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Upon hearing the title, you already know that It's going to be a film about relationships. But unlike the typical romantic comedy that most people are used to seeing, this one does not feature perky starlets or muscled young hotties. Reflecting North America's shifting demographics, the film's love triangle involves 50-something divorcees played by Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin.
Streep, a consummate actor perhaps best known for dramatic roles like Sophie's Choice and Silkwood, provides a hilarious performance that rivals the talents of her co-stars and veteran comedians Baldwin and Martin. As Jane Adler, she runs a hugely successful bakery/restaurant. With her stylish home and French pastry chef training, She's something of a defrosted Martha Stewart, having not only more warmth and charm but a better wardrobe and no criminal record.
At the beginning of the film, Jane's youngest child is leaving home. The empty nest makes the dedicated mother lonely, but as we later realize, it gives her the opportunity to pursue her own wants, including the expansion of her home, which seems rather odd given that her children have all left. If nothing else, it signals that she is open to changes in her life.
Baldwin, also an award-winning actor, best known for his role in the television series 30 Rock, plays Jane's ex-husband Jake, a selfish and smooth-talking lawyer who can rationalize anything. He left Jane for a younger woman, but realizes?as the saying goes?the grass is not always greener on the other side. One wonders if his infamous real-life parenting and divorce battles helped him to flesh out the Jake Adler character.
While still married to Jane, Jake had an affair with his now second wife Agness (yes, that is how the film's website spells it), played by Lake Bell. The younger woman seems to have little to offer, apart from a younger body. Unlike Jane she doesn't cook, and in contrast to Jane's wonderful parenting she has an out-of-control five-year-old. The rather sullen Agness is portrayed as little more than a sexual object whose only goal is to become pregnant by her greying husband, a regular patient at a local fertility clinic.
Martin, as architect Adam Schafer, is still struggling with his own divorce and still wounded by the revelation of his ex-wife's affair with his best friend. He helps Jane plan the renovations to her home, and finds himself attracted to her. He has read all 47 emails that she sent to the architectural firm and thoughtfully incorporated her desires into the plans. Ironically, it is Martin, the comic genius, who gets the fewest funny lines. In contrast to the suave and confident Jake, Adam is a quiet and restrained character but Martin is still able to channel the ?wild and crazy guy? of his younger years to great comic effect.
Though not specifically listed in the credits, food and drink play central roles in the film. Wine, in particular, is a ubiquitous presence, perhaps meant to remind us that fine wine and women improve with age. And of course, there are obvious links between food, sensuality, and sexuality. Jane provides for the men's appetites and even unlocks her bakery late at night, offering Adam anything on the menu or, if he prefers, anything not on the menu. Not known for picking up on hints, even I got that one.
The story takes off when Jane and Jake's son graduates from college, the pair end up having dinner alone together, consume large volumes of wine, and one thing leads to another. The former spouses become lovers, and Jane becomes her ex-husband's mistress.
Does Jake find sex with Jane so much better simply because their own children have already left home, relieving him of any parental responsibility, and there is no pressure to make this lover pregnant? No doubt these factors alone provide something of an aphrodisiac.
Jane is not really comfortable in her new role as mistress, at least at first, though Jake seems to believe that an affair with his ex-wife is the ideal situation. He could not be more wrong. It is of course inevitable that the affair will be uncovered, but the awkward arrangement provides many hilarious situations that truly made the audience laugh out loud.
Overall, the film provides a refreshing and positive view of older women. Jane is independent, sexy, and desirable. This is frankly the film's most endearing aspect, but it does come with a downside.
Just as Martha Stewart sets the standards for homemaking impossibly high (who really has time to build the perfect place setting around the linen that she dyed herself, and spend all day shaving ice for the evening's dessert?) It's Complicated sets the standard for older women impossibly high.
Jane is not only a successful entrepreneur, a gourmet chef and baker, a wonderful homemaker, and the perfect single parent to her three grown children. She still has enough energy left over to provide her lover with fantastic sex. In short, the film appears to suggest that in order to be attractive, the older woman has to be superhuman. Indeed, one can argue that the superwoman role is the nemesis of women of any age, especially those pursuing careers outside the home while handling the bulk of childrearing and homemaking responsibilities.
After seeing this film, set in sunny and affluent Santa Barbara, I headed back into the arctic temperatures of an Edmonton night and pondered the fantasy that had just played on the screen. It's Complicated was a very funny film, filled with absurd situations that kept the audience laughing. That it shows an older woman as being desirable and sexual is clearly a good thing. But at the same time it seems to have traded Hollywood's emphasis on youth for other attributes that are beyond the reach of most women.


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Firstly, panic attacks can be really scary.
What is panic?
Panic attacks often come out of nowhere. They can make you feel like you're going to die, faint, be sick, or experience other unpleasant sensations.
The physical symptoms of anxiety can be so strong, in fact, that they may lead you to pay a visit to the doctors, or even the emergency services.
So, if you've made that trip to your GP and everything appears okay health-wise, it's time to consider what else could be going on!
The Adrenaline Response
A panic response or 'panic attack' is the body's way of responding to a perceived threat or danger.
In order to understand this further, let's cast our minds back thousands of years to when we were cave people, stumbling across a scary tiger or bear that posed a threat to our safety.
In this situation, our body would physically get itself ready to do one of three things - fight, flight or flee - in order to either face up to the threat, run away or disguise itself.
Faced with a threat, our body would try to assist us in a variety of ways, including:
- Increasing our heart rate to get oxygen around our body quicker
- Dilating our pupils to increase our focus (i.e., tunnel vision)
- Pumping us with adrenaline to help us focus and process information quicker
- Purging ourselves to become lighter in body weight in order to run faster
These physical symptoms of anxiety all helped enhance our survival skills and contributed to our evolution – in other words, they kept us alive!
Unfortunately, fast-forward to the present day and our bodies have not kept pace with the rapid rate of development of the human race - we've retained a lot of the same 'survival mechanisms' we had when we were cave men.
Some of our innate reactions do still prove useful. For example, letting go of a hot object to avoid scolding or standing back quickly to avoid a passing car. However, whilst we (hopefully!) no longer have to face the threat of a bear or tiger, these same instincts can become easily confused under stress, resulting in our body's incorrectly raising the alarm that danger is near.
Particularly when we're feeling overwhelmed, our bodies can easily misread any given situation as 'life threatening', thereby triggering this panic response and those not-so-helpful physical symptoms of anxiety.
Common Physical Symptoms of Panic
- Fast heart rate
- Fast breathing
- Stomach churning
- Feeling faint, light-headed or dizzy
- Feeling sick or queasy
- 'Tunnel vision' or blurry sight
- Shaking or sweating
- Aftermath of heartburn or acid reflux
So, how can you cope with the physical symptoms of anxiety?
1. Remember It Will Pass
It can be helpful to remember that this is a very common response that your body is employing to protect you, and you can ride it out. You are not going to die. If you really were having a heart attack, would sitting down or leaving the situation really make it go away?
2. Ask Yourself: Do I Really Need to Leave This Situation?
Often people want to avoid perceived unpleasant consequences such as embarrassment, being sick or passing out in front of others. We often think we won't be able to 'cope' if we stay in an anxiety-provoking situation.
However, the body can only experience symptoms of anxiety for a maximum of around 45 minutes due to a process known as 'habituation'. So, if we can prove to our bodies that there's nothing to fear by staying in the situation and riding it out, the anxiety spike should naturally begin to fall.
3. Watch for Safety Behaviours
When experiencing the unpleasant physical symptoms of anxiety, the body looks for ways to combat this.
Common examples include leaving or avoiding a situation, looking for escape routes, fidgeting with something, having a drink, listening to music, or reaching for some other object to distract you.
Psychologists call these 'safety behaviours'. While these measures may provide some temporary relief, it may not be a helpful to rely on them in the long term.
4. Breathing Exercises
We know the body cannot stay anxious when we're breathing slowly and lightly. However, this often takes around 5-10 minutes to have a noticeable effect. Find a breathing exercise that works for you and practice it in front of a mirror to make sure you can execute the technique correctly when you need it.
5. Get Some Rest
Experiencing physical symptoms of anxiety can be harsh on your energy levels. If you experience an episode like this, do something nice for yourself after and rest up. Reward yourself for getting through it and look after your body so it can rest and recover. Self-care is key.
Self-Guided Support for Anxiety and Panic
Research shows that self-help materials are often enough for people to overcome mild to moderate mental health difficulties without professional support.
If you're interested in a self-guided program that includes tools from CBT, ACT and more, be sure to check out The Mental Wellbeing Toolkit. It's "like 10 therapy sessions in one."
About Brittany
Brittany is a Psychology and Counselling graduate currently working as a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner in the NHS. She has a background within psychological theory, therapeutic counselling, CBT and knowledge of associated psychological difficulties, with experience and expertise in anxiety disorders."Encouraging people to learn to live a better quality of life and importantly, not let their mental health difficulties define them is paramount to me."

subset: commoncrawl


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PULASKI COUNTY, Ark. – A Pulaski County Special School District student-athlete tested positive for coronavirus earlier this week. The district was made aware of the positive case on Friday, June 26.
The student-athlete is a member of the Sylvan Hills High School football team. This summer, practices are split into two sessions. Despite the split practice sessions, all players and coaches are under a mandatory 14-day quarantine period. Practices are suspended during this time and will resume on Wednesday, July 8.
"PCSSD continues to monitor the CDC guidelines and recommendations from state and local health officials," said Shawn Burgess, assistant superintendent for human resources. "We take the safety and health of our students and staff seriously."
Several sports resumed practices on June 1 after the Arkansas Activities Association released guidelines for schools across the state. The athletic directors for each of the four feeders in PCSSD adhere to these guidelines as well as additional health measures to ensure the safety of all students and staff. The screening process for every practice can be found on the PCSSD website as well as school websites.
"It is imperative that we act quickly and effectively when it comes to the health of our students and staff during this time," said Dr. Charles McNulty, superintendent for PCSSD. "The coaches are taking the necessary steps to keep the team safe."


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I have prepared a comparative study of the best email addresses in the world for you guys. In this article, we shall discuss the benefits of the most used email addresses in the world. Hotmail, Gmail, and .edu email address. We shall analyze all of the three email addresses and shall see which one is best in 2023. Now, without further due, let us move on to our topic of discuss Hotmail vs Gmail vs .Edu.
Benefits of Hotmail Email
The Microsoft-supported Hotmail email address has been facing a downfall for quite a long time against Google's supported Gmail.com email address. However, there are still some Benefits of Hotmail.com email address over the Gmail email address.
1. Hotmail Gives Personal Folders
The "Personal Folders" feature of Hotmail email gives you the freedom of grouping related emails into one group. This will help you organize related emails into folders to access them easily.
2. MS Office Support Feature
Even though you can open, read, and edit MS Office documents using Google.com mail. But, the Hotmail.com email address has more compatibility and support for MS office documents.
The Microsoft web application provides the MS word environment experience. the documents can be downloaded, opened, edited, uploaded and all the editing and formatting stuff can be done online.
3. Connect Hotmail to Facebook.com Chat
Hotmail.com provides you access to Facebook friends and chat directly from outlook.com and reduces the hassle of chatting from two platforms at one time.
4. Less Ads Then Google
According to statistics, Hotmail shows 60% fewer ads than Google.com. This is a major advantage Hotmail has over Google.
5. Microsoft Exchange Server
Microsoft Exchange server offers Outlook.com free email, calendar, and contacts to be managed on a dedicated server which can create a backup to save you from data loss.
Benefits of Google.com Email
Hence, Gmail.com account is the most widely used and probably the best email address that offers free access to a lot of amazing web applications and utilities. Google offers G-Suit for Education that helps students and teachers to organize graded assignments. Now let's discuss some of the major benefits of Gmail email addresses.
You can also check Step-By-Step Guide to Create a Google Account Free
1. Storage Space
Gmail for business provides 25GB of free email storage space. You can save emails having text, or multimedia files like audio, video, pictures, and documents.
2. Access Anywhere, Anytime
I do not think I have to explain this you can access your Gmail account from any device, anytime, anywhere. Moreover, You can also add emails from other domains like Yahoo.com email address, and Hotmail.com email address to the Google mailbox to receive email from them also.
Here is how you can do it:
- Click on the "Gear Icon" and go inside settings.
- Click the "Accounts and Import" tab.
- See the 5th option in the list "Check mail from other accounts" and add new accounts from different domains.
- Add all the details and click on "Save Changes".
3. Multiple Applications with Single Account:
With one Gmail.com email account, you can access multiple applications like YouTube.com, Google Play store, Blogger.com a free blog from Google, Google+, Google Drive, Google Docs, Pinterest, Google Classroom, Google Meet for online meetings, Google Photos a cloud for picture collection, and many more.
Benefits of .Edu Email
Now, for the last email address in our best email extension comparison, we shall discuss what is .edu email and what are the Benefits of the Edu Email Address. The edu email is an email address that is provided by colleges and universities to students and teachers to exchange official emails.
The .edu email benefits are countless as compared to the above two email address services. The free edu email like free subscriptions from Amazon Prime Account, GitHub Student Developer Pack, 15000 free emails/month, and much more. The .edu email account can save a lot of money for students and teachers at the same time.
1. G-Suite for Education
G-Suit of Education gives 5TB of storage and a lot of free study tools like Google Docs, Google Classroom, Google Meet, etc. The benefits of Edu email are countless; it helps you to save images, eBooks, videos, etc.
2. Microsoft Office 365
Microsoft office 365 is Free with a .Edu Email Address. You can access and use the online web application of Microsoft Office 365. Sign in with your email to MS Office 365, verify your account, and proceed to create your account as a student. The Microsoft suite includes Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Microsoft Team, Share Point, OneDrive etc. the Office 365 typically costs $150, but by using .edu email, you can get all of the software for free.
3. Edu Email Benefits For OneDrive
you can also get Google Drive Benefits from .edu email that also include 1TB of OneDrive storage for free. When you sign-up to Microsoft office 365 using the edu email address, you can store up to 1TB of Documents, PowerPoint, excel sheets, images, videos, and much more.
4. GitHub Student Developer Pack With .Edu Email
GitHub Student pack with free .edu email address brings a lot of discounts with it. This one is the biggest benefit of the Edu email address. There are countless student email benefits when you subscribe to the Github student package. You can get amazing stuff with an Edu account for free having $1000 worth. See the list of .edu email benefits below:
- Unlimited GitHub Repositories for students having .edu email.
- $110 AWS credit.
- Bitnami Business Plan free for one year (normally cost $49/month).
- DataDog Pro free Account for 2-years (a monitoring system for cloud-scale applications).
- Digital Ocean $50 credit for students having edu email.
- One year SSL certificate from NameCheap ($9/year for normal users).
Free Services & Benefits with .Edu Email
- Free access to canva.com, thousands of free templates.
- Microsoft DreamSpark having a lot of useful tools free for students.
- Microsoft OneNote
- Windows Embedded
- Visual Studio Professional (for labs)
- And, Visual Studio
- Visual Studio Community (for edu email holders)
- SQL Server
- Windows Server
- 500MBs space at DropBox.
- Free license for .edu email from Intel.
- And, Free software for students having .edu email.
- Free one-year membership for students.
Discounts with Edu Email Address
- Edu email discounts for cellular carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint.
- Newspaper subscription discounts from:
- New York Times ($4 for normal users).
- The Wall Street Journal (15 weeks for $15 for Edu email).
- The Economist (12 weeks for $12 for Edu email).
- FedEx 20% off for students having Edu email.
- 35% off on annual subscription from MLB TV.
- 20% off on Levi's purchase with a valid .edu email.
- 50% discount from Spotify.
- Norton antivirus software discount 40%.
- 60% discount on Adobe Creative Cloud for edu email.
- Exclusive deals from Best But only for students having Edu email.
- 75% Discount on Premium plan from Evernote.
- 20% discount on premium plan from AWeber for students.
- 30% discount from Amazon for Edu email.
- 50% discount for one year on student edu email address from Squarespace.
Final Words
In this article, we prepared a comparative study of the Benefits of the World's Top Email Address of Hotmail vs Gmail, and the .Edu email address. We discussed the benefits of all three of them and concluded that the edu email for students is the best email extension & you can also Get the Free Edu Email from different ways. The other two, however, are doing best in their domain, providing the best services at free or no cost. In the end, we leave the decision on you to decide which one is best in your opinion.


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Toll Free 1-800-791-7144 (EST)
Click Photo to Enlarge
Protect your Grand action, sound board and strings from dust and dampness when not in use, then simply remove it from the piano when playing.
Our covers do not have wood battens.Top Quality Fabric - 80% Wool / 20% Nylon. Choice of colors - Black, Burgundy or Scarlet Red
AC-1 -Custom Cut - 4'6" to 5'11" -$212.99 AC-2 -Custom Cut - 6'0" to 9'0" -$233.99
We have Templates for the pianos found on the following page. Be sure to check for your make, model and size under your brand of piano. -TEMPLATES WE CARRY If your Piano make and model is not listed in our current template list, a template will be required. Instructions will be emailed. If you prefer to have a generic semi fit size, please enter "generic" in the box provided.
Enter Brand, Model & Size: Use this box only if your piano is listed. SIZES AVAILABLE
DISCLAIMER: We try to edit our photos to show the color samples as life-like as possible, but please understand the actual color may vary slightly, depending on your specific monitor, the settings and your lighting conditions.
The cushion colors depicted should only be used as an approximate guide.
We cannot guarantee that the color you see accurately portrays the true color of the product.
No returns on custom covers.
80% Wool / 20% Nylon
Shown in Scarlet Red


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A fabulous heavy weight cotton barkcloth from the fabulous 30s-40s.
This fabric is Hollywood Regency at its finest.
Beautiful tulips, sporting a kaleidoscope of colors in yellow, white, fuchsia, pink, and cranberry, with striking chartreuse, cream and dark green foliage, that pops on the soft gray background.
A spectacular addition to any design plan.
Very Good Used Vintage Condition
This barkcloth started life as a drapery panel, that has been carefully deconstructed, freshly laundered, and pressed.
One of the panels has 2 very small stains at the selvage edge, (see the last photo).
No Dry Rot or Sun Damage
This listing is for 1 panel. There are 2 panels available.
Pattern Repeat: 19.5" (49.5 cm)
Width 46" (117 cm).....selvage to selvage
Length 76" (193 cm)....2 Panels Available
Need more photos? I'll send the them.
Find this fabric in an alternate color way here:
Follow me at:
To view other items in my shop click here:
3-5 business days
I'll do my best to meet these shipping estimates, but can't guarantee them. Actual delivery time will depend on the shipping method you choose.
Buyers are responsible for any customs and import taxes that may apply. I'm not responsible for delays due to customs.
Just contact me within: 7 days of delivery
Ship items back to me within: 30 days of delivery
Buyers are responsible for return shipping costs. If the item is not returned in its original condition, the buyer is responsible for any loss in value.
Please contact me if you have any problems with your order.
Fabric returned, which is cut specifically to fill your order, (listed in my shop as, "by the yard"), will incur a 30% restocking fee. If at all possible I can provide a small sample prior to purchase if you need it to match existing decor.
All items returned which are not cut specifically to fill your order will incur a 10% restocking fee.


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Trade Summary
On the last trading day of the week, Lao Stock Exchange's index saw unmoved at 982.76 points. Following 56,200 shares traded for the turnover of 271,625,000 kip, the trading volume should have been better for the favorable prices of the listed stocks. The two stocks traded today were EDL-Gen's and BCEL's, while other stocks have been quietly during this session. EDL-Gen stayed at 4,800 kip on 50,000 shares matched. In the mean time, BCEL also closed at unchanged price as 5,150 kip with just 6,200 shares changed hands. In addition, LWPC, PTL and SVN were not able to witness the exchange of their shares, closing flat at 6,100 kip, 2,500 kip and 3,000 kip respectively.


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Phonics is a process for teaching children how to read and write by connecting phonemes or sounds to letters or graphemes. This helps children to decode unfamiliar words. The process is very systematic and involves teaching your child to blend sounds from letters to form words. You can use a variety of teaching methods to teach phonics to your child.
One of the most popular ways to teach phonics is through word families. Children learn that each letter has a single sound, called a phoneme, and when these sounds are combined they can form words. This is known as the "phonogram" method, which uses a phonogram, composed of a vowel and the sounds following it. Phonics can also help children learn to form and decode words and word families.
Phonics also helps your child develop independence, as it trains them to decode words they don't know. This is extremely helpful when they begin to read. Phonics also helps them improve their reading skills, as they learn to blend sounds. As a result, children will be able to read a variety of words.
In the beginning, children will learn to read words that have common letter-sound combinations, but they will also learn to read words that contain alternative combinations. By the end of their first year, most children will be able to read the most common English words. The second year, they will continue to improve their phonics skills and begin reading more complex words.


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Penn State partnered with Project Drawdown through the 2019 Drawdown Scholars Research Experience for Undergraduates program.
Approximately fifty undergraduates from across the United States participated in the program, working on drawdown modeling, feasibility analysis, and curriculum development. These Drawdown Scholars spent eight weeks in an in-depth research experience with Penn State's faculty and staff from units across the University. Many of the Drawdown Scholars are presenting and playing other key roles in the Research to Action: The Science of Drawdown conference. Fundraising is now underway for the 2020 Drawdown Scholars program.
Support the Drawdown Scholars Program
- Make a contribution online
- Text DrawdownPSU to 41444 to make a gift
2019 Drawdown Scholars Projects
The projects are being mentored by a diverse team of faculty from eight campuses and colleges. The project titles are below.
- Afforestation In Eastern United States And Its Influences On Carbon Dioxide Assimilation And Regional Climate
- Building Soil Carbon And Reducing Nitrogen Fertilizer Use With Cover Cropping
- Characterization Of Alternative Binders: A Case Study Of Clayey Floridian Soils
- Community Level Feasibility Analysis For Electric Bicycles
- Costs And Benefits Of The Kigali Amendment To The Montreal Protocol
- Country-Specific Models Of Women's Education And Fertility
- Developing An Engaging And Inclusive Wind Energy Course
- Development Of Distributed Control Methods For Distributed Storage Devices In Micro Grids
- Digging Deep, Exploring The Possibilities Of Some Drawdown Agricultural Solutions
- Educational Materials On Mitigating Climate Change Through Creation Of Walkable Cities
- Educational Modules For Trainings On On Gender Equality In Agriculture
- Energy Yield Estimation For Rooftop Concentrating Photovoltaic Systems
- Enhancing The Impact Of Gen Ed-Level Environmental Science At Penn State Using Local Land-Use Drawdown Solutions
- Estimating Energy Savings And Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Through Substitution Of Penn State Harrisburg's Water Source
- Feasible Policy Solutions For Addressing Inequality Arising From Labor-Displacing Technology And Climate Change
- Forest Ecosystem Services At Penn State's Living Filter
- Full-Circle Nutrient Management For Regenerative Agriculture In A Local Watershed.
- Highly Efficient Solid State Refrigeration With Zero Greenhouse Gas Emission
- Incorporation Of Project Drawdown Elements Into A Cornerstone Engineering Design Course
- Land-Atmosphere Interactions And Carbon Management
- Life Extension For Li-Ion Batteries In Home Energy Storage
- Lowering Nitrous Oxide Emissions From Animal And Green Manure Additions To The Soil
- Making Land-Use Change Worth In The Chaco Region Of South America
- Microbe Power: The Promise And Potential Of Methane Digesters For Negative Carbon Renewable Energy
- Modeling Heat Flux Through Green Roofs Under The Environmental Conditions Of Season, Saturation, And Vegetative Establishment
- Operation And Control Of Distributed Energy Sources In A 45 Kw Plug-And-Play Microgrid Testbed
- Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Systems
- Policy Instruments For Greenhouse Gas Emissions Mitigation And Countries' Preferred Social Cost Of Carbon
- Producing Pennsylvania-Themed Podcasts For Project Drawdown
- Reshaping The Netload Of Buildings With PV Considering Ramping And Carbon
- Revamping ME300-Engineering Thermodynamics
- SDG Curriculum Modules For Engineering First-Year Seminars
- Simulating Building-Level Carbon Capture Systems
- Sliding Mode Real-Time Control Of Renewable Solar Energy Generation Systems
- State Level Feasibility Analysis For Electric Vehicles
- The Benefits Of Conservation Agriculture To Draw Down The Greenhouse Effect
- The Congestion Cost And Greenhouse Gas Emissions Impacts Of Rapid Photovoltaic Expansion
- The Role Of Climate In Addressing Integrated Pest Management Solutions For Hispanic/Latinx Mushroom Farmworkers In Pennsylvania.
- Waste Plastics As A Source Of Fuel; A Catalytic Pyrolysis Process


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©2024 Coyne & Blanchard, Inc. All rights Reserved.
"Break the Box is a unique statewide multimedia campaign that aims to reduce sexual violence by challenging gender stereotypes. It shows how we affect people through both our words and actions, and how, by breaking down gender stereotypes, we can support a healthier society less prone to sexual violence. The campaign is running in movie theaters, and on Facebook Mobile and the Causes platform."


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Carol Howard Merritt: What the Church Can't Do for Pastors
A friend was going to seminary, and she became very disappointed that someone in her home church did not send her a birthday card. When I heard this story, I thought that the church probably did her a favor, because it's good to know that there are a lot of things that the church cannot do for you once you become a pastor.
The church can't be our best friend. I'm not someone who thinks we can't be friends with our parishioners. I have worshiped with many people I would hang out with outside of my church duties. In general, I like people and I relate to most people as friends.
That said, the church cannot be our best friend. The church will let us down, and when that happens, we all need someone to call. We can't depend on the church to throw us birthday parties or notice when we're depressed. It's just not their job. So keep your BFF. You might feel like you don't have any time for that person now that you're a pastor, but you need to make time. You're going to need them.
The church can't be our therapist. Being a minister pulls a lot out of us. We regularly wrestle with death, think about family systems, and learn to handle criticism. Things that many people can bury and not think about on a day-to-day basis, confront us as we struggle with deep existential questions.
All of this presents us with puzzles that we need help to sort out. It would be easy to start relying on the church to examine all the pieces with us. But the church cannot be our therapist. The pulpit cannot be the place where we sort out the day's psychological issues. We all need a counselor, someone who is skilled at looking at our complex psychological issues. So we can make an appointment, and when we have things more resolved, then we can talk with the church. But we cannot rely solely upon them to solve what's inside of us.
The church cannot grant us healthy self-esteem. It's easy to spot a narcissistic pastor. Not only are there a lot out there, but they're relying on the church to build up their self-esteem. Often a narcissist has been abused or neglected in the past, so they use people and things around them to fill that emotional void. The problem is that sometimes they have not been shown how to see the emotional needs of other people. So they take all that emotional energy without giving any back.
When we need a healthy self-esteem, either because we're narcissistic or we have a low self-esteem, the church is a terrible place to right-size our ego. Sometimes people will detest us for random reasons, like the tenor of our voice reminds them of their mother's. Other times people will idealize us, assuming that we are much more spiritual than we actually are. Either way, we need to do the difficult work of finding emotional support outside of the church. If we solely depend on the church to do that work, we will end up crushed or inflated.
Am I saying that they church will never be our friend, help us sort out our psychological concerns, or make us feel good about ourselves in a healthy sort of way? Of course not. A church can do all of these things. But a healthy congregation does not exist to serve its pastor in those ways. And we need to make sure that we have some structures of emotional support and be striving for health as we serve our congregations.


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Last place. Second-to-last. Third-from-last. No matter what districts the team at St. Louis University's PRiME Center put St. Louis' school enrollment up against, the city stayed at the bottom.
"We were kind of shocked going through it to see such a consistent result," said Evan Rhinesmith, the center's director of research.
St. Louis Public Schools has an average of 308 students in each of its 71 schools currently, according to the analysis. Include the city's 36 charter schools, and it's 313 children spread across 107 schools. Twenty-six schools in the district are using less than half their space.
The district once educated 115,000 students. Today, its enrollment has fallen to about 21,000. While it's been closing schools for decades, enrollment has yet to bottom out.
"I think an important piece of the story is that the school closures and school consolidation conversation is not new," Rhinesmith said. "The infrastructure was meant for a larger district and unfortunately, we're not at that point anymore."
The PRiME Center, which studies education issues in Missouri, decided to see how that measures up against the state's other school districts, as well as major cities around the country and other comparable districts.
Compared to the 20 largest districts in Missouri, St. Louis has the fewest students in its buildings. Same goes for comparing St. Louis to 77 of the nation's largest urban school systems. When the center expanded to the 247 largest districts from all 50 states, SLPS was 245, beating out only school systems in Alaska and Wyoming. The average number of kids in school buildings was usually twice the size of St. Louis' enrollments.
Sending students to school buildings with so many empty classrooms dramatically increases expenses.
"The costs are just much higher on a per-pupil basis when schools are small," said Lina Bankert, from Bellwether Education Partners, a think tank and consulting firm.
But closing schools to maximize dollars and efficiency isn't a simple task.
"Closing a school, it's fraught, it is a tough, tough decision to make, it goes beyond just what logic or numbers might tell you," Bankert said. "And there's so much emotion, connection to the community and legacy that often needs to be reckoned with as well."
With fewer buildings to keep open, schools can afford more elective courses, programs and support staff. That's the argument district officials are making.
St. Louis Public Schools will close eight buildings at the end of the school year after district officials initially proposed closing 11. Community pushback was particularly strong over Sumner High School's potential demise. According to the PRiME Center, closing the eight schools will increase the district's average building enrollment by 27, to 335.
Bankert argues that the needs of kids and community should be strongly considered when discussing school closures. But at some point, it'll just be too expensive to keep the lights on.
Follow Ryan on Twitter: @rpatrickdelaney


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Music Review: Ice Nine Kills's 'Welcome to Horrorwood'
Sometimes, a sequel is just as good as the original.
October 22, 2021
In 2018, the Massachusetts-based band Ice Nine Kills (INK) dropped a fantastic album called "The Silver Scream." It was a collection of songs based on well-known horror films like Stabbing In The Dark (Halloween) and Thank God It's Friday (Friday The 13th). There was also a story throughout the album in the music videos, which was an entertaining ride to see what would unravel next in the story.
Since then, fans have eagerly waited for the rumored follow-up, which was to feature more songs based on even more films. Three years later, we finally have it: The Silver Scream 2: Welcome To Horrorwood. Not only does the album continue where the first album left off, but it also presents great songs based on horror movie classics and even some lesser-known films.
"Opening Night" is not really a song but an intro to the "plot" of the record. A police officer tells us these songs have been hidden away and are now key evidence of the "murder" of lead singer Spencer Charnas's fiance. The collection of songs are known as Welcome to Horrorwood.
INK opens the album with "Welcome To Horrorwood," which is not a song about a movie but about movie tropes. We open with an acoustic guitar and Spencer singing about how there is always a classic killer and how it always "cuts to a close-up and fades to black." We cut to a heavy INK style a minute in, with guitarist Dan Sugarman playing quick and fast leads and a pretty fantastic guitar solo later in the song. The chorus is catchy, melodic, and encourages crowd participation, which is always a bonus.
In "A Rash Decision," we've got a song based on Cabin Fever. It's a heavy song, and it has another amazing chorus as usual. I love the breakdown in this song as well. Spencer shows off his singing and his screams, which both are excellent. The movie's theme is represented here very well, like the line "We came here today to get away, but now our perfect plans are all fading quickly" great song. The drums here shine too.
The band's second single, "Assault & Batteries," is based on the Child's Play movies. In the song, you get your classic INK feel, chaotic yet melodic vocals, and of course, a catchy chorus. I also love the use of toys as sound effects, which adds to the Child's Play feel. The breakdown is heavy, and the guitar solo rips. If you're a fan of the movies, you will hear countless references to the series throughout the album.
it's inevitable that INK would cover Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 classic, Psycho, and they definitely do the movie justice in "The Shower Scene." The song title comes from the iconic scene in the movie, in which the main character is attacked in the shower. The breakdown features parts of the iconic score during that part of the film and the shower rains throughout. And, of course, a catchy chorus—INK really knows how to write a good chorus.
One word to describe "Funeral Derangements" is heavy. This is probably the second heaviest song on the album, after "Take Your Pick." This song is based on the movie Pet Sematary. This was the last single INK released before dropping the album, and it shows they were not holding back. I love the references to the movie, like the "Sometimes dead is better" line, or the "Oh my god, Gage!" going into the song.
Did I expect INK to cover Resident Evil? No. Did I realize that I have been longing for a Resident Evil song without even knowing it? Yes. The riffs here remind me a lot of Bring Me The Horizon's 2020 track "Obey," which is a bad thing by no means. The chorus is one of the most catchy on the album, and Spencer sings his heart out on this track. It's really a good way to show off his range.
Do you like Ice Nine Kills? Yes, I do. "Hip To Be Scared" is based on the cult classic "American Psycho" starring Christan Bale. One of my favorite movies of all time. This song also features Jacoby Shaddix from Papa Roach, who sings the last chorus. Speaking of the chorus, it's one of my favorites on the album. It's super catchy. But, the standout part of this song is the part after the second chorus, in which INK parody's the iconic "Do you like Huey Lewis and the News?" scene from the movie. This even features the same riffs and drum beats from Huey Lewis and the News' track, "Hip To Be Square." It's excellent stuff.
When the tracklist was announced for this album, the moment I saw Corpsegrinder from Cannibal Corpse would be on "Take Your Pick," I knew I was in for a surprise. And I was not disappointed. This song is pure gold; it's the heaviest song on the album, no doubt, and may even be the heaviest song INK has ever done. This song is based on the 80's slasher film "My Bloody Valentine." This is definitely a standout track.
"The Box" features Brandon Saller from Atreyu and Ryan Kirby from Fit For A King. The song itself is based on The Hellraiser series, and the chorus here is massive as well. I love the riff here, which uses tapping and hammer-ons to create a hectic feel. The mix between the three singers is perfect, especially since they all have very different vocal styles.
"F.L.Y." is based on "The Fly," which stars Jeff Goldblum. The chorus is loud and melodic, and the verses here are the same. Spencer really sings here. There are primarily cleans, which are done exceptionally well. I love the combination of heavy instrumentals with clean vocals and the backing vocals from the rest of the band. This song also has Buddy Nielsen from Senses Fail. Although he doesn't have a huge part in the song, the parts he sings in stand out.
"Würst Vacation" is based on the 2006 film, Hostel. I love the use of the German language in this song. They even featured the actor who played the villain to sing those parts! Hostel wasn't a movie I had heard of until earlier this year, so I didn't know enough about the film, although I did enjoy it. The song, though is catchy and well put together. This is not my favorite track, but it's still super good. It shows how good this album really is.
"Ex-Mørtis" is based on the fantastic "Evil Dead" movies. This song is groovy, and I love the chorus and the extra noises like door creaks and footsteps. The breakdown features Spencer singing iconic lines from the movies like "Groovy" and the iconic shotgun blast with "swallow this." This song is over the top, and great, just like the movies it's based on.
One of my favorite horror movies, Candyman (1992), finally got an INK song called "Farewell II Flesh." I loved the film, and of course, I loved this song. It's majestic and captivating, just like Tony Todd's performance of the character in the 1992 film. I love the riff that sounds like swarming bees as well sa Spencer's outstanding vocals. This song is great, and it's a great way to close the album.
Overall, The Silver Scream 2: Welcome To Horrorwood is an outstanding album from start to finish. It's just as good as the original Silver Scream. Both albums are fantastic. INK is such a good band that puts so much effort into their songs and albums. I can't wait to see what these guys have in store next.


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Comic Book Preview: Johnny Red #1
November 4 sees the launch of the hotly anticipated Johnny Red series from legendary Preacher creator Garth Ennis and artist extraordinaire Keith Burns (The Boys, Castles in the Sky).
The explosive new series features original adventures of the fighter ace who thrilled millions and rocketed to status as a classic British comic character in the pages of legendary combat comic Battle – and now he's back!
Legendary British fighter ace, Johnny 'Red' Redburn, returns once more as the commander of the Falcons – a Russian fighter squadron battling the Nazis in the skies over Stalingrad. But dogfighting Messerschmitts is about to become the least of his troubles when the NVKD – the notorious Soviet secret police – come calling!
Johnny Red #1 comes with 3 covers to collect!
WRITER: Garth Ennis
ARTIST: Keith Burns
COVERS BY: Keith Burns, Carlos Ezquerra
PUBLISHER: Titan Comics
ON SALE: November 4
More About:Comic Book Previews


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Dental Veneers Framingham MA
Dental veneers offer patients a great opportunity to enhance their smile. If you are unhappy with chipped teeth, large gaps, stained teeth, and misshapen teeth, you can improve your self-esteem with dental veneers.
Dental veneers cover the fronts of the teeth using wafer-thin shells. These shells are made of porcelain or composite materials and customized to fit your mouth. These shells are created and then bonded to the teeth to change their length, size, shape or color. They can fix teeth that are cracked, chipped or worn down. Also, you can close gaps without the need for braces with dental veneers. Many patients obtain their ideal smile with veneers. Learn more about dental veneers below and contact us today!
Dental Veneers Process
The process of getting dental veneers requires several steps. This first step involves treatment planning. Discuss your goals with your dentist. He or she can assess your current smile and determine if veneers are the right choice for you, or if another option would result in a better outcome. The dentist may also take X-rays.
If veneers are right for you, they will involve some preparation. In order for the veneers to fit onto the tooth, the dentist has to remove some enamel from the tooth's surface. This process is irreversible, so you can't change your mind later. The dentist will then make impressions of the teeth and send them to the lab so your veneers can be created. This process takes 2-4 weeks.
When your veneers are ready, you will return to the dentist. The dentist will place the veneer on your tooth to make sure you are happy with it. Next, the veneer can be trimmed or the color can be changed if needed. Finally, the tooth is polished and etched and the veneer will be bonded to the tooth with cement. A special light will be used to harden the cement.
The dentist will then make any final adjustments, such a removing any excess cement and checking your bite. Be prepared to come back in a few weeks for a follow-up appointment. Your dentist will check the placement of the veneer and ensure your gums are tolerating the veneer well.
Contact Our Office Today
Overall, veneers can create your ideal smile. You can sport a great smile and restore your confidence. Learn more about dental veneers by contacting the team at Comfort Dental Framingham. We offer gentle dentistry and personalized care. Schedule a consultation today by calling 508-276-6640. Moreover, new patients are always welcome!


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Johanna von Puttkamer
wife of Bismarck
Learn about this topic in these articles:
relationship to Bismarck
- In Otto von Bismarck: Early years
…period he met and married Johanna von Puttkamer, the daughter of a conservative aristocratic family famed for its devout pietism. While courting Johanna, Bismarck experienced a religious conversion that was to give him inner strength and security. A subsequent critic was to remark that Bismarck believed in a God who…
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Happy lazy Sunday afternoon! The Meista here today pairing Fleetwood Mac's 1979 double album "Tusk" and a Marvella Belgian Style Tripel Ale from Red Rock Brewing Company!
Album Info:
- Artist: Fleetwood Mac
- Title: "Tusk"
- Recorded: 1978 through 1979
- Release date: October 12th, 1979 (12th studio album by Fleetwood Mac)
- Record company: Warner Bros.
- Production: Fleetwood Mac, Ken Caillat, and Richard Dashut
- Album cover art: Vigon Nahas Vigon (art direction and design), Peter Beard (photography), Jayme Odgers (photography), and Norman Seeff (photography)
- Personnel: Lindsey Buckingham (vocals, guitars, bass guitar, piano, drums, and percussion), Mick Fleetwood (drums and percussion), Christine McVie (vocals and keyboards), John McVie (bass guitar), and Stevie Nicks (vocals and keyboards on "Sara")
- Additional musicians: Peter Green (guitar on "Brown Eyes") and the USC Trojan Marching Band (horns and percussion on "Tusk")
- Musical style: Rock, pop, experimental art rock with elements of folk rock, blues rock, and country and influence from punk rock and new wave
- Sound: The band's most ambitious (and expensive) album and most experimental, "Tusk" stands out as Fleetwood Mac's most unique records. Although still a rock/pop album, Buckingham's songwriting and production approach was heavily influenced by the punk rock and new wave music movements at the time. Of the album's sound Buckingham stated: "For me, being sort of the culprit behind that particular album, it was done in a way to undermine just sort of following the formula of doing Rumours 2 and Rumours 3, which is kind of the business model Warner Bros. would have liked us to follow."Major themes: Relationships, love, loss, life, individuality, rebellion, honesty, deception, etc.
- Tracks:
- "Over & Over"
- "The Ledge"
- "Think About Me"
- "Save Me A Place"
- "Sara"
- "What Makes You Think You're The One"
- "Storms"
- "That's All For Everyone"
- "Not That Funny"
- "Sisters Of The Moon"
- "Angel"
- "That's Enough For Me"
- "Brown Eyes"
- "Never Make Me Cry"
- "I Know I'm Not Wrong"
- "Honey Hi"
- "Beautiful Child"
- "Walk A Thin Line"
- "Tusk"
- "Never Forget"
Brew Info:
- Brewery: Red Rock Brewing (Salt Lake City, Utah)
- Website: http://redrockbrewing.com/
- Brew: Marvella Belgian Style Tripel Ale
- Style: Belgian Tripel
- Serving: 16 ounce bottle
- Ingredients: Pale malts, Belgian candy sugar, and unique yeast strain
- Pour: The Marvella pours a bright golden yellow with a thin, fizzy white head that dissipates quickly and leaves only trace lacing.
- Nose: The nose is yeasty, sweet and full of fruit ester, spicy, and floral. There are aromas of soft banana, plantain, pink bubblegum, candied pears, jasmine, orange peel, and light spices.
- Taste: The taste sweet, fruity, yeasty, and slightly funky. There are notes of pink bubblegum, soft banana, old-fashioned candies, orange zest, and a very light hop bitterness.
- Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied and well-carbonated, the mouthfeel of the Marvella is very smooth and dangerously drinkable with not trace of booziness and with a dry and sweet finish.
Overall pairing: Red Rock's Marvella is a wonderfully sweet and deceptively drinkable triple. That sweetness and deception is why I chose "Tusk" to accompany the Marvella. Like the brew, the album is wonderfully complex with sweet and lovely themes throughout, yet there is a darkness and a prankster quality that lingers underneath.


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Elevate Your Dance Studio With Angela And Jodi – Series 3!
With so many dance studio options available to your potential customers, you need to ace your first impression so it's not your last. That's why you always hear people talking about how important it is to have a good elevator pitch up your sleeve.
First impressions, fairly or unfairly, can greatly influence how somebody thinks about you and your studio, and in today's episode Jodi and Angela share their best First Impression tips!
About Us
The Dance Studio Owners Association is for studio owners who are ready to commit to building their dream studio through taking consistent action while accepting guidance and advice. It's for new studio owners and experienced studio owners alike. No matter what stage you're at in your business, you'll gain valuable information to take your studio to new levels while becoming a go to studio in your area.
DSOA members also have exclusive access to some of the greatest minds in business through our expert masterclasses, one-on-one mentoring through our member makeover experience, and a monthly Q&A session that directly answers all your pressing questions about being a Studio Owner.
Our association is a community. It's a community of dance studio owners who have seen what Clint has not only produced with his own studio, but his Studio Owner clients and program members over 6 years. They've seen the results and they want to be a part of the action!
For more on the Dance Studio Owners Association check out our website at www.dancestudioownersassociation.com or visit our Facebook page


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Bertram Akira Yanagawa, 82, of Kihei, Maui, a retired Pacific Paradise Tours president, died in Maui Memorial Medical Center. He was born in Honolulu. He is survived by son Lyle K., daughter Christine Saito and brother Milton Y. Private services.
Our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the deceased


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Permit me a little bit of a rant here, but it is actually a very important case study in public policy gone awry, and how vested interests can capture the debate and result in the spread of false and misleading information, and result in policy choices occurring that are utterly irrational. Bear with me, as I believe the read will be worth it if you can persevere to the end, as smoking remains one of the most misunderstood phenomenon among intelligent members of modern day society.
In the interests of full disclosure, I am a former smoker of regular and e-cigarettes, but have quit - mostly for health and tolerance/dependency reasons, but partly because e-cigarettes are getting harder to legally come by, which is eliminating my freedom to enjoy nicotine in a relatively harmless way. My outrage is predominately a matter of principle, but there is a modicum of self-interest at play here. I have researched these issues extensively and objectively, however.
By way of quick reference, the following link is a good summary of many of the proven health benefits of nicotine that most non-smokers are probably not aware exist. Most of the listed benefits here certainly ones I can attest to having subjectively enjoyed in the past. The anti-smoking PR lobby has been so successful and one-sided that most people are not aware of these benefits. Nicotine is reason smokers smoke, but it is not what kills them - it's the tar/chemicals in conventional cigarettes that do that. E-cigarettes have no tar and very few added chemicals.
In recent times I have become increasingly dismayed - if not outraged - by the 'war on e-cigarettes' that is being waged across many parts of the world. E-cigarettes have already been completely banned in certain countries, such as Australia and Singapore, for instance. It is about time people stood up to this insanity, and began to fight for the putatively free society in which we supposedly live. Delving into the causes of the opposition to e-cigarettes also reveals a lot of very cynical things about human nature, and the true motives of many so-called 'do gooders'.
Imagine if, for the first time, cigarettes were invented today, and there were two types. One had mountains of research indicating that they were harmful to health, reducing life expectancy by 5-10yrs for lifetime users; and the other where evidence of harm was limited and purely speculative, and based on current evidence, quite probably trivial (likely on par with the use of a similar but more socially acceptable stimulant, caffeine). There was no guarantee future research would not indicate that the latter were harmful, but no harm was yet demonstrated.
Which cigarette should you ban, and which should you keep legal? A five-year-old would be able to tell you the correct answer. The fact that we are keeping the former legal and banning the latter is pure insanity. Apparently, smokers are only allowed to smoke cigarettes that are proven to kill them. Smoking ones that, at worst, might be injurious to health, and if so, likely to a much lesser extent than conventional cigarettes, is an absolute no-no. This is pure madness.
There are a few retorts. One is that 'well, you shouldn't be smoking in the first place'. It's a bit like banning diet coke, depriving people that enjoy drinking coke of a sugar-free alternative, because it is possible but not proven artificial sweeteners are harmful to health. If coke drinkers were to respond by saying 'but I enjoy drinking a coke from time to time, but would prefer not to be forced to drink the sugary variety, which subjects me to proven risks of diabetes and obesity', the response would be 'tough - you shouldn't be drinking coke at all, as both variants - sugared and unsugared - are not good for you; just quit and stop moaning'.
I have a very principled objection to this approach, which I elaborate on further below in the 'why do people smoke' section. This line of reasoning ignores the pleasure people get from drinking a coke, or engaging in other indulgences, and focuses only on the costs. And it assumes we should promote optimal health over any and all pleasures/indulgences in life. If people want to prioritize health over all else in their own lives, then fine - by all means do that. However, people that do not want to do that should not be forced to do that - particularly if we aspire to live in a free and pluralistic society. Such restrictions are no less than creeping totalitarianism. Accurate and science-based evidence on the health risks of products should be available, and non-users should be protected from exposure, but beyond that we should seek to preserve freedom of choice.
The other objection to e-cigarettes is that they may be a 'gateway' drug, making smoking socially acceptable again, and increasing smoking rates. The problem with this approach is that it assumes ipso facto that smoking and nicotine consumption are bad thing - even if no harm is proven - but that puritan approach makes no sense. Should we not celebrate a newfound ability to enjoy the pleasures of nicotine and smoking in a harm-free way, rather than demonize it? To understand this line of reasoning, we need to understand why it is that people smoke (see further below).
Furthermore, why would e-cigarettes be a 'gateway' drug to an inferior product? Real cigarettes smell bad; taste awful; and have many side-effects that are terrible for your health; many smokers would love to do away with them for a healthier alternative. This will be even more the case for smokers that start directly with e-cigarettes - why would they ever switch to an inferior product? If e-cigarettes are allowed to flourish and are exempted from the heavy taxation imposed on regular cigarettes, it is very likely that conventional cigarettes will slowly fall into disuse over the years, and in the process, millions of premature deaths from conventional smoking will be avoided.
Why do people smoke anyway?
A negative PR campaign against nicotine and smoking has now been underway since the 1960s, and has been waged so effectively that few non-smokers recognize that there are any benefits or upsides to nicotine use whatsoever - only addiction, withdrawal, and adverse health effects. Consequently, non-smokers now believe that people who smoke are unfathomably stupid - after all, if this view is true, why would anyone do it, given the health risks, when there is no upside?
The answer is that there is upside - you just don't understand it if you've never smoked - as nicotine has very real effects on the brain and is not merely an illusion. The best way I can help a non-smoker to empathize is to draw an analogy with drinking alcohol. Someone who had never used alcohol might well argue the following: 'you would have to be utterly stupid to drink alcohol. It tastes and smells bad; it costs a fortune; its a poison that's bad for you and your liver; it reduces life expectancy; its fattening; it interferes with your sleep; in high quantities it makes you ill/dizzy and gives you a hangover; it causes social problems like drunk driving; violence; etc. Ergo, people that drink alcohol are fools, and we should completely ban the use of alcohol, or tax & restrict its use to extreme degree, to protect these fools from themselves, and for society's benefit'.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that it ignores all the benefits & pleasures people derive from drinking, and focuses only on the costs. What is implicitly happening with this line of reasoning is that the prohibitionists are forcing their value system onto others - namely that maximizing health and life expectancy should take priority over everything else, including having fun and engaging in pleasurable indulgences. But who is to say that that value system is correct? Should people not be free to enjoy life's indulgences, even if they are not good for their health in the long run, if they are informed of the risks and choose to do so? Charlie Munger made a recent point to this effect regarding the demonization of Coca-Cola as well Berkshire's 2016 AGM.
The unpopular but hard truth is that, like all drugs, the nicotine high entails many benefits to users. That's why people smoke, and that's why it's so hard to quit. It is comparable to caffeine - also an addictive drug - in its stimulant effect, speeding up one's metabolism, but it also has other powerful cognitive effects, including increasing dopamine flow to the brain (which makes you feel good); and increasing cognitive function in a lot of complex ways. Numerous studies have demonstrated that this is not a placebo effect - the cognitive benefits are real not imagined - and why should they not be? What other drug do you know of that does not have real effects?
It is surprising (if you do not understand nicotine's effects) how many extremely high-performing & creative people historically have been/are smokers. Diego Maradona was a two-pack a day smoker. Ronaldo smokes. Einstein puffed incessantly on his pipe. Daniel Kahneman - author of 'Thinking Fast and Slow' - is a heavy smoker. Christopher Hitchens - one of the finest journalists and orators of our age, was a heavy smoker. Obama smoked and had difficulties quitting. Shane Warne smoked. Many musicians and artists smoke. I could go on.
These are not unintelligent people. And they all chose to smoke. It's not that they are dumb. It's that the benefits they received from nicotine were powerful, and after they quit, their performance suffered. That's what truly makes it hard to quit. The withdrawal symptoms can be easily suffered through. It's getting used to operating with less mental energy and cognitive function on a permanent basis that is most difficult. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the clamp down on smoking in the work place has been one contributor to anomalously-low productivity growth in recent decades (Denmark reportedly suffered a large and unexplained decline in productivity the year after they implemented a wholesale workplace smoking ban).
Why does the anti-smoking lobby oppose e-cigarettes?
The anti-smoking lobby will claim that they oppose e-cigarettes because of the potential long term harm they can do, and the fact that the safety of the products is not yet proven.
The truth, unfortunately, is a lot less flattering. The real reason is that the individuals staffing these organizations have spent their lifetimes battling smoking as public enemy number one, and by admitting that a non-harmful nicotine delivery mechanism has arrived, they will be both (1) rendering themselves useless in the world; and (2) putting themselves out of a job. Anyone who knows anything about human psychology and the functioning of bureaucracies will realize they have powerful incentives to oppose e-cigarettes and claim the existence of phantom harm. The government also has an incentive to listen as excise tax revenues on cigarettes are an important source of income (this is more important than saving lives it would seem).
In addition, we now have such a powerful cultural bias against smoking that we can't bring ourselves to believe that it is possible - let alone desirable - that we have an ability to smoke that does not cause harm. Smoking and nicotine has been the enemy for so long that it is impossible for many people to make the mental transition to viewing e-cigarettes as a good thing - a source of pleasure, much like a strong coffee in the morning, or a good glass of red wine in the evening - that we need not oppose.
Cultural biases are interesting. Western culture loves caffeine and alcohol, but nicotine is a no go. Go to Arabian countries, however, and smoking shisha (which has nicotine) is highly accepted, but alcohol is not. You can smoke a shisha on a Dubai beach but you cannot order a beer. Our cultural bias against nicotine is very real, but the fact that it is merely a bias is invisible to most people.
Unfortunately, anti-smoking activists that are opposing e-cigarettes are now threatening to do far more harm that good for public health. To the extent they successfully restrict e-cigarettes and force smokers to smoke the far more harmful analog cigarettes, they may in fact contribute to millions of premature, avoidable deaths. Indeed, in a lot of respects these organizations/activists are now as bad as the tobacco companies in the 1950-60s. They are spreading false information for their own selfish benefit that is causing millions of people to die premature deaths. It is utterly reprehensible behavior and it should be exposed for what it is.
Anti-tobacco activists that are opposing e-cigarettes are showing their true colours: they don't (and so presumably never did) care about public health. They instead care about their own career and job prospects; ego aggrandizement; and taking the moral high-ground, and don't give a damn about public health. In the past, this cynical approach was fine - they probably did end up saving lives anyway. However, their cynical behavior now increasingly threatens millions of lives and they need to be stopped. These people have become more dangerous than the cigarettes themselves.
What we should do:
First and foremost, we should not ban e-cigarettes, and it is even arguable we should go further and actively encourage smokers to transition - perhaps via MoH funded advertising (although I won't go that far at this stage). In addition, additional polices should be the following.
*We should always and everywhere restrict sales of nicotine-based products to minors. Nicotine is a powerful and addictive drug and should only be sold to adults capable of making an informed choice.
*We should provide unbiased and scientific evidence on the health effects/dangers etc of smoking and vaping to the public, that is free of agenda or moralizing. Unfortunately, the information coming out of anti-smoking lobbies these days is no longer science-based and is every bit as agenda-laden and biased as the information coming from the smoking lobby in the 1950-60s. This must stop, and a fair and balanced dialogue on smoking/vaping needs to emerge.
Beyond that, we should recognize that individuals, in a free society in which we aspire to live, ought to be able - on an informed basis and without prejudice to non-smokers - to choose to smoke and to do so without being subject to unreasonable taxation, social condemnation, harassment (i.e. unreasonable restrictions on where and when they can smoke/vape), banning, or any other moralistic, totalitarian and prohibitionist approaches to nicotine regulation.
*We should, however, ban both smoking and vaping in enclosed public spaces to avoid forcing non-smokers to be involuntarily subjected to harmful smoke or (in the case of vaping) haze. This includes the indoor areas of bars/restaurants, malls, movie theaters, airports, etc.
*We should make a limited number of exceptions to the above policy by permitting specialist cigar/smoking/vaping bars to operate.
*Restrictions should in no instances be placed on smokers ability to smoke in indoor areas in their own private property (houses, cars, etc), unless infants & young children are also present. There should be no restrictions on outdoor smoking on private property.
*We should restrict smoking of traditional cigarettes in certain outdoor public areas where it is liable to result in litter (cigarette butts and ash) and foul odors for passers by. However, we should not go overboard and should provide areas for people to smoke if they choose. In addition, we should not ban vaping in these areas, including in public parks and beaches, as there is no foul oder, no harmful smoke, and no litter (no cigarette butts or ash).
*As a courtesy, we should provide smoking rooms or segregated areas to smokers in places where smoking is prohibited - particularly in places where easy outdoor access is unavailable, such as airports.
*We should tax tobacco only to the extent it can be shown that it is harmful and imposes a burden on the public health system (and note that by dying 5-10yrs earlier, smokers impose significantly less burden on the public pension system to counter their burden on the healthcare system). Beyond that, hitting smokers with moralistic sin taxes is unethical and paternalistic and has no place in a putatively free society.
*We should enthusiastically embrace the advent of e-cigarettes as a way for people to enjoy the pleasures of smoking and the benefits of nicotine in a way that does not cause harm, in much the same way we might embrace the technological advent of healthy potato chips/junk food etc.
I doubt anyone has made it this far, but if you have, feel free to leave a comment.


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New Delhi, May 27 (Agency) Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) on Thursday said it can buy up to 2 million tonnes of crude oil from Iran if sanctions are lifted and terms are attractive. BPCL Director (Finance) N Vijayagopal said his company used to buy 2 million tonnes a year of crude oil from Iran before sanctions halted imports. 'We will go back to that number' once sanctions are lifted, he said. 'If Iran offers benefits similar to what it used to offer (like) extended credit period, we can buy up to 2 million tonnes.' India stopped importing oil from Iran in mid-2019 following sanctions on the Persian Gulf nation by the Trump administration.
US President Joe Biden's administration and Iran have been involved in talks to revive the nuclear deal in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation's largest oil firm, and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) too had earlier this month expressed hope of resuming oil imports from Iran once the sanctions are lifted. BPCL bought 1.15 million tonnes of crude from the US in the last financial year, he said adding it would not be possible to replace dependence on the Middle East in the long run.
Iranian oil coming into the market will not just cool prices but also help India diversify its import basket. In 2020-21, Iraq was India's biggest oil supplier, followed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Nigeria was the fourth-largest supplier and the US was the fifth. India — once Iran's second-biggest customer — imports more than 85 per cent of its oil needs. Previously, Iranian oil is a lucrative buy for refiners as the Persian Gulf nation provides 60 days of credit for purchases, terms not available from suppliers of substitute crudes — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Nigeria, and the US. Also, it offers shorter voyage savings on freight costs.
Iranian exports tumbled after former US President Donald Trump tightened sanctions in 2018 and ended waivers for some countries in 2019, including India. Iran and world powers last month began their most serious attempt yet to resurrect a nuclear deal. Iran re-started a banned nuclear programme after Trump pulled out of the deal and re-imposed sanctions on Iran. Even though new US President Joe Biden wants to rejoin, both sides say the other must make the first move. India was the second-biggest buyer of Iranian oil after China before sanctions halted supplies in May 2019.
Iran in 2017-18 was its third-largest supplier after Iraq and Saudi Arabia and met about 10 per cent of total needs. Till 2010-11, Iran was India's second-biggest supplier of crude oil after Saudi Arabia but Western sanctions over its suspected nuclear programme relegated it to the seventh spot in the subsequent years. In 2013-14 and 2014-15, India bought 11 million tonnes and 10.95 million tonnes, respectively from it. Sourcing from Iran increased to 12.7 million tonnes in 2015-16, giving it the sixth spot. In the following year, the Iranian supplies jumped to 27.2 million tonnes to catapult it to the third spot.


text: Some trips are really memorable for us, especially if they combine unusual services. This time we want to tell you about a trip to a very uncommon place. The group was arriving from Sweden to Cracow and counted 24 guests. They were kindergarten teachers that wanted to exchange educational ideas with their Polish counterparts. The guests were staying in Ester Hotel at Cracow's Kazimierz District at the end of April 2018. On the first day of their stay they visited "Bright Child" kindergarten with a Swedish translator to enable communication and had a conference in the hotel. On the second day they visited another kindergarten "Niebieska Żabka" and had conference too but on the third day they wanted to order some really different experience. They chose a scare, haunted house called "Lost Souls Alley". It is situated in the very heart of Cracow's city centre and is design to scare groups. An entire building has been converted to various themed rooms with a carefully thought-through design, vibe and challenges along the way just to give the guests a really good scare. Lost Souls Alley offers a few different options with varying levels of Pain, Fear and Fun. Our group had a great fun there and in the same way they broke all stereotypes that existed in our minds about kindergarten teachers' interests. Thank you for such great trip idea!


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Virtualization and Orchestration Create New Opportunities for Service Providers
Service providers are eager to evolve their networks in order to create new business value and deliver an unparalleled customer experience, but will need to overcome some obstacles first.
The theme on Wednesday at SDN & OpenFlow World Congress seemed to be synergy, as discussions and sessions gravitated toward how coming together is the key to bringing virtualization to life and commercializing it in the real world.
During the morning keynotes, several speakers pointed out that while software-defined networking (SDN) needs network functions virtualization (NFV) and vice versa, both of them need another component, management and orchestration, in order to create an even more compelling platform to advance business use cases, including SD-WAN. The Director General of ETSI, Luis Jorge Romero, said that while his organization is best known for its efforts to standardize NFV, the standards body is moving beyond just that and is embracing next-generation protocols such as Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) and Open Source management and orchestration in an effort to enable new business development.
Once these standards, protocols and infrastructure are in place, service providers can visualize the opportunity to go beyond basic connectivity services and instead branch out into newer on-demand and value-added services, including cloud-based applications and network services. They can also work closely with the vendor community to deliver a wide range of offerings.
The French service provider Orange is already on the second generation of its SDN service, which necessitated a complete network overhaul. This included deploying 40 SDN points of presence by 2018 in order to run virtual services as close to customer as possible. Orange has also rolled out a global SDN orchestrator and a new OSS stack for SDN. The service provider does point to areas that still need some work in order to deliver SDN/NFV at scale, such as VNF onboarding, analytics and standardization.
China Unicom has also introduced a next-generation network architecture, CUBE - Net 2.0, which relies heavily on SDN/NFV and the cloud to deliver Network as a Service (NaaS) and other value-added services. The Chinese service provider has found that its enterprise customers have very specific requirements that need to be addressed, including quick responses to requirement changes, automatic service provisioning, self-care, easy maintenance, the rapid creation of new services and high reliability with low latency.
According to China Unicom, SDN/NFV can support converged ICT services such as Layer 2/Layer 3 VPN on demand, cloud access, elastic WAN transport for data center integration, virtual value-added service provisioning and more all under the banner of virtual NaaS.
While many service providers are moving deeper into virtualization and are making serious progress in monetizing those investments, there are still challenges to overcome. These include internal organizational changes, avoiding vendor lock-in by working within open ecosystems and hiring and retaining top talent. But the many benefits outweigh these shifts and should result in service providers opening up new markets, creating new service opportunities and bringing new and improved experiences to their customers.


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Last year, Hewlett-Packard decided to unify the design of every thin and light laptop it sold, applying the same basic curves across every keyboard, touchpad, hinge, lid, and frame. This year, it's not just thin-and-light laptops getting the treatment: according to company representatives, CEO Meg Whitman has now mandated a unified design language across HP's entire portfolio of consumer machines. "She took a look at our portfolio and said, ''I don't know what's HP.'" Now, recessed hinges, revamped touchpads, and slim wedge designs — or at least the illusion of a slim wedge design — will be more or less standard across the company's lineup.
Don't call it a netbook
Of course, that means it's harder than ever for any individual HP computer to stand out, but two manage it anyhow. First, the $399 HP Pavilion TouchSmart 11 uses AMD's new low-power Temash processors to power a classy little 11.6-inch touchscreen machine, which still manages to house a full keyboard, a two-button touchpad, and a full array of ports, including three USB sockets, an HDMI port, VGA, Ethernet, and a SD card slot into its fairly minuscule frame. HP expects it to ship on June 26th.
Second and perhaps more exciting is the HP Envy 14 TouchSmart Ultrabook (pictured first in the gallery above) which appears to be trying to ape the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. It starts at $699 with a low-res 14-inch, 1366 x 768 screen, mind you, but it can be optionally upgraded to 1600 x 900, or an unprecedented 3200 x 1800 resolution screen which should be available sometime later this summer. Edge-to-edge glass touchscreens come standard on the Envy 14 TouchSmart, and its bigger brother the HP Envy 15 TouchSmart Notebook as well.
Why "notebook" instead of "ultrabook"? The 15-inch model has a cheaper $529 starting price because it comes with AMD processors and no solid state storage by default. They both have fingerprint readers though, a feature that's now going to be standard across all of HP's Envy laptops. The Envy 14 TouchSmart is also coming June 26th, while the 15-inch model is due June 5th as of now.
If you're looking for a little more power under the hood, HP will also ship heftier Envy 15 and Envy 17 laptops without the "TouchSmart" or "Ultrabook" monikers, trading the touchscreen for faster processors, more storage, more speakers, and discrete Nvidia graphics options. We don't have all the details yet, but the Envy 17 will start at $699 on June 5th.


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13 Aug Qualified for the Big
Qualified for the Big
Luke 19:15-17
"And so it was that when he returned, having received the kingdom, he then commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, 'Master, your mina has earned ten minas.' And he said to him, 'Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities"
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Today's Devotional
It is very easy to overlook the small details when we are focused on achieving our big goal. God doesn't want us to ignore the small steps that come before the big ones because that will show how qualified we are. God won't give people big things that are not ready or prepared; he will start small and work his way up.
Father I want to be ready for all the big and great things you have in store for me. Give me the focus to concentrate on the small things first and the diligence to not overlook the details you bring my way. In Jesus name, Amen!
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Have you ever overlooked small details because you thought they didn't matter?
What would happen if you forgot to add water to a growing plant?
By becoming a Ron Carpenter Ministries partner, you are personally helping spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. Our partners help influence areas such as Africa, South and Central America, Europe, the Middle East, and neighbors right at their back door. One person can only do so much, but together, we can do so much more.
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The Friday of spring break week, I took my long walk at the lake rather than on the mean streets.
It was a beautiful spring day and I decided it would be nice to be out of the noise of traffic.
The ducks were out in numbers and swimming near the north shore where I was walking, so I rewarded myself for my longer walk, and faster-than-usual pace, by stopping to watch them at the end of my trek.
They were bobbing with the gentle current; quiet and serene.
I felt peaceful standing there watching them...
...for about two minutes...
...until the crows landed on the other side of the lake road.
Crows are not quiet and serene, and they had my attention immediately.
I know many people find crows annoying, but for reasons unknown I have really been enjoying their raucous cawing this year.
We had an especially large crow in our back yard recently, though I don't remember any of them ever visiting us before this.
My guess is he was called in by our other feathered friends to handle a tough job.
I burned a bunch of muffins a couple of weeks ago, and I set them aside until I could find time to crumble them for the birds to eat.
A few days later, I got out the sledge hammer, broke the muffins into pieces, and sprinkled them out on the back lawn.
The cardinals came.
The bluejays came.
The starlings came.
But only the crow was man enough to actually eat the blasted things.


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In the light of the Government's request that everyone should avoid social contact we have had to make the tough decision to close for the next few months.
As I am sure you will understand, the nature of our business does include close contact of people and equipment.
We feel we have a duty of care to protect the health and safety of our staff and our customers, and to assist with the mitigation of the spread of this virus, by closing until the beginning of June.
Our phone line will remain open and we are taking bookings for June onwards. We have already spoken to the majority of people who booked with us through March and April. Thank you for all your support at this tough time.


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Pulling up at the spectacular and iconic Grand Hotel Tremezzo, you already feel like you're at home and will never, ever want to leave. I've been to Lake Como for work trips twice but had never spent the night, so this time I was armed with a long list of things to tick off, which ended up almost completely untouched thanks to the utter perfection of the Grand Hotel Tremezzo.
Since our return to Italy came together at the last minute I leaned on my friend Jordan's fabulous travel agency Maupin Travel, to plan a few fun days in Lake Como before our project with Marta Scarampi started in Torino. This was my first time working with a travel agency to arrange a trip, and all I can say is we are hooked! With only 5 days notice before our departure and a quick phone call to describe our travel preferences, Maupin Travel was able to recommend and book the prefect 4 day trip in Lake Como, selecting the most spectacular hotels and restaurant recommendations, while also ensuring we had everything in place to navigate the ever-changing Covid guidelines. And since we booked through Maupin, there were lots of little surprises included in the trip, from major room upgrades to a complimentary dinner for two – to a private tour of the chef's kitchen garden. Maupin's team has experts for every type of travel from domestic family vacations to all-out trip-of-a-lifetime honeymoon itineraries, and our 4 nights in Como were definitely among our top travel experiences ever!
Where to begin with this place!?! The Grand had been on my bucket list for a long time. At every turn it brings the fantasy of a glamorous Italian holiday to life. An iconic art nouveau masterpiece sitting on the western shores of Lake Como, the Grand Hotel Tremezzo is one of the oldest hotels on the lake. Opening in 1910 as the realization of the dream of Enea Gandola and his wife Maria Orsolini who wanted to create a hotel of incredible elegance and sophistication for a new, illustrious type of traveler. Frivolity and exuberance, decadence and excess: the Belle Époque was a fabulous time to be alive. High society took long voyages overseas in pursuit of art, culture and knowledge, and Lake Como was a favorite destination. With views spanning the crystalline waters towards Bellagio and the Grigne Mountains, stepping into the hotel really does feel like you're being transported back to a more glamorous era. With a chic blend of old and new, it's a grand dame without the stuffiness. Greta Garbo referred to it as "that happy, sunny place" upon visiting in the 1930s and I couldn't agree more.
While we were there, my DMS were flooded with personal stories of special moments you've enjoyed at this hotel and I loved hearing what this place has meant to so many of you. From the three stunning pools (one in their lush gardens, another floating on the lake) to many restaurants all perfectly poised to take in the views – it seems no one has a bad time at The Grand.
If there is one must do-while in Como it's touring the lake by boat. The hotel has its own boats which you can hire to enjoy a cruise with a glass of prosecco in hand. We visited 12 of the lake's most iconic villas as Carlo, our captain, shared details of the architecture, notable owners and scandalous histories that accompany each property – from Villa del Balbianello (of '007 fame) to Villa Gerli (owned by a distant relative of my friend Rachel(!))
Emilia Wickstead Boat Dress (one left!) // Emme Parsons Metallic Sandals (similar here, and love these) // Pearl Earrings (souvenir from Venice, similar here) // Pamela Munson Pearl Clutch c/o // J.Crew Sunglasses // Haverhill Hudson Bracelet c/o
If you need a break from lazy poolside lounging and lunching, a visit to the spa and Villa Carlotta are also musts. The spa is situated in an elegant villa adjacent to the main hotel, filled with detailed mosaic floors and hand-painted ceilings. I only came in for a manicure, but it was the perfect excuse to relax in the gorgeous space for an hour. Similarly, Villa Carlotta is also celebrated for its mosaic floors and ceilings but a walk through the gardens is really something special. With plant species from around the world, it's easy to envision the fabulous parties of a bygone era as you stroll the grounds.
Above: Tory Burch Embroidered Tunic // Eres White Swimsuit // Jack Rodgers Sandals // Altuzarra Waterfall Bag // Peter Beaton Straw Hat c/o
Below: Jade Swim Apex Bathing Suit // Mara Hoffman Wrap Skirt (old, similar) // Emme Parsons Metallic Sandals (similar here, and love these) // Peter Beaton Straw Hat c/o // Pearl earrings
Each night we enjoyed dinner with a view of the lake at The Grand – it was so good that we didn't even consider going anywhere else. (Though several of you also recommended a small family restaurant at the top of the hill behind the Grand – though no one could remember it's name!) Meals are an event here, and fashionable guests dress the part. Most of the restaurants have a dress code, simply stated as "elegant" which makes for fabulous people watching. We'd settle in for an aperitivo as the sky turned pink each night and then lingered over dinner for hours, the candlelight mixing with dancing lights of the villages across the lake. Our first night Maupin had reserved a table at L'Escale Trattoria (the whimsical casino themed plates below) and the next we ate at T Bar. Both of which continue the legacy of the late Gualtiero Marchesi – the first Italian chef to be awarded three Michelin stars, he is largely considered the father of modern Italian cuisine. Writing this has me dreaming of another meal on this terrace – we can't wait to return someday soon!
I cannot say enough good things about The Grand Hotel Tremezzo or Maupin Travel, thank you to both for the incredible hospitality and taste of la dolce vita!


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BMW Alpina B7 – Official Pictures and Specifications
BMW Alpina B7 Bi-Turbo has officialy appeared on internet and now we have high quality pictures. We can say that BMW Alpina B7 is a unique car powered with a 4.4-liters V8 Bi-Turbo engine and a power of 507hp. BMW Alpina B7 has a 0-60mph acceleration of 4,7s and the B7's top speed is electronically limited to 173mph. BMW Alpina B7 is based on new BMW 7-Series (2009 model) and will feature upgrades to the braking system and also to the suspension.
BMW Alpina B7 Bi-Turbo will make its world debut at Geneva Motor Show which will be opened on 5-15 March. I think that Alpina has built a unique piece of new 2009 BMW 7-Series and also the car will have a real succes on market.
I was headed toward Charlotte,NC on US-74 in my 2008 Impala SS, cruising along at just under 100 mph when a gorgeous blue B7 blew past me as if I were sitting still! I floored the accelerator,reaching a speed of 140 mph before I was finally able to catch up to it. When the driver pulled into a gas station,I followed him in and struck up a conversation about this exquisite new B7.He said that the highest speed he had reached so far was 163 mph,and felt like it had plenty left! I GOTTA HAVE ONE!!! 😀
wow it must be a real nice feeling to be able to drive one of these cars…and to keep maintenance and upkeep on it so that the car will continue to perform in the way it was designed.
BMW is the (U.D.M) Ultimate Driving Machine. If you happen to have an extra couple of grand I am an excellent candidate for GOD to move to bless a BELIEVER…Ha HA ha


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Flooded Roads Could Mean a Watery Grave for Your Car
If you live in a place that gets any amount of rainfall you've probably driven down a street that's a little too watery for comfort. For the most part, many people will continue to drive down a road as long as the water isn't absurdly high, but there are plenty of reasons you should think twice. Even if your car is high enough to handle the stagnant water that's made a home on the pavement, that doesn't necessarily mean you should risk your safety.
Sometimes it is worse than it looks
As we are driving we can't always tell how deep water is going to be. On the surface, it might just look like a small film of rain that hasn't drained off of the road yet, but even minor storms can leave several inches of rainwater on the road. This water is usually so cloudy that you can't see to the bottom, and it can be difficult to gauge how deep the water is. A lot of drivers make the mistake of continuing forward regardless, oblivious to the dangers ahead.
Heavy rains can leave a lasting effect on roads, sometimes keeping areas flooded for days. Even of the road doesn't have several inches of water, all it takes is a small accumulation of rain on the side of the road where the water hasn't drained yet to cause an accident. Hyrdoplaning can occur when your car hits a small pool of water, and it can be terrifying as well as deadly.
Damaging your car
Truck drivers are typically less worried about the hazards of driving on wet roads because they are designed to tackle muddy terrain. This isn't the case for all cars and SUVs, which can suffer from pretty severe damage in even an inch of water. When my mechanic warned me that my used Porsche Cayenne's air intake was relatively low, I became concerned with hydro-locking my engine on my way home because my road is known to flood.
This is a problem many vehicles have that most owners aren't aware of. Air intakes are designed to funnel water into your engine for the combustion process. When you are driving in normal rainy weather conditions there isn't a concern for your motor's wellbeing, but when you are splashing copious amounts of water into the intake you risk taking water into your engine and damaging it.
More dangers than one
According to Consumer Reports, there are some even scarier reasons why you should avoid wet roads. Many people will drive onto a road not realizing how deep the water is, and if you realized you do this, you should think twice. Water is conductive to electricity, and after a storm, a downed electrical pole can cause a significant and deadly hazard. You also can't see what debris has been swept onto the roadway, or if there is any area of the road that has been corroded. You could drive safely through, sure, or you could hit a massive pothole and damage your car.
Driving through a watery road is a major hazard most people tend to ignore. Like potholes, it's easy to forget how badly your car can be damaged in just a few moments. Even more concerning, these conditions put you and your loved ones at risk, and when it's possible to take alternative routes, you should.