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Thank you so so much to Emily at Shop Thrifting for my nomination for the Liebster Award. What a lovely surprise to cheer up my week!
Mention/thank/tag the blogger who nominated you.
Explain the rules for the next lucky nominees.- Answer the questions given to you.
Nominate and link blogs with less than (200) followers.
Post 11 questions of your own.
Notify bloggers that they have been nominated.
Here are my question and answer:
1. What did you last have to eat?
I just had an raspberry yoghurt - hurry up lunch time!
2. If you could buy one iconic designer piece what would it be?
I think it would have to be the quilted Chanel handbag - good question!
3. What was the last lie you told?
I told my husband that my new dress only cost £20 - it didn't!
4. What is the nicest compliment anyone has ever given you?
That I am beautiful inside and out.
5. What question would you hate to answer?
How would you prefer to die? I don't want to die!!
6. What are your three favourite things in your wardrobe?
My new lilac coat, Zara printed blouse and.... it's got to be one of my fluffy jumpers!
7. What's your favourite place in the world?
York, where I got engaged.
8. Jennifer or Angelina?
Jennifer for sure!
9. Why do you blog?
I like the thought of documenting my life so I can look back in years to come.
10. Blusher or lipstick?
Lipstick - every colour!
11. What's your favourite quote?
You can easily judge a character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
I nominate:
Ami Rose
Beauty, Bits and Blogs
Sarah Style
That Montgomery Girl
The French Way
Violet Daffodils
My 11 questions are:
1. What is your dream holiday destination?
2. What is your favourite book?
3. Curly or straight hair?
4. What is your favourite comfort food?
5. Who is your role model?
6. What was the last picture you took?
7. Sweet or savoury?
8. What cheers you up?
9. Favourite flower?
10. What is the first shop you look in for a new outfit?
11. What is your favourite quote?
I can't wait to read your answers!
Friday, 27 February 2015
Thursday, 26 February 2015
Liz Earle: Light Reflecting Concealer
I have been searching for the perfect concealer for what seems like forever.
I was after 'The One'. One that can cover up my blemishes and spots, hide my dark circles and basically make me look a bit more fresh when I walk in the office on a morning.
I stumbled across this a little by accident, although it should have really been my first port of call.
I get all my skin care from Liz Earle but I have (oddly) never bought make up from there. I popped in after the gym to pick up some Cleanse and Polish and had a little browse at their make up section.
The lovely assistant showed me there 'Light Reflecting Concealer'. She applied it underneath my eyes and patted some powder over the top and voilà! I was in love!
|Before After
Apologies about the bad photo quality! (this is one of the reasons I am not a beauty blogger haha) but hopefully you can tell how much of a difference it makes to the blemishes and dark circles. This is before I put foundation and powder on too!
I highly recommend you try if you haven't already. If you haven't guessed - I love it!
Monday, 23 February 2015
Forest Retreat
My week in Scotland seems so long ago now and I feel like I could do with a bucks fizz in the hot tub right about now!
I wrote about my excitement before we went and it definitely lived up to the expectations. We had such a lovely time, went on some great walks and lots of relaxing.
Here are a few photographs from our stay.
Wednesday, 18 February 2015
ASOS Wishlist
I am very much looking forward to spring. Not having to scrape the car every morning and been able to go outside without 3 pairs of socks on and my trusty blanket scarf is what I am dreaming of.
I had a little browse on ASOS to get me in the mood for shorter sleeves and pastels.
Here are a few of my favourites.
Tuesday, 10 February 2015
My Love of Books
One of the things I haven't spoken about yet on Boothy's Abode is my love of reading.
Maybe this is because my rate of finishing a book in recent months has rapidly declined. I don't really have a valid excuse for this other than Gossip Girl taking over my life and general lack of motivation to pick up a book.
I have previously been a little bit embarrassed about the genre of books I prefer. I don't know why, I just thought other people might think I was a bit weird. I am sure some people do, but then there must be tonnes of people that love the authors too. The books I am talking about are romantic suspense/crime books, some, such as Karin Slaughter are very intense.
My favourite authors are:
Karin Slaughter
Karen Rose
Mary Burton
Allison Brennan
Jessie Keane
Of course I like other genres too. I am currently reading Game of Thrones (I think Tyrion needs a big hug!) and my all time favourite is Wuthering Heights.
I have a few different ones in my amazon basket at the moment
Sophia Amorusa – Girl Boss
Lena Dunham – Not that kind of girl
Arianna Huffington – Thrive
I haven't read anything like this before but I have heard such good things about them, I think I would be stupid not to give them a go.
If you can think of any must reads please do share.
Thursday, 5 February 2015
Escape to the Forest
So Peter and I are going to Scotland for the week on Monday – Hallelujah!
We have been waiting for this break for months so I really CANNOT wait to finish work tomorrow night.
We are staying in a Forest Holidays cabin in Strathyre. We have stayed in this sort of accommodation before but never with Forest Holidays.
Peter has decided that we need to book a holiday at the beginning of every year. Apparently I'm a nightmare after Christmas if I don't have anything to look forward to. I don't believe it!
The main priority while we are there is to just relax and unwind. We have our own hot tub outside and a log fire in the cabin so it's set up to be the perfect retreat.
There are plenty of places to hike in the area so that will also be on the agenda.
Just the thought of getting wrapped up in a fluffy scarf and bobble hat, pulling on my walking boots, just me, Peter and nature. Then coming back to the cabin, lighting the fire and settling down to watch a film with a hot chocolate is pure bliss and exactly what I would spend my days doing if I didn't have to work and be in the city.
If you have any recommendations for films to watch while we are there that would be so helpful. I like anything really but Peter is more of a comedy type guy - he has to be in the mood for action. I am hoping he will be in the mood, for action films that is! The one's I have thought of so far are:
22 Jump Street
Inbetweeners 2
Let's be cops
You've got mail
Expendables 3
Stacks of chocolate, piles of cosy pajamas and huggings of fluffy socks are already packed and waiting for Monday to arrive!
Monday, 2 February 2015
Pick me up
Whenever I feel a bit lost or a bit flat, I always scroll through Pinterest for inspirational quotes and words of wisdom.
I print my favourites off and stick them on my desk at work.
Here are a few I have come across recently that have made me smile.
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When it comes to pricing, there is one constant to keep in mind. People do not know how much things are worth.
We will reiterate that point because it bears repeating, people really do not know how much things are worth.
The fact that a game show such as The Price is Right can actually exist definitely bears out that point.
William Poundstone, the author Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value says this:
People tend to be clueless about prices. Contrary to economic theory, we do not really decide between A and B by consulting our invisible price tags and purchasing the one that yields the higher utility, he says. We make do with guesstimates and a vague recollection of what things are "supposed to cost.
Not only do people not know what things cost, there are any number of oddities that exist with regard to shoppers, spending and pricing.
Shoppers that move in a counterclockwise direction spend an average of $2.00 more at the supermarket than shoppers that shop in any other direction and removing the dollar signs from prices (35 instead of $35) increases sales.
"Great", you might be thinking, but in your online store, no one is moving in any direction and you are not quite ready to remove all the dollar signs from your website.
Is there anything useful among the oddities? As it turns out, there is actually quite a lot of proven pricing data out there that can help boost your bottom line. Have a look at some of the information and examples collected here and decide for yourself which practices are relevant to your particular situation.
The Economist and decoy pricing
In his book, Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely used the following advertisement to illustrate his point:
He conducted a study using 100 MIT students and asked them to choose a subscription. Sixteen chose option A (the package for $59) and 84 chose option C (the combo package for $125). Nobody chose the middle option.
Ariely then asked, "If nobody chose the middle option, why bother offering it?" He removed it and gave the offer to another 100 MIT students. Thirty-two chose the expensive option and 68 the cheaper option.
Turns out that the middle option was far more useful than it seemed, it helped people make a decision between two similarly priced choices.
It seems that when offering three choices, it may pay to set them up as A, A- and B, rather than A, B, C. The A- choice reinforces the value of the "A" choice and keeps attention away from the B choice altogether.
A graph that describes this can be found below:
So if you add a slightly worse option that is similar to A (call it A-), then it is easy to see that A is better than A-, leading many people to choose that option.
Anchoring and the contrast principle
Nothing is cheap or expensive by itself, it is only in comparison to something else. After seeing a $250 hamburger on a menu, a $65 steak seems quite reasonable. An $89 T-shirt looks cheap next to an $18,000 bag.
What is the the best place to sell a $3,000 watch? Next to a $15,000 one.
This mental process, which turns an otherwise "high" number into a reasonable one, is called anchoring and adjustment. Anchoring has proven to have an effect on pricing and a study done by William Poundstone demonstrates just how effective anchoring can be even among "experts".
Real estate experts and undergrad students needed to appraise a home for sale. The normal information a buyer would have as well as what the seller has listed the house for was provided. Then they split into groups, each group was given a different listing price and then asked to give their appraisal.
These were the results for each listing price given:
Listing Price
Avg Estimated Worth
Avg Estimated Worth
As it turned out, all of the real estate experts "got it wrong" and seem to have tied their appraisal value to the listed price (all four "listing prices" were given to four different groups for the same house).
Setting anchor points for your products can mean introducing very expensive items that you may never intend to sell, but they serve to establish a baseline for the "adjustment" that will make your "regular" items more appealing.
Price perceptions
In his book, Don't Just Roll the Dice, author Neil Davidson writes the following about price perception:
People base their perceived values on reference points. If you are selling a to-do list application, then people will look around and find another to-do list application. If they search the internet and discover that your competitors sell to-do list applications at $100 then this will set their perception of the right price for all to-do list applications.
This point seems to have much in common with the concept of anchor points that we discussed earlier, however our focus here is not on setting an anchor, but on indentifying your product correctly.
If you intend to price your product higher than the common reference points, you need to change the reference points and the perception that people will use for your product.
Using Starbucks helps clarify this point. How did they manage to convince anyone that paying $3 for a cup of coffee was "worth it", especially considering most other cafes charged around $1?
Using price perception, this should have led people to stay away since $1 would have been the reference point for coffee.
Starbucks changed the reference points. They reinvented the experience of buying coffee so the perception of what was being sold had changed.
There was no longer a reference point with "other cafes"; they had successfully created a new category. If you can look like a new product category, you can set the price and people are more likely to pay for it.
Context set perception
In a pricing experiment conducted by Richard Thaler, the following scenario was used.
Two friends are on a hot beach. One offers to buy his friend's favorite beer for him, but asks him how much he would be willing the pay for the beer.
Two choices were given. In the first, the beer was being bought from a local run-down grocery store and in the second, it was being purchased from the bar of a fancy resort hotel. In either case, the beer would be drunk on the beach. In nearly all cases, people agreed to pay more when the beer was coming from a fancy hotel.
Their reason was that it strikes them as "unfair" to pay the same. This violates the bedrock principle that one Budweiser is worth the same as another, and it suggests that people care as much about being treated fairly as they do about the actual value of what they are paying for.
Thaler considered what his imaginary grocer could do to boost beer sales. He advised "investing in seemingly superfluous luxury or installing a bar". This would raise expectations about what the proper price of beer would be, resulting in more purchases.
The appearance of the place of purchase will have a significant impact on the prices people will be willing to pay. Investing in a high-end web design can yield more than just "looking good" to your bottom line.
Comments (9)
My question is about shipping costs. We have been adding the cost of shipping into the cost of our products, but his raises the price of the products.
Is it better to tie shipping costs into the total product cost, and then offer free shipping? Or to charge shipping separately?
Great article. It's amazing how counter intuitive we are - rather then testing, testing and more testing to let the results guide us down the right path. You nailed it here! Thanks.
Fascinating article. It mirrors other theories of pricing, how price is easily influenced and how groups are led by others.
Try this test with two separate groups of salespeople.
Ask the first group these two questions.
Q1. Is this the Mississippi River shorter or longer that 300 miles?
Q2. If you believe it to be shorter or longer than 300 miles how long do you think it is?
And the second group.
Q1. Is this the Mississippi River shorter or longer that 3,000 miles?
Q2. If you believe it to be shorter or longer than 3,000 miles how long do you think it is?
The average answer comparing the two groups can vary by as much as 1,500 miles. What it shows is how easily influenced those responsible for pricing services, projects and products can be - often to its detriment.
We use a variety of principles such as these with our staff and clients to remove some of the influences that can lead to underquoting, over-quoting and soft pricing.
A really good article. It's amazing just how much goes into our buying process, and I would recommend reading the whole of Dan Ariely's book for anyone who is involved in conversion rate optimisation.
Nice article: but a couple of concerns.
Firstly that Economist subscription example: there may be more things going on than just pricing: some UI issues.
For example: the advert mixes jargon for the same item: it doesn't list:
In the first line ' economist.com' is used, whereas in line 3, that has been renamed 'web subscription'.
That's got potential usabilty issues of it's own.
In addition: is the fact that line 2 has it's price 'tucked to the left' so it no longer lines up with the 1st and 3rd item pricing. Again, this may have an impact.
Lastly: your company offers a 'real-time repricing engine ': there is an interesting discussion to be had about the psychological impact on buyers when the price for a fixed item can vary day to day.
Will that reduce trust in pricing altogether, and thus consumer behaviour may change away from what it was in past surveys?
Thank you for pointing out some of the techniques that affects the price perception. While decoy pricing strategy is quite easy to implement, changing the reference point is much more complicated and involves capitalising on brand awareness. In case of Starbucks it's more about selling branded vs unbranded goods.
Brian, thank you for your question. Offering free shipping is a good idea, but does not work for every business. It is best to do some testing and research on the specific industry. there is no clear answer to your question, since it can depend on the industry. For some product purchases people expect to pay shipping charges, while for other products people are hesitant to pay any shipping charges.
Many retailers will offer free shipping even without adding to the price of the product simply as a marketing expense to gain market share. If you can offer free shipping without adding to the price of the product and still make a good profit, then that is the best case scenario. However, in competitive markets that is usually not the case. Therefore, you will find retailers will offer free shipping with some threshold offer that is designed to drive more units per transaction.
The key with pricing is to test. The answer can be different for different retailers and different product lines.
Thank you for the comments everyone. Michael, I really like your analogy and thank you for sharing it.
Deri, I agree that it's not just the pricing that could affect the decision, but also the wording used. Thank you for pointing that out.
Regarding changing pricing day to day, it is not uncommon for any online or physical store to change its prices. I believe pricing may be an ethical issue when it comes to offering the same product at a different price to different people at the same time. There are online retailers that will display a different price based on the city or zip code your are browsing from. This can reduce trust in retailers.
The product, location and time of day can be the same; the customers may be similar, but the motivation for the purchase can affect the perceived value. My family were discussing Venice; my mother complained that the prices for coffee in St Mark's Square were too much for a quick break from sightseeing. I thought that they were good value, beautiful setting, great people watching and some music thrown in. My brother disagreed; he thought it was a bargain. He was there attending a conference and needed to work on his paper; a quiet booth in the cafe overlooking the square, with good coffee in a beautiful historic setting, was the best work place you could imagine.
How do you build utility into a pricing model for something as simple as a cup of coffee? I was happy with the listed price, my mother probably would have been happier with half that, my brother probably would have paid double that or more.
However scientific a pricing strategy, the subtleties and complexities of individual customer motivation which for consumer goods can change during the course of a day, sometimes make me feel it can be a lottery.

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1/2 hp 1140 RPM 56C Frame TEFC C-Face (no Base) 115/208-230V Baldor Electric Motor # VL3505
- Part #
- Manufacturer
- Baldor
- Vendor
- Condition
- Rating
- Availability
- Gift Wrapping
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- Calculated at checkout
- 1/2 hp 1140 RPM, 8.0/4.0 amps 115/208-230 Volts Single Phase 60hz.
- NEMA 56C Frame Keyed Shaft 5/8" Diameter x 1 7/8"
- Service Factor: 1.15 - overload protection = None
- No Base - Reversible - Round Body Motor - Ball Bearings - Class B Insulation
- 1 Year Manufacture Warranty
General purpose motor can be used for many applications requiring a single phase electric motor with a C-face mount. Motor is round body with no base mounting. Shaft has keyway. Motor has 4 threaded bolt holes on face for mounting a pump or gear head to the motor. Bolt holes are 5 7/8" on center measured across the shaft. Wiring diagram on motor name plate. TEFC = Totally Enclosed Fan Cooled. For complete motor data and CAD drawings you can log on to Baldor's website and obtain specific motor data.
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The Seven Menopausal Dwarfs
Posted by Debra Ann Elliott at 8:50 AM Monday, January 31, 2011
Hi-ho, hi-ho off to menopause I go! Well, the seven dwarfs have moved in. I've got to tell you there's not enough room at my house for me, my hubby, daughter, grandson, a dog and a cat.
Unfortunately, my little visitors are here to stay a while.
Forgetful and Sleepy have become a tag team. When I least expect it they maneuver me into a choke hold. Bam! I'm down for the count. I fill my days now with.... what was I going to say, oh yeah ; plenty of naps. You would think I was two again! Some days I wish I were, that way my little visitors would only be a fairy tale.
Now the ones I really have to keep my eye on are the IBS team. No, not irritable bowel syndrome but Itchy, Bloaty and Sweaty.
Those three have no mercy. They don't care if I itch in unmentionable places I can't scratch, if I look like I'm nine months pregnant or if I drown in a pool of sweat. They're on a mission to make my life uncomfortable. Can't wait 'till they move out!
My other two visitors I tend to call BS (Bitchy and Psycho)strike without warning. My family wishes they would leave. Ain't going to happen. I go from mild mannered mom to maniac. At least that's what my family thinks. BS in my house means stay out of my way if you want to live.
I'm not too fond of my little visitors. I think I'll go kick them to the curb. Goodbye Forgetful, Sleepy, Itchy, Bloaty, Sweaty, Bitchy and Psycho... go live with someone else.
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Sometimes baseball fans are like sheep. They play follow the leader or in the case of baseball opinions – follow the popular consensus. Someone assumes they have the answers, voice their opinion and before you know it – it becomes the popular opinion. That's been the case in and around Anaheim lately.
The moment Tony Reagins resigned as the general manager of the Angels and talks began about who might replace him – the sports talk shows, message boards and every conceivable media outlet was a blaze with the idea that none of it mattered because Mike Scioscia was the "real" general manager.
Seriously, sometimes I wonder if the vast majority of baseball fans ever came up with an original thought of their own.
Let me explain something that hopefully will make sense to those of you who having been crying "baaaaah" lately and let me do it by looking at a team that's about to play a 7th game in this year's World Series – the Texas Rangers.
When you watch the Rangers – the camera seems to always find Nolan Ryan in the crowd. Nolan Ryan is one of those larger than life personas. He has the reputation of being his own man and a no-nonsense kind of guy. Kind of like Mike Scioscia. Whenever the baseball public talks about how good the Rangers are – they give most, if not all of the credit to Nolan Ryan. After all, he's clearly the face of the franchise.
Well, the truth of the matter is that the Rangers are where they are today because they have a brilliant young general manager named Jon Daniels. He's the man responsible for putting the current Rangers roster together, but since his face isn't necessarily recognizable to the television viewing audience – it's Ryan's mug that constantly receives face time and as a by-product of that exposure – it is he who also receives most of the credit.
Who is the face of the Angels? You got it – Mike Scioscia. Scioscia like Ryan isn't responsible for making roster moves – what they have done (each in their own way) is instill a mentality and a philosophy on how to play the game. They're responsible for setting a tone and attitude more than anything. And because they have that role – a lot of people have made the very false assumption that their "control" extends to personnel issues as well.
I can see how people would make that assumption (IF they're 8 years old and believe everything they see, hear and read).
Its funny how the public has this need to assign blame or give credit to just about everything that happens and they don't necessarily put a lot of thought or research into the process.
Mike Scioscia recently took the baseball talk circuit and made it clear that he only has the time and ability to manage, period.
Those who have already made up their minds otherwise; won't buy it. Those that like Scioscia found reason to believe him.
Think about this – the baseball season is a grind. For a manager there isn't much time for anything other than preparing for a game, playing a game and then traveling to the next one. Think about how much time a manager has to spend reviewing scouting reports, making out a lineup, checking on the health and attitude of his team, etc. And on top of that keep abreast of what's happening within his team's minor league system.
Does anyone really believe Scioscia has the time (or the energy for that matter) to evaluate the talent on other teams and make recommendations as to who the Angels should acquire? It doesn't make any sense what-so-ever. I can't imagine Scioscia staying on top of the waiver wire or reviewing the statistics and tape of players all over baseball, including those in the National League.
Does he have input? I would hope so. I can't imagine any manager not having some kind of input into player personnel decisions.
Every franchise has a face. It is often the face of that organization that gets all the credit or all the blame for how well or how poorly that team does.
Mike Scioscia is responsible for a lot of the Angels' success. He's also accountable for a lot of the team's failures as well. Both of those things are related to what he does on the field – either in a game or on the practice fields at spring training and not about him being some kind of defacto general manager. When you really think about it – the idea is more than a little silly.
And before you try to equate this to what happens in the National Football League (NFL) with people like Mike Holmgren or Bill Parcells; stop. Comparing the two is like comparing apples to kiwi. They're not even the same shape and you really don't need me to explain how they're different; do you?
Come on; admit it. When you think about the idea that Mike Scioscia is really the team's GM – you have to laugh, don't you?
So... here we are - Jerry DiPoto, formerly of the Arizona Diamondbacks is about to be announced as the Angels new GM (announcement will be Saturday). Those who believe Scioscia is the real GM will look at this guy as an inexperienced man who will have to defer to the larger-than-life Scioscia. Those who believe it's a new day will look at DiPoto as a breath of fresh air, who comes with a diverse background and the ability to help change the direction of an organization.
I'm optimistic and hopeful. How about you?
October 28, 2011
Shearing the sheep
Sometimes baseball fans are like sheep. They play follow the leader or in the case of baseball opinions – follow the popular consensus. Someone assumes they have the answers, voice their opinion and before you know it – it becomes the popular opinion. That's been the case in and around Anaheim lately.
7 comments:
Okay, James. I love you and your site, but the thing here is that you can't have it both ways. In your last post, you want to lock Scioscia in a room and ask him how he let Napoli go. Then in this post you say he isn't the de-facto GM. Isn't that a contradiction? If you want the Scioscia is the GM thing to stop, you have to stop perpetuating it yourself, no?ReplyDelete
Like the DiPoto hire, to the extent we know little about him. We'll get ample opportunity to check out his work presently.ReplyDelete
The thing fueling the Scioscia-as-shadow-GM trope is Scioscia's long -- very long -- contract, much longer than the GM's. That's a sign he has an awful lot of power, much more than most executives, including the GM. Not something to dismiss readily, and the main reason (along with Napoli's expulsion and subsequent comments about playing for Scioscia) why I think the man is, in fact, a shadow GM.
True. I freely admit that I have a hard time reconciling the Mike Napoli deal - but that doesn't mean I really believed Scioscia was the actual GM making the moves. I have no doubt Scioscia has input, but I don't believe he has the final say.ReplyDelete
Given what we know about Scioscia's opinion of Napoli - I don't think he did anything to stop the move - but I don't think he ordered it.
William... In the post prior "Making sense of it all" - I first stated my disbelief that Scioscia is the defacto GM as well.ReplyDelete
And I should thank you for the kind words about my blog. THANKS!
In any case - I will probably forever remain conflicted about the whole Napoli thing because I can't reconcile any of it.
Here's something to consider... Jerry DiPoto is a name that's in demand.... unlike Reagins who's only shot could come with the Angels. DiPoto has leverage - if he has to butt heads with Moreno and/or Scioscia - he can leave for another job.ReplyDelete
He's going to be a fresh new voice. Count on it.
- AnonymousOctober 30, 2011
Mike Napoli had a terrific season no doubt, however the Rangers blew it and probably wont see another World Series for a long time. Complain about Mike all you want but he did give the Angels its first WS Title.ReplyDelete
One saving grace about Napoli: this is his final season of arbitration eligibility, if I read my calendar correctly and understand the rules thereof (and haven't missed Texas giving him a longer-term deal). With both the Red Sox and Yankees suffering from glaring holes at the position, I can see both getting into a bidding war for his services.ReplyDelete


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I am a masochist. what it means to me as a masochist i enjoy the pain that is inflicted, i believe that all forms of infliction whether it be earned, forced, requested, or just for the hell of it or anything i might have missed are all meant to happen even if i disagree with it. Pain is a major part of my life and it will always be as such.
I am a switch. what it means to be a switch to me is that i am not quite a submissive and i am not quite dominant. I have my moments where i am dominant and i have my moments as submissive. all my life i have lived that way and i believe that there is nothing that i could have done differently. when i am in sub mode i turn into a kitsune in mindset. It is just how i view myself there is nothing that would different given the mannerisms.
I am Loyal to my protectors. they are the ones who keep me safe through my choices and i respect their decisions since they know me the best given my past history (will explain during another blog entry).
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Sadly, the story is still not over, you may recall two separate sets of unlicensed Re-Bath installers made a leak which destroyed our downstairs ceiling. Now we are faced with getting that replaced at another major inconvenience to us. Can you believe the Re-Bath installers actually thought we would have them try to fix it? Don't make us cry.
Our bathroom flooring is destroyed due to Re-Baths multiple attacks on it. The baseboards are gone. The sub floor is damaged. The walls are gouged up and it had a custom multi-color pattern painted on it which will be difficult if even possible to match. And the bathroom ceiling was also gouged up and the paint torn off by Re-Bath so it is in need of repair and repainting.
One would think that in such a severe situation, the people responsible (Re-Bath) would try to facilitate a quick remedy, but no, this is Re-Bath. It is merely another opportunity for them to inconvenience us and cost us more money and time. To them this must just be icing on a cake. Another chance to screw someone!
Even though they are 100% liable and responsible and they know it, we know it; yet they do everything they can to make our lives miserable and drag this atrocious mess out.
Originally Norm asked us what the cost of all the repairs would be. We provided Re-Bath corporate with a full quote (actually had two lined up) in under four days to expedite the repair process of the kitchen ceiling.
Norm Murdock even agreed to monetary compensation for the troubles Re-Bath had caused us. Sharp guy, (shark guy?), he refused to send those offers in writing, and like a sap, we believed him to some degree, but as mentioned before, we write down all the conversations and take very good notes. This was no exception, but then neither is the fact that he later reneged on and lied about the offers.
He made it sound like they were going take responsibility and fairly compensate us for the damages they caused. He wanted a "Punch-List" with every detail listed. We spent hours and hours compiling this very detailed list. Hours that we really did not have to spare, but we were willing to work with them. (Yep, they got us again, we're sure that Son-Of-A Bitch got a good laugh at us for wasting even more of our time.) We found out first hand Norm Murdock is also a prime liar like so many of the other "Management Material" Re-Bath employees we dealt with.
We're going to bet in the Re-Bath Handbook of Guidelines and Ethics there must be an entire chapter on how to lie with a straight face and an even tone to your voice.
OK, you're right, there is no such book. After all, Re-Bath has no ethics, so what would the point of such a book be? Just spouting off there...
On May 28th 2008 we sent this email trying to get some action. We thought responding with a thank you was a polite way to reestablish contact. Ever try to be polite to a shark?
"Mr. Murdock, Thank you for processing the reimbursement of the plumbing repair. We look forward to receiving the check in the couple of days.It has been a week since we submitted the quote for repair of the damage done to our home By Re-Bath. We would like to move forward and get these repairs done as soon as possible. While we may now finally have a working shower, it is far from a finished project. And the exposed bathroom floor is more than just an eyesore. Both the kitchen and the bathroom still need to be repaired. What is the status of the quote provided by the contractor for the repair, can you provide us with an update on 5/29/08? We really need to schedule with him as soon as possible to get in line for the work to be done.I am still trying to compile the "punch list", but due to the lost work time and subsequent catching up, I have not been able to complete it yet. Looking forward to your response."
In true Re-Bath fashion, we received no response. They know they are in the wrong, they know they are responsible for the damage, yet they choose to make every step as difficult for us as possible. What a bunch of jerks! But we are repeating ourselves…
Friday, September 12, 2008
Now to Get Re-Bath to Pay For the Ceiling They Destroyed…
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Thursday, October 27, 2011
Russ Roberts on the Multiplier
I know I've addressed all of these points several times before on his blog, and God knows the big-shot Keynesian bloggers have addressed all of them. But the more you discuss this stuff the more it gets understood and worked out.
UPDATE: More thoughts from Russ here. This one is a little more head-smack-invoking than his last post, but he does pose a specific question to Krugman, DeLong, Yglesias, and me, which I'm going to try to answer tomorrow morning before getting my study on.
9 comments:
So far, the only counter that I can offer to one Cafe Hayek commentator's remark that "Keynesianism is not based upon reason, it is based upon ideology" is that the economics of Keynes AND Keynesianism ARE based on reason.ReplyDelete
See these two well-written working papers for more information.
The Austrian School of Economics ALSO uses the tool of reason.
The main difference between Austrian School of economics with the Economics of Keynes and Keynesianism is the KIND of reason.
The economics of Keynes and some parts of Keynesianism are based off *inductive* logic, whilst the Austrians tend to use *deductive* logic. Keynes preferred induction to deduction, and explained why in his renowned mathematical/philosophical book, "A Treatise on Probability". If you consider economics to be a science, then one should know that there are limits to the use of deductive logic.
Speaking of corresponding with Austrian School economists, I've e-mailed Robert P. Murphy and pointed out the connection between Benoit Mandelbrot and econophysicists like Joseph L. McCauley, Victor Yakovenko, H. Eugene Stanley, Rosario N. Mantegna, Jean-Phillippe Bouchaud. I've yet to respond to Robert Murphy's e-mail thanks to a technical problem and schoolwork, but I'm also going to e-mail Russ Roberts about the econophysics project.
Daniel, how do you think Russ Roberts will react to Jean-Phillippe Bouchaud's article on Nature, or Joseph L. McCauley's proclamations that the findings of econophysics will overtake what is now taught by the economics profession?
Is it really true that multiplier of .5 means that the private sector reduces economic activity by 50%?ReplyDelete
Like, if you have a tax cut of $100mil and people put $50mil of that under under mattresses that's not a reduction in private economic activity by $50 million dollars.
There appear to be some good reasons to be agnostic on the notion (of the multiplier that is).ReplyDelete
I have made a reasonable attempt to understand Keynesian economics but I have never really grasped the multiplier concept.
I can see how an increase in government spending can "crowd out" private investment (giving the .5 multiplier that Roberts references), and I can see that in some situations there may be no crowding out and every dollar the govt spends will increase total spending by the same amount (giving a multiplier of 1?)
But I don't get how it could ever "multiply up" without double-counting.
I know its supposed to work like this: The govt hires someone to dig a ditch at $100 a week, that person saves $20 and spends $80 at a store, and the store owner then spends some and saves some of the $80 , and so on until we end up with increased net spending of 4 or 5 times greater than the original $100.
But surely in reality what has happened is that this new money (assuming a very simple case where the govt has simply printed it up) will simply add to the money supply and (assuming it is spent and/or saved in roughly the same proportions as the existing money supply will add to AD proportionally. In other words a fiscal stimulus that increases the money supply by 10% will (assuming velocity does not change as a result of the stimulus) increase AD by 10% and the multiplier is really not telling us anything useful beyond how money circulates in the economy and is split between consumption and saving.
Am I missing something obvious here ?
Perhaps what I am missing is that the aim of fiscal policy is not actually to increase the money supply directly but for the govt to divert money that is currently being saved into direct spending and therefore the whole purpose is to increase velocity of money ?ReplyDelete
If that is the case then perhaps the multiplier is describing the effect a changed velocity of money will have on the economy ?
- AnonymousOctober 27, 2011 at 5:34 PM
Don't forget Austrians are NOT SINCERE. They are paid by the rich and powerful to spread propaganda.ReplyDelete
Invisible Backhand
Invisible Backhand -ReplyDelete
I'm not sure your conclusion follows from that premise, much as I like a lot of your comments at Cafe Hayek. I'd be thrilled to have money from the rich and powerful (in fact my research has been paid for by the rich and powerful before), and I don't consider myself compromised by it. You can't just presume how people are going to respond to financial support like that. Many of the rich and power are likely interested in funding dependably objective researchers and would be less interested in insincere people.
Daniel Kuehn,ReplyDelete
More to the point, it is pretty rare for an individual to think, hey, I'm going to become an economist of the Austrian school because you know, there is a guaranteed pot of gold at the end of that rainbow. In the 1950s and 1960s there was a school amongst Sovietologists that said the Bolsheviks became Bolsheviks merely because they wanted power; that claim is as equally moronic as the sort of claim that Invisible Idiot is making.
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Tom Cruise and Jennifer Lopezby Free Britney at . Comments
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Firstly, 24th November saw a one day general strike amongst public sector workers in the Republic of Ireland. Around a quarter of a million people are reported to have taken part, with teachers, lecturers, nurses, local authority workers, firefighters and civil servants striking against the Irish government's drastic proposed cuts to public service spending. Even police took industrial action short of a strike, by refusing routine tasks. Protests also took place in Northern Ireland, against Sinn Féin/Democratic Unionist administration proposals.
Ireland's economy was among the worst hit by the first wave of the global economic crisis. As in many other countries, the state and national bank funnelled massive amounts of taxpayers' money into backing the elite's gambling debts. The Bank of Ireland has already committed €16 billion to the Irish 'bad bank', and the Fianna Fáil /Green coalition plans to shift that debt onto the backs of the Irish working class, by slashing at least €4 billion from budgets, and enforcing a 7% tax on the pensions of public sector workers.
This dispute is significant for two main reasons. Firstly, although the Irish government's attacks on public spending are particularly severe, they are a foretaste of what other national governments are planning over the short and medium term. Secondly, they show that Irish trade union leaders - like their equivalents around the world - are siding with governments to impose the cuts that the super-rich demand. They only beg to be involved in negotiations, and for the pace of cuts to be slowed - stalling the momentum of grassroots opposition.
This is illustrated by a leaked letter written by Peter McLoone, boss of the IMPACT union. In it, McLoone warned union officials that: "In my judgment the alternative [to pay cuts] is likely to involve a significant reduction in public service numbers over the next three to four years, with the likelihood that some additional exceptional measures will also be needed in 2010 to deal with the budgetary crisis next year."
As the fight against cuts escalate, workers in all nations must discover that they have far more in common with each other than with their national ruling elites - trade union leaders included.
Another truly worldwide struggle is for decent university education. On a global scale, the neoliberal university has been in formation for the past few decades, and this process is accelerating under the crash conditions. Movements continue to build in California, Austria and Germany, where occupations have freed up space for much debate and discussion, potentially helping to radicalise many young people, who are making the connection between banker bailouts and student/worker poverty. An Austrian student statement explains:
"These events are connected to the worldwide development of social movements. In this sense what is being fought for is not only better working conditions for students, teachers and other university personnel – rather it's a fight for better working conditions across all sectors and borders."Similarly, a Californian communique announces:
"November 2009, this is what is happening: we have found each other, and we are learning to act, finally. This means developing close bonds, learning what it truly is to say 'comrade'; someone who shares your conditions, shares your enemies, and who you trust with your life. Someone who knows that it is always necessary to take sides. We have learned what it means to say we."


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Jacqui Smith has made extraordinary expenses claims for household goods including a £304 barbecue, garden patio set and heater ostensibly to 'help her perform her duties as an MP'.
Just how much fucking home entertaining of visiting dignitaries has Jacqboot done that helped her perform her duties? It better be a fucking lot!
Together with a £334 receipt for plant pots, the bill was submitted as part of the £150,000 claimed by Ms Smith for her 'second-home allowance' since 2001.
In addition, Ms Smith has charged taxpayers £12,000 for cleaning her Redditch constituency home.
A full list of Ms Smith's expenses reveals how she has been on a publicly funded shopping spree to kit out her home from top to bottom in recent years.
For the kitchen-diner she claimed for a stone sink and console at £550, a Hotpoint cooker at £414 and a £14 doormat.
For the bathroom: plumbing, £405.37; tiles, £36.36; shelf, mirror, linen dispenser, toothbrush holder and double towel rail, £88.97; shower mixer and fitting, £499.36.
For the living room she claimed for armchair and cushion and delivery, £575; three suede cushions, circle light track and mirror, £59.37; fireplace and fittings, £1,000; Samsung 32in flat-screen TV, £369.99.
For the bedroom she claimed for a sofabed, £511.20, and bed linen, £110.
Outside and in the garden: hosepipe, £74.79; white rope, £30.72; Monaco patio set, £160; plant pots, £334.70.
General and services: decorating (hallway, stairs, main bedroom and cloakroom), £1,370; Virgin Media service charges, £68 and £67.
Ms Smith also charged £2,400 a year for cleaners and an average of £11,600 a year for her mortgage between 2006 and 2008.
And that's all within the rules. Does anyone really think the rest of them are any better?
Is there ANYBODY out there who thinks their employer would let them claim for a new fireplace or a bathroom plug or a fucking doormat for fuck's sake you greedy fucking whore? No fucker in the private sector would get away with this shit and I'm fairly certain that their isn't a civil service mandarin who gets this kind of expense flexibility.
So why are MPs allowed to do this? Because they draw up the rules for themselves. It's easy to stay within the rules when you fucking make the rules up to suit yourself, isn't it?
Utter, utter, thieving CUNTS. May you all fucking rot in hell.
*You take my money and fuck my life up. That's close enough.


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Feast your eyes on September's TechNet magazine, themed Collaboration. Check out this month's top stories below:
SharePoint Online : Get Started with SharePoint Online
SharePoint brings its collaboration capabilities to the cloud, which should simplify deployment and management.
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Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2: Understand the RD Connection Broker
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Do you have a demand for testing hardware to support new projects and updates? A virtual test lab could fit the bill.
Catch up with any editions you've missed here.


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Every year Jasmine is given a dare by her best friend Tam, in a tradition that goes back to their 8th birthdays. This year, Jasmine has been dared to have a one night stand. On the verge of giving up she meets Ethan, sexy and mysterious, the ex-solider is everything that Jasmine wants for the night. But when the night has the chance to go further she runs. Little do Ethan and Jasmine expect that they will end up in the same place and facing each other once more. Despite thinking its a bad idea, Jasmine can't ignore the chemistry between the two of them and ends up in deeper than she ever realised she could be.
I've read a few Entangled Brazen books now and am enjoying all of them immensely. They're written for an adult audience but the romance is still there, and Take Me If You Dare is the same. What I liked about this book is that there was a certain amount of realism in relation to how real relationships start, as in in the bedroom as opposed to a date.
There was a depth to both of the main characters, though it was only touched on slightly and makes me want to read more to find out more about them. That is both Ethan's past in the army, and Jasmine's history with Greg, both of which were clearly damaging to the characters confidence and love lives, and yet were only touched upon.
The chemistry between the two characters was crazy intense, but they also had their moments where they were sweet together, and when you could tell they were good together. This was particularly clear when they were supporting each other. That was mainly Ethan supporting Jasmine, but it did make the relationship seem equal.
There was also the presence of Jasmine's friendship with Tam, which didn't really take centre stage but was still definitely there. Not sure about any other readers, but I want to know more about the other birthday dares (and I'm kind of curious as to where the hidden piercing is).
I really enjoyed Take Me If You Dare and will be keeping an eye out for more from the author and from Entangled Brazen!
Read as a part of the Summer COYER...to check out other posts and sign up click here. You can also check out my COYER Summer page on my blog to see what I've read!


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Reader recommendation: Rembrance of Things Past
Monitor readers share their favorite book picks.
I recommend Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past for his never-to-be-equaled insight into everyday psychology, suffering, and redemption. Of course, I am lucky to be able to read it in the original French.
Recommended: Could you pass a US citizenship test?


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Where: Work
Top: Banana Republic
Skirt: Michael Kors
Tights: H&M
Shoes: Stuart Weitzman
Ok, I'm not huge into telling people how much I spend on things, but sometimes they are just too good to keep to myself. For example, this adorable outfit. I went out East to spend a quiet weekend with Frank, we had a great time. One of our "East" rituals is going to the Tanger outlets. Sometimes I walk away with nothing, but other times (like this past weekend) I make out like a bandit! This top at Banana Republic was $17 and this skirt at Michael Kors was $29! I couldn't resist the prices at BR so I got 2 other similar blouses in black and a light pinky mauve (stay tuned for that outfit) I also picked up a necklace and a Kate Spade make up case. In total I spent less that $120 on 6 items!!! My sister is all about PPI (price per item). This means that my PPI was less than $20…amazing!


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Tuesday, July 1, 2008
These forks are just too great to pass. Designed by Kathryn Hinton, these tableware will be a perfect accessory for folks who like to play with their food. (via)
2 comments:
- JuliaFuentez said...
wow that's so cool =)
- July 1, 2008 at 2:24 PM
- Muffy said...
i love it!!! i'm gonna check out how to buy one
- July 28, 2008 at 9:01 PM
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Duller than average post this one.
Have become concerned that my children will evolve extended lower lips from all the filtrum slurping they've been doing of late.
Last Thursday saw another visit to the track for awful speedwork. 6x800m:first 200 fast, next 400 slower/recovery, last 200 fast. Nasty medicine.
Saturday: didn't go to the Worcestershire Beacon Race due to ill children and demands of parenting. Mike put in a good performance, about four minutes faster than his time from last year.
Sunday eve: metMike for a run up and around Cleeve in the dark. He is going very well. I struggled to keep pace with him and he'd had a fast race the day before.


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2 years ago
Saturday, November 20, 2010
You've gotta enter!
Pink fig is doing an AWESOME giveaway! You could win one of two beautiful quilts made from her newly designed fabric called Miss Modd. Check out her blog to win. As noted on her blog, child is not included.
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This is my entry for this week.
Tuesday, 17 June 2014
SOC Week 2
This is my entry for this week.
32 comments:
ooohhhhh you really captured the colors perfectly in this little girl. Wonderful art.ReplyDelete
She looks how I feel right now - super piece BJReplyDelete
I specially love her face... fabulous use of the SOC 2 colors!ReplyDelete
She is lovely, just lovely. I like the way you have painted the teal face, yet is looks right and I like her hairstyle too.ReplyDelete
Beautiful expression on her face, just like she's thinking of serious matters. Love how you used this weeks colors.ReplyDelete
She has a haunting look with the blue toned face, you did great with these colours, bravo!ReplyDelete
You really captured a lot of emotion in this little portrait. It's beautiful. The colors really make it magic.ReplyDelete
She is adorable. Love her eyes.ReplyDelete
I like her very much, what a wonderful expression she has!ReplyDelete
Lovely piece. : )ReplyDelete
How clever are you?!! This is wonderful Carol! <3 :DReplyDelete
I absolutely LOVE her. What size is she?ReplyDelete
She is so sweet, she looks very deep in thought!ReplyDelete
she's adorable-nice shading with the blue!ReplyDelete
Very cute, lovely use of the colours, love her dotty frock :-) xReplyDelete
Might she be for sale?ReplyDelete
She is precious!ReplyDelete
Brilliant use of the colors!ReplyDelete
Beautiful little girl! ValerieReplyDelete
Oh I simply adore this!ReplyDelete
What a sweet expression and just lovely artwork here!ReplyDelete
She's a beauty and rather pensive, I think.ReplyDelete
What was I thinking? I meant she had a pensive look on her face!!ReplyDelete
She is lovely! I love the way you added the coral as her dress pattern.ReplyDelete
She is beautiful! Wonderful use of the colors!ReplyDelete
Lovely picture!ReplyDelete
I love her face :)
Your girl is amazing!!! I just love her expression. You used the SOC colors this week so beautifully!ReplyDelete
Gorgeous work!ReplyDelete
I do like her very much. That hint of a smile... Can't decide if it's mischievous or shy. Lovely!ReplyDelete
such a cutie!ReplyDelete


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Ken McDonnell is a husband, a father and a triathlete. In fact, he had just completed a triathlon – a three-hour race consisting of back-to-back legs of swim, bicycle and run – a couple weeks before he hopped on his mountain bike to ride the trails near his home in central Massachusetts. It was a crisp fall afternoon, and normally he would be training on his road bike, but that October day, McDonnell decided to take a more leisurely ride in Rutland State Park. He spent most of the time that day on trails or park roads with barely anyone around. He completed one section of the trails and then got on Route 122, a two-lane highway that runs outside the park, for a short ride to another section of trail.
What happened next? McDonnell has no recollection. According to an eyewitness, a car travelling about 50 mph veered into the breakdown lane in which Ken was traveling, striking him from behind. "I was thrown up onto the car's windshield and into the air before smashing onto the pavement," says McDonnell. "My bike landed across the guardrail in the woods and was destroyed. My helmet was broken in half. I've often wondered whether I sensed the impact as it was happening."
He was transported via critical care air transport to a local trauma center, where he remained in a coma for more than three weeks. "Due to the traumatic nature of the accident, I have no recollection of that time," Ken says. "I had no realization of the severity of my injuries until after I woke up, five weeks later, or that I was given a 25 percent chance of surviving the first night."
McDonnell had suffered grave injuries – a fractured skull and traumatic brain injury (TBI), a severe pelvic fracture, multiple cracked vertebrae and broken ribs, massive internal bleeding, a renal artery aneurysm and a collapsed lung. While he lay in a coma, his wife Deborah was keeping family and friends around the country updated about Ken's condition. One of those people was a close friend, an orthopaedic surgeon in California. "Coincidentally," Ken says, "this friend was arriving in Boston the next day to attend a conference. When she landed, she came directly to the hospital."
After viewing the X-rays and realizing the severity of the pelvic injuries, she offered to discuss the situation with Paul Tornetta, MD, FACS, FAAOS, Professor and Vice Chairman, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Boston University School of Medicine and the Director of Orthopaedic Trauma for Boston Medical Center. Tornetta was scheduled to present at the conference she was attending. Well aware of his outstanding reputation nationally, Deborah and her friend hoped Dr. Tornetta would be willing to treat Ken. They connected at the conference and after reviewing the X-rays, Tornetta agreed that the injuries warranted moving McDonnell to BMC for treatment.
The decision to have Ken transferred to BMC from the initial hospital was an agonizing decision for Deborah, particularly since he was comatose and breathing on a ventilator, which makes transporting a patient exceedingly more dangerous. Tornetta kept in frequent touch with Deborah during this critical time. When Ken's respiration had improved enough to move him, he was transported by critical care ambulance to BMC, an ICU nurse travelling alongside him to make sure his life support measures were maintained.
Upon arrival to BMC, Deborah met with Dr. Tornetta, who laid out the options and plan to fix Ken's injuries.
"Mr. McDonnell's pelvic injury was severe", says Tornetta. "He had a complete separation of one hemipelvis from the other, including a symphysis dislocation and a sacroiliac joint fracture dislocation." This means that the sacrum – a large, triangular bone at the base of the spine between the two hip bones – was fractured and a portion of the sacroiliac joint – which connects the sacrum with the pelvis – was dislocated.
While at the initial hospital, an external fixator had been placed to stabilize the displaced pelvis. Dr. Tornetta's plan was to remove the external fixator and temporize the pelvis in traction, and then perform a definitive internal fixation of the pelvis. "This involves an incision in the front of the pelvis and retraction of the bladder to access the symphysis and reduce the dislocation," says Tornetta. "This reduction (setting of bones), now several weeks after Mr. McDonell's injury, can be difficult and time consuming, and must be precise in order to allow the best chances of a positive result. Fortunately, we were able to achieve a very good reduction of the symphysis, which helped to line up the back part of the pelvis."
Options for the treatment of the posterior pelvic injury range from an open reduction (using an incision to access the joint and place hardware to reduce the displacement) to a percutaneous technique (placing screws into the bone from just below the skin). This decision is driven by how close the bones move to their normal position after the front part is aligned. In McDonnell's case, Dr. Tornetta was able to shift the bones enough that he could perform a careful percutaneous procedure on the back part of the pelvis. "With special X-ray guidance, we were able to place screws perpendicular to the displacement, and these screws were used to tighten the fractured part back to its normal position," says Tornetta. "Neurologic injury is possible during these technically difficult operations, and the radiographic analysis in the operating room along with the precision placement of the screw is paramount in avoiding this complication."
"This injury presented a real challenge in Mr. McDonnell getting back to his pre-injury function as a triathlete," says Tornetta. "Unfortunately, most patients will not be able to regain that heightened level of activity, and without essentially perfect alignment, that chance is greatly diminished. We have treated several triathletes and marathoners who have gotten back to that level. The job we do in the operating room – restoring the anatomy – is the first step in trying to restore function."
McDonnell spent three weeks at Boston Medical Center, including time in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU). "Deborah and I could not have been better served at BMC," he says. "The obvious evidence is that I have recovered nearly 100 percent to my pre-injury physical abilities." In fact, McDonnell was able to return to triathlon training within six months of the injury, and he completed his first post-injury race less than a year after the injury. "I attribute this largely to the care I received at BMC, with the surgery by Dr. Tornetta obviously the most crucial factor."
Deborah adds, "Dr. Tornetta brought not only technical excellence to Ken's treatment, but he also remained accessible virtually night and day to answer my questions and concerns. He maintained this level of extraordinary care through Ken's treatment and rehabilitation."
Now Ken has more than 30 triathlons under his belt – seven races since the injury – culminating this past summer with his completion of Escape from Alcatraz, a grueling triathlon whose course consists of a one-and-a-half mile swim starting near Alcatraz Island, an eighteen mile bike ride, and an eight-mile run.
Perhaps the physical prowess and that grit, the never-give-up mentality that a triathlete holds deep within to finish such punishing races helped McDonnell on his road to recovery. "Never during my recovery did it even occur to me that I might not recover fully," say McDonnell. "This may have been a naïve attitude, since I could easily have ended up severely disabled if not dead." McDonnell considers himself fortunate on many levels. "I certainly benefited from my wife's lifelong friendship with her friend, who referred me to Dr. Tornetta," he says. "I consider him to be a miracle worker, a sentiment reinforced by my primary care physician and therapists, and by friends in the field of medicine."


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However, during the cold war (LSE IDEAS used to be the Cold War Studies Centre, mind you), the Soviets actually had an educational institution dedicated to spreading the revolution to other parts of the world instead of wallowing in faux-socialist stylings as many Western academics still do. The People's Friendship University of Russia was established in 1960 at the height of the aforementioned ideological conflict. A year later, it acquired the even more grandiose full name of the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University of the Peoples to symbolize the struggle of oppressed people all over the world for freedom and independence. I have not yet visited the LSE registrar to confirm whether Carlos the Jackal studied at the LSE as some claim, but rest assured that the self-styled professional revolutionary Ilich Ramirez Sanchez did study in Russia. (Talk about famous, world-changing alumni.)
acknowledges having orchestrated the demise of Iran's democratically-elected Mohammed Mossadeq to return the more pliable Shah of Iran to power (and set the stage for today's fundamentalists and other blowhards in the process). In what was then the Belgian Congo, however, the similarly democratically-elected Patrice Lumumba was also removed due to Western insecurities--especially about his purported Communist sympathies. Mossadeq lived a few more years after being eased out, but Lumumba was executed under Belgian instruction. American complicity in Lumumba's death is still debated, but the larger point is that Westerners need not wonder why us coloured peoples remain wary about their endless harangues about democracy when they have a long history of forcing out third world leaders they found, well, inconvenient.
It was in this spirit that Patrice Lumumba Friendship University operated as the USSR styled him as a martyr. While Westerners branded him a communist in order to get rid of him, the Soviets embraced this categorization to make him a martyr (see the commemorative stamp). The interesting thing though is that while Lumumba was certainly a nationalist, there is no consensus that he was a communist (although Americans of the time reflexively made the connection more often than not). At any rate, the university's goal was very much similar to that of Western academic institutions in training young professionals sympathetic to the USSR instead of the USA.
The end of the cold war was something of a shock to the (academic) system. What would Patrice Lumumba Friendship University be without the goal of world revolution? Worse yet, this university has actually been subject to market forces arguably even more than British academic institutions insofar as its stipend from the Russian government has been markedly reduced in the wake of 1991:
The university opened its doors in 1960, at the height of the Cold War, providing a training ground for young communists from developing countries. The terrorist Carlos the Jackal studied at this university, along with guerrillas and revolutionaries from Latin America, Africa and Asia. It was called Patrice Lumumba University, in honor of a first prime minister of the former Zaire, who was killed in a coup blamed on the United States. Now, with the Cold War over and Russian communism in tatters, the institution has a new name Russian Peoples Friendship University [actually, that's the old school name before Lumumba was killed]. And students who once were schooled in Marxist philosophy now take courses in capitalist business.And that's what has become of this legendary educational institution--famed less for its academics and more for its aims and roster of students from a bygone era. Is this progress? In certain senses yes, but it's also lost a lot of its notoriety as current students now come more from Russia than from abroad. Then there are those business courses. To be fair, a lot of course offerings sound more like IPE than International Business, but I digress...
The university is now forced to survive in a free market economy. And since it gets only about a third of its budget from the government, most of the rest comes from student tuition fees, which run about 2,000 a year for international students. In order to attract students, the university added new courses and spent [$]350,000 on new equipment, including computers. "We've learned the rules of the market economy and adapted as much as you can in Russia, and were doing quite well, especially when compared to other colleges I've seen," said the university's Vice Rector Dimitri Bilibin.
[The] Institute of World Economy and Business (IWEB) qualifies top specialists, capable of efficient business and management activity in the context of the modern market economy. Being one of the first educational institutions in business not only in Moscow but in Russia as well, today IWEB is a major international study center. The Institute has been member of the Russian Business Education Association practically since the very moment of its creation and a member of the Business School Association of Central and Eastern Europe.Aside from business courses, it now collaborates with American and British universities [!?] What would Patrice Lumumba do about loss of authenticity? I'll make a plug here and say that you might as well study in our dual degree with Columbia in International and World History or with Peking University in International Affairs. They may be less retro-cool, but prestige matters in this day and age when there is no longer a real alternative to "mainstream" Western education that Patrice Lumumba Friendship University represented way back when. Go ask Carlos.
One of the principal features of IWEB is its commitment to the needs of business education not only in Russia, but in CIS countries, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Multiple contacts with PFUR [People's Friendship University of Russia] graduates working in the majority of countries around the world are a big advantage of the Institute. PFUR IWEB pursues wide international policy. It actively develops collaboration with universities of the USA, France, Great Britain, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Spain etc.


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|Drumstick Mackerel Fish Curry
When I was young, I hated this addon, but now I never leave these lovely drum sticks dipped in the rich fish curry. I hope you'll try this out.
Ingredients to make drumstick fish curry:-
- Fish - 250 gm
- Drumstick - 2 medium
- Small onion chopped - 1/2 cup
- Ginger and garlic finely chopped 1 1/2 tsp
- Green chili chopped - 2
- Chili powder - 1 tsp
- Coriander powder - 2 tsp
- Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
- Thin coconut milk - 2 cup
- Salt to taste
- Curry leaves
- Mustard
- Clean and cut the fish into medium pieces.
- Crush ginger , garlic and green chilies ,
- Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds
- Add chopped onions, and toss it well for 3-4 minutes.
- Add ginger,garlic and green chilies,stir them till the raw smell goes away or till turns brown.
- Make a paste of chili powder, coriander and turmeric powder, adding a little water
- Add this mixture to the pan
- Add diced drumstick and toss it well for a minute or two.
- Pour thin coconut milk, mix it well and now you can add fish pieces.
- Cook it covered in slow flame for 15 - 20 minutes.Add curry leaves and remove from heat.
I take classes in Bangalore for how to make kerala fish curry, check this link for more details Kerala Fish Curry Classes


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April 3, 2011
While he and his girlfriend discussed a friend of theirs...
14 comments:
That is funny and oddly, it is a good representation of "B list" nature of that comic team.
Always a good chuckle, MRTIM.
- Anonymous4/03/2011 11:16 AM
I love the fact that he's talking about joining the teams as if it was a legitamate option.ReplyDelete
- Diane4/03/2011 11:27 AM
So, wait... Stephen is a mutant? Has anyone told Senator Kelly?ReplyDelete
Were I were a superhero, Doom Patrol would be the only team that would have me.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous4/03/2011 12:51 PM
Stephen King IS an mutant! I mean look at the size of his head!ReplyDelete
- Anonymous4/03/2011 1:55 PM
It saddens me that grown adults still talk like they're eight years old.ReplyDelete
@Ian Don't be so hard on yourself! You could probably get on the Great Lakes Avengers/Initiative/Champions/X-Men/Whatever too.ReplyDelete
- Person Man4/03/2011 5:03 PM
That foolishly foolish fool and his foolhardy ideas about foolish mutant fools.ReplyDelete
@Person Man: Who came up with you?ReplyDelete
- Degraded Man4/03/2011 8:27 PM
@Lee: I DID!ReplyDelete
Does Person Man feel totally worthless, in the same way that Stephen clearly is?
- Anonymous4/04/2011 9:55 AM
@first Anonymous @ 10:52: As Jerry Seinfeld said, "When men are growing up, reading about Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, these aren't just kid fantasies. These are career options."ReplyDelete
- Anonymous4/04/2011 10:51 AM
LULZ! Is that a Mooninite on his t-shirt!ReplyDelete
I hope Stephen disregards his hater-friend and pursues his dream! And Stephen's parents will probably be happy if he gets signed on with the X-men, so they can free up the basement.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous4/04/2011 11:22 AM
I hope Stephen then stabbed him with the focused totality of his psychic knife.ReplyDelete


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Monday, March 15, 2010
Menu Plan Monday, 3/14-3/20
Sunday - Spring Green Risotto
Monday - Quilt Guild and Leftovers for me; Fake Chicken Sandwiches and Tater Tots for the Hubz (the penultimate vegetarian bachelor meal, apparently)
Tuesday - Black Bean Soup, Cornbread
Wednesday - Nachos
Thursday - French Toast and Veggie Sausage Links
Friday - Frozen Pizza
Saturday - Penne with Vodka Sauce
Other foods to make:
Irish Soda Bread (for St. Patrick's Day!!)
Muffins or Quick Bread for work snacks
Butter Pecan Cake
Yesterday, we made our weekly grocery trip, this time braving the weekend crowds @ Costco. I will declare it a smashing success, not because we stayed within our weekly budget (we didn't), but because I sampled some of the most amazing Dubliner cheddar cheese. I splurged and bought the smallest unit they sell (2 lbs). One pound will undoubtedly end up in one of many fabulous macaroni and cheese recipes. The Hubz and I are still negotiating what to do with the other pound.
LOTS of finished crafty projects to show you/re-reveal this week! You've seen the finished tops over the past few months. With the daylight savings time transition, I'm hoping to get outside while it's still light to take some decent photos later this week.
Labels: menuplan
3 comments:
I would love for you to share some good vegetarian slow cooker ideas on Crock Pot Wednesday. Feel free to add whatever you would like this week. My corned beef and cabbage are cooking away in the slow cooker right now - now vegetarian but good still.ReplyDelete
Again...everything sound "de-li-cious"!ReplyDelete
BTW-Love the new blog look! How did you do it??? Mine needs help!
I miss our visits to Sam's Club. The demo stations were so fun. And once in awhile we would find something that we just had to buy.ReplyDelete
our menu plan sounds delicious.
I really enjoy MPM because I'm able to get loads of recipe ideas.
Just another reason for loving blogging.
Well, I've got to get back to some window shopping on QVC. They selling some outdoor washable rugs right now.
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(To buy the REAL FOOD 101 E-book: Traditional Foods, Traditionally Prepared, click here. Full color photos, step by step tutorials, and more. Only $14.)
This stock is hands down the easiest one to make. It is completely done in less than half an hour. (This is not to be confused with fish stock made from the bones and carcasses of non-oily fish. That is different, and delicious as a base for fish chowder, yum! I'll be making that one for Real Food 101 soon.)
But that's not what I'm talking about today. Today I'm sticking with simple and quick: dashi! Dashi is made from three ingredients. Yup. Don't get me wrong, I still think throwing a chicken carcass and veggies into a slow cooker for 12-24 hours is pretty simple. But dashi beats all the other stocks. It's just that easy.
All you need is kombu and katsuobushi. Zuh?
Okay, so maybe the toughest part of making dashi is getting your hands on the right ingredients. If you have an Asian market nearby, I am positive they will have these two items. Kombu is just dried seaweed. And katsuobushi is shaved bonito flakes. Both are easy to find if you know where to look. You might even find them at the health food store if they have a good Asian section. The easiest way to get them, in my opinion, is to just order them online here and here.
Plus, with dashi on hand you can make amazing Japanese foods with it, including my personal favorite: miso soup. I always feel a little guilty if I eat miso soup at a restaurant. I never know if they have made their own dashi for the base, or if they are relying on good* old MSG. *MSG is not good.
Equipment Needed:
- large stockpot, or French oven
- large glass bowl and large strainer
- tongs
- large glass jar and storage lid
Quick Fish Stock (Dashi)
1 piece of sun-dried seaweed (buy kombu here)
1/2 cup dried shaved bonito flakes (buy katsuobushi here)
- In a large stockpot or French oven, soak the dried seaweed in about 5 cups of water for about 15 minutes until it is nice and soft.
- Then, over medium-high heat, bring the water to just under a boil. Add the 1/2 cup bonito flakes.
- Turn off the heat and let the bonito flakes steep for about 5 minutes, or until the bonito flakes have sunk to the bottom of the pot.
- With tongs, pull the piece of seaweed out and discard. Then, strain the mixture into a large bowl, removing all the bonito flakes
Then pour into a large glass jar to store. Use within three days or so.
This post is a part of Sunday School, Weekend Gourmet, Monday Mania, Fat Tuesday, Traditional Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday, The Mommy Club, Healthy2day Wednesday, Simple Lives Thursday, Pennywise Platter, Full Plate Thursday, Fresh Bites Friday, Fight Back Friday, Friday Food Flicks, and Sunday Night Soup Night.
PAID ENDORSEMENT DISCLOSURE: In order for me to support my blogging activities, I may receive monetary compensation or other types of remuneration for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to any products or services from this blog.


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A pet can bring a lifetime of joy, love, and treasured memories. With those happy moments also comes a special responsibility to care for the needs of your pet. We believe your animal deserves the best veterinary care Onslow County has to offer and Onslow Animal Hospital takes great pride in making sure your pet is treated like a member of the family.
The veterinarians at Onslow Animal Hospital combine compassionate care with the latest in medical technology and treatment. Our friendly, experienced staff provides a host of pet care services, including vaccinations, dentistry, grooming, weight management, microchip identification and boarding.
On our website, you will meet our caring staff, find vital information about our veterinary practice, and learn about our services. Please contact us at 910-347-1219 to talk about your pet's needs or to schedule an appointment. We look forward to serving you!
Veterinarian - Jacksonville
10 Doris Avenue East
Jacksonville, NC 28540


text:
beautiful creations, beauty, blogger, chance cause, cliche, clothes, clothing, clothing styles, color clothing, combination style, creative, creativity, designers, egoisme, eyeshadow, fashion, fashion brand, fashion week, favorite color, fingernails, freedom, gift women, gizza, group gift, lashes, life model, lindens, lips, lola tango, mesh, model, moles, muse, paintings, second life, secondlife, shoes, slife, smiles, solo ensemble, style, style glamour, woman set
click for bigger picture.
Today i decided to visit a public sim to see if i can get some nice shots. looking through the lists of destinations ii found this sim the London May Fair. Not wanting to stand out much as i know i always do when i dress normally, I had the perfect combination style with as top SECRETARY .::.Lolipop.::.from **Lolipop**N'Click Style**Own Style**.::. F@shion Clothes and pants from ISON. A beautiful hair from Diva that you can find at the Collabor88 and a simple but classy Gizza clutch. To top off my disguise i wore couture wooden glasses in white from welldone.atelier that can be found at the SL Fashion week only. One thing i can say is that if you were looking for a sim to relax this would not be it. there is constantly something going on, a lot of new people visiting and if you are out to have fun and find new friends this would be a place to visit. But like me if you find one or two trying to play smart, just ignore and continue your exploring. There is a lot to see..
Disclaimer: I will not be adding all of the links used combined with the featuring items, but feel free to search the names for the rest of the clothing if desired or send me a message asking about it.


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Updated: 08/05/2016 3:36 PM
Print Story |
Sweet Treats Using Wine
It's time to make desserts using wine! Haskell's Ted Farrell shares ice cream and slushy recipes you can make as a sweet treat!
Mango Ice Chard
2 pints of heavy cream
1 mango
1 Granny Smith apple, skin on and sliced
Juice of one lemon
2 oz. Spiced Rum
Zest of one lime
1 bottle of Chardonnay
1 cup of sugar
Combine all ingredients, except the cream, and refrigerate overnight. Pour into blender and purée until nice and smooth. Combine equal parts of purée and cream and stir until evenly distributed. Put mixture in freezer for 30 minutes. Then follow your ice cream machine's instructions.
Wine used: Karma Chardonnay, $10.99
Purple Cream Dream
1 pint blackberries
1 ripe plum, pit removed and sliced
1 bottle red wine
1 pint heavy cream
1/3 cup sugar
2 oz chocolate pieces (optional)
In a sauce pan, add fruit wine and sugar. Stir over medium to high heat until mixture reduces by half. Strain mixture with a mesh strainer to remove the blackberry seeds. Once cooled, combine cream and mixture and place in freezer. Fold in the chocolate pieces after 15 minutes (optional) then place back in freezer for another 15 minutes. Remove mixture from freezer and follow your manufacturer's instructions to make your ice cream.
Wines used:
Cotes du Rhone Acantalys Rouge, $9.99
Cavatina Moscato, $9.98
Moscato Sangria Slush
1 ruby red grapefruit
2 ripe peaches
2 pears
1 cup sugar
1 bottle Sauvignon Blanc
1 bottle of Sparkling Moscato
Add first five ingredients in a pitcher and refrigerate overnight. Once steeped, used a blender and purée the mixture until smooth. Place mixture in a freezer safe dish for 30 minutes or until you see ice forming around edge of dish. Open Moscato and pour 1/2 bottle into mixture and stir to combine. Freeze until a thick slush is formed. Scoop into a martini glass. If desired pour some remaining Moscato in glass with slush.
Wine used: Fog Mountain Sauvignon Blanc, $10.99
Stop by Haskell's and get $2 off bottles of Cavatina Moscato when you mention Twin Cities Live. The deal is good through August 20th.


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Scrum Puzzle #4
Most people seemed to get the concept that the team own the task board in the responses to Scrum Puzzle #3 but a few wanted to be helpful to management by allowing for some consistency or a key to make the board more understandable.
My approach is a much less forgiving. I think that the task board is only there for the team, and does not need to communicate anything to management or anyone else. There are other mechanisms in Scrum for management to know how the team is progressing and how they can help. The problem with giving in to this request, is that it opens the door for abuse, even from the most well intentioned managers.
If management want to understand the board, they might then want to ask questions about why there are so many bugs, or so few stories, or tasks that have been in progress for 3 days. They might think asking these questions is helping, but it is not. The most important thing management can do for an agile team is to trust them. All of these questions mean that management don't trust that the team is doing the best they can. Once managers are viewing the task board, it might also start to be less transparent because the team want to look good to management and then the value of the task board is diminished.
I know this because I am a well intentioned software development manager of 4 agile teams, and I know that as soon as I start checking team task boards I have questions. As soon as I start asking those questions, I start interfering. Currently I don't go to stand ups or look at team boards at all unless a team member specifically asks me for some advice or my perspective. I have one on ones with team members where they tell me what's going on at a macro level and what I need to help with. I don't need to manage the micro level within the sprint. The team take care of that themselves. It works much better for me and for the teams.
And now for Scrum Puzzle #4. I'm excited about this one because it's not my puzzle. Someone enjoyed the puzzles so much they have mailed me their own puzzle to include. The puzzle is phrased in the first person as I have copied most of the text from an email.
"My team has been using story points to size stories and has a firm understanding of how this works for stories and seem to have fairly consistent sizing for stories in backlog grooming. However the team does not break down the tasks into hours and argue that scrum uses story points and not hours.
Sprint tasks are often in progress for 3 days or more. The daily Scrum therefore follows a predictable pattern: "This week I have been busy with this, and I am still busy with this and I don't know if it will be finished this week but certainly not by tomorrow as this is a complex task." The result is no burn down, and nobody knows if we are going to make the sprint goal or not. No other developers can get involved as nobody can explain exactly what is required to finish the story and therefore everyone works on separate stories.
My understanding is that adding up hours will give us clarity on if we have over committed or under committed and can then either add or remove stories. I feel the process of estimating tasks also aids the developers in understand the detail of what they are going to build. Much to the team's dislike they started estimating hours on the tasks and then found the same problem they originally had before the days of scrum. Some developers thought a task was complex and due to their experience level they rated a task as 2 days while other developers rated the task as half a day. The consensus was half a day, but the team questions the logic of this approach and says: "What if another developer gets this task and it does actually take 2 days to do?" The team feels that any number they produce after adding the hours or days is inaccurate and therefore meaningless."
I'll offer my view in the next post, but for now what do the rest of you think the right thing to do here is?
I'm not fond of the breakdown of stories into tasks. The reason is that you can get most of the tasks done, and no stories. As far as I know, we invented the idea on the first XP project and the best teams have now moved well past it.
The thing to do in this situation, in my opinion, is to have smaller stories. One day, two days at most.
It doesn't really matter if they are estimated in points, days, or gummi bears. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't introduce estimation at all. What matters is that stories are small and of roughly uniform size.October 29, 2011
Mark #
Personally, I don't think the issue is the breakdown of the stories into tasks. The issue is the waste in estimating them. Estimation is guestimation and it is therefore vague by definition. To me, tasks are merely there to represent in a visual way what needs to be tackled in order to get XYZ story 'done'. Whether they are relatively complex or trivial, small, medium or large, shouldn't matter. If they cannot get 'done' in a relatively small amount of time (day or 2 in some cases), then the actual story is probably too big and would need to be split up.
@Ron: I'm interested in your final statements regarding not estimating at all. Are you suggesting a possibly leaner, less prescriptive approach ala Kanban? Rightly or wrongly, in deadline driven business, managers love and will always use the "when can I have feature ABC" line.October 31, 2011
Mark, I don't know what managers love and what they will always do. I suspect not all managers are the same in those matters. But no matter what managers love and will do, lmost the entire exercise about estimation is a waste of time, and it leads to abuse far too often — I want to say "nearly always".
What a good manager would do would be to observe the team's ability to build things, and predict outcomes based on those observations. A good manager would not attempt to improve the outcome by making more optimistic predictions: that's like trying to improve the weather by saying it will be warm and sunny tomorrow.
Then, having based predictions on observation, the good manager would go on to help the team figure out what is in their way, and would help them remove the obstacles and waste. This would improve the ability to build things, improve the observed data, and thus improve the predictions.October 31, 2011
In my experience teams are much better at estimating small tasks than large tasks, something between 15m and 2h. The issue I've seen with having either no tasks or very large tasks is that when someone gets behind, it's a lot easier to fudge the numbers. When I'm working on a story that the team thinks might take a couple of days to complete and I'm down a rabbit hole all morning, the reaction is always "oh we've still got a day and a half to get back on track". That's just lying to yourself and the team. I've collected some data on a few teams (small sample size) and have found that the estimates are mostly on target and not wildly off in either direction.
Unless you have an especially high functioning team, my fear with avoiding tasks or having very large tasks is that the team won't try to push their perceived limits and will just commit to the same number of points iteration after iteration letting the work expand to fill the time available.October 31, 2011
I have a feeling that estimation is an example of a behaviour which doesn't scale down well. Estimation makes sense (maybe) at the level of commitment of major effort.
Your desire to do a project or maybe even a feature can be strongly influenced by the size of the thing. At that level it is possible to calculate ROI and make a decision.
But like gravity, when you scale it down to the quantum level, it makes a lot less sense. What are you trying to use estimation as a means to do exactly? Is it whether or not this particular story has enough decomposition of tasks? To predict whether this story is likely to be finished this sprint? Getting the team to commit to more stuff? To track effort expended by a particular person or on a particular story? To "force" the team to engage in collaborative design?
I get the feeling that we're reaching for the inappropriate tool. Rather try to find the root cause for your need for estimates at such a granular level. You're likely to find that estimates provide an imperfect match for what your real need is.
I suspect almost all your needs can be fulfilled (including increasing the output of the team) by working on smaller stories. You know what else it does? Completely removes the need for estimating even in story points. (Another concept whose time has come…)November 1, 2011


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Devotion to or emphasis on physical fitness. Athleticism and an enthusiasm for sporting activities was a component of so-called 'muscular Christianity': a loosely knit movement at the end of the nineteenth century that aimed to instil into youth Godliness, patriotism, and physical fitness, which were seen to be, in some way, connected.
Subjects: Sports and Exercise Medicine — Sport and Leisure.
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