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Since we havnt discuss much wrestling of a little while ago so heres a great topic to start with!
I think the best act of smackdown storylines is Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn reuniting after SZ turned heel after turning on shane mcmahon
at hell in a cell. I know they've said things like there miss treated and they should go into business 4 them selves.
Now I guess KO&SZ vs. Randy Orton and Shinsuke Nakamura was made for clash of champions and if ko&sami zayn lose they be fired from the whole wwe I just hope if they win or by cheating or one guy of the other team of randy orton and shinsuke nakamura turn heel about them because they need this storyline its the best one they got so why fire two great wrestlers that could give smackdown better ratings then other crap on the show and for a live show that doesnt go past the 2 hour mark of being live?
Kevin Owens&Sami Zayn is the best act on sd dont fire them
Discuss anything about the WWF/WWE past or present.
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There's so much to see in Europe; don't settle for a cramped bus tour. Head south for an adventure as unique as you are. Beginning in London—traveller central—you'll cross the channel for some French culture before hitting Spain for Moorish history, architecture in Barcelona and a tapas culture that will set you up for the endless nightlife. Best of all, this trip doesn't fade out—you'll finish up in Morocco with its mosques, medinas and kasbahs. It's a European tour with a southern kiss of the exotic.
What's Included
Your Discover Moment: Paris
Your Discover Moment: Barcelona. Tapas bar crawl (Granada). Visit to Parc Güell (Barcelona). Orientation walk of Paris, Barcelona, Seville, Granada and Chefchaouen. Internal flight. All transport between destinations and to/from included activities.
Meet the ghost of Moorish Spain at the Alhambra, sample small plates on a tapas bar crawl, dine on a picnic lunch at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, explore the medinas and kasbahs of Morocco, dodge snake charmers, keep it real with a small group of like-minded travellers.
Dossier Disclaimer
The information in this trip details document has been compiled with care and is provided in good faith. However it is subject to change, and does not form part of the contract between the client and the operator. The itinerary featured is correct at time of printing. It may differ slightly to the one in the brochure. Occasionally our itineraries change as we make improvements that stem from past travellers, comments and our own research. Sometimes it can be a small change like adding an extra meal along the itinerary. Sometimes the change may result in us altering the tour for the coming year. Ultimately, our goal is to provide you with the most rewarding experience. Please note that our brochure is usually released in November each year. If you have booked from the previous brochure you may find there have been some changes to the itinerary.
VERY IMPORTANT: Please ensure that you print a final copy of your Trip Details to review a couple of days prior to travel, in case there have been changes that affect your plans.
Itinerary Disclaimer
While it is our intention to adhere to the route described below, there is a certain amount of flexibility built into the itinerary and on occasion it may be necessary, or desirable to make alterations. The itinerary is brief, as we never know exactly where our journey will take us. Due to our style of travel and the regions we visit, travel can be unpredictable. The Trip Details document is a general guide to the tour and region and any mention of specific destinations or wildlife is by no means a guarantee that they will be visited or encountered.
Additionally, any travel times listed are approximations only and subject to vary due to local circumstances.
Itinerary Notes
Please note that most 18-to-Thirtysomethings accommodation in Europe is multi-share. For more info, see the "About Accommodation" section under "Tour Details".
Important Notes
It is important to note that in Europe, all guiding is based around local guides all of whom are licensed to work only in a particular city. As such, our leaders are able to provide orientation walks which will show you the layout of each town and city as well as the location of local services such as post offices and laundromats, but are unable to legally share historical facts and figures in public places.
In Europe it is very rare to find elevators in train stations, hotels or other public places. We use public transport on this trip, which means you will need to carry your luggage from platform to platform, in and out of trains and buses etc. and also possibly up several flights of stairs. You will also need to be able to stow your luggage safely on trains and buses. It is therefore essential that you pack light and bring luggage which is compact and lightweight, and which you can easily transport. The carrying of your luggage remains your responsibility at all times.
The flight from Paris to Barcelona has a luggage weight allowance of 23KG.
This is a very fast paced itinerary which covers lots of ground. While this is great as it allows us to see a huge amount in the available time, it also means some early starts, some long drives in the mini van and less free time than many other G Adventures. We feel that if you enter this trip with this knowledge and expectation, you will appreciate even more the variety of locations we are able to include in this itinerary.
Please note that Morocco can be both very hot during the day in summer months and cold at night in the mountains in autumn, early spring and winter. Summer months, from April to September are very hot throughout Morocco. Winter months November to March can be cool to cold, especially in the Atlas Mountains, with high probability of snowfall. Please bring appropriate clothing for the months in which you are travelling.
Depending on the lunar cycle, Ramadan will fall between June 7th and July 7th, 2016. Please note that Ramadan is a month of fasting observed by Muslims throughout the world, during which time the followers of Islam should not eat or drink between sunrise and sunset. There may be some limitations to services and disruptions to schedules during Ramadan in Muslim areas, but generally our tours still operate effectively during this period and food is available to non-muslims throughout the day. It is very important to display increased cultural sensitivity during Ramadan. Please wear loose fitting clothes, that cover knees and shoulders, and try to avoid eating, drinking or smoking in public out of respect for those who can't at that time.
Group Leader Description
This G Adventures group trip is accompanied by two different group leaders–called Chief Experience Officers or CEOs. The aim of the group leader is to take the hassle out of your travels and to help you have the best trip possible. They will provide information on the places you are travelling through, offer suggestions for things to do and see, recommend great local eating venues and introduce you to our local friends. While not being guides in the traditional sense you can expect them to have a broad general knowledge of the countries visited on the trip, including historical, cultural, religious and social aspects. We also use a local guide at the Alhambra where we think more specific knowledge will add to the enjoyment of the place we are visiting – we think it's the best of both worlds.
The group will have a European CEO in Europe who will bid farewell to the group on Spanish soil at the Tarifa ferry port, and a Moroccan CEO will meet the ferry on the other side in Tangier, Morocco.
Group Size Notes
Max 16, avg 10
Meals Included
10 breakfasts, 1 lunch
Eating is a big part of traveling. Travelling with G Adventures you experience the vast array of wonderful food that is available out in the world. Generally meals are not included in the trip price when there is a choice of eating options, to give you the maximum flexibility in deciding where, what and with whom to eat. It also gives you more budgeting flexibility, though generally food is cheap. Our groups tend to eat together to enable you to taste a larger variety of dishes and enjoy each other's company. There is no obligation to do this though. Your CEO will be able to suggest favourite restaurants during your trip. The above information applies to G Adventures group trips. For Independent trips please check the itinerary for details of meals included. For all trips please refer to the meals included and budget information for included meals and meal budgets.
While in Morocco:
Breakfasts on tour
Many breakfasts are included as part of your tour.
Moroccan breakfasts tend to be different from your usual cereal and toast morning fare – most will be very simple – a croissant or sweet roll with jam and instant coffee and some hotels will have buffets where you will have more variety.
While you are experiencing what a Moroccan family would eat, some travellers do find the provided breakfasts a bit "bread heavy" and enjoy buying fruit the day before to supplement their breakfast.
Lunches and dinners
Moroccan cuisine is world famous and your CEO will be taking the chance to show you the best of it.
Staples include cous cous, a type of grain topped with stew, tagine which is actually the name of the pot this tasty dish is cooked in, and brochette, bbq skewers of meat. These meals will generally cost between 45- 70 MAD depending on the type of restaurant and which part of the country you are in.
Other tastes not to be missed include pastilla, a sweet pasty with a savoury filling which is traditionally pigeon and harira, a delicious soup based on chick peas and filling enough when teamed with fresh bread to be a whole lunch. If you are heading to the coast the fresh seafood cooked at one of the local markets is a must eat!
Morocco's fresh orange juice is highly recommended and you should not leave without trying a glass. The brave can try the tiny snails which are perhaps the local's favourite snack but you might prefer a cone of piping hot bite-size fried cake donuts.
Local bus, air-con coach bus, train, plane, ferry, walking
About our Transportation
Intercity transport on this trip will be by local bus, train, ferry and air-conditioned bus. The bus and train systems in Europe and Morocco are generally very good, most offer seat reservations, some buses have toilet facilites and others don't, but drivers often stop en route for service station breaks. Between transport and hotels you may be required to carry your luggage short distances (up to 20mins walk). In larger cities you may travel by metro or city bus, and occasionally the group will take taxis to and from hotels.
Local Flights
If required all local flights are included in the cost of your tours unless otherwise noted. It is important that we have your passport information at the time of booking in order to process these tickets. Internal flight tickets are issued locally and will be given to you prior to the flight departure.
Please note: the flight from Paris to Barcelona has a luggage weight allowance of 23KG.
Solo Travellers
We believe single travellers should not have to pay more to travel so our group trips are designed for shared accommodation and do not involve a single supplement. Single travellers joining group trips are paired in twin or multi-share accommodation with someone of the same sex for the duration of the trip. Some of our Independent trips are designed differently and single travellers on these itineraries must pay the single trip price.
Simple hotels (13 nts, some multi-share), overnight bus (1 nt).
About Accommodation
The variety and local flavour of our accommodation is a favourite part of our European 18-to-Thirtysomethings trips. Although the properties we use are simply furnished and with few facilities, we base our choices on location, character and cleanliness. We will stay in a mixture of hotels, hostels, private rooms in local households and wooden cabins on the beach.
Some accommodation on this tour is multi-share on a single-sex basis. This may involve 4-6 group members sharing and even (on rare occasions) dormitory-style rooms for the whole group. The majority of accommodation will have shared bathroom facilities.
Couples: Please note that due to the types of accommodation used in Europe we are not able to take requests for double or matrimonial beds on this tour. Where we use multi-share hostels, couples will likely be split into separate rooms.
Joining Instructions
The trip commences at 5:30pm at Cafe Benugo on the ground floor in St. Pancras International Station. There will be a table reserved, and your CEO will be waiting with a G Adventures logo on the table. If you arrive early, luggage storage is available at St. Pancras Station. The exact time of departure from St. Pancras to Paris will vary, but there will be time for you to buy some food before we leave or maybe even a celebratory drop of champagne at the longest champagne bar in the world!
From Heathrow Airport – Take the Piccadilly Line directly to Kings Cross. The single fair to Kings Cross is approximately £5.50 and the journey time is roughly 1 hour.
From Gatwick Airport – Take the Gatwick Express to Victoria Train Station. From there, take the Victoria Line to Kings Cross.
London City Airport – Take the DLR (Docklands Light Rail) to Bank. Once there, change to the Northern Line on to Kings Cross. Overall journey time is roughly 50 minutes. Cost for a single DLR ticket is approximately £4.00.
Arrival Complications
We don't expect any problems, and nor should you, but if for any reason you are unable to commence your trip as scheduled, as soon as possible please contact your starting point hotel, requesting that you speak to or leave a message for your CEO. If you are unable to get in touch with your leader, please refer to our emergency contact details.
Emergency Contact
Should you need to contact us during a situation of dire need, it is best to first call our G Adventures Local Office. If for any reason you do not receive an immediate answer, please leave a detailed message and contact information, so they may return your call and assist you as soon as possible.
G Adventures UK office (manned UK 8am – 8pm)
+44 (0) 2072439878
If you are unable for any reason to contact our local office, please call the numbers listed below, which will connect you directly with our 24 hour Sales team, who will happily assist you.
Toll-free, from calls within North America only: 1 888 800 4100
Calls from within UK: 0344 272 0000
Calls from within Germany: 0800 365 1000
Calls from within Australia: 1 300 796 618
Calls from within New Zealand: 0800 333 307
Outside North America, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the UK: +1 416 260 0999
For absolute emergencies after office hours please contact +44 7817 262559
If for any reason you do not receive an immediate answer, please leave a detailed message and contact information, and your call will be returned as soon as possible.
What to Take
We recommend using a backpack for your convenience, or a medium-sized suitcase if you prefer. A daypack is also essential for carrying everyday items. Space is limited on transportation, so there is a limit of one main piece of luggage per person. You will be responsible for carrying your own luggage. You must be prepared to carry your luggage up and down stairs, on and off transportation, and to hotels (max 15-20 mins.)
Packing List
Suggested Items:
-Weather-appropriate clothing
•Light fleece top
•Light windproof/waterproof jacket
•Small towel and swimwear
•Sun hat
•Sturdy walking shoes
•Toiletries (biodegradable)
•Watch or alarm clock
•Water bottle
•Money belt
•First-aid kit
-Day pack
-Camera with extra memory cards and batteries
-Personal Entertainment
-Waterproof backpack cover
•Passport (with photocopies)
•Travel insurance (with photocopies)
•Airline tickets (with photocopies)
•EUR cash
•Credit or debit card (see personal spending money)
•G Adventures vouchers, pre-departure information and dossier
•Any entry visas or vaccination certificates required
Laundry facilities are offered by some of our hotels for a charge or ask your CEO where the closest laundromat is. There will be times when you may want to or have to do your own laundry so we suggest you bring non-polluting/biodegradable soap.
Visas and Entry Requirements
Contact your local embassy or consulate for the most up-to-date visa requirements, or see your travel agent. It is your responsibility to have the correct travel documentation. While we provide the following information in good faith, it is vital that you check yourself and understand that you are fully responsible for your own visa requirements.
All visitors to the EU (European Union) and EEC (European Economic Community) countries require a valid passport (with a minimum 6 months validity). USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand passport holders do not need a visa to visit the Schengen area (see below), however they may not stay longer than three months in any 6-month period.
For other nationalities, travelling in Europe has been simplified with the introduction of the Schengen visa. As a visitor to the Schengen area (Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Portugal, Finland, Italy, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Sweden, Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland) you will enjoy the many advantages of this unified visa system. Generally speaking with a Schengen visa, you may enter one Schengen country and travel freely throughout the Schengen region during the validity of your visa. There are limited border controls at Schengen borders, if any at all.
Please note that the UK and Ireland are NOT part of the Schengen agreement.
A Schengen visa is applied for at the Embassy or Consulate of the Schengen country in which you will be spending the most nights on your trip to the Schengen space. If you are only visiting one country on your trip then you apply for your visa at the Consulate of this Schengen country.
Spending Money
Every traveller is different and therefore spending money requirements will vary. Some travellers may drink more than others while other travellers like to purchase more souvenirs than most. Please consider your own spending habits when it comes to allowing for drinks, shopping and tipping. Please also remember the following specific recommendations when planning your trip.
Money Exchange
France and Spain are in the Eurozone and the unit of currency is the Euro, whereas the UK uses the British Pound and Morocco uses the Dirham.
Credit cards and debit cards are very useful for cash advances but you must remember to bring your PIN number (be aware that many ATM machines only accept 4-digit PINs). Both Cirrus and Plus system cards are the most widely accepted debit cards. Visa cards are the most widely accepted credit cards. While ATMs are commonly available, there are no guarantees that your credit or debit cards will actually work in Europe or North Africa – check with your bank. You should be aware when purchasing products or services on a credit card, that a fee usually applies.
Do not rely on credit or debit cards as your only source of money. A combination of Euros and cards is best.
Always take more rather than less, as you don't want to spoil the trip by constantly feeling short of funds.
As currency exchange rates can fluctuate often we ask that you refer to the following website for daily exchange rates: www.xe.com
Emergency Fund
Please also make sure you have access to at least an additional USD $200 (or equivalent) as an 'emergency' fund, to be used when circumstances outside our control (ex. a natural disaster) require a change to our planned route. This is a rare occurrence!
Departure Tax
Usually included in international air ticket
It is customary in Europe to leave a small tip for service providers, such as waiters, if you are pleased with the service (€1-2).
Tipping is an expected – though not compulsory – component of your tour program, and an expression of satisfaction with the persons who have assisted you on your tour. Although it may not be customary to you, it is of considerable significance to the people who will take care of you during your travels. There are several times during the trip where there is opportunity to tip the local guides. You may do this individually, or your CEO will offer to collect the money and tip as a group. Recommendations for tipping local guides would range from €3-5 per day, depending on the quality and length of the service; ask your CEO for specific recommendations based on the circumstances and culture.
Also at the end of each trip if you felt your G Adventures CEO did an outstanding job, tipping is appreciated. The amount is entirely a personal preference, however as a guideline €30-40 per person, per week can be used.
Optional Activities
- Champs-Élysées Visit (Free)
- Musée d'Orsay Visit (11EUR per person)
- The Louvre Visit (12-16EUR per person)
- Musée Rodin Visit (7EUR per person)
- Sacre Coeur Visit (Free)
- La Sagrada Família Visit (15-24EUR per person)
- La Barceloneta Visit (Free)
- Gothic Quarter Visit (Free)
- Montjuïc Visit (5EUR per person)
- Las Ramblas Visit
- Alhambra Guided Tour (16EUR per person)
- Alcázar Palace Visit (13EUR per person)
- Flamenco Show (18-30EUR per person)
- Pottery Workshop
- Hiking in the Rif Mountains (385MAD per person)
- Hammam (Spa and Steam Bath) Visit (250-350MAD per person)
- Shop Fès Medina (Free)
- Ville Nouvelle Exploration (Free)
- Fès Medina Guided Tour (250MAD per person)
- Marrakech City Tour
- Marrakech Medina Walk
- Djemaa el Fna Market Square Visit (Free)
Please note inoculations may be required for the country visited. It is your responsibility to consult with your travel doctor for up to date medical travel information well before departure.
You should consult your doctor for up-to-date medical travel information well before departure. We recommend that you carry a First Aid kit and hand sanitizers / antibacterial wipes as well as any personal medical requirements. Please be aware that quite often we are in remote areas and away from medical facilities, and for legal reasons our leaders are prohibited from administering any type of drug including headache tablets, antibiotics, etc. When selecting your trip please carefully read the brochure and itinerary and assess your ability to cope with our style of travel. Please refer to the Physical and Culture Shock ratings for trip specific information. G Adventures reserves the right to exclude any traveller from all or part of a trip without refund if in the reasonable opinion of our CEO they are unable to complete the itinerary without undue risk to themselves and/or the rest of the group.
Safety and Security
Many national governments provide a regularly updated advice service on safety issues involved with international travel. We recommend that you check your government's advice for their latest travel information before departure. We strongly recommend the use of a neck wallet or money belt while travelling, for the safe keeping of your passport, air tickets, travellers' cheques, cash and other valuable items. Leave your valuable jewellery at home – you won't need it while travelling. Many of the hotels we use have safety deposit boxes, which is the most secure way of storing your valuables. A lock is recommended for securing your luggage. When travelling on a group trip, please note that your CEO has the authority to amend or cancel any part of the trip itinerary if it is deemed necessary due to safety concerns. Your CEO will accompany you on all included activities. During your trip you will have some free time to pursue your own interests, relax and take it easy or explore at your leisure. While your CEO will assist you with options available in a given location please note that any optional activities you undertake are not part of your itinerary, and we offer no representations about the safety of the activity or the standard of the operators running them. Please use your own good judgment when selecting an activity in your free time. Although the cities visited on tour are generally safe during the day, there can be risks to wandering throughout any major city at night. It is our recommendation to stay in small groups and to take taxis to and from restaurants, or during night time excursions.
Protests and Demonstrations- Protests and demonstrations, even those that are well intended, have the potential to turn violent with no warning. Counter protests can also turn violent. Action by security forces to disperse demonstrators and protesters may occur at any time. If you are in an area where demonstrators or protesters are gathering, avoid the temptation of staying for a good photo opportunity and leave the area immediately.
Water based activities have an element of danger and excitement built into them. We recommend only participating in water based activities when accompanied by a guide(s). We make every reasonable effort to ensure the fun and adventurous element of any water based activities (in countries with varying degrees of operating standards) have a balanced approach to safety. It is our policy not to allow our CEOs to make arrangements on your behalf for water based activities that are not accompanied by guide(s).
Swimming, including snorkeling, is always at your own risk.
We take all prudent measures in relation to your safety. For ways to further enhance your personal safety while traveling, please visit:
Trip Specific Safety
Always keep an eye on your belongings especially in major cities, bus and train terminals.
A Couple of Rules
Illegal drugs will not be tolerated on any trips. Possessing or using drugs not only contravenes the laws of the land but also puts the rest of the group at risk. Smoking marijuana and opium is a part of local culture in some parts of the world but is not acceptable for our travellers. Our philosophy of travel is one of respect towards everyone we encounter, and in particular the local people who make the world the special place it is. The exploitation of prostitutes is completely contrary to this philosophy. Our CEOs have the right to expel any member of the group if drugs are found in their possession or if they use prostitutes.
Travel Insurance
Travel Insurance: Travel insurance is compulsory in order to participate on any of our trips. When travelling on a group trip, you will not be permitted to join the group until evidence of travel insurance has been sighted by your CEO, who will take note of your insurance details. When selecting a travel insurance policy please bear in mind that all clients must have medical coverage and that we require a minimum coverage of USD 200,000 for repatriation and emergency rescue. We strongly recommend that the policy also covers personal liability, cancellation, curtailment and loss of luggage and personal effects. If you have credit card insurance we require proof of purchase of the trip (a receipt of credit card statement) with a credit card in your name. Contact your bank for details of their participating insurer, the level of coverage and emergency contact telephone number.
Planeterra-The G Adventures Foundation
The Planeterra Foundation planeterra.org is a Canadian non-profit organization that helps empower local people to develop their communities, conserve their cultures, and create humane and supportive systems for their endeavours. Planeterra provides capacity building and catalyst grants to get community social enterprises off the ground. These businesses address local challenges by providing benefits for indigenous people, empowering marginalized women, and granting disadvantaged youth access to education, employment, and brighter futures. Planeterra also works to ensure these businesses have a thriving customer base by integrating programs into G Adventures' itineraries globally.
G Adventures is Planeterra's largest corporate donor, covering all operating costs so 100% of your donation will bring opportunity to people in need.
Dollar-a-Day Program
G Adventures' Dollar-a-Day Program provides travellers with the opportunity to give back to the people and places visited on our tours by donating one dollar for every day you are on trip. 100% of these donations go directly to support community development projects worldwide that are implemented by Planeterra.
After your travels, we want to hear from you! Your feedback information is so important to us that we'll give you 5% off the price of your next G Adventures trip if your feedback is completed on-line within 30 days of finishing your trip. Your tour evaluation will be e-mailed to you 24 hours after the conclusion of your trip. If you do not receive the tour evaluation link in the days after your tour has finished, please drop us a line at firstname.lastname@example.com and we will send it on to you.
Our adventure travel e-newsletter is full of travel news, trip information, interesting stories and contests. To avoid missing out on special offers and updates from G Adventures, subscribe at www.gadventures.com/newsletters/
Stay current on how our company invests in our global community through our foundation – Planeterra. Sign up for Planeterra's monthly news to learn more about how to give back and support the people and places we love to visit.
Minimum Age
Minimum age of 18 years for this trip.
International Flights
Check-in times and baggage allowances/restrictions vary by airline and can change at any time. For the most up-to-date information for your flight, please contact your airline. We recommend checking in online in advance to avoid potential delays at the airport.
Max Pax
Group Leader
European Chief Experience Officer (CEO) in Europe, Moroccan CEO in Morocco, local guide
Day 1: London/Paris
Please note the trip departs London in the evening of Day 1, so it is imperative to arrive on time for departure soon after the 5:30pm Welcome Meeting. Please ensure plenty of time for your journey to London to allow for any possible delays.
Included Activities:
Arrival Day and Welcome Meeting
Train (3.00 hour(s))
Day 2: Paris (1B, 1L)
After an orientation walk with the CEO, then share a picnic lunch opposite the Eiffel Tower. Afterwards you are free to explore on your own to discover the "je ne sais quoi" of the City of Lights.
Paris has something for everyone so use the days here to explore the outstanding museums and churches, float down the Seine on a river cruise or people watch at one of the charming cafés.
Included Activities:
Orientation Walk
Day 3: Paris (1B)
Free day to explore Paris.
Day 4: Paris/Barcelona (1B)
Fly in style to Barcelona, then enjoy an orientation walk of the city including the Gothic Quarter and Las Ramblas. Visit Parc Güell and opt to go for an evening tapas and wine bar stroll.
Included Activities:
Orientation Walk
Parc Güell Visit
Plane (2.50 hour(s))
Day 5: Barcelona (1B)
Free time to visit the Sagrada Familia and other Gaudí masterpieces or the beach of Barceloneta. Be sure to indulge in Barcelona's nightlife.
Day 6: Barcelona/Granada (1B)
Free time to explore Barcelona. Overnight train to Granada.
Basic overnight train (beds) (12.00 hour(s))
Day 7: Granada (1B)
A trip to Granada wouldn't be the same without a night on the town, the city is filled with trendy tapas bars and has a lively music scene.
Additional Notes:
If interested in visiting Alhambra, please ensure to pre-book your tickets and book tours after 12:30pm. Tickets are rarely available without purchasing far in advance.
Included Activities:
Orientation Walk
Tapas Bar Crawl
Day 8: Granada/Seville
Orientation walk through the winding alleyways of Seville, then opt to explore the Alcazar or watch a flamenco performance.
Included Activities:
Orientation Walk
Local bus (4.00-5.00 hours)
Day 9: Seville/Chefchaouen
The djellaba, the traditional hooded garment worn by the men and women of North Africa, was created here. Chefchaouen is a great place to check out many of Morocco's ancient crafts. Visit one of the many traditional oil mills, a weaving workshop, and basket-making.
You may like take part in a pottery workshop and create your own masterpiece. Don't miss a visit to one of the village's unusual communal attics or the chance to sample the local goats' milk cottage cheese. Yum!
Included Activities:
Border Crossing (Spain – Morocco)
Orientation Walk
Local bus (3.50 hour(s))
Ferry (1.00 hour(s))
Private Vehicle (4.00 hour(s))
Day 10: Chefchaouen
Free day in Chefchaouen. Opt to hike through the mountains, explore local villages and be mesmerized by nearby waterfalls.
Day 11: Chefchaouen/Fès
Start exploring in the ancient labyrinth of the medina and if you find your way out you can head to the leather tanneries and dye pits. The whole medina itself will whisk you back in time as you wander the alleyways which have barely changed in appearance since medieval times.
Private Vehicle (4.00 hour(s))
Day 12: Fès (1B)
Explore the artisan quarters of the Fès medina, sample treats from the carts, and view the famous leather tannery from above.
In the evening, opt for dinner in a converted riad complete with local specialties, music, and belly dancing.
Additional Notes:
Only certified local guides are allowed to act as guides in the medina, so the CEO cannot accompany the group to the medina during free time.
Day 13: Fès/Casablanca (1B)
Travel to Casablanca and step back in time in the Old Medina, admire the spectacular Hassan II Mosque (second largest in the world after Mecca), explore the art deco quarter or lounge on Casablanca's long sandy beach.
Train (5.00 hour(s))
Day 14: Casablanca/Marrakech (1B)
For history and architecture buffs Marrakech is sure to dazzle. The Koutoubia Mosque, Bahia Palace, Saadian Tombs, Ben Youseff Medersa and Almovid Koubba are all easy to get to and well worth a visit.
Once you've tired yourself out, relax at one of the tea houses around the square, indulging in the ubiquitous sweet mint tea, watching the hustle and bustle from a nice shady spot.
Train (2.50 hour(s))
Day 15: Marrakech (1B)
Depart at any time.
Included Activities:
Departure Day


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The Earth Hall on Science Uncovered night last month. Bustling with cosmic and creative activity, cutting edge technology and prehistoric wonders. More pictures below.
Tonight, Friday 26 October, is a very special night for 10 lucky science and natural history fans, as they will be spending an exclusive evening sleeping over at the Museum.
At 28 September's Science Uncovered evening we ran a discovery trail called Stamped on Science and 5 attendees who completed the trail were drawn from almost 200 entries and won themselves, and a guest, an amazing overnight experience in our hallowed Central Hall, and tonight is the big night.
One of the many Stamped on Science-ers collecting a stamp on the night.
After they've enjoyed all we have on offer as part of our monthly Friday Lates with MasterCard, the 10 attendees will begin their unforgettable experience.
Museum scientists Dr Adrian Glover and Dr Victoria Herridge will guide them on exclusive behind-the-scenes tours and bring out specimens not normally on display to the public while they talk about their research.
After a night's sleep alongside the giant sequoia, in the upper Central Hall gallery, the lucky 10 will enjoy a continental breakfast under our iconic Diplodocus skeleton, Dippy. They'll then be taken on a tour of our Zoology Spirit Building and get early access to our ever-popular Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012 exhibition.
Sounds like a lot of fun for those lucky 5 winners and their guests, who were just a fraction of the 9,077 visitors we had through the South Kensington doors (another 554 attended Tring) for our third annual Science Uncovered festival last month.
More than 500 scientists, staff, volunteers and visiting experts helped make the event possible and we're sure everyone who attended will agree it was a wonderful evening.


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Ralph Nader's recently announced presidential bid and a GOP loss in Kentucky should set off alarms for both political parties.
Ralph Nader's decision to run for president as an independent caused Democrats to have heart palpitations and made Republicans euphoric. But just the opposite was the case five days earlier, when, for the first time since 1991, Democrats captured a Republican seat in a House special election.
With the closeness of the 2000 presidential election still fresh in most voters' minds, Nader is unlikely to attract as much support as he did last time. Yet he still might collect enough votes to tip the balance in President Bush's favor.
In 2000, the country was polarized along the lines of pro-Clinton/Gore and anti-Clinton/Gore. This time, the camps are pro-Bush/Cheney and anti-Bush/Cheney. In 2000, George W. Bush was well positioned as a "compassionate conservative," and all but the most liberal and partisan Democrats generally saw him as unthreatening. Today, Bush is widely reviled among Democrats.
My hunch is that the most regret-plagued people in America are the 97,488 Floridians who voted for Nader in 2000. I doubt that many had the slightest interest in helping Bush win the White House, and I suspect that most of them are militantly anti-Bush today. While some of Nader's Florida voters might not have cast ballots or might have found other fringe candidates to support if Nader had not been on the ballot, at least 35 percent would have voted for Gore, I'd wager. (To be fair, had Gore won Florida by 537 votes instead of lost it by that many, every one of the 17,484 Floridians who voted for Pat Buchanan instead of Bush would have had to be on a suicide watch for having caused a Gore presidency.)
Virtually all strategists in both parties predict that this presidential election is going to be very close, because the country remains evenly and deeply divided along ideological and partisan lines as well as over Bush's performance as president. My hunch is that very few ideologues are likely to throw their vote away by casting it for someone other than a major party's nominee.
But even if Nader receives only one-half or one-third of the 2.8 million votes (2.7 percent) that he won last time, he still could hand Bush the election. Judging by the 2000 results, Nader did cost the Democrats both Florida and New Hampshire. (The Democrats lost Missouri and Ohio by a little more than the Nader vote.) And Nader almost cost the Democrats Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin, all of which they won.
Meanwhile, both parties are spinning the significance of the Democrats' special-election victory in Kentucky. Former state Attorney General Ben Chandler beat Republican state Sen. Alice Forgy Kerr, 55 percent to 43 percent, in a district that Bush carried with 55 percent of the vote. Republicans suggest that Chandler was a far superior candidate to Kerr and had a huge head start from his recent unsuccessful run for governor. All that's true. But it's also true that if Bush were at the top of his game, the stronger candidate might have lost. Bush is still quite popular in Kentucky, but he's not strong enough to pull a weak candidate to victory. GOP strategists shrewdly decided to keep Bush out of the district to try to keep the outcome from being interpreted as a rejection of his leadership.
On June 1, very Republican South Dakota will hold a special election to fill the at-large House seat vacated by Republican Rep. Bill Janklow. As in Kentucky, Democrats are backing a candidate who recently ran a very respectable race. Stephanie Herseth lost to Janklow in 2002, 46 percent to 53 percent. And, like Chandler, she has a head start in both name recognition and campaign organization.
But the Republican nominee in South Dakota is considerably more established than Kerr was in Kentucky. Larry Diedrich is a seven-year veteran of the Legislature and a a former president of the American Soybean Association. Still, like Kerr, he lacks high name recognition. Diedrich has the benefit of a longer campaign than Kerr had, but he's still in a race against the clock. The most recent poll showed Herseth with a huge lead, 58 percent to 29 percent. The poll also showed Bush, who carried South Dakota with 60 percent in 2000, ahead of Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts by just 50 percent to 39 percent.
Just as Nader's candidacy sets off alarms among Democrats, House Republicans -- still heavily favored to hold their chamber -- ought to see these two special elections as a warning that they cannot count on Bush's having long coattails even if he is strong enough to win a second term.
NEXT STORY: Power Struggle


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Through most of the 1700s, there still remained widespread government support of the arts (which meant commissions) but in Holland, France, Germany, and England, where were the most upwardly mobile middle classes, their purchases easily made up for the loss of church commissions. Often, of course, this meant simply more commissions rather than work purchased "off the shelf" so to speak. But with the founding of the French Academy in 1648, and the associated annual Salons, even though still tightly controlled by officialdom, these affairs were basically high-classed "art markets" as much as showcases. An artist had to have major works accepted into Salons in order to sell them. With acceptance came commissions of course but an artist might do dozens of smaller paintings to sell himself between big commissions. Thus the Salons helped spawn and drive the free market in artwork. By the nineteenth century, as hated as they were by those seeking to broaden the definition of art, these Salons still served a very important sales function and could not be ignored, even by those who wished to.
The poor, put-upon Impressionists, of course, were prime examples of this. The problem with Impressionism was that the work was largely hated and scorned by the rising middle class. A funny thing happened to the bourgeois on their rise to relative comfort and prosperity. They tended to imitate the aristocracy in matters of art and taste. And, they relied on the decisions of the Academic Salon jurists and art critics/journalists of the time to tell them what they liked. And while Impressionism may have sparked some increase in the reliance on the open market, it was such a small part of all art sales at the time as to be almost negligible. Academic art was mainstream, be it Romantic, Rococo, or Classical, and it was the open sale of these works, which had started a good two hundred years before, that had become the tail wagging the dog-eat-dog commissioned art market by the 1880s and the dawn of Modernism.
Contributed by Lane, Jim16 June 1998


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Fast Company blogger Brian Reich has a great critique (What's Wrong With the Analysis of "What's Wrong With Charitable Giving-and How to Fix It") of Pablo Eisenberg's op-ed from The Wall Street Journal "What's Wrong With Charitable Giving–and How to Fix It." He makes many great points in this article. One point that really caught my attention is
we can use [new media] tools to help organizations and address causes in ways that go well beyond donating. As a result, we simply don't believe–and probably for good reasons–that the institutions that once offered the guidance, support, and direction for how to address the issues facing our society know best.
He also lays out some good ideas about the nature of charitable giving organizations and their relationships to cause and peers.


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Back in 1998, three protofeminist powerhouses of rhythm and blues collaborated on a take-no-prisoners album called "Sing It!".
The three included swamp-rocker Marcia Ball, famous for her saucy singing and possibly the best roadhouse piano since Professor Longhair; the revered Irma Thomas, the Grammy-award winning "Soul Queen of New Orleans", long an idol of the other two; and Tracy Nelson, former front-woman for Mother Earth, who can mix country, roots, R and B and Gospel with a voice that cuts clean to your soul. Incredibly strong role models for women everywhere , these three are loud, proud and if you've never heard of them, it's only because you didn't grow up in our house — or you've been forgetting to go to JazzFest.
As incredibly talented as each of these women are on their own, their Grammy-nominated collaboration cranked it all up in an explosive and high-spirited celebration of what strong women can do when they come together to claim their voice. Too often we forget that.
I flashed on "Sing It!" today when I came across a reference to San Francisco's Department on the Status of Women in a letter to the editor in the SF Chronicle. The writers of the letter, like most of us, were quick to point out the inequity in what the numbers tell us look like workplace equality. But they upped the ante considerably by not just complaining, but by issuing a compelling call to join them in concrete action:
Businesses need to recognize that in 2009, women became 50 percent of the workforce and made 85 percent of the consumer spending decisions.
To ignore these facts is just bad business. Studies indicate that embracing gender and racial diversity helps the bottom line.
Working with Calvert Group, LTD, a socially responsible mutual fund, and Verité, an international human rights organization, this crew has been working to develop a set of gender equity prinicples backed by a corresponding set of metrics by which a company can gauge its progress when it comes to the advancement of women in the workplace:
Together, we are producing tools and resources that will help businesses stop bemoaning the fact that there are too few women at the top and do something about it.
To embrace women from the factory floor to the boardroom, the principles are creating indicators and resources in seven categories to help build gender-equitable workplaces. One of those categories is the lack of women in management and on boards of directors.
You have to love the principles, which address everything from compensation and benefits to worklife balance and career development. And the tools, too. Whether or not they will go viral, who knows? What I like most is that the plan goes beyond bemoaning and involves collective action for making change on the systemic, or institutional, level. Maybe this is all about enlightened self-interest for the folks up there in the boardroom. But it reminds those of us on the middle floors that we have a voice — and the power that comes with it.
It's all too easy to look at inequities and bad numbers and see ourselves as victims of a patriarchal society, as voiceless and powerless. Some of us do get riled up — nothing like anger for a wake-up call — but unless that anger translates into constructive action, who cares? We're back in our seats. And for some of us, if we are told too often that we have no voice, well, does that become self-fulfilling prophecy? Do we silence ourselves?
And is that when, especially when it comes to the culture of the workplace, we see choices as burden rather than opportunity?
Writing on Women on business, blogger Jane Stimmler suggests it doesn't have to be that way. Her take on the problem is that as we've assumed new roles, and grasped new opportunities, we've taken on the "new" without realizing we have to shed some of the "old.":
As long as women's choices involve tacking on new duties to an already demanding and hectic lifestyle, there cannot be the fundamental shift to equality. I am reminded of the many stories I have heard about women in the workplace who are given added job responsibilities – but they don't receive the title or the raise. For women to be happier with their lives, we don't need fewer choices – we need more support and encouragement.
In other words, we need to reclaim our voice. Which brings me back to Marcia, Irma and Tracy. Next time you're feeling overworked and underpaid — or too damn tired for the secnd shift — go in there, sister, and sing it! And remember when you do that fifty percent of the workforce is right there with ya, doing some killer back-up.


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The sequester's long, slow burn
So far the era of sequestration has meant furloughs for more than 800,000 federal workers and entire agencies shuttered for days — and those were the easy cuts.
There are nine more years of budget austerity to go and that means the federal government must dig in much tougher places to find savings — like forcing early retirements for workers and winding down grants that fund scientific research and allow states to keep infrastructure up to par.
Story Continued Below
"It's a diet that gets worse every year," said Barry Anderson, a former senior White House Office of Management and Budget official who made the previous sequestration cuts in 1991.
Next year's cuts probably won't create images on TV of long lines at airports or terrifying headlines about the threat of tainted meat — actual examples that rallied Congress and the White House earlier this spring to make sequester exceptions.
Plus, the cuts are coming as the economy improves, leaving sequestration opponents who say the recovery is too fragile to withstand a shrinking government with the argument that things could be better — but they can't point to worse.
The result for Washington: Strap in for sequestration's long, slow burn.
"As far as I can tell, we're going to be operating under the sequester for the foreseeable future," said Jim Manley, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "At some point, it's going to start hurting. And if you look at local newspapers throughout the country, there are a lot of good programs being cut. But it's all too local right now and hasn't reached a critical mass in the national debate."
Making matters worse: Washington's attention has shifted away from the fiscal fight and the fallout that comes with $1.2 trillion slashed from the Pentagon and most domestic agencies. The budget debate will inevitably return when the fiscal year ends Sept. 30 and a House-Senate-White House deal is required to avert a government shutdown. House Republicans are also still demanding concessions from President Barack Obama before they approve an extension to the country's debt limit.
But the notion of a grand bargain that turns off sequestration is also long gone. Obama has been stuck playing defense on a string of scandals while fighting to keep alive his second-term agenda. Capitol Hill leaders essentially tuned out months ago.
The partisan divide over sequestration has also only gotten deeper. Many Republicans normally wouldn't accept Defense Department cuts, but even they say the cuts are already baked into the system to help curb the nation's debt.
"It's the only way we can get any kind of restraint on spending," Senate Finance Committee ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) told POLITICO.
Missouri GOP Sen. Roy Blunt said he's fine with the cuts sticking around though he's looking for more ways to let the federal agencies maneuver around the underlying Budget Control Act requirement that is supposed to whack every program, project and account with the same size cut. Earlier this year, Blunt led the push to transfer funding at the Agriculture Department to ensure meat inspectors didn't get sent home for unpaid furlough days.
"I don't know that it's here for nine more years, but I think it's likely to be here for the rest of the Obama administration," Blunt said in an interview. "And the sooner that the administration deals with that fact and decides there are ways to make it work more smoothly and still maintain the same goals, the better off we'll be."
Under the Budget Control Act, congressional appropriators are supposed to take the lead for the next nine years in deciding where the spending cuts actually fall within each agency's budget — rather than the across-the-board cuts that the federal agencies had the job of implementing during the first year of sequestration.


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Top of the line! Shoots 50 foot streamers up to 100 feet high and has a huge capacity when optional larger barrels are used. The included 6 gallon air tank must be filled from an air compressor (or be tied into a constant replenishing air cylinder tank - available from your local gas supplier eliminating the need for manual refills). Economically feasible for continual use in places like circuses or theme parks.
Features a built-in safety release, two types of filling valves, a pressure gauge and an electric release solenoid valve (3/4 inch high volume type). Cannon fires as soon as it is plugged in, or if connected to an electrical switchbox, as soon as it is switched on. Can also be fired from a DMX lighting console using our AT31 DMX relay. Use of a momentary switch recommended to help save pressure for the next shot. (With a momentary, you can get 2 shots out of the air tank before refilling.)
Cannon is also available in 230 volt for export, and 12 volt for portability (12V model requires a motorcycle battery for firing - not included). When placing your order, specifiy which model you desire. Standard voltage is 120.
Includes 3 Lifting Cups and 3 Backpressure Caps.
Power: Air, 2" Lifting Cup, 2" Backpressure Cap
Remote: 120 VAC Electric
Dimensions: 20" x 2" Barrel, 10" x 22" Tank
Weight: 25 lbs.
Do you own this product? Write a review.


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UCSJ President Lawrence Lerner featured by Woman Around Town
Lawrence I. Lerner, A Jewish Activist SupportingHuman Rights in Eurasia and Beyond
Thursday, October 10th, 2013 by Marina P. Kennedy on Living Around
Larry Lerner has never been one to avoid conflicts. In fact, two themes have run through his life and career as an attorney. As he built a preeminent intellectual property firm in New Jersey, he applied his talents to social justice and the rule of law. In the 1960's he handled dozens of racial discrimination cases and led the coalition of groups fighting for fair housing and employment in New Jersey. At the same time, he successfully pursued cases before the state's Supreme Court that reapportioned New Jersey Legislature on "one man, one vote."
Lerner's activism would take a new turn in the 70's. With family origins in the Ukraine, his visit to the area in 1979 would spark over six missions dedicated to Refusniks; persons who were typically but not exclusively Soviet Jews who were denied permission to emigrate abroad by the authorities. Lerner said, "I became heavily involved in the Refusnik Movement because it was something I could do." His efforts also helped lead an organization that filed legal pleadings for political prisoners based on Soviet treaty obligations and the Constitution of the Soviet Union.
For Lerner, his trips abroad would be just the beginning of a journey that would lead him to champion the rights of countless individuals. Lerner is currently the President of Union for Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (UCSJ). He has been on their board of directors since 1986 and recently also became their Executive Director.
Since 1970, UCSJ has been the voice of emigration, Jewish survival, and human rights in countries including Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and Kazakhstan. UCSJ recognizes that religious discrimination and xenophobia are connected with human rights abuses and the absence of the rule of law. UCSJ helped form human rights organizations in areas of the former Soviet Union and is the unofficial representative of over 55 Pro-Democracy Human Rights, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in the region.
UCSJ has been an agent for considerable legislative action in Washington. When the Magnitzky Bill* was passed into law in 2012, UCSJ was a prime mover of the bill by providing petitions in support to over 170 prominent United States Senators and Congressmen. This effort was considered to be a substantial credit to the bill's passage. Lerner said that the passage of this bill is just one element of his activism that has angered Russia's President Vladimir Putin.
Lerner stated his own impressions of Putin. "Putin's government cannot handle any dissent and takes it out on people that are pro-democracy or human rights and gay rights activists," he said. "Unfortunately, Putin has supported the resurgence military subjugation of dissent by supporting the re-emergence of the Tsarist Cossacks who persecuted religious dissidents."
Lerner believes that his role in the UCSJ is instrumental to a larger mission. "At times, the Jewish establishment has considered us to be too involved in the total mission of human rights," he said. "I consider this to be a badge of honor. Even during the Refusenik era, we were supporters of Andre Sakharov, and Natan Scharansky who were not supported by the Jewish community."
Lerner represents the UCSJ on the International Religious Freedom Roundtable. This informal group is made of over 100 NGOs that meet more than a dozen times each year in Washington, D.C. in pursuit of religious freedom throughout the world. The other NGOs that participate include the American Islamists, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Hindu American Foundation, and the Southern Baptist Convention. Lerner is a major Jewish voice in this group. The group prepares detailed petitions about religious persecution to be presented to American authorities. At least a couple of dozen times a year, they file petitions to advocate for human rights with the United Nations, the United States Congress and the State Department.
"In the near future, the International Religious Freedom Roundtable is sending a five person group including a representative from Lerner's organization, the UCSJ, to the Khazaki Republic to discuss its religious freedom laws. The International Religious Freedom Roundtable is currently petitioning the Obama Administration, the State Department and the Helsinki Commission to put pressure on Putin to stop the suppression of the human rights, religious freedom and pro-Democracy NGOs in Russia.
Lerner is leading the UCSJ to develop a bi-lingual website for NGOs in Russia to communicate with them and report on human rights violations. Lerner said, "We are also hoping to develop a program for use in the Russian school system to teach tolerance to affect long term human rights in the country."
With energy, enthusiasm, and a complete dedication to the cause, Larry Lerner looks forward to leading the Union for Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union into a new era and continuing his work with the International Religious Freedom Roundtable.
*The Magnitzky Act will deny visas to and freeze the assets of those in the Russian ruling elite implicated in the murder of Sergei Magnitsky's and other human rights violations and corruption. Sergei Magnitsky was a 37-year-old lawyer who was beaten, deprived of vital medical attention, and left to die in a Russian prison nearly a year after uncovering a massive fraud allegedly committed by Russian officials to the tune of $230 million.


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KOffice Summer of Code Ends
This year's Google Summer of Code is drawing inexorably to its close: the first indication that season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is indeed upon us. The KOffice students are busy tying up the last threads, adding the last flourish of polish that makes all the difference before they will slake the satisfied sigh that goes with work well-done. So - what did we achieve this year? In our very best tradition, read on for an overview!
This year, KOffice had seven slots. Lorenzo Villani has been working on Kexi web forms, Carlos Licea has worked on making it possible to load KPresenter 1.x (.kpr) documents in KPresenter 2.0. Luká Tvrdý has worked on a Chinese brush simulation for Krita, Fela Winkelmolen on a calligraphy brush for Karbon, Fredy Yanardi on notes and presentation view support for KPresenter, Pierre Ducroquet on ODF support for KWord, and finally Benjamin Cail on converting the .doc to .kwd file import filter to import directly to ODF - and on improving the graphics support in libwv2.
Our choice of projects in 2008 was dictated less by a desire for flashiness - rather we were determined to choose those projects most likely to add solid worth to KOffice. Additionally, life was somewhat easier for our students than last year, when both KOffice and KDE were still under heavy development and every Monday was basically spent on getting the latest binary and source incompatible changes incorporated. This year, only KOffice was a rapidly moving target! And next year, we'll have reached the coding nirvana of feature development against a stable foundation.
Carlos Licea, mentored by Camilla Boemann, is an old hand at KOffice and KPresenter hacking, and was already quite aware of the challenges. His job was to code completely from scratch a new import filter for a rather under-documented file format, namely the old KPresenter .kpr format, which also doesn't map easily onto the OpenDocument presentation format. It's not really something for cool screenshots, but it is amazing how far Carlos has come: the filter is basically ready!
Thanks to Fela Winkelmolen, well-known from KDE games, Karbon now has a really cool and flexible calligraphy brush that can make use of all the features of a high-end tablet, but works just as well with a mouse. The amount of functionality delivered by Fela is amazing, and, fortunately, very visible from screenshots:
Lorenzo Villani, mentored by Jaroslaw Staniek, has been enormously productive: thanks to his work, database applications defined in Kexi are also available through HTTP and HTML: Kexi Web Forms. For the user and application developer this is almost completely transparent: thanks to the KexiDB2 library, the web forms daemon is able to do reverse-engineering on the database and discover the table names, the stored queries and provide the user with an appropriate HTML form to create or update rows.
Pierre Ducroquet and his mentor Sebastian Sauer are old hands at their task: like last year, they worked on improving the OpenDocument support of KWord. The focus this year was on proper support for page styles - and Pierre also implemented table-of-contents, saving of lists, and headers/footers. Header and footer support is something that demanded a large amount of work, because the way KWord supported these features still dated from the very first version of KWord designed by Reginald Stadlbauer.
Benjamin Cail, mentored by Boudewijn Rempt, but actually helped out most by Werner Trobin and David Faure, had chosen to port the .doc file filter to create OpenDocument files instead of .kwd files. An interesting aspect of this is that his work is actually completely independent of KWord. Indeed, because of the heavy development going on in KWord, Benjamin mostly tested converting documents using koconverter and then loading the .odt file in OpenOffice Writer. But since the ODF libraries of KOffice weren't ready either, Benjamin has spent time on the generic style handling, too. The .doc importer uses the wvware wv2 library, which was originally intended to be shared by Abiword and KWord. But the Abiword developers decided to stick with wv1, and development on wv2 stalled. Benjamin, as part of his work this year, has implemented Escher image loading for wv2. Is it all done? No, not yet. There's plenty left to do, but that's what you get with a humongous file format like .doc. Still, the improvements are very tangible!
Fredy Yanardi, another old Summer of Code hand, mentored by Thorsten Zachmann, had two KPresenter tasks before him: adding support for editing notes with slides, and implementing the presentation view for KPresenter. This means an important stride for KPresenter: together with Carlos' work, KPresenter is really getting ready for release.
Luká Tvrdý was new to Qt development, KOffice, and Krita. He still managed to implement a complete new brush engine for Krita, designed to simulate Chinese brush painting, but which actually is more or less the basis for any bristly brush engine. Luká went through many implementations, but the end result is very impressive:
All this code is already in KOffice 2.0 Alpha 10, which will be released this week for you to play with.
Yay for KOffice!
I really look forward to release of KOffice 2.0 (or at least the first beta) because I need a simple, yet powerful office and productivity suite :) Hopefully all will be well :)
By ufoman at Mon, 2008/08/25 - 5:00am
My reactions to the last brush of the last picture while viewing it in fullscreen was "Computers can do THAT?!"
It's beyond impressive! I'm really out of words to congrat its developer!
By Bruno Laturner at Mon, 2008/08/25 - 5:00am
Sounds amazing!
By Sebastian at Mon, 2008/08/25 - 5:00am
Boudewijn, could it be that you read a lot of books that are a lot older than you? I love the way you write.
By ben at Mon, 2008/08/25 - 5:00am
Re: style
Pelham Grenville Wodehouse is my secret :-)
By Boudewijn Rempt at Tue, 2008/08/26 - 5:00am
Congrats to all the SoC students. It looks like you all did a wonderful job. I hope that the experience will help you in your coding careers, and that you remember to revisit KDE every now and again with a good idea or two. Those screenshots are slick.
By Troy Unrau at Mon, 2008/08/25 - 5:00am
What's up with the GUI fonts in the last screen?
The panel to the right looks different (and much better imho ;-)) to the main menu bar.
Is that a bug / kOffice feature / doctored screenshot ???
By Aaaa at Mon, 2008/08/25 - 5:00am
Re: What's up with the GUI fonts in the last screen?
It's just that the font for the docker is smaller than from the menu, so wild guess, the effect of antialiasing is more visible and you like to have font with more antialiasing ;)
By Cyrille Berger at Tue, 2008/08/26 - 5:00am
Re: What's up with the GUI fonts in the last screen?
Its that smaler fonts do look beter and normaly they are sharper, couse of theyr thikness is smaller than 1 pixel making them look super sharp...
By nuno Pinheiro at Tue, 2008/08/26 - 5:00am
Thanks SOC Coders!
Looks like a lot of productive work. Your efforts are very much appreciated.
By dthacker at Tue, 2008/08/26 - 5:00am
Escher image loading?
Does it need special code to load images by Maurits Cornelis Escher? Or does .doc work like Escher images?
By testerus at Tue, 2008/08/26 - 5:00am
Re: Escher image loading?
:-) No, Escher is a particular way Word has of storing images. The .doc file format has many weird and not so wonderful ways of handling images, and this is a previously unimplemented way.
By Boudewijn Rempt at Tue, 2008/08/26 - 5:00am
Re: Escher image loading?
And just a note about the images - since I was adding functionality to WV2, you need the CVS version of WV2 to display any images.
By Benjamin Nelson at Tue, 2008/08/26 - 5:00am
Early Adopters
KOffice, the often overlooked challenger in a productivity suite rivalry championed by Microsoft Office website hosting and OpenOffice, rolled out version 2.0 Thursday.
The release is intended for developers, testers and early adopters the development team warns, internet marketing and shouldn't be used in production. While it adds a sizable pack of improvements to KOffice, it lacks several of the features baked into the previous build, KOffice 1.6 - perhaps quite appropriate for a KDE-oriented major release. The domain registration development team says to expect the missing features to reappear with release versions 2.1 or 2.2.
By Daniel Smith at Mon, 2009/06/08 - 12:45pm


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District 1, Democrat
Current Term 2011-2017
555 Seventeenth St., Suite 3200
Denver, CO 80203
Phone: 303-295-8314
Cell: 303-601-7667
Fax: 303-975-5489
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Carrigan was elected as chair of the board in FY 2013 and re-elected in FY 2014. Currently, he chairs the audit committee and serves as a member of the laws and policies committee and intercollegiate athletics committee.
He graduated with honors from the University of Notre Dame in 1990, and from the University of Colorado Law School in 1994.
After five years of experience as a prosecutor, Carrigan currently is a senior litigator and partner at Holland & Hart. His civic leadership includes time spent as a volunteer teacher at an inner-city high school in the Bronx, N.Y., and as a volunteer worker at a community center in La Paz, Bolivia. He also has served two of Colorado's largest charities, serving on the Easter Seals Colorado board of directors and working with the Latin American Research and Service Agency.
In 2007, Carrigan received the prestigious Richard Marden Davis Award for his professional and civic contributions. The annual award recognizes a Denver attorney under the age of 40 who has combined excellence as a lawyer with civic, cultural, educational and charitable leadership. It is sponsored by the Davis Graham & Stubbs law firm, the Denver Bar Foundation and the Davis family.


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Tag Archives: mathematics
Should You Use Playskool Blocks in Your Classroom?
"Do you use blocks in your classroom?" was an interview question we asked when searching for a lower elementary teacher. "Why?" was a follow up question. We didn't hire someone until we heard a good answer. Are there right and wrong answers to … Continue reading
Posted in Children, Education, Genius, Play, School Reform, Self-Actualization, Standards, Teaching Tagged achievement, challenge, constructivist education, education, Excellence, Genius, kids, mathematics, Montessori Education, Parenting, play, Preschool, school, school reform, self-actualization, standards, STEM Subjects, success, teaching, technology 5 Comments
Standards Don't Educate; They Sort
Washington Post, May 7th: "Math, reading performance is stagnant among U.S. 12th-graders, assessment finds." All this effort on standards and test scores and still no change. Hmmmm. But there are those who predicted that teaching directly to standards would only … Continue reading
Posted in Achievement, Brain Development, Challenge, Character, Children, Constructivist Education, Education, Educational Testing, Genius, Gifted, Learning Disability, parent anxiety, parenting, Reading, School Reform, Standards, Teaching Tagged building character, character, education, gifted, kids, Leadership, Learning, learning to read, math, mathematics, Parenting, Reading, reading to children, school, school reform, standards, teachers, teaching 6 Comments


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Mighty Jalapeno wrote:I don't think I use nearly that much in a big batch of stew/chili, and that ends up being 10+ meals. I am aware of the issues surrounding soy, especially GMO soy (mmmm, hair in my mouth!)
Maybe I'll have to try soy, or what I call unmeat, in my next pot of chili. Wikipedia says it doesn't really have a flavor... so how does it fare for absorbing flavors? Could it be marinated like you'd marinate chicken, or would it only work well when being cooked alongside other foods (like you mentioned, peppers, onions, garlic)?
Just seems like using unmeat in a pot of tex-mex chili would have my family spinning in their graves.


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A Mammalian Longevity Gene?
Researchers find the first evidence that a sirtuin gene prolongs life in mice.
Feb 23, 2012
Edyta Zielinska
In 2001, researchers showed that a sirtuin protein—associated with the cellular stress response and metabolism—was essential for slowing aging in yeast. Now, researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel, found that a different member of the sirtuin family may stall death in mice, suggesting sirtuins may also be significant players in mammalian aging.
A couple of years ago, sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) became the focus of attention in aging research because it was the gene that most closely resembled the yeast gene linked to longevity. In 2008, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline paid $270 million for a biotech company that was searching for compounds that activated SIRT1, according to Nature. But evidence for SIRT1's role in expanding lifespan in humans has been hard to come by, and research showing its longevity effects in fruit flies has been questioned.
Instead, researchers at Bar-Ilan looked turned their focus to sirtuin 6 (SIRT6), which in 2006 was shown to speed death in mice lacking the gene. Here they showed that, at least in male mice, overexpression of the SIRT6 extended lifespan by nearly 16 percent. However, other researchers question whether the increase in lifespan is really due to improved longevity, which is associated with improved memory and mobility, or rather a result of anti-cancer or improved metabolic effects, reported Nature.


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Classic Men's Watches
From sports chronographs to classic designs, the Sekonda men's collection has a watch for everyone. Our chronographs are the ultimate statement timepieces, ranging from bold and striking designs to sophisticated and contemporary styles with the perfect finishing touches. If you want a watch with a classic look, our traditional range features watches with timeless minimalism, simple styling and modern twists on classic designs.


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Home > Job search > Band 6 Community Psychiatric Nurse
Are you interested in a new Registered Mental Health Nurse role?
Sanctuary Health is currently looking for a Band 6 Community Psychiatric Nurse to work full-time within a Community Mental Health Team based in Southwark. The ideal candidates will possess highly developed specialist knowledge of Mental Health Nursing and be registered with the NMC.
The pay rate for this full-time role is £24.26 per hour (LTD Company Equivalent) and is a 3-month contract.
Requirements of the Community Psychiatric Nurse:- Valid NMC registration under Mental Health.- Experience working within a similar role would be highly desirable.- A degree or equivalent within Mental Health Nursing (RMN trained).- Community Mental Health Nursing experience.- Experience and understanding of working in a community setting and with a multi-disciplinary team.- Working with service users with a severe and enduring mental illness and complex social care needs.
Contact: This Community Psychiatric Nurse job is advertised by Deane Garrard; if you are interested in this position please click below to apply now.
Due to the high volume of applications we receive, regretfully we are only able to respond to candidates who meet our clients' requirements.
Reasonable Adjustments:If you consider yourself to have a disability or require any reasonable adjustment during the recruitment process or within the workplace, please highlight this at the earliest opportunity. With this information, we will provide appropriate support to you throughout the process and into your work placement.


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You know, all the pangas you face in this life, from a quarrel with the subjiwala over the rates of tinda to dropping your cellphone in a drain, can be classified in three distinct categories, ascending in order of their gravity.
The smallest and most chindi sort of pangas are those where your sneaky boss sneaks up from behind, while you are chatting with pinkbunny_89 on the office system. Not very dangerous, if you remain as calm as a dead rabbit and tell the boss that the client from New Jersey likes to discuss project requirements under the guise of pinkbunny_89 due to 'security reasons'.
Then there is the little more jaanleva category of pangas, when, a month later than the aforementioned incident involving your boss and miss pinkbunny_89, your sneaky boss again sneaks up on you, and catches you chatting with pinkbunny_89 while the client from New Jersey is on the phone with the boss. Still manaeagable, I would say, if you can put on a facial expression as wooden as John Abraham's, and say to your boss, 'Pinkbunny_89 is NOT our client from New Jersey ? …Pinkbunny_89 is not ? Well Sir….what can I say….I am disappointed by the morals these cyber criminals display…"
But then, there is the biggest sort of panga, big enough to wipe out the dinosaurs upto the last inch of their tails, a panga scarier than Archana Puran Singh' laughter on Dolby surround , the sort of panga which happens when one warm evening after the aforementioned incidents with pinkbunny_89, the sneaky boss sneaks into his daughter's room as she works on the computer, looks over her shoulder and makes the discovery that she has a rather girly chat id called pinkbunny_89, while you are merrily sending her rather disturbing emoticons from the other side.
So ladies, gentlemen and the members of ayepaisanikaalna (yaar ye jisne decode kiya na usko main apni car ka stereo nikaal ke de doonga , comments mei likhna . Waise stereo china made hain.) , over the last 8 months, I have discovered that I have taken a panga with life, which belongs to the third variety.
If I try to discover where to start, I will be busy discovering while you grow old enough to buy yourself a 36 piece set of Adult Diapers, so if I winzip the agenda, my life over this duration is represented fairly by two glimpses of the flashback ( Yes, you are supposed to read them in Black and White font. )
Scene 1
Venue: My boss's cabin.
Boss: "You want to think again?"
Me (thought to myself- Abhi, think again. It has been proved that A man without money is mathematically equal to man without a girl within a radius of atleast Five kilometers): "No."
Boss : "I would say, give it a thought."
Me ( thought to myself – So I need to get to a distance of more than 5 kilometers from myself to get married !) : "Nopes, I already have thought , I do not want to continue."
Boss : "Ok."
And with that sigh infested two lettered 'Ok', I quit the biggest company in the world, to join one of the smallest .I mean, picture this for a perspective – Every morning you walk to the ocean with a bucket, towel and lux ( aur kya ?) to take a bath, and then one day you decide to take a dip in the water accumulated inside a shoe. Or another surrogate view, you have been eating a cheeseburst pizza with oodles of toppings every day, and then one day you are supposed to burp after chewing on your fingernails. Just as a demonstration of how ridiculously paagal I felt about myself, I did not tell my family that I had resigned till after two months of doing it.
I do not know wether it was the quarter life crisis people talk about, or it was some part of my restless soul crying out like a himesh mp3, or just the gas experienced on a monday morning, but I just had to do it. We spend all our lives being scared of "what if", but once you walk out a situation you do not enjoy and face the fear, you discover it was not that bad. I mean, yeah, your parents will think you have been smokin opium and all the girls who thought you were cute would delete your number from their cellphones , but you would not be scared anymore . I mean , you are facing it right there, so you are not scared of the future. I needed to do it so that I am not scared of the future. Makes sense? Not to most of the people around me, but it sure feels good. Onto to the second BIG panga.
Scene 2
Venue : Home.
Dad : " If you walk out of that door, make your own stay arrangements"
Me : ( thought to myself – He would never mean that. ) : Heh ! Ok !
Dad : "I mean that !."
Me : ( thought to myself - Shit . He means that .) : Gulp ! Ok !
And around seven seconds after that, I walked out of the door to travel 233 kilometers and ask for the hand of the girl I am going to marry soon. (Oye hoye !!! oye dhol walo dhol bajao !!! oye punjabi music play karo oye !!).
Over the last eight months, I have been exposed to a bad version of the world war 3, and I say bad version, because you can attack a German soldier if you are a US dude, but how do you attack when the people you face are your own ( ah !! is it similar to the dilemma arjun bhaiyya faced in mahabharat.avi ? ). I have been kicked out of the home for a brief period of time, have cried enough to fill a 500 ml bottle of diet coke, she has cried enough to fill out a swimming pool filled with diet coke, have slammed doors, wanted to drive into a truck only to realise "ui ma !kaafi bada truck hain ! cycle mein drive in karun ? , but most importantly, have been assured, reassured, and re-re-assured that she is totally worth it, and I shall be proven dumber than Uday Chopra if I were to do anything which resulted in her heart being broken, or even dented.
So both of us have stuck together like we eat Fevicol three times a day, and we shall be getting married in some time. I can only try to tell my parents that accepting a girl with such a beautiful heart is the biggest favor they can do on me and on themselves. I mean, bhaiyya kar kya rahe ho, dekh to lo ! ( Mujhe na feeling aa rahee hai that if my parents read this post, mere mummy papa mujhe hayden ke size ke bando se pitwayenge !)
So bhaiyya , the whole thing is, that job mein panga, and personal life mein panga. Watt itni lagee hai life mein ki kaano se smoke nikal aya, but watt lagne ke baad hee to the irons is converted into the golds !!! ( wow man, the day I am converted into gold, I would sell off an ear and buy myself a sportsbike ).
Life has been as dizzy as a polythene caught under a ceiling fan on full speed, but hopefully, I shall come through and survive like a strong polythene.
Hopefully you guys will see me fighting it out, getting stable in this job, getting married, and hence finding myself looking at a happy future of working 6 days a week and paying huge bills.
Chalo aap log bhee kuch kaam etc kar lo, hope all of you face equally big jhatkas so that I feel nicer in comparison, and remember, if your sneaky boss catches you chatting with pinkbunny_89, make sure it is not panga of the third variety.
Arre Arre Arre...aap to bass..you guys are sounding like maine The Great Khali ko uske ghar mein ghuske maara ( aur judge order order karta raha ! :P...damini dekhi hain chaar baar ) . I am just a guy , asking a girl to marry me and a job to pay me ! :P ( Ui ma , notting hill bhee dekhi thee ek baar ).
Chalo ab kaam kee baat , we guys want to hire some Graphic Designers and Web Designers working out of Delhi. Although full time employees are preferred, those interested in freelancing may also get in touch with me at email@example.com.


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Stating the Obvious
The Vol defense is killing the promise of this season.
But you already knew that.
And some of you think of that promise as being long dead.
Tennessee had nearly erased the memory of a first half begging to be forgotten.
With the Vols trailing by a lone field goal, after having been down by as much as 13 points, Tennessee had to start a fourth-quarter drive on their own 12 yard line. The Vols' Mr. Everything, Cordarrelle Patterson — already having returned a first-half kickoff for a touchdown, caught a third-quarter pass for a TD to bring Tennessee back to within three, and turned a reverse from a disaster into a jaw-dropping 34-yard gain — made a nice 8-yard run.
The offensive line was having their way with the Bullies' front line, and there wasn't a cowbell to be heard.
Devrin Young, who had to take over the lead rusher duties from Rajion Neal who had left the game with an injury, followed with another fine run, this time for 11 yards to the Vol sideline. But Mississippi State's rugged cornerback Johnthan Banks wrenched the ball right out of Young's grasp. The ball fell straight down — it could have bounced out of bounds, but that isn't the fortune of these Volunteers ballers — and Banks dropped straight down to make the recovery, without a limb or a digit touching the sideline stripe.
Momentum sometimes turns on a dime. This was one of those times.
Mississippi State's offense, which could not be stopped by Tennessee in the first half, all of a sudden had only made two first downs in the second half on four possessions.
Now they smelled blood, with 9:12 left in the contest.
Tyler Russell, enjoying plenty of time to survey the field, hit Chad Bumphis for a 25 yard gain to the Vol 5 yard line. Two plays later, State scored a TD to make it 34-24. The cowbells were back with a vengence.
But the Vols answered quickly after starting the subsequent possession with good position on their own 42 yard line after a State facemask penalty tacked on 15 yards from where the sqib-kick had been downed.
A 26-yard strike from Tyler Bray to Justin Hunter. A 15-yard run by Patterson. Two rushes by Young were followed by a nice 10-yard TD pass to Ben Bartholomew. It was back to a 3-point deficit that it had been only a couple of game-clock minutes ago.
The clock showed 5:22, which seemed like plenty of time for a game-tying field goal or a game winning TD, especially when considering that State had not created one of those clock-eating drives the entire second half.
But Dan Mullen's troops put on a ball-control show. Four first downs had the Bulldogs peeking at a win at the Vol 23 yard line. Then, LaDarius Perkins ran up the middle for 15 of his 101 game rushing yards to inside the 10 yard line for a first and goal.
There were two minutes left, and holding State to a field goal could possibly give Tennessee a hail-mary shot. Three rushes for minus one yards made it 4th down. Mullin was not interested in a field goal. Tyler Russell made a nice play fake and then hit Malcolm Johnson in the back end of the endzone for a touchdown to make the final 41-31 State.
It was an absolutely audacious and brilliant play call. It was perfect execution. It rubbed everything negative in the face of this Tennessee Volunteer football program.
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
There were many things to point to as moments that killed Tennessee's prospects for a badly needed SEC win.
There was Byron Moore's third-quarter drop of a Tyler Russell pass in wide open space that could have perhaps given Tennessee the ball near midfield or farther and led to a go-ahead touchdown.
There was Mychal Rivera's second-quarter bone-headed brain freeze on a pooch kickoff that was recovered by State as an on-sides kick, giving the Bulldogs the ball at the Vol 33, setting up a TD scored five plays later giving the Maroons a 27-14 lead. Ten consecutive points without Tennessee getting one snap from center.
But those moments don't begin to get to the root problem.
When this season began, and after moving into this season's campaign, the Vols had little in the way of a running game, and their place kicking woes were legendary. But the new defensive scheme created interest and excitement.
Now, Tennessee has a running game to be reckoned with, even in the run-rugged SEC, and the place kicking appears to have been resurrected to respectability (based on a viewing of the quality of Michael Palardy's kicks in Starkville).
But the defense is a complete train wreck; an out-of-control dumpster fire.
Big plays (>20 yards) — especially really loooong ones — are now the bugaboo of this season.
In Starkville, Mississippi State continued the trend with six plays of greater than 20 yards. But they weren't huge plays of the likes of those given up to Florida, Georgia, and even Akron. None of those six plays went for 30 or more yards.
Instead, the Volunteer defense bled to death last night.
In the first half, Mississippi State ran 51 plays from scrimmage compared with Tennessee's 20. The Vols gained some ground in the second half, running more plays than State (38 to 31). But in the end, the game totals of State's 82 plays to Tennessee's 58 created a nearly impossible situation for the Vols. Cordarrelle Patterson's kickoff return for a TD made the game closer than it actually was from a scrimmage perspective.
The time of possession accentuates the issue even clearer.
In the first half, Mississippi State had the ball for 22:24 compared with Tennessee's 7:16. And for the game total, possession time stood with a 13 minute differential, 36:31 to 23:29.
Yes, a hurry-up offense can win with a deficiency in game-clock possession time, but only if their defense can bend but not break.
Instead, Sal Sunseri's defense was cut to shreds, possession after possession in the first half, running up nearly 300 total yards, over 200 of those in the air, and scoring 27 points. A total of 450 yards by State for the game — 308 in the air and 142 on the ground — translating to another 40+ points, killed Tennessee.
And this will continue to kill Tennessee's prospects for a season with any semblance of cumulative improvement that everyone is searching for.
Was the move to the 3-4 defensive scheme away from the 4-3 an ill-advised decision? Or, is the new scheme just too complicated? Is some watered-down version needed as a band-aid?
Are these the wrong position coaches and Defensive Coordinator?
Or is it simply that the players in the orange jerseys are not good enough to stop anybody, regardless of the scheme or coaching staff?
The answers to all of these questions seem to be as elusive as an SEC victory for Derek Dooley, who's job anymore seems to be to take all of the blame for absolutely everything.
Now the battle appears to be whether Dooley can keep this team's attention and desire. Last season, the Head Coach lost control of the situation — players and coaches — culminating in the worst loss imaginable in Lexington. It was a near mutinous situation.
With Bama and Carolina looming in the next two weeks, we won't likely know until November if last season's implosion will repeat itself.
The ability to keep his players engaged and motivated to fight for each other will likely be the metric that will be used to determine if Derek Dooley will see another season at the helm of the Vols.
The best, or worst, is yet to come.
3 responses to "Stating the Obvious"
rockytop78 says :
I can't disagree with most of what you have written, although to say that the defense is an out of control dumpster fire might be understating it; more like The Towering Inferno, to use another fire-related metaphor. I am simply perplexed at the performance of the defense this year, but to abandon what they are doing and go back to a 4-3 or something else could be worse than anything.
There is another explanation for our football season that has occurred to me, however. The year began with the hated Crimson Tide winning a national championship in football, and was followed by the hated Kentucky Wildcats winning a national championship in basketball. Perhaps the Mayans were right after all: that the world as we know it ends in 2012 based on their Long Count calendar, and the UT football program's problems are just another harbinger of the coming cosmic cataclysm? (If Dooley is not retained after the season and Bobby Petrino is hired in his place, then I'll definitely know that the Mayans had it right.)