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Turkish Discovery On The ROTTERDAM: Part Three
Turkish Discovery on the ROTTERDAM, part 3
by Kalle Id
Join MaritimeMatters' Kalle Id for the third part of a ten-day cruise Turkey's Mediterranean coastline onboard Holland America Line's 1997-built ROTTERDAM, this time exploring Kusadasi, the ruins of Ephesus and the tourist town of Marmaris.
Holland America Line official website: www.hollandamerica.com
Unless otherwise noted, all photographs are copyright © 2013 Kalle Id.
Friday, 15 November 2013: Kusadasi
Our sixth day onboard the ROTTERDAM dawned in the Turkish town of Kusadasi. You could tell that we were still in Turkey by the giant hilltop statue of Atatürk that was the first things visible from our balcony in the morning. For today, Kusadasi was to prove a short detour, as our main objective was to visit the nearby ruins of Ephesus, one of the best-preserved cities of the antiquity.
Before starting for Ephesus, there was one thing to do: complain to the front office about our toilet not working properly. This accomplished, we headed out to town.
Getting to Ephesus was an interesting part of the day in itself, as we had not booked an excursion from the ship, as these were relatively expensive and offered very little time to actually spend in Ephesus (nor had we booked an excursion before-hand from anywhere else). Our original plan was to take one of the local dolmus buses, but we had no idea from where these depart, the timetables or how much they cost – none of this information is available on the internet. Resultingly, once in Kusadasi (and past a shopping mall that had been built on the harbour's passenger exit) we headed for the local tourist information, handily located right next to the cruise port.
Almost immediately upon entering the tourist information we were hailed by a taiwanese (as I later learned) man who was asking if we wanted to share a taxi to Ephesus. Naturally we did. In the end there were seven people in our taxi: the three-person Taiwanese family, a Canadian couple and us two Finns. It also turned out that the people we were sharing with were all from the CELEBRITY CONSTELLATION. Despite our sharing a taxi, the driver still charged on a 20 € per person -basis – but as he was willing to take us to Ephesus and back, this was actually very good value for money, especially compared with the excursions offered onboard.
Once in Ephesus, negotiations ensured about when our driver would come to pick us up. He wanted to come back in 1½ hours, claiming that was enough to see Ephesus, and that he would take us to see the local shopping opportunities afterwards. Meanwhile, everyone in our group were more of the opinion what we'd need five hours to properly see the place. Eventually we settled on four hours.
Now how to describe Ephesus? Trying to write this I'm left with a feeling that words – and even pictures – fail to capture the essence of walking through a city that was founded 3000 years ago and that was eventually abandoned 2400 years later (though the city had been in decline for the last centuries of its existance, due to harbour silting up). It has been ruled by various Greek states, the Persians, the Romans, the Byzantine, the Seljuks and finally the Ottomans. It was the site of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Temple of Artemis (its remains are located away from the main city and as such we did not see them). It was also a major center for early Christianity, with the apostles Paul and John both having lived in the city – tradition also holds that Virgin Mary spent the last years of her life there.
We entered the complex from the land side (east) entrance (there is an extrance/exit at both ends of the complex, so you don't need to walk through it twice), which opens up to the administrative agora, as the name proposes this was the area where the city's administrative buildings were centered. Going further from the administrative agora we passed through the Gate of Hercules and into the Street of Curetes, which appears to have been a residential area for the city's well-to-do inhabitants, as well as a place for various shops along the street.
A further attraction along the Street of Curetes are the terrace houses, a group of restored Roman-era houses. They are contained within a separate shelter erected around the ruins. Access there costs 15 tl on top of the regular entry charge to Ephesus, but it is money well-spent as the houses are relatively well-preserved and they offer an interesting glimpse to the lives of upper-class Romans.
Across the street from the terrace houses is one of the better-known sites of Ephesus, the Temple of Hadrian (which unfortunately was being renovated during our visit). Also next to the terrace houses, at the end of the Street of Curetes, is the Library of Celsus, probably the best-known landmark of the entire complex. Originally erected 120 AD by Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, the facade of the library was reconstructed using surviving original pieces in the 1970s.
Located next to the Library of Celsus is the city's main commercial agora. This wass out of bounds for visitors as the excavation works in the area are still ongoing – in fact, it is estimated that currently only 15% of Ephesus has been excavated!
Continuing on our way, the next major sight was the largest of them all, the theatre that could seat 24,000 people. As such, it is the largest known theatre of the ancient world. It also gives us the chance to estimate approximately how many people lived in Ephesus at its peak: in Roman cities, theatres were constructed to house approximately a tenth of the city's population in one sitting. Hence we can extrapolate that Ephesus had around 240,000 inhabitants during the Roman era – although the accuracy of this number has been contested by modern historians, who place the city's likely number of inhabitants at 33,000-56,000 people.
By this point we actually had to start hurrying a bit, as our four hours were almost up (my advice to anyone going there is "make sure you have enough time", four hours seems to be the absolute minimum if you want to see the place properly). We did still take a quick detour to "The Double Church", also known as the Church of Mary and the Church of the Councils, probably built for the Third Ecomenical Council (431).
Eventually we were out of Ephesus's west entrance at precisely the time our taxi was supposed to pick us up – and indeed, both the taxi and the rest of our group (who we had "lost" fairly soon after entering Ephesus) were there waiting. The next part of our itinerary as proposed by the taxi driver was a visit to a local carpet-making collective for a carpet demonstration. Now to be honest, this did not interest us that much, but as Turkish carpets and carpet demonstrations had been talked about a lot onboard, we decided to give it a go.
I have to say that while the Turkish carpets are very well made (by hand of all things), I wouldn't want one in my home. But all the hype about Turkish carpets being the best in the world and making fantastic heirlooms did come in very handy when I gave my brother a mouse mat that looks like a Turkish carpet after returning home (the joke was improved by the fact that the Finnish word for a mouse mat literally translated as "mouse carpet").
Once back in Kusadasi, we still had a little bit of time to look around the town. The town center had a bazaar area with pushy salesmen for benefit of tourists that was, frankly, repugnant. A short walk off the more touristy area is Güvercin Adaci (lit. "pigeon island"), a peninsula housing an old fortress (of which I could find no information online). The fortress houses a museum, but that was closed so instead we had a walk around the island, which handily gave chances for photo opportunities of the ROTTERDAM and CELEBRITY CONSTELLATION as well.
Once back onboard, the first order of business was to find out if our toilet had been fixed or not. It hadn't been, despite a call from the front office that claimed otherwise. Toiler not working complaints number three (I think – I may have lost count at some point) accomplished, we settled in to spectate our departure until heading to La Fontaine dining room for what would turn out to be our last meal in that particular venue.
Which is not say the food would have been bad, far from it (although I was a bit puzzled by the taste of my blueberry sorbet – until I realised it was actually blackcurrant). But on the other hand it must be said that the service was slow and – especially with us coming from the promised land of self service – the main dining room didn't offer any kind of added value compared to the buffet. It only took more time.
For the evening's entertainment, we decided to head to the ship's cinema, the Wajang Theatre, which was showing the science fiction movie "The Europa Report". As a sci-fi buff I'm a bit puzzled how this film had managed to pass me by previously – though it must be said it was not the best film of all time in its genre. After the movie it was time for bed and Marmaris that awaited tomorrow. Even our toilet had been fixed during the evening, so the day ended on a positive note.
Saturday, 16 November 2013: Marmaris
On the seventh day of the cruise we found ourselves at Marmaris in Turkey, on what was the ROTTERDAM's first visit to the port. To celebrate, the sun had come out and the sky was nearly cloudless. There were some clouds in our cabin, as our toilet was – again – not working properly. By now this had become a normal part of the daily routine, so following breakfast at the Lido.
The first thing we was of Marmaris was its marina, the biggest on the Mediterranean. Past the marina is the town itself, which… to be honest was a disappointment. The city was clean and modern and almost entirely built to serve the tourism industry. According to Wikipedia, the town's population is around 30,000 people – which grows to 400,000 is you count the tourists staying the hotels during the summer season. In other words, it's a tourist trap of the worst kind.
The only things actually of interest in Marmaris are the Marmaris Castle and the small old town surrounding it. The castle is said to be a whopping 5000 years old, though the current form of the structure dates from the 15th century, when Ottoman sultan Süleyman the Magnificient rebuilt it to serve as a base for his assaunt of Rhodes to drive out the Knights of St. John from their base there. Today the castle houses a small but interesting archeological museum (which could have benifited from better english translations and more information about the objects though).
Having seen what little there was to see in Marmaris, we headed back onboard. Surprisingly soon after our late lunch at the Terrace Grill at the Lido (which seemed to serve the same texmex buffet every day), it was time for departure. Now even though we left at five in the afternoon, it was already dark when we departed – well, sort of. With the cloudless sky and the full moon, the moonlight actually lit up the night in a way I had never experienced before.
From departure onwards, we lingered at the Lido as this hosted the only major onboard event during the cruise that was related to the local culture of the countries we visited: a Turkish Bazaar. Now I expected this to be just local souvenirs being sold onboard at exorbitant prices – and I was not entirely wrong – but to correspond with the Bazaar, the normal run-of-the-mill pop music played at the Lido was replaced by local Turkish music.
The rather fantastic experience was topped off by the Lido buffet serving local cuisine. Officially this was listed in the programme as a "Flavours of the Mediterranean" buffet and the space was decorated in colours of the Italian flag, but the food served was Turkish and Greek, with kebabs, couscous, falafels and the like. In other words, exactly what I had hoped this cruise would offer.
In the end I think we spent most on the evening at the Lido, listening to the Turkish music and just enjoying ourselves. We did leave, briefly, to watch the day's show at the Showroom at Sea, with the visual comedy Yacov Noy. Now if you have not heard of Yacov Noy, I cannot blame you as, according to the man himself, he has been showbiz for thirty years and yet no-one knows who he is (even the internet is deafeningly silent). But the man was properly funny.
After Mr Noy it there was still time for enjoying more Turkish music at the lido, before heading for bed and the awaiting wonders of our last Turkish port of call tomorrow.
End of Turkish Discovery on the ROTTERDAM, part 3.
More to come…
Special thanks to Maria Id and Martin Cox.
For more photographs by Kalle Id, visit kships.blogspot.com.


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Villari's of Shrewsbury
196 Boston Turnpike
Shrewsbury, MA 01545
Class Schedule
Kickboxing and Tai Chi
VShrews Blog
Practice Page
VShrews will be temporarily closed starting Mon 3/16. See
for details.
About VShrews
Check out our martial arts class offerings including kids and adults
Karate Programs
Kickbox & Tai Chi
fitness programs for adults and seniors, learn about our business and teaching
Meet the Team
that runs VShrews, read our student
, and watch our fun
by clicking the links to the right. Please find our
Class Schedule
below along with a link to our Free Trial Registration page to
Get Started
with classes.
Meet the Team
VShrews Values
Get Started
Karate Programs
Class Schedule
Kickbox & Tai Chi
Karate Programs
Child Beginner Karate for Elementary School Students
Child classes are 45 minutes long and encourage self-discipline while teaching self-control, respect for self and others, and basic self-defense skills. Students build a foundation of traditional karate stances, footwork, and strikes to aid them in establishing proper technique.
Tots Karate for Preschoolers and Early Elementary Students
For our youngest students, classes are 30 minutes long and focus on self-control, large motor skills, and listening and following directions. Students learn body control to help establish a basic karate skill set.
Teen Karate for Middle and High School Students
Preteen and Teen classes are 45 minutes long and emphasize responsibility, goal-setting, role-modeling positive behavior, and both verbal and physical self-defense skills. Students build a foundation of traditional karate stances, footwork, and strikes to aid in refining technique and principles.
Adult Karate for Beginners and Returning Students
Adult classes are 1 hour long in a relaxed and supportive atmosphere where students are encouraged to learn and progress at their own rate. Classes include calisthenic warm-ups, stretching, basic karate stances, footwork and strikes along with practical self-defense techniques and principles. Both beginners and students returning after long absences are welcome to join.
Rollover graph for more information.
VShrews Values
Humor & Humility
VShrews Values
We know that goals are easier to achieve with the help and support of our family and friends. Guests are always welcome to watch classes from our lobby and on Family Days, we even invite them in to participate! We also take time to show respect to our family members during every class and let them know how much we appreciate them.
We have students who win trophies and we are so proud of them! But we're also proud of the students who struggle with self-control or balance or self-confidence when they find themselves able to stand still, on one foot, in front of the whole class! Martial arts benefits students of all abilities, neurotypes, and skill levels and we like to celebrate all of our students' accomplishments!
Humor & Humility
Our mission is to help people live better lives through martial arts so while we take our training seriously, we don't always take ourselves so seriously. Nobody's perfect and we believe that mistakes are just new opportunities for learning. And we don't just mean for students! The staff at Villari's of Shewsbury is always willing to hear suggestions and ideas for how to improve your experience. There is always something new to learn when you empty your cup and open your mind to the possibilities!
Our schedule and programs are designed to fit into your busy life. Choose one, two, or three classes per week. Switch class days from week to week depending on your schedule. Choose private lessons before or after classes. Let's figure out what works best for you!
Meet The Team
6th Degree Master Instructor
Cristian Fraioli (Master Fry)
Director and Master Instructor Cristian Fraioli is VShrews's longest attending student who started training in the Tots class the year after our founding. Master Fraioli earned his 6th degree Black Belt from Great Grandmaster Villari at his 50th Anniversary Gala in December 2018.
4th Degree Chief Instructor
Wendy Woodworth Fraioli (Woofry)
Studio Manager and Chief Instructor Wendy Woodworth Fraioli has more than 20 years of experience in education and youth services, holds certifications in teaching ages 3 through adult and earned her 4th degree Black Belt in December 2018. She began her training as an adult at Villari's of Shrewsbury in 2004.
Villari's Martial Arts Center of Shrewsbury has been owned and operated by Team Fraioli since April 2010.
There is no better testimonial than our students' own words.
In the first video, three of our students were chosen by a regional committee to share excerpts from the essays they wrote as part of their Black Belt test in June 2018 at the post-test dinner.
In the second, hear two students from the June 2019 test read their excerpts.
Below, students were asked to reflect on what they have learned and what means the most to them about their martial arts training.
You have to use effort!
Today I learned that you have to use efort and not give up
Try your best!
Today I learned to try your best
You're only cheating yourself!
Today I learned that when you cheat, you're only cheating yourself. Always put in 100% effort
Be calm even in the hardest times!
My rank test taught me how to be calm even in the hardest times like being pressured
Be peaceful during hard times!
My rank test taught me to be peaceful during hard times
Stay calm under pressure!
My rank test taught me to stay calm while under pressure and to always stay focused
Be calm no matter what!
My rank test taught be to be [calm] no matter what even if someone wants to hit you
Help each other!
Humility means: to help each other and not think about yourself
Think about the team!
Humility means to think about the team
When there's something that needs to be done, you must adapt to make it easier.
Life won't come knocking at your door, you have to knock at its door.
Effort and Power!
That having a lot of power doesn't mean anything. It's about the EFFORT you put in.
Learn to Adapt!
I learn to adapt to my surroundings.
I learned to focus and practice my material.
VShrews Walkers
VShrewers fer sure walk, run, jump, skip, and roll to the beat of their own drum! .
Welcome to VShrews!
Welcome to Villari's Martial Arts Center of Shrewsbury offering Adult and Child Karate classes! Just one of the many independent martial arts schools that teaches the Villari system, Villari's of Shrewsbury prides itself on its fun, healthy, family-oriented environment committed to providing opportunities for all of its students to build confidence, character, and vitality.
VShrews is Happy!
What can we say? VShrews is a happy place to be! Our karate kids like to dance and sing and laugh and have fun. Oh, and we also learn karate.
June 2018 Black Belt Test
Our students are the champions of heart and soul and we love celebrating every test with them... but Black Belt tests are something special. Congratulations to every VShrewer who has ever passed through our dojo, whether they walked out with black belts or not!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Telia's Head of Group Public Affairs is the new Chairman of industry body ETNO ahead of what it said would be "a crucial year" for digital leadership in Europe.
The former Chief Executive of Wind Tre Maximo Ibarra has been appointed as the new CEO as KPN, with incumbent Eelco Blok to step down from the role in April 2018.
The CEO of Telekom Austria Group (TAG's) home market brand A1 has quit less than 18 months after taking the role.
Drillisch has confirmed a series of management and supervisory board appointments following its merger with 1&1 Telecommunication.
Nokia is cutting 310 jobs as part of a restructure at its Technologies arm and is hiring two senior execs as it looks to make good on a promise to focus on the enterprise market.
Deutsche Telekom's CEO said the operator had chosen a turnaround specialist with "the right spirit and attitude" to head up its struggling T-Systems subsidiary.
Ericsson has revealed the person it hopes will replace outgoing Chairman Leif Johansson next year.
VEON has confirmed Josh Drew as its new Chief Compliance Officer as the operator continues to reshape its top team.
Ericsson plans to cut its workforce in Italy by around 600 employees as the struggling vendor continues its restructuring and cost-cutting.
Telecom Italia (TIM) has appointed a former Vivendi executive to its vacant CEO role and overhauled its governance structure.
The former CEO of Telia and two execs from its Eurasia division have been indicted over the fraud scandal that has cost it $965 million.
The ex-CEOs of BT Global Services and Ericsson North America have got new roles at Wandera and Verizon respectively, while Cisco's Chairman has announced he will not stand for re-election.
The investment arm of a family office has acquired MVNO Lebara and installed telecoms veteran Graeme Oxby as CEO.
VEON has hired a Telenor veteran as its new CFO, as Andrew Davies (pictured) announced plans to step down after four years in the role.
Deutsche Telekom has hired a new CEO to lead its underperforming enterprise division.
Ericsson has promoted Niklas Heuveldop to head up its North America division in a permanent capacity.
The CEO of French operator SFR has resigned for "personal reasons" as the company continues to try and improve its operational performance.
Nokia hopes to slash 597 jobs in France less than two years after its acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent.
MegaFon CEO Sergey Soldatenkov has the full support of the Board of directors, the operator has said, after reports surfaced that he was about to resign.
Telenor's Chief People Officer is leaving the company after five years in the role.
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Before he died, Steve Jobs kept a letter from Bill Gates by his bed
In a new interview Microsoft founder Bill Gates told that he wrote a letter to Steve Jobs before his death and the letter was so important for Steve that he even kept it at his bedside. Gates spoke this week with students at a school in South London, where he acknowledged that Jobs had said critical things about him in the past, but before Jobs passed away they had settled all difficulties.
"There was no peace to make. We were not at war," Gates said. "We made great products, and competition was always a positive thing."
In fact, Gates said he received a phone call from Jobs's wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, about negative comments her husband had made to biographer Walter Isaacson, in which he called Gates a "basically unimaginative person who "has never invented anything." Gates said Jobs's wife told him that Isaacson's book didn't "paint a picture of the mutual respect" the two had for one another.
When Jobs death was imminent, Gate wrote his a letter in which he told the Apple co founder "he should feel great about what he had done and the company he had built." Gates also wrote about Jobs's kids, who he had gotten to know. Jobs's wife reportedly told Gates that Jobs appreciated the letter, and even kept it at his bedside.
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Priceless, not only as collectibles
Three decades ago when I first looked over the personal effects of Apolinario Mabini, one of his descendants ruefully commented that Rizal trumps all the other heroes combined in terms of importance and price. He asked: "Why do items that belong to Rizal cost more than those of Mabini?"
We may well come to the answer in the coming auctions that have some manuscripts on the block together with paintings and other objets d'art. Manuscripts are the lifeblood of history and historians, and it is good that high auction prices are drawing these out of hiding. Four Rizal letters to his sister Maria, the first time such have come up for sale, set record prices by selling for over P10 million. At the same Leon Gallery auction, a sketchbook of Juan Luna that documents his little-known visit to Japan in 1896 sold for a little over P2 million.
Now comes the acid test—five items in the hand of Andres Bonifacio.
Up for sale are: a letter to Emilio Jacinto, dated March 8, 1897, on stationery that reads "Andres Bonifacio. Maypagasa P[angulo] ng K[ataastaasang] Kapulungan"; a letter to Jacinto dated April 16, 1897, and yet another to Jacinto dated April 24, 1897—all three marked with Bonifacio's flowing signature, and under the rubric of his Katipunan name "There is Hope." His stationery makes us ask how or why he is referred to as the "Supremo" in popular lore when his title clearly says "President of the Supreme Council."
The two additional items are a printed document appointing Jacinto commander of the Northern district of Manila, with Bonifacio's signature made official by the seal "Haring-bayang Katagalugan-Kataastaasang Kapulungan" (Supreme Council of the Sovereign Tagalog Nation) and the
envelope that once contained the signed appointment papers, sold separately not as a manuscript but as a philatelic item.
We can ignore the breathless auction house catalogue entries that describe these items as "Extremely Rare and Historically Important," as well as the PR spin that the letters are "explosive"—an adjective better deployed by doctors explaining a bombastic type of diarrhea. The documents came from the collection of the historian Epifanio de los Santos, after whom the traffic-choked Edsa was named. The contents of the letters are well-known to historians, and the images of some are now in the public domain.
Contrary to claims made by the American historian Glenn Anthony May, the Bonifacio documents are authentic. Emmanuel Encarnacion kindly gave me access to the originals sometime in 1988, and even provided clear photocopies that led to transcriptions from the originals that were slightly different from those previously made available in print by De los Santos and Teodoro A. Agoncillo. The definitive word on these documents and a fresh translation from the original Tagalog are provided by Jim Richardson in "The Light of Liberty: Documents and Studies on the Katipunan, 1892-1897" (Ateneo Press, 2013).
These letters provide insights into the way the revolution was fought. In the short note of March 8, 1897, Bonifacio talks about using a more difficult code in correspondence. There is a note on the supply of live cartridges and how much they require. A week later, March 15, 1897, there are more references to money, gunpowder, saltpeter, guns and cartridges urgently needed. Then in the midst of text on the setting of spear traps or the need for copper so they could make cannons or lantakas, there is a reference to the discord in the Katipunan in Cavite:
"Here the enmity between the two Sangunian Bayan is very great, because Magdalo wants to rule everybody and the whole of Katagalugan, because—they say—nothing but the government of Imus is recognized there and throughout Europe […]The government that is being planned is this: president and general-in-chief is Magdalo; director of military works is Baldomero [Aguinaldo], and the Magdiwang people will be given positions of subdirector or subminister.
This plan truly disgusted the ministers of Magdiwang, who know that if the Imus people are elected as a result of this politicking they will govern here in Malabon. The selfishness of the Magdalo people is truly sickening, and has come to be the cause of their many reverses."
These documents may be priceless as collectibles, but they are best reread to understand the difficult birthing of the nation and to make sure we do not repeat the mistakes made at the cost of so much suffering.
Comments are welcome at [email protected]
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It is located in Santa Elena town. It has a big garden with a lot trees, you can watch birds in about 2 hectares of primary forest.
Each of the twenty rooms has a private bathroom with hot water, a safe and a balcony or terrace. The cabins are set among carefully preserved forest fragments and landscaped gardens, where both ornamental and a variety of fruit trees abound, attracting many different species of birds and butterflies.
Amenities & Services
- • Parking
- • Garden
- • Wifi
- • Laundry service
Hotel Rooms
Each of the twenty rooms has a private bathroom with hot water, a safe and a balcony or terrace
Standard RoomsTwo rooms come with a double, but the most with a double and a single bed. Some larger cabins have two separate bedrooms with a sitting area. Bathrooms are equipped with rain showers.
Superior RoomsThese offer two queen sized beds and a twin sofa bed located two levels, with refrigerator, an ample bathroom with walk-in shower.
The HouseThis is a larger cabin with a fully equipped kitchen-living room, two separate bedrooms with double beds, and has a private garden with hammocks.
Seasons & Rates
Hotel NotesPrice per night and per room.
Prices in Dollars (USD).
Additional Guest at US $ 10 -- $15 per night
Children older than 3 years are paying full
Breakfast Buffet: US $ 7.50 p.p. taxes & service included
Breakfast Buffet for children 0 - 3 free of charge, 4 - 10 years US$ 4
Check in: 2:00 p.m. / Check out: 12:00 m.d.
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A couple of book-release-related announcements: 'Shadows and Spellcraft' and 'Rheia'Posted: September 24, 2018 Filed under: On Rheia, On the Isla's Inheritance trilogy | Tags: Isla's Inheritance, pinterest, Rheia, shadows and spellcraft Leave a comment
Shadows and Spellcraft giveaway announcement
As you'll have no doubt have guessed by now, given all the posts on my blog lately, the Shadows and Spellcraft book bundle (which contains, among other things, Isla's Inheritance), comes out on 30 October. Pre-orders are only $0.99 (US), which is such an awesome bargain that I've already pre-ordered my own copy for the books in there that I haven't read — there are fifteen books total.
One of the authors in the bundle, Laura Greenwood, is giving away a Kindle Fire stuffed with ebooks (including another of mine, because yay!) to celebrate the release of the bundle. You can find the giveaway here. Check it out!
Rheia Pinterest page
As I do with all my books, as I was drafting Rheia I kept a Pinterest page for the book. Now that we're getting closer to the release day, I've made the page public so that those of you who want to get a taste for the aesthetic of the book can do so. The link to the page is here. It's no Kindle Fire, but I hope you enjoy anyway!
(Note that the usual caveats apply: I don't own any of the art in the lefthand screenshot above.)
Cover reveal: 'Shadows and Spellcraft' book bundlePosted: September 6, 2018 Filed under: On the Isla's Inheritance trilogy | Tags: bundle, cover reveal, Isla's Inheritance, shadows and spellcraft Leave a comment
I have a very busy couple of months coming up, what with the release of Rheia and A Hand of Knaves, but (because I am a sucker for punishment) I decided that wasn't quite enough. So I'm releasing Isla's Inheritance as part of an urban fantasy ebook bundle that comes out on 30 October. The bundle is called Shadows and Spellcraft: The Ultimate Urban Fantasy Binge Collection.
Because urban fantasy. ❤
If you've already read Isla's Inheritance, I love you … and you should consider buying the bundle anyway. For a start, it contains fourteen other urban fantasy novels and novellas by various authors — that's over 2500 pages of story! Secondly, the pre-orders are available for US$0.99, or around AU$1.43. What a great way to discover new writers! (I know I've already ordered my copy, and I've already read two of the other books that are in the bundle.)
Also, check out the cover. If the style looks familiar, it's because it has been designed by KILA Designs, the same designer I use for my books. Isn't it gorgeous?
Dive into FIFTEEN amazing worlds full of action, adventure, magic and mayhem brought to you by some of the freshest voices in urban fantasy.
Want angels? Demons? Fairies? Witches? Supernatural assassins? Vampires? Whatever you're after, you're bound to find it in this incredible collection jam-packed with page-turning adventure.
This bundle features 8 full length novels, 4 short novels and 3 novellas written by:
Laura Greenwood
Jenn Windrow
Tiffany Shand
Victoria DeLuis
Monique Singleton
Chris Coleman
Ashlee Nicole Bye
Kim Richardson
Devyn Jayse
Robyn Jenkins
Tanya R Taylor
Sadie Moss
Cassandra Page
K. A. Last
Thea Atkinson
Preorder links
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Australia | Barnes & Noble
Kobo | iBooks
What Hogwarts Houses Are My Characters?Posted: May 7, 2016 Filed under: On the Isla's Inheritance trilogy, On the Lucid Dreaming duology | Tags: harry potter, Isla's Inheritance, Lucid Dreaming Leave a comment
I was asked on Facebook what Hogwarts Houses my characters would be; apparently this was a thing authors were doing back in 2014, and we all know how cutting edge I am! I've been chewing over the idea, because—like Harry, who could have just as easily been Slytherin as Gryffindor—most of my characters could fit into more than one house. Still, I've donned the Sorting Hat and done my best!
Isla's Inheritance trilogy
Isla has elements of Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, and could easily go into either house. However, when we first meet her, she is definitely a Hufflepuff, so that's where she would've been sorted when she started high school. Her loyalty in particular drives her to do some very courageous things, but she's still more comfortable not charging into danger, given the choice.
Like Isla, Jack has elements of Gryffindor (his chivalry and courage, in particular). However, he is a Hufflepuff through and through. Patience and loyalty are two of his defining characteristics, and his desire for justice has gotten him into trouble in the past.
Sarah is a Gryffindor. Although she is musical, which could have qualified her for Ravenclaw, she is the most honest, determined and forthright of the characters in the trilogy. This causes Sarah to butt heads with Isla at times, when she gets frustrated with her cousin's reluctance to be as honest as she probably should be.
Lucid Dreaming
Of these five characters, Melaina is the hardest for me to sort. She has traits valued by three of the four houses (she'd make a pretty poor Hufflepuff, all things considered). Still, I'd sort her into Gryffindor, given her tendency to leap into situations and think about the consequences later.
Brad is a Ravenclaw. He's an educated, intellectual sort of person who is very good at thinking his way through a problem or puzzle to find a solution. That is why he struggles at first, when presented with information that doesn't fit neatly into his worldview. But once he understands the new "rules" of Melaina's world, he is able to think his way through them.
Are you a writer? Have you ever sorted your characters? It's a fun little mental exercise that gets you to think about who they really are, beneath it all. (And special thanks to Belle for suggesting it.)
In case you missed it, on Thursday I was over at Aussie Owned and Read, talking about finding time in a busy life: time to write, blog, review and do the squillion other things I try to get done.
What I really need is a Time Turner…
Advertising Strategies: a Work-in-ProgressPosted: April 30, 2016 Filed under: On writing | Tags: advertising, Freebooksy, Goodreads, Isla's Inheritance, Isla's Oath, Melpomene's Daughter, NetGalley, self-publishing Leave a comment
As of maybe six months ago, I'm a fully independent or self-published author, what is sometimes referred to as an "author-publisher". I like that term, because it conveys the sense that self-publishing is more than just banging out words and then sending them out into the world, all naked and unprepared. There are things one needs to consider, things a publisher usually does. Two of those are editing and book design, and I've blogged about those before.
The other thing that a publisher does to a greater or lesser extent (at least, if you're lucky and they are any good) is advertise your book. In the case of small or independent presses, you may have a small or non-existent presence in bricks-and-mortar stores, so you can't rely on people stumbling across your work by accident. That's where advertising comes in.
I'm still feeling my way through the morass, trying to find strategies that work for me and my books. I thought it might be helpful to others (and for my own future reference) to catalogue some of them here.
Book blitzes
These are generally organised to try and raise a bit of word-of-mouth attention when a book first comes out; kind bloggers share promotional content. Sometimes they result in a few adds to peoples' Goodreads shelves, but I haven't noticed a huge number of sales as a result. Maybe I'm just not doing them right! Certainly, I wouldn't do a blog tour with customised posts, as I don't think the time invested would be worth it. But I would do a book blitz for each of my future releases. Every book deserves a birthday party. 😉
NetGalley listings
Publishers will usually list books on NetGalley, which is a site that allows reviewers to apply for free ebook copies of books in exchange for an honest review. It's a lot of reviewers' bread and butter. But it's expensive to have a NetGalley account, so, for an independent author, it's generally more cost-efficient to buy in on a co-op such as this one. I had a three-month co-op when Isla's Inheritance and Isla's Oath came out (I had each book up for about six weeks), and a one-month co-op for Lucid Dreaming. I got a bump in the number of reviews on sites like Goodreads, but, like a blitz, this is about word of mouth rather than direct sales.
Facebook advertising
I saw a tweet that described Facebook advertising as being as effective as setting your money on fire. The metaphor probably works better in countries where the money is made of paper, but still, it's not too far off. I have tested a handful of ads and have seen no return. These days, the only thing I'd pay to advertise on Facebook would be occasional posts on my author page; Facebook throttles visibility of page posts so that not everyone who likes the page will see them. If you pay them money (the extortionists that they are), they will share the post more widely. In terms of impressions, this is quite effective … but I'd reserve it for significant updates, such as book releases.
Free book promotions
This has been my most recent effort, and also my most successful to date. Because it is my most recent, I'm going to go into a bit more detail, with some numbers. (This does feel a tiny bit like airing dirty laundry, but if you promise not to oggle my underthings I think we can all ignore that!)
I made the Isla's Inheritance ebook permafree (ie I have no plans to set a price for it again), and advertised it via the "Buy a Series Post" option at Freebooksy. They have a significant market reach and people loooove free stuff. When I previously advertised a sale of my erotica novella (*cough*), I had a ton of downloads, so I knew it worked.
In the first two weeks after the promo ran, I had almost 5000 downloads on Amazon and a handful at the other sites. Isla's Inheritance made it to #2 on Amazon US for free Paranormal & Urban Fantasy (as I write this, it's sitting at 233).
There haven't been a huge number of reviews as a result, but there have been consistent sales on books two and three in the series. I didn't expect that people who downloaded the book would buy the sequels so quickly, but on the first day of the promo I had four sales of Isla's Oath and one of Melpomene's Daughter — suggesting that there were at least four people who read it straight away and liked it enough to keep reading. (If you were one of those people: thank you!)
Within the first two weeks, the promotion had paid for itself with sales on the other books. It's the first time a promotion has done that for me, so I'm pretty pumped.
There are a few caveats, however. The first is that obviously I didn't make a penny off those 5000 copies of Isla's Inheritance; this means that, in order for me to even break even on the trilogy, sales on the other two books have to cover not only their own production costs but those of the first books as well. For this reason, I wouldn't personally make a book permafree that didn't have sequels available — because, while I don't expect to be rolling around in piles of money, I'd at least like to imagine I might recoup my expenses at some point. 😉
The other caveat is that there hasn't been much, if any, cross-pollination to my other book, Lucid Dreaming. I expect that if people finish the trilogy and enjoy it, and they decide that they'd like to see what my adult (rather than young adult) book is like, that might happen … but it will be slower.
What next?
Now that the sales bump from the Freebooksy promotion has more or less worn off, I've decided my next experiment will be with Goodreads advertising. I read a really interesting blog post by Lindsay Buroker on how she made it work for her, and I'm keen to give it a try. Goodreads has a big advantage over Facebook in that at least we know the people on there are readers to start with.
Wish me luck!
If you're an author-publisher, have you tried different forms of advertising? What has worked for you? What hasn't? I'd love to hear about it!
Do you also like free things?
The Isla's Inheritance ebook is available free from the following retailers:
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Australia
Promotion: 'Isla's Inheritance' ebook available freePosted: March 21, 2016 Filed under: On the Isla's Inheritance trilogy | Tags: giveaway, Isla's Inheritance 4 Comments
Isla was content to let her father keep his secrets, but now she can't stand the touch of iron and her dreams are developing a life of their own.
Seventeen-year-old Isla Blackman only agrees to participate in a Halloween séance because Dominic, an old crush, wants to. She is sure nothing will happen when they try to contact her mother's spirit. But the séance receives a chilling reply.
Isla doesn't want to upset her father by prying into the family history he never discusses. When the mysterious and unearthly Jack offers to help her discover the truth, Isla must master her new abilities to protect her loved ones from enemies she never knew existed.
Isla's Inheritance, the first book in my young adult urban fantasy trilogy, is currently available as a free download from all good* ebook retailers.
Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Smashwords
* Amazon is, as many have noted before me, not a good ebook retailer. In fact, I have it on good authority that it may have been given a lump of coal (delivered free with Amazon Prime!) for Christmas last year. 😉 So if your Amazon account isn't based in the USA and your Amazon store lists Isla's Inheritance with a price, you can download the mobi file for free from the Smashwords link instead. Or leave a message and I will email it to you.
If you enjoy Isla's Inheritance — or any of my other books, or other authors' books for that matter — please consider leaving a review on Goodreads or your favourite ebook retailer. Reviews make a huge difference to authors; you wouldn't believe how much us needy creative types need the positive reinforcement. 😉
'Isla's Inheritance' is backPosted: December 15, 2015 Filed under: On the Isla's Inheritance trilogy | Tags: Isla's Inheritance, self-publishing Leave a comment
YOU GUYS! It's been two months since Turquoise Morning Press returned the rights for the Isla's Inheritance trilogy, and in that time the fantastic Kim and I have been working our booties off. I've re-read this book (twice), spent an unhealthy amount of time trawling stock websites (the images for the covers and the latest teasers are all courtesy of Shutterstock), and then squeed enthusiastically at the end result. There is definitely something to be said for self-publishing; the sense of satisfaction at the end of the process is enormous.
ANYWAY. I'm pleased to announce that Isla's Inheritance, book one of the trilogy by the same name, has been released back into the wild. So far the ebook has made it as far as Amazon and Smashwords, and the paperback is only at Createspace. But I'll update my Isla's Inheritance trilogy page as I get more links.
Thank you as always for the support of my wonderful friends and family. This re-release has been an unexpected bump on the road, and I admit I wouldn't have chosen the Lucid Dreaming release month to be doing all this work (let alone just before Christmas, with all the end-of-year shenanigans), but hopefully you agree that the result is worth it in the end.
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Australia | Smashwords
'Isla's Inheritance' trilogy cover revealPosted: December 5, 2015 Filed under: On the Isla's Inheritance trilogy | Tags: book covers, Isla's Inheritance, Isla's Oath, Melpomene's Daughter 2 Comments
Isla's Inheritance is my first book baby (well, book triplets, really, given it's a trilogy), so I'm giddy with delight to be able to share the new covers with you. These were made by Kim Last from KILA Designs — the same wonder who made the Lucid Dreaming cover — so it should be no surprise to you that they are breathtaking.
Feast your eyes! Feast them!
Isla's Inheritance
Isla was content to let her father keep his secrets, but now she can't stand the touch of iron and her dreams are developing a life of their own.
Seventeen-year-old Isla Blackman only agrees to participate in a Halloween séance because Dominic, an old crush, wants to. She is sure nothing will happen when they try to contact her mother's spirit. But the séance receives a chilling reply.
Isla doesn't want to upset her father by prying into the family history he never discusses. When the mysterious and unearthly Jack offers to help her discover the truth, Isla must master her new abilities to protect her loved ones from enemies she never knew existed.
Isla's Oath
Australia is a long way from the Old World and its fae denizens … but not far enough.
Isla is determined to understand her heritage and control her new abilities, but concealing them from those close to her proves difficult. Convincing the local fae that she isn't a threat despite her mixed blood is harder still. When the dazzling Everest arrives with a retinue of servants, Isla gets her first glimpse of why her mother's people are hated … and feared.
But Isla isn't the only one with something to hide. Someone she trusts is concealing a dangerous secret. She must seek the truth and stop Everest from killing to get what he wants: Isla's oath.
Melpomene's Daughter
Isla struggles to embrace her fae nature while preserving her humanity in the final, exciting instalment of the Isla's Inheritance trilogy.
Isla has spent months persuading the Canberra fae that she isn't a tyrant like her mother, trying to prove that—despite her mixed blood—she's human, not a monster. That she's one of them, not one of the high fae who enslaved them.
But a vision of a fresh-dug grave warns that someone is going to die.
When the Old World fae once again move against her family, seeking revenge for old wrongs, Isla will stop at nothing to keep those she loves safe. She just wants to be left alone. But to win that right for herself, her family and all Australian fae, she must cross the oceans and take the fight to the country of her birth.
Isla must prove she really is Melpomene's daughter after all.


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The Lombard Environment
The Village of Lombard's Public Works and Environmental Concerns Committee is a working group that suggests and monitors environmental programs, contracts and regulations to provide direction to Village staff and recommendations to the Board of Trustees. Call or email the Public Works Department at (630) 620-5740 if you have questions or suggestions.
The Village's Environmental Concerns Committee developed the Sustainability Framework to comprehensively identify programs, accomplishments and goals in the areas of Air, Greenhouse Gasses, Water, Transportation, Land Use, Waste Diversion and Energy Use. The Village will engage residents, businesses and organizations to make continual progress in the effort to be a sustainable community.
The Village has committed to the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus' Greenest Region Compact 2. Participating communities in Northeastern Illinois meet regularly to coordinate sustainability programs in the areas of climate, economic development, energy, land, leadership, mobility, municipal operations, sustainable communities, waste & recycling, and water. The goal is to make ours the greenest region in the United States.
Please view Lombard's Climate Action Plan for more information.
Please select a tab below to see specific information
The Village contracts with Clarke Mosquito Control to treat standing waters and catch basins for Culex Pipien mosquitoes, which can carry West Nile Virus. On occasion, the Village will also authorize a truck spraying. Truck spraying is generally not as effective as larviciding which is why the Village chooses to keep truck spraying to a minimum.
The Village of Lombard's mosquito abatement program with Clarke Mosquito Control includes the standard treatment all of standing waters with larvicide, but the Village also goes beyond many other municipalities by also treating backyard (i.e. private) catch basins. It is important to note that there are many species of mosquitoes that impact the Lombard area. Our larvicide program is focused on targeting Culex Pipiens mosquitoes, which are larger in size than average mosquitoes, and may carry West Nile Virus as larva. These mosquitoes breed in warm, nutrient-rich standing water over 7 days.
The smaller and more common mosquito is the Aedes Vexans, or "floodwater mosquito". These insects are the usual culprits of backyard annoyance, but they do not carry West Nile Virus. Their life cycle is different than the Culex, only requiring a 3 day incubation period and small amounts of water, allowing them to breed in damp grass. These mosquitoes increase in number with frequent and heavy rains. In order to control this population the Village would have to spray pesticides every 3 days, at a cost to residents of $12,300 per Village-wide spray. Since spraying is only useful for short-term control and even less so for backyard areas, the Village suggests that residents may opt to purchase a can of yard spray at a hardware store for a weekend's worth of benefit, such as for a barbeque.
Although the mosquito species that transmit Zika, dengue and chikungunya viruses are rare to nonexistent in northern Illinois, health authorities have issued advisories for travel and person-to-person infection. See https://www.dupagehealth.org/243/Personal-Protection-Index for the latest information.
Helpful Bite Prevention Tips
- Contact Clarke's hotline at 1-800-942-2555 or www.clarkeportal.com/hotline to report standing/stagnant water.
- Change water in bird baths every other day and eliminate water from flower pots, gutters, toys and pool covers.
- Keep informed by the DuPage County Health Department at https://www.dupagehealth.org/243/Personal-Protection-Index
- Wear repellent after dusk.
- Inform the Village at (630) 620-5740 if you have a private catch basin. The Village will have it added to the list for larviciding briquettes.
- Minimize time spent outdoors at dawn, dusk and in the early evening, when mosquitoes are the most active.
- Wear light colored, long sleeved shirts and long pants when outdoors.
- Apply DEET-based insect repellents sparingly to exposed skin and clothing. Repellents may irritate eyes/mouths, so avoid applying to the hands of children.
- Make sure that doors and windows have tight fitting screens.
- Remove containers that may hold water to eliminate standing water which serves as a breeding ground for mosquitoes, i.e., discarded tires, cans, ceramic pots.
- Keep weeds and grass cut short since adult mosquitoes look for shady places to rest during the hot daylight hours.
- Change water in bird baths at least once per week.
- Drain water from pool covers, and keep pools and hot tubs chlorinated and clean.
- Keep gutters clean.
Eco-Friendly Mosquito Larvicide
Starting in 2014, Lombard is now part of the new EarthRight sustainability program offered by Clarke that uses a naturally-derived, EPA-registered larvicide as well as application by technicians on bicycles. See Clarke's video and website for more information.
- Make use of natural light and use compact fluorescent bulbs
- Look for ENERGY STAR labels on appliances
- Do a free home energy audit and save thousands of dollars over the life of your home. The Energy Impact Illinois program is an alliance of government, utilities and non-profit groups and funded through the "Energy Efficiency Programs" line item on your utility bills. More information is at www.energyimpactillinois.org and 1-855-9-IMPACT. The nonprofit program manager for Lombard is www.elevateenergy.org.
- ComEd's Hourly Pricing Program allows residents the option of paying the variable hourly rate (based on consumer demand) rather than the flat rate. This can save significantly by using electricity in off-peak times, such as weekends and nights.
- Check out Cool DuPage for ideas for your home and workplace, and sign up to be part of this growing coalition that is seeking to reduce our county's carbon footprint for greenhouse gasses.
Keep your energy bills down with a quick at home energy audit
As temperatures begin to dip, energy costs can begin to rise. Help keep your energy use down by performing a quick energy audit on your home to help identify areas of energy conservation improvement. What kind of problems should you look for? Start with the most obvious flaws in the home.
- Air Leaks: Air leaks will cost you when it comes to both heating and cooling. Check windows, doors, electrical outlets, attic hatches, air conditioners, and baseboards, for leaks. If you can see sunlight around a window, there is a leak. Caulk in whatever gaps you can.
- Insulation: If your home is inadequately insulated, you could lose a lot of heat through the walls and ceiling, which results in excessive energy required for artificial heating in winter.
- By the same token, your home may get very hot in summer, requiring mechanical cooling measures, which consume high levels of electricity.
- Check the attic, and if possible also the exterior walls to determine if your home is sufficiently insulated. While inspecting the attic, also check for air leaks that may need to be caulked or weather stripped.
- Lighting: Check the wattage of the bulbs at use in your home. If they are of high wattage (such as 100 watts), they can be replaced with lower wattage bulbs.
- Softer light will suffice in areas where you relax, while you may need stronger light for study areas.
- Fluorescent bulbs help save energy in places where you spend most of your time and in areas where lights are kept on for hours at a time.
- Heating/Cooling: Check and clean the filters of your furnace every month. A professional cleaner should be called annually.
- If your equipment is older than fifteen years, a newer model is likely to provide greater efficiency, and decrease energy consumption.
- A short term investment could lead to long term returns as newer models are far more energy efficient than older versions. Also check the ducts of heating and cooling units for leaks.
Twice a year Department staff organizes a trails cleanup during which volunteers pick-up accumulated trash and remove invasive plant species from the Illinois Prairie Path, Great Western Trail and area parks.


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It's been another cracker of a month for music photography, Getintothis' Peter Goodbody sorts through the best imagery on offer.
By its very nature, Getintothis is chiefly a music based website. Hence the name.
But that's not all we cover and we're very much keen to spread our wings to embrace culture in whatever form it is to be found.
On hearing of the opening of the Granby Winter Garden we sent our man Chris Flack down to have a look and see what was happening.
His piece was a natural follow on to the report we ran in 2015 after multi disciplinary collective Assemble were given the Turner Prize for art, much to the surprise, but approval, of all concerned.
Looking through the March archive, we see Getintothis staff wrote about Mothers Day, new literature, the restoration of Lister Drive Library, music documentaries, music education, politics (Brexit, natch), and plans to transform the Canning Graving Dock.
And that's only in the last week of March. We're sure you're as capable of surfing through the archives as well as we are.
But in among all that is the steady flow of gig reviews. I've checked the spreadsheet and I see we covered more than 50 gigs in March, including pretty much everything from the BBC 6 Music Festival as well as Threshold in the Baltic Triangle.
Personal highlights were Bleib Modern in Sound and Dead Naked Hippies in the Jacaranda. Proving once again my oft repeated mantra that the best stuff isn't always in the big venues.
Yammerer release Donnay Death Housing Cryssis for Record Store Day 2019 – exclusive listen
We try and cover as many bases as we can. We don't always get there and there are plenty of gigs, events and happenings that slip through the net, simply because there is so much going on.
That this is the case is testament to the rich and varied offerings there are to be found in Liverpool, not to say elsewhere. We try, but there are not enough of us to go around.
We have a new Arts Diary editor in Rick Leach and Cath Holland does the monthly Wrapped Up in Books column. Others dip in and out and contribute as and when they can on whatever subject is bugging them at the time.
And then there are the photographers who try and bring a bit of colour and life to the pages of this website. And with that, enjoy our pick of the pics from March 2019. Peter Goodbody


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This article is 7 years old. It was published on October 17, 2013.
For more information, please visit the following link: http://www.umsl.edu/~pcs/noncredit-offerings/bwbc.html.
The second leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. is breast cancer. While deaths from breast cancer are decreasing, black women are still more likely to die of breast cancer than other women. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) state that several factors contribute to this difference:
- Black women often have cancers that grow faster and are harder to treat • Black women often have fewer resources
- Black women are less likely to get follow-up care when their mammograms show something that isn't normal
- Black women are less likely to get high-quality treatment (cdc.gov)
There are some simple things you can do every day to lower your risk of breast cancer. Be physically active, eat healthy foods, stay at a healthy weight, and avoid smoking or using tobacco products. The CDC recommends you do these three things:
1. Get your mammograms regularly. Get a mammogram every two years if you are between the ages of 50 and 74 years. If you are 40 to 49 years old, talk to your doctor about whether or not you should have a mammogram, when, and how often.
2. Know your family history of breast cancer. Talk to your doctor if you have a parent, sister or brother, or child with breast cancer as you may have a higher risk of breast cancer.
3. Learn about hormone replacement therapy. Some women with menopause use hormone replacement therapy to treat the symptoms. Talk with your doctor about the risks and benefits before deciding if it is right for you. (cdc.gov)
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For more than a decade, Vimeo has served as an arbiter of taste in the online video community by designating a selection of videos as "Staff Picks" that are worthy of extraordinary merit. Some Staff Picks have entrenched themselves in the cultural zeitgeist, and at SXSW, Vimeo spotlight a handful of its greatest hits. The video site teamed up with creative agency Preacher to install a temporary exhibition that celebrated the greatest hits from among its staff picks.
The highlighted Staff Picks included "Marcel The Shell With Shoes On," which launched Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp to viral stardom back in 2010, and "Hi Stranger," which creator Kristen Lepore delivered in 2016. The exhibition included elements catered to individual videos. The "Hi Stranger" tribute, for example, was designed to be creepy, just like the video that inspired it.
While the in-person activation at SXSW wowed visitors, Vimeo also set up a digital portal that looks back at the past decade of Staff Picks. There, viewers can check out "Marcel the Shell," "Hi Stranger," and all the other videos that have defined the online video community's artiest set over the years.
And if you stay tuned, there will surely be more Staff Picks to come. In 2016, Vimeo said it bestows its prestigious label upon 1,000 videos per year, give or take a few. We're already looking forward to the tributes Vimeo will create for its next generation of Staff Picks, even if we have to way until the 2028 edition of SXSW to see them.


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The existence of ancient pagan and Christian burial sites in and around Dartford provides valuable evidence of the beliefs of the local populace. Pagan and Christian burials each have their own distinctive characteristics
TInitially, cremation was the dominant method for disposing of the dead, the ashes of the deceased being placed in a glass or pottery urn. Pagan Roman cremations entailed a variety of different objects being placed with the burnt bones. These objects included coins, a lamp, or small pots. In time, inhumation (burial) grew in popularity until it completely replaced cremation. The corpse was laid out fully clothed and shrouded in a wood, lead or stone coffin. Pagan graves were usually aligned in a North-South direction. A coin was often placed in the mouth of the deceased and ornaments and equipment were placed next to the body as offerings. Many of the goods buried with the dead were related to food and drink, they were intended to afford a feast for the dead in the afterlife. There is often evidence of the disturbance of earlier burials, as well as more than one body buried in a single grave.
Early Christians were not in favour of the cremation of the dead because they believed that bodies should be kept intact in anticipation of Christs Second Coming. Christians were usually buried on a strict east-west orientation with the head to the West. This would have allowed the individual to face Christ, assumed to be coming from the East at the time of the Second Coming. Christians were not buried with grave goods or food for the after life. Sometimes efforts were made to preserve the body by encasing it is plaster. Infant burials are commonly associated with Christian cemeteries, but not pagan cemeteries. Christians believe that all individuals have equal spiritual status from birth.
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In the previous two articles in this series we looked at what is required for a DCAA timekeeping system and what types of systems will meet these requirements. Today I want to look at how the DCAA monitors these systems and what you, as a government contractor, might expect to do to be compliant. As labor is typically the largest expense in a government contract, it makes sense that they would focus on how it is recorded, how it is turned into a bill to the government and how the contractor assures its accuracy. The FAR Part 31.201 requires that all costs (including labor) are evaluated for allowability, reasonableness and allocability. The timekeeping system is a big part of that requirement. The DCAA Contract Audit Manual provides the DCAA auditor tools for evaluating the allowability and allocability in Para 5-901 and evaluation of the reasonableness in Para 5-800, 6-412 & 6-413.
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DCAA Timekeeping Requirements - Part 3
Posted by Mike Anderson on Mon, Sep 10, 2012 @ 04:50 AM
Topics: DCAA, DCAA audit, timekeeping
DCAA Timekeeping Requirements - Part 2
Posted by Mike Anderson on Tue, Sep 04, 2012 @ 04:50 AM
Last week we looked at the DCAA requirements for Timekeeping on a government contract and this week I want to explore the different types of systems. The DCAA Contract Audit Manual describes two types of acceptable timekeeping systems:
Topics: DCAA, timekeeping
DCAA Timekeeping Requirements - Part 1
Posted by Mike Anderson on Mon, Aug 27, 2012 @ 04:18 AM
For many new government contractors and/or small government contractors, it may be confusing as to what is required and why it is required relative to timekeeping and timekeeping records. This is a very important topic to the government and the government contractor should not underestimate the importance or the need to do it in accordance with what the government expects. In our experience, issues related to timekeeping account for easily the majority of audit findings by the DCAA. Failure to meet these expectations will most certainly result in some stiff lessons, including delayed payment and/or refusal of future contracts. So what is exactly required by the government?
Topics: DCAA guidance, timekeeping, dcaa compliant timekeeping, dcaa timekeeping requirements


text: ummtaalib 2,454 Report post Posted August 6, 2014 Question and Answer: Q. what is the ruling reguarding offering food to visitors during the first 3 days after the funeral?nb,some visitors are from out of town and some from the area,that have come to read Quran.is it permissable to offer them food or even a drink (Query published as received) A. The practice of providing meals at the funeral home for those who attend the funeral is permissible on condition that the expenses are not born by the estate of the deceased nor is any heir or relative coerced into providing the meals. If someone willingly takes the responsibility of providing meals without any coercion for those attending the funeral, there will be no sin in this. The actual Sunnah is to provide meals for the bereaved family and not the other way around as practiced today. In many instances, it has been discovered that money from the estate of the deceased had been utilized to feed those attending the funeral without the consent of all heirs. This is Haraam and constitutes usurpation of the wealth of the heirs. And Allah Knows Best Mufti Suhail Tarmahomed Fatwa Department Jamiatul Ulama (KZN) Council of Muslim Theologians 223 Alpine Road, Overport, Durban Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


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All TYM tractors are manufactured by state-of-the-art engineering company "Tong Yang Moolsan", of South Korea. With the benefit of over 40 years of manufacturing experience in agricultural machinery more than 10,000 tractors are now made each year to meet an ever-growing demand in countries from the United States to Australia, as well as throughout European community. The popularity of TYM tractors reflects the incorporation into each model of high specification features as standard and excellent ergonomics that make all TYM tractors very simple to operate. TYM's range of tractors extends from 23 hp to 100 hp Turbo models. With all Cab models fitted with air conditioning as standard. Every model in the extensive range of TYM tractors has earned a reputation for quality, reliability and value for money in sectors as diverse as stadium management, golf course maintenance, and equestrian facilities management. TYM is also the tractor of choice for commercial contractors and the most discerning of hobby farmers. Design Counts In 1993 "TYM" established their dedicated Central R&D Institute for Agricultural Machinery, which received ISO 9002 Certification in 1995, and in 2002 the Agricultural Machinery Factory was awarded ISO 14001 Certification. The result of these state of the art facilities is that all TYM tractors come with full spares and engineering support and a five-year manufacturer's warranty as standard! A TYM tractor takes everything in its stride and performs as good as it looks, fitted with world beating CAT power units and incorporating the highest build quality. TYM provides exceptional quality and value for money in one unbeatable package. So when you need something you can truly rely on, the answer is simple - the answer is TYM! Because quality matters. Every TYM tractor is designed and manufactured to the highest standard, with uncompromising attention being paid to detail. Prior to leaving the factory detailed inspection of each unit is carried out prior to shipping, ensuring that the next unit shipped is as good as the last. TYM have the highest level of equipment as standard. As result of this dedication to quality and a reliability record that is second to none TYM, the manufacturer, provides a standard 5 year warranty *. *Conditions Apply.
4734 Potato House Ct
Wilson, North Carolina 27893
United States
Fax: 252-293-1225


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February 1st, 2017
A couple of weeks ago, there was some pretty heavy fog in Mississauga that lasted a couple of days. Personally I think that fog gives such a beautiful effect to landscape photography. It creates this amazing gradient in the colours and tones and looks so dynamic when turned to black and white. As I was walking back to my apartment from the parking garage, my eye caught a lamp post that was giving off this bright light that mixed so well with the haze of the fog. It was shining on some trees and created the most interesting backlight and moody atmosphere. I knew that I wanted to take a walk and see what I could capture as the sun was setting.
As I started my walk around, the sun was setting, but the effect of the lamp posts made for some great light effects in the landscape.
I found this setting so interesting. As I made the exposure long enough to let more light in and capture more detail, the street lamps mixed with the fading sunlight made for a dreamy coloured hue that made it look like a soft sunset. I love the haze in this photograph and it was so interesting to see the final product of the different exposures.
Once the sun fully disappeared, the atmosphere became a bit more eerie, but I loved the effect the haze of the fog gave to the light of the street lamps. It's those prominent rays of light that are so defined and clear that I really love.
While heading back to my apartment, I noticed the light shining through the trees and loved the look of the rays. There's something so eye catching about thick rays in the air. It gives so much more depth into the emotion of the photograph.
Thank you for reading!
I hope you enjoyed this little foggy adventure!
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Doctor Marigold
Charles Dickens
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Dickens is considered to be one of the greatest British writers of all times. He was a social activist who wrote plays and novels during the Victorian period. His most famous novels include Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, and David Copperfield. Doctor Marigold was originally published in All the Year Round in 1865. A quote from the Hesperus book jacket reads, " Named after the doctor who delivered him as a baby, Doctor Marigold is a poor hawker who, after a dreadful turn of events, finds happiness with his adopted daughter Sophy. She is a deaf mute, and to help her learn to read and communicate, Doctor Marigold 'prescribes' her various stories, which he collects into a book while she is at school. These prescriptions, written by Dickens and five other distinguished Victorian writers, are tales of adventure and romance, featuring thieves, kidnappings and witchcraft. Together, they form a wonderful selection of stories that are told with the clever wit and brilliant description that characterise Dickens' writing."
- Format: Pocket
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- Antal sidor: 48
- Utgivningsdatum: 2009-04-07
- Förlag: Authorhouse


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Rosneft inks offshore exploration deal with Japanese consortium
Russian oil firm Rosneft has signed an offshore exploration deal with a consortium of Japanese companies.
The memorandum of agreement was signed in Japan between Rosneft and the consortium comprising Inpex, Jogmec, and Marubeni.
As per the agreement, the companies will cooperate on the joint exploration, development and production of the hydrocarbons "at a license block in an offshore zone of the Russian Federation."
No details on the location of the offshore area, nor on the timing of the expected start of exploration works were given.
"The reached agreements confirm the successful implementation by Rosneft of its strategy to attract partners into offshore projects. This enables the company to monetize its stakes in promising projects and accelerate their development. Engaging strategic partners, leaders of the global oil and gas industry, in Russian offshore projects will also ensure effective hydrocarbon exploration and production and allow sharing the geological risks between the parties," Rosneft said in a statement.
The document of the agreement was signed on the sidelines of the official visit of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin to Japan by Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin, Marubeni Corporation President and CEO Fumiya Kokubu, JOGMEC President Keisuke Kuroki and INPEX CORPORATION President and CEO Toshiaki Kitamura.
Rosneft's Sechin said: "This is aimed at the efficient monetization of oil and gas resources, among others at the perspective market of Japan, and is a logical continuation of the agreements between the Russian President and the Japanese Prime Minister to strengthen and develop Russian-Japanese relations."
The Kremlin has informed, citing Russian president Putin, that Japanese and Russian firms have signed over 50 new agreements and commercial contracts during the visit.
Offshore Energy Today Staff


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If you see apparent lines when you look at the mirror (around eyes, at the forehead, around lips etc.) and if they give your face a tired expression, if you would like to regain your past young and stretched look or having plump lips will complement your facial expression, YES, you may have filling.
You may have the application done anytime during the day and go back to your routine. There may be mild oedema. Due to water retention feature of the fill material, an increase in moisture rate of your skin and your skin quality will be seen.
To get a special discount just drop us a message


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Chronic Knee Pain
Knee pain is a common and frequently limiting ailment, especially to those who are active.
Chronic knee pain refers to pain that has developed in and around the knee over time, usually from overuse or poor mechanics of the foot, ankle, knee, and/or hip.
The result of unmanaged chronic knee pain varies but it is rarely a positive outcome. Occasionally, CKP will cease and not cause any further problems. Typically however, the result is a limitation of enjoyed activities, avoidance of exercise, arthritis and degeneration.
While there are many specific diagnosis's associated with these injuries (such as PFPS, jumpers knee, condromalacia patella, osteoarthritis, etc.) treatment of them all follow a similar path. It is important to keep in mind the details will vary by person and condition.
Care generally requires a return to proper mechanics of the lower limb and pelvis while and maximizing stability of the foot, knee, hip, and core.
Custom foot orthotics, adjustments, rehabilitative exercises, specific soft tissue treatments, and low level laser therapy can all play a vital role in treating or curing most CKP conditions.


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Go to a huge circle on the map and look for 3 things out of dozens? I think I did a little too much of that in The Secret World :p
Anyway, here's the location of the shops you need to find in The Real Foxbat
(Warning: Spoilers)
Cardboard Heroes and Captain Video are right next to each other, near the southwest of the circle (click pictures to enlarge):
The Cod Father is to the east:
And that should trigger the next part of the quest.
Selphea is just some random gamer who can never decide what to play and runs weird builds. But hey at least they work!


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The role of prognostics and health management is ever more prevalent with advanced techniques of estimation methods. However, data processing and remaining useful life prediction algorithms are often very different. Some difficulties in accurate prediction can be tackled by redefining raw data parameters into more meaningful and comprehensive health level indicators that will then provide performance information. Proper data processing has a significant importance on remaining useful life predictions, for example, to deal with data limitations or/and multi-regime operating conditions. The framework proposed in this paper considers a similarity-based prognostic algorithm that is fed by the use of data normalisation and filtering methods for operational trajectories of complex systems. This is combined with a data-driven prognostic technique based on feed-forward neural networks with multi-regime normalisation. In particular, the paper takes a close look at how pre-processing methods affect algorithm performance. The work presented herein shows a conceptual prognostic framework that overcomes challenges presented by short-term test datasets and that increases the prediction performance with regards to prognostic metrics.
Prognostic performance is associated with accurately estimating remaining useful life. Difficulty in accurate prognostic applications can be tackled by processing raw sensor readings into more meaningful and comprehensive health condition indicators that will then provide performance information for remaining useful life estimations. To that end, typically, multiple tasks on data pre-processing and predictions have to be carried out such that tasks can be assessed using different methodological aspects. However, incompatible methods may result in poor performance and consequently lead to undesirable error rates.
The present research evaluates data training and prediction stages. A data-driven prognostic method based on a feed-forward neural network framework is first defined to calculate the performance of a complex system. Then, the health indicators are used in a similarity based remaining useful life estimation method. This framework presents a conceptual prognostic protocol that overcomes challenges presented by multi-regime condition monitoring data.
In this data article, a reconstructed database, which provides information from PHM08 challenge data set, is presented. The original turbofan engine data were from the Prognostic Center of Excellence (PCoE) of NASA Ames Research Center (Saxena and Goebel, 2008), and were simulated by the Commercial Modular Aero-Propulsion System Simulation (C-MAPSS) (Saxena et al., 2008). The data set is further divided into "training", "test" and "final test" subsets. It is expected from collaborators to train their models using "training" data subset, evaluate the Remaining Useful Life (RUL) prediction performance on "test" subset and finally, apply the models to the "final test" subset for competition. However, the "final test" results can only be submitted once by email to PCoE. Before the results are sent for performance evaluation, in order to pre-validate the dataset with true RUL values, this data article introduces reconstructed secondary datasets derived from the noisy degradation patterns of original trajectories. Reconstructed database refers to data that were collected from the training trajectories. Fundamentally, it is formed of individual partial trajectories in which the RUL is known as a ground truth. Its use provides a robust validation of the model developed for the PHM08 data challenge that would otherwise be ambiguous due to the high-risk of one-time submission. These data and analyses support the research data article "A Neural Network Filtering Approach for Similarity-Based Remaining Useful Life Estimations" (Bektas et al., 2018).
As we are entering an era where intelligent systems are omnipresent and where they also penetrate Prognostics and Health Management (PHM), the discussion of moral machines or ethics in engineering will inevitably engulf PHM as well. This article explores the topic of ethics within the PHM domain: how it is relevant, and how it may be dealt with in a conscientious way. The paper provides a historical perspective on ethics-related developments that resulted in the formulation of engineering ethics codes, regulations, and policies. By virtue of these developments, ethics has already been encapsulated in PHM systems. The specific areas that have traditionally driven ethics considerations include safety and security, and they increasingly include privacy, and environmental protection. During the course of future technology development, innovations will increasingly impact all of these topics. It is argued that consciously embracing these issues will increase the competitive advantage of a PHM technology solution. As a guideline, specific ethics attributes are derived from professional engineering ethics codes, and a path towards insertion into a requirements flowdown is suggested.
A novel method to determine probabilistic operational safety bound for rotary-wing unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) traffic management is proposed in this paper. The key idea is to combine a deterministic model for rotary-wing UAS flying distance estimation to avoid conflict and a probabilistic uncertainty quantification methodology to evaluate the risk level (defined as the probability of failure) of separation loss between UAS. The proposed methodology results in a dynamic and probabilistic airspace reservation to ensure the safety and efficiency for future UAS operations. The model includes UAS performance, system updating frequency and accuracy, and weather conditions. Also, the parameterized probabilistic model includes various uncertainties from different sources and develops an anisotropic operational safety bound. Monte Carlo simulations are used to illustrate the operational safety bound determination with a specified risk level (i.e., probability of failure). It is known that uncertainty plays an important role in determining the operational safety bound size, and the proposed methodology provides a simple and efficient quantification of uncertainty impact on the safety bound with a prescribed risk level. It is also providing a useful tool to quantify uncertainty reduction with additional information and measurements in future UAS operations.
Complex engineered systems can carry risk of high failure consequences, and as a result, resilience—the ability to avoid or quickly recover from faults—is desirable. Ideally, resilience should be designed-in as early in the design process as possible so that designers can best leverage the ability to explore the design space. Toward this end, previous work has developed functional modeling languages which represent the functions which must be performed by a system and function-based fault modeling frameworks have been developed to predict the resulting fault propagation behavior of a given functional model. However, little has been done to formally optimize or compare designs based on these predictions, partially because the effects of these models have not been quantified into an objective function to optimize. The work described herein closes this gap by introducing the resilience-informed scenario cost sum (RISCS), a scoring function which integrates with a fault scenario-based simulation, to enable the optimization and evaluation of functional model resilience. The scoring function accomplishes this by quantifying the expected cost of a design's fault response using probability information, and combining this cost with design and operational costs such that it may be parameterized in terms of designer-specified resilient features. The usefulness and limitations of using this approach in a general optimization and concept selection framework are discussed in general, and demonstrated on a monopropellant system design problem. Using RISCS as an objective for optimization, the algorithm selects the set of resilient features which provides the optimal trade-off between design cost and risk. For concept selection, RISCS is used to judge whether resilient concept variants justify their design costs and make direct comparisons between different model structures.
Degradation modeling and prediction of remaining useful life (RUL) are crucial to prognostics and health management of aircraft engines. While model-based methods have been introduced to predict the RUL of aircraft engines, little research has been reported on estimating the RUL of aircraft engines using novel data-driven predictive modeling methods. The objective of this study is to introduce an ensemble learning-based prognostic approach to modeling an exponential degradation process due to wear as well as predicting the RUL of aircraft engines. The ensemble learning algorithm combines multiple base learners, including random forests (RFs), classification and regression tree (CART), recurrent neural networks (RNN), autoregressive (AR) model, adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), relevance vector machine (RVM), and elastic net (EN), to achieve better predictive performance. The particle swarm optimization (PSO) and sequential quadratic optimization (SQP) methods are used to determine optimum weights that are assigned to the base learners. The predictive model trained by the ensemble learning algorithm is demonstrated on the data generated by the commercial modular aero-propulsion system simulation (C-MAPSS) tool. Experimental results have shown that the ensemble learning algorithm predicts the RUL of the aircraft engines with considerable robustness as well as outperforms other prognostic methods reported in the literature.
The conceptual design phase is the first step in the design process of an engineering system. Most engineering systems, including cogeneration plants, may and likely will experience some malfunctions during its life cycle. The metrics typically considered in the conceptual design phase (and for analysis and optimization) of energy systems are cost, efficiency and environmental impacts. Quite rarely are operational considerations about malfunctions integrated during the conceptual design phase. Resilient design, or design for resilience, addresses this gap as illustrated here in the area of energy conversion and conservation of energy processes by examining the conceptual design of a cogeneration plant. Resilient design is a relatively new research field where the engineering system is designed such that it can optimally recover from failures. The main challenge is to quantify the resilience in early design phases, since there is not much detailed information about system components available at this point. To address these challenges, this paper introduces a novel resilient design framework that uses new metrics within a Monte Carlo-based assessment approach. The framework is exercised on conceptual designs of cogeneration plants. Results from this framework are compared against those from a methodology based on complex networks theory that has been previously suggested in the literature. The former presented more consistent results than the latter and we discuss the differences. Results also show that the concept with higher efficiency was not the one with higher resilience. Finally, we discuss how to integrate specific failure probabilities information into the framework (should that information be available), and deliberate on relations between resilience, fault handling strategies and design requirements.
In deep space manned travels, the crew life will be totally dependent on the environment control and life support system of the spacecraft. A life-support system for manned missions is a set of technologies to regenerate the basic life-support elements, such as oxygen and water, which makes resilience a paramount feature of this system. The resilience of a complex engineered system is the ability of the system to withstand failures, continue operating and recover from those failures with minimum disruption. Resilient design is a new design framework on which the main goal is to quantify system resilience upfront in order to guide the design team during the conceptual design stage. In this article, we present a tool that combines a rule-based approach with a Monte Carlo-based approach to evaluate the resilience of a proposed environment control and life support system designed for deep space travel. Based on the results found, we explore a few design alternatives in order to increase system resilience.
This article presents a holistic framework for the design, implementation and experimental validation of Battery Management Systems (BMS) in rotatory-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that allows to accurately (i) estimate the State of Charge (SOC), and (ii) predict the End of Discharge (EOD) time of lithium-polymer batteries in small-size multirotors by using a model-based prognosis architecture that is efficient and feasible to implement in low-cost hardware. The proposed framework includes a simplified battery model that incorporates the electric load dependence, temperature dependence and SOC dependence by using the concept of Artificial Evolution to estimate some of its parameters, along with a novel Outer Feedback Correction Loop (OFCL) during the estimation stage which adjusts the variance of the process noise to diminish bias in Bayesian state estimation and helps to compensate problems associated with incorrect initial conditions in a non-observable dynamic system. Also, it provides an aerodynamic-based characterization of future power consumption profiles. A quadrotor has been used as validation platform. The results of this work will allow making decisions about the flight plan and having enough confidence in those decisions so that the mission objectives can be optimally achieved.
Evacuating residents out of affected areas is an important strategy for mitigating the impact of natural disasters. However, the resulting abrupt increase in the travel demand during evacuation causes severe congestions across the transportation system, which thereby interrupts other commuters' regular activities. In this article, a bilevel mathematical optimization model is formulated to address this issue, and our research objective is to maximize the transportation system resilience and restore its performance through two network reconfiguration schemes: contraflow (also referred to as lane reversal) and crossing elimination at intersections. Mathematical models are developed to represent the two reconfiguration schemes and characterize the interactions between traffic operators and passengers. Specifically, traffic operators act as leaders to determine the optimal system reconfiguration to minimize the total travel time for all the users (both evacuees and regular commuters), while passengers act as followers by freely choosing the path with the minimum travel time, which eventually converges to a user equilibrium state. For each given network reconfiguration, the lower-level problem is formulated as a traffic assignment problem (TAP) where each user tries to minimize his/her own travel time. To tackle the lower-level optimization problem, a gradient projection method is leveraged to shift the flow from other nonshortest paths to the shortest path between each origin-destination pair, eventually converging to the user equilibrium traffic assignment. The upper-level problem is formulated as a constrained discrete optimization problem, and a probabilistic solution discovery algorithm is used to obtain the near-optimal solution. Two numerical examples are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in restoring the traffic system performance.


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PERLOW, RHODA COFSKY: On Sunday, April 27, 2014; Beloved wife of the late Stanley Perlow. Loving mother of Leslie Perlow Grossman (Josh Grossman), Pamela Perlow and Julie Perlow. Most awesome grandma of Elizabeth Grossman. Also survived by many loving nieces, nephews, great friends and neighbors. Rhoda was a wonderful and loving teacher. She will be remembered as a courageous and strong person who overcame many adversities and was an inspiration to her daughters and all who knew her. Services at Ralph Schugar Chapel, Inc., 5509 Centre Avenue, Shadyside on Tuesday, April 29, 2014 at 11 AM. Visitation one hour prior to services (10 - 11 AM). Interment Beth Shalom Cemetery. Contributions may be made to Race for the Cure, 1133 South Braddock Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15218. www.schugar.com
Dear Leslie, Pam & Julie:
With the heaviest if hearts, I am sorry for the loss of your mom.
I have wonderful memories of her from growing up and spending many late nights at your childhood home. May the strength she has shown you bind you 3 girls together at this difficult time. May her memory forever be a blessing
Robin Fingeret-Zinger