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This year, for Halloween, I am going to go as a superhero. With a little luck, I will keep it up all year.
Lightheaded and staggering, I mutter to myself.
"You'd think I was drunk. Drunk, I say. Drunk! And I haven't touched alcohol in days."
I bounce off the wall.
To a casual observer (or even a formal one), I appear deep in my cups, but neither rotgut, toddies nor booze have loosened my limbs. I have worked a 10-hour day, volunteered another three and walked a half dozen miles with too little food, and that combination makes stumble, stagger, and bounce off walls.
I have multiple sclerosis (MS) and MS has a tendency (among other things) to react to stress. The pressure can lead to an exacerbation, a flare, a temporary worsening of symptoms like numbness, pain, dizziness, and imbalance. Confusion. Slurring and stuttering. If I am not careful, if the symptoms last more than 24 hours, I may relapse, requiring medical attention, and if it keeps going, my white blood cells might just eat a hole in my brain's lining.
But wait, there's more!
Not only does stress make me feel bad; it makes me look bad. On the outside, I seem drunk. I stumble. I slur. People make assumptions, and they are not particularly nice to those they assume drunk.
In the interest of maintaining my liver, I don't actually drink these days. The organ takes enough of a hit with my medication, but that doesn't change what people think when they see me walk. Fortunately, I am less concerned with that than the fact that my body is showing me in sloppy ways that it is not happy with my current schedule and/or state of mind.
Tomorrow morning, I have a charity walk for ALS. On Sunday, I am either hiking with one friend or training with another. In between, someone has asked me to help chaperone a Halloween party for 40-some tweens and at some point, I plan to meet my friends' new baby and to catch up with someone visiting from Chicago.
In three weeks, I will walk 60 miles in the fight against breast cancer. Somehow, between now and then, I need to raise $900 and I have the feeling I will pay it myself to get to the minimum $2,300 required to walk. I just don't have it in me to figure out how to raise more money.
Last night, I woke in a state of fog and took my morning meds. Then, I realized it wasn't morning at all. I took a stimulant close to midnight. I couldn't fall back to sleep.
While I am not worried, per se, about any of the things on my plate. I need to cut back. Refocus. Focus on me. My food tracker keeps giving warnings in big red letters: You are not eating enough. My workdays need to be shorter. Volunteering should be something extra. I need to learn how to say no.
Today, I am wearing a t-shirt with a cape while working from home. Later, I am going to finish my laundry and make mixed bean soup. Somewhere in between, I might take a nap. Today, I am going to be my own superhero. Tomorrow, I will start figuring out the rest.
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Tutu too much
"Are you going to wear that down the street?"
"What?" I looked down. "I don't know. Maybe?"
She laughed.
"Don't accept any offers!"
I considered the tutu jutting out from my middle.
"Maybe I will take it off."
I imagined the looks I might get from people passed on the street - on the way to the Metro, other train riders and people in my own neighborhood. I shrugged. It didn't matter; I had seen them before. The people who didn't notice might be more interesting.
With Halloween just a few days away, someone at DC Books to Prisons suggested costumes and a potluck to celebrate our pack night, and I tried to think of something that wouldn't require too much effort given the workday before it.
In the depths of my costume box, the Daphne costume seemed a bit of a stretch without the rest of the Scooby gang and the dirndl had raised a few brows in its day. The chef's hat and jacket would have to wait until I had time to bake. Last year, I wore the cape as Red Riding Hood. I decided on a tutu over a brightly print dress with a bright, somewhat matching, somewhat clashing scarf and combat boots. I marketed myself as a fashion disaster.
The tutu was easy; I already had one. It had made its way down the street, many streets, as I walked the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure. In a couple of weeks, I would wear it in San Diego for yet another trek, but it looked slightly less strange in a sea of walkers in pink than DC on a random Wednesday night.
In the room where we all volunteered, only a few of us wore costumes. A woman in business attire labeled herself as an "Ebola lawsuit." A few years ago, she was a carbon footprint. Someone else came as a lifeguard, with shirt, hat and whistle. (She wore trousers, too, but they didn't really add to the costume.) Another just wore a pink feathered boa. The rest of the group just came as themselves and one asked me if there was an occasion for the tutu.
"We're celebrating Halloween!" I said. "Have a treat."
The food was set up in the corner. The rest of the night progressed as usual with letters and books, packing materials and stamps. Maybe next year, I will dress as a superhero or at least wear the shirt with a cape as I consider saving the world.
Rocket Man
A failed rocket launch (and explosion) rocked a bit of my Tuesday night.
On Monday, I had gone to my roof to try to catch sight of a planned rocked launch and the almost-simultaneous passing of the International Space Station. While I caught the latter (making me far giddier than one might expect from a few minutes of light tracking across the night sky), I didn't see anything that resembled a launch.
As it turned out, a sailboat scrubbed the first attempt by entering the hazard zone early in the launch count. Radar aircraft tried to contact the boat, to no avail, and the launch was called off. It was rescheduled for Tuesday.
So, I set an alarm. When it went off, I grabbed my camera and went to the roof on an unseasonably warm autumn night to wait with the sun setting behind me. I still didn't really know where to look, but I focused southeast, watched the horizon and waited.
From a nearby school, I heard young voices shouting.
"Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one! Liftoff!"
My heart leapt in anticipation. I grinned. I watched and waited and waited some more.
Nothing happened. Nothing at all. Slightly confused, I thought maybe I had just missed the thing. I checked NASA's Twitter feed but it was slow loading, at best, and seemed to be stuck at T-minus two minutes several minutes ago. I shrugged and went back downstairs.
"Nothing," I told my brother.
"It blew up," he replied.
"It exploded. It's on the news now."
Confused, I walked into the living room to see fiery images filling the screen.
I thought of the kids at the school watching the liftoff. I remembered crowding around a TV a lifetime ago. Miss Andrews room? Lunchtime. It seemed the whole school watched. The whole world watched as the Challenger lifted off and broke apart. Christa McAuliffe would have been the first teacher in space. The launch was broadcast live.
"It was unmanned," my brother told me and I breathed a sigh of relief.
The thing about life… One of the things about life is that it is not the big things that make it worth living: Relationships, babies, the perfect job/house/car. Big, beautiful and strangely stressful, the thrill can pass in flash as months of planning culminate in special, spectacular day, which is still just one day. 24 hours.
Things go wrong. Things go right. Stressed, unhappy brides. Happy brides, unhappy wives. Sleep-deprived parents of babies. Worried parents of teens. Ungrounded parents of college students. Work is still work. Home is just a place to live, filled with the things that you bring and the life that you make. There will always be another newer car. Bigger, brighter, faster. Better.
As my niece and I talked over the weekend, we touched on the idea of running away. A friend of a friend had tried to convince her to go, but she knew it wouldn't last long, not with the $2,000 he'd saved, not without an education and plan for the future. We had each considered it, though, briefly, as did my mom and my sister, but even with my (fairly regular) forays to other places and cultures, we all came back.
"I realized a long time ago," I told my niece, "that wherever I went, there I was. I might as well figure out how to deal with my problems because I would be taking them with me."
I had flown to Minnesota to spend some time with the girl and her sister, with my sister (their mom) and my own mom as well as her husband and friends. More than the flight and traveling across several states to be in the same place for a little while, it was the small things that made the trip so very special.
On Saturday night, with white chocolate on our faces and in our hair (my fault; I started it), my niece made me laugh so hard that I almost peed my pants. My mom shook her head, sighing, "Girls…"
"Just wanna have fun," her granddaughter sang and I joined in at the chorus. "That's all they really want! When the workin' day is done, oh girls they wanna have fun. Oh girls just wanna have fun!"
And we did. We made soup and treats. Ate dinner. Watched a movie. And in the morning, my niece sleepily mumbled at me as I prepared to head back to the airport.
"Don't go."
Sunrise and sunset. Trees shedding leaves in shades of red, orange, and gold. Playing catch with a 5-year-old who announced to the world that I was his new friend and remembered (and repeated) the statement the next morning. Talking about toys with my mom. Talking about books and Broadway with my stepdad. Packing for camp with my other niece.
"Appropriate undergarments?" I read from her pack list.
"I think they mean t-shirts and socks and stuff."
"They list those separately. I think they mean 'underwear' and were too embarrassed to type out 'underwear.' Don't get me started on the 'personal hygiene items.'"
I sat on the floor and tried to stuff her new sleeping bag, rolled, back into its bag, but it would not go. After a half hour, I gave up and showed her how to use it as a stuff sack.
"That'll work, right?"
Later that night, my mom put my friend to work, the one who'd just driven several hours to see me, while my niece and I accidentally ripped the side when we dug a hole (as requested) into a loaf of bread. We turned the loaf over and over and over again so Mom wouldn't see it.
The weekend was made up of things like going outside to not see the solar eclipse and staying inside to watch American Horror Story, singing Yankee Doodle Dandy with my mom when we drove past a sign for "Yankee Doodle Road" in Saint Paul and walking one of my sister's favorite trails at the Nature Center. It wasn't anything. It was everything.
Walking to work this morning, tired from too many late nights made even later by an hour time difference and encouragement to "sleep in," the scaffold-shrouded Capitol made me happy as did our growing 6 a.m. breakfast club in the office. Last night, I enjoyed last week's Jeopardy with my brother. Yesterday, I enjoyed a conversation with my seat mate on the plane.
Life isn't any more (or any less) than these.
Out there
I didn't know where to look.
"Somewhere over there-ish," I thought as I stood on the roof and watched the night sky. "I should have brought my phone or my iPod or some other time-telling device."
Instead, I snapped random pictures and checked the time in the corner of my camera screen. It seemed to be set for the right timezone, which wasn't a given but it was a start. I didn't know how I would know if or when the rocket would launch. I didn't even know where I should watch.
According to the Washington Post, "the rocket will become visible in the southeast sky about 10 degrees above the horizon one to two minutes after launch. Look for a glowing trail of light that makes an arc in the sky."
I thought I saw something fairly unspectacular, and then it was gone.
The rocket was set to launch at 6:45 pm from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia in a mission to meet up with the International Space Station (ISS) and resupply cargo on November 2. Coincidentally, a few minutes later, the ISS itself was slated to pass over DC.
Head back, camera out, not catching a thing, I made myself dizzy watching it pass, and I made myself giddy with the thrill of it all.
Granted, I did not see anything inherently exciting. A bright light in the darkening sky held a steady course heading southeast, and then, it was gone. If I hadn't known either was happening, I might not have left the house at all. If I had left the house, I probably would not have though to look up, to wait and watch, but I did know. I pulled on a coat. I pulled out my camera, and I went to the roof to see something rare.
As it turns out, the launch was rescheduled for 6:22 Tuesday night (due to a boat in the vicinity of the launch site). I still don't know quite where to look, but I will be somewhere outside, camera in hand, watching the night sky. This time, I might even take my phone, my iPod, or some other time telling device. But that doesn't matter. Maybe it'll be great. Maybe it'll be singularly unspectacular. Maybe it will be postponed again and I will forget. For now, it is enough to try.
Photographer Creates Fungus and Destroys Photos with Beautiful Results
Korean photographer Seung-Hwan Oh began experimenting with mold and film after reading a BBC article about it. He takes photos and stores the film in a warm and wet environment to encourage fungi to grow. Apparently only one out of ever 500 frames of medium format color reversal film turns out properly so it's a rather expensive creative process. Take a look at more images from his series "Impermanence" below.
View the whole post: Photographer Creates Fungus and Destroys Photos with Beautiful Results over on BOOOOOOOM!.
Past peak
Apparently, the trees in Minnesota have turned. Their colors have peaked and the things that I see are just a pale remnant of the things they have been. If only I had been here a week ago!
Of course, I wasn't. I was at home, in Washington DC, which is still strangely verdant with a splash of jewel tone here and there and a few odd trees with no leaves all. There are enough on the ground to slightly crunch as I walk, but crossing the Potomac last weekend, the Virginia side of the Memorial Bridge offered a view of green, green, brilliant red, green, green, green, green, green, green.
Today I woke in Minnesota, plunged into perfectly pleasant weather, and surrounded by trees that are slightly past peak, and I don't see the fading, the turning, the passing of peak. I see gorgeous shades of red, yellow and orange. Streets are lightly blanketed. Yards are filled as people fight a futile battle with rakes.
I remember my own childhood and our very large yard. Did we really rake all that for a quarter a bag? Did we really make whole dollars (and several) working at that rate? I remember blisters, large piles of bags and losing an amethyst ring somewhere in the midst of it. We probably should have had some way to compost, but that really wasn't the thing then. I have mental images of enormous, looming piles of straining black plastic.
Twenty… 30 years later, the sight doesn't mean plastic, blisters or rakes. On the way home from a store, a line of shrubs in varying shades of red, yellow and green looked almost as if it had been placed there by some artist's brush, but no man would ever think of such a thing. It was almost too perfect, too even to believe in a painting and almost beautiful beyond belief, as presented by nature.
The colors make me want to carry a camera (or four) and wander the streets, snapping pictures every few steps, and yesterday, I stood outside my mom's car, at the end of the driveway, doing just that. Later, I dragged one of my (gorgeous) nieces outside to snap a few pictures of her with trees in the background because the colors were stunning (much like my niece), and she was leaving for camp. Everything felt so very fleeting. Exquisite. Rare.
Maybe the trees aren't quite as beautiful as they once were but that doesn't matter. I cannot see something I don't really know. I am not comparing them to anything (not even DC, not really) because I am here now, in this place, in this moment, and seeing the trees as they are: Magnificent.
One plus one
"Are going to have family jammie time?" I ask, singing a little. "Family jammie time; family jammie time!"
"Sure," the teen says, shaking her head. "I have to do my homework."
I do not actually have pajamas. They have failed to make my small bag, but I borrow a sleep shirt from Mom. The girl comes back in sweats and a t-shirt with her hair wrapped in a towel, and my niece, her mother and I curl up to talk over reality television and homework as we end a very long day.
I worked all day. I worked more than all day, starting in the wee dark hours and still going at five. Then, I hung out with the kids from my sister's preschool, read a few picture books, and played ball with the ones who remained.
"You're my new friend," a 5-year-old announced. "Are you going to be here again?"
"I will be here tomorrow."
"And after that?"
"Well, I have to go home again after this weekend."
"And Tuesday?"
"I will be at home again on Tuesday, and I live really far away."
"And after that? Friday? Will you be here on Friday?"
"I will be here tomorrow. Tomorrow is Friday."
He looked worried.
His younger brother toddled over to the chair where I sat, wrapped two of my fingers in his tiny hand, and tugged. My sister laughed. The 5-year-old introduced me to his father.
"This is my friend."
They disappeared into the waning daylight and we remembered the solar eclipse. We couldn't see it (without the protective eye wear), but we ran toward the front yard and glanced that way, anyway, talking, laughing and taking pictures of each other, trees and leaves and the light. Dinner. TV. Homework.
Over the past 25 years, coefficients and variables drifted into dusty parts of my mind, but after my sister goes to bed, my niece and I sit on on the couch reviewing X and Y squared, As, Bs, plus and minus.
"I used to tutor this," I remember with a start. "In high school? As a freshman, I tutored some of the senior ballers in algebra and geometry."
Scared of my own shadow, quiet, and poorly dressed, not necessarily unpopular so much as invisible, I sat in the hall outside of Pedretti's classroom and figured out how to help the most popular boys pass their classes by making sense of the unknown. Somewhere in there, I might have figured it out for myself. Maybe. Just a little. I fell in love with numbers. Then, I went to college and majored in journalism. I didn't know that I could find a career in math other than teaching, which I could not imagine. Writing was harder, so I studied that.
These days, I write for myself and make a living in math. I find curling up on the couch (and helping my niece figure out algebra) among my favorite things about a day filled with work, new friends and sunshine.
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On writing
So, the sun rose today... It was a little cloudy, a little windy, and awfully cold. There wasn't much to see at all and then, a flock of birds flew past as I snapped a picture. It wasn't a great shot, but it was mine. That moment with the sun and the birds and the wind. My memory. Part of my life.
Every day, I write a story, an essay, a reflection on something happening in my own life, and every day, I struggle to find something to say. As my mother recently noted, I have covered a lot of topics, and in 9+ years of mostly daily writing, one is bound to do so. Something like 3,338 published posts (outside of this one) live on this site.
When I started 9+ years ago, I did not set out to write 3,338 posts. At that point, I grappled with the idea of writing just one. And then another. And then another. Three thousand three hundred and forty eight days later, I am still wrestling with the idea.
Part of the problem, as I have written before, is that there are things in my life that I just don't want to share. Some things, I just want to keep to myself. Relationships. Family. Things that involve other people because their stories are not really mine to share. Likewise, I am not comfortable writing about work. This is not the appropriate forum for airing my professional life; though, I can say that I do love my job. I feel very fortunate to have found it… Have I ever told that story?
Almost 13 years ago, my roommate at the time (who was dangerously close to becoming my common-law wife because we spent so many years living together and whom I haven't seen in more than a decade) decided to celebrate her 30th birthday in her favorite place: The Bahamas. She and friend were seated together toward the back of the plane, and I was on my own near the front and seated beside a woman who looked decidedly nervous.
Determined to distract her from whatever made her clutch the armrest so tightly, I started talking to the woman, the stranger. As it turned out, her discomfort was warranted a million times over; she and her husband were headed to his son's funeral. No parent should ever have to bury a child.
We talked for a while in the short space between National and Charlotte where we both changed planes, and I think that maybe I made her laugh just a bit. (Despite the heavy topics I frequently cover, I am really quite funny.) She smiled, at least, and as we disembarked, she turned to hand me a business card.
"I don't know you. I don't know anything about you. I don't know if you're happy with your job, but I think you'd be a great fit for our company."
She was right. About a month ago, I left that company (the one my seatmate suggested) to take a job with my client, doing the same work as a direct employee. I had been there for more than 12 and a half years. I still love the work.
Maybe I have written that story before. Almost everyone who knows me has heard it once or twice or so it feels – familiar, worn, like a favorite pair of jeans. I try not to tell it that often, though. I don't want to wear a hole in the memory and again, I like to keep some things to myself.
In the past 9+ years of writing, I have found myself talking less, telling fewer stories, and listening more, which is funny. I almost always have thoughts on a subject. There are always things I want to say. Granted, I have started to slur and stutter, which is incredibly frustrating when trying to speak, but more than that, I figure I ought to get over myself and let someone else talk. I can write my stories later.
Then, I sit at a computer and wonder what in the world I can say. How can I be interesting? What would I want to say that anyone else might want to hear? Read? Consider for the amount of time it takes to get from Once Upon a Time to The End?
I start typing.
Somehow, as I write, stories form. Lately, it seems that all I write deals with big heavy topics like health, money and an uncertain future, but when I look at the screen, I really just want to write light, happy things. I smile a lot. I think the world is truly a beautiful place, even with illness, with war, with helium and clown shortages.
Lately, I have considered how much my life has changed in the past few months (with 100 happy days) and the past year and a half (with my diagnosis), but I don't know that I have ever really written about the past 9+ years or how the writing itself has shaped my life.
Writing is considered a healthy habit. It helps people express their emotions and think through situations and experiences. Studies have show that people who write sleep better and it's possible that they heal faster, too. Physically. Outside of the health aspects, though, telling stories every day has meant that I have needed live a life worth telling. I have done more, seen more, lived more than I ever imagined. I have written from all seven continents including the use of a fairly expensive satellite phone from Antarctica. I have grown up a lot.
A million stories live inside my mind. Some are n0t really worth a post of their own. The smell of caramelizing onions, cornbread, roasted squash with sage and thyme that I bought in Uruguay fill my house, head and memory, but I don't know how to weave them together in a tale. Not yet. I can only write about answering letters from prisoners so many times before I start to sound like a broken record, even to me, and regular long walks and long talks on gorgeous autumn days don't necessarily warrant mention at all. They just make life better.
Life is not all sunshine and sausages, but I am up before sunrise every day now and it still seems a marvel. Every single day. I don't think I can write stories about it for the next 3,348 days, but I imagine I am going to sit behind a computer and try awfully hard.
Avoiding public panic
Walking past a metro stop on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, I considered what would happen if I were to vomit in the trash bin near the top of the escalator.
"Ebola," I decided. "People would think I had Ebola."
Of course, they would be wrong. There was absolutely no way I could have contracted the disease, but the current media frenzy had people thinking, wondering and worrying. (A friend recently canceled a family trip to Florida because she didn't want to be locked in a germ-filled plane.) Public vomiting could definitely give rise to panic so I concentrated very hard on not tossing my cookies. I kept walking.
It was not an idle concern. I worried that I might not be able to make it home without getting sick. I had eaten too much, taken a bus, and lived in a nearly perpetual state of nausea. Really, it was more the last one than anything else.
Three quarters of the things that I take to stay healthy - both of my medicines and one of two vitamin supplements - cause nausea. I had only just started eating again when I started the second medication, which not only nauseates me but also suppresses my appetite and I lost the few pounds I had regained.
Nobody would look at me and think "Hey, that girl is totally wasting away. She should eat a sandwich."
Of course, that is a horribly judgmental and shaming sort of remark. Nobody should ever think something like that, but I am not wasting away. Honestly, I could lose five or 10 pounds and still maintain a healthy weight. This is just not the way to do it. In fact, I have stopped losing weight altogether, which is somewhat frightening.
I work long hours, volunteer frequently and walk something between five and 10 miles a day, recently more as I train for a 3-day walk against breast cancer. I need more than a couple of pieces of fruit to sustain me, but I cannot stomach the idea. My body may be slipping into something called "starvation mode," a state in which a body gets superefficient at making the most of the calories it does get from food and drink and starts eating into lean tissue or muscle to provide some of the calories it needs to function, resulting in muscle loss.
I continue to pack my regular breakfast and lunch, but it takes me a couple of days to eat them. My coworkers and friends have taken to telling me to eat. Regularly. And chastising me when I don't. I, in turn, drink ever more ginger tea to settle my stomach and have adopted a strange obsession with the food, shopping at the grocery store on an almost daily basis, picking up high-calorie comfort foods along with the ingredients for ever-more-elaborate dishes, praying for the right combination, hoping something will stick.
Oatmeal cream pies! Candy corn! Rotini with roasted butternut squash and goat cheese topped with caramelized onions, apples and lightly salted, roasted squash seeds!
Yesterday, I accepted invitations to three separate brunches, and I went to all three. I even ate at two of them (with several hours and several miles of walking in between) with a little granola and fruit here, potato pancakes there and great conversation at all. Then, I went home and made dinner.
Yesterday, for the first time in more than a month, I ate three full (albeit small) meals, and I came dangerously close to tossing my cookies (granola and potato pancakes) in a public environment.
Some time soon, something will have to give. While I rather enjoy eating treats I have skipped for years, I might have to start carrying air sickness bags to avoid causing public panic.
I definitely do not have Ebola.
Leaving a theater on Monday night, I felt like I had it, whiplash, pain caused by an abnormal motion or force, usually caused by motion that pulls and strains because Whiplash (the movie) did exactly that. It pulled me in directions I seldom followed. It was a beautifully abnormal motion or force.
Critics have called it a jazz thriller, mesmerizing and seductive, uplifting, heartbreaking, electrifying and terrifying. I would not have credited it with universal appeal, but nearly all who have reviewed it have given high marks.
The film follows Andrew Neyman, "an ambitious young jazz drummer, single-minded in his pursuit to rise to the top of his elite east coast music conservatory. Plagued by the failed writing career of his father, Andrew hungers day and night to become one of the greats. Terence Fletcher, an instructor equally known for his teaching talents as for his terrifying methods, leads the top jazz ensemble in the school. Fletcher discovers Andrew and transfers the aspiring drummer into his band, forever changing the young man's life. Andrew's passion to achieve perfection quickly spirals into obsession, as his ruthless teacher continues to push him to the brink of both his ability-and his sanity."
Directed and written by Damien Chazelle with Miles Teller as Neyman and J.K. Simmons as Fletcher, Whiplash is intense and thought provoking with a truly spectacular finish, one that pulled me to the edge of my seat and set my heart racing.
As I walked out, enervated but exhilarated, my mind spun from the scenes I had just seen through memories, hopes and fears. The characters were enigmatic - passions burned bright, their motives unclear.
The film left me wondering about my own passion and drive, whether I had settled in life, and what it would be like to want and do more. It left me questioning myself and whether I had sold out my dreams.
Of course, I don't want to be a jazz musician; playing an instrument on stage dovetails nicely with my own private version of hell. Some of the drumming reminded me of high school band, inspiring a shudder or eight.
I don't want to make movies or star in them. I am still figuring out who it is that I want to be, and after seeing Whiplash, after I recover a bit, I want to work even harder to get there because that's what good art - movies, music, direction and acting - can do. It makes me want to create. It makes me want to be better.
"There are no two words in the English language more harmful than "good job,'" Simmons said as Terence Fletcher.
Maybe he's right. I don't want to settle for good. Whiplash exceeded that with a driving force.
Promotional fare
It all sounded much better five months ago. New routes from Dulles! A $30 promotional fare!
At three o'clock in the morning, my interest waned. At four o'clock in the morning, waiting 15 minutes in a dark, shared van for a pair of silly young women who failed to answer their phone before jerking across the city, making a few more stops and heading to the airport, my interest revolted.
At the gate, waiting for my (delayed) flight, I wondered if I should ask a flight attendant for an airsickness bag before taking my (middle) seat. I could no longer count on finding one in the seat pocket. Based on the restrictions placed on that $30 fare, I almost wondered if I'd even have a seat.
With its debut at Dulles and introducing new routes, Frontier airlines offered the public $30 flights (roundtrip) to a handful of destinations for a very limited time. One night in May, my Facebook filled with news of people looking for flights. Available dates were limited and hours even worse, but somehow, I found one. I managed to book a flight from Washington to Minneapolis late in October.
Of course, Minneapolis wasn't exactly at the top of most people's lists. I, however, had several great reasons for going – my mom, my sister, my nieces, aunt, uncle and cousin, friends, friends with a new baby. I would even manage to see my niece for a few minutes on the morning of her 13th birthday before heading back to the airport. Over the weekend, we could find her gift together because haven knows that I couldn't bring a gift with me.
Everything required for four nights and five days needed to fit in a single small bag. Not a carry on. Not a checked bag. A "personal item." A purse. A backpack. Something less than 18" by 14" by 8". Laptop, charger and camera. Medicine. A toothbrush. Deodorant. Underwear. In the space that was left, I wedged something to wear, breathing thanks for the fact that my clothes are small and planning to beg, borrow or steal anything missing from my family. Mom even offered makeup and hair products, which I never use. We could play dress up all weekend!
My personal item, i.e. my whole world for the next few days, needed to fit under the seat in front of me. The middle seat in front of me. Where I would be eating my knees. Selecting a seat (like taking a carryon or checking a bag) would have added to the cost. I gave up the idea of something with leg room, something other than a middle seat, but at least it was a direct flight.
I didn't need a 30 dollar fare. I could afford to pay full price. Though, I really didn't have to pay anything at all with nearly half a million airline miles in the bank. The restrictions on the cheap flight almost made reconsider its "value" but on the other side, I would see family and friends. Temperatures would be unseasonably warm, and checking it out reminded me of other trips, places and stories.
In my weather app, the list of cities continued to grow. Washington. DC, of course, topped the list, along with Minneapolis, New York and San Diego. Next, though, Kathmandu brought a smile to my mouth. Melbourne. Bangkok.
A little bit of discomfort really didn't matter. I was lucky to have seen so much of the world and I have the chance to spend a long weekend with loved ones. Definitely a win, at any price.
Uber Partners With Vaccine Finder To Bring A Free Flu Shot To You
San Francisco Airport First in the U.S. to Reach Deals With Uber, Lyft
Vatican Library Puts 4,000 Ancient Manuscripts Available Online for Free
Books and letters
On Wednesday, it rained. It rained a lot. The rain fell so hard that I could hear it from my desk three cubes from the window, and I can never hear the rain from my desk. I don't really see outside at all during the day. I know it exists, somewhere out there, but I can't tell if it is day or night, dark or bright. On Wednesday, though, I heard the rain.
Around me, people received tornado alerts on their cell phones. Some people congregated in the hall in the middle of the building, away from the windows. Some just kept working. I kept working, and the rain kept falling.
After work, I considered going home, even though it was Wednesday, even though I normally volunteered on Wednesdays, but I had a bag full of letters addressed just to me, words and thoughts of prisoners behind bars and I really just needed to respond.
I am a terrible pen pal. It is not a role I have sought, and I would never volunteer for such a thing. Not with prisoners. Not even with people I know and love. For a year, I served as a mentor to a student long distance, and I fear that I failed miserably. She never reached out to me, and after our initial interaction, I couldn't think of anything to say.
Despite the fact that I write every day and through it all, I struggle for words. I labor with ideas and finding a way to string a story together, to write something worth reading, to put out something worth remembering and representing me, even if nobody reads it or it's going to a man behind bars that I don't know and will never meet. I don't do things halfway. For some reason, more and more prisoners have started writing to me, and I feel pressure to respond.
While I was walking to the church that gives up space, the rain started pounding and I almost regretted leaving the shelter of metro. I could have stopped for a while and gotten a cup of coffee while I waited for the downpour to lighten, but I had my rain jacket and the umbrella that reminded me of another story, the Love Festival, and hiking in the Alps. Temperatures were still fairly warm and frankly, even if I got wet, I would get dry again. It was just water, a short walk, a short story and something to add to the letters.
"It's a cool, rainy night in DC - perfect for books and letters."
And it was.
Life has been somewhat exhausting lately. Not bad. Just a lot. Everything seems to take so much time, so much thought and so much work, and I am tired of thinking about it and about me. Thinking outside of myself let it all drift away.
I faced the rain, got a bit wet and volunteered a few hours with DC Books to Prisons. I answered most of those letters addressed to me, caught up with friends and fellow volunteers, and spent some time performing quality control on the packages pulled together by new volunteers. I didn't do much. I did not save the world, but I think that maybe I made a small difference. I made far more of a difference that I would have done if I had just gone home.
Lowering the cost
Yesterday, my heart nearly stopped. I went to my local pharmacy (for the fourth time in a week) to see if maybe the prior approval had come through on one of my prescriptions, and I found that it had. After insurance, I paid $230 for one month of one medication. Then, I went home and found that after insurance, on a monthly basis, I needed to pay almost $1,600 for my second prescription, the disease-modifying one, the one that I have to take twice a day for the rest of my life. That's when my heart nearly stopped.
At a retail pharmacy, I would pay more than $19,000 for a single prescription on an annual basis. Granted, insurance would pay another $45,000 so I wouldn't have to pay the full $64,000 on my own, but the numbers were staggering. There had to be a better way.
The Census Bureau reports the median household income at $53,046. Without insurance, my medicine – one of my medicines - would cost more than the average family brings home in a year. And I'm single. Using a more comparable metric from the Census Bureau means that my copayment with insurance for one year of one pill represents 68 percent of the per capita income.
Health care is the number one cause of bankruptcies in the United States. More than those from credit card debt and unpaid mortgages, bankruptcy from medical bills affected nearly 2 million people last year. Outside of bankruptcy, about 56 million adults – more than 20 percent of the population between the ages of 19 and 64 – struggled with health-care-related bills last year, according to NerdWallet Health as reported by CNBC, and having health insurance doesn't save people from financial hardship.
My medicine isn't supposed to fix anything. I have an incurable progressive and debilitating disorder. The capsule that I take is supposed to slow down the progression and disability. It won't do anything to the damage I already have. It won't make me better. The second pill that I take helps make me feel slightly better in light of that damage. (It calms my nerves to address pain and fatigue, and it keeps me awake in good ways.)
I did pick up the prescription that controlled some of my symptoms. I had only three pills left and hadn't taken any for a couple of days, pacing myself, trying to make them last until the prior approval came through. When I realized the cost, though, I went home, sank into a chair and considered my options. I could use one of the online tools to find a pharmacy that offered the medicine for less. I could call my neurologist and ask for a cheaper alternative. I could just stop taking the medicine and give up feeling slightly better.
After a couple of hours of reading through paperwork, online with my insurance company and their pharmacy division, and a number of phone calls, I found a much more affordable option. I would still pay over $100 for the prescription that controlled my symptoms but the price of the disease-modifying one would drop from almost $1,600 a month to $35.
"Do people already know this?" I wondered. "How do people figure this out?"
It had taken weeks of coordination to get the prior approval (after months with my prior insurance) and hours of sorting through benefits and pharmacy information to find something I could afford.
Maybe people already know how this all works, but I want to share some of the information that I have learned about prescriptions.
Don't accept the price that the pharmacy gives you as the final price you will pay.
* Compare prices between retail pharmacies. A number of online tools allow consumers to compare prices at local pharmacies. Some even offer coupons. A quick search resulted in GoodRx, Drug Price Search, PharmacyChecker.com. I don't know how they compare; I actually do this through my insurer's website.
* Contact your doctor. Explain the situation and ask what your options might be. Are generics available? Is there another medicine in the same class that will work? When I traveled to Sri Lanka, I needed to take an antimalarial, but I didn't need to take the one originally prescribed (at hundreds of dollars). I could take another for $7. They had slightly different side effects but those differences were negligible.
I am taking the $500/230/180/105/55 medicine because my old insurance denied the original prescription. They dictated trying this one first, and my doctor switched. However, my new insurance not only covers the original but also offers a generic for as low as $5 a month. This might be a possibility; I need to talk to my doctor. I hate to feel like I am bothering her, but I have realized that it's not a "bother." She is in my life to help me stay healthy and finding the right medicine, one that works and one that I can afford, is part of that.
* Contact your insurance company. Look online or call customer service to ask about options for filling prescriptions. Retail pharmacies (the local drugstore or the counter in your grocery) might be great for emergency, "I need it right now" sorts of prescriptions but mail service often provides a cheaper option for medicine taken long term and regularly.
* Contact the pharmaceutical company. Look online or call the company's customer service department to ask about help in copayment, especially for branded drugs. If generics are not available, they very well might have a program in place.
This by no means constitutes a complete list and really only addresses those who have insurance, and maybe I am preaching to the choir. Maybe this is common knowledge. It's all new (and overwhelming) to me, and I want to share things as I continue to learn. This is all so confusing and a lot of work. I don't know how anyone does this, but at least my heart is still beating for now.
dafuq?! where the fuck?
dafuq?! where the fuck?
What are some animals that most people have never seen before?
Vampire deer.
- Ten Strange Animal Hybrids
- Weird Animals You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped
- Here Are 25 Strange Animals You Probably Didn't Know Exist. Some Cute And Some That Might Haunt Your Dreams, FOREVER!
Read other answers by
- What are some of the most amazing facts about cats?
- What are some really cool ways animals defend themselves?
- What is the most photogenic animal you know of?
We didn't expect it to be good, not in the "Academy Award winning, this is going to change the way we see the world" kind of way. We just wanted a decent scare on a rainy Monday afternoon. Unfortunately, outside of a few cheap thrills, Annabelle failed to deliver.
With a three-day weekend and gloomy weather, my nephew and I made plans to see Annabelle, the prequel to last year's horror hit The Conjuring. The boy and I had seen The Conjuring together, deconstructing it after the film and determining what we thought worked and what we considered poor execution. We talked it out. We decided we weren't all that scared. We liked it enough, though, to follow it up with Annabelle, the story of the evil doll shown at the start and end of it all.
In the new film, a dashing young doctor has found the perfect gift for his pregnant wife, a rare vintage doll in a white wedding dress to complement her collection. Unfortunately, the dolls draw the attention of a home invader, a member of a satanic cult intent on death and destruction. Gristly violence ensues with blood, shrieks and tears, and the invaders leave more than terror in their wake. They have conjured something purely evil, and all seem attached to that doll.
The movie borrows heavily from better horror films and depends on cheap jolts rather than building the story line, characters or plot. There were a few moments when we jumped in our seats (generally when someone was flying across a room) but the film soon passed from our minds. It didn't have staying power. We weren't really that scared.
Far more frightening were multiple signs saying that children under the age of 6 are not allowed into Rated R films. Frankly, I wondered whether I should be taking the 16-year-old and checked with his dad before we went. When he wanted to bring a friend, I asked if her parents were fine with it, too.
I could not imagine that any child aged six or younger could fully understand that the doll wasn't really the source of the terror. The doll was really only tangentially linked. Movies with things children associate with their own life - dolls, clowns, other children (like the little girls in The Shining) - could be particularly terrifying and hard to understand at such a young age. Nevertheless, there they were. In the seats down the row, a preschooler sat between a pair of adults. A few rows in front of us sat another.
While the movie itself didn't provide a proper fright, we still managed to find one in the theater.
We Can All Learn Something From the Panda
Submitted by: (via BaronXRojo)
What are the best real-world examples of "the boy who cried wolf"?
Iran being 'two years away from having a nuclear weapon' - which they have been now since 1984.
- 1984: The first claim of an Iranian nuke in 'as little as two years' is in Janes Defence Weekly based on 'intelligence sources'.
- 1992: Binyamin Netanyahu claimed Iran was "3 to 5 years" from having a nuclear weapon.
- 1992: Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres claimed the Iranians would have a nuclear warhead by 1999.
- 1995: US officials (and Binyamin Netanyahu again) claimed Iran would have a warhead by 2000.
- 1996: Ehud Barak told members of the UN Security Council that Iran would be able to produce nuclear weapons by 2004. Shimon Peres disagreed, he thought they would be ready in 2000.
- 1998: Donald Rumsfeld told Congress that Iran could have a nuclear armed intercontinental ballistic missile that could hit the US by 2003.
- 1999: 'Israeli officials' claim Iran will have a bomb by 2004.
- 2001: Israeli Minister of Defence Binyamin Ben-Eliezer claims Iran will have a bomb by 2005.
- 2003: 'Israeli military sources' claim Iran wil have a bomb by 2005.
- 2009: Binyamin Netanyahu is back with a claim that an Iranian bomb is 'one to two years away'. Mossad chief Meir Dagan claims 2014 is the date. IDF General Baidatz goes against the grain by speculating it will take as long as three years.
- 2010: 'Israeli sources' claim 'Iran is, at most, one to three years away from having a breakout nuclear capability.'
- 2012: Binyamin Netanyahu claims Iran is six months from a bomb.
Read other answers by
- How easily could you have hidden the fact you were Jewish to escape persecution in Nazi Germany?
- Is there any evidence that Hitler personally murdered anyone?
- What two countries have been at war with one another for the longest combined total time?
The end of happy
Apparently, yesterday was the last of my happy days. In a flash, three months have passed. I have found and shared at least one happy thing for each of the last 100 days. I made it! I have not yet completely alienated family or friends with inane pictures plus a hashtag! Rather, a few people told me that my pictures made their own days brighter, and I want to keep posting, with or without a hashtag. I am not ready for my happy days to end.
If I had realized that yesterday marked the last of my hundred, I might have considered something with a little more flash. I might have found or tried to do something more than enjoy finding time to sort through laundry and my photographs, but perhaps the unknowing made it more real, more appropriate, more me. I really was happy with a little time for reflection and order on a cool rainy day. I don't have nearly enough of that.
I did not know I had reached my goal until I opened my calendar sometime late afternoon. As of today, I had a clear slate at six where once I had a reminder to post because 100 days ago I created an event just for me. #100happydays. For the past 99, my calendar sent me a daily reminder to find happiness.
Some days of the past 100, I struggled to find something to shoot and something to say. Some days, I couldn't think of a single happy thing and posted something small. The days weren't bad; they just were. Some days, I weighed all of the happiness around me and deliberated over which one to pick - just one! The project reminded me to be present and positive.
Posting a picture a day did not change my life. I cannot run faster or jump higher now. My head isn't fixed. I have not fallen in love or discovered the meaning of life (42), but maybe I have enjoyed and appreciated the world around me just a little bit more.
During the past 100 days, I have made my first foray into home ownership and moved from two bedrooms to one. It included the end of a relationship and the end of a job. I started a new one, a new job, at least, which was the old one with a new dynamic and employer, earlier hours and increased responsibility. I did not start another relationship. New medication yielded adverse side effects, and I fought headaches and nausea for 24 of the 100 days. Someone tried to steal my car. I traveled to Croatia. I turned a year older.
The past 100 days haven't exactly been easy. They have actually been downright hard. Maybe the project did change my life - I don't know where I would be if I hadn't focused on finding the good in life. (I imagine a big hot mess.)
A water balloon full of mercury hitting the ground.
samaelcarver: The Meme of our Years.
The Meme of our Years.


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Several women who sent their breast milk to a Rhode Island jeweler to have it turned into keepsakes say they feel scammed after not receiving their jewelry.
Some customers told WPRO-AM they sent MommyMilk Creations money and their milk up to two years ago and still haven't received anything from company owner Allicia Mogavero.
Some customers say they don't know what's happening to the breast milk they send Mogavero.
U.S. & World
They say invoices show that Mogavero has processed their payments for the pendants, which cost hundreds of dollars.
Mogavero, of Wakefield, says her business is legitimate, but acknowledges that wait times are long.
Attorney General Peter Kilmartin says his office received one formal complaint about MommyMilk, in 2014, but it was closed once the complainant received the item.

subset: commoncrawl


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Hammer Museum presents Walking Tall and Eleanor Antin's Before the Revolution
Free events are part of the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival
Los Angeles—The Hammer Museum presents two free programs as part of the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival:
Maren Hassinger, Flying, 1982. Photo: Adam Avila.
Walking Tall
Thursday, January 26, 7pm
Artists Maren Hassinger, Senga Nengudi, and Ulysses Jenkins continue to investigate Kiss, performed in the 1970s and reimagined in October 2011 to celebrate the opening of the Hammer's Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980. Special guests, including artists who have worked with the trio since the 1970s, participate in this exciting iteration. Aspiring to accentuate the positivity and joyfulness of life, each guest offers a unique contribution to the performance. A meditation on pride and self-confidence, Walking Tall will culminate in an interactive audience experience.
Eleanor Antin as Eleanora Antinova in Before the Revolution, 1979 at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Image courtesy the artist and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York.
Eleanor Antin's Before the Revolution
Sunday, January 29, 2pm & 7pm (Matinee and evening performances)
Eleanor Antin's Before the Revolution, first performed at the Kitchen in New York in 1979, is a key example of the artist's critical, theatrical practice. The play explores Antin's imaginary character "Eleanora Antinova," a black American ballerina trying to make it in the great modernist Russian company of Diaghilev's Ballet Russe, where she encounters the histories and ambiguous realities of performance, racial profiling, and the magical promise of modernism and revolution. Performed by actors who manipulate Antin's original, hand painted, life scale puppets to enact this darkly comic narrative, Before the Revolution is a prime example of the artist's incorporation of a vaudeville sensibility into performance art, and demonstrates a daring attempt to consider race and gender in relation to artistic mastery. Antin directs the production along with Robert Castro. Before the Revolution is curated by Malik Gaines and Alex Segade and organized by in collaboration with the Hammer Museum as part of the ongoing programmatic collaboration between the two organizations.
The Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival will transform Southern California over eleven days from January 19-29. Featuring more than 30 major performances and large-scale outdoor projects, the festival will include new commissions, reinventions, and restagings inspired by works created by artists during the Pacific Standard Time era. The festival is organized by the Getty Research Institute and LA>http://pacificstandardtimefestival.org for the full festival schedule and ticketing information.
Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.


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Fermentation on the paleo plus diet is a huge part of the "plus" that follows paleo in its name. Of course you can buy this stuff at the Whole Foods and pay WAYYYY too much money for rotten food, or you can rot it your damn self. All it takes is about a week in a dark corner of the house.
First off it does take a week or more, so be prepared to make at least a weeks worth at a shot, and keep making it because once you run out it will be harder to get it rolling again. Why? Well, because we are busy, that's why. And it is a bit of work, its not hard, but it does make a mess and we have to be prepared to make it, AND clean it up. This wouldn't be so daunting if I had a garbage disposal, but I don't.
I have a food processor, I mentioned in my first post that you would benefit form having one of these, you can read that post here. I like to shred when I ferment and my food processor is the best thing I can think of to do that, I would like to invest in a lid with a larger shoot to shove my food into but at this point I am fine cutting my stuff smaller and with carrots and ginger I really don't have an issue fitting them into the standard shoot.
This recipe was brought to my attention by my friend "Bread Hurts My Head" who sent me this from Fermented Food Lab and it is amazing!!!
As you all know I am not one for measuring too closely and in this recipe I didn't change that, when it comes to fermenting I am really relaxed. Everyone I talk to tells me "you got to be careful", or "be sure it is all submerged", I say poppycock. I have been winging it for over a year and I have never had an issue. I have a very healthy gut, as far as I can tell, and I am as regular as I can imagine people get.
Having said that I am not endorsing winging your fermentation, I mean you need to be comfortable with what you do. I am comfortable with my way of doing things and you will have to find a way for you to find the same.
I began by shredding my ginger which, again, I did not measure, I just eyeballed it. It was eyeballed to be more than the 6 tsp which is what the recipe was asking for, I like a little heat. And, mind you, I knew the container I was going to use and after fermenting for a while I got a feel for how much of things I aught to be adding.
I took most of a 5lb bag of carrots, trimmed them and shredded them adding them to my Fido container mixing in a bit of salt and ginger while macerating it all with my hand. Not so surprisingly the carrots sweat and filled the container with liquid so I didn't have to add water at all, I usually add water to my sauerkraut but maybe not any longer after this experience.
Now my carrots were often found not submerged in liquid and I again had no problems with this, I even offered some to a friend so I was fairly confident with it but that doesn't mean you have to be, by all means be vigilante we are talking about bacteria and that is nothing to be messing around with.


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One night only – two new Australian Cabaret Sensations!
After the success of last year's AUSTRALIAN CABARET SENSATIONS IN CONCERT, we couldn't resist presenting more talented young performers from the Land Down Under. Again this year, there are two shows for the price of one, featuring two red-hot Aussie talents in this not-to-be-missed evening.
Heartwarming, humorous, and thought-provoking, these two solo acts come together on this evening to present their respective biopic cabarets exploring the lives of two incredible and enigmatic performing artists. Help welcome them to the stage for their respective New York debuts, and enjoy an evening of entertainment that you won't want to miss!
You've heard her voice – now, hear her story! Winner of the Your Theatrics International Cabaret Contest 2014 (YTICC) Melody Beck takes audiences on a stroll down memory lane in this unique biopic cabaret about one of the most remembered but unknown voices of the golden age of movies. A tribute to the woman remembered as "the Voice of Hollywood," whose dulcet tones memorialize some of the greatest music theatre tunes of our time. She dubbed the singing voices of luminaries including Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, Audrey Hepburn, and Deborah Kerr in hit films including West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The King and I, and many more. Melody Beck presents UNSEEN: A TRIBUTE TO MARNI NIXON.
Follow Melody: Facebook; Twitter; Website
Evan Lever's AZNAVOURIAN delves into the rich catalogue of one of France and the world's most recognizable singer/songwriters: Charles Aznavour. At the age of 90, Charles Aznavour has composed over 1000 songs in French, English, Italian, Spanish, and German, and has sold over 100 million records. Evan will deliver some of Aznavour's greatest hits including "She," and "Yesterday when I was Young," as well as lesser known gems, in his theatrical exploration of the work of this legendary musician.
Follow Evan: Twitter
Running Time: 2 hours, plus one intermission


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This session connected me to LETSI, the International Federation for Learning-Education-Training Systems Interoperability. From About Us:
LETSI is a non-profit consortium of e-learning adopters and associations, standards bodies (think ADL, AICC), systems integrators, policy makers, and educational product and services vendors.
They have four working groups: Architecture, Business Requirements, Sequencing and Teaching and Learning Strategies. LETSI also has a rich, open wiki for those that want to learn more about Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM).
Standards are essential for technology-delivered learning. These standards will evolve over time. We as workplace learning professionals should be knowledgeable and we must be involved in the definition of the standard.
ADL Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative for more details on SCORM.


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project Summary
Angels in Erotica is the world's first ever religious-fantasy-romantic-satirical-absurdist-post-modernist-sex comedy! It follows the story of Rachel, an erotica writer who is chosen by God to be his next prophet. She goes on a wild adventure through her fantasy world of Majesterion, being courted by her two ideal lovers; the tortured poet Moody Blues, and the virile bear-hunter Edwardio. However, God's angel Cupid seeks a return to the Old Testament days of fire and brimstone, and is willing to summon dark forces to get her way...
Angels in Erotica had a sell-out run and was heavily praised by professional judges at this year's Durham Drama Festival. It will be performed at a professional venue (The Space @ Surgeons Hall) for 2 weeks of the Edinburgh Fringe, a fantastic achievement for a student production. This project requires a serious financial commitment and whilst we're not going to let this stop us from putting on this play, without your support it will be extremely difficult.
Who We Are
PTC, formerly known as Fountains Theatre Company, is Grey College's very own theatre company. We aim to put on incredible shows that allow our members to realise their creative potential.
We've put on many high-quality and successful productions over the years, including William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and David Mamet's American Buffalo.
However, performing at the Edinburgh Fringe would be a first for the company and a unique opportunity for our members to be part of the largest arts festival in the world!
Why DOnate?
You'll be supporting:
- Original student writing
- Female-written drama with strong female leads.
- Theatre at Grey and the university as a whole; our trip to the Fringe will mean lots of positive publicity for the college and the university. Also, we will gain invaluable experience that we will feed back into student theatre when we return to Durham
- A talented and promising troupe of directors, producers, actors and techies, who will have the opportunity to learn and get exposure on an international stage
Also, as an added bonus, every penny you give us up to £500 will be matched. This is due to the generosity of the Grey Trust and it means your money will go twice as far! So if you're passionate about any of the above, or just want to see sexy topless men on stage, then please donate to Angels in Erotica !
Where will the money go?
Putting on a show at the Edinburgh Fringe is an expensive task, and we are but poor students. Having recently reformed, PTC doesn't have huge resources at present, so we need all the help we can get! Our campaign will continue right the way through our run and we will provide updates of how the show's going, and tell you about everything your generosity is supporting.
Here is what your money will be going towards:
- If we raise £220 then that should be enough to cover our props, costume, set and make-up. If we hit our full target of £1,600 then that will pay for our venue hire.
- If we manage to raise even more then that will help contribute to some of our other major costs, including accommodation (£3,000), Travel (£360) Fringe Society Programme Fee (£328), flyers and posters (£250), box office commission (£53.25) music licensing fees (£50) etc.
- We would be extremely grateful for anything you could give to support this amazing project, even just liking and sharing our content on social media would go a long way
- We've set up a rewards scheme to show our gratitude to our generous patrons, it genuinely means so much to us and hopefully this goes someway towards expressing that
- The rewards will require us to get in contact with you through the Great Ideas website to get some important info: e.g. What's your social media handle? or When are you coming to see the show?
- However, if you would rather not receive a reward then fear not they are entirely optional! Just click the £1 reward to donate any amount to the show without receiving a reward
Follow our progress
You can keep up with how the show's going through our social media, where we'll share blog posts, photos of the casts and much more!
Website: https://greyphoenixtheatre.wixsite.com/angelsinerotica
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/gods1sts3xshow/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/gods1stsexshow?lang=en-gb
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gods1stsexshow/
Plus follow our characters' accounts!
Tumblr: https://teammoodyblues.tumblr.com/
However, the best way to keep up with the show is to see it for yourself! We're performing at The Space@ Surgeons Hall from the 14th-26th August!
Facebook event: http://bit.ly/2tPxNCz


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Buying a new computer--here's what I bought
The Thrifty Accountant Newsletter
--Two minutes of money saving strategies
Greetings fellow thrifty accountants!
I decided to buy a new computer--and that's when the fun began!
- How much memory?
- How much hard drive space?
- What type of processor?
and finally,
- Where to buy it?
I researched all this information on the net, and started checking the Sunday newspaper ads. Was it worth all the trouble?
What kind of computer should you buy?
I buy a new computer every 4-5 years, and often make some minor upgrades in between new computers--usually when a component breaks. Since I use my computer for work all day, every day, I wanted to purchase a computer that was a little faster than the one I had. My budget was around $1,000.
Key components:
Memory: I wanted to get a computer with Vista (I had Windows XP) because from this point forward, most printers and other peripherals, as well as software will be optimized for Vista. Vista needs at least 1 MB or RAM and preferably 2 MB to run well. I ended up getting 4 MB of RAM.
Hard Drive: I don't make movies or record TV on my computer (yet anyway), so I didn't need a lot of hard drive storage. Most new computers come with 300-500 GB of storage, which is more than adequate for me.
Processor: AMD vs Intel? My computer geek friends tell me that both are fine, and the chips go back and forth between which is faster. My research indicated that the Intel Core2 processor Q6600 with Quad Core Technology was a medium-high speed processor, and a fair value at this time. Even within this processor category, the processors are available at different speeds--mine is a 2.40 Ghz chip.
Misc. components:
Video card: While I don't play video games on my computer, I do like to be able to view videos on web sites and we have started creating some "how to" videos for FunCPE.com. I wanted to get a video card that had its own memory (they tend to run faster than the type that use the system memory). The video card I selected is the NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT with 256MB of RAM. This is a mid-level video card (above average perhaps, but not what a gamer would use).
Media card reader: My new camera uses a removable 2 GB media card to store photos. I wanted to be able to read directly from the media card, without having to use a USB cable or a Firewire cable to transfer photos from the camera to the computer. It's faster to read directly from the media card, than to use a cable, and that's one less cable hanging around. My computer came with a "19 in 1" media card reader. You can add one of these card readers to a computer for less than $20.
Where should you buy your computer?
Office Depot? Not recommended.
My first new computer purchase was an HP M9152P (no monitor included) purchased online from Office Depot. The configuration was what I was looking for, and with an advertised price of $1,325, less a $200 rebate, the price was reasonable.
Unfortunately, Office Depot could not help me locate the necessary rebate form. Seriously. I was so annoyed, I returned that computer.
Oddly enough, the contractor who picked up the computer said his wife had had the exact same problem with the rebate, with the exact same computer--and had spoken to the local store manager about it. And the store manager was just as unhelpful as my online and telephone support.
Dell? Highly recommended.
I configured a computer online at dell.com, under the Small Business section (the Vostro line). I then called Dell with some questions--and I called the Home Computer telephone number by accident. Well, apparently the Home division competes with the Business division--which I think helped me get more for my money!
My Dell sales rep configured an Inspiron 530 computer for me that cost the same but exceeded the specs for the Vostro I had selected originally. And my sales rep threw in:
- 3 years of on-site support,
- 22" LCD monitor (WOW!),
- speakers and
- free shipping
--all for $1,120--less than the price of the Office Depot computer!!! And no rebate to hassle with!
You can read over 300 customer reviews of the Inspiron 530. I read through the reviews before purchasing to see if there were any comments about the noise level. Sure enough, several people commented on how quiet it was--and it is indeed whisper quiet!
So that's the long story of my recent computer purchase. I like my new computer and perhaps it will help me get more work done in less time!
Here is the specific computer configuration I bought.
Buying a computer can be a lot of work. And once you buy your computer, you will most likely see a better one adverstised for less the very next day.
April 2008 | Issue #013


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There are a number of content creators based in Toronto, Canada that are doing their thing nationally and on the global scene. A few names I've run across lately are the gentlemen over at Conquering Lion Pictures, Clemente Virgo and Damon D'Oliveira, who released their hit 6-part mini-series, The Book of Negros on CBC and Netflix. Or Ivan Schneeberg and David Fortier, co-executive chairs of Boat Rocker Media, the parent company responsible for, Orphan Black. Both are binge-worthy series' doing their part to eliminate Canadian cinema stigmas.
Carrying the torch forward are the newest additions to CBC's television line up: Shoot the Messenger by Jennifer Holness & Suds Sutherland and Kim's Convenience, a show written by Ins Choi and picked up by the broadcaster after premiering as a Fringe stage production in 2011.
Keeping in mind Polonius' famous line in Hamlet, "brevity is the soul of wit", I won't talk about STM or Kim's being on the air. If you are anywhere near a TTC stop, station, bus, or train, you already know they are. And I won't discuss if they are good. First, because to each their own, and secondly, because years ago a major network thought the stories strong enough to develop and see the process through. That fact brings me to the point I will articulate: it got done. Creators of Canadian programs, all of the ones I've listed here and more, but especially the ones behind Shoot the Messenger and Kim's Convenience, were given budgets, support, and resources to put together quality entertainment. And I for one, am damn proud that greenlighting projects made by, for, and featuring Canadians of colour is picking up steam in executive's offices. It's about damn time. Yes, sure, we've seen it done from time to time – thank you Global and CTV – but now, now maybe because it's 2016 as our Prime Minister so flippantly pointed out it's a thing. It's expected. It's not a sideline feature or special occasion anymore – we are in the game.


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I am pleased to note that my article:
– 'How totalitarianism begins at home: Saramago and George Orwell', in In Dialogue with Saramago: Essays in Comparative Literature, eds. Mark Sabine and Adriana Alves de Paula Martins, Manchester: University of Manchester, 2006, pp. 105-120; http://yatrarollason.info/files/SaramagoandOrwell.pdf
(see this blog, entries: 25-4, 30-5 and 26-7 2006)
has been included in the reading list for the course 'Descobrir Saramago' ('Discovering Saramago'), to be offered from 2 to 6 November 2009 to secondary school teachers of Portuguese and organised by the Centro de Formação da Associação de Escolas de São Miguel e Santa Maria (Azores, Portugal) – see programme at:
(organiser: Clarisse Ribeiro Medeiros).
The aim of the course is to increase teachers' knowledge and understanding of the work of Portugal's most distinguished living writer. I am more than honoured to have this study of mine included on it.


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It appears that the Bundesbank has never heard of the saying: when in a hole, stop digging (neither has any Keynesian in the history of humanity, but that's a different story). For the full plotline on Germany and its tungsten gold, read here, here, here, here and here.
From Andreas Dobret, member of the Executive Board of the German Bundesbank, speech to FRBNY's Bill Dudley
Remarks on German gold reserves
Please let me also comment on the bizarre public discussion we are currently facing in Germany on the safety of our gold deposits outside Germany – a discussion which is driven by irrational fears.
In this context, I wish to warn against voluntarily adding fuel to the general sense of uncertainty among the German public in times like these by conducting a "phantom debate" on the safety of our gold reserves.
The arguments raised are not really convincing. And I am glad that this is common sense for most Germans. Following the statement by the President of the Federal Court of Auditors in Germany, the discussion is now likely to come to an end – and it should do so before it causes harm to the excellent relationship between the Bundesbank and the US Fed.
Let's get back to facts and figures: I would like to remind you that our gold reserves are part of the German currency reserves. These were accumulated over time thanks, in part, to Germany's economic boom in the 1950s and 1960s. Germany's growing economic strength, especially its strong external position, resulted in rather large trade account surpluses, most of them acquired in US dollars. At that time, the International Monetary System, known as the Bretton Woods System, was dominated by the US currency. As long as this system was in force, which was up until 1971, the US Fed was obliged to exchange its currency for gold.
Any current account surplus thus resulted in an increase in Germany's gold reserves. This gold was stored in US vaults for obvious reasons [ZH: sorry, we don't have an econ PhD: what are the "obvious reasons"?]. This was not only the case for the gold hold by the Bundesbank – it was, in fact, common practice. By the way: it was the only practical thing to do, since running a trade account deficit meant a decrease in gold stocks.
Thus, we are now looking back at sixty years not only of fruitful cooperation in many fields and international fora, but also of storing gold and trading via the New York Fed. As a matter of fact, it is sensible for us to do so in New York, as Frankfurt is not a gold trading venue.
Throughout these sixty years, we have never encountered the slightest problem, let alone had any doubts concerning the credibility of the Fed [ZH may, and likely will, soon provide a few historical facts which will cast some serious doubts on this claim. Very serious doubts]. And for this, Bill, I would like to thank you personally. I am also grateful for your uncomplicated cooperation in so many matters. The Bundesbank will remain the Fed's trusted partner in future, and we will continue to take advantage of the Fed's services by storing some of our currency reserves as gold in New York.
At the same time, you can be assured that we are confident that our gold is in safe hands with you. The days in which Hollywood Germans such as Gerd Fröbe, better known as Goldfinger, and East German terrorist Simon Gruber, masterminded gold heists in US vaults are long gone. Nobody can seriously imagine scenarios like these, which are reminiscent of a James Bond movie with Goldfinger playing the role of a US Fed accounting clerk.
While gold is important, we have to combat a crisis of confidence in the euro area. This is the task we need to concentrate on. And we will do so.
Thank you for your attention.
And that was it for Herr Dombret's comments. Which is good: because really, when in a hole...
As for the full true story, there is much more here, which we hope to reveal soon in its entirety. We are confident our German readers (and not only) would find the complete, historically-documented details, quite stunning.


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Planning Strategy for Rural Northern Ireland
Regional Planning Policies: Policy CO 5 Tourist and Recreation Schemes
|Policy CO 5 Tourist and Recreation Schemes
This policy is superseded by PPS 16 Tourism
Exceptionally, proposals for the provision of tourist or recreational schemes in undeveloped coastal areas may be granted permission in situations where a coastal location is essential, provided the development would not lead to an unacceptable impairment of the amenity of the area.
Many recreational and tourist facilities depend on a coastal location or the natural beauty of the coastline. Such facilities are often a valuable resource for large sections of the population while others can make an important contribution to the tourist industry. Development can itself however result in a loss of the visual quality or the tranquil nature normally associated with the coastline. In determining applications for recreational or tourist schemes the Department will balance the advantages of such facilities against the need to preserve the amenity of the coast.
In general, tourist and recreational schemes and facilities will be directed to existing urban areas. Exceptionally, proposals on the undeveloped coastline may be acceptable where the development is judged to be of considerable regional importance to the tourist industry and:
In addition, it will be important that:
Permission will normally only be granted where the development can be satisfactorily integrated into the environment and the proposals include the highest standards in the siting, design and landscaping of any built development. The submission of an Environmental Statement may be required.
Favourable consideration may be given to low intensity coastal recreational uses which are considered to be acceptable in that they would not lead to an unacceptable impairment to the amenity of the area.


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The title race is effectively over, but the battle at the bottom of the Premier League as well as the battle for Europe is still alive and kicking. To dissect all of the weekend's action and major storylines are Laurence McKenna and Kartik Krishnaiyer on this week's episode of the EPL Talk Podcast.
Other topics discussed are whether Manchester City are focusing on the coming FA Cup Final instead of taking care of business in the Premier League, Tottenham's demise, the return of Queens Park Rangers and Norwich City to the Premier League, how important three points is for Liverpool on Monday night, and much much more.


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We are currently working on web Development application for tracking time sheet, office automation and project management of product life cycle.
And also we are working on domains like Multi Level Marketing,Transport Management,Jewellery,Retail and School management System in various places Clientes.
Our key technical staff are internationally trained and certified in their areas of expertise. At IT Solutions we try to build long-term sustainable relationships with our customers and suppliers.
Powered by Snipe IT Solutions


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Brisbane CBD
Elizabeth Street is the Hot Spot in the Brisbane CBD. We feature the only Hot Yoga Studio in the City and our club is a great place to chill out after a heavy day at work.
Our spacious chill out area with great views of the Morton Bay Fig trees on Creek Street is one of the club's great features.
Try out the latest training techniques, including our functional Freestyle area and a wide selection of group exercise classes. We are also introducing our Club within a Club for the over 50's.
Take your training to the next level. Encourage a friend to join you on the journey this month and we'll give you 2 weeks free on your membership when they join Fitness First. *
Group Exercise Classes
We have a wide selection of group exercise classes and there are 75+ classes per week. Our classes include BODYATTACK, BODYCOMBAT, BODYPUMP, Freestyle, HIIT, Hot Yoga, Shockwave, Studio Pilates and
View Group Exercise Timetable
Free Guest Pass
Want to learn more?
Book in a visit by downloading a free guest pass and see what we have to offer. Try our 30 minute Freestyle Group Training sessions for a fast, effective workout; check out the weights floor; or join the fun in a group exercise class.
Download A Free Guest Pass
Check out our membership options below or download a pdf copy.
Access Type
Platinum Membership allows access to all Platinum and Passport clubs Australia wide.
Passport Membership allows access to all Passport clubs Australia wide.
Optional Training Options
• 1:1 PT x 2 consists of two one-on-one training sessions with a qualified Personal Trainer.
Membership Type
Contract is our ongoing payment membership. You can choose a 1, 12 or 18 months minimum term ongoing commitment where you pay fortnightly. A start up fee of $99 is payable upon joining.
Pre Paid is a one off payment membership. You can choose a 10 or 25 visit pack and make a one off payment.
Contract membership continues past the minimum term until you advise Fitness First you wish to cancel (28 days notice required).
Cooling Off Period: We offer a 14 day comfort guarantee if you wish to cancel within 14 days of joining for any reason (Start Up fee is non-refundable).


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This project will undertake a review of the current needs, challenges and opportunities to effectively address racism in the City of Toronto. This review will help to identify and plan the required advocacy structure and model to effectively respond to issues of access, equity and inclusion issues confronting equity- seeking groups.
Addressing Racism in Toronto'' is a one-year project to be conducted by Urban Alliance on Race Relations (UARR). The aim of this community-based research venture is to identify issues of access, equity and inclusion for two highly vulnerable and marginalized groups in Toronto: the Somali Canadian community and racialized LGBTQ persons who are homeless. Specifically, we will be hoping to uncover the barriers and challenges these communities face in relation to the following key areas:
- Employment
- Health
- Justice
- Education
- Housing
- and any other areas derived during the research process
We hope that by identifying the key social problems faced by the diverse communities that make up the Greater Toronto area, the Urban Alliance on Race Relations will be able to maximize its role and give voice to some of the most pertinent issues as related to race relations, access and human rights. The proposed research model, which will depend on the collaboration of the research group with various community stake holders, hopes to identify and review the current opportunities, needs, and challenges faced by the aforementioned communities.
Source: https://www.mitacs.ca/r/33447


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The federal investigation of Atlanta City Hall is intensifying and adding new investigators and prosecutors, U.S. Attorney Byung J. "BJay" Pak said Wednesday, moments after the probe recorded its fifth guilty plea from a former top aide to Mayor Kasim Reed.
Flanked by top local agents with the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation Division, Pak suggested there are more indictments to come as prosecutors seek to wrap up their investigation. But he could offer no timeline for when the feds will complete their probe.
- Ex-Atlanta purchasing chief Smith ordered to prison
- Bribery probe reaches deep into city procurement
- Contractors get prison time in Atlanta bribery case
Nine federal prosecutors are now part of the sprawling investigation, Pak said in a press conference on the steps of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building downtown. Pak's counterparts at the IRS and FBI said their agencies also are staffing up to run down leads and process a massive sum of documents — including personal financial records — of possible subjects of the investigation.
"If we are able to do our jobs appropriately we will be bringing to you not a verbal report but instead grand jury indictments," Pak said.
Pak encouraged witnesses and others who have committed crimes to come forward and cooperate.
"Each step of this investigation probably causes them to lose sleep," he said. "They may worry the next knock on their door may be federal agents. To them: The question is not if, but when we're coming."
Prosecutors have charged six people, including three high-ranking officials in former Mayor Reed's administration, with involvement in pay-to-play contracting since the investigation came to light in January 2017.
Katrina Taylor-Parks, who served eight years as Reed's deputy chief of staff and stayed in that role through the first few months of Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms' administration, became the fifth to plead guilty Wednesday.
Former Reed director of human services Mitzi Bickers, the only defendant charged so far who hasn't pleaded guilty, appeared in a separate courtroom on Wednesday and was granted three more months for her attorneys to review the government's evidence. She is likely headed for trial in the months ahead.
"We believe in our client's innocence," said Drew Findling, Bickers' attorney, following the hearing.
In a statement, Bottoms said her administration is committed to aiding prosecutors to "ensure a fair and swift closure to this unfortunate chapter in our city's history."
"The people of Atlanta deserve better and should have a government that works honestly on their behalf," she said. "It is both tragic and disappointing that individuals who have had the privilege of serving Atlanta have ruined their personal and professional reputations for ill-gotten gain."
'Tone at the top'
The investigation has expanded since its origins in mid-2015. Pak said prosecutors are attempting to assess "unexplained wealth in cash" of subjects he did not identify. Asked if Reed is a target of the investigation, Pak declined to say.
"When you have repeated instances of corruption and culture (where) there's a weak internal control, you have to look at who set the tone at the top," he said.
Thomas Hollomann III, IRS special agent-in-charge of the Atlanta criminal division, said the Taylor-Parks case "lends support to an alleged culture of pay-to-play politics at the highest level within the previous administration."
He described City Hall during the Reed years as "truly open for business."
Reed declined to comment.
Bret Williams, a former federal prosecutor in Atlanta and New York, said Pak is devoting substantial resources to the probe, equating it to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.
"No case has (nine assistant U.S. Attorneys) except the Mueller investigation," Williams said. "That's a lot of talent to throw at one investigation.
"When you staff up to that level, you're going to sweep a lot in," he said. "Look, you can chew on a carcass all day, but the question is how much meat is there?"
'I committed an illegal act'
Gripping the courtroom lectern and rocking slightly, Taylor-Parks' voice cracked as she answered questions from U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones Wednesday morning before Pak's news conference.
"I'm being charged with using influence to benefit a vendor that would have been in conflict with my role with the city of Atlanta," she told the judge.
"At the time, I did not believe what I did was wrong," she said. But after being confronted by federal authorities, she said "I came to know I committed an illegal act."
Taylor-Parks admitted to taking $4,000 in bribes to help an unidentified vendor win about $100,000 in city business.
In exchange for money, Taylor-Parks, 49, helped the vendor arrange meetings with high-ranking officials and also introduced him to a member of City Council that prosecutors did not name.
- View Mayor Bottoms' list of cabinet members asked for resignation letters
- See who's leaving Mayor Bottoms' team
- Atlanta mayor proposes 'transparency officer' at City Hall
Using emails and a database of city payments, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution identified the vendor last week as a wireless internet company that obtained a sole-source contract at Piedmont Park and was controlled by Paul Marshall, a Marietta investment adviser who pleaded guilty in 2017 to defrauding investors.
Marshall had another business called FOGFuels that won a City Council resolution authorizing the Reed administration to negotiate a sole-source contract to turn restaurant grease into biofuel. The contract was never fully consummated, Bottoms' office has said.
In a press release from 2013, then-Councilman Lamar Willis touted the company and its contract with the city. Willis was also subject of a city ethics complaint related to his involvement with the business, but the complaint was later dismissed.
Contacted Wednesday, Willis said he wasn't sure which councilmember prosecutors were referring to. He declined to say if Taylor-Parks introduced him to the people behind FOG.
"I don't have any comment because I don't know anything about this," he said. "I've not talked to anybody about this in years. I can't begin to tell you anything at the moment."
Pak said authorities have evidence Taylor-Parks knew what she did was wrong.
FBI agents interviewed Taylor-Parks in late 2017 and in February of this year. At some point, Taylor-Parks lied to the agents, telling them she did not take the money, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Davis.
Taylor-Parks ultimately admitted to conspiring to take bribes and agreed to cooperate, including to testify in the trials of other potential suspects, Pak said.
Pak declined to reveal what information Taylor-Parks provided, but said "I think she's taking the right steps by pleading guilty and cooperating with us and bringing the truth to light for the benefit of the citizens."
After the hearing, Taylor-Parks said, "I'm a little overwhelmed right now," and declined to answer questions.
Taylor-Parks faces up to five years in prison when she is sentenced Nov. 5.
Her attorney, Jay Strongwater, called the plea "a devastating conclusion to a 20-year career."
"She worked hard for the city's best interest," he said. "To have it end this way is devastating. She'll be assisting to the extent that she is asked."
Staff writer Stephen Deere contributed to this report.
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Rage RC Pico X Ultra Micro Drone RTF, Black , No Longer Available
- Only 32mm in width!
- 2.4GHz control system
- Heading lock mode
- 6axis gyro control
- High intensity LEDs
- Low battery alert
- USB charger
- 360 degree flips
Product Information
Rage RC Pico X - extra small size, extra large fun!
Though the Rage RC Pico X RTF may be the smallest ultra-micro quad on the market, it's certainly not little when it comes to features. The incredibly small body of the Pico X is made from durable polycarbonate, available in two attractive trim schemes and fits neatly inside a "pod" enclosure on the transmitter for convenient storage and transportation. The Pico X has three different flight sensitivity modes - low, medium, and high; allowing you to comfortably fly at a speed that best matches your skill level. It's also equipped with four High-Intensity LEDs for great visibility and easy orientation.
The Pico X is a Ready-To-Fly aircraft, so it comes with nearly everything you need to begin flying in the smallest indoor spaces. You get a micro-sized 2.4GHz 4-channel transmitter and a USB charger for charging your pre-installed flight battery. All that is left to add are two AAA alkaline batteries (not included) for the transmitter and you'll be enjoying the thrills of indoor flying with the amazingly small, yet easy to fly Pico X.
What you need
- 2 x AAA batteries for transmitter
- Total Width
- 32mm
- Height
- 20mm
- Weight
- 8g
- Battery
- 3.7V 150mAh LiPo
- Charger
- USB-Type
- Transmitter
- 4-channel, 2.4GHz
- Flying Time
- 3 - 4 minutes


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Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Cry Me a River
This customer came in today, he's a regular, and this time he was drunk.
It's hit or miss with him. Sometimes he comes in drunk, other times he's fine. But when he's drunk, he likes to serenade us at the register.
He'll bust out in song and ask us if we take requests.
This customer is about 45 years old or so, and on one of his drunken mornings, asked my 80 year old co-worker for her phone number. She's innocent and didn't think anything of it, just figured he needed someone to talk to.
Well he did call her, and asked if she wanted to go out on a date! This guy is married with 3 kids, and tells us all the time about how his wife hates that he drinks and makes him sleep in the basement. Why she doesn't get rid of his drunk cheating ass, we will never know.
So anyways, he comes in today and makes a big deal about how I never say hi to him. It's 6 in the morning, I had a difficult time getting my ass out of bed, and I'm not in the mood for some shithead to harass me.
So I ignore him and he just comes closer. I tell him to step away from me so he starts yelling louder about how I won't talk to him, but at least he left after that.
I wasn't sure if he had been drunk or not, but my coworker said he reeked of stale alcohol. Maybe next time I'll just call the cops on him. Then his wife can let him sleep in jail for awhile.
6 comments:
This guy is a mess. I feel sorry for his wife and kids. Wait, I feel sorry for all of you having to put up with his sorry ass too. Just saying.ReplyDelete
Have a terrific day and I'm sure you will right after your shift is over. :)
Do you know, people behaving like that really bother me. I am embarrassed for them and I just want them to go away. Not sure the police would do much but it might give him pause if they came to talk to him.ReplyDelete
I would just call the cops and let them deal with him. You don't need that crap.ReplyDelete
Hopefully he is walking and not driving, either way though he is a hazard on the road. Folks are funny to me.ReplyDelete
Peace, Love and Chocolate
We would get people like that when I worked at A&W, many years ago. I lived in a touristy beach town and every day/night was party time for them. I always had the morning shift and in would stumble the drunks at 7am, bleary-eyed and just reeking of booze. Obviously hadn't been to bed yet and the munchies were kicking in so they wanted their breakfast. I was too timid and "nice" back then to say anything about their loud, obnoxious behaviour, the stumbling and annoying attempted conversations. But one co-worker, I loved when she was on shift with me, she didn't take crap from noone and she would literally stand at the door when she saw them walking up the restaurant and flat-out refuse to let them in, "No drunks allowed on the premises!" and they would meekly turn around because she was a TANK. Haha.ReplyDelete


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Presentation given at the ALM Workshop in San Francisco, October 10-12, 2013
When scouring the literature for hidden gems, readers must be able to quickly dissern the value of a research product. Skilled readers rely on a series of cues from the product page in order to pass judgement, even before engaging with the text at hand. In more recent years, with the advent of Article Level Metrics (ALMs), readers started ahving a new set of value signals at their disposal. ALMs provide metrics of peer use, ranging from downloads to citations to social media. Yet, while ALMs and altmetrics have been growing in popularity, there has been little attention on how these metrics should be displayed as to maximize their utility for readers.
Inspired by the "sparkline" notion that data should be displayed in a way that is succinct and design-simple, the "almviz" group at the altmetrics hackaton (2012) set out some guiding principles for visualizing ALMs so that they would be most helpful to readers. These principles were used for an implementation using data from PLOS' Article Level Metrics application and the javascript visualization library d3.js. The implementation deemphasizes absolute numbers in favour of helping readers identify variation over time, under the belief that raw counts are less meaningful to a reader than information on its pattern of use. This presentation will showcase the simple, yet carefully designed visualization, along with the justifications for the design decisions.
As readers are exposed to a consistent visualization accross journals using the Public Knowledge Project's "Open Journal Systems", it is expected that they will quickly learn to glean peer's usage across various dimensions with ease. The search for those prized research gems has just been made a little easier.