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I can hardly contain my excitement- in just a matter of days, my best friend is moving across the country and we will be neighbors! To prepare I have been practicing my gluten-free baking skills (she recently discovered she is gluten intolerant). I am dying to share a super simple muffin recipe I made that the husband literally wrote me a love letter for, but I this fried rice has been nagging at me to be shared for awhile now so here we go…
I'm really more of a stir-fry girl than fried rice… Indeed, I'm not typically drawn to things with the word "fried" in the description. My husband, however, loves anything fried and orders fried rice almost every time we go to an Asian restaurant of any sort. So I tried making fried rice at home, using the method in which the eggs are cracked into the pan and scrambled/ cooked into the vegetables, but I could never learn to like that texture. Finally, I read about a different method of cooking the eggs separately on Heidi's site, and it revolutionized my fried rice!
Once I learn a really good method of cooking something, it's much easier to create recipe variations on the fly. To be completely honest, I don't think I've ever made the same stir-fry or fried rice twice. Both of these can be made with almost whatever produce is on hand and can be made quickly- huge bonuses in this house! I have been making a lot of these types of dishes with our CSA goods. They also both rely on a method of cooking tofu that I adhere to for many dishes.
Forgiving as this recipe is, there are a few things that I think really make it stand out: Besides the method of cooking the tofu and eggs, I like to use brown basmati rice- I buy it in bulk at Costco and am absolutely in love with it. It has the flavor and aroma of basmati, with the nutrition of brown rice. It is nice and fluffy, not sticky like some brown rice can be. I also like a combination of coconut and sesame oil for cooking. Coconut oil and sesame oil both have strong flavors and a little goes a long way. You can use another oil instead, I frequently do, but it doesn't pack quite the same punch. Lastly, I add a bit of liquid such as broth or juice mixed with soy sauce at the end. The addition of the liquid reduces the amount of oil you will need to "fry" the rice.
Miso-Ginger Fried Rice with Nori Strips:
*2 1/2 cups cooked and cooled rice or other grain such as quinoa or barley
*7 oz. (1/2 package) tofu, cubed and cooked (*see instructions below)
*2 large eggs, preferably free-range organic
*2 1/2 cups chopped vegetables (this batch included chopped red onion, julienned carrots, chopped broccoli, sliced cabbage, and shitake mushrooms. Last week we had snow peas- my favorite!)
*2 teaspoons sesame oil
*1- 1 1/2 tablespoons coconut oil
*1/4 cup orange juice
*4-6 tablespoons soy sauce (or tamari for a gluten-free version)
*1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
*1 tablespoon white miso
*1 small clove garlic, minced
*1/2 sheet nori, cut into strips (toasting gives an even better flavor, but careful not to burn it!)
1. Begin by making the sauce, combining orange juice, ginger, garlic, miso, 2-4 tablespoons soy sauce (depending on how salty you want it). You can use this sauce to braise the tofu as well, or you can use plain soy sauce.
2. Next, prepare the eggs: Heat 2 teaspoons sesame oil in your skillet or wok. Beat two eggs with a pinch of salt and pour into wok. Cook until almost set, then flip and cook a minute more. Cool and slice into strips.
3. Heat 2 teaspoons coconut oil in wok and add the onions, cooking a few minutes before adding the other vegetables. When the vegetables are tender-crisp, add the rice. Stir to mix evenly and cook until heated through. Add the tofu and egg, then pour the sauce in. Stir and cook until liquid is absorbed.
4. Serve hot, garnished with nori strips.
*Ah tofu… It has such a bad rep among the general population, yet it really has such potential! I still remember my first time trying to cook tofu… I was in 8th grade. I bought some silken tofu and tried to cube and saute it in a pan. It crumbled all over and was flavorless and awful! I now use tofu in a variety of dishes, cooked in different manners, but when I make stir-fry or fried rice or sometimes even a curry, I use this method:
1. Begin with the right tofu. Buy the firmest regular tofu you can find. Extra Firm if you can find it. And don't use silken tofu for this!
2. Press the tofu. Layer a few paper towels on a big plate, set the block of tofu on top, layer a few more paper towels, then another plate and finally something heavy like a text book to set on top of the plate. Leave for at least 30 minutes or overnight in the fridge. This will help remove excess water so that the tofu can absorb more flavor. When the tofu has drained, cut it into 1/2 – 3/4 inch cubes.
3. Heat a little oil (2 teaspoons should be plenty) in a wok or large nonstick skillet. I really like to use coconut oil here for the flavor and the high heat properties , but you can use what you have on hand. Add the tofu and cook until golden brown on two or more sides, flipping the pieces after a few minutes to cook evenly. This should take about 8 minutes.
4. Now here is the important part: Prepare 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, with or without seasonings such as garlic, ginger, chile, or a hint of something sweet like agave or orange juice. Drizzle this into the pan with the crisped tofu, coating as evenly as possible and stir until all liquid is absorbed.
I'm going to be working a long stretch starting tomorrow… I like to have either super simple or make ahead meals when I work long days. Any ideas for a make ahead or quick dinner?


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January 11, 2012
Mary Petersen Gives $100,000 to Support Staff Development
Switchboard job became a 40-year career at UCLA Anderson
By Robert Humphrey Gyde
In her 40-year career as an administrator at UCLA Anderson, Mary Petersen wore many hats - from running the switchboard to supervising the move to the school's current campus. Retired since 1997, Mary is now embarking on a new role as an important benefactor of the school. Her $100,000 endowment will help staff members find the same kind of opportunities to grow professionally that she enjoyed in her long and varied career.
When Mary started on the switchboard in 1957, Westwood was still a village and UCLA Anderson was the Graduate School of Business Administration, housed in what is now Dodd Hall. It was her first job after graduating with a bachelor of science in business education from UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. She was happy to be earning the princely sum of $243 a month, out of which "I could pay for my apartment, food, clothing, whatever I needed." There were fewer options to spend a paycheck in the Westwood of that era. This was long before Whole Foods, boutique hotels, designer bars and the global cuisine now on offer. Students and residents had to make do with a Bullocks department store (where the Ralphs now stands), the Fox Theater and a Desmond's clothing store. Of course, Mary adds, there were beer busts. (Some things never change.)
The business school was a much smaller institution in those days. It did, however, boast an all-star roster of faculty including Neil Jacoby, dean of the school and a member of President Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisors; Harold Koontz and Cyril O'Donnell, co-authors of the seminal "Principles of Management"; Fred Weston, the father of M&A studies; Bob Williams, founder of the UCLA Business Forecast; and Robert Tannenbaum, a pioneer in business leadership theory. Mary recalls that relations between faculty and staff were remarkably relaxed and cordial, noting: "In the late '50s, the faculty used to get together and put on a show for the staff. They called it Faculty Frolics."
Mary thrived in the collegial atmosphere, soon parlaying her stenography qualification and practical bent into a move away from the switchboard to secretary and then senior administrative assistant. Her career advanced steadily throughout the 1960s and she was on hand to witness the campus uprisings, from sit-ins in the chancellor's office to tent cities protesting the Vietnam War. She smiles at the thought that "Even some of the faculty got arrested!" Although she hastens to add that those intrepid professors did not include "Anybody here now."
Mary married Pete Petersen in 1971. They had met many years earlier as fellow badminton devotees when he would drive her and other top junior players to tournaments. Pete was an effects specialist in the film industry spending most of his career at Twentieth Century Fox. His specialty was women's "hard wardrobe," which covered costume adornments from earrings to suits of armor. Prior to his retirement in 1980, Pete worked with many of the screen goddesses of Hollywood's golden age, including Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis and Kathryn Hepburn. Mary's enthusiasm for all things UCLA soon converted Pete into an honorary Bruin, and they were perennial basketball and football season ticket holders.
As Mary settled into married life, Harold Williams was shaking things up at the business school. Appointed dean in 1970, Williams initiated a profound transformation of the academic mission of the school and a radical reorganization of its administrative services. Mary admires Williams as an innovator who shifted the school's educational focus from the master of science degree to the more professionally oriented MBA. On the administrative side, Williams rationalized and centralized a system in which each department had previously maintained its own staff, budget and operating procedures. Mary was in a good position to appreciate the reorganization as the director of financial services, a role in which she managed many areas, including contracts, grant proposals, gifts and endowments, payroll, travel and purchasing.
Perhaps the crowning achievement of Mary's tenure at UCLA Anderson was her pivotal role in moving the school to its new campus. By the time John Anderson's gift set in motion the planning and building of the new facilities in 1987, Mary's career path had taken yet another turn into facilities management. As director of facilities services, Mary recalls that, "We planned for a couple of years before the countdown." Mary views the new complex, which opened in 1995, with great pride but also through the eyes of a facilities manager: "It's beautiful, but the atria - that's all lost space. It's not assignable square footage." She feels that the multi-building layout tends to isolate people in a way that the more cramped but intimate quarters of Dodd Hall did not: "If you don't have a particular reason to see someone, you may not see them." This is why Mary hopes that part of her gift will go to finding and furbishing a space for a new staff lounge - a venue for people to meet and get to know one another.
After her retirement in 1997 and the loss of her husband, Mary has maintained close connections to UCLA. She remains an ardent Bruins basketball and football fan and is on campus frequently to dine with friends and former colleagues at the Faculty Center. She also plays racquetball at the Wooden Center two or three days a week. Mary's first venture into Bruin philanthropy was in 2007 when she established an endowment to support women's volleyball. She sees her current gift to UCLA Anderson as filling an important gap: "Most of the fundraising that's done is to benefit students or faculty. I wanted to do something for staff."
In December 2011, Mary was honored at the staff holiday party where Dean Judy Olian applauded her for being "A shining example of Business Beyond Usual, long before we came up with the slogan. She devoted her professional life to the school and wants to help her successors in the administration grow and advance in their careers. We thank Mary for her lifetime of service and her generous gift, which will provide important future opportunities to our staff."
Mary credits her generosity to a lifelong love affair with UCLA Anderson: "It's most of my life and I'm just enchanted with the place." She's giving now while she still has colleagues working at the school who remember her. But she's eager to make one thing clear: "I intend to stay around a while!"Contact Information
Media Relations, (310) 206-7707, firstname.lastname@example.com


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Shakira stopped by "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" to talk about her family, "The Voice" and her new album before delivering a rocking performance.
First, Fallon mentioned that Shakira should have taken part of the "Funny Face" competition he had earlier with Jude Law because last year the Columbia-born singer tweeted a hilarious photo of her frowning alongside her pouting son Milan.
"He's like my mini-me, he's identical," Shakira said.
However, it sounds like Milan wants to be more like Shakira's husband, Spanish football star Gerard Pique.
When Fallon asked if Milan was showed a preference for music or sports, Shakira said, "He's after the soccer ball, all day long. He likes kicking the ball."
The late-night host mentioned that the singer's new self-titled album explored many genres--even touting a country song with Blake Shelton.
"He's got a great voice, he's got a manly voice, that's how a man should sing!" Shakira said.
But it didn't take much for Shakira to show the competitive side she has on "The Voice."
When Fallon brought up "Can't Remember to Forget You"--the singer's work with Shelton's wife Miranda Lambert on the singing competition series--Shakira said, "I had to have my secret weapon. Shes like a spy in the Shelton headquarters.
She added, "I am determined to defeat Mr. Blake Shelton."
Shakira also talked about a new addition to "The Voice," Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.
"He's one of the the nicest guys," Shakira said. "He's one of my favorite artists and as a mentor, he is a natural. He's sweet to the contestants and also he's very smart. The input he gives is just accurate and precise. It's a treat to have him."
News of Martin's split from his wife of 10 years Gwyneth Paltrow had not been made public at the time of taping last night's episode.
Finally, Shakira talked about her 8:30am performance on the TODAY show the very next morning.
"I don't promise anything amazing," Shakira said. "I'm going to try my best!"
Watch the interview above.


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With a strong emphasis on respect for all, we forge effective and supportive relationships with both pupils and adults in our learning community. Together we maximise every opportunity to achieve success for all, inspiring pupils to achieve excellent academic progress.
Visit this area to find out all the latest news and information @ Oakwood.
This area is designed to give pupils, parents and carers up to date information on all aspects of school life.
This area shows our current vacancies and guidelines for applicants.
This area provides access to policies, guidance and training, forms and key operating documents and links for use by school staff and governors. There is also an area for staff feedback which is critical in supporting the future direction and development of the school.
This area is password protected and is for the use of Staff and Governors only.
Home » Careers » Help and support


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Although our pergola kits are easy to install, many customers hire a professional to handle the installation and to assist with other projects like staining/painting, patio/pavers, hardscaping, and outdoor kitchens. Pergola Depot has this listing of a network of pergola installers and service providers in the United States and Canada as a reference for our customers.
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|Business Name
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Geographic service area(s): Fairfield County
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|1442 Mill Plain Rd
Fairfield, Connecticut 06824
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Vehicles on estates with parking enforcement must display a valid parking permit or otherwise be subject to a Parking Charge Notice.
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A few days ago, I was reading an article in ESPN Magazine (I started getting a subscription to it a while back after I signed up to play fantasy baseball at ESPN.com) by Vivian Chum that talked about what you would need to do to get a job as an NFL coach (you can read the article online if you're a subscriber). After reading the article and letting it ruminate in my mind for a while, I began to realize that the article actually had pretty good advice for any "dream job" a person might have. In fact, I used most of the advice in the article on my own path to becoming a full-time writer (a "dream job" for me that seemed totally unrealistic five years ago).
The ESPN article had six tips, but while thinking about them and remixing them a bit, I stretched them into seven distinct steps. Here they are, along with my own application of them while moving from office work to a stay-at-home writer and dad.
1. Work for free.
Internships. Taking on projects without pay. Volunteer work. What do these all have in common? They're great ways to gain experience in competitive fields, but you're trading pay for a deeper level of experience than you might get otherwise. Almost every field under the sun has some avenue to build experience through internships and volunteerism, from coaching and computer programming to office work and trades. Such situations allow you to gain incredibly valuable experience, the kind of experience that will launch you into real work in that field.
Of course, you'll need to put food on the table while doing this, so I usually suggest working at another job first and saving every possible dime so you can live off of your savings while doing the internship or volunteer job.
As a writer, "working for free" largely meant blogging, especially at first when I didn't have many readers. I spent a lot of time writing articles for The Simple Dollar (and for earlier blogs of mine, including a parenting blog) and not earning anything from them aside for perhaps enough pocket change to buy a cup of coffee. I kept plugging away. What happened? I became a better writer. I learned what my audience wanted to read. And, gradually, readers started coming.
2. Have some unusual resume elements.
What experiences or knowledge can you bring to the table that differentiates you from the others? You'd be surprised how often something "outside of the box" can get the attention of others, even if some of the other candidates have better "ordinary" resumes. This often goes hand-in-hand with the internship/volunteer suggestion above – if you're plying your trade in an unusual and challenging situation, you're going to immediately win some respect from potential employers or clients.
Always seek out the unusual and challenging in your life experiences, whether directly tied to your dreams or not. Such life experiences build both character and adaptability, which are invaluable at almost any career.
What did I do that was unusual? In terms of the obvious, I think I did two things differently. First, I openly admit that I flunked (badly) the early personal finance tests in my life (and still fail some) and, second and more importantly, I was willing to admit that while also writing about personal finance. I have never, ever tried to create a sense that I am some sort of personal finance guru or expert. That's different, and I think that's why the most popular personal finance blogs have succeeded – they're not afraid to admit failure in a field where everyone seems to constantly talk about the "big win" and how much money they're making.
3. Keep those unusual elements to yourself.
You don't need to go around bragging about your great experiences. Keep them quiet and under the vest and just let your walking do the talking. You're almost always better off to understate what you've experienced and what your skills are than to brag about them or overstate them. Yes, bring them out when you're shipping a resume, but don't bring them up when you're working. Keep them in your back pocket until you can bring those great elements to actual use.
It's a lot more impressive (and demand-creating) if you can slap together a computer network quickly out of whatever equipment is lying around out of the blue than if you spend some time each week bragging about how you set up networking in an African village.
There are some elements of my own life that I don't discuss that somewhat shape my perspective on here and make it "unique" in some ways. I occasionally mention them, but I don't use them as a red badge of courage. I don't need to. The end result is that when such an issue comes up and I do actaully mention some of those issues, it makes much more of an impact. Here's an example of this, when I talked about the deep value of $4 prescriptions for me personally.
4. Ask your biggest doubter to be your mentor.
The person you should be asking for help and for mentoring is the person whose skill set is far beyond yours. Tell that person flat-out that you are woefully inexperienced, but that you want to learn from them because of the respect you have for their work. Ask them what it takes to make it.
There's no reason not to swing for the fences here. It's only rarely that a person gets a sincere face-to-face request to be a mentor from a person humble enough to admit their faults but ambitious enough to actually ask for help and smart enough to actually seek that help. The traits of a person willing to do this are the traits that most people recognize as ones needed for success in any field.
I've had three major mentors in my life. When I first met each of them, I was barely on their radar screen. Each time, I found an opportunity to talk with them, explain where I was, explain the respect I had for their work, and simply ask for help. Each time, they happily offered it, for my own benefit. What did they get in return? There are three people out there who will always have my help if they ask for it, period.
5. Learn some tricks, practice them, and keep them to yourself.
Every career path has skills and tactics that are the basis for impressive work. It can be anything from incredibly fast collation or some great programming or writing techniques to mad skills with Photoshop or playing the piano.
Even some skills that aren't necessarily related to one's career path can be a huge virtue, as they can often be the tie-breaker between similar candidates. Which candidate would you hire – the ordinary one or the one who is such a good piano player that they've made money doing it in their past?
Learning such skills teaches you discipline and patience. Even better, these skills can often burst out at incredibly fortunate times – I witnessed someone open up to a colleague due to a piano duet before.
The more skills and tricks you have – particularly well-practiced ones you can pick up at any time – the better off you are.
My "secret skills" include some strong programming experience and the ability to write very good first drafts, which minimizes the amount of time I have to spend revising (at least for blog postings). My programming experience came from a previous career, while my solid first drafts came from my high school English teacher.
6. Be a nerd.
The more you enjoy obsessing about the minutiae of your work, the better off you'll be in the long run. Revel in learning more about your work. Dig deep into the details, even the trivial ones. Hang out with other people who similarly love the details.
Great politicians (think Bill Clinton) obsess about politics and congregate with other political nerds. Great computer programmers (think Richard Stallman) obsess about programming and congregate with other programming nerds. The list goes on and on – the top people obsess over and practice the details and love congregating with other nerds about the same topic.
I love to read and write. I participate in a lot of different writer's forums, particularly those that focus on a lot of the "nerd" details of writing. It's not about just throwing down words on a page, after all. I often "practice" this nerdery by trying writing experiments and digging into specific skills (like better metaphors, etc.).
7. Read. Read more. Read even more.
Whatever you want to be doing, you should be reading about. Spend at least an hour reading about your topic of focus every day. Read technical books on your area. Read books that connect your area to others. Read books that round out your learning in other areas.
Read. Reading is learning. Reading makes you grow not only in your field, but as a person.
I read three books a week, minimum. One of them is usually related to The Simple Dollar. Once a month or so, I read a book strictly related to writing.
You can do this. It takes time and passion, but almost everyone on Earth can have a job they dream about if they're willing to invest the time and make the sacrifices needed to get there. Just throwing your resume out there will just mean rejections – you have to go beyond that.
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we've been spending LOTS of time indoors.
Friday, January 14, 2011
* Winter Rice Sensory Box
With temperatures in the teens and twenties for the past several weeks,
we've been spending LOTS of time indoors.
we've been spending LOTS of time indoors.
Last week, I dumped the frozen ice blocks out of our
water play table that was sitting sadly on our deck.
I used some Method LeScrub and an old towel
to spiff it up and clean up all of the dirt and mud stains.
Then, I poured the contents of our
Winter Wonderland box into the dry "water" table
and it's been 9 solid days of afternoon entertainment.
Even big sister and her friend joined in this week.
It's also been a great way to practice our sweeping and dust pan skills.
You can't have rice avalanches without a little spillage!
Yes, I know that polar bears and penguins don't live together - we're not that picky around here.
I've also set up our light table in the playroom
for some more fun play!
(It's just my old light box on one of the girls' Ikea Play tables)
You can make your own Light Table with an acrylic box-style frame,
a piece of white paper, and some low-temperature LED lights
(like xmas lights, a flash light, or battery operated tea lights)
Snowflakes and Snowmen made out of shapes!
The blocks you see on our table were a Christmas gift from our favorite Aunt Darb....
You can get your own
Happy Winter!
pink and green mama
Posted by pink and green mama MaryLea
Labels: Christmas, Holidays, Preschool, School Age, Sensory Box, Toddler, Winter
Blog Archive
- ► 2013 (74)
- ► 2012 (164)
- * Pink and Green Mama Crafts: Winter Fun eBook
- * Valentine's Day Craft: Felt Heart Barrettes
- * Snow Day Craft: Pom-Pom Milk Shakes!
- * Valentine's Day Craft: Recycled Valentine's Day ...
- * Valentine Button Heart Sign Craft
- * Preschool At Home: Ground Coffee Sensory Box
- * Winter Rice Sensory Box
- * Shrinky Dink Fun: Homemade Stuffed Animal Name T...
- * Homemade Recycled Calendar Mod-Podge Puzzles
- * Getting Organized: Storing Barbie Doll Clothing
- * Getting Organized: Doll Clothes
- * Homemade Gift: Grandpa Book!
- ▼ January (12)
- ► 2010 (172)
- ► 2009 (161)


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When I was in kindergarten one of my classmates had some guppies, or at least they had a male and female guppy, because those guppies did what guppies do, and soon there were quite a few guppies. So, one day in class for those interested we had a drawing for the baby guppies. There were estimated to be about 20-25 guppies and there were about 28 kids in the class.
Everyone was interested. We drew numbers. My number was 26. I stood off to the side with the other "no luck" kids as those with numbers 1 through 25 lined up to get their guppies. After Number 25 got his guppy, I heard the teacher say, "Oops, there's one more guppy in here." My guppy!
I named him Sylvester. For a tiny guy, there was a lot of work involved in taking care of him. Feeding was easy enough, but his aquarium had to be cleaned often and thoroughly. It was of course my mother who took care of this. But when there was a death in her family she had to go stay with relatives for a few days, so my Dad, brother, and I were left to "batch it" alone. Mom left strict instructions on how to take care of ourselves, Trina, and Sylvester. Well, Dad and Don did pretty well on most counts. They fed Sylvester. But fish do not live by fish flakes alone, and … the inevitable happened.
When I was in sixth grade my parents came home with a little white kitten. They had gone to a party at a restaurant downtown and found the kitten scampering around outside. This was in a commercial district where there were no apartments or private homes nearby. My parents brought him home. I named him Robespierre, Robes for short. Robes, Trina, and Pierre ended up being playmates. Well, the play mostly amounted to play fighting, but it truly was play: the dogs did not clamp down with their teeth and Robes never extended his claws. They would simply grab hold of one another and roll around and around. And when any one of them had to spend some time at the vet, the other two would pine around for the missing one.
The next addition to our menagerie was our parakeet George. We inherited George when his elderly owner, a friend of our family, died. George loved to talk and he loved to snuggle up to his alter ego in the mirror. Robes never took any real interest in George, and for that we were grateful.
My final childhood animal friend was another cat. I was in high school and my mother and I were living in Seymour, Texas. One cold and rainy night I heard meowing outside, and when I looked out our front door, I saw a little black kitten huddled up on our porch, trying to keep out of the rain. It was one of those "I just want to bring him in out of the rain and maybe feed him tonight" moments with my mother, but of course that was not the end of it. We named him Rebus; I can't remember why, but perhaps it was because it sounded like Robes. He was my buddy and my confidante and helped me get through various episodes of high school angst, even when I became indignant at his brazen attempt to eat all the icing on my birthday cake one year.
A house does not feel like a home to me without animal family members. My husband feels the same way, although he was raised in an animal-free household due to severe family allergies, not the least of all his own. Our daughters have mild to medium allergies where animals with fur are concerned; I alone have none. However, cats do not seem to cause too severe a reaction in anyone here, so that is what we have and have had for some years. Our younger daughter in particular has always had a bad case of "Can I bring it home?" Neither daughter minds the idea of having furry siblings. We all understand that while we dearly love our human family, it is always great to have someone to come home to who will never judge you. And that is a family member who just happens to be an animal.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Memory Monday: Pets, Part 2
3 comments:
We have always had a dog at our house. And I agree - they are absolutely a member of the family. We just lost our dog that we had for 16 years. So sad. Sometimes we feel like we still hear her when we come home and forget that she's not here. I loved hearing about your pets!ReplyDelete
I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your dog. Even now, remembering the loss of our animals from long ago brings tears to my eyes. I guess it's best to focus on the many years of love that we had.ReplyDelete
This brought back memories about my pets, good, and funny ones to boot. Maybe I will blog about them one day! Enjoyed your article! Thanks!ReplyDelete
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Festival draws top band members from the area
Wednesday, May 1, 2013 2:00 AM
Pittsburg, KS
Approximately 200 of the best high school musicians from the area will be on the Pittsburg State University campus on Thursday, May 2, for the 30th annual Four-State Band Festival.
Festival Director Craig Fuchs said the students will perform throughout the day for two clinicians: Chris Bernotas, a high school band director and composer from New Jersey, and Tim Oliver, director of bands at Arkansas State University.
"The purpose is to provide outstanding band students from the region the opportunity to meet and interact with the composer who wrote the music they are playing and also to provide an honor band experience in which they will perform with other high achieving musicians from the area," Fuchs said.
The festival will conclude with a free concert at 7 p.m. in Pittsburg's Memorial Auditorium. The PSU Wind Ensemble will open the concert, followed by two honors bands.
Fuchs said the festival is also a good recruitment tool for PSU's Department of Music.
"Many of our current students were members of the Four-State Band when they were in high school," he said.


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Here's a two-fisted webcomic for fans of Clark Gable and old action movies: Ace Kilroy, the story of a Gable-esque tough guy who is sent by his good friend, President Franklin Roosevelt, to investigate a Nazi plot to harness vampires and other supernatural creatures to further their cause. Ace is a smart guy, but in true B-movie fashion, he knows when to let his fists do the talking. And the strip is smart, too—that's Secretary of State Cordell Hull hovering in the middle panel, behind FDR. I bet he doesn't show up in too many comics these days.
The webcomic launched on Halloween (of course!), and it updates daily, with a big color comic on Sundays. The archives are a quick read, and there's also a nicely designed dossier on the characters that shows that creators Rob Kelly and Dan O'Connor have really put some thought into this comic and are in it for the long haul. Kelly and O'Connor are trying to raise enough money via Kickstarter to work exclusively on the comic for a while, as well as to start work on a print edition and do some publicity. The Kickstarter campaign runs through this Wednesday, so if you like what you see, don't dally! Awards include, in typical 1930s fashion, membership in Ace's Allies, which I can only hope includes a secret decoder ring.


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Screening for Bladder Cancer
|The safety and scientific validity of this study is the responsibility of the study sponsor and investigators. Listing a study does not mean it has been evaluated by the U.S. Federal Government. Read our disclaimer for details.
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00848627
Recruitment Status : Unknown
Verified December 2010 by Baylor College of Medicine.
Recruitment status was: Recruiting
First Posted : February 20, 2009
Last Update Posted : December 10, 2010
- Study Details
- Tabular View
- No Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
|Condition or disease
|Bladder Cancer
|Other: Specimen and questionnaires only
Reduction of cancer mortality is a stated goal of the National Cancer Institute. Cancer of the bladder is the 4th most commonly diagnosed cancer and 7th leading cause of cancer death in the American men, and represents an important target for mortality-reducing efforts. Furthermore, these tumors, even in early (i.e. curable) stages, usually cause several easily detectable abnormalities, including hematuria, and the presence of abnormal tumor products that are shed into urine or lie within exfoliated malignant cells.
The overall goal of the proposed study is to gain information concerning the performance characteristics of three bladder cancer markers when combined with hematuria testing in detecting bladder cancer.
A mail back questionnaire, completed at the beginning of the study, will provide information about the participants and the results of testings will be reported after each testing period. Individuals with even a solitary positive test will undergo a thorough urologic evaluation to determine the cause of hematuria and follow-up will continue or 2 years after completion of the study. At the time of the evaluation, three bladder cancer marker tests, NMP22 Bladder Chek, ImmunoCyt and UroVysion FISH will be performed, but regardless of the results, a hematuria evaluation will be completed. Data will be updated continually.
The 10 day testing with Hemastix will be repeated 9 months after the first one is completed regardless of the outcome of the first testing.
|Study Type :
|Estimated Enrollment :
|1500 participants
|Observational Model:
|Time Perspective:
|Official Title:
|Screening for Bladder Cancer
|Study Start Date :
|March 2007
|Estimated Primary Completion Date :
|February 2012
|Estimated Study Completion Date :
|February 2015
60 years of age or older Smokers or history of smoking
Other: Specimen and questionnaires only
Specimen and questionnaires only
- Since the marker tests will only be administered to individuals with a positive Hemastix test, these are eight possible outcomes (one case with all negative marker tests and seven cases with as least one positive marker tests). [ Time Frame: After last subject completes the study. ]
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|60 Years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
|Sampling Method:
|Probability Sample
Inclusion Criteria:
- Men age 60 and over, - who are current cigarette smokers OR - who have a history of at least 20 pack years smoking OR - who have over a 30 pack/year history who have stopped smoking within 10 years of the registration date OR - who have a 40 pack year history of smoking regardless of the quit date, will be eligible for participation.
- Patients with prostate or renal cancer must have been treated more than 5 years previously and be considered disease-free at the time of entry. In the case of prostate cancer, patients may have only received prostatectomy as their treatment and must have undetectable PSA's at study entry.
- In the case of calculus disease, patients must be believed to be stone free at time of study entry and could not have had a stone attack within the previous 2 years.
- Patients receiving anticoagulation therapy, such as Warfarin, Plavix, Lovenox, aspirin, etc. will be able to take part in the study and, will be thoroughly worked-up if the only explainable cause of hematuria is receiving anticoagulation medication.
Exclusion Criteria:
- history of urothelial cancer
- any malignancy other than non-melanoma skin cancers treated within the past 5 years
- benign tumors of the urinary tract that are still existent
- known urinary calculi
- medical or oncological conditions known to produce hematuria (e.g. glomerulonephritis, treatments with cyclophosphamide, methotrexate and pelvic radiation therapy)
- visual, psychological, neurological, musculoskeletal, etc. impairments that would make home testing impractical
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT00848627
|Contact: Susan L. Kinsgton, LVN, CCRP
|United States, New York
|University of Rochester Medical Center
|Rochester, New York, United States
|Contact: EDWARD MESSING, MD 585-275-3345 email@example.com
|United States, Texas
|M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
|Houston, Texas, United States, 77030
|Contact: Colin Dinney, MD 713-792-3250 firstname.lastname@example.com
|Principal Investigator: Colin Dinney, MD
|Principal Investigator: H. Barton Grossman, MD
|Canada, Quebec
|Laval University
|Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
|Contact: YVES FRADET, MD 418-691-55 firstname.lastname@example.com
|Principal Investigator:
|Seth P. Lerner, MD
|Baylor College of Medicine
|Responsible Party:
|Seth P. Lerner, Baylor College of Medicine
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT00848627 History of Changes
|Obsolete Identifiers:
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|First Posted:
|February 20, 2009 Key Record Dates
|Last Update Posted:
|December 10, 2010
|Last Verified:
|December 2010
Keywords provided by Baylor College of Medicine:
Bladder cancer
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Urinary Bladder Neoplasms
Urologic Neoplasms
Urogenital Neoplasms
Neoplasms by Site
Urinary Bladder Diseases
Urologic Diseases


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Hi! I've known about this forum for a while, but I'm not really active here. Hopefully someday, I'll become active.
Anyway, I started a blog for odd science questions a week or so ago that you might enjoy if you like whatif.xkcd.com. The URL is http://oddsciencequestions.blogspot.com/. You can send questions to oddsciencequestions(at)gmail.com if you're interested.
My blog
Think your art is better or your stick figures worse? Got a link to a site you want to share? Post it here!
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Turn technology innovation into business results at an Innovation Workshop.
Every year, more than 200 of the world's largest corporations and governments attend Innovation Workshop sessions with Accenture Labs.
These highly interactive and results-focused workshops are designed to help your teams address a specific problem and walk away with a clear plan of action to address it.
Experienced facilitators guide the group through challenges to ideas to solutions—both for today and the future.
Depending on the topic, workshops span one to multiple days, giving your team time to immerse themselves in ideas, away from daily distractions.
Through these workshops, we help clients answer important questions such as:
How can technologies like "social" and "mobile" be used to enhance my customers' experience?
What should our cloud/platform-as-a-service vision and strategy be?
How do we balance privacy and data security concerns with all these new trends in cloud, mobile and big data?
How do I bring the best of my organization's knowledge, assets, and expertise to every situation and drive widespread improvements in knowledge sharing and retention?
How do I help my organization unlock the full potential value of its data?
Innovation workshops are held at dedicated facilities equipped with advanced technologies.


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At least four journalists were assaulted on May 18, 2014, outside the house of a high-ranking party leader in Tamil Nadu.
Journalists gathered outside the home of MK Stalin, a leader in the regional Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party, who had offered to resign from his position following his party's loss in the country's Lok Sabha elections, reports said. Hours later, Stalin withdrew his offer to resign, a move that his political opponents called political "drama," the reports said.
The Hindustan Times reported that the attack first started when a journalist cited one of Stalin's opponents calling the leader's resignation a "drama." News reports described the assailants as DMK members and supporters and said at least four journalists were beaten and their equipment damaged.
The injured journalists included Shabbir Ahmed, reporter for the TV channel Times Now, and cameraman Jayaprakash; Daniel, cameraman for TV channel Headlines Today; and Karthikeyan, reporter for newsmagazine Puthiya Thalaimurai, The Hindu reported. One journalist sought treatment at a local hospital for rib injuries.
The journalists filed a complaint with police. Eleven party workers were arrested and placed in police custody for 14 days, according to reports.
The DMK condemned the attack, but denied that the assailants belonged to the party, reports said.


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More than forty years ago…
R.C. Sproul launched Ligonier Ministries to help students hear the clear voice of truth through the uncompromised teaching of Scripture. Just as the brave voices of the Reformation stood for truth in their day, he envisioned a ministry that would equip Christians to do the same, by the grace of God.
"Here we stand, with one voice, proclaiming truth for this and future generations."
—R.C. Sproul
Today, Ligonier stands in the great stream of historic Christianity poised to speak to a new generation. The world needs truth. And the greatest need of the hour is for Christians to speak with one voice for the truth of God's Word. We use every means available in order to reach as many people as possible through broadcasting, publishing, multi-faceted education, and conferences—all aimed at providing teaching and discipleship, in obedience to the Great Commission.
As we rise to meet the call of God on this ministry, will you stand with us? Together, let us proclaim the truth that our generation needs to hear.


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Liberals fear grand bargain betrayal
Labor unions and liberal interest groups are going all-out for President Barack Obama's reelection — but they're just as ready to turn that firepower back on him if he betrays them with a grand bargain.
These groups fear a victorious Obama would ink a deal with Republicans during the fiscal cliff negotiations that slashes entitlement benefits. And that could hurt the very coalition of voters — minorities, women and low- and middle-income families — that would claim credit for his second term. Even as they turn out the vote in public to keep Obama in office, in private they're plotting a strategy aimed at pressuring him to protect those who reelected him.
Story Continued Below
( Also on POLITICO: Obama makes pitch for unity)
The dual-track campaign, led by the AFL-CIO, MoveOn and a network of progressive advocacy organizations, highlights the political vice grip that awaits Obama if he wins Tuesday.
He wants a large-scale deficit deal. But it would inevitably mean making concessions to Republicans that infuriate the Democratic base that spent the past two years and tens of millions of dollars trying to return him to the White House. Progressives worry about which Obama will show up after Election Day: the pragmatist who offered benefit cuts to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in the 2011 debt ceiling talks or the partisan chastened by a failed deal to slice into prized Democratic programs.
"The base is not going to be happy with ham and egg justice" that requires disproportionate sacrifice from all but the wealthy, said Van Jones, Obama's former green jobs czar and founder of Rebuild the Dream, a progressive advocacy group. "It is a fiscal showdown. We're not going to blink. There is no reason in the world why the pillars of middle-class security, the earned benefits that our parents fought for, should be on the chopping block."
( PHOTOS: Final countdown to Election Day)
The course Obama chooses would set the tone for his second term — and it's not just Democrats he would need to massage. Republicans are likely to retain control of the House, and with it the power to derail or approve large items on the president's agenda, such as immigration reform. They will demand major fixes to entitlement programs and a renewal of the Bush-era tax rates for the wealthiest Americans.
Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill are gaming out scenarios, including the possibility of the president releasing his own plan and traveling the country to sell it. But the exact strategy depends on the outcome of Tuesday's presidential, House and Senate elections, how congressional Republican leaders interpret the results and whether the GOP relents on taxes, officials said.
Obama, if he wins, will assert that voters had a choice — and his vision on taxes, entitlements and the deficit prevailed.
"If I've won, then I believe that's a mandate for doing it in a balanced way," Obama said this week in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "We've already made a trillion dollars worth of cuts. We can do some more cuts. We can look at how we deal with the health care costs in particular under Medicare and Medicaid in a serious way. But we are also going to need some revenue."
But the big unknown is where Obama would draw the line once he plunges into the give-and-take of congressional deal making.
Progressive activists say they're reasonably confident that the president won't compromise on ending the upper-income tax cuts. It's the entitlements that worry them. They want him to stick more closely to the deficit-reduction plan he released in September 2011 that didn't go as aggressively after savings from beneficiaries.


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Na této stránce došlo k chybě skriptu. Zatímco ji budeme opravovat, můžete se níže podívat alespoň na část obsahu.
Tento překlad není kompletní. Prosím pomozte přeložit tento článek z angličtiny.
Add-ons add new functionality to Gecko-based applications such as Firefox, SeaMonkey and Thunderbird. There are two main types of add-on: Extensions add new features to the application, while Themes modify the application's user interface.
For both extensions and themes, Mozilla operates a repository at addons.mozilla.org, also known as AMO. When you submit add-ons to AMO they are reviewed, and after passing review they are made available to users. You don't have to submit add-ons to AMO, but if you do, users can take confidence in the fact that they have been reviewed, and you can benefit from AMO's visibility as a source for useful add-ons.
Add-ons can greatly affect the behaviour of the application that hosts them. We've developed a set of guidelines to help ensure that they provide a good experience to users. These guidelines apply for all sorts of add-ons, whether they are hosted at addons.mozilla.org or not.
Extensions add new functionality to Mozilla applications such as Firefox and Thunderbird. They can add new features to the browser, such as a different way to manage tabs, and they can modify web content to improve the usability or security of particular websites.
There are three different techniques you can use to build extensions: Add-on SDK-based extensions, manually bootstrapped restartless extensions, and overlay extensions.
- Add-on SDK extensions
Develop restartless extensions using a set of high-level JavaScript APIs.
- Restartless extensions
Develop extensions that don't require a browser restart.
- Overlay extensions
Develop traditional extensions using a XUL overlay.
If you can, it's advisable to use the Add-on SDK, which uses the restartless extension mechanism but simplifies certain tasks and cleans up after itself. If the Add-on SDK isn't sufficient for your needs, implement a manual restartless extension instead.
For more information on choosing which technique to use, read this comparison.
Good practices
No matter how you develop an extension, there are some guidelines you can follow to help ensure your extension provides as good a user experience as possible.
- Performance
- Ensuring your extension is fast, responsive and memory-efficient.
- Security
- Ensuring your extension doesn't expose the user to malicious websites.
- Etiquette
- Ensuring your extension plays nicely with other extensions.
Most of the documentation assumes you're developing for Firefox Desktop. If you're developing for some other Gecko-based application, there are major differences you need to know about.
- Thunderbird
- Developing extensions for the Thunderbird mail client.
- Firefox for Android
- Developing extensions for Firefox for Android.
- SeaMonkey
- Developing extensions for the SeaMonkey software suite.
Themes are add-ons that customize the application's user interface. There are two sorts of themes: lightweight themes and complete themes.
Lightweight themes are much simpler to implement than complete themes, but provide very limited customization.
With complete themes you can make much deeper modifications to the application UI. The documentation for complete themes is out of date, but is linked to here as a possible basis for updated documentation.
Jiné druhy doplňků
Search engine plugins are a simple and very specific type of add-on: they add new search engines to the browser's search bar.
Plugins help the application understand content that it does not natively support. We are in the process of deprecating support for these plugins, as they have a history of causing stability, performance, and security problems.
Join the extension development community
- IRC: #extdev (learn more)
- Add-ons forums: discussion and support
- AMO: addons.mozilla.org


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Mexico International Film Festival and Awards
We are currently accepting entries for the 2018 Mexico International Film Festival and Awards.
The Mexico International Film Festival and Awards has become an important awards event within the film industry and a centerpiece for promoting and growing the thriving arts and culture community of Mexico. Founded on the premise that the language of film is universal and a dynamic force in bridging cultural understanding, the event celebrates and recognizes the very best of international independent cinema from around the world.
Held annually each May, the Mexico International Film Festival and Awards is an extraordinary celebration of cinematic discovery and innovation. Each year we honor the best from around the world in various competition categories including Feature Films, Documentaries, Short Films, Foreign Films, Mexican Films, a short and feature length Screenplay Competition, Music Videos, Experimental Films, Television Pilots, Environmental Films, and more. In addition, Special Jury Prizes are awarded to several standout films and screenplays at the discretion of the Official Jury.
The Mexico International Film Festival and Awards is an awards competition created as an internationally visible platform to provide exceptional films and filmmakers with recognition for their filmmaking and screenwriting achievements. Beginning with our 2013 event, we have transitioned from a traditional film festival held since 2007 in Baja, Mexico, to an annual online awards competition. Films will not be physically screened for the public. Once the Official Jury has concluded the judging process, winners and awards will be announced publicly on this website, via targeted email blast, via our social networks, and to the international film and entertainment media via Internet promotional channels.
The Mexico International Film Festival and Awards recognizes the works of international filmmakers, producers, screenwriters, and artists from around the world.
Awards are given in several categories including Feature, Documentary, Short, Foreign, Animation, Music Video, Student, Direction, Acting, Screenwriting, Television Pilot, and Best of Mexico and more. The Grand Jury Prize and Special Jury Prizes will be presented to the best film in competition as selected by our Official Jury.
Screenplay Competition
The Mexico International Film Festival and Awards proudly supports the craft of screenwriting by discovering and recognizing important new talent through our annual Screenplay Competition. The Screenplay Competition features both a feature and short length screenplay competition. Top screenplays in the competition are awarded based on the quality and originality of the work. The Mexico International Film Festival and Awards seeks to discover and award new and original voices in screenwriting from around the globe.
We look forward to viewing your work and wish you the best in competition in the 2018 Mexico International Film Festival and Awards!


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Check out and get movie Dhenikaina Ready Internet Internet streaming in HD format. Our website is generally update with all the new boxoffice movies that a entire family will like. Dhenikaina Ready is (Comedy) category launch on: 2012-10-23 from 24 Frames Factory.
Storyline Dhenikaina Ready :
Dhenikaina Ready is billed because the greatest actors and actris stars possibly assembled in a single film, the director handles the emotions of the a part of very careful quality and sensitivity. The attention is strong, with out distracting sub plots as being the characters life happen.
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The younger actors - and also the elderly ones - cope with the roles with the ease and sophistication that the tale needs.
This movie is definite to provoke emotions within a direction or another.
Which has a 1st-class director, excellent creating, with an all-celebrity cast, Dhenikaina Ready can be a film that lives up to its hype.
The synergy with the parts makes the whole movie better as a whole, and that's why This is usually a certain should-see motion picture.
Pictures of Film
Dhenikaina Ready details :
Dhenikaina Ready Film Clips :
Don't miss out on to download Dhenikaina Ready dvd today....


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|View Poll Results: AnoHana - Episode 11 (END) Rating
|Perfect 10
|9 out of 10 : Excellent
|8 out of 10 : Very Good
|7 out of 10 : Good
|6 out of 10 : Average
|5 out of 10 : Below Average
|4 out of 10 : Poor
|3 out of 10 : Bad
|2 out of 10 : Very Bad
|1 out of 10 : Painful
|Voters: 262. You may not vote on this poll
|Thread Tools
|2011-06-28, 16:28
|Link #181
Shocking Pink
Join Date: Dec 2007
Age: 24
I gave a 9/10 because I thought it was a bit too overdramatic, but, still, it was a great episode. Menma's letter to Jintan almost got a tear from me, and I don't cry over anime! And, yes, I've watched Clannad After Story. Throughout the whole episode, I just wished that Menma hadn't died so she and Jintan could be together.
I think that Naruko is the most realistic character of the show. She reminds me of my friends on Facebook. lol However, I like that she didn't magically end up with Jintan; they needed to be better friends first. Yukiatsuruko scene was cute though!
Rather than being shippy, imo, the epilogue should've focused more on the Super Peace Busters.
|2011-06-28, 19:13
|Link #183
User of the "Fast Draw"
Not a bad job at all of wrapping things up. Devled into the less honorable sides of all of them when it came to granting Menma's wish. All had their own reasons that weren't about Menma's happiness for wishing what they did.
Glad we finally got Poppo's problem as well which made sense. Not that he had responsibility, but he just froze when watching her die. Of course considering he had little way to get help and by the time that help arrived it would have been way too late it's not like he caused the result, but seeing that scene would be haunting. At least now he can stop trying to run away all over the world. Lot of school to catch up on though .
Good job Anaru for breaking the seriousness . The power of comedy is unwavering there.
Really it was nicely done. Everyone got a short message from Menma and even got to hear and see her at the end. With everything thrown out in the open they really do have the potential to survive this as friends and live their lives.
Some possible hints at pairings though nothing so concrete that people can't mostly assume what they want.
|2011-06-29, 20:30
|Link #185
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2010
Age: 29
I'm going to admit that that's the most I've cried in a really long time(and I hope it'll be like that for a while as I hate crying). I watched this over the past three days and I'm so glad I did. That ending was just so emtional and painful at the same time, but so beautiful.
I can't begin to explain why I was crying, but the letters she wrote to everyone just set me off completely and I hardly ever cry. I just wish it didn't have to be that way. Why couldn't it have been a story where she had never died and they all just got along.
|2011-07-02, 23:36
|Link #188
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: U.S
I also feel that the awkwardness of the first half of the show was intentional. All of them crying at the same time was moving, but was so embarrassing that I couldn't help but to chuckle a little bit. I picked up this series on a whim. I had no clue that Japan made anime like these anymore. I really hope the future shows step it up and use this show as a standard. The finale was perfect. It couldn't have executed in a better way. There will always be critic no matter how the show ended, but this one was perfect in my opinion. Hoped the show could have lasted a bit longer, two more episodes would have been fine. Sigh i don't know what to watch next. Ao no exorcist?....sigh it was nice while it lasted.
|2011-07-10, 09:54
|Link #190
Junior Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
Good work, I would have kinda liked to have seen maybe just ONE follow up episode of what they did maybe like a year later. But the credits were good enough.
Jinta's dad is still content and got to see his son grow.
Jinta can slowly get over the pain and hopefully see what else he physically had in front of him.
Anaru still got her request, which was Jinta coming back to school. And it would seem as if her high school 'friends' have changed and are more understanding. Or at least self aware of how they treated Anaru.
Yukiatsu and Tsuruko seemingly have a stronger friendship and perhaps grow closer down the line.
And Poppo... he was a great supporting character all the way to the end. Nice to see the 'uneducated' guy display a sharp sense of emotional understanding.
Last edited by OtakuSoldier; 2011-07-11 at 10:54.
|2011-07-11, 11:17
|Link #191
Junior Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
To add, a VERY well thought out epilogue episode would be awesome. Show us where their paths that Menma helped reset turned out. Play off those hints in the ending epilogue. Hell, even if it were ten to fifteen minutes covering all the main characters, EXCEPT Menma... Or show Menma with her family. Family trumps friends in most cases. I'd be okay with that. Also, Jintan's dad couldn't hurt. I'm not even asking it to meet what I would like to happen, just show us.
Last edited by OtakuSoldier; 2011-07-12 at 10:43.
|2011-07-11, 14:58
|Link #193
Higurashi fan.
Join Date: Dec 2005
|2011-07-11, 19:19
|Link #194
Junior Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
Spoiler for Wishes/Ending:
Last edited by OtakuSoldier; 2011-07-11 at 19:30.
|2011-07-11, 20:35
|Link #195
Junior Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
Sorry for all the posting... But what exactly is this 'better ending' or not quite near perfection ending that a lot of people seem to want? I mean, this series completed its set goal, tampered with emotions whether relatable to the viewer or not, dealt with MANY real dramas and burdens, developed the characters enough to complete that goal and kept itself VERY real. Yes even the 'over the top' ending was realistic. People CAN and DO panic when they can't find someone. And years of bottled emotion being released so sharply is far from subtle.
Are people just deep down inside saying it wasn't near perfect because they didn't see it end the way THEY wanted it to? That's why I make sure I never anticipate a series. I let it come as what it is.
If that's not the case, what is this missing element that could make it better? I mean, couldn't most anything become better? With years of revision on a 9/10 anime, it could become a 10/10. Sure... What about a hundred years? You think more about something and it should only get better. But when something does what it needs to the first time...
So if the latter isn't the case, what is the MAIN thing that needs to be better? Or the element that would have made this not near perfect, but perfect? I know there will be different opinions, but shouldn't this series be judged with your heart in some cases? It seemed to provide the proper physical elements (as in animation, fluidity, voice acting) as well as the theatrical things (character development, story and the such). But even if some of these things weren't as great as YOU would have liked, I still stand on the series accomplished its goal.
So is it a great concept that could have been executed better, but still executed well enough to reflect on the plot/point?
Is it something that was greatly executed but could have used a better story line?
Or does the physical attributes not matter as much, so long as it was acceptable? Because the story was simply a REAL slice of life in all its bittersweetness and realism.
I say the latter. I don't see what could have been more relatable in terms of RL drama. Friends CAN and DO help each other through hard times. Perhaps this group didn't act in a way you would have OR would have liked OR both. But everyone is different. Perhaps don't think so much of how it went down between them all... think of WHO it was done from and WHY they were doing it. The only UNREALISTIC thing is obviously the supernatural overtone. Dead loved ones don't come back to help set you on the right path. IMO, this would have been more interesting if they all came back together just as strongly without the help of Menma (without her presence anyway, just memories). Just my opinion, but THAT would have been more bittersweet just because the characters would have had to dig deeper and take more initiative without Menma's aid. Not that they didn't. But then we wouldn't have the Jinta fixation problem?
I DIGRESS! Thanks for feedback.... Either way, the overall consensus is that everyone here did enjoy the series in their own way.
EDIT: If it's the lack of episodes I could understand, but I think it did VERY WELL for being an eleven episode series. A lack of funding/time is simply that.
Last edited by OtakuSoldier; 2011-07-12 at 10:31.
|2011-07-12, 12:20
|Link #198
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Asia
Have anyone come across any decent doujin or fan made material that explores their future? I mean not those Hentai stuff...
|2011-07-16, 23:52
|Link #200
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Indiana
Age: 27
|Thread Tools


text:
WASHINGTON, March 9 (UPI) -- A Republican leader in the U.S. Senate said it was "incomprehensible" that the president was "lobbying" against the planned Keystone XL oil pipeline.
By a vote of 56-42, the Senate rejected Republican-backed legislation that included provisions for the Keystone XL pipeline in a transportation bill, the latest effort to force the hand of the White House on the pipeline.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said U.S. President Barack Obama "made some calls" to Senate leaders before the vote.
That provoked an angry response from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who said Obama is out of touch on the issue.
"Most Americans strongly support building this pipeline and the jobs that would come with it," McConnell said in a statement. "And it's incomprehensible to me that the president of the United States is lobbying against it."
A telephone survey of 1,501 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press indicated most respondents favored the project, though few said they heard a lot about the issue.
Obama rejected similar legislation inserted into a bill extending payroll tax benefits.
"The president believes that it is wrong to play politics with a pipeline project whose route has yet to be proposed," said Carney.
TransCanada, the pipeline company behind the project, announced recently it was moving forward with the domestic leg of the project. It's reviewing alternative routes through Nebraska before reapplying for a presidential permit.
The project needs federal approval because Keystone XL would cross the U.S.-Canadian border.


text:
The Two Billion Cigar Baron
- By David Savona
- | From Tyson vs. King, Jan/Feb 04
Forty years ago,Theo W. Folz had a vision. Only 20 at the time, he was in Marked Tree, Arkansas, pitching a 17-year-old girl on Wearever cookware. "I'll never forget it," he says. "It was a farmer's house, he was in bib overalls, her mother was nursing her newborn. They had tar paper walls. And I was sitting there convincing her to buy a $500 set of pots and pans. And I drove back to Memphis that night, and I said to myself, 'What am I doing here? Those people need $500 to eat.' So that was my last day selling pots and pans."
Instead of selling pots and pans, Folz headed back home to work with his father, a longtime cigar man. Those humble beginnings, however, didn't portend Folz's rise to become one of the most powerful men in the industry, the chief executive officer of the largest cigar company in the United States, Altadis U.S.A. Inc. The Fort Lauderdale, Florida, company, a unit of Europe's Altadis S.A., makes more than 2 billion cigars a year, from tiny machine-made Dutch Treats that sell for less than a dime all the way up to $20 handmade Montecristos.
Folz has played a central role in the sea change in the cigar business as it has consolidated globally over the past four decades. He has bought and sold companies with billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, dealt with European tobacco monopolies and helped establish the U.S. rights to many Cuban cigar brand names. Altadis U.S.A. has 6,500 employees spread across the United States, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Puerto Rico. Annual revenues are close to $600 million.
But to hear him tell it, Folz wasn't the man one would expect to climb to the top of the cigar world. "I'm just really a country boy from Memphis that sold cigars all his life," says Folz, a tall, large man with a thick head of hair and the build of a football player. With his deep, baritone voice, he pronounces the word cigar with the emphasis on the first half of the word, old-school style. "I'm not well educated and I'm not a fancy guy. I've just been very lucky that I've had some good bosses, and I've had great people working with me."
To be sure, his early days were unremarkable. "I went to the University of Tennessee in 1961, and I still have an educational record there that's unsurpassed -- I had the lowest quality point average ever at the university, 11 Fs and a D," says Folz in his typical self-deprecating style.
His father, however, was an overachiever, a cigar industry superstar. A specialist in the shoe leather express, Monte Folz covered an immense territory, 19 states at one point. "My father -- not 'cause he's my father -- was the greatest salesman I've ever known," says Folz. After abandoning his job with the pots and pans, Theo took a part-time job on February 1, 1964, with Bayuk Cigar Co., his father's employer and the maker of Phillies. The cigar industry would soon soar on the heels of the first surgeon general's report on smoking, which had smokers across America swapping cigarettes for cigars, tipped ones in particular. Theo was hired to do the grunt work for a venture that would put Phillies in 59 A&P supermarkets in the South.
On a Sunday, Folz drove 400 miles to begin the job. He was supposed to fill the display racks with the cigars that had been shipped to the stores. But there was a problem. "I went out to three A&P stores, and none of them had the cigars," he says. "The stores didn't know a thing about it." The deal had been killed. "So my first day in the cigar business I'm in Mobile, Alabama, with nothing to do. It was not an auspicious beginning."
Folz thought his budding career was over, but the next week his father took him under his wing. Theo worked at Monte's side, sometimes clashing with his father. "Of course, I was 20 years old and I knew everything, and I said, 'Dad, you're absolutely wrong about that. We have brands to sell,'" recalls Folz. "And he said to me something I never forgot. He said, 'Those brands don't mean anything. They might not be around all your life. You've only got one thing to sell, son, and that's yourself.'"
The boom of '64 was short-lived, to be followed by a period of continual decline, which the industry countered with cost-cutting moves. Cigar consumption had soared from 7.2 billion units to 9 billion in 1964. "Then from 1964, that artificial high, to 1993, the overall units in the industry declined 5 percent a year compounded. Some years were better than others, but annual cigar consumption went from 9 billion to 2.1 billion," says Folz. Until the mid-1990s, less than 5 percent, or about 100 million cigars, were handmade. All the rest were made by machine.
Companies were loath to raise prices, fearing consumer backlash. When Folz entered the business, most of Bayuk's cigars sold for 5 to 15 cents. "They used to say in this business, you raise the price of a cigar a penny, you close a factory," says Folz. Companies changed the product to hold the line on prices. Long filler became cheaper short filler, and natural tobacco wrappers and binders were replaced in many instances by a new creation called homogenized tobacco, which is made by mixing ground tobacco with proprietary additives and extruding it from a machine in a sheet, similar to a piece of paper. The companies also made their cigars smaller, trimming a unit of ring gauge here, a sixteenth of an inch off the foot there, to save even more money. "The industry as a group, as the unit sales went down, did cost savings in order to try to maintain profits," says Folz. "So the quality of the products went down systematically."
Folz says that he didn't work hard in his first years in the business -- an 18-month stint in the French Quarter of New Orleans left him in debt, and he jokes that on his departure "all the barmaids flew the flag at half-mast." That was to be the exception to his career. "I eventually made up for all those years of not working," he says. "I've worked pretty hard the last 30 years."
He learned from his father well enough that in 1976 he was promoted to assistant vice president of field sales and given an office at the company's new headquarters in Fort Lauderdale. It was the former executive washroom. Worse than his work space was the job assigned him on day one in Florida. "Tony Regensburg [executive vice president of Bayuk] comes into my office and closes the door and says, 'Welcome, you're Bayuk's new hatchet man,'" says Folz. He was given a list of 50 people to fire, but he was reluctant to make the moves without doing his own research. "I didn't want to accept somebody else's judgment on who to let go and who to keep, so the next six months I went out and worked with almost every salesperson, every district manager, so I could make my own judgments." Eventually, Folz cut the sales force from 100 down to 33.
"We hadn't been making any money," says Folz. "In my opinion, there's no reason to be in business if you don't make money. And I take pride in the fact that I honestly believe since 1979, since I've been in charge of the P&L of cigar companies, we've always made money, and I don't think any other large cigar company has ever made a better return on assets, or larger percentage on sales for profit, than we have."
Beginning in 1981, Bayuk's aging owners started selling their brands piecemeal. In March of 1982, General Cigar Co. purchased the company's Garcia y Vega brand and related assets. In June of that year, Folz went off on his own and joined with Havatampa Inc. to buy the Phillies brand and related assets in a $5 million leveraged buyout. At that point Bayuk exited the cigar business.
Folz reserves a warm space in his heart for Bayuk, and specifically for its president and CEO, Archie Mishkin. "My main mentor after my father. This guy was the second most important guy in my life," says Folz, "and one of the smartest guys I've known. He's the one who gave me the opportunity to progress into management.
"I always used to say that Bayuk was the Chrysler of the cigar business. Chrysler brought many, many technologies to cars, but they could never make a profit out of them. Bayuk Cigars brought a lot of things to the industry like advertising on television, five-packs, racks, lots of creativity, but never really made lots of money." The Phillies deal would be the first of many acquisitions that Folz engineered. But he would soon be working for a man who would radically change his lifestyle.
Before leaving Bayuk in 1982, Folz took a call from Ronald Perelman, who owned the world's largest licorice extraction company, MAFCO Holdings Inc., and was a keen cigar smoker. At the time, Folz didn't recognize the name, but today Perelman is a staple of both the business and gossip pages, known as the billionaire investor who acquired beauty giant Revlon and married celebrity Ellen Barkin.
Perelman told Folz that he was buying Consolidated Cigar Co. from Gulf + Western. Consolidated was the maker of Dutch Masters, and it dwarfed Bayuk. Perelman had heard about Folz by talking to people in the cigar business, and he wanted to meet Folz in New York. While walking to lunch in Manhattan, Perelman offered Folz the job as head of Consolidated.
"I was stunned," says Folz. He turned down Perelman, citing obligations to Bayuk. Perelman was insistent. "It seemed like the more I told him no, the more he wanted me," says Folz.
Perelman didn't get Consolidated, or Folz, but in 1984 he called on Folz again. Just prior to the meeting, Folz heard the hot rumor in the business -- Perelman was again a suitor for Consolidated, which was owned by a management group. When Folz met Perelman, the former Bayuk executive was direct. "I said, 'I am not going to go work for Consolidated Cigar.' His face dropped. He said, 'How do you know about that?' I said, 'Ronald, there's no secrets in this business.'"
Perelman bought Consolidated for $118 million in July 1984. By August 1 Folz, finally swayed by the Perelman pitch, was in charge.
"They weren't making any money to speak of, but they were big," says Folz. "I just didn't have any real desire to go to New York, and I knew Consolidated had lots of problems. To tell you the truth, if I had known how bad they were, I doubt if I'd have come. We were not financially bankrupt, but we were functionally bankrupt. There was a very poor esprit de corps. Very poor products. Very little direction. But we ended up finding who the good people were, getting rid of the ones that didn't want to work. And turned it into what I think is the best cigar company in the world today."
Moving to Consolidated not only put Folz at the helm of America's biggest cigar company, it introduced him to the premium end of the cigar business. His 1984 walk through the company's plant in La Romana, Dominican Republic, was his first time in a handmade cigar factory. "I've never seen anybody go through a handmade cigar factory and not come out amazed -- even a nonsmoker," says Folz.
|Folz's father and first mentor in the cigar business, Monte, makes a sales call on Katz Drug Store, in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1966.
Still, Folz focused on machine-made cigars. "In those days, mass-market was like 93 percent of our sales," says Folz. One of his early moves was addressing quality issues at the company's Puerto Rico factory. He grilled the plant manager on his high reject rate. The manager explained the problem: his boss allowed him only the precise amount of filler tobacco that the machines were supposed to require to make a good cigar, but the machines were ancient and often slightly out of adjustment, which caused some of the cigars to be filled improperly. Folz authorized an additional 5 percent of tobacco -- a considerable cost in a tight-margin business -- and the reject rates declined.
Consistency is key in the cigar business, whether it be in mass-market cigars made by machine or premium cigars crafted by hand. Folz, an avid fisherman, has a buddy with whom he fishes in the Bahamas who won't smoke the free handmades that Folz brings. "I try to bring him cigars. No matter what I bring him it doesn't matter, 'cause he likes Swisher Sweets," says Folz, talking about one of the competition's cigars. "And I think the secret of holding him as a Swisher Sweet customer or a Phillies Cheroot customer is we try to make the same cigar Friday that we make on Monday. It's not that easy when you deal with products that grow in the ground, and they vary from crop to crop."
Folz looks upon each cigar as a never-ending evaluation by consumers. "If there's 25 in a box, there's 25 tests there. So I think we're in one of the toughest businesses in the world," he says.
Focusing on detail and knowing the business -- including that of his competitors -- has served Folz well. In 1986, he took a call from Charlie Mullen, the president of American Cigar Co., which he had tried to buy, unsuccessfully, in 1984. "He said, 'Theo, do you have any money?'" Folz was able to close on the deal in 17 days for $13.7 million. "We didn't do any due diligence. The due diligence was five pieces of paper. We didn't visit any factories, we didn't check any tobacco, we didn't meet with any of their people, we bought it." It gave Consolidated the prominent Antonio y Cleopatra brand, which added a couple hundred million cigars to Consolidated's annual production. "It didn't matter what we paid for it, as long as we had that brand," says Folz. The deal also included La Corona and Roi-Tan. That same year, he acquired Milton Sherman Tobacco Co. and the pipe tobacco brands of Iwan Ries & Co.
"We've always been a net buyer of businesses," says Folz. He regrets missing one, Villazon & Co., and its renowned cigarmaker, Frank Llaneza. The maker of Punch and Hoyo de Monterrey was acquired by General Cigar in 1997. "The one acquisition that I should have made, that slipped through my fingers, was Villazon. Because not only would you get a great business, but you would get one of the greatest cigarmakers in my lifetime."
In 1988, Folz even bought Consolidated from Perelman, who was looking to exit the business. When Perelman couldn't find a buyer willing to take the entire company, Folz and his management group of Jim Colucci, George Gershel, Richard L. DiMeola, Gary Ellis and Denis McQuillen took an equity stake in a $138 million leveraged buyout from Perelman. Within two and a half months of the buyout, Folz had closed on three more deals: the pipe tobacco business of Century Tobacco, the premium Royal Jamaica brand and the U.S. distribution rights to Mexico's largest cigar brand, Te-Amo. He also moved the headquarters from New York City to Fort Lauderdale, saving $2 million a year because of cheaper office space and better productivity.
Buyout firms acquire companies to sell them -- that's how they make a profit -- so by late 1992 Folz was again making the rounds, looking for a new buyer. He was scheduled for a relationship-building meeting with a buyer in New York, when he found two hours of extra time in his schedule. He paid Perelman a visit. They chatted and things went well, and then Folz left for his meeting, which didn't go well. By the time he got back to his hotel, there were messages to call Perelman.
"Ronald made up his mind to buy the company in two hours and 14 minutes," says Folz. The deal was closed in March 1993, with Perelman reacquiring Consolidated for $188 million. "Theo did a fabulous job in the two years that he ran it for the LBO fund, and it was worth more when we bought it back than it was when we sold it," said Perelman in a 1995 Cigar Aficionado interview.
Perelman's timing was fortuitous: cigar sales were just beginning to gather steam. Consolidated's revenues increased from $125.9 million in 1993 to $158.2 million in 1995, with net income skyrocketing from $2.8 million to $13.9 million. By 1995, Consolidated was making a billion cigars a year, 44 million of them premium.
In 1996, Perelman moved to take Consolidated public. It was up to Folz and his chief financial officer Gary Ellis to hit the road and sell the company to investors. "It was the most exciting experience of my life. We left Fort Lauderdale at 3 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon on one of Mr. Perelman's Gulfstream jets," says Folz. "Our goal was to sell 5 million shares of stock with an indicated price of $17 to $19 a share. At the end of our road show, we had orders for 55 million shares. And we raised the price to $23."
The buying and selling of Consolidated Cigar would prove to be a seemingly never-ending experience for Folz. In 1999, Perelman, who controlled the company with a 67 percent equity interest, sold it to French tobacco giant SEITA for $733 million. SEITA would later merge with Spain's Tabacalera S.A., creating Altadis S.A., and Consolidated was renamed Altadis U.S.A.
Folz was heavily involved in each step of the process, meeting with officials from SEITA, as well as rival bidder Swedish Match AB. The two European companies had equal bids for Consolidated, but in the end Folz chose SEITA, feeling it made better business sense.
Before he worked on the SEITA deal, however, Folz would find himself managing Consolidated through the cigar boom, and would later take a much greater role in the premium cigar business.
The cigar boom of the mid-1990s was unlike anything that Folz had seen before. The mid-'60s boom had been short, and the cigars that were sold were among the least expensive in the industry. The boom that began in 1993 had legs, lasting until 1997, and the cigars that were in greatest demand were expensive. Folz, like other established cigarmakers, found himself unable to supply the market.
"One of the things I said at the time that worried me was that we had the opportunity of a lifetime as an industry to get trial, people trying cigars that never smoked them before. It was unaffordable to generate this type of trial through advertising and promotion. And I was worried that the quality of some of the cigars that people were smoking then would turn them off from being lifetime cigar smokers," says Folz. "I think it definitely happened. And I'll also tell you in hindsight -- maybe I was too stupid at the time -- but in hindsight I'm not proud of every cigar that Consolidated Cigar made during that time."
Tabacalera de Garcia Ltd., the handmade cigar factory in La Romana, Dominican Republic, where H. Upmanns and Montecristos are rolled, ran virtually nonstop in the boom. "At one time we had our factory in La Romana working two shifts with 5,400 employees, and they were rolling handmade cigars at an annualized rate of 85 million cigars," says Folz. (The factory never worked a full year at that rate.) "We were working back-to-back ten-hour shifts, which is unprecedented in the handmade business. Which was probably another mistake, 'cause we didn't get as good a quality on the second shift as we got on the first shift. But we don't do any of that anymore."
Investors pressured his company to fill orders, but there were limits on tobacco, on craftsmanship. "It was just brutal," says Folz. "At one point we had 37 million handmade cigars on back order."
The boom increased the cost of tobacco, and Consolidated had to buy enormous amounts of leaf to keep working. "A few years ago, we had well over $100 million in tobacco inventory," says Folz. "If you want to make quality cigars, you gotta carry inventory." The company is still using tobacco from that period.
In 1997, premium cigar imports to the United States exceeded more than 500 million cigars. Even as the imports climbed, however, cigar companies missed the signs that supply was outstripping demand. Folz, still more focused on mass-market cigars, also missed the end. "I was looking at our financials, and I saw that we had huge returns of premium cigars in January [1998]," he says. "Then I went back and looked at all our financials through '97, our monthly reports, and I had missed it, and Dick DiMeola had missed it, and everybody that worked here missed it. The returns had started in June, July of '97. So the bottom fell out, and boy, we all struggled."
Cigar sales were slowing. Later, Folz had to combine two similar companies as part of the creation of Altadis. Spain's Tabacalera owned Havatampa Inc., France's SEITA had Consolidated. Each had premium cigar factories that weren't operating at full capacity.
"We closed five factories on that deal: Jamaica, the Consolidated factory in Danlí [Honduras], the Tabacalera factory in Danlí, the Tabacalera factory in Nicaragua, and the Tabacalera factory in Santiago, Dominican Republic," says Folz. "I've closed more cigar factories than any man walking the face of the earth. I'm not proud of it."
The cuts were painful, but necessary. Folz compares them to a patient given a choice by his doctor of losing his leg or eventually dying.
Consolidated has roared back and is now thriving. "2000 was the best year in the history of the company. 2001 was better than 2000. 2002 was better than 2001. And unless the end of the world comes in the next three months," Folz said in September, "2003 is going to be significantly better than 2002. So I think that's a testimony to our people."
"Our company, I believe, is the only company, certainly in the U.S., possibly in the world, that is a major player in every sub-category of the cigar business. I'm talking about every price point and every type of cigar," says Folz. "We are highly confident we're the most profitable cigar company in the world." "In the last 19 years, the management team that leads Consolidated has seen the sales increase by more than six times, and the earnings increase more than 13 times," says Folz.
The picture looks even brighter going forward because of the links to parent company Altadis S.A., the world's largest cigar company, which claims nearly 25 percent of the world market for cigars, some 3.2 billion units. Altadis S.A. also makes cigarettes, including the Gauloises brand, and has a large distribution business not limited to tobacco products. Tabacalera and SEITA, the companies that merged to become Altadis S.A., have long had close ties to Cuba, but that relationship has grown even closer since Altadis S.A. acquired a 50 percent interest in Habanos S.A. in 2000. Habanos is the company that distributes all of Cuba's cigars worldwide. In October, 2003, Altadis S.A. acquired a controlling interest in the largest cigar retailer in the United States, 800-JR-Cigar Inc.
"We at Altadis S.A. have made a huge investment in the U.S., and we have our investment in the hands of a great CEO with great skills and an outstanding capacity at managing people," says Folz's boss, Altadis S.A. chief operating officer Antonio Vázquez. "I, personally, have been dealing with Theo for a long time now, and I cannot feel better."
|Folz, at center, gives much credit to his team at Altadis U.S.A. including (left to right) Denis McQuillen, Jim Colucci, Gary Ellis, and George Gershel.
Premium cigars have much to do with Altadis U.S.A.'s positive performance. "The premium cigar business, in my lifetime, has become very, very important. It's certainly important at our company," says Folz. "The largest number of employees working for the company work in the premium area." Altadis U.S.A. now offers premium cigars to suit a variety of taste preferences, including those of the most seasoned aficionados.
"At our company we were making nothing but middle-of-the-road tastes," says Folz. "Since 1998, we have looked hard at enhancing the flavor of some of our cigars, or coming out with line extensions under certain brands that are full of flavor." The Montecristo brand is but one example. Once available only in a mild form, the cigar now has several stronger line extensions, such as the Serie VII, which has Peruvian and Nicaraguan tobacco in the blend.
Folz has profited from the lessons of the boom. "Today, we have back orders and they're more manageable," he says. Montecristos are on back order, as are some Romeo y Julietas, and sometimes the Onyx Reserve brand. "We're doing everything we can to fill the back orders, but without sacrificing one tenth of one percent of quality and consistency. Because I learned my lesson. I'd rather be short on Montecristo in the yellow box than have all we need if I can't deliver them at the same quality that we want 'em to be."
Folz's performance has won him the respect of his peers.
"Ours is a relatively small industry and we all get to know each other pretty well. Theo is a people person who genuinely cares for his fellow man. I respect him as a friend, a competitor, and a leader of our industry," says Timothy Mann, president of competitor Swisher International Group Inc.
"Theo's a great guy," says Clinton Price Sr., president and CEO of John Middleton Inc., the third-largest maker of mass-market cigars in the U.S. "He's very honest, extremely bright, he's a great guy for the industry -- and a tough competitor. He's known for being in the business so many years, and he has the brains and the smarts to use that history to the benefit of the industry." Folz served as chairman of the Cigar Association of America for 14 years, from 1986 to 2000.
The last four decades have brought Folz a long way from driving to A&Ps and sitting in a windowless office. He now has the corner office at company headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, a room decorated with memorabilia from those 40 years, including old cigar boxes, photos of trophies -- both from the business world and his fishing boat -- and a black-and-white photo of his father, smiling proudly in front of a full display of 5-cent Phillies. Following in the big footsteps of his dad, Folz has filled them just fine.
"I think the cigar business is like the circus," says Folz. "Once you get in it, it's in your blood. It's hard to get out."
Color photos by Gary John Norman
Black and white photo courtesy of Altadis U.S.A.


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