text:
This is our website. Would you prefer to shop on our website?
This is our website. You previously shopped on our website. Would you like to go to our website now?
Other country sites
My Account
My Bag
The item was successfully added to your Wish List
Here to help you, if you have any queries regarding our products click here to view our customer services area where you will find answers to all your queries.
You are here:
Product code: 962021
Using the standard service, your order should be with you within 4-5 working days.
International delivery is available for this product. The cost and delivery time depend on the country.
We use cookies to give you the best customer experience possible. If you continue to use our website, we will assume you are happy to receive cookies from us and our partners.
More info


text:
Dinner Party Menu, 1892
On January 4, 1892, Mr. and Mrs. Sam E. Stegar of Trenton, Kentucky, had a Leap Year dinner party, Fifteen unmarried couples and a few extra guys attended the event. The party was such a social success that it even made the news in Hopkinsville, a few train stops west of Trenton.
The entire four-course menu of the Stegar's party was included in the article that appeared in the Hopkinsville Kentuckian. It was interesting. I've presented it below with some links to recipes and other background information from the period.
First Course
Florida OrangesSecond Course
Malaga, Concord, and Catawba Grapes
Turkey and Ham
Roast Mallard Ducks
Oyster, Egg and Chicken Salad
A careless typesetter may have changed "Oyster, Egg and Chicken Salads" to "Oyster, Egg and Chicken Salad." The salmon, sardines, and oysters could have been fresh, brought by refrigerated railroad car to Trenton.
Celery (a palate cleanser after the meat course)
Third Course
Vanilla Sherbert
Lemon Pudding
Fruit Cake, 5 years old and layered with lemon icing. One layer was citron with vanilla, another layer was chocolate. (This fruit cake was the most interesting thing in the entire menu!)
Fourth Course
PretzelettesChocolata (Menier and Van Houten's Cocoa)
After this feast, the guests "engaged in original wit and humor and all the latest games of fascination, until the late hour of 1 o'clock, when the weather becoming very inclement, the party adjourned." Since it was a Leap Year party, the young ladies escorted the young gentlemen safely to their homes, before heading for home themselves.
Source: Hopkinsville Kentuckian, January 1, 1892, page 2.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Medicare is ready to help you quit smoking. About one out of every six cancer deaths in the U.S. comes from lung cancer. Each year, nearly 200,000 Americans are told they have lung cancer and more than 90,000 people die from this disease. Smoking causes 80 to 90 percent of lung cancer cases, so many of these lung cancer deaths can be prevented. If you haven't been diagnosed with an illness caused or complicated by tobacco use, you can get 8 face-to-face smoking cessation counseling sessions during a 12-month period. You pay nothing for these counseling sessions, as long as you get them from a qualified doctor or another Medicare provider. Talk with your doctor about Medicare-covered smoking cessation programs near you, and visit our smoking cessation page to find more resources.


text:
'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' Writers on the Future of the Franchise
"Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" writers and producers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver said the rebooted superintelligent-simian series doesn't necessarily have to be a trilogy, as expected — it could go on even longer.
"There's a way to do it where there's kind of a slow burn, and you can stop, you can slow down and explore one facet," Silver said in a telephone interview with Speakeasy. Jaffa added: "We feel like it can be more than just another movie, but if that's the way, we're really happy with it."
Still, the husband-and-wife team said it's still too early to get into whatever plans there are for the next "Apes" film.


text:
Columbia, SC (WLTX)- Trying to save money? Here are a few life hacks for your home that won't hurt your wallet.
DIY dryer balls
It seems like a never-ending chore: As the laundry piles get bigger, so does the electric bill. The Saving Electricity website estimates that it costs an average of $0.49 to dry a load of laundry for 45 minutes. If a household does 7.5 loads of laundry per week, that adds up to close to $200 per year.
To cut down on drying time, you could spend $20 on dryer balls to help keep the laundry moving in the dryer. Or for half the cost, you could make your own with chemical-free wool yarn. The Live Simply website has instructions on how to make felted dryer balls. Felting involves putting the balls in a laundry bag or pantyhose for a couple of loads to spread out the strands of yarn, which holds the shape. We learned the hard way that skipping this step will leave you with a dryer full of unraveled yarn!
A medium load of towels took 43 minutes in our dryer. The same load of towels, along with five yarn balls, took 35 minutes – cutting our drying time by close to 19 percent.
Homemade dishwasher detergent
Now let's talk dirty dishes. Those dishwasher tabs are convenient, but not cheap. Also, some brand-name detergents get "F" ratings from environmental groups, like the Environmental Working Group.
So why not make your own? There are many homemade dishwasher detergent recipes online, but many of them contain borax, which is banned for food use by the FDA.
The Ecofriendly Family website boasts a borax-free recipe that's safe for the family. It has just four ingredients: 1.5 cups of washing soda, 0.5 cups of baking soda, 0.5 cups of sea salt, and 1.5 cups of LemiShine, which is primarily citric acid, available for purchase at Target stores. One batch makes enough for 32-64 loads for about $5.
Put one to two tablespoons in the main tray per load.
Our results were impressive. Our glasses came out streak-free, and our silverware came out spotless!
Did you know that you can freeze dairy?
It's true! The U.S. Census estimates that the average U.S. household spends about $400 per year on dairy. So don't waste it. According the Dairy Council of California, you can freeze milk for up to two months. Many cheeses and even fresh eggs can be frozen and thawed for future use as well. Just make sure that you pour a little milk out of the container to give it room to expand in the freezer. When you're ready, thaw the milk in the refrigerator.
So the next time there's a sale, you can stock up. Or put the milk in the freezer if it's close to its expiration date.


text:
Наша реклама будет идеальна для сайтов, которые следят за своим имиджем. Перейти. Обратная связь. © 2011 – 2013 ADNETWORK.PRO. Ramblers ...
omg! is Yahoo!'s celebrity news site launched in June 2007. The site contains celebrity news and gossip, photo galleries and features, as well as interactive user polls. Content is provided by news sources including Associated Press and Reu...
OMG is leading in Top 100K Sites and Top 1M Sites.
In terms of market share, ADNETWORK.PRO is clearly lagging behind, losing to OMG in all segments.
OMG has better usage coverage in more websites categories. Including Shopping, Business & Industry, Arts & Entertainment, Travel and 13 other categories.
ADNETWORK.PRO hasn't got a lead over OMG in any websites category.
OMG is leading in most countries, including India, United States, Russia, Bangladesh and 28 other countries.
ADNETWORK.PRO hasn't got a lead over OMG in any country.


text: On Mon, 4 Apr 2005, Tony Travis wrote: > Mark Hahn wrote: > >>>this is utterly pointless, since we seem to disagree on axioms: > >> > >>Not really. We disagree on basic definitions. Axioms are accepted > >>"truths". > > > > > > no. axioms are the assumptions that underly a discussion. > > disagreeing on axioms leads only to the kind of noise we've been engaging in. > > I apologize for not quitting sooner. > > Hello, Mark. > > Although you may feel that this is pointless, I've found it quite useful > to read your exchanges with Joe. In fact, I think that you are *both* > right about what an 'axiom' is. The word has at least three meanings: > > a. maxim: A self-evident or universally recognized truth. > b. law: An established rule or principle. > c. postulate: A self-evident principle or one that is accepted as true > without proof as the basis for argument. > > Perhaps, in a similar way, you might agree that other words can have > more than one meaning according to the context in which they are used? Ah, but the PROPER and ORIGINAL meaning of axiom is "unprovable assumption" upon which a system of logic and discourse is built. The final half-definition is the only one that is actually correct. In fact, I've got a whole essay entitled "Axioms" on my personal website. Seriously. rgb > > Best wishes, > > Tony. > -- Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:rgb at phy.duke.edu


text:
'Transmissions' explores the upsurge in performance-related practice that continues to suffuse the contemporary art world. A series of reportage films and collaborations on SHOWstudio during 2005-2007, created as a diary documenting each event live, 'Transmissions' captures a portrait of the scene though artist-created footage, short film, ephemera and live imagery
Berlin Biennial
Transmissions captured three independent highlights from the opening weekend of events in and around the 4th Berlin Biennial. Paul McCarthy's 1992 'Bang Bang Room' -a brilliantly pared down haunted house style stage set-in-motion- was reinstalled in the Jewish School for Girl's as part of one of the major presentation on Auguststrasse for this year's Biennnial, 'Of Mice and Men'.
Away from the Biennial but attracting its crowds Galerie Giti Nourbaskhsch presented Cezary Bodzianowski, a Polish-based artist whose very idiosyncratic performative work has been described as "insouciant flanerie", which "recalls the chess career of Marcel Duchamp, or Arthur Cravan's forays into boxing". On this occasion the artist was found standing stock still on the road opposite the gallery holding a bunch of bananas whilst a large crowd stood in the gallery waiting for an event, many of whom remained unaware of the small action outside.
Occupying its own historic position next to the Volksbuhne -one of the main east Berlin early 20th Century theatres- is Galerie Meerrettich run by artist Josef Strau. Housed in a small pavilion set next to the concert hall in a space that was once its ticket hall the exhibition programme is produced within the special conditions of the building as object, with its special architectural limitations. An intruiging mise-en-scene of beautiful two-dimensional painted characters was on show, entitled 'Jigsaw (jeu de societe) by artists Lucile Desamory, Lucy Mckenzie and Birgit Megerle.


text:
- Publish date:
- Updated on
- Year
- 1831
John Rawlins born
On this day in 1831, Union General John Rawlins is born in Galena, Illinois. Rawlins was a close personal aide to General Ulysses S. Grant and was reported to have kept Grant from drinking heavily during the war.
Rawlins' family was originally from Virginia but had settled in Illinois shortly before Rawlins' birth. When Rawlins was a teenager, his father abandoned the family and headed for the gold fields of California. The younger Rawlins received little formal education, but was admitted to the bar inIllinoisin 1854 and went on to practice law and involve himself in state politics.
When the Civil War started, Rawlins became the aide-de-camp to Grant. He was Grant's principal staff officer throughout the war, and Grant said that Rawlins was nearly indispensable. Grant was known to be a heavy drinker when he served on the frontier in the 1850s, and it appears Rawlinswas instrumental in keeping the general from excessive imbibingthroughout theCivil War.
After the war, Rawlins served in the West. He helped General Greenville Dodge survey the route for the Union Pacific Railroad, which later became part of the first transcontinental line. For his efforts, the town of Rawlins, Wyoming, was named after him. When Grant became U.S. president in 1869, he made Rawlinssecretary of war. However, Rawlins' health declined after taking office, andthe 38-year-olddied in September 1869.Hewas buriedat Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.


text:
Hobbit Versus Hobbit
Unless you've been living down a hobbit hole, or care nothing about movies and technology (in which case, how did you get here?) you've heard about The Hobbit and it's magical new "High Frame Rate": 48fps. This doubling of the traditional movie framerate has gotten much hoopla, with director Peter Jackson claiming it's the best way to see his new film.
So with an open mind, and a slightly emptier wallet, I saw The Hobbit in IMAX HFR 3D, and then a few days later, in "regular" 24fps RealD with Dolby Atmos. The difference was not subtle.
One of the most common expectations of HFR is that it would look like the motion interpolation on high refresh rate LCDs (120 and 240 Hz). I didn't expect it to look that severe, but I did expect it to look more like more like old BBC shows that were shot on video (50 Hz). The moment before the movie started, I really hoped it would be different from what I expected, that it really would be a window into a new world.
Then it began. The smoothness is readily noticeable. With double the number of frames available, there is less blurring of motion. This is especially noticeable in fast pans, where everything stays in absolute focus. Characters moved with a smoothness you've never seen on the silver screen.
I didn't hate it, at least not so far as the motion went. I suppose that after a while, I could get used to it. However, there was a much larger, and more fatal issue. I couldn't suspend disbelief. Not in the slightest. Not for a second.
Our entire lives we've been conditioned to accept the aesthetics of 24fps "film" as fiction, and higher framerates (like "video") as reality. Think local news versus any movie. "Reality" TV versus scripted primetime TV. There is no technological reason why TV dramas and comedies are shot at 24fps (or are tweaked in post-production to look like they were). Yet, they all are. I think this is why Blair Witch Project captivated so many, it was shot on video, and was therefore "reality." It's also why a movie like Cloverfield didn't grab on that level. Despite pretending to be "found footage," it still looked like film, and therefore "fiction" (that was a missed opportunity, in my book).
There's more to this than just the framerate. The detail with motion is a large part of it. With everything so sharp, my brain rejected it as fiction and started trying to judge it as real life. But only for infrequent moments, and these moments were limited to single shots or a random few seconds. But of course, it isn't reality. It's actors in costumes on sets. I couldn't see past that. And if you can't see past that, if you can't suspend disbelief at the fiction, that's it. You're done.
So it's either all that, or perhaps something more, something even more subconscious, that made me loathe this movie. It was the worst movie-going experience of my life. I couldn't wait for it to be over. I didn't care about any characters. I didn't care about the story. It was images on a screen, and I wanted it to be DONE. All 3.5+ (seeming) hours of it.
And that, I'd say, is a colossal failure of a technology that is supposed to facilitate storytelling, since it did the exact opposite. So I didn't hate HFR in itself, but it ruined the movie for me.
24fps and Dolby Atmos
With a few days to cleanse my palate, I went back to see The Hobbit a second time. My expectations were a crappy script and an overlong, meandering movie. I figured I'd hear how the Atmos sounded, see how different the movie looked, then bolt.
Except. . . I stayed and watched the whole thing. Interesting. I was absorbed into the world, quite effortlessly, just as I was with Lord of the Rings. I'm not a fantasy or Tolkien guy, but I love me some big epic filmmaking. I still felt the movie was a little long, but I never felt the urge to leave like I did with HFR. I enjoyed it, which is rather shocking considering how much I hated it just a few days before.
I did notice a few interesting differences. It seems that Jackson, knowing he had a higher framerate to cover him, did a lot of fast pans. You don't see a lot of fast pans in movies. The 24fps can't handle it and it gets juddery and jumpy. There are several such pans that looked fine in HFR (and I remember thinking at the time they would be way too fast for 24fps), but fell apart in 24. One pan, early on, when the camera takes a dive away from the throne room in Erebor down into the mines, is exceptionally choppy in 24fps.
Another difference was the 3D, though I can't say this is specifically the HFR vs regular because the regular theater used RealD (circular polarized) while the HFR was IMAX 3D (linear polarized). The IMAX HFR 3D was easily the best 3D I've ever seen, twice making me flinch as something came out of the screen. I haven't had that happen since Captain EO. The 24fps RealD was much more subdued. Was this because of the HFR, because of the different 3D methods, or something else? I don't know. Too many variables to say for sure, but the 3D was impressive in IMAX, and not in RealD. Further testing needed, I suppose.
Lastly, there's Atmos. I wish I could say this was a good test for standard surround vs Atmos, but I was so distracted by HFR I really didn't get a chance pay attention to the audio enough to make mental notes to compare. Judged on its own, though, Atmos worked with this real movie exactly as it did in the demos I'd heard at Dolby. The scene with the Brown Wizard and the spiders had the spiders sounding like they were actually overhead. In another scene, a bee buzzed near the roof of the theater's ceiling. I pulled myself out of the movie to try to remember these examples for this article. The rest of the time the audio was a seamless, enveloping blend with the video, which is exactly how audio should be. Atmos is a definite improvement over standard audio. HFR is not a definite improvement over 24fps.
Bottom Line
I tried to keep an open mind with HFR, I really did. I would LOVE a technology that makes a movie more involving. The mini-IMAX theaters that are springing up everywhere are great: bright, decent 3D, and massive. I'm willing to try HFR again (Avatar 2 in 60fps?), but I will not be seeing a movie I've been looking forward to in HFR first. I won't let HFR ruin a movie for me again. When it comes down to it, this new technology is pushing against human perception. You can certainly argue this is a learned perception, but what movie lover isn't indoctrinated into 24fps=fiction at this point?
There are certainly going to be some people who don't mind, or even like HFR. Perhaps these are the same people who like motion interpolation on LCDs. But judging from other reviews and my experience, HFR is a destructive force on storytelling for many people, and is therefore a failure.
But then again, I felt the same way about 3D, and we know how that turned out.


text:
We offer you to download free games for Sony-Ericsson T68i. Our system will select the most appropriate game files. To see all mobile games, click on the link that you see below, or select one of the genres of java games.
There is no compatible games for Sony-Ericsson T68i
This is not my phone


text:
It's Time to Tell the Story
(I have permission to share this story in its entirety. The language I use is my own and might not seem politically correct to you. It presents no discomfort or anxiety to any of the African-Americans or the Anglos in my close circle of the story.)
In September, I was the midwife at the birth of a 23-year old black woman and her 24-year old black husband, both of whom are veterans of the Gulf War. The labor was rather long and I was assisted by my apprentice (who is white) and my assistant (who is black) and the dad's mom was also there. The other person there was a Home Health Nurse (HHN), a white woman who was about 58 years old, that the mother had gotten to know during the pregnancy. When mom (I'll call her Mary) wanted to invite the HHN, we had a session of exploring why she wanted her there and Mary said she was a sort of surrogate mom and she really wanted to show her what a home birth was like. In the first part of the discussions, that was the true reason that had come out... that she'd seen hospital births, but the prospect of being able to see a homebirth was fascinating to her.
At the home visit, we let the HHN know that birth wasn't just walking in and the baby dropping out. She nodded her understanding, but she still looked at us with a glazed semi-smiling look on her face.
When Mary was in labor, the HHN was bored shitless. Originally bounding in at 3am, by 20 hours later, she wanted to go home and wasn't shy about letting us know with her body language. She had gone home at one point to sleep, but when things picked up, we called her back as she'd asked us to. (Oh, if we could only go back.)
During labor, we laughed a lot. Mom spent time in the tub, wandered around the apartment and we listened to a lot of different types of music. One of the most amusing and memorable parts of the earlier labor came when dad put Sade on the cd player. I learned the pronunciation of the artist was "Shar-day" and when I, who was extremely tired anyway, said I knew every word of that particular cd and loved "Shar-day" so much, it set off howls of laughter from the black folk in the apartment. My apprentice and I, baffled by the cackles, didn't understand until they explained the pronunciation was actually "Shah-day."
An entire separation of cultures began, lovingly and humorously, as, over and over, differences were pointed out or given friendly winks and any word that could be twisted around, was to cause gales of laughter. One of the funniest was when mom got out of the tub and I got some Shea Butter to rub all over her very dry skin. Almost in unison, the black folk in the room said, "You mean the 'Sharrrrrrr' butter?"
Interestingly, once labor got really tough, mom coped really well with my assistant, so she spent most of the time doing the support. Having done labor support with several different cultures, I have often seen the most welcome support come from someone of the same culture and/or language. I was not of this mother's culture and my assistant was.
Mary started pushing and she really didn't like it one bit. Loud, raucous and wiggling, mom fought ever contraction and we, her support team, stroked, loved, cajoled, teased, directed, ordered, laughed, barked, whispered, waited, sat quietly, and offered her whatever we could as the head showed itself with a palm-sized amount presenting at the vagina. Thank goodness, the heart tones were holding their own during this one hour plus experience, but we didn't know how much longer that was going to be the case.
Mary screamed over and over that she was done. She was not going to do it anymore, to just pull the baby out. No amount of explaining could convince her the baby wasn't coming without her help and finally she exhausted herself and her body stiffened, her eyes rolled back in her head and she began to faint. To the uninitiated on-looker, it would probably look like the beginnings of a seizure, and surely could have been, but she shuddered slightly and when we took her blood pressure immediately, it was absolutely normal, her pulse fine and she was merely unresponsive verbally.
The HHN had her fingers on her cell phone and had already dialed 9-1 and I looked at her and said, "Call 9-1-1" and she hit the last 1 of the number, stepped out and within 2 minutes, two police officers were in the room. A few minutes after that, EMS was there and mom was a little more responsive.
All vitals remained normal as I explained the situation to the paramedics. We could still see the same palm-sized amount of head when she had a contraction and the EMTs were delighted that they might get to see a homebirth. Everybody was very respectful with each other and as the mom said she did want to stay home and birth there, the EMTs asked if they could stay and watch. Mom said, "sure" and the guys hung out and cheered behind me. I had to stop them from hollering at her to push (maybe I shouldn't have!) and they remained excited to possibly see the baby born. I explained things quietly, so they knew what was going on and the discussion in-between contractions was quiet and respectful between the Captain and myself. At least one of the young guys hadn't ever seen a baby born before and a couple of them hadn't seen a homebirth. He was giddy with excitement.
Then Mary started screaming again and no amount of trying to calm her down was working. In front of the EMTs and the HHN, the screaming wasn't going to go over very long so the EMTs asked if she wanted to go to the hospital and she cried, "Yes!" When I asked her what the hospital was going to do, she cried, "They will take it out!" I tried to explain that she would still have to push and I don't think she heard me as she began a mantra of "No, no, no, no..." and the EMTs brought the gurney into the room that had been sitting in the living room waiting the whole time.
If none of these people had not been there, we would have put mom in the car and gone to the hospital by my office. Instead, she was taken to the hospital the ambulance took her to.
There's this thing with midwives and EMTs around here. When we did In-Services, we asked about going in the back of the "rigs" with our clients and some of the guys said they would never let us in and some said it depended on the situation, but they all said to never ask... that they would pick who got to go. So, even though I had made it distinctly clear in speech and actions that I was the Licensed Midwife and Mary's husband was right behind her the whole time, the EMT in charge pointed to and said to my assistant, "Do you want to go?"
In a 5-minute conversation that lasted 20 seconds with our eyes (and just our eyes), the assistant and I looked at each other and said:
She: May I go?
Me: It'll be a great learning opportunity.
She: Shouldn't you go?
Me: But they asked you.
She: But maybe if you asked to go.
Me: Then no one will be with her; they'll get mad and she'll be alone.
She: I want to go.
Me: Then go!
She: I'll go!
And off she goes in the ambulance with my client. Dad and grandma follow behind in the car. My apprentice and I, having 2 other women post-dates, have to put the birth kit back together exactly correctly, but it doesn't take more than a few minutes and then we dash to the hospital ourselves.
What I learned later is that in the ambulance, the EMTs were terrified Mary was going to deliver and kept asking the assistant to look under the sheet to see if the baby was there. Praying the baby would be there each time she looked, it wasn't and the assistant had to tell the guys it was fine, the baby wasn't there yet. Mom was screaming with contractions and it sounded like she was pushing, but the baby wasn't progressing past the same place as before.
When one EMT tried to take mom's BP during a contraction, the assistant suggested they might want to wait until a contraction was over. When he was able to do so, he merely obtained the systolic and the person writing on the chart said, "That's enough for me!" It was certainly an odd ride.
Getting to the hospital, they were taken to L&D and the EMTs pointed to the assistant and said, "She can tell you what happened," and gave vitals before leaving. My assistant explained the labor's beginning, rupture of membranes, vitals throughout labor and mom's decision not to continue pushing at home - hence the decision to transport to the hospital.
Instead of continuing in narrative form, I diverge into a more official capacity. Follow along if you will.
Below, you will find the letter I wrote as the official complaint sent to JCAHO (pronounced jay-coh) - the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations - an organization that hospitals voluntarily join because it looks so great on their records since JCAHO supposedly is an outside organization providing an objective view of a hospital's performance in a variety of areas. From JCAHO's website:
Joint Commission evaluates the quality and safety of care for nearly 15,000 health care organizations. To maintain and earn accreditation, organizations must have an extensive on-site review by a team of Joint Commission health care professionals, at least once every three years. The purpose of the review is to evaluate the organization's performance in areas that affect your care. Accreditation may then be awarded based on how well the organizations met Joint Commission standards.
Coincidentally, within 2 months after I wrote my letter, the hospital in question had their review. This gets confusing, so please follow the bouncing bureaucratic ball.
First, about The Letter.
I was implored (by the Powers That Be That Shall Remain Nameless) to keep as much emotion out of it as possible. I had to write about 10 versions before I got to this sterilized version. No words can explain the amount of anger I felt during the recovery with this mother and trying to help her while having no one hear any of us screaming for help. I chose to use the mother's first name in the letter (not here, the name used is not her real name - anything in italics has been changed, not to protect anyone, but just because at this point) because I felt it would make a much more personal impact... that she was a real person and not just some "patient," but a woman with a baby and a husband and a life. I chose each word very carefully. It took me about 3 weeks to complete the letter.
So, here is the sterilized version and I will continue below the letter after that.
October 11, 2006
To All It May Concern:
I am writing to notify you of a serious breach of care in That Hospital on September 11, 2006 between the hours of 2:00pm and approximately 6:00pm. Because this is a long and convoluted story filled with emotion, I will attempt to bullet point where the neglect occurred with the hospital staff and try to curb the intense amount of anger and disgust I feel towards those that interacted with and were supposed to care for my client Mary Morris and her newborn baby. Having attended well over 500 births in hospitals around the United States and Germany, I am well aware of the standards of care for a maternity patient and a newborn. I have also attended births in eight other hospitals here in Our County so understand the standard of care for this county in particular. What I experienced at That Hospital was anything but the normal standard of care.
• During the birth, I was, apparently, being summoned by Dr. Colon (quite loudly and angrily according to my client and my assistant), yet I was forbidden from entering the labor and delivery suite. I identified myself to the nurse at the front desk twice as Mary Morris' Licensed Midwife and she summarily dismissed me saying, "No visitors. Sit over there," and pointed to the waiting room. I was permitted to enter approximately twelve minutes postpartum and never saw Dr. Colon.
• Dr. Colon stood against the far wall with his arms crossed as the baby was being born forcing the nurse to do the delivery. No explanation was given for this behavior. While I did not witness this, my assistant, the baby's father and grandmother did witness this happening.
• Dr. Colon approached the delivery bed after the birth of the baby to pull the placenta out, causing excruciating pain for Mary. She still, many weeks later, remembers the pain in detail.
• Dr. Colon, while raising the bed, stated that he was sure Mary tore (in her vagina), but upon inspection, stated surprisingly there wasn't anything but a skidmark (a common term for a slight abrasion). He then stated that he was going to suture it anyway and sutured her perineum without any Lidocaine or medication of any kind. Mary did not have an epidural. He placed one stitch in the lower left inner vagina. While the records state it was a first degree tear, his words in the delivery room stated otherwise. In 24 years, I have never seen even one suture placed without anesthesia.
• Dr. Colon never introduced himself to Mary, never addressed Mary, never asked permission to touch her nor even congratulated her for the birth of her son. He merely pulled her placenta out, sutured her without medication and then threw the gloves in the garbage and walked out of the room.
• No vitals were ever done by your staff on Mary during the time I was in the room which was approximately 3.5 hours.
• No one on your staff checked Mary's fundus or her blood loss during the time I was in the room.
• The baby never went to the warmer.
• The baby never received Erythromycin eye ointment despite the parent's desire for it. The hospital never offered to place the ointment within the first two hours of the baby's birth despite it being the law. The parents ultimately signed a release that I would give the ointment at home, which I did, but they had not been offered it within the legal time frame.
• The baby did not receive a Vitamin K shot despite the parent's desire for it. The hospital never offered to give the injection despite it being the law to give it very shortly after the baby's birth. The parents ultimately signed a release that I would give the injection at home, which I did, but they had not been offered it within the legal time frame.
• The baby had his temperature checked twice – once at birth (which I did not witness) and once again about three hours postpartum. This is not the correct standard of care for a newborn.
• The baby had his heart and lungs listened to twice – once at birth (which I did not witness) and once again about three hours postpartum. This is not the correct standard of care for a newborn.
• The baby did not have his identification band placed on his ankle. After obtaining Mary's medical records, it states in the records, "parents refused placement" which is incorrect since no one ever tried or came near with a band. The mother is a Licensed Practical Nurse and absolutely knows the vast importance of security in a hospital, especially of a newborn baby and would never have refused such an important detail.
• The parents were not told the baby's birth time and only learned it when they went to fill out the birth certificate four days later. We had to piece it together via cell phone logs and were two minutes off for those four days. No one considered it important enough to tell the family the baby's birth time, something that is a normal course of events in a typical hospital birth.
• The baby was given one hat. When asked for another hat, we were refused and told another would be given on the postpartum floor.
• The baby was given one blanket and it was wet from the birth and the baby had also had a bowel movement at the birth (meconium), so the blanket was covered in that, too. When we asked for another blanket, that request was ignored. We cleaned the baby with a chux pad as best as we could and used the sheet Mary was wrapped in (bloody and wet from the birth) to keep the baby warm until we found a blanket in the isolette tucked under a chux pad. We'd searched the room for a towel, washcloth, sheet, gown – anything – and there was nothing. I'd used my skirt at one point, too, to keep the baby warm. Once we found the blanket, we used that until my apprentice and the grandmother went home and got the baby some clothes.
• The baby was weighed only after the parent's requested it several times.
• Mary was never given a gown.
• Mary was given one pad to wear during the entire time in her bed. The only time she was offered another pad was when we were leaving and the nurse brought a postpartum pack in and set it down by the sink in the room, not helping Mary, who was in the bathroom, in any way.
• Mary was not offered a frozen pad as women typically are after a vaginal birth.
• Mary's sheets were never changed. She never received a blanket change despite our asking for something that wasn't bloody and wet.
• Mary and her husband wanted to leave the hospital with the lack of care they were receiving, but I explicitly told them I felt it was important to at least stay the night and make a decision in the morning. And then the next event occurred that ruined any chance of their consideration of staying in That Hospital.
• A woman who never identified herself entered the room yelling and proceeded to demand Mary's chart from me. I identified myself and explained that HIPAA regulations forbade my being able to give the chart directly to her, but I was glad to share the information with the mother's permission. She became increasingly agitated and her voice escalated and the father and grandmother all began yelling together. At a birth! My best guess was the woman was the Charge Nurse since she, at one point shouted, "I'm in charge here!" She had a Caribbean accent (the baby's grandmother was from the Caribbean so recognized it easily). The woman stated she needed information from the chart and for me to give her the chart immediately and I once again said I could not and said I had the lab information and flow sheet of her prenatals I was glad to share with her and if the mother signed a records release I was glad to copy the chart for her. The mother shook her head no and the woman left the room very angry.
• As she left, Mary said she would crawl out of your hospital before being subjected to the lack of care she was receiving by staying in. I could no longer disagree with her decision to leave.
• A woman entered the room and said she was a neonatologist, but she never stated her name. She said she was there to examine the baby. The parents said they did not want an exam and that was when the doctor left the room and left the door completely open with the mother naked on the bed and the curtain open. Those in the hallway stood staring inside the room until we realized the doctor was not returning and my assistant went to close the door. At no time did the doctor state risks of leaving Against Medical Advice or any concerns she had regarding the baby's birth as has occurred with other clients who have opted out of routine hospital procedures in any other hospital over the last 20+ years in my experience.
• When Mary went to the bathroom for the first time, no nurse accompanied her.
• No final vitals were done on either Mary or the baby before leaving the maternity floor. This is in direct conflict with standards of care in my experience.
• When we left the maternity floor to leave, no nurse checked to make sure Mary had the right baby – in fact, no acknowledgement was made whatsoever of her presence and that she was leaving the floor with a newborn baby. No nurse accompanied her from the room to the elevator, from the elevator to the ground floor or from the inside to the outside of the hospital. She left the hospital unattended completely. No nurse was there in case she was bleeding or felt faint.
• When the baby was put in the car seat in the car, no nurse checked to make sure the baby was put in the car seat correctly.
• When we arrived home fifteen minutes later, the Local City Police were blocking the family's garage and said the hospital asked that they come and check on the baby's health and well-being. We were quite surprised considering how little That Hospital seemed to care when we were IN the hospital. They asked for proof that I was a Licensed Midwife, which I showed them immediately and they quickly left. I am not sure why Dr. Colon, the Charge Nurse or any number of others at That Hospital did not ask me for my identification while we were still at the hospital instead of sending the police to hinder the safety of the mother and baby; I would have complied happily.
• Child Protective Services was called on the family and came to visit on day two postpartum as well as have a lengthy phone call with me regarding the Morris' parenting style and choice to leave That Hospital Against Medical Advice. She also stated there were issues with meconium staining the hospital mentioned. No one at the hospital had mentioned the concerns the day before. Her quick assessment that That Hospital's accusations were "unfounded" speaks volumes regarding the lengths That Hospital went to discredit a perfectly respectable young married couple.
As a Licensed Midwife in Our County, I understand circumstances might not always be the most comfortable for me when I have a transfer or a transport to a local hospital. However, never have I seen a client punished in the way Mary Morris was punished for wanting a homebirth. And she transferred without any complications! I shudder to think how she would have been treated had she come with a life-threatening complication. It is beyond comprehension how human beings can treat a birthing woman and a newborn baby with such disdain and cruelty. There is no excuse for this type of behavior in a hospital in any city in America. For God's sake, I recently returned from working in a hospital in New Orleans and their care was so tender and so loving - Hurricane Katrina had changed their emotional lives so dramatically that those nurses and doctors have found renewed spirituality in their care-giving skills. Does That Hospital need a disaster to re-awaken to human kindness? I pray not.
I will continue to work diligently in my profession to maintain the utmost in integrity. If any doctor, nurse, board member or staff member has any questions, please do not hesitate to call and ask me to answer it for them.
My Name, Licensed Midwife, Certified Professional Midwife
Ph# My Number Email: My Email
So, I know it sounds unbelievable. If I read it, I would blink and have a hard time believing it, too. My apprentice and the assistant for that birth will look at each other all these months later and still shake our heads wondering if what we saw was real. It was.
It was so real, the hospital staff had to lie about it all.
When JCAHO was in town, we discovered we had an ally in the hospital. That person (whom we will call The Mole) became our inside information about the JCAHO hearings going on and tried to help us get into the hearings so our side could be heard.
You see, this is the interesting part about the JCAHO hearings, they are public, but unannounced. Well, The Mole let us know when they were, but the segments where the public can speak is minimal and specifically scheduled - and UNscheduled - if that makes any sense at all. (It probably does in bureaucracy world.) So, the parents and I called the JCAHO and hospital people in charge of the hearings asking to speak and we were told, over and over, that the hearings were unscheduled for the public. At one point I asked if I just needed to come down and sit 24 hours a day because I would. It was then that, of course, the public hearings were completed, so it wouldn't be necessary to come at all.
So, JCAHO never heard our version of the story beyond what I wrote and what the family wrote and an extensive interview done by some government man who didn't understand birth one iota.
JCAHO did, however, get to hear the entire story from each of the players involved on the hospital's side. Weren't they lucky? seething even now
The doctor, the head nurse (yes she was the head nurse), the "nice nurse" (whom I will speak about later), the bitch nurse, the neonatologist and every bit player involved got to have a say. And did they ever have their say.
The nurses said the mom was so out of control and so crazy, they couldn't get near her to give her a gown or to take the baby to put him in the warmer. BLESSEDLY, we have pictures (thank the Universe for my apprentice taking pictures!!!) of mom serenely holding her baby and the "nice nurse" holding the baby at one point on the way to the baby scale - gee, 3.5 hours postpartum, the baby still had meconium where we couldn't wipe it off of him... wonder why that was. Anyway, the nurses said we were SO mean and SO snotty to them that THEY CRIED at the nurses station!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They could hardly wait until we left because we were so mean. They'd hardly met any group of people so horrible. blinking in utter disbelief
If they cried, and I hope they did, it was from the amazing realization of the cruelty to another human being that they inflicted - TWO human beings. I hope they are crying right this minute.
Mary and her husband came to the hospital with a camcorder. When Mary was in the bathroom before she was leaving, I was in there with her as was her husband. My apprentice and assistant were getting the baby dressed on the bed. The "nice nurse" came in, gave us a "going home pack" by setting it on the sink in the room... not giving it to us in the bathroom (where we could have used it since it had pads in it) - and she walked out without saying a word. I had to walk out to the sink to go get a pad for mom.
It was days before we realized the camcorder, which had been sitting at that sink, was gone. The "nice nurse" had surely been instructed to kindly remove it from the room lest there be evidence on it. I am sure she is crying the most. She tried to be nice, but it was obvious she was told to give only the most cursory of un-care and words to us.How did this end with JCAHO?
The hospital received a brand new Gold Seal of Approval! None of the nurses, nor the doctor were disciplined for their horrific behavior, BUT, the one thing that was found was the doctor had not explained the risks and benefits of lidocaine to the mother before suturing her (he claimed she refused the lidocaine). The hospital was fined a delightfully hefty fine from what I hear, but other than that, my mom is left out of any anything.
- No one to listen to her side of the story that would be able to do anything to the doctors or nurses directly.
- No lawyer will take her case because she can't show permanent damage to her or the baby (apparently fear of sex and the excruciating pain of being sutured without pain meds isn't worthy of a lawsuit - not to mention utter neglect in a hospital) .
- No restitution for her bills, pain and suffering or therapy she has needed to work through this experience.
HOWEVER, a New Mole has come out of the hospital steering mom into a new direction that might lead to a better sounding board than JCAHO. We'll see if it works out.
So, dear readers, you who know me can understand why I was so traumatized in September when this birth occurred.
Although I couldn't say it in the letter, in the investigation, we did state that race and socioeconomic status had a very big part in Mary's care. It was apparent they thought she was a single black woman coming in with her sister, when, in fact, the woman who accompanied her in the ambulance, was my assistant (who happened to be black). My client was having a hard time keeping control initially, but my assistant was able to calm her periodically and once the mom realized she was going to have to push the baby out in the hospital without assistance, she began to push in earnest and the baby was born within a few contractions.
(This brings me to the interesting concept we espouse about babies coming out even without a mom's active pushing. Apparently, this mom fought so hard against the baby, she maintained a location of homeostasis as far as where the baby remained in the vagina. The uterus, during the entire 90 minute pushing/un-pushing production remained extremely active and we could see the baby's head presenting more at the entroitus, but the baby receded each time the contraction ended. The thought that something might be holding the baby up crossed our minds, except there were none of the tell-tale signs of decelerations that would occur with a short cord or a nuchal cord. The whole thing was so odd.)
Immediately upon arrival, a nurse said to mom, "We're not nice like those homebirth midwives. We're gonna get that baby out." This was the Bitch Nurse. She continued being snotty and curt with Mary and was rough with her body and then with the baby as he was born. My assistant has an amazing capacity for recollection and I am thrilled she was allowed into the ambulance so she could make meticulous notes of every single thing that unfolded while I couldn't be there.
The doctor did, indeed, stand in the corner of the room yelling about me, asking where I was, why wasn't I there, that he knew there really was no midwife, that I had just ABANDONED my client and what kind of midwife is that. The whole time, the nurse is asking him to come to the table because the birth is imminent and he stood in the corner of the room with his arms crossed, not budging, in his street clothes. The nurse "delivered" the baby and the doctor strode to mom, shoved the nurse aside, put gloves on, yanked the cord so hard mom screamed until she nearly fainted, pulled the cord out, shoved his fist so hard down on her abdomen she had tears streaming from her eyes and then raised the bed to look at her while commenting that he knew she tore. Surprised, he said she just had a skid mark, but he was going to stitch it anyway. He grabbed the suture, placed the stitch while my mom screamed to the heavens and then he took his gloves off, threw them on the floor and turned and walked out the door.
That entire time, I was in the lobby trying to get in and was not allowed in. The nurse placed a faux call to the room and turned back to me and said, "No visitors," and pointed to the waiting room and told me to sit down and wait. I called my assistant's cell phone, but she didn't answer. Brilliantly, my apprentice called the hospital and asked to be put through to the patient's room. My assistant answered and she told me the baby had just been born (this is the way we pieced together the incorrect time of birth until we saw the hospital birth certificate work sheet 4 days later) and that mom needed her, she had to go. This was right when the doctor walked up to the table to yank the cord out and the assault began. It's too bad we weren't on a cell phone to be able to tape it.
12 minutes after the answering of the phone call, dad came out and brought us into the room. I walked right past the doctor, but he didn't say a word to me; I didn't know he was her doctor or I would have said something. Nobody ever asked me who I was, but I introduced myself each time a nurse came in, even the screaming nurse. Incredibly, I remained professional and civil (perhaps I should have gone berserk and run around the hospital floor screaming my disgust at their behavior? they would have kicked me out, surely.) and was very proud of my behavior with the staff.
I believe I would have been more demanding of "things" next time. Even though we asked for things like towels and gowns and washcloths and blankets and were turned down each time, something in me thinks I could have been more aggressive. I look at myself and wonder what I could have done to not have my client be punished in this way and in my heart of hearts know they were treating her this way because they just have an evil place in their heads for people of poverty.
When mom's husband came in during the delivery, he was shell-shocked, so didn't speak until after the birth and once he started speaking, the nurses started taking notice... the couple is extremely well-educated and don't "sound black" (according to how our society would consider blacks to sound). It threw the nurses off. And what was even more shocking to them was when, 3 hours into the horror, the insurance chick came in and snottily said, "I suppose you don't have insurance either, do you." Dad said, "As a matter of fact, we have Famous Great PPO Insurance," and the insurance chick about swallowed her tongue, threw the papers at them and rushed out of the room embarrassed as hell.
Having mom sign the papers to leave was our biggest mistake. Mom just wanted to get out of there and she didn't look at anything she was signing and signed too many things that ended up saying she didn't want this (Vitamin K) or that (Erythromycin). If you all are ever in a similar chaotic situation, do not EVER sign anything without reading it first - even if you can't wait to get OUT of there. It isn't worth it in the end. And, for the record, it isn't any of those papers that are keeping a lawyer from taking her case. The papers are the least of it in the grand scheme of it all legally, but because they are a legal document, in these investigations, they meant a lot. And it sucked to give them anything at all.
I am exhausted from writing this for 2 days and I know I could continue writing for 3 more because the 5 of us have picked this apart ad infinitum - we have considered and re-considered every nuance of this case. I have played and re-played every detail over and over, asking myself what I would have done differently.
You might wonder, what happened to the HHN? When the ambulance took mom out of the apartment, she left and didn't call for 5 days. She was "tired." The mom is very sorry she ever invited her to the birth and very much feels she had a hand in the demise of her homebirth, or at least, a peaceful birth in a location that would have treated her with respect and dignity.
Mom will have a homebirth next time. She says she will never be afraid of that pain of pushing again. She will find strength in that experience and not be afraid of most things in her life that are seemingly unbearable challenges. She has found enormous strength in her birth experience. Her husband loves her and while he was extremely sad to not have the homebirth he wanted so badly, he has supported and protected her in this healing in ways many men would never have known how to do. His words, his deeds, his tenderness and love ooze from his heart and cover his family in a way I don't see coming from most 40-year olds, much less someone of his young age. I am honored to know them both.
The assistant and apprentice have found healing easier than I (or so it seems to me) and they continue loving me through my pain. Is it always so different for the midwife herself? I want to erase the experience. I wish I could turn back time and find the magic words to make her push that baby out in her bedroom. I wish I never knew there were nurses and doctors who were so evil and cruel in my own city. I wish I still believed people could never be so evil to a birthing mother and a newborn baby. I wish I had never been witness to such horror. I feel like my illusion of hospital care has been raped... and my illusion wasn't even all that glamorous! I hate that I might have to go back to that hospital and have to find a way to work with a liaison to make the experience better.
Because those nurses can sit in front of the investigators and boo hoo and say this and that about us, but the absolute truth is - they know The Truth. They know who neglected whom, who assaulted whom, who stole what from whom. And I will stand with them, toe to toe, staring them in the eyes, also knowing The Truth.
I know The Truth.
And today, I finally speak The Truth for you all to hear.


text:
Cotton Sleeping Gown
Our classic organic cotton gown is a much loved newborn essential. Designed to keep little feet tucked in and warm with a soft drawstring opening at the bottom allowing easy nappy changing through the night. Fold down mittens at the cuff to keep little hands warm and prevent scratching.
Made from organic cotton, soft and breathable.
This style is also available in merino wool.
To minimise shrinkage, this fabric has been pre-washed at our GOTS certified factory.
GOTS certified.
product details
product code: NB11001
- GOTS certified
- 100% pure certified organic cotton
- fold over mittens at cuff
- drawstring opening for easy nappy changing
machine wash in cold or warm water with environmentally friendly laundry detergent
tumble dry on low or line dry
do not use fabric softener or bleach
see here for laundry tips
delivery and returns
Free shipping on all orders over $150 (excludes oversized items)
For more information about our flat rates and delivery, please see our delivery page.
You are welcome to return online purchases within 30 days, click here to view the full Returns Policy.
why choose organic cotton?
Organic cotton is fine, soft and strong. It is the ideal fabric for a baby's sensitive skin as it is grown and processed without the use of harmful chemicals. Conventionally grown cotton is one of the most destructive crops grown in the world today, whereas organic cotton farming promotes clean air, water and soil. Organic Cotton does not endanger wildlife or human health. So you can rest assured you are getting the most pure product, ensuring a healthy start for your baby.read more


text:
1. DigiTech iPB-10 Programmable Pedalboard
The iPB-10 features an iPad dock and DigiTech's new iPB Nexus app, which offers 87 different pedal models, 37 amp models, and 32 cabinet models. All models can be quickly and easily manipulated onscreen via visual representations of the devices. Fourteen footswitches let you switch between 20 banks of five virtual pedalboards, each of which can include up to 10 pedals, as well as amp emulations that you can insert at any point in the chain.
2. Levana Mellow-D Digital Delay
The Mellow-D digital delay has a rear-panel Jitter switch that lets you add a low- or high-frequency oscillation to the signal for delectably trippy lo-fi tones. It also features an expression pedal input and up to 1000 ms of delay.
3. Electro-Harmonix Ravish Sitar
This new pedal from the stompbox innovators at EHX aims to give you access to sitar tones with a polyphonic Lead voice and tunable emulations of sympathetic-string drones. It has two expression-pedal inputs for bending the pitch of the lead voice and controlling the volume of the sympathetic tones.
4. Amptweaker TightRock
Amp and effects guru James Brown's new TightRock has EQ and Gain Boost switches, as well as a noise gate that adjusts in tandem with the Gain knob. It also features a PlexEQ switch for old-school stack flavors and a SideTrak effects loop that disengages when the pedal is on so you can have, say, modulation effects from your pedalboard activated with your clean sound but then click the TightRock on to blast out a solo with a direct, in-your-face tone.


text:
Description:IBM 18.2GB 10K Ultra2 Wide Hot-Plug SCSI Hard DrivePart Number(s)
IBM Part# 20L0540
Overview:IBM presents its 18.2 GB Wide Ultra2 SCSI hard disk drive to increase your storage capabilities.??This disk has 10.000 rotations per minute thus allowing maximum transfer rate of up to 80MB per second. Its slim design - only 3.5 inches accommodates more powerful actuator resulting in breakthrough access times while significantly reducing power consumption and required cooling. When connecting exclusively Wide Ultra2 devices and controllers data transfer rates are nearly doubled allowing connection of more devices to a single controller without regard for the bus bandwidth. This drive incorporates LVDS technology which enables longer cable lengths and faster speeds. Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) feature can provide advanced warning of an impending drive failure when used with the appropriate software (such as Netfinity Manager) ensuring data accuracy and high reliability. Wide Ultra2 SCSI interface uses low voltage differential signal transmiss.


text:
Oct. 20, 2010
VAN NUYS, Calif. -
Complete Men's Results in PDF Format
Complete Women's Results in PDF Format
Junior Andrew Pilavjian ran a 24:10.9 over the 8K course to lead the UC Santa Barbara men's cross country team to a first-place finish at the Northridge Invitational Saturday in Van Nuys, Calif.
Pilavjian finished second among collegiate runners in the race. His pace was 4:51.9. Junior Doug Whichard ran a 24:21.8 and sophomore Juan Paredes clocked in at 24:31.5 to finish fourth and seventh respectively.
As a team, UCSB finished ahead of UC Riverside by a 43-46 score. Cal State Fullerton (52 points) finished third, Westmont College (96 points) was fourth and the host school, Cal State Northridge (145 points) was fifth.
In addition to the three top-10 finishers, the Gauchos had three other solid performances in the meet. Junior Anthony Masci was 13th in a time of 24:49.8 while sophomores Bhavik Kanzaria (25:10.4) and Michael Wysocki (25:26.3) were 17th and 20th respectively.
UCSB sent a very limited women's team to the Northridge Invitational. The top Gaucho runners were at the Pre-Nationals meet in Terre Haute, Ind.
Sophomore Cassie Brooker was Santa Barbara's top finisher. Brooker ran a 21:53.5 in the 6K race. She finished 13th. Another sophomore, Callie Mulgannon, ran 21:57.8 and in 16th-place.
Only two other Gaucho runners finished among the top-50. Freshman Emily Gordon (25:02.4) was 48th while senior Sheniece Vargas (25:10.8) was 50th.
The UCSB men's and women's teams will return to action on Saturday, Oct. 22 when they head to the Fullerton Invitational.


text: Running ISPConfig 220.127.116.11 on two servers (master/slave). Both servers are running Squeeze and are currently up to date. Since upgrading from 188.8.131.52 to 188.8.131.52 my system monitor quit updating. Nothing updates at all in any of the system monitor tab. Might be related to the following bug: http://bugtracker.ispconfig.org/index.php?do=details&task_id=2054 So, I will assume it is and leave it at that until the next update. More importantly, since the update, changes in ISPConfig to any DNS Zone will not update the zone files on either server. I have to manually go into both servers and add the changes by hand and restart BIND9 to affect the changes. Everything had been working fine before the update and everything else is working fine but not being unable to add DNS records in ISPConfig3 is a pain. I have changed nothing in either server configuration wise in quite a while.


text:
via press release:
(Silver Spring, Md.) It's a bike club. It's a brotherhood. It's THE DEVILS RIDE premiering Tuesday, May 8 after DEADLIEST CATCH at 10pm e/p on Discovery. For the first time Discovery goes inside the world of motorcycle clubs with the members of San Diego's Laffing Devils.
THE DEVILS RIDE sports a diverse crew but one bonded by a commitment to each other and the club. Meet Laffing Devils president Gipsy, who must balance the club's growing ranks with pressure from older members to maintain the status quo. An ex-Marine who served in Iraq, Gipsy credits the club for helping him deal with the emotional scars of war. Then there's club VP, Billy the Kid, who waits in the wings wondering if he'll have the chance to lead the Laffing Devils. And younger member Snubz breaks all the biker stereotypes with his degree in finance and a full time corporate job.
THE DEVILS RIDE finds the Laffing Devils not only in open conflict internally but also at risk of losing their homebase. The Laffing Devils' unofficial headquarters is the auto body shop owned by fellow member Hawkster but police pressure might force the club to find a new home. Moving is going to cost the club money so Gipsy seeks out security work for the Laffing Devils guarding a liquor store in a very dangerous part of town. Will their new responsibilities pit the club against one another?
THE DEVILS RIDE also covers what would-be members must do to prove themselves to the club before they can be "patched in." In order to earn his spot, prospect Charles is out on an official club task of protecting some of the club's wives and girlfriends, or "Ol' Ladies" on a night out. When a pushy photographer gets too close for comfort, blood boils and the situation gets physical. Will Charles' actions protecting the women earn him the respect of the young blood and, more importantly, earn him his cut?
THE DEVILS RIDE is produced for Discovery Channel Bischoff Hervey Entertainment. Eric Bischoff and Jason Hervey are Executive Producers. For Discovery Channel, David Pritikin is Executive Producer.


text:
The following seven questions, along with a requested word limit, were asked of each local candidate for the Vermont House.
The questions are not repeated in the context of each candidate's response, but are recalled by subject at the beginning of each answer.
Election Day is Nov. 4.
1) HEALTHCARE: The state's Catamount Health plan is up and running, are you satisfied that it is meeting its goals and, if not, what additional steps should the state take to expand health care coverage? (Maximum 150 words.)
2) ELECTRICITY: The expiration of Vermont's contracts with its two big electricity providers, Hydro-Quebec and Vermont Yankee, is looming. And there are concerns about re-licensing Yankee. What should Vermont do to meet its energy needs? (150 words.)
3) AGRICULTURE: What state-level supports and policies regarding family farms would you promote as a legislator? (150 words.)
4) PROPERTY TAXES: The idea of a property tax cap to limit the rise in school spending has been suggested, but such reductions in funds could diminish the quality of education in our schools over time. How do you solve that dilemma? (150 words.)
5) HEATING: Vermonters are worried about how they will pay to heat their homes and gas up their cars this winter. What can the Legislature and state government do to help? (150 words.)
6) ECONOMY: State government is cutting back as tax revenues fall short of expectations. What can state government do to improve the Vermont economy? (150 words.)
7) SINGLE ISSUE: Discuss an issue of importance to you that you would work to address if elected. (100 words.)
The four candidates running for the two seats in the Addison-3 House district — which includes Vergennes, Addison, Panton, Waltham and Ferrisburgh — are Greg Clark, Diane Lanpher, Kitty Oxholm and Jean Richardson.
HEALTHCARE: Healthcare has been the most frequent issue raised as I have been going door to door this summer and fall. For many self-employed individuals Catamount Health insurance appears to be working quite well. I heard positive comments about the good coverage for preventive healthcare and chronic care available under Catamount. Preventive healthcare is a long-term cost savings for Vermont. Many age 18-30 expressed worries about the 12-month waiting period with no insurance, high premiums, and masses of complex paperwork.
We need a comprehensive healthcare system in which all the complex parts are coordinated and where policy goals are founded on preventive healthcare available to everyone at an affordable cost. It is unlikely that Vermont can do this without change at Federal level. Action on healthcare is vital as it impacts all aspects of life from the economy to increased education costs.
ELECTRICITY: To meet its energy needs Vermont needs to:1. Conserve energy, and reduce energy consumption by 30 percent through greater investments in efficiency. 2. Develop an overall, comprehensive, coordinated energy plan for the entire state. Such a plan should include long and short-term goals, clear conservation and efficiency policies, a mix of many sources of energy, including geothermal, with regional plans that fit the state's geography, and a long-term goal of self-sufficiency for the state. 3. Provide incentives for small-scale wind and solar systems and other forms of renewable energy. 4. Require new buildings to be carbon neutral. 5. Only renew Vermont Yankee's license to produce nuclear power if all safety concerns have been fully resolved. All the foregoing will foster job creation.
AGRICULTURE: is a critical component of our economy and culture and it is absolutely vital that we do all we can to strengthen and build our agriculture and its required infrastructure to meet the changing world economy. This will create jobs.
I have considerable practical experience in farming, forest management and sugaring over several decades. Forest uses and management must be discussed along with farming, and many issues need to be addressed, such as: increasing agricultural diversity, with new crops, increased organic farms and niche marketing; conserving farm and forest land; eliminating property taxes on farm barns; new slaughter houses; more small business loans for new farm and forest related ventures; and availability of agricultural mediation. Such policies will lead to increased profitability, create jobs, value-added products and increase food security.
PROPERTY TAXES: It is poor policy to fund schools through ever increasing property taxes. Administration of the school property taxes through Towns has become complex and confusing, placing enormous pressure on town staff school boards and selectboards, and it is about to get a lot worse with the poor policy of a two-step vote on school budgets, especially given the many un-funded or under-funded mandates. School budgets should be local decisions, with the Legislature determining how to distribute funds. Given the present confusing system for education taxes maybe it is time to have the state take over responsibility for administering, billing and collecting education taxes, and answering all the frustrated citizen questions about to the school taxes.
HEATING: New England has the biggest challenge in the country when it comes to heating costs. We have a lot of old housing stock, and most houses are dependent on oil for heating. For most Vermonters there is an inability to pay up-front for the necessary long-term investment in new or retrofitted heating systems. The new fuels efficiency utility bill helps in many ways, as does the Low Income Heating assistance program. Increase in use of wood for heating may be one option for some homeowners, but not a long-term viable option for most people. Heating must be looked at in a coordinated manner with energy, as noted above. Gas and truck diesel costs can only partially be addressed through reduced use. Greater creativity is needed, and review of available public transit, which is never easy in a rural state.
ECONOMY: Vermont is a very small state. The total population is less than 700,000, but scattered in small towns over the hills and valleys, with many roads, bridges, small schools and a range of human services to be delivered to everyone. A rural economy must be creative and diversified to work well over time. Many of our sources of funds are linked to the federal government and to external forces over which we have little or no control. The present volatile situation is likely to continue for some time, and thus we need to be very much more creative in looking for economies and efficiencies in the state budgets, as well as sources of fees or untapped federal dollars. Vermont's reputation for sound fiscal management must be safeguarded. Continue to build niche markets for value added Vermont products and small businesses. Continue to build on our Vermont image. Link job creation with energy.
SINGLE ISSUE/FOOD AND ENERGY SECURITY: Vermont is a rural state where it is expensive to live. Most of our food and energy are imported. Do we really know how many days of home heating oil, or food that the average household or, hospital or school has on hand in the event of the need for quarantine, or a severe weather incident, or worse crisis? What policies should we be considering to allow us to have food and energy security? We need to develop integrated policies that are comprehensive and long-term, and then work together, across the aisle, for change.


text:
This European action plan was endorsed by 53 European Member States at the Regional Committee for Europe in September 2011 in Baku, Azerbaijan. It includes a wide range of policies and programmes that are relatively easy and cheap to implement, can reduce the harmful use of alcohol, promote health and well-being, improve productivity, and enhance human, health and social capital across the life course from birth to old age. This action plan proposes a range of options for the 10 action areas of the global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol that all European Member States can engage in.
You can download the document here.


text:
I'm writing this as my Amazon Shorts download FOUR PACK OF JACK sits comfortably at the #10 spot in the Amazon ranking for shorts.
It had briefly made it up to #6, and considering I don't have a new book out, and I haven't spread the word through my newsletter yet, I'm pretty impressed by the number of people who bought it in the three days it has been live.
Thanks for your support!
Which brings up the topic of today's blog: Supporting your fellow authors.
Like most people in this business, money in my household is tight. Being paid in sporadic big chunks means our family has to carefully budget, and the amount of money I spend on self-promotion is staggering (you can read about it in the current issue of Forbes) and I usually go overboard.
But I have a cardinal rule that I always try to maintain. When possible, I buy the books of my peers.
I've never asked for a blurb without owning every book the author has written (or at least those still in print.)
I buy every book by Tess Gerritsen, Anne Fraiser, Alex Kava, Julia-Spencer Fleming, MJ Rose, David Morrell, Lee Child, Gayle Lynds, Ridley Pearson, Andrew Vachss, Michael Prescott, George Chesbro, Warren Murphy, David Wiltse, Robert Walker, Barry Eisler, David Ellis, PJ Parrish, William Kent Krueger, James Born, Barb D'Amato, Libby Fisher Hellmann, Steve Alten, James Rollins, Jay Bonansinga, Jack Kerley, Bill Fitzhugh, F. Paul Wilson, Rob Kantner, Steve Spruill, Rick Hautala, and Raymond Benson---not just because they are wonderful writers, but because they've blurbed me.
Buying them is the least I could do. They generously gave of their time, and according to the laws of karma I need to give back when I can. Not only to them, but to the world. Which is one of the reasons I blurbed over 30 books last year.
Very recently, space considerations forced me to get rid of some of my books (I have a library of over 5000.) But as I perused my shelves looking for what is donatable to the local thrift store, I made a shocking discovery.
I have over 450 signed books from authors I've met. A few of these were given to me, and some were traded for signed copies of my books, but 85% of them were bought, by me.
I don't remember buying most of these. I certainly haven't read most of these. Some aren't the type of genre I like, and some don't seem the least bit interesting to me. But I bought them anyway, to support my peers.
As Tom Waits said, we're chained to the world, and we all gotta pull.
Though I've blocked these many purchases from my mind as incidental, three events do stand out from the years I've been an author.
Once, at a library event, an eager POD author came up to my table and plunked down money for my book, and then showed me her book. It didn't look like anything I'd ever read, and didn't look appealing at all, even by POD standards. I congratulated her for writing a book, thanked her for buying mine, wished her much success, but didn't buy her book.
I've bought dozens of POD books from authors I've done events with, books that I never read. But for some reason I didn't buy hers, and it has stuck in my mind as a major regret years later.
Another mind-sticky event happened during my tour last year. I did a signing with a famous author (let's call him Jasper Fforde) who had a huge line of fans compared to my tiny line. I did my book-talk and managed to sell a few books to his sloppy seconds, but not nearly the large pile that he did. We spoke a little, between him signing copies, and he seemed a nice enough bloke.
I bought a copy of his hardcover because that's what I usually do when I'm at a signing with another author. (My other cardinal rule is: Whenever I do a signing at an independent bookstore, I buy a book to show my support for the store.)
Mr. Fforde did not buy a copy of mine. Not even a paperback.
Should that have bothered me? Perhaps not. But it does.
The last one that I'll always remember was at the Magna Cum Murder convention in Indiana. I was schmoozing the book table and who approached but none other then bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith, of The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency fame. He's sold more books than everyone else I know put together, and I know some famous people.
We got to talking, exchanged a few jokes and pleasantries, and he asked if I had any books for sale. I pointed out WHISKEY SOUR and pitched him the serial killer plot, ending my speil with, "It's exactly the polar opposite of the gentle, humorous stories that you write." That was my way of saying that I in no way expected him to buy a copy, because I knew he'd dislike it.
He bought a copy anyway. Thanks again, Mr. Smith.
Naturally, I already owned a copy of his book.
Which brings this full circle. Whenever I do a library panel, or a conference, or a multiple author signing, I try to buy the books of my fellow authors. Especially if they buy my book.
Often, I'll trade copies, which is fine, but it isn't the same as plunking down the cash and supporting my peers with that miniscule royalty and tiny blip in their sales figures.
I've noticed that I've extended this show of support to many of the blogs I visit. If I find myself posting on someone's blog often, and I haven't checked out their books, I'll pick up one or two.
I'm also known to pop on over to Amazon and do reviews of many of my peers' books. Not because they ask me to. But because I want to show support.
Is this a subtle message to everyone who reads this blog to get your asses over to Amazon.com/shorts and buy FOUR PACK OF JACK?
Hell no. I don't think this message is subtle at all.
And not only me. Support each other. We're in this together, folks.
Also, if any of you are named "Joe" and would like to buy a personalized copy of "The Big Over Easy" by Jasper Fforde, I have one for sale. Cheap.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)


text:
The Original Brat Hans products are made using ingredients and spices from around the globe to deliver a unique flavor experience.
We are committed to providing premium products that nourish the health and well-being of your family. Our products have no antibiotics, no added hormones and no preservatives…ever! They also contain no animal by-products, no artificial ingredients and no MSG.
The chicken used in our products come from producers who have joined Global Animal Partnership's 5-Step® Animal Welfare Rating Standards program. This program outlines specific husbandry and management practices that promote farm-animal welfare.
* Federal regulations prohibit the use of hormones or steroids in poultry and pork.
† Except for naturally-occurring nitrates such as sea salt, parsley, spinach, celery juice, etc. in certain products.
Serving Size 1 LINK (85 G)
Servings Per Container 4
Amount Per Serving(* % of Daily Value)
Calories 120
Calories from Fat 45
Total Fat 5g (8%)
Saturated Fat 1.5g (7%)
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 70g (24%)
Sodium 590mg (25%)
Total Carbohydrate 0g (0%)
Dietary Fiber 0g (0%)
Sugars 0g
Protein 17g
Vitamin A 0%
Vitamin C 2%
Calcium 0%
Iron 6%
* Percent of Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.** This is a representation of the nutrition label. The actual nutrition label may vary slightly.
Calories 130
Calories from Fat 60
Total Fat 7g (11%)
Saturated Fat 1.5g (8%)
Cholesterol 75g (25%)
Sodium 780mg (33%)
Total Carbohydrate 1g (0%)
Vitamin A 4%
Vitamin C 4%
Calcium 2%
Iron 8%
Serving Size 2 LINKS (49 G)
Servings Per Container 7
Calories 70
Calories from Fat 35
Total Fat 4g (6%)
Saturated Fat 1g (5%)
Cholesterol 45g (15%)
Sodium 320mg (13%)
Protein 8g
Vitamin A 2%
Vitamin C 0%
Iron 2%
Serving Size 1 BURGER (106 G)
Servings Per Container 2
Calories 150
Calories from Fat 70
Saturated Fat 3g (15%)
Cholesterol 80g (27%)
Sodium 420mg (18%)
Protein 20g (40%)
Vitamin C 6%
Calcium 8%
Serving Size 3 OZ (84 G)
Servings Per Container ABOUT 2.5
Calories 100
Calories from Fat 20
Total Fat 2g (3%)
Saturated Fat 0g (0%)
Cholesterol 55g (18%)
Sodium 450mg (19%)
Protein 18g (36%)


text: Welcome to The Tradition. It is a toss-up. What to mention first, location, amenities, or service? You'll love our great Coastal North County location, near Palomar Airport, La Costa Resort, Four Seasons Resort Aviara, Carlsbad State Beach and only minutes to Camp Pendleton, Del Mar, and Downtown San Diego! The Tradition was designed to please the most sophisticated resident. Here old world craftsmanship and attention to detail blend harmoniously with 21st century technology. Our floor plans are large, thoughtfully laid-out and filled with custom details. And what about service? Well frankly, it just can't be beat. Come by and check us out, or send in our online guest card to schedule a private tour, at your convenience. Our staff would love to introduce themselves and help you select the prefect new apartment home, today!


text:
I've grown accustomed to seeing a lot of different cars, trucks, motorcycles, tractors and even deer chugging out of our dirt road and exiting onto Plank Road in Bristol during the past 20 years.
But what I saw a week ago Friday caused me to do a double take. No, make that a triple take.
Mid-way into my turn I found myself braking for none other than the Three Little Pigs, who had mounted a successful porcine prison break from their fenced-in house of sticks at our neighbors' place.
The full text of this article is only available to online subscribers.
Are you an online subscriber? Click to login.
Click here to learn more about our subscription options.
If you have a print subscription, you can now add an online subscription at no additional charge! Just email us with your name and mailing address to set it up.
The Poet: Deb Chadwick, a retired social worker, began writing poems to deal with an important loss, and then continued because she fell in love with the written word. She is a member of the Poetry Society of Vermont.
The Poem: Poets are not generally calm and peaceful people, protected from pain. Life is painful, and we need to share that pain … not for sympathy alone, but for the recognition of our common humanity. Poets and non-poets alike seek community. Poets are blest, or cursed, with a need to share, and to share dramatically … in words!
One of my favorite things about living in Vermont is that my daughters have become lake swimmers.
Right now, a workhorse of a machine is sitting in my husband's woodshop. If it works properly it's going to make our lives a lot easier over the next couple weeks.
I found it last Saturday through sheer luck and good timing. At the time I was out running errands and whining loudly, as I tend to do, about how we needed an electric apple grinder to go with our cider press. (A grinder, or "scratter," reduces apples to a pulp to allow for maximum juice extraction.)
Opposition continues to be heard to the new Middlebury municipal building proposal, some of it reasonable, but some of it apparently not based on the details of the plan itself.
Rather, some have cited past votes that supported keeping the current site as a rationale to say no to the selectboard's current proposal. Others expressing opposition seem to be miffed they were not included in the process.
When we first moved to Vermont, my husband noticed something unusual about the news coverage on our local NPR affiliate: there was never any traffic report. To compensate, the weather forecast often ran as long as ten minutes.
Subscribe to Online Edition
Online PDF Print Edition
Copyright 2011 Addison Independent | 58 Maple Street, Middlebury, Vt. 05753 | All Rights Reserved
Site Development by Surf New Media


text:
The Cementco was a 67 metre long hopper barge that worked in Brisbane's Moreton Bay for many years transporting fossilised coral to be used in cement production. In 1985 the retired ship was to be scuttled off Moreton Island as an artificial reef when it prematurely sank in rough weather, landing on the sea floor upside down in 25 metres of water.
Today Cementco is a popular wreck dive, with divers able to safely enter the ship and explore the rusting hull. The shipwreck is sparsely covered in corals and home to reef fish, invertebrate species and also the odd groper. Pelagic fish often cruise around the wreck, including trevally, batfish, mackerel and barracuda.


text:
In my previous post in my ongoing series on SQL Server database corruption I covered a list of best practices for responding to database corruption when it happens. In that post I mentioned that I'd provide a follow-up post on the specifics of how to execute page-level restore operations from within SQL Server.
Page Level Restore Operations
As documented in Books Online, SQL Server's RESTORE DATABASE command has an optional parameter or switch that instructs it to only restore one or more pages instead of an entire database – which is very handy and helpful in dealing with situations in which only a hand-full of pages have been corrupted by some sort of problem with the IO subsystem.
Accordingly, the basic order of operations for this kind of operation is as follows
1. Kick the database into single user mode. You can set the database to RESTRICTED_USER, but if you have end-users or applications connecting using logins that map to the db_owner role, they'll still be able to connect to the database. So use SINGLE_USER mode instead and do NOT close the query window you use to set to SINGLE_USER.
To set the database to SINGLE_USER mode, execute the following:
ALTER DATABASE <yourDbNameHere> SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK AFTER 10 SECONDS GO
And note that the WITH ROLLBACK AFTER n SECONDS option can/will kill connections and on-going operations. It's documented in here (towards the end of the page). Likewise note that to pull this recovery operation off you're, OBVIOUSLY, kicking everyone out of the database.
2. Then, START your recovery process by backing up the tail-end of the log file – or the portion of your log file that hasn't already been backed up. (This is CRITICAL as it ensures that all operations up to a certain point have been accounted for. And you'll want to do this AFTER switching the database to SINGLE_USER mode – otherwise you risk allowing a few operations to 'sneak' by – which means that end-users or apps will have to re-enter that data after the system comes back online.)
For example:
BACKUP LOG yourDbNameHere TO DISK = N'D:\SQLBackups\yourDbNameHere_TailEnd.trn' GO
3. Execute the RESTORE DATASE command with the PAGE switch and loaded with as many pages as needed (i.e., those defined/referenced in msdb..suspect_pages).
Start this operation with your last FULL backup. For example:
RESTORE DATABASE yourDBNameHere PAGE = 'fileid:pageid,fileid:pageid,etc' -- e.g. 1:5224,1:5225,etc FROM DISK = 'D:\SQLBackups\yourDbNameHere_lastFull.BAK' WITH NORECOVERY GO
Make sure that you DO NOT recover the database – by using the NORECOVERY option.
4. For EACH transaction log backup since either your FULL backup or your DIFFERENTIAL backup (if you had one), go ahead and apply each transaction log – making sure that you do NOT recover the database. For Example:
RESTORE LOG yourDbHere FROM DISK = 'D:\SQLBackups\yourDbName_LogFileFrom2PM.TRN' WITH NORECOVERY GO RESTORE LOG yourDbHere FROM DISK = 'D:\SQLBackups\yourDbName_LogFileFrom215PM.TRN' WITH NORECOVERY GO
-- etc (i.e. more/similar log backups in sequence)
-- and so on… up to point of disaster
RESTORE LOG yourDbHere FROM DISK = 'D:\SQLBackups\ yourDbName_LogFileFrom530PM.TRN' WITH NORECOVERY GO
And, again: DO NOT RECOVER the database along the way.
5. Apply the 'tail end' backup that you took in step 2, and then recover the database.
RESTORE LOG yourDbHere FROM DISK = 'D:\SQLBackups\yourDBName_TailEndBackupOfYourLogFileFromStep2.TRN' WITH RECOVERY
-- Note that we're now RECOVERING the database.
6. Clear out msdb..suspect_pages by running:
DELETE FROM msdb..suspect_pages GO
Make sure to do this step BEFORE executing the next step – as cleaning this table out is YOUR responsibility (i.e., it's not automatically cleared or anything by SQL Server when you run DBCC CHECKDB() or anything else) – and you don't want to risk confusing reports in this table of bad-pages with pages you've already corrected or accounted for.
7. Re-run DBCC CHECKDB() against your database – making sure to use the ALL_ERRORMSGS (and NO_INFOMSGS) options.
8. Switch the database back to multi-user mode (i.e. release it to production usage again) as follows:
ALTER DATABASE AdventureWorks SET MULTI_USER GO
9. Make sure to clear out msdb..suspect_pages again IF needed (i.e., if you ran into any other issues along the way).
NOTE that with this Page-Level restoration approach, you're going to need to potentially do a LOT of manual scripting of Transaction log file restoration operations – something that can get a bit tedious. (It can also be potentially error-prone in a stressful situation. Therefore, if you're not sure you've applied a transaction log file already or not, just RE-APPLY it – there is NO penalty (other than time) for duplicate applications whereas you'll get big, scary/ugly, errors if you miss a log file. To clarify that a bit: assume you've got log files A, B, C, D, E, and F after your last full/diff backup. And you apply A, B, and C – and then can't remember if you last applied C or D. In a case like this, just re-apply C if in doubt as it will NOT error-out on you if it's already been applied and you'll just waste the time involved to apply it at worst. (Whereas if you can't remember and jump from C to E, for example, you WILL get an error telling you that the LSNs are out of sequence – which is a big, ugly, scary message that will usually freak you out.))
Up Next
As mentioned in a previous post, PAGE level recovery is a fantastic option – IF you've just got a small-ish number of pages that are damaged. If gobs of pages are damaged or if you've got large numbers of log files that you'd need to apply manually (since the SSMS GUI prior to SQL Server 2012 doesn't allow PAGE level restores – meaning that you have to manually handle all t-log applications), then you'll potentially want to look at doing a full-blown FULL recovery operation. Then, I'll provide a working set of examples that you can use for a full-blown 'corruption example' that you can play with and do page-level restores on in your own environment, and follow up with a summary link to all of the posts in this series.
Part XI: Full Recovery Operations


text:
Hysterectomy rates drop as women learn their options Changing options
The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO, Calif.
Not until after the surgery did Sandra Nauer realize how sick she'd been.
"Oh, my gosh, I had no idea I was in such bad shape," said Nauer, 44, who lives in Galt, Calif.
After years of excruciating back pain, fatigue and other symptoms, she had an outpatient hysterectomy on May 22 - and on June 7, she returned to work running her catering business.
"I'm a new woman," she said. "Holy smokes, I feel like a million bucks."
For earlier generations of women, hysterectomy was all but a rite of passage before age 50, albeit a difficult one. Even now, it remains the second-most-performed surgical procedure for American women still of reproductive age, and by age 60, 1 in 3 women has undergone the surgical removal of the uterus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Despite that, hysterectomy rates in the past three decades have dropped from almost 56 per 10,000 women to 33 per 10,000, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists statistics show, and the surgery itself has been streamlined into minimally invasive procedures that make the operation and recovery easier.
But hysterectomy remains controversial. While many medical experts see good news in pioneering advances and quick recovery times, some of them also see bad news, as well, saying that up to two-thirds of the 600,000 hysterectomies performed each year in this country could be avoided.
Are too many women undergoing hysterectomies, even now? Should women think twice before having the surgery?
"The rate has come down a little but not enough," said Dr. William Parker, UCLA School of Medicine clinical professor and author of "A Gynecologist's Second Opinion."
"In the old days, hysterectomy was all we had to offer for patients. We were taught that it was the solution for almost every complaint."
Today, alternative treatments often replace surgery, particularly for women below age 50.
"One of the problems is that the information on alternatives hasn't seeped out as widely as it should into the medical world," said Parker. "A lot of the newer surgeries now are minimally invasive, but many doctors haven't been trained to do them."
For younger women, 90 percent of hysterectomies deal not with reproductive cancers but rather with pelvic pain; uterine fibroids, or benign tumors; excessive bleeding; and endometriosis.
For older women, the most common underlying diagnosis is cancer.
Side effects of the surgery — which involves the removal of the ovaries in almost three-fourths of patients - can include the early onset of menopause, bladder and bowel problems and loss of sex drive.
Research also shows that hysterectomy can increase a woman's risk of heart disease and lung cancer.
"It's important that women understand, even if they're not having children any more, they might like to have sex, and they might like not having a heart attack," said Nora Coffey, founder of the Pennsylvania-based Hysterectomy Education Resources and Services Foundation.
"Whether the surgery is life-saving or completely unnecessary, you deserve to know the consequences."
But other medical experts insist that alternative treatments are always their first choice before surgery.
Hormone treatments can help relieve abnormal uterine bleeding and other menstrual cycle disorders, for example, as can endometrial ablation. Similarly, medications can help shrink uterine fibroids.
"There are certainly non-surgical ways to deal with female problems besides removing the uterus," said Dr. Wesley Hilger, medical director of Sutter Medical Center's minimally invasive gynecology program. "It's a conversation you have with the patient."
Like other experts, he also sees a significant generational change in women's attitudes, with younger, consumer-oriented patients more comfortable demanding answers from their doctors.
"Many older patients who've had hysterectomy years ago don't know why," he said. "They'll say, 'My doctor said I needed it.'
"Now patients have access to information on the Internet. We have a real discussion. The age of the paternalistic doctor is over. Now the decision is more what works for their condition and their lifestyle."
Of the 1,500 hysterectomies he estimates that he's performed in the past six years, he said, only a handful have involved the traditional abdominal incision stretching from hip to hip. Most are vaginal, laporoscopic or robotic surgeries, and increasingly no overnight hospital stay is involved.
"You have to overcome historical bias," he said. "Patients have the idea that because their mother was in the hospital five days after her hysterectomy, they should be, too."
Noreen Rademacher, now 86, remembers the wave of hysterectomies that rippled through her age group of women four decades ago, and she remembers friends being bedridden with pain for much of their six-month recovery times.
When she was in her early 70s - a retired teacher, widow and breast cancer survivor - she had a hysterectomy herself after she was diagnosed with a benign baseball-size growth outside her uterus.
"My doctor said, 'While I'm down there, why not get rid of everything?'" said Rademacher. "He said, 'You don't need it, and I'll remove the possibility of you getting cervical or ovarian cancer in the future.'"
She spent a few days in the hospital after her hysterectomy and within a week was back to walking her dog and taking exercise class. And she has no regrets.
"Once you've had cancer, you don't want it again," she said.
Sandra Nauer thinks her decision to undergo hysterectomy not only solved ongoing gynecologic issues now but also prevented problems in years to come.
After an abnormal Pap smear and extensive tests, she chose a minimally invasive procedure. And then her mother and grandmother, who both had hysterectomies in their 40s, started sharing their long-ago experiences with her.
"All these horror stories," said Nauer. "I was really nervous about the surgery. I heard things from other women, all these frightening things. Everyone said, 'You'll never be the same. You'll be down physically for a couple of years.'
"I was really scared, but it was nothing like I expected it to be."
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
More like this from vindy.com
- January 25, 2007 midnight
Coping with uterine fibroids
- March 8, 2016 midnight
Womb-transplant recipient grateful to donor's family for chance at pregnancy
- August 1, 2005 midnight
WOMEN'S HEALTH Study challenges removing ovaries
- July 21, 2015 midnight
The minimally invasive surgery system cuts pain and recovery time
- August 1, 2005 midnight
Study challenges removing ovaries
Subscribe Today
Sign up for our email newsletter to receive daily news.
Want more? Click here to subscribe to either the Print or Digital Editions.


text:
Central Connecticut seniors Thomas Obasi and Reece Wilson were both honored by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America on Friday. The NSCAA announced its 2012 Men's University Division Scholar All-America First-Team and it included both Obasi and Wilson.
28 total student-athletes make up the 2012 Scholar All-America first, second, and third teams (11 first-team, 11 second-team, and six third-team). Of the 28 student-athletes, Obasi and Wilson are the only two representatives of the Northeast Conference.
Wilson is an accounting major who maintained a GPA of 3.84 to land him a spot on the first-team roster. The reigning NEC Player of the Year led his team in goals (9), assists (6), and points (24) this season. Wilson was also the first player in CCSU history to be named to the COSIDA Capitol One Academic All-American team.
Obasi, also a senior and 2012 NEC First-Teamer, boasted a GPA of 3.66 as a Communications major at CCSU. He recorded seven points this season off of one goal and five assists.
Both Wilson and Obasi were also named to the 2012 Scholar All-North Atlantic First-Team by the NSCAA back on December 10th.


text:
Hey Tant, don't forget... MaseyRay doesn't just fall down, he falls down with FLAIR! Never less than a full rotation before hitting the deck. The Natural Born Offense Killer generates more torque on the way down than most compact cars.tantalum wrote: Oh and....
I'm sure RD won't find it funny but wow if he was doing the Hartnell money to charity every time he falls, he could have built a hospital wing from the Phoenix game alone.
People ask why wouldn't you love such tenacious D from your forwards? Because you would prefer your top 6 to be generating scoring opportunities in offensive zone! Not chasing the other team after twisting and turning into a pretzel and then turning the puck over.
The Sedins would be jealous of Raymond's proceeds to charity.