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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The Board of Education decided in an emergency meeting Tuesday to lower the passing grade on the writing portion of Florida's standardized test after preliminary results showed a drastic drop in student passing scores.
The results indicated only about a third of students would pass this year's tougher Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test exam, compared with a passing rate of 80 percent or more last year.
"They've asked students to do more, but that's pretty dramatic," said Florida Education Association spokesman Mark Pudlow. "We need to examine what led to this, not just paper over the problem."
The results provide another opening to critics of high-stakes testing. The statewide teachers union has opposed Florida's use of standardized tests to evaluate teachers and grade schools.
"Our students must know how to read and write, and our education system must be able to measure and benchmark their progress so we can set clear education goals," said Gov. Rick Scott in a statement Monday. "The significant contrast in this year's writing scores is an obvious indication that the Department of Education needs to review the issue and recommend an action plan so that our schools, parents, teachers and students have a clear understanding of the results."
Results on the FCAT are the major factor for determining grades the state uses to reward top schools and sanction those at the bottom of the spectrum.
This is the first year students and schools will be assessed on the basis of tougher tests and scoring systems, expecting to result in more students failing the FCAT and lower school grades.
The board, though, agreed at its regular meeting last week not to let any school drop more than one letter grade this year to help them adjust to the rigorous new standards.
The writing exam was made more difficult by increasing expectations for proper punctuation, capitalization, spelling and sentence structure. The board also increased the passing grade from 3.5 to 4 on scale of zero to 6.
The preliminary results show only 27 percent of fourth-graders received a passing score compared with 81 percent last year.
For eighth-graders it was 33 percent — down from 82 percent in 2011. For 10th-graders it was 38 percent — a drop from 80 percent last year.
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The lower passing score is expected to increase the number of students passing the exam to 48 percent for fourth grade, 52 percent for eighth grade and 60 percent for 10th grade, still well below last year's results.
"This incident again demonstrates that Florida school grades reflect profoundly political decisions, not objective measures of teaching and learning," said spokesman for FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing in Jamaica Plain, Mass, Bob Schaeffer, in an email. "How can a measure which fluctuates from 81 percent to 27 percent 'proficient' in just one year even meet the laugh test?"
The Department of Education's notice for the proposed emergency rule says when the board approved the scoring changes it "did not have, and could not have had, impact data" that would show how those revisions would affect the results. It adds that the preliminary results now indicate "the heightened scoring rules may have unforeseen adverse impacts on school grades."
School grades factor into such decisions as closing low-performing schools or making faculty and administrative changes. Lower rated schools also lower the property values in the community.
Officials in some school districts have been preparing parents for bad FCAT news by sending letters home with students explaining that the tests have become more difficult to pass.
Other officials are pushing back.
School boards in Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties have passed a resolution against what they say is an over-reliance on high-stakes testing. Board members say the exams reduce time devoted to teaching and put unhealthy stress on students.
The resolution asks the state to develop a new assessment system that relies less on standardized testing and urges the federal government to reduce testing requirements in the No Child Left Behind Act.
Florida is among nearly a dozen states that have received a waiver from No Child Left Behind. State education officials, though, say the waiver still requires high testing standards.
The Florida resolution is similar to one that 438 Texas school boards have signed. FairTest and other groups initiated the resolutions.
Copyright 2012 by ClickOrlando.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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subset: commoncrawl


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A failed car dealer has launched an on-line start-up that's doing what even Web stars like Amazon.com can't: blowing up, and then remaking, an industry--in this case, the $1-trillion auto business
Andy Gill had no intention of hooking up with someone like Pete Ellis. Gill was a lone-wolf entrepreneur; he had always made it on his own. Gill had hit it big in insurance before cashing out, 11 years ago, and plunging into the car business. Today he's a successful dealer in metro Atlanta.
So Gill wasn't searching for fresh answers last February when he walked into a meeting at the annual National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) convention and found himself in the midst of what amounted to a gripe session. Dodge dealers were hammering Chrysler's national sales manager about losing business to competitors selling through the Internet. "The dealers were all over the guy," Gill recalls. "Finally, he says, 'Look, I've been telling you people for four or five years now that you'd better get ready for this revolution. I can't tell you how high it's gonna go, but this is the wave of the future.' " Then the executive mentioned a company named Auto-By-Tel Corp. (ABT) as this new wave's major force.
"Auto-By-Tel," Gill repeated to himself. Hadn't he heard that name half a dozen times already around the convention? He bird-dogged the man from Chrysler out of the room. "What's this Auto-By-Tel deal you're talking about?"
The executive, lowering his voice, said, "Look, I'm not really supposed to be telling you this, but if I were you, I'd run, not walk, down to their booth."
Gill ran. At the booth he ended up talking to Pete Ellis, ABT's founder. "I said to him, 'Show me,' " says Gill. The two spoke for an hour, during which time Gill mentally debated--"Am I getting reeled in on this thing?" --whether the silken-voiced Ellis was the Second Coming personified or the slickest pitchman this side of P.T. Barnum.
Gill told Ellis that he was a Chrylser, Plymouth, Dodge, Jeep, and Eagle dealer in Atlanta. Ellis replied that it just so happened that ABT was looking for someone in Atlanta. "Yeah, sure," Gill thought. This guy was good.
But so, too, was his idea.
ABT, as Ellis explained to Gill, sold cars over the Internet, funneling would-be car buyers to a national network of some 2,000 dealers with whom it had signed exclusive contracts. Just two years old, ABT was already getting 3 million Web-site hits and, at that time, passing along 40,000 electronically generated "purchase requests" (serious, detailed inquiries from buyers looking for a specific make and model of car) to its participating dealers each month. Buyers got exactly the car they wanted, for a low fixed price without haggling. Dealers got more sales (in some cases a 30% boost) and lower transaction costs--as much as 75% lower than the cost of a traditional "walk-in" sale.
Pete Ellis wasn't the only pitchman on the Atlanta midway. Everywhere Gill turned, he saw evidence of an industry in transition, if not turmoil. CarMax, Circuit City Inc.'s foray into used-car superstores, was at the convention, as was Driver's Mart Worldwide, a similar concept that envisioned 100 used-car superstores by the year 2000, along with a sales site on the Internet. Then there were "dealer groups," such as Cross-Continent Auto Retailers, United Auto Group Inc., and Lithia Motors Inc., which had formed megadealer combines and floated public stock--a move previously unheard-of in the industry. And then, of course, there was the big guy, H. Wayne Huizenga. He had waded into the car business last fall, paying unimaginable sums for premier dealerships in hypergrowth markets. His empire--Republic Industries Inc. and its AutoNation USA subsidiary--ran the gamut from new and used cars to rental fleets; he owned Alamo and National. Last November, Huizenga's new-car sales were nil. By March he had acquired his way to being the largest new-car retailer in the United States.
Wayne, change, and pain were the talk of the NADA convention last February--for good reason. "This industry's cost structure is under tremendous assault," observes Jeremy Anwyl, president of Marketec Systems Inc., a Santa Ana, Calif., analyst for a number of car makers. "The pot's been bubbling for a long time, and now the lid has finally blown off."
Andy Gill felt the heat as he absorbed Pete Ellis's pitch. An inner voice told him he couldn't just stand there and do nothing. Maybe, he thought, ABT offered a salvation of sorts. "Am I getting had on this?" he asked his wife. She shook her head. "No."
Gill said he wanted to think about it overnight. Ellis replied that there would be no overnight. "The territory will be gone by dark," he said.
Gill said he didn't have a check on him. Ellis said he took credit cards.
Gill looked at his wife again. Again she nodded. "They hit my American Express card for $12,500 right there. I kept thinking to myself, 'I've never been hammered like this before.' "
All Gill could do now was hope for a feeling that would hurt so good.
It wasn't so long ago that people abruptly stopped throwing money at Pete Ellis. The owner of 16 auto dealerships and related businesses in California and Arizona, Ellis had enjoyed a great run in the 1980s. In 1988 he operated the largest Jeep, Eagle, Chrysler dealership in the United States. But then came the quasi depression of 1990, which put a hard tarnish on the Golden State, where most of his dealerships were located. As car sales crashed Ellis began closing his stores or selling them off to cover his debts. At his flagship store, near Los Angeles, Ellis made one final stand. But that location, too, was failing. "I went from selling 500 cars a month to 200," he recalls. "I owed $5.6 million on a piece of property that was worth $3.6 million. I decided to kill myself." Metaphorically speaking, that is.
After putting a bullet through the brain of P.R. Ellis Corp., in 1994, Ellis filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. He lost two houses and $15 million. He was out of the car trade.
But the car trade was not out of him.
"God gave me a life in the car business. This is all I know how to do. Why torch that and walk away?" Ellis explained recently. His father had been a car dealer; Ellis had sold his first car at 16 and owned his first dealership at 24.
So when he went into exile, it was not on some sun-washed island but in the bedroom of his condominium, where he started fiddling with his wife's personal computer. "I know there's some kind of trick pony in here," Ellis recalls thinking. Translation: There must be a way to sell cars on the Internet.
He flew to New York to speak with executives at Prodigy, the on-line service, having prepared to give an hour's presentation. After five minutes his listener interrupted him. "Let's try it," the Prodigy executive said.
Ellis launched his program on Prodigy in March 1995. He figured it would generate 500 purchase requests a week. On the fourth day it received 1,348. The pony had been found.
Today, ABT occupies the second and fourth floors of a squat brown building across the street from the airport in Orange County, Calif. The elevator opens into a lobby dominated by a six-foot-long aquarium luminous with tropical fish. Hawaiian shirts and shorts seem to be the favored mode of dress among the 105 employees here; the sockless look is big, too. Walk into ABT and you'd think you were in a travel agency booking cruises on the next boat out of Long Beach.
The company's leisured air neatly disguises its headlong rush to blow up one of the biggest and most traditional of American industries, the car business, in which annual sales of new and used autos exceed $650 billion. Throw in service, rentals, and assorted miscellany, and you're talking $1 trillion worth of business. Each and every year.
ABT's business model attacks that market in a novel way. The company spends heavily on marketing (40% of this year's sales), mainly to promote and support a prominent Web site that is designed to attract educated, serious car buyers looking for a specific make and model of car. That buyer fills out a purchase request, which then gets routed to the nearest ABT-accredited car dealer of that make. In return, the dealer must contact the customer within 24 to 48 hours with a low, firm price.
Since February 1995, when ABT started, the monthly flow of purchase requests has risen from 5,000 to more than 60,000, which means ABT has become a giant funnel for market share. It sucks in a desirable demographic--affluent, educated, motivated buyers--and makes its money not by taking commissions on the cars bought by ABT users but by charging for access to those users. Who wants access? First, car dealers, who pay monthly and annual fees in return for exclusive ABT franchise rights in their area. (There are 2,000 such dealers so far.) And second, providers of auto-related financial services looking to ride the deal flow. ABT has forged strategic partnerships with Chase Manhattan Bank, one of the largest auto lenders in the United States; American International Group (AIG), the multinational insurer; and General Electric Auto Financial Services, a major force in auto leasing. Some of these players invested $15 million in ABT last August. In January they ponied up another $9 million.
"Aside from the tremendous growth in volume, they have one of the few business models where you can actually make money on the Internet," says Jeff Coats, managing director of the GE Equity Capital Group. "They had a great idea first, and they're leaps and bounds ahead of nascent competitors. One of their biggest advantages is that they have a strong network of key dealers who are early adopters." Nine out of 10 of the country's largest "megadealers" participate in the ABT program.
The ABT model is unusual, believes Matt Ericksen, a vice-president in the Chicago office of Boston Consulting Group who specializes in Internet commerce. He contends that ABT does more than merely adapt an existing business model to the Net. "Wal-Mart may team up with select auto dealers that will offer special prices to Wal-Mart customers, but it doesn't ask the dealers to make tangible changes in the way they conduct business," says Ericksen.
ABT changes the way that companies that do business with it operate. It drives manufacturers to streamline distribution by guiding volume away from marginal, expensive-to-serve dealerships, where customer loyalty has languished. It slashes dealers' costs, notably in advertising and labor, which together account for 63% of the typical dealer's operating expenses. It steers the customer--and the industry--toward a low, "no haggle" price, free from the dread and intimidation that have typically poisoned the car-buying experience.
At the same time, the ABT model will inflict change on those who try to steer clear of its new approach. "The losers will be traditional finance and insurance companies, including auto-company finance subsidiaries," says Ericksen. "Their customers are no longer captive. With a click of the mouse, the car buyer can pick and choose among an array of financing alternatives."
Newspapers, too, stand to lose big, as ABT dealers will no longer be enslaved by the process of spending huge sums on advertising to lure buyers. ABT will deliver those (motivated) buyers at low cost, meaning that dealers can forgo spending the more than $3 billion (almost one-tenth of all newspaper ad revenues) they paid for newspaper ads last year.
Commissioned salespeople will disappear in favor of those earning a flat salary and a bonus for each car sold under the ABT model. Says Ellis, "We tell a lot of our dealers they've got the wrong salespeople."
John Honiotes, ABT's director of new business, says that the ranks of salespeople will shrink and shift because only the computer literate and softer selling will be needed. "It's a classic case of survival of the fittest," he says. "Many will embrace the new technology. Others won't and will have to find something else to do."
Technology, Ellis understands, has changed the balance of power in a car purchase. For 50 years the true cost of a car was information closely held between the manufacturer and the dealer, putting the buyer at their mercy. Now, through the Internet, buyers have access to that information--24 hours a day. They have the edge. Dealers who can't deliver a low, haggle-free price and superior service will be history. "Car dealers don't like being told how to run their business, but in a couple of years a lot of these guys aren't even going to be in business," says Ellis. "The biggest thing they've got to figure out is how to drop their costs. I see the Internet as destroying the old structure."
What drives Pete Ellis is a rich stew of car dealer's self-loathing, Chapter 7induced pain, and a raw competitive drive to simply be proved right. He readily admits, "I hated my dealerships. I hated the way there would be 20 salesmen waiting to jump on the next customer who walked in the door." Selling cars has always been a commission-based business that explicitly encourages the salesperson to mug the customer's wallet. Sell the car for the highest price possible--and somehow gull the customers into thinking they're getting a great deal.
Manufacturers encouraged such behavior by granting too many franchises, leading to oversaturated markets. Ellis, who had a Ford store in San Diego, could count 15 other Ford dealers within a 30-mile radius. That forced dealers, trapped like rats in a cage, to gnaw one another to death. Bait-and-switch advertising became the norm. Lure the buyers in by advertising an impossibly low price on a car that you don't even have in inventory--then sell them something more expensive. "The competition among dealers creates price advertising, and that creates unsavory sales practices," says Ellis. He sees it as his mission to change all that--for good. And he'll try almost anything to do it. A year ago Ellis called up his media-buying service. "Give me a quote on the Super Bowl," he said. The price for a 30-second ad was $1.2 million, ridiculously extravagant for a company with 1996 sales of just $5 million and no operating profit.
In a subsequent ABT board meeting, Ellis suddenly interjected, "I just bought some time on the Super Bowl." The idea was so ludicrous that nobody even responded. Ellis, as usual, was playing the merry prankster. The more serious business at hand continued. Five minutes passed. "Really," he said. "I'm not kidding. I just bought the Super Bowl." Sure, Pete. Another five minutes passed, at which point Michael Fuchs, an ABT board member and the former president of HBO, suddenly said, "You know, Pete, I think you should buy the Super Bowl." Board members, assuming that Fuchs, a media insider, knew what he was talking about, then began solemnly nodding their heads in agreement.
Ellis, ever the marketing tactician, argues that his decision to buy the ad was a no-brainer. "The Super Bowl is not where it's happening," he explains. "It's not that 30-second spot. It's the publicity surrounding the event. People forget that the Super Bowl is a promotion over three months. It's a 90-day campaign, and in that campaign we got all sorts of publicity. We also became known as 'The First Internet-Based Company to Advertise on the Super Bowl.' "
Ellis, the perpetual salesman, says things in a way that people tend to remember. Speaking to dealers at the NADA convention last February, he offered a word to the fence-sitters in the face of onrushing industry consolidation. "If you're not coming with us, then I suggest you call 1-800-WAYNE."
Wayne, of course, is Wayne Huizenga, another latter-day binger in the car trade. Huizenga built Waste Management and then Blockbuster Entertainment, but now he is doing something even more ambitious: trying to vertically integrate the car industry by selling, renting, leasing, and servicing cars at every level imaginable. No car story these days would be complete without the reporter's making the obligatory pilgrimage to Republic Industries, in Fort Lauderdale. The actual distance between Huizenga's Republic headquarters and ABT's may be 3,000 miles, but the cultural distance is a million.
Republic's AutoNation USA megastore in the nearby suburb of Coconut Creek encompasses around 1,000 vehicles sitting on more than 20 acres of concrete freshly laid through thickets of palmetto and saw grass. On a tour of the site, store manager Jeff Dyke explained that the location had gone "from dirt to fully operational in three months. It's the McDonald's concept." In fact, he added, "we'll open one of these superstores every two weeks for the next three to four months." Dyke himself seemed to be part of this fast-moving game plan. The manager of the Houston store, he'd come to work one Monday and been told to start work in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday. That meant leaving behind a wife and infant daughter to follow him later.
To date, AutoNation has 15 used-car superstores in four states. It's an operation that relies on laser beams, bar codes, and computers to track every car that leaves every lot on every test-drive, to ensure it is being marketed efficiently. Every two days, the entire inventory is washed. It is tirelessly shifted around the lot, fitted with eye-catching accessories, and otherwise promoted to speed the sale.
A visit with the (nearly) top brass preceded the car-lot show-and-tell. While Huizenga, Ozlike, remained at some remove up in his penthouse office on the 14th floor, down on the 13th, three trusted lieutenants--company president and co-CEO Steve Berrard, AutoNation president Larry Rich, and the president of Republic's new-car division, Mike Maroone--gathered around a conference table.
Berrard, a solidly built man with a handshake of iron, arrived late to the meeting. He looked distracted, sitting quietly down at the far end of the room. Finally, he spoke up.
He explained the principle on which he and Huizenga had built Blockbuster. A videotape had an economic life of a certain duration. When rental revenues for that tape began to tail off, they would move it to a new store. Revenues would invariably blip up again--no matter how old the tape. The new location juiced sales. After moving that tape three or four times, the process would exhaust itself. Then the tape would be sold to extract whatever economic life was left in it.
In Berrard's mind, a $20,000 car was no different from an $8 videotape. It had a certain life span, and at every phase of that life, there was a way to squeeze money from it. "We want to control that asset for the duration of its economic life," he said. How that played out was that AutoNation owned new dealerships, used-car superstores, rental-car fleets, and discount-used-car lots among which the company could keep shifting its assets, depending on where in the life cycle they stood. "Seventy-three percent of Americans can't afford a new car," Berrard noted. "That provides an opportunity to go to short-term leasing. The question then becomes, How do we maintain the relationship with the customer for life?" In the future, Berrard envisioned a plan even more encompassing. "Maybe we'll build freestanding service centers near airports or train stations. You leave your car for service, and we take you to the airport. It's the convenience factor." The car store as the neighborhood dry cleaner or coffee bar.
Listening to Berrard, it's hard to tell if his master plan is the product of towering genius or equally outsize hubris. Republic's assault on the $1-trillion auto industry certainly does not suffer from a lack of ambition.
Compared with Huizenga, Ellis appears to have exercised a form of entrepreneurial judo. He has gotten his market share the easy way--and at less risk. To date, ABT has spent $50 million to establish what amounts to a nationwide dealer distribution network. Huizenga has spent more than $1 billion acquiring new-car dealerships over the last year, albeit in stock he has manufactured, and landed 122 dealer points in 10 states. "I think AutoNation has magnified the old model in terms of their cost structure," says Ellis. "We have changed it. We are an umbrella marketing program for a national dealer distribution base."
Moreover, ABT, blessed with a far lower cost structure, can undersell AutoNation. It creates a low sales price while maintaining the net margin, because it can drive down dealers' costs dramatically. Last year the typical dealer incurred $820 in personnel costs and $225 in marketing expenses for each new car sold. Ellis claims that ABT can reduce those numbers to $150 and $40, respectively.
Sherry Atamian of Atamian Honda Volkswagen, in Tewksbury, Mass., says of the ABT program: "You have to embrace it because the auto industry is changing to being customer driven. These people who come through Auto-By-Tel represent found business for us. It's delusional to think we'd get it otherwise." In a good month Atamian now sells 40% more cars because of ABT. And those sales cost 70% less than traditional sales.
Bob Bridge, owner of Bob Bridge Auto Center, in Renton, Wash., says that ABT has increased his sales volume by 25% so far this year. "There's excruciating pressure on margins due to too many cars and too many dealers. The dealer has to find a way to lower his cost of transaction."
Perhaps most striking about ABT is that the company is being built not by paying dealers-- but by having dealers pay it. It is a royalty business. Pete Ellis is diverting assorted revenue streams his way, steadily panning out his cut, one deal at a time.
Dealers pay ABT an annual fee ranging from $2,500 to $4,500 per car brand, as well as a monthly fee of $500 to $3,000. They also put their used-car inventory in ABT's used-car "cyberstore," and for that ABT receives $750 to $2,500 per month, depending on the size of the inventory for each dealer. The cyberstore expects to have 100,000 of its dealers' used cars listed--complete with digitized photos and detailed descriptions--by the end of this year. Meanwhile, for channeling business to its strategic partners in the form of car buyers looking to lease, finance, and insure the purchase, ABT receives origination fees ranging between $50 and $125 on each deal, or a small fee for each policy generated.
Ellis originally projected ABT revenues for this year of between $25 million and $30 million, up from $5 million last year; a recent deal with America Online now makes those figures look conservative. He foresees ABT's breaking even in the first quarter of 1998, three years after he started the company.
ABT gives large companies greater access to the market. "We are able to reach out and touch the consumer for a GE or a Chase," says Randy Ellspermann, ABT's senior vice-president. "We are a single-channel service. We see the customer before the dealer, the bank, and the insurance company do."
Adds Boston Consulting's Matt Ericksen: "Ellis is sitting on a database that's invaluable. He's saying to the manufacturers, 'Every month, I've got 60,000 new names of people who are within days of making a $20,000 purchase.' "
As if fattening a Christmas goose, car makers have historically force-fed the market, assuming that the more retail outlets they licensed, the more cars they would sell. That strategy worked fine in the boom years right after the war, when the number of dealer sites approached 50,000. But selling cars has become capital-intensive, owing chiefly to the high cost of carrying inventory.
The number of U.S. dealerships has declined by 27% in the past 25 years and now is at 22,000, according to J. D. Power and Associates. Moreover, according to NADA, the productivity of the average retail salesperson has not changed in 18 years, though labor and overhead costs have continued to rise. Last year the pretax profit on the average new car sold was a slim $77 on a purchase price of $21,974.
Ericksen of Boston Consulting thinks the dealer population could fall to as low as 10,000 by the year 2005. He points to metropolitan Chicago, which has 67 Chevy dealers and 70 Ford dealers. "That's way too many. It's ridiculous," he contends, noting that a successful superstore like Home Depot has just 19 locations in greater Chicago. "People will drive half an hour to buy a hammer from a Home Depot," he notes. "There's no reason to think they won't go as far to buy a $20,000 car."
Ericksen says that if Pete Ellis selects five high-volume, high-quality dealers for each brand of car sold in the Chicago area, he could capture a disproportionate share of the market and, in effect, become the auto-retailing equivalent of Home Depot. "In a Cincinnati or Charlotte it could be done with just one or two dealers," says Ericksen.
But for now, the car-selling process remains notoriously inefficient. Automakers and dealers spend $10 billion a year advertising their wares--and then another $10 billion inducing people to buy the product through rebates and assorted other programs. Pete Ellis, for one, knows there's a better way. His company is really more than a restructuring play. It's an agent of cultural war.
In his mind the car world as it is currently ordered is dysfunctional. Salespeople, he says, "are trained to be short-term thinkers," while the manufacturers, driven by greed, have created a marketplace oversaturated with dealers. The net result is that both margins and ethics have been under pressure for years.
Ellis says that ABT's mission is "to put ourselves in a consumer-advocacy position"--and "to give our dealers a total survival package to keep them in business and profitable for years to come."
Gill, the Atlanta dealer whose $12,500 ABT sign-up at the NADA conference delivered 230 purchase requests in his first three weeks alone (and who is now revamping his sales force around ABT's soft-sell model), describes Ellis's mission in a way that's a little less delicate. The powers that be don't like it, he says, "but this is what's coming down. A lot of these second- and third-generation dealers are chuckling and saying, 'Get out of my face with this computer stuff.' Well, the new blood's gonna take this thing and shove it where the sun don't shine."
Edward O. Welles is a senior writer at Inc.
At its core, the Auto-By-Tel story is about the blossoming of the Internet as a novel and viable venue for business. In Auto-By-Tel's case, what's being offered is a place to price, select, and actually buy a car at any time of the day from the privacy of one's home. To see what that process entails and what a radical shift it embodies, visit the company's Web site or see related sites that provide detailed pricing information on automobiles ( www.edmund.com and www.carpoint.msn.com).
International Data Corp. estimates that the dollar value of goods and services purchased over the Web will increase from $318 million in 1995 to $95 billion in the year 2000 as the number of Web users rises from 16 million to 163 million in that time. No surprise, then, that there's been an explosion of books related to doing business on the Net. Two useful texts on the practical side are Growing Your Business Online: Small-Business Strategies for Working the World Wide Web, by Phaedra Hise (Henry Holt, 800-488-5233, 1996, $14.95), and Guerrilla Marketing Online Weapons: 100 Low-Cost, High-Impact Weapons for Online Profits and Prosperity, by Jay Levinson and Charles Rubin (Houghton Mifflin, 800-225-3362, 1996, $12.95). Hise, a former Inc. staff writer, brings to the task a reporter's eye for the issues that are real, immediate, and specific. Her book is replete with case studies of small companies that solved particular business issues with creative use of Web sites. Guerrilla Marketing Online Weapons is drier, yet still rich, offering a compendium of simple, low-cost tactics for making it on-line--a reminder, perhaps, that in most cases a business rises or falls depending on how much common sense its management exercises. Net Gain: Expanding Markets Through Virtual Communities, by John Hagel III and Arthur G. Armstrong (Harvard Business School Press, 800-338-3987, 1997, $24.95), is denser, more jargony stuff. Part overview and part manifesto, it nonetheless speaks cogently to the authors' belief that thanks to the Net, we're in the midst of a radical transformation: buyers have wrested power from sellers. Identifying, understanding, and gaining the loyalty of the "virtual communities" of customers out there is the name of the game. Finally, Webonomics: Nine Essential Principles for Growing Your Business on the World Wide Web, by Evan I. Schwartz (Broadway Books/Bantam Doubleday Dell, 800-223-6834, 1997, $25), strikes a balance between being academically theoretical and everyday practical. It's an original and penetrating look at what really matters in successful Web commerce. Written by a journalist, it's also far more readable than most business books.
AUTO-BY-TEL, Pete Ellis, 18872 MacArthur Blvd., Irvine, CA 92612-1400; 714-225-4500 66
AUTONATION, Republic Industries, One Financial Plaza, Suite 1700, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33394; 954-627-5100 66


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One day Randy Moss was a Viking. The next, a Titan.
The talented but troubled wide receiver was claimed off waivers by Tennessee, one day after being cut by Minnesota, reports ESPN.
"Timing is everything," Titans coach Jeff Fisher said in an interview with the Associated Press. "I really think the quicker we get him on the field, the longer he's here, the more productive he'll be. We think he can help us, and I'm looking forward to seeing him run under those deep balls."
The addition of Moss comes at a fortuitous time for Tennessee. The Titans are banged up, with leading receiver Kenny Britt ailing from a injured hamstring after a loss to the San Diego Chargers. The team enters their bye week with the opportunity to get healthy and for Moss to get some reps with quarterbacks Vince Young and Kerry Collins before hitting the field in a live game situation. Tennessee, 5-3, is currently a game back of the AFC South leading Indianapolis Colts.
Collins, who played with Moss for the Oakland Raiders, said that Moss' reputation as a problem child is overhyped.
"He was a professional, respectful, he was a team guy," Collins said. "I think a lot of the stuff that you see and hear gets overblown. The guy speaks his mind. He's very truthful with what he says and that doesn't always play well. He was a great teammate."
Moss is set to report on Sunday evening to the Titans, who were 22nd in waiver claim order. They were the only team to put in a claim on the player.
Chris Johnson, the Titans dynamic running back, also welcomed Moss' arrival.
"You can't put eight in the box if you got Randy Moss out there on the outside. If you've got Randy Moss out there, you just can't play him one-on-one," he said. "I feel like Randy would be a great addition to this team, be a great addition to our receiving corp and really help us go deep in the playoffs."
Moss landing with the Titans is the fulfillment of a "what if?" scenario for the franchise, which passed on selecting the star player out of college in 1998 due to concerns over character issues. The Titans, then the Oilers, selected another wide receiver, Kevin Dyson, with the 16th pick in that year's draft.
But if the team that landed Moss' services is feeling lucky, the team that traded for him has been left with a bitter taste in its mouth.
Vikings head coach Brad Childress called the move to send a third-round draft pick to the New England Patriots for number 84 a "poor decision."
"I've got to stand up and I have to make it right. When it's not right, you need to make it right," he said of the decision to waive the player, a move that was met with raised eyebrows in both the Vikings locker room and around the league.
Vikings quarterback Brett Favre said that the team was "a little bit shocked" upon hearing the news, but added that things would go on, whatever the difficulties between Childress and Moss.
"Good teams are the teams that can overcome adversity, work well together," he said. "Having a good working relationship doesn't mean you have to like each other. That goes for any phase of business or sports."
Selected Reading: ESPN, Fox Sports, CNNSI


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Back at Bellwether Farms, it occurred to the Callahan's that a cheese of this type might appeal to customers in the US as an alternative to the young Cheddars or Jack cheeses that dominated the market. Cheesemaker Liam Callahan began working on the cheese by using a pecorino recipe as a starting point and making changes in response to the flavors and texture of the cheese. Eventually he found a combination that brought the family back to the cheese they tasted in Milan. Carmody is meant to highlight the buttery flavors of Jersey milk. At that point Liam gave it a name with local meaning – Carmody is the road that runs adjacent to Bellwether Farm.
Gold Medal, Semi-hard Cheese, 2011 North American Jersey Cheese Awards.
Gold Medal, Unpressed Cheese, 2010 North American Jersey Cheese Awards.
Silver Medal, Unpressed Cheese, 2009 North American Jersey Cheese Awards.
Silver Medal, Semi-Hard Cheese, 2009 World Cheese Awards.
Bronze Medal, Semi-hard Cheese, 2006 World Cheese Awards, London.


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Enjoy your stay here in San Francisco by booking your trip at one of Radisson's three prime locations within the city. San Francisco is well-known for its Mediterranean climates, profound architecture, and unique modes of transportations; all of which make it a preferred travel destination for all visitors entering California.
No trip to the "Golden State" is complete without exploring the local area, and with so many more attractions in San Francisco; there is plenty of opportunities to grab for the entire family. Visit some of California's most iconic attractions: from the majesty of the Golden Gate Bridge to the twisted path of Lombard Street. Visitors are advised to make a pit stop at Fisherman's Wharf to see some amazing street performers, visit museums, or indulge in some delicious and indisputably fresh seafood. Just nearby, Ghirardelli Square is home to first-class shopping venues and restaurants. For those interested in criminal justice, you should catch a ferry from Pier 39 to Alcatraz Island to see the now abandoned prison that once detained some of the most famous criminals of all time.
The neighborhood's legendary streetcar rides can easily transport you to San Francisco's Chinatown – the oldest and largest Chinatown in the country – before trekking to Twin Peaks for some of the best views of the cityscape. Splurge on some shopping in Union Square or feed your soul with a trip to SoMa's museums. When you book a trip to a San Francisco Radisson, the city's rich and ancient culture is sure to inspire your mind, body, soul, and stomach too!


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BBC's travel program Fast Track had a story about how Santiago has been working hard since the earthquake to (re)build its position as a cool global city. I have never been to Santiago (let alone Chile) so I cannot say whether there is any position to rebuild or whether Santiago isn't simply moving up and ahead regardless of the recent blow to tourism in the wake of the earthquake. However, what I can say for certain is that when it comes to Chile's economy at large it is in no need to rebuild anything; it is both global, cool and very strong.
Enviable Economic Performance
Let us begin taking stock on the performance of Chile's economy in the past two years compared to the US and the EU16 in order to see that while the crisis indeed has been global (and still is) notable divergences are present.
Chile's economy contracted through three quarters from Q4-08 to Q2-09 but has since returned to growth and, crucially, seems to have returned to trend growth unscathed from the fangs of the economic crisis which will have wide repercussions in the rest of the OECD for many years. In this sense, Chile entered the crisis unlevered and with sound demographic fundamentals which precisely gives the economy the ability to reach escape velocity and quickly resume positive output growth. As a backdrop it is exactly this pulling power which many economies in the OECD don't have which again means that for us to find a solution to this we have to find a way to export our way out of trouble but since this is not possible for everyone at the same time it does represent us with a unique challenge.
This is not the case however in Chile where the economy expanded at a heaty pace of 11.3% and 13.7% in Q4-09 and Q1-10 respectively (yoy), numbers which are bound to be considerably lower going forward especially since the effect of the earthquake in February will cast a shadow over Q1 GDP figures which may still be revised down considerably once the full effect has been factored in. The alternative is that the effect will be moved forward into Q2 numbers, but this is ultimately an accounting question.
Moving closer to real time developments the main activity index (the IMACEC) indicates a steady and ongoing expansion of Chile's economy even after the blip which occurred as a result of the earthquake (showing up in the March reading as it happened in end February).
In May, the IMACEC stood at 130.9 (2003 = 100) which is the strongest reading in the index' history and further encouragement has also come from the fact that May was the first month in which industrial production showed a proper increase on an annual basis after having moved sideways in Q1-2010; industrial production expanded 3.3% on the year. This points to an economy on a strong footing although some might note that at this pace and with the headwinds currently facing the global edifice the only way from here is down. I would agree in the main here as Chile may well give back some of the fine H01-10 performance as we move into H02-10 but Chile should be able to stand its ground and will expand at a healthy clip in 2010.
This view is supported by recent upward adjustment of economic expectations across the board even if the current expectations of continuing interest rate tightening may be overdone.
Regards, the evolution of GDP in 2010 the expectations remains fixed at around 4.5% to 4.8% which is around trend output according to the central bank's estimations. The 4.25% target for the monetary policy rate in 12 months implies a steep tightening schedule from the current level of 1.5% and many analysts have voiced caution that interest rate will climb this much in a 12 month horizon. This view reflects both the fact that the central bank may be too linear in the way it has set its 12 month target interest rate as well as it reflects the market's perception that appreciation of the Peso may become an issue as the yield advantage of Chile increases relative to the USD and Euro.
Strong Fundamentals
So, I am arguing that Chile is doing fine and that she is likely to continue the recent impressive expansion which is likely to put Chile even more at odds with what is expected to be a slowdown in the developed world. However, do the fundamentals back this?
Indeed they do and the focus should be on two aspects; demographics and a sound management of copper windfall.
If we begin with the former there are naturally many ways to spin a story on the graph below.
One could for example point to the fact that the population share of 20-49 is peaking right at this moment and is set to decline hereafter which means that Chile might just be running on the last fumes of full capacity. But this would be missing the big picture I think. In this sense, I think the main point to take away here is the remarkable stability of the population share aged 35-54 throughout the next 40 years (estimated of course, but we are fairly sure that this fits unless we get some kind of exogenous shock). I am emphasizing this because this particular age group has been found [1] to correlate well with GDP per capita levels and growth. The key to Chile's relatively stabile demographic trajectory is to be found in a very favorable demographic transition (at least when it comes to economic growth). Consider then that from 1983 to 2009 fertility in Chile decline from 2.5 children per women to around 2 in 2009. This trajectory is actually what one would expect if applying basic transition theory, but in the real world only a few economies have made the transition to achieve a somewhat stabile level at replacement fertility. The general rule is that fertility undershoots replacement level and has mighty difficulties recovering if at all.
This, more than anything, makes Chile stand out and as an emerging economy turning developed this aspect of the Chile's economy and thus the absense of a very quick and steep fertility transition is, to me, a key reason for Chile's success.
Another reason for Chile's strong economic performance is its copper reserves but more than anything the proper management of this to avoid dutch disease and to build up a strong fiscal position and indeed a sovereign wealth fund in which large chunks of the copper windfall has been stashed away. Naturally, this does not make Chile less dependent on copper as such, but it means that the economy has been able to avoid adverse effects from the volatility in growth that often comes from relying on commodities for revenue (and growth). In numbers, Chile has historically aimed at an annual fiscal surplus of 0.5%/GDP to act as a counterweight to the incoming copper revenues. Between 1996 and 2006, Chile's public balance averaged 1.5% of GDP a position much better than that held by its peers in East Asia and Latin America. From 2005 to 2007 the structural surplus as a percentage of GDP was 1% and around 0.5% in 2008. However, the pure fiscal surplus, in 2008, as a percentage share of GDP stood at 8.1% which is quite extraordinary on any measure. Although the crisis and the earthquake are sure to have made a dent in these impressive figures the fact remains that on a gross basis Chile's government debt remains very low (6% of GDP in 2009 and 2010) whereas the net debt level is firmly negative (i.e. book value of financial assets exceed that of financial liabilities).
Upwards and Onwards
Does this mean then that there is nothing stopping Chile? Actually, yes.
A renewed severe global slowdown or even a relapse into the financial crisis as well as continuing uncertainty surrounding Chinese momentum and thus copper prices are all factors that could derail Chile's economy in some way or the other. However, it is fair to assume that in the event of an external shock Chile should fall less and rebound more strongly than many other economies and this means that Chile is likely to perform well in relative fashion.
Certainly, I don't want to come of off as complacent but looking at the evidence before and with the qualifier that Chile is not hit by a surge of severe earthquakes (which of course will accumulate in the loss of output) I really cannot see where the stumbling block lies for Chile. In this sense it seems, for now, to be steady as she goes in Chile.
[1] – See this for example.
Originally published at Global Economy Matters and reproduced here with the author's permission.


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A large travel cribbage bag with a bron lines pattern and toggle closure.
Fits our travel folding boards up to 9" in length (folded) and other boards up to 9.5 inches long and 6.5 inches wide.
This bag is made of tapestry material, lined with black material and double stitched for strength.
It has a sliding / locking toggle closure.
Each bag comes with a new deck of Bicycle playing cards and includes shipping in the US.
You will receive the actual bag pictured!
Boards featured in any of the photos are not included.


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Fractal Properties
Why study fractals? Making fractals
Fractal Properties
For Teachers
Fractals on the Web
Other Math Lessons
Why study fractals?
Making fractals
Fractal Properties
For Teachers
Fractals on the Web
Other Math Lessons
Fractals are often formed by what is called an iterative process. Here's what I mean.
To make a fractal: Take a familiar geometric figure (a triangle or line segment, for example) and operate on it so that the new figure is more "complicated" in a special way.
Then in the same way, operate on that resulting figure, and get an even more complicated figure.
Now operate on that resulting figure in the same way and get an even more complicated figure.
Do it again and again...and again. In fact, you have to think of doing it infinitely many times.
Not every iterative process produces a fractal. Take a line segment and chop off the end. What is the resulting figure? Just another line segment - not "complicated" at all, and not a fractal. You could continue the iterative process over and over, chopping off the end of the line segment, but it would just become a shorter and shorter line segment, not "complicated", not fractal.
Below is a picture of a similar iterative operation that is fractal. Take a line segment (see below) and remove the middle third. What is the resulting figure? Hmmm. That's a more complicated figure. It's a line segment with a hole in it.
Repeat the process on that figure. In other words, remove the middle third of both of those sections. This produces an even more complicated figure. Now think of doing this infinitely many times. In fact, this is a famous fractal called Cantor Dust.
You may obtain a print version of this page.
URL http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/fractals/iter.html
Copyright 1997-2007 Cynthia Lanius


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Register with the Service Directory Protocol (SDP) Server
The SDP server is an integral part of a Bluetooth system. Services register with the local SDP; remote devices query the SDP to find out how to connect to particular services. In our example, we're going to register the HSP service.
BlueZ provides a tool for communicating with local and remote SDP servers: sdptool. To view the list of services offered by your machine, run this command:
dptool browse local. We can use this command to determine whether our program has correctly registered with the SDP server. Here's output from my SDP server:
Browsing FF:FF:FF:00:00:00 ... Service Name: Headset Audio Gateway Service RecHandle: 0x10000 Service Class ID List: "Headset Audio Gateway" (0x1112) "Generic Audio" (0x1203) Protocol Descriptor List: "L2CAP" (0x0100) "RFCOMM" (0x0003) Channel: 12 Profile Descriptor List: "Headset" (0x1108) Version: 0x0102 Service Name: Hands-Free Audio Gateway Service RecHandle: 0x10001 Service Class ID List: "Handsfree Audio Gateway" (0x111f) "Generic Audio" (0x1203) Protocol Descriptor List: "L2CAP" (0x0100) "RFCOMM" (0x0003) Channel: 13 Profile Descriptor List: "Handsfree" (0x111e) Version: 0x0105
Notice that the first two entries reference headset and hands-free; those services need to be disabled so they don't interfere with our program. On my machine, I had to modify
/etc/Bluetooth/audio.conf. Under the
[General] section, add this line:
After modifying the config file, restart Bluetooth by running
sudo service Bluetooth restart, and check that the SDP server no longer has references to the headset or hands-free profiles.
The next piece of code, Listing Two, shows how to register the the headset (HS) side of the headset profile. The code is largely borrowed from two sources I found on the Web.
Listing Two
#include "btinclude.h" // source adapted from: // http://people.csail.mit.edu/albert/bluez-intro/x604.html and // http://nohands.sourceforge.net/source.html (libhfp/hfp.cpp: SdpRegister) uint8_t channel = 3; int main() { const char *service_name = "HSP service"; const char *service_dsc = "HSP"; const char *service_prov = "nebland software, LLC"; uuid_t hs_uuid, ga_uuid; sdp_profile_desc_t desc; uuid_t root_uuid, l2cap_uuid, rfcomm_uuid; sdp_list_t *l2cap_list = 0, *rfcomm_list = 0, *root_list = 0, *proto_list = 0, *access_proto_list = 0; sdp_data_t *channel_d = 0; int err = 0; sdp_session_t *session = 0; sdp_record_t *record = sdp_record_alloc(); // set the name, provider, and description sdp_set_info_attr(record, service_name, service_prov, service_dsc); // service class ID (HEADSET) sdp_uuid16_create(&hs_uuid, HEADSET_SVCLASS_ID); if (!(root_list = sdp_list_append(0, &hs_uuid))) return -1; sdp_uuid16_create(&ga_uuid, GENERIC_AUDIO_SVCLASS_ID); if (!(root_list = sdp_list_append(root_list, &ga_uuid))) return -1; if (sdp_set_service_classes(record, root_list) < 0) return -1; sdp_list_free(root_list, 0); root_list = 0; // make the service record publicly browsable sdp_uuid16_create(&root_uuid, PUBLIC_BROWSE_GROUP); root_list = sdp_list_append(0, &root_uuid); sdp_set_browse_groups( record, root_list ); // set l2cap information sdp_uuid16_create(&l2cap_uuid, L2CAP_UUID); l2cap_list = sdp_list_append( 0, &l2cap_uuid ); proto_list = sdp_list_append( 0, l2cap_list ); // set rfcomm information sdp_uuid16_create(&rfcomm_uuid, RFCOMM_UUID); channel_d = sdp_data_alloc(SDP_UINT8, &channel); rfcomm_list = sdp_list_append( 0, &rfcomm_uuid ); sdp_list_append( rfcomm_list, channel_d ); sdp_list_append( proto_list, rfcomm_list ); // attach protocol information to service record access_proto_list = sdp_list_append( 0, proto_list ); sdp_set_access_protos( record, access_proto_list ); sdp_uuid16_create(&desc.uuid, HEADSET_PROFILE_ID); // set the version to 1.0 desc.version = 0x0100; if (!(root_list = sdp_list_append(NULL, &desc))) return -1; if (sdp_set_profile_descs(record, root_list) < 0) return -1; // connect to the local SDP server and register the service record session = sdp_connect( BDADDR_ANY, BDADDR_LOCAL, SDP_RETRY_IF_BUSY ); err = sdp_record_register(session, record, 0); // cleanup sdp_data_free( channel_d ); sdp_list_free( l2cap_list, 0 ); sdp_list_free( rfcomm_list, 0 ); sdp_list_free( root_list, 0 ); sdp_list_free( access_proto_list, 0 ); while (1) sleep(5000); return err; }
The code essentially builds lists of values that are registered with the SDP server. The constants used in the code, like
HEADSET_SVCCLASS_ID and
GENERIC_AUDIO_SVC_CLASS_ID, are defined specifically from the HSP profile. The values for the headset side of the profile are listed on page 220 of the HSP profile document. Page 221 lists the values for the audio gateway side of the profile.
When a Bluetooth program exits, any services registered with the SDP server are removed. The test program waits in an infinite loop so you can run sdptool and verify that the service is indeed registered. Here's what the service should look like when you run the sdptool command:
Service Name: HSP service Service Description: HSP Service Provider: nebland software, LLC Service RecHandle: 0x10003 Service Class ID List: "Headset" (0x1108) "Generic Audio" (0x1203) Protocol Descriptor List: "L2CAP" (0x0100) "RFCOMM" (0x0003) Channel: 3 Profile Descriptor List: "Headset" (0x1108) Version: 0x0100
The SDP code registers a specific profile with the SDP server. Besides describing the profile that our service provides (HSP in this example), the code also tells the service what RFCOMM channel we will accept connections on. Remote devices that want to use our HSP service will query the SDP server and extract the channel that we registered. When a connection to our service is initiated, the remote device will connect to channel 3.
You might notice that the SDP record is missing the optional parameter that specifies whether remote volume control is supported. It seems that
sdp_attr_add or
sdp_attr_add_new could be used to add a value for the constant
SDP_ATTR_REMOTE_AUDIO_VOLUME_CONTROL to the SDP record, but it didn't seem to work. At least, when I added the parameter, it did not show up in the listing produced by sdptool.
Listening for RFCOMM Connections
When a device initiates an HSP connection, the first connection created between the devices is through RFCOMM. As long as this connection is active, the headset can assume that the audio gateway will, at any moment, initiate a SCO connection. SCO connections are covered shortly.
The code in Listing Three creates a RFCOMM socket and listens for connections on channel 3.
Listing Three
#include "btinclude.h" uint8_t channel = 3; int main() { int sock; // socket descriptor for local listener int client; // socket descriptor for remote client unsigned int len = sizeof(struct sockaddr_rc); struct sockaddr_rc remote; // local rfcomm socket address struct sockaddr_rc local; // remote rfcomm socket address char pszremote[18]; // initialize a bluetooth socket sock = socket(AF_BLUETOOTH, SOCK_STREAM, BTPROTO_RFCOMM); local.rc_family = AF_BLUETOOTH; // TODO: change this to a local address if you know what // address to use local.rc_bdaddr = *BDADDR_ANY; local.rc_channel = channel; // bind the socket to a bluetooth device if (bind(sock, (struct sockaddr *)&local, sizeof(struct sockaddr_rc)) < 0) return -1; // set the listening queue length if (listen(sock, 1) < 0) return -1; printf("accepting connections on channel: %d\n", channel); // accept incoming connections; this is a blocking call client = accept(sock, (struct sockaddr *)&remote, &len); ba2str(&remote.rc_bdaddr, pszremote); printf("received connection from: %s\n", pszremote); return 0; }
If you're familiar with BSD-style socket programming, this example should look very familiar. If not, here are the basic steps:
- Create a socket: line 17
- Set the Bluetooth address and channel number: lines 23, and 24. If you want to use a specific Bluetooth device, use the
str2ba(...)function to convert the string to a
bdaddr_t. For exmaple:
str2ba("00:11:22:33:44:55:66", &local.rc_bdaddr);
- Bind the socket to the address and channel: line 27
- Set the number of clients to queue up to wait for a connection handshake (additional clients will be refused): 35
- Wait for/accept client connections: line 42
A successful call to accept will return a full duplex socket descriptor. The functions
send and
recv should be used to send data to, and receive data from the remote device. This connection is used to exchange AT commands.
The AT commands and formats for HSP are defined starting on page 215 of the document. Various actions initiated on the handset, like adjusting the volume, will generate an AT command, telling our program of the event. Our program responds to the event by printing out the command and returning the AT OK command. In a real implementation, the service should adjust the hardware (turn the volume down, for example) as requested by the remote client.


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Board of Estimates
The Baltimore City Board of Estimates was created by the new 1898 municipal charter, and its first meeting was held on March 20, 1900. The composition of the board and its duties have changed over the years, but its three main functions – to prepare the annual budget, oversee the city's income and expenditures, and regulate the use of city property – have remained the same.
The Records of the Board of Estimates at the Baltimore City Archives exist only on microfilm some of which is available online for the public and some of which needs to be viewed on an internal viewer at either the Baltimore City Archives or the Maryland State Archives.
The major function of the Board of Estimates each year is to prepare the city's budget, known as the ordinance of estimates. To do this the board receives information on each department's anticipated expenses (these official records of appropriations are in series 5). The board also estimates the amounts needed for capital improvements and previously committed by law or by contract and also gathers information on the city's anticipated income from licenses, fees, rents, and taxes.
Once the budget is prepared the board's main activity is to oversee spending; the record of this activity is its minutes (series 1) and administrative files (series 3).
Other controls on spending by the board include the power to increase and decrease salaries and to control the contingent fund, a fund used to cover unexpected expenses. Requests for use of this fund are passed on by the board. Information on these requests is in the minutes (series 1) and the administrative files (series 3).
The last major responsibility of the Board of Estimates is control over the use of city-owned property. The board grants franchises or the right to use streets, highways, sidewalks, wharves, or any city property. "Minor privileges" to use city property are recorded in the minutes (series 1).
For more information see the city charters for 1898, 1918, 1946, and 1964. See also Frederick P. Stieff's, The Government of a Great American City (Baltimore: H. G. Roebuck and Son, 1935), pp. 84-90 and Jacob H. Hollander, The Financial History of Baltimore (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1899), pp. 360-61, 363-64.


text:
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text:
DeKALB – Beatriz Anabell Rodriguez Zelaya feels scared and ill-prepared ahead of her college graduation in May, so she attended a workshop Monday to make sure issues are resolved for future students.
Zelaya, an international graduate student, was one of 84 people who attended Northern Illinois University's Bold Futures Workshop on Monday. She listed many concerns about using what she has learned at NIU in her homeland of El Salvador and suggested the university enact peer mentoring and faculty mentoring programs for international students.
"The idea of coming here, you're afraid of being rejected because you feel like you don't belong," Zelaya said. "You don't have skills to interact [with other NIU students] because you're international."
Zelaya shared her ideas Monday during the workshop, which also examined student retention rates and NIU's financial situation. The six-day workshop invited current students, alumni, staff, community and faculty members to come up with ideas to better the university.
Northern Illinois University will hold another six-day session for new participants from Friday through Wednesday. NIU students, faculty, staff and alumni, as well as community members are welcome to participate. They can register at: http://registeruo.niu.edu/iebms/wbe/wbe_p1_main.aspx?oc=40&cc=WBE4013479
The Bold Futures workshops will culminate in the Big Bold Event at 5 p.m. April 24 in the Holmes Student Center's Duke Ellington Ballroom, 340 Carroll Avenue, DeKalb.
As participants discussed Monday, retention rates at NIU need to improve. Statistics show only 66 percent of freshman students from the 2012-13 school year returned as sophomores this school year.
Financial help from the state is also harder to come by: Direct state support has dropped 15 percent, with most of that decrease coming since 2009, according to a video presentation by Nancy Suttenfield, NIU interim chief financial officer. Money NIU gets from the
state also is going toward funding for faculty pensions.
"We're not going to see this turn around," said NIU President Doug Baker. "That means our revenue source is going to have to be us."
The university relies heavily on tuition and fees for its revenue, which makes enrollment a primary concern. NIU's peak enrollment in recent years was in 2003. A chart shown during the workshop Monday projected enrollment in 2015 would be 81.5 percent what it was in 2003.
Workshop participants offered many solutions to improve student retention, including better
Connecting students and alumni through social media, reaching out to those on academic probation, creating internship opportunities with alumni, and establishing retention scholarships for freshman and sophomores.
The workshop initiative is part of Baker's effort to improve the university and improve student experience. Another one of those efforts, the master-plan thesis, details multiple ideas such as renovating John and Locust streets and adding an electric bus service to reduce time spent walking to class.
Another plan that has been discussed by NIU and city leaders is about improving the area on Lincoln Highway between downtown DeKalb and the campus. But at least one DeKalb homeowner, Michael Haji-Sheikh, said he felt residents had been left out of the loop.
Haji-Sheikh lives in Ward 5, which includes the homes to the east of the campus. He said the neighborhood has worked for 10 years with the city on an improvement plan. Now, NIU wants to implement their own ideas that could lead to removing as many as half of the homes in the area without talking to homeowners, Haji-Sheikh said.
"We don't want to throw a new plan on top of us after 10 years of work," he said. "If they want their idea, they have to sit down with us."
Baker said the university will reach out to residents in Ward 5 as their plan progresses.
Alberta Solfisburg, who works with the NIU Foundation, came up with the idea to establish scholarships for freshmen and sophomores, saying there are more scholarships available to juniors and seniors.
Solfisburg said the older alumni she regularly works with are excited about Baker's vision.
"I wanted to learn and participate as much as possible, because I interact with the alumni," she said. "They want to hear about what's happening [with the university] and how it has grown."


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I am organizing a trip to hike Hawkins Peak and Pickett Peak south of Lake Tahoe near Luther Pass.
We understand that Burnside Road is dirt Forest Service Road. We want to know the conditions.
1) Can a 2WD low-clearance vehicle make it up the road?
2) If so, how far up the road before it turns too rough?
Our plan is to drive up to Pickett Peak Road, about 3 miles up, and park.


text:
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Need Help with Network Weaver Handbook
As you may know, I've been working on a Network Weaver Handbook for some time now. I've got almost 100 pages of activities and stories that you will be able to use with your networks, and I think it will end up around 200 pages before I'm through.
But right now, I need your help!
I have loaded the Table of Contents in a google doc and hope you will click on the link to the page, then add comments, questions, edits, etc. Here are some questions:
1. Which part looks most interesting or exciting to you?
2. What is missing that you would like to see included?
3. What is included that you don't think is that important?
Thanks so much for working with me on this!
4 comments:
- Tim Kastelle said...
This looks great June! In general, the structure looks pretty good to me. I have two suggestions. First, it seems to me that section 2.3 Why Networks? seems to be a better fit in the Chapter 1. The material might make more sense where it is, but the topics that you list all seem like they are part of building a compelling case for networks and so should be closer to the front.
Second, starting at about Chapter 4, the section titles get fairly telegraphic. This is probably about the point that you've gotten up to in writing it, but I think it would help to have these fleshed out a bit.
But overall, I'm excited to see it once it's done!
- June Holley said...
Thanks, Tim! Good point - totally will shift that around.
You're also right that I haven't dug as deeply into later parts - wanted to get feedback first. But I'll be adding more detail later this week.
- kristin wolff said...
I'm with Tim (hi Tim, so funny that we recently became twitter buds and then I find you here - networks, right?) re: moving the why case up front. The other thing I wanted to share was a recent repeat performance of what happened in Oakland with the mental models/metaphors (in-the-tent, at-the-table, etc.) getting in the way. Suspect you will cover this and the table just doesn't get to that level of detail, but that whole idea of not making networks and other organizing stand in opposition to each other seems important. Network literacy as a construct? Anyway, this looks fantastic. Happy St. Pat's Day.
- Sue Lang said...
As someone who has been working on nurturing a faith-based network I think your handbook will be a valuable contribution! I think the direction you are moving in with this resource is great!


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Every Muslim Child Matters: Practical Guidance for Schools and Children's Services
Maurice Irfan Coles
Trentham Books, 2008 - Education - 172 pages
Issues surrounding Islam have the potential to divide society but also to be a positive unifying force. How best can we respond effectively to the educational needs of Muslim children? How can extremism and Islamophobia be tackled?
This book provides: a rationale for change; guidance at a strategic level for authorities and schools; and suggestions for responding sensitively to, and helping raise the achievement of Muslim pupils
The chapters offer case studies and practical guidance on building a culturally inclusive curriculum, Islam and the Arts, Islam and the Sciences, and how to support schools in curriculum design and implementation. The final section features the authentic voice of young Muslims as they express their views on schools, on culture and on terrorism.
The book is designed for everyone involved in schools and children's services, and is an original and invaluable resource for dealing with tensions between groups, in schools and in the schools' communities. It is essential reading for everyone in education who wants to meet the needs of their Muslim students and help build a more cohesive society.
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Selling Photos Guide
If you believe photography is a costly hobby, you are correct, it can be. But that does not mean that you need pro-quality equipment to generate money from your own photos! Selling Photos Guide
In fact, if you've got a good phone camera along with a steady hand, you are already in with a shot.
However you get your clicks, you will find an increasing number of opportunities to monetise photos you have already taken. And when photography's already your luggage, there are heaps more ways to develop your skills, and income; from selling your Insta inventory to pulling a Brooklyn Beckham (famous parents optional).
You know the drill: read, learn, and give it a celebration for yourself!
If you've got a digital camera (or fancy picking up one for a steal), you'll have more options for selling pics to stock libraries, to websites for prints, or for print-on-demand products. This is because cameras will usually produce larger file photos (although some camera phones are trumping digi cams these days so this is not always the case).
Got a camera phone? A growing number of inventory libraries are catering for mobile snaps, and you still have a shot at the other biz ideas below. Keep reading!
It helps to have…
Some kind of editing software can help buff your pics for the best results, so it is worth sniffing out a decent package (and learning how to use it!) So you can earn more money with your photos.
Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop are industry standards for picture editing. But they cost dollars! Don't crack open your wallet until you've checked out the freebies:
- FastStone Image Viewer can open RAW files directly out of your digital camera and save them as JPG, TIFF or PNGs. OK for basic edits like color correction, straightening, cropping and contrast.
- Raw Therapee is a Lightroom-like editor with loads of resources for tweaking colours, curves and much more.
- PIXLR is a persuasive alternative to Photoshop, and even recognises the same shortcuts right out the bag. You can run it directly from a browser through the app at no cost.
- GIMP can do much of what Photoshop excels at, though some users reckon it is a more demanding learning curve.
- There are loads of phone editing apps to be had for free or a couple of pence, but Snapseed (iPhone, Android, free) always makes the best-of lists.
- Do not overlook the bloatware picture software bundled into your'puter, phone or laptop. Many can make light work of the fundamentals.
Selling Through Stock Libraries
Stock libraries buy'n' sell digital photos to use on websites, in books, on products as well as in ads, together with the photographer getting a cut of the sale every time.
Selling photographs through a stock site is a top way to surf passive income streams: you can upload a photo once and sell it over and over again, pretty much forever!
You may have to submit a choice of pics (and be accepted) before you can become a stock library contributor. After that, some sites will continue reviewing all your submissions, and will happily bounce any they don't think meet criteria.
What that means is you'll always have to be on the ball about picking your best shots. Do not get too hung up about rejections, however; combine a number of sites and post pics to them to find the best possible policy.
Which Websites Pay Most?
Swing by Alamy first. Their student contributor scheme gives you 100% of the sales price of your images for 2 years. Total win! Your uni will need to be part of this scheme, but loads of UK and US institutions are already on the books. Selling Photos Guide
Alamy reckons images typically sell for $90 (USD) each, but you might get anywhere from $20 to $500 depending what it's used for. If you are not a student, or your uni is not enrolled, the pay-out's still a fairly decent 50%. Selling phone pics through their Stockimo app (iStore only) provides you a 20% cut.
Other Websites to Check Out:
- Picfair has a twist: you decide to what extent your images sell for. Picfair then add 20% on top for their cut, but the sales price you set is what you get if your image sells.
- EyeEm: if Instagram and Alamy had a love child, this is what it would look like. EyeEm is a photo sharing website butif you want to earn more than'likes', you could also pimp your images through the marketplace. EyeEm split every sale with you 50/50, with photographs selling from $20-$250. EyeEm Bonus: regular how-to articles, themed missions run by big brands, plus you'll be able to upload pics via the web or phone.
- Foap is built around telephone photographers, with everything handled through the app (Android, iTunes, free). Foap sells pictures for $10 each and splits it 50/50, so you'll earn $5 per pic. They also run monthly Missions, where you are able to submit photos on a theme to be in with a chance of winning extra money and perks.
Big Name Websites
Dreamstime offer up to 60% for exclusives. How much your photo sells for also goes up the longer it is downloaded: newbie images begin at between $0.34 and $2.38 (USD). If you are shooting on a phone, begin with the free Dreamstime program (Android, iPhone).
IStock palms over 15% of a picture's sales price, but guarantee a bigger cut if you make the pic exclusive to the website. Photos typically sell for #7 or #20 a go, but the sort of license or subscription program the customer purchases determines how your slice is calculated.
Shutterstock coughs up $0.25 (USD) per sale on the most common subscription plans, but say you'll get a larger cut as your lifetime earnings pass different levels. To put that into context, once you've earned $10,000, you will be bumped up to the heady heights of 38 cents an image…
Playing the Stock (photo) Market
Earning money with stock photographs can involve a significant cash-in, but there are a few things worth bearing in mind…
- Stock photography is a numbers game: if you want sales, you will need to upload a great deal of quality pics to a number of sites.
- Photos of individuals are constantly in demand, but anybody you pap may want to sign a model release form to say they are OK with you with it (your inventory library will have template forms you can print, sign and publish ).
- Check the accounts terms! When will you get paid, and in what currency? What happens to your photos if you would like to cancel your account in the future?
- You often won't get a say in how clients use your photos, so in case you don't want your selfies turning up in advertisements for STDs or hemorrhoid ointment, do not upload'em!
- Sign-up for contributor newsletters, as they can clue you in on what sells, what to snap next, as well as how to improve your camera or editing skills.
- Add plenty of keywords when you upload your pictures. It helps people find (and hopefully buy!) your pics.
Selling Your Prints
There is loads of freedom in selling prints (i.e., printed copies of your photographs ). You decide what to shoot, who to sell to, and for how much and, like selling through stock libraries, it can be a nice little passive income earner.
Now, before you leg it down to Boots to batch publish your holiday snaps, there is a bit more to it. While you can run off photos on your home printer or at a high-street laboratory, better quality means greater profits! Selling Photos Guide
That means using a proper printing laboratory (one that excels in art or framed prints), opting for specialist paper, or even selling restricted or signed editions. Seems like a drag? Not necessarily; there is inspiration below to get you started.
Use a Photo Host
Photographer-friendly site hosts provide you with a secure place to store your digital pics, a portfolio (so you can show'em off) and purchasing tools (so you can sell prints, downloads and wall art).
They even take care of the printing and any postage every time you make a sale. Hashtag hallelujah, right?
But the big catch is, not only do they charge for hosting your site, they also take a cheeky cut from each sale — and that is not everyone's cup of cocoa! If you want to give it a whirl, look out for free 14-day trials until you pony up the cash: try Zenfolio or Smugmug.
Get Your Own Photo Shop
As an alternative, you can always get your own website or Etsy store and hang onto more of your gain!
Obtaining prints or gifts to market is also super easy; go for print-on-demand and you won't have to store some stock (or be out of pocket if you can't shift it!) .
Sell on Social Media Platforms
Eventually the social media giants will wise-up and begin letting us market photos and other content directly from our profiles.
But until then, have a tip from street photographer Daniel Arnold: he provided Instagram followers the chance to order prints from his feed and made $15k in a single day. Obviously it helps if you've already got a strong fanbase, but if you have talent (and the right hashtags) it is worth a shot!
The best thing about selling on social media is that you don't even need a website: your feed is your portfolio, and you've got a enormous potential audience!
Go print-on-demand
Print-on-demand is a brilliantly simple way to generate moolah from mouse mats, keyrings, t-shirts, bags, books and much more — often using zero set-up costs.
The actual beauty of print-on-demand is that while you may advertise a great deal of products, none of them really exist until someone buys'em — so there is no stock to store, lose, or fall over. Better still, there are websites out there that do all of the producing, printing and submitting for you, so all you've got to do is take the photographs!
Photo books
First stop: Blurb, the self-publishing publishing platform (learn how that all works here!) .
Blurb enables you to create photo books just by importing your Facebook or Insta images — and you can sell your final book on Blurb or Amazon.co.uk. You could also advertise books on your own website (if you've got one), but have Blurb/Amazon handle the payment. Easy! Selling Photos Guide
Gifts and Goodies
Turns out you can slap a photo on pretty much anything, from shower curtains to pet clothes and PJs; and you do not even need a glue gun to get started!
Most print-on-demand outfits let you upload your photos (or illustrations), choose which products you wish to sell them on, and give you a cut of the profits if they market.
- CafePress pays you 10% if your products sell in their market, but you can choose to have your very own online shop and add a mark-up into the price (which you get as your royalty) instead. It's free to set-up and run a shop, but CafePress take 10% of your royalties monthly, up to a $10 max.
- Zazzle lets you set your own royalty rate between 5% and 99 percent but, while it is tempting to dial it up to full whack, remember that your cut is added to the sales price: go OTT and you may find it harder to make sales.
- With Spreadshirt you may add a mark-up of $1 to $20 on items sold through the market, or you can open your own shop and catch 20% commission.
- Redbubble begins with a product base price and lets you add on a mark-up — the default is 20%, but you can tweak it as much as you'd like.
Running a print-on-demand shop is low-fuss and cheap — if you're happy with the occasional sale, it can be a nice way to generate money on the side for relatively little work.
The word from successful vendors is that, to earn proper bucks, you'll want to put in the hours (so just like a job, sadly). We're talking uploading plenty of photos or designs, getting the word out, and generally making an effort!
Go Freelance
Selling photos anonymously online is easy enough. But if you want to build a rep, get more glory or just have clients of your own, here are some tips to get started as a freelance photographer:
- Know your niche. When it's people, pets, food or something completely left-field, it is a lot easier to market yourself if your portfolio showcases what you do best.
- Take the time to learn your craft. You may get lucky selling stock in case you don't understand your aperture out of your elbow, but you can't afford to chance it when someone's paying you for wedding pics!
- Workout your rate and be sure it covers your time, your prices and leaves you a little on top for profit. And get insurance to your equipment!
- Give to photo events, parties or portraits for friends and family to build up a portfolio, and ask them to spread the word for you. Or hunt out your favourite bloggers and pitch them your pic ideas!
- Batter your social networking account with your best pics, let folk know you are available, and tell'em how to get in touch. Get cheeky and take alternative promo shots for brands, then label them to get noticed.
- Get in touch with picture editors at newspapers, magazines or websites and ask if you can submit photographs or pay local events.
- You might have more chance of getting adopted by Madonna than obtaining a press pass, but it's like a golden ticket which can get you into sports, fashion and other exclusive events. You will want to apply each time (or be a member of the National Union of Journalists) but, once you're in, you're going to get loads of saleable photo opps!
While everybody with an Insta account seems to reckon they're a pro photographer, the reality is that being a freelancer is probably the toughest route you can take.
You'll need a great deal of patience, perseverance, good shoes and decent pics — and you may well have to give away pictures for free when you first begin to get noticed. If you are in it for the career, do not quit. If you are in it for the money, get your game on with the other ideas on this page in the meantime!
Bonus Tips for Aspiring Photographers
- Carry your camera anyplace — and not just when you are doing something or going somewhere special. Loads of businesses and brands are after photos of everyday life and often it is the simple things that make the best pics — think streets, food (street food?) , facial expressions, family, pets, sports… anything!
- Back-up your best pics (or some you would hate to lose): keep copies on an external drive or in cloud storage (Dropbox gives you 2GB of space for free).
- Once you start getting sales, get to grips with tax and the freelancing fundamentals. It will save you stress in the long term, and can save you money on your tax invoice.
- You may not have the ability to sell photos should they include trademarked products, brands or perhaps specific buildings. Check out the terms with your stock library, or get the company involved and ask if you need permission to hawk your snaps.
- Don't just do the same-old or what everybody else is doing. Quirky, cute or weird is always in vogue. Amen to that! Selling Photos Guide


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^MsCarolyn^ wrote:Hath wrote:^MsCarolyn^ wrote:I'm in ... North America please.
Question though. Do you have a wager the same amount for all 6 games or can each game be a different amount?
Good question, I tried to make this as clear as possible:knighthawk wrote:everyone is required before their first turn on each game to wager 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 on each game. You must wager each number once and only once for all games in your set of games
But I could see how it could be confusing. Let's say you have games on 6 different maps, Doodle, North America, Classic, Europe, Australia, and Asia. You don't like your drop much in Doodle so you'd wager your *ONLY* 1 on that. Let's say you're not very good at Europe in general so you decide to wager your *ONLY* 2 on that...and so on. You have 1 of each number to wager and you must wager one of each number. If it's still not clear let me know.
Another way of thinking about it:
You have a 1 chip, 2 chip, 3 chip, etc. and get to "place" each one on a map. You get that chip back if you win.
Oh i'm no longer confussed but I totally didn't get that lol. So I play six games and I basically have to rank them 1 to 6? As opposed to if I liked three games I could bet 5 on all of them. And then 4 on one other and then the other two could be all 1 chip? Because that would still add up to 21 but depending on the drop and what i think i'd win on adverage it might be a safer bet for me? Especially if I consider my 1v1 odds to be 50/50?
Just a comment/question:p
Well the games aren't 1v1. They're 6 player games. This apparently was not very clear in the reading of the rules and I sincerely apologize for this. If you or anyone would like to withdraw or change their map now because you were thinking we would be playing 1v1 games I would completely understand.
Again my sincerest apologies for that oversight in the writing of the rules (I can't believe I did that... ) I feel like such a n00b.


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Sometimes—well, probably a lot of times—our research veers off into an unexpected direction. Usually its because we come across a person or a circumstance that is of interest.
My 3rd great-grandfather, Perry Simpson, married a woman named Margaret Fleet. I found her family quite interesting, even though she technically is not a blood relative.
After their marriage, they lived in Montgomery County, MD, but Margaret was originally from Washington, D.C, which is my own birthplace. Margaret can be found on the 1850, 1860, and 1870 census records in the 1st Ward of Washington D.C., a freed black woman before general emancipation came. By 1860 she had 7 children: Robert, Annett, Cora, Edward, Augustus, Willy and Mary. After those years, Margaret appeared in Montgomery County, MD with her new husband Perry Simpson.
This is the record that made me "turn left" (click image to enlarge):
I was fascinated by the fact that Mary's father's birthplace was "Mexico." Was this a fluke? Was he really Mexican? I started tracking this family through the available records. Although Margaret birthed many children before her marriage to Perry –9 according to the 1900 census—no known record documents a marriage to any other man.
In 1850, Margaret was a freed black woman in a city bursting with contradictions. Amid thousands of freed blacks living and working in the city, were enslaved "quasi-free" people, many of whom were working and living on their own while paying their masters monthly fees. Washington had been the site of an active slave trade, and a notorious slave pen making it an easy target for abolitionists looking to shame the young nation. In 1850, the slave trade was finally outlawed in D.C. During the next decade, events would continue to escalate around slavery, finally culminating in Civil War. In 1862, slavery itself was outlawed in the district creating a haven for thousands of enslaved people from the surrounding states. "First Freed: Washington D.C. in the Emancipation Era," edited by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis is a good book to read to understand what life was like for African-Americans in D.C. at that time.
Margaret had been fortunate; she came from a family of skilled artisans. Her father was Henry Fleet Jr., a freed black shoemaker from Georgetown, who learned the trade from his father, the senior Henry Fleet. Today, Georgetown is a mecca of white wealth and privilege, but it had historically been home to a thriving freed black community. Henry Fleet Sr. purchased his wife Ann and "5 or 6 children" and later freed them, something many skilled blacks were able to do if allowed by the slaveowner. Henry Fleet Sr. was doing well enough that several boys were apprenticed to him in the early 1800s to learn the trade of shoemaking. An 1803 apprenticeship document notes that "He purchased his son Henry Jr. in 1812 and he is also a shoemaker.
In 1864, while living at K Street and 21st street, Margaret was assessed $25 in the brand new federal tax system as a "Retail Liquor Dealer". In 1870, Margaret is still in D.C., and her daughters Annie (living with her) and Cora living next door are both dressmakers. This would have been one of the best occupations for a freed blackwoman of that era. I wonder if they would have known Elizabeth Keckley, the freed black dressmaker for Mrs. Lincoln?
In that same 1870 census, Sarah Carter, Margaret's mother, is living with her and is 100 years old! Margaret also owns $1000 worth of real estate, no small feat for a black woman.
In 1873, Margaret opened an account with the Washington D.C. branch of the Freedmen's Bank, naming her new husband Perry and her children:
Her sons Robert (a policeman) and Edward also opened accounts. Most of Margaret's children can be tracked through their marriages, vital and land records and city directories in D.C. The death certificate of her daughter Annett names a "Greg Jarvis" as her father. That man, Greg Jarvis, appears in the 1850 and 1860 Washington D.C. census also living in the 1st Ward. By 1860 he is married with children:
In these records, Jarvis is shown as being from Mexico and also New Mexico–it was probably the Territory of New Mexico (it was not a state yet). The Mexican War had just been ended by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the country was also reeling from the recent Compromise of 1850. I wonder what would have brought him East?
Jarvis also went from being a "mulatto" in 1850 to being "white" with an Irish wife in 1860. So what his racial background is exactly we can't quite tell. This man appears to be heading two families, at least for awhile: one black, one white. It is unknown whether he fathered all of the children of Margaret Fleet, but documents tie him to at least 3 of her children.
A mortgage executed in Montgomery County in 1911 noted Margaret's date of death and listed all of her heirs living at the time, who had inherited her land:
"Edward G. Fleet, Sr. & wife Lucinda William Fleet & his wife Blossie, Mary Fleet, widow Harry Fleet, unmarried, Anna Grant, widow Cora Lemos, widow Augustus Fleet & his wife Sarah, Mary Lemos & her husband Beverly"
Margaret, amazingly, lived into her early 90s, long enough to leave a death certificate:
Margaret's life was pretty interesting and only goes to prove that sometimes veering off-course is absolutely well worth it.


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Bold wire saw project with SpeedCut
Bohus Bergsprängning has created a 22-meter deep shaft and a 7-meter long cross tunnel in Röda Sten in Gothenburg. The shaft was made entirely without blasting, instead using a wire saw from Atlas Copco.
June 10, 2016
Performance-improvement and cost saving challenges within the drilling industry have never been greater. On the job safety is critical and any operation trying to remain competitive in today's market needs innovative solutions to ensure contracts are completed economically and on time.
Service de Forage Orbit-Garant Drilling is one of the largest Canadian-based drilling companies. They provide both surface and underground drilling services in Canada and internationally, operate 185 drilling rigs, employ approximately 900 employees and train their own people. Service de Forage Orbit-Garant Drilling turned to Atlas Copco when they were looking to improve on safety, and cut back on downtime.
"They saw the problems that we were facing with the old technology and they came up with solution."
The main challenge is labour. We have to train our own people because of the shortage and the booming industry," said Jacques Proulx, Service de Orbit-Garant's Operation General Manager. Young workers often lack the hands-on experience of seasoned diamond drillers and are unable to manage onsite repairs.
"Excore products have made life on the job easier for everyone, even veteran drillers who are sometimes resistant to change are extremely pleased. "This product doesn't slow production. You are always moving forward," said driller. "The back end never needs any maintenance, and its design makes it less complicated to fix. It never lets go when you drill." In both surface and underground applications, Service de Forage Orbit- Garant has drilled more than 12,000 meters without having to make any repairs or change any parts. The new auto-safe overshot, is not only far safer but more efficient. The product has simplified the drilling process and provided peace of mind to a company that puts the safety of its workers first. "Where the Excore is right now, I don't have any safety issues, nothing. And the production went higher," said Ronald Thibault, noting new drillers are benefiting by learning the job from the outset with safe and easy-to-maintain products. Jaques Proulx attributes the success of the Excore product line to Atlas Copco's ability to listen and interact with its customers. "When they're close to the customer like they are with us, they're frequently coming to our sites and they ask questions about how they can improve," he said. In the end, Service de Forage Orbit-Garant says the Excore products will help protect its workers, reduce per-metre drilling costs and save its customers money by making the company more competitive when it comes to bidding. Daniel admits that introducing new products to a fleet of 185 drills is a major undertaking. But he says the move is a proactive step that will help Service de Forage Orbit-Garant remain competitive in a fragmented market.
"Where the Excore is right now, I don't have any safety issues, nothing. And the production went higher."