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By Ken Vance, MBA, Senior Vice President of the Specialized Industry Group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and CTU Faculty
In August 2012, we launched Colorado Technical University's Distinguished Lecturer Series with Amy Powell, Director of Operations for Starbucks Coffee Co. The CTU Distinguished Lecturer Series continues on March 28th with Ken Vance, Senior Vice President of Bank of America Merrill Lynch in their Specialized Industry Group focusing on health care. With more than 33 years in the financial and health care industries, Ken shared his insight on the future of health care management and its opportunities.
There have been many changes over the last decade to the health care industry. Employers and employees are expected to do more with fewer employees and less revenue. This creates an environment in which technology must be utilized to capture and analyze data for more effective decision-making. Mobile technology is also managing best practices, and health care managers need to be aware of how to implement them within their organizations.
With the impending Affordable Care Act, managers will need education that integrates quantitative and analytical skills, leadership processes, entrepreneurship and more to stay current with the changes. A manager's role will require improving quality, while simultaneously improving bottom-line performance.
For decades, numbers drove the direction of treatment of diseases like asthma, heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis. Public health officials focused on reducing mortality rates and hitting targets like blood-sugar levels for diabetics and cholesterol levels for those with heart disease. But now health care providers are adding a different, more subjective quality measure by asking questions of how people feel about their condition and their overall well-being. They're reaching for programs where nurses and trained counselors ask patients personal questions such as whether their condition inhibits their lifestyle, or makes them unhappy and unable to cope daily. Counselors offer advice to patients on managing health problems and following up regularly.
Take Advantage of Potential Opportunities
Students pursuing an education in healthcare management should familiarize themselves as much as possible with the field. Hospitals and physician practices are just a portion of the career opportunities available. For example, the aging population continues to increase in high numbers each year, with growth expected to continue. This opens up the world of long-term care and a variety of healthcare-related positions.
If you enjoy working with technology, health informatics may be the field to look into. Or if you excel at math, specialize in banking within the healthcare industry. Broaden your experience within the company, and don't limit yourself. Assume responsibility for your career growth by taking advantage of the educational opportunities offered by your employer and professional groups. Professional certifications give you an advantage over someone with the same education and skill set, but who lacks the certification. Join professional organizations too, paying particular attention to those that offer reduced or free student memberships. Network by volunteering and meeting with others in the industry. When you're ready for a job, you'll have your best resources at hand.
What's Necessary for Quality Health Care Leadership?
Skills that will be needed in health care management include critical thinking, interpretation and synthesis. Managers must excel in service – they have the opportunity to make or break the patient experience. Managers need to understand the interrelationships of departments impacting the revenue cycle and how it impacts strategic planning. Leaders should foresee and be willing to always reinvent themselves following new regulations and technology.
The healthcare industry runs as a team effort like no other. Each player has to be willing to share information and work together to help patients achieve their best possible wellness outcomes. Managers must engage themselves in continued training to become the best possible in their field. When processes, and people, are working poorly, employees will look to managers to lead them through to something better: improvement. Healthcare leaders must make that difference.
Be sure to join us for Ken Vance's Distinguished Lecturer presentation on The Healthcare Transformation: Skills to navigate the changes on Thursday, March 28, 2013.
Ken Vance, MBA, has more than 33 years financial experience and currently serves as Senior Vice President of the Specialized Industry Group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He also manages a healthcare practice in the Carolinas. Ken received his MBA from the University of Richmond and holds a bachelor's in education from Virginia Tech. Connect with Ken on LinkedIn.
Image credit: Flickr/World Bank Photo Collection


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Games are about social achievements, right? About goals, fulfillment, and making us feel powerful and happy? And yet video game lies are a part of the culture.
I've done it; you've done it, and even game designers have done it. Today, it's time to come clean.
So I'm on this replay of Final Fantasy VII, and I figure part of the experience is getting all the sidequests. I mean, that's why we play mid-to-late 1990s RPGs, right? To conquer every corner, no matter how absurd, of their universes? To defeat every minor challenge, no matter how purposeless nor how steep.
Thus I reached the endgame and it became time to conquer the W.E.A.P.O.N.s, extra bosses reputed for the insane amount of power, grinding and cleverness it took to defeat them. I knew what I was in for, because of course I'd done it before back then. I mean, of course I had.
I mean… well… I remembered telling people I had. I told everyone. Beating Emerald Weapon was sooo tough, but it's easier if you have the "Underwater" materia. Ruby Weapon has fewer HP, but is more difficult. I know this, because I've… wait a second.
Yeah. While I was playing FFVII I realize that I've been telling people I beat those extra bosses, when in fact I never actually have. I lied about it until I believed it, and not until I revisited the game did I realize this thing I've been saying isn't actually true at all.
Haven't you lied and said you've beaten a game you haven't?
It was so tempting to bluff about video games and their associated lore, because the culture of gaming was and continues to be so strongly rooted in bravado, much of it false. I'm not going to feel bad about it. You do it, too.
Quick, what's the Konami Code? Where did it first appear? Are you even old enough to have been around when it was widely implemented? Are you sure? Check Wikipedia. Because I think you're probably making fun of people who don't know it – they're not hardcore, they're not oldschool – but you're not either, are you? Haven't you lied and said you've beaten a game you haven't? A friend shows you a secret in Super Mario 3 and you keep silent, pretend you'd known it all along. You didn't. Come on.
On one hand, it's kind of a childish pleasure: You want to be the badass on the playground at recess, being the one to spread the never-before-heard lore. In fact, "back in the day", that was a major part of video game culture: The weird rumors of secrets and supposed tricks you could use to get infinite lives, to be invincible in Contra, to see Samus Aran naked, whatever – how many of those fake rumors have you heard as a kid? And then it's not too unusual to assume that, upon hearing those rumors, some kids might want to say, "oh, yeah, totally. Been there ages ago." Just so as not to get beat to the punch.
My friend – let's call him Pete – has a story of not one, but two video game lies – his own and his friend's. "When I was 10, I was talking on the phone with my best friend when he said he beat Super Mario Bros. 2," says Pete. "I felt like I had to keep up so I also said I'd beaten it, even though I didn't own the game like he did and only played it for a weekend when I'd rented it from Circle K."
"He asked me how the fight with the end boss went and I gave him a vague response about fighting Bowser," Pete continues. "I could tell that he knew I was wobbling, and he went into an explanation of tossing vegetables at an end boss named Wart. It sounded so ludicrous to me that I called him out on what I thought was a lie, figuring he was doing the same thing I was. He fought back by having his older sister pick up the other phone so she could back him up, and they could ridicule me together and force me to admit my lie."
It's not just kids "back in the day", either. Another individual – let's call him "Bob" — told me that when his office coworker, an older lady, learned he had started doing some writing about video games, she started talking Fallout: New Vegas – he assumed she was just asking on behalf of her grandkids or something, and he told her that although he'd just started playing, he was having a good time.
"He went into an explanation of tossing vegetables at an end boss named Wart. It sounded so ludicrous to me."
Says Bob: "About a week later in the break room, she came up to me and said –'oh, that New Vegas, it's brilliant, isn't it? But you know what's annoying me at the moment? Those bloody Nightkin – aren't they a pain in the arse to kill?" Bob felt surprised his coworker had actually bought the game herself, and had outdone him at it, too: "As immature of me as it was, I couldn't bring myself to admit I'd not even got much further than the Vikki and Vance machine gun mission yet ,and just politely agreed that they were hard to kill, despite not knowing at all what these Nightkin were," he said.
Even game developers lie; I heard from a member of Dungeons and Dragons Online's live team who was asked on camera what it was like to face the game's first raid boss in the live environment. He quickly spun a story –his coworker's story that he'd once overheard, not his own — making him the subject of much(good-natured) ridicule in his office once the video hit and he got called out.
Indie developer Zach Gage has seen plenty of liars firsthand: He's the developer of art game Lose/Lose, a top-down shooter that deletes files on your hard drive as you play. Part of the idea is to test the player's comfort zone, to shift their idea of stakes to something more tangible. But with his exclusive access to player usage data, Gage has seen firsthand that people lie – following the reception of his game among players talking on message boards or in public settings, he's learned that people commonly misrepresent their experiences with Lose/Lose, even claiming that the game has done things that it simply can't, on platforms for which it isn't even available, as he tells us.
In his view, Lose/Lose is "more of a situation than a video game… Although it takes the form of a video game, it's no less or more real than any other true to life lose/lose situation," Gage suggests. "It isn't on the scale of doing drugs, stealing, or cheating on your spouse, but mechanically it's the same: sounds good at the time, has a bit of a thrill to it, and impacts your life in negative ways."
Which means people play it — and lie about it — for the same reasons: "For the thrill, to seem cool with contemporaries, or just plain old curiosity," he suggests.
People commonly misrepresent their experiences with Lose/Lose, even claiming that the game has done things that it simply can't, on platforms for which it isn't even available.
Does it devalue achievement-driven gaming, if people can take a shortcut: Skip the achievement itself, cut right to the bragging? Of course, our online age makes this a little difficult. You can't tell one of your Xbox Live friends that you've beaten a game that you haven't, or earned a rare unlockable when you haven't, because they'll see that the achievement is missing from your profile.
But the urge is there. And perhaps more importantly than simple ego, the tendency of gamers to lie holds interesting implications for future examinations of real-world applications for game design principle. For example, in her new book, "Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World", writer, lecturer and designer Jane McGonigal argues that when applied to the real world, the principles of game design have the ability to motivate us, to help us derive enjoyment out of repetitive, frustrating tasks, to help us work better as "multiplayer" teams in problem-solving scenarios, and to help us feel happy and fulfilled, the way that even simple achievements in games do.
But the readiness with which so many of us tell video game lies suggests that maybe gaming isn't all about satisfying achievement, about risk-reward, or about the dynamics of motive and objective. We've got egos. We're insecure. Definitely, definitely, some of us just play games to feel powerful and cool, and when the game frustrates that objective – by being too difficult, too challenging or too inaccessible to us – we'll lie. We'll circumvent the achievement system, even.
"I've been trying to break into games journalism for a long time," a friend confides. "I wrote an essay that was partly my own thoughts and experiences with Shepherd in Mass Effect, and partly those I had heard from other friends on my message board." The friend had passed those experiences all off as her own. The story made it big and spread it cross Twitter. There was a problem. She didn't have the Xbox Achievement for one of the decisions she described herself making."I'd never actually done it," she confesses to me.
"When my friends began to start inquiring," she tells me carefully, "I lied and said I'd been using the Xbox at my friend's house and that was why I didn't have the badge." My friend says she's struggled with writer's block as she tries to continue video game blogging ever since. She suggests her desire to speak to me for this article is "some kind of subconscious desire to confess" – even as I promised her in several different formats that nothing personal about her situation would be included in this piece and that I'd protect her anonymity completely.
Do games, their culture and achievement-oriented tasks and goals really make us feel "powerful?" Do we really feel a sense of achievement, or do they make us as anxious and insecure as real life obligations do?
Games may make us happy and fulfilled, but it seems like they make us dishonest, self-doubting and competitive, too. How about you? What's your biggest video game lie, and are you ready to come clean?
[ Leigh Alexander is news director for Gamasutra, author of the Sexy Videogameland blog, and freelances reviews and criticism to a variety of outlets. Her monthly column at Kotaku deals with cultural issues surrounding games and gamers. She can be reached at leighalexander1 AT gmail DOT com.]

subset: commoncrawl


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If your home is in one of these zones, your street will be swept this week between the hours of 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., on these days:
Please move your cars and trashcans off the street from 7:00 AM - 6:00 PM on the day your street is scheduled to be swept.
If you have any questions, contact the City of Grants Pass Public Works office at 541-450-6110.
Although, we always try our best to follow the schedule it may change due to increment weather. We will do our best to update you with any changes.


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Jets head coach Rex Ryan and Cowboys defensive coordinator Rob Ryan are twins. Rex Ryan got lap-band surgery two years back, so Rob got it earlier this year. Rex has lost over 100 pounds. Rob's down 55 and counting.
Like any good ex-fatsos, though, both brothers have taken the opportunity to talk about how prodigiously they used to eat. Rex talked over the summer about how he used to eat 12 tacos in one sitting, and now it's Rob's turn. David Moore of the Dallas Morning News got the glorious exclusive:
"I can eat an entire pizza, easy," says Ryan, whose van is littered with pizza boxes the day he arrives at Valley Ranch after the drive from Cleveland. "Not in an eating contest. I can just do it.
"I can eat anything, except that white one." Ryan is not a fan of pizza bianca.
On the way to work one Monday morning, he finds an extra $70 in his pocket.
He pulls over and decides to spend it all on candy. Chocolate. Peanut butter. Skittles. "An underappreciated candy right there," Ryan says.
He throws the bounty in a bowl on his desk and it's gone before the week ends.
And the story wouldn't be complete without a little Ryan-brothers-style lovin'. He tells his wife, Kristin: "I never had a salad until I married you."
Cowboys' Rob Ryan: From $70 candy runs to 55-pound weight loss [Dallas Morning News]


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We told you two weeks ago about the hilarity that is Bad Spring Training Twitpics, the site that's collecting all the bad art being snapped by the cameraphones of the many baseball writers now roaming around spring training. That same day, Keith Law let his many Twitter followers know he was also a fan of the site's work. But then Law tweeted the masterpiece you see above, the full version of which can be seen here, and BSTTP ran with it—until Law apparently demanded it be taken down, which it was.
The photo shows Diamondbacks pitching prospect Trevor Bauer, who is that blurry red thing out there on the warning track. Law's caption: "Trevor Bauer throwing long toss from right field to his catcher, who is standing on the left field foul line." Informative? Sure. But the photo is obviously terrible, which is what made it perfect fodder for BSTTP. The BSTTP post, since deleted, displayed the photo with an innocent caption about not expecting to see Law on here, or whatever. It was even tweeted out with a ironic tip of the hat in Law's direction:
But based simply on a review of both Law's and BSTTP's timeline, Law apparently began sending direct messages to BSTTP to complain, with BSTTP initially responding in the only way it could:
A short time later, the post was gone, and BSTTP explained why:
So Law was pissed, allegedly. Sometime after that, Law responded to one of his followers who wanted to know what happened:
We got the point, Keith. You're the one who clearly didn't.


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Continuing its run of digital marketer acquisitions, IBM has announced its purchase of Silverpop, which specializes in managing personally-customized Internet promotions.
Silverpop assembles profiles of individuals from social media sites, Web usage, email and other digital signals. It then can craft personalized offers and promotions based on these profiles. It can target both the business and consumer markets.
IBM plans to integrate Silverpop's technologies into its own marketing services.
"The acquisition is about delivering on mass personalization at scale and identity," wrote R "Ray" Wang, principal analyst and founder of Constellation Research, in an email he sent to reporters. "While IBM has an army of assets in play for marketing, the reality is that you need mass personalization at scale to deliver on relevancy and context."
Silverpop has 8,000 customers worldwide, including Mazda, Stonyfield Farm and Advanced Micro Devices.
Of particular interest to IBM is how Silverpop's technology can identify and understand the needs of individuals based on digital behavior.
For instance it can identify individuals interested in college savings plans based on their use of a college savings calculator. Technology early adopters can be identified by their browsing habits, and their history of tuning into webinars or downloading white papers.
IBM has amassed quite a bit of digital marketing technology and talent over the past few years. In 2012, the company acquired customer experience software vendor Tealeaf.
In 2010, IBM purchased marketing software provider Unica for US$480 million. It also purchased marketing analysis software provider Coremetrics that year.
Silverpop's technologies will be folded into the Enterprise Marketing Management portfolio of the IBM Software Group.
IBM did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, which the company expects to close by the middle of the year.


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The Rogue Relative. So many celebrities have one. The Rogue Relative often makes his/her appearance whenever there's a celebration or a tragedy. The Rogue Relative is always good for a soundbite. The Rogue Relative isn't discerning about who s/he gives the soundbite to, which is why the Rogue Relative usually shows up in one of the trashier tabloids, or the Daily Mail.
So George Clooney has an aunt by marriage, Starla Clooney. There was a Clooney family gathering a couple of weeks ago when they all saw each other last and now she's telling the Daily Mail that Clooney and Amal Alamuddin will probably get married in Italy, even though they were initially thinking Cincinnati, and Brad Pitt could be the best man:
"I did hear Cincinnati, since it's not that far from Kentucky - that's one of the places they were considering - but apparently Cincinnati didn't win, it's not going to be the place. I do know that Nick and Nina (George's parents) are planning a trip over to Italy in the next week or so to, I guess, scope out some stuff. I would say he'd choose Brad Pitt for his best man. They are good friends, I would think that's who he'd choose."
So she went rogue …and she's wrong. Which is embarrassing. Because she clearly doesn't know much about her nephew.
Clooney has a crew. They're his boys. They are TIGHT. You probably know Rande Gerber best because the others aren't famous but they're loyal and supportive and they spend all kinds of time together and it would be almost unthinkable that one of those guys wouldn't be the best man. George and Brad are friends, of course. But they're not really best friends. George and Matt Damon are closer than George and Brad Pitt. George and John Krasinski are closer than George and Brad Pitt. And if I know this, she should know this. And if she doesn't know this…well…bless her, what does she know?
It's not her fault. She's not media trained. And when a reporter wants to talk to you, make you feel like what you have to say is important, I suppose it could be hard for someone who's related to someone super famous to say, "Um, I have no idea", because it might give them the idea that you're not that close and you wouldn't want people to think that George Clooney doesn't like her.
What can you do when you're the celebrity though? Of course you don't want your relatives going rogue but if you're Clooney, you also don't want to be that dick who issues an edict out to the family to tell them to shut up.
So if Aunt Starla wants to tell some low rent UK magazine, like HEAT, next time that George and Amal are expecting twins called Rosemary and Roxanne, well, you just kind of have to let her have her way.
Attached – some shots of Clooney I don't think I ever posted in Shanghai last month.


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Executives in Residence
Sesh Velamoor, Foundation For the Future
Sesh Velamoor, a native of Hyderabad, India, is the Director of Programs at the Foundation For the Future. In this capacity he organizes and moderates think tanks to discuss issues pertaining to the long-term future of humanity, including education. He also routinely speaks and writes on various aspects of the long-term future in local, national, and international journals and forums and has published several articles in international journals of Future Studies.
Mr. Velamoor previously held the position of President at Kistler-Morse Corporation in Bothell, WA, a manufacturer of instrumentation. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering, and has Master's degrees in Industrial Engineering and Business Administration. Mr. Velamoor has more than 35 years' experience in management at top levels of industrial corporations and Non-Profit Organizations. During his career in business, he has published technical articles in manufacturing journals and was active in speaking on a variety of business topics, including excellence, material requirements planning, total quality, empowerment, Japanese management, and cultural diversity in the workplace. He has also taught university-level courses in Marketing Research, Operations Research, and Organizational Development.
He has been listed in Who's Who in the Northwest and Who's Who in the United States. He is active in community affairs and has served as President of the India Association of Western Washington and Chairman of the High-Tech Board of Bellevue Community College. He currently serves as a Foundation Associate of the Pacific Science Center, Trustee of the Kistler-Ritso Foundation, Director in Newrite Foundation India, Member of the board of the Seattle Snow Leopard Trust, Advisor to the South Asia Studies Program at the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Advisor to SeeYourImpact.org, President and Member of the Board of Kistler Sensors. He is also a fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Science.


text:
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Type: Spice Blends
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At Wildtree, we are guided to create a better world through our passion for healthy, flavorful food and time saving meal solutions. But our zest for healthy lives extends past our products so we've partnered with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital® to support their mission of Finding cures. Saving lives.®, one purchase at time. Make an impact with every Wildtree purchase so families can focus on the treatment and recovery of their children instead of financial burdens. Find out more about the partnership here.


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Cooking On An Open Fire
First and foremost, the right equipment. When you are cooking over a fire, there are a few things to remember. When you are able to think about these things as a system for cooking, you will automatically know what sort of pans and equipment will work on the fire.
If you sit a pan directly on the hot coals, your food will likely burn. If you hang your pan too far above the coals, it will not cook. If you try to cook over a fire instead of a bed of coals, you will be frustrated.
So what you need to work toward is a bed of hot coals, and a pan that is not too close nor too far away from the coals.
HOW close? Well, that depends on what you are cooking, and most of that knowledge will come with experience, however you can logically expect the coals to be hotter when you are closer to them :)
Obviously you will have to replenish your hot coals from time to time as you are cooking. So in your fireplace, choose a spot that is comfortable for you to reach to cook in, and another place to the side or rear of the fireplace to keep a fire going. I cook all along the front and one side of a fireplace, and allow the fire to burn in the left rear portion of the box. Whenever the coals burn out or loose some of their heat, scoop hot coals from the fire area to the cooking area. Some of the spent coals can be removed during cooking, but I usually wait 'until the cooking is over to do that.
There are many, many items that you could purchase to use for cooking in your fireplace, but here are my favorites:
Spyders - These are three or four legged trivet-like things that hold your pans above the coals. They have a ring for the pan to sit in and an open bottom. They can be purchased in varying heights so that you can cook close to the coals or several inches away from them. Three different heights would be ideal, but two would do. The really tall ones are great for keeping food warm.
If you equip your fireplace with a trammel or hanging arm, you can buy all kinds of do-dads to hang on it and hang your pots from. I like the one that adjusts from short to long so you can adjust how quickly your food is cooking without moving the pot off the fire. This is especially handy if your fireplace is small and you are cramped for room in there.
Utensils - Well, obviously you want long ones....but don't get them any longer than what is comfortable for you to manage. My very longest ones are 18". Also consider getting cast iron utensils instead of stainless or wooden ones. They just last longer. You need a spoon, a slotted spoon, a fork or three of various sizes, two spatulas, one short and one long, and that's all that is really essential. As you cook more and more you will find that there are other utensils that you would like to have. Choose very sturdy ones, for you will find that you use them for lifting Dutch Oven lids, pots and pans and other heavy items out of the fire. I finally got a utensil that is nothing more than a big hook to do just that!
You might want a spit to roast meat on, but I bind the meat up with cotton thread, season it and hang over slow coals for about 6-8 hours to roast. Works well, if you can stand the aroma for that long! Another good way to roast meat like venison steaks, is to skewer the meat onto a large fork and prop the fork up in front of the fire, turning frequently 'until the meat is done.
There are reflector ovens made for the fireplace and they are really great.....once you learn how to use them properly, and that takes practice. They can be used to cook meats, breads, cakes, cookies, or casseroles. They are relatively slow cooking, but they do the job very well, as soon as you learn how to keep the coals at an even temperature and how to pull the oven back from the fire when it becomes too hot.
There are also Dutch Ovens. I recommend one with a lid that has a lip on it so that you can put hot coals on top of it without them sliding off. The coals on the top of the lid helps the food to cook from both the top and bottom of the pan, much the way a conventional oven does. This is the best way to bake in the fireplace, besides the reflector oven. You want Dutch Ovens that have LEGS. You will need at a minimum of three Dutch Ovens to cook a large meal. They can be used to cook cakes, cornbreads, puddings, soups, stews, roasts, on and on.....The trick is to keep the pan moving every ____ minutes. You will fill in the blank as you are more experienced, but I find that I like to move my Dutch Oven around and reposition it with new coals every 5-15 minutes. It's very easy to burn a cake in a Dutch Oven...How do I know? Oh....never mind.
Other Pots and Pans - Well, just get cast iron and make sure that they all have LEGS on them! You want the coals to be able to get up under the pans to cook the food, this way you don't have to sit the pan ON the coals and risk burning. Make sure they have handles, too.
You will need a safe place to sit hot pans coming off the fire, lots of dish towels and all of the usual fireplace accoutrements like a shovel, ash bucket, bucket of water for emergencies, poker.
You will need a large pan or tray to place your utensils on while you are using them.
One last thing I have learned about cooking over a fire. When I am pushed for time and I have hungry people to cook for I have to use higher heat and therefore more grease in my cooking. However, if you are not pressed for time and you can relax a bit, you can cook with lower temperature coals and use less grease. This may not seem important now, but as you cook on the fire more and more you will catch yourself adding more grease to whatever you are cooking because the temp. is too high.
You are going to have to grease the pans a lot more than you are probably used to doing anyway with conventional cooking, especially considering our low fat ways these days. But as you become more experienced, you can cut back on the grease considerably.
Oh, and most importantly, take your time when you can, don't stress out when you're over the fire, and don't cook with little ones all around you.
Used By Permission
By S. Britton
The 20th Century Homekeeper


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Stephen Colbert denies racist tweet
Posted: Mar 28, 2014 2:22 PM CDT | Updated: Nov 5, 2014 1:57 PM CDT
(CNN) -- Stephen Colbert may make his career mocking people, but this time he says he didn't go as far as the outraged Internet believes.
The hashtag #CancelColbert started to trend after a tweet from the verified Twitter account for \"The Colbert Report\" tweeted on Thursday, \"I am willing to show the #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching Chong Ding Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.\"
The tweet (which has since been deleted) was a riff on a skit Colbert did Wednesday on his Comedy Central show poking fun at Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder's announcement of a foundation to help Native Americans. The team has been at the center of controversy for having a name some deem to be racist.
Colbert's character on his show is ultra-conservative and often makes outrageous statements, including his impression of \"Ching Chong Ding Dong,\" which mocks Asian stereotypes. But without the context of the TV show skit the tweet outraged many.
Twitter user Arnesa wrote \"Et tu, Stephen? Not funny. It doesn't prove your point. It makes you 'no better' than the racists. https://twitter.com/colbertreport/status/449320692446920704 ... #cancelcolbert.\" A user named Micha tweeted \"#CancelColbert Satire to make fun of racists isn't supposed to be hurtful to those who are affected by racism, or you're doing it wrong.\"
The funnyman used his Twitter account to deny he was involved with the tweet.
\"#CancelColbert - I agree! Just saw @ColbertReport tweet. I share your rage.
Who is that, though? I'm @StephenAtHome,\" Colbert tweeted with a link to a video of his skit.
\"The Colbert Report\" account seconded that, tweeting, \"For the record @ColbertReport is not controlled by Stephen Colbert or his show. He is @StephenAtHome Sorry for the confusion #CancelColbert\" and \"This is a Comedy Central account, with no oversight from Stephen/show. Here is quoted line in context http://on.cc.com/1dyeQri #cancelcolbert.\"


text: 7Search.com has become the latest outfit to legally contest its classification as spyware by a major anti-malware company.In a court filing from Aug. 25, Chicago-based 7Search.com complains that "McAfee continues to incorrectly and falsely advise the public that 7Search.com contains downloads that are adware, spyware, or other potentially unwanted programs, when it is aware that there is no software on that site at all."Currently, McAfee's SiteAdvisor site analysis system gives it an 'X'rating, stating that "feedback from credible users suggests that downloads on this site may contain what some people would consider adware, spyware, or other potentially unwanted programs."7Search.com demands that McAfee change its rating from 'red' to 'green', and delete any references made in SiteAdvisor that the site is connected to adware, spyware or viruses.7Search.com does admit being associated with the 7FaSSt Toolbar, a piece of hijackware it says has not been available from its site since 2003, claiming rather disingenuously that the program was only installed after users had been presented with an end-user licence agreement, and could be removed using the Windows Add\/Remove interface.This is despite the fact that several anti-spyware companies make reference to the software being associated with 7Search.com after 2003, including one, Sunbelt Software, which makes the same connection, without going into detail, as recently as June 2008.The number of 7FaSSt removal tools might also suggest that the software was not as easy to de-install as claimed.The 7Search.com versus McAfee case is remarkably similar to 2007 battle between Zango and software vendors PC Tools and Kaspersky Lab, concerning their classification of the company's toolbar software. At the time, it was suggested that the legal threats could be used against smaller anti-virus companies by way of intimidation. This would hardly apply in the case of McAfee, one of the largest security companies in the world.


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Mammut Crea Light 28
Brand: Mammut
Model: Crea Light 28
New model for this year (Do not check this option if this model was listed as new in last year's Gear Guide)The ultimate backpack for hiking and lightweight backpacking. The key to this pack is the exceptional breatheability–the 4-Stream frame system eliminates the problems with other trampoline-back systems becasue it allows the load to remain close to your body, yet still allows hot air to escape in all directions–including out the top. The result is that you stay drier and more comfortable. 3-level back length adjustment, height adjustable top lid, side zip access to main compartment, large stretch front packet, 2 stretch side pockets, hipbelt pocket for camera, etc, 2 trekking pole/ice axe carriers.


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A Full Guide to Power Washing the Deck
Deck seen too many summers? Give it a new lease on life. We'll teach you about power washing your deck as well as how to put a new finish on.
A full day
IntroductionDeck seen too many summers? Give it a new lease on life. We'll teach you about power washing your deck as well as how to put a new finish on.
Tools Required
- Foam paint pads
- Pressure washer
Materials Required
- Deck stain
- Oxalyc Acid
If you've been putting off power washing your deck because you think it requires a lot of time, tools and know-how, take heart. In this article, we'll show you how to clean it up fast with the help of a pressure washer and special products that help remove dirt, mildew and old finishes.
We'll also show you how to apply a fresh finish, using a foam applicator pad that glides along the wood and quickly applies a nice, even coat. No more messy rollers and brushes. You'll be power washing your deck in no time.
This process will work on any wood deck, including redwood, cedar and pressure treated lumber (but not on composite decks). The only special tools you need are a pressure washer and a foam applicator pad. The project doesn't require any special skills. Just set aside at least four hours on one day to clean your deck, and another four hours several days later to stain it.
The cost of rejuvenating an average-size deck is about $250, including tools, materials and the pressure washer rental. You'll save several hundred dollars by doing the work yourself. Having your deck professionally cleaned and stained will cost $500 to $1,000.
Rent a pressure washer
A pressure washer will scour away dirt and contaminants ingrained in the wood at the same time it sprays on a deck stripper to clean off previous finishes.
Rent a pressure washer deck cleaner from a home center or rental center. A pressure setting of 1,000 to 1,200 psi is ideal. Too much pressure will damage the wood and make the wand harder to control.
Rent a unit that allows for the intake of chemical cleaners (deck stripper and wood brightener) so you can spray them on through the wand. Most pressure washers have an intake hose that draws in cleaners from a separate bucket. (Use a plastic bucket. Chemicals in the cleaners can react to metal buckets.)
We used sodium hydroxide as the deck stripper. You probably won't be able to find straight sodium hydroxide, but you can find a deck stripping product with sodium hydroxide as the active ingredient in almost any home center or paint store.
We diluted our stripper to a 50/50 mix with water. Some sodium hydroxide–based strippers are premixed and don't require adding water. More commonly, you need to dilute the stripper with water. Read the label on the container to find out what's suggested for your stripper.
Protect your house and plants
Before you begin power washing your deck, make repairs to your deck, such as replacing cracked or split boards and broken balusters.
Then heavily douse the plants or grass under and around your deck with water and cover them with plastic. Although most strippers aren't supposed to harm vegetation, it's still a good idea to protect plants and it only takes a few minutes. Once you've finished cleaning the deck, immediately remove the plastic.
Also spray down the siding with clean water to ensure that any stripper that splashes onto the house will easily wash off.
Project step-by-step (11)
Scour away the old finish
Clean the railings
Family Handyman
Begin by power washing the deck railings with stripper. Keep the tip 6 to 10 in. from the wood and work from the top down. Spray balusters at the corners to scour two sides at once.
Wash the decking
Family Handyman
Spray one deck board at a time, using a gentle sweeping motion. Avoid sudden stops. Work from the end of the deck toward the exit. Then rinse the entire deck with a garden hose.
Clean out the gaps between decking
Family Handyman
After the first round of power washing your deck, it's time to tackle the seams. Dig out trapped debris from between deck boards with a putty knife. Spray the deck lightly with a mixture of oxalic acid and water to brighten the wood.
With a 25- or 30-degree tip in the wand of the pressure washer and a psi of 1,000 to 1,200, apply the stripper to the deck, starting with the top rails and working down the balusters (Photo 1). Spray the rails with a continuous, controlled motion. Keep the wand moving so you don't gouge the wood.
Once you finish the railings, start on the deck boards. Wash along the length of the boards (Photo 2). You'll see the grime washing off the wood.
Go over stubborn mildew or other stains a few times rather than turning up the pressure or trying to heavily scour the wood. Later we'll tackle tough stains that won't come out with the stripper.
This stripping process washes away a small amount of the wood's lignin, which is the glue holding the wood fibers together. As the lignin washes away, the fibers stand up, giving the wood a fuzzy appearance. Don't bother sanding off the fuzzy fibers. They will gradually shear off and blow away.
After you've power-washed the entire deck, rinse all of the wood with plain water to dilute and neutralize the stripper. If there's still debris trapped between deck boards, such as leaves or twigs, remove it now (Photo 3).
Brighten the wood
Clean off overspray
Family Handyman
Rinse the siding and windows with clean water at low pressure to remove chemical residue.
A deck brightener will return the wood to its newly sawn color and make it more receptive to the stain. Use an oxalic acid–based brightener, which is available at home centers and paint stores. It works fast, won't harm the wood and is environmentally safe in the diluted solution that you'll use.
Like strippers, some deck brighteners come premixed and some need to be diluted with water. Read the label for the manufacturer's recommendations. We mixed our oxalic acid with an equal amount of water and ran it through the pressure washer's intake hose.
Change the tip in the wand of the pressure washer to a fan tip with a 40- or 45-degree angle. Then set the pressure to about 1,000 psi and spray the deck, once again starting with the top rails and working down to the deck boards. Apply just enough brightener to thoroughly wet the wood.
Oxalic acid will brighten the wood in a matter of minutes and does not require rinsing. But your siding does. Rinse off your siding with clean water at very low pressure (about 500 psi) to wash away any stripper or brightener overspray (Photo 4).
If your wood is cedar or redwood, you'll see a dramatic difference as the wood brightens to its fresh sawn color. Our deck is pressure-treated pine, so the brightening of the wood is less noticeable.
Inspect the whole deck
Fix loose boards
Family Handyman
Sink any raised nails and screws. Replace loose and missing fasteners with screws at least 1/2 in. longer than the original. With the deck clean, it's easy to spot any areas that need additional maintenance. Drive any nail heads that are popping up until they're flush with the deck boards. Look for missing or loose screws, and replace them with corrosion-resistant screws that are slightly longer than the original (Photo 5). Replace missing nails with corrosion-resistant "trim head " screws, which are screws that have a small head and resemble a large finish nail.
If lag screws or bolts are loose in the ledger board, rails or posts, tighten them. Inspect the flashing between your deck and house to ensure it's still firmly in place.
Attack stubborn stains
Scrub stubborn stains
Family Handyman
The next step in power washing you deck may require a little elbow grease. Remove mold, mildew or algae using non-chlorine bleach. Scrub the area with a nylon brush, then rinse with water. For tougher stains, repeat the process with a TSP substitute.
Remove fastener stains
Family Handyman
Drive the heads of stain-causing fasteners below the wood surface. Then sand out the stains using 80-grit sandpaper. Also sand rough or splintered areas.
Although the sodium hydroxide in the deck cleaner will remove most stains and mold, particularly stubborn ones require extra attention.
Use a non-chlorine laundry bleach to remove the stain. (This works especially well if the stain is from mold, mildew or algae.) Apply it to the affected area, then scrub with a nylon brush. Rinse the area with water.
For tougher stains, use trisodium phosphate substitute. Mix the TSP substitute with water and apply it to the stain. Let it sit for a minute or two, then scrub with a nylon brush and rinse with water (Photo 6).
To remove deep stains that don't come out with TSP substitute, let the deck dry. These "bleed" stains are often caused by fasteners. Sand the stains out, using 80-grit sandpaper and concentrating only on the affected areas. Some bleeds may be too deep to sand out. Rough or splintered areas may also need sanding. Spot-sand working in the direction of the wood grain until the surface is smooth (Photo 7).
Wear a dust mask, and sand only if the stain bothers you. You don't have to get every stain out. After all, imperfections are part of an outdoor deck.
Apply the finish—finally!
Stain the railing first
Family Handyman
Now that you're done power washing your deck, you can move on to the finish. Apply stain to the top rail, then the balusters and the posts. Work from the top down. Stain one section at a time, using a foam applicator pad. Brush out drips as you work.
Use an extension pole on the decking
Family Handyman
Stain the deck boards using a foam applicator pad with an extension handle. Stain the full length of two or three boards at a time, working with the grain.
Spray bottle applicator
Family Handyman
Spray on the finish in hard-to-reach areas or surfaces that are difficult to cover with a paintbrush. Use a wide spray to avoid streaks. Work stain into crevices and narrow areas between balusters and posts with a paintbrush. The deck will need a minimum of 48 hours to dry after the cleaning. If it rains, wait two more days for the wood to dry. Avoid staining in high heat, high humidity and in direct sunlight. Perfect conditions are an overcast day with the temperature in the 70s and no possibility of rain.
Start by staining the top rails and working down the balusters and posts (Photo 8). Run the applicator pad down the length of the wood, applying the stain in a steady, uniform manner. Don't go back over areas that are already stained. Unlike paint, stain gets darker with each coat.
If stain drips onto the deck, smooth it with the applicator pad to avoid spotting. Once the railings are complete, stain the deck boards. Load the pad with plenty of stain, yet not so much that it drips. Start by carefully "cutting in" stain along the house. If stain drips onto the siding, promptly wipe it off using a clean cloth and mineral spirits or paint thinner.
Attach a broom handle to the applicator pad. Glide the pad along the length of the deck boards, staining with the grain (Photo 9). Stop only at the end of a board. Otherwise, the overlap where you stopped and started could be noticeable.
Once the deck is finished, apply stain to the stair treads, working your way down the stairs.
Finally, use a paintbrush or spray bottle to work stain into tight areas that the applicator pad couldn't reach, such as lattice and crevices between balusters and the rim joist (Photo 10).
Allow the stain to dry at least 48 hours before walking on it. Feel the deck to make sure the stain is completely dry. Likewise, check the bottom of your shoes before walking back into the house.
Pressure Washer Safety
Family Handyman
- Wear appropriate safety gear and clothes. Rubber boots and gloves will protect your hands and feet. Safety goggles will keep the chemicals from splashing into your eyes, and a disposable respirator or dust mask will filter fumes.
- Keep the exhaust from the pressure washer at least 3 ft. away from any objects, including your house.
- Practice spraying the water until you find an appropriate power setting.
- Never point the wand at anything you don't want to spray.
- Cover electrical outlets.
Choosing the Best Stain
You have two basic deck stain choices: oil-based and water-based. Oil stains are easier to apply, penetrate the wood grain and require less work when you reapply them. However, they only last two to four years.
Water-based (latex) stains last four to six years, but they'll eventually peel and require more prep work before recoating. Opaque latex stains generally last longer than semitransparent versions. When possible, test the stain on an inconspicuous section of the decking. We used a cedar color that worked well since the wood was pressure treated and somewhat dark in color. For a darker color, a redwood-colored stain is available, while a honey color is an option for a lighter, natural wood look.
Be careful not to choose a light color stain if your deck was previously covered with a dark stain or is pressure treated (green). The light stain will not cover the dark wood or darker stain, and it will turn gray within a few weeks. If you want a natural gray or silver deck, use a clear finish. It will protect the deck from mildew and algae, but not from the sun, allowing the deck to start graying in a month or two.
The following companies offer a full line of products for power washing and finishing your deck, including strippers, brighteners and stains. The products are widely available at home centers, hardware stores and paint stores. Each company's Web site features a store locator to find the company's products.
Behr: behr.com
Cabot: cabotstain.com
Flood: flood.com
Wolman: wolman.com


text:
vigilantcitizen.com On 12/12/72 Marie-Hélène de Rothschild, member of the most powerful elite family in the world, held a Surrealist Ball at Château de Ferrières, one of the family's gigantic mansions. While these events are usually extremely secretive, photographs of this particular Ball surfaced on the web. In short, it is a mix of an "Eyes Wide Shut"-style masked ball mixed with a Lady Gaga-style pop video. I'm not even kidding. Indeed, behind the fun and games, these pics reveal the underlying ideology and the mind state of the occult elite – which is apparently also used in the countless MK/Illuminati theme music videos discussed on this site. The invitation is written in reverse. It required a mirror to be read. Inversion is a big deal in a pseudo-satanic mind state. The Château de Ferrières was lit in red to make it appear as if it was on fire. Scenes from Roman Polanski's movie about Satan "9th Gate" were filmed there. In "Eyes Wide Shut", the occult ritual takes place in another Rothschild mansion, Mentmore Towers in the UK. A guest wearing multiple-faced mask. A similar mask is seen in Eyes Wide Shut (was the movie inspired by Rothschild balls?). Did this ball "devolve" into the debauchery depicted in the movie? The host is wearing a giant horned head. How appropriate. Baphomet welcomes you. Salvador Dali doing his Dali face in front of his famous depiction of Mae West. Lady Gaga is probably dying to wear one of these. On the diner table are dismembered dolls and cracked skulls. This imagery is also prevalent in countless music videos. Its all about the occult elite's MK culture. to read more click here: vigilantcitizen.com
Sign up for our free e-mail list to see future vaticancatholic.com videos and articles.


text:
June 18, 2012
JustFruit Bars Review and Giveaway
These come in tons of flavors including apple, pear, pear blueberry, pear cranberry, apple raspberry, apple cherry, etc. JustFruit bars are available in 2 sizes, 40 gram & 25 gram. The 40g bars are nutritionally equivalent to eating 2 servings of fruit while the 25g bars are equal to slightly more than 1 serving. The 25g bars weigh in at only 90 calories each too, making them a great under-100 calorie snack.
Each of these contain about 4 grams of fiber which is great to help keep you full. I would pair one of these with some almonds or peanuts for some healthy fat and protein. I love all of these JustFruit bars and would highly recommend them to anyone!


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Last Saturday at my favorite café in San Francisco, Martha & Bros., I did a double-take when I saw what appeared to be a prototype Chrome OS laptop -- aka a Chromebook -- in use by a young woman at one of the tables. I'm accustomed to seeing regular laptops, iPhones, BlackBerrys, and Android smartphones at this and other coffee houses, as well as increasingly iPads, but certainly not Chromebooks, which were made available only to beta testers in late December.
I went over and asked her if it was indeed a Chromebook (it was) and why she was using it instead of some other device at the café. She said that the Chromebook was perfect to surf the Web and do email and other social networking via its browser, which is pretty much the only mechanism available to such activities on Google's forthcoming Chrome OS. The Chromebook is much lighter than a laptop, and its screen is a larger, more readable size than a netbook's screen. Battery life also is decent; four to five hours is quite possible for the diskless device.
[ Keep up on key mobile developments and insights via Twitter and with the Mobile Edge blog and Mobilize newsletter. | Stay abreast of tech industry trends with The Industry Standard newsletter. ]
The idea of a Chromebook or another lightweight device -- such as an iPad, Android tablet, or smartphone docked into a dumb laptop such as the Motorola Atrix/Lapdock combo -- as a casual "café computer" makes a lot of sense. Their batteries last fairly long (the iPad can go 10 hours, more than anything else I've tried), and their keyboards and screens are sized well for real surfing and communicating. You don't get the clutched-fingers syndrome as you do from using a smartphone's keyboard for any length of time.
But does the idea of a café computer make sense? Maybe it's one of those techno-urban indulgences favored by latte-sipping geeks in places like Silicon Valley, San Francisco, West L.A., New York's Manhattan, Boston's Back Bay, D.C.'s Northwest, and techie-friendly islands within Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Austin, and the two Portlands -- but unlikely to catch on in the rest of America.
At the risk of sounding like an insular latte liberal rather than someone who'd prefer to be at a tea party, I think the idea makes a lot of sense for a lot of people.


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At her death in 1952, Hattie McDaniel's last wish had been to be buried at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery. She belonged amidst the glittering stars of Hollywood, alongside Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, and Tyrone Power. After all, she had been the first Black woman to sing on the radio. Her career spanned over 300 movies, but she is best remembered for playing Scarlett's Mammy in Gone with the Wind. Thanks to that role, McDaniel was the first African-American recipient of an Academy Award. She belonged among the cinematic pioneers — but was rejected because of the color of her skin.
In October 1999, nearly 50 years after her death, that indignity was commemorated — if not made right — by the placement of a cenotaph to her memory in Hollywood Forever. McDaniel's grave remains undisturbed in Rosedale Cemetery (where she broke the color barrier), but now she has a monument among the immortals, as she wished. When I visited, someone had placed a garland of bright silk flowers around the column's foot.
Cemetery of the Week #5: Hollywood Forever


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Blake Lively?
But it's not my Marion Cotillard. To heave that chest up and ooze it over her dress, like some kind of entree. What is happening here?
This is Marion at the Paris premiere of Les Petits Mouchoirs in what is presumably a Christian Dior leather dress. She is the face of the brand. So she must have had more choices, non? It's really too bad. Because I'm so into everything else, especially the way she's wearing the hair these days.
But you don't notice. Because of, well, you know, what's happening right there, in your face.
Last week, she and Guillaume and the rest of the cast were at another screening where the sartorial selection was much more in line with what we usually expect of her. Am attaching those too, just to cleanse.
Photos from Wenn.com and BERTRAND LANGLOIS /FRANCOIS LO PRESTI /Julien M. Hekimian /Gettyimages.com
Marion, this is not you
Blake Lively?


text:
Tell me this parrot doesn't look like he's ready for a sarcophagus!
Actually, he's ready for a lovely paint job, the addition of a colorful umbrella, and a trip to Santa Claus for installation in Splashin' Safari's Crocodile Isle.
Meanwhile, as you may have noticed, our webcam is off to rehab (no, not the same place Britney went to) and should be back in two or three weeks.
Happy Saint Patrick's Day tomorrow!


text:
The former chief executive of a U.S. Virgin Islands hospital has been convicted of tax fraud.
After a two-day trial in U.S. District Court on St. Thomas, a federal jury convicted Rodney Miller of knowingly filing a fraudulent tax return in 2006. He shaved roughly $250,000 off his reported total income.
The U.S. Justice Department says in a Wednesday statement that Miller faces a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Sentencing is scheduled for December.


text: Even after two weeks of letting Tetris HD play by itself, the screen is only about 2/3rds full. It's a fun image to see but the browser chrome is perhaps just as interesting...the Google search for "fuck fuck fuck" and a tab containing the Wikipedia page for "Anal sex" for example. (thx, my main man dj jacob)


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Wildflowers and Trees
Oskar by Lake Yellowstone
Buffalo Family
Oskar at Crystal Lake
Boiling Mud Pit
Sulphur Vent
Yellowstone Canyon
Oskar at Yellowstone Canyon
A slight fear of death teaches you a healthy respect for the edge of a canyon.
Old Faithful
Old Faithful Erupting
Wildflowers growing near Old Faithful
Birds chilling next to a hot spring
Run off from a spring
Grand Prismatic Spring
Xavier found some worm like things in the runoff
Hey look, I was there too!
In front of Grand Prismatic Spring
Gretchen and Xavier
Everyone sees something different on an adventure like this
Xavier hiking along the trail
Hike up to Fairy Falls
Xavier walking on a dead tree
At Fairy Falls there was a fallen tree across the water, Xavier checked it all out.
Yellowstone Falls
All different sorts of wildflowers are growing throughout Yellowstone.
Purple Mountain View
Worth every step of the 6.4 mile hike
Enjoying the View
After the roughly hour and a half hike up Purple Mountain, we stopped to enjoy the view!
View from Purple Mountain
There's a white spec in the bottom left of the photo - that's our van in the parking area below!
Elk Grazing
The last wildlife we saw as we left the park


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1991 Upper Deck #670 Bryce Paup RC
There's only one thing worse than sharing your birthday with Jesus. That's when your birthday falls on Leap Day.
Bryce Paup was drafted in the 6th round of the 1990 NFL Draft by the Green Bay Packers and within two years became an effective, pass rushing linebacker. During his five seasons with the Packers he started 41 games and had 32.5 sacks, 4 interceptions, 8 forced fumbles, 1 safety, and made the Pro Bowl once.
In 1995, he signed with the Buffalo Bills, had the best season of his career, and was the AP Defensive Player of the Year. After eleven seasons in the NFL, Paup retired with 75 career sacks and 4 trips to Honolulu.
Today, Paup is celebrating 44 years of life for only the 12th time on his actual birthday. Hopefully his family and friends make sure it's 4x better than an ordinary birthday party.
Happy Birthday Bryce!
Happy Leap Day everyone else... and until my next post... sayonara!


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TDF Group specialises in offering world-class transfer solutions for the most demanding applications. We are proud to offer the widest range of pumps in the market.
TDF Systems
TDF Systems provide high quality process and production skids that offer benefits such as: single supplier, no assembly work and safety equipment without leakage.
Mechanical Seals
We provide the widest mechanical seal's range in the market. All of our products are certified and can be used in many different working conditions.
In TDF Group, we specialise in the control and measurement of fluids, we have great experience working in all kind of projects.
TDF Group's filtration full range offers the customer the possibility of choosing the right filtration solution for their application.


text:
Writing five years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, US military expert Anthony Cordesman published an account of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. "Preliminary Lessons of the Israeli-Hezbollah War" created enormous interest in the Pentagon, where it was studied by planners for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and passed hand-to-hand among military experts in Washington. Cordesman made no secret of his modest conclusions, rightly recognizing that his study was not only "preliminary", but that it took no account of how Hezbollah fought the conflict or judged its results.
"This analysis is … limited," Cordesman noted, "by the fact that no matching visit was made to Lebanon and to the Hezbollah." Incomplete though it might have been, Cordesman's study accomplished two goals: it provided a foundation for understanding the war from the Israeli point of view and it raised questions on how and how well Hezbollah fought.
Nearly two months after the end of the Israeli-Hezbollah war, it is now possible to fill in some of the lines left blank by Cordesman.
The portrait that we give here is also limited. Hezbollah officials will neither speak publicly nor for the record on how they fought the conflict, will not detail their deployments, and will not discuss their future strategy. Even so, the lessons of the war from Hezbollah's perspective are now beginning to emerge and some small lessons are being derived from it by US and Israeli strategic planners. Our conclusions are based on on-the-ground assessments conducted during the course of the war, on interviews with Israeli, American and European military experts, on emerging understandings of the conflict in discussions with military strategists, and on a network of senior officials in the Middle East who were intensively interested in the war's outcome and with whom we have spoken.
Our overall conclusion contradicts the current point of view being retailed by some White House and Israeli officials: that Israel's offensive in Lebanon significantly damaged Hezbollah's ability to wage war, that Israel successfully degraded Hezbollah's military ability to prevail in a future conflict, and that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), once deployed in large numbers in southern Lebanon, were able to prevail over their foes and dictate a settlement favorable to the Israeli political establishment.
Just the opposite is true. From the onset of the conflict to its last operations, Hezbollah commanders successfully penetrated Israel's strategic and tactical decision-making cycle across a spectrum of intelligence, military and political operations, with the result that Hezbollah scored a decisive and complete victory in its war with Israel.
The intelligence war
In the wake of the conflict, Hezbollah general secretary Hassan Nasrallah admitted that Israel's military response to the abduction of two of its soldiers and the killing of eight others at 9:04 on the morning of July 12 came as a surprise to the Hezbollah leadership.
Nasrallah's comment ended press reports that Hezbollah set out purposely to provoke a war with Israel and that the abductions had been part of a plan approved by Hezbollah and Iran. While Hezbollah had made it clear over a period of years that it intended to abduct Israeli soldiers, there was good reason to suppose that it would not do so in the middle of the summer months – when large numbers of affluent Shi'ite families from the diaspora would be visiting Lebanon (and spending their money in the Shi'ite community), and when Gulf Arabs were expected to arrive in large numbers in the country.
Nor is it the case, as was initially reported, that Hezbollah coordinated its activities with Hamas. Hamas was taken by surprise by the abductions and, while the Hamas leadership defended Hezbollah actions, in hindsight it is easy to see why they might not have been pleased by them: over the course of the conflict Israel launched multiple military operations against Hamas in Gaza, killing dozens of fighters and scores of civilians. The offensive went largely unnoticed in the West, thereby resuscitating the adage that "when the Middle East burns, the Palestinians are forgotten".
In truth, the abduction of the two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others took the Hezbollah leadership by surprise and was effected only because Hezbollah units on the Israeli border had standing orders to exploit Israeli military weaknesses. Nasrallah had himself long signaled Hezbollah's intent to kidnap Israeli soldiers, after former prime minister Ariel Sharon reneged on fulfilling his agreement to release all Hezbollah prisoners – three in all – during the last Hezbollah-Israeli prisoner exchange.
The abductions were, in fact, all too easy: Israeli soldiers near the border apparently violated standing operational procedures, left their vehicles in sight of Hezbollah emplacements, and did so while out of contact with higher-echelon commanders and while out of sight of covering fire.
We note that while the Western media consistently misreported the events on the Israeli-Lebanon border, Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper substantially confirmed this account: "A force of tanks and armored personnel carriers was immediately sent into Lebanon in hot pursuit. It was during this pursuit, at about 11am … [a] Merkava tank drove over a powerful bomb, containing an estimated 200 to 300 kilograms of explosives, about 70 meters north of the border fence. The tank was almost completely destroyed, and all four crew members were killed instantly. Over the next several hours, IDF soldiers waged a fierce fight against Hezbollah gunmen … During the course of this battle, at about 3pm, another soldier was killed and two were lightly wounded."
The abductions marked the beginning of a series of IDF blunders that were compounded by commanders who acted outside of their normal border procedures. Members of the patrol were on the last days of their deployment in the north and their guard was down. Nor is it the case that Hezbollah fighters killed the eight Israelis during their abduction of the two. The eight died when an IDF border commander, apparently embarrassed by his abrogation of standing procedures, ordered armored vehicles to pursue the kidnappers. The two armored vehicles ran into a network of Hezbollah anti-tank mines and were destroyed. The eight IDF soldiers died during this operation or as a result of combat actions that immediately followed it.
That an IDF unit could wander so close to the border without being covered by fire and could leave itself open to a Hezbollah attack has led Israeli officers to question whether the unit was acting outside the chain of command. An internal commission of inquiry was apparently convened by senior IDF commanders in the immediate aftermath of the incident to determine the facts in the matter and to review IDF procedures governing units acting along Israel's northern border. The results of that commission's findings have not yet been reported.
Despite being surprised by the Israeli response, Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon were placed on full alert within minutes of the kidnappings and arsenal commanders were alerted by their superiors. Hezbollah's robust and hardened defenses were the result of six years of diligent work, beginning with the Israeli withdrawal from the region in 2000. Many of the command bunkers designed and built by Hezbollah engineers were fortified, and a few were even air-conditioned.
The digging of the arsenals over the previous years had been accompanied by a program of deception, with some bunkers being constructed in the open and often under the eyes of Israeli drone vehicles or under the observation of Lebanese citizens with close ties to the Israelis. With few exceptions, these bunkers were decoys. The building of other bunkers went forward in areas kept hidden from the Lebanese population. The most important command bunkers and weapons-arsenal bunkers were dug deeply into Lebanon's rocky hills – to a depth of 40 meters. Nearly 600 separate ammunition and weapons bunkers were strategically placed in the region south of the Litani.
For security reasons, no single commander knew the location of each bunker and each distinct Hezbollah militia unit was assigned access to three bunkers only – a primary munitions bunker and two reserve bunkers, in case the primary bunker was destroyed. Separate primary and backup marshaling points were also designated for distinct combat units, which were tasked to arm and fight within specific combat areas. The security protocols for the marshaling of troops was diligently maintained. No single Hezbollah member had knowledge of the militia's entire bunker structure.
Hezbollah's primary arsenals and marshaling points were targeted by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) in the first 72 hours of the war. Israel's commanders had identified these bunkers through a mix of intelligence reports – signals intercepts from Hezbollah communications, satellite-reconnaissance photos gleaned from cooperative arrangements with the US military, photos analyzed as a result of IAF overflights of the region, photos from drone aircraft deployed over southern Lebanon and, most important, a network of trusted human-intelligence sources recruited by Israeli intelligence officers living in southern Lebanon, including a large number of foreign (non-Lebanese) nationals registered as guest workers in the country.
The initial attack on Hezbollah's marshaling points and major bunker complexes, which took place in the first 72 hours of the war, failed. On July 15, the IAF targeted Hezbollah's leadership in Beirut. This attack also failed. At no point during the war was any major Hezbollah political figure killed, despite Israel's constant insistence that the organization's senior leadership had suffered losses.
According to one US official who observed the war closely, the IAF's air offensive degraded "perhaps only 7%" of the total military resource assets available to Hezbollah's fighters in the first three days of fighting and added that, in his opinion, Israeli air attacks on the Hezbollah leadership were "absolutely futile".
Reports that the Hezbollah senior leadership had taken refuge in the Iranian Embassy in Beirut (untouched during Israel's aerial offensive) are not true, though it is not known precisely where the Hezbollah leadership did take shelter. "Not even I knew where I was," Hezbollah leader Nasrallah told one of his associates. Even with all of this, it is not the case that the Israeli military's plans to destroy Lebanon's infrastructure resulted from the IAF's inability to degrade Hezbollah's military capacity in the war's first days.
The Israeli military's plans called for an early and sustained bombardment of Lebanon's major highways and ports in addition to its plans to destroy Hezbollah military and political assets. The Israeli government made no secret of its intent – to undercut Hezbollah's support in the Christian, Sunni and Druze communities. That idea, to punish Lebanon for harboring Hezbollah and so turn the people against the militia, had been a part of Israel's plan since the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
While IDF officials confidently and publicly announced success in their offensive, their commanders recommended that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approve increased air sorties against potential Hezbollah caches in marginal target areas at the end of the first week of the bombing. Olmert approved these attacks, while knowing that in making such a request his senior officers had all but admitted that their initial assessment of the damage inflicted on Hezbollah was exaggerated.
Qana was the result of Olmert's agreement to "stretch the target envelope". One US military expert who monitored the conflict closely had this to say of the Qana bombing: "This isn't really that complicated. After the failure of the initial campaign, IAF planning officers went back through their target folders to see if they had missed anything. When they decided they hadn't, someone probably stood up and went into the other room and returned with a set of new envelopes of targets in densely populated areas and said, 'Hey, what about these target envelopes?' And so they did it." That is, the bombing of targets "close in" to southern Lebanon population areas was the result of Israel's failure in the war – not its success.
The "target stretching" escalated throughout the conflict; frustrated by their inability to identify and destroy major Hezbollah military assets, the IAF began targeting schools, community centers and mosques – under the belief that their inability to identify and interdict Hezbollah bunkers signaled Hezbollah's willingness to hide their major assets inside civilian centers.
IAF officers also argued that Hezbollah's ability to continue its rocket attacks on Israel meant that its militia was being continually resupplied. Qana is a crossroads, the junction of five separate highways, and in the heart of Hezbollah territory. Interdicting the Qana supply chain provided the IAF the opportunity to prove that Hezbollah was only capable of sustaining its operations because of its supply-dependence on the crossroads town. In truth, however, IDF senior commanders knew that expanding the number of targets in Lebanon would probably do little to degrade Hezbollah capabilities because Hezbollah was maintaining its attacks without any hope of resupply and because of its dependence on weapons and rocket caches that had been hardened against Israeli interdiction. In the wake of Qana, in which 28 civilians were killed, Israel agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire.
The ceasefire provided the first evidence that Hezbollah had successfully withstood Israeli air attacks and was planning a sustained and prolonged defense of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah commanders honored the ceasefire at the orders of their political superiors. With one or two lone exceptions, no rockets were fired into Israel during this ceasefire period. While Hezbollah's capacity actually to "cease fire" was otherwise ignored by Israeli and Western intelligence experts, Hezbollah's ability to enforce discipline on its field commanders came as a distinctly unwanted shock to IDF senior commanders, who concluded that Hezbollah's communication's capabilities had survived Israel's air onslaught, that the Hezbollah leadership was in touch with its commanders on the ground, and that those commanders were able to maintain a robust communications network despite Israeli interdiction.
More simply, Hezbollah's ability to cease fire meant that Israel's goal of separating Hezbollah fighters from their command structure (considered a necessity by modern armies in waging a war on a sophisticated technological battlefield) had failed. The IDF's senior commanders could only come to one conclusion – its prewar information on Hezbollah military assets was, at best, woefully incomplete or, at worst, fatally wrong.
In fact, over a period of two years, Hezbollah intelligence officials had built a significant signals-counterintelligence capability. Throughout the war, Hezbollah commanders were able to predict when and where Israeli fighters and bombers would strike. Moreover, Hezbollah had identified key Israeli human-intelligence assets in Lebanon. One month prior to the abduction of the IDF border patrol and the subsequent Israeli attack, Lebanese intelligence officials had broken up an Israeli spy ring operating inside the country.
Lebanese (and Hezbollah) intelligence officials arrested at least 16 Israeli spies in Lebanon, though they failed to find or arrest the leader of the ring. Moreover, during two years from 2004 until the eve of the war, Hezbollah had successfully "turned" a number of Lebanese civilian assets reporting on the location of major Hezbollah military caches in southern Lebanon to Israeli intelligence officers. In some small number of crucially important cases, Hezbollah senior intelligence officials were able to "feed back" false information on their militia's most important emplacements to Israel – with the result that Israel target folders identified key emplacements that did not, in fact, exist.
Finally, Hezbollah's ability to intercept and "read" Israeli actions had a decisive impact on the coming ground war. Hezbollah intelligence officials had perfected their signals-intelligence capability to such an extent that they could intercept Israeli ground communications between Israeli military commanders. Israel, which depended on a highly sophisticated set of "frequency hopping" techniques that would allow their commanders to communicate with one another, underestimated Hezbollah's ability to master counter-signals technology. The result would have a crucial impact on Israel's calculation that surprise alone would provide the margin of victory for its soldiers.
It now is clear that the Israeli political establishment was shocked by the failure of its forces to accomplish its first military goals in the war – including the degradation of a significant number of Hezbollah arsenals and the destruction of Hezbollah's command capabilities.
But the Israeli political establishment had done almost nothing to prepare for the worst: the first meeting of the Israeli security cabinet in the wake of the July 12 abduction lasted only three hours. And while Olmert and his security cabinet demanded minute details of the IDF's plan for the first three days of the war, they failed to articulate clear political goals in the aftermath of the conflict or sketch out a political exit strategy should the offensive fail.
Olmert and the security cabinet violated the first principle of war – they showed contempt for their enemy. In many respects, Olmert and his cabinet were captives of an unquestioned belief in the efficacy of Israeli deterrence. Like the Israeli public, they viewed any questioning of IDF capabilities as sacrilege.
The Israeli intelligence failure during the conflict was catastrophic. It meant that, after the failure of Israel's air campaign to degrade Hezbollah assets significantly in the first 72 hours of the war, Israel's chance of winning a decisive victory against Hezbollah was increasingly, and highly, unlikely.
"Israel lost the war in the first three days," one US military expert said. "If you have that kind of surprise and you have that kind of firepower, you had better win. Otherwise, you're in for the long haul."
IDF senior officers concluded that, given the failure of the air campaign, they had only one choice – to invade Lebanon with ground troops in the hopes of destroying Hezbollah's will to prevail.
Next: Winning the ground war
Alastair Crooke and Mark Perry are the co-directors of Conflicts Forum, a London-based group dedicated to providing an opening to political Islam. Crooke is the former Middle East adviser to European Union High Representative Javier Solana and served as a staff member of the Mitchell Commission investigating the causes of the second intifada. Perry is a Washington, DC-based political consultant, author of six books on US history, and a former personal adviser to the late Yasser Arafat.
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text: Back Cardiac Arrhythmias The beating of your heart is very organized, taking its cue from a built-in electrical system. A normal heart rate is regular, at 60 to 100 beats per minute. An arrhythmia is any kind of abnormal heartbeat—too fast, too slow, or irregular. This video explains different arrhythmias and what you should do if you have one.


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See the 2 medieval cities
Excursion Info
Discover city-museum under open sky and gastronomical marble, wonderful city Travnik. Birthplace of Nobel prize winner Ivo Andrić famous Yugoslav novelist. In the city you can see The Forth Stari Grad (Old City) which represents one of most beautiful and most preserved facilities of medieval Bosnia, on which later periods left specific mark. After Travnik You are headed to one of the most beautiful cities in Bosnia, town Jajce. Located on the banks of rivers Pliva and Vrbas, once royal, now another museum under open sky with 26 national monuments. In centre of the city You are able to see and feel magnificent 21-meter-tall waterfall which is placed among 12 most beautiful in the world.
What's included
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Information about Payment
Useful things to know before you go
Book without payment
You can book without payment, and cancel tour or trip without any cancelation fees!
Book via Pay Pal
You can book via PayPal, and get 5% discount on every tour, but in case of cancelation there may be fees depending on time of cancelation.
We are Professional Guides, and as such, take our job seriously. We are all experienced, and perform tours and excursions on a daily basis so are used to all manner of situations.
All our Guides have studied accredited courses and have passed walking and written exams. Guides are members of association for tourism development "InfoBosnia" and we may well be proudly wearing a badge of qualification.
It is also fundamental that the tours are enjoyable and 'fun' rather than dry and merely informative. Each walk or journey has been created with an element of adventure and innovation in mind and as such, should mark it out from other standard guiding companies. We are a relatively newly formed organisation, with a fresh take on guiding, and will provide a friendlier personal touch than most.
This is of course at your discretion. However, tipping is a feature of the tourist industry, and if you feel the Tour Guide has done a good job then it is appropriate.
It is very possible that our tours will be full so if you turn up without booking you may well miss the tour. This is particularly relevant on the Times of Misfortune or Tunnel tour, which is extremely popular. We limit numbers on our tours to make them more personable and to maximise enjoyment, so we would have to turn you away if this number has been reached. However, those who booked online will be prioritised, followed by a first to arrive basis.
If you don't book in advance you will not get any notification of changed locations or cancellations. We will always turn up for the tour if someone has booked, but if there have been no bookings for a tour it is very likely that it will be cancelled. And don't forget, all tours are discounted for those who book and pay online.
If you book online via PayPal or debit/credit card, you are prone to receive 5% discount on every tour.
Please come 5-10 minutes before the allotted time so that we are ready to go promptly, especially if you have decided to come without booking online.
The Guide will leave promptly at the designated time. Although there may be an introduction to the tour nearby, this will be brief.
When it comes to cancelation of tour that is paid online, you are subject to cancelation fees:
- Cancellations received greater than 72 hours prior to tour commencement 80% refundable, due to PayPal commission.
- Cancelation for private tours & activities received greater than 7 days prior to tour commencement are 80% refundable, due to PayPal commission
- Cancellations received within 72 hours of tour commencement are non-refundable
- Cancellations for private tours & activities received within 7 days of tour commencement are non-refundable.
If there are extenuating circumstances why you were unable to attend or you need to book another date, please contact us at [email protected] and we will try to find best solution for your problem without cancelation fees, but we cannot guarantee this.
When it comes to last day we are afraid that you will not get refund. But you may get extra discount for the same or another tour. If there are extenuating circumstances why you were unable to come, please contact as at [email protected] and we will try to find a space for you on a later date without cancelation fees, but we cannot guarantee this.
It is very unlikely. The main reason for a tour being cancelled would be a major transportation issue, although this is extremely rare. The Guides live in Sarajevo, and there is always a backup for every tour. Very rarely extreme weather conditions could prevent a tour going ahead, but even in heavy rain or snow tours generally continue, because our policy is to provide FREE raincoats. If you are not 100% satisfied with this, we will endeavour to provide you with a an alternative date, tour or discount.In the event of cancellation, we will endeavour to let you know with as much notice as possible by either email or SMS and provide a full and prompt refund or offer an alternative date/tour if preferable.
The duration of our tours vary. Check the details of the individual tours for further information.
The theme of the tour will not deviate from what is advertised, although the guide reserves the right to alter the content and route.
We are keen to ensure that the groups are not too large. As such, we have placed a limit of 20 people for walking tours, and 9 people for long distance excursions.
We have a variety of tours. The walking tours are lively and fun, and are suitable for all ages, but require good mobility. Some adventure tours are not suitable for children, but can be reorganised for private tours if needed. You need to clearly state this when booking the tour.
Currently we have discounted tickets for larger groups, tourists under 18 years old, students. Children under 7 years old come for free. Please send us inquiry at [email protected] about discounts we will be more than happy to reply.
Yes, we have group discounts and larger groups can have private tour with no extra charge. Please contact us at [email protected] regarding this.
Our guide will wear a coat or shirt with InfoBosnia logo, and usually be carrying InfoBosnia flag.
The Guide will remind you of safety precautions at the beginning of each walk, but each member of the group is responsible for their own safety.
We encourage your feedback, and as such will provide each member of the tour with our contact details at the end of the tour. Please send your comments to [email protected] and feel free to post your review on Trip Advisor, Google or Yelp.
As we are a relatively new company, any positive feedback which can be seen on TripAdvisor or our Facebook page is enormously appreciated so that more people can enjoy our tours in the future!
If in the unlikely event that you have a complaint, please email us at [email protected] and we will endeavour to respond promptly.
We would suggest dressing sensibly for the predicted weather conditions. We regularly check weather conditions and you will be informed about the need of raincoat or small umbrella. In case you did not bring raincoat or umbrella you will be provided raincoat. As the tours in Sarajevo usually last a maximum of 3 to 4 hours, we will not be stopping for breaks, although we will endeavour to start and finish near to public facilities and shops. We would recommend bringing some water, and using the public facilities before coming on the tour. For long distance excursions there are stops for toilet/refreshment/lunch break.
At InfoBosnia we try to be as inclusive as possible and care for our customers, so if you have any particular disability you may get private tour without extra charges and other benefits. Please email us beforehand and we will do our best to ensure the tour works for you.
No, your confirmation email is your ticket. Just show this to the tourist information centre on the day of the tour.


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Message-ID: <firstname.lastname@example.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <email@example.com>
To: Cyb <email@example.com>, Wryting-L <firstname.lastname@example.com>
Subject: At Interrupt 2 and the noise thereafter
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:06:34 -0500 (EST)
At Interrupt 2 and the noise thereafter http://www.alansondheim.org/AS-CF-Sun.mp3 Chris Funkhouser, flute Alan Sondheim, harmonic minor and valveless chromatic harmonicas this was the first time we played together with flute and harmonica, that is, and I've been noticing, having returned fromInterrupt 2, that my typing has somehow goe from bad to worse, and I;m wondering if this is early onset dementiia or an issue of stres; certainly the keyboards haven't changed over the past fourdays, but the typing has turned to what might be considered an almost chidish scrwal. sooner or later I'll just be able to communicate with music, if that. in the mentaime I was interviewed by the NY Daily News in regard to an email I sent desribing the noise in our neighborhood, which is out of control, the sresult of construct that takes no responsibility for building an NBA arena in the middle of a residential neighborhood, soething we fought for years and lost. At least enjoy the music, from Interupt, and all the tahnks in the world to John Cayley, who organized the wonderfuul event, - by the way what i meant to say is that the sleeplessness that reults form the noise of jackhammering, badly st etal lates, and street sawing might actually be the cause of the stress that leads to this sort of typing nonsense, who says that noise pollution isn't on the increase to inconceivable levels - Apan


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Friends Season 4 Episode 1 : The One With The Jellyfish
Monica is stung by a jellyfish and asks Joey and Chandler to help her. The three of them later behave uncomfortably around each other after what happened when they helped Monica, which is later revealed that Chandler peed on her to ease the pain. Ross and Rachel get back together until Ross cannot stand Rachel thinking he has taken full responsibility for the flaws in their relationship. Phoebe gets to know her birth mother.
Episode Guide
Season 01
Season 02
Season 03
Season 04
Season 05
Season 06
Season 07
Season 08
Season 09
Season 10


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Find Info in Google Analytics
Your Questions
Where to Find the Answer
Which pages are the most visited and also which of your pages are most visited?
What percentage of ALA pageviews do they have?
To find ALA's most visited pages, from Content > Overview, set the dates to the range you want in the upper right corner. Then scroll down to the list of the top 10 pages. Switch to Page Title to the left of the list to view pages by title rather than URL. Go to view full report to see more.
To compare your site's top 10, select your site from the dropdown, and go to Content > Overview again. Pageviews and %Pageviews are shown for each page. Note whether your landing page gets the most traffic.
If your portion of ALA isn't separately tracked, you can search by directory. From Content > Overview, go to view full report. There will be a search box just above the list on the right. Enter the URL like this: /advocacy/copyright. (Always add the forward slash.) This will bring up the most visited pages with those directory structures in the URL. Detailed instructions with screenshots are available.
Locate the number of downloads of a PDF file.
From Content > Overview, click on Event Category. Then click on Downloads in the list. Select PDF as the type of download. To search rather than browse the long list, enter a distinct portion of the PDF's URL, always starting with the forward slash, in the search box.
This information is also available from Content > Events > Top Events.
Compare the number of people who looked at a particular page and how long they stayed on it this year to last year.
Do visitors to your pages stay on them longer than the ALA average?
How many people landed on the page and then bounced right off the site from it?
From Content > Overview, search on the URL sans the http://www.ala.org part. Locate the page. Adjust the search dates and look at the results.
To locate the ALA average time on page, go to Content > Site Content > All Pages in the ALA default. Adjust the dates as needed. Look under the traffic graph to see the third data point. Compare to your content.
How many people are using Chrome to access the site? How does this compare to Internet Explorer?
Go to Audience > Technology > Browser & OS.
Of the people using Internet Explorer, which version is most in use on our site? How does that compare to two years ago?
Go to Audience > Technology > Browser & OS, and click on Internet Explorer in the list.
Where do most referrals to the site come from?
Go to Traffic Sources > Sources > All Traffic area. See also the Referrals. Click on the name of the referrer to see more details. Check for spikes in the pattern.
How many people use mobile devices to access the site?
Go to Audience > Mobile, and scroll down to see that for the last 12 months, the figure is just shy of 10% of visits.
Which mobile platform provides about 75% of our mobile traffic?
Go to Audience > Mobile > Devices, scroll down and add up all the Apple devices. Click on the tiny pie chart emblem to the right of the search box to get a visual, or add up the percentages for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.
How many people who come to the site or to a particular page have never been to it before, and how many are repeat visitors?
For the entire site, go to Audience > Overview and look for the %New Visits number.
Which Social Network drives the most traffic to the ALA site?
Go to Social > Overview, scroll down, and review the list.
Is your latest Social Media initiative driving traffic to the website?
Tip: For starters, it would need to have a link to the website.
What are the top landing pages that people get to after searching?
Go to Traffic Sources > Search Engine Optimization > Landing Pages.
Which page on the site has been shared more than any other?
Go to Social > Overview, scroll down, click on Shared URL to the left of the list.
Where can you go to see an overlay of where people click?
Go to Content > In-Page Analytics.
Where can you learn more?
Login information for the ALA Google Analytics account is available to anyone logged in on this site with an ALA staff login.
A selection of Google Analytics How-to-Videos.
Google Features


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LAS VEGAS >> Police say a clerk at a Las Vegas Dairy Queen shot and killed a sword-wielding, masked man who tried to rob the restaurant.
Detectives say the suspect was shot twice and was lying just outside the doors when officers arrived around 12:15 p.m. Sunday.
The suspect died at a hospital.
Metro Police Lt. Les Lane tells the Las Vegas-Journal the sword was at least three-feet long.
Authorities say the shooting appears to have been in self-defense but that detectives were investigating whether the gun used was properly registered.
They say only two employees and no customers were present at the time of the shooting.


text: As a child growing up in the countryside, Zhen loved exploring nature, watching cartoons and all things story-related. She discovered happiness from drawing at a young age, and since then her passion for telling stories through pictures has only grown. In 2012, she moved to the US to focus more heavily on her study of art. She attended the Academy of Art University and graduated with a B.F.A in illustration. Zhen loves nature, animals and people. She's fond of good movies and traveling and currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.