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Fox says it's bringing back the same trio of "American Idol" judges for the show's 14th season.
The network announced Monday that Jennifer Lopez, Keith Urban and Harry Connick Jr. will be judging singers again in 2015, and Ryan Seacrest will remain the host.
This year's "American Idol" included the show's lowest-rated finale ever, part of a continuing ratings slide for the once-dominant TV series. Fox has shaken up the judges' panel in past years to try to boost viewership but is deciding to stay the course this time.
The network is taking the show's downfall into account in scheduling, saying it will air fewer hours next season, and in many weeks there will be just one episode instead of two.
"American Idol" auditions are coming up in Uniondale, New York; Nashville, Tennessee; New Orleans; and San Francisco.
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Other Interpreters & Translators
State Personnel Board (SPB) for Administrative Hearing or Medical Interpreters
For administrative hearing or medical interpreters, please visit State Personnel Board
Binational Center for the Development of Oaxacan Indigenous Communities
Contact Information for locating interpreters from the Oaxacan region of Mexico trained by the Mexican Indigenous Interpreters Project
Indigenous Interpreting+
Contact information for locating interpreters for languages of Mexico and Guatemala. Some interpreters have general or legal interpreter training- others do not. Inquire on an individual basis.
The National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators
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Dialects and Languages
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Ladies and gentlemen, this marks the first time that we at Haute Plates Industries and Light Mechanical Crop Dusting have composed a "blog" by dictation. Dispel from your minds any image of a human with a notepad and the ability to write in shorthand, however, as I am dictating this to my iPad. Why? Because my laptop died on Sunday, and so did the already-near-death-laptop it replaced.
This process is not without hiccups. For example, while my iPad is a marvel of technology, it does not speak French, and thus "Haute Plates" comes out as "hog place" or "hoot pace." We are not entirely opposed to the former, but the latter sounds more like a small town in West Virginia than a New Orleans food blog, and while Haute Plates does have certain holdings in the Mountaineer state, we are not a town.
In all events, the keyboard on my iPad is at least sufficient to correct spelling and grammatical errors interposed by the iPad interface and my own specious diction.
As fascinating as all this must be to you, it is not the reason that most of you read this work. You're here to read about food, not my technical issues. So what's new in the dining world? I don't know, I don't have a computer.
Just kidding. Hogs for the Cause is this weekend, and had I not been there at the start, I don't think I would appreciate how much the event has grown in the last five years. When it started, there was a single roast suckling pig and some raw oysters to be shucked. The cooking competition started the second year, but it was still small enough that I managed to get through the day as a team of one, effectively, after my two team-mates abandoned me due to "family issues." I guess the birth of children and parental health issues are important to some people.
There are no records of the winners and losers that day as far as I know, so I tell people I won. I do not tell people what I cooked, because unfortunately I do not recall what I cooked. I think it was pork.
From that humble beginning and despite my peripheral involvement the event is now one of the biggest of the year in the city as far as food and music go. Things start with a party on Friday night, when the teams start cooking for the barbecue competition the next day. Music and drinks and lots of food that isn't smoked pork is the order of the evening. Saturday things start at 11 and run through 10 that night. That includes more music, drinks and a lot of pork. It's not Jazz Fest, but it ain't all that far away at this point, and who knows where it goes from here? You can find more out about Hogs for the Cause here.
You can also donate to the "buy Robert a new computer" fund by sending me bitcoin or whatever the kids are using for currency these days.


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The craters in this image (128 km diameter and 195 km diameter) have interior rings of mountains and ejecta deposits which are scarred by deep secondary crater chain groves. This image (FDS 150) was taken during the spacecraft's first encounter with Mercury.
The Mariner 10 mission, managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, explored Venus in February 1974 on the way to three encounters with Mercury-in March and September 1974 and in March 1975. The spacecraft took more than 7,000 photos of Mercury, Venus, the Earth and the Moon.


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Super Sawzall Bl 8T 9Lg Wrekr 5P
The Wrecker is ideal for general purpose demolition cutting. It will deliver exceptional durability in a wide range of materials, including ferrous and non-ferrous metals, plastics, and nail-embedded wood.
- A precise manufacturing process creates a sharper cutting edge on each tooth for a faster cutting blade.
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- A thicker, more rigid blade body resists fracturing and bending for maximum durability.
- The 1″ tall blade body reduces blade twisting for straighter, more accurate cuts.
- Matrix II bi-metal teeth for greater durability.


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Day 37
Love Agrees in Prayer
If two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by May Father. – Matthew 18:19
If someone told you that by changing one thing about your marriage, you could guarantee with near 100 percent assurance that your life together would significantly improve, you would at least want to know what it was. And for many godly couples, that "one thing" is the daily practice of praying together.
To someone who tends to devalue spiritual matters, this sounds fairly ridiculous. And if told that shared prayer is a key ingredient in marital longevity and leads to a heightened sense of sexual intimacy, they would think you had really gone too far. But the unity that grows between a man and woman who regularly pray together forms an intense and powerful connection. Within the sanctuary of your marriage, praying together can work wonders on every level of your relationship.
When you were joined together as husband and wife, God gave you a wedding gift – a permanent prayer partner for life. When you need wisdom on a certain decision, you and your prayer partner can seek God together for the answer. When you're struggling with your own fears and insecurities, your prayer partner can hold your hand and intercede on your behalf. When you and your spouse are not getting along and can't get past a particular argument or sticking point, you can call a time out, drop your weapons, and go with your partner into emergency prayer. It should become your automatic reflex action when you don't know what else to do.
It's hard to stay angry long with someone for whom you're praying. It's hard not to back down when you're hearing your mate humbly cry out to God and beg Him for mercy in the midst of your heated crisis. In prayer, two people remember that God has made them one. And in the grip of His uniting presence, disharmony blends into beauty.
Praying for your spouse leads your heart to care more deeply about them. But more importantly, God is pleased when He sees you both humbling yourselves and seeking His face together. His blessing falls on you when you agree in prayer.
The word Jesus used when He talked about "agreeing" in prayer has the idea of harmonic symphony. Two separate notes, played one at a time, sound different. They're opposed to each other. But play them at the same time – in agreement – and they can create a pleasing sense of harmony. Together they give a fuller, more complete sound than either of them can make on its own.
Agreeing in prayer is like that – even in the midst of disagreeing. It pulls you both back toward your real center. It places you on common ground, face-to-face before the Father. It restores harmony in the midst of contention.
The church – which in Scripture has a marriage connotation with Christ – can sometimes be a place where conflict rules. The disharmony that can flare up over various matters can derail the church from its mission and disrupt the free flow of worship and unity. At times godly church leaders will see what is taking place, break off discussions, and call the people of God to prayer. Instead of continuing the discord and allowing more feelings to be hurt, they will seek unity by turning their hearts back to God and appealing to Him for help.
The same thing happens in our homes when there is an intervention of prayer, even at high points of disagreement. It stops the bleeding. It quiets the loud voices. It pauses you as you realize whose presence you're in.
But prayer is for a lot more than breaking up fights. Prayer is a privilege to be enjoyed on a consistent, daily basis. When you know that prayer time awaits you before going to bed, it will change the way you spend your evening. Even if your prayers together are typically short and to the point, this will become a standing appointment that you can orbit your day around, keeping God in the middle of everything.
It's true that beginning a habit like this can initially feel awkward and uncomfortable. Anything this powerful will surprise you with its weight and responsibility when you actually try doing it. But bear in mind that God wants you to engage with Him – invites you, in fact – and He will grow you as you take it seriously and push past those times when you don't know what to say.
You'll look back at this common thread that ran through everything from average Mondays to major decisions and be so thankful for this "one thing" that changed everything. This is one area where it's imperative that you agree to agree.
Today's Dare
Ask your spouse if you can begin praying together. Talk about the best time to do this -- whether it's in the morning, your lunch hour, or before bedtime. Use this time to commit your concerns, disagreements, and needs before the Lord. Don't forget to thank Him for His provision and blessing. Even if your spouse refuses to do this, resolve to spend this daily time in prayer yourself.
In the morning my prayer comes before You. (Psalm 88:13)
Click here to buy a copy of the Love Dare book.
Material taken from The Love Dare by Stephen and Alex Kendrick, copyright © 2009 by B&H Publishing Group. Used by permission. Unauthorized reproduction in any format is strictly prohibited by law.
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The schedule — long popular in rural Western communities — is becoming more common elsewhere as school leaders search for ways to both attract teachers and save money
Sophie Quinton, Stateline.org
WASHINGTON — The public school in Campo, Colo., hasn't required all its students to come to class on Fridays for nearly two decades. The 44-student district dropped a weekday to boost attendance and better attract teachers to a town so deep in farm country that the nearest grocery store is more than 20 miles away.
"I think the four-day week helped us, initially, in recruiting teachers," the superintendent, Nikki Johnson, said. "Now that so many districts are on four-day, that's not much of an incentive."
No national database tracks the number of public schools that cram instructional hours into four days. But the schedule — long popular in rural Western communities — is becoming more common elsewhere as school leaders search for ways to both attract teachers and save money.
In Oklahoma, for instance, where teachers recently staged a walkout to demand more school funding, cash-strapped districts have been using four-day weeks to cope with a teacher shortage and state budget cuts. Last school year, 97 districts of 513 ran on the compressed schedule, nearly twice as many as the previous year.
Shorter school weeks are generally popular among families, students and teachers, and many school districts say the change saves money and makes it easier to recruit teachers. But the research is inconclusive: Shorter school weeks save only a little, according to education policy researchers. The impact on staffing hasn't been well studied, and results are mixed on whether cramming a week's worth of learning into four days helps or hurts students' learning.
And the changes aren't universally popular. Critics say four-day weeks hurt working families who have to scramble to find child care and could prevent children from accessing free or low-cost meals five days a week. A recent study found that juvenile crime rates were higher in parts of Colorado where schools didn't meet on Fridays.
Still, more than half of Colorado's public school districts have permission from the state to compress their schedule. Most such districts are small and rural, but that's changing. A suburban district near Denver and an urban district in Pueblo have recently grabbed headlines by announcing that they plan to switch to four-day weeks in the fall.
Little is known about how urban districts will adapt to the new schedule. But rural districts that make the switch rarely go back, said Georgia Heyward, a research analyst for the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington Bothell who has studied four-day school weeks in rural areas.
Once parents, students and teachers adjust to the new schedule, they tend to like it — and the community adjusts around it. "Once a couple of the districts start to go to the four-day week, then there's pressure, not only not to go back, but for neighboring districts to adopt the schedule as well," Heyward said.
In some districts, schools have been meeting four days a week for decades. The schedule gained fresh popularity in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, when districts responded to budget cuts by shedding a day.
Today school districts in parts of 22 states use a four-day week, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. For districts to do so, states need to enact legislation that allows schools to count instructional time by the hour, rather than by the week. States west of the Mississippi are more likely to have schools on a four-day schedule.
The state legislatures group estimates that close to 300 school districts nationwide are using the shorter weeks, but Heyward puts the number higher, at 470 districts or more. There are more than 13,500 U.S. school districts.
In Colorado, more than twice as many districts have state approval to hold a four-day week, compared with two decades ago. The typical district with state permission to create an alternate schedule for all its schools has fewer than 250 students, according to a Stateline analysis of state data.
To deliver the required number of instructional hours in four days, schools in the state typically add an hour and a half to each remaining day, according to Colorado's latest information manual on four-day school weeks. Some districts only use the compressed schedule in the winter.
Chris Fiedler, the superintendent of Denver-area School District 27J, has said that he first thought of dropping a school day while crunching budget numbers. The district recently announced that it will not hold classes on Mondays next year.
The average district can save up to 5 percent of its budget by dropping a school day, according to a 2011 report from the Education Commission of the States, a Denver-based policy research organization.
But the switch doesn't put a dent in districts' largest line item: teacher pay and benefits. And, the report found, while four-day weeks can save money on operational expenses, such as heating and cooling, in many cases districts don't save as much as they could because they keep schools open on the fifth day to host sporting events, tutoring programs, and teacher professional development workshops.
District 27J could save up to $1 million a year with its new schedule, said the district's public information officer, Tracy Rudnick, in an email — that's less than 1 percent of its budget. But the district has other reasons for making the switch. "Cost savings were never our number one goal. It is about retaining high-quality teachers and creating a clean, clear and concise schedule."
The district is among the lowest-funded in the Denver area, with the lowest teacher salaries, said Kathey Ruybal, president of the Brighton Education Association, the local teachers union. "We get a lot of new teachers here and there, but we tend to lose them to our neighbor districts." School leaders hope three-day weekends could convince more teachers to stay.
The new schedule will make teachers' lives easier in other ways, Ruybal said. They'll have more time to plan lessons over the weekend and more time to collaborate during the school day. "We're really hoping that it's going to improve our teaching, improve our student achievement scores," she said.
Surveys generally show support for four-day weeks among parents and teachers, according to districts, states and education researchers who have asked adults about the schedule. In rural communities, where students travel long distances for sports games, academic competitions and doctors appointments, it can be efficient to set aside a weekday for extracurricular and family activities, according to the Colorado four-day week information manual.
Some businesses love the schedule, too. In the 1980s, one Colorado resort pushed the local school district to drop a day so teenagers would be able to work on Fridays, said Antonio Pares, a partner at the Colorado-based Donnell-Kay Foundation, which focuses on improving public education in the state.
Dropping a school day can create new challenges for communities, however, and it's not clear whether students benefit. Since District 27J announced its plan to drop Monday classes, parents have crowded information sessions with questions and flooded social media with comments.
"Worst idea ever," one mother commented on 27J's Facebook post announcing the change. She said it would be hard to get her three young children — one of whom has autism — to school at the new, earlier start time, and she's worried the longer days will leave them exhausted. Other parents praised the new schedule.
So many parents expressed concerns about finding child care on Mondays that 27J has announced a child care program that will cost $30 for the day. Seven hundred children have pre-registered, Ruybal said.
In most Colorado communities with four-day schools, however, "the issue of baby-sitting seems to be a wash," the state information manual says. That's because with the longer school day, children get home closer to when their parents do. Parents may find it no more difficult to find child care for a full day than for a few hours every afternoon, the manual says.
Some studies find that the compressed schedule has no effect on test scores. Others find a positive effect. "We don't really know how much academic outcomes are impacted," Heyward said.
She said districts may improve their outcomes after a schedule change because teachers have to rethink instruction. Teachers have more time to plan on the weekends and more time to lead students through hands-on activities during longer weekday class blocks.
In Oklahoma, the superintendent of public instruction, Joy Hofmeister, backed legislation that would have required districts to explain to the state why they need a four-day schedule before adopting one. With advance notice, the state could better help districts plan for the change, for instance by making sure they still complied with special education requirements, she told the Tulsa World at the time. The bill didn't pass.
And in California, 2013 legislation revokes a school's authority to operate on a four-day schedule if test scores fail to meet targets. Washington and Minnesota have similar laws on the books, Heyward said.


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Deer Park Art Festival
Deer Park Town Center, Rand Rd., Deer Park, IL
September 9, 10-5; September 10, 11-5
If you answered yes to any of these questions, a LifeMap is the perfect gift for a birthday, anniversary, wedding, retirement, graduation, memorial, award or honorarium.
LifeMaps are humorous, captivating, whimsical geographical drawings that depict key people, places, personal traits, defining moments and fond memories in the lives of the recipients.
This visual history becomes a treasured possession and family keepsake. Recipients love their LifeMaps because a LifeMap honors, values and celebrates them for being themselves. A LifeMap lets them know the positive impact they have had on others and lets them see the wonderful traits that are appreciated by their friends, family or colleagues.
Who in your life deserves to be celebrated for the unique person they are? Your parents or grandparents for a milestone birthday or anniversary? Your son for his graduation or your daughter for her wedding? A friend or colleague for their retirement? A volunteer as an honorarium or award? Or the family of someone who has died as a memorial – a tribute and keepsake of a special life?
As the saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words," or as Rod Stewart once sang, "Every picture tells a story." On a LifeMap, every picture tells a piece of that person's story in an engaging way that calls up treasured memories.
Every person and family has wonderful stories that are unique to them. I look forward to helping you tell these stories in a beautiful piece of art that will let the recipient recognize and feel the joy of being exactly who they are.


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You want more of this - Toblerone Tart?
Then go grab a fork and come back later!
Somehow I knew you all would run and grab your forks. Thank you for drooling so eagerly - the wait is now over!
This is my third recipe idea for your Christmas meal. With Porcini Cream Soup and the Cranberry Ginger Chutney I hope I was able to provide some other ideas. Well I was not too sure if I should do the Entrée this week or the dessert. I decided to go with dessert first ;-).
What do you get when you combine a light and fluffy mousse to a cake base - a chocolate mousse cake? Hmmnn! OK but what happens when that mousse is not made with regular chocolate but with the mother, king, chocolate of all chocolates? The Toblerone. You get a to-die-for-and-send-me-to-heaven dessert!
I am sure you all know the smooth Swiss chocolate best recognized by the triangle shaped chunks. Did you know that these triangles represent the Matterhorn mountain in the Swiss Alps? In 1908 two Swiss gentlemen, Theodore Tobler and Emil Baumann, created the first milk chocolate, which included wonderful nougat, almonds and honey. Derived from Mr. Tobler's name and the Italian word for nougat - torrone -, the Toblerone today is one of the best selling chocolates in the world.
Right, so you might think "well golly that is satisfying enough!" But you see one has to go beyond the borderline at times. "Satisfying enough" is just not good enough at times. There has to be swooning and drooling when this dessert is presented. Combining the mousse with a tart is an ingenious plan.
The crust is baked blind and the mousse is whipped to it's smooth, fluffy consistency. Together, they make anyone weak and want more.
Without much ado I present to you The Toblerone Tart!
BTW: If you are still looking for a few Christmas gifts, over at the Daily Tiffin I have offered a few book ideas for the kiddies and of course a selection of cookbooks. Make sure you check it out!
For the tart crust:
Zest from 1 orange
135g concentrated butter
100g sugar
1 egg
50g ground almonds
200g flour
1/4 teaspoon backing powder
For the mousse:
100g chocolate containing 70% cocoa - coarsely chopped
200g Toblerone - coarsely chopped
70g Butter
300g cream
2 eggs
2 tablespoons clear honey
Pre-heat the oven at 200 degrees Celsius.
In a large bowl, using am electric beater, whisk together the orange zest, 125g of the concentrated butter, sugar, and egg until creamy. Knead in the flour, baking powder and ground almonds. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and keep cool for 2 hours.
Roll out the dough to the size of your tart form. Using the rest of the butter grease the tart form and place the dough into the form. Cut out any edges. Place a sheet of baking paper onto the dough and either using pie weights or dried beans/peas, blind bake the tart for approx. 15 minutes. I would recommend using dried beans or peas as the weights can sometimes be too heavy for the tart crust, causing it to bake unevenly. After use, the beans/peas can be stored in a dry plastic bag and used for baking over and over again.
Take the tart out of the oven remove the beans/peas and baking paper, then bake the crust for another 5 minutes.
To prepare the chocolate mousse, place a bowl over a pot of boiling water. Add the chocolate, toblerone and butter to the bowl and allow to gently melt. Brush the tart base with some of this mixture. Keep the rest cool. Beat the cream half stiff.
Whisk the egg and the honey together and gently fold in the chocolate mixture and the half beaten cream. Pour the entire mousse mixture onto the tart base, smoothing where ever necessary. Refrigerate for 2 hours.
Decorate and serve chilled.
Although this cake looks like you can eat large amounts of it, you will realize that one slice is very deliciously filling. The orangy flavors in the tart crust harmonize so perfectly with the chocolatey aromas of the mousse. Just perfect for a lovely festive dessert.
The counter on the First Giving site reads US$ 11,900.00 and it is increasing by the minute. You can help by donating to the Menu For Hope III charity this year - United Nations World Food Programme by bidding on some great prizes. The list of all the spectacular prizes can be viewed on Chez Pim's campaign prize page.
Maybe you would like to add this to your collection! Or you would like to decorate your walls with these gorgeous photos. How about a makeover for your blog. Whatever you do - please help us raise more money for Menu For Hope!
More details on how to bid can be found here.
Dig into your pockets and give with open hearts. Help us raise money for those who really need it.
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menu for hope, united nations, world food programme, donate, charity, fundraiser, food, Dorie Greenspan, toblerone, chocolate,dessert,tart, mousse,festive,christmas, recipe
23 comments:
I want! I want ! right now :((ReplyDelete
I am ready :PReplyDelete
Not fair....!ReplyDelete
I want i want.... I want it now!!!! Meeta!!!! now this is torture!!!!ReplyDelete
You're such a tease Meeta. This is not nice at all...ReplyDelete
I m here for the first time and kinda fell in love with your blog. Very nice Pictures and blog. Will keep visiting for more nice recipes.ReplyDelete
Thanks, Nidhi.
Right...well...I'm waiting with fork at the ready.ReplyDelete
*has fork and is ready!*ReplyDelete
WOW...that sure sounds like a free ticket to Heaven !! :-)ReplyDelete
wow meeta,ReplyDelete
That looks so yummy. I wish i can just crab that piece...
Love anything with has choclate...
Thanks for posting the recipe! It will have to wait until after Christmas as we have the trditional Buche de Noel and I have a feeling I will be making a few!ReplyDelete
This looks decadent and "melt in your mouth"
Orange zest in the crush...brilliant!ReplyDelete
I thought that tart was amazing to begin with, but now I find out it's a Toblerone tart? Well that's just too much! Before I wanted some, now I NEED some.ReplyDelete
toblerone in a tart... this is sinful:)ReplyDelete
what is concentrated butter in german, pls?
here i come toblerone...
This isn't very original but...ReplyDelete
Okay blogger doesn't like me anymore.. if this shows up anonymous, it's me.. Lis :D
This isn't very original but...ReplyDelete
This isn't very original but...ReplyDelete
once I saw almond, orange zest and concentrate butter, I know I must fell in love in this tart! Agree, should be the treat that just a little can go a long way.
The color in your photo is always gorgeous, so warm and so real!
Lovely - Toblerone is one of the first IMPORTED chocolates to woo Indians i guess. The eggs in this recipe are raw right? May be you must post a word of caution to those who cant eat raw eggs.ReplyDelete
Its looks so goooey and for once Im happy that I cant get fat looking at yoru pics hehehe
Wow, well I think it's safe to say the drooling and cravings are in full swing. I'm a lover of Toblerone but I guess so is everybody else here. He,he,he.ReplyDelete
Beautiful Meeta and such a subtle touch with the orange in the crust.
How did u manage to make this yum thing? I would never get past cutting up the tobelerone. Thats my all time favorite chocolate. Why waste it on others?ReplyDelete
I knew you'd be drooling. It truly is a sinful treat and although as Lisa says not original but with the Toblerone it is a heavenly treat.ReplyDelete
Latha concentrated butter would be BUTTERFETT in German. Use Butaris!
I would like MUCH more!!!ReplyDelete
Thank you for visiting What's For Lunch, Honey? and taking time to browse through my recipes, listen to my ramblings and enjoy my photographs. I appreciate all your comments, feedback and input. I will answer your questions to my best knowledge and respond to your comments as soon as possible.
In the meantime I hope you enjoy your stay here and that I was able to make this an experience for your senses.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.


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1969 Plymouth Road Runner Hemi - No Preservatives, No Additives
1969 Plymouth Road Runner • 4.10 Sure Grip Dana • 99.9-percent Factory Original • 426 Hemi • 727 TorqueFlite
Related Video
Aside from some vital fluids, a set of reproduction polyglass Redline tires, 15,000 miles on the odometer, and a couple of replacement engine bearings, Mike Pehanich's '69 Road Runner is exactly how it left the dealership floor when new. But before you wonder how much he blew on the restoration, you should know Mike has owned this pristine B-Body since the summer of 1970.
Traded in, the R6 Red Plymouth sat in a Taylor, Pennsylvania, dealership lot for only a short time before 17-year-old Mike came across it in 1970. Loaded to the hilt with enough factory ingredients to bring it close to the luxury level of the higher-tiered GTX, the B-Body featured plush bucket seats with headrests, a center console with a woodgrain insert, interior light package, power steering, power disc brakes, an in-dash tachometer, a manually controlled Air Grabber hood, Magnum 500 wheels with matching knock-offs, a Sure Grip-equipped Dana with a hearty 4.10 gear ratio, and, of course, the 426. Scrounging together what money he could, Mike quickly signed his name on the dotted line and drove his prize home.
With only 188 Road Runners built with a Hemi backed by a TorqueFlite, Mike's Runner is in an even narrower catagory. its fender-mounted turn-signal indicators, matte-black hood stripes, dual rearview mirrors, and the eight-track stereo make this Lynch Road creation something to be appreciated. The driver-side six-way adjustable bucket seat, rear window defogger, and tinted windows were normally found in the highest trim echelon, not on a vehicle that was initially intended for high school and college students with a few extra dollars to spend on their first authentic musclecar. which leaves one to wonder who the original purchaser was to order such an opulently outfitted machine.
The loaded Plymouth outweighed Mike's musclecar enthusiast friends' rides, but the Hemi more than made up for the weight difference. He put the advertised 425 horses to work street racing around his Pennsylvania hometown and blowing down the local dragstrip.
In 1977, Mike would meet Cathy, the woman who would become his wife. When they were on their first date in the red '69, a naive or overly confident 427-equipped Super Sport Chevelle muscled up against the Hemi bird. Wanting to put the Bow Tie in its place and show off his racing prowess, Mike planted the accelerator to the floor and watched the Chevelle's lights disappear in his rearview mirrors. He says, "Well, she didn't dump me right there, so I guess she liked it."
As time went on, Mike began to hear the telling sounds of a worn bearing. He purchased the appropriate parts from the local dealership, dropped them in the trunk, and parked the Runner in his father's garage, where it would remain for a decade when a new marriage and raising a young son would take priority over rebuilding the wounded elephant.
Tired of seeing the "broken-down bird" taking up garage space, Mike's dad demanded he either junk the B-Body or find some place else to stash it. Mike retreated to his Mountain Top, Pennsylvania, home and built a garage specifically for the Plymouth. There he pulled the Hemi, replaced the crankshaft bearings, and swapped out the original battery and Redline tires. But this time, he had help putting the Road Runner back together from his teenage son, Michael, who had grown up around the Road Runner and his dad's other stout Mopars: a '65 Satellite, a '68 Coronet R/T, another Road Runner (a '69 1/2 440 Six Barrel), and two Super Bees ('69 and '70), and was quite an apt Mopar pupil.
Once completed, Mike and his son took it out for a spin. many of his old street racing friends were amazed he still had the same red '69 Hemi Road Runner after all these years.
It was the burnt bearings that helped preserve the Plymouth's gorgeous condition. Unable to run under its own power, the bird was forced into hibernation, where the interior and factory R6 Red paint would be protected from the sun's damaging rays, careless shoppers in parking lots, and other dings, dents, and scratches. its unwilling abandonment would save the original condition, thus making it a prime example of a surviving Hemi-powered Road Runner.
Current rising auction prices would ensure the Runner's preservation as Mike watched his liability transform into an asset. He realized the immaculate-condition B-Body was now worth more as a "survivor" than something to be raced and toyed with, so he reserved the dated-coded, all-original '69 bird as a show and occasional cruiser.
As of press time, the clock shows a meager 14,930 miles.
Fast Facts: '69 Plymouth Road RunnerMike Pehanich - Mountain Top, PA
Mopar Power
Engine: The stock 426 Hemi was made with an eight-bolt steel crank, Hemi connecting rods, 10.5:1 compression pistons, and a solid lifter Chrysler camshaft, factory iron heads with original valves, rocker arms, and dual-carburetor intake manifold topped with a pair of AFB Carters. Only a couple of main bearings needed to be replaced nearly 14 years after Mike purchased the Runner in 1970.
Transmission: Never requiring a rebuild, the factory 727 TorqueFlite is exactly how it came from the factory with the original torque converter.
Rearend: Part of the allure of the B-Body was its Dana 60, filled with a Sure Grip differential and 4.10 gears.
The books say 425 horsepower, but we know better than that, don't we?
Sure Grip
Suspension: Nothing has changed, even the ball joints. Power steering helps heave the wheels left to right underneath the bulk of the weighty elephant. Even the shocks are the same as if it was still the fall of 1968.
Brakes: Power brakes came standard with nearly every Hemi-equipped Mopar. The power discs and drums in back struggle to bring the Road Runner to a screaming halt when decelerating from a hard pull.
Wheels: 15x7-inch Magnum 500 wheels with the factory spinner caps.
Rubber: Replacement Redline Goodyears, G-70s at all four corners.
High Impact
Body: No replacement panels, no bodywork, nada-it's 100-percent original.
Paint: Never repainted, the factory E6 Red paint still looks amazing.
Interior: never replaced or touched up, the interior boasts a Christmas list of goodies that would make a fully-loaded GTX or Charger blush-six-way adjustable bucket seats with adjustable headrests, a woodgrain-topped center console with interior light package, an eight-track stereo and three factory speakers, factory tinted windows with a rear-window defogger, manual Air Grabber underdash lever, and an in-dash tachometer. The only thing missing we could think of would be power windows and air conditioning, though Hemi cars couldn't come with A/C.
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I felt a disturbance in the fun, as if a million playgrounds cried out, and then
cooled by ToasterLeavings
|scrotum pole
|The moment you realize you can't be good at everything
|Vampire Tag
|Recess is dead
|Every "why" question can be answered by a phrase using the word "idiot"
|The bees were cool
|The Republicans, the Democrats, and the Cobra Venom
|Lazer Tag
|How I learned the secret of the pendulum from Japanese playground equipment
|Disturbance in the force
|The letter I'm too chicken to mail
|Chicken fight
|I want it to be more like the things I write
|Where do these girls come from these days? Some finishing school in the desert?
|All the trees are gone and we are sad and we do miss them
|Today, I almost got killed by Darth Vader
|Robert's Rules of Order
|Kids these days
|centrifugal force
|What to do if you've got too many votes on your hands


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public interface HandlerAdapter
Interface that must be implemented for each handler type to handle a request.
This interface is used to allow the
DispatcherServlet to be indefinitely
extensible. The DispatcherServlet accesses all installed handlers through this
interface, meaning that it does not contain code specific to any handler type.
Note that a handler can be of type
Object. This is to enable
handlers from other frameworks to be integrated with this framework without
custom coding, as well as to allow for annotation handler objects that do
not obey any specific Java interface.
This interface is not intended for application developers. It is available to handlers who want to develop their own web workflow.
Note: HandlerAdaptger implementators may implement the
Ordered interface to be able to specify a
sorting order (and thus a priority) for getting applied by DispatcherServlet.
Non-Ordered instances get treated as lowest priority.
|Modifier and Type
|Method and Description
getLastModified(HttpServletRequest request,
Object handler)
Same contract as for HttpServlet's
getLastModified method.
handle(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response,
Object handler)
Use the given handler to handle this request.
supports(Object handler)
Given a handler instance, return whether or not this HandlerAdapter can support it.
boolean supports(Object handler)
A typical implementation:
return (handler instanceof MyHandler);
handler - handler object to check
ModelAndView handle(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response, Object handler) throws Exception
request - current HTTP request
response - current HTTP response
handler - handler to use. This object must have previously been passed
to the
supports method of this interface, which must have
null if the request has been handled directly
Exception - in case of errors
long getLastModified(HttpServletRequest request, Object handler)
getLastModified method.
Can simply return -1 if there's no support in the handler class.
request - current HTTP request
handler - handler to use


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Review by KEN KORCZAK
I was trying to think of the last time I had as much fun as I did while reading TIMELOCK by R.G. Knighton, and then it hit me: The year was 1987.
I was at the movies with a friend. The film we were seeing was EVIL DEAD II, Sam Raimi's campy-but-ingenious blood and gore classic. Evil Dead II is outrageously goofy but devilishly clever. It became an instant laugh-and-shock-a-minute classic. I still consider it to be among my personal "best movies of all time."
Devilishly clever, nutty, bloody, gory, funny and fun would well describe TIMELOCK, which is actually a set of two novels.
The first book involves a group of twenty-something college students attending a second-tier, but upper crust British university. They began to dabble in occult practices and stumble into a way to open a portal into another time and dimension. Trouble ensues when malevolent spirits leap through the portal and attach themselves to the students.
Each student is now "infected" with evil forces from the distant past. A variety of nutty hijinks ensue. What's worse, one of the evil spirits is that of an extremely powerful witch with the wacky name of "Toomak." She has the power to bring about he return of the Antichrist — Satan would be unchained resulting in the destruction of everything that is good, decent and holy forever.
|R.G. Knighton
While the first novel takes place in the 1980s, the second novel shifts the action to the ancient Mideast at the time of Jesus. In the end, the events of the first novel and the second converge in a climatic ending pitting a fierce battle between the forces of Good and Evil.
What really makes this a first rate novel is the author's superior ability to create interesting characters — they are ordinary human beings with all the normal strengths and weaknesses of people we find in the real world.
Each character's motivations are shaped by their circumstances and background — which the author inserts into the narrative with marvelous finesse and ease.
R.G. Knighton is a rare writer — I believe he is a natural talent. He commands a razor-edged wit and a wonderful sense of sardonic irony. His ability to place ordinary people into extraordinary situations is what gives this book a breezy kind of power that doesn't pretend to be anything but sheer entertainment.
The humor of Timelock is dripping with cynicism. Yes, this is dark humor, but pleasant; it's like a premium dark chocolate with a tad of bitterness but ultimately sweet.
Timelock gets my highest recommendation and will easily make my Top 10 List of best books I've read in 2013.
Ken Korczak is a former newspaper reporter, government information officer and has been successfully freelance writing for the past 25 years. He taught writing at the University of North Dakota. Ken in the author of: MINNESOTA PARANORMALA
Follow Ken on Twitter: KEN ON TWITTER


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MELBOURNE, Australia – American teenager Jessica Korda moved into position for a two-sport, father-daughter Australian double, shooting an even-par 73 in windy conditions Saturday to take the Women's Australian Open lead at Royal Melbourne.
Korda, the 18-year-old daughter of 1998 Australian Open tennis champion Petr Korda, had a 4-under 215 total in the LPGA Tour opener on the historic club's difficult Composite Course, the 2011 Presidents Cup venue that is hosting a women's professional event for the first time. She opened with rounds of 72 and 70.
"It would mean a lot," Korda said about following her father with a Melbourne victory. "My Dad was world No. 2. I told him I want to beat that. It would be a great accomplishment, an awesome thing."
So Yeon Ryu, the U.S. Women's Open champion who took a one-stroke lead into the third round, was a stroke back along with fellow South Korean player Hee Kyung Seo and Australia's Nikki Campbell. Ryu shot a 76, Seo had a 75, and Campbell a 70.
"Normally my play style is very aggressive, but this course, it's definitely not," Ryu said. "Always my plan is just par."
Top-ranked Yani Tseng, the winner the last two years at Commonwealth Golf Club, topped the group at 2 under after a 71. The Taiwanese star was still smarting from a three-hole stretch Friday in her second-round 76 when she dropped six strokes with a quadruple-bogey 8 and two bogeys.
"I think I'm in very good position, especially with a course like this," Tseng said. "So, tomorrow I'll play more aggressive and try to get as many birdies as I can."
She knows that could get her in trouble.
"Today, I just tried to slow down a bit and be patient all the time because these greens, it's hard to make birdie and easy to make bogey," Tseng said. "So, you also just have to be patient."
Canada's Lorie Kane and American Katie Futcher also were 2 under. The 47-year-old Kane had a 72, and Futcher shot a 71.
Korda birdied Nos. 7, 9 and 10 — all par 4s — for a share of the lead with Ryu at 6 under, but dropped strokes with bogeys on the par-4 13th and par-5 17th.
"As things started going on and on, I started feeling shaky as the wind gusted toward the end of the day," she said. "I finished pretty strong and kept at level par."
Last year as a rookie, she made eight cuts in 15 LPGA Tour starts.
"It was a learning curve," Korda said. "I was finishing up high school, so it was more of a juggling act than anything. I was not grown up enough. I had to realize a lot of things. It was tough. It was not an easy conversation to have with myself and with my team. I had to grow up a lot last year."
Ryu birdied the second and third holes to reach 8 under, but played her final 14 holes in 5 over with six bogeys and a birdie. She bogeyed the par-4 18th to drop out of a tie for the lead.
"I think today the weather, there was a strong breeze, so I think my body is getting too tight," Ryu said. "I think maybe tomorrow I want to relax my body a little more and I need a little more practice putting. I think tomorrow is the same conditions, so I'm really looking forward to tomorrow."
Campbell had the best round of the day with her 70. She had five birdies and two bogeys.
"Every player would want to win her national championship in any sport," said Campbell, a regular on the Japan LPGA. "Being in a position where I have a chance is more than I could have asked for."
Only nine players were under par after three rounds, with long-hitting American Brittany Lincicome and Paraguay's Julieta Granada three strokes back at 1 under. Lincicome had a 73, and Granada shot a 76.
A day after shooting a tournament-best 66, Seo had three birdies, three bogeys and double bogey in her 75.
"It's one of the hardest courses I have ever played," said Seo, a playoff loser to Ryu last year in the U.S. Women's Open. "It's probably in the top five or the top three and sometimes the breeze is quite crazy. Also the greens are firm and fast, plus the undulations. Most of the players struggled at times, but that's golf."
American Stacy Lewis, 4 under after opening rounds of 69 and 73, was even par after a 77.
Fourteen-year-old New Zealand amateur Lydia Ko was 3 over after a 72, one of only nine sub-par rounds Saturday. She won the New South Wales Open two weeks ago to become the youngest winner of a sanctioned professional tour event.
Australian star Karrie Webb, a four-time winner in the event, was 6 over after her third straight 75.
Second-ranked Suzann Pettersen also was 6 over after a 74. The Norwegian star opened with an 80 — the second-highest score of her LPGA Tour career — and had a 71 on Friday to make the cut.
The LPGA Tour is sanctioning the national championship for the first time, teaming with Australian Ladies Professional Golf and the Ladies European Tour.


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14 July 2008
Czech utility CEZ has requested that the country's Ministry of the Environment conduct an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of two additional reactors at the Temelin nuclear power plant.
Temelin (Image: CEZ)
Work started on the Temelin plant in 1982, with two VVER-1000 type V-320 reactors, designed by Russian organisations and Energoproject and built by VSB with engineering by Skoda Praha. Construction was delayed and when it resumed in the mid 1990s, Westinghouse instrument and control systems were incorporated. The reactors started up in 2000 and 2002, with the upgrading having been financed by CEZ with a loan from the World Bank.
CEZ, which is mainly owned by the Czech government, has suspended its plans for nuclear expansion since the national election in 2006, when a new coalition government agreed not to promote nuclear energy due to opposition from the junior ruling partner, the Green Party. However, senior government representatives, including prime minister Mirek Topolanek, as well as opposition parties, have since advocated nuclear energy.
CEZ said that a government expert commission had recently confirmed the company's forecast that the Czech Republic would start to face an electricity shortage after 2015. Martin Roman, CEO of CEZ, said: "We plan savings and also renewable resource development; however, there is still no other non-emission resource that could generate the necessary volume of electricity. We consider nuclear energy to be the best possible solution in terms of economy and ecology as well." He added, "As a result, we are considering the possibility to complete another two of the originally designed units in Temelin and the EIA is one of the steps in the process of data collection."
In a statement, the company said: "CEZ understands the submission of the request for an EIA is a technical step outside of political decision making. We assume that the political representation will be able to use the complex environmental impact assessment of the plant as one of the sources [of information] for their own decision making in the future."
According to an Agence France Presse report, the Czech prime minister told Czech media that CEZ's request for an EIA would not break the coalition pact, adding that the next government would probably have to decide on whether a new nuclear power plant could be constructed or not.
CEZ owns and operates the Czech Republic's two nuclear power stations (Temelin and Dukovany), and plans have long been mooted for the construction of two further nuclear units at the existing Temelin nuclear power station. The existing nuclear plants supplied some 30% of the country's electricity in 2007.
WNN is a public information service of World Nuclear Association


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The National Moment of Remembrance
- Monday, May 28 2007 @ 02:00 PM CST
- Contributed by: filbert
- Views: 2,081
Through the magic of story scheduling:
The National Moment of Remembrance, established by Congress, asks Americans wherever they are at 3 p.m., local time, on Memorial Day to pause in an act of national unity (duration: one minute).The time 3 p.m. was chosen because it is the time when most Americans are enjoying their freedoms on the national holiday. The Moment does not replace traditional Memorial Day events; rather it is an act of national unity in which all Americans, alone or with family and friends, honor those who died for our freedom. It will help to reclaim Memorial Day as the sacred and noble holiday it was meant to be. In this shared remembrance, we connect as Americans.


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The display and use of drug information on this site is subject to express terms of use. By continuing to view the drug information, you agree to abide by such terms of use.
GENERIC NAME: METFORMIN SUSTAINED-ACTION TABLET - ORAL (met-FOR-min)
BRAND NAME(S): Fortamet, Glucophage XR, Glumetza
Warning | Medication Uses | How To Use | Side Effects | Precautions | Drug Interactions | Overdose | Notes | Missed Dose | Storage
WARNING: Metformin can rarely cause a serious (sometimes fatal) condition called lactic acidosis. Stop taking metformin and get medical help right away if you develop any of the following symptoms of lactic acidosis: unusual tiredness, dizziness, severe drowsiness, chills, blue/cold skin, muscle pain, fast/difficult breathing, slow/irregular heartbeat, stomach pain with nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea.
Lactic acidosis is more likely to occur in patients who have certain medical conditions, including kidney or liver disease, recent surgery, a serious infection, conditions that may cause a low level of oxygen in the blood or poor circulation (such as congestive heart failure, recent heart attack, recent stroke), heavy alcohol use, a severe loss of body fluids (dehydration), or X-ray or scanning procedures that require an injectable iodinated contrast drug. Tell your doctor immediately if any of these conditions occur or if you notice a big change in your overall health. You may need to stop taking this medication temporarily. The elderly are also at higher risk, especially those older than 80 years who have not had kidney tests. (See also Side Effects and Precautions sections.)
USES: Metformin is used with a proper diet and exercise program and possibly with other medications to control high blood sugar. It is used in patients with type 2 diabetes. Controlling high blood sugar helps prevent kidney damage, blindness, nerve problems, loss of limbs, and sexual function problems. Proper control of diabetes may also lessen your risk of a heart attack or stroke. Metformin works by helping to restore your body's proper response to the insulin you naturally produce. It also decreases the amount of sugar that your liver makes and that your stomach/intestines absorb.OTHER This section contains uses of this drug that are not listed in the approved professional labeling for the drug but that may be prescribed by your health care professional. Use this drug for a condition that is listed in this section only if it has been so prescribed by your health care professional.Metformin may be used with lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise to prevent diabetes in people who are at high risk for becoming diabetic. It is also used in women with a certain disease of the ovaries (polycystic ovarian syndrome). Metformin may make menstrual cycles more regular and increase fertility.
HOW TO USE: Read the Patient Information Leaflet if available from your pharmacist before you start taking metformin and each time you get a refill. If you have any questions, consult your doctor or pharmacist.Take this medication by mouth as directed by your doctor, usually once daily with the evening meal. Drink plenty of fluids while taking this medication unless otherwise directed by your doctor.Do not crush or chew this medication. Doing so can release all of the drug at once, increasing the risk of side effects. Also, do not split the tablets unless they have a score line and your doctor or pharmacist tells you to do so. Swallow the whole or split tablet without crushing or chewing.The dosage is based on your medical condition, kidney function, and response to treatment. Your doctor may direct you to take a low dose of this medication at first, gradually increasing your dose to lower the chance of side effects such as upset stomach. Your doctor will adjust your dose based on your blood sugar levels to find the best dose for you. Follow your doctor's directions carefully.Take this medication regularly in order to get the most benefit from it. Remember to use it at the same time each day.If you are already taking another anti-diabetic drug (such as chlorpropamide), follow your doctor's directions carefully for stopping/continuing the old drug and starting metformin.Check your blood sugar regularly as directed by your doctor. Keep track of the results, and share them with your doctor. Tell your doctor if your blood sugar measurements are too high or too low. Your dosage/treatment may need to be changed.
SIDE EFFECTS: Nausea, vomiting, stomach upset, diarrhea, weakness, or a metallic taste in the mouth may occur. If any of these effects persist or worsen, tell your doctor or pharmacist promptly. If stomach symptoms return later (after taking the same dose for several days or weeks), tell your doctor immediately. Stomach symptoms that occur after the first days of your treatment may be signs of lactic acidosis.An empty tablet shell may appear in your stool. This effect is harmless because your body has already absorbed the medication.Remember that your doctor has prescribed this medication because he or she has judged that the benefit to you is greater than the risk of side effects. Many people using this medication do not have serious side effects.Metformin does not usually cause low blood sugar (hypoglycemia). Low blood sugar may occur if this drug is prescribed with other anti-diabetic medications. Talk with your doctor or pharmacist about whether the dose of your other diabetic medication(s) needs to be lowered.Symptoms of low blood sugar include sudden sweating, shaking, fast heartbeat, hunger, blurred vision, dizziness, or tingling hands/feet. It is a good habit to carry glucose tablets or gel to treat low blood sugar. If you don't have these reliable forms of glucose, rapidly raise your blood sugar by eating a quick source of sugar such as table sugar, honey, or candy, or drink fruit juice or non-diet soda. Tell your doctor about the reaction immediately. Low blood sugar is more likely if you drink large amounts of alcohol, do unusually heavy exercise, or do not consume enough calories from food. To help prevent low blood sugar, eat meals on a regular schedule, and do not skip meals. Check with your doctor or pharmacist to find out what you should do if you miss a meal.Symptoms of high blood sugar (hyperglycemia) include thirst, increased urination, confusion, drowsiness, flushing, rapid breathing, and fruity breath odor. If these symptoms occur, tell your doctor immediately. Your doctor may need to adjust your diabetes medication(s).Stop taking this medication and tell your doctor right away if this very serious side effect occurs: lactic acidosis (see Warning section).A very serious allergic reaction to this drug is rare. However, get medical help right away if you notice any of the following symptoms of a serious allergic reaction: rash, itching/swelling (especially of the face/tongue/throat), severe dizziness, trouble breathing.This is not a complete list of possible side effects. If you notice other effects not listed above, contact your doctor or pharmacist.In the US -Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.In Canada - Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to Health Canada at 1-866-234-2345.
QUESTIONSee Answer
PRECAUTIONS: See also Warning section.Before taking this medication, tell your doctor or pharmacist if you are allergic to metformin; or if you have any other allergies. This product may contain inactive ingredients, which can cause allergic reactions or other problems. Talk to your pharmacist for more details.Before using this medication, tell your doctor or pharmacist your medical history, especially of: severe breathing problems (such as obstructive lung disease, severe asthma), blood problems (such as anemia, vitamin B12 deficiency), kidney disease, liver disease.Before having surgery or any X-ray/scanning procedure using injectable iodinated contrast material, tell your doctor that you are taking this medication. You will need to temporarily stop this medication before the time of your surgery/procedure. Consult your doctor for further instructions.Before having surgery, tell your doctor or dentist about all the products you use (including prescription drugs, nonprescription drugs, and herbal products).You may experience blurred vision, dizziness, or drowsiness due to extremely low or high blood sugar levels. Do not drive, use machinery, or do any activity that requires alertness or clear vision until you are sure you can perform such activities safely.Limit alcohol while using this medication because it can increase your risk of lactic acidosis and developing low blood sugar.High fever, "water pills" (diuretics such as hydrochlorothiazide), too much sweating, diarrhea, or vomiting may cause loss of too much body water (dehydration) and increase your risk of lactic acidosis. Stop taking this medication and tell your doctor right away if you have prolonged diarrhea or vomiting. Be sure to drink enough fluids to prevent dehydration unless your doctor directs you otherwise.It may be harder to control your blood sugar when your body is stressed (such as due to fever, infection, injury, or surgery). Consult your doctor because increased stress may require a change in your treatment plan, medications, or blood sugar testing.Older adults may be a greater risk for side effects such as low blood sugar or lactic acidosis.During pregnancy, this medication should be used only when clearly needed. Discuss the risks and benefits with your doctor. Your doctor may direct you to use insulin instead of this product during your pregnancy. Follow your doctor's instructions carefully.Metformin can cause changes in the menstrual cycle (promote ovulation) and increase the risk of becoming pregnant. Consult your doctor or pharmacist about the use of reliable birth control while using this medication.Metformin passes into breast milk in small amounts. Consult your doctor before breast-feeding.
DRUG INTERACTIONS: Drug interactions may change how your medications work or increase your risk for serious side effects. This document does not contain all possible drug interactions. Keep a list of all the products you use (including prescription/nonprescription drugs and herbal products) and share it with your doctor and pharmacist. Do not start, stop, or change the dosage of any medicines without your doctor's approval.Beta-blocker medications (such as metoprolol, propranolol, glaucoma eye drops such as timolol) may prevent the fast/pounding heartbeat you would usually feel when your blood sugar level falls too low (hypoglycemia). Other symptoms of low blood sugar, such as dizziness, hunger, or sweating, are unaffected by these drugs.Many drugs can affect your blood sugar levels, making it more difficult to control your blood sugar. Before you start, stop, or change any medication, talk with your doctor or pharmacist about how the medication may affect your blood sugar. Check your blood sugar levels regularly as directed by your doctor. Tell your doctor about the results and of any symptoms of high or low blood sugar. (See also Side Effects section.) Your doctor may need to adjust your anti-diabetic medication, exercise program, or diet.
OVERDOSE: If overdose is suspected, contact a poison control center or emergency room immediately. US residents can call their local poison control center at 1-800-222-1222. Canada residents can call a provincial poison control center. Overdose can cause lactic acidosis. Symptoms of overdose may include: severe drowsiness, severe nausea/vomiting/diarrhea, rapid breathing, slow/irregular heartbeat.
NOTES: Do not share this medication with others.You should attend a diabetes education program to learn more about diabetes and all the important aspects of its treatment, including meals/diet, exercise, personal hygiene, medications, and getting regular eye/foot/medical exams.Keep all medical appointments. Laboratory and/or medical tests (such as liver/kidney function tests, blood glucose, hemoglobin A1c, complete blood counts) should be performed periodically to check for side effects and monitor your response to treatment. Check your blood sugar levels regularly as directed.
MISSED DOSE: If you miss a dose, take it as soon as you remember. If it is near the time of the next dose, skip the missed dose and resume your usual dosing schedule. Do not double the dose to catch up.
STORAGE: Store at room temperature away from light and moisture. Do not store in the bathroom. Keep all medications away from children and pets.Do not flush medications down the toilet or pour them into a drain unless instructed to do so. Properly discard this product when it is expired or no longer needed. Consult your pharmacist or local waste disposal company for more details about how to safely discard your product.MEDICAL ALERT: Your condition can cause complications in a medical emergency. For information about enrolling in MedicAlert, call 1-888-633-4298 (US) or 1-800-668-1507 (Canada).
Information last revised March 2014. Copyright(c) 2014 First Databank, Inc.
Report Problems to the Food and Drug Administration
You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit the FDA MedWatch website or call 1-800-FDA-1088.
Selected from data included with permission and copyrighted by First Databank, Inc. This copyrighted material has been downloaded from a licensed data provider and is not for distribution, except as may be authorized by the applicable terms of use.
CONDITIONS OF USE: The information in this database is intended to supplement, not substitute for, the expertise and judgment of healthcare professionals. The information is not intended to cover all possible uses, directions, precautions, drug interactions or adverse effects, nor should it be construed to indicate that use of particular drug is safe, appropriate or effective for you or anyone else. A healthcare professional should be consulted before taking any drug, changing any diet or commencing or discontinuing any course of treatment.


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1. Kevin Costner, The Big Chill (1983)
Kevin Costner missed out on a huge break when his small but central role in 1983's The Big Chill was cut, but he became one of the most famous cases of an actor getting removed from a prominent movie. Costner, still years away from being famous in his own right, was originally supposed to appear in several flashback scenes to show what his character was like before his suicide and funeral bring together a group of college friends and facilitate numerous Motown sing-alongs. But considering the ruthless editing that all but removed him from the movie, it's fitting that only his slashed wrists are visible as a mortician attends to his corpse in the opening scene. Needless to say, Costner's career recovered, and Big Chill writer-director Lawrence Kasdan gave his friend a consolation prize by casting him as one of the leads in the well-regarded 1985 Western Silverado.
2. La Toya Jackson, Brüno (2009)
Sacha Baron Cohen isn't known for his sensitivity. But after Michael Jackson died, Cohen bowed to the dictates of good taste for perhaps the first and last time by cutting a scene from Brüno in which his in-your-face fashionista character Brüno invites La Toya Jackson to eat sushi off an obese naked man, and all but begs her to call her brother Michael and get him to join them. Or, failing that, pretend to be Michael Jackson: "I could get you the jacket and the glove, all you'd have to do is speak in a slightly higher voice," Cohen insists to a visibly uncomfortable La Toya. Unlike pretty much everyone else on this list, La Toya was probably thrilled at being deleted from a film, though her scene did turn up on the DVD.
3. Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas, Viggo Mortensen, and Mickey Rourke, The Thin Red Line (1998)
For his first film since 1978's Days Of Heaven, famed writer-director Terrence Malick brought together seemingly every male star in Hollywood, including Sean Penn, George Clooney, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Nick Nolte, John C. Reilly, John Travolta, Thomas Jane, and many, many more. But a cavalcade of big names fell victim to his unusual working methods and 20th Century Fox's understandable reluctance to release a five-hour-plus movie. Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas, Viggo Mortensen, and Mickey Rourke were all eventually cut from Malick's loose, largely improvised adaptation of James Jones' anti-war novel. Malick began with a script that served only as a loose outline, then shot enough material for his five-hour cut. When The Thin Red Line was shortened considerably, plenty of heavyweight thespians ended up on the cutting-room floor. Malick has hinted that he might someday release a director's cut restoring their roles and greatly expanding the roles of actors who did make it into the film, but given the pace at which he works, cultists shouldn't hold their breath waiting.
4. James Van Der Beek, Storytelling (2001)
As it exists now, Todd Solondz's 2001 feature Storytelling divides neatly into two halves: "Fiction," in which a creative-writing professor has affairs with his students, and "Non-Fiction," in which Paul Giamatti plays a documentarian making a film about a high-school student and his family. But was there supposed to be a third segment? That's the rumor that's circulated since the film's release. What is known: James Van Der Beek shot scenes in which he played a gay football player, including an explicit sex scene, but he doesn't appear in the movie at all. Solondz remains elusive about the cut, but as reported by The Playlist, he did recently tell a Boston audience, "I have dropped actors in every single movie, and not because I didn't like their work, but a movie has to breathe, it has to have its proper life, so you have to, as they say, 'kill your babies so the whole can live.' So certainly [he wasn't dropped] because someone told me I had to get rid of him, or the sex scene was too explicit, nothing silly like that. No, it was an artistic decision."
5. Ghostface Killah, Iron Man (2008)
Wu-Tang Clan rapper, eccentric, and all-around loose cannon Ghostface Killah adopted the persona of comic-book superhero Iron Man/dashing millionaire industrialist playboy Tony Stark (or "Tony Starks," in Ghostface-ese) as one of his many hip-hop alter egos. Ghostface even named his debut solo album Ironman. So when Paramount finally got around to adapting Iron Man for the big screen, the filmmakers figured they'd acknowledge the rapper's longtime association with the Marvel hero by giving him a tongue-in-cheek cameo. Alas, the scene where hip-hop's Iron Man rubs shoulders with the cinematic incarnation in Dubai was cut for pacing reasons, and Ghostface only made it into the finished film via a video for his song "Celebration."
6. David and Peter Paul, Natural Born Killers (1994)
According to Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary, bodybuilding brothers David and Peter Paul—a.k.a. the Barbarian Brothers—desperately wanted to break into the motion-picture business, so they offered to finance a film by an up-and-coming young video-store-clerk-turned-screenwriter named Quentin Tarantino, on the condition that he write a scene that would let them flex their acting chops as well as their bulging biceps. Tarantino was so uncomfortable with the request that he had Avary script the Natural Born Killers scene in which sleazy tabloid journalist Robert Downey Jr. interviews the Paul brothers after they've had their legs hacked off by the film's mass-murdering protagonists. In spite of the mutilation, David and Peter admire their attackers' Arnold Schwarzenegger-like charisma at length. But the scene—which director Oliver Stone purportedly hailed as the best part of the screenplay—never made it into the final film. At least the Paul brothers were in good company: Ashley Judd's nine-minute courtroom scene was cut from the final version as well.
7. Brandon Routh, The Informers (2008)
Like many of the films chronicled here, Gregor Jordan's ill-fated adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' 1995 short-story collection The Informers changed shape radically throughout its production. Ellis, who co-wrote the screenplay but didn't have many positive things to say about the end product, envisioned the film as a Short Cuts-like epic intertwining numerous subplots about Southern Californians luxuriating in their own moral degradation. But by the time the film was released in 2008 to bad reviews and worse box-office, it ran a mere 98 minutes, and a subplot involving Superman Returns hunk Brandon Routh as a vampire was excised completely, leaving audiences and critics to ponder the moral emptiness and decadence of much-less-literal forms of bloodsucking, youth-obsessed parasites.
8. Various dancers and singers, I'll Do Anything (1994)
James L. Brooks had a bold vision for his 1994 comedy-drama I'll Do Anything. He wanted to transform the professional and personal angst of narcissistic show-business types into an unlikely musical, with songs by Prince and Sinéad O'Connor, and choreography by Twyla Tharp. But when the film was test-marketed, audiences recoiled at the musical numbers, which subsequently landed on the cutting-room floor. So it's sadly appropriate that much of I'll Do Anything, both in its original form and in the version that eventually made it onscreen, is obsessed with test screenings, focus groups, and Hollywood's bottomless, insatiable need for validation and approval.
9. Michael Biehn, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Michael Biehn was primed to reprise his role as the man who travels back in time to help Linda Hamilton save civilization in T2: Judgment Day, but a dream sequence involving his character was cut from the theatrical version (it was later restored for the director's cut), along with a thankfully discarded ending involving Hamilton in laughably awful old-lady makeup and some of the worst writing of James Cameron's career. Considering the dialogue in Avatar, that's saying an awful lot.
10. Skeet Ulrich and many more, Cursed (2005)
Cursed, Wes Craven's ill-fated third collaboration with Scream and Scream 2 screenwriter Kevin Williamson, more than lived up to its title. Production was delayed on multiple occasions, actors were recast, and a central character played by Skeet Ulrich was cut from the film altogether. Ulrich could have captained a softball team made up entirely of other actors who didn't make it into the final film; other casualties of re-writing, re-casting, and rescheduling included Illeana Douglas, Heather Langenkamp, Scott Foley, Omar Epps, Robert Forster, Corey Feldman, and James Brolin.
11. Chuck D and others, Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy
Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy originally featured a lengthy subplot that found Will Ferrell's pompous, self-obsessed, yet strangely loveable boob of an anchorman investigating a shadowy organization called The Alarm Clock that's robbing banks for reasons that remain inscrutable even to its own members. The subplot never made it into the film, but improvisation-heavy director Adam McKay had so many deleted scenes and alternate takes that they were able to turn them into an entire feature film: Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie. The result is predictably ramshackle and loose, but it's also surprisingly funny, and it restores performances by Chuck D, Maya Rudolph, Kevin Corrigan, and Chad Everett that otherwise would have been relegated to deleted scenes.
12. Andy Garcia, Dangerous Minds (1995)
When it comes to Hollywood formula, love interests are often every bit as obligatory and perfunctory as diamond-smuggling subplots or car chases. Andy Garcia learned this the hard way when his entire supporting role opposite Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds ended up on the cutting-room floor. It turns out the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced inspirational-teacher drama didn't need even a soupçon of romance after all. So Garcia got the boot, though thankfully, Coolio's performance was preserved for posterity.
13. Jason Robards and Mick Jagger, Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Surely Werner Herzog could sympathize with Terry Gilliam when Gilliam's attempts to shoot The Man Who Killed Don Quixote broke down, as documented in Lost In La Mancha. On his shoot for 1982's Fitzcarraldo, Herzog encountered the exact same difficulties Gilliam had faced: a desperately ill leading man, queasy financiers pulling out during the shoot, crucially uncooperative weather, and other filmmakers on hand to document the production's problems. But where Gilliam is still fighting to make his film, Herzog doggedly completed his production, even though he was five weeks into filming in South America and 40 percent done with the film when his star, Jason Robards, came down with severe amoebic dysentery and had to return to America for treatment. Robards' doctors told him his life was at risk if he returned to the set, so he bowed out of the film altogether; meanwhile, his co-star, Mick Jagger, ran out of time to complete the film and headed out on tour with The Rolling Stones. Herzog subsequently brought in his old partner in crime Klaus Kinski to take on Robards' role, dropped Jagger's role entirely, and started shooting again from the top. Herzog has said he destroys all unused footage from his films, so these days, the only scenes still in existence from the five weeks of Robards and Jagger's shoot are a couple that Les Blank kept to include in Burden Of Dreams, his riveting documentary about the making of Fitzcarraldo.
14. The first cast, September (1987)
Woody Allen is a notorious perfectionist who sees re-shoots and re-casting as essential components of filmmaking. But he's seldom taken those instincts as far as he did with 1987's September. Some filmmakers delete scenes from movies; Allen essentially deleted an entire film. Allen was so unhappy with the first version of his stagy, Anton Chekhov-inspired drama that he essentially remade the film with an entirely different cast. Christopher Walken, Sam Shepard, and Charles Durning were among the actors who made an entire film with Allen, only to see him remake it with other actors. In perhaps the unkindest cut of all, Allen even discarded the performance of Maureen O'Sullivan, the elderly mother of his then-girlfriend Mia Farrow. Now that's cold-blooded. That's clearly the worst thing Allen could have possibly have done to Farrow and her family. Or perhaps not.


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In the Native American Lakota-Sioux dialect, Dakota means friend, or friendly. You might make some friends with today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe Dakota convertible, especially with its non-native 360 V8.
An affable 70% of you wanted to make friends with yesterday's 1972 Project Pantera, in fact, if that landslide vote is indicative of anything, it's that even a hot mess of an Italian beauty will never want for companionship.
One of the major attractions of the Pantera is its romper-stomper of a V8, a full 5.7 litres full of angry horses looking for something to kick a hole in. Today we have a vehicle with an even bigger V8 under its hood, as well as a top that goes down so you can enjoy all its aural pleasures.
Dodge call themselves the Ram Brand, although there's never been anything sheepish about their full-size trucks. Hoping to fill a perceived gap between those and their Mitsubishi-sourced min truck, the Moparians brought out the mid-sized Dakota in 1987. Channeling the Red Queen two years later, they shouted off with its head and created the Dakota convertible – the first American factory droptop pickup since Henry's Model A.
The standard engine in the open-air Dakota was the 3.9-litre V6, a derivation of the long lived LA V8. This '89 edition tosses the six however, in favor of the full LA monte- a V8. The 360 Wedge V8 became Chrysler's hot truck engine of choice through 2002, powering both Rams and the fleet streetiest edition of the Jeep Grand Cherokee, the rabid transit 5.9 Limited.
Here it gets the full salon treatment and a minor bump to 367 cubes. Lots of go-faster stuff has gone into the motor during a fairly recent rebuild, including Keith Black hammers, Clevite bearings, and big valves. Hooker headers and Flowmasters ensure your neighbors will know when you're coming and going, and feed a par of chrome straight pipes out and under the back bumper.
Bolted to torquemada is what's claimed to be a rebuilt transmission, but no mention is made as to exactly what it is. The seller does state in the ad Breaks, Much More, which isn't the confidence-inspiring sales spiel I think he meant it to be.
On a more positive note, the ad says the truck rocks a Spicer Posi rear end with what I think the seller is claiming to be 3:18 gearing, although he could mean it came out of a four-banger BMW 3-series. He's a little sketchy on that. Regardless, bolted to either end of the rear axle, as well as the front spindles, are Dodge Nitro wheels, perhaps the only parts of that brick worth salvaging. This truck, by the way, is apparently 2WD.
So it's pretty aptly described by the seller as a muscle truck, and if you're gonna' go fast, you might as well do so topless, and with this Dakota Sport, you can as its top does drop. There's still a roll bar there to keep your shoulder belt from flopping into the bed, and to protect your head from road rash should you decide to flip the truck. The top here is described as newer, and is paired with a custom tonneau cover for the bed that could also serve as an emergency trampoline, you know, for the ladies. With a claimed 150,000 on the truck, and 3,000 on the motor it's no surprise that the rest of it comes across as a bit worn but serviceable, and parts for things like seats, dash and trim won't be too hard to come by should that wear continue to the point of needing replacement.
But that won't be your problem if you can't come up with the $11,500 that the seller is asking for his droptop Dakota. Do you think that's a price for which you might willingly make it your problem? Or, does it make this Dakota a frenemy?
You decide!
Lawrence Craigslist or go here if the ad disappears.
Help me out with NPOCP. Click here to send a me a tip, and remember to include your commenter handle.


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San Ramon passed a Climate Action Plan two years ago which was required by the State of California. This is a local attempt to solve a global problem, which won't have much effect on it and only over-simplifies the problem.
It's foolish to ignore the increases in severe weather events over the last few years, but even if San Ramon reduces the amount of CO2 we might be contributing to global warming, it is literally a drop in the ocean of floods, hurricanes, snow storms, wild fires, and droughts we hear about every day. All of these events are connected in one way or another to the Hydrologic Cycle, or as it is called in 2nd grade, the Water Cycle.
Water is a constant. The same amount of water has exited on Earth for millennia. The only thing that changes is its form. Water, as we know, can be liquid (ocean, lakes, rivers), vapor (steam, humidity), or solid (ice). Only 1% of the liquid water on Earth is potable (drinkable), so it is a very precious commodity.
The water cycle for those of you who don't remember your 2nd grade science, is the cycle where water changes from liquid to vapor to clouds to precipitation, and back to liquid water again. The sun heats up the surface of the water and vapor rises into the atmosphere. As it rises it cools and turns it into clouds. It's rather discouraging to learn that beautiful, fluffy clouds are really dusty condensed water vapor.
Clouds are blown by wind currents from the location where the water evaporated to the location where it is released as precipitation ? rain or snow depending on the temperature of the surrounding air. More evaporation means more precipitation. Higher temperatures on the water source, means more evaporation. Voila, more rain and snow coming down. It's that simple.
Floods, droughts, hurricanes, unexpected snow storms will continue to happen whether you like Al Gore or not. Gore has nothing to do with this. The Hydrologic Cycle is basic science not bogus science. It's changing now because the temperature on Earth has increased, even if just one degree, and that's enough to increase the evaporation of water, condense it into clouds, and produce greater amounts of rain and snow, or droughts where the water was taken from.
Here's a link to the NASA website on the water cycle and climate change. You don't have to believe in manmade global warming to recognize that Earth is warming; just consider the cycle of drought and floods we see happening around the World over the last five years.
Many dissenters say it is just a normal change of temperature that the Earth has gone through throughout its lifecycle. OK, I'll buy that (not really, but let's at least agree this is happening for whatever reason). During the last warm spell, 125,000 years ago, the seas were about 18 feet (5.5 meters) higher than they are today. So even if this is simply another global hot spell, it will still cause major changes in the environment we currently inhabit.
If the Earth is warming, shouldn't we be preparing for these changes instead of just letting them happen? By preparing I mean getting ready for the floods, fires, and droughts, and not changing our light bulbs to CFLs. Think of all of the snow in Manhattan last year (2010) when they didn't have any place left to put it, or the snow in Atlanta when they didn't have any way to remove it. These are harbingers of things to come. That's why I've been installing rainwater capture systems in my yard. It is necessary to save water whenever we can.
I believe that all of the hot gasses spewed into the environment (not including my own hot air in blogs like this), are contributing to global warming. The Earth is an enclosed sphere. There is a shell around our atmosphere that keeps our air inside. This also keeps whatever is put into our air inside. So if millions and millions of cars and power plants are spewing hot gasses somewhere in the World 24/7, it would not surprise me that it has an effect on the global temperature.
Try it in your garage. On a cool day put a weather thermometer in the garage. Check the temperature the next day. Write it down so you don't forget. Then close the doors and windows, start your car and let it idle for an hour or two. Then wearing a gas mask go back in and check the temperature again. I have not done this because I don't have a gas mask or want to asphyxiate myself, but I'm willing to bet the temperature has gone up even if the outside temperature stayed the same or is lower.
Our Federal and State governments impose laws to make us behave more responsibly but these will probably have very little overall effect. Climate Action Plans in California don't change what China, India, South America, and Africa do. This is a global problem and it is probably too late to stop it. I know that sounds very pessimistic, but I am very pessimistic about this right now.
The state should be preparing for more intense wildfires, droughts, flooding, and a potential rise in the sea level along the coast and inlets. So far San Ramon and the Tri Valley have been lucky to avoid weather-related disasters. We may just be in the right geographic location to escape the flooding, but summer wild fires are a real possibility which is another good reason for storing your rainwater.
Check out where the water could be if the sea level increases 5 meters to where it was 125,000 years ago. Even if this warming cycle is just another in the cyclical climate changes Earth has experienced in its long life, more warmth means more evaporation, means more rain, means more flooding, means more drought here or somewhere else.


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Learn About The 50 States
Harriet Tubman (1820)close
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Dorchester City, Maryland around 1820. At the age of thirty, Tubman escaped but returned frequently to the South, risking her own life to rescue others. During a 10-year span, she is believed to have escorted approximately 300 slaves to freedom in the North.
Click on any of the names below to find out more...
Looking for a famous American?
This page presents short biographies of more than 200 famous Americans drawn from our unit, "The 50 States." These personalities are arranged by theme.
Just click a theme at the top of the page to view a selection list for that theme.
African Americans:
|Gutzon Borglum
|Walt Disney
|Jabez Gorham
|Matt Groening
|William Hanna
|Marsden Hartley
|Winslow Homer
|Peter Hurd
|Hank Ketcham
|Bill Mauldin
|Jackson Pollock
|Howard Pyle
|Norman Rockwell
|Charles Schulz
|Gilbert Stuart
|Frank Lloyd Wright
|Andrew Wyeth
Business Leaders:
National "Characters":
|Phineas Taylor "P.T." Barnum
|Clyde Barrow
|John Wilkes Booth
|Butch Cassidy
|William "Buffalo Bill" Cody
|Davy Crockett
|Jesse James
|Evel Knievel
|Harland David "Colonel" Sanders
|Jefferson R. "Soapy" Smith
Cultural Figures:
|Benny Benson
|Sitting Bull
|Cesar Chavez
|John Dewey
|Crazy Horse
|Jesse Jackson
|Chief Joseph
|Martin Luther King, Jr.
|Queen Lydia Liliuokalani
|Russell Means
|Elizabeth Peratrovich
|Chief Washakie
|Booker T. Washington
|Jack Wilson Wovoka
Pioneers and "Firsts":
Politicians & Activists:
Sports Figures:
|Hank Aaron
|Andre Agassi
|Danny Ainge
|Johnny Bench
|Yogi Berra
|Paul "Bear" Bryant
|Dale Earnhart
|Lou Gehrig
|Eric Heiden
|Michael Jordan
|Evel Knievel
|Phil Knight
|Joe Reddington
|Mary Lou Retton
|Picabo Street
|Jesse Ventura
|Jerry West
Accomplished Women:
Writers & Poets:


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Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories
Story and photo by Terry Duffy
"It's not often you get involved in a project that has so many positive attributes for your community, your customers, your company."
So commented Gary Smith, COO of Modern Corporation, Wednesday on the company's newest operation - that being a compressed natural gas fueling station to complement 15 new CNG-powered garbage trucks at Modern's Lewiston headquarters on Model City Road.
In a time of sky-high fuel prices, marked by continuing uncertainty in the Middle East and ever-increasing worldwide demand, Modern, from the impetus of its owner/president Rick Washuta, took a bold step ahead into the future of energy efficiency this week with the startup of CNG fueling services for a number of its vehicles.
Through the efforts of State Sen. George Maziarz, who chairs the Senate Energy Commission, the company was able to secure $1.25 million in U.S. Department of Energy Clean Cities funding by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to get the project under way.
"Without them (Maziarz and NYSERDA) this wouldn't have happened, if at all, until several years down the road," said Smith.
"He (Maziarz) saw the value of this project right away," said Smith. "He encouraged NYSERDA to get on board."
"I see how important it is to invest in alternative fuels," said Maziarz. "I commend Modern and NYSERDA for this collaborative effort, as it will not only create job opportunities, but will also result in a cleaner environment for all residents of Niagara County."
With funding secured, Modern went to work with local governments, soliciting vendors and forming partnerships with utility providers to make it a reality. Support was gained from Town Supervisor Steve Reiter and the Lewiston Town Board. Soon after, town permits were approved, and support was realized on the county level from Legislator Clyde Burmaster and state level from Assemblyman John Ceretto, and the project began to gel.
Smith praised the role of its selected vendor, Vocational Energy of Tampa, Fla., for working through the logistics maze on Modern's behalf and teaming with local utilities and vehicle vendors to make it all happen in just a matter of months. "We started this project talking with several vendors. The first one walked away from us."
Of the Vocational Energy group, he added, "They did a fabulous job, coordinating with National Fuel, National Grid, the truck vendors to have it all come together at once," said Smith.
The result is a brand-new CNG fueling station and 15 new CNG-fueled garbage trucks. Modern expects to invest an additional $3.9 million into the project and acquire additional CNG vehicles by the end of 2012 - bringing the number of CNG vehicles to 30, or about a quarter of its fleet.
"Modern is thrilled to be involved in a project that is a win-win for us, our customers and the community," said Smith. "We would also like to thank NYSERDA for its role in helping to fund this environmentally-responsible initiative. Modern has had a long history with clean energy projects and we will continue to invest it in environmentally-friendly solutions in the future."
"The opening of the fueling station at Modern is something that Niagara County can be proud of," added Maziarz.
NYSERDA president and CEO Francis J. Murray Jr. also lent praise to the successful Modern-NYSERDA partnership, commenting, "Things like this just don't happen because someone in Albany thinks it's a good idea. These kinds of activities come to be as a result of individuals in the public and private sector."
Murray called natural gas the cleanest burning alternative-transportation fuel commercially available today, and the most practical in times of tight oil supplies and very high prices that see no end in sight. "The transportation sector accounts for 76 percent of the oil consumed in the United States," said Murray. "Without a comprehensive plan to address this consumption, the number is projected to reach 72 percent by 2020."
"This project highlights energy efficiency," said Murray. He labeled Modern's latest endeavor, "A practice in environmental stewardship in creating economic opportunity."
The new operation joins such Modern successes as a methane-producing landfill, which by means of 11 generators produces 12 megawatts of electricity and powers a 12-acre hydroponic greenhouse, which harvested 5 million pounds of tomatoes last year.
With its new operations, Modern is among a select handful of like CNG fueling station operations in the Buffalo and Western New York area. They include National Fuel truck facilities in Buffalo, Tonawanda and Niagara Falls, state Department of Transportation facilities in Buffalo and Mayville, a State Parks fueling station in Niagara Falls and a State University of New York facility at the University of Buffalo Amherst campus.
"This is really something that we're proud of," commented Washuta on the new venture.