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Ten years later, the moment I remember most about the Columbia shuttle tragedy took place in a Sunday school class at First Baptist Church in tiny Alto, Texas.
The half-dozen congregants silently passed around photos of pieces of the space shuttle that fell there the day before, when Columbia broke up as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.
A piece of metal the size of a shoe box in a woman's front yard. A scrap of what looked like scorched heat shield, in the middle of a country road.
There was a deep reverence as volunteer firefighter Jeff Duplichain shared the photos he had taken of the debris he helped catalog.
This one-stoplight town was already in mourning that Saturday when they heard the roar that shook their homes. The Columbia disaster on Feb. 1, 2003, happened the same day as the funeral for a popular high-school senior — one in a class of just 47 — who had died in a car accident earlier that week.
Alto's people already were grieving a very personal loss when a national loss started raining down on them.
The Columbia tragedy became intensely personal for so many people in rural east Texas, where many of the shuttle pieces were recovered.
Like the Challenger accident before it, Columbia is that rare breed of catastrophe so unexpected, so wrenching, that we remember exactly where we were when we heard about them. We remember what we were doing, who we were with.
But unlike Challenger, which broke up over the Atlantic, Columbia fell on lawns, in parking lots and on rooftops.
Long after the television crews and reporters like me left town, people there continued to stumble on pieces of Columbia.
"Things just kept turning up," said Duplichain, the firefighter who brought the photos to the Sunday school class.
I called him this week and discovered that the tragedy lingered for years.
"People would be out in the woods hunting and come back with pieces of the shuttle," he told me. "People had grown accustomed to it. They knew the difference between a regular piece of metal and a piece of the shuttle."
Bruce Partain, president of the Chamber of Commerce in neighboring Nacogdoches County, said he can't help but reflect on how deeply shaken his community was by being thrust into the middle of the nation's heartbreak.
Back then, I met Partain at a makeshift command post at the county jail, where local law enforcement organized and managed searches.
"I have been thinking about it," he said when I reached him this week. "The astronauts and the thousands of support people — all of those people really are heroic. So when the accident happened and our community just happened to be in the pathway of that, we were given a task."
People mobilized. Volunteers helped search the fields and woods. More volunteers helped to feed the searchers with trays of sandwiches and baked goods.
Partain still marvels at something else.
"The fact that no one was injured on the ground was really amazing," he said. "There were some really big cylinders and you know they hit hard. To not have one house where somebody was hurt, you have to think about that and wonder how did that happen."
Not a single injury was reported from falling debris, though the pain of Columbia's loss was felt deeply in the communities that recovered the seven astronauts and much of the shuttle.
On Friday, many of us will remember where we were 10 years ago when Columbia broke up. The people in Alto, Nacogdoches and other east Texas towns will remember how a national disaster touched their lives in a very personal way.
email@example.com or 407-420-5448


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GALASSO: Tip the scales in the direction of the positive
What words do you use on a daily basis? Are you using what you say to build up others? And are you speaking words that bless your future?
Think about it this way: During the course of your day, if you were to take a survey of your words and place the positive words you speak on one side of a balancing scale and the negative words you say on the other side of the scale, which side would weigh more?
Every word is powerful. And each word must be chosen carefully and wisely. For, sooner or later, your words can give back to you everything that you say. The words that you speak have legs and they travel. They walk in the direction of your future.
Yet, life can be tough, and at times, will try to push you down and steal your dreams, your joy and your sense of value. You may be encountering challenges and difficulties. And, perhaps, you just can't seem to get out of the rut. Or, because of past circumstances, you've become negative and discouraged.
But the key is not to use your words to magnify the problem. Rather, use your words to talk about the solution.
In spite of what's going on around you now, continually affirm that you have good health, love and harmony in your home, exciting opportunities ahead and success in your future. Don't let past setbacks set the tone for the rest of your life. Choose to speak positively, and let us draw on words that bring about victory, for Mark 11:23 tells us, "For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith."
For a few minutes each day, go to a quiet place, open up your Bible and find a promise that fits your situation and then speak it aloud. God will make good on His word; and in His perfect timing, He will surely see that the promise becomes a reality:
-- In place of declaring, "Nothing good is going to happen for me," believe and say, "God will lead me to triumph." (2 Corinthians 2:14).
-- Instead of uttering, "I just can't get ahead," believe and say, "God will supply my needs." (Philippians 4:19).
-- As opposed to stating, "I'm in an impossible situation," believe and say, "With God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26).
-- Rather than whispering, "I'll never get well," believe and say, "With His stripes I am healed." (Isaiah 53:5).
-- Instead of saying, "It's not fair," believe and say, "God will restore twice as much to me." (Zechariah 9:12).
Leave behind the pain and disappointments of the past. Don't get distracted, criticize or be against yourself. Move forward, believe and say with confidence, God can give me another chance because "His mercy is new every morning." (Lamentations 3:23).
Recall in the Bible the story about King Hezekiah. Hezekiah became very sick. As he lay down, unknowingly, on his deathbed, the Lord sent the prophet Isaiah to tell Hezekiah to put his affairs in order, for the illness would soon take his life.
After Isaiah told Hezekiah the catastrophic news, the king was struck with grief and anguish. Yet, instead of sitting back and accepting this fate, Hezekiah stepped up in faith, turned his head to the wall, and prayed, speaking aloud, reminding the Lord of all the good that he had accomplished in faithfulness in His sight. Hezekiah put action behind his requests. He believed, and tearfully prayed for healing, asking that the Lord restore him back to health.
And almost at once, the Lord answered Hezekiah's plea. Before Isaiah had even left the palace grounds, he went back to see King Hezekiah with a new message: that the Lord had heard his prayers and had seen his tears, and that Hezekiah would indeed recover and would live another 15 years (2 Kings 20:1-11; 2 Chronicles 32:24; Isaiah 38).
Like Hezekiah, let's pray, speaking words of faith, believing, and using what we say to transform our situations. A full, blessed life is still in front of you. So 'say' what you'd like to see or have come to pass. 'Assert' the good, and 'repeat' your heart's desires again and again. Believe you can move that mountain, think victory, and have faith that you can succeed in your endeavors, and you will.
In my office, I have a bookmark with a quote on it that reads, "The me I see, is the me I'll be." So make the most of yourself, for you are a person of purpose; a man or woman of destiny. You're one of a kind; strong and capable. Celebrate who God created you to be. And go out each day and say something encouraging and uplifting to those you meet. Utilize your words to speak hope, love and blessings for your family and the people in your life.
For many are waiting for and need to receive a kind, comforting word from you. As you tip the scales in the direction of the positive, you will experience a new sense of peace and happiness, and you'll live an overcoming, abundant, and joy-filled life.
Write to Catherine Galasso-Vigorito at P.O. Box 2192, Branford, CT 06405, or e-mail her at firstname.lastname@example.com. Visit Catherine's Web site to view her new inspirational product line at www.anewyouworldwide.com

subset: commoncrawl


text: Founded in 1985, French fashion house Herve Leger brings us an exquisite collection of dresses and gowns in amazing styles and vivid colors. Every Herve Leger dress is rigorously knitted, not woven. The bandage style has made its way into Herve Leger skirts, dresses, tops, and gowns. Great fit and impeccable tailoring are one of the many features of the label's versatile and awe-inspiring collections. Neiman Marcus offers a great selection of Herve Leger clothing, including various bandage dresses and maxi skirts, gowns and more.


text:
Peyton Manning 2015 AFC Champions Oyo Mini Figure LE Denver Broncos Gen 3 Series 8
This is the Peyton Manning 2015 AFC Champions Oyo Sports Toy Mini Figure for the 2015 Denver Broncos - Generation 3 Series 8.
These are made as a limited production run for a short time and available while supplies last.
Search our store for many other NFL Oyo figures.
It comes new in package (NIP).
Oyo Figures measure almost 1 3/4" tall.
Each package has 13 pieces including the player, football, helmet and facemask, water bottle, football cap, rectangular stand & a unique OYO DNA number.
Collect your favorite players and your favorite teams.
Compatability: OYOs play nicely with other toys! OYOs are compatible with other name brand building blocks, so your OYOs can become part of your favorite scene. We encourage you to build and play!
Facial Likeness: OYOs are designed with eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and other facial characteristics that best represent their real life counterparts!
OYO DNA #: Printed right on the stand is your OYO's very own unique DNA number. This number can be used to identify your OYO.
Unique ball design snaps onto hand and allows your OYO to grip and throw. Cool down with the attached water bottle after making the great play.
Rotating Forearms: Specially designed for sports figures to allow for action!
Bending Knees: Without knees that bend, you walk like a mummy! Additional joint allows OYO to run, sit, squat, and wind-up.
Stand: Each OYO comes with their own stand, which lets you position and pose your OYO for display on any flat surface. Or, snap your stand onto a building block grid and build your own scenes!
Please order with confidence as I offer outstanding customer service including quick replies to emails, prompt shipping and good packaging.
Thanks for taking a look. You're in good hands here !


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You can expect a gorgeous set of photos when you combine two of fashion's biggest lensmen and two of fashion's most inspiring trailblazers. That's exactly what you can get from Free People's October catalog, featuring Lou Doillon, shot by Garance Doré; and Dree Hemingway, photographed by Chadwick Tyler.
Free People chose Doillon and Hemingway as their personal style muses, celebrating women who have an ease about them but still exude complete confidence — and isn't that what the line is all about? All in all, if we could leave our apartments each day looking half as cool and chic as these ladies, we'd call it a victory.
With shutterbug favorites behind the cameras, you'll definitely want to peruse all the snaps ahead. And, for extra Doillon/Doré quality time, the behind-the-scenes video, below, provides all the adorable, delightful style inspiration we need.
Photo: Courtesy of Free People


text:
I have just created a fresh installation of
Ubuntu 12.10
I have created a www-data user account.
When I switch to www-data, I cannot see
www-data at the front of the prompt.
- What is the technical name to call that part of the prompt?
- How can I make it appear for www-data?
See this for reference.
As you can see, root has this. But not www-data


text:
As Baltimore City education and political leaders prepare to present a $2.4 billion facilities plan in Annapolis next legislative session, officials in Baltimore County said they are eyeing a similar approach to repair their school infrastructure.
County schools officials are in the process of studying each of the system's 174 buildings to determine how they might fit into a long-term plan to upgrade the system's infrastructure, estimated to cost at least $1.7 billion.
The city decided this week on a 10-year plan that would close 26 buildings, end or relocate 29 programs, and renovate or rebuild 136 facilities. The city's plan hinges on securing at least $32 million in annual capital funding from the state in the form of a block grant, which would allow the system to borrow to carry out the plan quickly and pay back the money over time.
"To the extent we see the state supporting upgrades to school facilities in Baltimore City, whether through block grants or other methods, I am confident that the delegation members would like to see the state step up and provide similar resources and flexibility to address our challenges as well," said Del. John Olszewski, Jr., a Democrat who is chairman of the Baltimore County delegation.
The city's plan was first introduced in the 2012 legislative session and met resistance from lawmakers who said the school system needed to conduct an intensive study of its buildings and produce a coherent, long-term plan.
Officials from several other jurisdictions also expressed concern that the plan could divert resources for their districts in the future.
"While the city has the oldest school stock in the state, Baltimore County has the second — and thus we face many similar challenges in regards to our school infrastructure," Olszewski said.
While Baltimore City's plan centers around a population that has shrunk over the years — the system is using only 65 percent of its space, which it plans to increase to 77 percent — county schools have grappled with overcrowding and will need to prepare their infrastructure for the county's growth, particularly in northwest and central county schools.
The county's elementary schools are at 103 percent capacity; middle schools are at 79.2 percent; and high schools are at 89.7 percent.
City school officials said they welcome the idea of other districts' using their plan as a model to help students across the state.
"The financing approach which we are recommending is something we believe could work for other districts," said city schools spokeswoman Edie House Foster. "We welcome interest and support from other jurisdictions for this innovative approach to make sure our students have the buildings they deserve."
In the short term, the county school system is addressing issues like air conditioning in schools, the lack of which has increased the discomfort amid increasingly crowded conditions. Last month, officials rolled out a plan that would air-condition all but 46 of the county's schools by 2015.
County Superintendent Dallas Dance said Thursday that the study of all of the county's buildings will jump-start a conversation with the county's leadership. He has ordered the report completed by January.
He commended the city's plan, saying that he and city schools chief Andrés Alonso share the same burden of an aging infrastructure.
"Because we have studied our facilities for so long, I'm confident at the end of this, we're going to be at a very critical point where we can have a candid conversation with our colleagues, and it will be received very well," Dance said.
County school board president Lawrence Schmidt said the county would put all options on the table.
He said the district could explore myriad other options, such as adjusting school schedules to reduce class sizes, moving school boundaries, and even exploring combining middle- and elementary-school programs.
"People hear 'facilities,' and they think, 'Build a new building, or build an addition,' and that's not always the answer," Schmidt said. "We would obviously like to get our slice of the pie, and would certainly welcome any additional state commitment. But we also need to address facilities needs in a logical way where we can maximize the resources to put the dollars where we need them to be."
Don Mohler, chief of staff for Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, said that "each subdivision is unique and must address this important issue in its own manner."
He added that in the past decade, the state has contributed nearly $350 million to the county schools renovation and construction program, and the county has contributed nearly $1 billion.
"Because of that commitment, Baltimore County is actually ahead of the game," Mohler said. "But with 80 percent of our schools being more than 40 years old, County Executive Kamenetz will continue to make school renovation and construction funding his number one legislative priority."
Alan Southworth, who fought vehemently with other Baltimore County parents at the county and state level for air conditioning at Middleborough Elementary, which his daughter attends, said the Baltimore City plan was encouraging. The school got air conditioning in Kamenetz's 2013 budget.
"I know going to Annapolis is hard, but there shouldn't be any favoritism in how delegates vote, and everybody should have the same fair shot no matter where you live," Southworth said.


text:
IanBailey on Family Tree Circles
sort: Date Alphabetical
view: full | list
view: full | list
Journals and Posts
Looking for parents of Henry Bailey, b. 1823.
I believe Henry Bailey was born 1823, married Ann Cornwall and then
moved to New Zealand with two children in 1860 on the Roman Emporer.
Henry was one of the early settlers in New Zealand and settled in a
place called Le Bons Bay and had a total of six children.
I have been trying to find details of Henry prior to his marriage
to Ann Cornwall.
- Displaying 1-1 of 1 Journals
- 1
- of1


text:
An interesting question was asked of me and I did not know what to answer. So I'll ask here.
Let's say I subscribed to an ISP and I'm using cable internet access. The ISP gives me a public IP address of 188.8.131.52.
What keeps me from changing this IP address to, let's say, 126.96.36.199, and messing with another consumer's internet access?
For the sake of this argument, let's say that this other IP address is also owned by the same ISP. Also, let's assume that it's possible for me to go into the cable modem settings and manually change the IP address.
Under a business contract where you are allocated static addresses, you are also assigned a default gateway, a network address and a broadcast address. So that's 3 addresses the ISP "loses" to you. That seems very wasteful for dynamically assigned IP addresses, which the majority of customers are.
Could they simply be using static arps? ACLs? Other simple mechanisms?


text:
In an age of competitive fever and instant communication, customers have learned to expect the world. Remarkably, the great new customer-service providers are giving them more
It was a night that Glenda Stone won't soon forget. Close to midnight, the musical chiming of the pager that she keeps at her bedside woke her from a light sleep at her house in Reno, Nev. One glance at the clock, and she knew that somewhere a customer was in trouble. Stone grabbed the phone to check her voice mail. A customer had left a message. He was in a panic, his words barely decipherable. Stone returned the call at once.
"Please, sir, try to calm down," she recalls saying, as she did her best to soothe the customer. But the man roared, "Do you hear me? I don't have a door!"
Stone moved with dispatch. She dialed into the computer network of her employer, Relocation Management Resources Inc., known as RMR, whose business is arranging all the details of transporting household goods for companies that are relocating their employees. She noted that the customer, who was living out of a suitcase in a hotel room, was waiting for the rest of his worldly possessions to be hauled from the Midwest to his new apartment in the South. One problem: the apartment didn't yet have a front door.
"Don't worry," Stone told the customer. "We'll do whatever it takes to stop the move." After calming the customer down, she halted the delivery in its tracks. It was 1 a.m. Mission accomplished. Wide-awake, Stone didn't bother going back to bed. "You take a shower and go to work," she says.
Stone's workday typically starts at 5 a.m. She is one of six troubleshooters in RMR's customer-service department. Having at least one contact person on duty at all times -- days, nights, and weekends -- is a cardinal company rule. It reflects RMR's devotion to customer service as the central tenet of its business strategy, says president Bob Carbonell. But if the level of service that RMR offers is extraordinary, the company's resources are not. Its staff totals 40, and its revenues last year were just $12 million. RMR's stunning 600% growth since 1995 is in "direct relation to the reputation we have for being fanatical," says Carbonell.
Welcome to the new world of fanatical customer service, where even small companies never sleep and no request is too ridiculous. That intensity is evident among cutting-edge companies, such as RMR, and reinforced by a chorus of business consultants. Patricia Seybold, CEO of a Boston-based firm that bears her name, is one such consultant. In her new book, The Customer Revolution, Seybold writes about businesses that are obsessed with every facet of customer service.
In the new world of fanatical customer service, even small companies never sleep and no request is too ridiculous. That intensity is evident among cutting-edge companies.
These days new buzzwords -- such as tier zero, which refers to a customer-service system that's so proactive that it anticipates a customer's every need -- suggest that views of customer service are in flux. Companies in the vanguard are using the Internet and other technologies to further their customer-service mission. One of them, FultonStreet.com, an online retail fish market based in Westbury, N.Y., is no jumbo corporation. Yet with just $2.7 million in sales, it maintains a live chat room on its Web site, zapping answers to customers' queries almost instantaneously round the clock.
ScriptSave, a company based in Tucson that manages prescription-drug-benefit programs, has even created its own currency, called Bravo Bucks (redeemable for gifts), that's awarded to employees who excel in providing customer service. "Maybe we go overboard, but this is a big part of our culture," says CEO Charlie Horn, whose picture is plastered on the $10 Bravo.
Nothing quite like Bravo Bucks is in effect at Phase II, a chain of eight personal-training centers based in Raleigh, N.C. Phase II's CEO, Wade Harris, is pumping up his customer service in other ways. The job of Phase II's trainers, who provide one-on-one attention to customers at the training centers, extends beyond the gym. If a customer, say, is on his way to an appointment and his car has a flat tire, a trainer is expected to rush to his aid. One 68-year-old woman who doesn't drive gets a lift home from Phase II with a gym employee. At monthly staff meetings Harris salutes his trainers for their acts of service. "Once new trainers see what the other trainers are doing, they look for opportunities so that they're not left out," says Harris, whose company did $1.5 million in sales last year.
Ardent dedication to customer service may prevail at Phase II, but how widespread is that spirit around the country? Although good statistics are hard to come by, studies show that customers are demanding better service in general. And there are indications that some managers are responding. Roland Rust, a marketing professor at the University of Maryland and coauthor of last year's Driving Customer Equity, says that companies increasingly see the link between customer service and "retention, loyalty, and increased sales."
Whatever its value, fanatical customer service doesn't usually come cheap. Yet examples abound of companies that have bootstrapped their way to success. FultonStreet, for example, didn't start with a policy of round-the-clock service. The company worked its way up to it. "It doesn't take money to get good customer service," says Stratis Morfogen, CEO of FultonStreet. "It takes a commitment."
The drive to revolutionize customer service at small businesses like Morfogen's has led company leaders to blaze new paths. Among the most dramatic are what you might call the 24-7 clock, the human touch, real-time feedback, and proactive pursuit. Here is a look at how six companies have zealously put one or more of the strategies into effect -- and the results they have achieved.
Path One: The 24-7 Clock
At FultonStreet.com, Morfogen didn't have to agonize over whether the company should offer customer service 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For him the issue was never if he should do it but how. "E-tailing is 24 hours, so customer service should be 24 hours. Otherwise, it's like having a 7-Eleven store with no one at the counter from midnight to 7 a.m," he says.
That's not to suggest that Morfogen started his online fish retail business in grand style. His original digs were about as fancy as New York City's unvarnished wholesale fish market, for which his company is named. FultonStreet had 100,000 square feet of space in an old warehouse near the 59th Street Bridge in Long Island City, on the edge of Queens. From there it's a 10-minute drive to the Fulton Fish Market, where, starting at the age of four, Morfogen spent many a morning. He would help his father, a Manhattan restaurateur, prowl the stalls to select huge quantities of lobsters, oysters, and salmon.
Filled with lobster tanks and freezers, the cavernous start-up space cost Morfogen nothing, owing to the generosity of an angel investor. The facility neatly summed up his approach to customer service: think big time but operate on a tight budget. His adoption of a 24-7 schedule didn't happen right away. At the company's launch, in late 1997, the company's only staffers were Morfogen and Tony Psaltis, an old family friend and former foreign-service officer.
Together Morfogen and Psaltis did everything, including answering customers' calls and E-mail messages. When business picked up a bit, they hired a New Hampshire call center, which specialized in CDs and books, to handle customer service. Big mistake. They found out they needed an expert in answering questions about, say, how to deal with a live lobster. So Psaltis became director of customer relations and hired a few people to cover the phones. By late 1998 the company was enjoying a steady stream of orders. At the same time, customers' requests began pouring in by telephone and E-mail (all of which FultonStreet now claims to answer within one hour).
At RMR, six customer-service reps are fair game for calls round the clock. Even the company's president invites customers to call his cell phone at all hours.
By 1999, Morfogen was living up to a vow he had made to himself on the day he started FultonStreet. He began assigning at least one employee to respond to customers' requests at all hours of the day and night. Today the customer-service staff consists of five full-time and part-time employees, who take turns on the late-night shift. And both Morfogen and Psaltis still pull late-night and weekend duty at times.
In a sense Morfogen is always on duty. The CEO recalls receiving a befuddling order in the wee hours from a man in Alaska who wanted next-day delivery. Morfogen took the call at home from his customer-service rep and advised him about how to proceed. The customer lived practically in Siberia, in an area so remote that his order would call for special shipping arrangements. The fastest possible shipment would require five days and the use of three planes. "We got it there" at no extra charge to the customer, recalls Morfogen, even though it wasn't quite next-day service.
In January, FultonStreet moved into a new facility in Westbury, N.Y., and Morfogen reluctantly cut back the customer-service hours to 10 hours a day because of technical and staffing problems. The company is to resume its usual 24-7 schedule this month, he says. Although FultonStreet receives few phone calls after 10 p.m., Morfogen says that the round-the-clock service is still worth it because most calls yield orders averaging $200 each. "Customer support is very important to closing the deal," he says. "If it were just an answering machine, we would have no orders at night."
Unlike Morfogen's graveyard-shift employees, workers at RMR are merely on call at night. Glenda Stone and five others in Sparks, Nev., are all fair game for customers' calls round the clock. But there isn't a soul among the 40 employees who hasn't helped a customer long past quitting time, says Carbonell. Even he and his top executives invite customers -- mainly relocation managers at large corporations such as EMC and Merrill Lynch -- to call their cell phones at any hour. Carbonell, who drove a moving truck and hoisted boxes in the 1970s, says he was heavily influenced by the service ethic he saw at EMC, which is on call 24 hours a day for its customers. His feeling was "How could I offer anything less?"
Today Carbonell has a full-time customer-service staff on board at his call center year-round. From Memorial Day to Labor Day (the most popular moving time) his staff must put in long hours during the day, plus they are on call evenings and weekends. Of course, Carbonell could hire temporary or part-time workers as customer-service staff for the busy season. Instead, he allows his workers to recover from the rigors of the summer by working eight-hour days the rest of the year and taking a few extra days off.
Each RMR customer-service rep -- a "move counselor" in the company's jargon -- is responsible for just a few corporate accounts and stays with them indefinitely. Transferees, like the jittery man whose apartment didn't have a door, can call RMR's 800 number for help at any time. Troubleshooter Stone, who will personally oversee about 550 moves this year, doesn't mind the unpredictable hours, she says, because of the satisfaction she feels in helping people through a stressful time. "That's the reward," she says. "It makes you feel really good."
Path Two: The Human Touch
At ScriptSave no one has to answer to customers after regular business hours. But if one of ScriptSave's customers dials the company's 800 number during the day, a funny thing happens. The caller doesn't get the typical automated menu of choices. An actual human being answers.
Strictly speaking, ScriptSave's customers aren't the people who call its 800 number. Its customers are health-insurance companies, such as BlueCross BlueShield of Florida, that provide prescription-drug benefits to their members. The insurance companies hire ScriptSave to explain members' prescription-drug benefits to them.
Company CEO Charlie Horn says that when he describes his business to other entrepreneurs, their first question usually is, Why don't you just automate your phone system? To answer that query, Horn has to go back to the company's founding, in 1995, when he first began wrestling with the issue of how to handle customer service. A former marketing manager and sales agent at several insurance companies, Horn had 25 years of experience in the industry. He wanted a system at ScriptSave that would allow the company to make explaining prescription-drug programs to members as squeak-free as possible. Horn knew that the majority of ScriptSave's calls would come from cardholders who were 65 or older and that those customers would require the kind of individual attention that a machine couldn't provide.
Horn made a false start, outsourcing customer service to a call center, which left him "in the dark" about whether his customers were being well served, he says. By 1997 he had moved customer service in-house and was determined to maximize personal contact with the people who turned to ScriptSave for help. "We realized if we were going to do it really well, we had to do it ourselves," Horn says. Since its rebirth, four years ago, the company has grown from 3 employees to 105. Sales soared to $13 million in 2000, up from $6.3 million the year before. The company is profitable and carries no debt. All the growth has been financed internally.
Today even something as simple as a customer's call to activate a new prescription-drug card is, quite deliberately, handled "live." Why go to the extra trouble? It's simple. Horn is looking for any excuse to chat with customers -- or rather, his customers' customers.
So that the chat is effective, ScriptSave has to train its people well. Horn insists that all new hires get three weeks of training before they take their first call. The 35 customer-service assistants spend another 60 hours a year in the classroom. The new hires learn the basics of phone etiquette and then move on to the demographics and other characteristics of the ScriptSave customer. For example, new workers attend a "senior sensitivity workshop" to help them deal with callers who might be hard of hearing or unable to read prescription labels.
Horn says that his company's caring sensibility contrasts sharply with the stereotype of how call centers usually operate: with brisk efficiency above all else. It's a point of pride, according to Horn, that ScriptSave has no limit on how long a conversation with a customer can last. He recounts a recent story about an elderly woman who had to interrupt a call to ScriptSave because her husband had suddenly taken a fall. The phone rep called back later to see how the couple were faring. Later the woman E-mailed her thanks to the company for the extra service. "We don't do it for publicity. That's the way we want to be," says Horn, although, of course, keeping customers satisfied is in his company's best interest.
By trying to convey a sense of human warmth in a very different business, Betty Heirich is also seeking to achieve a competitive edge for her company. She is CEO of three-year-old SkiMall.net, an Internet venture based in Telluride, Colo., that she cofounded with her husband, a former district manager for Wal-Mart. The company is one of several online businesses that provide information about the kind of lodging and equipment that's of particular interest to winter-sports enthusiasts. Such information is available in great and colorful profusion on the 500 pages of SkiMall's Web site.
When Heirich first put the site online, she left it up to users to navigate their way through a blizzard of information. After a year, however, she discovered that the mechanized browsing system was undercutting one of her company's greatest potential assets: the image of SkiMall as the skier's genial friend and tour guide. To alter that image, she embarked on a new strategy. Now people who log on to the site find a "live assistance" button on its pages. Visitors can type in a question, connect with a human being at the company, and receive a reply, often within seconds. "We'll help anyone look for anything," says Heirich, who takes a commission on products that are sold or hotel rooms that are booked on the site.
Although the company's chat system combines the comfort of a physical presence with the speed of E-mail, such setups are still not common. A survey last year by International Customer Service Association and e-Satisfy Ltd. found that just 4% of Web sites used live chats. But there are indications that customers crave human intervention. In a survey two years ago by Forrester Research, 71% of online buyers who requested customer service did so by turning to E-mail, compared with the 11% who sought help from a Web page containing answers to frequently asked questions.
Heirich's commitment to service is so strong she still takes a shift herself, joining her nine employees in answering questions from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. -- or in some cases past midnight. Some people want help finding particular brands of skis. Others ask about the skiing conditions in Telluride or for directions to the resort's hot nightspots, like Fly Me to the Moon Saloon. Heirich's goal is round-the-clock service. For a fledgling company like SkiMall, attempting to staff a 24-7 live-help operation seems brashly ambitious, if not a sure path to wipeout. But Heirich's secret weapon may well be her unique workforce. She employs three people in the office and six stay-at-home moms who work in shifts at the real-chat beat.
Betty Heirich's secret weapon may be her unique workforce. She employs six stay-at-home moms who work in shifts at the real-chat beat.
Heirich uses a service called Human-Click, which is a sophisticated version of a free instant-messenger program. When a visitor arrives at the site, SkiMall's employees hear a doorbell-like ring. They can "approach" the potential customer, much as they would in a real store, by starting an online conversation. Heirich claims that her employees respond immediately about 50% of the time and answer messages within 24 hours. One major exception: when 20 inches of fresh powder fall, it's "understood that nobody works," she says.
The HumanClick software is set up to provide a visitor "footprint" that reveals such things as, say, which site the user has visited immediately before accessing SkiMall's site. Such clues about customers' interests help the company's reps jump-start conversations. Some visitors are shocked to discover they are "conversing" with an actual human being in cyberspace. "I've had people ask me, 'Is this a real person or a bot?" says Heirich, who previously worked in retail jobs in ski-resort towns. She pays nothing for the basic version of HumanClick, although a more advanced version of the program costs $150 a month.
By her company's second holiday season, its business had tripled, she says. The site draws about 100,000 hits a month.
Path Three: Real-Time Feedback
When John and Amy Howard launched Carrot's Ink Cartridges, in Carrollton, Tex., three years ago, they did so with trepidation. They knew their product line, no-name ink-jet cartridges, was a commodity, so service would make or break the business. But today the Howards don't have to wonder if they're doing all right by their customers. They get a real-time report card every day from BizRate, one of a handful of services that survey the customers of online businesses. What's more, the service is free.
The Howards simply wait for the survey results, which arrive by E-mail every afternoon. Customers are asked to fill out two E-mail surveys, the first time when they make their purchase and the second when their item is delivered. Cooperating customers are rewarded with online scratch tickets or other chances to win cash. The Howards have been pleasantly surprised at the number of customers who fill out BizRate's 10-point survey, which covers things like customer support. The response rate has averaged at least 20%, and on some days it's as high as 35%. BizRate adds up the scores Carrot's receives and sends the Howards a "VitalMail" report.
On a typical day recently, the overall score Carrot's got was 9.3, putting it in the top 1% of BizRate merchants. Just as pertinent as the ratings are the comments that come directly from customers. "I like reading the comments. They're more important than the metrics," John Howard says, since the real-time information can help the company correct problems quickly and systematically. Thanks in part to that advantage, Carrot's has raised its revenues to $2 million since its launch.
Getting from users an instant snapshot of how a company is doing is a big breakthrough in customer service, says consultant Patricia Seybold. What companies can measure "in or near real time," she says, differs from the quality of data they can collect if they survey their customers once a year. That doesn't mean that every time customers call or send E-mail, they should get a "little five-point questionnaire," adds Seybold, who recommends that companies start slowly by polling a percentage of their customers each week.
The moving service, RMR, does exactly that. Its real-time feedback from customers is the "most incredible quality-control tool," Bob Carbonell says. "It's live hot data. It gives us an opportunity to resolve issues that are festering."
Real-time feedback from customers is the "most incredible quality-control tool," says company president Bob Carbonell. "It's live hot data."
Each day, RMR's managers receive the results of a two-page satisfaction survey that customers have completed on the Web. The old, paper version of the survey got a 15% response, says Carbonell. Shifting to the Web has boosted the rate more than threefold.
RMR's surveys go out at the conclusion of each move. The transferee receives an E-mail message that is linked to the survey. He or she is asked to type in comments and answer 20 questions. Half pertain to RMR's service, half to the performance of the moving agent selected by RMR. If a mover or a truck driver has a string of low scores, RMR calls right away to correct the problem. Measured on its own 10-point scale, RMR's own customer-satisfaction rating stands at about 90%, according to John Carbonell, the company's sales man- ager and Bob's brother. He says that's a good average, since "you hear more from people with any kind of problem." But, of course, that's exactly who you want to hear from sooner rather than later.
Stratis Morfogen of FultonStreet heartily agrees. "The customer who says, 'You stink!' -- that's the one we want to talk to," he says. Moreover, when Morfogen, also a BizRate subscriber, receives any kind of negative feedback through that channel, he routinely sends an "Egift certificate" to acknowledge the complaint.
Path Four: Proactive Pursuit
The possibility of finding out what customers think as they are thinking it is a revolutionary development. But nothing is more radical in the realm of customer service than what Bill Strauss is attempting to do. Strauss, CEO of Proflowers.com, an online florist based in San Diego, isn't satisfied with improving customer service to the nth degree. He wants to eliminate the need for it altogether.
Strauss is a former vice-president of customer support and operations at Intuit, the financial-software company known for its efforts to make software so intuitive that "customer support" is superfluous. The five years that Strauss spent at Intuit in San Diego burned a zero-tolerance attitude into his psyche, he says. Now he's trying to translate what he learned there into improving the customer-service performance of Proflowers, which Strauss joined during its start-up in 1998.
Before Strauss had sold a single daisy, he scrutinized the workings of the company's customer service. After they placed an order, customers most often called simply to check on the order's status: Have the flowers been delivered? From the start, he had Proflowers gear up so it could send three automated E-mail messages as an integral part of every transaction. The first message is now standard fare at many Web sites: the minute customers place an order, they receive a confirmation by E-mail. When a delivery truck picks up the order from Proflowers, that information goes back to the company's Web site, which spins out a second E-mail update. But it's the third message that's the charm. The customer gets a message saying that the flowers were delivered, for instance, at 11 a.m., signed for by Casey Jones. The third E-mail all by itself "limits the number of calls we get. It's proactive," says Strauss. "It's one thing to just do a good job handling the calls that come in, but that's just reactive."
Strauss is a passionate advocate of proactive customer service, but he's hardly alone among CEOs who speak in those terms. Some use the buzzword tier zero, a fiercely proactive strategy. "If we can understand why customers are contacting us," says Strauss, "we can try to modify our Web site, marketing efforts, and ordering process so that we don't give them a reason to call us."
A case in point: the cost of roses goes up dramatically right before Valentine's Day, which forces Proflowers to pass the price increase along to its customers. Strauss could easily envision hundreds of customers calling to complain about the price hike. But Proflowers nipped the calls in the bud, as it were, two years ago. The solution? Each January the company sends out an E-mail notification to existing customers, alerting them to the price increase and, of course, inviting them to preorder at a lower price. Proflowers even tries its best to protect time-challenged customers from themselves. "For instance," Strauss says, "if customers write a gift message saying 'Happy Valentine's Day,' but the delivery date is after Valentine's Day, we call to confirm that all is OK."
Proactive pursuit may be a lovely theory (it's even alliterative), but is it really a brilliant, cost-effective tool? Strauss has some impressive results to point to. In its fiscal year ending June 30, 2000, his company had sales of $27 million, and the overwhelming majority of those transactions were completed online without phone assistance. Telephone orders represented a scant 10% of sales. Roughly two out of five customers who ordered on the Web requested help either by E-mail or by telephone. That's a big improvement over 1998, when the figure was more like four out of five. And although the company's contact-to-order ratio (see "Buzzwords to Watch," below) is considered good in the E-commerce world, Strauss vows to improve it. For now, though, his 30 customer-service reps sit tight by their computers and phones. Tier zero? Not yet.
Costly Lessons
Despite the many examples of companies that report shining success in applying cutting-edge customer- service concepts to get a competitive advantage, there's a bleak side to that brave new world. You could summarize that other side with two words: Lids and Garden.com.
Lids Corp., a retail chain that specializes in sports caps, began with a single kiosk in a mall in 1992. By last year, it was operating 388 stores in 47 states and was generating sales of $125 million. A cap is a cap, but Lids invested in a level of customer service virtually unheard of in retailing, particularly among independent stores.
After launching its Web site, in late 1999, the chain installed kiosks equipped with high-speed Internet access in 55 of its stores and beefed up its customer-support team at its headquarters. Customers could reach Lids personnel by calling an 800 number or using a Web chat feature about 12 hours a day. To strengthen the link with its mostly teenage customers, Lids created its own prepaid cash card, which allowed them to order over the Web without a credit card. "Everything we do is to make it simple for the customer to get the hat," Lids CEO Nancy Babine Kucinski said in an interview in December.
The customer-care center at Lids was a drain on profits, notes CEO Nancy Babine Kucinski, but it was "very effective."
There were signs that the customer-service initiatives were paying off. During the 2000 holiday season Lids' Web-based sales tripled, greatly helped by orders placed in the store kiosks, Kucinski said at the time. And yet the company apparently lost control of its spending. The rapid expansion of stores no doubt had strained its capital reserves, as had the money it poured into customer service. In early January, Lids filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from its creditors.
Kucinski, who has not been available for comment since December, hinted then that the company had paid a high price for its zealous devotion to customer service. Conceding that Lids' customer-care center was a drain on profits, she said, "It's not a money- maker; no, it's not. It's expensive to run, but it's very effective."
Garden.com could tell a similar tale of woe. Before it folded, in November, the online vendor of plants and all other things related to gardening emerged as a symbol of fiercely innovative and elaborate customer service. Its offerings included assistance 17 hours a day and seven days a week by telephone or E-mail, plus a staff of gardening experts who responded to customers' questions online. Was the Austin-based Garden.com too fanatical in spending its scarce dollars on customer-service features? Ron Webb of the American Productivity & Quality Center, in Houston, who studied the company's customer service closely, says the emphasis should probably be on the word too. "They may have gone too far on the continuum of customer service," he says.
No one disputes, of course, that like any other business expense, customer-service spending can get out of hand. Excess, however, is hardly uppermost in the minds of people like Stratis Morfogen. Yes, says Morfogen, you have to have a sensible strategy. And yet the sums of money that FultonStreet is plowing into customer service are huge for a business of its size. About $1 million of the company's $3.5 million in angel funding has gone to Internet-related software, hardware, and phone systems, and some 10% of its sales go to staff a five-person customer-service department. To date, Morfogen has also plowed almost $1 million into the design of his Web site. But he submits that the formula is working, to the extent that FultonStreet moved into the black in January, according to its CEO. "At the end of the day," Morfogen says, "it's about customer service."
Susan Greco is a senior writer at Inc. Researcher Kate O'Sullivan contributed to this article.
E-mail Response Says It All
Why doesn't Martha Stewart answer her E-mail? On a recent survey of how well-known companies respond to their electronic messages, the domestic doyenne turned mega-entrepreneur failed miserably. Far from exemplifying the gracious Web host, she (or her company, at any rate) didn't respond at all to a series of E-mail queries posted by a would-be customer.
Shocking? Not really, except that Stewart's Marthastewart.com is regarded as one of the most customer-enlightened sites on the Web, and E-mail response time is now considered one of the most important barometers of customer service.
But, hey, Stewart is hardly the only one lacking in E-mail etiquette. What's perplexing and surprising is how many otherwise good companies also fail the E-mail litmus test every day.
Jonathan Brookner researched E-mail response for Peppers and Rogers Group (a consulting firm based in Norwalk, Conn.). He says he asked easy questions and tracked response rates in 10 mostly retail industries, from apparel to office supplies. Among the 65 well-known Internet companies he tested in August 2000, only 30, or 46%, responded to E-mail requests within 24 hours. That's up 7% from the figure that was reported six months earlier.
More revealing, says Brookner, is the fact that in the August survey, 20% of the online businesses never responded to E-mail requests at all. "Companies are not keeping pace," he concludes. "They're running in place as more and more consumers go online." At the other extreme, 16, or almost 25%, of the 65 sites responded to requests within two hours.
The pressure on companies to handle their E-mail quickly and effectively will only intensify, says Inc. Technology columnist Jim Sterne. "If you can keep up-to-date on your E-mail, you have a chance of staying ahead of the competition," he says. --S.G.
Buzzwords to Watch
Along with the intense customer-service initiatives at some companies, new buzzwords are emerging. Here are definitions of four new terms:
A contact-to-order ratio is the number of times a company's customers contact it before placing an order, compared with the number of orders a company receives. A zero ratio would mean that the ordering process works so smoothly that no customers feel compelled to call.
A contact center is a technologically sophisticated version of the traditional call center. But contact-center workers don't just answer phones. They also respond to customers' E-mail messages and, in some cases, participate in live chat sessions with them over the Web.
Customer-relationship management, or CRM, refers broadly to all aspects of marketing, sales, and service that pertain to customers. More narrowly, it describes a software-based system that manages the information a business gathers about its customers. The data can include such things as customers' names and purchases and a list of goods the customers return.
Tier zero describes service that's proactive and so complete that it enables customers to solve their problems without requiring the assistance of a customer-service rep. Forrester Research, a technology-research firm based in Cambridge, Mass., claims to have coined the term. --Kate O'Sullivan
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Catching Crabs (On Purpose)
The latest way to catch your seafood dinner? Kayak for it.
Willamette Week | Nov. 17, 2011
By Christina Cooke
On a sunny, T-shirt day in late October, I sit in the front of a tandem kayak on Siletz Bay just south of Lincoln City, a cage of raw chicken hearts, legs and livers on my lap. I'm on my first kayak crabbing expedition, and, other than a close proximity to discount chicken parts, I have no idea what to expect.
My partner in crime, Dave Hoffman, also a kayak crabbing newbie, pushes the boat away from the sandy shoreline and jumps in the back. "Let's head out toward that seal head," he says, indicating a glistening gray crown watching us from 50 yards away.
Positioning our feet in the forward-backward pedals of our boat and our hands on the plastic switches that control the rudder, we maneuver into the bay to begin dropping the baited rings, which look a lot like oversized basketball hoops with enclosed nets. We are determined to catch crabs today—and we don't plan to go home until we do.
"You're an asshole!" yells Nathaniel Olken, the man who brought us to this bay today to introduce us to the sport of kayak crabbing. He's on his own kayak nearby and talking to a crab.
A 32-year-old with green eyes and a red beard, Nathaniel wears a yellow splashguard under his personal flotation device and khaki-colored waders tucked into tall brown galoshes. An employee of Next Adventure outdoor store, the lifelong fisherman comes alive out on the water, enthusiastically answering all of our questions and talking smack to crabs that give him trouble.
Kayak crabbing and fishing involve the same techniques as the traditional sports, but from sit-on- top kayaks rather than powerboats. They originated about a decade ago in warm-water places like Southern California, Texas and Florida—and have been steadily growing in popularity in the Northwest over the past couple of years. "Even though we're behind the eight ball, we're catching up really fast," says Michael Rischer, an expert kayak fisherman from Portland who is sponsored by Hobie, Next Adventure and Korkers to serve as an ambassador for the sport. "It's a huge movement."
NorthWest Kayak Anglers, an online forum on which members exchange kayak fishing tips and information, had 800 members at the end of October, probably 300 to 400 from Oregon. Rischer said he prefers kayak to traditional fishing because it allows him to sneak up on his prey and navigate tight or shallow areas other boats can't go. He likes not having to license or trailer his boat or put money into gas. Plus, catching a fish from a human-powered craft can be downright thrilling, he says, recalling the 30-pound chinook that recently dragged his 60-pound Hobie craft on a "sleigh ride" around Nehalem Bay for 10 minutes before wearing out.
Now is a great time to hit the water for crabs—Dungeness and red around here, Rischer says, because the Oregon season runs during the months whose names end in "R"—September through December.
By the time Dave and I finish placing three rings about 20 yards apart, it's time to loop back and check the first for occupants.
The sky above us is cloudless, hazy against the low hills in the distance, and a warm breeze carries the thick, salty smell of the ocean across the bay. Seagulls hover in the air above us and float in the water around our boat, at the ready in case we drop anything edible. Through the narrow opening to our right, I can see the waves of the ocean crashing white and a pod of harbor seals lazing in the shallow water by the shore.
Once Dave and I glide in to the red-and-white buoy marking the position of our first trap, I gingerly take up the slack in the rope. Finally, feeling resistance—the end of the slack—I yank the rope hard, hoisting it swiftly hand over hand to keep the crabs from escaping out the open top. I'm excited to see what it will contain; at this point, a jackpot is still completely within the realm of possibility.
The net emerges dripping from the water with eight frantic crustaceans inside. "Looks like some keepers!" Dave says, leaning forward to get a better view. I scoot as far back against my seat as I can and, though it grates against all my instincts, dump the eight crabs onto the floor between my legs. Inches from their flailing and rip-ready pincers, I'm grateful for the thick rubber gloves and wetsuit I'm wearing.
Following Nathaniel's instructions, I reach into the pile of shelled bodies, grab one from behind and hold it up. Under the smooth hood of its dark-purple carapace, the creature is a jumble of joints, serrations, spines and claws—prehistoric-looking. Its beady eyes, protruding like thick pencil tips from the front edge of its shell, stare straight ahead; its mouth parts open and close. I fit a neon green plastic caliper over the width of its shell. It's just barely smaller than the legal limit, 5.75 inches.
"Your youth has saved you," I say to the crab, tossing it over the edge of the boat. "Youth is wasted in crabs," Dave says, disappointed.
I work my way through the pile of crustaceans, returning the smaller ones and females to the water (the plate configuration on a crab's underside indicates its gender) and passing the larger males to Nathaniel, who puts them in the blue cooler on the boat behind him.
Rischer is sure the sport of kayak crabbing is on the verge of exploding. Traditional anglers are always intrigued when they see him fishing spots they can't get to, and tackle, rod, reel and wader companies have already started creating kayak versions of their products. "I think there'll be a time when you see more kayaks on the rivers than boats," he says.
All afternoon, Dave, Nathaniel and I make the rounds, checking and rechecking the traps, measuring, tossing, saving. Even if we hadn't been collecting food for dinner, the activity would have been fun.
"Even if you have a bad day fishing and don't catch anything," Nathaniel notes at one point, "you still get out and have a nice kayaking trip."
As the sun sinks toward the horizon, we begin to move our traps closer and closer to shore and finally, out of the water altogether. We count the crabs—33—tie the boats on top of the car and head home toward our kitchens.
So You Wanna Go Kayak Crabbing?
Freshwater locations include the Clackamas, Columbia, Willamette and Sandy rivers and Henry Hagg, Diamond and Crane Prairie lakes for winter and summer steelhead, coho and chinook salmon, small and largemouth bass, rainbow trout, sturgeon and walleye. Saltwater locations include Nehalem, Netarts, Siletz and Yaquina bays for Dungeness crab and salmon and the ocean for lingcod, salmon, cabazon, albacore tuna, halibut and some rockfish.
Info at NorthWest Kayak Anglers (northwestkayakanglers.com) and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (dfw.state.or.us).
Sit-on-top kayak: The Hobie MirageDrive pedal-powered boats are available for rent at Next Adventure for $50 (single) or $80 (tandem). Regular sit-on-top kayaks also work. Next Adventure rents these for $30 (single) or $40 (tandem) per day; Alder Creek Kayak and Canoe rents them for $50 per day.
Dry- or wetsuit: $10 a day from Next Adventure; $20 a day from Alder Creek.
Fishing license: A day license for shellfishing costs $7; available at Fred Meyer, Bi-Mart, Dick's Sporting Goods and Big 5 Sporting Goods and at dfw.state.or.us/resources/licenses.
More gear: PFD, crabbing rings or traps, fishing rods, bait, a caliper for crabbing and a cooler.
RENTALS: Next Adventure, 704 SE Washington St., 445-9435, nextadventure.net. Alder Creek Kayak and Canoe, Portland Boathouse: 1515 SE Water St., 285-1819, and Jantzen Beach, 200 NE Tomahawk Island Drive, 285-0464, aldercreek.com.
Read the original on the Willamette Week website here.


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Nearly 375 suspected criminals were arrested, two marijuana grows were disrupted and almost $500,000 worth of drugs were seized in a countywide law enforcement effort targeting drug offenders and gangs over the weekend.
The Sheriff's Department spearheaded the operation, called Allied Shield IV, on Friday and Saturday nights. It involved 1,047 law enforcement officers from local, state and federal police agencies.
Undersheriff Ed Prendergast said the goal of the show of force was to locate gang members, check on those on probation and parole, and to find and remove criminals from the streets. "It allows us to focus on the most prolific offenders," Prendergast said.
Law enforcement targeted gang members who support Mexican drug cartels in the transportation and distribution of narcotics in the U.S., and who facilitate the storage and shipment of contraband, weapons and cash into Mexico.
Street gangs spawn more crime as rivals fight among themselves, said sheriff's Cmdr. Dave Myers.
That results in shootings, home-invasion robberies, kidnappings and other crimes that endanger law-abiding residents, Myers said.
"The spillover of gang violence threatens our schools, it threatens our kids, it threatens our safe and secure neighborhoods, where we go to the movies, where we shop, where we play," Myers said.
Of those caught in the sweep, 34 were documented gang members and 14 were gang associates. At least 64 other gang members and associates were identified, sheriff's officials said.
On Friday night, from an East County command post, sheriff's Sgt. Jack Reynolds headed out with two teams of officers from the Sheriff's Department and the U.S. Border Patrol, a police dog, and an investigator with the District Attorney's Office.
Reynolds, one of the leaders of the sheriff's Border Crime Suppression Team, said a list of 579 targets had been compiled as part of the operation. In all, 372 arrests were made over two days, mostly criminals on probation or parole.
Reynolds' teams visited houses in Santee, Allied Gardens and Spring Valley, and they arrested four people after finding narcotics including heroin, methamphetamine, illegal prescriptions drugs as well as paraphernalia and stolen merchandise.
Just after sundown, a caravan of eight law enforcement vehicles pulled up to an Allied Gardens home on Seamen Street.
As the resident's pit bull barked furiously from the backyard, detectives searched the cluttered home and garage where they found heroin and other drugs, used sheets of foil with heroin residue, pipes, a homemade firecracker, baggies, and a scale. Soda cans and a fake dictionary that had been converted into concealable drug containers also were found.
Neighbors who stood in front of their houses said they were glad to see the law enforcement activity at the unkempt home.
A 34-year-old woman on probation who lived at the house was taken into custody on charges of drug possession and possession with intent to sell, Reynolds said.
She and the others arrested were taken to three command posts, one in the North County, one at Qualcomm Stadium and another in Spring Valley, where they waited before being booked and transported to jail on sheriff's buses.
The effort netted 79 narcotics seizures, nine guns, several knives, $5,680 in cash and one car. Besides marijuana, the narcotics confiscated were heroin, cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and several pharmaceuticals including oxycodone and Xanax.
The operation was funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under its Operation Stonegarden grant. Since 2008, the grant has awarded almost $48 million to California to allow law enforcement to collaborate and focus on border-related crime. This year's allocation was $5.5 million, Prendergast said.
"Anytime we take criminals off the streets, it makes the community safer and that's our ultimate goal," he said.


text: This is an image of the Create New Package page of the Quick Packaging wizard. At the top of the page is a progress bar that names all of the pages in the wizard, and indicates that you are on the first page. Below the progress bar and toward the right-hand side of the page are two buttons: Cancel and Next. Between the two buttons is the text Step 1 of 4. Below the buttons is a form that you fill in, with the following fields, arranged vertically: Package Name (with a default package name supplied), Package Description, Send to Oracle Support (with Yes and No options), My Oracle Support Username, My Oracle Support Password, Customer Support Identifier (CSI), Country (a list that currently shows the default country, the United States), and Create New Service Request (SR) (with Yes and No options).


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This marks the sandwich franchise's second North American kosher restaurant and the first of its kind on the East Coast.
Officially opening for business on January 2nd, the restaurant is located at 1219 Avenue J, in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Owned and operated by three Sephardic Jewish business partners from the community, the restaurant is primarily a family affair with wives, mothers and other relatives taking turns baking bread, prepping ingredients and making sandwiches for the throngs of customers, many of whom have never before eaten traditional American-style fast food.
"I invite everyone to stop by and try our world-famous submarine sandwiches. Subway offers a variety of options that appeal to those interested in maintaining a healthy lifestyle and the opening of a kosher Subway restaurant in Brooklyn gives individuals and families an additional choice when deciding where to eat," said SUBWAY(R) franchisee, Jack Mosseri. "I am not aware of any other popular restaurant chain in the country that has so thoroughly adapted its menu to meet kosher dietary laws."
The SUBWAY(R) restaurant on Avenue J is under the rabbinical supervision of Rabbi Gornish. In keeping with Jewish tradition the restaurant closes on Friday at sundown and reopens for business one hour after nightfall on Saturday. With slight modifications, such as no cheese or pork products, the majority of the menu is almost identical to that of any other SUBWAY(R) restaurant. The restaurant also offers catering services for meetings and special events to local schools and businesses.
"This is the busiest Subway store I've ever seen," says Daryl Meyers, the SUBWAY(R) chain's Development Agent for Brooklyn. "Customers love it and they are already getting repeat business."
Since opening the first kosher SUBWAY(R) location, at a Jewish Community Center in a Cleveland suburb last year, the chain has received many inquiries from prospective franchisees around the country who wanted to know how they can open their own kosher SUBWAY(R) restaurant too. Understanding that these inquiries represent a significant potential for the brand to introduce SUBWAY(R) sandwiches to a vast untapped segment of the population, it was decided to go forward and develop additional kosher locations.
"There are more kosher Subway restaurants on tap for the NY metropolitan area as well as some planned for other parts of the country," says Tim Miller, Operations Management Specialist for the SUBWAY(R) chain, based at the company's world headquarters in Milford, Conn. "By the end of this year, we expect to have as many as eight kosher more locations up and running. We feel confident that we are able to do this mainly because of our extensive experience adapting our menus for consumers in areas such as India or the Middle East, who have specific religious or cultural food preferences."
Logos, product and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.


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Canada Goose Shop
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We provide customers worldwide with many different kinds of Canada Goose, including the newly design and classical style.
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Exciting performances for any event or special occasion
Are you interested in having the Yavir Ukrainian Dance Ensemble, entertain you and your guests? We are available to perform at both large and small engagements.
Yavir presents HOPAK at 2015 Christmas Concert
Yavir has entertained audiences at weddings, anniversaries, awards ceremonies, festivals, banquets, corporate events, concerts and parties of all kinds.
Ensemble Yavir with Lyrical "Na Ivana Kupala" (2014)
Our talented dancers will provide you with a dynamic performance package that will surely thrill and captivate your audience!
Zakarpattya Dance at Ukrainian Festival in NYC 2015
Performances can be booked for one to three dances (5 to 15 minutes) and up to full length productions (one to two hours), or anything in between. Yavir can accommodate performances in a variety of venues, with or without formal stages.
Hire the Yavir Ukrainian Dance Ensemble to perform at your next special event!
Thank you and your wonderful dancers for their amazing performance at our wedding! Me, my husband and all our guests were blown away by the dancers' skills. Everyone is still talking about how great the Ukrainian dancers were!
We had the great pleasure of having Yavir perform at our wedding on September 12, 2015 at Paradise Banquet Hall. The dancers put on an amazing show that had our guests clapping and cheering! The performance was energetic and magnificent. Our guests and us were very impressed with the overall performance. Thank you, Yavir!
Gloria & Mark Hrycyna
To hire Ukrainian dance performers, please, fill out the form below and we will be in contact!


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Tahoe district installs four electric-car charging stations
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — The Incline Village General Improvement District has become the latest agency to provide electric car-charging stations for residents and visitors.
District officials installed four 70-amp, 240-volt ports this spring at Diamond Peak Ski Resort and the Championship Golf Course, according to a news release.
The district paid $20,000 to purchase and install the stations built by the Eaton Corporation; they cost $40,000 total, but half was paid for by a grant from NV Energy.
The units are networked via ChargePoint and require a ChargePoint membership to use. The stations are free use to the public for five years, according to IVGID.
"We are leading the way in sustainability and following suit with other environmentally conscientious resorts around the country," Diamond Peak General Manager Brad Wilson said in a statement.
IVGID's long-term objective of using ChargePoint is to show environmental responsibility by encouraging electric vehicle use, according to the news release.
ChargePoint touts itself as having the largest and most open electric-vehicle charging network in the world, with more than 16,500 places to charge, 2,320 customers and a 70 percent-plus share of all networked public charging stations.
According to the company, every 10 seconds, a driver connects to a ChargePoint station, and by plugging in and charging over 4 million times, drivers have saved over 3.8 million gallons of gasoline and avoided 28 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.
IVGID is now the second Tahoe-area government agency to install charging stations; the Tahoe City Public Utility District's two ports at 221 Fairway Drive are also free to use.
Last September, Squaw Valley installed four of them, becoming the first ski resort in California to do so. Other regional businesses who have ports include the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe in Incline; Cedar House Sport Hotel in Truckee; and Harveys Lake Tahoe in Stateline.
Learn more about ChargePoint at chargepoint.com at the Eaton Corporation at eaton.com. Learn more about IVGID at ivgid.org.


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Sign Up For A FREE Account Today... Click the "REGISTER" button above this box!
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Watched status for season itself not episodes
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Industry News for PayDC
2350 Huntingdon Pike
Huntingdn Valley, Pennsylvania 19006
PayDC Announces FCA Show Specials
August 8, 2013 – PayDC is pleased to announce their 2013 Florida Chiropractic Association show specials. This year attendees will find multiple ways to save and win! To encourage mobile use, PayDC will offer a free Windows 8 tablet to every new customer. In addition, they will be conducting a drawing for another tablet - just stop by the booth to become eligible. Also, new clients will receive 50% off applicable set-up fees. Finally, PayDC is waiving Meaningful Use fees until October 1, 2013.
"PayDC is dedicated to and passionate about helping the chiropractic profession. Events like the Florida Chiropractic Association help to showcase some of the latest and greatest products assisting chiropractors to provide better care and we are again excited to support this great occasion," says David Klein, PayDC Co-Founder.
Stop by booth #1017 at the national FCA convention to learn more, visit paydc.com, or call 888-306-1259.
PayDC all-in-one chiropractic software makes it easy for your practice to manage patient care, stay compliant and make more money. Easy, Fast & Affordable. Our innovative software is EHR-certified, cloud-based and fully integrated. Easy-to-use SOAP NOTES to improve detail and compliance. Accurate DOCUMENTATION to maximize collections. Integrated BILLING to easily audit and submit your claims without double-entry. We help you earn reimbursement for MEANINGFUL USE too. Contact us for a FREE DEMO at paydc.com or by calling 888-306-1259.
Chiropractic Events


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Guru1 necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 208 diseños de 37 diseñadores freelance.
Cool Change
We are 2 young entrepreneurs starting up a Gelato, Juice and Smoothie Bar ready to 'shake' up the industry. By integrating innovative ideas, progressive fresh flavors, and a whole lot of fun we have long term goals of franchising the business and want to start building our image with a strong branding message. We have a history of creating fun team focused cultures (now into our fourth business) and will continue this trend in a Cool Change. We believe that life should be loved and although we will be classed as being in the hospitality industry we know that we are really in the people industry.
We came up with the name because we want to re-educate our consumers that drinks and ice-creams/gelato are more than impulse buys, and that we offer something different to all others in the market place. We will be integrating ipads and social media into our shop front to create more of an experience than just buying an icecream. The 'Cool' can be used to desribe the experience as well as the products.
Young, and young at heart. Vibrant and loving life. Innovators and People who prefer quality and are prepared to pay a little extra for it. Think Apple.
Our first location will be in a tourism area so we need to be able to engage with our audience quickly. We aim to change our business from an impulse buy to a destination outlet that people choose to come to because we offer a must have product.
Logo can be full colour but must be able to quickly be simplified for the printing process as we plan to do a lot of branding and want to keep the printiing costs as low as possible.
We are probably thinking of blues as the base colours because we though blue represents cold but are open to other concepts if they fit in. Perhaps the use of circles to represent scoops of gelato, but once again this is just a thought. We are open to you creative designs.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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i have one of these and for other camping/festival trips, i love it. i also have a little pop-up tent to put it in.Boijoy wrote:I use one of those 5 gallong bucket with the removable toilet lid. I like to take a nice "sit"
my thought was...is this really needed? maybe only use it for at night?


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1501 590 Nicola Street, Vancouver Listing #: R2319061
Welcome to this beautiful NW Corner facing 2 Bed + 2 Bath + Flex waterfront living at Cascina with FOREVER UNOBSTRUCTED STUNNING WATER & MOUNTAIN VIEWS from every room! With the seawalk just steps away, you will experience luxury living with a gourmet chef's kitchen with granite counters, Bosch and Subzero Stainless Steel appliances, a cozy gas fireplace and air conditioning! The unit is in mint condition, all you have to do is move in to this well maintained unit and enjoy resort living amenities with 24 hour concierge, gym, pool, hot tub, sauna, theatre room, lounge library, billiards and car wash bay! Bonus 2 huge parking stalls plus storage and plenty of visitor parking.
Taxes (2018): $6,785.24
- Bike Room
- Exercise Centre
- Pool; Indoor
- Sauna/Steam Room
- Storage
- Swirlpool/Hot Tub
- Air Conditioning
- ClthWsh
- Dryr
- Frdg
- Stve
- Drapes
- Window Coverings
- Microwave
Similar Listings
Listed By: Regent Park Realty Inc.
Disclaimer: The data relating to real estate on this web site comes in part from the MLS Reciprocity program of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver or the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board. Real estate listings held by participating real estate firms are marked with the MLS Reciprocity logo and detailed information about the listing includes the name of the listing agent. This representation is based in whole or part on data generated by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver or the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board which assumes no responsibility for its accuracy. The materials contained on this page may not be reproduced without the express written consent of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver or the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board.


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SeanBissell necesitaba un nuevo diseño de página web y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 79 diseños de 28 diseñadores freelance.
I am representing an expert beekeeper who had a difficult time finding an easy to understand beginners guide to beekeeping.
He decided to produce a 90 minute video on beginning beekeeping.
The creator of this product has a great deal of experience in TV Production and many years of experience on major Radio Networks. As a result of his beekeeping expertise combined with his excellent presentation and production skills he has created the definitive guide on beginner beekeeping, and we believe there is no better product on the market today.
This guide not only tells you what to do, how to do it, but also *shows* you on video each step of the way. We are excited to offer this to the beekeeping community.
We are trying to portray the fact that this is a highly visual, easy to understand, and complete guide for anyone interested in starting beekeeping, especially those who want to do it in their own backyards, or in urban settings. We want them to know that once they've watched this video they will know everything they need to get started beekeeping and have a successful hive.
The current website is here: http://beekeepingvideo.blogspot.com/
But will eventually be here: http://www.WorldOfBeekeeping.com
Our target audience is primarily (at the moment) a bit leaning towards more males than females. Their ages mostly range from 25-50 and then start dropping off in numbers after 50.
There is a trend of younger urban women getting into beekeeping and doing it in their backyards. The local food movement seems to be an influencing factor in this.
People are also concerned about the dwindling population of bees and they want to help keep them alive, and want to do their part in helping keep the Earth healthy and alive. There are some distinct correlations to the "Green Market" and the beekeeping market. But being "Green" is not the main factor of why people get into beekeeping.
Our target market is just starting beekeeping, and often haven't even bought any supplies, and don't know where to begin. They want detailed, easy to follow, complete information with lots of visual information. (Like a DVD.)
They want good pictures and diagrams that detail what a queen looks like, what the entire stack of equipment looks like and where each goes in the hive.
Also they want to know step-by-step what you do when you get your bees (how do you get them into your hive without having a mutiny) and what you need to do for your bees throughout the different seasons of the year, also how to harvest honey and how to extract it.
Those are a few of the important factors.
While we will sell the product on the site, it won't be a *sales* page unless someone gets further into the site. We will also be selling other related products in the future, so having the front page locked into just selling the DVD will limit the future growth of the "brand."
We do want to give the *impression* through graphics that they will get a very visual experience with this website/brand/products/etc. But the actual DVD shouldn't be the feature of the site.
Here's another example of a site that functions similarly to what we want here: http://www.emotionaleatingtips.com/
Notice that there is nothing for sale on the main page?
You actually have to click on "start now" to get to any sales message.
That's how we'd like this to function as well.
There really aren't any "great" looking Beekeeping websites out there right now.
This is one of the most "authoritative" sites on the subject right now: http://www.mannlakeltd.com/
We would like the authority of that site, but a more "urban" sleeker look, that is very focused on the fact that our product is extremely visual, and easy to follow.
It should be noted that people in this market prefer a bit of a "gritty" or "natural" look and not overly commercial. That being said, a clean, vivid, professional look will be best.
The design should be similar in functionality to this site: http://www.totalmemoryimprovement.com
And will require to be able to support an opt-in survey page similar to this: http://www.totalmemoryimprovement.c…edNow.html
Please let me know if you need anything or have any questions.
And here are some images you may use if you'd like: http://www.worldofbeekeeping.com/im…Images.zip
And here are some screenshots from the video you can use: http://www.worldofbeekeeping.com/im…mages2.zip


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If you want hoardes of ladies to smooch on you, apparently you only need a couple of things. Armed with a clipboard, a hose, a reasonable degree of attractiveness and a willingness to talk about 'The Notebook' in public, this guy got a pretty respectable degree of action.
Granted, if we saw people making out like that in public, we'd probably cluck our tongues and roll our eyes, then go home because it's 5:30, which is well past dinnertime and 'Murder, She Wrote' is on Netflix! Still, good for this guy — he's figured out how to basically walk up to a stranger and ask them to make out without seeming creepy. We couldn't have done that.
Авторский пост


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Subscribe To Mary Elizabeth Winstead Joins Adam Scott In A.C.O.D. Updates
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If A.C.O.D., the new comedy from writer/director Stuart Zicherman, were to go into production today with only the previously announced members of the cast, I would have been more than satisfied. The movie has already lined up some stellar actors to star in the movie, including Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins and Jane Lynch, but today they've added yet another one.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who made a splash at Sundance this past January with her performance in the indie drama Smashed, has signed on to co-star in the new film. Based on an original script by Zicherman and Ben Karlin, the title, which stands for Adult Children of Divorce, is about a young man named Carter (Scott) who learns that he grew up as part of a psychological experiment determining the effects of divorce on young children. Jenkins is lined up play Carter's father (his character in Step Brothers would be so happy) and Lynch will play a therapist who tries to take a shot at fame with Carter's case. According to Deadline, which broke the casting news, Winstead will play Lauren Stinger, Carter's girlfriend who proves to be the only stable thing in his life.
Sadly this ends the string of casting reunions that the film had going (in addition to the aforementioned Step Brothers connection between Jenkins, Scott also starred with Lynch on the Starz series Party Down), but considering it's Mary Elizabeth Winstead we're talking about I think that's perfectly fine. The actress is quickly proving herself to be one of the finest young talents that Hollywood has to offer with strengths in both comedy and drama. Hopefully she'll be able to show them off in A.C.O.D.


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BAGHDAD - Iraq is open to greater American military cooperation as U.S. commanders explore ways to boost security assistance to the country, a top Iraqi official said Thursday.
The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, has recommended that military American commanders look for ways to help improve the military capabilities of Iraq and Lebanon, which both face the risk of spillover from the civil war in neighboring Syria.
Dempsey said Wednesday that the assistance would not involve sending U.S. combat troops, but could involve the U.S. sending in training teams and accelerating sales of weapons and equipment.
The last American combat troops left Iraq in December 2011, ending a nearly nine-year war that cost nearly 4,500 American and more than 100,000 Iraqi lives.
About 100 military and civilian Department of Defense personnel remain in Iraq as an arm of the American Embassy to act as liaisons with the Iraqi government and facilitate arms sales. The U.S. has similar offices in other countries.
Ali al-Moussawi, the media adviser for Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, told The Associated Press that Baghdad would welcome increased arms sales and faster weapons deliveries along with U.S. training teams to help it confront rising regional instability and terrorist threats.
Iraq is struggling to contain a resurgent al-Qaida that is one of the main drivers behind the country's worst uptick in violence in half a decade. More than 2,000 people have been killed in car bombings and other violent attacks in Iraq since the start of April.
"We welcome this kind of cooperation and we consider it a part of the existing agreement between us," al-Moussawi said when asked about Dempsey's comments.
"Because of the high risks the region faces, I think there should be bigger cooperation and coordination between all countries threatened by terrorism."
Iraqi fighters have traveled to fight on both sides of Syria's civil war. The Iraqi branch of al-Qaida is pushing to make itself a player in the conflict, and now calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to highlight its cross-border ambitions.
Iraq has acquired billions of dollars' worth of American-made military equipment, including howitzers, armored personnel carriers and Abrams tanks in recent years.
It has yet to receive the first of as many as 36 F-16 fighter jets it has ordered, and Baghdad has been pressing U.S. officials to speed delivery of the warplanes.
Also on Thursday, a spokesman for Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission said a voting list backed by influential Sunni politicians has won the biggest single bloc of seats in provincial elections in the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar.
Safaa al-Moussawi, a spokesman for the Independent High Electoral commission, said the United list led by Iraqi Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi won 8 of 30 seats in Anbar's provincial council. A bloc backed by al-Maliki came in second with five seats.
The western province of Anbar, a former al-Qaida stronghold, has been the center of anti-government rallies protesting what Sunnis say is their second-class treatment by the Shiite-led government.
Residents in Anbar and neighboring Ninevah province voted last week in local elections that had been delayed due to security concerns.
Associated Press writers Sameer N. Yacoub and Adam Schreck contributed.


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Investigators are trying to puzzle out what caused an explosion and fire that killed two people and tore through a residential area of Indianapolis, displacing scores of residents, authorities said today.
The damage is estimated at $3.6 million, with two homes leveled, five homes expected to be demolished and 26 more unlivable, said Adam Collins, deputy director of code enforcment for Indianapolis.
The two deceased are adults, according to fire officials.
David Edds, the superintendent of the Greenwood Community School Corporation, said a second-grade teacher at Southwest Elementary School, lived in one of the homes leveled by the blast, and he thinks she may have died. The school district, on the border of Indianapolis, will delay the start of classes for two hours Monday so that counselors could be called to the school if the death is confirmed. The teacher was married but had no children, Edds said.
Authorities have not released the names of the two people killed.
"There's a significant number of homes that have sustained damage, including two that have been completely destroyed. No cause has been ruled out," said Marc Lotter, a spokesman for Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard.
"The investigation is ongoing," he said. He added that seven people had been injured in the explosion, which left a large debris field. The origin of the blast was near 8415 Fieldfare Way, in the south part of Indianapolis, according to an Indianapolis Fire Department release.
U.S. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., who represents the area, said he went to the church where the new donation headquarters is and area Homeland Security officials told him a bomb and a meth lab have been ruled out as causes.
The two homes exploded just after 11 p.m. Saturday, sparking fires in two others and damaging at least two dozen homes on the south side of Indianapolis, said Lt. Bonnie Hensley, a spokeswoman for the Indianapolis Fire Department.
City officials inspected more than 120 homes, with 80 of them affected to one degree or another, and 31 of those with major damage, said Collins, the code enforcement official. Of those, five will have to be demolished and 26 cannot be lived in for an indefinite period, Collins said.
"It looks like a war zone here right now," Hensley said.
Police have so far been unable to identify the two adults who died, a spokesman said this afternoon.
Jan Able, who lives nearby, said she believes the victims, a couple, lived in the home next door to where the blast occurred.
A woman in her 40s and her 12 -year-old daughter who live in the home where the blast originated were in Ohio at the time, said Able.
Able's daughter and son-in-law live a few streets from Able, so she and her husband are staying with them.
Able said it's a "very good neighborhood" full of professionals, including doctors, architects, nurses.
The blast originated near 8415 Fieldfare Way, according to the fire department release.
From his bedroom a block away, 47-year-old software engineer Chris Patterson felt the walls of his home shake. The force of the explosion shattered a glass sliding door in his home, he said.
Patterson said despite the grim situation, his spirit was bolstered by the efforts of his neighbors and first responders and has no plans to move away.
"I am freaked out, definitely, but I don't think we want to move. We really like this neighborhood. I went to church this morning and I feel blessed because of how fast emergency people responded and the way our whole neighborhood pulled together,'' Patterson said.
"I'm actually more inclined to stay.''
Patterson was allowed back into his home about 1:10 p.m.
More than 100 firefighters responded to the two-alarm fire, according to a fire department statement.
Officials evacuated about 200 people to a nearby elementary school, where the Red Cross sheltered about 20 of them for the night. Others spent the night at friends' homes or with family, and officials planned to take the rest to the Southport Presbyterian Church.
As of late Sunday morning, approximately 60 cases of water and Gatorade were outside the school and a police spokesman said donations are pouring in, including toiletries, doughnuts and pizza.
Firefighters brought the fire under control by 12:30 a.m. Sunday but were still putting out hotspots afterward, Hensley said.
From his bedroom a block away, 47-year-old software engineer Chris Patterson felt the walls of his home shake. The force of the explosion shattered a glass sliding door in his home, he said.
"It felt like something had hit our house," Patterson said.
Patterson and his wife stepped outside, where they found other neighbors in the street and an orange glow in the distance.
Another neighbor who lives in the newer subdivision where the blast happened said his windows were blown out.
The subdivision where the blast occurred was built in 2001, said resident Steve Belt. Belt said he was in bed with his wife when the explosion nearly knocked them out of bed, he said.
Belt was later escorted by police back inside his home for medication his wife needs because of a recent surgery.
As fire officials shut off gas to the neighborhood, police came by to evacuate residents to the elementary school staging area, where officials had established a triage area. There, after checking in with authorities, stunned neighbors sat on bleachers and waited for more information.
"You had a bunch of sleepy kids and nervous-looking parents," Patterson said.
Patterson and his wife ultimately spent the night at his mother's home.
As search and investigation efforts continue today, the Indianapolis Department of Code Enforcement will assess the safety of homes affected by the explosion.
Latest Breaking News
Twitter: @AdamSege
Reuters contributed to this report.