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Otherwise, I'm working on finishing the application for the assistantship. I need to get some references, which is never easy because I don't know many people. I think I'll ask the same people who gave me references when I was applying for the writing center job earlier in the semester. They already agreed to give me a reference, I just need to make sure it's okay to still use them. Should be fine. I need to get that in before the end of the semester, so I'm in a little bit of a rush with it.
On top of everything else, I decided last week what I'm going to do my thesis over, so I need to send an email to my committee chair and run it past her, make sure I'm on the right track. If so, then I can start researching, if not I need to go back to the drawing board and come up with something else. I know I'm going to be doing Greek & Renaissance Drama for my thesis, I'd rather not say more until it's set in stone, and maybe not then. I'm jealously guarding my intellectual property on this one, never know who might come along and think it's a good idea and take it. So, my lips are sealed for the time being. Yes, I know that gives me a lot of credit toward the idea, maybe more than I deserve, but I'm keeping it to myself for now.
I don't know if I said so but, I'm not going to be taking classes over the summer. I was going to, frankly I need the financial aid, but by the time it paid my tuition and Matt's there would be nothing left and it's just not worth my sanity. I don't need the hours, and while he does, it's something we mutually decided would be in our best interest. So, I'm going to be taking the summer off, working on my freelance stuff to help support us financially, and trying to get most of the stuff on the senior reading list read and notes taken for each book. It's going to be a nice summer, busy, but nice... at least for the most part. My family has some things going on, my folks will be here in June to see my grandmother, who's very sick, and we'll be going to North Texas to see them, and her, when they're out. Otherwise, the summer is ours to do with as we please. It occurs to me that I might have said most of this before, so forgive the repetition. I can't remember what I have and haven't said half the time.
I've already registered for most of my fall classes, my schedule is Tuesday & Wednesday nights from 6-9pm, but that's on 6 credit hours. I have to have 9 to qualify for the assistantship, but there're aren't enough classes available to me, for a multitude of reasons, so I'm trying to work in another class. Might be taking a history, as a problems course, that's in the interest of my thesis. Long story, one I'm still not sure about, so I'll pass on the details, which probably wouldn't mean much to you anyway.
I feel like all I talk about is school these days. I know it's not that interesting, but it's all I have. It's the biggest and most present thing in my life right now, which will hopefully subside a bit as the summer approaches. I sure hope so, I feel like such a drag. Anyway, it's about 4 a.m. and I'm going to lay down and watch the movie. Maybe I'll fall asleep, that'd be nice. Unlikely, but nice. I've had 3 hours of sleep in the last two days, so I'm exhausted, but I don't feel like sleep is in the wings for me just yet.
Good night.


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Back when I had short hair I went through tins of this stuff like crazy...well, if going through about three tins in approximately 17 years equals "crazy":
It costs $3 a tin, it can help tame flyaways, separate chunks to give a piecey look to your hair, and smooth out curls. It lasts forever and, now, you can get an OBAMA TIN, too. Yes, I capitalized that, because seriously, that's so cool!! Barack and Michelle are hangin' on the tin top, sporting afros. Check it out on the Murray's website here.

subset: commoncrawl


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- 0.1 Reduce on the uptake of the current cloth baby diaper fad.
- 0.2 After embracing cloth I swiftly figured out that:
- 0.3 Rather reluctantly, I decided to try cloth diapering as well as quickly located that I ENJOY it!
- 0.4 No Baby diaper breakout with towel.
- 1 Video: Cloth diaper in Shelby
Reduce on the uptake of the current cloth baby diaper fad.
I need to admit … for every little thing else I do that is all-natural as well as natural, I was late jumping on the cloth diapering bandwagon … as well as I'm kicking myself for it currently.
For our first two children, I used disposables and didn't believe anything of it. I assumed fabric diapering was a point that our mommies as well as grannies did because they didn't have a choice, and the scary stories of wringing out diapers in the bathroom and also unlimited loads of washing had no attract me!
A couple of years and several of children later on, I determined to review the diapering subject, at the tip of some buddies (many thanks girls!).
After embracing cloth I swiftly figured out that:
There are now FAR BETTER choices for cloth diapering compared to when our mothers and also grandmas were doing it
There are a Great Deal Of chemicals in traditional baby diapers (you believe that magic gel stuff that absorbs 100 times its weight in pee is natural?).
Fabric diapers (also the top of the line ones) save cash, especially if you have greater than one youngster.
Towel diapering could in fact be simple!
The brand-new fabric baby diapers are CHARMING!
They actually leakage much less than disposables. I have actually only had a few leakages in the 7 months I have actually been fabric diapering our youngest, and no clothing destroyed by yellow child poop!
There are a great deal of brand names of diapers that could fit baby from birth to potty training, so it saves room too!
They hold their worth, so you can offer them to another person when your children run out baby diapers, if you take great treatment of them.
Rather reluctantly, I decided to try cloth diapering as well as quickly located that I ENJOY it!
I'm absolutely not a specialist (though possibly a few of my pals who are veterans will certainly offer some recommendations in the remarks area) however I have actually located a couple of pointers that have aided along the road. If you haven't taken into consideration cloth diapering, I 'd certainly advise considering it!
The Advantages of Towel Diapering.
From a financial viewpoint, I've reviewed that each youngster sets you back regarding $2,000 to diaper as well as can add concerning 600,000 baby diapers to the landfills. You can obtain a couple lots truly premium quality (also organic) fabric baby diapers for under $500 and also they could last via several kids if you deal with them.
If money is actually limited, it is even possible to completely towel baby diaper from birth to potty training for around $100 (some individuals invest that a month for disposables!).
No Baby diaper breakout with towel.
Another huge advantage that I have actually seen is that my children that I've fabric diapered have obtained NO diaper rashes, which even with a great diet, were a routine point with disposables. With my very first infant, I discovered within a week that Huggies baby diapers created a dreadful breakout, and most common brands did as well. Pampers were ok, yet naturally, more costly.
One disadvantage is that you can not utilize baby diaper lotion (unless you make it on your own) with cloth baby diapers, yet I have not required it!
For my 7 month old, I could put dual liners in her diaper as well as she can go all evening without it dripping as well as without it bothersome her skin …
An additional benefit is that youngsters commonly potty train previously in cloth diapers because (a) they are a lot more aware of the moisture and connect the feeling quicker and also (b) mom gets tired of washing out the baby diapers as well as is more motivated to potty train (cough …).
For all the benefits, the one point that really encouraged me to towel baby diaper, was this …
needs to towel baby diaper See, as long as I understood the advantages and how much healthier towel diaper are, I recognized that concerning the moment that the poop really began to obtain horrible and had to be washed out in the commode, I 'd possibly be expectant.
As well as morning health issues integrated with sticking my hands in the commode to wring out diaper … not occurring.
Video: Cloth diaper in Shelby
This baby diaper sprayer is just what in fact persuaded me to fabric diaper.
Basically, it is a sprayer that hooks into the tidy supply of water on your bathroom (prior to it goes into the toilet) as well as makes use of a high powered stream of water to clean up the diaper without you touching any kind of poop.
I likewise learnt that if you are solely nursing, you don't even need to wash out the diapers (also poop!) in all until you begin offering baby solids.
The greatest benefit, in my viewpoint, is that you are minimizing baby's exposure to chemicals. Disposables are plastic and have chlorine, polyacrylate, and also various other chemicals that haven't been shown risk-free for usage on any person, particularly children!
There is likewise an expanding movement back to fabric diapering and also a ton of assistance. If you don't have neighborhood close friends that are towel diapering and also can lend support like I do, there are online support neighborhoods like Baby diaper Pin as well as others, where you could locate evaluations, laundry aid, special offers, as well as individuals selling their gently used fabric baby diapers.
My Diapering Setup.
There are as numerous means to fabric diaper as there are kinds of cloth diapers.
We have a mix of BumGenius, Fuzzibunz and also GroBabys (aren't those names cute as well?). I like the simplicity of the GroBabys however they leak a great deal a lot more. Over all, I choose the BumGenius and also Fuzzibunz, and also have about 2 loads, which is enough for 2 children if I clean each day (which i very suggest!).
I utilize an ordinary plastic trash bin for the wet/dirty baby diapers. Often I utilize an old pillowcase as a lining (it obtains cleaned with the diapers) and also sometimes I simply placed them directly in.
I don't cover the trash can, or place any kind of fluid in it, though lots of people have special covers or a liquid technique. I've never ever had much trouble with scent this way, however it definitely is an issue or personal preference.
I make use of self-made non reusable wipes (omit the almond/olive oil) or use my homemade clean service on towel baby wipes (child laundry cloths work excellent as well as you could generally find them at garage or consignment sales).
To wash: I make use of a 1/2 cup cooking soda in a cold pre-wash cycle that I allow saturate for Thirty Minutes. I then utilize an all-natural detergent like Rockin Green or Charlie's soap, or my very own soap (alternate) to clean. Periodically, I utilize Dr. Bronners Sal Suds to remove the diapers.
Commonly, I run one more trendy rinse cycle at the end making sure all the detergent is out.
I run the linings via the clothes dryer and hang the covers (exterior in the summertime, inside in the wintertime) to extend the life of the flexible.
For spots, the sunlight (summer season particularly) is great at lightening! As quickly as our canine isn't really fairly a lot of a teething pup, I'll be hanging them outside once more.
After that, I simply save the diapers in my little wooden crate (see above) and make use of like regular baby diapers. They function just like disposables, and also are a lot cuter! There are even artist series "designer" baby diapers and some are on sale today.
Other Notes.
Learn what diapering system benefits you.
If you are thinking about towel diapering, I 'd encourage you to do your very own study and find out exactly what kind of diapers work best for your family.
I have a couple loads that are mainly bumGenius as well as some Fuzzibunz (as well as a couple of Grobabys, which are currently GroVias). You could get them by the dozen as well as save a great deal of loan. You could also discover natural all in-one baby diapers which are exceptionally very easy to make use of as well as clean, and also which will certainly fit infant from birth to potty training!
I additionally actually extremely suggest a diaper sprayer given that it will save you time and gross variable!
Some baby diapers even have flushable liners, so you could simply dispose them in the commode as well as they are ready to wash.
If you haven't thought about fabric diapering, please at least check into it. It's so much far better for child's skin and isn't actually much additional help you. I'm still new at it as well, however we can find out with each other.


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3315 Scott Futrell Dr
Charlotte, NC, 28208
Charlotte Douglas International Airport
When flying into Charlotte Douglas International Airport you can avoid the hassle of airport to city shuttles by making a rental car reservation. Offering more in the way of corporate deals and vacation drive discounts on economy car, mid-sized sedan, luxury auto and SUV car rentals in North Carolina, Payless Car Rental is your travel partner on the ground. Make a reservation at our Charlotte Douglas International Airport location and get on down the road to adventure and savings.
Rent a car in Charlotte
The city known for its historical registry of architecture, Charlotte, North Carolina is also host to a wide array of fine hotel accommodations, business conference centers, entertainment venues, restaurants, shopping, and sporting events. A hub for road trip travelers, Charlotte is situated between the East and Southeast Atlantic regions. We¿re a full-service car rental company offering customers visiting Charlotte the comfort and convenience of rental car transportation. Reserve a car for the lowest daily, weekly, monthly, and weekend rates on your next vacation.
The Car Rental Brand of Choice in North Carolina
First introduced as the low cost car rental brand in 1971, Payless Car Rental continues a tradition in customer service excellence at a deep-value discount on rental cars at its 120 car rental locations today. Payless Car Rental is your direct-to-door valet on car rental reservation service in Charlotte, North Carolina. The car rental brand of choice for travelers in North America, Payless Car Rental is your connection in Charlotte.


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Mind Body Health
About Me
Areas of Expertise:
Health and Wellness
Classroom Behavior
Professor Melissa A. Bray is a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. Dr. Bray is an elected member of the Society for the Study of School Psychology. She is licensed as a psychologist in the State of Connecticut, holds national certification in school psychology, state certification in school psychology, and licensure in speech language pathology. Since receiving her doctorate in 1997, she has published or has in press over 150 articles, chapters, and reviews in the professional literature, and has presented over 90 scholarly papers at national and international conferences. In a recent study it was determined that Dr. Bray was the most prolific contributor to the 5 primary journals in school psychology. Further, she serves as associate editor of the International Journal of School and Educational Psychology and has served as an associate editor of School Psychology Quarterly. She also serves on various editorial boards such as Gifted Child Quarterly. Of interest, she is the co-editor of the first Oxford handbook of school psychology. She has also guest edited 8 issues of Psychology in the Schools on video self-modeling, behavior disorders, positive psychology, statistical reform, childhood obesity, counseling and emotional disorders. She currently is co-guest editing an issue of the International Journal of School and Educational Psychology on Mind Body Health and an issue of the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment in the area of academic and intellectual achievement . As co-principle investigator, she has secured over $ 1 1/2 million dollars in student training contracts. Of particular significance, Dr. Bray was the 2003 recipient of the prestigious American Psychological Association Division 16's Lightner Witmer Award, the Division's highest honor given to young scholars. She has also been involved in state, national, and international professional associations including service as Vice-President, Social, Ethical Responsibility, and Ethnic Minority Affairs, APA's Division 16 Executive Committee. Dr. Bray has also served as the Division 16's convention chair, hospitality suite coordinator, chair of the Division's publications committee, and as a member of the conversation videotape series. Her research interests are in the area of interventions for communication disorders - stuttering, classroom disruptive behavior, and physical health and wellness, especially asthma and cancer.
Courses Taught:
Academic Assessment


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Only 1 person can be a great head coach...you have 130 other options on the team to find a ra ra guy...you can have several on each side of the ball
As for me I'm not in favor of hiring someone for six figures that I wouldn't be willing to hire for seven figures. IOW if I'm not willing to pay candidate A seven figures I'm not giving him six unless experience dictates the lower figure.
Additionally Les isn't working for six.


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Page 1
- Home
- Thoughts on Art, Creativity & Inspiration
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- Lynne Tyler Word Quilts ~2009 - 2010
- Lynne Tyler Word Quilts ~ 2011
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- Diamond Quilts
- Table Quilts
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Liberated Log Cabin Blocks
I'd say I was in trouble, but I have too many other things to make before I can devote myself to this project.
To wit: the next time I decide to use a white-0n-white fabric on the binding of a quilt, and to do the hand sewing on the front, because I like to show off my blindstitching (yeah, I know, it's an ego thing,) will somebody please whack me upside the head and slap me silly?
It's bad enough I wear bifocals and can't thread a needle without help. I had to move a Very Bright Light near my chair so I could -see- what I am trying to sew. (Let's get real here, I can barely see what I am doing clearly.) The thread wears out quickly and breaks where I least expect it, so I can't sew more than about 16" at a time. The white on white is so THICK that it's really slow going. Add that to the fact that I have arthritis in my right thumb and holding a -pen- makes my hand hurt, and now I am trying to hold a needle... which means I can't work on this more than 30 minutes at a time...
Let's just say I've been dealt a huge piece of Humble Pie.
And I'm eating it.
11 comments:
- Sharon said...
Wow, those log cabins look GREAT! How fun! I especially like the one with the b&w swirl fabric. Very graphic.
I'm right there with you on the arthritic thumb. What a pain - and difficult to do anything. I'm supposed to be embroidering a crazy quilt block, and it hurts to hold the needle. Yow! Hope you manage to get your binding done. Pacing yourself is good - I keep reminding myself of that too! Good luck!
- February 19, 2009 at 1:37 AM
- Joyce said...
I love the log cabins. Liberated is my favorite way to sew. Maybe you should sew the binding down with a fancy sewing machine stitch. Then you could showcase the stitching and also be done in minutes.
- February 19, 2009 at 7:25 AM
- Quiltdivajulie said...
The effort will be worth it (white on white issues)...
LOVE LOVE LOVE the liberated log cabin blocks ~ they are WONDERFUL!!!!
- February 19, 2009 at 10:10 AM
Hey! I had a similar problem when I did the binding on my mom's white quilt. It was really hard for me and I don't have arthritis, I can only imagine how hard it is. Hang in there, I know you will love it when you are done!! You have a masterpiece!
And. I love the liberated log cabin blocks, my fav is the white and black with blue in the center! WOW!
- February 19, 2009 at 12:10 PM
- YankeeQuilter said...
A couple of years ago I took any fabric with the heavy imprint (like your white on white) and donated to the girlscouts. It is just too tough for me to deal with anymore!
The little log cabin blocks look great...
- February 19, 2009 at 2:52 PM
- Magpie Sue said...
You have my sympathy with that binding. I'm having a harder time seeing these days too, and for some reason every binding I've sewn lately has been black on black! I've never felt so blind before in my life.
Those log cabin blocks are going to be a ton of fun :- )
- February 19, 2009 at 3:43 PM
- Millie said...
I know my limits. I don't do any hand sewing that isn't absolutely necessary.
Nope, no fancy machine stitches. And that's not just because my sewing machine doesn't have any fancy machine stitches. Done in minutes is not the goal here. I don't mind that it's taking a while.
Thank you, I agree, the effort will be worth it.
You're right! It's tough stuff! I think it will look great too!
Yankee Quilter,
Well, I sure won't do this again!
Magpie Sue,
Yeah, it's a bitch getting older, but it sure beats the alternative. Black on black, wowza! You go girl!
- February 19, 2009 at 7:56 PM
- GARI said...
Boy, do I understand the arthritis thing. I haven't been able to knit for 20 years and sewing binding on is painful. But, that said, I love to quilt (machine) and will machine bind when I can. Otherwise, I just sew for a little while, every day, until I get it done. I tell people the only thing I do by hand is push the "on" button.
- February 19, 2009 at 8:52 PM
- mau said...
I rather deal with the arthritis then with the blindness...and I know what you mean. I also am 1/2 blind, I love my sight about almost 10yrs ago in my right eye. I still have some perrifial(forgot how to spell it)vision but such a bit on my right side. You should see me thread the needle on the sewing machine its a joke but its OK I laugh at myself just like you do....Hats off to you.
- February 19, 2009 at 11:35 PM
- mau said...
By the way I LOVE THE BLOCKS.
- February 19, 2009 at 11:36 PM
- Clare said...
Love the swirly black block.
Binding is my least favourite part and I do sympathise with you.
- February 20, 2009 at 4:22 AM


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2017 Ford F-150 Raptor Crew Cab Oxford White 17
- Location: Greenwood, Indiana, United States
- Condition: New
- Make: Ford
- Model: F-150
- SubModel: 2017 Ford F-150 Raptor Crew Cab Oxford White 17
- Type: Pickup Truck
- Doors: 4 Doors
- Year: 1980
- Color: Other Color
- Interior color: Other Color
- Vehicle Title: Clear
1980 Ford F-150 2017 Ford F-150 Raptor Crew Cab Oxford White 17 description
This is a PRESALE Listing for one of the First 3 2017 Raptors that will be produced. It is confirmed that we will receive 36 Allocated 2017 Raptors. This is one of 3 Ford had us submit 8/12/16 for first scheduling.
These will be produced this fall. Estimated Delivery will be between November and January. However, it will be one of the first out because it is the first to schedule with Ford.
This truck Includes:Oxford White Exterior Black Interior Equipment Group 802A 17A INFLATABLE BELT 17B BLIND SPOT SYS 435 PWR SLIDING WND 47E PRO TRAILER AST 50N NAVIGATION 52L SYNC 3 573 AUTO TEMP CNTL 58D SONY CD/HD 59R REMOTE START 59S LED SPOTLIGHTS 60C SYNC CONNECT 77R RAPTOR 61T TORSEN DIFF 67T TRL BRAKE CONTR 763 360 CAMERA 85P BOX LIGHTING
Additional Options-Twin Panel Moonroof Carbon Fiber Package 17" Forged Wheels Tailgate Applique Heated Steering Wheel Raptor Technology Package Second Row Heated Seats
Total Sale Price - $75,905
We currently have 36 to choose from. If you don't like these 3, request a private listing to order one of your choice and color.
(Pictures are examples and not the actual truck. Overall appearance is the same, however, someoptions may vary from the pictures. For example,it may or may not have the wheels pictured. This truck has most every option except the graphics.)
Please contact us with additional questions-


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THIS IS A HIGH END INGERSOLL TOURBILLON WATCH BROUGHT TO YOU BY SALMA JEWELRY, INGERSOLL LICENSED DEALERS. THIS IS A SPECIAL ORDER ITEM AND THE ESTIMATED WAIT TIME FOR DELIVERY IS ABOUT 3-4 WEEKS. THIS WATCH WILL BE SHIPPED VIA FEDEX OVERNIGHT AND WILL BE INSURED FOR FULL VALUE AT NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE. IT WILL ALSO REQUIRE A DIRECT SIGNATURE FROM THE PURCHASER. *Please note: All Special Order watches are not eligible for Salma's 30 Day No Questions Asked Return Policy. **All Special Order watch orders will be charged at time of purchase. ***Special Order watches are non-refundable and non-returnable unless received defective.
Mechanical tourbillon
Sapphire crystal
Mechanical-hand-wind movement
Case diameter: 45mm
Water resistant to 165 feet


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April 16, 2018
Moving Sale Huntsville, AL Huntsville, AL
Online Only
Something for everyone in this auction. You don't want to miss it.
MOVING SALE: Furniture, Electronics, China, Collectibles & More
ONLINE BIDDING ONLY: Bid NOW thru Monday, April 16, 2018 at 8 PM
PREVIEW: Monday, April 16 from 11 AM - 1 PM at 5000 Inwood Lane, Huntsville,
For More info on this auction, call Scott Huber at 256-536-7497 or 256-975-0640
Scott Huber, ALSL5284


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National key cutting, shoe and watch repair, and mobile phone repair outlet Timpson has moved its fuel card custom to fuelGenie: and just five months into the contract, this thriving company is seeing big savings.
The family-run high street brand runs a fleet of 300 vehicles, each of which averages 25,000 miles per year. As fuelGenie does not charge transaction fees or card fees, Timpson is seeing significant savings on service costs alone. And its drivers can now fill up at any Tesco, Morrisons or Sainsbury's forecourt, netting an average saving of 3p per litre against high street and motorway service station prices.
Hidden savings, not hidden costs
And that's not all. fuelGenie fuel cards are saving money for Timpson in other, less obvious ways. The fuelGenie system, for example, which logs card use and mileage without the need for time-consuming paperwork, has freed Timpson's Fleet Manager, Clair Vaughan, to get on with other work. This is a benefit that speaks particularly strongly to small fleet management: time is not just money for a fleet manager, but driver safety and customer satisfaction too. The more time Clair has to spend on strategising, maintenance, logistics, and purchasing, the better her fleet runs.
fuelGenie cards have absolutely no hidden costs. You don't even have to pay for the cards themselves. Timpson started its contract with 300 free fuelGenie cards, and can add more whenever it needs to. It's no longer paying a network service fee (with its previous provider, Timpson paid £2 per transaction). And Clair can even give a little extra to her drivers, at no extra cost to Timpson. fuelGenie cards can be used to collect loyalty points on Tesco Clubcards, Morrisons More Cards, and Sainsbury's Nectar Cards. It's a little gesture, but it creates a lot of goodwill.
The sensible move
The move to fuelGenie made a lot of sense for Timpson, which switched primarily to cut costs. Cutting out not one but two fees (usage fees and annual card fees) has made a notable general saving for the company. The same move can make the same saving for any small fleet.
fuelGenie offers a number of benefits both for drivers and fleet managers. The time-consuming paper trail is a thing of the past: fuelGenie customers can keep up-to-the-minute track of their fuel expenditure and consumption, and can easily download data to Excel for fuss-free reporting. The fuelGenie account is accessible 24/7, and can be wholly managed by the user. Set card limits, order new cards, and keep track of individual cards at any time, from anywhere. All you need is an internet connection.
And with up to 45 days credit, cash flow is taken care of too.
Have you recently moved to fuelGenie? How much are you saving? Let us know onLinkedIn and Twitter .


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Sonos Wireless Speakers for Streaming Music
What is Sonos?
Sonos is the smart speaker system that uses your WiFi to stream music you love throughout your home. One easy-to-use app gives you complete control of your entire home listening experience — access all your music, pick any room or every room, and immerse yourself in pure, richly detailed sound.
Bringing you all your music in one app.
One simple app brings together all your favorite music services, and lets you control everything — from songs, to volume, to rooms.
In any room or every room at once.
Play a different song in the living room, bedroom, even bathroom, or the same track in every room.
The Sonos App
Take total control of your home listening experience with the Sonos Controller app. Built for mobile, tablet and desktop, it connects you to all the music on earth, all over your home. Play, control and explore your music, your way.
Trueplay measures the acoustics in any room — analyzing things like size, layout, and furnishings. It then fine-tunes your Sonos speaker to make sure the music sounds great, no matter where you place your speaker.
Transform your stereo or speakers.
Bring streaming music to your existing stereo or speakers with the CONNECT or CONNECT:AMP.
Works with the audio equipment you own. Seamlessly integrates your stereo, home theater system, and other amplified audio devices into your Sonos Wireless HiFi System.
Works with your favorite speakers. Built-in amplifier means you can turn any speakers bookshelf, floor-standing, outdoor, or in-ceiling — into a Sonos Wireless HiFi System.
The Expandable Home System
Get full-theater HiFi sound for TV, movies and your world of music — with both 3.1 and 5.1 options.
PLAYBAR's nine-speaker design floods any room with super-realistic audio for games and movies, huge waves of live concert sound, and wireless streams of all the music on earth. And it all comes from one easy-to-use player that brings HiFi sound to your high-definition TV.
Fills an entire room with thick layers of deep, bottomless sound that lets you hear and feel every chord, kick, splash and roll. You won't just hear the difference our wireless subwoofer makes – you'll feel it in your bones.
Complete your home theater with a PLAY:1 pair for immersive surround sound.
The Perfect Introduction
Start small or go big. There's a Sonos speaker that will fit any room in your home.
No other wireless speaker packs so much HiFi sound into such a compact design.
Fill your room with wall-to-wall sound. Go vertical, go horizontal, hide it on a shelf, or mount it on the wall. Perfect for small rooms and music hungry spaces.
The powerfully smart speaker that fine-tunes its sound to bring you all the energy and emotion the artist packed into the original recording. Music that's pure, ferocious, tasty and true.
Replacing a Whole House Audio System
Many homes built in the 1990's-2010's have speaker wires running back to a central location. We can help you figure out the best way to get music all over your home. You may already have a multi-channel power amp, so a few CONNECT pieces may make the most sense. Or you may not have any gear, and a stack of CONNECT:AMPs might be the best idea.
For rooms where you want to add sound but have no speaker wires, NO PROBLEM! We can use a CONNECT:AMP and some great speakers, or one of the all in one PLAY:5 or PLAY:3 pieces.
As you can probably tell, a SONOS system and the experts at Audio Advice can get music where ever you want it throughout your home!
Why You'll Love the Audio Advice Install Process
Sure, SONOS is pretty simple to install if you are technically minded. There are some routers that are not best suited for the SONOS system. Many firewall systems can also create issues in the initial set up. In the case of larger homes, you'll need our help to make sure the SONOS wireless network itself is robust. Finally, while SONOS has its own wireless network, you are typically controlling it with a wireless device that is dependent on your wireless network. In larger homes, we can help you explore network hardware options that will help as you pass between wireless access points, which will not only make your SONOS experience better, but your whole wireless experience. We'll even show you how to make iTunes sound its best if you want the best audio performance possible. Why not let the experts at Audio Advice take care of your SONOS installation so all you have to do is enjoy streaming music from all over the world!


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The party of Ukraine's disgraced former leader, Viktor Yanukovych, has picked a hardline pro-Kremlin politician as its candidate to fight new presidential elections in May.
Mikhail Dobkin, a former regional governor often described as a frontman for President Vladimir Putin, was named as the chosen candidate of the Party of Regions on Friday.
The burly 44-year-old has been a hate figure among Ukraine's pro-Western camp ever since the anti-government protests in January. At the time he wore a T-shirt expressing support for the berkut, or security police, who were accused of violent crackdowns on demonstrators.
Last month, he was detained for organising illegal separatist demonstrations in his home province of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, and is currently on bail while officials decide whether to prosecute him.
While he claims he does not want eastern Ukraine to join Crimea in becoming part of Russia, opponents claim he is in regular contact with the Kremlin, which they fear plans further land grabs in Ukraine.
Announcing his candidacy at a lunch for journalists at a five star Kiev hotel, Mr Dobkin proved in typically combative mood. He hinted strongly that if elected, he would not respect the trade association agreement that the new pro-Western government has signed with the European Union.
Describing the new government as illegitimate, he said of the agreement: "There is nothing to cancel. It is like the menu in this restaurant - it may be important today, but tomorrow it will no longer be current."
The decision of the Party of Regions to pick such a potentially divisive candidate comes despite a pledge by its senior officials to rebrand itself in the wake of last month's revolution. Earlier this week, the party deputy head, Borys Kolesnikov, told The Telegraph that Mr Yanukovych had been a "catastrophe" for its reputation, and that he would be formally expelled from the party at a meeting on Saturday.
Mr Yanukovych is currently in hiding in Russia, where Mr Dobkin, who was one of his staunchest allies in government, also briefly fled after last month's revolution.
In choosing Mr Dobkin to replace Mr Yanukovych, the party will also do little to shake its reputation for being behoven to the Kremlin, which critics claim had a hand in his selection. On Friday, Mr Dobkin denied having ever even met Mr Putin, but was unapologetic about having close links to Moscow.
"People who call me Putin's politician are incorrect, but I will be honest and say that yes, we do have strong contacts with Russia," he said. "Russia is ruled by Mr Putin, so maybe that is why I am called Mr Putin's friend."
Dressed in a blue suit and red tie, Mr Dobkin had to obtain special permission from a Kiev court to attend Friday's lunch, as his current bail conditions only allow him to leave home between 9am and 2pm.
He was arrested in March after organising a series of pro-Russian protests in Kharkiv, in opposition to what he described as the "rabid nationalists" who had seized power in Kiev. His group, calling itself the "Ukrainian Front", also mobilised its own national guard, made up of Cossacks, martial arts fans and the Night Wolves biker gang, which has Mr Putin as a fan.
The protest was one of several pro-Russian demonstrations that many feared were designed to invite the Kremlin to send in a miliitary "protection force", as it did in Ukraine. On Friday, though, Mr Dobkin said his only concern was to get greater political representation for the country's regions, which he claimed were often neglected by Kiev.
Asked about Russia's annexation of Crimea, he said: "I keep hearing people say that Crimea was invaded and we should get it back. But Crimea was not taken - its people chose to leave. How do we get it back? The only way is by making life here in Ukraine so attractive that the Crimeans want to come back again."
He also refused to apologise for wearing a teeshirt in support of the security police, who are accused of killing more than 100 protesters by opening fire on them during last month's revolution. Mr Dobkin, who points out that a number of policemen were killed themselves in the disturbances, said he wore the teeshirt as a gesture of soliditary to the security forces.
"If a few policemen were guilty of killing people, they should be punished, but we should not punish all of them, as the new government is trying to do," he said. "That is why I am not sorry about wearing that tee shirt, and why I would happily wear it again."
Current polls put Mr Dobkin on less than ten per cent of the vote, though that is roughly the same as the boxer Vitaly Klitschko and the former Orange Revolution leader Yulia Tymoshenko. The current favourite, on around 25 per cent, is the chocolate baron Petro Poroshenko, who helped bankroll the recent protests. He is expected to declare his candidacy on Saturday.


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By Chris Kramer
As the economy remains stuck in first gear, Americans have tightened their wallets and reduced their spending on clothing, entertainment and transportation. Surprisingly, consumers have also reduced their spending on health care, sometimes quite dramatically.
According to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Americans have "reduced their routine medical care" by a much larger margin during the recession than people in Britain, Canada, France and Germany.
The statistics gathered by the researchers paint a rather dour picture of medical care spending:
This study's results aligned with the findings of a recent survey performed by the American Hospital Association, which found that the recession has had a significant effect on the country's medical providers.
According to its report, "[a]bout 70 percent of hospitals report fewer patient visits and elective procedures as family budgets remain tight and patients continue to delay or forgo care."
The numbers are significant for two reasons. First: Ignoring primary and preventive medical care often leads to more serious - and more expensive - problems in the future. But clearly, medical bills are at the front of many minds, as medical bills continue to be a leading cause of bankruptcy. The most recent reports list medical bills as a major factor in 60 percent of all bankruptcy filings.
According to reports, the new health care law could ameliorate some of the impacts of the recession on Americans' ability to afford routine medical care and pay their medical bills.
By the end of this decade, the law is supposed to provide insurance coverage for more than 30 million people who are currently uninsured. Further, the law will provide subsidized coverage for people with income up to four times the poverty level.
In addition, the new law aims to prevent insurers from charging deductibles or co-payments for routine preventative services, such as colonoscopies, mammograms and immunizations. Such a law will likely reduce the impact of tough economic times on the use basic health care services.
If increased medical costs have ruined your finances, consider contacting a personal lawyer to see if bankruptcy could help you handle your medical costs.
Copyright © 2018 MH Sub I, LLC. All rights reserved. ® Self-help services may not be permitted in all states. The information provided on this site is not legal advice, does not constitute a lawyer referral service, and no attorney-client or confidential relationship is or will be formed by use of the site. The attorney listings on this site are paid attorney advertising. In some states, the information on this website may be considered a lawyer referral service. Please reference the Terms of Use and the Supplemental Terms for specific information related to your state.Your use of this website constitutes acceptance of the "Terms & Conditions", "Supplemental Terms", "Privacy Policy" and "Cookie Policy."


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I Use Probability to Solve A Marital Mystery
Once again, I discovered my gym bag in the closet upside-down, and I was not the one who did this-- because I never put my gym-bag away, nor do I ever zip it shut-- but my wife often throws it into the closet and if it lands upside-down, then my gym equipment falls out of the bag: my goggles and socks and deodorant, etc.-- and though I noted this with frustration for years, it finally dawned on me . . . perhaps my wife was throwing the gym bag into the closet upside-down because she hated the fact that I always left it out, unzipped, with it's bowels exposed . . . because if she was just tossing it into the closet without any passive-aggressive anger, then 50% of the time it would land right-side up and 50% of the time it would land upside-down, but the gym bag ALWAYS seemed to land upside-down and, as I said, this had been happening for years so I had a decent sample size to evaluate, so I approached my wife about this and after a moment of denial she admitted that perhaps it did end up upside-down more than probability might dictate and that perhaps she was angry about my habit of leaving it out all the time, and so I told her I would try to put it away, and she promised not to throw it into the closet upside-down and the moral is: the key to a good marriage is clear communication and a grasp of basic probability.
5 comments:
- Lecky said...
if I want relationship advice I'll watch "The View", from SOD I expect bad music, musings on esoteric literature, and rants on how much you hate TV mixed in with all of your TV show reviews
- February 18, 2011 at 9:39 AM
- Igor said...
Early front runner for SOD comment of the year. Nice, Leck.
Dave -- Catherine indicated that she was really upset with you because you only wear your goggles at the gym and not during "business time."
- February 18, 2011 at 9:54 AM
- zman said...
Dave is immune to operant conditioning.
- February 18, 2011 at 11:35 AM
- Dave said...
i need to keep a file of great comments so i can have a comment of the year . . .
funny, i never saw the irony between the hating tv and the tv reviews-- i guess my brain shielded me from that.
- February 18, 2011 at 12:01 PM
I like that your "clear communication" took several years to sink in.
- March 30, 2011 at 4:46 PM
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


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Translation: Cottage by the sea
This is a silly, little sign I made for our front gate
whilst feeling homesick.
Its based on a song by musician, Koos Kombuis - Huise by die see.
He sings:
Everybody wants a cottage by the sea,
they just dont know that everything rusts, you cant get a job,
and the people are &*(^*ing "clicky"
but I feel alright with it because
I have a little cottage by the see.....
more of the song words - english translation:
"Everyone wants a cottage by the see,
Everyone hopes the struggle is past
Everyone says that life begins tomorrow
but tomorrow is to late for me....


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Guangwu Junior High School
Fighting Upstream
Once known as a "gangster school," Hsinchu's Guangwu Junior High School has turned to "nature exploration" outings to bury its bad reputation and sell students on education.
Fighting UpstreamBy Rebecca Lin
From CommonWealth Magazine (vol. 511 )
Chen Chun-chiang, a sophomore in National Taiwan University's Department of Bio-Industrial Mechatronics Engineering, still cannot forget the autumn of his 12th year, hiking up Mount Hehuan, a walking stick in hand, breathing in the rarefied air. The mountain's northern peak, set off by the blue sky and fluffy white clouds, remains etched in his memory.
Also hovering in his mind is the spring when he was 13, enjoying the thrill of a river tracing expedition in Hsinchu's Taigang River. That was followed by a tour of Green Island and its majestic ocean views during the winter. The next summer he built his own bicycle at the age of 14 and biked around Taiwan.
These many amazing adventures still fresh in Chen's mind have led him back more than once to his junior high school – Guangwu Junior High in Hsinchu. They are the collective memories shared by many of the school's graduates.
"When we went river tracing, the water was very cold, and one person alone could have easily been washed away. We had to form a team holding ourselves tightly together. Only by relying on everybody's strength was it possible to buck the river," Chen remembers. Those same youths battling the water and stretching out their arms to help their teammates had once been considered "bad kids" – dropouts who had no taste for school.
"Now that I'm a university student, looking back, I've completely forgotten everything from my Chinese, English and math classes. The only thing that's stayed with me is those exploration classes," says Chen, who is now a member of the National Taiwan University mountaineering club.
Entering Guangwu Junior High on a Friday afternoon when the school week should be winding down, one finds anything but calm.
In the school's huge auditorium, students donning yellow uniforms that read "Faraday Kids" are busy setting up chairs and checking the sound system. It is all for a "pot luck dinner" held to honor the achievements of students on the school's third biennial bicycling tour of Taiwan.
"We called them 'Faraday Kids' in the hope that every person has the Faraday spirit," says the driving force behind the school's innovative exploration curriculum, administrative director Lin Mao-cheng.
The program's namesake, Michael Faraday, the 19th century self-educated scientist known as the father of electromagnetism, was renowned for his popularization of scientific knowledge and his indefatigable thirst for knowledge through experimentation. Even at his height as a famous scientist, he would give free public science lectures and captivated audiences with his well-planned demonstrations.
Zero Dropout Rate
Guangwu Junior High School's transformation may seem hard to believe. Ten years ago, the school was branded a "gangster school" and widely shunned. Today, one of every four of its graduates gets high enough scores on their high school entrance exams to get into their first choice of high schools.
"Six years ago when I first got here, there were always 'black shirts' waiting at the gate," says an elderly security guard in the cold as he pulls his thin jacket closer to his body. (The "black shirts" generally refer to young hooligans who are part of crime gangs.)
The school reversed that tarnished reputation through its exploration classes emphasizing teamwork, and they quickly became a major draw for children of families working at the Hsinchu Science Park.
"This is the third year in which we've been listed as a controlled enrollment school. There just aren't enough classrooms, and we simply cannot accommodate so many students," says principal Huang Hsiao-fang. The school is also one of the very few in Taiwan that has a zero dropout rate.
"The exploration outings displace children from their comfortable environment into one where they have to rely completely on themselves and on their teams to succeed," says Kenneth Chen, the general manager of a management consulting firm who heads the school's parents association. The experience cannot be gained through books or taught in a classroom, Chen says.
On the bicycle tour around Taiwan, for example, more than 150 students registered, and they were divided into three teams. Each big team was divided into another three medium-sized teams, which were then split up into two small teams. All of the teams, big and small, were led by alumni in their high school or college years.
The students set off from Hsinchu under a scorching sun to bike the taxing northern cross-island highway to Yilan County. When tired, they slept on the grounds of schools they passed along the way. Dirty and sweaty, they could do little more than splash water from the faucet on their bodies to wash themselves.
During the 17-day, 900-kilometer journey, the students slept comfortably on a regular bed only once.
"We were not competing. The big teams had to be together at all times. If even one person was missing when it came time to eat, nobody could start their meal," says Liao Wen-pang, a teacher who was one of the main forces behind the activity.
The teams had to act in concert; no individualism was allowed. "But nobody was allowed to fall behind, either" added Liao, saying that the team heads would lend helping hands as needed.
The "Faraday spirit" was reflected throughout the trip. In Baihe in Tainan and Yuli in Hualian County, the teenagers set up a free "bicycle clinic." Some passed leaflets around nearby villages, telling anybody within earshot that owners of bicycles with flats or wheels coming off could send them to the "clinic" to be repaired for free. They were able to offer the service because they assembled every bike on the tour of Taiwan with their own hands, one part at a time.
At Evergreen Lily Elementary School in Pingdong County and Erlin Junior High School in Jhanghua County, the "Faraday Kids" also took apart the project they had entered in a science competition earlier in the year and made it the centerpiece of a class for the students they met.
Discovering One's Insignificance in Nature
"The scientific experiment we did was on magnetic fields," recalls Chen Chun-chiang, who participated in the first "Faraday Kids" bicycle tour. "But to package it into a class and teach students at another school was really a big challenge for us."
As the school's exploration education approach gained attention, it even attracted scholars wanting to study it in greater depth.
Huang Mao-tsai, an assistant researcher at the National Academy for Educational Research, has observed the phenomenon over the past five or six years by joining every one of Guangwu Junior High's journeys through nature and recording every trip.
"When people are in nature, they discover how insignificant they really are," Huang says. Another benefit is that students who do poorly in the classroom can easily turn into heroes outdoors. "They have the ability to help others, build self-confidence, and gain a sense of achievement."
That's because students with diverse abilities have more opportunity to use them in nature than when sitting in a classroom.
When river tracing or fording a stream, for example, the current can be strong enough to sweep a single person away, even if the water only comes up to the knees. Under such conditions, it takes at least three people to battle the current. The strongest usually pulls up the rear while the lightest goes in front, wading through the water with their upper bodies leaning forward to maintain their balance. The challenge of fighting 500 meters upstream is so arduous, it can take a full day.
Most importantly, the person in front blocks the current and is held in place by the outstretched arms of the people behind so that nobody gets swept away. Losing one's grip on a teammate can be catastrophic.
"Once they realize what needs to be done, they come together and help one another," says the school's Lin, who started with potential dropouts in mind when he set out to design the innovative curriculum 10 years ago.
Amazingly, soon after the exploration courses began, the school underwent a subtle but significant change.
From Gangsters to Lifesavers
The first step was creating harmony between the rival gangs that had infiltrated the school – the Taiwanese "Wind Blows Sand Gang" and the mainlander "United Bamboo Gang." In the raging currents of the river, members of the rival groups quickly understood that their lives' were in one another's hands.
The result?
Tested by nature, every person held on for dear life. Lin remembers seeing the students come to the realization that when faced with a common challenge, bitter enemies could work together.
The relationship between teachers and students also reached a turning point.
The teachers still had doubts about students whose grades were poor, and had trouble accepting them.
Then, Lin, who had just taken over as the school's academic director, took small teams of teachers grouped by the subjects they teach into the mountains to battle the river, with dropouts and weaker students acting as coaches. The teachers, who have the upper hand in the classroom, became the "vulnerable" ones once they entered the water. And the students, often at loggerheads with their teachers, were required to play the role of lifesavers.
"When you can see the strengths of each student, you clearly understand that every child is a gifted student," says Lin, who has given every teenager opportunities in multiple environments to show their abilities, creating a diversity of learning advantages.
Back at the Guangwu Junior High School auditorium on banquet night, students on the brightly lit stage put their hearts into performing "Faraday's Story," with 95 percent of parents in attendance. Every family brought one dish for the banquet.
The gentle-looking parents' association head Kenneth Chen thinks back to the strides his son has taken. "In the past he was self-centered. All he thought about was doing his homework and then playing video games."
But after experiencing the teamwork-oriented nature exploration outings, his son slowly became willing to accept the responsibility of being a class leader and interact with his classmates, Chen says, feeling that his son has truly changed for the better.
His conclusion? "The children at Guangwu Junior High are truly fortunate."
Translated from the Chinese by Luke Sabatier


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Sci recently covered a mouse paper on dieting and subsequent high fat eating in mice, and then she found THIS paper, on stress reactions in overweight humans! And I like how the two link up. So let's take a look at this one, and then go back to the OTHER one, and see how they fit together.
We are told all the time that obesity is a public health concern, and we're often told that causes include close proximity to McDonald's, and the fact that no one plays outdoors anymore. But there's also a correlation between obesity and stress. High levels of stress are associated with increased body weight, and in times of stress, we tend to go for high fat foods (aka comfort foods).
Comfort foods are thought to ACTUALLY comfort you and relieve your stress, by reducing stress hormone levels like those of corticotropin releasing factor. And stress is also an indicator for FUTURE weight gain, the more you're stressed, the more you're probably GOING to be stressed, and the more weight you may end up gaining (grad students around the world are DOOMED).
So how can we change this? Well, one way is by changing the food, but diets don't work, and may wonk out your stress system. What we COULD do is change the way we respond to stress.
And that might start with changing the reaction of our ventral striatum.
Jastreboff et al. "Body mass index, metabolic factors, and striatal activation during stressful and neutral-relaxing stated: an fMRI study" Neuropsychopharmacology, 2011.
So we know that in times of stress you're likely to eat. The eating makes the stress feel better, in part by hitting stress pathways, but ALSO by hitting reward-related pathways. In particular food (and sex, and drugs, and now rock and roll) activates the areas of reward circuitry involving dopamine in your brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is involved in pleasurable responses to stimuli like food (it's involved in lots of other things to, but this is what we're focusing on for the moment). Dopamine neurotransmission is also screwed up in states like drug addiction, as well as states like obesity. In fact, changes in dopamine receptors in areas like the ventral striatum (a big area in reward and dopamine) happen in people with binge eating and obesity in much the same was as happens to people with drug abuse problems.
So you've got the stress dysregulation, you've got dopamine dysregulation. How do the two interact?
To look at this, the scientists in this study look a bunch of normal weigh and overweight people, and put them in an fMRI scanner, which looks at blood flow to various brain areas in real time. They wanted to look at the response of the ventral striatum in response to stress in these people, as well as responses to normal states and relaxed states. So they picked three things, and presented them to the patients. They had a normal state, where the patients were read cued scenarios like remembering a day at the beach or walking in the park. They had a stressed state (previously submitted by the patients themselves) where they were told about a breakup, losing their job, unemployment, or the death of a loved one. And they had a "relaxed" state, which in this case used an alcohol cue of meeting a friend for drinks or having a party (Sci is not thrilled with this cue, but I'll tell you about it later).
And then they looked at their ventral striatums.
What you can see in the table above is the anxiety ratings that the patients gave for all of the scenarios. The overweight patients rated the high anxiety conditions as being significantly worse than the normal weight patients (I'd really like to know if they all got the same cues here, or if they used very personalized ones, because I think comparing stress in public speaking to the death of a loved one would be no comparison here…). The overweight individuals also showed higher anxiety responses to NEUTRAL conditions, which suggests that maybe they are more anxious as a group, which they might want to pursue more cause I think that's a REALLY interesting finding.
Now to the MRI.
The results in the MRI were similar to the self-rating of anxiety that the patients gave. The overweight participants showed higher activation in the ventral striatum in the normal and in the stress conditions. This finding is a little odd to me, as I'd expect the activation to not be related to the stress itself, but activation in the ventral striatum to be more related to things like craving, which could be induced by stress.
This was in fact what they were after, the authors state in the discussion that the increased activation of the ventral striatum might influence the desire for rewarding things like food.
So it appears that people who are overweight have increased ventral striatum activity in response to stress. Questions remain about things like whether they would have this response if they weren't overweight, and which came first, the weight or the anxiety response.
I've got three issues with this study.
1) I feel like they didn't go as far as they could have. Sure, they have different responses to stressful and neutral states between overweight and normal weight individuals, but could they change it? What if they trained the people in relaxation techniques or gave them therapy? Would the response to stressful states decrease in both the overweight and normal weight people? What about neutral states?
2) I really didn't like the alcohol cue, and I didn't particularly enjoy the neutral cue either. They did deliberately pick people who were "social" drinkers and consumed less than 7 drinks a week, but still. First off, not all people find drinking relaxing. Secondly, alcohol itself is a drug and a substance with significant social weight, and whether or not people are alcoholics, it has more significance than just relaxation. Finally, just because people SAY they drink less than 7 drinks a week, doesn't mean they actually DO, and you can drink less than 7 drinks a week and still have an issue (if a girl drinks all seven of those in one night per week, for example). I feel like this study might have been better using different cues, perhaps provided by the participants. Relaxing things like puppies and kittens and playing with your kids…and reading a novel in the park. Cause that's the other thing, I think that their neutral states might have been too relaxing. For many people, going for a walk or reading a book are ways to relax and might have that association. I feel like a more neutral condition might be a cue like, say, preparing dinner, filling out boring paperwork, or waiting at the hairdresser or something. I think then they might have had more interesting differences, but I'm not sure.
3) I'm not sure why they are looking in the ventral striatum and trying to correlate it with measures of anxiety. The ventral striatum and anxiety in generally don't tend to go together much (you'd think they'd be wanting to look in the amygdala, which is associated with a lot of fear and anxiety associated responses). And sure enough, they didn't get too much of a response (the differences are pretty small). I know that they want to relate it to things like overweight people having higher anxiety and then the activation in the ventral striatum driving them to seek out food to make them feel less stress, but if this is the case, why didn't they ask the participants what they wanted to EAT?! Like how hungry were they, how much could they go for a pizza right now, do they CRAVE food? Especially after exposure to the stressful condition, the results for this, correlated with activation in the ventral striatum, might have been really interesting.
But now let's get back to that mouse study previously, showing that stress causes mice to overeat, and that diet makes it worse. Those mice also showed an increased corticosterone response to stress. Unfortunately they didn't do any anxiety testing on them, but it is nice how these two studies go together. In mice AND humans, stress drives us to seek a high fat diet. I wonder if the methylation changes in the mice which changed their food responses also exist in the humans? The behavior of the humans seems to indicate that might be a possibility. Remember though, the mice had been on diets and then exposed to high fat, but it's very possible that the overweight people used in this study had a history of dieting. It'd be very interesting to see if the DIETING had anything to do with it, and how overweight people who have previously dieted differ from overweight people who haven't gone on a diet. Not only that, it'd be interesting to see how PEOPLE eat differently when exposed to stress, depending on weight and whether or not they've been dieting. While we can't look at the DNA methylation in the brains of humans (people tend to object to that), the mouse data may well tell us what could be happening to the humans responding in studies like this, and may tell us how to help change their responses.
Jastreboff, A., Potenza, M., Lacadie, C., Hong, K., Sherwin, R., & Sinha, R. (2010). Body Mass Index, Metabolic Factors, and Striatal Activation During Stressful and Neutral-Relaxing States: An fMRI Study Neuropsychopharmacology, 36 (3), 627-637 DOI: 10.1038/npp.2010.194


text:
The Wis Muff is a custom Green Russian Muff with added boost section and additional bass pot which unleashes ze Untergang.
The graphic might easily be mistaken for a picture of the Bocca della Verità in Rome but indeed is a snapshot of Zardoz doing his post-apocalyptic thing ...
Zardoz speaks to you, his chosen ones.
You have been raised up from Brutality, to kill the Brutals who multiply, and are legion.
To this end, Zardoz your God gave you the gift of the Gun.
The Gun is good!


text:
The Biostatistical Consulting Laboratory (BCL), offered by the Department of Biostatistics, offers statistical service in areas that professional biostatisticians are often involved. These include, but are certainly not limited to, assistance with study design, data analysis, and education services and are available free-of-charge to members of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and VCU Health System. Policies related to the BCL can found here for research and education requests.
Collaborators requesting biostatistical support from the BCL should expect to work with at least one graduate student in Biostatistics. Along with providing a professional service, students receive formal training in collaborating with researchers and credit toward their graduate degrees. All work performed in the BCL will be supervised and approved by a faculty member of the Department of Biostatistics.
Requests for either research assistance or biostatistical training can be made using the links below.
Software used in this effort is partially supported by CTSA award No. UL1TR002649 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.


text:
Sydney: Two-time major champion and world number three Rory McIlroy will play in this year's Australian Open, organisers said on Saturday.
It will be the 24-year-old Northern Irishman's first appearance at the Australian Open since 2007 when he tees off at the Royal Sydney Golf Club for the November 28-December 1 tournament.
"It's been a few years since I last competed in an Australian Open. I competed in 2006 when I was still an amateur and then a year later after just turning pro," McIlroy (picture) said.
"Both were in Sydney and I've always enjoyed myself in Sydney so I am very much looking forward to returning to Royal Sydney."
On his last Australian Open appearance six years ago McIlroy finished well down the field in a share of 59th with scores of 74, 74, 76 and 77.
McIlroy won the 2011 US Open at Congressional and 2012 US PGA Championship at Kiawah Island among his six PGA Tour victories, and joins Australia's world number four and Masters champion Adam Scott in the Sydney field.
McIlroy said this week that he has also accepted an invitation to play in the Tiger Woods-hosted World Challenge from December 5-8 at the Sherwood Country Club course in Los Angeles.


text:
Giant Slick Teflon Stainless Steel Derailleur Cable - Each
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This is a Giant Slick Teflon Coated Stainless Steel Derailleur Cable. Giant's Teflon-coated derailleur cable assures lightning-quick shifting and is pre-stretched for high responsiveness and to reduce annoying adjustments after first use. This galvanized cable is double ended for use with Campagnolo or Shimano/SRAM drivetrains.
1.1mm x 2100mm
Important note: Plastic Ferrules must be used with coated cables to slow coating wear.
This product was added to our catalog on July 21, 2014


text:
Botswana Innovation Hub @ Africa Outsourcing Summit, London, UK
Botswana Innovation Hub participated at the Commonwealth Business Council – Africa Outsourcing Summit in London in March 2009. You can Download the Speech by Botswana High Commisioner in London, HE Mr. Roy Blackbeard.
You can also download the speech by the Coordinator, Mrs. Marianne Nganunu on Alternative Energy: A Case for Botswana.
For further information, please contact the Coordinator of Botswana Innovation Hub
at firstname.lastname@example.com or (+267) 7131 1651.


text:
It's time again for Take Five, when HOH talks with a member of Congress about topics relatively unrelated to legislative work.
This week, the Dean of the House, Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., who has been attending States of the Union since being elected in 1964, talks about hearing Lyndon B. Johnson speak, Detroit and his long tenure in public office. Q : Which president do you think gave the best State of the Union speeches?


text:
Broward County officials have approved another $70,000 in architectural fees to change courthouse offices so they can be used by judges and their staffs instead of by county government workers.
The money will increase the interim construction fund from $40,000 to $110,000, but was $7,000 less than requested by Michael A. Shiff and Associates, architect for the county's $50.6 million master plan for the judicial complex.
"I'm uncomfortable with a pot of money," said County Commissioner Nicki Grossman, a member of the negotiating committee on contract changes for the complex. "If it's sitting there, someone will find a way to spend it."
Grossman recommended limiting the fund to $110,000 instead of the $117,000 Shiff wanted. The amount approved will cover more than $48,000 in work already begun and not billed to the county, but not all of a projected $32,300 in costs for changes planned.
The interim renovations are necessary to convert space once used by the Broward Sheriff's Office and county administration and service departments that have moved from the courthouse to new facilities.
The space is being converted into courtrooms and office space for judicial personnel for the next five to 10 years while the planned criminal justice building is constructed.


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Hakkasan To Open in San Francisco, Fugu Sake For Those Who Dare & More
Hakkasan To Open Its Doors Dec. 3
A splashy new, modern Chinese restaurant will debut Dec. 3 in downtown San Francisco.
Hakkasan — with branches already up and running or under construction in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, London, the Middle East and India — will encompass a 170-seat, 10,000-square-foot space on the second floor of the One Kearny building in San Francisco.
Known for its eye-popping prices and gilded interiors, Hakkasan tapped the Parisian design firm, Gilles & Boissier, to create a dramatic V-shaped bar to play off the building's wedge-shaped design. Look for stone, glass, steel, dark-stained oak, Calcutta marble, colored mirrors, silks and embroidered leather to customize the look.
The restaurant, which will be open daily, will offer Cantonese-style dim sum, as well as an extensive wine and sake list.
Executive Chef Ho Chee Boon, who has worked at the original Hakkasan in London, will be crafting dishes inspired by San Francisco's dedication to organic ingredients. Look for "Jasmine Tea Smoked Short Ribs," "Braised Kurobuta Pork Belly with Aged Vinegar," and "Prawn and Pak Choi Dumplings."
Ame Serves Up Fugu — In Sake
Yes, fugu, the prized Japanese fish that can be lethal in the wrong hands, will be served up at Ame in San Francisco in an unusual sake.
The restaurant, in the St. Regis Hotel, has taken the fins from the fish, roasted them, then steeped them in sake. The result is a drink that's unique, rich and complex.
Honjozo style "Karatamba" Sake from Hyogo Prefecture, Japan will be available at the restaurant from December through February 2013. A six-ounce glass is served warm with a toasted fugu fin for $15.
Be the first on your block to try it — and live to brag about it.
Curry Up Now Opens in Palo Alto
What started as a food truck has now blossomed into two restaurants, the first in San Mateo and the newest in downtown Palo Alto.
Curry Up Now's Indian-inspired Tex-Mex tacos, deconstructed samosa burrito, "ItsyBitsy Naan Bits," and other Indian-inspired quick-service items can be found at its newest locale at 321 Hamilton Ave.
The 49-seat venue is open daily.


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Einheuser Legal Group has been assisting families for more than 30 years. We specialize in estate and retirement planning and paying for long term care. We help our clients identify their hopes for the future as well as their fears. Then we customize an estate plan uniquely suited for them. The result isn't just a collection of legal documents. It's Peace of Mind.
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Bingham Farms, MI 48025


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Mary J. Blige risked serious jet lag to help Michael Kors celebrate his line's 30th anniversary at Paris fashion week. She flew there for the day to sing at the designer's party, where Kors made a special request to Blige for a rendition of "Stairway to Heaven." Jennifer Hudson, Andre Leon Talley, Claudia Schiffer, Aerin Lauder, Zoe Saldana and Amber Heard danced to Blige hits "One Love" and "Family Affair." She told the crowd her next project will be playing Nina Simone in a biopic about the jazz/blues singer.
Flying friend
By PageSix.com Staff
March 8, 2011 | 5:00am


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For a long time, the cure for diabetes type 1 and type 2 has relied on agonizing insulin shots for patients or insulin infusion via mechanical pumps. Regarding this, experts have been creating artificial pancreatic beta cells with the he…
In this report, the United States Computer Case market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022.
Geographically, this report splits the United States market into seven regions:
- The West
- Southwest
- The Middle Atlantic
- New England
- The South
- The Midwest
with sales (volume), revenue (value), market share and growth rate of Computer Case in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast).
United States Computer Case market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Computer Case sales volume, price, revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players including
- Areocool
- Antec
- Apevia
- Compucase
- Cooler master
- Corsair
- Cougar
- In Win
- Lian Li
- Raidmax
- Roswill
- SilverStone
- Thermaltake
- Thermaltake
- Winsis
- Xion
On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into
- Aluminum Case
- Plastic Case
- Metal-Plastic Case
On the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, market share and growth rate of Computer Case for each application, including
- Personal Use
- Commercial Use
If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.


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The result of a high-tech tape-trading spree between two artists from opposite ends of the earth, Ballad Of The Broken Seas riffs on a masculine and feminine narrative that is at once timeless and timeworn. With his elemental growl and rural gothic sensibility, ex-Screaming Tree Mark Lanegan sounds like hes gargled on a hundred miles of bad road, while Isobel Campbells otherworldly coo reminds us why shes Glasgows poster girl of twee. As solo performers, both singers fashion evocative set pieces that are often arresting but a bit monochromatic. Together, they make up for each others shortcomings by balancing his strum and twang with her sweetness and light. Recorded mostly in separate studios and stitched together via the internet, Ballad Of The Broken Seas is a collaboration built on contrasts and consonance.
Both artists draw from a deep well of other sources: Lanegan takes his old-as-the-hills country blues with a chaser of Nick Cave and Thin White Rope, while Campbells voice swoons with the breathless naivety of Claudine or early Marianne Faithful. Its a fruitful and complimentary cross-pollination of styles, with Campbell tenderizing Lanegans rough edges, and Lanegan injecting a serrated edge into Campbells feather-lite soft rock tendencies. On tunes like Revolver and (Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me?, Lanegans basso profundis ruminations sound better leavened by Campbells dulcet tones, his world weary tales of woe elevated by her frictionless wisp of a voice. The tension created between their voices adds a layer of depth and emotional range often absent in their solo recordings.
Everything on Ballad Of The Broken Seas is tastefully arranged without being overdone, with elegant string sections washing over brooding Morriconesque guitar lines. At times, Campbell and Lanegan tend to overly worship their musical precursors. Deus Ibi Est and The False Husband borrow mightily from the Lee & Nancy template, while Ramblin Man apes the clangor and languor of classic Tom Waits. A folk ballad called Black Mountain is spoiled by a melody that is simply too close to Scarborough Fair. And the title track has Lanegan trying to maintain his gravitas while tossing off clichés like drown in an ocean of tears (and, of course, rhyming that with beers).
The best songs here are often the most offhand. Saturdays Gone sports a wonderfully understated wood block and chimes figure and sounds a bit like Black Box Recorder, while Dusty Wreath is a charmingly slight chamber piece that couldve been lifted off the Rosemarys Baby soundtrack, all saccharine creepiness and childlike piano twinkles. In the end, there is nothing too paradigm-shifting to be found here, just a nice genre pastiche from two unique talents who wont disappoint their fans.
By Lawrence Lui


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The head of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration is on her way out just as negotiations heat up with federal officials over Gov. Mike Pence's alternative to a traditional Medicaid expansion.
Secretary Debra Minott said Monday she will be "transitioning out" of her role as leader of the state's largest agency over the next month.
"I have appreciated the opportunity to serve FSSA and the taxpayers of Indiana for the past 17 months," Minott said. "We have all worked together to re-establish FSSA as an integrated, collaborative agency."
A source close to Pence had said earlier Monday that the administration had begun discussions with Minott "about a change in direction" at the agency. A few hours later, the secretary released her statement.
It comes as the state continues crucial negotiations with federal officials over Pence's plan to expand the state's Healthy Indiana Plan to more low-income Hoosiers using Medicaid dollars.
The governor's press secretary, Kara Brooks, said that Pence "holds Secretary Minott in the highest regard and believes she has served the people of Indiana with integrity and professionalism."
The state's formal application for a waiver of Medicaid rules is due at the end of this month and Minott has been traveling across the state explaining the details of the Pence proposal at public hearings.
On Monday morning, the secretary appeared at a Community Health Network event in Indianapolis to discuss the proposal.
Pence appointed Minott to the FSSA post after he was inaugurated last year. It was one of the last key positions he filled in the administration. She had served previously as director of the state's personnel department and in executive or legal roles with Hill-Rom, a medical device manufacturer in Batesville; CarDon & Associates Inc.; and with Eli Lilly and Co.
In her statement, Minott said she will be working "with the governor's office to ensure an orderly transition to new leadership."


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Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
BJJ is a martial art, combat sport, and a self defense system that focuses on grappling and especially ground fighting. The art was derived from the Japanese martial art of Kodokan judo in the early 20th century.
It teaches that a smaller, weaker person can successfully defend against a bigger, stronger assailant by using leverage and proper technique—most notably by applying joint-locks and chokeholds to defeat the other person. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training can be used for sport grappling tournaments (gi and no-gi) and mixed martial arts (MMA) competition or self defense. Sparring (commonly referred to as 'rolling') and live drilling play a major role in training.


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Louis Menand's book "The Metaphysical Club," published earlier this year, charts the lives, thought and legacy of four extraordinary American thinkers, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey. For these men, and for their generation, all moral assumptions were turned upside down by Civil War, while their view of the universe was reconstructed by the publication of "The Origin of Species," in which Charles Darwin laid out his theory of evolution.
Menand's book tells the story of how these men led a revolution of ideas, finding their way out of the intellectual confusion left by the war. The result was a philosophy they called Pragmatism, which deeply influenced the 20th century's approach to law, education, politics and faith. Menand talked to Beliefnet recently about evolution, religion and science in this critical, but often overlooked, period in American history.
The period you write about-from the Civil War to the early 1900s--was really when science and theology part company.
I think they split right after the Civil War. You can see it in the history of higher education. Before the war, a university's religious position defined its curriculum, who the faculty were and what they did. After the war, the emphasis is on scientific research. Universities were happy, after the war, to sponsor research that wasn't expressly religious--though they didn't want it to be irreligious--and to separate those activities they associated with religion. So there is this kind of decorum that says science is about things that we measure and add up, and religion by definition is metaphysical and we can't talk about it in a scientific way.
That's been the case ever since. Science and religion just don't hook up. Recently there's a lot of interest in getting those two fields hooked up again, but for a long time they haven't been.
There's a stunning moment in "The Metaphysical Club" when the great 19th century naturalist Louis Agassiz gets his comeuppance in a debate at Harvard. Agassiz, who had his doubts about evolution, insisted God had created the world pretty much as we found it. In a debate at Harvard, Agassiz is told, "You're scientific position can't be argued. It's a matter of faith." It feels like a knockout punch, for Agassiz, but also for faith-based science.
But it's interesting to note that Agassiz wasn't particularly religious, but he believed in the Creator, and he used that belief to explain the natural world. It was an argument that worked for him by the canons of an earlier era, in which theology and science were not thought of as discreet pursuits. It was natural that to him that his religious instincts would be confirmed by the way the world was organized. His opponent in that debate, Asa Gray, was actually quite religious. But Gray belonged to a different scientific world, in which you accumulated data and subject it to statistical analysis. He thought that Agassiz didn't know how to do that, so he wasn't practicing science anymore.
Agassiz couldn't see the other way of doing things. It just didn't make sense to him. And suddenly one of the leading naturalists in the world wasn't on the map after 1860. It's an interesting moment. And reading Agassiz today, you do feel that he falls back on his faith, and it is a trump card that you start losing respect for after a while.
Suddenly the universe is not headed in any particular direction. Changes in the environment and in the gene pool create changes in the organism, and it can swing one way of the other indefinitely.
A lot of scientists and philosophers tried to find some consolation in evolution theory by saying that this is just the process by which God has provided to make progress toward some goal.The philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce's whole mission after reading Darwin was to wed an orderly, static idea of the universe with the insights of Darwin into the role chance. He said general laws of the universe are subject to chance variation. They evolve over time and are not permanent. They change as the universe changes. At the same time, he felt that ultimately chance would be eliminated and the universe would be subject to perfect laws. In the long run, everything would conduce to an orderly system.
Now William James and John Dewey didn't think that, and that's what makes them Pragmatists. What they learned from Darwin was that the universe is unfinished. The way we live now is the way we'll always live, without knowing what's going to happen tomorrow, or whether our hypotheses are true.Chance, they said, is an element of existence and it won't go away.


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Residents' rights brochures
Brochures on residents' rights in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities and another brochure on the ombudsman program protecting those residents are available from the Department of Aging and Disabilities. The brochures are titled "Resident's Rights in Nursing Homes/Rehabilitation Centers in Maryland," "Resident's Rights in Assisted Living Facilities in Maryland" and "Ombudsman: Your Resident Advocate." Information: 410-222-4464 or aacounty.org/aging.
Senior services
The Anne Arundel County Department of Aging and Disabilities has published its 2011-2012 edition of "Services for Seniors, Adults with Disabilities and Caregivers." The directory includes information on rental and housing assistance, legal help, county Social Services benefits and caregiver information. Free copies are available at the department's headquarters, 2666 Riva Road, fourth floor, Annapolis; the seven senior activity centers; county libraries; at CVS, Food Lion and WaWa stores; and online at http://www.aacounty.org/aging. Information: 410-222-4257.


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There are those simple moments in life that you always remember fondly, moments that have left an indelible impression on you, even though the event itself wasn't Earth-shattering. Sometimes, the beautiful simplicity of a moment of pure joy just sticks with you regardless of the passage of time. This is one of those moments.
The moment in question occurred in the late summer of 1982. I was six months into my first marriage, and my wife and I lived in a small apartment in Brighton, near the Chestnut Hill area, just a stone's throw from Boston College.
I was working third shift as a computer operator at the time, so there was always that interesting transitional day when you shift from sleeping during the day to being awake, like the vast majority of so-called normal people.
On this particular occasion, I decided to spend my lunchtime at this small park located adjacent to the Chestnut Hill reservoir. There was (and perhaps still is?) a nifty ice cream and sub shop called the Fantastic Food Factory, located just a few blocks from our apartment. This place had the most amazing ice cream and huge sub sandwiches (although their pizza could be described charitably as "vile"). The place was the favored go-to site for our gaming dinner breaks.
Anyways, on this particular day, I left our apartment with a newly acquired paperback, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, the novella by H.P. Lovecraft. This book was one in a series of Lovecraft books that I had picked up and was in the process of devouring, having only recently learned about ol' HPL courtesy of a D&D sourcebook called Deities and Demigods.
I went to FFF and picked up a large mushroom, steak and cheese sub (note: "large" as in "about three-foot long", and that's no exaggeration), a liter bottle of Mountain Dew (no, not Diet Dew..the real stuff), and a cup of Apple Pie ice cream. I took my loot and went to the little park off the reservoir, found a nice grassy spot underneath a large oak, and proceeded to pig out while reading Lovecraft.
And that was my afternoon. Pigging out on "not good for you" food, while reading "Charles Dexter Ward" for the very first time, punctuated with the occasional lazily drifting off for a several-minute catnap as the urge hit.
A moment of sheer beauty, never to be forgotten!


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The yellow grating was installed in the tube passageways like so. The firewalls/doors in the passageways, and the grating walkway around the new garage, wouldn't be installed until the garage building was completed in 1999. The walkway connections in the old garage/LO arch wouldn't happen until 2008 when that facility was created.
The downwind passageway/tube would only get a single door, so it was narrower and elliptical. The last bit of the new garage arch foundation is visible through the opening.
All of the photos on this page are from Chris Rock except for those noted (C) from Carlton Walker, and one from Jim Mathews (JM). And forgive me, I had trouble adjusting the photo colors on these pages..each one taken individually doesn't look bad, but put next to each other...???
While all this was going on, the new high-speed satellite internet/data link was being created.


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With Altdorf behind, the Altdorf Band has a long trip through Drakwald Forrest ahead. With no food, water, guide, map or equipment it was clearly not going to be a picknick. Never the less they pushed on… Ambushed by goblins, cleaved by a trolls, fighting beastment and mutants alike and avoiding Knights Panthers, the band finally makes it to Kietchdorf.
Kietchdorf seems to hold a secret with almost everyone being sick. The band first equipped up at the Seasoned Traveller. After catching a bit of rumours at the Arm and the Hammer, they did tell the smith about his dead family. Yes, he hanged himself next morning.
The band also learned about the Hahn family. More or less the rulers of the place for a good while. Seems some ill fortune fell upon the place, and the saying is that Villa Hahn is haunted.
The band managed to catch a nurgle cultist by the well. He revealed, after some torture, that he was working for Tobias.
The party later took off towards Ruhrhoff. Here they discovred the house of Ansel Vorman, and found prints of the necklace. A cult attacked them, and it lead to a nasty fight which the Altdorf Band won.
Ready to travel off towards Villa Hahn, to stop a ritual…
… but will they make it in time?


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Click here to read the October 2016 edition of Education Together.
Education Together
Education Together, October 2016
March 04, 2017 12:30 PM
About Education Together
Education Together is a collaboration between The Telegraph and community partners to provide needs-based scholarships to students in seven Middle Georgia counties. The awards will defray the cost of education at designated colleges in our area. For more information about eligibility requirements for an Education Together scholarship and how to apply, click here.


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Rafał Blechacz
Rafał Blechacz's profound affinity for Bach's music flows through his first-ever album of the composer's keyboard works for Deutsche Grammophon
Praised by the Washington Post as "a musician in service to [Bach's] music, searching its depths, exploring its meaning and probing its possibilities", the now 31-year-old Rafał Blechacz, winner of the 2005 International Chopin Piano Competition, has been immersed in Bach since childhood and has cultivated a strikingly natural eloquence in his mature interpretations of the composer's keyboard works.
Blechacz's first Bach album, set for release on Deutsche Grammophon on 10 February, opens with one of the pianist's signature pieces, the Italian Concerto BWV 971, and includes the Partitas No.1 in B flat major BWV 825 and No.3 in A minor BWV 827. The programme also comprises the four Duets BWV 802-805, enigmatic pieces from Part Three of the Clavier-Übung, the Fantasie and Fugue in A minor BWV 944, and the chorale Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring as transcribed for piano by Dame Myra Hess.
Rafał Blechacz approaches each of these works with an awareness of the history of Bachian performance. Knowing about period instruments and performance practice, he agrees, can help reveal how the composer might have intended his music to be played. Yet he is also convinced that, when it comes to bringing Bach's music to life, head must never rule heart. "Of course, it's very important to be well informed about Baroque style," he observes. "But sometimes with Bach I feel it's even more important to listen to your heart and your intuition."
His own intuition flows not least from his formative experience as an organist. Young Rafał cut his musical teeth on Bach's principal instrument, playing organ for several years before turning full time to piano. In addition to playing for services at the main church in his hometown of Nakło nad Notecią, he also gave occasional recitals there long after becoming a pianist. "I was fascinated by the organ, and many of my earliest musical memories are of listening to the organ in church," he recalls. "I wanted to be an organist but then tried piano and realised it was probably the right instrument for me." It felt natural, he adds, to continue exploring Bach's keyboard works following his conversion. "Even when it became clear that piano was my instrument, I was determined to play Bach."
Soon after his Chopin Competition triumph, Blechacz received permission to play the recently installed organ at Warsaw's Philharmonic Hall. He spent three hours at its console, playing Bach and improvising pieces inspired by the composer's keyboard music. "There was no one else there and I had the luxury to play at will," he recalls. "It was just four days after the Chopin Competition, so for me it was a special prize."
He notes how keyboard skills developed at the organ, especially those related to the production of a singing line, have enriched his technical resources as a pianist. "Bach on the organ sometimes teaches me the most appropriate legato. In playing Bach on piano I use the organ legato, which involves a variety of different fingering techniques, to keep the clarity of sound and its naturalness. That's why it was so important for me to find a grand piano with a very bright tone for this recording. Of course, the modern concert piano sounds completely different from the instruments of three hundred years ago, but the player should still develop a very specific intonation for this type of music."
Blechacz's recollection of organ-playing techniques and of the instrument's musical characteristics influenced his reading of Bach's little-known Fantasia and Fugue in A minor BWV 944, guiding him to set aside crescendos and decrescendos in favour of sudden dynamic contrasts. "And this idea also influences the tempo, since you simply can't play as quickly on an organ," he adds. "You can learn a lot from the organ, not only in Bach but also in the many polyphonic passages in Chopin."
The close relationship between sound, physical gesture and emotion in music matters to Rafał Blechacz. As a doctoral student at Nicolaus Copernicus University in the northern Polish city of Toruń, he has spent countless hours contemplating Bach's aesthetic. The depth of his reflections can be felt throughout this album, clearly so in his approach to the composer's musical rhetoric and language of expression. Bach's slow movements, he notes, offer a key to understanding the composer's spiritual and philosophical outlook. "You mustn't play them in an overly Romantic manner, not that this means that the music doesn't express emotions – quite the opposite, in fact. It's just that it's not the subjectively coloured world of emotion that you find in Chopin in particular and more generally in the Romantics. Bach presents a religious or, rather, a contemplative and metaphysical world."


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Sunday, July 27, 2008
Since I have been so busy blogging about blogging, I bet you are wondering how the 'ole diet is going. For that, I did manage to drag myself out of the blogosphere (that's what they call it). I updated my spreadsheet, trying to sort through my hazy memory in order to determine exactly how many beers, chips, mozzarella-tomato thingies, and glasses of wine I had last night. My slight headache and gorilla breath indicate that it could be a few more glasses than I might like to admit. And then there was the cheesecake. I had been forewarned of this fabulous concoction, because my friend is actually considering marketing it. Anne, I think you have a winner, as I would definitely pay money to eat your cheesecake again. Luckily, I don't have to - there's more in the fridge!
But sigh....once again, the diet goal has not been reached. So close! Yet so far away. At least the glass is half-full, though. I got back to the gym, and after the storm on Wednesday night, we had three days of gorgeous weather so I took the mountain bike out. I had hoped this trend would continue a few more days, but alas, I am currently typing on my porch and sweating like a really sweaty thing. (Forgive me, I just want to go inside to my air conditioning now.)
Hopefully I can redeem myself from my shameful addiction to baked goods this week. Did I mention there's more cheesecake in the fridge??
3 comments:
- CaraBee said...
I hear you on the blogging addiction. I'm totally and completely hooked. When we go to visit my family this week in Kansas, I won't be able to check my blog and accompanying stats or read other people's blogs with the frequency I am used to, and it might be a little painful.
And I could totally go for some cheesecake right now.
- July 27, 2008 at 10:09 AM
- Mel said...
Hello, my name is Mel (HI, MEL!) and I'm a blog-aholic. I spend more time on my blog than I do just about anything else in my life. SIGH!
I also share your cheesecake addiction. Did you know Eli's makes (get ready for this) cheesecake-on-a-stick? It's a piece of cheesecake dipped in chocolate and stuck on a stick for portable eatability. It should be outlawed!!!
- July 27, 2008 at 7:18 PM
- Danielle Mari said...
HI. I'm Danielle (HI DANIELLE!) and I'm a blog-aholic. It's like, Google gave it to me for free... and then I got completely hooked. And the next thing I knew, I'm typing into a laptop with a dying battery at midnight.
Not so much with the cheesecake- but anything chocolate and fuuuuuGEt about it!
Thanks. I feel much better.
- July 29, 2008 at 12:26 AM