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Hohhot to Erlian to Zamyn-uud, Mongolia
This post has been updated here.
I said I would write about this last month and never got it done. Here is our experience with crossing the border into Mongolia. First, you should read my disclaimers here about why I'm not the best person to write about our travel.
We had some friends visiting us from the States so our first step was to rent a van and driver from Hohhot to Erlian. We had a decent vehicle that sat about 10 and the price was 2200 RMB round trip. Because we were staying a few days, we also had to pay for the drivers' hotel room (118 RMB/night).
The trip can be made in under 5 hours, (I've heard some drivers even say 4) but we had two little ones and ran into a bit of snow so we made it in about 6.
Some notes about what you pass along the way: You first leave Hohhot driving north through the da xue cheng then continue north through/over the mountains. You'll pass a ski resort, a golf resort, and lots of fancy vacation homes.
About two hours out of town you'll arrive at Si ZI Wang Qi. Just past Si Zi Wang Qi is the Gegentala Grasslands Tourist Area.
Another town you'll pass through is Sai Han Ta La (Sai Han). On our journey we stopped here for lunch.
Not too far past Sai Han you will begin to enter Er Lian. You'll know you're close when you begin to see dinosaur statues lining both sides of the highway. I know these aren't great photos, but you can see the dinosaurs in the distance.
The closer you get the more dinosaurs there are and right as you enter the city there are two giant ones that make an archway over the highway. Erlian was a famous site for dinosaur fossils and I think there is a museum there about it.
Once we got to Erlian we had a local friend help us find a car to cross the border into Mongolia and helped us find a hotel. We stayed at the 二连瑞元培训中心 Erlian Rui Yuan pei xun zhong xin. It is THE BEST under 200 RMB hotel I've ever stayed in. The standard room was 118/night. It's nothing fancy, but it was clean, comfortable and well worth the price.
If you don't have a local friend to help, we heard you can hire drivers at two different places: Wen Zhou Shang Chang and another shopping center called Yi Wu. For us a jeep was 150 RMB to go and 30 RMB to come back per person. Most of the drivers are from Mongolia so my Chinese wasn't that useful. Our local friend's recommendation was to use the lady drivers as he feels they are more responsible and honest than the men. His impression was that the women work hard to get in two or three trips across in a day to earn money to support their families, but the men don't necessarily work as hard and are more likely to rip off foreigners.
The border crossing itself was a series of checkpoints (4-5 each direction) along the road between town and the border where the driver would show the documents of everyone in the car to a guard who would then wave us on. When we got to the immigration building we had to get out of the car and walk through immigration like you would in an airport. Before entering the building we also had to pay some kind of 5 RMB tax at a small building outside. We had to show the receipt of payment inside. We exited out of China and then had to wait for the driver who had to take the vehicle through a few other checkpoints while we were inside.
We got back in the car and then entered Mongolia, also by exiting the vehicle and walking through the immigration building. In our case, we weren't there to sight-see and hang out, we were merely fulfilling our visa obligation to exit. Just across the border there is a plaza on the west side of the train station that has shops, restaurants, and also where you rent a car if you are crossing from Zamin Uud into China. We fed our kids, got back in the car and did the process in reverse.
It took much longer for the car to process through than it did for us to process through immigration into China. We had to wait quite a while outside so be prepared if the weather's bad.


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The management of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), has announced a new date for the orientation course and venue for 2017 Batch B, stream 2 Corps members deployed to Benue and Taraba States.
The management of the scheme had announced the postponement of the camp due to the recent unrest in the states.
NYSC in a terse statement on Monday, directed the 2017 BATCH "B" STREAM II prospective corps members deployed to Benue and Taraba states to go to Kogi State for their orientation course.
It said registration for this set of corps members will commence on January 19 in Asaya, Kabba, Kogi State to end on January 20.
According to NYSC, the venue for the orientation course is NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp Asaya, Kabba, Kogi State.
"This is to inform all 2017 Batch "B" Stream ll Prospective Corps Members deployed to Benue and Taraba States that their Orientation Course has been rescheduled," the scheme said.
It said the swearing-in ceremony will be on Monday, January 22.

subset: commoncrawl


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43. Rennie's Landing
City: Eugene, Ore.
School: Oregon
Address: 1214 Kincaid St.
Website: rennieslanding.com
Located in an historic house on campus, Rennie's has a dozen draught beers on tap, usually including some fine fare from the Deschutes Brewery down the road in Bend. Also, Neil Diamond appeared to us in a dream, handed us a snow white duck, and told us to put this place on the list. You don't argue with Neil Diamond, especially dream-Neil Diamond.


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120 South Branch Rd, Hillsborough, NJ 08844
From $7.00
No upcoming date/times for this event.
**All on-line tickects must be presented at the ticket booth before 10 pm Friday & Saturday and Sunday before 9 pm
Scare Farm is located in Hillsborough, NJ
Do you have what it takes to make it through all 3 attractions?
Come experience the three attractions of Scare Farm.
* Slay Ride: a haunted hayride experience where you are confined in the cage and others are really out to get you.
* Creepy Hollow a haunted walking trail were you will encounter tight and low spaces, loud noises and uneven ground.
* Paranoia: stroll if you can through the twisted trails amongst the corn. Experience the mind corruption of loud noises, uneven ground, strobes and obscurity of clown overload.
Do one, two or all three attractions! Don't want to wait in line. Use the VIP (speed pass)
We look forward to harvesting your fears!
No refunds or returns.
In the event the attractions are closed by the Scare Farm for the date you purchased your ticket, your ticket is good for any other night the attractions are open in 2017. No refunds will be issued for unclaimed tickets. In the event you purchased your ticket for 10/29/17 and the attractions are closed by Scare Farm you will be issued a refund minus the on-line ticketing cost within 4 business days.


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Latest News
Claude Allen Davis
Claude Allen Davis, 80, passed away in his home on March 3, 2015 in Raleigh, NC. Claude was born May 24, 1934 in Raleigh, NC to his parents, Lillian and Claude Davis.
He graduated from the original old Cary High School in 1952. Claude went on to work as a refrigeration supervisor and while on a business trip, he met and later married Virginia Fournier in 1956 in Lewiston, Maine. The Davis' resided in Raleigh, NC where Claude continued working as a refrigeration supervisor, and later as an automotive mechanic. Mr. Davis loved taking trips to Maine, and he loved going to the beach. He also had a love for tinkering on cars, and his prize possessions were his two, completely restored Corvairs.
Mr. Davis is survived by his wife of 58 years, Virginia Davis of Raleigh, NC; his son, Claude Allen Davis, Jr. of Pleasant Garden, NC; his daughter, Donna Everhart and son-in-law, Blaine Everhart of Dunn, NC; grandchildren, Justin and Brooke Kearney, and Kyle Davis; and great grandchildren, Payton and Abigail Godwin.
He is preceded in death by his parents; Lillian and Claude Davis; and his younger sister, Linda Davis.
Funeral services are private and burial will be held at Brier Creek Memorial Gardens.
In lieu of flowers the family requests that memorial contributions be made in Claude's name to Transitions LifeCare by phoning 919-828-0890 or visiting www.transitions lifecare.org/donate.
Online memorials: www.MitchellatRMP.com


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IRONDEQUOIT High School
Class Of 1980
Your site administrator: Jim Shafer
Q: How much does it cost to join the site? $$$$$
A: Absolutley NOTHING!! It's all
Q: How do I join?
A: Find your name on the Classmates Profiles list and click on it. Create a brief profile and that's it! Come back later to add info and pictures!!
Q: What if I forget my password?
A: Start by clicking on "forgot your password"? in the log in box. If that doesn't work, contact us. We will provide you with a password to log in with. You can then make a new one.
Q: How do I send a message to another classmate?
A: On each profile page, there is a "Send a private message " box. Just write your note and send! You will be notified by email when you have a response, according to your settings, that is.
This is a good place to remind you to put us on your safe list to ensure that you receive email sent through the site. It will be marked as coming from: "Postmaster@ClassCreator".
Q: Who can see my profile ?
A: Anyone can see your profile. If you choose to have ONLY logged in classmates have the ability to view your page, check the box "Profile Visibility" on the bottom of your page. When you do this, remember friends and family will not be able to see it. This is entirely your choice.
Q: How do I post an announcement?
A: Go to "Post Annoucement". Your announcement will be received for review and then I will post it for you.
Q: How do I put pictures on my profile page?
A: This is very clear. Go to "Edit/Upload Photos" and put on as many as you like!!!
To add a picture to your post: Click on the little yellow square box in you editor box, the one next to the source button. That is called the Image button. Browse, upload, send it to the server. Don't forget to SAVE CHANGES at the bottom of the page.
To add a graphic to your post: Click on the Image Button. Browse, Open, send it to the Server ( this box will appear) then click ok. Don't forget to SAVE CHANGES.
Q: How do I get my picture to show with my post?
A: Post a picture to your profile page. Click on "Make this my current master photo" and it will appear on all of your posts.
I am all ears! Send me your suggestions for tunes you would like to have added.
Please kindly add a thought or note of remembrance to one of our deceased classmates .
Have any suggestions for additions or changes on the site? Please let me know via email. Thanks!
Ask me anything!
I'll give you an answer, possibly the right answer.


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Contributor's Corner: Favorite Film Series To Gorge On
During the dawn of Viddy Well, we asked each interested contributor to fill out the same questionnaire. The questions spanned from grave to goofy, but the replies were nearly always unexpected. This week we'll take a look at the following question:
What's your favorite film series to gorge on?
Julia Stecyk:
The Star Wars saga; seeing Lucas's vision for the early films and seeing how much they've changed, but kept the essentials as well, is enough to keep me going film after film.
Anthony Cleveland:
Friday the 13th. I don't really like to binge any film series, but Friday the 13th is fun to watch one night after the next; Campy, gory, and very 80s.
Brenda Torres:
I have a Blu-Ray set of all the Harry Potter movies and I usually like to bust them out during November and December because they get me in the holiday spirit. The Great Hall and its awesome feasts, the scenes of snow-covered Hogsmeade, the robes and scarves, I could go on for days. I need a treacle tart and a butterbeer just thinking about it!
Blake Haughton:
Haha, so two answers here. There's always going to be Star Wars, and then there's garbage media in Neil Breen movies. Though technically not confirmed as a series by Breen, all his movies are hilarious and so much fun to watch and make fun of.
Aaron Haughton:
I'd probably go with Indiana Jones. Since I don't count the fourth film (or likely any subsequent Jones film they try to pump out), it's a short watch, and could even be devoured in one day. Plus, Temple of Doom has a really great feast scene.
What film series to you like to devour? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!


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Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 written 13 years ago
… What a bloody great piece of software it is!
After getting a new camera for my birthday, I decided that I might invest in some software to manage my collection of photies. After three years of owning a digital camera I've amassed some 4,000 pictures, not a large number of photos by any means, but still makes it difficult to find that picture of a bunny in a field when you want it. My current strategy has just been to create lots of ill-named folders, and rely on some guesswork to find pictures.
So, for the past few weeks I've been using Photoshop Elements to sort out my somewhat mangled collection. The "face recognition" function is something of a godsend! You simply say "look for faces", and it runs away and picks out what it thinks are faces and presents them to you on a nice clean interface, ready for you to tell it who they are.
Tagging photos and adding them to collections isn't too cumbersome either. Simply drag and drop the appropriate tag onto the photos, and you're done.
Another really handy feature for collating photos is the "find visually similar photos" function. You simply pick a photo that looks like what you're after, and it'll run away and find lots of related piccies. The image shown here displays a search for images similar to the disk brake on my bike — the results are all further pictures of the bike. It's really quite scary how well it finds similarities.
The slideshow function is nice — does pretty much exactly what you want, but what is really clever is the integration with Media Center. Adobe seem to share the same vision as Microsoft that the computer should be at the centre of your home, and have built a function right into Media Center that allows you to connect to your Media Catalogue, and display pictures using the swooshy Media Center interface.
I've barely used the more advanced features of 'Elements, doing nothing more strenuous then clicking "auto fix" on some photos, so I can't really comment on the Advanced tinkering options. One thing I wish that would have been better is adding captions to photos — none of the major photo managing applications support the idea of very quickly and easily writing a short description of an image. The interface in 'Elements isn't bad, it just requries more clicking than I want.
Another feature that I personally will find useful is the "Write tag info to files". This means that instead of your captions/tags/whatever being locked inside a database file, it's actually written back to the images themselves. This is something that I was trying to achieve with my PhotoComment app. However my PhotoComment app uses the comment field of the Jpeg, wheras 'Elements (and most other apps) use the IPTC caption field of a Jpeg. Eventually I'll update Photocomment to deal with IPTC tags instead, as it will make uploading pictures much more integrated.
This has turned out to be something of a ramble about the application, but I've got to say it has made looking after my pictures so much easier. Even as I'm trying to wrap this up, useful things keep springing to mind, such as automatic backup to CD/DVD, and monitoring of folders for images from a mobile phone.
I'd recommend this program to anyone, it's relinquished my pictures from a dark life inside a folder, to actually being looked at once in a while.


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[gallery type="square" ids="5640,5641,5639"] [gallery type="square" ids="5642,5637,5638"]
We spend 1/3 of our lives doing it, we have vivid visual and emotional experiences, and we don't quite know why!
Are they simply random brain impulses sorting out the previous days memories?
Are we processing our feelings through our unconscious?
Are we leaving our physical bodies and traveling to a different plane?
We know that sleep is an essential as food and water, a lack of it decreases our immune system, and impairs our judgement and mood. Scientists have been trying to unravel this mystery for centuries but could it be as simple as going deeper into our own thoughts to unravel our suppressed emotions or unresolved issues?
In the class I am in this weekend (with the amazing Dr. Charles Smith), we are addressing how we can tap into our subconscious by analyzing our dream states.
Today is a simple reminder to go deeper into ourselves.


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ICD-10 Code B02.34
Zoster scleritis
|Short Description:
|Zoster scleritis
|Long Description:
|Zoster scleritis
Valid for Submission
ICD-10 B02.34 is a billable code used to specify a medical diagnosis of zoster scleritis. The code is valid for the year 2019 for the submission of HIPAA-covered transactions.
Code Classification
- Certain infectious and parasitic diseases (A00–B99)
Information for Medical Professionals
Diagnostic Related Groups
The Diagnostic Related Groups (DRGs) are a patient classification scheme which provides a means of relating the type of patients a hospital treats. The DRGs divides all possible principal diagnoses into mutually exclusive principal diagnosis areas referred to as Major Diagnostic Categories (MDC). The diagnosis code B02.34 is grouped in the following groups for version MS-DRG V36.0 applicable from 10/01/2018 through 09/30/2019.
Convert B02.34 to ICD-9
The following crosswalk between ICD-10 to ICD-9 is based based on the General Equivalence Mappings (GEMS) information:
- 053.29 - Herpes zoster of eye NEC (Approximate Flag)
The following clinical terms are approximate synonyms:
- Herpes zoster scleritis
Index to Diseases and Injuries
The Index to Diseases and Injuries is an alphabetical listing of medical terms, with each term mapped to one or more ICD-10 code(s). The following references for the code B02.34 are found in the index:
- - Scleritis - H15.00
- - in (due to) zoster - B02.34
Information for Patients
Also called: Herpes zoster, Postherpetic neuralgia
What is shingles?
Shingles is an outbreak of rash or blisters on the skin. It is caused by the varicella-zoster virus - the same virus that causes chickenpox. After you have chickenpox, the virus stays in your body. It may not cause problems for many years. But as you get older, the virus may reappear as shingles.
Is shingles contagious?
Shingles is not contagious. But you can catch chickenpox from someone with shingles. If you've never had chickenpox or the chickenpox vaccine, try to stay away from anyone who has shingles.
If you have shingles, try to stay away from anyone who has not had chickenpox or the chickenpox vaccine, or anyone who might have a weak immune system.
Who is at risk for shingles?
Anyone who has had chickenpox is at risk for getting shingles. But this risk goes up as you get older; shingles is most common in people over age 50.
People with weakened immune systems are at higher risk of getting shingles. This includes those who
- Have immune system diseases such as HIV/AIDS
- Have certain cancers
- Take immunosuppressive drugs after an organ transplant
Your immune system may be weaker when you have an infection or are stressed. This can raise your risk of shingles.
It is rare, but possible, to get shingles more than once.
What are the symptoms of shingles?
Early signs of shingles include burning or shooting pain and tingling or itching. It is usually on one side of the body or face. The pain can be mild to severe.
One to 14 days later, you will get a rash. It consists of blisters that typically scab over in 7 to 10 days. The rash is usually a single stripe around either the left or the right side of the body. In other cases, the rash occurs on one side of the face. In rare cases (usually among people with weakened immune systems), the rash may be more widespread and look similar to a chickenpox rash.
Some people may also have other symptoms:
- Fever
- Headache
- Chills
- Upset stomach
What are the complications of shingles?
Shingles can cause complications:
- Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is most common complication of shingles. It causes severe pain in the areas where you had the shingles rash. It usually gets better in a few weeks or months. But some people can have pain from PHN for many years, and it can interfere with daily life.
- Vision loss can happen if shingles affects your eye. It may be temporary or permanent.
- Hearing or balance problems are possible if you have shingles within or near your ear. You may also have weakness of the muscles on that side of your face. These problems can be temporary or permanent.
Very rarely, shingles can also lead to pneumonia, brain inflammation (encephalitis), or death.
How is shingles diagnosed?
Usually your health care provider can diagnose shingles by taking your medical history and looking at your rash. In some cases, your provider may scrap off tissue from the rash or swab some fluid from the blisters and send the sample to a lab for testing.
What are the treatments for shingles?
There is no cure for shingles. Antiviral medicines may help to make the attack shorter and less severe. They may also help prevent PHN. The medicines are most effective if you can take them within 3 days after the rash appears. So if you think you might have shingles, contact your health care provider as soon as possible.
Pain relievers may also help with the pain. A cool washcloth, calamine lotion, and oatmeal baths may help relieve some of the itching.
Can shingles be prevented?
There are vaccines to prevent shingles or lessen its effects. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that healthy adults 50 years and older get the Shingrix vaccine. You need two doses of the vaccine, given 2 to 6 months apart. Another vaccine, Zostavax, may be used in certain cases.
- Post-herpetic neuralgia - aftercare (Medical Encyclopedia)
- Ramsay Hunt syndrome (Medical Encyclopedia)
- Shingles (Medical Encyclopedia)
- Shingles - aftercare (Medical Encyclopedia)
- Shingles Vaccine: What You Need to Know (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
[Learn More]
Shingles Shingles (also known as herpes zoster) results from infection by the varicella zoster virus. This common virus causes chickenpox (also known as varicella), which is characterized by itchy spots on the skin that cover the whole body and usually occurs in childhood or adolescence. After the body fights the initial infection, the varicella zoster virus remains in nerve cells for the rest of a person's life. Because the virus is controlled by immune system cells called T cells, it is generally inactive (latent) and typically causes no health problems. However, in some people, the virus becomes active again (reactivates) and causes shingles. Shingles can occur at any age, although it is rare in childhood and becomes more common after age 50.Shingles is characterized by a severely painful, itchy, or tingling rash, most commonly on one side of the torso, although it can occur anywhere on the body. Reactivation of the virus usually occurs in a single nerve, leading to the symptoms of shingles in just the region of skin connected to that nerve. When the nerve connected to the eye and the skin surrounding it is affected, the condition is called herpes zoster ophthalmicus. This form of shingles, which accounts for about 20 percent of cases, can cause permanent vision impairment.Some individuals with shingles feel throbbing or tingling in the affected region shortly before the rash appears. Blisters form in the rash area, break open, and scab over in a few days. Healing usually takes 2 to 4 weeks. Most people have only one episode of shingles, although it can recur in rare cases.In 5 to 20 percent of people with shingles, severe pain continues in the affected region after healing of the rash, which is known as postherpetic neuralgia (PHN). PHN is the most common complication of shingles. It can also involve severe itchiness or an overactive pain response to things that do not usually cause pain (allodynia), such as a light touch. PHN can last weeks, months, or even years. The likelihood of developing PHN after shingles and its severity increase with age. The pain caused by shingles and PHN can disrupt day-to-day activities and reduce a person's quality of life.
[Learn More]
ICD-10 Footnotes
General Equivalence Map Definitions
The ICD-10 and ICD-9 GEMs are used to facilitate linking between the diagnosis codes in ICD-9-CM and the new ICD-10-CM code set. The GEMs are the raw material from which providers, health information vendors and payers can derive specific applied mappings to meet their needs.
- Approximate Flag - The approximate flag is on, indicating that the relationship between the code in the source system and the code in the target system is an approximate equivalent.
- No Map Flag - The no map flag indicates that a code in the source system is not linked to any code in the target system.
- Combination Flag - The combination flag indicates that more than one code in the target system is required to satisfy the full equivalent meaning of a code in the source system.


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Updated post: 17/12/18 | December 2018
"These must have really freaked out the Victorians when they were first exhibited!"
My friend Gerry and I were checking out the 30 dinosaurs arranged around lakes in south London's Crystal Palace Park. And she was spot on. These slightly bizarre pieces of Victoriana, embodying the emerging theory of evolution, ignited controversy when they were first displayed in 1853.
The Crystal Palace dinosaurs
The sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins had made the Crystal Palace dinosaurs with the intent to educate the masses. Instead, the dinosaurs outraged them.
Putting this into historical context, this was six years before Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species. Contemporary views on evolution were rooted in the biblical 'truth' that man was unrelated to other species. Darwin's theory of natural selection, the "survival of the fittest", opposed the Christian viewpoint of a divine hand in creation.
Today, the Crystal Palace dinosaurs are a much-loved oddity on London's landscape. Dotted around Crystal Palace Park's lakes like improbable domestic animals, I love the fact that they are ever so slightly wrong.
At the time of their creation, the study of dinosaurs was in its infancy, and these sculptures reflected scientists' understanding at the time. The result is that many of the dinosaurs are a strange mish-mash of different animals, looking quite different from what we now believe to be the case. Take the Plesiosaurus for example, which looks like a peculiar fusion of a swan and a reptile. Or the Labyrinthoden that resembles a giant frog.
Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition
Crystal Palace itself takes its name from the giant structure which housed the Great Exhibition of 1851. And what a spectacle that must have been.
Attended by the great and the good of the Victorian age, it must have been like travelling to all corners of the globe without setting foot outside of London. There was a Byzantine court, Egyptian winged bulls, Italian sculptures and a mini Alhambra courtyard alongside more local Birmingham and Sheffield courts. As Gerry put it "This is in the day when 'Made in Britain' really meant something." Six million people – around a third of the population of Britain at the time – attended the exhibition.
The Great Exhibition also scored an important first in that it was the first venue to provide public lavatories. It cost a penny for a pee and at the end of the exhibition raised a grand total of £443. Some believe that is where the phrase 'spending a penny' comes from.
Although the Crystal Palace was intended to be a temporary structure, a consortium of eight businessmen decided that it should live on. Therefore, in 1854 the Palace was rebuilt at the top of Penge Peak, an affluent suburb of south London. The nearby residential area was renamed Crystal Palace, in honour of the structure.
The Crystal Palace was home to a series of exhibitions and event until it is was destroyed by fire in 1936. All that remains of the Palace today are its water towers, its terraces and six of the original 12 sphinxes from the Egyptian Court. Standing guard over the Upper Terrace, these sphinxes remind is of its past glories.
How to visit Crystal Palace Park
- Crystal Palace Park is next to Crystal Palace station, which is served by London Overground (orange line) and mainline trains
- Entry to the park is free
- Make time to stop by the Crystal Palace museum for an insight into the history of the Palace. Open on Sundays only. Free admission. Guided tours for a small charge on the first Sunday of the month.


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Sketching is meditative. Early last year at work, I read in psych journals the benefits of meaningful colouring in for adults.
The concentration required for colouring in (and staying between the lines) makes you focus on the now, the lines, nothing else.
Time slips away.
Sketching can do the same thing.
It does it for me. Sometimes I have to catch myself from dribbling as I forget to swallow. Thank goodness breathing happens naturally or I'd be in trouble. (And water colour and dribble don't mix! actually they do and that can be a problem!)
Recently I have been sketching cars. I know very little about them.
I know I like to concentrate on the curves, the windows, the engines. The last fortnight I have been following around some "cruise" nights and "shine and show" sessions.
But being a Libran it is sometimes hard to pick what to sketch.
The first times I was not used to public sketching and hid under trees away from crowds.
I have overcome the worry about what people think. After all I am doing it for me, not for exhibiting, just my sketchbook. If people like it well that's nice but I am not going to worry about what others think. Don't get me wrong, part of me wants people to like what I do, but I am overcoming these self doubts, which makes me feel good about my art.
See I can now say I do art!
I still have doubts about what I do, I am struggling drawing people, but I am going to keep trying.
There's a new klass I do online about to start, with Sketchbookskool (SBS)(http://www.sketchbookskool.com) . So I'll be doing a few different things.
So far I have taken klasses at SBS ; Beginning, seeing, playing and now we are coming up for expressing. If you want to draw may I suggest signing up for beginning.
Other classes online I have taken are
A couple of Koosje Koone's classes- Make awesome art at- http://www.makeawesomeart.com
Liz Steele's Sketching Now http://sketchingnow.com
& Craftsy course by Steven Reddy http://www.craftsy.com (dynamic detail)


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Delivering an Unprecedented Carbon Legacy in Brazil
More than just thrilling competition among the world's top athletes, the Olympic Games Rio 2016 were a showcase for sustainability as Rio de Janeiro transformed to host the Games. The Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games Rio 2016 worked to deliver Olympic Games with a low environmental footprint and a positive social legacy.
In support of that effort, Worldwide Olympic Partner Dow became the first partner of the "Abraça" ('Embrace') sustainability program and was selected as the Official Carbon Partner of Rio 2016. In this role, Dow implemented low-carbon technologies in key areas of the Brazilian economy to mitigate 500,000 tons of CO2 equivalents (CO2eq) from organizing and hosting the Games through 3rd party-verified emissions reductions. Dow was also the premier partner of Rio 2016's education platform "Transforma," serving as the STEM education partner and helping to expand the program to seven new cities in Brazil.
Additionally, Dow provided science-based technologies in multiple Olympic venues as well as enhancements to city infrastructure. These solutions and the implementation of the innovative carbon mitigation programs across the region enabled Rio to deliver a successful event and climate benefits well beyond the Olympic Games.
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Another hectic week with no time time to relax. I clearly remember the days when I was able to fit work, family, me-time and sleep into a typical day. That was before I had a laptop and the convenience of internet access at home. This week I spent time once again trying to figure out how to complete the weekly assignment. I keep saying to myself this blogging thing is not for me. Am I losing it or is time to relax?
I would actually say that it is time to take a deep breath and relax. While searching for a sound for this weeks assignment I came accross my favorite type of music, classical. Oh how I rememger that I used to be a violinist until I went off to college. I enjoyed playing and listening to classical music as a kid becaure it was so relaxing to me and it was a time which I felt I could quitely reflect on things and myself. Boy, do I miss it. While listening to the sounds which I chose for the assgnment I began to reflect and yes relax. As a result I figured out how to do the first part of the assignment.
I guess it may seem strange but the fast pace which in our world is moving perhaps due to technology seems to not work for some of us. I seem to get lost when things move to fast. But now that I have remembered what makes me slow down and enjoy work, family, me-time and being able to sleep. I think that I can relax.


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Puerto Rican Kitana Kiki Rodriguez stars as working girl Sin-Dee in this decidedly modern Christmas tale. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend hasn't been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, Sin-Dee goes on a mission to track him down and set him straight, with her best friend Alexandra tagging along hoping to cool her down. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity.
Miami: Jan. 2 at 8:40 pm at Miami Beach Cinematheque.


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Kurt Cobain of Nirvana: {On writing "Smells Like Teen Spirit"} "I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it. When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily that I should have been in that band — or at least a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard."
It is rare that we venture outside of Denver, or the state of Colorado for that matter, to cover a show. Back in July we wrote a short blurb about The Pixies going on tour, making stops in rather obscure cities across the country hence the name Doolittle: The Lost Cities Tour. We figured Santa Fe, New Mexico was only about a 5-6 hour drive and I had never seen the Pixies, who I consider one of my top three bands. So off we were to Santa Fe to catch the Pixies. The band launched the Doolittle Tour which was a reunion tour (Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the album), this particular leg of the tour is hitting cities never visited by the band or have maybe played once. Doolittle is the band's second album and today is considered one of the greatest albums ever produced by many.
The concept for the set was pretty simple as they played the entire Doolittle album from start to finish. They opened up with four b-sides starting things off with Dancing The Manta Ray, Weird At My School, Bailey's Walk, and Manta Ray. It is safe to say these are songs only true diehard Pixies fans would even know. Next was one of their more popular songs Debaser then following the order of the album. The production for this tour was unlike any of their previous tours incorporating a huge LED projected screen personalizing individual songs. During La La Love You the screen showed cartoon-ish images of hearts moving along to the beat of the song. During Hey the images of the lyrics were portrayed in an animation style mimicking to the vocals Black Francis was belting out.
|Frank Black of The Pixies (photo credit Robert Castro)
|Kim Deal of The Pixies (photo credit Robert Castro)
The band ended with two encores saving their best for last as they dazzled the crowd with Broken Face, Vamos, Where Is My Mind (made popular by David Fincher's memorable building collapse scene in Fight Club), and Gigantic which had the sold out venue singing every word. The night got started with openers Imaginary Cities hailing from Winnipeg, Canada. Truly talented in every sense, the band had the crowd swaying with their infectious energy and pop-rock vintage style, led by the duo of Rusty Matyas and Marti Sarbit. It was the perfect compliment for The Pixies.
|Dave Lovering of The Pixies (photo credit Robert Castro)
|Joey Santiago of The Pixies (photo credit Robert Castro)


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Start your day off right, no matter what time the clock says it is: Honey Dew is open early til night, serving their famous donuts in classic and creative flavors, as well as breakfast sandwiches, pastries, bagels, and even lunch sandwiches. Their coffee and tea selection is a real eye-opener, too.
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The expense of the landscape jobs always varies depending upon how you use various things in the landscape. One of the glowing examples which affect your costs to a wonderful amount is the paving costs. Developing a paver patio design to be able to coincide with the landscape is as important as other areas of the landscape project. So as to save much in the paving prices you have the choice to select paver patio design with fine tumbled pavers as opposed to using natural stone. The landscape designs consistently create differences between the customers and the service providers and the primary concern is about the budget.
There is a broad assortment of products which you may get from paving companies company and trust that the products are really going to last long for your own satisfaction. The purchase price of the merchandise and the budget of the entire job could be reflected in the job. It will provide the terrace the required shape with a few graded slope in the house. The entire land was designed to level and the backyard has some terrific fencing covering it.
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Here are some links to some of my best work this year:
R for Journalists
In the autumn of 2016 I created R for Journalists, one of the first websites anywhere to look at how the R programming language could be used for journalism.
I started it out of frustration – I was looking into how I could use R but all the resources I could find online were geared towards data science, full of jargon and assumed a relatively high prior level of knowledge.
I decided to go back to basics and set up a website designed to be accessible as possible for beginners looking to get into R.
In the last 12 months I have published 18 posts chronicling my own data journalism using R and working through examples.
The site has received more than 8,000 page views, its Twitter account has more than 200 followers and I was invited to do a workshop at a data journalism conference organised by Paul Bradshaw.
Automated weekly print pages
The Trinity Mirror Data Unit prepares print pages for 34 of our weekly titles. Every week our team produces automated print pages about a data topic such as crime, house sales or health.
Some of these pages are my responsibility, including the ones about crime.
The data I needed was contained in hundreds of open data spreadsheets of monthly street-level crime data available from data.police.uk, containing millions of rows of data in total.
I collated them using R, found the areas that were relevant to our titles, made an overview of the situation and identified the worst five streets for each area. This included using an R package to make API calls to Google to get the postcodes of the worst streets.
This entire process is automated, meaning we can produce 34 detailed print graphics that are individually relevant to each of our titles.
School absence and deprivation
I analysed the Government's school absence data and combined it with the latest Index of Multiple Deprivation to see whether pupils who go to school in poorer areas were more likely to miss school without their parents' permission.
I used R to analyse the hundreds of thousands of rows of raw data.
My hunch was correct: poorer pupils were more likely to skip school than their richer peers. This lack of attendance won't just be truancy – some pupils won't be at school because of their chaotic family lives, according to two psychologists I spoke to for the piece.
This absence in turn will likely affect their ability to get into universities or further education in the future.
Prisons under Pressure
The English and Welsh prison system is a mess. I've reported for years about how prison violence is rising, self-harm is increasing and drug-taking is rife.
With Prisons under Pressure I brought all these publicly available datasets together to show at a glance just how serious the violence and drug use has become.
With our coder Ashley Brown and designer Kelly Leung we created an innovative chart invoking prison bars. The user selects a prison, 'unlocks' and indicator and the chart ranks the facility, showing how bad it is in that prison and how it compares to the rest of the country.
Cyclists hitting car doors
I analysed millions of rows of the STATS19 data from the Department for Transport using R. These are taken from police records of road accidents that involve at least one person getting injured or killed up and down Britain.
I narrowed it down to cyclists getting injured or killed by colliding with car doors. Drivers can get very careless when opening car doors, not paying attention to oncoming cyclists.
The charity Cycling UK advocates using the so-called 'Dutch reach' – using your opposite hand to open a car door, which forces your body to turn and increases the likelihood of spotting a cyclist either directly or in your wing mirror.
Summer-born children
It's well-known that children born in the summer fare worse at school than those who are born in the autumn at the start of the academic year.
An extra 10 or 11 months to develop is a long time for five-year-olds. But could this advantage in the early years extend all the way to university?
To find out, I submitted Freedom of Information requests to Britain's leading Russell Group of universities, asking them for details on the month of birth for their first-year undergraduates for the past five years.
I calculated the percentages to work out the proportion of students born in each month. The job wasn't done – births are not evenly distributed throughout the year. As a baseline, I used 20 years of England and Wales births data from the Office for National Statistics.
My findings showed that there was a bias towards students born in September and October and away from students born in July and August.
To show the results, our developer Carlos Novoa, designer Kelly Leung and I created this widget that revealed for the first time the summer gap at British universities.
You could select your university and it showed you whether students there born in each month tallied with what we would expect.
This is something schools minister Nick Gibb is concerned about.
A Department for Education spokesman told me: "We want all children to have an equal chance to excel in school and are concerned that some children may be missing the reception year.
"We are carefully considering how best to address these issues and any impact this may have on the admissions system."
High Speed Rail or Slow Speed Fail?
A perennial complaint from town halls outside London is that the capital has vastly superior infrastructure compared to the rest of the country.
London has its own bus regulation, Britain's only extensive Underground system, Crossrail and Britain's only current High Speed rail terminus. This gives London an unfair advantage in the eyes of many outside the capital.
I wanted to investigate whether trains to and from London were faster than those to and from Britain's other major cities.
To do this, with Marie Segger I used R to build a distance calculator. Building on this Excel formula, it allowed me to calculate the distance between any two latitude and longitude coordinate pairs.
I downloaded the coordinates of each train station in Britain from the Department for Transport's records.
Then I selected Britain's largest cities and looped through the formula to get the distance as the crow flies between each station.
That gave us the distances. Remember your school physics classes: Speed = distance / time.
We needed the time by train between each station pair. We were able to get this by scraping the Trainline website – here's an example page.
The results confirmed what we thought: Britain's provincial cities really do have slow train connections between each other compared to the train to London.
The fastest trains were all to and from London. It's much easier to go North-South or South-North in Britain by train than to go East-West. This left some isolated cities such as Hull and Plymouth with slow rail connections.


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Apple's latest Mac announcement brought both the expected and the unexpected to the dwindling number of Mac users.
Dwindling? Well, Mac sales have been going down for awhile, thanks to the post-PC era inspired by the iPad and iPhone. The expected news is typical Apple. The unexpected news is a sign of the times.
What Price MacBook Pro?
Over the past year Apple has steadily, almost stealthily updated each Mac with faster CPUs that use less power; first the MacBook Air line, then the iMac, and now the popular MacBook Pro.
Both the 13-inch and 15-inch models retain the Retina display, but get Intel's latest Haswell chip; think faster but better battery life.
There's still the option for Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs, and all but the entry level MacBook Pro come with 8GB of RAM. Storage options are still limited to 512GB on all but the entry level model.
Apple managed to squeeze some weight out of the 13-inch MacBook Pro, which weighs in at a svelte 3.46 pounds (the 15-inch model is a pound heavier).
Little else has changed in the MacBook Pro line, hardware wise. The iSight camera is still 720p HD, not 1080p. Battery life tops out at 9 hours. Both models come with two Thunderbolt ports, two USB 3 ports, an HDMI port, Gigabit ethernet, and a lone SDXC card slot.
The new MacBook Pro comes with OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and includes new iLife and iWork apps. Video features both Intel's Iris Pro Graphics (think fast but discreet), and the 15-inch model also has an NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.
What's Missing?
Nobody was expecting much beyond the included 802.11 ac Wi-Fi (only the Mac mini does not have 802.11 ac).
A Touch ID fingerprint sensor would be nice, at least on the high end 15-inch model, otherwise Apple didn't give the Mac as much love as the recent upgrades to iPhone and iPad. Yet, Mac sales have been falling, so Apple did something Apple doesn't do very often. It reduced the MacBook Pro's price tag.
The entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro starts at a meager $1,299, while the 15-inch model came down to $1,999. Compare that to the original 128k Mac in 1984 which debuted at $2,499.
Frankly, the new, lower prices may do little to stimulate demand. About half of what I once did only on my Mac is now handled by iPhone and iPad. With the new advances in OS X Mavericks, I expected MacBook Pro battery life to improve. Maybe Apple is under promising and over delivering.
Shaving a few hundred dollars off the price tag of the world's most expensive notebook line may not be enough.


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Very excited to write about the undervalue or under appreciation of a thank you. It something I have noodled on for a while. A recent experience reminded me of the importance of saying thank you and how it can benefit you personally and professionally.
Last week, I attended Vocus Demand Success conference at the National Harbor. If you missed the conference, check out these Storify links of day one and day two that covered a lot of great information on marketing, social media, public relations, search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, to name a few.
At the conference, I had the opportunity to meet Arianna Huffington, as she was the keynote for the conference this year. If you don't know who Arianna is, she is chair, president, and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of thirteen books. Essentially, she's one badass lady and a powerful businesswoman.
To say I was excited to meet her is an understatement. When I met her, I blurted out a lot, but from what I remember, I mentioned how much I enjoyed her talk and then explained how my company contributes to Huffington's new blogs, Girls in Stem. I couldn't help myself and let's be honest; I wouldn't be a PR person if I didn't, right? The next phrase out her mouth was completely unexpected, "thank you for contributing [to our blog]. You are doing great things."
Wow, I thought, how awesome is that! But there are a few things to note: First, I am confident that she didn't know me or the company I represent. Two, her compliment and appreciation was not fake, but genuine. Those few words meant a lot and I shared those with my coworkers and my team. But, it also reminded me how we, as managers, employees, and leaders forget about the value of just saying, "thanks." It didn't take a whole lot, but boy did it leave an impression
Is this act of kindness an anomaly? What type of impact does showing gratitude have on a business? Mark Goulston wrote an article for Harvard Business Review back in February covering gratitude. My favorite part of the article was research by Adam Grant and Francesca Gino that showed saying thank you not only results in reciprocal generosity — where the thanked person is more likely to help the thanker — but also stimulates pro-social behavior in general. In other words, saying "thanks" increases the likelihood your employee will not only help you, but also help someone else.
If it takes so little effort to say thanks then why is saying, "thank you" not valued? Here are a few observations, at least from my perspective:
- You have to mean it.
- You have to care.
- Too many folks are focused on their interests or getting what they need done first without consideration of the other person.
- People don't think outside of themselves. Goes back to caring and nurturing.
- It takes extra time. Those valuable seconds seem like eternity for some.
- There's no priority to show gratitude. Foolish really if you think about it. Everything you do involves people. Saying thanks doesn't always have to involve monetary terms.
Gratitude cost nothing and more people should stop and thank the people they interact or work with. If you just took a moment to say thanks, imagine what type of reaction you would get in that moment. Imagine how much easier future interactions would be? I bet those would be a lot more pleasant.


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This is the place for authors to rub elbows with industry professionals from book review bloggers to publishers, service providers and more. Meet the Movers and Shakers in their booths below where they share a bit of themselves and their work, some goodies, and some giveaways.
We also have the following events to check out:
Novel Ideas and Shenanigans
A live hangout for authors, bloggers, and booktubers to mingle during CyCon Watch the live video at Authors Write Aloud on Twitch
For more information on NIS contact the host Richard White at email@example.com
If you are interested in joining the event ask Richard white on Facebook for the zoom ID.
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Expanded VA caregiver program bill introduced by Durbin
U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) have introduced the Veterans Affairs Family Caregivers Expansion and Improvement Act.
The bill expands the VA Family Caregivers Program to all eligible veterans who were severely injured while serving the country.
The Family Caregivers Program also provides home health training, peer support and a financial stipend to caregivers of severely injured veterans. The caregivers will also have access to mental health support and enrollment in the VA's Civilian Health and Mental Program.
The original Family Caregiver Program introduced by Durbin in 2009 was limited to post-9/11 veterans only. The new bill provides coverage to all veterans from all wars.
The VA estimates 70,000 more veterans will be eligible under the expanded program, along with 400 from Illinois.
"We owe each and every veteran a great debt of gratitude," Durbin said. "The VA Family Caregivers Program proved it can make a difference in the lives of America's heroes and the dedicated caregivers who made the decision to care for them.
Durbin said expanding the bill will provide needed coverage to tens of thousands of more families.
"With this bill, we are on the way to helping many families in need and can finally provide assistance to the caregivers of veterans of all eras on an equal basis," he said.
Organizations in this Story
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs


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Phone Interview: Chris Powers - The Hip Abduction
for The Lot Scene by Parker
Last Monday I had the fantastic opportunity of interviewing Chris Powers, the bassist for Florida's own The Hip Abduction. We had a really great chat over the phone ranging from the band's sound and influences to their own influence in this day and age. Needless to say, I am very excited to see The Hip Abduction at the Fox Theatre tonight and to soak in some of their legendary positivity and West Africa-meets-roots reggae sound.
TLS: We are very interested in the background of the band when it comes to your musical sound and I know that your influences are pretty well known as a group. You've got West Africa, reggae, even some funk and, at this point, you've all come in with varied backgrounds. So, I understand that one of your earlier connections to Dave (New) came when he listened to a Cheikh-Lo CD you loaned a mutual friend. Is that right?
CP: Absolutely. That was actually PK (Pat Klemawesch), one of the kamale ngoni, and guitar players in the band. That was absolutely one of the beginnings of the idea of blending sort of the reggae and western song aesthetics like Paul Simon with West African music.
TLS: Excellent. You mentioned that Paul Simon sound and I remember listening to you guys and, from the very outset, hearing that connection to some of his projects like Graceland and some of the songs from that. And, knowing those influences, I thought that there's a connection with this band and instantly liked what you guys were doing as a result.
CP: Thank you, man, I really appreciate it, Parker.
TLS: Of course! So, just a question for you personally, what's your own experience or connection with West African music? Where was your beginning with it?
CP: Well, you know, I really got connected with the West African music through playing with Dave a bunch, actually. I started playing with Dave, the lead singer of the band, about ten years ago. We were playing a lot of roots reggae. When that connection happened with PK and with having a kora, kamale ngoni, and running music and sitting down learning traditional West African songs and listening to lots of that music and its connection with the Blues, that's really when some of my bass lines in the songs sort of developed. And, the unique sound that we started I think probably One Less Sound, that first album that came out in 2011.
TLS: Sure. Fantastic, man, it's pretty fascinating to us because we listen to a lot of bands and come in contact with a lot of musicians, and to hear an influence coming from another part of the world that we're not really used to hearing certainly within our circles or our community. You are obviously bringing something special and a sound that's unique to the front and from what I understand and everything that I've read and everything that I've seen from you guys so far, people really respond to it. There's something special about it, especially through the eyes and lenses of The Hip Abduction.
CP: The kamale ngoni is…think about it, it's a West African harp but it has similarities to the banjo and it's a predecessor to a lot of instruments that we listen to, so no wonder we are connecting with people because it's really roots music. So, it's cool to have that jam and it's challenging because you can really only play in one key, the harp. So, having those constraints in song writing and developing, actually makes for more interesting song writing, I think. So, it's a fun instrument to play with, for sure.
TLS: Interesting. I hadn't really noticed that before, but it kind of makes sense. Playing in a single key is just yet another interesting aspect of your music that isn't going to be found with anybody else.
CP: Absolutely, you've got the relative minor and you can do a quick tune and play in a couple of different keys, but it's definitely a cool instrument to play with and it's also something that is handmade. You know, it's not just fishing line and a bowl from Bed, Bath, and Beyond and a drum head from a conga.
TLS: //laughter//
CP: //laughter// You know, it's an interesting instrument that you simply can't get at Guitar Center.
TLS: Exactly, and I am sure there's no Kamale Ngoni Center, either.
CP: Absolutely. //laughter// Not yet.
TLS: Right. Maybe one day, with you guys, who knows? //laughter//
CP: //laughter// That's the next idea. But, the blend of music and the concept of latest album of the band, Gold Under the Glow, had much more of a synth-pop element to the music, mixed in with some West African aesthetics…you know, it was definitely a step in that direction and then, the stuff that we're writing right now is going to be something different. So, the band is just constantly consuming music and creating music and, you know, we're just really thankful and blessed that this is what we get to do now with our time. It's pretty amazing, so…
TLS: Fantastic. I can't imagine that it wouldn't be to be honest.
CP: It's just a wonderful thing to go around the country and share. We did over 100 dates last year…we're hoping to do many more this coming year. It's going to be a lot of fun.
TLS: Perfect. That actually leads right into my next question seamlessly. So, thank you.
CP: Yeah sure. //laughter//
TLS: So you guys are coming from the ocean back to the mountains again, you're spreading your message of uplifting and unique positive dance music, things that people really respond to, and, it's always cool having bands from other states and other subcultures of the United States, other music communities, come through Colorado and share and combine, etc. So, what are you guys hoping to bring to these Colorado crowds from Florida this time?
CP: There's a commonality, I think between people who love the beach and people who love the mountains. And that's just sort of an awe that happens when you're looking around at the Gulf or looking up at the Rockies. A common feeling. And we like to spend a lot of time out in nature, be connected with that, and because of that, we connect well with people in Colorado. Our last run was amazing…the response so far from people reaching out to the people we met on Jam Cruise from Colorado, it was just absolutely awesome. So, we're hoping to bring you guys some sunshine and a little bit of time to escape and maybe imagine your toes in the sand, but we're really excited just to tour back through and play the Fox again, too. That's going to be outstanding. It was a really great experience last time so we're really excited to get in that room again.
TLS: So, would you say your experience at the Fox last time lived up to your expectations? I know that in an interview you said for your last tour through here that you were most looking forward to that venue. And, that's one of my home venues, so I love going there and seeing music there…how did it fare for you?
CP: It was great, man. The low end was killer. Playing my bass and the bass end in that room was outstanding. It was all just super pro. Which is great…to roll up into a venue and know that it's going to be a good show. It definitely lived up to whatever expectation I had of it. I remember it was definitely a great experience. And I'm excited to go do it again.
TLS: Fantastic, man. Well, we're certainly excited here in Boulder to have you guys coming through. I know that we're always excited to get a band like you coming through on our schedule. Like you said, bringing some sunshine, bringing some happy…bringing some of that joy to us from Florida. We'll take all we can get and hopefully we can share a little of it back with you.
CP: Absolutely, I appreciate it. And we're looking forward to it, too.
TLS: Awesome, well you guys have certainly made a splash here, I know you're definitely on the minds of a lot of folks and I know a lot of people are looking forward to this run coming up…and thanks to the likes of JamOn and social media you guys have got a great presence, you know, and you've made quite the footprint so far…so is there anything I can clue some folks into for this Boulder show coming up? Anything special we should know about? Or is going to have to be a 'wait and see' or just show up?
CP: Well, we're going to play a new cover that we haven't ever played before. And we're also going to be playing a new song that's probably going to be…we'll see how the response is and how things go. It's going to be a fun run and I'm excited to see what the response is going to be for these new tunes, for sure.
TLS: Excellent. I always love hearing new music, I always love knowing that there's a debut coming out — it's always something fun to look forward to in a show, so I appreciate that, thank you.
CP: You know it, man. It's going to be fun.
TLS: Awesome. That's definitely going to whet some appetites for Friday night, I know that for sure.
CP: You know, a song, we can't tell if it's done until we see how that happens, between the audience and us.
TLS: Oh sure.
CP: That's the testing ground, you know? //laughter//
TLS: Absolutely. Well, that's the second half of a piece of music…it's what you write and what you play and then it's also how it's consumed and how it's received.
CP: Yeah, absolutely. The feeling of playing in rooms, playing a new song and seeing how it's connecting…definitely an amazing experience. More often than not, by the time we get there we know that it's written.
TLS: Awesome. That's fantastic. It's cool that you guys have that as a part of your process.
CP: I think it's an important part of being able to perform, you know, and being able to perform our songs like they are on the records.
TLS: And I do love that about the videos I've seen of you guys — they certainly showed that you have a really great sound in concert. It makes me super excited for Friday for sure on a personal level.
CP: Yeah, man. It's going to sound good. Excited to drop the low end at the Fox Theatre again. //laughter//
TLS: Well, we'll look forward to that for sure, my friend. //laughter//
CP: //laughter//
TLS: Well, Chris, this has been great. I've got one last question for you. Like I had said, we're going to skew a little bit on a wider scale here. It's, no doubt, an interesting and uncertain time for us in our world. With the music of The Hip Abduction seeming to always have focused on such a positive sound and message, things like hope, love, light, do you and maybe even the band as well feel any sort of calling to deliver your message even stronger and maybe even more joyfully than before, you know, because of what is going on?
CP: Absolutely, and we just want people not to disengage. Yeah, don't give up. Just stay positive…it's very easy to get into your own world, your own thing, and be surround by all the people who agree with you. But, it's really important to stay engaged and fight important battles and just stay positive. We absolutely feel invigorated to be playing and doing what we're doing.
TLS: Excellent. That's wonderful, man. That's fantastic. I think, personally again, in my opinion, we can use as much positivity and hope as possible right now…
CP: Absolutely, absolutely.
TLS: Keeping the hope alive, like you say, and keeping people from disengaging, that's a perfect way of putting it.
CP: Very cool, man. Well, it's definitely something that we feel here in St. Petersburg, Florida, and I'm sure it's something that's happening up in Boulder, Colorado.
TLS: Most definitely. And I think having you guys come here, you know, to reaffirm and bolster our resolve here…we need as much goodness as any other folk so we can do good works with it.
CP: You bet, man. You know, that's why we love coming to Colorado. We go there and we feel like we're already home. //laughter//
TLS: //laughter// Well, you guys are certainly very welcome here, always for your music, for yourselves, for your good works, and everything that you are. So, we just want to say thank you in advance — very much looking forward to Friday and the rest of the run.
CP: Well, thanks. It's been great talking with you.
TLS: Thanks very much, Chris. Have a great rest of your evening and see you on Friday!
CP: Alright, see you Friday!


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Animals still in cages a year after Buenos Aires zoo closure
The roar of lions, snorts of rhinos and trumpets of elephants still blend with the cacophony of honking buses and screeching cars passing nearby in one of the most heavily congested areas of Argentina's capital.
A year after the 140-year-old Buenos Aires zoo closed its doors and was transformed into a park, hundreds of animals remain behind bars and in a noisy limbo.
Developers last July promised to relocate most of the zoo's 1,500 animals to sanctuaries in Argentina and abroad, but they had made no firm arrangements to do so. And a new master plan announced Tuesday still doesn't specify how they will accomplish it. Many of the animals are so zoo-trained that experts fear they would die if moved, even to wild animal preserves.
Conservationists also complain that the remaining animals still live in antiquated enclosures widely considered inhumane by modern standards — and say the city government's new plan gives few specifics of how improvements will be made.
"It's gone from bad to worse," said Claudio Bertonatti, a former Buenos Aires zoo director and consultant for the Fundacion Azara non-governmental organization. "Everything is set for Noah's Arc to be shipwrecked."
The zoo was inaugurated in 1875 on what was then a quiet patch on the outskirts of Buenos Aires but is now an urban zone of busy avenues with bleating buses near the animal cages.
The first director decided that the animals should be housed in buildings that reflected their countries of origin. A replica of a Hindu temple was built for the Asian elephants. Giraffes were housed in an Islamic-inspired structure, the red panda in a Chinese pagoda. Many of those buildings remain on the 45-acre (18-hectare) site, but are in need of repair.
When Mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta announced its closure last year, he said the animals were a "treasure" that couldn't remain in captivity near the noise and pollution.
Since then, some condors have been freed and about 360 other animals rescued from trafficking have been sent to other institutions. But not a single animal owned by the city has been transferred.
City officials say the process has proved more difficult than they thought at first. They found they had closed the zoo before enacting legislation needed to authorize many of the transfers. They only recently hired an official to study which animals can be moved and arrange it. It's not yet clear how many can stand a move, or who might take them.
The plan being unveiled Tuesday shows a revamped layout and expansion for the park, but critics complain it doesn't detail plans for the existing animals.
A coalition of a dozen conservationist and veterinarian groups issued an April 28 letter calling on officials to specify which animals will be permanently housed at the park, and in what conditions.
It said the only changes that the master plan makes to the old zoo "are the changing of the name, a rise in the cost of the tickets and the closing of some areas and more staff, without this improving the conditions of the animals."
Even so, some of the stress for animals has been reduced by a cutback in allowed visitors, who in the past could number 10,000 a day. Only about 2,000 a day are now permitted and some animal habitats are now off-limited.
On a recent morning, Garoto and Porota, a couple of grey hippos swam to edge of their pond and opened their mouths wide showing their caramel teeth while Guille, their baby hippo lurked the dark water.
In a nearby enclosure, the giraffes Shaki, Buddy and their calf, Ciro, stuck out their long tongues to drink water from yellow plastic containers tethered to a roof.
Sandra, the orangutan, was enthralled by some patches of grass that had been recently installed in her enclosure. She became known worldwide when an Argentine court issued a landmark ruling in 2014 that she was entitled to some of the legal rights enjoyed by humans. She's no longer on display for curious visitors.
"The (city government) hasn't made the enclosures bigger. There are minor infrastructural changes but there is a total deterioration," said Juan Carlos Sassaroli, a veterinarian who formerly worked at the zoo.
"The enclosures haven't been modified, and obviously, the animals suffer," he said. "We want the zoo to be a conservation tool, not a park for walking dogs, because we have that already."
Text from the AP news story, Animals still in cages a year after Buenos Aires zoo closure, by Luis Andres Henao.
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Emelle Long Sleeve V Neck Gold Button Wool Knit Sweater Dress
$89 $169
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The Emelle sweater dress is the picture definition of simple, sexy, and elegant. The sweater dress can easily be transformed into a casual or glamorous look for any event you may have. The slim fit and thigh-length cut is sure to show off your dynamic features while in our comfortable wear.
Product Details
Rundown: Wool/stretch/back zipper/slim fit/maxi
Clean: Dry-clean only
Length:Approx 57inch / 146cm


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Improving Clinical Efficiency with Patient Intake Technology
It isn't every day that the Journal of the American Medical Association takes note of drawings of 7-year-olds. But when it did, the drawing sparked a conversation on
It isn't every day that the Journal of the American Medical Association takes note of drawings of 7-year-olds. But when it did, the drawing sparked a conversation on
Managing an Orthopedic practice comes with its own unique challenges. Studies report some of the top challenges of an orthopedic practice as:
It is official!
HealthAsyst has officially joined GE Healthcare's Centricity Partner Program with our patient check-in solution- CheckinAsyst.
With CheckinAsyst,
The Journal of Medical Practice Management, in its latest edition, had some interesting revelations that took the whole of America's medical community to take a pause and THINK!
Patient satisfaction surveys have become the standard for quantifying patient experience, qualifying healthcare outcomes and even determining your payments1.
'It's time for data powered revolution in healthcare' said Todd Park, Nation's second CTO on a summer morning of May 2012 at the White House.
Healthcare professionals, all over the world, are on agreement that patient satisfaction is an important outcome for the sustainability and long term profitability of a healthcare practice.
The country's largest anti-hunger charity, the Food Bank for New York City, feeds about 1.5 million people every year. To do this it relies very heavily on the generosity of various businesses.
Knowledge is like money: to be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value.


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Now or Never Sephora Gift Card Giveaway
Disclosure: This Post contains affiliate links. I will receive a comission on any purchases made by clicking the links in this post. So if you do shop – Thank You~
Now that I have your attention.. HI! Welcome to the Now or Never Giveaway Hop hosted by Our Friends at The Hopping Bloggers.
Sephora is my go to destination for the latest in makeup, skin care, and fragrances that are on the luxury side of the beauty community. I love going into the store and browsing, trying samples of everything… like ALL THE THINGS! lol I also like going in for their quick 15 minute makeovers and just getting a quick tutorial live in person on how to achieve whatever current trend I'm struggling with. They are the best. So because no one likes to shop empty handed I decided to give you guys $25 to shop with… And you can actually buy something for $25 at Sephora, contrary to popular belief. So here's a couple of options.
FENTY BEAUTY BY RIHANNA Bomb Baby Mini Lip and Face Set $23
You Might also Like: Easy Guide To Saving Money on Makeup
TARTE Mermaid Jewels – Be A Mermaid & Makes Waves Collection $12
SEPHORA COLLECTION Face the Day: Full Face Brush Set $25
See you can get some cool stuff for $25 or Less. 🙂
Welcome to the Now or Never Giveaway Hop brought to you by The Hopping Bloggers!
Hosted By: Mama's Geeky & Women and Their Pretties
Each giveaway has a value of a minimum of $15, however some are worth much more. Be sure to enter to win all of them because there is no limit to how many you can win. GOOD LUCK!
If you're a blogger looking to connect with brands: Join The Hopping Bloggers database and get started today!
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So are you ready to win some new makeup, hair care, skin care, or other beauty essentials from Sephora? Here comes all the giveaway Details!
Giveaway Rules
Must be 18 years or older to win
Open World Wide
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Complete the Rafflecopter Form Below for entries


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Funeral Open Heart
Funeral Open Heart
The passing of someone we love deeply requires a special tribute. Our open heart standing arrangement of fresh white blooms, accented by roses and a ribbon, will help you express the devotion and sympathy in your heart.
- Arrangement is designed on an easel
- Measures approximately 28" overall, without easel
- Appropriate for the funeral home
- Our designers only use the freshest flowers available, so colors and varieties may vary.


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- Join over 1.2 million students every month
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Is a Four Day School Week a Benefit to Us?
Extracts from this document...
Is a Four Day School Week a Benefit to Us? Laura Giles 001-8245 January 27, 2004 In the busy lives of individuals today, is a four day school week a benefit to us? There are many reasons as to why the original five day school week should be reduced to four days a week. The new schedule will give teachers time to create a more positive and effective working environment. It will give kids more time to develop better social skills and it will also allow them to spend more quality time with their families. Teachers today have a lot of pressure put upon their shoulders. They are expected to plan their lectures and activities for the day, mark papers, and also find quality time to spend with their families. ...read more.
This allows the students and the teachers to have a more social relationship. The social aspect of a child's life is very important. It allows a child to be able to communicate and get along with other individuals. Having a four day school week will allow children to become more social. Social capabilities have an impact on future job opportunities. In today's working environment, an employer will look at the social attributes one possesses. If a child is not exposed to social activities they may not develop the qualities needed in order to acquire a job. Spare time for a child is a valuable commodity. With all the commitments of homework, sports, and the influence of T.V., computers, and video games, little is left for social interaction. ...read more.
When a family leaves for a weekend trip, they will usually leave on a Friday in order to get a head start on the trip. The four day week schedule will make it easier to go on trips because he or she will not have to miss a day of school. Family time is a very crucial part of a child's life. Family teaches a child the rights and wrongs of life. The new schedule will allow more time for this. Because a child misses out on so many aspects of life from the pressure and commitments of school, a four day school week will be a benefit to students and also to teachers. Although there is less quantity of school, it may prove to give a better quality of teaching. It will allow a family to create a stronger unit and it will give the teacher a better opportunity to expand the child's and their own knowledge. ...read more.
This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Child Development section.
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All eyes might have been on Jose Mourinho this week but his Chelsea side weren't the only champions to be on the wrong end of a three-nil defeat. K-League leaders Jeonbuk suffered a similar fate as the team from West London as they went down three-nil away at Pohang. Choi Jae-Soo opened the scoring for the home side before substitutes Kim Seung-Dae and Kim Dae-Ho put the result beyond doubt in the closing minutes. Suwon nearly blew their chance to close the gap on Jeonbuk, finding themselves two-nil down midway through the first half before goals from Lee Sang-Ho, Kwon Chang-Hoon, and a brace from Cho Chan-Ho gave them a four-two victory over Jeju United. Seongnam moved up to fourth place in the table with a two-nil win over bottom club Daejeon. Hwang Ui-Jo's two goals in that game brings his total for the season to ten, one behind former Jeonbuk striker Edu. A two-goal lead and a man advantage from the eighteenth minute onwards were not enough for Busan to gain a vital win in their relegation six-pointer against Ulsan, with goals from Kovacec and Yang Dong-Hyun cancelling out Wesley's two first half strikes for the home side. Super-sub Jin Sung-Wook scored twice in the second half to give Incheon a two-nil win over Jeonnam. In the K-League Challenge, Seoul Eland surrendered a one-nil half-time lead to lose three-one against Bucheon, and a ninety-eighth minute equalizer earned third-placed Daegu a point in a dramatic three-all draw against Goyang.
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Give&Gain Day is a global campaign to celebrate and raise awareness of the power of volunteering in work time.
Its aims are to get a high number of people to volunteer on one day, allowing new companies and new employees to try volunteering. In 2013, Give&Gain Day activity happened in 24 countries, with 22,010 volunteers out supporting over 600 community organisations internationally. This was the biggest year on record, but we believe that with the help of CSR360 GPN partner organisations and companies across the globe, this record can once again be broken.
On 16th May 2014 in the UK and between 2nd and 16th May internationally, BITC is aiming to inspire thousands of employees to make a difference to those communities in which they operate, live and work. Significantly, BITC believes that it will get its 100,000th person taking part in Give&Gain Day since it started in 2008.
Already, we have had confirmation that Give&Gain Day will take place in Argentina, South Africa, Turkey, Spain, the USA, Romania, United Arab Emirates and Australia, as well as the UK.
BITC is hoping for even more CSR360 GPN partners to join us this year so please email Maria José Subiela if you would like to take part in this inspirational day of action or contact email@example.com
For more information and stories from the 2013, please visit Give & Gain Day
Posted by
Usha Manojkanth
- Categories
Associated Partner:
Business in the Community (BITC)


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O Lord God, we come before Your presence fully aware of our many sins. We thank you for the forgiveness of sins we receive for Jesus' sake. May we grow strong in our faith and in our commitment as we hear Your Word and praise Your name. Amen.
The Lord God is our Savior and Redeemer. As such He draws people from every nation to faith. He preserves and protects all of His believers from their enemies.
Jesus' enemies accused Him of being in league with the Devil. Far from that, Jesus demonstrated the power and presence of God's kingdom by casting out demons and restoring lost souls.
Text: Romans 5:18-6:4
For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous. Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But when sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
In Christ Jesus, Who lived that we might not die and Who died that we might live, dear fellow redeemed:
Abuse! We hear quite a bit about "abuse" in our day, do we not? Child abuse and spousal abuse are certainly major concerns within our society and rightfully so. The Free-Press reported recently that a doctor was being charged with abuse of his patients. Years ago the public school in White River, South Dakota, the site of my first parish, was taken to court because a teacher allegedly abused several students. We hear about physical, verbal, emotional and mental abuse, none of which are pleasant topics, but all of which, sadly to say, exist within our society.
This morning I would like to talk to you about another form of abuse. It is a form of abuse about which you will find nothing in the papers, nor are you likely to hear it mentioned in casual conversation. It is certainly not included in any social worker's case book. The abuse I am talking about is our abuse of God. "Our abuse of God," you ask? "How can we abuse God?" Oh, we can and do abuse God in many ways. We abuse God anytime that we abuse one another, for Jesus tells us that whatever we do to our brethren we do to Him--whether that be good or bad (cf. Mt. 25:40,45). We abuse God when we use His name lightly with expression like, "Oh my God," and when we use His name to damn someone or something. We abuse God when we receive abundant blessings from Him and then fail to thank Him, assuming that everything we have received is the result of our own intelligence and strength. We abuse God every time we take Him for granted and assume, as we often do during good times, that God is something like our winter jacket that we can hang in a closet until the next winter storm arises and we have need of Him. But there is no greater way that we can abuse God than to abuse His grace! We abuse God's grace whenever we treat sin lightly! Such an attitude is portrayed in our text when Paul, anticipating the argument of such grace-abusers, asks, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" His answer, as it properly should be is, "Certainly not!" He then goes on to ask, "How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" Yet, how often are not we, who have died to sin by faith in Jesus, tempted to assume that we can go ahead and sin, for after all God will surely forgive us? How often are we not tempted to think that certain sins are not that bad, or because everyone else is sinning, I certainly can also sin. Dear friends, such thoughts are a satanic deception! Sin is always to be avoided! Sin is always to be rejected! Why? Because sin has devastating consequences and is Satan's tool used to destroy our faith and separate us from our Savior! Anyone who thinks lightly of sin is a fool! LET US NOT ABUSE THE GRACE OF GOD! Dear friends, we can avoid such abuse if we, first of all, learn from history; and, secondly, if we live with Christ!
Yes, let us learn from history! Paul teaches us about two important historical figures, whose significance for our lives we must understand if we are to avoid abusing the grace of God. Paul writes, "For if by one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous."
Recently, I looked over a list of what were claimed to be the one hundred most significant events of the twentieth century. Such a list would no doubt vary both in content and ranking depending on the historian you chose to compose it. If, however, we were assigned the task of identifying the one hundred most important individuals not just of the twentieth century, but of all time, there are two names which should rightfully appear at the top of every list--Adam and Jesus Christ. Adam, the first man created by God, had a negative impact on us all when he chose disobedience over obedience in the Garden of Eden. When Adam chose to defy God and to sin, death not only entered this world, it began to reign in this world. Genesis 5 punctuates the biographies of the Adam's descendants with the phrase, "and he died...and he died...and he died!" Death is a fact of life for all of us, and it is so because of sin. Sin is a fact of life for all of us, because Adam passed his sinful nature down through every generation to the present day. Condemnation is a reality of sin, for our righteous God must and does respond to sin--all sin--with His wrath and judgment! Sin is not child's play. It is not something about which to smile. Sin is deadly!
It is interesting to note, is it not, that the first sin was not murder, or rape, or armed robbery. It was taking a piece of forbidden fruit. Is it not ironic that the sin which introduced death to the world would be viewed by many if not most people in our world today as something so insignificant that it would be unworthy of comment--something probably ignored and forgotten. But sin, any sin, ought not be viewed lightly, lest such an attitude lead to an abuse of God's grace!
The presence of sin in our world, mandated atonement for sin. Were dealing with sin left up to us, we would find ourselves in a hopeless situation for man cannot remove sin or redeem his own soul. God, however, in His grace and by His mercy determined to send Jesus. Through Jesus' life and death we receive the "gift of righteousness" which gives us the "free gift" of "justification" and "life." My dear friends, we cannot think lightly of sin, for sin cost our Savior His life. The righteousness we receive as a gift from God was not a gift purchased at the mall after a few hours of shopping--it was the result of our Savior's entire life of humble service and His innocent death on the cross. He obeyed, for we do not always obey. He did not vent His anger, for we so often do vent our anger. He was selfless, for we are selfish. He did not rebel against what our world would call the unfair treatment He received from His heavenly Father, while we rebel even in view of God's abundant grace and mercy. Yes, do not think lightly of sin, for to do so will inevitably lead to the abuse of God's grace. Learn from the history of Adam--learn that any sin, even seemingly little sins have devastating consequences for ourselves and others. Learn from the history of Jesus Christ--learn that the tremendous burden of and punishment for our sins fell upon the innocent Son of God, Who gave up His life for us. In view of that history can we consider sin lightly? Can we just keep on willfully sinning, assuming God's grace will always remove it? Certainly not! Such an attitude despises grace and deprives itself of grace!
Yes, LET US NOT ABUSE THE GRACE OF GOD! We can avoid such abuse, secondly, if we live with Christ! Paul writes, "Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Luther, in his explanation of baptism in the Small Catechism, uses this section of Scripture to answer the question, "What is the meaning of this baptism with water?" Luther writes, "It means that the Old Adam in us should be drowned by daily contrition and repentance and die with all sins and evil desires. It also means that a new Man should daily appear and arise, who lives eternally before God in righteousness and purity."
To live with Christ means essentially two things, the first of which is that we are to deal with all our sins on a daily basis through contrition and repentance. Contrition is genuine sorrow over sin--sorrow over the fact that we have offended our just and gracious God. Repentance is a change of heart--a sincere desire not to do that which is wrong ever again. The second thing involved with living with Christ is that we foster a sincere desire to grow in our faith and to live our lives on a daily basis in a godly manner. This can only be done as we stay close to and study regularly God's Word.
My dear friends, this morning we will celebrate communion once again. We will invite all communicant members of Immanuel congregation and its sister congregations in the Church of the Lutheran Confession to commune. How ought we all approach attendance at our Lord's table as we seek to live with Christ? Our Lord urges us to "examine" ourselves so that we do not receive the Lord's Supper "in an unworthy manner" thus making ourselves "guilty of the body and blood of the Lord" and thereby bringing "judgment" to ourselves as we participate in the Lord's Supper rather than blessing (cf. 1 Cor. 11:28-29). How are we to examine ourselves? Luther provides excellent advice, once again in the Small Catechism, when he writes in his section on Confession: "Examine your place in life according to the Ten Commandments. Have you been faithful as a father, mother, son, daughter, employer or employee? Have you been disobedient, unfaithful, or lazy? Have you been bad-tempered, used foul language, or been easily provoked? Have you injured anyone in what you've said or done? Have you stolen anything, neglected your duty, been careless, or damaged anything?" My dear friends, to live with Christ means that you are willing to examine your inner thoughts and your outward words and deeds and repent of those things you have thought, said, and done which go contrary to God's will. Do not allow Satan to cause you to abuse God's grace by thinking of 101 excuses for sin! Confess your sins. Pray that God would lead you to repent of your sins. Strive in the future, with the strength that only God can give you, to live in a godly manner to God's glory and for the blessing of all others.
Will we...can we ever succeed in never abusing God's grace? If we mean by that, will we ever live a perfect life and never sin, the answer is, "No, not in this lifetime." Sin will unfortunately be a part of our lives as long as we have a sinful flesh clinging to us. While such a thought should never become an excuse for sin, it is a reality with which we must deal. Paul provides us with just the proper comfort when he writes, "The law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more." When we compare our lives to God's law, sin becomes very apparent. I still recall the first adult I ever had the privilege of instructing in the Christian faith. When we finished three lessons on the Ten Commandments, her only comment was, "I never knew I was so sinful." The law reveals our sin--its full extent! "BUT..." Paul writes, "BUT...where sin abounded, grace abounded much more." The comfort that the sincere child of God has is that God's grace is always sufficient to cover up, to remove, to cleanse us from every sin. Satan, who will always tempt us to abuse God's grace, will also tempt us to despair of God's grace--to think that somehow we are too great a sinner to be saved, for you see Satan's real goal is to cause us to lose God's grace! Remember always, dear friends, that Paul writes, "through one Man's righteous act (that Man being Jesus Christ) the free gift came to all men!" That is grace--God's undeserved love for all sinners--His undeserved love for you and for me! Cling to it; rejoice in it; let us only not abuse it! Amen!
—Pastor Paul Nolting


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- arched door
- арочный дверной проём; арочная дверь
Англо-русский строительный словарь. 2013.
Смотреть что такое "arched door" в других словарях:
Arched — Arched, a. Made with an arch or curve; covered with an arch; as, an arched door. [1913 Webster] … The Collaborative International Dictionary of English
Door — For other uses, see Door (disambiguation). A door is a movable structure used to open and close off an entrance, typically consisting of a panel that swings on hinges or that slides or rotates inside of a space. When open, they admit ventilation… … Wikipedia
door·way — /ˈdoɚˌweı/ noun, pl ways [count] 1 : the opening where a door is Please don t block the doorway. She stepped through the doorway. the castle s arched doorways sometimes used figuratively We hope that these talks will be a … Useful english dictionary
Venetian door — Venetian Ve*ne tian, a. [Cf. It. Veneziano, L. Venetianus.] Of or pertaining to Venice in Italy. [1913 Webster] {Venetian blind}, a blind for windows, doors, etc., made of thin slats, either fixed at a certain angle in the shutter, or movable,… … The Collaborative International Dictionary of English
Juyongguan — or Juyong Pass (zh stp |s=居庸关|t=居庸關 |p=Jūyōng Guān) is located in an 18 kilometer long valley named Guangou which is inside Changping County more than 50 kilometers from Beijing City. It is one of the three greatest passes of the Great Wall of… … Wikipedia
St Peter's Church, Little Budworth — St Peter s Church, Little Budworth, from the south … Wikipedia
Dawodiya — Reconstructed Dawodiya after 1991 St. John Church in Dawodiya … Wikipedia
Nur al-Din Madrasa — المدرسة النورية Domes of the Nur al Din Madrasa Location Souk al Khayattin district Damascus … Wikipedia
Architecture of the California missions — The Architecture of the California missions was influenced by several factors, those being the limitations in the construction materials that were on hand, an overall lack of skilled labor, and a desire on the part of the founding priests to… … Wikipedia
Château de Hohenbourg — Ruins of Hohenbourg The Château de Hohenbourg is a ruined castle in the commune of Wingen, in the Bas Rhin département of France. Contents … Wikipedia
Porcelain Tower of Nanjing — The Porcelain Pagoda, as illustrated in Fischer von Erlach s Plan of Civil and Historical Architecture (1721) The Porcelain Tower (or Porcelain Pagoda) of Nanjing (Chinese: 南京陶塔; pinyin: Nánjīng Táotǎ, or Chinese: 琉璃塔; pinyin: Liúlí Tǎ) … Wikipedia


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Some nice box sets available from Dave's post – check it out.
After my marketing post last month, I promised a follow up on box sets. In fact, I've gone one better and invited Phoenix Sullivan to do a guest post on the topic.
Today is perfect timing actually because we have just launched SINS OF THE PAST: 5 Historical Novels of Mystery, War and Adventure – just 99c at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo (Apple soon!):
For those that don't know Phoenix, she's a self-published author who also runs her own publishing company – Steel Magnolia Press – together with romance author Jennifer Blake. In the last 18 months, Phoenix has also been experimenting with box sets and, as you will see below, the results have been astounding.
I've known Phoenix for a while and no-one knows more about Amazon's algorithms and marketing e-books. When she invited me to participate – along with bestselling authors Denise Domning, N. Gemini Sasson, Monique Martin, and Michael Wallace…
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