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ATLANTA — Georgia Tech will be looking to avoid another slow start in the Atlantic Coast Conference when it plays at Duke in its first of four consecutive games against Coastal Division opponents.
The string of four consecutive ACC Coastal Division games also includes North Carolina, Virginia Tech and Miami.
The Yellow Jackets lost to Florida State in last season's ACC championship game after winning only one of their first four conference games.
Coach Paul Johnson said Tuesday he expects his players to focus on the importance of Saturday's ACC opener at Duke. He said the Yellow Jackets should not be distracted by the fact Georgia Tech has won nine in a row, and 17 of 18, against Duke.
"We talk to the team about the importance of the game," Johnson said. "It's the first conference game, it's a division game and a road game. Anytime you can win a division game on the road, that's a bigger plus because then you're got the tie-breaker over that team."
Georgia Tech (1-0) had an open week after beating FCS opponent Elon 70-0. That game might not have revealed much about the Yellow Jackets, but Johnson won't have to wait long to learn more about his team's ACC hopes.
The opening stretch of Coastal Division games ends with an Oct. 5 game at Miami. By then, the foundation of Georgia Tech's ACC season will be set.
Johnson said he believes his defense, which starts seven seniors, has improved. Could this be another ACC championship contending team?
"I think you may have to play two, three or four games before you really know," Johnson said. "Clearly the competition level is going to be way better this week than it was last week, but it may be a couple weeks before we really find out where we are. Certainly if we don't play well we could lose on Saturday, that's for sure."
The lopsided win over Elon was enough to impress Duke coach David Cutcliffe.
"I will say I think this is the most balanced and probably the best Georgia Tech team we've seen," Cutcliffe said, adding the rout of Elon "could've been a lot worse."
"It was about execution on both sides of the ball and in the kicking game," Cutcliffe said. "They've improved themselves."
Duke (2-0) is coming off a 28-14 win at Memphis.
One year ago, Duke had an extra week to prepare for Georgia Tech's spread-option offense and still lost 42-24. Duke's last win in the series came in 2003 when first-year Georgia Tech defensive coordinator Ted Roof was the Blue Devils' coach.
"It's a challenge because it's a completely different style of offense," Cutcliffe said. "They do a great job. They do the best job consistently of creating big plays."
Georgia Tech has rushed for more yards than any FBS school since Johnson brought the option-based offense to Atlanta in 2008.
Cutcliffe said he's also concerned about the Yellow Jackets' passing game with sophomore quarterback Vad Lee, a Durham, N.C., native and former Duke recruit.
"They're a great play-action pass team, particularly with a quarterback like Vad who has such a strong arm and can get downfield with the ball,"Cutcliffe said.
"So you get mesmerized with stopping the run ... and as soon as you get mesmerized you're going to get challenged in the passing game. It's a huge challenge for our defense. We've got a lot of work left to do."
Predictably, Johnson isn't talking about the four-game stretch of division games. He was focused on Duke as the first step on Georgia Tech's plans for another try at the ACC title.
"Our guys understand it's a big game," Johnson said. "They've set goals. They want to get back to Charlotte and we need to win this game if that's going to be one of the goals."
"Our big challenge this week is to go up there and play like Georgia Tech can play,"Johnson said. "Take care of the ball and we'll find out a little bit more about where we're at this week. The competition level certainly ratchets up."


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DES MOINES, Iowa - Fall provides growers a chance to get a head start on soil testing and nutrient applications, say experts at Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business.
"With harvest ending, now is an optimum time for soil testing to reveal any potential nutrient deficiencies," says Keith Diedrick, Pioneer area agronomist in west central Indiana. "Growers can work to increase the nutrient profiles of their fields, spread the workload and prepare for spring."
When agronomists assess poor-growing crops, the first questions usually revolve around basic nutrient availability, especially nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Knowing which nutrients are out of balance is the first step in improving conditions for crops.
"Soil tests are a good tool to measure existing nutrient levels available to crops," says Diedrick. "The results provide you with a good idea of what may be going on in your fields."
To maximize profitability, using the right combination of fertilizers is important. "Results from consistent soil tests are critical for growers making those decisions," says Diedrick.
A standard soil test provides a measurement of macronutrients such as phosphate, potassium, magnesium, etc. Knowing the current levels of these nutrients allows you to plan for any necessary applications to prepare fields before spring planting.
Fall soil tests for nutrients such as nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) may not be as valuable because the nutrient status may change before the crop can take them up. Some growers use soil nitrate tests to fine-tune nitrogen rates in-season, but most N recommendations are based on the previous crop, the N-to-corn price ratio and each grower's personal comfort level for risk.
In-season soil tests also tend to work well for diagnostic purposes - to find out what may be causing a current issue. "If you want to plan ahead, it's important to test at the same time every year for comparability reasons," says Diedrick.
"It's important to understand the results of the soil test," says Diedrick. "Make sure you know what the lab is basing its results and recommendations on." Verify that the recommendations you're getting match your crop needs. Crop plans for the upcoming year will influence your utilization of the results.
"Critical nutrient levels are different for every crop," says Diedrick. If you're unsure of typical nutrient levels in your area, he suggests checking regional agronomy resources such as your local Extension office.
"Regular soil tests, taken every three to four years, allow you to react to changes and reverse negative trends," says Diedrick. "Shorter test intervals tend not to show any significant benefits. If you wait longer than four years, you don't get a consistent benchmark of soil nutrients."
For accurate results, representative samples from a proper depth throughout a grower's fields are necessary. Sampling methods depend on cropping and fertility management practices. Check with your local Pioneer expert for more information on correct sampling methods.
Soil test results can alter a grower's nutrient application rates. For cost-effective application in the fall, Diedrick suggests using a granular, dry fertilizer.
"Dry fertilizers will dissolve and react with the soil similarly to liquid fertilizers," says Diedrick. "Most dry applications can be soluble with little rainfall, and are easier and more economical to handle in large quantities."
However, N application is generally more efficient in the spring. "Fall and winter applications can result in potential losses of significant amounts of nitrogen," says Diedrick.
Whether you decide to apply nutrients in the fall, winter or spring, consistent testing from year to year is one of the best ways to ensure a balance between economic and environmental factors.
For more information on interpreting soil test results or understanding critical nutrient levels in your area, contact your local Pioneer sales professional or visit the soil fertility page on pioneer.com.

subset: commoncrawl


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Joe Biden Can't Shut Up...
…About Bush, the Democrats, the mess in Iraq. About his chances in 2008 and how he's going to explain his past screwups. About his neardeath experiences. About Republican hypocrisy. Yes, if presidential elections were decided on an ability to speak in great, unfiltered, often inspiring bursts, the senior senator from Delaware would win in a landslide. Now, let him talk
Joe Biden Jr. passes the time by drawing houses. In a spiralbound notebook, he sketches a cottage for his widowed mom, a playhouse out by the pond for his grandkids, the vacation home he and his brother have always imagined for the extended family. Flower bos here, angle the roof just so, level an inch off the riser. Every detail matters, every pencil stroke is precise. He goes through draft after draft, reworking, rethinking everything. His home in Wilmington is a permanent construction site. "Hey," he'll say to his wife, Jill, "what if we took out these French doors, made a nice little study"
"Joe," she'll moan, "why do we need a study in our bedroom"
And yeah, sure, she's right, but the point—well, with Joe Biden, there are always several points. For one, the house sketching and home renovating is just a hobby, a quiet refuge for a man who's been in public life for over half of his sixtythree years. But it's also more than that. Biden wouldn't say this, but he doesn't need to He relishes the possibilities, the weights and measures, the beauty and logic and mutability of it all. It's who he is. (That time Bush squeezed his shoulders, grinning as he said, "Joe, I don't do nuance"—Jesus, how could a president brag about such a thing) And finally, for all his faith, for all the times his mom has assured him, "Joey, out of tragedy something good will come"—hell, Biden's whole life is testament to that—he's still haunted by chaos and disorder. He has seen perfect structures go suddenly to pieces. His family, his political career, his life. Indestructible one minute, and then…
So he drafts, and he redrafts. And he takes the train home to Wilmington every night.
Years ago, for about a week, Biden actually owned a house in Washington. He bought it just after turning 30 and after having coldcocked a popular Republican incumbent in Delaware's 1972 Senate race. But he never moved in. A month after the election, a tractor trailer plowed into a car containing his entire family, killing his wife Neilia and their 13monthold daughter, Naomi, and seriously injuring their two young sons, Beau and Hunter.
Biden makes mention of the tragedy now and again, but he refuses to dwell on it. He won't talk about what it felt like—what he went through, taking the oath of office, just three weeks after the accident, in his boys' hospital room in Wilmington, with Neilia's handbag at his feet…and almost every night thereafter, riding the train home to Delaware so his sons wouldn't worry about Daddy, or Daddy about his sons. He won't go into all that, because it's done with and it's private and like Mom says, something good has come—Jill has come. And then a daughter, Ashley. All three kids are now healthy and grown up. Still, the reason he rides all the way home, night after night, is to be with his wife and his mom, to be home. The daily photo finish to the train platform, the eightyseven minutes with his spiral notebook in his lap—it's an easy routine, and the only problem with it is that Joe Biden never thought of himself as a guy who settles into an easy routine.
He always thought of himself, frankly, as a man who ought to be president. Even before earning his bona fides in national security, Biden always relished big issues like busing, apartheid, domestic violence, genocide. No one ever accused Joe Biden of being too slight for the presidency. Still, the 2008 election is Biden's last shot, and he's struggling with the prospect of running. "It's not ambivalence," he says. "I haven't thought through how, tactically, I win this nomination. It's a Hillary thing—I look at the assets she brings to bear, and the conventional wisdom. Do I need $40 million, like they're saying How do I get there And if the mood of the party is so far left, then possibly that's death for me."
No, there's never been a question about want. The job has been on his mind since the late '70s, when people would mob the young senator after a JeffersonJacksondinner stemwinder and say Ya gotta run, Joe! In 1983, he agonized all the way until the New Hampshire primary filing deadline, then left the plane on the runway, thinking it better to wait for the next cycle. Four years later, in '87, he took the leap…and all of America got to watch Joe Biden become a national joke.
"It's hard to look back two decades and figure out what my motivation was," Biden says now. A hotheaded 44yearold orator, thinking grandly, with a clusterfuck of consultants every bit as ambitious as he was, Biden fulminated his way through Iowa and New Hampshire in 1987, quoting from all the great liberals of the day, that his vision might appear as worthy as theirs. Then came that August day at the Iowa State Fairgrounds when Biden simply became British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock—acting out, without any attribution, Kinnock's entire workingclass shtick "Why is it that my wife…is the first in her family ever to go to college Is it because they didn't work hard My ancestors, who worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after twelve hours and play football for four hours" Campaign aides spun it as an homage, even though Jill Biden was not the first in her family to attend college and Joe Biden, unlike Kinnock, did not have coalmining ancestors. And when it later came to light that Biden had failed to cite Bobby Kennedy in a speech, that he'd also claimed (falsely) to have attended Syracuse University law school on a full academic scholarship and to have graduated in the top half of his class, and that he'd received an F in a lawschool class for an apparent act of plagiarism…well, "homage" didn't quite cover it. At best, Biden was a careless, immature overstriver. At worst, he was a liar. Either way, as Republican consultant Eddie Mahe told The New York Times that year, "What all of this means in a nutshell is that Joe Biden will never be elected president of this country."
But today, listen to Democrats like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Who's mimicking whom Joe Biden has emerged from tragedy and disgrace to become his party's statesman for the post9/11 era. He has been prescient on the war in Iraq for so long that he is accorded extraordinary deference by Republicans like Senator Chuck Hagel, who says, "I have great respect for Senator Biden's judgment. He's a man of immense character and integrity, as decent as anyone I've ever met in this business. I think he would make a very knowledgeable, experienced, and effective president."
The plan for achieving this is what preoccupies Biden. "I have to know it, feel it," he says. "Bush probably got handed that plan by Rove and said, 'Okay.' Me I want to sit and write the plan."
Joe Biden is no less conventional a white man than George W. Bush Roman Catholic, doesn't smoke or drink, roots for the Eagles, mingles easily with working stiffs, speaks no French, can't name a single song written after 1976. Unlike Bush, though, he thinks deeply and broadly and mostly aloud, and he gets there when he gets there. Long free of the plagiarist label and every bit his own man, he continues to talk like he sketches drafting and redrafting, starting and stopping and starting again, as lost in nuance as the man he hopes to replace is unbound by it.
One morning on the train to Washington, Biden is asked about international affairs. Does he see himself as a hawk in the vein of, say, the late Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson
"I served a fair amount of time with Scoop Jackson, and I didn't agree with Scoop Jackson," he says. "I would say I have more of a John Kennedy foreignpolicy outlook. Kennedy was a guy who thought we needed a really strong military. He thought we had an obligation to, where it was within our power, spread freedom in our own interests. He also placed an overwhelmingly high premium on cooperation with other nations. He believed that people, other nations and leaders, seldom acted against their own interests. They might be evil but not irrational. Whereas Scoop Jackson believed we could only change the world by force."
Here, Biden offers a shy sort of grin—he's well aware of his reputation—and asks permission to indulge himself. And suddenly, he's not talking about Kennedy anymore. He's talking about Joe Biden as a 19yearold lifeguard at an innercity swimming pool in Wilmington who's yelling at Ester "Cornpop" Williams, "Hey, Ester! Quit jumping up and down on the diving board!"
"He wouldn't get off," Biden says. "So I jumped in, took him out, and kicked him out of the pool. Well, so I'm closing the pool at dusk, and I always parked my Chevy convertible outside of this gate. The year before, there'd been a white lifeguard who'd gotten sixty, eighty stitches around the middle of his back because straight razors were the thing in those days. God, give me back straight razors instead of Glocks. Anyway. So Cornpop and some of his guys are waiting in my car for me with their straight razors. I say to the maintenance man, 'Look, let's call the park police.' He says, 'You do that, you might as well quit.' I said, 'Man, I'm not gonna go out there.' So he took me out to the boiler room, got a great big roll of chain, and cut off six feet and said, 'Wrap it around your arm, put a towel over it, and you go out and tell 'em you're gonna wrap that goddamn chain around their head.'
"So he's watching, everyone's watching, what am I gonna do I go out. Six foot one, 155 pounds, right I walk out, they creak their straight razors open. So I take off the towel and say, 'Cornpop, you may cut me, but I'm gonna wrap this chain around your head and hurt you.'
"Or that's what I was supposed to say," Biden says, leaning forward now, smiling. "That's Scoop Jackson. But here's what I said 'I was wrong in calling you out, Cornpop. You were wrong jumping on the board, and I should've thrown you out, but I shouldn't have called you Ester.' He looked at me. 'You apologize for calling me Ester Okay.' Puts up his razor, goes home. The point is, you gotta be prepared to use the chain—but there's other ways to do it. You know what I mean"
When Biden was a kid, he stuttered. His classmates dubbed him BiBi Biden. He compensated by learning to anticipate what the other guy was going to say, so as not to bungle his response. To listen to the senior senator from Delaware today is to hear an echo of, as one Biden aide says, "the kid who stutters, who didn't go to Ivy League schools, and maybe has to prove himself."
Biden eventually overcame the stuttering—got a law degree, won a race for county council at 27, then two years later became a United States senator—but he doesn't want to forget what he went through. Just like he doesn't want to forget the TV images of "Bull" Connor siccing police dogs on innocent blacks. Just like he doesn't want to forget how his father quit the auto dealership in Wilmington after the fatassed owner made everyone grovel for their Christmas bonuses by inging silver dollars onto the showroom oor. "That's an abuse of power," he says. "Just as it would be for a man to strike a woman, or a woman to strike a child, or a president to sic the IRS on you. There's this piece our parents absolutely inculcated in all of us Bidens—that no one has the right to use their physical or psychological or economic power to take advantage of someone else."
That righteous sensitivity, that aversion to unchecked authority, has often put Biden at odds with the swaggering Texan in the Oval Office. From their first meetings in the spring of 2001, Biden could see that the new president was shrewd and engaging, though he chafed at Bush's tendency to award pet names to those around him. ("There's a bullying aspect to that," Biden says. "If I give you a nickname, I've become your coach.") Nevertheless, Biden was determined to work with Bush and in the wake of September 11 emerged as one of his staunchest allies. He helped draft the resolution authorizing Bush to use force against our attackers. He made frequent trips to the Oval Office to discuss the invasion of Afghanistan. When Biden began to hear murmurs that the administration was eyeballing Iraq in early 2002, he convened Foreign Relations Committee hearings to solicit opinions from a variety of experts—a show of earnestness for which, he says, Bush personally thanked him. In September 2002, Biden promised Bush that if he worked to engage the U.N. and the American people on Iraq, "I'll be with you."
But Biden never meant to suggest that he would be some kind of yesman. Don Rumsfeld found this out when he invited the senator to breakfast at the Pentagon one summer morning in 2002. Biden figured Rummy wanted advice about Iraq. Instead, the secretary lit into Biden for talking to reporters about what at the time was not widely known—namely, the divide between pro and antiinvasion camps in the administration. "You brought me over here to chastise me" Biden snapped. "Who the hell do you think you are" That same summer, Biden took on Dick Cheney, accusing him and undersecretary of defense Doug Feith of undermining a chemicalweapons agreement with Russia. With Cheney and Feith sitting across from him in the Oval Office, Biden urged Bush, "Listen to your instincts on this one," and prevailed.
On another occasion, Bush summoned Biden to the Oval to discuss the pending global AIDS bill spiked with abstinence and faithbased provisions that rankled Democrats. In the presence of several subordinates, Bush grabbed Biden's lapel and said, "Joe I need your vote on this AIDS bill."
Biden knew a schoolyard challenge when he heard one. Grabbing Bush's lapel back, Biden replied, "Mr. President I'm a senator. We're equal under the law. That is a bad bill, and you're not getting my vote without some changes." In the end, Bush got Biden's vote and the $15 billion bill—but only after agreeing to a single amendment providing debt relief to AIDSstricken nations that happened to be authored by…Joe Biden. The two men still do business, but the edginess remains.
"I don't understand Bush," Biden says. "I really don't. I try very hard. I don't know how much empathy he has. I think it's harder for him to understand. I hate people doing this to me—I'm not qualified to say what makes him tick. But some of what makes him tick that I observe I don't find appealing. Like he told me he doesn't read the paper. I don't know. There's a piece of President Bush that's like some of the rich kids I went to school with, the du Pont types in Delaware I grew up around. During the Vietnam War, there were some very establishment kids from Delaware that I went to law school with who went the hippie route. Rebelled against the establishment. I never had a whole lot of respect for them, because they never gave up their inheritance, y'know what I mean I think there's an element of people who were raised that way, who are stied by it and want to be contrarian. Resist authority, whatever the milieu in which you're being raised, reject it.
"And there's sort of a piece of Bush in there. The cowboy stuff. Here's a guy, Skull and Bones, Yale, Harvard Business—went to some of the most prestigious schools in the world. And all you've got to do is look from the road in Kennebunkport at the estate, and you'll understand. It's not even that it's nice. There's nicer places. But it is a rock. It is a peninsula. It's old money. Power. Establishment. There's an understatement to it. But there's an awesome rooted power to it.
"Every time I think I understand the president, there's a lot more to him. Part of his persona is his alcoholism. I have alcoholics in my family. They're lucky to have an epiphany, and life begins at that epiphany. I think life began for George W. Bush at age 40. I don't think he was engaged till he got to be 40."
Joe Biden is, if nothing else, engaged. Like our pastor, we see him every Sunday, a genial, silverhaired sermonizer apping his jaws for Russert and Stephanopoulus. Though he retains the appalling good looks of a California quarterback, Biden has been gathering moss longer than all but five U.S. senators. He is so thoroughly insinuated into the daily ropeadope that we fail to notice how the young widower raised by giants like Fulbright and Mansfield and Stennis has, at the age of 63, become something of a giant himself.
As Republicans will never forget, in 1987 Joe Biden orchestrated the demise of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork by framing the debate as one about privacy rather than abortion. As the neocons would prefer to forget, it was Biden who led the charge to rid Bosnia of accused genocidalist Milosevic. ("I'm not gonna shake your hand—you're a goddamned war criminal," Biden said to the dictator when they met in 1993.) Feminist groups remember Biden for his authorship of the landmark Violence Against Women Act in 1994—though many still seethe over the then Judiciary Committee chairman's refusal to pummel Clarence Thomas back in 1991. And lest we overlook his accomplishments, Biden is there on television to remind us "I'm the guy who wrote the drugczar legislation." "I'm the guy that drafted the FISA act twentyfive years ago on the Judiciary Committee." "I'm the guy that wrote that crime bill, a hundred thousand cops…"
The truth is, much of his best work has been done quietly, off to the side—particularly on the Foreign Relations Committee, which stubborn old Jesse Helms would've driven into terminal gridlock but for Biden's steady cajoling. Mike Mansfield's tutorings in collegiality—Joe, our job is not to ascribe motives but to find that one thing in our colleagues that is most admired by their constituents—have served Biden well, and not just in legislation. When he made a mess of his 1988 presidential campaign, Republicans like Strom Thurmond and Alan Simpson were among the first to defend his integrity. When he returned to the Senate oor at the end of '88 after brain aneurysms nearly killed him, both sides of the aisle celebrated. And when Trent Lott received a gang ogging in late 2002 after praising Thurmond's Dixiecrat past, it was not a Republican, but rather Joe Biden, who thought to pick up the phone during a New Year's Eve party and tell Lott that out of tragedy, something good would come.
Newport, Kentucky, early evening at a Democratic fundraiser. Biden, tonight's featured speaker, bounds into the convention hall's pressroom. A TV reporter thrusts a microphone in his face, and Biden starts talking about the need for Democrats to appeal to former blue states like Kentucky. "We have put up too many candidates who can't connect with middleclass America," he says. "We've allowed socalled social issues to be divisive."
Then Biden puts a hand on the reporter's shoulder and with demonic pleasure lights into Tom DeLay. "The guy hasn't talked to members of his family in I don't know how many years," he says. "The next Republican that tells me I'm not religious, I'm gonna shove my rosary beads down their throat!"
"Okay, thanks guys!" says Biden's chief of staff, Danny O'Brien, pulling the senator out of the scrum. Then, under his breath "No more shoving anything anywhere, thank you."
This is the part of campaigning Joe Biden craves. He's got an audience who wants to hear what he thinks—no moderator, no sound bites—and by God, he will not be bridled tonight. He will stand before several hundred people and unleash the totality of his experience, his belief system, his vision—everything. The audience has not expected this. They'd forgotten, or perhaps never knew, the fiery orator of 1987. They laugh, they applaud wildly, they fall hushed as Biden, with preacherly deftness, unspools "the journey of America," the crises and the rising to challenges. After extolling the New Yorkers who stood in blooddonation lines after September 11 and Americans such as his wife and two sons who rushed to assist the Gulf Coast postKatrina, Biden stops on a dime. To a familiar face in the audience, 81yearold former Kentucky senator Wendell Ford, he says, "But during all this, one thing was missing that wasn't missing in your generation, Wendell—and it wasn't missing in my generation. They did it without leadership. They did it on their own. They had no clarion call. There was no great voice from the White House calling them to their heritage that is their country as John Kennedy called me and Franklin Roosevelt called my mother's generation. And folks, we use the word so easily in campaigns leadership. We use it so blithely that sometimes we forget. Leadership matters. It matters. It matters a great deal."
With that he rips into Bush—"What will cause George Bush to be judged so harshly are the opportunities he has squandered"—before turning on his fellow Democrats. "If we're really gonna be honest about it," he says, "some of the elites in our party are uncomfortable with faith. And they speak the loudest for us." Of the middle class, Biden says, "They're not on our radar screen. And they used to be our heart. They used to be who we were." All of which has made the Democrats an obliging piñata for the opposition "They've been so relentless. They've cowed us so much. And I'm sick of it."
The speech is pyrotechnic, unsparing, bigpicture, precise. It's also an hour long. "Let me conclude by suggesting one more thing in our little onesided conversation here," Biden finally says, to relieved chuckles. Then, several minutes later "I'll conclude this with what John Kennedy said." Then, a few minutes after that a Wendell Ford quote, followed by Biden quoting himself about how history will judge Bush harshly, followed, at last, by Biden saying, "I'll end where I began, by quoting an Irish poet," though before he can get there, he indulges himself in a nice little riff about his tenure in the Senate…
It's ten o'clock when he finally stands down. But Biden, who's already missed his ight to Chicago, is still pumped. He proposes an informal giveandtake in the pressroom with the gathering's Young Democrats, and thirty or so take him up on it.
In the pressroom, Biden loosens his tie, tosses his coat, and tells the youngsters to sit close. "I'd like to hear what's on your minds," he says.
"Um, we'd like to know what your message is," says a woman of college age.
"Well, I'll try to do that quickly, in the interests of time," says Biden, pacing the room. "If you want me to, I'll expand on it. I will." This is not hard to believe. "But I'm gonna deliberately truncate it. Lay out a whole platform for how I believe we should change the country. First and foremost…"
"What's a big problem for me—and I haven't mastered it yet, Norm's been trying to help me, and I think I'm getting better, but I have a long way to go—and that's how to take a complicated question and answer it succinctly and not appear to be giving a political answer which is pablum."
Biden's sitting in a nice Italian restaurant in Wilmington with his wife, Jill, and his communications director, Norm Kurz, talking about the challenges he might face in 2008. Biden ticks off his shortcomings, doesn't need anyone's prodding. He's not liberal enough for the base. He's rhetorically, uh, inefficient. He's too willing to work with the White House instead of just letting them selfimmolate. "That's what I get asked most often at these fundraisers 'Yeah, Senator, but why are you cooperating' I say, 'Look, I disagree with you guys on this. If in order for me to be president I have to win by further dividing the country, then I don't want to be president.' It has nothing to do with morality. Nothing to do with good government. It has to do with the simple proposition, and I mean this I can think of nothing worse than being locked in that gilded cage of the Oval Office, occasionally hearing 'Hail to the Chief,' and knowing everything you do requires a consensus and you don't have anything beyond a 51 percent solution. You can't do it! I give you my word. My word. I do not want to be president under those circumstances."
Continuing with the litany of shortcomings "Where I am on Iraq—in the red states, I'm okay… But some other places, people are upset about my being so out front on Iraq, not saying get the hell out, y'know."
"I told you I wouldn't support you." That's Jill, a lovely, dignified blond with two master's degrees and only the barest interest in politics. She'd been a student teacher in 1975 when Biden asked her out. Thirty years later, they still hold hands.
"That's right," chuckles Biden. "That note you put in my briefing book when I was going on a trip—tell him what it says."
Jill laughs. "It said, 'I sleep with a hawk.' "
When Biden heads off to the restroom, the conversation turns to the 2004 election—for which, after months of deliberation, he decided to sit on the sidelines. "The last time just didn't feel right," Jill says. "I kept saying to Joe, 'No, no, no!' And he wouldn't hear me."
"Oh, he heard you," says Norm Kurz, echoing the widely held belief that Jill had the final say. That he'd begun discussions too late, that by 2003 the wartime incumbent looked unbeatable, that their daughter, Ashley, deserved a college life free of scrutiny—all of these factors moved Biden's wife, current and former aides say. Still, it killed them to see their guy plumping for a windsurfer and writing foreignpolicy speeches that Kerry invariably muffed. Biden's able performance as surrogate on the Sunday shows made even Kerry's inner circle wistful, according to one of the nominee's senior aides "I know I pissed John off a lot, saying, 'Did you hear Joe on TV Get that tape. Say what he's saying.' He was better calibrated than John."
When asked why she feels better about 2008, Jill Biden says, "Well, look what Bush has done, for God's sake. Look what he's doing to the country. I know what Joe's capable of. I feel like he's someone who unites. The whole Cindy Sheehan thing—she's outside the ranch, had lost her son, and day after day was out there. If Joe was president, I could picture him walking down that dusty road and putting his arm around her and making her feel better about losing her son."
But what about how he gets there
"The process is really mean, so much meaner than anyone can begin to imagine. Does Joe have the stomach for that I don't know."
Norm jumps in "I have this fantasy I've held for a number of years—"
"A fantasy" says Jill, as Biden returns to his seat. "Should we really hear this"
Norm goes on "A campaign where you and McCain actually travel together and actually have spontaneous debates that no one has to arrange."
Biden's eyes light up. "John McCain came up to me I don't know how long ago, couple months ago," he says. "Walked over on the oor, and he said, 'Let's make a deal if we end up being the nominees.' He grabs my hand 'Let's shake hands. Let's commit to do what Goldwater and Kennedy committed to do before Kennedy was shot. They agreed that they would campaign together, same plane, get off in the same city, and go to thirty states or whatever together.' I said, 'John, I commit.'"
It's a lovely notion, isn't it
What's likelier to happen is that the bloggers and the talkradio loudmouths will try to bury a Biden candidacy in 1987's muck. Because even today, after two decades of being Joe Biden, Statesman, there's still no answer to what begat Joe Biden, Plagiarist. Like all the other inane political misdemeanors—reefer inhalers, illegal nanny hirers, adulterers—Biden's sin goes, as they say, to character. To ethics. Of course, all candidates tell whoppers. But won't Joe Biden have to be Caesar's wife, above suspicion, to win
"I don't know whether I can meet the bar," he says. "Maybe this is proof I'm still naive, but I find it hard to believe that the average American, whether or not they like my positions, can look at me in a campaign and think I'm a dishonest man. Will we make a mistake Yes. I'm confident. That's why my sister got this idea Whenever I say something that's totally original, I'll say, 'As my father would say,' or 'As my grandfather would say,' or somebody—when I know it's me!"
Of course, all this overattributing and overqualifying just means, well, more words. It's like an enforced stutter—and it's doomed to fail. Inevitably, the opposition will jump on Biden for saying in recent speeches that he's never before mentioned publicly his Roman Catholic faith, when in fact he has; or for saying about Iraq in 2004, "I never believed they had weapons of mass destruction," when twice the previous year on the Senate oor he said the opposite; or for saying in the Newport, Kentucky, speech that his family lent aid in Katrinastricken Louisiana before FEMA officials and Bush arrived, when in fact the Bidens showed up five days after the president did. Without such harmless boasts, we'd have trouble telling politicians from ordinary folk. Besides, reining in Biden is perhaps the biggest risk of all, as a senior aide points out "He wants to be who he is, not some manufactured product. You don't want to go overboard and change him into a phony."
Biden agrees. "I believe the only really distinguishing feature I bring to this dance," he says, "is my reputation for being standup, straight, say it what it is. The moment I divert from that, I'm done. I'm done. So I don't think I can win by being more liberal. I'm not gonna win by having a better health care plan or a better Iraq plan. I win, if I win, because people look at me and say, 'Goddammit, there's a guy who's got strength, who knows what he believes and isn't gonna back down.'
"I happen to think I'll only get into trouble if I start to parse things, if I start to game it," he says. "It won't work for me."
In the cockpit of the C130 bound for Baghdad, Biden sits behind the pilots in a black turtleneck, circling passages in the book American Catholic. It's dark over the Iraq desert. He lets his felttip pen sag, closes his eyes. On the ight from Washington to Amman, the other three senators on board—Lindsey Graham, Maria Cantwell, and Say Chambliss—all managed to sleep, but the Ambien did Biden no good. He read his briefing book, chatted with the pilots, and mused aloud about 2008 and Iraq the entire way.
This is Joe Biden's sixth trip to Iraq. The first time, three months before the war began, he and Chuck Hagel were smuggled across the Turkish border to take the pulse of Saddam Hussein's greatest victims, the Kurds. Biden was already convinced that the dictator should be ousted. He had called Saddam "a certifiable maniac" in a speech the day before September 11. A month later, he called for a White Houseled coalition to "tighten the noose around Saddam Hussein's neck so that when he does genuinely step out of line next time, we will have the ability to move in with or without others, but with the support of the rest of the world, like we're doing in Afghanistan." But while feasting on kebabs and pomegranates with Kurdish leaders, Biden learned "that left to their own devices, they were doing pretty damn well. And they were worried that things might spin apart [after an invasion] and wanted to know, Are you guys gonna stay, or are you gonna do what the other Bush did to us"
Tonight, after landing in Baghdad and being whisked by helicopter to Saddam's old presidential compound to meet with a group of American officials overseeing Iraq's reconstruction, he's in no mood to be pollyanic. He's stonefaced—"the bastard at the family picnic," as he puts it—while they report on Iraq's progress 4 percent economic growth, stable currency, 30,000 registered businesses…
"The ministries here can't function without the U.S., can they" Biden cuts in. "I mean, at least the president is leveling with us now—not the crap we heard before. But really, absent bringing over another 300 people from State to embed in the ministries, I don't see what the plan is."
"The plan," replies one of the officials carefully, "is to help them develop their own structures."
"They had a sophisticated bureaucracy! And we blew it away when we did this deBaathification. Am I wrong about this"
"That's a serious issue," the official says.
The following morning, December 15, the polls open in Iraq. Two Black Hawk helicopters airlift the delegation over the streets of Baghdad and south across irrigated fields and stretches of parched badlands. At noon, Biden strides into the polling station in Hillah wearing his suit and ak jacket. While the other three senators dip their fingers in purple ink and chat up the poll workers in the presence of TV cameras—"Congratulations! Today's a great day to be an Iraqi!"—Biden surveys the scene restlessly. He'd predicted that security forces would clamp down on the violence; he'd forecast a high turnout. But in the briefings the delegation has had with Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, Generals Casey and Dempsey, and Iraq's electionsecurity chief, it's clear to Biden that today is the easy part—that, as he keeps repeating at every stop, "an election does not a participatory democracy make."
Outside the polling station at a press conference, each senator takes turns applauding the brave and democracyhungry Iraqis. But Biden delivers a parting shot. "The Iraqi people should take a look at our forces," he says. "They're black and they're white and they're women and they're men. They represent all of America. We are a society that has learned to live together. And quite frankly, that is the challenge ahead of all of you. Sunni, Shia, Kurds—you've got to learn to live together. You do that—that's a success."
Muttering under his breath as he departs the gaggle, he says, "We are celebrating too much."
On the ight back to the States that evening, Biden's Ambien kicks in. He sleeps a good four hours before the aircraft lands at Andrews just before seven in the morning. He goes to the Senate gym, showers, shaves, and puts on a fresh suit. Then he heads over to the White House to debrief the president.
Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Steve Hadley, Andy Card, and several senators are seated at a conference table in the Roosevelt Room. Bush begins the meeting with an enthusiastic statement about the election. On the videoconferencing screens, Khalilzad and Casey add their thoughts. Rumsfeld makes a few surprisingly candid remarks about the security forces, leading Biden to wonder if the defense secretary has essentially dumped the whole thing in Condi's lap Okay, now it's your war! Then Rice does her effusive thing, followed by McCain—who to Biden's dismay, limits his remarks to pap like "We're gonna beat the terrorists"—and then Joe Lieberman, who might as well be waving pompoms. Lindsey Graham is next—tough little guy, Biden thinks as the South Carolina senator rattles off a few worrisome matters.
At last Bush says to Biden, "Go ahead." He's got to keep it short and sweet. "Mr. President," he says, "if we defeat every member of Al Qaeda, you've still got a war on your hands. The Baathists, the Saddamists—they're killing our guys, too. If I can put it in American terms, they had an election. But now comes the primary, and it's gonna be won in the next six to eight weeks. With all due respect, you really ought to jump in with both feet."
"Okay, basically you've been right about the cops," Bush says.
"I know you don't like foreignpolicysounding things like 'contact groups,' " Biden says. "But there's got to be cumulative pressure from the international community on the regional powers to put pressure on their surrogates."
Nodding, Bush says, "Condi, tell the senator what we're doing."
Rice brings him up to speed on recent conversations with the Germans and the French.
"You've got a shot with the Germans now, Mr. President—you've got a conservative chancellor," Biden says. He makes a few other points, mixing in some praise "You're making some real good changes on the ground." Finished, Biden looks at his watch. Four and a half minutes. Personal best.
"We should do more of this," Bush says, as the meeting breaks up. On their way out the door, Biden says, "I really think you should bring in people who completely disagree with you, Mr. President. Guys like Jack Murtha, who think it's the bottom of the ninth and we can't win this. I know you don't like hearing from those kinds of guys…"
Bush squeezes Biden's arm. "I'm a tough guy," he says. "I can take it." But, Biden notes, he didn't say he'd do it, either.
A week later, Joe Biden sits in his Capitol hideaway office on an early Wednesday evening, watching CSPAN. The office is a temple of masculinity, all leather and gold and burgundy, with an 1876 fresco depicting the signing of the Louisiana Purchase overhead. Logs crackle in the fireplace. Biden's jacket hangs behind him on his chair. His indeinger nail is still purple, looking at this point more like a homeimprovement mishap than a totem to democracy.
He's discussing an incident that took place during his brief tenure on the University of Delaware football team forty years ago. The story had come up at dinner in Wilmington with his wife—one of those epic Biden digressions that seemed both acute and elusive. Everything in the present reminds Joe Biden of something in the past. Dad saying don't ever make fun of the unfortunate, Senator Mansfield's admonition never to question someone's motives, the priest giving him last rites before brain surgery in 1988, Bush talking about nuance, Hillary's war chest—it's all related, a divine architecture. And so it seems that to talk to Biden about the odds facing him in 2008 is to conjure up that time on a football field when, to his shame, he cared too much about the odds
"It was my junior year," he says, "and I was trying out for defensive back. I'm free safety, twelve or fourteen yards over the line. A hole opens up over the tackle, and this 210pound fullback comes blowing through like a freight train. I see the play open up, and I blow into the same hole. I can see the linebacker out of the corner of my eye—he hits the fullback a split second before I get there. But instead of running right through the son of a bitch, I just kind of hit him a little. I knew what my job was Forget there's a linebacker; run through the son of a bitch! But I calculated, ahhh, he ain't going anywhere.
"And I felt guilty," he says, pacing now in front of the fire, "because I didn't do my job. I thought less of myself. I didn't live up to my expectations of what I was supposed to be. I'm supposed to be the guy who gets up and does it."
Did the coach call you on this
"No! This was all me."
But why, after all these years—wait. You embrace this story. You want to hold it over your own head.
"Like, 'Joe Goddammit. Stand UP. Stand up.' I gotta take a leak…"
A minute later, Biden returns. "So, back up," he says as he falls into his chair. "Here's the ambivalence part. Not can I win But—they say to run for president, you've gotta be a little bit dissatisfied with your life. And I'm not. So maybe someone else is gonna step to this and do it the way it should be done. And that's fine! But that's when the football analogy comes up Why aren't you doing this I can hit that fullback! I know I should! What the hell am I waiting for
"It is worth it," he says, "if I can bring the country together."
He looks up at the television. The Republicans have failed to get the votes to cut off debate on an appropriations bill. By the time they finish, it'll be too late to make the train to Wilmington. No matter. There's a birthday party for his granddaughter in Washington tonight. Maybe he'll stop by.
And the next week, they'll come from the District and Boston and Philly and Chicago—his family and his brain trust, sitting together in the permanent construction site of his home in Wilmington, and figure it out how Biden will hit the damn fullback.
ROBERT DRAPER is a GQ correspondent.


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[lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Jennifer Lopez[/lastfm] isn't afraid to flaunt it – from strutting the junk in her trunk "On The Floor" with [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Pitbull[/lastfm] to showing her sexy physique and power-chick attitude on music videos like "I'm Real," Miss Thang is an undeniable hitmaker. "I'm Glad" certainly got a bit out of hand, but her new music video with [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Lil Wayne[/lastfm] "I'm Into You" sees this sass-magnet at her best.
Watch some of our favorite Jennifer Lopez videos and tell us which one brings in the more swank. Get to the end of our epic list and enter to win a chance to fly to Las Vegas and see your favorite superstar perform live at the Billboard Music Awards.
10. J. LO shakes her booty at the club with Miami rapper [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Pitbull [/lastfm]while dancers slave away on the dance floor.
9. Shiny disco balls in a white setting. "Hold It Don't Drop It" features a glittery, disco-fied J. Lo.
8. In an attempt to get the attention of the DJ, J. Lo works her magic in "Play".
7. "Do It Well" features a bad-ass J. Lo, one sporting a leather-studded jacket that will make Gaga beggin' for one.
6. "Waiting For Tonight" features J. Lo in some tropical island with lasers shooting out of the trees while some phone sex-loving action is happening in the background.
5. She might not be swaying her hips on a dancefloor, but we do get to hear one of pop-hop's sweet voices perform "All I Have" with one of the smoothest rappers on the street,[lastfm link_type="artist_info"] LL Cool J[/lastfm].
4. "Get It Right" shows J.Lo doing what she does best, dance.
3. "Baila" (translation: dance). Can she? You tell us.
2. "I'm Into You" is the new single from Love featuring Lil Wayne.
1. "I'm Glad" plays tribute to the '80s movie, Flashdance.
Now that we have you all hot and bothered enter to win a trip to see our idol perform live at the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas.
Enter Here
We're glad to see Jennifer Lopez is dancing again in her new music video with Lil Wayne "I'm Into You." Do you think she still has what it takes to be a dancer? Let us know and tell us which music video featuring Lopez best moves is your favorite? Vote via the comments below.


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four half-ounce packs of dried morels (or one pound fresh)
one half medium white onion, diced
fresh-ground black pepper
two cups vialone nano rice
fresh oregano leaves, finely chopped
fresh thyme leaves, finely chopped
fresh basil, finely chopped
olive oil
one cup dry white wine
one cup grated parmigiano reggiano (plus more for grating on top)
Bring about four cups of water to a boil, turn off the heat, and put the dried morels in the pot. Cover and allow to steep and rehydrate for about a half hour, stirring occasionally to make sure the morels fully submerge. Strain out the liquid through a cheese cloth, bring up to about five cups total, salt to taste, cover, and bring to a simmer. This is the risotto broth.
Discard the cheese cloth, dump the morels in the strainer and rinse extremely well with cold water. This is really important, as the reconstituted morels will have gritty shitte in them that is disgusting if you don't get rid of itte. Then, cut the morels into halves or thirds (depending on the size of each one), put back in the strainer, and continue to rinse extremely well with cold water to get every last but of gritty shitte outte.
Sautee the onion, thyme, and oregano (about one tablespoon of each) with fresh-ground black pepper until the onion is fully translucent.
Add the morels to the pan and continue to sautee until they have reduced in size and firmed up and cooked through to a proper texture.
Add the rice and continue to sautee, until the rice is fully coated with oil and is smelling nice and toasty.
Deglaze with the white wine, and cook until the alcohol is gone.
Cook in the usual way by ladling in the simmering morel broth and cooking with stirring. It is good to allow the rice to kind of cook onto the bottom of the pan and then scrape it off, as you proceed with the cooking. This breaks down some of the kernels and releases starch into the broth to thicken it up.
When the rice is not quite done, and still has a substantial crunchy bit in the center of each grain, turn off the heat, add another ladle of broth and the cheese, stir well to incorporate, and cover for five minutes to rest.
After it has rested, you can add another ladle or so of hot broth, if you want to loosen it up further, and salt to taste.
Plate, grate, sprinkle, and eat!


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You'd think we were still waiting for the season to start with number of contract posts that have gone up in the past 24 hours. I think the Lupul trade has been analyzed very well by a number of Leafs bloggers (here's Alec's take from yesterday), but the fact that this has been discussed so much will not prevent me from weighing in on why I partially like this signing, but ultimately still conclude that it was a bad idea. I think this deal if managed properly could actually benefit the Leafs, and I'll toss in my $.02 on that as well.
First, some of the details on the contract (via Capgeek), It's a five year deal paying $5.25 million equally in every season, the deal ending before Lupul's 35th birthday. Lupul, when asked, would be required to submit a list of fourteen teams he'd accept a trade to.
Those of you who have seen my take on the John-Michael Liles deal will know I'm not the biggest fan of locking up players with injury risks throughout their early thirties, so it's not too much of shock that I have some reservations about this contract as well. There's also the issue that this deal is based off an out of nowhere career year when Lupul was 28, something that, with only game played this season, he hasn't been able to prove he can duplicate.
I don't think I will elaborate much further on the downside, as that has been well documented, but rather I'll try and find some positives. At the very least, Lupul should be able to sustain a top six role for the majority of his contract. We may never see him on a point per game pace, but I feel comfortable he can still fit this role. If I'm wrong, the downside is that Joffrey does not possess the defensive awareness or physicality to offer any value in the bottom six.
Lupul will not likely be a blockade for young top six wingers like Kadri, or van Riemsdyk, but rather a safety net to assure the Leafs maintain a certain level of skill while they develop. Lupul's contract may be on the steep side of things, but with a small number of top six forwards ever being made available throughout the league, it seems as if the Leafs would be able to move him if they were to feel satisfied with their top six group without him.
It's Lupul as a safety net that I think is the greatest benefit of this signing. It has been no secret that a lot of eggs have been put in the basket that Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Stephen Weiss, and similarly skilled forwards will all be hitting the free agent market and that Toronto will be interested. The reality will likely be the same as other recent free agency crops; a slew of re-signings leading up to a bidding war on one or two notables. Let's say the Leafs are successful in landing those notables, they may still be able to move Lupul to one of the teams that were looking for an above average forward.
So what makes sense as a plan for Lupul? The way I see it, the following options exist:
A) A signed Joffrey Lupul may carry greater value on the trade market, and he presently he might be able to bring the Leafs a return of a starting goaltender or top four defenseman. Both key areas of focus. I doubt this is the plan, but on Lupul's current deal his no trade clause is lifted if the Leafs do not make the playoffs. That would give the Leafs the chance to deal him anywhere at the draft. Seriously, I'd like to see this, but it's not going to happen.
B) The Leafs have a successful free agency period, and Lupul is deemed unnecessary in the future plans of the team. The Leafs ask him for his 14 teams, and they try and make something work. This seems just as unlikely as the previous situation, but again Lupul may have more value signed and could be used as bait for a team with passable goaltending.
C) The Leafs are unable to sign Phil Kessel, and either due to a trade or simply because of losing Kessel to free agency the Leafs will need to rely on Lupul to continue on in his top six role. This also holds true if any other top six wingers do not pan out. He will still be on a decline, but I can comfortably see Lupul adding worthwhile value to a top six role throughout the length of his contract. I'd just be more concerned about his injuries.
D) The 2014 Buyout. Much like if Liles implodes, the same holds true for Lupul. If he sucks, potentially there's a chance to use a compliance buyout on him.
E) The most likely case is that we move forward with the assumption that Lupul will continue to be a Leaf (and a well paid one at that). He's an alternate captain and he's integrated into the Leafs community initiatives, so he's part of the longer term plans. If he goes off the rails we'll bitch and moan about him, if he does well we'll likely continue to imagine whether or not it's time to cut and run on him, as his value will only decrease with time.
In an expensive, longer term deal like this one on an older player there is no shortage of negative angles to it, and ultimately I can't see why on a struggling team like the Leafs you wouldn't exploit his value at the trade deadline and try and gain an advantage for the future with a very deep draft. As good as that sounds, there comes a point when you have to stop selling off all of your assets, and if Lupul is a player that Nonis and Carlyle see as key to their future success, it might be worth keeping the known over gambling on the mystery box.
Monday Morning Links…
Toronto Re-signs Joffrey Lupul for Five Years
I think Cam sums up my concerns over this deal perfectly.
Joffrey Lupul signed to a Five Year Contract Extension
Initial reactions to this deal are that the Leafs screwed up. Can't say I disagree as it's an expensive deal. If you ignore how much he's making, it's less objectionable to think the Leafs locked up a decent forward for 5 years.
Joffrey Lupul's Contract Value: Point/Counterpoint
I'll be sitting on the fence about this deal for a while.
HNIC's 60th Anniversary Montage and Thoughts on the New Studio Panel
The montages are the last redeeming thing about HNIC. That and Elliotte Friedman.
Can Carlyle now do what Pat Quinn did in his first season behind the Leafs bench?
I know a lot of people aren't big on Carlyle, but I think he'll get a few unexpected performances out of the Leafs. Do I think he'll turn around last year's train wreck in 48 games? No.
Ice Hogs Bench Clearing Brawl Video
The highlight is watching the goaltender go zooming across the screen at the 11 second mark.
Canucks stick with Luongo as Goaltender Controversy Continues
This can only end hilariously.
Game Day Prediction for tonight vs. Buffalo: Leafs win 4-2. JVR gets his first goal as a Leaf.


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Support your favorite college team with the Duck College 1-7/8 in. x 10 yds. University of Wisconsin Duct Tape. The tape is great for tailgating, repairs or just having some fun. And conforms to uneven surfaces.
- Use for tailgating, repairs or just for fun
- Medium-strength to high-strength adhesion for high performance
- Tears easily by hand without curling
- Made in USA
- Click here to find out which Duck tape is right for your project


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I own a 2006 R12RT.
Every year, I go to California for a conference for my work. After the conference, I try to rent a bike for a 2 day ride. The last few years have been in San Diego. This year, It will be in LA.
Are there any BMW rentals possible in this area? I contacted Jupiter with no luck.
I would like a R12RT, but I would also be interested in any other BMW. I have nothing against Harleys, but I like to rent something I am comfortable with instead of something different...especially since I will be in an unfamiliar area.


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- Thu
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- Fri
- 12 - 6
- Sat
- 10 - 6
The Deaf Services Center provides in-depth resources for adults and children who are deaf or hard of hearing, their families, friends and professionals.
Collections and Services Available
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- For SFPL sponsored programs, assistive listening devices are available as well as the following services: American sign language interpreting, English language oral interpreting and real-time captioning in English. These services cannot be guaranteed when requested less than one week in advance.
- Information about other organizations that provide services for people who are deaf or hard of hearing
- Video/DVD viewing on televisions equipped with closed-caption decoders
- Purchase or rent American Culture: The Deaf Perspective, a four-part series on DVD exploring the culture and heritage of Deaf Americans
- Public pay TTY and amplified telephones available on the first floor
- Sorenson VRS videophone is available in the Deaf Services Center during open hours
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A Simple Christmas Pageanted. Sheldon Curry - Jubilate Music Group, LLC
A Simple Christmas Pageanted. Sheldon Curry - Jubilate Music Group, LLC
Here is a multi-generational Christmas program. It is brief (35 minutes), intentionally simple, and reminiscent of a slower gentler time. �There are only two speaking parts: a Storyteller and Saint Nicholas. �The music, for the most part, is familiar, making it easy for the congregation to participate. �It truly is a hassle-free, inexpensive alternative to big Christmas musicals. �It requires little rehearsal time and few financial resources, and is a perfect way for families to participate together. �Christmas is a time to bring everyone together, and this musical will certainly help you to do that!
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2013 Razzies – Rihanna, Adam Sandler, Kristen Stewart + 'Twilight' Steal the Show
Finally, Kristen Stewart and 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2′ are recognized during awards season.
Stewart and the sparkling vampire series earned a slew of Golden Raspberries — affectionately dubbed Razzies — for the atrocities they've committed on and to film.
The movie itself earned seven trophies, including Worst Picture, Worst Sequel, Worst Supporting Actor (Taylor Lautner), Worst Director (Bill Condon), Worst Ensemble (that includes Robert Pattinson), Worst Onscreen Couple for Lautner and 12-year-old Mackenzie Foy (come on, admit it — they really earned that one) and, of course, Worse Actress for the lip biting, monotone Stewart.
It wasn't a total sweep, though.
Adam Sandler earned Worst Actor, Worst Screenwriter and Worst Screenplay for 'That's My Boy.' He swept 10 categories last year for 'Jack & Jill.'
Rihanna nabbed Worst Supporting Actress for her dramatic turn in 'Battleship' — which she won by a landslide. Turns out her acting is almost as horrific as her taste in men.


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KSAM 101.7 / Neko Case
by CMT News on Apr 04, 2013
Blake Shelton wants to adopt a country singing Voice contestant. Kenny Chesney gets grilled by former football coach John Gruden. Neko Case reveals the anxiety behind creating original music. Buckwild star Shain Gandee died of…
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Triple-Action, Rapid-Resurfacing Facial Kit
Triple-Action, Rapid-Resurfacing Facial Kit
A triple-action resurfacing facial kit to reveal fresh skin with dual physical and chemical exfoliation, plus an alpha hydroxy acid to refine and polish. 4 facials inside.
- 93% say it improves skin texture*
- 93% saw smoother skin*
- 93% say skin looks more youthful and glowing*
- 90% say it instantly improves clarity*
- 90% say it's the best at-home facial they have ever used*
Average Rating from 39 reviews96% of people recommend this product
Write a review
For Skin That Is:
Product Benefits
- Four powerful facials all in one box!
- Instantly improves clarity and refines radiance - for youthful luminosity
- For sun damage, capillary damage, rough texture, congestion, milia and wrinkles
- Includes Herbology Chinese herbal granules to reveal fresh skin with dual physical and chemical exfoliation - the same formula used exclusively in professional facials
- Skin feels softer. Looks lineless – and years younger
What It Is
A triple-action resurfacing facial featuring professional-use Herbology Chinese herbal granules to reveal fresh skin with dual physical and chemical exfoliation, followed by a leave-on alpha hydroxy acid to refine and polish skin.
7 pieces inside:
- Herbology (professional-use formula), 4-dose vial - Herbal Chinese granules to reveal fresh skin with dual physical and chemical exfoliation
- Sensitive Skin Cleanser, 1 oz. travel size – An extra gentle cleanser formulated with foaming olive oil
- Quick Refiner, .25 oz. travel size – A leave on gel exfoliator with powerful beta and alpha hydroxy acids
- Absolute Moisture, .25 oz. travel size – A lightweight hydrating creme to balance skin
- Professional Facial Treatment Brush
- Treatment Measuring Scoop
- Mixing Cup
- Plus, step-by-step Triple-Action, Rapid-Resurfacing Facial instructions
What It Does
How To Use It
Before you begin, you'll need:
- A headband or towel wrap
- A dry towel
Note: Each vial of Herbology contains enough Chinese herbal granules for 4 facials.
Professional Tip: Make sure your Mixing Cup and Professional Facial Treatment Brush is dry when you begin.
Step-by-step instructions:
1. Prep/Cleanse Pull your hair back with a headband or towel wrap. Pour 1/2 Treatment Measuring Scoop of Herbology Retexturizer (1/4 vial) into the dry Mixing Cup. Add 2 full Treatment Measuring Scoops of Sensitive Skin Cleanser to the Mixing Cup. Take your dry Professional Facial Treatment Brush and mix it in the cup until combined. Apply to entire face, avoiding eyes and mouth.
2. Massage/Exfoliate - With dry fingertips, gently massage Herbology granules into skin with small circles to physically exfoliate for 30 seconds. Use light pressure. Next, wet fingertips, and continue to gently massage skin. Then granules will begin to melt into skin, releasing natural chemical exfoliators.
NOTE: This is the first and second exfoliation action of the Triple-Action, Rapid Resurfacing Facial.
3. Remove - Once grains have melted, rinse off cleanser with warm water. Pat dry with towel.
4. Exfoliate - Apply Quick Refiner and leave on skin to chemically exfoliate with multi-fruit and glycolic acids. Do not remove.
NOTE: This is the third exfoliation action of the Triple-Action, Rapid Resurfacing Facial.
5. Moisturize/Finish - Finish by applying a small amount of Absolute Moisture to the face.
zhì hé shŏu wū – dried fleeceflower / knotweed root – exfoliates, reduces visible irritation
shān zhū yú – dried dogwood fruit – contains naturally exfoliating alpha hydroxy acid
fu pén zĭ – Chinese raspberry fruit – exfoliates, tones
suán zăo rén – spiny zizyphus (jubjube) seeds – exfoliates, reduces visible irritation
Sensitive Skin Cleanser
Olea Europaea (olive oil), Carthamus Tinctorius (safflower) Oil, PEG-40 Sorbitan Peroleate, Corylus Avellana (hazelnut) Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis (jojoba) Oil, Lavandula (lavender) Angustifolia Oil, Camellia Kissi Seed Oil, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower Seed) Oil, Rosemarinus Officinalis (rosemary) Leaf Extract, Tocopherol
Quick Refiner
Water (Aqua) (Eau), SD Alcohol 40-A, Aloe Barbadensis (Aloe Vera) Gel, Glycerin, Glycolic Acid, Hydroxyethyl Cellulose, Salicylic Acid, Vaccinium Myrtillus (Bilberry) Extract, Saccharum Officinarum (Sugar Cane) Extract (Extrait de canne a sucre), Acer Saccharum (Sugar Maple) Extract, Citrus Aurantium Dulcis (Orange) Extract, Citrus Medica (Lemon) Extract, Angelica Polymorpha Sinensis (Dong Quai) Root Extract, Rhus Glabra (Sumac) Extract, Panax Ginseng (Ginseng) Root Extract, Nasturtium Officinale (Watercress) Extract, Centella Asiatica (Gotu Kola) Extract, Phenoxyethanol, Sodium Hydroxide, Disodium EDTA, Methylisothiazolinone
Absolute Moisture
Water (Aqua) (Eau), Stearic Acid, Glyceryl Stearate, Sorbitol, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Cetyl Esters, Cetyl Alcohol, Sodium Hyaluronate, Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Oil, Sodium PCA, Ethylhexylglycerin, Phenoxyethanol, Tetrasodium Dicarboxymethyl Glutamate, Potassium Hydroxide, Citric Acid, Methylisothiazolinone
Learn More
Clinical Consumer Perception Study
- Nishan Oakes (December 21st, 2017)
Rapid Repare kit did not disappoint!
- Kristine Storer (December 6th, 2017)
A Must Have!
- Kathleen (December 6th, 2017)
Best thing I've ever purchased from Bioelements
Like others have said, you can probably get about 3-4 uses out of this because the granules run out but you'll have a lot leftover of al the other products in the kit.
- Laura (December 4th, 2017)
Great value
- Amanda (April 30th, 2017)


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HIV infection is a condition caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The condition gradually destroys the immune system, which makes it harder for the body to fight infections.
This article provides a general overview. For more detailed information, see:
Human immunodeficiency virus infection
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can be spread by the following:
Rare ways the virus may be spread include:
Blood banks and orang donor programs screen donors, blood, and tissues thoroughly to prevent the risk of infection. HIV is NOT transmitted to a person who DONATES blood or organs. People who donate organs are never in direct contact with people who receive them. Likewise, a person who donates blood is never in contact with the person receiving it. In all these procedures, sterile needles and instruments are used.
HIV infection is NOT spread by:
People at highest risk for getting HIV include:
See also: AIDS
People who become infected with HIV may not have any symptoms for up to 10 years, but they can still pass the infection to others. After you come in contact with the virus, it can take up to 3 months for a blood test to show that you have HIV.
Symptoms related to HIV are usually due to a different infection in the body. Some symptoms related to HIV infection include:
Note: Many people have no symptoms when they are diagnosed with HIV.
The HIV ELISA and HIV Western blot tests detect antibodies to the HIV virus in the blood. Both tests must be positive to confirm an HIV infection. Having these antibodies means you are infected with HIV.
A complete blood count (CBC) and white blood cell differential may also show abnormalities.
A lower-than-normal CD4 cell count may be a sign that the virus is damaging your immune system.
Doctors usually recommend medicine for patients who are committed to taking all their medications and have a CD4 count below 500 cells/mm3 (which is a sign that of a weakened immune system). Some people, including pregnant women and people with kidney or neurological problems related to HIV, may need treatment regardless of their CD4 count.
It is extremely important for people with HIV to take all doses of their medications, otherwise the virus may become resistant to the drugs. Therapy always involves a combination of antiviral drugs. Pregnant women with HIV infection are treated to reduce the chance of transmitting HIV to their babies.
People with HIV infection need to become educated about the disease and treatment so that they can be active participants in making decisions with their health care provider.
See: AIDS - support group
HIV is a chronic medical condition that can be treated, but not yet cured. There are effective ways to prevent complications and delay, but not always prevent, progression to AIDS.
Almost all people infected with HIV will develop AIDS if not treated. However, there is a small group of people who develop AIDS very slowly, or never at all. These patients are called long-term nonprogressors.
Call your health care provider if you have had a possible or actual exposure to AIDS or HIV infection.
Quinn TC. Epidemiology of human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. In: Goldman L, Schafer AI, eds. Cecil Medicine. 24th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 392.
Sterling TR, Chaisson RE. General clinical manifestations of human immunodeficiency virus infection (including the acute retroviral syndrome and oral, cutaenous, renal, ocular, metabolic, and cardiac diseases. In: Mandell GL, Bennett JE, Dolin R, eds. Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases. 7th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone; 2009:chap 121.
1000 Johnson Ferry Road NE
Atlanta, GA 30342
(404) 851-8000
450 Northside Cherokee Blvd.
Canton, GA 30115
(770) 224-1000
1200 Northside Forsyth Drive
Cumming, GA 30041
(770) 844-3200


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Volume 1Flexibility and Intro to Kicks.
Hakan shows you the importance of warm ups and stretching and gives you instruction on kicks and stances that will become the foundation to your performances. Certain techniques that are thoroughly explained are the front kick, side kick, back kick, hook kick, reverse turning kick and jumping split kick.
Volume 2Footwork and Speed Drills with Basic Kick.
This video is full of footwork drills to help you with balance and speed. You will learn footwork exercises such as double action, 360 rotation spin, fake spins into basic kicks and much more. These footwork drills will also be put into combinations.
Volume 3Basic Combinations and Advanced Kicks.
After learning basic kicks and footwork, this video will show you several of Hakan's combinations with basic kicks. Furthermore, advanced kicks will also be explained including techniques like the tornado kick, 540 degree kick, autobahn, 720 degree kick and many more.
Volume 4Intermediate Kicking Combinations.
With the techniques that have been covered so far, Hakan shares 15 intermediate kicking combinations. A broad range of combination that can be utilized in many different forms of training and performances.
Volume 5Extreme Kicks, Twists and Combinations.
Much of what has made Hakan a worldwide talent is taught in this video. Hakan shows you several extreme kicks, twists and combos to take you to superstar heights.


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Forget fair and reasonable: it's the law
When it comes to working out what's tax deductible, you must abide relevant taxation laws, rather than going by what appears to be fair and reasonable.
Q. We have a small business running a car enthusiast website for the new Toyota 86. We have a company and are not registered for GST. Through Google advertising and forum sponsors we generate around $1000 in income per month.
We would like to purchase a Toyota 86 for the business to promote the forum. The car would have stickers on it advertising the forum/website. Because our business is 100 per cent centred around this car all the driving in it would be business trips as they would be promoting the website/forum. Is this a fair assumption?
Could you please advise on the best way to claim tax deductions, depreciation etc? The car would cost around $33,000 on the road or $41,000 on the road for the top spec model. The business has around $5000 in the bank that could be used towards the purchase of the car.
A. From your question it appears you are trying to claim 100 per cent of the cost of this new vehicle based on the fact that it will be advertising your website and business. Unfortunately the tax laws relating to claiming motor vehicle expenses do not take into account whether a car has advertising on it or not.
If you want to maximise the claim for any vehicle you are forced to use the log book method. Under this method a log book must be kept for 12 weeks that establishes the business use of the vehicle. The business use of a vehicle is dictated by the purpose of each trip.
Travel in a motor vehicle that is classed as business includes the following trips:
• from home to visit a customer or a supplier and return
• from one customer or supplier to another
• from a place of business to a customer or supplier and return
• from home to a place of business where bulky tools or advertising material must be carried in the car
If you did not carry on this business from home and had to travel to an office, and did not carry bulky tools or advertising material, the kilometres driven on this trip would be classed as private. Having advertising on your car does not change the private nature of this trip or any other purely private travel.
Unless you have a second car that is used for purely private travel, and the new vehicle is only used for business purposes, it will be almost impossible for you to claim 100 per cent of its running costs.
Once you have established the business use of the vehicle you can claim that percentage of fuel, registration, insurance, and repairs and maintenance. If a lease is used to finance the purchase you can claim the business percentage of the lease costs. If a loan or hire purchase contract is used you can claim all of the interest charged and the business use percentage of the depreciation of the vehicle.
Questions on small business tax or other issues can be emailed to firstname.lastname@example.com.
Tax for small business, a survival guide, by Max Newnham is available in bookstores and as an ebook.
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Cali Girl
Intro: Taye Levell
Flyin' out from P-Town
Landin' down in Cali
Here for the weekend;
Tryna find a shawty
//Chorus//: Taye Levell
//Girl, can you
Ride with me?
Take my hand and stroll down the beach
All I really need is one night
Can you be her
To make this night perfect?
I wanna mess with a Cali girl
With a Cali girl.//
1st Verse: 3-15
I'm really in love with your hips and thighs
Soon as I laid eyes on 'em, I was hypnotized
My interest wasn't the only thing big in size
I can tell you're down from the look in your eyes
Let's explore the shores; chillin' in my shorts
You'll be chillin' in your skirt and top of course
I wanna move on to the bahamas
Let your girls and lames know you're ridin' with the bombest
Or we'll kick it in the Caribbean
Fresh J's, tank top, stunna shades; I'm very clean
Yeah, and then we'll lay in Jamaica
With me, guaranteed, you ain't gotta fake (naw)
Sippin' margaritas down in Cuba
Fuck 'em other lames and niggas that ever knew ya
I wanna go down on you like the sunset
Finger lickin' good, but I don't wanna make you cum yet
//Chorus//: Taye Levell
//Girl, can you
Ride with me?
Take my hand and stroll down the beach
All I really need is one night
Can you be her
To make this night perfect?
I wanna mess with a Cali girl
With a Cali girl.//
2nd Verse: HG
This too good to be true so I'm pro'lly just dreamin'
But please don't wake me up 'cause there's an obvious reason
I'm here to do everything that I can't do in my boring life
So, baby, grab my hand; trust me -this ain't gon' be no normal night
You want it, I got it; I promise you can have whatever, hun
Exclusive with music; this lifestyle ain't for everyone
You gotta earn it; shawty's burnin' so I gotta get her done
She fine enough; I'll size her up, but I don't gotta measure her. (Huh)
This that volleyball on the beach shit
The whole world decided to take a beach trip
This is HG and motherfuckin' three fif-
Teen; you ain't seen the way that we rock the beat 'til
Early in the damn morning; dranks pouring, fans roaring
The dance floor is packed like trees in dense forests
There's something 'bout this vibe that makes me want to experiment
Them cali girls is nice; there really ain't no comparison


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Chiefs quarterback Daniel reflects on Cotton Bowl
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Mention the name "Chase Daniel" to a Missouri football fan, and all sorts of memories from the 2007-08 football season will come to mind.
Mention "Cotton Bowl" to the Mizzou legend, and he will tell you all about the team experience in his hometown.
Daniel may play this week against the Chargers, as the Chiefs have a wild card spot clinched and could rest Alex Smith during the game. This is also the week leading up to the 2014 Cotton Bowl Classic, six years after Mizzou left Dallas with a Cotton Bowl win.
"The week leading up to the Cotton Bowl was one of the best weeks of my life," Daniel said after Chiefs practice this week. "I think the Cotton Bowl is second to none in non-BCS bowls. I think the Cotton Bowl is right up there with BCS bowls."
Statistically, Daniel had a pedestrian Cotton Bowl. That is only because running back Tony Temple ran for 281 yards and four touchdowns, both Cotton Bowl records.
"He really carried the team that day," the former Mizzou quarterback said. "It sort of culminated our great season. I think we finished 12-2 and number four in the country."
Daniel added that this year's team has the chance to finish inside the top five in the rankings.
"They are going to be ready for the game for sure."
Many try to compare the '07 team (believed to be one of the greatest teams in school history) and this year's Tiger squad. Statistically, the teams are identical. Daniel's team scored more points per game (39.9) than the one led by James Franklin (39.0) so far. However, Missouri's defense in 2013 gave up less points (22.5) than the 2007 team (23.3).
After you crunch the numbers, you can tell not much separates the team. The same goes for the intangibles.
"I think we just complimented each other," Daniel points out when reflecting on the character of the 2007 team. "We never got too low with the lows, too high with the highs. We just worried about the next play and moved on and continued to do great things throughout the season."
Daniel finished with 4,306 passing yards and 33 touchdown passes. He was only intercepted 11 times on 563 pass attempts and finished fourth in the Heisman voting.
When asked if he had any advice for the Tiger team playing in the 2014 Cotton Bowl, Daniel said, "Enjoy it."


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Thanks to a millage that passed in the fall of 2011, the band room more than doubled in size.
Superintendent John Thompson said the $1.6 million expansion project included a renovation and expansion of the band room, enlargement and enhancement of the high school cafeteria and administrative office, as well as improvements to the entry and foyer.
Construction for the band room expansion began during spring break in 2012 and the band, assisted by parents, moved into the space the Sunday before school began in August.
"The band really needed additional space," Thompson said. "It was really amazing how well they performed in such a cramped space. We have an excellent band program and Clay Hooten is the most passionate person about a band program I've ever seen."
Band director Clay Hooten said the expansion and renovation doubled the band's rehearsal space.
DHS has a large band room that is used for rehearsal and also a large ensemble room that the Jazz Band practices in before school starts.
Hooten said having two practice areas allows the Jazz band to keep instruments arranged without setting up and taking down each morning.
"Last year, Jazz Band members had to set up and take down for every rehearsal," Hooten said. "Now, the Jazz Band instruments can stay out unless we need that space. In theory, if we decided to split the high school concert band into two bands, we would have space for each band to practice."
Hooten said that space was so cramped last year, that band members had to take turns entering and leaving rehearsal. At the start of rehearsal, the woodwinds would enter the room first and then brass would take their seats three minutes later.
The groups swapped after practice, with brass exiting and cleaning their instruments before woodwinds were allowed to leave.
And storage? There was no storage. Hooten said instruments were stored in the rehearsal area, which made it difficult to travel between rows.
Now, there is a storage room for instruments, a library and a storage room for uniforms.
"I absolutely love the new band space," Ninth-grade flute player Karen Sierra said. "For the number of people we have, it really helps."
There is also a loading dock that makes exiting the building and loading and unloading equipment easier.
"The marimba doesn't fit through normal doors. With the loading and unloading dock, we no longer have to remove a panel to transport it," Hooten said of the specialty door. "We exit to the field through that door and that makes it faster and less disruptive to other students."
Hooten said other than more room, the new facilities has given students, faculty and parents a sense of pride.
"I've seen an increase in pride among the students and parents," Hooten said of the new band room. "There really is a sense of pride when you have proper lighting, proper seating, the proper equipment and know that people care about your program and appreciate what you do. Our slogan really does say it all, we really are The Pride of Yell County."
Hooten and Thompson both said that the entire school district continues to grow because the community cares about all aspects of the school — academics, sports and art education.
"Any successful band program is built on a community concept," Hooten said of the community support. "It takes support from the administration, to the teachers and band directors, parents and students and the community. We are blessed to live in a community that cares."


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The NCAA March Madness tournament comes to a close on Monday, so now's the perfect time to check the standings of the FC Dallas Bracket Challenge and see who's got the best shot at winning our awesome prizes. The Final Four will play on Saturday and the championship game will take place on Monday night, so we'll be contacting and announcing our top three winners on Tuesday.
Overall top 10:
1) Thorsr's Bracket (80 points)
2) Jesse's Nice Bracket (78 points)
3) Big C's Bracket (77 points)
3) Shelby's Genius Bracket (77 points)
3) Thorjr3 (77 points)
6) Phil's Third (76 points)
6) Anthony's Agreeable Bracket (76 points)
6) Lloyd's Majestic Bracket (76 points)
9) Mario Valadez's Cool Bracket (74 points)
9) Full Court Press (74 points)
As you can see, it's a tight race at the moment, so be sure to check in on your bracket after the next round to see if you have a shot at one of our great prizes. We'll leave you with the rankings of each of the FC Dallas players who joined our Bracket Challenge. Take a look at where they landed among our 283 entries:
43) Jonathan Top's 2013 Bracket (66 points)
99) Zach Loyd's 2013 Bracket (61 points)
142) Chris Seitz's 2013 Bracket (56 points)
169) Bradlee Baladez's 2013 Bracket (53 points)
169) Walker Zimmerman's 2013 Bracket (53 points)
174) Kyle Zobeck's 2013 Bracket (52 points)
233) Bobby Warshaw's 2013 Bracket (43 points)
242) George John's 2013 Bracket (41 points)


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Here is a video of the new oven design.If there is a feature I didn't include that you think I should add let me know.Scorched Earth Pizza Oven [Revision A]
20 inch deck
Real nice Adam....your player would only show me the vid once though so I wasn't paying enough attention on the only single view I got. Anyway, is there a stone on the ceiling?Bob
I notice the ceiling slop is a little different on the current prototype. Did the other one also channel top heat down to the 2 elongated dump openings directly above the pizza?Bob
This is actually a very good suggestion that should be considered. You have a very interesting product, but unfortunately Blackstone is a bit ahead of you so now you need to set yourself apart from them. A 20" deck would be an amazing feature for many people.
Sorry Adam, I just assumed you were designing to sell based on the professionalism of this thread. I am impressed with your initiative and progress, can't wait to see some pies made with the new design.
Adam, that looks fantastic. My favorite feature is the adjustable location of the burner.
Good for you Adam. Love the modeling and innovation.I did some water/steam experiments in a pizza oven years ago (search if interested), and the results on pizza were underwhelming. Steam use in bread baking is common, and I was hoping that applying steam to the rim of pizza would result in expansion bigger than a garden hose. It didn't work for me on pizza.Dave
The adjustable burner concept is creative, but why not simply use two burners that you could adjust independently to maximize the heat balance with a minimum of effort? It also might make sense to have a low pressure burner under the deck and a high pressure burner in the back?
With the current design, will you have to slide the burner back and forth when baking bread? Is it going to be a problem when you boil out all the water?Can you not bake bread in your kitchen oven?
IMO the difference between baking bread and pizza outside is highly dependent on the efficiency of the oven. You're probably going to waste a lot of propane making bread due to pre-heat times & 30 minute+ bake times and an uninsulated oven. When I was making beer using a similar burner, I'd probably get 4-6 hours of total burn per tank of propane. Totally worth it for 2 cases of beer, but a few loaves of bread? Probably not. Pizza? For sure.
Adam, I do a fair amount of bread baking, and think you are wasting time and effort on the height adjustment and the steam. Turning to the steam, do a youtube video of the steam injection in a baking oven - you will see it is a serious amount of steam - and they inject it several times in a few minutes. I don't think your setup will in any way replicate that, and in fact it will mostly seep out of the oven since it is hardly sealed. Second, there is no real benefit to using that oven for pizza - from what I have read, you use the residual heat of a WFO to bake bread - since you have the residual heat anyway, why not. I made some bread in a BS just to see if I could, and the whole time I kept thinking it was an awful waste of gas. The main appeal of yours, and the BS, is a quick start up time, which means there is not much in the way of residual heat. Since it is gas fired, you can't really seal the oven off like you can in a electric oven. I would just focus on the pizza. Those that want steam for baking have a number of other options ( covered containers like DO, injecting steam in a pan, ice water in a pan of metal, etc ).
Thanks for the input all!The 5" of ceiling height adjustment it out of the design now. The adjustment bolts and front cover are removed now. I'll be able to trim up some length on the upper shroud which will save some steel weight.There are two things I'm still mulling over. The first is the appropriate distance for the burner to be below the baking stone. On my prototype the distance 6" and I have 6-1/8" in my new design. The prototype has a 1" corderite kiln shelf with direct flame to the underside of the stone. The new design will have the cheap 5/8" pizza stone found on Amazon (made in China?) with a 7 gauge (.1793") plate under the stone.The other question is, what an optimal height for the height of the ceiling to be above the stone is. The prototype is 3-3/8", my new design is at 3" adjustable up to 4-1/4".Any suggestions?


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The agreement aims to form a joint venture company to produce approximately 400 Evolution Series diesel engines a year to serve rail, marine, and stationary power customers in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region, comprised of nations formerly part of the Soviet Union.
GE Transportation President Lorenzo Simonelli said, "We are excited about the prospect of expanding our global manufacturing footprint and to supplying our leading Evolution Series diesel engines to customers in Russia, Kazakhstan, and other countries. We are looking forward to advancing sustainable infrastructure growth in the rail, marine and stationary power industries across the CIS region."
The joint venture partners plan to invest approximately $90 million to build a new, approximately 97,000 square feet facility in Astana, Kazakhstan. The new JV partnership intends to manufacture, sell, service, and provide spare parts for Evolution Series diesel engines. The plant is scheduled to be operational by the end of 2013 with the first diesel engines scheduled to roll off its assembly lines by early 2014, GE said.
KTZ's wholly owned subsidiary JSC Lokomotiv Kurastyru Zauyty (LKZ) already operates a 460,000 square-foot locomotive assembly facility in Astana, Kazakhstan's capital and second-largest city. The plant can assemble approximately 100 Evolution Series locomotives a year.
The Evolution Series diesel electric locomotive is equipped with a 12-cylinder diesel engine that GE says produces the same 4,400 horsepower as its 16-cylinder predecessor.
GE Transportation is a subsidiary of Fairfield, Conn.-based General Electric Co.