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Blog Tour: The Soul Stone--Jamie Marchant
The Soul Stone
The Crown Princess Samantha and Sir Robrek struggle to solidify their rule in the aftermath of the king's murder and Duke Argblutal's attempt to usurp the throne. They are thwarted at every turn by those who seek power for themselves and desire to prevent their marriage. Just when they think their problems are solved, a deadly curse begins to spread throughout Korthlundia and Samantha becomes pregnant.
Samantha must fight off priests, enemies, and her closest advisors while Robrek discovers the reason the goddess chose him as king, to defeat the Soul Stone, a stone capable of sucking the soul out of its victims, which threatens to obliterate all life in the joined kingdoms. Their archenemy, the Bard Alvabane, awakens the Soul Stone and plans to use its power to reclaim Korthlundia for her people (a people driven out over a thousand years ago by the hero Armunn). Armunn had to sacrifice his life and soul to contain the Soul Stone. Will Robrek have to do the same? Will the young couple have only a few short months to love each other?
The Soul Stone
Chapter 1
In the palace courtyard, Robrek Angusstamm stirred the cauldron, brewing the potion that would cure Duke Argblutal's former forces of the mass diarrhea caused by the princess's supporters in the palace. Argblutal had attempted to usurp Samantha's throne, and Robrek had just helped her retake it. The potion was ready except for the final ingredient—his magic. Robrek spread his hand over the cauldron and closed his eyes. Pure joy and pleasure flooded his body as his magic flowed out of him. Nothing felt this good. He smiled as he opened his eyes. The potion would provide a nearly instantaneous cure.
Robrek took the ladle from the waiting servant and began ladling out the potion to those waiting. They were bent over from discomfort, and the smell was atrocious. Robrek tried to breathe only through his mouth.
The crowd broke into cries of "Long live Queen Samantha!" He looked up and saw Samantha on the palace balcony. Holy Sulis, she's beautiful! How can she truly be mine? It still seemed like a dream that they'd been handfasted the night before and that she had spent the night in his arms.
The man in front of him groaned, reminding Robrek of the task at hand. He filled the stricken soldier's cup. "Thank you, Milord," the soldier said, startling Robrek with the use of his new title.
Robrek filled another cup, then looked back at Samantha. A servant came forward and bowed. "May I, Milord?" The servant reached for the ladle. Robrek relinquished it, but felt awkward doing so. He wasn't used to standing around while others worked. He supposed it was just one of many things he'd have to get used to as consort. Can I truly be king? He shook his head at the absurdity of the idea. Only in bards' tales did peasants become kings, but what had his life been if not a bards' tale?
Up on the balcony, Samantha raised a hand, and the crowd fell silent. "My people! Duke Argblutal murdered your king and tried to steal my throne. He has suffered the fate Sulis intended for such betrayal. Let us celebrate this victory, achieved with so little loss of life."
The crowd roared its approval, and Robrek beamed at her. Duke Caedmon stepped onto the balcony beside Samantha, and Robrek frowned slightly. Caedmon disapproved of him, didn't think him worthy of the princess.
Caedmon removed Argblutal's head from the pike. Robrek suspected Darhour, the captain of the princess's personal guard and a former assassin, had put it there. Where is Darhour? Robrek would have expected him to be by Samantha's side, but the only two guards with her were Bearach and Conroy.
Caedmon raised his hand for quiet. "Let us remember the fate of those who raise their hands against the goddess's chosen!" Caedmon dropped the head into the midst of the crowd. As the crowd roared and tossed and kicked the duke's head about, Robrek felt a surge of nausea. For what Argblutal had done he'd deserved to die, but did they have to desecrate his remains?
Samantha's eyes sought him out in the crowd, and she smiled down at him. Lost in that smile, he forgot everything else.
The thousands of peasants who had joined Samantha's army as she'd marched on the palace and who now filled the courtyard erupted into dancing and celebration, and Robrek was swept up in the dance. People pounded him on the back and beamed at him, accepting him as he'd never been accepted in the village of his birth.
At the edge of the crowd stood Wild Thing, his Horsetad mare, with Brazen, Fancy Man, and Holy Writ—the magical bronze, silver, and gold horses who had changed his life and helped him win the contest that allowed him to claim Samantha as his bride. Now, the despised youngest son of a peasant farmer would be king. Now, surely, he'd be able to do what he was meant to do and heal in peace. Beyond that he couldn't imagine what his new life would be like.
But having Samantha in it would be enough.
:She liked your moves, didn't she?: came the laughing voice of Fancy Man, who taught him how to dance, among other things. :Now I've taught you all I know.:
Holy Writ nodded her head and snorted. :Thou hast done well.:
:It is your destiny.:
Robrek laughed as Brazen again said her oft repeated line. Robrek felt happy and at peace. With the horses and Samantha beside him, he had nothing to fear.
Robrek danced over to the horses and gave each one a hug around the neck, ending with Wild Thing. :Wild Thing and Robbie big heroes.:
He scratched her neck. "Yes, my girl, I guess we are."
He looked over at the line of soldiers waiting for the remedy and noticed one limping badly. He approached the man as his cup was filled by the servant. "Your foot pains you?" he asked.
The man started and turned to Robrek, eyes widening when he saw who had addressed him. "Er . . . er . . . yes, Milord. I stepped on a nail about a week back, and I'm afraid it's began to fester. I fear I might lose it, Milord."
"Not while I'm here you won't. Drink it down." He pointed to the cup. "Then come with me." After the man drank the remedy, Robrek led him to the nearby mounting blocks and had the man sit and remove his boot. The foot was swollen and red. The nail wound on the bottom was oozing pus and turning green. Red lines of infection travelled up the man's foot. If it weren't for Robrek's skills, it would definitely have to be amputated. Robrek reached out to touch the foot, and the man flinched. "I have to touch you if I'm going to make it better," Robrek said. "It won't hurt."
The man nodded, but he was trembling slightly. Robrek put his hand on the foot, closed his eyes, and went into a healing trance. He gathered the infection and pushed it toward the hole in the foot, so that it streamed out with pus and blood, but after a few moments, the pus stopped flowing, and the foot slowly reduced to normal size. The greenish tinge and the redness disappeared, and finally Robrek closed the small puncture wound.
When Robrek opened his eyes, the man's eyes were wide with awe. The man fell to his knees. "My life for yours! How may I serve you, Milord?"
Author Bio
From early childhood, Jamie has been immersed in books. Her mother, an avid reader, read to her, and her older sister filled her head with fairy tales. Taking into consideration her love for literature and the challenges of supporting herself as a writer, she pursued a Ph.D. in American literature, which she received in 1998. She started teaching writing and literature at Auburn University. But in doing so, she put her true passion on the backburner and neglected her muse. Then one day, in the midst of writing a piece of literary criticism, she realized that what she wanted to be doing was writing fantasy novels. Her muse thus revived, she began the book that was to become The Goddess's Choice, which was published in April 2012. The second volume in the series, The Soul Stone, was released this June.
She lives in Auburn, Alabama, with her husband, son, and four cats, which (or so she's been told) officially makes her a cat lady. She still teaches writing and literature at Auburn University. Her short fiction has been published on Short-Story.Me, and my story was chosen for inclusion in their annual anthology. It has also appeared in the anthologies—Urban Fantasy (KY Story, 2013) and Of Dragon and Magic: Tales of the Lost Worlds (Witty Bard Publishing, 2014)—The World of Myth, A Writer's Haven, and Bards & Sages.
Buy Links
Black Rose Writing: http://www.blackrosewriting.com/sci-fifantasy/the-soul-stone
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Stone-Kronicles-Korthlundia/dp/1612965466/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1435314904&sr=8-2&keywords=jamie+marchant
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-soul-stone-jamie-marchant/1122191714?ean=9781612965468
Contact Links
Website: http://jamie-marchant.com/
Blog: http://jamie-marchant.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jamie-Marchant-Author/164706710298768?ref=hl
Twitter: @RobrekSamantha
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5258855.Jamie_Marchant


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Friday, February 29, 2008
In Which We Become An Old Boy...
Sorry, sorry. I wasn't so stupid as to commit to blogging every other day again, but I did think I'd post a little sooner this week.
I have a good excuse for my tardiness, though. For one thing, our current issue is shipping this week (I just sent my last story a few minutes ago), and shipping week is always crazy, even if you're in the office every day, which I wasn't.
No, I got up early Monday morning and hauled myself to the airport where, after some worrying delays and thinking I'd never make my connections, I actually made them all and by lunchtime, I found myself a thousand miles from home, standing on the pretty, snow-strewn quadrangle of my college alma mater. I hadn't stood in this spot in almost 20 years, but I was perfectly oriented.
Here in front of me stood the campus chapel. I was only ever in here twice--once to tape a scene from the half-assed adventure series my roommate and I used to produce for our own private amusement. The other time was as part of a vigil after finding out that 35 of my classmates--two of whom I actually knew and had taken classes with--had been flying home from a semester in London--the same program I'd been in only a year before--and been blown out of the sky by a terrorist bomb and had fallen to earth at a place called Lockerbie, Scotland.
To my left, and one building over, was the school physical education building, and the narrow room where I studied fencing for two semesters (right downstairs from the larger gymnasium where I studied karate--and perfected my Drunken Booger style of fighting--for another two years).
To my right, the massive stone edifice of the Arts & Sciences building, one of the first buildings on campus, and the place where I studied for my undergraduate degree in English. It was here that I brushed up against such luminaries as the great short-story master, Tobias Wolff, who never let me into his creative-writing classes, despite my numerous attempts to submit short stories to win his approval. Eventually I snuck into class, not caring about a grade, just wanting to benefit from the man's wisdom. But it was a small group and I was eventually found out and the moment that I was was just as embarrassing as anything you might read in, say, a college short story.
Behind me, the arts building where I bumped into two of my heroes, both on campus temporarily--either as part of a speaker's bureau event or to guest-lecture in a class.
One was the great Batman artist Dick Giordano, who was I surprised to realize was hearing impaired. It explained why he kept calling me "Kevin Dooley," although that is patently not my real name. Nor does it even sound like my real name, but it must look like it, since Dick was reading my lips when I introduced myself. A very nice man.
The other was the late Monty Python alum Graham Chapman, who delivered a hilarious talk when I saw him later, but who at that moment simply snarled at me for having the temerity to block his path. He would be dead of cancer in little over a year, so perhaps he wasn't feeling well then. Either way, I've long since forgiven him for his rudeness.
And now here I was, on campus for similar reasons. I turned and strode off the quad, heading down the hill to the squat, square communications center, where I earned my other undergraduate degree, one in magazine writing. Here, in a little over 24 hours, after a little less than 20 years, I'd be delivering a guest lecture of my own. I was going to talk about what life was like as a Magazine Man...
Friday, February 22, 2008
In Which We Are Bazed and Confused...
One more thing to add to my list of the nothing much that I'm doing: testing toys.
My earliest professional experience revolved around reviewing products--I was a field tester for Outside and man, that was a lot of fun. Over the years, I've tested gear and reviewed books and movies for a variety of magazines and newspapers, and one time I came this close to taking a job as the equipment editor at Men's Journal. I'm glad I didn't take it in the end--it's one thing to try out gadgets and write about them every so often; quite another to sing that song every day for your supper.
As some keen-eyed readers out there already know, I handle the Christmas Toy Guide here at the Really Big Magazine and that's about as regular a gig as I want to make of product testing. That one's fun because it's a family affair--Art Lad and the Brownie are my senior toy testers (their cousins and friends also pitch in to help, and my, what a sacrifice it is for everyone). There are other incentives too. While the kids certainly don't get to keep the toys, this past year they did spend a couple of days getting paid as models for the story's photo shoot. Several of you wrote in over the holidays to say you spotted them in our December issue.
But all of you apparently missed Blaze's cameo appearance:
Here's a hint:
Well, it's not Christmas anymore, but in magazine time, it's almost June, and so now I'm assembling our top picks for a new Father's Day Gift Guide. This week I'm mostly testing cameras--still cameras with video function and vice versa. And as I was noodling around with this particular model, I remembered a few folks asking for fresher images of the Eclair, so here she is, along with her best buddy and unshakeable shadow. It's just a little slice-of-life moment, but I think it totally captures what goes on with these two, all day, every day: He's never far from her, he never misses a chance to have a taste, and she never fails to smile when he's around. And now, just lately (if you listen very closely), you'll hear that she never fails to say his name.
Or at least try to.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to finish up with these cameras and move on to video games. Guitar Hero and about 10 other titles are waiting for me to try them before the end of the week.
This job, I tell you, it's killing me...
From Somewhere on the Masthead
Thursday, February 21, 2008
In Which I Reside in a State of February...
Well, that's problem with getting out of the habit of doing something, isn't it? Once you stop doing it, you, er, stop doing it even more, and then where are you? Why, you're in February, where nothing much ever happens. And that's my life right now: February.
I wish I could give you a good accounting of myself since last year, but I'm afraid I've been up to not very much. Well, not very much that you would find interesting. I seem to have entered a phase of life best characterized by a total lack of setting myself on fire with a snowblower, or re-enacting Third World torture methods in the middle of an editorial brainstorming meeting. As proof, a brief catalog of my activities of late:
Feeding the baby: Since none of my mammary glands--not even the extra one--is capable of lactation, I always welcome the inevitable point when the baby of the moment decides that solid food RULES!, and proceeds to revel in it--not necessarily actually eat it, understand, but just revel in it. Apples and blueberries are a particular favorite. For me, I mean. When it comes to baby food, I think the Éclair enjoys sweet potatoes the most, but I enjoy feeding her apples and blueberries the most, because that's the puckeriest food she can eat, and watching her screw up her face and make thoughtful smacking noises just gives me no end of delight.
We all have our favorite foods to feed the baby. The Brownie likes giving her small, gummable pieces of cereal (and the occasional unidentified suspicious food that leaves telltale chocolate marks around both their mouths). Thomas makes such a ritual of feeding his baby sister Ritz Crackers that I think he might have a future as a priest. When he removes the trademark red-and-gold box from the pantry, he starts with this echoing, angelic chanting ("Ahhhh-ahhhh-AHHHHH-Ahhhhh-aH-Ahhhhhhhh") and walks solemnly toward her, as if he had altar boys waving incense behind him, while the Éclair hitches half up out of her high chair and begins screaming "Ra-ra! RA-RAAAAAAA!!" (her word for "Ritz Crackers") Blaze occasionally brings her one of his disgusting dried pigs-ear chewy snacks (a Christmas gift from Uncle BB). I won't tell you how many times we've rounded a corner to find her sitting in the middle of the floor, gnawing contentedly on one, and in return, she brushes all manner of food down onto him (including, once, my entire supper, plate and all) . It's a joyous time, generally. At least until the Éclair gets a distant look in her eyes and her face takes on a decidedly strained cast--think Uri Geller bending spoons, and you've got it--and suddenly we're arguing about whose turn it is to change the impending diaper of doom.
One word--Pokemon: Thomas and the Brownie are both surgically grafted to their Nintendo DS games, and a year or so ago, when Nintendo's PR person (who loves my kids) sent them a package, it contained the new Pokemon Diamond and Pearl games, as well as an assortment of Pokemon figures, a DVD of the cartoon, and about a dozen packs of Pokemon cards. Her Lovely Self took one look at these and made a face: After seeing the quavering stacks of these cards in a neighbor kid's room, and spotting their $3.99 per-pack price tag at the store, HLS announced she'd sooner have our kids buying crack than Pokemon cards.
But one thing led to another: The further Thomas and the Brownie got in their video games, the more of these clever little creatures they saw and learned about. Thomas in particular was impressed with the artwork in both the game and in the few cards he'd been sent. So it was that on his last birthday, after getting his traditional gift of 20 brand-new singles from Uncle BB, Thomas asked if he could buy anything he wanted, and when we said yes, he immediately insisted on some new packs of those damn cards. The fact that he could only buy 5 of them with his money didn't slow him down one bit, especially once he opened the second pack and found an ultra-rare Level-X card. And just like that, he was hooked.
To his credit, Thomas actually will build himself a deck and play the game with his friends or with me. His sister just hoards the cards and, when she gets a rare one, uses it to tease her brother's friends, a trait which I think bodes very ill indeed.
The truly horrifying thing is how much lore and lingo I've absorbed on the subject. I can't reliably name a single person in my wife's extended family past her aunt and uncle (although I've been to countless weddings and family reunions and had to share tables and lots of uncomfortable silences with these people). Heck, I couldn't even tell you the birthdays of my niece or nephews--even though two of them are my godchildren. But by God, I can tell you that Torchic evolves into Combusken (and in turn into Blaziken) and I know which Pokemon is the biggest (Wailord, which Thomas has. He's got about 200 hit points), and if you asked me whether the Empoleon Level X card is rarer if it's got the Poke-Power listing or the Poke-Body one, I could reliably answer you (but I won't here). I suppose it's no different than when my generation (and generations before mine) memorized stats off the backs of baseball cards, but that somehow feels like a more worthwhile pursuit, especially when you consider that baseball cards cost a quarter a pack AND you got a stick of gum with the damn things.
Writing (well, sort of): I wouldn't call it a New Year's resolution--because that's just an exercise in self-jinxing where I'm concerned--but one goal I committed myself to was finding a new agent and shopping a book proposal around this year. So I've been slowly picking away at a little something. I decided to start with modest ambitions, spinning off from my previous book-writing experience (when I wrote on topics related to men), and cleaving to what I'm immersed in right now in my world and the end result is that I'm cobbling together a quasi-memoir about my life as a Dad. I suspect I'll be able to use a few ideas that have already appeared in the blog, but mostly it would be an original work. I think there's a strong market for work like this. After all, I and other men like me represent a transitional point, the last generation who grew up with distant dads (defined not least by their enforced absence in the hospital delivery room) and who in turn expected--and by society have been expected to--play a much greater part in their children's lives than any previous generation. That alone ought to ensure a sizeable reading audience. The trick for me will be to make my experiences worth reading.
And true to form, the moment I decided on this course of action, I proceeded to do...nothing. Oh, I started researching agencies, and I pecked away at a proposal, but I have since done very little about the actual book. I wouldn't call it writer's block, per se, so much as writer's distraction. As soon as I start thinking about the book, I'm distracted by thoughts of other work in progress (well, in progress in my head). For example, I long ago promised my parents to write about my summers growing up in our small New Hampshire town, and in the wake of their deaths, the urge to tell that story has never been stronger. I've also toyed with the idea of finally writing an instructional-but-fun book about the kind of magazine writing I do, which is mostly service or how-to stories (and I find a "how to how-to" book tremendously appealing).
And of course, there's the story I promised Thomas I would write. Not long ago, I told him about my real-life boy detective adventure, and what really impressed Thomas was not that his Dad actually acted and thought like a genuine detective at the age of 11, but that he broke all these rules and still got away with it. Thinking fast, I assured him that I was simply very stupid and very lucky, and that today, if I'd been caught eavesdropping on the principal or trying to break into a school bus motor pool, they'd probably send me away to reform school. This led to a lively dinnertime argument in which Thomas insisted that I wouldn't go to reform school (or "kid jail," as he charmingly called it) because those were places for bad kids, and I was just a good kid who did one little thing wrong. He seemed to think there ought to be a reform school for good kids who did one bad thing. "You know," he said, "maybe you'd get sent to, like, a home for wayward boy detectives." Don't ask me where a 9-year-old boy living in the 21st century picks up such a Dickensian word like "wayward," but that night we started telling each other the story of a boy who gets sent to a summer school for wayward sleuths and we're in the process of imagining the kinds of friends--and enemies--he'd make, the sorts of classes he'd take, and the sinister secret he tries to uncover, even if it means breaking the law and getting sent to REAL reform school if he's caught. It's the sort of activity that keeps you busy on cold winter nights, but of course it also keeps you from your real work, as well as your friends who check in on your blog so faithfully, so perhaps I ought to drop it and get my ass in gear.
Speaking of ass in gear, my lunch break is long over, so I'd better get back to work. And I can't really work late tonight: Her Lovely Self has a class tonight so I have to be home in time to feed the baby (tonight's menu: pears and peas. Mmm!). Besides, there's a new series of Pokemon cards that just came out, and I promised Thomas we could go to the store after dinner and get some.
I know, not the most exciting life in the world.
But that's February for you.
From Somewhere on the Masthead
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
In Which I Drop the Baby...
Call me a prince of self-denial, but for most of my life, I swear to God, I would not have called myself an anxious person.
And then I had kids and the scales fell from my eyes and I realized just what a wound-up ball of nerves I really am. I spent most of the first three weeks of Thomas's life just lying awake, staring into the darkness, playing a hellish version of "What If?"
What if the baby just stops breathing?
What if the crib collapses?
What if the giant oak tree in our back yard--the one that hasn't budged in 175 years--suddenly falls over and crashes through the roof and crushes us in our beds? How long would the baby lie in his crib and scream before he was discovered?
What if his poop stops coming out?
What if he's allergic to water?
What if one of Her Lovely Self's nipples, like, falls off, and chokes him?
What if one of mine does?
I was a walking cliché for a while there, the epitome of the overanxious new daddy who somehow thought that, by worrying about every conceivable scenario of danger that could befall his child I was, in the most bassackwards way, warding it off. What I was really doing, though, was killing off brain cells (from general racking and lack of sleep) at a rate I hadn't matched since college, and gaining 27 pounds of nervous-eating weight that I wouldn't completely shed until, oh, last Thursday.
I tried a lot of things to get back on an even keel. One of the few things that helped, crazily enough, was prayer. I remembered back in my parochial school days, we had a nun who used to tell us the best prayers were short ones--she was a big fan of "Oh sacred heart of Jesus, I place my trust in you." I thought that was a good plan, and so as a young person I had devised two prayers for my personal use, and both were models of brevity. There was the Prayer for Divine Intervention and Removal from Unpleasant Circumstance ("Jesus, get me out of this!") and the Prayer of Excellent--Or At Least Passable--Performance ("Dear God, don't let me fuck up," a prayer I later heard that astronauts use as well).
By the time Thomas arrived, I hadn't composed a prayer in a good 15 years, and I was desperate enough to try anything, so I came up with the Prayer of the Desperate Daddy ("Dear God, let all bad things happen to me instead") and it finally allowed me to close my eyes for a good two hours rest (which was about the best you could hope for back then. Thomas was a terrible sleeper).
Of course, what really helped me over this phase of life was not endless worrying, nor a concise plea to the Almighty. What helped was when something bad finally happened and Thomas actually got hurt.
Now, it wasn't really that bad, no scars or lasting neurological damage. What happened was:
I was sitting with Thomas one night in the old rocking chair that used to be in his room. I was reading to him--I read to him long before he had a clue what I was doing. I was a bit fidgety around the baby and since I couldn't breast-feed him (not that that stopped me from worrying about my nipples falling off and choking him), I settled on reading as a good activity to help me burn off my nervous energy.
We had two or three favorites, including the ubiquitous Goodnight Moon, The Little Fur Family, and The Monster At the End of This Book. This last was a personal favorite from my own childhood, in which Grover (the blue monster Muppet from Sesame Street) spends the entire book warning readers that there is, as the title vaguely hints, a monster at the end. In growing desperation, Grover begins bricking up and roping off pages, in a vain effort to keep readers from reaching the last page, only to realize that--duh--the monster at the end is none other than Grover himself. I enjoyed the book as a child--it's a wonderfully inventive premise (which the artist has plenty of fun with)--and the urge to defeat Grover's increasingly anxious machinations, never mind getting a look at this monster that's got him so freaked out, is nigh irresistible.
Thomas was just old enough to start responding to colors then, and I think he enjoyed seeing Grover's shaggy, blue-furred self running from page to page, trying to keep us witless readers from plodding on toward the monster at the end. Of the three books I regularly read, this one certainly caused him to be the most animated. When I read, I would hold my son up so we could look at the book together, cheek to cheek. And when I would do the Grover voice, begging the reader to "Puhleeeeze" stop reading, Thomas would squeal and hoot and then rear back to regard me in that joyfully incredulous way babies do. If you've spent any time around a baby, you know the look I mean--at first it seems like they're just checking to make sure you're still there, but there's something in their eyes that allows you to delude yourself that what they're really thinking is, How cool is this guy? That was the look Thomas would give me, before giving me a gummy smile and letting his soft little face fall back against my cheek.
Except, this one night, as I was reading, Thomas leaned back to look at me, and I turned to look at him. He gave me the gummy smile. I grinned back and, instead of turning back to the book, as I always did, I let my expression hang for a second longer, mouth slightly open, grinning like a mad fool, thinking about just how much I loved this child.
But babies are creatures of routine. And as far as Thomas--and his little neck muscles--were concerned, the routine at this point consisted of him letting his head fall forward so he could press his nose and mouth against my cheek and neck--which at that juncture should have been all he was contacting, since I was supposed to have turned my attention back to the book. Instead, he flopped forward before I could move, and ended up mashing his soft little face against the sharp edges of my still-smiling teeth.
He had a hard little head and a good bit of momentum, I remember that. He had only one tooth in his own head at that time, but it was more than enough to cut the inside of his mouth when he hit, while my teeth cut his delicate little lip. And there was plenty of blood, let me tell you--in his mouth, on his face, on my face. But it wasn't the blood that I remember most.
What I remember most was that look of pain and betrayal he fixed me with, as he proceeded to scream his little head off.
At first, I was in a blind panic, all hugs and desperate whispers ("Daddy didn't mean it! Daddy didn't mean it!"), and then I was searching for any kind of burp cloth or paper towel to staunch the blood, settling on the interior of a clean, unused diaper (they absorb a lot more than pee, it turns out). But as I sat there rocking, trying to comfort my whimpering child and dabbing at his mouth with an inside-out pair of Pampers, I saw for the first time that, Jesus, no wonder I liked The Monster At the End of This Book I mean, after all, I was Grover, that poor shaggy blue bastard. Wasn't my life like that book, and wasn't my child like the reader, and wasn't I Grover, running myself ragged trying to keep some distance between the monster--the great unknown menace--and my loved ones? And in the end, wasn't I the monster at the end of the book, a self-perpetuating source of anxiety and worry? It's not often you find an epiphany in the form of a Sesame Street character, but I was grateful for it, and for the way that realization put my life in perspective, at least for the moment.
I was also, I must admit, relieved that the other shoe had finally dropped. Understand, I certainly didn't wish harm to my child, but there was a kind of catharsis in seeing that something could happen to the baby, and it wasn't necessarily the end of the world (although, I must admit, you would have been hard-pressed to convince the baby's mother of that fact, when she arrived on the scene a few minutes later and beheld her bloody-mouthed husband apparently in the act of trying to smother their child with a diaper, but never mind about that now).
Ever since, with each child I've had, I've always found myself the same way: wound like a spring for the first several weeks or months, waiting for that shoe to drop, worrying about some unlikely peril or other, and then breathing an illicit little sigh of relief when something (never something too bad) finally happens. With the Brownie, it wasn't a shoe, it was the baby herself, and it was the result of some quite spectacular negligence: I was going down some stairs off the back porch and, instead of taking her out of the stroller and holding her with one arm while I eased the pram down the steps, I just snugged the safety belt around her and tilted the carriage on down the steps, not realizing that the Brownie was way too small for that belt, not realizing that she slid right out of it--not just out of the belt but out of the front of the stroller too. She plopped out onto the steps, and since I was back up at the top of the porch holding onto the handle from the rear, I didn't even realize it until I rolled the stroller right over her. And when I saw her little eyes blinking up at me from the ground in what can only be called mild surprise, my first thought was--well, my first thought was Oh Jesus, sweet Jesus, what have I done?!? But my second or third thought, after I snatched her up from the ground and realized that she was completely unharmed (had not even so much as uttered a single cry, that's how tough she was), was Well, there, that's over and done with. With the catastrophe come and gone, I could now get down to the business of enjoying life as their Daddy. Clumsy, clueless, hopeless Daddy, but Daddy nonetheless.
This weekend, Thomas and I were sitting on a bed we set up in the basement--it's the Brownie's old bed and it served us well as a guest bed when my Big Brother came to visit over Christmas. We were watching a TV I had only recently mounted up near the ceiling, so our attention was turned slightly up and away from what we both should have been watching--namely the Éclair, who was sitting between us, gabbling to herself as she juggled her blocks and waggled an assortment of linky monkeys.
And then she was just gone.
Now, I hadn't been completely oblivious. Out of the corner of my eye, I had been watching her. And I could see the back of her little head as it bobbed over her toys. But then, in a blink, her head dipped down, followed by the briefest flash of baby butt, the quickest fluttery kick of legs, and then she simply vanished.
I still can't quite grasp the physics of it. We were all of us situated well in the middle of the bed, far from the edge, so I can't figure out how she managed to fall off the edge--or really even get near it--with such abruptness. But she did, and evidently with enough of a time lag that she realized (even if we didn't) what was happening to her, because she had a moment to utter a brief and horrifying squawk as she disappeared.
Thomas's squawk was much louder, and filled with exponentially more alarm. "The baby fell!" he shrieked, as we both lunged, far, far too late, for the end of the bed.
It seemed to take forever to get my head over the end of that bed. My mind raced far faster.
Daddy didn't mean it! Daddy didn't mean it! I thought.
Oh Jesus, sweet Jesus, what have I done?!? I thought.
After the year I've had, I was certain my luck had gone from worse to abysmal. I had already constructed in my mind what I would see--blood, brains, disaster.
Which explains why, at first, I couldn't make sense of what I was looking at.
Mostly there was lots of dark color. Then a pair of reproachful eyes stared up at me, too wide and black to be those of a happy, healthy baby.
And then I heard the giggling and looked away from those eyes, down at my baby, who had two tiny fists clutched full of fur as she clung to Blaze's big, soft side, where she had just landed. Blaze continued to glare at me as he ever-so gradually shifted himself so the baby could slide down to a nestled spot between his paws. The Éclair looked up at us, eyebrows waggling as if to say, "Was that a great trick, or what?" Then she looked at the dog. "Baze!" she hooted, grabbing at his nose. He thumped his tail indulgently, fixed us once more with a baleful look, then lay back down to continue his nap.
As before, I felt relief, but I have to admit that my sense of guilt has lingered longer than usual. Because the incident, however well it ended, served only to remind me that the Éclair isn't the only baby I've dropped or let fall.
Over the past several weeks, I've neglected the blog--and consequently, all of you--to a degree that should be earning me baleful looks from more than my dog. But instead of taking me to task for my neglect, you've all simply been kindness itself, leaving concerned comments or dropping me gentle e-mails, wondering if everything--and everyone--is all right.
Well it is, and they are. I promise I'll be back--and this week, too--to tell you more about it.
After all, if you really want to see the monster at the end of this book, who am I to keep you from turning the pages?
From Somewhere on the Masthead

subset: commoncrawl


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Movie review: Mad Max – Fury Road
In a post-apocalyptic world that looks like the Australian outback, Peter Stringfellow has stolen all the water. He is the King, lording it from his evil mountain base, staffed by albino dwarves, who believe he'll grant them passage to Valhalla (the afterlife, not a Melbourne nightclub).
Enter a nameless drifter, film fans know as Max (Tom Hardy), who is immediately strapped to a gurney and forced to take part in a Road War; involving death, acrobatics, chainsaws, and numerous combinations of the above. Welcome to George Miller's 2015 version of the action movie; pulling no punches as a delirious maelstrom of sound and fury. Fans of his 1979 original or newbies won't be disappointed; they'll be gobsmacked.
Unlike so many comicbook flicks and genre sequels, the plot is not worried about McGuffins, Shankara stones, mystical revelations or wise men with beards. The rules are simple. Survive. Drive the damn cars and trucks. Do not get eviscerated by bullet, spike or wheel and get from A to B.
Like Top Gear, but with nicer people.
If the setting and premise seem familiar, the sequences that unfold do not. The first wheel-spinning stunt arrives after 40 seconds, and there is no looking back for two hours. Visually, Miller delivers a helluva ride. It's Cirque de Soleil meets Megadeth. It's an Ocker-rama-dama-ding-dong and that's not all.
Perhaps unexpectedly, Mad Max: Fury Road is powered not by Max, nor Peter Stringfellow's various grotesques, but by women and the glorious power of the feminine. Charlize Theron, as the rogue (and wonderfully named) Imperator Furiosa is pretty much the film's main protagonist. Max gets the title role and the first-person hallucinations but Furiosa drives the story. And she is an awesome, fighting, bleeding, taciturn (like Clint Eastwood, like Tom Hardy) son of a gun.
But props to Tom Hardy, who is well-suited to a character who has about as much to say as Arnie in The Terminator. He continues to be a beguiling screen presence and his gorilla-meets-sensitive-boy shtick is almost perfect for this, where he's thrown into the bosom of Furiosas' vengeful angels.
This makes The Avengers: Age of Ultron look like Sesame Street. Put your pedal to the metal and go see.
Responses to Movie review: Mad Max – Fury Road
- carrie~anne May 15th, 2015
"The glorious power of the feminine"
Lol you fanny


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Taking care of your vinyl flooring
Vinyl is easily one of the most versatile types of flooring. It is extremely durable and can look like anything, from stone to wood and other natural materials. While vinyl floors are easy to care for, there are some general rules you should follow to keep your vinyl floor clean and vibrant throughout its life in your house.
About the Author: http://www.fastfloors.com/


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We've been doing lots of fall crafting around here lately.
This project evolved from our colored Elmer's glue projects.
The girls asked if we could make big fall leaves with our colored glue
and I said, Absolutely!
We started by lightly sketching big leaf shapes on white drawing paper
with pencil, then outlining the pencil lines with colored Elmer's glue.
For directions on how to make your own colored Elmer's glue
see our post here about making your own Rainbow Glue.
The next day, after the glue dried, we went back and started
coloring the leaves in with watercolors.
We like Rainbow leaves around here, can you tell?
"E" painting some leaves.
"C" painting some leaves.
Mom painting a leaf.
While the watercolor was still wet,
we sprinkled some table salt over some of them
for a fun mottled look!
(we keep a salt shaker in the art studio with our watercolors
for this exact purpose!)
Just shake/brush off the excess salt after the watercolors dry.
Now, what to do with our giant colorful leaves?
I think we may cut them out and put them up in the
playroom windows with our sand paper leaves!
I recommend doing this project with ages 3 and up.
For this project you will need:
Colored Elmer's Glue (see our recipe here)
Drawing paper or watercolor paper
Salt (optional)
Happy Fall Leaf Painting!


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A kebaya is a traditional blouse-dress combination It is made from sheer material such as silk, thin cotton or semi-transparent nylon or polyester, adorned with brocade or floral pattern embroidery. It is worn with a sarong or batik kain panjang, or other traditional woven garment such as ikat, songket with a colorful motif.
for more designs and styles visit our show room @ Mid Valley Mega Mall –Le Moomba


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April wish list
Mar 30, 2020
We have noticed you are using an old version of your browser. For optimum safety and security when using the internet, we recommend you always run the latest version of your chosen browser that your operating system will support.X
Bold and feminine, the figleaves swimwear Tuscany Spot Underwired Twist Bandeau Bikini Top is perfect for your next beach getaway. Featuring a spot print with a twist front, the bandeau bikini top offers support with underwired cups and adjustable straps.
Mar 30, 2020
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Want to make a film, or study it: There are two Film subjects at World University and School, accessible in the Subjects' section: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects ... here: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Film and here: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Film_Making :)
... or teach how to make a film? WUaS is a wiki, where you can teach, or learn, film making :) ... http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University
(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/12/nembrotha-want-to-make-film-or-study-it.html - December 22, 2010)
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Nembrotha: Want to make a film, or study it? Two Film subjects at World Univ & Sch, SEARCH in WUAS Subjects
Posted by Scott MacLeod: at 3:42 PM
Labels: film, global university, Wiki
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This is sweeps month, when The Nielsen Company surveys viewers to find out what they like to watch on television. And last night, in an effort to be better liked, a soulless and self evidently brainless corporation in Tampa called WFTS chose a couple of sacrificial victims to slander for the amusement of its viewers.
The victims names are Glen Buzze and James Costa.
Stand By
Television newz, as you probably already know, is to journalism as biting the heads off live birds is to brain surgery. Mindless sensationalism trumps actually information every time. Image is everything. The story about Buzze and Costa.was introduced by a guy who looks like a rookie guidance counselor and a woman who looks like a lot lizard. The guidance counselor was so appalled by the newz he had to report that he performed his introduction, gesturing angrily and sort of clenching his fist. "Members of criminal motorcycle gangs found in public safety positions here in the Bay area," he announced.
The lot lizard on his left finished his thought for him. "Yeah. I-Team investigator Jarrod Holbrook spent months uncovering the safety concerns that now have law enforcement on edge."
According to his station biography, Holbrook is a former Marine Corps Assaultman who "specialized in explosives, rocket and missile launchers and small team special ops." And, he owns a "giant Goldendoodle." And, an Emmy.
Ain't It Awful
What Holbrook spent months uncovering is that Buzze is "the president of the Pagans Pasco County Chapter" and also "a fire Captain and Paramedic in Pasco County Fire Rescue."
Holbrook also uncovered that "Costa as the president of the Outlaws St. Petersburg Chapter" and "a Fire Captain and EMT for Hillsborough County Fire Rescue."
Buzze has no criminal record. Long ago, Costa may have fought a cop and his charges were dismissed.
Special Agent Do-Right
"Despite clean criminal records," Holbrook reports, "their status has ATF Special Agent Hundt extremely concerned. He considers it a public safety issue."
Hundt tells Holbook that the two men are one percenters and when you are a one percenter "You consider yourself not subject to society's rules and laws." Hundt should know. He "investigates criminal motorcycle gangs. He says they are known for all types of crimes, 'Drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, extortion, arson, bombings, you name it..'"
The story repeatedly refers to the Pagans and the Outlaws as "criminal motorcycle gangs."
Holbrook dug deep in his months of uncovering and "obtained a flyer Buzze made on a taxpayer-funded fire station computer promoting an event for his MC."
And that's what happened in Tampa, Florida yesterday.


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Fox Rain 30on May 2, 2013 at 12:00 am
I was listening to this song the whole time –
Hiroyuki Sawano makes amazing battle songs! XD
Me like it. Me like the song. Me hope beast get well fed!!! XD
Me feels you're on the wrong side of the team… GET HIM!


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- Co-Founder & Chair, SpinalCure Australia, since 1/4/10.
- Director, Bancroft Consulting Pty Ltd.
- Convenor, CAMRA and a witness at the Senate Inquiry on Research Involving Embryos Bill 2002. In 2006 she appeared before the Legislation Review Committee and provided campaign leadership, a key factor in the successful passage of the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006.
- Deputy Chair, NSW Premier's Spinal Cord Injury & Conditions Fund (2003).
- Member, Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA).
- Member, Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD).
- Director, Ability Technology (2002).
- Honorary Director, SpinalCure Australia, since 10/12/97.
- Co-Founder 1994: SpinalCure Australia.
Joanna grew up in the UK where she achieved a BA Hons degree and directorship of a top London public relations agency. She moved to Australia in 1988 to continue her career, study for an MBA and pursue sporting activities. In 1992 she had a skiing accident at Thredbo which broke her neck and severely damaged her spine.
Joanna continues her career and publicises the progress of the search for a cure for people with spinal cord injuries. As a director and co-founder of SpinalCure Australia, she has project managed major medical conferences; written articles and speeches; and taken part in media interviews on the topic of spinal research and the urgent need for funding for a cure.
In June 2008 Joanna was awarded the Order of Australia for service to the community through leadership roles in supporting research into the treatment of spinal cord injury and other conditions.


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Join us at a rally with public sector Unions to urge the State to stop the revolving door for state employment and invest in his workforce to keep Washington working for our communities.
There are 1 million more residents in Washington who need services today than in 2001, but 3000 fewer state employees to serve our communities.
Washington residents deserve and expect quality services. Union contract negotiations are underway including for compensation.
Only YOU can urge the Governor to support meaningful raises for state employees, ensure no more out of pocket costs on health insurance, and provide immediate relief of short staffing and workloads.
Your voice urging him to invest in Washington will make a difference. Silence is not an alternative.
416 Sid Snyder Ave SW
Olympia, WA 98504
United States
Google map and directions


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Educate for Life is a research-driven organisation. We actively engage with the local community to find out their needs and assess the impact of our interventions. We meticulously document our experiences to create blueprints for quality education in rural India.
These resources include research studies to identify the needs of the community which informs future interventions and assess the impact of the work done by Educate for Life.
Village Survey 2015
Developing Early Childhood Development Tool
Early Childhood Development assessment tool
Early Childhood Development survey in Bakhel
A census-style village Survey of Bakhel was conducted in 2015 to assess the levels of education, health and overall living standards of people in the village. The survey aims to find the needs of the community in order to inform future interventions and arrive at an approach that can be replicated in similar low-income areas of the country.
This paper describes designing and piloting a tool to holistically assess the status of early childhood development, early childhood caring practices and guardians' capacity to care in a community. This tool can be used by community-based workers and is universally relevant to different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.
This document includes the component of the tool designed and developed to assess the status of early childhood development. It includes survey questionnaire to be administered for different age-groups along with guidelines and protocols for data collection by community-based researchers.
This study presents the status of early childhood development in the village of Bakhel, in Southern Rajasthan, with extreme levels of deprivation. It employs a tool designed to comprehensively measure a child's developmental status, assess care-giving practices and the caregivers' capacity to care.
Educate for Life Impact Report
Teachers' Handbook
Balwadi Social Vision
This report takes stock of the education and health impact of our interventions in the light of the Village Survey of Bakhel undertaken in 2015. It also talks about the indirect impact Educate for Life aims to have at the district, state and national level.
This document sets out our vision for the balwadi (kindergarten) years of children at Hunar Ghar. It serves as a guideline for Balwadi teachers to implicitly incorporate Hunar Ghar values into the daily activities in balwadi


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Fed up with watching boring reality fish tanks where the lazy goldfish simply swim about in circles? Play The Impossible Quiz game rather! In this insane fish tank your loan going down aquatic pets have to be fed regularly so that you can make extra coins and also keep them active. Neglecting to feed your fish isn't the only thing you require to fret about. You still have to look out for attacking aliens. The aliens will randomly show up to strike as well as aim to eat your fish, so you should combat them off as well as safeguard your container due to the fact that if you run out of fish, the game mores than.
Your Cube Field game takes you through 5 storage tanks with a number of levels each where you feed, elevate and also defend your underwater globe. In each level you need to gain enough coins to buy as well as assemble three egg items, which will hatch out into a new animal for your storage tank. Feeding your fish as well as collecting your coins is as very easy as clicking the display. As you gain much more coins from your very first 2 guppies, you can purchase far better high quality food, lasers to repel alien intruders, or even brand-new sorts of Tetris Game fish.
The brand-new fish can generate brand-new guppies rather than coins and provide you Learn To Fly 3 extra coins or even diamonds, pearls or treasure chests. Along with your cash creating fish you can generate various animals that provide benefit abilities to assist run your fish tank and protect it from intruders. These extra creatures can do points like feed your fish for you, gather your money, enhance the variety of coins you obtain, or battle off aliens. Also the aliens have unique abilities, ranging from immunity to certain guns to eating numerous fish simultaneously and also healing themselves. Fighting the aliens needs extra clicking to quick fire your laser blasters, to beat the aliens see to it you upgrade your Raze 3 lasers as well as constantly prepare at any kind of moment for a surprise assault.
Updated from it wases initially variation, the Return Man 3 game has much better graphics, brand-new animals, as well as entire new methods to play. This version enables you to make use of the coins you gain in game to purchase added family pets, increase the variety of pets enabled as well as develop a custom-made screensaver for your computer system. Along with its Experience setting, the game currently includes a Time Trial, Difficulty mode as well as Virtual Container. The Time Test's objective is for the player to earn as much fish tank loan as feasible. The Obstacle mode Tunnel Rush plays like the timeless Experience mode but with more problem. Digital Tank allows you develop a fish storage tank filled with fish that never ever die, acquired with the new shell money earned in the various other settings. There's also a secret unlockable sandbox setting to play after you've won a silver or gold prize. The enjoyable feeding craze Run 3 Unblocked is offered for you to play right here totally free, along with numerous various other games at no charge. If you delight in playing video games on this site please like it and also share it with your buddies.


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Tag Archives: 2011
New Club Penguin Reviewed by You "Arcade Game"
Today Billybob made a new post on the Whats New blog. He is thanking us for all the comments on the last post. Last week, Club Penguin asked what games you like to play with your puffle! The winner, Yello Pengi8 … Continue reading
Penguin Style March 2011 Cheats
Long time, no see! Well I got the good cheats so hope it makes up for no posts lately! Ive had lots of schoolwork so it makes it difficult to take time to get pictures and post, but ill try … Continue reading
DJ Cadence Tracker February 2011
Use this auto-update tracker by Club Penguin Trackers to pinpoint Cadence's location! This will update automatically when she has been found, so keep refreshing and always choose Club Penguin Helpers for your Penguin Tracking! 1. Use the Cadence Tracker above … Continue reading
Puffle Party 2011 Cheats
The Puffle Party has arrived and has brought some life and excitement to CP with all the colorful stuff and puffle show for members! There are two free items if your a member and non-members get one free item. Check … Continue reading
New Brown Puffle + Expedition Party 2011
The new Expedition Party has arrived to Club Penguin and it brought the brown puffle with it! Check out these awesome cheats that'll get you your free items and your exclusive Brown Puffle… Plug in the Machine, Click on the … Continue reading
February 2011 Better Igloos Cheats
Here are the new cheats for February! Sorry for being a day late, I have exams so its hard to take time to make a post. The new items are really sweet! ..and red! Okay so here are the new … Continue reading
Membership Card Sold in New Stores and Countries!
Club Penguin has just resently made an upadte to their Member page where it shows the different places you can buy membership cards. They have also expanded to a few new countries! Very awesome stuff, so here are all the … Continue reading
January 2011 Penguin Style Cheats
The cheats were released today so I thought Id show them all to you so you can get the rare items easily! Thanks for viewing and new video up on TheSpotman64 Gaming Channel. Cheats from clubpenguincp.com all rights reserved… Thanks … Continue reading
New Club Penguin Reviewed By You
New Reviewed By You has been posted and here is what it says! Hope you all enjoy. Don't forget to check out my PS3 Gaming Channel on Youtube! Thanks 🙂 Last week we asked you what you're most looking forward … Continue reading


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HY-100 Automatic Wire Cutting Crimping Machine
High-definition LCD display in English,microcomputer control,complete function, stable performance,suitable for:PVC tube,heat shrinkable sleeve,braided pipe,yellow wax,wire line,such as the separation line cutting processing;Blades head unit removable, convenient blade installation and replacement.
Max Cutting Width
Max Cutting Length
Processing Speed:1.5m/s
Power Supply
AC 220V±10% 50-60 Hz
Power Output
Processing capacity with the different wire
1, Outside Package, standard export wooden cases.2, Inner package, carton cases.
---Purchase guidance
If you are not sure which model is the best option within you budget, please send us the parameter or wire, it's our pleasure to make a recommendation and comparison models
to you.
---After Sale Service
Don't worry, we are here to help. HONGYUN provides life time after sale support to our customers including operation guidance, parts replacement, maintenance support. Just
feel free to contact us!
--- Technical Support
In some cases, professional technical support will be needed , such as parameter meter
set-up for difficult-to process wires. HONGYUN engineers are here for your assistance.
---Can HONGYUN do OEM service ?
Yes, we are happy to provide OEM service to expand our market.
---About parts replacement and maintenance ?
HONGYUN parts are free to change if there is worn-out within 1 year providing delivery fee paid. Technical support is available during your daily maintenance.
---About distributor or wholesale annual sales rebate?
HONGYUN provides a very competitive rebate policy for our distributors. For more
information , please contact us.
---Quality certificates ,market entrance ticket ?
HONGYUN machine got CE approval and will apply for more certificates in future
market demands.
---What is the basic business principle of HONGYUN ?
Passion and integrity. We trust work passion can provide best service and products to
our customers and integrity the foundation of business.


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No longer just for Ewoks, treehouses have come a long way from the ramshackle plywood thingy your dad pieced together for you in the backyard. A number of architects are taking their inspiration from nature to create beautiful, comfortable, and contemporary dwellings in the trees.
Landliving has a great overview of some modern treehouses, from architecture student Lukasz Kos's Ontario treehouse, to Joel Sherman's award-winning elevated Steel Tree House in Lake Tahoe, CA, to Marcio Kogan's tree-top canopy BR House in Brazil.
Read more at Landliving >


text: We are a custom effects shop located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA and specialize in building, modifying, repairing, and maintaining guitar pedals. Our blog includes some background information on custom work we do. The gallery is full of our favorite past projects. Follow us on Facebook for more frequent updates of things that may not make it on the official FXdoctor page and join our newsletter for occasional updates.


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Summer 2020 textbook requisition deadline is March 20th 2020.
Fall 2020 textbook requisition deadline is April 17th 2020.
To submit your textbook adoptions, please visit our Faculty Requisitions Site now.
Faculty plays a larger role than you might recognize in ensuring students are able to obtain the textbooks and materials they need at reasonable prices. The MCC Bookstore relies on you, the instructors and faculty, to submit textbook lists for your courses in a timely fashion each semester. Timely lists allow us to source the correct textbooks and obtain an appropriate supply of used textbooks. We all know that more used textbooks are exactly what students want!
On the other hand, a delayed textbook list can result in inventory shortages, students unable to obtain required texts and a complete lack of quality used textbooks.
Please do your part and submit your textbook lists as earlier as possible each semester. Your students will thank you!
To submit your textbook adoptions, please visit our Faculty Requisitions Site now.


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Chinese-style ham is dry-cured and smoked, with a dry texture and an intense, smoky flavor that's similar to Virginia's famed Smithfield ham. <link></link>Ham produced in China isn't exported to the United States. Smithfield is an excellent substitute, and it's sold at Chinese grocers and butcher shops in small portions, so that buying a whole Virginia ham isn't necessary.
As for ham produced in China, those from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Yunnan provinces are famed for their deep flavor. However, cured, smoked ham is produced all over China.
See also
TASTING: American Ham
INGREDIENT: Ham (Whole)
INGREDIENT: Ham (Sliced)


text: PHYSICAL SUBSYSTEM: OPERATIONS AND MARKETING Teaching unitCourses:FUNDAMENTALS OF BUSINESS ECONOMICSYear: Year 1 of Dual Bachelor's in Law and Business Administration and ManagementDegree: Dual Bachelor's in Law and Business Administration and ManagementDescriptionDescription: Introduction to the production operations subsystem of the company and presentation of the fundamentals decisions taken during its management. Introduction to the company¿s marketing subsystem and its management, the basic concept of strategic and operational marketing.ObjectivesUnderstand the problematic nature of the company operations and marketing management.SubjectsLecture topicsProduction operations subsystem: concept, elements, objectives and types of decisionsProduction operations subsystem designPlanning and control of the production operationsCommercial subsystem. Marketing and commercial direction conceptMarkets investigation and consumer behavior3.6 The product, price, distribution and communication decisionsLaboratory topicsProblems about decisions of the operational subsystemPractice cases about the subsystem and the marketing decisions app_Android | app_iOS | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | | LinkedIn | Instagram | Pinterest +34 96 665 8500 | Contact us:info(arroba)umh.es Miguel Hernández University 2020


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Dan excels daily. His IV skills are excellent, his humor puts a smile on everyone's face and his upbeat attitude provides comfort to staff and patients. Most recently, he had a patient who was scheduled for surgery. When the patient arrived, Dan noticed he had extensive swelling and bruising on his right hip. This patient was a paraplegic and was unable to feel pain at his hip level. Dan's outstanding assessment skills came in handy! He consulted with the doctor who then ordered an x-ray prior to this patient's surgery. The patient was found to have a fractured femur, unrelated to the surgery he was scheduled for on that day. The patient was admitted and his hip replacement was completed successfully the next day.
Another example of Dan's extraordinary care and everyday kindness was a day when a young child had surgery and was given a stuffed animal to calm her nerves. This child was crying about wanting a "unicorn instead of a kitty cat." Dan took some gauze and tape and created a "unicorn" out of a cat for this little girl. The smile on her face said it all! Recently, in Southern NH's Health News, "Simply Healthy" magazine, Dan was mentioned and praised by a patient's family for his extraordinary care in the pre-operative area where he was able to put their son at ease prior to his surgery. Dan is a true DAISY Nurse.


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All factories are certified in accordance with ISO 9001 and TS16949. Our CiS Asia network unites everything under one roof, which is ideal for ensuring the successful implementation of customer requests:
- Toolmaking
- Plastic moulding machines
- Punching machines
- Assembly machines
Consistent sampling using factory samples in connection with factory drawings and initial sample test reports, e.g. incl. in accordance with PPaP (QS9000), prevents misunderstandings and ensures a high level of product safety. This ensures a solid foundation for a successful partnership. You can find some examples of special plugs here. Incidentally: our partners in Asia have also developed outstanding know-how in water-tight connectors.


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Will The Descendants soundtrack get a Grammy nom?
Hawaii Tales Blog – Will The Descendants soundtrack get a Grammy nom?
Hawaii Tales Blog – Will The Descendants soundtrack get a Grammy nom?
Came in from a walk just in time to catch the tail end of the 2012 Golden Globe Awards: George Clooney wins Best Performance By An Actor In A Motion Picture – Drama. And the made in Hawaii movie, The Descendants, also takes home the award for Best Motion Picture – Drama. Great to hear […]
Heard on NPR – The Oscar-winning film "The Descendant's" is the first Hollywood movie scored entirely with Hawaiian music.
Hawaii Tales Blog Post – As the Oscar race heats up, one contender has already won over fans in Hawaii, where the movie was filmed. And it's not just because of its moving story, but also because of its soundtrack. Please tune in to find out more about the music behind "The Descendants" tomorrow morning on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, January 8.
"The Descendants," starring George Clooney, has been chosen as this year's best film by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association according to the the Associated Press.
Heard on Voice of America – Hawaii is becoming a growing hub for TV and Film production thanks to the series reboot of "Hawaii Five-0," and several recent movies, including "The Descendants."
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Along with selling, delivering and its TV offerings (Echo, Alexa), Amazon also has a thriving enterprise-level storage solution known as AWS. However, they also have a more personal cloud storage solution, previously called Amazon Cloud Drive, and now renamed Amazon Drive.
Under its previous persona, it received a fair amount of abuse for missing features that almost all other packages offer. Has Amazon Drive upped its game, or is it still a very basic solution that you must add additional software to make it useful?
For anyone entirely new to Amazon Drive, there are lots of rather confusing aspects to it, not least that the software you download to your computer is called Amazon Photos (AmazonPhotosSetup.exe).
That infers that this facility is just for keeping personal pictures safe when the tool will secure any folder or files irrespective of what file type they are.
It also now includes the ability to sync, providing a means to automatically secure new files without any effort on the part of the user.
This feature was missing from the original Amazon Cloud Drive and makes the latest incarnation significantly more useful.
One minor caveat that we noticed is that Amazon Photos will only accept an actual folder or file location, and not a virtual one, such as libraries under Windows.
And, unlike Dropbox, you can pick arbitrary folders or files from across the computer and sync them with the Cloud. As some applications insist on storing files outside of the normal structures, this is a basic requirement.
Overall, Amazon's software keeps things remarkably simple and easy to follow, making it ideal for someone with limited technical abilities.
Once your files are online, you can also access them through the Amazon web interface. With photos and videos, it is also possible to play them back through the web, but it doesn't understand what to do with many other document types.
What's slightly odd is that the interface also recognizes music MP3 files, but refuses or chooses not to play them.
Amazon has a desktop app, designed to work with their Amazon Music service that will play them. But, realistically most operating systems will inherently play this file types through the connected folder structure, so it seems mostly pointless to install it.
Once the Windows or MacOS app is installed a drive connection with the operating system is established and a folder 'Amazon Drive' is added. It also identifies how much of your capacity you've used, what takes up the space and the status of any files that are yet to be synchronised.
It's worth mentioning that you don't have to use live synchronisation. Instead, you can decide when the transfers happen. That might be useful if you have an especially poor broadband connection or are using a metred service.
Although dependent on what exact service you have, the performance of Amazon Drive is generally very good, mostly due to the block-level methodology of the sync that is employed.
If you find that too much bandwidth is allocated to the sync process and it's interfering with your latest binge-watching streamed of TV shows, you can reduce its impact through the sync tool.
One oddity we noticed with sync was that it grabs a file to replicate out to the Cloud very rapidly, and maybe it does this a bit too quickly.
If you like to create a file using a right mouse click and then rename it inside the Amazon Drive structure, you may find that a copy of the 'new document' file is synced back from the server to appear alongside the renamed version.
As that bug hints, there is no versioning, so should your files become encrypted by some nefarious malware then the Amazon stored versions will also be held hostage shortly afterwards.
Tools and security
The entire security side of this solution is dependent on the security that Amazon employs to protect personal accounts. Security has been beefed up to include 2-factor authentication if you choose to activate it on your Amazon account.
However, security hasn't been a strong point of Amazon, and along with not having file versioning, the other weaknesses of this design are a lack of at-rest encryption and a very open method of managing shared links.
You can send a link of a file or folder to anyone, but it isn't possible to password protect the link or limit it to access from a particular account.
That you can generate a link directly to Facebook or Twitter in a single click strongly suggests that security isn't at the top of Amazon's priorities for Drive.
Where Amazon Drive shines is in the pricing department, being one of the cheapest per GB offerings around.
Once you've signed up, you get 5GB for free. The first paid tier grows that to 100GB for $11.99 for a year, and you can also have 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,20 and 30TB.
Curiously, capacity doesn't get cheaper the more space you take. 1TB costs $59.99 and 30TB costs almost exactly thirty times as much at $1,799.90 for a year. Oh and before you commit to any capacities, remember that your upload speeds are far slower than your downloads.
At 1Mbps on average, you will be uploading 3.6Gb of data in an hour or 11GB per day. It will take you 100 days to fill 1TB and 10 years to fill 30TB at this rage. So it makes sense to start small and then update as and when you need it.
Based on the current exchange rates, UK customers pay significantly more for the same 1TB of Amazon Drive space than someone in the USA for no obvious good reason.
For those primarily securing photos, it might well be worth signing up to Amazon Prime, as when you pay for that any photos don't count against your storage limit, irrespective of how many you have saved.
Final verdict
Overall, Amazon is delivering a no-frills service that works well enough and is remarkably cost-effective for US customers. However, it lacks many of the critical features that Microsoft and Google users will be familiar, and the pricing outside America is much less convincing.
- We've also highlighted the best cloud storage services


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I went to B.A.M. (Books-A-Million) today, against my better judgement. It is where Borders used to be and it is thoroughly depressing. I liked Borders. (More on that can be found here.) It was a place where I could find books on just about anything and be happily amused for hours.
My son wanted to go to B.A.M. today when we were in the area, so I reluctantly agreed. After all, there are st…
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About 6 months ago, I seemed to notice that it was getting worse. He seemed to tough it out daily, but I could tell his feet were bothering him. When I finally convinced him to go see a Dr. he didn't fight be as bad as I thought he would, so it must have been bad enough.
First he went to our family doctor. They took blood, ran some tests, one of which was for diabetes. They did come back with the diagnosis that his blood sugar was a tad bit high, but that couldn't have had anything to do with the fact that he was drinking Mtn. Dew by the gallon. LOL
So, he quit drinking Mtn. Dew and they put him on metformin, so of course between the 2 his blood sugar is normal. So now no more metformin, and not near as much Mtn. Dew either.
But still, after those changes, nothing had helped his feet, so we decided to keep digging.
The next step was to see a nerve doctor. He went and got his feet poked and prodded to check to see if he has neuropathy. That was a no go, so they next sent him to a podiatrist.
This doctor put him on Lyrica, which is a nerve medication to help replenish the nerves or something. After a couple weeks of that and no relief, we kept digging on the internet trying to find our own answers.
The tingling and numbness had since turned too quite a bit of pain, and was making it hard to walk and move around. This hasn't been easy what with us trying to move and all.
Morton's neuroma begins when the outer coating of a nerve in your foot thickens, or becomes enlarged. We are not sure what caused this, but we do know it is very painful now and something had to be done.
While at the Dr. he was given a cortisone shot in each foot. I think this was more painful than the neuroma itself. However, in the long run hopefully it will help!
After 6 weeks, if things haven't changed, we will try foot orthotics, if that doesn't work we move to surgery as a last resort.
Please pray for the cortisone shots to work! He has suffered enough!


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The fireplace on the main level of our house should be a beautiful focal point of the living area, but it was…. Several other green products were used including low VOC paints, natural stone countertops, and engineered hardwood flooring in the basement. After brightening the masonry, step back and see how your mantel fits into your fireplace decorating project. For the ultimate in luxury, consider a see through fireplace that connects the indoor space with the outdoor space that you can enjoy year-round.
This living space above uses raw concrete as the main feature for the fireplace, once again a perfect contrast in texture to the other elements in the room. In the living room, here is the fireplace with new stone tile, slab hearth and mantel. The shower stall ceiling was raised to full height, and the entire width opened to the room with a frameless glass door from Empire Shower Doors We decided to use the mosaic tile again in the shampoo niche.
Looks good, but lots of problems with windows, sloped floors and a drafty open fireplace. We'll use a 15 pane door with textured glass – just like the 1st floor bathroom door. The designs available in the market can be very different, some fireplaces have mantle surface like the traditional ones.
Luckily there are small changes (like switching out light bulbs) and big changes (like installing a new fireplace mantel ) that can give your living room a new look and won't turn into a major DIY project, or turn your home into a construction site. The original house had small, compartmentalized rooms and we wanted to open up these spaces and take advantage of a more open floor plan and the spectacular view.
It's pretty level, but little dips and uneven areas could be shimmed when the finish floor goes in. I've made 2X6 bases for the new cabinets and set the doors on top to visualize what to do next. This room has a definite modernist flavour – furniture, crazy pacing design for the stone feature wall that surrounds the fireplace – this one is perfect as it services both areas in the open plan space.


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Tuesday, April 17, 2012
"Hi, can we circle swim please?"
He sighs audibly. They can hear it at the pools in China.
He rolls his eyes heavenwards. His eyeballs float to the ceiling, hang out for a moment, before drifting back down into their sockets.
Then he speaks, his beady beard moist and serious. "Really?" he asks.
"Really." PP answers. "It's not like I want to circle swim either," she continues because, hell, no one does. Does he think she'd ask him to if it weren't absolutely necessary? She waves at the crowded pool that is the Mayhem of the downtown Oakland Y. What the hell is going on? A Wednesday evening at 8:45. Usually she has to split a lane, but circle swim?
And tonight all the lanes but Really Man's have 3 or 4 swimmers in them already.
"I can't circle swim with him," Really Man gestures toward Tortoise Orange Trunk Man. And yes, PP sees his point; if he's swimming his 'intervals' super speedy, then TOR would be a hindrance. But that's not her problem. Or is it?
"You need to get the lifeguard to manage the lanes. Get him out of here," Really Man continues, boss of her.
She hates this. Who the hell is he to tell her what to do? Why the hell doesn't he get the lifeguard over to manage the lanes himself?
But he doesn't. Stands there staring at her. It's up to her to action the situation.
"Excuse me, LIFEGUARD!!!??? " she hollers. What else can she do? It's 8:45; she only has 45 minutes before the pool closes. If she sits here arguing with Really Man any longer, she won't get her swim in.
It's a lifeguard she hasn't seen before. Where's Perky Russian Guard when you need her?
This lifeguard slowly slowly slowly climbs down from her Tower. She is so bothered.
And it's PP's fault that she must answer to her summons. Sauntering over, she stares at PP through her wire rimmed glasses, supremely bored.
"We need help with managing the lanes," PP starts, pointing at Tortoise Orange Trunks. "He needs to be in a slower lane so that we can circle swim here at all the medium speed."
Bored Guard nods and to her credit does shift swimmers around. A Super Swimmer Guy comes up behind her. She motions for him to join PP's and Really Man's lane.
PP climbs in, Really Man watches her. He is so ickee. But she has no choice but to swim in his lane.
Really Man starts and stops. He waits at the wall for her. Staring, motioning her to go ahead. Hell, why couldn't he have just done this with Tortoise Man? What was such a big deal that he had to command PP to commandeer the lifeguard for lane management?
Obviously, it had been all about The Power. PP really hates this. She tells DL about it afterward, who shakes her head and confirms PP's seething about being bossed around by some guy. "I hate that!" DL had announced to all the bubbles in the hot tub.
They both laugh. But PP thinks she shouldn't have done Really Man's bidding. Esp. when he wasn't even swimming with the other swimmers—that starting and stopping annoying thing that interrupted everyone's flow—but again, she thinks this was a Power Thing.
Why couldn't he be more liked Super Speedy Man? Who was sweet and cute and very accommodating.
Such a contrast to Really Man.
PP hopes that she never sees or swims with Really Man ever again.
But if she does?
She's gonna make sure she swims REALLY slow. And blocks his way. And waits at the wall and then right when he comes to make his turn, she'll take off in front of him….
That would be so damn fun.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
Only in Berkeley
"How ya gonna keep your book dry?" She chuckles good-naturedly, almost winks at PP.
They'd shared a lane together. Have already exchanged pleasantries about how pleasant the other one is in the water: "I like swimming with you," Good Natured had said when she'd climbed into the tub, PP already basking in the heat needed waters.
"You don't splash." PP had made the same reciprocal compliment, with GN saying how she'd been in the pool the other day and this man was splashing so much that another woman had actually gotten out of the pool. "I try to be considerate. Not splash," she laughs. "But like my mom used to say, if you don't want to get splashed, stay away from the pool."
So true, yet PP always selects the least splash-likely candidate to share a lane with. And today's GN had been a winner.
So, now, in the tub, Book Boy barely deigns to answer the book stay dry query. He's reading Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath after all (only in Berkeley), an endeavor that is way above chitchat in the Berkeley Y's hot tub. (PP's here cuz of Easter; both the Oakland and Hilltop Ys are closed.)
He peers at the two women above the quality paperback, "I can keep it dry." PP thinks, Yeah, I bet you can. But doesn't say this, just nods as GN starts listing Steinbeck's entire canon. "I haven't read that one," she shakes her head, mystified at herself. "My favorite is In Dubious Battle. (PP loves this) But, of course, there's, Of Mice and Men, The Winter of Our Discontent, and ....."
"I have to admit that East of Eden is my favorite," PP interrupts. "I'm a sucker for the big soap."
Book Boy is pointedly ignoring them at this point. As to be expected.
She laughs. "Oh, yeah, I love that one too. Have you been down to Salinas to his house? They've built a new museum there. It's fabulous."
"No, no, I haven't." PP shakes her head.
"You should go. It's completely renovated. And then I remember we went up to their ranch in Fremont. Have you been there?"
"No, I didn't know he had a ranch in Fremont."
She nods, knowledgeably, as only Berkeleyites can do. "Yup, he and his sister used to play Lancelot and Gwenivere there."
"Really?" PP is beyond delighted at this tidbit of Steinbecken Lore. She never knew this fact, though it made sense. Didn't he write a book about the King Arthur? She seems to recall this, but then her brain is a bit water logged at this point so she doesn't bring it up. GN doesn't pause for a breath anyway.
"They took the dog there. Charlie."
"Oh," PP gushes. "That Travels with Charlie is really my favorite. I adore that book."
She nods, "Yeah, I've heard it's a good one. I haven't read that one either. But he and his sister and the dog used to go up there to Fremont, play Lancelot and Gwenivere. It musta been beautiful then."
She pauses, transported to Fremont in the days of Steinbeck's Round Table games. PP nods. "Yes, I bet it was."
"You Native Californian?"
PP smiles, "Kinda. I grew up here."
"Yeah, me too, sorta. I actually was born in Brooklyn, then we moved to Penn, then to Calif, then back to NY, then to LA again. We hadda pool growing up. That was the life. Getting outta bed at 11 a.m., having your girlfriends come over, lounge around the pool all day. All the neighborhood kids would come over. Mom would bake cookies and make Kool-aid." She sighs.
"Yup, those were the days." she continues. "My mom was always a good sport about having all the kids over. But hey! Better to have your kids in your own back yard than running all over tarnation."
She chuckles. PP tells her how her mom did the same. Tells of the kids that sat on the embankment above their pool, craning their necks over the fence, pining for an invite to join in the fun, till finally, PP's mom told 'em to come on over.
GN nods, "Well, you have a good rest of the day," she float walks out of the tub. "Time for the Steam Room. I tell you, it's like a Country Club here."
PP laughs with her, watching her languid round middle-aged stroll weave around the pool to the locker room.
"We must be on the Same Path!" PP laughs as she spies GN getting dressed in the same aisle as her locker.
"I'm going to Grocery Outlet next. You headed there?" she chuckles.
"Nope, got my shopping done already."
"Yeah, I decided to go after the Y. Otherwise, I got the cold stuff sitting in the car."
"Yeah, my ice cream's safe and sound in the freezer."
PP decides this means that she likes ice cream. Even though the ensuing discussion of Edward Abbey and The Biochemical Blah Blah Blah of the Brain books belie a taste for sweets.
"So many books to read, so little time," PP laughs through the cliché.
"But we still seem to find the time to watch TV."
This also delights PP. So many Berkeleyites view TV as the next Anti Christ. "What do you watch on TV?" PP asks.
"Oh, I watch a lot of stuff. Lately it's Dancing with the Stars."
PP is beyond delight now. She loves DWTS? In Berkeley? But yet, this is what happens. These intellectuals, downing their carrot juice in mini Perrier bottles (GN had already shown PP this innovation), reading heady sciency non-fiction about the Brain, listing Steinbeck's entire oeuvre, but yet, they still like DWTS!!!!
Only in Berkeley.
"My name's Denise, by the way."
PP almost keels over. Her name is Denise! How perfect is that! She'll have to tell DL about this Berkeley Denise who adores Steinbeck, Ice Cream and DWTS.
Only in Berkeley!
Thursday, April 05, 2012
The A-Word
"I hafta admit that I played the Lotto yesterday." Friendly Asian Water Walker leans over the lane line, confidential. PP grins, considers taking out her earplugs, but still had 200 yards of warm down to complete. If she takes them out now, and tries to reinsert them later, they'll leak. So she opts for fuzzy hearing instead.
"My mother wasn't very happy about it." FAWW rolls her eyes. "I'm like, MOM! It was only a dollar! But my brother….." She leans in closer to whisper to PP, "He well…. He has a gambling problem. It's an issue. In Taiwan."
She pauses, thinking.
PP wonders if she's thinking whether she should be telling family secrets in the pool. Or maybe she's just trying to figure out how to explain her brother's issue with gambling?
So PP nods, "It's part of the culture, isn't it?" she offers.
FAWW nods slowly, considering. "Yeah, you know, you're right. It is part of the culture. But my brother. Well, it's just that he had money and friends they take advantage, you know?"
PP isn't sure how this connects to the gambling issue, but she's learned to be patient when collecting stories at the pool.
"He had friends that he leant money to, and then they said they were gonna pay him back but of course they never did. You have to watch out for that. For people that take advantage of you. Like I have this friend. Well, she was a friend," FAWW chuckles softly, shaking her head, "and she doesn't drive and so she wanted me to take her mother shopping and when I told her, 'No, I can't do that,' well, she got really mad at me and called me the A Word."
FAWW sighs.
PP wonders what the A Word is. Asshole? Is FAWW so polite that she can't say this word? Or again, is her refusal to 'swear' part of the culture? PP remembers this from all the teaching she's done with students from Asia, Taiwan in particular, that this sort of formal politeness, this hesitancy around speaking 'profanity' was part of their culture.
Today, in the pool, there's something kinda sweet and refreshing about FAWW's refusal to say the A-Word that PP can't help but like.
But maybe she is simply upset that her former friend called her The A-Word cuz she refused to be taken advantage of, and so she couldn't say it?
PP decides this last possibility might be the case since FAWW seems like she's processing the whole loss of friendship situation. So, she suggests, "Yeah, well, that's a lot to ask someone to do, take their mom to the store. I'm sure you have better things to do with your time. But mostly you don't need 'so called' friends calling you The A-Word." PP uses her nomenclature to build rapport in the pool.
"Yeah, you're right. I don't need that." She frowns, then shakes her head. Then a relieved smile breaks out. "You're right. I do have better things to do. Though I'm retired now. Are you retired?"
PP laughs. "I wish! I'll never retire!"
FAWW joins in the giggle. "Really? I thought maybe you were retired."
"Nah, I'm just on a break this week, so I've been able to swim in the middle of the day like this.'
She nods, "It's nice, huh? To swim at this time."
"Yeah, it sure is." PP glances up the empty lane, the sun shimmering through the windows, sparkling tiny diamonds on the water, puffy white clouds glancing across the blue blue sky.
"But just cuz you're retired, doesn't mean that you should be carting around people's mothers. I guess people just think you have all this time to run their errands for them, right?
"You're single right?" FAWW asks.
"Yup. So, yeah, single people get taken advantage of too."
She nods, taking this in. "No kids?"
"No, well, I have the 3 cats."
She chuckles. "Oh, I love cats."
"They're my substitute family."
"I can't have them though. Allergic." FAWW sniffles, then breaks into a grin. "Well, I better let you get back to your swimming. I talk a lot! You need to finish, right? You glide so effortlessly. I am always so jealous!" She laughs, shy now.
Later, in the parking lot, FAWW comments on PP's fluffy pink sweater, "That's cozy." Touches it, leaving her hand a little too long on PP's forearm?
Or is this PP's imagination? That the question about her being 'single' in the pool before was nothing, not a come on or a checking her status sort of situation at all. But just part of the general dialogue around single retired women being taken advantage of?
Yet, PP had to admit that she would be flattered. If FAWW had a bit of a crush on her. Not that she'd do anything about it. FAWW was attractive and smart, but not really PP's type.
PP unlocks the Geo as FAWW heads over to her plush grey Toyota, pops open the trunk and starts rummaging through its contents. Climbing into the Geo, PP plops down, sighing, unwrapping a granola bar, and watches in tired happiness as three puffy white clouds drift across the blue blue sky.
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text: New Price on this Fabulous end unit overlooking the always active and fabulous Halifax Harbour at the one and only Bishop's Landing! Top floor, high ceilings, 2 bedroom plus small den/office. This corner unit also features 2 full baths, is air-conditioned and 2 underground parking spaces plus storage unit. This unit shows beautifully - it's a one-of-a-kind with one of the best views on site. Bishop's also includes a garden oasis to relax and read in, pool, exercise facilities, hot tub and a 24 hour concierge team that is the best in town! Guest suite on site. Condo fees include heat, water, parking and numerous amenities. Call us today to view this simply stunning condo!


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Seed & Nut Breadfeatured
If you're after a delicious wheat bread alternative then look no further!
This bread is amazing and I have seen some amazing seed breads out there, (Sarah does a great one) but I recently have been taking Maca powder with my morning smoothie and I wanted to incorporate this into my new bread alternative and its AMAZE!!!
This "bread" is so good toasted with a little avo smashed on top for breakfast
½ cup Linseed / flaxseed
¾ cup Sesame seeds
¾ cup Sunflower seeds
¾ cup Pumpkin seeds
½ cup Almonds, or other whole nuts like walnuts or hazelnuts
¼ cup Psyllium husk
2 Tbsp Chia seeds
2 Tbsp Olive oil
2 Tbsp Maca powder
2 tsp Salt flakes
3 large Eggs, free-range
½ cup Water
What you need to do
Heat your oven to 160C and line a loaf tin with baking paper.
Combine all your ingredients in a bowl and mix well until evenly combined.
Press the mix into the loaf tin and set aside for about 15-20 minutes to allow the chia seeds, linseeds and psyllium husk to absorb some of the moisture
Bake for 50 minutes.
Remove the bread from the baking paper and leave to cool before slicing.


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Fleming is the captain of White Manta with his brother Melki. He comes from Sop Island near Sorong. He has the best laugh in the whole island. His hobbies are playing soccer and diving.
Already an excellent free diver, he had his first experience scuba diving at Barefoot Conservation and he is always happy.
Read about other members of Our Team