text:
About Us
Helen's Story
Contact Us
© 2011 Helen's Hope. All rights reserved.
Helen's Hope is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity, as defined by the Internal Revenue Service.
Your donations to Helen's Hope qualifies as a charitable deduction for federal tax purposes as permitted by law.
"Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us" - Samuel Smiles
Helen's Hope
A Non-Profit Organization
Helen's Hope is a nonprofit corporation established in August 2007 in loving memory of Helen Ebner.
Sadly, Helen was called home on March 19, 2007 after a long battle with breast cancer. In spite of the physical, emotional and financial challenges she faced, Helen displayed such incredible strength and courage.
In honor of Helen and all of our loved ones who have been touched by cancer.
Helen's Hope was established in hopes of lifting the human spirit by providing financial support to those in need.
The mission of Helen's Hope is to provide financial assistance to women battling cancer and their families whose lives have been impacted by this disease. It is "Helen's Hope" that this much needed support will relieve some of the financial stress that is experienced by those affected by cancer so that both the individual and family can focus on improved health and hope for the future.
You can help carry out the mission of Helen's Hope by making a monetary donation, sharing your talents and/or volunteering your time. The success of Helen's Hope is dependent upon public fund raising, and volunteers.
Only together can we touch the lives of others.
Make a Contribution
What's New?
Website Designed
Design a Website
List Your Business


text:
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MACRAO does not sell member information to third parties. However, it has been our practice to share directory information (name, institution, title, email address, mailing address and phone numbers) with recognized vendors that support
our mission and values
and contribute as sponsors to various MACRAO conferences and workshops. Without vendor support, the cost to offer these valuable events may prohibit some of our members from being able to participate.
Members can control their individual institutional directory information by contacting the
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Panetta: Syria chemical weapons intelligence has "leveled off"
The Obama administration Tuesday appeared to temper its recent assertions that the Syrian government may be preparing to use chemical weapons, with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta telling reporters the relevant intelligence had "really kind of leveled off."
"We haven't seen anything new indicating any aggressive steps to move forward in that way," Panetta told reporters during a flight to Kuwait, adding that U.S. officials "continue to monitor it very closely and we continue to make clear to them that they should not under any means make use of these chemical weapons against their own population. That would produce serious consequences."
- Jihadis make certain messy endgame in Syria
- Syria rebels target Damascus airport amid fresh diplomatic push
- Watch: Clinton says no easy answers on Syria
U.S. officials told CBS News correspondent David Martin just last week that monitoring of roughly two dozen bases where President Bashar Assad is believed to have chemical weapons stored indicated the regime had begun preparing the materials, including sarin gas, for use. Satellites had seen trucks moving among the bunkers where the weapons and agents are believed to be stored. U.S. officials told Martin the evidence was strong, but circumstantial -- not definitive.
Rebel fighters have now inched so close to Assad's stronghold, the capital city of Damascus, that top U.S. officials had expressed fears the cornered dictator could try and use his chemical weapons as a last resort to try and avoid being toppled by the 21-month uprising.
Syrian government officials have refused to confirm that they even posses chemical or biological weapons -- saying only that if they did have them, they would not use them against the Syrian people, or anyone else.
Panetta himself never said publicly that Assad was preparing chemical weapons. He, along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, instead issued repeated, terse warnings to Assad not to take the step.
"There is no question that we remain very concerned, very concerned, that as the opposition advances, in particular on Damascus, that the regime might very well consider the use of chemical weapons," Panetta said last week.
Asked Tuesday whether the drop in alleged evidence pointing to chemical weapons preparations might indicate that Assad had heeded the warning, Panetta said: "I'd like to believe he's got the message, we've made it pretty clear and others have as well. But you know it's also clear that the opposition continues to make gains in Syria and our concern is that if they feel like the regime is threatened with collapse that they might resort to these kinds of weapons."
A senior member of Assad's regime who defected recently tells CBS News, however, that the dire warnings of a possible sarin gas attack by Assad's military seem overblown. The defector, who maintains contact with Syrian military commanders, says those commanders deny any recent movements of chemical weapons components.
The commanders also have told the defector that logistically, they cannot see how the regime would try and use the deadly weapons effectively against the rebels -- which the regime regularly refers to as "terrorists" -- they are such a small and mobile enemy.


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text:
by Mark Jagord, sports information assistant
YOUNG HARRIS, Ga. – Georgia College senior Whitney Okvist (Kennesaw, Ga.) set a Peach Belt Conference (PBC) career record for stolen bases as the Bobcat softball team (20-6, 1-1 PBC) split a doubleheader to start conference play at Young Harris College (11-16, 1-1 PBC) Friday at E.D. Rivers Field. Georgia College won 6-3 in extra innings of game one, and had their seven-game winning streak snapped in a 6-5 loss of game two.
Okvist got the first hit of the game in the third inning and proceeded to break the PBC-career record for stolen bases with her 145th swipe, passing Danielle Peters' 144 during her career at UNC Pembroke. Sophomore Abi LeRoy's (Dublin, Ga.) single later in the same inning would score Okvist and give the Bobcats a 1-0 lead.
In the first game, neither team could score multiple runs in any single inning as both teams found themselves tied three separate times before heading into extra innings at 3-3. A Mountain Lion error in the ninth inning scored two Bobcat runs and Georgia College would add a third and hold off Young Harris for a 6-3 win in the opening game.
The Bobcats would take a 3-2 lead in the seventh with their most productive inning. It wasn't until Georgia College's fourth hit of that inning that they were finally able to produce a run. Junior Kristen Humphries (Columbus, Ga.) would bring home LeRoy, but the inning would end with two runners left on base. The Mountain Lions were able to tie the game in the bottom of the seventh to send the game to extra innings.
LeRoy led the way for the Bobcats going 3-for-4 at the plate, scoring a pair of runs and RBI. Okvist went 3-for-5 scoring a pair of runs and added a pair of stolen bags to bring her to 146 for her career. Campbell had a pair of hits, two RBI and scored a run; while freshman Danielle Bernstein (Cumming Ga.) also added a pair of hits. Freshman Carly Lewis (Seymour, Tenn.) (8-3) registered the win in 2 1/3 scoreless innings while not allowing any hits.
In the second game, Young Harris would score in each of the first four innings to build a 6-4 lead and hang on for a 6-5 final. The Bobcats fell on some misfortune as they out-hit, but could not out-score the Mountain Lions.
Sophomore Taylor Campbell (Warner Robins, Ga.) went 3-for-4 with two RBI and a run to lead Georgia College. Okvist finished with a pair of hits, two RBI and stole yet another bag to bring the new record to 147. Humphries would also add a pair of hits and a RBI, while LeRoy and freshman Faith Flanders (Dublin, Ga.) would each add a run and hit. Lewis (8-4) took the loss as the Bobcats went through four pitchers.
Georgia College will return to non-conference play with a doubleheader at the University of West Georgia Thursday, March 20 starting at 4 p.m.
The Georgia College Department of Athletics, two-time winners of the PBC Commissioner's Cup, sponsors 11 varsity athletic programs at the NCAA Division II level. As a Division II program, Bobcat Athletics prides itself on balancing the life of the student-athlete, evidenced by the teams' multiple appearances in post-season competition as well as documented academic success and community-service involvement. Sign up at @GCBobcats on Twitter and Facebook for up-to-the-minute reports, and visit GCBobcats.PhotoReflect.com to purchase photo prints from home athletic contests.


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Here are some general guidelines which I propose should be implemented for both the analog and digital images:
1. As much as possible, properly preserve and do not modify the original analog media; printed photographs, transparencies, acetate negatives, glass negatives or in whatever other original format.
2. Do not do anything that will preclude future standards of preservation. Do not mount or modify any original photographs.
3. Use the best currently acceptable standards of both analog and digital preservation and file formats.
4. For digital files, maintain adequate backup procedures with multiple backups on different devices.
5. Document any special circumstances concerning the images produced.
From the historical standpoint, just as sources are preeminently important for facts asserted in genealogy, it is equally important to establish the provenance of any image. For an example of a detailed analysis of a daguerreotype asserted to be of a prominent ancestor and concluded to be otherwise, see TheAncestorFiles: The Tanner Family Daguerreotype and Conclusion. Also see the links contained in that article to the preceding series of articles discussing the provenance of the daguerreotype.
Most of the photos put online are not only published without provenance, they are copies of copies and asserted as images of specific individuals and families without tying them to specific times or places. This inevitably leads to a degradation of the quality of the images, as well as to misidentifications and inaccurate attribution.
The information about a specific photograph, as much as possible should accompany any posting of the article in a venue where the photograph is connected to a particular person or family. It is preferable to attach the information directly to the image by means of metadata. However, there are not any specific methods for attaching metadata and particularly, such additional attachments, if done by a separate file, may become separated from the original. At the very least, the title to the photo should be descriptive enough to identify the subject matter.
Technical standards for the Library of Congress are found at Standards at the Library of Congress. The links from this page go to many of the exiting industry standards. However, there is a need in the genealogical community for a practical and more easily understood set of standards to be applied by researchers in general.
The basis for the following suggested standards came from Melanie I Sturgeon, Director, History and Archives Division, Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records in a document entitled Minimum Standards for Born Digital Photography. I have modified Dr. Sturgeon's proposal by updating the technical aspects, adding standards for scanning and modifying other details. I am proposing the following minimum standards for digital acquisition and storing:
Genealogical Image Standards
Minimum Digital Camera Image Acquisition Standards:
Minimum megapixels
Digital Single-Lens Reflex (DLSR) minimum 12 megapixels
Digital "point and shoot" minimum 10 megapixels
Note: The smaller sensors on "point and shoot" cameras can affect
image quality Low resolution images and those taken with mobile phones or
disposable digital cameras do not meet minimum standards and
are not acceptable.
Always set camera at its highest possible resolution setting.
Color images should be in RGB format (not CMYK)
File Formats:
When possible, images should be made and downloaded to a computer in Camera Raw format.
Minimum Scanner Image Acquisition Standards:
Minimun optical resolution
300 dpi [Note: Most flatbed scanner claim very high resolution. However, an optical resolution standard of, at least, 300 dpi is commonly accepted as sufficient for archive purposes. See the Library of Congress:Preservation.
File Formats for both digital cameras and scanners:
When possible, images should be made and downloaded to a computer in raw image format and converted to an acceptable file format. Where capturing the images in raw format is not available, the images should be downloaded to the acceptable file format directly. The acceptable file formats include:
- Tagged Information File Format (TIFF)
- Joint Photographic Experts Group 2000 (JPEG2000)
- Digital Negative (DNG) If the images are downloaded in raw format, they should be immediately converted to Digital Negatives (DNG).
- Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) in some cases on a
- case by case basis.
Bitmap (BMP)
Graphics Interchange Format (GIFF)
Portable Network Graphic (PNG)
RAW - Most camera manufacturers have created their own "flavor"
of the RAW format. These files are encrypted and
proprietary. This may affect their longevity and readability.
Metadata is descriptive information about an object. To comply with standards images must, at a minimum, have:
- People identified
- Place identified
- Date image was taken
- Event
- Photographer
- Copyright information
Metadata should be in a separate tab delimited file or in DNG format
To comply with standards, images must have appropriate filenames.
[Note: Each camera brand has its own method for naming files. Rename files with meaningful filenames. Filenames should be unique to each image
Image Editing:
Images should be unedited. Do not
- Crop
- Color correct
- Adjust white balance
I most certainly accept corrections, suggestions and ideas about how these proposed standards may be generally disseminated and accepted.


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The Make Your Own Neon Effect Sign Kit includes 3 metres of nano effect flex light, 3 meters of metal shaping wire and 1 meter of fixing wire. Simply bend the shaping wire into the shape of your chosen design and attach the neon effect flex light using the fixing wire.
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£4.99 - France, Germany, Ireland and The Netherlands.
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Guests can enjoy the wedding of their dreams in five-star style, thanks to the lavish surrounds and impeccable service available at Sofitel Fiji Resort & Spa.Add to this Sofitel Fiji's very own, exclusive, beachside wedding chapel to hold your ceremony and you have a picture-perfect scene to celebrate your marriage in a truly memorable way.
A variety of reception venues are also available at the resort, from outdoor garden or beachside settings to glamorous ballrooms and fine dining restaurant options. And when it comes to cuisine and menus, the only limit is your imagination with options including sit down dinners, cocktail receptions, or perhaps a picnic feast for two and many more.
Sofitel Fiji's luxurious So SPA facility is the ideal place to prepare for your big day, with a full range of pampering and relaxing face and body treatments and a hairdresser all available without ever having to leave the resort. From the subtle use of local flowers like frangipanis in your hair and bridal bouquet through to an entire Fijian Choir to serenade you as you exchange vows - Fiji was made for romance.
Exclusively Sofitel - Nautical Grace Reception themeingNautical Grace - FJD$1650
Upgrade your wedding reception setup to Grace Creation's exclusive reception theme for Sofitel Fiji Resort & Spa. The Nautical Grace Theme is based on a maximum of 50 guests. This look is soft and enduring, well worn yet gracefully delicate. Sandy beach side tones - Hurricane candle holders, Sand filled tea light mason jars, tall wooden candle holder centerpieces, burlap runners and sashes and overhead fairy light canopy.
ContactDRIVING DIRECTIONS From Nadi International Airport: Turn right after the airport gate and take the Queen's Road until you reach a roundabout. Follow the "Nadi Town" road and continue driving for approximately 10 minutes. You will reach another roundabout located 50 metres past the Nadi Mosque on the right side of the road. Turn right at the roundabout onto Narewa Road. Proceed along this road for approximately 5 kilometres and you will reach Denarau Island. After passing the causeway and security gate, continue driving until you reach the third roundabout. You will see the entrance to the resort straight ahead.
Private Mail Bag 396 Nadi Airport


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jcnnghm necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 95 diseños de 32 diseñadores freelance.
Barhopolis is the name we've chosen to re-brand a series of websites that detail the nightlife that exists in select cities. Currently, we have websites for Ocean City MD, Baltimore MD, Annapolis MD, and Southern California (specifically the Newport Beach area).
The websites we currently have are available at the addresses below:
If you take a look at the sites, that should give you a pretty good idea about the type of product we produce, and what kind of company we are. We also have an iPhone application called Barhopolis, that is available from our websites and on the iTunes store. You can see the icon we are using on our websites. The app is pretty basic right now, and consists entirely of up-to-date happy hour/bar specials in a convenient format.
We are going to be changing all the websites to city.barhopolis.com sites, instead of individual sites, because we are adding a number of new sites. In other words, the Baltimore site will become baltimore.barhopolis.com, and Annapolis will become annapolis.barhopolis.com.
If you take a look at the pictures on our websites, I think you'll get a pretty good idea of the audience we attract. In general, we aim for the young professional crowd that likes to go out and party.
We run a fun company. The logo should be fun. It should also make we want to shove all the crap off my desk, rip off my shirt, and start partying. It doesn't have to be graphic, it could be simple text as long as it looks cool.
Ideally, the logo will be composed of few colors so it can be easily screen printed. We will definitely prefer logos that are easy to print. The logo should look good on a variety of background colors, as we will be using it on multiple websites of different colors. It would be preferable if the logo itself looks good in different colors, that way we can more easily integrate it into our promotional materials.
I will need layered PSDs and/or AI files when the contest is complete.
Please do be creative with the designs.
You can get a feel for the kind of stuff I liked from our last contest... check it out at http://99designs.com/contests/26009.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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A Pizza Hut worker was arrested in Florida this week for impersonating a police officer for months in an attempt to impress his girlfriend. Needless to say, the couple is no longer together.
From October 2012 to January 2013, Christopher Sharp, 33, allegedly came home to girlfriend Randi Merill in a Deputy Sheriff's uniform. He shared stories about his day as a "Pasco County deputy," and even gave legal advice to people regarding child custody matters, DUI arrests, and traffic citations, authorities said Tuesday.
Sharp allegedly arrived to a New Year's Eve party in uniform and told guests stories about "the DUI enforcement he had been conducting earlier that night," according to a Hernando County Sheriff's Office Media Release.
A suspicious guest at the party led to an investigation on Sharp, eventually revealing him to be a full-time employee at the local Pizza Hut. The sheriff's uniform was stolen from Sharp's sister's boyfriend, who is a real deputy sheriff, according to police.
Sharp allegedly told police that he engaged in the ruse to impress his girlfriend.
"Here is a shining example of someone who makes extremely poor decisions," Sheriff Al Nienhuis said in the release.
Sharp was taken into custody on a $2,000 bond.


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If you're looking for love and don't have a lot of money to spend on it (wait, did that come out wrong … ? ) there's no place better to live than Phoenix.
Phoenix ranked No. 1 in the recent tongue-in-cheek "Cheap Date Index."
Created by Patrick Jankowski of the Greater Houston Partnership using cost of living data from the Council for Community and Economic Research, the index estimates the cost involved with what it considers a typical date night: a 12-inch pizza from Pizza Hut or Pizza Inn, two Heineken long necks, a couple of tickets to the movie and two gallons of gasoline to get around town with.
What it doesn't rank: How willing your partner is to consider greasy pizza and the latest Vin Diesel movie a real date.
Two thoughts:
– It's 30 cents cheaper to go on a date in Dallas than it is in Houston. People in Dallas will of course hold this over the heads of rival Houstonians for the next 80 years.
– The city on the list best known for both its pizza and beer, Chicago, was the most expensive city on the list for a date night including pizza and beers. One would figure with such great local pizza and beer options, it would keep the cost of franchised pizza and beer down. Apparently, not so.
So where did your hometown rank? See the slideshow above.


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Adherence, Improvement Measure (AIM) System (AIM)
|The safety and scientific validity of this study is the responsibility of the study sponsor and investigators. Listing a study does not mean it has been evaluated by the U.S. Federal Government. Read our disclaimer for details.
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01252212
Recruitment Status : Completed
First Posted : December 2, 2010
Last Update Posted : November 20, 2013
- Study Details
- Tabular View
- No Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
|Condition or disease
|Patient Compliance AIDS
|Behavioral: SMS medication adherence Behavioral: No SMS adherence reminder
|Phase 3
|Study Type :
|Interventional (Clinical Trial)
|Actual Enrollment :
|99 participants
|Intervention Model:
|Parallel Assignment
|None (Open Label)
|Primary Purpose:
|Health Services Research
|Official Title:
|Adherence, Improvement Measure (AIM) System; Challenge Topic: 10-MH-101
|Study Start Date :
|August 2010
|Actual Primary Completion Date :
|February 2012
|Actual Study Completion Date :
|December 2012
Experimental: Receiving SMS alerts
The patients randomized to this arm will have a SMS message sent to them regarding medication adherence for antiretroviral medications, anti-hypertensive medications, anti-depressants, hyperglycemic controlling medications and hypercholesterolemia controlling medications as well as life style supportive suggestions.
Behavioral: SMS medication adherence
SMS messages to cell phones.
Other Name: mobile health messages for health conditions and medications
Active Comparator: No SMS messages
The patients randomized to this arm will have a SMS message sent to them regarding healthy life style supportive suggestions.
Behavioral: No SMS adherence reminder
In this arm, patients will be sent supportive lifestyle suggestions to their phone using SMS technology but will not be sent a reminder regarding their medication adherence.
Other Name: No medication adherence or disease specific messages.
- HIV viral load [ Time Frame: 12 month ]The primary analyses of the 12-month trial data will compare the two study groups with respect to (i) change from baseline in CD4 T-cell count; and (ii) proportion of patients whose HIV viral load (VL) level is detectable. We will use repeated-measures analysis techniques to estimate longitudinal prevalence at the population level (via generalized estimating equations) and at the individual levels (via generalized linear mixed models)[25].
- Level of antiretroviral medication in hair [ Time Frame: 12 month ]We will evaluate the antiretroviral level in hair samples from patients to determine compliance with medications.
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
- Older than 18
- Evidence of HIV-1 infection, based on patient's medical history or results of laboratory tests
- Detectable Viral Load, based on patient's medical record
- Receiving primary medical care at the AIDS Program at SFGH
- Able and willing to give informed consent to be randomized to study arms
- Willing to use the patient portal
- Has a cell phone with ability to receive and send unlimited SMS texts, Patient of the HIV/AIDS Clinic at ward 86, SFGH
Exclusion Criteria:
Failure to meet inclusion criteria
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT01252212
|United States, California
|Ward 86, San Francisco General Hospital
|San Francisco, California, United States, 94110
|Principal Investigator:
|James Kahn, MD
|University of California, San Francisco
|Responsible Party:
|University of California, San Francisco
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT01252212 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
1RC1MH088341 ( U.S. NIH Grant/Contract )
|First Posted:
|December 2, 2010 Key Record Dates
|Last Update Posted:
|November 20, 2013
|Last Verified:
|November 2013
HIV, antiretroviral, adherence, SMS, cell phone


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Lovesail is a global on-line dating and social networking site for people that are passionate about sailing.
Are you mad about sailing? Lovesail can help you find your perfect sailing partner. We have a database full of sailing singles all passionate about sailing and looking to meet for sailing dates. All our profiles are hand checked to ensure members are genuine sailing enthusiasts.
We're not just a dating site for single sailors. We have members from all over the world looking to make new friends to sail with. Join our friendly community to meet others with a shared interest in sailing for sailing trips, sailing holidays and social events.
Lots of our member are looking for sailing opportunities, whether it is to build their sea miles or just to get out on the water to sail. Post your crewing vacancies for races, deliveries or holidays to find crew. If you are looking to crew, then why not post your dream trip.


text:
- Heavyweight
Haye not frustrated with Vitali phoney war
David Haye has said the silence from Vitali Klitschko's camp is getting on for 12 months yet insists he is not frustrated by the Ukrainian's lack of communication.
Haye still has faith that a final career fight against the 41-year-old heavyweight could happen but says that this summer is the last chance or he will retire.
The Hayemaker said in October that terms had been agreed between the two fighters and while Haye has ruled out travelling to the Ukraine he says is happy to fight in Germany.
"We haven't heard a word from his people since before Vitali fought [Dereck] Chisora [in February 2012]," Haye told Sky Sports News.
"Everything is sort of agreed it's just a matter of when and where. I have said I am more than happy to go and fight over in Germany, like I did before [against Vitali's brother Wladimir]. I expect the fight to be in Germany.
"If it's not happened by this summer then [I must] accept the fact that the fight is never happening and move on."
Should the fight fail to take place and the Lambeth-born fighter retires he is adamant there would be no cause for frustration. However, Haye is clear on the fact that he wants one last hurrah in the ring, for himself and his fans.
"So far I am not frustrated, I had a nice New Year's, I went away and chilled and relaxed," he said. "It's nice to come back and meet the fans and talk to them and get a feel for what they want and they all seem to want another fight."


text:
Free shipping continues above € 99
Free shipping continues above € 99
Mami tableware offers a rich collection of cups to suit everybody's tastes and habits. Thanks to classic and essential design, the coffee cup is ideal for those who like having a good coffee. The cup is made of white porcelain.
The tableware designed by Stefano Giovannoni is characterised by a timeless classicism. The Mami collection offers a rich and complete dish service, ideal for forming an elegant table and able to adapt to different occasions. The soft and rounded lines of the dish set are exalted by white porcelain that, thanks to its play of light, embellishes this service.VIEW THE COMPLETE RANGE
Born in La Spezia in 1954, Stefano as an architect and designer was taught by Buti at Florence University. In the early 80's he founded the King-Kong Production Group along with Guido Venturini. His explosive talent enables him to embody a complex system of 'affective codes' in his projects. This great approach won him the title of 'Super & Popular' designer in the 90's. A technical designer par excellence he has industrial design in his DNA and the capacity to understand public sentiment like no other designer mentioned in this catalogue. His projects began with the "Girotondo" (1989 designed with Guido Venturini) and the first transparent objects in plastic from the "Family Follows Fiction" series (1993). There is a huge number of his items in the "Officina Alessi", "Alessi" and "A di Alessi" catalogues. www.stefanogiovannoni.it


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AIX Virtual Processor Folding is Misunderstood
nagger 100000MRSJ Comments (8) Visits (70240)
This mysterious AIX CPU Folding area is often misunderstood, so below is what I know from osmosis from talking to various guru level developers over the last 10 years. Shared Processor virtual machines (LPARs for the old fashioned) have a setting called Virtual Processors (or VP for short). This is the number of physical CPUs that the virtual machines can spread out across - in fact, I prefer to call it the "spreading factor" as it is much more obvious what it means. This can be the upper threshold for the number of CPUs that can be used by your virtual machine:
But AIX does not automatically spread out over all the available virtual processors, if it does not have too, as that is not efficient. If an Uncapped virtual machine has, for example, Entitlement of 8 CPUs and Virtual Processor count of 10 CPUs but only needs at the moment 2.5 CPUs to easily provide CPU time to all the running processes/program then it "folds" away the unneeded 7 virtual processors and runs on just 3.
Why fold? I am not a AIX kernel developer (well not now anyway) nor a spokes person for development team but there is not a lot of information about folding. I think this is because it is a AIX kernel internal optimisation and so there is no need to make it public nor document it. I first noticed folding taking place while developing nmon. On the Power 5, 6 and 7 machines, we could clearly see that AIX would stop scheduling work to some virtual processors when they were not needed and thought "these developers are very clever" and was impressed. There are multiple reasons to fold:
Detecting folding: We also noted that these folded virtual processors do actually get some CPU cycles. nmon used the libperfstat AIX library to extract the performance numbers and we found that instead of billions of clock ticks on the processor these folded ones have a few - in the 50 to 100 ticks sort of range. We think this is a tiny amount of house keeping going on like collecting the processor hardware stats, perhaps a clock interrupt and I think that if a processor starts a device driver to action an adapter to perform an operation that the later interrupt is returned to the same processor (which might now be folded). This is a little guess work on my part so don't quote me - please! Back to nmon: there is no official AIX folding statistics from any interface that I have come across. nmon deduces the folding number by monitoring the physical clock ticks and heuristically (I like that words) determines if it is folded or not. In C programming terms, are the number of ticks below a threshold we worked out empirically (another good word) by sitting there and watching the numbers while tweaking the numbers of processes running.
Now for the complicated bit - SMT! When a virtual processor is folded all the Simultaneous MultiThreading (SMT) threads are switched off together - the different threads are always running in the same virtual machine. This made the heuristics in the nmon code tricky as it has to check all the threads on the same CPU are doing practically nothing. This was written when Power6 was the current processor and SMT=2 was the maximum. Of course, when Power7 came along with SMT=4 and the code had to be reworked - in fact there is a nmon release that runs on Power7 where the code had not been updated and gets the folding count hopelessly wrong but its fairly obvious when you see it (you can't fold away more CPUs than you actually have!) - install a service pack to fix this.
What does AIX actually do when it folds? We have seen that the virtual processors are still there and seen by AIX and occasionally running a few clock cycles. So they are not stopped or released. AIX is simply no longer scheduling processes to run on them. This gives the hypervisor a hint that at the moment it does not have to schedule the virtual machine on them. The AIX kernel to Hypervisor interface and mechanisms are definitely a secret, so I have no clues at this level.
When to fold? AIX does this slowly but seems to monitor the CPU use for a period of time (from my observations a few seconds which is a long long time in CPU terms) and determines that the CPU use is steady or dropping and its is safe and efficient to fold a CPU off. It then waits to see what happens next and may then fold away a further CPU. It is maths that larger virtual machines with many 100's or 1000's of active processes and threads of execution do not have sudden jumps of CPU requirements but the workloads sort of "flows in and out" and CPU use is smoothed out.
When to unfold? AIX again monitors (it is probably the same algorithm) the CPU use. When it notices a consistent high use of the current unfolded CPUs it decides that unfolding could help the throughput of the processes and unfolds a CPU. If there is a sudden peak in runnable processes it does not immediately unfold. This is because it can already deal successfully with short term transitory peaks as normal via the run queues. If fact, over aggressive unfolding could slow the applications down. When a CPU is unfolded its caches will be empty then a happy process on the running CPUs with hot cache is moved to the new unfolded one with cold caches - it will spend the next few milliseconds loading the cache with program, data, stack and heap memory lines before it can get back to full speed. If we then find the temporary peak has passed, AIX will fold the CPU again - it was all rather a waste of time and the process moved twice actually got slower. This is why it holds off a little time before unfolding and makes sure it is a genuine growth in the demand for CPU time. It gives me the impression that, for slowly growing workloads, AIX unfolds at something like a virtual processors once a second but that is an observation rather than a fact.
Why are we monitoring Folding? Well, I was keen to have this in nmon because it gives us good clues about whether we have the right Entitlement for our virtual machine. If (particularly monitoring long term like over a month), we always find that we have Folded virtual processors and particularly during our peaks in workload then perhaps we have the Entitlement set too high. It could be dropped to let other workloads be added to the same machine. On the other hand, if we have a critical production virtual machines that has for long peak periods Folding = zero then perhaps we should consider raising the Entitlement to make sure this virtual machine always has sufficient CPU cycles.
Folding is Leaking out! This advanced optimisation technique inside AIX was an internal secret at one time but has become known. I suspect my nmon monitoring might have accelerates that a little :-) But there are a few comments in the manual now and there are a few Folding tuning parameters available.
The advanced AIX scheduling tuning command, "schedo" has these options:
In the manual pages:
I hope this helps, thanks, Nigel Griffiths.


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The State of the Union serves three broad purposes:
- It is theater, in the sense of watching the nation's political actors perform their traditional roles (greeting the president, standing, applauding) and occasionally ad-libbing ("You lie!") – see Justice Alito's mouthing objections to Obama's mischaracterization of the meaning of the recent Supreme Court decision;
- It serves as an agenda-setting device that allows a president to present his legislative "wish-list", but without necessarily influencing any of the factors that will determine whether that wish list is fulfilled;
- It is a modern day affirmation of a tradition with roots tracing back to the Constitutional provision that presidents should, from time to time, inform Congress of the State of the Union.
What it typically does not do is provide a president with any additional political leverage, either within Congress or among the public at large. Those relationships are governed by more fundamental factors that usually swamp any short-term effects of the State of the Union speech.
This is easy to forget if you are one of those political junkies who pay attention to things like the polling of focus groups consisting of people who watched Obama's speech, or who get your political analysis from one of those echo-chamber blog sites. For example, CNN conducted a pre- and post-speech survey and found that Obama's address was received very positively or positively by 78% of those in the focus group. Seventy-one percent of respondents said that the agenda Obama proposed will move the country in the right direction. This assessment was echoed in blogs like Nate Silver's, who pronounced the President's speech a "three-run homer."
The problem with these results is that they gauge the reaction of those who actually watched the speech – and that audience is almost always skewed toward a president's supporters. (Hence, Silver's assessment.) Consider this data from Gallup:
Clinton's audience was predominantly Democrats, and Bush's Republican (ignoring independents). I expect that Obama's will skew toward Democrat. They are, not surprisingly, likely to gauge the speech pretty favorably ("a three-run homer!")
However, when we look at the country as a whole, the impact of Obama's speech is likely to be trivial. Consider this data from Gallup assessing the post-State of the Union bounce achieved by presidents dating back to Carter in 1978:
The average "bounce" across 24 State of the Union speeches is actually negative, although essentially zero. (But see Clinton's speech in 1998 – can anyone suggest an explanation for his 10-point jump?) In short, expect Wednesday's speech to have no impact whatsoever on Obama's political standing among the public or within Congress.
This is not to say the speech served no purpose – it did. It is clear that Obama used it to signal a change in direction in his presidency, with a renewed emphasis on a more moderate political tone and a laser-like focus on one issue: jobs, jobs, jobs. Health care and foreign policy are on the back burner. His goal is to prevent a reprise of 1994, when Clinton's failure to get health care through helped create conditions for a Republican landslide in the first midterm elections. For the next several months, expect the White House to be in full campaign mode as it seeks to minimize losses in the upcoming midterms.
In the meantime, I'll post the post-speech data as soon as I get it.
P.S. Great participation and excellent comments on Wednesday's live blogging. Max was the only one who called the over/under on the use of the word fight correctly. (Sorry, Max – no t-shirt awarded in this contest.) I count six uses by Obama of the word "fight", not counting "firefighters", which falls three short of the over/under I posted at the outset of the speech.


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The Splendid Sampler is a year long quilt along hosted by Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson, where over 80 designers have created a quilt block to share for this 100 block sampler. Block #58 was designed by me and I am so happy to share it with you today.
You can find all the previous blocks and details of the sampler over on the The Splendid Sampler website. There is also a very active Facebook group with over 22k members!
For those who are new here, I am a little obsessed with flying geese. So much so, that the majority of my patterns feature them. So no surprises that block #58 does too.
|Splendid Sampler block #58 - Homeward Bound
My paper piecing tips:
- If you are new to foundation paper piecing I have a free PDF tutorial here for a goose filled pincushion. You can also find tutorials in the techniques section on the Splendid Sampler page here.
- To make my block beginner friendly I have made all strips bigger than they need to be. I will take a bit of fabric waste over trying to rip tiny stitches out every time. If you want to cut down on the waste, you can take at least 1/2" off all of the strip lengths.
- Use cheap printer paper and always check to see if the template has printed out at the correct size.
- Reduce your stitch length (I reduce mine to between 1.5 and 1.8).
- Press with an iron after every seam. I set my mini ironing board up next to my sewing machine, so that I only have to swivel round in my chair to press my blocks.
- I use scissors to trim the seams back to 1/4" after sewing each section (Not to trim the block - I use a rotary cutter and ruler for this to ensure accuracy). Doing this speeds up the process quite a lot. Nobody is going to be looking at the back of the block and as long as you have roughly a 1/4" seam allowance, you are good to go.
- My last tip I learnt from fellow designer Janice Ryan (Better off thread) a few years ago. After removing the paper (gently) from the back of your block, lay it over a couple of layers of wadding and give it a final press. Those little geese pop up a treat!
I used solids and my favourite Moda print for the background and quilted a crosshatch design with my ever faithful 50wt Aurifil in light grey (2600).
|Cushion and pincushion quilted with Aurifil #2600 - the perfect blender thread!
And because I can never resist shrinking my patterns, I also made a new pincushion...
|Homeward bound block scaled to 50%
Big thanks to Pat and Jane for asking me to join in the fun. I hope you all enjoy making my block and I can't wait to see all the pretty versions popping up.
Whilst I am not the worlds greatest blogger, I am very active over on Instagram (@Jeliquilts) and am building my Facebook page, if you would like to follow me.
You can find more of my patterns (free and paid) over in my Payhip shop


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Mobile impacting cloud security issues, says panel
Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) makes securing cloud services complex, say experts. Enterprises should set mobile guidelines consistent with cloud policies.
ORLANDO, Fla. -- The burgeoning influx of employee-owned smartphones and tablets in the workplace has added to the complexity of securing cloud-based systems, according to a panel of experts who urged IT security teams to consider setting enforceable mobile policies alongside cloud policies.
There seems to be somewhat of a classic brute-force security approach to address the issues, but if you dumb down devices too much you are going to be impacting the user.
William Corrington, consultant, Stony Point Enterprises LLC
The process for setting policies addressing both mobile and cloud is easier said than done, said Tom Kellermann, vice president of security vendor Trend Micro Inc. He said hybrid cloud policies developed in conjunction with mobile security policy should be as a collaborative effort involving all of an organization's data owners, administrators and others who know the business and can find a middle ground.
"Make a conscious decision policy wise about what the devices are being used for," Kellermann said, adding that security technologies are still emerging to better protect smartphones and tablets. "I think there is a need to make the device context aware."
At the 2012 Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Congress, Kellermann joined William Corrington, a consultant at Stony Point Enterprises LLC, and Jon-Michael Brook, a senior principal security architect with Symantec's public-sector business unit, in a discussion on mobile security threats and their effect on cloud security. The discussion highlighted many of the findings in a report to be released Thursday from the CSA covering cloud-related guidance for critical areas of mobile security. The report concludes that while organizations are beginning to implement policies to address mobile security issues, many still wrestle with the challenges of securing corporate data on personally owned devices.
The walled garden maintained by Apple's iOS leaves antivirus vendors out of the equation, but also appears to be keeping cybercriminals at bay. Meanwhile Google Android devices are a growing security problem because the open architecture attracts malicious applications and an ever increasing amount of mobile malware.
"There seems to be somewhat of a classic brute-force security approach to address the issues, but if you dumb down devices too much you are going to be impacting the user," Corrington said.
Contextual authentication
Adding to the mobile security conundrum, Corrington said, are a multitude of cloud environments that are slowing eroding the concept of perimeter away. In a complex ecosystem with multiple players and service providers, organizations must consider the issue from an access control perspective.
"A strong identity ecosystem is really critical," Corrington said. "Authentication and identity management should be bidirectional."
Corrigan said identity attributes and device attributes in conjunction can be used to infer a trust level and define access to resources based on the trust level. For example, he said a device authenticated with two-factor authentication would be given a higher trust level and access to more resources.
Segmenting personal and business data is a tough problem that hasn't been fully solved, said Brook. Technologies can wrap some apps with IT policies and wall off corporate data on the device. Basic security policies should be enforced. He said encryption should be turned on, and location services and remote-wipe capabilities should be employed.
"Follow through with what you actually put into policy and put some teeth into it," Brook said. Enforcing policies give employees the signal that the company is serious about security.
Security will get better, because technologies are still emerging, said panel moderator Salim Hariri, director of the Autonomic Computing Laboratory at the University of Arizona. Hariri said researchers are testing moving target defenses with software behavior encryption, designed to make it more difficult for attackers to root a device by changing the environment randomly.
"With faster processors we might create multiple decoy environments at the same time," Hariri said. "One is active the rest are honeypots."


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can_change_color, color_content, COLOR_PAIR, has_colors, init_color, init_pair, pair_content, PAIR_NUMBER, start_color, COLOR_PAIRS, COLORS - manipulate color information
cc [ flag... ] file... –I /usr/xpg4/include –L /usr/xpg4/lib \ –R /usr/xpg4/lib –lcurses [ library... ] c89 [ flag... ] file... –lcurses [ library... ] #include <curses.h> bool can_change_color(void);
int color_content(short color, short *red, short *green, short *blue);
int COLOR_PAIR(int n);
bool has_colors(void);
int init_color(short color, short red, short green, short blue);
int init_pair(short pair, short f, short b);
int pair_content(short pair, short *f, short *b);
int PAIR_NUMBER(int value);
int start_color(voidextern int COLOR_PAIRS; extern int COLORS;
These functions manipulate color on terminals that support color.
The has_colors() function indicates whether the terminal is a color terminal. The can_change_color() function indicates whether the terminal is a color terminal on which colors can be redefined.
The start_color() function must be called to enable use of colors and before any color manipulation function is called. The function initializes eight basic colors (black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, and white) that can be specified by the color macros (such as COLOR_BLACK) defined in <curses.h>. The initial appearance of these colors is unspecified.
The function also initializes two global external variables:
COLORS defines the number of colors that the terminal supports. See Color Identification below. If COLORS is 0, the terminal does not support redefinition of colors and can_change_color() will return FALSE.
COLOR_PAIRS defines the maximum number of color-pairs that the terminal supports. See User-defined Color Pairs below.
The start_color() function also restores the colors on the terminal to terminal-specific initial values. The initial background color is assumed to be black for all terminals.
The init_color() function redefines color number color, on terminals that support the redefinition of colors, to have the red, green, and blue intensity components specified by red, green, and blue , respectively. Calling init_color() also changes all occurrences of the specified color on the screen to the new definition.
The color_content() function identifies the intensity components of color number color. It stores the red, green, and blue intensity components of this color in the addresses pointed to by red, green, and blue, respectively.
For both functions, the color argument must be in the range from 0 to and including COLORS−1. Valid intensity value range from 0 (no intensity component) up to and including 1000 (maximum intensity in that component).
Calling init_pair() defines or redefines color-pair number pair to have foreground color f and background color b. Calling init_pair() changes any characters that were displayed in the color pair's old definition to the new definition and refreshes the screen.
After defining the color pair, the macro COLOR_PAIR(n) returns the value of color pair n. This value is the color attribute as it would be extracted from a chtype. Controversy, the macro COLOR_NUMBER( value) returns the color pair number associated with the color attribute value.
The pair_content() retrieves the component colors of a color-pair number pair. It stores the foreground and background color numbers in the variables pointed to by f and b, respectively.
With init_pair() and pair_content(), the value of pair must be in a range from 0 to and including COLOR_PAIRS−1. Valid values for f and b are the range from 0 to and including COLORS−1.
Is the number of the color for which to provide information (0 to COLORS−1).
Is a pointer to the RGB value for the amount of red in color.
Is a pointer to the RGB value for the amount of green in color.
Is a pointer to the RGB value for the amount of blue in color.
Is the number of a color pair.
Is the number of the color pair for which to provide information (1 to COLOR_PAIRS−1).
Is a pointer to the number of the foreground color (0 to COLORS−1) in pair.
Is a pointer to the number of the background color (0 to COLORS−1) in pair.
Is a color attribute value.
The has_colors() function returns TRUE if the terminal can manipulate colors. Otherwise, it returns FALSE.
The can_change_color() function returns TRUE if the terminal supports colors and is able to change their definitions. Otherwise, it returns FALSE.
Upon successful completion, the other functions return OK. Otherwise, they return ERR.
No errors are defined.
To use these functions, start_color() must be called, usually right after initscr(3XCURSES).
The can_change_color() and has_colors() functions facilitate writing terminal-independent applications. For example, a programmer can use them to decide whether to use color or some other video attribute.
On color terminals, a typical value of COLORS is 8 and the macros such as COLOR_BLACK return a value within the range from 0 to and including 7. However, applications cannot rely on this to be true.
See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:
attroff(3XCURSES), delscreen(3XCURSES), initscr(3XCURSES), libcurses(3XCURSES), attributes(7), standards(7)


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Map Maker 2
My Map Maker is a little application that I built to scratch my own itch in 2005. Back then geocoding UK addresses was a royal pain. The Post Office weren't making post code data available and the geocoding services that were publicly available were pretty inaccurate (some still are). So the easy way to make a Google Map of any location has always been to find it on a map and click exactly where you want your marker to appear. And that's what the Map Maker lets you do. Click on the map to set the latitude and longitude, add your marker info and there you go. Instant Google maps.
Map Maker now has over 20,000 registered users and more than 25,000 maps. Which was why it became important to upgrade the membership system from my home rolled PHP admin into something a bit more robust. So In came an ExpressionEngine CMS and now I can do things like send password reminders and email confirmed registration. It's a bit more grown up!
The user interface has also had a big overhaul, all of the JavaScript on the front end is using jQuery now and the layout has been improved too.
It's actually starting to make a bit of money too. So if you'd like to see more upgrades and features, like it on Facebook or click on the banner and I might do some more tweeks soon.
Categories: Stuff


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Spring, summer, fall, and winter
Create a memorable event for your group at the Garden. Book your staff outing, bridal shower, baby shower, or get-together, and your event will be enhanced by the Garden's year-round beauty.
The Garden blends uncommon natural beauty with the finest amenities and service. You can trust our attention to detail. The Garden's convenient location close to downtown Chicago is in the heart of the North Shore.
The Garden is your ideal place for a memorable group outing.


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Everyone wants to be able to save money on auto insurance, especially during this tough economy. If you follow a few tips and guidelines it is possible, though, and sometimes the savings are substantial. The first step is to shop around for the best possible price on your auto insurance. Compare what different companies offer in terms of their overall coverage and the cost of the premiums. Then pick one that works for you.
Next you should consider two other ways to get lower auto insurance costs. If you accept a higher deductible that will help. You can also ask for lower limits of auto insurance coverage. Both of these changes will leave you more exposed if there is an accident, however, so weigh any decisions against your comfort level.
The goal is to feel at ease with your auto insurance policy, both in terms of the cost of your auto insurance as well as your coverage. That way you can sleep better at night, so look for a nice balance between these two aspects of auto insurance. Keep in mind that if you later want to change your mind you can always adjust your auto insurance policy. Just talk to your insurance agent and he or she will help you in that regard.


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"I always feel like a vague failure in L.A.," said Greta Gerwig, sitting in a movie theater in the heart of Hollywood.
The actress, 30, had flown from her home in New York to partake in the Los Angeles Times' Young Hollywood round table at AFI Fest last week. And yet even among a group of the year's brightest up-and-comers — Michael B. Jordan, 26; Dane DeHaan, 27; Miles Teller, 26; and Brie Larson, 24 — Gerwig said she has yet to fully assimilate her success.
"In L.A., people are like, 'Why do I know who you are?' " she continued. "And I'm like, 'You don't.' "
But after her critically acclaimed performance in "Frances Ha" this year, that anonymity likely won't last much longer. All of this year's participants are on their way to becoming household names after starring in some of 2013's most-talked about movies: Jordan in "Fruitvale Station," DeHaan in "Kill Your Darlings," Teller in "The Spectacular Now" and Larson in "Short Term 12."
But being thrown into the spotlight at a young age has its challenges. None of the five actors can watch themselves on the big screen. They sometimes get so nervous around big stars — Nicole Kidman, Woody Allen — that their work suffers. Some are even too self-conscious to tweet.
Here are excerpts from a conversation with five of the movie business' most promising young talents, as they talk about navigating their newfound fame.
We're right next to the historic Chinese theater, and I'm wondering if it reminds you of your own first big Hollywood moment?
Dane DeHaan: When "Lawless" was going to Cannes, they were going to take everybody except for me, because everyone else was a lot more famous than I was. So my agent bought me a plane ticket, and the first night I was there I slept on a line producer's futon.... And then after the premiere, [costar Jessica Chastain] had to go back to finish shooting "Zero Dark Thirty." So she gave me her hotel room for the night. And it was, um, palatial.
Greta Gerwig: The first big movie I did that was released in a lot of theaters was "Greenberg," and I came to L.A. for the premiere. They put me up at the W Hotel, and I was very excited. And then, overnight, it was like the room was gone. And I was in L.A. and I didn't have a place to stay or any money. I was driving in Los Feliz, terrified, and I drove past a movie theater with a marquee that had my face on it. And I was like, "I don't have anywhere to stay tonight. What a Hollywood moment."
Miles Teller: I guess I have a similar one. I went to South by Southwest this past year. And I took like an early flight and I just got there, they gave me a [hotel] key, and I opened the room. There's like three dudes in there, and there was a bunch of room service. It kind of smelled, and the whole room's in disarray. So I walked out. I was like, "Hey, I don't know what's going on. There's a bunch of people in that room." They're like, "Oh, yeah, that's James Franco's room. He's got a late checkout." I thought that was pretty funny.
Brie Larson: My first job, I was 7 years old, and I was doing a fake Barbie commercial for Jay Leno — Malibu Mudslide Barbie. I was so excited, and they really do it up there. They put your name on the door. And so it was my first time ever seeing "Brie Larson" because that's not my real name. It was this fake name on this door in Los Angeles. I remember thinking I've made it. I had no idea that I wasn't even close.
None of you grew up in Los Angeles. What was your idea of Hollywood from afar?
Larson: I thought that the ground was gold and sparkly.
Michael B. Jordan: My dad's from California, so I always visited, so I always wanted to come. It lives up to the hype for the most part. I think if you have a tight group of friends, it helps.
Gerwig: Yeah, I grew up in California in Sacramento, but I never came to Los Angeles because it was a very long drive. But when I was young, I loved Woody Allen movies. So by the time I went to L.A., I was already doing some weird Woody Allen impression of him saying, like, "I'll have a plate of mashed yeast." And I was, like, 12. I had already decided that I was a New Yorker even though I was from Sacramento. It was like the only cultural advantage [in L.A.] is that you can make an uncontrolled right-hand turn.
And you do live in New York now. A lot of actors say they choose not to live in L.A. because all anyone talks about here is the industry. True?
Gerwig: I always feel like a vague failure in L.A. — it always makes me feel like I should somehow be different than I am. And I don't know why. But in New York I always feel like I can kind of melt in. And in L.A. people are like, "Why do I know who you are?" And I'm like, "You don't."
What were your early auditions like?
Teller: I wasn't booking anything at first, and my agent said, "Well, you've got to start working out, or you've got to start doing your hair."
Larson: I don't know, Greta, if you ever experienced this — but for so many auditions, I get the, "It was really great, but could you come back in a miniskirt?"
Gerwig: They don't want to see me in a miniskirt. After an audition they're always like, "So, are you funny?" I'm like, "Nope."
I'm like the only actor in New York who's never ever been on any "Law & Order." And I've auditioned for so many. The sad thing is I love "Law & Order." I'm really obsessed with it. And they always said to me, "You seem like you're making fun of the material."
Michael, you started working while you were still in high school on "All My Children." How did your classmates react to that?
Jordan: Everyone joked how weird it was that I was on a soap opera and I was from Newark [N.J.]. I played Susan Lucci's adopted kid — this troubled youth. It was the stereotypical role on a soap opera. I did it for about four years.
Gerwig: In the show, what was Susan Lucci have supposed to have done with you?
Jordan: I went away to basketball camp.
Teller: And never came back.
So after graduating high school, you went right to L.A.? Did your parents try to stop you from acting?
Jordan: My mom and dad really wanted me to explore college. But at the time, my sister had just graduated from Temple University and she had tons of student loans to pay back. She graduated at the top of her class and there weren't any jobs. So I'd say, "Mom, do you want me to be more in debt?"
Gerwig: My mom was also a little freaked out that I wanted to be an actor, and I was like, "I'll show you. I'm studying philosophy [at Barnard]. I'm not going to be a money-earner either way! There's lots of ways I can mess up my future."
Did anyone try to dissuade you from going to college, since there's so much pressure to start young in the film business?
Gerwig: I felt pressure to start early, because when I was in high school, Mandy Moore was already famous and she was younger than me. And I was like, "Well, it's over." When I graduated from college, I thought that I would probably never be an actor because it seemed like everyone was big by the time they were 20 or not at all.
Let's talk about how you approached some of your recent roles. Michael, in "Fruitvale Station," you play Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old who was fatally shot by a BART police officer. Were you eager to meet his family and friends and get as much as you could from them, or did you want to keep your distance?
Jordan: It was a weird feeling because you want to try to embody this character as much as you can, but there's nothing really to go off of. There weren't any home videos or any audio, so there was nothing to really imitate, which was kind of like a blessing in disguise. I was really looking forward to meeting his mom. It was really awkward at first — walking on eggshells, not really wanting to ask anything that might bring back any sad memories. I just listened a lot.
That was a low-budget movie, so you didn't have long to prepare. Dane, you've appeared in a number of indie movies this year, but then you just filmed the sequel to "The Amazing Spider-Man." Was the experience on a big studio film different for you?
DeHaan: The sets are a lot nicer in "Spider-Man." And you have a lot more time — I think that's the main difference. You have six months to make a movie instead of 24 days, so you can spend an entire day working on two pages. You can just explore everything.
When you show up on a set like that, working with people who have been in the business for years, are you intimidated?
Teller: You can be. The first thing I did was "Rabbit Hole," and on the first day Nicole Kidman, the director of photography and the director were sitting there talking about Lars von Trier. And I was just trying to eat salad and not stare, because Nicole's, like, 6 feet tall and absolutely beautiful. She's like a unicorn.
Did things improve once filming began?
Teller: Well, Aaron Eckhart was also in the movie, and I didn't meet him until "action." I didn't hear any of what he was saying because I'm just staring at him like, "You're Harvey Dent, bro."
What was it like working with your childhood hero Woody Allen on "To Rome With Love," Greta?
Gerwig: Well, doing your weird neurotic impression of Woody Allen to Woody Allen is terrible. I feel like if I could go back in time, I would've been like really confident. Like I saw Penelope Cruz with him, and she was joking with him and so nonchalant. With me, I felt that he whispered to someone, "Keep that girl away from me." I was kind of a disaster on that movie. It's really hard for me to be around people I admire.
How self-critical are you of your own performances? Can you ever look at a movie you've done and say, "You know what? I'm proud of this."
Teller: When I watch a movie I'm in, I don't see the movie at all. You have all these memories associated with it, and then for that to be condensed down to like an hour and a half — it's just so weird. I hate it. And think I'm terrible and I think everybody is fantastic, truthfully.
Jordan: It's a little weird. The first time I saw "Fruitvale," I was looking at the screen thinking, "That's annoying." I mean, I'm up there like 98% of the time. I was tired of looking at myself on screen. After you get finished with a film like that, it's not for you anymore.
I noticed that all three of the guys are on Twitter, but the ladies are not. Why is that?
DeHaan: I just use it for fun. You can say anything, and then people are like, "Yeah!"
Jordan: I Instagram a lot.
Teller: You like the selfies.
Jordan: I do selfie every once in a while, but it's not for me; it's for them, OK?
Teller: You're welcome, world.
Why do you have an aversion to it, Greta?
Gerwig: I'm like an old woman. I read people's Twitters, and I like Jessica Chastain's Facebook page very much. She's so nice. And she's so happy. Her like picture is her in a field. So I stalk people all the time via their things. I just want to be behind a shield.
Are there things you know now that you wish you'd been aware of when you were first starting out?
Larson: Auditions are the weirdest, most backstabbing thing ever to do every day. You finish and they're like, "Great, nice to meet you." And then your agent says, "Yeah, they called, and they hated you." It warps your mind and what your perception of yourself is. You start picking yourself apart — "I didn't get it because I have blue eyes, or I'm too tall or too short." And then you start either wearing too much makeup or no makeup, or curling your hair and straightening it. I started feeling like I was like apologizing for being me. And then the strangest thing happened. The second that I actually was fed up with it and was like, "You know what? I can't do this anymore. It hurts too much to not be myself." That's when everything changed for me, and I started working.
DeHaan: All of us on the stage are really lucky because we've, I guess, achieved a certain amount of success. But ultimately that's never been what it's been about for me — it's always been about the work. That's the only thing that will remain constant. So instead of trying to grasp at things that aren't reliable at all, that's something that is entirely personal and entirely your own.


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Desiree Akhavan on Bringing 'Cameron Post' to the Screen, Part Two
Editor's note: EDGE spoke to Desiree Akhaven about her film "The Miseducation of Cameron Post," when it was released this past August and recently became available on digital and streaming platforms . We revisit the interview with the release of the film on streaming and digital platforms. Akhaven also discusses her upcoming Hulu series "The Bisexual," which premieres on November 16.
For more on streaming "Cameron Post," follow this link.
"The Miseducation of Cameron Post" (currently in release) isn't the only gay conversion film to be released this year. In November comes "Boy Erased," a starry Hollywood prestige film. And the differences between the films are striking: "Cameron Post" may boast one of Hollywood's brightest young stars Chloë Grace Moretz as its titular character, but it is a scrappy indie co-written and directed by an out female director that didn't have a distributor even after winning the Grand Jury Prize for US Drama at Sundance earlier this year. "Boy Erased" is pure Hollywood with A-list stars (Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe), a rising one (Lucas Hedges), written and directed by a white straight actor (Joel Edgerton) that is poised to get a major award consideration marketing campaign.
It is likely because of those differences that led the outspoken Ms. Moretz to address "Boy Erased" recently in an interview in the Los Angeles Times in which she spoke out against the other film.. "Cameron Post," she said, "was directed by a bisexual woman of diversity, it has a very diverse cast and we didn't cast all celebrities." While "Boy Erased" is "written and directed by a white man, it's shot through a straight male gaze. You just look at the discrepancy and that's shocking."
She also went onto say that, "Queer movies should be told through a queer lens and created by queer people."
Ms. Moretz made those comments on the morning that we were interviewing Desiree Akhaven, the co-writer and director of "Cameron Post," and Ms. Akhaven had yet to hear of them. In the second half of this interview, Ms. Akhaven addresses Ms. Moretz's comments, as well as discusses "The Bisexual," the upcoming 6-part Hulu series that she not only co-wrote and directed, but also starred in. It is due out in October.
Chloë Grace Moretz, Sasha Lane and Forrest Goodluck in "The Miseducation of Cameron Post."
EDGE: How did you cast Chloë Grace Moretz in the film?
Desiree Akhavan: Chloë's team asked us for the film. I never thought she would be interested in this film because I thought she was a studio darling. I had never seen her do any indie films so I never thought of her. But when I heard that she was interested, I got really excited because I thought what a great juxtaposition of a persona and a character. She is someone who has always been a princess, an ingénue, and I love to see her in a role that is so much about gender confusion and female masculinity and a role where she has three sex scenes with women and she masturbates. Like a sexually frank movie from somebody who before was infantilized as a pretty princess. That juxtaposition was very exciting to me.
EDGE: Chloë made some news recently with her comments to the LA Times...
Desiree Akhavan: What did she say?
EDGE: She commented on "Boy Erased," the other gay conversion movie that comes out this fall, labeling it a Hollywood product with a major distributor, a big budget and star power (Nicole Kidman, Lucas Hedges and Joel Edgerton, who wrote and directed). She went on to say that your film "was directed by a bisexual woman of diversity, it has a very diverse cast and we didn't cast all celebrities. You look at the other movie - that movie has distribution already, it's going to come out, it's going to be big - it's written and directed by a white man, it's shot through a straight male gaze. You just look at the discrepancy and that's shocking." And she ended her comments with: "Queer movies should be told through a queer lens and created by queer people."
I know this is coming at you out of the blue, but what do you think of her saying that queer movies should be told through a queer lens and created by queer people?
Desiree Akhavan: Yeah. I am trying to think of how to phrase it. I don't want to try to discredit another film that deals with this subject matter. I think there have been so many films about straight white people getting together. She's straight white and single and she likes him and he's straight white and single and likes her. How are they going to get together? That has been the plot of 80% of movies I have ever seen in my life. And no one ever says, that sounds like your remaking "The Proposal," or that's sounds very Bridget Jones. Instead it is just another movie. I am grateful when more stories come to the table. I think there is room for everyone.
The writer of the book "Boy Erased" sat with Chloë and me before we went into production and spoke to us about the experience of going through gay conversion therapy. It is a subject matter that can be dealt with a different lens. I care a lot that sex is depicted honestly. I care a lot that female sexuality is depicted honestly. I am sad that stories of female sexuality aren't given the same amount of attention. And it hasn't escaped my attention that the queer stories that have had wide platforms have been ones that focus on men's journeys, like "Call Me By Your Name," "Brokeback Mountain" and "Boy Erased." It has not escaped my attention that they are stories about men. When you are from a marginalized community and your story is told so rarely, it matters who tells it.
But at the same time, I never want to publicly put down a queer story and another filmmaker whose work I have never seen. I can't judge that movie. I have really mixed feelings about all this. I am glad it exists, kudos to them for taking this subject matter that I care about so deeply, and I think there is room for both stories. i don't think they should be pitted against each other. But I wish I lived in a world where we also had a wide platform for this story and people gave a shit about a woman's story, specifically a female director at the helm of that story. I wish we were on equal footing.
Desiree Akhavan on the set of "The Bisexual."
EDGE: While you were in London, you worked on a television series called "The Bisexual?" What is that?
Desiree Akhavan: It started in London, where I have been living for the past few years. It is a co-production between Hulu in the States and Channel 4 in the UK. It will be out in the fall, I think October. I star in it and I co-wrote with the writer and producer of Cameron Post. It is a story of a woman in her 30s who has been identified as a lesbian her whole life and comes out as bisexual and starts sleeping iwht men in her 30s. And it this reverse coming out story of facing the sexual taboos being neither gay nor straight.
EDGE: Is it similar to "Appropriate Behavior?"
Desiree Akhavan: It is similar in tone. I would like to think it is a step up. That I was able to grow into my voice and my humor a bit. It is a comedy - it is sexual coming of age. It also looks at her relationship with her straight male roommate. It is a double-hander between this Iranian bisexual and this straight, white Irish guy (played by Brian Gleeson) and our dynamic of being each other's wingman, me giving him an insight into women, and he giving me the same insight into men.
EDGE: What is it like working in television?
Desiree Akhavan: It was very different. It was a lot harder. It felt like shooting two low-budget feature films back-to-back, then going into the marathon of editing two in a row. I just locked picture a few days ago, then flew out here to promote the movie, so it has been the most intense professional experience in my life. It was really hard. It shows in the work. The show is a singular vision and was made with a love, and I am very proud of it. I think it is really good and funny. But man, it was hard. And also you have other voices in the room, usually with film you are given a fairly long leash. But here you answering to two networks and your executives, so there was a lot of negotiating that I hadn't anticipated. But I think in the end it was all for the best because those different voices in the room helped bring out a lot of quality in the work.
Chloë Grace Moretz in "The Miseducation of Cameron Post."
EDGE: Did you direct any of them?
Desiree Akhavan: I directed all of them. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Fortunately it was just a six-episode season, shorter than most American shows. But directing six episodes while I am acting and co-writing. I had my partner Cecilia Frugiuele, but she gave birth right before production. This was the first time she wasn't by my side on set together and it was really hard for me.
EDGE: What is it like acting and directing in the same project?
Desiree Akhavan: It is impossibly hard. I don't want to do it again. I think having directed 'Cameron Post' taught me so much about what you can do potentially as a director if you have space and time and your brain to yourself. But this experience was a real eye opener of the limitations. It worked for this because it was such a personal story and so small. We were showing such a particular neighborhood of London where I live and we were showing such a particular slice that it is nice that my fingerprints are all over it, that my face is all over it, but I could never do it again, especially after doing "Cameron Post," when I was so spoiled. Spoiled in that I had time to think. Every shot in that film is painstakingly perfect to me. I didn't compromise. I did it on my terms with the help of my collaborators. With the show it was just, we have to get through the day. Whatever we can to get through it. Just put the camera down and lets get it. It's not perfect, but I think the way you execute something is dictated by the actual subject matter. It is a different story and doesn't need to be painstakingly precise because it is messier and very different than "Cameron Post."
Forrest Goodluck, Chloë Grace Moretz and Sasha Lane at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival last January.
EDGE: I read that you want to direct a big, mainstream movie. Why?
Desiree Akhavan: Because those movies touched me growing up. I was raised on mainstream films. I didn't discover French New Wave until I was in college. I loved movies growing up. They raised me. They helped form me. And they also help form a lot of the biases against myself. I wish if those mainstream films, if there politics could align with my own, that could be a lifeline to someone. Watching "Black Panther" really moved me. It was so inspiring to me. The politics of that film - just watching women drive the cars. That's so simple, but it is so powerful. I want that kind of power. I want to change the world for the better in the tiniest way that I can. Movies are so superficial and such a small form of activism, but it is the form that is at my hands. And why wouldn't I try to touch the lives of people who otherwise wouldn't be exposed to something outside the mainstream norm. I want to change the mainstream.
EDGE: Do you want to revisit your character from "Appropriate Behavior" I a sequel?
Desiree Akhavan: No. That's over. I'd like to not act anymore. I will not be creating more situations where I need to act in my own work.
EDGE: What advice would you give a filmmaker just starting out?
Desiree Akhavan: I would tell them to create their own opportunities and not wait for anyone else to enable them. It is like this unspoken understanding in film school that it was like, wait for someone to discover you or someone with money will make someone happen, or you need to cozy up to the right person. That couldn't be farther from the truth. Stay true to your own taste and your own aesthetic, and if you build it they will come.
For more on streaming "The Miseducation of Cameron Post," follow this link.
Watch the trailer to "The Miseducation of Cameron Post":


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Q&A with Junior Tennis Player Austin West
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One of the key factors in the emergence of the UC San Diego Men's Tennis team this season has been the play of junior Austin West. While the Tritons have assembled a spotless, 16-0, dual match record, the lefty from Greenwood Village, CO is undefeated in singles and nearly perfect in doubles with partner Erik Elliott. "Austin has great determination, work ethic and persistence," says Head Coach Eric Steidlmayer. "From redshirting his first year to being one of our singles starters, he's made a major transformation to get to where he is today." With just one week remaining in the regular season, West spent a few moments reflecting back on the season and talking about his sport.
Q-Your team has rolled up an impressive, 16-0, dual record this season. What have you noticed that is different about your team since the start of the year?
WEST- We are all playing with a lot of confidence and competing very well every day, even in practice. Our guys that aren't starting are all pushing the guys that are starting and we're all improving as a group.
Q-Was there a point during the schedule where everyone kind of stepped back and thought, "hey, we might be pretty good?"
WEST- I think after we beat our regional rival Hawaii Pacific, which has dominated us the last few years, and then knocking off the defending national champion, Barry, we all just realized that we were a solid team and that we could be one of the best teams in the country.
Q-What are this team's strengths? Where do you think it can still get better?
WEST- This team really competes well, I feel like every match we play our team is more mentally tough and physically fit than our opponents and that's huge in tennis. There are a few skills we're lacking that a lot of teams have, especially big serves. That's one big area we need to improve.
Q-Being a lefty, do you think it is harder for other players to get used to playing a lefty than a righty?
WEST-Yeah, I think it is, especially since I have a pretty unorthodox style game that people aren't used to seeing. I think it throws a lot of people off their games and it's been a big part of my success in tennis.
Q-In high school you played on the tennis team and enjoyed a lot of success. How does it feel to be playing at such a high level at the collegiate level?
WEST- It's a dream come true. I think every level you achieve in sports, you're always dreaming about competing at the next level and thinking about how you're going to get there. I think it's awesome.
Q-You're undefeated playing at No. 6 singles. Do you take the same approach into every match and what kind of adjustments do you make in the course of a typical match?
WEST- Yeah, I have a basic game plan that I go into every match with and tweak it slightly depending on who I'm playing. The only real differences are whether I attack my opponent's forehand or backhand and how often I come to the net. Everything else is pretty much constant.
Q-You and doubles partner Erik Elliott have lost just once all season. What about your games compliments each other so well? How did the two of you get paired up?
WEST- I think all of the things I don't do well, he does extremely well. And the things that I do well on the court he also does well so it's a win-win for us. We're both able to hide each other's weaknesses and accentuate our strengths. In the preseason we sent one doubles team to regionals, and Coach (Steidlmayer) thought we had the best chance of doing well so he sent us. We ended up winning regionals and getting fifth at nationals so we stayed together as a team.
Q-Which do you like better, singles or doubles? Is one tougher than the other for you?
WEST- Both. I like the team aspect of doubles and feeding off each other's energy and competitiveness. Doubles happens way faster so that's pretty fun. I like singles because it's slower and I have time to think and construct points. They're both tough for me, but in very different ways.
Q-For you personally, which of your teammates is toughest to play against? Who has the hardest serve? Who is the most competitive?
WEST-(Erik) Elliott is the toughest to play because he hits such big shots and takes away so much time from his opponents that I struggle to even stay in the point. I think Chapman (Chan) has the fastest serve but Elliott probably has the toughest to return-it's impossible to read. Vince (Nguyen) is probably our most competitive-he comes and gives the same great effort every single day and never gets blown off the court.
Q-Assuming you're also a tennis fan, which of the four Grand Slams do you think is the toughest to win and? Which would your game best be suited for?
WEST- I think Wimbledon is the toughest because it is very rare for players to play on grass growing up so there's a definite learning curve on how to play on that surface. I think my game would be best suited for the U.S. Open. I'd love to just feed off the energy of the home crowd.
Q-Out of the top three ranked men's professional tennis players-Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer-which is your favorite?
WEST- I like Federer the best because he's so smooth and under control at all times. His movement on the court is amazing.
Q-In tennis, which do you think is the most difficult shot to master? Is there a shot you've pulled off in a match that you'll always remember?
WEST- I think they're all tough depending on who you are and what talents you have. I have the most trouble hitting penetrating groundstrokes but that's different for everyone.
As far as a particular shot, against Barry, I was playing No. 5 singles and hit a jumping overhead winner on match point for our first singles win. We ended up winning 5-4 against the defending national champs. That was pretty surreal.
Q-What would you consider your biggest win to this season?
WEST- My win against Barry was pretty big, I think, because we won 5-4, and needed every single match we got to barely squeak that one out against a very tough team.
Q-As a Colorado native, what have you found most interesting about California in general, San Diego in particular? What's been the most difficult thing to adjust to?
WEST-I think the beach and all the different kinds of people that you meet here, it's a very diverse culture.
The most difficult thing to adjust to is probably just the fast-paced way of life. Everyone's climbing over each other here trying to get something done and it's very different from where I'm from, which has a very mellow, relaxed vibe.
Q-You are a dual major--management science and math. What has been the most challenging course you've taken so far and why?
WEST-My most challenging course was an abstract algebra class I took this fall. Because of travelling for tennis I had to miss some classes and I missed a few tests that I wasn't allowed to make them up. So that was a tough time for me.
Q-Did you have a specific career objective when you came to UCSD? Is it still the same or are you looking at other options now?
WEST- I was looking to work somewhere in finance, maybe become a CFO somewhere. I'm still looking towards the same goals, work towards an MBA hopefully.
Q-You grew up in Colorado and list one of your hobbies is skiing. What is your favorite mountain and why? What does skiing have in common with tennis?
WEST-I like Vail and Loveland the best. Vail because it's so big and Loveland because it's basically my backyard, I know that area as well as anyone. Skiing is an independent thing, just you and the mountain. It's not really about anyone else, just like tennis is. You're on an island and it's all up to you.
Q-In your dream scenario, what would be the ultimate ending to this season?
WEST-My dream would be to clinch the national title with a singles win, get mobbed by my teammates and celebrate on the court. I'd go absolutely bonkers.
Previous Q & A Articles
Drew Lawyer (Men's Crew) April 11, 2011
Keith Okasaki (Men's Golf) March 26, 2011
Matt Herman (Men's Swimming & Diving) March 12, 2011
Hanalei Crowell (Women's Water Polo) March 5, 2011
Camille Gaito (Softball) February 23, 2011
Tim Shibuya (Baseball) February 8, 2011
Carl Eberts (Men's Volleyball) January 31, 2011
Neda Nguyen (Women's Swimming & Diving) January 24, 2011
Amy Bianchini (Fencing) January 14, 2011
Lauren Freidenberg (Women's Basketball) January 3, 2011
Christian Hatch (Men's Basketball) December 24, 2010
Blake Langland (Men's Swimming & Diving) November 27, 2010
Sarah McTigue (Women's Soccer) November 8, 2010
Brandon Yee (Men's Soccer) October 11, 2010
Bryce Madsen (Men's Water Polo) September 23, 2010
Annette Ilg (Women's Soccer) September 9, 2010
Ricci Luyties (Women's Volleyball Head Coach) August 24, 2010
Kevin Messey (Head Athletics Trainer) July 7, 2010
Dan O'Brien (Baseball Head Coach) June 18, 2010
Christine Merrill (Women's Track & Field) June 14, 2010
Vance Albitz (Baseball) May 11, 2010
Erik Elliott (Men's Tennis) May 3, 2010
Kelly Fogarty (Women's Track & Field) April 23, 2010
Liz LaPlante (Women's Tennis Head Coach) April 15, 2010
Kirby St. John (Baseball) March 24, 2010
Dan Perdew (Men's Swimming) February 28, 2010
Calvin Ross (Men's Volleyball) February 20, 2010
Nicole Saari (Softball) February 4, 2010
Brad Kreutzkamp (Women's Water Polo Head Coach) January 18, 2010
Tyler Acevedo (Men's Basketball) January 4, 2010
Dr. Cliff Kubiak (UCSD's Faculty Athletic Rep) December 18, 2009
Chelsea Carlisle (Women's Basketball) December 9, 2009
Carianne Cunningham (Women's Swimming) November 23, 2009
Elena Inouye (Cross Country) November 6, 2009
David Morton (Men's Water Polo) October 28, 2009
Juan Pablo Carillo (Men's Swimming) October 19, 2009
Sara Spaventa (Women's Soccer) October 10, 2009
Karen Reis (Women's Volleyball) October 2, 2009
Daniel Pavitt (Men's Soccer) September 23, 2009
Daniel Anderson (Cross Country) September 11, 2009
Peter Gresham (Men's Water Polo) September 2, 2009
Alexia Zatarain (Women's Soccer) August 24, 2009
Elaine Chen (Women's Volleyball) August 12, 2009
Jared Kukura (Men's Soccer) July 30, 2009
Dawn Lee (Former Women's Soccer Standout) July 8, 2009
Rob Mamula (Director of Athletic Performance) June 18, 2009
Garrett Imeson (Baseball) June 8, 2009
Leon Baham (Men's Track & Field) May 21, 2009
Kristyn Lesovsky (Softball) May 8, 2009
Kazumi Negishi (Men's Tennis) May 5, 2009
Laiah Blue (Women's Track & Field) April 16, 2009
Ryan Andre (Men's Crew) April 2, 2009
Josh Tanner (Baseball) March 24, 2009
Anju Shimura (Women's Swimming) March 7, 2009
Stephanie Bocian (Women's Water Polo) February 20, 2009
Lauren Chastain (Softball) February 5, 2009
A.J. Maulhardt (Men's Basketball) January 28, 2009
Annette Ilg (Women's Basketball) January 22, 2009
Steven Hardy (Men's Swimming) January 13, 2009
Frank Fritsch (Men's Volleyball) January 5, 2009


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Partners buy Wilton office complex for $19.2 million
A joint venture is seeing opportunities in the office building market in Fairfield County as the economy shows more signs of life, making its second purchase since buying a Danbury building nine months ago.
Summit Development in Southport and The Grossman Cos., of Quincy, Mass., have partnered again, this time to purchase Wilton 372, a 92,500-square-foot office building from an affiliate of Luzern Associates for $19.2 million. The deal follows the acquisition of Lee Corporate Park, a 216,000-square-foot Class A office complex in Danbury, for $16.9 million.
The Wilton building, located at 372 Danbury Road, is 89 percent occupied.
Felix Charney, a principal of Summit, credited Salvatore Campfranco, owner and managing member of Luzern Associates, with improving the property since his company bought it in January 2008.
"Sal has done a tremendous job in renovating it. It's a very attractive building for strong, local companies," said Charney, noting that the new ownership is offering space at $28 per square foot, plus electricity. "We thought it was a good building that offered good value for tenants, and we saw opportunity for a good return."
Luzern performed extensive exterior and interior renovations, including new lobbies, fitness facility and building conference center transforming the property into a boutique Class A office environment. Campofranco told Hearst Connecticut Media in 2011 that the improvements cost $2.7 million.
The building was the final asset in Luzern Realty Fund I, a private equity fund controlled by Campofranco's company. The turn-around of the property has been a success story. When Luzern Associates, through an affiliated entity, bought the complex for $10.75 million, it was only 40 percent occupied.
"This was a great building. It was a lot of work in a difficult time," said Campofranco, who kicked off Luzern Realty Fund II in August 2013 with the purchase of 180 Post Road East in Westport, a 32,000-square-foot office/retail property.
The complex, which is 60 percent occupied, will be undergoing extensive upgrades, he said.
The Wilton property provides a cost-effective rent alternative to class-conscious tenants because it is 35 percent less than rents in Stamford's central business district, according to Jeff Dunne, vice chairman of CBRE and a member of its New York Institutional Group. Besides Dunne, Steven Bardsley and Erik Edeen, also members of the institutional group, represented Wilton 372 Associates, the affiliate of Luzern Associates.
The CBRE team was also responsible for procuring the buyer.
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