he has been a columnist, board member and benefactor. Because of that, and some folk music research I've done, I spoke with Pete on several occasions.
The first time I was so nonplussed I must have sounded like an idiot. Pete had been an idol since boyhood and idols speak to us, not with us. Pete hated that kind of reaction. A man of Spartan habits and a puritanical streak as wide as the Hudson, Pete loved working the crowd as a citizen within what John Dewey called the Great Community. SingOut! isn't just the name of a music rag—it was the center of Pete's worldview. If you didn't know, the name is plucked from Seeger's famed "If I Had a Hammer": "I'll sing out danger/ I'll sing out a warning/ I'll sing out the love between my brothers and my sisters/ all over this land."
He meant that every way imaginable. I saw Pete in concert quite a few times, but I recall vividly a show he did at Mount Holyoke in 2002, when he was nearly 82. By his own admission, his voice was shot. So he did what he always did—regaled us with stories and made us do the singing. Has anyone ever warbled the descant between lines with Pete's skill? Nope!
Seeger knew that singing alone wouldn't change the world—that's why you found him walking picket lines, marching with civil rights workers, hoisting the sails on a sloop in the name of ecology, and leaning on two canes to cheer on Occupy Wall Street protestors when he was 91. Call him a male Mother Jones or, perhaps, naive, but Pete thought it essential to sing out the dangers to American freedom. The man labeled a dangerous radical by his enemies was a patriot who happened to believe that kindness, not power, could change the world. When he traveled with Woody Guthrie in the 1940s, Woody's guitar bore the slogan: "This Machine Kills Fascists." Tellingly, Seeger's banjo bore the more genteel: "This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It to Surrender."
Music scholars will assess his musical legacy–a hundred-plus albums, songs so intertwined in the American fabric that Pete's authorship is often forgotten, and influence on everyone from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen and Ani DiFranco. Pete's repertoire was filled with global offerings decades before anyone spoke of "world music." He reinvented the banjo. Literally. He sawed the neck from an old Tubaphone and added three frets so he could sing in E instead of G. When Vega started selling copies, they rightly called it the Pete Seeger model. Seeger declined royalties, just as he insisted that royalties be paid to others when he found out that "Wimoweh" wasn't a traditional song, and again when researchers unearthed a previously unknown co-author of "We Shall Overcome." Who does that?
There's a YouTube video floating about in which Pete shares a stage with Johnny Cash, and J.C. looks likes he's seen God the Father. Dylan once dubbed Pete a "saint."
Well, no… If anything, his death is faith-shaking. What divine plan allows Henry Kissinger and Anton Scalia to walk the planet when Pete doesn't? Who will sing us through the machinations of present-day greed merchants and future demagogues? I know what Seeger would have said—it's written in the chorus of "If I Had a Hammer."•


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2 people treated after fire
2 people treated after fire
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa —
No injuries to the 15 other residents of the complex were reported.
Authorities say two people were hospitalized after a smoky fire that damaged at least three units at a condominium complex on the west side of Cedar Rapids.
The Cedar Rapids Fire Department says crews were dispatched a little before 730 p.m. Sunday to the Shamrock Condominiums building. Firefighters say flames and heavy smoke were coming from one unit, but they were able to put out the blaze fairly quickly.
A man who lived in the unit suffered smoke inhalation and some burns.
Firefighters say the fire aggravated the medical condition of a woman who lives in a nearby unit. The department says their injuries didn't appear to be life-threatening.
No injuries to the 15 other residents of the complex were reported.


text: Ready to rock? GigMasters can help you find the perfect local rock band for hire. Rock and roll is here to stay and so are our talented rock bands. GigMasters started booking rock bands for parties and events of all kinds way back in 1997. Hire a band from GigMasters and know you're getting the best of the best. Start your search by finding your city below. Rock on!


text:
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Billiken Secure Connect (VPN)
ITS installed new Virtual Private Network (VPN) hardware and software to replace an aging system in February 2012.
Frequently Asked Questions about the new VPN system:
Why are we moving to a different VPN System? What makes this the best choice?
The old VPN system is 12 years old and does not work on 64-bit machines or with new versions of MAC OSX. Cisco, the systems' developer, no longer supports the old system's hardware or software.
The new Billiken Secure AnyConnect Client works on 64-bit machines, with new versions of MAC OSX and uses a standard VPN connection and communications. This makes it easier for a user to connect and access needed information. Customers will also now be able to log in with their SLU Net ID and Password instead of having a separate account.
Do I need to request a new account?
You will need to fill out the Account Request form. Once the account request is approved, you will then need to install the new VPN software.
Where do I go for installation of the new software?
Once you have received your approved account retention email, you will need to go to vpn.slu.edu, sign-in using your SLU Net Id and Password, and install the new client.
What if I am on a SLU machine?
Please contact your local ITS Service Desk, 314-977-4000, to have the software installed for you.
I have installed the new client but can't connect and it keeps asking for an address. What is this address?
If your new client is asking for a URL, please enter vpn.slu.edu and use your SLU Net Id and Password for the log in username and password.
Is the IDX VPN account affected in this move?
No, the IDX VPN is not affected by this change. Customers who use the current IDX VPN account will not need to request a new account in order to continue using the IDX VPN. The IDX VPN users will continue using the same software that they currently use. The IDX VPN is not part of the Billiken Secure Connect Network and at this time will not be moving to the new hardware.
If I have an IDX VPN, do I need a Billiken Secure Connect VPN Account?
You only need a Billiken Secure Connect VPN account if you need off campus access to other SLU systems, i.e. Internet Native Banner (INB), R-25, Webfocus, or to connect to the University Network Drives.
Can I have multiple VPN clients and connections running at the same time?
A computer can only support one active VPN connection at a time, however, a computer can support multiple VPN clients installed. Currently IDX VPN users must have the Cisco VPN Client installed and use the IDX profile to connect. For connections to all other SLU systems users need to have the CiscoAnyConnect Client installed from vpn.slu.edu and have their Billiken Secure Connect VPN account requested.
What do I do if I am having issues?
Please contact your local ITS Service Desk for more information, 314-977-4000.


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Haven't heard much from Smart recently? Well, no one has but the Daimler's mini car makers are still alive and kicking. To prove it Smart is taking an all-electric, roofless version of the Smart ForTwo to the Geneva Motor Show – named the Forspeed concept.
Overall, the Forspeed resembles the Smart Crossblade that was made in limited numbers in the early 2000s. Giving the Forspeed its concept car looks are some fancy taillights, no external door handles and since it's got no roof, there's a toneau cover that can either cover the entire interior or just the passenger side if drivers get caught in the rain.
It may have speed in its name but the Forspeed is not a rocket ship. It uses a 30kW electric motor to take it from standing to 60kph in 5.5 seconds and can reach a top speed of 120kph if you want to wait that long. If you need a little extra oomph there is a boost button on the dash offers another 5kW. The powertrain also consists of an Electric Drive that is shared with the Fortwo ED.
Range for the Forspeed is estimated to be around 135 kilometers, with an 80-percent charge possible in 45 minutes.


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|Penny Arcade Portrait of Lauren Bacall by Joseph Cornell
I was going to write a long account of all the various things I read, saw, listened to, etc. this year, as a way of preserving some of the experience of the year for myself, and maybe offering some amusement for the occasional random reader ... but the drafts became unwieldy, and nobody, including me, wants to read all that.
(I did the math and figured out that I was assigned to read about 50 books this year by teachers in classes I took, and then I read gazillions more both for my own research and to prepare for the Ph.D. general exam, for which I needed to be ready to answer questions about any English and American lit from Beowulf till now.)
Here, then, are mere glimpses at some things that stick out for one reason or another....


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How to get a baby to sleep
Any new mom knows this is a touchy subject: Listen to another woman talk about how her 5-month-old goes down at 7:00 each night and doesn't stir till 6 a.m., and it can send your own sleep-deprived self over the edge.
"I can relate to that," says Kristy Hecker, whose 5-month-old son, Ryan, used to wake up in the middle of the night -- even if he wasn't hungry -- and wail until she rocked him back to sleep. "At first I didn't mind, but after a while I was really feeling the effects of not getting enough sleep."
"Sleep deprivation can make you do some crazy things," adds Michele Porubcan, a mom of 9-month-old twins, Mackenzie and Madison. "I remember one early morning I was working on about two hours of shut-eye and I carried Mackenzie to the kitchen and almost put her on a shelf in the refrigerator!"
To get Ryan to sleep through the night, Kristy tried soft music, swaddling, and even letting him fall asleep in the car seat. Nothing worked. So, when he was 11 weeks old, she took a more drastic step and stopped picking him up when he woke before 5 a.m. "I'd rock his cradle, rub his belly, and shush him. In four nights he was sleeping until seven a.m."
The group's consensus: You can kiss your solid eight hours goodbye for at least the first few months, but once it's time to get your baby on a regular sleep schedule, trust your gut and don't do anything that doesn't feel right. "I bought a book that drove me nuts trying to follow all the 'rules,'" says Melanie Schaller, mom of Harrison, 7 months. "But what helped me most was the reassurance from these moms that whatever felt best was the right choice for me. Everyone supported me when I wanted to comfort Harrison instead of letting him cry himself to sleep, but they also helped me see that training him to fall back asleep on his own would probably involve some crying."
Meghan Rabbitt is an associate editor at Parenting.
The excitement -- and angst -- over milestonesWatching other babies hit milestones can be both encouraging and frustrating. "It's great to see another child reach a milestone because it can give you insight into helping your child," says Kristy. "But it's tough to see a younger baby do something your child hasn't mastered yet. Right now there's a little one who's two weeks younger than Ryan, and he's rolling over. Ryan is so close but can't seem to push over just yet. I know he'll get it, but I have to remind myself to relax."
Keri Bongey, mom of Jake, now 9 months, and who's expecting her second baby, agrees: "If a baby is older than my son and reaches a milestone, I get excited thinking that Jake will be doing that soon. But if the baby is the same age or younger, I sometimes feel a little envious and wonder if there's something wrong with him." And for many new moms, that can ignite feelings of guilt.
"It's so easy to blame yourself for everything," says Keri. "I read a book that said babies could have a couple of syllables by the time they're six months old and I thought, 'Gosh, Jake is eight months and he hasn't even uttered a consonant!' My next thought was, 'Am I not talking to him enough when we're together during the day?' "
The group's consensus: Try to see other babies' milestones as a sneak preview of what's ahead for your child -- even if it's taking him a little longer to reach them. And be sure to remind yourself that there's a huge age range in what doctors consider "normal" development. If you have any concerns, you can talk to your baby's doctor. And when it's your baby who starts sitting up or crawling first, you'll be able to share what the earliest signs were and how you helped your little one along.
"As my daughter gets older, it's nice to be able to answer questions other moms have," says Holly Werra, mom of Lydia, 5 months. "It helps you feel like you're not clueless anymore -- like you actually know what you're doing. And that feels great."
Why it's easy to envy other mothersNo matter how happy you are with the decisions you've made about choices like letting your baby cry it out versus rocking him to sleep, or working versus staying at home, it's easy to compare yourself to others. Jenna Goeb, mom of Eva, 10 months, knows that she's been on both sides of the comparisons.
"I breastfed Eva until she was eight months old, and other moms in the group would tell me how jealous they were that I could do it and they couldn't," says Jenna. "But breastfeeding was really hard for me -- I felt like I could never get a break from Eva. Sometimes I'd be so envious of moms who bottle-fed. They had such freedom."
For Michele, feelings of envy creep up when she talks to working moms. "I'm jealous of moms who can spend their days with adults, earning a living, and be home at night with their kids," she says. "I miss the corporate world."
"Me, too," says Keri. "I had Jake when I was thirty-four, so I'd been in the workforce for years. And although I knew I wanted to stay at home once I had a baby, it was -- and still is -- a shock to my system to be alone all day, every day."
But it's that time at home that some working moms -- even those with flexible, family-friendly schedules -- wish they had. Holly, a teacher, knows she has better hours than most, but she struggled with the idea of going back to work. "I'm concerned about missing milestones and not being there when Lydia needs her mommy," she says.
The group's consensus: Cut yourself some slack for the comparisons. "It's easy to size yourself up against other moms because even when things are great, you'll always have some concern or frustration," says Karen Gonzalez, mom of Benjamin, 9 months. "Some weeks I compare myself to a mom whose baby isn't as fussy as Benjamin, and other weeks to a working mom who always seems so put together," she says. "But you quickly realize that every woman is dealing with something." And as hard as it can be, it's important to remember that the mom you're stacking yourself up against might be just as envious of you.
Getting husbands to help outThere's nothing like a new baby to throw off the dynamic in a household, especially the one between a new mom and dad. "After the twins were born, my husband and I were more like individuals than a team," says Michele. "He'd go to work, then to the gym, and it'd be eight by the time he got home every night. I'd say, 'Come on -- you have to get home and help me. My job is 24/7 now,' but he just didn't understand. And that was such a disappointment."
Getting the help you need from your partner can also be tough if he's a little apprehensive around your newborn. "At first, my husband was timid when it came to everyday tasks, like diapering, dressing, and feeding," says Kristy. "It was frustrating, because those things take a lot of time. But now that Ryan is older and less fragile, my husband is more comfortable doing this stuff, which has been a huge help."
For Michele, too, there was a moment when things changed with her husband. "I left the girls at home with him and when I got back, he said, 'Thank God! Where were you?' It gave him a taste of my job," she says. "Now, it's not just me saying, 'Honey, I really need you to come home.' He gets it. It took a while for the lightbulb to go on, but now he helps me and I help him. Finally, we're a team."
"Sometimes, you just have to take your cell phone and leave," says Jenna. "If your husband loves your baby, he's going to take good care of her. You have to trust that he'll be able to handle things at home while you go out and do something just for you."
The group's consensus: If there are things you'd like your husband to help out with more often, talk to him. Having a baby is a huge adjustment -- it takes most couples some time to get used to the new living situation. "Remember," says Kristy, "even if your husband doesn't dive in with the parenting duties right away, don't worry. There's a good chance he'll come around."
Making friends with other mothersWhether it's a morning spent sobbing right along with your baby or a feeling of great accomplishment after finally squeezing in a five-minute shower, there are some experiences only another mom -- especially one with a child around your child's age -- will be able to relate to. And oftentimes, all it takes is an understanding nod to help you feel like everything is going to be okay.
"The two people I talk to most are my husband and my mom," says Keri. "But it's one thing to have one of them say, 'Oh, don't worry, you're just being paranoid,' and another to have a mom say, 'Oh, don't worry -- we went through that, too.' It makes you feel like you're not crazy."
And of course, new-mom friends are great for helping you make sense of all that unsolicited advice that comes with motherhood. "When you have your first baby, everyone gives comments and criticism," says Jenna. "And even though my mom and my grandmother are experienced moms and I rely on them for so much, their advice isn't always up-to-date. The moms in this group just get it. And their support has made everything seem more doable and helped give me confidence."
"Something else that's so wonderful about spending time with other moms and their babies is that it helps you realize there's no right way to parent," says Keri. "Although all of us share some of the same general concerns about sleeping and eating, each one of us is different and each of our babies is different, and everyone eventually finds their own way."
The group's consensus: Seek out other new moms as soon as you can -- even if it seems like it's too much of a production to get out of the house. "Harrison was six weeks old when I finally made it to our group for the first time -- I was terrified that he would start screaming in his car seat or would need to breastfeed while I was in public," says Melanie. "Now, when I see some moms come to our group with babies who are two weeks old, I feel a little silly for all of those fears. This group has been so wonderful from the start. It's a place where you can come as you are and share anything -- and it's helped me come into my own as a mom."


text:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department says Chinese activist and blogger Lu Haitao and his wife are in the United States.
Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland provided the confirmation but gave no details about the case. Citing department policy, she declined to comment on whether the pair had been granted asylum.
Lu and his wife have reportedly faced persecution in China. In an October 2011 blog, Lu reported being beaten up by authorities after he attempted to visit blind dissident Chen Guangcheng (chehn gwahng-chung).
Chen is self-taught lawyer who campaigned against forced abortions and for citizens' rights. He caused a diplomatic crisis last April when he fled house arrest in rural China and sought refuge at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. China subsequently allowed him to come to the U.S. to study law.


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Veterans Day is always a solemn occasion to reflect on and to show our gratitude for those who have fought to preserve the freedoms all Americans enjoy today.
This day was established after World War I to pay tribute to those who served in that Great War. In 1954, the day's significance was expanded to honor all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coastguardsmen, and merchant marines who have worn our Nation's uniform. By pausing to remember, we recognize the many diverse and difficult circumstances that our Veterans have faced. However, no matter what the time or the uniform, they are united by the same ideals: life and liberty, peace and prosperity, service and sacrifice.
Today we find ourselves in the midst of a non-traditional war against a very elusive enemy. Like those before us, we serve in demanding conditions, and our mission like theirs requires courage, vision and selflessness. Today's men and women in uniform seek to build upon the strong foundation laid by America's Veterans.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff and I join all Americans in paying tribute to our Veterans. They have created a legacy that all of us in uniform strive to uphold.
May God continue to bless America, and the Veterans who so valiantly served her.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff


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HOUSTON (AP) — A United Airlines jet headed to Amsterdam returned to Houston shortly after takeoff after problems were reported with one of its two engines.
United Flight 58 left Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport about 3:30 p.m. CDT Thursday. A statement from the airline says the Boeing 777 landed safely in Houston at 5:13 p.m. None of the 223 passengers and 15 crew members was injured.
United said passengers were to be booked on another airline while maintenance workers examine the aircraft. The Chicago-based airline has a hub in Houston.
A Boeing 777 was involved in the July 6 crash in San Francisco of an Asiana flight from Seoul, South Korea. Three people were killed. The National Transportation Safety Board says it has found no mechanical or computer problems with the plane.


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Quality Inn CN420
70 Madawaska Blvd, Arnprior, ON, Canada, K7S 1S5
Phone: (613) 623-7991
Fax: (613) 623-4805
This Quality Inn® hotel is in a convenient location near the Arnprior & District Museum, Ottawa River Waterway system, Arnprior Golf Club, Storyland Amusement Park and the Diefenbunker, a unique Cold War museum buried in a hillside.
Guests will enjoy shopping in nearby villages or nearby Ottawa (an easy drive away) and the hotel offers many opportunities to enjoy the outdoors, including a picnic area, sundeck, bike path and jogging trail. Over 5 golf courses are within a short drive of this hotel, along with local whitewater rafting and boat docking.
Room amenities include cable television, hair dryers, ironing equipment, DVD players and coffee makers. Rooms with whirlpool bathtubs are available, as are non-smoking and handicap accessible rooms. Some rooms feature refrigerators and microwaves. A fitness centre is available for guests seeking to stay fit while on the road.
This Quality Inn hotel provides guest convenience with a full-service restaurant, bar and patio. Business travellers appreciate access to the hotel's convention centre, as well as fax and copy services. A free weekday newspaper is another valued guest amenity. Pets are welcome at this Arnprior hotel with an additional daily fee.


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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Alleged drug lord Miguel Angel Trevino Morales fled into heavy brush and fell at least once scratching his face in a failed attempt to escape capture two days ago, a Mexican federal government official said.
The official told The Associated Press that Trevino Morales tried to run away near the border city of Nuevo Laredo, long the base of operations for his brutal Zetas cartel, after marines in a Black Hawk helicopter stopped his truck.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the case.
On Tuesday, officials said three men were in the pickup truck and two dropped to the ground while one fled. The official said Trevino Morales was the one who ran and scraped his face against trees and shrubs.
Trevino Morales had what appeared to be scrapes and bruises in photos distributed by authorities after his arrest.
Authorities have said the marines found $2 million in cash and eight rifles and 500 bullets in the truck. Trevino Morales and the others were detained without a shot fired.
The official said that in recent weeks Trevino Morales had been keeping a low profile and moving before dawn on dirt roads and with only a few bodyguards between the border states of Coahuila and Tamaulipas.
He is being questioned by prosecutors in Mexico City.
Better known as "Z-40," Trevino Morales is one of the highest-level drug suspects captured recently.
His arrest was the first major blow against an organized crime leader by the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto, which has struggled to drive down persistently high levels of violence.
The arrest was at least the eighth capture or killing of high-ranking members of the cartel since 2011. Experts on the Zetas said the arrest could leave behind a series of cells scattered across northern Mexico without a central command but with the same appetite for kidnapping, extortion and other crimes against innocent people.


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Check out the info below for future tour dates, and track them to receive alerts when they tour near you
Never miss another 'Buzzcocks' show
There are hardly any bands performing today that genuinely deserve the adjective 'legendary'. Buzzcocks are one of those very few. Their achievements are staggering: one of the original holy trinity of British punk (with the Sex Pistols and the Clash), innovators of the independent record scene and genuine punk rock superstars who have been cited as inspirational by bands as diverse as REM, Nirvana and Green Day. Eight studio albums, over twenty singles and EPs, a constellation of compilations, covers by other bands and songs on film soundtracks and advertisements have put Buzzcocks among the top echelons of British recording artists. A Mojo Inspiration award in 2006 is just one of the many accolades they have received for their work.
Buzzcocks tour dates