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"Are the dimensions correct-only 1 inch thick pillow that has memory foam and fiber? 1 inch?"
Very comfortable pillow. Would buy again....
Bodipedic Extra Support Memory Foam Grande Pillows (Set of 2)by Bodipedic
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ITEM#: 12745397The Bodipedic Extra Support Memory Foam Grande Pillows are ideal for those who seek plush comfort and additional head and neck support when they sleep. Supportive memory foam core surrounded by a thick fiber filled outer layer provides the ultimate in soft comfort while reducing painful pressure points. The high loft design provides an even sleeping surface to promote proper shoulder, head and neck alignment. The ideal pillow for all sleep positions.
- Pillow type: Memory Foam
- Extra supportive pillow; designed with a responsive memory foam core to help relax nagging muscle tension
- High loft provides an even sleeping surface and promotes proper shoulder, head and neck alignment
- Pillow measures 19 inches wide x 25 inches long x 1.5 inches thick
- Materials: 100-percent memory foam core
- Density rating: High-density 3-pound core
- 100-percent cotton, 330 thread count gusseted cover
- Memory foam is resistant to dust mites and is naturally antimicrobial
- Originally designed for NASA, this space age foam cradles your body, reducing pressure points that cause tossing and turning
- Ideal for all sleep positions
- Meets all flammability standards
Memory Foam Do's and Don'ts:
- To maximize memory foam expansion; remove from packaging within 72 hours of receipt.
- This product arrives very tightly packed. Please unwrap and allow 48 hours for this product to return to its original shape.
- Being sealed in plastic packaging sometimes traps odors. A few hours of airing usually removes the odor.
- Due to machine cutting manufacturing processes, there may be slight variances in the dimensions of this product.
|2 Inch
|Memory Foam Type
|Memory Foam
|Comfort Level
|3 Pound
|Fill Type
|Memory Foam
|Pillow Type
|Product Features
|Antimicrobial, Hypoallergenic
|5 year Limited Manufacturer
|Model Number
|Country of Origin
|United States
Customer Reviews
Most Recent
Nice pillow
Very comfortable pillow. Would buy again.Read More
D watts
Husband loves these pillows.Read More
Those pillows are awsome they never loose there shape like all the other pillows weve bought and tried specifically memory foam well really all pillows these days are awfull they used to be really nice like 20 years ago something happened and they changed there no good now but those ones are greatRead More
The best of the best I want to more but they are out off stock😩😩😩Read More
Great pillows
Good amount of memory foam thereRead More
Most Helpful
Great Pillows
My wife has been having a hard time finding just the right bed pillow. She does not like a thick pillow, nor does she like one that is so thin that there is no support. This pillow turned out to be just right for her. It is not too thick and it is not too thin. Even though this bed pillow is sold under the name Bodipedic, the tag on the pillow says Sleep Innovations. It just so happens that I bought my favorite bed pillow at Overstock a few years ago, and it is a Sleep Innovations pillow too. Now were both happy with our Sleep Innovations bed pillows. They are far better than what you would expect for the price, a bargain for sure.Read More
Amazing Pillows
I had been having trouble sleeping for months and was at the end of my rope, but I didn't have the money to buy a new mattress. I ordered a memory foam mattress pad, body pillow, and these pillows to help update my bed and give me some relief. The mattress pad and body pillow arrived first and they helped make my bed more comfortable but I still had trouble sleeping. I had tried memory foam pillows before, but they were contoured and hard as a rock so I hadn't had the best experience. As soon as these pillows arrived I tore open the package and was so excited at how plush they looked and felt. That night I slept like a baby and I haven't had difficulty getting to sleep since then. The pillows are just as good as when I bought them several months ago and I expect them to last a long time!Read More
I LOVE these pillows
I have purchased other expensive pillows in the past but they can not compare to these. I have neck problems and when I wake up in the morning I dont have the neck stain I used to have. I am a side sleeper and these pillows provide excellent support. I even took mine with me on vacation.Read More
somthing to consider
I bought this set of pillows because the description states it offers support and is ideal for all sleep positions. I tend to sleep on my back though I sometimes I sleep on my sides. After two weeks of (non)sleep with this pillow, I'm giving up on the pillow. It does not offer support and it is not comfortable. The pillow is too firm and too flat. Maybe its my body style. I have a long, sleek neck. Sadly, this is not the pillow for me. Hope this helps.Read More
Flat as a pancake
Want to return - Overstock charges $7 to return this productRead More
Questions & Answers
Hello bobnj, Yes this is 1.5 inches thick. Have a great day!
"Does this product come in king size"
I am very sorry but at this time we do not offer these great pillows in a king size. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.
The pillows I received were very close to king size. We use king size pillow cases on them easily.
"Is this product machine washable?"
No, it is not. You should only spot wash these as any moisture left in the memory foam pillow can lead to mold forming in the item.
Shopping Tips & Inspiration
Best Things to Consider When Buying a Pillow
If you've been waking up with a sore neck and shoulders, it might be time to replace your pillows. Consider your sleeping position, desired pillow firmness, pillow size, and filling type to help you buy the right pillow for maximum comfort.
Best Pillows to Stop Snoring
Having a snoring problem may be no more than a mild irritation at first, but when it begins to affect you or your partner's quality of sleep, it's time to do something about it. Check out these best pillows to reduce snoring.
How to Know When to Replace a Pillow
A pillow that is worn out can leave you feeling tired too, so it's helpful to know when it should be replaced. If you're wondering how well your pillow is holding up, try these simple tricks to see if it's time for a replacement.
FAQs about Bed Pillow Firmness
If you often find yourself tossing and turning at night, it may be time to check and see if you and your pillow are compatible. Shop and save money on the best bedding at Overstock.com
Best Pillows for Every Kind of Sleep
Best Pillows for Every Kind of Sleep from Overstock.com. Our guides provide customers with information about the best pillows for every kind of sleep.
How to Freshen Bed Pillows
How to Freshen Bed Pillows from Overstock.com. The slightly gross truth? Your pillows aren't as clean as you think. Here's how to take care of that.
How to Maintain a Body Pillow
How to Maintain a Body Pillow from Overstock.com. Our guides provide customers with information about how to maintain a body pillow.
Everything You Need to Know When Buying a Wedge Pillow
Everything You Need to Know When Buying a Wedge Pillow from Overstock.com. Our guides provide customers with everything you need to know about buying a wedge pillow.
Types of Pillows
Types of Pillows from Overstock.com. Our guides provide customers with information about the different types of pillows.
Best Pillows for Reading in Bed
Best Pillows for Reading in Bed from Overstock.com. Our guides provide customers with information about the best pillows for reading in bed.
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** Most Oversize orders are delivered within 1-4 weeks. Some orders may take 6 weeks to be delivered.


text:
For his follow-up to 2010's Doo-Wops & Hooligans, Bruno Mars continues to show his love of Motown.
The singer is working with Benny Blanco, the superstar producer who's worked with the likes of Katy Perry and Maroon 5, who told Rolling Stone that Bruno's new record will show off his love for soul music.
"It's like some throwback Nina Simone type s***," the producer told the mag.
But Benny's not surprised Bruno's channeling the legend.
"It's Bruno," he said. "He can sing the ABC's and you'd be like, 'Holy f***! He knows how to vibe.'"
The "Grenade" singer is also working with Adele's songwriter, Paul Epworth, who wrote "Rolling in the Deep."
But even with all this star power, it seems Bruno is still dealing with the pressures of the sophomore slump. He tweeted on June 20, "Wise men say that if you're not struggling to make your album its probably not gonna be a good album."
Seems like Bruno might have another number one hit on his hands.
No release date has been announced as of yet for the singer's second solo album.
–Shannon Carlin, CBS Local

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Android operating system may be top dog at Samsung, but the smartphone maker is
showing Bada some love by introducing three new Bada 2.0-powered smartphones at IFA
2011 in Berlin next month.
The three new phones are the Wave 3, the Wave M and the Wave Y. All three are
powered by Bada 2.0, which is Samsung's own mobile operating system. Bada 2.0
offers features like voice recognition, Wi-Fi Direct and Near Field
Communication (NFC) for mobile payments.
The Samsung Wave 3 offers a 4" Super AMOLED display and a slim body made
of anodized aluminum. Wi-Fi Direct, seamless push notifications and improved
multitasking are a few listed features for the convenience of the
The Samsung Wave M revolves around the social aspect of mobile technology. It
is the first Samsung smartphone to come equipped with ChatON, which is
Samsung's proprietary mobile communication service that works across most
mobile devices and links all of the user's contacts instantly, allows the
sharing of content and conversations across mobile platforms and PC, and the
creation of "micro-communities" through group chat. The Wave M has a
3.65" HVGA screen made of tempered glass with a metallic body, and
features streamlined messaging feeds, enhanced Web browsing, optional NFC and
Wi-Fi applications. It's definitely the social member of the three.
The Wave Y is more of a starter set for new smartphone users. It features a metallic body and a 3.2"
HVGA screen as well as simple personalization via Lock Screen, Live Panel and
Folder management for the new smartphone user who is experiencing the
technology for the first time. Music Hub allows the user to manage portable
music easily, and Social Hub as well as ChatON will be available for mobile
social networking.
Customers who purchase any one of the three new Samsung smartphones will be
able to utilize Samsung Apps, which is an integrated application store
specifically for Samsung that offers local to global content.
"Smartphones are gaining popularity by the day," said JK Shin,
President of Samsung Mobile Communications. "The new additions to the Wave
portfolio are the first to benefit from the power of our Bada 2.0 platform; the
full extent of our commitment is clear to see in each device. We've produced
easy-to-use smartphones that will inspire the market."


text:
Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering
- Distinguished Professor: Anderson
- Professors: Lee, Teufel Langdon Taylor Endowed Chair
- Associate Professors: Bretz, Chen (Chair of the Department), Engler, Weinkauf
- Adjunct Faculty: Balch, Buckley, Grigg, Huang, Kelly, Martin, Lorenz, Parkinson, Plisga, Ruan, Seright, Taber, Warpinski
Petroleum and natural gas engineering is a broad-based discipline primarily concerned with the development, exploration, and conservation of oil and gas resources. Petroleum and natural gas engineers plan and supervise drilling and well-completion programs, design and select drilling and production equipment, optimize the production of oil and natural gas, estimate reserves, and manage oil and gas properties.
The oil and gas industry is a progressive and highly technical business, which offers opportunities to young engineers, both in the United States and abroad. A petroleum and natural gas engineering graduate may obtain a responsible position with an oil company, establish a consulting business, or become an independent oil producer.
The Petroleum Engineering program offers two options for a Master of Science Degree—with thesis or independent study—and a Doctor of Philosophy degree. All graduate students are required to register for and attend the Graduate Seminar (PETR 570) each semester it is offered. Exceptions may be made only with approval of the student's advisor and the department chair.
Students without a B.S. in petroleum engineering will be required to undertake a course of study to prepare them as petroleum engineers. Further details of the departmental requirements can be found at www.nmt.edu/~petro.
Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering
Thesis Option
The master's program requires a minimum of 24 credit hours of coursework and 6 credit hours of thesis. The courses are designed to advance the student's knowledge in topics of petroleum engineering. The research thesis provides a means to do independent and analytical thinking on a specific subject. The student's course of study must be approved by the student's advisory committee and the department chair and must fulfill the general requirements for the master's degree.
Independent Study Option
Candidates for the non-thesis Master of Science option must complete a total of 36 credit hours, of which a minimum of three (3) credit hours must be independent study (PETR 590). At least 18 of the credit hours must be from graduate-level Petroleum Engineering courses, excluding PETR 581 and 590. The student's course of study must be approved by the student's advisory committee and must fulfill the general graduate requirements for the master's degree without thesis. The final outcome of the independent study is to submit a formal paper followed by an oral presentation to the advisory committee.


text:
There is still GOLD in these hills.
Gold prospecting is not a thing of the past. At The Mine Shaft, we have ALL the necessary tools for the modern prospector!
I' m Jeff Fish, and in September of 2008 my wife Vickie and I decided to open The Mine Shaft in the Kern River Valley. When I was 4 years old, I was helping my father pan concentrates from the Yuba River in Northern California. Since then my passion for prospecting has grown and my experiences range from dry washing in the deserts to dredging in the Yuba, Kern and many other rivers.
My wife Vickie and I have enjoyed gold prospecting together for fun and for profit for over 20 years and are now sharing our experience and knowledge with the public. While gold prospecting can be profitable, it is also a lot of fun and adventure that surely you and your family friends can enjoy!
Stop on by our store and become a part of the family, it will enrich our lives and hopefully yours too!
You can even visit our online store!
We are a Keene Engineering equipment dealer, we carry almost every tool a prospector would need and even have great deals on used mining equipment. We even rent mining equipment and metal detectors!
In addition to our equipment we also buy and sell gold and concentrates and we offer private and group panning and metal detecting lessons!


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Well, brothers and sisters, I'm here to tell you today that this has all changed, and for the blessed first time, wedding videographers are in a perfect position to exploit HD—from acquisition to delivery. Why, you ask? Because the format war is over and all is hunky-dory in the world of HD optical disc? No, far from it. The reason we can take advantage of it where others can't is because as personal event videographers, we produce for an extremely limited audience. And after a bride or her parents pay thousands for a wedding, forking over an extra $500 for an HD DVD or Blu-ray player to watch the video in high-definition is peanuts. You can even do the legwork for them and build the player into the package (and your price). Sure, you'll have to deliver SD DVDs as well, but finally, you'll have a playback platform that does justice to the high-def video you've been shooting.
Feeling inspired? Well this article discusses three ways to produce high-definition video for viewing on either HD DVD or Blu-ray players—three solutions that will work for us right now. Briefly, these involve using Apple DVD Studio Pro or Pinnacle Studio to burn HD DVD-formatted discs on your current DVD±R/RW burner for playback on an HD DVD set top player, or using Roxio DVDit Pro HD to record projects to a Blu-ray recorder for playback on a Blu-ray set-top player. Yes, since Studio and DVD Studio Pro are using your current recorder, which is limited to 4.7GB single-layer and 8.5GB dual-layer (DL), you can't access the capacious storage available in either high-def format, but you can put about 60 minutes of video on a DL disc with near-perfect quality. Again, since your target for that disc is one or two very current DVD players in a bride or her parents' home, rather than hundreds of players of uncertain ancestry scattered about the city, you should be able to avoid, or at least manage, the still-shaky compatibility associated with dual-layer media.
It's worth noting right up front that all three alternatives extend current DVD authoring capabilities to the new media, and don't provide access to the new features in Blu-ray or HD DVD like pop-up menus, dynamic interactive content, or new codecs like MPEG-4 or VC1. Still, you get high-def video—navigable and on-disc—in the living room, and presumably that's the whole point.
Note that there are some products can burn high-definition discs without menus, providing the quality without the interactivity. There are others that promise BD and HD DVD support when in fact all they can do is burn HD disc images authored in other solutions (like Sonic's high-end Scenarist), which is no help to anyone in our space. All that glitters is not gold, and in new markets, be sure to scratch below the surface to fully understand the HD-related features a product offers.
The WorkflowBefore describing the capabilities of each program, let's discuss the workflow for getting your video from video editor to the authoring program (even though Pinnacle Studio is an NLE, I'm assuming that none of you will actually edit in Studio, but merely use it to create your HD DVD-formatted DVDs). On the Windows front, you have several alternatives; probably the easiest is to export your video in HDV format using templates supplied in your editor. In testing, both DVDit and Sonic successfully imported such files exported from both Adobe Premiere Pro and Apple Final Cut Pro. If you can't produce a file that Studio can import, you can always print your edited HDV video to tape using your NLE of choice and recapture the video in Studio. This isn't an option for DVDit, which doesn't have video capture capabilities.
You could, of course, compress to HD DVD-ready MPEG-2 in your video editor, avoiding the recompression back to HDV, but then you run the risk of either Studio or DVDit recompressing your MPEG-2 files during the disc-formatting and burning process. Both Studio and DVDit imported HD-ready MPEG-2 files produced by Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro, though DVDit produced an error message stating the file wasn't DVD-compliant, probably guaranteeing a recompress. My personal preference is to compress to final format in the authoring program, which is probably both safe and efficient for most producers. In short, export in HDV and let Studio and DVDit encode to MPEG-2.
For the Macintosh, output a QuickTime reference movie from DVD Studio Pro, and import that into DVD Studio Pro, which avoids the whole recompression issue altogether. Now that I've covered this workflow, let's look at each product individually. I'll discuss the products in the order that I tested them, not in order of their availability.
Pinnacle StudioIf you're working for the kind of high-end clients who can realistically expect HD delivery at this point, the big question in your mind is probably, "Do you really expect me to use a $100 piece of consumer software?" My answer: "Heck, yes." Your alternatives are a) do nothing, or b) spend another $1,000+ to buy DVDit and a Blu-ray drive and burn a Blu-Ray disc. Studio will get you in the HD delivery business for $149.Just to be clear, I'm assuming that you'll deliver the complete wedding production on SD DVDs, as normal, and a short-form highlight video on HD DVD. In my testing, I burned about 20 single- and dual-layer discs in HD DVD format on three different computers with two varieties of media, Verbatim and Ridata. You can fit about 30 minutes on a single-layer disc while retaining great quality; 40 minutes is a stretch. You can get 60 minutes of HD on a DL disc; for some producers, that's enough for the whole wedding.
As mentioned above, Studio successfully input HDV and HD DVD-formatted MPEG-2 files from Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro, though the initial input time was quite slow, especially for the MPEG-2 file, as Studio scanned the file for scene changes. In addition, though both test computers successfully imported and burned HDV video to HD DVD, one test computer could import, but not deploy the MPEG-2 file to the timeline, stating that it did not have the necessary graphics memory.
Interestingly, the graphics card on this computer, an HP xw4100 with a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 processor with HT Technology (and 2GB RAM), had only 128MB of memory. Both of my other test computers, an HP xw4300 with a 3.4GHz Pentium D (with 2GB RAM), and an HP xw8400 with two dual-core Xeon processors (2GB RAM), had 256 MB of graphics memory. Make sure you have at least 128MB of graphics memory, if not 256, before buying Studio for use in burning HDV video. Within Studio, project complexity depends upon whether you want to insert a menu into your project. If not, the video will automatically play when the disc is inserted into the drive. If you do want a menu, you can probably create the same look and feel as your SD disc by importing the same background graphics and using the same font for your buttons (Figure 1, left).
Burning the disc itself is simple. You click the Make Movie tab to get started, then choose HD DVD as the disc type. I compressed to Dolby 2 Channel audio in all my tests, using Studio's Automatic quality setting for video, which automatically calculates the compression rate necessary to fit all video to disc (and got up to 60 minutes onto a 4.7GB disc, though with obvious quality loss). To burn a DL disc, insert a DL blank and configure dual-layer burning in the Target media drop-down list. You can't manually set the layer-break as you can with DVD Studio Pro, but operation could not have been simpler. You'll notice the "safe option to create disc content and then burn," but I burned directly to disc in all my tests with no problems.
As long as I stayed under the 30 minutes per side rule of thumb, video quality was simply stunning, especially noticeable when there was lots of fine detail in the scene. One viewer commented that he felt like was watching the ballet source video through a window than viewing it on TV. Even the menus, which started life as SD menus, looked fantastic. Interestingly, SD discs played on the Toshiba HD-A1 player used in my tests also looked significantly better than my normal DVD player, apparently the result of upsampling circuitry included in the player.
To produce an SD DVD from the same content, simply choose DVD in the Disc Type drop down, and check your recording settings. No adjustments to your data or menu are required.
No discussion of Pinnacle Studio software is complete with addressing the "stability issue." Briefly, Pinnacle has a history of shipping software a touch early and fixing it in post, so to speak, and version 10 was probably the least stable software release I've ever encountered. Things picked up with version 10.6, however, and version 10.7, which includes the HD DVD capabilities, is by far the most stable version of Studio I've seen, and on par stability-wise with most other programs.
I would definitely download the trial version before buying, though you won't be able to produce HD DVDs with the trial, just SD DVDs. Still, if you burn those without difficulty, you should be able to produce HD DVDs as well.
Blu-ray Burning with DVDit Pro HDThe last time I reviewed DVDit was version 6, and you can find the review here. The Cliff Notes version is that I adored the product, finding it much more user-friendly than Encore and DVD Studio Pro, and nearly as capable. Still, suite pricing (and that whole operating system thing) doomed DVDit to second-tier status for Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro editors, though a customized version is bundled with various Avid editors.
With version 6.3, Roxio added Blu-ray disc burning capabilities, with HD DVD support to follow once burners are available. Considering that neither Encore nor DVD Studio Pro can produce Blu-ray discs, and that you might be able to run DVDit on an Intel-powered Mac via Boot Camp or Parallels Desktop for the Mac, DVDit now merits a much more serious look.
To burn a Blu-ray disc, you author normally, though as mentioned, DVDit warned me that each video file that I imported was "not DVD and Blu-ray compliant, and may require transcoding." To avoid the risk of double MPEG-2 compression, I recommending thay you output HDV video from your editor, rather than MPEG-2, or at least experiment with MPEG-2 output parameters until you have files you can import without seeing this error message.
After authoring, you set your HD Transcoding settings in the Project Settings tab (Figure 2, left). Unlike Studio, DVDit doesn't offer an "automatic" mode that calculates the compression necessary to fit all content to disc, an omission I hope Roxio addresses in the near term. Still, when you consider that a single-sided Blu-ray disc can store close to 2 hours of video at 25Mbps, it's not a huge concern. Note the SD Transcoding tab; if you plan to burn both SD and Blu-ray discs, you should configure this to the desired settings.
Once you've set your encoding parameters, you set Disc Type and Write Speed, and you're off (Figure 3, left). Note that Layers is grayed out because I'm burning to the Pioneer BD-101A burner, which can only burn a single-layer disc. To burn an SD disc, just change the Disc type, and you're good to go.
Burning HD DVDs in DVD Studio ProGiving credit where credit was due, Apple was the first to incorporate HD DVD authoring into their authoring program, though at the time, the only available player was a Macintosh computer, which meant that Apple had no consumer players to test with. For this reason, it's not surprising that discs burned with DVD Studio Pro play unreliably or not at all with the Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD player.
Apple is aware of this problem, and is working with Toshiba to resolve it. I tested with DVD Studio Pro 4.03 on the PowerPC platform, and 4.1 on the Intel Platform, so it will have to be a version later than these to function normally.
Setting up the HD DVD disc is simple, as shown in Figure 4, left. In the Project Preferences dialog, set the DVD standard to HD DVD.
Then, click open the Encoding tab, and set your MPEG-2 HD encoding parameters (Figure 5, left). Otherwise, you can edit and author normally.
As long as Apple is working on their encoding settings, I'll make three requests. First, include an "auto" setting that automatically calculates the data rate necessary to fit the video to disc. While some pros will prefer to calculate this themselves, many users merely want the video to fit, which is a much bigger issue when burning HD DVD discs to standard DVDs because of the space limitations.
Second, if the video won't fit on the disc, tell me before you start encoding (and I walk away). DVDit doesn't have an auto fit-to-disc function, but informs you that you have a space problem when you start to burn the disc, so you can adjust your data rate and restart. It also has a much more accurate disc-monitoring function that definitively tells you when your video won't fit. DVD Studio Pro's meter showed 4.5GB of data, but still said (after rendering) that there was too much video to fit on the disc.
Finally, these same disc-space limitations make DL discs a much bigger deal for HD DVD production than for SD DVD. I tried DVD Studio Pro's automatic function for setting a layer-break, and manually inserting chapter points and selecting one of those, and was unable to burn a DL disc in multiple attempts. Again, I realize pros really want control over where the disc break occurs, but many users simply want an "Easy" button (like in those Staples commercials) that finds the best break point and burns the disc. Not sure if I was doing something wrong, or if this was a bug, but in future revs, please make DL burning simple and operational.
All that said, HD DVD burning to DVD±R discs is an amazingly forward-looking feature; I hope Apple will take these steps to make it more usable.


text:
Discussion in 'Star Trek: Enterprise' started by ArcherNX01, Jan 19, 2013.
Except it's not a future insignia relative to Enterprise, but a past and current one. VGR: "Friendship One" established that the arrowhead insignia was the United Earth Space Probe Agency logo as far back as the 2060s. What's more, it was already in use on Starfleet uniforms during Enterprise. You have to look closely, but a very small arrowhead was part of the rating insignia worn by enlisted crewpersons like Cutler.
I ike that one : (
I'm into designs where the remit hasn't been to make it flatter and more streamlined. That stuff shouldn't matter in space. It's why pretty much everything post (and including) Enterprise-E is a load of rubbish
I'm sorry but I have no idea who crewmember Cutler is or was or will be. I'm sure he was an important and valued part of the crew though.
Seriously, the background info is both appreciated and interesting. Thank you.
With full acknowledgement of what you said, I still think an arrowhead design would have been an improvement over what we were given, BUT what we got was pretty good.
Elizabeth Cutler, played by Kellie Waymire, was a recurring character in the first season of the show, starting with the second episode. She was an entomologist and medic, and a potential romantic interest for Dr. Phlox. She was only in a few episodes, but after Waymire died suddenly in 2003, it kind of raised her character's profile in fandom's eyes.
Not "rubbish" at all. Aesthetics is a very valid factor in design. And I would think even more so for a starship design. You'd want something to stir the imagination and appeal to peoples romantic sense of exploration.
You know, it's just occurred to me that streamlining might not be entirely without purpose in space travel. After all, there's a lot of dust and micrometeoroids in space. Sure, you have the navigational deflector to handle that, but maybe the occasional speck might get through. And the smaller the forward surface area you present, the lower the probability of some stray piece of debris hitting your hull.
It could also serve a purpose in combat, in that a smaller forward profile would be a bit harder to detect by enemy radar/sensors and could have the same advantage against weaponry that it had against space debris (as long as you engage the enemy facing forward).
Yes, aesthetics is important but it's also entirely subjective.
However, subjective or not, I do not see how flattening ships down to the size of a pancake appeals to anyone's 'romantic sense of exploration'. Surely the opposite would apply in which spaceships looked more like old seafaring tall ships with huge masts (pylons) and sails (warp engines)?
Perhaps the streamlining and symmetry of ship design somehow improves efficiency of the warp field or deflectors/shields surrounding the ship.
That's the usual excuse used in Trek -- that the shapes of starships are a function of their warp geometry. Although realistically, if there were some shapes that were better for warp geometry than others, then you'd expect most species' ships to converge around a common shape, the way different aquatic species like fish and cetaceans independently evolved into the same basic shape because it was the most hydrodynamic. Sure, there's room for some variation -- rays, squid, jellyfish -- but there's a degree of convergent evolution, form following function. The fact that most species' ship designs are wildly different from each other suggests that the main factor is simple aesthetics (which, of course, is true of their design in real life).
We need Rick Sternbach in here, his input on the matter would be useful.
Aesthetics being subjective is not the point. Though it makes me chuckle imagining the Vulcans, with their furrowed brows, being highly critical and irratated of the emotional elements of the earthmen's starship designs.
The point is simply and solely whether consideration and incorporation of aesthetics would be valid with respect to the design of a starship. Answer is, as with any humon endeavor, yes (ergonomics, of course, being another consideration, etc. ...).
The form, or lineage of thought, regarding how all that would manifest itself is moot as the contextual reality within "Star Trek" is what it is. They settled on what they settled on. Times change. Fashion sense changes.
From Enterprise: "Home":
Uh yeah, I suppose if I had been able to stomach "Enterprise" long enough to make it up to and through season four I would have known that ... but I couldn't so I didn't.
And folks tried to skewer me along the lines of spending too much time on things 'round here. Yeesh!
I think most would agree that the Enterprise-E is an improvement over the D. My problem with the E is the main dish is too small. I've also seen closeups of the CG model where the aztec plating is all just slapdash and random lucky-charms shapes instead of nice clean rectangles that follow the contours.
I also didn't like how each successive generation has to be as big if not bigger, than the previous. I guess they felt that the larger the ship, the more "epic" it starts to look, but the way things were going, they'd eventually reach SDF-1 Macross absurdity.
In that respect, extrapolating back to the NX-01 with no secondary hull might have made sense.
Then you must not have been able to "stomach" TOS either. Spock admired the beauties of Stratos (notably Droxine herself, though I felt that was grossly out of character) in "The Cloud Minders," and when he returned to ShiKahr in "Yesteryear," he reflected in his log about having forgotten how beautiful it was. Vulcans have always admitted to an appreciation of aesthetics and art.
I could go off on how Spocko was half-human, but I don't need to as I never said Vulcans didn't appreciate beauty. All I did say was how I thought it would make for a humorous scene with some Vulcan being irrated at some of the human aestethets flourishes. The humor being rooted in the running gag within Trek of Vulcans constantly finding irratation with humans ... that's it.
What I find truly funny is your determined efforts against an aside that had little to do with the point being discussed. Even further, going after me on a point wherein I am actually in support of "Enterprise" - I liked the look of the ship (exterior) - interior was more of a mixed bag with me.
Another aside:
I checked your blog - Good stuff. I too am a fan of "The Man from UNCLE" and would recommend to you (if you haven't already read it), "The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Book: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of a Television Classic" by Jon Heitland. Whether a fan of the series' or you just love behind-the-scenes books this one was excellent.
And spending time in a hotel in Detroit, brother, you are hands down braver than I. Just looking at Detroit on a map makes me nervous.
What "determined efforts?" I made a passing allusion that you reacted to with a gratuitous slur against Enterprise that proved you'd completely missed my point. So I wrote one whole extra paragraph clarifying my point. You've expended more verbiage and effort on the topic than I have.
I dunno, maybe digging through four seasons of "Enterprise" to find a bit of dialogue to repost verbatim ac litteratim? And, once again, considering the clearly disproportionate level of voracity you're devoting to a minor musing that was beside the main point being discussed is fascinating to me. It also frames your responses as being dangerously close to "ad hominum" territory. Again, interesting.
On the contrary. I remembered the exchange off the top of my head, and just needed to Google "beauty site:www.chakoteya.net/Enterprise" to find the exact quote, then copy and paste. Very simple. I watched Enterprise clear through twice last year as research for my upcoming novel Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures.
I'm totally bewildered that you see it that way. I was just making a comment that I thought would be cute, as part of what I thought was a friendly, casual conversation. Your reaction has been inexplicably defensive to the point of paranoia. I'm just going to walk away now.
Separate names with a comma.


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BERLIN- Stephen Decatur's varsity swim teams continued their early season success last week with both the boys' and girls' teams sweeping their meets with Kent County.
After earning a split in the season opener against Easton with the girls beating the Warriors and the boys falling in a close meet, the Seahawks responded last week with a sweep over Kent County. The Decatur girls won 123-46 with several Seahawk swimmers winning individual events. Taylor Blazer won the 50-meter freestyle, Kelly Sullivan won the 100-meter freestyle and Catelyn Geiser won the 200-meter freestyle, while Ali McLoota also won the 100-meter breaststroke event.
The Decatur boys practically duplicated the effort, beating Easton, 112-45, behind several strong individual efforts. Austin Deppe won the 200-meter freestyle, Garrett Neville won the 50-meter free and Jake Blazer won the 100-meter butterfly.


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Marquion will join his older brother, Marlin Jr., as a Division I football player.
One of the items on the Lane family's to-do list is to buy a new TV so the relatives can watch two different college football games at the same time.
Trinity Christian's Marquion Lane signed a letter of intent Wednesday to play at West Virginia, joining his brother, Marlin Lane Jr., as a Division I football player.
Marlin, a running back at Tennessee, will be a junior this fall.
"My mom, dad and auntie are trying to see which channel to watch now. They're trying to get a split screen TV," Marquion said after he donned his Mountaineers cap and signed his letter of intent in front of students at the school chapel.
Marquion, a dual-threat quarterback who accounted for 2,094 yards and 23 touchdowns last season, said West Virginia recruited him to play cornerback, a position switch he welcomes. He was a Class 2A All-State selection as a utility player.
"My whole life, I've played both ways,'' he said. "I had a feeling I'd play receiver or corner in college.''
Marquion fractured his right ankle in the final regular-season game and underwent ankle surgery in November.
"I'm not running yet,'' Marquion said. "Right now, I'm building up my knee. The bones are kind of weak.''
Marquion, who played at DeLand High as a junior, said he chose West Virginia from among 17 scholarship offers. He said he felt a good connection with Moutaineers head coach Dana Holgorsen and associate head coach Joe DeForest.
"They stuck with me all through my injury and the transfer,'' Lane said. "They kept up with me with my grades and my surgery and making sure I'm keeping up with my rehab.''
Marquion, who has four younger brothers who also play football, said he spent 3-4 weeks working out at Tennessee last summer, the highlight of which was beating Marlin in a foot race.
Tennessee and West Virginia are not scheduled to play next season, but Marquion said, "If we do play them (in the future), with us on different sides of the ball, it's going to be a battle.''


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Shipments of tablets will outpace traditional laptops as soon as this year, said NPD. Shipments of touch-based machines are expected to grow 67% year-over-year, reaching 256.5 million this year and 579.4 million by 2017. At the same time, shipments of notebooks are expected to shrink 10% between 2013 and 2017, from 203.3 million to 183.3 million.
By 2017, tablets will outsell notebooks three to one, with shipments of 579 million tablets compared to 183 million notebooks.
"The mobile PC industry is undergoing significant change this year," said NPD DisplaySearch senior analyst Richard Shim. "The rapid rise and establishment of white-box tablet PCs (tablets made by small local brands, mainly in China) is putting pressure on traditional notebook PCs. These low-cost tablets are reaching further into emerging regions where notebook PC penetration rates have remained low, resulting in cannibalization by tablet PCs."
[ The PC isn't dead, but there are at least 4 Reasons PC Market Won't Rebound. ]
One glimmer of hope for notebook makers is the modest increase in interest in touch-based models. Shipments of such devices are expected to climb as much as 48% in 2014 alone, thanks to new Windows 8 Ultrabooks. But PC makers need to drop the tried-and-true clamshell form factor and instead branch out with new designs. Developers need to do their part, too, and get some touch-based Win8 apps in the market.
"Thus far, Windows 8 has had a limited impact on driving touch adoption in notebook PCs, due to a lack of applications needing touch and the high cost of touch on notebook PCs," said Shim. "Form factors aimed at differentiation from standard clamshell notebooks will help to drive consumer adoption of touch-enabled notebook PCs, starting in the second half of 2013."
Tablets will continue to be a thorn in the collective sides of PC makers, if not put their businesses in the toilet entirely. Tablets may not be as powerful or as feature-rich as notebooks running full desktop operating systems, but for many, tablets represent good-enough computing. The combination of portability and just the right mix of features (email, web browsers, touch-based apps and Wi-Fi/4G wireless) make tablets an attractive alternative to larger, bulkier notebooks.
Pricing is the other big issue. Apple put a lot of pressure on PC makers with the iPad, which costs $329 for the Mini and $499 for the full-sized model. Google's partners one-upped even Apple. Professionals and consumers alike can pick up solid Android tablets for as little as $199. Notebooks, especially those that incorporate touch, can't compete with price points that low.
Think backups are boring? Not according to our more than 500 respondents. Most, 60%, use two, three or even more different backup applications, and the percentage encrypting all media has jumped 15 points since 2011. Get the 2013 Backup Technologies Survey report today. (Free registration required.)


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Kemp, Van Slyke nearing return to Dodgers
By Austin Laymance / MLB.com
LOS ANGELES -- The Dodgers are finally getting healthy, and outfielders Matt Kemp and Scott Van Slyke could be activated from the disabled list by the end of a three-game series against the Giants.
Kemp and Van Slyke each played in their third Minor League rehab game with Triple-A Albuquerque on Monday and will return to Dodger Stadium on Tuesday, when the club's medical staff will evaluate them.
Kemp, on the DL since May 30 with a strained right hamstring, went 1-for-4 with a double, a stolen base and two runs scored while playing seven innings in center field Monday. Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said the hamstring did not bother Kemp in his first two rehab appearances.
Kemp has been sidelined for almost a month, so the Dodgers want to make sure he gets his timing down at the plate before they activate him.
"We still feel like he needs at-bats," Mattingly said before Monday's series opener against the Giants. "I'll get a chance to talk to him tomorrow and we'll see how he feels. I don't think he wants come back until he's ready to go and has his timing."
Van Slyke, out since June 11 with left shoulder bursitis, is 2-for-12 in three rehab games. He will play Tuesday's day game with the Isotopes (Kemp won't) and then return to Los Angeles.
Mattingly said Van Slyke could be activated Wednesday, but said he's "in the same boat" as Kemp.
"He hasn't swung the bat great yet," the manager said. "We want to make sure his timing is good, too."
Ethier a 'savior' in center field for Dodgers
LOS ANGELES -- Andre Ethier has done well filling in for Matt Kemp in center field, which has made things a lot easier for the Dodgers and manager Don Mattingly.
Ethier started his 18th game in center field Monday. He's looked comfortable in his new position since moving over from right when Kemp went down with a hamstring issue at the end of May.
"He's been a savior, really," Mattingly said of Ethier, who played just one game in center last year. "I can't imagine what we'd be trying to do here if we didn't have him playing some center. I think he's been great. He gets really great jumps and he gets really good reads."
While Kemp is likely to return from the disabled list this week, Mattingly said Ethier would still see time in center field when Kemp comes back.
The Dodgers could also activate Scott Van Slyke from the DL this week. Carl Crawford is about two weeks away from returning from a strained left hamstring. With the outfield soon to be crowded, rookie right fielder Yasiel Puig won't see his playing time cut.
"Yasiel is going to play," Mattingly said. "We'll work around it."
With Ethier's ability to play both center and right, it sounds like he will move around when the Dodgers have their full complement of outfielders.
"We don't want to make three guys change spots," Mattingly said. "We want one guy to change. So that's what we'll try to do."
Hanley's hot bat bolstering Dodgers' lineup
LOS ANGELES -- The middle of the Dodgers' lineup is much more formidable with Hanley Ramirez locked in at the plate.
Ramirez hit .500 (11-for-22) with two doubles, three home runs and seven RBIs over the last six games of a nine-game road trip that ended Sunday in San Diego. The shortstop homered twice over the weekend against the Padres and finally looks healthy after thumb surgery and a strained hamstring limited him to four games through the season's first two months.
The Dodgers, third to last in the National League in runs scored, desperately need continued production from Ramirez.
"It's huge, because it's a force in your lineup," manager Don Mattingly said before Monday's game against the Giants. "He's not just a guy that can hit a little bit, he's a guy that's dangerous. He's a pure hitter. It's huge to have him in that lineup every day."
Adrian Gonzalez has been consistent all season and rookie Yasiel Puig has provided a power bat since being called up two weeks ago. But Ramirez might be the key to fixing the club's offensive woes.
"It sure is a lot easier for me to write a lineup," Mattingly said.
Worth noting
• Sandy Koufax made his Major League debut June 24, 1955, pitching two scoreless innings of relief against the Brewers at age 19.
• Carl Crawford continues to rehab his strained left hamstring in Arizona at the Dodgers' Spring Training facility at Camelback Ranch-Glendale, but Mattingly said the left fielder has not progressed to running full speed.
• Mattingly said injured starter Josh Beckett is feeling better in his rehab process, which is aimed at reducing the numbing sensation in the fingers of Beckett's pitching hand, but the manager said it was not a dramatic improvement.
Austin Laymance is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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Liriano labors as Bucs' winning season on hold
MILWAUKEE -- They have waited 20 years, so the Pirates can wait two more days for that elusive 82nd triumph and the winning record it will ensure.
Not that they have a choice, after Francisco Liriano's periodic meltdown teed up a 9-3 loss to the Brewers on Wednesday night.Full Game Coverage
MILWAUKEE -- They have waited 20 years, so the Pirates can wait two more days for that elusive 82nd triumph and the winning record it will ensure.
Not that they have a choice, after Francisco Liriano's periodic meltdown teed up a 9-3 loss to the Brewers on Wednesday night.Full Game Coverage
Following an off-day on Thursday, the Pirates will move on to St. Louis and their final regular-season meeting with the Cardinals, who trail Pittsburgh in the National League Central by one game following their 16-inning win over the Reds on Wednesday. St. Louis will finish its series with third-place Cincinnati on Thursday.
"Just missing my spots, And you have to give credit to the hitters; they were taking pretty good swings," Liriano said after getting chased in three innings with seven runs on the board.
The left-hander continued quite a good news-bad news season. Make no mistake, most of the news has been very good: in 19 of his starts, he has allowed a total of 24 runs; but in three others, he has allowed 21.
"Similar situation," said Pirates manager Clint Hurdle, comparing Wednesday night's stumble to the previous two. "The inability to maintain his delivery when he rushes, and the fastball and breaking ball stay up, and his fastball command goes wide.
"Every time out, you'd like to see him go seven innings and give up no runs and two hits," added Hurdle, essentially describing what has been a typical outing for Liriano. "But the game balances you, continues to reaffirm the fact he's got to keep working."
Or, quit pitching in the final games of series. The Pirates have lost seven straight of those.
Despite this defeat, the Pirates ended season play with a 12-7 edge over the Brewers, their old tormentors. Before they parted, however, the teams stirred up a bit of the old bad blood, briefly spilling onto the field from the dugouts and the bullpens after Justin Morneau was hit by a Wily Peralta pitch in the fifth inning.
That incident flashed right after Andrew McCutchen had knocked his 19th homer, and second in two nights. That was the Bucs' last move on Peralta -- who went six innings for the win -- and a procession of Milwaukee relievers.
Nothing came of that incident, just as nothing came of the Bucs' desire to make quick work of No. 82 and put undistracted focus on the pennant race.
While he'd been off from the outset in his two prior flat starts, Liriano came out of the gate in style, striking out the first two men in the first inning and retiring the third on a weak fly to left.
Then, a genuine rarity -- a home run off Liriano -- wiped out the Bucs' early 1-0 lead on Jordy Mercer's second-inning RBI single. In the bottom of that inning, Aramis Ramirez led off with a walk and Khris Davis crushed his ninth homer to left-center. The homer was only the sixth allowed in 135 innings by Liriano.
"I just started missing my spots in the second," Liriano said. "I was overthrowing sometimes, too, trying to get more sink on the ball. If your location is good, there's a pretty good chance you'll get better results."
Back came the Pirates, as Marlon Byrd's third-inning single scored Neil Walker, who had singled and wheeled to third on Morneau's double.
But the "other" Liriano showed up bigger in the third. The Brewers took a 7-2 lead with five runs on five hits -- more runs than Liriano has allowed in 19 starts and more hits than he'd given in 11 starts during his overall fabulous 2013 journey. His pitch count also crossed the 70 line, another assurance that he was in for a short night.
"I don't know if it was [Liriano's] location that was off or we were just hitting good pitches, but it was sure nice to see," Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said. "I was thinking going into the game if Wily can hold them down enough and we score two or three, maybe we can get it."
"He just couldn't get his delivery back in the stretch," Hurdle said of his ace lefty.
Liriano's night ended with that third -- leaving him still one inning shy of qualifying for inclusion among league leaders. Just as well, considering his ERA climbed from 2.57 to 2.98 with the seven earned runs he gave up in three innings along with seven hits, while walking two and striking out four.
While this was not on the positive side, Liriano (15-7) did maintain his perfect decision score, becoming the first Pittsburgh pitcher to record a decision in each of his first 22 starts of a season since 1930, when southpaw Larry French got a decision in his first 24 starts.
The left-hander's widening home-road splits are something Hurdle will definitely take into consideration if given a chance to align a postseason rotation. Liriano is 8-1 with a 1.21 ERA in PNC Park, while his road numbers skidded to 7-6 and 4.38.
The Brewers added two runs in the seventh off Stolmy Pimentel, who in his Major League debut worked a perfect seventh before Jeff Bianchi's sacrifice fly and Martin Maldonado's RBI single padded Milwaukee's lead to 9-3.
Jason Grilli took over for the Pirates in the eighth, making his first appearance since walking off the Nationals Park mound with a strained forearm on July 22.
"I hope it looked good, because I felt good," Grilli said after making 17 pitches, one of which was slapped into left by Norichika Aoki for the inning's only baserunner. "It's always good to be back on the mound. Main thing is to make sure I'm throwing strikes and commanding the strike zone and my pitches. I did that."
Grilli ended the shutout inning with a pair of strikeouts, clutching and pumping his fists as he walked off the mound. Nobody would deny him that he had that one coming upon completion of his comeback from what had been a scary interruption.
"Definitely more adrenaline here," said Grilli, who would have been pitching in Durham for Indianapolis on Wednesday night had he kept to his original rehab schedule.
The big fish was back in the Shark Tank, fins heading to Missouri.
Tom Singer is a reporter for MLB.com and writes an MLBlog Change for a Nickel. He can also be found on Twitter @Tom_Singer.


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Beebe's office said both people have paid their fines and completed jail time and parole and probationary requirements.
Beebe intends to pardon Terry Dale of Hardeville, S.C., and Floyd E. Gattis, Jr. of Jacksonville, Fla.
The governor's office said Dale was convicted in Crittenden County of possessing marijuana with the intent to deliver in 1998. Gattis was convicted of burglary in Sebastian County in 1981.
Beebe rejected 36 other clemency requests and didn't act on 22 others.
The public has 30 days to comment on the governor's pardon plans before they become official.


text: I don't know if you guys have seen this page or not (hi by the way ), but it was made sometime after the release of Star Trek: Nemesis. The owner is very passionate that killing off Data was the worst thing ever and launched a campaign to overturn the decision. Here is an excerpt: January 6, 2003: It's official. Nemesis has tanked! A story on CNN.com today in the entertainment news section entitled 'Hollywood 2002: $equels, events, formula' listed it among the flops and said it could finish as the lowest-grossing of all the Star Trek movies! The sad irony is that immediately following the paragraph that contains this news is a paragraph that contains the very reason Nemesis is a disaster. The article talked about people flocking to movies in 2002 to forget their cares for awhile. All this movie did was give us something else to hurt about. Paramount has been told why this film is such a dismal failure and they've also been told what they need to do to fix it. But they don't just need to hear it from me. They need to hear it from everyone who's been hurt by this movie, whether you've seen it or not. And they also need to hear that you might think twice before paying for any future Paramount products. If some store owner murdered a member of my family, I wouldn't be too eager to give him my business. One consolation in all this is that if we have lost Data, at least the people responsible won't have profited from his death. But I'm not giving up on him yet. There are a lot of things happening behind the scenes that might turn this situation around. I'll be posting regular updates about the fight. But a minute here to keep this in perspective. We all need to remember we're talking about a fictional character and not a flesh and blood person. What is real is our love for him, whether he's real or not. And Paramount is finding out the hard way how much love there is for him. Maybe they'll think twice about putting out another movie with such a painful ending. I already know my own opinion about that, but what's yours? Here's a link to the page: http://www.angelfire.com/tn/SaveData/index.html I thought this would be kind of interesting to talk about. I know it's been talked about so many times before, but I just want to know what you guys think, your honest opinions. P.S. My apologies if this isn't exactly in the right forum! It is about Data, so naturally I thought it goes here lol


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In the Garden:
New England
January, 2009
Regional Report
Seed catalogs bring the promise of beautiful, bountiful harvests to come.
Plan Your Dream Garden
Seed catalogs arrive earlier and earlier each season, tempting us with glossy photos of vegetables that are still months away from our dinner plates. Winter is a time to dream of gardens to come, and soon it will be time to start the seeds of those dreams. But how do you choose what types of plants and what varieties from among the hundreds of beauty pageant photos of perfect tomatoes and blemish-free peppers? Start by selecting which types of vegetables you'll grow.
Work Within Your Limitations
If your garden is small and your time limited, choose vegetables that you really love, those that are markedly better eaten fresh from the garden, and/or those that are pricey to buy.
For some gardeners, those big, ripe, sun-warmed beefsteak tomatoes are the paragon of a successful summer garden. For others, it's the hottest of the hot peppers, or fresh basil by the bushel. What are the "must-haves" for your garden? Remember that green beans, sweet corn, potatoes, and carrots are all readily available at farmers' markets, so you may choose to skip those in favor of harder-to-find broccoli raab and Florence fennel.
Start with Easy-to-Grow Veggies
If you're new to gardening, do yourself a favor and start with plants that are particularly easy to grow. Beans, beets, carrots, chard, cucumbers, kale, lettuce, peas, radishes, spinach, squash, and tomatoes are good choices. More challenging vegetables include celery, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.
Picking Varieties
Once you've got your wish list, you need to decide on varieties, which can be daunting when there are sometimes hundreds of varieties to choose from. Flipping through the pages of a seed catalog is like browsing Match.com. Where do you begin? How do you make your selection based on a single, probably air-brushed, photo? Can you really believe the descriptive text?
While choosing varieties is part of the fun and adventure of gardening, here are some criteria to keep in mind:
1. Taste. Read variety descriptions; you'll find some green beans described as mild while others are "beany." Different tomato varieties might be spicy, fruity, sweet, or aromatic.
2. Usage. Roma tomatoes are less juicy than beefsteaks or cherry tomatoes and are the tomato of choice for canning. Other tomato varieties are especially well suited to drying. Some bean varieties freeze or can better than others; some cucumbers are ideal for pickling while others are best eaten fresh.
3. Disease resistance. Some vegetables, including tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash, are susceptible to a number of fungal diseases. Grow at least one variety described as disease resistant in case susceptible varieties succumb.
4. Growth habit. Pole beans require a supporting trellis; bush beans do not. Heading lettuces are harvested whole; leaf lettuces can be harvested leaf by leaf over a long season. Determinate tomato varieties are smaller than indeterminate, the latter needing large and very sturdy cages or stakes.
5. Size of plants. Old-fashioned hubbard squash needs plenty of room for the long vines to run. Bush varieties of squash have shorter vines and require much less room.
6. Days to maturity. Some broccoli varieties mature in as little as 48 days; others take 68 days. Choose varieties with differing days to maturity to ensure a long harvest season. If you live in the mountains where the growing season can be cut short by an early frost, choose at least one fast-maturing variety of each vegetable.
7. Length of harvest. Bush beans and determinate tomatoes tend to produce early and copiously, then fade out. Pole beans and indeterminate tomatoes take longer to come into production, but they'll continue producing until frost. If you'll be canning or freezing, you may want a big crop all at once.
8. Hybrid or open-pollinated. Hybrid seeds are the result of a cross between inbred lines -- plants that have been cross-bred repeatedly until the seeds are nearly identical genetically. Crossing two inbred lines sometimes yields plants with marked improvements over the parent plants, called hybrid vigor. These improvements may include size, uniformity, and disease resistance; they may or may not include taste.
The terms "heirloom" and "open pollinated" are sometimes used interchangeably to describe non-hybrid varieties that have been grown for generations. If you plan to save seeds to replant in subsequent seasons, choose non-hybrid seeds because the offspring of hybrids can vary dramatically from the parent plants.
9. Novelty. One year, just for fun, I grew as many purple varieties as I could -- purple beans, purple peppers, purple potatoes, and purple carrots.
Now, as you browse through your seed catalogs dreaming of spring, you'll have some tools to help you choose. Or, just close your eyes and point to a page. After all, have you ever tasted a bad home-grown tomato?
Care to share your gardening thoughts, insights, triumphs, or disappointments with your fellow gardening enthusiasts? Join the lively discussions on our FaceBook page and receive free daily tips!


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Kirkwood: First Day of the Last Stop
Words: Sara Waldman
Day One of The North Face Masters of Snowboarding presented by PrimaLoft got off to a rousing start under beautiful California skies at Kirkwood Mountain Resort today. More than 100 competitors from around the world took to the looker's right hand side of the forbidden terrain of The Cirque.
The ladies threw down with some blazing fast lines and huge cliff drops. Finishing in first was Anne-Flore Marxer of Switzerland with a score of 82.67. "It was the first time we had good snow for a comp, I just had fun" said Marxer. Finishing right behind her in second place with a score of 82.00, was 2010 tour champion Shannan Yates who pioneered a line and double dropped a cliff band no other woman hit. The third spot was dually occupied by Maria DeBari and Rosemarie Daiek, who tied with a score of 81.33.
The men's field was stacked with a total of 70 competitors. Squaw Valley's Christopher Galvin managed to wade his way through the field to come out on top with a score of 83.67. With a run that included multiple drops and smooth turns throughout the venue, Galvin took the day. Right on his heels and only one point behind with a score of 82.67 was Ralph Backstrom. Backstrom's line included a multitude of well-linked drops with smooth, fluid turns. Rounding out the top three was Mikey Marohn of Jackson Hole, the Young Gun award winner at Crystal Mountain, with a score of 82.33.
The race for the overall tour winner is coming down to the wire as competitors head to the looker's left side of the forbidden terrain of The Cirque tomorrow.
"At the start and at the bottom, all of the riders are the same. It's what they do in between that will set them apart," said Nick Perata, event announcer and snowboarding legend.
With a mere half a point currently separating first and second for overall tour points for the women, it's as close as it can get. The top two men are separated by a measly 11 points leaving the tour championship completely dependent on tomorrow's riding.
DAY ONE Results: North Face Masters of Snowboarding Presented by PrimaLoft
Friday, March 04, 2011
Ladies: Finish Name, Bib Number, Home Mountain, Country Score
1 Anne-Flore Marxer 109 Avoriaz SUI/FRA 82.67
2 Shannan Yates 51 Snowbird USA 82.00
3 Maria DeBari 52 Mt. Baker USA 81.33
3 Rosemarie Daiek 60 Kirkwood CAN 81.33
5 Kaitlin Elliot 55 Snowbird USA 80.00
Gents: Finish Name, Bib Number, Home Mountain, Country Score
1 Christopher Galvin 63 Squaw Valley USA 83.67
2 Ralph Backstrom 76 Squaw Valley USA 82.67
3 Mikey Marohn 15 Jackson Hole USA 82.33
4 Brian Bozack 14 Sugar Bowl USA 81.00
5 John Rodosky 36 Jackson Hole USA 80.67


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Something that pops into my mind is half-mermaid/merman and half-human. That would be seriously cool and is up for grabs as a story topic.
Another one that I think of is half-grindylow and half-human. That is also up for grabs as a story topic.
Please do not use excessive punctuation in posts.


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GOP Pulls Tax Bill Off Schedule Rather than Risk Another Embarrassing Floor Defeat
WASHINGTON, DC – House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) released the following statement this morning after the Republican leadership announced that it had pulled the "Taxpayer Protection and IRS Accountability Act of 2003" (H.R. 1538) off the Suspension Calendar today:
"House GOP leaders have been stung repeatedly by their own arrogance, and I suspect that is why they have pulled this legislation off today's Floor schedule.
"Last week, Republican leaders tried to save face by concocting an excuse to vote for the Democratic Motion to Instruct on the budget after determining that Republicans would vote for the Motion and it would prevail. And yesterday, 67 Republicans bucked their leadership and joined a unanimous Democratic Caucus in supporting our Motion to Instruct on the Supplemental Appropriations bill, which instructed House conferees to agree to a Senate provision extending unemployment compensation for workers in the air transportation industry.
"Today, the GOP leadership risked yet another embarrassing defeat on the Floor had it persisted in pushing its version of the 'Taxpayer Protection and IRS Accountability Act.' Make no mistake, Democrats support the underlying bill. It would make technical improvements to the IRS process for taxpayers, including providing an extra two weeks to those who pay electronically to file their taxes.
"But the Republican leadership – and the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee – injected sharp partisanship into legislation that would otherwise enjoy broad bipartisan support. The GOP insisted on inserting an extraneous provision in this bill that would gut consumer protections in the health care provisions of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program enacted last year. In essence, this provision would give insurers the leverage to 'cherry pick' healthy workers and exclude those who are older or in poor health. Further, it would establish a loophole through which insurers can avoid meeting the requirements of the TAA and undermine states' ability to negotiate coverage that includes the consumer protections.
"It's ironic that last April 10th – almost one year to the day – a very similar bill was rejected by a vote of 205-219. Democrats objected then that Republicans had inserted an extraneous provision that would have opened loopholes in campaign finance disclosure laws.
"Why is it that Republicans are using this legislation as a Trojan horse for a misguided and unacceptable measure? Don't they understand that their own intransigence is leaving them with legislative defeats and a Floor strategy that is in disarray? Democrats urge the GOP to bring this widely supported legislation up for a vote without this poison pill."


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This study is provided by ICPSR. ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for a diverse and expanding social science research community.
CBS News/60 Minutes/Vanity Fair National Poll, May #2, 2011 (ICPSR 33964)
Principal Investigator(s): CBS News; 60 Minutes; Vanity Fair
This survey, fielded May 20-23, 2011, is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicits public opinion on a range of political and social issues. Respondents were asked for their opinions of political figures President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and former President George W. Bush. Respondents were asked if they felt the country was going in the right direction, how President Obama and Congress were handling their jobs, and how things were going in Washington. Opinions were sought about how much influence various groups such as large corporations, labor unions, Planned Parenthood, the National Rifle Association, and special interest groups had on the government, who benefits most from the policies of the federal government, whether Congress serves special interest groups, and whether the salaries and benefits of the members of Congress are too high. Further questions addressed whether a political candidate's marital status mattered when deciding who to vote for, and whether more investigations were necessary into the bankers and members of high finance that played a role in the economic crash of 2008. Respondents were also asked which issues they were most angry about including federal policies, the political parties, and religious issues. Additional topics include plans for travelling over the summer, whether respondents thought being a father was more difficult now than when they were a child, whether they flew an American flag on holidays such as the Fourth of July or Flag Day, ATM fees, hypothetical scenarios, and whether they had ever looked up a map of registered sex offenders. Respondents were also asked about the condition of the national economy, their household financial situation, whether they had a close family member or friend or knew anyone who died in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and if they supported the Tea Party movement. Demographic information included sex, age, race, education level, household income, employment status, marital status, whether the respondent had children, religious preference, type of residential area (e.g., urban or rural), and state of residence, type of phone(s), number of phones, political party affiliation, political philosophy, voting behavior, and whether the respondent is a born-again Christian.
Access Notes
Data in this collection are available only to users at ICPSR member institutions. Please log in so we can determine if you are with a member institution and have access to these data files.
ASCII + SAS Setup SPSS Setup Stata Setup
Study Description
CBS News, 60 Minutes, and Vanity Fair. CBS News/60 Minutes/Vanity Fair National Poll, May #2, 2011. ICPSR33964-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2012-06-18. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR33964.v1
Persistent URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR33964.v1
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Scope of Study
Subject Terms: abortion, bank failures, bin Laden, Osama, Bush, George W., compensation, corporations, corruption, Democratic Party (USA), economic crises, elections, fathers, federal budget deficit, Federal Reserve System, genealogy, Gingrich, Newt, government spending, influence, labor unions, marital status, National Rifle Association, Obama, Barack, Obama, Michelle, Palin, Sarah, party identification, Planned Parenthood, political ideologies, political influence, public opinion, religious beliefs, Republican Party (USA), same-sex marriage, September 11 attack, sex offender registration, sex offenders, special interest groups, taxes, Tea Party movement, unemployment, United States Congress, voter registration, Wall Street
Smallest Geographic Unit: state
Geographic Coverage: United States
- 2011-05
- 2011-05-20--2011-05-23
Sample: A variation of random-digit dialing (RDD) using primary sampling units (PSUs) was employed, consisting of blocks of 100 telephone numbers identical through the eighth digit and stratified by geographic region, area code, and size of place. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. Within households, respondents were selected using a method developed by Leslie Kish and modified by Charles Backstrom and Gerald Hursh (see Backstrom and Hursh, SURVEY RESEARCH. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1963).
Weight: The data contain a weight variable that should be used in analyzing the data. According to the CBS News Web site, the data were weighted to match United States Census Bureau breakdowns on age, sex, race, education, and region of the country. The data were also adjusted for the fact that people who share a telephone with others have less chance to be contacted than people who live alone and have their own telephones, and that households with more than one telephone number have more chances to be called than households with only one telephone number.
Mode of Data Collection: telephone interview
Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Created variable labels and/or value labels.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Original ICPSR Release: 2012-06-18
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The daughter of James and Maude Finchum Berry, she was born Sept. 28, 1919, in Pope County. She married Woodrow D. Robertson on Oct. 2, 1937, in Russellville. Evelyn was a Christian and attended church at The Journey. She enjoyed puzzles, quilting, sewing and taking care of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Woodrow D. Robertson; her parents; and a brother, Jesse Lee Berry.
Left to cherish her memory are two daughters, Joyce Littlejohn and husband, Clinton, of Russellville and Jo Robertson of Russellville; two grandchildren, Rebecca Ann Moore of Russellville and Lena Littlejohn of Atkins; two great-grandchildren, Robert Allen Moore of Russellville and Christopher Eugene Littlejohn of Russellville; two nieces Margaret Bell of San Manuel, Ariz., and Shirley Berry of San Manuel, Ariz.; a nephew, Dan Berry of Prescott, Ariz.; and many other nieces and nephews.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013, at Humphrey Chapel. Rev. Larry Pyle will officiate. Burial will be at Rest Haven Memorial Park in Russellville by Humphrey Funeral Service. Visitation will be from 5-7 p.m. today at the funeral home.
Memorials may be made to Arkansas Hospice, 2405 E. Parkway Ste-3, Russellville, AR 72802.
Internet obituary and online guestbook are available at www.humphreyfuneral.com.


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Missing Greenwich, N.Y. boy's case labeled probable homicide
Staff Writer
CAMBRIDGE, N.Y. -- Authorities joined the adoptive grandparents of Jaliek Rainwalker in a new appeal for a resolution in the case of the boy's 2007 disappearance.
At a news conference Thursday, police reclassified the investigation from that of a missing persons to a "probable homicide." Gloria Coppola, a state police major crimes investigator, asked media outlets to stop using an "age enhanced" photo of Rainwalker simulating how he might look today.
Police Chief George Bell said the hope was the change in classification would lead to new leads in the case. Now a presumed homicide, "this may show the public that this is now something worthwhile to bring forward," Bell said. "There may be someone who has key information and does not even realize it."
While most individuals who rose to the level of suspicion have been investigated and cleared, Bell said authorities were still interested in sitting down with Rainwalker's adoptive parents, Stephen Kerr and Jocelyn McDonald, who have not been fully cooperative. The couple moved to West Rupert, Vt., about four months after the boy's disappearance. Bell said they may still hold on to information "crucial" to the case.
Twelve years old at the time of his disappearance, Rainwalker had been considered by police to have possibly run away from the Greenwich residence where he was staying with Kerr the night of Nov. 1, 2007.
McDonald's parents, Dennis Smith and Barbara Reeley, have cast doubt on that theory all along. "From the beginning we never really felt he ran away," said Smith on Thursday. "We just don't feel like that's what happened."
Still, "we've always held out hope that Jaliek is alive and would be coming home to his family."
"We would do anything to help find our grandchild," said Reeley.
Authorities denied the case had gone cold, and state police Senior Investigator Thomas Aiken said each department still believed there would be a resolution. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is currently in the midst of reviewing the case.
"The investigation remains very active and has never been considered a 'cold case,'" Bell said, adding investigators had combed through nearly 500 leads, including a search this past Tuesday in Troy; none of which resulted in a positive identification or indication Rainwalker was still alive.
"Basically we've exhausted every lead," said Coppola. Most runaways surface shortly after disappearing because of lack of funds or planning, Bell said. He said the yellow fleece jacket Rainwalker was last seen wearing had been recovered.
Investigators with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and New York State Forest Rangers also attended Thursday's press conference at the Cambridge police station.
Smith said he didn't understand why Rainwalker's parents weren't more cooperative with authorities. "We firmly believe the truth will come to the surface and eventually we will find out what happened to our grandson. And that's what we need to know," he said.
"We just need some closure," said Reeley. "We need to know where our grandchild is or what happened to him."
Anyone with any information is asked to contact the Cambridge-Greenwich Police Department at 518-692-9332.
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us. We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.


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by Anu,
July 7, 2009
OMG! Yet another wonderful recipe that I must, must try!! *mouth waters*
Steamed Dumplings
How to make dumplings – learn the easy steps to make healthy and delicious dumplings
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total Time:
1/2 pound ground pork
8-10 medium-sized shrimp, peeled, deveined, and cut into small pieces
1 stalk scallion, finely chopped
3 dashes white pepper
1 teaspoon Shaoxing wine or sherry, optional
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
1 inch ginger, peeled and grated
1 pack potsticker/dumpling wrappers
To make dumplings, place a small spoonful of the filling in the center of a wrapper. Dab a little water with your finger and circle around the edge of the skin, and then fold and pleat the dumpling accordingly. Repeat the same for the rest. (Please refer to this video to learn how to fold/pleat dumplings.
Arrange the dumplings in a bamboo steamer (lined with parchment paper at the bottom) and steam for 8-10 minutes. Serve immediately with black vinegar dipping sauce.
There is no secret that I love dumplings—dumplings such as potstickers, pork and leeks dumplings, pan-fried dumplings, or xiao long bao. Recently, a coworker from Japan is in town and we were discussing about going for a dim sum/dumpling lunch. All the dumpling talks triggered a sharp craving in me that I had to make my own steamed dumplings.
Making dumplings is really not so hard and you can get all the needed ingredients from regular stores: dumpling wrappers, ground pork, etc. To me, the slightly difficult part is the folding or pleating of dumplings, an easy skill that just requires some practices and training.
However, if you are new to making dumplings at home, you can just fold it into half moon shape and then pleat and fold into simple shapes. As you are more comfortable with the folding, then you can make your dumplings prettier like this photo below.
My steamed dumplings are filled with shrimp and ground pork. If you don't eat pork, you can always substitute it with ground chicken or even ground turkey. Do try out my steamed dumplings recipe if you love dumplings. These dumplings make a great and refreshing lunch or afternoon snack, especially with Chinese tea. Enjoy!
Based on 25 Review(s)
REMEMBER TO SUBSCRIBE TO RASA MALAYSIA NEWSLETTER AND GET EASY AND DELICIOUS RECIPES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. If you try my recipe, please use hashtag #rasamalaysia on social media so I can see your creations! Follow me on Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter for new recipes, giveaways and more.


text:
Acutally CoolEdit can, but it tells you absolutely nothing about how your brain interprets what your ears are hearing.
Of course they represent real "distortions"
"(The mere fact that Joint Stereo is used in lossless compression ought to be enough to destroy - in one stroke - the myth that JS "destroys stereo separation")" (cite from http://harmsy.freeuk.com/mostync/) - I like this argument! It's quite cogent But then I don't understand for what reason most CBR mp3s are made using S mode (even on LAME).
And for what reason all other Stereo modes are supported by LAME?
QuoteAcutally CoolEdit can, but it tells you absolutely nothing about how your brain interprets what your ears are hearing.CoolEdit can subtact noise, but it's not the same. It uses the noise sample not "as is", but as a kind of "spectre", am I wrong? Or did I miss some function of CoolEdit, or Adobe Audition (for now)?
Or did I miss some function of CoolEdit, or Adobe Audition (for now)?
QuoteOf course they represent real "distortions"But LAME 3.93 and GoGo didn't produce them... Is this "feature" (new to 3.95 and the following versions) just an improvement - i.e. to give more bits to the "more useful" freqs?
...So, as I understood, the only way for me to get a better quality is to get a better soundsystem and to carry out the ABX test.
By the way, can you suggest how to choose most appropiate sample for tests? I like metal music, and oftenly there are lot of live cymbals & hihats, which sound good, and have much high harmonies......Or it just may be any sample where I can hear distortions (or maybe just invent them ?
Do you have foobar2000 installed on your system with the ABX component?
Also, M/S stereo will make things sound WORSE. Leave it as joint stereo (it is NOT lossy in LAME).
I downloaded foobar2000, but didn't find any ABX component for it (using search on its site).
Is abchr I downloaded a little earlier worse for some reason?
By the way, using abchr, I couldn't hear those artifacts I see... It was only one test as now, but maybe the sample I used wasn't suitable.
I also tried to mix paste (thanx Pepoluan and Greynol for that idea ) samples using Adobe Audition, but it was too difficult to guess how great is the "lossy offset", mentioned by Greynol. Simple comparison of files' lenght did not help me. Is there any bright idea how to find out that lossy offset?
As I see, EAC can determine the offset generated by specific codec, but this operation returns an error for some reason (I tried to determine offset for GoGo and two different LAMEs). What can be a reason?
1) for two same-sounding (for me ) samples, is the one with "nicer" spectre (i.e. most bordering upon original) a better one (concerning quality)? Or it is no judge of quality even for same-sounding samples?
2) For two samples encoded using the same original, do same-looking graphs signify the same quality? (of course, accurate within my eyes )
1) Why qval=3 is now default (at least, when using -V2 --vbr-new)? As I remember it was qval=2 in older LAME versions...2) What is --vbr-new?3) Are there any differences between two spellings: -V 2 (readme file provided with LAME 3.97) and -V2 (found here, on hydrogenaudio.org)?4) Please tell me, does -k really "destroy the quality of files" (like Firon said)? Almost any LAMEs mp3 graph remains same-looking when using this key, and the only difference is lowpass-filter-collapse dissapperance. Or that means nothing again?..
2 - it's a different approach for VBR encoding, we started development some years ago, it will be the default VBR mode for LAME 3.98
3 - no, with single letter options taking parameters you can leave the blank out
But why an old algorythm is default for now? Is the new one still a "flaw design"?
Quote from: robert on 02 December, 2006, 06:33:33 AM3 - no, with single letter options taking parameters you can leave the blank outWhat's about single letter? -V 2 and -V2 is what I'm interested about. Dv1989 said that's all the same...
Setting min/max bitrate is not needed in 3.97 when using VBR.Spectral analysis is virtually useless for measuring sound quality.
Hmm... But when not setting minimum frame bitrate, LAME uses bitrate lower than 128... is it good?
You are partially wrong.In low-bitrate, Joint Stereo is really Intensity Stereo. *That* will collapse stereo separation.
Quote from: Firon on 29 November, 2006, 09:27:29 PMAlso, M/S stereo will make things sound WORSE. Leave it as joint stereo (it is NOT lossy in LAME).But isn't JS (when using at LAME, on high bitrates) mostly M/S stereo? Or your mean forced M/S, without using L/R Stereo when it's needed?
Hmm... But when not setting minimum frame bitrate, LAME uses bitrate lower than 128 (on some songs - oftenly)... is it good?


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Print View
Hawthorne Backstretch Update, Friday, Novmeber 16 - 9:00 AM
Hawthorne Backstretch Update, Friday, November 16 – 9:00 AM
morning we received results back on the pair of horses that were under
observation in Barn E on the Hawthorne backstretch. The horse that deceased on Wednesday, November 14 along with the horse
that was moved into isolation in Barn K2 both tested positive for EHV-1. With the precautions that are in place, we
have asked that 6 horses be moved into the isolation area within barn K2 for
further monitoring. The sole purpose of
isolating these horses is to be able to monitor these horses, along with allow
the 1,800 plus remaining horses that are healthy to continue racing.
need to understand, this is a virus that we do not have a vaccination for and
do not know a cause for how it began.
We have
numerous questions being asked in regards to EHV-1, the timeframe and the
process involved. There have been
numerous disinfecting and hygienic precautions put into place to allow those
healthy horses to control this outbreak.
This continues daily. The
disinfecting of the paddock, starting gate, pony equipment, etc. is done
between every race.
We do have
six horses that are in isolation being monitored while we have a vast majority
of horses able to race.
with these additional positive horses, the first question is when horses can
ship out. Currently we do not
know. This is under the determination
of the Illinois Department of Agriculture, not Hawthorne, not Dr. Folker or any
practicing veterinarian.
We are very
concerned about limiting this exposure and spread. All of the research that has
been done by every expert has procedures and precautions, but there is no
concrete solution.
important to everyone involved is the health of the horses on the
backstretch. Everyone is in agreement
on this. Next is being able to
determine the steps necessary to control the outbreak of this virus.
In all of
the research done regarding EHV-1, this is not a virus that is passed via
training or racing. There would be more
of a concern if horses were locked into barns and unable to leave their stalls.
Horses are exposed to EHV-1 in so many different ways. If horses were unable to leave their stall,
they would still possibly be exposed to EHV-1 as well as any other possible
injuries they could sustain while not being able to leave a stall.
We know
there are concerns from everyone and we are trying to best handle this in the
best interest of the horses on the Hawthorne backstretch. This is a difficult situation for all
parties. We are worried about the livelihood of our horses and horsemen. This is an industry that employs 30,000
people in the state of Illinois. We are
taking all of this into regard.
important, we ask for the continued cooperation of all on the Hawthorne
backstretch. We ask that the trainers,
vets, grooms, hotwalkers and anyone who may be in contact with a horse maintain
proper hygiene. We will continue the
disinfecting procedures in regards the daily racing operations.
« Back


text: Hi all, I'm new to this forum and wanted to share pics of a brand new Babolat APD original I just took delivery of. I know some people recommend against buying from the big auction site, but I'm a long time user and always deal with reputable sellers with high volumes of sales and good feedback. In this case, I was lucky enough to find this gem from a sports store liquidation sale in Belgium. Picked it up for $150 including shipping - brand new with promo tag and wrapped handle. I have two other Aeropro Drives non-cortex so knew what to look for in terms of authenticity. Hope APD fans will enjoy these pics. APD0 by Grendizer UFO, on Flickr APD12 by Grendizer UFO, on Flickr APDback by Grendizer UFO, on Flickr APDtwo by Grendizer UFO, on Flickr


text:
Rizzo builds Nats into a Washington monument
Veteran leadership, young talent, savvy skipper come together in winning chemistry
By Richard Justice / MLB.com
VIERA, Fla. -- Looking back on it, one of Mike Rizzo's most impressive accomplishments as general manager of the Washington Nationals has been not just in building a very good team. He did that, and you can look it up. The Nats had the best record in baseball last season at 98-64. They had the best rotation in the National League and were solid in pretty much every other area, too.
After six straight losing seasons, after years of drafting smartly and adding pieces from here, there and everywhere, they were a finished product, led by manager Davey Johnson, an unshakeable, calming influence who has the ability to get players to relax and perform at their best.
As impressive as all of that was, perhaps Rizzo's best job was in constructing a clubhouse that worked. It had a terrific environment, one in which players worked hard and played hard and believed in one another. His hiring of Johnson, obviously, was a huge part of that equation.
When Rizzo acquired veteran players, he got guys who would set the right example for all those Draft choices who were on their way. Roster building is more an art than a science, and Rizzo got it exactly right.
"A lot of us have been together a while," third baseman Ryan Zimmerman said. "I've known Ian [Desmond] for almost 10 years. A lot of us have grown up together. Guys like [Jayson] Werth and Adam [LaRoche], we spend a lot of time together. We go out to dinner together on the road. That's true of pitchers and position players, too. Most teams, you may have two or three guys who stay to themselves. We don't have that here. We all hang out together. It makes it easier to come to the field every day when you enjoy everybody's company."
Rizzo said he noticed examples of such a dynamic throughout the season as veteran players like LaRoche and Zimmerman and Chad Tracy and others exerted influence in ways seen and unseen. Chemistry matters on every team, but chemistry especially matters on a club that's winning for the first time, one that has never gone through the grind of staying atop a division through the difficult days of August and September.
"It was the way the young guys and the veterans molded together," Rizzo said. "We had a good clubhouse. We were one of the youngest teams in baseball, and we sprinkled in some veteran presence. The way the veterans kind of took care of the young players and mentored them and talked to them, it was plain to see. At certain times during the game, when Davey turned and asked for a pinch-hitter, Chad Tracy and Mark DeRosa and those guys more or less had those guys ready to enter the ballgame. They had them prepared."
Those are things the Natonals hope will carry over into this season. Johnson believes they will.
"I've said it before, the makeup of this ballclub is one of the most impressive things about it," he said.
The Nationals are again widely viewed as one of baseball's best teams after an offseason in which Rizzo kept his core together and made significant additions to the starting rotation (Dan Haren), bullpen (Rafael Soriano) and top of the lineup (center fielder Denard Span). With the innings limit lifted off ace Stephen Strasburg, with Bryce Harper now all of 20 years old, the Nats will begin the season with huge expectations.
"That's all on paper," LaRoche said. "We can't get caught up in, 'Look at the personnel. There's no way you don't win the whole thing.' We've got everything here to do it. If we don't, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves."
Injuries could derail the whole thing, but what made last season's 98-win run even more special was the fact that the Nationals were gutted by injuries in the early part of the season. Johnson was without every member of his infield at one point and also the middle of his batting order. But, as he pointed out, the starting rotation stayed intact until Strasburg, on the comeback from Tommy John surgery, reached his 160-innings limit in early September.
It finally all ended with a Game 5 loss to the Cardinals in the NL Division Series. Once it was over and once the disappointment of that defeat subsided, Rizzo was able to look back and feel nothing but pride at how far the franchise had come and how much fun all those nights with huge crowds at Nationals Park had been.
"When you see a blueprint that started on a dryboard, and then you see it on the field four years later, it was very gratifying to me and my staff," Rizzo said. "Once we had a chance to really step back and take a look at the entirety of the season and take a look at the plan we'd set in place and how we implemented it, we were very pleased and proud of the players and the staff.
"I think the greatest thing about going into the postseason and having success is we brought in everybody in the organization to see those playoff games. To see those guys and their families being invested in this, all the miles and the drills and all that stuff, that's the reward. That was the fun part of it."
Richard Justice is a columnist for MLB.com. Read his blog, Justice4U. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.