text:
What is the "reviversoft smart monitor service.exe" ? Variant 45600638
Our database contains 11 different files for filename reviversoft smart monitor service.exe but this page contains information about single file with specific attributes. If you want to see general information about the reviversoft smart monitor service.exe then visit General Information Page . You can also check most distributed file variants with name reviversoft smart monitor service.exe. This file belongs to product ReviverSoft Smart Monitor Service. This file has description ReviverSoft Smart Monitor Service. Agregate rating is 5(5) stars - based on 1 reviews.This is executable file. You can find it running in Task Manager as the process reviversoft smart monitor service.exe.
- Product:
- ReviverSoft Smart Monitor Service
- Company:
- (Empty Value)
- Description:
- ReviverSoft Smart Monitor Service
- Version:
- 184.108.40.206
- 45ddb8938e00132cb78a4f639cc00597
- 981acfbbb70b7eb509b3a4dd03380dd2d78ef6e7
- ac85e2b1267d0989023ea783f52ec916f0916a2883082e82bf62c6653b36204e
- Size:
- 495872
- Directory:
- %PROGFILES64%\ReviverSoft\Smart Monitor
- Operating System:
- Windows 10
- Occurence:
- Low
- Digital Signature:
- Corel Corporation
System Explorer Community Antivirus Report
|Antivirus Name
|Latest Toleration
|Avast Antivirus
|360 Total Security
|Windows Defender
|G Data AntiVirus
Is the Process "reviversoft smart monitor service.exe" Safe or Threat ?
User Reviews of the "reviversoft smart monitor service.exe"
SAFErating from user Mindconnect2020 (Variant: 45600638)
Belongs to ReviverSoft's Driver Reviver (latest V.: 126.96.36.199)


text:
The climb out of New Quay in Ceredigion on the Wales Coast Path is short and very steep, but worth the effort, for the views over Cardigan Bay, the choughs and fulmars and bottlenose dolphins.
Back in town, I make for the Black Lion, a 19th-century inn with views out to sea. It looks austere and a bit nonconformist. In April 2013, it reopened as a nine-room hotel. The refurb is very evident. There's a smell of "new" when I come into reception but the decor is plain, pared down, and everything looks sturdy, solid and functional.
My room, one of five with sea views, has high ceilings and sash windows on three sides, with plenty of west Wales light pouring in, even on a drizzly autumn day. Cream, beige, brown and olive linens make the room feel vaguely autumnal too, and an original oil entitled Welsh Winter completes the effect. The bathroom is big and warm, with Cole & Lewis soaps but, sadly, no bath; walkers in need of a restorative soak may want to ask for one of four rooms with a tub.
Owners Llinos and Mike Young are away and their young stand-ins, Sam Knight and Cara Cook, are super-efficient and chatty. But they appear to know little about Dylan Thomas, who lived nearby in a bungalow called Majoda (his "shack at the end of the cliff") in 1944-5 and was a regular at the inn.
The town became popular with cyclists in the 1890s but by Thomas's era it was a bohemian redoubt – perfect for skint poets who liked a drink. Now New Quay draws walkers, nature lovers, foodies and watersports fans. The Black Lion pays discreet homage to Thomas's memory, with black-and-white photographs of him smoking, drinking, being the family man.
The food is posh pub grub, with daily hiker-friendly specials such as hunter's chicken, pasta and meatballs, and steak and Doom ale pie. I dine early on creamy chicken liver paté and fresh chutney. The Black Lion is a free house, with guest ales, including fruity Purple Moose from Porthmadog; I have one with my steak pie, plus a few beers from Mantle, a microbrewery that opened in nearby Cardigan in August.
An army officer tried to kill Thomas during his year in New Quay, possibly because of the poet's communist sympathies, more probably because he was sleeping with the soldier's wife. Nothing so exciting happened during my stay. The pub, like the town, was sleepy, and my own slumber was assisted by the sound of lapping waves.
But it feels new, fresh, hopeful. Sam tells me the Black Lion is fast becoming New Quay's local boozer – important in a town where half the houses are second homes. Next year is the centenary of Dylan Thomas's birth (dt100.info). The pub is firmly on the pilgrim trail. It just needs a few books, some poetry readings, and a bit of the poet's spirit – hair down, glasses full, the possibility of chaos – to be a great inn.
• Accommodation was provided by the Black Lion Inn

subset: commoncrawl


text:
For all the political correct ones: Hitler again - the band of course. As I told you a short lived side project with Ambush members in the footsteps of bluegrass, old delta blues and even some neo folk. They took themselves and what others were thinking not too serious and I still prefer this version to the shady grey area of neo folk and its listeners who try to hide their bad education and absence of a sex life behind Nietzsche and Marinetti quotes.
The cover is a winner. For sure.
HITLER - the best day in her life (7") Rex Rotari #03 1996
side a:
1. on the farm
2. just for some month
side b:
1. abraxas
2. maroc & scary childrenbooks
[OGG Vorbis, 256k, password: antithesis]


text:
Status: Closed
Know more about this business than we do? Cool! Please submit any corrections or missing details you may have.Help us make it right
Be the first AL.com user to add photos or videos of Osaka Restaurant
Osaka Restaurant can be found at S Cox Creek Pky 171. The following is offered: Restaurants. The entry is present with us since Sep 9, 2010 and was last updated on Nov 14, 2013. In Sheffield there are 7 other Restaurants. An overview can be found here.


text:
Cube 2: Hypercube (2002)
22 pictures
Directed by: Andrzej Sekula
Starring: Geraint Wyn Davies, Grace Lynn Kung, Kari Matchett, Matthew Ferguson
More mistake pictures from Cube 2: Hypercube
Picture added by Hamster
To submit a picture, just click the edit icon under the relevant entry, then choose 'add a picture'. Thanks!
All images remain the copyright of their original owners - these low resolution images are simply individual frames used to demonstrate the entry.
Join the mailing list
Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.


text:
Well, I think I can finally say that we are totally and completely into the fall season. At least if you look at my photos and can see just how dim 6:00 pm looks. It's always a sad time when the daylight fades away into shorter and shorter days. I know I'll need to find better times to take outfit photos come November when they cancel Day Light Savings Time. I'm not looking forward to that at all.
And now to other news!!! I am in love!!! In love with this crazy pretty dress!!! I got an email about the Last Hurrah Sale that Modcloth was doing and I immidiatley started browsing around trying to find something that would be cute for the coming cooler months. Although this dress is short sleeved and mini, I figured I'd be able to layer on the warmth. Plus I couldn't get enough of this Torkelson collar action. Please tell me you've seen that show The Torkelsons so you can get the reference!!!
I used some 90s influence to accessorize my outfit by adding some knee length socks, some weird thrifted oxfords, and then the crocheted beret! I love the way it turned out. It always makes me happy when I throw something on and it brings me back to my youth. I totally would've worn this same outfit in 1996.
Dress, Modcloth
Socks. Target
Vintage Oxfords, Thrifted
Vintage Beret, Gift
Ralph Lauren Belt, Thrifted


text:
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Art Galleries and Artists of the South
I am Southern, but now I live in New England ... and I kind of like it! So ... I guess I can't label myself as either. But I am honored to be featured in the Art Galleries and Artists of the South Magazine!
Not only is it fun being a featured Designer ... it has opened my eyes up to even more Art Galleries ... you all know how I feel about art. And, boy, does this magazine offer access to any kind you imagine.
Thank you so much Art Galleries and Artists of the South!! Please take a look and enjoy all the beautiful images!
1 comment:
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
Friday, December 21, 2007
Game #35 - vs New York Islanders
The Pens are coming off of a road win in Boston where they were fortunate to escape with two points. The Islanders have been anything but fortunate lately.
The Isles' high water mark for the season was when they beat Ottawa on 11-28 to go to 13-8-1. Since that time, they're 2-7-1. They're still struggling to put pucks in the net. They haven't notched more than two power play goals in a game since October. They've allowed 34+ shots in five of their past six games.
All of this goes to say that the Pens should win this game. They need to win this game. They have to get some victories within the Atlantic division.
The next 7 games are critical for the Pens. They play six at home (the one that's not is the New Years Day game against the Sabres) against some weaker competition (including Washington and Florida). Time to earn some points!
Let's Go Pens!
1 comment:
Dear Mr,
I'm an intern with startup widget 1000 and I created a news widget for New York Islanders News.
It's updated every hour with New York Islanders headlines from several different sports websites like ESPN, FOX Yahoo,etc. (Take a look: http://www.widget1000.com/)
Can we add New York Islanders blog to the widget,too? That means that every time you post to your blog the headline of the post will show up on the widget and link directly to your post.
Anyone who puts this widget on their start page or on their website will see your New York Islanders posts too. It's a powerful and free way to publicize your site.
Finally, would you add your New York Islanders News Widget to your site so that others can see it?
Everyone who grabs the widget will automatically link to you so it's great for your search engine rankings. Plus, it shows a lot of stories about New York Islanders and since it's updated every hour it is fresh and will make your site even more appealing than it already is.
What do you think?
Go New York Islanders
Anthony Bremond


text:
Going by my liturgical calendar, I wish you all a happy Feast of Mary Magdalene, my Lady patroness, companion and inspiration; companion to Jesus who never fled, first witness to the resurrection and Apostle to the Apostles.
There are many myths attributed to my Lady Magdalene and many speculations about who she was, yet the constant about her is her record of consistency following her becoming a disciple of Jesus and the one person recorded by all the gospels as being witness to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. She never faltered. Some take her last name to mean she was from Magdala, which may be true, but in Aramaic, it is true the magdalene means "the tower", which fits her, as when all the male disciples abandoned Jesus in his hours of tribulation, she remained the tower of faithful love for Jesus through the crucifixion and resurrection.
"St Mary Magdalene, you came with springing tears to the spring of mercy, Christ; from him your burning thirst was abundantly refreshed through him your sins were forgiven; by him your bitter sorrow was consoled. My dearest lady, well you know by your own life how a sinful soul can be reconciled with its creator, what counsel a soul in misery needs, what medicine will restore the sick to health. It is enough for us to understand, dear friend of God, to whom were many sins forgiven, because she loved much." --- From a prayer for Mary Magdalene by St. Anselm
The photo is of a beautiful icon of Mary Magdalene written by my friend Sr. Ellen Francis of the Order of Saint Helena. Mary's face is exquisite, full of beauty, sorrow and compassionate love.
Blessings on my Lady's feast!
Peace, Br. John Magdalene


text:
I doubt the two rabbis Nechemya Weberman and Chaim Halpern know each other – or even about each other. But they have both been accused of similar types of sex abuse by their victims.
Weberman is now undergoing a trial. He stands accused of sexually abusing a young woman starting when she was 12 years of age numerous times over a period of 4 years while counseling her as an at risk child. This unlicensed therapist was the go to guy in Williamsburg to the exclusion of anyone else – licensed or otherwise. Others have since come forward and made similar accusations.
Halpern is not undergoing any trials – yet. British officials are investigating his case to see if any law were broken. In both cases the accused sex offenders are being strongly defended by their communities.
Weberman's Satmar community has held fundraisers and done other things - legal and otherwise - to save this man from the fate he deserves. They considered what is happening to him a 'blood libel' or the like. He retains the image he created as a pious Rav, well liked, caring towards the wayward young, and actively working for their benefit.
What is still troubling about this case is the complete silence of the right about Weberman. To the best of my knowledge there is not a single prominent Rav supporting the victim. It is as if they don't care about what is going on here. There is complete silence. Such silence can easily be interpreted as supporting Weberman! I'm pretty sure that all of his defenders see it that way.
Should he get acquitted of charges for reasons of reasonable doubt (he said- she said cases often end up that way) this man will no doubt resume his duties as an unlicensed counselor. One where all young women at risk will only be able to see him for guidance and therapy. I shudder to think how many other victims will be affected by his sexual appetite. Lest anyone think this will not happen… that they will no longer allow him to do any therapy remember that they think he is completely innocent and that his accuser at trial is a vindictive Charedi hater who went OTD and is out to do the community harm.
Contrast that with how the British Jewish community is handling Rabbi Chaim Halpern. He has not been arrested. He may not even be charged with a crime. And yet these rabbis know a disgusting sexual predator when they see one. 30 women have come forward with all manner of accusations about his sexual advances, molestation, and abuse he had with them while he was counseling them.
They have taken action to relieve this man of his involvement with the Jewish community. There is no "What if he's not convicted?" It doesn't matter to these good Rabbis. They want him out! They do not want him to have any position of power. Anywhere! Not even in his own Shul… where members stand in complete disbelief and continue to support him. From an article in the Times of Israel by Miriam Shaviv:
Two weeks ago, Halpern, who is considered one of the top Haredi rabbis in London, resigned from his role as a religious judge in Kedassia, the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. He also ended his relationship with Beis Yaacov Primary School, the Hatzolah emergency medical service and Chana, an infertility charity where he was a religious adviser.
He has been accused by about 30 women of "inappropriate" contact. Earlier this month, six rabbis and religious judges gave him a choice between withdrawing from his positions or facing a public statement against him. They could not remove him, however, from his synagogue, Beis Hamedrash Divrei Chaim in the neighborhood of Golders Green, which is run from a building he owns.
The exact nature of the accusations has not been publicly revealed.
'Because he is still rabbi of his community, he is still operating at full speed'
According to Lichtenstein, the rabbis originally assumed that Halpern's community would abandon him once it was clear he had lost his colleagues' support. But last Shabbat, his synagogue was full.
The level of community support for Halpern "took them by surprise," he said.
About 30 rabbis attended a post-Shabbat meeting on Nov. 24 in which those familiar with the alleged evidence against Halpern revealed what they knew.
"For the first time, most rabbonim heard the details and were shocked," said Lichtenstein. "There was unanimous approval of a condemnation."Imagine if there were a unanimous approval by of condemnation of Weberman by 30 prominent in America Rabbis. That did not happen – and is not happening. Instead there is unmitigated support by his community while other rabbis stand by in silence.
All we hear are voices saying that all this Lashon Hara or Motzie Shem Ra which go uncontested by anyone of rabbinic stature!
What a difference. Where are the voices of reason here? Why is there only one heroic rabbi, Yakov Horowitz, at the trial supporting the victim? Where are the members of the Moetzes? Why aren't they saying anything? Any of them? Where are the Roshei Yeshiva? Any of them? Where is that small still voice in good people that speaks to the heart and tells it to do the right thing? And not let evil stand uncontested!


text:
A single line sketch applied directly onto a stretched canvas using acrylic paint. This is a just 10% completion and is at the very beginning stage. The commencemnt of this artworks started on 15th September 2010.
" Colors represent statement of life, harmony, survival and hope. My strong and bold colors form a scientific approach of healing minds and eyes color therapy. It also unwinds and exhilarates the mood of the viewers. Abstract Expressionism is a form of expressing inner feelings where I am not bound by formalities such as following and adhering to the rules and guidelines of shape and form as well as colors used." - Azlan Adam


text:
that first day
I grew up pretty-much by myself, alone on a plot[1] on the outskirts of a conservative little mining town in South Africa, with just my mom and my ouma[2] and a few doggies for company. Dad was home for a bit in the evening before I went to bed and was there most weekends, and we'd occasionally visit my gran or relatives, or my cousin Martin would visit, but my world was pretty small really.
I didn't mind though. My mom read to me on an almost daily basis, so I loved books, loved the stories they contained and the things they could teach. With mom's help I had taught myself to read when I was like 3 or 4, doing my best at the Bobby the Cat comics that came in the Personality Magazine each week. I had plenty of books, so I always had something to read, and when I wasn't in the mood for that, I had all my stuffed animals to keep me company, or I'd play with my Lego.
As I grew older, my mom started talking about school, and how I'd soon have to go there to learn things. I was more than a little dubious about this whole concept, but she soon had me convinced as she kept telling me about how many books there were in the school, about all the children I'd meet, and as we got closer to the day, I actually couldn't wait. So the year after I turned 5, my mom packed me into the car one day, and off we went to my first day of school.
Of course, reality quickly started disabusing me of my excitement. There were so many people! So many children and moms and a few dads and … Suddenly things seemed a lot less … cool. I was overwhelmed, and this growing sense of disquiet started creeping up on me. I couldn't put my finger on what, but something just wasn't right here.
We went and found a pair of chairs in the school hall. Each seat had a little red book on it, but for once I was too nervous to look what was inside, so I just sat with it on my lap. I looked around at all the other parents and kids sitting in nervous pairs along the walls and I just wanted to burst into tears.
Luckily I was seated next to a girl called Sara, and after having our moms introduce us to one another, we started a hesitent little conversation that soon blossomed into friendship. I don't really remember what we talked about, but as we chatted my fear ebbed just a little and I relaxed.
A loud bell silenced us abruptly, and a few minutes later other children, older and obviously used to all the strangeness, filed in and went and sat down in something approaching neat rows in the center of the hall, a sea of purple and grey. At the front of the hall, a handful of grown-ups, the ones my mom said were teachers, took seats on the stage, and a tall, grampa-looking old man took what I later learned was called a podium.
He started by introducing himself as Meneer[3] Viljoen, the principal, and welcomed all the dads and moms and new students.(Hey that's me! ^_^) He said a few other things I can't remember, and then he told us all to stand up. An older lady went and sat by the piano on stage, and everybody sang the national anthem, followed directly by the school anthem. I didn't know the words, so I just stood nervously, feeling silly and really dumb. I glanced over at Sara and could see she was feeling just about the same as me, which made me feel just a little bit better.
Just as we were about to sit back down, Meneer Viljoen asked us to remain standing and open our little red books. The piano lady started again, and soon we were singing a song to Jesus … or rather, again, everybody else was – my Afrikaans reading wasn't anywhere near as good as my English. Very, very dumb.
After all the singing, we could finally sit down again, and Meneer Viljoen talked for a long time. He talked about sports and about learning and about making friends and stuff, but mostly it just washed over me as I looked at all the kids sitting on the floor in their grey shirts and pants or their purple dresses …
And it occurred to me that I was dressed like a boy. My hair was short like the boys' hair – my mom had cut it to my considerably protest the week before, assuring me that it was necessary for school. I sat there in my grey uniform, my short hair, my laced up shoes … and I looked like a boy. I didn't understand how the grown-ups could've made such a big mistake, and I couldn't say anything because the Meneer was still talking, and something just told me not to say and I just didn't know what to do.
The older kids left first along with the teachers, and finally we filed out ourselves. I was on the verge of tears by now, and then my mom said that she would have to leave, but that she would be back soon, and that I had to be a good boy in school for her. I don't know if she'd ever used that word "boy" on me before, but that day I heard it for the first time, and it fell on me like a planet. I just burst into tears, grabbing onto her and begging her not to leave me, that this was all a terrible mistake. A teacher came up from behind, and as she tried to calm me she hunkered down and turned me around to face her. She really was nice, but I didn't want to hear any of it, and as she talked about how I needed to be a big boy now, my heart broke. I turned around for my mom but she was gone.
Pretty-much the rest of that day is a blank. I don't remember any of it, and to be honest, most of my primary school memories are tiny, individual snatches here and there. But that first day …
1. Afrikaans for a smallholding, typically a parcel of land anything from 5 to 20 acres. My dad didn't farm it, but rented out bits of the land for neighbouring farmers to work, and we had a small forest at the bottom of the property that I used to love as I grew older.
2. Afrikaans word for "gran". Both my oumas were actually Afrikaans, but my dad's side of the family was mostly English, while my mom had grown up English-speaking, so I grew up speaking both. Too bad I didn't learn Hindi or Mandarin back then too. ^_^
3. The afrikaans version of "Mister". It's quite unusual for Afrikaans speaking people to actually use Meneer all that often, at least where I was from. Kids refer to older males as "Oom" (Uncle in Afrikaans), and adults simply refer to one another by name. Using Meneer usually indicates a really big difference in status.


text:
Effective Dentist – Advanced Technology – Caring Dentist
Align Dentistry Bankstown offers excellence in Dental and Orthodontic treatments and surgeries.
At 'Align Dentistry' Bankstown, we are a Dental practice with years of experience in adult, teenager and Kids Dentist in Bankstown. Our practice is one that is filled with professional yet friendly and caring staff members and 'Dentist' and a facility that is state of the art. We service customers coming to us from Bankstown area.
We provide our patients with:
- General Dentist
- Children's Dentist
- Cosmetic Dentist
- Damon, Invisalign & Lingual Braces
- Orthodontic Services
- Wisdom Teeth Extractions
- Root Canal Therapy
- Tongue Tie Treatment
Our Dental solutions are effective and designed to achieve to maintain healthy teeth and gums for a lifetime.
The Align Dentistry Difference
Align Dentistry Bankstown consists of a staff that is passionate about what they do. In our Dentist, Dental technicians, lab specialists, and receptionists make the difference in a Dentist visit. Our state of the art facility and advanced Dentist combined with years of experience and gentle Dentist make the difference in the care our patients receive. We offer adult, teenager and Kids Dentist that results in a beautiful smile designed to last a lifetime.
We believe in providing our customers with gentle payments plans, as well, so they can receive the Dental work they require now, and not have the strain of a lump sum payment. Our services include:
Orthodontic Treatments
Adult and children Orthodontic treatments and procedures need to be effective. At Align Dentistry, we achieve excellent results with both clear and metal braces. Our Orthodontic Dentist assess patients to determine the most effective solutions in braces.
At Align Dentistry, our children and adult Orthodontic Treatments offer effective results that guarantee a straight smile. We offer clear braces and state of the art metal braces that include different colours that let you show your personality and enthusiasm during your treatment. Our clear braces include Invisalign and Lingual braces.
General Dentist
Adult, teenagers and children are offered caring Dentist. Our friendly Dentist and staff ensure that each visit is comfortable and that our patients receive the best care for effective results. Our General Dentist includes:
- Restorative Dentist
- Cosmetic Dentist
- Endodontics
- Periodontics
- Extractions
- Preventative Dentist
- Regular Dental Visits
Regular Dental visits are important. Within a short time frame teeth and gums can become infected. Left untreated, tooth decay, gum disease and tooth loss can occur. Align Dentistry recommends that regular six-month interval appointments be scheduled. Our Dentist examine your teeth, gums and mouth, and our gentle Dental technicians clean and polish your teeth and gums.
Kids Dentist in Bankstown
Align Dentistry Pediatric Dentist Bankstown are gentle and experienced in Kids Dentist. We believe in a caring approach that includes your child's first Dental visit as young as their first tooth being cut, and no later than their first birthday. Early Kids Dentist offers many advantages, including reducing the fear of the Dentist, and early detection of any possible Dental problems.
Cosmetic Dentist
Align Dentistry offers Cosmetic Dentist that includes: Metal braces
- Invisalign
- Lingual Braces
- Metal Braces with colours
When a straight smile is important, Align Dentistry Dentist offer state of the art approaches that achieve the best results.
Regular Dental visits are important. To speak with an Align Dentistry receptionist please contact us at the number below. We are available to answer any questions or address any concerns, as well as to schedule a Dental appointment. We specialise in adult, teenager and Kids Dentist. We can also be reached through our "Enquire Now" form that is located here on our web page.
We are the passionate Dental group that achieves results. Call us at (02) 9723 5757


text:
Something exciting happened yesterday.
And it wasn't this…although this is exciting.
Although having a sweater almost completed (and it will be completed in the next hour or so) is pretty dang exciting.
It's also not the fact that I finished my last exams yesterday-although that is also exciting.
Nope…it's this:
Last night, my older brother graduated from college after seven years. The above (slightly distant) photo is from the College of Education Convocation. While he likes to quote Tommy Boy and say "Lots of people spend seven years in college….yeah, they're called doctors."
But to be serious, there is a good reason why it has taken him seven years (and two universities) to graduate. And it is a story of openness to God and faithfulness to his people. But it is his story to tell, not mine. All I can say is that I am incredibly proud of him.
And I'm looking forward to sharing this celebration with our parents on Saturday at general graduation.
But for now, I'm incredibly proud of him.


text:
John Malone's Liberty Media is drawing on its large cash reserves to lighten its debt load through a complicated series of related moves.
The media conglom is spending $197.3 million to exit a credit swap deal that threatened to trigger certain debt covenants due to ongoing market turbulence. In its place will be a new swap agreement at a lower level of $150 million.
"We are efficiently reducing financial risk and increasing transparency to give investors greater certainty," chief exec Greg Maffei said.
Liberty also said it would move $551 million of Viacom exchangeable debt and $380 million in cash from the balance sheet of Liberty Entertainment to its sibling, Liberty Interactive. That step is a crucial one for any potential split-off of Liberty Entertainment, the parent company of Starz and other key holdings.
Liberty Interactive will be able to use about $300 million of the cash to back a tender offer for the outstanding portion of Liberty Media's senior debt.


text:
Friday, October 30, 2009
European Noodles
A couple weeks later I received an email from the team leader for the Thailand build, saying my application had been accepted. My response was one more of fear than excitement, I really wasn't expecting to get on the team, and although I'm sure Thailand is beautiful its not at the top of my list of places to visit. I contacted the team leader with questions about the trip, and she seemed, well, less than enthusiastic. It wasn't helping me to overcome my apprehension, and certainly didn't inspire me to travel halfway across the globe. I politely declined the invitation, choosing instead to do some research on the Habitat website to see if there was perhaps a build project that I would feel more comfortable with.
I researched carefully, and applied for projects in Romania, Portugal and New Zealand. Romania holds sway in the primitive part of my brain as I have some Romanian ancestry; Portugal seemed fairly unintimidating - its right next to Spain after all; and New Zealand was a ringer, I probably wouldn't go simply because of the prohibitive cost of flying there, but I'm a huge fan of Flight of the Conchords and a friend of mine traveled there recently and saw Bret McKenzie in a theater. She even took a picture of the back of his head for me. I'm more of a Jemaniac than a Bret Girl, but still, that's pretty sweet!
To my surprise, my application was accepted for trips to all three countries, who knew it was that easy? I politely declined New Zealand because of travel costs, and began to weigh the pros and cons of Romania vs. Portugal. I spoke to the team leaders to get a feel for how it might be to spend an extended period of time under their direction, and while both trips sounded like fantastic opportunities, I finally settled on Portugal. A high school friend of mine lives in Barcelona, so I worked in a trip to visit her before the project, and my dad lives in Switzerland, so we made arrangements to meet in the south of France at the beginning of my trip.
All this was months ago, and it seemed like a project that lay far in the distant future. Meanwhile I continued applying for regular paying jobs while keeping myself busy with volunteer work and writing for Gapers Block.
Amazingly, the day has arrived that I must begin this journey. My flight to Marseille leaves later today out of O'Hare airport, and I'm apprehensive, excited and nervous all at once. I've never traveled this far by myself, but I know it will be a great experience no matter what happens. I managed not to spend any of my severance pay from when I was laid off in May, so I was able to pay for the trip without going broke, and since travel is always a question of having enough time and money - and I rarely have both, I feel like this is a rare opportunity that I should take advantage of while I still can. Someday I'll be sitting behind a desk wishing I'd taken advantage of all this free time, kicking myself for not doing something a little bit crazy, like travel to Europe for two and a half weeks even though I have no job.
I'm leaving the laptop at home, I want to travel light and the fewer things of value that I bring with me the less I have to worry about once I'm there. I'm not sure how much Internet access I'll have, so I'll post as I can but there's a chance that I won't have any big stories until I return in mid-November.
So, Happy Halloween to all of you - or as they say in France, Appee Alloween. There's no hard "H" sound in their language, silly French people.
A bientot!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Me On The Radio
Chicago Moth Recap
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
"Firsts" story for the Moth StorySLAM
It was a good story too, but that's allright - next month's theme is "Blunders," and I'm sure I can think of something worth telling.
Here's the story I came prepared to tell:
The first time I had a UTI - that's Urinary Tract Infection for those of you not in the know, I didn't know the warning signs until it was way too late. I felt a strange pressure when I peed, and I couldn't figure out what it was. I had just started dating the man who would later - much later, become my husband, and we were just getting comfortable with each other.
I lived in a roach-infested apartment in Uptown with a roommate who spent her days smoking pot in the living room and watching TV with the volume cranked up, and I spent my days working one horrible temp job after the next, trying to make enough to cover rent and groceries.
So I was temping, I was in the beginning stages of a really tenuous relationship with a man who had just gone through a very bad breakup, and when I sat down and peed I felt a strange pressure. I'm not sure exactly how to describe it - it was like someone was touching a finger to my urethra while I was urinating, it was something I'd never felt before. It didn't feel alarming, it just made me think: "huh, that's different."
My sister called me from Boston, and during the course of our conversation I happened to mention the strange sensation I felt when I peed. A UTI veteran, she told me to go to the closest health food store and buy a bottle of Lakewood 100% cranberry juice - not cranberry juice cocktail, but 100% cranberry juice. No added water, no sugar, tart enough to turn my mouth inside out and sour enough to give me a stomach ache. She said that should help. We continued talking and I described the strange pressure I felt on urinating, and she said "oh girl, if you're feeling pressure when you pee, it's too late for cranberry juice. You get off the phone and you go to the doctor. Now!"
I was taken aback by the tone in her voice, it was one she reserved for delivering really, really bad news, like when someone died or something valuable caught on fire. I was scared. Really scared. The next time I peed it felt like someone was stabbing me in the urethra with a barbecue skewer, and when I looked into the toilet bowl it wasn't yellow - it was red.
I considered my options: the closest emergency room was a block away, but I couldn't walk a block, it hurt too much. Everything hurt too much, there wasn't a position I could stand, sit or lie down in that didn't hurt. I needed someone to drive me. My roommate had a car but she was stoned, and didn't seem terribly alarmed by my situation. The only other person I knew who had a car was the guy I had just started seeing. I calmed down as much as I could before dialing his number. I don't think he even said "hello" before I burst in with "I'm bleeding, I have to get to a doctor, NOW!"
"Where are you bleeding from?" he asked. I hesitated, we had only been seeing each other for a couple weeks, this was way too intimate a conversation to be having but I couldn't think of a pretty way to say it. "When I pee," I blurted, "blood comes out when I pee!"
We drove the block between my apartment and Thorek hospital, I walked to receptionist and said "I think I have a urinary tract infection, when I pee blood comes out!" She told me to take a seat and fill out some paperwork. I remained standing, not that it helped.
At the time I was a heavy watcher of the NBC series ER, and I imagined that I'd be waiting for hours as people with shotgun and stab wounds were wheeled in on stretchers, surrounded by fast talking medics, maybe Dr. John Carter himself would be pumping furiously on their chests in an effort to save their lives, but the reality was much different - I was the only one in the ER that night. The biggest emergency that night was that blood was coming out of me when I peed.
I was seen by a doctor, and had to produce a sample. I never truly appreciated just what a wonderful thing it is to urinate without pain, what a wonderful, magical thing it is to pull down my pants, sit on a toilet, and let the urine flow while my mind wanders until that simple act of voiding made me do the silent scream - have you ever done the silent scream? I sat on the ER toilet with a plastic cup between my legs, eyes squinched closed and mouth wide open, silently screaming as a tiny river of red daggers came out of my pee-hole.
This was not how I'd imagined things would progress with my new boyfriend.
The doctor examined my red urine, and wrote a prescription. My boyfriend - I mean, the guy I was seeing, drove me to a 24 hour pharmacy to get the prescription filled, and took me back home. Back in the apartment my roommate was watching loud TV, and barely acknowledged my presence when I returned. She kept the TV on all night, turning it off somewhere around 6 am. At 6:30 my alarm went off. I had a temp job to get to, and I needed the money more than I needed the sleep. I took a shower, clothed myself, and still in a haze made my way to an office building near Union Station. I looked like hell, but nobody seemed to notice. It was a fairly quiet day, and I passed the time drinking huge quantities of water and visiting the ladies room, where I slammed the sides of the stall with my hands and silently screamed every single time I had to pee.
After an eternity of watching the clock, 5pm blessedly arrived. I made the trek back to my apartment, opened the door, and found my roommate on the couch watching loud TV next to the guy I was seeing. I barely said a word to either of them, closing myself into my bedroom and curling up onto the twin futon mattress that I slept on. I heard a knock on the door; it was the guy I was seeing. He took his shoes off and climbed under the sheets next to me, and stayed there with me until I fell asleep.
Now if you'll excuse me, I think I have to pee.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
The Butt Pumpkin - A Very Special Buttered Noodles
In September of 2002 we bought a two-flat on the northwest side of Chicago with another couple; we moved into the first floor unit and they moved into the second. At the time I worked as an executive coordinator at a company that sold advertising air time to cable television stations, and it was as soulless as it was demeaning. I worked for a bully of a boss who enjoyed throwing his weight around and making people feel uncomfortable, but it had seemed like a good job at first, mostly because of the nearly $10K increase in pay over my previous job. I'd managed to stick with it for over two years, but after about six months I'd learned all I could and had no interest in moving up in the company. I grew bored, and began taking classes of all kinds to take my mind off of work: a yoga class at the Y; a magazine article writing class at a local college; and a ten-week intensive course on Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way. My boss noticed my lack of interest, but rather than encourage me to expand the scope of my work he began removing items from my plate. He was over six feet tall and easily 300 pounds, and from time to time he'd call me into his office, close the door, lean his fat red face inches from mine and ask things like "is there a problem?" No answer I gave was ever the right one, and he'd keep me captive until I was inevitably reduced to tears. The following day he'd tiptoe around me and greet me with false smiles and a saccharine platitudes, but I knew it was just a cycle that was bound to come around again.
I had been sending out resumes for months and would have stuck it out until I'd landed another job if it weren't for one incident in particular. It had to do with a presentation my boss needed for an upcoming business trip. I'd worked on it for weeks in collaboration with another executive, and there were several versions of it on my computer. Somehow the version I gave him turned out to have an older set of data from an earlier iteration, and when my boss caught the error he called me and my colleague into his corner office that overlooked Michigan Avenue, right across from the Tribune Tower. I watched his massive frame turn from the closed door and approach the table where I sat with my colleague, and steeled myself for the coming onslaught. He opened by telling us that the numbers in the presentation were wrong, and that if he hadn't looked it over he would have taken it onto a plane the next day with him and brought it into a conference room, only to discover that he had bad information in front of a client. He said some bosses would find this kind of thing to be grounds for termination, then stared directly into the eyes of my coworker and held his gaze, turned to me, and did the same. My colleague, a formidable human being and the only reason I could stand coming into work day after day, took the blame saying he had been supervising the project and should have caught the error. I don't remember exactly what I said, something generally apologetic, and when the moment seemed right my colleague and I stood from the table. "Not you," my boss said to me, "you stay here." I stared longingly at the back of my colleague's retreating figure, and lowered myself back into the chair I'd been sitting in. I knew what was coming next, and in that moment something inside me snapped. I'd simply had enough. I offered my resignation on the spot, and asked for six weeks notice instead of the usual two so that I could finish closing on the house and maybe even have a chance at finding a new job. I had to sign a humiliating document stating that I knew my performance was poor, and that if my attendance or performance were unacceptable at any time between now and the agreed upon termination date I would be asked to leave immediately. It was one of the lowest points of my working life.
We closed on the house in late September, but as exciting as it was to move in, I fell into a malaise. I foresaw a miserable fall and winter of working temp jobs until I could find steady work again, and worried about money. A couple weeks into our home-ownership M and I went grocery shopping, and came across a display of pumpkins outside a Jewel food store. This would be our first Halloween in our new home, and we were excited at the prospect of trick-or-treaters ringing our doorbell. In the apartment building we'd moved from there was really no point in buying Halloween candy, but this would be our first communal act with our new neighborhood, and we wanted to be prepared. Of the hundreds of pumpkins on display outside Jewel that night my eyes lit on one that had a cleft down the center, a long wispy tendril that looked like a piece of jute rope emerging from the middle of the cleft, and was shaped exactly like a butt. I laughed so hard that tears ran down my face, and M walked a few paces away so as not to be associated with me. That butt pumpkin gave me a bigger laugh than I'd had in months, and I had to have it. M tried to talk me out of it, we'd just moved into the neighborhood and he didn't want to put a butt pumpkin on the front porch when we hadn't even lived there a month, what would the neighbors think? I gasped and sputtered and wiped away my tears, all the time saying "butt pumpkin... butt... pumpkin," and then collapsed anew into a seizure of bent-over laughing and eye-dabbing. "Alright, pull yourself together," M finally said, "we'll do our grocery shopping and if you still want the butt pumpkin when we're finished we can buy it." M is the king of this kind of evasive maneuver, and I saw right through it. "We'll see" from M means the same as it did when my parents said it to me as a kid, and waiting until the grocery shopping is done was just an attempt to distract me.
I giggled the whole way through Jewel, recovering enough to check items off my list and push the cart up and down the aisles, but the butt pumpkin's high round cheeks kept making their way back into my mind's eye, causing me to burst into laughter at regular intervals. When our shopping was done, the butt pumpkin was still there and I still wanted it, but somehow M convinced me that we were already laden down with groceries and buying a giant gourd on top of all our purchases just wasn't in the cards. I giggled the whole way home, saying "butt pumpkin... heh heh... butt... pumpkin."
The next morning I woke to the buzzing of my alarm clock, and another day at my hated job. The worst part was leaving the house knowing I would spend the entire day in what was effectively a prison, serving out the final weeks of my sentence. At least I didn't have to sneak around about going on interviews; I simply told my boss where I was going and when I expected to be back. We were like a couple who had broken up but were still living together until the lease on the apartment was up. When I got back home I needed a good laugh, and I told M that we had to go back to Jewel and buy that butt pumpkin. We got in the car and drove to the store, but the butt pumpkin was gone.
In a stroke of amazing good luck I was offered a job with two and a half weeks to go on my sentence. It was for a job that I'd sent my resume to months before, and the interview process had been slow. I accepted immediately, and then gleefully called my boss who was out of town on business to let him know. Although he'd had several weeks to prepare for this eventuality, my boss didn't take my departure seriously until I had a job offer in hand. Suddenly he became frantic trying to find my replacement, and enlisted my help in interviewing the poor soul who would take my place. With three days to go before I left the company he gave the job to a woman who was unemployed and could start right away. I heard later that she had some of the same troubles I'd had, and about a year after I left my boss was let go from the company.
Ages have passed since that fateful October. Every year since I've searched in vain for a butt pumpkin, and every year I recite the tale of the ephemeral butt pumpkin from the Jewel parking lot, its powers growing larger and more magical in each retelling of the story, and every year M feels tremendously guilty for having denied me that one simple pleasure during such a dark chapter of my life. I don't mean to instill guilt in him, but thoughts of fall naturally turn to pumpkins, and thus to butt pumpkins.
I did manage to find a butt apple about a week ago at the farmers market, and I gave it to M to bring to work, where it caused quite a stir. People took pictures of it and uploaded them to their facebook accounts, and one of M's colleagues looked at it and said, quite casually, "I saw a pumpkin that looked like a butt on my way to work today." M demanded to know where this pumpkin had been spotted, and drove directly to the alleged location right after his shift was over. The pumpkin was prominently displayed and could be seen from the street. M made a beeline for the butt pumpkin and brought it to the cashier, who looked at M and said "we were wondering who was going to buy that one."
When I got home that night M said he had a present for me in the living room. I went into the room but didn't see anything unusual.
"Just sit down on the couch and watch TV," he said. I did as he said, but still didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
"Is it something on TV?" I asked.
"I can't believe you still haven't figured it out," he said. Finally I looked above the TV and saw it, and an involuntary sound escaped from me - a kind of half scream, half laugh. I clapped my hands over my mouth and stared at it in wonder.
"I got you to do a Pretty Woman yelp over a pumpkin!" M said triumphantly.
Now, at last, after all these years, I have my very own butt pumpkin. I have it prominently displayed in the window of our living room, where the whole neighborhood can see it, and it makes me smile every time I look at it.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
More Gapers Block
Graduation Week at The Old Town School of Folk Music
Last night was my final West African Dance class of the current session, and we had a recital onstage at the Old Town School of Folk Music. The school is housed in a grand building on Lincoln Avenue that was once a library and retains traces of its bookish past; above the stage is a WPA mural underscored by the words "enjoy toys, the world we live in, making airplanes, boats, books tell us of King Arthur, costume and pioneer days, building skyscrapers, electricity."
My fellow classmates and I - six of us in all, got on stage to the rhythm of live djembe drumming, and brought the house down. After spending eight weeks dancing in the studio classroom, it was gratifying to perform in front of an audience, and the group assembled at the Old Town School couldn't have been less judgmental - everyone in the auditorium had to get on stage at some point, making the atmosphere less American Idol and more like talent night at summer camp. We practiced our dance moves in the hallway as a group of musicians rehearsed Will The Circle Be Unbroken, it was a quintessential Old Town School moment.
The six of us stood across from each other on the stage, three on each side, and at the appropriate drumbeat - what our teacher calls "the break," we started moving towards each other in dance formation until we'd found our mark, faced the audience, and moved to the next step. Midway through the dance we formed a circle using dance steps and then moved back to our original spots, a maneuver that wowed the audience. I was standing up front at stage right, and could see the audience - mostly guitar students, with instruments in their laps or in cases sitting next to them. Our dance lasted all of three minutes, and we received a truly raucous round of applause and shouts for our efforts. It was fantastic. Three West African Dance classes performed in a row, ceaseless drumming spurring on one class after the next. After that came the Middle Eastern Belly Dancers in all their jangly, hip-centered self-confidence, the metal disks on their hip scarves bouncing in unison like a school of small, shiny fish.
Next came the guitar classes, who serenaded the audience with the following:
Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Were Made for Walkin';
Neil Young's Harvest Moon (which I sang along to);
Chris Hillman's My Baby's Gone;
The Eurythmics' Here Comes the Rain Again - which, if you've never heard played on acoustic guitar, is something else; and
Brandy Carlisle's Wish I Could Be There Tonight.
The guitar-heavy lineup was broken up by harmonica level one, and a class called "harmonica forever", who played Roll On Weary River and Bob Dylan's Beyond Here Lies Nothing, respectively. They had a backup band supporting them: a mandolin, two guitars, a standing bass and a tambourine, and I decided that if one instrument could follow me around in my daily life to provide a soundtrack to the most mundane of my everyday activities, it would be a standing bass; no other instrument underscores the moment in quite the same way.
Once the harmonica students moved off the stage there were more guitar classes, and picking up on the Dylan theme they started us off with You Ain't Goin' Nowhere, followed by America's Sister Golden Hair, and a song called Ophelia, (I'm not sure who wrote it). The evening closed with a rendition of Stone Temple Pilots Plush, which reminded me of an adage told onstage many Old Town School graduations ago - if you're looking for the definition of folk music, well... that depends on which folks you're talking about.
I sat in the audience and I watched it all; fingers squeaking along guitar strings as they moved from one note to the next, harmonica players hesitating before chord changes, and it reminded me of why I love this place. The first time I ever set foot in the Old Town School of Folk Music was before they moved into the Lincoln Avenue Location. I was visiting a friend who worked on Armitage, saw the Old Town School's music store, and walked in out of curiosity. A concert was about to begin, and the person manning the doors of the concert hall asked if I'd like to take a seat and listen for free; there were empty seats, and the musicians had come all the way from China to perform.
What I saw mesmerized me. The only Chinese music I'd heard up to that point in my life was played on the sound systems of cheap Chinese restaurants. This was different, it was beautiful and enchanting, and unlike anything I'd ever heard before. That's what I love the most about the Old Town School of Folk Music; whether it's a band from Uganda you've never heard of or a headliner that you bought the tickets to months in advance, you hear it in the intimacy of a 300 seat auditorium, and even if it's music you've heard a hundred times before, it becomes new to you.
When you become a student at the school, you become a part of a 50-plus year history of people who picked up an instrument, or decided to learn how to dance, or opened their mouths to sing, and allowed themselves to once again be beginners at something - perhaps for the first time in years. None of the people on stage last night were experts, and none of them were trying to be the best, they were just people who enjoyed learning a new instrument or a new dance and had a chance to get up on stage for three minutes and share it with a roomful of peers. Its one of the best things about Chicago, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
School Story for The Moth
It would be a shame to leave the as yet unperformed story in its dusty little corner of my computer, so I thought I'd publish it here even if I never manage to tell it on stage:
I almost didn't graduate from high school because I failed gym. I'll say that again - I almost didn't graduate from high school because I failed gym. Not calculus or AP French - no, gym.
I went to a tiny Quaker boarding school in Poughkeepsie, a town about 60 miles north of New York City that might qualify as a rust-belt city, but with none of the accompanying cache. A percentage of the student body was on the fast track to success, but it was widely known as a second chance school, and several of my classmates had repeated a year upon entering, or had been given the choice between boarding school or military school.
As boarding schools go, it was pretty lax. There were no uniforms, no football team - only soccer, and it was co-ed. We had dances, but no prom - that went against the Quaker aesthetic of not making people feel bad if they don't have a date - or whatever, I can't remember exactly which tenant of Quakerism is compromised by prom night.
The PE requirement was, to say the least, relaxed. While I'd spent two seasons on the cross country team - becoming a Hudson Valley Athletic League All Star, by the way. I even got a letter, but since the cross country team didn't have jackets I never sewed it to anything.
I was never a great student, I had trouble concentrating on anything that didn't interest me, and had perfected the art of self-sabotage to the point that every semester it seemed I might fail all my classes, but by some miracle of last minute studying I passed. By the spring of my senior year I had developed a serious case of what is sometimes referred to as senior-itis, and the most athletic endeavor I could bring myself to sign up for was Outdoor Club. Yes, we had something called Outdoor Club, and it counted as PE credit. A few times a week the Outdoor Club would load up in a van, drive to some out of the way, picturesque locale in the Hudson Valley, and go for a walk.
And I failed.
I was in my Outdoor Club coach's office, if that's even what his title was, I'm not sure. It was about two weeks before graduation. My family had made arrangements to rent a car and drive up from Brooklyn to watch me graduate under the shade of a 100 year-old oak tree in a ceremony that featured the puppeteer Kevin Clash - best known for bringing Sesame Street's Elmo to life. My coach and I were having what I thought was a friendly conversation. Jack was somewhere in his fifties, he was balding with a monk's fringe of gray hair on the sides of his head, he had a pot belly and all the menacing presence of Santa Claus.
"Well," Jack said, his eyes on an attendance sheet spread out among a pile of other papers on his desk, "it looks like you've missed four sessions of Outdoor Club." It was true, I had. That spring I'd met my first real boyfriend and together we cut class and idled the hours away. By the time I was accepted to college, most of my academics, including Outdoor Club, had fallen pretty low on my list of priorities. Who cared if I wasn't out walking with Jack and the rest of the club? I was so out of here, my life was just beginning, and what kind of a gym class was Outdoor Club anyway?
"Yeah," I said.
"You know the maximum number of absences is two," he said.
"Yeah," I said. As bad of a student as I was, I never made excuses for myself, I took whatever punishment came my way as a result of my bad habits. I spent hours in what was called "special study hall", where all the under-performing kids were sent. We sat together in the dining hall under the supervision of a teacher, who sat at a table grading papers. They didn't care what we did, as long as we didn't leave the room. I spent my time writing notes to my friend Cori. I never did a lick of homework in special study hall.
"Well I'm sorry," Jack said, "but I'm not going to be able to give you a passing grade."
Suddenly the future that I was no longer going to enjoy flashed before my eyes - college, career, family, success - and in its place came a new future, an unpleasant and dark future filled with menial, backbreaking jobs, cigarette smoke and a terrible soundtrack - songs like Irene Cara's What a Feeling.
"But Jack, I..." I stammered, and the rest became in incomprehensible blur of half-choked pleas and stammered explanations, "I... can't... not... graduate... I'm ... already accepted to college..." My tears were so forceful they practically shot out of my eyes like water from a lawn sprinkler, I couldn't see anything. All I knew was that my life was ruined, and that it was all my fault.
"Okay, okay," Jack said between my outbursts, "now let's just take it easy, just settle down." His tone was soothing, listening to Jack was like listening to a bedtime story. "If you go outside right now, and go for a nice long walk," he said, "I'll just erase two of these absences, all right?"
My tears stopped. Could this really be true? Could one walk really make the difference between working in a gas station or becoming a tenured college professor? Was this even ethical, could Jack really do this? I didn't care if it was or not. "Uh, okay," I said, and left Jack's office.
I went outside and walked like I had never walked before. I walked all the way around the school campus, up the hill past the auditorium and the gym, past the boys dorms and beyond to the other side of the hill, past the main building, the science buildings, the infirmary, the girls dorms and the dining hall until I was back in front of Jack's office. When I was done circling the campus I did it again for good measure. To this day I don't know if Jack was watching me.
Two weeks later I graduated under the shade of a 100 year-old oak tree with 65 other students, in a ceremony presided over by Elmo, and never told any of my classmates how close I came to not graduating.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Uncle Lloyd -or- How I Met The Funky Drummer
A couple weeks ago, M and I drove north to Madison to visit my aunt Mary and uncle Lloyd. My uncle had just started dialysis treatments, and we hadn't seen either of them in about six years so I figured a visit was overdue. I didn't know my uncles when I was growing up; my family lived in Switzerland when I was small, my uncles lived in Maine and Wisconsin, and neither of them ever visited us. The only childhood memory I have of either of them was the year my uncle Stuart sent us a huge package of American candy for the holidays. I was overwhelmed - while there was no shortage of chocolate where we lived, I had never seen such a cache of sugary bliss: candy corn, Tootsie Rolls, Razzles, Pop Rocks... it made quite an impression on me, and the irony that my uncle Stuart was a dentist never dawned on me. The night after my mother told me we'd be moving back to America I had a dream about all the candy that I would find upon our return; I wasn't disappointed.
Dad still lives in Switzerland, and he visits me from time to time. Not long after I moved to Chicago he visited me and we took an Amtrak train up to Milwaukee - halfway between Chicago and Madison, to meet Lloyd and Mary for lunch. On the train ride dad read a copy of the Wall Street Journal, folding it in thirds when he was done and holding it out into the aisle with an outstretched hand to the passengers seated across the aisle. The two men seated across from us were in mid conversation when one of them noticed dad's unsolicited offering. "This is for you," he said, "I'm finished with it." Amazingly, they accepted his gift. The train driver made periodic announcements, telling us about points of interest along the way. Dad found this unbearably funny, he laughed loudly and repeated the announcements as they were being made.
Dad only has one volume on his laugh - loud. It starts with an outburst, an uncontrollable exhale of air, and quickly devolves into a full body, rhythmic shaking with an accompanying noise that's similar to a saw moving back and forth on a 2 x 4, while his eyes grow wide and glisten with manic hilarity. It's a snakebite that has no antidote; once dad starts laughing you just have to let it run its course. I can't tell you how many times I've missed movie dialogue because of dad's laughing, and while I'd like to say that I inherited none of this, every once in a while something tickles my funny bone so hard that I find myself laughing until I literally weep. Dad's laugh attracted the attention of the woman seated in front of us, and she turned around so that her knees were on the back of her seat and her hands on the headrest. She was traveling alone and looked to be somewhere in her sixties, but carried herself like a seven-year old. "You sound like fun," she said to dad. I could barely handle the embarrassment of being in public with the challenging sixty-year old that I happened to be related to, let alone one who was just along for the ride. I gave her what must have been my deadliest stare ever because we made eye contact and she promptly turned around in her seat and stayed put for the remainder of the journey.
In Milwaukee we had lunch with Lloyd and Mary at a brauhaus, and during the course of our conversation dad asked Lloyd how his diabetes was going. This was the first I'd ever heard of it. "There's diabetes in our family?" I asked dad, my pulse racing, "why didn't you ever tell me this? For years I've been going to doctors and handing them blank forms that ask for check marks next to diseases that run in my family because I don't know of any!" Dad mumbled something about it being a "mild diabetes" that I shouldn't worry about. Our waitress cleared the plates and dad asked her if they served espresso. "No," she said flatly, "we just have coffee."
"Dad," I hissed once the waitress had left the table, "we're in Milwaukee, not Florence."
I left that lunch wondering: if there's diabetes in my family and I never knew about it, what else didn't I know? I began an email correspondence with Lloyd and Mary, and visited them several times in Madison. My aunt - a retired librarian, had cataloged every piece of information about the Cohen family that existed on paper, and arranged them in scrapbooks that lined an entire bookshelf. I stayed up until three in the morning the first night I stayed at their house, poring over news clippings about my grandmother, who died in 1957 and was a concert pianist; my grandfather, who died in 1962 and was a chemist; and childhood photographs of my dad and his two brothers: photos of them dressed in cub scout uniforms, wearing mortarboards and gowns at graduations, and posing with cars and girlfriends. It was at once engrossing and alienating - if I was a Cohen, then why hadn't I been indoctrinated in the family history years ago? What wasn't in the scrapbooks I asked my uncle about. I learned more about my family in one weekend at their house than I had ever learned from dad.
When we weren't busy catching up on family history, we had fun. Lloyd is a retired car salesman, and a classic car enthusiast. He had a cherry red 1957 Thunderbird that he kept in a garage all winter, and took for joy rides in the summer. He even has a mailbox shaped like a Thunderbird, with plastic windows that fog up with condensation in the morning. He took us for rides in the T-bird, one at a time since its a two-seater. We visited for the fourth of July and watched as choreographed music played in time with exploding fireworks at an annual event called Rhythm & Booms; we walked up and down State Street, Madison's shopping district; and Lloyd treated us to his famous eggs Benedict, and homemade gazpacho made with tomatoes and cucumbers from his garden.
My dad and both his brothers came to our wedding, and we saw Lloyd and Mary in Chicago once about a year afterward, but then somehow the fragile ties that we'd built began to erode. One year passed, and then five more without either of us making the effort to visit, until Lloyd sent an email saying he was scheduled to begin dialysis, and I picked up the phone.
We borrowed my mother in-law's Mini for the journey, and I found a mummified banana in the passenger side door that I'd left there the last time we borrowed her car - in June. It was completely shriveled and black, the moisture having completely escaped, and had an unused Band-Aid stuck to it. The ride to Madison was familiar; we drove up through Rockford and crossed the state line into Wisconsin, passing through Janesville and driving up Highway 14-18, known as The Beltline, past streets with names like Old Sauk, Rim Rock, and Fish Hatchery Road, until we pulled into my aunt and uncle's driveway.
Lloyd greeted us outside, and the first thing we noticed was that he'd slimmed down. He's been heavy his whole life, and had dropped 40 pounds in order to improve his health and qualify for a kidney transplant. He was drawn to the Mini, and asked M several questions about it before we entered the house.
New floors had been installed since our last visit, and Lloyd had bought himself a new, large screen digital TV as a consolation prize since his travel options were now severely limited - his dialysis schedule is three sessions per week, three and a half hours per session. He'd also adopted a friendly orange tabby cat named Fernando who's about two years old. Fernando was the name given to him by the shelter that Lloyd and Mary found him in, and they kept it because Mary has a great love of all things Spanish.
Lloyd served us homemade gazpacho for lunch and got us up to date on his condition, telling us everything there was to know about dialysis. Lloyd can talk for as long as you let him, a trait that he shares with his brothers and that served him well as a car salesman. The morning after our arrival a couple Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door, and he out-talked them. Lloyd's condition did nothing to dampen his spirits or his sense of humor; at a trip to Copps, the local grocery store, we walked through an aisle of sugary treats. "Do you want some of these?" He asked, pointing to a bag of mini-donuts dusted in powdered sugar. "I can't have them, but you can."
"No thanks," I said.
"Are you sure?" He asked, "I really get a kick out of buying them for other people."
We accompanied Lloyd and Mary to the dialysis center, driving along a stretch of road that was under construction and hadn't been repaved yet; it felt like we were driving on square tires. A woman wearing a t-shirt with the word: Single...ish stood at the front door of the dialysis center. Once inside, Mary, M and I sat in a waiting area while Lloyd got hooked up to the dialysis machine. An aide pushed a woman in a wheelchair to the seating area, she had a beehive hairdo and a cone of soft serve ice cream, which I'm guessing was a reward for having undergone treatment. I flipped through a copy of the dialysis center's newsletter and tried not to get anxious. Lloyd had explained everything, but something about being there made my pulse rise; we were surrounded by people with failing organs, and it made me nervous.
"Lloyd sits in the same chair every time," Mary said, "and the man next to him is a famous drummer, maybe you know him - his name is Clyde Stubblefield." M's eyes popped and he leaned forward in his chair.
"Clyde Stubblefied?" he repeated.
"You know of him?" Mary asked.
"Are you kidding? He's the one who invented boom-boom siss, boom-siss," M said, holding his arms out and playing air-drums as he sounded out the beat to Funky Drummer.
"Oh," Mary said. "He lives in Madison, and he still does a show every Monday night."
We walked into the treatment area, where Lloyd sat reclining in a chair. He was attached to a machine the size of a refrigerator via two tubes in his right arm - one taking his blood out, the other pumping it back in. "This is my kidney," he said, pointing to the machine. I could see his blood being filtered behind a circular glass window, like laundry in a front-loading machine. A curtain separated him from the other patients, creating a semblance of privacy. "I've got everything I need," he said, "right here's a TV and headphones," he said, pointing to a TV bolted to his chair. "And right next to me is Clyde Stubblefield," he said, lowering his voice, "he's world famous."
"Yes Lloyd," Mary said, "I told them."
On the other side of the curtain Clyde Stubblefield was being attended to by a nurse.
"Can I get you anything else?" She asked him.
"Just some eggs, grits and bacon," he joked. The nurse returned to her desk and Clyde put his headphones on, and turned on the TV attached to his chair.
"Hey Clyde," Lloyd said - loudly, since he couldn't see around the curtain. When Clyde didn't respond he called for him again, and then a third time.
"Clyde," the nurse on duty finally said to him, "Lloyd is talking to you." Clyde removed his headphones and asked: "Yes Lloyd?"
"Clyde, this is my niece and her husband, they're visiting from Chicago," Lloyd said, as M and I sheepishly waved and smiled from Lloyd's cubicle. "They know who you are," he added. M and I continued to smile, our eyes darting from the floor to Clyde and then back again.
Back at the house, Lloyd said he'd bring Clyde a set of drumsticks to sign for us.


text:
Amos 5.21->
I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings
I will not accept them
and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen--
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Did you bring to Me sacrifices and offerings
the forty years in the wilderness, oh House of Israel?
You shall take up Sakkuth, your King,
and Kaiwan your star-god,
your images which you made for yourselves.
Therefore I will take you into exile
beyond Damascus,
says the Lord.
whose name is The God of Hosts.


text:
Using the brick and flourish stencils is a great way to make a background for any projects and the paint brings out all of the detail.
And the embellishments were added and painted to blend in with the background.
For me this is the beginning of an altered piece but for the class and those who have never done anything like this before, it was a challenge. Have a great day xxx


text:
- Poor Sam Bradford is even getting roasted at the Philly Marathon (via @amyleighp): http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2015/11/22/9777978/sam-bradford-sign-philadelphia-marathon-eagles-nfl …
- We have the best fans in the NFL!! Today is another chance to show it!! TODAY We need the fan's support the MOST!! LETS GO BIRDS!
- NO WAY.. THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN! GO PATS! Bold predictions: Giants will end Patriots' perfect start http://www.nfl.com/m/share?p=%2Fnews%2Fstory%2F0ap3000000579111%2Farticle%2Fbold-predictions-giants-will-end-patriots-perfect-start …
- .@Redskins quarterback @KirkCousins8 is having an impressive season. See why he's got his priorities right: http://on.fb.me/1QXqGN4 #NFL
- In a noble act of *solidarity* w/ @StaceyDales, @JeffDarlington has a water bottle poured over his head.
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Poor Sam Bradford is even getting roasted at the Philly Marathon
Posted by RK Ball at 7:14 AM
|Polling on Social Media was more on target in 2016 election than the expert news media


text:
Grievous Angel: The Legend of Gram Parsons
A country music fan I'm not. Yet there is something magnetic about this musical tribute to Gram Parsons despite a prevalence of twang, yodel and pedal slide.
Grievous Angel: The Legend of Gram Parsons is predominantly a biographical study in concert form. Constructed around thirty-three songs, it's punctuated by scripted dialogue as the characters of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris are brought to life.
Jordie Lane gives an assured performance as Parsons. His voice runs like a honey-river over the lyrically intriguing melodies. Even if you are not a country fan, here's a voice worthy of undivided attention, and a talent we simply must meet again. But it's not only about the voice – this guy can really play up a guitar-storm.
Clare Reynolds graces the stage after interval, offering up a warm, empathetic Emmylou Harris. Vocal harmony work is tight and top-notch, and includes band members on tour for the show from Canada and USA (Pat McLaughlin – guitar and mandolin, Chris Breitner – bass, Al Bragg – pedal steel, and Tom Martell – drums). Who wouldn't love that deep sonorous bass singin' y'all.
For mine the highlights included the old gospel rendition of Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning, a nod to Elvis Presley in That's Alright Mama, Dark End of the Street, the wonderfully pensive She, the best Parsons reckons he wrote - Hot Burrito #1 (I'm Your Toy), Love Hurts, and the encore number Ooh Las Vegas.
Towards show's end I began to drown in the sorrow of it all. Personally I am becoming weary of references to binge drinking and drug abuse as comedy. These things are not funny, and audience laughs were ironically startling given the multiple human tragedies that litter this story.
Country music fans are sure to relish this show, but will have to move quickly to get a seat.
Lucy Graham


text:
So, the Hungarians are putting up statues and plaques to honour nagybanyai Horthy Miklos. This may not be quite as significant as it seems; every other building in Budapest bears a blue plaque to a poet, playwright or statesman probably unknown beyond their own tenement, certainly unknown outside Hungary - no-one else speaks Hungarian - and the parks are full of statues to the terminally obscure. Social-democratic Europe, though, sees this as further evidence of right wing tendencies; as Der Spiegel notes
Miklós Horthy was a notorious anti-Semite and the leader of the White Terror, a wave of post World War I, anti- Communist violence which claimed many Jews as its victims. As head of state in 1944, he was responsible for the mass deportation of 400,000 Hungarian Jews who were murdered in Auschwitz.
Hmm. To a point, Lord Copper.
Horthy anti-semitic? Yes. Bela Kun's Red Terror was disproportionately Jewish in membership, and Horthy maintained a lifelong mistrust of 'Jewish-Bolshevik' subversion. Leader of the White Terror? No. Although he was tardy in suppressing the organisation. Jews to Auchwitz? Well, he was nominally head of state when it happened, but had previously fought hard to exempt Hungary's Jews from the excesses of the Nazi regime - Hungary's 800,000 Jews remained largely safe until 1944, when Hitler occupied Hungary and Horthy was titular Regent only. The deportations in 1944 were organised by Eichman. Horthy was not prosecuted at Nuremberg, and lived in retirement in Portugal until his death in 1957.
So Horthy is perhaps better remembered for the balance of achievement of his regency over the period 1918 - 1944, largely nationalistic in character and largely concerned with keeping Russia and Communism at bay. I can imagine Horthy and that other old warrior of the era, Josef Pilsudski, scowling at eachother over a map under haunched eyebrows. Pilsudski's leadership of Poland from 1918 - 1935 included an attempt to form a middle European federation, including Hungary, to combat the threat from soviet Russia.
Pilsudski's tomb under Krakow's cathedral remains a chamber of hushed reverence. Groups of Polish schoolkids, as noisy and badly behaved as any as they chuggle past Sikorski, Jan Sobieski and even the recently interred Kaczynskis, are in contrast silent and revential as they file around Pilsudski's riveted bronze casket. It is the eastern European affirmation of 1945 - 1989 as an aberration, a discontinuity, with normal history resumed on the falling of the Wall. Hungary is no different, and Horthy, like Pilsudski, is not whiter-than-white, but he's about the best they've got.


text:
Can you afford to buy here? If you like, we can get one of our mortgage experts to tell you exactly how much you can borrow, which is the best mortgage for you or how much they could save you right now if you have an existing mortgage. Click here to get help choosing the best mortgage rate
Across the country as a whole, La Trinité-des-Monts is in the cheapest 20% when all of Canada's suburbs are listed in order of real estate listing prices.
La Trinité-des-Monts, Quebec has a median house price of $124,900 when compiling all the home listings in Aug .
In province, the most common property on the listings this month has 3 bedrooms, in this neighbourhood it's 2.
There are 1047 neighbourhoods that have more properties on sale than La Trinité-des-Monts at the moment in Quebec which puts the neighbourhood bottom 40% when looking at the number of properties to choose from.
Is La Trinité-des-Monts a good investment prospect? It's never a perfect science, but the data we have given us a number of indicators.
The amount of homes for sale in neighbourhood has increased over the last three months – this means that supply and demand economics would mean that the pressure on house prices has also slipped.
Will prices rise across the next year in in La Trinité-des-Monts? There are a number of real estate indicators to consider.
Stock on the market can be an important leading indicator of whether market pressure will be on prices to rise or fall – in La Trinité-des-Monts there is about the same amount of stock than three months ago. This would indicate housing stock pressure remaining the same.
Just fill in a few details, and we'll arrange for a Mortgage adviser to help you find the best mortgage for your needs


text:
Related Articles
Amid the plethora of smartphone launches, the domestic manufacturer Intex in an attempt to keep up its name in headline, launched another budget smartphone in the Indian market.
Click Here For The Latest Smartphone Gallery
Dubbed as Cloud M6, this device is another variant the device with 1GB RAM and 8GB of internal storage which was launched back in May. This device comes with 2GB RAM and 16GB of built-in memory,
SEE ALSO: Top 10 Rumored Smartphones with 5GB RAM Expected in 2015-2016
Intex Cloud M6 16GB - Key Specifications
Intex Cloud M6 16GB, sports a 5-inch IPS display with a resolution of 854 x 480 pixels. It is powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core Spreadtrum SC7731 processor along with 2GB RAM under the hood.
Moving on to the storage front, this device comes with 16GB of built-in memory, with an expansion option of up to 32GB via microSD card slot. This device runs on Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box.
Further, the imaging factor includes 8MP rear camera with LED Flash, 5MP front-facing camera on board. The dual SIM device comes supports connectivity options such as 3G HSPA+, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio and powered by a 2000 mAh battery.
SEE ALSO: Oppo Mirror 5 Comes to India: A Strangely Designed Rare Panel Smartphone for Fashionable Nerds
Moreover, the Intex Cloud M6 16GB comes in White, Champagne color variants and carries a price tag of Rs. 5,999 and available exclusively on the e-retailer Snapdeal.


text:
Head coach: Brad Best (second season).
1989-1990 record: 17-2 (MSA B Conference champions).
Top wrestlers: Seniors, Kevin Donnelly (189) and Mac MacWilliams (135); juniors, Don Cipriani (119-125) and Phil MacWilliams (130); sophomore, Danny White (112).
Coach's outlook: "I think we'll be competitive in the (Maryland Scholastic Association) B Conference but I don't think we'll have quite the season we had last year. We lost three guys to graduation, one from a transfer and two just didn't come out. We still have a lot of question marks. We have enough talent to be competitive. Because we have a lot of young kids, we should improve as the season progresses. We'll be strong in the lower weights, and we have (tri-captain Kevin) Donnelly returning at 189 pounds. We can give them (the B Conference) a run for it. I don't worry about records; the only thing I ask of a kid is to give 100 percent, and if they do that, I can live with whatever happens."


text:
First, one of the pieces by Scottish artist Robert Montgomery, an street artist who covers up advertising billboards with poetry:
I think that of the photos in the gallery (check out the article and gallery here) this was my favorite. It is extremely in step with what has been on my mind lately. Advertising is a LIE. It is the lie that life is better with "Product X." It is the lie that perfection is actually attainable, especially with the help of "Product X." The models are photoshopped and air brushed until they look like the poster children of perfection. They are in fact normal human beings, some are more attractive than average, who are digitally nipped and tucked (and this is after a lengthy sit in the makeup chair!) into what somehow became the standard of beauty. They have blemishes, they probably don't have as amazing abs, or as nicely shaped arms and legs, their lips probably aren't as full, etc. And yet, we see them on a billboard or in the pages of a magazine and we believe that image is a "true" representation of the model. That if they are able to look that good, well, so can we. And we torture ourselves trying to live up to this standard, which is nothing more than A LIE.
And this is the worst part: our striving to achieve this standard is exactly what keeps these companies in business. Their ads always tell us one thing, and that is not just that their product is amazing, but that we are unhappy. They tell us that in order to be happy we NEED their product. Amazingly enough, even when we buy the product, we somehow don't actually end up being any happier than we were prior to it's purchase, often times less (especially if it is related to health and beauty). But have no fear, a year later they will have re-branded "Product X" into "Product Y" and a new model will sell us that picture perfect image of perfection and happiness that we so desperately want, and we will buy away and strive away, until our souls wither away.
Now here is an awesome video that illustrates just how deceitful advertising is and how powerful a tool like Adobe Photoshop can be:


text:
I love bookstores. Academic bookstores, especially just before the beginning of the semester, are among my favorites. I love looking at what books other people are teaching; it's like you get a little idea of what might be good to read. Maybe that works better for folks in English and literature stuffs than for folks in chemistry, though. It's especially good if I know that I've liked the books Sally suggested before, and I see something promising on the shelves for Sally's upper level lit class, especially if Sally teaches an area of lit I'm not really familiar with.
I raided the bookstore and got a new Language D/English dictionary, a Language D beginner textbook, and Language D beginner workbook, and yes, another book.
(No, I'm not really worried that real students will be unable to get hold of any of the books I raid. Talking to bookstore folks, I've learned that predicting how many books will be purchased for a given class within the first couple weeks of the semester is a really difficult thing. Students go on-line to get books more cheaply, borrow or resell within dorms and frats, put off buying because they don't have the money, and so forth.)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch. At some point last semester, I noticed that one of the texts I'll be using for a class this semester was in one of my bookcases at home; I distinctly remember thinking that I'd need to take it in to the office, but not doing so at the time for some reason. Last week, I started looking for the book so I could use it to make up the class calendar, but I couldn't find it. I have a pretty visual memory, so I tend to remember what part of a page a given phrase I care about is on, and totally forget what the actual phrase is. So I remembered distinctly that the book is pink; I could even picture the kind of sans serif font the book title is in, and that it's white on the spine. But I couldn't find the book. I looked in the usual places, starting with the theory and crit books (this one's a book on rhetoric), then looked in the "need to read these" shelf. No luck, so I searched the novels bookcase, and the plays and early modern texts. It was all very frustrating.
I decided I might need to buy another copy, so I checked and found out that there's a new edition. But, of course, I can't buy the new edition of the rental text I've ordered is the older edition, or I'll be out of step and worse with the class. So while I was raiding at the bookstore, I planned to pick up a copy of the mysterious missing book.
There were, as I expected, stacks of this book. But they're light blue, not pink. So I held off buying a copy, went home, and found the blue book within about half a minute of looking. I'd been so convinced I was looking for a pink book that I hadn't seen the blue one. Yep.
Why would my mind misremember light blue as pink? I find the ways I misremember things really interesting, not quite in an Oliver Sacks sort of way, but in that weird way it reveals the connections I make and such (so in a mini-thankfully-not-as-interesting-as Oliver Sacks' cases way).
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Raid and the Case of the Mysterious Missing Book
Posted by Bardiac at 4:49 PM
2 comments:
Our amazing brains seem to "lump" items together in categories in an effort to keep our memories filed in some type of system. (Think of the ease in remembering 3 or 4 digits together, rather than individually.) Perhaps you lumped the memory of the book color into the category "pastel baby color", not "blue", which could be why "pink" kept coming up. Just a thought...ReplyDelete
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
UW Symposium Focuses on Climate Change, Wyoming Energy Issues
The potential impacts of climate change in the Rocky Mountain region and their connection with energy-related opportunities in Wyoming will be key points of discussion Thursday, Jan. 31, at a University of Wyoming symposium.
The free symposium is the second in a series of events presented by the UW Climate Change Committee (C3), a faculty group that works with the UW Research Office and the Office of the President to coordinate a campus-wide initiative on climate change. There will be a student-led kickoff event on Wednesday, Jan. 30, in the Wyoming Union Gardens. All of the other symposium events will take place in the east and center sections of the Wyoming Union ballroom. The day concludes with a "World Cafe" dinner and group discussion from 7-9:30 p.m., for which a limited number of free tickets will be available at the other sessions.
"The first symposium, held Nov. 1 of last year, introduced the issue of climate change as a global problem with international solutions. This symposium will engage the problems and opportunities of climate change at the national and state levels," says Sarah Strauss, C3 co-chair and professor in the UW Department of anthropology.
She adds, "This event is coordinated with more than 1,200 other universities and institutions across the country that are participating in a movement called 'Focus the Nation.' The goal of this national effort is to educate the public about significant aspects of climate change, with special attention to ways that we can mitigate and adapt to anticipated environmental changes at a national and state level."
The symposium opens at 12:30 p.m. with a panel discussion featuring Mary Byrnes, Wyoming Public Service Commission; Gary Collins, Wyoming Governor's Office, Arapaho Tribal Liaison; Mike Purcell, Wyoming Water Development Commission; Rob Hurless, Wyoming Governor's Office, Energy and Telecommunications adviser; and John Corra, Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality.
At 2:30 p.m., Denise Stephenson Hawk of the National Center for Atmospheric Research will present "Climate Change and its Sphere of Influence: Pathways to Societal Resilience."
A 4:30 p.m. workshop on lobbying skills, led by Sarah Gorin of the Equality State Policy Center, will be followed at 6 p.m. with another keynote presentation titled "Climate Change in the Rockies: Global Problems, Homegrown Solutions," by Michelle Nijhuis, a freelance journalist and contributing editor for the High Country News in Colorado.
A symposium launch party, featuring free food and live music from the bluegrass band "Head to the Hills," is Wednesday, Jan. 30, in the Wyoming Union Gardens. A live, interactive webcast of "The 2 Percent Solution," hosted by actor and clean energy advocate Edward Norton, begins at 6 p.m.
The symposium is sponsored by the UW Office of the President, School of Energy Resources, Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, Engineering and Applied Science, Health Sciences, Agriculture and various UW departments.
For more information, call Strauss at (307) 766-5310 or e-mail email@example.com.
For more information on the "Focus the Nation" movement, go to the Web site at www.focusthenation.org.


text:
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Threat to Academic Freedom
Dear Law School Ethicist
As you know law professors never, ever pay for vacations. Since they are always working, their employers are happy to pay. In the past I have simply said I was going to wherever -- Paris. London, Sydney, Cape Town, Rio -- and reported that I was conferencing with people at the very highest level. When I get there I go to a lawyer's office and hang out for a couple of hours. This time, while in Geneva, I had trouble gaining access to an actual office but I know, as a matter of ethics, I needed proof of my conferencing. I found the addresses of a couple of local lawyers and located their trash. In the trash I found some electric bills. I returned home and submitted by claim for reimbursement and included the electric bills. (Man, those attorneys sure hog the electricity.) The official in charge here at my school says I need proof of an actually meeting. I am insulted that she has called my honestly into question and I believe not to reimbursement me is a threat to my academic freedom and to that of every other law professor. What to do think?
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
Ok Team. The GSN is at pre-season training camp working on our reporting and technical skills. This season we are preparing to bring you the most biased, grammatically flawed, and entertaining hockey coverage we can. Contributers from around the globe. Also note, we can be reached at a new URL www.the-gsn.com
cause everyone knows typing guerrilla is kinda annoying.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)


text:
chlorpropamide is a valid word in this word list. For a definition, see the external dictionary links below.
The word "chlorpropamide" uses 14 letters: A C D E H I L M O O P P R R.
No direct anagrams for chlorpropamide found in this word list.
Words formed by adding one letter before or after chlorpropamide (in bold), or to acdehilmoopprr in any order:
s - chlorpropamides
Try a search for chlorpropamide in these online resources (some words may not be found):
Wiktionary - OneLook Dictionaries - Merriam-Webster - Google Search
Each search will normally open in a new window.
List all words starting with chlorpropamide, words containing chlorpropamide or words ending with chlorpropamide
All words formed from chlorpropamide by changing one letter
Other words with the same letter pairs: ch hl lo or rp pr ro op pa am mi id de
Browse words starting with chlorpropamide by next letter
Previous word in list: chlorpromazines
Next word in list: chlorpropamides
Some random words: no luau ukase kellies cuirass igloo ajuga
This is not a dictionary, it's a word game wordfinder.
- Help and FAQ - Examples - Home
Privacy and Cookies Policy - Share - © Copyright 2004-2017 Morewords.com - 15.328mS


text:
This is the subject of Chapter 4 of Prof Pierre Lévy's book:
THE SEMANTIC SPHERE COMPUTATION, COGNITION AND THE INFORMATION ECONOMY Volume 1, which he has shared with ChangeMooc this week
This is a fascinating chapter on many counts and I found it easier to read and relate to that Chapter 1. Prof Lévy discusses the role of creative conversation in personal and social knowledge management, personal and collective intelligence and the ways in which knowledge and information will need to be shared, distributed and managed to keep pace with changing times. He writes:
To transform the deluge of information into useful, organized memory carrying knowledge across language barriers, moving with ease through the diversity of cultures, the creative conversation that arises from cyberspace needs a symbolic medium in keeping with its scope. (p135 – the last sentence of the chapter).
The focus of his book is the need for a symbolic medium and a new indexing system to replace current systems such as those based on the ways in which libraries organize information.
There is also a very interesting section in the chapter about strategies for personal knowledge management, but Lévy warns against reifying these, reminding us that these strategies will need to constantly change and evolve.
Particularly interesting for me, given the recent paper which Carmen Tschofen and I worked on ( http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1143 ) to explore dimensions of individual experience in a connected world, is what Lévy has to say about the relationship between the collective and the individual. He writes that 'the crowd' is not stupid; it is essential to our collective intelligence and knowledge, but the individual's role in collective, creative conversions is not forgotten or underplayed.
The process of collaborative production of shared memory favours individual learning insofar as the individuals involve their personal experience in the conversations (the process of explication is always instructive) and involve the results of the conversations in the reorganization of their personal experiences. (p.122)
Prof Lévy will be speaking to ChangeMooc at 4.00 pm GMT (11.00 am EST) today and I am looking forward to learning more about his work and ideas.


text:
Maybe this will help someone. I was initially having trouble with a shortened burn time especially on windy days until I installed a barometric damper. It took care of the uneven draft that would go through my stove, and shorten my burn time. I now get a solid 12 hour burn with my stack temp running around 175 on warmer days and up to 250 on real cold days.
Damper Vs Draft
Post Reply
Post Reply


text: Sexual Orientation Sen. Casey Lobbies Support For Equality Act As Pride Kicks Off By Steve Jordan • Jun 3, 2016 User Fabio / Flickr As Pittsburgh Pride Week kicks off, equality is on the minds of many. Nationwide, an individual can be fired for his or her sexual orientation or gender identification, and there is no federal protection. Pennsylvania is one of 28 states that does not have laws preventing discrimination against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Bill Would Protect the LGBT Community from Discrimination By Jess Lasky • Mar 15, 2015 There are laws in Pennsylvanians making it illegal to discriminate against someone for a wide array of reasons, from sex to ancestry, but the LGBT community remains unprotected. A senate bill that will be introduced by Sen. Larry Farnese (D-Philadelphia) could change that. "Right now Pennsylvania is one of few states where discrimination is legal based solely upon who you love, and many of us on both sides of the aisle are ready to put an end to this," said Farnese. Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese Holds Third Annual Fortnight For Freedom By Jess Lasky • Jun 23, 2014 The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh is holding its third annual Fortnight for Freedom, which promotes religious freedoms for all according to the church. This year the theme is freedom to serve the poor and vulnerable, in accordance with the Catholic teachings. PA's Hate-Crime Law Still Leaves Many Groups Out By Emily DeMarco | PublicSource • Nov 24, 2013 Alexandra Kanik / PublicSource Jane's whole life has been like one long hate crime. As a teenager, her classmates beat her to a pulp because she shaved her legs. Her family believed that praying would cure what the belt didn't. Jane was born a man. Today, she is a woman. Jane, a transgender woman, asked PublicSource not to use her name because of fear that she might be targeted. She completed her transition from male to female in rural Pennsylvania about two years ago.