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ИНТЕРВЬЮ Ника Кемпа с Р. БЕНДЛЕРОМ
Nick: This is Nick Kemp I would like to welcome Dr Richard Bandler to NLP MP3 and start off by actually asking you, what actually interests you these days, In general.
Richard: My grandson, when you say what interests me, everything interests me, I'm just involved in lots and lots of stuff, I'm developing a new light sound machine, and were also, a new EEG, KEG machine that has pressure sensitive things, where you don't have to stick anything on yourself. You can wear a baseball cap, or a construction helmet, and some of the bigger companies were providing us networking to monitor the performance or people using heavy machinery so they don't hurt them selves. I imagine that eventually we will use this with astronauts, and with baseball players and football player, and all kinds of people, so that we can start to monitor the difference between quality performance and performance that isn't quality. So we can move it in one direction, that's sort of been the theme of all the work that I have ever done, to take the things that work and get people to do them more often, and take the things that don't work and get them to stop it. Take the things that do work and make calculus from them, and then come up with ways that people can do things that are high performance that they have never done. My whole 35-year career has been based on that principle. That's what being able to model and build calculus is all about. Originally NLP was about looking at the few things I had seen people do that worked, then building a way of representing them, and computing what else would work. Most of the techniques we teach in NLP were never done by anyone, the truth is that people are now better hypnotists and better therapists and better communicators that the people I modelled originally. And that's a good thing, progress should make us all learn to be better than the people we learn from, you know, by the time their dead. Its an unfortunate thing that we get geniuses and then people try to emulate them for centuries, instead of taking geniuses as the bottom line, and getting everybody to be better. And I think I have done a very good job of that over the years. Training people to be better communicators than Virginia ever was, than Fritz ever was, than Milton ever was. They kinds of techniques I have provided, both language techniques and techniques in sub modalities, things that are in my books and in my tapes and in my videos and in my DVD's. All of those things are designed to get people to be better communicators, and to be better at what ever they do, whether its spelling, working a big tractor, being a baseball player, it makes no difference to me. My job is to increase performance, and to figure out things that people aren't doing from the good performances that they could be doing, that would be as affective as what their doing now, but to a wider range of areas.
Nick: One of the questions that I was asked by a college of mine, I know from training with you over the years, you are constantly evolving and developing, you approaches and what you do. What from the original model of NLP has been superseded by your work in current years?
Richard: What hasn't? That would be the answer I would give, there is very little we used to do that I would still consider worth doing, except for some of the linguistic patterns. Every thing has become more precise, certainly with the models in using your brain for a change and time for a change, everything took a big evolutionary step, when we stopped looking at sequences of representational systems so much and started looking at more simultaneous models. Of course DHE is a giant leap forward, because the way in which we are designing things gives us better things than we could elicit from the public at random. It allows us to take the machinery of the outside world and use it as a model for the inside world. Last year I had a guy, couldn't tell up from down. He couldn't drive because of that, its just the simple thing of building a hallucinated bubble, inside of his head, so he has a reference point, made it all disappear. I'm sure he doesn't even see it anymore but he can build in the kinestetics, his vistubular system, which is actually a whole other sensory system, simply wasn't working right so we built him one. Recently I just worked with some one where they had this neurological disease, where they lost their balance, I mean literally, they had trouble standing or walking or whatever. The medical model is to get them to accept their limitation and walk with a walker for the rest of their life, all these terrible things. But I extended out of his mind, hallucinations, just like schizophrenics have only I put big long things that have buzzers on them so if he started to tilt one way it would buzz and move him back. But it literally, physically pulled him in the opposite direction. Oddly enough in side of a month he was walking just fine. One of the things, well of course everyone that I work with is pretty much people that have been given up on, or professionals, that do good sometimes and not others. I have had athletes as clients, I had a tennis player that would play really good and then he'd play really shitty. In so far as I could get him to pay attention, we were able to get him to go into the state where he wins more often. But you know sometimes, people get into the state where they get too cocky and then they stop paying attention, the minute he did that he called me back on the phone and said, I forgot what you told me to do. I said, no you haven't your just not doing it. If you do the things that work they will. And that's just pretty much, you know, I've methodically gone back and taken every thing that we started out with and have revamped it so that its easier and quicker, you know even the way in which we used to work with phobias. I have a much better way of doing it now, we used to start with a visual lead, now I use kinastetic leads, I can get much quicker results, much faster and with a larger percentage of people. All of these techniques, not that the old techniques don't work, and they are still worth learning, but its like anything else. If you don't come up with better ways, we would still be driving model T's, or we would still be in horse carriages with square wheels. The object of everything is to improve it, and just because something is better than what was doesn't mean there isn't something better still and more pervasive.
Nick: How did you first meet Robert Anton Wilson, and how did that arrangement come about?
Richard: Well my wife liked Robert Anton's books. She read one to me and it was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. If she wanted something she would really just tell me about it, and she said, we've really gotta meet this guy. At the time I had a guy that worked for me named Braum, he's no longer alive anymore. We told him and he somehow or another found out that Robert was doing something in San Jose. So I sent a note to him, I said we have to meet. So they called on the phone and we had dinner at the empress of chine in San Francisco, which is a perfect place, I found out later, because it's in one of his books. He thought I did it deliberately but I just liked the empress of china. I didn't realise it was in one of his other books. We had dinner at the top of the empress of china, over looking the Golden Gate Bridge, and the whole bay. Beautiful view out there, and we sat and we talked, actually mostly his wife and my wife talked, and we watched them talk. We decided to do some things together. I think he's a Brilliant speaker, and I think he is one of the geniuses of our time. Without a doubt, and he's one of the few genius' I know that's still alive. Which is nice, Robert is one of those people, he's probably written out, Jesus, thirty-five, thirty-six, forty books, I don't know, zillions of articles, and has an interest in everything. Most of the really bright people I met did lots and lots of things, real dabblers, Gregory Bateson, had his fingers in everything. They all like to draw, write poetry, play a little music, dance, they studied anthropology and sociology, and history and art. One-dimensional people sometimes, I met a geneticist and that's just about all he did, and once he got stuck there was nothing to pry him out of it. I found great solutions to things, by studying other things, every from architecture, to the way in which they get metals, you know I have always found answers to everything in chemistry, the more you study chemistry the more it tells you about the basic building blocks of life. Especially now that we have new things, with cat scans and pet scans and MRI's all this stuff is fascinating, Neuro Physiology has opened up worlds upon worlds upon how things actually physically work, and how they work at the neuro chemical level. One thing about Robert is that he's just the biggest wealth of information I have ever found anywhere, you can ask Robert about anything, and he will know about it. He makes the encyclopaedia look uninformed, he really does, sometimes I just through something out, and I said to him once, thirteenth century weird monk? And he went, oh Benedictine blah blah blah blah… and named this monk and started telling me all about him, I just made it up. I believe it was the monk that flew, and he would fly up to the top of the monastery, and clean gust, and the pope sent two people out because they thought he was possessed by the devil, but he promised he only flew when he needed to clean something. A very odd story, but Robert has such a fabulous memory for all this detail and he inputs this information all the time. There was a pen mark on a table napkin, and I started to write something and stopped, because somebody interrupted me, and he looked down and said, that's the symbol of blah blah blah, and I went Huh!, it was actually just a scribble that got started and I didn't finish it, but he told me all about where it came from and everything, and I looked it up and it was all accurate. So that's one of the fun things about Robert, so when I had him giving lectures and seminars I was doing, one of the things is you cant sit with Robert for three hours without getting smarter, its just impossible. He's a sweetheart, he's just a wonderful guy with a great sense of humour, I have met a lot of very famous intellectuals, and they were a pain in the ass. A lot of them, they may know a lot about something but they really weren't livers and lovers of life. Robert is, he's a very special man, and I think if people wanna get smarter, they should read his books.
Nick: Well this is a slightly odd question, but somebody asked me, what is the strangest thing that's happened to you during a seminar?
Richard: How the wall exploded, and an 8inch water main broke. Water came out of a painting of a waterfall. Talk about phsycadellic. Another time, right after the movie starwars, a six-foot guy, and it was actually the guy that played Darth Vader, came in full costume and burst in to the seminar on reality strategies. I was busy dissecting everybody's reality strategies, and they were all in this quasi-altered state, Miral Lynch was having some kind of conference across the hall, with thousands and thousands of insurance salesmen, and I guess they hired this guy. He came in with twenty storm troopers, burst through the doors and started talking like Darth Vader. Everybody looked, and then looked at me like, is this really here? And it was just very funny. But he was in the wrong room, he just burst through the wrong door. His timing was perfect, they all looked at me, and I went, what? I acted like I didn't see it so they're just a little nuttier than they already were. There's always fun things like that happen, crazy stuff, (Unknown name) came on once to do a seminar, and he brought kind of an entourage of people with turbans. I guess they meditate a lot, and somebody asked me to demonstrate the hand shake interrupt, and I did a handshake interrupt on this guy. He pushed one of his students up on stage, the guy obviously had been in some deep trances cos I did the handshake interrupt and the guy went over backwards. I grabbed him by the belt, literally hanging over backwards, if I hadn't got him by the belt he would have hit the floor. I kinda shook him trying to make him stiff, he was as limp as could be, and he fell over forwards, felt like I had a rag doll. There is always funny stuff like that happens, lots of things. There are good funny things, and sometimes there are things I consider being fairly tragic, I had a psychiatrist one time, jump up and throw a complete psychotic episode, about the fact that what I was telling him about was a total lie, and fabrication. I had been telling him about getting this guys pain to go away, he had had surgery in his ear and had terrible tinitus and pain in his ear. This was in Arizona, this guy was going on and on, this psychiatrist was calling me a fraud and all the shit, when all of a sudden this guy stands up in the back and says excuse me sir, that was me he was talking about. I hadn't seen this guy in 8 or 9 years, and I had told the story lots of times and nobody had ever said anything about it. You know, the earth coincidence control centre at work, I didn't even recognise him, he looked so different, cos he'd been in pain, he was an architect and he had actually built the place we were in, and that's why he was there. When he found out I was going to give a lecture in the building he built he thought cool, timing is everything for stuff like that, and strange things happen, and most of the time its good things, there are always silly things that happen. I like those things, some things you couldn't plan if you tried. Most of the time things work out, we had a fire in a hotel once, on the eighth floor, and all the sprinklers came on. Then it kept draining down through all the floors, and all of a sudden there were three hundred of us in a room and it just kept pouring water on us through the ceiling. Flooded the room, ruined everybody's clothes, everything. At the time is doesn't seem funny, but when you look back at it, you know, I didn't know what to so I took that was in a separate building, moved everybody out of the restaurant, took all the tables out in to the parking lot and started on. The hotel comes over and says you can't take our restaurant, I said, to late I already have, I had all these poor people sitting there, drenched in clothing that I didn't wanna stop. The hotel did pay for people, even the stuff they had in the rooms got ruined, and there was no real fire, it was just smoke from a bed. Some guy smoking in bed, fell asleep, and the smoke set off all these things, and I guess the sprinklers had gone buzurk, firing off all over the place. Ruined everything we had, clothing, the sound system, the PA system, keyboards, everything went. Just terrible, its like any other business, stuff is going to happen, that's one thing you can count on, on planet earth, Shit happens. I really believe the best thing about the past, is that its over, and you have to treat it that way. If you treat the past as if it's still alive you make people worse. This is why NLP is not a kind of therapy, when people call it that I object to it, that's an insult to me, I couldn't think of anything more insulting. Therapists are trying to find out where people got screwed up and where they are still screwed up, and fix it. I think people work perfectly, they just need to know more. Whether they are bad spellers, whether they're depressed, whether they are making bad decisions, or whether they are hallucinating daemons of the night, its not that there is something wrong with them. Even a fear of elevators is learned, you only have two natural fears when you are born, fear or loud noises and a fear of falling. All the rest is learnt and if you can learn one thing you can learn something else. And learning how to sort information in your head so that you can do what you wanna do is what NLP is all about, so you can be afraid of things you should be, like cheating on your wife. And be excited about things you should be, like having the freedom to get passed things you were afraid of. Whether its public speaking, which is probably the largest phobia there is. Or elevators of bugs or spiders, or snakes or what ever it is. Some snakes you should be afraid of, and stay away from. I watched this guy on TV that goes around the world and keeps getting bitten by snakes. It's a good thing he has a lot of anti venom with him, jimoney crickets, these guys get bit all the time. I think their mothers should have explained to them. I had a client, who they made a film about, a guy who ski jumped. Put sticks on his feet and slid down a mountain launched out thousands of yards, but he was afraid to walk across the room and say hello to a woman. To me when I try to figure out which one is dangerous ill tell you jumping off the side of a mountain looks more dangerous to me, than walking across the room to say hello. Some times people don't sort things out properly, not because of what happened in their childhood, or even if it is, it doesn't matter, because the cause effect universe is gone. What ever your doing, your still doing, and you can do something else, and all you have to do is learn a little bit about how to use your brain differently.
Nick: What advice would you give someone who wants to work with people on an individual basis?
Richard: Get a lot of good training, and practice, practice, practice. The reasons we have the society Websites is because we rank trainers by what they know. And I would check to make sure their credentials are current. If people haven't had any training in a couple of years, in this field you're behind the times. If they are not interested enough to keep up their own training, they shouldn't be the person that trains you. They should stay current with what's going on, and they shouldn't just have a certificate, most of the people that are very good have got a wall full of them. Five days of training isn't enough, six days of training may start you out as a practitioner but most people who are very good at this have done if for a long time.
Nick: I no this my self, from working with Tina Taylor training in Leeds, very much having used your inspiration and approach its just, people who have come and done NLP elsewhere before, in someway its completely unrecognisable, its just a very intellectualised process.
Richard: There are idiots doing everything on the earth, some dentist's aren't good dentists. It's the responsibility of the consumer to make sure they are getting the right product and with the web that's not hard to do. If you don't have the sense to find out if someone is a qualified NLP trainer then you get what you deserve. And if it's not someone I approve of then don't come and complain to me. I make up lists of the people that I say are current as trainers, and the institutes that are current, in terms of certification with the society. Now there are lots of other people who have decided that what I do is not NLP, because I'm not doing what I did 30 years ago. There are people who are stuck at levels of my development, who have trained other people who are stuck at levels or their development, who have trained people who are stuck at levels of those people development and then claim that their qualified to do something. But its not like you can't go to the source, you can go to purenlp.com you can go to richardbandler.com, and the societyofnlp.com and .net and nlp.net. All these places are out there, its not that hard to find out. Jesus you go on the web and my name is on half a million Websites but there's only a couple that are mine. So just because somebody sticks my name on a Websites just so you get sucked over there doesn't mean you should be stupid. The smart thing to do it go to the source and find out, that's what I always did. I didn't just pick an hypnotist to learn from, I found out who was the best and learnt from him. I found the best family therapist in the world I learnt from her, if you get junk its just garbage in, garbage out… its that simple, quality in quality out. And anybody, who thinks that NLP is an intellectual process, doesn't know the person who made it up. I can do more theoretical and analytical stuff than any intellectual, but don't. I'm a better mathematician than most, I can do group theory, I can do the hard math, but its not going to make you good at this stuff. What makes you good at this stuff is behavioural and its understanding about what people need and what they don't have mostly I'm looking for what's missing, so I know what to teach them. All the diagrams in the world aren't going to accomplish that, I'm the guy that says put your notebooks down and step away from them. Use your senses; use your eyes use your ears. The kinds of calculus that I made up are so you can compute things. That's for you, not your clients. Your clients don't need to know eye-accessing cues, you do. It increases the range of what you can see and what you can respond to. The more you can detect with your senses the more you can influence with your behaviour. And yeah, there are lots of clowns who say they are Neuro Linguistic Programmers, but they're not my problem. Consumers have a responsibility to get the quality of things. If you don't check out a car before you buy it, you will be disappointed. If you order food just by lowering your hand on the menu, you'll end up with something your supposed to clean your hands with. Its just one of those things, people are constantly coming up to me and saying, this trainer said… blah, blah, blah. And I say, well if you don't care whom you learn from, then you are going to be deceived. A big word that pops in to my mind is refund. If people aren't teaching you how you use these things, wisely and currently, then I would go get your money back. Bring a 2×4 I find it helps.
Nick: And finally, are there any books or DVD's on the way?
Richard: I just made 4 new DVD's, in the studio here in London, Riverside Studio. One on rapid induction's, one on increasing artistic installations and strategies to do art, and strategies to do music. I don't know what the others are about, its been more than a few days, its in the past, the past is over… and one on not giving up, I think that's one of the most important things, as somebody in this profession. I don't think people talk about it enough, most of my career, I have worked on people that everybody had given up on. Everything from catatonia to comas, to kids that were learning disabled, to paralysed people to schizophrenics, these were all chronic, these were all, well there's nothing you can do about it. And that's primarily why no one cared if I tried, because they all believed I couldn't do anything. They gave me their case files, some of them we six, seven inches thick. All that was, was a list of the things that hadn't worked. TO me you have to try new things to get new results. And the technologies, its amazing how resistant people were to using hypnotic skills, even the hypnotists are resistant to using hypnotic skills. I use hypnosis to teach hypnosis and they say that's to paradoxical, well I'm afraid it's not, what works, works. I have trained more people to do really good hypnosis over the past 30 years, than anybody ever has. I make it a part and a part of everything, so the hypnotic processes and altered state is, if you don't alter your state you can't do now things. Its juts that simple. You've gotta get unconscious processes and conscious processes lined up, so that your moving in the same direction. John just released one on nested loops, and there is all kinds of new stuff out. Go to the NLP store, they've always got the new things there. And paulmckenna.com, oh I have a new book coming out, I think, I got a hand gesture from across the room. I forget everything, I have a new book coming out next week actually. Its called conversations, I wrote it with Owen Fitzpatrick, its really got lots and lots of stuff in it. Its different from most of the books that I have written, in that its very conversational, conversations between me and him, and lots of exercises and lots of clients and photographs and all kinds of stuff. Owen went back to India and retraced my steps through India, met a lot of the same people and took pictures and it's very nice. The first edition is going to hit the streets in about 7 days.
Nick: And where will we be able to get it from?
Richard: You can get it from the NLP bookstore, paulmckenna.com those are the two big places I know about. I'm going to sell the paperback rights, a couple of big publishers interested. In the mean while I put out the first edition through a small company in Ireland. Most of the copies have been bought up by the NLP institutes, so that's probably the best place to get them.
Nick: I'll talk to Owen then.
Richard: Well Owen would be a good place to get them, he has one of those institutes. I think I am the only one now who doesn't have an institute. I gave mine away, I'm not into running companies anymore, I've done so much of that over the years I am to old for that kinda crap. I'm into things like building pirate ships now.
Nick: On that note I would like to thank you very much for agreeing to have an interview with us.


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My head's under water
But I'm breathing fine…
It is an all-consuming energy. Yet an intensity so beyond, you amazingly become stronger. Each friggin' day.
There are lots of poems, stories written about it. Movies amass in heaps. Legends of so-called people entangled in this creativity. You think you know all about it. You think you have a good head on your shoulders. You think you can understand what it truly means.
Until it hits you. Quite unexpectedly.
You're crazy
And I'm out of my mind…
It's a process. It is an art where the freedom to be, unfolds and happens… drawn in a canvass full of colours, magnified in the sweetest glow. It is scary… unknown, yet familiar. It's like dipping your toes in a river. Is it cold? Is it warm? Is the current strong? But you plunge, diving in… finding yourself flowing with the same current you were friigin' scared of in the first place.
You tend to question your sanity: Where is this taking me?
And you hear a reply: Does it really matter?
And for probably the first time ever in your whole life, you feel wonderfully right for something that doesn't matter what comes out of it. You shake your head because it makes no sense at all.
"The heart has its reasons which reason knows not." ~Blaise Pascal
Oh the heart…
Haven't we all sheltered this for so long? To what extent? Where has it led you in life??
Cards on the table, we're both showing hearts
Risking it all, though it's hard…
It is pure and so raw. The brutality of openness will tear you apart but will create a path to rediscover your truth and authenticity. It makes you insane and wild, but it is this vulnerability that allows you to absorb and emit its radiance. It is a magical place… to give simply all of me, all of you. The reciprocity is a thousand-fold that keeps going and going like the Energizer Bunny.
We can only give what we are overflowing with. When you are giving something from you and it depletes you?? This is not giving all of you because you are incomplete to begin with. You are actually only filling in your need. Come make ourselves whole, cultivate our hearts, and with patience and compassion, even when you think we are not ready…?? Reiterating to yourself over and over – "I'm not ready. I'm not ready. I'm not ready"… … … your heart won't stop you from loving all of me, all of you. What you do after is a whole new different post.
It's maddening… but damn. Friggin' beautiful!
Namaste. =)

subset: commoncrawl


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For a variety of reasons both sort of global & personal (these are challenging, challenging times we are living in, hmmmm?), I felt a strong need to be inspired – empowered – this morning. Turns out I drafted a collection of rather inspiring quotations about power almost 2 years ago now, but forgot to ever add them in to the 'Quotation Central!' section of this blog. Sheesh!? (It really is a busy life. )
So, I amended the document, adding the ones I've collected since I first put 'em together, & have just posted them here. Better late than never, eh??
If you need a little inspiration yourself, take a peek at them. It's a pretty fine collection, if I do say so myself!!
(aka the quotation lady)
'Quotation for the day' with this post: "Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love." – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (tks to Stan for this one – it's also here on the 'Ordinary People Change the World' Web site). (some more MLK quotes here)
Runners-up: "Be truthful, gentle and fearless." – Gandhi
"If you think mitigated climate change is expensive, try unmitigated climate change." ~ Dr. Richard Gammon, University of Washington, on the steps of the US Congress, June 28, 1999.
"I do not want to talk about what you understand about this world. I want to know what you will do about it. I do not want to know what you hope. I want to know what you will work for. I do not want your sympathy for the needs of humanity. I want your muscle." ~ Robert Fulghum [italics mine]


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App Tip: Alexandernaut Fugue Machine
Create instant MIDI variations from four playheads; send them to a DAW
Chances are you don't make Baroque music, but Alexandernaut Fugue Machine for iPad 2/iOS 7 or above (alexandernaut.com) takes cues from Baroque and Serialism to refine the piano roll and let you quickly sketch beautiful, evolving polyrhythmic melodies and themes for any music. Fugue Machine's four playheads dance across the screen in both directions and at various tempos and pitches to take one or more lines of music in many directions.
1. In Settings, choose a preset pattern or an empty slot. Set the tempo, key, scale, and loop length (1-8 bars) for new patterns.
2. In the piano roll, simply tap and drag in notes at the lengths and pitches you want. Hold the option key and tap notes to delete them. The app has plenty of polyphony so you don't have to limit yourself.
3. The four playheads have their own Play/Stop buttons and settings. For each playhead, you can choose four forward/backward motions, divide or multiply the tempo, set the playhead Start position, change the volume of the part, and alter pitch by either octaves or steps.
4. Use the left bar to navigate and resize the piano roll, the right bar to pitch the whole composition up or down, and the top bar to scroll and to resize the loop brace..
5. In Settings, set the MIDI Out to either send Fugue Machine's notes to another iPad instrument or to send it over your wireless network, where you can connect it to your DAW to record and play the notes from any of your synths.
Fugue Machine costs $9.99 in the iTunes App Store.


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Congratulations to our southern most office in New Zealand, Ray White Invercargill, who is celebrating 15 years within our family.
Ray White New Zealand chief executive Carey Smith said the Invercargill team were a wonderful asset to our business led by such a high calibre business owners in Brendan Mason and Philip Brough (pictured top right above, L-R) and their sales management team led by John Murphy.
"Brendan brought his career to Ray White in 2002 and has been an Elite performer personally over a countless number of years. He's consistently been in the top 10 percent for sale of our group nationally for many years," Mr Smith said.
"He's committed to the highest customer experience possible and serves his city well."
Mr Mason said the biggest change he'd recognised over the last 15 years was that Ray White sales agents were now so much are more marketers.
"Expectations have lifted dramatically over the years from our vendors to up the house profiles. The after sales service has also changed a lot too and our mindset is to look after our future relationships. We are in the people business and we are in it for the long haul."
"I really rate Ray White as we feel as we are part of the family and the personal communication makes all the difference," Mr Mason said.
"I can't speak highly enough of Carey Smith, our New Zealand chief executive, who has supported our business right from day one and the fact he always makes an effort to be with us personally in great times and not so great times goes a long way with me."
Mr Mason is very proud of the fact that his team has produced three Elite and five Premiers level salespeople in its first two years of operation.
"My achievement of number one status in New Zealand in terms of sales numbers in 2004 with 107.5 lists and sells was a real highlight. I did that all with no personal assistant, but a great office administration" he said.
"I have loved watching our team start with just two agents and grow to 18 and I like helping them to grow their businesses."
Moving premises in 2011 to a more prominent site was another milestone in his career to date.
The Ray White Invercargill also held a home and garden tour in 2012 and raised over $46,000 in one day for Ronald McDonald House in their city.
"The best experience I've had was definitely raising the $46,000 in one day for Ronald McDonald as it brought the whole team together and was a huge effort," he said.
And in 2014, the team merged with First National to double their staff and salespeople workforce.
Ray White Invercargill are located at 231 Dee Street, Invercargill Central, pop in and say hello or visit their local website rwinvercargill.co.nz.


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ABC: The crime novelist Sue Grafton, who died on Dec. 28, often seemed like a permanent fixture of the best-seller lists. Her alphabetically titled mysteries about the private eye Kinsey Millhone spent something like 400 weeks on the lists over all, and 10 of those books (beginning with "L Is for Lawless," in 1995) entered at No. 1. So it comes as a surprise to learn that Grafton didn't have a best seller until the series was eight years old and six books along, when "F Is for Fugitive" finally cracked the paperback list in 1990. "When I started writing the series, who even knew this was going to work?" Grafton told the critic and editor Sarah Weinman in a 2009 interview for The Los Angeles Times. That was the year that "U Is for Undertow" came out, and Weinman asked whether Grafton felt any pressure to make it all the way to Z. "For the first half of the alphabet, people bet I couldn't," Grafton replied. "Now, they are rooting for me."
In the end, cancer claimed Grafton before she could embark on that final book, which she had planned — poignantly, it turns out — to call "Z Is for Zero." So Kinsey Millhone's last stand will remain in "Y Is for Yesterday," which was released in August and went straight to the top of the hardcover fiction list. "As far as we in the family are concerned," Grafton's daughter Jamie Clark wrote, announcing the death online, "the alphabet now ends at Y."
J.K.: "Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls," by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo, is still going strong on the middle grade hardcover list, at No. 4 in its 27th week. And now there's a sequel: Like the original, "Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls 2" (which hit No. 5 last week) offers brief inspirational biographies of 100 women across a range of disciplines. That includes literature — one profile in the new book is of J. K. Rowling. "At 6," it begins, "Joanne wrote a short story about a rabbit and titled it 'Rabbit.'" Success was preordained.
PS.: There aren't typically a lot of debuts on the list at this time of year. People crave the comfortable more than the new, and resolutions haven't kicked in yet. But these lists also reflect last-minute holiday shopping — so earlier best sellers reappear, as gift givers turn to the books they loved. This week sees the return of Jesmyn Ward's "Sing, Unburied, Sing" (last on the list in October) at No. 15; and Lisa Wingate's "Before We Were Yours" (last on the list in November) at No. 13; as well as the continued presence of Jennifer Egan's "Manhattan Beach," which climbs a spot to No. 14 after returning last week for the first time since November.


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Corporate Sponsorship Opportunities
The Lerner is pleased to offer corporations the opportunity to enhance their presence in the community and offer their employees, clients, and customers a wide variety of benefits and services. At The Lerner our approach to corporate sponsorship is to tailor packages that suit our partners to maximize the potential benefits for all those involved.
The Lerner provides a host of exciting opportunities for everyone but for select businesses it will be a place to impress and entertain important clients. The Lerner will provide a platform for our corporate sponsors to have the opportunity to receive significant visibility by promoting brands, products and ideas to our guests and clients. Becoming a corporate sponsor will bring you the best that The Lerner has to offer, both in terms of branding and in connecting you with high-profile, high-quality events and with a broad program of entertainment you�ll be able to promote your company alongside many of the leading names in the arts and entertainment industry.
There are a number of ways your company can be associated with The Lerner in what we hope will be a productive and long lasting relationship that leads to mutual prosperity.
(Please note, these benefits vary with the level of sponsorship)
- Logo and/or Name Acknowledgement on marketing materials including, but not limited to, Membership brochures posters press materials, invitations, banners, advertising and other promotional pieces
- Public recognition at celebratory functions on signage and printed materials
- Accreditation as a corporate sponsor within our series/event marketing and throughout the building
- Acknowledgement in print advertising campaigns including local and national newspapers and periodicals
- Acknowledgement on radio and television PSAs
- Outdoor advertising campaign
- Visibility on The Lerner website with link to corporate homepage
- Playbill Recognition
- Acknowledgement in e-mail blasts
Entertaining and Special Events
- Opportunities for employees to purchase discount tickets for sponsored performances and discounts on all Lerner merchandise
- Opportunities for private entertainment events following performances with attendance by one or more performers (Sponsor covers direct costs)
- Advanced booking period giving you excellent seats
- Preferential rates on room hire for meetings and conferences
- Personalized service from a dedicated event's organizer
- Private backstage tours of The Lerner
- Opportunities to meet the artist(s) at sponsored events (this is determined per event)
Sponsor A Season
To target particular clients sponsor a season of events that will promote your business and products direct to your existing and potential customers. Strands for sponsorship include:
- Drama
- Ballet & Dance
- Comedy
- Family Shows
- Talks & Lectures
- Classical Music
- Pop & Rock Music
- Country Music
- Autumn, Winter, Spring or Summer season sponsors
Congratulations on the success the Lerner is experiencing. It is the latest and greatest asset to downtown Elkhart!
Read more testimonials
The Lerner is a breath of fresh air and a fantastic beginning to a renewed Elkhart!
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We appreciate the Lerner's commitment to make it a community place!Executive Director - Humane Society of Elkhart County
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The Lerner has entirely changed the look of downtown Elkhart!
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I cannot express enough how happy I am for Elkhart...
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Thanks again for such a wonderful experience...
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The Lerner Theatre continues to weave itself into Elkhart's fabric, which is a good thing for the entire community.
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It was the first and only time in my entire life that I have played a theater pipe organ where everything worked flawlessly.
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My husband was just there and got us two tickets... Moments later I got the ticket confirmation.
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"...love the renovation of the building and am PROUD to call Elkhart home!"Elkhart. Indiana
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"Every one was so upbeat and ready to do whatever was asked."
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Incredible event in a beautiful location. Well done!
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" It gave me the opportunity to reconnect with friends as well as the Elkhart community."
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Juniata Valley Bank
Water Street Office
Welcome to our Water Street Community Office in Lewistown, PA. One of our five locations in Lewistown, JVB Water Street is conveniently located in downtown Lewistown near other shops and businesses. Banking is convenient at JVB Water Street, open six days a week for lobby and drive-in service.
100 West Water Street
Lewistown, PA 17044
ATM Location
8:30 - 4
8:30 - 5
The branch manager is Chris Searer. She's been with us since 1996 and enjoys getting to know everyone who visits the Water Street office. Feel free to share your comments and questions with Chris. She's a great source of information about JVB's financial products and services.
You will feel welcome when you visit JVB. All of our employees operate on the basis of the 4C's: caring, capable, committed and connected. People who work at JVB also live in the community, so you already know and like them. We want you to have a pleasant and user-friendly banking experience every time you visit.
Here at JVB Water Street, we know how important local banks are to their communities. We want to be the bank you choose, the bank you work with, the bank you live with, the bank you love.
- Personal Banking: JVB focuses on security with our secure idLOCK Checking accounts. We also have savings accounts, debit and credit cards, electronic statements, and banking by phone, mobile, or online. Can't get an account anywhere else? JVB offers Fresh Start Checking.
- Business Banking: Deposit accounts, business card services, electronic statements, and invaluable, time-saving services that businesses need such as at-your-place-of-business deposit services, mobile deposit by smartphone, superior online banking, merchant card services, business credit cards, business prepaid cards for employee expenditures, and payroll cards.
- Investments and Retirement: JVB's team of experienced and highly-trained professionals provide investment and retirement services for individuals and businesses.
- Lending: Whether you want in-person service or the ease of applying for a loan online, JVB can take care of you. We offer competitive rates and flexible terms on personal loans, auto loans, mortgages, lines of credit and credit cards.
Comparing banks in Lewistown or looking for Mifflin County lenders? Contact us today, stop by the Water Street Office, drop by our Walmart SuperCenter Office with extended lobby and Sunday hours, or visit our main Lewistown bank location, the Monument Square Office, to find out what it means to BANK RIGHT.
The Juniata Valley Bank has been a trusted community bank serving the people and businesses of Central Pennsylvania, and more recently North Central PA, since 1867 (150 years!). We continue to provide financial services to our customers with the integrity, respect, and excellent customer service that our founders established.


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In the first of a two-part series, Jon Stewart charts the advances in robotics that are increasingly leading to direct one-to-one contact between humans and robots.
Jon visits robotocists and their collaborators in the US and UK and asks how the robots will be used in the future.
He examines the way cinema has shaped our ideas of robots and investigates the gulf between our expectations of what robots can do and the reality.
A fundamental question that scientists are posing is how we should consider the robots who, in the near future, will live alongside us in our homes.
Should they be considered slaves, pets or friends?
Jon also explores how the ideas of author Isaac Asimov, that firstly robots should do no harm, have evolved over the decades.
Photo: Getty


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CSR can contribute to greater gender equality in the workplace through improved opportunities for networking.
CSR can contribute to greater gender equality in the workplace through improved opportunities for networking.
It's a bold statement that might seem like an empty promise. But when you really think about it and examine the way power structures work, it's not. The – very unfortunate – reality that we live in is that many high paying and influential professions like finance, law, and politics are still wildly unequal in regards to gender, especially at the top. And it's a well-known adage that people tend to hire people who remind them of themselves, which only perpetuates the problem. This is one example of how institutional racism operates. Another common refrain is that people do business with people – meaning personal relationships are also vital in developing new opportunities. And we all know opportunities don't come about just through the jobs section of the local newspaper; opportunities are also found, crucially, through networks, and a key feature of networks is that they are based on shared interests.
So how do people get to know each other, to learn about their shared interests and see who 'reminds them of themselves' in a large company? Daily interactions in the office are one thing, but people who work together (whether in the same company or within the same sector) don't just get to know each other at work – they also get to know each other at industry events, while chatting in a taxi on the way to a meeting, or after work at the pub. And with more men at the top – only 4.6% of Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs — the higher up the ladder you go, the more male dominated the opportunities are for networking both in and outside of the office. Whether it's golf, the pub, or a formal networking dinner, it can feel like an 'old boys' club' when an overwhelming and consistent majority of the people there are men. Women may not be explicitly excluded from these events, but they don't necessarily foster a welcoming or inclusive environment either. (A friend has told me stories about her sales team's visits to strip clubs after conferences – clients are invited, so that even a lap dance can be expensed to the company.) This puts women at a real disadvantage, as it's so often through these informal networks that we find commonalities and form the relationships that can lead to professional opportunities, and ultimately, professional success.
How does employee volunteering factor in? Volunteering together offers a more inclusive opportunity to get to know your colleagues and clients. By engaging in volunteering activities together at work, you get to see another side of your colleagues and connect with them on a different level – which, ideally, will lead you to see more of the things you have in common. Whether it's finding out you have kids the same age or a shared love of DIY, doing something different with your team, colleagues, and clients can be a fantastic way to learn more about who your colleagues are and what skills they have beyond the ones they use at work.
While this argument applies across the board in virtually every sector*, it's especially important in those that remain male dominated. A well-rounded CSR programme that includes employee volunteering (and furthermore, engaging clients in employee volunteering opportunities) can give women, who are often directly or indirectly excluded from other types of networking, another avenue to develop the professional relationships that are key to creating new opportunities. Employers are increasingly aware of this and many actively create policies and search for opportunities to support employee volunteering. In doing so, they help ensure that they are providing opportunities for people to get to know each other and to develop a professional relationship outside of other, less inclusive, forms of networking. Making those links with influential players – both internally and externally to one's company – can have a fantastic, positive effect on one's career. Lawyers in Schools participants CMS Cameron McKenna are proof of this: they have found that the improved relationships they developed through participating in volunteering together with a client led to more business for the firm.
To sum up: expanding your activities expands your networks, which in turn expands the number and type of opportunities that you are exposed to. By offering more opportunities for men and women at all levels of seniority to interact and find common interests, employers can help to ensure that networks go beyond 'old boys' clubs' to be more inclusive and more diverse. At first glance, participating in CSR activities may not radically change your career, but it might give you the opportunity to chat to a senior level executive about something you have in common – and in the long run, that just might.
*This of course applies to other under-represented groups as well, but here I focus on women in honour of International Women's Day on March 8th.


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BRUNSWICK — The three candidates in Maine House District 66 aired their views on transportation policy and redevelopment of Brunswick Naval Air Station Monday during the second of three forums.
The final forum, covering health care and education, was scheduled for Wednesday. The first, on food and energy, was held Sept. 7.
The series was sponsored by the campaign of Green Independent candidate Frederick Horch, who along with Republican Jonathan Crimmins is challenging Democratic incumbent Rep. Alexander Cornell du Houx.
Candidates gave statements and then fielded questions on the future of the base property, which the Navy will leave next year and which will be redeveloped as Brunswick Landing. They followed the same procedure on the topic of transportation.
Cornell du Houx noted that $20 million in revenue to the state is being lost through the base's shutdown.
"We've been working extremely hard as a legislative delegation to make the (redevelopment) transition smooth," he said, adding that the work in part led to a June bond issue that provided funding for a Southern Maine Community College campus on the property.
"The community college was essential to bring there, because one of the number one things (employers) look for when they come to a place to put their companies is, 'do we have an educated workforce,'" Cornell du Houx said. "Maine is unique in the fact that we have a composite technology that is emerging. … We're going to be combining with the Southern Maine Community College, the University of Maine and Bowdoin College to have a unique engineering system" on the base.
He also noted that the base has a robust information technology infrastructure, key in attracting a variety of industries.
Crimmins said he hoped Kestrel Aircraft Co.'s proposed $100 million endeavor at the base comes to fruition. He noted, though, that while the project is expected to generate 300 jobs, the base closure has cost nearly 5,000 jobs.
"We need 4,700 jobs to come back to the break even point," he noted.
Crimmins called planned renewable technology initiatives at Brunswick Landing "a great idea," but added that "we have to look at the broader picture. We need to bring in many different types of industries, many different types of organizations."
He noted that the State Planning Office has said Maine's primary industry is tourism. He suggested a tourism school be started at the base property, allowing students to gain the education there that they would otherwise have to obtain outside of Maine, "because there's no school for tourism in the state."
Crimmins said tax incentives are important in attracting industries, but that caps on the length of those incentives should be extended. "Let's make sure that a company comes in here not for just five years, not for 10 years, but bring them in for a lifetime," he said. "If we're going to invest in them, let's have them invest in us."
While he has heard the term "brace for impact" connected to the base closure, Horch said he prefers to think of the event more along the lines of preparing for takeoff.
"This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Brunswick," he said. "How we develop the base will define our economic future. It will define a lot about the town, so it's a critical thing to get right."
Horch said the base should be redeveloped in a way that benefits both Brunswick and the state, and suggested a manufacturer of private aircraft, like Kestrel, isn't necessarily the best option for Brunswick Landing.
"I am very serious about ending hunger in Maine," he said. "If we're going to spend public money … on the base, I want it to be addressing our strategic goals. And one of the goals I think the state should have is ending hunger."
Horch said Kestrel is a risky endeavor. "As a businessperson, I ask, whose $100 million is it? Whose 300 jobs are they?"
He added that while he is a pilot and enjoys flying, "I think we have some strategic goals here. We have hunger problems, we have transition to energy problems. We have things we can do at the base, and every time we use the base for one of those purposes, we move ourselves closer to our strategic goals."
When the forum's focus switched to transportation, Crimmins said Maine is at a crossroads, and that he's read that 238 of its bridges need repair or replacement within the next few years, and that a quarter of its roads need immediate repair.
"Of course, now the question comes, where's the money come from?," he asked. "That's millions and millions if not billions of dollars that are going to be required to fix our roads and bridges."
Crimmins said that while increased public transportation is an option, Maine is largely a rural state. He praised the concept of passenger rail service coming to Brunswick, but noted its significant expense.
In trying to figure out how the roads and bridges will be funded, Crimmins called for the public to tell its representatives in Augusta what takes priority: "I want you to be able to drive the engine that tells us how we go about doing this."
Horch said Maine's transportation situation is unsustainable, that "all of our transportation depends on gasoline, none of which we produce or will ever be able to produce in Maine.
"So we're completely dependent on a foreign source of energy," he continued. "And at any moment we're living with the risk of enormous price increases out of our control, and we really don't have the ability to cope with that."
He said he would like to see more people getting from place to place without depending on vehicles, instead going on bicycle or foot.
"More people, fewer cars," Horch said. "That's my vision for Brunswick."
While he supports a train between Brunswick and Portland, Horch said a trolley connecting Brunswick with Freeport and Bath would be a better and less expensive option.
"Let's do trolleys and trains like we used to do," he said. "We used to have these systems here in Brunswick … we could bring something like that back."
Cornell du Houx said that with the money not available to properly repair roads, more public transportation is necessary.
"There's a reason why Route 1 is called the coastal parking lot in the summer; 8 million people come to Maine in the fall and summer … which is a wonderful thing," he said, "but I think it would be even more wonderful if they could jump on the train in Boston and come all the way up to Rockland, and past there up to Acadia."
He said Maine has a large rail infrastructure that was used years ago, but not today, thanks to the rise of the automobile industry.
While vehicles and the highway system serve a tremendous purpose, Cornell du Houx said, he called for an increased movement of passengers and freight by rail and buses.
He said the Amtrak Downeaster is the most successful railroad service in the nation, initially projected to increase ridership by 12 percent, but ultimately achieving a 28 percent jump. An Amtrak study, he said, showed that expanding the line to Brunswick will bring an additional 36,000 riders there.
"I think that will hopefully benefit the businesses in the area," he said.
Cornell du Houx and Crimmins faced each other in the election two years ago. While Crimmins lost in every precinct, he fared better than previous GOP challengers in a district that Democrats have traditionally dominated.
Alex Lear can be reached at 373-9060 ext. 113 or [email protected].
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Local & State
New Hampshire man dies in Bridgton wreck
Local & State
Bizarre counterfeit bills targeting readers of Jewish authors found in Brunswick library
Letter to the editor: Rule change would keep out immigrants who genuinely need our help
Letter to the editor: Rule change would keep out immigrants who genuinely need our help
Letter to the editor: Rule change would keep out immigrants who genuinely need our help


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If you want a secluded paradise where you can sit back and relax whilst soaking up the sun, then Mauritius is the place for you. Situated in the Indian Ocean, this idyllic land offers breath taking views and peaceful surroundings whilst you unwind. The hotels in Mauritius compliment the peaceful nature of the island, and offer their residents the best in luxury accommodation.
A true paradise, those visiting can enjoy long peaceful days sunbathing on the white sandy beaches, as they take in the blue skies, clear waters and palm trees swaying gently across the island.
However there's more to Mauritius than lounging on the beach, as there's much to explore here. Go sightseeing and see a variety of scenes from Hindu temples and mansions to sugar factories and nature reserves.
• Visiting Grand Baie, a small village on the north coast of the island offering great nightlife and a good choice of restaurants and shops.• Trying traditional Mauritian food. It can be quite spicy though, so be warned!• Revelling in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and trying the many water sports on offer, such as sailing, fishing, diving and waterskiing.
Shopping: The capital, Port Louis, has an attractive harbour and modern shopping mall selling designer goods. There are also atmospheric local open-air markets nearby, selling traditional handicrafts, herbs and spices, clothing and handbags. Golf: There are several immaculate golf courses on the island such as the Links and the Legends courses at the Constance Belle Mare Plage hotel and the new Ile aux Cerfs 18-hole championship golf course.
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Ohio State's 2013 football recruiting class continues to grow. The team added two more verbal commmitments this week, bringing the total to 14.
Today, Pendleton (S.C.) defensive tackle Michael Hill committetd to Ohio State. He's rated as a four-star prospect by every major recruiting service. Rivals.com rates the 6-foot-2, 315-pound Hill as the fifth-best defensive tackle in the country.
At his size, Hill will likely be Johnathan Hankins' replacement whenever the big tackle decides to go pro.
Hill is the fourth defensive lineman to commit along with Joe Bosa (St. Aquinas, Fla.), Billy Price (Youngstown-Fitch) and Tracy Sprinkle (Eylria).
On Tuesday, ElevenWarriors.com reported that the Buckeyes received a verbal commitment from New Albany athlete Darron Lee. According to Rivals.com, which gave him a three-star rating, Lee was recruited by defensive coordinator Luke Fickell.
Lee, who is 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds, plays wide receiver, defensive back and has even lined up at quarterback. At the latest Ohio State camp, Lee mainly played safety and some linebacker.


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As a pretty active blogger I am always looking for tools to make it easier to take my show on the road.
Pocket SharpMT is a pretty old Windows Mobile application which I have just become aware of.
The freeware supports WordPress and Movable Type and appears to have a pretty comprehensive feature set. It lacks in the main in not having a WYSIWIG mode for editing blog posts, but in that it is no worse than the official WordPress application for the iPhone for example.
One small not is that the URL to connect to wordpress should be changed from /cg-bin/mt-xmlrpc.cgi to /xmlprc.php.
Download Pocket SharpMT from randyrants here.


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Crossroads CAFE
SUNDAY MORNINGS from 9.30am
Follow the scent of freshly ground beans to the foyer near the main entrance to join us in sharing a cup of coffee from the Crossroads Cafe.
The Cafe is open every Sunday morning at 9:30, before and after the 10am Service. Our friendly team can make your Sunday morning coffee just how you like it, with all funds going towards special ministries and needs within our community.
If it's your first time with us, the first cup is on us!


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Body Painting - Mid-air
Posted by Unknown in Mid-air on Sunday, June 28, 2009
Body painting Jessica Gomes
Watch this special video and see how Jessica Gomes got her body painted for SI Swimsuit 2008.
Belly Painting - Ring of Fire
Posted by Unknown in Belly Painting, Pregnant on Thursday, June 25, 2009
This design by Thompson, a variation on an Arabic protection symbol, was inspired by a necklace belonging to the mom-to-be. "Protection symbols are common motifs for anything involving pregnancy or babies," Thompson says, adding that the flames symbolize strength, protection and purification.
Belly Painting - Pooh Bear
Posted by Unknown in Belly Painting, Pregnant on Wednesday, June 24, 2009
This belly painting was the first for Greenawalt, who has a day job as an electrical engineer. These days, he no longer has models go topless. "The belly paintings are so sweet, nice, and happy that I just don't feel like the nudity plays well," he says. Greenawalt often creates designs inspired by the baby's bedroom decor.
Belly Painting - Baseball
Posted by Unknown in Belly Painting, Pregnant on Tuesday, June 23, 2009
This model requested a baseball theme in honor of the baby boy she was carrying. "Painting the belly to look like a ball works really well," says Greenawalt. He painted this design at his home as the father looked on, and snapped this photo at home plate on a local baseball diamond.
Belly Painting - Zodiac
Posted by Unknown in Belly Painting, Pregnant on Monday, June 22, 2009
This design by New York-based artist RoByn Thompson incorporates the Zodiac symbols of the mother, the father, and their baby. Belly painting is growing more popular as a baby shower activity, Thompson says.
Belly Painting - Cowrie
Posted by Unknown in Belly Painting, Pregnant on Sunday, June 21, 2009
For this mother-to-be, Thompson created a design based on Cowrie shells. "They're goddess symbols, and fertility symbols," she says. Coming up with the design is a collaborative process based on emails and phone calls with her clients, Thompson says. Her one-of-a-kind paintings start at $200.
Belly Painting - Jelly Fish
Posted by Unknown in Belly Painting, Pregnant
Phoenix-based artist Mark Greenawalt created this painting in front of a live audience as part of a jellyfish-themed gallery exhibition in Phoenix.
Nude Gisele Bundchen In Body Painting
Posted by Unknown in Celebrity on Friday, June 19, 2009
Body Art By Macro Guerra
Posted by Unknown in Pattern on Thursday, June 18, 2009
Great photo collection on body art and body painting . Body art by Marco Guerra and photography by Yasmina Alaoui.
Body painting - Bricks Series #3
Posted by Unknown in Bricks, Camouflage on Sunday, June 14, 2009
Bricks camouflage, series #3. Body painting with camouflage theme and bricks as the motive.
Related posts:
* Body painting - Camouflage - Bricks, Series #2
* Body painting - Camouflage - Bricks
Body Paint Party Video
Posted by Unknown in Video on Thursday, June 11, 2009
Ever imagine joining a party, full of bikini girls? Well, that could be nothing much special if compared with this body paint party! Well, not all are in body paint, but I am sure it is a great party.
Related posts:
* Body Painting In Air New Zealand Ads
Body Painting - World Cup Flags
Chest Painting - Vines
Body Painting - I Love Animal Rescue
Posted by Unknown in Logo on Friday, June 5, 2009
Body Painting - Leopard Pattern
Posted by Unknown in Pattern on Thursday, June 4, 2009
Body Painting - Japanese Manga
Posted by Unknown in Manga on Wednesday, June 3, 2009


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"Over 600 FREE counted cross-stitch patterns without registration. Printable PDF format and editable HFT format charts."
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Visibility = Profitability
Do you have an appetite for success? Are you ready to fully utilise the power of your digital presence and use it to achieve what you want? If your answer is yes, then it's time to build a digital marketing strategy to make your business grow.
Creating a website is not enough if you want to rocket past your competition. The internet is jam-packed with over 600 million websites all battling for our attention. Without an effective digital marketing strategy, your website will remain largely invisible to millions of potential customers.
Building your online presence is a great move because it can attract traffic, improve conversion rates, and increase your sales.
Our customised marketing services are designed to give you results. We make it easy to understand, show you how they benefit your business, and provide you value you can measure.
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Sales and Generate Leads?
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Our digital marketing services are designed to help your business get cost-effective results whatever your marketing budget.
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Creating Content is
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Professional, well presented, and relevant content is a great asset for any website. Businesses that create content and blog tend to grow much faster than those that don't.
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Providing valuable content means you establish your business as knowledgeable, helpful, and able to provide solutions. When a person visits your website, it means you have the opportunity to turn that visit into a sale. It also means you can leverage social media, email marketing and SEO to draw more people into your sales funnel.
Making great content is a lot of work and creating strategically planned articles and pages is even more. Plump Design takes the hassle out of this process by researching the best topics, keywords, and strategies for making your business the 'go-to' authority.
Of course, it doesn't end there. Once we have developed a strategy for expanding your online presence, we can create the content too. Our team includes many professionals and can offer copy writing, professional photography, and much more.
Emails People Get
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Launch your website with maximum visibility so you can enjoy maximum returns on your investment.
Email campaigns often target an existing customer base and sending boring emails can cause people to unsubscribe from your list! Don't do it. It can cost you valuable leads, clients, and sales! The solution is in creating email that is interesting, engaging, and beneficial to read. That way, you can keep your business in people's minds, generate constant interest, and increase profitability.
Our email marketing service help your business build a well-planned and strategic campaign designed to achieve your goals; whether you want to sell a product, create interest in your service, or build your brand.
The process of building your campaign isn't based on guesswork. It starts with performing extensive research and using that information to identify opportunities and strategies for achieving your business goals.
From there we develop and start the campaign, throughout which we perform testing and analysis to discover what is most effective and what to improve. By constantly refining and developing the strategy your campaign grows in its effectiveness and provides you with the results you want.
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Designer Details: Mary Bauer of Bratt Decor Dishes on Design
Mary Bauer and her husband Stephen claim their story started like many others. Young, in love, and expecting their first child, they excitedly set about creating their dream nursery. It was 1995 and choices were limited. Designer baby furniture simply didn't exist, so they invented it themselves. Bratt Decor was born, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Sold exclusively at Gigi Brooks in the UK, Bratt Decor offers timeless, elegant and original furniture for your baby's nursery. We sat down with Mary to find out more about this exquisite brand and the husband and wife team behind its success.
What inspires you?
Everything. I'm inspired by the love of a new family, the washed out colours of an old barn, and the never-ending symphony that is nature all around us. ??
What do you love most about designing nursery furniture???
I love knowing how it will touch the lives and hold sacred in the memories of those who place it within their homes.
What is your favourite style of nursery?
I love contemporary elegance, where you combine a modern aesthetic with something timeless.
Can you tell us a bit about the design process, from initial idea to finished product???
First, we begin by looking at what is missing from our line. Our designs are timeless, so there's no real need to update, but there are still lots of places to go. Then Stephen will sketch some thoughts. When we have a design we love, we work on finishes. Once that's in place, we work with our artisans to create a prototype.
What's special about the products in the Bratt Decor collection? What sets them apart from other items on the market???
I believe it's our designs and heart that distinguishes us. We love design. Stephen is a trained artist/designer, so he brings tremendous talent and insight to the process. It's a deeply personal love affair for us, in every sense of the word.
What has been your favourite nursery commission to work on?
I loved working with Mario Lopez and his wife Courtney. I did both their nurseries which gave me lots of time with them. That helped me understand their style and desires which led to spectacular outcomes.
How do you unwind and relax at the end of the day?
I like to sit with a glass of wine some great music and laugh with my husband.
What brings you happiness on a daily basis?
My morning time, which is a deeply spiritual practice, watching stupid YouTube clips with my boys, and working with Stephen.
If you weren't a designer, what would you do?
I'd love to be a writer.
While we're certain Mary would excel at any creative pursuit, we're relieved she has no plans to abandon her current craft. Beautifully produced with the utmost care and attention to detail, we're proud to offer her stunning range of designer baby furniture to our customers. Be sure to get in touch if you require any assistance or interior design advice.
Written by: Gigi Brooks


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When we put on a lot of weight and the clothes don't fit in, we all get worried and the planning to start losing the extra kilos starts. But often the plans are shattered and one is left tired and sad. At that moment we often think about some easy way to lose weight and look for the weight loss supplements but the myth that these supplements have side effects surround us and we drop the plan. If you have been in a similar situation then you can rejoice because a 100% natural, safe and effective supplement has hit the market and is becoming excessively common among the masses. Do you want to know which supplement it is and how it can be beneficial for you? Read below and solve all your doubts!
About Keto Plus Diet
Keto Plus Diet is a magical weight loss supplement that works scientifically by taking your body into a state of ketosis where it loses the fats instead of the carbohydrates to release all the energy. This is the most effective way to lose weight and thousands of people have already benefitted by using this supplement. This easy to take capsule is like a wonder pill which makes you healthy, strong and active. It will make you fall in love with your body.
How is it made?
Keto Plus Diet has been made in certified laboratories by team of experts and contains a lot of vitamins and minerals along with Garcinia Cambogia and other essential herbs which makes it powerful and effective. It also contains Beta- Hydroxybutyrate which detoxifies the body and helps to fight obesity forever.
USP of Keto Plus Diet
- It is a completely natural supplement.
- It does not contain any chemicals, fillers, binders, synthetics or harmful preservatives.
- You experience permanent weight loss with Keto Plus Diet and the lost weight does not come back easily.
- The supplement is really pocket-friendly and affordable for everybody.
- It is a clinically proven formula which provides tremendous weight loss without any side effects.
Pros and cons
- It is highly effective in weight loss and inch loss. It even works on the trouble areas and helps to get a smoking hot body easily.
- Keto Plus Diet enhances the cognitive abilities thereby making you smarter and sharper
- The supplement reduces the recovery time of the muscles after workout and helps in developing lean muscle mass.
- It gives you a toned body and reduces the appetite while increasing the metabolism of the body. By doing all this, Keto Plus Diet creates the favorable conditions for perfect weight loss in your body.
- As mentioned above, it burns the fats instead of the carbohydrates thereby producing more energy and making you strong and fit. It refreshes your mind and makes you happy and stress free.
- The supplement can be taken only by people above 18 years of age.
- Keto Plus Diet has not been evaluated by the FDA.
- The results that have been attained from the product vary from one individual to another depending on a lot of factors.
- It does not work overnight. Rather it takes 2-3 months of regular consumption to show the desired results.
- The supplement is not available on retail outlets.
Are there any side effects of Keto Plus Diet?
There are absolutely no side effects of the product if you follow the manufacturer's instructions carefully and take care of the correct dosage of the product. Its 100% natural formula is completely safe and free from any kind of harmful effects.
However in case of certain medical condition or some medications going on, you should definitely consider consulting a doctor first before starting Keto Plus Diet.
How to take?
Keto Plus Diet comes in a packing of 30, 60 or 90 days kits. The users have to take two capsules in a day with lukewarm water. The complete set of instructions is provided along with the supplement. Some of the basics which have to be kept in mind are:
- Take it regularly without missing even a single day or dose.
- Consume Keto meals and snacks throughout the day. Also instead of three large meals, try to take smaller meals frequently in a day.
- Drink loads of water.
- Avoid consumption of alcohol and smoking to see the complete results.
- Don't take more than the recommended dosage.
" I was fat and my weight became a problem for me when I started encountering other health problems along with it. People started mocking at me and it used to hurt me when I was always put in the 'fat people' category.My friend recommended me to take Keto Plus Diet to see quick results and I was amazed to see the results. The product actually works in a wonderful way and it has changed my weight and improved my health. I simply love it."
- Jessica T., 32
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Final Verdict
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CASTLETON, Vt. – Castleton University received a balanced offensive effort, as six players reached double figures in scoring to help the Spartans defeat Maine Maritime, 86-76, Saturday afternoon in a North Atlantic Conference men's basketball game at Glenbrook Gym.
Chad Copeland once again led the Spartans in scoring, finishing with 17 points to go along with seven rebounds and three assists. Tondi Mushandu notched a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds, plus he dished out five assists, as did Jordan Nelson to accompany 12 points. Ben Mrowka scored 11 points, Edmund Fitzgerald finished with 11 points and seven rebounds, and Pavin Parrish added 10 points, two assists, and three steals.
Maine Maritime (3-14, 0-10 NAC) took an early 12-5 lead thanks to four three-pointers, three of them from Brendan Newcomb, but Castleton roared back with nine unanswered points, capped by a dunk from Fitzgerald. After Newcomb hit another three-pointer to allow the Mariners to retake the lead at 19-18 midway through the first half, the Spartans put together a 15-0 scoring run, featuring consecutive three-pointers by Copeland as well as an alley-oop dunk from Nelson to Fitzgerald.
Castleton closed out the first half with a 14-6 scoring run, capped by a three-pointer from Mrowka and a steal and layup by Nelson in the final minute, to take a 51-30 lead at halftime. In the first half, the Spartans shot 61.8 percent (21-of-34) from the field and committed only two turnovers while scoring 12 points off seven Mariner turnovers.
After a layup by Mrowka one minute into the second half increased the Spartan lead to 57-32, the Mariners started chipping away, starting with a 9-0 scoring run over the next three minutes to cut their deficit to 16. After a layup by Copeland extended the Castleton lead back to 19 at 69-50, Maine Maritime put together a 19-5 scoring run, punctuated by consecutive three-pointers by Newcomb, to bring the Mariners within five at 74-69 with 2:56 left in regulation.
Copeland answered Newcomb's three-pointer with his own long distance shot, and Mushandu converted a traditional three-point play to bring Castleton's lead back into double digits. The Spartans went 7-for-11 from the free throw line in the final two minutes, making enough shots from the charity stripe to hold off the Mariners.
Newcomb shot 8-of-15 from behind the three-point line as he led all players with 26 points, while Tyler Thayer earned 18 points and seven assists and Nicholas DePatsy finished with 13 points, six rebounds, and two steals. As a team, Maine Maritime shot 47.4 percent (27-of-57) from the field, including 11-of-27 from behind the three-point line, and 84.6 percent (11-of-13) from the free throw line.
The Castleton offense cooled off in the second half, but the Spartans still finished the game shooting 55.9 percent (33-of-59) from the field, including 10-of-21 from behind the three-point line, and 55.6 percent (10-of-18) from the free throw line. Castleton won the rebounding battle, 36-28, and enjoyed over a 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio, dishing out 22 assists while committing only 10 turnovers.
Castleton (12-4, 7-3 NAC) plays its final non-conference game of the regular season Tuesday, Jan. 24, at Pine Manor starting at 7 p.m. It begins a stretch of six road games over the next eight contests for the Spartans, including their next conference game at Green Mountain next Saturday, Jan. 28, at 1 p.m.


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Part of the fun of being free and single is being able to submerse yourself in new hobbies and exploring new interests. With the craft brew beer revolution taking hold across the nation, home brewing is enjoying a day in the sun. Playing mad scientist with hops can be pretty easy and fulfilling. Check out the steps becoming the Craft Beer Brew King below.
You will need:
- Malt extract (liquid or dried)
- Specialty grains
- Yeast
- Hops
All of these ingredients are available in brewing kits, and can be purchased at a variety of retailers, including specialized brewing stores.
There are several viable methods of preparation, but the basic steps are the same across the board. Start by soaking the malted barley in hot water to release the sugars. The solution is boiled with hops for the purpose of seasoning. After the solution has had time to cool, add yeast to begin fermentation. As the yeast ferments the sugars, releasing CO2 and ethyl alcohol, you're one step closer to being able to bottle your own brew.
- Cleanliness is next to godliness. More than half of serious brewers will tell you that the secret to getting the perfect blend is starting off with a clean slate. Make sure that you have cleaned and sanitized everything that will come in contact with your beer. Make it easy on yourself and throw all of the your tools into the dishwasher, wipe down counters and be sure to use a scraper that won't scratch your counter. Bacteria will attach to the rivets and then it's practically impossible to sanitize the area. Consider using bleach or iodine solution on the surface and then rinse well.
- Rinse Cycle. Be sure to rinse bleach off of every surface before using your micro-brewing equipment.
- Add one ounce (30ml) of bleach to five gallons (4 liters) of cold water, followed by one ounce (30ml) of white vinegar. Don't mix the two.
- Anything cleaned with iodine solution can drip dry.
- Remember, bleach may cause unwanted flavors in your beer, and requires rinsing, which may introduce microorganisms to your sterilized equipment.
- Try to use food-grade cleanser or sanitizer which requires no rinsing.
- Keep track. Be sure to write down everything you do from the cleaning process to the type of hops you are using. This makes it easier to reproduce certain brews without trying to recall ingredients and processes from memory.
- Put any specialty grains into a grain bag and steep them in the large stock pot in three gallons (10 liters) of hot water (around 150°F (66°C) for about 30 minutes. Remove the grains and allow the water to drip out of the grain bag, into the pot.
- After adding the malt extract, bring everything to a boil. Remember, hops added to early can create a bitter taste.
- After this liquid, mostly referred to as wort, has reached a boil, you need to help it cool as quickly as possible. Put the entire pot in the sink and bombard it with ice water.
- Once fermentation has begun, minimize the brew's exposure to air. Use a strainer to scoop out the hops and add 20 liters of water.
- You have now reached the stage that brewers refer to as "pitch" which basically means that it's time to add yeast. Put the lid on your fermenter and in 24 hours, you should notice the air-lock preening a sweet bubbling noise. If you notice nothing after 48 hours, something probably went wrong and you'll need to start over.
- Finally, it's that time. After about a week, activity under your airlock will be nonexistent but you can leave the brew alone for about two weeks before bottling. Your kit will likely include dried malt extract, which is used to carbonate the beer once it's bottled.
- Use the sanitized plastic tubing you've set up as a siphon to transfer the beer while avoiding aeration—from the fermenter to the bottling bucket. Prevent sediment (trub) from entering the fermenter or the bottling bucket.
- Store your bottled beer for at least two weeks at room temperature and then it's ready to go. Enjoy!


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Weekend Mailbag
Nick from Kewanee asked: Do you think that Starlin Castro is the long term answer at shortstop or do you think he eventually moves to a different position?
Driscoll: This is an excellent question, and one that I think we just won't know the real answer to until Javier Baez and Arismendy Alcantara move to the Cubs' roster. Castro certainly does not have the best history with the position. At the conclusion of the 2013 season, Castro had the worst fielding percentage of any starting National League shortstop and was second to worst in all of baseball. Clearly, the Cubs should be open to making some changes if they are presented with a better option. However, Baez hasn't been much better. His defensive statistics are plagued with errors and Alcantara's numbers are even worse. On a positive note, Castro has been improving and he is still very young. He has a strong arm and time to develop defensively. Also, his Major League experience makes him a better option compared to Baez or Alcantara. Still, the Cubs were able to forgive Castro's mistakes on the field by his performance at the plate. He had a slump year in 2013, and this year I just don't see the consistency I need from a standout player for the Cubs. The real question, for me, is whether Castro fits into a long-term lineup at all. If his bat doesn't improve in consistency, Castro may have bigger things to worry about than keeping the starting shortstop position.
Kaitlyn from Palos Heights asked: What are the best rooftop venues around the stadium?
Driscoll: Kaitlyn, I will keep this as short and to the point as possible. None. The best venue at Wrigley Field, is Wrigley Field. The rooftops just don't give you the baseball experience. I had my first experience with the rooftops this year, and wrote a blog post about it. Make sure you check it out for more specifics.
Vincent from Monmouth asked: Will this be one of the last amateur drafts we see before they go to a true international draft?
Driscoll: Definitely not. Discussions about switching to an international draft have been taking place for nearly a decade. I think the time is coming, but there are many things to sort out before MLB can switch over. They will need to discuss what countries would even be included, how many rounds they will have, a proper investigative method for players entering the draft, and how a team would be compensated if they chose not to sign one of their draft picks. Honestly, these questions really only graze the surface. I do think an international draft is coming sooner rather than later, but I don't see it happening for a few years. There are just too many questions that need addressed before MLB makes the switch.
Thanks for the questions! Feel free to send me more here or @CubbieClubhouse on Twitter.


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HMRC have released two consultations on leasing tax changes.
The introduction of IFRS16 will remove the operating/finance lease concept for lessees, which will impact the taxation of leased assets. On 1 December 2017, HMRC published two consultation documents, which focus mostly on amendments to the long funding leasing rules and transitional arrangements, with some comment on non-plant leases and other areas. HMRC's stated wish is to ensure that the system continues to work broadly as it does currently.
The key principles behind the consultations are:
The current rules at s53 FA2011 disapply lease accounting changes occurring on or after 1 January 2011 for tax purposes. This would not have provided an ideal long-term solution as it would have required IFRS companies to maintain two separate sets of accounting records. HMRC propose to repeal it with effect from 1 January 2019 and replace it with more holistic reforms.
It has been decided to preserve a finance lease 'gateway' test based on the test in s70N CAA 2001. An IFRS16 lessee will still need to apply this test for various tax purposes:
By contrast, if an IFRS16 lease is a long funding lease, the lessee's capital allowances and rental deductions will be calculated as if the lease were a finance lease. Furthermore, if a lease was a long funding operating lease pre IFRS16, becoming an IFRS16 lease will trigger s70YA CAA 2001, which will deem the lease to recommence and the quantum of allowances could change on transition.
It is proposed to scrap Conditions A, B and C in s70I CAA 2001 and simply allow leases of seven years and under to be short. This is an example of simplification.
HMRC confirm that 'SP 3/91' treatment will be allowed to lessees under all IFRS16 leases, such as leases of property. It is recognised that this will mean that lessees' profile of tax deductions will change – the straight lining of an operating lease rental over the lease term (or to the next rental review date) will give way to a depreciation deduction together with a finance deduction. This finance deduction is relatively 'up fronted' because the finance cost is calculated for each period by applying an implicit interest rate to an amortising lease debtor, like a mortgage. This may prove a challenge for non-depreciated assets.
With much of the detail still awaited, these changes in general appear to introduce more complexity in order to retain tax integrity in the face of diverging accounting.
The consultations can be found here:
Plant and machinery lease accounting changes
Corporate interest restriction - consultation on leases
For further information please contact:
Request for proposal


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Crossword – The name embodies the vision of Crossword as a place and space for people who seek information, knowledge or just the pleasure of reading. Crossword stocks the widest range of Books – Movies- Music- Toys- Stationery- Magazines and CD ROM's.
*All brand names/logos used are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies and are hereby acknowledged.


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Emphasis on the free.
Doing some donated work on a brochure for my church. It's harder than it seems and gave up on trying to do it in Word. These people will just have to make due with a PDF and I can make their changes until they're happy. Oiy!
And thinking about this title and Lance made me remember my most embarrassing high school moment -- when I hooted and hollered over a baseball player (opposing team), not knowing that his dad was sitting nearby in his truck and heard everything. I was at least 4 years younger than the player, but it was so humiliating. I still blush a little when I think about it. The dad called me out and I just ran away mortified. But I never did anything like that again!
The player's name was (is?) Lance.
That's all you get for tonight. Until tomorrow.


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November 18th, 2011
I often associate homesickness in children with summer camp, so to my surprise, Olivia has been expressing homesickness over several trips this year.
In August, my husband and I stayed at Hilton Waikoloa. We went with my cousin's family, and those are her favorite friends, so I thought she would be nonstop distracted and happy.
Instead, on the first night, she started literally crying for her grandparents. She was past her bedtime so the fatigue did not help the situation, and she said she missed Popo and Kung Kung and wanted to see them.
This homesickness mainfested the next night as well, but not as strongly. She usually sees her grandparents every day or every other day.
In October, the five of us went to Disneyland. Since we had the grandparents with us, I didn't expect any homesickness, but there it was - always at night, when she's tired - in the form of "I miss my house and my pets." It is always strongest the first night, not as bad the second, and gone by the third night.
Last week, the three of us stayed at a relative's house in Diamond Head so that I could bicycle to work during APEC. This was a fantastic house with a large yard and a pool. Again, more of her favorite things.
While she did use the pool morning and night, she complained at first of missing the dog and cat. So much so, that when the babysitter picked her up from preschool one afternoon, he took her back home to visit the furry friends.
I figured that it was more the change in routine than actual homesickness that was the issue. After all, the little changes and extra effort to disrupt my routine caused me a little grief (in the form of extra energy to think about what to pack, who will feed the pets, etc.), but at least I'm old enough to understand what we're doing and what the payoff is.
I recently saw this article online at BabyCenter.com which confirmed my theory:
"No matter how free-spirited and even defiant your preschooler can sometimes be, know that structure is the best thing for him and your entire household. When children don't know what's happening next, they can feel anxious. And anxious children are irritable, angry, uncooperative, and unhappy. Routines offer security and reassurance."
We are a very stable household. We do the same things day in and day out. As one would expect, we have become more routine-oriented since becoming parents. It's just easiest that way.
For every trip, I explained to Olivia what we were doing and why, but maybe I'm missing something. Is there something more I should have said than, "We're packing a suitcase because we are going to spend the week at Aunt Henrietta's house. It's for Mommy's work. You like the pool, it'll be fun."
Am I supposed to reassure her that we will be going home in five days? Or is this just a phase that she'll grow out of?
Also reach me via DianeAko.com