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Carl Holman
Robin Lake Miller
Marketing Director Director of Communications
UNF Fine Arts Center Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc.
(904) 620-1921,
(904) 370-7715
(Jacksonville, FL) – The University of North Florida Fine Arts Center's 2008-09 performance season continues getting better with the announcement of Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc., as this year's official sponsor.
Winn-Dixie is helping the Fine Arts Center to deliver a diverse program that includes political satire, comedic theater, classical music and world-class country, modern dance, salsa and jazz music. The season kicks off on September 25th with the witty political punditry and humor of The Capitol Steps ( www.capsteps.com ). A Pre-show Patriotic Jamboree will occur on the front porch of the Fine Arts Center. Food vendors will be available along with music and much more.
"It is an honor to partner again with Winn-Dixie in delivering our most exciting season yet and to continue our tradition of bringing a unique blend of outstanding arts and entertainment offerings to the First Coast," said Sharon Papian, the Center's Executive Director.
In addition to sponsoring the overall season, The Winn-Dixie Series will include exclusive sponsorship of three major performances. On December 11, the internationally acclaimed St. Petersburg State Ice Ballet enacts Cinderella, a lavish staging of the beloved fairy tale involving dozens of champion Russian ice dancers. On January 24, 2009, the Center welcomes the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, the multiple Grammy-winning and visionary trumpeter. Finally, BirdhouseFactory by Cirque Mechanics will perform a mesmerizing blend of music, circus arts, light and choreography inspired by early 20th century industrialism.
"We are very excited about the opportunity to work with the Fine Arts Center again this year," said Robin Miller, Winn-Dixie's director of communications. "This is another way for us to show our commitment to giving back to the neighborhoods we serve in our hometown."
Tickets go on sale August 18, 2008, and individual tickets can be purchased on-line at www.unf.edu/fineartscenter or charged by phone by calling the UNF Box Office at (904) 620-2878.
# # #
About The University of North Florida Fine Arts Center
Established in 2001, The University of Florida Fine Arts Center has built a rich tradition of showcasing an eclectic series of world-class performers, commercial entertainers, ethnic music and dance, cutting edge performances, and children's programming as well as the premiere of new works to support upcoming artists. The Center's goal is to enhance the academic programs of the University and to complement the cultural offerings within Jacksonville, building new audiences, and contributing to the quality of life and economic development of the city. About Winn-Dixie
Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. is one of the nation's largest food retailers. Founded in 1925, the Company is headquartered in Jacksonville, FL. The Company currently operates 521 retail grocery locations including more than 400 in-store pharmacies in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and Mississippi. For more information, please visit www.winn-dixie.com.


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Not necessarily a "healthy" beverage, but certainly not one that you will be kicking yourself for drinking later. These are delicious and extremely easy to make. I'm posting a non-alcoholic spritzer as well. The sorbet is healthier than ice cream, so that takes away a little bit of the guilt. These are a BIG hit during the holidays! Just don't drink a bazillion of these!
Mango Champagne Spritzers
Glass of champagne
Haggen Daas Mango Sorbet
Haggen Daas Raspberry Sorbet
Add one scoop to your glass and poor champagne over top. Delicious!!
Sweet Sorbet Spritzer
1 cup canned mango nectar, chilled
1 pint mango sorbet
1 pint strawberry sorbet
2 cups ginger ale, chilled
1 Divide mango nectar among 4 chilled glasses.
2 Scoop sorbets into glasses.
3 Slowly pour ginger ale over sorbets.
4 Drink immediately.
Thanks Sandra Lee for this recipe!

subset: commoncrawl


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Group DF is a private international group of companies whose interests and assets range from energy and chemicals through to energy infrastructure and real estate.
Group DF is the international private holding company of prominent Ukrainian businessman Dmitry Firtash.
Among the entities controlled by Group DF, the following companies play key roles:
Group DF plans further rapid expansion, particularly in the acquisition of energy assets and large scale infrastructure projects, and seeks to be a leader in each of the fields in which it operates.


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Follow RFF News on your cell phone. Text follow rff to 40404 you will receive txt messages with RFF News
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Don't get the Dave and Connor focus...
Quote from: David. on March 03, 2013, 07:01:14 PMDon't get the Dave and Connor focus...THIS. Seriously? A minute long on them?
I can't believe this, the word cancer was mentioned in 5 seconds.
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Karrueche Tran Defends Chris Brown in Twitter War With Jenny Johnson
When writer and professional Twitter troll Jenny Johnson provoked notorious hothead Chris Brown into a Twitter war, he had an unlikely defender: ex girlfriend Karrueche Tran.
Karrueche's pals told Hollywood Life that the model thought Johnson's messages were "rude" and that she should "shut up." No argument there, but what about Breezy's unflattering -- to himself and to Johnson -- responses?
"That s--- was funny and kudos to Chris for calling her out," a source said Karrueche told them. "Who is [Jenny] anyway? ... She was hella rude for coming at him foul like that and then she was surprised when he came at her hard. She should just shut up! Now look what she made him do — he got off Twitter and now his fans are pissed and deprived."
Though Tran was pretty humiliated when Brown publicly announced their split, sources say they still talk, text and send each other photos often. "They talked and he did wish her a Happy Thanksgiving and they've been sending pics back and forth," a source said. "She's not tripping on Rihanna being out there with Chris, she's happy for him and has his back when he gets home."
Watch the Chris Brown 'Turn Up the Music' Video


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Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl has assured fans the group has no plans to split up, insisting he already has an idea for a new album.
Devotees of the "My Hero" hit makers were left panicking earlier this year when Grohl ended the group's extensive world tour by announcing he wasn't sure when the Foo Fighters were going to play again.
The former Nirvana star quickly made it clear that he was talking about a break, not a split.
And now he tells Rolling Stone magazine, "People should never be afraid that Foo Fighters are ever going to break up. It's like your grandparents getting divorced – it's not gonna happen."
Grohl is already thinking about the band's next release and admits it might coincide with a movie, now that he's a bona-fide documentary maker on the back of his upcoming debut Sound City: Real to Reel.
He adds, "(I have) a concept for the next album we've never done before. And who knows? There might be a [bleep] movie to go with it."


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Light tricks us in glances of particles and waves. In images and likenesses upon the water we are made.
My eyes are constantly reminding me of all the many beauties in the world, photography allows me to share the beauty I see. We only ever see half of anything at any one time. Thats why I love mirror imaging. My art reflects what our eyes rarely see.
Ken Shapley is a photographer and digital artist. He has held artist in residence positions in Edmonton Canada and at The Scottish Storytelling Centre on Edinburghs Royal Mile where his The Half Seen World exhibition brought him great acclaim; revealing an incredible new world right there in front of our noses!. From here Ken has taken his unique images into schools as aids to story creation.
As a musician he has also created works as soundtracks for the BBC.
In 2010 he will be launching his own unique band of wearable art and digitally printed designer fabrics.
Most of the images are as limited edition prints of 25. Ken reserves the right to print different sizes or medium within the limited edition if requested by the client.
Commissions undertaken for artworks and one off fabric designs.


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Hard disk shortage will get worse: Piper Jaffray
The scarcity of hard drives will only get worse in the coming weeks and months, according to an analyst at Piper Jaffray. "We could run out of drives by the end of November," Piper Jaffray analyst Gus Richard said in an interview this week while discussing the shortage in the wake of the severe flooding in Thailand, where half of the world's production of HDD's takes place.
Richard added prices quoted anywhere from up to 10 to up 60 percent. There is a demand of about 180 million drives for the fourth quarter but only 100 to 120 million will ship, according to Richard. That means we could lose 5 to 10 million PC units in the fourth quarter.
Credit: CNET and Brooke Crothers


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Zuma Press, an editorial photo agency and wire service based in San Clemente, will open a new photo show, "The Best of DoubleTruck," at a party at its Kona Gallery beginning at 7 p.m. Saturday. DoubleTruck is Zuma's quarterly magazine of photojournalism.
The free event will feature a DJ, catered food and drinks, door prizes and an opportunity to buy framed award-winning news photos, with proceeds to benefit victims of Superstorm Sandy.
Kona Gallery, at 412 N. El Camino Real, next to Zuma Press, features the framed works of photojournalists in a large, art-style format.


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Event management Jubilee Designs in North Event management in Bustan Hagalil Bustan Hagalil, Areas of Practice Domestic and foreign tourism, Boutique Events, Producing a Bar / Bat Mitzvah, Design and Production, Production Henna and more. Specializing in Catering services and Sports events. You can get advice with regard to Services pigeon release or Production weddings, Jubilee Designs Event management with extensive knowledge and experience in fields Fashion shows Domestic and foreign tourism and Pyrotechnics and Fireworks.. For further details enter to my card.
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Looking at this design, it seems to be designed for single person use and is much smaller and lighter than the film Imax housing. Look at the lights. So little power compared to the line fed halogens Howard uses.
It's really nicely weighted neutral. See how he moves it around relatively easily? It is massive though compared to a Gates Atom but it's good to see ingenuity at work in custom designs.


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providers = providers.filter(function(provider) { return provider.age > 35 }
For performance or API reasons you might want to perform an in place removal using splice, so you can simple map the values to indexes you want to remove, reverse the order then perform a sequence of splice operations:
providers.map(function(provider, index) { return provider.age > 35 ? index : -1; }).filter(function(index) { return index >= 0; }).reverse().forEach(function(index) { providers.splice(index,1); });
You can play with this code in this jsfiddle.
Update 21 Jan 20125: The hazard of doing full stack development is that it is easy to accidentally duck type between languages whilst forgetting the impact. In Java the equivalent streaming code using map just returns another lazy step in the stream whereas in JavaScript you end up creating a new array of the same size as the original. This removes the performance improvement over the first example if you have lots of data. This is simple too fix though as you can use the reduce function to just create an array and populate it using the reduce operation:
providers.reduce(function(list, provider, index) { if (provider.age> 35) list.push(index); return list; }, []).reverse().forEach(function(index) { providers.splice(index,1); });
Here is the updated fiddle. I guess at some point I am going to have to benchmark these variants to see which is best; but that is for a less busy day.


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Jason Rodriguez needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 65 designs submitted by 28 freelance designers.
We are a premium Surf Accessory and Apparel company Specializing in using recycled and Ecological and environmentally sustainable materials.
Mostly Male, ages 25-50, surfers, eco conscious
I am looking for a logo design with the idea that I have created and already worked on a litttle (see attached logo sketch file). What I want is the recycle symbol (curved arrow) turned in to a wave. I'd like to see ideas using 1 of the arrows, 2 of them, or all 3 as is traditionally used for the recycle logo. I have attached the traditional "recycle more logo" in case you are unfamiliar with it as well. Here is our website http://www.wavetribe.com and I've also attached the exisiting logo in the font we have designed.
Summary- Please turn the recycle arrow into a wave for our logo, using 1, 2 or all 3 of the arrows. In the logo, I want to get the point across that we are an eco surfing company.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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A little boy who spent five weeks in a Dallas hospital after being shot in the face is headed home Thursday.
Witnesses said DJ Maiden, 8, was playing outside of his family's apartment in Dallas on Sept. 3 when he was shot by man standing nearby.
Maiden was said to be running back toward his apartment when the bullet hit him in the cheek.
Since that time, Maiden has been hospitalized and has undergone a number of surgeries to repair the damage done by the bullet. In a recent interview with NBC 5, Maiden's grandmother, Sharon Locklin, said her grandson may never regain feeling in his jaw.
"He don't want the kids to look at his face," said Locklin. "He says, 'I look like a monster, Granny.' I'm like, 'No, you don't.'"
Maiden, who at this time speaks through a trach tube, had hoped to be home by Halloween. Meanwhile, he's trying to keep up with his school work while in the hospital.
Family members said in a recent interview that more surgeries are in the boy's future.
Brian Cloninger, the man accused of shooting the boy, was arrested at the scene shortly after the shooting and is currently being held on $2.2 million bond. A bond reduction hearing is scheduled for Friday, where the 46-year-old man is expected to request his bond be dropped to $25,000.
Police have revealed no motive in the shooting.
The family has set up an account at 1st Convenient Bank in hopes of getting donations to help with medical expenses. Contributions can be sent to:
1st Convenience Bank
Account of Sharon Locklin for Donald Maiden Jr.
9140 Forest Lane
Dallas, TX 75243
NBC 5's Ray Villeda contributed to this report.


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Celebrating illustration, design, cartoon and comic art of the mid-20th century.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Whole Lotta McCarthy
What a treat to discover this series in a September '55 issue of Collier's magazine. Not just the beautiful double-page spread opener but six terrific full colour spots by artist Frank McCarthy! No need for commentary from me - let's let the artwork do the talking...
Want to see today's images at full size? Go to my Frank McCarthy Flickr set.
4 comments:
Wicked work, thanks!ReplyDelete
OK, sometimes a wind sock is just a wind sock, right Leif?ReplyDelete
Great stuff. I only recently learned about your Flickr groups!
And do let me know if you ever get around to paperback book covers of the 1960s and 70s -- especially if they're by Sandy Kossin. Sandy's a friend, still very much active and working!
Thanks for all this, as ever, Leif!
More illustrative goodness to start the day with. Thanks.ReplyDelete
Thanks for your comments guys - you are most welcome.ReplyDelete
Mike; I'm excited to hear that you know Sandy Kossin - an illustrator who I've only seen one piece by - which made me want to see more! I'm not a collector of paperback covers, though I love the art from the 50's and 60's paperbacks. Anyone who enjoys that work too can find a great selection of scans at Old-Timey Paperback Book Covers


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Ludwig Van "Submission Series".
For the grappling nerd in all of us – I'm proud to reintroduce the "Submission Series" prints and t-shirts! INspired by my passion for all things wrestling/grappling/jiu-jitsu/judo – what you see here is based on my experience over the many years on the mat. "Have fun with it!". The prints are 13″ x 19″ Giclée prints printed on museum quality archival paper and this is the second edition (of 25). But what about the t-shirts! GET THEM HERE direct from our partnership with long-time cohorts Digital Gravel. Digital Gravel has been bringing you fresh new gear since the late 90′s! and they are the proverbial "OG's" in the game. If you OR somebody you know is a #Jiu-Jitsu nerd – DON'T SLEEP! They will not last for long!
posted in : art, fashion statements, fighting, limited edition product, Ludwig specials, New LUDWIG VAN Product, news, on a personal note
comments: 1


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Let's face it, carving pumpkins isn't the most convenient (or clean) of fall activities, so I thought it might be fun to gather together a few fun pumpkin decorating alternatives like those beautifully patterned painted pumpkins from Alisa Burke pictured above.
Click through to see 5 more great ideas below!
White paint and rick rack, I'm so in. Love these pretties from Eddie Ross.
Break out the ModPodge, it's time to get crazy! This fun idea was spotted over at Make and Takes.
I love monograms and the idea of putting one on pumpkin is pure inspiration. See the tutorial here from The Butlers.
Don't these remind you of Faberge eggs? So delicate and beautiful! See more here from Alisa Burke.
A swarm of paper bats, ahhhh!! I think it looks so cool, what a great idea from No Biggie!
How do you feel about pumpkin carving? Love the tradition or can't stand the mess?


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ELY, NV - Ely sits in one of the most isolated corners of the state. The nearest communities of any size are hours away in any direction.
If you live out here, chances are you drive a lot and you work outside. Away from civilization's light pollution, the night sky is as full of stars as the landscape below is empty. You take note of any thing out of the ordinary.
And lately people here have been seeing some strange things in the eastern Nevada sky.
Highway 93 runs north and south between through Steptoe Valley. Sixty miles north of Ely is Lages Junction. A pair of street lights and the occasional car or truck are the only interuptions to the darkness and silence.
Late the night of October 2nd, Shawn and Heather Morrison and their son, Travis were driving back from Wells.....
"And I saw it out of the corner of my eye and I thought it was a shooting star," says Heather Morrison.
"But it wasn't moving," adds her husband.
"I'm looking at him and he sees it out my window and I turn and look and caught just the tail end of it before it disappeared," says Heather.
As they drove they watched the lights, stationary, seemingly hanging in the sky, blinking off, then reappearing. With a mixture of growing excitement and curiousity they pulled off the road at the junction.
Heather reached for the only operating camera she had, an inexpensive digital camera meant to take still, but capable of recording brief clips of video.
She was able to take three clips, each only seconds long. The handheld video is shaky, the lights almost beyond the camera's capabilities. The Morrisons' reactions to what they were seeing unmistakable.
"Look," shouts Heather on one of them. "Look at that. Two of them."
"You/ve got it on video?" asks Shawn.
"I'm not sure it's going to show up. It's so dark." answers Heather..
"What the.....is that?" asks Shawn
Yeah. What is that?" chimes their son, Travis.
That's a question without an answer.
The video is evidence, but hardly tells the story.
I've got this cheap little video camera that doesn't take very good pictures," laments Heather. "So you can't tell because the video looks nothing like what we saw. Nothing at all."
For the record "It was a bright orange light. Big. Oval," says Shawn. "Something we'd never seen before"
The experience left the Morrisons, shaken, but exhilerated. "It's hard to describe," says Shawn. "You're scared, you're excited."
"I was startled, surprised," says Heather. "I've always studied the night sky and I've never seen anything like this. Now I want to know what it was."
Four nights later several workers at a mine near Ely, saw something similar, orange glowing globes emerge over the Schell Creek Range across the valley, then something different.
"Instead of being orange, this one was red," one of the witnesses who asked not to be identified told us. "It was almost like a rocket and it actually looked like, I don't know, had sparks coming out the back end."
These lights didn't remain hovering.....
"It accelerated fast. It accelerated very fast."
This witness was one of a standing room only crowd who gathered Saturday night at an Ely motel to hear a presentation by Mark Easter, a field investigator and the public relations director for the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON.
Drawn by the Morrisons' report to MUFON's website, Easter hoped others might come forward.
They did. Including a man who works in Railroad Valley in neighboring Nye County. Returning from Ely one night recently saw orange lights too and something else.
"It was like amber lights lined up in a row. It looked to me like one large object with just all these lights on it."
None of these people are sure of what they saw, but they are sure they saw something and they are sure it was like nothing they'd seen in the eastern Nevada sky before.
"I don't know what it was," admits Shawn Morrison, who adds he once laughed off stories about UFO's. But he says he knows what he saw and he wasn't imagining it.
"No, this is real, as real as you and me standing here."
And the reports continue. In the past two days four other sightings have been reported on the MUFON website.
For more information, go to MUFON. You'll be able to follow this investigation, read other reports and, if there's a need be able to post your own sighting.
Note: What does this reporter believe about all of this? In all things paranormal or supernatural I'm a skeptic until I see something myself, Having said that I'm convinced these people saw something. Like them, I don't know what they saw, but they have no reason to be making this up. I believe they saw something.


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After wrapping up my study abroad, I met up with my family, who had all come to China around the end of my program, and we set out for further adventures. The last leg of my trip to China began with a return to Beijing. I know I already did an entry about Beijing, but I won't be recapitulating anything – I'll gloss over the stuff I already covered and focus on the new. I'll start by saying that the haze was not nearly as strong as on my previous visit. Still there, but you could actually see into the distance now, and the sky was mostly visible.
After meeting our tour guide for Beijing, we got right down to business by visiting the Lama Temple, a big Buddhist temple in the city. We saw several robed monks milling about and many citizens burning incense and praying at small altars featuring the Buddha. We learned that people bow three times before and after placing the incense – one to honor the Buddha, one for the monks, and one for Buddhism.
Our guide was full of fun facts, and if I wrote down everything he told us I could probably fill a small book, so I'll limit myself to a few I found particularly interesting. One was an explanation for all the high thresholds I had seen on my last trip to Beijing, which are at every door in the temples and palaces and other traditional buildings. The thresholds are raised high to prevent zombie attacks. No, really. In the Chinese culture, zombies were believed to hop – so the high threshold stops the zombie from hopping inside.
Another neat fact had to do with the dragons that were featured on many walls in the temple and are a traditional Chinese symbol. The first emperor who united China around 4000 years ago, called the Yellow Emperor, helped ease the transition into unity by taking the animals worshipped by the various tribes and putting them together to create the dragon as an animal for all to revere. These dragons are not like the ones fought by armored knights in European fairy tales – they had the face of a camel, antlers of a deer, hooves of a bull, claws of an eagle, scales of a fish, tail of a lion, and the body of a serpent. And instead of breathing fire, they were believed to spurt water and had the power to make it rain. Chinese dragons being associated with water, the ancient structures, which are entirely wooden, are adorned with dragons to bless them with protection against fire.
We also saw the Confucius Temple, where for many centuries students would gather every few years to take the grueling exams needed to become a civil servant and enter work as a minister in the government. The cushy positions were highly desired, but the extremely difficult exams made sure only China's brightest entered government work.
We saw Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City again, but it's nothing I haven't already talked about. After those we went to the Panjiayuan Flea Market. While there I had my name translated into Chinese and had the calligraphy scribed on a scroll. The characters that make up the Chinese version of my name mean "lucky" and "peaceful." Sounded pretty good to me!
The Wall's End
I already went on at length about the Great Wall's majesty, so I refer you to my earlier entry for that. But my second trip was certainly different! The biggest difference was the weather – it was MUCH clearer this time around. It really made the view even more majestic since you could see more of the Wall rolling away along the hillside. But the lifted fog also let me see something that was obscured before – giant characters on the side of a large hill. Our guide said farmers had made them, and they read "be loyal to Chairman Mao." Quick side note, Mao's face is plastered everywhere in this country, and on every object imaginable.
As for our hike along the Wall itself, I was determined to surpass what I had climbed before. I went up the same huge hill and gigantic staircase as before, to the same tower I had stopped at last time. But the Wall went on from there. Feeling stronger than the last time I'd made it this far, I marched on. It turned out I had already conquered the hardest staircase on this part of the wall, so it got a little easier as I went further up, higher than even the huge characters. Eventually, I noticed I had risen so high, I was above the haze, and the air was crystal clear.
This let me properly appreciate the new side of the Wall I was seeing. I had passed the point where most tourists stop, so beyond that the Wall was less maintained, letting me see the truly original stones. It was a little rougher, but really just as sturdy. The naked stones on the path gave it a new sense of character.
Eventually, I found something surprising: the end of the Great Wall. Well, this section of it anyway – it's not continuous, it breaks at mountains and rivers since those are natural defenses that don't need a wall. Still, I didn't expect to reach the end of this potion. The stone structure literally just stopped, and all there was in front of me was a dirt path that went a few feet into some trees and then ended. It felt like reaching the edge of the world. I also noticed that other than someone selling water, I was practically alone on this part of the Wall – hardly anyone bothered coming this far. The quiet solitude let me really appreciate the wall and the beautiful mountains around it that I couldn't see from below. It was wonderful all over again. The Great Wall really just doesn't cease to amaze.
After climbing all the way back down and scarfing down lunch, we spent the afternoon at Beijing's 798 art district, a pretty big area that used to be a factory (numbered 798, hence the area's name) where many artists live today.
The place was all galleries and art shops, with sculptures all over the place outside. The styles covered just about everything I could think of, and some were pretty bizarre and interesting. To pick one, we found a wall with metal attached in the shape of a stick figure man and woman like you see on bathroom signs. They were empty and a sign invited you to stand in them and send a picture to the artist to be used in a huge digital collage.
Tai Chi at the Temple of Heaven
The next day began with an activity I had been looking forward to. We went over to the Temple of Heaven and took stock. There were many people hanging around using it as a park – playing hacky sack and other games, or practicing dances, martial arts, and calligraphy. It's an area four times larger than the Forbidden City, but it's mostly trees, there are only 3 buildings, all temples or altars. But we'll get to that.
First was a special activity – a private tai chi lesson. We met our instructor and went into a clearing amidst some trees for our lesson. He began by teaching us some of the theory behind tai chi (full name taijiquan/tai chi chuan, meaning "supreme ultimate fist"). Unlike many martial arts, tai chi uses very slow, circular movements. This is because the philosophy of the martial art is one that strives for harmony with nature, and the view is that all things in nature flow and have curves or are spherical, that nothing is naturally totally straight – be it Heaven, stars, or the universe itself. He challenged us to name something that naturally exists in a completely arrow-straight form. We suggested a couple things, but he pointed out that those objects, like everything that exists, are made from atoms – which are spherical. They originally believed the Earth was square, but when they learned it was a sphere, that just reinforced the idea.
After the theory lesson we learned some movements. There are five main styles of tai chi, each with many moves. We would be learning from the Yang style, one of the most popular. He taught us the basic stance – legs spread apart, knees slightly bent, hands and arms held out in front of you so your hands are in front of your belly, as if you were floating in water. It was actually quite comfortable, and felt pretty natural. Our teacher said out of curiosity after learning this, he let himself completely relax in a pool to see how his body would act – and it took on almost this exact form.
He then showed us some basic movements, the opening and closing forms. Each move was very slow and relaxed, and he told us to take our time performing them, and as we did so, to let everything out of our minds about the world around us and focus entirely on the movements to clear our minds. He also showed us a move called "hands flowing like clouds," which was my favorite. We moved our hands in wide arcs around ourselves, our palms passing in front of our faces, the paths overlapping and switching. It seemed a little complex when he did it, but we all picked up the movements quickly and it was easy to do. To help us remember it, he told us to just think of John Travolta's dance in Pulp Fiction! He finished up by showing us what he could really do – a long move where he moved around with much poise and incredible balance as he slowly made large sweeping motions with his limbs and often stood on one leg. It was simply a beautiful set of movements.
After the very fun lesson we toured the Temple. We saw the temples and altars, formerly the tallest buildings in Beijing, where the emperor used to come to pray for a good harvest and offer thanks and reverence to the Heavenly King. The altars were all up three sets of nine steps – the three sets representing, from bottom to top, Hell, Earth, and Heaven. The nine steps in each set were due to the belief that each of those three planes of existence had nine segments. Furthermore, the character for nine in Chinese is pronounced the same as the symbol for "eternity." Atop the 9th layer of Heaven resided the Heavenly King, so the emperor had to ascend all the layers of existence to meet with him. The Temple of Heaven is also the only place in the city the emperor was not allowed to be carried on a palanquin – though the world had to show him respect, here he had to humble himself before the Heavenly King who had sent him to rule over the Middle Kingdom (something China called itself as they believed China was the center of the universe).
We went up one altar, called the Circular Mound Altar. Atop the 27 steps was a circular stone surrounded by 9 concentric circles, each one composed of nine more stones than the previous – the innermost having 9 stones, the outermost having 81 stones. The stone in the very center was the Heart of Heaven. In the Chinese belief, Heaven is circular, and is actually smaller than the Earth. The Heart of Heaven (also called the Heavenly Center Stone) was believed to be the spot directly under the very center of Heaven, and so prayers said upon it would be heard loud and clear in Heaven. Following the lead of other tourists (and centuries of emperors), we stood on the stone, looked up into the sky with the wind on our faces, and made a wish.
Family Life in a Hutong
We then went by the Pearl Market, and checked out the shops featuring an endless amount of shiny pearls for sale. After that and some food, we went over to visit a hutong. In Chinese, hutong roughly translates to "community" or "neighborhood." It came from a Mongolian term that means "water well." This was because Beijing lacks a river or ocean for water, so people's homes congregated around wells and formed neighborhoods. Living in hutongs goes back to around the 13th century.
We were extremely fortunate to be invited into the home of a family living in the hutong. The home was small and cramped, but packed with great character. Stylized Chinese characters were printed on many things, even the ceiling. In the small living room was a great number of old-looking weapons, and in the dining room/kitchen we saw the lady of the house doing some cooking with dough with some other Western visitors.
We met the man living here, and he told us (through the translation of our guide) about the little house. It has been in his family for over 150 years! Although the government owns most land in the country now, and only lets you own land for about 70 years before they have the right to drive you off, the man's family had owned this house before the Communist government came, and they were allowed to keep it. They said it is convenient and very cheap to live in, as the community has most stores and things they need to go to right nearby, they don't need to pay any rent, and the government subsidizes 70% of their air conditioning and heating, which was installed for free when the Olympics came to Beijing as the government wanted to show off the traditional hutongs to the outside world.
Despite their small size, houses in a hutong are extremely valuable as the number of them is shrinking. The man's house is worth over a million US dollars. But he said even if he was offered that, he would never move – when a house has been in your family for a century and a half, it means so much to the people in it.
The man also told us that his family has a tradition of being martial artists (explaining the collection of weapons in the living room). He himself was instructed in martial arts in the same class as Jet Li and has worked as an instructor for many years. His oldest son actually works in Texas, at a gym in Houston coaching wushu, a Chinese exhibition/full-contact sport that involves swords and a lot of cool-looking flips and action (Google a video of a wushu match from the 2008 Olympics, they're really cool to watch!).
I told him that I knew a little bit about wushu and had watched videos of matches. He told me that unfortunately, I was a little too tall to be suited to doing wushu myself, as my height would make it hard for me to do all the flips as quickly and smoothly as the shorter Chinese. Though on the other hand, he said being taller would make my moves more intimidating and impressive. He then handed me a typical wushu sword, mid-length with a slightly curved thin metal blade (but not sharp), and helped me get into a basic stance, which was really interesting to learn!
We also met his wife and younger son, who live there with him along with his father-in-law. We were surprised that the tiny home supported so many people. After getting to meet the man's wife and younger son (and getting his older son's business card if we ever wanted wushu lessons in Texas), we thanked them for showing us their home by giving them some small gifts – coasters with images of things representing our home city of Atlanta.
We concluded our visit to the hutong by riding around the neighborhood in a rickshaw, a cart that holds one or two people and is pulled along by someone on foot or a bicycle (we were on the bicycle kind). As we went by we watched all the members of neighborhood as many of them congregated outside to chat and play games together. It was clear that the families living in hutongs have a very strong sense of community.


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Why Do Men Bareback? No Easy Answers
Routledge, 2006, List $31.95
"The terrible thing in this world is that everyone has his reasons."
Octave, The Rules of the Game, Jean Renoir, 1939
Toby, a Passive Barebacker
Toby did not seek out barebacking, but he allowed it to happen if the other man wanted to do it. He said he never discussed HIV status with the men he went home with unless the other man initiated the discussion. If a sexual partner initiated the use of condoms for anal sex, Toby said he felt relieved and gladly used them. But if the other man did not bring up the topic, Toby wound up going along with whatever the other man wanted to do sexually, even if it meant having UAI. Toby almost never made a date to see any of these men a second time. Toby was sexually versatile but preferred to be the top.
On the weekends when Toby stayed home, he either met men in online chat rooms for sexual hookups or went to sex parties. Again, his attitude toward condom use was passive. If the other man wanted to use them, that was fine with him. But if the other fellow never brought up the topic of condoms, neither did Toby. It was clear that he was well informed about HIV transmission and about the risk he took of becoming infected by barebacking. When I explored this passivity toward using condoms, he explained that he worked such long hours and so intensely that when he did have time off it was essential that he be able to stop thinking and just go a bit wild and lose control. Ostrow and Shelby (2000) describe psychotherapy with men like Toby who use drugs to enable them to lose inhibitions and engage in fantasy sex that they might otherwise have difficulty engaging in without guilt or remorse.
Toby was an only child raised in the Midwest by a devout Baptist single mother who had been deserted by Toby's father shortly after Toby's birth. Toby came out to his mother after he finished graduate school and moved to New York. She did not react well to the news, retreating into the condemning language of her church. She told her son that being a homosexual was going to land him in hell unless he repented and changed his ways. She also told him that he was going to get AIDS because he was gay. Toby sounded bleak when he described the Christian literature she regularly sent him about the evils of homosexuality and how gays were being plagued by AIDS as punishment from God.
I asked Toby what he thought about his mother's views of his sexuality. He said he was frightened -- what if what she said was true? -- and sad that their relationship has become so combative. He said she was relentless about sharing her views on Toby's "sinful affliction," even after Toby asked her not to raise this subject every time they spoke. I was surprised to hear that he continued to speak with her once a week and to visit with her for a week at Christmas. We explored his conflicted feelings about his relationship with his mother. On the one hand, he recognized that the way his mother treats him was damaging to his self-esteem and was deeply painful. On the other hand, as the only child whom she struggled to raise, he felt a strong sense of loyalty and obligation to her.
I shared with Toby my concern that his barebacking activity was putting him at risk for fulfilling his mother's prophecy that he would get AIDS. He said he worried about it at times, and he had no conscious desire to contract HIV, but he was not willing to kill (his exact expression) the spontaneity of his recreational sexual exploits. In the rest of his life, he was responsible and reliable. In this one area of his life, he wanted to be totally free. I wondered if Toby's behavior was an unconscious desire either to prove his mother right or to get sick and die as a hostile "fuck you" to his mother. I did not begin to share any of these possibilities with Toby until many months after our initial consultation. Every few months Toby would get retested for HIV, and as of this writing he remains HIV-negative.
Fifteen or 20 years ago, I would have been appalled and quite judgmental about Toby's behavior and probably gone into overdrive to try to save Toby from his own impulses. With the advantage of 20/20 hindsight, it is now clear that the rescue approach to treating men who bareback is rarely, if ever, effective. Most of the time, these clients just stopped therapy with me. They did not want or need a rescuer, as well-intentioned as I was. Although it still hurt to hear Toby describe the potentially deadly risks he was taking, I had to practice patience, compassion, and empathy. He was the only one who could take himself out of these high-risk situations, and then only if and when he decided that he wanted to.
Along with my protective feelings for this young man, I felt clinical curiosity about what was driving Toby to take sexual risks with such an apparently casual attitude. Researchers have been eager to find out more about the category of barebackers that Toby falls into -- men who are not trying, at least consciously, to become infected with HIV, but who are willing to take risks in order to satisfy deep intrapsychic and interpersonal needs.
Rationales for Barebacking: Chapter OverviewThis chapter asks a lot of tough questions: Is barebacking pathological? Is it correlated to personality disorder? Is it all about sex, sensation-seeking, and pleasure? Or is it, as paradoxical as this may seem, actually an attempt to take care of oneself and to forge a deeper intimacy, closeness, and even spiritual communion? We will look at how current antiretroviral therapies may affect decisions to have unprotected sex, and how fear and lack of fear about the danger of HIV infection play into the decision to bareback. The question of whether sex without condoms in the age of AIDS can ever be a rational decision will be explored. As the title of Chapter 3 promises, there are no easy answers to why men have sex without condoms.
This chapter offers multiple meanings that men who have sex without condoms themselves attribute to the behavior. The more we can understand the underlying motivations of unprotected and unsafe sex, the better we can have effective community conversations about how to prevent the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Lest we forget the potential serious consequences of having sex without condoms, I include the latest information about the health risks of condomless sex, discussing the relative safety of HIV-positive men who bareback with other infected men.
Why Men Are Taking Sexual RisksThere are abundant theories but no definitive answers about why gay men take sexual risks. After more than three decades of safer sex messages against the backdrop of gay men sickening horribly and then dying, new medical treatments have stemmed the tide of the pandemic and offered real hope for longer-term survival to people with HIV. Gay men want the AIDS epidemic to be over and want to be able to have sex without fear. They want to celebrate their desire without having to worry, negotiate, be fearful, or keep a shield of latex between themselves and their partners. Younger men want to experience pre-AIDS sex. Queer theorist Tim Dean (2000) writes: "In view of statistics on new seroconversions, some AIDS educators have begun to acknowledge that, unlikely though it may seem, remaining HIV-negative in fact poses significant psychological challenges to gay men" (p. 137). To those who have not been working in the gay men's community for the past 25 years, this statement might seem absurd, but it is true that HIV-negative gay men face unique challenges that make it seem almost easier to seroconvert.
San Francisco Bay area psychologist Walt Odets (1995) was one of the first mental health professionals to question why gay men who had thus far escaped becoming infected with HIV were placing themselves at risk for becoming so. Odets described HIV-negative men who struggled in a world and gay community that, however unintentionally, considered their difficulties inconsequential as compared to those of men who were fighting for their lives. These uninfected men's growing invisibility triggered old childhood feelings of being an outsider, and for some, contributed to an acute psychological crisis that often created a confluence of behaviors and thought patterns that placed them at risk for contracting HIV.
Some have suggested that during the '80s, gay men unconsciously colluded with the general public's equation of a gay identity with an AIDS identity (Odets, 1995; Rofes, 1996). New York social worker Steve Ball (1998) describes how during the height of the AIDS epidemic HIV-negative gay men often found themselves in the role of caregiver, mourner/widower, or outsider, due to their not being infected with HIV. Some of these men felt that they were not entitled to express their deep fears that they might become infected or discuss their loneliness or burnout when so many peers were dying around them. The dynamics described by Odets and Ball are part of the communal and psychosocial realities that early in the epidemic played a role in contributing to the spread of HIV.
In 1988, I wrote about how fear was one large component of what propelled gay men to change how they were having sex (Shernoff & Jimenez, 1988). Should we conclude that safer-sex campaigns have lost their effectiveness today because gay men are no longer afraid? Gay men who were recently surveyed about their failure to use condoms during anal sex repeatedly told researchers that current AIDS prevention messages do not feel relevant to them and do not convey an urgency about why condom use is important (Halkitis, Parsons, & Wilton, 2003; Carballo-Dieguez & Lin, 2003; Morin et al., 2003). For many younger gay men and for newly sexually active gay men, AIDS is associated with the past (Van de Ven, Prestage, Knox, & Kippax, 2000). In the last 20 years, the roar and urgency of HIV prevention campaigns have faded.
British psychologist and researcher Michelle Crossley (2001, 2002) writes that one factor might be a decrease in the effectiveness of the "health promotion" campaign to change gay men's sexual behavior. Gay men who come out today are raised with AIDS awareness and come out to a chorus of safer-sex messages. But Crossley notes that most "health promotion" campaigns -- for example, convincing people to stop smoking and lose weight -- have only limited long-term success. She wonders if the "safer-sex" messages ever had much effect on gay male sexual behavior. Crossley raises an interesting question that is difficult to quantify. Obviously, there were a confluence of factors in the early days of the epidemic -- most prominently fear, the horrors of sickness, and grief of deaths -- and these things made safer-sex AIDS education programs more compelling to the target audience. Crossley suggests that it is impossible to evaluate the efficacy of safer-sex messages in and of themselves since concurrent to when they first began appearing, gay men were overwhelmed by the terror that they might be infected by the then-new disease that was rapidly killing their friends and lovers. Though highly unscientific, comments shared with me by men who attended the safer sex programs I ran in the 1980s (the workshops will be described in more detail in the next chapter) reported that they felt that these interventions proved helpful to them for changing how they had sex in response to AIDS. The men who spoke or wrote to me after attending the workshop often described an enormous relief. They spoke of how important and useful it was for them to simply be in a room with other gay men sharing feelings about how sex needed to change. They also appreciated the permission that was given during these workshops to remain sexually active, albeit with some big differences from what they were used to. They reported being thrilled to be able to participate in a process that helped them reclaim the joy and fun of gay sex amidst all of the sex-negativity and sex-equaling-death messages that were inundating them. Thus, participating in this AIDS prevention workshop helped scores of men feel confident of their ability to make the necessary sexual changes and sustain them.
Factors That Lead to Sexual Risk-TakingThere are numerous theories for why gay men engage in unprotected sex, and research has explored a wide variety of possible rationales for the behavior. These include:
- Negative attitudes toward condom use (Odets, 1994; Flowers, Smith, Sheeran, & Beail, 1997; Hays, Kegeles, & Coates, 1997; Kelly & Kalichman, 1998; Van de Ven et al., 1998a; b; Appleby, Miller, & Rothspan, 1999)
- How being in a committed compared to a noncommitted couple relationship affects whether a condom is used (Elford Bolding McGuire & Sher, 2001; Vincke, Bolton, & DeVleeschouwer, 2001)
- Strongly identifying with or feeling alienated from the gay community (Hospers & Kok, 1995; Hays et al., 1997; Seal et al., 2000)
- Internalized homophobia (Meyer & Dean, 1998; Canin, Dolcini, & Adler, 1999)
- A sense of the inevitability of becoming infected with HIV as a gay man (Kelly et al., 1990; Kalichman, Kelly, & Rompa, 1997)
- The effects of substance use (Stall, McKusick, Wiley, Coates, & Ostrow, 1986; Stall, Paul, Barrett, Crosby, & Bein, 1991; Leigh & Stall, 1993; Stall & Leigh, 1994; Hospers & Kok, 1995; Woody et al., 1999; Royce, Sena, Cates, & Cohen, 1997; Chesney, Barrett, & Stall, 1998; Ostrow & Shelby, 2000; Halkitis, Parsons, & Stirratt, 2001, Halkitis et al., 2003; Halkitis & Parsons, 2002; Kalichman & Weinhardt, 2001).
There are probably a multitude of other issues at play as well. As psychologist and former researcher at the CDC Ron Stall was quoted as saying in an article in the Manhattan gay newspaper Gay City News, "There are studies that demonstrate a variety of psychosocial health issues, including depression, antigay violence, childhood sexual abuse, or substance abuse, can lead gay men to have unsafe sex" (Stall, quoted in Osborne, 2002, p. 1). In my own practice, I have identified several factors that appear to lead to sexual risk-taking: loneliness, being HIV-positive, having unmet intimacy needs, feeling alienated from the gay community, being in love, and a craving for deeper intimacy and trust.
More From This Resource Center
Undetectable Viral Load and HIV Prevention: What Do Gay and Bi Men Need to Know?
Do HIV-Negative Gay Men Need Condoms if They're on PrEP? Here's What I Tell My Patients
Related Stories
|Barebacking, Unbridled: Thoughts From the HIV Community on Unprotected Sex
|Celebrate U=U! What Undetectable = Untransmittable Means for the HIV Community
|Barebacking & HIV/AIDS


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A man was injured about 11:20 a.m. today when he was thrown out of his vehicle in a single-vehicle crash on Route 108 in Slippery Rock Township.
State police are investigating but they did not release the name of the man, believed to be in his 30s.
He was taken by Slippery Rock Ambulance to Grove City Medical Center. His condition was not available.
"He had road rash and bumps and bruises," said Ryan Hanchosky, Slippery Rock Volunteer Fire Company assistant chief.
Police said the man was eastbound just past Harmony Road when he lost control of his Toyota Scion.
The vehicle crossed the westbound lane and traveled up a hillside before hitting several small trees.
He was ejected and rolled partially down the hill. The vehicle landed on the road.
A motorist was traveling behind the man's vehicle and said the crash looked like "an explosion."
The man was "conscious and alert," police said, when rescuers found him.
He was placed on a backboard and taken to the hospital.


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Indie rock fans will want to investigate an excellent bill at The Griffin on Dec. 21. Beginning at 9 p.m., a slew of top up-and-coming talent, including Deadly Birds, Leanna May and the Matadors, Gone Baby Gone, Neighbors to the North and Sexrat, will hit the stage. All are worthy contenders with highlights set to include Neighbors to the North, which recently won a Tim Pyles FM94.9 local music contest, and Gone Baby Gone, a garage riff-driven combo fronted by Veronica Collins. All five artists on this have devoted followings and enough variety among them for a show that should be a packed fun night out.
Neighbors to the North and more: Saturday, Dec. 21 at The Griffin, 1310 Morena Blvd. 9 p.m. 21 and up. $6. www.thegriffinsd.com
On Dec. 27, Dizzy's will be the site of a performance by jazz pianist/composer Chase Morrin and his quartet, featuring bassist Justin Grinnell, drummer Charlie Weller and special guest saxophonist Ethan Heyenga. The latest in a long line of emerging jazz talent from San Diego, Morrin is barely 18 years of age with one album, En Comun, to his credit, but already has years of touring experience and dozens of jazz and classical compositions in his repertoire. At the moment Morrin remains a rising star, but with dozens of awards from the likes of Downbeat Magazine and the Monterrey Jazz Festival already on his mantelpiece, it's clear this is a performer on his way to being a major name in music.
Chase Morrin: Friday, Dec. 27, at Dizzy's, 4275 Mission Bay Drive. 8 p.m. $15. www.dizzysjazz.com
There are lots of options when it comes to music this New Year's Eve, but when it comes to reggae, the 710 Beach Club just may be your best bet. Festivities kick off at 9 p.m. with music from one of the area's top bands, The Devastators. The band formed in 2000, soon establishing itself as one of the area's top club draws. By the end of the decade, The Devastators had won the 2010 San Diego Music Award for "Best World Music," with three albums to their credit. As good as those albums are, live is where The Devastators have made their name and this end of the year blow out should be an even more celebratory event than usual.
The Devastators: Tuesday, Dec. 31 at Brick by Brick, 1130 Buenos Ave. 9 p.m. 21 and up. $10. www.brickbybrick.com
Anyone looking for variety in their soundtrack for a night out will want to check out HoneyRock, performing at the Kona Kai Resort on Dec. 19, 7 p.m. The band covers a lot of ground, with hits from the late 1950s to the present. Sounding like a pretty cool jukebox with a repertoire of more than 100 songs, the band covers a wide range of music from Johnny Cash to Oasis, C Lo Green to Amy Winehouse. Anyone looking for a combination of dancing to live music and dining will find this performance on beautiful Shelter Island one of the week's best bets.
HoneyRock: Friday, Dec. 27, 7 p.m. at the Kona Kai Resort, 1551 Shelter Island Drive. www.resortkonakai.com
Though the Bayou Brothers have won a San Diego Music Awards "Best Blues" trophy, it will be clear from the first note of one of the quintet's performances that they lean far more heavily into zydeco. Appearing at Humphrey's Backstage Live on Dec. 30, the core of the band is as a five piece (including a Bayou "sister") though additional musicians pop in as the need arises. San Diego may be some distance from Louisiana, but anyone wanting a taste of the region's wonderful sounds need look no further.
Bayou Brothers: Monday, Dec. 30 at Humphrey's Backstage Live, 2241 Shelter Island Drive. 9 p.m. www.humphreysbackstagelive.com


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August 2013 RPM - Automotive NewsPosted in News on June 28, 2013
Is It True
You can get a Shelby Raptor, as in Carroll Shelby and Ford Raptor, from Shelby American? And for $18,000 above the actual truck price?
Toledo is going to build a Jeep museum and an off-road park?
You can sell a vehicle via FaceTime? Through a car-buying company called CarBuyCo?
People aren't replacing their wipers? Safelite AutoGlass found that 23 percent of those surveyed replace every 2-3 years? Did they survey our staff to learn it would have been 100 percent?
There will be a luxo Chevy Silverado High Country and GMC Sierra Denali?
Colin McLemore, owner of Mac's Custom Tie Downs, decided to put his tie-downs to the test in Moab and tied down his personal custom Jeep JK to a trailer with a wheel net setup, then lifted the trailer by crane, hanging 20 feet high from Mac's straps for five consecutive days? And we saw that craziness with our own eyes?
Random Photo We Dug
Chevy sponsors the Detroit Tigers, and every spring since 2010, its vehicles take their spot on center stage (aka centerfield platform in the Chevrolet Fountain at Comerica Park). Here's a '14 taking said position.
Gee, That Press Release Sounds Naughty:
"Save Time with Cool Seal Butt Connectors at Del City."
What's Happening In The Industry
Yokohama is a sponsor of the new Robby Gordon Stadium Super Trucks (SST) series. Drivers will run the Geolandar rubber.
Edelbrock is turning 75 years old. (And there's a giveaway Ford Mustang—go to www.edelbrock.com for details.)
August 22-25 is Ocean City Jeep Week in Maryland. It's the fourth year for this event—learn more at www.oceancityjeepweek.com.
Mickey Thompson has been honored with the Shav Glick Award, which is given to those who have notable contributions within California. Other nominees were George Follower, Tom McEwen, and Chris Pook.
GM is investing around $332 million in different manufacturing sites in order to make more engines and transmissions. Come on down, Flint and Bay City, Michigan; Toledo, Ohio; and Bedford, Indiana. The automaker also broke ground on a new paint shop in Kansas.
Chevy and Myspace (hey, what year is this again?) recently teamed up on a music project.
Free Jeep: Falken Tire is behind the '13 Wrangler you could win during the '13 Jeep Jamboree USA season. It's an Unlimited Rubicon that's been modified up the wazoo, and all you have to do is head over to Falken Tire's Facebook page (www.facebook.com/falkentire). It's going on through November 13.
Speaking of Falken, it's the official tire of Tread Lightly!.
New Four Wheeler Newsletter
What's better than getting Four Wheeler magazine? Four Wheeler email newsletter! You'll gain special, top-secret access to videos, articles, and even promotional stuff. Go here: www.fourwheeler.com/newsletters.
Outstanding Off-Road Trails for 2013
BFGoodrich (working with Tread Lightly! and United Four Wheel Drive Associations) has named winners of the '13 Outstanding Trails program. In return for winning, the clubs that maintain the trails each get a $4,000 grant to help with preservation of trail access.
Dutch John Trail: Located in the Uwharrie National Forest in Troy, North Carolina, it's a 2.1-mile trail maintained by Carolina Trail Blazers 4WD club.
Kansas Rocks Recreation Park: The Brush Beater Jeep Club maintains this park.
Truckhaven: You know this best as home to the annual Tierra del Sol Desert Safari.
Silverado Pricing
This just in—pricing for the '14 Chevy Silverado regular cab will start at $24,585. That's unchanged from the '13 model, even with the new 5.3L EcoTec3 engine, six-speed auto trans, and other goods.
Raptor Special Edition
For 2014, Ford has unveiled a high-end F-150 SVT Raptor. The Special Edition is based off the current Luxury Package, adding things like Ruby Red Metallic paint, body graphics, and interior accents. It'll go on sale in the fall.
That's Interesting
Our sister, Motor Trend, has a super cool YouTube Channel (www.youtube.com/motortrend), and within it you can check out "Dirt Every Day," starring Fred Williams from our other sister, 4-Wheel & Off-Road. A new episode airs every other Thursday, and it's like watching TV—but on your computer TV. New vehicles are tested, events are covered, and how-tos are how-to'd. There's loads of other original programming there too, including from our other sibling, Hot Rod.
Ford is holding a $50,000 Personalized Fuel-Efficiency App Challenge—software developers are being challenged to create mobile or web-based apps to allow customers to easily access their mpg data.
A study by the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association in collaboration with IHS found that the auto parts manufacturers' industry is the largest employer of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.—or 2.3 percent of the total U.S. GDP. The top state is Michigan, followed by Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky.
A survey by Luxury Institute (?), called Luxury Customer Experience Index (?), put Audi in the top spot when affluent customers were asked to evaluate different elements of ownership and customer experience of luxo auto brands.
The Big Project Giveaway sweepstakes is happening through November 30 at www.autotraderclassics.com. Prizes will include all sorts of stuff in three different phases; goods include a four-post lift. You can also go to www.facebook.com/autotraderclassics.
Your Government At Work
Don't forget to mark your calendar for national Collector Car Appreciation Day, July 12. Go to www.semasan.com to find events near you. Also not near you.
What's the Best Car Movie?
What's your favorite auto-themed movie? Come on over to Four Wheeler's Facebook page (www.facebook.com/fourwheelermag) and tell us! These are our faves:
Brubaker: For me it's a tie between Smokey and the Bandit and The Blues Brothers. Mansour nailed it when he said that the Trans Am in Smokey and the Bandit became a character in the movie. I was 15 years old when I first saw that movie, and the black T/A was as much a star as Bandit, Snowman, and Buford T. Justice. Watching that car run blocker for the Kenworth was awesome. Similarly, the car in The Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood's 440ci-powered '72 Dodge Monaco ex-cop car, known as the "Bluesmobile" (cop motor, cop tires, cop suspension...), was a blast to watch blowing through that mall and flying over stuff. Oh, and it wasn't a movie, but I have to give props to The Fall Guy TV series for the incredible jumps and general abuse it dumped on those poor GM pickups. Colt Seavers sure was hard on trucks.
Cappa: Oh man! I can't just have one! There are so many! Most movie snob car enthusiasts will point out some cult classic like Bullitt with Steve McQueen, but my tastes are far more low-brow. Here they are, in no particular order:
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior: I loved the cool and kooky cars and trucks. And what the hell is The Humongous driving? A convertible, nitrous-fed, forklift thing with a couple ramps to strap bodies on the front? Gross.
Take This Job and Shove It: The best parts involve the presumed daily-driver monster truck (Bigfoot) crushing stuff, and of course the race scene is great.
Used Cars: How could you go wrong with a movie about shady used car salesmen? "We're blowing the s#!t outta high prices!" Trust me, it's way better than you might think.
The Cannonball Run: Just unbelievably hilarious casting, all in one movie.
Mansour: Oh, this is too easy. Smokey and the Bandit! That movie is a classic for so many reasons. I can't think of a more iconic movie car. Unlike modern car movies where they try and shove down your throat how fast and cool the car they are driving is, Smokey and the Bandit let the Trans Am simply work as a character. Maybe it's because I am from the south, but I don't know anyone in my sweet tea-sipping state who wouldn't love to own an original Bandit Trans Am. That movie makes me proud to be an American—and it makes me want to grow a mustache.


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Operation Qualification/Instrument Performance Verification (OQ/IPV)
The OQ/IPV service verifies and records the instrument's ability to meet specified performance criteria after installation, repetitive use, relocation of the instrument, or major service events. The OQ/IPV service involves comprehensive testing of the complete system using established conditions and known sample characteristics.
A key benefit of the OQ/IPV is to ensure the accuracy and precision of the instrument. Instruments should be regularly tested to confirm high-quality performance and identify possible problems due to normal wear or inadequate user maintenance.
We recommend that you have an OQ/IPV service performed at the following times:
- At instrument installation
- On a periodic basis in accordance with your standard operating procedures
- After a major repair
- After relocating an instrument to another laboratory
- After functionality is added to the system, such as a hardware or software upgrade
- After any software change that affects system security, data integrity, or administrative controls
- Before a previously installed system will be used in a regulated test environment for the first time (e.g., an instrument used for basic research transitions for use in clinical trials testing
What are Qualification and Validation?
|Analytical Instrument Qualification
|Computer System Qualification
Non-method specific test(s) based upon accepted parameters such as:
System tests based upon laboratory requirements such as:
For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.


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Or download our app "Guided Lessons by Education.com" on your device's app store.
Make Creepy Crawly Pretzel Snacks
Food, science and art — a perfect recipe for learning! This activity combines all three in a unique, kitchen-based science lesson. After kids make a tray of reasonably wholesome creepy crawlies, you'll count legs together and sort them into spiders (8 legs) and insects (6 legs). Along the way, kids learn new insect vocabulary, and then wrap up the fun lesson with a yummy snack!
What You Need:
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- Blender or food processor
- Saucepan
- 2 spoons
- Paper and pen
- 1/4 cup pecan halves
- 1/2 cup pretzels
- Decorating candy or sprinkles
- Book about spiders and insects with photos
- Baking sheet
- Cupcake papers
What You Do:
- Make the ganache the night before. If your child is comfortable in the kitchen, invite him to help out where he can. First, crush the chocolate chips in a blender or food processor.
- Next, heat the cream in a saucepan on low for about one minute, then turn it up to medium.
- Just when it begins to boil, pour the cream over the crushed chocolate and quickly stir with a chopstick until the chocolate melts. Chill overnight.
- Next, get your materials ready. For your chart, draw a vertical line on the paper, and write "Insect" on the top of one side and "Spider" on the other. To make insect legs, break round pieces off the pretzels and set aside. Pick through the nuts, choosing intact pieces to reserve.
- Before you start cooking, it's a good idea to sit down with your child and take a look at an insect book. Look at pictures of spiders and insects together and ask him how you can tell the difference between the two. If he doesn't know, explain to him that the answer is in the number of legs. Spiders always have eight legs, and insects have six. Take a look at the different pictures and start counting to determine whether each creature is an insect or a spider.
- When you're done reading, it's time to get sticky! Wash your hands, then have your child scoop a small spoonful of ganache and use his fingertips to model a body while it's on the spoon.
- When he's satisfied with the body, have him decorate it. He can poke pretzel bits into the sides for legs and add a pecan on top for a carapace. Explain to him that a carapace is a shield that covers the back of the insect, and insects aren't the only ones who have them! They also show up on turtles and crabs.
- Have him finish decorating his critter with candy sprinkles or dots.
- When he's all done, use the second spoon to push the critter onto a cupcake paper and have him re-set the legs if needed. Repeat; five or six are plenty for the follow-up activity. As he works, move the critters to the refrigerator in cupcake papers to chill.
- When all the creepy crawlies are done, bring your chart and critters to the table. Choose one, count its legs together, and invite him to place it under the correct label on the chart. Too few, too many, or an odd number of legs? He can easily add or remove them.
After sorting, take a photo! These cute critters are worth remembering. And when you're all done, don't forget to enjoy your creepy crawly snack!


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Phillip Schuster Skater Profile
Sponsors: Globe Shoes, Planet Earth Clothing, Red Bull
Hometown: Vienna , Stance: Regular, Age: , Status: Am
Last Update: Thursday, May 31, 2007 Submit an Update
Phillip Schuster Contest Results History
Mystic Skate Cup Prague Street Finals, Sunday, July 9, 2006, placed 14 out of 40 skaters.
Phillip Schuster Comments
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Psych, but we really had you going, right? (Sorry, that wasn't cool.)
Idris Elba is actually taking a year away from acting to focus on his lesser-known career as a musician. Be still, everyone's heart. Even though you probably only know him as Stringer Bell/Luther/the next James Bond, the 40-year-old is also a hip-hop artist and DJs under the name Driis.
"I want to make music but I don't want to shove it down people's throats," Elba said. "People are just barely getting to know me as an actor. But I do it from the heart, I'm not doing it for money - I just enjoy doing it."
As far as his future, he's being hounded to do collaborations. He's already partnered with the band Milk and Jay-Z, and he's interested in more. And if you're in London, you can see him in the flesh on Friday nights when he DJs at the Love & Liquor nightclub. Stalking, commence!


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Allie Gorman
Class of 2015
Allie is a junior at Washington College. She is a Chestertown native who is studying History and German. This is her third year working for GIS. She currently has been working on Domestic Violence data entry, Creating Graphs for Maryland State Police, Address Corrections and Welcome Wagon. She is a member of Animal Inpact Club and German Club. She is a member of the Chestertown Farmer's Market and spends a majority of her Saturdays there.


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PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The No. 1 Yale women's sailing team took second this weekend at the Dellenbaugh Trophy hosted by Brown University. It was a competitive event with eight of the top-10 teams in the nation present. Racing took place in cold, wet and challenging conditions all weekend long.
Saturday saw five to 12 knots of wind from the northeast and lots of current, according to the official regatta report. The Bulldogs stood second in the standings at the end of day one, 19 points behind the No. 5 MIT Engineers.
Sunday's wind blew from a similar direction but with greater strength—10 to 15 knots. Ten more races were completed on day two for a total of 12 in each division on the weekend.
When asked to comment on the racing, senior skipper Marlena Fauer said "the key was to get a good start so that you could hold all the way to the top left pressure." Boats that were forced to tack early after the start would fall behind because of the race course's left bias.
Fauer, along with senior crew Eugenia Custo Greig, finished third in B division this weekend. The two seniors finished in the top five in more than half of their races.
The Bulldogs' A division boat, manned by junior skipper Morgan Kiss and senior crew Amanda Salvesen, also finished third.
Unfortunately, third in both divisions was not good enough to beat the Engineers who finished first in both divisions. The Engineers ended the Bulldogs' season-long winning streak.
Next weekend the Bulldogs will race at the US Coast Guard Academy. They have three more weeks of practice before the Women's New England Championship.
Report filed by Chris Segerblom '14, Yale Sports Publicity


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What You'll Get
Blankets provide warmth at night, security capes for children, and nourishment for roaming hordes of goats. Wrap up in a personalized wonder-covering with today's Groupon: for $64, you get a custom 70"x53" photo blanket (a $129 value, shipping included) from PhotoWeavers, a family-owned textile mill that re-creates images by weaving them into the fabric, rather than printing over finished cloth.
The blanket-design process offers myriad creative options for those tired of basic fleeces and plaid throws. First, upload a photo and choose either the simple method, which produces a blanket with just the image woven into the surface, or the customizable method, which allows users to personalize the image with borders, labels, and insignias. With the latter method, customers can unleash their inner designer with themed borders depicting hobbies such as golf or fishing; insignias celebrating friends or family in uniform; or graphics celebrating holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries. For example, upload an image of the family dog chasing its tail, add a dog-themed border with tennis balls and biscuits, and insert a wildly creative, custom caption such as "dog blanket." After the image and graphic layout is submitted, a PhotoWeavers designer will weave the image into a blanket using around 8 miles of cotton thread, which is roughly equivalent to three zillion Q-tips.
Though PhotoWeavers sometimes features a discounted price online, this Groupon still offers the best deal available.
The Fine Print
Promotional value expires Apr 7, 2012. Amount paid never expires. Limit 2 per person, may buy multiple as gifts. Limit 1 per order. Online only. Tax and shipping included within US. Merchant is solely responsible to purchasers for the care and quality of the advertised goods and services.
About PhotoWeavers
PhotoWeavers' blankets warm with in-woven images that are higher quality than their screenprinted counterparts. Tapestry weavers in a family-owned textile mill work more than 8 miles of 100% cotton thread—the equivalent of three zillion Q-tips—into each creation. Blankets can be made using one of two methods. During the zippy, super-simple method, a blanket is born from a single image without borders, text, or other designs. In the second method, customers meld up to four pictures with custom elements to create a truer reflection of themselves than a mirror that displays human eyes as googly eyes. PhotoWeavers' looms also create tote bags, pillows, and wall hangings with the same meticulous attention to detail.


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Patient Center
Select a location to call.
April 8, 20193:15 PM
PLEASE NOTE: This provider ONLY excepts Existing patients.
Thank you for choosing Jimmy Wyatt, PA for your medical needs.
If you are unable to find a desired time, please contact the office 850-877-0320 and the receptionist will be happy to accommodate you.
To reschedule an appointment, call us directly at 850-877-0320.
In order to expedite your visit, please bring the following items:
· A list of current medications.
· Insurance card(s) and a Photo ID.
For questions about insurance and billing, call us directly at 850-877-0320.
Thank you again, and we look forward to seeing you!
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My Favorite Flirts is a feature that lets you reach your favorite Flirts easily from My Account or on 1-800-TO-FLIRT.Manage My Favorites
(6 Reviews)
Mysterious Eve Your Enlighten Mistress
Let me weave for you the beauty of my Domination.
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Publications, Volume 209
Institute of Social Research, 1980 - Social Sciences
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Kayak Wild Treasures
03/04/2018 @ 09:50 - 13:15
| Price: 45€
|Recurring Event (See all)
Weekly on the same day until 31/10/2018
Event Navigation
Tour in one of the most inhospitable and deep waters of Mallorca
The paradise is closer than you think…
The Dolphins Route is a medium level tour, around so wild and authentic places that sometimes, we can see dolphins accompanying us on our adventure!
|meeting point
09:50 h. Cala Molins (Pollença)
(39.919758, 3.057829) (map)
|3,5 hours
|approximate distance
|8 kilometers
|type of kayak
|sit on top / open
|recommended minimum age
|16 years old
|possibility to see dolphins paddling in deep water
Book this activity now
Important: If it is less than 24 hours before the activity, please call us so we can confirm there are still places available.
The activity is not considered confirmed until you receive our response.
The activity is not considered confirmed until you receive our response.