text: Tour members, claim your souvenir for the X5 tour here! X5 has started shipping worldwide<--click to see details All preview impressions by tour members can be found here First arrival (click me) X5 arrives at lee730's door, first impressions (click me) First impressions by reihead here, here X5 arriving at musicheaven's door, gelocks First impressions by Brooko[/size=5] --------------------------- X5 UI preview by Joe Bloggs http://youtu.be/bI2zu495TkI New X5 review video by bowei006 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikWAxDEGZ1w by DigitalFreak http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT7R0pcUvYA Merry Christmas to all head-fiers! Here's something to liven up the festival season On behalf of FiiO, I'm pleased to announce that our upcoming high-end DAP the X5 is nearing completion and we have sent out several beta units on a world test / preview tour! Preview application period: 20-26 December 2013 Previewer list announcement period: 2 January 2014 Beginning of shipment of preview X5s: 14 January 2014 Keep your eyes on this thread as the preview units are shipped out and preview impressions start appearing! Shipping info: Depending on the geographical distribution of selected reviewers, FiiO will ship out several X5s, one or more to reviewers in each region, e.g. USA, Europe, SE Asia, Pacific region, etc. so that shipping costs from one reviewer to the next is kept low. FiiO will pay for shipping to the first reviewer and from the last reviewer back to FiiO for each region. •Please note that the review X5s will not ship with micro SD cards. Please prepare your own micro SD cards and music files for review and preferably format the cards within the X5 prior to use. Review regulations (subject to change before the tour commences): •Reviewers should keep the X5 for at most 10 days before shipping to the next reviewer. •Reviewers should ship the X5 to the next reviewer by registered post in the padded box provided. •Reviewers will not be held responsible for any damage to the X5 sustained during shipping or normal usage. •Reviewers should do the review fairly and objectively, and related product photos are required. •Reviewers should not overstate the advantages of the products. •Reviewers should indicate that the review X5s are free loan units, in order to avoid any misunderstandings. •Reviewers are prohibited from using or disseminating pirated music on the X5. •Reviewers are reminded to listen responsibly and safely to the X5, to not use it when operating machinery or driving, and not to drive headphones to excessive volume with the X5. •Reviewers should send the review content to us for examination prior to publishing—for basic fact-checking purposes only. We will only request corrections of factual mistakes regarding the X5. Reviewers should post the corrections alongside their original content for reference.


text:
|This module provides a data type for program invocations and functions to run them.
Like the unix xargs program. Useful for when we've got very long command lines that might overflow an OS limit on command line length and so you need to invoke a command multiple times to get all the args in.
It takes four template invocations corresponding to the simple, initial, middle and last invocations. If the number of args given is small enough that we can get away with just a single invocation then the simple one is used:
$ simple args
If the number of args given means that we need to use multiple invocations then the templates for the initial, middle and last invocations are used:
$ initial args_0 $ middle args_1 $ middle args_2 ... $ final args_n
|Produced by Haddock version 2.6.1

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about ATWOnline.
NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.
Read the best-read publication for the global airline management community: ATW magazine. View individual articles or download a digital issue (subscription required).


text:
Arizona is struggling to keep young talent that's trained in the state here. Why that is and what can be done to reverse the trend.
Tom Maxedon
According to his parents, Tom Maxedon III was found at birth on New Smyrna Beach, Florida, which is somewhat appropriate as he joined the KJZZ staff in September 2017, coming from the island of Guam in the Western Pacific, where he was news director for KPRG, Public Radio Guam.
Tom is the weekend morning host and a news reporter for KJZZ. He is a second-generation broadcaster with a wide vocational background in media, telecommunications and education.
He is a 1996 graduate of Ball State University with a master's degree in English and is an avid poet.


text:
|Upper Marlboro, Md.
|High School:
|C.H. Flowers
2011: Outdoor: Claimed bronze in the 100-meter hurdles at the America East Outdoor Championships with a final's time of 14.09... Helped the 4x100-meter relay team claim fourth at the conference meet.
2010-11 Indoor: Placed fourth in the 60-meter hurdles at the America East Championships... Won gold at the Rider/Lafayette Winter Games in the 60-meter hurdles in a time of 8.74... Also took gold in the event at the Patriot Games at George Mason... Earned a silver in the 60-meter hurdles at the season-opening Bison Opern at Bucknell
2010 Outdoor: Claimed fourth in the 100-meter hurdles at the America East Outdoor Championships with a time of 14.39... Helped the 4x100-meter relay team break the school record in the event with a time of 47.40 at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia.
2009-10 Indoor: Earned bronze in the 55-meter hurdles in a UMBC season-best time of 8.17… Won the 60-meter hurdles at both the Gulden Relays and the Rider/Lafayette Winter Games… UMBC's fastest returner in the 60-meter hurdles in 8.74, set at the ECAC Championships.
2009 Outdoor: Set the school record in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 14.28 at the Virginia Invitational… Season best times in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes were 12.78 and 26.59, respectively.
2008-09 Indoor: Set UMBC records in the 55- and 60-meter hurdles with times of 8.00 and 8.57, respectively… Earned silver at America East Championships in the 55m hurdles… Also recorded a season-best time of 26.92 in the 200-meter dash at the conference meet… Finished fifth at the ECAC Championships in the 60m hurdles.
Background: A four-time letter winner in track at C.H. Flowers High School in Upper Marlboro, Md..…Also named most valuable player while earning a letter in tennis… Maryland Indoor and Outdoor State Hurdle Champion her senior year… Two time Indoor All-County selection and All-County Outdoor selection… Helped lead 4x100 relay to Maryland state title in 2007.
Personal: Oldest of daughter of Cynthia and Derek Colbert… Has a sister Kenya, 17… Was named to honor roll every quarter except one… Father, Derek played tennis in high school and college… Played tennis her entire life before starting track at age 14…Born June 26, 1990.


text:
The May/June issue of Edible Seattle has an article I wrote on Cadence titled, "Time in the cellar - The patient rhythms of Cadence Winery." See a list of locations to purchase a copy here. Also, the May issue of Wine Enthusiast has my first reviews for the magazine as well as a short article on Erik Chapman of Seattle's Sun Liquor complete with cocktail recipe. Read the latter here.
14 hours ago


text:
My Profile
1. Inform you about time table of exam.
2. Inform you about new question papers.
3. New video tutorials information.
Admission Information
Students who satisfy the requirements of the two stage selection process will be considered for admission to the integrated courses. Stage 1 - All eligible candidates will be required to appear for a Written Test to be conducted at the NMIMS campus in Mumbai. The venue will be announced sufficiently in advance of the test date. Stage 2 - Based on the performance in the written test, candidates will be short listed and called for a personal interview at the NMIMS Campus, Mumbai. Based on the performance in Stages 1 and 2, a composite merit list will be prepared as per criteria laid down by the University.
Eligibility Requirement
For the M. Sc.-Ph.D. integrated program in Biological Sciences, a candidate must have passed the three year B.Sc. examination of any recognized University and scored not less than 50% in any one of the following subjects: Biochemistry, Biotechnology, Microbiology, Botany, Zoology and Life Sciences


text:
As-Sahifa Al-Kamilah Al-Sajjadiyya
A collection of supplications and whispered prayers composed by the great-grandson of the Prophet (s). Includes supplication for the Coming of the Month of Ramadhan, and supplication for Bidding Farewell to the Month of Ramadhan. At the end there is also the famous Treatise on Rights that explains beautifully the rights in an Islamic point of view.
- 105790 views
Love of Allah , Islam , Rasulullah (S) and Ahlul-Bayt (a.s.)
My journey to the true Islam, the Islam of the Ahlul-Bayt (a.s.) , started when I first read the book "Then I was Guided" and that book led me to discovering such books as Nahjul-Balagha and As-Sahifa Sajjadiya. Truly this book has no equal in its love and intimacy for Allah. It brings me so much joy that I am able to access this and other such books here on your website and I pray Allahu ta 'ala rewards you greatly for making this information available to the whole world and to this most poor slave of Allah.
As a convert to Islam, my very first teachers were Sunni muqallideen of the Hanafi Madhdhab and were Talibeen of the Qadri Tariqah. So , naturally , my most earliest learning of Islam was from a purely Sunni perspective. I had learned most of the Usoolid-deen and the the Furududdeen before I began studies in Tasawwuf. It was at that stage in my learning that I became aware of the source of Tasawwuf and a million questions entered my mind concerning just exactly what was the rule of the Ahlul-Bayt (a.s.) in Islam. Needless to say , none of my teachers were able to give me any reasonable explanations as to why , if the Ahlul-Bayt (a.s.) possessed such profound esoteric knowledge of Islam, why wasn't their teachings in fiqh, Aqa'idah and exoteric Islam not preserved. My learning of Tasawwuf lead me into a thorough study of the lives and history of the A'immah (a.s.) and that lead me to even more questions about all of what I had been learning for nearly 15 years. It was only after my discovery of the book "Then I was guided" had I come to realize how wrong I and my teachers had really been. It was like I was only discovering true Islam for the first time in my life, even though I had been reading the Qur'an for nearly 15 years by then.
At any rate, I am so grateful for brothers like al-islam.org for making these great works of our A'immah (a.s.) available to poor slaves like myself. Were it not for the love that brothers like these bothers have for the teachings of our Aimmah (a.s.) it would be almost impossible for someone like myself to gain the true knowledge of Islam. May Allah reward you all manifold for all your efforts.


text:
Inexact title. See the list below. We don't have an article named Main/IMissYouIMissYou, exactly. We do have:
- Film/I Miss You I Miss You
- Literature/I Miss You I Miss You
- TearJerker/I Miss You I Miss You
- Trivia/I Miss You I Miss You
- YMMV/I Miss You I Miss You
If you meant one of those, just click and go. If you want to start a Main/IMissYouIMissYou page, just click the edit button above. Be careful, though, the only things that go in the Main namespace are tropes and should be created through the YKTTW system. Don't put in redirects for shows, books, etc.. Use the right namespace for those.


text:
In the midst of unprecedented change in higher education, our community affirms this strategic plan to strengthen our place among exceptional colleges and universities. The greatest resource for our plan is our shared sense of mission: that we are an academic community rooted in a Reformed understanding of Jesus Christ; that we believe a Calvin education can guide students aspiring to the transformational work of renewing this broken world; that we are a liberal arts college with distinctive professional and graduate programs; that we are dedicated both to great teaching and significant scholarship; and that we believe passionately in preparing global citizens to live and work in a diverse and interconnected world. From this shared mission our community forged a vision to guide us through this decade.
The ongoing dynamism of our global context and disruption in higher education challenge us to use the next five years to prepare for the balance of the century. Our vision is simple and powerful: to ensure learning excellence for all members of our community by renewing our commitment to Calvin University's mission for generations to come. Key to our success will be our commitment to make demonstrable progress in our effort to strengthen, support, and secure long-held commitments to teaching, scholarship, community, diversity, and partnering on a sustainable operational foundation.


text:
Skip to Main Content
How Do I...
You are here:
Law Library
Free Law Clinic
Free Law Clinic
Central Minnesota Legal Services in cooperation with the Law Library and local volunteer attorneys offer a free law clinic, in the Law Library, Thursday's 12 noon to 1 p.m. Wright County residents or those with a Wright County case may participate. The clinics often book up a week or more in advance so if you don't have an appointment and the clinic is full you will likely be asked to return the following week.
Patrons are received on a first come - first served basis and are asked to bring their court papers, orders or documents. This is a one time counseling session to assist self help patrons seeking direction and guidance in family law and associated matters. No children please.
For more information, stop by the Law Library or call Colleen Norgren at 763 682-7592 to sign up.
Free Law Clinic
Arrow Left
Arrow Right
Slideshow Left Arrow
Slideshow Right Arrow


text:
D-backs focusing on talent above need in 2014 Draft
Arizona owns four of the first 70 picks, including No. 69 acquired from San Diego
PHOENIX -- It got lost in the shuffle when the D-backs acquired a compensation pick after the second round from the Padres in a deal made just before last year's non-waiver Trade Deadline.
But at the time, Arizona general manager Kevin Towers said the pick, No. 69 overall, was a big component because of what he believed scouting director Ray Montgomery could turn it into.
"When you've got a scouting director that's as good as Ray, I'll bet on him any day," Towers said.
This will be Montgomery's fourth Draft as scouting director, and he will have four picks out of the first 70 -- No. 16 overall, No. 54, No. 69 and No. 70 -- before the third round begins. Nos. 69 and 70 were alotted to the Padres and D-backs, respectively, as a result of the Competitive Balance Lottery.
"It's probably more pitching heavy, high school and college," Montgomery said of this year's Draft. "Pitching in general is usually the strength of the Draft, I think you'll get that from me just about every year, but this year probably more so."
The new Collective Bargaining Agreement, which took effect in 2012, has had an impact on this year's crop of college players. The CBA reined in some of the spending on the Draft so more high school players elected to sign in 2011, the year prior to the limits, rather than attend college. Had they gone to college, this would be the first time they would be eligible to be drafted again.
"This is the first year you're seeing the results of the change in the CBA in terms of this year's Draft," Montgomery said. "I think there are less guys at the college level because we signed a lot of them in 2011."
Towers is a scout at heart and a former scouting director, so getting a chance to look at amateur players is one of the favorite things he will do all year. He recently crisscrossed the country seeing all but probably one or two guys that the team is considering with the No. 16 pick.
When it comes to actually making the decision on who to pick, though, it will be in Montgomery's hands.
"K.T. has sat in that chair before, he knows what it feels like, he knows how hard it is, that helps," Montgomery said. "It helps having that sounding board of someone that knows what it feels like."
Arizona has needs in the system in the area of starting pitching and corner outfield bats, but that is only one factor the team will take into consideration.
"Need is a bad evaluation tool, we say that all the time," Montgomery said. "But you're certainly cognizant of what you need in the organization."
The 2014 Draft will take place today through Saturday, beginning with the Draft preview show on MLB.com and MLB Network today at 6 p.m. ET. Live Draft coverage from MLB Network's Studio 42 begins at 7 p.m., with the top 74 picks being streamed on MLB.com and broadcast on MLB Network. MLB.com's exclusive coverage of the second and third days will begin with a live Draft show at 12:30 p.m. ET on Friday.
MLB.com's coverage includes Draft Central, the Top 200 Draft Prospects list and Draft Tracker, a live interactive application that includes a searchable database of Draft-eligible players. Every selection will be tweeted live from @MLBDraftTracker, and you can also keep up to date by following @MLBDraft. And get into the Draft conversation by tagging your tweets with #mlbdraft.
Here's a glance at what the D-backs have in store as the Draft approaches:
In about 50 words
With pitchers like Archie Bradley close to the big leagues and Braden Shipley and Aaron Blair seemingly on a fast track, Arizona would not be opposed to taking a high school arm early if that player is at the top of their board.
The scoop
The D-backs regard the Draft as being somewhat thin when it comes to impact bats with a drop off after the first 10 to 15, so if they hope to get one, they likely would have to do it at No. 16, because they won't be able to at No. 54. So it wouldn't be a surprise to see them grab at bat at No. 16 and then focus on pitching with the next couple picks.
First-round buzz
Arizona has been linked in various mock drafts to University of San Francisco outfielder Bradley Zimmer, who would fit what they are looking to add this year. As is often the case with a pick after the first handful, there are lots of different names being thrown out, including college arms like Tyler Beede and Brandon Finnegan and high school right-hander Luis Ortiz.
D-backs bonus pool
|Pick value
Money matters
Under the CBA, each team has an allotted bonus pool equal to the sum of the values of that club's selections in the first 10 rounds of the Draft. The more picks a team has, and the earlier it picks, the larger the pool. The signing bonuses for a team's selections in the first 10 rounds, plus any bonus greater than $100,000 for a player taken after the 10th round, will apply toward the bonus-pool total.
Any team going up to five percent over its allotted pool will be taxed at a 75-percent rate on the overage. A team that overspends by 5-10 percent gets a 75-percent tax plus the loss of a first-round pick. A team that goes 10-15 percent over its pool amount will be hit with a 100-percent penalty on the overage and the loss of a first- and second-round pick. Any overage of 15 percent or more gets a 100-percent tax plus the loss of first-round picks in the next two Drafts.
The D-backs have a total bonus pool of $7,228,300 for their picks, an average of $602,358, which ranks 11th.
The No. 16 pick has a $2,338,200 value attached to it, while the No. 54 pick has a $1,034,500 value, the No. 69 pick has a $821,100 value and the No. 70 pick has a $808,600.
Shopping list
Arizona will likely take the best player available at each spot and not select based on positional needs at the big league level. Given the recent trades, the team would like to restock some starting pitching in the system as well as corner outfield bats. One area that is not a need is bullpen arms.
Trend watch
Under Montgomery, the D-backs have selected two college pitchers in the first round, a high school pitcher and a high school catcher. So the only real trend is that Arizona will take the highest-rated player on their board when its pick rolls around.
Rising fast
Infielder Andrew Velazquez has a chance to move quickly through the system. Drafted as a high school shortstop in the seventh round in 2012, Velazquez is playing well right now for Class A South Bend. Velazquez can change a game with his energy. His defense continues to improve and he has surprising power for someone listed at 5-foot-8.
Cinderella story
Right-hander Mike Bolsinger was drafted in the 15th round in 2010 and his rise through the system was a study in perseverance. Bolsinger lacks overpowering stuff, but Towers saw him throw well every time he watched him the past couple of years and gave him a shot in the rotation earlier this season.
In The Show
On the current 25-man roster, players drafted and developed by the D-backs include Josh Collmenter (15th round, 2007), Wade Miley (supplemental first round, '08), Goldschmidt (eighth round, '09), A.J. Pollock (first round, '09), Chase Anderson (ninth round, '09), Chris Owings (supplemental first round, '09) and Evan Marshall (fourth round, '11).
The D-backs' recent top picks
2013: Braden Shipley, RHP, Class A Advanced Visalia
2012 Stryker Trahan, OF, Class A South Bend
2011: Trevor Bauer, RHP, Indians (traded)
2011: Archie Bradley, RHP, Triple-A Reno
2010: Barret Loux, RHP, Cubs Triple-A (did not sign)
2009: Bobby Borchering, OF, Astros Class A (traded)
2009: A.J. Pollock, OF, D-backs


text:
You have no items in your shopping cart.
- 2700K (Warm White)
- Model: DFN 25 W27 120
- 40W Equivalent
- Light Output: 450 Lumens
- Beam Angle: Omnidirectional
- Base Type: Edison
- Dimmable
- Life: 50,000 Hours
- Length: 4.68"
- Diameter: 3.15"
- Input 8 Watts
- Input Voltage: 120V
- Warranty: 5 Years
- UL Listed
- ENERGY STAR qualified
Additional Info
|Lighting Science
|The Lighthing Science Definity G25 LED bulbs are dimmable and need only 8 watts to operate, making them up to 84% more efficient than a comparable 50 watt incandescent light, which they are a perfect replacement for. The breakthrough performance accomplishments of these highly efficient G25 LED light bulbs are a direct result of an advanced LED system design encompassing proficient power supplies, unique thermal solutions, superior LED technology, leading edge optical control solutions and rigid binning techniques that result in visually pleasing light sources which last up to 20 times longer than incandescent lights. These EnergyStar® qualified LED bulbs are damp rated, contain no mercury or lead, are RoHS compliant and have a full life expectancy of 50,000 hours.


text:
Honeydew Baker's Twine - 10 metres
Honeydew Baker's Twine - 10 metres
Think of the colour of the honey dew melon and you have this colour.
At least 10 metre of this scrumptious and environmentally friendly baker's twine wound onto a shipping tag.
This is no ordinary baker's twine, this is a 4 strand, 100% cotton, eye poppingly beautiful baker's twine.
Great for your creative embellishment.
You can use Baker's Twine for:
Wrapping Baked Goods, Product Packaging, Gift Wrapping, Embellishing Stationery & Gift Tags, Party & Wedding Decor, Scrapbooking & Card Making, Embellishing Favor Bags & More!
Please note the photo indicates the colour and not the quantity of twine!
Availability: 4 in stock


text:
Pork favorites, craft beers at Oakland's Hog's Apothecary
Hog's Apothecary is a wonderland of beer in Oakland's Jewel Box area, just down the street from Homeroom. Owners Bradford Earle and John Streit, along with beer director Sayre Piotrkowski, serve up seasonal, porcine-forward dishes and an excellent selection of California beer. No matter if you're serious about craft beer or just curious, there's always something new and exciting on tap.
The vibe: A convivial American beer hall.
The crowd: Leans toward the young and hip - lots of hoodies, beards and chunky bangs.
Best seat: We like the bar seating best - you can ask the very knowledgeable bar staff about the beers - but you can't go wrong perched on a stool along the floor-to-ceiling windows or at one of the picnic-style communal tables.
Killer app: The menu is always changing, but there are a few constants, all involving pork. Four sausage sandwiches and a corn dog served with addictive lard-fried chips are always on the menu - we like the Rocket Dog with wild arugula and grilled rapini ($14). So is the Butcher's Coffer, which includes hog's head terrine, potted pork or whipped lardo ($6 for one, $16 for three).
Signature drink: There are 33 draft offerings at any time, mostly from Northern California and definitely from the Golden State. Many are direct from the brewer and range from sour ales and barleywines to IPAs and doppelbocks ($4-$9.50). We recommend experimenting with one of the nightly flights (prices vary) - it's a great way to expand your beer palate.
Also on tap: Five wines are available by the glass ($8-$10). There's also a rotating cider, a bourbon barrel-aged version on our last visit ($16/375 ml).
Bonus: Get your game on at the shuffleboard table in back. And follow the Apothecary on Twitter (@HogsApothecary) or Facebook ( www.facebook.com/TheHogsApothecary) to see what's just been tapped.
If you go
Hog's Apothecary: 375 40th St. (near Opal Street), Oakland. (510) 338-3847. www.hogsapothecary.com. 5-11 p.m. (bar open until midnight) Wednesday-Monday.


text:
Disney XD will premiere a new cycle of "Fort Boyard - Ultimate Challenge," the reality adventure series where 24 teens from the United States and the United Kingdom compete as teams in a series of challenges designed to test their brainpower, courage and teamwork. Hosted by Geno Segers (Disney XD's "Pair of Kings") and popular British television presenter Laura Hamilton ("Dancing On Ice"), the second installment of "Fort Boyard - Ultimate Challenge" will debut MONDAY, JANUARY 16 (7:00 p.m., ET/PT) on Disney XD, with new episodes airing every weekday for two weeks (all at 7:00 p.m., ET/PT), concluding on FRIDAY, JANUARY 27 with one team being named the new "conquerors of Fort Boyard."
In the premiere episode, team members from the White Falcons and Blue Sharks compete to find out which team has what it takes to move on to become the conquerors of the fort. Additional teams include Red Vipers, Yellow Scorpions, Green Jaguars and Silver Dragons.
This marks the second installment of the kids' version of the popular game show, which originally premiered on Disney XD in October 2011. "Fort Boyard - Ultimate Challenge" was filmed on location at a 19th century sea fort off the coast of France and is produced by Zodiak Media Group's production companies The Foundation and Adventure Line Productions, who created the concept for the original "Fort Boyard" and have been producing the series for 22 years.
The executive producers are Nigel Pickard and Ged Allen for The Foundation, Pierre Godde for Adventure Line Productions and Jamila Metran for CiTV. The producer is Steve Pinhay.
About "Fort Boyard"
"Fort Boyard" is the most successful adventure game show in the world, having sold to over 30 territories, while dominating France 2's primetime summer schedule every year since 1990. The action takes place in an imposing fortress built in the middle of the ocean. This provides the perfect backdrop for strenuous, against-the-clock physical challenges and mind-boggling riddles, featuring strange characters and fearsome animals. All this and more awaits those attempting to reach the Treasure Room! Only the fittest and most intelligent contestants can hope to conquer Fort Boyard.
About Disney XD:
Disney XD is a basic cable channel and multi-platform brand showcasing a compelling mix of live-action and animated programming for Kids age 6-14, hyper-targeting boys and their quest for discovery, accomplishment, sports, adventure and humor. Disney XD branded content spans television, online, mobile and VOD platforms. The programming includes series, movies and short-form, as well as sports-themed programming developed with ESPN. In the U.S., Disney XD is seen on a 24-hour, advertiser supported network that reaches over 78 million households via its basic cable and satellite affiliates. There are 22 other Disney XD channels around the world.


text:
Call To Book
The Fairfield Inn by Marriott Boston Tewksbury-Andover is perfectly located for the business traveler visiting Raytheon, CISCO Systems, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Corning Life Sciences and more. Whether you're in town, taking in a play at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre or enjoying an event at the Tsongas Center, we are a warm welcome after a busy day. Enjoy a good night's sleep in our modern guest rooms, then jump start your day with our Complimentary Hot Buffet breakfast daily. Enjoy our premium channels featuring Showtime and NESN. Our hotel is perfectly located for business travelers visiting the Merrimack Valley area. Our proximity to Phillips Academy and Merrimack College in Andover as well as UMass Lowell make us an ideal "home away from home" for parents visiting their children. Friends and family members celebrating "special events" are pleased to find out we have strong relationships with Tewksbury, Indian Ridge and Andover Country Clubs. You can count on great amenities and service you deserve.


text:
The frame size determines the height of the bike. You calculate the correct frame size for your height as follows:
For a more detailed explanation and calculation you can go to our frame size page.
Fifth fast-growing webshop in the Netherlands
TOM is one of the biggest webshops in the Netherlands.
Subscribe to our newsletter and be informed about the latest products and promotions!Register newsletter >
Log in with your email address and password. Don't you have an account? Simply set up an account.
Forgotten your password? Enter your e-mail address and we'll send you an email to reset your password.


text:
Klein, Texas, is halfway between Tomball and Spring, on the coastal plain north of Houston. The land is flat. The roads run straight along the old property lines and meet at right angles, like joints in furniture. Where there are fields with cattle or horses, the trees in the distance appear as remote and aloof as a coastline. Adam Klein, a German, arrived in 1848. He had made his way to New Orleans, taken passage up the Mississippi, and gone to California to mine gold. Then he rode a horse to Panama, sailed to Galveston, and settled among Germans with names such as Klink, Klebs, Doerre, and Strack, on land that reminded them of the farms they had left behind. According to a historical marker by the graveyard in Klein, which Lyle Lovett, the singer and songwriter, drove me to in his pickup one morning and then got out of his truck to show me, nearly the oldest grave in the cemetery belongs to one of Klein's daughters, who died of diphtheria.
Lovett lives in Klein. His mother's people are Kleins—Adam Klein was his great-great-grandfather. Lovett's house was built on Klein's farm by his grandparents, in 1911. Up and down the roads that enclose the farm are houses occupied by Lovett's relatives—each generation passed land to the next as it came of age. Bernell Klein, Lovett's mother, was born in the house. In 1962, when Lovett was five, Bernell and her husband, William, who was from East Texas, and who died a few years ago, built a house next door. Before that, they lived an hour from Klein, in Houston, where they worked for Humble Oil. They had always intended to move to Klein and send their son to the Lutheran school.
Lovett is an only child. Each day after school, he went to his grandparents' house until his parents came home from work. He developed a deep attachment to his grandparents and to the house, and he thought that when he was grown he would like to live in it, among their possessions. Lovett's grandmother, who survived her husband, died in 1979, when Lovett was twenty-one. Believing that the tax bill would be too much to accommodate, the family sold the house and what remained of Adam Klein's farm—about a hundred and sixty-five acres—to an investment group from Los Angeles, then discovered that the accounting of the bill had been wrong and they probably could have held on to the place.
The investment group put up "For Sale" signs, and while it waited for offers it leased the farm to Lovett's uncle Calvin Klein, a cattleman, to use as pastureland. The arrangement gave Klein no incentive to care for the buildings. In 1985, Klein and Lovett persuaded the group that a good way to improve the property would be to let Lovett buy the house and its barns and remove them. Before Lovett had the house transported two hundred yards, onto land that belonged to his parents, he measured the distance from the house to the trees in the yard, so that he could plant new trees. He recorded the placement of the outbuildings. When he sits in the kitchen now, early in the morning, drinking coffee and looking out the window, as his grandmother did, he sees the same things she saw.
The house is a small, one-story frame house of a style called pier and beam, which means that it sits on blocks. It has clapboard siding and is painted white, and has a wide front porch with columns. It is surrounded by shade trees, and there is a pond in front of it. The walk through the horse barn to the back door of Lovett's mother's house is about a hundred yards. Among the horses in the barn are ones that Lovett and his father bought to breed and race.
The house is furnished sparely. In the parlor, the principal adornments are two saddles, each in a corner on a sawhorse. A plaque on the kitchen wall that says "Beware of Bull" commemorates an encounter Lovett and his uncle Calvin had two years ago with a bull in the pasture behind the house. They had delivered a check to a bulldozer operator who was digging a ditch. Walking back across the field, they discussed a pecan tree that had no leaves when it should have and whether it had to come out. The bull walked slowly toward them. Lovett had found the bull in the pasture as a day-old calf. The calf had followed him as he walked through the herd looking for its mother, and when no cow acknowledged it Lovett decided to raise it on a bottle. Once the bull turned two, Lovett stayed out of its way, since it was playful and was big enough to hurt someone without meaning to. Klein, who is sixty-nine, has worked with cattle all his life, so Lovett felt, as the bull approached, that if there was any reason to be worried Klein would tell him. "Usually, you throw a hat down on the ground or slap your leg," Klein says, "and a bull will stop long enough for you to leave."
Klein absently flipped his hand toward the bull and told it to be gone. "The next thing, my uncle did a three-sixty flip in the air," Lovett says. "Bulls, when they're really going at something, they'll get down on their knees and work their head on it. He had his head on my uncle's chest, and had torn up his shirt, and I went over and started smacking him with my cap, and he went for me."
The bull pinned Lovett against a board fence and raked him back and forth until the fence post broke his leg. He lay on the ground and said, "Uncs, I can't get up." Klein and a friend from Tomball who had just arrived pulled Lovett over the fence. They laid him down in the pasture and waited for the ambulance. Klein's arm was bleeding, and his chest was heaving—the bull had fractured several of his ribs.
"I was the ignorant one to trust him," Klein says. "You take a wild bull, they might hurt you, but a pet bull will kill you. They have no fear. My dad almost got killed by a Jersey bull that was a pet."
Lovett's leg was broken in so many places that it couldn't be set; it had to be pinned together. He performed his next tour sitting down, and was fortunate not to have been crippled. He doesn't much like talking about the bull—he doesn't especially enjoy answering questions at all—and sometimes, to deflect people who ask how he broke his leg, he shrugs and says mildly, "Just walking around."
Lovett is tall and thin. His shoulders are narrow. He has long, ropy arms and broad hands. There are pleats in his cheeks, and wavy lines across his forehead. His eyes are pale blue. Their expression is intelligent and measuring to the point of guardedness. His ears are large and his nose is large and his eyes are small and close together, but they are arranged in such a fashion that his face has the solemn and handsome dignity of a workingman of the thirties, a farmer who hears the sound of your tractor stalling in the field and shows up to help you get it started.
For most of his career, his persona has been ambiguous. Billy Williams, his producer, says, "Lyle mistakenly sees himself as an ordinary human being." Bonnie Raitt, with whom he made his first big tour, in 1986, following her bus in his pickup, regarded the way he looked—the skinny-legged suits, the hair rising like a bloom—as exotic. "He was always very sartorially astute," she says. A Texas musician in Nashville who met Lovett before he was famous once told a reporter, "I took one look at him and pegged him for a French blues singer." Lovett is not a demonstrative person. Raitt describes his temperament admiringly as "a banked fire." Many women find him deeply attractive. Raitt also told me that sometimes when she and Lovett perform together and he looks over at her, she feels her "knees buckle."
Lovett is smarter than most people he meets, but he conceals it. He has something of the typical country musician's attitude that one must never affect to have risen above one's beginnings. He is very polite, but his manners can conceal disdain. His habits of mind are meticulous, and he says he has difficulty doing anything casually. His sympathies are mostly charitable—he says that when he writes a song he imagines that he wouldn't mind meeting anyone who liked it—but he is also prone to judging people harshly on little evidence and holding his opinions steadfastly.
Occasionally, Lovett dresses like the celebrated person he is—Prada and Armani send him clothes to wear onstage—but he nearly always wears cowboy boots. Lovett's boots are made by a man in Austin named Lee Miller. One morning last summer, Lovett stopped by Miller's to order a new pair.
Miller is in his late forties. His parents had a department store in Rutland, Vermont. "I hung out in the shoe department," he told me. "I was fascinated by footwear." He went to a bootmaking college in Oklahoma. Each year, an old bootmaker in Austin named Charlie Dunn hired the student who graduated first in the class. Miller went to work for Dunn, who was in the habit of driving off his employees. Miller grew accustomed to being fired, then arriving home and having Dunn call and hire him back. "He was from the old days," Miller says, "when you said it like it was, then regretted it later." Dunn died in 1993—he was ninety-five—and Miller took over the business. While Miller told me this story, Lovett and Miller's wife, Carrlyn, discussed Lovett's new boots. They decided they would be two-piece boots—that is, made from two pieces of leather, instead of four. "I love two-piece," Carrlyn said. "They feel like you're wearing socks with soles and heels."
On a counter in the workshop were two boot tops stretched out flat. They were black, with red hearts and yellow arrows and white guitars embedded in them, and, in white letters, the name "Lucky Bill." They had been attached to one of the few pairs of boots ever returned to Miller. "Lucky Bill's a guy from someplace out West," Lovett said, "and he was not happy with how they turned out. He took them to a bootmaker in Las Vegas or Reno, and made a videotape of the guy criticizing all the flaws—or what he regarded as flaws—and he sent the tape back to Lee with the boots."
"He said the arrows were too dark, and the guitars couldn't be read from the stage," Miller said. "He's a night-club singer, I guess, and he wore them for his act."
"Two years ago, I walked into the shop and saw them and thought they were great, and I wore them for two weeks, even though they were too big for me," Lovett said. "I walked around the Austin airport and everyone came up to me and asked me about the boots. I was going to make a videotape of them talking about all the things they liked and send it to Lucky Bill."
"Instead, he's writing a song about Unlucky Bill, who lost his boots in a card game," Miller said. He told Lovett that he hoped to have the new boots ready in a few months. He unrolled several alligator hides he thought might be right for them, and then Lovett bought some shoe trees.
Lovett is excessively self-effacing. Miller said, "Lyle, a friend of mine called the other day and asked me, 'If you're in the record store, and you're going to buy only one Lyle Lovett record, which one do you get?' I said I didn't know, I'd ask you."
"Willie Nelson," Lovett said. " 'Red Headed Stranger.' "
Lovett tours assiduously. He had a long tour last summer with his Large Band, which includes twelve other musicians and four singers, and then, to promote his new record, "My Baby Don't Tolerate," which came out at the end of September, he went on the road with a smaller band, essentially the Large Band without the singers and the horns, and with a few changes in personnel. He also came to New York and played guitar and sang by himself one night on a small stage downtown, and he went to Los Angeles with a five-piece band to appear on the "Tonight Show." Otherwise, he mostly stayed in Klein.
Before Lovett made records, he often played in Houston and Austin, with two musicians who are still members of his band. In Houston, he was accompanied by James Gilmer, a percussionist, and in Austin he appeared with John Hagen, who plays cello. Hagen was working in a print and copy shop, and Gilmer was the manager of an outfit called Acme Tools, which imported inexpensive hand tools from Korea and Taiwan. After Lovett's first record came out, in 1986, the three of them toured together. When Lovett describes this period, he says things such as "During the cello solo, which all of them were cello solos." In the South and the Midwest, playing for country-and-Western audiences, the three were sometimes embraced and sometimes not. Hagen remembers their playing in Nashville at a showcase for bookers of country bands and hearing one booker tell another, "I feel sorry for that guy with the bongos and the viola."
Lovett is regarded as a country-and-Western musician, but his catalogue is far too diverse for a category. John Hagen, whose background is in classical music, says, "The difficult thing to explain to people if they haven't heard Lyle is what does he do. He crosses so many genres it falls in the cracks. It's not country, it's not jazz or blues, it's not rock and roll, it's not strictly swing, but it's all those things. There is no word for his style."
Lovett had always intended to record country music, blues, ballads, gospel and church songs, rockabilly songs, folk songs, Western swing tunes, and songs with big-band arrangements, but he didn't think he could get away with having records devoted to a single classification, so he put them together, usually with half of a record devoted to a particular style. Even a Lovett song with a straightforward country structure—such as, say, "The Truck Song," from his new record—is subversive. The song describes a man's dependence on his pickup truck, and for two verses its sentiments are conventional. The narrator says that he's been on the road for three days in his rickety truck, which he calls Old Black. Then, "I went to high school / I was not popular / Now I am older / And it don't matter." Then there's a verse saying that he's slept in his truck on occasion. Then, a trifle defensively, "I've been to Paris / I don't mean Texas / I met Wim Wenders / One time in London." The surprising juxtaposition exemplifies Lovett's writing. A sentimental subject is not handled predictably, as a clever redneck poem; instead, it becomes the expression of an inner life, a single existence and sensibility—you think I'm a hick, but I've been to Europe—which is both amusing and unsettling.
Lovett likes songs that have a story, and especially one that is told by a character, often a solitary whose habits and manners are peculiar. A Lovett song frequently illuminates parts of the character's experience that aren't quite suitable conversation. The narrators tend to be a little combative and sometimes sulky: "Don't Touch My Hat," "That's Right (You're Not from Texas)," and "God Will," in which a man tells his cheating lover, God loves you, but I don't. "Creeps Like Me" has a narrator who wears a ring made from his grandmother's gold tooth, which he killed her for. "You look surprised," he sings brightly. "You shouldn't be. / This world is full of creeps like me."
Lovett's most masterly song is a lament about his father called "You Were Always There," which appears on his new record. His father died without warning, of a stroke. The song is written in a minor key and is sparsely arranged. Its lyrics include terse images of horses and riding and death and loss. "The sun comes up," Lovett sings, "the world goes around and around / There's no bad luck, / There's just the luck you've found." Then, "You steal away / Into a lonesome sound. / Another day is lowered in the ground." His delivery is subdued—the song is confided as much as sung—and the repetition of the line "You were always there" suggests a bewilderment, a stasis, a resistance to absorbing the loss. He is describing not the diminished present but the beautiful past. It is a mature work, intensely dramatic, a solemn and keening observation of grief.
Lovett's voice is typically a bit raspy, and his diction is slurry. He often sounds as if you'd just woken him up. "Wire" becomes "wi-er." "Threw" becomes "thoo." He isn't a belter. When he takes part in a gospel shout—as the song "I'm Going to Wait," also from his new record, requires him to do in performance—he seems courteous. He's persuasive, though, as if he had just got the spirit and felt it fervently but weren't quite sure how to handle it.
Singing was part of Lovett's Lutheran education. "Every school day began with a devotion," he says. "The teachers would get us together, and the best player among them would play the piano, and the rest would lead the singing." When the children were old enough to be made into a choir, they were lined up against the lockers and led in a song. The choir director walked along the row with his ear lowered. The children he selected to stand in a second line were sent to recess. Lovett and the others remaining became the choir.
Lovett's parents encouraged him to play music. He took guitar lessons at a music store in Houston. His mother drove an hour home from work in the city, picked up Lovett, drove back to the city, and waited while he had his lesson. They arrived home around nine-thirty or ten at night. Lovett's mother and father left the house at five-thirty or six in the morning. "I was always able to do what I wanted to do because my parents did what they had to do," Lovett says. "I'm the other part of their imagination."
Lovett went to a public high school. In ninth grade, he was invited to be in a band. All of its members, including Lovett, belonged to the Future Farmers of America. "I owned a guitar, so I got drafted, but I wasn't really good enough to be in the band," he says. "My friend Anthony Hildebrandt played bass. He's a machinist now, and he does custom cattle feed, too." The band included a singer, two guitar players, a bass player, and a drummer, and they practiced in the Hildebrandts' garage. On the F.F.A. calendar the biggest event is the F.F.A. Project Show. For the F.F.A. Project, a child raises a piece of livestock (Lovett raised a steer), which is judged at a fair and then sold. Lovett's band entered the fair's battle of the bands. Prizes were given for first and second place. "Our ag teacher came backstage after the show and said, 'Well, boys, you came in third.' The other guys received that news kind of gladly," Lovett says, "and I was saying, 'Wait a second . . .' "
After ninth grade, Lovett no longer played in bands, but he still took guitar lessons, from a student at the University of Houston. When Lovett was seventeen, he enrolled at Texas A. & M., in College Station, about seventy miles from Klein. By the time he was eighteen, he had begun playing in clubs around town. He studied history, but he liked writing and became a journalism major, because "making up songs, it was not a real job," he says. "It didn't feel like any legitimate pursuit that I would be able to continue." For The Battalion, the school's daily paper, he wrote about the city council of Bryan, a cotton town. He also interviewed songwriters he admired—among them Michael Martin Murphey, Steven Fromholz, Eric Taylor, and Willis Alan Ramsey. He couldn't bear to write anything uncomplimentary about them. With Taylor, he interrupted the interview and asked the musician to teach him one of his songs. Eventually, Lovett gave up the idea of being a journalist, because, he says, he would think of a question, then decide, That's none of my business.
Lovett spent five years as an undergraduate. He was more comfortable telling people he was a student than he was describing himself as a songwriter. After he got his degree, in journalism, he moved back to his bedroom in his parents' house in Klein and played in clubs in Houston. "When the winter rolled around, I felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything," he says. "I missed the structure of school, and I realized that I was only a semester short of getting a degree in German, so I went back."
I asked Lovett if while he was living at home he was allowed to have girls in his room, and he said evenly, "I can't tell you everything."
For the last six years, Lovett has been seeing a young woman named April Kimble, who grew up in San Antonio. Kimble is tall and slender and vivacious. She was a student at Texas A. & M. and was introduced to Lovett at a talk he gave about ethics in journalism. She has a mind for figures and procedures and levelheaded thinking, and in a number of matters Lovett depends on her judgment. On her left hand she wears a diamond ring that Lovett gave her. Lovett was briefly married, ten years ago, to the actress Julia Roberts. Their marriage is a subject he will not discuss. The only time I know of his referring to it was in a performance a few years ago, when he elided the phrase "or movie stars" from his song "Penguins." The phrase is preceded by the lines "I don't go for fancy cars, / For diamond rings." Instead, he hummed.
Early last summer, Lovett and Kimble were living at a hotel in Beverly Hills while Lovett worked on his new record. Just about every day, he would leave the hotel garage—he likes to park his own car, which allows him to take the elevator directly to his floor and avoid the lobby—and drive over the hills to a recording studio in Burbank, where he and Billy Williams would spend the day listening to versions of the songs he had recorded and decide whether to erase a squeak made by Lovett's fingers on the strings of his guitar or make the piano solo incrementally louder or try to make the gospel choir on one track sound as if it were standing closer to him.
Lovett and Williams met in 1983, at a festival in Luxembourg which had a tent devoted to American music. Williams was a guitar player in a country-and-Western band from Phoenix. Lovett played the set changes—that is, while one band's equipment was being cleared from the stage and the next brought on, Lovett stood below the stage and sang and played guitar. I asked Williams how Lovett's performances were received, and he closed his eyes, as if recalling them, and said, "It wasn't magic." Then, "They didn't pay too much attention to us, either."
I asked what Lovett was like then. "Very shy," he said. "Mild and very soft- spoken, and I remember thinking, I don't know if this guy is forceful enough to climb up through it."
Before Williams left Luxembourg, he told Lovett that if he came to Phoenix he and the other musicians would play behind him if he wanted to record some songs. Lovett would only have to pay for the studio. A few months later, Lovett arrived. "We sat in my living room," Williams says, "and he played me his songs, and I tried to think of how to arrange them."
Initially, they recorded four songs. Lovett, carrying the tapes, made trips from Klein to Nashville every four or six weeks. Friends let him sleep on their couches. Back home, his mother taught the employees of various companies how to write business letters, how to proofread and use words properly—to use "different from" instead of "different than," for example—and sometimes when people called to hire her she would say, "I have a son who needs work, maybe he can help you." Lovett liked teaching—he says that standing in front of a class was a little like standing on a stage. The money he made he used to record more songs in Phoenix. Eventually, he and Williams and the band recorded eighteen songs, which cost Lovett thirty thousand dollars. After about a year of visiting Nashville, Lovett got an introduction to a man at a publishing company who said that if Lovett signed with the company he thought he could get him a record deal. Ten of the songs Lovett recorded in Phoenix became his first record. The rest, in new versions, appeared on his second and third records.
Since childhood, Lovett has ridden horses and been interested in cowboys. Most of the time, he dresses like a cowboy. When he rides, he wears spurs with his name on them. Until lately, he had never taken a riding lesson, but he has begun learning maneuvers specific to cow-horse competitions—contests that feature the ability of a horse and rider to do ranch work. Lovett hopes to become proficient enough to ride his own horses in amateur trials run by the National Reined Cow Horse Association.
Lovett has attended cow-horse trials for three years, and not long ago, from a breeder and trainer named Carol Rose, he bought two horses to be trained for the work. He also asked Rose if she would teach him the intricacies of riding them. Rose's ranch is in Gainesville, Texas, near the border with Oklahoma. Rose is a small, good-looking, effusive woman who appears to be in her fifties—"age is a number and mine is unlisted," she says. She has probably bred more champion performance quarter horses than any other breeder has, and she is a member of the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. One night last summer, after playing in Fort Worth, Lovett went to dinner with Rose and a number of other prominent quarter-horse people. The next morning, I drove about an hour with him and Michael Wilson, the photographer who has taken most of the portraits of Lovett for his record covers, to Rose's ranch, so that Lovett could ride his horses, Shiner's Bootlegger and Fifth Avenue Cash. We arrived around ten. Rose was in the arena, with three other riders. During the summer, trainers begin working their horses around three or four in the morning to get them back to the barn before the worst heat.
A stable hand asked Lovett which horse he wanted to ride first, and he said Bootlegger. The stable hand put a saddle on the horse, and gave the reins to Lovett. In the arena, when Lovett's turn came, Rose had him ride at a lope in a big circle, then in smaller ones, while she shouted remarks such as "All right, Lyle, you look awesome." Lovett rode in so precise an agreement with his horse that he looked like a man on a carrousel—that is, his head went up and down, and his back remained straight. Watching him, I realized how poorly most horses are ridden in movies.
Rose next had Lovett ride to the center of the arena and perform four spinning turns, a trials requirement. "Four turns, Lyle, not four and a quarter," she said when he finished. "Say one after you go, then two, then three, then whoa." The next time, Lovett stopped on the mark, but his hat, a cowboy panama, lay brim up in the dirt. He rode off without it. Another rider dismounted and collected it. Since Lovett was engaged, the rider brought it over to the fence and gave it to me.
"Funny thing about the hat," the cowboy said. "You can drop it in the arena, cows can step on it, defecate in it; horses trample it, fill it with dust and dirt; a tractor can even run it over; but don't let a man touch it. No, sir." Lovett has a collection of cowboy hats and hard-plastic hatboxes with leather handles to carry them in. After defending his hat from a stewardess who kept trying to stow it, he wrote "Don't Touch My Hat." The narrator challenges a man whom he catches studying his hat. "You can have my girl," he says pointedly, "but don't touch my hat."
Rose came over to the fence and spoke to a young woman who had been watching the riders. "Run to the house and get me some of that extra-hold hair spray," she said. "I'm going to fix Lyle's hat." When the young woman returned, Rose applied hair spray to the inside of the hatband, waited for it to get sticky, and gave Lovett the hat. "That should take care of it, Lyle," she said. "It's always better for a cowboy to wear his hat."
Rose then had cows sent into the arena, one at a time, and the riders practiced stopping them and turning them on their heels, an activity called boxing. Lovett's first cow spread its ears like wings and lowered its head. Each time it took a step, the horse took a step, too. It was like chess. Rose finally said, "Get Lyle another cow. This one's lazy." The next cow ducked and dodged, and the horse responded, leading it back and forth, snapping Lovett from one side to the other in his saddle as if someone were shaking him. I asked Rose if Lovett had talent for the work. "Lyle's got good balance, good hands, his timing's excellent, and he absorbs everything you tell him," she said. "He needs to learn the basics of where the cow is, and where he needs to be, but it's only the second time he's done it."
When the riding was finished, Rose and Lovett and Michael Wilson and I and the other riders drove in two trucks out to a pasture to look at some yearling fillies. Rose parked her truck in the field. About ten horses stood thirty feet away from us, eying us nervously. Rose called to them, and they moved a step or two closer.
Lovett had brought a video camera, and he pointed it at the horses. "Lyle, there's a palomino filly coming with a star on her head," Rose said. "I have grown to have an awesome affection for her." Lovett pointed the camera at the horse. "She's a pretty little mover," Rose said. "She just flows on the ground."
I began a conversation with Dickson Varner, a veterinarian whose specialty is horse fertility. He has clients in the Middle East, he said, whose horses are so valuable as studs that he can't mention the names. If it was thought that they had problems, their fees would drop. He had been making a routine visit to Rose's ranch, and she had asked him to stay over and ride.
Rose said it was time for lunch, and we got back in the truck. Someone mentioned that Varner had been a professional bull rider when he was younger. "My parents were rodeo producers," Varner said modestly, "so it was a family job."
I asked how old he was when he rode his first bull, and he said, "Nine. My father found an old crow-hopping, straight-tracking bull that would buck in a line and told me to ride him. I said I didn't want to. He said it was the bull or him. I got on and made it across the arena, and finally I hit the fence, and I grabbed it and held on. My shirt was all tore up, and I was crying. I looked back, and he was waving me over to ride another one."
I asked when he had given it up. "Last bull I rode was at Madison Square Garden, the weekend before veterinary school began," he said. "At the time, I was recovering from a broken back."
Rose served a big luxurious lunch of Mexican food. It was like a Spanish Thanksgiving. As for the conversation, everyone agreed that Amarillo had the toughest airport security anywhere, but someone pointed out that at least they offered you a boot jack.
Over the summer, I met up with Lovett one rainy night in Philadelphia, where he was to perform with the Large Band on a stage beside the Delaware River. The crowd waited in the rain and got soaked. I sat with Lovett on his bus and looked at tapes of the fillies in the field at Carol Rose's ranch. Onstage, under a leaky awning, the drums and the piano and the pedal steel guitar were covered with big sheets of plastic, like drop cloths. The Large Band is very expensive to keep on the road. Lovett essentially plays five nights to break even, then makes his money on the sixth night. He can't easily afford to cancel a show. The rain slowed to a drizzle around showtime. Lovett stood behind a curtain by the side of the stage with Gilmer, Hagen, and Viktor Krauss, his bass player.
"I think we should start out as a quartet," Lovett said to Gilmer. "If we get a break in the rain, we can bring some people up."
Gilmer nodded.
Lovett said, as if to himself, "O.K. No telling what this show will be like." Then, to Gilmer, "So, quartet, huh?"
"Fine with me," Gilmer said.
"Are John and Viktor all right with that?"
They both said they were.
"You quit anytime you want to," Lovett said.
"It's dry onstage, right?" Hagen asked.
"I don't know," Lovett told him. "Feel free to leave." Then, "Let's start with 'Which Way Does That Old Pony Run,' and after that I have no idea." He turned to me and said, "It's what the original trio would have been if we'd had a bass player. Or found one who'd work cheap enough."
The audience received Lovett warmly. In the bright stage light, the rain made scratchy little tracks in the air above them. Sometimes it fell on the musicians. Gilmer now and then dried off his cymbals and drums with a white towel, like a man wiping down a bar. When he hit a cymbal, water sprayed from it. He is a big, lugubrious man whose presence can be imposing, but his playing is austere and elegant and understated. Mostly, it contributes emphasis here and there to what Lovett is singing. In the course of a concert, he and Lovett appear to be engaged in a sly and literate conversation that because of the deep familiarity between the speakers has come to be signified by its essentials and shared understandings. Two laconic men nodding and saying to each other, Yes, sir, and I know it, You don't mean it, and How cool is that.
The four men played for about forty minutes, then the rain stopped. Mitch Watkins, the guitar player, walked out, and a stagehand pulled the plastic off the piano. The singers—three men and one woman—stood in the wings watching. On the next song, I heard the woman, Francine Reed, ask, "Are we supposed to be out there?" Then they all ran to the microphone in time for the chorus. Lovett played "Blue Skies" and "Summer Wind," smiling just faintly enough so that you could tell the choices appealed to his sense of humor.
After the concert, I rode with Lovett and Kimble and Ultan Guilfoyle, a documentary filmmaker who is a friend of Lovett's, and Mitch Watkins and Gilmer and Hagen and Gene Elders, the fiddle player, on the bus to Cape Cod, for Lovett's next concert.
We arrived at the hotel in Hyannis about eight in the morning. Lovett was playing that night at the Cape Cod Melody Tent, which has a revolving stage. Kimble walked out, as she usually does, and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Lyle Lovett and his Large Band." The band played a sprightly, night-clubby swing tune on its own, then Lovett arrived and sang "Mack the Knife." His version is mournful and sinister and not at all like the pop version that was a hit years ago for Bobby Darin. The stage turned slowly. A few songs into the show, the singers joined Lovett, which meant that there were now seventeen people on the stage. I was watching with Guilfoyle, who leaned toward me and whispered, "The stage has stopped turning." Eventually, it was repaired, and the musicians wheeled slowly, like figures on a wedding cake.
The next day, Lovett and Guilfoyle borrowed motorcycles from Kevin Hines, a friend of Lovett's, and the three of them rode at a dirt track near Hines's house, just off the Cape. Lovett's parents bought him a minibike when he was ten, to ride around the pastures. He became interested in the kind of dirt-track races that used to be called scrambles and now are called motocross. A motocross rider needs to be in good shape, to prevent being injured, so Lovett, to appease his father's concerns, joined the track team and sometimes ran to school in the morning. His parents would drop off his clothes on their way to work, and he would shower in the gym. On the weekends, they took him to his races. His mother borrowed movie cameras from her office to film them, and then she began covering the races for a motocross newspaper.
Hines is a racer with a national reputation. A few years ago, Lovett bought a motorcycle dealership in Houston—Lyle Lovett Motorsports—and hired Hines to come down from Massachusetts and run it for a year. Riding motorcycles was another pleasure Lovett shared with his father, and a few years after he died Lovett sold the dealership.
Hines had come to our hotel. On the way to the track, he made a U-turn to pull into a place that had been a gas station and now had a lineup of Harley-Davidsons parked on its apron and a sign saying "Rent a Harley." The three of them were curious to see what it cost. Lovett was dressed in a shirt and jeans and his cowboy boots. The owner was wearing a shirt and cut-off jeans and combat boots. He was closing for lunch. Lovett asked politely what someone needed to rent a Harley. "You need a motorcycle license," the guy said. Lovett nodded. The guy looked Lovett up and down. "Then you need to convince me you can ride a Harley," he said. Then he turned his back on us.
The track belonged to a contractor named Bob Kelliher, who had a sideline gravel business. Having removed the fill and gravel from a pit about the size of a couple of football fields, he decided to bulldoze a hilly, twisting motocross track into it. Kelliher is forty-five. He was going around the track when we arrived. It was a hot day. A motocross rider wears a helmet and lots of padding, and Kelliher was drenched with sweat. He pulled off the track and came over to us. While Hines and Guilfoyle were getting dressed, Lovett asked Kelliher if he minded having his picture taken, and when Kelliher said not at all, Lovett pointed his video camera at him and said, "Howdy, Bob, thank you for having us out here today." When he got the shot he wanted, Lovett stepped into the truck and changed into riding gear. For the next hour or so, the four of them went round and round the track, while I tried to find places from which to tape them, with Lovett's camera, flying over the hills. Lovett was tired when they finished but the happiest I had seen him.
We drove back to Hines's house, which is on a pond, and borrowed bathing suits and went swimming. The water was dark and cool and we swam out a ways and treaded water, then went back to the dock. Hines got lobsters for us, and we had a fine dinner and went back to the hotel around ten.
The next morning at breakfast, Lovett's manner was grave. The night before, at a racetrack outside Houston, one of his horses had fallen and broken her spine. His mother and uncle were in the stands, and had to go down to the track and make the decision to have the horse put to sleep. They had tried to reach Lovett, but he had gone to bed and turned off his phone. By the morning he had twelve messages. "She's Dad's last horse," he said at breakfast. "He never got to see her grow up."
Lovett bought back Adam Klein's farm in 1995, using "all that great music-business money, which I'm still paying on," he says. "I paid what they wanted, so I paid more than it was worth. I just wanted to get it back." For years, he had avoided walking in the fields, so as not to see the "For Sale" signs.
The Kleins built on the perimeter of the farm, to be close to the roads. What is left of the fields is a pasture in the interior, like a huge courtyard. Not all the land around it remains in the family. Now and then a helicopter passes over the farm, and that is a neighbor who is the minister of three African-American congregations and travels among them in the helicopter. The pasture has been farmed since Adam Klein settled it. Lovett's grandfather ran the place as a truck farm, and his sons ran it as a dairy farm. Lovett has horses and cattle on it.
One evening in September, Lovett and I and Jorge Mandujano, Lovett's ranch hand, sprayed on bug spray, then rode horses along the fence line to the trees at the far end of the pasture. We circled a pond and turned back toward the barn. It took us about forty-five minutes. The cows lifted their heads from the grass and watched us. Lovett and Mandujano fed the horses, then Lovett and I played for a while with some big Dobermans he keeps. Then we walked past the house to a field and stopped among some shade trees. "We'd be standing on my grandmother's front porch here," Lovett said. He took a few steps. "The back door was about here," he said, "and this holly tree was right at the end of her bedroom window."
The sun was low over the pasture. The helicopter flew over the far fence line. "There goes the reverend," Lovett said. We turned back toward the house. "By the time I was in high school, the old farmers had started selling their home places and moving up to Madisonville," Lovett said. "It went on my entire growing up. Seemed like there was always a deal going on. Everything was changing, and I thought, Wouldn't it be great to preserve this farm—have it all put back the way it was supposed to look."
Lovett's mother's car turned in to her driveway. Kimble came out the back door of Lovett's house and walked toward us.
"There's Momma," Lovett said to her when she arrived.
Mandujano was hosing down a horse under a shade tree.
"My great-grandpa's barns were built in the eighteen-seventies, and when we fixed them up, for me that was a real proud accomplishment," Lovett went on. "I understand everything has to change, but all my life I've been interested in preserving the old stuff."
Kimble asked Lovett if he wanted to have dinner in town, meaning Houston. He said he wasn't sure. He asked Mandujano to use fly spray on the Charolais bull, the one that had broken his leg.
Mandujano said he would.
"Don't get in there with him," Lovett said, and Mandujano grinned and said he wouldn't. The light was fading. The color was leaving the fields. We stood quietly for a moment, then Lovett broke the silence, saying pensively, "Progress is the hardest thing for me to accept." ♦


text:
Our database lists more than 21,000 currently available products from more than 8,000 companies. The database also offers information on
non-commercial prototypes, customized and one-of-a-kind products, and do-it-yourself designs. To find specific products for children or
parents with disabilities, we recommend that you use the Advanced Search by Keyword below. Note: Many assistive devices are now covered
by Medicaid or Medi-Cal.


text:
Opinion: How Amnesty International Lost the Plot
Assistant books editor Sohrab Ahmari says the human-rights organization's embrace of Pink Floyd's Roger Waters is only one of many missteps. Photo credit: Associated Press.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
I ... I ... I ... welcome back to Opinion Journal one Mary Kissel ... NC International has tapped Roger Waters of pink Floyd came ... to present the organizations ambassador of conscience award ... to my next guest wonders ... DST not take a look at what this guy has said in the ... past ... assistant books editor so ever Mari is here to explain so on ... what is this pic so controversial ... controversial because I Roger Waters isn't so much of a man of conscience as he is ... an aging rock star who is dabbling in political extremism try to stay ... relevant ... aam the isthe ... become very close with what's called the boycott divestment sanctions movement against Israel which is ... a ... a movement that specifically ... only targets the Jewish state ... form for boycotts and sanctions in divestiture ... aam ... a As as a human rights with white violet or an international outlaw but not any other state in other words the BTS folks ... aren't going after Syria denied going after ... China Russia and its just directed Israel which have a comparison to any of the states of the state ... and doesn't deserve to be ... treated that way ... Roger Waters and self is done quite far and in dabbling in in the some really nasty rhetoric ... um recently and a concert he flew out ... of the giant find pay to have a Star of David on ... the I I I recall the incident at the Vatican actually came down and ends ... the in in you spoke out against that incident ... um and why when amnesty pick somebody like this and what what do they get by a buy it ... the award giving him this kind of PR and the ... presents ... when you can think they need they're just trying to find a celebrity said to ... have to bring attention to their other activism but in fact I would venture to say that ... this is not just some ... opportunistic ... incentive for ... straying from the path on AMC's part I think this is part of a pattern over the past decade or so ... at Macy's increasingly straight away from its original mission which is ... very noble they did very good work they would ... try to free ... prisoners of conscience it's in countries that with Jenny and dictatorships they didn't work in China other places around the world and in a say they're of global movement ... but see dedicated to ending grave abuses of human rights this is the connection isn't it is but now they're they're doing things like this the partnering with ... with a son who is ... probably an anti Semite ... on Dave ... I've tried to have President Bush are rested with ease travel to Canada when he's travel to Africa which I think ... is in particular the shameful and E on SE what that does is it takes away from ... the because of their words in the founded to advance aam and makes people not take them seriously ... aam serious people in in in Washington and elsewhere ... that should listen to amnesty on human rights issues ... are going to tune out when they see them trying to arrest former United States President yet they're still getting money so I mean in a amnesty is not lacking for ... publicity in the meeting at war for cash ... it ... is that because the if the folks out there and just don't know what's going on they'll know about Roger Waters or ... is it because there are ... really kind aiming for a certain section of population agrees with these kinds of things I think that to their constituency has changed is the longer ... grass roots Housewives are worried about ... aam prisoners of conscience in the so the union are in China as you said or and ... even then in ... Pinochet's Argentina it's it's a bit so the part of the far left movement ... and they make the ride and that is on but one wonders we know what will become of the cars and who will take up the mess there is no mandate of ... of Amnesty which as we've said is is ... is ... quite good and what is a worthy man a right I think it degrades the cause overall assistant books editor so ever Mari ... thank so much for that


text:
Rain delays farmers, improves drought conditions
Farmers said the recent rains are helping with the drought, but the wet, cold weather continues to delay their planting.
Malcolm farmer Chad Deinert kept his tractor and planting equipment inside his shed Monday due to the cold, wet weather, but he is not cursing the rain.
"We're so far behind in the moisture, you have to take it when we can get it," Deinert said.
Monday's rainfall has not been factored into the latest drought monitor, still showing 8 percent of Nebraska in the worst category -- compared to 77 percent in January.
"You can go down 10-12 inches, and it's dry. Bone dry," Deinert said.
Mark Svoboda, scientist at the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the wet, cold spring may lessen the intensity of the drought, but may not signal its end.
"I would think it's a little premature to say we are totally out of the woods, but when you look at where we were and what's transpired this spring, it's huge," Svoboda said.
Last year at this time, Deinert said they had most of their corn already planted, so this year they are getting a little later start. He hopes the rain doesn't stop altogether.
"Summer can be very long and hot, so we are going to need a lot more yet this summer," he said.
Lincoln residents are trying to repair lawns before possible mandatory water restrictions return. Lyle Luebbe with the Earl May Garden Center said the time to act is now.
"The sooner the better because the more time they have to get those roots established the better it will be going into the heat," Luebbe said.


text:
Stefan Caulfield joined Charles Morrow's staff as a graduate assistant in May 2011. He will be in charge of the goalkeepers for the Bisons, as well as adding to the program's marketing efforts and summer soccer camp administrator.
Caulfield comes to Lipscomb from Virginia Tech, where he was a varsity netminder from 2006-09. He appeared in 19 matches, making 15 starts for the Hokies. During his career, Caulfield stopped 70 of 101 shots faced, earning four victories for Virginia Tech.
Away from the collegiate pitch, Caulfield was a regular for the Ottawa Fury of the USL Premier Development League, as well as the Canadian U20 squad in 2005 and 2006.
Caulfield was a standout in the classroom during his time in Blacksburg as well, posting a 3.7 grade point average and Dean's List honors. In 2009, he received his degree in Business Management from Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business.
This is not the first time Caulfield will roam the sidelines as a coach. In addition to a stint as an assistant at Giles County (Va.) High school, he was an instructor for the Hokie Soccer Academy and the Hearts Azzurri Soccer Club. He was also the keeper coach for Power Soccer – one of the most well-respected club program's in Canada.
After graduating from Virginia Tech, Caulfield went to work in Canada for a leading manufacturing company as a supervisor and analyst. He also continued playing at a high level, competing in the semi-professional Canadian Soccer League.
Caulfield really gets out in the community, as well. He spoke at schools all across Canada about the positives of sports (specifically soccer) as a lifestyle choice and about being an athlete. While at Virginia Tech, Caulfield was active in the Special Olympics.
Stefan is the son of Ron and Helen Caulfield, and was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He played club soccer for Hearts Azzurri and attended Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute. While at Lipscomb, he will be studying Financial Services and Sport Management as part of his MBA.


text: An Overview of Human Development Issues David S. Walonick, Ph.D. Each of us invents informal ways of looking at our own and other people's growth. These paradigms of human development, while obviously lacking in scholastic rigor, provide us with a conceptual framework for understanding ourselves and others. This paper will discuss several aspects of human development, including consciousness, intelligence, learning, memory, motivation, personality and aging. Psychological models of … [Read more...] about An Overview of Human Development Issues – Walonick


text:
I picked this questionnaire up from Norm and think its quite interesting as a revelation about my own practice whilst reading.
Do you snack while reading? > Mostly not.
What is your favourite drink while reading? > Tea or green tea and perhaps in the evening water
Do you tend to mark your books while you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? > I do mark my books- partly because I'm often reading on trains, tubes etc and don't have a notebook available, partly because I think it allows you to see whatever the statement is in in context.
How do you keep your place? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book open flat? > A bookmark normally or else just memory.
Fiction, non-fiction or both? > I read mostly non-fiction and particularly history. I try to read more fiction all the time but am not neccessarily successful. My degree left me with an ability to plough through non-fiction in a way that I can't with fiction.
Do you tend to read to the end of a chapter or can you stop anywhere? > I do try and get to the end of chapters, partly because I normally feel chapters are or should be clauses in the argument of the book and therefore contribute to the whole. It also makes remembering where you are easier.
Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you? > Nope- never do that. If I get irritated I either write something about why the book is awful, talk to someone about why it is awful or just stop reading. There is no point wasting time with rubbish (incidentally I get far more upset with bad quality than with stuff I disagree with- the former is bad, the latter is interesting because it may change my mind).
If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away? > No. My vocabulary is largely self taught (I still don't always pronounce some words correctly because I've seen them on the page) and I infer what things mean from context.
What are you currently reading? > The City of God against the Pagans by Augustine (is anyone else depressed that when you type City of God into Amazon you come up with the film and not this book)
What is the last book you bought? > The Devil in Holy Water or the art of slander from Louis XIV to Napoleon by Robert Darnton.
Do you have a favourite time/place to read? > Not really, I will read whenever I have the chance. Just after I've got up in the morning I tend to spend 10-20 minutes reading and going into and coming back from work. I also will read all evening and all Saturday if its possible.
Do you prefer series books or stand-alones? > 'Stand-alones'? Anyway, them. (I've cheated as I agree with Norm)
Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over? > Yes several. The book I reccomend the most is Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan- that's because it was the book that made me fall in love with the history of ideas. But apart from that and Gibbon's Decline and Fall, there are just too many to mention.
How do you organize your books (by genre, title, author's last name, etc.)? > In an ideal world, fiction by subject and period, non-fiction by author. In the real world this is something I need a free couple of days and courage to attempt.


text:
Italian record for a classic Ferrari
A classic car gains value over time, even more so if it is a Ferrari. This was confirmed for the umpteenth time at an auction organised by RM at Villa Erba on Lake Como, where a splendid Ferrari 340/375 MM Berlinetta Competizione, with Pin Farina designed bodywork went for 9,856,000 Euros.
This car had an outstanding racing history, culminating in victory in the 1953 Pescara 12 Hours with Mike Hawthorn and Umberto Maglioli at the wheel. Among its other results, a stage win and sixth overall, again with Maglioli, this time partnered by Mario Ricci, and a victory on the Guadalupe circuit, again courtesy of the Italian driver. It was out of luck however in the two 24 Hour races it took part in, at Le Mans and Spa-Francorchamps, failing to get to the chequered flag in either of them.
The hammer price of the car is a record for collectors auctions in Italy, including those for works of art. Since 1993, only one other car, also a Ferrari, has gone for a higher price: a 250 TR took the bidding up to 16.9 million dollars at a Pebble Beach auction two years ago.


text:
Obsolete, no replacement, none in stock. Click here to contact the manufacturer.
A pressure gauge measures air pressure in the air tank and the pressure to the line from the air regulator. Be sure your gauges are accurate; if it is reading the pressure inaccurately it can damage the pump and other components and if the safety valve fails, the tank could explode. Moisture rusts/damages the gauge over time so they must be periodically replaced. Gauges can be air filled or liquid-filled.
Needed for every air tool!
Industrial Interchange Connector
$3.52 $1.95
Quickest way to drain your tank!
1/4" Ball Valve Drain Cock
$8.64 $6.95
Every shop needs one!
$14.04 $9.95
Master Tool Repair is an authorized re-seller of all products listed throughout our site. Master Tool Repair, is not affiliated with, or sponsored or endorsed by, any of the original equipment manufacturers whose names, logos, and/or trademarks are displayed on this page. Master Tool Repair provides replacement parts that are OEM or compatible with the original products of these manufacturers.
Master Tool Repair sells replacement parts for Husky and Workforce products that we obtain from third parties, and not from the owner of the Husky and Workforce product lines. Master Tool Repair is not affiliated with, or sponsored or endorsed by, the Husky or Workforce product lines or their owner.


text:
Doctor in baby's HIV cure prefers work over fame
After enduring endless global media attention for her breakthrough discovery in HIV treatment, Hannah Gay craves a return to the mundane aspects of life.
So, a haircut first. Then back to work at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where, as the state's leading pediatric HIV specialist, Gay heads a team of experts tracking and treating infected youths from Aberdeen to Yazoo City.
This weekend, she might even curl up with a book and do some needlepoint at the Ridgeland, Miss., home she shares with her husband of 37 years, Paul, a trust fund manager.
"It has definitely been a whirlwind, and I'm having trouble keeping up with what day it is," Gay said Tuesday while attending an international conference in Atlanta on HIV and AIDS.
The conference shares the latest research in her field, but Gay's sudden global fame kept her busy with journalists rather than catching the lectures she'd hoped to attend.
Gay shot to fame Monday after she and other colleagues reported the first documented cure of a child who'd had HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The Mississippi toddler had contracted HIV in the womb of her infected mother. Gay aggressively treated the girl with medication starting at 30 hours of life until she was about 18 months old. Then both child and mother disappeared.
When Gay tracked them down five months later, the mother confessed she'd stopped giving her daughter medicine. Gay had expected the virus to come roaring back but instead discovered the child appeared to be HIV-free.
Several follow-up tests, as well as verification of previous tests, confirmed the cure.
"The breakthrough has been exciting, and I'm very hopeful that that's going to lead to future research that will give us some answers," Gay said. But "the media attention is not exactly welcomed. Overall it's just kind of overwhelming."
Gay is perhaps the most unlikely person to bask in the spotlight, said Jay Richardson, her former pastor at Highland Colony Baptist Church in Jackson. Richardson described the 59-year-old as a fiercely private person with a deep yearning for knowledge.
She doesn't like a lot of attention and prefers intimate discussions to speaking before a crowd.
Said former Mississippi AIDS Director Craig Thompson: "She's so humble. She's like that country farmer who says, 'aw shucks.'"
Born and raised in Jackson, Gay was the younger of two children. Her brother, Gregory Berry, excelled early in life and went on to earn a doctorate in medieval English at Yale. To escape from his shadow, Gay focused instead on math and science, her husband said.
Her studies led her to the University of Mississippi at Oxford where she majored in pre-med and was the president of the university's Pre-Med Society. While there, she met Paul Gay, and the two started dating.
Both shared a passion for religion and became heavily involved in church while in college. After they graduated, the couple moved to Jackson so Hannah Gay could attend medical school and do her residency at UMC. They also started a family.
But their faith soon led them across the world.
"With two babies, we went as foreign missionaries to Ethiopia in 1987," Paul Gay said. "We were there during the drought and for the conclusion of their civil war and the fall of the Ethiopian government."
The young family stayed in the east African country for six years. During that time, Paul Gay worked as the mission's treasurer, and Hannah Gay wrote and edited its publication. The couple also expanded its brood to four.
When the family returned to Jackson in 1994, Hannah Gay found a job at UMC's Pediatric Infectious Disease program and soon earned a reputation as the go-to pediatric specialist for HIV/AIDS.
Gay has dedicated the past two decades to her work, and her grueling schedule speaks for itself: "She wakes at 5 a.m., starts working on paperwork, which is a huge part of her job and growing," her husband said. "She will start handling phone calls with her nurses by 8 a.m. Then she gets into work and typically stays there until 6 or 7 in the evening. She'll get home, more paperwork."
She's also on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, her husband said.
At work, Gay interacts warmly with her young patients while efficiently managing her hand-picked staff, said Amy Smith, a pediatric nurse practitioner on Gay's team. Smith said Gay puts everyone at ease.
"HIV is very complex, but she's able to explain it to these children so they understand," Smith said. "The more they understand, the more they'll comply with their medications."
Gay wants to bring the number of HIV-infected babies in Mississippi to zero and keep it there. Once she's done that, she said, she might be able to retire.
That doesn't mean she'll slow down. Gay already lives a full life outside of work. She sings in the choir and leads a Bible drill youth group at Trace Ridge Baptist Church in Ridgeland. She reads a variety of books based on medicine and theology. She does needlepoint based on designs she's seen in other cultures and gives her wares as gifts.
Gay also remains active in the lives of her four adult children. Two serve overseas in the Marine Corps, one is a Nashville-area musician, and the other works at UMC like her mom. All play piano. All take after their mom, said Paul Gay.
"Our son that went to Parris Island for boot camp said, 'Mom, all of these drill instructors are just saying the same things you've been saying all my life," Paul Gay said. "'Do it right the first time. Take pride in what you're doing. You have to work at it if you're going to be satisfied with it.'
"That's what she would tell them," he said. "She'd say, 'I want you to do your best long enough to realize the joy that comes from that, and once you've experienced it, you'll never want to slack off again.'"
That's how Gay has lived her life, and it's taken her to the top of her field.
Now she's ready to settle back down.
"She, I know, would like to get back and do her paperwork and treat her babies and get the kids ready for Bible drill and help our daughter move into a new apartment," Paul Gay said. "All those things that moms and normal people like to do."


text: In 2010, Venezuela adopted a new National Strategy for the Conservation of Biological Diversity (2010-2020). The new Strategy was formulated with the participation of a wide variety of sectors within society (academic, Government employees, enthusiasts and community-based organizations), in several workshops that took place over a period of 18 months. Overall, over 1600 people participated nationwide, promoting debate and enriching the analytical process through offering different points of view. During the workshops, the problems associated with the loss of biological diversity were identified and their causes and consequences analyzed. The causes identified were then grouped into one of three categories: proximate, intermediate and structural. The next stage consisted of collectively constructing strategies for the conservation of biological diversity. Using the analysis of the problems and the current status of biodiversity as starting points, seven strategic lines were formulated in terms of the technical elements required to confront the loss of biological diversity, and seven crosscutting themes identified as the political and social elements necessary to guarantee biological conservation together with social commitment. This collective construction ensured that participants were involved in the entire process of preparing the Strategy, generating awareness of the urgency of the issues while contributing to the transformation of the country's situation via the transformation of individuals and vice versa. The National Strategy for the Conservation of Biological Diversity contains the fundamental guidelines that will govern actions taken during the 2010-2020 period. It is composed of seven strategic lines, with a general objective and several specific objectives, which contain general actions that constitute the basis on which the Action Plans are built. Venezuela's first NBSAP was adopted in 2001.


text:
MOSCOW, Idaho (AP) Joel Wright scored 37 points Thursday night to lead Texas State to a 78-73 win over Idaho.
Wright, whose previous season high was 28 against SMU on Nov. 17, was 12 of 20 from the field and 12 of 15 from the free-throw line for the Bobcats (6-14, 2-6 WAC), who have won two in a row after losing nine straight.
The 6-foot-7 forward, in his first season at Texas State after transferring from Duquesne and Blinn Junior College, also had six rebounds, five assists and five steals.
Phil Hawkins scored 16 points and Reid Koenen scored 10 for the Bobcats, who overcame a 17-point deficit in the first half.
Idaho lost despite the efforts of Kyle Barone, who had 27 points and 16 rebounds. Stephen Madison scored 14 points and Mike McChristian scored 13 for the Vandals (7-11, 3-5).
Texas State trimmed the 17-point lead to 34-30 at halftime.


text: Show Hide image Culture 19 December 2012 Perfectly tailored Christmas radio reviewed. Sign-up Christmas radio Various stations Radio this Christmas has a particularly heavylidded sense of sweet familiarity. Bradley Wiggins and Paul Weller (26 December, 1-3pm, 6 Music) are teaming up for a one-off show "jammed with classic tracks while the sideburned duo trade anecdotes about their musical heritage". It sounds like something you've surely heard before (and enjoyed in a vague way) a certainty born from the countless times the pair have been photographed gladhanding each other on various red carpets recently, Wiggins trying politely to not look so tall. If this trial goes well, expect three hours with Wellins to become a seasonal feature. Radio 3's Early Music Show (22 December, 1-4 pm) goes for the hardcore trad jugular, looking at the earliest English polyphonic carol, "Ther is no rose", sung by the velvet-togged consort Alamire with an emphasis on the cosy surely only matched by Radio 4's look at Beatrix Potter's The Tailor of Gloucester (27 December, 11.30am) – which reveals the story is based on fact (I knew it!). Experts on Potter, interviewed to the sound of a ticking clock, reveal that as a child she had no friends (her gloomy Unitarian parents kept her a prisoner at home) and would smuggle baby hedgehogs and squirrels into her nursery to try to befriend them, a common story for lonely children. (The Chinese flautist Guo Yue once recalled trying desperately to befriend a dragonfly in a field after the Cultural Revolution). Life continued quietly, with Potter secretly running her Kensington menagerie and feeling ever more keenly that "the lords and ladies of the last century walked with me". But then during one euphoric visit to her cousins in Gloucester she watched while wassailers fed cider-soaked bits of toast to robins in a tree (noting down the lyrics to their rendition of "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme") and read in the newspaper of a tailor called John Pritchard who had opened his workshop next to the city's cathedral on Boxing Day to find the intricate mayoral jacket he had been working on mysteriously finished to perfection. Investigations revealed his workers had had a lock-in, and finding themselves unable to leave the premises in daylight without discovery had finished the jacket to pass the time until they could slip away in hungover darkness the night before. Still, the mice theory lingered locally for years and Potter first set it down in a letter to a young friend. "I have no news for you," the letter modestly starts, "so here's a story . . ." Those already pleasantly asleep by now may turn with weak fingers to the World Service (22 December, 2.06-2.30pm) to hear a programme on the history of lullabies, recorded in a remote rural village in the Atlas Mountains . . . when the world was young and we lived as safe as brooms in broom closets, as safe as tiny parrots in forests within a forest, a thousand years ago (my apologies to Milan Kundera). Antonia Quirke is an author and journalist. She presents The Film Programme on BBC Radio 4. She writes a column on radio for the New Statesman. Subscribe £1 per month This article first appeared in the 24 December 2012 issue of the New Statesman, Brian Cox and Robin Ince guest edit SUBSCRIBE More