text:
Note: This item is more than seven years old. Please take the publication date into consideration for any date references.
Print – Plain Text – Permalink
News Release
Media Contact: TPWD News, firstname.lastname@example.com, 512-389-8030
Sept. 22, 2011
'Lost Pines' Experience Lives on at Buescher State Park
BASTROP – State park fans reeling from the closure of Bastrop State Park due to destruction caused by the recent wildfire that blackened all but 100 acres of the park can still enjoy a fall outing in the "Lost Pines" by visiting its nearby sister state park that escaped unscathed and reopened this week.
Buescher State Park, a 1,017-acre park just 13 miles east of better-known Bastrop State Park, opened to campers, picnickers, hikers and anglers on Tuesday after being closed since Sept. 4 due to the threatening wildfires. Its scenic loblolly pine and mixed hardwood woodlands, as well as all of its facilities, were untouched by the conflagration that swept through the county.
Outdoor lovers who may have been planning a visit to Bastrop State Park during the cooler autumn months should know that Buescher State Park, situated two miles northwest of Smithville, offers a similar quality outdoor experience amid the iconic "Lost Pines" and Post Oak Savannah ecological region. Like Bastrop, Buescher (pronounced Bish-er) also reflects the enduring craftsmanship of the Civilian Conservation Corps companies who in 1933 built its stone culverts, park entrance, spacious group pavilion and recreation hall, which is currently undergoing extensive renovations.
"The reason most people come here is that it's a little quieter and slower-paced than Bastrop," says park superintendent Cullen Sartor. "If people still want to experience the Lost Pines, they can come here and see our sizeable stand of the giant loblollies. We also have campgrounds and a popular 25-acre lake that offers great fishing and non-motorized boating opportunities."
Buescher State Park offers a variety of camping and recreational choices. Overnight guests can choose from among three distinct camping areas offering everything from mini-cabins and screened shelters to 65 campsites geared toward tent campers and RV users as well. Persons 13 and older pay a $4 entry fee; children 12 and under get in free.
The park's three climate-controlled, limited use cabins (they don't have restrooms) prove popular with those seeking some creature comforts and greater privacy. Renting for $75 a night, the cabins come equipped with a ceiling fan, mini-refrigerator, microwave, breakfast table and chairs, and double bunk beds that sleep four. They are located in the Oak Haven Camping Area, which features restrooms with showers.
When the weather is mild, some Buescher customers opt for one of the four screened shelters overlooking Park Lake in the Day Use Area. The shelters rent for $25 or $45 a night, depending on the amenities.
The handsome, rock CCC-constructed group picnic pavilion, which has a large fireplace and can accommodate 35, rents daily for $40. Built in 1936 for $646, the pavilion anchors the Lakeview Camping Area. The park's historic Recreation Hall remains closed for extensive renovations made possible by voter-approved Proposition 4 park bonds.
Reservations for accommodations and campsites can be made by calling the reservations center in Austin at (512) 389-8900 or online through the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department website: tpwd.texas.gov.
In addition to camping and fishing, birding and hiking prove popular at Buescher. More than 250 bird species have been documented, including pileated woodpeckers and green kingfishers. Hikers can trek portions of a multi-loop hiking trail built by the local Sierra Club in the northern reaches of the park or tackle the entire 7.5 miles that wind through the hilltop pineywoods and bottomland deciduous forests.
So, while Bastrop State Park recovers, come discover one of the Texas State Park system's lesser-known treasures less than an hour's drive from the state capital.
Buescher State Park is located two miles northwest of Smithville, off Farm Road 153, just north of State Highway 71. For more information about the park, call (512) 237-2241.
On the Net:
Publication — Permission is granted to publish, in whole or in part, any news releases on this page.
Print — A print-friendly version of the news release shows only the release with font sizes set to the browser default.
Plain Text — Plain text versions of TPWD news releases are provided for copying and pasting into editing software.
To copy text into an editing software:
- Click a Plain Text link to display the plain text page in your browser.
- Select all.
- Copy.
- Paste in a document in your editing program.
Permalink — This is a direct link to the news release, omitting the navigation context from the URI.
English/Spanish — News releases posted in both English and Spanish have one of these links.
If you have any suggestions for improving these pages, send an e-mail to email@example.com and mention Plain Text Pages.


text:
Diana DeGarmo and Ace Young Get Engaged on 'American Idol' Season 11 Finale
Romance was in the air on the 'American Idol' Season 11 finale tonight (May 23), when Season 5 contestant Ace Young got down on one knee to propose to Season 3 runner-up Diana DeGarmo.
Host Ryan Seacrest was addressing all the 'Idol' alum in the crowd when he escorted Young and DeGarmo on to the stage. The lights dimmed, and Young delivered the sweetest, sappiest and most "aw" inducing speech!
He stated that they both conquered Broadway, created music, have an amazing group of friends around them and said he wanted to make the fun last forever. That's when he pulled out the ring and asked her to marry him, saying he loves her to death and she is his best friend.
Through tears, she smiled and said yes, with Seacrest standing beside them, smiling approvingly.
You see, 'Idol' is not just about jump-starting careers, creating superstars and entertaining millions of American viewers week in and week out, year in and year out. It's also about fostering love.
Congrats to Ace Young and Diana DeGarmo on their engagement, witnessed by millions. Have a happy life, guys. Make talented babies, too. How can they not, with that musical DNA?
Watch Ace Young Propose to Diana DeGarmo on 'Amercian Idol'

subset: commoncrawl


text:
23 February 2013 at 6.34pm | 4 Comments
Tonight (23 February 2013) sees the final performance of a programme of short ballets by the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet, Frederick Ashton. Among the works featured are a tribute to the Viennese waltz (La Valse) and the modernist Monotones I and II.
The reunion of Sergei Polunin and Tamara Rojo for Marguerite and Armand has been hotly anticipated and in the film below Tamara talks about the poignancy of her farewell performance with The Royal Ballet.
For those who crave more behind the scenes material, the cinema screenings will feature additional footage. Following a summer cinema release in July 2013, the DVD will go on sale at the end of 2013 / start of 2014.
You can also watch a piece of rehearsal footage of Royal Ballet Principals Edward Watson, Marianela Nunez and Federico Bonelli being coached in Monotones II by Anthony Dowell (Former Director of The Royal Ballet) and Lynn Wallis (Principal Coach). On the day of the recording for cinema and DVD Nehemiah Kish replaced Federico Bonelli. The rest of the cast remained the same.
Follow us on Twitter for the latest cinema release dates or sign up for email updates about our cinema programme.


text:
Creator: Yuan Xulei
Ext. Version: 1.0.0
Release date: 2013-06-01
Description: Let you mute the Firefox browser.
Extension is compatible to: ( 4.0 - 15.0a1)
Included locales: ca cs de el en-US es-AR es-ES fi fr he it ja-JP lt nl pl sr sv-SE th tr zh-CN zh-TW
View on WTS -- Download the extension
Edited by yxl, 23 May 2013 - 12:29 PM.


text:
The first watch in our new series of English made watches; the Shackleton Watch is inspired by the thrill of British adventure and boasts a rugged, but traditional design. Made in a small factory set amongst the rolling English countryside, it has been a journey and goal of Smart Turnouts to manufacture quality products, here on home soil.
The Shackleton Watch is an intricate yet masculine homage to old English style. Housed in a solid stainless steel case, the metal is brushed which prompts a wearable and smart look. A true highlight of the timepiece is undoubtedly it's exposed skeleton back case that offers a beautiful insight into the watch's inner workings and the Automatic Miyota 8215 movement that powers it. The watch features a black textured geometric back dial, adding depth and character the watches face. Accented with classic Roman numerals to play to its heritage, it is finished with three hands and a useful date display making it an ideal choice for the office. Fit for an adventurer such as Ernest Shackleton himself, the design is durable and water resistant up to 10ATM. This edition comes with our heritage black herringbone 2 piece strap and travel pouch, for a truly British look.
• Made in England
• Miyota 8215 Automatic
• Brushed Stainless Steel Silver Case
• Black Watch Face
• 10ATM Water Resistant
• Size: Case Diameter 40mm excluding crown
• Thickness: 12mm including back case
• Black Herringbone Tweed Watch Strap
• 3 Hands & Date Window
• Fits our 20mm Grosgrain, Tweed & Leather Watchstraps.
• 1 Year Guarantee
• Download Instruction Manual
Shop our full range of Watch Straps HERE
In the event that an item is temporarily out of stock, we will notify you of the delay and despatch it as soon as it arrives. Cricket Sweaters are all handmade to order (7-10 business days).
Deliveries are made from 8am until 6pm and will equire a signature, so you may wish to provide a delivery address where someone is available to sign. If you are not at home, the carrier will try a neighboring address or leave a calling card.
Deliveries are not made on National Holidays.
In the event that an item arrives with you and you are not entirely happy, please contact us immediately so we can arrange to send you a replacement or an alternative product.
You are required to contact us and return any unwanted items within 14 days of delivery if you require a full refund.
You can either:
- Call us on: +44 (0)8451 29 29 00
- If you are in the USA, you can call: +1 866 434 6937 (TOLL FREE)
- Send an email to email@example.com
Click here to view read the full returns policy.
Add to Cart


text:
Making some progress on one of the sample illustrations for the novel pitch. The first image is the start of the flatting process. Each element gets painted in with its own solid color. For this drawing I'm working in three sections: foreground, middle ground and the background. By keeping the elements separate, it'll make it a lot easier later on to establish depth and get the tonal range right.
In the illustration below, I've finished the flatting and have started working on the lighting and textures. And you can see where I started adding some fog in the middle ground. That's when having the elements on separate layers makes things easy.
Hopefully the next installment will have the finished piece.


text:
This is transition week at the Durango Arts Center.
Executive Director Sheri Rochford Figgs is on hand for a few more days while Peggy Zemach, our new executive director as of Monday, hits the ground running.
In addition, Theresa Carson joins the staff as full-time theater director. Since these new appointments were announced in March, the Arts Centers board of directors and staff members have been working together to guarantee continuation of the positive momentum, fiscal responsibility and programmatic successes that have characterized the past 2½ years.
In just about everyones mind, those years were the time when the DAC came back. During Rochford Figgs tenure, she and then-board president Terry Swan functioned as the dynamic duo of leadership for the board, staff and volunteers. Some of their greatest hits that helped restore public trust in the DAC include:
For the first time since 2007, the Arts Center operated with a balanced budget in 2010 and 2011.
Grant funding increased by 300 percent.
A spacious art studio and a photo gallery were added.
New projects included adult art classes, the first online exhibits, the 10-Minute Play Contest and First Thursday Gallery Walks.
The Autumn Arts Festival and Sweetheart of the Arts events were revived.
the theater and gift shop became profit centers, and other arts organizations were offered partially subsidized rental space.
Successful theater events included summer and Christmas productions.
Nationally acclaimed exhibits included Seuss on the Loose and Textiles Today, and quarterly exhibits were established at the Durango-La Plata County Airport.
The Arts Center building was brought up to fire code.
Visibility increased in the business community through the Arts Centers participation in the Business Improvement District and the Chamber of Commerce.
Membership increased from 330 to 960.
While Rochford Figgs is obviously a tough act to follow, Zemach is more than prepared for the challenge. She already has played a vital role in many events and projects at the Arts Center. Zemach is passionate about the center and her extensive background in museum studies and fundraising will serve her well.
Carson also brings with her a wealth of experience, particularly in theater management, production and education. No stranger to regional audiences, her first major project will be directing the Arts Centers summer theater production, Bee Hive, which will open June 15. Her plans also include expansion of theater offerings for children and adults.
So what else can the public expect to see in the near future? No drastic changes are on the horizon, but do look for consistent focus on financial stability and enhancement of existing programs. The Durango Arts Center will continue to evolve as a vibrant hub for the arts in our community.
Rochelle Mann is the president of the board of directors at the Durango Arts Center. Reach her at email@example.com.


text:
Blue comes in many forms: sky blue, ocean blue, blue moons. IBM?s nickname made the color infamous. Where the nickname originated is subject to speculation. Many think it was their logo, others say it was the color of their equipment.
A search of IBM?s archives shows earlier computers from IBM were red. The earliest color photo in their on-line album shows a System 360 Model 44 used for scientific computations back in 1965. A permanent disk storage unit was built into the system's central processing unit. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell what color the systems were prior to that color picture. If an IBM engineer wishes to correct us, we'll be more than happy to update the article.
The first photo showing IBM?s familiar blue casing is from 1982 in the 3083 Processor Complex which provided 32 Megabytes of storage. The name of the blue used was not identified. Blue comes in many flavors, and we wonder if their logo will borrow the recently discovered vibrant version.
New blue
Professor Mas Subramanian of the Oregon State University Chemistry Department and his students accidentally discovered the latest variation of blue, one of the primary colors. They were investigating manganese oxide properties, which can be ferroelectric and ferromagnetic simultaneously, The mineral came out of a 2,000 degree Fahrenheit [1,200 Celsius] oven a vivid blue.
The researchers published in the Journal of American Chemical Society and applied for a patent on the most durable, safe, and environmentally friendly pigment produced to date. Its supremacy is due to manganese ions being structured in an unusual "trigonal bipyramidal coordination" in the presence of extreme heat. They anticipate it being used in ink jet printers, automobiles, house paint, and fine art.
In Science Daily, Subramanian said: "Ever since the early Egyptians developed some of the first blue pigments, the pigment industry has been struggling to address problems with safety, toxicity and durability,"
Blue pigments have a long history. Egyptian blue is a Calcium copper silicate, shown in an image of Ramses III 1170 BC. It is considered to be the first synthetic pigment.
Ultramarine, first used in Afghanistan in the 6th century, was employed in illuminated manuscripts during the 14th and 15th centuries. Made from the semi-precious gem lapis lazuli, it was more expensive than gold during the Renaissance. A synthetic version of the pigment has been used since 1828.
Prussian blue, accidentally formed when a color maker was experimenting with iron oxidation in 1704, was the first modern, artificially manufactured color. Solutions of potassium ferrocyanide and iron [III] chloride are poured together to make this variation. Its name derives from being used to die the dark blue uniforms of the Prussian army. Many famous artists used it in their paintings, including Gainsborough, Constable, Monet, Van Gogh, and Picasso during in his 'Blue Period'.
A 14 foot layer of what has come to be called Mayan blue was found at the bottom of a natural well at Chichen Itza on the Yucatan peninsula. Blue painted sacrifices, both clay pot and human, were thrown into this Sacred Cenote. By burning a mixture of items used by the Mayan for their healing properties, copal incense, indigo plant leaves, and palygorskite, the fusion created Mayan blue. Paradoxically, Maya Blue although said to be resistant to age, acid, weathering, biodegradation, and modern chemical solvents, over time, the paint washed off in the waters of the Sacred Cenote.
Other varieties of blue include: Cerulean, the sky blue of artists; smalt; cobalt; indigo found in blue jeans; and azurite seen in cave paintings at Tun Huang in Western China.
IBM logo was designed in 1972 by Paul Rand. His definition of "IBM blue" can be seen on the third logo
So what shade of blue is Big Blue? We still don?t know. Even the IBM archives don?t indicate when the IBM logo became blue, nor what variation of the color is used. The only clue we fund was the image here which was designed by Paul Rand in 1972.


text:
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal will slash climbing fees for Mount Everest in the off-season to lure mountaineers to the world's tallest peak and boost tourism hit by years of a Maoist conflict, a senior minister said on Wednesday.
Dozens of mountaineering teams, each paying at least $70,000, go to the 8,850-metre (29,035-feet) Everest summit during the main climbing season that runs from March to May.
But the giant mountain remains virtually deserted in the autumn and winter.
"We want to give incentives to off-season climbers to go to Mount Everest," Tourism Minister Prithvi Subba Gurung told Reuters in an interview.
"We are working on proposals to give a 50 percent royalty cut in the autumn and 75 percent during the winter climbing seasons."
The autumn climbing season runs from September to November and the winter season from December to January.
At least 520 climbers reached the summit of Mount Everest from Nepal and Tibet in this year's main climbing season, the highest number since the mountain was first scaled by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in 1953.
Gurung said the royalty for the popular main climbing season would remain unchanged.
But experts said most mountaineers would still favor the spring season because of warmer weather and more daylight.
"In autumn you have a shorter period of possible good weather between the end of the monsoon rains (and) snowfall and the onset of very fierce jet stream winds on Mount Everest," said Elizabeth Hawley, a mountaineering historian.
"Almost nobody comes to Everest in winter because it is extremely cold and the daylight hours are much shorter."
The daytime temperature on top of Mount Everest even in the spring season can fall to between -25 and -30 degrees Celsius while it dips to as low as -50 degrees in winter, she said.
Climbers from a U.S. and Canadian team scaled Everest peak last autumn, but the last successful winter climb from the Nepali side was carried out by a Japanese team in 1993.
No team has attempted a winter bid since 1999 when a U.S. expedition failed, Hawley said.
The president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association said financial incentives should also be given for other mountains.
"The government should also open hundreds of small mountain peaks on its border with Tibet to foreign climbers," Ang Tshering Sherpa added.
Nepal, home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountains, has more than 2,000 Himalayan peaks — 326 of them open to foreign climbers.
Tourism accounts for about 4 percent of the impoverished nation's GDP. But the number of visitors fell to about 280,000 last year, down from nearly half a million in 1999, due to a Maoist conflict that killed more than 13,000 people.
The Maoists ended their decade-long conflict last year, raising hopes more visitors would return.
Gurung said the government wanted to attract 600,000 visitors in the current fiscal year, which ends in mid-July 2008.
But analysts said a series of general strikes and transport shutdowns sponsored by former rebels and other groups, as well as an ethnic conflict in the country's fertile southern plains continued to plague tourism.
According to the Nepal Tourism Board, tourist arrivals in the first seven months of 2007 stood at 193,211, up 35.6 percent from the same period a year ago.


text: John Terry as he left court today in London. Bethany Clarke/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Bethany Clarke/Getty Images The Two-Way English Soccer's John Terry Found Not Guilty Of Racial Abuse July 13, 2012 He had been accused of hurling racial insults at an opponent. The case has been front-page news in Britain. But a magistrate said today that there was doubt about whether Terry's words were meant as an insult.


text:
Although we reach for the coffee or tea cup hoping to boost our energy, studies show that we are actually inducing a state of stress. Caffeine drives the adrenal glands to produce stress hormones that can remain in the blood stream up to 18 hours after consumption. These hormones produce the "fight or flight" response nature designed to help save our lives when every bit of energy was required to survive an impending disaster such as an attack by a foe. In today's world, where we are more often sitting at a desk, driving in our car, or eating a meal, caffeine can put us into a chronic state of stress with no way for our body to burn off the extra fuel and hormones. Caffeine-induced stress can produce mood swings and insomnia, increase muscle tension, impair digestion and nutrition, restrict blood circulation to the brain, elevate blood pressure, create blood sugar swings, and accelerate heart rate. Yet the lines at the local coffee bar are still stretching out the door with people desperate for their next caffeine fix.
Caffeine addiction is rampant in our society. Caffeine is the only unregulated drug in our food supply. There are no requirements for the quantity of caffeine to be labeled on foods or soft drinks. Most people don't know that their coffee flavored ice cream or yogurt may be supplying a hefty dose of caffeine just when they want to relax at the end of a hectic day. Mothers don't suspect that the root beer and orange soda they are giving their children may also contain caffeine. Students studying late at night don't realize that caffeine restricts the oxygen flow to their brain up to 30% and impairs memory retention. Under the guise of alertness, caffeine has fooled them into thinking they will be better prepared for their exams in the morning.
While the adrenals are busy pumping out cortisol to send energy to the muscles and divert energy from the digestive and immune systems, there is a very important hormone they aren't making: DHEA. It turns out that the adrenals have to reduce their production of the most important anti-aging hormone your body requires for youth and longevity in order to produce the stress hormones that ultimately weaken your immune system and impair your health. DHEA is the mother hormone for all the sex hormones such as estrogen and testosterone as well as it increases your brain's seratonin levels naturally. So if you've been feeling down in the dumps and your lover no longer interests you, check out how much caffeine you are consuming daily in that coffee mug of yours!
The caffeine industry created a nice deception to make you think you're not drinking that much caffeine. It turns out that a cup of coffee is not your normal 8 oz cup, but a mere 5 oz cup. So when you read that a couple of cups of coffee a day shouldn't be any problem to your health, think of one 10 oz mug because that is what they are actually talking about. When you add to that the statistics for caffeine content in a cup of coffee brewed at popular coffee bars, you'll find out that you can expect up to 300 mg in that 10 oz cup, not the 150 mg you might find in a cup of coffee from your own coffee maker.


text:
How well is this school performing overall?
71 out of 100
Understanding Overall Performance
This report card is designed to tell us how well we are helping students reach grade level and how well we are preparing them for success after high school. Much like the grades we give students, we can use these grades to identify ways to help schools improve over time. The overall grade is based on performance in three different areas, or domains, which are noted below.
Student Achievement
out of
Student Achievement shows how much students know and are able to do at the end of the school year.Additional Details
School Progress
out of
School Progress shows how students perform over time and how that growth compares to similar schools.Additional Details
Closing the Gaps
out of
Closing the Gaps shows how well different student groups within a school are performing.Additional Details


text:
Threads are a bit like fetishes: some people can't get enough of them and other people just can't see what the point is. This leads to eternal battles between "we need the power" and "this is too complex". These have a tendency to never end well.
One inescapable fact about multithreaded and asynchronous programming is that it is hard. A rough estimate says that a multithreaded solution is between ten and 1000 times harder to design, write, debug and maintain than a single threaded one. Clearly, this should not be done without heavy duty performance needs. But how much is that?
Let's do an experiment to find out. Let's create a simple C++ network echo server the source code of which can be downloaded here. It can serve an arbitrary amount of clients but it uses only one thread to do so. The implementation uses a simple epoll loop over the open connections.
For our test we use 10 clients that do 10 000 queries each. To reduce the effects of network latency, the clients run on the same machine. The test hardware is a Nexus 4 running the latest Ubuntu phone.
The test finishes in 11 seconds, which means that a single threaded server can serve roughly 10 000 requests a second using basic ARM hardware. It should be noted that because the clients run on the same machine, they are stealing CPU time from the server. The service rates would be bigger if the server process got its own processor. It would also be bigger if compiler optimizations had been enabled but who needs those, anyway.
The end result of all this is that unless you need massive amounts of queries per second or your backend is incredibly slow, multithreading probably won't do you much good and you'll be much better of doing everything single-threaded. You'll spend a lot less time in a debugger and will be generally happier as well.
Even if you need these, multithreading might still not be the way to go. There are other ways of parallelization, such as using multiple processes, which provides additional memory safety and error tolerance as well. This is not to say threads are bad. They are a wonderful tool for many different use cases. You should just be aware the some times the best way to use threads is not to use them at all.
Actually, make that "most times".


text:
The Aquabats!
Top SongsSee All
Super Rad!The Fury of the Aquabats! 1997
Pool PartyMyths, Legends and Other Amazing Adventures, Vol. 2 2000
Pizza DayMyths, Legends and Other Amazing Adventures, Vol. 2 2000
AlbumsSee All
Singles & EPsSee All
About The Aquabats!
A zany eight-piece (or more) ska unit from the bleached-out California coast, Aquabats earned respect for an energized new wave of ska-punk from figures ranging from Courtney Love to the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Squirrel Nut Zippers. Apparently led by vocalist Christian Jacobs ("The Bat Commander"), the group -- which impersonated a different horde of thugs from the '60s Batman series on each LP cover -- also included a host of multi-instrumentalists: James Briggs (Jaime the Robot), Courtney Pollack (the Prince of Karate), Adam Diebert (Prince Adam), Chad Larson (Crash McLarson), Travis Barker (the Baron Von Tito), Charles Grey (Ultra Kyu), and Boyd Terry (Catboy). The debut Aquabats album, Return of the Aquabats, was released on Horchata Records in mid-1996. Their sophomore album, Fury of the Aquabats, followed in 1997 on Time Bomb, and two years later the group returned with Aquabats vs. the Floating Eye of Death! When Barker left the group to join blink-182, he was replaced by drummer Dr. Rock. Myths, Legends and Other Amazing Adventures, Vol. 2 was released in fall 2000; Dr. Rock and Ultra Kyu left the group soon after. Ricky Fitness was Rock's replacement. The Serious Awesomeness! DVD, a compendium of live Aquabats, appeared in 2003; the Check Out This Ride EP followed. When Charge!! (Nitro) appeared in June 2005, it was the Aquabats' first LP in almost six years. By that point the band's official lineup included vocalist Bat Commander, bassist Crash McLarson, guitarist Chainsaw, drummer Fitness, and sax-playing keyboardist Jimmy the Robot. ~ John Bush
- Huntington Beach, CA
- Alternative
Similar ArtistsSee All


text:
Skip to main content
Department of Agricultural Economics
Kansas State University
Sign In
Custom Rates
Farm Mgmt Guides
Livestock Charts
Toggle navigation
AgManager.info Logo
Agricultural Economics - Kansas State University
Sign In
Custom Rates
Farm Mgmt Guides
Livestock Charts
Land & Leasing
Crop Insurance
Grain Marketing
Livestock & Meat
Ag Policy
Land & Leasing
Land Buying & Valuing
Land Use Value Research
Land Rental Rates
Local Land Lease Information
Papers & Presentations
Interest Rate Forecasts
Crop Insurance
Risk Management
Crop Insurance Papers
2017 Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) Payments
Acres to Reach $40K Cap - By State and Year
Acres to Reach $40K Cap - By County and Year
Acres to Reach $40K Cap - By County and Year Per State
Crop Links
Grain Marketing
Grain Market Outlook Newsletter
Interactive Crop Basis Tool
Crop Basis Maps
Grain Supply and Demand (WASDE)
Variable Storage Rates (VSR)
Cash Prices & Marketing Strategies
Livestock & Meat
Projected Feeder Cattle Prices
Cattle Finishing Returns
Meat Demand
Production Economics
Marketing Charts
CLPER Newsletter
Bulletins and Links
Marketing Extension Bulletins
Marketing Strategies and Livestock Pricing
Trade and Demand
Price Risk
In the Cattle Markets (LMIC)
Cross-Subject Areas
LRP Insurance
USDA Market News
Feeder Cattle
Canadian (AMS)
Livestock Slaughter
Other Reports
Futures Prices (CME)
Ag Policy
2018/2019 ARC-County Projections
2018/2019 Kansas ARC-County Projections
2018/2019 National ARC-County Projections
2018 Farm Bill
ARC-CO Historcial Payment Maps
Total Kansas ARC-CO Payments
Total National ARC-CO Payments
National 2017/2018 ARC-CO Payments
Kansas 2017/2018 ARC-CO Payments
ARC-County Guarantees - Comparison of 2017/18 With 2014/15
Kansas ARC-County Guarantees - Comparison of 2017/18 With 2014/15
National ARC-County Guarantees - Comparison of 2017/18 With 2014/15
Resources and Links for Industrial Hemp
Crop Insurance
Crop Insurance
Risk Management Strategies
The Dual Use Option: Annual Forage Rainfall Insurance and Traditional Multi-Peril Crop Insurance can Both be Used for Grazed Wheat Later Harvested for Grain
Crop Insurance
Risk Management Strategies
The Dual Use Option: Annual Forage Rainfall Insurance and Traditional Multi-Peril Crop Insurance can Both be Used for Grazed Wheat Later Harvested for Grain
Crop Insurance
- Choose -
Risk Management
Crop Insurance Papers
Crop Links
Add to Favorites
Risk Management Strategies
A newsletter by K-State Agricultural Economics Professor, G.A. "Art" Barnaby, Jr.
Select an issue
The Dual Use Option: Annual Forage Rainfall Insurance and Traditional Multi-Peril Crop Insurance can Both be Used for Grazed Wheat Later Harvested for Grain
MYA Price Estimates Updated for ARC and PLC Commodity Programs
An Update on Prevented Planting Decisions and Related Government Payments
Prevented Planting Options in 2019 for Kansas Corn Growers
Prevented Planting Payment Rates Are Lower
Should Farmers Include Harvest Price Option in their 2019 Crop Insurance?
Art Barnaby's Retirement
Whole-Farm Revenue Protection
How Did You Under-Estimate My ARC Payment?
FSA-578 Is the Key to MFP Payments
A 1 Cent MFP Corn Payment
Updated ARC Payment Estimates and Consequences Caused by Changing From NASS to RMA Yields
No Base Acre Loss in Senate Farm Bill
Some Farmers Would Lose Crop Base and Payments Under a New Policy Proposal
How Algorithms in CME Grain Futures Determine Which Trades are Filled
Estimated Wheat ARC Payments for Additional Counties
Experts Overstate Crop Insurance Competition with CME
Fixing Arbitrage to Cause Convergence: No Consensus
Higher ARC Guarantees in Spite of Lower Prices?
Several Readers Take Issue With Premium Cut Paper
Same Crop Insurance Coverage for Less Premium for Some Farmers
Estimated Corn, Grain Sorghum, Soybean ARC Payments for October 2018 Payment
Low Volatility Means Lower Crop Insurance Premiums
50th Year for Purdue's Top Farmer Conference Will Include Crop Insurance
First Estimated Wheat ARC Payment for Next Year
KSU Estimated Versus Actual ARC Payments
Please Check Your Numbers; Seems Odd KSU's Estimated Payments Are Zero in One County and a Big Payment in the County Across the Road
30 Days Out and Still No Guess at ARC Payments!
Why Do RMA County Yields Differ From NASS County Yields?
Final KSU Estimated Corn, Grain Sorghum, Soybeans and Wheat ARC Payments for Nearly All USA Counties Are Now Posted
$40,000 Limit on RMAs Premium Share is No Problem for Me
The Proposed Crop Insurance Budget Cuts Will Impact over 90% of Iowa and Kansas Crop Farmers
Proposed $40,000 Crop Insurance Limit by County
Administration's Proposed Crop Insurance Cuts Would Eliminate Harvest Price Option and Limit Farm Size (Updated Data)
Grower Options For Insured Wheat Damaged By Late Winter Storm
What Caused the HRW Wheat Basis to Widen by a Dollar?
USDAs Reduction in 2017 Kansas HRW Wheat Loan Rates Effectively Cuts the Wheat Farmer's Safety Net
Farmers Can't Deliver Wheat on Futures: Wheat Growers Greg Wolf and Jay Wagner Tell Their Wheat Delivery Story
Daily LDP Payment Estimate
Kansas RAM Workshops Will Cover Non-Convergence in Futures
Critics Continue to Argue Low Quality HRW Wheat Caused Non- Convergence
Seven-Point Summary and Commentary on Current Ag Policy
Non-Convergence in Wheat Markets (A Video Series)
Non-convergence in Hard Red Winter (HRW) Wheat Futures
What Happened to My Cash Wheat Price?
Will KSU Update County Maps Showing ARC Payments?
ARC, PLC Payment Limits and Certs
Final Prices For FSA Payments
Farmers May Use Certificates to Avoid Payment Limit
Many Wheat Farmers Can Save Premium Dollars with YE
There Will Be a 6.8% Sequestration Cut on ARC / PLC Payments
Avoid Being Caught in the Payment Limit
The Dairy Margin Protection Program-Update for 2017 Sign-up
The Wheat Market Could Use Some Prune Juice
Cash Wheat Prices Below PCP County Price Depends on the Day
Will Tomorrows LDP Payment be Lower?
Low Wheat Prices have Triggered LDP Payments
Updated ARC-County Estimated Corn, Soybeans and Sorghum Payments using RMA County Yields
Some FSA and RMA County Yields Used to Determine Claims Don't Agree
Corn ARC is Expected to Provide Little Coverage in the Final Year of the Farm Bill
Why Doesn't NASS Use Crop Insurance Yields Rather Than Survey Data?
FSA Postcard Says Farmers Can Select Location County for ARC Payments
Crop Insurance Doesnt Cover My Cost; Will Puts Make Up the Difference?
Critics Continue Their Never-Ending Attack on Crop Insurance
KSU Estimated Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) Payments for All USA Counties
Crop Insurance Critics Who Make Up or Omit Facts to Support Their Advocate Position
Will the Proposed Crop Insurance Budget Cuts Ever End?
One More Note of Clarification: Sequestration Cut
Question on PLC and ARC From A Wheat Producer
Nearly All Insured Farmers will Benefit from the TA and YE Options
Yield Exclusion (YE) Will Allow Some Winter Wheat Farmers to Buy More Coverage for Less Premium
FSA Will Make Sequestered Cuts to Program Payments
Readers Questions on KSU PLC and ARC Payment Estimates
Over the Past Seven Years Kansas had a $186 Million Underwriting Gain While Iowa Lost $1.5 Billion
MYA Calculations
Complicated Prevented Planting Rules
When Will Additional County Yields be Published for the ARC Program?
FSA Program Selection Deadline Next Tuesday, April 7
Why Are OSU-KSU Decision Tool Results Changing?
Milo Prices with the Farm Bill?
Are the Farm Bill Computer Models Always Right?
Farmers and Others are Asking Why Different University Farm Bill Decision Aids Give Different Results?
Estimated Volatility for 2015
Estimated 2014 ARC-CO Wheat Payments Kansas and Oklahoma
ARC-CO Yields Are From The Administrative County for the Farm, Not Where the Land is Located
Rumors and Errors on the Farm Bill and the Status of the OSU-KSU Decision Aid
15 Sponsored Farm Bill Educational Meetings Announced
More Farm Bill Questions
Excel Based Farm Program Decision Aid is Publicly Released
Webinar on Computer-Based Farm Program Decision Aid to Select the Best Farm Bill Program for Your Farm: October 2, 2014 at 10:00 am CDT
Lower Rates Mean Lower Crop Insurance Cost
Declining APH Yields Has Become a Hot Issue
Should Farmers Elect PLC on Wheat?
Commodity Programs Presented at: 2014 Minnesota Ag Leadership Conference. Gull Lake, MN.
Farm Service Agencys ARC vs. PLC on Wheat, Feedgrains and Soybeans
USDA Final Marketing Year Average (MYA) Price for 2013/14 Wheat
Illinois Corn Crop Insurance Loss Experience is Better than Kansas Wheat. Are You Sure that is Correct?
An Ag Lenders Experience is Large Farmers Generate Crop Insurance Underwriting Losses
Do Farmers Need Multiple Entities for Crop Insurance Purposes?
The Farm Bill: Down in the "Weeds Numbers" (Updated Presentation) Note: Check back later, as these will continue to be updated along the way.
Farm Bill Questions and Comments from Readers
FAPRI Estimates Lower ARC Payments In the Out Years, But Will They Be Right?
Please Explain the Math in the Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO)
Art Gets a Big Surprise in the Farm Bill
2014 Soybean Crop Insurance Premiums are Discounted
Will ARC Allow Farmers to Cancel Their 2014 Crop Insurance?
Calculations of the New ARC and PLC Payments
Lower Grain Prices and Lower Volatility will Impact the Crop Insurance Safety Net that is a Major Part of the Farm Bill
Professor, I Am Not Buying Your Argument
Real Cost of Crop Insurance, Farmers Write Big Premium Checks Presented at: 14th Annual Insuring Iowa's Agriculture. Ames, IA.
Did Some Wrong Assumptions Cause CBO to Overestimate Crop Insurance Costs?
Major Agricultural Issues Will Be Covered at the 4-State Crop Insurance Workshop
No Farm Bill: Create You Own Safety Net
What Percent Level and Type of Crop Insurance Should Winter Wheat Growers Select?
In Most Years, Farmers Write Big Crop Insurance Checks
Means Testing is Good Politics, But Economic Sense?
Last Day to Enroll in ACRE; How Does it Look?
Use 20% of the Direct Payment to Buy Puts vs. ACRE
Will ACRE Cover Our Wheat Freeze Damage?
What Does ACRE Look Like For Illinois and Ohio?
What Does ACRE Look Like For Iowa?
What Does ACRE Look Like For Texas?
Farm Bill Means Testing Amendment
Replacing the Harvest Price with a Private Harvest Price will Double Farmer Paid Premiums at Some Coverage Levels
Where Did You Get Your Crystal Ball That Says Max Payment For KS?
ACRE on Dryland Corn Pays in 2012, but 2013 is a Crap Shoot
Farm Bill Debate Continues
The Real Cost of Providing Crop Insurance
ACRE Guarantees Are Less Than You Think
Is the 85% Revenue Protection (RP) Crop Insurance Contract Worth 3.5 Times the Premium Cost of 75% Coverage?
Revenue Protection (RP) Crop Insurance Provides Low Cost Puts
Last Call to Register for the KSU Webinar
KSU Announces a Webinar on Selling Puts Covered by Crop Insurance
Are You Sure there is No SURE for 2012 Crops?
Grain Marketing Principles and Tools Presented at RAM I and RAM II Workshops, Hays and Marion, KS. Fe. 6-7 and Feb. 19, 2013. Dan O'Brien.
Generic Power Points Slides Used in Final RAM Workshop
2013 PowerPoint Slides Used in Crop Insurance Workshops
Final 2013 RAM Kansas Workshop in Hillsboro
List of Alternative Ways to Reduce Farm Premium Subsidies in Crop Insurance
Not Too Late to Register for Marketing and Crop Insurance
Farmers Who Cancel Their Revenue Coverage will only Save 2 Cents a Bushel!
Marketing and Crop Insurance Basics Workshop
Will a Price Decline Cause a Catastrophic Reduction in Ags Safety Net?
Excessive Insurance Company Profits
Understanding the Standard Reinsurance Agreement, Explains Crop Insurance Companies Losses
Pay One Loss in 25 Years and Crop Insurance is Runaway Program?
Falling Corn and Soybean Prices Reduce Indemnity Payments for Most Farmers
Is the Enterprise Unit Still a Good Buy?
Fire and Moral Hazard
One More Fire Twist
Eliminate Commodity Programs?
RMA Stretches Definition of Weather-Caused Fire
Federal Crop Insurance Does Not Cover Fire Damage?
NASS Yield Estimates May Cause Lower Corn Indemnity Payments
2012 Drought and Crop Insurance Presented to Congressional Assistants Tour. August 30, 2012.
Revenue and Price Based Commodity Policy and Crop Insurance
Soybean Yields are Slightly Worse in 2012 than in 1988
Yield Deviation Below Trend is Better in Some Important Corn States Than in 1988
Are Crop Insurance Payments Excessive?
Does Your Estimate of the 2012 Underwriting Loss Account for the Higher Price?
How Large is the 2012 Crop Insurance Underwriting Loss?
What is the Maximum Crop Insurance Price and Can My Insurance Company Pay the Indemnity Payment?
Is the 2012 Drought Worse than the 1988 Drought?
A Proposed Increase in Farmer Paid Premiums for Those Over the AGI Limit
Little Farm Left in the Farm Bill
Proposed Means Testing for Eligibility to Purchase Crop Insurance
Environmental Working Group Wants Crop Insurance Subsidy Eliminated for Big Farmers
Will a $40,000 Premium Subsidy Limit Affect Family Farmers?
Is Congress Sure a $40,000 Limit Will Only Affect Big Farms?
USA Revenue Insurance on Crops Presented at Crop Insurance Conference. Bangkok, Thailand. April 26, 2012. Art Barnaby
Revenue Loss Assistance Program vs. Crop Insurance
Five Year Flex Law Will Allow Irrigated Crop Insurance Coverage in Kansas
Crop Insurance on Limited-Irrigated Corn
Selling Covered Puts
Should I Cut Premium Cost by Changing from Revenue Protection to Yield Protection?
Previous Issue
The Dual Use Option: Annual Forage Rainfall Insurance and Traditional Multi-Peril Crop Insurance can Both be Used for Grazed Wheat Later Harvested for Grain
July 10, 2019
Monte Vandeveer


text:
Photo: Getty Images
Fashion forward stars including Jennifer Lopez, Katy Perry and Kanye West turned out to support designer Tommy Hilfiger at the opening of his new flagship store in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
The launch of the shop on West Hollywood's Robertson Boulevard attracted a star-studded crowd and the afterparty at the nearby Soho House venue included performances from Guns N' Roses rocker Axl Rose and soul star Alicia Keys.
The singer performed her hit track "Empire State of Mind" and changed the words to make the tune a tribute to Los Angeles instead of New York.
Keys and her producer husband Swizz Beatz co-hosted the afterparty, along with actresses Jessica Alba and Zooey Deschanel, as well as Hilfiger's wife Dee.


text:
The Irish movie Once, starring Amoeba faves Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, will become a stage musical, with a fall opening set for Broadway! If you have yet to see this beautiful film, you've gotta check it out! Click here to read my interview with Glen.
Glen and Marketa have hit the Amoeba stage several times, and the Oscar winners even took time out a while back to tell us What's in Their Bag:


text:
Strongest soccer steamroller: UVA football may be off to a solid start, but the No. 3 Lady Cavaliers soccer team sits in a league by itself. The Hoos improve to 8-0-0 on the year as they travel to Williamsburg and knock off arch-rival William & Mary 1-0 Sunday, September 19, to capture the Nike Tribe Invitational. The 20th ranked men's team also made a national statement, upsetting No. 2 Wake Forest 2-1 in Winston Salem Friday, September 17.
Most bittersweet ending: The Richmond Braves complete their best season in 10 years, but come up just shy of claiming the coveted Governor's Cup Championship. After taking the first game of the best-of-five series, the Braves drop three straight to the Buffalo Bison. The final blow comes with a 6-1 Buffalo triumph at the Diamond Friday, September 17.
Best homecoming party: UVA manhandles the overwhelmed Akron Zips for a 51-0 Homecoming blowout on Saturday September 18. "They forced us into some things, longer protections, third and longs, that you don't want to be in," Akron head coach J.D. Brookhart tells the AP. "They made it very difficult to do anything well." The 16th-ranked Wahoos control nearly every aspect of the football game to highlight their best season start (3-0) in six years.
Worst turnovers: The Washington Redskins turn the ball over a whopping seven times (the most in the past 40 years) as they suffer a frustrating 20-14 road setback at the hands of the New York Giants. Starting quarterback Mark Brunnell injures his hamstring to further complicate matters as the Skins fall to 1-1. "We need to take a long, hard look at our offense," coach Joe Gibbs tells the AP.
Worst annual washout: Always consider mid-September weekends iffy propositions. Last year it was Hurricane Isabel, and this year Ivan rolls through Charlottesville to postpone Central Virginia's high school football rivalry weekend. Instead, local student athletes compete in their own version of Monday night football to begin a busy week of gridiron action.
The Week Ahead:
Orioles Season Finale Home stand
Friday-Sunday vs. Detroit Tigers (Fri-7:35pm, Sat-4:35pm, & Sun1:35pm
Monday-Thursday vs. Toronto Blue Jays (All games 7:05pm)
There's nothing quite like fall baseball. Well, it's not quite what O's fans hope for as they conclude yet another losing season, but the Birds hope to close on a positive note with their 11-day home stand. If Redskins tickets are out of the question, enjoy an afternoon or a cool evening at Camden Yards. Good tickets still available. $9-55.
Saturday, Sept. 25
UVA Football vs. Syracuse
No more cupcakes on the Cavalier plate. UVA now faces the very physical Syracuse Orangemen (2-1), who hope to spoil UVA's bid for another big victory at home. With UVA coach Al Groh's plea last year for more orange attire among Hoo fans, Scott Stadium might look like a citrus explosion.
Monday Night Football!
Monday, Sept. 27 @ 9pm
Redskins vs. Dallas Cowboys
Always a classic game, the clash between Cowboys and Indians will be broadcast from Fed Ex Field in primetime. Two coaching legends take aim at one another as Bill Parcell's Dallas Cowboys (1-1) invade Washington to meet Joe Gibbs and the Redskins. Resort to your most creative tactics if you hope to haul in this ticket.
Friday, Sept. 24 @ 7pm
High School Football
Charlottesville vs. Albemarle
Bragging rights are always on the line when these bitter rivals square off. Count on AHS and CHS to leave everything on the field when they meet under the Friday night lights. Tickets: $5
Tuesday, Sept. 28 @ 7pm
UVA women's soccer vs. Richmond
The ladies look to extend their perfect season as they take on another in-state rival at Klockner Stadium. Tickets $6 Adult, $4 Youth.


text:
- Aerodynamic drag
- weight
- front wheel stiffness
- rear wheel stiffness
- rear wheel rotational inertia
- front wheel rotational inertia
First, note that three of these rankings depend on mass, while only one depends on aerodynamics. The implication is keeping wheels light is three times more important than making them cut smoothly through the wind. Does this make sense?
The wheels are ranked at a 10 degree yaw angle for the wind (the wind coming typically at an angle 10 degrees off head-on). At this yaw angle, the aero wheels (front wheel only) saved between 18 and 33 watts relative to a "standard" 32-spoke wheel, a spread of 15 watts, at 30 mph. At 25 mph, a more typical time trial speed, the spread would be 9 watts. So I'll use that as the relevant number. Note this neglects the rear wheel, which will add even more to the difference depending on how effectively the wheel drafts the frame.
Now to the effect of mass on power due to accelerations. Suppose a rider has to slow from 25 to 20 mph every minute, then accelerate back. Sure, there's also "micro-accelerations" from nonuniform pedal stroke or small undulations in terrain, but inertia reduces the magnitude of these fluctuations (a heavier bike or wheel moves at a more constant speed), so we should only count the accelerations from forced decelerations (typically due to safety cornering or changing speed to match another rider). That's 0.374 W/kg from these accelerations.
Rotational inertia from the wheels varies by approximately 134 kg-cm² for rear wheels and 90 kg-cm² for front wheels, which for a rolling radius of 33.4 cm, yields an effective inertia difference of 120 grams for the rear and 80 grams for the front. So in this example, the power cost from these accelerations every 60 seconds from 20 to 25 mph varies among the wheels, based on their rotational inertia differences, by approximately 0.045 W for rear wheels and 0.030 W for front wheels.
Total mass varies among the wheelsets by 357 grams. This also affects the energy required to accelerate: the effect of total mass of the acceleration on the wheels (357 grams of inertia difference) is bigger than the effect of rotational inertia differences (200 grams of inertia difference). So it's already wrong the rotational inertia was counted as more important. Add in that total mass affects climbing power and rolling resistance power and total mass is clearly more important in this case than rotational inertia.
So we start with the power for accelerating out of our hypothetical corners: 0.13 W. Then assume a average speed of around 25 mph with a CRR = 0.33% (Kraig Willett recommends using a number around 50% higher than Al Morrison measures on rollers, so I assume a typical-excellent rolling resistance measured at 0.25%). With the mass difference of 357 grams, this yields a power difference from rolling resistance of 0.13 W as well. So the variation among the wheels in power due to total mass becomes 0.26 W, half from acceleration, half from rolling resistance.
Then there's an effect from net and gross climbing. Obviously this is course-dependent. I'll assume a course with only gradual climbing and descending, so speed lost on uphills from heavier mass is regained on downhills (to first order). Therefore I assume the primary effect of heavier mass is on rolling resistance and on accelerations. Rolling terrain is trickier to model.
Then there's stiffness. Stiffness affects cornering, perhaps. This, it seems, is more of a speed thing than a power thing. I don't have any sort of reasonable model for how stiffness affects speed, nor am I sure it actually has any significant effect. In the article it's stated "our heaviest tester thought the (least stiff wheels tested) were plenty stiff for his powerful sprint". In light of this, it's fairly surprising stiffness was counted in the results twice as heavily as aerodynamic drag. In any case, I'll stick for the purposes of this blog to aero drag, mass, and rotational inertia.
So we get the following for the power cost from the variation among the tested wheels:
- front wheel rotational inertia: 0.030 W
- rear wheel rotational inertia: 0.045 W
- total mass: 0.26 W
- aerodynamic drag @ 25 mph: 9 W
Obviously for a hill climb time trial things would be different: mass takes on larger importance. But it's physically impossible from these numbers that the relationship between mass and rotational inertia can flip. Unless, as I previously suggested, the total bike is being limited to a UCI-mandated 6.8 kg total mass, something which rarely applies to riders in the United States.
Also, for a criterium, for example, accelerations may happen more than once per minute. Still, you can see from the huge difference between the aero power difference and the inertial power differences that rotational inertia will match aerodynamics in importance only in a pathological case. Indeed, even at the World Championship level, riders in sprint events on the track use disk wheels or other deep dish wheels due to the relatively larger importance of aerodynamics. And on the road, sprints typically start from a relatively high speed, so acceleration takes on lesser importance.
So how would I improve things? Instead of using ranking, VeloNews should have come up with a set of scale factors for each test result, then summed the normalized ratings. For example, I might think that 200 grams of mass is as important as 60 grams of rotational inertia which is as important as ‒0.02 mm/N of compliance which is as important as 1 watt of aerodynamic drag. Come up with whatever numbers you want based on sound, physics-based criteria. Then sum 'em up and only rank the wheels at the end. This will more closely correlate ranking with speed.


text:
DisneyPixar announced two new films at the D23 Expo in Anaheim, California today.
The first one, to be directed by Bob Peterson and produced by John Walker, will be about dinosaurs. The movie, which does not have a title yet, asks the question – "What if the cataclysmic asteroid that forever changed life on Earth actually missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never became extinct?" The movie is scheduled for November 27, 2013.
The second project, directed by Pete Docter and produced by Jonas Rivera, is described as follows: "Pixar takes audiences on incredible journeys into extraordinary worlds: from the darkest depths of the ocean to the top of the tepui mountains in South America; from the fictional metropolis of Monstropolis to a futuristic fantasy of outer space. From director Pete Docter ('Up,' 'Monsters, Inc.') and producer Jonas Rivera ('Up'), the inventive new film will take you to a place that everyone knows, but no one has ever seen: the world inside the human mind." It's coming May 30, 2014.
The next two Pixar films are Brave (June 22, 2012) and Monsters University (June 21, 2013), which will again feature the voices of John Goodman, Billy Crystal and Steve Buscemi, as well Dave Foley.


text:
Obama faces new drone questions
The leak of a secret Justice Department memo on using drones to kill U.S. citizens threw kerosene onto a simmering legal debate — but with most lawmakers showing no appetite to confront President Barack Obama publicly over the strikes, the politics of the issue remain frozen.
Still, there's little doubt the "white paper" made its way to NBC News in an effort to draw more attention to drone questions just as Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan heads to his CIA director confirmation hearing Thursday.
Story Continued Below
( Also on POLITICO: Senators ask Obama for legal opinions OKing drone strikes)
Despite outrage and professions of shock from some liberal commentators, there's nothing really stunning in the memo. Most of the conclusions about the scope of the government's power against alleged terrorists have been outlined by senior Obama administration officials in speeches last year that began to roll back some of the secrecy surrounding U.S. drone operations abroad.
The newly disclosed memo does add a few nuances that some find disturbing, but most up in arms over the paper are those already aghast at Obama's policy. In many ways, they're angry because the memo — as they expected — doesn't provide much legal justification to back up its most controversial points.
( Also on POLITICO: Official memo justifying drone strikes leaks)
Obama aides were scrambling Tuesday to determine precisely which memo had leaked and to figure out whether to denounce the leak — or embrace it. They eventually settled on a kind of awkward adoption of the disclosure, even though it seems likely to complicate Brennan's upcoming hearing and lead to unwelcome comparisons with the Bush administration.
Here's POLITICO's guide to the memo and its impact:
Pushing the legal envelope
Legal experts on both sides of the debate immediately called two points in the memo the most dubious conclusions: the expansive view of what constitutes an imminent threat and a broad interpretation of when it's "not feasible" to try to capture a terrorist suspect.
The white paper argues for "a broader concept of imminence" that allows for the use of deadly force when someone is "continually plotting attacks" against the U.S. even if there's no specific information about a specific planned attack. A suspect's recent involvement in plotting is enough, the memo concludes, as long as "there is no evidence suggesting he has renounced or abandoned such activities."
An effort to capture a suspect is "not feasible" the white paper concludes, when it's tactically feasible but another nation won't allow it, or when a "window of opportunity" allows for a drone strike but not a capture operation.
"You can't say 'imminent' and create a kill list of people who are on that list for years at a time. That is not imminent," said C. Dixon Osburn of Human Rights First. "That's not what imminence is supposed to mean."
Asked Tuesday if the "white paper" redefines the notion of imminent threat to mean an ongoing threat, Attorney General Eric Holder defended the administration's public rhetoric as "accurate." But he refused to explain the terms in further detail.
"Some of these things are fact-based. I can't necessarily get into the weeds or kind of parse these things," Holder told reporters at a Justice Department news conference. "You can't, I think, examine these terms without reference to the facts," he said, adding that he could elaborate only in "a classified setting."
Other experts said the Obama Administration's interpretations, while edgy, were plausible and perhaps even correct.


text:
Oil companies are hiring in the Bakken, and more jobs are expected to open up next year, according to the Bismarck Tribune today.
Job Service North Dakota announced six oil companies are looking for workers to man fracking crews in the new year, said Cindy Sanford, customer service office manager of Job Service's Williston branch. She said she couldn't reveal the names of the companies due to confidentiality clauses, but she said the companies are looking to hire 45 to 65 workers per crew. On the low end, that could bring 300 hires to the Bakken, she said.


text:
In partnership with the Mixed Roots Foundation, five deserving volunteer searchers receive cash grants and free Spokeo accounts for their work helping adoptees, or their families, search for one another.
PASADENA, Calif. (March 20, 2013) – The leading people search engine, Spokeo, with strategic partner Mixed Roots Foundation, announced the five deserving winners of the Spokeo Search Angel Awards. The winners are:
- – Joanna Eve Freitag, Cary, NC
- – Connie Lynn Gray, Austin, TX
- – Kari Lemons, Mountain View, CA
- – Kellie Walls Sharpe, Walland, TN
- – Mary Edna Wilson, Fort Worth, TX
Spokeo and Mixed Roots Foundation worked with a 12-member advisory committee representing the diverse adoption community to develop and raise awareness for a program to honor and support search angels who volunteer their time to assist adoptees and other members of the adoption triad (birth families, adoptees, and adoptive families), in searching for family members. Throughout the last two weeks of November, individuals across the nation submitted nominations online for deserving search angels who had touched their lives. The initial nominations were scored according to quality of the nomination and the impact of the search angel on the adoption community. Fourteen finalists were selected and asked to submit additional information about their work as a search angel. The final five angels were selected by the advisory committee based on their creative approaches to helping families and their passion and dedication to their work.
"Helping people reunite is core to our service at Spokeo. The work these individuals do to help make family reunions come to life is an inspirational use of Spokeo's technology. We applaud the efforts of search angels everywhere, but are particularly proud of the ones we're honoring today," said Ray Chen, CEO of Spokeo. "We're also grateful to our strategic partner, Mixed Roots Foundation, and all of the members who participated on the Spokeo Search Angels Advisory Committee, to make this program all the more rewarding. We look forward to many more programs that support search angels and families."
"We're so touched by the passion and commitment shown by these five search angels. The selected honorees represent such a diverse group of the people who have been touched by adoption. From adoptees, to birth mothers, to adoptive parents, these five search angels have dedicated themselves not only to their own searches, but to helping others find their own roots, which has helped so many with their healing process that comes from separation, to search and reunion," said Holly Choon Hyang Bachman, founder and president of the Mixed Roots Foundation.
Spokeo Search Angel Award winners each received a cash grant to help offset the costs of conducting a search as well as an enterprise Spokeo premium account to serve as a staple search tool. The winners were also invited to take part in the Spokeo Search Angel Meet and Greet event on April 12 at the American Adoption Congress National Conference in Cleveland.
To read more about the Spokeo Search Angel Award Winners visit www.spokeoangels.com/angels.
Joanna Eve Freitag, a North Carolina adoptee, spent many years searching for her own family on Internet forums and reunion registries. After reuniting with her own family, she has been helping others search for more than nine years and serves with many adoption-related organizations including the North Carolina Coalition for Adoption Reform for which she is a board member. She has spoken at Wake Technical Community College, Wake County Department of Social Services and Wake County Public Library System on various subjects including her own search story, how to help others search, adoption legislation and more. She is focused on reaching and helping as many people as she can with getting the information about their own history that they desire and deserve.
Connie Lynn Gray was adopted from the Texas state foster care system at age nine and was denied further contact with her siblings. Two weeks after turning 18, she petitioned the courts for her original birth certificate and, within two years, reunited with her sisters and her parents. Connie has been helping adoptees and family members since the late 1970s when she would visit the Texas State Library in Austin to conduct her research. She is currently on the board of the non-profit, Adoption Knowledge Affiliates, and serves as an active member of the Texas chapter of Foster Care Alumni of America. She is known as "Texas Search Angel," and she believes each motivation for searching is valid and that every person is entitled to his or her own genetic history. Connie feels there is a great sense of urgency with each search because, as an emergency room nurse, she knows life is fragile and opportunities for reunions can vanish in the blink of an eye.
Kari Lemons is a parent of two boys adopted from Cambodia as babies. She hired someone to do a birth parent search for her boys twice, but with such little information from the time of the adoption, the searches lead nowhere. Kari had been involved in genealogy for 20 years and after hearing about a new DNA test that could find family members to the fifth cousin, she knew it could be helpful for her kids. She founded the Khmer Cousins DNA project in January of 2012 with a goal to test all of the approximately 2300 Khmer children adopted between 1990 and 2002, when adoptions closed in Cambodia. Currently there are 42 members in the project with 39 completed test results. 32 of the tests have found a cousin match. She is absolutely honored to work with the people her project helps and feels absolute joy every time a test is returned with a cousin or close family match.
Kellie Walls Sharpe was forced to give up her baby girl when she was only 17 years old. Two years later she began her search and continued for 23 and-a-half years. Upon finding her, she realized that the entire time, they had only been less than two miles apart. While taking breaks from her own search, Kellie would help others that she came across, match up as well. After finding her daughter in 2010, she dedicated herself fully to helping others search for their families. According to her, Kellie is a normal person, just a wife and mother of four who sits in her room on her laptop and changes people's lives. It is her hope that more people will see that about her and volunteer themselves and get involved.
Mary Edna Wilson began the search for her relinquished daughter upon hearing a coworker mention that she was looking for a sister and offering to help her. Upon finding her own daughter, she realized the great amount of healing that comes from reconnecting. She has been a volunteer searcher for more than 15 years and not only dedicates herself to making matches, which she considers the easy part, but also to helping individuals reconnect and begin a healing relationship. Her passion for doing searching work stems from the healing it affords everyone involved, including herself. She is an Edna Gladney birthmother with aspirations to continue to help others and share stories of joy and hope that will touch the lives of many.
About Spokeo
Spokeo is a leading people search platform using proprietary technology to organize public information into comprehensive yet easy-to-understand online profiles. Based in Pasadena, Spokeo makes it easier than ever to help reunite friends and family, browse celebrities, and discover information about your online footprint, by simply searching a name, address, email, phone or username. For more information about Spokeo, visit www.spokeo.com
About Mixed Roots Foundation
Mixed Roots Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which aims to leverage philanthropy to provide more post adoption resources. The foundation promotes and supports organizations that serve as a resource to the diverse adoptee community; creates more awareness of the adoption experience, and inspires the next generation of adoptees to achieve their dreams and goals by collaborating with likeminded individuals, businesses and other organizations in the greater community. For more information about Mixed Roots Foundation, visit www.mixedrootsfoundation.org


text:
By Peggy Fikac/Express-News
Public Policy Polling says its newest survey finds nearly two-thirds of Texans think it is time for Gov. Rick Perry to do something else, while nearly one-third believe he should seek re-election.
The poll said 41 percent of Republican primary voters want to nominate Perry for another term, while 47 percent would like ot see another nominee.
In a match with Attorney General Greg Abbott — whose potential run is all the buzz, as we've reported — Perry leads by a slim margin of 41 percent to 38 percent, according to the poll, which was conducted by automated telephone interviews.
"The Abbott threat to Perry does not represent the typical Tea Party insurgency that has endangered many Republican office holders over the last couple election cycles," according to an e-mail from Robert Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling.
It said self-described "very conservative" GOP voters support Perry by a margin of 53 percent to 33 percent, but moderates and "somewhat conservative" voters are ready for a change.
Jensen's e-mail said if Abbott is the GOP nominee next year, "the party's 20 year lock on that office in Texas should be pretty safe," but Democrats would have a better chance with Perry as the nominee:
"We find him (Abbott) up 7-12 points against all the Democrats we tested- 46/39 over 2010 nominee Bill White, 46/36 over San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, 46/34 over State Senator Wendy Davis, and 47/35 over Houston Mayor Annise Parker. Speaking to the difficulty in breaking through in a state the size of Texas, none of the Democrats are terribly well known- White has 58% name recognition, Castro's is 53%, Davis' is 34%, and Parker's is 33%.
"Democrats, however, would have a better than normal chance at winning the Governor's office if Perry did somehow make it through to be the nominee for another term. We find White actually slightly ahead of him at 47/44. And although Perry leads Castro (47/42), Davis (47/41), and Parker (47/40) the margins are all a good deal narrower than they are for Abbott against the same foes."
The poll said 14 percent of Texans think Perry should run again for president, while 79 percent do not. Among Republicans, 22 percent think Perry should try again for the White House, while 66 percent do not like that idea.
"It's never smart to totally rule out Rick Perry. In 2010 he ended up faring much better in both the primary and general elections than where he started out. But at least for now most Texas voters are ready to move on," said Jensen's e-mail.
The polling firm said it surveyed 500 Texas voters and an oversample of 400 Republican primary voters
from January 24th to 27th. The margin of error for the overall sample is plus or minus 4.4% and plus or minus
4.9% for the GOP portion. It said the poll wasn't paid for or authorized by any campaign or
political organization.


text:
For a country that always seems ready to talk up its latest catfish-jowl recipe or quasi-successful missile launch, any public admission of failure is rare — especially when it comes from the top.
Last Wednesday, Kim Jong Un lambasted a North Korean amusement park for its 'pitiful' state of disrepair, according to North Korea's official media agency. Kim was touring the government-operated Mangyongdae Funfair in Pyongyang, the nation's capital, when he heavily criticized the upkeep of the amusement park. According to multiple news agencies and the Telegraph:
At one point, Kim leaned down to pick out grass from a crack in the pavement, saying to the officials, "I had no idea the park could be so pitiful."
((PHOTOS: Rare Pictures from Inside North Korea)
Kim carried on while inspecting the park's gardens and rides, continuously criticizing the peeling paint and raising concerns about the attraction's safety. The trip was a sharp departure from the inspection tours taken by his father, Kim Jong Il, and grandfather Kim Il Sung, whom often praised North Korea's facilities.
The young leader, believed to be around 29, succeeded Kim Jong Il last December after the elder Kim passed away. Though much remains to be seen, it has been hinted that the current Kim, who spent time in Switzerland as a teenager, is more open to economic reform than his father.
(MORE: Is Kim Jong Un Preparing to Become North Korea's Economic Reformer?)
The criticism also comes shortly after Kim revealed a "master plan" for improving living standards throughout the country. Among Kim's suggested blueprints include efforts to renovate, repair and develop new and existing road transportation options in the reclusive nation.
Kim went on, telling the North Korean media that "To effect a drastic turn in land management, it is necessary to work out a master plan for land management in a scientific and realistic way and carry it out under a long-term plan."
Kim's current efforts could just be a way of establishing his image as a competent leader after his father's death. Just last month, North Korea fired a rocket during a "missile test" in a political display of power with the newest Kim at the helm (even if later, the rocket turned out to be a dud).
(MORE: Kim's Rocket Fails, but North Korea's Space Threat Is Scarier Than You Think)
Jang Yong-seok, a researcher at Seoul National University, reminded South Korea's news agency Yonhap of the bottom line: "The aim is to instill an awareness among ranking officials across North Korea that Kim Jong Un is a benevolent leader but also strict when it comes to principles."
MORE: North Korea's Next Kim: Dad's Favorite, Kim Jong Un
Erica Ho is a contributor at TIME and the editor of Map Happy. Find her on Twitter at @ericamho and Google+. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
May 9, 2012


text:
No one can accurately predict the future, whether it's climate change, the flow of the Colorado River or the economic future of southeast Utah...but it's interesting to speculate.
Reviewing the current news of the day, some ideas come to mind. For example, here in San Juan County, it appeared there might finally be some progress in the decades-old wilderness debate. But Senator Bob Bennett's efforts to find consensus may have hit the skids when his own party rejected him at their convention in May (They thought he was too liberal!).
Most Utah enviros must have been delighted; many loathed the idea of any compromise and with even local green groups boasting million dollar payrolls, what incentive is there to actually put themselves out of business?
Oddly, the far right wing anti-wilderness advocates surely share their adversary's glee. Perpetually locked in "sagebrush rebel mode," few are willing to acknowledge that even conservatives in San Juan County have embraced the recreation/amenities economy touted by environmentalists.
Would Cal Black ever have dreamed that his county might be promoting its natural wonders on National Public Radio and see Blanding proclaim itself "Your Base Camp to Adventure"? Amazing.
Watching the two ends of the wilderness debate spectrum, it's interesting to note that intractability is their commonly shared trait. These people have more in common than they'd ever dare to admit.
So now what? I can almost see the headlines---20 years from now...
THE BATTLE OVER UTAH WILDERNESS CONTINUES....July 2030
It's difficult to imagine but both opponents and proponents of a Utah BLM Wilderness bill have been fighting over legislation for 50 years, and some wonder if this impasse will ever be broken. After half a century of bickering is there light at the end of the tunnel?
Scott Groene, longtime director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) believes the time has come.
At a sparsely attended press conference, Groene announced that SUWA and the Utah Wilderness Coalition were on the verge of a major breakthrough. "We believe that after our latest citizens' inventory, we have a real handle on the wilderness that's still out there."
Groene told a stunned audience that the new Coalition inventory reveals more than 66 million acres of available wilderness in Utah.
"Yes," Groene replied to questions, " I am well aware that the number is more than the total amount of acreage in the entire state, but we really don't believe that should be an impediment to this bill. We simply included properties in other states that are owned by Utah residents."
Rod Decker, the senior correspondent for KUTV in Salt Lake City asked if it was true that SUWA includes Temple Square in its wilderness inventory.
"That is mostly true," Groene said guardedly, "but we are going to allow some cherry stemming of Temple Square sidewalks and we are fairly certain the Temple itself does not have all the components for wilderness ...we just don't think there's enough solitude in the Celestial Room."
Several Utah airport tarmacs where SUWA board members park their Gulfstream jets were also exempted from wilderness. "We believe in compromise," the SUWA director explained. "This is simply proof that we can be flexible."
Meanwhile, anti-wilderness advocate Brian Hawthorne, former director of AccessUSA and the leader of the Blue Ribbon Panel for Open Access offered his organization's own proposal at a similarly near-empty press conference in Cedar City.
"Our people have been out there on their ATVs; we've gone up one side of the state and down the other, and we've been able to locate 317 acres of real wilderness. That's what our inventory says."
Hawthorne identified the inaccessible pinnacles of numerous rock spires and monuments throughout the state, including several well-known climbing rocks near Moab, Utah as "possibly having wilderness characteristics ...we couldn't get our ATVs up them, so they must be wilderness. Otherwise we stand by our count."
Hawthorne refused to discuss a recent Blue Ribbon internal memo that called for the removal and transfer of Utah's famed Delicate Arch to a more accessible location.
"Let's just say we believe in equal access and leave it at that."
In the early 1990s, pro- and anti-wilderness forces lined up along respective acreages of 5.4 million acres versus 1.3 million acres. Today that gap has grown significantly. Has this gap inflamed the public?
A Dan Jones poll in the Deseret News says not. Of the 1345 Utah citizens polled over the wilderness issue, 76% replied, "Don't care," "Don't know enough to answer," or "Never heard of wilderness."
(Jim Stiles is publisher of the "Canyon Country Zephyr -- Planet Earth Edition" now exclusively online at www.canyoncountryzephyr.com. He can be reached at email@example.com.)


text:
I won't lie, this past week I've been a little obsessed. Sometimes when a new game comes along that really piques my curiosity, I get like that (kinda what defines us as gamers). My recent obsession: The Cave.
The Cave was released on January 23rd, 2013 as the recent offering from Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, and Double Fine Productions and is fantastic. Presented in a 2D/3D platformer, the graphics are beautiful, the iconic Schafer & Gilbert branded humor throughout the game mixes puns and bad jokes as only the duo can, and the game drops significant doses of nostalgia throughout. In a surprise twist on the adventure genre, though, the game can be fully completed in about 3 hours.
The format goes a little like this: You choose 3 different characters at the start of the game and then lead them through 7 different puzzles. Every playthrough has 4 puzzles that are the same: The Introduction, the Miner, the Zoo, and the Island. On top of that, each character from the Knight to the Twins to the Time Traveler has their own individual puzzle. The purpose of each puzzle is to tell the story of how each character acquires their greatest desire and how acquiring these desires changes you. So underneath all the funny one-liners and puns are the very morbid acts you have these far-from-lovable characters commit to acquire these desires.
Launching nuclear missiles. Burning down a carnival. Poisoning your parents. Committing Stone-Age murder. Good times.
At the nominal price of $15, and a completion time of 3 hours, this game is a straight up appetizer. A delicious appetizer, but an appetizer nonetheless for the yet-to-be-officially-announced Double Fine Adventure. Having successfully completed it's KickStarter last March, and seeing how the unofficial initial timeline was estimated at October of 2012, The Cave has only whetted my appetite for the final product. The vaulted herald of the return of the adventure genre.
I do worry, though. On my multi-playthroughs of The Cave (3 times as of this writing), the difficulty level didn't even register on my scale. I'm not meaning this as a brag, but a true concern. If the modern version of adventure games is a game that is so easy that it's filled with only elementary-level puzzles, maybe the adventure genre is gone for a reason. A difficulty of "Hard" is only at the will of the player to not scour the internet for a walk-through, which appear barely minutes after a game's release. And what true value does a point-and-click adventure game have aside from it's difficulty of puzzles? The draw of cheating is very strong if the puzzles end up being too devious. However, deviousness is a part of why I buy these games in the first place. Without the difficulty, is it even a game?
I don't envy Gilbert, Shafer, and the entire crew at Double Fine one bit. Walking the line between what is too easy and what is so difficult that it'll immediately send people scouring the internet for a solution is very tricky. But if there is a team that can accomplish it, it is them.
And If I may impart some advice as the casual adult gamer I am: err on the side of devious. Like The Secret World does with it's investigative missions, expect a percentage of people to look up the puzzle answers, but know that a decent percentage of players aren't ponying up money and expecting a walk in the park. We're paying for a challenge. Maybe not Gabriel Knight 3 "impersonate a man without a mustache by adhering cat fur with maple syrup to your face" type challenge, but please amp it up a little more than this.
Please take your time on the Double Fine Adventure, guys and gals. Polish is good. But realize that The Cave has us now salivating like one of Pavlov's dogs for the main course.
\\ Ocho


text:
March 5, 2005
Despite finishing in 7th out of 9 teams in the first day of EISL competition at Harvard, the Yale men's swimming and diving team came back strong in the second day of competition to jump three places in the standings, finishing in fourth after 14 events.
Yale's strongest event of the day was also the closing event. The 800 Freestyle Relay team of Andrew Foss, Kieran Locke, John Atkinson and Quinn Fitzgerald finished in third place, behind Harvard and Cornell. Fitzgerald and Foss had outstanding days in the pool, as they also finished 4th and 5th, respectively, in the 200 Freestyle.
The Bulldogs had a number of other top-ten finishers, including John Atkinson (1000 Freestyle, 6th), Mike Slater (400 IM, 8th), Billy Rubenstein (400 IM, 9th), and Kieran Locke (100 Backstroke, 9th).
Yale looks to improve in the standings again as competition concludes Saturday in the third and final day of swimming at Harvard.


text:
The Navajo Code Talkers of World War II will be the focus of a lecture at Hope College on Saturday, April 28, at 3 p.m. in the Fried/Hemenway Auditorium of the Martha Miller Center for Global Communication.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The talk will be delivered by Dr. Everett Nienhouse, who has been active in sharing the history of the Code Talkers through his long-time volunteer work with Rehoboth Christian School, which serves the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. Among other work with the group's history, in February 2009 he and his wife, Ericka, spearheaded an expansion of the school's Navajo Code Talkers Museum, service that included identifying and interviewing members of Code Talker families and planning a ribbon-cutting that honored four of the living Code Talkers. Their interest in the Code Talkers began in 1999, when they co-authored a lead article in the school's quarterly newsletter.
The Navajo Code Talkers served with the U.S. Marine Corps in the Pacific Theater during World War II. They communicated with each other over military radio or telephone with codes developed from their people's language. For example, the Navajo name for a tank was "tortoise"—slow-moving, hard shell. The Japanese never broke the code.
The public lecture is scheduled in conjunction with the college's Alumni Weekend, which will be featuring reunions for the Classes of 1962, 1967, 1972, 1977 and 1982 for class reunions as well as a variety of other activities. Nienhouse, who is a member of the college's Class of 1958 from Ellsworth, Mich., and Carlsbad, Calif., will be receiving a Distinguished Alumni Award from Hope during the annual Alumni Banquet later in the day. He is being honored for his impact as an educator, including his decades on the chemistry faculty of Ferris State University, from which he retired in 1994, and his continued service as a volunteer.
Nienhouse majored in chemistry and minored in mathematics at Hope, where his activities also included the Blue Key Society, Fraternal Society, German Club, Symphonette, orchestra, track, and participating in the first Vienna Summer School in 1956.
After Hope he completed a Master of Science degree in organic chemistry at Northwestern University and a doctorate in organic chemistry and biochemistry at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He subsequently joined Ferris State, where he remained for 28 years, additionally holding visiting professorships around the country as well as at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
Across his career he taught nearly 4,000 students and his professional accomplishments included more than 100 scholarly publications, abstracts, and regional and national presentations related to his discipline. The youngest faculty member to be promoted to full professor in Ferris State's history, he received multiple other honors including being named Distinguished Professor of the Year by his Ferris State colleagues in 1975 and Professor of the Year by Ferris State students in 1980; the Michigan Association of Governing Boards of State College and University Award for excellence in teaching, research and scholarly activities in 1984; and elevation to Distinguished Merit Professor in 1992.
A dedicated volunteer throughout his life, he has become especially active in service in retirement. In addition to his service to Rehoboth Christian School, he is an enrichment lecturer in the communities in which he lives and for a variety of organizations; a cruise speaker for the Holland American Lines and Netherlands Waterways Cruises; and prepares full-hour choral programs and special worship services for churches in Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico and Southern California.
Nienhouse has been active in the life of the college since graduation, including presenting chemistry lectures as a guest speaker and serving on the planning committee for his graduating class's 45-year reunion in 2003. In addition, he and Erika, who also participated in the first Vienna program, spearheaded an effort to enlist the support of alumni of the Vienna program in funding construction of the Martha Miller Center's Fried/Hemenway Auditorium, which is named in honor of the original and current leaders of the program.
He and Erika, who had both lost their spouses to cancer, became reacquainted during their 40-year reunion in May 1998 and married in October 1999. He has two sons, Eric and Jonathan, from his marriage to his first wife, Elaine; and four grandchildren.
The Martha Miller Center for Global Communication is located at 257 Columbia Ave., on Columbia Avenue at 10th Street.