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Marriage Prayers Today
20 Bible Verses to battle & overcome food addiction
Only the God of heaven has the right to define you, and when you are in Christ, you are perfectly beautiful in His righteousness..not broken.
~Gwen Smith~
"Love is best when God is first" - The Love Dare Day by Day
Marriage is a beautiful institution created and ordained by God between a man and a woman. It represents Christ and His bride, the church. Marriage is not a contract but a covenant between a husband and wife and God and it should never be entered into lightly. God keeps covenant and He expects us to keep covenant as well. Our marriages are under attack but I plead the blood of Jesus over our marriages that they be fruitful in every way. Matthew 19:5-6 says "..For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shal be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." We should keep God at the head of our marriage and He be the binding and final authority in all matters pertaining to it. Psalm 127:1 says "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." In marriage we have to be longsuffering with one another. I Corinthians 13:4-8, 13 says "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." I Peter 4:8 says "And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins." If you have a great marriage, PRAISE THE LORD but if you are struggling or thinking about divorce, I encourage you to seek the LORD like never before because He is truly the RESTORER of broken things!! To God Be The Glory!!
Ephesians 5:33 says "Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband."
LOVE and RESPECT ARE LIKE OXYGEN TO a SUFFOCATING PERSON. And THIS IS ONE REASON WHY GOD COMMANDS a HUSBAND TO LOVE AND a WIFE TO RESPECT.
What do you want for your marriage? Do you want some peace? Do you want to feel close to each other? Do you want to feel valued by each other? Do you want to experience marriage the way God intended? Then why not try some Love and Respect? It will change the way you talk to, think about, and treat each other. It will change your marriage!!!
Here is the secret to marriage that every couple seeks, and yet few couples ever find…. Unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It's the secret that will help you achieve a brand new level of intimacy.
(Taken from Love and Respect For A Lifetime by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs)
I came across this great little book titled, "Marriage 101 ~Tips, Wisdom and Blessings" by Rue L Ramsey and I will share one with you weekly and I pray that they will bless your marriage.
Tip 9
When things seems a little dry in your marriage, there's nothing like a full kiss on the mouth to stir things up a bit. Remember when you were dating, generally you kissed all the time. Well, what happened? Today is a new day! So pucker up and take your intimacy to another level.
(Ecc. 9:9, Sol 1:2)
Prayer To Be A Better Wife
Dear Lord, it is such a mystery to me how two broken people come together to become one in Christ. The wedding was the easy part but a thriving, God honoring marriage takes work and sacrifice. Lord I don't always say and do the right things and a lot of the time I put myself in a position that You never ordained for me. You said he is to be my head and I am to submit under him and I am to respect him. Lord my spirit is willing but Lord this flesh is fighting to have it's way. Lord I need your help because my desire is to glorify you in my marriage and to represent you well. Help me to die to self, teach me when to speak and when to be silent. Teach me how to be a help meet. Lord you never gave me the job of changing my husband , help me to stay out of your way and out of your business. Lord change me!!!
In Jesus name…. Amen
Donna Marsh
Lord, Make Our House A Sanctuary
(The Power of a Praying Wife)
LORD, I invite You to inhabit our home. Fill it with Your Spirit of love, peace, and joy, so much so that it affects my husband and me in a powerful way whenever we are there. Help me to do what it takes to make our home a sanctuary, for us and for whoever spends time in it. Show me how to create a refuge that is warm, inviting, orderly, and strife free. Give me a vision of what needs to be done, changed, or enhanced in order to make it more inviting. I pray that our home will be a place we always want to be. May it be so rejuvenating that it gives us strength and health just to be there.
I invite Your presence to dwell in our home so that we both sense Your comfort, calm, and beauty every time we walk through the door. Take away any tension or coldness we have brought in it. Surround our home with Your protection so that no harm comes to it or anyone inside it. Keep us safe from all intruders and dangers. I pray that no fire, storm, earthquake, or any other disaster will ever damage or destroy it. Enable both of us to care diligently for the home You have provided for us. I pray we will never allow in anything that is not in keeping with Your ways and Your will. Fill our home with the "precious and pleasant riches" of Your Spirit and the beauty and comfort of Your presence.
In Jesus' name I pray…Amen
Proverbs 24:3~4 says Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.
Marriage Prayer ~ To Form a Covenant With Our Eyes
James 1:12~16 says Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren.
Dear Heavenly Father,
You've given us this beautiful gift of marriage, the incredible gift of a partner and friend, and the most intimate gift of a lover.
We want to protect these gifts, Lord. Help us to honor our marriage bed, protect our friendship and keep our relationship safe from temptation.
Job once said, "I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?" (Job 31:1)
He understood the power of sexual temptation, and he was fiercely protecting his heart.
May we take that same pledge when it comes to our own eyes.
Let us form a covenant with You today, that we will turn our eyes away from sexual temptation. And that we will step away from relationships, both emotional and physical the moment they threaten our marriage.
In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.
(Prayer taken from Today's Marriage Prayer)
The Courage to Fight for Our Marriage
Proverbs 16:18~19 says Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.
Dear Heavenly Father,
We come before You today asking that You would teach us to walk in humility. Help us to see the importance of forgiveness and grace.
May we learn to love as You love, and to give up our right to be right.
Give us the courage to fight for our marriage and the valor to stand up for each other. Help us to lay down our pride, and to pick up the instruments of peace, kindness and grace.
Thank You for being the loving compassionate God that You are.
In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
(Prayer taken from Today's Marriage Prayer – a new prayer every day!)
Marriage Prayer Against Temptation
I Corinthians 10:12~13 says Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
Dear Heavenly Father,
We live in a world where marriage is easily thrown to the side. Where people give up, and couples give in to temptation.
Please help us to recognize anything that might become a snare to us, and help us to stand strong against the lure of temptation.
May we hold true to the vows that we made. Help us to love, honor and respect each other in the way that we should. Let us tenderly give of ourselves, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, as long as we both shall live.
In Jesus name….Amen
(Prayer taken from Today's Marriage Prayer – a new prayer every day!)
When We Want to See Answers to Our Prayers
John 15:7 says If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
LORD, my husband and I long to see answers to our prayers. We cannot live successfully without You working powerfully in our lives, but I know that answers to our prayers come only as we walk with You and let Your Word live in us. I pray You would draw my husband and me so close to You that we will not take a step without Your guidance. Help us to truly abide in Your presence day by day. Enable us to understand Your Word and be transformed by it as we read it and learn it. Weave it in our hearts so that it becomes part of the fabric of our lives that grows stronger every day.
Enable my husband and me to pray according to Your will, so that the desires of our hearts line up with the desires of Yours. Lord, You know how much we need to see answers to our prayers, so I pray You will help us do all that is necessary to keep our prayers from being hindered in any way. Teach us to pray in power so that we will see powerful answers. Help us to frequently pray together, as well as alone. Above all, we want Your will to be done in our lives, so guide us to pray accordingly, trusting that Your answers will be for our greatest good. We praise You and thank You in advance for hearing our prayers and for answering them in Your way and Your time.
In Jesus' name I Pray….Amen
(Taken from The Power of a Praying Wife Devotional by Stormie Omartian)
Marriage Prayer ~ To Honor Our Vows in Word and in Deed
Dear Heavenly Father,
We desire to serve You, to bring glory to You, and to honor our marriage.
We're not only committed to making this last, we're committed to making this marriage everything You designed it to be.
Help us to trust each other, and at the same time be trustworthy. Keep our eyes away from temptation, and give us the strength to step back from anything that threatens our bond.
Show us ways to love and encourage each other. Give us opportunities to serve.
Forgive us for the times we've grumbled, or the days we've complained, when we could have been thankful instead.
Help us to accept the fact that we're no longer two, but one. And may we always be willing to put each other's needs before our own.
And finally, whether we're together or away from each other, may we honor our vows in word and in deed.
In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. ~ Hebrews 10:23~24KJV
(Marriage Prayer taken from Today's Marriage Prayer)
Please look forward to
"With This Ring"
Weekly Video Devotional coming soon!!!
Encouragement For Your Marriage…Click on the link and be blessed!!
Marriage Resources
Focus On The Family
5 Love Languages


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Trailer got leaked out prior to E3
Posted By Leonid Melikhov | On 06th, Jun. 2013 Under Article, Video News | Follow This Author @Rengarious
Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix E3 trailer has been leaked and can now be seen prior to E3 2013.
Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix was originally exclusive to Japan and was called Final Mix. However, the HD version of the Kingdom Hearts series is now coming to the West on September 13th 2013 according to the in-game E3 trailer.
Many fans have been waiting for a Kingdom Hearts HD collection and it has finally happened and I personally cannot wait to get my feet wet in it. Kingdom Hearts was one of my personal favorite franchises back in the PlayStation 2 era and it will be super exciting to play it again on the PlayStation prior to the PlayStation 4 launch and enjoy the nostalgia.
Let us know if you're excited to play the HD collection of Kingdom Hearts on your PlayStation 3 later this year in the comments section below.
Check back on GamingBolt for more updates as we get closer to E3 2013 and our review of the game in the coming months.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Canada Caregiver Program
Canada Caregiver Program
There are 3 ways to apply for Canadian Permanent Residency through the Caregiver program. Caregivers can apply for Permanent Residence under the below options:
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All of the brushes in the Bob Ross Floral range have pure, natural bristles which have been specifically designs to work seamlessly with Bob Ross Floral Oil Colours.
The brush head is made of pure, soft but stable bristles, ideal for creating everything from the tiniest blooms to big, bright petals. This brush is small and precise; the soft, natural bristles work with you to create the finest details.
PLEASE NOTE Bob Ross brushes and knives must be cleaned with the Bob Ross Odourless Thinner, turps or Bob Ross Brush Conditioner & Cleaner only. Do not use water as it can reduce the life of the brushes and palette knives.
This brush has a long handle.
Only just discovered this brand as I thought they were a little expensive but WOW! Great to use. Smooth, accurate , flexible. Carol Curtis (Liversedge, United Kingdom) on 25 Mar 2020


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I had a handsome lunch date on Tuesday. After a visit to check out a preschool, my three-year-old and I sat across from each other at a two-top at Chick-fil-A, swapped one grilled nugget for one fried (because I needed to at least TASTE the fried sweetness that is Chick-fil-A chicken), chatted about ketchup… it was noontime perfection! As we pulled out of the parking lot, he noticed a woman standing in the grass holding a sign. The conversation went something like this:
L- "Mama, what's that lady doing?"
Me – "She needs help."
L – His response could fuel a political debate, "Why is she just standing there?"
Me – "Because she is waiting."
L- "What is she waiting for?"
Me – "For someone to give her money."
And before the words came out of his sweet little mouth I knew what he was going to say, "Why don't we give her money?"
My response – "I don't have any cash." Lie. I had $2.
The truth was, I didn't want to give her my last two dollars – I never have cash! I didn't want to reach over to the other side of the car – What if I couldn't reach? That would be awkward. I didn't want to hold up traffic coming out of the parking lot – Wouldn't want the people behind me to honk!
I am full of it. Excuses, that is. And they need to stop.
If I remind myself of the gospel of Matthew where Jesus says, "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." I would realize that Jesus is saying to me, Abby, you made a lot of excuses for why you didn't help me. A lot. The good news is that while I fill up on excuses, God wants me to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It's crowded in this heart. There's not room for both!
When we make the excuses, we are ignoring the promptings of the Holy Spirit and telling God those obstacles are bigger than Him.
I think my son's response is another great example of having faith like a child. He doesn't think of the obstacles. He doesn't make excuses. He saw someone in need and said – They need. We have. Let's do it.
What are we waiting for? What are the thoughts that get in the way of your obedience in those moments of inspiration?
Copyright 2015 Abby Brundage
Photo credit: Panhandler, by Leroy Skalstad (2009) via Freeimages.com


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Disliked{quote} im testing this on demo. so i run syfirst on EU chart A, and run equity on another EU chart right? now just wait until syfirst ea chart open 2 trades buy and sell ultimate then automatically your equity ea on another chart will kicked in right? btw i still dunno how and when syfirst will open a trade for me.. whats the logic of it before open a trade? thanksIgnored
all correct ....... as regard the entry point or when it is triggered this is matter for Symphoenix who is the creator of this EA .... however don't expect much more than
3/10 deals for week ..... it depends from volatility .... more volatility then more deals ... or atmost this is what I believe
Animum debes mutare non caelum


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Search donherron.com
About DonHerron.com
In 1977 Don Herron began leading The Dashiell Hammett Tour, now the longest-running literary tour in the nation. On this site you'll find information on current walks — dates, where to meet, arranging tours by appointment — plus a hard-boiled blog with news, reviews of books and film, and a dash of noir.
The latest and greatest edition to self-guide you up and down the mean streets.
Willeford: The Book
Includes the first "Mr. Hunt" story, "Knives in the Dark."
Tag Archives: Glenn Lord
Two-Gun Bob: A Quick Meditation on Arriving Too Late on the Scene
Another factor in hitting the Second Sunday fan gathering was that Tom Krabacher — an academic of many years standing, but also a longtime fan (he's planning on doing a Dum Dum next year for Edgar Rice Burroughs enthusiasts) — … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, REH Tagged Brian Leno, Doom Patrol, Geary Street, Glenn Lord, John D. Haefele, Kim Thanh, Lovecraft, Morgan Holmes, S.T. Joshi, Second Sunday, Tom Krabacher
Two-Gun Bob: Earl Baker Ruminations
The furious round of discoveries about Robert E. Howard that Brian Leno — with Scott Connors close on his heels — turned up over the last couple of weeks got the attention of Leo Grin, editor and publisher of the excellent … Continue reading
Posted in REH Tagged Bob Baker, Brian Leno, Doc Howard, Earl Baker, Glenn Lord, June 11 1936, L. Sprague de Camp, Leo Grin, Scott Connors, The Cimmerian, The Cimmerian Press
Two-Gun Bob: Men, Women, Jungles and Chain Mail Bikinis
In Round One of his review of Conan Meets the Academy, Brian Leno padded into the ring, finding that editor Jonas Prida has a highly breakable glass jaw in the arena of Howard Studies, because he can't seem to tell much … Continue reading
Two-Gun Bob: Could The Academics Refurb de Camp? and Other Concerns of a REH Purist
A little over a year ago our occasional Guest Blogger Brian Leno managed to slug his way through the collection of litcrit on Robert E. Howard, all by academics: Conan Meets the Academy, edited by Jonas Prida. And not too long after … Continue reading
Posted in REH Tagged Arnold Schwarzenegger, Black Circle, Brian Leno, Cleo Awards, Conan, Conan Meets the Academy, Damon Sasser, Dennis McHaney, Dirk Mosig, Glenn Lord, Indy Cavalier, Isaac Asimov, John W. Campbell, Jonas Prida, L. Sprague de Camp, Leo Grin, Lin Carter, Lovecraft, Novalyne Price Ellis, REHupa, Robert A. Heinlein, Robert Jordan, Rusty Burke, The Cimmerian, The Dark Barbarian
Two-Gun Bob: 106 and Counting
Birthday 106 for Robert E. Howard today. Almost 76 years since he committed suicide on June 11, 1936. And his name lives on. Not bad for a writer who plied his trade in the pulps and didn't see a single … Continue reading
Posted in Film, Lit, News, REH Tagged "Conan vs. Conantics", Al Harron, Book Collecting, Brian Leno, Doc Howard, Frazetta, Glenn Lord, Howard Days, Jason Momoa, L. Sprague de Camp, Leo Grin, Lin Carter, pure texts, The Cimmerian, Tompk, Whoopi Goldberg
Two-Gun Bob: Into the West
Sometime after midnight, as 2011 had slipped away and the New Year had begun, I did a quick check of email and found a barrage of notes telling me that Glenn Lord had passed away on the last day of the vanished … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News, REH Tagged Glenn Lord, Howard Days, James Reasoner, literary suicides, Walt Coburn
Two-Gun Bob: A Living Legend
Today they're tossing a party for Glenn Lord in Texas, to celebrate the father of Robert E. Howard fandom hitting his 80 year milestone on the 17th. Yeah, I kind of wish I was there — I've always liked Glenn, who … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News, REH Tagged "Conan vs. Conantics", Dennis McHaney, Glenn Lord, Howard Days, pure texts, Rusty Burke, The Dark Barbarian, The Howard Collector
Two-Gun Bob: Poetry on Parade
As Donald Sidney-Fryer and I were trooping down Enchanted Rock outside Fredericksburg, Texas, a stop on our way to Robert E. Howard Days in Cross Plains in June 2009, I did not suspect that I was going to be drafted … Continue reading
Posted in Film, Lit, News, REH Tagged Ben Friberg, Donald Sidney-Fryer, Fabrice Tortey, Glenn Lord, Howard Days, Indy Cavalier, Joe Lansdale, Larry D. Thomas, Professor Frank Coffman


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These values will continue to underpin everything we do to maintain our leading position in the market and remain such an inspiring place to work. They guide the way we work with our clients, partners and with each other. Interested in a career at Royal Ahrend or one of our brands? We offer you an exciting place to work and challenging positions enabling you to fully develop and utilise your talents.
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The Motley Fool Discussion Boards
|Previous Page
Investing/Strategies / Socially Responsible Investing
|Subject: Re: Why SRI?
|Date: 11/9/2007 9:48 PM
|Author: 5000fingers
|Number: 2212 of 2249
In fact boycotts are so successful and so powerful that it's hard to imagine why this tool is not utilized more often by advocacy groups.
Huh? My observation is that of all the boycotts that have been started, very few have accomplished much. SRI hasn't done much either, but only because so few people have tried it.
Surely you can't be serious. You've never heard of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which ultimately led to sweeping civil rights reforms in this country? Or the boycott of the Nestle Corporation, which led to sweeping changes in how infant formula is marketed to third world countries? The table grape boycott, which led to sweeping changes in farm worker's rights and conditions? The tuna boycott, which led to sweeping reforms in fishing practices and the Dolphin Safe label? Ever hear of Mahatma Gandhi? South Africa and apartheid?
Sure, you could point out that the majority of boycotts called for by this organization or that organization have not succeeded. But only because their cause didn't strike a chord with people, or it wasn't publicized very well. And in these situations, certainly SRI would be even more impotent.
Imagine you had a fantastically, phenomenally successful boycott of Mobil/Exxon. Say, for the purpose of discussion, you got fully 50% of all stockholders in that company to sell their stocks over the span of a year or two. Two things could happen. Most likely, these sales would likely have very little impact on the share price. However if they did, that would only lower the P/E ratio of the stock, making it all the more attractive to other investors who didn't want to punish this particular company for whatever its evildoings may be. So then the stock price gets bid right back up, and all of those directors and top management people you mentioned aren't the slightest bit impacted by the most successful SRI boycott imaginable.
|Copyright 1996-2020 trademark and the "Fool" logo is a trademark of The Motley Fool, Inc. Contact Us


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The Story of Halloween: And You Thought it was All About the Candy
When I was ten, my parents began to steer away from celebrating Halloween. The spirit of the holiday, they said, glorified evil and death. In its place, my family celebrated a "harvest festival."
No longer would I trick-or-treat or carve jack-o-lanterns. No longer would I dress up as Batman. These traditions, they said, came from dark and nefarious practices.
But were they right?
The holiday of Halloween traces its roots back centuries, and draws from multiple cultures and religions. The name comes from "All Hallows' Eve," which was the night before All Hallows' Day, also known as All Saints' Day..
All Hallows' Day commemorates the Saints of the Catholic Church, and has been celebrated since the 7th century. The following day is known as All Souls' Day, and is intended as a day for prayer and remembrance of all deceased Christians.
The original purpose of All Hallows' Eve was to be a somber vigil before the main event. It was to be a day of fasting and prayer, leading up to All Hallows' Day's feasts (and more prayer). Around the 15th and 16th centuries, these days began to involve a practice called "souling."
Groups of poor children would go from house to house, asking for "soul cakes" in exchange for prayers for that house's dead loved-ones. These children would often carry with them lanterns made from hollowed-out turnips, either to guide lost souls to their former homes or to keep away vengeful spirits.
It was common belief at that time that lost spirits, or those trapped in Purgatory (think of it as a waiting room for the soul) would wander the earth until All Hallows' Day, when they would finally pass to the next world. But this had grave implications for the spirits' last night on earth, All Hallows' Eve—particularly if a departed spirit had an axe to grind.
If Ellyn was burned at the stake for being a witch based on Ulric's sworn testimony, Ulric would probably spend All Hallows' Eve terrified of Ellyn's spirit trying to get revenge. Unless, of course, Ulric tried to look like somebody else. Maybe by dressing up as his neighbor, or a priest, or Batman.
So clearly, three of Halloween's most popular traditions—costumes, jack-o-lanterns, and trick-or-treating—have Christian roots. There is more to the story, though.
Allhallowtide (the collective name for the three days) was not originally observed at the end of October or the beginning of November, but rather on May 13. This was intended to coincide with the ancient Roman festival of the dead, Lemuria.
Not until two centuries later, in the year 835, did Pope Gregory IV demand that Allhallowtide be moved to coincide with Samhain, the Celtic harvest festival. Samhain has historically been celebrated from the night of October 31 to the night of November 1. From that day forward, Samhain and All Hallows' began to bleed into each other.
Samhain was a festival for the dead, and also a harvest celebration. It was one of the two most important days for the ancient Celts. A prominent theme of Samhain was the thinning of the borders between this world and the Otherworld, the home of spirits and the nature gods.
The souls of the dead were also thought to return to this world on Samhain, seeking to return to their old homes and join in on the merriment with the living. These souls, and the other spirits of the Otherworld, needed to be appeased before they'd dole out their good fortune. To that end, many Celts would lay out offerings of food and drink outside their homes on Samhain. This practice closely tied in with the Celts' own costume traditions: they would put on masks and dress up as nature spirits, and go around the village accepting offerings on their behalf.
The bonfire was a central fixture of Samhain, it was highly integrated into the festival's traditions. For example, all the families in a village would douse the fires in their homes, and each would be rekindled from their communal Samhain bonfire. The village was thus bonded together.
Some observers of Samhain would blacken their faces with the bonfire's ash, and go house to house, threatening mischief (tricks?) if they weren't appeased with offerings (treats?) or welcomed into the home. Again, some of these revelers liked to bring along lanterns made of carven turnips.
Pumpkins were not used as jack-o-lanterns until the Halloween traditions spread to North America, where pumpkins are native. The term "jack-o-lantern" was originally used to describe the phenomenon also known as will-o-the-wisp, orbs, and ghost lights.
The phenomenon was thought to be a mischievous or evil spirit that intentionally led travelers astray. To reflect how they seemed to have a mind of their own, they were called "Will, of the Wisp (or Torch)," and "Jack, of the Lantern."
Given the intertwined history of all of these traditions, you could argue that my parents weren't totally wrong in their assertion that Halloween traditions had malevolent roots. My rebuttal would be that they also weren't right.
Halloween doesn't have to be evil or Satanic. Halloween doesn't even have to be scary (shout-out to my fellow sniveling cowards).
Like so many things in this life, Halloween is what you make of it.
So go do your harvest festivals, take your kids to the local church's Trunk-or-Treat, and carve whatever fruit (for the record, the pumpkin is not a veggie) you like. Dress up as an avocado or a sexy nun or Stevie Wonder Woman. And if you see me, say, "hi."
I'll be the Supreme Court Justice with a 40oz duct-taped to both hands.
Whatever you end up doing, have a safe Samhain and a happy Halloween.


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But, that's just the beginning. We also offer you peace of mind, ensuring your equipment operates safely. We help you save money on your fuel bills. And, we help deliver relief to those with allergies and many others concerned with the quality of the air they breathe.
This site is specifically designed to help you become an informed consumer when it comes to your home's heating and cooling systems. Go ahead, explore. The pull-down menus make it easy. Not only will you learn how these systems work, but also how to shop smart and protect your investment. If you're not sure where to find help with a specific question, try our site's Search Engine. And, don't miss the 'Answers and Information' section on our menu to learn about your home's mechanical systems and simple things you can do to save money and get the most from them.


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Hyannis Chamber news
• The Hyannis Chamber of Commerce holds its next monthly Build Your Business luncheon from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Dec. 9 at the Outback Steakhouse, 1070 Iyannough Road, Hyannis. Guest speaker is Todd Marcus, owner of Cape Cod Beer. Includes lunch, networking and door prizes. $25 non-members. RSVP to 508-775-7778, www.hyannischamber.com.
• The Chamber's "Weekday Morning Workshops" continue on Dec. 13 ("Focus on Fixed Income") and Dec. 20 ("Tax-Free Investing"), both from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. at the JFK Hyannis Museum, 397 Main St. Seating is limited, so call 508-778-2681 to reserve a place.Morning member reception
Members of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce will be gathering for a Member Reception, to be held 7:30 to 9 a.m. Dec. 9 at the Uncommon Café in Mashpee Commons. Learn about the value, services and opportunities available to all members. Continental breakfast served, free event. RSVP to email@example.com House
Medical Alarms USA will host an Open House from noon to 2 p.m. Dec. 10 (during the Dennisport Holiday Stroll), at their offices at 18 Hall St., Dennisport. Enjoy free refreshments, including Mike's Famous Chili, corn bread and cider. All are welcome! More information at 508-398-7723.ABWA holiday meeting
Anne Van Vleck, executive director of the Cape Cod Young Professionals, will be the keynote speaker at the American Business Women's Association Holiday Meeting on Dec. 13 at Holiday Inn, Route 132, Hyannis. Networking starts at 5:30, with buffet dinner at 6 followed by the speaker. $25 for guests or members without a reservation. To register call 508-737-7477.NOAH Telethon
The eighth annual NOAH Telethon fundraiser to benefit the Cape and Islands' only emergency shelter for homeless individuals, will be shown Capewide on community-access cable stations fro 4 to 9 p.m. Dec. 14, and will be streamed live at www.capemedia.org.
Cohosts Mindy Todd of NPR station WCAI and Rick Brigham of the NOAH Center will introduce a passel of town officials, business leaders, politicians and local celebs, with more than 100 volunteers answering phones for the event. Local musicians will provide entertainment, including live performances by Sara Leketa and Siobhan Magnus. The telethon is held at the Cape Cod Media Center, 17 Shad Hole Road, Dennisport. www.noahtelethon.org.Eatery celebrates the performing arts
The Academy of Performing Arts performs "A Holiday Celebration" at Nauset Middle School on Dec. 18. If you eat at the Hearth 'n Kettle, 9 West Road, Skaket Corners, between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on that day, the restaurant will donate 15 percent of the food and beverage bill of all parties who present the APA's fundraiser flier or a program from the holiday production itself. For more information on the fundraiser or to order tickets to the show, call 508-255-5510.Stuff a Stocking
Bring some cheer to the Boys & Girls Club of Cape Cod by helping "stuff a stocking" at any branch of the Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod. Oversize stockings are located in each branch to hold much needed items and resources for the club. Unwrapped items may be dropped into stockings through Dec. 24. For a list of needed items, call 508-477-8845 or visit www.BoysGirlsClubCapeCod.org and click on "Wish List." Local drop-off branches include 695 Attucks Lane, Hyannis, and 1121 Main St., West Barnstable, as well as bank locations in East Dennis, East Harwich, Sandwich and Yarmouthport.Top of the class
Capizzi Home Improvement, Inc. of Cotuit has been ranked among the top exterior remodeling companies in the United States by Qualified Remodeler magazine. This is the second year that Capizzi has achieved the Exterior 200 honor. Tom Capizzi, the company's president, noted that the ranking "is the direct result of our focus on customers."Ninety Nine fundraiser
During their annual fundraiser in October, the Ninety Nine Restaurants in Centerville, Falmouth, Mashpee and Yarmouth raised $8,111 for the Boys and Girls Club of Cape Cod. Throughout New England and New York, the chain raised a total of $202,000 for Boys and Girls Clubs in those regions.A moving achievement
Colony Moving and Storage of Cape Cod, an agent of United Van Lines, was recently honored by the worldwide transportation company for "exceptional professional achievement." The award was presented to "United agents achieving exceptional service scores on the basis of post-move surveys completed by customers."Edward Jones holiday activities
Residents and businesses may help residents of Independence House by bringing in items to Edward Jones between now and the end of December. Needed are non-perishable food items, toiletries, diapers, cosmetics and new gloves, hats and scarves.
Edward Jones in Centerville is also collecting items for A Baby Center of Hyannis. Clothing, diapers and other non-food items are welcome.
The EJ office is also supporting the annual Toys for Tots drive, and new unwrapped toys may be dropped off during regular business hours throughout the month.
Edward Jones is located at 1676 Falmouth Road, Centerville (Centerville Shopping Center. Route 28).The name of the game
The Massachusetts Chamber of Business and Industry has announced that the organization will now be known as the Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce, Inc.
The organization provides legislative advocacy, marketing, networking, educational and informational programs for businesses in Massachusetts. More info at www.masscbi.com.Cape Cod Networkers
The group holds its weekly Wednesday meetings from 6 to 7 p.m. at Acapulcos Mexican Restaurant, 416 Main St. (Route 28), West Yarmouth. The group seeks to enable good business relationships among fellow professionals, and to share strategies and ideas through a solid networking foundation. For more info, contact Cyndi Swan at email@example.com donation
Your car or truck may be worth more as a donation than as a trade-in. Call the Mass. Association for the Blind (1-888-613-2777) for details. There's free tow, quick pick-up, and it's tax deductible.Website SEEDed
South Eastern Economic Development (SEED) Corp. has launched a newly designed Web site, containing information on starting up, expanding and obtaining financing for small businesses. There are links to loan programs and local resources as well as technical assistance providers. SEED focuses on job creation by financing many types of small businesses in Massachusetts and holding business workshops. More info at 508-822-1020 or www.seedcorp.com.BNI holds Hyannis meetings
The COMM chapter of Business Network International holds weekly meetings featuring a speaker Thursdays at 7 a.m. at the Hyannis Golf Club on Route 132. Contact Jack Mason at 508-771-1427 or email@example.com prevention
The Housing Assistance Corporation on Cape Cod offers free mortgage counseling for all local residents with questions about their mortgages. To set up an appointment with a counselor, call Cathy Finn at 508-771-5400.Five Star Rehab supports veterans
Five Star Rehabilitation & Wellness is collecting non-perishable food items for the food pantry at the Nam Veterans Association of the Cape & Islands. Items may be dropped off at the Five Star clinic in the Village Marketplace, 269 Stevens St., Hyannis, Mon.-Fri. 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Five Star will deliver the items to the pantry. More info at 508-790-2700.


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Commercial Radon Mitigation – Beckley, West Virginia
Commercial Radon Mitigation in Beckley, WV
If you own a business in West Virginia you may worry that your commercial premises contain high levels of radon gas. Radon occurs throughout WV, with some areas experiencing higher levels than others. If your Beckley premises have high levels of radon, you will need to take commercial radon mitigation action because the radioactive gas can be extremely harmful. As a responsible employer, you must take steps to protect your staff from breathing elevated levels of radon.
If you are concerned about the radon levels in your commercial premises, contact S.W.A.T Environmental to arrange for radon testing to be carried out. Once we have produced a report detailing the extent of the problem, we can help you produce a customized commercial radon mitigation plan. The plan will allow you to address the problem in the most cost-effective manner, with minimum disruption to your business.
Commercial Radon Mitigation Specialists in West Virginia
The state of West Virginia insists that commercial radon mitigation contractors hold a valid contractor's license. In addition, they must have completed trade-related examinations or additional qualifications.
Soil emits radon gas, which is created when rocks break down over time. Radon is sucked in to commercial buildings by the vacuum created by the difference in pressure between the soil and the air inside the building. The radioactive gas seeps in through small cracks in the foundations and vents. It is impossible to tell whether levels of radon within your commercial premises are elevated without carrying out tests. Radon is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. Breathing radon causes no visible symptoms but can damage the lungs and is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S.
S.W.A.T Environmental can provide a clear picture of the radon levels in buildings located in West Virginia. We can then provide a commercial radon mitigation plan produced specifically for your commercial premises. We will identify the entry points for radon gas, take steps to prevent further ingress, and reduce the existing levels of radon within your commercial premises. We understand that you want to deal with your radon problem while keeping disruption to your business to a minimum. Our efficient and effective mitigation services fit well around your business needs.
Commercial Radon Mitigation Methods
Our primary method of commercial radon mitigation is to equalize the pressure between the soil outside your business premises and the air pressure within. Once this has been achieved, no further radon can enter. We will then work to reduce the existing radon levels within your Beckley premises.
S.W.A.T Environmental offers commercial radon mitigation services throughout West Virginia. Our highly-trained, experienced professionals have years of experience of radon mitigation, which they can use to benefit your business and to protect the health of your employees.
- Beckley, WV, 25801 USA
firstname.lastname@example.com • 800-420-3881


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"Cro is a German rapper, easily identifiable by the disguise he wears in press shoots and performances: a panda mask. His first official single, "Easy," became a massive hit, mak..." Read more
Preview songs from Cro
Album selection
13 Tracks
Label: Chimperator
- 1.Intro
- 2.King of Raop
- 3.
- 4.Geile Welt
- 5.Du
- 6.Wie Ich Bin
- 7.Meine Zeit
- 8.Nie Mehr
- 9.Jeder Tag
- 10.Genau So
- 11.
- 12.Wir Waren Hier
- 13.Ein Teil


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June 13th, 2007 Leave a comment Go to comments
As of June 1, 2007, we have officially ended our project engagement with Stickam.com. All this basically means is that we are once again free to discuss and provide services relating to Stickam and its industry sector.
We continue to maintain close ties and relationships with Stickam.
StickiWidgets is an independently owned and run website.
Categories: Misc Blogs, Social Networks, Stickam


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Quality Policy for Advertising
You can view available translations of this article by selecting a language in the upper-right corner of this page. Translations are provided as a convenience, and are not meant to change the content of our policies. The English version will control and should be your reference in case of conflict between a translation and the English version.
Why does Twitter have editorial guidelines for advertising?
While Twitter's character limit celebrates creativity within a constraint, certain styles can appear gimmicky, annoying or unclear to our users. Our editorial guidelines are in place to ensure that users have a positive user experience with ads on Twitter.
What are the guidelines?
User Bio URL
Advertisers must include a functioning URL in their bio. This cannot be a link to their Twitter profile.
Content, clarity and accuracy
Twitter's editorial guidelines include, but are not limited to:
- Ads should be accurate and clear. It should be clear to the user what is being promoted and who the sponsoring entity is.
- Don't mislead users. Ads cannot mislead users into opening content by including exaggerated or sensationalized language or misleading calls to action.
Destination URL
- URLs must be valid and may not lead to non-functioning sites or error pages.
- URLs may not include excessive redirects.
- URLs may not lead to a page that requires a user to sign in to view the landing page content.
- You may not change the end destination or landing page of your URLs after you have promoted them.
- URLs may not require the user to view the content in a separate software or program.
- Landing pages should contain quality, original content and be directly relevant to what is advertised in the ad copy.
- Landing pages should not be predominately composed of ads.
- Landing pages should not contain any disruptive content that interferes with a user's access to the content (e.g. disruptive pop-ups, pop-unders, interstitials).
- Landing pages must not contain any type of fake functionality or automatic downloads.
- Don't include excessive or unnecessary capitalization or punctuation to draw attention to your ad copy.
- Don't include punctuation, spaces or symbols in your hashtags; these cause a break in the hashtag.
- Ad copy should be legible and clear. Use correct grammar and spelling.
- Don't include content or language that could offend or shock your audience.
- Advertisers must upload a profile photo and header image.
- Profile and header photos may not use animated images (e.g., animated GIFs).
- Images in Twitter Ads should be of high editorial quality. Don't include images that are gimmicky, misleading or which are otherwise of low editorial quality.
- Video in Twitter Ads must be uploaded in an appropriate format. Information on the format can be found in the creative tool page.
- Video and sounds in Twitter Ads must be of clear quality, the information and media appearing in the content must be clearly understandable and relevant to the product or service advertised.
- Video content should be suitable for all users.
Have questions or feedback about something on this page?
If you are an advertiser whose account or Tweets are under review and you would like to check on the status or request an expedited review, please log in to ads.twitter.com and file a support ticket using the Help button in the top right corner of your ads dashboard.
Learn more about blocking or dismissing ads by reading Reporting Twitter Ads. To report an ad that is potentially violating these policies, use the Report an Ad form.
Using Twitter Ads Policy, the Twitter Rules and our Terms of Service, we will examine reported violations and take appropriate action.
If you are interested in advertising on Twitter and want to learn more, please visit business.twitter.com


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Posts Tagged Static Code Analysis
#DOAG2016 wrap up
Posted by Torsten Kleiber in Conferences on November 17, 2016
Another DOAG is over and here are my summary.
Day 1
Unfortunately the early train from duesseldorf arrives not before 9:30, so I missed the first morning slot. But on the other hand I this was the slot where I had to decide between 8 presentations, which I'm interested in.
The first soft skill presentation was about creative techniques beyond brain storming. The mentioned 3 techniques was all unknown for me, maybe I give it a try next time.
The next presentation promises a live demo of a forms 12c migration to production. Nothing really new here and remembers me for an "beautify our village" contest. But fairly enough for customers which absolutely want to remain on Oracle Forms. As Translation Hub 12c is not available and Oracle Reports 12c will be the last version, I think 11g will the last version we will use on our side before completing migration to ADF.
I attend two presentations, which shows Auraplayer on top of Oracle Forms to provide mobile applications via Oracle Mobile Cloud Service (MCS). I understand the MCS thing, although I find it very complicated to use. But put another layer on complicated and most slowly Oracle Forms to create web services for mobile applications seems no use case for me. I doubt that the recording of web services works really well for complicated forms which switch the displayed items and canvases depending on the selected data. All samples was very simple forms, but the response time of the resulting mobile app was not acceptable for me.
The presentation about continuous integration in APEX give me some new ideas for maybe replacing our actual deployment processes for PL/SQL in the future. Will have a look at the mentioned sql-maven-plugin, when we go for Maven for ADF too. Will check Rspec as BDD framework to run PL/SQL unit tests. Promising is the feature to tie together Selenium tests and data checks in the same Rspec test definition. One drop of bitterness remains, as the presenter had no idea how to solve a merge conflict. Seems that this was only a proof of concept and not really used daily there.
Best practices for PL/SQL performance was a good reminder, what I all know about this topic but use to seldom. But will use some of the configuration things like native compilation of the system packages or PL/SQL optimization level in my docker instances for automatic testing to optimize test times.
SQL tips and tricks was a sovereign presentation, but shows me again that for several Oracle database releases only little improvements for the developer comes with.
Day 2
In session "Standing at a Crossroads, ADF and JET" Duncan Mills clearly show the differences between Oracle ADF and Oracle JET. Running gag: The "Schnecke Chart" for quick decision between both. Will look, if I can reuse this for other decisions.
Next I tried an meeting at the Unconference about continuous integration for PL/SQL. But the most discussions really goes about the automation part. Most participants missed the most importantly definition of continuous integration: " … continuous integration (CI) is the practice of merging all developer working copies to a shared mainline several times a day.". Unfortunately I realize now that in the German Wikipedia translation this basis is completely softened: "developer should integrate as often as possible". Not really new for me here, hope I have told something useful to the others.
"Extending Oracle ADF BC Models to REST, Cloud and Mobile" was a good time to remember what's now possible as it really available and we now try another migration away from ADF 11g to the hottest version. I have seen this in the last conferences already.
Have read "Deep Dive Into Oracle ADF Transactions: Advanced Techniques" in the web already, but the information was a little bit clearer after seeing Eugene Fedorenko live.
Something completely different: "Free Load Testing Tools for Oracle Database". I had known Swingbench before. SLOB is completely new for me and did not seen Apache JMeter JDBC test in this context before. Will test the last maybe in the future.
"Top 10 stumble stones for ADF 12c" was very technical but cool, good to have Markus Klenke at our site while our coming migration next weeks.
"Faster, Better, Cheaper: Oracle ADF Development in the Cloud" – with lot of problems in the demo part. Maybe really because of the DOAG WiFi. Quick Tip for all presenters: as I know at DOAG conferences there is ever an laptop available with LAN, try to put it in your laptop! For the content: DCS seems to restricting to much. I prefer Jenkins over Hudson. No push option directly with commit i JDeveloper etc.
Masking test data is very relevant in our banking busines, so I attend "Oracle Data Redaction live in Telko". Seems that there are many fall knits here, as this doesn't seem to solve all requirements out of the box.
Before the evening keynote Günter Stürner and Jürgen Menge was awarded, congratulations to both.
Following keynote "Hacking for managers" was very entertaining, if you are German then you should look on youtube for the presenter.
Now we are not ready for the evening party, we start the yearly German ADF Community meeting. Interesting part was a presentation of the Tools Statement of Direction, which again clearly differentiate between ADF, MAF, JET, MAX and ABCS. We get the clear statement ADF is standard for SAAS and JET for PAAS development at Oracle. In my opinion Oracle miss to communicate this in other presentations and miss to further present ADF in the public. A lot of questions of the present Community members was answered here too. Later we eat together with some of the product managers and community members and discussed topics for future presentations.
Later I go back to my hotel to remotely patch our fresh ADF 22.214.171.124 Server with patch for critical escalated bug to start our planned migration for ADF 184.108.40.206 next week. More later in a separate post.
Day 3
In "Indiana Nimphius und der JavaScript Tempel des Todes" Frank shows us his view on the JavaScript Universum, maybe we can really not avoid this in the future on some business cases. But for the next time we will stay on strongly supported ADF and will reduce JavaScript usage there to the minimum.
Thank god the roll-out of SQL Developer 4.1.5 is not started already in our company. Will look how fast I can add the free PLSQL/COP SQL Developer Plugin of Philip Salvisberg from Trivadis to the silent install process. He showed in "Fighting Bad PL/SQL" the theory and the practice how his static code analysis tool for PL/SQL does work. Depending on the outcome and the price maybe we will later implement in continuous integration.
The keynote "Big Picture of digital revolution" wakes the expectation to us to take responsibility for the effects of digital revolution to the society and makes me very thoughtful.
After our hopefully successful migration to ADF 188.8.131.52 I want to change our deployment from ANT to Maven, so I attend the presentation "Migration Maven Possibilities". This gives a good reminder what to do at that point.
Very interesting presentation, which really does not deserves so few visitors, was "Home Lab Setup and Familiarization of E-Business R12.2". My time with E-Business Suite is over 15 years away, so I was surprised that I recognized much of the components. I think I'm sure not to install E-Business Suite for the moment, but lot of the instructions for the Home Lab Setup could I reuse for other technologies. Some concepts for the E-Business Suite, eg. double filesystem for reducing offline time for patching, are very interesting.
With last 2 presentations I enter again the world of ThickDatabase paradigm. We ever know that executing business in the database seems faster as in the middle tier, but we had no proofs. Now Toon Koppelaars from Oracle itself give us this with a deep analysis. The question remains – will the other Oracle departments will learn from this?
day 4
Tomorrow I will be trained in Continuous Delivery with Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Cloud. I will release another blogs, when implementing some findings from this training.
As you see I switch often between technologies. This happens not ever voluntary. Normally I interested more in the development like ADF, MAF and JET. This year these presentation are unfortunately distributed over the conference. So I have discussed this today with the DOAG executives, they will improve this next year.
Nevertheless I get a lot of ideas from presentations in technologies I do not or not regularly use, so sometime I intentionally choose from such interesting presentations.
A recommendation for all conference visitors. Read the abstracts before you go to a conference and maybe before you book! You avoid disappointments because of wrong expectations. Often the title has the only purpose to be accept the presentation and has little to do with the real content. Abstracts give you often a better idea about the content.
That's it!
#Javaland 2016 conference day 2
Posted by Torsten Kleiber in Conferences on March 10, 2016
This was my second day:
Michael Tamm (optivo GmbH): Feature Toggles on Steroids
Very good summary off all topic's covering feature toggles. Wish I had this summary 2 years before, were we have evaluated this. Unfortunately furthermore no solutions for declarative frameworks like Oracle ADF with it's wizards and xml configurations, which later generated code. Ironic answer to my question: "Don't use frameworks – use Java"
Alexander Casall (Saxonia Systems AG): User Experience for techies
Now comes someting completely different. As least I had expected. No techniques etc.. There are really german standards "Ergonomics of human-system interaction" in ISO 9241 – 110 (Dialogue principles) and ISO 9241 – 210 (Ergonomics of human-system interaction). I have to read this, if it really would help in development, or the presenter interprets this on its own. Nice and surprising presentation.
Adam Gowdiak (Security Explorations): Java (in)security (Keynote)
The presenter is really angry about Oracle and co. and the security in Java. Nevertheless it seems he has specialized only on this topic and earn this money on this. So I doesn't know, if somebody or another product is better. What about security in OpenJDK? And what are now my alternatives? A little depressing keynote.
Lars Röwekamp (open knowledge GmbH): Courage to professionalism
I don't know, what I had expected here, but this was a nice surprise too. The talk was about to find a common language between customer, analyst, developer and other roles. The patterns "Rich Entities" and "Value Objects" helps to find a way out of the helper, util and manager class hell and seems to improve the readability of the code for all stakeholders. But how will this fit in declarative Frameworks like Oracle ADF and it's generated classes? Have to think about it. Very good speaker!
Wolfgang Weigend (Oracle Deutschland): Build and Monitor Cloud PaaS with JVM's Nashorn JavaScripts
Unfortunately the worst presentation comes from Oracle itself. To be fair: this presentation should be held by Bruno Borges, which was prevented to come to Javaland. Tip: Never hold a presentation, which is created by another person, if you don't know, what he know about the subject. But I'm not sure if I had understood more, if Bruno had held the presentation. I didn't find a red thread in the slides. And I must add, I didn't really find an alternative presentation in this time slot.
Alexander Heusingfeld, Tammo van Lessen (innoQ Deutschland GmbH): When Microservices Meet Real-World Projects: Lessons Learned
Interesting presentation but the topic was missed. This had little to do with Microservice, more what a consultant or any person has to learn on his way from Junior to Senior: communicate, communicate, communicate. Especially when you want to change something.
Stephan Kaps (Bundesversicherungsamt): Flyway vs. LiquiBase – Battle of the database migration tools
I wanted to do this comparison several times before, but had never enough time. Now I'm relative sure that I will start with Liquibase in my next private project before I develop the application. This was the subjective winner of the battle too. I'm overwhelmed by the mass of features of both tools. Very good summary!
Architecture Kata
This was a nice workshop to plan the application and technical architecture of a given small set of requirements. Result for me: the many participants from a lot of other companies comes to very similar architecture depending on the assumption they made. In real life you have to communicate again and again with your stakeholders to get answered all of the questions and get quick feedback from them. I have urgently to refresh my knowledge of tools for UML diagramming and graphical presentations. And for structured proceeding maybe I should look for TOGAF training?
This was inspiring conference, which gives me a lot of fresh ideas and reminders for some spilled goals for my private and company projects. I think we'll see us next year!
That's it!
#Javaland 2016 conference day 1
Posted by Torsten Kleiber in Conferences on March 9, 2016
This year I have decided to give the Javaland conference a try. I'm not a java professional, but in the program was listed a lot of interesting testing presentations, so my company booked for me.
The location in Phantasierend Brühl near cologne was very fine. Unfortunately the conference rooms had not enough space this year so for some presentation you have to go to 2 rooms outside of the parc. Additionally it is not understandable, why there is not wlan for such a conference.
This was my first day:
Jeremias Rößler (ReTest): Behavioral Diff as new test paradigm
Why I don't record a test with all information of my page objects, eliminate all variable parts until it is stable and reproducible and define this a my basic truth. If a code change break this test I check the problems, if these were expected or not. Good idea but – how many data created this and how long does it take to compare all this with previous successful run. I hope this new startup will give us effective tools for this paradigm.
Simon Maple (ZeroTurnaround): Is Your Profiler Speaking the Same Language as You?
When I can trust the Profiler, what are the basics of it and how can I ensure that the right data are available for it. Which traps exist, when instrumenting for tracing and logging. Nice insights, but I'm sure I have to reread the presentation to fully understand.
Exhibition Hall after lunch
Played around with a Jenkins docker instance and the new Pipeline Plugin (formerly named Workflow Plugin) at the Cloudbees booth. I had a nice short talk with Bernhard Cygan about some other Jenkins topics.
Tobias Kraft, Ralf Müller (exensio GmbH): Spock and Geb: Clear and comprehensible tests
This is an interesting combination of frameworks for human readable behavior tests. I'm not sure if it is really enterprise ready (do you use version 0.x?). Will this work with Oracle ADF development too? Have to check this as next opportunity.
Sven Ruppert (Macros Reply): Practical mutation testing
This seems to be the long searched key to find the right tests on the corner cases of our applications. I have mandatory to prove the mentioned PIT framework Very charismatic and tough presenter.
Roel Spilker (TOPdesk), Reinier Zwitserloot (medipc.nl): Lombok: The Boilerplate Buster. It's a Kind of Magic!
Is this the way to hide generated and framework required code, like standard getters and setters, from the really interesting code, which implements my requirements? It is implemented as a java compiler plugin. Have to check immediately, if this will work with Oracle JDeveloper too. In Eclipse the structure shows the code of generated class, which contains the generated boilerplates via the lombok framework annotations. And what changes are required to fulfill now my static code analysis rules which work on the source code. Additional this was a very entertaining presentation.
Bert Jan Schrijver (JPoint): Continuous Performance: Automated Load Testing with Gatling
As our PoC of JMeter was not really satisfying especially for maintenance of test cases and the load testing should not cost anything at least at the moment, we should definitely this opensource tool a try. Especially the combination of the recorder and the presenter converter scripts to java looks promising. Maybe we could reuse the page object locators from our Selenium tests?
Hubert Klein Ikkink (JDriven): Writing Documentation with Asciidoctor Is Awesome
Focus on content instead of formatting in your documentation! With this tool it seem to be possible to really versioning and therefore to diff your documentation between commits. And still you can generate via templates modern output formats e.g. like HTML 5 or PDF. With a clever combination of features you can annotate your code with markers, to reuse this actual code between this markers in your documentation. And via ASCII art you can generate simple diagrams too. I will absolutely try this on my private projects soon.
Community Hall – Meet the libs
The motto was: show me your favorite opensource lib and I show your mine:
Sven Ruppert again – Proxybuilder: Change the behavior of deep code for different purposes of CDI eg. Metrics, Logging or testing. Maybe interesting for my future tests.
Roland Huß – Jolokia: JMX Bean access via JSON over HTTP, interesting but don't know if I ever need this
? – Asciidoctor again: Jump additional over some of tool integrations
? – Keycloak: If I ever need a SSO or IDM solution for my private projects this will the first citizen in my tool chain.
? – Wildfly swarm: Interesting but actually I did not touch JBoss or Wildfly in my projects.
Generally very good food, I had not expected this here. At dinner I meet at my desk with some staff of canoo, which set up the voting machines at Javaland too. Nice and diverting talk, thank you guys!
That's it!
Slides for my german presentation "Quality Assurance for ADF projects" available
Posted by Torsten Kleiber in Quality Assurances on June 4, 2014
I have presented today on DOAG Development 2014 in Dusseldorf. For all non DOAG members – you can find the german presentation on slideshare too.
Quality Assurance for ADF projects
Posted by Torsten Kleiber in Development, Quality Assurances, Uncategorized on May 22, 2014
If you speak german and you are interested in quality assurance for your ADF projects you should come and attend my presentation at DOAG Development on 06/04/2014 in Dusseldorf.
I will show you, how you can implement in the JDeveloper IDE and in Continous Integration server Jenkins:
- static code analysis with PMD, FindBugs and Checkstyle
- Task's
- Commit tests with JUnit, Mockito and Powermock for Mockito
- Code coverage for commit tests with JaCoCo
- Acceptance tests with JUnit and Selenium
See you!
Write ADF static code analysis rules with PMD and running these in JDeveloper
Posted by Torsten Kleiber in Development on July 2, 2013
Do you know, that PMD can analyse XML files since version 5? Many of ADF files are XML configuration files – wouldn't it be a good idea to create some static code analysis rules for ADF too?
Unfortunatly oracle configuration files in most times create references to dtd's, which are not exist anywhere in the path. Till PMD 5.0.1 such files results in errors, as PMD tries to validate this doctype. I have switched of this validation in PMD release 5.0.2.
Following article requires configuration of PMD as described in my blog PMD Integration with JDeveloper through Ant External Tools.
You can download all requried files from here.
Let's start from the beginning.
- At the moment PMD only provide XML check's against files with the extension *.xml, there is a feature request to change this behaviour. So at the moment, we have to change the code by ourself to reach the result. Load the the 5.0.4 source code.
- Look for the file src\main\java\net\sourceforge\pmd\lang\Language.java and replace the line
XML("XML", null, "xml", XmlRuleChainVisitor.class, "xml");
XML("XML", null, "xml", XmlRuleChainVisitor.class, "xml", "jws", "jpr", "cpx", "xcfg", "dcx", "jpx");
- Change to directory pmd-src-5.0.4
- set JAVA_HOME, e.g. to your 1.6 JDeveloper jdk
- run "mvn clean package", I have succesfully used maven 2.2.1 from <JDev-Home>\jdeveloper\apache-maven-2.2.1\bin
- If you don't need further extensions, you can instead running steps 2 till 5 the resulting pmd-5.0.4.jar from my side.
- Replace the file pmd-5.0.4.jar in pmd-bin-5.0.4\lib (see my previous blog) with the downloaded file or the file from pmd-src-5.0.4\target
- Now is the time to create the first adf static code analysis rule. In the adf architecture course I attend, there was a rule, that the taskflow behaviour "No controller transaction"
should not be mixed with the other option of this selection list
In the sourcecode this property is described through the absence of the node adfc-config/task-flow-definition/transaction, the other options create this node and additional child nodes, here e.g. for the option "Always create new transaction"
- In PMD you can create two kind of rules: Java and XPath. For our xml Files XPath should be the efficient option. We have to put our configuraration e.g. in file my_pmd_rules.xml in the same directory as pmd.xml in the last blog. For the above rule the XPath query in line 14 find nodes, which does not contain the transaction node
<?xml version="1.0"?> <ruleset name="Oracle ADF rules" xmlns="http://pmd.sourceforge.net/ruleset/2.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://pmd.sourceforge.net/ruleset/2.0.0 http://pmd.sourceforge.net/ruleset_2_0_0.xsd"> <description>This ruleset checks Oracle ADF code for bad stuff</description> <!-- ADF Rules ############################################################################################### --> <rule name="OracleAdfTaskflowShouldNotHaveNoControllerTransaktion" since="5.0" language="xml" message='ADF tasklows should normally not contain transaktion behavior "No Controller Transaction"' > <priority>1</priority> <properties> <property name="xpath"> <value><![CDATA[ adfc-config/task-flow-definition[not(transaction)] ]]></value> </property> </properties> </rule> </ruleset>
- Now we have to change the configuration file pmd.xml from the last blog in the marked lines to call our new configuration and run this on files with defined Extensions
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252" ?> <project xmlns="antlib:org.apache.tools.ant" name="Project1" default="all" basedir="."> <path id="classpathForPMD"> <fileset dir="pmd-bin-5.0.4\lib"> <include name="**/**.jar"/> </fileset> </path> <taskdef name="pmd" classpathref="classpathForPMD" classname="net.sourceforge.pmd.ant.PMDTask"/> <target name="pmdAll"> <echo message="PMD is running on directory ${dir}" level="info"/> <pmd rulesetfiles="my_pmd_rules.xml" failOnRuleViolation="true" minimumPriority="1"> <fileset dir="${dir}"> <include name="**/*.java"/> <include name="**/*.xml"/> <include name="**/*.jws"/> <include name="**/*.jpr"/> <include name="**/*.cpx"/> <include name="**/*.xcfg"/> <include name="**/*.dcx"/> <include name="**/*.jpx"/> </fileset> </pmd> </target> </project>
- Now call again pmd from the Fusion Order Demo Application StoreFrontModule
- You can see the results for xml in the message pane. Unfortunatly the direct jump to violated files does not work at the moment as pmd delivers for every xml violation -1 as line, but I have created an bug for this
That's it.
Maybe somebody has an idea, where we can build an extension exchange for ADF rules, e.g. for creating rules for ADF Code Guidelines v1.00 or ADF Naming and Project Layout Guidelines v2.00?
Remember: you are not restricted to ADF files, e.g. we do checks to for JDeveloper application (*.jws) and project files (*.jpr) as well, as this are xml files too. The configuration you see already in step 2.
PMD Integration with JDeveloper through Ant External Tools
Posted by Torsten Kleiber in Development on June 26, 2013
In the past I read following blogs from Shay Shmeltzer:
- CheckStyle Integration with JDeveloper through Ant External Tools
- FindBugs integration with JDeveloper
Now (after little code change in pmd) this integration is possible. I use here JDeveloper 188.8.131.52, with other versions this should be very similar. Now let's start:
1. Create a new folder
2. Download PMD 5.0.4
3. Extract the zip file into the created folder
4. Create a file pmd.xml into the created folder
5. Enter following code into the file pmd.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252" ?> <project xmlns="antlib:org.apache.tools.ant" name="Project1" default="all" basedir="."> <path id="classpathForPMD"> <fileset dir="pmd-bin-5.0.4\lib"> <include name="**/**.jar"/> </fileset> </path> <taskdef name="pmd" classpathref="classpathForPMD" classname="net.sourceforge.pmd.ant.PMDTask"/> <target name="pmdAll"> <echo message="PMD is running on directory ${dir}" level="info"/> <pmd rulesetfiles="rulesets/internal/dogfood.xml" failOnRuleViolation="true" minimumPriority="1"> <fileset dir="${dir}"> <include name="**/src/**/*.java"/> </fileset> </pmd> </target> <target name="pmd"> <echo message="PMD is running on file ${dir}\${file}" level="info"/> <pmd rulesetfiles="rulesets/internal/dogfood.xml" failOnRuleViolation="true"> <fileset dir="${dir}"> <include name="${file}"/> </fileset> </pmd> </target> </project>
6. Select Tools – Exernal Tools from the JDeveloper menu
7. Press Button New
8. Select Tool Type: Apache Ant
9. Select your created pmd.xml file in Ant Buildfile:
10. Shuttle target pmdAll to SelectedTargets
11. Add Property dir with value ${file.dir}
12. Skip the Options and Process Step to leave the defaults
13. Add the lib directory of pmd as additional classpath entry
14. Enter Caption and Icon as you want
15. Add the tool to the Navigator Context Menu and Main Toolbar and do not forget to set Log Output to Messages Log
16. Press Next and Finish.
Now you can call pmd e.g. from the fusion order demo application
You see the results of the ant process in the message pane and you can click on the link to open the file and jump to the rule violation:
In upcoming blogs I will show you how you can define your own rulesets (replacing the ones in pmd.xml) and how to use it with any kind of xml files, eg. jws, jpr, xcfg etc..


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Texas Parks and Wildlife stocking several ponds in reservoir footprint The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) made a special delivery on October 29, 2019 to Bois d'Arc Lake which is under construction in Fannin County. TPWD staff stocked ponds... more
Category: Uncategorized
Temporary Partial Ozone Shut Down Due to Construction on Wylie Plant
UPDATE: November 4, 2019 – Ozonation is back online fully at both of our ozone generation facilities at the Wylie Water Treatment Complex. Water produced during the temporary partial shutdown was continuously tested to ensure compliance with all drinking water... more
Shining the Light on Personnel – Imagine a Day Without Water
View a slideshow featuring some of our valuable team members who work behind the scenes every day to support water and wastewater needs across our region. For more than sixty years, families and businesses in our region have been able... more
Imagine a Day Without Water 2019
October 23 is Imagine A Day Without Water. The Value of Water Campaign wants everyone to think about what even a single day would be like if you couldn't simply turn on the tap and get safe, reliable drinking water,... more
A Dry July Brings Construction Progress on Bois d'Arc Lake
In this month's Bois d'Arc Lake newsletter, you can read about all the construction progress made in July plus hear from a few of our NTMWD Board of Directors on their recent tour. Other highlights from last month include, building... more
News Stream – July 2019
Our July News Stream includes a recap of a decade's worth of coordination with state, local and federal agencies to regain access to a major source of water supply for the North Texas region while safeguarding our waterways from Zebra... more
Read About Bois d'Arc Lake Progress & Awards
In this month's Bois d'Arc Lake newsletter, we feature highlights from a busy June which included receiving the prestigious CLIDE Award from the North Central Texas Council of Governments. The CLIDE Award, or Celebrating Leadership in Development Excellence, was given... more
News Stream – June 2019 Edition
In our June edition of News Stream, we highlight a recent tour of our Muddy Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant with a brief history of how it served as a model for regionalization. We also shine the spotlight on our large... more
Water Professionals – A Career in Protecting Public Health
Access to reliable, safe water is essential to everyday life. The certified water and wastewater operators who operate and manage our treatment plants and transmission/conveyance systems are a critical part of protecting public health. For these dedicated men and women,... more
Bois d'Arc Lake – Construction Progress One Year Later
As we wrap up a full year of construction on Bois d'Arc Lake, watch this short video that shows our progress on the first major lake to be built in Texas in thirty years. You can read more about our... more


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Gardenworld Nurseries proudly boasts one of Europe's most comprehensive wholesale offerings. We specialise in offering a complete catalogue ranging from seasonal bedding plants to instant ten metre specimen evergreens.
Constant production of our our stock ensures we have both looking good and structural plants available all year round. As our plant selection and plant sizes are constantly evolving to suit our customers requirements we now offer our complete range online for ordering purposes.
Please always ask us for the ones you cant find or we dont have posted, as always, we are here to supply your complete project and can do this according to your schedule.
Gardenworld can supply a varied and extensive selection of top grade, quality plants in a wide range of sizes – so whether it's bedding plants for window boxes in 9cm pots your're after or mature specimen trees or topiary to enhance your landscape please call us to discuss your requirements.
Our plants are freshly delivered, regularly from across Europe. We can supply bedding plants, herbs, shrubs, topiary, trees, perennials & exotics, fruit trees, climbers and hedging plants, potted or as root balls depending on the season.
Over the years we have built up relationships with our suppliers from Belgium, Denmark, Holland, France, Spain & Italy as well as Irish growers, many being local, allowing us to obtain the best grade plants Europe has to offer.
We can usually get any plant that is commercially grown so if you do not see what you require on the site please do call us to enquire, or use the lists shown to search plants we have previously had on site.


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Newly discovered crushing circle on Totley Moss
A partially buried, vegetation covered 'millstone' was reported by the grazier located in an enclosure of grassland, rush and bracken at grid reference SK2908979659. The enclosure, which is managed by the Eastern Moors Partnership, lies to the south of Moss Road and the previously unrecorded stone is in its SW corner on level ground at the edge of a circular, reed-filled pond (Fig.1). As there is no evidence that millstones were ever produced in this locality it was decided to obtain SSSI consent for the removal of turf and soil in order to examine the features of this particular stone and hence determine a possible reason for it being in its present position.
Excavation (Fig.2) revealed a circular piece of gritstone 1.40 metres in diameter with a square, central hole 0.24 metres by 0.24 metres. The thickness varied from 0.18metres at the edge to 0.24 metres at the centre. The upper, visible surface appeared flat and so the hidden surface underneath was assumed to be slightly domed. The large central hole (Fig.3), which would have been suitable to hold a substantial timber axle of square cross-section, is typical of a crushing stone of which there are several examples used to crush lead ore throughout the lead mining areas of the Peak District. The flat edge of the stone (Fig.4) showed evidence of wear which could have occurred as it was rolled in a vertical plane during the crushing process. The edge showed no evidence of having packing slots cut into it which suggested that it was not fitted with an iron tyre as are many crushing stones at lead mining sites.
On examining an historic Ordnance Survey map of 1877 it could be seen that the stone's present position lies at the edge of dashed circle of about 8 metres diameter with a dot in the centre. This feature may be interpreted as a crushing circle within the working area associated with a pair of rectangular structures, labelled as brick kilns, only 20 metres to the East (Fig.5). A track from Moss Road to the working area is shown to continue across the small stream to the South of the site and head directly to the original, 19th Century location of the well known Totley Firebrick Works approximately 700 metres to the South East. These features were still recorded on maps in the 1880s but by 1898 both the brick kilns and the circular feature had disappeared from the O.S. map leaving only the track and a slightly smaller circular pond which is still in existence today.
This reed-filled circular pond, 5.20 metres in diameter, was found to be stone lined and of a uniform depth of about 0.35 metres. It was surrounded by a roughly circular area of level ground (Fig.6).
Further inspection of the site revealed the locations of the brick kilns and inspection of the collapsed boundary walls produced numerous firebricks and pieces of kiln lining. The remains of a possible leat to convey water from the nearby stream to the working area were identified just beyond the Western edge of the enclosure.
The site lies close to the extensive remains of mining for coal, ganister and fireclay (Barnatt, J. 2011). Ganister is a type of hard sandstone of high silica content which is used in the manufacture of refractory bricks for which there would have been a ready market for furnace linings in the Sheffield area. The manufacturing process (Battye, R. 1997) involves crushing, grinding and moistening the ganister rock, binding by adding a small amount of lime and then putting into moulds which are allowed to dry before firing in a coal-fired kiln for 3-4 days.
The present site may possibly be interpreted as having been used for the manufacture of silica firebricks on a fairly small scale at the latter end of the 19th Century. It is probable, therefore, that the stone is part of a horse-powered crushing circle used to crush the ganister rock. A large timber axle, pivoted at the centre of the circle, would have passed through the square central hole of the vertical crushing stone and was then attached to a horse which was led around a circular track. It is possible that the present day circular pond is in fact the remains of a crushing pit into which the ganister rock was placed and around which the crushing stone travelled.
Survey and possible excavation of the features of the working area may provide further evidence of the processes carried out and the products manufactured at this small firebrick works.
Stuart Nunn 2016.
Map showing the location of the possible crushing stone.
Excavated crushing stone
Scale 2 metres
Central square axle hole.
Scale 10cm
The edge of the crushing stone shows signs of wear as would be expected if used to crush ganister rock without an iron tyre in place.
Detail from Ordnance Survey Map of 1877.
The symbol representing a crushing circle is located at the present location of the small pond and excavated stone.
The track from Moss Road follows the most convenient route to access the working area.
The site of the possible crushing circle looking East across the working area towards the location of the former brick kilns.
Barnatt, J. 2011. Peak District Mines – Observations and Discoveries – Part 36: Mining between Owler Bar and Totley. PDMHS Newsletter 137.
Battye, R. 1997. A Study of the Ganister Industry –of Sheffield from the Mid-19th to the Mid-20th Century. University of Sheffield (MA Thesis).
Thanks for help and advice to –
John Barnatt, Richard Carr, Nick Denniff, Rachael Hall, Stella Maguire, Paul Smith and Kim Strawbridge.


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Like the booming drums that have rapidly become her signature sound, the profile of Cork musician Lyra has exploded recently thanks to several television appearances and a number of 'Hot tip for 2017' recommendations. Totally Cork catches up with the London-based singer to see where she's been, where she's at and where she's going.
There are so many reasons to leave home these days, most heavily weighted with negative connotations: fleeing from conflict, financial pursuits, deportation. So it's refreshing to hear a young voice forthrightly explain their own positive motives for moving – to chase a dream. A Corkonian through-and-through, Lyra's dreams have taken her across the Irish Sea to London where she's throwing herself into her work. What specifically brought her to England's cultural epicentre?
"Music. I really want to give it my all this year and I've found some amazing collaborators in London so it just makes sense for me to be there most of the week," explains Lyra, speaking from Dublin where she's in our own capital to catch up with family and friends following a "mad few weeks" of television appearances. Anyone who visits London finds that as soon as you step foot on a London pavement, the feet tend to move that little bit faster than at home. Lyra has found it no different. "Yes, I've definitely found that to be the case. It's really fast moving over there. I get up at 7am over in London to try get as much into the day as I can where at home it seems more chilled and easy going and less pressured almost. But when it gets too frantic I head to the sea, I find water so soothing and calming. Weekends by the beach for me whatever the weather!"
Oddly enough, although enjoying the vast fruits of opportunity presented for picking across the water, Lyra's latest high profile gig takes place in her homeland in May. A prominent arm of Music Cork, a new music industry showcase featuring sessions and talks with industry veterans (including key note speaker, Darcus Beese, President of Island Records who personally signed chart-toppers such as Amy Winehouse and Sugababes) will be a music trail packed full of up and coming Irish bands and musicians across Cork Opera House, Cyprus Avenue, Triskel Arts Centre and The Old Oak. Lyra will share a bill with poptronic twosome Le Boom and Dublin songwriter Ailbhe Reddy in Cyprus Avenue on Thursday 11th May. It was less than a year ago that the same Caroline Street venue provided the location for Lyra's first ever Cork show. "I was shaking like a leaf," gasps Lyra when asked to relive what it was like to finally introduce her new pop persona to a home crowd. "I was so nervous for all my family and friends to finally hear what I had been up to and for the public to meet me for the first time. After the first note it was electric and I loved every second of it!"
Nervous or not, Lyra seems perfectly at home on stage, even more so under the unnerving glare of television cameras. A rising profile stretched further upwards recently when invited to perform on RTÉ's reality show, Dancing With The Stars. In stark contrast to a programme full of celebrities awkwardly coming to terms with uncomfortable routines, Lyra's performance of 'Emerald' exuded poise and panache. It's as if singing from a podium backed by half-naked percussionists with two expert ballroom dancers gliding around in front of her is an everyday occurrence. "I love to perform and having tribal drummers [Wexford percussive collective Extreme Rhythm] was just amazing. I'm a believer that if people come to see you, you should give them a proper performance. If not they might as well just play your music at home. The music comes first but additional visual elements all add to help making it a show. I really was crazy nervous though. I had never used in-ear monitors before so that was a first which was a little strange actually. I loved it so much I just wanted to keep going."
Expect Florence & The Machine comparisons to flow freely in the coming months, mainly because of the gargantuan drum sound that forms the backbone to Lyra's music with the singer weaving her own Celtic patterns around them. "I love big drums, I've loved them since I can remember so for me that was always a natural part of my sound. I also love cinematic music so I incorporated some strings. My sister and I grew up singing in harmony together so the layering of vocals is something I always had to have. As a result Emerald now has over 200 vocal parts which was crazy to record in half a day."
The engineer tasked with untangling this web of complex vocal arrangements was Rupert Christie, who has worked as an arranger and producer with chart heavies such as U2, Coldplay and another artist to whom Lyra often finds herself compared: Kate Bush. "I love Rupert," beams Lyra, reflecting on the origins of a long-running collaboration. "He is like a gentle giant. We had a writing session together and he just loved the music and wanted to be a part of the project. We have so much fun in the studio, and work so hard. We really work well together." Youth versus experience can sometime be a losing battle. Have battles ever had to be fought to retain ownership over her musical direction? "To be honest I'm very lucky that my manger is one in a million and loves what I do and loves my sound - so it will always sound and look like me because we're both on the same page."
Lyra's sudden emergence can be sourced back to one particular moment in January with the inclusion of 'Emerald' on the soundtrack of RTÉ's solicitor drama Striking Out starring Amy Huberman. "I knew my track was being used but I didn't know at what point," says Lyra, reflecting on potentially the powder keg moment of her fledgling pop career. "I was just sitting at home with my mum, stuffing my face with chocolate when I heard it and I nearly fell off the sofa. I was over the moon! My phone went nuts from all my friends. I will never forget that night. It was so, so cool."
Musically, what's next for Lyra and what plans are there to build on previous forays into the studio? "Oooooo," oohs Lyra, mulling over the thoughts of releasing new material. "I have some new music I can't wait to share with you so watch this space. I know everyone says that but I'm so excited about what is coming! My first EP was called W.I.L.D. A blog called it "This is Wild" at some point and it's caught on," laughs Lyra, whom I've learned to be the daughter of a biochemist and an avid fashion fan during our chat. "W.I.L.D. stands for Wake Induced Lucid Dreaming. W.I.L.D. was my first musical baby and I always like to say that - as any parent would know - while still keeping the tricks you learned with baby one you grow with experience that you use when you get to your second baby."
Creating art involves constantly making significant life choices which usually come stockpiled with personal sacrifices. Of this, Lyra is only too aware. "I have made a lot so far and I can imagine it's only going to happen more. I have missed birthday parties, family weddings and holidays but I know it's all part of this world and it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make so I'm lucky everyone around me are so supportive and understanding. The best decision I've made? To pursue my dreams no matter where it takes me. When you realise you can do anything that you dream of, it's really liberating. I'm not afraid to go for it anymore, I just need to work hard and keep moving forwards."
*The above article was originally published in the April edition of Totally Cork magazine
For more on Lyra visit:
Lyra plays Cyprus Avenue, Thursday 11th May with Le Boom, Jack O'Rourke and Ailbhe Reddy as part of Music Cork.
- For further details visit musiccork.com
Follow The G-Man on:
Facebook -- Twitter -- Pinterest -- Mixcloud -- This Is My Jam -- exfm -- Soundcloud -- Bloglovin'
Facebook -- Twitter -- Pinterest -- Mixcloud -- This Is My Jam -- exfm -- Soundcloud -- Bloglovin'


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Tonight I'm getting on a bus with some high-school students to go down to Florida for a week! I'm helping out as a leader with my church's annual trip for HS students, called Bible & Beach. I'm not sure if I'll be able to blog at all while I'm down there, but here's to hoping! You guys take care, and if you get a minute, pray for my sanity. But seriously, and much more importantly, pray for the students and leaders, that we might come to know Jesus more fully.
Month: June 2011
Oh no…
It's beginning way too early. I thought I'd have at least two more months before this started in earnest.
I miss Taylor University.
It's not that I didn't miss it over the summer in the past. I did. But the knowledge that, come August, I won't be returning and so many people I love WILL return…that's killing me. Ugh.
New Title?
So, I have a question for the three or so people who read my blog. I'm thinking about changing the title. Right now, it's "I Write Because I Am Alive." And then some quote by Virginia Woolf that I love. But I'm considering something less…heavy. So how about this: the main title will be "I'll Get You, My Pretty…" and the subtitle is "And Your Little Blog Too."
What do you think? Cute and clever? Or cliché and weird?
Vote now! And if you have a better idea, bring it! No really…please do bring it. I want it.
Just thought I'd upload a few of my favorite shots from the gorgeous palace of Versailles. Click on them to see the full view. It's worth it.
Little Things
Years ago, I made the conscious decision to feel free to sing out loud in my car without worrying about if people were watching me. I love singing in my car. Sure, it is embarrassing to look over at a stoplight and realize that someone is watching you (and probably laughing), but life is way too short to worry about what some random stranger thinks of you. Sing in your car! Have fun! And smile really big at the person who is laughing at you. They'll either be amused along with you, or just get confused.


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Twenty million tons of wreckage from the March 11 tsunami in Japan is heading toward the beaches of Hawaii. Last month a Russian ship, the STS Pallada, sighted the wreckage just past Midway Atoll on the northern end of the Hawaiian Archipelago. The massive patch of wreckage has traveled 2000 miles from Japan's coast in six months and based on its speed will wash up on Hawaii beaches as early as Spring of 2012. Nikolai Maximenko, an oceanographer, created a model of the drift of the tsunami debris from the movements of thousands of buoys, which the sighting in late September confirmed.
From Midway, the tsunami wreckage will hook up with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or Pacific Gyre. This patch of 3.5 million tons of concentrated trash floating between Hawaii and San Francisco will be overrun by the 20 million tons of tsunami wreckage. Giant hunks of debris will break off from the Pacific Gyre, drift west, and wash up on beaches in the South Point area of the Island of Hawaii. Kamilo and other beaches on the southern coast of Hawaii Island are already covered with plastic and trash that have dislodged from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Tracking the tsunami wreckage is an overwhelmingly sad reminder of the lives lost and the houses, businesses, and belongings of millions of people that lived along the coast of Japan that were swept out to sea. The wreckage consists of, among other things, over 200,000 houses and buildings, more than one building for every resident on our sparsely populated Island of Hawaii.
Below are links to videos with more information about the Tsunami Debris Patch and the Hawaii Island beaches that will be impacted.


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Is your brain a Democrat or a Republican? This weird test gives you 27 questions completely unrelated to anything political and it will find the answer. Take the quiz just in time for the election!
The quiz gives you seemingly random statements like "I would go out of my way to avoid walking through a graveyard" and "I would rather eat a piece of fruit than a piece of paper" and asks you to agree or disagree.
Even weirder, it gives you statements like "You see a person eat an apple with a knife and fork" and "You discover that a friend of yours changes underwear only once a week" and asks you to rate how disgusted you are.
The quiz gained popularity a few months ago when it was posted on Reddit along with an explanation on the research behind it. You can read more here but basically, there have been studies done that show conservative people tend to be more prone to disgust.
The creator of the quiz has found success with a number of people—does it work for you? Take the quiz and let us know in the comments!
Continue reading...
Haha. It pegged me correctly.