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Here are just a few rules to help things run smoothly....
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Effective November 20, 2013: You may submit up to a maximum of 5 different projects for each challenge, but they must be something that has been created by YOU, must meet the challenge theme and must have been posted on your blog within the time period of the Crafting by Designs challenge you are entering. If any of these requirements are not met or the number of projects entered exceeded, these projects WILL NOT be considered for any prize offered. Effective January 1, 2014: There will be no limit on the number of submission entries FOR THE "ALMOST MONTH LONG CHALLENGE" THAT BEGINS ON THE FIRST WEDNESDAY OF THE MONTH AND RUNS THRU THE 25TH OF EACH MONTH. This will apply ONLY TO THIS CHALLENGE; all other weekly and special challenges continue to be limited to a maximum of 5 different project entries.
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Denver County GOP elects new chairman
The new chairman of the Denver County Republicans is businessman Danny Stroud, who said he wants to appeal to all Republicans and unaffiliated voters, too.
Also elected Saturday were the three vice chairs, Michelle Lyng, Jeff Krump and Pauline Olvera, and secretary Brett Moore.
Stroud easily beat Bob Lane, and will serve as chair for the next two years. Stroud and Lane ran for state House seats last year, but lost to the Democratic incumbents. Stroud succeeds Ryan Call.
Democrats easily outnumber Republicans in Denver — 110,360 to 39,137, with 52,976 unaffiliated voters. But that still gives Denver a chunk of Republicans, and Stroud wants to get them fired up for the 2012 presidential race.
If you want to know more about Stroud, check out this memorable "I am the Republican Party" video that debuted last year:

subset: commoncrawl


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It's time to quack a smile for giant duck billed to bring people together
AS THE Netherlands' giant Rubber Duck floats into Darling Harbour next Saturday afternoon, heralding not duck season but a new Sydney Festival season, onlookers might not suspect it is a Kiwi decoy.
Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, 35, says Rubber Duck - made from PVC and billed by the festival as ''five storeys high and five storeys wide'' and ''popping up in various cities around the world'' - is actually the latest of several versions of the duck.
This one has been made in Auckland, shipped to Sydney and added to a custom-made pontoon built here.
Yet each duck has ''healing properties'', says Hofman, and he's not being entirely whimsical with his claim.
''I saw people crying at the end of a [duck] placing in Belgium,'' Hofman tells Fairfax Media from Perth, where he has been holidaying in a campervan with his partner and three children before his Sydney visit.
''People get so connected; it loosens up emotions.''
One woman was so entranced taking pictures of the duck in Saint-Nazaire in western France that she forgot to apply the handbrake on her car. The fire brigade had to tow the car after it slipped into the harbour.
A duck has appeared in 12 cities, including Osaka, Auckland, Hasselt and Sao Paulo. The biggest - 26 metres x 20 metres x 32 metres - was in Saint-Nazaire because an engineer mistook the instructions.
''I was stunned and scared to death of the size,'' Hofman admits. ''The crew was also slightly afraid; it was so immense. It made us small and meaningless. I like the fact a work can do this.''
Hofman hopes Australia will now see more of his giant art: there's been a 13-metre yellow rabbit made of concrete, metal, wood and shingles, left lying upside down against a statue in Orebro, Sweden.
Even his large, dead fly looked fetching affixed to a building top in Queretaro, Mexico.
''My sculptures cause an uproar, astonishment and put a smile on your face,'' says Hofman. ''Passers-by stop in front of them, get off their bicycle and enter into conversations with other spectators. That is the effect of my sculptures in the public domain: people are making contact with each other again.''
Then there was Max, a big red dog made of potato crates, pallets, wood, straw, rope, metal wire and shrinking foil and placed in a field in Leens in the Dutch province of Groningen; and Slow Slugs, two creatures made of metal, football nets and 40,000 plastic bags for Angers, France.
Yet Hofman insists his work hasn't become bigger: more that the world has become smaller.
''The internet is fascinating, but also stupid in a way,'' he says. ''You only see two-dimensional images and you think you've seen it and know it.
''As a sculptor and monumentalist I always say you have to see and feel it in reality; it's better for you as a human.
''Therefore I love it when people travel to see one of my works, and I always make time to meet and talk with them.''
Hofman will speak at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum at 2.30pm on Sunday, January 6.
Bookings are advised at powerhousemuseum.com.


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Twin Peaks Tavern - gay bar, historic landmark
S.F. NEIGHBORHOODS Pioneering Twin Peaks Tavern honored with official designation
In 1972, when Mary Ellen Cunha and Peggy Forster threw open the doors and uncovered the windows at Twin Peaks Tavern on the corner of Castro and Market streets, they didn't know they were making history.
But four decades later, the bar that has sat both literally and figuratively at the center of San Francisco's gay rights movement and community is now a historic landmark.
Twin Peaks Tavern, which first opened in 1935 but was purchased by Cunha and Forster in 1971, is believed to be the first gay bar in the nation to feature full-length, open plate glass windows that let its patrons look out, and more importantly, the public look in. The lesbian friends, known to most regulars as "the girls," opened the bar to the world at a time when many gays still feared losing their jobs or being socially ostracized if their sexual orientation was revealed. It has now survived for 40 years as one of the Castro district's most memorable and welcoming establishments.
Last week, the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to give it landmark status. It is one of just two bars in San Francisco with such a designation: The Bayview's Sam Jordan's bar, named for its founder - the first African American man to run for city mayor - was also given landmark status last week. Twin Peaks is now owned by two men who worked for Cunha and Forster for years as bartenders and bought the tavern from them in 2003; Sam Jordan's is run by his children.
Twin Peaks, located across the street from the Castro Muni Station, is often the first thing people see when they arrive in the neighborhood. Housed in a building first constructed in the 1880s, it has early 20th century features, including a 1923 Mediterranean revival-style façade. Inside, there is a partial mezzanine; a wooden, U-shaped bar; and a pre-Prohibition mirrored backbar.
"It has served as a gateway to the Castro since it emerged as a gay neighborhood, and as a symbol of openness and public welcome that that neighborhood offers," said Gerard Koskovich, a curator at the nearby GLBT History Museum. "It's not merely a symbol of openness - it is an example of openness. ... It is absolutely living history."
Distinctive tavern
From the beginning, the tavern was different from other gay gathering spots - and largely because of those windows. But Cunha said the owners weren't intending on making a big political statement: They simply "wanted to look out," she told the Planning Department last year, in a historical report prepared by the agency as part of the landmark designation process.
But because those outside could also look in - and state regulators and police were still targeting gay establishments for anything they could - the girls instated a "no-touch" rule that established Twin Peaks as more of a social club than a pickup spot, the report states.
That social vibe exists to this day, said Supervisor Scott Wiener, who sponsored the historic landmark legislation. Most notably, the bar is known for its older clientele, though people of all ages - and sexual orientations - can often be found knocking back drinks there, along with tourists.
"One of the reasons I like it is that it is an older crowd, and the LGBT community often celebrates youth and youthful beauty. Older gay men in particular sometimes feel like outcasts - but this is a centrally located, open bar that is important to all ages," Wiener said.
Various nicknames
That community vibe has prompted some to refer to it as the Gay Cheers, though its largely mature clientele has earned it another nickname.
"I knew it as the Glass Coffin when I was younger," said Frank Schumacher, 52, an advertising executive who stops at Twin Peaks on his way home from work most days. "When I first moved to San Francisco in 1990, it was one of the few bars that felt like an institution. ... It's an amazing place. It's about the time it's been here. You walk in and can feel it."
Carl Lawrence, 70, has been going there since 1993 and keeps coming back "because it's one of the few bars where you can come in and talk."
Lawrence, Schumacher and other regulars expressed delight at the bar's historic status.
"I think it's just fantastic," said Stephen Dupuis, age 55. "It's part of the whole city's history, the makeup of San Francisco - it's not just about the Castro. It's a great vantage point, right here on the corner. You can people-watch, get a great drink and have great company."
-- Coming Thursday: Learn more about San Francisco's other historic bar, Sam Jordan's.
Marisa Lagos is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


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Published In May 2000
Is it acceptable to install nonmetallic sheathed cable (NM) exposed on a wall or in an attic, a basement, or a residential garage? Where would physical protection of the NM cable be required, and where is physical protection of NM cable often used but not necessarily required? Is it acceptable to install NM cable in a raceway and, if so, how is the ampacity determined? What lengths of raceway are considered to be sleeves for physical protection and at what length is the sleeve really considered to be a true raceway? NM cable is permitted as a wiring method in one- and two-family dwellings, many multifamily dwellings, and commercial buildings with some restrictions. It is not allowed (1) in multifamily dwellings or commercial buildings that exceed three floors above grade, (2) where it would be used as service entrance cable, in commercial garages having hazardous (classified) areas, and (3) in certain other locations as detailed in Section 336-5 of the NEC. Due to the varied locations and types of construction in which NM cable is used, it may be necessary to install the cable either exposed on or in the building or installed in a sleeve or raceway for physical protection. Section 336-6 permits NM cable to be installed in exposed locations and has permitted this installation technique since the introduction of NM cable into the Code in the 1930s. If installed exposed, the cable must closely follow the building surface or be installed on running boards. The NM cable must also not be installed in an area where the cable may be damaged or subjected to any physical abuse that might affect the safe operation of the system. For example, NM cable could be installed on the surface of an existing plaster- or wallboard-covered wall in a building where NM cable is allowed. It could be installed exposed in a residential garage or in an attic or basement. In most cases, the NM cable must closely follow the building surface or another means of support for the cable must be provided. Many basements, attics, and storage areas do not have drywall applied so the trusses, joists, or framing members are left exposed. In some residential garages and attics, the construction may consist of unfinished walls and ceiling structures with high peaks or gables. In these cases, it may not be feasible to install the cables along the building structure because it would involve much longer lengths of cable and more labor for installation. A running board could be installed and supported from the building structure at a lower height with the cables attached to the running board. Installing NM cable exposed in the basement of a structure is so common that Section 336-6(c) provides guidance on the installation of the cables in a basement. In the unfinished basement, an NM cable containing conductors smaller than two No. 6 AWG or three No. 8 conductors must be installed through bored holes in the framing members. Cables consisting of two No. 6 or three No. 8 or larger conductors can be stapled directly to the bottom of the framing members in the basement. The restriction for the smaller size conductors to be installed through bored holes and not to the lower edges of the joists is to ensure better physical protection for these cables. Section 300-4 provides various specific requirements for providing physical protection for cables installed in wood framing members. Where the NM cable may be exposed to physical damage, Section 336-6(b) requires that the cable be protected. This protection can be by installing it in conduit, electrical metallic tubing (EMT), Schedule 80 PVC, pipe, guard strips, listed surface metal or nonmetallic raceways, or by any other means that will provide suitable protection for the cable. If the NM cable is installed where it passes through a floor, the cable must be protected for at least 6 inches above the floor by enclosing it in rigid metal conduit, intermediate metal conduit, or one of the other methods previously mentioned. This protection will permit the cable to be fished from floor to floor without having to worry that a nail attaching wood moulding to the wall (close to the floor) would penetrate the cable. NM cable protection is also often used where the cable must exit the interior of the building structure to provide power for devices on the exterior of the building. Floodlights on exterior eaves will often be powered using NM cable that has been sleeved to protect the cable from physical damage and from deterioration from the outside elements, such as dampness or sunlight. Section 336-6 does not limit the length of sleeve that can be used to protect the cable, but this sleeve is normally only used for very limited lengths of cable runs. For example, the sleeve enclosing NM cable exiting the attic and feeding the floodlights mounted on the eaves of a building may only be 12 to 24 inches in length, although there may be construction applications where the sleeve is much longer. The question is often raised in the field "What is considered to be a sleeve and what is considered to be a raceway installation?" A sleeve is not required to be continuous and can be whatever length is needed to provide physical protection. A raceway installation must be installed complete between outlet, junction, or splicing points before the installation of conductors in accordance with Section 300-18(a). If a metal raceway is used, Section 300-10 requires the metal raceway, cable armor, or other metal enclosures be metallically joined together for effective electrical conductivity. There is an exception to Section 300-10 that permits short sections of raceways used to provide support or protection of cable assemblies from physical damage to not be electrically continuous. If the NM cable leaves the interior of the building and is enclosed in a sleeve or raceway on the exterior of the building for a short distance, do the conductors in the cable have to be derated for the higher ambient temperature often found outside the building. Section 310-15(a)(2) provides some guidance on this issue. It states "where more than one calculated or tabulated ampacity could apply for a given circuit length, the lowest ampacity value shall be used." This would apply to the conductors within the cable leaving a cooler area within the building and entering a higher temperature environment on the outside of the building. The higher ambient temperature surrounding the cable located on the outside of the building would require that a lower ampacity be used for the conductors in the cable so the lower ampacity would then be used for the entire cable. Obviously, the temperature on the outside of the building and the temperature of the cable would depend upon the location of the building and cable and the time of year. Table 310-16, including the ambient temperature correction factor portion of the Table, could be used to determine the allowable ampacity for the cable conductors. There is an exception in Section 310-15(a)(2) that does help with short runs, such as the short sleeves feeding out to floodlights and similar equipment. The exception permits some relaxation on the general rule for derating of conductors. It states: "where two different ampacities apply to adjacent portions of a circuit, the higher ampacity shall be permitted to be used beyond the point of transition up to a distance of 10 feet or up to 10 percent of the circuit length figured at the higher ampacity, whichever is less." This exception could then apply to the cable sleeved to the outside of the building allowing the higher ampacity for the conductors using the interior temperature. The reasoning for this exception is that the cable installed in the cooler area will act as a heat sink to draw excess heat from the short run of conductors exposed to the higher ambient heat. Most installers are probably using some or all of these techniques explained here but a review of the Code Sections that permit these practices can be helpful for a better understanding of a common practice. ODE is a staff engineering associate at Underwriters Laboratories, Inc., in Research Triangle Park, N.C. He can be reached at (919) 549-1726 or by e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Here is one more character from the Friendship is Magic series, and instead of being a girl or female pony, we will be learning "how to draw Big Macintosh", step by step. As some fans may know, Big Mac is Applejack's older brother and like his sister, he too has an accent that sounds a lot like those from Missouri. I don't know that much about this male draft pony, but I can tell you that he has a majestic and laid back appearance. The fact that he lives his day to day life in a blasé manner, suggests that he takes life for what it is, and goes with the flow. I think you will have fun drawing Big Macintosh because he really is an attractive horse that should be fun to draw. As you can see his body structure and frame is a bit more realistic than his female counterparts. I don't know if there will be any more pony tutorials, but if there is I'm sure you will have a blast with those too. Adios people and I do hope you enjoy your Labor Day drawing weekend.
DragoArt members upload artwork and drawing tutorials! They are also allowed to leave comments on tutorials, profiles, etc. Many more features, as well; it's way better than just being a boring guest! Register Now!


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To those who knew him, William Maxwell as a person—soft-spoken yet incisive, moist-eyed yet dry-voiced, witty yet infallibly tactful—threatened to overshadow Maxwell as a writer. We aspiring authors who enjoyed his unstinting editorial attention and gracious company tended to forget that, for four days of the week, he stayed at home and wrote, reporting to the typewriter straight from breakfast, often clad in bathrobe and slippers. He had finished two novels, the second of them a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, before finding, in 1936, employment at The New Yorker, where he remained, with a few interruptions, as an editor until 1975; he continued as a contributor until 1999, when he was ninety-one years old and in his last year of life. Now his writing is what we still have of him, and it warms the heart to hold almost all of his fiction in two sizable, relatively imperishable Library of America volumes ($35 each), timed to be published a hundred years after his birth, in Lincoln, Illinois. The books have been scrupulously edited by Christopher Carduff; his "Note on the Texts" is exceptionally full, tracing Maxwell's earlier novels through their several revisions, and his twenty-nine pages labelled "Chronology" approach the intimacy and interest of a full-length biography. For the year 1945, for instance, we read:
In June, Maxwell ends therapy with Reik, upon whose couch, he says, "the whole first part of my life fell away, and I had a feeling of starting again." Three years later: "In fall 1948, Maxwell, dismayed by poor sales of new novel and by lack of enthusiasm at Harper's, returns to The New Yorker on part-time basis." Abrupt details supply, in Carduff's notes, a sense of drama largely absent from Barbara Burkhardt's stately, exegetical "William Maxwell: A Literary Life" (2005). Carduff's Chronology entry for 1950 reads:
Struggles to imagine opening scene of book about France, but is undecided whether material would be better treated in first or third person, as fiction or as straightforward travel memoir. In fall he and Emily, after five years' trying to conceive a child, attempt to adopt, but Maxwell's age, 42, presents bureaucratic difficulties.
People already well acquainted with Maxwell's work will be fascinated to read, at the outset of the first Library of America volume—"Early Novels and Stories"—the author's first novel, "Bright Center of Heaven" (1934), which Maxwell, after a sold-out edition of a thousand volumes and a largely unsold second printing of another thousand, in effect suppressed. In 1958, when his new publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, undertook to reprint in its Vintage paperback line three earlier novels, Maxwell declined the offer to include "Bright Center of Heaven," finding it, upon rereading, "hopelessly imitative" and "stuck fast in its period." In a Paris Review interview, he said, "My first novel . . . is a compendium of all the writers I loved and admired." Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse," especially, is imitated in the drifting weave of action and interior reflection, and in the rhythms, paced by commas, of the long descriptive sentences. Ten years after the novel's publication, he reread it and wrote, "I . . . discovered to my horror that I had lifted a character—the homesick servant girl—lock, stock, and barrel from 'To the Lighthouse.' " But these borrowings do not taint the peculiarly American innocence of the setting—Meadowland, an informal artists' colony in rural Wisconsin—or the indigenous ebullience borrowed from the Midwestern novelist Zona Gale. Meadowland was based upon Bonnie Oaks, a hospitable farm near Portage, Wisconsin, where Maxwell spent a number of summer months and one winter. Gale lived nearby, and, in many conversations, she shared with the young Maxwell her belief that artists should find "excitement in the presence of life" and bring out "the mysterious beauty of the commonplace" and the "brighter" aspect of reality.
Brightness is everywhere, indoors and out, in his first novel. With a confident empathy, the twenty-five-year-old author moves among a dozen residents and guests at the place. We partake of the interior sensations of the owner, a widow battling mental confusion, and of her two adolescent sons, and of a young woman sleeplessly coping with an unintended pregnancy, and of her oblivious, bookish lover, and of a crusty hired hand left over from the days when this was a serious farm, and of a concert pianist as she practices her drills, and of a painter wrestling with the abstract qualities of two oranges and an oil can, and of a "pestilential and garrulous youth" with no discernible artistic dedication, and of a homesick German cook, and of a sickly Southern spinster, and—the focus of the novel's suspense—of a Harvard-educated black lecturer, an ardent advocate of racial equality. Though critics have found fault with the black character, he seemed to me plausible and complex enough—the earliest of Maxwell's many honorable attempts to portray African-Americans.
"Bright Center of Heaven" gives those of us who knew him as the mature master of a deliberately low-key prose a new Maxwell—bolder, more overtly poetical, more metaphysical, and frequently surreal. The book's title comes from a bizarre vision entertained by Amelia, the racist Southern spinster, as she sits, stunned into muteness, at the dinner table with a black guest: "The candles soared toward a heaven of blue and white larkspur, and in the bright center of heaven Amelia saw a great black face with gold-rimmed glasses." Her sense of outrage finds another expression in her suddenly hearty appetite, where she has previously been a picky, invalid eater. Nothing is predictable at this social occasion, which ends when the black visitor, Jefferson Carter, batters his way out of a screened tent where the postprandial discussion, despite the liberal dispositions of the white participants, has irritated him into a rage. "These seven people," he thinks, "had no meaning beyond themselves, which was to say that they had no meaning at all. They did not express the life of the nation. They had no visible work. They were all drones and winter would find them dead." The mural scale of the indictment (in an aggrieved mind) is one that Maxwell did not strive for again. The novel, though not long, is ambitious in the reach of its human diversity and the extravagance of its metaphors. Emotional nuances are reified into audible objects:
"Merry sunshine, Amelia!" Mrs. West's voice flew toward her husband's half-sister like a volley of silver arrows, intending to undo with their brightness the work of years of indigestion. The arrows struck harmlessly against the breastplate and the helmet. They fell with a clatter at Amelia's feet. A page later: "Amelia, too scandalized for speech, wrapped her disapproval round her and laid the folds of it at her feet." These overanimations are eddies in the "bright confusion" of this long day in the upper Midwest. Myth leaks into the humdrum: Whitey, the younger of Mrs. West's sons, "is the family Ariel." When Mrs. West takes a hurried hand in the preparation of lunch, "the air about her grew bright with the combat" and the cook surveys the mess in the kitchen "without expression save for the utterly dead look of one who sees her sons slain by the invader, her daughters violated, and her house pulled down about her head." A palpable modernist influence, aside from the subtle, quirky domestic realism of Woolf and E. M. Forster, is that of James Joyce, particularly of "Ulysses," which explodes as it progresses into a cosmic inclusiveness. A day in Dublin, a day in Wisconsin are alike sufficient samplings of humanity—random test cores plumbing the depths of existence. Homeric metaphors give epic magnitude to an eighteen-year-old boy's labor of unrequited love:
As a mountain-climber is sometimes startled at the sight of one small flower growing miraculously out of the bare rock, and stops to gaze at its petals, white veined with blue, and at its yellow-and-blue center; and then the mountain-climber goes on up the precipitous wall of rock with less of weariness in his knees and a lighter pack on his back, so did the flower of Thorn's small hope refresh him and make the weight of his hurt feelings less burdensome to him.
An achieved and reciprocated love demands an even wider verbal stretch: "Beyond the shadow of all doubt she was certain that if he let go, if he took his hands from her face even for a second, she would fall headlong. She would be bruised and battered against ten thousand unnamed stars." The "heaventree of stars" that hangs over Leopold Bloom at day's end is glimpsed from another longitude.
In his next novel, "They Came Like Swallows" (1937), Maxwell subdues his figurative language to describe the most momentous event of his life: his mother's sudden death in the flu epidemic of 1918-19, after childbirth, at the age of thirty-seven. "My childhood came to an end at that moment," he later wrote. "The worst that could happen had happened, and the shine went out of everything." Modest specifics, clearly rendered, replace the sometimes florid style of the first novel. The voice and form did not come easily: Carduff's Chronology tells us, of the year 1935, "Plans autobiographical novel about death of his mother; writes seven drafts of the opening section but is happy with none of them." The work was completed with the help of the MacDowell Colony, in New Hampshire, and a patron in Urbana, who gave him, in exchange for grading papers, four dollars a month, room and board, and privacy. "Without this arrangement," he later said, "I doubt very much that the book would ever have been finished or that I would have continued to be a writer." He also credited his friend Robert Fitzgerald, the poet and translator, with persuading him that "life was tragic" and "literature was serious business." The novel is not simply autobiographical; the lies of fiction were employed to get at the nearly unbearable heart truth. Maxwell was ten when the flu seized his family and his mother died; his alter ego in the novel, Bunny, is eight. The subtracted two years sharpen the child's vulnerability and simplify his picture of events. He does not understand, for instance, that his mother is pregnant, even though other characters can see that she plainly is, and he has no grasp of pregnancy's timetable. Nor does the novel, divided into three parts, confine itself to his point of view; the actual death and its immediate aftermath are shown as perceived by Bunny's rough-and-tumble thirteen-year-old brother, Robert, and by his similarly masculine, unsympathetic father. If Bunny's section, titled "Whose Angel Child," is one of Maxwell's most brilliant transformations of memory, the next two, told from well beyond Bunny's point of view, testify to the author's powers of imagination.
Bunny, the angel child embodying the helpless infantile dependence upon maternal nurture that never totally leaves us, is, from his older brother's point of view, a tyrannical rival. When Robert prepares to say goodbye to their mother, who is heading off to what will prove to be a fatal hospital stay, "he started toward her, but Bunny was there first, tugging at her and sobbing wildly into her neck." As she comforts her younger son, her husband impatiently consults his watch, and Robert never does get to say his farewell. A few minutes later, Bunny is busy courting the good will of his new caretaker, Aunt Clara:
Although his face was streaked with tears, Bunny was pleased with himself. Robert recognized the symptoms. And he saw that Bunny was making up to Aunt Clara—starting up the stairs in front of her as if she were the one person that he liked and depended on. Just as he did to Irene, or to Sophie, or to anybody who happened to be around and could get him what he wanted.
In the third section, the briefest, Clara returns Bunny to his grief-stricken father, James Morison, and the tearful child looms as a puzzling responsibility; he tells him, "There, there. You mustn't, son. You mustn't take on so. You'll be sick," and struggles "with the large buttons on the child's coat." Having determined in his daze of grief to sell the house and give the children to one of their aunts, so "there would be no trace . . . anywhere" of his dead wife, Elizabeth, he "turned to the doorway, and saw Bunny staring at him with Elizabeth's frightened eyes." The network of family connection reclaims him.
The social context of these private events is never lost sight of; the novel is not only about the mother's death but about Aunt Irene's broken marriage, and Robert's amputated leg, and the pious unction of Aunt Clara and her husband, Wilfred. Irrelevancies, including the terms of the First World War armistice, keep intruding. In the depths of his sorrow, "James caught a glimpse of a pocket knife: Wilfred was going to pare his finger nails." The widower wanders out into the snowy midnight, where the bizarre apparition of Crazy Jake the local junk collector making his rounds comes to James as a revelatory call back to life. The novel, like its predecessor, is somewhat supernatural; human awareness animates the inanimate ("All the lines and surfaces of the room bent toward his mother, so that when he looked at the pattern of the rug he saw it necessarily in relation to the toe of her shoe") and comforts the bereaved with intimations of a persisting ghost.
Novel after novel, the reconciliation of art and actuality continued to present stimulating difficulties for Maxwell. In describing, in this magazine, his friend the poet Louise Bogan, upon her death, in 1970, he said, "In whatever she wrote, the line of truth was exactly superimposed on the line of feeling": such an exacting superimposition represented his ideal. It was Bogan who, when, in 1940, he showed her a short story about two boys who meet at the school swimming pool, suggested that what he had written was the first chapter of a novel. As he worked for more than four years on the novel, she provided her responses to each new installment and at the end gave the work in progress its eventual title, "The Folded Leaf" (1945). Carduff's "Note on the Texts" relates that Maxwell in 1943 was "still struggling with the material" so noticeably that The New Yorker gave him five months' leave at full pay so that he could finish up; even then, it took several more drafts.
The core of the recalcitrant material was the second most traumatic event of his young life: he attempted suicide at the age of nineteen, while a sophomore at the University of Illinois. According to Carduff's Chronology, Maxwell had been courting a professor's daughter, Margaret Guild, and he introduced her to his Chicago high-school friend Jack Scully. When Jack and Margaret became lovers, Maxwell later recounted, "I thought I didn't want to live any more and cut my throat and wrists with a straight-edged razor." As the novel describes it, it is not the girl but the male friend whose defection pushes the slight, physically underdeveloped protagonist, Lymie Peters, into despair. In "The Folded Leaf" Maxwell describes, with a candor then rare in American fiction, homosexual passion. Swimming-pool and locker-room nudity leads to frenzied tussling, a bawdy frat initiation, a shared bed, a relationship anxiously servile on one side and gruffly commanding on the other, and, in the culminating reconciliation, a kiss on the lips. Though the physical beauty of the gruff partner, Spud, is repeatedly extolled, no description of physical interaction is more graphic than this:
Lymie slept on his right side and Spud curled against him, with his fists in the hollow of Lymie's back. In five minutes the whole bed was warmed and Spud was sound asleep. It took Lymie longer, as a rule. He lay there, relaxed and drowsy, aware of the cold outside the covers and of the warmth coming to him from Spud, and Spud's odor, which was not stale or sweaty or like the odor of any other person. Then he moved his right foot until the outer part of the instep came in contact with Spud's bare toes, and from this one point of reality he swung out safely into darkness, into no sharing whatever.
Looking back, with more than a year of psychoanalysis with Theodor Reik behind him, Maxwell ascribed his suicide attempt to reading too much Walter de la Mare, which gave him a "poetic idea of life after death," a life in which he would be reunited with his mother. A debonair note penned from his hospital bed readily accepted a female fellow-student's invitation to a dance and referred to his attempt as "having failed to discover whether the moon really was made of green cheese." But the italicized section in "The Folded Leaf," in which Lymie recalls swallowing iodine and then, as his stomach ache recedes, trying to slash his way through his blood's insistent congealing, is the most harrowing page Maxwell ever wrote. Shirley Hazzard, in her eloquent tribute to Maxwell after his death, thought that his near-suicide was "a spectral presence in Bill's equilibrium and in his greatest pleasures."
Bogan's advice to make a novel of his vignette of two boys meeting in a swimming pool led him, it may be, to pad the slender basic story with too many details of college life and ruminations, influenced by Frazer's "Golden Bough," on tribal rites. His brave leap into sexual honesty was achieved with little assistance from his British models; Forster vaguely urged the male principals of "A Passage to India" to achieve Anglo-Indian connection, but left his novel about a homosexual affair, "Maurice," unpublished at his death, and Virginia Woolf transmuted her androgyny into the mannered ingenuities of "Orlando." In 1945, the same year that "The Folded Leaf" was published—in a healthy total of two hundred thousand copies—Maxwell married Emily Gilman Noyes, a recent Smith graduate who had come to The New Yorker to interview for a possible job. She was, as those of us who knew them remember, his beautiful counterpart, with equally luminous dark eyes and the same enchanted aura of a truly rare creature. They died a week apart, after fifty-five years of marriage. As the first fruit of his happiness, Maxwell began writing a novel for which Emily provided the title, "Time Will Darken It" (1948). It was not easy to work at it while carrying on his editorial duties, but it flowed:
I seemed to have no more choice about this than one has about the background of a dream. . . . A set of characters seized me, and ran off with me. My function was simply to record what they said and did, rather than shape the goings on.
The events take place in a house just like Maxwell's childhood home, and deal with men and women based upon his kin, from Illinois and Mississippi. There is no character, no Bunny or Limey, who can be readily identified with the author. An unprecedented reliance on dialogue, and the interjections of an exceptionally relaxed narrator, move the plot smoothly along. The plot is not easy to remember; there is a stove explosion in it, induced by kerosene, and a baby, but "the mysterious beauty of the commonplace" blurs individual incidents. Maxwell (who once said to me, "Plot, shmot") was ready to dispense with the contrivances of fiction altogether.
The second Library of America volume, "Later Novels and Stories," shows Maxwell the person and Maxwell the writer becoming indistinguishable. It opens with the long anti-novel "The Château" (1961), based closely upon a trip to France that he and Emily took in 1948. A very thinly disguised couple, Harold and Barbara Rhodes, encounter the felicities and opacities of a foreign language and society. An appended section, "Some Explanations," rather impudently offers to clear up a few mysteries: "But if you really want to know why something happened, if explanations are what you care about, it is usually possible to come up with one. If necessary, it can be fabricated." The book gave him no end of trouble, though its inspiration—a tribute to the beauty of France and his happiness there—was instant: a preface to a later edition of "The Château" declared that, upon returning to America, "with my hat still on my head [I] sat down to my typewriter and wrote a page of notes for a novel. . . . For the next ten years I lived in my own private France, which I tried painstakingly to make real to the reader. It was my way of not coming home." He filled a carton with "unreadable" versions and enlisted the sometimes chastening advice of friends like Frank O'Connor, the Irish short-story writer, and Francis Steegmuller, the eminent scholar and translator from the French.
Maxwell's long period of painstaking struggle included his move from Harper & Brothers, then the usual publisher for New Yorker contributors, to Alfred A. Knopf, at the founder's invitation. Knopf's editor-in-chief, Harold Strauss, didn't much like the novel and wanted the second part cut, and might have prevailed had not Knopf himself intervened, genially telling his new author, "Have it whatever way you want." The book was assigned to the editor Judith Jones, a kindred spirit who edited Maxwell's volumes for Knopf until his death. "The Château" continued to give him trouble even after its publication. One difficulty, which had inhibited its writing, concerned the possible reaction of the French family portrayed in its gossamer fiction. He refused to let the book be published not only in France but in England, because "English books would get across the channel so easily." Nevertheless, his French friends did eventually discover the book, and one of its purported victims, who figured in it as a deaf old lady, told him, not unkindly, when, later, he visited her in Paris, "You were very naughty to write that book. Because you didn't speak French, you didn't understand things." Her son-in-law, overhearing this remark, contradicted it, saying, "He got everything right." Yet when, later still, Maxwell attempted to obtain the family's permission to publish the book in France, word came back "No, not now. Not ever." It is good to be reminded, upon rereading, how delicious and dead-on "The Château" is. All the embarrassments and gratifications of European travel are preserved in the amber of Maxwell's much pondered, seemingly casual prose. How familiar is the intimidating breakfast that greets the Rhodeses on their first morning in the handsome but chilly château, near Blois, which has been converted to a guesthouse:
Talking in subdued tones, they discovered the china pitcher of coffee under a quilted cozy, and, under a large quilted pad, slices of bread that were hard as a rock and burned black around the edges from being toasted over a gas burner. The dining-room windows offered a prospect of wet gravel, long grass bent over by the weight of the rain, and dripping pine branches. The coffee was tepid.
It is 1948. Sugar is still rationed; war damage is still evident; blackout paper lingers on some of the château's windows; bicycles, cigarettes, and Citroëns are in short supply. France is wounded and poor and (a word that keeps cropping up in considerations of Maxwell) vulnerable. The Rhodeses in their innocence are in the first wave of tourists, and Harold, alternately ecstatic and wary, begins "to feel as if an unlimited amount of kindness had been deposited somewhere to his account and he had only to draw on it." He worries why this is, asking his hostess, "Are French people always kind and helpful to foreigners?" Rather hypochondriacally, he wonders how they would have been received had they come before the Marshall Plan was announced, but reassures himself that "the kindness he had met with everywhere was genuine." Harold is thirty-four, six years younger than Maxwell was in 1948, while Barbara is about Emily's age, the mid-twenties. The youthful intensity that Harold brings to even momentary relationships was a recognizable trait of his creator, who tells us of his hero:
On meeting someone who interests him he goes toward that person unhesitatingly, as if this were the one moment they would ever have together, their one chance of knowing each other. . . . He lets the other person know, by the way he listens, by the sympathetic look in his brown eyes, that he wants to know everything; and at the same time the other person has the reassuring suspicion that Harold Rhodes will not ask questions it would be embarrassing to have to answer. He tries to attach people to him, not so that he can use them or so that they will add to his importance but only because he wants them to be a part of his life. As if to relate more closely to the reader, to attach him or her more tightly to him, Maxwell grew increasingly impatient with the disguises and falsifications—the pretenses—of fiction. The busily omniscient modernist author of "Bright Center of Heaven" and "They Came Like Swallows" becomes, in the "Some Explanations" section of "The Château," a postmodern exponent of unknowability: we are mysteries to one another, and an honest narrative retains its puzzles. His novella "So Long, See You Tomorrow" (1980) is the triumphant culmination of this approach, winning Maxwell—whose distinctive career had been unduly shy of awards—the Howells Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, for the best novel of the previous five years. In his amusing acceptance speech, Maxwell made much of the fact that the box handed him, ostensibly containing the medal, was in fact empty, a precaution taken because at a previous occasion a freshly presented medal had been accidentally dropped and damaged. With a similarly disarming admission, he announced to the reader that the central story of "So Long, See You Tomorrow"—a vivid tale, based on childhood memories and a few photostatted stories from the local newspaper, of farm-country adultery, leading to double separation, murder, and suicide—was a fabrication:
If any part of the following mixture of truth and fiction strikes the reader as unconvincing, he has my permission to disregard it. I would be content to stick to the facts if there were any.
On an early page, he calls his work a "memoir—if that's the right name for it." Maxwell knew, slightly and briefly, the boy identified as Cletus Smith, a son of the murderer; years after the scandal he spotted him in the corridor of a big Chicago high school and, shocked by surprise, said nothing to him. This failure haunted him; he never saw Cletus again. Giving this confession a context, he tells the reader the personal story already reflected in his fiction—his mother's death, the dishevelment of grief that followed, and the move with his father and stepmother to Chicago, leaving the idyll of his boyhood in Lincoln behind. This basic autobiography is imparted with a fresh stylistic firmness, a bluntness not possible when his near kin were alive, and a note of grievance not struck before: why did nobody protect him from the brutal bullying by stronger children to which he was subjected as a delicate child? Why did neither his father nor his older brother talk to him about his mother's death? He describes his inability to master the piano, which his omni-competent father played with ease and pleasure, as "a small plot of ground on which I could oppose my father without being actively disobedient." His music teacher, we learn, was the go-between for the love letters his father received from the woman who became his second wife, and his son was enlisted to deliver them; he retrospectively marvels at this. As young teen-agers, he and Cletus, now living in Lincoln with his mother, meet to play, a bit dangerously, in the open framework of the new house that Maxwell's father is building on the edge of town, an emblematic framework that the narrator, now an elderly New York sophisticate, rediscovers in Alberto Giacometti's sculpture "The Palace at 4 A.M.," at the Museum of Modern Art.
In the tragic romance that Maxwell, in our plain sight, invents, he shows, for a boy reared in a small city, a persuasive feel for the hard daily life of tenant farmers in the black-earth countryside around Lincoln; the bleak tale-within-a-tale of friendship and love gone miserably awry earns him a place as a prairie novelist in the naturalist Midwestern vein of Willa Cather and Hamlin Garland. The editors at The New Yorker, which printed "So Long, See You Tomorrow" in two installments, objected to the articulated thoughts of a dog, Trixie, belonging to Cletus's family, but Maxwell, as with the second section of "The Château," got his way. The dog's thoughts, which are not complex, are one with his creator's lifelong habit of personifying furniture, objects, and rooms, sometimes giving them words to speak, within the wide discourse of things that present themselves to human awareness. His tender anthropomorphism here descends even upon a lowly ant, as Cletus "with a stick . . . drew crosses in the dirt, making life difficult for an ant who had business in that patch of bare ground."
The fault, if any, with "So Long, See You Tomorrow" lies in the device of the self-conscious, conspicuously confiding author: when the author becomes the main character, the other characters appear secondary, and their actions and decisions become ripples within the central feat of storytelling itself. Cletus hardly exists compared with the boy the narrator once was; remembering the two boys testing their equilibrium in the half-built house, Maxwell writes, "It occurs to me now that he was not very different from an imaginary playmate." When he searches his high-school yearbook for any image or mention of Cletus, he finds none, as if the character were fictional after all. The contract between writer and reader, which calls for a willing suspension of disbelief, has been quietly abrogated. When the author casts off his cloak of invisibility, and a novel is no longer (as Stendhal put it) "a mirror that strolls along a highway" but one that strolls down Memory Lane, he stands in front of the curtain either as a memoirist or as a fabulist exulting in the magic of make-believe; Maxwell in his shorter late works was now one and then the other. Those already well acquainted with Maxwell's work will surely find something new and delightful in the forty fabulous "improvisations" that the editor has assembled from the twenty-one that Maxwell included in "All the Days and Nights: The Collected Stories of William Maxwell" (1995) and nineteen published in sundry places between 1957 and 1999. The earliest of them all, "The Woodworker," was written in 1946, as a Christmas present for Emily. In a National Public Radio interview in 1995, he explained the genesis of this improvisatory mode:
Actually, they began because my wife liked to have me tell her stories when we were in bed in the dark before we were falling asleep. And I didn't know where they came from, but I just said whatever came into my head and sometimes I would fall asleep in the middle of a story and she would shake me and say, "What happened next?" And I would struggle back into consciousness and tell her what happened next. And then I began to write them for occasions for Christmas and birthdays. . . . And I would sit down at the typewriter and empty my mind entirely and see what came out on the typewriter, and something always did. And from the first sentence a story just unfolded. His time in psychoanalysis possibly contributed to such easy and trusting access to the wellsprings of narration; certainly the tales, in their playful fairy-tale manner, tap into his deepest sensations and moral convictions, with no hint of preachiness. The last three in the volume, for instance—"The Dancing," "The Education of Her Majesty the Queen," and "Newton's Law"—are moving parables of marital fidelity, of altruism, and of death's heavy approach, respectively. There is a sparkle to these fairy tales that reminds us of "Bright Center of Heaven," with its rueful comedy of brightness. Whereas Maxwell, according to Carduff's Chronology, before embarking on his book-length essay about his family history in "Ancestors" (1971), reread E. B. White for stylistic inspiration, his fables suggest Thurber's, and Thurber's faux-medieval children's books, fleshed out with a novelist's superior interest in human circumstances. Maxwell's sublimely diffident and benign little essay "Nearing Ninety" touches on the pleasures of remembering:
I have liked remembering almost as much as I have liked living. But now it is different, I have to be careful. I can ruin a night's sleep by suddenly, in the dark, thinking about some particular time in my life. Before I can stop myself, it is as if I had driven a mineshaft down through layers and layers of the past and must explore, relive, remember, reconsider, until daylight delivers me.
"A Final Report" (1963), inventorying the estate of Aunty Donald, a female neighbor who used to carry the author as a frail infant on a pillow, was the first short story that posed as a reminiscence and called the fictional Draperville Lincoln. He said, "I found I could use the first person without being long-winded or boring, and at the same time deal with experiences that were not improved by invention of any kind." Pieces of fiction closely portraying his father and his older brother followed—the latter, "A Game of Chess," signed with the pseudonym Gifford Brown to protect his brother's feelings. The marvellous very short story "Love" (1983) commemorated Miss Vera Brown, his fifth-grade teacher, whom all her students loved, and who died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-three. The longer "Billie Dyer" (1989) drew liberally upon historical research in its portrait of a Lincoln black man who became a prominent physician in Kansas City and appeared as one of Ten Most Distinguished Men in Lincoln's centennial pageant, in 1953. The story gave its title to a collection of memoirs, including among the subjects Maxwell's father's friends, his mother's brother Ted, his own brother Hap as a child, and William Dyer's sister Hattie, who had cared for Maxwell's Grandmother Blinn and then worked for the Maxwells for five years. In the story "The Front and the Back Parts of the House," Maxwell tells how, on a return visit home, he found Hattie in his Aunt Annette's kitchen and impulsively put his arms around her: "There was no response. Any more than if I had hugged a wooden post." He later traced the snub to an invented black drunk, in "Time Will Darken It," whom Hattie took as a portrait of her husband. He was not, but Maxwell did believe, ever more strongly, that reality was the best fiction. In that same recollection, he says in an aside that even when the author imposes the disguise of a name on characters, actual names "are so much more convincing than the names he invents for them." Apropos of "Billie Dyer," he told an interviewer, "For me, 'fiction' lies not in whether a thing, the thing I am writing about, actually happened, but in the form of the writing . . . a story, which has a shape, a controlled effect, a satisfying conclusion—something that is, or attempts to be, a work of art."
He lived for art, its appreciation as well as its creation. In "Nearing Ninety," he likened death to lying down for a pleasant afternoon nap and found "unbearable" only the thought that "when people are dead they don't read books." His shapely, lively, gently rigorous memoirs, out of the abundance of heartfelt writing he bestowed on posterity, are most like being with Bill in life, at lunch in midtown or at home in the East Eighties, as he intently listened, and listened, and then said, in his soft dry voice, exactly the right thing. ♦


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As soon as you put the tobacco pipe to your lips, you enter into a long, distinguished tradition of honor and prestige. There's no denying it – the pipe is a regal smoking tool and one that commands great care and dedication. With JR Cigar, it's easy to get the most out of your smoking pipe time and time again. When you explore our wide selection of wooden smoking pipes, you'll discover top manufacturers like Dr. Grabow, Erik Nording, Molina and Peterson. We also sell the accessories you need to keep it like new, including long pipe cleaners and attractive rests. Discover something new when you browse JR Cigars' online collection of tobacco pipes.


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NextGenAviator necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 33 diseños de 21 diseñadores freelance.
(see comment below all the entries, and read the complete brief for all the details, and thank you)
Desired Style:
"Web 2.0" look, but not too "way out". It's a business (though not a Web 2.0 business), so modern, professional, simple, clean, uncluttered, nothing ornate, etc. You get the idea.
Accepted File Formats:
Vector format for stationery, PNG for web site
This should be an easy one (that's what they all say, right!?). It's for a company called "BerryBrook Projects". I have a particular idea in mind for this. First, I'd like a green leaf - something like in http://www.refreshdallas.org/, or 9Rules, or haveamint.com (of course, don't swipe those). Then, somewhere near the leaf, a circle/sphere in red or dark orange (the "berry" part), and then underneath, a blue wave or ripple (the "brook" or water part).
So, the idea is to show that it's like a berry bush near a brook. (If anyone wants to know why, I can explain offline.) Not sure what size is needed - might not hurt to see if it can fit in a 165 pixel-wide area (height less of an issue).
Though this is my pre-defined notion, I'm open to other ideas - something creative with the name itself (words in different colors, maybe some kind of ripple effect, or something like http://www.blackjune.com). So, if something other than what I'm thinking strikes you, by all means suggest it. The overall idea is to 1) "illustrate" the name 2) be simple and clean.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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6' x 4' Yardmaster Green Metal Shed 65GEYZ (1.86m x 1.25m)
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Cleverly designed, built from premium materials and with a fantastic 15-year anti-rust guarantee, this green metal shed is the ideal place to safely store garden tools, outdoor furniture and bicycles.
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Cleverly designed, built from premium materials and with a fantastic 15-year anti-rust guarantee, the 6' x 4' Yardmaster Green Metal Shed is the ideal place to safely store garden tools, outdoor furniture and bicycles.
Completely constructed from hot-dipped galvanised steel, with a smart apex roof and a stunning baked-on emerald-green finish, this premium metal shed is not only built to last but is incredibly handsome too.
Weather-resistant, blister, crack and insect-proof, with no worries about painting, treatment or wind-torn roof felt, this maintenance-free garden shed offers outstanding protection for stored items with zero hassle. Furthermore, the unique 7 layers of protection ensure that corrosion will never be an issue and that it will remain looking pristine for many years to come.
Easy access to this metal shed is gained through sliding double doors, which are overlapping, padlockable (padlock not included) and fitted with anti-tamper bolts, so stored items will be completely protected from the elements and unwanted attention alike. High gables and ventilation along the ridge and eaves make for plenty of headroom and ideal storage conditions respectively.
Measuring 2020mm x 1890mm x 1370mm, this 6x4 garden shed comes with rust-proof screws, anchor fixings, clearly-numbered parts, an assembly manual and UK-based telephone support to ensure a straightforward, secure assembly.
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This shed comes in a range of sizes. Delivery is free to most UK addresses.
- 15-year anti-rust guarantee
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- **Comes without flooring but optional floor support kit is available in the options**
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Yesterday, after posting a scrumptious new recipe beet and hemp granola, I warned you that you'd soon be seeing another recipe that made sneaky use of beets. Why? Because beets are delicious, filled with antioxidants, and in spite of that a lot of people have a slight or a strong aversion to them (Valerie, I'm a-talkin' to you). I can see why: if you don't cook them properly, beets can get slimy, mushy, or not get soft enough. The color can be foreign, and strange. So, just as I love to come up with fun ways to make my readers get comfy with kale, it's now my mission to warm you all up to beets, one recipe at a time.
While I was in NOLA recently, Chloe showed me a recent New York Times recipe for a beet and berry smoothie. I thought it looked fantastic, though of course I thought the suggestion of yogurt was unnecessary—glad they offered up coconut milk, too! I immediately thought I'd like to try the recipe at home, and yesterday, in the midst of biochem cramming, I finally did.
If you think that beets are a odd smoothie ingredient, I promise you you'll change your mind after you try this drink. The sweetness of the beets blends perfectly with the tartness of the berries, and some fresh orange brings it all together (I opted to use whole orange rather than OJ, which is in the Times' recipe). I also used homemade almond milk, which made it very creamy, but you can also use commercial almond milk and a tablespoon of hempseeds for the same kind of effect. You can also modify which berries you use based on taste, and substitute pineapple or mango for the orange. No matter what, you'll be delighted with this refreshing and subtle concoction!
Beet and Berry Smoothie (raw, vegan, gluten free, soy free)
Serves 1
1 medium beet, steamed, roasted, or raw (if you don't have a high speed blender, use steamed or roasted)
1 cup fresh or frozen mixed berries
1/2 cup fresh orange, sectioned
3/4 cup homemade almond milk or 3/4 cup commercial almond milk and 1 tbsp hempseed
- stevia or dates to increase sweetness
- hemp, rice, or pea protein for a protein boost
- greens
- added nut butter/seeds for extra fat
Blend all ingredients together, and serve with orange sections for color!
Speaking of color, I think this drink goes beautifully with the new spring foliage in the backyard behind Hobbit House, don't you?
This is a wonderful transition recipe for springtime—it still features wintery produce in the beets and citrus, but tart berries are a prelude of May and June. And if you choose not to use frozen berries, it'll be a warmer temperature—a good tip for those of you who haven't quite gotten the unusually warm weather that we've been having in D.C.!
Beets are rich in folate, vitamin C, and compounds called glycine betaines that may have a positive impact on cardiovascular health. But when they taste this good, I hardly need to give you another reason to enjoy them
Happy weekend, friends.


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Harvard welcomes pair of Ivy League foes to the MAC for a weekend double-header (OAC).
Story Line
The Harvard women's volleyball team returns to Ivy League play this weekend when it welcomes Princeton and Penn to the Malkin Athletic Center. The Crimson and Tigers will first face off on Friday, Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. before the Quakers venture to Cambridge for a 5 p.m. showdown on Saturday, Sept. 29.
A live video stream and live stats will be available for both matches this weekend through GoCrimson.com by clicking here.
Last Time Out
Senior captain Taylor Docter notched a double-double with 13 kills and 20 digs to help the Harvard women's volleyball team defeat Holy Cross, 25-17, 25-11, 15-25, 25-19, Tuesday at the Malkin Athletic Center.
Junior Erin Cooney and freshman Kathleen Wallace tallied 11 kills for Harvard, and sophomore Caroline Walters hit a team-best .533 on nine kills in a balanced offensive effort. Walters also led the Crimson in blocks with eight, while Kristen Casey finished with 15 digs… CONTINUE READING
The Hitters
Harvard's offense has been bookended by experience, with senior captain Taylor Docter and freshman Kathleen Wallace leading the way. Docter owns a team-best 3.00 kps average, good for second in the Ivy League, while Wallace ranks eighth in the conference with 2.63 kps and a .281 hitting percentage. Sophomore Erin Cooney is third on the squad with 2.00 kps and Caroline Walters (1.86 kps) boasts a team best .380 hitting percentage, the fourth highest in the Ancient Eight.
Setting it Up
Senior Beth Kinsella and freshman Hannah Schmidt have shared the setting duties as the team has shifted into a 6-2 offensive system. Kinsella has dished out 217 assists for an average of 5.43 per set, while Schmidt has tallied 193 assists for a 4.60 average.
On the Block
Middle blockers Teresa Skelly, Caroline Walters and Caroline Holt have helped Harvard average 2.29 bps, good for second in the Ivy League. Walters leads the team with 43 total blocks while her 1.00 bps is ranks sixth in the conference. Holte ranks a close second with 37 total blocks and an average of 0.86 bps with Skelly chipping in 21 total blocks and 0.88 bps in limited action.
Keep an Eye Out For…
Beth Kinsella, Taylor Docter and Teresa Skelly each have a chance to make their marks on the Harvard record books this season. Kinsella currently ranks sixth all-time with 1,454 assists and has averaged 7.31 aps for her career. Docter has moved to eighth in career aces (90) while her career 2.59 kps are good for ninth. She is also less than 100 kills shy of joining Harvard's all-time top 10 with 828. Skelly, meanwhile, is just six block assists (178) short of entering the program's top 10 and needs 35 total blocks (204) to join that list as well.
Scouting Princeton (4-7, 1-0 Ivy League)
Princeton improved to 4-7 on the year and 1-0 in the Ivy League after topping Penn, 3-2, in its conference opener. Lydia Rudnick ranks first in the Ivy League with 3.91 kps while her 2.50 dps are good for second on the team. Kendall Peterkin has notched 2.89 kps and 2.26 dps, with Nicole Kincade adding 2.29 kps and a .329 hitting percentage. Kincade also ranks second in the Ivy League with 1.32 bps.
Harvard dropped both matches against the Tigers a year ago. Taylor Docter averaged 3.56 kps and 1.56 dps in those matches, while Kristen Casey contributed 2.00 kps and 2.33 dps.
Scouting Penn (5-7, 0-1 Ivy League)
Penn has dropped two straight five-set matches, including its Ivy League opener against Princeton, to fall to 5-7 on the year. Emma White leads the team with 2.79 kps while her 4.88 dps is good for second on the squad. Kristen Etterbeek has registered 2.57 kps, with Lauren Martin and Susan Stuecheli adding 2.28 kps and 2.00 kps, respectively. The defensive has been bolstered by Dani Shepherd's 6.61 dps and Stuecheli's 1.08 bps.
Harvard earned the season sweep of Penn last year, marking just the second time the Crimson has ever swept the Quakers and first since 2004. Taylor Docter, Kristen Casey and Teresa Skelly led both the offensive and defensive efforts in those wins, with Docter notching a team-best 3.00 kps and 2.11 dps. Casey contributed 2.89 kps, 4.78 dps and 1.00 bps while Skelly added 2.22 kps and 1.11 bps.
Double Trouble
Senior Taylor Docter and freshman Hannah Schmidt have combined for eight double-doubles this season. Docter boasts six of those with her last being a 13-kill, 20-dig performance versus Holy Cross. Schmidt notched a double-double in back-to-back matches against Boston College and New Hampshire, including a 15-assist, 12-dig effort versus the Wildcats.
2012 Double-Doubles
Career Double-Doubles
Block Party
Harvard recorded 11 blocks against Holy Cross, marking the third straight match and fourth time overall that the team has combined for double-digit blocks. Harvard is averaging 2.36 bps during this run.
Caroline Weaver has been instrumental to the Crimson's success on the front line during this stretch and has set a career-high in total blocks in each of the team's last two matches. She first registered six total blocks, including three solo, at Dartmouth before notching eight block assists against Holy Cross.
Career Night
Taylor Docter set a new career-high with 23 kills at Dartmouth and finished the evening hitting .284 on 67 attempts with just four errors. Docter's 23 kills are the second most for any Crimson student-athlete since 2008, with Kathryn McKinley's '09 total of 26 at Yale in 2008 topping the list.
Serving it Up
Taylor Docter matched her career-high with five aces at New Hampshire, marking the fourth time the senior has tallied five in a single match. Docter's five aces were also the second-highest total of any Crimson since 2008, with Katherine Kocurek's '10 six aces at Dartmouth in 2008 leading the way.
Hitting it Home
Harvard registered a .474 hitting percentage against Providence, by far the highest hitting percentage of the season recorded by an Ivy League school. The Crimson converted 40 kills against the Friars on 78 attempts while only committing three errors. Caroline Walters hit a match-high .750 (6-0-8) while Kathleen Wallace hit .667 (12-0-18), the second-highest individual hitting percentage with a minimum of 10 attempts in the Ancient Eight this season. Caroline Holte (7-1-10) and Jennifer Shults (4-0-7) also got in on the action, hitting .600 and .571, respectively.
Harvard last hit .400 for a match on Sept. 27, 2008, when the squad combined for a .456 hitting percentage (35-4-68) in a 3-0 win over St. Francis (Pa.).
Senior co-captain Taylor Docter was been named to both the Hokie Invitational and Harvard Invitational all-tournament teams this season. She was joined on the Harvard Invitational All-Tournament Team by freshman Kathleen Wallace and sophomore Caroline Walters, while Kristen Casey was named to the New England Challenge All-Tournament Team, marking the first all-tourney honor of each of their careers.
Captain of the Ship
Senior Taylor Docter was voted by her teammates as the 59th captain of Harvard women's volleyball. Docter was an All-Ivy League second team and Academic All-Ivy honoree in 2011 after ranking eighth in the conference in kills per set (3.05), seventh in aces (0.27) and seventh in points per set (3.52). The Los Altos, Calif., native also averaged 1.72 dps on the defensive side of the net and finished her year with career-highs in kills, attempts, hitting percentage and digs.
"Taylor has been an impact player since her freshmen season," Head Coach Jen Weiss commented. "She came in this preseason in great shape and ready to work hard. As a second team All-Ivy outside hitter, she led our team in points scored and kills per set. She has a natural ability to lead and her peers respect her on and off the court. Taylor's composure on court has been tremendous this year and I look forward to her leading the team."
Platinum Anniversary
Head coach Jen Weiss is in her 20th season at the helm of the Crimson. Weiss owns a 243-285 record on the sidelines and guided Harvard to its only Ivy League championship in 2004. She has mentored 46 All-Ivy honorees, five Ivy League Rookie of the Year recipients and coached the program's first two-time Ivy League Player of the Year in Kaego Ogbechie '05.
Catch the Crimson in 2012
Harvard will host 11 home matches at the Malkin Athletic Center this season and each will be streamed live online through GoCrimson.com. Fans can also watch each match On Demand approximately two hours after completion. One-year subscriptions are available for $49.95 and allow access to every home event streamed by the Crimson, including football, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's hockey and men's soccer. For more information or to sign up today, click here.


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Community First Champion Center a 'testament to cooperation'
New sports facility expected to boost tourism
Monday, November 25, 2019
Families near and far have much to celebrate as the Fox Cities opened the new
Community First Champion Center
to rave reviews and almost a full slate of events.
"I was absolutely wowed by the facility and the attention to detail put in by Miron Construction, Performa and the project team," said
Tim Hoff
, Community First's Senior VP of Business Services. "From spectators to the athletes, coaches and referees, they thought of everyone and their needs."
The 164,000-square-foot facility is expected to provide an $8 million boost to the local economy through tourism from the start, growing to $12 million within five years. It has already booked nearly 50 events, including tournaments for basketball, volleyball, hockey, figure skating, wrestling, gymnastics, team handball and futsal and will also offer opportunities for community-based leagues, open recreational time, rentals, camps and clinics.
Officials from communities across the Fox Cities, representatives of the Fox Cities Convention & Visitor's Bureau and local business officials involved in helping to make the facility happen gathered recently to celebrate at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
"Community First is a cooperative and what that means is we all rise together," said President-CEO
Cathie Tierney
. "The success of our company has come through that element of people pooling their resources to help one another. This project is a testament to cooperation."
In deciding to invest as the title sponsor, Cathie applauded the cooperation of the 10 municipalities who banded together to support the additional room tax needed to fund the $30 million multi-sport tournament and practice complex that promises to draw visitors to the Fox Cities. The wide-ranging support from local governments was "a big plus" in the eyes of Community First's volunteer board of directors' support of the project.
"We do a lot in the community – that's who we are and what we're all about on behalf of our 140,000 member-owners," Cathie said. "We want to contribute to the quality of life in the communities where our members live and work."
Pam Seidl
, executive director of the Fox Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau, called it a "once in a generation tourism facility. We are grateful for the financial support of our municipal partners in bringing this project to reality."
Grand Chute Town Chairman
David Schowalter
said the cooperation was needed "to pull off something this spectacular. We all pulled together on the PAC (Fox Cities Performing Arts Center) and the Fox Cities Exhibition Center and now this
Community First Champion Center
For a tour of the new sports facility with permanent and convertible ice rinks and hardwood courts, watch this
Miron Construction video
from the Nov. 20 dedication.
Here are links to some of the recent media coverage of the Community First Champion Center:
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2020 FCCCU scholarship rules form
Friday, January 24, 2020
Three $1,000 college scholarships offered by area credit unions, applications due March 13
Thursday, January 2, 2020
Nominations Open for Celebrating Volunteers Youth Scholarship
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Lifting spirits Police Lights of Christmas-style
Sunday, December 15, 2019
Thank you for leading the way in the fight against hunger
Monday, November 25, 2019
Community First Champion Center a 'testament to cooperation'
Friday, November 22, 2019
Police Lights of Christmas 'just unbelievably special'
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Community First engaged in ringing in the holidays
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Community First volunteers get into Halloween spirit while helping local non-profits
Thursday, October 3, 2019
Help Stock the Shelves to fight hunger in Wisconsin
Friday, August 30, 2019
Fox Jazz Fest celebrates Wisconsin's special connection to jazz
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Great Cover Up Diaper Drive draws donations from far and wide
Friday, July 19, 2019
Avid anglers love assisting youth on Community First Free Fishing Day
Thursday, July 11, 2019
'Meraki Warriors' Rally for a Reason in Green Bay
Friday, June 28, 2019
Volunteer of the Year, 92, likes break from 'peace and quiet'
Friday, May 24, 2019
Appleton East's Sydney Olmsted top youth volunteer
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Community First-sponsored Celebrate De Pere kicks off busy summer of events
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
Mr. Lucky's Team raises $3,159 through MS Walk
Friday, May 3, 2019
Community First and Sexual Assault Crisis Center chosen for Business Partnership honor
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Community First members awarded three $1,000 Greater Fox Cities Chapter of Credit Unions scholarships
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
FVTC student grateful for $500 Community First scholarship
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Honoring the Legacy of Community First Founder Maury Dresang
Friday, February 22, 2019
Community First CU teams serve up hope and compassion at Pillars
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Community First accepting donations to honor New London teenager killed in a tragic car crash
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Community rallying to help Manawa family after devastating home fire
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
Applications, nominations open for Community First-sponsored scholarships
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
Community First's 'Magic Minute' shopping spree benefits individuals experiencing homelessness
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Spreading Christmas joy
Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Community First Rudolph Run kicks off holiday event in Neenah
Friday, June 29, 2018
Fund created to help New London member who lost home to fire
Friday, April 27, 2018
Neenah teen driven to help others earns top scholarship
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Cathie Tierney honored with lifetime recognition for financial literacy efforts
Friday, December 23, 2016
Lights of Christmas initiative making a difference for police, needy individuals, families
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Community First helps Habitat �Rock the Block�
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
New Bergstrom-Mahler exhibit features neon, plasma sculptures
Friday, May 6, 2016
Gov. Walker visits CFCU�s first school branch
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Teen�s nonprofit Music Mission hits all the right chords
Monday, March 21, 2016
Three FCCCU $1,000 scholarship recipients selected
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Credit Union CEO keeps it personal
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Community First sponsors two scholarship opportunities for 2016 graduates
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Brent Jensen honored for SBA business lending
Monday, November 16, 2015
Community First names two new financial advisors
Monday, November 2, 2015
Waupaca chiropractor 2015 RUBY Award winner
Monday, October 19, 2015
Community First breaks ground on new home office/branch
Monday, October 12, 2015
Community First helps its member/owners
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Community First Achieves 7th Straight Top 10 U.S. Credit Union Ranking
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
25th Marathon Weekend a Walk in the Park
Friday, June 5, 2015
Community First hires new financial advisor
Friday, May 15, 2015
Community First CU opening Kimberly branch May 18
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Fund created to support family in trail shooting tragedy
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Community First CU announces promotions, new hires
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Members raise nearly $5,800 during �Santa Cause� event
Monday, September 22, 2014
CFCU grateful for participants, sponsors, volunteers and community support
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Community First Credit Union completes merger of Oshkosh Central CU
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
CFCU volunteers, Rebuilding Together team up for Paula
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Memorial Day Services, Parades Honor Fallen Soldiers
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
�Cuisine for a Cause� nets $125,500 for Rebuilding Together Fox Valley
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
CFCU initiatives, member/owner donations make for brighter holidays
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Giving Thanks/Business Leader Build marks 20 years of Habitat success
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Fox Valley Memory Project: Creating a Dementia-Friendly Community
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Prestigious Fox Cities Chamber awards won by CFCU leaders
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Credit Unions: a socially responsible financial cooperative of member/owners
Monday, September 23, 2013
Community First Fox Cities Marathon a huge success
Monday, August 5, 2013
Online Banking upgrade, mobility features praised
Monday, July 22, 2013
�Shopping for Scholarships� boost plans for childhood cancer survivors
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Community First receives Corporate Citizen/Leadership award
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Shall We Dance fundraiser buoys key nonprofit agency
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Operation Broadcast Hope raises over $5,100 for tornado recovery efforts
Monday, May 20, 2013
Great Partners: Over 100 attend CFCU appreciation dinner for student-run branches
Friday, May 17, 2013
CFCU volunteers recognized for Meals on Wheels assistance
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Rebuilding Together Project Day 2013 a resounding success
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Earn-A-Bike program seeks to lift the homeless, impoverished
Friday, April 19, 2013
Community First CU challenge grant raises over $20,000 for Hatten Stadium project
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Community First CU recognized for blood drives
Thursday, March 21, 2013
CFCU rolls over FCCU in Bowl For Kids� Sake challenge
Monday, March 11, 2013
Waupaca food pantry benefits from �novel� approach
Friday, March 1, 2013
Community First enjoys �excellent� 2012
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Community First volunteers take the plunge for Special Olympics
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Community First�s mascot steals the show at Gamblers� Teddy Bear Toss
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Cuisine for a Cause wows
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Community First installs life-saving devices
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Conserving Inside your Home:
* Turn off the water when brushing your teeth or shaving.
* Take a shower instead of a bath.
* Install a water-saving shower head.
* Put a water dam or a refilled plastic bottle in your toilet tank to use less water per flush. * Don't buy dyed toilet or tissue paper. The dyes contribute more toward water pollution.
* Use glass dishes and cups and metal silverware instead of disposable plastic or paper.
* Separate your food waste and other organic materials from the rest of your garbage–recycle and compost.
* Whenever possible, buy returnable bottles and cans.
* Bring home groceries in the fewest number of bags possible or bring bags of your own from previous trips to the store.
* Buy food and other products wrapped in the least amount of packaging possible.
* Shop at farmers' markets or co-ops that support local farms and low-impact agriculture. Eat more organic foods, they're good for you and the planet!
* Don't toss used batteries in the trash. Save them in a box on a shelf and wait for a toxic garbage pick-up.
* Buy rechargeable batteries whenever possible.
* When purchasing appliances, select ones which are most energy and water efficient.
* Buy a front loading washing machine–it uses 40% less water than a conventional machine.
* Always use low-phosphate or phosphate-free cleaning products in clothes washers and dishwashers.
* Avoid unnecessary use of toxic household cleaners there are many safe, eco-friendly ones on the market.
* Switch to fluorescent light bulbs. They last 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs, produce more light, and are three to four times more efficient. Just using one fluorescent bulb in your home rather than an incandescent bulb will save one ton of coal over the life of the bulb.
* Turn off lights in rooms that not being used.
* Weatherize your house–add insulation to doors, windows, attic floors, and ceilings.
* Use a sweater to keep warm and turn down the thermostat.
* Don't place lamps or television sets near your air conditioning thermostat.
* Keep your fireplace damper tightly closed except when it is in use.
* Use drapes or thermal curtains to keep heat from escaping through windows.
* Lower your water heater thermostat to 120 degrees.
* Save energy when you go away–turn down the thermostats for air conditioner, furnace, hot water heater.
* Don't buy tropical wood products. Skip the teak, mahogany, rosewood and ebony, and instead use oak, pine, cherry, birch or maple.
Conserving In your Backyard:
* When gardening, plant vegetation that is suited for your particular climate and environment.
* Adopt a program of integrated pest management to avoid using toxic chemicals.
* Don't use bug zappers. They indiscriminately kill all insects, both good and bad, they use electricity and they're not healthy for people.
* Mow your lawn only as it needs it. Set your lawnmower blade high–higher grass retains moisture and needs less water and weeding.
* Use an electric or solar powered mower. Gasoline powered mowers produce as much pollution in an hour as a large automobile traveling 100 miles.
* Don't wash off sidewalks with water-sweep them clean instead.
* Don't dump leftover toxic chemicals onto the street where they can get into the sewer.
* Remove part of your grassy lawn and replace it with a native wildflower garden.
* Be responsible for your pets' health and behavior. Be sure to have them spayed or neutered and keep their shots up-to-date.
* Plant native trees and shrubs: they can lower the indoor temperature by 10 degrees. You'll use less energy and save money!
* Build a backyard pond. You'll attract toads and frogs which are the most effective insect-exterminators available and they work for free!
Conserving On the Road:
* Drive a fuel efficient car, and drive it more efficiently: have your car tuned as needed and keep the engine filters clean.
* Install the most efficient tire available on the market. This improves fuel economy by 1 to 3 miles per gallon; make sure your tires are properly inflated.
* Buy a light colored car and have your windows tinted; it will need less air conditioning and be more fuel-efficient.
* Observe the posted speed limits. It's safer for you and will save you money on fuel.
* Use public transportation, car pool, ride a bike or walk whenever you can.
Remember…You and your family can make a difference!
All of us working together, doing simple things in and around our own homes will add up to a greener world for everyone, including our children and their children.