text:
At 10 p.m. on a Friday night in a private room on the 14th Floor of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital on 68th and York Avenue, my mother was lying in her bed hallucinating, in that dream space people go on their way to being gone.
She spoke of seeing trees, possibly a forest. And she mentioned to Nick, my stepfather, that she had been to the theater where her play was showing and that the audience was full. In reality, she had not left the hospital in a month, and the play, "Lucky Guy," was nearly a year away from opening.
My brother, Max, and I stood there in disbelief. Though it had been weeks since her blood count showed any sign of improvement, the gravity of the situation had crept up on us. Mom's housekeeper, Linda Diaz, who had worked for her for 25 years, was in the corner sobbing.
At some point, a team of doctors and nurses arrived to assess the situation, and Mom became slightly more lucid.
"Can you tell me your name?" one of them asked.
"Nora Ephron," she said, nodding.
"Can you tell me where you are?"
"New York Hospital."
"Who is the president of the United States?"
At this point, my mother looked annoyed, gave a roll of the eyes and refused to answer the question, which later on was the source of some debate between Max and me about whether her sarcasm and humor remained even as her memory and focus faded or whether she was simply irritated at being treated like an infant.
A few hours later, after falling asleep for a short time, she woke up, ate ice cream with Max and me and was able to talk with some coherence about Jerry Sandusky's conviction earlier that day.
When Max said, "Mom, I'm going to miss you so much," she said: "Miss me? Well, I'm not dead yet."
For most of the next three days, before she entered a coma and died, she was sort of herself, asking for the papers and doing the crossword. On Sunday, one of the nurses arrived to give her medication and innocently asked if she was planning on writing about what was happening to her. My mother simply said, "No."
I took this more or less at face value until after her death, as plans moved forward with her play "Lucky Guy," and it occurred to me that part of what she was trying to do by writing about someone else's death was to understand her own.
Illness, and how a person handles it, was not the first thing on my mom's mind when she began writing "Lucky Guy" back in 1999. At that point, she wasn't even sick.
Based on real events, "Lucky Guy" is about a tabloid journalist named Mike McAlary. In the early '90s, he became one of the highest-paid newspaper columnists in the country. Crime was still rampant in New York, and the Internet had not yet destroyed the economics of the newspaper business. My mother said that she saw his career as "the end of something," a bookend to a time when reporters could still believe there was power in the job; when Elaine's was still one of the city's most glamorous rooms; when much of Times Square still belonged to prostitutes and drug dealers; and when the West Village had not yet been taken over by hedge-fund magnates and Russian oligarchs.
My mother knew a lot about McAlary's world. She dreamed of being a newspaper reporter from the time she was in high school, and wound up spending much of her 20s working at The New York Post. Moreover, McAlary was what she liked to call "a problematic human being." And after a decade of writing and directing romantic comedies, a lead character who wasn't entirely likable seemed like a good way to keep herself from getting boxed in.
The project, however, kept getting sidelined. There was a movie, "Bewitched." And a play Off Broadway, "Love, Loss, and What I Wore," which she wrote with her sister Delia. Then another movie, as well as two anthologies of her essays. Another problem she kept running into: She'd conceived "Lucky Guy" (then called "Stories About McAlary") as a film for HBO, but the structure was unconventional, relying largely on the other characters to tell their versions of what happened to him, essentially breaking the fourth wall. And everyone, including her, was unsure of how it was going to work on-screen.
Then in 2008, Colin Callender, the man guiding the development of "Lucky Guy" at HBO, left the network. Callender had taken a personal interest in the project because he'd known McAlary. Shortly after striking out on his own as an independent producer, he called my mother with a new idea: What if her script was not a movie but a play, where characters regularly talk to the audience?
Two weeks later, she handed him a new draft. By this time, there was something else pulling her toward McAlary as well.
McAlary got the scoop of his life just nine months after receiving a diagnosis of advanced colon cancer. In 1997, he wrote the story of a Haitian immigrant named Abner Louima who was brutally assaulted by a New York City police officer. In the spring of 1998, McAlary won the Pulitzer Prize for his work. On Christmas of that same year, he died at 41. Shortly before his death, he was quoted as saying: "If you are a doctor or a lawyer, you take the case. If you're a reporter, you write the story. I didn't think about being sick."
When Mom returned to working on the script in 2008, this was something she knew all about, though it was a secret confined to a tiny group of people: my stepfather, my brother, her sisters, a couple of close friends and me.
In late 2005, my mother went to see her doctor because she had been feeling, as she later told me, "punky." She had always been a little anemic, but now, she appeared to be getting worse, with fevers and inexplicable infections. After years of seeing a trainer two to three times a week and being pretty fit for a woman in her mid-60s, she found herself dreading having to climb stairs.
She eventually made her way to J. Gregory Mears, a hematologist at Columbia University, who quickly gave her a diagnosis of myelodysplastic syndrome, an aggressive blood disorder that destroys the body's ability to make healthy blood cells and ward off infections. The only known cure for it is a stem-cell transplant, but stem-cell transplants are especially difficult in older patients. Among other potential complications, the body may reject the donor cells or develop graft-versus-host disease, in which the transplanted cells can attack the patient.
This is what happened to Susan Sontag, who also died of acute myeloid leukemia brought on by MDS, and had many of the same doctors as my mother. Discussing the aftermath of her unsuccessful transplant in an article for this magazine in 2005, Sontag's son, David Rieff, wrote, "To me 'torture' is not too strong or hyperbolic a word."
My mother had seen her closest friend, Judy Corman, go through a series of increasingly painful treatments that didn't do much but extend her suffering from the cancer that eventually killed her. Between watching this and reading about what happened to Sontag, Mom became unambiguous in her opposition to testing fate, to gambling away comfort for the remote possibility of being cured. She was determined to have a "good death."
I'm not sure what would have happened had a stem-cell transplant been a viable option — if her sisters had been a match, for instance — but thankfully, it didn't come to that. Soon after my mother went to see Mears, Jerome Groopman, a doctor at Harvard with extensive experience in treating cancer, was called in for a second opinion. After running a series of tests, he concluded that she quite likely had an unusual variant of MDS, which could be treated with less drastic measures.
Over time, the worry I felt when she first told me about the disease began to fade. We knew the statistics, but statistics — as Alice McAlary recounted to Mom about her husband, Mike — get you only so far. Besides, my mother had never been ordinary.
A moderate dose of prednisone helped stabilize her blood count for a couple of years. When the prednisone stopped working, she went to see Stephen Nimer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. He put her on Vidaza, a low-dose form of chemotherapy with few side effects. Along with monthly blood transfusions, it effectively controlled the disease for two years.
Then while on a trip in the South of France in 2010, she went swimming and felt something stab her arm. She believed she had been stung by a jellyfish but was not sure. A few weeks later, she wound up in a hospital in Los Angeles with an inexplicable bacterial infection that led to a bump on her arm the size of a tangerine. Miraculously, when she got out, she was transfusion-independent. Her doctors had no idea what had happened, except to speculate that her bone marrow responded to a threat in an unusually dramatic way and was now producing healthy blood cells and platelets. My mother was not one to go in for superstition or miracles — godlessness was for her a form of religion, a belief in self-sufficiency above all else — but she was near certain her recovery had something to do with the jellyfish.
At various points over the years, she considered coming clean to her friends and colleagues about her illness. But she knew the effect it could have on her career. Certainly, she could continue writing books and essays. But getting a movie made would be impossible, because no insurance company would sign off on it. Arguably, she could do a play, but bringing it to Broadway would be difficult, given that the development process takes years. Beyond that, what my mother didn't want was to have her illness define her, turning every conversation into a series of "how are you?"s.
All her life, she subscribed to the belief that "everything is copy," a phrase her mother, Phoebe, used to say. In fact, when Phoebe was on her deathbed, she told my mother, "Take notes." She did. What both of them believed was that writing has the power to turn the bad things that happen to you into art (although "art" was a word she hated). "When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you; but when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it's your laugh," she wrote in her anthology "I Feel Bad About My Neck." "So you become the hero rather than the victim of the joke."
And she applied that maxim everywhere. She wrote a magazine article about The New York Post and her former boss there, Dorothy Schiff ("It is a terrible newspaper. The reason it is, of course, is Dorothy Schiff"); her breasts ("If I had them I would have been a completely different person"); even getting fat injections in her lips ("I looked like a Ubangi, so I never did it again"). There was also an entire book and movie devoted to her divorce from my father. (But never mind that.)
The thing is, you can't really turn a fatal illness into a joke. It is almost the only disclosure that turns you into the victim rather than the hero of your story. For her, tragedy was a pit of clichés. So she stayed quiet, though clues were sprinkled through much of what she wrote during the six years she was sick.
They were there in "I Feel Bad About My Neck": "Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know, it's everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again you could be."
They were there in "I Remember Nothing": "The realization that I may have only a few good years remaining has hit me with real force, and I have done a lot of thinking as a result. I would like to have come up with something profound, but I haven't. I try to figure out what I really want to do every day, I try to say to myself, If this is one of the last days of my life, am I doing exactly what I want to be doing? I am low. My idea of a perfect day is a frozen custard from Shake Shack and a walk in the park. (Followed by a Lactaid)."
And they were there in her last edits of "Lucky Guy," the final piece of work she completed.
My mother didn't know Mike McAlary personally, but she was certainly familiar with his kind. And what details she didn't know were quickly filled in by his friends, colleagues and relatives, almost all of whom she interviewed.
McAlary was born in Oahu, Hawaii, and he grew up in Goffstown, N.H. After graduating from Syracuse University, he went to work at The Boston Herald American, covering sports, then eventually scored a job at New York Newsday. There, he made a name for himself as a particularly aggressive reporter, covering crime and police corruption. After that he began to bounce back and forth between The New York Daily News and The New York Post, getting bigger and better contracts each time he made a move.
In 1993, he broke his contract with The Daily News to become the highest paid reporter at The Post, with a salary of $945,750 over three years. The Daily News was granted a preliminary injunction that prevented him from making the move, and McAlary wound up with too much time on his hands. After a night out at a Yankees game, he totaled his car on the F.D.R. Drive. His injuries were so serious that he spent several days in a coma and a month in the hospital. Rupert Murdoch, who hired him at The Post, never called or came to see him. But Mort Zuckerman, who owned The News, did. So he stayed at The News.
Not long after McAlary returned to work, he made a career-killing mistake. A woman in Prospect Park had reported being raped, but McAlary's sources had doubts. He was told that the results of the rape kit had come back negative for sperm, that it was only a matter of time before she was found out. But the most crucial points in McAlary's stories turned out to be wrong. The woman had been raped. What the source didn't realize was that no sperm didn't necessarily mean no semen. McAlary had made no attempt to speak with the victim herself, an act of laziness that his supporters believed was partially attributable to his accident.
The News reduced the frequency of his column. The official explanation was that he was writing his novel. It was around this time that he began to get sick. He was jaundiced and losing weight. In conversations, he seemed dazed.
"He still had these symptoms," said his widow, Alice, when I went to see her last month. "You have to remember, they put him all back together again. So when he started having issues with his colon, his stomach, all that stuff, we attributed them to the accident."
By the time McAlary got his diagnosis of colon cancer, it had already progressed to an advanced stage.
"It was a desperate situation," said Ed Hayes, one of McAlary's closest friends and the man who negotiated all of his contracts. "The nurse took one look and said: 'Forget this guy. He's a dead man. There's no hope for him.' "
Nevertheless, he underwent surgery to remove as much of the cancer as possible, then started chemotherapy in 1997. He was hooked up to the chemo drip when he received a tip that a man had been severely assaulted by a police officer. He drove from his treatment to see Abner Louima in the hospital. He was the first reporter to interview the victim. In horrifying detail, Louima told him how he'd been wrongfully arrested outside a nightclub and taken back to a police station, where one of the cops raped him with a plunger.
In a series of articles, he not only exposed a monstrous incident of police brutality but started the earliest debate about the Giuliani-era approach to law enforcement. In short order, McAlary's career was rehabilitated.
In the play my mother wrote, there's a scene toward the end, in which McAlary, sick with cancer, goes to the Poconos to visit his friend Jim Dwyer, then a columnist at The Daily News. It's a glorious summer day, and McAlary's 12-year-old son, Ryan, wants to do a flip off the diving board, but he gets scared and can't do it. So McAlary takes off his shirt, walks to the edge of the diving board and says to him: "When you do these things, you can't be nervous. If you think about what can go wrong, if you think about the belly flop, that's what'll happen."
And then McAlary does the flip himself and makes a perfect landing.
It's a metaphor, obviously, for his view about life. And I've come to think it might as well have been about my mother. The point is that you don't let fear invade your psyche. Because then you might as well be dead.
As she saw him, McAlary was a role model not so much in life, but in death, in the way that he used writing to maintain his sense of purpose and find release from his illness. In the six years my mother had MDS, she wrote 100 blog posts, two books and two plays and directed a movie. There was nothing she could do about her death but to keep going in the face of it. Work was its own kind of medicine, even if it could not save her when her MDS came roaring back.
"I'm having a little health crisis."
That's how she put it when she called me shortly before Memorial Day weekend.
I dropped everything, got into a cab and headed up to see her at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. While I was en route, the phone rang; it was Max, who told me that Mom's MDS had turned into leukemia. I think I already knew, even though I hadn't asked her for specifics. For six months, Mom's blasts — the bad guys that make it difficult for people with MDS and leukemia to produce healthy platelets and white blood cells — had been creeping back up, indicating that she was developing a resistance to her medication. Now she would need a brutal form of chemotherapy if she hoped to survive. Max and his girlfriend, Rachel, were getting on a plane from L.A.
When I arrived in her room, my mother was crying. She cried a lot that first night, and then, the next day, she cried some more because she was certain Christopher Hitchens had done no such thing, and she was devastated at the thought that she might not be as brave as him about death.
It terrified me to see her cry like that. She loved me, showered me with gifts, e-mailed or called every time I wrote something that made her proud. But even after all the weekly meals, the shared vacations, the conversations about movies and journalism and the debt ceiling and Edith Wharton, I still viewed her with a mix of awe and intimidation. It wasn't often that I caught a glimpse of her vulnerability.
Now there she was, in her Chanel flats and her cream-colored pants and her black-and-white-striped blouse, looking so pretty and so fragile as she dabbed her eyes with a Kleenex; and I finally understood what she meant when she said she was a bird — that she wasn't just talking about her looks but something inside as well.
As she explained it that first night, the odds of the chemo working were below 50 percent, and even if it did, it would probably not buy her more than a year and a half or so. "I want to live to be 100," she said. "I want to see how things turn out for you and Max." But she wasn't sure the chemo was worth doing for such a limited upside.
I told her that I hoped she would reconsider, that a year and a half is a lot of time during which something else may emerge as a viable treatment. Still, I said I would respect whatever she wished to do, that it was her body, her life, her choice. I think this is what she needed to hear, that we wanted her to live more than anything but that she was still in control. Because within minutes, she seemed resigned to the idea that she was going to be nuked, as she put it.
Forty-eight hours later, she was hooked up to an IV. Her sadness seemed to lift, and her humor returned. The side effects of the chemo wouldn't kick in for at least a week, so she spent her days with Delia powering through a TV pilot they were writing for Scott Rudin. At night, Nick brought in Shake Shack or Cuban-Chinese, and we watched episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Binky Urban (Mom's book agent and one of her closest friends) and Ken Auletta (a writer for The New Yorker) were there frequently as well. So was Richard Cohen, the Washington Post columnist and one of her oldest friends. Because of my mother's tremendous sense of will and a modest dose of steroids, the script was finished before the chemo was.
At first, there were some encouraging signs. She wasn't in remission, but the blasts were below 20 percent, which is considered the threshold for being fully leukemic. Then, about a week and a half later, she got pneumonia. As her doctors explained it, the body often takes three weeks or so to begin producing neutrophils after chemotherapy of this type. And neutrophils are the good guys that defend the body from infections. One day, she would seem to be getting better; the next, worse. At night she was experiencing heart palpitations. It was confusing to all of us, including my mother.
So we waited.
We waited as she went on and off oxygen. We waited as her appetite left her. We waited as she lost her hair, and this I remember vividly, because I did not see her cry at all. Crying, I believe, is a sign that there's still hope. Instead, she seemed sort of numb.
My mother loved looking good. She had her hair blown out weekly. She wore makeup. She had a closet filled with Prada and Armani. When she realized that she might be too old to wear a very expensive dress by Azzedine Alaïa that she bought in Paris, it was like a little arrow to the heart.
She had fallen in love with and married a man who was as fastidious about presentation as she was. Even in the hospital, day after day, Nick arrived looking impeccable in his fancy slacks and his beautiful loafers, because getting dressed up was a way to say to her that things were still normal, that he hadn't lost hope. All sorts of men had rejected her when she was younger as cute but not beautiful. She wrote about it, turned it into a comic riff — everything is copy — but privately, it was heartbreaking for her until this noble man came along and made her feel that she was as fabulous to look at as she was to talk to.
And now, here she was without her hair, confined to a bed, using a nurse to help her go to the bathroom. It was the beginning of her losing her dignity. It was the beginning of a bad death.
In the days that followed, conversation became harder, and the silences grew longer. People who live thousands of miles from their parents often express regret at not being able to say goodbye, or about having spent too little time with them during their final days. But being there every day, as I was, produced its own kind of sorrow. It wasn't just the big things we were avoiding saying (although there were certainly some of those). It was the sadness of having run out of news to deliver, gossip to report, new books and movies to discuss. I actually believe that had Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes announced their separation a week earlier, we might have kept her smiling one more night.
On June 18, four weeks after my mother went into the hospital, the Public Theater held its annual benefit to raise money for Shakespeare in the Park. For more than a decade, my mother attended the gala every year, considering it the unofficial beginning of summer. Often it would start to rain in the middle of the show, and everyone would pull out their umbrellas and wait for it to pass. But it didn't matter. It was an evening when her favorite park in her favorite city turned into an enchanted forest.
The night before the benefit, my mother was able to get out of her hospital bed, but she couldn't really speak. She wrote down the names of all the people she had invited to sit at her table that year and organized the seating arrangement for me. When I got to Central Park the next evening, it was a mess: two of her guests had canceled; others knew she was in the hospital but not why; some appeared not to have been told anything at all and looked puzzled when I informed them that she and Nick weren't going to make it.
I was too discombobulated to ask a waiter to please remove the two empty chairs from the table. I just sat there helplessly, hands clasped underneath the table, trying to avoid the concerned looks of nearly a dozen people who suddenly knew that something was rotten in the state of Denmark but were too polite to say it.
After I got home, this admittedly trivial detail gnawed at me. How useless I was, how incompetent. I spent nearly 34 years at the foot of one of New York's best hostesses and I could not even figure out how to ask a waiter to take away two chairs. I had failed to pay adequate attention all those years, and could not even be trusted to do this one small thing for my mother as she neared the end.
Did she know she was dying that final week, that she was not ever going to leave the hospital?
Richard Cohen, who spent much of the final weeks in the hospital with us, says: "She knew. There wasn't a moment of confusion. I'm certain of that."
I go back and forth.
Absolutely, she planned for it. She redid her will earlier in the spring when her blood counts were going the wrong way, typed an exit letter on her computer, spelling out what she wanted after she died: a party in the apartment with Champagne and cucumber sandwiches from William Poll; a memorial held days after. "Get it over with" was the gist of her instructions. She even supplied the speaker list.
Nevertheless, as she ran out of time, she chose not to acknowledge, at least explicitly, what was happening to her. One of the last e-mails she sent went out five days before she died. It was addressed to her film agent, Bryan Lourd. "I am as sad as you can imagine to report that I have leukemia. Early reports are not particularly hopeful but not hopeless either."
The weekend before she went into a coma, Jerry Groopman called her from Boston. If she wanted to know, he was prepared to tell her that she had entered the terminal phase of her illness. She chose not to call him back.
And then there was that conversation with Max, the one in which she said, "I'm not dead yet."
In "I Feel Bad About My Neck," my mother wrote of turning 60: "Denial has been a way of life for me for many years. I actually believe in denial. It seemed to me that the only way to deal with a birthday of this sort was to do everything possible to push it from my mind."
Some part of me would like to believe this is what she was doing at the end as well, because it would indicate that her hope remained as she left the world. But it's just as likely that she felt too sad to have this conversation with me. Or that I was too sad to have it with her.
Sunday, June 24, was a pretty good day. The sun was shining, and Mom spent most of the afternoon on a couch in the front of her room, doing the crossword puzzle with Max. Binky was there, as was Richard Cohen and his companion, Mona. Amy stopped by with her husband, Alan. "We're going to the Guggenheim," Amy said. "Do you want anything from the outside world?"
"Sure," my mother said. "A de Kooning."
Another thing she requested was a pineapple milkshake, so Max brought one from Emack and Bolio's, made from fresh pineapple. But as far as my mother was concerned, a milkshake is one thing that's actually better with crushed pineapple. Dole.
"When I get out of the hospital, I'm going to go home and I'm going to make a pineapple milkshake with crushed pineapple, pineapple juice and vanilla ice cream, and I'm going to drink it and I'm going to die," she said, savoring the last word. "It's going to be great."
On this day, I told her some things. After she moved to her bed, I said that sometimes, I thought of the possibility of her not being around and wondered if I'd ever be able to write again. If I'd even want to. And she told me that I would, that I would find it within me, and that whatever happened, she hoped my brother and I would lead the kind of lives where we did stuff big enough to occasionally say, "Wow, I wish Mom was around for this."
We stared out at the 59th Street Bridge and tried to remember all the others that connect Manhattan to the rest of the world. The Brooklyn Bridge. The Williamsburg Bridge, the Queensboro Bridge, the Triboro Bridge. We got about halfway before she began to doze off.
On Monday, Nick called to say she'd had another tough night. I got to the hospital, and there was more blood work, none of it good. The blasts were everywhere. She didn't have a single neutrophil.
Hours later, she began to drift in and out of consciousness. We took turns holding her hand. Delia would come, then Max, then me, then Amy, then Binky, then Richard. Nick sat beside her and wept.
"In, out, in, out," she said, waving her hands at the windows. Also: "This is it," which she said in a tone that seemed to be half-question, half-declaration. It occurred to me later that it might have been the first uncertain moment she'd had in her entire life.
I started calling her friends to explain what was going on, that she was shutting down, that we were sorry for not having told them sooner. They were startled and confused, but gracious.
I told several of them that they would be speaking at her memorial, that she actually requested it in writing and that she'd also requested that they try to keep it to under five minutes.
Over and over again, they said to me, "This must be so hard for you." But making those calls wasn't. It was strangely beautiful. The people I called told me stories about great advice she'd given them; e-mails she'd sent that they'd loved; and occasionally, what a total pain she could be. Those were funny to hear. They were real.
While I did phone duty, Max relaxed and took off his button-down shirt. Two sleeves of tattoos ran down his arms. Mom had seen one of them years before and had not reacted favorably, so when he went in to get the other arm done, he decided that she would never see it. Never again did he wear a short-sleeve shirt in her presence.
"Wow, Max, look at those tattoos," Binky said.
"Shh!" he said, flashing her a smile.
My mother's eyes popped open.
"Mom, I'm so sorry about my tattoos."
"You. Aren't. Really," she said, her eyebrows raised in a kind of resigned indignation. And then she fell back asleep.


text:
The Lions are 4-10. And while their franchise quarterback has more than 4,250 passing yards with two games to play, his passer rating is south of 80 this year — which makes him arguably not a franchise quarterback. At least for now.
All year long, it has appeared that Stafford is throwing the ball differently, with more than a few Uncle Rico-style sidearm throws. He (Stafford, not Uncle Rico) addressed the topic in a radio interview with WXYT radio in Detroit.
"Very comfortable with my mechanics," Stafford said, via SportsRadioInterviews.com. "I feel good about them."
As to the periodic sidearm throw, Stafford said he's not doing anything differently than in the past.
"I really don't feel like it's too much different, to tell you the truth," Stafford said. "I'm just trying to make the plays that are there. . . . I feel like I probably threw two balls sidearm [Sunday] and I think both of them were complete. If that's a problem, then I don't really know what to tell you."
Stafford also says there's no problem with coach Jim Schwartz's ability to lead the team. "Absolutely not," Stafford said. "Everybody in that locker room has a ton of respect for Coach Schwartz and he has everybody's attention when he speaks. We believe in him, we've just got to put it together and play a little better football."
They've got to play a lot better football. The Lions are 4-10, and they could end up being 4-12. Which is a far cry from a last year's playoff appearance.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
If you think Siri gets bitchy when you ask her about Zooey Deschanel, wait until you see what she does when confronted with Jooey Deschanel. He's Zooey's "brother," and he seems to be suffering from some kind of adorkable spectrum disorder that allows him to drive Siri over the brink. "Siri, you wanna take a soup bath?"
[Via Crushable]


text:
Experience the beautiful Texas Hill Country at our Kerrville Resort. Enjoy our family and pet friendly RV sites and private suites. Leave the crowds behind and relax with family & friends. Enjoy the spectacular Hill Country views and the whitetail deer during your stay in our spacious full hook up RV sites or Private Suites.
Family owned and operated by David & Kathie


text:
Artist description:
a la memoria de whitney houston
Java Draw Created Feb 18, 2012 460 x 640px Unless noted Copyright 2012 junco.
We encourage you to submit a comment and let the artist know what you think of this drawing. Please log in or join to post a comment.
Post a comment
the features r beautiful!! =) unbelievable!!!
great tribute ! beautiful portrait !
Wonderful memorial draw...nice way to remember her, with that beautiful smile. 5/5
Amazing drawing.
WOWOWOWOW This is sooo amazing!!! Great tribute!!! 5/5 Collection!
how wonderful..what a talent..5/5..
Buena, hablas español XD ur drawing is really nice 5h.


text:
Subscription Required
Ehang To Pilot Urban Air Mobility In Guangzhou is part of our The Weekly of Business Aviation subscription.
Subscribe now to read this article, plus receive full coverage of what's next in the business aviation community.
Already a subscriber to The Weekly of Business Aviation or a content package that includes The Weekly of Business Aviation? Login
Did you know? Aviation Week has won top honors multiple times in the Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Awards, the business-to-business media equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes.


text:
Mark Gilbert
Kewaunee High
Memories of Mark Gilbert
Are you Mark Gilbert?
This page means someone is someone is looking for you. Register for free to let other alumni contact you and more:
- Let others find you
- Contact old friends
- Share photos and memories with other registered alumni
Looking for Mark Gilbert?
This is a placeholder page for Mark Gilbert, which means this person is not currently on this site. We do suggest using the tools below to find Mark Gilbert.
About placeholder profiles
You are visiting the placeholder page for Mark Gilbert. This page is here because someone used our placeholder utility to look for Mark Gilbert. We created this page automatically in hopes Mark Gilbert would find it. If you are not Mark Gilbert, but are an alumni of Kewaunee High School, register on this site for free now.


text:
What's the surest way of improving student performance in Maine's troubled schools? Break down the bureaucratic chains that control what goes on and invite the teachers to the decision-making table.
Amongst my teaching acquaintances I do not know many who report having been offered a legitimate seat at the table where the important programming decisions were being made. These decisions include scheduling, goals and structures for meetings, hiring, evaluation procedures, and curriculum.
Yet schools that include teachers as equal players are the ones that soar above the others in terms of student achievement. Those are the schools where teachers love to work, where they are energized, hopeful that they can meet the needs of their students, not just devoted to them but confident that what they do will make a difference.
Many schools do pay lip-service to this idea. An administrator hand-picks a teacher or two here or there to work on a committee charged with some task. As often as not the teacher reports back to his or her peers that the decisions seemed to have been made before the first meeting had even begun.
Schools that do business in this way waste the energy of those who are potentially their hardest workers. Nothing is more effective at harnessing the power of teachers to work for the good of a school than including them in meaningful ways in decision-making about their school's programming. If the teachers are engaged the students will be too.


text:
Crank too broke for Cannes?
Lindsay Lohan wants to come to Cannes. Of course she does. The world's press is here. And the parties are wild. So why not get cranked on the French Riviera? Lilo also wants to promote her upcoming turn as porn star Linda Lovelace, the only role she could land.
She can't afford it. And no one wants to cover costs. See? Skint. Ass. Scag.
Having said that, there's always the chance that she told Page Six this herself, kind of like a public appeal, hoping that some rich Euro sleaze will offer up his yacht... in exchange for some Lovelace style services. She'll call it "research" for the role. Method spread.
One way or another, she's so hard up to get here, she'll do whatever it takes.
Last time she in Cannes she and Samantha Ronson flaunted their relationship, remember these shots?
File photos from Gotcha Images/Splashnewsonline.com


text:
Circus Paper Straw Mix-Red Straws-Polka Dot Straws-Yellow Straws-Blue Straws-Chevron Straws-Carnival Straw-Diamonds-1st Birthday-Clown Party
Product Info
This black and white paper straw mix is great for weddings, mason jars, birthday parties, baby showers, bridal showers or anytime you need to add some style to your party or get together! You can also use them as sticks for cake pops.
This mix consists of red with white polka dot, yellow striped, blue diamonds, red rugby horizontal striped, yellow polka dot, and blue chevron paper straws.
Use the drop down box to select the quantity of paper straws you need. You can purchase paper straws in quantities of 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, 150 or 200 all for one low shipping price.
These paper straws are
7 3/4" long Food safe & FDA Approved
Earth Friendly & Bio-degradable
Most Durable
** Please note that paper straw colors can appear slightly different due to various factors: lighting, monitor, manufacturer batch color variation.
Check out over 100 other styles of paper straws in stripe, polka dot, heart and chevron patterns.
Want to get the best price possible? Use the following coupon codes-
SAVE10 ---- 10% off a minimum purchase of $10
SAVE15 ---- 15% off a minimum purchase of $25
SAVE20 ---- 20% off a minimum purchase of $60
(shipping charges are not included in the total you need to spend to get the discount)


text:
Political Science
Henrietta Muñoz, Ph.D.
Dr. Muñoz is the United Way of San Antonio & Bexar County's Eastside Promise Neighborhood Director, a $23.7M dollar grant over 5 years by the Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Education. Dr. Muñoz oversees the Eastside Promise Neighborhood Implementation Plan inclusive of the neighborhood's cradle to college to career pipelines. Dr. Muñoz was previously the Manager of the multi-million dollar Making Connections Partnership, a two generation strategy that improves opportunities for children to read on grade level by 3rd grade while strengthening family economic security through increased earnings, income and assets. She also directed a variety of United Way initiatives related to fostering family economic success and has overseen multiple publicly and privately funded projects, including SAVE USA, a matched savings account program, and a FINRA Foundation grant on financial education. Her experience has spanned 12 years in San Antonio's family economic success and education initiatives through work with various non-profits, the City of San Antonio's Dept. of Community Initiatives, and now United Way. Dr. Muñoz received her doctorate in Education (Culture, Literacy and Language) from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2009. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and a 2010/2011 Annie E. Casey Foundation Children and Family Fellow.


text:
The Hope Floats - Wal-mart 67 Relay For Life team held a innovative and interesting fundraiser on October 20, 2012. When people made donations to the team their name was written on the bottom of a rubber duck. The ducks were then taken to the middle of the pond at Rich Mountain Community College and set adrift.
When the ducks were set adrift, Lady, a black lab, was sent into the water to retrieve a duck. The name on the first duck retrieved received a 40" flat screen HD TV, the second a Nook e-reader and the third a rocking chair.
It was a breezy day, and when all of the rubber ducks had been blown to shore, the kids present had a great time collecting the rubber ducks from the lake.
It was a great fundraiser and over 2200.00 was raised for Relay For Life.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Hope Floats
Posted by Richard Lawry at 10:00 AM 0 comments
Friday, October 19, 2012
Brandi Sachs - Volunteering to Find a Cure
Family is an integral part of who so many of us are. But for many it goes much deeper and defines who we are. A statement that can be said for this week's Citizen, Brandi Myers Sachs. And family is who has inspired one of her greatest passions...an active outspoken champion of the Polk County Relay For Life. "It was devastating," says Myers through tears when she remembers getting the call that her Aunt Peggy had pancreatic cancer. Her aunt underwent treatments but lost her battle within only a few short months of diagnosis. Brandi had known of others with cancer but had never had the devastating illness strike so bitterly close to home and says she regrets now taking so long to become involved in helping to find a cure.
Brandi moved to Mena with her parents Don and Judye Myers along with brothers Cotye and Justin when she was just two. Don had been sent on "assignment" by his father to open a Sonic Drive-In. And that he did. The Myers Sonic Drive-In became a cornerstone business on the corner of Cherry and Hwy 71 as well as part of at least two generations of teenagers' memories that made the drive-in a regular weekend and after-school hangout spot. In 2000, the family made a very tough decision to discontinue their Sonic franchise and the restaurant became Myers Cruizzers Drive-In. "It was a really big decision for my Dad but he believed as long as we continued to give good service we'd be fine." Brandi said the business barely experienced a hiccup and the customers continued to turn-in day after day.
Now the three siblings share the responsibility of running the same drive-in that was such a big part their own childhood. Brandi graduated from Mena High School in 1991 and married her husband, David, in 1996. The couple have two children, Ridge age 14, and Brickie, age 10. "My life didn't begin untill I had them," sand Brandi.
Just as passionate as her advocacy for cancer, Brandi wants her children to have the same childhood she had where her parents instilled the values and beliefs she still carries today. "You want to raise them right...raise them so they know how to make the right choices."
Brandi also enjoys photography but even in her hobby it is in her appreciation for family that she finds fulfillment. When asked what she found the most fulffilling about her photography, she said immediately and simply, "preserving those memories for the families."
Quite satisfied raising her family in the same hometown where she was raised, Brandi enjoys working at the drive-in, being a wife and a mom. When asked where she saw herself in ten years, she said, "well, I hope as happy and as blessed as I have been the last ten!"
Posted by Richard Lawry at 9:10 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Newly Diagnosed? Top 5 Questions You Should Ask Your Care Team
- Exactly what kind of cancer do I have? All cancers start with an uncontrolled growth of cells in the body, but different kinds of cancer behave very differently. They may grow at different rates and respond to different treatments – and not just because they affect different parts of the body. There can also be sub-types of breast cancer, for example, that behave differently from other sub-types of breast cancer. Learning your exact diagnosis and the l name of your cancer is the first step in understanding your diagnosis and helping others understand it, too.
- What stage is my cancer, and what does that mean? Staging is a concise way to describe the size of a particular cancer growth and also how far the cancer may have spread beyond where it started. Cancers can range from stage I to stage IV, with stage I describing the smallest tumors located in only one area of the body and stage IV describing larger growths or cancer that has spread. The stage is very important in making decisions about the best treatment, for example a stage I breast cancer will be treated very differently from a stage IV breast cancer. Knowing the stage also can help your doctor talk to you about how likely you are to respond to treatment and survive the cancer. Ask your doctor to explain what stage cancer you have and why it was staged that way. You may need to have some additional tests or even surgery for doctors to fully stage your cancer.
- What are my treatment choices? There may be more than one way to treat your cancer. Learning about the effectiveness, potential side effects, and long-term outcomes of different cancer treatments can help you make the best decision about the next steps in your care. Ask what the goal of the treatment is: Are you working to get rid of the cancer, keep it from spreading, or simply relieve some symptoms? Also ask what the long-term effects of potential treatments might be. Some treatments can permanently affect your fertility or other bodily functions or increase your risk of a second cancer in the future.
- What will life be like during treatment? Knowing what to expect on a day-to-day basis during treatment can help you feel more calm and prepared as you move forward. Ask about the basics, such as where your treatment will take place, how long it will last, and how often you will need to go. Also ask how the treatment might impact your daily activities: Will you still be able to attend work or school? Drive a car? Travel? Get an idea of how the treatment might impact your body, too. Will it be painful or cause physical side effects such as hair loss or fatigue? If you get details in advance, you can make a plan for how you will cope with these factors if and when they happen.
- How much will it cost? Although money may be the last thing you want to talk about, cancer will likely impact your finances as well as your body. After talking with your doctor about treatment options, talk with your insurance company or the financial office of your hospital or clinic to get a clear idea of how much your care will cost. Ask about the costs of any treatment and about the costs of medicines or any home care services you may need. If you need help paying for your care, ask to talk with a social worker who may be able to guide you to resources to help you.
Posted by Richard Lawry at 7:32 AM 0 comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)


text:
Blind Listening
Nothing seems to polarize people as much as the vexed question concerning the importance of audible differences between amplifiers. If you think there are subjective differences, you're an audiophile; if you don't, you're not. And as any glance at an appropriate issue of Consumer Reports—the publication for non-audiophiles—will confirm, the established wisdom is that once the price of an amplifier or receiver crosses a certain threshold, any further improvement in sound quality becomes irrelevant, in that it puts the price up for no apparent gain. In other words, when it comes to amplification, there is such a thing as being "too" good. Yet, as a reader of this magazine, I would expect that not only have you been exposed to real subjective quality differences between amplifiers that Consumer Reports would regard as sounding identical, you have made purchasing decisions made on the basis of hearing such differences.
It has often been said that the only way to resolve this apparent dichotomy is to use carefully controlled blind listening tests, where the listener does not know what he or she is listening to. In this manner, imaginary differences should fall away, leaving real differences that can then be correlated with objective measurements. Unfortunately, as you will have noted, for example, from David Clark's infamous blind amplifier test in Stereo Review (footnote 1), it seems that with such blind listening tests, all perceived subjective differences between amplifiers (apart from those due to level, absolute polarity, and amplitude-response differences) fall away. The conclusion then drawn by some observers is that, indeed, once above a certain performance threshold, amplifiers do sound alike.
But when you have taken part in a number of these blind tests and experienced how two amplifiers you know from personal experience to sound extremely different can still fail to be identified under blind conditions, then perhaps an alternative hypothesis is called for: that the very procedure of a blind listening test can conceal small but real subjective differences. Having taken part in quite a number of such blind tests, I have become convinced of the truth in this hypothesis. Over 10 years ago, for example, I failed to distinguish a Quad 405 from a Naim NAP250 or a TVA tube amplifier in such a blind test organized by Martin Colloms (footnote 2). Convinced by these results of the validity in the Consumer Reports philosophy, I consequently sold my exotic and expensive Lecson power amplifier with which I had been very happy and bought a much cheaper Quad 405—the biggest mistake of my audiophile career!
Some amplifiers which cannot be distinguished reliably under formal blind conditions do not sound similar over lengthy listening in more familiar and relaxed circumstances.
There is also the fact that the ability to reliably hear differences between hi-fi components varies considerably from person to person. There is no doubt in my mind that it is, to a large degree, a learned skill. If you cast your mind back to the January 1989 issue (p.63), you will recall that I reported on a large-scale blind listening test carried out by David Clark at last November's Audio Engineering Society convention that, among other things, involved amplifiers. As expected, when all the results from all the listeners were lumped together, it appeared that the three amplifiers under test sounded identical; ie, the listeners as a whole failed to identify when one amplifier had been changed for another in a paired comparison or when it had remained the same. Looking at individual results more closely, however, suggested that there was some identification. As The Abso!ute Sound's Michael Fremer reports in this month's "Letters" section, no only did he identify correctly five times out of five whether one amplifier was the same as the next or different, he also volunteered identifications of the amplifiers under test—Crown, Threshold, and VTL—and got that right four times out of five.
"Not statistically significant!" came back the reply from non-audiophiles. Even when I added my score of four out of five to Michael's five correct to give an apparently convincing nine correct out of ten identifications, the response was "You're just 'lucky coins' and if you did the test all over again, you wouldn't do as well the next time."
That, of course, is conjecture, and with the tests long since over, is impossible to prove one way or the other. But I was sufficiently impressed with David Clark's methodology that I thought it would be worthwhile repeating the tests at Stereophile's High End Hi-Fi Show in San Mateo last April, using the visitors as test subjects. And whereas only about 130 listeners had participated in the AES tests, I could expect about 500 listeners to take part in my tests, which would endow the results with greater statistical power when it came to determining whether the listeners had identified the amplifiers under blind conditions.
Footnote 1: Stereo Review, January 1987, p.78
Footnote 2: HFN/RR, November 1978, p.110.


text:
RI (Feat. Paige & Mello Of So Real Records TV) - No Appeal (The Movie) [Unsigned Hype]
"THIS IS A STORY OF 2 MEN ONE WISE AND ONE FOOL!! BASED ON A TRUE STORY ABOUT HOW RECORD LABELS TRAP PEOPLE.."REALITY MUSIC MOVEMENT"" [m]
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
Comments will only be displayed by verified emails. No Spamming or Racism.


text:
Boulder Public Libraryhome My Account Catalog Contact
CANCELLED -- Reading Buddies
Event box
Reading Buddies from BoulderReads is a partnership with CU-Boulder for children in Kindergarten through 3rd grade. Children are matched one-on-one with a big buddy whom they meet with weekly during the semester. Big buddies are CU students trained by BoulderReads to foster exploration and fun through books and reading. Pre-registration is required. Learn More at www.BoulderReads.org.
Sponsored by the Boulder Library Foundation
- Date:
- Wednesday, Apr 10 2019 Show more dates
- Time:
- 4:30pm - 6:30pm
- Space:
- Children's Story Space
- Location:
- Main Library
- Audience:
- Child
- Categories:
- BoulderReads Literacy


text:
"These results confirm what we have observed anecdotally, that children with more severe pectus excavatum report more incidents of shortness of breath and a higher degree of exercise intolerance," said one of the study's lead authors, Dr. Robert Kelly, a pediatric surgeon at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk, Virginia.
Pectus excavatum, a condition sometimes known as sunken chest, occurs when the chest cartilage grows abnormally and the chest wall progressively collapses. A CHKD surgeon, Dr. Donald Nuss, developed a minimally invasive surgery to correct the condition 25 years ago, and the hospital has remained at the forefront of treatment and research on chest wall deformities ever since.
The study on lung function included 327 pre-correction pectus excavatum patients ages 6 to 21 from hospitals around the nation, including CHKD. The study used standardized medical measurements to determine the severity of the pectus excavatum and a spirometer, a device that measures the volume of air expelled from the lungs, to assess lung function.
"The results suggest a correlation between the severity of pectus excavatum and lung function," said Dr. Kelly. "The more severe the deformity, the more lung function was compromised." He noted that the effect was primarily from lung restriction, not airway obstruction.
While the decline is relatively modest, Dr. Kelly believes researchers next need to study lung function in pectus excavatum patients at the larger tidal volumes required during exercise.
The study included collaborators from more than 10 hospitals including Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Children's Hospital Boston, Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City and the Hospital for Sick Children at the University of Toronto.
Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters is the only freestanding children's hospital in Virginia and serves the medical and surgical needs of children throughout Eastern Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina.
Contact: Greg Raver-Lampman, (757) 668-7554 email@example.com


text:
Fullerton police say they have arrested a 42-year-old man suspected of posing as a photographer to lure two teenage girls into taking sexy photos.
The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday ( https://lat.ms/WY3hjH ) that Coopy Boyer was arrested after police were contacted by the girls' parents. Police say Boyer approached the girls last week, claiming he was a professional photographer who wanted to take their photos. He allegedly gave a false name.
Police say the girls gave Boyer their phone numbers and he followed up with dozens of text messages that became more suggestive about the types of photos he wanted to take.
Police also said Boyer was adamant about no parents being present when he photographed the girls and there was no need for a waiver to be signed.


text:
Celebrating opener, Aroldis thrilled with recovery
CINCINNATI -- Still recovering from fractures above his left eye and nose from a horrifying moment when a line drive struck him in the face on March 19, Reds closer Aroldis Chapman continues to do well physically.
"I cannot feel better," Chapman said on Monday via translator Tomas Vera. "I cannot ask for better the way that I am now. I feel almost normal."
Chapman, who began the season on the 15-day disabled list, has not resumed any baseball activity yet. He is scheduled to see a doctor for a check-up on Wednesday.
"I haven't done anything," said Chapman, who was hit by a Salvador Perez liner vs. the Royals in Surprise, Ariz. "Everything has been as instructed, resting at home and doing just normal things. I'm just waiting. The doctor is going to see me, and he will tell me when it will be OK to do other activities."
Chapman, who received a large ovation from fans during the pregame introductions, could return to the mound for the Reds sometime in late April or early May if he progresses as expected after his surgery to repair his fractures, with a metal plate being inserted into his head.
Since the incident, Chapman has sported a pair of black eyes and a puffy nose, but he reported having no side effects from his injuries. On Monday, he rode with teammate Mat Latos in a car for the annual Findlay Market Opening Day Parade.
"At the moment I got hit, I felt pain. That's the last time I felt pain," Chapman said. "I haven't had any symptoms, any vision problems, nothing."


text:
Self Service
Make Personal Information Changes
You have the ability to access and maintain your personal information, eliminate forms, and expedite changes at any time through SSU Online Services. In order to update/change the following information, log in to MySSU and make the changes yourself:
- Address – Home and Mailing
- Phone Numbers
- Emergency Contact Information
For Name Changes, you must bring the following documents to Employment Services:
- Original, non-laminated Social Security Card with your new legal name
- Completed Employee Action Request (EAR)
The EAR is available on-line or at Employment Services, Salazar Hall, 2nd Floor, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
If you do not have regular access to a computer, you may still make personal information changes by going in person to Employment Services.
View Personal Information
In addition, MySSU allows you to view your:
- Compensation History
- Paychecks
- Education
Getting Connected
The SSU Online Services Login page uses your Seawolf (LDAP) ID. Login and select the MySSU link to update/change your personal information.
If you don't remember your Seawold ID or password, go to the IT Help Desk, Schulz 1000, with a campus or photo ID to have your password reset.


text:
'Ultimate dream!' Seattle celebrate Super Bowl win
Recommended Video:
SEATTLE (AP) -- After waiting decades for a major sports championship, thousands of Seattleites took to the streets as fireworks popped, horns blared and flags waved following the Seahawks' decisive Super Bowl win.
"I was born here, I was raised here! This is my ultimate dream!" shouted John Caro, who, with his wife Corina, both 59, whooped their way down Lake City Way in North Seattle and high-fived passersby. "We have waited so freakin' long for this!"
The Seahawks beat the Denver Broncos 43-8 Sunday. The last time a major Seattle sports franchise won a championship was in 1979 when the Supersonics took the NBA title. The WNBA's Seattle Storm have won two championships, in 2004 and 2010.
Seattle police were out in large numbers in many neighborhoods.
Near the University of Washington, fire crews extinguished at least one bonfire after rowdy fans set a couch and other items ablaze. The Seattle Times reported there was one arrest in the area.
In Occidental Park in Pioneer Square, near CenturyLink Field where the Seahawks play, people waving "12th Man" flags took to the street, and others climbed trees and sculptures.
They broke 17 glass panes and caused other damage to a historic pergola that will cost about $25,000 to repair, Joelle Hammerstad, a Parks Department spokeswoman, said Monday.
People in some neighborhoods blocked traffic, and in downtown a line of cars stretched for blocks as people cheered.
Seattle police spokesman Mark Jamieson said Sunday night the biggest concentrations of people were downtown and in the University District. He said no major disturbances were reported.
By contrast, the mood in Denver was subdued, as expected, with fans downcast and police reporting few problems.
Mayor Ed Murray said in a statement that a Seahawks victory parade would occur Wednesday, with a route through downtown and ending at CenturyLink Field.
Shrieking and waving her Seahawks flags at passing cars on a North Seattle street, Senayet Woldemarian, a 29-year-old physical therapist from suburban Shoreline, said: "We got our first Super Bowl!"
Her friend, wedding photographer Taylor Olcott, 28, said it reminded her a little of being in Boston in 2004, when the Red Sox won baseball's World Series for the first time since 1918.
"This is the first time I've really seen Seattle passionate about anything," she said. "It's, like, East Coast. It's very exciting."
About 30 people watched the game at the Outlander Brewery in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood. It was such a blowout that by the fourth quarter, employees had switched one of the three TVs to Animal Planet's "Puppy Bowl."
"We're all in euphoria right now," said Steve McVay, a 43-year-old Seattle IT worker. "It's a huge deal for the city. Since the Sonics, we haven't won anything."


text:
Shaun Gayle acknowledged from the witness stand this morning that he had sex with Marni Yang the night before she allegedly killed another woman who was carrying his baby.
The former Chicago Bears player, who so far has been questioned only by prosecutors, also described how he was questioned by Deerfield police for about 10 hours on the day in October 2007 that his pregnant girlfriend Rhoni Reuter was found shot to death in her condominium.
Gayle described how he met Reuter at a charity basketball game in Iowa in 1990 and had dated her on and off until her death, but not exclusively. He also outlined how he met Yang -– and pointed her out in the courtroom -– at a 2005 Bears fan convention in Chicago, where she was working with security personnel, escorting players to autograph signings.
Gayle said he had sex with Yang the night before Reuter was killed and that Yang left his Chicago home about 9:30 p.m. that night. Gayle said he'd had sex with Yang about two or three times over the course of a year. Yang is accused of shooting Reuter because she saw her as a rival for Gayle's affections and was jealous that she was pregnant with Gayle's baby.
Contrary to what defense attorneys have inferred, who have portrayed Gayle as unhappy about the pregnancy, Gayle testified that he had discussed baby names with Reuter and purchased a book for her on baby names during a trip he took to London.
During cross examination, Yang's attorneys focused their questions not on Gayle's relationship with Reuter or Yang but on another of his former girlfriends, Monika Kurowska.
Gayle had been granted an order of protection against Kurowska in 2006 after they broke up and a number of Gayle's girlfriends received letters and emails claiming Gayle was unfaithful to them.
Gayle said he believed at the time that the letters were from Kurowska, though his attorney and authorities have since said they believe Yang wrote those letters. One of the letters was found in Reuter's purse, which was found in her car after it was towed from her condo complex after her death, officials said.
Kurowska was questioned after the shooting but police have said she was quickly cleared as a suspect. Kurowska is on the witness list for the Yang trial and could not immediately be reached for comment.
From the witness stand today, Gayle also outlined how he learned about Reuter's death, saying he was getting a haircut in North Chicago when he first received a call from a TV news producer saying there was a rumor going around that someone he'd been involved with had been killed.
Gayle said he started receiving more calls -– including one from former Bears teammate Tom Thayer -– and attempted to call Reuter at least twice. He also called former teammate Emery Moorehead before calling Deerfield police, who confirmed to him that Reuter was dead. Gayle then drove to the police station, he said.
A judge ruled earlier this morning that former Gayle can be cross-examined about his sexual relationships with women, including Yang. Gayle can also be asked about his behavior on the morning of Oct. 4, 2007, the day Reuter was found shot to death in her Deerfield apartment.
Judge Christopher Stride said Gayle can be asked about claims that he was dating several women at the time of the murder and reportedly told a police officer that he wanted to get a blood test to see if the Reuter's baby was his.
But Stride warned the defense that he might also allow the jury to hear a 911 call Gayle made to Deerfield police the morning of the murder in which he sobbed on being told of the shooting.
The tape of that call was played in court Monday but not in front of the jury. Stride had previously ruled the tape inadmissible.
Yang has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and intentional homicide of an unborn child.


text:
About Us
The Hope Classic Rally is a unique event created by a group of classic car enthusiasts who wanted to put their passion to good use by creating investment capital for vulnerable children in Southern and Eastern Africa.
Now in its sixth year, this two-day event has raised over £1.3m for WeSee cbd store reviews Hope and their Village Investors Programme, which introduces self-funding savings and loans groups to African communities, enabling adults and young people to learn skills, start their own business and dramatically improve their lives. These groups create a multiplier effect that brings change to the wider communities and specifically benefits the orphaned and vulnerable children they care for.
The self-funding micro-finance model has chimed with the 'start up' entrepreneur, private equity and venture capitalist community, which understands the challenges associated with setting up businesses, investing savings for initial working capital and then driving momentum and growth. Its involvement with the Village Investors Programme has been of immeasurable value.
Our guests share an interest in the love of old cars. This has helped The Hope Classic Rally become a successful movement of enthusiasts, committed to putting their cars to good use to raise capital, and then encouraging other like-minded people to join the community.
The premise of the rally is simple: enthusiasts donate their cars for other enthusiasts to drive. They are some of the most beautiful cars ever built: almost everything you can imagine from a Ferrari 250SWB to a racing XK 120 to a Mercedes Benz Gullwing. Beautiful historic cars from Maranello and Stuttgart helping to improve the lives of children in Africa.
We invite you to come and enjoy being part of the movement, and, if you are inspired by the work of WeSee how long after starting valtrex are you contagious Hope, you are welcome to make a donation to support the charity.
"At the Hope Classic Rally, we may be celebrating the past and what's great about motoring, but in doing so we are hopeful and confident that we will do a lot of good for the future as well through WeSee valtrex for shingles dosage Hope."
Itinerary 26 & 27Th JUNE 2020
For the sixth Hope Classic Rally we will be hosting a luxurious automotive garden party in the grounds of the Oatlands Park Hotel featuring a specially curated selection of some of the worlds most iconic cars.
Tickets for the 2020 Hope Classic Rally will soon be available. Please get in touch via the contact form below to find out more about tickets, table packages or sponsorship opportunitites.
"We are delighted to be supporting the Hope Classic Rally for their fifth anniversary year. We appreciate how powerful it is to bring the classic car community together to raise funds and awareness for a cause like WeSeeHope, and we are proud to partner with an event that is committed to driving sustainable change for vulnerable children and young people."
The Cars
A few of the cars that our guests have driven at Hope Classic Rally.
Mercedes 300 SL
Jaguar XK 150
Ferrari 250 pf cabriolet
Aston Martin DB5
Ferrari 250 GT SWB
WeSee cbd com Hope supports orphaned and vulnerable children living in extreme poverty in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
All of the funds raised through the Hope Classic Rally are donated to WeSee high cbd low thc oil Hope, an international development organisation committed to creating sustainable change for vulnerable children in Southern and Eastern Africa.
Working primarily across education, child rights and economic empowerment, WeSeeHope provide skills training as part of their seven community-led programmes. Their aim is that vulnerable children have the skills to change their own futures, and that their families and communities are able to support them along the way.
Through their Village Investors Programme (VIP), WeSee valtrex and tylenol Hope establish savings and loans groups in communities and provide training in business and entrepreneurial skills. VIP members take loans to start and grow their own businesses, enabling them to send their children to school, improve their homes and provide for their families.
To achieve the greatest impact, WeSee valtrex half life Hope deliver their programmes through a network of in-country partner organisations. Together they equip communities with the tools and skills to run the programmes independently of any support within four years
"The Hope Classic Rally is a driving force for WeSee http://horsehats.com/?ho=buy-hemp-cbd-oil Hope, building our capacity to create sustainable change for thousands of vulnerable children across Southern and Eastern Africa. This year we are working with over 66,000 children and 25,000 parents, guardians and volunteers through our community-led programmes, and it is only with the support of the likes of the Hope Classic Rally that we are able to do this. To have raised over £1.3m since 2015 is a huge achievement and we are incredibly grateful to everyone involved."
Mark Glen, CEO, WeSee cbd topical with thc Hope
"The Hope Classic Rally has not only enabled Icon to join a community of classic car enthusiasts but also to develop a real passion for WeSee go to link Hope's work."


text:
Northern Arizona University celebrated National Sustainability Day on October 23rd by engaging the campus community on several different levels of conservation behaviors on and off campus.
Dining Services conducted a waste audit to bring awareness to food waste and national hunger stats, Green NAU Energy Initiatives (GNEI) encouraged water and energy conversation with Strive for 5, 5 minute showers and Be Bold Go Cold, use the cold setting when doing your laundry to save energy. Housing and Resident Life Eco-Reps shared tips on how to have a more sustainable Halloween holiday this year.


text:
Home > News & Events > Wayland Press Release Archives > 2013 News Releases > November 2013 > Wayland focusing on Creation Care
Wayland focusing on Creation Care
November 5, 2013
PLAINVIEW – Wayland Baptist University will celebrate its fourth annual Creation Care
Week beginning Monday, placing specific emphasis on taking care of God's creation.
Organized by Dr. Herbert Grover, Dean of the School of Mathematics and Sciences at Wayland, Creation Care week is designed to impress upon students the impact that people make on the environment around them.
"Everything we do impacts our environment in some way," Grover said. "What we suppose is that the environment is not degraded by what we do, but in many instances it is. Its ability to sustain human populations is limited."
Grover said this year's emphasis is on discovering a passion for creation care and how individuals can "let their light shine" in their approach to environmentalism.
Ben Lowe, a Christian environmentalist, will be the featured guest for Creation Care Week, speaking in various classes on campus, as well as the weekly chapel service at 11 a.m. on Wednesday. Lowe will also present at 3:30 p.m on Wednesday in the Nunn Business Building auditorium. Both events are open to the public.
According to the InterVarsity Press website, Lowe is the director of young adult ministries for the Evangelical Environmental Network, promoting creation care to various organizations, colleges and universities. The son of missionary parents, Lowe was raised in Malaysia where his family often dealt with water shortages and bad air quality. These experiences influenced his development. Lowe majored in environmental studies at Wheaton College where he helped organize the school's first national Climate Change Summit.
Lowe is the author of Green Revolution, a book encouraging individuals to make a difference in their own lives as well as others by mobilizing to care for creation.
Dr. Grover said it is the social responsibility of Christians to take care of the environment, and by so doing, care for the less fortunate of whom Jesus spoke in Matthew chapter 25. Grover said it is the poor and disadvantaged people worldwide who are affected the most by environmental degradation.
"It's not just tree hugging," Grover said. "It's caring for 'the least of these.' That's who, I think, Jesus calls us to care for the most. If we as Christians don't adopt a firm commitment to caring for God's creation in such a way that it can sustain our human populations, then we are going to see more and more suffering in the world."
As part of Creation Care Week, Wayland will host an electronics recycling collection day on Saturday, Nov. 16, from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. The WBU Information Technologies department, along with business students involved in the Enactus program will collect household electronic items to be recycled. Items will be separated into containers behind the university library, then taken to the recycling center.
Items that can be dropped off for recycling include: computers, monitors, printers, copiers, televisions, old electrical cords and cables, projectors, small appliances (toasters, can openers coffee makers, etc.), telephones, radios, VHS/DVD players, fax machines, laptops and microwaves.
For information on dropping off your items, contact Kelly Pettit at 291-3545.


text:
Modi seeks Keshubhai's blessings after poll win
Modi drove to the residence of Patel, who fell out with the BJP stalwart and floated his own party ahead of the election, in Gandhinagar to meet him.
"Modiji had come to seek blessings after his win in the elections. I congratulated him for the win," Patel said after Modi's visit.
The former chief minister and BJP rebel floated GPP four months ahead of the elections and led a vitriolic campaign against Modi, who had succeeded him in 2001.
The GPP had fielded candidates in more than 170 Assembly seats but the fledgling party came a cropper and barely managed to open its account.
During the campaigning, Keshubhai, who won from Visavadar Assembly seat in Saurashtra region, had vowed to unseat Modi from power and compared the BJP leader to Hitler and called him a "demon".
Modi also visited his mother Hiraba and sought her blessings after leading the BJP to third straight Assembly election victory.


text:
Showtime Traits and Lifetime Wishes
New Traits[edit]
We've arrived at a new, clean instance of Starlight Shores, and it's time to create a family. Now, we already have a subsection of the guide for Creating Sims, so we won't get into too many details here until the end.
So starting with the Ambitions expansion pack, we've been following several generations of the Carwin family. A cousin in far away Starlight Shores has always loved to sing and wants to be an international star! Ladies and gentlemen, meet Lanette Carwin!
Lanette, in addition to looking smoking hot, has strategically selected her traits. As always, you can play and succeed with any combination of traits, but certain combinations make it easier than others. Regardless of your chosen career, friendliness and socialization will play a large part in success. As such, any positive traits for socialization, such as Friendly or Charismatic (or both), are extremely useful.
There are two new traits for this expansion. One is called Social Butterfly, which gives a buff when a Sim is having a conversation with others, especially if she's the center of attention, such as the one telling a story in a conversation, or the one leading a group interaction. She'll get a debuff if she goes too long unnoticed, but the trade-off is that the Soical Meter will rise (and fall) faster than normal. It's pretty well balanced and favors Sims who socialize a lot, making it especially useful for families.
Lanette isn't taking that one, but she is taking the other new trait, Natural Born Performer. This gives her a buff whenever she's performing onstage, increasing her tips and job experience. With no downside, it's fantastic if you're aiming to be a star.
Lanette's other traits are centered around being friendly and intelligent. Strangely, there are no traits specific to the professions, unlike the traits introduced in Ambitions. That is, no trait will give you a specific boost to the singer, magician, or acrobat career track. Acrobat is physical job and having the Athletic trait helps, but doesn't give a direct boost.
The Star Quality trait is also unnecessary for the new jobs strictly speaking, but pairing Star Quality with Natural Born Performer will give you a great advantage when attmepting to be a celebrity. Lanette takes both, as well as Charismatic, plus Unlucky and Neat to round herself out.
New Lifetime Wishes[edit]
Now it's time to check out Lanette's lifetime wish. The mere fact she has the Natural Born Performer trait gives her reommendations for the new careers, but as always, you can manually select your ambition regardless of your traits even if they conflict.
The three new lifetime wishes, conversely to the new traits, are specific to the new professions. You'll have Vocal Legend, which tasks you to get to Level 10 of the singer career; Master Acrobat, which has you seek Level 10 of the acrobat career; and Master Magician, which gives you the goal of (surprise!) getting to Level 10 of the magician career.
Those are the only new lifetime wishes. Given that you can't be in multiple careers at once, and given that none of the new careers have any associated skills, it stands to reason that these wishes are sufficient.
Back to Lanette. By default, Vocal Legend is among her recommended wishes, so that's the one we pick. After finishing off her favorites, her voice, and biography, we're ready to move into Starlight Shores!


text:
The best Air and Ground players take control of the game when it matters most. With a variety of customized options like delivery notifications and requesting to have your package held for pickup, FedEx Delivery Manager® can help you call the play that works best for your delivery. Learn more and sign up at http://fedex.com/delivery. Terms, conditions, and some fees apply.
Make your call for the FedEx Air & Ground® NFL Players of the Week by voting now. When the winners are announced, FedEx will donate $2,000 to the USO in each of their names through FedEx Cares.


text:
Quality CareFind out why Mayo Clinic is the right place for your health care. Make an appointment.
Meet the StaffFind a directory of doctors and departments at all Mayo Clinic campuses. Visit now.
Research and Clinical TrialsSee how Mayo Clinic research and clinical trials advance the science of medicine and improve patient care. Explore now.
Visit Our SchoolsEducators at Mayo Clinic train tomorrow's leaders to deliver compassionate, high-value, safe patient care. Choose a degree.
Professional ServicesExplore Mayo Clinic's many resources and see jobs available for medical professionals. Get updates.
Philanthropy at Mayo ClinicYour support accelerates powerful innovations in patient care, research and education. Give today.
Subscribe to Housecall
Our general interest e-newsletter keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics.
Drug information provided by: IBM Micromedex
Check with your doctor:
Check the labels of all nonprescription (over-the-counter [OTC]) and prescription medicines you now take. If any contain a narcotic, a barbiturate, aspirin, or other salicylates, including diflunisal, check with your doctor or pharmacist. Taking them together with this medicine may cause an overdose.
Codeine is changed to morphine in the body. Some people change codeine to morphine more quickly than others. These individuals are called "ultra-rapid metabolizers of codeine". Contact your doctor immediately if you experience extreme sleepiness, confusion, or shallow breathing. These symptoms may indicate that you are an "ultra-rapid metabolizer of codeine". As a result, there is too much morphine in the body and more side effects of morphine than usual
If a nursing mother is an ultra-rapid metabolizer of codeine, it could lead to a morphine overdose in the nursing baby and cause very serious side effects . For nursing mothers taking this medicine:
The butalbital and the codeine in this medicine will add to the effects of alcohol and other central nervous system (CNS) depressants (medicines that slow down the nervous system, possibly causing drowsiness). Some examples of CNS depressants are antihistamines or medicine for hay fever, other allergies, or colds; sedatives, tranquilizers, or sleeping medicine; other prescription pain medicine or narcotics; other barbiturates; medicine for seizures; muscle relaxants; or anesthetics, including some dental anesthetics. Also, stomach problems may be more likely to occur if you drink alcoholic beverages while you are taking aspirin. Therefore, do not drink alcoholic beverages, and check with your doctor before taking any of the medicines listed above, while you are using this medicine.
This medicine may cause some people to become drowsy, dizzy, or lightheaded, or to feel a false sense of well-being. Make sure you know how you react to this medicine before you drive, use machines, or do anything else that could be dangerous if you are dizzy or are not alert and clearheaded.
Dizziness, light-headedness, or fainting may occur, especially when you get up suddenly from a lying or sitting position. Getting up slowly may help lessen this problem. Lying down for a while may relieve these effects.
Nausea or vomiting may occur, especially after the first couple of doses. This effect may go away if you lie down for a while. However, if nausea or vomiting continues, check with your doctor.
Before having any kind of surgery (including dental surgery) or emergency treatment, tell the medical doctor or dentist in charge that you are taking this medicine. Serious side effects can occur if your medical doctor or dentist gives you certain medicines without knowing that you have taken butalbital or codeine.
Do not take this medicine for 5 days before any planned surgery, including dental surgery, unless otherwise directed by your medical doctor or dentist. Taking aspirin during this time may cause bleeding problems.
Before you have any medical tests, tell the person in charge that you are taking this medicine. The caffeine in this combination interferes with the results of certain tests that use dipyridamole (e.g., Persantine) to help show how well blood is flowing to your heart. Caffeine should not be taken for 8 to 12 hours before the test. The results of some other tests may also be affected by this medicine.
If you have been taking large amounts of this medicine, or if you have been taking it regularly for several weeks or more, do not suddenly stop using it without first checking with your doctor. Your doctor may want you to reduce gradually the amount you are taking before stopping completely, to lessen the chance of withdrawal side effects.
If you think you or anyone else may have taken an overdose of this medicine, get emergency help at once. Taking an overdose of this medicine or taking alcohol or CNS depressants with this medicine may lead to unconsciousness or death. Signs of overdose of this medicine include convulsions (seizures); hearing loss; confusion; ringing or buzzing in the ears; severe excitement, nervousness, or restlessness; severe dizziness; severe drowsiness; unusually slow or troubled breathing; and severe weakness.
Portions of this document last updated: Feb. 01, 2020
Copyright © 2020 IBM Watson Health. All rights reserved. Information is for End User's use only and may not be sold, redistributed or otherwise used for commercial purposes.
Mayo Clinic does not endorse companies or products. Advertising revenue supports our not-for-profit mission.
Check out these best-sellers and special offers on books and newsletters from Mayo Clinic.
Any use of this site constitutes your agreement to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy linked below.
This site complies with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information: verify here.


text:
Urban Sprawl Moving my Way
Economic advance is not the same thing as human progress.
-John Clapham, A Concise Economic History of Britain, 1957
145,200 sq. ft. of warehouse space in a single building with the ability to expand by another 57,200 sq. ft. It has a clear height of 32 feet and a building depth of 260 feet, with parking for 175 cars. The total site is 6.65 acres.
This monster building is just one of many that are gobbling up the land that once insulated us from the Urban Sprawl of the City.
Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.
– Bill Vaughn –
14 thoughts on "Urban Sprawl Moving my Way"
One step forward, two steps back…. is that a quote or did that really just hit me looking at your photo of the monster building. Definitely "sprawl" in the wrong direction.
As a denizen of a major metropolitan area, in my experience, it seems to go like this: The good news: The city centers (or centres for some As I Age readers) (at least the old cities) are being rehabilitated and folks are starting to return to actually reside there. The inner rings of suburbs of at least the older eastern US cities are now "grown in"–old trees, older houses, light rail to get into the city and fierce zoning and conservation boards. It's the exurbs where one mostly finds the office parks, warehouses and malls. I suppose these have to go somewhere–although in our old eastern US cities, it would be nice if they'd rehab some of the deserted former manufacturing space in the cities. Actually, this is happening some in Philly. If exurban folks want to conserve the countryside where they live, they have to band together and purchase land as it comes up for sale. For those who believe it's every man (person) for themselves, do nothing and enjoy your new neighboring warehouses, office parks and malls. Are you listening, Ron Paul? OK. I will now step down off my soapbox. Peace. Out.
Eventually there will be a warehouse large enough to contain small provinces or states like Prince Edward Island or Tuvalu.


text:
HOUSTON — The 2010 MLS All-Stars met as teammates for the first time on Monday morning as they prepared for their first training session together.
They'll have just three days to assemble a side good enough to go toe-to-toe with English giants Manchester United on Wednesday evening.
As the only defender in the All-Star First XI to have played in the summer classic previously, Columbus Crew center back Chad Marshall, who played in last year's All-Star game, knows how difficult it can be to gel with a side that has only been together for a few days.
"It's fun, but it's difficult," Marshall told MLSsoccer.com ahead of the side's first training on Monday. "You don't know their tendencies and what they do, in certain situations, but you have to figure that out in the two days you have to train, and see what you can do to win the game."
Last year Marshall and the All-Stars shut out EPL side Everton before falling in a penalty shootout. This year won't be any easier, as they'll be up against the likes of Manchester United legends Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes, as well as a new breed of talent that includes Portugal winger Nani and Mexican starlet Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez.
"I'm sure it's going to be a good game," Marshall said. "I'm not sure of the lineup they're going to be putting out, but I'm sure it's going to be a tough squad. Hopefully we can get together here in the next few days, figure it out and give them a good game.
"It's not every day you get to play against guys of that caliber or a team like Manchester United. I'm looking forward to the opportunity and I hope we play well."


text:
Feature Flick: Infiniti F1 Racing Ad with Sebastian Vettel and an Infiniti FX50
Sebastian Vettel stars in Infiniti's new F1 TV spot. In the ad, the racer approaches his Red Bull Racing F1 car waiting in the pit garage, buts he gets closer, something seems to change.
As he peers through the window at the race car, what appears to be the digitized soul of the race car emerges in a purple haze from the garage and surrounds Vettel. It soon materializes into the form of a purple FX50 around Vettel. Once the crossover finishes its transition, Vettel speeds away down the track.
No doubt, the TV spot is more than just an advertisement for the 2012 F1 season, but also suggests that Nissan's motorsports investments pay off in the form of production-car advances. While the FX is an updated version of the crossover, it's not the $155,000 special-edition Infiniti FX50 Vettel and the Red Bull Racing team helped develop. Vettel's crossover has been tweaked with more power and a higher top speed, as well as a sportier chassis tuning.


text:
Thank you for signing up for the ticket newsletter!
One more step: you will receive an email shortly. You must click on the link in that email to activate your subscription to the ticket
Congratulations on confirming your subscription to the ticket newsletter!
Enjoy the best sports stories of the day sent directly to your inbox.
You have been unsubscribed from the ticket newsletter.
Please check your email for one final email confirming your removal from the list.
LB Mack is a future Hall of Famer according to his teammate. Watch Now


text:
You are about to enter a website that may contain content of an adult nature.
Hello everyone, this is Indian cam girl leiaswift here. I'm 21 year old Female speak English in the Indian live sex chat action. hi there, I`m a kinky college girl who is very multi orgasmic - I love it when we can cum together! I`m a skinny redhead with big 34D boobs and a nice round ass. I shave my pussy bc I love how smooth it feels when I masturbate! I was born & raised in OHIO, USA - yes I am American!. college girl looking to meet new friends. Multiple Orgasms, Squirting, Anal, Double Penetration (DP), Zoom Cam (tell me where to zoom in) is my expertise and also what I will do in Indian live sex private show. I have Green eyes, Medium Red hairs and my measurements are 34-28-36. For Turn ons: I love to play with my big 34D boobies. For TurnsOff: Pushy and Rudeness. People who forget I am a real person.. If you prefer kinks, then Shaved, are mine. I'm just hungry for a HARD cock, can't wait to see u in my Indian webcam sex chat room! :)
Show more models
This website contains indian cams, desi cam, free hindi chat and tamil sex chat related sexually explicit content.
You must be at least 18 years of age to enter this website. © Since 2012 myindiansexcams.com Indian Sex Chat Network All Rights Reserved
AllHosts1 - AllHosts2 - AllHosts3 - AllHosts4 - AllHosts5 - AllHosts6 - AllHosts7 - AllHosts8 - AllHosts9 - AllHosts10 - AllHosts11 - AllHosts12


text:
New Bern Mayor Lee Bettis returned to the Board of Aldermen Tuesday night after taking a leave of absence since early last month.
New Bern Mayor Lee Bettis returned to the Board of Aldermen Tuesday night after taking a leave of absence since early last month.
Bettis took the leave of absence with pay after being arrested for driving while impaired, even though he blew a 0.00 on a Breathalyzer test, and after a reported domestic dispute.
During Bettis� absence, Alderman Dana Outlaw and Alderman Victor Taylor called for a special meeting to discuss the leadership of New Bern. But that meeting never developed. Neither of the aldermen asked any questions of Bettis during Tuesday�s meeting.
Bettis said Wednesday morning his leave of absence was because of a thyroid issue, but he was getting better.
�It�s absolutely great to be back,� he said.
Outlaw said Wednesday morning he thought the meeting ran smoothly and that Bettis was courteous to everyone.
Politics is a daily struggle with compromise and forgiving, Outlaw said. Although his personality and Bettis� are different, Outlaw said he could still work with the mayor.
When he asked for a special meeting last month about Bettis, Outlaw said part of it was to find out if Bettis would be paid during his absence and if the absence set a precedent for other elected official to take time off when they wanted.
�It leaves a lot unanswered,� Outlaw said. �Being in local government is a learning process for us all and maybe we�ll want to check things out in the event this happens again. But we are moving forward and the meeting ran fine. Everybody wants to do what is right for the city. I will work with him for the good of the city and carry on and finish up this term.�
Bettis said he is proud of everything he and the board has accomplished over the past seven to eight months, from bring the city back into fiscal responsibility to providing the funding for the creation of the storm water division and hiring Mike Epperson to be city manager.
Bettis said he is looking forward in the remaining months of his term to make the area of the former Days Inn Hotel the anchor of Five Points and to continuing to protect the waterfront.
�The things we have done in the last three years include bringing the budget from 6 percent in reserves to being nearly bankrupt to a 25 percent increase in the general reserve.
�People may hubbub about things. They hubbubbed when I stood up to the governor and said we are not taking that (draw) bridge over; they hubbubbed when we took over the Housing Authority; they hububbed over a 0.00 on a Breathalyzer. I�m going to do my job, and everybody is going to do their job.�
Bettis said during the past four years, Aldermen Sabrina Bengel and Denny Bucher have been instrumental in the progress of the city, but he wasn�t as forthcoming about Outlaw. All three have expressed interest in running for mayor.
�If Dana wants to run for mayor, he ought to come up with something he has done in the past eight years. If you can�t point to one thing you�ve done in eight years, that is not leadership,� Bettis said.
Bettis said he was not letting the last couple of months or the campaigning that has been done at his expense stand in the way of his job as mayor.
�In this country, you are innocent until proven guilty,� he said. �I would be the worst defense attorney and the worst father if I did not stand up for my principles when I haven�t done anything wrong and I�m not going to back down now.�
Meanwhile, results of a blood test taken when Bettis was arrested for DWI have not been completed.
Eddie Fitzgerald can be reached at 252-635-5675 or at email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @staffwriter3.


text:
Student from Del. wins $61K Md. college's literary prize
Timothy Marcin, a would-be journalist who won the nation's largest literary prize for undergraduate college students Tuesday night, isn't too worried about the future of the news industry.
"Everybody tells me to be discouraged," Marcin said after winning the Sophie Kerr Prize. "But it's something I'm really passionate about and will try to do."
Marcin, 22, beat out four other finalists to win the $61,192 prize. The Washington College senior will get a check at commencement later this month.
Marcin said he was so surprised at winning the prize that he doesn't know what he'll do with the money. "I know all four finalists and how great they were," he said.
The Wilmington, Del., resident included poems and a first-person account of the Boston Marathon bombing in his 42-page portfolio for the prize. Marcin said he will pursue a master's degree at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
Marcin's major at Washington College is English, with minors in creative writing and business management.
"I want to write and tell stories," he said.
The Sophie Kerr Prize is awarded each year to a graduating Washington College senior. It was established by a posthumous gift from Sophie Kerr, a writer who grew up in Denton and built a successful publishing career in New York City. Kerr was managing editor of Woman's Home Companion magazine and wrote some 23 novels and hundreds of short stories before her death in 1965.
The college is in Chestertown, on Maryland's Eastern Shore.


text:
Quote:Fair point, Cord, but boxers generally train for strength over fitness.
Quote:I'm only comparing him to the average butter tub I see walking about on a daily basis.
Quote: I want to be compared to bit fat butter tubs!!
Quote:WORRY ABOUT YOURSELF NOT WHAT BRUCE DIS IT YOUR PRSONAL DEVELOPMENT COME FIRST,. U SPEND TOO MUCH TIME WORRYING ABOUT WHATHER A DEAD GUY TOOK DRUGS~~
Night club fight footage and street fights captured
with the world's first bouncer spy cam
to Matrix!
Learn ten times faster with new training method. Learn entire arts
for as little as $10 per disk.
Self Defense
Stun guns, pepper spray, Mace and self defense products. Alarms for personal and home use.
Stop An Urban Gorilla: Get 2 FREE TASER M26C Replacement Air Cartridges With Each New TASER M26C!


text:
Cool Things: November 2009
Technology Hype
For the creative types out there (that's all of us, right?), I recommend the Yudu screen-printing system from Provo Craft. It offers a whole new way of creating images. You can screen print images and text on fabrics and paper. Just imagine the possibilities: family reunion T-shirts, party invitations, tote bags and more. You can find tutorials and more examples at ProvoCraft.com.
Great Tools
For a little extra dimension on your pages, try these corrugated monogram letters from Colorbök. The corrugated look is back, and these letters can work like any chipboard. Paint or ink them for a different look, or use them as is for a nice, textured title on your next layout.
Typography Website
This month, check out FontShop.com. This site has more than just fonts. It has an education section where you can find tips for using type and also browse the Type Glossary. Then you can peruse the vast list of free fonts to practice your newfound skills.
Font of the Month
CK Reader Karen Evans wanted to identify the handwritten-looking font on this ad from Food Network Magazine. Karen, this font is Louisiana. It can be found on many websites, including FontShop.com and MyFonts.com. It's perfect for creating a legible, handwritten look on your pages.
Outside Inspiration
For a fun, unique look on your pages, try these Alphabet Paperclips designed by Stephen Reed. They have many practical purposes-alphabetizing papers easily, organizing files, and so on-but they also have many scrapbooking possibilities. You can use them as a subtle accent on a layout by using the person's first initial, create a unique alphabet album or page, or use them on custom invitations or announcements. Try these out to see how many uses you can think of. You can find these adorable paper clips at CharlesandMarie.com.
Appeared in:
|To comment on this article you must be logged in. Not a member?