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If your on vacation, the plan is to usually relax, destress and hopefully get some sunshine in a tropical place. Eating great local food and having some drinks are likley part of that vacation celebration and finding a local gym or a fitness facility isn't always the easiest thing to do when trying to offset the additional calories intake when enjoying fun, sun, food and drink.
Here are five easy ways you can burn some calories and keep fit while on vacation.
- Walking the beach: If you're a beginner loosing some weight or a shredded fitness champ, walking is still one of the best forms of physical activity. Professional athletes are known to train in the sand to give some extra resistance on the calves and lower body which translate into extra calories being burned each minute of walking. Whether you're training in the off-season or using your metal detector to find a treasure, try beach walking in the sand for a little extra resistance and burning additional calories.
- Stretching: your vacation is probably the time to D-stress and reset from the busy life of work and whatnot. Find a nice quiet part of the beach or a park to take some time to meditate and stretch those aching muscles.
- Hydration: The benefits of water intake are well documented and far too complex to detail in this article, but water intake has been noted to aid fat loss, organ health and keep your skin looking young. Use the free time on your vacation to work on increasing your water intake and create a healthy habit That you will continue once your dream vacation is ended
- Bodyweight exercises: these are exercise that you could do without finding a gym, requiring equipment or the use of external weights. Use your own bodyweight with exercises such as push-ups, body squats, lunges, Mountain climbers and even crunches to sculpt your body while on vacation.
- Pack your protein: stay lean, get your protein and save money on expensive breakfast by packing a shaker and your favourite protein powder. On vacations I have easily spent $30-$50 on each breakfast. Not always a healthy choice and can hit you in the bank account. Bringing your protein to the beach can help you save big and make big gains.


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In today's world we don't realize how easy it can be to reach success in our lives. There are so many people out there that have goals but no ambition or drive to pull them through to the finish line. Being mentally fit means work. Everything worthwhile comes with work but it doesn't stop there.
The best motivation you could ever have is attachment. Get emotionally attached to your goals, picture it and envision it. Think about how good it will feel one day when you've finally got what you've wanted. Its easy to look at a picture, watch a video and be motivated for a little while but eventually this runs out and your back at square one. You need to motivate yourself and never let it die.
Discipline is not always easy but that is exactly what separates the great from the ordinary. You have to push yourself to do the little boring day to day things you hate. Think of the way you hate to clean your home. You hate it, but it has to get done, right? In the same way work towards your everyday goals like this and one day when you wake up you'll have achieved it.
Don't stop doing what you're doing. Keep working at your goals bit by bit and don't stop until you get there. Consistency is boring but that's where the above comes in to carry you through (discipline). Its easy to draw up the schedule, to plan yourself but when it comes to doing it you have to stick to it. Not just for one day or one week or a month, but everyday!
Prove them wrong
Unfortunately its always going to be the ones closest to you that will talk you out of things. Your job is to not allow it to get to you but allow it to motivate you instead. There will always be someone who will tell you that something is impossible or even laugh at you or not take you seriously. These people are the ones that simply can't do things as big as you. The mentally fit know how to never let this get to them.
Alana – Mae

subset: commoncrawl


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ESL go.com's "computer gaming in Korea" vocabulary class
Computer games are hugely popular in South Korea. Professional computer gamers in Korea attract huge sponsorships and can make more than $100,000 a year. There are TV channels dedicated to computer games and gaming job openings are few and far between.
Unlike America, where people play Xbox360 or PS3 games at home, in Korea MMORPG games are most popular. People do play at home but more often go to internet cafes called PC bangs. Korea has over 22,000 PC bangs – if you're looking for an internet connection in Korea you can usually find one pretty quickly and internet gaming is very popular.
Kim In-Kyung is a professional computer gamer in South Korea, and a national celebrity. She makes a living by competing in computer game tournaments that are broadcast on TV. People hoping to turn pro play for hours because competition is so fierce. Sometimes it's too much.
A 28-year-old Korean man died after playing the game Starcraft at an internet cafe in the city of Taegu for 50 hours. A 24-year old died in an Internet cafe in Kwangju after playing for 86 hours. These are not isolated cases. Eoh Gi-jun, the head of the Korea Computer Life Institute, explains "when playing network games you have to compete with millions of players all around the world. You may be one of the top ranking players one moment but drop way down the next second. Because of the massive competition, people can't stop playing."
Thank you to Robot Mag's computer game directory.
Match the vocabulary items with their definitions.
As I always say, the only way to learn this stuff perfectly is to try it. Please start by telling us about your experiences with video games.
If you want extra practice... Talk about video game culture in your country on the Korean pro gamers thread or perhaps this thread that asks what is culture?. The discussion covers PC rooms in Korea and other things like Karaoke rooms. The more you use English to communicate, the easier it will be to remember grammar and vocabulary!


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Engineered wood floors have many benefits over other wood flooring options. However, not all engineered wood floors are alike, and it would be best to rely on quality manufacturers such as sequoia-ltd.com. Engineered floors are being made to suit all budget categories, which means a cheaper version will not be of high quality, and therefore you should not be fooled into thinking that you are obtaining a fantastic product at a bargain price.
Quality and Pricing
The quality of engineered wood flooring mainly depends on the species of wood used and the thickness of the wear layer. The wear layer is the top veneered layer, and its thickness can vary from 0.6mm to 6mm. When you flip the switch for a thicker wear layer, you have the ability to sand and refinish the floor multiple times during the lifetime of the floor. For instance, an engineered floor having 4mm wear layer has a life of about 80 years, and it can be sanded and refinished at least four times during this lifetime. On the other hand, a cheap floor having a wear layer of 0.6mm cannot be sanded since that would expose the nails underneath.
Why Select Engineered Wood Floors?
The main advantage of quality engineered wood floor compared to solid wood flooring is that it is ideal for places with above or below normal humidity levels. Engineered flooring can withstand changes in moisture levels and it can even be used in damp basements. Secondly, you can glue this flooring directly over a concrete slab or staple it over a subfloor of wood.
Another advantage of installing quality engineered wood floors is that there will not be any change in the value of your house, compared to a house with solid 3/4 inch wood flooring. Secondly, engineered wood flooring is a greener alternative so you can help conserve forests from being harvested. For making one square foot of solid wood flooring of 3/4 inches thickness, you need four times the wood that would be needed for the same area of engineered wood flooring.
Choices Available in Engineered Wood Flooring
Engineered wood flooring is available in wide range of colors and board width. Narrower boards will provide a formal look, while boards more than four inches wide will provide a rustic appeal. The choice of color will mainly depend on your personal preference and existing room décor. While lighter colors go with almost all decors, you might want to press the button for darker shades where your room décor is predominantly dark.
Apart from smooth surfaces, you also have a choice of hand scraped and character varieties in engineered wood flooring. Hand scraped finish will reveal more character of the board along with knots and pinholes.
Prefinished Flooring
If you want to eliminate the sanding and refinishing tasks at the place of installation, you could point your finger towards prefinished flooring, where everything is completed at the factory and receive the delivery of a perfectly finished floor. This means you can immediately start using the room after the installation, rather than waiting for the finish to be applied and standing bye for it to completely dry.
With quality manufacturers like sequoia-ltd.com, you are assured of multiple coats of aluminum oxide finish, which provides much more durability compared to unfinished flooring.
Correctly Installing Engineered Wood Flooring
Even though engineered wood flooring is comparatively easy to install, you need to consider certain aspects, especially during months of high or low humidity. Quality engineered wood flooring will also react to a certain degree to moisture, and therefore you need to acclimatize the wood and leave the necessary gaps for accommodating expansion or contractions.
Contact us to learn more about the wide range of choices of engineered wood flooring available with Sequoia!


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Pensacola, Florida
Before moving to New York City, Hope and Addie worked in a restaurant in this location.
Atlanta, Georgia
When Addie took a job in another city and she and Hope had to move out of this location, Hope hid at a friend's house but she got scared and ran back--she didn't want Addie to leave her.
St. Louis, Missouri
Hope and Addie worked at a restaurant in this location, which is also where Hope's biological mother lives.
New York, New York
The manager of the restaurant that Hope and Addie worked at in this city ran off with all the money and forced the restaurant to close down.
Mulhoney, Wisconsin
After Hope and Addie lost their jobs in New York City, they accepted positions in this location.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
When G. T. and Addie married, they went on a short honeymoon trip to this place.
Welcoming Stairways Diner
(read more Object Descriptions)
This section contains 251 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page)


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How can we measure the success of market intelligence?
There is a difference between a norm and a value. A norm is something that is so embedded in your thinking that you don't think about it anymore.
When executing market intelligence is not (yet) a norm in your company
A classic example provided by expert Fons Trompenaars is 'in our company we don't shoot people'. As this is quite obvious, it's not something we discuss at leadership events. We also never read about e-learning programmes being offered to encourage staff to leave their handgun at home. We don't have to remind our corporate leaders to set a good example by refraining from shooting people themselves, and in doing so spreading their good behavior to our ranks.
Values are a different ball game. The company I serve values safety at work. So we have corporate campaigns on how to prevent incidents. We track and communicate our performance. We also reproach colleagues who carry out teleconferences while driving or who forget to hold the handrail while taking the stairs. I feel fortunate and grateful when I say that executing market intelligence work is and has been a norm in my company for years.
Coincidentally, I happened to meet staff working in market intelligence with three other companies last week. Each experienced that, in their case, executing market intelligence was not a norm; it was far from evident that it would feature (again) in next year's budget. Hence, one of my counterparts asked me: "how do you measure the success of your market intelligence efforts in order to secure next year's budget?"
No easy answers
It may sound disappointing, but I believe there are no scientifically correct answers. Most often it depends on the personality of the market intelligence customer in question. Success is success in the eye of the beholder. Who measures the success of your market intelligence efforts? If it is the finance department, they will likely wish to see quantifiable KPIs that express results obtained due to better decision-making on the basis of superior market intelligence. For example:
- There has been growth in market share.
- The volume growth of your business outperforms the objectively measurable volume growth for the same line of products in a particular channel (e.g. our 5% volume growth in retail in the EU, vs. the 1.5% volume growth for the total market in that channel and geography).
- The financial results of our business outperforms those of our peers.
- Our average pricing for a (standard) product outperforms an objective price quotation for that product.
The KPI may be different, however, if it is a general or marketing manager who is measuring the success of your market intelligence. Just provide them with a short report at least once per quarter. Make sure that the timing of the report is such that it allows them to win debates by having the right argument to hand when they need it most. That alone may be enough to make and keep them happy and thus ready to support your next budget request.
My ambition to make market intelligence successful is to do a bit of both. For the CFO I try to produce tangible results (in the form of KPIs agreed upon at the beginning of the year). At the same time, I aim to provide the CEO and sales directors with the kind of analysis that will enable them to outsmart their competitors or peers. That, I guess, is my norm.
– – – – – – – – – –
If you are interested in this topic and you would like to learn more about how to measure the ROI of Intelligence, please contact M-Brain. We are providing a half-a-day in-company workshop in which we cover:
- Understanding why and when is it important to know the ROI? Or not?
- The difference between added value and monetary value.
- Different sorts of ROI and 10 ways to measure/estimate the ROI.
We also encourage you to download Erik's book, Post-Truth Analysis for Breakfast, and read what everybody needs to know on analysing information in today's fake news world.
Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash
01.02.2018 –
Blog posts
C-Suite Leadership
Market Intelligence


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The Asian American Film Lab ("Film Lab"), began in 1998 as collaborative of New York-based Asian American filmmakers whose goals were to hone their craft and to share their knowledge, experience and resources. The membership has grown to comprise professionals, artists and other talented individuals of all ethnic backgrounds, who all share the common goal of creating great film and promoting Asian American filmmakers and other filmmakers of color, and the visibility of their stories and characters in film and television. The Lab now runs monthly programs to promote gender and ethnic diversity in film and television, the annual 72 Hour Film Shootout filmmaking competition, in conjunction with Asian CineVision and the Asian American International Film Festival, and, as of August 2013, is launching its own production arm to create and share diverse stories showing the multi-cultural and cosmopolitan face of US society today. The Production Arm's goal is to show the United States as it truly is – diverse and cosmopolitan, through multi-ethnic and multi-cultural viewpoints and stories. The Asian American Film Lab is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
The Film Lab's programming includes filmmaking workshops with industry professionals, screenwriting contests, and film competitions, including the annual 72 Hour Film Shootout (the "Shootout"). Our departments break down into (1) Unfinished Works; (2) Industry Spotlight; (3) Connections, which includes the 72 Hour Shootout filmmaking competition; and (4) the new Film Lab Production Arm.


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Baby G discharged from hospital and living with aunt
Durban - The 4-year-old who suffered a brutal attack allegedly at the hands of her mother, has settled in at the home of an aunt after spending almost a month in hospital.
A video of the assault went viral on social media last month, prompting police to change the charge of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH) to attempted murder.
In the two-minute video, a woman is seen smacking, kicking, and stomping on the helpless child (who is referred to as Baby G as her identity cannot be revealed) 46 times, while shouting vulgarities at her.
The video was allegedly recorded by the woman's boyfriend, who is also accused of beating the child.
Mom accused of abuse wants to see daughter
Kelvin Walker, the Thorpe and Hands Inc attorney acting for the child's father, said the girl was discharged from hospital last week.
She had been unable to walk after the attack which had left her legs badly swollen.
"Although she was having trouble walking she seems to be doing well," said Walker.
According to a source familiar with the matter, the family was concerned about the girl's emotional health.
"These last couple of weeks have been hell for our family, but while her physical scars are healing the main concern is the emotional trauma the child has had to deal with."
Following the release of the video, angry community members torched the man's car, forcing him and his family to flee their home and close their business.
The woman had also fled her home fearful for her safety.
Baby G's case brings back horrid memories of the brutal murder of Phoenix schoolboy Shahiel Sewpujun by his relatives, and the death of a Havenside toddler, allegedly at the hands of her mother and grandmother.
Community leader Mervyn Reddy said he had spoken at Shahiel's funeral and remembered telling the mourners they should not allow another tragedy like this to happen.
"Now, three years later, as a community we have failed. As a community we must understand that our job is protect our children," he told POST.
"Because a child is being beaten inside his or her home does not mean that it should not be our business. Someone must have heard the shouts and the child's scream but did nothing."
Said Reddy: "The reason why we have these issues is because we are living in a godless society. People are not going to places of worship anymore to learn to live with morals.
"Our churches, mosques and temples need to teach young people how to be parents and how to live their lives.
"Previously, these cases were unheard of. As a community we respected one another and stood up for what was right whether it was our business or not."
Community activist Brandon Pillay, who worked closely on the Havenside case, said: "In this case, thank God the child is still alive.
"I cannot understand what possesses young people to take their frustration out on children. The justice system needs to protect these children."
Pillay questioned whether or not these cases were taken seriously.
"The couple were charged with assault GBH and granted bail.
"How ridiculous is that when a child was beaten unconscious and left unable to walk. Only when the video hit social media and caused an outrage among the public did the charge change to attempted murder and the bail revoked."
He added: "This generation are a whole new breed of people. They are violent and aggressive and seemingly unable to handle the pressures of life."
Religious leader Kriba Vayapuri said that in the video the woman looked like she was not able to cope with the stress of living.
"Our scriptures teach us about tolerance, patience, forgiveness and how we can cope with the stress of everyday life.
"It is only the weak and those that are vindictive who will behave in the manner in which the woman behaved.
"Apart from having a lack of faith in God she has a lack of faith in herself."


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Uncle Goose Number Alphablanks/14Product code UG-ABN14
Number Alphablanks
Blank blocks provide a blank slate to nurture your creative nature. This set features naked basswood cubes with 2 sets of numbers embossed on opposing sides. Numbers and math symbols to decorate any way you please. Paint not included.
- Handcrafted from sustainable Michigan basswood
- 14 - 44mm cubes
- Ages 2+


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During the past year I kept hearing about this thing called an Instant Pot and how amazing it was. A few months ago I finally looked into it and found out it was a pressure cooker. I started asking my friends who had one why they thought it was so great. Over and over again, I heard that it was a great way to cook food without it having to take forever. I finally caved and bought a pressure cooker of my own around the holidays. (Different brand, but who doesn't love a great sale?) I now wonder what I ever did without one.
The first thing I ever made in one was less than successful, but I blame the recipe. (Chicken that tastes like it was cooked in catsup is not on my list of things to eat.) However, it was great in one regard: I was able to verify that the pressure cooker cooked the food the way that I wanted it to. The chicken came out fully cooked and juicy, just like it was supposed to. The next dish I made has become a favorite for my husband and me. It was a potatoes side dish that was ready in about half the time it normally took in the oven. The potatoes came out soft but not mushy, which is just how I like them. If you want to give it a try, check out How to Instant Pot: Mastering All the Functions of the One Pot That Will Change the Way You Cook.
One of the other things that I think is really cool about current pressure cookers is that many of them are more than just pressure cookers. Many modern pressure cookers have the ability to work as a rice cooker, slow cooker, steamer and yogurt maker. Once I started using my pressure cooker, I also was very pleasantly surprised to discover that the library has a variety of cookbooks specifically for pressure cookers, both as physical cookbooks in the Cooking Neighborhood as well as ebook versions I can check out from Overdrive onto my Kindle. It's so convenient!
I'm loving experimenting with new recipes with my pressure cooker and I would love to hear what you like about them. What pressure cooker recipes or cookbooks do you like?


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Thanks in part to the funding received from the One Stop Stores our Lunch & Lego club sessions were a great success in the October half term, both days were fully attended and with the theme of Halloween to add a bit of excitement.
Children were asked design and build their creations related to the themes of the day, and a winner was picked for the Lego prizes.
We also provided them with a healthy lunch which consisted of freshly made sandwiches, savoury snacks and pieces of fruit.
Please enjoy the below photo's captured from the Lunch and Lego Sessions


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Regional Data
Companies, tiny to titan, flourish here — from the neighborhood mom and pop to the Fortune 500s known around the world. Our cost of living is low, our quality of life is high — and our steady economic growth is the envy of the nation.
Looking to relocate? You've found your place.
An economic scorecard of the Omaha region.
Our region and people excel at exceeding expectations.
Our population of 960,709 is characterized by steady growth. We've expanded 7 percent between 2010 and 2016, growing 2 percent more than the nation. 1
With a diverse cultural makeup, ethnic minorities comprise 15.2% of our population including a Hispanic populace of 9.7%. 2
Our reputation as a vibrant, growing community attracts young and talented workers ready to ignite their career.
- More than 40 percent of our population is 24 years of age or younger.
- Median Age: 35.2 3
Our low cost of living and competitive wages create a spending power of $50,481 – 14.9% above nation's ($43,925). 4
Workforce & Talent
Savvy, Sophisticated Talent.
If you're ready to ignite your career – if you're determined to make a mark instead of just making due – you'll find a place. Here, we embrace entrepreneurs, cultivate innovation and let imagination run free.
Job Growth
We've added almost 31,000 jobs 5 – twice as much as the national average 6 over the past 10 years. Our population not only possesses the education and qualities employers are looking for, but also encompasses the Midwest work ethic simply part of the fabric of our region.
Our workforce demonstrates the Midwest work ethic, producing $4,000 more goods and services than the average worker does. 7
Business Environment
Companies, tiny to titan, flourish here.
From our strong business climate, to our first-class resources, we're proud to cultivate an environment ideally suited for companies wishing to start, grow or expand operations.
A Diverse Mix of Industries
Our steady economic growth is the envy of the nation.
Greater Omaha produces more than $47 billion in goods and services each year
- Outpaced the nation in economic growth for the past 3 years in:
- Professional & Business Services: Increased 14.6% vs 9.2%
- Finance & Insurance: Increased 14.7% vs 3.8%
- Transportation & Warehousing: 0.4% vs -1.1%
- Our Information industry is booming with a $173M increase over the last two years 9
We work hard to keep the business climate friendly and taxes moderate.
Our cost of doing business is 6.1 percent below the national average. 10
Nearly 30 percent below the national average in tax rates 11
2019 Greater Omaha Major Employers
Fortune Thrives Here
We're proud of the fact that some of the world's most recognizable companies are based here. We're even more proud of the impact they're having around the nation – and the globe.
A world of opportunity awaits.
We are home to award-winning schools and nationally-recognized universities. Innovation and experience work in collaboration, improving education for students of all ages. To them we say: Study hard, engage your brain, dream big and go for it – no coasting allowed.
A world of opportunity awaits.
We are home to award-winning schools and nationally-recognized universities. Innovation and experience work in collaboration, improving education for students of all ages. To them we say: Study hard, engage your brain, dream big and go for it – no coasting allowed.
K-12 Education
Study hard. Engage your brain. Dream big.
Parents want quality choices for education – and we pass the test.
We consistently rank among the leading states in the nation for percentage of high school graduates, which means employers here have the benefit of drawing from a very well-educated workforce.
We know today's students are tomorrow's innovators. That's why our schools – both established and new – focus on equipping our youth with the skills they need to join an evolving workplace.
What's your child's passion – and if we nurture it, where will it lead? We're as eager as you are to find out.
School Districts
Cass County
Conestoga Public Schools
Elmwood-Murdock Public Schools
Louisville Public Schools
Plattsmouth Public Schools
Weeping Water Public Schools
Dodge County
Archbishop Bergan Catholic Schools PreK-12
Fremont Public Schools PreK-12
Howells-Dodge Consolidated School K-12
Logan View Public Schools K-12
North Bend Central School PreK-12
Scribner-Snyder Community School K-12
Trinity Lutheran School PreK-8
Douglas County
Brownell Talbot School
Douglas County West Community School
Elkorn Public Schools
Millard Public Schools
Omaha Public Schools
Omaha Catholic Schools
Ralston Public Schools
Trinity Lutheran School
Westside Community Schools
Pottawattamie County
A-H-S-T Community School District
Council Bluffs Community School District
Lewis Central Community School District
Riverside Community School District
Treynor Community School District
Tri-Center Community School District
Underwood Community School District
Walnut Community School District
Sarpy County
Bellevue Public Schools
Gretna Public Schools
Papillion La-Vista Public Schools
Springfield Platteview Community Schools
Washington County
Arlington Public Schools
Blair Community Schools
Fort Calhoun Community Schools
St. Paul's Lutheran School
Higher Education
From business and education to science, medicine, technology and the liberal arts, we are home to some of the nation's leading colleges and universities. We are also home to two internationally recognized medical schools: the University of Nebraska Medical Center and CHI Health Creighton University Medical Center. And they are all within easy access. 12
Greater Omaha Higher Education Enrollment 13
|Enrollment 14
|Bellevue University
|Clarkson College
|College of Saint Mary
|The Creative Center
|Creighton University
|Iowa Western Community College
|Council Bluffs
|ITT Technical Institute
|Kaplan University – Council Bluffs Campus
|Council Bluffs
|Kaplan University – Omaha/Bluffs Campus
|Metropolitan Community College Omaha/Fremont
|Midland University
|Nebraska Christian College
|NE Methodist College of Nursing & Allied Health
|University of Nebraska at Omaha
|University of Nebraska Medical Center
|University of Phoenix – Omaha Campus
|Vatterott College
Power considerations are a given as companies – from data centers to manufacturers – decide where to make their home. That scores in our favor.
Without compromising quality, service or availability, businesses and residents benefit significantly from utility
Electricity 15
Compared to the national average, Nebraska-Iowa rates:
- Commercial: 20.2% below
- Industrial: 14.9% above
Cost of Living
With a cost of living 8.2% below the national average, we're proud to call the Omaha area home. 17
A Key Transportation Hub
We're served by a ring of interstate highways, railroads, motor freight, air and river transportation.
Reach your destination in 2- 3 days with easy access to I-80 and I-29.
- Major Rail Centers
- Burlington Northern Santa Fe
- Canadian National Railway Company
- Union Pacific Railroad
28 direct flights including San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C. 18
Barge traffic can navigate the Missouri River 10 months of the year.
- U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2016"
- U.S. Census Bureau, 2011-2015 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, "Table DP05: Demographic and Housing Estimates"
- U.S. Census Bureau, 2011-2015 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, "Table S0101: Age and Sex".
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, "Real per capita personal income (chained (2009) dollars)"
- Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics
- Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey
- U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Real GDP Per Capita (by metropolitan area)
- U.S. Census Bureau, 2011-2015 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, "Table B15001: Sex by Age by Educational Attainment for the Population 18 Years and Over"
- U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Real GDP by metropolitan area
- KPMG, Competitive Alternatives 2016
- KPMG, Focus on Tax 2016
- National Center for Education Statistics, IPEDS, 2016 Completions, "Number of students receiving awards/degrees by award level, race/ethnicity, and gender and age: July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016 (C2016 C)"
- National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Fall 2012
- Enrollment includes students seeking a certificate/degree as reported by NCES
- U.S. Energy Administration, 2016 Average retail price of electricity
- U.S. Energy Administration, 2015 Natural Gas Prices
- Council for Community and Economic Research, Q1 2019 Annual Average
- Omaha Airport Authority


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Posted April 24, 2014
One of my current projects at the C4 group is to probe the dynamics of conflict behavior in pigtailed macaques with the hope that signatures in these data might hint at some of the important principles underlying conflict in social systems. We have found some interesting results already, but have been searching around to see whether these findings do indeed generalize. One data set that I thought might be particularly relevant to compare is the large compilation of events from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which have been released by Wikileaks. I thought it might be fun to discuss some of the details and difficulties of working with a data set like this, and mostly I'll be writing about the Iraq data.
I had thought that with all the widespread reporting on these data, it would be easily found online, but it turned out to be a little more difficult than anticipated. First, there seems to be no reputable website that hosts downloads of these data. Obviously, Wikileaks has this data, but not in any easily accessible format. One could crawl their website, but this seemed to be much more effort than just getting the database in the raw format. I would think that news agencies and other groups like human rights agencies have these data somewhere, but they seem to avoid posting it online. In the end, I found the Afghanistan War Diary (AWD) on archive.org. The Iraq War Logs (IWL) were there and also hosted on a file server, but those formats turned out to be very cumberous (a separate HTML page for each event, of which there are nearly 700,000). Instead, I found a CSV file on BitTorrent which was both easier to work with and more complete.
Obviously, this poses some difficult questions about authenticity, but I'm not sure what checks besides comparing the two different data sets and checking a sample of these events with news reports one could do. Another limitation is that the IWL only report SIGACTS, which are "significant actions" and determined by some arbitrary criterion. In the end, what I did was to compare a small sample of events with the Wikileaks data by hand.
I think the most interesting part of looking at these data is that you get a first hand account of the action on the ground. Most of us have heard about the war through the news, which rarely accounts for the thoughts and observations of the soldiers. Although these accounts are by no means entries as from a real diary, they tell you much more about what a day in this war is like. Here's an example of an entry from the data set.
WHEN:%%% WHERE: Ninewah Province, East Mosul, Rte %%% WHAT: %%% Grenade Attack - Confirmed (//-%%%) - Effective HOW: At 1325hrs, //-%%% was attacked with a grenade at %%% while conducting movement back to FOB %%% resulting in %%% x CF WIA and %%% x MRAP with minor damages. The TC received minor burns to the right side of his face and the %%% ringing in his ears. //-%%% immediately proceeded to the CSH following the attack to evaluate the injuries. Update: At 1345hrs, //-%%% reported that a LN jumped out in front of a parked bus, threw a %%% grenade at the first vehicle in the convoy, and escaped back behind the bus and into a crowd. Update: At 1545hrs CDR//-%%% reported that the TC received %%% degree minor burns to the right side of his face as well as a concussion. The %%% a concussion. Both soldiers RTD. S2 Assessment: This attack marks the %%% attack in the past %%% days with a total of %%% grenades thrown. A recent report indicates that a shipment of %%% grenades was changing hands in Mosul. RTE %%% continues to be a key engagement area for grenade attacks. This may be due to the ease of exit provided by the route. %%% elements are able to flee the scene of the incident and travel by car straight into old town Mosul where it is most difficult to track someone. EOD Assessment: %%% x %%% BDA: %%% x CF WIA Minor Wounds and %%% x MRAP Minor Damage
I find this riveting to read a direct account of this action. Knowing that the filter between the actual event and me is minimal makes this seem much more compelling. Here's another account about a suicide bomber.
HOW: %%% manager, confirmed by -/%%% IA BN XO, reports that a suicide bomber detonated a suicide vest in %%%, killing 3x local nationals and himself. The suicide bomber was targeting (%%%) while he was meeting with %%% and his son %%% at their truck.
Immediately, we can see that the entries have been redacted as signaled by a "%%%". This is not consistent either because it is sometimes preceded by a "//-", and indeed this inconsistency is only one of many examples that make this data much harder to process. Examples of shorthand include "x" for number of times, "CF" (counter fire), "WIA" (wounded in action), and the more obscure "TCP" (traffic control point). One can find many of these clarified on the Wikileaks website.
As I mentioned earlier, there are nearly 700,000 events in the IWL that I have access to, and so there's no way one person could read through all these entries and really understand everything that is happening. To do this, I rely on some old-fashioned (or is it new-fashioned?) data analytics.
Nearly every event in these data has been labeled with an event category. Most of the events fall under a very few categories as I show below. We can see that the most reported SIGACT event relates to IEDs. The second most frequent event has to do with "fire" from weapons. Does this mean that these types of events are the most frequent SIGACT events, or does it mean that these categories are just so broad that they serve as a catch-all?
Frequency of appearance of each category in data
It's not clear what the answer is, but we could try distinguishing these different categories by the sorts of descriptions that they have (like the summaries I was showing above).
Since meticulous manual curation is out of the question, I turn to a tool turned out by Google engineer Mikilov for parsing and learning semantic associations of words. This tool called word2vec is a neat bag of tricks (pun intended). Most basically, what does is to look at where words are placed relative to the wordsaround it to associate a word with some high-dimensional vector. A vector is a list of numbers, and each number here corresponds to some semantic dimension, i.e. the first dimension could be valence (is it a positive or negative words?) or it could be whether the word refers to an object or a person. Of course, I just made these up as examples, but that's the basic idea. It turns out that this space is organized intuitively to our understanding of words because vector operations lead to neat relationships between words. For example, we can take the summation of "Paris" + "France" - "Italy" and return "Rome". In a sense, this word has learned that Paris and France are related in a similar way to Italy and Rome, which is a wonderful example! So, by simple addition and summation, we can represent analogies...weird. There are many such analogies one can test, and that is how Mikilov et al. test this algorithm--a neat result!
Returning to the problem here, we can train this algorithm on our data and see what words are similar to one another, and results seem to make sense. If we put in "saf" (small arms fire), we get out
rd: saf Position in vocabulary: 41 Word Cosine distance ------------------------------------------------------------------------ safrpg 0.730477 rpgsaf 0.669158 idfsaf 0.610775 safidf 0.560729 iedrpg 0.536905 sporadic 0.534531 idf 0.532000 mortarsaf 0.500157 rpgssaf 0.498307 precision 0.494308 originating 0.494009 unknown-caliber 0.492614 iedrpgsaf 0.487029 small_arms 0.479189 heavy_volumes 0.477986 automatic_gunfire 0.477143 rpg-saf 0.474320 heavy_volume 0.472217 hardened_tcp 0.471142
Or if we put "crashed"
Word: crashed Position in vocabulary: 3514 Word Cosine distance ------------------------------------------------------------------------ uav_crashed 0.670964 engine_failure 0.646415 scan_eagle 0.626466 chute 0.574162 uav 0.572886 hard_landing 0.572373 takeoff 0.552746 take-off 0.550813 epic 0.550638 uav_epic 0.542496 downed_uav 0.540679 lost 0.525179 crashing 0.512446
Word: children Position in vocabulary: 1150 Word Cosine distance ------------------------------------------------------------------------ women 0.750357 females 0.745454 adults 0.708191 child 0.672946 kids 0.629073 adult 0.625351 adult_females 0.611993 adult_male 0.605669 woman 0.594059 males 0.588210 infants 0.587606
Although not everything makes sense:
Word: the Position in vocabulary: 2 Word Cosine distance ------------------------------------------------------------------------ and 0.512416 injuriesdamage_cm 0.498597 passive_measures 0.493837 ramp_measures 0.482025 passenger-side_flank 0.477169 behave_suspiciously 0.471563 excited 0.471364 extremely_agitated 0.468746 immediately 0.462687 baghdadmosul 0.457104 which 0.456538
We might expect that article words like "the" and "and" are similar to other article, but from reading the summaries, we can see that such filler words are not too frequent. Instead, other filler words might serve similar roles.
Now that we which words are similar to one another, we can cluster words into groups that are similar and see what sorts of classes of words the descriptions tend to use. Hopefully, it is the case that different categories of SIGACTS use different kinds of words. As one view, we can look at how different pairs of summaries are from one another from two different categories as below:
Along each axis, we show a sample of 1000 summaries from two different categories. When compared with one another (top left and bottom right) the summaries are more similar to one another than when compared against each other (top right and bottom left). However, there seems to be a fair amount of heterogeneity within each block, part of which comes from the fact that some summaries are much shorter than others. The distances shown are the sine of the angle between vectors squared.
If we take this method as a reasonable way of comparing the summaries, we should expect to see this pattern throughout the different categories. For each of the top ten categories, I show, at the top, the minimum distance between pairs of summaries and, at the bottom, the average distances. So, focusing at the bottom, the blue points are the average distance between summaries in "IED explosion". The red points show for each category on the x-axis the average distance between summaries in that category. The black dots show the average distance between "IED explosion" and the relevant category on the x-axis. What one would hope for is that the average distance between categories (black) is higher than the average distance within categories (blue and red). It seems that this does hold for most categories, but not within one standard deviation (error bars).
Pairwise distances between top ten categories
Several things to note here. One is that hte intra-category distance is largest for "Murder". If anything, our worry about "IED explosion" and "Direct fire" being catch-all categories is not clearly evident. Most categories have comparable distances within the group. Larger intra-distance category seems to give larger inter-category distances. This means that categories that are more diverse are not just spreading out into the space of other categories, but actually spreading out into an entirely different space of their own.
It might be worthwhile to take a moment here to ask why a simpler method of classifying summaries by not be better like word frequency comparison. Part of the reason is that there are many possible words that can be used and so a straightforward counting of words may not yield a very substantive result. Another reason is that context matters for words! It is important here to consider whether words are often used in conjunction with others or predominantly in a certain context. In fact, this mutual interdependence between words allows us to figure out whether other words that might not be used in a summary could "belong" there. By classifying words into just a few groups, we've reduced the apparent dimensions to the effective ones and hopefully made the problem easier. Of course, I should mention the caveat here that this is all preliminary and so none of these statements are completely rigorous.
Continuing with these comparisons, we might think wide variation within a category might have to do with variation in the lengths of summaries, misclassification, SIGACTS that involve multiple types of encounters, etc. It does turn out that many short summaries have no words in a certain category.
Number of empty categories against the length of the summary. I've added a bit of random noise to make it easier to pick out the points in the categories. If you look closely, you can see that there are two summaries with only entries in one category, but these are not just the shortest summaries. However, we can trace the leftmost boundary and see that summaries of a certain length must have words in multiple categories.
But the most worrying problem would be if some of these categories are not different from each other at all. As a check on this, we can pull out the cluster of most similar summaries in every category and see whether these are more similar to one another and less similar to other categories. Note that these two criteria are not mutually exclusive. By definition, they have to be more similar to one another, but it would be bad if they were also more similar to other categories. The outcome of this test is below:
It does look like the stereotypical summaries (as defined as the ones most similar to one another) for each category are different from the others. This is reassuring, and as a further check we can even look at the entries themselves to see what the most similar versus the most different entries look like. For the "IED explosion" category, one of the most different pairs (with some text modification) is
at 0635c tf %%% reported an ied detonated on a route %%% patrol on asr %%% no injuries or damage
1x vbied exploded near the drink factory with 3x civ killed and 7x civ injured nfi
One of the most similar pairs is
mnd )%%% event %%% unit )%%% cav %%% whojss %%% whatunk explosion when 062000mar08 where %%% at the %%% mosque ied type unk ied description black %%% golf kia %%% wia %%% equipment bda none enemy bda none enemy detainee none sect unk crew system duke other ied defeat equip rhino %%% door kits installed yes %%% of patrol 2x %%% 2x %%% initial report- %%% jss reports %%% in %%% ia reports that the explosion was at the %%% mosque ia reports no damage or injuries sending qrf to investigate update - %%% mitt reports that the explosion was a black %%% golf vbied - %%% arrives on site and has cordon set %%% line ied as follows %%% blackjack %%% black %%% golf %%% unk %%% cf %%% halted %%% cordon set %%% immediate %%% request eod team with %%% qrf reports that the vehicle reported belongs to %%% a body guard for the mosque %%% reported that he did not see anyone around the car and it detonated at the end of prayer there was no secondary device found at this time %%% eod arrives on site %%% eod is sending their robot out to interrogate the vbied blast site %%% qrf reports that eod has cleared the vehicle %%% qrf reports eod is complete and they are moving off the scene s2 assessment this attack was possibly an attempted %%% ied placed under the vehicle it appears as thought the device was set on a timer set to blow after prayer it is currently unknown why %%% was targeted in the attack the attack was most likely a continuation of the recent attacks carried out by the ue in an attempt to destabilize the area expect to see propaganda about the attack within the next two days summary %%% x ied explosion %%% x inj %%% x damage closed
mnd )%%% sigact %%% mnd )%%% %%% mnc )%%% %%% mnd )%%% event %%% unit %%% who %%% ia )%%% cav )%%% ar bn ied type ied kia %%% ia wia %%% ia equipment bda none enemy bda none enemy detainee none sect %%% crew system none other ied defeat equip none %%% door kit installed no %%% of patrol unknown ia what %%% ia conduct a show of force patrol on rte %%% they come upon a suspicious black bag in the street and set a cordon while the cordon is set a small ied detonated with %%% x ia receiving minor wounds when the other soldiers went to give aid a second larger ied detonated on the ia resulting in %%% x additional wia the second ied was believed to be hidden near a tree or light pole when %%% apr %%% where %%% closest isfsoi cp cp %%% unit %%% grid %%% distance %%% initial report ied detonates on %%% ia patrol killing the ia platoon leader lt %%% wounding %%% others %%% line eod not requested due to delay in ia reporting and no cf present on scene timeline %%% x ied detonate on ia patrol resulting in %%% x ia kia dow and %%% x wia %%% ia medevac %%% x wia to csh %%% x ia dow at the csh %%% ia mitt send updated report - %%% arrive on site to investigate and question civilians in the area s2 assessment this attack is likely perpetrated by the same aqi cell that is responsible for the %%% apr and %%% apr bombings on rte %%% and rte %%% respectively as they have used a very similar ttp in all three attacks we are unable to determine if this aqi cell is subordinate to %%% or %%% summary %%% x ied strike %%% x ia kia %%% x ia wia %%% x dmg closed
This pairing makes sense. The short summaries are very different by virtue of the fact that they don't fall along many categories. Since the probability that they happen to coincide is small, they will be very different. When we get longer summaries, we have a better idea of what the summary is about and so we can actually compare them. We can see some similarities in what they deal with here. Obviously, these summaries are both about IEDs, both mention a secondary device (although "no secondary device" was found in the first), both provide assessment referring to groups that might be responsible, etc.--what seems to be a reasonable similarity.
From other samples, we find that the most different pairs tend to be very short summaries, where we do not have a very good idea of the content of the summary, and reading them shows (like above) that they still seem to fit within the category.
There is no grand conclusion to take away from these thoughts. What we can take away from this brief look at the data is that data sets like this are very messy. Here, we have to check everything because we have no one we can ask about the validity of the data or of the labels. In truth, there is probably no one person we could ask about that because this data is a collection of many different reports and reporters. Instead, we must check for internal consistency, and in this case it does seem that at least with the category labels, they are not haphazard. Also, it was a fun opportunity to use a neat tool to look at the very interesting data set!


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text: Gibran 43 Report post Posted January 8, 2019 While black folks can usually place the sundry misdeeds of white America within a particular era of our history such as (1) The Slave Era, (2) The Jim Crow Era, (3) The Civil Rights Era, and (4) The Black Power Era, we missed what was happening during The Corporate Negro Era. Like damsels-in-distress, we were so caught up in the esteemed behavior of the white hero as he vowed to use his money to help us out of our sticky situation that we never understood that these new niggas were the surrogate-heroes who were to take over the role black preachers had always held in the black community. This manipulation. while it did involve the social metamorphosis of a select group of black males, it was unlike most conversions since the new brothas were physically separated from the group they were supposed to control. However, the inevitable gimmick was that the miraculous transformation of these surrogate-gatekeepers would be so awe-inspiring that everyone would aspire to it. One idea that was hardly new was the destruction of self-love which was the intended consequence of a wholly Euro—centric education. These brothas, lacking the love of self, or the ability to sympathize with the plight of their people, would, at the price of making them more pompous, help to destabilize the ghetto. These establishment brothas, domesticated by their own self-interests, and further as a matter of principle, trumpeted America's benevolence, elaborating in their persons just how great the country was. These brothas were, in effect, an extension of white America. In the 1970s, the goal of making black America more productive was curtailed by cost, and given the wide range of other government expenditures, it became a much better idea to make them dependent, and to further this goal, welfare dollars began to rival the cost of public schooling. What was hoped for was that dependence would begat submissiveness because hardly ever does one bite the hand that feeds it. At least that was what was hoped for, and given the ever-present hostilities between the government and black America, welfare was conceived of as a facilitating mechanism, and swept along by its own rhetoric that "one could trap more bees with honey than with shit", white America attempted to unite black America through benevolent paternalism. And these suit-and-tie brothas were to become the legitimate purveyors of "what Mr. Charlie can do for you if you are good". The Santa Claus Syndrome. In this context, the government was Santa and these suit-and-tie brothas were his little, black elves. Occasionally, the suit-and-ties would appear to be autocratic, but mainly their task was to present a 'visual' for their bossman, a sort of real-life, eye-popping aesthetic experience that would ooh and ahh black adults in the same way that a Christmas display at the mall would mesmerize small children, and using an assortment of visual toys----their car, their women, their money---these elves produced a very pleasing picture. In practice, though, the Santa Claus Syndrome was more than just a bright idea by the government, or a way for the elves to make a name for themselves because Uncle Sam knew precisely what he wanted and would accept nothing less. These 'look-at-me' brothas, evolved organically from a western-style education, were developed to adjust the psychological and emotional life of the ghetto by invigorating them with the fantasy of middle-class niggerdom. Uncle Sam wanted to manufacture a never-never land, a black fairytale existence where they could reside if they played by the rules. However, the ulterior motive was to forestall black folks' sense of impending doom by instilling them with false hope. ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... The CWA was founded by Executive Order where the President transferred 400 million dollars into a government program to provide jobs for individuals out of work due to the depression. People all over the country applied to join the CWA, and the program was so successful that another 950 million dollars was allocated for it. In theory, the CWA was simply a measure to instill pride in people who refused government assistance, and though there were examples of men sweeping streets that didn't need to be swept, half a million miles of highways were constructed. Thousands of bridges were built; school, churches, and hospitals sprung up and almost 600 airports were built, not to mention the many municipal parks and other recreational facilities that emerged all across the nation. The entire face of America was given a facelift by the CWA. America was truly a pretty bitch now. Additionally, they were jobs set aside for teachers, and 10% of CWA's budget was earmarked for white-collar workers. Even artist were supported via The Public Works of Art Program, and historians were paid to go on digs with archaeologists. Thanks, in part, to Eleanor Roosevelt, there were programs for women who drew salaries for sewing and other home economic projects. Guess what? The hood didn't get shit! And in typical fashion when hood rats in Jackson, Mississsippi petitioned for CWA money to put brothas to work fixing up the 'hood, the Mayor said that he "would not give them a damned thing." And so it was all over America. Everyone benefited from the CWA-----except black people. In total, the CWA, during 1933, with its 1 billion dollar expenditures could have spruced up the 'hood, and helped to eliminate the blight and desperation, but since white America decided that black America had no pride, there was no need to include them in the good works of the CWA. Instead, it was determined that welfare was a better experiment for us. White America wanted our dependency. In most respects, this was the ultimate disrespect. White America forced us to watch them feast and wouldn't even throw us a bone, but that was not the first or last time. Some thirty years later after John F. Kennedy was ushered into The White House, money was set aside by the government to revitalize the inner cities. Schools and hospitals were to be built, roads were to be paved. Finally, the hood was going to be cute, and there would, at last, be a chicken in every pot. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


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When calling https://www.conligwx.org/wxadvisory.php I get a blank page as the cached file keeps showing 0 bytes and no data is downloaded. I've not changed anything in the configuration but it's seems now broken until I call the following:
Only thing I have changed recently is PHP upgraded to 7.2.8.
--checking METEOalarm warning URL --
Using Settings.php $SITE['EUwarningURL'] entry for test.
URL: https://www.meteoalarm.eu/en_UK/0/0/UK0 ... eland.html
Cache: ./cache/meteoalarm-en.txt
curl fetching 'https://www.meteoalarm.eu/en_UK/0/0/UK0 ... eland.html'
HTTP stats: RC=200 dest=18.104.22.168 port=443 (from sce=172.x.x.x)
Times: dns=0.004 conn=0.006 pxfer=1.201 get=0.107 total=1.308 secs
RC=200 OK, bytes=11248
Data age=0 sec 'Sun, 22 Jul 2018 13:30:08 GMT'
Wrote 11248 bytes to ./cache/meteoalarm-en.txt successfully.
Test was SUCCESSFUL.
--end METEOalarm warning URL check --
Apache is at 2.4.33
ALSO Data age=0 sec 'Sun, 22 Jul 2018 13:30:08 GMT' is 1 hour behind real time, yet webserver time is correct.


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Posts Tagged 'GC'
The art of scaffolding at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA)
What a great looking building this is, smack dab in the middle of downtown. This is the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. It's a historic Victorian museum and Art school (offering 19th & 20th century American works). I would have loved to enter that place everyday to learn. Incidentally, it's the first and oldest art museum and school in the United States.
I'm going to put a link to some pics from their website to show you just how cool the structure is beneath our scaffolding. Check out the giant paintbrush just to the right. I love it.
Okay, enough about the building and onto just what we at Superior Scaffold do for a living. That's right. We specialize in working on historic structures and buildings. Of course, it's not all we do but we do it well. We are masters at leaving the job just as it was before we erected our scaffold, minus the renovations and additions of course – you get the idea. This version of the building opened in 1876.
We had to erect a canopy out front for pedestrians and students to gain access to the building and sidewalk.
We also erected a superb system scaffold and decked it at every level so crews could access the façade (for cleaning and power washing) and the roof for repair.
And we took the utmost care when building around the wild juggling jester character (The Young Punch Juggling – a 16 foot fiberglass and steel sculpture) in the center of the front of the façade. PAFA wanted it open and exposed so people could still see him (even at night) so we had to incorporate several trusses into the design to keep the area exposed while supporting the scaffolding.
We also built a section around the side that gave crews access to the roof as well. Here you can see them using a type of Beta Hoist to get the new material up to the top. I'm not really sure if they were replacing the entire roof or just patching areas. The were also working on the eaves.
Then we used a debris netting all around the scaffold for added protection.
And look at this very cool statue of a wrecked plane I found while wondering around the building.
All in all, our scaffolding was built and decorated to perfection as anyone at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts would approve of. I mean, come on, we can only make the scaffolding look so good but our crew did a bang up job.
So if your façade needs renovation and an artistic touch call Superior Scaffold today at (215) 743-2200. Ask for Tony P – he will paint up a miracle for you.
Or log on to www.superiorscaffold.com to see additional work we've done.
Thinking outside the box: Princeton Firestone Library Phase 3
Yes, we are already on phase 3 of the renovations at the Firestone Library on the Princeton University campus. Crews are replacing the entire parapet around the top of this floor of the library.
Each time we do a phase it presents a new set of challenges. This was a unique scaffolding job, in that, we literally had to design and build it from the top down. That was because of the glass windows or façade on the North side of the building, directly over the library.
Crews needed access to the entire parapet and that included the portion over the glass windows. They also needed a place to store the incredibly heavy replacement stones while they were put into place.
Superior Scaffold foreman, Ken Foreman, came up with a truss system similar to the type we would use under a bridge or dock. This would allow the weight to suspend from trusses above so that nothing would touch the glass atrium below.
This out of the box thinking gave the crews the necessary impetus to design and build the rest below.
They started with towers on each side of the atrium or glass – one that extended all the way to the ground or other roof roughly 20' high and the other tower from the top roof 7' high.
They used 16' aluminum beams to cross the 14' span and then designed a system scaffold to hang from the beams below. That scaffolding, in turn, supports a series of trusses that keeps the entire scaffold floating above the glass windows.
Decking was then put into place to allow crews access to the parapet for replacement.
We then used system scaffold around the entire section of library. Debris netting, wood panels and fencing was used for protection.
The entire scaffold was designed to hold the crews, their equipment and the weight of the stones as well – estimated at between 500 – 1000 pounds each. . Initially, it was thought that the roof wouldn't support the heavy weight so we designed the scaffold to store all of the stones as well.
We added a Beta Max hoist to lift the stones from the ground to the crew up at the top.
Here you can see the masonry crew from Joseph Dugan working on the parapet. They are removing the old stones and replacing them with new ones.
They are doing a fantastic job. It really looks great.
This is an historic building (and on the prestigious Princeton campus) so we had to tread lightly. You will see that we never tied to the building and used the utmost care when erecting any scaffolding around the grounds of the library.
The first two phases have really brought this magnificent building back to its former glory and we can already see that phase 3 is adding another dimension to the overall renovation.
You can read about the first two phases by clicking on the pics above.
Superior specializes in working on historic buildings. We are experts at making sure everything is just the way it was when we started.
If you need out of the box thinkers who get the job done call Superior today at (215) 743-2200 or visit www.superiorscaffold.com to see more of our work.
General Contractor: Massimino
Masonry: Joseph Dugan
Scaffold: Superior Scaffold
Aces High – Trash Chute at SugarHouse Casino
When it's time to take the trash out this baby will do it – in spades!
Superior Scaffold was lucky enough to be able to go all in at the SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia's Fishtown neighborhood. As part of their $164 Million addition we doubled down and provided the debris chute and the scaffolding around it to keep it in place.
This sleek unit was 5 stories tall with hoppers on each of the floors so the detritus could be moved out and into the trash dumpster at the bottom. Our scaffolding was secured to the exterior of the garage to keep the debris chute securely in place – dealing the contractors the right cards to complete the job.
You can see how nice it is to have access at each level. We'd like to think it gave SugarHouse Casino the "house edge" to get that garage finished on time for their big grand re-opening.
We were proud to be dealt a hand in this renovation and hope that SugarHouse hits the jackpot with their new expansion.
Win, lose or draw you can bet on Superior Scaffold to provide you the best in scaffold, scaffolding services. Give us a call today at (215) 743-2200 and ask for Pat "Slappy" McAndrew and he'll deal you a royal flush. Or visit www.superiorscaffold.com.
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North by Northwest – Scaffolding at Park Towne Place, Philadelphia, PA
Well, as we scour the city trying to bring you the greatest and most interesting feats of construction (using scaffolding of course) we find this. And I must say, just when I think I've seen it all something comes along to tickle my fancy, stimulate my brain and restore my faith in creative construction techniques.
Today we find ourselves on the roof of one of Center City's premier apartment complexes. Park Towne Place premier apartment homes in the parkway museum district. Yes, just a stone's throw from where Rocky ran up the steps at the art museum. I'm feeling rather nostalgic today so we might just chalk this post full of movie references. Ha.
What's unique about this post? Well, Superior Scaffold provided the scaffolding on the roof for crews to install a new flu pipe in the chimneys on the North and West towers.
(Thus the Hitchcock movie reference – I think you are getting the point). But what's wild is that they are installing 3 foot sections of steel flu-pipe one at a time from the bottom of the chimney and hoisting them up 19 floors into place using our scaffolding and their motor.
Crazy? Yes, but if you think about it very logical. There is an access port at the bottom of the chimney where crews feed in the 3 foot sections. Our scaffold at the top (high load frames) holds the steel beam that in turn holds their hoist that drops a cable down the 19 stories to the waiting crew below.
The crew then hooks the cable onto the section of pipe and then hoists it up 3 feet where the next section is fed in and bolted on and then hoisted another 3 feet. This series of events continues until all sections of the pipe are lifted up the 19 floors and then are secured into place.
The new flu will prevent future maintenance problems within the chimneys and give the residence an awesome functioning furnace for years to come.
Now, there are 4 towers within this giant complex and we only did the North and West ones. I'm not sure if they are going to do the same on the East and South towers. I will keep you posted.
The job went off without a hitch. We did have a few challenges like two different elevations on the roof for our scaffolding.
One leg was 24 feet high and the other 6 foot high. Crews also had quite a maze to negotiate to get the equipment up to the roof. Getting it up through loading dock, elevator, to the floor then walk it up 3 fights of steps to get it up to the roof where it had to be erected. We used hi-load shoring frames, aluminum and steel beams, leveling jacks, u-heads and more.
This complex lends itself more to another Hitchcock movie, Rear Window… but the name dictated the title.
Either way, we are sure that Park Towne Place Premier apartment homes appreciate all of the hard work that went into making that job a success.
If you want to learn more about Park Town Place click here:
For all of your scaffold, scaffolding, shoring, hoist, and access needs call Superior Scaffold today! (215) 743-2000 and ask for Patrick McAndrew Laddy. He will take good care of you. Or log onto www.superiorscaffold.com to see more of our work.
Jacob's Ladder – Superior Scaffold's material moving hoist system.
Now, we all know that the biblical version of Jacob's Ladder is the bridge between earth and heaven as dreamt by Jacob and described in the Book of Genesis. The significance of that ladder was obviously greater than our version of Jacobs Ladder. But our ladder, if you will, or hoist at Jacobs Music (in Center City, Philadelphia, PA) moves heavy material from the earth skyward to its position on the façade of this structure and even to the roof of the building.
Using a Patriot 1000 material hoist rigged atop of system scaffold at the top of our canopy and on the roof, masonry crews from Knapp Masonry are able to position super heavy pieces of marble anywhere on the façade of the building.
As you recall, Superior was sent out on an emergency call a while back when it was discovered that pieces of the façade were falling off. Our emergency services crew quickly erected an overhead protection system or canopy to protect customers and pedestrians. We also erected an access scaffold to get inspectors and crews up to see the damage so a plan could be developed for the repair work.
After that inspection, they determined not only were portions of the façade in disrepair but portions of the large marble panels needed to be replaced.
And in order to do that Superior had to come up with another solution to get the material from the ground up to the façade. Originally, a material hoist was to be added to get the marble up from the ground in between the scaffold and building itself. But our resident "King of Swing" Bob Sarkisian devised a monorail system to not only get the material up in between the building and the scaffold but to also get it anywhere on the façade and onto the roof where crews could work with it and store excess material. See the pics. It's really a brilliant idea using system scaffold, steel beams and a Patriot 1000 material hoist.
Here you can see crew members placing one of the heavy marble panels using the material hoist to get it into place.
So not a ladder, per say, but a super intelligent way to move heavy material from the earth to the sky and even to a façade at Jacobs Music.
And if you need solutions to move material call Superior Scaffold today at (215) 743-2200 or visit www.superiorscaffold.com
And what post would be complete without some Rush for your listening pleasure.
Shoring for Willow Grove Sears massive remodel
Superior Scaffold is providing the shoring for this massive 3 story renovation of the Sears store at the Willow Grove Park Mall. This enormous remodel is being done to open up the store, change the current layout and split it into two separate businesses. But in order to do so they must move escalators, elevators and staircases.
And because they have to cut through the concrete slabs on all 3 levels they are also having to beef up and add new structural steel, new footers and support columns to carry the weight. And that's where Superior comes in. (this is a view up from the 1st floor)
These photos really show how Superior's hi-load shoring frames support the sections of the floor above and below while the work is being done.
We provided 4' and 2′ frames. Some of the 2' frames were used where we had to get the shoring right up next to the walls.
Here you can see where they were digging holes for new footers. This job is being done in phases so the shoring towers will be moved around as the new concrete is being poured and the steel is being added.
When it is all said and done the Sears store and Auto Center will continue to operate in 96,000 square feet on the lower level and European fashion retailer Primark will lease approximately 77,500 square feet, mostly on the second level.
If you need shoring, scaffold or scaffolding call Superior Scaffold today at (215) 743-2200 and ask for Pat. He will take care of you. Or visit www.superiorscaffold.com for more information.
Scaffolding is our baby – 500 Walnut, Philadelphia, PA
We don't just broadcast the giant jobs around here. They all have a very important place in our heart, like our children. We've designed them, traveled with them, built them, and then put them out into the world where they must stand alone.
I thought I'd put this up because we normally show you a canopy or overhead protection system that is at the base of a building protecting pedestrians from the work going on overhead.
But this is a little different. It's a canopy at a new construction site. And it's not on the sidewalk but in the street. And because of that we added Jersey Barriers for added protection (to act as a curb, if you will).
We erected this 60' long beauty with one leg of the canopy actually resting on the barrier itself. The other leg is sitting on the curb where the normal sidewalk is located.
This gem is located in the most historic square mile in America. Independence Hall is directly across the street.
We added a steel fence material to the both sides and the developer put a nice screen print graphic over that.
The idea here is to keep that walkway open and protect the pedestrians while the new construction takes place. Here you can see why crews needed to use the existing sidewalk.
Our little baby is out there doing its part to make the world a better place; and how proud we are as parents.
Just ask Pat. He'll tell you. And if you have any scaffolding needs give him a call at (215) 743-2200. Or visit www.superiorscaffold.com for more information.
Emergency Services to the rescue at 1805 Walnut St.
Crews were renovating the Alison Building, in Rittenhouse Square, and discovered a piece of the parapet was falling off. The building was built in 1924 and is being revamped for 19 super high-end luxury apartments.
Superior Scaffold got the call Friday afternoon and had a crew on the scene within hours. The decision was made to install a 40' long, double-wide canopy (sidewalk overhead protection system) the next day.
The sidewalk shed was completed using our 767 Philly frames, steel and aluminum beams, and 3 foot high debris panels. Barneys placed their placards on the panels to let customers know they were open for business.
The canopy sits at the entrance of the building where the Barnes & Noble and Barneys New York, needs to be open daily for patrons. Superior specializes in keeping businesses and sidewalks open while work goes on overhead.
Part two of this project involved extending the overhead protection an additional 40' after inspectors noticed damage to one of the flagpoles that are anchored to the façade. We also installed an 8'X8' stair tower and then a 20' tall system scaffold on top of the canopy to allow crews to repair the flagpole. I will see if I can get some pictures of that.
This entire episode reminded me of the old Underdog cartoon where he was always called to save the day! Best theme song ever.
If you need someone to save the day, call Superior Scaffold. Our emergency service crews are the best in the business. Call (215) 743-2200 today or visit www.superiorscaffold.com for more information.
They did have 2 different versions of the open.
Construction Today Magazine features Superior Scaffold Job
A big shout out to the GBCA (General Building Contractors Association) who featured Superior Scaffold and our work at the Amtrak 30th Street station in their latest issue.
Click on any of the images to read the entire article. It details many of the challenges faced when putting up a scaffold canopy (overhead protection) that will have to stand the test of time for up to 10 years.
Call Superior Scaffold today at (215) 743-2200 or visit www.superiorscaffold.com today.
Article in ALH Magazine features Superior Scaffold's Amtrak 30th Street Station job
The latest issue of Access, Lift and Handlers magazine features an article on the scaffolding at Philadelphia's Amtrak 30th Street station. Lindsey Anderson does a wonderful job covering the challenges involved with this large scaffold project. This is a long term project with many phases to come. We will keep you updated as things unfold.
Click the Magazine cover to read the article.
And again, thanks to Lindsey for featuring Superior Scaffold in ALH.
Read about all of our scaffold, scaffolding jobs at www.superiorscaffold.com
or call (215) 743-2200 to see what we can do for you.