text:
This is a continuation of our long-form essay with Hilbert.
Read Part I
EH [...] I love the verse music of Tennyson, what Willard Spiegelman calls "the mouth-filling vowels," even if the diction and themes can come off as cloying to our postmodern sensibilities. Also, the heavily stressed Anglo-Saxon verse and its occasional modern applications by poets like Geoffrey Hill and Seamus Heaney.
Jonathan Creasy: What does this mean for your process of composition?
EAH: The question that confronts the poet as artist is simple. How far can one go in changing a pattern before losing the identity of that pattern altogether? Forms are freighted with historical meaning. For instance, a symphony consists of a known, historically changing form, and composers are expected to work within it while working, to some degree, against it, to make it original, make it their own. This is no less true of the sonnet. I find a lot of the poems claimed as "sonnets" by postwar writers to simply be wilted free-verse poems. The allegation that they are sonnets seems more like special pleading. I like to believe I've kept enough of the original intent, sound, and structure of sonnets, as they have been read since the Renaissance, that I may lay sufficiently convincing claim to the form. Still, there are those who insist that what I write are not sonnets. If it doesn't sound like Shakespeare, it's not a sonnet, so far as they're concerned. It's okay. I'm not really trying to reach those readers.
Finally, to get back at the essence of your question, I wrote in an Allen Ginsberg-inspired type of long free-verse line for many years, and I now feel that I was always seeking some way to make the poems cohere more completely. I am left with the gloomy feeling that the hundreds of poems written over the course of a decade and a half are pretty much unserviceable because I never got the "sound" or the angle I wanted out of them. They represent a drastically overextended phase of juvenilia. It was just random reaching in different directions. These little sonnet-type poems allow me to write the equivalent of "songs," which is what sonnets originally were. Sonnet means "little song" in Italian. I put the books together like albums. I've always been more influenced by music and musicians than by other writers. That said, I've written two complete collections in manuscript since All of You on the Good Earth, titled Last One Out and Caligulan, and they are written in a mixture of styles and forms. That is also true of the limited-edition chapbook Aim Your Arrows at the Sun, issued by LATR Editions in New York City in 2009, which contains no fourteen-liners at all. All this aside, I know I am most commonly associated with the sonnet form. Two Penguin anthologies, Literature (2011) and Poetry (2011), maintain that I have "been credited as one of several contemporary poets who have led a revitalization of the sonnet." The New Criterion headed its review of All of You on the Good Earth "Reviving the Sonnet." If I manage to publish Last One Out in the next few years, that perception may alter.
JC: 'Sonnet' means 'little song,' but you have worked on much larger musical collaborations.
EH: I write opera librettos. It is an intense collaborative process, at least in my case. I teach a course in the art of the opera libretto, and I stress the three big S's that the librettist must code directly into the very DNA of the libretto. When inventing or shaping characters, working up a plot, forming the settings, it is important to account for singing, spectacle, and story. I believe that those are the three reasons audiences attend an opera. This is not to say one should write retrograde "numbers" opera. This is all through-composed and very modern on the musical end. The librettist should write songs, or arias, unfashionable as that may be in the minds of some composers. Those are the moments on which a singer's career is built. Also, don't set it in a dreary room, unless you're trying to grasp at some larger Beckett-like situation. Set something up for the stagecraft professionals. They'll want some room to create a stunning set. And, of course, the story. There are operas by major composers that are largely forgotten simply because the story is so dry, or simply implausible, which takes a lot in opera. The most important lesson is that the writer's ego must make room for the composer. Librettists have complained for time immemorial about composers throwing out their meter and rhymes. It's no less true today. Give up control. Collaborate. Mozart said "in Opera, the Poetry must always be the obedient daughter of Music." I can usually make a strong case to keep or discard something, persuade the composer that certain passages are necessary to the larger purpose of the opera, that they carry the philosophical implications forward even if they seem a momentary dullness. The other big thing is that one must keep things as simple as possible. J.D. McClatchy says "opera is a kind of poster art. It deals in big emotion. You have a singer belting out these words over a 100-piece orchestra to people who have had two drinks and are wearing tight-fitting clothes. How subtle can you be?" Poet and librettist David Mason likes to remind me that "the music takes up a lot of space." I extrapolated the three elements from work I had already done and observation of what most pleased me in known works. I am Aristotelian by inclination. I was more of a Platonist when young, as many are, I suspect, but I gradually grew out of it. I only deliver formulations drawn from examination of what has already worked, though I believe one must use these to imagine something that has not yet come into being. It is somewhat akin to bricolage in the plastic arts.
JC: Has the role of the poet as lyricist changed significantly since the Elizabethan sonneteers?
Just today, I acquired from a British bookseller a pristine copy of E.H. Fellowe's classic 1920 anthology English Madrigal Verse for my very modest personal collection of rare books. Critics suggest that not much of value was written in the form in English before 1588 and precious little after 1632. Tastes suddenly changed, as they will. If we compare madrigals to the lyrics of a master from the last century, like Cole Porter, what we notice most is an enormous shift in tone, not verse form. In fact, popular music is not only a refuge for measured and rhymed verse to the present day but actually a place in which it positively thrives. But back to madrigals. Playful as they may be, madrigals strike us as more proper than would have been fitting even in the 1920s of Cole Porter. For instance, Thomas Campion, in his "Third Book of Ayres," gives us "Truth a rare flower now is grown, / Few men wear it in their hearts. / Lovers are more easily known / By their follies than their deserts." In the golden era of the American song book, lyrics still came in measures and resembled written verse, but they tended toward the slangy and smart-assed: "When grandma, whose age is eighty, / In night clubs is getting matey / With gigolos, / Anything goes." After the Beatles, popular music shot out in a million different directions, so it's anyone's guess what the role of a good lyricist is today. In our current moment, songwriters like Colin Meloy of The Decembrists are praised for reviving rhymed storytelling in indie rock, something that owes much to the folk tradition. Storytelling aside, when bands perform songs like "The Legionnaire's Lament," we get frisky lyrics that would not be out of place in the Jazz Age: "I'm a legionnaire, / Camel in disrepair, / Hoping for a Frigidaire / to come passing by. / I am on reprieve, / Lacking my joie de vive, / Missing my gay Paris / In this desert dry." What at first seems an archaic inversion for the sake of rhyme turns out, on inspection, to be a most subtle nod to French syntax. With The Decembrists and bands like them we're meant to take this "old fashioned" approach with a wink. If we stop to think about it, their lyrics more closely resemble classic madrigals than do the lyrics to old jazz standards. Even Jack White, whose lyrics can be less inspired than his singing and songwriting overall, delivers quatrains like this: "Well, I ain't saying I'm innocent / In fact, the reverse / But if you're heading to the grave / You don't blame the hearse." The rhyme words are not surprising, but the joke-quality of the verse would not cohere without the clear use of rhyme.
One of the most common use of rhymed measures today probably appears in hip hop. The rhymes can be as stale as what one encounters in any other type of popular music, but they sometimes rise to the truly Byronic in their cleverness as well as their wickedness. Here is one from Kanye West's "Gold Digger," about unwary men who are taken financially by manipulative women, a stanza made up of rhymed couplet fourteeners, which hark back to English poetry of the sixteenth century: "I know somebody paying child support for one of his kids. / His baby-mamma's car and crib is bigger than his. / You will see him on TV any given Sunday / Win the Super Bowl and drive off in a Hyundai." It's hard to suppress a chuckle at that one. One really must hear the lines performed, as their syncopation against the beat is what makes them interesting. Of course I'm getting off topic here, as rap is spoken and not sung. I believe it is closer to popular literary art than music in most ways.
To sum, I am possessed by music. I listen to it all the time. It drowns out the terrifying silence of the universe and warms me. Even in the absence of music there is almost always a song in my head or a poem or something to make me feel. When song departs me, mentally, so to speak, I am left barren and become irritable, distracted, broken up, sad, angry, even given to rages. Music soothes me. It draws me out of myself and improves me. I have terribly eclectic and broad tastes in music. When people ask me what kind of music I like, I simply answer "good music."
JC: Where do you start with this type of collaborative musical work?
EH: When I lived in New York City, I worked at a dreary temp job at American Express in the World Financial Center with a friend who worked on the side as a curator and host of various events at night. She's now the director of Lincoln Center Festival. In early 2002, she tapped me for inclusion in a series called Non Sequitor, run by CCi, the Composers Collaborative. The series paired five composers with five writers. We were given some studio space on the upper west side of Manhattan, and we were expected to come up with some sort of project to be performed downtown at the Bowery Poetry Club over three nights. The composers and writers tended to be very hip and cool and avant-garde. The two least cool guys in the room were clearly Daniel Felsenfeld and me. We stood around a grand piano in a big apartment over the Hudson River and talked about ourselves, our artistic expectations and goals, and then the curators of the series would decide how to pair us up based on our extempore talks. I immediately took to Danny. He talked about a night he spent talking until dawn with Timothy Leary, how that influenced him as an artist. I thought "this guy is smart and cool. He's equal parts Lou Reed and Arnold Schoenberg." We became friends and collaborators. He's incredibly generous, and a great talker. He's just a wonderful person to talk to because he's read so much and thought so deeply on so many subjects. We worked together on a piece called "Summer and All it Brings," which is scored for harpsichord, cello, soprano, and spoken male voice. It's a small chamber opera, about half an hour. For the first performances over several nights on the Bowery, the room was packed. I created a series of text fragments that I projected on the bare wall above the performers with a digital projector. These light fragments worked against or undermined or sometimes extended the words being sung by the soprano. We later had the piece performed with a full orchestra at Symphony Space by the New York City Opera as part of their VOX: Showcasing American Composers series. The PEN American Center also staged it with the spoken voice by novelist Wesley Stace, who performed as a musician under the moniker John Wesley Harding. Danny and I worked on some other pieces, including what was planned as a full-length opera called Last of Manhattan. The first three of five acts were performed to sold-out audiences at the large performance space The Kitchen in Chelsea. After that, we gradually drifted apart as collaborators, though our pieces continued to be performed occasionally. He started working with the likes of David Bowie and also with his own wife, who is a writer. We're still friends, but we don't work together. Still, that's how I got into the music world again. I supplied some lyrics for heavy metal bands I played in when I was younger. I hung around record studios and with musicians when I lived in New York. I'd find myself talking to Moby at a strip club or reaching for the same cookie as Lou Reed at the craft service table backstage at St. Mark's in the Bowery. In that last instance, I stood my ground and refused to surrender the cookie. Laurie Anderson shot me a look. It was a good cookie.
I lived in a huge loft with four other guys, illegally sublet from the minimalist sculptor John Duff, who first hit it big in 1969 at age 26 when he was included in a big Whitney Museum show. He lived in the front third facing onto Canal, and we had the back two thirds. Twenty foot high tin ceilings. You could throw a football down the loft it was so long. Our end was 47 Howard Street, one block north of Canal, between Broadway and Mercer. It used to be a grungy street, though my last visit showed it to be pretty gentrified at this point. One day I walked out to go to work and stepped onto a set where David Bowie and Trent Reznor were making a video, probably for the remix of "I'm Afraid of Americans." One day I was reading late at night when suddenly I noticed strange light in the window and looked down to see a sports car completely engulfed in a column of flame. Not a soul on the street. I went back to reading and forgot about it. We lived across from the landscape artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Sometimes we'd be drinking beer out on the fire escape and he'd emerge to get into a limousine, and we'd shout "Christooooooo" and he'd duck in as if he were about to be overwhelmed by fans like a member of the Beatles. It was the new Gilded Age 90s, and New York was at capacity, overflowing in fact, because there was so much new money, geek money, with Silicon Alley.
But back to the music. Young composer Christopher LaRosa wrote some excellent music for the last quarter of my spoken word album Elegies & Laments from Pub Can Records. The rock musicians Marc Hildenberger and Dave Young supplied most of the music on the album. The music for that album was written as a soundtrack, if you will, to the spoken poems, which were arranged in order to suggest stories and embody various themes, so it owes something to the eighteenth-century practice of melodrama, a genre of opera in which all words are spoken over suggestive, programmatic musical episodes. Georg Benda's Medea and Ariadne auf Naxos are pure examples. The closest modern analogue would be film soundtracks. We quickly learned, in live performance, that the problem with this approach is that it's hard to get the spoken lines across, over the music, and the result is often a rather unpleasant shouting. In the studio, however, we were able to overcome this as easily as filmmakers do. It's very much a studio album. Most spoken word albums consist simply of words spoken casually over a repeated musical figure, think of the posthumous Jim Morrison album American Prayer. We wanted to get well beyond that. LaRosa also set some of my poems to music for classical concert performance.
I now work largely with the composer Stella Sung. We wrote the evening-length epic opera The Red Silk Thread: An Epic Tale of Marco Polo together. It's set in the court of Kublai Khan, a love story that also takes place along the route of Marco Polo's last journey back to Venice. I wanted to create something along the lines of a 19th-century opera, but without a lot of the sexist crap that comes with those sorts of operas so much of the time. We wanted to go big. There's a pirate battle, for instance. And why not? Opera needs a shot in the arm. Enough shoe gazing! Let's get the glamour back in, I say. Red Silk Thread received two performances the Michigan Opera Studio at the Walgreens Drama Center and premiered at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Florida with a full orchestra, 60-voice choir, and professional leads, directed by Beth Greenberg. We've also been given a large commission as part of New Music USA to write a companion opera for Orff's Carmina Burana for the Dayton, Ohio Performing Arts Alliance, which combines ballet, orchestra, and opera. We're only just started working on the précis, but it may prove to be an engrossing project.
JC: Where do you see it going?
EH: More large operas. I'd like to write an oratorio at some stage. Hopefully more work with bands. I appeared in a film that the rockabilly-punk band Mercury Radio Theater screened between songs at one of their sold-out shows at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia. I was in LA at the time, so I missed it, but my wife was at the concert and tells me it went over weirdly and well. I wrote the script based on their trilogy of monster albums. Widget Studios, where the music for Elegies & Laments was recorded, still has hours of experimental effects created by bassist Marc Hildenberger using analog effects pedals. These sessions failed to yield anything that wound up on the album, but we've joked that we might haul some of those sounds out of the vault, add some textures and drum beats, and maybe record some more. I imagine I will be working with musicians and composers for the rest of my life, in many different ways.
Ernest Hilbert is one of the finest poets writing in the formal traditions of U.S. and European poetry. He is a master of craft, measure and music. Beside two remarkable collections of poetry - Sixty Sonnets (2009) and All of You on the Good Earth (2013) - Hilbert is a writer of opera libretti and an antiquarian book dealer. His poetry and criticism have appeared in publications around the world, and his poem, 'Domestic Situation,' has taken on the status of cult classic, widely performed and anthologized.
This is the second part of a long interview conducted with Hilbert over the course of a year in 2013 - 2014.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Sunday, March 22, 2009
4 comments:
Does Katie remind you of me or not??? Enjoy your breakfast entertainment...lol oh yeah, you were toooo late on the heads up about how to pronounce Antigo correctly... that is a FUNNY story I will have to tell you in person... ugghhhh. I look forward to hearing more about Branson!ReplyDelete
It is raining here. Basically, Minnesota is crying because you left us again. So happy I got to see you on Saturday!! I have already snuggled up with your blankie. Not that I was sniffing it or anything, but it totally smells like you. Haha. Love you so much! I would like to see some pictures of the lovely Branson : )ReplyDelete
Yay!! You like your lead! That's probably most important because there's nothing worse than being stuck with someone you really don't care for!! And it seems like you will have a little fun after all!!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMarch 23, 2009 at 3:50 PM
the Beatles look alike group we saw in Japan was awesome, so I'm hoping you have the same luck in MO...and you're just so damn cute, my loins are girded and ready to go =)ReplyDelete


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Warning!: This post promotes the practice of shuttling
Recently I had the misfortune of catching one of Mike Hosking's self-absorbed rants (or was it Paul Henry?). Mike was discussing the innovation of self-drive vehicles and he finished his little piece by declaring that in 10 years time we'd all be driving (or being driven in) self-drive vehicles. By default I normally disregard everything Mike (and Paul) have to say, but in this circumstance I found myself thinking - what if he's right, how will that development impact my life?
Immediately my pondering drifted to how it would affect me as a cyclist. I'm certainly not the first to wonder whether this technology and these vehicles will make my daily commute by bike safer or more dangerous (you'll find screeds of hyperbole, analysis, and opinion regarding this online) but what really got me interested was how this technology might affect me as a mountain biker.
'Shuttling': to some it's a dirty word and the bane of mountain biking but to many it is one of life's greatest joys. A means to an abundance of downhill runs without the graft of the climbs. For those of us who don't live in coo-ee of a chairlift, it's our only means of sampling this pleasure. But the issue with shuttling is that logistically it requires a bit of work. The biggest complication being the requirement of a driver. This is currently usually covered by either paying to be shuttled, taking turns among yourselves to drive, or finding a kind friend or spouse to assist. All viable solutions, but all less convenient than rolling your bike out the door, swinging your leg over the saddle, and pedaling off towards the trails.
Until now... well until 10 years from now (according to Mike) at which time I am anticipating I will be driven to the trailhead in my self-drive Toyota Shuttlez micro 4x4 which will then make it's way unaided to the trail exit to collect me as I complete my run. I'll enjoy a morning... no make that a full day, of racking up downhill k's without having to worry about who is driving, or making sure everyone get's their fair share of trail time. And that's only the beginning of the potential for self-drive vehicles in mountain biking. What about that point-to-point epic that you've always wanted to do but haven't been able to find a way of being deposited and collected at the respective ends of the trail? Caught out on a long ride with a major mechanical and need someone to come and collect you...?
The scenarios are many. It's a reality that will get many hackles up, and in truth I'm of two minds myself. But it is certainly a reality that is worth contemplating as, if Mike is right and it's only 10 years away, then it could well change the nature of the sport of mountain biking. Thoughts?


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Thomas Friedman begins his piece today by telling readers that: "over the past few weeks I've had a chance to speak with senior economic policy makers in America and Germany." This might lead readers to believe that he is about to share some great insights that would only be possible for someone with special access to these senior economic policy makers.
Readers with this expectation will be seriously disappointed. There is nothing here that is more insightful than what can be found on the Washington Post's editorial pages on an average workday. Friedman rehashes the usual cliches, with the usual lack of thought. In doing so, he gets both the story of the recent past and the present seriously wrong.
Starting with the past, he badly misrepresents the prior business cycle:
"we've just ended more than a decade of debt-fueled growth during which we borrowed money from China to give ourselves a tax cut and more entitlements but did nothing to curtail spending or make long-term investments in new growth engines."
The main problem facing the U.S. economy of the last decade was a lack of demand. This was in large part due to the fact that China lent to us. China's lending was its policy of propping up the value of the dollar in order to maintain its export market in the United States. (At the start of the decade, the Clinton administration had also tried to promote an over-valued dollar.) The over-valued U.S. dollar made imports from China and other countries very cheap in the United States and made our exports expensive in other countries. This led to a large and growing trade deficit over most of the business cycle. The trade deficit replaced domestic demand, preventing the economy from approaching normal levels of employment (even with the boost from the housing bubble) until just before the crash.
There is no reason whatsoever to believe that China's decision to prop up the dollar was in any way affected by the Bush tax cuts. In other words, neither the Bush tax cuts nor the growth in entitlements had anything to do with our borrowing from China. The issue was China's decision to lend and thereby prop up the dollar. Given the weakness of demand through most of the decade, these expenses could have been easily filled by domestic production without borrowing from abroad.
Friedman does no better when he shifts the discussion from the past to the present. He refers to businesses' reluctance to hire as the result of "unusual uncertainty," a phrase attributed to Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke. Of course there is no reluctance to hire, there is simply a lack of demand for labor. A reluctance to hire would be reflected in an increasing number of hours per worker, as employers sought to meet their demand for labor by working the existing workforce more hours.
This is not happening. There is a modest uptick in hours from the low point of the downturn, but the increase in hours per worker is certainly no more rapid than in other recessions and the average workweek is still far shorter in just about every sector than it was before the downturn.
Later he tells readers:"America's solvency inflection point is coinciding with a technological one. Thanks to Internet diffusion, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and the shift from laptops and desktops to hand-held iPads and iPhones, technology is destroying older, less skilled jobs that paid a decent wage at a faster pace than ever while spinning off more new skilled jobs that pay a decent wage but require more education than ever."
This is a great story -- social networking is soaring, IPads are everywhere -- does Friedman have any evidence whatsoever that this development has increased the demand for educated workers and reduced the demand for less educated workers? If so, this would be the place in his column to present the evidence. Otherwise, readers might think that the 4.7 percent unemployment rate for college grads (nearly triple the pre-recession level), coupled with a decline in their real wages over the decade, implies a reduced demand for the labor of highly educated workers as well as less educated workers.
Friedman's proposed fix also seems a bit wide of the mark. He insists:
"There is only one way to deal with this challenge: more innovation to stimulate new industries and jobs that can pay workers $40 an hour, coupled with a huge initiative to train more Americans to win these jobs over their global competitors. There is no other way."
We better hope there is another way. A wage of $40 an hour would put a worker well over the 90th percentile on the wage distribution. Even if we double the number of jobs in this pay range -- an incredible accomplishment -- what happens to the other 80 percent of the workforce?
Friedman then warns us of the challenge from Europe by getting Germany's past and present wrong:
"Keeping up with Germany won't be easy. A decade ago Germany was the 'sick man of Europe.' No more. The Germans pulled together. Labor gave up wage hikes and allowed businesses to improve competitiveness and worker flexibility, while the government subsidized firms to keep skilled workers on the job in the downturn."
Germany clearly has done some changes that benefited its economy, like work sharing, and some that haven't, but its past as the "sick man of Europe" is an invention of Friedman or his highly placed sources. Germany always ran a trade surplus. That is the most basic measure of a country's competitiveness: foreigners are buying its goods. Germany's unemployment rate in 2000 averaged 7.5 percent, not hugely different than its current 7.0 percent rate.
The story here is that Friedman seems to have completely missed the basics of the current economic crisis in spite of his weeks of conversing with senior economic policy makers. The current crisis is due to a lack of demand pure and simple. If we generate demand either through more expansionary Fed monetary policy, greater fiscal stimulus, or increased exports due to a falling dollar, there is no reason to believe that the economy will not return to high levels of employment. Certainly Friedman has presented no evidence that increased demand will not generate increased employment as it always has.
The longer term debt problem is overwhelmingly a health care story. Apparently Mr. Friedman's sources don't have access to documents like the Medicare trustees report, which imply that U.S. health care costs will be controlled and there will be no serious long-term deficit problem. This may prove wrong, but it seems that it would have at least been worth noting in his column. Of course, if we have not fixed our health care system, we can always achieve huge saving by relying on the more efficient health care systems in other countries.
If Friedman's intention was to scare us, he succeeded. After all, if senior economic policy makers in the U.S. and Germany are as badly misinformed as Friedman implies, then we can expect some very bad times ahead.


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#793 – Gaiuson June 25, 2009 at 12:00 am
We really had to plan ahead if we wanted to play in the little plastic pool we had as kids. First of all it took forever to fill it up. Hours felt like days. When it was finally full we still couldn't get in because the water was just warm enough to be in a liquid state. We had to let it bake in the sun for another few hours so that we didn't get hypothermia.
One plus two plus three plus four, books on sale in the store.


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Growing up blonde had some advantages and disadvantages. One disadvantage is suffering through one dumb blonde joke after another. Then after I became an attorney, I endured one silly lawyer joke after another. My daughter, Megan, loved to tease me with the double whammy--dumb blonde/dumb lawyer jokes.
I wonder just how many women are treated like they are dumb blondes, regardless of their hair color. Or just as bad, I wonder how many women hold this view of themselves. Sadly many girls grow up thinking that their looks are more important than their minds.
But guess what I discovered?
Women (and men) are created in the image of God!
And my God is smart. In fact, Jesus is the smartest man who ever lived. (Yes I ripped off this idea from the brilliant Dallas Willard.) So let's not fool ourselves, ladies, into thinking our minds don't matter. We were created to be smart.
Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind." Luke 10:27
How can you love God with your mind if your mind is full of junk? Go feed your mind with "good food." Put away the mommy porn, romantic fantasies, and gossip magazines. Try some manna. Learn some deeper stuff, especially about God, the One who created you because He loves you and has a plan for your life.


text:
Pacifica suffers from rotten timing
Pacifica Group(PBB)
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For Pacifica, just as it's on the verge of becoming a fully-fledged component supplier to the high-volume multinational car manufacturers, the Asian crisis couldn't have hit at a worse time. With 4 new plants to be commissioned in 1998, the Asian crisis was the last thing the company needed. PBB's share price has now declined 34% from its September high of $6.30. The latest rout came as investors digested comments made by management at the recent AGM outlining the severity of the problems and their likelp$Å•µ¡Öç–Å? profitability....


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May 24, 2016 – Michael Roberts, executive director of the Resnick Program for Food Law & Policy, was quoted in Legal Newsline about recent lawsuits against Chipotle that have spurred further discussion about companies who claim to be GMO-free.
"I believe that greater scrutiny will be applied to GMO-free claims," Professor Roberts said.
"It is likely that this scrutiny will lead to further suits against not just Chipotle, but others as well. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that the attention on Chipotle may be due in part to its recent food safety problems, which has raised questions about the company's integrity."
Read the article.
Michael Roberts
Laurie J. Beyranevand
Diana Winters
Diana R. H. Winters


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SD2 - Structured Attributes: ---------------------------------------- XML uses containment to hold data between tags. This data can be internally subdivided, for example the author can be marked to indicate internal parts, as in <AUTHOR><LAST>Dantzig</LAST>, <FIRST>Tobias</FIRST></AUTHOR>. These divisions don't change the contents of AUTHOR, them merely identify constituent parts. Contrast this with adding a digital signature, as in the following: <AUTHOR XML-DSIG="ABCDE">Dantzig, Tobias</AUTHOR>. Here, the signature is an attribute of the author element, that is, supplementary information, but not actual contents: Adding a signature does not change who the author is. The distinction between contents and attributes is important when tools (particularly down-level versions of products) need to process data without fully understanding its meaning: unknown attributes are completely ignored, while the contents of unknown elements are retained. In both cases above, an uninformed tool could retrieve the value of AUTHOR as "Dantzig, Tobias". However, XML attributes inside the tag cannot have structure, nor can they themselves have attributes, nor can they be easily extended. Consequently, for example, a digital signature cannot have any structure (except by private conventions and private syntax) nor can attributes be digitally signed. The current attribute syntax is insufficient. Proposal: I'm going to say something radical here: We should invent a way to add structure and attributes to attributes. A special character sequence "<*" in an opening tag (the exact characters used are to-be-determined) signals that the contents are an attribute, not a subdivision. <ORDERS> <LINEITEM XML-ID="L1" > <NAME>Number, the Language of Science</NAME> <AUTHOR><First>Dantzig</>, <Last>Tobias</> <*XML-DSIG><DIGEST>5432109876</><SIGNER>firstname.lastname@example.com</></XML-DSIG > </AUTHOR> <PRICE>5.95</PRICE> <AVAILABILITY>Out of Stock</AVAILABILITY> <*XML-DSIG><DIGEST>1234567890</DIGEST><SIGNER>email@example.com</></ XML-DSIG> </LINEITEM ></ORDERS> In this example, the AUTHOR element has a digital signature attribute, as well as subelements for First and Last parts of the name. Similarly, LINEITEM has a digital signature. Finally, the digital signatures themselves have subelements, one of which has a attribute, XML-TYPE. An attribute that identifies an element should be expressed within the element's tag. (That is, the XML-ID attribute.) All other attributes can be expressed in either form, so there is a smooth upgrade path as structural needs show up. The grove will reflect both syntactical representations the same way. -----------------------------Received on Friday, 16 May 1997 00:14:19 UTC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.1 : Tuesday, 6 January 2015 21:25:26 UTC


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nmrshiftdb2 is a NMR database (web database) for organic structures and their nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) spectra. It allows for spectrum prediction (13C, 1H and other nuclei) as well as for searching spectra, structures and other properties. Last not least, it features peer-reviewed submission of datasets by its users. The nmrshiftdb2 software is open source, the data is published under an open content license. Please consult the documentation for more detailed information. nmrshiftdb2 is the continuation of the NMRShiftDB project with additional data and bugfixes and changes in the software.
Prediction using deep learning techniques Wed, 04 Sep 2019 11:16:46 -0000We have a new prediction mechanism available, using deep learning techniques. It should offer improved results - see the paper for details. The prediction is available on the Prediction tab by choosing the methos "13C NN" or "1H NN". Currently it is a bit slow due to the way it is integrated, this will hopefully be improved soon.
Data from ChiuZ Wed, 08 May 2019 10:09:53 -0000nmrshiftdb2 contains structures published in the journal 'Chemie in Unserer Zeit' as part of a series on extraction and spectroscopy of natural products. The corresponding raw data as well as assigned structures are available. The compounds can be found here. DOIs (digital object identifiers) are assigned to these datasets. For example, data for Quinine are identified by DOI 10.18716/nmrshiftdb2/60004827/chiuz_cdcl3.
Developer position available Sun, 23 Dec 2018 15:58:06 -0000We have funding for further development of nmrshiftdb2, with a focus on the user interface. Therefore we have a job opening for a developer. If you are interested in working in an international open science environment, you find the announcement here
NMReDATA export Mon, 23 Apr 2018 11:56:55 -0000The QuickCheck now allows for export of the assigned data in the NMReDATA format. The NMReDATA inititiative, which we are part of, strives for establishing the format as a new standard for NMR data exchange.
Cooperation with Sciformation Wed, 26 Apr 2017 11:57:06 -0000We have been working with Sciformation to integrate nmrshiftdb2 functionalities into their ELN (elecronic lab notebook). We hope this will be a useful addition for ELN users.
New version Sat, 18 Jun 2016 20:58:47 -0000We have released a new version of the software. The main new feature is the Quick Check (still experimental), which is part of a wider initiative about NMR data quality (information in German).
New publication Tue, 26 May 2015 12:52:26 -0000We published a paper about the use of nmrshiftdb2 and its lab system, specifically to increase data quality control for spectra assignments. See our Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry paper for details.
New release Mon, 02 Feb 2015 23:30:19 -0000Since 1.2.2015 a new release is live on the servers. This is mainly a bugfix release with quite a few minor improvements.
Unichem co-operation Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:15:04 -0000nmrshiftdb2 is now part of the Unichem network, a cross-referencing databases between (currently) 24 molecular databases. In practice, this means that all the databases now show nmrshiftdb2 links (e. g. ChEMBL) and nmrshiftdb2 shows links to other databases in the additonal data of each molecule. This is updated without a need to exchange links with each individual database. This is part of the new 1.4.6 release.
New release Sun, 12 Jan 2014 00:06:43 -0000A new nmrshiftdb2 release was done. It includes most prominently MarvinJS for input, since the Java applets cause increasing problems. There is also partial handling of diastereotopic atoms in the prediction and other small improvements.


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Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy and Beautiful Christmas. I'm very very happy and there is reason to celebrate. My project at Kickstarter has had an awesome reception and will be funded, thanks to all charitable souls who have helped out. However, the project is still going and will be running until January the 10th so if you still want a signed and dedicated copy of my new book, do click on this link:
The Amazing Story of Philomena Sparks
Do check out the updates and see the wonderful illustrations that I have posted so far. I can't wait to put the book together and have it ready to print. Do spread the word too about this, please!
In the meantime, have a Merry Gothic Christmas! (You know how it is…)


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We immediately fell in love with this 1948 old trailer across the road from our property, the second we saw it! The horse trailer was super rusty, corroded, busted up and in super rough condition. Any normal person would barely want to use this old horse trailer for dump runs.. let alone restore it, but something about it caught our eye! The front of the trailer had an old home made diamond window that opened up. Diamonds have been a big part of Tinker Tin from the beginning. The diamond shape is inside all our Tinker Tin logo letters, and our 1956 Jewel with its iconic diamond window door is our Tinker Tin trailer logo… so when we saw this old horse trailer we knew it belonged in the fleet! After a few years of harassing our neighbors.. we ended up finally rolling the trailer across the road! The trailer had some poor hodge podged repair jobs fromover the years, the interior though had really neat early salvaged wood planks for the floor and the sides .. that were scrapped from our local Templeton Feed & Grain down the road. The trailers diamond window and the salvaged wood floor from the local Feed & Grain (sidenote: the Templeton Feed & Grain was built in 1913 – the grain mill started in the 30s and is still family run and operated today! We get our horse feed there and it is the best quality around!) … to say the least this trailer checked a few boxes for us, so we knew it was a good restoration candidate!
We decided we were going to turn the Trail King into a horse trailer bar.. a long time idea of ours! First things first, we gutted the trailer and brought it down to its frame! Keeping the integrity of the horse trailer and not taking away from its original build was important to us! Once we tore the trailer down to its bones, we realized that it was going to be more of a project then we initially thought .. as always! The original open steel caged roof was completely rotted away. We had to start from scratch and weld a whole new cage together, that way we could fit a new custom canvas top onto the roof, as well as paint the roof without rust seeping through, and hang lighting and chandeliers without the worry of the roof collapsing!
This trailer got a new custom welded roof, a whole new trailer tongue and ball hitch, reinforced steel throughout, new webbed eyes and metal grates, a new custom diamond window door that opens, a new larger side door to enter the trailer through with custom engineered door grates among other things! We are well versed in trailers and restoration, and typically most every build takes quite a bit more than you originally anticipate… but this trailer took that theory to a whole new level! There were areas of corrosion that were almost unbearable and made us want to scrap the whole project! All for the love of a horse trailer of course haha!
After all the metal fabrication was done, we sourced some gorgeous reclaimed redwood for the sides and was able able to build a gorgeous custom wrap around bar and siding! We loved the original wood planks from the Feed and Grain that were inside the trailer sides .. but most of it was at the point of no return and sadly couldn't save it. Luckily we were able to save the plank floors on the Trail King that were also from the Templeton Feed and Grain! We were so excited that we would be able to keep them intact! This trailer has a wild history and our goal was to preserve as much of it as we possibly could.
Once the reclaimed redwood was intact, we brought the trailer back to the property and started on the finish.. fresh white paint, new bearings, tires and wheels, popping out and filling the fenders and front aluminum dents and reattaching them, building the back redwood bar shelve siding, built the new redwood wall for the tap handles, fit the coolers and kegs, hang lighting and chandeliers, fit the redwood mount and antlers, and the new custom canvas top! We then took the trailer over to our good friend and old time sign painter Dave Bond (Lucky B Design) who was able to hand letter the trailer and pin stripe the front of it!!
Our first 1948 Trail King Horse Trailer Bar debut was at the Madonna Expo Bridal Show and then of course our infamous Trailer Prom! Our friends over at Barrelhouse Brewery were able to serve their amazing craft beer our of the horse trailer for patrons all night long! It was a huge hit!
It was also featured in a recent photo shoot published on Green Wedding Shoes: http://greenweddingshoes.com/new-years-eve-cocktail-party-inspiration-2/


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By John Liptak, Ed.D.
This instrument measures a person's individual career development status, essentially highlighting what stages in that development process they are most uncertain of or need the most help with.
For people who feel that their job search or even their careers have stalled, this is an ideal screening tool to discover why and what can be done about it. It is a means of helping job seekers engage in effective short- and long-term career planning, which in turn will help them make wiser career choices.
Features and benefits include:
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Making the most of every employee's abilities benefits them and the business. Whatever their role, each individual works better when they are fully engaged in what they are doing. Once you know what your employees are capable of, you are able to help them achieve their best.
With Survey Solutions, you get all this insight and more. We equip you with the knowledge and confidence to act on our findings and implement decisions that will engage staff and enhance performance through 'quick wins', continuous improvement and sustained customer-centric behaviour.
A fully engaged employee is committed, speaks highly of their employer and is enthusiastic about performing to the best of their ability. Engagement cannot be imposed by senior management - It requires a culture where employees feel valued as individuals and empowered to use their talents to achieve the goals and values they share with the wider organisationFIND OUT MORE
In their drive towards building higher levels of employee engagement, it's really important that organisations collect regular data on how engaged their workforce is. Our survey specialists can help you do this by using carefully considered questions as well as the results to inform managers and assist decision making. We can also use analysis to figure out the root causes of engagement and disengagement, to help you target particular improvement topics to increase levels of employee engagement in your organisationFIND OUT MORE
To maximise the power of employee engagement and track its progress, we need to be able to measure it. Our Employee Engagement Index and our Engaged/Passive/Disengaged measures allow you to do this and to evaluate engagement throughout your business. These along with other indices such as Leadership, Management, Empowerment, Communication, Enablement and Customer Focus provide quantitative measures that can also be used to benchmark internally or compare with other organisations, to see how you stack upFIND OUT MORE
We don't believe in 'one size fits all' employee engagement surveys. No two businesses are alike, which is why we work in partnership with you to develop a tailor-made solution that fits your needs perfectly. This can incorporate a range of approaches, including:
Using our best practice techniques, we measure employee engagement levels within your organisation. We then provide you with in-depth qualitative and quantitative feedback and support with implementing an appropriate and effective plan of action.
There is plenty of hard evidence about the value of engaging employees. We believe that:
Knowing what drives employees to succeed can transform a business!
Call +44 (0)20 8943 1445 to boost employee engagement in your organisation.
We receive full support on our Survey and have done for the past 2 years. That's why we've signed up again! Our Project Team have been excellent and always on hand to give honest advice.
JCB Group


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Search for Homes
Loan Help
Title Insurance = Peace of Mind
Purchasing a home is probably the single biggest investment you will ever make. Before closing on the house, you'll want to know that no other individual or entity has a right, lien or claim to the property.
Determining that your rights and interests to the property are clear is the business of a title insurance company.
For a modest, one-time title insurance premium, you will receive continuous title insurance protection in an amount equal to the purchase price of the property or its current market value. This premium typically includes your "owners" policy as well as the "lenders" policy.
One of the marked advantages of title insurance is that prior to a policy being issued, the title insurance company completes extensive research into relevant public records, maps and documents to trace ownership of the property and determine if anyone other than you has an interest in the property. Through its research, the title insurance company can usually identify any title problems that may arise and have these problems cleared-up prior to closing.
Your title insurance owner's policy will describe the property and outline any recorded limitations on your ownership. It will also set forth the title insurance company's responsibilities should any claim covered by the policy terms arise. Typically your title insurance will protect you from loss:
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Lone Tree Arts Center to mix music, theater and plenty of musical theater in 2013-14
The 2013-14 Lone Tree Arts Center season is out. The lineup is long, full of music, and finely curated to appeal the center's growing legion of loyal fans.
LTAC has done much in its brief, two-year history to move the geographic center of Front Range entertainment a few miles south of the City of Denver. It draws locals, but also increasingly, folks from around the region who like the broad mix programmed by Executive Director Lisa Rigsby Peterson.
That mix continues next season with an emphasis on American musicals. There will be a staged singing of "South Pacific" and a full production of "Big River," while the "Home for the Holidays" revue returns with updates.
On the adventurous side, the center will present the Handsome Little Devils' touring "Squirm Burpee," a modern circus in which "vaudeville, variety and cabaret collide at a break-neck speed."
LTAC's music series will feature a mix of classical and jazz, with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra returning for several dates. Music is also a big part of the Arts in the Afternoon series, which takes place the second Wednesday of each month from August to May.
Check out the entire season at lonetreeartscenter.org. The center keeps things affordable and accessible; there's lots of family stuff and good music at reasonable prices.
Here are five picks for promising events next season, plucked stright from LTAC's media release:
1. "Destination Freedom: Black Radio Days," Sept. 30. The dramatic tale of Jackie Robinson told old-style.
2. "South Pacific in Concert," Feb. 12-16. Yes, the songs are enough to carry a swell evening at the theater.
3. "Classical Music Meets Architecture," Feb. 7. This is just the kind of thing CSO resident conductor Scott O'Neil excels at, linking art forms musically.
4. Colorado Ballet: "Spring Repertory Program," April 5. A great chance to get up and close to whatever Colorado Ballet conjures up for its year's best program.
5. "Home for the Holidays 2013," Dec. 12-24. You can't get anymore sentimental than a home-grown revue. Paul Dwyer directs.


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2500 Greensboro Road
Directions Martinsville, VA 24112
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If you're looking for a new car that's reliable and built to last, Honda has some of the most dependable vehicles on the road. Honda vehicles generally score well in reliability studies by J.D. Power and Consumer Reports, and they usually continue to perform well even after 100,000 miles or more. They've also won more Car and Driver top manufacturer awards than any other brand on the market. With their 2018 lineup, Honda has continued their reputation for quality and reliability, and Nelson Honda, serving Martinsville and Danville, Virginia, has a wide range of Hondas available in our vast inventory. Like the 2018 Honda Fit, a subcompact car with modern sport styling and aerodynamic efficiency, its clever interior design includes a second-row "Magic Seat" with a 60/40 split that folds down to allow for up to 52 cubic feet of cargo space. It also offers available Navigation, Push-Button Start, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and Smart Entry, to name just a few of its handy amenities. If you want a car that's a bit larger, the 2018 Honda Civic makes a memorable impression, with its aggressive lines and refined exterior features. Inside, the 2018 Honda Civic offers three cloth and three leather interior options, along with available heated seats. For even more luxury, an eight-way power driver's seat is available, along with a leather wrapped steering wheel and shift knob. All the tech you need is available in the 2018 Honda Civic, including cutting-edge technology features like a Multi-Angle Rearview Camera, an available navigation system, available Honda LaneWatch, and available Honda Sensing for safety on the road. If you need a midsize car, the 2018 Honda Accord is one of the top family cars available, with great gas mileage, a spacious cabin, comfortable seats, and lots of standard driver assistance features. The 2018 Honda Accord has a lot of rear headroom and legroom, and its adaptive damper system actively controls suspension action, while wheel resonators help minimize road noise for a smooth, quiet ride.
Need an SUV? Nelson Honda has them as well, like the 2018 Honda HR-V. This subcompact SUV crossover is solidly built, with an adult-friendly back seat, a versatile cargo area, and good reliability ratings. It also has user-friendly dash and console controls, including an available display audio interface and automatic climate control adjustment. For a larger SUV, consider the 2018 Honda CRV, Motor Trend's SUV of the year. The 2018 Honda CRV offers a refined interior, with available leather-trimmed seats and Driver's Seat Memory. It also has available all-wheel drive with intelligent control system, an available hands-free access power tailgate, and 60/40 slit folding rear seats for versatile cargo access. If you need an even more roomy SUV, the 2018 Honda Pilot can seat eight and has tons of cargo space. It also offers as many as five USB ports for charging mobile devices, up to three 12-volt outlets, a 115-volt outlet and an HDMI port for a gaming console. Two different moonroof styles are available, including a tilt and retract moon roof and a bigger, panoramic moonroof for a fuller view of your outdoor surroundings.
If only a pickup truck will do for you, Nelson Honda has the 2018 Honda Ridgeline. Ranked number one in compact pickup trucks by U.S. News and World Report, the 2018 Honda Ridgeline has outstanding ride quality, a nicer cabin than its rivals, a versatile bed, and lots of active safety features. Its standard V6 engine delivers strong acceleration and, with its available all-wheel drive, delivers 262 pound-feet of torque and the capability to tow up to 5,000 pounds.
Once you've found the brand-new Honda vehicle that best tickles your fancy, fill out our quick and secure online finance application to get pre-approved. After we've reviewed your information, one of our seasoned financing experts will get back with you to discuss your options, including whether you want to buy or lease. We'll give you all the information you need to help you find a lease or loan rate that fits your budget. Nelson Honda has been serving Reidsville and Eden, North Carolina for over 43 years. Visit us today, and test drive a 2018 Honda vehicle.
Prices shown are manufacturer suggested retail prices only and do not include taxes, license, or doc fee. Manufacturer vehicle accessory costs, labor and installation vary. Please contact us with any questions.
**Based on 2013 EPA mileage estimates, reflecting new EPA fuel economy methods beginning with 2008 models. Use for comparison purposes only. Do not compare to models before 2008. Your actual mileage will vary, depending on how you drive and maintain your vehicle.
For EV Models, 132 city/105 highway/118 combined miles per gallon of gasoline-equivalent (MPGe) rating; 82 mile combined (city/highway) driving range rating (adjusted). Ratings determined by EPA. Use for comparison purposes only. Your MPGe and range will vary depending on driving conditions, how you drive and maintain your vehicle, lithium-ion battery age/condition, and other factors. For additional information about EPA ratings, visit http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/label/learn-more-electric-label.shtml.
For 2014 Honda Accord Plug-In Hybrid, 115 combined miles per gallon of gasoline-equivalent (MPGe) electric rating; 47 city/46 highway/46 combined MPG gasoline only rating. 13 mile maximum EV mode driving range rating. 570 mile combined gas-electric driving range rating. Based on 2014 EPA mileage and driving range ratings. Use for comparison purposes only. Your MPGe/MPG and driving range will vary depending on driving conditions, how you drive and maintain your vehicle, lithium-ion battery age/condition, and other factors. For additional information about EPA ratings, visit http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/label/learn-more-PHEV-label.shtml.
For 2014 Honda Accord Hybrid, 50 city/45 highway/47 combined mpg rating. Based on 2014 EPA mileage ratings. Use for comparison purposes only. Your mileage will vary depending on driving conditions, how you drive and maintain your vehicle, battery-pack age/condition, and other factors.


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CodingIntel is an on-line library of resources for physicians and their staff that provides intelligence, supports maximizing revenue, and decreases compliance risk with accurate, up-to-date coding information. Accurate coding and knowledge of CPT® and government rules are the smart ways to reduce compliance risk.
For 18 years, founder Betsy Nicoletti has consulted with physician practices and hospitals that employ physicians to ensure that practices collect all of the revenue to which they are entitled while complying with coding and governmental rules. In 1988, Betsy started a Medical Services Organization for a rural hospital, supporting physician practices. In 1998 she founded Medical Practice Consulting, and in 2007 co-founded Codapedia.com.
Betsy estimates that in the last 20 years her audience members number over 28,400 at in person events and webinars. She has had 2,500 meeting with clinical providers and reviewed over 43,000 medical notes. She knows what questions need answers and developed this resource to answer those questions.


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Neil Gaiman - Coraline [UNABRIDGED] (Audiobook 3 CDs)
This is a somewhat spooky story about a girl named Coraline (not Caroline as the crazy old man says). It is like a modern version of Alice in WonderLand but without the silliness. It may frighten or confuse children under eight and I recommend it for people of all ages above that. This story is mainly about how Coraline tries to escape the wicked other mother, free her parents from the other mothers cluches, and free the souls of the children who live in the mirror. She will encounter the other mother, a talking cat who helps her on her journey, and the rats who help the other mother and give Coraline spooky messages. If you like books that are a little bit spooky, sort of weird, but a lot of fun to read, then this is the perfect book for you.
Neil Gaiman is a master storyteller. His diction is perfect. He does not waste words, but is not miserly with them either. His descriptions never fail to rouse a knowing nod and smile from the reader. Even when writing a quick throwaway piece in his journal...his style is impeccable.
For this novel, Neil sets his eyes on another audience: young adults. He gives children (or, as he has said, 'strange little girls of all ages and genders' - a nod to his friend Tori Amos and her 2001 "Strange Little Girls" album) a deliciously creepy novel about a girl, a new flat, and her other mother.
Coraline (not Caroline, even though all of the adults who live in the other flats keep on saying it that way and ignoring her corrections) and her parents move into a new home. One day, she pesters her father one too many times, so he sends her off on an expedition: find the water heater, count everything blue, count all the doors and windows. She does so, and is shocked to find that there are 13 doors that open and one that doesn't. She asks her mother what is behind the 14th door, and is told that it was bricked over when the house was broken up into flats. Her mother unlocks the door to show her this, but doesn't lock it again.
Later, Coraline creeps back, and finds that the door opens into another flat. It is just like her own, but not quite. In her room (green and pink, not boring like her own), she finds the sorts of clothing that she thinks she would have if she could pick out her own wardrobe -- not a grey school skirt, but costumes. In the kitchen, she finds her other parents -- not her real parents who work and don't play with her, but other parents who cook real food (not something from a "recipe" involving tarragon and butter beans) and dote upon her. Coraline knows that this is not right, and returns to her own flat.
Thus begins Coraline's adventure. The other mother steals Coraline's parents. Coraline returns to the other flat to get them back. Along the way, she makes friends with the most sarcastic of cats and finds the ghosts of other children who were stolen away by the other mother.
Gaiman's mastery of timing has never been shown so well than in this novel. Just when things are getting really scary, he breaks in with a droll and dry line that makes the reader laugh. This is a novel that is just begging to be read aloud -- as Neil Gaiman himself did on 02 July 2002 in Berkeley, California. His audience, around 500 people, hung on his every word. The adults in the audience were just as delighted as the children to have someone read such a delicious story to them.
Total play time 3 hrs 37 min:
(thanks to Mags for the original mp3 upload)
5 files, 40 MB each (27 MB for part 5):
Here is the book itself (in html format, but its already included in the above archive too)
Neil Gaiman - Coraline
(thanks to floater for the book)
Some more Neil Gaiman books in either html or rtf formats....
Neil Gaiman - Coraline
Neil Gaiman - Smoke and Mirrors
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Neil Gaiman - The Monarch of the Glen
Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
Neil Gaiman - Stardust
Neil Gaiman - Anansi Boys


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Communication Soultions
Contact us to discuss your radio communication needs and we can help get the right product into your hands.
Motorola Radios
1st Vanguard is an authorized dealer of Motorola Radios through Red Cloud, Inc. We are able to source all Motorola radios and accessories. Need multi-channel radios with water proof mics? No problem.
Kenwood Radios and Accessories
Kenwood radios, batteries, microphones and accessories are available. Please contact us for more information. 707-673-2165 or firstname.lastname@example.com


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Are you ever just curious about what God is doing? Do you ever just wonder about His next step in your life? I do. Not in the anxious, worried kind of curious. But more in the trusting, I know He's up to something and I can't wait for it to be revealed kind of curious.
Maybe a bit like a little kid at Christmas waiting to unwrap a package. The kid knows it will be the perfect present, but having to wait for mom and dad to get coffee, the camera, and the perfect set-up before you can open the present really intensifies the desire to open that present.
Its almost exciting to wait sometimes isn't it? To wait for an answer. To wait for God to be God. To wait to watch Him work. To wait for Him to reveal himself. Just to wait knowing that He is good and can be trusted.
Then you read this
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day 2 Peter 3:8
Waiting for a thousand years doesn't seem as exciting does it? I've waited for an answer for over a year now and to think of waiting until death before I get an answer just isn't all that exciting.
But yet I am in the waiting mode. And I still find that waiting is exciting. Because it seems that even in the waiting, the Lord moves. Even while I'm waiting for the big answer, the Lord speaks about all the little things. Even when I wonder when my "thousand years" will be up, I look around me and see the Lord using me in different areas. Yes, waiting is exciting because I see God preparing me for whatever His eventual answer may be to me.
I really do find joy in the waiting.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
Psalm 130:5-6


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Bart Astor
To my readers:
I will no longer be using this website to blog. Instead, all new blogs and updates will be on my new website, www.BartAstor.com. Please continue to follow my ramblings and thoughts on the new site. I will keep this site up for anyone wishing to read the archived blogs. Thanks for your support and please go to my new site.
Bart Astor
Give the baby boomers some credit for this latest wave of stock market upsurge. Yeah, I know that sounds just like a boomer – arrogant and self-absorbed. But listen to my reasoning and then decide whether I'm right.
Boomers are obviously older than all but the oldest in our population. That generally results in a bit more job security because they have seniority. And, indeed, the numbers comfirm that. The unemployment rate for those over 50 is considerably lower than for those under 50. The unemployment rate for 55 to 64-year olds is about 5.7%, considerably less than the overall number which is 7.9% (the rate for 45- to 54-year olds is about 6.1%). So what does that mean and how does that translate into a bull market?
Simply put, the baby boomers are not hurt as badly by the recession as are the rest of the population. They (we) don't feel as negative and probably have greater optimism. Why?
For one, we've been through a number of downtowns and have seen upswings that followed. The sky didn't fall and we are now better off than we were a few years ago. We bought our houses longer ago than the others and even with the drop in the housing market, many of us still have some equity. In addition, we don't tend to move as often as younger people so we probably didn't have to sell at a loss.
Secondly, we have more money overall in our retirement accounts and other investments than do the young-uns. We don't like seeing the returns of 1% or less that we get from CDs and other conservative investments. We are an antsy group and in this our arrogance helps us. We're anxious to have our net worth be worthy of us!
Thirdly, we probably don't have to plan for as many big expenses coming like college expenses for our kids. Most of this age group are already empty nesters or in the final years of paying the expenses for our kids. We're seeing more of the light at the end of the fiscal tunnel now. We're seeing that ahead lies our later years and we want to do what we can to be better off than it looked like we'd be. Sure many of our kids have rebounded and are staying with us. But we see that as temporary. And yes, we have other major expenses such as weddings and caring for our parents. But our kids are waiting longer to get married and the drain on us for caring for our parents is less about the financial difficulties than about the emotional strain, lack of time, complex insurance and legal concerns, and day-to-day caring concerns.
The result? We invest. We see a few hopeful signs and we move more of our money out of those safe investments into equities. We want to feel positive. We want there to be gains in stocks. As we learned long ago in our Econ 101 classes, that optimism drives the stock market higher.
So where does it go? Here's what I think, to the extent that it matters. It goes up. Then down, then up again. It's what the market does. In the short term we'll see a bit more ride upwards. Then some folks will get scared or there'll be some international news that causes jitters. Then we'll get our perspective back and see another ride up. What we'll experience is just like what we've experienced in the past. Only with more dollars and more people involved. That will cause even more volatility. But in the longer term, all that up and down will even off.
What we'll also see is a slight decrease in the kinds of upswing returns since more of us, as we age, will heed the advice of good planners and will be more conservative with our investments. More of us will be working less or retired. More of us will be on fixed income, some just on Social Security. More of us will die.
But we won't lose our optimism. We pronounced long ago that we changed the world and we still think we can. It's all about us, right?
Referred Pain
My father and father-in-law each had a leg amputated, quite some time ago. Months later, well after the amputations healed, both complained of severe pain in their foot. But neither had a foot. The pain was called "referred pain" and my wife and I dismissed it as being "in their head." In fact, the pain was a result of the nerves that headed down that way being stimulated quite unpleasantly and was very, very real. Excruciatingly real. But I didn't really know that then.
I know it now having just experienced it myself, thankfully not as a result of losing a leg. I had an injection in the facet of my cervical spine at level C2. The doc inserted the needle, fairly painlessly, and then administered the steroid. The pressure I felt at the injection area was expected and uncomfortable. But it was tolerable. What got me, and what freaked me out, was the real pain I felt about 6 inches higher than the injection site, at the side of my head above my ear. I was scared. I wondered if my brain was being affected. I called out to the doc, informing her of this pain. Informing might not express the fear I had. It felt as if she was pressing her thumb against the side of my head. But this doc was super. She immediately calmed me down, reminding me to breathe into the pain, and mostly easing my concern by stating emphatically that it was referred pain. I can't tell you how weird it felt. Here I was lying on a table with a needle in my spine, with real, sharp pain coming from the side of my head. And then it went away, just like the doc told me it would.
A few minutes later she was injecting level C5, and this time I felt a sharp stabbing in the middle of my back and under my shoulder blade. Again I informed my doc, but this time with considerably less affect. I knew, and she assured me again that this was referred pain.
Many caregivers deal with people who either have lost legs or arms, often a result of diabetes, or have nerve-related disorders. Nerves are complicated things in many ways. You may have a sore leg or foot, but the root of the pain is in your back. Pressing strategic spots along the route of the nerve often has the feeling of easing the pain, even more than pressing the spot in your back where the nerve root exits the spine. Maybe that's how acupuncture works. I don't know. But I do know that I've pressed on places and the pain I felt elsewhere eased. So there's something to this.
I hope you never have to experience it yourself. And the next time you are with someone complaining about pain you absolutely know is not coming from that spot, understand that it's referred pain. And be sympathetic and empathetic. It's very real, a very odd sensation, and very painful.
January 10th, 2013
I'm willing to give up a little of my freedom to save the lives of innocent people. I'm willing to have the US Congress pass laws banning the ownership of automatic weapons, despite the 2nd amendment. If that requires modifying the amendment, so be it. I'm not concerned about the slippery slope; I'd rather err on the side of saving our children.
* * *
I believe strongly in our freedom to possess firearms. It's not only about the ability to hunt. We all know you don't need automatic weapons for that purpose. It's about the freedom to protect yourself if you believe you need firearms to do so. I get it. I don't possess any firearms and I don't want to live my life that way. But others can, and they can own guns as long as they're not automatic weapons. So yes, I'll give up that freedom.
There's an email circulating called "Crabby Old Man…take the Time" about a senior citizen who lives in a nursing who wrote a touching poem. It's quite a tender poem about who he is and what his life was about. But after I read it, I kept hoping the poem would have ended differently. So first, here's the poem. Then read on about hear how I would have ended it.
Crabby Old Man . . . . . THE RIPPER
What do you see nurses? . . . . . What do you see?
What are you thinking . . . . . when you're looking at me?
A crabby old man . . . . . not very wise,
Uncertain of habit . . . . . with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food . . . . . and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . . . . . 'I do wish you'd try!'
Who seems not to notice . . . . . the things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . A sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not . . . . . lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . . . the long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking? . . . . . Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse . . . . . you're not looking at me.
I'll tell you who I am . . . . . As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding . . . . . as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of ten . . . . . with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters . . . . . who love one another.
A young boy of sixteen . . . . . with wings on his feet.
Dreaming that soon now . . . . . a lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at twenty . . . . . my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows . . . . . that I promised to keep.
At twenty-five, now . . . . . I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . . . And a secure happy home.
A man of thirty . . . . . My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . . . . With ties that should last.
At forty, my young sons . . . . . have grown and are gone,
But my woman's beside me . . . . . to see I don't mourn.
At fifty, once more . . . . . babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . . . My loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me . . . . . my wife is now dead.
I look at the future . . . . . shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing . . . . . young of their own.
And I think of the years . . . . . and the love that I've known.
I'm now an old man . . . . . and nature is cruel.
'Tis jest to make old age . . . . . look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles . . . . . grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone . . . . . where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass . . . . . a young guy still dwells,
And now and again . . . . . my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys . . . . . I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living . . . . . life over again.
I think of the years, all too few . . . . . gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . . . that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people . . . . . open and see.
Not a crabby old man . . . . . Look closer . . . . . see ME!!
* * *
The email goes on to say:
Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within.
We will all be there one day too!
* * *
You know what I wish? I wish that at the end of this moving tribute to life, the crabby old man decided to look at the people who were caring for him. I wish that he took a moment to thank all of those caregivers – nurses, aides, family – acknowledging that they were doing what they could to help him keep his dignity and enabling him to remember the joys of his life.
The crabby old man inside me says to all those who when I need it may have to bathe me, help me get to the toilet, and clean up after me, and who will still respect me as a person: "Thank you. My poem is for you."
Hearing Loss
Note from Bart: In this space I will offer a guest blog from the experts at Hearing Direct. I am very appreciative of this information and I will look forward to future articles from them. Please be sure to visit their site, www.hearingdirect.com.
Hearing Loss
In this, the first of hearing loss related articles, we aim to look at a topic that affects the lives of many individuals but gets very little publicity. Figures released by the national MarkeTrak VIII survey estimate the number of hard of hearing individuals in the US at 35 million and further projected that the number would grow to 53 million by the year 2053.
So what causes hearing loss and can you delay its impact on your health?
Several types of hearing loss affect our modern lives, with age related and noise induced the most common. Age related hearing loss is a natural diminished hearing ability due to changes that the body goes through from the age of 40 years old, but more widely seen in the over 65s. Noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) is completely artificial and caused by exposure to harmful sounds and lifestyle choices. Therefore means to reduce NIHS focus on avoiding the source of the noise often in conjunction with wearing hearing protection. When age related hearing loss is concerned, there are no means to delay its impact but plenty of means to manage the condition.
Age related hearing loss simplified
Our hearing ability is aided by tiny hair like cells within the inner ear. These hair cells capture sound in different frequencies (vibration and air waves) that are then sent to the brain by means of the hearing nerve. When sound reaches the brain, it is made into tangible information for us interpret. As the body matures from as early as a person's 40s, the number of hair cells as well as their quality gradually deteriorates. Therefore slowly but ultimately hearing certain frequencies gets more and more difficult until it becomes a real burden often impacting quality of life. Certain people will seeks means to manage the condition, others will accept it as a given reality, perhaps as they are embarrassed to admit their hearing impairment or perhaps because of a lack of information.
Symptoms Of Age-Related Hearing Loss
The level of hearing loss may vary from one individual to the next based on medical history, exposure to loud noise over the years, family history and the amount and severity of degrading hair cells within the inner ear. Symptoms can include difficulty in hearing people around you within noisy environments. Background noise may seem far too loud compared to speech.
You may also notice:
● Sounds seem less clear
● Not being able to hear the telephone of door bell ring when others can
● Other people may sound mumbled or slurred
● Inability to hear high-pitched sounds such as "s" and "th"
● Often having to ask people to repeat themselves
● Having the television or radio turned up much higher than other family members
● Feeling tired after participating in a conversation held within background noise
Next time we will look at means to manage hearing loss. For now, should you have any concern about your hearing or the hearing of someone you know, your family doctor should be your first point of call.
Bio: Article by Joan McKechnie, BSc Hons Audiology & Speech Pathology. Joan works for hearing company Hearing Direct. For more information, read her guide to hearing loss.
As the election draws nearer, I would be remiss if I didn't blog about how the presidential candidates' positions might affect elder care, health issues (including health care and health insurance), and quality of life concerns of older folks. Because of the magnitude of this issue, I will have separate installments on the topic.
I begin with Obamacare.
First let me say that while the President doesn't mind that the Affordable Health Care Act is referred to as Obamacare, I mind. I think it's a total misnomer. The Act does not have that much to do with health CARE. It has to do mostly with health INSURANCE. I think the President and the supporters of the Act did a great disservice to all of us by suggesting it was about healthcare. It riled people. It scared them. All of a sudden people were feeling that there would be something – in particular, government – between them and their doctors.
But when you look at the Act, it doesn't have anything between them and their doctors. It does create a Board that can suggest, recommend, and maybe even ultimately insist (if legislation followed) that certain things be done to streamline healthcare or that costs of drugs and medical care be reduced. But there's nothing that will prevent an individual doctor from recommending a particular procedure for a patient. In fact, it's not any different than what exists now under most health insurance plans. Many plans require preauthorization for certain procedures – things like MRI's, PET scans, etc.. That won't change under the new law. And if it did, it would be universal, not specific to one plan. Right now individual companies contract with health insurance companies to provide coverage for their employees. The companies negotiate rates and terms and companies try to get as much coverage – and more important, as much flexibility in the plan – for the money. A lot of what we used to have has changed, mostly increased in cost. But not all. Here's an example of a way that a company improved the options for employees.
A company I'm familiar with offered 2 health insurance plans: one for just an individual employee and another for an employee and his/her family. The rates reflected the difference. But the family plan was geared for families with children, who are notoriously more sick and injured than adults. The organization negotiated with the insurance company to provide a third plan: employee and spouse/partner. Because the plan covered only two people, the rates were far lower for this couple than for an entire family.
Since the new Affordable Healthcare Act has many good provisions (e.g. covering kids 'til they're 26, no elimination based on preexisting condition), what's the downside? That now everyone has to be a part of it? Hello? Is there something wrong with that? It's just good policy for a country. The only way it can be affordable is with healthy people participating. Ergo, the individual mandate. For me, the Act protects everyone, not just those who have employers that provide health insurance. I never saw the logic in tying insurance to employment. Insurance, in particular health insurance, is about individuals and families, not about employers.
So back to the political arena. Since I believe this is a good law, and since the only candidate agreeing with me, my support goes to President Obama. Seniors, juniors, and everyone in between should be for this new law. Now if Governor Romney changes his mind (again) and decides that he really is for this law, I'd gladly revisit this endorsement. The whole law, after all, is one that he endorsed when he was governor of Massachusetts. But it's not likely Mr. Romney will agree to be labeled with "I was for it before I was against it."
Bottom line regarding health insurance and whether i: Obama. Stay tuned for my next political blog.
Bart's New Book Coming....
Please excuse the absence of a new blog. I've been working on my latest book and just didn't have the time to write anything else.
The new book will be out in February and it's a joint project between my publisher, John Wiley & Sons, and AARP. I'm very excited to do this book because I think it addresses something that many of us face, particularly those of us in the sandwich generation. Although my parents and in-laws are all gone now, it wasn't that long ago that we were dealing with their crises. The new book's title is long so as to maximize search engine optimization – you try to hit as many key words as possible so Google searches bring up your book. The title is AARP Roadmap for the Rest of Your Life with a subtitle of Smart Choices about Money, Work, Insurance, Lifestyle... and Pursuing Your Dreams. Whew, quite a handle. About the only thing we missed was sex. So maybe we should have called it the AARP Fifty Shades of Gray.
Anyway, as it implies, it's about living the rest of your life. We have our families to deal with, our kids and parents. We have our careers, perhaps winding down. We face retirement concerns that include money, leisure time, and choices. We have our insurance issues with many of us on or about to be on Medicare. And we have the concerns about aging and health.
The whole project began when I participated in a panel discussion sponsored by AARP. The author Gail Sheehy talked about how she and her husband had faced serious health problems and, in fact, signed up for palliative care. The doctor came to them and asked her husband, who clearly had significant mobility limitations and other health problems, "What are your goals for this stage in life?" I thought, "Wow, what a great question." I didn't have an answer for that and I'm not facing end of life issues.
So the book also addresses goals, role models, and questions we are now or will be asking ourselves as we get older. It deals with the very practical areas we have to face as we age, including our finances and signing up for Social Security and Medicare. I guess the most important message I relate in the book is to not judge aging. We are who we are and getting older is not something to fight or shy away from. As the old joke says about getting older, "it sure beats the alternative."
In the book I create a Level of Activity scale, something that you can use to help guide you (or your aging parents). Where you are on the scale, much more than your chronological age, will likely have more influence on your choices than anything else.
So please watch for my new book and watch this space where I will continue to blog about important issues.
Thanks for reading and please post your comments and questions.
June 22nd, 2012


text:
PRGs Help Blueberries Recover from Freeze Damage
45th Annual PRGSA Conference Canceled
We regret to inform you that this year's Plant Growth Regulation Society of America annual meeting, scheduled to take place June10-14 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, has been canceled. Unfortunately, despite our optimism, the negative press surrounding the situation in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria has proven too much to overcome. Although the city of San Juan has returned to normal the image portrayed in the media proved to be insurmountable and we could not get sufficient numbers of registrations to have a viable meeting.
WinField United to Run Innovation Center in Wisconsin
Land O'Lakes Inc. has opened a $40 million innovation center in River Falls, Wisconsin that will be run by WinField United. According to Land O'Lakes President and CEO Chris Policinski, the mission of the center is to accelerate product development "toward more sustainable use of agricultural chemicals and nutrients."


text:
Thanks to everyone for backing Galcon 2!!
It's been really amazing seeing the support of Galcon 2! If you just missed the Kickstarter, or you need to back the project using PayPal, please go to www.galcon.com where we'll have instructions posted.
Update: The GALCONATHON!!
The GALCONATHON is LIVE! Watch part 1 here! And part 2 here!
For the last six hours of the Kickstarter, we're going to be holding the one and only GALCONATHON! It's going to be a live stream available on YouTube. I'll add the link here. Here's the schedule.
Update: Get a Galcon Power Necklace for that Special Someone!
Nan created a few more variations of the Power Necklace! She thinks it's exactly what your Valentine is going to want this year. Check out the closeups!
Update: It's All About the Box Set!
In addition to the amazing fridge magnet set and the super cool poster, you get a whole box full of Galcon-related goodies. Here are the details.
Update: Fireside Chat with Phil
Here's a video of me talking about what I'm excited about in Galcon 2! I explain in more detail my vision for some of the features.
Update: Galaxy Map Concept Art by Matt Kohr
Matt watched my design journal on the Galaxy Map, and fleshed it out into this sweet set of concept art pieces.
Update: Community Manager Nan on Galcon 2
Nan has been the Galcon community manager for over five years now! She's really excited about Galcon 2, and made a video for us about why.
See Galcon Gameplay
This is the trailer for Galcon Fusion (2010). The gameplay in Galcon 2 is going to be similar.
Try Galcon Now!
If you've never played Galcon before, we've got you covered! Galcon is a multiplayer real-time strategy (RTS) game. Try Galcon (for iPhone / Android) here. Or try Galcon Fusion (for iPad / desktops) here.
The Galcon Story
I created the first version of Galcon in 1995 when I was 15 years old. The first version I made was pretty similar to other turn-based conquest games of the past.
Over the years, I re-made the game a few times with similar gameplay.
However, in 2006 I created a real-time version of Galcon that involved sending swarms of ships from planet to planet. It was the FIRST game of this kind. (There have been DOZENS of swarmy RTS games made since that were inspired by Galcon's gameplay.)
In 2008, I brought Galcon to the iPhone. The touch interface was a perfect match for the game! Galcon was the first real-time multiplayer game to be released for the iPhone.
Galcon for iPhone went on to win the 2009 IGF Innovation in Mobile Game Design award!
Then in 2010, I ported it back to the desktop, and then to the iPad as Galcon Fusion. Galcon Fusion introduced some new game modes and was the first multiplayer game on the iPad to offer cross-platform gameplay between iPad and desktop players.
Now, heading into 2013, the 5 year anniversary of the launch of iGalcon, I want to give the game an overhaul and make this the BEST GALCON EVER!
Galcon 2 Game Design
I've put together a series of mockups to show some of the design ideas I have. All of this is pre-development, so things may very well change, but I hope it gives you an idea of some of the cool things I want to add.
I'm eager to create a better menu setup that gets you right into the game. Below, on the "PLAY!" screen, the "AUTO-MATCH" button will put you right into a new game. No more clicking into each server to find one that's ready to play!
I also want to bring the stats and ranks to a whole new level. By improving how the rankings work, it will be possible to rank up in all game modes, no matter how popular. I'm also going to add a trophy system as rewards for the in-game tournament system I want to add.
To further build community and help you hang out with your friends, I want to add clan support to Galcon 2. This will bring another layer of fun to the game.
I am designing Galcon 2 as a Free-to-Play game. This means I'm going to have a store for buying cosmetic upgrades and other game features. I'll be working hard with the community to ensure that play balance isn't upset by these upgrades.
I'm very excited about building this game! I hope these mockups give you a glimpse of what I'm envisioning.
Community Involvement
I've already started discussing the game design with the Galcon community. We're working towards a design that improves the existing core game while adding new features to ensure that the next generation of Galcon is the best!
The Beta Experience
I'm really looking forward to this part of the project. In the past I've always spent 6-12 months developing a game, put it into a brief beta with a select group of people (maybe 20 or so), and then released the game. After that I'd follow the forums for a month or two to get bug fixes into the game, but after the release it gets really hard to make any dramatic changes.
This time the beta will be from the very beginning, which means I'll be able to make changes to the game early on to help it realize its greatest potential. I'm excited to have a larger group of beta testers working with me from the start.
As a backer, you'll get to see how a game gets developed from scratch. Of course, I will probably be borrowing bits from previous Galcon games, but largely it's going to be a complete re-write to ensure that the game is going to be designed for expansion in the future.
Why Free-To-Play
There are two main reasons for going Free-to-Play:
First, free means more users playing the game. Instead of 100 people online at any given time, I'd like to see 1000 people online! This will make a larger variety of skills and game types available all the time.
Second, by having the game include in-app-purchases, I can design the game so that players can continue to support the on-going development and get updates more often.
The Awesome Rewards
I'm really excited about these rewards. Some of these items are things I've wanted to do for a game for years, so this is a really fun opportunity.
The fridge magnet set
The fridge magnet set will make you the envy of all other fridge owners in the world. Below is a mockup of it on a really expensive fridge. (Exact set may change by final production.)
The Poster
The gorgeous Galcon 2 poster designed by Matt Kohr will be 18"x24" and printed on high quality acid-free paper, suitable for framing!
The box set
The box will include a CD of Galcon related goodies, a bag of Galcon playing marbles, two Galcon pins, and a manual! Below is mock-up of the box. (Final box may be slightly different.)
The Power Necklace
Nan, our community manager, who was previously a professional jeweler, has designed this amazing Galcon power necklace. This necklace will give you the psychological edge in battles. (Final necklace may differ depending on availability of beads.)
The Case
Cases are available for iPhone, iPad, and a number of other devices. Also available are skins for some laptops.
The Marble
You will get a custom 1.5" art-glass marble themed with planets, stars, and some Galcon ships! Created by the amazing Shannon Norris of Fireworx Glass Studio, these are going to be super special! Each marble is a unique work of art and will vary.
The Galconicorn's Horn
There is only one Galconicorn and he generously donated his horn to help raise support for Galcon 2. You will be the envy of all the Galcon players in the universe as the owner of the one true Galconicorn horn. (Galconicorn and rainbow not included.)
OS / Device Support
Galcon 2 is going to be developed for Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu Linux computers.
Once the game has reached the point of release, I'll be porting it to the iOS platform. Galcon 2 will work on all iOS devices supporting iOS 6.0+ except for the iPhone 3GS. Galcon 2 will also be ported to high-end Android devices.
Risks and challenges
In the past ten years I've produced the games Galcon, Galcon for InstantAction, iGalcon, Galcon Labs, and Galcon Fusion. I'm confident that I can produce another one. Doing a beta from day one is a unique experience for me and will require a lot of community involvement. To ensure adequate development time, Nan Hassey, who has been the community manager for the last 5 years, will act as liaison.
To ensure smooth delivery of the physical items, I've lined up manufacturers who can create all the items for me. I've been careful to price things out so that I'm still left with the money I need to create Galcon 2. My wife, Nan, is going to manage all the fulfillment, so I will be able to focus my attention on developing the game. I chose to limit the number of higher tier awards to ensure manageable quantities.Learn about accountability on Kickstarter
Funding period
- (31 days)