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When I commented on Schopenhauer's statement that to life is to suffer, my point was that it is oversimplified. Suffering is not the background noise of everything we do, not to speak of the thread through life. Rather I think that suffering and happiness are personal experiences brought about by the personal and individual happenings of life. In fact, everything is possible and what will be the case depends on where you live and in what circumstances, on your personality type and character, and on much more. There are moments and periods that we are happy and moments and periods that we are unhappy and that we are suffering. For some or maybe many or even most the latter may prevail, for others perhaps the former. This doesn't imply that happiness or suffering is inherent in life, although one might tend to think that the latter is, if one realizes what is happening in many places in the world. Maybe life was so different in Schopenhauer's days that for him it was the natural way to think so and maybe it still is in many parts of the present world.
Nevertheless, Montaigne, who lived a few centuries before Schopenhauer, had a more balanced view on life, I think. Montaigne didn't ask whether the foundation of life is suffering or happiness, or whatever, but he wrote a lot about experiences and facts of life and what they mean for us. While Schopenhauer stressed that actually life is suffering, according to Montaigne pure experiences do not exist, as we can see in his essay "That we taste nothing pure" (Book 2, XX). Both our joys and our sorrows, both our positive experiences and our negative experiences are mixed and contain at least a bit of the opposite. "Of the pleasure and goods that we enjoy, there is not one exempt from some mixture of ill and inconvenience", as he says there, which he illustrates with a quotation from Lucretius: "From the very fountain of our pleasure, something rises that is bitter, which even in flowers destroys". "Our extremest pleasure has some sort of groaning and complaining in it…", so Montaigne.On the other hand, Montaigne refers to Metrodorus, who remarked "that in sorrow there is some mixture of pleasure". Although Montaigne seems not to be completely sure what Metrodorus meant by it, he adds that it can be seen that way, for instance, that "there is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy." The "confusion" between joy and sadness can be seen well, when painters hold, so Montaigne, "that the same motions and grimaces of the face that serve for weeping; serve for laughter too". This is actually an exemplification of the fact that both pure delight and pure sorrow do not exist. And I think that for most people it's the same for suffering and happiness. Schopenhauer interpreted the world that way that everything we do has at least a shade of suffering if it is not suffering in disguise or suffering right away. But wouldn't a more optimistic mind have said that the reverse is the case and have called happiness the essence of life? But in view of what Montaigne says we can ask whether any pure principle of life exists at all.


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|Rav Shlomo Wolbe, ZTL
His post is a tour de force on what's wrong with the right. Not that he put it that way. Nor would he necessarily like that I put it that way. But that is in fact what it is… an indictment of the right wing attitude that chases down every ritual Chumra it can find.
Now before anyone accuses me of painting all the Charedim with a broad brush, I am not. Of course many, probably even most Charedim do not necessarily do that. Certainly not the mainstream moderate Charedim that largely comprise the American mainstream. But on an increasingly communal level the move to the right in the Charedi world can best be described as a Chumra chase.
The move to the right is not a new phenomenon. There has been much written about it. But Rabbi Karlinsky has added some insight to this question that should be required reading for everyone.
The most recent manifestation of the Chumra chase is the erasure of women from the public square something I and others have written about. Rabbi Adlerstein did so magnificently in an earlier Cross Currents post. And that generated Rabbi Karlinsky's extraordinary post.
The obvious question is, Why is this happening? What is the motivation behind this Churma chase?
The question is addressed through the words of a man widely respected in the Charedi world - a Baal Teshuva, by the name of R' Shlmo Wolbe in his magnum opus, Alei Shur.
Therein he wrote a famous piece entitled 'Frumkeit' - something upon which he frowns. Frumkeit is what happens when people take upon themselves Chumros for the wrong reasons. Even if one does it for their own spiritual elevation – that too is the wrong reason. Because that is a selfish motivaton. It is egocentric. Man's purpose on earth is not to enhance his own welfare – even his own spiritual welfare. His purpose in this world is to serve God.
When one looks only at how adopting a Chumra will enhance his own welfare, he fails to see the impact it may have on others. Which ultimately has the opposite effect. Instead of enhancing one's status with God, one diminishes it. It is – as Rabbi Karlinksy suggests, it is 'bad for your Neshama'!
Personal consequences should never be the motivation for a Chumra. 'What's in it for me' is not how to serve God. So what is proper service? Here are some excerpts from Rabbi Karlinsky's post:
Proper service of G-d has to be built on "da'at" – an accurate, deep intelligent understanding of what G-d wants from us, acquired through clear thinking and a deep analysis of Torah. The Talmud (T. B. Sotah 21b; Talmud Yerushalmi Sotah 3:4) illustrates the concept of "chasid shoteh" (a pious fool) … A woman is drowning, and a man with the ability to save her says to himself that it is not proper to look at women, and does not save her…
Rav Wolbe (explains that the Chasid Shoteh), is following a spiritual instinct without da'at, that clear and intelligent analysis and understanding of what is required of a person in every specific situation. The result of actions rooted in instinct rather than da'at can be the source of distancing one from G-d, rather than bringing one closer to Him.
Becoming closer to G-d… requires clarity about what G-d demands of a person in every situation, having our feet planted firmly on the ground, operating in reality rather than in some self-generated fantasy world. A true relationship with G-d is rooted in proper actions in the real, physical world. The drive and excessive focus on "getting closer to G-d" (especially in our quick-fix, microwave society) emanates from "frumkeit .
Rabbi Karlinsky then adds his own insight. Among other things he says the following:
In Halacha we have a concept of "yesh al mi lismoch," valid opinions which can serve as a basis for following a lenient approach. There is a concept of "hefsed merubeh," great loss, which can be grounds to follow certain Halachic leniencies. Why is the embarrassment or discomfort of another Jew (which is a serious violation in one area of Halacha) considered so dispensable in order to follow a strict opinion in another area? While this doesn't suggest eating something which is not Kosher simply to avoid embarrassing someone, finding a way to avoid the embarrassment has to be as high on our agenda as avoiding the un-Kosher food.
Da'at is necessary to know how to adjudicate between these conflicting values implement this balance. If there are accepted opinions on the lenient side of an issue, then "da'at," a deep and proper understanding of the Halacha and the tradeoffs, may require relying on the more lenient opinion in those circumstances.
This leads us to a related issue. Chumrot that cause one-upmanship, strife, and social discomfort are likely being performed with a feeling of superiority. This takes us in the opposite direction of the road that brings us closer to G-d. Why do some people need to broadcast their own chumrot while constantly investigating those of their neighbors?
Should chumras emanate from the motivation of love or the motivation of fear? "What does it hurt to be machmir" certainly sounds like it is motivated by fear, and if we are honest, we will find that this is motivation for many of our chumras. This isn't the way it should be.
As the culture of our community has moved in the direction of increased stringencies in the ritual aspects of Halacha, it is time to step back and examine whether this move is being driven by our instincts for spiritual inspiration – or by the true da'at Rav Wolbe writes is necessary for authentic spiritual growth.The only thing I can add to this is Amen!

subset: commoncrawl


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Dear customers, no… You can't have the two free without buying one.
Dear customers, "Can I have my size?" doesn't help me. I need a number.
Dear customers, you can't just point in the general direction of a section and ask to try 'that pair' on. Be more specific.
Dear customers, looking at a shelf of heels and asking for the tall ones does not help me. At all.
Dear customers, if you come in and ask to try on more than 5 pairs of clearance shoes, know that I am cursing under my breath.
Dear customers, please stop acting like whether or not to purchase a pair of 10 dollar shoes is a life or death decision. It's 10 dollars. And no, I'm not putting them on hold.
Dear customers, if you have to put shoes on hold and then come back with your mother, boyfriend, sister, friend, brother, father or imaginary friend to make your decision for you, you need to learn to be more independent.
Dear customers, stop thinking you're a half size. You're not all special.
Dear customers, please stop bending my shoes. They're flats. No, they don't have support. Stop trying to snap them in half to prove your point.
Dear customers, if you ask, I will tell you what shoes in the store are real leather. You look stupid walking around smelling all of the shoes on the shelf.
Dear customers, why do you feel the need to say "seriously?" when I tell you the deal. I'm not joking. I'm not standing at the door telling you fake deals for shits and gigs.
Dear customers, no, you can't return something that is final sale. Not sure why that's a shock.
Dear customers, why do you feel the need to put everything back on the shelf backwards?
Dear customers, please refrain from tearing the soles out of shoes.
Dear customers, yes, please come destroy every display and then not buy anything. I love when you do that.
Dear customers, no… You can't use your store credit from a completely different company at this store.


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Say that you're doing the same-old, same-old thing of launching a data form as an add/edit view off of a grid on a tab. But in addition to the data-bound fields for the record you're adding/editing, you also need to populate/update a one-to-many table—for example, adding/updating one record per user on a given team, in that 1:M child table.
You could do that SQL update in the grid's OnAddedRow or OnEditedRow events, by passing the record's ID value back down in a global variable; but conceptually that's not where the SQL belongs. Rather, you'd like to be doing the 1:M update in the data form itself. But the problem is that any code you put into the OK button's click event will run even when the form fails validation (so the form doesn't close on its own, but just sits there, mocking you). And the AXFormValidate doesn't return a value until after it's finished running; and again, even when it returns False, the OK click event code still runs.
The way around that is to iterate through the controls on the form, looking for ones which have their Required property set, but no value entered by the user. If that validation fails, then exit the click event without running the 1:M SQL:
Function ValidateForm Dim i Dim blnValidated blnValidated = True On Error Resume Next For i = 0 To ControlCount - 1 Select Case TypeName(Controls(i)) Case "PickList", "Memo", "LinkEdit", "DateTimeEdit", _ "Edit", "LookupEdit" If Controls(i).Required And _ Controls(i).Text = "" Then blnValidated = False Exit For End If End Select Next On Error Goto 0 ValidateForm = blnValidated End Function Sub cmdOKClick(Sender) ... If Not ValidateForm Then Exit Sub End If ... ' SQL for doing 1:M Insert/Update ... End Sub
It's kludgy, but because you're iterating through the controls looking for blank Required ones rather than hard-coding that test, it doesn't make the form any less maintainable: As long as any new control's Type is listed in the Select Case statement, you don't even need to know that that validation function is there.


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Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Simpler Time
The KA-5500 came out around '75 or '76. Whatever the exact year, it's from another time. It weighs 23.1 pounds and replaces a Pyle Mini 40 watt amp I bought two years ago mainly because it was tiny and I thought it would make no difference what it sounded like. The KA-5500 seven times outweighs the Pyle and has more power, but that's not why I bought it.
My wife has breast cancer. A routine mammogram turned into a sonogram and showed lumps that were determined to be non-cancerous but turned out to have cancer anyway. That cancer is in the lymph nodes and has further infected her right breast. Tomorrow she begins chemo and in January will have her breasts removed and reconstructed. We are two months in from the original mammogram, six months shy of what might not even be the finish line.
Richard Manuel is singing "Whispering Pines" with The Band. It sounds great through the KA-5500. Maybe I'm imagining, but it's a warmer, weightier, stronger sound even though the source is still my phone. This an alternate version on which Manuel forgets the lyrics three lines in and has to start again. It's tough to imagine anything sounding better than this.
The amplifier is from a time when things were built with switches, buttons, and needles to show power output. It does only one thing, send music from my phone to the speakers. When I first hooked it up and excitedly showed it to my wife and daughters, they were kind enough to fake enthusiasm but it is nothing they really understand.
Days before buying the amplifier, my wife had a port installed in her shoulder. A surgeon cut her, pushed the port in, and connected it to her heart. It was the third time in a month she has gone under anesthesia and it knocked holy hell out of her. The chemo will be injected through the port, to her heart, and distributed from there. Eight weeks of needles into the port, chemo throughout her body. Blast the cancer, that's the way it was phrased to us.
The KA-5500 pumps 55 watts which is no great shakes to anyone who has bought a home theater system of late. Those list at hundreds of watts, but the measurements aren't the same. It's like clothes. My thirty-six inch jeans today would be forty-four in the seventies. The Kenwood's 55 watts could drive my speakers into pieces. The volume is at two and a half and I'd have to be sure that no one on the block was home before turning it up.
The KA-5500 has a better class than what I'd get at Best Buy. There is a weight to this thing beyond the twenty three pounds listed in the manual. It is stable, durable. Tape decks, turntables, CD players wear out. An amplifier just works. Power it on, turn the knob, and sound blows out like an old Maxell ad. I know it will work tomorrow.
I was eight, maybe nine when this thing was built. I'll be forty seven before the summer is over. My wife will be halfway through her first round of chemo. The girls will be approaching fourteen and twelve. My father will be six month's dead. My wife's grandmother three months gone.
Maybe in January the cancer will be gone. I will plug my phone into the Kenwood KA-5500 Stereo Integrated Amplifier, select "Whispering Pines," push play and turn the volume knob. "I will wait until it all goes round," Richard Manuel will sing. His voice and the Band will sound warm, weighty, strong. I can pretty much hear it now. And it sounds good.
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The Beer Store in Ontario gets a new look and logo
Makeovers coincide with provincial Tories promise of two-fours on every corner
The Beer Store — the Ontario chain that many assume is owned by the provincial government even though it's owned by parent companies based in the U.S., Belgium and Japan — has rarely found itself losing a customer due to how the place looks.
After all, there's rarely another store across the street or around the corner where you can buy what it's selling.
But four locations in the Toronto area have gotten a makeover that includes a new logo. And the timing probably isn't a coincidence.
Right now, the only prominent competition that The Beer Store has in the province are the LCBO stores that carry a full range of alcoholic beverages, a tactic which proved popular enough to lead Brewers Retail to adapt its drafty locations beyond a bleak depot which required beer buyers to fill out a form to have their order retrieved from the back.
The experience hasn't changed much, either, as the ritual largely continues to involve making a request at the counter and picked up after they get rolled down a conveyor.
Memories of this legacy have factored in decades of unsuccessful lobbying to widen the distribution of beer, wine and spirits to stores that are otherwise stuck with selling milk, candy and cigarettes.
An ongoing Free Our Beer petition circulated by the Ontario Convenience Store Association is designed to help ensure that Conservative leader Tim Hudak follows through on his promise to expand the number of places where one can buy a six pack — presuming he gets elected premier.
Concurrently, the chain controlled by the foreign-owned Labatt and Molson — who hold 49 per cent each along with 2 per cent for Sleeman Breweries, which is owned by Sapporo in Japan — has taken another step to spruce up its offering.
A new look for four locations in the Toronto area debuted this week following the completion of "Beer College" training designed to enhance the product knowledge of store staff.
New features that include interactive digital touch displays are being piloted in these new-look stores — located at the downtown Toronto intersections of College and Bathurst, Parliament and Winchester and Danforth and Greenwood, along with Hopedale Mall in Oakville — with the prospect of expanding to all the other Beer Stores in the province.
(The Beer Boutique, a smaller spin-off that opened in Toronto's Liberty Village two years ago, was touted as another new retail model.)
The prospect of an Ontario election in the near future whose result could bring new competition likely has something to do with it.


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Cross Stitch, knitting, crochet, dressmaking, card making, scrapbook and wedding stationery.
Hello, my name is Dionne and I have been crafting for a very long time. As a very young child my mother tried to teach me to knit, it was a disaster. However, it must have sparked an interest in making things and, partly to prove that I was not totally useless and partly because I really wanted to make things, I taught myself to crochet. Over the years I have developed a love of cross stitch and all types of paper craft ..... I eventually even taught myself to knit.
I am married to a very understanding man, thank goodness, because I spend all my time either crafting, thinking about crafting or talking about crafting. I am hopeless at housework and dinner is often late!
Thank you for visiting my blog.
Friday, 2 March 2012
Chocolate Chip Cookies
I hope you have had a good week and are ready for the weekend.
I was up early this morning so I got out my Promarkers and spent a couple of happy hours making this card.
The little cook is from Digi Web Studio and was a real bargain because they currently have a sale on. The Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe stamp I have had for about 15-20 years and I am pretty sure this is the first time I have used it! The paper is from a Polka Doodle CD and the sentiment is a Craftwork Cards one.
By the way, there is still time to enter the Food, Glorious Food challenge over at Crafty Boots Challenges, you have until noon (GMT) Sunday to enter. Good luck.
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Thank you for visiting my blog, I look forward to reading your feedback on my work. I hope you will visit again.


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I share your concerns Ross, but I'm absolutely astounded at the speed with which Library 2.0 has been picked up, at least by library bloggers. I think it speaks to the fact that librarians who care about technology are frustrated with what is available now, and are looking for new solutions to some of their problems.
I believe there is an opportunity in all of this hype for innovative library developers, especially those working in small teams at libraries, to showcase their new exciting and useful projects. But I fear, as you do, that some of the most forward-thinking projects will not get the attention they deserve because they are perceived as either inaccessible or not ready for implementation.
Jonathan, I think we're in agreement. I almost feel that whatever it takes to begin talking about how to make our services more accessible, useful, modern, integrated, etc. then let's do it.
And, certainly, I think this notion of "Web 2.0" will play a role. And I think there's a lot that libraries can benefit from adopting a lot of the technology of the major implementors of "Web 2.0".
To draw out your last paragraph a bit, I'm really worried of a couple of things:
1) That slick presentation will win out over usefulness
2) Our vendors will throw in a dash of AJAX, a sprig of RSS, up the yearly charge and say they've improved their product.
Today is a day of lists.
Perhaps what we need is slick, useful presentations. :P -dchud
...as long as they have kick-ass titles ;).
but semi-seriously folks, the instigator side of me wants to start talking about Library 3.0; after all it looks like 2.0 is almost scope closed...
Well, slick presentations have their purpose, but even more impressive can be running code that solves problems. Pain avoidance can be a powerful motivator. If we can build applications and services that prevent or alleviate pain, the slick presentations won't matter.
Ross, if we continue to think about Library 2.0 in software terms, then you're absolutely right. But it's much more than that.
I think you're pointing at it without saying it: the software for Library 2.0[1] doesn't work without Librarians 2.0. That is, we face challenges that can't be met with bolt-on solutions.
It won't work without talking about our metadata standards or questioning our service models. And programmers and systems librarians can't do that alone.
[1] Version numbers are a convenient shorthand for: we are at $x, we need to be at $x++. The specific number is irrelevant to me.
casey: good point. Back in the 1990s when we were largely still recon-ing we used to joke that "as soon we we're done recon-ing the catalog, we can get on with recon-ing our content. And then, we can recon ourselves." Seems the content bit is well under way...


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...oooh, I am a very lucky lass indeedily! I am doing a toot-toot shout out today for my friend Trish Latimer who is not only an amazing artist, she also makes adorable jewellry too. Before I waffle on, HERE is a linky to her blog... worth taking a cuppa and a packet of Choccy Digestives with you too. You will have probably seen Trish's amazing art in Craft Stamper magazine over the years, she has a very unique style and comes up with some fantastic original ideas. Anyways... I was a-mooching on her blog the other day and decided to go and have a drool at her jewellry website. And whilst on said droolworthy website, I spotted a GORGEOUS bangle that is PERFECT for me... it has the word WISH stamped into a metal disc, and being as this year is the "Hels Sheridan Year of the Wish".. it seemed only right to buy the bangle! HERE is Trish's jewellry website. And here is what arrived this morning!
Beautifully packaged in delicate tissue paper and popped into a cool little paper bag and a cute little ATC in there too! Here's a close up of the disc...
And... and... and... cos Trish is such a sweetie she also included this in the package... HOW CUTE IS THIS!!! I have a length of leather thong going spare so this is going to be a necklace. Anyways... a BIG, BIG, BIG thank you to Trish... I LOVE my new bangle - it is perfect - and I LOVE my new pendant, that too is PERFECT! Please do pop over and see Trish and leave her some lurve... she so deserves it :O))
Right, I shall away... I was planning to have a lazy day today but the old inks are calling to me... so it would be rude to ignore them right? Thanks for looking... TTFN!
Hels x


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We here at Generic Publishing want you to dig deep and access you inner manly man, that beast within that screws, plunders and lays waste to all that approach it, to tell tales of the glory and awesome might that is King Paul, rife with sex, violence, debauchery, depravity and big heaping buckets of gore. Picture a Chuck Norris/Maddox/Tucker Max hybrid being punched in the face by Conan to a soundtrack of W.A.S.P., killwhitneydead and Manowar, then listen to the King Paul songs on Carinemily.com (all submissions MUST match the mythology of these songs to be considered). These stories should harken back to the style and ideals of Orature (traditional tales and history passed along orally) and should be either in Flash or Praise poetry form. Do keep in mind that, while the theme of masculinity taken to cartoonish extremes will likely be handled with tongue firmly in cheek, we expect it all to be played straight. My first image of the concept lends itself to sword and sandals fantasy, but don't feel obliged to constrict yourself to that genre; we'd love to see a steampunk Paul mowing down werewolves on a pirate ship in space. This anthology is intended for adults, so feel free to be as raunchy and brutal as you desire (please), but don't bother us with rape fantasies or kiddie porn. Even the King has his limits.
Title: King Paul Crushes Your Face and You like It. (Working Title)
Editors: Anton Cancre and Greg Hermes
Word count: 2000 words (flash fiction) or 100 lines (poetry) max
Pay: .5 cents per word for flash fiction and $5 flat rate for poetry, paid upon publication.
Submit to: genericpublishing [aatt] yahoo [doot] com (electronic submissions only)
Format: All submissions should be pasted into the email, following standard Shunn rules. Any attachments will be deleted without question or concern. Keep your computer herpes to yourself, and we'll keep ours.
The subject line should read as follows: "submission: <title>, <author's last name>".
Please include a cover letter with Author's legal name, address, email, the name of the work being submitted, word/line count and previous publications of interest. Also include a short bio for inclusion in the anthology.
Simultaneous submissions are okay as long as you let us know and multiple submissions will be accepted for poetry, up to a maximum of three poems per author. No reprints.
Submission period: June 15th through September 30th, 2011. Please do not query the status of your submission until November 30th, 2011. We will do our best to contact all submitters within 30 days of the end of the submission period.
Rights: we ask for first American Publishing rights, copyrights will revert to the author upon publication. We also ask for the ability to use snippets for promotional purposes.


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Table of Contents MN GIS/LIS Consortium2007 ConferenceSilent AuctionFrom the ChairPolaris AwardsStudent Scholarship CompetitionOur 50th Issue
StateLMIC Budget RestoredParcel Inventory UpdatedMonument Coordinates in Feet
Governor's CouncilNew MembersAnnual ReportGIS for LCCMRRegional Collaboration Panel
RegionalMet Council Map SiteMetroGIS Address Dataset
LocalNew Funding for Land DataGeoMoose Web MappingHennepin Co. Mobile Assessor ToolRemote Aircraft PhotographyClay Co. Addresses
FederalUSGS Maps in GeoPDFFree Landsat ImagesTerraLook Free ImageryNOAA SatellitesUSGS Resources for Teachers
Higher EducationSt. Mary's Update
K-12 EducationGeography, History Online
PrivateESRI Map Help
Non-ProfitsGoogle Earth Pro Grants
Other PlacesBring Back Geography!New Parcel StudyMAPPS Loses Lawsuit
Saint Mary's University Update
By John Ebert, Saint Mary's University
The Department of Resource Analysis (RA) (www.smumn.edu/gis) recently attended the ESRI User Conference in San Diego, CA, to showcase RA's newest curricular offerings in the MSGIS program and the Online Professional GIS Training Certificate sequence. RA staff had the opportunity to exhibit at the Education Expo and the Academic Fair at the ESRI Conference. Both opportunities provided the chance to visit with hundreds of GIS users to discuss the new uses of GIS in the user community and to learn about new and exciting trends in the technology field. The events also provided RA a chance to visit with learners across the globe about GIS education and to visit with SMU-RA alumni at the conference.
RA showcased new and exciting learning options for the Master's Degree as well as the latest Online Professional GIS Certificate CEU (Continuing Education Units) Training options. The Master's Degree program information showcased our new disciplinary focus area, Homeland Security/Emergency Management, that includes online course studies and complements our existing disciplinary areas in natural resources, business, and management among others. The Online Professional GIS Certificate sequence features the latest and exciting ways one can obtain hands-on GIS training for the GISP endorsement, personal growth and learning, or for general GIS training needs without having to formally apply to a program. For more information about the Online GIS Training Options, please visit our web information at http://www.smumn.edu/sitepages/pid2572.php
Lastly, RA is proud to recognize Peter Woeste as a recipient of an ESRI International User Conference Student Assistantship. Pete is a learner in our Minneapolis cohort and commented that his experiences at the conference were amazing and very rewarding for him personally and professionally. Congratulations, Pete!


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Monday, July 29, 2013
China not squeamish about IQ
After being identified early as a science prodigy, Zhao raced through China's special programs for gifted students and won a spot in Renmin, one of the country's most elite high schools. Then, to the shock of his friends and family, he decided to drop out when he was 17. Now, at 21, he oversees his own research project at BGI Shenzhen—the country's top biotech institute and home to the world's most powerful cluster of DNA-sequencing machines—where he commands a multimillion-dollar research budget.
Zhao's goal is to use those machines to examine the genetic underpinnings of genius like his own. He wants nothing less than to crack the code for intelligence by studying the genomes of thousands of prodigies, not just from China but around the world. He and his collaborators, a transnational group of intelligence researchers, fully expect they will succeed in identifying a genetic basis for IQ. They also expect that within a decade their research will be used to screen embryos during in vitro fertilization, boosting the IQ of unborn children by up to 20 points. In theory, that's the difference between a kid who struggles through high school and one who sails into college.
Some people are smarter than others. It seems like a straightforward truth, and one that should lend itself to scientific investigation. But those who try to study intelligence, at least in the West, find themselves lost in a political minefield. To be sure, not all intelligence research is controversial: If you study cognitive development in toddlers, or the mental decline associated with Alzheimer's disease, "that's treated as just normal science," says Douglas Detterman, founding editor of Intelligence, a leading journal in the field. The trouble starts whenever the heritability of intelligence is discussed, or when intelligence is compared between genders, socioeconomic classes, or—most explosively—racial groupings.
Since the 1990s, when a book called The Bell Curve (coauthored by a psychologist and a political scientist) waded into this last morass, attempts to quantify or even study intelligence have become deeply unfashionable. Dozens of popular books by nonexperts have filled the void, many claiming that IQ—which after more than a century remains the dominant metric for intelligence—predicts nothing important or that intelligence is simply too complex and subtle to be measured.
For the most part, an IQ test—the most common of which today is called the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—is a series of brainteasers. You fit abstract shapes together, translate codes using a key, sort numbers or letters into ascending order in your mind. It's a weirdly playful exercise, the sort of test you would expect to have no bearing on anything else. But studies make it clear that IQ is strongly correlated with the ability to solve all sorts of abstract problems, whether they involve language, math, or visual patterns. The frightening upshot is that IQ remains by far the most powerful predictor of the life outcomes that people care most about in the modern world. Tell me your IQ and I can make a decently accurate prediction of your occupational attainment, how many kids you'll have, your chances of being arrested for a crime, even how long you'll live.
Critics claim that these correlations are misleading, that those life outcomes have more to do with culture and environmental circumstances than with innate intellectual ability. And even IQ researchers are far from in agreement about whether scores can be validly compared between groups of people—men and women, blacks and whites—who experience very different environments even within the same country. Variations within groups are often greater than the variations between them, making it impossible to draw conclusions about someone based on their group.
But on an individual level, the evidence points toward a strong genetic component in IQ. Based on studies of twins, siblings, and adoption, contemporary estimates put the heritability of IQ at 50 to 80 percent, and recent studies that measure the genetic similarity of unrelated people seem to have pushed the estimate to the high end of that range.
This is an idea that makes us incredibly uncomfortable. "People don't like to talk about IQ, because it undermines their notion of equality," Detterman says. "We think every person is equal to every other, and we like to take credit for our own accomplishments. You are where you are because you worked hard." The very idea of the American dream is undermined by the notion that some people might be born more likely to succeed. Even if we accept that intelligence is heritable, any effort to improve or even understand the inheritance process strikes us as distasteful, even ghoulish, suggesting the rise of designer superbabies. And given the fallout that sometimes results when academics talk about intelligence as a quantifiable concept—such as the case of Harvard president Lawrence Summers, who in 2006 resigned after suggesting that science is male-dominated due not to discrimination but to a shortage of high-IQ women—it's no surprise that IQ research is not a popular subject these days at Western universities.
But in his lab at BGI, 21-year-old Zhao has no such squeamishness. He waves it away as "irrational," making a comparison with height: "Some people are tall and some are short," he says. Three years into the project, a team of four geneticists is crunching an initial batch of 2,000 DNA samples from high-IQ subjects, searching for where their genomes differ from the norm. Soon Zhao plans to get thousands more through Renmin—his former high school—as well as from other sources around the world. He believes that intelligence has a genetic recipe and that given enough samples—and enough time—his team will find it.
Ask Zhao what draws him to IQ as a research subject and invariably he talks about the mysteries of the brain. He's driven by a fascination with kids who are born smart; he wants to know what makes them—and by extension, himself—the way they are. But there's also a basic pragmatism at work. By way of explanation, he points to the International Mathematical Olympiad, a tough competition that has helped define China's approach to math. Two-thirds of students train for it, he says, and its judgment of the talent is so respected that for years high scorers were allowed to skip gaokao, the traditional college entrance exam. But only a tiny fraction of people have the mathematical gifts to be competitive, Zhao says, and this basically comes down to IQ. "You cannot ask a kid with low IQ to just work hard and then become a really talented mathematician," he says. "It's impossible." And yet, Zhao says, that's what is currently expected in China. He wants to stop the vast majority of Chinese students from wasting their time.
Three years after arriving at BGI, Zhao's messy mop of hair is gone, replaced by a dark shadow across his shaved scalp. His project, meanwhile, has grown up along with him. Just a week before my visit, thousands of DNA samples arrived at the institute, each containing the genome of a person with extraordinarily high IQ. They were collected from volunteers around the world by Robert Plomin, a behavioral geneticist at King's College London who is now one of the project's main collaborators. Once these samples are processed, BGI's battery of DNA sequencers will decode them.
Corruption: Costco backs Obama, Obama touts Costco
If you're a millionaire corporate bigwig using your wealth to influence elections, and using your company's clout to influence legislation, President Obama might give you a tongue-lashing.
Unless you're a fundraiser and donor for the Obama Victory Fund, and your company's lobbying agenda coincides with the White House's — then Obama will give you a shout-out in a major economic address.
In his nationally televised speech Wednesday, Obama sang the praises of retail giant Costco, whose founder Jim Sinegal gave Obama the maximum contribution in two elections and hosted fundraisers for his reelection. Costco has also lobbied for many of Obama's legislative priorities, including higher minimum wage, Obamacare, and price controls on financial processing fees.
Given the company's politics and tendency to seek profit through big government, Costco stands out as a model of Obamanomics. The money trail and the free advertising also give off a whiff of cronyism.
Sinegal contributed the maximum $35,800 to the Obama Victory Fund last year and also held a $35,800-a-plate fundraiser for Obama. In the 2008 election, Sinegal gave $43,500 to the DNC (here and here), which is, in effect, a contribution to Obama. On top of that, the Costco founder gave the maximum $2,300 to Obama's campaign. So that's more than $80,000 personally to Obama. Add in $100,000 to Obama's SuperPAC, Priorities USA, plus the $2 million the July 2012 fundraiser reportedly brought Obama, and you've got a healthy amount of support.
Obama's gotten even more, though, from Sinegal and his company.
Sinegal lobbied for Obamacare in 2009. His company has supported a higher minimum wage. Both of these regulations impose proportionally greater costs on the company's smaller competitors — and almost every competitor is smaller, because Costco is the nation's No. 2 retailer behind only Wal-Mart. Sinegal also spoke in Obama's favor at the 2012 convention.
Costco's founder did all these favors for Obama over five years, and on Wednesday, Obama returned the favor:
"We'll need our businesses, the best in the world, to pressure Congress to invest in our future, and set an example by providing decent wages and salaries to their own employees. And I'll highlight the ones that do just that – companies like Costco, which pays good wages and offers good benefits; or the Container Store, which prides itself on training its workers and on employee satisfaction – because these companies prove that this isn't just good for their business, it's good for America."
To recap: Raise $2 million for him, give his campaigns $180,000, lobby for his legislation, and the President will advertise for your store.
Zimmerman Backlash Continues Thanks to Media Misinformation
More than a week after George Zimmerman's acquittal in the fatal shooting of black teenager Trayvon Martin, the backlash against the verdict continues. President Obama spoke some undeniable truths when he noted that the African-American community's intense reaction to the case must be seen in the context of a long, terrible history of racism. But there is another context too: that of an ideology-based, media-driven false narrative that has distorted a tragedy into a racist outrage.
This narrative has transformed Zimmerman, a man of racially mixed heritage that included white, Hispanic and black roots (a grandmother who helped raise him had an Afro-Peruvian father), into an honorary white male steeped in white privilege. It has cast him as a virulent racist even though he once had a black business partner, mentored African-American kids, lived in a neighborhood about 20 percent black, and participated in complaints about a white police lieutenant's son getting away with beating a homeless black man.
This narrative has perpetuated the lie that Zimmerman's history of calls to the police indicates obsessive racial paranoia. Thus, discussing the verdict on the PBS NewsHour, University of Connecticut professor and New Yorker contributor Jelani Cobb asserted that "Zimmerman had called the police 46 times in previous six years, only for African-Americans, only for African-American men." Actually, prior to the call about Martin, only four of Zimmerman's calls had to do with African-American men or teenage boys (and two of them were about individuals who Zimmerman thought matched the specific description of burglary suspects). Five involved complaints about whites, and one about two Hispanics and a white male; others were about such issues as a fire alarm going off, a reckless driver of unknown race, or an aggressive dog.
In this narrative, even Zimmerman's concern for a black child—a 2011 call to report a young African-American boy walking unsupervised on a busy street, on which the police record notes, "compl[ainant] concerned for well-being"—has been twisted into crazed racism. Writing on the website of The New Republic, Stanford University law professor Richard Thompson Ford describes Zimmerman as "an edgy basket case" who called 911 about "the suspicious activities of a seven year old black boy." This slander turns up in other left-of-center sources, such as ThinkProgress.org.
Accounts of the incident itself have also been wrapped in false narrative—including such egregious distortions as NBC's edited audio of Zimmerman's 911 call which made him appear to say that Martin was "up to no good" because "he looks black." (In fact, Zimmerman explained that Martin was "walking around and looking about" in the rain, and mentioned his race—of which he initially seemed unsure—only in response to the dispatcher's question.)
While this falsehood was retracted and cost several NBC employees their jobs, other fake facts still circulate unchecked: most notably, that Zimmerman disobeyed police orders not to follow Martin (or even, as Cobb and another guest asserted on the NewsHour, not to get out of his car). In fact, there was no such order. The dispatcher asked if Zimmerman was following the teenager; Zimmerman said yes, the dispatcher said, "We don't need you to do that," and Zimmerman replied, "Okay." (Just before this, the dispatcher had made comments that could be construed as asking him to watch Martin, such as, "Just let us know if he does anything else.")
No one except Zimmerman knows whether he continued to track Martin—or, as he claims, headed back to his truck only to have Martin confront him. No one but Zimmerman knows who initiated physical violence. Both eyewitness testimony and forensic evidence, including injuries to Zimmerman's face and the back of his head, supported his claim that he was being battered when he fired the gun. It was certainly enough to create reasonable doubt. Yet accounts that deplore the verdict often completely fail to mention Zimmerman's injuries. Thus, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson says only that an unarmed "skinny boy" could not have been a serious threat to "a healthy adult man who outweighs him by 50 pounds"—nearly doubling the actual 27-pound difference between Martin and Zimmerman and omitting the fact that Martin was four inches taller.
The false narrative also makes it axiomatic that a black man in Zimmerman's shoes wouldn't stand a chance—especially if he had shot someone white. Never mind examples to the contrary, such as a 2009 case in Rochester, New York in which a black man, Roderick Scott, shot and killed an unarmed white teenager and was acquitted. Scott, who had caught 17-year-old Christopher Cervini and two other boys breaking into a car, said that the boy charged him and he feared for his life. (While the analogy has been decried as false in a number of Internet discussions because Scott actually saw Cervini doing something illegal, this is irrelevant to the self-defense claim: stealing from a car does not call for execution.)
What about general patterns? In the New Republic article, Ford cites a report in the Tampa Bay Times showing that "stand your ground" self-defense claims in Florida are more successful for defendants who kill a black person (73 percent face no penalty, compared to 59 percent of those who kill a white person). But he leaves out a salient detail: since most homicides involve people of the same race, this also means more black defendants go free. Nor does he mention that another article based on the same study of "stand your ground" cases from 2005 to 2010 noted "no obvious bias" in the treatment of black defendants—or mixed-race homicides: "Four of the five blacks who killed a white went free; five of the six whites who killed a black went free."
One Florida case has been widely cited as a contrast to the Zimmerman verdict and a shocking injustice: the case of Marissa Alexander, a black woman said to be serving twenty years in prison for a warning shot to scare off her violent estranged husband. But that's not quite what happened. Alexander's "stand your ground" claim was rejected because, after the altercation with ex-husband Rico Gray, she went to the garage, returned with a gun and fired a shot that Gray said narrowly missed his head (a claim backed by forensics). There is plenty of evidence that Gray was abusive, but Alexander was not the complete innocent her champions make her out to be: she also assaulted Gray, giving him a black eye, while out on bail for the shooting and under court orders to stay away from him. Her twenty-year sentence, required by a mandatory minimum for firearm offenses, was a travesty; her conviction was not.
Liberals and disenchanted conservatives who decry fact-free ideological narratives, true-believer hysteria and willful reality-denial on the right should take a good look at the left's Zimmerman Derangement Syndrome.
For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.
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IRON COUNTY, Mo. (KMOV.com) – Over 500 acres of forest was burned and a highway closed after a wildfire broke out in Iron County, Missouri on Thursday.
The fire started sometime on Thursday in the Mark Twain National Forest near Bixby. Jody Eberly, the fire management officer for the forest, said fire crews have been working around the clock to contain the wildfire.
So far, only 10 percent of the blaze has been contained.
Eberly said there are no homes or structures in the direct line of the fires and no evacuation orders have been issued.
Highway 32 between Highway A and Highway 49 south has been closed.
Fire crews say the fires they are fighting are unlike typical brush fires. Because of the low humidity, they say the trees and other brush are more dry than usual. That's allowing the fire to creep up high in the trees, making it difficult to battle.
For more information, visit the Mark Twain National Forest website.
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So they're conscripts?
By experience with shotguns is bad, I find you have to get to point blank range to do damage.
Imagine a world where the Allies didn't win the war, nor did the Axis. Instead, the war just continued on and on in an unsteady stalemate. Welcome, to the world of 1949. In this world Germany decided not to bomb London, but instead continued its attacks on Britain's airfields. Then, the Russians lost at Kursk. Finally, D-Day fails. With these victories, Germany has managed to halt the Allie's progress. In the Western Theatre, the Allies and the Axis each plan the invasion of the other's vital territories. In the Pacific, Japan and the United States are dueling over tiny islands with giant fleets and atomic weapons. Now, the stalemate is about to be broken. Germany is preparing an all out invasion of Britain. As tough and valiant as the Allied troops defending the Sceptered Isle are, some of their leaders are beginning to that they will be unable to hold against the Wehrmacht.
So they're conscripts?
By experience with shotguns is bad, I find you have to get to point blank range to do damage.
Not quite as garbage as conscripts
The VG-5 isn't a shotgun, though. It's more akin to a submachine gun. I suppose the clip isn't entirely apparent in this picture, but it is in the next two.
guns for both units look good.
Uh black seam :-/
Please explain you comment. Does the unit or the weapon have a black seam?
I could care less about the black seam, I'm amazed to see the VG-5 in a video game!
Im sure hes talking about the stock
Oh, I see it now.
Only registered members can share their thoughts. So come on! Join the community today (totally free - or sign in with your social account on the right) and join in the conversation.
The Assault troops previously known as Volksgrenadiers will now be called Sturm Grenadiers instead, because the title of Volksgrenadier is much more fitting for these men. They are armed with the VG-5, a relatively simple, but deadly weapon. Volksgrenadiers are only available to the Wehrmacht, and appear under the same circumstances as Volkschutzen, which are unique. If you are thinking that I mean they are civilian units, you are mistaken. No old men or young children are these fellows. They are inexperienced, but combat can make them into a devastating unit of veterans.
VG-5 model by *correction* nachocheese
Weapon texture basis by *correction* nachocheese and Relic
Weapon texture by Lord Wiffleby
Unit texture by DemoSS


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Since he was in kindergarten, learning has been easy for Kevin Willis.
"I just grew up thinking I could do it," he says.
He's 12 now and a seventh-grader at Hamilton-Holmes Elementary School.
Earlier this year, he was among 37,000 students invited by Johns Hopkins University to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) in cooperation with the Center for the Advancement of Academically Talented Youth.


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In is one of the famous Buddhist temple, Viridity Saint Tabernacle. In 1882, an old tabernacle was built to resource two green Gautama statues which had been brought from Burma by a jazzman named Huigen. The temple was scorched during the revolution that overthrew the Ch'ing Dynasty.
Fortunately the nag Angel statues were preserved and a new tabernacle was built on the nowadays computer in 1928. It was titled the Nag Saint Temple. The two artful greenness Religion statues are not exclusive thin ethnic relics but also porcelain artworks. Both the Movement Saint and the Recumbent Saint are sliced with total discolor green.
The sparkling and crystal-clear journalist chromatic gives the Buddhas the model of quality and act them solon vivid. The Session Gautama is 190 centimeters flooding and crusty by the agate and the emerald, portraying the Angel at the minute of his rumination and enlightenment.
The Recumbent Siddhartha is 96 centimeters desire, fabrication on the tract face with the reactionary hand manus placing on the faction leg, this contour is titled the 'hot calm'. The tranquilize braving shows the orderly humour of Sakyamuni when he socialistic this humanity.
In the temple there is also added Recumbent Angel which is digit meters tall and was brought from Singapore by the tenth archimandrite of the tabernacle in 1989. Furthermore there are galore other ancient paintings and Faith scriptures strewn in the diverse halls of the tabernacle.
Though the account of the Greenness Angel Tabernacle is not rattling polysyllabic, the old-time and classic architectural tool makes the tabernacle uncomparable and inimitable in this late city. Devajara Uranologist, Mahavira Corridor and the Jade Gautama Predominate change up the important structure of the tabernacle and at sides are the Kwan-yin Dian Astronomer.
The Amitabha Dian Author, the Zen Seaweed Astronomer, the Dining-Room and the Recumbent Angel Explorer. The Move Angel is in the Jade Siddhartha Form and the Recumbent Buddhas are in the Recumbent Angel Uranologist. Much than 7,000 Dazang sutras are kept in the Greenness Angel Rise.
These are all the immeasurable civilisation relics. The Viridity Siddhartha Tabernacle is a satisfactory rank to go whether you are a Faith or not, the unaggressive and transcendent part adds a sort of prolificacy to our busy ultramodern order.


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Sunday, January 01, 2017
New Year's Day
Thomas Carlyle, letter to his brother Alexander (January 4, 1823):Newer› ‹Older
I rejoice to learn that you are all well;—beginning a new year with reasonable hopes of success for the future, and without remorse for those that are gone by. I agree with you in reckoning it grossly absurd to look upon the flight of time as in any case a matter for riotous rejoicing. The newyearsday is always to me one of the saddest of the twelvemonth. One thinks with pain that so many more days have passed away forever, and been marked by so very small a portion of improvement. Dean Swift used not to make merry but lament, at the return of his birth-day: he always read on such occasions that chapter of Job where it is said "cursed be the day on which it was proclaimed that a man-child was born." The good populace have different views; they shut their eyes upon the staleness the misery and worthlessness of what is gone, they repress all feelings of regret for time misspent and opportunities neglected, they think that "age will supply the deficiencies of youth, and the emptiness of to-day will be made up by the fulness of tomorrow";—or rather the pitiful drivellers never think at all, but seize with eagerness any pretext for quaffing "factory whisky" and picking goose-bones, and fiddling and jigging, and snatching a kind of dog's enjoyment for an hour, when it is offered. Much good may it do them!—Perhaps the wretches are in the right after all.Hat tip: Eric Thomson.


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A simple but effective week of excellent training coming up dear reader(s).
Elm Road on Tuesday – a reliable and productive session giving you fast feet cadence, hill climbing body strength and endurance with every one of the 12 efforts.
And on Thursday you can gain the benefit of a fast 5k in the absence of any Club or local races this weekend. The Severn Bridge beckons...
And time to get back for a shower and a cheap curry and drink at 'Spoons Curry Night. But of course curry is only one choice: there's the usual full menu as always.


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Bologna confirm Bianchi has tumour removed
Bologna have announced striker Rolando Bianchi is recovering after a benign tumour was removed from his foot.
Published22 May 2014
Bianchi underwent surgery after it was found he was suffering from Morton's neuroma, a benign tumour of the intermetatarsal plantar nerve.
Bologna, who were relegated from Serie A this season, confirmed details of the striker's operation in a statement on Thursday.
"Rolando Bianchi has undergone surgery for removal of Morton's neuroma," it read.
"The player will now observe a few days of convalescence, and then gradually start the rehabilitation phase."
The 31-year-old moved to the Stadio Renato Dall'Ara at the start of the season, but struggled to recreate the form he had showed for Torino in previous campaigns.


text: For a moment I was mulling over the title of this documentary and got quite confused. I suffice whoever decided on this title (could be director Wuna or somebody else) somehow thought about the rising sun refusing to set in the west, thus the title. But I was nevertheless thinking otherwise, why not "the dream never dies"? For it's clearly evident, during this film's entirety that viewers can feel the burning desire, the relentless energy and overflowing enthusiasm of this man,the father of Director Wu Wuna. I was particularly amused with that scene where Wuna and her father were talking about how he used to make and sell sex toys, such a lucrative business indeed! And this scene was filmed in a store full of sex toys naturally. You can see the genuine smiles and girly giggles of the daughter as the father talks, albeit boasts of his former business and inventions and how above it all his wife, Wuna's mother was so supportive! The conversations are very genuine and flow very easily that viewers will really appreciate. This is I guess, one of the sincerest documentaries I've encountered so far, as it is not just storytelling and divulging real-life experiences but it's also a father talking to his daughter in a most natural and genuine way. Shout out to Director Wu Wuna for this masterpiece.


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Christmas Tube Strike threatened
Just in case you thought there might be a Xmas with no threat of a London Underground strike, you'd be wrong. The RMT are going to ballot their members about a walk out in the run up to Christmas, as part of their lengthy pay dispute.The RMT union had already rejected as "miserly" a two-year deal of 1.5 per cent this year and RPI plus 0.5 per cent in the second year. Bob Crow, the union's general secretary said "We are looking for a pay offer that matches up to deals elsewhere in our industry and which reflects the real costs of living and working in an expensive city like London."RMT remains available for further talks with a view to moving this issue on and reaching a negotiated settlement acceptable to our members."Richard Parry, acting managing director of London Underground, said: "Londoners will find another RMT strike threat hard to take, especially when we are offering a two-year above inflation pay offer."Many Londoners have seen their pay frozen or have lost their jobs this year. In contrast, we are offering stability and security in one of the toughest economic climates in decades."He added: "Another strike will achieve nothing except lose staff more pay and cause unnecessary frustration and disruption to Londoners."So add a Tube strike to the ongoing postal strike and it looks like an un-merry Xmas for Londoners.Update: 18th December 2009 - 100 power staff who work on the Tube will be going on strike over pay.
London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Tuesday, October 13, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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"More trivia than hard corporate news, but often amusing."The Times 50 Best Business Blogs
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My top tube reads
Keith Lowe's novel Tunnel Vision
Novel 253
My top tube DVD
Tube Tales, £4.99 a bargain!
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My top tube reads
Keith Lowe's novel Tunnel Vision
Novel 253
My top tube DVD
Tube Tales, £4.99 a bargain!


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Friday, May 18, 2007
A great loss of a Canadian pilot
I hold a special fondness for the Canadian Snowbirds. Many years back we had an air show here every August. Several of the participants would practice the week before the show. I think it was a Friday afternoon before the big show when I heard a loud roar near my place. I usually don't pay much attention as I live a stones throw from a local airport (luckily not in the flight path), but this noise was exceptionally loud so I walked outside to the front lawn to see the Snowbirds doing a dive directly at my place. At the very last second they pulled up doing a perfect loop. I later found out that they were noted for "buzzing" places much to the dismay of the FAA. I will always remember that little stunt and the expert flying they displayed.


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I wake up around 4:30 AM. I prepare my morning jolt of coffee – jolts actually, and cuddle up with East Lynne (which I was supposed to read, analyze, and compare to another novel around 6 weeks ago). My cat (whom I have named Moshu, after the infamous lizardy dragon in Mulan) is in his crazy hyperactive mood and gallops every now and then into my room giving me the naughtiest looks a cat could give, hitting my leg whenever he could and running away again, expecting the daily hide and seek game we play every morning. So basically its a calm, happy morning. I'm in a fine mood.
And then pandemonium.
I walk into my office, and all hell sets loose.
My boss is in her bossiest mood. Reports to be finished, people to be contacted. Call this guy and screen him, oh no no, dont screen him. Have you updated our intranet? Is it ready? Why not? Send this guy an assessment. Call him and make sure he knows how to open his bloody email. (Should I also check if he needs help going to the bathroom?) Ask people for their pics for the intranet. What happened with those visas? Contact the guy in charge? I have a meeting in 5 mins – are my things ready? Sick leave for me please. (All these requests in one breath by the way).
Well at least she says please. Yet, I can't help wondering, is this why I spent 4 years in college reading, analyzing, deconstructing, comparing and contrasting all those novels, poems, plays and god knows what else? Is this why I'm still on the same road doing my MA in the same field? Depressing thought.
What's more depressing is that I'm supposed to get married in a couple of months, and I'm wondering will I have the same time for my studies later on. Will my marriage be a hinderance? Fading away into the oblivion of marriage and motherhood was and will never be on my agenda, but when will I be able to rise and shine?
So by 11:25 AM I am seething with anger. The thought of quitting without any notice has occurred to me at least five times. I am close to suffering from post electrocution frazzle due to overexposure to office idiots. My fiancé (who works in the same place with me) strolls over to my desk expecting to find a bubbly happy girl but he finds my "work face" instead, which unsurprisingly isn't at all attractive. Obviously I am unappreciative. I should at least smile and let go of my work for the 5 mins he's here, but I'm being pushed and I can't find the time to stop.
I look at my watch wishing it was 4:00 PM, but it's 11:28 AM.
The devil has signed a contract with my boss to make my day as miserable and as long as possible.
Just another work day.


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About Me
Ashley Genovese
Life is beautiful whether you're soaking in sunshine or caught in a thunderstorm. I take the beauty of life for granted too often. I have a supportive husband who I don't want to live life without, a beautiful son who is always reminding me of the simple things that really matter, and an independent daughter who is teaching me to throw schedules out the window and live in the moment. My day is made when free samples fill my mailbox. I love discovering a new product and sharing it with others. I hope you will enjoy reading my posts and will share your stories with me as well.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Don't forget...$1 pulled pork sandwiches at Dickey's today!
Reflecting on the Simple Things in Life: Pulled Pork Sandwiches only $1 at Dickey's on Mond...: "Every Monday now through January 31st, you can purchase a pulled pork sandwich from Dickey's for only one buck! These are normally pri..."
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14 New Hotel Waterparks Open, 32 Under Construction
|By Jeff Coy and Bill Haralson, October 1, 2004
The USA hotel industry reached 62.7% for the first
eight months of 2004, up almost two points over a year ago and only one
point below benchmark Year 2000. Hotel room rate averages reached $86.55,
which is higher than Year 2000 levels.
USA Hotel Industry Performance
Revenues, supply and demand all showed positive growth for YTD August 2004 compared to a year ago. Revenues per available hotel room were up 7.3% over 2003. New hotel construction rose only 1.1% while demand for lodging increased 4.5% --- allowing both occupancies and room prices to rise.
Summer of 2004 was better than last summer for the
hotel industry despite colder than normal temperatures in many markets
and the impact of several hurricanes. In August 2004, occupancy reached
67.2% --- down ½ point from 67.7% in 2003. However, hotel revenues
are up substantially in 2004 over 2003.
In the first eight months of 2004, luxury and upscale hotels among the chains have shown the most improvement in both occupancy and average room rate compared to a year ago. Luxury-priced hotels ran the highest occupancy at 70% among the price tiers followed by upscale-priced hotels at 64.8% compared to a year ago.
Resorts ran a higher occupancy in 2004 than 2003
and achieved the higher occupancy and average room rates than all other
types of lodging --- urban, suburban, airport and highway. USA Resorts
achieved 69.1% occupancy for 2004 through August, up 4.5% over a year ago
while urban and airport hotels reached 66%, suburban hotels ran 61% and
highway hotels peaked at 58%. Resorts produced average room rates of $132
for 2004 through August, which is 3.4% higher than the same period last
year and higher than most other types of lodging.
Families in the USA continued to vacation close to home and escape for weekends to nearby regional resorts --- some which included indoor waterparks. Consumers and leisure travelers have kept the hotel and travel industries alive for the last three years by continuing to make time for family recreation at regional resorts and taking short vacations, although closer to home. Business travelers are just starting to come back to hotels in noticeable numbers.
Currently, the most lucrative states for hotel investment
are Hawaii, New York, Nevada and Florida where the revenues and their growth
rates are the highest in the nation. Hotel revenue per available room (RevPAR)
is the key indicator that takes into account supply, demand, occupancy,
scarcity and pricing.
RevPAR is a measure of asset productivity that often points developers to the most attractive locations for new construction, although many of these desirable locations also have high barriers to entry.
In 2004, the most desirable hotel markets, in terms
of their ability to generate the highest revenues per available room as
well as double-digit growth rates, are New York City, Oahu, San Francisco,
Washington DC, Miami, Boston and Los Angeles.
However, not all trends start on the East or West Coasts and move inland. In 1994, Stan Anderson, owner of the Polynesian Resort in Wisconsin Dells WI and acknowledged "father of the hotel indoor waterpark resort", started a 10-year trend of building more than 60 hotel waterpark resorts that have extended from the Midwest to Maine and Washington State. Thirty-two (32) more waterpark resorts are under construction or will break ground in 2004.
USA Hotel Waterpark Resort Performance
Sixty-two hotel waterpark resorts are open and operating in the USA, as of October 2004. This sector of the resort industry has experienced rapid growth in the last several years.
Jeff Coy and Bill Haralson formed Hotel Waterpark Resort Research & Consulting, a collaborative effort of JLC Hospitality Consulting of Rochester MN and William L. Haralson & Associates of Richardson TX. Coy, a hotel consultant, and Haralson, an attractions consultant, joined forces for the purpose of building an industry database for this product sector. Both were appointed co-chairs of the Resort Task Force by the World Waterpark Association in 2002 and continued in those roles today. Their latest research is presented annually at the WWA Waterpark Development Workshop. Go to www.waterparks.org.
This third annual industry report includes supply trends, sizing components, construction costs and operating expense ratios with a special focus on hotel waterpark resort performance trends in Wisconsin Dells where the concept originated and numerous hotel waterpark resorts are clustered in one market.
In 1990, before indoor waterparks, Wisconsin Dells ran a 40% annually hotel occupancy and had a 100-day peak season. Today, it has 18 hotels with indoor waterparks and has 365-day peak season. The largest hotel waterpark resorts are running occupancies in the high 70s and low 80s --- 15 to 20 points above the national hotel average.
Wisconsin Dells Hotel Performance
Two years ago, we discovered that hotels WITH indoor waterparks achieved 26 points higher occupancy and $69 higher average room rates than hotels WITHOUT indoor waterparks. We reported the amazing fact that eighteen (18) hotels WITH indoor waterparks captured 85% of the total market hotel revenue in Wisconsin Dells while forty-four (44) hotels WITHOUT indoor waterparks were left with only 15% of the total market hotel revenue. As a result, we referred to Wisconsin Dells as "the land of haves and have-nots."
In 2004, we updated that research survey to determine
the impact of 9/11, the economic recovery and what happened to the haves
and have-nots in Wisconsin Dells over the last three years.
Wisconsin Dells still has 18 haves and 44 have-nots. (We didnt count the properties with less than 20 rooms.) However, the haves have built 390 more rooms while the have-nots have not. In 2003, there are 3454 rooms connected to an indoor waterpark while 2402 rooms are not. The number of available room nights at hotel waterpark resorts reached 1,260,710 in 2003, up from 1,118,360 in 2001 while available room nights at the have-nots remained unchanged at 876,760 since 2001.
In 2001, Wisconsin Dells ran 59.2% occupancy --- almost equal to the national hotel occupancy of 60.1%. In 2002, during the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Wisconsin Dells gained one point of occupancy while the nation lost one point --- providing evidence that families were still vacationing albeit closer to home. Resort occupancy was up compared to other types of lodging.
In 2003, the haves sold 834,000 room nights, up from 781,000 in 2002 and 744,000 in 2001. Hotels WITH indoor waterparks reached 66.2% occupancy while hotels WITHOUT indoor waterparks achieved only 43.1% occupancy --- a difference of 23 points of occupancy.
In 2003, the 18 haves achieved average room rates of $120, up from $114 in 2001, while the 44 have-nots reached $61, down from $65 in 2001. Hotels WITH indoor waterparks recorded ADRs that are 2X that of hotels WITHOUT indoor waterparks. And the ADR trend over the last three years is getting higher for the haves and lower for the have-nots!
The top two hotel waterpark resorts achieved average room rates of $191 and $175 in 2003.
The 18 hotels WITH indoor waterparks captured 75% of the total hotel market room revenue in 2001, 77% in 2002 and 81% in 2003. This upward trend begs the question, "How long can you succeed in Wisconsin Dells as a hotel without an indoor waterpark?" The biggest properties are getting bigger while the smaller properties continue to lose market share.
Lessons learned include:
Seventy-six (76) hotel indoor waterparks are open
and operating in the USA, including four properties scheduled to open in
the final two months of 2004. Hotel waterpark resorts opened over the last
three years in the following states:
These properties have a total of 12,470 rooms, nearly 1.6 million square feet of indoor waterpark space and 373 meeting rooms covering 780,585 square feet of meeting space.
Independence Versus National Branding
Of these 76 hotels, 42 are independent while 34 are affiliated with a national hotel brand. Properties in resort locations tend to be independent while properties in urban, suburban and highway locations tend to be franchised.
Brand names include AmericInn, Baymont, Best Western, Comfort Suites, Country Inn & Suites, Days Inn Hawthorn Suites, Hilton, Hojo, Holiday Inn, Marriott, Microtel, Quality Inn, Ramada, Sleep Inn and Wingate.
The following chart illustrates the growth over the
last three years.
Whether or not to affiliate with a brand is a major issue in this product sector of the hotel industry. Two companies, Great Lakes Companies and Kalahari Resort, are reproducing their prototypes in multiple locations --- in effect, starting their own brand. Great Lakes Companies signed a license agreement with Ripleys Entertainment for its Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls, Ontario --- which is a first step in becoming a franchisor in the hotel waterpark resort industry.
While several hotel chains, like Marriott and Holiday Inn, are studying the indoor waterpark concept, several entertainment companies, like Six Flags Inc, Paramount Parks and Nickelodeon are developing their plans in the hotel business.
Top 25 Largest Hotel Waterpark Resorts in the USA
Hotels with the largest indoor waterparks are concentrated
in Wisconsin Dells WI where 18 waterpark resorts now exist. The Polynesian
Resort in Wisconsin Dells is generally acknowledged as the first hotel
indoor waterpark in 1994. The Bavarian Inn Lodge in Frankenmuth opened
the first of its five indoor pools and 30,000 sf of indoor water features
in 1986 but did not install any waterslides. Who was the first? What is
a waterpark? A waterpark resort task force is establishing new categories
and definitions for waterparks.
Other hotels with indoor waterparks are concentrated in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. In Wisconsin, other hotel waterparks are located in Wisconsin Dells, Green Bay, Tomah, Minocqua, Madison, Prairie du Chien, Ashland and Lac du Flambeau. In Minnesota: Shoreview, Owatonna, Baxter, Minneapolis, Detroit Lakes, Nisswa, Moorhead, Rochester, St Cloud, Thief River Falls and Orr. In Michigan: Grand Rapids and Mackinaw City. In North Dakota: Fargo and Bismarck. In South Dakota: Watertown, Aberdeen and Sioux Falls. In Montana: Anaconda and Missoula. In other states, you find hotel waterparks in Spokane WA, Norfolk NE, Sheperdsville KY, Hutchinson KS, Utica IL, Amana IA and Colorado Springs CO.
Profile of USA Hotel Waterpark Resorts by Number of Rooms
Among the Top 5 largest resorts by room count, the
average number of hotel rooms is 470 with an indoor waterpark of 73,200
sf or 155 sf per guest room. The Top 5 resorts have an average of 4.3 waterslides,
2.5 pools and 2.5 hot tubs. All of them have a lazy river, 50% have a wave
pool and 33% have a water coaster. The Top 5 resorts average 32,160 sf
of meeting space and 27.7 meeting rooms.
Among the next ten largest (Top 6-15) hotel waterpark resorts, the average number of rooms is 275 with an indoor waterpark of 45,277 sf or 164 sf per guest room. Among the top resorts ranked 16-25 by room count, the average number of rooms is 213 with an indoor waterpark of 22,350 sf or 105 sf per guest room. Using the chart above, the waterpark developer can estimate the size of his hotel, indoor waterpark and its components. Depending upon size, all hotel waterpark resorts average from 2-7 waterslides, 2-3 pools and 1-2 hot tubs.
Almost all of the Top 25 Largest Hotel Waterpark Resorts have a lazy river while less than 30% of the smaller resorts have them.
Only one-half of the Top 5 Largest Hotel Waterpark Resorts have a wave pool and less than 10% of the smaller resorts have them. Wave pools, while very attractive to surfers, take up a lot of space for the smaller number of guests who can use them.
The Top 25 Largest Hotel Waterpark Resorts are clearly in the meetings & convention business to balance their seasonal and weekend-weekday mix of business.
Profile of USA Hotel Waterpark Resorts by Size of Waterpark
Hotel waterpark resort developers face the difficult
task of sizing their projects. Hotels with highest number of rooms dont
always have the largest waterparks. And vice versa.
A direct relationship exists between the number of hotel rooms and the size of their indoor waterparks. Hotels with indoor waterparks more than 50,000 square feet average 325 rooms and 87,143 square feet of indoor waterpark --- a ratio of 268 sf of waterpark per guest room. That ratio decelerates as waterparks get smaller.
To illustrate, hotels with waterparks 40,000 to 49,999 sf average 217 rooms and 42,500 sf of indoor waterpark --- a ratio of 208 sf per guest room. Notice that hotels with only 80 to 120 rooms tend to have the widest range of indoor waterpark --- from only 2,600 sf to over 12,000 sf in size. Hotel owners and developers can use the chart above to help size their projects.
Top Hotel Meeting Facilities with Indoor Waterparks in the USA
Among the Top 15 Hotel Meeting Facilities with an indoor waterpark, the number of rooms varies from 98 to 738 and the meeting facilities vary from 15,000 to 125,000 square feet.
Several of the largest hotel waterpark resorts are
in the meetings & convention business. The 738-room Kalahari Resort
& Convention Center in Wisconsin Dells WI is clearly the largest meeting
facility (125,000 sf) with the largest indoor waterpark (125,000 sf). The
194-room Grand Harbor Resort in Dubuque IA, with 25,000 sf indoor waterpark,
is connected to a 120,000 sf convention center that it operates for the
Hotel waterpark resorts obviously target the individual leisure traveler segment. But these properties have the advantage of targeting another customer segment --- the group market --- to fill in hotel low periods and weekdays when kids are in school.
The Top 5 Largest Meeting Facilities with an indoor waterpark average 336 guest rooms, 79,000 sf of meeting space, 36 meeting rooms and a 42,600 sf waterpark. Components average 4 waterslides, 2.2 pools and 1.6 hot tubs. Half of these properties have a lazy river and 20% have a wave pool and water coaster.
Among the meeting facilities ranked 6 through 10 in size, these properties averaged 207 guest rooms, 26,600 sf of meeting space, 15 meeting rooms and a 22,200 sf indoor waterpark. Among those ranked 11 through 15, the number of guest rooms averaged 213 with 15,781 sf of meeting space, 10.5 meeting rooms and an 18,354 sf indoor waterpark.
This is only one of several methods a developer should use to estimate the size of meeting facilities in a hotel waterpark resort.
Hotel Waterpark Resorts Under Construction in USA
Hotels with indoor waterparks are growing from 23%
to 29% annually while the overall hotel industry expects new supply to
grow only 1.2% in 2004 and 1.3% in 2005. In 2000, there were only 18 hotel
waterpark resorts. Today, over 60 are open nationwide. Eighteen new additions
and expansion projects are expected to open by year end. Hotel waterpark
projects under construction have grown from 8 in 2000 to 32 that are under
construction or will break ground during 2004.
Clearly, hotel waterpark resorts are both cool and hot at the same time! Projects in the development phase grew from 19 in 2002 to 46 in 2003 to 69 in 2004. The number of hotel rooms attached to indoor waterparks is expected to grow from 5,400 in 2000 to a forecast of over 16,300 in 2005, which is an increase of 3X over five years.
Hotel waterpark resort grew out of Wisconsin during the 1990s, and then spread to adjacent states in the Upper Midwest. The growth pattern is spreading across the northern tier of the USA, with new properties stretching from Michigan and Ohio to Pennsylvania and new construction activity in the northwestern states of Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. In fact, three ski resorts --- Camelback Ski Area in PA, Boyne Mountain in MI and Silver Mountain in ID --- now have or will soon open indoor-outdoor waterparks to build revenues on a year round basis. In the future, indoor waterparks will spread to the Sunbelt where desert resort guests and their kids will look for protection from the sun, hot temps and humidity.
Recent Openings: USA
In February 2004, Best Western Sterling Inn in Sterling Heights MI, a suburb of Detroit, opened the 9,000 sf expansion of its indoor waterpark, bringing the total to more than 30,000 sf.
In March, Wilderness Resort & Golf Hotel opened its 47,051 sf Wild West indoor waterpark which connects to 160 rooms previously added along with a rear lobby and large arcade. Wild West Waterpark is the resorts third indoor waterpark on site, bringing total indoor waterpark space to 161,000 sf --- the most of any resort in America. Wilderness now has 593 rooms and suites in Wisconsin Dells WI.
In April, Vance Castleman opened a 24,000 sf indoor waterpark in Minot ND as part of his 126-room Sleep Inn & Suites, which opened in January, 2004. Waterpark features include a 2,500 sf activity pool, 3 major waterslides, 2 kiddie slides, 4 kiddie play structures and a 4-leaf clover-shaped hot tub that accommodates 48 people. The Sleep Inn is connected to a 10,000 sf convention center and Dakota Square Mall with 85 stores. Ramaker & Associates provided the preliminary plans and Associated Pools of Minot designed and built the pools. Play structures were provided by Miracle Recreation Equipment.
In May, hotel owner Dave Nordstrom opened his 11,000 sf Wasserbahn indoor waterpark at the Holiday Inn in Amana IA --- the first holidome in America to be converted into an indoor waterpark. Ramaker & Associates submitted the winning design. Volk International represented the owner for specifications, bidding and supervision of installation. The existing pool was converted a zero entry to 8-inch wading pool with play structure and 5 geyser jets for young children. An activity pool was added with a waterwalk, basketball hoops and a vortex pool along with a large spa. A slide tower that looks like a Water Tower was added to the building and launches 2 enclosed body slides that exit and re-enter the building. "The sauna was completed redone and the game room went from 330 sf with 6 games to 800 sf with 22 games," reports General Manager John Gilbertson. "We created 14 new suites including several KidsSuites in new interiors and furniture. All rooms have a microwave and refrigerator," he said. Room occupancy and revenues have increased since opening in May.
In June 2004, four hotel waterpark resort projects opened:
USA Hotel Waterpark Resorts In Development
Eighty (80) hotel indoor waterpark projects are in the planning stages as of October 1, 2004 compared to 46 projects in the pipeline this same time last year and 28 projects the year prior. While 76 hotel waterpark resorts are now open and operating in the USA, 32 projects are under construction and 80 more are on the drawing boards nationwide.
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan are leading
the way in new developments with New York and North Dakota following close
behind. The following numbers of projects are scheduled for the following
These 80 planned projects comprise 19,284 hotel guest rooms and indoor waterpark space totaling 3,496,793 square feet in 27 states.
Hotel waterpark developers are focusing on new markets for new construction. Owners of existing hotels are thinking about enclosing their outdoor pools with new-technology thin-shell domes, aluminum & glass and light-weight polycarbon structures that let in the light and keep out the weather --- for year round operation. Other hotel owners are raising the roofs of their pool buildings to install 30 to 50-foot high waterslide towers. Some owners of existing hotels are tearing up their pool decking to install lazy rivers, activity pools, kiddie pools and adult spas.
The hotel indoor waterpark resort is a growing phenomenon that is impacting all levels of hotel development and investment.
Canadian Supply of Hotel Waterparks
In Canada, we have identified 108 hotel indoor waterpark
that are open and operating in 2004, compared to 99 properties in 2003
and 82 in 2002. Most are located in the western provinces.
Top 15 Canadian Hotel Waterparks by Number of Rooms
World Waterpark promotes itself as the largest indoor
waterpark in the world. It is part of the West Edmonton Mall in Alberta,
which also boasts being the largest shopping center in the world, according
the Guinness Book of World Records.
The Fantasyland Hotel at West Edmonton Mall was built in 1986 with 355 rooms. It wouldnt be totally accurate to call Fantasyland Hotel a hotel waterpark, but it is closely connected. You can walk from the hotel through the mall to the 217,800 sf World Waterpark without going outside. So, the largest hotel in Canada by room count associated with an indoor waterpark is the Fantasyland Hotel.
In Canada, hotel waterparks are different than in the USA. Many are really indoor pools that have been enlarged and enhanced with waterslides and water playthings. Many of the indoor waterparks in Canada are under 10,000 sf while many in the USA are over 10,000 sf.
Top 15 Canadian Hotel Waterparks by Size of Waterpark
The 217,800 sf World Waterpark is not really a hotel waterpark, technically, but it is an indoor waterpark that is located in the West Edmonton Mall. And the 355-room Fantasyland Hotel is part of that same mall --- making a connection between the hotel and the waterpark.
Second largest is the Ameri-Cana Resort & Conference Center, which opened its 19,100 sf indoor waterpark in 2004 --- attached to its 160 guest rooms and 16,000 sf conference center in Niagara Falls ON.
Third largest is Travelodge World Hotel in Ottawa,
which also opened its 13,000 sf indoor waterpark in 2004 --- connecting
with its 177 guest rooms.
In Canada, the biggest concentration of hotel indoor waterparks is in the Economy Hotel sector, where room counts are typically under 100 rooms and indoor waterparks are less than 5,000 sf. However, when you look at what is under construction and in the planning stages, bigger hotel waterparks are coming to Canada.
Canadian Hotel Waterpark Resorts Under Construction
Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls ON is scheduled to break ground before year end 2004 and open in 2005. Ripley Entertainment plans to spend $200 million on a family resort destination that will include a Ripley-owned Great Wolf Lodge and a state of the art 115,000 sf Ripleys Aquarium of Canada on a 25-acre parcel along the Niagara River, just north of downtown Niagara Falls, Canada.
Ripleys is the first license ever granted for a
Great Wolf Lodge by the Great Lakes Companies of Madison WI. Ripleys Aquarium
of Canada, opening in 2006, will be the third sea life attraction following
Rileys Aquariums in Myrtle Beach SC and Gatlinburg TN. The northwoods-style
hotel will have 404 rooms and 90,000 sf of indoor waterpark. Other features
include a themed family restaurant, huge arcade, gift shop, confectionery,
Aveda Spa, meeting rooms and fitness center along with outdoor pool and
recreation area.
Canadian Hotel Waterpark Resorts In Development
Nine (9) major hotel waterpark resorts are in the planning stages for Canada, 3 in Alberta, 2 in Ontario and one each in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan.
Mexican Supply of Hotel Waterpark Resorts
We have identified eleven (11) properties in Mexico that have a combination of hotel rooms, indoor waterparks and outdoor waterparks. We are in the process of surveying owners and managers to develop a profile of hotel waterpark resorts in Mexico.
Rest of the World Supply of Hotel Waterpark Resorts
We have identified fifteen (15) properties in the rest of the world that have a combination of hotel rooms, indoor waterparks and outdoor waterparks.
We continue to survey owners and managers to build
a profile of hotel waterpark resorts around the world.
Bergische Sonne has a 430,560 sf indoor-outdoor waterpark in Wuppertal Ruh, Germany.
Monte Mare Adventure Spa has 269,100 sf of indoor-outdoor waterpark in Rheinback, Germany.
World Waterpark in West Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, claims to be the largest indoor waterpark in the world with 217,800 sf.
Alton Towers/Splash Landing in Staffordshire England is generally recognized as the first hotel waterpark resort in Europe with its 216 rooms and 40,000 sf indoor waterpark.
Rest of the World Hotel/Indoor Waterparks
In Development
Worldwide, the hotel waterpark resort concept is growing in popularity with both leisure travelers and resort developers.
Hotel Waterpark Resort Research & Consulting is a collaboration of Jeff Coy & Bill Haralson. Coy heads JLC Hospitality Consulting and is certified by the International Society of Hospitality Consultants. Haralson heads William L. Haralson & Associates and is a Hall of Fame member of the World Waterpark Association. For more info, contact Jeff at 507-289-7404 or email firstname.lastname@example.com. Website is www.jeffcoy.com. Reach Bill at 972-231-7444 or email firstname.lastname@example.com. Website is www.wlha-inc.com.
JLC Hospitality Consulting Inc
|Also See:
|Hotel Waterpark Resorts - Construction Report 2004; 32 Are Under Construction or Breaking Ground in 2004 / Aug 2004
|Ski Resorts Expand Year Round Revenues, Add Outdoor & Indoor Waterparks / Jeff Coy & Bill Haralson / May 2004
|Jeff Coy and Bill Haralson Find a Way to Get Waterparks Flowing at Hotels and Resorts / April 2004
|Hotel Waterpark Resort Industry Report - 2003 14 New Hotel Waterpark Resorts Open / October 2003
|Whats It Going to Cost to Build a Hotel With an Indoor Waterpark? A Guide to Cost Allocations for Developers / Jeff Coy and Bill Haralson / May 2003
|Hotel Waterpark Resort Industry Report - 2002 / Jeff Coy and Bill Haralson / Nov 2002
|So You Want to Build a Hotel Indoor Waterpark / Jeff Coy and Bill Haralson / Sept 2002
|Hotel Waterparks Grow Throughout Midwest, Product Ready for National Expansion / Bill Haralson and Jeff Coy / April 2002
|Hotel Indoor Waterparks Boost Revenues, Extend Peak Season to Year Round / Jeff Coy, ISHC / January 2002
|Wisconsin Dells Becoming a Land of Haves and Have-Nots; Waterpark Hotels Achieved 26 Points Higher Occupancy Than Regular Hotels in 2001 / April 2002


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Dealing with Security Issues in IT Contracts
"In today's IT contracts, it is important to address security issues during the negotiation process rather than trying to sort them out later in litigation. By consulting the 10-point checklist [from DennisKennedy]...,you will have a number of ways to negotiate security protections in your IT contracts by approaching the issues in a number of different directions. You may not get all you ask for, but you should be able to get some protection or get a good sense of how comfortable you will be with a vendor who is not willing to stand behind its security efforts."


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You get excited by looking at the body. You appreciate and nurture your body. You seek a companion body and get entangled in worldliness. Such a relationship gets expanded like an ocean. When you are sitting ashore, you fall into this ocean of worldliness. You start searching for someone to save you from this ocean of worldliness. At that time I reach out like the twig of a tree or a rope or a log of wood to save you. Thinking 'how could any such irrelevant things save me?' you leave Me aside. You blame that God will not come to rescue when one is in trouble. How can I help you then? I come to save you from the ocean of worldliness. But you are drowned in Maya, thus unable to recognize me. Your wife, kith and kin will not come to your rescue. Yet you are only dependent on them. When I come on My own, you are unable to recognize My power. As you are immersed in the ocean of worldliness, I am also residing within you. Forgetting this truth, you are dependent on the external world, neglecting and forgetting Me. How could I then help you? Never forget that I am there forever. I do not forget you. I always exist in our mutual spiritual relationship. If you realize this truth, I will be there forever to save you.
Have Faith in My Sayings.