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Selecting your vehicle's make, model, and year allows us to display only parts and items specific to your car's model and year.
Part# CH22387
Mfg# 8433
Be the First to Review
OPGI Price: $39.99
Part Type: (P) High Performance, designed to improve performance
Years: 1961-1972
Sold As: EACH
2018 Skylark Catalog Page: 329
Convert your socket-style cap to a much stronger cap with HEI-style terminals. Not only do the HEI towers provide a locking connection, but you can hold the wires in place with the supplied retainer. With the retainer in place, there's no way a wire can pop off. The cap fits on a variety of MSD "Pro-Billet" distributors and can be used on many stock GM points-style distributors as well.


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Only hotels in 61420 zip code are listed below. Search for cheap and discount hotel rates in Blandinsville, IL for your upcoming leisure or conference / group travel. We list the best 61420 hotels and motels so you can review the Blandinsville hotel list below to find the perfect lodging. Hotels in McDonough county and area code 309 are also listed.
How should we direct your call?

subset: commoncrawl


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I'm not sure what to do to even begin returning???
I got some good news this week, there is a mission church that has started up, just under 60 miles from me, that is in a newer building!!!!
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Home staging began as a Hollywood secret, popular with A-list celebrities who wanted to showcase their lavish residences in lifestyle magazines. The luxury property market in America then adopted the practice during the recession to increase the value of high-end real estate. Now the trend is spreading to Europe – around 30% of luxury properties for sale in London are given a makeover. Home styling taps into the old adage that you are selling a lifestyle and not just a property, so when you stage your house for selling it's important the finished result exudes style and exclusivity.
Surfaces should be free of clutter, with just a few carefully curated accessories on show – elegant jewellery boxes, soft throw pillows and scented candles all create an impression of luxury. In the living room display glossy coffee table books and the latest editions of aspirational lifestyle magazines, such as Monocle and Harper's Bazaar. Artwork can provide a focal point for a room, and shows refined taste – you can even arrange for a few pieces on loan from a local art dealer.
Remove personal touches
It's important that potential buyers can visualise themselves living in the property, so let nothing spoil the illusion. Family photographs, children's drawings and pet paraphernalia should all be put away before spaces are photographed. Strong colours or bold embellishments can be off-putting, so neutral hues are preferred for home staging. Brightly coloured fabrics should be replaced with lighter shades and rooms should be painted in subtle, pale tones. One statement wall is fine, but avoid anything too garish.
Make it a sensory experience
Create a calm and welcoming atmosphere by playing relaxing music, such as light jazz or blues, on a quiet setting. Baking bread and brewing coffee are well-known tricks for enticing buyers, but a more subtle option is a scented candle or diffuser. Experts recommend a mixture of white tea and fig scents, which are fresh and clean while delicate enough not to overwhelm. These aromas have been proven to have a positive effect on sales, especially in light, minimal properties.
Stage rooms to show their function
Each room should be shown to its full potential. If you want to appeal to professionals, transform a spare bedroom into a clean and spacious office. If you are targeting the family market, create a nursery by arranging toys on a shelf, stacking board games in the corner and placing classic children's books like The Little Prince on the side table.
While home styling is crucial to making a good sale, you need the expertise of industry professionals to reach the right audience. Engel & Völkers are represented across four continents, with consultants on hand to assist you in every step of the sale – visit us in person or online today.


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Share songs and rhymes and with your baby in this interactive program.
Held on Wednesdays at 10.30am (during school terms), the Baby Bounce and Rhyme programme is designed especially for babies aged 3-18 months and their carers.
Parent/carer participation is essential.
Bookings are NOT required - simply turn-up shortly before commencement time.


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Answers Without Speaking
God answers our prayers without speaking. Can we communicate with each other without speaking?
Guidance, Holy Spirit, Prayer
Cup of water, piece of fruit, index cards
Approximately 5 minutes
Hand draw a map of the church. Print the following questions on index cards:
1. I am hungry; can you help me?
2. I need water for my plant; can you help me?
3. I really like your church; can you tell me how to locate the sanctuary to attend the service?
4. I'm thinking about joining a gang; what do you think about that?
Place the first four objects on a table and ask for two volunteers. Give the index cards to the first volunteer and he or she will verbally ask the questions to the second volunteer. The second volunteer may use any of the objects on the table to answer the questions, but may not speak. See how many of the questions can be answered. If time permits, allow other volunteers to play the two roles.
(After the questions have been asked and answered to the best of the student's ability, say the following:)
The cup of water and the piece of fruit represent how God answers our prayers for our physical needs. By supplying food, drink, homes and medicine, He shows that He cares for us.
The map and picture of the stop sign represent how God speaks to us through His written word—the Bible. The Bible is similar to a map, or owner's manual, for our lives.
God also speaks to us through the Holy Spirit, which is the part of us that feels guilty or bad when we know in our hearts that we did something wrong. In addition, this part of us feels happy and joyful when we worship and praise God.


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A happy, bouncy and bluesy ska track for piano, brass and band/rhythm section. The jolly upbeat feel of this track would be perfect for any advert, film or project that requires an upbeat happy feel.
This Pack contains
1. The Main Track (1:32) 2. A seamless loop version (0:56) 3. A one minute version with the full intro (hits at 0:30) (1:02) 4. A one minute version with a shorter intro (hits at 0:15)(1:01) 5. A 30 second version (hits at 0:15) (0:32)


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Personalize your experience by selecting the make, year & model of your vehicle.
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Are you a NCAA Ohio State fan? If so, show your support with Sports Licensing Solutions' Hitch Cover. Keep your hitch clear of debris and let everyone see your favorite team with officially licensed Hitch Covers. Fits all 2"/type III hitches. Molded 3-D chrome logo and hitch cover are both made of real chrome metal. Attaches without use of tools and it's easy to take on and off.
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Academic Courses
Educating the next generation of researchers through a unique scientific computing curriculum
TACC inspires and educates the next generation of computational scientists and technologists and increases the public's understanding of the roles computing and science play in shaping our society. To educate the next generation of researchers and computational professionals, TACC developed a unique scientific computing curriculum for The University of Texas at Austin.
In partnership with TACC, UT Austin offers five undergraduate and graduate level courses in supercomputing through the Department of Statistics and Scientific Computation in the College of Natural Sciences. The curriculum allows students to earn a Certificate of Scientific Computation (undergraduate students), or a Portfolio in Scientific Computation (graduate students), which is equivalent to earning a minor in the area.
TACC researchers, who are experts in high-performance computing, teach the courses, and students have the opportunity to apply the theories learned in class on TACC's HPC systems.
Students across engineering, science, mathematics, computer science, and liberal arts are all welcome.
Course Descriptions
SSC 322/392 (formerly 222/292) – Introduction to Scientific Programming
Introduction to programming using both the C and Fortran (95, 2003) languages, with applications to basic scientific problems. Covers common data types and structures, control structures, algorithms, performance measurement, and interoperability. Topics Covered: C and Fortran (95, 2003); Scientific problem applications; Common data types & structures; Control structures & algorithms; Performance measurement & interoperability.
SSC 335/394 – Scientific/Technical Computing
Comprehensive introduction to computing techniques and methods applicable to many scientific disciplines and technical applications. Covers computer hardware and operating systems, systems software and tools, code development, numerical methods and math libraries, and basic visualization and data analysis tools. Three lecture hours a week for one semester.
SSC 374C/394C – Parallel Computing for Science and Engineering (PCSE)
Parallel computing principles, architectures, and technologies. Parallel application development, performance, and scalability. Prepares students to formulate and develop parallel algorithms to implement effective applications for parallel computing systems. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Topics Covered: Principles, architectures & technologies; Parallel application development; Performance & scalability; Parallel algorithm formulation & development.
SSC 374E/394E Visualization & Data Analysis for Scientists & Engineers
Scientific visualization principles, practices, and technologies, including remote and collaborative visualization. Introduces statistical analysis, data mining and feature detection. Prerequisite: Graduate standing, Mathematics 408D or 408M, Mathematics 340L, and prior programming experience using C or Fortran on Linux or Unix systems.
SSC 375/395 – High Performance Scientific Computing with GPUs
Comprehensive introduction to parallel programming of GPUs with CUDA in C and Fortran. Description of the function and parallelism of the architecture components of GPUs and introduction to CUDA as the programming paradigm. CUDA language elements are presented side-by-side with hardware components to guide towards an efficient use of both language and hardware. Three lecture hours a week for one semester.


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A Palette from Pompeii
I've had fresco fever ever since I returned from Rome last month, and I have one more set of color thoughts to proffer before I move on to something else. Here 'tis, a Pompeiian palette.
The last time I was in Naples I saw the excavations, not the frescoes; this time it was the other way around, and they were breathtaking. It's true, human beings have been adorning their walls with scenes of daily life, spiritual life, idealized life and pattern since the caves at Lascaux, and here they reach another apex.
One sees the frescoes of Pompeii at the National Museum in Naples— very few are still in situ&madash; and they are many things under one banner. There are four styles of classical Pompeiian painting, though they all start to wash together for me. What we're basically looking at is a picture plane broken up into squares by architectural elements, that then highlight various narratives of a sacred or profane nature, depending on one's point of view— Niobe, Dido, Iphigenia and Ariadne might intermingle with satyrs or adverts for a brothel, and it's all mostly decorative, not ritualistic. It's believed that the Latins had a set of cartoons (blue print drawings), Greek in origin, that they passed around as templates. Color wise, the evolutions were from red, white and black to blue, purple and green.
One can't ignore that Pompeiian Red, which dominates. It's a classic cinnabar or vermillion, a warm red. To this palette I add Naples yellow, gold, caput mortem (bruise purple); viridian, cerulean and black. As another kind of painter, I constantly marvel at how much range and play you get out of a few elemental colors.
What does this mean to contemporary interiors? I don't know, but I love it. It was good enough for the Romans 2000 years ago and it still holds up in my book. Why not think along these lines— vermilion dining room, cerulean spa, caput mortem in the study, black and gold behind the bed…
I'll close with my own color studies. I have a friend with a dress shop and an exhibition space who will let me do whatever I want there. He doesn't know it yet, but he's getting Pompeii for Christmas.
– Mark Chamberlain, interior and decorative painter


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2012 Norwich Cathedral Peregrine chick 'Grant' spotted at Strumpshaw Fen.
2012 Norwich Cathedral Peregrine chick 'Grant' was spotted at Strumpshaw Fen by one of Norwich Cathedral Peregrine Project Observation Point volunteers.
They called HOT to let us know that they had spotted 'Grant' – the male of the two successfully fledged chicks hunting over Strumpshaw Fen.
Grant was positively identified by the ring on his leg:
"He was hunting then sat in a dead tree for about 30 seconds, in front of me".
The Hawk and Owl Trust Urban Peregrine Projects is looking for volunteers to help at the Norwich Cathedral Peregrine Project Observation Point.
If you're interested, please call Leanne at the Sculthorpe Moor reserve on 01328 856 788 or sign up today at our dedicated web site: www.upp.hawkandowl.org


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Sabbatical Leaves of Absence
Tuesday, October 15, 2013 (for Full Year Sabbatical Leaves and Sabbatical Enhancement Applications)
Wednesday, January 15, 2014 (for one semester leaves)
The FDC has primary responsibility for evaluating applications for both pre- and post-tenure sabbatical leaves; however, your department chair must approve applications before submission to the FDC and must provide a departmental plan for the period of the sabbatical leave to the DOF/VPAA's Office. Please provide your department chair with the departmental plan prior to the deadline, giving the chair adequate time to prepare his/her letter of support.
The deadlines, eligibility requirements, and procedures follow.
Applications for both pre- and other tenure full year sabbaticals and sabbatical enhancement applications must be submitted to the Office of the DOF/VPAA by Tuesday, October 15, 2013.
Applications for both pre- and other tenure one semester sabbaticals must be submitted to the Office of the DOF/VPAA by Wednesday, January 15, 2014.
(From 2013-14 Faculty Handbook, Part One, Section XII(A)):
A. SABBATICAL LEAVES OF ABSENCE1. Purpose
Sabbatical leaves of absence are granted by the Board of Trustees upon the recommendation of the Dean of the Faculty/Vice President for Academic Affairs to members of the Faculty to provide professional experience that cannot be secured during the academic recesses. Sabbatical leaves may be granted for the purpose of advanced study, work on research and creative projects, and for improvement of teaching skills (and for improvement of skills related to librarianship), with the expectation that in each case the College will benefit.
2. Eligibility
All tenured full-time members of the Faculty (and Library faculty and Artists-in-Residence who have been reappointed) who have served Skidmore College full-time for six consecutive years are eligible to apply.
a. The required service time may include up to one year's leave without pay, if so stated in the letter(s) granting such leave(s). If a faculty member serves full time for more than six consecutive years, the additional time will shorten the required service time for later sabbatical leaves if the delay in taking a sabbatical leave is requested by the Dean of the Faculty/Vice President for Academic Affairs for administrative reasons and is so stipulated in writing.
b. Full-time members of the Faculty who are in their sixth year and are candidates for tenure (and full-time members of the Library faculty and Artists-in-Residence who are in their sixth year and are candidates for reappointment) may apply for sabbatical leave. However, final approval of the sabbatical leave request is contingent upon the granting of tenure or, in the case of Library faculty and Artists-in-Residence, reappointment.
3. Procedures
a. Application
i. Application should be made on forms available through the Dean of the Faculty/Vice President for Academic Affairs.
ii. Plans should be discussed with the Chair of the department at least two weeks prior to submission of application.
iii. In addition to the application form, applicants must provide a brief statement of purpose, together with a detailed plan of work to be pursued, a brief statement of prospective value of the project, and plans for publication or exhibition.
iv. For full-year sabbatical leaves, applications must be received by the Dean of the Faculty/Vice President for Academic Affairs no later than October 15th of the academic year preceding the desired leave. For one-semester sabbatical leaves, applications must be received by January 15th of the academic year preceding the desired leave. The Dean of the Faculty/Vice President for Academic Affairs' Office will transmit one copy to the Chair of the Faculty Development Committee.
b. Consideration
i. On or before either October 15th or January 15th (whichever date pertains) of the year preceding the intended leave, the applicant's Chair should submit to the Dean of the Faculty/Vice President for Academic Affairs an evaluation of the project together with an explanation of departmental arrangements for the applicant's absence. The Dean of the Faculty/Vice President for Academic Affairs' Office will transmit a copy to the Chair of the Faculty Development Committee.
ii. Applications will be considered jointly by the Dean of the Faculty/Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Faculty Development Committee. The Dean of the Faculty/Vice President for Academic Affairs makes recommendations to the Board of Trustees for final approval.
iii. Applicants and their departmental Chairs will be notified by November 15th or March 1st (whichever date pertains) of the academic year preceding the leave.
c. Reporting
i. Major changes in objectives after the leave has been granted must be reported and may be made only by agreement with the Dean of the Faculty/Vice President for Academic Affairs. Petition for such change must be made in writing.
ii. Upon completion of the leave, a final report shall be sent to the Dean of the Faculty/Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Chair of the department, not later than April 15th in the case of first-semester leaves and November 15th in the case of second-semester or full-year leaves.
iii. Failure to file a satisfactory sabbatical report will affect eligibility for future sabbatical leaves.
4. Criteria for Evaluating Proposals
In evaluating applications, the following will be considered:
a the worth of the project;
b. length of service without leave;
c. ease of departmental arrangements;
d. financial condition of the College;
e. benefit to the individual and the College;
f. the individual's fulfillment of obligations regarding any previous sabbaticals as outlined in paragraph 3, c, iii above.
5. Sabbatical Salaries
The stipend for sabbatical salaries is one-half the annual salary for a leave of one academic year, or full salary for a leave of one semester.
B. PRE-TENURE PAID RESEARCH LEAVES OF ABSENCE1. Purpose
Pre-tenure paid leaves are intended to provide untenured faculty with opportunities for research in support of scholarly and/or curricular development which will contribute to their professional or teaching effectiveness and to the value of their later service to Skidmore College.
2. Eligibility
Untenured tenure-track faculty who are either in their third or fourth years of service to the College and who have been reappointed are eligible to apply for the following year. Leaves may be requested for either a full year at half-pay or one semester at full pay. The College will continue to provide all benefits through the Flexible Benefits Program. Retirement contributions will be calculated on base annual salary paid during the sabbatical. Faculty who are granted the Pre-Tenure Paid Research Leave will not be eligible for a regular sabbatical until they have completed six consecutive years of service to the College following such a leave although this service time may include up to two semesters' leave without pay, if so stated in the letter(s) granting such leave.
3. Procedures and Criteria
The procedures and criteria for evaluating proposals are the same as those stipulated for regular sabbatical leaves of absence. (See Part One [Faculty Rights and Responsibilities], Article XII [Leaves of Absence], Section A [Sabbatical Leaves of Absence], numbers 3 and 4.) For further information, please consult the Faculty Handbook.
The criteria and procedures for evaluating proposals are the same for pre-tenure research leaves and sabbatical leaves. Applications should include:
- Statement of purpose: a detailed plan of work to be pursued and an explanation of the prospective value of the project including plans for publication, exhibition, performance, innovation in pedagogy, preparation of new courses, or modification of existing courses.
- A letter from the applicant's chair appraising the value of the project for the applicant's professional development and indicating what provisions have been made to cover the applicant's absence.
C. FULL-YEAR SABBATICAL ENHANCEMENT AWARDThe Faculty Development Committee will offer 3-4 awards to support full-year sabbatical/pre-tenure leaves at 60% of salary. Full-Year Sabbatical Enhancement Awards provide compensation beyond the Sabbatical Stipend provided by the Dean of Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs' office for all sabbaticals. Faculty applying for a full-year sabbatical are eligible for both. Full-Year Sabbatical Enhancement Awards are highly competitive; therefore, faculty should clearly outline the projected scope of work to be accomplished during the sabbatical year.
Guidelines and Procedures:
- Faculty who apply for a full-year sabbatical/pre-tenure research leave are eligible to apply for a Sabbatical Enhancement Award. Faculty applying for a one-semester, sabbatical/pre-tenure research leave are ineligible.
- To be considered for a Sabbatical Enhancement Award, indicate your intention in the space provided on the DOF/VPAA on-line sabbatical/pre-tenure research leave application. Then submit an additional proposal outlining in detail the plan for a full-year sabbatical/pre-tenure research leave. Due to the highly competitive nature of this award, proposals should clearly describe the substance, scope, budget, and anticipated outcome of the sabbatical project, including why a full-year leave award is critical to the program of scholarship and research. In addition to an itemized budget projection, faculty should also indicate the amount and source(s) of other potential funding and support for the sabbatical and the project.
- Application must include a current CV. Additional documentation supporting or helping to explain the proposed project may also be submitted.
- Proposals will be assessed on their overall merit and quality, including the relative contribution a project may make to its respective field and to the mission of the College.
- Applications from faculty who have not filed completed reports for previous grants or sabbaticals awarded by the Faculty Development Committee will not be considered.
Applications must be delivered to the Office of the DOF/VPAA by the application deadline. Proposals, CV, and supporting documents may be delivered in hard copy to the DOF/VPAA's office or may be submitted via email attachment to firstname.lastname@example.com.
Other relevant information about sabbatical leaves appears in the Faculty Handbook. If you have questions, please feel free to contact Patricia Rubio, Associate Dean of the Faculty for Personnel, Development, and Diversity, in the Office of the DOF/VPAA or the Chair of the FDC.
Applications which are funded may be placed in a file accessible to the public, foundations, media, and future applicants.
The faculty member must submit a final report to the Office of the DOF/VPAA and the chair of the department not later than April 15 in the case of first-semester leaves and November 15 in the case of second-semester or full-year leaves.


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"In life, we only encounter the injustices we were meant to correct."
-Igari Toshiro, ex-prosecutor, leading lawyer in the anti-organized crime movement in Japan (1949-2010)
Igari Toshiro was my lawyer,
my mentor, and my friend. In the sixteen years I've been covering organized
crime in
Igari-san was a legend in law enforcement circles, the author of several books on dealing with organized crime and preventing its incursion into the business world. He was rather disliked in the underworld.
The last time I spoke
face-to-face with Igari was on August 8.
It was a Sunday; he had come back from
I also had a problem.
2008, I angered an organized crime boss named Goto Tadamasa, of the
Takarajima published Goto's biography this May. It's a great book, except for the part about me, on page 245-255. There's a quote from Goto that translates, roughly, to "Even though I'm no longer a yakuza boss, if I met this unpleasant reporter, it would be a big deal. He'd go from being a reporter targeted for death to one that was actually dead. Haha."
If you understood how yakuza order hits on people, you'd know that this is the equivalent of a fatwa on my life. I asked Igari to help me deal with the fall-out. He said he'd ask the publisher to retract the threatening passage. His parting words were: "It'll be a long battle. It'll take money and courage and you'll have to come up with those on your own. But we'll fight."
On August 28, Igari's body
was found in his vacation home in
Igari had been working on his final book, Gekitotsu (Collision), which was published posthumously on September 25. It's an amazing work that pulls no punches, using the real names of the yakuza and the politicians and individuals connected to them. He wrote, "Wherever it was possible, I made it a point to use the real names here. I'm aware that poses a huge risk for myself. I took that risk because I wanted to honestly write about my battles with the injustices hidden in our society and the results of those struggles. It's proper to write the name of those you've fought."
Before leaving for
In September, my best source in the Yamaguchi-gumi told me point-blank: "Igari-san was murdered by the yakuza. It wasn't Goto's direct order. He was exposing yakuza ties to Sumo and professional baseball. It angered people. You should be careful too. The yakuza don't warn people anymore, they just act."
There is a little shrine for Igari in his office. I went this month to pay my respects; there was no funeral. It was otherwise pretty much as he'd left it. On his desk was an article about the Sumo Association and match-rigging, heavily annotated. His secretary told me, "Igari-san was really happy to take your case. He laughingly bragged to everyone, 'I'm representing a reporter for National Geographic; that makes me an international lawyer!'" I could visualize him saying that, punctuated by his deep, rolling laugh.
Grief is a funny thing. Seeing his empty desk, for the first time I got a little misty-eyed. Not too much, because there were people around, you know.
You may wonder why I keep doing a job that is increasingly dangerous. I wonder myself.
I once asked Igari-san while we were drinking wine (he loved wine), "Have you ever been threatened? Do you ever fear for your life?"
He didn't answer my question directly. Instead, he said:
"I became a prosecutor because I wanted to see justice done in this world. When I quit and became a lawyer, I didn't go to work for the yakuza, like many ex-prosecutors do--I continued to fight them. Not all yakuza are bad guys, but 95 percent of them are leeches on society, they exploit the weak, they prey on the innocent, they cause great suffering. If you capitulate, if you run away, you'll be chased for the rest of your life. And if you're being chased, eventually what is chasing you will catch up. Step back and you're dead already. You can only stand your ground and pursue.
Because that's not only the right thing to do, that's the only thing to do."
And so I stay. Igari-san fought for justice and for truth. As an investigative journalist, I've always believed that's what my job entails, too. Sometimes, the only way to honor the dead is to fight for what they died for. It's the only way I know how to mourn.


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Buffalo School Board looks to contain Paladino
Maverick Carl Paladino takes a seat on the Buffalo School Board next week, and the current board members have been preparing for his arrival.
In the past two weeks, they've discussed and adopted regulations designed, in large part, to contain a man known for launching verbal assaults against the board, the superintendent and other administrators.
Specifically, they created a new sergeant-at-arms position to maintain "decorum and respect," and they updated their Code of Ethics policy, articulating what information from closed-door meetings board members are not allowed to reveal to the public and when they must recuse themselves from voting.
Not all of these actions were triggered solely by Paladino's election to the Park District seat, but board members acknowledge that his impending arrival is a serious concern.
"The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior," said board member Barbara Nevergold, referring to Paladino.
Nevergold said she presented the resolution for a sergeant-at-arms in response to board member Florence Johnson's concerns about decorum at future meetings.
"It's important for us, as board members, to represent the district appropriately and professionally," Nevergold said. "And also, we're role models for the students. How can we be role models if we don't conduct ourselves with decorum and respect for each other?"
Paladino isn't bothered by all this as he prepares to take his board seat July 1. He's amused – and still determined to have Pamela C. Brown fired as superintendent.
"My first motion is going to be for the dismissal of the superintendent," he said.
The current board will meet as an official body for the last time Wednesday and say goodbye to board members Ralph Hernandez, Rosalyn Taylor and Lou Petrucci.
The board will hold its annual reorganizational meeting the following Monday, when Paladino, James Sampson and Theresa Harris-Tigg will be sworn in.
The board voted 7-2 at its last regular meeting to have the district's legal counsel also serve under the new title of sergeant-at-arms, to maintain order at meetings.
Paladino, who was last thrown out of a board meeting in February, said he doesn't see why such a position is necessary. "I think most of the other board members are bigger than I am, physically," he said.
Now that the title of sergeant-at-arms exists, however, he said he might find it useful.
"If I think one of the board members is getting out of hand, I'll have to ask the sergeant-at-arms to get rid of that person," Paladino said.
The school board also has security officers who handle disruptive speakers, as Paladino knows first-hand.
In the past, Paladino's fiery comments have been enough to get board member Florence Johnson to leave her seat and prompted other board members to roll their eyes.
"I've sat on many boards," Paladino responded. "I know Robert's Rules, and I understand general decorum. But of course, I'm not politically correct, and I'm going to use my position to shine a light on what I think is wrong."
He added that he hopes he's seated between Johnson and board member Sharon Belton Cottman, the two board members who are most visibly upset by his presence at meetings.
In addition, board members recently reviewed a final version of the board's new Code of Ethics policy. The new policy is more explicit regarding what matters discussed behind closed doors cannot be disclosed to the public.
It also adds 17 lines of language about when and how board members must recuse themselves when a potential conflict of interest exists.
This would certainly apply to Paladino, who leases the Middle Early College building at 290 Main St. to the school district. Administrators are working to close the building when the lease with Paladino's Ellicott Development company expires.
Several board members have reaffirmed a commitment to ensuring that the building is closed in December.
Paladino has also had a hand in the renovating, leasing and financing of Health Sciences Charter School, Tapestry Charter School and West Buffalo Charter School.
The developer reiterated Friday that he will not participate or vote on any matters involving Middle Early College. He was less sure about other votes that may involve other charter schools.
"I'd have to think that out," he said.
The new Code of Ethics policy was in the works before Paladino's election, said Cottman, chairwoman of the board's Finance Committee. She said it has been on her radar ever since Buffalo Public Schools administrator Debbie Buckley was fired last year for improper spending of grant money.
"We've been working on that in committee for months," she said.
The school board released the investigator's report about Buckley's misuse of more than $330,000 of anti-poverty money to benefit people and businesses close to her only after The Buffalo News filed a lawsuit through the state's Freedom of Information Law.
Though Buckley's actions triggered the new Code of Ethics policy, Paladino's School Board election motivated district leaders to make sure the new Code of Ethics policy was as thorough and comprehensive as possible, Cottman said.
One thing Paladino and the remaining board members agree on, however, is that things are going to change.
Fellow incoming board member James Sampson agrees that's likely to be the case. He's been critical of the board's leadership and said he supports a resolution reviewing the superintendent's tenure to see if she is "the right person for the district at this point in time."
"I suspect it's not going to be nearly as collegial," he said. "I think there's going to be at least a few of us on the board who are going to bring up issues that need attention. We're going to bring up things people don't want to hear. That's part of governance."
For more education news, visit the School Zone blog at www.buffalonews.com. email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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Saul Bellow, edited by Benjamin Taylor
Viking: 608 pp, $35
Saul Bellow, being Saul Bellow, coined literary profit from emotional tumult. From personal pain came self-exploration and impish bons mots, poured into the heightened confessional of his fiction and also into the letters he fired off throughout his life. These bulletins from the biographical front, as it were, are now collected in a hefty, handsome volume and show that Bellow, while grappling constantly with moods that swung between euphoria and mad suffering, was never not reaching for rapture and grace.
"It wouldn't do much to see matters clearly. With the sharpest eyes in the world I'd see nothing but the stinking fog of falsehood," Bellow wrote to colleague Jack Ludwig early in 1961. "And I haven't got the sharpest eyes in the world; I'm not superman but superidiot. Only a giant among idiots would marry Sondra and offer you friendship."
What was that all about? Bellow was teaching for a term at the University of Puerto Rico; back in Chicago he and Ludwig, along with their friend Keith Botsford, had launched a literary journal, the Noble Savage. And Bellow, the "giant among idiots," had just discovered that Ludwig was engaged in a long-term affair with his wife, Sondra.
"God knows I am not stainless faultless Bellow," he continued. "I leave infinities on every side to be desired. But love her as my wife? Love you as my friend? I might as well have gone to Ringling Brothers and been shot out of a cannon twice a day. At least they would have let me wear a costume."
That's not just hilarious (and typical of the riches in this book); it also provides a kind of Rosetta stone for Bellow's process, the way he took the mess of his emotional life and transformed it almost immediately into art. Lots of writers try this, of course, but nobody else has ever been gifted with Bellow's unique combination of nimble thought and supercharged prose. "I'm not even faintly myself when I'm not writing," he says, dancing almost spookily above the imbroglios he'd helped create.
Details of Ludwig's betrayal poured at once into Bellow's letters and into his novel in progress, "Herzog," in which Ludwig became the comically treacherous (and one-legged!) Valentine Gersbach. Ludwig was smart enough to give "Herzog" a glowing review but not smart enough to resist penning his own roman à clef, the now-forgotten "Above Ground," allowing Bellow to remark: "It is monstrous to be touched by something so terribly written."
Best not to mess with this guy. Bellow was cantankerous, even as a young man, and a determined contrarian. "I love solitude but I prize it most when company is available," he writes. On the other hand, he was deeply romantic, not least in the passion with which he pursued his art. In 1932, at 17 and writing to his then-girlfriend Yetta Barshevsky, he comes on at first like a student straight out of Dostoevsky: "The country sleeps. The waves surge angrily at the house, they cannot reach it, they snarl and pull back. Over me the light swings up and back, up and back. It throws shadows on the paper, on my face. I am thinking, thinking, Yetta, drifting with night, with infinity, and all my thoughts are of you," he begins. Then a different tone asserts itself. "I hate melodrama. The only thing I hate more intensely than melodrama and spinach is myself. You think perhaps I am insane? I am. But I have my pen.…"
Already the characteristic Bellow is starting to emerge, with a voice that is both raffish and lofty, serious and slapstick. Flattering letters to Edmund Wilson and to editors at the New Yorker show his awareness that literature is not just a craft but a career, a greasy pole that has to be climbed. Success comes slowly, but by the mid-1950s — with the publication of "The Adventures of Augie March" and the collecting of the first of Bellow's three National Book Awards — the struggle turns to eminence and a sure sense of what his fiction must do: "A novel, like a letter, should be loose, cover much ground, run swiftly, take risk of mortality and decay."
Vibrant, both chatty and polished, the letters serve as the autobiography Bellow never wrote. They show marriages coming, going. Literary friendships — with Ralph Ellison, John Berryman, Alfred Kazin, John Cheever, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick and Martin Amis, among others — proceed through turbulent, sometimes rivalrous cycles. Cash is always a problem. "I've learned the true value of a dollar," he writes at the time of "Seize the Day" in 1956. "It's about two cents, on my scale."
Even winning the Nobel Prize in 1976 fails to solve the problem, merely prompting lawsuits for non-payment of alimony and Bellovian yelps of self-ironizing despair: "I may ask the President to revive the WPA for my sake." Misery never fails to excite him, and the aphorisms pour forth in an endless cascade: "What is life without a few grave anxieties? Incomplete."
Bellow had a metaphysical turn of mind, but his real power was all verbal. His joyful, dizzying word-hurricanes gust us closer to the essences of people and life rather than away from them. He was intellectual yet intimate, and his correspondence fizzes with flair and humanity. He kept in touch with the friends of his youth and outlived them all so that the final pages of this teeming book echo with the sad sound of doors closing. In 1997, he mourns, tenderly, the passing of Yetta Shachtman, "Comrade Yetta," the girl he had wooed back in 1932. "Her Pa was a carpenter and his old Nash was filled with tools, shavings and sawdust. And now she has gone — human sawdust and shavings."
Facing death, Bellow remained a wizard. His fictional creation Moses Herzog never sends any of the letters he writes throughout "Herzog," and we should be grateful that Bellow actually went ahead and stamped the ones he wrote himself, leaving us these multiple and wildly entertaining keys to the intense theater of his self-scrutiny.
Rayner is the author, most recently, of "A Bright and Guilty Place: Murder, Corruption, and L.A.'s Scandalous Coming-of-Age."


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Here's what we'll cover:
What Is Furniture Store POS & Inventory Software?
Common Features of Furniture Store POS & Inventory Software
Market Trends to Understand
Furniture and home decor stores face challenges on three fronts. First, there is the sheer size of the inventory, both in scope and in actual physical dimensions. Second, there are the options that the store has to pay for stock inventory. Third, there are the options that customers have to pay for purchases.
Furniture and decor items can range in size from sitting on a coffee table to filling an entire room. Often, purchases are delivered directly to the customer. The POS system must handle delivery scheduling and there should be a module for route planning for delivery. Inventory may be located on the showroom floor, in a storeroom or in a separate warehouse. Items are generally one of three types; stock, special order and customize to order. The POS should handle customization options and take deposits.
Expensive furniture, decor and antique inventory is often floorplanned. The inventory system and the accounts payable system must share information to calculate floorplan amounts and payments.
Installment sales are the rule for furniture; stores either factor the sale or carry the paper. In the first case, the system needs to calculate the discount and notify the factoring company. In the second case, the POS and the accounts receivable system must calculate payments (including "no interested for X months" calculations) and generate coupon books, if required.
Payroll is standard, but most furniture and decor retailers need support for commissions and sales quotas. General ledger is standard, but there tend to be many corrective entries as accounts payable and receivables change; for example, if a customer takes longer to pay then 24 months, then the interest rate changes from zero percent to 22 percent. Most systems are run on-premises, but software as a service (SaaS) offerings are available and cloud-based systems are attractive alternatives for those upgrading existing computer systems or replacing paper-based systems.
We often hear interested buyers ask, "What's the best furniture store software?" While it's hard to drill down to just one vendor that offers the best POS for furniture store, these are the requirements that buyers should inquire about. In addition to core business functions, furniture and decor retailers should consider the following functions to meet their unique requirements:
|Floor planning
|The system needs to track which items are floorplanned and the due dates for payments. If a floorplanned item is sold, the system needs to post the transaction through to accounts payable for payment.
|Suite sales
|Furniture and decor items are often sold in suites, for example, a dining room with a table, chairs and buffet. The POS and inventory should properly price the sales of suites and individual items and reset inventory valuation as necessary.
|The system should support factoring accounts receivable. It should prepare factoring documentation as required and correctly update the accounts receivable system.
|Credit sales
|The POS and accounts receivable need to properly handle credit sales. It must handle variable terms and promotional terms. It must be able to handle a mix of store-held paper and factored credit.
|The POS system should allow customers to put products on layaway and identify the item as such in the inventory system. The layaway payments should be treated as deposits in the general ledger.
|Promotional pricing
|The system should allow sale and promotional pricing. The pricing should change in the POS and inventory automatically at a specified time and date, if desired.
|Line management
|Pieces of furniture and decor items are often produced as part of a line. The system should track which other items are available in stock and which are available by special order.
|Delivery scheduling
|The POS system should be able to schedule deliveries at the time of purchase. Fulfillment systems should be able to plot delivery routes for each day.
|Customizing/special order
|Many items are available customized to order, a basic frame with a choice of finishes or upholstery. The POS system should be able to quote for customized-to-order goods, estimate finish dates and schedule pick up or delivery.
|Inventory tracking
|The system should be able to track the location of each item, whether it is on the floor, in the stockroom or in the warehouse. For chain stores, furniture retail software should track which showroom has the items and allow in store transfers or customer pick up at other locations.
|Appointment management
|Stores that have sales quotas or commission pay should have an appointment system to support the sales representatives. Customers can ask for availability and schedule appointments with specific sales reps if desired. Advanced systems will have self-service appointment systems available online.
|Split tender
|The system must be able to accept payment over several different methods. For example, a customer may want to pay with cash and two different credit cards. The system must properly apply the split payments to the correct ledger accounts.
There are a few things furniture store software buyers should be paying attention to:
Our service is simple and 100% free to customers like you because software vendors pay us when we connect them with quality leads. You save time and get great advice. Vendors get great referrals. It's a win for everyone!


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The Tribune explores the reverberations, many years later, of the killings of three children -- the echoes of pain, of anger and of inspiration.
Last Sunday, Byron Taylor strode down a church hallway, a tall 29-year-old with stylishly locked hair pulled back over the neck of his three-piece pinstriped suit, a whirl of speed under control.
He wove through knots of elders in long, white cassocks and little boys in imperfectly tied ties, shaking hands, opening doors and greeting everyone he knew, which was apparently everyone.
"Hey, what's going on?" "Hey, what's happening?" "Hey, beautiful," to an elderly woman who shot back, "Hey, good-looking."
He was the very picture of an intelligent, accomplished, respected and loved young man.
Sixteen years ago, he was the picture of something else.
In 1993, a schoolmate of Taylor's was shot to death. Shaun Carey, 14, who had just graduated from Holy Angels School and begun Mount Carmel High School, was one of 65 children younger than 15 killed that year. As part of its coverage of the tragic toll, the Tribune ran a photograph of Byron Taylor in his classroom at Holy Angels, wiping a tear from his eye as he wrote an essay on gun violence.
The image seemed to crystallize not just the loss of innocence of a 13-year-old boy but the pain of an entire city whose young were being cut down. It was so arresting that four TV stations came out to do stories on young Byron. Tom Brokaw came to the family's house and sat in their kitchen.
It was too soon to tell how Shaun's killing, and other violent deaths that that touched Byron's life as he grew up, might affect him.
But it isn't too soon any more.
"All I could think about was, 'He's never going to see his mom again. He's never going to do anything,' " Taylor said.
He stood in his new condominium on the South Side, with its gleaming hardwood floor and its saffron-painted walls and thought about that long-ago death and the way it had lit a kind of fire.
On some level, he thinks, knowing a child who never got to live his life inspired him to make something of his own.
"I think this was the catalyst to get serious about what was going on," he said. "Going to the Navy, going to college -- all that started here.
"I never forgot this. It was always there, that I've got to keep going.
"So, I kept going."
He kept going, from high school to college, from college to the Navy, from the Navy to graduate school, from graduate school to a postgraduate program. He kept going, from a master's degree in social work from the University of Illinois at Chicago to a career as an addictions psychotherapist, working now at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center while studying for a doctorate in counseling psychology at Argosy University Chicago.
He kept going, from a boy who attended church to a man who helps lead one, filling so many roles at Prayer & Faith Outreach Ministries on the Far South Side that the Rev. William Hudson III, church pastor, said, "I don't know how he balances everything he does."
He reinvented parts of himself and even renamed himself, discarding Byron and taking as his first name Taylorr, a rakish spelling of his last name.
But as quickly as he has moved, he has essentially remained the same sunny boy who used to herald his daily arrival from school with a Ricky Ricardo-worthy, "Lucy, I'm home!"
He visits his mother and aunt in Harvey almost every night. He bakes cookies. When his dog sneezes, he says, "Bless you."
"None of us is perfect," said Rosemary Walton, 61, Taylor's best friend, who has been singing in choirs with him for 15 years and joins him every Sunday for an afternoon meal they call "dunch." "But I think he is the total package."
When Taylor was born, his mother was living with a friend of her grandmother's -- a social worker her grandmother hoped would help teach the young woman how to raise a baby. She was a good girl, one of Taylor's cousins remembers, about 19 years old, with a bit of a smart mouth.
One day when the baby was several months old, family members say, she got into a car with a man and disappeared.
"No one ever saw her again," said Carla Thomas, Taylor's cousin. "Nobody ever heard from her. Never."
The social worker was Gloria Taylor, and she adopted Byron.
And Gloria Taylor kept going too. She moved Byron and her two older daughters repeatedly, trying to find safer blocks in the Englewood neighborhood. Even so, Taylor remembers New Year's Eves when she ordered the children to lie on the floor in case of gunfire.
But she created a calm oasis at home, Taylor said, and when the outside world intruded, as it did with Shaun's death, she turned it into a lesson.
"My mom -- my mom is awesome -- she sat me down and talked to me," Taylor said. "She explained how valuable life is, how fleeting it can be. ... She said that when life is given to you, you have to make the best of it."
Gloria Taylor, now 61 and retired, was terrified for her son, who rode a bus to Holy Angels.
"I worried about him all the time," she said. "I was strict sometimes with him."
She didn't really have to be. Taylor had no interest in hanging out on the street. He liked staying home; he had nice friends. But being a good child does not guarantee safety in a hard neighborhood. Taylor was surrounded by violence.
"I remember two doors down from me, the guy was shot; he was my friend's brother," Taylor said. "I remember pistol-whippings in the alley behind the house. Friends were killed, all through high school."
When Byron graduated from Holy Angels at the end of the year Shaun was killed, Gloria Taylor moved the family to Harvey so Byron could attend Thornton Township High School. They were finally in a safe neighborhood, but still, "I went up to the school a lot to check in on him," she said. "I would take my lunch break and go see how he was doing. Half the time, he didn't even know."
Byron had been growing husky, but in high school he ballooned to 300 pounds. And flummoxed by the freedom of being out of a school uniform, he floundered socially.
"It was one of those things," he said, shrugging. "But things change."
He changed them.
He decided that it was OK not to be one of the cool kids. He made his peace, and then started losing the weight. He dated one of the cutest girls in school. He went to college, first Trinity Christian College and then UIC. But at UIC one semester, he was unable to get into a course he needed. Determined to keep moving, he impulsively called a Navy recruiter. When he found out he could get reimbursed for graduate school, he enlisted.
He served as a religious program specialist, assisting chaplains and overseeing the choir. And in the Navy, he gave himself his new name. One day someone jokingly called him "Taylor Taylor." The nickname stuck, and because he had always hated "Byron," he unofficially changed his first name, later giving it a distinctive spelling. His mother and aunt still call him Byron -- "It's his name," insisted his aunt, Loretta Poliah. But his mail is delivered to "Taylorr Taylor."
After five years of active duty that took him from Australia to Dubai, and three years in the Individual Ready Reserve, he returned to Chicago. Then he set out to find his father.
He had stayed in touch with his birth mother's grandmother, who often mentioned that she knew where his father lived: somewhere along a 15-block stretch of a street in Harvey.
One day eight years ago, Taylor put on his Sunday best and began knocking on doors. Six and a half hours later, he found his father's parents, and through them, his father. He has now added to his life a delighted father, stepmother and four half-brothers.
"I am so proud of him," said his father, Kenneth Anderson, 50, a machine operator who lives in Lynwood. "I just wish I was in his life for more than these few years."
Violence continued to chew at the edges of his life. Two young men he had mentored at his previous church were killed, one recently. His former pastor's stepson was shot and killed this year as he was sitting in a car talking with a friend.
During an internship running a group for at-risk youths in East Chicago, he gave the boys advice on how to keep away from gun violence. Obey your parents, he told them; be where you're supposed to; don't give in to peer pressure.
Even those, of course, may not be enough.
Why did Byron Taylor escape the violence that claimed so many others? An involved mother, a spiritual base, an innate dislike of street trouble, a drive to achieve, luck -- who can say?
Sixteen years after Shaun Carey was killed, Taylor looked once more at the newspaper story on his death.
"This could have been me," he said. "I didn't have to be here now. I was in the same environment, exposed to the same stuff." Taylor's explanation is faith.
"I believe," he said, "that there is a divine plan."
He is moving, always moving, to help fulfill it.


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After qualifying on it you will be able to borrow an amount ranging from £100 to £1500 for 14 to 31 days. Hence, you will be able to do several things through this loan amount. Paying your electricity bills, medical bills, child's examination fees, home installments or loan installments will be not a problem now. This loan amount is ideal for repairing your damaged car too. With such great variety of benefits you will get other good facilities too.
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Not only these, you will find it suitable to be approached with any credit history. Your bad credit records are not being prevented and CCJ, arrears, late payment, defaults, bankruptcy or skipping of installments are accepted in it.


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Winter gardens don't have to be wastelands of dead plants and snow drifts. A little advance planning will give your yard curb appeal during the coldest months of the year.
"Winter is not going to be a riot of color; it's more little jewels," says Alison Caldwell, buyer for Hicks Nurseries in Westbury, N.Y. "It's not as flamboyant as May. But that doesn't mean there shouldn't be winter interest."
It's all about structure
Three-season landscapes concentrate on blooms and foliage, but winter gardens need structure to provide visual interest.
When you choose plants and trees in spring, consider varieties that provide a pop of color in winter — shrubs that set berries, and trees that reveal interesting bark when the leaves are gone.
"The bark on crape myrtle looks like statuary," says Caldwell, "and the way the weeping form of Japanese maple holds snow is beautiful."
Not only do ornamental trees look great, but for a $50 to $100 investment, they'll add to the value of your property.
Berry bushes also attract birds, which give your yard flashes of color and movement. Ornamental grasses, with tall, slender stalks that sway in the wind, put on a winter ballet. (Note: You can leave them all winter, then cut them down in the spring to promote new growth.)
Plant these for winter wonder
Here are some popular varieties that provide a winter show. (Make sure you check the plant's Cold Hardiness Zone before buying.)
- Ilex (holly): Shiny green leaves and berries that change color with the temperature make Ilex a winter favorite. Plant male and female shrubs together to produce lots of berries. Some popular varieties are Winter Gold, which sets cluster of yellow berries in fall, and Jersey Delight, which sports bright red berries. (Zones 4-8)
- Cornus (dogwood): Branches of some dogwood species have wonderful colors that dazzle in winter. The Red Twig dogwood is a compact shrub that sports dark red stems in winter; the Yellow Twig dogwood shows off bright yellow stems. (Zones 3-7)
- Camellia japonica: This shrub maintains dark green leaves year-round, but some species delight home owners in winter with a profusion of blossoms. The Alba Plena variety has white winter blossoms, while the Bob Hope sports magenta blossoms with yellow stamens. (Zones 8-10)
- Hamamelis (witch hazel): A wide range of blossoms appear on bare twigs throughout winter, making this plant a dazzling sight in hedges. A lovely fragrance makes witch hazel a good shrub to plant near doorways. (Zones 5-9)
- Miscanthus: White plumes of this 5-foot ornamental grass sway in the wind throughout winter, peeking above snow blankets and giving your landscaping varied height and visual interest. (Zones 6-9)
- Helleborus: This compact plant delivers blossoms above green, lance-shaped leaves from January to March in many regions. Some popular winter varieties include: Winter's Bliss Lenten Rose (cream), Mardi Gras Bicolor Mix Lenten Rose (shades of pink), and Pine Knot Select Strain Lenten Rose (purple and lavender). (Zones 4-9)
Last-minute color
If you didn't think about winter color when you planted in spring, here's how you can add some 11th-hour pop to your winter landscape.
- In beds and containers, plant hearty ornamental heirloom vegetables, such as varieties of Swiss chard, kale, and cabbage
- Hang bird feeders to attract wild birds that stay around throughout winter. Birds are always searching for water during cold months, so add a heater to bird baths, too.


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Boise high-rise spire to change, looks too much like LDS temple
10/27/2013 10:17amOwners of a new 18-story building in downtown Boise say they are considering ways to alter the appearance of a spire at the top because of concerns it makes the nearly completed structure look like a Mormon temple.
Sandy emergency agencies join SLC dispatch services
10/27/2013 11:10amSandy's public safety services have joined with Salt Lake dispatch in an effort to provide police and fire crews more timely and accurate information in serving the community.
State prison move slows to consider effect on correctional system
10/27/2013 1:44pmThe committee considering relocating the Utah State Prison voted unanimously Wednesday to postpone requests for bids after suggestions from advisers and the public.
Lou Reed, iconic punk poet, dead at 71
10/27/2013 3:15pmLou Reed, the punk poet of rock 'n' roll who profoundly influenced generations of musicians as leader of the Velvet Underground and remained a vital solo performer for decades after, died Sunday at 71.
Hiker injured at Bell Canyon Reservoir, rescue teams respond
10/27/2013 3:33pmSearch and rescue teams were deployed Sunday to assist an injured hiker near Bell Canyon Reservoir
Ogden homes evacuated after car backs into natural gas meter
10/27/2013 4:21pmRoughly 30 people were evacuated from their homes Sunday afternoon after a vehicle backed into a natural gas meter and ruptured a gas line, according to the Ogden fire officials.
Injured hiker rescued after spending night on Mount Timpanogos
10/27/2013 5:08pmUtah County search and rescue crews planned to spend Saturday night with an injured hiker on Mount Timpanogos.
Woman hit, killed by train while sleeping on tracks in Salt Lake City
10/27/2013 5:24pmA woman was killed early Sunday morning when she was hit by a train in Salt Lake City, police said.
Police release video of man who attacked woman in WVC Burger King restroom
10/27/2013 6:24pmPolice are asking for the public's help finding a man accused of attacking a woman in the restroom of Burger King in West Valley City.
Smoothie business helps brothers raise money for life-changing service trip to Kenya
10/27/2013 8:33pmJust one day after President Uhuru Kenyatta declared the Nairobi siege over, three brothers from Draper left the comforts of home in Utah and flew to Kenya. They spent about three weeks serving the Kenyan people.
3 inspiring women honored for lifetimes of good deeds at Jewish Family Service event
10/27/2013 10:35pmHundreds gathered for the Sixth Annual Jewish Family Service Tribute Dinner to honor three inspiring women.
Once disfigured by cancer, Santaquin woman has her face back
10/27/2013 11:20pmYears of sun-worshiping cost a Utah woman a large portion of her face. She worried she would never look normal again.
U of U researchers find link between pregnancy weight gain and autism
10/27/2013 11:49pmA new study released by University of Utah psychiatric researchers shows a link between weight gain during pregnancy and autism spectrum disorders.
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2008-12-10 / Opinion
Babylon LIRR branch needs TLC
Dear Editor: With the arrival of the cold weather, once again many commuters are subject to the absolute worse conditions of any track side waiting room on the entire Babylon Branch of the LIRR. It was requested that the LIRR address these very sub standard conditions but in two years they only addressed the plexiglass windows.
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text: Sijun Forums :: View topic - [crit if ya like] Reclining Woman Log in to check your private messages Sijun Forums Forum Index >> Gallery/Finished Work View previous topic :: View next topic Author Topic : "[crit if ya like] Reclining Woman" IrulannmemberMember #Joined: 20 Nov 2000Posts: 66Location: Dallas, TX Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2001 11:18 pm this is probably all I'm goin to do on this image, I really like how it turned out, not really terribly polished, but I like it anyway--Crit please! ------------------ All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. ********************** I Imagined an Image My Image Imagined Me and I became It's puppet just a Child of It's Imagery Back to top GuymemberMember #Joined: 29 Feb 2000Posts: 602Location: British Columbia, Canada Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2001 12:38 am whoa hey i like that. very nicely done. live drawing or painting or did you use a photo. just curious. kinda looks impressionist like Back to top IrulannmemberMember #Joined: 20 Nov 2000Posts: 66Location: Dallas, TX Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2001 12:41 am Thanks for the compliment Guy I used a reference photo for only the first few minutes--I had to get the proportion and pose sorta right--I then made myself close the reference pic (it was an impressionist nude) and the rest of the pic is my own. ********************** I Imagined an Image My Image Imagined Me and I became It's puppet just a Child of It's Imagery http://www.geocities.com/winterblood_fyrestryfe/digipage.html [This message has been edited by Irulann (edited January 07, 2001).] Back to top toast!memberMember #Joined: 29 Sep 2000Posts: 442Location: France Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2001 5:14 am hi irulann, I really like the way you choose your colors; my few comments will be on the arms/feet parts ; they look a bit strange , maybe the connections between the legs/feet are wrong, and same thing for her right hand Btw, the hair is really nice rendered don't keep it polished , keep your rought style , seems that it s really working well on this type of picture. your pic is original and makes the image of the women look very sensitive and sensual , i think that s the way you wanted the image , which is a good idea (it changes from the chicks with enormous guns we see here and there) Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First Sijun Forums Forum Index -> Gallery/Finished Work All times are GMT - 8 Hours Page 1 of 1 Jump to: Select a forum Digital Art----------------Digital Art DiscussionWork in ProgressGallery/Finished Work Miscellaneous----------------Random MusingsArchive : Sep99 - Dec00 You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum Powered by phpBB © 2005 phpBB Group


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Getin Noble Bank (GNB)
-2.27% 15:28
Current report 75/201120.12.2011
Purchase of Bonds of Getin Noble Bank S.A. by Noble Securities S.A.
Current report 75/2011 dated 20 December 2011 The Management Board of Getin Noble Bank S.A. (the "Issuer") hereby announces that today, i.e. on 20 December 2011 it has been informed by its subsidiary - Noble Securities S.A. with its registered office in Cracow (the "Company") on the following transactions involving the Issuer's securities (D Series Bonds) issued by the Issuer on 20 September 2011 within the Bonds Issue Program up to the maximum amount of PLN 500.000.000 (the "Program"), on which the Issuer informed in Current report 13/2011 dated 25 March 2011: - on 20 December 2011 - purchase of 200 D Series Bonds by the Company; Noble Securities S.A., as Sub-Dealer, is a party to the Dealer Agreement concluded on 25 March 2011 by and between the Issuer and BRE Bank S.A. with its registered office in Warsaw, regarding the aforementioned Program. Bonds have been purchased by the Company on the secondary market, outside the regulated trading system, on the basis of a civil law agreement. Average unit purchase price of Bond amounted to 1,020.77 PLN. Legal basis: §5 (1)(6) and §12 of the Minister of Finance Regulation of 19 February 2009 on current and periodic reporting by issuers of securities and the rules of equal treatment of the information required by the laws of non-member states (Journal of Laws of 2009 No. 33, item 259 with later amendments).


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Any casual acquaintanceship with Garfield will tell you that the cat spends heroic amounts of time sleeping, eating, watching TV and lazing because he loves doing these things, and hates denying himself anything. Too true, but unlike his cartoon glutton layabout forbearers like Jughead Jones, Shaggy Rogers, or Dagwood Bumstead, Garfield is not motivated solely by joie de vivre. A true divergent thinker, he also tends to take up an oppositional stance for the purpose of flustering others, bucking expectations, and making excuses to himself for his actions. In concrete terms, Garfield not only stays in bed all day because he is lazy/ has nothing to do, but because he knows it bothers Jon. Why it bothers Jon is another set of issues. For the most part we can assume that he sees in Garfield's refusal to get out of bed the futility of his daily life, an acceptance of laissez faire "why bother?" nihilism that Jon is not prepared to make.
Who knows what Jon is really up to, but Garfield is so entrenched in habits of manipulation that he can only assume that acceptance and support is the kind of scam he's used to pulling himself. The panic in Garfield's eyes when Jon seems to approve of the cat's plan to stay a-bed all day is that of a master reverse psychologist faced with his own tactic.


text: Tribal Acoustics uses guitars, strings and percussion to conjure up a modern take on the feeling of tribal rhythms. It builds throughout its 3:43 mins introduding more into the mix as it goes along. Congas and Bongos provide the main percusion section with synths and choirs also adding another dimension. Motivational and a great backdrop for any project. The download includes both mp3 and wav files


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theBecca wrote:
ANY suggestions would be excellent! I'm relocating from Boston and will miss the city dearly, so a larger town wouldn't be such a bad thing either
Whats more important? climbing? paddling? flat water boating? Parasailing? Surf fishing? How far are you willing to drive to do stuff?? Other hobbies? Pro sports? dating scene? college scene? Airport?
I was born in Geensboro, lived in NC and Va most my life. Been outside about everywhere down here. I was just in Roanoke 2 weekends ago, to XC ski with my bro, back to Va this weekend for winter exploits
Judging by above geographically you need to be in Charlottesville, Roanoke, Richmond or the "Triad"- AKA Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point. Need to include the "Triangle"- Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill


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Hi Greg,
I like this idea *a lot*. I've seen pieces of it in other database engines. One advantage of these features: they would reduce the friction between the database and application tiers. Very cool.
:{> Andy
Really great idea Greg. I know that others have asked for the Create or Alter. Here is the Active Connect item, https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=127219.
The Contract or Rowset idea is great. You can do this with VIEWS and CTE's so why not stored procedures?
I think that enabling TVPs for OUTPUT would get us most of the way there in a reasonable fashion. Then you could name your outputs and would be good to go on that part. Some games could probably be played so that if the caller is an app rather than another stored proc, the data would be streamed back instead of actually put into an object in tempdb (at least, in some cases--there would be cases where this would be impossible). Lots of potential for that feature to be leveraged for contracts. Now we just need to get the attention of the right people at MS. Not an easy task...
But using TVPs would require instantiating the data in the temp object first (wasting precious RAM/disk resources) as opposed to simply streaming the data back in TDS directly. Seems like they could be able to 'know' that the TVP was simply being populated to be streamed back and not used subsequently in the sproc as an effective workaround to accomplish your objective though.
Oh god yes, I've been bleating about this criminally overlooked deficiency in sprocs for years without ever making any headway. Contracts are vital for SSIS which totally relies on being able to interrogate for metadata.
The only trouble is that sprocs would still need to be backward compatible thus implementing this would further fragment an already fragmented language. This is part of the reason why I often suggest its time for a new language.
Do you have a Connect submission for this Greg?
Hi Jamie,
Yes, I've just added one: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=525653
How would you handle when the results change based on input parameters? Ex: create proc myproc @choice bit = 0 as if @choice = 0 select a from t else select b from t ?
It's like you cobbled together the ideas in my mind and turned them into concise, useful suggestions. Are you available for parties? :)
Excellent idea!
Entity Framework 4 is proving to be a thorn in my side and it is a very difficult choice between hand crafting the details of each recordset returned by every stored procedure or changing every stored procedure to return one row when provided with null parameters.
However, we may be looking at this problem the wrong way. I wonder whether these access layer technologies could prompt for test values in the parameters rather than just passing nulls. This would trigger a recordset and get the output column details. Otherwise we will be adding additional information to each and every stored procedure unnecessarily.
Hi Jon,
In that case, I'd suggest that two potential rows would be defined. I'm not suggesting that every execution would produce all rows defined, just that rows output should match one of the definitions.
C Rummel,
Good point. Perhaps we should be more strict as to what people can actually DO with a sproc and perhaps returning multiple resultsets shouldn't be one of them!
After all, a contract is inherently implying some scrictness to the sproc - why not take it a step further and be more strict about what sproc can actually do.
One other thought....if we were to impose contracts on the sproc resultset(s) why shouldn't the same be true of the return value?
Could we have sproc return types that are something other than integers?
Could we have sproc return types that are constrained (either by DDL or entries in a table column)?
Just a thought!
Good point Jamie but I think having other return types would be a truly breaking change. I was trying to propose methods that wouldn't break existing code at all.
Perhaps though, we should have something in the contract that says whether or not a return value should be returned. And if none is meant to be returned, a statement that returns a value would be a violation of the ENFORCE option. Conversely, if a value is meant to be returned, the lack of at least one RETURN statement would be an error.
The result shape should NEVER change based on input parameters. Polymorphic result shape is a violation of the ideals of design by contract, and in most languages it's not even possible to accomplish.
Yes indeed but unfortunately while T-SQL allows it devs will continue to do it.
You're right that other languages don't allow it - so perhaps we need a new language??? (sorry, broken record here)
Yes, specifying the existence (or not) of a return value sounds like a step in the right direction.
I suspect this subject might arise in a certain heated discussion in about 4 weeks time :)
Me again (sorry, this topic is just too interesting to me)
By sheer coincidence one of my colleagues has, just this morning, encountered this problem. He put an ELSE clause onto an existing IF...THEN in a sproc; that ELSE clause returned a NULL.
From that moment forth the SSRS report that consumed that sproc "hung" indefinately and it turned out that he had forgotten to cast the NULL as the expected return type - as soon as he corrected the code then the report executed instantly (and successfully).
Its almost poetic that this occurred just a few hours after you post this blog entry Greg :)
When we discussed this he came up with exactly the same suggestion as Adam - OUTPUT TVPs.
There is a Connect request here for output TVPs: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=299296#tabs
Jamie, why would you need something other than integers for return types? Isn't this what output parameters are for? You shouldn't be using return values to return *data*, IMHO.
As for the idea in general, I like it and support it, however it is easy to see that at the engine level there is little interest in enhancing metadata capabilities. For example, we *still* can't tell, without parsing procedure text directly, what the default value for a stored procedure parameter is.
I think an out TVP as Adam mentions is the most likely path we'll get to achieve this, however it means that the consuming languages will either need to be tricked into believing this is a "normal" resultset or updated to adapt.
Maybe in those cases you should consider different stored procedures. Not only do you avoid a changing result shape, the optimizer can also deal with two separate procedures instead of constantly switching plans due to different inputs.
I agree with all of you almost completely in principle, so maybe I can ask for some pointers on how to turn that ideal into reality. I'm reminded of what I heard Kimberly Tripp refer in a session I attended a few years ago as "swiss army procedures" whose specific intentions were exactly to be polymorphic, under the guise of trying to reduce the total size of the result both by rows and columns - why return extra stuff the user doesn't want to see? - and yet supply some kind of encapsulation.
So if procedures aren't supposed to change result shape, yet requirements say users have to control shape by being able to choose from a list of columns in any combination, then we're saying you either can't use procedures or you have to code separate procs for all allowable permutations and then the app chooses which to use up front, right?
I've seen these all-in-one types of procedures before and would love to find a better way. I'll try to dig out my notes from that session again, but any additional input is welcome.
Just reread my last comment - wanted to make sure it was clear that Kimberly Tripp was *NOT* advocating those "swiss army procs", quite the opposite. I just thought she had a good name for them.
With increasing network capacity between app server and database, and the availability of more complex client-side controls, Ajax, JSON etc. I've found in our development that it is less of a priority to filter columns out from resultsets. Give the client the whole payload, and if they don't want to see column 'x', then the client can hide that column. Filtering *rows* is typically much more effective, so we make them search or otherwise narrow their resultset. Our relative cost of slightly more complex web development is much lower than our relative cost of slightly more complex database development.
I like the contract.
One thing I have done is to generate unit tests for parameters and result sets in stored procedures. This is not the equivalent of a contract, however, using rhino mocks in the C# data acess layer I can establish a unit test to that mock. I can then use the same mock to test my sp inputs and output to confirm both match.
Because I use functions and stored procedures a lot, I like using NUnit to test them. Having started down the path of testing I have found my procedures are becoming more granular; one result set, etc.
If I have a lot of work I do to setup results in the SP I try to turn that into a function that can be tested independently. Then, another function or stored procedure for each result set. Finally, if I need a single round trip, I might put together a container SP to call each individual piece.
With SQL 2k8, and the ability to pass sets as parameters, much of the fiddling should go away.
I think a little more round trips is better for realiable, maintainable, sustainable, testable code. Especially in todays world of high speed networks, etc.
These are just some practical methods I have found that work with the current state of things in SQL Server. It works with other DB Engines as well.
My 2 Cents
Thanks for your response, I appreciate it. I'll try to keep myself open to just returning all the columns users can pick from in the future, but I still get concerned about returning hundreds of columns back to the app when typically the user is only looking at 10 - 15 columns at a time, it seems such a waste of bandwidth.
Hundreds of columns? I'd suggest you have more important problems than bandwidth. :-)
I just can't wait (*grin*) to work with databases that have tens of thousands of columns. The need to increase the maximum number of columns to 30,000 in SQL Server 2008 RTM from the already-high limit of 10,000 in the CTPs beggars belief.
Yeah, I'm sure I do. But to give you an idea where I'm coming from, if you've looked at corporate financial statements before (cash flow statements, balance sheets, and income statements) there are a lot of line items that go back 10 years each, and the requirements are to denormalize all those values into a single row per company for display. So where you'd normally have fewer columns with a row per company per year, they need those pivoted out. It gets ugly fast.
I will admit that I haven't used PIVOT very often in T-SQL. Like my belief that RETURN values should be restricted to indicating execution status, I also believe that (where possible) pivoting is the job of the client. As more and more capabilities arise, and more sophisticated report builders are developed, I am less and less inclined to make it the database's responsibility to produce a report in exactly the format and layout that a visual report requires. If this is what we should always do then we would still be building web sites with brain dead, classic ASP front ends to display the complicated database reports.
Though I do agree that there is likely tons of legacy code that will continue to do things like you describe, so enforcing a contract across the board will not be possible for many versions to come.
Hi Aaron,
many clients do not pivot efficiently. Also, PIVOting dense data may speed up your queires:
Granted, but clients are much easier to switch out than back end architecture... if your client is bad at pivoting, try a different client... surely someone else has done it better. You may end up with PIVOT on the server side, and I didn't mean to imply that there is no place for PIVOT in T-SQL. What I meant was that, particularly in C Rummel's case, where he is using pivot and dynamic SQL to return a dynamically shaped result set, it would never fit into Greg's ideal "contract" world. It's more the dynamic SQL part of it that is the problem of course, but PIVOT is not a completely flexible and perfect solution in the best case, never mind one which must adhere to contract rules.
Give us easier to read execution plans Michelle Ufford ( @SQLFool ) recently asked for help pinpointing
This is good guys, but I've already utilize such concept of contracts with my SPs since SQL 2005. This is in form of registering an XML schema instance with SQL server and then assign the result set into a so called typed XML variable. This works like a charm for both input and output. That kicks back immediately any invalid input data without even executing a SProc code. And yes, I no more communicate with the db issuing any T-SQL commands nor receiving typical rowsets in a traditional manner (IMHO it's archaic). It's bad since does not allow hierarchical datasets and results in chatty style of communication. Brrr... people still do it... multiple output result sets from a given SP. Why?
All my contracts are the XSD in SQL Server. It's very easy to pull what XSDs (with full definition) are associated with particular SP using DMVs. Great for generating documentation on the fly. I can understand any system written in this style in minutes. Also, I do not have my system bloated with 4 CRUD procedures per every table. I have a fully business (domain) centric design. One SP per business transaction, some tables even do not allow delete to anyone thus no deletion SP exists for those. SP may itself insert into 20 tables, application does not need to know any of that logic and it simplifies the app design to a magnitude of order less. Many people call this a business logic and tend to put it outside in an application code with help of ORM, but they might not be aware about difference between persitence logic versus business logic. My SP more or less contain persistence logic following a rule "Perform this closer where the data are". Also, SQL guarantees static compilation errors if you try code against something which does not exists in the schema, so no worries. People who are afraid of writing SQL and SP calling it ancient language wants the ORM while it really does not help. Any change to db breaks your app and many times it's not as simple as renaming few columns when the association tables gets added or columns got removed. People do not understand the SPs are not primarily for performance, but for encapsuation of db design. Who does not get it I say I treat my db as a service repository like Amazon or Twitter. Do we care how it stores the data? We just call their APIs. All my SPs are service methods associated with contracts. If someone still does not get it and asks why treat db as web services (per my statement "application should be dummy and know knothing about a db (design)") I do refer to an example of a SOA design. Think of why SOA has been invented? To abstract internals of the other system or layer. To make design and consuming simpler.
While your idea is great, I'm not sure if it's worth for MS to enhance it the way you desire causing others to just write more and more code within SP declaration (and maintenance of changes). Again, the contract problem is solved for at least me already and it's so beautiful to communicate with the db sending pure objects only (serialize and deserialize in a app).
It's a great abstraction over a physical db design and structural changes. It's XXI century and I really believe it's time for most people to switch to rich datasets exchanged in form of strogly typed and validated XML. To validate outgoing result I compose my result set as an XML and assign it to a typed variable (tied to a schema) which instantly validates the result is according to the contract. That gives even more business centric validation of transaction performed as expected. If my SP is supposed to create two offsetting transactions (use case: reversal) I can indicate this in a schema that "Summary/PaymentRecord" node must appear exactly twice in it and possibly the second amount must be negative, so if for any reason one insert would not be successfull or the other developer forgot to write it that would not be let gone by SQL. This is an added value instead of just checking for @@ROWCOUNT after inserting into any table and still does not solve the problem of new developer not knowing when he altered something he should insert one more row with negative amount. I simply can return/record a XML summary of a business transaction and that summary also gets validated. If anything would change that would be some form of a higher level guard. This is very agile while I do not like this buzzword personally. Anyway doing it XML schema way you have an added value of documented expected result or summary at the end expressed in form of tangible XSD contract. It introduces less bugs by any new developer possibly unfamiliar with a specific nature of your business.
I understand maybe if you return a million of records really it may nor be suitable (not everything is for everybody), then at least this my technique may be used in variation, use XML as an input and return regular rowset. It all depends on one needs, but perfectly worked in my enterprise system and believe me for any new enhancement or fix request I rarely need to go and mess around the application code. Boosted my productivity to the max since I test only one layer (db), because the contract guarantees the app works with this particular contract already. I can quickly apply the fixes and structure enhancements to my db without touching an app. Everything gets abstracted.
Some people may be concerned about performance, do not ask me, try for yourself and see if that works for you. Just as an example ~300 payment batch posting (moving from one table to the other) done ORM way went down from 1-2 minutes down to under 1 second using all logic in SP. But what about db/app developer performance? The fixing or enhancement maintenance time in my team could got down even to a couple of hours instead of weeks to recompile an app, retest whole thing, push app code through the staging server and wait for next app build and then publish cycle and then pray the result set matches to what the app expects. It's horrible. For those who want to continue that way good luck. I'm just fixing my SP or tables, test these and voilaaa!
Wow! Rajmund Rzepecki: That is an absolutely ingenious idea. I suppose if you wanted to return multiple result sets you could either add it to the XSD or just output multiple xml variables.
Also, I'll bet it makes building an auditing system a breeze as well: You can store in your auditing table the XML request exactly as it was received, and even (in some cases) save the response XML as well (perhaps so that the operation could be reversed, if necessary). Truly brilliant!
I believe you when you say XML serialization is much faster than an ORM system, but have you benchmarked performance differences between returning a set of rows and returning an XML document? I know the XML operations are very fast (especially with an XSD) in SQL server, and serializing and deserializing XML in .NET code is very fast as well, but I imagine there must be some performance hit from this.
Thank you for the question. I have not performed any official test exactly comparing a rowset to its counterpart in XML since in the complex system it is not trivial. I would say at certain level these two comparisons may be incompatible to a degree the the results yielded are not meaningfull for me anymore that's why most people limited their testing only to plain vanilla performance of XML datatype and/or versus a varchar. But, let me go on, I do not escape from answering your question, at least not yet ;-) Instead I will point you to several other articles where people actually did such comparisons and had few other interesting findings. There is no reason I would not believe them. And for me the simplicity and full control of the design and reducing further maintenance was much more important contrary to many people not seeing this benefit in a straight way. My example of performance down from minute to a second was referring more to encapsulating all the logic in a SP versus ORM, that was more for ORM people to open their eyes than have something to do with XML in SQL Server :)
Before I give you the links to performance tests in the next post I must say that I already use the XML style for auditing both input and output (aka service log). It's then easy for web developer to pull it out in some form of a history grid and without any further processing on database side (retrieve XML string as is), the web dev can format those details in the app any way using XSL or connect as a XMLDataSource for ASP.NET to a GridView or TreeView.
Also, I plan to work on generating such XML for some critical tables where edits to individual rows must be logged. I could generate XML from "deleted" and "inserted" in a trigger and optimize the output to have nicely laid out previous and new values in the same node to serve as a hardcopy. That XML storage saves me a great way of re-defining all columns duplicated by two (old, new value) like a mirror. Also, my db design for temporal data utilizes more and more XML. Why? Because for the data which are identical, but not treated by users as official yet (unposted payments or audit trail summary) I do not need to rebuild whole 3NF and FKs for all temporal tables which may count let's say 20. Imagine there is a full 3NF for official transactional data already, then for the sake of God why I would need to create 20 other tables to serve the same, but temporal data? Those are validated against a schema when persisted and during posting later these will be validated again against true 3NF (like SET XACT_ABORT ON).
Least, but not last the beauty of this XSD way it generates C#/VB code for me. I do not write DTO/POCO classes anymore by hand. I just have run all XSD files from command line (xsd.exe, or XSDObjGen) and use them straight in the app. This way I have no more need to utilize any 3rd party so called code generators which supposedly traverse all your tables, views, SPs for minutes or hours in a db and retrieve SQL meta data to give you the class. No need to, as I do not want any table/column residue in the app anymore. No more ties.
My DAL (Data Access Layer) is greatly simplied, again no need to buy or use any ORM which claim do it for you, but instead they glue together all the generated table classes with their and only their functionality in the DAL since every class must have some notation where it comes from (they usually use .NET class attributes). My generated classes are plain simple, but there are own partial classes enhancing them by functionality needed (eg. I write "SavePayment"). The simplicity of DAL is in the form or having one agreed style for all my SProcs - these all do accept one or two params ("@InputData" always XML) and return a scalar value of XML.
This way my DAL is generic, I have mostly only one method in all DAL like "CallMySuperProcedure(string name, obj o)" and it knows it accepts one common parameter named "@InputXML", so it serializes the generic input object and pass into the proc as XML. Again, no need for code generator to figure out params to every sproc. The second param depending on individual audit trail design is the userName, but it also can be included in XSD, whatever fits you better. Do we want userName in very business class, maybe?
Last, when I see the system with SPs which have 50 parameters or people put in comma separated string to represent master/detail of products selected in an order that instantly tells me something is seriously wrong with the design. 10 years ago I was making arguments against using XML anywhere even in web development and WSDL web services as I did believe the machines (network and computing power) were simply not ready for that. I preferred to use my own handcrafted TCP communication over sockets. But we are in XXI century already and it's a completely different story.
You really could return everything you want in one XML it all data relate for the same purpose or two if the second is an audit trail for example. One can make schema really conscise like ProductName will be PN with id as an attribute, declare certain nodes as optional. If one really wants can make XML having not too much overhead comparing to TDS. The benefit is when you send hierarchical data, in the alternate rowset in TDS you have to send many time composite key or ID of a parent to relate the data. It wastes the stream space same as others say XML. Most of the system talk db <-> web server, so XML is not being sent "across the Internet wire", it's not vulnerable to Internet latency. Do people who hate XML, because it's too verbose really evolving? I did...
Ok, please refer to several acticles below. Interesting is one on 15seconds.com which tests XQuery performance (it is part 3) in an UPDATE statement, you can navigate to a second part of the article which overviews an INSERT. There is one interesting comparing XML data type versus a varchar and as an example benefit read on the better way to split (decompose) comma separated input for those who did use in the past using XML. That is the killer, avoid loops, cursors or recursive CTE's. I recommend glance over all the links I've given below. And the benefit of using XML instead of varchar, sometime it may be better to aggregate many strings into an XML and then process it.
Thanks so much for your detailed response! I'll check out those links as soon as I get the chance.