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As of this writing the World Population Clock estimates the world's population to be about 7.3 billion people. Researchers and mathematicians estimate the number of people who have ever lived and died to be about 100 billion. The first number is an educated theory, while the second number is an educated guess.
Regardless of the exact figures, it is mind boggling when we consider these numbers, even the smaller of the two which is only 7.3 billion. In longhand that is 7,300,000,000. One billion is one-thousand millions. One billion dollars is the combined wealth of one-thousand millionaires!
The Bible speaks of a day that is soon coming, a very busy day in Heaven. Each and every person who has ever lived (perhaps a total of 107,300,000,000 as of today) will face the Judge of the universe. Each and every one of us will have our day in court.
"The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding Your servants… Your people who revere Your name, both great and small, and for destroying those who destroy the earth."
~ Revelation 11:18
One man's Judgment Day is another man's Inauguration Day. The wicked unbelievers will be sentenced to an eternity in a quaint little party place called "Hell" (at least that's the description of hell that a lot of people say while they are partying hard in life). The forgiven believers will be inaugurated into eternity with Christ in Heaven.
Which kind of Day will you have on that last day before eternity? One must choose today because tomorrow may be the last day before eternity, and on that day it will be too late to change your destination. Our default destination is not Heaven; that destination must be consciously chosen and the proper changes recorded in those books that will be checked on that last day before eternity.
#PastorsTip #Revelation11 #JudgmentDay #InaugurationDay #Choice #Faith #WorldPopulation #Court #Sentencing


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Beyonce to perform at 2016 MTV Video Music Awards: Report
Beyoncé fans may be in for a surprise at Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards. The singer will be performing at this year's VMAs, a source tells Billboard.
The news has also been reported by the Los Angeles Times, which wrote that "Beyoncé has been in top-secret rehearsals" for the show.
Rihanna to Open the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards
Billboard has reached out to Beyoncé's rep and MTV for comment.
Bey, with her visual album Lemonade, is in for a big night: she's nominated for 11 awards at 2016's ceremony.
Confirmed performers at the 2016 MTV VMAs include Rihanna -- who will bring the opening number -- as well as Britney Spears, Future, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj, Nick Jonas with Ty Dolla $ign and the Chainsmokers with Halsey.
The VMAs air on Sunday, Aug. 28 at 9 p.m. ET (8 p.m. CT) on MTV.
Related: See Beyonce's performance from the BET Awards:
See Gallery

subset: commoncrawl


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INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- USA Funds® has introduced a new tool to help the nation's colleges and universities prevent student loan defaults and promote successful repayment of loans by their graduates. USA Funds Borrower Connect InTouch(SM) provides borrower contact and counseling services to colleges and universities that lack the staff resources to perform borrower outreach themselves. This new USA Funds service offers college administrators the following benefits:
- No additional staff support required. At the school's direction, USA Funds will carry out the requested telephone and email communications to the school's student loan borrowers.
- Monitor borrower contact activity. Through the reporting capabilities built into USA Funds Borrower Connect™, campus administrators can monitor in real time the borrower outreach activity that USA Funds is providing on their behalf. USA Funds Borrower Connect is a Web-based tool that helps colleges connect with and communicate to their borrowers to improve student loan default rates.
- Borrower counseling, not collections. USA Funds' approach to borrower communication is to counsel borrowers about their options and responsibilities. USA Funds staff explain the details and answer borrower questions to ensure borrowers understand their obligations and options and establish and maintain affordable and achievable repayment plans.
"Ongoing contact with student loan borrowers is a proven best practice for successful student loan repayment," said Denise B. Feser, senior vice president, School and Student Services, USA Funds. "Several colleges and universities have requested this service because they simply lack the staff to conduct the borrower communication campaigns they've developed in USA Funds Borrower Connect."
Colleges and universities can select from a variety of USA Funds Borrower Connect InTouch calling and email campaign options, including outreach to student loan borrowers in the following statuses:
- Grace period.
- Various stages of loan payment delinquency, from one to 270 days past due.
- Resuming repayment following a period of deferment or forbearance.
With the school's authorization, USA Funds will access real-time borrower and loan status information from all federal student loan servicer systems, and, as warranted, will perform three-way calls with borrowers and their servicers. USA Funds also will follow up with promises borrowers have made, for example, to make a payment or submit deferment paperwork, to ensure borrowers are meeting their commitments.
"We found the service to be an effective way to supplement our efforts to contact our student loan borrowers and make sure they're on the right path to paying off their loans," said Carrie Anglemyer, associate director of student financial services, Harrison College, which tested the service. "USA Funds staff took the time to counsel borrowers about the most appropriate options for their individual circumstances."
For additional information about USA Funds Borrower Connect InTouch, visit the USA Funds website — www.usafunds.org.
USA Funds® is a nonprofit corporation that works to enhance postsecondary education preparedness, access and success by providing and supporting financial and other valued services. USA Funds assists postsecondary institutions and their students with a comprehensive array of default prevention and student aid program compliance solutions, including financial literacy programs for college students, debt management and default prevention consultation and support, training for financial aid administrators, and student aid policy assistance. For more information, visit www.usafunds.org.
SOURCE USA Funds


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NC24 Nano White is the recent creation of NC24 Bio Laboratories. Each capsule contains an appropriate and harmless amount of formulated ingredients to naturally whiten the skin while making your skin look young and firm. Its main component, Nano Glutathione is an effective anti-oxydant which also helps to treat blood disorders and helps clean the liver of heavy metals, toxins and alcohol. The epidermal melanin reduction effect of this formula is visible within 2-3 weeks of consumption.
Benefits of Nano White
1. Giving you a perfect whitening skin by inhibiting the formation of Melanin Pigmentation.
2. Rejuvenates skin: EGF can help skin stem cells to absorb nutrients, speed cell metabolism, accelerate skin cell division and growth, and stimulate the synthesis of hyaluronic acid and glycoproteins.
3. The plant stem cell is a key ingredient that can delay the biological aging mechanism
as well repairing our skin epidermis.
4. Protects the skin from damage caused by free radicals and UV light.
5. Improves the skin elasticity and hydration making your skin look soft and silky.
6. Suppress the formation of acne, blemishes and minimizing pores.
7. Reduces fine lines and wrinkles around facial area, pigmentation and minor scars.
8. Powerful antioxidant that may have skin anti-aging benefits when used topically, especially when used in combination with other antioxidants like vitamin C, alpha-lipoic acid or coenzyme q10.
9. Provides energy boost and helps with fatigue and tiredness as it plays a key role in the generation of energy in mitochondria.
Nano Glutathione 80,000MG
Ascorbic acid 4,000MG
Nano Peptide 950MG
Collagen Extracts 700MG
Epidermal Growth Factor 675MG
Nano Alpha Lipoic Acid 600MG
Vitamin B3 600MG
Vitamin B5 600MG
Vitamin E 600MG
Coenzymes Q10 450MG
Plant Stemcell 300MG
2 capsules per day after meal
Warning and Precautions
1.Not advisable when taking warfarin or other blood thinning drugs.
2.Not recommended during pregnancy.
3.NC24 Nano White does not have any side effects when taken reasonably.
4.Keep out of reach of children
harga: rm200.00


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Thank you to all our sponsors, supporters and partners
We are proud to be working this year with the organisations listed below. The Festival just wouldn't be possible without their support so why not find out more about them by clicking on their logos. They'd love to hear from you.
We are looking for new sponsors for the 2019 program, if you would like to sponsor the Festival click here for more information.


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If you are interested in renting tables and chairs for your upcoming event give us a call. Our prices are very reasonable. To inquire call Chad Staton at 319-934-3247 or 319-521-1018.
Bulletin Board >
Bulletin Board >
Quasky Community Club and Historical Society Table and Chair Rentalposted Oct 5, 2010, 6:01 PM by Quasqueton Iowa [ updated Oct 6, 2010, 6:43 AM ]


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All prices are in All prices are in USD
Island inspired t-shirts and tanks for women and juniors.
We are pleased to announce the addition of 4 more NEW boards to our rental …
Type the details of your news item …
All prices are in USD. © 2019 (808)661-7828 Maui's Beach House.
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In this collaboration between co-producers and co-writers Laura L. Fowler and Al Santana, director Al weaves this experimental structure into a story that focuses on two sisters with opposite views about social responsibility, the role of the artist and their quest for understanding. Aliyah, a self-styled revolutionary filmmaker, is producing a documentary about the 1960s Black Power Movement. Her sister Valerie, on the other hand, is a poet whose work centers on themes of sensuality and love. They challenge each on the purity of art and the need for art to inspire social change. Together, they discover a politicized Lorraine Hansberry.
"One People" explores serious political issues in very human terms." St.Clair Bourne, Producer/Director, Chamba Media Works


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New Bluebellgray Collaboration/
This AW bluebellgray is delighted to present a very special collaborative collection created with Calum Douglas, brother of designer and founder Fi Douglas. To date, each original bluebellgray design has been created by Fi, handpainted in the bluebellgray Glasgow studio, but this unique collaboration sees the designer work together with Calum, who followed in Fi's footsteps, graduating from the prestigious Glasgow School of Art this year.
Inspired by the colours and landscapes of Iceland, Dalvik and Impressionist Teal are born from Calum's intuitive pencil marks, with splashes of subtle watercolour. Both brother and sister find themselves drawn to turquoise colour palettes and these evocative scribble sketches are captured perfectly by state of the art digital printing. Fi says, 'To collaborate with Calum is a dream come true for me - I have watched his creative side flourish through the years and he really has his own unique way of interpreting his surroundings. It's so wonderful to be able to add this new and fresh dimension to the bluebellgray collections whilst keeping it in the family!'.
Fabrics by the metre and a collection of 4 cushions available on www.bluebellgray.com from mid September. Prices from £60.


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by Tom Nelson
In a bit of a surprise, the Mac refurb store has run out of stock of the Mac mini. I was beginning to think this summer was going to be a bit unusual, and that the store would remain well stocked through the back-to-school rush. Although the Mac minis are bound to be back in stock soon, it's always a shame to see them gone; they're a very popular option for students, small businesses, and home offices, as well as anyone who wants to build a home entertainment system.
Image courtesy of Apple
Deals of the Week
Our deals this week start with a 2016 model of the 13.3-inch MacBook Air. The 2016 models were refreshed last April, so this MacBook Air is about as current as you can get in the refurb store. Equipped with 8 GB RAM and a 128 GB PCIe flash storage system, this portable Mac provides a nice bit of performance in a small package.
Our second deal is for something a bit larger: a 2015 27-inch Retina iMac. Sporting a Quad-Core i5, 8 GB RAM, and a 1 TB Fusion drive, this iMac is nicely configured, and can be a great choice for those who need a desktop Mac and its large Retina display for working on photos and videos.


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| Latest
Petr Jasek, Hassan Abduraheem, Kuwa Shamaal and Abdulmonem Abdumawla in prison…ALL NOW FREE!
Thank you for praying for and writing on behalf of prisoners in Sudan. After 510 days in prison, Rev Hassan Abduraheem and Mr Abdulmonem Abdumawla were released on Thursday after receiving a presidential pardon. The two were arrested in December 2015 along with Voice of the Martyrs field worker Petr Jasek and Rev Kuwa Shamaal. Rev Shamaal was acquitted of all charges and released in January, while Petr Jasek was released in February, also after receiving a presidential pardon.
Pastor Kuwa Shamal, imprisoned for a year has been released but Rev Hassan and Mr Abdumawla, a Sudanese activist, have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms just for helping a young man in need. Throughout the country churches and Christian schools are being targeted for demolition,
LATEST.UPDATE This is an absolute travesty by a government guilty of genocide…
Thank God that our Sudanese brother Pastor Kowa Shamaal was released from prison recently, after a judge dismissed the charges against him for lack of evidence. However, the judge decided to proceed with the trial against Pastor Kowa's fellow Sudanese detainees, Pastor Hassan Abduraheem and Mr Adbulmonem Abdumawla, and Czech Christian Petr Jašek: their next hearing is scheduled for Monday, January 9. The three are accused of serious crimes, including spying. (Source: Christian Solidarity Worldwide)
Seek justice for two pastors in Sudan
Dear Julian,
Since December 2015, Pastor Telal Rata, Rev. Hassan Taour and three other Christians have been unlawfully detained without charge, incommunicado, in an unknown location in Sudan.
Pastor Telal Rata, leader of the Fellowship of University Christian Students, was allowed only one visit from family members. They have since been denied access to him. Rev. Hassan Taour, vice-moderator of the Sudan Church of Christ, has been denied all access to either his family or his lawyer. Three other Christian workers, whose names have not been made public, have also been detained.
These Christians are being detained unlawfully, denied access to a fair legal process, and may be at risk of ill-treatment or torture. Their plight forms part of a widening campaign by the Sudanese government to suppress Christianity through imprisoning Christians and demolishing churches.
Pray for the disclosure of their whereabouts so they can see family and lawyers.
Please pray
• For Pastor Telal, Rev. Hassan, the three other Christians, and their families; that God will give them strength and courage in the face of this persecution
Thank you for your compassion, faithfulness and God-given passion for justice.
"I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness." (Isaiah 42: 6-7)
|Every blessing,


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Some people believe that Chandler window tinting keeps the temperature inside a car cooler, while others just think window tinting in Chandler makes a car look cooler. And in some cases, drivers or passengers may have a legally recognizable medical need to have tinted vehicle windows, even when the tint level would otherwise violate Chandler, AZ window tinting laws. Whatever your reason for wanting tinted windows on your car, truck, or other passenger vehicle, you should get familiar with laws that regulate Chandler window tinting, as well as exemptions under those laws.
The Basics of Window Tinting in Chandler
What is "Chandler window tinting" when it comes to cars, trucks, SUVs, and other passenger vehicles? In practical terms, "window tinting" refers to methods that prevent certain levels of light from passing through the safety glass — meaning the windshield, side windows, and rear window of a vehicle. In phoenix Arizona this is even more of a problem!
Having Your Windows Tinted Is a Benefit to Your Health
The safety glass on most newer cars and passenger vehicles has been coated or treated so that some degree of window tinting is in place, to keep out harmful ultra-violet (UV) rays. with Arizona heat scorching well over 100 degrees an upgrade of your window tinting in phoenix is almost a must.
Click Here To Learn Why You Should Go Ceramic
The Downsides to DIY! Why Your Should Not Tint Yourself (click Here)
Chandler Window Tinting Solutions provides every one of our clients a Lifetime warranty with all our tint work! Don't take the risk. The cost of removal alone is enough incentive to get a quality job done right the first time! Read More…


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FSCS has now paid over £26m in compensation on claims following the collapse of Enterprise Insurance
22nd December 2016
FSCS has paid over £26m in compensation to more than 30,000 Enterprise Insurance policyholders. We will compensate remaining customers as soon as possible.
Good news for Enterprise policyholders who dealt with Motorway Direct and NCI Roadside Assistance
15th December 2016
Motorway Direct and NCI Roadside Assistance transferred 206,000 Enterprise policies to new insurers with effect from 14 December.
FSCS issues warning to Gable Insurance customers about their insurance
1st December 2016
FSCS is warning Gable Insurance customers their motor policies will lapse on 16 December 2016. Find out how FSCS will protect UK customers of Gable Insurance.
North East Lincolnshire Credit Union Limited goes out of business: FSCS protects over 600 members
28th November 2016
FSCS has stepped in to protect members of North East Lincolnshire Credit Union Limited, which has stopped trading and is now in default. Read more here.
FSCS steps in to help customers of Gable Insurance AG
22nd November 2016
The FSCS is stepping in to help customers of Gable Insurance AG. The company is now in default. Read the latest update here.


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Two for one this week.
Last Week's Writing Prompt:
He hadn't meant to scare the child
My 100 Words:
He slide the blade methodically through transparent skin. The ritual required serenity, peace, and careful planning. Now he'd have to deal with the yammering spirit while he proceeded with the spell.
In all honesty he hadn't meant to scare the child. The goal had been a quick kill, one that the boy shouldn't have even noticed. But now that was botched, he'd have to deal with the consequences.
He whipped the blade on a clean cloth while the blood ran fresh from the body. The spirit was already forming in front of him.
"Why'd you do it?" a whisper echoed.
Eh. And this weeks:
He didn't understand what he'd done to her, but he would by the time she was finished . . .
My 100 Words:
Snip, snip, snip.
The blades cut through the paper with supple ease as she cut around the lines of the two of them. Kloe traced the back of it with the glue stick and pressed the edges gently to the paper.
At the top of the page in big, bold letters were the words "First Date!!!!" and surrounding that was glitter. Lots and lots of glitter.
She didn't do this. She wasn't especially "girly" and never had been. But he didn't understand what he'd done to her, but he would by the time she was finished.
Snip, glitter, glue, hearts.
See What the Others Did!
Wendy Knight, Author: www.wendyknightauthor.blogspot.com
Kelly Martin, Author: www.kellymartinbooks.blogspot.com
Alison Woods (Peering Into. . .): http://alisonmillerwoods.wordpress.com/
R.K. Grow: http://www.rkgtheauthor.com/
Stephanie Worlton's Kreating Krazy blog: http://stephanieworlton.blogspot.com/
Leah Sanders, inklings: http://inklings-leahsanders.blogspot.com/
Laura D. Bastian: http://www.lauradbastian.com/
Jaclyn Weist: http://
Amryn Scott: www.wildscottkids.wordpress.co
K.R. Wilburn: http://www.krwilburn.com/my-blog.html
Lindzee Armstrong/Lydia Winters: http://lindzeearmstrong.blogspot.com
Kat!e Larson: http://katesnovelidea.blogspot.com
Miranda Nelson: http://www.mirandadnelson.blogspot.com/
Angela Schroeder http://angelaschroederauthor.blogspot.com/
Ginny Romney http://romneyrants.blogspot.com/
Canda Mortensen: http://candamortensen.blogspot.com
Jenna Eatough http://blog.mistglenmoon.net/


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So I am in Sacramento and I'm still sick. I had one of the worst nights, in fact. I woke up at 2am PST & was coughing non-stop. So I had to make a cup of Neo-citran and then I was good to go. I swear I was going to cough out a lung or something. It was really that bad. I haven't done much but go to this plaza with all this filipino food … ummmmh yummm. Pictures to follow. Yesterday I just played with the my cousin's kids aka my niece and nephew. It is really relaxing out here considering I don't have to do anything at all, but I hate being sick on vacation. I just feel like a wreck. ARghhhh … Well hopefully this will subside by the time we go to Reno. blar.
The weather out here was rainy & hailing but there is going to be sun for the next couple of days so I would of stayed home anyways. I am at 68% .. I need to be better. Being sucks when no is here to take care of you.
"Dr. Mom/Dr. G where are you in the time in need?"
Its very satisfying to speak when you know someone is listening. The last time we went out before my departure, we headed down to a bar/club downtown and he was being the perfect gentlemen. I told him prior that whenever we go out I feel like he is cold to me and that he gives us enough space that another guy can dance in between, so this time he did not do that. He was more affectionate and giving me more attention. We even danced to salsa and it wasn't a disaster. Thats one thing I love about him, he can dance. *sigh* Okay enough … I'm missing him more that I type. So it end now.
-Liza Mae
BTW. Thanks for the get-well comments. =)


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Sugar Industry Exposed!
We have been saying it for years. Sugar is far more detrimental to your health than most fats. So why then has the medical industry continued to treat fats as evil and never really mentions sugar at all?
Cristin Kearns, researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, has discovered why, and it's dirty.
She was able to uncover documents showing the direct relationship between the sugar industry and medical researchers during the 1960's and 70's. Further, Kearns details how the sugar industry paid nearly $50,000.00 to publish a paper that would link fat and cholesterol – and not sugar- to an increased risk of heart disease.
The conclusion of this and other papers submitted by the Sugar Association supposedly established that the only way to reduce the risk of heart disease was to reduce dietary cholesterol and substitute polyun-saturated fats for saturated fat in the diet. This was in 1967. The medical industry has been on a witch hunt for cholesterol ever since, opening the door for the medical profession to push dangerous statin drugs on millions of people, making drug companies billions.
During the 1980's and 90's we were force fed propaganda about fats and the food industry pushed all sorts of "low-fat" foods on us, which of course were loaded with sugar! Despite all this heart disease continued to increase to epidemic proportions.
Today the medical industry is slowly coming to realize that sugar, not fat, was the problem behind the heart disease epidemic after all. The sad thing is that we have known about all this since the early 1970's. In his book "Pure, White, and Deadly", British nutritionist John Yudkin wrote that "If only a small fraction of what we know about the effects of sugar were to be revealed, that material would promptly be banned."
Sugar is highly addictive, right up there with cocaine and even heroin. Fortunately we have found a safe and natural way to help overcome that addiction through key nutrients. These may be found in the formula we developed called Blood Sugar Support.
We have been using this formula with our clients for many years to help eliminate sugar cravings. It is also therefore, a key factor in most weight loss programs. We also use this formula for all our type II diabetics as it supports lower blood sugar and insulin levels. If you can't give up the sugar or if you are struggling with your weight or certainly if you are type II diabetic this formula may be just what you need. Next month articles on Immune Health Awareness Month will be coming so check back soon.
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I felt a little bit sad that I had to work the whole day today. The weather was just fabulous again and I had to stay inside for most of the day. Afer work I walked home and when I passed by our little garden in the courtyard I was surprised to see Jennie and Stefan waving at me with a glass of sparkling drink in their hands. When I came closer I saw a lovely display of food and a smoking grill behind them. They prepared delicious marinated pork loin, big chunks of fresh vegetables and bagels with chopped garlic & olive oil. I was so happy. We grilled the goods and went up to our apt where we ate it all. Thank you so much for a special Sunday evening. Kram!
Jennie's & Stefan's Marinade:
5tbsp olive oil
3tbsp soya sauce
2cloves chopped garlic
ground rose peppe & salt


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CJ Affiliate by Conversant (Earlier Commission Junction) is one of the oldest and popular affiliate marketplace for affiliate marketers. Recently they added two new features (Inspired from Viglink and Skimlinks) and those two features will be helpful for you in affiliate marketing. Before I share the new features with you, I suggest you to check out my review of Viglink where I mentioned how this splendid monetizing network will help you to grow your blog earning. One of the feature added by CJ Affiliate is similar to what Viglink offers. (Also check out case-study of Viglink on a Fashion blog here).
Affiliate Automation with CJ Affiliate :
One of the biggest challenge we face as a blogger is to getting the individual affiliate links for products we are mentioning on our blog and due to this we lose out a big chunk of revenue. CJ by Conversant is one popular affiliate marketplace where you will find all the top products and now they have added a new feature call Automation. This feature is probably the simplest way you can monetize your commercial links without manually editing your old links.
The new automation feature will let you add a simple line of JavaScript on your Website and it will automatically convert your outbound links into affiliate links. Below is a diagram which shows how automation works:
This feature is indeed a great addition by the CJ team, but I don't find it as effective as Viglink or Skimlinks. Reason being, that there are few terms which needs to be satisfied before this automation will deep link your existing link into affiliate link. Here are the rules:
- You need to have an active relation with CJ advertisers ( If you don't have an active relation, this feature is useless for you)
- Advertiser must have deep link integration and appropriate domains in CJAM in order to participate in Deep Link Automation.
Considering above two points, I find the automation feature as useless.
Deep Link generator feature:
In this feature you can create a deep link affiliate link f0r any of CJ advertises you are associated with. All you need to do is, drag and drop the deep-link bookmarklet from this page to your bookmark browser, and on any of your associated CJ advertiser website ( Any page), you can click on bookmarklet to generate the direct link to the specific page. Here is a video which show this feature in detail:
Again this feature seems to be useful for existing CJ affiliate marketers, but again one find print for this feature is:
- You must have access to a deep link for the Advertiser in the CJ Account Manager
My views:
These two features are certainly useful for existing publishers who are using CJ affiliate marketplace on regular basis, but I find these features to be not so friendly and futuristic. They should have taken approach like Viglink to monetize all existing E-commerce links, irrespective of having a relation with CJ advertisers. Not only this would help Publishers, but it would be beneficial for advertisers too. Though CJ have their own policy where an advertises must approve the publisher before they can promote their product, so my rant is not so meaningful here.
If you are an existing affiliate marketer who is using CJ affiliate by conversant; I would like to know your viewpoints on these two features. Also if you can share your experience and review of their working model, that would be appreciated.


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Dehumidifiers and Dryers
Our dehumidifiers can be used to assist in drying a range of buildings from domestic houses to building sites. These dryers are most effective when used in conjunction with portable heaters and ventilation fans.
These dryers have been designed as modern, lightweight units making them very easy to position and highly portable. Also available are specialist heaters to aid in drying carpets and cavity walls.
- Light commercial dehumidifiers
- 11.25 to 53 litres/24hrs
- Powerblow carpet dryer
- Drying packages available
Dehumidifiers and DryersShowing 5 Products
You're better equipped
Live availability
Free click & collect from any branch
Committed to safety and support
Delivery anywhere in the UK


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3 Crucial Questions To Ask About Your SEO Reseller Plan
seo reseller plan" />A SEO reseller plan is what separates the best businesses from those who are merely mediocre and in order to find the plan that works best for you, you will need to ask the right questions when you are speaking with various plan providers. Choosing the right SEO reseller plan is pivotal to the current and future success of your company, so be sure to read on and learn more about the following queries.
The best SEO reseller plan is going to be provided by a company that is truly knowledgeable about your requirements and by asking the right questions, you will receive access to the right details.
Why Are Your Services Necessary?
While you may not feel as if you need a SEO reseller plan, it is important to ask this question during the earliest stages of the process so that you can learn everything you need to know. You might be able to get by without one, but you are not going to be able to thrive in the same manner as a business that took the time to find the reseller plan that works best for their needs.
The top SEO plans of this nature allow you to outsource all of your most crucial tasks and focus on the day to day concerns that your business will be facing. In the modern business climate, search engine optimization will only continue to become more critical and when you offload this task to someone who has more experience, you are making the right choice when it comes to keeping clients happy.
What Benefits Are You Able To Provide?
Once you have zeroed in on potential SEO reseller plan providers who can assist you, you need to find out as much as possible about the benefits that they are able to provide. Can they offer you around the clock service and keep your site from experiencing any sort of lengthy outage? Do they offer additional amenities to their clients?
If the company guarantees a certain placement on various search engines, this is a sure sign that they are not the one for you. Every SEO reseller should have the ability to offer you a wide range of benefits that are specifically catered to your needs, while avoiding the temptation to make outlandish promises that they are unable to keep.
What Are The Potential Obstacles?
Any semi viable plan provider can provide you with a closer look at all of the benefits and assistance that they are willing to offer you, but only the best companies are able to deliver a detailed plan that also accounts for all of the potential pitfalls that might take place along the way. If you are planning for smooth sailing only, then you are essentially planning to fail.
No one should come into this sort of endeavor expecting to enjoy a perfect experience and the more you know about the potential inconveniences that may arise, the easier it becomes to draw up a plan that allows you to avoid them.


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Hey everyone! Woah, it's been a while. I didn't realise just how long until I noted the date of my last post, but I've missed blogging – I've missed you! Things have been hectic lately, so I'll give you a quick run down of the few things of note that've happened to me over the past month, and then I'll get back on track with the regular posts!
Firstly, classes have been going well. This semester I'm doing one Linguistics class, two Psychology classes – Psychology and a separate Statistics one, – and my outside course which is The Human Skeleton in Archaeology and Forensic Science. They're all brilliant…but way more work than last year. There's a lot more reading and I've been busy going over lectures and keeping up. Next semester should be a little quieter as I have one less class, but we'll have to wait and see. All's going well though!
Aside from studying, I've been spending most of my time catching up with people I haven't seen over the summer, hanging out with friends (September was beautifully hot in Edinburgh and we had the chance to spend plenty of time lying about in the Meadows), and generally getting back into student life. I've made a great start and hopefully the rest of the year will continue in this vein!
And now for my doh! moment. As I was getting ready to go food shopping this morning, I went into the porch to check for mail. The inner door slammed shut behind me (it usually closes softly and stops without closing all the way so I have no idea what happened) and it was then that I realised I'd left my keys in my room. Doh! I decided to head off and buy my groceries anyway (luckily I had my money in my pocket) and luckily by the time I returned my flatmate was home to let me in. I'll double check I have keys before leaving my room in future! But at least I didn't lose the keys…I just couldn't get to them for a while.
And to be honest, that's really the most exciting thing that's happened to me. So all that's left to say is that I missed you all, and thank you for not deserting me! I have a big book haul to show you all (including my most prized purchase!), a grocery haul, some book reviews and some recipes to share, so stay tuned! I hope you've all had a pleasant return to school/college/university? And if you aren't a student I hope you've had a great September!


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FAQs about the new CMS-1500 form version 02/12
On June 10, 2013 the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved a revised CMS-1500 form updated by the National Uniform Claim Committee (NUCC). Beginning April 1, 2014, the new form, version 02/12, will replace the current version 08/05.
Important Dates to Note:
- January 6, 2014 – Medicare will begin accepting claims on the new version 02/12.
- March 31, 2014 – Medicare will no longer accept claims on the old version 08/05 after this date.
- April 1, 2014 -- Medicare will only accept claims on the new version 02/12.
- October 1, 2015 – ICD-10 Implementation
Why is there a new claim form?
The new form is designed to accommodate the change to ICD-10. It provides fields that allow you to use the longer codes and enter more codes. Updates were also devised to create consistency with the data submitted on electronic claims (837P) as well as overall improvements to the usability of the form.
What changes impact the transition from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM?
Diagnosis Codes – Allows up to 12
The new form allows support of up to 12 Diagnosis Codes, however, what has not changed is that each procedure will still only allow up to 4 diagnosis pointers. This means that this new form can still only support 4 diagnosis codes per procedure.
Diagnosis Pointers (Numeric to Alphanumeric)
The diagnosis pointers (Box 24E) will be moved over from numbers to letters for ICD-10.
With the CMS deadline of April 1, 2014, does this mean that all paper claims will need to be submitted on the new form regardless of the date of service? What about claim resubmissions that I previously submitted on the old form?
The requirement applies to all paper claims received by CMS on or after April 1, 2014, regardless of the date of service or previous claim submission. Kareo recommends transitioning to the new form by the middle of March to ensure that all claims received by Medicare and Medicaid are already on the correct form by the deadline.
Are all payers required to transition to this new form on the same dates as noted by Medicare?
At this point, only Medicare, Medicaid and Medicare/Medicaid Replacement plans are mandated to adhere to the CMS schedule. Commercial payers will likely transition in the coming months leading to the implementation of ICD-10 in October 2015.
How do I know if my non-Medicare/Medicaid payer has transitioned to the new form?
Though most payers are proactive in notifying their providers of these types of changes, their method of notification is not always effective.
- Best to work closely with staff and ensure updates to system and claims are made
- Monitor payer websites to ensure no delay in reimbursement
- If you have provider representatives, reach out to them and see if they finalized the transition to the new payer.
Will this new form require me to change my current process or method for posting charges?
Prior to the implementation of ICD-10, the form itself will not require you to change your current method for posting your charges. However, payers may choose to utilize the new fields in the form and may require you to submit additional data with your claim.
My current CMS-1500 (08/05) paper claim form is customized for some of my payers; will that customization be the same in this new form?
The new CMS-1500 paper claim form has some significant field and field requirement changes, and not all customizations will translate from the old form.
In order for Kareo to apply these customizations to the new form, you will need to obtain written support documentation from the payer for Kareo to implement such customizations. Kareo will gladly work with you and your staff to ensure that the proper requirements are applied.
Where can I find instructions for setting up this new form?
Guide to CMS-1500 Claim Form Version 02/12
Encounter Options
Print Paper Claims
Printer Alignment
New Encounter
Configure Paper Claim Settings
I selected the new version in the batch feature for paper claims printing, why aren't any claims printing?
If the claims have a ready to send claim status and they are queued for printing, your insurance company paper claim settings may not be set up properly. You want to check your paper claims setting and ensure the new version is selected.
- Go to Settings > Insurance > Find Insurance Company.
- Search for and open the Insurance Company.
- Click the Paper Claims Tab.
- Confirm that CMS 1500 Form - Version 02/12 is selected for primary and/or secondary billing form.
- Click Save.
- Reprint your claims.
If a claim I submit on this new form is rejected for not submitting the correct data on one of the new or updated fields, is there a special number or contact I should reach out to for assistance?
Kareo understands that any delay in reimbursement impacts your practice. To ensure a consistent response, contact Kareo Support and any issues will be escalated internally to the proper team to ensure an expedited resolution.
Where can I get additional help if I cannot find the solution in your online documentation?
If you still need assistance after reviewing the online documentation, please contact Kareo Support.


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Getting Down To Basics with Resources
Some Indoor Farming Techniques and Tips Just For You
Modern-day farmers make it their mission to make as much profit as they can with their chosen profession. If you are one of these farmers or just happen to be interested in learning about indoor farming techniques, then you have stumbled upon the right article. The best indoor farming techniques are those strategies that are being employed to ensure the correct maintenance of plants without needing soil. Indeed, this is possible, and has proven to be of benefit in a lot of ways. Indoor farming gives plants a chance to grow in places where they do not naturally thrive and grow on their own. Indeed, the indoors are also able to offer areas for a lot of plants for them to be able to develop and thrive in. Indoor areas are also considered a good gardening alternative. For plants to successfully thrive in indoor areas, one of the most popular methods of ensuring their growth is making use of hydroponic supplies. A lot of indoor plants are able to thrive in indoor environments with the help of these supplies. One example would be the much smaller plants that have made use of these supplies such as the bermuda plants.
There are certainly a lot of advantages when planters and farmers alike make use of indoor farming techniques. Indoor farming allows the person to do vegetation cultivation in areas where there is controlled light and temperature. When you do this, you get to save your money from wasting your water supply. Moreover, the farmer as well as the environment will be able to benefit from it. Indoor farming techniques with the use of hydroponic supplies can surely save you a lot of your hard-earned money. With this technique, the plants you are growing will just be able to live with limited root system. This basically implies that you need not wait a long time before you can harvest your plants. If you want to do this, then make sure that you have a hydroponic system installed. Just like other services, you need to pay for a certain installation amount. This should not be something that you can stress about because at the end of the day, you know that you will be benefiting from it.
Once your hydroponic system is successfully installed, you should expect to have your plants cultivated in no time making use of advanced technology. Yes, the hydroponic system is highly advanced and is not the same with the usual method of planting. The basic hydroponic supplies are pumps, water, nutrient solutions, and trays for the plants. You will surely find a hydroponic store near your area that will be able to provide you with the basic hydroponic supplies that you need if you want to embark on this system and not make use of any soil.Figuring Out Hydroponics


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By Molly Brown
No matter who walks through the door, one thing is for sure, these ladies know their clients through and through.
It's Saturday at 11:06 a.m. While most salons are bustling with multiple appointments scheduled at the same time, this salon has a slow but steady stream of well-known clients. Quality, rather than quantity is of value here.
"What you see is what you get," Shirley Williams laughs.
Located on North 57th Avenue West in Duluth, Salon in the Valley is roughly the size of a typical living room. Despite its minute dimensions, the quaint family-owned beauty salon demonstrates excellent customer service that likely surpasses other salons ten times its size.
Most salons hire multiple stylists on the weekend, but owner Stacey Nylund prefers to work side by side with her mother, Shirley, on Saturdays.
While Stacey first opened the salon by herself six years ago, the mother-daughter duo decided to give it a go as business partners just two-and-a-half years ago.
The rustically textured yellow and green walls make the space seem comfortable and warm. Nature-inspired décor is echoed throughout the room with African animal figurines and paintings adorning every wall and table. Plants of all sizes continue this theme, and full leaves cascade down the sides of multiple planters. The wooden appointment desktop is painted with a large zebra print design and the two waiting chairs are upholstered with a giraffe-inspired fabric. Even the broom sports a sassy leopard print.
On the right wall, two wooden shelves display full stocks of elite hair product brands Biolage, Matrix, and Crew.
Above the clock hanging on the wall is a sign with curling silver calligraphy that reads, "Delighted You're Here." That is exactly the impression these cheerful women give off to each client who walks through their door.
With dangling earrings that match their outfits, both Stacey and Shirley are just as stylish and put-together as the salon is.
"Time for Prom," Shirley says, smiling as she sets the phone down on the zebra print desk and pencils in an appointment.
Dolores, one of the salon regulars, is getting a perm today. As Stacey moves in a half circle around "Dode" as she calls her, she brushes through the white curls, and asks her client, "So, did you take down your Easter stuff?"
Stacey sprays Dolores' finished coif with a thick mist of hairspray, a protective measure to shield the hairdo from the howling wind outside. Putting on her glasses, the salon regular looks in the mirror and smiles at her reflection, pleased, just as she usually is, with the finished product.
Before leaving, she schedules another weekly appointment while Stacey hands Dolores her cane and coat.
It becomes clear that loyal customers are like family in this salon.
David enters. "I saw you in the grocery store the other day, but it was packed so it wasn't a great time to holler and say 'Hi,'" Shirley says.
With a thick head of salt and pepper curls, David sits down at Stacey's station and requests his "usual de-bulking."
Conversation is not confined to typical hair salon gossip. As Stacey lathers his hair with shampoo, their chat shifts from small talk to David's passion for fishing. He describes the variety of lures he uses under different circumstances. Meanwhile, Stacey multi-tasks, remaining engaged in both the haircut and the conversation.
She asks David if his boys are going to join him at all this fishing season as she meticulously trims and combs through his hair.
"It's a different world out there," Stacey says about the serenity of the lake. It is hard to say if she is just being polite or if she also shares David's passion for fishing.
As Stacey completes David's "spring cleaning," as she calls it, another customer enters.
Shirley's face lights up as she greets the young man. "Ian, how are you? How are the boys?"
No matter who walks through the door, one thing is for sure, these ladies know their clients through and through. Their genuine interest is a rare and appreciated quality admired by all who visit Salon in the Valley.


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Did you qualify the IBPS RRB CWE that was held in September 2014? Vacancies have now started pouring in:
Arunachal Padesh Rural Bank Recruitment, sponsored by SBI.
- Bank HQ: Naharlagun, Arunachal Padesh
- Local Language Requirement: English
- Last date of application: 8th October 2015
- Posts:Officer Scale-I, Office Assistant (Multipurpose)
- Recruitment Notification : http://www.apruralbank.com/Recruitmentadv.pdf
- Link to apply: http://ibpsregistration.nic.in/ibps_aprbnk0915/
- Interview Preparation: mockbank.com/interview-prep


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New DJ-Styled Crossfading, Other Goodies Could Arrive On Future Apple Products
February 23, 2012
The US Patent and Trademark Office today announced the publication of a series of Apple patent applications for technologies that could arrive in future products or software updates. The new filings include one for a DJ-Styled feature for Macs and iOS devices, as well as those for 3D motion technologies, among others, according to Patently Apple. The most significant of these applications is one for a new method for crossfading between audio streams. In its current form, crossfading between songs via iTunes takes place as one audio stream ends and another begins. In turn, this provides a transition of a few seconds between streams. For example, via iTunes on a Mac, the crossfading functionality is setup by selecting iTunes > Preferences > Playback. From there, users may chose from between 1-12 seconds of crossfading between songs. Similar functionality may be performed on an iPhone/iPod touch and iPad through third party apps. In the future, according to Apple's patent filing, crossfading would be performed using a beat-matched, DJ-style crossfade by detecting and matching beats in the audio streams.
For example, such a method may involve determining beat locations of a first audio stream and a second audio stream and crossfading the first audio stream and the second audio stream such that the beat locations of the first audio stream are substantially aligned with the beat locations of the second audio stream.Another patent application is for 3-D motion technology that may be used in future versions of Apple's Magic Mouse or TV remote. The technology involves an advanced navigation system used for gaming or television controls and/or personal computers.
Apple describes a future magic mouse and method for correcting errors in acceleration due to a deviation from a horizontal plane of motion by correcting for gravitational acceleration components due to the deviation in the plane of motion.Finally, another application proposes a dual image sensor system for cameras on future iDevices. The new image processing system would include control circuitry that would determine whether a device is operating a single or dual sensor mode. As such:
"When operating in the single sensor mode, data may be provided directly to a front-end pixel processing unit from the sensor interface of the active sensor. When operating in a dual sensor mode, the image frames from the first and second sensors are provided to the front-end pixel processing unit in an interleaved manner."These are interesting filings. In particular, the new crossfading technique looks promising, depending on how it is implemented. Do you have any favorites from this list of patent applications? Any you find bemusing?


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Millennial Grocery Guide
Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes
How this guide works: Ingredients are broken down into approximate location in the grocery store, by order that you'd usually purchase them. There is also a cost of ingredients scale ranging from $ (very cheap) to $$$$ (extremely expensive - I'm not sure any of my recipes even have an ingredient like this yet).
About Millennial Staples: These are items you should always keep stocked in your fridge, freezer, or pantry. It will make throwing together a quick dinner easy and simplify grocery shopping. It allows you to purchase food on sale, and all these items are extremely unlikely to go bad before you use them!
From Your Pantry
- Salt
- Water
- 1 - 5 lb. bag russet potatoes $ Russets are the best bet for mashed potatoes - they'll come out smooth and creamy.
- 1 - 8oz. package of cream cheese $ Cream cheese is one of my secret ingredients in cooking. It makes these mashed potatoes extra creamy.
- 1-2 cups milk $ Any kind of milk will work - the fattier, the better of course. I use 2% in my regular everyday cooking so I used that in my recipe. You can also use heavy cream if you're looking for some extra indulgent mashed potatoes. The amount of milk depends on how dry or wet you prefer your mashed potatoes.
- 1 stick of butter $ We keep unsalted butter in our house for baking, so if you use unsalted, be aware you'll need to adjust the salt content (to your preference) when adding in salt at the end. If you use salted butter, be sure to taste your potatoes before adding any additional salt. And I don't wanna hear it about the whole stick - YES, you NEED the whole stick.


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Take any road in Italy, look up, and you'll see a lovely hilltop town: a campanile, a castello, a few newer buildings spilling down the slope, as if expelled for the crime of ugliness. But even amid this bounty there is something exceptional about Matera. It clings to a denuded peak in the extreme south of the country, in the Basilicata region—the instep of Italy's boot. Travellers are often shocked by the starkness of Matera. It's a claustrophobic outcropping of cave dwellings carved into limestone, like scrimshaw, with hardly a tree or a blade of grass to be seen. In the afternoon sun, Matera looks like a pile of tarnished gold thrown down by a careless giant. Its severe beauty is as much a tribute to human resilience as to the rugged landscape where it is situated. Most places in Italy encourage you to celebrate the prettiness that wealth bestows: exquisite iron grillwork, festive marble fountains. Matera is more visceral—a monument to endurance and thrift, to hard lives lived without waste.
Matera may look inhospitable, but people have been settling here for a long time: it is often cited as one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in a league with Aleppo and Byblos. There is something inherently alluring about this natural fortress, which towers above fertile plains and the Gravina River. A cave near Matera contains the remains of a hundred-and-fifty-thousand-year-old hominid; another has tools and bones from ten thousand years ago, and dozens of Neolithic sites dot the surrounding ridges. Matera was already a significant settlement in the Bronze Age.
Because of Matera's narrow confines, rebuilding has been constant, making the city a palimpsest in stone. A dig in 1906, near the Duomo, in the town center, went thirty-five feet below the surface and found Christian coffins and the remains of a Saracen invasion from around 800 A.D. The scientists kept going, and below that they discovered statues, broken columns, and money from the Byzantine occupation, of around 400 A.D. Farther down, they uncovered ancient Greek and Roman coins and, under that layer, bits of ceramics from three thousand years ago. Matera stands at what has long been a crossroads between East and West. As Anne Parmly Toxey points out in her comprehensive 2011 study, "Materan Contradictions," Greeks, Romans, Longobards, Byzantines, Saracens, Swabians, Angevins, Aragonese, and Bourbons all passed through the town. Man came here and never left—that's the local boast. Given this history, it is jarring to learn that fifty years ago the government tried to make Matera go extinct.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, Giuseppe Antonini, a baron from Salerno, praised Matera for its "highly cultivated" citizens and "its vast and extremely fertile countryside." The Roman abbot Giovanni Battista Pacichelli, a contemporary of his, was likewise impressed. The town, Pacichelli noted, was divided into three sections, as it is today. The main section, the Civita, contains grand churches and picturesque palazzi; it is flanked on both sides by the Sassi, or the Rocks—steeply graded districts where mostly peasants lived. The pileup of the Sassi disconcerted Pacichelli: the roof of a house, he wrote, could well be the floor of a church, "confusing the places of the living and the dead." But he, too, admired what was then a thriving ecclesiastical hub. The town was the seat of an archbishop and, at the time of Antonini's and Pacichelli's accounts, a regional capital. From Matera, Spanish occupiers oversaw part of the Italian peninsula, eventually giving way to the French.
Matera's status began declining in 1806, when Joseph Bonaparte moved the seat of the region's government to Potenza, sixty miles to the west. Over time, Matera became known as "the capital of peasant civilization." Rulers came and went, but the locals endured in their cave homes, or grotte. Each morning, they descended long, narrow trails into the valley, and worked in fields that were often miles away. At dusk, they returned to the mountain. Much of the communal life of the town was lived outdoors, in small courtyards called vicinati.
Materans were tough and self-sufficient. They had their own rituals and songs, their own demons and dialect. Many of their traditions developed as ways of preventing waste. Using shared ovens, they produced a unique horn-shaped bread that was leavened and baked slowly, yielding large pores that helped it stay fresh for a week. Rainwater was captured by a complex network of stone basins and underground ceramic pipes. Resourceful as the Materans were, however, their life style increasingly lagged behind that of the rest of the world. The better-off citizens of Matera began departing for the Piano—a more recently settled, flatter section of the hilltop—and the townspeople who remained in the Sassi were almost exclusively poor. In the caves, plumbing, electricity, and telephones were practically nonexistent. And until the nineteen-thirties you couldn't take a wagon drawn by a donkey into the Sassi, only a hand-pulled cart.
Within Italy, Matera came to be seen as just another out-of-the-way town in the impoverished south; among foreigners, it had a reputation as a picturesque troglodytic locale. But, as the world modernized, curiosity gave way to repulsion. It seemed grotesque for people to live in lightless dwellings alongside their animals. In 1853, John Murray's "Handbook for Travellers in Southern Italy" declared Matera "a dirty city" and noted that "its lower classes are said to be the most uncivilized in the whole province of Basilicata." Its problems seemed intractable: poor sanitation, brutal work conditions, malaria. Yet the population continued to grow, reaching fifteen thousand by the early twentieth century. Half a dozen family members often crowded into a cave; residents used basins for toilets and burned the waste on the cliffs. Italy was falling behind the other nations of Europe, Basilicata was falling behind Italy, and Matera seemed to be last of all.
In 1902, Prime Minister Giuseppe Zanardelli visited the Sassi and reported that it awoke in him "not just amazement but deep pity." He proposed new railways, which weren't completed, and land redistribution, which didn't happen. In 1926, the archeologist and social activist Umberto Zanotti Bianco called Matera "a Dantean horror."
By this time, the Fascists were in power, and Benito Mussolini was determined to bring his humiliated country up to date. Matera was an obvious candidate for modernization. He connected the town to the Apulian aqueduct, providing the Sassi with running water, but the Fascists were stymied by the prospect of overhauling the caves. One solution, they decided, was to depopulate the Sassi and transfer the residents to houses near their fields.
Mussolini was ousted in 1943, and, paradoxically, it was one of his opponents, the leftist Carlo Levi, who fulfilled the Fascist agenda for Matera. Levi, a doctor and a painter from Turin's upper class, had been arrested for anti-Fascist activities in 1935 and exiled to Aliano, south of Matera. He spent a year there, amid poverty that he would not have seen otherwise. In his 1945 autobiographical novel, "Christ Stopped at Eboli," he described the peasants of Italy's extreme south as living "in a world that rolls on independent of their will, where man is in no way separate from his sun, his beast, his malaria." During his exile, Levi visited Matera only briefly, but his sister, also a doctor, passed through on her way to see him, and his book incorporated her observations of children "sitting on the doorsteps, in the dirt, while the sun beat down on them, with their eyes half-closed and their eyelids red and swollen" from trachoma. She described boys and girls trailing her down a path, begging for quinine.
Levi was a gifted polemicist, and his concise retelling of his sister's experience changed Matera's destiny. "Christ Stopped at Eboli" was widely translated, and the Sassi became notorious. Italian newspapers started calling Matera a national embarrassment. There were many villages in bad shape across southern Italy, but, as Toxey notes, the "mere idea of a cave, with its subhuman associations, offended the progressive mentality of the designers and leaders of the postwar world."
In 1950, Alcide de Gasperi, the head of the Christian Democrats, visited the Sassi and declared that "this sad remnant of past centuries should disappear." Two years later, the party passed the first bill for the risanamento, or cleanup, of the Sassi. Materans living in the worst caves would be moved; the more habitable grotte would be renovated.
At the time, the United States was funding the rebuilding of Europe through the Marshall Plan. With money flowing in, the Materan risanamento could be done with style. Italian architects were filled with modernist ideas for creating ideal communities. Problems of economic inequality that had never been solved politically might, they believed, be solved aesthetically. Materans would not be forced into generic new apartments; rather, they would be immersed in communities that reproduced the nurturing aspects of Sassi life—the courtyards where people met and gossiped, the communal ovens where they baked their special bread.
The Italian planners had in mind the ambitious example of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which had resettled thousands of Appalachian families. An American sociologist, Friedrich Friedmann, led a team of researchers—including a historian, a doctor, a geographer, and a psychologist—who assessed conditions in the Sassi. After architects devised several potential resettlement schemes, Friedmann's team asked the peasants which design they thought was best. In the new rural development of La Martella, four miles west of the Sassi, the architect Ludovico Quaroni attempted to re-create the open-air vicinati that the Materans had used as their plazas and drawing rooms. Each resettled family was given a house with an adjoining barn for animals; the bedroom windows looked out on the stables, so that residents could keep an eye on the beasts at night, as they had in the Sassi. The first families were moved to La Martella in 1954. The Giornale del Mezzogiorno declared that Materans had travelled "from the darkness of the Sassi to cottages in the green countryside!" Italian newspapers continued to support the cause, and the government began encouraging residents whose caves had originally been thought salvageable to move.
The process of moving the peasants, though, did not go as planned. Not enough land was made available for farming. The new vicinati did not feel like the courtyards of Matera—they were not placed at the juncture of several houses, so residents did not naturally spill into them. Ambitions flagged, and builders began putting up ordinary apartment complexes.
In 1961, a reporter for La Stampa found the Sassi empty but for a man and his lonely mule, which had been "made melancholy," its owner speculated, by the disappearance of the people it had known. In the article, the director of local tourism suggested, hopefully, that the Sassi should become a museum. The newspaper later reported that locals wanted to use cement to bury the Sassi—or dynamite to blow up the area. Such radical measures turned out not to be necessary. Long before the caves were empty, the oldest ones began crumbling, and the government began fencing them off. Matera's ancient settlement appeared to be coming to an end.
In fact, the Sassi was about to be re-born. Squatters began occupying some of the caves, and others were used for drugs and prostitution. Then Raffaello De Ruggieri, a lawyer who considered the depopulation campaign a grievous mistake, moved in. "People felt I was crazy to subject my wife to the desolation and emptiness of the Sassi," he recalls. The De Ruggieris were relieved to discover, however, that they had some friendly neighbors. Local artisans used the caves as workshops for making cucù—ceramic rooster whistles that are a town tradition.
Other young Italians began seeing the Sassi's potential, and they became homesteaders. Roofs were buttressed, and modern plumbing was installed. In 1986, the Italian government encouraged the Sassi's revival by offering subsidies that cut the cost of restoration work in half. Small shops began to appear, and in 1992 La Traccia, a software company, opened. "We came here because everyone else was boycotting it," Franco Petrella, one of the owners, told an Italian newspaper.
For a time, the new Sassi and the old butted heads. When a pioneering restaurant, Il Caffè del Cavaliere, opened, someone set off a small bomb in its entryway. The Corriere della Sera reported that some new residents felt as if they were living in the Wild West, and were thinking of buying guns to fend off "harassment, requests for money, and acts of intimidation."
But order was established, and as the limestone hilltop was restored its rough simplicity found new admirers. In 1993, unesco named the Sassi a World Heritage site, and with that designation "tourism really began," according to Nicola Rizzi, a retired high-school teacher who was born in the Sassi. Cave dwellings were combined to form restaurants and boutique hotels.
Materan culture, once thought backward, was now admired for its warmth and its precocious commitment to sustainability. By the turn of the millennium, the Sassi had a popular jazz club, and artisanal winemakers were storing their grapes in the limestone warrens. A candlelit cave set on a hilltop turns out to be an ideal spot for a holistic spa.
In February, I flew to Bari, a port city on Italy's southeastern coast, and drove forty miles, to the hilltop. To enter the Sassi now, you have to park on the edge of sprawling modern Matera, which sits along the western side of the old cave town, and go the final hundred yards on foot. The modern quarter was built on a plain above the cliffs, so you walk down a winding road to reach the Sassi. It was night when I arrived at my bed-and-breakfast, the Casa nei Sassi, which opened a few years ago. Light from street lamps installed in the nineties reflected off the paving stones. Cats prowled alleys that glistened in a light rain. For centuries, the street where I was staying had been an open sewer; the Fascists had paved it over. In the aughts, the strip became crowded with clubs and restaurants. It can get noisy during the summer, but is tranquil in the middle of winter. My room was at the top of a dozen twisting steps, in a converted hayloft, and it overlooked a bar where I sampled Padre Peppe, a Southern Italian liqueur made from green walnuts. From my balcony, I had a view of hundreds of irregular terraces, odd abutments, incidental buttresses, and half-hidden alleys.
The next morning, when the sun came up over the plateau that faces Matera to the east, I set out for a walk. You can get anywhere in town by way of the mazelike steps, but I took another road built by the Fascists, Via Madonna delle Virtù, which follows the edge of a thousand-foot cliff. Soon I stood on an outcropping—slabs of stone ending in a low wall. Behind me were the grotte, hunched and worn, one on top of the other. In the oldest part of the city, there are almost no stores, bars, or restaurants. Laundry fluttered from an occasional balcony, but most of the structures were unoccupied. Rows of vacant caves looked like giant skulls, with the empty doorways as eyes. The limestone walls were pockmarked, rain-streaked, and sun-bleached, and they varied in hue, from gray to yellow, as the light moved across them.
To see the new Matera emerging from the old, you have to look up the hillside. These residences have the best light and, being closest to the modern city, were the easiest to renovate. They first drew architects and other creative people, then arts professionals and Web designers, and, finally, wealthier types. It's like a tiny Tribeca. Many of the cave interiors have been playfully reimagined; in some, ceilings have been knocked out, creating three-story aeries.
On my walk, I came upon a four-star hotel, Casa di Lucio, which opened in 2001. In the hotel's windowless dining room, white laminate moderno tables were neatly aligned, and recessed wall lighting emphasized the pebbly nap and the roseate color of the limestone. A deep cistern was on display under glass. The hotel, whose rooms are spread out over several caves, had the one-of-a-kind glamour of the paradors that occupy former monasteries and fortresses in Spain. Nearby, in the basement of the Palazzo Gattini, whose owner was assassinated by brigands in 1860, there is a luxury spa offering hot-stone massages for ninety euros. An old cistern had been turned into a small swimming pool.
The new residents of Matera don't always seem imbued with the communal spirit of the old days: some property owners have fenced off vicinati, making the most public part of the Sassi private. As I went around the Sassi, I was relieved when I came upon a buzzing marketplace where apples filled straw baskets and smoked fish dangled from wooden trestles. An energetic young woman was currying a donkey and chatting with a young man and woman in rough clothes. A dusty wooden cart was leaning against a cobbled wall. But when the carter smiled her teeth were perfect, and the way the cart leaned against the wall was archly jaunty. This hive of activity turned out to be a movie set: a Hollywood crew was filming a new version of "Ben-Hur," starring Morgan Freeman. Next to a thirteenth-century church, San Pietro Caveoso, a Roman eagle had been placed atop a newly constructed arch—the scaffolding in back gave it away. A crew had installed klieg lights above the ancient buildings. I discovered that "Christ the Lord," an adaptation of the Anne Rice novel, had been filmed in Matera a few months earlier. When I went into a grotta covered with a bed of straw, I joked to a production assistant, "Is this where Christ was born?"
"No," he answered. "It's just a typical Roman stable."
Matera has played a prominent role in several Biblical films, serving as a stand-in for ancient Jerusalem. Christ has walked the town's streets at least four times, most famously in Pasolini's "The Gospel According to St. Matthew," released in 1964. I became used to men going up and down the stairways in tunics, skullcaps, and neon sneakers.
Visitors armed with new guidebooks that praise the Sassi's artisanal traditions sometimes know more about the town's history than locals whose families were transferred to the modern quarter. I walked by a handsome Renaissance structure with a precipitous view over a low stone wall, and asked a local policeman the building's name. "Convento di Santa Lucia," he said, adding that he'd learned it only recently, from Japanese tourists.
At the end of my walk, I looked across the valley, past a stream that had carved out the mountain on which the Sassi clustered, toward terraces of olive and fig trees. They were once cultivated, but now grew wild and unpruned. Across the gorge were weathered limestone caves that had sheltered shepherds since Neolithic times. Not so different from the refurbished grotte behind me, they seemed to mock the idea of human progress.
And yet Matera has an affable commitment to the young and the new. The town increasingly has the feel of a small Bologna. It has a branch of the University of Basilicata and a classical conservatory, whose students' music pours out as you walk under its windows. This winter, there was an exhibit on Pasolini. Each September, a women's-fiction festival takes place. A jazz festival, Gezziamoci, runs nearly the whole year, with performances in and around the Sassi, and a national archeological museum, in a former convent, displays the riches of local digs. You can play mini-golf in an underground cistern, and the new restaurants of Matera produce extraordinarily good food, turning what was once shameful into a source of pride. Matera's cucina povera contains a lot of chickpeas, fava beans, and crushed peppers. An especially delicious dish is called ciallèdd, which, in Matera, traditionally combines eggs, the springy town bread, and flowers that grow in the nearby Murgia. (Yellow asphodels are considered the sweetest.) Restaurants proudly announce their local sourcing, and waiters are happy to tell you the story of your dish, as if a parcel of Northern California had dropped into Basilicata.
This past October, the European Commission* named Matera one of its two capitals of European culture for 2019. (The other is Plovdiv, Bulgaria, a city that also traces its history to the Bronze Age.) Previous cultural capitals have included Istanbul and Marseilles, so the recognition is noteworthy for a small town in a region without an airport. The European Union has offered Matera fifty million euros for investment, and tourism will surely rise further.
The organizers of Matera 2019 have designed an official logo, a horn-shaped tube with six extrusions. Depending on which resident you ask, the image is meant to symbolize either the old communal courtyards of the town or its intricate water system. The town's pride in the coming celebration was evident: as I walked around the Sassi, the symbol showed up with Pynchonian frequency.
The unesco designation is seen, in part, as an acknowledgment of Matera's fraught history. No official apology has ever been given for the forced exodus. Half a century after the depopulation campaign, few cultural historians support the decision. It is now a shameful memory of a more desperate time in Italian history, after the trauma of the Second World War, when the country was intent on erasing its past. The transfer of Materans is seen as one of many patronizing attempts by élites to save indigenous people from themselves.
The town's mayor, Salvatore Adduce, told me that the depopulation of the Sassi was "a laceration." Despite the best efforts of Italy's modernists, Materan culture did not flourish outside the caves. Some former Sassi residents abandoned farming and became construction workers, building homes for other émigrés. When that work ran out, they moved north, to work in factories. Many Materans eventually lost their dialect, their customs, their trades, and—most of all—their sense of community. A number of those who stayed behind joined the Italian bureaucracy and contributed to the demise of their town's way of life. As Toxey, the author of "Materan Contradictions," has written:
In the space of twenty-five years, the government transformed the populace from a dialect-speaking, land-working, troglodyte peasant culture that largely existed outside the Italian nation into wage-earning, tax-paying, Italian-speaking state employees and blue-collar consumers . . . dependent upon the government for work, wages, housing (rented from the government).
Locals were excited when Matera was named a capital of European culture—the mayor cried on national TV—but the accolade raised difficult questions. How do you commemorate a disastrous social experiment? What should Matera become? What should the town do with all those empty grotte? And how should Basilicata handle the influx of tourists?
Materans agreed that they did not want the Sassi to become just another afternoon tourist stop. "We don't want busloads of barbarians setting up tents," Mayor Adduce told me. "We want people who, above all, can know what Matera is."
The artistic director of Matera 2019 is Joseph Grima, a former editor of Domus, the European design magazine. Grima's approach might be called anti-Olympic City: he wants to avoid monumental gestures. The only thing that he plans to add to the Materan landscape is a portable concert hall, by the architect Renzo Piano, that Grima found in a warehouse in Milan several years ago. The structure, made of interlocking curved wooden ribs, can be brought to Matera, used for a year, and then taken down again. It fits with the town's sustainable aesthetic, and is properly modest. Grima told me that he had thought hard about the unesco award. "It certainly brings wealth, but it has also killed so many cities," he said, as tourists and destinations catering to them hollow out the real life of a place. He said of Matera that it would be particularly cruel to kill a city that has just come back from the dead.
Italy is constantly being confronted with challenges from its past: the palazzo too big to heat, the metro dig upended by a Roman ruin. At the same time, Italians like to say "Si fa"—"It works out." Lately, though, things have not been working out in the Basilicata region. It is one of the poorest regions in Italy, and the unemployment rate is 14.7 per cent. Its manufacturing jobs are being lost at a rapid pace, and between 2008 and 2013 the economy contracted by 13.6 per cent.
One of Basilicata's few bright spots is the Sassi. Not only does it draw tourist dollars; the Italians who now fill the caves are better educated and better paid than the people who left them. They are part of the generation that is succeeding the failed industrial one. Alberto Cottica, a Web entrepreneur who was a consultant to the Matera 2019 committee, told me, "The people who moved in were hipster central." The Sassi has a lot of digital businesses—broadband is available—and it can seem as if every ounce of Matera's patrimony were being presented on local Web sites. Last year, part of a prominent ancient building was loaned to a millennial-led organization called unMonastery—a group of self-described "civic hackers" who run a "social clinic" that embeds "skilled individuals within communities that could benefit from their presence." (The group, now thriving, recently decamped for Athens.) Everything produced by Matera 2019 will be digitally accessible and copyright-free.
Grima champions Matera's new digital ethic, and notes proudly that there is no plan to build a conventional new museum or exhibit space. To collect the artistic riches from the region and put them on display in the Sassi would deracinate them, he argues. Instead, curators in Matera will construct an online database that can guide visitors to various local collections. "The region has an extraordinary abundance—much of it in private hands," Grima said. Matera plans to open a reading room to help visitors appreciate the region's cultural treasures, but the objects will remain where they are. Matera's vibrant virtual community, it is hoped, can replace the traditional one that the government destroyed.
One day, I took a tour of the Sassi with a man named Vito Festa, who grew up in the district in the nineteen-fifties. He is unusually open about his past: many older Materans still refuse to visit the Sassi or even talk about it. Some of those who built new homes overlooking the caves made sure that there were no windows facing their old dwellings. They found it humiliating to confront the way they had lived before the government rescued them. They had been told they were filthy so many times that they had internalized the sentiment.
Festa had spent several years in the north of Italy, working as a technician in a chemical lab, but he was not embarrassed about his southern past. Now sixty-seven, he looked like many older Materans, with an orangey skin tone that resulted from spending so much time outdoors when he was young. Marching with him up the hill, I could see that he enjoyed revisiting scenes of his boyhood: the steep path where he had carried water jugs home to his family, the place where he and some friends had accidentally kicked a soccer ball off a cliff. He showed me the outlines of old cisterns and called up the names of farmers who had cultivated the olive and fig trees that now grew wild. Many of his memories were about struggling to get enough to eat: he pointed to a parapet where he had put down bird traps ("I never caught any"), and to the roofs where his family had left almonds to dry. "No one worried about us back then," he said. "Those were different times." It had been a community, he remembered, where everyone helped everyone else. As we walked, he bumped into old friends and joked with them in the traditional Materan dialect, which is spoken slowly, with open vowels.
Festa had a comfortable pension; the Italian system had done right by him in the end. We walked past the Duomo—where he and his ten siblings and half-siblings had been baptized—and past the town's one outdoor postcard vender, then followed the narrow path to the Sasso Caveoso, the poorest part of the town, where he had grown up. He had no trouble finding his grotta, now abandoned and exposed to the weather. Mold grew on the walls, and some of the stone facing had flaked off. Archeologists had dug into the floor, then covered their holes with straw. He remembered that the cave had two functioning lights, installed by the Fascists. Wires still dangled from the cave roof. His parents and his grandparents slept in the front, and he and his siblings slept in the back. Smiling, he said, "Una pazzia totale!" —what madness! He remembered that he and a brother had walked the family pig every evening before putting it in a stall behind their bed.
Festa's family left the Sassi in 1959, when he was eleven, for Spine Bianche, one of the nearby developments built by the modernists. "We were so happy we jumped on the bed!" he recalled. He now owns his own house, in the north of town. As we drove to see it, I got my first good look at modern Matera. Given the economic difficulties of Basilicata, I was surprised by how vital the place seemed. It was a midsized city, with busy trattorias, a via nazionale that backed up at rush hour, and a dog-shit problem. We drove past a ten-foot-high statue of de Gasperi, the man who had emptied out the Sassi; his hand pointed upward, as if in benediction.
Festa's house is about two miles from the Sassi, on a street of flat-roofed two-story buildings that seem to pay homage to the old grotte. The interiors, though, could not be more different. Festa proudly went through his garage to unlock the main door. He showed me pear and grapefruit trees that he was cultivating in a tiny enclosed garden in back, the shiny marble floors, and the two kitchens—one in the basement for days when it was too hot to cook near the living room. Everything sparkled. The Sassi caves are celebrated for their lack of right angles; Festa's home was a series of perfect squares. Nothing had any history to it, except for one red rotary-dial phone, which was meant to be decorative. "I like pretty things," Festa explained.
Around every corner in Matera, it seemed, I came across clusters of new residents—the prime engines of revitalization in the Sassi. Many of the men had two-day stubble and wore jackets that kept them warm inside the caves. Bit by bit, these locals were reviving the city, with Web services, excavations, renovations, or small artisanal stores.
Some of them were members of Circolo la Scaletta, a volunteer organization co-founded by Raffaello De Ruggieri, the lawyer who helped lead the charge back into the Sassi. During Matera's dark time, La Scaletta had functioned like the Guardian Angels, watching over the town's patrimony; its members had saved rare frescoes and uncovered various cavern churches in the Murgia. "We had to choose between being the children of misery or the children of a proud history," De Ruggieri recalls. "We chose the proud history." Over time, La Scaletta expanded to include an organization called Fondazione Zètema. One evening, the Zètema group took me to a museum it had just opened, showcasing the work of José Ortega, a Spanish artist who died in 1990 and spent years working in the Sassi. The museum contained several papier-mâché works inspired by local artisans. The house had been beautifully restored, but it felt clammy; to warm up, I opened some wooden doors and went out onto a balcony. Matera is labyrinthine in the manner of Venice: you never know which direction you're facing. I was stunned to be met by the panoramic expanse of the Murgia, all empty blackness. Standing there felt almost like falling.
The members of Zètema suggested that I visit some of the rural cave churches in the area. In Matera, they pointed out, there was a confluence of Eastern and Western Christianity. Some of the town's Renaissance churches were deliberately built on top of the more Eastern cave churches of an earlier age. In Matera, the new has always covered up the old.
I decided to seek out a local "rock church" that is nicknamed the Crypt of Original Sin. It can be visited only by appointment, and is situated just outside Matera, along the Appian Way. Above the church is an enormous railroad bridge that connects to nothing—it was part of a failed attempt to link Matera to the main national railway lines. Approaching the cave in a car, I didn't see anything special. This was no accident: the monks who lived here, twelve hundred years ago, did not want to be noticed.
A small group of Italians were also visiting the church, and so we all descended into a low underground chapel. When the group's guide turned the lights up, we found ourselves in the presence of half a dozen surprising frescoes. They were in the stilted Byzantine style, but they seemed imbued with an extraordinary modern sensibility: the flat figures looked at you with rounded, lively eyes, as if they might say hello to you on the street. The images, which depicted scenes from the Bible, were the least didactic series of church frescoes I'd ever seen. Mary was a warm, brown-eyed mother holding a baby in her arms. St. Peter had a beard and mustache, like a Levantine patriarch. The joy of being alive seemed more potent than worries about the Fall. Eve held out to Adam a wonderfully suggestive fig, instead of the usual apple. In an adjoining fresco, Adam raised his arms toward God as Eve emerged robustly from his rib. God was invisible except for his hand; long and delicate, it was the hand of an artist, not that of the muscular world-maker depicted on Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. Amazingly, the rock church had been entirely forgotten during the war and the years of the Sassi's depopulation. Now, like so much of Matera, it was found. ♦
*An earlier version of this article misstated which organization named Matera a capital of European culture for 2019.


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5 tips on dealing with redundancy
Being made redundant is quite common but it's one of those things you never expect to happen to you, so you're never prepared for this big change in your life. It's scary, it's awkward (mostly when telling your relatives and waiting for their pity smiles and head tilts – you know the ones) and it can at times be depressing. I wanted to share with you some tips that helped me get through my redundancy period and I hope that they help you too.
1. Enjoy your time off.
When I was made redundant people told me to just relax and enjoy my free time before a new job came along but that is easier said than done! I think you should try though. As long as you are doing all you can job-hunt wise, try not to worry about what is going to happen in the meantime. As my Grandma used to say - don't worry about things you can't change.
2. Try to leave the house every day.
Don't get me wrong, sitting around in your PJ's having a Netflix binge definitely does do the soul some good, but getting out the house definitely helped clear my mind and reduce stress. I would go sit in a café and do some job searching or write a new blog whilst having a cup of coffee with a friend.
3. Volunteer.
I had a lot of trouble coping with my boredom when I was made redundant, I've had a job since I was 15 so I had no idea what to do with my free time. I decided to look into volunteering for some of my local charities to help with the homeless crisis in Brighton which breaks my heart but that's a whole other story. So if you're having the same problem check out what you can do to get involved in with your local community.
4. Be honest.
Sometimes the hardest thing is to do is just telling the people you love how you are feeling. I found myself getting pretty down and not communicating this to anybody and expecting people to know what I was thinking. That's no way to live! If you're feeling rubbish, tell somebody! Then your other half/friends/family can support you as much as possible.
5. Get drunk.
Okay, so I'm definitely not telling you to start necking bottles of wine before the postman has even arrived, however, getting yourself dressed up and heading to town to get good and merry with your best friend definitely helps once in a while. Who doesn't feel good after a couple of G&T's and dancing to some cheesy songs?
WARNING: You will not feel good the next morning.
Overall, just try to keep in mind that this time in temporary and will pass with a new and exciting opportunity at the end of the tunnel.
This post was written by Jess, who also runs a food blog at jessandjoshcook.com. Shortly after writing this post, she's got employed! Congratulations, Jess and good luck with the new job.


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We all want to squeeze some time for exercise in a day. But what is the best exercise to do? I tried a lot of different exercises from running, yoga, swimming, biking, going to the gym, etc.
After trying all these, I have finally narrowed it down to one: walking. It allows me to do so many things that I am going to stick to this unless there is something that allows me to do as much as I get from walking.
To get a good exercise I go for a walk at a cross country trail that is about 3.5 miles which takes about one hour. I think this works for me for the following reasons:
- It is simple.
- It is less likely to get you injured.
- It allows me to listen to audio books, online courses or podcasts on my iPhone.
- It allows me to think as I am listening so I carry an audio recorder to record my thoughts and come up with ideas.
- It allows me to socialize if I run into people that I know.
- It allows me get closer to nature.
- It is a change and also it gets me moving.
- It is cheap. Sorry, it is free.
- It is convenient.
I walk at a same pace so I walk for an hour since exercise is not the only thing I am trying to get out of walking. I have to also get things into my head so something interesting comes out of it. After one hour, I have so many ideas that I fell rejuvenated both physically and mentally.
Now, if you want to make the walking more challenging, you can put on ankle or wrist weights. I don't do this since I do not want to risk injury and be sidelined for some time.
I don't think there are any other exercises that allow me do so much with one exercise activity.
My finding is backed up by research that certain exercises are good for your brain. In the Fast Company post titled "Exercises Makes Your Grow New Brain Cell---But Only The Right Kind of Exercise," the research found that aerobic exercises increases brain cells over non-aerobic exercises such as weight lifting.
What I do with the way I walk may not be as strenuous as running, but I get even more benefit by listening to an audio books, online courses or podcasts. In the beginning you may not see a big improvement, but slowly you will start coming up with new ideas.
One technique that I would recommend is to find something that you can't wait to finish listening to that is going to take several hourly walks to finish it. And you can only listen to it when you are walking. So you can't cheat and read the book or listen to it when you are not walking. What this does is that you have taken care of your motivation since you have tied your walking to learning.
I started doing this with some podcasts that I only listen when I go for a walk and often I just can't wait to get to the park so I can listen to the podcasts while I am walking. Often I am disappointed that my walk is coming to an end. I don't even feel like I have walked a 3.5 mile cross country trail.


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