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Flhip.com has released its latest restaurant openings report, providing restaurant vendors with a sampling of fresh sales and marketing leads that can be found on their website.
Flhip provides regularly updated lead lists, allowing vendors to check for updates at any time. To see leads in your sales area click here.
Los Angeles, CA – Felix
Local Celebrity Chef Evan Funke will partner with global multi-concept operator Gusto 54 to open his new unit at 1023 Abbott Kinney Blvd by this summer. The menu will feature handmade pastas, market-driven ingredients and wood-fired pizzas. Funke will travel to Naples, Italy to "bone-up" on craft pizza during the gutting and buildout phase.
St. Augustine, FL – B Street Eats
The owners of Maple Street Biscuits will open a Latin cuisine concept at 41 Cordova Street early in the second quarter. Co-Founder Scott Moore states the menu will reflect their southern roots and present Latin foods with a unique twist. Items include a three day marinated and roasted pork and rotating fresh fruit frescas and bottled craft beers.
Milwaukee, WI – Odd Duck
The second concept from the creative team of Melissa Buchholz and Chef Ross Bachhuber will open late spring at 2301 S. Howell Avenue. A departure from their Tapas-style first unit the new operation will feature middle-eastern fare served up in a fast-casual setting to offer both lunch and dinner. House-made pita and pickled vegetables are menu features.
Wallingford, CT – Ola Restaurant
Upscale Latin cuisine will find a new home at 728 North Colony Road by late spring. This will be the third unit opened by brothers Melvin and Wagner Lopez who publicly thank their patrons at their first two units for their continued growth. The menu will offer tapas, a raw bar and Latin ingredients prepared in an approachable format for American palates.
Alexandria, VA – Ashlar Restaurant & Bar
Located adjacent to the renovated Kimpton Morrison House Hotel on S. Alfred Street the management team of GM Steve Greksouk, Chef Bobby Surdam and Bar Manager Maria Tan will oversee this casual concept that will combine rustic atmosphere with fine dining. Beverages will pay homage to Colonial favorites such as rum, madeira and sherry.
Seattle, WA – Neko
Seattle's second cat-culture café will open late spring at 1225 N. 45th. Street. The fast-casual menu will feature coffee, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and snacks for a family-friendly atmosphere. The main attraction will be 8 – 10 cats that will roam the unit all available for adoption based upon the wildly popular concepts found in Japan.
Flhip.com is designed to get you, the restaurant vendor, in the door first ahead of your competitors, present your offerings and make the sale. Each week Flhip staffers research hundreds of new restaurants opening in the future. We try to find as many independent openings as possible so you can go in and talk to the decision makers on site. If you are wanting a competitive edge give us a call and we will let you view
real-time leads in your sales area.
For more information or to view the leads in your area, please visit www.flhip.com.
Ken Roberts


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Best London Hostels
Real Reviews
Real reviews from fellow travellers
These are trusted reviews from guests who have actually stayed here. We hope you find them helpful.
Note: we only give a property a rating once it has received a minimum of 3 reviews.
- Page:1/1
- " The showers were a bit if a dissapointment as 1 of them was on full hot mode so could not turn down and another one had a broken shower hose. "
- 04 May 2017 Timothy
- " the hostel is part of london accomodation company. they have a few houses which they rent on short term basics. they have a few names. i ve seen at least 2 other hostels which are the same company. so by booking one of them you really dont know in which one you end up. the compnay has policy that they change your sleeping location each time you make a booking. this is kind of publnishment for not booking directly for bigger price. this is not really pro customer behaviour!! "
- 22 May 2015 Anonymous Poland

subset: commoncrawl


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At the prestigious military academy West Point, pillow fights have been a tradition since at least 1897. Apparently, generations of students at the publicly funded academy, where many of the Army's top leaders are trained, have ended their summer training with a huge nighttime pillow fight, or "spirit exercise".
This year, the pillow fight turned violent and left 30 cadets injured, including 24 with concussions, according to West Point. Blood was spilled as some cadets swung pillowcases packed with helmets that split lips, broke at least one bone, dislocated shoulders and knocked some unconscious.
"West Point applauds the cadets' desire to build esprit and regrets the injuries to our cadets," academy spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Kasker told The New York Times. "We are conducting appropriate investigations into the causes of the injuries."
Freshmen at West Point are called plebes. At least one plebe was loaded into an ambulance post-pillow fight.
"My plebe was knocked unconscious and immediately began fighting when he came to," an upperclassman wrote on Yik Yak. "I was so proud I could cry."


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Conviva and Adobe Form Strategic Alliance
Great news for the online video industry. Adobe and Conviva formed a strategic alliance:
"Conviva, Inc., an online video solutions provider, and Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE), today announced that the two companies have entered into a strategic alliance to make it easier for content companies to deliver the highest quality online video experience to viewers worldwide. This first-of-its-kind integrated solution brings together the Adobe ® Flash® Platform with Conviva's intelligent streaming technology for scaleable, high definition live and on-demand content. As part of the alliance, both companies will collaborate to provide content owners with insights on viewer experiences, and optimize audience engagement to maximize their advertising costs for video. Using Conviva's media control platform, content providers that leverage the Adobe Flash Platform can measure audience trends in real time, and are able to set policies that proactively take action on precise traffic, viewing and video delivery patterns, thus driving the best possible online user experience."


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Source: Kerri Day Keller, 785-532-1691, email@example.com
News release prepared by: Katie Mayes, 785-532-6415, email@example.com
MANHATTAN -- Finding a job can be challenging in today's economy, so Kansas State University's career and employment services has launched a new Web site with advice tailored to job seekers from each of K-State's colleges.
Kerri Day Keller, director of career and employment services, said that the new site -- http://www.k-state.edu/ces/students/CESResponds.htm -- is an effort to give students a resource for deciding how to conduct a job search in this difficult economy. Her top piece of advice: be vigilant.
"Graduates across all disciplines have been affected by the down economy," Keller said. "Some will experience a longer job search, some won't receive as many offers from which to choose and some will decide to go straight on to graduate school."
The economic situation is evident as the number of full-time jobs posted with career and employment services during the first quarter of 2009 is down compared to the same period in 2008. But the office has had a steady stream of internship listings. Students can access roughly 200 internships and more than 500 full-time job listings in their online "CES Account" system, Keller said.
The new "CES Responds" Web site is full of information specific to a student's college and major. Features include job and internship listings, advice from employers, tips from each of K-State's career advisers and news relating to current employment issues.
Along with keeping up with the information posted on the "CES Responds" Web site, Keller also recommends that students seeking jobs or internships:
* Make sure their resumes are flawless. "With fierce competition for limited openings, graduates need to be sure they are making a strong presentation of their skills and talents to employers," Keller said. This means your resume should be impeccable and emphasize accomplishments whether they have been demonstrated in the classroom, through extracurricular activities, internships, part-time employment or other experiences. Job seekers should be prepared to provide specific examples and the results of their college career experiences, she said.
* Network, network, network. "Graduates must utilize networking for any chance of rising to the top of the heap," Keller said. "According to a recent survey, nearly one-third of jobs are filled by referrals. You get jobs by talking to people." She suggested starting with people you know best -- perhaps a friend, family member or professor -- then expanding to alumni and friends of family. "It's in those 'knowing someone who knows someone else' levels that hiring breakthroughs happen," Keller said. She also suggested joining the K-State Alumni Association's LinkedIn group to make connections with others who share common interests and passion for K-State.
* Identify your job targets. If you're not sure how to translate your major and interests into viable career options, a variety of career information is available from career and employment services and K-State's Academic and Career Information Center. "Think about what work needs to be done in our world today," Keller said. "Jobs are problems to be solved and you can be part of the solutions in areas like health care, energy, security, youth work and more."
* Don't let fear paralyze your search. Get regular exercise, plenty of sleep and talk about your concerns with friends and family. Be open to experiences that might not be part of your plan. "Remember, luck is where hard work and opportunity meet, so keep focused and be ready to take advantage of that lucky break," Keller said.


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Ken Berger
Performance Management for Every Nonprofit: An Interview With Isaac Castillo
In today's Social Velocity interview, I'm talking with Isaac Castillo, Director of Outcomes, Assessment, and Learning at Venture Philanthropy Partners, where he leads VPP's approach to data collection, data reporting, and outcome measurement.
Prior to coming to VPP, Isaac served as the Deputy Director for the DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative (DCPNI). At DCPNI, Isaac led efforts to improve outcomes in the Kenilworth-Parkside community in Ward 7 of the District of Columbia through the strategic coordination of programmatic solutions and research-based strategies. Prior to his time at DCPNI, Isaac served as a Senior Research Scientist at Child Trends where he worked with nonprofits throughout the United States on the development and modification of performance management systems and evaluation designs. In addition, Isaac was also the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) where he led the organization's evaluation and performance management work.
You can read interviews with other social change leaders here.
Nell: You have spent your career using data to improve the performance of the nonprofits for which you worked. Why do you think performance management is so important for nonprofits? Do you think all nonprofits should pursue performance management? When does it make sense and when doesn't it?
Isaac: I believe that every nonprofit should pursue some form of performance management because they owe it to the clients they serve. Most nonprofits will assume that they are making a positive difference in people's lives, but in the vast majority of cases they are just guessing. Using some form of performance management will allow every nonprofit organization to confirm this thinking and to identify areas that can and should be improved so that the next cohort of participants can get better services than the last.
Unfortunately, one of the greatest challenges preventing a nonprofit from implementing some form of performance management isn't a lack of resources, expertise, or time. It is fear. The fear that they will find out that their work isn't having a positive effect. This fear is what nonprofit leaders need to overcome, not for the benefit of themselves or their organization, but because they owe it to the clients they serve today and the clients they will serve in the future. I believe that every nonprofit should strive to serve tomorrow's clients better than today's clients, and one of the only ways to ensure that this happens is the sustained use of performance management.
The type of performance management that each nonprofit should pursue should vary by the size and scope of their work. At a minimum, small nonprofits should be tracking basic demographic and attendance information on their participants, and hopefully at least one meaningful output or outcome. Whether this occurs in a computerized system or in a spiral paper notebook is up to the nonprofit. But it doesn't have to be costly, and it doesn't take expertise. It only takes the will and desire to improve as a nonprofit.
Nell: In the nonprofits in which you've worked how have you been able to secure resources to fund performance management? What is the case you and your colleagues have made to funders and what do you think it will take to get more funders investing in performance management?
Isaac: Raising funding for performance management work usually takes a mix of several different strategies and approaches for potential and existing funders.
First, I strongly encourage nonprofits to include some percentage (1 to 5 percent – possibly more) of funding in each grant submission or proposal dedicated to supporting performance management and outcome measurement work. By placing this small percentage into each proposal, a nonprofit can begin to raise funds for internal evaluation and performance management activities. It may not seem like a lot, but it can add up, and eventually generate enough funds for a half-time or full-time position to support in-house performance management work.
Second, I also strongly encourage nonprofits to engage in regular 'funder education' – where a nonprofit proactively meets with their funders to have ongoing conversations about outcome measurement and evaluation. This allows both the funder and the nonprofit to come to agreement on measurement expectations and to ensure that both groups are focused on the same concepts. I often suggest that the first of these types of meetings focuses on each group's definitions of three commonly misunderstood terms: outputs, outcomes, and impact.
Finally, I would recommend that the nonprofit and funder have an honest discussion regarding expectations of results and the funding necessary to support the related evaluation work. If a funder is expecting an random control trial (RCT) to be completed to determine 'impact,' then the nonprofit should be willing to push the funder to support a large investment to pay for a high quality evaluation. If the funder is only willing to support a small amount for outcome measurement, then the nonprofit should clearly articulate what is possible.
Nell: Ken Berger and Caroline Fiennes recently argued that we may have gone too far by asking nonprofits to produce research about their own outcomes. What's your response to that argument?
Isaac: I fully support Ken and Caroline in their argument that most nonprofits should stay away from trying to produce impact research. The desire for 'impact' is something that has been (and continues to be) pushed unfairly (and without financial support) by the funding community.
I honestly think a lot of confusion in this space comes from inconsistent use and understanding of the term 'impact'. The term 'impact' has a precise definition among researchers but is often used in a much broader context among funders, nonprofits, and the general public. In the research and evaluation world, impact is used to describe the effectiveness of a program while eliminating as many potential confounding factors as possible. That is why the use of random control trials (RCTs) is usually the cornerstone of impact research – RCTs are the easiest way to control for and eliminate confounding factors.
When most non-researchers use the term 'impact' however, they are usually just asking if the program or organization works and if it is making a difference for its intended service population. That is a much lower bar to set, and yet it is a critical distinction in this discussion. If you are thinking about 'impact' as a researcher, you will need a large amount of resources and expertise to determine 'impact,' which usually means completing one or more formal evaluations. If you are thinking about 'impact' in the more general sense and less strict way, then pursuing some form of performance management system will allow a nonprofit to determine if their efforts have been successful.
I do think every nonprofit should pursue some form of performance management to ensure that their work is having a positive effect as a complement to existing research that others have done. Relying only on the use of others' research does not guarantee that a nonprofit will provide effective services and achieve positive outcomes. This type of research is a like a recipe – it shows what has worked in the past and provides a guide for the nonprofit – but a recipe can still be ruined with poor implementation or planning.
Every nonprofit has an obligation to the people they serve (and not to their funders) to ensure that their programming is having a positive effect (or at the very least not causing harm). Without some form of performance management system in place (even one that just uses paper and pencil), a nonprofit will never know if they have strayed too far from the recipe provided by previous research.
I also think there are a growing number of very sophisticated nonprofits that should be using AND producing research on effective programs. Every year, I see more and more nonprofits that hire talented and unbiased researchers dedicated to internal evaluation and outcome measurement work. These individuals are just as talented and unbiased as their colleagues working in traditional research and evaluation organizations. They can, and should, produce original research that can help inform the nonprofit field. The real challenge comes in nonprofit organizations finding the resources to support the hiring and retention of these individuals. Not every nonprofit will have the resources or capacity to hire one or more of these individuals – but those that do should absolutely be trying to produce original outcome and impact research to provide 'recipes' for effective programming that nonprofits with fewer resources can use in the future.
Nell: Your former organization, DC Promise Neighborhoods, is part of the national Promise Neighborhoods Initiative launched by the US Department of Education in 2010 and modeled after the famous Harlem Children's Zone. How successful has this national replication of a successful local model been? Have you been able to replicate outcomes? And what hurdles, if any, have you and other replication sites found?
Isaac: I think that there has been some initial success among the Promise Neighborhoods. Part of the challenge that all the Promise Neighborhoods face is that the Harlem Children's Zone did not achieve their success overnight. They have been working in Harlem for decades, so it would be unrealistic to believe that the Promise Neighborhoods would be able to create large scale change in a matter of a few years.
However, there are signs of progress across all of the Promise Neighborhoods. Each of the Promise Neighborhoods started to address a few outcomes with the initial round of funding, and these outcomes varied. Some focused on math and reading proficiency for students, some focused on obtaining medical homes for young children, and others sought to increase the amount of healthy food consumed by residents. In DC, we focused on improving school attendance.
I do think that most of the 12 Promise Neighborhood Implementation grantees were able to make progress on the outcomes they identified as initial focus areas. However, the very nature of the work (creating community level change) doesn't lend itself to the rapid accomplishment of multiple outcomes in a short period of time. Each of the Promise Neighborhoods had to prioritize certain outcomes for their respective communities, and only several years later are they able to claim success and begin to identify the next set of outcomes to be addressed. So while certain outcomes haven't necessarily been replicated across all the Promise Neighborhoods, that is due to the differences in priorities and community conditions rather than any problem with the model itself.
Photo Credit: Venture Philanthropy Partners
10 Great Social Innovation Reads: April 2015
April was another busy month in the world of social change writing. From Google's shift to mobile, to the Baltimore protests, to using sitcoms to change public opinion, to the pace of social change, to teens and social media, to a new way to measure a country's performance, there was much to read and digest.
Below are my 10 picks of the best in the world of social change in April, but please add to the list in the comments. And to see what else I found beyond these 10, follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn.
And you can read past months' 10 Great Reads lists here.
- There was much analysis about what went wrong in Baltimore, but I found the most insightful to be Dan Diamond's Forbes piece about how it is fundamentally a "tale of two cities" and the persistent inequality between two very different Baltimores.
- As is Google's way, they made a huge change to their search algorithm in late April that will affect us all. Google is now favoring websites that are mobile friendly. But fear not, Beth Kanter offers some advice for upgrading your nonprofit's website.
- For those in the trenches, the pace of social change can seem glacial. But this great graphic from Bloomberg demonstrates that for many issues (prohibition, interracial marriage, women's suffrage, same-sex marriage) there was a tipping point at which America very quickly changed its mind. Fascinating.
- Civic Tech, or using technology to make citizens more engaged and government more effective, is a huge investment opportunity, says Stacy Donohue from the Omidyar Network. With venture capitalists, the federal government and nonprofit and for-profit solutions all poised to make change, Donohue sees civic tech as a "very real, very now investment opportunity." Let's hope that new ideas and (most importantly) lots of new money can turn our struggling democracy around.
- Social change can happen in many different ways, including by altering popular culture. Former Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi is attempting this kind of shift with his new web sitcom that takes a "Cosby Show" approach to portraying American Muslims in order to combat Islamophobia.
- Writing in Slate, Krista Langlois takes a hard look at her fellow environmental journalists and whether they have failed to adequately describe the environmental challenges facing our planet since American concern about climate change has actually declined in the last 20 years.
- One of the most common hurdles to nonprofits raising capacity dollars is the challenge of articulating to funders the potential impact of a capacity investment. Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) have put together some tools to help funders understand the importance of and return on capacity investments. Share these with your funders.
- In April, MIT and the Social Progress Imperative launched the Social Progress Index, an effort to create a complement to the Gross Domestic Product that measures a nation's social and environmental performance. The Social Progress Index looks at 52 indicators of a country's social and environmental performance (like child mortality rate, adult literacy rate, greenhouse gas emissions). As Michael Porter, one of the chief architects behind it puts it, "Measuring social progress offers citizens and leaders a more complete picture of how their country is developing. And that will help societies make better choices, create stronger communities, and enable people to lead more fulfilling lives."
- Writing on the Huffington Post Politics blog, Robert Reich describes a worrying trend where nonprofits are silencing themselves for fear of losing their big donors. As he writes, "Our democracy is directly threatened when the rich buy off politicians. But no less dangerous is the quieter and more insidious buy-off of institutions democracy depends on to research, investigate, expose, and mobilize action against what is occurring."
- And finally, if you want to understand where social media is going, Pew Research Center released their most recent findings about teens use of social media and technology.
Photo Credit: Patrick Neil
Fundraising's Shiny Object Syndrome
I have to be honest. I am so sick of hearing about the ice bucket challenge that I am loathe to write about it. But I wonder if many in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector are falling victim, yet again, to shiny object syndrome, so I feel compelled to say something.
To me the ice bucket challenge is yet another example of what happens so often in the world of fundraising. Nonprofit board members and staff hate fundraising, so they desperately search for a magic bullet to make it all go away.
Sometimes that magic bullet is "an endowment," sometimes its "earned income," more recently it has been "crowdfunding." This month it's a form of crowdfunding taken to the extreme, the ice bucket challenge. Some have been so swept up in the hype that they have gone as far to say that the challenge is "rewriting the charity model."
Oh boy.
The reality is that if you want to create social change you need to develop a sustainable financial model that aligns with your long-term goals. It's not sexy, it's not easy, and I'm probably one of the few people on this planet who thinks it's fun. But there it is.
While many nonprofits are scrambling to figure out how to create their own ice bucket challenge, and some thought leaders are offering tips along the way, maybe we should all just take a step back.
Let's be very clear. ALS's close to $100 million windfall is not a revenue stream. It is a one-time infusion of money. Yes, ALS may try to replicate the ice bucket challenge on a regular basis, but the stars will never align in quite the same way, people will move on to the next shiny object, and the money will eventually fade.
Because this pile of money is not a revenue stream, ALS can't and shouldn't add long-term staffing or programming because the money won't be there next year. At the same time, they probably can't create an endowment because the donors' intent was not for the money to sit in a bank account. Regranting the money is also tricky, again because donor intent was for it to go specifically to ALS. In all of this ALS will be under the microscope, because as Ken Berger of CharityNavigator cautioned, a year from now everyone will be asking where the money went.
One of the few paths that I see for ALS is to treat the money like capacity capital. This could be an opportunity to invest some of the windfall in building a stronger organization by investing in technology, infrastructure, and systems. And they could do the same for their affiliates. They could require capacity building plans and budgets and invest in those plans accordingly. They could, in essence, create a $100 million capacity capital investment fund for the ALS system.
But the point is that far from being a great thing that all nonprofits should strive to emulate, the ice bucket challenge creates a complex and potentially damaging problem.
So instead of spending board and staff time trying to dream up the next ice bucket challenge, please, please, please spend that time and those resources building your financial model, by creating a long-term financial strategy, raising capacity capital to build your revenue-generating function, developing a compelling strategic plan in which people will want to invest, and growing and educating your board.
These are the ingredients for a robust, sustainable financial model. Not a bucket of water, a video camera, and a social media stream.
Photo Credit: StoiKNA
How to Use Real Performance Data to Raise More Money
A big topic of conversation lately has been whether donors really care about impact, or whether they simply just give based on less scientific things like their emotions, or their friends recommendations. Which is why I'm excited to announce that I'll be participating in a Google Hangout April 30th about using data to attract donors.
Writing in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Tim Ogden claims that donors have never really been interested in impact. And Ken Berger from Charity Navigator and William Schambra of the Hudson Institute debate (here and here) whether moving the nonprofit sector toward performance management helps or hurts social change efforts.
To add to this conversation, David Henderson and I are hosting a Google Hangout, "How to Use Real Performance Data to Raise More Money," on Tuesday, April 30th at 2pm Eastern. David is a super smart guy who runs Idealistics, a consultancy that helps nonprofits learn from their outcomes data, increase impact, and demonstrate results to funders and stakeholders. David's professional focus is on improving the way social sector organizations use information to implement higher impact poverty interventions. He has been quoted in the Chronicle of Philanthropy and has written for Change.org and the Huffington Post. You can read my interview with him from a year and a half ago here.
David and I thought it would be interesting to host a conversation with nonprofit leaders about how nonprofits can use real performance data to raise more money. We'll kick off the hour-long conversation with a couple of points and a case study or two of nonprofits that are using data to raise more money, but then we'll open it up to you for questions. You can send us your questions ahead of time (via email to firstname.lastname@example.com or firstname.lastname@example.com) or simply post them to the Google Hangout here as you watch.
I hope you'll join us!
How to Use Real Performance Data to Raise More Money
A Google Hangout with David Henderson and Nell Edgington
Tuesday, April 30th, 2013
2pm Eastern
Can nonprofits that use real performance data to raise more money? Are donor increasingly interested in impact data? How can nonprofits communicate their program data to donors? And how should nonprofits respond to questionable performance claims by other organizations? Join David Henderson from Idealistics and Nell Edgington from Social Velocity in a Google Hangout on Tuesday, April 30th at 2pm Eastern to discuss these and many more questions about how nonprofits can use real data to raise more money. We'd love to have you participate in the discussion, so send your questions ahead of time to Nell or David, or leave a comment at the Google Hangout here.
Photo Credit: 401(K) 2013
Socap Day 2: Unlocking the Nonprofit Capital Space
Day 2 of SoCap was by far my favorite. It started with an interesting keynote from Julie Sunderland of the Gates Foundation. She offered a perhaps more realistic, bordering on the pessimistic, view of the social capital market space. She said that Gates struggles to find entities that can absorb the size investments they want to make. They get excited about the idea of bringing together foundation, government and private dollars in stacked deals, but that the work is complicated and hard and they have yet to craft one of these deals simply because it is extremely difficult to determine the terms. All of this underlines what I've said in a previous post: in the nonprofit, philanthropic and government worlds there is still much work to be done to unlock capital.
The first session of the day for me was "Lessons of Behavioral Finance: Understanding and Overcoming Barriers to Impact Investing" with Hope Neighbor and her ground-breaking research, Money for Good, released earlier this year calculating a $120 billion pool of potential impact investing money that is sitting on the sidelines. Hope said that despite our desires to the contrary, people still very much think of their charitable giving as separate from their impact investing, "the reality is that people compartmentalize their money." And only 3% of the population uses data to compare the organizations they give to.
My favorite session of the day, by far, was "Deep Dive Into the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative." This session was exactly what I was hoping to see more of at SoCap this year. A group of leaders in Cleveland realized that the heart of their city was quickly deteriorating and no one was doing anything about it. They formed a coalition of the anchor institutions in Cleveland (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Clinic, etc), foundations, city leaders and others to create the Evergreen Cooperatives that brings career-track jobs and green, employee-owned businesses to the inner city, transforming a city that has lost 50% of its population in the last 50 years. Beyond the fascinating coalition, business model and results this project is achieving, lies its impressive financing. A combination of bonds, foundation grants, loans, HUD money and others launched this project and financed the 3 businesses they currently operate (a green laundry, an organic greenhouse, and a solar power company). According to Evergreen leaders, "Cleveland wants to be where the world is going, not where the world is."
To scale this project to create 5,000 jobs (the area needs 46,000 jobs), which will be the impetus to truly transform the inner city economy, they are creating a CDFI and looking to use PRIs and MRIs. What excites me so much about this project is not the spirit of collaboration and tremendous results, but how they are bringing public, private and philanthropic money together in a truly innovative convergence. THIS is the kind of social capital market I'm talking about. Impact investing is great, but it is only ONE piece of the puzzle. I would love to see more examples like Evergreen at SoCap.
The last breakout session I attended for the day was "Nonprofit Analysis: Beyond Metrics," which gave a great overview of the growing nonprofit evaluators market through the lens of rating one nonprofit, DC Central Kitchen. It was interesting to see how Charity Navigator, the most well-known nonprofit evaluator, has evolved from a system driven purely by IRS 990 form overhead ratios to a three-pronged review including transparency and impact evaluations.
The end of the session gave me serious pause, however, when a member of the audience asked whether any of the evaluators might use the GIIRS system coming out of the impact investing world to rate nonprofit impact. Ken Berger admitted he wasn't familiar with GIIRS and Tim Ogden of GiveWell said he was skeptical of social return on investment (SROI) calculations in general. Again, my point that the philanthropic and impact investing worlds aren't communicating and collaborating becomes apparent. Wouldn't that be amazing if impact in both the philanthropic and impact investing worlds could be measured in a comparable way? That would be truly innovative!
So, although Day 2 of SoCap provided much more conversation and examples of how the philanthropic and government capital markets are evolving, there is still much work to be done to bring both capital fully into the social capital market. Perhaps at SoCap 2011?
Photo Credit: Markets for Good
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By Tilak B.
age: 12
New Jersey
Bang! My dream was smashed into smithereens just after I had received a thought. My eyelids rapidly opened allowing my eyes to see my surrounding environment. The first thing that I spotted was the light coming from the digital clock. Its bright luster enabled me to read the time represented on the clock. It read 3:46. My eyes opened even wider as my jaw dropped almost to touch my slim neck. What the holy cow. Just as I was going to run into my hall to acquire my Christmas present just beneath my well-decorated and surprisingly well illuminated Christmas tree, my sister announced, It is underneath your pillow, in a soft drone, barely audible. I violently grabbed my plush pillow and pelted it toward the door leading out to the hallway. My heart alighted with happiness. My whole body was immobilized due to overwhelming joy for a few seconds, but broke free because of how agog I was in opening and playing the amazing RATCHET: DEADLOCKED. Deepa, wake up I called.
No, let me sleep she called back with a slight lisp.
Oh well, I told myself and started to unwrap my present in a brutish manner.
Once I had confirmed the present was RATCHET: DEADLOCKED, an envelope came into sight. I slowly opened the parcel. It had 30 dollars and some strip of paper. I was curious to find out what the strip of paper was, so I exited my room, put on the hallway light, and in the end I realized it was useless. It was something written by my mom; something written in my language, which is Tamil. I, especially, am not quite fond of reading and writing Tamil. My body was yearning to go to sleep. I tried to fight it but I lost by a long shot. I quickly went back into my deep-sleep mode.
Wake up. Now it was my sisters turn to wake someone up. Unlike my sister I woke up immediately. We both exchanged looks and knew what to do. We both grabbed our presents, mine unwrapped and my sisters wrapped, and rushed to the hall. We were accosted by our parents with a gentle, Merry Christmas. We replied the same thing back. I, a very impatient boy, did not wait for my sister to unwrap her present and started to play RATCHET: DEADLOCKED.
Wow, I shouted with excitement, this game rocks. No one seemed to care. I played for about 1.5 hours, which exceeded my time limit, before I handed the PS2 controller to my sister. My sister got HARRY POTTER and the GOBLET OF FIRE as her Christmas present. While she played her game I asked my dad what was written on the strip of paper I had received, even though I didnt really care. He started to read and I already dozed off. All I had heard was this:
Get good grades, BLAH BLAH BLAH, be a good boy BLAH BLAH BLAH. After my dad finished reading I turned my attention to what my sister was playing. The game was good but not as good as my game, RATCHET: DEADLOCKED. My sister called me to play. But NOOOOO. My dad rejected saying that he and my mom need to watch TV. That was followed with murmurs of swearing. My dad then added, I will let you play at 1:00. In frustration, I wrote in my PDA that I need to play at 1:00. The time seemed to be going twice as slow as it regularly did. After I had suffered for roughly 2 hours, the time had finally come for me to play PS2. Boy, was I happy when I could play. This time I played for 2 hours. In total I had played 3.5 hours when my dad only allowed me to play 2 hours every weekend. I felt lucky because my dad was sleeping and could not find out that I had played for a long time. Aha! I thought to myself, What is a Christmas without a fun game of CRANIUM?! I said this even though I knew the fact that CRANIUM was a 4-16 player game and both of my parents were snoozing which makes only my sister and I who could play. It was 3:15 and it was customary for my parents to wake up at 4:00. Now it was time for plan C; my last resort. Just like I always said to myself, Drastic times call for drastic measures. I was panting just as I was going to commence plan C. I walked as sweat dripped from my temples, down to the end of my chin and landed in front of me many times creating a mini-flash flood within my house. My sweaty palms reached menacingly toward the door knob. The door knob creaked as I twisted it, as if it was telling me to stop in its own unique language. The door opened almost seeming like it was reluctant. I entered the room, now with sweat spurting out of my body just like a water fountain. Mu-Mom, I said hesitantly, dad, cu-can you wake up to play CRANIUM? The style of my words changed from hesitant to rapid toward the end of my speech. There was an unpleasant silence. Then something was muttered in a very quite voice; something that I could not hear. It was clear that my dad knew I had not known what he said so he repeated his words except this time his voice was magnified significantly. Ill come, my dad said and I heard a quick agreement from my mom which followed. My plan had become a success. My parents got out of bed and immediately sat down to play the game with my sister and me. Theres bound to be a catch, my sister whispered. Not even 5 minutes had passed after we had started the game before my mom said that shes only doing this because we are expected to clean the house. We got up with livid looks and threw everything under our beds (even though we are not supposed to) and lied that we had finished cleaning. We continued play and had a blast. In fact my parents got so carried away that we played 3 games. It was now 10:00 and my parents went to bed. That was not a good thing. A few picoseconds later my mom came yelling. DID YOU STUFF THE BED WITH EVERY THING YOU CLEANED UP!?!?
Tilak B on writing:
How much fun I had on Christmas
Short Fiction
Dramatic Script
Science Fiction/Fantasy


text:
Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/10/28[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]
Terry Maltby Los Angeles Married to John, monogamously, for 20 years Other domestic residents: a male and a female cocker spaniel, both 6 years old Photography inspiration: my father, whose M2 dazzled me as a child and mesmerizes me to this day. Due to his accompanying M lenses, I am still deeply inspired by and grateful to him for the many hours he has spent traveling throughout the u.s. and around the world with that system. He has shot thousands of photos of me, my mother, my three brothers and one sister, many of the states, and almost every other country in the world, resulting in a photo album I will always deeply cherish. We still go out together, he with his M2 and I with either my M6 or R7, and have a wonderful time fondling our respective Leica cameras' bodies and lenses and eagerly awaiting wonderful results. He started with a Leica during World War II, during his stay in the Navy as a pilot, and the photos he still has that were taken with that camera are wonderful! M6: bought with 35 mm Summicron and 90 mm Summicron R7: bought new with 24 mm, 50 mm, 60 mm macro, 180 mm APO Telyt, and 250 mm lenses. R4: bought used Also own Leica mini-zoom and new ZX2 for quick shooting and carry either one with me daily for all purposes (neither one's body and internal components is made by Leica, but so what--both contain lenses that are wonderful!). Flash for R7: Metz 60 CT-4 (astounding compatibilty and results) Bag: Billingham 205 for M6...still deciding which to buy for R7 and multiple lenses inasmuch as the 205 is too small for same, especially the telephoto lenses.


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the native language project is a personal endeavor, a labor of love, a garage project, whathaveyou. i've long had this idea in my head that technology can be used to bring the wisdom of our elders to a new generation.
we live in an on-demand, instant-gratification, new & shiny, youth-oriented, disposable society and very seldom do we take the time to really listen to eachother …much less to our elders… and MUCH much less in the ancient languages that were taught to them.
noam chomsky teaches that languages and words contain ideas. that without the word for it, a thought does not exist. consider this: with the dying of our elders, and with the dying of their languages, dies that ancient wisdom.
why should we care?
well, we're not really any more intelligent than the generations before us. we may have more gizmos, more gadgets, more money…we may have jet planes, cars, iPhones, twitter accounts, HDTV and indoor plumbing but we're not that much more evolved than a generation ago, or 5, or 50…
maybe there's something to what our ancestors knew, back then. maybe there was something in between the words as oral tradition was passed down, that was literally lost in translation when we became too impatient to sit and listen carefully.
so i'd like to capture some of that before it's all gone.
i'd like to create a site that helps to records the stories, legends, and culture of native american elders, in their native tongue. …the project will grow and change…i myself am not even sure how it will look in the end.
thanks for stopping by!
contact me if you're interested in collaborating (or even if you just want to chat about this a bit); i'd love to hear from you.


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This is a sad day not just for British sport, but for world sport. The verdict of the Court of Arbitration for Sport is predictable enough but, in my opinion, marks a dispiriting victory for the drugs cheats.
I was hoping the British Olympic Association bylaw, which bans athletes convicted of doping offences from competing in future Games, would be maintained because it feels in a way like one of the last bastions in the anti-doping battle, one of the final proper deterrents to would-be offenders.
It is not just me who feels this way; if you ask most of our top Olympic athletes in Britain today – and I have talked to many of them – they all feel strongly that there has to be a realistic punishment for the cheats and agree that transgressing should lead to any offender having to miss out on the biggest event of all.
Yes, Britain may have been out on its own in that stance, but so what? It does not mean the stance is wrong. I honestly believe that one of the reasons we have had very few positive tests in Britain is because of the teeth that the bylaw carries. If you like, it has been our nuclear deterrent.
It is sad globally because I think other national Olympic bodies should have been looking at the BOA and thinking ours was a stance they could be following.
The World Anti-Doping Agency felt the bylaw was not compliant with its code but now you have to look what we are left with in Britain. We will now have to tip our hat to Wada's two-year ban.
Two years? That is a ridiculous sanction, so short that you have to ask yourself whether it is a punishment at all for someone who gets caught for drug taking to serve his or her two years and then come back to successfully retain their Olympic crown.
That may well happen this year in London with LaShawn Merritt, the American Olympic 400 metres champion set to defend his title after serving a 21-month ban for steroid-taking. I say that effectively represents no punishment.
Any punishment has to fit the crime; two years does not even take you out of the Olympic cycle. It is simply not long enough. Every athlete has the right to compete on equal terms and if we allow drug cheats to come back too easily, then that is not equitable.
It is nine and eight years ago respectively since sprinter Dwain Chambers and cyclist David Millar served bans for their drugs offences. All credit to them for the way they have behaved since their return to sport and I admire the way they have spoken up, admitted their doping and become significant advocates against the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
But should they be looked upon more favourably than everyone else because of that? I don't think so.
I have no problem with them coming back and being able to compete at their respective sports' major championships after serving their federation's bans, but would I still feel uncomfortable about seeing them competing in British colours at this summer's Games? Yes, I would.
Because both knew when they were cheating they were simultaneously forfeiting the right to ever be able to compete at an Olympic Games again should they be caught.
I can see one compromise. If Wada were to extend its ban to a longer period of time – make it four years to take the offender out of the next major event cycle in their sport – then I could accept the BOA also reducing its lifetime ban. But to lose the bylaw and only have a two-year, across-the-board punishment feels just absurd.
I am not a lawyer, so I do not know if this CAS verdict really does spell the definitive end for the BOA's stance, nor, as a BOA vice-president, do I have a say in what the association does next. But, personally, I would like to see it continue the fight and to rally the support of athletes, past and present, to back it.
Certainly, I feel it is for leading athletes of my generation, who are vehemently anti-doping, to lead the pressure on Wada and international sport to come up with a more realistic deterrent than currently exists.
Indeed, I've come to feel more strongly about this issue the older I've got.
When, like myself, you have two children involved in competitive sport these days, of course you want to believe they have been brought up to do the right thing, but you also want to ensure the right messages are being drummed into their generation.
And there is only one message which is really important: the one simple, sure-fire way of not being banned is DON'T CHEAT.
And the real sadness of today's decision is that it just makes that message all the more difficult to ram home.


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Club Toluca (1) vs. CD Guadalajara (2)
CD Guadalajara won over Club Toluca 2-1 Wednesday in Mexico League action.
Scoring for Club Toluca was H.R. Lopez (o.g.) in the 15th minute.
CD Guadalajara got goals from M.J.F.d.l. Mora in the 13th minute, and X.I. Baez in the 68th minute in the win.
Over bettors were rewarded when the three goals sent the match over the total of 2.5.
Club Toluca and CD Guadalajara were stalemated at 1-1 at the break.


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On Road Trips and Road Literature, Part 2: American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
Subtitled: America must be especially beautiful to people from other countries, but does it mean the same thing to them? Also, what's the true meaning of the roadside attraction?
Four years ago my friends and I went to see Neil Gaiman speak at a local high school. He was charming, funny, and erudite, as I expected him to be, and as he continues to be on Twitter (1.7 million followers! What!). He showed us a sneak preview of the film adaptation of his children's novel Coraline (a totally enchanting movie if you haven't seen it). He read from his newest children's novel, The Graveyard Book. I bought a signed copy.
Neil Gaiman is British, but lives in Minnesota, of all places– not New York or Los Angeles, but Minnesota. To me, that means he must know, and maybe love, America, because Minnesota is too remote and not-Britain to be ambivalent about. It's the American heartland forgoodnesssake. I've always found that interesting, and American Gods, I feel, gives me a little more insight into how that residential paradox works.
American Gods is kind of a slow burn of a novel. I actually bought it for my boyfriend, on one of my first trips to Borderlands in the Mission (a totally enchanting sci-fi/fantasy bookstore on Valencia if you haven't been there), because I knew he'd been wanting to read it. He started it, never finished it, said nothing was happening. It's true that most of the story feels like a preparation for some big event (a war between the gods, incidentally), but after you stop waiting for the war to start, I think you can appreciate the burning.
Our hero is named Shadow, and he's just gotten out of prison. There's something special about Shadow that, being inside his head most of the time, we never completely understand. He doesn't talk much, he doesn't moralize much, he's good in a fight and he accepts jobs from strange, potentially sinister men that he's just met. But we know, from the little choices he makes, that he's a good person anyway.
Part of Shadow's disconnectedness from the world is because of the years he spent in prison. Part of it is because, right after he is released, his wife is killed in a car accident along with his best friend, who she had been having an affair with. So he starts his post-prison life in a kind of vacuum. No connections, no home, nothing and no one to care or live for.
He falls into a weird work relationship with a man he meets on the plane home, an older, bearded gentleman by the name of Wednesday. At this point, if you know anything about Norse mythology, you know who the guy's supposed to be. I mean, the name of the book has gods in it! But while we might know who Wednesday is, we don't really know what he's up to—just that it has to do with a war, a coming storm (oldest metaphor in the book, am I right?!? e.g. "there's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne"), that it's taking place in America. Also, that it has to do with the gods of the Old World (including the Old New World) and the gods of the millennium (read: technology, drugs, tabloids, etc).
Add to this the fact that Shadow is being followed around by his dead wife, and the fact that the small town Wednesday stashes him in between jobs is hiding a dark child-abducting secret, and there's enough to keep your reading interest even if the storm takes forever to come.
One of my favorite touches in the novel is the way Neil Gaiman makes subtle observations about the American landscape. It's something I like to do too, when I'm on the road: observe all the little idiosyncrasies, from road signs to billboards to store windows to restaurant decorations. When I feel like I've seen something special, that couldn't be anywhere else in the world, it's like a little, private victory to add to my collection.
The epic nature of the mythological landscape feels special because it's grounded in the real America. It feels like all of these places really exist, and that Neil Gaiman has probably been to them. It makes the book feel bigger than itself.
"They spent the night in a Super 8 motel south of La Crosse." (234)
"They ate their Christmas lunch late in the afternoon in a hall-like family restaurant in northern central Wisconsin. Shadow picked cheerlessly at the dry turkey, jam-sweet red lumps of cranberry sauce, tough-as-wood roasted potatoes, and violently green canned beans… [The waitress] wore a bright red-and-green skirt edged with glittering silver tinsel." (234)
"Main Street, which they were on, was a pretty street, even at night, and it looked old-fashioned in the best sense of the word—as if, for a hundred years, people had been caring for that street and they had not been in a hurry to lose anything they liked." (252)
"In America everything goes on forever, said a voice in the back of his head. The 1950s lasted for a thousand years. You have all the time in the world." (537)
On my road trip, I was everywhere looking for the real America. I thought I might find it in those same types of ephemera: signs, windows, décor. Nevada and southern Utah felt, in passing, like home—strip malls, gas stations, highways and Starbucks. And home for me isn't special; it's where I live, it's home. I thought I found it, for a little bit, on Route 66 in Arizona. But I realized that to an extent, the tourist kitsch of Williams and Seligman were parodies of the real America, created in dialectic response to the expectations people have when they arrive. Looking at the droves of European tourists, I wondered if they could tell the difference. Of course, maybe all this time I've been living in the real America, and I'm the one who can't tell the difference.
My other favorite thing that Neil Gaiman does in American Gods is meditate on the nature and power of belief. The "gods" that are featured in the story are less like big-G gods who control the winds and the oceans and the fates of men, and more like beliefs made manifest who strengthen and weaken with people's changing faith in them. To that extent, it's unclear if these "gods" retain the core essence and identity of the actual god, or if they're more an image, a shadow, a representation. (A question I had after the book: if these Old World gods were brought over by immigrants to America, is there a different, similar copy that remains in the Old World?)
Ancient mythology is referenced and re-lived, as when Shadow agrees to hang from the tree of life—Yggsdrasil or its Virginian farmland equivalent– for nine days and nine nights, something Odin does in Norse myth. Meanwhile, the Egyptian god Anubis works at a mortuary and eats slices of organs from the bodies he embalms.
But even more interesting, to me, was the way American mythology was identified and lived. The gods Shadow runs with are stronger, able to puncture dimensional fields, only from locations of deep significance. In America, these are tourist traps in remote places, where people make pilgrimage every vacation season. Most prominently:
1) The House on the Rock near Spring Green, Wisconsin, is where Shadow first witnesses the supernatural powers of the gods he is accompanying. They walk the tree-lined, Victorian-themed Streets of Yesterday, purchase fortunes from a machine using branded House on the Rock coin tokens, and ride an antique carousel to the strains of a slightly off-key Strauss waltz, which transports them to a separate dimension where they hold their godly council.
2) The center of the United States near Lebanon, Kansas, is where the Old gods hold a ceasefire meeting with the New, because neither has much power there—it's a place of "negative sacredness". This point was determined to be the U.S.'s geographic center in early 20th century, though the plaque had to be erected a few miles from the exact spot because a farmer didn't want it on his land. The monument and the park and the hotel were meant to attract tourists, but never really did. Thus, the lack of power.
3) Rock City near Chattanooga, Tennessee, is where the final showdown takes place. The gods do battle over this mountain lookout that also has animatronic attractions and a seven-state vantage point.
I really like Gaiman's ideas: that people's beliefs have power, that places have power, that whether it's a totemic and totalizing religion like Christianity, or an unshakeable positivistic belief in science; whether it's fairy tales or animism or origins stories; or whether it's just a lifestyle, a set of behaviors, an absorption in modern technology; it all means something because it requires some kind of faith, and because we are always searching someway somehow for something transcendent.
"The paradigms were shifting. He could feel it. The old world, a world of infinite vastness and illimitable resources and future, was being confronted by something else—a web of energy, of opinions, of gulfs.
"People believe, thought Shadow. It's what people do. They believe. And then they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjurations. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen." (536)
Note: Rumors that this will be an HBO series as early as next year. Confirmation?
On Road Trips and Road Literature: Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer
Subtitled: America, like it or not it's beautiful, even if patriotism isn't in vogue, because I haven't been patriotic since post 9/11 pickup trucks turned me off the idea ten years ago, but I think I still love America, kinda
Having recently completed a five-day road trip across the American Southwest, I found myself reflecting on the soul of America.
I don't know how much I, personally, can speak to it, not having been to the Midwest OR the South which are America's proverbial heart(andsoul)lands. But I've been to three corners and three islands of the contiguous country—15 states—besides myself living in the West — so that's a pretty good chunk of it eh? And not one but two books I've recently read—Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, and American Gods, by Neil Gaiman—deal with the topic of traveling the road in America, as does one of my favorite books of all time, Nabokov's Lolita. And with the American road trip, intentional or not, comes the search for the meaning of America.
Into the Wild is a nonfiction work by outdoors journalist Jon Krakauer that chronicles the life and death of Chris McCandless, self-dubbed Alexander Supertramp, focusing on the two years he spent living out of his backpack in the Western United States in the early 1990s up to his untimely death. He perished in the summer of 1992 after months of living out of an abandoned bus near Denali National Park, at the edge of the Alaskan wilderness. He probably starved.
In terms of what drove him on this crazy quest: Chris was from a fairly well-to-do DC-area family, but had a difficult relationship with his parents, who he seemed to see as Caulfieldian phonies. As an honors student at Emory University he experimented with asceticism and grad-student theory, growing increasingly disillusioned with his privileged lifestyle and fantasizing about throwing all material possessions and former-life connections to the wind, and instead just existing, body and nature and no commitment to the corruptions of modern human society.
A lot of people think he was stupid or crazy, or at least arrogant, and there is definitely an argument to be made in that vein. But Krakauer's portrait is deeply sympathetic. He interposes a personal story of his own foolhardy attempt to climb a glacial mountain in Alaska as a youth, solo, as well as the stories of many others who have wandered off into the wild for various reasons and, in most cases, not survived. McCandless, Krakauer implies, was not some loony but rather an idealistic young man following the time-honored tradition of looking for meaning and fulfillment in nature.
On my own road trip, my path twice crossed Krakauer's and McCandless's, once in the physical sense and once in the narrative sense. McCandless lived and worked for a time in Bullhead City, Arizona, which sits just across the river from "Las Vegas for families" Laughlin, Nevada. We stopped at this hokey casino town on the Colorado River for a very hot, very dry, not entirely interesting night.
Say what you will about Laughlin, but it truly is an American place, down to its classic American origins story of pluck and business know-how. Don Laughlin (b. 1931) worked in Vegas and attended card dealing school, teaching himself all the tricks of the casino trade, before buying an old hotel in this rundown little community across from Bullhead City. This he gradually grew into a mini-gambling empire that was later named for him. "What you're looking at is the realization of one man's dream," the tour boat guide (a recording) told us. The American Dream, right?
For many tourists, it's a weekend trip from their nearby Arizona, Nevada, or California hometowns; for (less fortunate) others, it's their vacation destination of the year. For me, it was a pit stop on a road trip and nothing more, a mere geographic location, something that wasn't made for me and that didn't really welcome me in the physical or metaphysical sense. For McCandless, it was also just a stop: a stop on his cross-Western journey, where he put in hours at a part-time food service job to help pay for his ultimate destination, Alaska.
"Bullhead City is a community in the oxymoronic, late-twentieth-century idiom. Lacking a discernible center, the town exists as a haphazard sprawl of subdivisions and strip malls stretching for eight or nine miles along the banks of the Colorado, directly across the river from the high-rise hotels and casinos of Laughlin, Nevada. Bullhead's distinguishing civic feature is the Mohave Valley Highway, four lanes of asphalt lined with gas stations and fast-food franchises, chiropractors and video shops, auto-parts outlets and tourist traps." (p. 39)
The second time my path crossed McCandless's was when we browsed a tiny espresso 'n' books 'n' outdoor gear store near our hotel in Kanab, Utah, a small town located just north of the Arizona border and south of Utah's grandiose national parks. The subject of several of the display books was young Everett Ruess, one of those other foolhardy youths that Krakauer speaks about in his book.
Everett Ruess (b. 1914 in Oakland, CA– a fellow East Bay Areaite!) left his family and friends at age 16 to hitchhike around the West and live out of his backpack. This he managed to do for a few years, until somewhere between 1934 and 1935, in the Utah wilderness near Glen Canyon Dam, he disappeared. All that was left of Everett were his packs and his mules. They never found out what happened to him; it's surmised he probably fell off a cliff. Whatever the case, the mystery surrounding his wanderlust-fueled death transformed him into a local legend, if the proliferation of Everett Ruess-themed books in the area gift shops is any indication.
For all the times that McCandless seems like an idiot who didn't plan ahead—kind of like Aron Ralston of 127 Hours fame, except that dude pulled through—there's this flip side of empathy because he did what maybe a lot of us have thought about, even just for a brief second. Maybe he lived in a way that none of us ever will: with no earthly connections, existing in nature and outside the bounds of society, being completely self-sufficient. There's times when I've gazed out a car window and wished I could just hop out the door and run out into a particularly beautiful landscape (kind of a comical image, I know) but reason and logic and practicality and fear of bugs and all these other societal values and inhibitions forbid me. Sometimes I want to make snow angels in a dry meadow. Grass angels.
The search for the transcendent, the desire for life to have meaning could undoubtedly be considered universal sentiments. So could the desire for absolute freedom, particularly as the conditional freedoms of technology bind us, as we are ever more connected and ever more restricted by our connectedness. Even more, though, the special brand of McCandless's search could, I think, be considered an American sentiment: a messy mixture of rugged individualism and self-reliance and reverence for the natural world that McCandless found in American writers like Emerson and London and Muir. (He also loved Tolstoy.) That these values ultimately took precedence over self-preservation (even before his sojourn to Alaska, McCandless put himself in danger several times) says a lot about their power.
For what it's worth, I don't have a lot of patience for people who profess or attempt to live lives of utter self-sufficiency. I think it's a uniquely American fantasy that's incredibly indulgent, manifested politically in Ron Paul-style libertarianism. The rejection of society—the societal fabric, the society of others—is a lie unless it is undertaken to its utmost extremes (I'm thinking, hermit on an island?), and anyone else who claims it is a hypocrite who doesn't appreciate that society does so much for them, that society made them.
McCandless was probably indulgent; he was a privileged kid who hadn't really experienced hardship; he undoubtedly failed to live completely independently, whether or not he thought that he had. But that doesn't mean he didn't succeed to a greater extent that most people ever will; and it definitely doesn't mean there isn't value in his story. Even as I shake my head at him, I admire him.
(The film version of this book, by the way, is lovely. Sean Penn directed it and Eddie Vedder wrote a perfect, rambling acoustic soundtrack, and Emile Hirsch was a very fitting and earnest McCandless. Ironically, the relationships McCandless made on the road while trying to escape society were unnaturally deep and meaningful for their short duration—he made an impression on everyone he met, and the film captures this beautifully. Most touching is the scene when Hal Holbrook's character "Ron" [name changed from real life], who lost his wife and kids in an accident decades earlier, asks to adopt McCandless as a kind of grandson. McCandless demurred until he got back from Alaska, which of course he never did. I openly wept. Holbrook was nominated for his first Oscar.)
Into the Wild is compelling because from the very first page we know what happens in the end. Yet despite the inexorable direction of the story and McCandless's sensational death (I was too young to follow the news in 1992, but my mom tells me it was a big story), the real value of the narrative is the journey– which in an ironic-but-oh-so-expected twist is ultimately and chiefly life-affirming.


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Saw this via Lifehacker. I left my practically new Moto RAZR in my backpack during Ultimate when a crazy flash thunderstorm suddenly filled the outer pocket of the backpack with water. Apparently the large inner area of the backpack was water proof, allowing the water to pool in the outer pockets.
I'll try this soon, hopefully I get the RAZR love again. I actually did have it mostly working. Some buttons were unresponsive and I missed a couple of calls, so I switched to an old marketing model v710.
Update: Since it has been 3 months since the incident, I had my doubts as to what an alcohol bath would do. So I just turned the phone on and all features seemed to work (including previously unresponsive buttons). I switched service back to that phone and am once again living the high life. You can rest easy now, good readers.


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Robert F. Subtil, Eduardo G. Carrano, Ricardo H. C. Takahashi, Marcone J. F. Souza, Sérgio R. de Souza.
The original formulation of the Generalized Assignment Problem (GAP) consists in, given a set of n different tasks and m different agents, as- signing each task to an agent in such a way that a cost function is minimized. A previous work introduced the Equilibrium Function as a new objective function in the problem formulation. The purpose of this second objective function is to minimize the maximum difference between the amount of work assigned to the agents. This allows better distributions of the tasks between the agents than the results found from the original problem, with a small increase in the cost. This paper proposes new crossover and mutation operators that produce improve- ments in the algorithm presented in [Subtil et al. 2010], leading to consider- ably better Pareto approximations than the ones obtained in the previous work, within the same number of function evaluations. The proposed operators exploit problem-specific information in a probabilistic way, performing operations that lead to objective function enhancement or feasibility enhancement with greater probability than operations that do not cause such enhancements. A statistical comparison procedure is employed for supporting such conclusions.
http://www.lbd.dcc.ufmg.br/colecoes/enia/2011/0040.pdfCaso o link acima esteja inválido, faça uma busca pelo texto completo na Web: Buscar na Web


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The University In Vermont: Collaborations, Challenges, Commitments
UVM is Vermont's public research university and land-grant college. It is both a private and a public institution, serving Vermonters and students from around the world. Its service, research, and educational programs involve collaborations with Vermont communities as well as communities across the globe. What contributions does UVM make to science, arts, and society? What challenges does it face? What new possibilities are emerging? This series provides a forum to discuss UVM's past, present and future engagements and our commitments to Vermont and the world.
7:00 pm
Billings North Lounge, Billings Library
Free and open to the public
April 9 The Future of Vermont's Agriculture and UVM
Agricultural leaders will present their visions of Vermont's farming future, including challenges, potential collaborations, and areas for new research and entrepreneurship.
Doug Lantange, Dean, UVM Extension
Chuck Ross, VT Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets
Enid Wonnacott, Director, NOFA, Northeast Organic Farming Assoc of Vermont
Roger Allbee, Former VT Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets
Tom Vogelmann, Dean, UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Vern Grubinger, UVM Extension


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Isaac misses Tampa, but traffic doesn't - Pro talks transpo with Gov. Gilmore - More dispatches from the RNC - CBO's new Highway Trust Fund estimate
Featuring Kathryn A. Wolfe, Jessica Meyers and Alex Guillén
RNC KICKS OFF IN EARNEST TODAY: After storms cut short Monday's festivities, the real show at the RNC begins today. But while lots of headlines were (rightfully) focused on the storm, there's another logistical problem — traffic. Thanks to security concerns, a large swath of Tampa's downtown will be closed, making travel difficult at best. Regardless, the city says its transportation network is set for the onslaught after the storm. For many attending the convention, travel difficulties started over the weekend with just getting flights into town. Ironically, the weather in Tampa wasn't to blame — yet. A large and dangerous thunderstorm had settled over the Washington, D.C., region, forcing flights to be canceled or delayed — some by as many as four or five hours. Kathryn reports from Tampa for Pros: http://politico.pro/PVlbi6
Story Continued Below
CONVENTION Q&A — Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore: Kathryn snagged Gilmore yesterday and talked some transportation. The former governor and current Free Congress Foundation head said Mitt Romney would take a businessman's approach to transportation. The GOP hopeful would "assess the importance and value of transportation to the growth of the United States," he told Kathryn in Tampa. But Gilmore and Free Congress don't agree with Romney on everything — take Amtrak. Gilmore said FCF "generally supports" Amtrak as one among several transportation options, but he said it's still necessary to "take a very close look at the efficiency and effectiveness of any transportation system that's being funded." Pros get the full story and transcript from Kathryn in Tampa: http://politico.pro/NylFXl
DISPATCH FROM TAMPA -- Transpo leaders party: Kathryn went to the Transportation Leaders Celebration at Stumps Supper Club Channelside last night. She reports it was "sponsored by at least one organization from pretty much every mode of transportation known to man (from A4A to ATA to NATCA, AAR, ABA, AGC and Maersk and many others)."
Mica-isms making a comeback? More from Kathryn: "I was greeted at the door by Mica, who immediately called for security...jokingly! When I told him that MT was expectantly awaiting a 'Mica-ism,' he laughed and said to tell Adam that 'I'm just about back to normal but it may take a little shock treatment or two to get me on my normal routine. But I think you've got to be able to keep it light in this business.' Done and done, Mr. Chairman.
"Mica went on to recount what was clearly a personally difficult campaign, mentioning that some things — the comment that Barbara Boxer was his 'soul mate,' the bill signing with Obama — were used against him by Rep. Sandy Adams in the primary campaign. 'Anyone who knows me knows we [Boxer and Mica] are like oil and water philosophically, but we got the job done. Sometimes in politics people use things like little quips against you. It was primary season to try to damage my reputation,' he said."
Work the crowd: Kathryn said there were well over 100 transportation players in the crowd, including: Mica, Rep. Mike Rogers, Sen. Jim Inhofe, Rep. John Duncan, Rep. Bill Shuster and his two brothers and press secretary Gretchen Gailey, Pam Whitted of NSSGA, Peter Nonis of AAA, Clyde Hart of the ABA and an army of other lobbyists, staffers and consultants.
Busy man: Kathryn also reports that Shuster — who many think will be T&I chairman next year — was a busy man. After a brief but noisy bar-side chat, she reports that "it was clear that Shuster's attention was in demand — as soon as we finished our chat, a throng of people descended upon him, and despite saying he was going to 'make his way toward the door,' he was still inching along 20 minutes later."
Faceoff: Kathryn's on the drink and food scene too: "Inhofe's drink of choice: Amstel Light. Mica's: a very modest 'half shot' of Jack Daniels and Coke, set atop coasters made for the event featuring a GOP elephant in the middle of a mag wheel. The attendees noshed on hamburgers and chicken sandwiches, as well as a selection of fries and nachos."
GHOSTS OF KATRINA: The RNC goes on despite the storm, but Republicans are still nervous — they don't want another Katrina to happen during their party. POLITICO's Burns and Haberman have the story: http://politi.co/NymoaW
Tampa port: The Tampa Port Authority reopened for boat traffic Monday afternoon, but the ports of New Orleans, Mobile, Gulfport, Pascagoula and Fourchon are closed as Isaac approaches. Mississippi River pilots have stopped moving vessels in the Gulf region and have closed the river to deep-draft traffic until after the storm. The Port of New Orleans will remain closed through Wednesday.
Stormy: While we've got storms on the brain, check out this map of all hurricanes since 1851, via the Atlantic Cities: http://bit.ly/SJZRi7
LEND A HAND: Kathryn will be at the RNC all week, so if you know of any good transportation events she should check out or have a delegate/VIP that wants to talk transportation and politics, please email her at email@example.com. Adam heads to the DNC next week, so hit him up ( firstname.lastname@example.com) with any transportation shenanigans in Charlotte.
A STORMY YET CONVENTIONAL TUESDAY. Thanks for reading POLITICO's Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on trains, planes, automobiles and the Curiosity rover. If it moves, it's news. We love to hear from you: email@example.com and email@example.com. Twitter: @ AdamKSnider and @ BurgessEv. More news: @ POLITICOPro and @ Morning_Transpo. Programming note: Burgess returns today — welcome him back with a hot tip.
"Say, do you have a ship and a thousand able men that maybe you could lend me?" http://youtu.be/n3oNJHNHh7Y
HIGHWAY TRUST FUND UPDATE: MT got its hands on the new HTF numbers from CBO. Their predictions, updated for MAP-21: The highway account will end FY 2012 with $8.7 billion and the transit account with $4.7 billion. "We estimate both accounts will be unable to meet obligations sometime in 2015, although the Transit Account may have some difficulties in FY 2014, depending on cash flows into and out of that fund," wrote analyst Sarah Puro. The transit ledger shows a $500 million balance at the end of FY 2014 — and there's some varying numbers on how much exactly of a cushion it needs to be able to meet cash-flow demands.
Earmark reprogramming not included: "These estimates do not include the effects of the reprogramming action that the administration announced last week," Puro said of the old earmark rescission. MAP-21 led to a few minor changes in expected spending levels for the two accounts: a small increase for transit and a decrease for highways. "Also, estimated revenues have decreased as have interest rates, both affecting interest credited to the fund," she wrote. See the chart: http://bit.ly/SJ6nFZ
ROMNEY'S CABINET: Who might be DOT secretary under President Mitt Romney? Will DOT continue the bipartisan streak? Two of the last three transportation secretaries have been from the other party — Norman Mineta under President George W. Bush and now Ray LaHood under President Barack Obama. POLITICO's Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, with an assist from Kathryn, pass along this: "Interestingly, he would not commit to putting a Democrat in his Cabinet, although he noted that he had in Massachusetts. If he decided to include one, one possibility would be former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, perhaps as transportation secretary." Full story: http://politi.co/MXa6NV
PAGING ALEC BALDWIN: The FAA is pulling together a group to study airlines' policies on using laptops, iPods and other portable electronic devices on board planes — but not cellphone calls. The group, which will include representatives from industries such as technology and aviation manufacturing as well as government, will meet for six months starting this fall. The goal, according to FAA acting head Michael Huerta, is to see whether airlines "can allow more widespread use of electronic devices in today's aircraft." The public can offer input starting today. Read the notice: http://1.usa.gov/TjRXrv
ARMY CORPS FACING ISAAC CHALLENGE: The tropical storm barreling towards New Orleans serves as both an eerie reminder of past mistakes and an assessment of promised change. Seven years to the day that Hurricane Katrina unleashed its destruction on the Crescent City, the Army Corps of Engineers must prove that it can handle something as devastating this time. "This is the first real test of the work the Army Corps has put into the flood protection system," said Eileen Fretz, American Rivers' Flood Policy Director, about the $14.6 billion behemoth meant to stop the most formidable of storms — let alone Isaac. Jessica has Pros covered: http://politico.pro/PnGfvb
- Chrysler, GM ban presidential campaign events in their factories. Automotive News: http://bit.ly/NymYFL
- Transportation experts weigh in on the creation and implementation of a national freight plan. National Journal blog: http://bit.ly/NsbOYZ
- Capital Bikeshare cruises into Alexandria, Va. WaPo: http://wapo.st/NsalSy
- Cargo sailboats? It could be a reality. New York Times: http://nyti.ms/Nykhnv
- Coming soon: Women's clothes based on the 2013 Chevy Malibu. Truth About Cars: http://bit.ly/SJZHap
- Cultural differences: U.S. citizens text while driving; Toronto mayor studies up while driving. Systemic Failure: http://bit.ly/PKFVtj
RENO PLANE CRASH UPDATE: The probable cause of a 2011 plane crash at a Reno air race that killed 11 people and injured 60 more was undocumented modifications to the plane, a WWII-era P-51 Mustang, NTSB said yesterday. The vintage fighter plane had undergone extensive and major modifications, almost none of which was reported to the FAA. Some of the plane's steering equipment failed, sending it into a VIP stand of spectators at more than 500 miles per hour, prompting calls for tighter regulations of air races. http://1.usa.gov/NykJ5i
MT POLL — White House & Congress: The first convention this week means the elections are just around the corner. Who will be president come Jan. 20? And what will Congress look like? Remember, they'll be in charge of the next transportation bill in 2014. Put aside what you want to happen or what's best for transportation — what will the reality be? You don't even have to show ID to vote — as long as you do it by Sunday at noon: http://bit.ly/MUDu7m
CAP BACKS ADMINISTRATION AUTO POLICIES: Dan Weiss and Jackie Weidman of the Center for American Progress have an issue brief out this morning outlining "the five major Obama administration policies that helped the auto industry and the nation" ahead of final fuel standards for 2017-2025 models expected to be issued soon. The pair argue that new standards for models through 2016 helped increase both industry jobs and auto sales, upcoming standards will dramatically lower oil use and the "Cash for Clunkers" program "helped save the auto industry." Check it out: http://bit.ly/PlOVXe
PLEASE MAKE UP: The National Retail Federation yesterday begged the ILA and the U.S. Maritime Alliance to resume stalled contract talks, warning that shippers would divert cargo in days if nothing changed. "Failure to reach agreement will lead to supply chain disruptions, which could seriously harm the U.S. economy," NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said, calling it a "critical time" as shippers head into the holiday season. Some, he said, have already rerouted their cargo. The negotiations, which broke down last week, affect about 14,500 dockworkers along the East and Gulf coasts.
THE COUNTDOWN: DOT funding runs out in 33 days, passenger rail policy in 399 days, surface transportation policy in 764 days and FAA policy in 1,129 days. There are 70 days before the general election and the 113th Congress convenes in 131 days.
TEPID REACTIONS TO CSA CHANGE: FMCSA's tweaks to the CSA trucking program got some faint praise from stakeholders who said more still needs to be done. "These changes, while appreciated, point to the issue ATA has been urging FMCSA to address for some time: CSA scores are not necessarily indicative of elevated crash risk," ATA head Bill Graves said. OOIDA, a group representing independent drivers, also praised the change — with an asterisk. "However, impatience from truckers should not be unexpected when a program has real-life consequences on professionals that know of no other way to do business but safely," Executive VP Todd Spencer said.
CABOOSE — Subway maps: Talk about great timing — the Atlantic Cities follows yesterday's caboose with a lengthy and fascinating article about geographical accuracy in subway maps. Yesterday we brought you the D.C. subway map to scale — which isn't how it's depicted by WMATA. Click through for the full read: http://bit.ly/Ro1MXT


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MY newest cookbook has never been more close to being ready. It has gone from a sketch to blueprints, to a sculpture, to the main frame of the house, to having the walls put up and plumbing installed. Metaphorically speaking, we are about ready to move in the furniture and put up some pictures.
Each day, something is evolving. The manuscript is almost honed to perfection, the recipes tweaked to mouthwatering appeal, and the very book design is sheer art. Absolutely gorgeous. Trust us. The book is ever so much bigger, bolder, prettier than even we imagined. (Thank you Ten Speed and Random Canada).
This is my third cookbook and although I am not new at writing a cookbook, I am always amazed myself, as an author, how much work is involved - not only from the author's end but the publisher. Editor, copy editors, proof readers, graphic designers, photographers, food stylists all jump into the fray. In the end, a mainstream cookbook is pretty well an investment (of time, on the author's part) and on faith, as well as sheer outlay, on the part of the publisher.
With The Best of Betterbaking.Com just a couple of months away from being in a-store-near-you or at Amazon and Indigo online, I thought you might like to know a bit of how it is done.
"Your recipe for cheesecake is amazing - You should write a cookbook!" How often have people said those words to you? Flattering words that make more than one person think about quitting their day job to publish their own recipes and make the New York Times best seller list or Amazon's top 10. Not so easy.even for the pros. There is so much more than simply writing up a recipe and pasting it a Word file and sending it on to a publisher.
Let's start at the beginning. Recipes are everywhere: cookbooks, family recipe files, on the net, back of
boxes of cereal, on cans of soup and certainly, in cookbooks. Cookbooks offer countless recipes and tempt foodies with their bounty. No wonder why people collect them - to read at their leisure and some, of course, to cook and bake with and from. But GOOD recipes? Tested, tried and true and tasty recipes? These are worth their weight in gold. Sure, recipes are variable and results are often in the hands of the cook in charge - no matter how tried and true but still, a good recipe is a precious thing.
What is a good recipe? Or how do I create recipes? First, I think about taste, then ease of preparation, accessible techniques and ingredients, and final "wow" results. I look at trends and re-spin recipes (eg my Tiramisu Biscotti or Carrot Cake Scones). Then I think of my reader or a user of my recipe. How can I take my professional baker's expertise, along with a reasonable palate and culinary instinct, and design a fool proof recipe anyone else can replicate in their own kitchen. This takes work, time, and testing.
OK - we have one recipe but we need more. A cookbook needs at least 100 recipes. (Which raises another point: People often ask me where I get my recipes from. From my head, generally. One cannot simply photocopy other recipes and call them your own or even play with one ingredient really - and claim that as your new recipe.) To make a cookbook a marketable concept you can pitch to a publisher, you need 100 recipes with a theme or "hook". Chances are, if you have a 'hook' someone else in the business also does. So, you need a hook that is marketable and original or unique but mindful of culinary trends.
In our case, I have a website on baking. Our persona is in place - the "look" of our site, is as much our calling card as the recipes. I guess you can say our hook is two fold - it is a cookbook about great baking but also, a book those genesis is from an online publication. So, to our knowledge, it is somewhat of a first - a website becoming a print cookbook. We think that is so cool.
Cookbook trends do come and go. There was the low fat trend, as well as famous chef's cookbooks, one-subject cookbooks, regional cookbooks, and gourmet ethnic cookbooks, to name some. If you want to write a Salute to Polenta and it is the year of encyclopedic tombs of How To Cook Anything, you will have a hard time selling a comparatively focused or 'little' idea. Even if you have a Pulitzer prize winning bunch of borsch recipes - if it is the year of the artisinal bread book, you might hit a glass wall. Unless...there is a glut of artisinal bread books and the borscht collection is the new next wave. Timing is everything.
Let's say you do manage to sell your concept. Then the real work begins. Most people have no idea that by the time they buy a cookbook, it has 2-3 years of work behind it, and probably about ten years germination time before that. It is usually the distillation of recipes, expertise, and evolutions on the part of the author. Then, the recipes in it get re-tested: by the author, and teams of testers. At that point, it is time to put it together in a manuscript. You can't just spit out recipes on paper - there has to be an introduction - it sets the tone and "voice" of the book, and there has to be "connective tissue" via entertaining text, enlivening sidebars, and tantalizing, information recipe headnotes.
This brings us to BetterBaking.com. Many folks have asked if this cookbook is simply my website, regurgitated into a book. Hardly! Recipes that were formatted for the website were completely rewritten. New recipes have been formulated just for the book. The book has been written with a notion that you might be a baker and cookbook collector and have never heard of BetterBaking.com. And yet, BetterBaking.com - the book, still retains the character and spirit of the site you do know (and love). All in all, it is everything, and a bag of potato chips.
OK, I have recipes, a concept, and a manuscript. Then, I have volunteer testers. And we have something integral to great cookbooks - an editor that oversees the project, adopts it, and works with the author(s) to pare and refine it to a respectable length and help make raw material sing that much more. This takes an editor that knows words and food both. It is painstaking work and consumes hours and hours of noting each and every detail of the book. Questions get ferried back from editor to author. The manuscript gets re-done and re-worked until it emerges as a sculpted form from a huge lump of clay. Then copy editors step in and copy typists and proof readers. Facts have to be verified and everything gone over with a fine toothed comb. One day, this all gets to a place where a galley version of the book is produced. It is transformational. A manuscript finally looks like a book in its galley stage. Metaphorically speaking, if you will permit, a galley is like a wedding dress try on - the marriage is only a matter of time.
All these processes take time. By the time the average cookbook (350 pages - 150 recipes) is ready to hit the stands, the man hours of work are beyond counting and usually at least 18 months have gone by. Many people have had a hand in helping a book along. In that time, you have to also hope, ten other cookbooks in the same vein, are also not about to hit Barnes and Noble.
Now the publisher's sales force and publicity departments step in. You have to share with them how great this book is and can be. They become the book's emissaries. They take a slew of books to their clients (Barnes and Nobles, Indigo, Chapters, Borders, Amazon et al) and convince them, this is THE cookbook to carry. Probably the brightest thing an author could do at this point is to send brownies or biscotti to the sales force. Or cross their fingers. Or send the biscotti to the New York Times or Gourmet or FedEx dulce cheesecake to every and any reviewer.
Cookbooks sell only second to mystery novels. Everyone eats and most people, at some point, will cook or bake and use a cookbook to do it better. Once a book comes out, and has a coveted ISBN number, authors feel a special thrill. Having people buy the book, use the book, and then tell you about the experience they have had in real time, in a real kitchen is probably the best thrill. But the next time someone tells you, you should write a cookbook, remember, it is really fun thinking about doing a cookbook but incredibly hard (and rewarding) work to actually do it. None but the brave. Only the lonely (and sometimes.....the well fed)
Marcy Goldman


text: We (a family of six, with two seniors and two teenagers) spent three nights in Grapevine House - it's a lovely cottage up on the hill of Sirince. Sirince is a much nicer alternative than staying in Selcuk if you want to visit the area of Ephesus and surround. Only 20 minutes by car from Selcuk, the little village has... More


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Brand: Backyard Music
Buy 4 or more for $61.20 each
Note the savings when purchasing large quantities - price drops when you purchase 4 or more!
By Backyard Music. The Simplicity dulcimer features a strong, 275-lb. cardboard soundbox with wooden fretboard (just like the Simplicity Kit, only pre-finished). Soundbox colors may vary. Includes pick, noter, rainbag, extra strings, a simple "Start Playing Today" instruction sheet, and a complete 28-page playing manual describing dulcimer parts, tuning, how to hold and strum the dulcimer, and more.
Meet the Friendly Dulcimer manual is 28 pages.
Getting Started: Why the Dulcimer is Easy, Holding the Dulcimer, Finding the Scale, Using the Major Scale- Songs on One String (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Hot Cross Buns, Row Row Row Your Boat, This Land is Your Land, Mary's Little Lamb, Down in the Valley, Michael Row, On Top of Old Smokey).
Tuning & Strumming: Adding a Drone Harmony, Tuning 2 Strings, Tuning 3 Strings, Tuning Route 1- Get Help, Tuning Route 2- For Musicians, Tuning Route 3- Starting with the Bass String, Tuning Route 4- To Your Voice or the Melody String, Strumming (Hot Cross Buns, Happy Birthday, Rain Rain Go Away, Mary's Little Lamb, Frere Jacques, Go Tell Aunt Rhody, Away in a Manger, Michael Row, I've Been Workin' on the Railroad).
Getting Fancy: Using a Noter Stick, Fingerpicking, Playing Chords on Your Dulcimer, Transposing Chords, Reading Tablature, Finding a Minor Scale (O Come Immanuel, Shady Grove, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen), Tuning for Aeolian Minor Mode, Minor Tuning- The Dorian Mode (The Drunken Sailor, Scarborough Fair), Mixolydian Mode, Tuning Theory for 4-String Dulcimers.
Useful Tips: Caring for Your Dulcimer, Dulcimers/ Books/ & Recordings, A Note to Parents & Teachers, First Notes of Familiar Songs.
No reviews available.
© 2018 West Music Company
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The Currency Management system handles unlimited currencies. Quantum automatically converts prices of sales, purchases, quotes and repairs to a "landed" cost on the basis of a currency conversion table pre-set by the user. Each customer, vendor and/or part may be assigned a currency code which will automatically "trigger" the conversion when documents are prepared.
Documents may be printed in the customer's or vendor's home currency eliminating guesswork and manual conversions. It is fully integrated with accounting so that any differences in amounts due to exchange rate fluctuations are reported under a specific account number.