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Lacrosse Development
Our program at "THE BARN" is designed to bring Lacrosse players to the next level. We are the only year round lacrosse training facility in Durham.
As in most sports, the game of lacrosse gets faster, stronger, and smarter with the passing of each day. We ensure our athletes stay ahead of the competition. Guided by purpose, inspired by innovation, our role is to deliver high-precision systems showing athletes where they stand and to provide a blueprint for real improvement. We strive to push athletes to achieve new levels in performance.
THE BARN specializes in both player and goalie training– offering Skills Development Clinics, Camps, Private Classes and Memberships. We also offer in Team Development for teams looking to take their practice and training to the next level.
The one common characteristic of all leagues is the focus on skill development, especially at the rep level. How is this being measured and tracked? With our Combine technology we run the exact same sport specific testing that is run at the professional level. With this technology you can:
- Rank your top players by skill in each age group in a reliable, professional and unbiased manner.
- Eliminate the natural bias that goes into picking teams.
- Based on the results of the combines coaches can tailor practices on strengths and weaknesses
- Track progress on a year over year basis
- Track which coaches do a great job of developing players
- Adjust development programs over time based on results
"Some people want it to happen; some wish for it to happen, others make it happen"
Michael Jordan
Player Development
At THE BARN, player development is rooted in the understanding that fundamentals are the basis for every elite player. Our goal for all our athletes is to develop world class fundamentals. That's a term you hear all the time–world class fundamentals–but what does it really mean? We believe athletes have mastered the fundamentals of Lacrosse only when they have the ability to perform a skill consistently well at high speeds, under fatigue and pressure in a competitive environment.
As a coach through the use of combines you can now apply the results to manage your team:
- Helping decide who should play what position
- Develop practices based on strengths and weaknesses
- Use for reports on player development
Never has it been easier for an athlete to know where they stand compared to the professionals, compared to peer group and most importantly compared to themselves. There are many uses of individual combines:
- Track individual progress over time
- Allows you to focus training on weak areas
- Use results to help gain scholarships
- Use results to help get drafted to junior or professional teams.
At THE BARN we offer several different avenues for player development including camps, clinics, and memberships.
Clinics and Camps
Shooters and Scorers
March – April (8Weeks)
This clinic is designed for players that are looking to improve their offensive skills in a fast paced, positive and fun environment. The Shooters and Scorers camp will teach each participant numerous shooting and scoring skills along with footwork to help build confidence in goal scoring. Shot instruction focuses on balance, release, power and accuracy.
The Turf component of the camp is focused on:
- Shooting Balance and positioning
- Hand-eye coordination
- Shot selection
- Shot release with velocity and accuracy
- In tight scoring situations
- Game situation drills
- Face-offs/Net Drives/Battling Drills
- Goaltender anticipation
- 5:1 player to instructor ratio
Defense Skills
The focus of the camps is to teach players the skills and tactics required to become an elite defenseman.
The Defense Clinic provides players the opportunity to improve the defensive side of their game in a very demanding, position specific, positive and supportive environment.
The on turf focus includes:
- Quick, explosive transitional footwork
- Pivots and lateral mobility
- Hinge play and first pass
- Correct positioning in odd man rush situations
- Shot selection
- Down low battles and positioning
- 5:1 player to instructor ratio
Battle and Compete
March – April (8Weeks)
The Battle and Compete Camp will push players to compete at a higher level and to become more comfortable with body contact and physical engagement type drills. Players will learn how to utilize their bodies to win the 1 on 1 battle, races for loose balls, ball protection and wall play.
The Turf component of the camp is focused on:
- Engagement drills
- Small area games
- Battle and competing skills
- Ball protection
- Correct body checking/receiving skills
- Respect for your opponent
- 5:1 player to instructor ratio
Camp sessions will be broken down into different areas of the game;
- Offensive threat
- Defense work including gap control and working through an offensive pick
- Stick technique
- Agility
- Explosive foot work
- Ball control and loose ball work
- Shot selection, speed and accuracy
- Crease work (putting the ball in the net)
- Tight area ball control
- Game play (finding the opening and getting open)
Head Instructors are Shawn Williams and Derek Suddons
March Break Camps
Pre-Tryout Camps
Summer Camps
Pre-Season Camps
Through our partnership with Sport Testing we will incorporate reliable test data – faster and easier than ever!
Why Test? Test so you know how you can be the best. Testing clearly identifies strengths and weaknesses so athletes and coaches can adjust training and competition schedules accordingly using unbiased data, not guesswork.
For What? We can test an athlete's abilities in all aspects of any sport. We measure speed, agility, endurance and accuracy in any combination thereof up to the highest level. The possibilities are truly limitless.
How Often? Testing should be done as often as possible depending on the sport season. At least one testing session every three months is the ideal frequency required to properly track an athlete's progression.
Sport Testing's high-precision systems show any athlete where they stand, giving a blueprint for real improvement. Amazingly quick real-time testing and online analytics allows athletes and coaches to adjust training using unbiased data.
Sport Testing systems and data are used by the NHL, CHL, NLL, NBA, CFL, NCAA and CIS teams, plus trainers, national sport associations and amateur clubs internationally for:
- Skills and fitness benchmarking
- Progress tracking and player development
- Talent identification and try-outs
- Training with instant feedback
- Research and data analysis
- Wireless Sport GatesTM and Sport IDTM hardware sync with the Sport HubTM interface.
- After a session, instantly upload results to your Athlete Manager online database.
- Raise your game with the complete and seamless solution that gives you unmatched sport-specific knowledge for the improvement of athletes and sport.
Memberships (Players and Goalies)
For the most complete training development experience in all of Durham Region look to our monthly memberships. Depending on age and level they will include:
- Personal Player Assessment
- Report Card every 3months (Measured and Tracked through combine testing)
- Unlimited Strength, Speed and Conditioning Sessions Per Week
- Unlimited On-Ice Per Week
- Sports yoga
- Personalized Nutrition and Meal Planning
- Additional Weekend and Evening Ice time available for shooting & skills
- Impacts of social media and how to use it effectively
- Access to sports psychologist
- SAT Assistance
- Academic Advisement
Why Choose Us
- Doing the right thing for the player at the right stage in their development
- Adopting a player-centered approach, understanding that not every player will respond the same to certain development technics and trying methods
- The broader the foundation of players the more successful the game
- Viewing player development as a process over the long term
- A need to better educate parents on the hockey development of their child – it is okay for parents to want their kids to get to the highest levels but they need to know the best way to go about it.
Our Instructors
Derek Suddons
I am honored to work with boys and girls of all ages to encourage the growth of lacrosse in the area!
As part of the lacrosse community for over 25 years, I look forward to sharing some insights that I have learned along the way. Playing minor lacrosse, high school, NCAA, NLL, and Major Series Lacrosse for the Brooklin Redmen, I am truly delighted to relive and experience in the next generation of lacrosse athletes.
At "THE BARN" our foundation will be; work hard, play hard, and work TOGETHER. The main focus is getting better at the sport we love while having fun. We will promote unity, teamwork, and strength of character.
We look forward to being a part of the journey and building relationships to last a lifetime.
Shawn Williams
Shawn is a highly decorated and respected lacrosse player and coach. Shawn has played 17 years in the NLL, from 1998-2014. He is a two-time NLL Champion (2002 Toronto Rock and 2007 Rochester Knighthawks). In the World Championships for Box Lacrosse, he helped lead Canada to two Gold Medals in 2003 and 2007. He is also sitting in 5th in the Overall League Leading Scorers and played in six NLL All-Star Games. Shawn has coached many minor lacrosse teams to Provincial Championships and highly motivates his players to push themselves to the next level. Shawn used his leadership skills to captain the Brock University Lacrosse team in the mid-nineties and returned to assist with the coaching development of the players after graduation. Shawn's self-discipline, determination and motivation are skills he shares with lacrosse players on and off the field. He is creative when teaching skills while at the same time allowing room for the player to use their creative side. Shawn strives for success in all areas of life while his passion for sport is contagious.
Shawn currently plays for the Brooklin Redman while being both an Assistant Coach and Scout for the Buffalo Bandits of the NLL.
Our Happy Clients
"I just wanted to say a big thank you – this Future Redmen camp was very well done, well organized and offered a good variety for the kids."
Adam Fox
"Connor's game has improved dramatically. Our team has gone from last to 4th place in the regular season, to first place in the playoffs."
Dave Chevrette
"When working on the ice, Carson has a unique ability to make ALL kids feel like a star. He is patient and passionate about what he does."


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Friday, October 26, 2012
By Pawan Rana
Toyota Etios Liva expected to be launched in Indonesia!
Looks like the Japanese Auto Giant; Toyota Motors is all set to roll out its Etios Liva hatchback in Indonesia. Recently, the car was caught during its test run on the roads of Indonesia. The Indonesian market has been growing and almost every big car manufacturer is trying to launch its products there. Even Tata Motors is trying its best to give Tata Nano the golden opportunity to fetch a huge chunk of market share over there. Recently, the Datsun brand of inexpensive cars was rolled out in Indonesia, Russia and China by Mr. Carlos Ghosn, Renault-Nissan's head.
|See More Toyota Etios Liva Photos
|Get Toyota Etios Liva Price
There are many reasons of success if Toyota launched Toyota Etios Liva hatchback there. One of the main reasons is that an average Indonesian family has the same kind of budget for the car as an average Indian family does. The second best reason is that A and B segment cars are very easy to maintain. The pricing strategy of Toyota would come to test here. rumor has it that the car will be priced around 120 to 170 million Indonesian Rupiah, which comes to 6.7 lakh to 9.5 lakh in Indian Rupess.
|See More Toyota Etios Liva Photos
|Get Toyota Etios Liva Price
The Liva hatchback, which was seen on the Indonesian road, was very similar to the Indian model. And if Toyota Motors actually launched this one there, then it might be a possibility that the hatchback is shipped from India as CBU or could assemble CKD kits at Toyota's Indonesian plant. Liva might be rolled out in 1.4 litre petrol and 1.4 litre diesel motor options as present in India. The diesel engine might get a retuning. When Toyota Etios Liva hatchback is launched in Indonesia, it is likely to be positioned above the low cost green car, called Toyota Agya.
Comments (3)
Saturday, October 27, 2012
It seems Toyota do not want to back-left from competitors at global level too. After getting much popularity in Indian auto market this well admired hatch would receive good response in Indonesia too.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Toyota Etios Live having good exterior..
Monday, October 29, 2012
The only selling point is great roominess and comfort for five six feet tall people. Spaciosness and comfort is best in its class and comparable to the sedan class! Also looks good.

subset: commoncrawl


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So this is going to take a tortuous path. My brain works weird. But in nutshell, we're discussing this:
And how to uncomfortably make it out alive. Let's begin.
For one reason or another I've been watching the recent brouhaha around Vidcon. At this year's conference, a certain wing of youtubers, the "skeptics" or "anti-SJWs" made their presence known. While overlapping a lot with what some would call the alt-right, the major hobby horse of these guys and gals is a rejection of at least the current trends in feminism and gender theory.
Scandal popped up in a few places, fed into by drama around a prominent feminist youtuber, Laci Green, "taking the red pill", and things really hit the fan when another feminist youtuber, Anita Sarkeesian, called out one of her detractors in the audience in a manner unbecoming of a panelist discussing harassment. This fueled fire on both sides with each taking the moral high ground and it looks like the dumpster fire is only beginning.
Wasting time watching this trainwreck both on youtube and on twitter, I came across this little comment, put out by Anita:
The comment gave me a lot of pause. First of all, I'm fully on board with gender-segregated classrooms, though probably for reasons Anita would find atrocious. Single-sex education keeps kids from obsessing so much about the sexual "other" and (ideally) moves socialization between the sexes to the purview of the family rather than the unsupervised hotboxes of hormones and social anarchy that are school "cultures". Basically, segregating sexes would allow us to reform traditional gender roles. Not a feminist end.
But racial segregation? This comment had Anita's detractor reminding her of certain historical circumstances in the US. Like Jim Crow.
I was at first tempted to agree with those detractors. Then again, you have places like Evergreen State College. Here the yearly celebrated "Day of Absence", where the school's population is separated by race to reinforce the importance of an integrated community, became a sort of raucous sit-in including the pseudo-hostage taking of the cooperative president. The activists were predominantly of the typical "SJW" crowd. This was basically voluntary segregation, with calls for the removal of all perpetrators of "the patriarchy" from places of public worship, er, practice. If anyone disagreed, their opinions were deemed invalid if they were "cis", "white" and/or "male" – depending on who it was, of course.
This just seems ludicrous. Wasn't much of the history of the 20th century about removing barriers between peoples – men and women, whites and black, gays and straights, rich and poor? We've done a messed up job of a lot of it, sure, but what's currently going on smacks a lot of resegregating the populace, of upending much of this work.
Further, while there are definitely white supremacists all in favor of it, this appears to be primarily an impulse from within the minority (now or soon-to-be diverse majority?) communities – a silencing of those deemed to be the children of the oppressors, inheritors of their mantle in a panoply of forms.
This call for some form of societal segregation isn't only a liberal phenomenon. On "my side" of things, there's also Rod Dreher's Benedict Option and its variations. In a nutshell, it is call for committed orthodox Christians to recognize that our society holds values hostile to our own and to create intentional communities which can act as "parallel poleis". Many only see it as withdrawal, which to some degree it is, but it is also about building communities which can be founded upon perennial human virtues and Christian faith. It's a form of self-segregation.
That final point about the Benedict Option, building communities around some shared values, points to why this call for new forms of segregation are arising not from without but from within these communities. There has been a fallout, a collapse of any central values in our society. We don't have much of anything that binds us beyond sharing the public spaces. Thus these communities see little to seek to integrate into – and some see what's left of the center as something they don't want to integrate into.
Our lack of shared central values is made worse by the existence of many opposing values among the various communities. Radical Feminists seek to create cultures where womanhood is valued without reference to masculinity. LGBT communities seek to make sex and gender personal decisions and expressions with little reference to the social role of sexual relations. SJWs are looking to build societies where historically oppressed minorities become at least vocally dominant and rectify the sins of the historically oppressive majority.
On the other side of the coin, the "anti" communities, seeking to push against the above, often glorify freedom – freedom of speech (libertarian) or of inquiry (skepticism), though it really boils down to freedom of conscience, where conscience is understood as following what you believe is right no matter what. These folk tend not to coalesce as much as the above, save in response to the above. They don't share a predominant value save freedom, but in recognizing that another is having their freedom trampled (even if this freedom is being used in defense of an opposed value – see the odd bedfellows of right-leaning atheists and theists) they have come together as a force against the above.
Then you have the traditional Christian communities, which were dominant less than a hundred years ago and are seeking to hold on to that dominance (moral majorities and the like). Their thesis is that Christian values, if not Christianity itself, needs to be the central core of society. Even those still in favor of the separation of Church and State, still believe that some non-denominational or even non-theist "natural law" need to be at the heart of things. (Of course, that this "natural law" comes from the Christian tradition is just a happenstance… right?)
Upshot: The core values of these communities, the thing which defines their worldview, are incompatible. Thus they are seeking to at best withdraw from the infidel, or to silence them, or even to remove them. We're seeking to segregate.
I think this is especially important for Christians to recognize. Dreher and others are quick to point out that traditional Christians are on the cusp of experiencing persecution. This is true, but it's not because of the rise of some new moral majority. There may be such a majority around an issue like gay-marriage, but the divisions in our culture are so great that Christians will be persecuted for little reason other than being one among the many warring factions that need to be purged or silenced to restore social stability. The segregation we're seeing is the beginning of this warring.
While this is scary, it also points out the direction evangelization needs to go. Christianity, and especially Catholicism, cannot limit itself to being a personal preference. Neither can it claim only to be an aid to societal formation. Rather, it must vocally claim to be the source of perfected society. It needs to preach the Church.
This is something that's been elided since Vatican II. The push to "open to the world" as many read Gaudium et Spes to direct made us believe that we no longer needed to be a society founded on Christ, but rather a (growing?) part of the societies founded upon other values – whether that be national identity, freedom, race, interests, political movements, what-have-you. The Church was no longer to be the foundation of society, but simply a (hopefully important) voice at the table.
There's a slew of reason for this reading, some I'm sympathetic to, most I'm not, but I'm not going to get into them. What's becoming clear is that there simply isn't a stable table anymore. What the "openness to the world" failed to realize then and is probably failing to realize now is that the world is not stable.
The West has spent the past five hundred years denying the Catholic Church as its point of the stability and descending into violence because of it. The west has then spent the last three hundred years denying Christianity and descending into violence because of it. And now the world has spent the last hundred years denying God himself and descending into violence because of it. The experience now is the painful place of looking around at the rubble and wondering what makes the foundation of a society.
The Church needs to be able to say "I AM." I make society. We need to recognize that the world, without Christ and His Church, falls inevitably into chaos and brutality, segregating itself into oblivion, stabilizing only by violent force. This is not a call to be that violent force (though a little bit of defensive militancy would not be uncalled for), but it is a call to triumphant trust in God, Christ, and His Church to bring about peace in this world – "thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven." Seek souls, yes, but seek to make them one-of-us. Not just another atomized person who claims to follow some Galilean's 8 step program.
We need to be the Church, in all it's triumphal Glory.
I have some disagreements with him, but Christians wanting to recognize something of how to do this, of how to live in a way that takes seriously their tradition as a basis for society, should look at Rod Dreher's Benedict Option. I'm finishing it up now and will have some comments in a week or so. It points the way out of this segregating oblivion, though not a comfortable one (there is no comfortable one).


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But I love to browse the online store...it's still fun...like window shopping I guess?
Check out these little beauties...such beautiful bedding !! Who needs artwork in their bedroom when you have bedding like this !
I love the pop of colour...but am always torn when styling our bedroom, as these kinds of styles always grab my eye...but I always end up going for something a little more neutral, softer and clean looking for our bedroom.
Still think you cant beat a beautiful white coverlet ; )
Still these are fun to look at.....What about you? are you a bright bursts of colour type of person when it comes to bedding...or more safe and neutral?


text: US warns Pakistan over NY bomb plot [But, aren't we already bombing the sh*t out of them?] 08 May 2010 The US secretary of state says Islamabad would face "very severe consequences," if a terrorist attack on US soil was traced to Pakistan. "We've made it very clear that if -- heaven-forbid -- an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences," Hillary Clinton told CBS TV during an interview on Saturday.


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All Films.All Above Board.NOW INCLUDES TV SHOWS & TV LISTINGS
Glenn Close co-writes, co-produces and stars in this bittersweet period drama based on the 1927 novella by Irish novelist George Moore. In late 19th-century Dublin, women are strongly discouraged from earning an independent living. Albert Nobbs (Close) is a woman who has been posing as a man since the age of 14, to enable her to work as a butler in Dublin's most upmarket hotel. But Albert's identity is shaken to the core when she meets charismatic painter Hubert Page (Janet McTeer) and young maid Helen (Mia Wasikowska), and formulates a plan to leave her life of servitude behind.


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Yes to Tatooine. Texas might be cool, but that Mass Effect one has me salivating.
Agree with a couple. P.T. definitely has raised the bar for scary. I hope Silent Hills turns it up another notch!
Oh it's about Eminem. He must have an album releasing if he's in the news again.
Read the article. He says, "Now Destiny isn't an MMO, but it does have MMO elements." He's just saying it suffers from the same problems MMOs do.
I like the idea for Outlast. I remember one year at Halloween horror nights they had a mineshaft house where you wore a headlamp. Little things like that make a haunted house unique.
I don't even know what words to use to describe this game.
After reading this, I'm gonna buy one. I just have to decide whether I want to wait and see if there's a Black Friday/Cyber Monday deal.
Can you provide clarification? I don't quite follow what you're saying.
From what I gather the big gun was caused by a bug. But you're right. Bad Juju in Destiny takes up my whole screen
Those bugs don't sound good. But at least there's a month left before launch. Still gonna buy it.
That Theon Greyjoy reference.
The hub is a reason to play it? And what does Online mean... the game is always online. Why does it get a 10 for online?
If I could buy a higher chance for my purples to be purples i'd do it.
I'd argue that there are people more hated than she is. The president is pretty hated by every single right winger.
Isn't this the same guy that said PC is dying and consoles are thriving a few months back?
Fine review. But I'll still wait for it to go on sale.
I feel like all CheatCC does is take opinion pieces from other sites and then try to make a grab at traffic piggybacking off success. And what's up with their font?
Did Donte Stallworth and Josh Brent get removed from Madden? I believe Brent is serving a suspension for his charges, but i'm not sure if he's in the game because he's still on the Dallas Cowboys.
This game is going to be amazing.
Take it for what it is and don't expect the world from it and you might enjoy it. It isn't ground breaking. Just solid.


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That's great news! Well, there is definitely a lot to learn, but here are my top tips for making the successful transition and maintaining it. I'm not going to lie, it isn't easy to cover all the bases for a successful transition, especially considering how much misinformation is out there in regards to health and diet. It's a veritable minefield. There is also a fair amount of effort required to get moving, especially in the early days mentally preparing, getting all your staple products together and starting to cook.
Psychology and Motivation
This aspect of moving to a new diet and lifestyle is absolutely crucial to success. You are what you think, not just what you eat. The first part of this process is making sure that you have a solid understanding of exactly why you are doing this – what are your personal objectives and do you understand the rationale behind Paleo? There is absolutely no point in jumping in if you don't have solid reasons to do so, and don't have a good grasp of why Paleo will deliver benefits to you, because it will make it that much easier to slip up and end up in a spiral of self-loathing and doubt. You don't need a science degree to understand it, much of the writing on Paleo is super-accessible and some is even funny.
Your motivation could be anything – people come to the Paleo side of life for all sorts of varied reasons: it could be for weight loss, to look good naked or for buns of steel, management or reversal of an auto-immune disease or the simple desire to feel healthier to enable you to make the most out of your one life. There are a lot of Paleo testimonials out there (and on Mark's Daily Apple) – read them for inspiration. Read them again later if you find your motivation flagging.
Now, another important stumbling block for many people starting out is what I term the "all or nothing" view where the potential Paleo adopter freaks out at the thought that these changes are for life and are therefore going to be impossible to maintain for a whole lifetime. It's so important when you get started not to think this way because then it all seems like a massive mountain you are scaling. This is the reason that programs such as the Whole30 are so popular- because all they ask is for one month of commitment as an experiment for you to see how you respond to it. 30 days is necessary because it takes time for food toxins to clear from the body (it doesn't "heppen overnight" as those Pantene ads used to tell us) and for the inflammatory processes going on in the body to calm down. It's also long enough that when you get to the end of the 30 days, you feel a sense of achievement and a sense that if you can keep it up for 30 entire days, you may just find yourself able to extend to 3 months, a year or even longer.
It's also important to realise that the tenets of Paleo go against many entrenched beliefs we personally have about nutrition and health, but also those that are trumpeted by the "authorities" we place so much blind trust in. From all the reading I have done, it really is shocking to realise how much we as a public have been misled by those in power. We're also quite susceptible to marketing that masquerades as authoritative health advice – case in point is Hayley Lewis, former swimmer and Biggest Loser host, telling us to "Live Well" by popping some nurofen…unfortunately, Hayles, ibuprofen can seriously mess with gut health, causing all sorts of health problems. I'm not about to take health advice from you!
And the last major point I want to make here is to focus on what you can eat, not what you can't eat. This is crucial as it reminds you of the wealth of foods you can still eat – believe me, there are a lot. Obviously, you still need to know what you can't eat, but this is more so you don't have accidental slip ups preparing food or eating out. It can be daunting when you start out, because the list of restricted foods looks long and hardcore! But believe me, it isn't once you remember the variety of foods available that our monopolistic supermarkets aren't so good at stocking. And the even better news is that a lot of dishes you eat are indeed already Paleo! For example, salads – depending on the ingredients – stews, soups, casseroles, steak and veggies, baked fish…the list goes on.
Paleo is more flexible than you may think
I think there is a major misconception out there in the general community about Paleo. It's not all blood and gore you know, we're not all walking around with rudimentary tools for capturing that night's dinner of whole jersey cow!
Suprisingly, a lot of people don't realise that you can meet Paleo guidelines and not ever eat red meat. Yes, it's true! It's not really ideal, in my opinion because of the B12 factor I've written about before, but many Paleo writers agree it's possible. The most common variation of Paleo seems to be a "pescatarian" type approach, where seafood is consumed but no other animal meat. There are a lot of great threads about this particular issue over on PaleoHacks if you want to read a bit more.
Getting Started – Preparation, Preparation, Preparation
Ok, so now you're ready to roll, it's really important to properly prepare. I would recommend spending 1-2 weeks on this stage to ensure future success. I actually jumped right in, but that was because I already had a lot of the staple products anyway and I snapped when I decided to start Paleo – for some people, that may actually work better than a formal prep period, it all depends on your personality and situation.
Here are my top tips for preparing to make the jump:
- Once you have an understanding of what you can eat, write a long list of foods and then go shopping to stock up on the staples.
- When shopping, think of Michael Pollan'squote that if you see a product in the supermarket that your great grandmother would probably not recognise as food, then it probably isn't food. Sorry to all the Space Food sticks fans out there, but that stuff ain't edible!
- Think about your lifestyle and commitments. Think about your daily routines and how you will be able to eat healthy while also keeping to your other life commitments – if others such as Sarah Fragoso can do it, so can you. Start reading Paleo recipe blogs and compiling a collection of things you'd like to make and would suit your lifestyle.
- Tell your family and friends and ask for their support. Apologise in advance for being a "pain in the butt", but express how much this means to you. Once they see your good results, they will probably be more supportive and may even be tempted to join you!
- If you do a lot of social eating, think about where you can eat out and what sort of dishes you can eat. You'd be surprised at the possibilities, though honestly you will most likely need to make some compromises here and there.
- Financially, it can be more expensive to eat this way. But, it's important to remember that any investment you make now by eating good food, will pay for itself endlessly with a better life for you and will also minimise future health costs. There are plenty of blogs that cover the topic of how to eat Paleo on a budget. It's not necessary to eat organic – you may want to eat some items as organic and some as non-organic, it's up to you. It's more important to eat the right things and ditch the crap. Also, there's no need to buy any cookbooks – the web is absolutely teeming with free inspiration.
Once you're on board
- Make things in advance – plan ahead. This will make your life so much easier – it gives you more time to spend on life commitments and fun stuff plus it avoids potential meltdowns when you think you've got nothing to eat.
- Let go of perfection and ego. This is not a competition. Invoke the 80/20 rule when you need to (provided you don't have severe intolerances or serious autoimmune disease) – this means that you do have some leeway to make exceptions to Paleo when you have no choice, or when you just feel like relaxing things a little. Be careful, as for some people this is a very slippery slope.
- Join Facebook groups and follow Paleo peeps on Twitter to keep up the motivation and inspiration.
- Relax! You're on the right track and are making a great investment in your current and future health.
- Have fun with it – start a blog and celebrate your progress. The blog doesn't have to be the best Paleo blog in the world – it can simply be a marker of your progress and a good way to spread the word amongst your network.
- Forgive yourself if you stumble – there's no gold star for 100% adherence. Just get back on the bike and keep riding!
- Explore your neighbourhood or city's diverse types of grocery stores and health food shops – Chinese, Fijian, grower's markets, the wacky folks at The Suveran….
Keeping up the momentum
So, you done a few weeks or maybe a couple of months of Paleo and have seen some good results, though nothing spectacular. You're wondering "is it really worth all of this effort if I haven't lost any weight, but my skin is smoother?" Depending on your health status, you may need longer than a month to see results. I did, and I also needed to make some tweaks to get my breakthrough. But, boy am I glad I stuck with it!
Keeping up the momentum involves a few key strategies:
- Remind yourself of why you are doing this, as detailed above.
- Consult with the Paleo community to find out if there are some tweaks you can make to get even better results. It's a great, supportive community. My favourite community site is PaleoHacks.
- According to Chris Kresser from The Healthy Skeptic, it's important to identify your weak links to work on those, rather than just strengthening your strong links.
- Substitution goes a long way – find things that replace foods you ate previously. A simple example is almond or macadamia butter instead of peanut butter. Sure, it's more expensive, but so are unnecessary health care bills.
- Read blogs for inspiration. There are a helluva lot of good ones out there that are so creative and entertaining to read. There is a good list on the right hand side of this page under "Blogroll".
- There may be people around you who are "Debbie Downers" or are really nitpicky and argumentative, who don't understand why you're doing what you're doing. The best response here is to know your stuff – why you're doing it, and maintain a thick skin. It's your life, not theirs'! Thankfully, this hasn't happened to me but if I ate out more in groups, then it might do. I have heard of people that have real trouble with their families not getting it and not being supportive, I feel for these people because that just makes it all harder. Again, consult the community sites to get tips about dealing with the naysayers, because many people have dealt with this already.
More resources
Here's a list of the additional resources to help get you on your way.
I'd love to hear any more tips from readers in terms of how to get started on Paleo and how to keep it up.
Tags: Getting started, motivation, psychology


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"Iin the game you play as Adam Jenson, which reminds me of JC and Denton (The name of the character from the original game) smushed together into a last name. The game plays from your well known first person shooter perspective, though what differs it from the original Deus Ex, is that there is a 3rd person cover system. This is where it branches away from how the original Deus Ex played."
The reviewer does raise valid points but his writing style leaves a lot to be desired.
It is true though. There are issues namely:
* Killing innocents- no real repurcussions whatsoever
* AI- quite poor
* Energy bar- getting additional barrs is pretty much redundant because you have abilities (such as takedowns) that take away one whole bar- so you're left scouring for energy boosters
* Forced boss battles
And yet- the game is still great to play. You'll forgive the above shortcomings once you play the game because it is quite immersive and really enjoyable.
I have PM'd you with my feedback. It was too long to post on here.


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We measure everything here at HubSpot, but it turns out it's not just because we're a bunch of dataheads. Data has many uses and can truly transform your marketing if you know how to use it. Here are 6 ways to use data to transform your marketing.
1.) Invest in What's Working
The days of "I know half of my marketing is useless, but I don't know which half" are over. The internet and marketing tech tools make it possible to measure and analyze all of your marketing programs to understand what's working and what's not. This includes measurement at a macro level - a survey found that businesses that focus on inbound marketing instead of outbound interruption-based marketing enjoy a 60% lower cost per lead. Marketing analytics tools let you dive deeper into your specific business's campaigns to understand which marketing channels (search engines, email marketing, advertisements) or campaigns drive the most traffic, leads, and customers for you.
For example, we found that PPC traffic from keyword phrase A was converting at a higher rate than PPC traffic from keyword phrase B , so we increased our budget for the former, because we knew we were getting more bang for our buck!
2.) Find Opportunities to Improve
Hand in hand with finding what channels or campaigns are most effective for you, is finding room for improvement among underperforming channels or campaigns. For example, you might find that organic search traffic is converting into leads at a lower rate than social media traffic. In that case, maybe you should look at which pages get the most search engine traffic and how you can optimize calls to action on those pages. As another example, you might find that one landing page is converting visitors into leads at a lower rate than another. What can you learn from the better performing landing page to improve the other?
3.) Measure and Share Success to Show Legitimacy
Data can help prove your legitimacy to the market. It's no secret that we promote our 4,000+ customers right on our homepage . To go a step further, we had an MIT grad student do a study of our customer base to look at the average increase in traffic and leads that our customers saw after using our software. Not only did we want to know ourselves, but this data - now published as a HubSpot ROI report - serves as a powerful tool to show the success our customers see using our software and methodology. Think about what data you have that you can share (in aggregate and in accordance to your privacy policy) to show your impact on your customers and the market.
4.) Stay on Track and Learn Constantly with Real-Time Data
If you look at your metrics once a quarter, you only have 4 opportunities per year to learn from your campaigns and improve your marketing efforts. Marketing analytics tools give you the opportunity to look at your data in real-time and compare campaigns more easily, giving you more opportunities to learn from and improve your marketing. These real-time metrics also give you the opportunity to check in on your progress towards your lead generation or other marketing goals. If you only look at your metrics at the end of your cycle, it's too late to make sure you reach those high level goals.
For example, at HubSpot, we look at our key marketing metrics every day to make sure we're on track to hit our monthly lead goals. If we see that we're behind in leads, we brainstorm a campaign that we can get up and running that same month to make sure we can make a comeback.
5.) Learn About Your Market
Solving your market's problems is the key to success. No one cares about your products or services (except you), as David Meerman Scott says; what people care about are their problems and how to solve them. Using online marketing data, you can learn what your market's problems are. Look at the keyword phrases people are searching for in search engines or look at what people are talking about in social media in order to gain valuable market insight.
For example, we started off as an "inbound marketing software" company, but we saw that no one was searching on this term because our audience was not yet describing their marketing needs as "inbound." Through our search engine marketing analytics, we saw that "internet marketing software" and "online marketing software" were terms more frequently used by our audience, so we focused on creating content around those terms instead.
6.) Create Unique, Remarkable Content
People love data-focused content. Our data-focused blog posts and ebooks are among our best performing content pieces - and we create a lot of content! Think about what unique data you have access to and share it with your audience. If you don't have your own data, see what other data is available and relevant and share it along with your insights. Or, if your reach is large enough, consider doing a survey to collect your own unique data that you can then share back with your community.
How else do you use data to transform your marketing? Have we infused enough of our data geekiness in you yet?
Flickr photo by Woodlouse


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Marty, at age 13
Marty Jenoff is the President of Focal Point Productions, and as a Maryland videographer for nearly 25 years, he's recorded thousands of hours of footage. Marty got his start in video production at the age of 13. He used the gift money from his bar mitzvah to purchase an RCA VHS camcorder.
As a student, Marty pioneered the first high school television station in the Baltimore County School System, at Owings Mills High School. "Eagle TV" quickly became a model for other student run video programs throughout the County.
After graduating from Towson University in 2000 with a B.S. in Mass Communications, Marty started Focal Point Productions. In the beginning, final videos were delivered on VHS tapes. A few years later, clients started asking for DVDs. Now, electronic files for YouTube, Facebook, and other social media sites are the big demand. The technology has changed so much since Focal Point Productions first started. In 2000, video resolutions were 720x480 pixels. Now, with HD, the resolution has almost tripled. And with 4k and 8K on the horizon, sizes are about to triple again. Marty and Focal Point have prided themselves on staying on top of the technology market.
Marty is President of the Baltimore Videographers Association, and has been featured as a presenter on many occasions. Marty has also been a member of the Owings Mills Volunteer Fire Company for over 25 years and is also a member of the International Brotherhood of Electronic Workers (IBEW).
Working in Local TV News
Marty started his career at WBAL TV, Baltimore's NBC affiliate, in 2003. He serves as a photojournalist, editor, live truck technician, and as one of Skyteam 11's camera operators. During his tenure at the TV station, Marty has won several awards, and has covered hundreds of local, regional, and national news events including sporting events, fires, shootings, court cases, press conferences, and all types of breaking news. Here are some stories he has worked on:
Kind Messages Literally Rock in Carroll
Oyster knives made from Pride of Baltimore wood
Howard County students write letters to kids at St Judes
Martin O'Malley presidential campaign announcement
Volunteer raises money for Baltimore family in need
Reading program aims to get men involved in Baltimore schools
Assisted living center offers student home for music
Dundalk July 4th Parade


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February 4 2010
Vicki E. Alger
(This post was co-authored by Evelyn B. Stacey, Education Studies Policy Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute in Sacramento, California)
President Obama recently insisted, "I am not an ideologue." But as Hamlet might say, methinks the president protesteth too much. Contrary to his pledge last year to follow a "whether-it-works" approach to education reform, the president's budget effectively kills the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DC OSP). It reduces funding by nearly $4 million this year, with no future funding for current scholarship students after that.
The Opportunity Scholarship Program has helped 3,300 low-income D.C. students in recent years improve their academic performance and escape one of the country's most expensive, dysfunctional, and dangerous public schooling systems. Thanks to this program, thousands of low-income children can go to the same high-quality schools children of presidents and members of Congress do.
Experts like Kevin P. Chavous, a former Democratic member of the D.C. Council and member of the Obama Presidential Campaign's Education Policy Committee, know first-hand what that kind of opportunity means to D.C. schoolchildren. He notes that the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program is a success and "has become the most studied program reviewed by the [U.S.] Education Department." (See here at 1.51 and 21.25, too).
As the Washington Post reports, the president's budget now leaves the futures of about 1,300 Opportunity Scholarship students in limbo. "Indeed, one has to wonder whether the administration is banking on the possibility that students will drop out of the program," the Post speculates, adding:
What easier way to get rid of this pesky program that's so despised by the teachers unions and other traditional allies of the Democrats? It's troubling that an administration that supposedly prides itself on supporting "what works" is so willing to pull the plug on a program that, according to a rigorous scientific study, has proven to be effective.
Thankfully, Senators Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) held a press conference this morning to fight for reauthorization of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. "At a time when our country is seeking ways to improve education results, we are unfortunately forced to fight to keep alive a program that has proven results," declared Sen. Lieberman. "That is a tragedy and an outrage."
With leaders like these, the tale of deserving D.C. schoolchildren may get a brighter epilogue than the one "President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress" have drafted.


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I have created a image upload for our ID card system to allow users to upload new images, edit them and submit for approval. This is all working well with a combination of asp.net (c#) and jquery to give a seemless editor etc.
We have had a few users who I cannot believe have scanned a photo of themself and then just submitted it with the A4 page of white and little photo.
I am wondering if anyone can help with a suggestion on how I could possibly reduce the load of these coming through (I can't believe they can be this stupid), it stipulates UK passport standards.
Would my only option be to check for a single continues colour that occurs and if it reaches a certain percentage point say 60% then to just send back an error stating they need to crop the image.
Can anyone help with providing sample or that I can use to move this one on.
I am still in disbelief on this one. the other one is they take a photo of whole body and other in it and cut straight down middle chopping the people out but supplying a photo that no use for an id photo card....but that I can't imagine being solved programatically as I need to determine where their face dimensions are and what percentage of the actual photo is taken up by it and if it below a threshold reject it.
hii everyone,
I want to develop an asp.net application, which deals with editing of any image.
I want my software to have following features -:
1. It should be able to detect the current properties of selected image like contrast,
brightness, hue, saturation, color and similar stuffs regarding an image.
2. It should be able to modify these properties of the selected image i.e. increasing/decreasing
the brightness, hue and others.
Where should i begin from..?
Hi all,
I am working on an application which performs stamping of HD images at very high frame rate.
AFAIK GDI is the best, but i heard WPF uses Hardware acceleration.
To make it faster which technology will be better ?
Thanks in Advance..
Hi friends,
I have an image(Jpeg). I want to accept the color code from the user and manipulate the image to get the new image having the supplied color from the original image.
Ex. In an Indian flag, there are 3 colors(like color filled bars. Red, White, Green). If I supply red color (FF0000), the new image should be only 1 bar having the red color.
How can I do it? How can I manipulate images?
Thanks in advance
If I have some form control like textbox and I want the event handler to be located in the html instead of at the server side, how to do that? Of course I can copy paste javascript code in the aspx file. But is it possible to do that using some object oriented approach (ie programmatically in the code behind)?
i need a gallary like following link.
actually,i bound multiple image in a gridview using handler(.ashx).
for example,in one dep_id(1),there are 6 image and i need to slideing one by one.
could some one help me,how i can do like this?
i think is it easy in jquery.
please someone help me.
Thanking you.
hi friends
i am binding images dynamically(back end)for a datalist .iam applying a slideshow for it .I am getting a problem to apply slideshow for dyanmically binded images.If the define in a div statically it working perfectly
for example pls go through my code below:


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Enjoy a week in our contemporary version of a Bali Temple perched on the edge of an old lava flow. Situated on six acres of tropical privacy beautifully landscaped with legacy trees: over 30 palms (15 varieties), an Australian flame tree (a special treat for August visitors), native ohias and halas, trees sacred to the Hawaiians. In addition there are nine bamboos (seven varieties), an orchard, a fragrance garden, and a hapu'u grove trail leading to our own lava tube.
Mahi is Hawaiian for farm or a placing of growing and making. Oli means pleasure. Say something twice in Hawaiian, and you indicate and so much more. Mahi Oli' Oli translates as the place of making abundant pleasure.
Located 21 miles south of Hilo Airport in the Puna district, is a special place for the fun and play of vacation, the rest and reflection of retreat, the joy and love of a special ceremony, and the sacred energy for a personal journey. It is the starting point and end place for adventuring, discovering, exploring inner life as well as the life of the Big Island of Hawaii.
- Beautifully constructed in cedar and tropical hardwoods with a spacious, open studio-inspired design, vaulted ceiling, broad sliding-glass doors and windows inviting tropical breezes throughout.
- Gracious tropical hardwood floors of island grown eucalyptus and wrap-around covered deck (lanai) of Brazilian walnut (ipe).
- Modern kitchen with green Silestone™ countertops and all the amenities including a stylish Danish energy efficient refrigerator.
- Queen-size bed with 400 thread-count sheets supplemented by Queen air-mattress for lanai sleeping or indoor use.
- DVD, 28" monitor, CD library, surround sound
- Solar electricity for low carbon impact.
- Gas-fired BBQ
- Elegant glass and stone bathroom.
- Full ocean view from your bed and the lanai.
- Tropical garden beautifully landscape for total privacy and quiet.
- On site massage available from a list of local practitioners.
Nearby Activities
- Large warm geothermal pool, oceanside and only 5 minutes away.
- Cindercone steam vents for clothing optional meditation/sweats.
- Kehena Beach/Black Sand Beach for clothing optional sunbathing, dolphin sightings, and Sunday afternoon drumming and fire dances, 15 minutes.
- Snorkel at the Kapoho Tide Pools 10 minutes away.
- Quaint Pahoa Village 10 minutes away with restaurants, health food store, fish market, and giftshops.
- Nearby Kalani Oceanside Retreat for delicious meals (including many vegan & vegitarian options), yoga, massage, and day use opportunities with large pool, sauna, hot tub, and gym.
- Proximity to Volcanoes National Park, the quaint old port town of Hilo (with its remarkable Farmers Market, Tsunami Museum, art galleries), the Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii Botanical Gardens.


text: Imagine Oakland with a world-wide reputation for being the safest, most sustainably prepared large city in the country. Picture that anytime there's an emergency or disaster situation anywhere in the country, it's Oakland that is mentioned as the place to find out how to make it work well for everyone. Yes, everyone. That's CARD's goal for the incredible city of Oakland—safe, sustainably prepared, ready to address our challenges and opportunities. It's why I'm honored and excited to be writing about safety, preparedness, and resilience for Oakland Local. The hyper-local focus here will allow us to share an alternative approach that everyone in Oakland can embrace. If you've come to one of CARD's events before, you know that we are passionate about removing fear, threat, and ineffective approaches. We look to make having safety, preparedness, and resilience an empowering and attainable pursuit for EVERY person, business, and stakeholder in Oakland. Past emergencies and disasters have always yielded a familiar victim pool, so what we will share here is about breaking the cycle, and changing the entire conversation surrounding our safety, readiness, and resilience. Be it crisis or opportunity, we must rise together. Don't think of it as preparing for disasters, but preparing for our Oakland community to prosper! What you can expect to read about in future posts is an "alternative" or "contrarian" approach to public safety, emergency preparedness, and disaster resilience. We'll be doing some quality truth-telling and myth-busting. If we ditch the wrong ideas about planning, if we refuse to use fear to "motivate", and if we stop repeating the hideous and wrong messages of "you're on your own" and "we must standardize the message" we can help Oakland break free and take a leadership role in the national readiness and resilience conversation. I'll also share research and real-time lessons for local agencies, and all of it will be served on a big fat reality-filled platter. There are too many great things happening with the city of Oakland for any of us to tolerate wasting time, money, and other precious resources on what we know just doesn't work. This is ESPECIALLY true when it stops us from bringing safety, money, prestige, and other benefits to our community. One exciting development in the world of safety and readiness is the new, dynamic partnership between CARD and the City of Oakland, called "Learn, Lead, Lift." Having the City of Oakland adopt a modified version of CARD's signature fear-free SKIP (Safety Kept in Place) training has been a true turning point. Together with other partners we are reaching deep into the communities where traditional approaches have never succeeded. Just having this level of public acknowledgment and support from Renee Domingo and her team at the Oakland Fire Department's Emergency Management Services Division is gratifying, and it's already opening new doors. Kicking fear and threat to the curb, and having Oaklanders walk their city feeling safe, confident, and knowing they can make a difference is within our grasp! Oakland is being celebrated and praised in high places. Check out Visit Oakland to learn about the ways our city is taking its rightful place in the pantheon of great cities. Taking on both our real and perceived issues of crime, safety, and readiness is easily one of the best things we can do for the residents and workers of Oakland, as well as for our tourists, investors, businesses, and other stakeholders. With your help, we can make certain that Oaklanders will be ready to step up, stick together, and make the best of whatever comes our way. I will look forward to connecting with you to build Oakland's everyday brilliance AND her unshakable resilience. Ana-Marie Jones is the executive director of CARD – Collaborating Agencies Responding to Disasters Editor's Note: This piece reflects an individual opinion and is not a reported story from Oakland Local. Oakland Local invites community residents to share their views about events and issues in Oakland. See our guidelines. 14 Responses R2D2II October 28, 2013 Sounds very hot-air-filled to me. Lots of the use of the word "safety." How about the daily disasters of Oaklanders shooting other Oaklanders with guns? What's CARD doing about that? Reply Oakie October 29, 2013 Somehow I smell taxpayer's money being wasted. Then again, they seem to be smoking something really really good. Reply Len Raphael October 29, 2013 No need to worry about how OPD will perform when the big one hits. Reply OngGia October 30, 2013 Safest city? Not in my life time! Reply Gilgamesh October 30, 2013 What a load of hogwash. I've sat in enough meetings with people like the author throwing acronyms and vague feel-good ideas at the audience as rapidly as possible to obscure the fact that nothing substantive is being said. And really, phrases like "…we are passionate about removing fear, threat, and ineffective approaches…", simply idiotic in real life application in any urban area, but doubly hilarious when applied to a town currently living under siege mentality in too many neighborhoods. Feel-good blather stiffens the resolve of some, I suppose, but doesn't do much out in the real world. Reply len raphael October 30, 2013 Ever wonder where City bureaucrats and some local non-profit execs learn those catch phrases and buzz words? Must be on the on job writing and reading emails to each other. Sitting thru endless meetings droning on. Is there an exam in talking liking like that you have to pass to get promoted to managerial rank in Oakland govt? To be fair private industry has it's own high tech bubbly bs language also. Reply amjcard October 31, 2013 Thank you all for your posts to our first article. I live and work in Oakland, but I was born and raised in New York City — so really, I understand the cynicism in your posts. However, given my love for Oakland and my job of working with community agencies who struggle with crime, violence, inadequate budgets, etc., I hope you'll understand why I will remain focused on trying to make Oakland the safest, most sustainably prepared, large city in the country. In the event that I fail miserably in my quest, and we only become a little safer and somewhat better prepared, I will try to accept it, document it, help others learn from my failures, and hope they care enough to find ways to accomplish this goal. For the record, in future posts I will give more details on why traditional preparedness efforts that define "disasters" as earthquakes, fires, floods, acts of terrorism, etc., ignore the realities of many of our communities. My hope is that all of you who posted here GENUINELY love Oakland, and that you will be willing to help make Oakland a stronger, more united, safer community. Ana-Marie Jones, Executive Director, CARD Reply Len Raphael November 1, 2013 In the spirit of transparency, since the author is the director of a quasi public emergency preparedness organization, please give us a straightforward summary of Oakland's emergency plans for coping with a major earthquake or the link to such document. I'm particularly interested to see the estimates for the number of fire and police we'll have available if bridges and tunnels are blocked for a month; and if we expect that National Guard would take their place. What are the earthquake ratings for OPD and Fire Dept and City Hall? Also how broken water mains and main supply aqueducts would be handled. Reply Joel V. November 3, 2013 Good luck with that… I feel much safer here in metro Detroit, then I ever did in Oakland, Fremont, San Jose and everywhere else I lived, growing up in the bay area… Oakland cant even resolve it's problem with homeless anarchist taking over other peoples property. How are they going to solve the problem with violent crimes? Maybe the reason I feel safer in Detroit is due to Michigan's concealed carry and stand your ground law's – The crooks tend to think twice, when they know that anyone, even 60 years old grandpa's may be packing heat… Reply Seamus November 3, 2013 Pie in the Sky. Oakland is the robbery capital of America with 10.9 robberies per 1000. Cleveland (no 2) only has only 8.3. I didn't see anything to address the biggest problems in Oakland, which are robberies and shootings. This tells me something about the author's outlook — great intentions and a huge blind spot where the elephant in the living room is concerned. Reply amjcard November 5, 2013 Thank you for your comment Len, In the spirit of full disclosure: CARD is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit agency, and our mission commits us to focusing on preparing our local nonprofit and faith agencies. We work to make the various aspects of emergency preparedness and disaster response easy, accessible, and sustainable for them and for the consumers they serve. We work in partnership with many dozens of local government agencies, private sector partners, advocacy groups, funders, and other stakeholders. We do not, and will not, speak on behalf of those entities, nor can we extend our stretched resources to researching the many questions you posed. However, if you do find answers to your questions, then if you share the documents or links with me, I'd be happy to share them with others. We are quite active on social media, and have a monthly electronic newsletter. We engage more in the public safety sphere than some emergency service agencies, because the communities we serve experience crime and violence as the "disaster" they face. For MANY of the people in Oakland, it would be an absolute luxury to be able to worry about earthquakes. If you have questions about what we do, why we do it, or the research that justifies why we offer a different approach, I'm happy to share it. I will be sharing more about this in future articles for Oakland Local. I believe millions of dollars are wasted across our region on ineffective, threat-based preparedness campaigns and inappropriate approaches. I would rather see that money invested in making Oakland a genuinely safer, more united, resilient city. Given our organizational mission and our limitations, I choose to focus on what we can do, and what actually helps our communities. If pissing and moaning helped, or if I thought puking the River Nile of negativity about the status quo would work, then I'd happily piss, moan, and puke. In fact, if you knew me, you'd know that I'd invest my own money to research (and then get trained in) how to become a high-level expert at pissing/moaning/puking. However, this approach would not work for our communities, for CARD, nor for me. Len, I'm sharing this with you because, based on your questions, you do seem to have a sincere interest in some parts of this conversation. Ana-Marie Jones, Executive Director, CARD Reply amjcard November 5, 2013 Thank you for your comment Seamus, Several years ago people thought my hometown, New York City, was hopeless. Every day we'd hear about the high crime rate, how businesses were leaving, families were fleeing for their lives, how "the Big Apple was rotting" and on and on. It's not like that any longer, thanks to the people who believed AND who were willing to work to make change happen. I believe a similar turn-around will happen for Oakland, and I'm willing to work for it. For the record: New York City had even more naysayers then, than Oakland has now. You'll notice I never said it was going to be easy, and I didn't claim to have answers to all of Oakland's complex issues. The crime, the violence, the safety issues, the infrastructure failures, the political woes and challenges we have in Oakland are part of my daily life. It's a safe bet that I have more skin in this game than most, if not all, of the people who stopped by to drop a negative comment. This is my chosen focus, I live here, I work here, I'm in the field of emergency services, and I'm responsible for staff and volunteers who serve here. Most important of all is that we have thousands of local customers who are from some of the most marginalized communities of Oakland, and they are worth fighting for. You labeled my post "Pie in the Sky". OK, I accept that. If I'm offering a "Pie in the Sky" vision of Oakland, then how would you label the view of Oakland as presented by the people who commented on this post? I'd go with "Poison in the Veins." Investors and funders who want to justify not investing in Oakland are happy to pluck the comments here and say "Look! Even 'Oakland locals' don't believe in their city." Give a quick look to the comments in this thread. I put forth a positive and optimistic vision for the future of Oakland and look at what is immediately said about me, assumed about my world view, etc. Unapologetic, dismissive, and disparaging comments abound. Nice. It's why most people don't read comments on blogs. It's easier to lob anonymous criticisms, and beat down a positive projection for the future with some pointed, past-based pessimism. I will continue to be aggressively optimistic about Oakland. If I'm going to err, and I'm sure I will, it will be on the side of "pie" rather than "poison." Thank you for acknowledging my "great intentions." We all appreciated that. Ana-Marie Jones, Executive Director, CARD Reply Phillip November 5, 2013 I'm really digging Ana-Maria Jones' bluntness. Here's an idea: Ana-Maria Jones vs R2D2II in a head-to-head for mayor of Oakland. If either of y'all run for the office, count me in for $50 to your campaigns. Who else wants in on this action? Reply amjcard November 6, 2013 Thank you so much for your comment Phillip. You win the prize for funniest and most uplifting reply to our post! I'm thinking I wouldn't last long in a political race. My focus on transforming how we define disasters and how we prepare our communities, the bluntness you noticed, and my apparently confounding habit of reading and then applying research, can be — oh, let's go with "challenging" — to the people who benefit from the status quo, or who fear change. If that $50 you so generously mentioned is burning a hole in your pocket, may I suggest that you invest it in building the safety and readiness of a local nonprofit agency? We can show you lots of ways $50 can make a big difference. 🙂 Thanks again for the uplifting comment! Ana-Marie Jones, Executive Director, CARD Reply Leave a Reply Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website


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Personalized Harvie Farm Shares - northwest ohio / Perrysburg
Harvie connects you directly with trusted local farms who deliver shares of farm fresh products customized to your personal preferences.
To search for farms and delivery locations in your area, use the search criteria below
Farms [ 1 results ]
Riehm Produce Farm
7244 N. State Route 53, Tiffin, OH
We are a sustainable farm using healthy growing practices with pick-up locations on our farm and several other sites. Rather than trust the unknown, our intention is for you to know Who Grew Your Food! Riehm's is Where Food & Fun Begins! Our farm sells what's in season and fresh from the field. A large selection of vegetables and fruits. Riehm's own frozen beef. In addition, other items provided through partnerships with local vendors. Plan on being away? We'll be happy to put your weekly veggie box on hold when you drop us a note.Tell us your preference. Tell us to DONATE your share. Have a friend pick up your share. Tell us to put your CSA on HOLD and DOUBLE the following week. Tell us you want to PICK up your CSA on a different day & location. read more
Pickup Locations [ 1 results ]
PerrysburgSign up
Thursday 5:40 PM - 6:00 PM


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I'm going with Zipp's images here because my shots didn't do them justice.
Plot spoiler: These are the finest wheels I've ever ridden in my life.
There. That's out of the way. Now that I've eliminated any sense of drama from this review, I can get down to the matter at hand and discuss the experience of riding Zipp's standard-bearer wheelset.
There's an arms race in cycling that's been escalating over the last 10 years. I think back on the most I could spend on a set of wheels or even a whole bike 10 years ago versus the colossal $2700 that these wheels go for and I choke. There's nothing else in my life that has escalated as badly over that time, save the housing market and we see what happened with that. Somehow, I don't see Zipp, HED or Lightweight wheels suddenly dropping in both price and value—not now, not in the future.
The math on this is difficult to avoid. For that much money you could outfit an entire Girl Scout troop with iPhones. Or you could provide the entire U.S. Army with bubble gum. Or you could purchase a single set of wheels that would do more to improve your performance than an extra two hours of training per week can.
These wheels are so sophisticated I could probably write about them for the rest of the week and not divulge any of Zipp's trade secrets. The 404s possess three distinct features that have caused me to come to the conclusion I did.
First and foremost is the Firecrest rim shape. While I am aware that one of Zipp's competitors claims to have arrived at the rounded rim profile at the same time as Zipp, the fact is when Zipp came out with Firecrest at Interbike in 2010, their competitors talked crap about the silly shape. The trick to Firecrest is that it treats the half of the rim behind the axle as a leading edge and that blunt shape improves the rim's aerodynamics dramatically. The most surprising aspect of this is what is called vortex shedding.
Those of you who have ridden deep-section carbon rims and been buffeted by the wind have experienced vortex shedding. Every time the airflow attaches to the rim surface and then breaks free from it the wheel is buffeted and you feel it at the bar. That's not even the most dramatic feature of the Firecrest shape. This is:
It's more stable in a crosswind.
The rim shape causes a change in the wheel's center of pressure. It's a crazy term for the point of leverage the wind has on a wheel; it's a very east-to-feel phenomenon. Ride a deep-section wheel in a crosswind. If the wind is blowing from right to left, you'll be steered to the left. That's because the center of pressure of most wheels is forward of the steering axis. Firecrest, on the other hand, shifts it almost in-line with the steering axis. Ride a Firecrest wheel in a crosswind and you'll feel almost no pressure on the wheels. It's a bit more complicated than that, as the way a rim sheds a vortex changes slightly as the wheel spins; the center of pressure can actually shift behind the steering axis slightly, steering you into the wind instead of pushing you across the road. It's a remarkable sensation and results in a real increase in confidence compared to riding other deep-section wheels.
How good an idea is Firecrest? Well, after bagging on it as crazy, both HED and Enve have moved all their wheels in that direction. And while competitors may be trying to emulate the vortex shedding properties of Firecrest, they can't copy the golf-ball-like surface of the ABLC (Aerodynamic Boundary Layer Control) that keeps the air moving by the rims.
If you were to buy a set of 404s for only one reason, Firecrest would be it. No other deep-section wheel I've ridden is as stable as the 404 Firecrest.
The Carbon Clincher technology is my next most favorite feature of these wheels. The time I spend in Malibu riding with friends means I've either personally melted or seen melted wheels by every manufacturer except Zipp and Easton. Last summer a small group of us did the now notorious descent of Las Flores Canyon. I rode the 404s and didn't have a bit of trouble, despite some firm braking at times. After reaching the bottom I waited more than five minutes for a friend to arrive. He was concerned his ultra-zoot wheels from a certain German manufacturer would melt, so he stopped three times to let them cool off. Granted, this guy weighs a good 30 or 40 pounds more than I do, but if you can't take a mountain descent on a set of wheels, what good are they?
Other than the fact that they don't melt—which is reason enough to take note—they do have one other detail that make these clinchers pretty killer: The rim width. Roughly 25mm wide, any clincher you mount on these wheels can be removed with no tire lever (sweet) and gives the tire a much wider footprint, increasing traction without—I'm told—increasing rolling resistance (amazing). There is a however, here, however. Setting up brakes for a rim this wide isn't easy and you have to adjust the brake shoe angle because of the angled braking surface. Swapping out these wheels for another set is going to result in at least a half hour of work, if not more.
The wheels' next best feature are the 88/188 hubs. They are an improvement on the previous iteration of the hubs with which I experienced near constant creaking. Really effing annoying. These are stiffer and don't creak. What is more impressive is how these things roll. Zipp uses grade 10 ball bearings in the hubs. That is, they are accurate to .10 of an inch. That 2.5 times as round as the grade .25 balls used in Dura-Ace and Record hubs.
You may not think that's particularly impressive, but I can say from experience that when I'm inside a group, the combination of superior aerodynamics and fast-rolling hubs causes me to hit my brakes to modulate my speed because I begin rolling up on riders in front of me when we're coasting.
My set weighed in at 1562 grams, just a couple grams off the advertised weight. I'll call it even. The combination of aerodynamics and weight mean that they are not only killer on the flats, but they are light enough to be reasonable climbers.
Engineers at two different bike companies told me off the record they have taken a number of wheels to the wind tunnel to test with their TT bikes. Both said that tire choice has a huge effect on aerodynamics. Even so, both also said that no other wheels they have tested are as versatile as the 404s.
Here's the strange thing I've noticed about riding with the 404s. While I have many friends who will train on heavy wheels and save the good stuff for race day, in reviewing these wheels, I didn't have that luxury. I needed to get miles on them right away. Oh, and I'm not really racing, so there's that, too. With the addition of the 404s, the increase in aerodynamics gave me enough of an edge that I was able to get to the front of the group rides more easily. That, in turn, gave me the ability to stay at the front more. The upshot may seem counterintuitive; the wheels didn't make the ride easier for me. They made it easier for me to get to the front and flog myself more, rather than sitting in the pack just trying to hold on to my spot. It seems I train harder with faster wheels.
Honestly, suffering more—not less—is the last thing in the world I expected to have happen.
15 comments
Ghost Rider
You're several orders of magnitude off in your discussion of bearing "accuracy"…for a grade 10 bearing, sphericity variation is 0.00001 in, while a grade 25's variation is 0.000025 in. That is a TINY difference.
Hi, so the brake adjustment issue kept me from buying these wheels last year. If I win the lottery and switched all my wheels to Zipp, are all of the Firecrest brake surfaces (303, 404 clincher and tubular) the same? Thanks.
I like it when you look like you're flogging yourself on nice wheels at the front!
A Stray Velo
In my personal experience I've found that rim width is one of the biggest factors in determining a nice riding wheel or not. I'm glad we can add Zipp to the list of manufacturers spec'ing wider rims on factory built wheelsets.
I'm pretty sure at government rates, $2,700 wouldn't buy very much bubblegum at all.
I have to agree with Padraig; earlier this year I rode a set of the 404 clinchers on a disk-brake Crux in all sorts of windy conditions, up and down big road climbs, and on trails ranging from slightly rough to downright cobbled — and the 404s were a transforming experience, just spectacularly good.
However, I probably wouldn't race Cx on the clinchers. Still too easy to flat; they're still clinchers after all. But as road wheels — wow.
" Or you could purchase a single set of wheels that would do more to improve your performance than an extra two hours of training per week can."
There is no possible way you can qualify this statement. This is not a product review, it's marketing language made for sheep (which I think you authored for Zipp, right).
I have aero rims and I've ridden tons of them including these – yes, they are nice, yes, they will help. They are in no way the panacea that are often made out to be.
As for riding in a weekly group ride on these wheels – to me it would scream "fred" (your term not mine). But that's just the velomonkey.
having purchased a set of the 404 firecrest tubs, all i can say is – WORD. they are my day-in, day-out choice for all my riding on what can charitably be described as the crappy roads i ride on. to say i love these wheels is to say Romeo was mildly infatuated with Juliet. just WOW.
as for the training harder, suffering more effect – i think it has something to do with an unspoken understanding that if you are riding a PIMP wheelset that you HAVE to be able to back it up somewhat on the road. i`ve certainly noticing myself driving harder and taking much longer pulls than I used to, much to the joy of all those who are riding behind me – until they realize that even though i am 6`1", my 156 lbs don`t provide much slipstream for them 😉
Hey now… I just mean I think you're cute when your face gets all red and drooly!
To me this product is something I'll never have. Neat review, but I'm going to re-nombre myself the "dime-bag roadie". Now if I win the lotto or something I guess that'll change, but for now and into the realistic future I will be riding/racing affordable aluminum rims in the 500-600$ range.
I realize that the US cycling market is geared towards dentists and the like (income-wise), but I'm a teacher…married to a teacher…with a family…with a mortgage. Not that i'm complaining about my plot…quite like it actually! Oh well. Thanks for the ripping blog though!
I would not be overlly concerned with the brake set-up – I have the Firecrest 404's and my local bike shop set up my TT bike and my road bike for the Firecrest wheels with enough play to tighten my brakes to work with my standard rims – all I need to do for my standarad wheels is adjust the brake width to be a little tighter – 2 minute adjustment.
PS – I love these wheels!!!!
I'm underwhelmed by actual wheel comparison data I've seen in the past for 'super aero' wheels. I have American Classic 420's from 2008 (OK, not cheap at msrp 900, but got them with a team deal) and the 2008 'great wheel' test (http://www.rouesartisanales.com/article-15505311.html) showed that the 404s at that time were 10 watts faster at 30 mph. Since 30mph means over 500-600 watts, that's pretty minimal. So…where is a nice comparison of these wheels vs multiple others at 26mph (nice race pace) that shows they are really worth it? Padraig you have probably a more 'objective' bike feel than most, but the 'placebo' effect of riding $2700 wheels would probably gives anyone wings…show me the wind tunnel testing…compared to less expensive competitors (what about compared to $600 neuvation carbon wheels, for instance)? (the handling thing in the wind sounds great though). Also, clinchers great for riding, presumably the lighter though similar tubulars from Zipp are 'better' (though I've never ridden tubulars).


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Sponsored Story
This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of LG Chocolate Touch. All opinions are 100% mine. Shane McGlaun.
I am going to look at the LG Chocolate Touch for Verizon Wireless today. (Note: You can have a chance to get this phone in our LG Chocolate Touch Giveaway. See details below). This device came to me sans service and since I am not on Verizon, I have no way to test most of the functionality of the phone like voice calls and the web browser. For that reason I am not going to call this a review, it will be more of a hands on impression of the device for its music player function and gaming -- the one demo I can play with no service anyway.
I am quite jaded by my iPhone when it comes to a touch screen device. My iPhone just plain works, its intuitive and functional and simply fantastic though I loathe the AT&T network. The first time I laid eyes on the iPhone, I knew I had to have one; it was just sexy and cool as hell. The LG Chocolate Touch does none of that for me. I look at the design of the phone and it looks old school, like something I would have used years ago.
The design is not ugly by any means, just boring. My wife was impressed by the included purple battery cover to glam the thing up a bit for the ladies. Turning the phone on, the screen looks good with decent colors and good brightness.
The first thing the phone had me do was calibrate the screen. These little crosses popped up on the screen for me to touch. Strangely, I felt like the screen was calibrating me more than I was calibrating it. Rather than letting the places I touch be the points of the screen the crosses marked I simply got a beep until I pressed what the screen had as the right spot. I calibrated more than once and had the same experience each time.
The screen calibration was just awful for me. I had to touch the buttons significantly lower than where my eye told me they were to get them to work. As I said, no amount of calibration seemed to fix the issue. The screen calibration issue was most noticeable if the phone locked itself and I tried to unlock it by moving the little yellow bar up. It once took me six tries to get the phone unlocked. Can you say frustrating?
I do like the tactile feedback the screen offers via vibration. When you press a button, the screen vibrates a bit and it almost feels like you are actually clicking buttons. That was my favorite feature of the screen. You can adjust the vibration intensity and style in the settings menu.
The big feature of the LG Chocolate Touch is definitely the music player. When I first fired the device up, with the test track called Work by Ciara the music was flat and sounded far away. The LG Chocolate Touch features Dolby Mobile technology so with my headphones plugged in I hit the EQ button and turned on the bass boost function. The difference the Dolby tech makes in the sound is unbelievable. The music player function of the device went from boring and flat to fantastic and full-bodied. The amount of bass produced was very impressive. Every music phone should have Dolby Mobile.
I uploaded an old favorite album -- Stone Temple Pilots Core -- to the phone and the tracks sounded as good as the Ciara test track did in testing. Uploading music from the PC is easy to do and it took only minutes to get my favorite tracks onto the device. I am very impressed with the music player the handset offers.
The music player also has different features that make the phone vibrate with the beat and one feature that animates the music screen background to go along with the beat. My favorite feature (and the one my kids loved) is the "Join the Band" setting under extras. When this feature is active it brings up a drum kit and you can make your own beats along with the sound that is playing. A piano keyboard is also available to let you play along.
The gaming prowess of the LG Chocolate Touch is a non-feature when coming from the iPhone. Graphics are pixilated and the screen is too small for real gaming. In a pinch, you can play games on the screen, but this phone is not a mobile gaming platform like the iPhone is.
The handset also has a 3.2-megapixel camera that takes still shots and records video. The camera takes decent pictures, for a camera phone. Pics are better than what my iPhone takes. The handset could use a flash; low light performance is not that great with images that tend to turn out too dark for my liking.
In the end, if what you are after is a fantastic music phone, the LG Chocolate Touch is one of the best I have used. The overall design is boring and aside from that music player, nothing else about the device really moved me or made me want to own one.
Verizon Wireless offers the LG Chocolate Touch for $79.99 with new 2-yr contract. See the LG Chocolate Touch site.
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We are giving away an LG Chocolate Touch phone. To enter you can choose the two options below:
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You need to be at least 18 and a legal U.S. resident to enter. Refer to the contest rules for more details.