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30 Unique & Systemized Programs
Born in Australia, F45 Training merges 3 separate leading-edge fitness training styles into one compelling group training experience for its members. F45 Training combines elements of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), Circuit Training, and Functional Training. The fusion of these three training concepts has led to the development of 30 different, 45 minute workout experiences, with more in development by our F45 Athletics Department. This combination of interval, cardiovascular and strength training has been proven to be the most effective workout method for burning fat and building lean muscle.
The variation of our workout programming keeps our members challenged, eager to grow and ready to have fun.
Team Training – Life Changing
There are 54 stations and no getting off. That's because Firestorm is no ordinary high intensity interval circuit. You and 22 comrades will laugh and cry as you work your way around. Meanwhile, your heart will be wondering what it ever did to you to deserve such treatment. Good luck.
Forget everything you've heard of Hollywood, this is the stunt version. 45 minutes of high intensity interval circuits around 27 stations that will put your strength, core stability and cardiovascular endurance under the brightest of spotlights. It's a test of strength and, even more, a test of willpower.
Get leaner, faster and more agile in a 45 minute cardio session that will have you sweating and gasping for air. Meanwhile, your now Zen-like mind will be wondering how the time went so quickly. It's team- based, intense and a great way to rid yourself of 820 calories.
Resistance meets functional movement patterns in a full body burn. And we mean burn. You'll walk out, or possibly crawl, with your body cut like a diamond. Better still, by activating muscle mass you'll burn calories while you sleep. And don't be shy, it's scientifically proven that resistance based training can actually burn more calories than cardio.
It's the Royal Flush of training: strength, endurance, combat prowess, cardiovascular and three bucket-loads of sweat. It's hard work and great fun as you learn your true limitations. The session only takes 45 minutes but your endorphins will keep swimming for hours.
They say nothing weak ever came out of Brooklyn and after this session you'll know that's the truth. You'll put your cardiovascular, strength, boxing, MMA and martial arts to the ultimate test, while somehow finding time for a laugh. Unbelievably, this program was designed following popular demand.
Pray you get a good partner because you'll be going through hell together. But then, apparently that's the best way to heaven. Welcome to the infamous F45 1,000 calorie killer workout. No muscle escapes our attention since muscle tissue burns 15 times as many calories as fat. Even after your session, your metabolism will still be in overdrive. Listen carefully and you'll hear the calories burning.
Grab a buddy and share the pain as you kick the butts of 800 calories in this supercharged session. 'Believe and squeeze' as you exercise your right to functional movement patterns for resistance. 45 minutes later you'll walk out with improved energy levels (though it may not feel it at the time), higher metabolism and greater endurance.
Gravity is bodyweight training but not as you know it. There's minimal equipment and plenty of functional movement patterns for excellent results including greater mobility and calories burned.
A playbook executed by Russell Wilson is equally as exciting as this workout. Move like Jerry Rice after seeing your fast twitch muscle fibres being re-calibrated by this plyometric workout that activates your phosphate and anaerobic systems.
Paddling through 14 ft shorebreak sets will become a fitness inevitability if you can get through the F45 pipeline program. Your balance and skill may not allow you to attack a sucky shorebreak set in Waimea but your stability and core will be exponentially improved through this workout.
Feel like you have worked all day on the docks in just 45 mins. Tough, uncompromising and relentless in nature. You will never leave disappointed.
Angry Birds
Born in Soho, the Angry Bird plots revenge in this frightening workout. The seething flames will leave you sweating inside and out.
Back to basics here in this tough, military style resistance system. Don't expect to rest, chit chat, or leave dry. Foxtrot is an EPIC cardio adventure.
Your muscles will be screaming after we superset them over and over. The Renegade will build quality lean muscle that will eat away at unwanted fat. Who wouldn't want to be a Renegade.
Everybody loves a challenge. What better way to get battle hardened for the playoffs. Don't stress, you will have a team smashing it out with you.
Buddy up for this medieval bonanza. You will be too petrified to leave your partners side for this one. Don't be, the only thing getting sliced and diced will be the fat cells.
This grueling sister workout of the pipeline will leave you gasping for any form of oxygen you can muster. Pulsating cardio movements through this relentless wave will have you carving in excess of 800 calories per Varsity.
This intense hybrid session will have you guessing all the way. There will be nowhere to hide as every single muscle is under siege.
Enter the crazy cardio burn with a real twist. Just when you think you're cruising, we double the intensity and flip the exercises.
Follow the leader, and lean on your partner for some inspiration. The split timing mechanism will bring out the inner athlete in all involved.
All Star
The All Star is an exciting resistance session, using antagonistic muscle pairing techniques to obtain results. Everyone can now be an All Star talent.
At F45, you pay a heavy price for being Loyal. You won't regret working through this free flowing, super intense hybrid system.
X marks the spot in this innovative resistance based system that combines weights, abs and not much resting. Purely designed for long lasting lean muscle mass.
The sister workout of Brooklyn is here. With the same main aim; to showcase combat simulation with high-intensity cardio moves structured to mimic the training of a fighter. Elements of boxing, MMA, combat and self-defence will be on display.
Miami Nights
You aint going to Miami Nights for a holiday that's for sure. Unless you want the holiday from hell. Combining functional resistance, functional cardio and bodyweight movement patterns, you will thank us later. Certainly not mid session.
Mkatz is the new Drop Set workout on the block. A completely different test, for those looking to build quality lean muscle mass. Building quality muscle is not only about compound lifting. We want to challenge muscles on different angles, with different timing, and various tempos. You will love the Drop Set nature of this workout.
Moon Hopper
Moon Hopper is the latest, insane, 18 station resistance workout created by F45. This workout will test the mind, the body and have you bewildered throughout the intense circuit. Quite simply, you just cannot settle into this workout.
West Hollywood
The climax of the week. Saturday's at F45! The DJ is pumping, electric atmosphere, 60 minutes of high octane training combining the best of strength, cardio, agility, speed and power. Combine that with the high 5's and finally Hollywood has a brother... West Hollywood!
F45 Playoffs
The F45 Playoffs is state of the art fitness test combining all of the most important fundamentals of fitness.


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What You Need to Know About Background Screening
This guide, published by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice, provides youth-serving organizations information on how to better screen employees and minimize the risk to the children they serve. This guidebook describes six layers of screening an agency should consider when developing a comprehensive background-screening process and offers links to useful tools and resources to help youthserving agencies understand the best screening practices that are available.
Order copies online
Delivery cost: $0
English - COPS-P260

subset: commoncrawl


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KERNERSVILLE, N.C. -- A partnership between two behemoth builders of excavating machinery said Friday it plans to add 340 jobs at a North Carolina plant in return for incentives of more than $5 million while promising salaries below the local average.
Deere-Hitachi Construction Machinery Corp. said it will expand its Kernersville, N.C. plant that now employs more than 700. The plant is a part of a 24-year partnership between Tokyo-based Hitachi Construction Machinery and Moline, Ill.-based Deere & Co. to manufacture both Hitachi and Deere brand excavators.
The expansion will allow Deere-Hitachi to increase production of excavators for the mining and construction industries, the company said.
State and local governments have promised Deere-Hitachi tax breaks and other incentives worth more than $5 million if the company adds the jobs within four years and sustains them for nine years. The jobs will pay an average of about $42,102 plus benefits, $486 less than the average Forsyth County wage. The county's unemployment rate in August was 9.5 percent.
State job-hunters have generally dangled help from taxpayers to sway corporate decisions if the wages were above average, though that isn't required by state law. But fewer manufacturing companies like Deere-Hitachi are planning big expansions.
The loss of manufacturing jobs was felt especially hard in North Carolina, which in August posted the fifth-highest jobless rate in the country at 9.7 percent.
Almost 22 percent of North Carolina's economy was based on manufacturing before the Great Recession began in December 2007, compared to the national average of 13 percent, according to a recent report by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Global Research Institute.
Local officials said last month Deere-Hitachi was mulling whether to expand in Kernersville or expand a Japanese plant instead. Gov. Beverly Perdue's office said she met with Hitachi executives during her trip to Japan last month.
North Carolina job-hunters are targeting manufacturers of earthmoving, mining and construction equipment that are boosting production to meet the demand from expanding economies in Asia and South America, state Commerce Secretary Keith Crisco said.
In the past two years, Caterpillar Inc. has announced it will add about 1,000 jobs at a Winston-Salem plant that builds axles for massive mining equipment, a Clayton factory to supply the world with small-wheel loaders, and a plant building equipment used in landscaping and construction. But the state was also stung in February when Caterpillar chose Georgia over North Carolina for a factory that will employ 1,400 building tractors and excavators for export and domestic markets.
"This general category of business, of excavating and other heavy equipment which creates infrastructure, is a growth industry worldwide," Crisco said.
Emery Dalesio can be reached at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio


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Accelerating Development from CDNA Sequence to Master Cell Bank Candidate in Less Than 5 Months
Catalent Presents Case Studies in Proven Gene Expression Technology
Somerset, NJ, January 22, 2013 — Gregory T. Bleck, Ph.D., Research and Development Platform Director - Biologics for Catalent Pharma Solutions, will present "GPEx ® Cell Line Engineering Case Studies using Multiple Mammalian Cell Lines" at PepTalk 2013.
Through case study examples, attendees will gain an understanding of how GPEx Cell Line Engineering has been used to insert genes into several different mammalian cell lines for biopharmaceutical production. The presentation will discuss the procedures completed, analysis of data, insights gained, and final conclusions that demonstrate how GPEx technology was used to generate mammalian cells with high yields and stability; helping to speed drugs to clinic.
Dr. Bleck has a broad background in Molecular Biology and gene expression with 12 year's experience within the organization. Dr. Bleck holds a Doctorate in Endocrinology-Reproductive Physiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He performed postdoctoral work at the University of Illinois-Urbana working in the areas of gene regulation and protein expression. Dr. Bleck has published more than 55 research papers and co-authored chapters in three books.
PepTalk 2013 – The Protein Science Week, will be held in Palm Springs, CA from January 21-25, 2013. Dr Bleck's presentation will take place on January 25 within 'pipeline 4' of the conference in a segment entitled "Choosing, Designing and Optimizing Hosts and Platforms." The conference is divided into pipelines with a focus on formulation, purification, biotherapeutics, expression and packaging. For more information on this event, please visit: www.chi-peptalk.com
To schedule an interview with the above mentioned presenter, during PepTalk 2013 or after, or to receive a copy of the presentation after the event, please contact Chris Halling at firstname.lastname@example.com
Click here for more information on Catalent's GPEx technology.
About Catalent
Catalent Pharma Solutions is the global leader in development solutions and advanced drug delivery technologies, providing world-wide clinical and commercial supply capabilities for drugs, biologics and consumer health products. With over 75 years serving the industry, Catalent has proven expertise in bringing more customer products to market faster, enhancing product performance and ensuring reliable product supply. Catalent employs approximately 9,000 people, including over 1,000 scientists, at nearly 30 facilities across 5 continents and generates more than $1.6 billion in annual revenue. Catalent is headquartered in Somerset, N.J. For more information, visit www.catalent.com .


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ULM Foundation Awards for Excellence
ULM Institutional Review [PDF]
Student Government Association
President's Administrative Council
President's & Dean's List Students
Dr. Bruno's Investiture Speech
Invest. Speech: Dr. Donna Rhorer
Invest. Speech: Ms. Brooke Dugas
Office of the President
Library 632
700 University Avenue
Monroe, LA 71209
Nick J. Bruno, Ph.D.
University President
The President's Executive Council serves as the primary leadership and advising team
for the president.
The University of Louisiana Monroe | 700 University Ave., Monroe, LA 71209 | © 2019


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Gracie Combatives®
Gracie Combatives is the official beginner program of the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy. In this program, students learn the 36 most important techniques in a fun, safe, and cooperative training environment.
Each one-hour lesson addresses one standing and one ground self-defense technique. You can start the program at any time and participate in any class without previous experience and, since safety is our number one concern, there is no competitive sparring in this program. Upon successful completion of the Gracie Combatives program we will promote you to Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Blue Belt and you will qualify for advancement to the Master Cycle program.
Step 1: Learn the Techniques
The Gracie's have divided the 36 Gracie Combatives techniques into 23 one-hour classes so that you can complete the course at your own pace. Designed so each lesson can start at any point in the course. As a result, you can complete the 23 lessons in any order. Upon enrolling, we will issue you a Gracie Combatives® attendance card on which we will track your progress every step of the way.
Step 2: Develop Your Reflexes
Once you complete each of the 23 Gracie Combatives lessons twice, you will qualify to participate in the Reflex Development (RD) Classes where you will learn how to combine the 36 techniques to address the most common occurrences in a real fight.
Step 3: Earn Your Blue Belt
Once you complete each of the Gracie Combatives lessons three times, and you've completed at least 12 Reflex Development Classes, you are eligible to test for promotion to Blue Belt! We will administer a 25-minute test to assess your ability to execute the 36 essential techniques individually and in combination. If your performance meets Gracie Academy standards, you will qualify for promotion to blue belt and you will be allowed to attend our advanced Gracie Jiu-Jitsu program, the Master Cycle.


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Two newfangled applications have surfaced in the Cydia store today that permit you to link an iDevice deprived of Siri to an iPhone 4S to use Siri on that older iDevice. The big catch is that you need a jailbroken iPhone 4S, whether it is yours or not. The proxy server method does not necessitate an iPhone 4S because only the owner of the proxy server needs the iPhone 4S keys. In most cases, we buy the use of these servers so that we do not need to go out and buy an iPhone 4S. For that, Modmyi has produced a list of reputable Siri servers that you can use with the popular Siri port dubbed Spire by iOS hacker and developer Grant Paul.
The two new applications are called AssistantConnect and AssistantConnect4S. As the names advocate, one should be installed on the iPhone 4S and the other one should be installed on the older iDevice that you want Siri on. To use this method of getting Siri on your older, jailbroken iOS 5 device, you will need to have Spire installed on it. For the rest of the ride after installing Spire, you will be using this new application, which is made by an iOS developer by the name of Bilal S. Sayed Ahmad.
Subsequent to installing AssistantConnect from Cydia on both the iPhone 4S and the older iDevice (free from the BigBoss repository), you should reboot both iDevices. Afterwards, you will find a new icon on your home screen, which is indicated by the screenshot above. This is the application where you will send the iPhone 4S information over to your older iDevice. You can open that application up and you will find the interface, shown below. The top half of the screenshot is what the application will look like on the older iDevice and the bottom half is what you will see on the iPhone 4S.
The steps for making Siri fully functional on your older iDevice with AssistantConnect and AssistantConnect4S are outlined in five steps by the developer in the Cydia description of AssistantConnect4S:
- After installation, open AssistantConnect4S and reboot the iPhone 4S.
- After you reboot the iPhone 4S, open AssistantConnect4S again and invoke Siri (hold down the home button for a few seconds) and say something anything you want to say.
- Tap the, Email Siri Data button and email it to any of your older iDevices that have AssistantConnect installed on them.
- Go over to your older iDevice (which should have not only AssistantConnect installed on it, but also Spire) and open the file that is emailed to you from the iPhone 4S.
- Enjoy Siri.
The developer goes a step further to forewarn us that we should not share our iPhone 4S Siri information with more than five people at once. The developer also promises that the connection is secure.
Sources: Bilal S. Sayed Ahmad
Article tipped by Modmyi reader Boots13.


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Benjamin Chastain has been selected as the first director of the Duke Energy Center for Innovation in Hartsville, a business incubator which will provide resources, guidance and business space for technology-oriented startups.
This program, an effort of the Community Foundation for a Better Hartsville and made possible by a grant from the Duke Energy Foundation, comes as one of several Technology Village Program sites created around South Carolina by the Clemson Institute for Economic & Community Development.
Bluffton's Don Ryan Center for Innovation opened a year ago and was the first such business incubator in the state and to date has more than 10 innovators and several partners.
Jordan Berliner is the first director of the Don Ryan Center. Berliner announced recently he would be leaving the position to pursue other business opportunities in the business arena.
Chastain, 25, currently serves as director of Coker College's Enactus team, a program in which students use business concepts to create community outreach projects. A graduate of Coker College with a Bachelor of Science in management, Chastain became Enactus program director in 2012, leading the execution of student projects in business development and service learning, which help to empower and lead members of the community. The projects of the Coker College team recently led it to becoming Regional Champion at the Enactus United States Regional Championship. From 2010 to 2012, Chastain led a sales team for Guardian Building Products of Greenville.
"I am honored by the opportunity to develop and lead the Duke Energy Center for Innovation in Hartsville, and I am excited to begin working with all of its partners including Duke Energy, Clemson, the City of Hartsville and the Community Foundation's board," Chastain said. "Hartsville is a fitting home for a business incubator, since this city was founded on innovation and entrepreneurship and has remained the home of thriving businesses ever since. I look forward to this program's emergence as a focal point for local economic development, one which will generate new products, services and jobs in this community."
Karl Kelly, director of commercialization and technology incubation for Clemson University, said the incubator's establishment in Hartsville comes as an exciting addition to the Technology Village Program.
"This incubator represents the opportunity to create new companies in a broad range of technologies including agricultural, environmental, biotechnology, robotics, chemicals and software," Kelly said. "Ben Chastain brings experience in incubation and company development and will be a creative and resourceful new director that will compliment the new center. We look forward in working with Ben."


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Living in New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks, Judy Fleischman wanted to help the community heal. Her approach: to bake and give away homemade vegan treats in lower Manhattan.
She considered making it a business when strangers began asking where to buy them, but she found it too pricey to rent commercial kitchen space, as would have been required under New York state law.
When she moved to Berkeley on New Year's Eve 2012, she was unaware that a new law that allowed sales of homemade food would take effect the next day — and change her life.
"There's been an incredible momentum around homemade food" in the past year, Fleischman said. "It's really heartwarming that this is happening here."
Sales of her Loving Live Treats are good, and she is considering making production of the flax, sunflower and fruit energy cookies a full-time business.
On Jan. 1, 2013, California enacted the Homemade Food Act, which lets "cottage food" — food prepared in home kitchens — be offered for sale. About 1,000 new microbusinesses have taken root since.
Armed with just a food dehydrator and about $1,000 in permits, Fleischman was able to get started. However, local controls have created a crazy quilt of rules and fees, resulting in rules that work for some but erect hurdles for others.
Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles, the bill's author, said there have been hiccups, but the law is doing what it was intended.
The bill began with a desperate call from a constituent who couldn't sell the wood-fired bread he made in his backyard. Working with Oakland's Sustainable Economies Law Center, Gatto crafted legislation to allow those sales of homemade products.
"We determined there were an awful lot of people who wanted to become small-business owners but couldn't because of the barriers," he said, noting the high cost of city business permits and commercial kitchen rentals.
With the bill's passage, only eight states and Washington, D.C., remain without a cottage food law.
Among this state's hopeful new entrepreneurs are Rula Sai, of San Jose, who mixes imported black tea, dried apricots and sunflower petals into an aromatic Armenian Plum Tea, and Concord chef Kevin Martino, who spices up his peanut clusters, douses them with dark chocolate and packages them with a "made in a home kitchen" label.
Blending backgrounds in cooking and sales, Martino has placed his walnut biscotti and spicy peanuts with several East Bay retailers. After $500 in permits, he pounded the pavement, shopped his samples around and began taking wholesale orders.
"It's given me a chance to be able to start my own business and cook from home without a commercial kitchen," he said.
Martino wants to expand, but he isn't sure how. Online sales are still a "gray area," Concord doesn't allow customers in his home, and the rules don't allow him to sell outside the county.
Sai has connected with the monthly Bay Area Homemade Market in Berkeley, which gives her a place to sell and sample, but she is frustrated by her San Jose experiences. She hosts tea parties, but the city only allows two in-home clients at a time. The hurdles make it difficult to build a customer base, she said.
After shelling out $500 for Chinese herbs and nearly $1,000 for required licenses, Sai discovered she couldn't sell online or at farmers markets — as she'd been led to believe.
"It's very time-consuming," Sai said. "They put you in a circle, and you don't know how to get out of it."
Other chefs have balked at revenue limits — the act allows only up to $45,000 in sales per year — and a narrow list of acceptable foods. Counties and cities can set their own licensing fees as well, causing a disparity in startup costs.
Christina Oatfield, director of the law center working with Gatto, said most Bay Area programs are running "pretty smoothly," but some would-be chefs complain of high fees.
In Santa Clara County, Class A permits, which allow direct customer sales, are $219 per year. Class B permits, which allow sales through stores and retailers, are $635 and require a home inspection. Contra Costa County charges $95 for Class A and $238 for Class B. Alameda County's permit fees are $162 for Class A and $243 for Class B.
Heather Forshey, the director of Santa Clara County's consumer protection division, said fees are based on the cost of staff time.
"Staff spends a considerable amount of time with entrepreneurs who don't know what they want. … We have become, in some ways, the liaison between producers and the state," she said.
The first year of the program went well in Contra Costa, said Marilyn Underwood, the county's environmental health director, but she thinks all the work the county does with startups may force it to raise fees.
Alameda County, which has the highest number of permits issued in the East Bay (96), gets high marks from the cottage food industry.
Ronald Browder, head of the county's environmental health agency, said his department has worked hard with startups.
"This is the first business opportunity for most people, so we want to make it easy for the applicants," he said. "It's taken more time than we thought, but it was worth it."
After one year, some restrictions already are easing. An amendment to the state law took effect Jan. 1 that allows intercounty sales if both counties agree.
And the Pacific Coast Farmers Market Association, with markets in Santa Clara, Contra Costa and Alameda counties, just allows foods prepared in commercial kitchens, but it is considering a change.
"Change is sometimes slow to arrive," Gatto said. "The more people see these businesses pop up, hopefully word will spread, and some of these people who are hostile to it will get a comfort level at some point."
Contact Jeremy Thomas at 925-847-2184. Follow him at Twitter.com/jet_bang.
Alameda County
Class A: 62 issued (cost: $162 each); Class A permits allow direct sales to customers only.
Class B: 34 issued (cost: $243 each); Class B permits allow indirect sales to local shops, sales through stores and retailers.
Total: 96
Contra Costa County
Class A: 38 issued (cost: $95)
Class B: 8 issued (cost: $238)
Total: 46
Santa Clara County
Class A: 44 issued (cost: $219)
Class B: 9 issued (cost: $635)
Total: 53


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"Sleeper from Across the Pond"
The J/109 is turning heads on race courses and in cruising destinations
SAILING WORLD Review- By Tony Bessinger
Are you tired of losing races and having lousy cruises with your not-so-dual-purpose boat? Worried about being the first (and last) buyer of a "promising" class that doesn't quite pan out? Take the fear out of commitment and look at the J/109, a 35-footer that joins the short list of accomplished production-built racer/cruisers.
The J/109 is a tad over 35 feet long, and weighs 10,900 pounds empty. It has a purposeful, racy style, with an almost vertical bow above a waterline-kissing knuckle, and an open stern. The deckhouse is low and long and helps give the boat an overall pleasing look. A carbon sprit housed in a self-draining tube peeks out of the hull just below deckline on the starboard side. The aluminum rig is tall without being freakish, and sports a sailplan that carries a 155-percent jib and an asymmetric runner that, at 1,291 square feet, shouldn't scare you half to death in a breeze. For windier days, J Boats suggests a flatter, 968-square-foot reaching spinnaker. Total sail area upwind is a healthy 644 square feet.
The cockpit is a crew's delight, with plenty of room and well-placed sail controls. Part of the feeling of spaciousness comes from the easy removal of the stern locker, a box aft of the helm which doubles as a storage box to be left on the dock during races. Because the traveler is immediately forward of the large Edson wheel, the main trimmer sits close to the driver—a key ingredient to better performance, and nice for shorthanded deliveries.
which gives the crew an unobstructed deck from cockpit to bow, nice for butts, bare feet, and moving sails. Familiar names grace all the gear: Harken winches, roller-furler gear, traveler, and adjustable jib tracks. Wichard and Spinlock are also well represented.
One of the big differences between the J/109 and its like-sized relatives, the J/35 and the J/105, is the interior, a space that's as well conceived as the rest of the boat, with standing headroom throughout the saloon. With two enclosed staterooms and an aft head that's separate, several of the seven or eight in the race crew can live aboard during weekend regattas, and deliveries will be comfortable.


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Wes Janz, Ph.D.
Wes Janz is a Professor of Architecture at Ball State University. He received his BS in Architectural Studies and his Masters of Architecture from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Michigan. In 2006, he was the recipient of the university's Outstanding Teaching Award. Wes has worked and traveled in Argentina, China, Ethiopia, Finland, India, Panama, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, and UAE; the Gulf Coast five times post-Katrina, and cities throughout the U.S. Rust Belt. Janz believes that people, in general, no matter how poor or apparently disadvantaged, are fully capable of making their way and that it is often the case that the interventions of well-intentioned persons bring both opportunity and harm to the lives of locals. His beliefs are integrated into all facets of design including research, programming, technology, function, human behavior, scheduling, time management, communication, use of materials, and systems.
Janz is the founder of onesmallproject, a collection of local initiatives from around the world, the U.S., and Indiana that highlights the lives of people that many observers consider to be in-need or at-risk. In 2008, Wes was a finalist for the Curry Stone Design Prize, which is awarded to breakthrough projects that "engage communities at the fulcrum of change, raising awareness, empowering individuals and fostering collective revitalization." He is one of ten "social innovators" featured in The Rise of the Reluctant Innovator as edited by Ken Banks with a foreword by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu (2013). His book Leftover Rightunder: Finding Architectural Potential in Found Materials, was published by Half Letter Press in 2013.
Twitter: @onesmallproject
Instagram: onesmallproject


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Quaker Stirs Up The Oatmeal Category
Quaker Hearty Medleys Instant Multigrain Hot Cereal offers a blend of four different heart-healthy whole grains – oats, wheat, barley and rye – that provide a good source of fiber and are loaded with real nuts and fruits for mom and dad. Flavors are Apple Cranberry Almond and Banana Walnut.
Quaker also reformulated its signature Instant Oatmeal products. New and Improved Quaker Instant Oatmeal now is made with larger whole grain oats for a heartier texture, and three of its signature varieties have 25 percent less sugar (9g per serving) and all natural flavors.
But my favorite is Quaker Mix-Up Creations Instant Oatmeal, a really fun product for kids and kids at heart. Quaker Mix-Up Creations combines five varieties of oatmeal in a box, each in half-pouch servings. Kids can mix any two packets to create their own favorite oatmeal combination every morning. Flavors include apples, cinnamon, blueberries, maple and bananas. Kids love mixing, matching and experimenting, so this is a winning idea for future R&D scientists.
"Americans need to go back to basics, and that starts with breakfast," says Jaya Kumar, president of Quaker Oats. "We all inherently know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and in fact, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they feel satisfied after eating it. Still, only about half of Americans eat breakfast every day. We see a universal need for education and motivation to help Americans make breakfast a daily, healthy habit."
Suggested retail price for both Hearty Medleys and Mix-Up Creations is $3.99.


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Hello everyone,
I'm writing to tell you about an extremely useful site that I have been using on and off for the past year or so.
The site is called Lang-8 and it's an online language learning community.
Here's how it works:
1. When you create your free account you select the languages you are studying along with your native language(s).
2. Next you write journal entries in whatever your target language is on any topic you like.
3. Native speakers of your target language will then see your entries and correct them for you.
4. You, then, return the favor by correcting the journal of someone learning English, or whatever your native language may be.
And that's it!
It is completely free to sign up and use the site, although you can also get a paid premium account ($5/month) and get some extra features. I haven't done this yet and I personally don't really see the need to do so right now.
You can add users to your friends list to make sure someone will correct your entries. I've surprisingly learned a bit about English grammar from correcting journal entries as well.
If you want pronunciation practice in your language of study, you can embed sound files you have recorded on sites like Snapvine or videos you've uploaded to Youtube.
From my experience with using the site I would recommend that you keep your diary entries short. That way, it is more likely that more people will actually read and correct your entries.
You can watch a short video introduction to the site here.
Or, go directly to Lang-8, create a free account and give it a try, you won't regret it.
LLC Assistant
Possibly THE Best Way to Learn a Language Online
Hello everyone,


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A Rioja That I like
More posts
- Heredos del Marques de Riscal Rioja 2009
- Marques de Riscal : frank Gehry architect. Same for the Guggenheim. 5-8million bottles are under the bodega at any given
- Alan Rowe brought to tons house. Yummy red wine
- Spanish wine from Alfonso
- Delicious full bodied Rioja, fruity but not over the top, very smooth


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Professional Candle Making Supplies Since 1972
Aluminum Tea-light Containers
Empty aluminum tea light cups match the "industry standard" in terms of size and material. Container for tea light candle only (does not include candle). 16.5 mm x 37.5 mm.
1.5" D x 0.5" H
1.5" D x 0.5" H
Pack of 1000 [M-59~1000]
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Getting in touch with Garry Johnson in Boston, MA is now easy as USA People Search helps you to access people search information such as public records, email, and address for people like Garry Johnson. With such well researched details about people with the last name Johnson in Boston in our database, it won't be long before you find the right person.
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Wishing you all a wonderful, egg nog (& kahlua), candy cane, pant splitting dinner, family, laughs, hugs, pressies, loved ones, smiles, laughter, friends, treats, cookies, music, games, snuggles galore filled holiday season!
I'm going to be taking a few days off to spend with my wee family and get some much needed relaxing and unplugged holiday time. I wanted to pop in today to say THANK YOU all so much from the bottom of my heart for reading this blog and for being my friends. You guys are such a big part of my life and I wouldn't have it any other way. So since I can't reach out and hug you all in real life I'm sending big virtual ones to all of you. I hope your holiday is a relaxing and a happy one. Enjoy!!!
Best wishes for a wonderful Christmas!!! See you in a few days!
p.s. if you have any real last minute sewing to do or want to spoil yourself over the holidays use the code "HOLIDAY" to get 10% off all my patterns in my etsy shop! woot woot!


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- What we collect
- Preserving our collections
- Building our collections
- Selected Library collections
- Collection statistics
- History of the collection
- Processing and describing our collections
Locating the last resting places of our family and forebears can be an important aspect of our genealogical research. For many, it will eventually lead to a journey to those places and to the exact spot to to pay their respects, often to kin we may have never met but with whom we have a forever bond. Sometimes the search for these places can be easy but often it may lead just to the cemetery gates. It may all depend on the availability and access to the appropriate documentation. For this reason, this guide provides some hints and suggestions to facilitate your research into finding the last resting places of those important to you.
Types of records
Information on burials can be found in a variety of sources, including:
- burial certificates
- church registers
- civil death certificates
- council and private cemetery registers/records
- funeral director or undertaker records
- monumental inscriptions (listings of gravemarkers, memorial plaques and monuments)
- newspaper funeral notices
The Library may provide access to information from some of these sources in various forms, including:
- websites
- online subscription databases
- cd-roms
- microforms
- print publications


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Gallery: Springs Fire, Day 2
Gallery: Springs Fire, Day 1
Gallery: Summit Fire in Banning
Video: Time lapse photography of the Springs Fire
Live Blog: Springs Fire Updates
More: Updates from the Ventura County Fire Department
The Springs Fire nearly tripled Friday to 28,000 acres as it burned through pristine Ventura County wilderness to the beach, then stormed back through canyons toward luxury neighborhoods when erratic Santa Ana winds reversed course.
While the Camarillo blaze was the biggest of the day, it came as firefighters throughout Southern California found themselves battling a fierce series of flare-ups amid dry, gusty wind conditions from Pasadena to the Inland Empire.
With the Springs blaze out of control on several fronts, commanders deployed resources to rugged hillsides, then redeployed them again as an afternoon shift in the wind sent waves of flames toward ranch homes in exclusive Hidden Valley. Residents were ordered to evacuate, but a parade of horse trailers crowded local roads as homeowners took care of their livestock first.
"When you live in this area you've gotta get used to fires," said Don Slaughter, a trainer with Equisports International, as he loaded up dozens of horses valued from $500,000 to $5 million each.
"The California area code should be 9-1-1."
Authorities said they plan to make a stand against the fire Saturday in Hidden Valley, bringing in firetrucks, bulldozers and firefighters.
"There is a big rock outcropping in that area, and we are going to try to drive the fire to that," said Ventura County fire spokesman Bill Thomas.
"When it hits that outcropping it will be snuffed out. It won't be able to jump."
As 1,000 firefighters battled the Ventura County blaze, crews scrambled to extinguish a series of smaller fires that broke out Friday around Southern California.
A fast-moving fire erupted near Glendale about 2:30 p.m., forcing the evacuation of upscale homes hugging the heavily wooded hillsides of Chevy Chase Canyon. Five water-dropping helicopters and more than three dozen firefighters contained the blaze to about 75 acres, and there were no reports of damage or injuries.
Firefighters in Pasadena quickly extinguished a small brusher on a vacant lot on the rim of the Arroyo Seco, while Los Angeles County sent about 200 firefighters and a water-dropping helicopter to battle a grass fire in Walnut. In Riverside County, a 4 1/2-square-mile fire that destroyed a home burned for a third day in mountains north of Banning.
"The brush fire season has started early and it has hit us very hard and fast for Southern California," said Eric Scott, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. "We can't encourage enough for people to have proper brush clearance to create the defensible space so firefighters can protect property and lives."
The Springs Fire broke out Thursday morning along the 101 Freeway near the Camarillo Springs mobile home park. Flames spread quickly, damaging 15 homes and five businesses and forcing the closure of Cal State Channel Islands.
On Friday, officials called in eight water-dropping helicopters and six fixed-wing aircraft to help douse the fire, which threatened 4,000 homes and 300 commercial properties. It jumped Pacific Coast Highway and crept onto the shooting range at the Point Mugu Naval Air Station, which later evacuated the San Miguel housing complex because of heavy smoke.
Firefighters also managed to save the Navy's $1 billion Laguna Peak communications complex, located on a hilltop overlooking the base.
"They're focusing on structural protection," said Lori Ross, a spokeswoman for the Ventura County Fire Department. "So far, we're doing a good job on that."
Officials estimated Friday morning that the fire had blackened 10,000 acres but that estimate had grown by the evening to 28,000 acres – with containment at 20 percent. Temperatures in the area remained high, with a record for the day of 96 degrees recorded on Friday. Officials estimate it will be at least Monday before firefighters gain the upper hand.
Among the businesses damaged was Laguna Farms, a 90-acre spread along Las Posas Road that is the only site in the world that grows raspberries year-round. News photographers and TV crews captured images of hoop-shaped shelters burning Thursday at a storage yard at the farm.
There had been fears on Thursday that chemicals stored on the site had ignited and created a health hazard, but a company official looking over the scene on Friday dispelled those concerns.
"There were no chemicals burned, despite what anybody said," said Don Bowden, vice president of Reiter Affiliated Cos., a partner in Laguna Farms. "There was some plastic glue, fertilizer and gypsum. To some degree, it seriously impacts our operations."
Bowden said the plastic-mesh shelters caught fire when strong winds dropped embers from the fire burning near Cal State Channel Islands.
"The smoke was so thick, I thought the university was gone," he said. "The winds were howling at 60 mph."
Some residents who had been evacuated Thursday were allowed to return home on Friday, many being met by the odor of smoke as they opened their front doors.
Ed Cruz has lived in the Dos Vientos neighborhood of Thousand Oaks for 24 years and recalled the Greenmeadow fire that swept through Ventura County in 1993, burning about 38,000 acres and destroying three dozen homes.
"The '93 fire was one dimensional – there was one dynamic," he said. "This fire was multi-directional – the dynamics changed all the time. That's why I respect these (firefighters) so much. They had a lot to deal with."
Staff writer Bob Strauss contributed to this report.
Barbara Jones | email@example.com | 818-713-3710 | @LADNSchools on Twitter


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Yes, that is a Camelback. I am wearing a softshell jacket that my Mom bought me from Costco, and my work uniform shirt from Coast Mountain Sports - it kind of looked like what I thought a cycling jersey should look like. I was not wearing cycling socks or a shammy, because I didn't have any. Hey - I just bought a bike for goodness' sake (it took a YEAR to save enough cash). No dollars left over for the superfluous digs... (hashtag: #ownit)
|#TBT : First race ever. Sporting a Camelback because I didn't know how to reach down for my bottles.
I couldn't understand a single French word the comissaire was saying (I didn't speak much Molière, especially à la Québécoise back then). So, I went off the start line with the masters men. (I'd only ever ridden with guys anyways). Some man shoved me on purpose as he rode by in the first few hundred meters. What a jerk. Then I got dropped really fast.
The next pack (the girls who I was supposed to be racing with) caught me. Then they dropped me. It was raining. I was cold. Then I found some girl and a boy half my age to draft off of to finish the "race".
I still felt pretty badass for doing my first race. Never give up.


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Find us in the heart of one of California's most exciting cities, with easy access to cultural sites such as the Historic Old Town, museums, restaurants, and the Rose Bowl Stadium. We're also only a short distance from the Pasadena Conference Center.
Fit calm and comfort into your agenda with our 29,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting space, stylish restaurant, and inviting lobby bar. Refresh in our WestinWORKOUT® Fitness Studio or our heated outdoor pool, with superb views of the city.
We offer 345 crisp, clean guest rooms and five unique suites, all boasting our signature white Westin Heavenly® Bed with pillow-top mattress. Many rooms offer great courtyard or mountain views, and all are furnished with the uplifting Heavenly® Bath.
345 Room Hotel


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He lies completely still, disabled and barely able to twitch his thumb but he's a hard-core, high-scoring online gamer. She can only clench her teeth and move her eyes but she does all her shopping and banking online. He's blind but tweets, types and downloads from iTunes daily.
These are just some of the stories told at Yahoo's Accessibility Lab, where Alan Brightman and Victor Tsaran are "re-equipping lives" everyday.
It's not a very big office. Maybe just about the size of a six-pack of cubicles. But inside this second-floor room on the company's Sunnyvale campus, doors are opening for millions of people who were told they can't or thought they couldn't anymore.
Brightman is Yahoo's senior policy director. He is an advocate, educator and innovator. Think of him as the father of computer accessibility. He founded the Apple Worldwide Disability Solutions Group and spearheaded the development of the Universal settings control panel (Mac users – check the system preferences). After 13 years at Apple, Brightman moved over to Yahoo to make their network universally accessible for the site's huge base of users.
Brightman and Tsaran host dozens of tech engineers and developers from companies all over the high-tech world. They put the company leaders through a series of simulations to experience what it might feel like to try to use a computer to surf the web or send an email, without the use of their hands or eyes.
He hands them a ball and asks them to hold it with both hands and type their name; straps goggles on their faces that are fitted with special lenses to mimic vision impairments so they can get the feeling of being differently-abled in the computer age.
Tsaran doesn't need goggles to make him realize the difficulties of tech navigation with no vision. Yahoo's senior program manager for accessibility, he's blind and spends his days helping to develop software that makes Yahoo easy to use, even for people who can't see what they're clicking on.
Answering the question "why would I want my product to be accessible for people with disabilities?" is an easy one for tech developers after they've been guided through the simulations, Tsaran says. As they upgrade the product, they start thinking about keeping it accessible for everyone.
"We don't do this just because we're nice guys." Brightman says. "Even though we are."
If feeling helpless in front of a computer screen -- even for a simulation -- isn't enough to make the business leaders get it, there's always the bottom-line approach.
"There are 60 million disabled people in the U.S. alone and they have an annual aggregate income of a trillion dollars." Brightman says. "So if I'm building a store that they can't get into, I'm a fool."
There are reminders all over the room about what's happening in here. The purple dots in a pattern on the wall aren't just some dotcommer's idea of art. It spells out ACCESS in Braille and a poster across the room echoes the same message, only hidden among colored dots that might look like random spots to someone who's color-blind. And fresh notes on the white board that
pose the question:" Do disabled people use the Web differently?"
Brightman and Tsaran are looking to future and integrating accessibility into mobile devices. That presents a new challenge, even to the team working to solve the problems of accessibility.
"This is a work in progress." Tsaran says. "It's never going to be perfect because the minute it's perfect we know it's not -- because we gotta do something new."


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Wars are won by decisive leaders, dedicated soldiers and technology that gives you the upper hand. But after you win the wars, what happens if that technology fell into the wrong hands?
That's what happens in this week's Havoc Brigade graphic novel from Studio 407. Writer Neal Marshall Stevens and artist John Bosco showcase a world where a decades-long military conflict is finally overcome with the introduction of a group of soldiers piloting experimental machines known as Havocs. After peace is achieved, the Havoc Brigade and their vehicles are put out to pasture but strife begins anew when one of their own has different ideas. The Havoc Brigade was created to put an end to the war, but with the war over who is to stop a rebellious man with a Havoc at his command?
Havoc Brigade creator/writer Neal Marshall Stevens might be an unfamiliar name in comics, but he's a big name in horror circles as writer of several horror movies including Thirteen Ghosts and one of the Hellraiser movies. Reportedly Stevens came to comics to have more of his story ideas reach the world, complaining of the complex and disappointing process of getting a film made. Stevens has a second comics project in the works titled Demon Squad, also scheduled to come out via Studio 407.
Here is a five-page preview of Havoc Brigade provided by the publisher:
[gallery link="file" orderby="title"]


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The Classic T SH silent has a classically elegant cabinet with a subtly profiled top. Using our tonally excellent K116 scale with a fully braced back; it represents astonishing value and offers superb tone and touch.
The "Heritage" Natural Oak Satin version features a cabinet composed of beautifully handcrafted veneers, created by our master veneer craftsmen. And if you are looking for an exciting contemporary look, why not choose our Mocha coloured oak and chrome? Practice pedal comes as standard as do solid double brass castors. It was voted "Maestro" in its price class by Pianiste Magazine, an accolade defined by them as a piano that distinguishes itself by exceptional quality or by an excellent quality/price combination in its category.
"This instrument of small size (116cm) possesses an astonishing richness of sound throughout. Its treble is open and luminous without ever being aggressive. The middle sings naturally. The bass astonishes by its depth and power. The sound palette of the instrument is large and its reserve of power is very satisfying. It is an excellent instrument with very good musical possibilities at an affordable price." – Pianiste Magazine


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Students at Columbia University are consuming so much Nutella -- up to 100 pounds a day -- that the dining hall is spending as much as $5,000 a week on the hazelnut chocolate spread, according to a published report.
The Columbia Spectator reports that administrators suspect the high demand for the treat is because undergrads are taking extra amounts back to their dorms.
"The demand [for Nutella] has been greater than originally expected," the executive director of Dining Services, Vicki Dunn, told students in an email, according to the paper. "Students have been filling cups of Nutella to-go in Ferris Booth Commons and taking the full jars out of John Jay, which means we're going through product faster than anticipated."
Grayson Warrick, a Columbia College Student Council representative, tells the Spectator that students are wasting Nutella after taking it from the dining hall.
"When you're paying that much for a dining plan, some people feel a bit more entitled to taking things from the dining hall," Warrick tells the Spectator. "But what they don't realize is that dining uses any extra money to get awesome new items like Nutella, almond butter, and to make structural changes like the JJ's renovation."
Although the coveted spread could cost the dining hall $250,000 per year, Dunn tells the Spectator that they do not plan to stop serving it.
"People love their Nutella," Charles Sanky, a Columbia student, told the Spectator. "People are going to go crazy, I'm not surprised."
Instead of getting rid of Nutella, the dining hall tells the Spectator that it may limit the amount of other high-demand items, like lobster tails.
A Columbia spokeswoman declined comment on the Nutella spree.


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Magic Waive Solomon Jones
Jan. 4, 2014
Orlando, FL – The Orlando Magic have waived forward-center Solomon Jones, General Manager Rob Hennigan announced tonight. Orlando's roster now stands at 13 players.
Jones has appeared in 11 games this season with Orlando, averaging 1.3 ppg. and 1.5 rpg. in 7.7 minpg. He was signed by the Magic as a free agent prior to training camp on Sep. 27.
Originally selected in the second round (33rd overall) of the 2006 NBA Draft by Atlanta, Jones has played in 281 regular season games with Atlanta, Indiana, New Orleans, the L.A. Clippers, New York and Orlando, averaging 3.0 ppg. and 2.3 rpg. in 11.0 minpg.


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When an iconic company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, it is often viewed as a bad sign for the industry in which that company is a signature brand. That was certainly the case in the prior decade when United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines and US Airways all operated for stretches under the supervision of a bankruptcy court. The US legacy airline business was sick and the Chapter 11 filings were signs that things were bad and could get worse.
But, in one of the many ways the American Airlines' (AA) bankruptcy is unusual, the filing is generally viewed as a positive for the US airline industry, which is expected to earn a healthy profit for the second straight year in 2011 even in a slow-growth economy.
For one, AA will likely get smaller, meaning more capacity will be taken out of the US market. And US airline CEOs and Wall Street analysts alike believe there are still too many seats chasing too few passengers in the mature US market—85% average load factors notwithstanding.
Secondly, as JP Morgan's Jamie Baker pointed out in a research note, the increasingly consolidated US airline business appears to be becoming more about carving out a comfortable profit zone than direct, heated competition. United, Delta and US Airways (AA's three legacy rivals) all went through Chapter 11 and "today those airlines are producing returns nobody ever dreamed possible, against a backdrop of 9% unemployment and [greater than] $100 oil," Baker wrote. "There's no evidence that those three are 'going after one another.' A more viable [AA] doesn't pose a threat; it contributes to a more viable industry."
Finally, as was discussed in a previous post, AA views the Chapter 11 process as a way to get its cost base more in line with competitors that have already utilized bankruptcy reorganization to lower their debts and expenses (especially labor costs), not as a last gasp play for survival. It is flush with cash ($4.1 billion on hand, $6 billion-plus in revenue generated quarterly) and has stated that "the need for debtor-in-possession financing is neither considered necessary nor anticipated."
Therefore, many of the negatives often associated with a major airline bankruptcy filing—vendors and suppliers not getting paid, for example—are not factors in AA's case. That means the fallout from the bankruptcy is not likely to have much impact on the rest of the industry. -Aaron Karp


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Lasting Memories
Paul Joseph Nappo
May 7, 1950-Dec. 13, 2011
Pleasanton, California
Paul was born and raised in Oakland, CA and was a longtime resident of Pleasanton, Ca. He passed away peacefully December 13, 2011 surrounded by his family. He was preceded in death by his father, Joseph Angelo Nappo and in-laws Rudolph and Evalyn Peters. Paul was a devoted, loving husband, father and Nonno to wife Debra, daughter Stephanie (Josh), son Nicholas and granddaughter Hayden. Loving son to Frances Nappo, brother Thomas (Faye), Marilyn and Marlene (Ted) brother in law to David (Laurie), Denise and Ron (Christina). Favorite and adored uncle to many nieces and nephews as well as communal father to countless others. He also leaves behind many loyal, devoted lifelong friends. Paul was a proud member of Fratellanza Men's Italian Club and a devoted machinist at Koffler Electrical. His greatest joy's were outdoor activities, music, playing with the kids, time with family and friends and being with the love of his life, Debra!
We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Paul Nappo at this difficult time.
The Murdock family extends its prayers and condolenses to the Nappo family. I was fortunate to have known Paul in High School and, no matter how many years had passed, each time we met Paul was always warm and friendly, and we would talk about the grreat loves in our lives-our wives and family. I always thought he was a great example of a loving husband and father. Paul you are greatly missed and we hope your family finds peace in their love for one another, the beautiful memories of you, and the hope our Heavenly Father offers.
It has been such a great pleasure to have known Paul in this lifetime. We have so many fun memories that will last a lifetime with the Friendship Feast parties at his home. Our thoughts, prayers,and hugs go to his family. Paul you will be missed, till we all meet again, may your spirit be among all of us....God Bless


text: IntroductionIn July 2001, a CPJ delegation visited the Mozambican capital, Maputo, to learn more about the murder of journalist Carlos Cardoso, who was gunned down in November 2000. The delegation included board member Clarence Page, a columnist with the Chicago Tribune; CPJ deputy director Joel Simon; Africa -program coordinator Yves Sorokobi; South African -journalist Phillip van Niekerk; and Mozambican journalist Fernando Lima. During their visit, members of the -delegation met with dozens of journalists from print and broadcast media, both state-owned and private, as well as with high-ranking Mozambican government officials. The following account is based on information provided to CPJ during its visit, as well as on subsequent interviews. The delegation found that eight months after Cardoso's murder, journalists in Mozambique remained afraid to cover sensitive stories, particularly those involving corruption, and that an inadequate investigation of the Cardoso case has contributed to this fear. Every person that the CPJ delegation interviewed agreed that the fear engendered by Cardoso's murder has left a serious gap in investigative reporting in the country. CPJ believes that press freedom in Mozambique has been deeply compromised by the Cardoso killing, and that only an exhaustive investigation that aggressively pursues every lead can restore public confidence among journalists there. The findings were especially disappointing given that CPJ and other press freedom organizations have been encouraged by Mozambique's past record; the country is known as a place where both the independent and state-sponsored media have competed freely, without official interference. Two brothers from a prominent banking family, one of their business partners, and three alleged gunmen are in jail on charges of conspiring to murder Cardoso. Nonetheless, Mozambican journalists, international observers in Maputo, and others consulted by the CPJ delegation expressed serious reservations about the investigation. Several noted that the government's account is full of holes and inconsistencies, and that a number of seemingly routine investigative procedures have not been followed. In particular, it appears that investigators have not examined the possibility that Cardoso's murder is linked in some way to any of the journalistic investigations hewas working on at the time of his death. CPJ agrees with the local critics who have urged further investigation. Based on its research, CPJ presents several specific recommendations for further investigation at the end of this report. As an advocacy organization dedicated to the defense of press freedom worldwide, CPJ's motivations in conducting this report are to seek justice for Carlos Cardoso and to support Mozambican journalists who have been working in a climate of fear and intimidation. CPJ believes that Mozambican journalists will continue to feel inhibited in their work until they are convinced that justice has been done in the Cardoso case. Chronicle of a murder Local businessman Ayob Abdul Satar, his brother Momade Abdul Assife Satar, and former bank manager vincente Ramaya are accused of ordering Cardoso's assassination, according to Mozambique's state news agency, AIM. Three men are accused of carrying out the murder: Anibal Antonio dos Santos Junior (also known as Anibalzinho), Manuel Fernandes, and Carlito Rachid Cassamo. All six men face charges of conspiracy to commit murder, first degree murder, and the attempted murder of Cardoso's driver, Carlos Manjate. They have been in police custody since March 2001. In early October 2000, Anibalzinho and Rachid began to visit the offices of Metical, the investigative newsletter published by Cardoso. Each day, they bought copies of the paper. On one of his first visits, Anibalzinho asked Metical employees to point out Cardoso. The staffers later recalled that Anibalzinho and Rachid usually paid for their papers with large-denomination banknotes, which caused problems with change but gave the two men time to look around the office. They often parked their car, a red Volkswagen Citi Golf hatchback, out front. They last visited Metical on November 17, 2000, and then suddenly stopped coming. Five days later, on the evening of November 22, Cardoso closed that day's edition and faxed Metical to more than 400 subscribers--mostly diplomats, government officials, and businesspeople. He then got into a car with his driver and sped off, hoping to make it home in time to catch the start of a soccer match on television. It was about 6:30 p.m., dusk was falling, and the streets of Maputo buzzed with rush-hour traffic. Three blocks from Metical's front door, a red Volkswagen Citi Golf and a Volkswagen 1600 sedan with polarized windows cut off Cardoso's car. According to numerous news reports, two men wielding AK-47 assault rifles jumped out of the Citi Golf. They sprayed Cardoso with gunfire, killing him instantly and severely wounding his driver. The making of an investigative journalist Born in 1951 to a family of Portuguese exiles, Carlos Cardoso came of age during Mozambique's armed struggle for independence from Portugal. He was educated in South Africa, where his outspokenness angered the apartheid regime. In late 1974, the Marxist guerrilla movement FRELIMO overthrew the Portuguese colonial government. Meanwhile, South African authorities deported Cardoso to Portugal's capital, Lisbon. He stayed there only a few months, returning in time to witness FRELIMO's official declaration of independence on July 25, 1975. In 1976, eager to play his part in building the new socialist Africa, Cardoso joined the staff of a state-run newspaper called Tempo. But his aggressive journalism frequently annoyed the FRELIMO leadership. In 1979, Cardoso was sent to cover music for state-run Radio Mozambique, a humiliating demotion for the rising young political reporter. In 1980, after returning to the good graces of FRELIMO, he was appointed editor of the state news agency, AIM, moving one step closer to the party's inner circle. During the next few years, Cardoso developed close ties with senior party officials, including then-president Samora Machel. He continued to cultivate these sources throughout his career. In October 1986, President Machel died in a plane crash in South Africa. Many blamed South Africa's apartheid regime, pointing to the fact that under Machel's government, Maputo had become a refuge for exiled African National Congress militants. At the time, South Africa was also backing the Mozambique National Resistance (RENAMO), a guerrilla movement that was originally sponsored by white Rhodesian leader Ian Smith to sabotage black majority rule in Mozambique. Cardoso, a maverick by nature, eventually butted heads with the new government, led by President Joaquim Chissano. In 1989, Cardoso resigned from AIM. Three years later, he and several other defectors from the state-run media founded Mediafax. The new publication set a high standard for investigative reporting, publishing articles on such diverse topics as the secret negotiations that led to the end of the civil war and the failure of government ministries to pay their electricity bills. A March 1993 article in The New York Times described Mediafax as the "vanguard" of the free press in Africa. In January of 1994, Cardoso and his partners also launched a weekly print newspaper, Savana. In 1997, Cardoso left Mediafax and launched a rival publication called Metical. True to his socialist roots, he ran Metical as a cooperative, where janitors and editors received the same salary. But while Cardoso clung to his ideals, Mozambique was changing radically. During the next decade, FRELIMO largely abandoned the centrally planned economy introduced at independence in 1975. After Machel's death, President Chissano took over a country devastated by centuries of colonial rule and wracked by an internal war against RENAMO. Mozambique had been a Soviet client state since independence, but Chissano's rise to power coincided with Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost reforms, which were followed by the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the end of the Cold War; Mozambique had little choice but to court the victorious Western powers. Accordingly, FRELIMO embraced capitalism. In 1987, President Chissano approved a World BankInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) Economic Rehabilitation Program and ordered the privatization of more than 1,200 state companies. In 1992, the budding capitalist government created the Commercial Bank of Mozambique (BCM), a decision that would have fateful consequences for Cardoso's career. Boom years The RENAMO insurgency ended with a peace agreement signed in October 1992. Mozambique's first multiparty elections were held two years later, in 1994. After that, the economy began to score stunning growth rates. Today, Mozambique has one of the fastest growing economies in the world--a 7 percent GDP growth rate in 1996 and an estimated 10.4 percent growth rate in 2001, according to the World Bank. Agriculture still drives the Mozambican economy, but the country has huge untapped hydroelectric, oil, and natural gas resources. In fact, it has become a poster child for the IMF and the World Bank, which attribute Mozambique's economic success to structural adjustment programs. Despite the impressive growth, Cardoso remained skeptical that Mozambique's capitalist revolution was actually helping the country's impoverished people. He used his contacts in FRELIMO's socialist old guard to report on widespread corruption and abuses of power. Eventually, Cardoso and other critics of the FRELIMO government began to charge that the size of the legal economy (currently about US$4 billion in a country of 19 million people) could not account for Maputo's banking and real estate boom; they suspected money laundering, drug trafficking, and other illegal pursuits. In 2000, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which had opened an office in neighboring South Africa in 1997 to monitor the region's exploding narcotics industry, reported that Mozambique was one of the main ports of entry for illegal drugs coming into the region from Southeast Asia. According to the DEA, much of this traffic is then shipped to Europe. Cardoso remained a FRELIMO sympathizer until his death, but he became increasingly distrustful of government policies that mainly benefited the wealthy. His outrage only intensified as he broke more and more stories that shed light on how members of a party founded to fight for the rights of poor people were amassing huge personal fortunes. He exposed a number of questionable deals and was not shy about lambasting the government in his editorials. Since 1998, in addition to his journalistic work, Cardoso had been actively involved in Maputo city politics as a member of the Municipal Council. One week before his death, according to multiple sources in Mozambique, Cardoso stood up at a council meeting and verbally attacked what he described as the "gangster faction" within FRELIMO. He also continued to write Metical articles denouncing senior FRELIMO figures. Everyone CPJ consulted in Maputo--from Cardoso's competitors to senior government officials--agrees that Cardoso was killed because he was the only journalist who had the contacts, skills, and inclination to confront the ruling elite with evidence of its own corruption. The investigation Local critics have charged that the investigation into Cardoso's murder was flawed from day one. The CPJ delegation believes that these criticisms are well-founded. Police officers made no attempt to cordon off the crime scene and took no measurements or photographs, according to published accounts. Officers at the crime scene only interviewed one eyewitness, Angelo Nyerere Mavele, who later disappeared without trace. Press reports described a chaotic scene in which a civilian bystander drove Cardoso's car, with Cardoso's body still in it, from the area to the police station. Mozambican police have not explained publicly why they failed to secure the crime scene. A day after the killing, Metical staff offered to provide police officers from Maputo's Fifth Precinct with oral and written testimony, according to staffers interviewed by CPJ. A spokesman for the Maputo Police Command, Abilio Quive, told Mozambican Television that a special team of detectives and undercover operatives would work "24 hours a day" on the Cardoso case. Yet police did not question the paper's employees until mid-December, according to Metical employees. Maputo's press corps initially followed the investigators' every move. The private weekly Savana complained that Mozambicans had had "enough of crimes without criminals, thefts without thieves, murders without murderers, corruption without people who are corrupt." Meanwhile, pro-government publications such as Noticias and Domingo became conduits for police leaks, according to journalists in Maputo. Contradictory statements from authorities further undermined public confidence. On January 18, 2001, without explanation, the Maputo Police Command abruptly suspended the entire police team that had been investigating the Cardoso case, according a January 22, 2001, report in the local weekly Mediafax. In a meeting with the CPJ delegation, Deputy Attorney General Rafael Sebastiano Santos said the police were not dismissed but were reassigned at the end of the investigation, which he said was normal procedure. In mid-January, Mediafax quoted an intelligence officer as saying that an unnamed Angolan citizen was being held in Maputo's maximum-security prison in connection with Cardoso's murder. Mediafax reported that police arrested the Angolan at a Maputo bar after he drunkenly accused "an Indian from a foreign exchange house" of ordering the murder. Police suspicion immediately fell on Ayob Abdul Satar, a Mozambican businessman of Indian origin whose family owns the Unicambios chain of exchange houses, according to local and international news reports. The Angolan whistle-blower was later freed, though his name was never released. Police later claimed that the Angolan was "extremely drunk" when he voiced the accusation, and that he did not even remember being taken into custody. Cardoso had been following the activities of the Satars since 1996, when Metical covered a state probe into a US$14 million money laundering scheme at the Commercial Bank of Mozambique (BCM). The Mozambican government charged that the scheme involved the Satars and a BCM official named Vincente Ramaya. When the scheme became public, two members of the Satar family fled to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Public pressure mounts On February 21, 2001, almost a month after the Satar brothers were publicly accused of masterminding Cardoso's murder, Metical published a story titled "Chronicle of a Non-Investigation," which lambasted the police inquiry. Immediately after the article appeared, the police began to make visible progress in the Cardoso investigation. On March 1, Interior Minister Almerino Manhenje invited reporters from all Maputo newsrooms, with the exception of Cardoso's publication, Metical, to a briefing at his office. The minister announced that some arrests had been made, and that police had seized materials used directly and indirectly in the crime. But as reported by the state news agency, AIM, the press briefing lasted less than five minutes, and the minister declined to take any questions. "Don't engage in speculation," he advised the reporters present. "Let us work. If they say we're silent, it's because we're working." About a week later, the pro-government weekly Domingo named two of the detainees: Anibalzinho, also known as Anibal Antonio dos Santos Junior, and Manuel Fernandes, who was also a known local criminal. Another suspect, Carlito Rachid, was wrestled out of a bus by two Metical journalists and turned over to police around March 10. The Metical staffers and the Attorney General's Office have identified Rachid as the man who accompanied Anibalzinho to Metical's offices in the weeks before Cardoso's murder; Fernandes' name had never before been linked to the crime. Domingo reported that Anibalzinho and Fernandes had been deported from neighboring Swaziland after Swazi police charged them with entering the country illegally. Domingo's story, published just days after the interior minister's press briefing, went into great detail, naming Anibalzinho as the leader of a group of three hit men who allegedly murdered Cardoso for US$25,000 each. Domingo said the crime had been "commissioned by others" but did not elaborate. Although the pro-government weekly did not attribute its information to a source, it did publish photocopies of the suspects' passports, which the local press claimed only the police could have given the paper. Loose ends On March 13, 2001, some three weeks after Anibalzinho's arrest, police arrested Momade Abdul Satar and Ayob Abdul Satar and charged them with ordering Cardoso's murder. Vincente Ramaya, a former BCM branch manager in the capital who was implicated in the 1996 BCM scandal, was also arrested. On March 29, according to local news reports, the Public Prosecutor's Office announced that Manuel Fernandes, one of the three detainees, had confessed to the crime. According to Fernandes' confession, he was hired to kill Cardoso by Anibalzinho, who was himself hired by Momade Satar. Fernandes told police that on the day Cardoso was killed, Satar met Anibalzinho about two blocks away from the murder scene and gave him the murder weapons--two AK-47 assault rifles--in a sports bag. This meeting took place 30 minutes before the killing, Fernandes said. He also named Anibalzinho and Carlito Rachid as the two men who opened fire on Cardoso and his driver. Fernandes did not explain his own role in the attack, according to local press reports. Fernandes later tried to withdraw his confession, which he alleged had been coerced by police, according to local media. The other two alleged hit men, Anibalzinho and Rachid, have consistently denied any involvement. But prosecutors assert that there is solid evidence against both men. At the Attorney General's Office, government prosecutor Rafael Sebastiano Santos told CPJ that in addition to Fernandes' confession, an eyewitness named Angelo Nyerere Mavele had placed both men at the scene of the crime. The prosecutor quoted Mavele--who subsequently vanished--as saying that Momade Satar was in the red Citi Golf with the hit men. Santos claimed to have evidence supporting this contention but refused to provide further details. While prosecutors say they have a strong case against Momade Satar and the accused hit men, they have not released any evidence that would implicate the other two alleged conspirators, Momade's brother Ayob and former BCM branch man-ager Ramaya. In fact, the only obvious connection between the Satar family and Ramaya is that both were implicated in the 1996 BCM scandal. Almost from the beginning, Mozambican officials maintained that Cardoso's murder was related to his reporting on the BCM affair. But the official theory remains open to question. Critics point out that Metical did not even break the BCM story, which in any case was no longer news at the time of Cardoso's murder. Land, money, politics Since the arrests of the Satars, Ramaya, and their three alleged hired guns, Mozambican authorities have refused to probe the Cardoso murder any further. Authorities have failed to take the seemingly routine step of determining what stories Cardoso was working on at the time he was killed. The CPJ delegation learned that Cardoso was aggressively pursuing leads at the time of his death involving banking and real estate development, and perhaps other stories as well. One story Cardoso was looking into involved allegations of corruption at Banco Austral, a troubled local bank. Beginning in March 2000, Cardoso used leaked documents to help break the story about alleged corruption at Banco Austral. During this period, Metical also ran several articles linking the BCM and Banco Austral scandals to a larger pattern of wholesale government corruption. In his last published article, Cardoso speculated that drug money was being laundered through BCM and Banco Austral with official complicity. After Cardoso's death, the central bank seized control of Banco Austral, whose deficits were mounting by the day. A senior central bank auditor named Antonio Siba-Siba Macuacua was assigned to head Banco Austral and prepare for its sale. But Siba-Siba was murdered on August 11, 2001. President Chissano said that the Siba-Siba murder showed the strength and power of organized crime in Mozambique. The president added that he did not trust in the "impartiality and integrity of the Mozambican police," according to the Maputo weekly Savana. Real estate boom Around the same time that Cardoso was pursuing the Banco Austral story, he was also investigating Maputo's real estate boom. Cardoso believed that both scandals were linked to a larger pattern of money laundering. One real estate deal that had attracted his attention was signed in July 1998. Expected to cost US$50 million, the project involved building 2,000 units of middle- and low-cost housing on land owned by the city of Maputo. According to Cardoso's reporting, the main shareholders were two Malaysian investment firms and Mozambique's SIR Investment Group, which has close ties to many senior FRELIMO officials. In addition to his work as a journalist, Cardoso also served on the Maputo Municipal Council, which oversees public administration in the capital. A few months before his death, Cardoso gave several speeches in the council criticizing the effects of Maputo's startling real estate boom on poverty in the capital. He also raised questions (directed to fellow council member Octávio Muthemba, among others) about several major real estate projects, including some that allegedly had gone forward without the council's authorization. Irreplaceable Cardoso was a unique figure in Mozambican journalism. "He was a reference point in our society," former information minister Ruiz de Cabaco said recently. "And not just for the range of issues that he took on, but also for his creativity and the force of his reasoning. Those who killed him have also killed the sense of independence of the press." The CPJ delegation found that the impact of Cardoso's work, however, extends far beyond Maputo's newsrooms. With its impressive growth rate, Mozambique is one of the IMF and World Bank's few success stories. Officials at these institutions hold Mozambique up as an example to other countries facing the pain of structural adjustment. Cardoso forced Mozambique to consider the possibility that its growth is being driven not by sound economic policy, but by drug trafficking and money laundering, and that the benefits of the growth are largely limited to a tiny elite. The debate over the future of Mozambique is heating up in anticipation of presidential elections, scheduled for 2004. In May, President Chissano said he would not seek re-election. While he now claims to be reconsidering those plans, Chissano's apparent decision to step down has sparked a power struggle within FRELIMO between the "modernists," who support the economic liberalization program, and the "traditionalists," who say the party has veered too far from its socialist roots. Members of both factions have been accused of corruption. But at a time when Mozambicans desperately need information about their government and society, local journalists are afraid to report what they know. Epilogue Trial dates have not been set for any of the suspects in the Cardoso murder, according to the state news agency, AIM. But on April 29, 2002, AIM reported that the Mozambican Supreme Court confirmed last year's ruling by a Maputo investigating magistrate that there is sufficient evident to bring all of them to trial. Metical, meanwhile, never recovered from Cardoso's death. In February 2001, Nympine Chissano, the son of President Chissano, filed a criminal defamation lawsuit against Cardoso's closest collaborator and Metical's chief reporter, Marcelo Mosse. The president's son is seeking damages worth US$80,000 in connection with a February 21, 2001, Metical article alleging that he had been briefly detained in South Africa around February 15. Other publications reported that Nympine was arrested for drug smuggling; Metical did not. Nevertheless, Nympine singled out Metical, which had hounded him persistently over his allegedly corrupt business affairs. According to several sources in Maputo, President Chissano himself supported his son's case against Marcelo Mosse and Metical. In March, the president invited several local editors to an informal gathering at the presidential palace, during which he claimed that Mosse's reporting had sullied his family's reputation. Cardoso family lawyer Lucinda Cruz has alleged procedural flaws in the prosecution and has appealed the case to the Maputo City Court, according to AIM. Cardoso owned Metical, but after his death, the paper became the property of Cardoso's two underage children, Ibo and Milena, who are represented by their mother, Nina Berg. In the worst-case scenario, the court could jail Mosse and order the Cardoso family to pay tens of thousands of dollars. Under pressure, Metical closed in late December 2001, a year after Cardoso was murdered. Recommendations CPJ urges the government of Mozambique to take the following steps to ensure that the investigation into the Cardoso murder continues to move forward: •Police and prosecutors must make every effort to locate Angelo Nyerere Mavale, the only eyewitness to the murder. Police acknowledge that they interviewed Mavale after the crime but have been unable to locate him since. • Police and prosecutors should also conduct a thorough investigation into police conduct at the scene of the crime, examining specifically why police failed to secure the crime scene. • Investigators should attempt to determine the nature of Cardoso's active investigations at the time of his death and should question anyone who may have been involved with or affected by Cardoso's reporting. It is known that Cardoso was conducting one investigation of Banco Austral, another concerning real estate, and possibly others as well. • On a separate but related matter, CPJ calls on Nympine Chissano, son of the President Chissano, to drop his criminal defamation lawsuit against Metical editor Marcelo Mosse. Cardoso's murder, combined with the lawsuit, has succeeded in putting Metical out of business. This is a grave loss for all Mozambicans. CPJ believes that the suit against Metical is without merit, and that defamation should never be a criminal offense. Rather than supporting his son's lawsuit, as President Chissano did in meeting with Mozambican journalists in March 2001, the president should condemn it.


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Journal Article
© Apr 2011 Volume 9 Issue 2, ICICKM 2010 special issue, Editor: W.B. Lee, pp85 - 180
Look inside Download PDF (free)
Danish society puts a high value on education which is traditionally seen as a crucial vehicle for development in all spheres of social and economic life. Large sums are spent on work‑related adult learning, an important example being academically based masters programs. Yet, the actual effects of such educational investment in terms of improved workplace efficiency remain obscure both with respect to the organization and the individual. The three authors of this article are all involved in planning, managing and teaching at masters programs at Aalborg University, Denmark. Programs are carefully designed with a view to strengthening the link between the educational space (the curriculum and academic priorities) and the students' habitual working environment (the organizations from which they come). Starting from a theoretical viewpoint based on traditional learning theory, supplemented by research in the field of transfer of training, as well as on Donald A. Schön's classic work on practicum as a crucial component in the training of practitioners, our article presents, and illustrates with examples, a framework for designing educational programs which can help make academic teaching relevant to production‑oriented life in organizations. The article may be read as a statement from which criteria for evaluating the said masters programs can be generated.
Keywords: innovative teaching, educational partnerships, workplace development, transfer of training, practicum, reflective practitioner, Action Research, organizational coaching
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According to the results of a survey released by the Educational Testing Service recently, 95.9 percent of Taiwan's top 1,000 companies say that their employees need to use English in their jobs. However, only 27.9 percent of the companies ask to see a score for the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) — a popular English proficiency test — when recruiting employees, while 83.4 percent of Japan's companies and 100 percent of South Korea's companies demand a TOEIC score.
Moreover, top companies in Taiwan merely require an average of 550 points on the TOEIC, which is much lower than the 700 points required by South Korea's companies in the 990-point test. No wonder only 2.4 percent of Taiwanese companies are satisfied with employees' English communication skills.
As a matter of fact, if we examine TOEIC scores, the average of 542 points in Taiwan is slightly higher than the average of 510 points in Japan, but much lower than South Korea's average of 626 points. This gives South Korean companies a clear advantage in today's increasingly globalized world.
To keep up with South Korea, perhaps we can start from several aspects. First, top Taiwanese companies should gradually lift their recruitment threshold to 600 or 650 points. An even higher standard should be adopted for managers or employees responsible for negotiations. By doing so, companies can show their determination to recruit talent with good English skills, while encouraging applicants to constantly improve these skills. Internal training sessions and an English-speaking environment are also helpful.
Some leading Japanese and South Korean companies hold internal meetings in English and require employees to write e-mails only in English. Taiwanese companies can learn from them to prepare employees for possible business situations.
Next, schools should take a more pragmatic approach to providing English courses. Currently, many universities only offer English courses to freshmen and sometimes sophomore students. Also, Taiwan's private universities of science and technology tend not to pay attention to students' English proficiency, so their average of 434 points is significantly lower than regular public university students' average of 638 points and regular private university students' average of 567 points. To improve this, it is necessary to increase class hours. More importantly, schools should improve curricula by adding useful business-related materials.
Students must be aware of the reality of the workplace and approach it in a serious and pro-active way. Have the Taiwanese youth complaining that their average salaries are inferior to those of their South Korean counterparts taken a good look at what they are doing and resolved to put more effort into their studies?
Last, the government should set an example by attaching great importance to English to promote Taiwan's internationalization. It should encourage civil servants to take language courses and proficiency tests by providing incentives, and create a friendlier environment for foreigners. One problem that needs to be addressed promptly is the poor quality of the English Web sites of many government agencies.
Take the Ministry of Education for example: The "news" section on its English Web site was last updated more than three months ago. Some government agencies even spell their English names incorrectly or update their English Web sites only once or twice a year.


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Entertainment mogul, Tyler Perry, sent out an announcement to his followers introducing a new contest that will allow one of his fans to get a role in one of his productions.
Here's what he wrote:
For a long time now, people have been asking me how they can be in one of my movies, plays or TV shows. Even as I read through my message board, the most popular question I see is, "How can I be in one of your movies?"
So… this one's for YOU! Now's your chance to earn a walk on role in one of my upcoming productions!
Just enter the Tyler Perry Talent Search!
I've created this competition to give my entire online family a chance to showcase their talent, and I expect to see some future stars. Even better, you'll be responsible for picking the Top 10 finalists. That's right… you get to vote for your favorite videos! Then, I'll personally choose the winner from your Top 10.
The competition starts NOW, so click HERE and follow steps 1, 2 & 3 to participate.
Voting closes and the Top 10 will be announced on June 29th – the same day MADEA'S WITNESS PROTECTION hits theaters.
Then, I'll personally choose the winner on July 6th.
Good Luck!!!!


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Kamado Joe Ceramic Deflector Plates (Set of 2)
Kamado Joe Heat Deflectors allow you to cook with indirect heat and create different heat zones within your grill for cooking unlike foods at the same time. Made from easy-to-care-for ceramic, these Heat Deflectors circulate heat around your food for more even cooking. The halved design works with the Divide & Conquer Flexible Cooking System.
The ceramic plate will darken over time and this is normal. Cleaning solutions should not be used, because they will be absorbed into the plate. If you have drippings that have charred, simply brush off as much as possible with a wire BBQ brush and store in a dry place. To clean off any residual food, simply flip the ceramic plate "food side down" the next time you cook. The heat from the charcoal with burn it off.
Kamado Joe Style # KJ-HDP


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How cancer fight led to helping homeless in Haiti
Family in Haiti now has a home, thanks to Danbury woman and her friends
At 26, Patty Reyes has seen her share of life's challenges. Six years ago, while starting her junior year at Baruch College in New York, the Danbury resident was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. She endured weeks of chemotherapy with side effects that put her in the hospital several times.
Fortunately, the treatment was successful, and Reyes now considers Dec. 5, 2008 -- the day of her last treatment -- as her remission date.
The experience changed her life, and consequently, she decided to help change the lives of others by getting involved with a nonprofit called One Small House. The Brewster organization builds houses for families in need in Mexico and Haiti.
Reyes, who works as a digital and social media specialist in Manhattan, went to help out in Mexico in 2010. Earlier this spring, she and two friends traveled to Haiti to build a house for a family that had been living under shredded pieces of tarp. It wasn't even a tent.
Q: Why did you get involved with this type of volunteer work?
A: I had just come off fighting cancer, and I wanted to do something to help other people. So many people had helped me; it was a pay-it-forward situation.
Q: What was it like to fight cancer?
A: The treatments were intense. After some of them, I was bedridden for a week and a half. At 20, I was sort of ignorant about the disease, but that was a blessing in some ways because I didn't let the sickness take over.
I continued to socialize with my friends when I felt OK, and that sustained me. I always try to stay positive. My family was sad enough. I didn't want to add to that.
Q: Why did you pick One Small House?
A: I heard about it through a friend. So many times, life gets in the way, as they say, so I didn't want to pass it up. Why not go help and meet new people? The first trip was to Mexico in 2010, a small town near Tijuana. There was so much to do. We built three homes and a community health center for the town.
Q: Did it change you?
A: Absolutely. The overall experience was nothing short of amazing. I had gone on my own not knowing anyone or having any idea what I was getting into, but it was all worth it in the end. I installed windows and fiberglass, and nailed things. This was definitely volunteer work, not a vacation.
Q: Do you know anything about building?
A: No, I didn't know anything! I went there with a new tool belt. You just have to be willing to do all aspects of the job.
Q: How much did it cost, and what were accommodations like?
A: In Mexico, it was $500 for food, ground transportation and lodging -- we stayed in a church-owned house. Haiti was more, and we did fundraisers. In Haiti, the food was just amazing, so good.
Q: Why did you go to Haiti?
A: In the years since Mexico, I've wanted to join them on other trips and this year I decided I would make the time. I posted on my social media outlets if anyone would like to join me, and I was happy to hear two amazing women wanted to come along: Rowan Hage and Letitia Holanda (both of Danbury). Having someone to talk to about the trip after we returned has been really important.
Q: What was Haiti like?
A: They are so poor. The family was living in a makeshift shelter made from a ripped-up tarp, not a camping tent. These were supplies left over from U.S. aid from the earthquake in 2010. There are no beds; they sleep on the ground. They have no shoes.
We learned a lot about the Haitian culture and the struggles they've endured since the devastating earthquake. I have traveled a little, and in my short life, this is probably the worst of the situations I have seen.
Q: What touched your heart most about the experience?
A: The orphanage we visited: Hope for Life Children's Home. In Haiti, people don't have enough food to feed themselves, so they give their children to the orphanage. The kids are so happy to be there and have someone look after them. This orphanage trip was the most life-changing experience. In what way, I am not sure yet, but I know I want to be involved with that in some way moving forward.
To learn more
Deb Keiser is a professional writer living in Brewster, N.Y., and can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.