text:
Smile Again Denture Cleaner
Using patented technology, Smile Again Denture Cleaner cleans and disinfects your full and partial dentures while removing tough stains. It's also great for night guards and retainers. This mint flavored 6 month supply of concentrated denture cleaner comes in easy-to-use individual packets that are great for traveling or for convenient use at home. Safely and effectively remove tartar, calcium, calculus, iron stains and pesky tobacco and coffee stains without damaging your dentures!
$29.00 each
Click here to find an international seller
100% Satisfaction Guarantee
All products purchased from the TheraBreath website are backed by a 100% Money-Back Guarantee.
Shop With Confidence!
Product Details
Three independent studies show that Smile Again kills germs frequently found on dentures and other dental appliances.
Dentures containing soft liners should not be soaked for more than twenty minutes. Not recommended for use on partials fabricated from Ticonium(R) alloy.
|Item Code:
|30-Day Money Back Guarantee
|22 .25oz packets (6 month supply)
|1 Smile Again Denture Cleaner
|Potassium peroxymonopersulfate, Sodium benzoic acid, Citric acid, Potassium bisulphate, Magnesium carbonate, Potassium sulphate, Peppermint extract, Potassium peroxydisulphate, Sucrose
|Does not Contain:
Stir contents of one packet into one cup of warm water (not hot). Let solution stand three minutes. Solution lasts seven to ten days.
Soak denture, partial or orthodontic appliance for twenty minutes daily. Extremely soiled denture (without a soft reline) can be soaked overnight.
Remove loose particles with a soft brush. Rinse thoroughly under running water.
|"Best Oral care products available."
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text:
Get dining news including restaurant closures and qualify for giveaways.
Arirang is a Korean Restaurant serving hot pot and other authentic Korean dishes.
I drove by this place with it's steamed up windows and noticed it was new. I had to try it. The prices are very reasonable but I recommend ordering the individual meals as they include more banchan. When I went there were mainly Korean patrons which is a good sign. I ordered a seafood and noodle in spicy soup. It was very reasonable but in my opinion I would have rather paid more for better quality ingredients. I found the mushrooms were past their prime and were obviously bruised and browning. The seafood was that cheap frozen mixed assorted seafood pack. I hate those small shell-less mussels. I would have preferred if they had used higher quality frozen seafood. In fact the soup didn't have much of a seafood flavour. The soup wasn't as spicy either. The best part of the meal were the noodles, they were al dente and perhaps freshly handmade they were tasty. The few banchan served were decent as well. It's a nice husband and wife cooking and running the place, I might return I just wouldn't have the assorted seafood.
I love going to this Hot Pot place for good and fresh food, you really get your money's worth, the soup base is good, you can choose 2 soup bases, not that oily and not too spicy.
They have a wonderful variety of everything from meat to seafood, and vegetables. Everything is fresh, the restaurant is small but very clean, and I especially like the service, the servers are prompt and attentive. My favorite dishes is always come ontime and make me happy when have dinner here. I always leave happy and satisfied,it definitely one of my favorite restaurants for hot pot!
|Elvis Pizza (4 m)
|K Pop Karaoke Restaurant (13 m)
|Mek's Delight (26 m)
|Sabai Thai Restaurant (122 m)
|COBS Bread (265 m)
|Cupcakes at Guildford (324 m)
|Curry Express (324 m)
|Kung Pao Wok (324 m)
|Subway (324 m)
|Bourbon Street Grill (324 m)

subset: commoncrawl


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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Former Penn State All-America end Dave Robinson has been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2013. The announcement was made Feb. 2 in New Orleans, site of Super Bowl XLVII.
Robinson will become the sixth member of the Penn State Football family to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, joining Jack Ham, Franco Harris, August Michalske, Lenny Moore and Mike Munchak. Munchak, head coach of the Tennessee Titans, was Penn State's last inductee, in 2001.
The enshrinement ceremony is Aug. 3 in Canton, Ohio.
From Mount Laurel, N.J., Robinson was a first-team All-American for the Nittany Lions in 1962 and a three-year letterwinner under coach Rip Engle. He helped Penn State to a 24-8 record from 1960-62, including wins over Oregon in the 1960 Liberty Bowl and Georgia Tech in the 1961 Gator Bowl. An offensive and defensive end, Robinson was the MVP of the 1962 Gator Bowl, despite the Nittany Lions falling to Florida, 17-7 to complete a 9-2 season. He was inducted into the Gator Bowl Hall of Fame in 1996.
The Green Bay Packers and coach Vince Lombardi selected Robinson in the first round of the 1963 NFL Draft (14th overall selection) and he played linebacker 12 years in the NFL. He played with the Packers from 1963-72 and the Washington Redskins in 1973-74.
Robinson was selected to the Pro Bowl three times (1966-67, 1969) and twice earned Associated Press first-team All-Pro honors (1967, 1969) during his career in Green Bay. Robinson was a starter on teams that won three consecutive NFL Championships (1965-67) and Super Bowls I and II. He was named to the NFL's All-Decade Team of the 1960s. He intercepted 27 passes in his 12-year career.
Robinson, who resides in Akron, Ohio, was enshrined into the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in 1997. He was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1982.
Fans interested in attending attending the Aug. 3 Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony can purchase tickets at www.profootballhof.com.


text:
Total Voting Rights and Capital
In conformity with Section 5.6.1 of the Disclosure and Transparency Rules, the Company would like to notify the market of the following:
The Company's issued capital consists of 73,450,393 ordinary shares of 5p each with voting rights. Currently there are no shares held in Treasury.
Therefore the total number of voting rights in Harvey Nash Group plc is 73,450,393.
The above figure (73,450,393) may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculation by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change in their interest in, Harvey Nash Group plc under the FCA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.
Further information is available from:
Mark Garratt, Group Finance Director - 020 7333 0033
1 October 2018


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*pokes with a stick*
HEY! I am still around just randomly. I find my time decreasing steadily of late!
HELLO long time no see.
I got the Merry Christmas one from you and I replied I thought? You didnt get it?
did you get an interesting text a few days ago?
also hope your christmas was a good one!
please let me know where i could contact a hired hit, thanks
i miss talking to you! work must be ultra busy lately... :O
I didnt do it! blame snoop
your name will give me seizures eventually
lol thanks, I guess now we will find out if I can remember how to do this job.


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Doing the Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work
DDJ: You once wrote, "We're told: Always put checks in, always look for exceptions, always handle the most general case, always give the best user advice, always print a meaningful error message, always this, always that. There are so many things in the background that you're supposed to do that there's no room left to think. I say forget all that and ask yourself, 'What's the simplest thing that could possibly work?'" But in many ways those voices that you suggest holding in abeyance keep us from writing smelly code that generates debt that has to be resolved later on. Where is the balance between those two things?
Cunningham: Actually, there's a path where you get to address them both at the right time. If I've got a month to work on a project, I have to ask, "What am I going to do the first week?" In fact, when I go in there on the first day of the first week, I have to ask, "What am I going to do on the first day?" I have to be making progress everyday. But if you think about too many things at once, you get into this kind of fearful state.
Sometimes you have to consciously ignore things that you know you're going to have to do. And those could be things that you just always have to do. And they might be things that people have told you you're going to have to do. That ability to focus is critical. To do the simplest thing you know.
Long ago, Kent Beck and I would be talking over coffee about what we might or might not do. And we would look at each other and say, "Well, let's go see if we can do it." And we would run downstairs to our office and sit side by side at a Smalltalk machine and just start coding in it. And sometimes it just delivered. Other times we'd sit there and minutes would go by. More minutes would go by. We'd think, "Why is this hard?" "What are we missing?" And we would feel that there was something wrong in the system, but we had no idea where the next step was. And that's when I realized that we had to free ourselves from whatever we thought we were supposed to do. And I just asked the question, "What is the simplest thing that could possibly work?" And you drop whatever you thought the solution was to what you were trying to do, and you say, "Well, if you wanted to make it really simple, you would just return the right answer. Or just look it up in a table." Or something that would be embarrassing to have your colleagues look at it and see what you've done. But you know, you could say, "We could do that. Let's just do it. We've been wasting 45 minutes on this problem, and we could do that simple thing in one minute." And we'd see it work. And then as soon as we'd see it work, we'd think of three more things we could do, maybe other ways to solve that problem or three other problems that are related that we didn't even realize we had, but it was like a door swinging open. And on the other side of that door was just fun things to work with. And the fact that we would sit there banging our head against this door for 45 minutes and not reach down and turn the handle because we thought we would be embarrassed to have cheated that way.
DDJ: But eventually...
Cunningham: Of course, at the end of the day you have to say, "Have I made code that I can live with?"
How Many Design Patterns Are Enough?
DDJ: Patterns were the prime motivation in your original design of the wiki. It seems that one level there are far too many patterns. I think that most developers today who are familiar with the Gang of Four (GoF) patterns are familiar with a subset. I'm not sure that, for example, that everybody walks around knowing how to implement the interpreter pattern, for example. On the other hand, I see you developing a vast collection of patterns. To what extent should patterns be a part of a developer's life, and in answering that question, to what extent should the full set of 23 GoF patterns be an integral part of developers' lives?
Cunningham: Good question. You know, I said nice things about the Heads First Design Patterns book. And one thing that they did is they said, "These are the 12 patterns that everybody uses, and if you're working on a job, there are these words, and you'd better learn them. And we're going to make learning them easy." That was a recognition of the success of the original Design Patterns book. So the fact is, anymore, you don't even have to study that stuff. If you're just an everyday programmer, those words get kicked around so much that you'll learn them by association.
The impact of patterns hasn't been so much in the written form, but just the fact that people use the words effectively and fairly precisely. Maybe proxy is used too many ways. But the basic patterns have done their job. And then of course, you should ask, "What was that job?" And this is the thing that surprised me. The job was really to take C++, which was a fairly static language, and show people how to write dynamic programs in a static language. That's what most of the patterns in that book were about. And in the process, patterns extended the life of C++ by a decade, which is not what I thought would happen. What I thought would happen is people, when they learned these patterns, would look at them and say, "Wow, these patterns are hard in C++ and they're easy in Smalltalk. So if I want to think in terms of these patterns, I might as well use a language where they're easily expressed." And extend the life of Smalltalk by a decade. But the opposite happened.
I think the reason why the wiki is popular is because it's the first medium that disregarded that hierarchy. And it allowed people to contribute based on their own understanding of what was valuable.
The Wiki
DDJ: Well let's talk about one aspect of your work where I think you will admit the results of your work greatly exceeded your expectations: the wiki. What made it so successful?
Cunningham: I think that the thing I did right there was respect the people who would come that I didn't even know, who had no right to deserve my respect because I know nothing about them. But I would say, "Come on in and I'll trust you to contribute in good faith and to make your words a gift to this community." And we did. It was magical. I tell you I felt so good everyday. For the first couple of years I was on that thing for a few hours a day. This is the original wiki, which is about the programming, and I loved it. I will say that everyday that I spent hours on that wiki, I would say to myself, "I've got to stop doing this. I've got to focus on my business. I have work to do." Thank goodness I didn't bother to do that work and fiddled with wiki instead!
DDJ: It's astonishing that wikis haven't been corrupted. They haven't been turned into garbage dumps by people who like spending time doing those kind of things. It sort of reaffirms a little of one's faith in humanity.
Cunningham: There was the invention of wiki spam, and that made it a little less fun. What's going on there is you create something of value, and once it becomes valued, people give it attention. And the weakness of wiki is that it says, "Anybody gets the same access to that attention." So the more successful you are, the harder it is to be a wiki.
But let me switch back to why I think it worked. What we really did was say was the command and control hierarchical communications that we had to use in organizations wasn't necessary anymore. In fact, it was an impediment. It wasn't that it couldn't work. It was that it was unnecessary. And I think the reason why the wiki is popular is because it's the first medium that disregarded that hierarchy. And it allowed people to contribute based on their own understanding of what was valuable. And that has grown up with an understanding in organizational theory that you have to work that way. In fact, organizations are flattening left and right, and they might even say they're becoming more wiki.
DDJ: In terms of Wikipedia, would you be an deletionist or an inclusionist?
Cunningham: Oh boy, I don't know if I have an opinion. Because those terms actually emerged on my wiki and I'm not sure I had an opinion there. But we were counting the number of pages and it was kind of a special day when we passed 20,000 pages. And then someone said, "Gee, maybe that's about the right size. We don't want to be any bigger than 20,000 pages." And I thought that was a very interesting idea. And then some people said, "Well, it's now 20,100. Let's beat that 20,100 back to 20,000." And so I saw it as an experiment. There were plenty of tiny little pages that nobody ever read. I think I even made some tools to help people find them and they went and deleted them. And other people felt that anything that's written is worth keeping, and they were insulted by that. So then it became aggressive, and judgmental and I'm having a little trouble remembering how it all worked. But I do think that we get a lot of value out of focusing our attention. But I think the whole notion of, to think about Wikipedia, the whole notion of encyclopedic sort of says everything, doesn't it? It means broad.
DDJ: Even though I tend toward the inclusionist side, sometimes when I look up somebody and I go to a disambiguation page that contains 45 entries I wonder to myself whether we need to know about a non-medal swimmer on the 1948 Olympics team.
Cunningham: I think that Wikipedia has been handling that fairly well. We could talk to people who are a little closer to the day-to-day Wikipedia and they could probably even correct me on this, but I think the more important notion is notable. The community has to agree upon what the criterion of notability is, and that's only because, there are forms of abuse that arise from non-notable people feigning notability. And that's the fight. And once you start fighting that fight, you find all kinds of stuff that doesn't pass muster that wasn't hurting anybody. And you say, well, in the sense of fairness, I've got to delete it too. And that's a tough thing.
DDJ: What about a separate wiki for non-notables?
Cunningham: That would be a good thing. I do know there's a deletipedia or something like that, with everything that's ever been deleted from Wikipedia. So if you want to go see what's been removed, there you go. My solution is, it's easy enough to set up a site, so let's let everyone have their own wiki, and let the notables surface through kind of an evolutionary process.


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In Search of the Novel: Ten Novels
A Lesson Before Dying
by Ernest Gaines
In a rural Cajun community in 1940s Louisiana, a white shopkeeper had died during a robbery attempt. Jefferson, a young black man, is in jail awaiting execution for the murder he did not commit. A country schoolmaster, Grant Wiggins, understands that the verdict and the penalty were inevitable for any African American. Likewise, Wiggins finds that he is also deprived of liberty. Although university-educated, his ways are barred. He can find no better job than teaching in the small plantation church school. When visiting the house of a white person, African Americans must come in by the kitchen door. Custom and the law rigidly separate the races. He longs to leave Louisiana with his girlfriend, Vivian—to leave the antebellum attitudes persisting eighty years after the Civil War. However, Jeffersons grandmother, Miss Emma, pleads with Wiggins to teach her grandson pride and how to die as a man. During the ensuing weeks, both Wiggins and Jefferson learn lessons before dyinglessons about love, salvation, and their common humanity.
Before he is to be executed, Jefferson is instructed by the white sheriff to write in his journal that he has been treated fairly. The prisoner obeys, but fairness is far from reality in this Southern town in 1948. The wretched segregated jail that holds Jefferson is merely a miserable extension of the Jim Crow system that prevails outside and condemns all blacks. It is a system that, according to Carl Senna, will break down educated men like Grant and prisoners like Jefferson to the nigger you were born to be (Dying Like a Man: A Novel about Race and Dignity in the South, The New York Times Book Review, August 8, 1993, p. 21). The novel explores how any black man—the doomed, impoverished Jefferson or the college-educated teacher—can rise above that condemnation. It also dramatizes the social distances not only between white and black but also between Grant, the teacher, and Jefferson, the poor illiterate.
Web Sites
- Ernest Gaines
From the African American Book Club, biographical information and a link to a video interview.
- A Lesson Before Dying Teacher's Guide
Teacher's Guides to A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines from Random House Publishing.
- A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines
From the Vintage Books Reading Group Center, discussions, tips, and lesson plans for A Lesson Before Dying.


text:
Keep you and your family safe
Monitor your outdoor air with an air pollution monitor from PurpleAir.Buy Your Sensor Now
Thank you for reporting this station. We will review the data in question.
You are about to report this weather station for bad data. Please select the information that is incorrect.
-World Health Organization
very high risk of harm from unprotected sun exposure. Limit sun exposure to 8-20 minutes. Apply skin protection factor (SPF) 30+, wear protective clothing (hat and UV-A&B sunglasses), and avoid being in the sun between 10am to 4pm.


text: Welcome to my online art gallery. ABOUT MEI am a "boricua" from the enchanted island of Puerto Rico who began my photographic journey after hurricane Georges (1998) destroyed my home and all of my photographs along with it. I relocated to Florida, USA and decided to take my passion for photography to the next level, and enrolled in a course at the New York Institute of Photography where I pursued a career in Professional Photography.The course opened doors for me to work in several portrait studios, and on my free time I was drawn to interact with nature which became the focus of most of my work.My interests are, photography, nature, art, travel, and writing.*Hallmark winner "It's a Teen Thing" card competition (2010)The best part of what I do is connecting with people. Find me online and please share! Thanks!


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You have no items in your shopping cart.
Availability: In stock
A gorgeous blend of linen letters on a soft herringbone print background.
All cards must be purchased with hampers or flowers. Additional charges will apply if purchased separately.
This item in not available during Valentine's Day period (12 Feb - 15 Feb).
Please refer to Valentine's Day collection during these dates.
1 2 3 < 7 6


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The surface layer of every 1-strip board is sawn from a single piece of wood. The natural appearance of the wood, including knots, colour variations and grain, is reflected in this. However, for some of our 1-strip floor collections, we have selected wood that offers little variation in colour and a minimum of knots. Kährs 1-strip flooring is available in several different lengths and widths.
The surface layer is two strips' wide. The strips are selected and arranged to give each 2-strip floor its own unique character. Kährs' 2-strip flooring is available in two options: long strips, and short strips.
The surface layer of 3-strip flooring is created by placing three strips of wood of different lengths widthwise and at random. At Kährs, we produce 3-strip flooring configurations in a way that enhanceits lively expression, but we also create compositions that evoke a calmer feel.
Our shipsdecking floors are characterised by combining matching or contrasting strips. They also feature wood plugs at either end of each board. Our ships decking floor is delivered in whole boards.
Kährs Dutch pattern flooring is a classic floor that benefits from a modern construction. Kährs offers a wide variety of designs, from classical to modern.
Kährs Herringbone floor planks are laid in a distinctive V-shaped pattern. The pattern is called herringbone because it resembles the skeleton of a herring fish.


text:
The room was dark and we lay facing each other, toe to toe, so close I could feel his breath on my cheek. It was late and we were both tired from an exhausting week, but we needed this.
In the hush of pillow talk, he told me about a conversation with our son. I heard the uncertainty in his words, the way his sentences ended with a question mark. I listened to the voice of a father who loves deeply, but feels inadequate when he can't protect his children from hurt.
I whispered back reassuring words and reminded him he was enough. And then I gave voice to my concern over our daughters, my own self-doubt and mom guilt. I forced down a sob, when I said the words, "this parenting thing is so hard."
I felt like I couldn't breathe.
And so we did the only thing we could think of-the only thing that really works, we prayed for our children together and fell asleep with their names on our lips, tangled arms and legs, in this together.
We have great kids-there's no subliminal message here, but they are human and they push for freedom we aren't ready to give, they say things that hurt, they are wounded by friends and face discouragement and failure. So, basically, we're all a big human mess.
And we're navigating this journey together, sometimes it's loud and riveted with pain and it's always messy.
During a particularly challenging day in which my entire clan was angry at me, I felt like God dropped this truth in my heart and now I've got a death grip on it:
Hard parenting doesn't mean bad parenting. If often reflects good parenting.
Let's face it, we're sinners raising little sinners. That's a whole lot of flesh. Just because it's hard doesn't mean you're a bad parent. And sometimes when it gets hard, it's because they are fighting against us and ultimately God. And sometimes it's just plain hard because it's normal.
Hey you-yes you, that child who refuses to sleep and the one that sucks the very breath out of the room with her drama, that's normal.
Fight on, weary soldier.
And have some sweet tea.
I was talking to a good friend the other day who has her first foster child (added to her three biological). She was talking of the uncertainty of it all and the mountain of unknowns, the fear and doubt. She said her husband reminded her that this new foster baby was just like their kids–all their children belong to God. They are all His and we are only promised this moment with them.
Simple. Profound.
I tucked that truth right next to the other:
My kids belong to God. He uses their trials to work in them just like He uses mine.
And sometimes He uses this family thing to grow us all.


text:
Többre kíváncsi?
Kérdése van az IFS-sel vagy megoldásainkkal kapcsolatban?
Kapcsolat felvételi űrlapunk és helyi telefonszámaink megtalálhatóak a Kapcsolat oldalon.
You are visiting the Magyarország site. You might be interested in the United States site.
The IFS Heavy Maintenance solution covers major maintenance and overhaul activities on vehicles such as aircraft (fixed and rotary wing), vessels, submarines and complex land vehicles.
IFS Heavy Maintenance is a templated solution that supports the highest level of maintenance with capabilities of disassembling, inspecting, repairing, refurbishment, overhaul and restoration, all in a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) environment. Often the capabilities of the facility will include a repair station certificated under part 145 where off-wing repair and overhaul of individual components may also be performed. IFS Applications' support for facilities and equipment management can help your organization maintain a controlled facility where the work is being performed to ensure compliance with maintenance authorities.
Both service providers and operator need to agree on the contents of a maintenance visit including optimized packaging of visit planning and packaging and the inclusion of all maintenance and repair requirements. The work-scope order structure can be connected to a project structure allowing for project controls being used to maintain and contain the cost elements of the visit. The visit work-scope also provides transparency and control of the work in progress throughout the entire process. The Scope Maintenance function uses standard project management logic to group, arrange and sequence the contents of the maintenance visit to achieve optimum performance and execution.
Scheduling allows managers/ team leaders to schedule the contents of the maintenance visit based on the current information available in terms of resources, facility capacity and material availability. The detail scheduling uses relationship, set during the planning phase to ensure that a visit can be efficiently executed. A GANTT structure view provides good visibility to work progress as well as support for recording work scope changes identified during visit execution. Material can be pegged and reserved throughout the process to ensure material requirements are in place when required. As progress is recorded against the various work-orders or work-order operations monitoring of status progress is displayed as bars within the GANTT view allowing managers to graphically monitor the real progress of work.
Within this process, work-orders are scheduled, resources assigned, task operations allocated, material reserved, picked and issued and task completed. As task operations are completed, additional non routine/emergent works discovered and either integrated into the existing scope to correct or deferred for inclusion in another work-package. Once the work has been completed status progress is updated and task operations closed or set ready for inspection.
This is the process whereby task codes and task cards are validated to ensure that all aspects of the maintenance visit are successfully closed off.
Read how IFS Applications for MRO can help deliver on time, conform to regulatory controls and improve turnaround time to provide your customers with the best value possible and maximize your profits.


text:
|This page has been archived
|The information on this page is outdated or no longer in use but is kept for historical purposes. Please see the Category:Archives for similar pages.
Thank you for following this tutorial for a simple PyKDE application.
You can find more examples in the PyKDE source.
The PyQtWiki lists some more tutorials.
Python has its own excellent Python Tutorial to learn more about the language.
When coding you should keep a web browser open with the Qt Class reference, PyKDE API class reference.
PyKDE is used a lot in Kubuntu so you may find help on the #kubuntu-devel IRC channel on freenode. You can also ask on this channel if you are looking for useful programming projects, we are always looking for help.


text:
this picture reminds me of something...actually, the thought has been rolling through my mind all day. Christmas is really about one great and amazing present. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16....He so loved that He GAVE....and He keeps on giving...He delights in giving good gifts to His children...to me.
gifts...both giving and receiving is one of my major love languages...big gifts, small gifts...they speak to me. and i can get pretty bummed out when the "gift" doesn't meet my expectations.
yes, this pic is kate...yes, she is quite distraught. this is post-opening of the traditional Christmas Eve present...it is always some form of pajamas...preferably matching pajamas. apparently kate is not old enough to fully recognize the pattern. she remembered that she would get a Christmas Eve present...she was SO excited about it as we headed home from dinner. and then she opened it. and she cried...and she sobbed. i think her exact words were something along the lines of "This wasn't what I was expecting!"...in between sobs and sniffles and gulps...then, "I really wanted a pony castle...I was expecting a pony castle".
she was distraught.
and i see myself in this picture. distraught and sobbing because some moment in life is not at all what i expected...or maybe it is not a moment...maybe it is a week or a month or a year...a whole string of "not what i expected" gifts...
in this instance, though, i had a different perspective. you see, i knew that upstairs, tucked away under my bed...all wrapped up in pretty paper...was that very pony castle my sweet girl was longing for a sobbing about. no, the pjs were not what she expected, but what she hoped for WAS right around the corner...if only she could just enjoy the moment...enjoy the gift in the present moment, the one sitting right there in her lap...that her daddy and i had so eagerly given.
i wanted so badly to wrap my arms around her...to whisper in her ear...to tell her not to worry, that tomorrow what she "expected" would be reality. but i didn't....because i was not about to ruin the joyful delight that would be hers when she did receive that eagerly anticipated pony castle...that "good gift" she was so envisioning.
she did calm down...she did once again smile....she did enjoy the rest of the evening, but in this moment...it was not so pretty.
friends...that is me...most likely that it ALL of us. oh that we could simply learn to accept with open, eager and joyful hearts the gift that our Father gives in each moment...even if it is not exactly what we were expecting. oh that we would eagerly embrace the gift He has given....His Son.
...and oh my...look how the picture changed just 12 hours later when the very last package of the morning for Kate was opened and revealed the much longed for and anticipated pony castle. and how my heart swelled with joy to be able to give her that gift...
and i was again, reminded of our Father...who delights to give good gifts. friends, i soooo eagerly longed for this morning...yes, for the reality of the gift of Jesus, but also because i delight in seeing the joy on my childrens' faces as they open the presents we have so carefully and lovingly selected and purchased and wrapped. to think, this desire in my heart is only a shadow...a very dim shadow....of the delight of the Father in giving good gifts to His children. oh that i would trust Him and receive with joy...


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Patrick Reed picked up two victories in one day. He won The Barclays to assure himself a clear shot at the $10 million bonus in the FedEx Cup, and he easily secured a spot on his second straight U.S. Ryder Cup team.
Rickie Fowler, with a surprising meltdown, walked away empty from Bethpage Black.
Reed overcame an early two-shot deficit and built a big enough lead on the back nine that some nervous shots and sloppy play didn't keep him from winning for the first time since the 2015 opener at Kapalua. A bogey on the final hole gave him a 1-under 70 and a one-shot victory over Sean O'Hair and Emiliano Grillo.
"It's just been great to finally be able to close one...


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Home > News & Events > Wayland Press Release Archives > 2007 News Releases > January 2007 > Community Classroom to Offer Free Tutoring for GED, Citizenship Exam
Community Classroom to Offer Free Tutoring for GED, Citizenship Exam
PLAINVIEW – The Community Classroom at Wayland Baptist University has announced two new programs meant to help community members grow their skills.
Tutorial services for U.S. citizenship tests and pre-GED/GED tests will be offered beginning in February, intended to prepare residents for the exams in those areas.
According to Debbie Stennett, classroom director, the programs are a natural extension of the current offerings and the partnership with the Hale County Literacy Council, formed when the council moved into the classroom facility in April 2006.
"This dovetails from the literacy program and our English for Speakers of Other Languages program, and these folks have expressed an interest in continuing their learning," Stennett said. "These are door-opening programs for people in our community. The citizenship program will allow them to vote and become involved, and the GED will allow them to do so many more things."
The tutorial services for U.S. citizenship will involve one-on-one assistance in the areas of reading, writing and basic civics to individuals preparing for the citizenship test and interview. Students and tutors will meet weekly according to their schedules and work on the areas they feel are needed for the testing. The sessions will not cover the legal aspects of the naturalization process nor any paperwork but are only intended to prepare for the test and interview. Students will be responsible for the cost of instructional materials, which is $35.
The pre-GED/GED tutoring will involve one-on-one tutoring with students as they prepare to take the test for the General Equivalency Diploma. Students must be English-speaking and at least age 18. Basic instruction will be provided in reading, language and math. Sessions will be set by the tutor and student and recommended meetings will be at least two hours each week. Students will be responsible for the cost of instructional materials.
The actual GED testing will not be done at Wayland but is already offered at other entities in Plainview. The tutoring program is intended for those who need extra individual assistance before attempting one of the computer-based instruction programs in the city.
"Both programs will be driven by the student's pace and learning needs. This kind of learning can't be rushed, and these students already have lots of demands on them," Stennett said.
Tutors are still needed for both programs. Training for the citizenship tutoring will be held Saturday, Jan. 27, from 9 a.m. to noon, and the GED tutor training will be held Saturday, Feb. 3, from 9 a.m. to noon. Both sessions will include breakfast and will be held at the Community Classroom, located at 708 Yonkers.
To register for either of the programs as a student or tutor, contact Debbie Stennett at 291-3650.


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Richard Sherman's high school coach Keith Donerson says it didn't take long to realize that the future Seattle Seahawks All-Pro cornerback was going places.
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Starring as both a defensive back and wide receiver at Dominguez High School in Compton, Calif., Sherman reminded Donerson of another quick-to-speak-his-mind NFL luminary.
"He was just like Terrell Owens; he wanted the ball," Donerson told USA Today High School Sports this week. "A lot. He was never shy about asking for the ball."
"It's fourth-and-one and he asks for the pass," Donerson continued. "I told him to wait until we get the first down and he'd be like, 'Oh coach, it's like that! You don't believe in me?' Then I throw it to him and it ends up being an incomplete pass. So when he comes to the sideline I'm like, 'Richard, what's going on?' He looked at me and said, 'Don't worry, I'm about to get it back for you right now.' And he ends up picking the ball off."
Said the coach: "That's a perfect example of who he was for us and who he is now."
Fast forward to present day. Sherman and the rest of Seattle's nasty secondary have earned reputations as film junkies, scanning tape deep into the night to pinpoint the weakness in their next opponent. When Donerson joined "NFL AM" on Wednesday, he was asked if Sherman was the smartest player he ever coached.
"Yes ... by far," said Donerson, who offered just one piece of advice for Sherman's Super Bowl showdown with Peyton Manning:
"Richard, be Richard."
The latest "Around The League Podcast" previews the inaugural Pro Bowl Draft.


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Fresh, juicy, healthy fruit is the perfect easy snack or dessert on its own but you can also use it as the basis for many delicious recipes, both savoury and sweet.
This fruit salad is served in a bowl made from rockmelon or honeydew melon then topped with whipped cream and mint leaves.
This banana bread is moist and delicious, with loads of banana flavour. Friends and family love my recipe and say it's by far the best. It's wonderful toasted!
I love apple crumble. Even more than apple pie. After many years of trial and error and amalgamating other recipes I think I've finally perfected it! Or to the delight of my taste buds anyway.
Easy to make moist banana cake that has been highly sought after, time after time. For an even richer treat, ice your cake with cream cheese icing.
This recipe is one that was passed down from a family friend, and every one that tastes it loves it. Virtually mess free, no mixer required, just a bowl and spoon... now that's my favourite kind of baking...


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n00b World Reorder, part 1
The text that made up my Interesting 08 talk 'Brave n00b World' was part of a much longer document that I've been working on for a while. I'm not sure it's ready for primetime—I'm not sure it's ready for anything—but to catch the tide of interest in the video, here's the first part of it. This one repeats a lot of the material in the talk but bear with me: it gets better, and there's a lot of new stuff still to come.
* * *
I have spent the last few months on sabbatical, visiting a persistent fantasy world known as 'Of Warcraft'. During this time I have made some preliminary observations about the nature of the world, which I am going to publish here in a series of short papers. It is my hope that this work may lead to further examination of this curious habitat, and the foundation of the academic field of Azerothian Studies, with a nice chair and honorarium for myself, &tc. &tc.
Part 1:
The Physical World of Warcraft
The world of Warcraft, called Azeroth by those of its inhabitants who care about such things, is supposedly one of a handful of small spatial bodies in an area of space referred to as the Great Dark. It is comprised of three main landmasses: Kalimdor; the so-far-unexplored Northrend; and the Eastern Kingdoms. This consists of two continents, Lordaeron and Azeroth, the latter of which is made up of two countries: Khaz Modan and Azeroth. This confusing situation is analogous to the continent of America, which consists of the regions of South America, Central America and North America, the latter of which contains the country usually called America. One might think this indicates that there may be other interesting parallels between Azeroth and Earth. One would be mistaken.
Even though it has an advanced civilization capable of creating flying machines and an astonishingly advanced postal service—of which more later—Azeroth has no local system of measurement. The idea of lengths or distances are alien to its inhabitants, which makes them annoyingly bad at giving directions. Occasionally 'yards' are mentioned but nobody can ever point at an item or a distance in the world and say that it is N yards long; and there is no way of knowing if this 'yard' is equivalent in any way to the terrestrial yard.
Despite all this, it is still possible to determine the size of the World of Warcraft with a reasonable degree of accuracy.
The longest straight, flat line that an adult human can walk in Azeroth without being interrupted by obstacles, mobs or the Horde stretches from the eastern end of the north parapet of the bridge into Westfall, across Elwynn Forest to the southernmost of the Three Corners in Lakeshire. An adult human walking at a steady pace will cover this distance in 18 minutes and 15 seconds. Humans walk at an average speed of 5.6 kilometres (3.5 miles) per hour, and therefore this route is roughly 1.7 kms (1.05 miles) long.
Extrapolating this to the whole of the Eastern Kingdoms, and using the best maps available, the continent is 5.8 kms by 14.25 kms (3.6 x 8.85 miles) and Kalimdor is Kalimdor is 7.3 kms x 14.75 kms. Taken together, the two main continents have a combined area of approximately 113 square kilometres. In terrestrial terms that's about the same size as the city of Newcastle, or the London Borough of Hillingdon.
And if we assume that the world-maps produced by Blizzard Entertainment show approximately the entire surface area of Azeroth then we can wrap it around an imaginary sphere and calculate the diameter of the hypothetical 'planetoid' of Azeroth at 12 kilometres.
To a subjective observer, gravity on Azeroth seems to be lower than on Earth. Once again it's hard to given an exact measurement, but given the existence of giants (whose hipbones would shatter as soon as they took a step under terrestrial gravity), plus the fact that a typical adult human can make a standing jump approximately 90% of their height into the air, and most adult humanoids can not only survive a fall of over fifty metres but can land on their feet and walk away, it appears to be less than 1G. This is not quite as expected: though small celestial bodies typically have low gravity, for a planetoid of the size of Azeroth one would expect to see gravity of about 0.003 m/s or, in the vernacular, buggerall.
We can calculate Azeroth's gravity to a reasonable degree of precision. As noted, scales of measurement are rare on Azeroth but a chart on page 66 of one of the only authoritative works of Azerothian Studies to date (World of Warcraft Game Manual; Hutchens, Catalan et al, 2005) shows the heights of various humanoid races against a series of regular lines, allowing exact comparisons. Assuming that an average human on Azeroth is the same height as an average human on Earth, then a typical female Tauren is almost exactly two metres tall. We can therefore use a female Tauren—let's call her Rula—as a measuring-stick to calculate the height of buildings, towers, cliffs and other tall things that can be fallen off.
According to the Rula scale, a drop from a measured point on the flight tower in Thunder Bluff is 33.5 metres. According to tests conducted by myself and members of my research group, the guild <unassigned variable>, it takes a given body—Rula—an average of 2.5 seconds to fall that distance. An equivalent fall under 1G would take 2.61 seconds. We will blame the difference on the approximate nature of the measuring processes and cheap stopwatches, and assume that Azeroth's gravity is the same as Earth's.
This means, if Azeroth really is a spherical planetoid with a diameter of 12 kms, that the planet must have an average density of roughly 5850 grammes per cubic centimetre. That makes its average density more than 500 times greater than lead. (I am indebted to Dave Morris for his assistance with these calculations.)
The extreme density of Azeroth would explain why it is impossible to pick up many objects from the ground, including ones that you have just dropped. As soon as a discarded object hits the earth we theorize that it picks up a thin coating of superheavy dirt, making it impossible to lift. Living creatures avoid the effects of this dirt sticking to their extremities by having evolved frictionless pads on the soles of their feet. This observable phenomenon, endemic to Azeroth, is known to virtual-world scientists and animators as 'foot slide'.
Rare soils that do not possess this extreme density (pieces of coal, elemental earth, Un'goro soil) are prized by the locals and can fetch high prices at the auction houses. In addition, pressure within the superheavy crust of the planetoid causes deposits of comparatively lighter elements like copper, tin, iron, gold and mithril to be extruded through fissures in the surface, where they form regenerating nodes that can be mined. It also explains why, though many locals are seen toiling at rock-faces with picks and shovels, they never seem to get anywhere, and why there are never any root vegetables for sale.
More interestingly, the existence of such a small, dense planet has implications for the relativistic flow of local spacetime. Einstein's theory of general relativity states that time runs at different speeds under different gravitational strengths, and the Pound-Rebka experiment has proved that clocks at high altitudes run slightly faster than those at low altitudes. On a small body with a very high density these effects will be much more noticeable over comparatively short distances. We believe that these effects of time-dilation and compression can explain the well-known Azeroth temporal phenomenon of 'lag', although we are trying to form a theoretical model to show how zeppelins can cross an ocean in the time it takes to draw a line across a map.
However, all this assumes that Azeroth is a standard astronomical body, and it isn't. Despite the existence of in-world globes depicting its surface as a sphere, and that anyone standing at the Black Temple in Outland can see a small round planet in the sky that appears to be Azeroth, the world of Warcraft is in fact flat. There is no visible curvature of the world, which is unusual given its small size. Stars do not move across the night sky, indicating that Azeroth is static in relation to the rest of its universe. What's more, dawn happens simultaneously wherever the observer is in the world, and sunset works the same way. Ergo it's flat, albeit populated by a number of misguided 'round-earthers'. Berks.
Conclusive proof on the matter comes from the research of the Canadian Dr T. Paypayaso (I'm assuming from the quality of his research that he has a PhD, plus frankly they're easier to get hold of than parking tickets these days), who has demonstrated by swimming to its edge and jumping around like a prat that Azeroth is (a) flat, (b) finite and (c) rectangular.
I will examine the implications of this extraordinary discovery in my next post in this series. Meanwhile I need your essays, a thousand words on 'How can Azeroth be said to have a food chain when nothing ever eats anything else?' on my desk by Thursday.
(You can find part 2 of this essay here.)
Categorised as: game design | geophysics | mmorpg | world of warcraft


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February 23, 2018
Dear CUSD Community:
We received many emails and inquiries after my letter on School Safety was sent to families last week. The shooting that occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shook our community and left more questions than answers. As a mom and as your Superintendent, I want all of our young people to be safe in our classrooms and on our campuses. Over the last week, families have inquired about social-emotional supports for students, safety training for students, and information on campus safety and security.
Social and Emotional Supports
In 2015, our Board of Trustees committed $3 million a year to hire 30 new counselors, giving our District the distinction of being one of the first school Districts in the county to have a counselor on staff at every school from elementary to high school. This is a tremendous investment in early intervention for our young people that was put in place to support them today and throughout their educational careers here in CUSD and beyond. Our counselors work with our students in groups and on an individual basis and intervene when students are struggling with grades or attendance or showing other indicators that may indicate the need for stronger interventions.
Topics in our School Counseling Core Curriculum Action Plan for our students include, but are not limited to, respecting differences, emotion management, managing test anxiety, coping with peer pressure, bullying, managing strong feelings, problem-solving skills, learning styles and time management, and beginning in grade 7, suicide prevention. All of these topics are not covered in each grade but are age appropriate and build upon social-emotional lessons learned in previous grades.
Beyond the supports provided by our counselors, when there is a threat or even a perceived threat made by a student, the Orange County Sheriff's Department School Mobile Assessment and Resource Team (SMART) performs an investigation that often times includes the student (or students), friends and family, social media postings, cell phones and whatever they believe will assist them in their work. SMART is used in school situations or incidents related to violence, threats, possession and/or use of weapons, unstable behaviors and suicidal actions or tendencies.
Student and Staff Safety Drills
Currently, we require the following for staff and students: Evacuation/fire drills are conducted once per month for elementary schools, four times a year for middle schools and twice per year for high schools. Drop, Cover and Hold drills are conducted once per quarter at elementary schools and once per semester at middle and high schools. National Incident Management Systems (NIMS) drills are conducted once per year at all CUSD schools.
Finally, lockdown drills are conducted twice per year at all CUSD schools. Our lockdown drills include the "Deny Access, Evade and Engage" (DEE) protocol that we created in collaboration with Sheriff's Department. This training includes a component titled "Evade" so that, when appropriate, teachers and students can move to a safe place out of danger (i.e. exit the building or area) and it includes a component titled "Engage" because, if necessary, we want students and staff to use any resource/object necessary to stop an individual from doing harm. School Faculty and Staff are also required to review the Deny Access, Evade and Engage training video every year.
This year, we also equipped our schools with Emergency Trauma Kits that contain essential medical supplies to enable school staff to treat victims suffering from acute trauma. This is in addition to the lockdown kits we have in each classroom and the door blocks we have on outside facing classroom doors.
Our work with law enforcement enhances the drills we conduct on our campuses and strengthens our work during an emergency. Each Sheriff's patrol vehicle has instant access to aerial photos and floorplans for every school in our District so responding deputies can arrive on the scene with situational awareness of the school they are approaching. Our tabletop exercises and emergency drills take place throughout the year and are intended to strengthen communication and collaboration with the Sheriff's Department and enhance our emergency operations plans and protocols. In January, District leadership and staff performed a tabletop exercise with Orange County Sheriff's SWAT, Bomb Squad and San Clemente Chief of Police in a scenario that involved a person on campus with a weapon. We will be conducting a similar exercise at Dana Hills High School in March, which was planned prior to the school shooting in Florida.
Campus Safety and Security
The school district is supported by local cities that provide School Resource Officers, which are assigned to our individual high schools as well as K-8 families of schools. These officers provide daily security as well as rapid response to emergencies, along with all first responders, when necessary. Our School Resource Officers also provide us with student intervention and resources when required. Finally, as mentioned in my letter last week, we utilize the Sheriff's Department in planning and security assessments of our schools with the Orange County Intelligence Assessment Center.
We also require that our Principals update their school safety plan every year and assemble emergency command teams on every campus. Site leaders and staff should enforce visitor check-in procedures, including the issuance of visitor and volunteer badges, and monitor their facilities to ensure gates, locks, and systems work appropriately.
The devastating events in Parkland, Florida remind us that we as a District, in collaboration with our cities, our families, and our community, need to take time to review our emergency plans and protocols and identify opportunities to strengthen our work to prevent these instances from occurring, as well as identify opportunities for us to react swiftly and appropriately when emergencies take place. I appreciate your partnership in this work and ask that you continue to share your input and speak up if you see anything suspicious on our campuses.
Kirsten Vital
February 15, 2018
Dear CUSD Families:
Today, our hearts are heavy for the families, friends and entire Parkland, Florida community as we mourn the devastating loss of life that occurred yesterday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. This morning, many families are asking us what plans and procedures we have in place to safeguard our students, families, and staff in emergencies.
CUSD has a safety plan that is specific to each site and is reviewed every year and we have worked to build and strengthen this plan since 2012. We have an incredible relationship with law enforcement that includes daily interaction and communication as well as collaborative participation in safety exercises and planning.
The District also works with the Orange County Sheriff's Department in planning and security assessments of our schools and with the Orange County Intelligence Assessment Center (OCIAC). OCIAC is an integrated, multi-disciplined, information and intelligence sharing network that collects, analyzes, and disseminates information on all criminal risks and safety threats to law enforcement, fire, health, the private sector and public sector stakeholders in order to protect the residents, visitors, and critical infrastructure. In addition, Sheriff's Deputies are assigned to our campuses and we utilize the Sheriff's Department's School Mobile Assessment and Resource Team (SMART). SMART is used in school situations or incidents related to violence, threats, possession and/or use of weapons, unstable behaviors and suicidal actions or tendencies.
In the area of training, we conduct ongoing drills and simulated emergency exercises for our staff and this training is reviewed and modified as needed. We also train our staff to speak up and report suspicious activity they see at our school sites or offices.
Finally, we have the benefit of many parents, students, teachers, administrators and staff on our campuses and we ask that you report any unusual and suspicious activity. Please talk to your child/children to remind them that they, too, can report anything suspicious. We want everyone on our campuses to be empowered to speak up about anything that looks out of place. Please reach out to your school principals or site administration for guidance and questions. Thank you for your support.
Kirsten Vital


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Most rookies wait until training camp to start making mistakes. New England Revolution forward Zack Schilawski blundered within seconds of hearing his name called as the ninth selection in the 2010 MLS SuperDraft.
Instead of thanking the Revolution for making him the latest member of the Wake Forest-New England pipeline, Schilawski offered his praise to Columbus, the club that selected Dilly Duka one pick earlier.
In his first professional chance with the goal at his mercy, the accomplished college striker shanked his effort toward the corner flag and trudged off the stage to face a rather bemused Revolution delegation.
"The funny thing was that I wasn't that embarrassed for myself," Schilawski said. "I didn't really care because I was so happy. Then I walked off the stage and all of the New England were people right there and they were like 'what was that about?' I was nervous that I embarrassed them, but as far as I'm concerned, I couldn't be happier. This is a great place to be. I'm excited to get drafted and get a contract."
The high-profile flub handed the Revolution players and technical staff members an easy point of attack in the annual rookie welcoming process, according to Schilawski.
"It was a little bit of an ice-breaker," Schilawski said. "The first thing coach (Steve) Nicol said to me was that he was happy I got on a flight to come here (for training camp) instead of getting one to Columbus. It's all in good fun."
Nicol -- a person known to make a joke or two to keep the atmosphere light -- said he hoped and expected Schilawski's teammates to join in the fun as preseason progressed. Schilawski said he started to hear little comments from the moment he stepped on the Dana-Farber Field House turf for the first time in early February with Nicol featuring among the protagonists.
"I guess if we're playing Columbus and he sets them up, then we'll know something is going on," Nicol offered.
Schilawski said the gaffe and the resulting banter actually helped him acclimate to his new surroundings. The 22-year-old Cary, N.C. native encountered a few familiar faces -- Pat Phelan is a former Wake teammate, while Darrius Barnes and Mike Videira were fellow members of a PDL team based out of Cary -- when he arrived, but he noted that he faced the typical rookie hurdle of settling in with a group of players he doesn't really know.
Schilawski said he's trying to learn as much as he can about his new career as he attempts to carve out a place withing the blossoming team structure.
"That's the major thing: trying to fit in," Schilawski said. "I'm trying to have as many conversations with the guys as I can. There's a lot of guys who have a lot of experience. I'm trying to learn as much as I can and listen more than I talk. I'm going to work as hard as I can in these drills and hopefully, slowly but surely, win their respect."
If Schilawski can transfer his goalscoring form at Wake Forest to the professional level, his teammates will certainly grant him the respect he craves. Even though he enjoyed just one season as a full-time starter for the Demon Deacons, Schilawski notched 40 goals in 99 career appearances. The prolific goal haul record includes double-digit tallies in his junior (11 goals) and senior (14) campaigns.
Nicol said Schilawski possesses the ability to make a similar impact with the Revolution as he adjusts to the higher standard and develops his game.
"He's done a bit of everything," Nicol said. "He's scored goals. He's made goals. He's a team guy. He's done all of the things that you want the players on your team to do. It seemed pretty straightforward (to pick him in the SuperDraft)."
Almost as straightforward as thanking the team that selected you in the SuperDraft. Schilawski might have missed a draft day sitter, but Nicol said all will be forgotten once the rookie earns his way onto the field.
"As long as he goes on the field and plays for us, I couldn't care what he says," Nicol said.


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Take a shot before your date. Seriously. Just one. It calms the nerves.
When you meet up, smile and compliment anything (really, anything) that she's wearing. Flattery gets you everywhere.
Ask her how her day was. She'll be touched and you already seem suave and sweet.
Ask how she knows your mutual friend. (Look! You already have something in common.)
Travel is a fun topic for everyone, so ask if she's going on any fun trips soon. You'll get a peek into what makes her tick.
We thought it best to get not just an expert, but a woman, to weigh in so we asked Joanna Goddard, the popular Smitten blogger for Glamour to offer five first date pointers.
What should I pack for my first business trip?
- Matt, OH
With nearly every airline imposing a baggage fee nowadays, if you can get away with flying with just a carry-on, do it.
Need style help?
Submit your conundrum.
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text:
The conclusion to Epic Games' Gears of War trilogy arrives only on Xbox 360 this weel, joined by the HD remake of Resident Evil 4, another DLC extension for Fallout: New Vegas, the Rezurrection map pack for Call of Duty players on PS3 and PC, and the controversial fighter Supremacy MMA.
• Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 (DS)
• Kirby Mass Attack (DS)
• Gears of War 3 (360)—The game's campaign sets hero Marcus Fenix off in search of his long lost father, resolving all questions the series has raised over the past five years. In multiplayer, the new "Beast Mode" joins the rowdy menu of action.
• Supremacy MMA (PS3, 360)—Kung Fu Factory's brutal and bloody title is more of a fighter than a sports simulation, though it does include licensed MMA personalities-and the first pairing of female fighters in MMA video game history.
Also: Brunswick Pro Bowling (3DS); Burnout Crash! (PSN); Cubixx HD (PS3); F1 2011 (PS3, 360); Fallout: New Vegas—Lonesome Road (PC, PSN, XBLA); Frogger 3D (3DS); Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns (DS); Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection (3DS); Resident Evil 4 HD (360, PSN); Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2—Innocent Sin (PSP).
• Bunch of Heroes (PC)
• Burnout Crash! (360, XBLA)
• Rotastic (360,PSN)
• Worms Ultimate Mayhem (PC)
• Aya and the Cubes of Light (WiiWare)
• Break Tactics (DSiWare)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops—Rezurrection (PC, PSN)
• Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes (PC)
• Railworks 3: Train Simulator 2012 (PC)
Looking Ahead
Sept. 27: Pro Evolution Soccer 2012; X-Men: Destiny; FIFA 12. Oct. 4: Dark Souls; NBA 2K12; RAGE; Spider-Man: Edge of Time. Oct. 11: Ace Combat: Assault Horizon; Dead Rising 2: Off the Record; Forza Motorsport 4. Oct. 18: Batman: Arkham City; Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One.
What are you getting? What do you want? What are you looking forward to? Sound it off below, and at #twig.
Sources: Video Game Release Calendar; GameStop
You can contact Owen Good, the author of this post, at firstname.lastname@example.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.


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PARIS, June 27 (UPI) -- Enforced rules, not eurobonds, will solve the euro crisis, Germany's chancellor said before meeting Wednesday with France's president, who supports the bonds.
The working dinner meeting between Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande at the French Elysee Palace -- a day before the two join the European Union's other leaders in Brussels for a two-day summit on the crisis -- will focus on the summit, "the international situation and future Franco-German exchanges," Hollande's office said in a statement.
The meeting will be "an exchange of views" to help "define positions" ahead of the summit, a German government spokesman said.
Hollande is widely expected to maintain his pressure to refocus eurozone economic policy on reviving growth and sharing debt.
Merkel has said she would insist on austerity and would reject eurobonds and other joint-liability proposals, such as joint deposit insurance. She says such proposals may not pass muster in German's Federal Constitutional Court -- and they may remove pressure on governments and banks to clean up their financial acts.
"I say quite openly -- when I think of the summit on Thursday, I'm concerned that once again the discussion will be far too much about all kinds of ideas for joint liability and far too little about improved oversight and structural measures," The New York Times quoted Merkel as saying Monday.
Later Wednesday, in a speech before the German Parliament, Merkel said, "Control and liability must not be disproportionate to one another. Common sharing of debt can only take place when sufficient control has been established."
In Madrid, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said there was little time left before the EU must act.
"We cannot finance at current prices for too long," he said.
Yields on benchmark Spanish 10-year bonds, which are used to set rates on other loans, yielded 6.8 percent Wednesday, while comparable Italian bonds yielded 6.2 percent.
The yields represent the costs of government borrowing. Yields near 7 percent are considered by many to be unsustainable.
The EU summit, which begins Thursday, is the first meeting of European leaders since pro-bailout parties in Greece won parliamentary elections June 17.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said summit stakes must be higher than friction such as that between Germany and France.
"We must articulate the vision of where Europe must go, and a concrete path for how to get there," he said. But he added he was unsure "whether the urgency of this is fully understood in all the capitals of the EU."
But a senior EU diplomat intimately involved in Franco-German dynamics for 20 years described the friction as part of the relationship pattern.
"It's always like this with France and Germany," he told the British newspaper The Guardian. "They always represent different positions and then they find a compromise that everyone else agrees with except the U.K."


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ESEA Update
ARRA Outreach
Education Equity Agenda
National Educational Technology Plan
Childhood Obesity Task Force
Odds and Ends
Quote to Note
Upcoming Events
ESEA Update
On March 13, in his weekly radio and Internet address, President Obama announced his proposal to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). "On Monday, my Administration will send to Congress our blueprint for an updated ESEA to overhaul No Child Left Behind," he stated. "What this plan recognizes is that while the federal government can play a leading role in encouraging the reforms and high standards we need, the impetus for that change will come from the states and from local schools and school districts. So, yes, we set a high bar, but we also provide educators the flexibility to reach it."
Under the blueprint, which was shared with ED Review subscribers in a special note on March 15, state accountability systems will set a high bar of all students graduating from high school ready to succeed in college and careers. States will be asked to recognize and reward schools and districts making the most progress, provide flexibility for local improvement efforts, and focus the most rigorous support and interventions on the very lowest-performing schools and districts; states and districts will continue to focus on the achievement gap by identifying and intervening in schools that are persistently failing to close those gaps. The blueprint asks states and districts to develop meaningful ways of measuring teacher and principal effectiveness in order to supply better support for educators, enhance the profession through recognizing and rewarding excellence, and ensure that every classroom has a great teacher and every school has a great leader. It also supports collaborative relationships with non-profit and community organizations that partner with schools and districts to help students succeed. "We're offering support, incentives, and national leadership," asserted Secretary Duncan, "but not at the expense of local control."
For additional background on the blueprint, read the Department's press release, listen to the Secretary's call with reporters, and review the Secretary's recent testimony before both the House and Senate education authorization committees. Also, this week, Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development Carmel Martin and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Rural Outreach John White hosted a call with rural education stakeholders.
ARRA Outreach
Last week, Secretary Duncan announced the final priorities and grant application for the $650 million Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund. The i3 Fund, part of the $5 billion investment in education reform in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), will support the development of path-breaking ideas, the validation of approaches that have demonstrated promise, and the scale-up of the most successful and proven education innovations.
School districts and non-profit organizations in partnership with districts or consortia of schools can apply for the grants. To qualify, applicants must address one of four priorities aligned with the reform areas under the ARRA: teacher and principal effectiveness; enhanced data systems; college- and career-ready standards and quality assessments; and improving achievement in persistently low-performing schools. Applicants may get competitive preference points if their projects sufficiently address one or more of following priority areas: early learning; college access and success; serving students with disabilities or limited English proficiency; and serving rural district students.
Evidence is a formal eligibility requirement. The regulations have specific definitions for what constitutes "moderate evidence" and "strong evidence," and the i3 Fund will award three types of grants based, at least in part, on the level of evidence. Development grants (up to $5 million each) will require a reasonable hypothesis and be aimed at developing fresh ideas. Validation grants (up to $30 million each) will require moderate evidence and be aimed at validating and spreading promising programs to regional scale. Scale Up grants (up to $50 million each) will require strong evidence and be aimed at bringing proven programs to national scale.
Once identified as "highest rated," applicants must also demonstrate that they have secured a 20% cash or in-kind match from the private sector. To assist potential grantees in their efforts to secure such a match, as well as to serve the larger purpose of creating a new innovation community, the Department launched the Open Innovation Portal.
Applications are due by May 11, with an intent to apply requested by April 1, and all grants will be awarded in September. FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE GO TO. (Note: A helpful fact sheet, PowerPoint presentation, and overview webinar are among the available resources.
In the coming weeks, the Department is offering three pre-application workshops and webinars:
- Today, March 19, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET in Baltimore, Maryland;
- Wednesday, March 24, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. MT in Denver, Colorado; and
- Tuesday, March 30, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET in Atlanta, Georgia. Applicants must register online for all events. (Note: The webinars will also be archived as resources.)
Meanwhile, the Department is seeking peer reviewers from a variety of backgrounds and professions for the competition. Reviewers should have expertise in education policy and reform, evidence, innovation, strategy, or application review and be available for approximately four weeks, in June and July, to review applications. Resumes and an information checklist are due by April 1.
In other ARRA news:
- Six more states have been approved for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) Phase 2 funding.
- West Virginia and Minnesota are the first states to receive their funds under the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program. (Note: New Department videos spotlight successful school turnarounds.)
- As referenced in the previous issue, the revamped, $439 million Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) includes a special competition to participate in a rigorous evaluation study of TIF, with the opportunity for an additional $1 million over the course of the five-year program and access to applicant-specific evaluation results. To share more about the proposed requirements for the TIF evaluation competition and the benefits of participation, the agency will host a webinar on March 24, at 3:00 p.m. ET. This webinar is one in a series of webinars designed to support potential applicants.
Education Equity Agenda
In a major speech at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on the 45th anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" civil rights protest that ultimately led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Secretary Duncan outlined ongoing impediments to equal opportunity in education and the Administration's intentions to work with schools and postsecondary institutions to address them. "The struggle for equal opportunity in our nation's schools and universities is not at an end," he emphasized. "We will work with schools and enforce laws to ensure that all children, no matter what their race, gender, disability, or native origin, have a fair chance at a good future." To that end, he vowed to reinvigorate equity and enforcement activities within the Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR). OCR's activities include issuing guidance letters to districts and postsecondary institutions around issues of fairness and equity; conducting compliance reviews to ensure that all students have equal access to educational opportunities, such as college-preparatory curriculum or science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses; and reviewing disciplinary policies of schools and districts to make certain that they are administered fairly. OCR also offers technical assistance and outreach to parents, community groups, and others seeking to increase equity and promote diversity.
Days later, OCR announced its first new enforcement action: examining the academic opportunities and access of English language learners in the Los Angeles Unified School District, to assess whether they are receiving equal educational opportunities. "At this time, we have reached no conclusion as to whether any violations of federal law exist," Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali stressed. "However, the number of English language learners and children of color in Los Angeles is large, and it is critical that all students in the district receive equal access to a quality education. If civil rights violations are found, we will seek to put an end to them promptly." The Los Angeles compliance review is part of a series of activities that OCR will be undertaking in the coming months.
Then, this week, OCR announced it will begin collecting new data to measure educational opportunity and inform enforcement of federal civil rights laws.
National Educational Technology Plan
The Department is inviting comment on the draft National Educational Technology Plan. This plan was prepared by researchers and practitioners and represents, as Secretary Duncan explained in a recent speech at the Association of American Publishers' meeting, "their best ideas about how we can bring forward schools, making them centers of learning designed to close the gap between the technology-rich and exciting experiences that dominate students' lives outside of school while preparing them for success in today's competitive global marketplace." In particular, the Secretary is interested in thoughts on ways to accelerate the development and adoption of tools and resources that merge education and technology.
Childhood Obesity Task Force
The Departments of Education, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services are asking the public for ideas to help the new Task Force on Childhood Obesity come up with recommendations for public and private actions to solve the problem of childhood obesity. The request for information asks a series of detailed questions that will guide the task force on its final report. The work complements the efforts of First Lady Michelle Obama as she leads a public awareness campaign to tackle this critical public health issue.
Odds and Ends
On March 15, Secretary Duncan addressed mayors and city councilmembers at the National League of Cities' meeting, declaring it takes "an all-hands-on-deck approach in the local community" to educate a student.
On March 17, the Secretary, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) President and Chief Executive Officer Benjamin Jealous, and Richard Lapchick of the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport held a joint call with reporters to discuss the graduation rates of basketball teams in the NCAA tournament and suggest some ways to increase college completion for teams with low rates.
The Departments of Education and Treasury have announced $11 billion in allocation authority to issue Qualified School Construction Bonds under the ARRA. The allocations include $6.6 billion of volume cap to the 50 states and $4.4 billion of volume cap to 103 large districts. Such bonds can be used to finance the construction, rehabilitation, or repair of a school facility or for the acquisition of land where a school will be built. Investors who buy these bonds receive federal income tax credits at prescribed tax credit rates, in lieu of interest, allowing state and local governments to borrow without incurring any interest costs.
Quote to Note
"My Administration's blueprint for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is not only a plan to renovate a flawed law but also an outline for a re-envisioned federal role in education. This blueprint is a framework to guide our deliberations and shared workwith students, parents, educators, business and community leaders, elected officials, and others partnersto strengthen America's public education system. I look forward to working with the Congress to reauthorize ESEA, so that it will help to provide America's students with the world-class education they need and deserve."
|President Barack Obama (3/13/10), introducing "A Blueprint for Reform"
Upcoming Events
On March 24 at 10:00 a.m. ET, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), will release results from the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading.
The deadline for educators to sign on for the National Financial Capability Challenge, an awards program designed to increase the financial knowledge and capability of high school-aged students across the country, has been extended to April 9, which is the final day to administer the exam.
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Wendell W. Wood, illuminated wall sign for suites 800 and 800 at Acme Store Co., $9,000.
First Interstate Charlottesville Ltd., tenant up-fit, Rio Hill Dry-Cleaners (old Play It Again Sports space), $12,000.
Parkside LLC, tenant up-fit, Glenwood Station Office Building phase one for Dental Office, $174,431.
Phillips Rental LLC, tenant up-fit, the Contractor Yard, $10,000.
Hollymead Town Center LLC, freestanding illuminated monument sign, $12,000.
Riverbend Drive Land Trust, tenant up-fit, East Garden Chinese Restaurant, $40,000.
Forest Lakes Shops LLC, tenant up-fit for Shun Xing Restaurant, $50,000.
Astar ASB VA2 LLC, interior renovations for Crown BMW, $230,000.
111 Monticello Avenue LLC, install two interior swimming pools, 111 Monticello Avenue, Aquatic Structures LLC, $404,000.
Jeffrey L. and Melissa L. Easter, interior remodel of restaurant, 407-B Monticello Road, Jeff Easter Remodeling, $35,000
George Gilliam, trustee, exterior facade change, 100 West Main Street, Caliper LLC, $250,000.
Joseph W. Richmond Jr., trustee, interior up-fit for new lessee, 251 Ridge-McIntire Road, $12,000.


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A TWYFORD charity is teaming up with a Winchester pop-up shop to host a special event this weekend.
On Saturday and Sunday (July 26-27), from 10.30am-4pm, the charity I Am Super Capes will set up shop in the increasingly popular Pitfields store, at the Brooks Centre, to launch the first of many 'Come and Sew a Cape' pop-ups.
Everything required is already provided, including fabric, machines and cotton. Kathy Potter from Trouve Vintage will also be on hand to give out information on techniques.
Miriam Ferris, one of the charity's sewers said: "Sewing these capes is a lovely but humbling experience. As a parent, it's especially upsetting to think of any child in distress. It's a privilege to think that a cape I've helped to make is bringing some comfort and joy to a child in need."


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New and Old worlds come down to earth
When NASA visited Venetie
VENETIE - The cozy log structure smells of coffee, gasoline, and spruce logs burning in a stove made from a 55-gallon drum. Inside the building that serves as the Village Council headquarters for Venetie, Josh Bundick explains a new policy that rewards villagers who find spent rocket parts launched from north of Fairbanks.
The Venetie men and women in the cabin look at one another when Bundick mentions that National Aeronautics and Space Administration is offering as much as $1,200 for the location of rocket parts. Dozens of these rocket stages remain in northern Alaska from aurora-studying missions launched during the last few decades from Poker Flat Research Range in Chatanika, about 30 miles north of Fairbanks. Burnt out rocket motors are not easy to see, especially in burned forests of the type that forms a patchwork quilt around Venetie.
"The end of a burned tree stump, that's what it looks like from above," Bundick says. "Looking for these rocket parts is like looking for a needle in a haystack."
"Yes it is," says Venetie's Ernest Erick, looking at a map of possible impact zones north and west of the village. "That's a lot of country."
Erick, a resident of this settlement of less than 200 people, stated his village's interests in an afternoon meeting between officials of NASA, Poker Flat Research Range and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. For the three NASA researchers, this is their first winter trip to an Alaska village. One experience the Virginia residents might not forget is their ride from airstrip to village school in the back of a pickup truck when the ambient air temperature was minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit.
Their mission is to spread the word of NASA's "Clean Range Policy" initiated in 2011. The agency will pay $1,200 for location data on rocket motors that have not been reported before. There is a $500 reward for nose cones, doors, payloads and smaller rocket pieces.
"Our goal is 100 percent recovery of rocket parts," Bundick says to the small gathering. "With the rewards program, we're moving in that direction."
The attempt to retrieve rocket parts old and new (Poker Flat has one launch scheduled this spring) is in part inspired by an Environmental Impact Statement now being written. That document, which will be available for anyone to review once it is drafted, will decide the fate of continuing the NASA Sounding Rocket Program at Poker Flat, managed by the Geophysical Institute and owned by the University of Alaska.
Some rocket parts, such as payloads attached to colorful parachutes, are easy to recover. Rocket motors that penetrate the ground "like lawn darts" after they burn are more difficult to find on recovery flights that occur from Poker Flat after each launch. For years, the Geophysical Institute has paid the tribal governments of Venetie and Arctic Village for the right to launch rockets from Poker Flat, parts of which may arc to the ground on their expansive lands north of the Arctic Circle.
"You're an essential partner here," Mark Bertram, a biologist for Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge who traveled north from Fairbanks with the NASA people, tells the nine Venetie men and three women gathered in the cabin.
Erick, wearing a baseball hat and tanned moose-skin mukluks, notes that he is among those villagers who signed the land-use agreement with Poker Flat Research Range more than 20 years ago.
"We need to see an increase (in the payment for the right to use Venetie lands)," he says. "We're not big oil people here. We're friends of the Earth."
"I can come back and work on that, at your convenience," says Kathe Rich, Operations Controller at Poker Flat Research Range. Rich, the point person in NASA's rewards program, has already made payments to several people who have given her valid coordinates to rocket parts no one reported before.
As the daylight wanes outside the big window in the village council office, the NASA representatives show their last PowerPoint slide, and the villagers clean their plates of fruit and other snacks carried northward by the visitors. Cold air curls into the room as people head outside to the rest of their afternoons on a late winter day.
"We want to have a clean range," Bundick says. "Now, any rocket that we launch, we want to bring it back home."
(This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute.)


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From the time he created it back in 1991, Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell has always had big ambitions for Lollapalooza.
Having evolved from a traveling music and culture tour in the '90s into the annual Chicago music festival that's already expanded to Chile and Brazil, Lollapalooza is ready to extend its' international reach to Buenos Aires, Argentina, next year.
"In the same way that each child is unique born into a family, each Lollapalooza that we spawn is unique," Farrell said of the latest expansion via Billboard. "I look forward to getting to work with the newest members of our musical family — Argentina!"


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Please welcome guest author Kathryn N. Gregory, staff writer for The Charleston Gazette. Her article below ran in the February 19, 2011 issue of the Gazette. "The information relating to Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings in the original article was slightly wrong," Gregory adds. "This information related to Woodson's father's paternal side of the family, not Davis. That was an oversight on my part. They are still connected to Jefferson, just on a different side."
William Davis, the first black man nominated for governor in West Virginia and Booker T. Washington's first teacher, may be a forgotten piece of West Virginia history, but more than 100 years later, his great-grandchildren are trying to change that.
Siblings Florence Berger and Ronald Woodson are working to have Davis included in the history books.
"Even without him being Booker's first teacher, just what he did for Negro education at the time is worth noting," Berger said.
She is referring to Davis' contribution to the education of blacks in the Malden and Charleston areas in the 1860s.
According to historical records, Davis was born in Columbus, OH, in 1848. His mother's father was a station operator for the Underground Railroad in Ohio, and Woodson and Berger have always been told that they are descendants of one of President Thomas Jefferson's sons with Monticello slave Sally Hemings.
Although they have no documentation about the validity of the Jefferson ancestral claim, it's part of their family's history, woven into the stories they have been told all their lives.
Davis was educated at public schools in Ohio until he was 15. In the Union Army, he served in a cavalry regiment stationed at the nation's capital and popularly known as the President's Escort or "Lincoln's Body Guard." He was honorably discharged for an ear defect in 1865, sending him to work with his father, according to Woodson.
That year, Davis landed in the Kanawha Valley, then a home to many freed slaves. He never left.
Davis' great-grandchildren were told that the Rev. Lewis Rice, a local minister in Malden, asked him if he would like a job teaching freed slaves.
At only 18, Davis accepted the position. Although he was young, the locals were so eager to learn, they embraced him with open arms, Woodson said. Davis became the first African-American teacher in the Kanawha Valley, according to the article "Booker T. Washington's West Virginia Boyhood," by Louis R. Harlan.
Things did not get off to an easy start.
Rice's own bedroom was used as the schoolhouse, causing some inconvenience for the homeowner. "The bed was dismantled and removed to make room for three or four slab benches, hewn by hand and accommodating an average of 10 persons each," according to the Harlan paper.
"There was no funding for schools that catered to blacks. My [great-grandfather] was paid by contributions from the parents, and a different family brought him lunch each day," Woodson said.
But Davis was "energetic" and "eager to teach," so despite the adversity imposed upon him and the school, the students learned.
In the spring of 1867, Davis separated his more advanced pupils from the others and called them the secondary school, though he remained the only teacher and presumably still taught the students in the same room.
Davis was one of the first to separate primary from secondary students in a black school, according to Harlan.
In 1869, just a few years after settling in the Valley, Davis married Hallie Ann Lewis and moved to Charleston. From then on, no matter the weather, he walked the six miles there and back to Malden each school day, Woodson said.
In 1872, Davis left the tiny schoolhouse to head the Negro grade school in Charleston. "He is mild and courteous in his manner, kind to his pupils and conscientious and earnest in the discharge of his duties," the superintendent wrote in a local newspaper according to the Harlan paper.
His reputation and impact on education preceded him, causing an unexpected event to take place in 1888.
Davis was nominated by a delegation of 49 African-Americans in the state to run for governor that year on an independent ticket supported by the free African-Americans in the Valley, according to "A Timeline of African-American History in West Virginia," filed with the state archives.
The vote was the first major election in the state where blacks had become a significant voting force. To this day, he is still the only black person to be nominated for governor in West Virginia.
It was during his first years as a teacher that Davis met and taught Booker T. Washington, who is best known as an author, orator and educator, founding the Tuskegee Institute, now University, in Alabama in 1881. But at the time, he was just another one of Davis' students.
Washington was born to a slave cook on a Virginia farm in April 1865. After his mother was freed, she trekked 200 miles to Malden, where her husband worked in the salt furnaces. It was there that Washington started his foray into education, under the youthful, but energetic teachings of Davis, according to the Harlan paper.
Davis took a special interest in Washington, going to his house to help tutor and teach him outside of regular school hours, something that was common at the time, according to Woodson.
Of all the people who impacted Washington's life, Davis may have had one of the most profound impacts, Woodson said. When Washington was honored at Tuskegee at their anniversary celebration in 1937, Washington brought Davis along as his guest of honor, pointing out that Davis' contribution to education and his desire to teach helped make Washington the man he became.
"In the end, he said it was my great-grandfather's faith that inspired him to become a teacher," Berger said.
In 1995, Woodson, who worked for GMAC for 30 years, started piecing together his family history, but took it up full time in 2008, after the Malden Booker T. Washington dedication ceremony where a statue honoring the late activist and educator was unveiled.
Woodson wrote a letter of appeal to Charleston Mayor Danny Jones on Feb. 14 imploring him to consider Davis for his personal achievement and service to the community and to recognize him as an important local historical figure.
Doing the research has not been easy. "I've been up against a brick wall getting this information," Woodson said. Many of the historical accounts from Davis' time offer conflicting reports of history, particularly those related to blacks.
"A lot of the information we don't have because our parents didn't get it from their parents," Woodson said. "It was a different time. Children were seen and not heard."
Berger said she regrets more than anything not asking her father, who was 18 when her great-grandfather died, more questions about her family's history.
"You wish you had all the time in the world to get to know [your ancestors] as people," she said.
Berger, a registered nurse, has started to chronicle her own life, even if it's just writing down the color of her eyes and her favorite color. That way, her great-grandkids will actually know her as a person.
"A person is much more than just what they accomplish in their lives," she said.
Berger's interest in her great-grandfather's story started with just wanting to know more about the type of man he was when he lived.
"I always imagined him as a tall person," to match the stature of the stories she heard about what he did for blacks in West Virginia, but he was only 5 feet, 7 inches and only 18 when he was appointed teacher.
Now that their research is in its final stages, the family hopes to have their great-grandfather's name included in the pages of history.
"We see so much history about other people and not much about him," Berger said. "He was selfless. He wasn't out for recognition. He just followed his calling of teaching."