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Three Stages of Amazement
Paperback, 298 pages, Simon & Schuster, List Price: $16 |purchase
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Book Summary
In San Francisco during the first year of Barack Obama's presidency, Lena Rusch and her husband Charlie Pepper must deal with a stillborn child, an economic crash, a ruthless business rival and the attentions of an old lover. By the best-selling author of Rise the Euphrates. 75,000 first printing.
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Note: Book excerpts are provided by the publisher and may contain language some find offensive.
Excerpt: Three Stages Of Amazement
The modern marriage has two states, plateau and precipice, and in the winter of our recent crisis—with markets plummeting and even rich folks crying poor; with the dark reign of one tinsel president finally ending, and the promised hope of a new man about to start; yes, with hope rising like a cockamamie kite and fear more common than love—Charlie Pepper forgot his wife.
He didn't mean to. That much Lena knew. She paused at the kitchen sink on New Year's Eve morning, the last day of the lousiest year of their lives, and considered what she needed and what she knew. The crab needed to come out of the fridge. What about butter? She'd forgotten candles. She needed another bag of ice. It had been a year since they'd even thought about hosting a dinner. Since then the world fell down one black hole and she and Charlie fell down another; as yet no one had come back. But Obama was taking over in twenty days and Lena had hope. She also had a sick baby and no lettuce. And if years ago Lena and Charlie promised that their hearts would always be in sync, well, it was a fool's promise, wasn't it? For now their hearts were a cacophony of chuffing and banging, with Charlie's motor driving like a great battleship and hers a bubbling alchemist's pot. Then there were the children's hearts: Theo's drum sounded like quick boots pounding up the stairs, while Willa's was more skittish, the flap-flap of gossamer wings. And there was a third heart so silent it took away sound.
"Usted estÁ mutada en el burro, tiene que seguir," Glo called, on her way out the door after tending Willa half the night so Lena could sleep. "You're on the burro, you might as well go."
In quick-fire Spanish, Lena answered, hoisting the baby onto her shoulder. "The burro is strong. Now why can't he have an extra pair of hands?"
Glo chuckled, her girlish, brown fingers covering her mouth. Seven years ago, Glo crossed the border at night led by a coyote, leaving her two kids and her mother behind in Guatemala. Every Sunday Glo called home, and sometimes her youngest, Rosella, refused to speak to her. Yet here she was talking of Lena's burros. It was life, this crazy life, and if you didn't laugh it broke you. It broke you anyway, but it was better if you laughed.
All day Lena made lists and as she carried Willa up the stairs she started a new one. Butter, candles, ice. If, while working feverishly, Charlie forgot her and the kids, it was never for long. He forgot them repeatedly, at moments, across days, in time. Lena, five years younger but dog-aged in matters of love, likewise misplaced Charlie, with all the worry and push she had to nudge up the road. I ought to write it down: butter, candles, ice, she thought, when Willa started coughing again. Lena ran. Charlie was forty-seven, she was forty-two. They had five years between them and eight years of marriage to their backs and to say they were committed was to say they were in deep.
Yet they missed each other.
And Lena wanted—oh, she wanted—to be touched inside her bones. But Charlie was elsewhere—it might be Uganda, or Boston, or an hour south at the office, or asleep in the bed beside her. Dear Charlie, grinding his jaw.
"Theo," Lena called, grabbing the newspaper as she pushed down the hall on her heels. "I'll have the door closed. Come find me, honey. Don't shout."
She kicked the bathroom door shut and flipped on the shower. As it roared to life, Lena whispered into Willa's tiny ear, "That's it, breathe."
Willa, ten months old, weighed just eleven pounds. In her short life she had been to the hospital a dozen times. With pneumonia, seizures, surgeries, not to mention those four months at the start. The doctors talked gravely of cognitive delays, and worse. Cerebral palsy was a term sometimes used. Lena stopped her ears. It wasn't that she didn't believe, it was that believing took her only so far. What Willa needed, Lena felt sure, was time. Lena's job was to seize time.
As the steam built, Lena first stripped Willa to her diaper, then peeled off her own sweats down to her panties. Making a bed of towels on the tiled floor, she sat—for the first time all morning—with her knees bent, her back against the wall, showing the cabinets her real face, the face she let no one see. Lena Rusch was irreverent, good-looking, plucky. She had a fine if exhausted brain. This meant she couldn't always recall the lists she made, or the ends and even the middles of her sentences, but she always started out with a bang. She was a romantic and, worse, an optimist. Fate had forced her to be practical and stolid, too. The two sides rubbed. She was crazy for her children, her friends, chocolate, and news of any kind. She might be crazy for Charlie, too, if she came across him in the daylight once in a while. In other words, Lena Rusch was extraordinarily ordinary: she worked and reared and hardly slept; she began each day prepared for a surprise.
Preemies did best skin to skin. Lena laid Willa's bare chest like a cloth over her own, and making sure her baby was upright with the world, she gently drummed on the tiny back. Willa moaned, burrowing her face in the cave of Lena's neck. "Sweetheart," Lena murmured. "Come on, come on."
"There you are!" Jesse cried, throwing open the door. They were sisters, and though Jesse was much, much younger, they entered rooms as their mother had taught them, like a storm. "I've been shouting a lung out downstairs. Theo finally—"
"Shut the door, you noodle! You're letting out the steam!"
Jesse did as she was told. But between the blasting shower and the stifling heat, she wouldn't stay long. "What? Is she sick again?" Jesse folded her arms. "Poor pup. Poor you."
"Nah. We're fine."
Technically they were only half sisters. Jesse, sixteen years Lena's junior, was the product of a love affair their mother had, one of many, after Lena's father died. She was as long-limbed and blonde as Lena was curvy and dark. Their mother told everyone that Jesse was helping out with the children until she found a job, but Jesse was a child herself.
"So. What are you wearing tonight?" she asked.
Lena tipped her head against the wall and laughed. "You've got to be kidding."
"Wear your green dress," Jesse advised seriously. "It's about time. And how 'bout I wear your black?"
"Cheeky girl!"
"Am not!"
"Oh, yes." Lena smiled wistfully. It wasn't so long ago (in truth, it felt like a minute) that Lena was the one flying out the door to get wasted at high school parties while little Jesse flapped her hands from her bouncy seat. And while that was long ago, Jesse still manipulated like a child—openly, as if she were the only one playing for keeps. Sighing, Lena rubbed circles in Willa's back. "I gave the black dress to Glo."
"You what? You gave it to the nanny?"
"Not nanny. Glo."
"Christ, Lean."
Truthfully, Lena would have given Gloria Angelica Cardenas anything—anything—for Glo saved Lena's sanity every single day. And besides, the rapture on Glo's face when Lena handed her the box was worth a hundred, maybe a thousand, black dresses. Lena looked up at Jesse, trying to decide if she should take the trouble to explain. But Jesse was looking at herself in the mirror, continuing that frank, daily conversation women have with their faces. "Ugh. New Year's Eve and no guy. I hate my life!"
Jesse turned. "OK, Miss Veteran. When. When is he going to show up?"
Lena's grinned slyly. "They always do."
At last Willa coughed, good and wet. It was enough. Jesse escaped, slamming the door behind her, as Lena put Willa to her breast. They would be there another hour. With one arm hooked under the baby, Lena spread the newspaper across her knees, where the steamy ink would stain her black. She didn't care. This was the moment she'd been waiting for—her reward being four full pages in the New York Times on Bernie Madoff and his colossal Ponzi scheme. Lena was in awe of Madoff, who, by promising steady returns of eighteen percent, had perpetrated the largest stock fraud in history. He'd swindled at every level, from the Wall Street fat cats, to relatives, to Palm Beach society, to grieving Jewish widows, to the mistress who claimed he had a small penis, to Mort Zuckerman, the media titan, to Elie Wiesel, the Auschwitz survivor, to Zsa Zsa Gabor. Yet in the photo on the front page Madoff showed no remorse. He walked the streets, a Jew with a George Washington haircut; he smiled like a shark for the paparazzi.
Her guests arrived all at once. They tossed their coats over the banister and pressed wine and chocolate into Lena's hands. There was much hugging. Lena made a robust effort to herd them into the living room, but they ignored her, following her into the small kitchen, where they grouped like stupid, happy cows.
"Get the fuck out of here!" she cried, laughing helplessly, but they only smiled and kept on talking. These were the beloveds: Lee Swanson, showing off his new baby blue suede jacket, and Josh Klein, Charlie's roommates from college, and Sandy, Josh's wife. When Jesse appeared, having spent the afternoon talking on the phone, tweeting, Facebooking, and smoking a little grass, she made a beeline for Swanson, to tell him that his jacket was his best awful. Laughing, they all agreed.
Meanwhile Lena had four things she couldn't remember and perhaps one of them was burning in the oven. She was about to check when Vi arrived. Violet Vesuvio, dear Vi, was Lena's flag of joy, her best friend since they were sixteen, the year they each lost their virginity, one to a girl and one to a boy.
"Oh, god. The fucking traffic." Vi gripped Lena's shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. "What. What is it?"
Lena wrinkled her nose. It had been a day.
"All right. We can fix this," Vi said. "Start at the beginning. What have you been eating?"
Lena had a deep, womanly, shit-kicking laugh. "Oh, hi, Maude." Turning, she greeted Vi's new girlfriend, who appeared to be in costume, a men's gray suit and fedora. "You look—"
"Rakish?" Maude tipped her head. Maude was a painter, a decent one; her oversize portraits sold best in Santa Fe and Miami. She was large-boned, mannish, with a small, pretty nose. Vi thought she was tremendous.
"Yes, rakish," agreed Lena, and though undecided about Maude, she hugged her warmly. Everyone was here; they only lacked Charlie. For the next half hour, as she threw dinner together, Lena kept an anxious eye on the door. And when at last Charlie walked through it, she was so startled she nearly dropped a bowl. She plowed into him, backing them into the hall.
"Well, Doctor, I do like to see your face at the end of the year. Remind me, what's your name?"
"Lena's husband," Charlie said, kissing her quickly. He'd been pushing toward this moment for more than two hours in traffic. But now that it was here, and Lena was beside him, Charlie couldn't slow his molecules enough to enjoy her. Instead, he dropped the bags of butter, lettuce, and ice she'd asked for on the floor. "Hey. Can I talk to you a sec?"
"Sure." Lena fiddled with his collar. She was pretending to ignore the gray hollows under his eyes and the smudge on his coat. What she wanted was a good kiss. A good kiss could restore them. Didn't he know? A good kiss could sail them into the New Year just fine. But even as she longed for this, they headed in another direction—she watched with wonder, seeing them go—and instead of saying something romantic she asked, "Did you get the champagne?"
"It's OK. I screwed up on the groceries, but I remembered the booze!"
"Charged it?"
"Course." She frowned. Now, why ask a thing like that? She shook her head and all but moaned. "Charlie, I want it to be … lovely. One night. Can it be lovely?"
"It is."
She tried her best to smile. "All right. What do you want to tell me?"
For two hours fighting the traffic on 280, Charlie had practiced his lines. I got a call today, out of the blue. He had his speech ready and there would be no deep kisses until he got the words out. Until he came clean. But the way she was looking at him, with those yearning green eyes, well, you'd have to be heartless.
"You look great," he said, and meant it. The truth was she looked wan and her hair seemed sort of wild. But even a wan, wild-haired Lena was sweet relief.
Lena patted her hair where Charlie's gaze landed. Did she really look like hell? She wanted so much from the night. If only desire were enough to take them there. "OK," she declared, brushing his lips with hers. "The bar first, then I need five chairs."
Klein wiped his plate clean with a hunk of bread. "God, this is good. Lena, what'd you put in the crab?"
"Butter and butter. A touch of garlic."
"No, something else."
"JalapeÑo. The thinnest of slivers."
"JalapeÑo! You are a witch, Lena-love. Pass that bowl."
Lena, because she was nursing, had just the one glass, but it burned nicely in her cheeks and in the tops of her ears. She passed the crab to Klein on her right and the salad to Swanson on her left. Now where was Charlie? She looked down the long table, past the winking candles and rosy faces, to the opposite end. He wasn't there. The thought of Charlie absent caught in Lena's throat. And just like that she knew something had happened—something more.
She moved a candlestick aside, the panic rising—as if her heart had been zapped and the ceiling dropped lower. Where was he? From the far end of the table Sandy caught Lena's eye. Sandy was a gynecologist, not a shrink, but since the twins' birth she'd made it her business to keep tabs on Lena. Worse, Lena knew from Vi that Sandy believed that had she been the doc on call she could have prevented the twins' early delivery. It was more than Lena could stand. The hubris. The exposed nerve. It wasn't only her fatigue or pride that Lena didn't want poked. It was a question of luck and unluck—and the tenderest, most unspeakable sorrow. It was, finally, a question of the heart. Lena's heart was tired. And a tired heart is a susceptible one.
"Lena, help me here with Swanny," called Sandy. "The eshag thinks he can cure a chronic sinus infection with amoxicillin!" Eshag was Sandy's favorite word—Armenian for ass—but she applied it to all her favorites. "See that, Swanny—Lena agrees. Listen to me, esh: you have to go in there with napalm."
Lena tried to stand but Josh Klein took her hand and pulled her into her seat. "Don't even think about it," he said kindly. In the wife department, Josh Klein considered Charlie one lucky dog. Then, too, with the market down fifty percent and no bottom in sight, Klein had been wondering all evening if this wasn't the end of the world. He decided that was OK. It was OK if the world ended. He would chat with Lena, drink a little more and see if the forecast changed. Last year he'd brought Lena pots of caviar left over from the Goldman Sachs holiday party. This year couldn't have been more different. A week before Christmas, he'd been forced to fire half of his department—guys and women he'd brought along. His dreams were haunted by their faces. And so Klein filled his and Lena's glasses to the top. "Talk to me. Where were we?"
Lena smiled dimly.
"Come on, Helena. Pretend there's no kids, no worries, sex forever. Money? Well, let's leave money out of it." Klein squeezed her hand. "What are you excited about? Is it Obama? Of course you love him. You and everyone are in love. The man is going to kill what's left of the markets, but let's not go there either. No, not Obama. Too shiny, too glorified. Let's talk about a real skunk. Bernie—Bernie Madoff."
Lena blushed. "Kleiny, are you obsessed with him, too?"
"No. I met him once and that cured me. A few years ago a friend of mine was thinking of investing with Bernie. When my pal asked to see a prospectus, Madoff's people said, 'Bernie doesn't do that. It's a trust thing.' Please. You know, Lena, there's a saying, If it sounds too good to be true, it is."
In fact, Josh Klein had been thinking about Bernie Madoff almost as much as Lena had, but for different reasons. For Lena, Madoff's business was beside the point; it was his motive, his character that intrigued her. For Klein it was just the opposite.
Meanwhile Lena was having what could only be called an inside-outside experience. She was talking with Klein and passing Vi the salt, while her heart searched the house for Charlie.
Lena looked deep into Klein's soul. "What about Madoff's sons?"
"Those two? No question. They did exactly what Daddy told them. Bernie wasn't a guy who rewarded people for using their brains. Did you know that on the day he turned himself in one of the sons' wives filed divorce papers?" It had been the talk on the street all week.
Klein refilled his glass. He'd drink until there was no more. And as he drank he was thinking, Boy oh boy, Charlie, get your ass back in here. She's lonely, lonelier than she knows.
"OK. Tell me this," Klein said. "The wife, Ruth Madoff. Did she know?"
"Kleiny, please." Lena gave his arm a push. "The wife knows—even if she doesn't want to know."
This much Charlie heard. He'd gone upstairs to check on the kids, and come down to get more wine from the garage. He'd been standing in the doorway, behind Lena, long enough to catch the gist. What he heard made him sick at heart. For something indeed had changed: that morning Charlie received a call from someone who could save his faltering company—this man happened to be the one person in the world Lena loathed. Charlie hoped he could explain it to her. But somehow she knew. My god, she knew.
Lena, unaware that Charlie was behind her, kept talking, and in that way dealt with her nerves. She was telling Klein about a woman who got arrested for shoplifting that morning at Whole Foods. "It was terrible. Theo heard the whole thing. The woman, she wasn't young. Kleiny, here's the strange part: she was wearing a sable coat."
"Really? What'd she take?"
"It's not what."
"Oh no?"
"Yo, eshes!" Sandy called, rising from her chair. "Charlie, what are those two conspiring about now?"
"Thieves," replied Klein. "We're talking about thieves."
A sable coat wasn't something you'd expect to see, not even in January, and certainly not on a bright morning at the grocery store.
Motown blasted over the speakers; the aisles teemed with the holiday harried. Some economic downturn, thought Lena, hitching Willa higher in the sling so she was snug to her chest. Lena took Theo's hand firmly and, hoping to keep him jolly, pretended they were doing a Viennese waltz as she led him into the crush. But as they took a shortcut down the shampoo aisle, the woman in the coat blocked their way.
"Mama," Theo said, backing up.
"It's all right, Theo."
"Yes, little fellow, I won't bite," the woman said.
Something about her looked familiar. Lena guessed that her picture had been in the society pages. She had dyed yellow hair and white powdered skin and black kohl drawn under and above her pale eyes. She wore a large sapphire on her middle finger; her nails were frosted pink.
Unlucky, Lena decided, and she squeezed Theo's hand to keep him from asking one of the questions she knew wanted to bust out of him. Theo wasn't wrong to wonder. For despite all that glory, something about the woman signaled that she was past the good times. It wasn't her saggy coat or shoes exactly, and it wasn't the forced fact of wearing sable on a clear California morning; nor was it the bad dye job or the contrast she made to the young clerks stationed nearby—short, round girls with their nose piercings and tattoos. It was something else. On New Year's Eve all she had in her basket was a box of pasta, a jar of marinara sauce and a screw-top bottle of red wine. She was studying a jar of cream, no bigger than a large thimble; she held it between her thumb and index finger.
"It's called Pot O' Gold, and they want ninety dollars for it," she said, looking Lena square in the eye. "Can you imagine?"
Lena could. Even as she rolled her eyes, tsking, "It's a crime, such a crime"—she could easily believe that a pot of nothing cost ninety dollars, and that this woman was going to steal that jar. There are all kinds of thieves in the world, and one sort always knows the other.
From inside the sling Willa coughed, barky as a seal.
"Oh, that bark!" the woman cried. "It's a sound you never, ever forget. I remember with my middle boy." Lena could see now that she was older, in her seventies at least. "Dear, have you dealt with croup before?"
Nodding, Lena slid a protective palm under Willa's tiny rump and gave Theo's hand another reassuring squeeze.
"Ah, of course," the woman said. "Scares the heck out of you, doesn't it? With my boy, when it got really bad at night, we used to drive him around in the car with all the windows open. The wet air did the trick—calmed him down. Well, it's always something. Me, I've just got to quit being stunned by these prices. And you—Good luck, dears. Happy New Year, all that lala." The woman waved a jeweled hand as they pressed on.
It was a madhouse at the registers. The lines snaked into the produce aisles and doubled back. Lena and the kids took their place behind two Asian women, sisters no doubt, dressed in leggings and high boots and glossy ponytails that fell down their backs and swished their behinds. To kill time, they were perusing the magazine rack, snapping pages and commenting on the stars, as if they were their old friends. "Look, Madonna. Doesn't she look better since she left Guy?"
"Hmm. She has excellent skin."
"Botox up the yinny."
"And how."
Their chatter distracted Lena, and it wasn't until Theo gave a sharp pull on her hand and cried out, "Mama!" that she turned to see the commotion in the Express line.
A security guard had stopped the woman in the fur as she was leaving the store. He demanded that she empty her pockets. Moving ever so slowly, she complied. From the depths of one pocket, she produced a wallet, a bunched silk scarf. Keys.
"Now the other one," the guard said, opening his palm and wiggling his fingers.
Of course, by now everyone on line was watching—including Theo. Lena looked at her son. Theodore Pepper's mud-brown eyes were already a bit wild with dark imaginings. Now this. We should all be embarrassed, Lena thought, dread weighting her heart.
It wasn't the cream after all but a bottle of probiotics.
"Fifty-five bucks," declared one of the Chinese girls.
"It's a silly misunderstanding," the woman explained, her voice unnaturally high. "I put the bottle in my pocket, you see, so it wouldn't fall out of my basket. I had every intention of paying, of course." She lifted her chin and sniffed. But despite that little bit of anarchy, the face couldn't hold. It collapsed. With a world-weary sigh, she searched the crowd for help. "My husband. He needs them for his digestion. The doctor insists, and, well—"
She sighed—the husband, the doctor, all the trouble. "I don't know what else to say. Honestly, I don't. You are standing there looking very severe, my fellow. You have to know that I have been an excellent customer since you people first opened these doors." She seemed to be operating under the assumption that for everyone's sake this regrettable incident must be put behind them. She looked over her shoulder longingly, toward the parking lot.
The guard held out his palm and once again wiggled his fingers. The gesture was gross and she ignored it, her eyes fixed on the floor.
He dove that large hand into the silk-lined depths of her coat and took out a brick of Parmesan cheese. "Did you think this was gonna jump out of your basket, too?"
"Oh, god," Lena said.
"Well, I couldn't be more embarrassed, or feel more stupid," the woman replied, her shoulders rounding. "No, it's not possible. You have done your job, young man, no one can blame you for that. Oh, how stupid!"
But the guard didn't think she was stupid, and he whispered as much in her ear. Her face broke with a fresh horror. "No!" she cried, sagging visibly, as he gripped her elbow, lifting it unnaturally high, and led her, unsteady in her skinny cocktail heels, toward the back of the store.
"Come on," Lena said, feeling sick inside. She covered her mouth with her hand. Abandoning the cart, she marched them toward the door.
"But Mama—the groceries?"
"Leave them," she choked. There was nothing certain in Lena's life, not the bags of ice or the butter, not the credit card on which it would all be charged—not one thing certain, except the lump that was Willa, hung round her neck, and the hot, ardent squeeze of Theo's paw.
Lena managed to steer them across the parking lot, even as her heart boomed and her legs felt spongy. "You don't reduce people like that," she said. "You just don't."
When they reached the car, she turned to Theo. He was awfully short and she had no choice but to bend down. This involved a fair act of balancing, what with Willa in the sling and Lena sort of swoony, and Theo himself only a few feet high. Squatting like a sumo wrestler, cursing under her breath, Lena tried to take the worry from her face. There would be no salad at dinner, and without butter the crab would be bone-dry. "Theo, honey. What is it?"
He narrowed his eyes. And weighing his words just like Charlie, his lips moving as he set his thoughts neatly and precisely in a row, he said, "That lady. Are they going to put her in the dungeon?"
"Don't steal, Theo." Lena tugged on the bunchy hem of Theo's jacket.
"I won't," he said, pushing her shoulder lightly with his hand. There was something wiggly in Theo's stomach and his mother was ignoring it. "That lady. Are they gonna … I mean do you think she's bad? She's bad, right?"
Squinting hard, Lena tried to think. From the beginning she understood that she didn't own her children; at best, she hoped to be their worthy shepherd. Besides, Theo had come with his own urgency, an oddball directness, an urgency that had nothing to do with her. Here he was, eyeing her intently, proving that already he possessed all the faces he would ever use in this world—the lover, the worker, the goony bird and, my god, the judge.
"What do you think, Theo?"
"I think most grown-ups would say she's bad, but you might not."
Lena smiled. So true, so disarmingly true. She turned away to look across the parking lot. She would have to make it simple for him, to put his mind at ease. For one day soon Theo would know that his mother was also a thief.
Lena Rusch was a thief stealing time.
"Here, Theo. Give me your eyes."
© 2011 Carol Edgarian


text:
Last month we learned that the Sox were interested in Cuban RHP pitcher Yuniesky Maya. Merkin says they aren't interested any more:
What is the latest on Cuban defector Yuniesky Maya? The last I'd heard about him was around Christmas time, and the White Sox and Mets were said to be the front-runners to land him. After watching a little bit of footage of him pitching, I think he'd be a good fit as a long reliever out of the bullpen.
— Dan, Aurora, Ill.
I was told at SoxFest that the White Sox scouted Maya and watched him throw, but they dropped out of the Maya picture after signing J.J. Putz. The money wanted wasn't commensurate with where the White Sox thought Maya would be pegged as a fourth- or fifth-starter type.
BTW, here's my Yuniesky Maya scouting report.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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So you wanna get laid, guys? Here's a Pro Tip: Forget flowers. Forget wine. Forget expensive dinners at the Top of the Mark. If you want to turn her head, capture her heart, or show her how much you love her: Learn to Cook. (And it may just get you laid, too!) Although made-from-scratch Chocolate Cake is a sure winner, and warm Grand Marnier Soufflé is divine, there's a lot of stress involved in getting a finicky dessert to rise for the occasion, so let's start with something a bit more forgiving: Homemade Bread A little too much flour? Water a tad cool? No worries! With homemade bread, … Continue reading
I just finished reading Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James and, try as I might, I couldn't learn to like it. Like Twilight before it, I'm having a difficult time understanding how so many people (ok, mostly women, but I could be wrong) can read it without their suspension of disbelief crashing to the floor on every other page. I had to keep scooping mine up, glueing it back together, and forcing it back into the story. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good sex scene as much as the next consenting adult, and it's a rare pleasure … Continue reading
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A summer downpour has made the freeways a mess, so I'm a bit late arriving at the vintage hotel. Dusk is falling, and the parking lot is packed. My cellphone rings, but I don't recognize the number, so I send it to voicemail and proceed to squeeze my Prius in between a massive SUV and a puddle that could be the sixth Great Lake. Huge drops of water filter through the leaves and splatter onto the windshield as I collect my belongings. I take a deep breath and then dash beneath the lush oak trees toward the hotel lobby. I … Continue reading
Warning! This excerpt (from one of my novels currently on submission) is sexually explicit and includes adult language. It describes actions between consenting adults (who are using birth control, even if they don't tell you that). If you are offended by the words breast, penis, or clit, now would be a great time to go back to reading LOLcats. Otherwise, please enjoy. (I would love to hear from you in the comments if you'd like to read more…) As I'm brushing my teeth, he slips in behind me—shirtless—and wraps his arms around my waist, nuzzling me on the neck and … Continue reading
If you spend any time at all tootling around the information super-highway (remember when everyone use to call the Internet that?), then you've probably run into a "Top 10" list or two (or fifty). We humans love to peer into the lives of perfect strangers to see if they agree with us (or, even better, to discover that they are lazy slobs, brazen hussies, or potential psychopaths.) Some of the most common "collections of advice" purport to teach us What Women Want, or Ten Things Women Need to Hear In Bed (e.g. "I'll be right back: I have to put the wash in … Continue reading
Welcome to the 21st Century: No toothpaste, pocketknives, or snowglobes allowed. (And beware the dreaded silk scarf.) What am I talking about? TSA, of course. I like to travel, but I hate traveling to get there. It's when I'm pushing a laptop, a raincoat, a pair of shoes, an iPad, an empty computer shoulder bag, a sweater, a silk scarf ("you have to take that off, too"), a ziplock baggy containing tiny bottles, a corkscrew (no blade), and a carry-on (now mostly empty) one-by-one through an x-ray machine that I find traveling to be particularly painful. And that's not the worst of it. Because I refuse … Continue reading
There's a first time for everyone: She invites you over to her place after a get-together with friends, or you walk her to the door (you always walk her to the door, right?) after dinner out and she asks if you'd like to come in; or you sit in the car talking about the movie you just saw and she says, "Come on, let's go inside where it's warmer." You may not be sure just what she has in mind, but there's the tantalizing possibility that it could be staying the night. Here are a few quick tips (in chronological order) to help make your first night in her bed not your last: Some women … Continue reading


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Handwriting practice set for students to trace the dotted letters and write on their own using 3-ruled lines. Each letter has a cute animal picture to color.
Find all of the U.S. President's in this word search activity. Great for Presidents' Day.
Three pages of the President's of the U.S. in dn-style font to trace and practice written manuscript.
Handwriting practice in zb-style font with a list of the U.S. Presidents.
Handwriting practice with a list of the U.S. Presidents in cursive to trace. Great activity for Presidents' Day.
Handwriting practice with pictures to color.
10 page handwriting practice, includes things that are blue along with a picture to color.


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Yellow Leaf Hammocks founder Joe Demin traveled to visit a friend in Thailand in 2010 and when he stumbled upon the plight of the Mlabri, a Southeast Asian hill tribe who are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups of society. Shortly after, he decided to completely change his life and start a company to help the Mlabri harness their artisanal talents and create a micro-economy while producing a viable commercial product, which came to be Yellow Leaf Hammocks. These hammocks have become the means to securing basic civil rights, combating deforestation and achieving financial security for these hill tribe villages in Northern Thailand. Meet the "chief relaxation officer" and founder Joe Demin.
How does a guy from Boston know hammocks?
Honestly, it was "love at first swing" when I first discovered these hammocks on a remote island in the Andaman Sea. As a life-long hammock connoisseur, I had always appreciated the power of a hammock–its ability to take you out of the stress in your life, even if for just a brief moment.
I think we all romanticize the idea behind a hammock-- relaxing, living a healthier lifestyle, traveling and adventure. Hammocks really embody all of those elements so I think no matter where you're from, whether it's a warm climate like Florida or a cold place like the Northeast, you can appreciate time spent in a hammock.
What made you want to stick with your plan to start Yellow Leaf Hammocks after you returned to the U.S. from Thailand?
It seemed ironic to me that the best, most relaxing hammocks in the world were being created by people who had endured such a tough, back-breaking life. Back in America, the newspapers were filled with tales of the recession-era- worker, productivity was soaring, charitable donations were drying up and stress levels were through the roof. But somehow this isolated village in the middle of one of the world's poorest regions, people were forging a better life for themselves and their children through these beautiful, functional works of art. I knew that if I could just share the story in the right way, Americans could feel the same emotional connection to these hammocks and these people that I did.
How did your friends and family react to your leaving the corporate world and trying to start a social enterprise/business of this nature?
Of course, when you decide to leave behind a stable job in the midst of a recession to pursue a "career" in hammocks, there are bound to be a lot of skeptical friends and concerned parents. But when people began to see that I was serious about dedicating myself to hammocks, they jumped on board pretty quickly. And when they got a chance to try out the hammocks and see firsthand how amazing they felt, they turned into my first customers! My mom is one of our biggest advocates.
Why do you think that there are not more business models like yours and Toms shoes? Are you optimistic that more companies like these will sprout?
I think there has been a rise in public consciousness about the products that we all consume and enjoy every day. Whether it's organic, locally farmed food or concern for the manufacturing conditions in a t-shirt factory, people are becoming more aware and more concerned about where their purchases are coming from, and that is a great sign for social enterprise and sustainability.
Our society and culture is going through a huge paradigm shift right now, and this is an exciting crossroads. I have faith that people are beginning to rethink their expectations from corporations and change their purchasing habits to reflect their awareness of impact on their community, their environment and the world in general.
What is the easiest way for an average person to help companies like yours?
The idea behind a social enterprise is that people don't need to give a donation or volunteer in order to make a huge difference. Instead, they can purchase a product that they really love, enjoy it every day and spread the word about the company and its mission.
Where do you draw your inspiration?
I constantly reflect on the time I've spent in Thailand visiting the Ban Boonyuen Village and seeing firsthand the impact our hammocks have on our weavers and their families. Realizing that without hammock weaving, these people would be trapped in poverty, indentured servitude and destructive slash and burn of the forests.
What would our readers find surprising to know about you?
Even though my title at Yellow Leaf is "Chief Relaxation Officer," I am constantly trying to curb my workaholic tendencies. I work longer hours now than I ever worked in a corporate job and I have to remind myself to take a break once in a while! But it feels great to know that every email I send and every hour I work takes us a little bit closer to this vision that I truly believe in. Plus, now I have a Sitting Hammock set up in my office for a change of scenery when I start to spend too much time hunched in front of the computer screen.
For more information on Yellow Leaf Hammocks, visit their website. To support their Kickstarter campaign, click here.


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Care & Pandas in China
High School Specials for 15-18 Year Olds
- Placement locations: Chengdu and Ya'an
- Types of placements: Care Centre and Dujiangyan Panda Base
- Accommodation: Guest House/Volunteer Apartment
- Age Requirements: 15-18 years old
If you are interested in combining a week working with children with a week working with pandas in the rapidly changing country of China, then this project is ideal for you.
During one of your weeks you will have the unique opportunity to work with the world's most recognisable endangered species at the Dujiangyan Panda Base. You will be involved in preparing food for pandas, cleaning out enclosures and observing panda behaviour.
During your other week on this programme you will work at a care centre in Chengdu, one of China's thriving cities, and help the local staff by playing games with the children and helping them with basic education. As a volunteer you will be adding to the children's quality of life, not only through the development of their social skills, but also by exposing them to new cultures and ideas.
While working at the panda project you will stay in a guest house. During your week working at the Care project, you will stay in a shared volunteer apartment or at a local guest house.
Over the weekend you will get the opportunity to visit the Du Jiang Yan water project, the Leshan Giant Buddha or spend a day exploring more of the city sites that Chengdu has to offer.
Every year, thousands of High School Special volunteers actively make a difference around the world. During their time abroad, they contribute towards achieving long-term goals and make a long-lasting positive impact on the communities where they work. If you want to know more about their achievements, read our 2017 High School Specials Impact Report.


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Create A Bedtime Ritual
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Well yet everyone know of that how long does cialis 20mg last found with ease in the Internet. In particular on our website it is full of it. But you forget and constantly you ask.


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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Weathervane Wednesday - On top of another carriage house...
This is part of an on-going series of photographs of weather vanes in the Nutfield, New Hampshire area (formerly Derry, Londonderry and parts of Hudson, Windham and Manchester). Some of the weather vanes are historical, some are whimsical, and all are interesting. Today's weather vane isn't near Londonderry, but found somewhere on the seacoast...
Do you know the location of weather vane #66? Scroll down to the bottom to see the answer!
This carriage house was built in 1890 and is part of the summer estate of former Massachusetts Governor Alvan T. Fuller. The weathervane is a black two-dimensional horse. This building is now part of Fuller Gardens, which is open to the public in Rye, New Hampshire. The formal and japanese gardens were designed by the famous landscape architects, the Olmstead brothers of Boston, in 1938. The grand formal gardens were originally designed to be enjoyed from the Fuller's bedroom window. The big summer estate home was razed.
Alvan Fuller was born 27 February 1878 in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Alvan Bond Fuller and Flora Anabella Tufts. He was governor in 1924, defeating James Curley, and re-elected in 1926.
The Fuller Gardens website http://www.fullergardens.org The gardens are open from mid May to mid October for the public to enjoy.
Click here to see the entire collection of Weathervane Wednesday posts!
Copyright 2012, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
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VisionFund contributes to the development of policy and practice in microfinance
and development. Some highlights of our recent initiatives are available here. If
you would like further information on any of the topics covered, or if you would
like to interview a VisionFund expert, please let us know.
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77 News Articles
Monday, 07 Mar 2011
By Richard Hartung, Bankers with Vision Volunteer
For VisionFund affiliated MFIs in Asia, Bankers with Vision (BwV) might seem too good to be true. Bankers with decades of experience in the region are offering to act as trainers, coaches and consultants – all for free. And these aren't just run-of-the-mill bankers. Credit experts, finance professionals, HR directors, marketing veterans, IT gurus and more have all signed up to help out.
Why? As BwV says in its vision statement, our volunteers want to "maximise the ability of MFIs to provide sustainable ongoing support for their borrowers." More simply, we want to use our skills to enable staff to help borrowers all around Asia.
The concept of BWV started nearly two years ago, when a few bankers attending a VisionFund presentation in Singapore suggested what might have seemed like a radical idea. Along with contributing "treasure," they wondered, how about offering time and talent to support VisionFund around Asia. Fortunately, board member Jon Hartley was receptive and started the ball rolling within VisionFund.
About twenty of us showed up for the first meeting in October 2009, knowing little more than that we wanted to help. Jon and other VisionFund staff explained more about what VisionFund was and led a discussion about possible next steps.
Veteran credit risk expert Richard McCrohan was instrumental in moving VisionFund forward, both tirelessly fund-raising to support microfinance in Cambodia and pulling in colleagues and friends to help the organisation. World Vision Singapore hired Lyn Loo in those early days, too, to support both World Vision and VisionFund. I helped with putting activities and support together however I could.
At first, our activities were fairly simple. We started organizing quarterly gatherings of the volunteers, including social event where volunteers could mingle and sessions where VisionFund staff coming through Singapore could explain the workings of VisionFund. Iain MacKenzie talked about how capital-raising initiatives work, for example, and Tim Hooper discussed VisionFund's tremendous growth in Mongolia.
Several of us also started the volunteering ball rolling by coaching staff in the MFIs. VisionFund had never done anything like this before and it was probably a test case to see if it worked, with the hope that MFIs might benefit. McCrohan coached one executive in Cambodia, and I coached an executive in Myanmar. Fortunately it went well, and the momentum grew. Soon afterwards, our first trainers spent time teaching MFI staff in Sri Lanka and Mongolia.
One of the biggest struggles initially was simply getting the word out about something entirely new from VisionFund. Country directors had never had a pool of volunteers available and didn't think about accessing those skills. Gradually, though, as Lyn and others met with senior MFI staff around the region, and as success stories began to trickle out, requests began to come in. We've gradually built up to the point where we have dozens of requests for support, and we're working hard to meet them.
Fast forward to today, and BwV is a vastly more well-connected and active organization. A Steering Committee of four, along with staffer Lyn Loo, meets every 4-6 weeks to plan activities, improve communications and link volunteers to tasks better. BwV hosts gatherings monthly, with everything from volunteers telling stories about their time in the field or webinars with VisionFund subject experts discussing their area of expertise to country directors talking about their work or sessions to create more effective volunteering support. BwV has grown, and we now have over 400 supporters signed up.
Has BwV made a difference? We hope so, and feedback from the field has been good. Our HR trainers helped staff develop learning plans and programmes to increase retention, and IT experts with years of experience on systems implementation are providing advice on new software. We have everything from product development to financial compliance support scheduled for the months ahead.
The dual focus in our mission statement, to "create a community of highly skilled professionals with best-in-class management skills who will act as a resource to support VisionFund entities around the globe and who will become advocates for microfinance through VisionFund," is intentional. On the one hand, VisionFund staff in the field have access to top-level coaching or training skills from experienced bankers. On the other, the volunteers are becoming a community that makes a difference and they're developing camaraderie. Together, BWV in Singapore is creating a new model that truly seeks to be a win-win-win for borrowers, VisionFund staff, and the volunteers themselves.
Website designed and built by Intuition Media


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Global Fixed Income Insights
December 17, 2018
Emerging Markets Look Forward to 2019
Global Fixed Income Insights
Emerging Markets Look Forward to 2019
December 17, 2018
After a challenging year for risky assets, in emerging markets (EM) fixed income in particular, we hold a constructive outlook for 2019, driven by attractive valuations, a benign global backdrop of moderate growth/subdued inflation and a U.S. Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) that is likely approaching the end of its tightening cycle. We believe these factors and growing twin deficits in the U.S. limit the scope for material U.S. dollar appreciation, further supporting EM fixed income assets.
Local currency strategies should benefit from already adequately tight monetary policy in key EM economies, and steep yield curves providing investors with excess term premium. Among credit, the JP Morgan Emerging Markets Bond Index Global (EMBIG), a proxy for U.S. dollar external debt, screens as cheap versus both its historical average and traditional comparables such as U.S. high yield. The same holds true for the JP Morgan Corporate Emerging Markets Bond Index (CEMBI), a proxy for U.S. dollar corporate debt, where absolute and relative spreads have sharply underperformed other credit markets such as U.S. and European high yield in 2018, despite generally improving fundamentals that are reflected in a similarly (low) default profile.
A stable-growth/moderate-inflation global backdrop supports EM assets
Our global outlook for 2019 is one of moderation both on the inflation and growth fronts.
Continued monetary policy normalization and declining oil prices underpin our subdued global inflation outlook. We expect a similar picture of anchored and moderate inflation in EM, barring some idiosyncratic cases.
We also envision slowing global growth, primarily in developed markets (DM), on the back of diminished policy support. Meanwhile, EM should reinforce our moderate growth/subdued inflation thesis, mainly driven by weaker Chinese growth. However, there is dispersion within EM: several key countries are starting to recover, and barring negative shocks, should continue their upward march toward potential growth. We thus expect EM-ex-China growth to stage a mild recovery, which may bode well for EM debt assets, as suggested by a historical analysis of EM debt returns as seen in Display 1.
Finally, a context of softening U.S. growth and subdued inflationary pressures, as well as unsteady U.S. stock and housing markets, significantly undermines the case for further Fed hikes beyond current market pricing. Confirmation of our thesis, and its corollary of potential U.S. dollar weakness next year, should bode well for EM assets. Our analysis suggests an overvaluation of the USD in real terms of approximately 10 percent which strengthens our view of a weaker dollar in 2019.
EM-ex-China at recovery stage: good for EM fixed income
To help inform our views on EM debt assets for the year ahead, we examined the historical performance of bonds, rates and stocks in EM at each stage of the business cycle, which we identified as follows: recovery, expansion, slowdown and contraction. Our output gap calculations indicate that EM-ex-China is currently in the recovery stage of the business cycle, and to the extent that historical performance provides useful information about future return potential, the analysis supports our constructive thesis for EM: all EM debt strategies have posted positive returns during the recovery phase, though they have failed to outperform EM equities.
All metrics agree that EM sovereign spreads offer value
All valuation metrics we reviewed suggest there is value in sovereign spreads: EMBIG spreads look about 50 basis points cheap to their 10-year historical average, and the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate High Yield Index-EMBIG spread differential is at all-time lows, despite the higher average credit rating of EM spreads. Furthermore, our fair-value sovereign spread model,[1] which relates spreads to fundamental domestic and external variables, suggests that spreads are cheap by about 40 basis points. The model also points to cheapness in Africa and, to a lesser extent, Latin America, while flagging European sovereigns as expensive and Asian spreads as fairly priced. At the country level, we like Indonesia, Ukraine and South Africa (conditional on a positive election outcome), while we remain cautious in Turkey and Mexico.
Value in local rates on high EM-DM real rate gap, steep curves, amid U.S. dollar weakness
EM real rates still look compelling, at 2 percent levels, and similarly the real yield differential with DM remains attractive at ~300 basis points. We expect real rate differentials to remain at elevated levels next year as Fed Fund rates get closer to neutral, other DM Central Banks cautiously remove monetary stimulus, global inflation remains subdued and EM Central Banks keep tight monetary policy stances. In addition, sizable steepness in several EM curves offer attractive opportunities for extending duration (for example, in Peru and Brazil), while we avoid long-duration positions in Mexico, given heightened policy uncertainty.
Valuations in EM corporate debt look favorable relative to default expectations
We see the sharp correction of EM corporate spreads, particularly in high yield, since the turn of 2Q18 as excessive given our assessment of credit fundamentals. Our confidence in EM credit is grounded in improving metrics (credit, management actions, etc.). The improvement has been supported by the behavior of EM corporates since the end of the global financial crisis. These improvements are best illustrated in default expectations, which now look likely to end the year well below the 2.5% forecast we set at the beginning of the year in spite of the rise in idiosyncratic negative developments in countries such as Argentina and Turkey.
Looking ahead to 2019 we view the spread widening of EM high yield as particularly noteworthy given expectations that default rates in EM will likely remain low and in line with U.S. high yield next year. In investment grade credit, we also believe the weakness in spreads is somewhat counterintuitive given fundamental improvements in EM credit quality (which should continue to see upgrades outpace downgrades over the coming 12-18 months), versus in the U.S., where the combination of debt-financed stock buy-backs, and merger and acquisition (M&A) activity may put pressure on credit ratings in 2019.
Risk Considerations
There is no assurance that a Portfolio will achieve its investment objective. Portfolios are subject to market risk, which is the possibility that the market values of securities owned by the Portfolio will decline and may therefore be less than what you paid for them. Accordingly, you can lose money investing in this Portfolio. Please be aware that this Portfolio may be subject to certain additional risks.
Fixed-income securities are subject to the ability of an issuer to make timely principal and interest payments (credit risk), changes in interest rates (interest-rate risk), the creditworthiness of the issuer and general market liquidity (market risk). In the current rising interest-rate environment, bond prices may fall and may result in periods of volatility and increased portfolio redemptions. Longer-term securities may be more sensitive to interest rate changes. In a declining interest-rate environment, the portfolio may generate less income. Mortgage- and asset-backed securities are sensitive to early prepayment risk and a higher risk of default and may be hard to value and difficult to sell (liquidity risk). They are also subject to credit, market and interest rate risks. Certain U.S. government securities purchased by the Strategy, such as those issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. It is possible that these issuers will not have the funds to meet their payment obligations in the future. High-yield securities ("junk bonds") are lower-rated securities that may have a higher degree of credit and liquidity risk. Public bank loans are subject to liquidity risk and the credit risks of lower-rated securities. Foreign securities are subject to currency, political, economic and market risks. The risks of investing in emerging-market countries are greater than risks associated with investments in foreign developed countries. Sovereign debt securities are subject to default risk. Derivative instruments may disproportionately increase losses and have a significant impact on performance. They also may be subject to counterparty, liquidity, valuation, correlation and market risks. Restricted and illiquid securities may be more difficult to sell and value than publicly traded securities (liquidity risk).
1 "Revisiting Our Emerging Market Sovereign Spread Valuation Framework," Emerging Markets Debt Team, Investment Insight, 2018.
Please consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the funds carefully before investing. The prospectuses contain this and other information about the funds. To obtain a prospectus please download one at morganstanley.com/im or call 1-800-548-7786. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing.


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#10: Avery gets Hordi-chuck'ed - Sean looked more like a turtle than an NHL enforcer on this play.
#9: Avery cries "boo hoo" to Ruutu - Jarkko Ruutu becomes angry at Avery, so he steals his stick.
#8: Maltby crushes Avery - Sean Aver's mood goes from bad to worse after he's disposed of. *Please note: Avery did not get killed here, despite him trying to sell that he did.
#7: Always keep your head up - Mike Weaver spots Avery with his head down and properly slams him into the boards.
#6: Delay of game - Sean Avery delays the face-off due to an equipment malfunction.
#5: Avery gets a tough lesson from Hartnell - Sean Avery builds the courage to fight Scott Hartnell, but that probably wasn't the best idea.
#4: The best in-game beverage goes to... - Jody Shelley and Sean Avery aren't willing to exchange punches, but they are willing to have a bit of a drink fight.
#3: Welcome to hell - Sean Avery has had some memorable moments against the Devils. He'd probably like to forget this one.
#2: Goaltender interference - Sean Avery decides he doesn't like Tim Thomas very much. I sense that feeling is mutual.
#1: You won't fight me? Too bad. - Avery declines a fight with David Clarkson, but that doesn't stop Clarkson from attacking him (if you listen to the NESN commentary in clip #2, they refer to this fight).
And of course, last but not least: Brodeur vs. Avery - I didn't forget the epic battles Brodeur and Avery have had over the years. Here's a sample of the rivalry between the two.
I hope you enjoyed the failures of Sean Avery. As always, if you have an idea for a Top 10 or a blog post in general, leave a comment or send me a tweet. Thanks for watching.


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By Sophie Tomasic
April 30, 2018
It was just after the second week of fall classes. Colin, a 20-year-old University of Arkansas student, parked his car in the parking lot of Liquor World on College Avenue. He was planning to buy alcohol using a fake ID.
Driver's - License Id Card Fake Virtual Mississippi Colin had used his fake ID many times before then, including at Liquor World, and it had never been an issue. He saw no reason to be nervous, he said.
Driver's - License Id Card Fake Virtual Mississippi Colin pulled into Liquor World around 6 p.m. that Saturday night. He had just used his ID at a different liquor store that did not have the beer he wanted, so he stopped at Liquor World to get it. After grabbing a six-pack of Shiner Ruby Redbird, he headed to the checkout counter. There were two guys working who were dressed in regular clothes. The cashier asked for Colin's ID and looked at it. He gave it to the other guy working behind the counter, and he also examined it.
"All right, show me your real ID," the man said.
"That is my real ID," Colin responded.
Sometimes liquor store workers have tried to get Colin to admit his ID was fake but sold alcohol to him anyway, so Colin just maintained that it was his real ID. This argument went back and forth a couple more times between the two until the man pulled out his police badge. Realizing he had no other option, he gave the officer his real ID. The officer told Colin he was going to give him a ticket for attempting to purchase alcohol underage. The officer took Colin to a back room in the liquor store, where there were two more officers and a line of five other minors getting tickets for using fake IDs. By the time Colin had gotten his ticket and left 30 minutes later, there were another four people behind him in line. When he was in line, he was running through the worst-case scenarios in his head.
"I was super scared. My cheeks were burning. I had a feeling in my chest that I had never felt before or since," Colin said. "I knew I messed up so badly. I thought I was going to get kicked out of school."
After about 10 minutes, Colin calmed down and realized he could not do anything about his situation except wait for his ticket. He started talking with the officers about underage drinking in Fayetteville.
"Man, sounds like you guys should lower the drinking age," Colin said to the officers. They laughed.
The officer wrote him his ticket for possession of a fake ID and took away his driver's license, which was the worst part of the experience. The fine was fairly expensive, around $300, but the biggest inconvenience was that he was not legally allowed to drive for 30 days.
Colin wanted to only use his first name because his ticket was expunged from his record and is no longer public information, he said.
Between 2012 and 2018, there have been 163 fake ID cases reported to UAPD. All these students received a citation for possession of a fake ID, according to a search query done by Crain. It is illegal for a person under the age of 21 to possess a fake ID, according to Arkansas state law. If sellers of alcoholic beverages such as bartenders, bouncers or liquor store employees believe that minors are using fake IDs, they have the right to detain the suspected people and call for law enforcement officers. Guilty people will be charged with a Class B misdemeanor, will have to turn in their real driver's license to the officer and will have their driving privileges suspended for 30 days.
Almost 60 percent of college students ages 18 to 22 drank alcohol in the span of one month, according to a 2014 college drinking survey done by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Fake ID ownership increases throughout the span of college. Around 12.5 percent of students had fake IDs before they went to college, while 32.2 percent of college sophomores own fake IDs, according to a 2016 article titled "How Strong is the 'Fake ID Effect'". I would argue that these statistics err on the low side. Out of my 450-student graduating class, at least 20 seniors had fake IDs, and the number grew substantially when I came to college. I would estimate that around 40 percent of my college friends have fake IDs.
In About New Driver's The To Know You Ohio Fox8 com Need License What
Underage drinking is an inevitable occurrence on college campuses. I have many underage friends who ask students who are over 21 or other underage kids with fake IDs to purchase their alcohol. I also have friends who drink alcohol at fraternity parties, although there is a risk associated with this because they don't know what exactly goes in the mixed drinks. Freshman year, one of my good friends only had two drinks of punch at a fraternity house and came home throwing up, falling over and making no sense. We were unsure if that was because she was drugged or there was just an exorbitant amount of alcohol in the punch. Either way, not knowing what goes in alcoholic mixed drinks at parties is very much a health concern. I understand why minors get fake IDs because buying your own alcohol is a way to ensure you know exactly what you are drinking.
I spoke with Cpl. Dallas Brashears of the Fayetteville Police Department about going undercover to stop fake ID use. FPD officers go to liquor stores, bars and restaurants to do investigations like what Colin experienced at Liquor World.
Brashears has three ways he can check for fake IDs. He has a pocket magnifying glass with a black light that helps him look at all the details and security features. He has an app on his phone that allows him to scan the barcode on the back of the ID and check if the information is correct. He can also call the dispatch center, and the dispatch worker will tell him who the ID belongs to based on the number. If it belongs to a different name or the same name under a different birth date, then he knows it is fake. If any of these verification methods show the ID to be fake, he will then write the suspected person a citation for possession of a fake ID and possibly a citation for a minor in possession if they are consuming alcohol at a restaurant or bar. A citation is a ticket that does not always warrant an arrest. When Brashears encounters these situations, he asks the suspected person to be honest with him. FPD rarely arrests underage people and only does so when the person is argumentative and adamant that the ID is real or when they are dangerously intoxicated, Brashears said. In 2017 alone, Brashears did over 100 of these busts, but didn't arrest a single person.
A few weeks ago, FPD worked in Sabor Guacamole and confiscated 17 fake IDs in one night. Last semester, Brashears caught more than 20 fake IDs from Hog Haus Brewing Co. and 12 from El Patio Mexican Bar & Grill in one night, he said.
"It's not about punishing kids," Brashears said. "This is a college town. People make mistakes. But we need to be sure bars, restaurants and liquor stores are doing the right thing and checking IDs."
If kids are honest with police officers, go to court, are respectful to the judge and follow the rules of their sentencing, they will most likely be able to get the charge removed from their permanent records, Brashears said.
Not only is attempting to buy alcohol using a fake ID against the law, just being in possession of one is also illegal. I spoke with UAPD Capt. Gary Crain, who said that UAPD finds many fake IDs through routine traffic stops. In those cases, a student will get pulled over by a police officer and be asked to present identification. While looking through their wallet, the officer will see an ID, but the student will reach for another ID because the first one is fake. That person is then arrested for possessing a fake ID.Those 21 Minor Bill Over Felony Would Giving Say To - Anything Years A Make Old Alcohol For
Because police cannot be at every liquor store, bar or restaurant all the time, those places have their own protocols when their workers encounter fake IDs.
I visited Blue Top Liquor, a popular liquor store on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, one Tuesday night around 5:30 p.m. I spoke with store employee Logan Miller about the store's policy on fake IDs. He immediately pulled out a box filled with hundreds of fake IDs that had been confiscated over the past three years. Most of those were taken at the beginning of each semester because students arrive at the UofA and try out their fake IDs during that time. Because it is past that busy period, he only encounters about three per week. Miller and the other employees studied the 2018 Drivers License Guide, which shows what the IDs from each state are supposed to look like. Miller always confiscates fake IDs. Every once in awhile, undercover police will come into Blue Top in civilian clothes and pretend to be customers or workers in training, just like what happened when Colin received his ticket. If the store routinely allowed minors with fake IDs to purchase alcohol, the business would be fined and could lose its liquor license. The employee who sold the alcohol could also be fired. When Miller suspects an ID is fake, he tells the suspected person he knows it is fake and that he has to take it. Usually, the person just leaves. If they try to argue, Miller threatens to call the police, and they always leave after that.
Driver's - License Id Card Fake Virtual Mississippi "Underage kids just need to wait until they're 21 like everybody else," Miller said.
I went to Dickson Street on a Thursday night around 9 p.m. to speak with bouncers and bartenders. Nick Adams is a bouncer at Yeehawg who encounters at least three fake IDs per night. He always confiscates IDs he suspects to be fake. If a bouncer does give it back, the bar owner can send them to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division; its goal is to regulate distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages, according to its website. Nick and the other bouncers at Yeehawg receive $5 for every fake ID they confiscate. Like Miller at Blue Top Liquor, Nick will confiscate IDs and tell the people to leave. If they do not, he will get the police involved. Police officers do bar checks at Yeehawg about once per week, Nick said.
In the middle of our interview, two men came to the door of Yeehawg, and Nick asked for their IDs. He spent about a minute examining them by shining a black-light flashlight on the IDs. Once he determined they were real, he let the men enter the bar.
"Don't use fake IDs here," Nick said. "But if you do, and you get caught, just walk away. Save yourself the fine and a night in jail."
That is what Jessica, a 20-year-old University of Arkansas student, did when she was caught trying to use a fake ID in April 2016. She was just a freshman then, and it was the first time she had tried to use her fake ID on a Saturday night with a group of her friends. They went to Shots first, and their IDs worked. At that point, Jessica was feeling confident that she could get into any bar. The next bar they went to was Stir, where the bouncer said that her ID was "the worst fake ID he had ever seen," she said. He took the ID and told the girls to leave. She left immediately because she was scared, she said.
Jessica ordered her fake ID from a website called ID God. She used all her same personal information but used a fake Kentucky address. She used the same day and month but a different year for her birthday. She received two IDs, and after having the first one taken the first night she attempted to use it, she has never attempted to use the second one.
"Once I got over the novelty of the idea of a fake ID, I realized it was too much of a risk," she said.
When she was a freshman, she thought it was arbitrary that the drinking age was 21 and that minors could not get into bars. Now that she is a junior and turned 21 in April, her opinion has changed.
"I don't want a bunch of freshmen who don't necessarily know how to handle their alcohol yet going to bars," she said.
One of my friends had a somewhat positive interaction with using a fake ID on Dickson Street. University of Arkansas sophomore Brittany was out with a group of friends on New Year's Eve 2017 when a bar took her fake ID. Everyone is her group was using a fake ID, and she was the first to enter the bar, she said.
"I was acting very confident because I had a little bit of alcohol in me," she said. "Usually I'm intimidated by authority, so I wouldn't be able to pull it off sober."
Brittany and her friends went to three bars that night. There were no problems getting into the first two. At the third and last bar, she said the bouncer barely looked at her ID, and she got in fine. However, one of her male friends was having trouble with the bouncer, and the bouncer found her inside and asked to see her ID again after a couple of minutes had passed. He realized it was fake and told her he was going to have to keep it, she said.
It was really cold that night, so the bouncers told Brittany and her friends that they could stay and hang out in the bar. They could not buy drinks. She sat at the front of the bar for awhile and talked to the bar manager. She asked him if they turned fake IDs into the police. He told her they did not and that she would not get in legal trouble. They just had to take fake IDs because it is a liability for the bar. When Brittany and her friends left, the bouncers told her they would "be happy to have them back when they were 21," she said.
Another friend of mine, Laine, said she has interacted with liquor store workers who were lenient about her using a fake ID. She went to City Liquor at the beginning of fall 2017, and the men working there joked around with her about her ID being fake. Laine said they told her, "You're nice, so we're not going to take your ID. The only time we take it is if people are being jerks and insisting their ID is real when we know it's fake." That was the only time she has ever been called out for having a fake ID, she said.
Fake IDs are clearly abundant on college campuses. Despite knowing the legal implications and the strict reputations of bars and liquor stores in Fayetteville, students continue to use fake IDs. While I understand police officers and bouncers are required by law to prevent minors from consuming alcohol, ticketing students is not solving the problem. Laine told me if her fake ID ever got taken away, she would just buy another one. Fake ID usage does not decrease because authorities are stricter. Perhaps we need to look at reforming our laws to make them less punitive and more informative about the risks associated with underage drinking.
"I think it's arbitrary that minors can be entirely financially independent from their parents, rent their own apartments and pay their own bills, but they are not considered old enough to drink alcohol," Colin said.
Editor's Note: We made the decision to quote the students anonymously because the University of Arkansas' Office of Student Standards and Conduct representatives indicated that they could pursue conduct sanctions against the students who possess or possessed fake IDs.


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Spode Delamere Rural Seconds 8 Inch Plate Set of 6
What is the difference between a first and a second? All pottery is manually inspected and only pieces which pass the highest standards are classified as first quality. An item is classified as a second where there is a marginal fault to the finish, the decoration or the shape. The fault is not structural, i.e. each piece still functions as intended and is usable. Unfortunately, seconds cannot normally be exchanged.
Dimensions: 19cm, 7.5 inches
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Uniform Building Code
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added addition adhesives application area limitations based upon ASTM BUILDING CODE VOLUME Building Official ceiling change to Section Chapter 23 Chapter 37 Chapter 51 clarified comfort cooling comfort heating equipment companion change construction covered dead load definition deleted design requirements Edition evaporative cooling Exception exit width exterior Federal Aviation Agency feet Fire Zone fire-resistive rating floor garage glass grade gypsum wallboard handrails heat producing appliances height identification included inserted inspection installation live load material ments metal modified occupancy separation open web steel permit plaster plywood portland cement pounds per square prestressed prestressed concrete protection reference refrigeration regulations reinforcement renumbered rewritten roof second paragraph Sections 702 Seismic Zone sentence shear stresses shear walls similar specified in Chapter square inch stairways steel joists stresses tests thickness third paragraph tion U.B.C. Standard Uniform Building Code Uniform Mechanical Code updated to agree veneer ventilated white spruce wood frame word


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Modesto is a great place to live, work and visit, and the business community is both vital and supportive. Businesses that come here stay here and prosper in an excellent regional market.
Modesto's high quality of life, affordability, and "Magic 90 Minutes" location is a winning formula for a growing, diverse business community.
Modesto continues to experience steady economic growth creating both employment and development opportunities.
The Economic Indicators report summarizes key economic factors and conditions, including Employment; Retail, Commercial and Industrial Real Estate; Building Permit activity; Household Income and Housing markets; and Government performance.


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The first day of December will look and feel like just that on Saturday with wet roadways from rain and light snow Friday and temperatures just below freezing through the early morning resulting in areas of black ice.
Motorists are urged to use extra caution with any icy spots on the road surfaces, especially untreated surfaces, the National Weather Service said in a Special Weather Statement issued just before 8 a.m. Saturday.
Following a sunny start on Saturday, clouds will roll in later in the morning on a day in which the high temperature will reach around 40 degrees.
Rain will sweep through the area Saturday night, arriving around 9 p.m., and continue into Sunday, with a wintry mix farther north and snow in northeast New England.
Overnight rainfall of up to three-quarters of an inch of rain is possible.
Rain continues Sunday, with thunderstorms possible after 9 a.m. and with areas of fog. Another half-inch of rainfall possible.
Temperatures will dramatically rise on Sunday with one of the warmest days in weeks in store as the high temperature will hit the mid- to upper-50s. The chance for rain and storms continues throughout the day, but most of the rain should end by noontime.
Monday will be partly sunny with a high in the low-50s.
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by Paula M. Riley
Each year, Teenagers, Inc. hosts its major fundraiser, A Taste of Chestnut Hill, on the third Sunday in November. This year, "Taste" is on Sunday, Nov. 18, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. in a new venue and with a new approach.
Themed "You're a Star," event guests will arrive on the red carpet with photos of their arrival captured by teens. Mocktails, scrumptious appetizers, light fare and desserts will be the focus at this year's event, held for the first time, at 8200 Germantown Ave. (former home of Magarity Ford).
The atmosphere will be festive and fun with a dance space, high tables,and unique auction offerings. Reverend Chris will be performing, and, as in years past, teens will serve as hosts and provide kid-friendly food and babysitting.
"It was the teens' idea to put a spin on the event," said Marianne Dwyer, director of Teenagers Inc. "They want to make it more festive and are putting together some great (non-alcoholic) mocktails."
The planning and execution of the event falls upon the teens (6th to 12th grade) as well as the board of directors, made up college-age former Teenagers Inc. members. They wanted the items to more closely reflect their organization and wanted to add some pizazz to an old fundraiser.
In addition to the sports tickets, restaurant gifts and O'Doodles Gift Baskets, guests can bid on services being offered by teens, including leaf raking, babysitting, closet organization, moving assistance and snow shoveling.
Former Teenagers Inc. members Ryan Conway and Ryan Tritell are contributing their photography skills. Conway is auctioning his photograph series entitled, "Four Seasons of Photos," and Tritell is providing a discounted session at Over the Moon Photography.
A special auction basket comes straight from Guatemala. Teens brought handcrafted items back from their annual service trip where they help build houses and work at an orphanage and medical center.
Arianna Neromiliotis is giving five hours of sign language lessons and other teens are contributing watercolor pieces. Jane Piotrowski has donated an ice cream party, Meg McNally is preparing her famous chocolate cake and Tim McCarthy has offered a $200 gift certificate for consultation services.
The food, as in the past, is donated by local restaurants but the focus is on the appetizers and desserts. Donated items include wings by Tavern on Hill and Chestnut 7, ribs by Darcys, spring rolls by CinCin, appetizers from Thai Ku, bruschetta from Chestnut Grille, mini hoagies by Bruno's and plenty of desserts from Night Kitchen, Bredenbecks and Aurora's Bread Pudding.
Teenagers, Inc. fosters a community spirit with area teens and provides opportunities for students to socialize in safe and enjoyable environments. The nonprofit also coordinates volunteer opportunities for the teens to donate their time and energy both in Chestnut Hill and beyond. Since its inception 16 years ago, the group has sponsored social, recreational, leadership training and service activities, including hot dog roasts, community clean-ups, teen tutoring, dances, rockfests, night walks and ski trips.
Tickets for A Taste of Chestnut Hill are $30 in advance and $35 at the door for adults; $10 for ages 10-18, and $5 for children under 10. Contact Marianne Dwyer at 215-242-4976, or email firstname.lastname@example.com. The event site at 8200 Germantown Ave. is at the intersection of Hartwell Lane. Parking is available in the adjacent lot.