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Welcome to the Al Hemer Music Corporation Online Store!
To reserve your school instrument rental, or for more information about renting an instrument through our partnership with Music and Arts, click the image below.
Our Holiday Hours:
Closed Monday December 24th 2018, Tuesday December 25th 2018, Monday December 31st 2018, and Tuesday January 1st 2019
Our Regular Hours:
Monday - Friday: 9:30am - 5:30pm
Saturday: 9:00am - 4:00pm.
Closed Sunday
The Al Hemer Music Corporation has been serving the Buffalo and Western New York (WNY) musician since 1980, when it was founded by Al and Suzanne Hemer.
With strong ties to music education in New York State, Al and Suzanne filled an immediate need in the western part of the state for a strong print music dealer catering to the school musician. The business quickly grew to distribute other products as well, and has become a center where musicians young and old can find help as they proceed along their wonderful musical journey.
Today, many New York State schools also depend on the great service provided by Al Hemer Music Corporation for all of their music needs. The company's benchmark has been its quick and dependable service to all of its customers, and as a result, the Al Hemer Music Corporation now has customers throughout the United States, Canada, and in Europe. The experienced and efficient Al Hemer Music staff has a passion for providing fast service.
Upon visiting Al Hemer Music, local music enthusiasts will find a huge selection of popular printed music and music for the serious piano player as well as a complete line of accessories. The music educator can count on enjoying a great variety of band, orchestra, and choral music... as well as a full line of other product for their school music program. Also, various lines of instruments provide quality and affordable products for the aspiring musician.
Whatever your musical interests, and whether you stop in personally or shop at our online store, the Al Hemer Music Corporation in Orchard Park, New York, (located in Erie County, just a short drive from Buffalo, NY) offers you dedicated and dependable service, which is second to none in the industry.
Our brick and mortar store offers friendly service second to none. And if you're visiting our website and shopping online, your order is handled by the same group of service oriented professionals.
A Super Store Inventory With Hometown Customer Service!
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4190 N Buffalo St
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VETTE readers already know that the Corvette is America's Favorite Sports Car, but we recently discovered one passionate Vette owner who's doing everything he can to turn his C6 Z06 into America's Fastest Sports Car.
"I fell in love with Corvettes when I was 7 years old," says Adam Brandt, a sales executive and part-time Vette tuner in Bethpage, New York. "My mom's boyfriend had a '77, and he used to give me rides in it. It instilled in me a lifelong passion for Chevrolet's flagship car."
Moving forward 16 years, Brandt purchased his first Vette, an '88 35th Anniversary coupe. Subsequent acquisitions included an '85 coupe, followed by onetime Corvette Chief Engineer Dave Hill's personal '00 Millennium Yellow convertible. Brandt eventually settled on a '97 coupe, which he boosted to 800-plus horsepower with an APS twin-turbo kit and a forged motor.
"I wanted to 'spool' my C5, but back in the early days of the LS horsepower wars, Lingenfelter's $50,000 twin-turbo conversion was the only option I knew of. Eventually, the APS twin-turbo kit entered the market at a fraction of the price; it was well engineered and added 300 hp to a stock LS1. I had a great experience with it and knew that I would go back to APS for another kit someday," he says.
In 2006, Brandt bought an '07 Z new from Kerbeck Corvette in Atlantic City. Like many new Corvette owners, his intention was to leave it stock, but he changed his mind quickly when found its 505hp LS7 was too docile for him. "The twin-turbo C5 was much more fun to drive," he explains.
Less than a year later, Brandt was given the opportunity to trade his low-mile, late-model Z for an Atomic Orange Z from the same model year. The enticement? The AO Z was already outfitted with an APS twin-turbo system. "The timing was perfect," he admits. "Choosing between boosted or stock was no contest. I agreed to the trade and have not looked back since."
The APS system-which features Garrett GT35R 35mm turbos, dual intercoolers, Tial 44 wastegates and blow off valves, and a 3-inch exhaust system-pushed Adam's newly acquired Z to more than 750 rwhp on 12 psi of boost. That was enough to whet his appetite, but not his imagination. After some much-needed safety, data-acquisition, and comfort upgrades to the cabin (specifically, a Brey-Krause harness bar, Crow five-point harnesses, an AeroForce Interceptor Gen II Scan Gauge, an Innovate Motorsports LC-1 wideband air/fuel ratio sensor controller, Auto Meter boost and fuel gauges, Dynamat sound deadening material, and an LG Motorsports shifter switch modified to provide a "scramble" boost feature), his first order of business was to retire the Corvette's rare factory paint color for something even more extraordinary.
"I know VETTE readers will think I'm crazy for changing an Atomic Orange Z to green, but I had a good reason," Brandt says. "I had my C5 painted a custom color called Tangelo Pearl, and it got so much attention that I quickly learned that color choice is everything. Atomic Orange received a lot of attention when it was first introduced in 2007, but then I started seeing it everywhere. I wanted something different . . . really different."
Sometime later, Brandt attended the New York Auto Show, though not with the intent of finding his Corvette a new color. "An '08 Snakeskin Green Viper caught my girlfriend's eye," he says. "She knew instinctively that it was the perfect color for my car. I told her no Corvette owner in his right mind would paint a one-year-old Atomic Orange Z a Dodge color, let alone a Dodge Viper color." Before he knew it, however, he had succumbed to her feminine logic. "I remember her words clearly: 'Your Z06 is not a normal Corvette, and the paintjob should reflect that.'"
Enter Joe Pardo, owner/operator of Westfield Collision in Westfield, New Jersey, who consummated the co-conspired color change. He disassembled the C6 completely, stripped it of its factory paint, then applied Spies-Hecker Snakeskin Green base and clear, followed by color sanding and 3M Perfect-It polishing. He also painted and added ZR1 side skirts, an MTI chin splitter, and an APR carbon wing to the Corvette's presentation.
After four weeks of tense anticipation, Brandt was treated to his first glimpse at his Vette's gorgeous new glow. "I was stunned and relieved when I finally saw it. I knew I was taking a big risk painting the Corvette such a bright color, but it sure paid off," he says.
Before long, however, Brandt began to have doubts about his engine's long-term durability in the face of 20 psi of boost. "The LS7 motor is a great block for naturally aspirated applications, but it has its limitations when mated to power adders," he says. "My choices were to girdle it for extra strength or build a motor with a different block. After doing my research, I decided on the GM Performance Parts LSX short-deck block, which would allow me to safely run a 427 on 20-30 psi of boost, [thanks in part to its] six-bolt head configuration."
Brandt sourced an LSX from IPS Motorsports in Columbus, Ohio, and had it delivered to Livernois Performance in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Livernois' trained techs prepped and bored the casting, then treated it to one of their signature rotating assemblies: a 4.00-inch-stroke forged crank, 6.1225-inch billet I-beam forged rods, and 23cc-dish forged pistons.
IPS Motorsports also provided the ET Performance custom-ported LS7 heads (35-72cc combustion chambers, 262cc port runners), as well as the custom-grind Comp hydraulic roller cam (243/243-degree duration, 0.654/0.654-inch lift, 115-degree lobe-separation angle). The compression ratio was set to a boost- compatible 9.3:1.
During the engine install, Brandt took the time to install even more mods, including Katech valve covers and coil-relocation brackets, an IPS 280-amp alternator, an Evans high-flow LS water pump, a BeCool radiator, and Evans NPGR waterless coolant.
If you recall, Brandt is a part-time Corvette tuner, so safely squeezing every last iota of horsepower out of his boosted Z was a task he wanted to take on himself. "I tuned my Corvette with the speed-density method instead of the easier MAF technique," he explains. "In my opinion, speed density is the best way to tune a car for boost. It uses the MAP and a VE table for fueling, instead of the MAF sensor to measure airflow for fueling and speed." To prepare his Corvette for speed-density tuning, Brandt converted the factory ECM operating system using HP Tuners software. He also installed a custom 2.5-bar MAP sensor from DPE Corvettes, since the factory's 1.0-bar sensor is not designed for boosted speed-density applications.
Two Walbro in-tank fuel pumps had already been installed in Brandt's Vette before he bought it, but the heady boost levels cooked up by the APS kit required substantially more fuel delivery than even the largest high-impedance injectors on the market could provide. Consequently, his next task was to install a Versafueler injector driver. It converts the factory ECM's signal to low impedance, which allows the Vette to run Delphi 96-lb/hr low-impedance injectors. "A lot of tuners only run 60- or 83-lb/hr injectors and claim their cars made 1,000-plus hp. There is no way you can make that kind of power safely without installing a big injector, at least 96-lb/hr," he says.
Before Brandt could safely mash the go-pedal, the remainder of the drivetrain needed bulletproofing. According to MCP Competition Engines' Mike Tiedemann, who upgraded both the factory six-speed trans and the rearend, "The T56 received a billet front plate, G-Force gears, solid Three-Four and Five-Six synchro assemblies, bronze shift-fork pads, heavy-duty synchro springs, and micro-polishing. The IRS was treated to 3.42 rear gears with micro-polishing, a Posi heavy-duty clutch pack, and hardened output shafts." In addition, Brandt installed a Spec dual-disc clutch and a Quick Time Performance bellhousing on one side of the T56, and a custom driveshaft on the other.
After all these major mods, you might be shocked to hear that the suspension and brakes remain stock, except for a set of Pfadt adjustable coilovers which was installed to accommodate the extra weight of the iron block. "The Z06 has great brakes, even for 1,000 hp," Brandt explains.
It's only been a few months since this two-year project was completed, so Brandt hasn't had a chance to get his Corvette to a track and lay down some awe-inspiring quarter-mile times. Until then, the question of whether his Z06 really is America's Fastest Sports Car will have to remain unanswered. For now, we'll end Brandt's story with a metaphor he uses to describe his Vette's crushing power delivery. "Once you push the gas pedal down hard, watch out. This Corvette will rearrange your organs as it slams you hard into the seat." You gotta love it!

subset: commoncrawl


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Providing Incentives to Help Grow Small Wind: Wind Powering America Lessons Learned
February 25, 2013
Wind Powering America asked Mark Mayhew, small wind program manager for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), to share lessons learned while managing the small wind incentive program in his state (with a $3 million per year budget).
You joined NYSERDA as the small wind program manager in 2008. Describe the program at this time and any lessons learned while taking it to the next level.
I actually joined NYSERDA in 1995; I was given the opportunity to oversee the small wind program in 2008. When I started, all aspects of the program were outsourced to consultants, and this did not fit with my hands-on style. I knew I had a lot to learn, and my education would come from a number of resources. Two of my favorite books are Power from the Wind by Dan Chiras and Wind Power for Dummies by Ian Woofenden. These books present information in a very readable format. I also hit the road and met with installers, visited installations, and attended the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Small Wind Turbine Testing Workshop in Boulder, Colorado, and the Small Wind Conference in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. These events not only provided a wealth of information, but they also allowed me to personally meet small wind industry experts, from manufacturers to industry advocates. These relationships would prove to be invaluable as I tried to improve our program.
In 2008, NYSERDA was using a nameplate kilowatt multiplier with tower-height adders to determine a project's incentive amount. The incentive is now based on the estimated production at the site, determined by computer modeling. Why the change in how to determine incentives? What advice would you provide to state authorities trying to establish a small wind incentive program in terms of how to determine incentive totals?
The program also had an additional multiplier for each type of organization; in short, the incentive structure was way too complex. I asked the people I had met for help, and a common theme to their replies was that incentives should be based on performance to encourage installations in good locations and discourage installations in poor locations. At that time, NYSERDA had just completed a project with AWS Truewind (now AWS Truepower) to develop a Web-based tool that provides detailed wind data and allows the user to enter site-specific information to generate a report that provides the estimated annual output of a particular turbine and tower height. It was a natural fit to require the use of a tool we helped develop. We recently assisted Wind Analytics in developing another type of tool for site assessments.
Describe the incentive breakdowns in terms of dollar amounts per expected kilowatt-hour of production. Why the need for varying tiers? What lessons can you share from your experience in establishing this portion of the small wind incentive?
To be a good steward of public funds, a public-benefit program's goal is to provide the minimum amount of money required to encourage someone to contribute to the goals of the program. This program's funding comes from the electric ratepayers who pay into New York's Renewable Portfolio Standard, which was designed to encourage the generation of renewable energy (kilowatt-hours); thus, it seemed logical to base the incentives on the same metric: energy produced. Since larger systems are cheaper per kilowatt than smaller systems, we needed a way to ratchet back incentives as the system size increased. The declining block incentive provided a simple way to achieve this result. We also cap our incentive at 50% of the project cost to ensure that the customer has enough "skin in the game" to make the project successful.
NYSERDA's small wind program includes a wide range of turbine sizes with only certain models qualifying. Describe the importance in establishing guidelines for eligible turbines and any lessons you can share on this topic.
The goal of the program is to encourage the generation of clean, renewable energy. To achieve this, we provide funding for turbines with a proven track record to increase the certainty that the turbines will continue to function long after NYSERDA pays the incentive funds. NYSERDA is a founding member of the Interstate Turbine Advisory Council (ITAC), and ITAC publishes a Unified List of Wind Turbines. Multiple states, including New York, utilize this list. ITAC also provides a venue for state program personnel to communicate with each other. That opportunity has been extremely valuable.
The NYSERDA incentive is paid upfront in two portions: 65% when the equipment is delivered onsite and 35% upon interconnection. The payment is made to the installer, who then passes it on to the customer per the installer's contract. Describe the need for incentives to be upfront, in multiple stages, and paid to the installer instead of the customer. What lessons can you share from your experience in establishing this portion of the small wind incentive?
NYSERDA wants to see operating systems. Providing our funds at the start of a project provides the upfront cash that can make a project economically feasible. The split payment acknowledges the milestone of delivering equipment but saves a sufficient amount to insure the system is operational. A payments-over-time structure is typical of a feed-in-tariff and although this may provide a bankable source of funds for the customer, it also puts all the risk on the customer. By making upfront payments, NYSERDA assumes some of the risk. One of the goals of the program is to grow the network of eligible installers. Having a list of NYSERDA-eligible installers also gives the installers some credibility and a source where potential customers can find a vetted list of contractors. Also, it's easier to share important information with the installers when a list already exists. A customer will usually only purchase one wind turbine in his or her lifetime, but NYSERDA will have multiple projects with installers, and that long-term relationship helps facilitate timely attention when we request information or action.
Is there anything else about your program that you would like to share?
The program is small enough that each project can receive individualized attention. It's great to get to know each individual owner, installer, and manufacturer's representative. The personal contact makes the program so successful and a joy to participate in.
Visit NYSERDA's website and the following resources for small wind information:
- U.S. Department of Energy's Small Wind Guidebook
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Small Wind Turbine Independent Testing Project
- Interstate Turbine Advisory Council
- Small Wind Certification Council
- Distributed Wind Energy Association


text: A recently granted patent named ranking documents can be looked at as if it was a Penguin patent or maybe a patent on how to trick SEOs into thinking their pages are ranking or maybe both. Rather than allow the rankings to respond immediately and directly to those changes, the patent explains a system that would change rankings in unexpected, counter-intuitive ways - while the rankings change from a first position through transition positions and to the final "target rank" position. In other words, significant changes in position continue to happen even though there is no change in page's ranking factors! Detailed Read Code: [URL]http://www.seobythesea.com/2012/08/google-rank-modifying-spammers-patent/[/URL] The Patent : Patent Number 8244722


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Please note, this app covers last year's season 2011/12. We will be updating it shortly for the current season.Get all the live info for the Six Nations with the most comprehensive App for English rugby.
LIVE scores, squads, stats, fixtures, tables and news for all our international rugby games. It covers the Six Nations, the Summer Internationals and the Autumn Internationals.
As well as everything you will need for English rugby, there is a wealth of information about historic data from the International Rugby scene, from competition information to a searchable database of over 6,500 international fixtures, IRB rankings and info on all venues is included.
Features include:
★ Live Match Results Live match results for Six Nations, the Summer and Autumn Internationals
★ Match day squads Full match day squads for the big games including the Six Nations
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★ Match timelines Where available, key timelines of the match
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★ Head to Head From the first game between Scotland and England in 1871 through to all the RWC matches, you can search for the results of over 6,500 international matches. You can search head to head, or via competition, result , season or opponent. Also points for and against is available
★ Team Placement You will be able to check where the English team and all other teams have been officially placed in previous competitions – Six Nations and the Rugby World cp.
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This App will give you all the information that you need in your pocket
Check out our other apps:
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★ Rugby 2011/12 (covers all the top 20 teams in the world) ★ Club Rugby 2011/12 (covers all key European Competitions) ★ Rabo 2011/12 ★ H Cup 2011/12 ★ Rugby 2011 NZ World cp. Live ★ 101 Rugby Greats ★ 101 Rugby Trivia
If you experience any problems with our apps or would like to suggest an improvement, please email email@example.com, thanks. These apps are developed for rugby fans by rugby fans, so the more feedback we can get the better we can make them!!
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Aysscherigge Surname Ancestry Results
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Research your ancestry, family history, genealogy and one-name study by direct access to original records and archives indexed by surname.


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Canon Professional HD Camcorders Enable St. John's University to Expand TV and Online Coverage of Campus Sports Programs
St. John's Television Network Uses Canon XF305 and XF105 Professional HD Camcorders for Affordable Regional and National Coverage of Multiple Sporting Events And For Training Video Production Students
LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., April 26, 2012— A leader in intercollegiate athletics for more than a century, St. John's University today achieves increased exposure for its sports programs by producing high-definition (HD) coverage for home games with affordable, high-performance HD camcorders from Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions. The St. John's Television Network (STJ-TV) uses Canon XF305 and XF105 professional tapeless HD camcorders to produce sports coverage not only for its official athletics website (www.redstormsports.com), but also for national and regional cable networks, and for Internet and mobile platforms available to millions of viewers and subscribers.
"This has been great for our fan base and marketing efforts for all of our sports," said Mark Fratto, Senior Associate Director of Athletics for Communications at St. John's University. Fratto explained that St. John's had been using Canon SD (standard definition) camcorders for several years to produce sports content for its Athletic Department's website. "We're elevating our coverage to the next level and producing high-quality live-action HD sports not only for our own website but for much larger commercial distribution outlets as well."
The University, with its central campus located in the New York City borough of Queens, has 17 varsity athletic programs known collectively as the St. John's Red Storm. They include: basketball, soccer, tennis, golf, and fencing; men's baseball and lacrosse; women's softball and volleyball; and indoor and outdoor track & field and cross-country. Campus sports venues include the famed Carnesecca Arena and Taffner Field House, the Belson and Jack Kaiser Stadiums, and Da Silva Field. Essential to transitioning the St. John's Television Network to HD sports coverage was choosing the right combination of affordable production equipment. This included high-performance HD video camcorders that are rugged enough to handle coverage of more than 100 different sporting competitions per year, but also intuitively designed to accommodate a production crew that includes both student and professional camera operators.
Choosing Canon
"In modeling the St. John's Television Network we looked at professional teams that set the standard," Fratto noted. "Those teams use a lot of Canon products, which is a brand known for its high-quality optics. You can get great results for the cost and the size of Canon cameras and lenses, so it was an obvious decision for us."
"I researched HD camcorder models made by different manufacturers, talked to the people using them, and found that Canon's XF305 and XF105 were both great choices," added Sean McCluskey, St. John's Director of Multimedia Services. "The XF305 and XF105 cameras are not heavy or cumbersome. They're small, but not too small. They also have HD lenses, and that's something other brands of HD camcorders with built-in lenses don't have. Then there is the fact that the XF305 and XF105 have HD-SDI output, genlock input, and SMPTE time code in/out, which are very handy, since we're doing not only live game coverage but also studio productions such as The Red Storm Report for a regional cable network."
In addition to its five Canon HD camcorders (four Canon XF305's and one XF105), the St. John's Television Network's affordable HD production system also includes a NewTek TriCaster 850 Extreme production system, a NewTek 3Play 820 slow-motion replay system, and two Windows-based graphics computers. "We assembled the right mix of easy-to-use, relatively low-cost HD technologies, integrated them into a mobile flypack, and use them with our Canon HD camcorders to do four- and five-camera productions," Fratto noted. "Everything is completely portable, and all of our venues are within walking distance here on campus. We essentially took every aspect of large HD-truck productions and shrunk them, including the cameras."
Compact and Sturdy HD
Designed for professional use, Canon's XF305 and XF105 HD camcorders are multi-purpose video cameras that can feed live HD to a production switcher via their HD-SDI outputs (as in the case of the St. John's Television Network) or record directly to Compact Flash (CF) cards. Both cameras are equipped with native Canon 1920 x 1080 HD CMOS image sensors for exceptional picture quality, the Canon XF Codec for precision HD capture and recording, and Canon's proprietary Canon DIGIC DV III Image Processor for accurate color and detail. The three-CMOS XF305 features a Genuine Canon 18x HD L-series zoom lens. The single-CMOS XF105 comes equipped with a Genuine Canon 10x HD L-series lens. Both models feature Canon's SuperRange Optical Image Stabilizer (IS) system with Dynamic and Powered IS modes for optimal performance in a wide variety of situations. The XF305 and XF105 also offer extensive Custom Picture Settings that users can save to an SD memory card for easy matching of multiple XF305 and XF105 cameras.
"The XF305 and XF105 HD camcorders allow us to set our own specific color profile and 'paint' the camera for HD," McCluskey said. "We can save those profiles to an SD card and load them into all of our Canon HD camcorders, which is very convenient."
McCluskey noted that the St. John's Television Network relies on the XF105 for studio interviews and press conferences and on the XF305 for live sports coverage. "The XF305 is smaller than traditional HD field cameras for sports, so it gives you more functionality," he confided. "You can hold them up high if you need to shoot down inside a huddle, or you can get down very low if you want to capture a 'gopher' shot. Some are on tripods and others are hand-held. Most important, the networks like the HD quality we are able to create with them."
Creating New Platforms
As a Big East member, all of St. John's conference basketball games are covered by national cable network video-production crews. The additional live HD game coverage that the St. John's Television Network shoots with Canon HD camcorders and delivers to that network (and to other cable and online outlets) has the potential to revolutionize college sports television, Fratto believes.
"We are using this HD production model to shoot, transmit, and distribute those men's basketball games that are not selected for air by the broadcast network," he explained. "We are also able to create a platform for women's basketball, men's and women's soccer, volleyball, fencing, softball, and baseball. None of those games would ever make it to air in broadcast quality if they had to be produced using expensive, traditional HD equipment. With our Canon HD camcorders and other affordable equipment, however, we are able to put these productions together ourselves and reach much wider audiences. There is also revenue involved, with broadcast sponsorships, billboards, replays and other opportunities. We believe we have developed a model that every college and university could use."
"We have a video production operation that benefits our entire University," Fratto concluded. "The St. John's Television Network gives undergraduate students a chance to learn and contribute by experiencing hands-on HD sports production. We think that at least in terms of regional sports, this model - as demonstrated by what the St. John's Television Network is doing with Canon HD camcorders and the other equipment - will be unbeatable in terms of the quality versus the cost."
About Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Canon U.S.A., Inc., is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions. Its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ), a top patent holder of technology, ranked fourth overall in the U.S. in 2010†, with global revenues of more than US $45 billion and is listed as number six in the computer industry on Fortune Magazine's World's Most Admired Companies 2010 list. Canon U.S.A. is committed to the highest levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing 100 percent U.S.-based consumer service and support for all of the products it distributes. At Canon, we care because caring is essential to living together in harmony. Founded upon a corporate philosophy of Kyosei - "all people, regardless of race, religion or culture, harmoniously living and working together into the future" - Canon U.S.A. supports a number of social, youth, educational and other programs, including environmental and recycling initiatives. Additional information about these programs can be found at www.usa.canon.com/kyosei. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company's RSS news feed by visiting www.usa.canon.com/rss.
# # #
†Based on weekly patent counts issued by United States Patent and Trademark Office.
All referenced product names, and other marks, are trademarks of their respective owners.


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Fertigation Systems
All-in-one, ready-to-use Hanna® Fertigation Systems give the professional and advanced home grower precise control over nutrient and pH levels in their hydroponic systems.
• HI 2,500 Kits are recommended for small to mid-size systems, such as our VersaGrow Hydroponic Systems. Each HI 2,500 Kit includes an EC or TDS Mini Controller, EC or TDS Probe, pH Mini Controller, pH Electrode, 2 Blackstone Dosing Pumps and NEMA Enclosure.


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Bathroom : Martha Stewart Bathrooms Ideas Martha Stewart Bathrooms Ideas For Small Bathrooms
Quote from Article entitled Martha Stewart Bathrooms Ideas :
Today, there are almost no secret that people keep in order to make their home performance attractive. Most of people love to share the experience of the house decoration. It will not only deliver their story about the activities of home decoration. This kind of habit will also give the advantages and use for the other people that are having willing to make the impression of the room beautiful. You can add the decorative elements in the house in related to the experience of the homeowner that you read.


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Kiteboarding in Hawaii
Post general kiteboarding discussion topics here!
Moderator: BayAreaKite
5 posts • Page 1 of 1
Kiteboarding in Hawaii
I'm planning ~10 day vacation in hawaii in november/december '05 and would greatly appreciate any advice on when and where is best to go to max the time on the water. thanks
Don't plan on kiting before 10 am. The spear fisherman are out at that time and kiters are not supposed to be out at that time.
Have you checked ikitesurf, it has maps, local info, etc.
November/december gets heavy surf on the north shore.
I just read that Maui has not had a good season this year. The trade winds have been gusty and guys are overpowered on 6M's.
I went to Oahu in the summer and had a blast. Kailua is not so great as far as wind but probabaly the most beautiful place to kite in the world. I headed to the North shore at Mokuliea and it was unbelievable. Nicely powered and nice easy roller waves to ride. Was only my second time wave riddding and picked it up fast. Be carefull there in the winter though because it is still the legedary North Shore and Nov/Dec is the big wave season. Kailua should be good that time of year.
A few years ago I spent Thanksgiving on Oahu. The wind got really light at that time of the year, we got perhaps 2 days out of 7 at Kailua Beach with tradewinds.
But the so called "Kona Winds" start blowing in winter. At Kailua Beach those would be offshore. So we went to Waikiki where some locals were launching. It is however a sketchy place and I would not do it again, was naive at that time. It is sketchy because there is no real good way to get out - the only one is to climb over a jetty and crawl down the rocks.
Also the water can get shallow in some areas and coral sticks out. But....I had a BLAST!
And...it is a few years ago but we saw Martin Vari there jumping over one of the jetties. Crazy dude
The weather is variable during those months. It might rain, it might get cold, the trades might blow, kona winds might blow, the surf might get huge. You'll get a little bit of everything.
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Walk - in Interview will be conducted for following assignment in a time bound
research project undertaken in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences of the
Institute on 15th February, 2017 and Time 10:30 A.M. for the following assignment in a purely
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Name of the Research Project : Bay of Bengal mesoscale eddies role on rainfall, convection and
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Is Naturalism Nihilistic?
Scientism as Rosenberg describes it isn't equivalent to or implied by naturalism, a worldview that takes science as its guide to reality. He says "Science has to be nihilistic about ethics and morality." But science alone isn't in a position to be nihilistic. Science arguably provides the best answers to factual questions about what exists, but doesn't itself have the resources or competence to answer (in the negative, as Rosenberg would have it) the "persistent questions" of human meaning, purpose and morality. To suppose science alone can answer such questions is indeed to be scientistic in the original and rightly pejorative sense. After all, when considering the big questions, we ordinarily avail ourselves of all the philosophical and practical resources outside science, such as ethical and political theory, religious and secular traditions, maxims, rules of thumb, and other sources of wisdom on how best to live and find meaning.
It isn't surprising that Rosenberg's hyper-reductive scientism ends up in nihilism, since of course we don't find values or purpose or meaning at the level of what he thinks science shows to be the only reality: fermions and bosons. But such austere physicalism isn't forced on the naturalist, who can countenance higher-level ontologies, including mental states, so long as they play useful roles in our best (most predictive, transparent and unifying) explanations and theories. So far as science can tell, human beings (physical organisms) and their projects (their behavior) are just as real as their sub-atomic constituents, which after all are not directly observed but theoretical posits par excellence. Naturalism still leaves plenty of room for purpose, meaning and morality so long as these are understood as what they actually are under naturalism: human, creaturely concerns that need no cosmic or sub-atomic backup. To see this is to naturalize purpose, meaning and morality, to relativize them to naturally occurring needs and interests; it isn't to annihilate them.
Rosenberg underestimates the extent to which scientific explanations can be understood and found inspirational by non-scientists, for instance the grand stories of cosmic and biological evolution. To discover ourselves full participants in nature, historically and in the present moment, need not be demoralizing as Carl Sagan so wonderfully demonstrated. Crucially, scientific explanations don't entail that human existential and ethical concerns are unreal or unfulfillable, only that they are situated in a natural world that, logically enough, has no capacity to validate them. Only the assumption that addressing such concerns requires an appeal to supernatural or extra-human standards would lead us to suppose that naturalized meaning and morality aren't the real thing. But there's no good reason to make that assumption.
Rosenberg says that "If the physical facts fix all the facts…then in doing so, it rules out purposes altogether, in biology, in human affairs, and in human thought-processes." But the physical level of description doesn't compete with, or supplant, higher level descriptions of human behavior involving purposes and other intentional states, conscious and unconscious. There's no making sense of behavior at our level without them. True, science reveals no purpose in evolution or nature, but that doesn't show that our purposes are illusions, that we don't really believe, desire, plan, etc. Purposes and intentional states are real-ized in physical organisms such as ourselves.
He makes the same sort of claim about morality: "There is no room in a world where all the facts are fixed by physical facts for a set of free floating independently existing norms or values (or facts about them) that humans are uniquely equipped to discern and act upon." Agreed: for the naturalist norms aren't free floating, but are rooted in our evolved needs and desires for flourishing in community with others (hence ethical norms of fairness and reciprocity) and for making accurate predictions about the world (hence cognitive norms of rationality, evidence and inference). But even though we don't find anything intrinsically normative in nature taken as a whole, or at the level of physical facts about fermions and bosons, these norms are just as real as the human beings that depend on them for getting by in the world. From a naturalistic standpoint, the normative force attached to our moral core – our judgment that it's correct – can only be a function of the fact that it serves basic human needs as shaped by evolution: if you want to get along with others (and you likely do) then you should in general behave morally. That this explanation shows our moral core to be an adaptation, along with much else about us, doesn't debunk normativity as unreal, only naturalizes it.
Rosenberg's reductive stripping away of higher level human perspectives continues down the line, for meaning, history, consciousness, the self, free will, and even knowledge (a perilously self-undermining tack to take). But the mistake in all this is to suppose that physicalist, mechanistic, sub-personal and selectionist explanations leave no room in naturalism for the higher level ontologies and explanations that comprise the need-driven normative realms of cognition, meaning and morality. That the brain doesn't traffic in propositions, and that consciousness isn't a direct mirroring of the world, doesn't mean that language-using persons don't have propositional knowledge or entertain accurate beliefs. That semantic meaning isn't a "fact about reality" considered at the sub-atomic level doesn't render unreal our linguistic referential capacities, or our ability to tell truthful and instructive stories about historical events. No original intentionality is needed, only the constructed intentionality made possible by being creatures whose brains instantiate mental models that track the world. Seeing that the consciously experienced self is naturalistically not a soul, but a neurally realized pattern (a "real pattern" Dennett would say) is to explain selves and self-concern, not to explain them away. That we aren't contra-causally free doesn't mean we cease being moral agents responsive to the prospect of rewards and sanctions, although it might entail that we rethink some of our more punitive responsibility practices.
The processes of naturalization spurred by science may indeed upset some cherished supernatural and theistic conceptions of the self, freedom, consciousness, morality, meaning and knowledge, which may in turn prompt changes in mainstream concepts and practices. But naturalism does not entail the scientistic elimination and debunking of all that matters to human beings; it simply places this mattering within nature as a set of creaturely concerns that other sentient beings might conceivably share with us. That nature, taken as a whole, or understood sub-atomically, does not validate our naturally occurring concerns and capacities isn't a reason to give up on them, and indeed we're pretty much constitutionally unable to do so. So naturalists need not be, shouldn't be, and in the end can't be, scientistic eliminativists or nihilists.


text:
YORK, Pa. – The York College men's cross country team came in fourth place out of eight teams at the Goucher Cross Country Classic on Saturday afternoon.
A good portion of the Spartan runners did not race in preparation for next weekend.
The first Spartan to cross the finish line was Russell Souder (Timonium, Md./Dulaney) in 14th place with a time of 29:34. Next to finish for the Green and White was Andrew Ward (Oxford, N.J./Warren Hills Regional) at 29:56 in 17th place. Travis Deckert (New Windsor, Md./Mt. St. Joseph) was the third Spartan finisher recording a time of 30:32. Coming in 35th with a time of 31:17 was Joey Corrigan (Northport, N.Y./Northport). Crossing the finish line at 31:42 was Joey Orlando (Minotola, N.J./Buena Regional) and at 31:54 was Nihir Trivedi (River Edge, N.J./River Dell Regional). Rounding out the scoring for the Spartans was Paul Glassmoyer (York, Pa./West York) with a time of 35:00.
"I am very pleased with the men's results," said head coach Erick Camodeca. "It was a great opportunity for them and us to show our depth against other teams, especially against the field today."
The Spartans finished the race with a total of 112 points. Coming in ahead of them was St. Mary's in third, Johns Hopkins in second and Navy in first. Also competing in the race was Mary Washington, Goucher, Goucher Alumni and Stevenson.
York returns to action on Saturday when they race at the Christopher Newport Invitational. The race is set to begin at 12 p.m.


text:
Los Alamos National Laboratory
After the Big Bang: Theory suggests first planets formed after first generations of stars
Get Expertise
- Jarrett Johnson
- Nuclear and Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Hui Li
- Nuclear and Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Core accretion model of planet formation allows for more accurate theoriesRecent research by Jarrett Johnson and Hui Li of LANL's Nuclear and Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology group suggests that the first planets in the universe formed well after the first generations of stars. The scientists calculated the minimum metallicity that must be present in the dusty disks surrounding newborn stars in order for planets to take shape.
Astronomers use the term "metallicity" to refer to elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, such as oxygen, silicon and iron. Because the heavy elements required for assembling the cores of planets were not produced in the Big Bang, they must have been produced instead by fusion reactions within early generations of stars and supernovae. The scientists' calculations suggest that the amount of heavy elements produced by the first generation of stars was not enough for planets to form around the second generation of stars; instead, numerous generations of stars were likely required to produce the material from which the first planets formed.
Core accretion model of planet formation
Johnson and Li based their work on the core accretion model of planet formation, in which dust grains in a protostellar disk coagulate into planetesimals, which then assemble into planets with solid cores. The scientists developed a simple calculation of the critical metallicity—the minimum amount of heavy elements to form planetesimals during the early dust coagulation phase of the model. The researchers focused on what they consider to be the key processes that set the timescale required for planetesimals formation at low metallicity. They compared the time required for dust to settle into the midplane of a circumstellar disk with the disk lifetime. The high radiation flux from the central star disperses the lighter elements in the disk, which reduces the lifetime of the disk. The researchers conclude that the more significant factor in determining whether the conditions exist for planet formation is the metallicity of the disk, rather than the grain-size distribution. The critical metallicity is also a function of distance from the host star.
Comparison with astronomical observations
Johnson and Li do not expect planet formation in the core accretion model for the "Forbidden zone"—the region below critical metallicity. The researchers tested this prediction against observational data that astronomers have collected on hundreds of planets orbiting distant stars. The evidence indicates that planet formation takes place preferentially at high metallicity, and the lifetimes of circumstellar disks are shorter at lower metallicities. The calculated results are consistent with the observational data and support one of the main models of the formation of the Solar System. Because their theory is based on current ideas of how planets form around stars, it may need revision if it is incompatible with any planetary systems that are discovered in the future.
Predictions for the types of planets
The researchers' calculations also predict the properties of the first planets. The scientists expect that the planets formed around the first low-mass metal-enriched stars were likely to have been too small and too close to the star (too hot) for life. The first Earth-like planets, which may have hosted the first life in the universe, only could have formed once the abundance of heavy elements rose to a level of at least 10 percent of what is observed today in the local universe. This result also implies that the first Earth-like planets may have formed around stars slightly more massive than the Sun. Because more massive stars burnout faster than less massive ones, any life that evolved on these planets may have already perished with the death of its host star, which may have lived only 4 billion years compared to the 10 billion year lifetime expected for the Sun. The researchers state that the formation of Earth-like planets is not itself a sufficient prerequisite for life. Early galaxies contained strong sources of life-threatening radiation, such as supernovae and black holes. Therefore, they conclude that the conditions for life emerged only after the earliest epoch of galaxy formation.
The Astrophysical Journal will publish this research. The Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program (LDRD) funded the research, and Jarrett Johnson is supported by a Director's Postdoctoral Fellowship. The work supports the Lab's Information Science and Technology science pillar.


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Your story's opener is your one opportunity to capture an editor's or agent's attention. Learn how to avoid the critical mistakes (such as providing too much backstory) that lead to rejection and write a great beginning for your story. Today's tip of the day, taken from Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers At Page One by Les Edgerton, illustrates the five wrong ways to start a story.
Opening With a Dream
Never, ever, ever begin a narrative with action and then reveal the character's merely dreaming it all. Not unless you'd like your manuscript hurled across the room, accompanied by a series of curses. Followed by the insertion of a form rejection letter into your SASE and delivered by the minions of our illustrious postal service. Even though we're dealing with beginnings here, it bears mentioning that you should never–and I never never—end a story by revealing that all that has gone on before was just a dream. Not unless you enjoy the prospect of strangers hunting you down and doing you bodily harm should such a story somehow find print.
Opening With an Alarm Clock Buzzing
Don't open with your protagonist waking to an alarm clock ringing, or to someone shaking her awake, or to a cute little birdie chirping from her bedroom window, or to a blazing sun shining through the window.
This is always a groaner for the agent or editor–a beginning in which she's introduced to the character waking up to an alarm clock ringing or to a clock radio announcing something important, such as the Martians have landed. Such an opening signals clearly to the agent or editor that the writer is about to take her through a tedious and thoroughly dull journey of the character waking, eating breakfast, greeting all the numbingly boring children in the house, and so on. It's going to be hours before she gets the actual story. Hours she's probably not going to invest.
The only thing worse than a story opening with a ringing alarm clock is when the character reaches over to turn it off and then exclaims, "I'm late!" I actually saw a movie in which that happened–wish I could remember the title so I could give it its deserved props. An intelligent reader will root for a cruel and unusual death for someone so irredeemably stupid as to set her alarm clock so she'll be late and is then surprised when it goes off at the time she set it for may actually meet a person of the opposite sex who is equally brain damaged, and the scary thing is that they may have offspring. Resulting in progeny from the shallow end of the gene pool. Now, that's a terrifying thought!
Being Unintentionally Funny
Don't write sentences like: "Was she going to come in or stay out on the porch, he thought to himself." It's been fairly well verified down through the annals of history that when a human being thinks, he almost always does so to himself, and scarcely ever to another person, unless mind-reading is part of the story. When an editor encounters one of these kinds of sentences, your work is probably going to make her laugh, but that's not considered a positive reaction in this case.
Too Little Dialogue
One of the primary red flags for many editors and agents is the absence of dialogue on the first few pages of a manuscript. All editors–no matter what the material, screenplay or novel or short story–look for lots and lots of nice white space. Some editors are even known to rifle the pages to see how dense the prose is. (Readers who cover screenplays do this automatically to check for the amount of dialogue in the script–there had better be a lot!) When fiction editors do this and see copy that isn't broken up much, it tells them one thing–that what they're about to encounter is likely to be narrative, narrative, and yet more narrative.
Signaling a read that promises to be boring.
And you know what that means.
Don't quit your day job just yet.
Opening With Dialogue
This kind of opening was popular at the turn of the last century; it looks musty now. The problem with beginning a story with dialogue is that the reader knows absolutely nothing about the first character to appear in a story. For that matter, any of the characters. That means that when she encounters a line or lines of dialogue, she doesn't have a clue who the speaker is, who she is speaking to, and in what context. That requires that she read on a bit further to make sense of the dialogue. Then, at least briefly, she has to kind of backtrack in her mind to put it all into context. That represents, at the least, a speed bump, and at worst, a complete stall.
You don't want that! Your goal should be to write narratives with enough skill that the reader never has to pause to figure out what's going on. That interrupts the fictive dream the reader has willingly entered. Once the read is stalled, however momentarily, it becomes easy to put the story down. Many times, never to return. You want to avoid such stalls at all costs.
There are, of course, certain notable exceptions. A line like: "'I'd like to make love to Nancy,' Tom said to his pal Joey, 'but I'd have to look at her face to do it and I don't think I can do that.'" A dialogue opening like that may sometimes work. The thing is, if I began with a snatch of dialogue, I'd make certain that the meaning and context of the lines spoken were clear from the git-go.
Also, remember that a character's thoughts are a form of dialogue–they're an interior monologue. Just another reason to not open with the character ruminating.
Most times, if not always, look for a better way to begin your story than with dialogue.
This excerpt is from Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers At Page One by Les Edgerton. To learn more about the book, read an excerpt on writing opening scenes. For more resources on fiction writing, we suggest:


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An emerald necklace of parks graces the central downtown area of Oak Bluffs just off Circuit Avenue. Waban, Nashawena Park and the grand Ocean Park are among the many parks in the downtown area. All are ringed by houses, most built in the cottage style so popular in this town known for its honky tonk atmosphere. The park designs were created by Robert Morris Copeland, a landscape architect inspired by Frederick Law Olmsted. The Copeland District has architectural and landscape design restrictions for historic preservation.
Parks District/Downtown in the News
Restoration of Union Chapel: Halfway Back to Former Glory
Oak Bluffs' Big Harborfest Hello Only Part of Its Enduring Charm
Embracing Life from Circuit Avenue
Edgartown Bank Seeks to Harvest Large Pearl Out of Oyster Bar
Music Policy Snags on Sand Bar, Oak Bluffs Harbor Unplugged
Donation Saves Oak Bluffs Fireworks
Another Spin, Another Season: Flying Horses Resume Their Rounds
It Takes a Village to Shore Up Town's Collapsing Waterfront
Oak Bluffs Squared: Where Everybody Knows Your Name
Starved, Needing More Sand: Inkwell Beach in Oak Bluffs
Holy Ghost Festival is Sopalicious
Possible Dreams Auction Will Move to Ocean Park, A Historic Seaside Setting
An Oak Bluffs Love Letter Long Forgotten, Still Pulses


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Cube 5 piece set with footstools - Brown
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This highly fashionable cube set offers a square table, 4 seats all with co-ordinated back and base cushions, for extra comfort and footstool with an additional cushion which tucks under each of the chairs, when not in use. The back of the chairs fold up for further support when in use, and down while the seating is not in use to make this set even more compact and versatile.
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Fed's Big Ag Policy is Anything But "Green"Sunday, February 24, 2013
Tom Philpott of Mother Jones has put together a nice story on environmental destruction as a result of government corn and soy policy: "Goodbye Grasslands, Hello Corn."
So why would farmers plow up such risky land? Simple: Federal policy has made it a high-reward, tiny-risk proposition. Prices for corn and soy doubled in real terms between 2006 and 2011, the authors note, driven up byfederal corn-ethanol mandates and relentless Wall Street speculation. Then there's federally subsidized crop insurance, the authors add. When farmers manage to tease a decent crop out of their marginal land, they're rewarded with high prices for their crop. But if the crop fails, subsidized insurance guarantees a decent return. Essentially, federal farm policy, through the ethanol mandate and the insurance program, is underwriting the expansion of corn and soy agriculture at precisely the time it should be shrinking.
I discussed these types of subsidies in my recent interview with Ilana Mercer. I also answered the question, Why are high fructose corn syrup and soybean oil in everything? Answer: Corn and soybean subsidies from the period 1995 – 2011 totaled $108 billion. Corn and soy make up almost half of all U.S. farmland. Most of this is GM (genetically modified) foods, allowing the agricultural industry to serve its masters who are the beneficiaries of political-business alliances under the Big Biotech umbrella: Monsanto, Syngenta, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and Tyson. Notes Philpott, in an older article for Mother Jones:
And the economic pie these companies gorge on is massive. Pesticide Action Network's Heather Pilatic has an great post about how integrated pest management in US corn fields collapsed with the introduction of Monsanto's seeds engineered to contain the pesticide Bt and with the rise of Bayer's neonicotinoid-pesticide seed treatments—representing billions in annual sales to those companies. On the corn-processing side, government mandates ensure that a huge portion of the corn crop—currently, 40 percent—gets diverted into the fuel supply in the form of ethanol, a huge boon to ethanol giant Archer Daniels Midland.
As Tom reports, 2 million acres of prime grazing lands were destroyed in a five year period in the western corn belt to make way for more Big Ag-Big Government monoculture. The leading experts making the case against ruinous monoculture have been Joel Salatin and Michael Pollan. For further education on the topic, see Michael Pollan's talk, "Polycultures: A Step in the Right Direction" at the Georgia Organics Conference.
One Response to Fed's Big Ag Policy is Anything But "Green"
February 24th, 2013 at 7:56 pm
Great video, thank you for sharing. His views on what i can only assume would be government "incentives" for farmers insult my libertarian / Austrian sensibilities, but the polyculture idea for farming is excellent.
Another great example of polyculture for a fish farm is here. It was my first introduction to the idea. Thanks TED: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_a_fish.html


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I made this really great repellent from lemon slices and sprigs of rosemary. It worked better than any commercial product i tried, and after the seizures from the Advantix, i was really leery of chemical stuff.
Fresh Lemon & Rosemary Spray (For Dogs and Cats)
1 fresh lemon, thinly sliced
2 cups of filtered water
1 sprig of fresh rosemary
Place lemon slices and rosemary in a long, glass Pyrex tray. Cover with water and let sit overnight. In the morning, pour the liquid only into an empty spray bottle. Store unused spray in the refrigerator to keep it fresh, and use within two weeks.
To also repel ticks, add 30 drops of rose geranium oil to two tablespoon of vodka, and then add that mixture into the lemon-rosemary mixture.
Essential Oil Blend (For Dogs Only)
20 drops rose geranium, or palmarosa oil
3 drops citronella oil
3 drops rosemary or lavender oil
3 drops clove oil
3 drops eucalyptus oil
2 Tbsp. black walnut hulls tincture (alcohol base)
Mix all ingredients together, then add to one cup of water and blend in a spray bottle. (If you can't find black walnut hulls tincture, then add oils to 2 tablespoons of vodka. You must use alcohol to mix the oils in with the water.)


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Date: Nov 17, 2009
Press Release Number: 143-2009
The Port Authority Board of Commissioners will meet on Thursday, November 19, on the 15th floor of Port Authority headquarters at 225 Park Avenue South in Manhattan. The public session of the Board will begin at 1:30 p.m.
The following Committee meetings will be held in the same location: Committee on Finance, 9:30 a.m.; Committee on Capital Programs/Agency Planning, 9:30 a.m.; Committee on Construction, 10 a.m.; and World Trade Center Redevelopment Subcommittee, 11 a.m.
In addition, a meeting of the Committee on Construction, World Trade Center Redevelopment Subcommittee and the full Board will be held in executive session on November 19.
The public sessions of the Board and its Committees will be broadcast on the Port Authority's Web site - www.panynj.gov.
The agenda for the meetings to be held on November 19 will be posted on the Port Authority's Web site, www.panynj.gov, at 3 p.m. on November 18.
Members of the public wishing to address the Board should register by sending an e-mail message including their name, affiliation (if any) and topic to email@example.com by 11 a.m. on Thursday, November 19. Speakers are limited to 3 minutes, and speaking time may not be transferred. The public comment period may be limited to 30 minutes. Appropriate identification is required.
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Steve Coleman, 212 435 7777


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I hope that the title of this post got your attention. I should say that the book I am going to describe is one of the best Karate books I have ever read.
A few weeks ago I received a package from Mario McKenna. It was a donation to the Hawaii Karate Museum of his recent translation of Morinobu Itoman's "The Study of China Hand Techniques" which was published in 1934. This book captures the techniques, ideas, strategy and feeling of "old style" Karate. By "old style" Karate, I mean the Karate of the turn of the 20th century (when Karate was introduced to the public in Okinawa). We do not know much at all about Morinobu Itoman, but he writes about the Karate that I have heard about from the Karate pioneers here in Hawaii. I encourage you to acquire this book and read. I have read it twice so far and I am certain that I will be quoting from it in my future articles.
Mario McKenna is quite a Karate and Kobudo instructor and student, and a very generous translator. He can read the old books in Japanese. I and most Karate students cannot. I actually saw a copy of Itoman's "The Study of China Hand Techniques" at a bookstore in Okinawa in 2002, but the owner would not sell it to me. Now, you and I can read it in English!
I also had the pleasure of meeting Mario when he recently visited Hawaii. What a nice person! Now I have met Mario and Mark Tankosich. I hope that one day I can meet Patrick McCarthy, Graham Noble, and Joseph Swift. How fortunate we are for their research, articles, and books!
You can follow Mario's Kowakan blog at:
Mario also has a bookstore for the books he has translated and written. Please see:
All of these books are very reasonably priced. He has also translated Karate-Do Taikan by Genwa Nakasone (available in paperback and hardcover), The Study of Seipai: The Secrets of Self-defense Karate Kenpo, by Kenwa Mabuni, and Karate Kenpo: The Art of Self-defense, by Kenwa Mabuni. In addition, he has written a book entitled Ryukyu Kobudo The Students of Shinken Taira.
Charles C. Goodin


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A man's home is his castle, and that's particularly true for men who have been convicted of swindling others out of their money or other crimes. They're often decked out with the best that other people's money can buy — stunning in their sheer size and grandiosity. Other homes are surprising for just how common they are, but in the end, these spreads all have crime in common. Click ahead to see the homes of some of the country's most infamous criminals.
Posted 26 January, 2012
By Constance Parten
Season 6 of "American Greed" continues Wednesday, Feb. 1, at 9 p.m. ET.


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Green Mountain Coffee Roaster Inc.\'s shares got roasted themselves Thursday, falling hard enough to briefly trip the short-sale circuit breaker as bears jumped all over the company's disappointing sales outlook.
Pressure began building on the Keurig K-Cup single-serve coffee brewer right after releasing its fiscal first-quarter results at the close Wednesday. Sales ($1.34 billion) and earnings (70 cents a share) narrowly topped Wall Street expectations, confirming the company's sales growth was back on track and that it has moved beyond its earlier accounting problems.
But after a couple of months of rising expectations, the company's latest sales forecast — 14% to 18% in the current quarter — landed with a thud. The market was looking for at least 20%. Shares fell 10%.
As the session wore on, the stock cut its losses. That could be because Green Mountain still expects to earn 70 cents to 75 cents a share in its fiscal second quarter, which is roughly in line with the 71 cents analysts expect. It could also be that investors decided its full-year sales growth estimate of 15% to 20% isn't too shabby. Green Mountain also boosted its full-year guidance to $2.72 to $2.82 a share. (It had been $2.64 to $2.74.)
The results sparked a flurry of upbeat analyst notes. Here's a sampling:
"Green Mountain reported Q1 EPS of $0.70 compared to consensus $0.65 and our $0.66 estimate. Despite the continued volatility in brewer and K-Cup shipments from quarter-to-quarter, the broader trends, though moderating, remain strong and appear sustainable." – Janney Capital Markets, which puts a fair value estimate on the company of $50 a share.
From Dougherty & Co. Equity Research: "We reiterate our Buy rating because 1) we believe consumer demand for K-Cups has remained healthy, 2) we think knock-off competition has arrived but in relatively modest volumes with modest price competition, 3) we think GMCR shares discount the possibility GMCR morphs into a modest growth business at dramatically lower gross margin rates, and 4) we believe near to mid-term results are not likely to confirm the Street's fears on plummeting margins. Our price target of $52.00 is based on 19x our FY2013 GAAP EPS estimate of $2.69."
Canaccord and Lazard were among others so encouraged by the results that they raised their target prices on Green Mountain to $54 (from $45) and $58 (from $56), respectively.
If Green Mountain delivers, a lot of today's shorts will be squirming.
— Jim Jelter
Follow The Tell on Twitter @thetellblog


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Sample Edition
Expert3®. Your package of three online dailies. Now with access to FATCA Expert.
Expert3 combines the federal, state, and international publications that tax experts rely on. It gives you a searchable database of the full text and PDFs of the orginal source documents, and up-to-the-minute news covering key developments, as well as free daily and customized e-mails on the topics you want. But that's just the beginning.
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Bed of Roses
Leanne M.E. Boyd 2/22/2006 12:48:35 AMWow, this is amazing Kristin! #396714
Suzy Betancourt 2/22/2006 4:15:06 AMWow, me too!
Suzy #2451900
Michelle J. Harvey 2/22/2006 5:55:19 AMGorgeous image Kristin!!! Beautiful colors! #2452324
Kristin M. Morales 2/22/2006 7:50:42 AMhave no clue what a clamshell is but...I love the lens baby select focus #2452929
Sandra Freyler 3/22/2006 2:06:09 PMCongratulations Kristin on this beautiful finalist! :) #2562925
Tamara N. Wilson 4/12/2008 11:56:12 AMLovely shot!
Tamara #5779141
I shot this with a lens baby to get that really cool selective focus. I also used two large soft boxes in a clam shell to get an even, diffused glow across the skin.
Uploaded on 2/22/2006 12:33:10 AM
Camera: Canon EOS 20D Digital SLR Camera
Copyright for this gallery photo belongs solely to Kristin M. Murdoch. Images may not be copied, downloaded, or used in any way without the expressed, written permission of the photographer.
Log in to follow or message this photographer or report this photo.


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The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is a family-owned business that governs multiple auto racing sports events. NASCAR was founded by the race car driver Bill France Sr. in 1948. Since 2003, the chief executive officer and chairman of NASCAR is his grandson Brian France, who took over the position from his father - Bill France Jr. This family pioneered NASCAR from a Southeast based sport into a national and international multibillion dollar success.
The headquarters of the association are located in Daytona Beach, Florida. NASCAR maintains four offices in North Carolina - Charlotte, Mooresville, Concord, Conover, and regional offices in New York City, Los Angeles, Bentonville and Arkansas. The Association has also international offices in Mexico City and Toronto.
Stock cars are production-based automobiles, used in racing. This term is used to differentiate such a car from a race car - a custom-built car, designed only for racing purposes. The Stock car races traditionally run on oval tracks, measuring approximately 0.25 to 2.66 (0.4 to 4.3 kilometers) in length.
The first race in the history of the Cup series was organized in 1949. Jim Roper of Great Bend, Kansas, was the winner of the first ever NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) event, held in 1949. For a decade the Cup Series produced some of the most famous drivers in the world and the most fascinating shows in motorsports. Names like Lee Petty, Fireball Roberts, Buck Baker, Herb Thomas, the Flock brothers, Bill Rexford, Paul Goldsmith became part of the sport's history.
The three largest racing series, sanctioned by NASCAR, are the Sprint Cup Series, the Nationwide Series and the Camping World Truck Series. The Association also oversees NASCAR Local Racing, the Whelen Modified Tour, the Whelen All-American Series and the NASCAR iRacing.com Series. NASCAR sanctions over 1500 races at over 100 tracks in 39 states, and Canada. NASCAR presented exhibition races at the Suzuka and Motegi circuits in Japan, Mexico, and Calder Park Raceway in Australia.
Quaker State 400 Tickets Sparta KY Kentucky Speedway NASCAR 6/29
British Grand Prix Tickets F1 Formula One Silverstone UK Circuit 6/30
Coke Zero 400 Tickets Daytona Beach FL International Speedway NASCAR 7/6
New Hampshire 300 Tickets Loudon NH New Hampshire Motor Speedway NASCAR 7/14
Brickyard 400 Tickets Indianapolis IN Motor Speedway NASCAR 7/28
Pennsylvania 400 Tickets Long Pond PA Pocono Raceway NASCAR 8/4
Pure Michigan 400 Tickets Brooklyn MI Michigan International Speedway NASCAR 8/18
Food City 250 Tickets Bristol TN Motor Speedway NASCAR 8/23
Irwin Tools Night Race Tickets Bristol TN Motor Speedway NASCAR 8/24
Geico 400 Tickets Joliet Chicago IL Chicagoland Speedway NASCAR 9/15
Sylvania 300 Tickets Loudon NH New Hampshire Motor Speedway NASCAR 9/22
Hollywood Casino 400 Tickets Kansas City KS Speedway NASCAR 10/6
Camping World RV Sales 500 Tickets Talladega AL Superspeedway NASCAR 10/20
Goody's Fast Relief 500 Tickets Ridgeway VA Martinsville Speedway NASCAR 10/27
O'Reilly Auto Parts Challenge Tickets Fort Worth Ft Worth Dallas TX Texas Motor Speedway NASCAR 11/2
AAA Texas 500 Tickets Fort Worth Ft Worth Dallas TX Texas Motor Speedway NASCAR 11/3
AdvoCare 500 Tickets Avondale AZ Phoenix International Raceway NASCAR 11/10
Ford EcoBoost 400 Tickets Homestead FL Miami Speedway NASCAR 11/17
Grand Prix of the Americas Tickets Austin Del Valle TX Circuit of The Americas F1 Formula One 11/15-11/17
"The concert was amazing! I got super good tickets [floor seats] for just $108. That was cheaper than anywhere else. I also bought the tickets TWO days before the show! I only paid for two day shipping but I actually got it in one day!"


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Science Friday® is produced by the Science Friday Initiative, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Science Friday® and SciFri® are registered service marks of Science Friday, Inc. Site design by Pentagram; engineering by Mediapolis.
Polar bears are the poster children of climate change. But could penguins be next? Reporting in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers write that climate change is causing heavier rains and hotter days in coastal South America, which can kill more penguin chicks than predators or starvation.


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How To Wire a Lamp
Lamps seem to be a popular DIY topic this month, probably because the extra hours of darkness we see during the winter months remind us of the importance of good lighting in the home. Whether you are trying to fix up a vintage lamp, or trying to create a lamp from something new, we hope you find this tutorial on wiring a lamp useful. The sample lamp shown belongs to my mom, and dates back to my parents' first DC apartment c.1971. Though mom still loves the lamps, they were getting rather temperamental- turning this one on required a gentle 1.65 turns of the switch rather than the more standard 1 turn, not exactly a confidence builder when you're talking about electricity.
What You Need
1 vintage lamp (or whatever vase/box/doodad you want to turn into a lamp)
1 lamp wiring kit (you can assemble the various components yourself at the hardware store, but I'm lazy so I bought the kit)
drill (only if you are converting something into a lamp and need to drill holes for the cord etc)
1. Start breaking down your existing lamp. Take off the harp. Untwist the on/off knob until it comes free. Untwist the lamp socket. Pull the lamp socket apart to gain access to the wires. Unscrew the wire connections and pull off the socket cap. Pull the cord out through the base of the lamp.
2. Thread the new cord up through the base until it emerges at the top- make sure you push up extre to make for easy manipulation. Slip on the new neck and nipple (or reuse the old ones) and screw tight. Slide the bottom of the lamp harp onto the nipple. Screw the new socket cap into place on the nipple.
3. Tie an underwriter's knot in the cord. Connect the wires to the terminal screws- the wire with the ridge or colored strip connects to the silver screw. Pop the new socket on top of the cap and press down until you hear it snap into place.
4. Put the new harp into place, screw in a lightbulb, add back the shade and plug in your lamp.
Keep in mind that sometimes vintage lamps have surprises in store. When I first started loosening the locking nut at the top of mom's lamp, I realized that the metal lamp was actually four separate pieces being held together by the tension created by the nut. I quickly retightened that nut and moved on to the next step of the process. If you buy a kit, there are nice instructions and a picture on the back (my primary motivation for purchasing the kit).
Want more smart tutorials for getting things done around the home?
See all of our Home Hacks tutorials
We're looking for great examples of your own household intelligence too!
Submit your own Home Hacks tutorial or idea here!
Images: Colleen Quinn


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Sapphire Pure Platinum Z77K Review
Sapphire has long been known as AMD's largest partner. Having the production capacity to build both reference boards and its own custom PCBs have given Sapphire a unique edge to keep moving further into the high end motherboard market. After bringing on a new staff of engineers to improve the motherboard part of the portfolio, Sapphire has made great progress with bringing a solid selection of boards to market for both AMD and Intel systems. Progress has been steady and has shown improvement over the past year with 990FX, X79, Z68 and now a Z77-based board for use with Intel's Third Generation Core series Ivy Bridge processors. What we have today is the Sapphire Pure Platinum Z77K motherboard. It offers up support for up to 32GB of DDR3 memory, UEFI BIOS, CrossfireX support with up to four graphics cards, Intel's latest technologies including Rapid Start, Smart Response and Switchable graphics and the inclusion of a Killer e2200 NIC; all for a competitive $149 price point. Lets see what this latest offering from Sapphire brings to the table in terms of overclocking and value.
Closer Look:
As a prerelease board the packing was not finalized, but the Pure Platinum Z77K comes in a black box much like the rest of the Pure Platinum boards I have looked at from Sapphire. Inside the accessory bundle is in the top compartment of the box with the Pure Platinum Z77K taking up residence in the bottom section of the package.
As it sits the bundle with this Pure Platinum edition board is fairly slim with SATA drive cables, the I/O panel cover, USB 3.0 drive bay adapter, rear mounting brackets to facilitate adding the ports to the rear panel, documentation and driver disk. This bundle may be an early bundle but at the worst it still offers the ability to use the functionality of the Pure Platinum Z77K to effect.
While slim by comparisons to what is offered in the video cards, the bundle will allow the end user to use the feature set of the board without any other added features.


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What attracts me, personally, to the concept of rebirth is that it is an attempt to explain why I was born as the person I am as opposed to being born anyone else. I can see no other attempt at explaining the origin of my particular existence. We must assume that the quality which makes our stream of experience separate and unique was conditioned in some way. The traditional assumption is that who we were born as was a result of chance-- but when I look at nature, I do not see purely random events, I see conditions influencing other conditions causally, and it is intuitive to apply such causality to the particularity of my embodiment.m0rl0ck wrote:What i have never understood about this is whose experience? The idea of experience presupposes a perceiver.LonesomeYogurt wrote: The concept that the impersonal stream of experience does not begin at birth or end at death, but continues in a cycle of arising and ceasing across multiple lifetimes as propelled by ignorance.
Additionally, where does the experience end and begin? Does my "impersonal stream of experience" include my mother and father? my culture? my entire universe? And in the last case are "we" all experiencing the same universe or do we each get individual copies? Where are the boundaries between my "impersonal stream of experience" and anyone elses? And how can you know those boundaries if they exist, survive the death of the physical body?
Now I will get crazy:
Accepting rebirth, there are problems-- especially when we accept the fact that there is no self. I interpret the fact that we have no self as indicating that identity relationships do not truly exist. So, if you were in deep jhana, and could recollect a past life, it would be improper to say that this past life was 'yours.' No! Wrong! You are having an experience of a life-- what it is you believe to be the connection between your life presently and the life you are recollecting is an act of reason, of imagination. The phenomenological experience of recollecting a past life, as is the phenomenological experience of recollecting a present life, must be imbued with a self of self-- the feeling that this experience is 'my' experience. This can mislead us into thinking that the recalled past life is ours, and is thus what conditioned the present life, but that is an unfair assumption. I do not believe you can make any claim that any past life was 'yours,' in a way which would imply there are past lives which are 'not yours.'


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Take-and-bake pizza chain Papa Murphy's is on the search for a way to create a stronger brand image, and it's doing just that with its new CREATE store design.
The new restaurant model puts a spotlight on both personalization and transparency—literally—with an open kitchen layout that lets guests watch as Papa Murphy's staff make pizza dough from scratch and add guests' toppings of choice.
"We started the process wanting to make sure that our store design matched the quality and freshness of our product," says Kevin King, Papa Murphy's chief development officer. "We quickly discovered we had some opportunity through talking to guests and customers about what they thought of our existing store design."
The brand's old design was nearly nine years old, "so it was about time to go out and take a look and update that overall design," King says, adding that its store model wasn't as contemporary as the brand itself.
"Over the last several years, we've continued to score extremely well in every consumer survey and study, regardless of the different methodologies used," King says. "Those surveys continually tell us that customers love our food and love our brand. We wanted to make sure that our store design matched up to those expectations that they had for our pizza."
Because Papa Murphy's has so much in-store action—hand-making its dough, chopping ingredients and shredding cheese on site, and creating pizzas in front of the guest—King says the brand wanted credit for that work, while also giving guests the assurance that their food is fresh.
"The consumer today is a little suspicious about supply chain and where stuff comes from," King says. "If they can see the quality of the ingredients that go on their pizza, we think that that goes a long way. On top of that, ours is one of the only brands out there where the customer interacts with our product cooked and uncooked, so it just reinforces the fact that we're different and that we make their pizza with the highest-quality ingredients and we're so proud of them, we're going to do it right in front of you and show you everything."
King says the CREATE design will create an interior that aligns with customers' expectation of the brand.
"That in itself will help drive traffic," he says. "Secondly, more so than ever, if your brand isn't current, the younger generation of consumers are going to tend to shop somewhere else, because they don't have the same connection to your brand that customers who have bought from you for years [do]. We want to make sure that our brand stays current and relevant to a broad age range of people."
King says the CREATE design will also help create add-on sales opportunities with desserts and side items, which are now more prominent in the unit.
The new store prototype will be tested at three units to make sure the design has positive customer acceptance and that no major changes need to be made, King says. By early next year, he adds, the brand plans to transition fully into the CREATE design for new units and begin remodeling existing units.
"There may be some tweaks and changes as we go along, as we see what works and what doesn't," King says. "But we're really excited about it, and the early indications are that customers really love it."
By Mary Avant
The five times weekly e-newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on the latest industry news and additions to this website.


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Mom's love good for Children's Brains
School-age children whose mothers nurtured them early in life have brains with a larger hippocampus, a key structure important to learning, memory and response to stress.
The new research, by child psychiatrists and neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is the first to show that changes in this critical region of children's brain anatomy are linked to a mother's nurturing.
Read Summary here. Read full text: Maternal support in early childhood predicts larger hippocampal volumes at school age


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We met up with the Australian rapper Amethyst Amelia Kelly aka Iggy Azalea, who just two days ago announced that she's going on Beyoncè's "Mrs. Carter World Tour," for a very relaxed photo shoot and a little heart to heart.
The blonde beauty with the pouty lips and almond eyes has been living in the U.S. for a few years now but her accent is with no doubt still very Aussie. On a personal note, I find this significantly likeable and professionally it connects her with the Australian fans in a remarkable way. "I don't get a lot of comments on my accent from the people in the U.S. but the Australians love it."
What we love is that Iggy is amazingly real. Behind her fake nails and perfect makeup she shows herself approachable and open-minded. "Most people just ask me, is that your face?" she says faking a thick American accent, noticeably happy when I identify the tattoo on her lower arm as a simplified cartoon-style head of The Birth of Venus by Botticelli.
While we're shooting and talking, she tells me that one thing she'd really like to be good at is cooking: "I eat out a lot. I can't cook, but I'd really love to be a good chef. I would totally do the whole thing, wear an apron (laughs) and have dinner parties. Then everybody would be like: 'This is delicious!' (gesticulating) And I'd be: 'Well thank you, I made this!'"
In terms of music, the artist who Iggy would definitely love to work with is Missy Eliott because she considers her an amazing lyricist. Iggy's own lyrics are tough, she doesn't hide emotions behind a clean pop-music language – she is a rapper. Pop music was never an option for Iggy and since she was sweet 16 she has been working hard on her hip-hop dream. Despite any critical voices for whatever reasons, haters and lovers have to give the girl credit – she made it! Her songs are being played all over the globe, her highly anticipated album The New Classic is dropping around the end of August, and Miss Azalea is nominated for the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. In the category 'Artist To Watch,' her video for the track "Work" is up for vote next to four other artists including The Weeknd. Talking about the nomination, she seems more than freakishly excited: "Sometimes you know by looking at the other nominated artists that you don't really have a chance, then you appreciate your nomination and just don't think about it that much. But yeah! There is a chance… I have a really good chance to win and that's what makes me crazy excited about it!"
We wish her all the best of luck for the award, but whether or not she'll be taking that little statue home on the 25th of August, it's guaranteed Iggy Azalea is gonna work work work it out.
Photography by Robert Wunsch for Highsnobiety


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My 9 week old has been cluster feeding on and off for three weeks and my supply hasn't increased. He is having sufficient wet diapers but is still hungry. Ive finally started giving him my stash of expressed milk because he is still hungry after most feedings and cluster feeding isn't helping my supply. But now that stash is running low. I bought formula today because I have to go to work and there wasn't enough breastmilk.
Has anyone else had this problem? Will adding formula help since my body isn't responding to his needs? Or any advice on how to increase my milk supply?