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First Choice College Placement partners with All-Star Driver
Serving same audience: Milford's First Choice likes possibilities
The changing face of higher education helped motivate the creation of First Choice College Placement. Now a clever business partnership will hopefully drive its sales -- literally.
"We formed a partnership with All-Star Driver, the driving school," said James Maroney, director of Milford-based First Choice.
After 14 years in business, the college-course prep program decided it would be beneficial to combine some strategy with a company targeting the same demographic.
"We reached out to them because we serve the same target age group," Maroney said. "If they're right at 16 for driving, they're also taking the SATs (Scholastic Aptitude Test) and the ACT (American College Testing). We thought it would be a great fit if we could work together. There's a great synergy."
The two businesses have similar educational philosophies and company cultures, said Brandon Dufour, general manager for All-Star, based in Watertown.
"The synergy between our customer base and our products makes for a very natural partnership," he said. "It will not only be great for our bottom-line, but gives us additional access to a whole new team of passionate educators. We will be able to utilize each other's resources to better not only our companies, but our products."
All-Star has 20 branches and in-house driver's education programs in 50 high schools in the state. First Choice will offer classes through its Monroe, Norwalk and Wallingford branches.
While it originally began as a higher-education consultation group, Maroney said First Choice went to test prep full time in 2001.
"This is a very stressful time for students," he said, "and it's a lot more difficult than when I started the business. We try to relieve some of the stress for kids and make them understand they will have good options." Trumbull resident Michael Goldman said his three sons used First Choice because Maroney had a nurturing approach, and they needed relief from the stress of college prepping.
"James also had an approach that made us feel that the advice he was giving was tailored to his understanding of our kids, and not just advice based on what was best for his business model," he said.
"It's nice to be able to get that feedback," Maroney said. "By working with the students we're able to increase their options and give them more opportunities."
More students are applying to state schools, he said, and SATs are crucial in seeking scholarship money because they have so many applications.


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Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard in Pontiac to reopen after several months WITH VIDEO
Motorists who have spent months avoiding a traffic construction snarl in Pontiac for the past six months will soon see some relief.
A project that began in mid-April to rebuild a mile of Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard just north of the city's downtown is scheduled to end Friday.
The Michigan Department of Transportation plans to reopen the boulevard by the end of the day Friday, weather permitting.
The project, between Montcalm Street and the north Woodward Loop, was delayed 45 days because of difficulties with an underground water main.
MDOT spokesman Rob Morosi said crews will work into the weekend if the weather this week delays Friday's scheduled opening.
Watch a report on the reopening of Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard during today's News at Noon.
"All told we expect to have it open Friday afternoon by sunset," Morosi said Monday. "If we can't make that deadline, it'll be over the weekend.
"If we get decent weather, we should have it wrapped up Friday," he said. "If they can't open it Friday, they'll work the weekend or do whatever they have to do."
Cesar E. Chavez Avenue is also known as Oakland Avenue, Dixie Highway and U.S. 24 Business Route as it heads in and out of Pontiac.
The original cost of the project was $5 million and it included rebuilding that section of the road, upgrading storm sewers, sidewalk replacement, new street lights, and traffic and pedestrian signal upgrades.
Contact Charles Crumm at 248-745-4649, firstname.lastname@example.com or follow him on Twitter @crummc and on Facebook. More information is at oaklandmichiganpolitics.blogspot.com. Keep up with the latest in local news by texting OPNews to 22700. Msg & Data Rates May Apply. Text HELP for help. Text STOP to cancel.

subset: commoncrawl


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Stephanie.wilding necesitaba un nuevo diseño de página web y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 18 diseños de 1 diseñadores freelance.
The Mind Suite
The MindSuite™.com is a Canadian-owned, online supplier of market research. The Company's core offering is a set of customer & employee survey/research tools that have been market tested and refined over the last five years. These tools have been used by many large national and` international organizations including The Heart and Stroke Foundation, BASF, Labatt, Abbott Medical Optics, Alcon, Bayer, Goodyear, Aviva Insurance, Canadian North Airlines, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Orkin-PCO, GAP, OLD NAVY, BLUE CROSS amongst others.
These proven research tools will be offered, free of charge, to members. Membership in theMindSuite.com is free. You could replace the previous two sentences with `themindsuite.com membership will be offered free of charge and will allow members the free use of these proven research tools. ` They will enable decision makers to dive deeply into issues involving customers and employees. Members will be able to gather data from their stakeholders and incorporate the results into highly usable strategic and tactical plans designed to boost revenues, profitability and performance.
1. Corporate partners: theMindSuite.com will be offered on a category-exclusive basis and positioned as a value-added offering and source of competitive advantage for firms in the office supply, distribution, financial services and other business segments (for example, UPS, FedEx, Staples, Royal Bank, etc.).
In addition, theMindSuite.com will be promoting membership to the following end-user audiences:
2. Leaders of small to mid-sized entrepreneurial enterprises (CEOs, presidents, partners, general managers).
3. HR leaders (VPs, directors) in larger B2C and B2B companies.
4. Marketing leaders (VPs, directors) in larger B2C and B2B companies
5. Senior decision makers in larger not-for-profits (trade associations, charities)
6. Managing partners in consulting, accounting, law, advertising, PR and other professional services practices.
The website must:
Reflect the innovative nature of our product offering while being dead simple to understand and use.
Both support and reflect our brand personality and core values.
Instill a feeling of confidence and trust in our ability to do what we say we will.
We are completely open to different colours, use of imagery and other creative elements.
Level 1: The site could have a splash page with a very short (2-3 sentence) introduction to our offering, and a visually interesting way of accessing:
The Customer's Mind
The Employee's Mind
Note: Two doors have been suggested.
Level 2: If a splash page is used, there will be two Landing Pages:
The Customer's Mind
The Employee's Mind
The objective of each will be to convert a visitor to a member (at no charge)
Each page would have Contact Us, About Us and Sign In buttons
Level 3: Member's Home Page with the following links:
Sign In
Contact Us
How to Use theMindSuite.com
My Profile
My Reports
Case Studies
Cutting Edge
Page 1 - Landing Page
Should be clean, professional and resemble the example sites provided.
Video: place it in the main bar as in the attached Doc. Or place it below the bar, possibly off to the right (so it would occupy the space taken up by "Featured in The New York Times" on freshbooks.com).
Not sure about the 1.888 - it's a great idea but staffing the line is an issue.
Home; Member's Home;
It would be good to have a series of simple icons for the copy points below the main horizontal bar on the Home page - like freshbooks.com. For TEM and TCM we could use the logos if they will work (in terms of size and appearance). We will need a consistent look for any that we use.
Video : PLEASE SEE THIS LINK THE WAY THEY HANDLE THE VIDEO-I THINK IT IS IN ELEGANT WAY OF DOING IT.
Finally, these layouts are not meant to stifle creativity but rather to give the designers some sense of what might be on these pages.
A couple of sites that could provide some inspiration for ours, and which I think we would happily emulate, are:
http://www.questback.com/: While not too crazy about the colours or basic design really like the clear statement of purpose (QuestBack provides online survey services and know-how for gathering, analyzing and responding to business critical feedback) and the links to specific action items – Increase your revenues, Develop your customers, Retain key personnel
http://www.salesforce.com/: Simple yet very clear about the business and USP (documented and sizable percentage increases in productivity. Collaboration, etc.). Good use of videos, easy navigation, feeling of being both professional and 'with it / funky'.
http://www.globaltestmarket.com/index.php: Simple, easy to access information. Is one of the highest ranked sits in its category
http://www.wcsr.com/: The bulldog and related statement of values underscore this 500+ lawyer firm's commitment to their clients.
http://www.accenture.com/: Although I don't like their colour scheme this seems to be the latest approach to website design (see Apple as well below).
http://www.intelex.com/ - good example of the use of videos
us.toluna.com/Default.aspx: This is more focused on consumers although I like the way that they use questions and answers on the home page. Kind of draws you in. Also allows for members to ask members. Interesting concept.


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14th Annual Family Immigration Law Conference and Tour of the Consulate
Co-Sponsored by:
Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC)
Catholic Charities of Dallas, and
Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services
November 14-15, 2012
Optional tour of the consulate on November 16 (separate registration required)
8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Nov. 14: Conference Day 1
8:45 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Nov. 15: Conference Day 2
9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., Nov. 16: Optional Tour of the Consulate
Wyndham El Paso Airport Hotel
2027 Airway Blvd.
El Paso, TX 79925
$235 per person from affiliate agencies; $705 cap
($50 charge for each attendee beyond 3)
$260 for other nonprofit agencies; $780 cap
($50 charge for each attendee beyond 3)
$390 for private attorneys and staff
$40 optional tour of the U.S. consulate in Cd. Juarez (requires separate registration)
Please be sure to register under the correct category and for the correct training. All registration changes or cancellations are subject to an administrative charge of $70.00.
Registration for the training includes an electronic version of CLINIC's Family-Based Immigration Law manual and continental breakfast both days. Lunch is on your own.
This two-day training will provide updated information on selected topics in family-based immigration, including: conversion and retention of priority dates; consular processing; adjustment of status; Child Status Protection Act; remedies for surviving relatives; selected grounds of inadmissibility; ethical issues in family-based immigration; new waiver filing procedures; and tips for filing effective waiver applications. Speakers include CLINIC's Charles Wheeler and Susan Schreiber, CIS Ombudsman staff attorney Peggy Gleason, and USCIS and US consular officials from Cd. Juarez. The training is designed for practitioners who have some experience in family-based immigration law. This is not an introductory training and is not geared to brand new practitioners. CLE applied for, including one hour ethics credit.
The training is for the staff of Catholic Charities and other community-based organizations with IRS 501(c)(3) status, and attorneys and legal worker staff of private law offices. If you are registering as staff of a community-based organization, you must fax a copy of your IRS 501(c)(3) letter designating your agency as a nonprofit entity to CLINIC at 202-635-2649. Your registration will be confirmed upon receipt of this letter. If you are an attorney, please include your state bar number. Payment is by credit card only.
Space for the training is limited to 125 participants. The deadline for registering for the conference is November 11, 2012 or sooner if registration is filled. For questions about training registration, please contact Dinah Suncin at email@example.com. Space for the consular tour is limited to 75 persons. The deadline for registering for the consular tour is October 29th, or sooner if capacity is met. For more information regarding the tour, call (915) 532-3975, ext. 212.
Lodging is available at the Wyndham El Paso Airport Hotel for $99 per day, single or double. When making the reservation, call (800) 742-7248 at least two weeks before the training to ensure that special rate and indicate you are coming to the "CLINIC" training. Other hotels are located nearby.
For registration and information regarding the optional consulate tour, CLICK HERE
For information on the agenda, CLICK HERE


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Put Dodge to work for you. Call 877.903.1907 or click here
Press Release
Greenbuild: Growing Green Building Market Supports 661,000 Green Jobs in the U.S.—a Third of the Design and Construction Workforce—According to New McGraw-Hill Construction Study
McGraw-Hill Construction kicks off Greenbuild with new research results, GreenSource event guide, and in-booth interviews with prominent green experts
Toronto, Canada – October 4, 2011
Green jobs are now firmly established in the design and construction workforce, according to a new study released by McGraw-Hill Construction at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo this week in Toronto. According to the study, 35% of architects, engineers and contractors (AEC) report having green jobs today, representing 661,000 jobs and one-third of the industry workforce. That share is expected to increase over the next three years, with 45% of all design and construction jobs being green by 2014.
"Green jobs are already an important part of the construction labor workforce, and signs are that they will become industry standard," said Harvey Bernstein, vice president, Industry Insights and Alliances for McGraw-Hill Construction. "These numbers reported by the industry match our Dodge green building market sizing; so as green takes over construction activity, so too will green take over the construction workforce."
The research also shows:
This study is the first to focus exclusively on design and construction professionals and trades workers. "Green jobs" are defined as those involving more than 50% of work on green projects or designing and installing uniquely green systems, while excluding support or administrative professionals and manufacturing, production or transportation-related services. The premier partners include the U.S. Green Building Council and the American Institute of Architects. Other partners include the Society for Marketing Professional Services, National Association of the Remodelers Industry, and the Building & Construction Trades Department of the AFL/CIO.
Further results and insights will be shared by Harvey Bernstein at Greenbuild's "The Green Workforce: Is the Construction Industry Ready for What's Next?" panel on Thursday, October 6, at 4 p.m. in room G5325. Michele Russo and Donna Laquidara-Carr will discuss two other new green studies from McGraw-Hill Construction about the benefits of green office buildings and greening existing buildings at panels on Wednesday and Friday.
McGraw-Hill Construction is committed to advancing the construction sustainability agenda through its magazines, research and analytics, and digital products such as SweetsGreen. GreenSource Magazine, the Magazine of Sustainable Design, published in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council, and its sister publications, Architectural Record, Engineering News-Record and SNAP, are covering GreenSource with multimedia news and features, and up-to-the-minute updates on social media.
"Join us in McGraw-Hill Construction's booth 1021-N all day October 5th and 6th for a high profile line-up of green experts interviewed by GreenSource and Architectural Record editors," said Jane Kolleeny, managing editor of GreenSource, as Greenbuild opened its doors today. "Also, check out our special coverage of Greenbuild on the GreenSource website including recommendations of where to go to eat, sightsee, learn and relax from local experts, blogs, photo slide shows, and videos."
For more information, visit http://greensource.construction.com/features/greenbuild/2011/ or booth 1021-N at Greenbuild. Follow us on Twitter at @GreenSourceMag, @ArchRecord, and @MHConstruction or search #Greenbuild and #GBNEXT. View photos and friend us at Facebook.com/ArchitecturalRecord and Facebook.com/GreenSourceMag.
About McGraw-Hill Construction:
McGraw-Hill Construction connects people, projects, and products across the construction industry. For more than a century, it has remained North America's leading provider of project and product information, plans and specifications, and industry news, trends, and forecasts. McGraw-Hill Construction serves more than one million customers in the global construction industry through Dodge, Sweets, Architectural Record, Engineering News-Record, GreenSource, and SNAP. To learn more, visit www.construction.com or follow @mhconstruction on Twitter.
About The McGraw-Hill Companies:
Founded in 1888, The McGraw-Hill Companies is a leading global financial information and education company that helps professionals and students succeed in the knowledge economy. Leading brands include Standard and Poor's, McGraw-Hill Education, Platts energy information services, and J.D. Power and Associates. The Corporation has approximately 21,000 employees with more than 280 offices in 40 countries. Sales in 2010 were $6.2 billion. Additional information is available at www.mcgraw-hill.com.
# # #
Media Contacts:
Lisa Jaycox, Manager, External Communications,
The McGraw-Hill Companies Information & Media, +1 212-512-3272, email@example.com
Kathy Malangone, Senior Director, Marketing Communications,
McGraw-Hill Construction, +1 212-904-4376, email@example.com


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Create an Account
We will never share your personal information with anyone
or Login
Product Description
Barkeep Tool Set
- Finishes: Polished Nickel
- Due to the inherent traits of artisan-crafted products and applied finishes, slight variation in color, pattern, or thickness may occur. No two products are identical. We believe that this adds to the value and quality of the products as they give the pieces character and enhance the beauty and uniqueness of each piece.
Weights & Dimensions
- Dimensions: 10" L x 13.5" W x 12.5" H
Additional Features
- Material: Stainless Steel, Wood, Acrylic, Brass
Shipping & Returns
- Ships to: USA/Canada
- Ships via: UPS/FedEx
- When will my order Ship? 48 Hours
- Returns Policy: We want you to love your product. If you are not happy you may return it within 14 days of delivery. Simply visit our Returns Center and follow the instructions. You will receive a refund after the product is received and inspected. Please note that shipping costs are non-refundable. The freight cost to ship your product will be deducted from your refund.


text: I know there are a number of motorcycle only campgrounds in the eastern US. Are there any in the northern Virginia/West Virginia area. I'll be exploring the Shanadoah Valley/Blue Ridge Parkway before the rally, camping along the way. I'd like to support these campgrounds if any are in that area. I already have info on the many small state campgrounds in Virginia, but if there are any recomendation, please send them along.


text:
We have built a custom knowledge base for our client. We have search enabled and users can search for KB articles. Client wants us to pass search query which lead user to that particular article.
How can I pass query which was performed to item which user clicked in search results page?


text:
Patients & Visitors
For Professionals
Health Education
About Us
Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center
Rocky Mountain Hospital For Children at P/SL
December 5, 201910:00 AM
If you need to schedule an appointment regarding a test, please call the office to schedule your appointment at (303) 750-0822.
**Please note that our providers are currently not accepting any plans from Denver Health Medicaid or Humana at this time.**
In order to expedite your visit, please bring the following items:
*A list of current medications
*Insurance card(s) and photo ID
New patients, in order to finalize your registration process, please arrive 30 minutes before your scheduled appointment time. Please download the New Patient Paperwork (https://adcacardiology.com/patient-center/patient-forms.dot) and bring the completed forms with you to your appointment.
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Now you can access your health information anytime through our secure, online health portal.
With MyHealthOne you can find a doctor, make an appointment, view hospital lab results, pay your hospital bills and more.
Send confirmation to


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The Cooperative Research, Education, and Extension Team (CREET) is composed of facilities, scientists and administrators of:
The Cooperative Research, Education, and Extension Team is a consortium of Texas A&M University System AgriLife, West Texas A&M University, and close partnering agencies. It operates with a one-program concept which emphasizes the breadth, depth, and range of scientific and educational expertise of the combined faculties and scientists of these five agencies.
The CREET Administrative Council is composed of six leaders of the aforementioned agencies. The Council meets quarterly and develops joint policies; plans programs for field days and conferences; addresses relationships with other entities; develops strategic opportunities and legislative initiative plans; interpretation events; and other related matters that build scientific and educational capacity for the Texas Panhandle.
The CREET members have a shared commitment to upgrading scientific excellence and multidisciplinary teamwork among scientists and engineers in five different agencies/universities and at multiple locations. CREET maintains a critical mass of outstanding faculty expertise to address issues and problems at many levels with holistic systems approaches.
The spirit of cooperation embodied by CREET has led to many interdisciplinary and interagency research projects and educational programs that were made possible by the critical mass of scientists involved. An example is the faculty-organized and self-directed Beef Cattle Research Team which:
Faculty from Texas Tech University and New Mexico State University have joined the CREET Beef Cattle Research Team.


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Rebuilding New Orleans
Two years after the worst natural disaster in American history, New Orleans is looking forward—to a boldly reimagined riverfront, a reenergized restaurant scene, and a new role in the national imagination. As the Big Easy continues its uneasy recovery, Peter Jon Lindberg asks, What is it like to be there now?
Some things are exactly how you remember them. The entangled aromas of sweet jasmine and olive trees, cigars and creosote, chicory and burnt sugar and river mud. The air so soft you're inclined to reach for a spoon. The Garden District mansions, with their porch fans and cut-glass fleurs-de-lis. The candy floss cottages and shotgun houses of the Marigny, an improvisation in clapboard and pastel. And all over, a cityscape overcome by vegetation: drooping banana trees, 20-foot stands of bamboo, live-oak roots bursting through the sidewalks.
The French Quarter remains as Walker Percy described it half a century ago: "The ironwork on the balconies sags like rotten lace…. Through deep sweating carriageways one catches glimpses of courtyards gone to jungle." And after a massive sanitation overhaul, the Quarter is noticeably cleaner nowadays. (This, in what was known as the City That Never Sweeps.) Bourbon Street, like it or loathe it, revels again in skanky, Skynyrd-y skrawnk. Chefs at Acme continue to defy the laws of physics and good sense by drizzling a half-cup of butter into six oyster shells.
You'll find the same jambalaya at Mother's, the same cold-brewed iced coffee at Royal Blend, the same Pimm's Cups at Napoleon House. Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers still blow the roof off Vaughn's every Thursday, while over at Tipitina's, Little Freddie King, now 67, still does a convincing chicken dance. Dixie beer—a New Orleans icon since 1907—has finally resurfaced, although it's now made in Wisconsin. (The company's red-brick brewery on Tulane Avenue was inundated with floodwater.) The Saints are back in full swing at the Superdome—and if the sight of that building still inspires a certain disquiet, perhaps that will fade with more time.
New Orleans, as you know it, is still very much alive: in the flicker of a gas lamp, the whiff of a crawfish boil, the caterwaul of a trombone. Confine yourself to the tourist playground, from the Quarter to the zoo, and you might never be reminded that something happened here. But ride out to New Orleans East, to Gentilly, to the Lower Ninth Ward, the worst-flooded parts of town, and you find the wreckage, still shocking to behold. In a town with unusually low density to begin with, whole neighborhoods now have only a few residents per block. Walk through Lakeview near the 17th Street Canal—where a levee breach unleashed a 10-foot wall of water from Lake Pontchartrain—and you'll pass six boarded-up houses before seeing a single occupied one. Flying into New Orleans, you look down on a curiously colorful cityscape, where hundreds of damaged roofs, still awaiting repair, are covered with bright blue plastic tarps. Only then do you begin to comprehend the scale of the devastation: 230,000 homes destroyed, 1,580 lives lost.
Even in mostly recovered neighborhoods, you'll notice the persistence of "Katrina tattoos," the X marks spray painted on façades by rescue workers after the storm, noting when the property was searched, by whom, and whether any survivors—or bodies—were found. Most have been painted over, but some are intact, left deliberately as symbols of perseverance. One Marigny resident has even had his cast in iron and mounted by his front door.
Two years on, Katrina still defines the landscape—physically, politically, socially, economically. It's in the paper every day, a dozen mentions at least. "Katrina lit" fills the bookshops. Time is now measured from that terrible week in 2005: "Before the storm," "During the storm," "Since the storm…." Quotidian exchanges can evolve into harrowing tales of loss or survival; the collective urge to move on from Katrina is outstripped by the need to talk about it. "Before the storm, everyone in New Orleans spoke in fictions," one resident told me. "Now every conversation is a focus group."
The hurricane left its own vocabulary. People talk of houses getting "blue-roofed." They recount being "domed" (sent to the Superdome); of being "Tex-iled"; and of finally being "de-vacked" and allowed to return home. All this new shorthand can be jarring, as when a shopkeeper told me her sales were half what they'd been "pre-K." Katrina is also part of the visitor's agenda. Tour buses now make stops in the obliterated Lower Ninth Ward. Souvenir shops are jammed with hurricane kitsch and glib T-shirts (FEMA: Fix everything my ass; or I stayed in New Orleans for Katrina and all I got was this lousy t-shirt, a cadillac, and a plasma tv). The storm has even given rise to a satirical monthly paper called The Levee (motto: We don't hold anything back), full of fake stories mocking the fitful recovery effort. From a recent issue: " 'We need time to start planning how to deal with all these plans,' [Mayor] Nagin said, deflecting critics who say the Office of Plan Planning is redundant."
For all the frustration with "plan-planning," there are signs of progress. Though overall visitor numbers dropped to 3.7 million last year (from a record 10.1 million in 2004), this year's Jazz Fest drew its largest crowds since 2003, and Mardi Gras attendance was up to 800,000 (the pre-storm average was 1 million). New Orleans casinos are positively booming (that's more depressing than encouraging, really, but there you go); the massive Harrah's downtown is having its best year ever. Meanwhile, developers have begun to remake the city: the hulking, sixties-era World Trade Center is being transformed by developer Carlton Brown into a hotel and cultural center that will include a Johnson & Wales cooking school. Pritzker Prize–winner Thom Mayne has been enlisted to design a national jazz museum as the centerpiece of a new, 20-acre performing arts district.
The most dramatic changes, however, are set to happen along the river—which is certainly due for them. For a town that once drew its entire livelihood from the Mississippi, New Orleans has an oddly stilted relationship with its waterfront: the city basically spent its first two centuries forging connections with the river, then much of the last one blocking it off. Safety concerns were one reason, but there was more to it than that. For the average citizen not employed at the port, the river ceased to have much value except as a breezy thing to jog along—and in most places you can't even do that. Whole stretches of it are hidden behind concrete barriers, dilapidated wharves, power plants, and no trespassing signs. "We need to reconnect New Orleans to its riverfront, which has been literally walled off for so long," says native son Sean Cummings, a hotelier and developer who is spearheading a sweeping revitalization plan. The targeted area: a six-mile-long strip of city-owned land on the river, running from the Lower Garden District to Bywater.
"The other goal," Cummings explains, "is to bring something new to New Orleans, an eye-opening statement, that will take the city into the 21st century." For that, Cummings recruited an all-star team led by Enrique Norten (currently designing the new Guggenheim museum in Guadalajara); Alex Krieger, chair of Harvard's Urban Planning & Design department; New Orleans–based architect Allen Eskew; and George Hargreaves, another Harvard professor and a leading landscape architect. Their plan, Reinventing the Crescent, is indeed a full-scale reinvention. Cummings brazenly predicts it will be "the most significant addition to the city since the French Quarter." The final draft was unveiled at a public forum this summer, where a standing-room crowd of 300 received the proposals with a mix of excitement and anxiety.
Krieger took pains to reassure the audience that this was primarily an open-space plan: "Out of 174 acres, only about 20 percent can be built upon, and we're doing even less than that." The proposal does make room for provocative new buildings, including an ecumenical chapel, a hotel, and several mid-rise condo towers. But between these "architectural moments" would be playgrounds, flower gardens, sculpture installations, cafés, performance spaces, and farmers' markets. An outdoor wetlands exhibit would be installed outside the popular Aquarium of the Americas. Along the underwhelming Moonwalk promenade in the French Quarter, parking lots and concrete stairs would give way to sloping lawns and landscaped terraces. At Bywater Point, where now sits an obsolete naval base, the designers envision breezy parkland, with ball fields, community gardens, and a waterfront amphitheater. Wind turbines installed throughout the site will power lighting and may keep the entire project off the grid.
Throughout the presentation, images of other urban waterfronts flashed on the overhead screen, not just of in major cities like Sydney and Chicago but in Providence, Milwaukee, and Chattanooga. (Chattanooga?) "As you can see, other cities have converted their waterfronts into remarkable public spaces," Krieger told the crowd. "Montreal relocated its port downriver and converted its functional backyard into a new front door for the city—their own version of the French Quarter." Nor are the upsides merely cosmetic: according to Krieger, the RTC plan would create 4,500 permanent jobs; add $40 million to the tax base; and bring a projected $3 billion in new investment to the city.
After the presentation, people inspected a 3-D model of the proposed plan as they would a UFO that had landed on the town green. "It looks so small," said one woman. "Look, there's my house!" said another. Reaction was mixed. Some praised the RTC designs as a long-overdue step forward, with economic benefits that could assist the city's recovery. Others dismissed the plan as a "quick-fix silver bullet," emphasizing condos and luxury hotels at the expense of modest, traditional, low-rise neighborhoods. Still, with Mayor Nagin and other leaders on board, the RTC plan is sure to go forward; the goal is completion by the city's tricentennial in 2018.
Then again, New Orleans has spent decades trying to solve its waterfront. Much of what defines the riverbank today can be attributed to one man: local developer Lester Kabacoff. It was Kabacoff who lobbied for mounting a World's Fair along the Mississippi in 1984. Though the fair was a bust, it did usher in a more visitor-friendly riverfront. A generation later, Kabacoff is hailed as "the father of New Orleans tourism."
Lester's son, Pres Kabacoff, is a city revitalization specialist who was instrumental in reviving New Orleans' historic Warehouse District. He is impressed by the ambition of the RTC plan. "These are some of the best thinkers around—we should be so lucky to do all the things that they're proposing," Kabacoff told me. "New Orleans always needs to add to the show, as I call it—to expand the tourist playground." Is he concerned about a clash between the contemporary architecture proposed by the RTC and the historic cityscape that defines New Orleans?"Not at all," he said. "All of this can coexist. I may be a preservationist, but I'm not an antiquarian."
Before the storm, Kabacoff had himself conceived a plan to revive 4,000 acres of downtown. He imagined a more walkable, European-style city, with elegant parks and promenades, rejuvenated old-world architecture—even its own Eiffel Tower, a 15-story fleur-de-lis rising above the riverbank. "I took to calling us the Afro-Caribbean Paris," he said, "because in many ways we're really the northernmost island in the Caribbean." The Caribbean analogy comes up a lot. In an essay published in Metropolis magazine earlier this year, the urban planner Andrés Duany described New Orleans as being "not among the most haphazard, poorest, or misgoverned American cities, but rather the most organized, wealthiest, cleanest, and competently governed of the Caribbean cities." As in the Caribbean, Duany noted, the culture of New Orleans arose from a surfeit of leisure time: "time to create the fabulously complex Creole dishes that simmer forever…time to practice and listen to music…time to make costumes and to parade…time to spend all day marking the passing of friends." However, as life in the city becomes more challenging—demanding greater amounts of time, money, effort, and anxiety—"the culture that arises from leisure" risks being lost.
Food and music, it is said, are the twin pillars of New Orleans culture. They are certainly the foundations of its tourism.
The good news is that the culinary scene has mostly recovered. While many restaurants never reopened after the storm, and business is still relatively slow, restaurateurs speak hopefully about a full recovery. Formal old-school haunts like Galatoire's and Commander's Palace are back, as are beloved neighborhood joints like Franky & Johnny (for po'boys), Liuzza's by the Track (for gumbo), Casamento's (for oysters), and Blue Bird Café (for Southern breakfasts). Modern classics such as Restaurant August, Herbsaint, and Lilette are firing on all cylinders with creative cooking and assured service. Most encouragingly, a determined crop of new restaurants has appeared since the storm, among them Iris (whose Ian Schnoebelen was named one of Food & Wine's Best New Chefs this year), Lüke (an Alsatian brasserie run by August's John Besh), Cochon (down-home Louisiana cuisine from local hero Donald Link), and Café Minh (Asian-French fusion from the city's best Vietnamese chef).
The music scene, however, is in rougher shape. Only two-thirds of the 5,000 musicians who worked in New Orleans before Katrina have returned, according to Aimee Bussells, director of Renew Our Music, a musicians' relief fund. Others bide their time in far-flung cities, perhaps intending but unable to return. "We need to get them home to New Orleans to keep contributing to the culture, whether they play or arrange or teach or run music stores or mask at Mardi Gras," Bussells says. "To lose that connection to the city—some of them can't breathe without it. Musicians constantly ask me, 'Where else can I do what I do?'"
A musician's life was always precarious here. "But now tourism is down, so club attendance is down. Owners are looking at their bottom line and not always paying the same rates as before," Bussells says. Moreover, a packed house doesn't always translate into earnings for the band. "People might think 'I paid a cover charge, the band's being compensated,' but sometimes the only money musicians see is tips directly from the audience."
Some help has come from Musicians' Village, an affordable-housing community in the Ninth Ward run by Habitat for Humanity. When finished next year, the eight-acre campus will include 77 large-scale houses and duplexes, a park, and a performance center with rehearsal space, classrooms, and a library.
But will formal programs persuade young players to come here, and struggling musicians to stay?Cyril Neville of the Neville Brothers has had bitter words for his hometown, lambasting its vaunted music scene as a myth. Neville, who relocated to Austin after Katrina, told the Chicago Sun-Times that he had "worked more in two months in Austin than I worked in two years in New Orleans," calling Austin "a city that actually cares about musicians." Bussells concurs: New Orleans needs to take a more active role in nurturing and sustaining its musical culture. "For a long time, people here assumed it was their right to hear great jazz or blues," Bussells says. "I think we're realizing not only how important the music scene is, but how fragile."
Thankfully, there are still places like the Spotted Cat, a bare-bones bar in the Marigny that could have been dropped in from 1933. There's no PA, no amplification at all, and no spotlights per se—just a dim yellow bulb above the stage, a worn patch of floorboards beside the front door. The door stays open all night to the breeze, and passersby gather on the sidewalk to listen to the band. Mondays and Fridays belong to the Jazz Vipers, a ragtag seven-piece crew playing gleeful trad jazz in the style of Benny Carter and Dicky Wells. The acoustic format lets each element come through intimately: the squeak of fingertips on fiddle strings, the scrape of nails across the banjo drum. I adore Austin, but it's got nothing on this place.
It was true long before the hurricane: New Orleans is shrinking. Between 1960 and 2000 the city lost 180,000 residents, and Katrina may have sent away as many more. Prior to the storm, New Orleans had a population of 444,000. Generous estimates put the current figure at 300,000—less than half what it was at its mid-century peak.
New Orleans may also shrink geographically, whether by nature or design. Citing the tremendous cost of adequate flood protection, some politicians, most notoriously ex–Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, have questioned the wisdom of rebuilding any part of New Orleans that sits below sea level—that's about half the city. Others have argued for reducing the inhabited area in favor of a more compact plan, clustered on the higher ground near the river. Mayor Nagin briefly considered "shrinking the footprint" last year, and public reaction was vicious. Nagin beat a full retreat, then returned with a more populist strategy: the $1.1 billion "Unified New Orleans Plan" targets 17 zones throughout the city (including the flood-prone Lower Ninth Ward) for redevelopment. For now, city officials are committed to resettling virtually all of New Orleans.
Whether or not displaced residents will return is another question. Before Katrina, nearly a third of New Orleans' population lived below the poverty line. The poor were the hardest hit by the storm, and it is largely they who have not returned. Some still await state or federal aid. Others found jobs elsewhere and have no financial incentive to return. Those who do come back find an environment far less forgiving to the working poor: rents have skyrocketed since Katrina, few of the low-income housing units destroyed in the flood have been or will be rebuilt, and federal grants overwhelmingly favor homeowners and home-buyers over renters. Since the majority of low-income residents here were African-American, there are troubling racial overtones as well. Consider that Katrina has effectively purged New Orleans not only of much of its baseline workforce but—in a city whose music, food, and street rituals bubbled up from the underclass—the wellspring of much of its culture.
Within a generation, New Orleans may no longer be the place we've all come to know during our long national fascination with the city. But some New Orleanians hope that the energy, resources, and ideas mobilized by the rebuilding effort can be brought to bear on the city's pre-K problems. Instead of returning to the status quo of August 28, 2005, local leaders like Sean Cummings argue that the city should think "beyond recovery."
Cummings's enthusiasm for New Orleans is matched by his frustration over a city that is "far too insular and parochial for its own good," as he describes it. "This used to be a vital, ever-changing place, thanks to a constant influx of outsiders—Italian, Spanish, Senegalese. But at some point we ceased to be a magnet for new blood and fresh ideas. People became suspicious of the outside world, and New Orleans stopped evolving. For eighty years we've been this self-referential echo chamber."
It's true that few American cities have become so fixed in the public mind. Visitors and residents alike tend to have very specific ideas of how New Orleans should look, taste, sound, and behave. "Beignets, paddle-wheel boats, heavy cream sauces, all that outmoded iconography—it's like identifying Philadelphia solely with Rocky and cheesesteaks," Cummings says. "I'm not suggesting New Orleans forfeit its quirky culture, its sense of place, that intangible warmth that defines it. I'm asking, How might we advance and build upon that?"
The 42-year-old developer has found a kindred community of young New Orleanians—restaurateurs, musicians, artists, designers—intent on "nudging the city into the 21st century." People like chef Scott Boswell (owner of Cummings's favorite restaurant, Stella!), "who isn't afraid to look beyond New Orleans for influences." Or 21-year-old jazz virtuoso Troy Andrews, a.k.a. Trombone Shorty. "He stands on Wynton's shoulders," raves Cummings. "For a lot of New Orleanians under 25, jazz has become irrelevant—but Troy has the opportunity to reinvent it." (He's certainly the only horn player I've ever seen crowd-surf across a mosh pit.)
"The good news is, post-catastrophe, New Orleans is not as isolated or provincial as it was," Cummings says. "There's an enormous amount of energy and ideas and new faces coming here now—architects, urban planners, entrepreneurs, academics, this incredible influx of talent. That never happened before."
While reaction to the RTC proposal has been largely positive, Cummings is exasperated by critics who call the plan overpriced, oversize, or, worse yet, unnecessary. "Architecture is a particularly fraught subject here, because we're surrounded by tradition. People would rather have you build something that looks old than something expressive of this time," he says. "I'm trying to tell them, It's okay to look forward again. Of course it's always uncomfortable for a city to evolve, especially in the aftermath of a tragedy. You instinctively cling to what you knew before. But the old ways weren't working. We're at a pivotal moment where this city not only can reinvent itself, it needs to. Extinction is not out of the question."
According to some experts, extinction isn't just out of the question, it's guaranteed—unless New Orleans' flood defenses are radically rethought. It's clear now that the levee system was badly designed, shoddily built, and poorly maintained. Although the Army Corps of Engineers has worked 24/7 to repair it, they're essentially shoring up a relic, says Robert Bea, professor of civil and environmental engineering at U.C. Berkeley. "I compare the current system to a 150-year-old patchwork family quilt," he says. "We've replaced sections, but if you challenge the quilt once more, the weak sections will tear all over again." The Corps says New Orleans' current flood defenses exceed pre-K levels—hardly a ringing endorsement—but are not yet enough to withstand a 100-year storm, one likely to happen once a century. (Though Katrina was only a Category 3 when it skirted New Orleans, the Corps says it was a 400-year storm.) Engineers expect a 100 year storm–proof system to be in place by 2011. Still, even then, another Katrina could overwhelm the city.
Money is obviously the stumbling block here. But given the funding, is it even possible to protect New Orleans from hurricanes?"Absolutely," says Bea, noting that Amsterdam's flood defenses were designed to withstand a 10,000-year storm. "The Dutch look at us as you would at a primitive country. They can't believe we're stopping short," he says. "The fact is, New Orleans can be made safe—but we have to restore the coastal wetlands, which form a natural barrier against hurricanes." That crucial work hasn't even begun yet. Given the city's weakened defenses, the next decade will be critical for its survival. No wonder some are comparing New Orleans to Venice—another waterborne museum piece living on borrowed time.
Then there's the terrible quotient of violence. New Orleans now has the highest murder rate in the country, and although nearly all killings have occurred outside the tourist enclaves, visitors are understandably wary. Fox's new cop show "K-Ville" probably doesn't help. Set in present-day New Orleans—guess what the "K" stands for—it depicts the city as a sort of Mogadishu-with-gumbo, where "criminals roam the streets with AK-47's."
The mayor doesn't sound overly concerned. In a bizarre remark that speaks to the pervasive desperation here, Nagin recently called the soaring murder rate "a two-edged sword…. It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and it keeps people thinking about our needs."
All of which raises a question: Should you come?The answer is: Yes. Yes, by all means, come. Come to rebuild houses with the St. Bernard Project; come to eat grilled watermelon–and–heirloom tomato salad at August or to slurp down gumbo at Liuzza's; come to take a carriage tour and laugh over how cheesy and delightful it can be; come to show your children what jazz is; come to ogle some of the most breathtaking mansions in America, and to bear witness to the most heartbreaking devastation. "Just being here, putting money back into the city, going to a Saints game, seeing live music, shopping at a local record store—that's helping the relief effort," says Aimee Bussells, of Renew Our Music.
Since the storm, an estimated 1.1 million people have come to New Orleans to help with recovery and rebuilding. There are still many opportunities for "voluntourism" (see the Guide, page 241), and such initiatives need help as much if not more so today. Twenty-six months after Katrina, except for the media's obligatory anniversary reports, New Orleans has faded considerably from public view, and the flow of donations and volunteers has also dropped off. Yet the emergency of Katrina did not end when the hurricane passed, nor when the floodwaters receded, nor when the last welcome mat was finally wrung dry. In many ways, the storm isn't over.
Yet so much of New Orleans is accessible, and its inclusive spirit can make newcomers feel they belong here. No matter where you come from—no matter how badly you mangle the street names, how confounded you are by the ordering system at Domilise's, or how clumsily you dance—New Orleans welcomes you as one of its own, with a warmth that verges on the comical. Even the most jaded out-of-towner has to get a charge out of being greeted "Heeyyyyy, brutha!" by a Ritz-Carlton doorman. Or having Domilise's gruff counter lady finally fix you in her sights, her frown suddenly changed to a smile, and ask, "What can we feed you, baby?"
"One of the great things about New Orleans is how democratic places are," says Brett Anderson, restaurant critic for the Times-Picayune. "In all my time here I've never seen a velvet rope." There's not even a bouncer outside the Spotted Cat, which, on one recent Monday, was still packed at 2 a.m. with boho musicians, yuppies, grizzled old men, three goths, and a bachelorette party. The Jazz Vipers wrapped up their set with an original tune, "I Hope You're Coming Back to New Orleans." During the trumpet solo a firetruck roared by on Frenchman Street. Whooo-ooo, whooo-ooo, whooo-ooo, went the siren. Whooo-ooo, whooo-ooo, whooo-ooo, replied the trumpet, and sax player Joe Braun grinned as he sang in a Satchmo growl:
Stormy weather may come and go
Mother Nature may put on her show
Still in my mind there's nowhere else to go
So baby won't you please come home?
Peter Jon Lindberg is a T+L special correspondent.
When to Go
The city is most pleasant between November and April, with high temperatures in the 60's and 70's. In 2008, Mardi Gras falls on February 5, Jazz Fest from April 25 to May 4.
Where to Stay
Many New Orleans hotels, including the Ritz-Carlton, offer voluntourism packages for those who wish to help directly with the city's recovery. Check hotel Web sites or call for details.
GREAT VALUE International House This boutique hotel between the French Quarter and the Warehouse District has a chic lobby bar and stunning penthouse. 221 Camp St.; 504/553-9550; ihhotel.com; doubles from $189.
Ritz-Carlton New Orleans The city's top hotel straddles the Quarter and the Central Business District. 921 Canal St.; 800/241-3332 or 504/524-1331; ritzcarlton.com; doubles from $409.
Where to Eat
Café Minh Vietnamese chef Minh Bui's latest venture joins Asian and French flavors to winning effect. 4139 Canal St.; 504/482-6266; dinner for two $70.
Cochon At Donald Link's loftlike new restaurant, a hearty Cajun menu highlights the namesake roast pig and rustic charcuterie. 930 Tchoupitoulas St.; 504/588-2123; dinner for two $56.
Cuvée Bob Iacovone's inventive reworkings of Creole and Southern classics include a delectable foie gras boudin and, no joke, chicken-and-waffles (coq au vin, really, with crispy pancetta and fluffy Belgian waffles spread with Boursin). Like the food, the setting is equal parts homey and refined, all bare brick, warm burnished wood, and wrought iron. 322 Magazine St., Central Business District; 504-587-9001; www.restaurantcuvee.com; Dinner for two $90
Domilise's The "best po' boys in town" argument usually boils down to two places. Franky & Johnny—more bar than restaurant—has better bread; Domilise's has fresher toppings. Try them both. 5240 Annunciation St.; 504/889-9126; dinner for two $34.
Franky & Johnny 32 Arabella St.; 504/899-9146; dinner for two $36.
Iris Dining room as boudoir: celadon-green walls and bordello lighting create an intimate setting for Ian Schnoebelen's clever seasonal cooking, emphasizing fresh seafood and local produce. 8115 Jeannette St.; 504/862-5848; dinner for two $79.
Lüke Acclaimed chef John Besh's eight-month-old brasserie channels fin-de-siècle Vienna: rattan café chairs and belt-cranked ceiling fans are a convincing backdrop for a classic European menu. Hilton New Orleans, 333 St. Charles Ave.; 504/378-2840; dinner for two $84.
Restaurant August A decidedly old-world setting for Besh's robust, ingredient-driven, contemporary cooking. 301 Tchoupitoulas St.; 504/299-9777; dinner for two $110.
Stella! Scott Boswell is the city's most imaginative chef, and his Asian ingredients and preparations of such dishes as sake-and-miso–glazed sea bass are always compelling. 1032 Chartres St.; 504/587-0091; dinner for two $180.
Where to Go Out
For music & entertainment listings, pick up free copies of the local monthly Offbeat (offbeat.com) or the Gambit, the city's alternative weekly (bestofneworleans.com).
Napoleon House The sepia-toned landmark has perfect Sazeracs and Pimm's Cups, and more atmosphere than 20 of your hometown bars. 500 Chartres St.; 504/524-9752.
Spotted Cat 623 Frenchman St.; 504/943-3887.
Vaughn's Local legend Kermit Ruffins and his BBQ Swingers light up this down-home bar every Thursday night, when Ruffins himself also cooks up a communal barbecue feast for the audience. 800 Lesseps St.; 504/947-5562.
Safety Advice
Is New Orleans safe to visit?Yes. However, this is not a city where travelers should venture off the beaten path hoping to discover some cool hidden corner or hip under-the-radar joint. Even in well-trafficked parts of New Orleans, keep your wits about you, avoid isolated areas, and do not walk alone after dark.
Whether you are spending a day or a week in the Louisiana city, here are nine organizations that give back to a community still in need.
One-hundred percent of all residences in the St. Bernard Parish flooded after Katrina. The St. Bernard Project (stbernardproject.org) rebuilds these properties, so families can move back into their homes. Volunteers can donate their time--install a new floor or repair a roof--or money to the organization.
The Renew our Music Fund awards grants, provides instruments, and offers financial assistance to New Orleans' musicians. You can help keep the music alive through a monetary contribution or by donating a used instrument.
Founded in 1997, The Tipitina's Foundation (tipitinasfoundation.org) strives to restore and preserve the music community through local programming, such as Instruments A Comin', supports school band programs, Tipitina's Internship Program, mentorship program for high school music students, Music Office Co-Op, job skills training for local musicians, and Sunday Music Workshops. Travelers can aid the musicians by making a contribution or sending in a used instrument.
The Silence is Violence (silenceisviolence.org) campaign is intent on reducing the city's murder and crime rates. One of its newest programs, City Walks, brings a safe presence to the streets with guided walking tours of New Orleans' neighborhoods. Individuals can help the anti-violence organization by purchasing artwork, books, or clothing on their website.
With the help of hands-on volunteers and charitable donations, the New Orleans area Habitat for Humanity (habitat-nola.org) is building hundreds of new homes in the community. The group is also working with Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis' Musician's Village—70 single-family homes geared for displaced New Orleans' musicians.
While Beacon of Hope (lakewoodbeacon.org) strives to rebuild New Orleans' houses, the organization also serves as a vital resource center, addressing residents' concerns and liaising between city agencies and homeowners.
Operation Kids (operationkids.com) provides funding for youth-centered organizations throughout New Orleans, such as local schools, neighborhood parks, and mentoring programs.
If you are staying at one of the cities' five Marriott properties, you can take advantage of its Big Easy Spirit to Serve program, which contributes $50 to Habitat for Humanity and provides visitors with a "care concierge," who will provide recommendations for hands-on community service options. When booking online, enter rate code "xxau," or call 866/530-3763.
Ritz Carlton New Orleans' Crescent City Comeback package (from $1,100) includes accommodations for two-nights along with transportation to a relief organization site, lunch for two, a butler-drawn bath, and a massage for two. If you prefer to provide a monetary donation, its Bring Back the Big Easy package (from $259) includes accommodations for one-night, breakfast for two, and a ten percent donation to Operation Sudden Impact, which specializes in planting trees in public spaces around the city.


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MILPITAS, Calif., June 26, 2012 - SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today announced the acquisition of Schooner Information Technology, Inc., an enterprise software company located in Silicon Valley that develops flash-optimized database and data store solutions. Schooner's products complement SanDisk's growing portfolio of enterprise solid state disk (SSD) and flash-optimized software offerings that enable customers to accelerate the performance of data-intensive applications and reduce overall cost of ownership. Schooner's team of database and flash optimization experts have joined SanDisk's Enterprise Storage Solutions (ESS) team. Schooner's products will be optimized for SanDisk's enterprise SSD portfolio as well as for enterprise SSDs from third parties.
Schooner's products are currently deployed by U.S. and international customers, including several Fortune 500 companies. Designed to fill the gap between stock do-it-yourself open source solutions and expensive high-end database deployments, Schooner's products deliver enterprise-grade performance, powering data center consolidation at a lower cost. Engineered for flash acceleration and enhanced with enterprise features, Schooner's products deliver up to five times the throughput of competing configurations. In addition, they deliver near in-memory response times to mission critical applications along with enterprise-grade replication and failover capabilities. In-memory database solutions are enabling breakthroughs in database and Business Intelligence applications that are only possible with solid state memories. Schooner's ability to combine DRAM and flash memory seamlessly in a single solution offers near DRAM performance at a lower cost.
"Schooner's products illustrate the benefits software developers and their customers can gain through flash optimization of enterprise solutions," said Greg Goelz, vice president and general manager of the Enterprise Storage Solutions division at SanDisk."Schooner represents another step in SanDisk's expansion in the enterprise space. We welcome the Schooner team to the SanDisk family."
The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
About Schooner Information Technology
Schooner Information Technology delivers cost-effective, enterprise-grade software solutions engineered for flash memory. These solutions free customers from the traditional tradeoffs between availability, performance and total cost of ownership. Schooner products support a variety of customers across the technology, entertainment, financial services and telecommunications industries.
About SanDisk
SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) is a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, from research and development, product design and manufacturing to branding and distribution for OEM and retail channels. Since 1988, SanDisk's innovations in flash memory and storage system technologies have provided customers with new and transformational digital experiences. SanDisk's diverse product portfolio includes flash memory cards and embedded solutions used in smart phones, tablets, digital cameras, camcorders, digital media players and other consumer electronic devices, as well as USB flash drives and solid state drives for the computing market. SanDisk's products are used by consumers and enterprise customers around the world.
SanDisk is a Silicon Valley-based S&P 500 and Fortune 500 company, with more than half its sales outside the United States. For more information, visit www.sandisk.com.
© 2012 SanDisk Corporation. All rights reserved. SanDisk and the SanDisk logo are trademarks of SanDisk Corporation, registered in the United States and other countries. Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective holder(s).
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including market expectations for adoption of products incorporating Schooner Information Technology's software solutions and our enterprise SSD products, the expected benefits and competitive advantages of the acquisition and new products, and the expected impact on SanDisk's SSD solutions, which are based on our current expectations and involve numerous risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate. Risks that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate include among others: the market demand for our SSD products and customer relationships, including products incorporating Schooner's solutions, may grow more slowly than our expectations; competitive products may have better features, may be easier to operate or may be available at a lower cost, which could enable these products to achieve better customer acceptance than our products; our products and those incorporating Schooner's solutions may not perform as expected; there may be delays in the effective integration of Schooner's business, intellectual property, personnel and technologies and such integration may disrupt our ongoing business, distract our management and employees, harm our reputation and increase our expenses; there may be one-time charges, increased contingent liabilities, adverse tax consequences or impairment of intangible assets or goodwill, which could harm our results of operations; and the other risks detailed from time-to-time under the caption "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports, including, but not limited to, our most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q and our annual report on Form 10-K. We do not intend to update the information contained in this press release.
|Media Contact:
|Lee Garvin Flanagin
|SanDisk Corporation


text:
6 dead, 17 wounded in Helmand bus-truck collision
6 dead, 17 wounded in Helmand bus-truck collision
LASHKARGAH (Pajhwok): Six people were killed and 17 others wounded in a traffic accident in the Washer district of southern Helmand province on Monday morning, officials said.
Greshk district chief Mohammad Saleem told Pajhwok Afghan News the accident took place at around 9am on the Nimroz-Kabul highway.
He said the accident occurred when a bus collided head-on with a truck. Six people were killed and 17 others wounded, he added, fearing casualties could be higher.
An official at the Greshk hospital said 10 injured people had been brought to the hospital. The rest of the injured and bodies were evacuated to Lashkargah Hospital.
The bus belonged to the Ayubi Transport Company.
Related Article
Download "Pajhwok" mobile App, on your smartphone to read and access latest news, features, interviews, videos and photos about Afghanistan.


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An Ohio man convicted of fatally shooting his ailing wife in her hospital bed was sentenced Friday to six years in prison and plans to seek clemency from the governor.
An Ohio man convicted of fatally shooting his ailing wife in her hospital bed was sentenced Friday to six years in prison and plans to seek clemency from the governor.
John Wise, 68, has said he shot his debilitated wife out of love in August 2012 after she suffered aneurysms and appeared to be in pain at an Akron hospital. Mercy is not a defense to a murder charge in Ohio.
The sentence issued by Summit County Court of Common Pleas Judge Mary Margaret Rowlands was in line with prosecutors' recommendation that the Massillon man receive a lighter punishment than the minimum 23 years on his most serious conviction, an aggravated murder count.
Holding a cane and wearing a striped jail outfit, Wise remained seated during the hearing. He made a brief statement, choking up as he apologized to his family and his son. He also thanked the prosecutors and the court.
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Prosecutors said the case warranted leniency, but they emphasized that Wise's actions were illegal.
"It is not our intention to minimize what happened. You cannot bring a loaded gun into a hospital and shoot someone," Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh said in a statement after the sentencing.
In court, Assistant Prosecutor Brian LoPrinzi told the judge: "We believe that although his motive may have been pure, he was wrong."
Wise's attorney, Paul Adamson, said they will pursue clemency from the governor and create an online petition for supporters to sign. He called the shooting "an aberrational act" for Wise.
"I've never represented a finer man," Adamson told the judge.
The prosecutor's office said it would oppose any reduction in Wise's punishment.
Among those at the sentencing was Liz Flaker, one of the jurors who convicted Wise after he pursued an insanity defense. She said the jurors, who deliberated for several hours, took two votes. The first was 9-3 in favor of conviction; the second was unanimous.
"There was really no split, per se, but I think there were a couple of people that kind of wavered on … thinking was he insane or was he not insane," Flaker said. "I think the way the law was written for the state of Ohio is a little bit hazy."
Prosecutors had recommended that Wise be sentenced to six years for manslaughter, a charge that wasn't among the counts against him but is considered a lesser included offense. After neither side found previous case law to support that unusual suggestion, the prosecution instead asked the judge to sentence Wise under his felonious assault conviction with a firearms specification, and the judge did so.
Wise also was convicted of aggravated murder with a firearm specification and murder, which could have led to a life sentence.
Police say Wise calmly walked into the hospital room on Aug. 4, 2012, and shot his wife of 45 years at her bedside. She died the next day.
Wise told police he intended to kill himself, too, but the weapon jammed.
"My recollection is that I walked in there, and within two minutes, I kissed her on the cheek and shot her," Wise told jurors.
Barbara Wise, 65, was in the intensive care unit at Akron General Medical Center after suffering triple cerebral aneurysms that had left her unable to speak, a family friend has said.
A doctor testified that Barbara Wise wasn't terminally ill and seemed to be responding to treatment.
Associated Press writer Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.


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Dr. Lloyd Jeff Dumas is a Professor of Political Economy, Economics, and Public Policy in the School of Economic, Political and
Policy Sciences (previously, Social Sciences) at the UT-Dallas.
He has published six books and more than 100 articles in 11 languages in books and journals of economics, engineering, sociology, history, public policy, military studies and peace science, as well as in such newspapers/magazines as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, Science magazine, Boston Globe, Technology Review, Defense News, and the Dallas Morning News. His latest work, Seeds of Opportunity: Climate Change Challenges and Solutions was published online by the Civil Society Institute (www.civilsocietyinstitute.org) in April 2006.
Dr. Dumas has been quoted as an authority in Time, Business Week, Financial Times, Science, Der Spiegel, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, and Washington Post, among many others. He has addressed the United Nations, testified at city, state and federal government hearings, and discussed the policy implications of his work on more than 250 TV and radio programs in the U.S., former Soviet Union, Russia, Canada, Europe, Latin America and the Pacific.
He has spoken at some 200 conferences and special lectures since 1980, including symposia sponsored by the Sandia Nuclear Weapons Laboratories, the Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Laboratories, the State Department, the United Nations and the Soviet Academy of Sciences, as well as professional meetings of economists, sociologists, political scientists, physicists, engineers, historians, physicians, management scientists, philosophers, teachers, labor unions and members of Congress.
From 1991-93, Dumas was Vice Chair of the Governor's Taskforce on Economic Transition of the State of Texas. From 1994-1996, he was consultant to the Los Alamos National Laboratories (birthplace of nuclear weaponry) on expanding civilian R&D activities at the Labs. In 1999, he co-organized (with Dr. Ali Mazrui), an International Conference on Peacekeeping, Development and Demilitarization in Africa, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and the U.S. Institute of Peace, speaking there on Catalyzing Economic and Political Development. In 2002 and 2005, he (along with Dr. Janine Wedel) was awarded two sequential Ford Foundation grants (totaling more than $400,000) to develop a code of ethics for and methods for increasing transparency and accountability of international economic consulting on development and transition.


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The folks over at iND Distribution took their stock 2013 BMW M5 and ran it on the dyno. It put down 527 horsepower at the wheels.
Most estimate around 15% difference between wheel and crank horsepower. For the mathematically challenged out there, that would put the twin turbo V8 at somewhere around 620 horsepower.
IND's specific car has 450 miles on it, and was bone stock. They also weighed the car and found it sat at 4,313 pounds, just 25 more than BMW's official estimate. You can dissect the details of the test at M5post.com.
BMW's official horsepower rating of 560 is looking more than a little conservative right now.
(Hat tip to Kris!)
Photo Credit: iND Distribution


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Tel Aviv was always hovering something in the middle of the ever-growing list of places I wanted to visit. But in recent years, I kept hearing what a hip place it was, and how it was sort of the "San Francisco" of Israel. Stretching along a massive beach, as soon as I arrived in the city, I wanted to ditch my luggage and jump right in. Then eat.
Tel Aviv is a lively place and the vibe is decidedly different from Jerusalem. I don't think you could visit one without the other. Whereas Jerusalem is historic, Tel Aviv has a somewhat more modern look and feel because many European Bauhaus architects fled to Tel Aviv, so there are lots of Bauhaus and Bauhaus-inspired houses and apartment buildings across the city, making this a UNESCO World Heritage site.
There are 4000 Bauhaus buildi...Read More


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Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.


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In the new sci-fi movie "After Earth," the real-life father-son duo of Will and Jaden Smith play the fictional father-son duo of Cypher and Kitai Raige, two space-faring humans whose ship crashes on a perilous, long-abandoned Earth about 1,000 years in the future. Cypher suffers two broken legs, while Kitai comes out in one piece and embarks on a journey to save them.
But when it comes to reviews of "After Earth," neither the elder Smith (who is also a producer on the film) nor Jaden -- nor director M. Night Shyamalan -- has emerged unscathed. The film has met with overwhelmingly poor reviews.
The Times' Betsy Sharkey said the screenplay, by Shyamalan and Gary Whitta, "has no nuance, none. And when Shyamalan moves into the director's chair, the script problems are magnified." Among those problems are a lack of subtlety, a surfeit of flashbacks and "dull opening narration." To make matters worse, the special effects are "one generation beyond tinfoil."
Regarding the two leads, Sharkey wrote, Will "Smith has never seemed stiffer," and Jaden "is trying so hard that the teenager's engaging on-screen presence, the one that made 'The Karate Kid' such a kick, mostly disappears." Sharkey's coup de grace: "If you're still wondering whether 'After Earth' is a disaster, the question is not if, but how big?"
Manohla Dargis of the New York Times gave a similar assessment. "The story kicks in slowly, beat by predictable beat," she wrote, adding, "For the most part it is an uninteresting slog alleviated only by the occasional unintended laugh and moments of visual beauty." Will Smith, she said, gives "a calamitously one-note, unpersuasive performance that's a match to that of Jaden, a pretty teenager with jumpy eyebrows whose character remains an insufferable brat."
NPR's Mark Jenkins said, "'After Earth' doesn't play to the strengths of any of its major participants." Smith's character is "devoid of the bantering wit and easygoing demeanor of his trademark roles," Shyamalan "struggles with a surprise-free plot and a trial-by-fire moral so earnest it suggests a circa-1944 World War II flick," and Jaden, "in the movie's tissue-thin principal role, is called on to act. He'll start losing viewers with his wooden opening narration."
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that "After Earth" finds Shyamalan "branching out, coming up with new ways to make bad movies. His plan must be to exhaust all possibilities so as to eventually come full circle and make a good one by accident." LaSalle summed up the rest of the film as "a character we don't care about [Jaden's], played by an actor of no inherent screen presence, fighting off computer-generated monsters."
The Boston Globe's Ty Burr said, "It's very sweet that Will Smith, who wrote the original story and served as co-producer (along with wife Jada Pinkett Smith), has given his son a movie of his own to prove his worth." Unfortunately, Jaden lacks the "acting chops and basic screen presence" required to carry a movie, and Smith himself gives "a humorless, charisma-free performance." (To round out the trifecta, Burr called the film "flaccidly directed.")
About the closest thing to a good review is Michael Phillips' in the Chicago Tribune, and it's not exactly glowing. He called the film "modestly entertaining" and added, "'After Earth' won't change your world, but it's attractive ... and Smith the Elder, lowering his voice to subterranean James Earl Jones levels, delivers a shrewd minimalist performance. His son may get there yet."
He may indeed, but probably not soon enough to save "After Earth."


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|Men's Head Coach
|Alma Mater:
|San Diego State
|Graduating Year:
|20 Years
Tony Salerno is in his 21st season as the head coach of the men's track and field program at the University of California San Diego in 2020. He also remains an assistant for the women's program in the throwing events. Salerno served as head coach for both the men's and women's squads for 12 years prior.
In 2016, Salerno saw three student-athletes compete at the NCAA Division II Championships, with two earning All-America distinction.
Salerno was named the 2015 California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Men's Coach of the Year.
Salerno has over 30 years of college coaching experience. Since moving to the NCAA Division II level in 2001, both the men's and women's squads have been ranked among the top programs in the nation under his guidance.
UCSD athletes have earned a remarkable 65 NCAA Division II All-America distinctions during his tenure as head coach. Since Salerno arrived on the La Jolla campus, the evolution of both the men's and women's teams at the Division II level has been nothing short of dramatic, with the men registering second-place finishes at the CCAA Championships in 2006, 2009, 2010, 2014 and 2016. The men's program has consistently ranked among the top 25 programs in the nation in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) National Power Rankings and was named a USTFCCCA Academic All-American Team last season.
Salerno's final season as head coach of the women's program in 2007 proved to be a banner year for the Tritons as they claimed their third straight CCAA championship. The season was capped by an eighth-place finish at the NCAA Championships, which was the program's highest national championship placing since moving to the Division II level at the time. The Triton women ranked either first or second in the USTFCCAA national power rankings every year from 2003 to 2009.
The successes of the Triton track and field programs have not gone unnoticed by his coaching peers. Salerno was voted the CCAA Women's Coach of the Year in 2005, 2006 and 2007, as well the West Region Coach of the Year in 1993, 2005, 2006 and 2007. He was voted National Coach of the Year in 2005.
A specialist in coaching the throwing events, Salerno has produced 45 NCAA All-Americans, as well as seven individual NCAA champions in throws and the decathlon during his time at UCSD. In 2009, junior Danielle Thu won the national title in the hammer throw with a toss of 198'8" -- a mark that ranks fifth all-time in Division II -- and sophomore Nick Howe won the national championship in both 2010 and 2011. Over the span of his 35 years of coaching at the high school, community college, Division I, II and III levels, Salerno has produced numerous record setters and champions.
Salerno began his tenure at UCSD in 1988 as an assistant coach before taking on head coaching responsibilities for both the men's and women's teams in 1993. From 1996 to 1999, Salerno coached at the Division I level at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., before returning to La Jolla in 2000 as part of UCSD's move to the Division II level the following year.
Since December of 2008, Salerno has served as the president of the Cal-Nevada Coaches Association. UCSD most recently hosted both the 2013 and 2014 Cal-Nevada Collegiate Championships, the 2013 edition marking the 20th running of the prestigious meet.
A San Diego native, Salerno graduated from Mount Miguel High School and then earned his B.A. in kinesiology from San Diego State University in 1984.


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Japanese media reported at least 1,000 people are presumed dead from Friday's massive 8.9 earthquake, most drowned by the wall of water that swept across the northeast coast of the island nation.
Thousands of others were stranded on rooftops, surrounded by water left by the tsunami that washed over the low-lying farmland of the hardest-hit areas, sweeping away homes, cars, railroads and businesses.
A dam broke early Saturday local time in Fukushima Prefecture, washing away scores more houses in an area where at least 1,800 homes were destroyed by the quake, Kyodo news service said, quoting a Defense Ministry official.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan appealed for calm in the wake of his nation's worst earthquake since authorities began keeping records 140 years ago. In a nationally televised address, he said an emergency response team had been deployed and international aid was en route.
President Obama announced that another U.S. aircraft carrier was en route to assist another warship already off the coast of Japan, and other U.S. naval vessels were poised to provide relief throughout the Pacific areas inundated or threatened by the tsunami that continued to roll across the ocean.
Japan has mobilized more than 8,000 troops and 300 aircraft to evacuate those stranded and move those displaced to areas where they can be sheltered and fed, Cabinet Minister Yukio Edano said.


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