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S.1940 - An original bill to amend the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968, to restore the financial solvency of the flood insurance fund, and for other purposes.112th Congress (2011-2012)
BillHide Overview
|Sen. Johnson, Tim [D-SD] (Introduced 12/05/2011)
|Senate - Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
|Committee Reports:
|S. Rept. 112-98
|Latest Action:
|Senate - 06/25/2012 S.Amdt.2475 Amendment SA 2475 proposed by Senator Reid to Amendment SA 2474. (consideration: CR S4448; text: CR S4448) Of a perfecting nature. (All Actions)
|Roll Call Votes:
|There has been 1 roll call vote
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- Finance and Financial Sector
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Summary: S.1940 — 112th Congress (2011-2012)All Information (Except Text)
Shown Here:
Reported to Senate without amendment (12/05/2011)
(This measure has not been amended since it was introduced. The summary has been expanded because action occurred on the measure.)
Title I: Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization - Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2011 - (Sec. 104) Amends the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 (NFIA) to extend: (1) through FY2016 the authority of the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to issue up to $ 20.725 billion in debt obligations, with the President's approval, for the National Flood Insurance Program (Program); and (2) through FY2013 the authorization for the Program itself.
(Sec. 105) Requires the FEMA Administrator to make national flood insurance available for multifamily properties of more than four units.
(Sec. 106) Prohibits the Administrator from estimating risk premium rates for flood insurance for: (1) any property which is not an individual's primary residence, (2) any severe repetitive loss property, (3) any property that has incurred flood-related damage in which the cumulative amounts of claims payments equaled or exceeded its fair market value, (4) any business property, or (5) any property which on or after the date of the enactment of this Act has experienced or sustained either substantial damage exceeding 50% of its fair market value or substantial improvement exceeding 30% of its fair market value.
Prohibits the Administrator from providing flood insurance to prospective insureds at risk premium rates less than those otherwise estimated for: (1) new or lapsed policies, or (2) any prospective insured who refuses to accept any offer for FEMA mitigation assistance.
Requires the estimate of risk premium rates to be based, in part, on all costs, as prescribed by principles and standards of practice in ratemaking adopted by the American Academy of Actuaries and the Casualty Actuarial Society.
Increases from 10% to 15% the annual limitation on risk premium rate increases for any properties within any single risk classification.
Directs the Administrator to provide policyholders that are not required to escrow their premiums (with respect to any chargeable premium rate) and fees for flood insurance with the option of paying their premiums either annually or in more frequent installments.
(Sec. 107) Instructs FEMA to issue final regulations establishing revised definitions of special flood hazard areas, including residual risk areas.
Subjects such areas to mandatory flood insurance purchase requirements.
(Sec. 108) Requires adjustment of flood insurance risk premium rates to reflect the current risk of flood to property located in an area participating in the Program.
(Sec. 109) Adds a new requirement for those states and areas where flood insurance must be made available.
Requires such states or areas to give satisfactory assurance that, by six months after enactment of this Act, state-chartered lending institutions not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) shall be subject to state regulations consistent with the Flood Disaster Protection Act of 1973.
(Sec. 110) Amends the Flood Disaster Protection Act of 1973 to increase from $350 to $2000 the civil monetary penalty for a single violation of the Act. Repeals the limitation upon the maximum penalty amount that may be imposed against any single regulated lending institution or enterprise in any calendar year.
(Sec. 111) Revises the requirement that federal entities responsible for lending regulation require by regulation the payment of flood insurance premiums to a mortgage lender for deposit in an escrow account. Changes the property reference from real estate or mobile home to any property for which a loan has been made for purposes of acquisition or construction.
Extends the same requirement to state entities responsible for lending regulations with respect to lending institutions they supervise.
Requires any regulated lending institution, upon final payment of a mortgage, to notify the policyholder: (1) that insurance coverage may cease with such final payment, and (2) how flood insurance coverage may be continued after the life of the loan.
(Sec. 112) Prescribes minimum deductibles for claims under the Program for specified properties.
Specifies the minimum annual deductible for pre-FIRM properties (containing a structure neither constructed nor substantially improved after the later of December 31, 1974, or the effective date of the initial rate map published by the FEMA Administrator under NFIA for the pertinent area) as: (1) $1,500, if the flood insurance covers structural damage of $100,000 or less; and (2) $2,000, if the flood insurance covers structural damage greater than $100,000.
Sets the minimum annual deductible for post-FIRM properties at $1,000 in the first instance, and $1,250 in the second.
(Sec. 113) Revises requirements for the FEMA Administrator's prescription of chargeable flood insurance premium rates. Repeals the requirement that the Administrator consult with certain entities before prescribing rates.
Requires such rates, in addition to meeting other conditions, to be adequate, on the basis of accepted actuarial principles, to cover the average historical loss year obligations incurred by the National Flood Insurance Fund.
(Sec. 114) Instructs the Administrator to establish in the Treasury a National Flood Insurance Reserve Fund, which shall maintain 1% of the sum of the total potential loss exposure of all outstanding flood insurance policies in force in the prior fiscal year, or any higher percentage the Administrator determines appropriate.
(Sec. 115) Requires any funds borrowed by FEMA for the Program to include a repayment schedule, which shall be transmitted not only to the Secretary but to specified congressional committees.
(Sec. 116) Prohibits FEMA from denying payment of certain flood insurance claims by condominium owners who purchased such flood insurance separate and apart from the flood insurance purchased by the condominium association, based on the flood insurance coverage of the association or others on the association's overall property.
(Sec. 117) Establishes the Technical Mapping Advisory (TMA) Council to recommend mapping standards and guidelines for flood insurance rate maps.
Directs the Council to develop recommendations on how to: (1) ensure that flood insurance rate maps incorporate the best available climate science to assess flood risks, and (2) ensure that FEMA uses the best available methodology to consider the impact of the rise in the sea level and future development on flood risk. Requires the FEMA Administrator to incorporate any such future risk assessment into updated National Flood Insurance Program rate maps.
(Sec. 118) Requires the FEMA Administrator, in coordination with the TMA Council, to establish an ongoing program for review, update, and maintenance of Program rate maps.
Directs the Administrator to: (1) work to enhance communication and outreach to states, local communities, and property owners about the effects of any potential changes to Program rate maps that may result from this mapping program, and which such changes may have on flood insurance purchase requirements; and (2) engage with local communities to enhance communication and outreach to their residents on such effects.
Authorizes appropriations for FY2012-FY2016.
(Sec. 119) Allows appeals to the local government of any designation of an identified special flood hazard area, but only on the ground that such designation is scientifically or technically incorrect.
(Sec. 120) Requires the Administrator to make make an independent Scientific Resolution Panel available to any community that has: (1) filed a timely map appeal, completed 60 days of consultation with FEMA on the appeal, and not allowed more than 120 days (or longer under a waiver) to pass since the end of the appeal period; or (2) received an unsatisfactory ruling under the map revision process.
Requires any property owner or lessee appealing a proposed flood elevation determination to submit related scientific and technical data to the appeals to the Scientific Resolution Panel for review.
Requires the Panel, following deliberations, to issue a determination resolving a dispute, with binding recommendations, not subject to further judicial review, for the base flood elevation determination or the determination of a special flood hazard area that shall be reflected in the Flood Insurance Rate Maps.
(Sec. 121) Removes the limitation placed upon state or local government contributions for the cost of updating flood maps.
(Sec. 122) Directs the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), the FEMA Administrator, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the heads of specified federal agencies to: (1) coordinate and share data on flood risk determination and geospatial data; and (2) report to Congress an interagency budget crosscut and coordination report that displays the budget proposed for agencies working on flood risk determination data and digital elevation models, including planned agency transfers, and describes how these efforts complement one another.
(Sec. 123) Directs the National Academy of Public Administration to study and report to Congress on how FEMA can: (1) improve interagency coordination on flood mapping, including a funding strategy to leverage and coordinate budgets and expenditures; and (2) establish joint funding mechanisms with other governmental agencies.
(Sec. 124) Exempts from certain floor insurance purchase requirements any area located within the 500-year flood plain.
(Sec. 125) Amends the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 (RESPA) to require that certain public information booklets include the availability of federal flood insurance, regardless of whether the real estate is located in a special flood hazard area.
(Sec. 126) Requires the FEMA Administrator, upon state insurance commissioner request, to cause Program representatives to participate in state disaster claims mediation programs.
(Sec. 127) Directs the FEMA Administrator to collect additional adjuster estimates for both wind and flood damage with regard to claims payments by private sector companies authorized to participate in the Write Your Own (WYO) program.
(The WYO program, part of the National Flood Insurance Program, is a cooperative undertaking of the insurance industry and FEMA which allows participating property and casualty insurance companies to write and service the Standard Flood Insurance Policy in their own names. The companies receive an expense allowance for policies written and claims processed while the federal government retains responsibility for underwriting losses.)
(Sec. 128) Requires WYO companies to submit to FEMA biennial expense reports for the prior five years. Requires FEMA to pass them on to the Comptroller General.
Requires the Administrator to: (1) develop a methodology for determining amounts to reimburse property and casualty insurance companies participating in the WYO program for selling, writing, and servicing flood insurance policies and adjusting claims; and (2) conduct a rulemaking proceeding to formulate revised reimbursements to WYO companies for their related expenses.
Directs the Comptroller General to study the efficacy, adequacy, and sufficiency of such rules.
(Sec. 129) Revises requirements for mitigation assistance grants. Specifies grants: (1) to states and communities to carry out mitigation activities that reduce flood damage to severe repetitive loss properties, and (2) to property owners for mitigation activities that reduce flood damage to individual structures for which two or more flood insurance claim payments for losses have been made if neither the state nor community in which such a structure is located has the capacity to manage such grants.
Allows a flood risk mitigation plan to be part of a multi-hazard mitigation plan.
Restricts the Administrator to approving only mitigation activities that are technically feasible, cost-effective, and in the interest of the National Flood Insurance Fund (NFIF).
Eliminates beach nourishment from eligible mitigation activities. Declares to be eligible mitigation activities: (1) elevation, relocation, or floodproofing of utilities; (2) state or community development or update of mitigation plans (as under current law); and (3) technical assistance to certain communities to identify eligible activities, develop grant applications, and implement mitigation grants.
Directs the Administrator to consider as an eligible mitigation activity the demolition and rebuilding of properties to at least base flood elevation or greater.
Specifies state and community matching requirements for severe repetitive loss structures (0%), repetitive loss structures (10%), and other mitigation activities (25%). Specifies the annual allocation of NFIF amounts for such activities.
(Sec. 130) Directs the Administrator and the Secretary of the Army, acting through the Chief of Engineers, jointly to establish a Flood Protection Structure Accreditation Task Force to develop a process to better align the information and data collected by or for the Corps of Engineers under the Inspection of Completed Works Program with flood protection structure accreditation requirements so that sufficient information and data collected for either purpose can be used interchangeably.
(Sec. 131) Requires the Administrator to review and report to Congress on the processes and procedures: (1) for determining that a flood event has commenced or is in progress, (2) for notifying the public about such an event, and (3) about the timing of public notification of flood insurance requirements and availability. Requires the review and report to include the effects and implications that weather conditions have on the determination that a flood event has commenced or is in progress.
(Sec. 132) Makes technical amendments to the requirements for additional flood insurance in excess of ordinary limits for residential and commercial properties.
(Sec. 133) Prohibits designation as a special flood hazard area, unless certain criteria are met, of any area or community participating in the Program that is: (1) or includes Community Identification Number 360467 and is impacted by the Jamaica Bay flooding source, or (2) Community Identification Number 360495. Requires any such designation to be based on: (1) flood hazard analyses of hydrologic, hydraulic, or coastal flood hazards that have been properly calibrated and validated, and are specific and directly relevant to the geographic area being studied; and (2) ground elevation information of sufficient accuracy and precision to meet FEMA guidelines for accuracy at the 95% confidence level.
Requires the Administrator to remap, using compliant information and procedures, any rate map for either area if it has been designated a special flood hazard area on the basis of information that does not comply with these requirements.
(Sec. 134) Makes eligible for flood insurance any person residing in a community participating in the Program that has made adequate progress on the reconstruction or improvement of a flood protection system that will afford flood protection for a 100-year floodplain. Limits the risk premium rate for such a person to one that does not exceed the risk premium rate that would be chargeable if the flood protection system had been completed. Specifies criteria for adequate progress.
(Sec. 135) Requires the Comptroller General to report to Congress on: (1) expansion of the Program, (2) pre-FIRM structures receiving discounted premiums, and (3) a review of the three largest FEMA contractors used in administering the Program.
(Pre-Flood Insurance Rate Map [pre-FIRM] structures are those that were neither constructed nor substantially improved after the later of December 31, 1974, or the effective date of the initial rate map published under NFIA for the area in which such a structure is located.)
(Sec. 136) Requires the Administrator to report to Congress a private market pricing assessment regarding the capacity of the private reinsurance, capital, and financial markets to assist communities, on a voluntary basis, in managing the full range of financial risks associated with flooding by requesting proposals to assume a portion of the insurance risk of the National Flood Insurance Program. Requires the report to describe and assess proposals responding to the request.
Authorizes the Administrator to secure reinsurance of flood insurance coverage from the private market, at rates and on terms that are reasonable and appropriate, in an amount sufficient to maintain the Program's ability to pay claims.
Requires the Administrator to conduct annual assessments of the Program's ability to pay claims.
(Sec. 137) Directs the Comptroller General to study: (1) the availability of additional living expenses and business interruption coverage in the private marketplace for flood insurance, (2) the feasibility of allowing the Program to offer such coverage at the consumer's option, (3) the estimated cost to consumers if the Program priced such optional coverage at true actuarial rates, (4) the impact such optional coverage would have on consumer participation in the Program, and (5) the fiscal impact such optional coverage would have upon the NFIF if it were included in the Program at the price equal to the true actuarial rate.
(Sec. 138) Requires each flood insurance policy under the Program, subject to administrative penalty, to state all conditions, exclusions, and other limitations pertaining to coverage, regardless of the underlying insurance product, in plain English, in boldface type, and in a font size that is twice the size of the text of the body of the policy.
(Sec. 139) Directs the Administrator to study the impact, effectiveness, and feasibility of amending NFIA to include widely used and nationally recognized building codes as part of the floodplain management criteria developed for land management and use.
(Sec. 140) Requires the Administrator also to study methods to: (1) encourage and maintain participation in the Program; (2) educate consumers about the Program and the flood risk associated with their property; (3) establish an affordability framework for the Program, including methods to aid individuals to afford risk-based premiums through targeted assistance rather than generally subsidized rates, including means-tested vouchers.
Requires the National Academy of Sciences to submit to the Administrator, with respect to such study, an economic analysis of the costs and benefits to the federal government of a flood insurance program with full risk-based premiums, combined with means-tested federal assistance to aid individuals who cannot afford coverage, through an insurance voucher program.
(Sec. 141) Directs the Comptroller General to examine: (1) the factors contributing to the current rates of participation in the Program by Indian tribes and their members, and (2) methods of encouraging such participation.
Title II: Commission on Natural Catastrophe Risk Management and Insurance - Commission on Natural Catastrophe Risk Management and Insurance Act of 2011 - (Sec. 203) Establishes the Commission on Natural Catastrophe Risk Management and Insurance to report to Congress on its findings and assessments regarding the risks posed to the United States by natural catastrophes, and means for mitigating those risks and paying for losses caused by such catastrophes.
(Sec. 205) Requires the Commission to assess: (1) the condition of the property and casualty insurance and reinsurance markets prior to and in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma in 2005, and the four major hurricanes that struck the United States in 2004; (2) the current condition of, as well as the outlook for, the availability and affordability of insurance in all regions of the country; (3) the current ability of states, communities, and individuals to mitigate their natural catastrophe risks, including the affordability and feasibility of such activities; and (4) specified related matters.
(Sec. 206) Directs the Commission to report its findings and assessments to certain congressional committees.
(Sec. 210) Authorizes appropriations.


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CAROL CITY (CBS4) – A vandal armed with cans of spray paint did more than $20,000 in damages to Carol City High School on Memorial Day.
Now Miami-Dade Schools police plan to release surveillance video of the person in action in hopes that someone recognizes him and gives them a call. The video shows a male wearing a mask, black pants and a Carol City High School t-shirt seen spraying graffiti on the school's walls.
Expletives are used in reference to the Principal; prompting one 9th grader, Eldreanna Williams, to say, "I feel sorry for that Principal, Mister Dunn. It hurts my feelings that they did that."
There is also mention of a "hit list," and the number 2012, an apparent reference to the graduating class, is seen on picnic tables.
Students like 10th grader Kierra Felton told CBS4 that they will not forget what they saw.
"I saw some graffiti saying hit list and then the Principal's name out there on the side of the school," she said. "I think it was childish. I don't know why you'd go to school to do something like this. You shouldn't have done this. I'd say to this person who did this that you should get a life."
"I think it was very disrespectful. It makes the school look bad and really hurts our reputation," said 10th grader Lidia Morejon.
"Wow! I can't believe that someone did this at my school," said 9th grade student Brendan Thomas.
Miami-Dade Schools Police Sgt. Ivan Silva said there was about $15,000 worth of damage from the graffiti and $7,000 worth of damage to two vending machines.
While Silva said the surveillance tape could prompt some leads, he urges anyone with information about this case to call Miami-Dade Schools Police at (305) 995-COPS (2677) or Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at (305) 471-TIPS (8477).
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Fluffy American pancakes!
Fluffy American pancakes great for a weekend nibble,
- 135g/4¾oz plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 tbsp caster sugar
- 130ml/4½fl oz milk
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- 2 tbsp melted butter (allowed to cool slightly) or olive oil, plus extra for cooking
- To serve
Preparation method
- Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar into a large bowl. In a separate bowl or jug, lightly whisk together the milk and egg, then whisk in the melted butter.
- Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and, using a fork, beat until you have a smooth batter. Any lumps will soon disappear with a little mixing. Let the batter stand for a few minutes.
- Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and add a knob of butter. When it's melted, add a ladle of batter (or two if your frying pan is big enough to cook two pancakes at the same time). It will seem very thick but this is how it should be. Wait until the top of the pancake begins to bubble, then turn it over and cook until both sides are golden brown and the pancake has risen to about 1cm (½in) thick.
- Repeat until all the batter is used up. You can keep the pancakes warm in a low oven, but they taste best fresh out the pan.
- Serve with lashings of real maple syrup and extra butter if you like.
Zoom Jelly
For the banana layer For the raspberry layer You 'll also need
2 bananas chopped 200g raspberries 1 litre jelly mould
100 ml double cream 250ml cloudy apple juice Pomegranate
50g caster sugar 50g Caster sugar
Yellow food colouring
First make the blackcurrant layer. Put 6 of the gelatine leaves in a small bowl and cover with cold water, then soak for 1-2 minutes until soft. Gently heat the cordial, lemon juice and 50ml cold water in a pan until nearly simmering, then remove from the heat.Remove the softened gelatine from the water and squeeze any out any excess water , then stir in a few drops of blue food colouring to give a deep purple colour. Grease the jelly mould with a little oil then pour in the jelly. Chill for 2-3 hours until set.


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Contraception: It is a word that invokes many different emotions.
Some might feel uneasy, while others might feel empowered.
Contraception is the use of artificial or behavioral methods to prevent pregnancy as a consequence of sexual intercourse. Contraception includes ingestives, like the birth control pill, devices, like male and female condoms, and behavioral methods, such as abstinence and the withdrawal method.
There is evidence to suggest that sex education including information on both contraception and abstinence helps young people delay sex.
According to "Emerging Evidence, Lessons and Practice in Comprehensive Sexuality Education: A Global Review," a study by the United Nations Population Fund, "many of these programs have resulted in delayed sexual debut, reduced frequency of sex and number of sexual partners, increased condom or contraceptive use, or reduced sexual risk-taking."
Many young adults do not know what contraceptive options are out there. A study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute revealed that "only 55 percent of young men and 60 percent of young women had received formal instruction about methods of birth control." Additionally, only 31 percent of males and 46 percent of females were informed of where to get birth control.
Most college students are familiar with condoms, but not many of themknow the facts. Condoms are 85 percent effective and help protect you from sexually transmitted infections like herpes, chlamydia and human papillomavirus infection, among others. The birth control pill, when used exactly as prescribed, is 99 percent effective, but in practice, the pill is 91 percent effective due to missed pills and other complications. Additionally, the pill does not prevent from sexually transmitted infections. An intrauterine device, which is inserted into the uterus, is 99 percent effective but also does not prevent STI transmission.
The birth control patch, birth control shot, birth control vaginal ring, cervical cap and diaphragm also help prevent pregnancy but fail to prevent STIs. Conversely, dental dams prevent STI transmission during oral sex but are not intended to be used to prevent pregnancy.
The only 100 percent effective method of preventing STIs and pregnancy is abstinence.
Furthermore, contraception can be used for certain purposes other than preventing pregnancy. For example, there are a number of reasons why one may choose to take birth control medication.
The birth control pill is often used to lighten periods, reduce menstrual cramps and subdue premenstrual syndrome. According to Planned Parenthood, the combination pill may also reduce or help prevent acne, anemia, bone thinning, cysts in the breasts and ovaries, endometrial and ovarian cancers and serious infections in the reproductive system.
But that is just scratching the surface of intricacies surrounding contraception. Students seeking information may not be able to answer all of their questions on campus.
The LGTBQ Resource Center, the Women's Center and the Student Health Center are not permitted to refer students to organizations that offer abortion. Though physicians and nurse practitioners at the Student Health Center may prescribe birth control, they are not permitted to do so for the express purpose of preventing pregnancy. Georgetown University will also not contract, arrange or pay for contraceptive coverage.
Divisions over contraception are clear on campus.
H*yas for Choice and Georgetown University Right to Life, formerly known as Vita Saxa, table just feet away from each other in Red Square. While GU RTL does not have a formal stance on contraception, its overall take on reproductive rights contrasts with HFC's progressive attitude. These two organizations, among others, represent a small microcosm of the student body at large.
Amelia Irvine (COL '19) and MyLan Metzger (COL '19), president and vice president of Love Saxa, a campus organization dedicated to promoting chastity and marriage between a man and a woman, do not believe the university should fund contraceptives.
"No one has the right to sex without consequences. Having sex in college is a choice, a choice that Georgetown has no obligation to materially support or endorse," Irvine and Metzger wrote in a joint email statement to The Hoya. "It is our hope that Georgetown students would embrace a safer, healthier lifestyle of chastity, one in which birth control is not a necessity."
Considering the current sociopolitical atmosphere, it is pertinent than ever that we pay attention to the university's policies on contraception, according to Michaela Lewis (COL '18) and Annie Mason (COL '18), co-presidents of pro-abortion rights group H*yas For Choice.
"The most targeted communities are low-income and working class dependents whose parents/guardians do not have adequate insurance through their employers. Graduate students who are not dependents and do not receive private insurance through an employer are also particularly vulnerable to any changes the University may choose to make regarding birth control coverage," Lewis and Mason wrote in an email statement to The Hoya.
Ultimately, it is most imperative that students be aware of different contraceptive options and be able to make educated decisions about what option is right for them.


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Of the three Thermal Transfer Ribbons, Resin Ribbon is the most durable material. These label solutions are capable of withstanding abrasion, extreme temperatures, and exposure to water and chemicals.
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One of the most daunting things to do in Korea is to go to a Korean barbecue.
I'm ashamed to admit it took us a few months to go to a barbecue by ourselves We were fearing the whole situation because our Korean was so bad and we didn't know how it all worked. We didn't want to mess up or commit some major faux-pas so we mostly hid at home.
In the end the only thing that set my mind at ease was doing copious amounts of research so that I was completely prepared before I stepped through the doors. Later – after going to restaurants a few times – I realised we were scared for no reason at all. Going to a Korean barbecue is simple!
There are a bunch of guides out there for meats and the many different types of Korean barbecue you can eat. It would be pointless to write a similar guide. Instead I'd like to write a guide about the specific process of going to a Korean barbecue. How to order. What to do once you order. How to pay.
Really the hardest thing to do is to step through the door. After that the staff will do everything within their power to help you. One thing I always remind myself of is that they're running a business and they want my money! If I was running a restaurant and a foreigner came in, not speaking my language, I'd do anything to help them and I'm sure that's how they feel when I step through the door.
First you may like to know how to find a barbecue restaurant. Really it's as easy as walking to the end of the street. Barbecue restaurants are so numerous in Korea that they're literally everywhere, on main streets and down dark alleys. The easiest ways to spot a barbecue are to look inside. If you see lots of long ventilation tubes hanging from the ceiling, it's a barbecue restaurant for sure. Not all restaurants have these, so you can also look for flames on the building outside, or simply look to see if people are barbecuing inside.
How to enter a Korean BBQ
Depending on what type of restaurant it is, once you step through that door a number of things could happen. If it's a fancy restaurant, a waitress will guide you to a seat. It's a good time here to mention how many people there are in your group. If you don't know Korean, you can use your fingers. (Unless there's more than 10 in your group, then you're fucked!)
Essentially all you need to do is say a number in Korean followed by myung which means person or people.
One person – Han myung
Two people – Doo myung
Three people – Say myung
Four people – Nay myung
Five people – Dah sop myung
The waitress will then lead you to a table.
If it's not a fancy restaurant, chances are that it'll be pretty small so as soon as you walk through the door the waitress will see you and either wave you to a table, or you can simply sit down yourself. When I say a waitress, don't be fooled into thinking you'll be met with a young, pert smiley girl. More than likely you'll be face to face with a middle aged, grumpy woman.
How to Order Food
After you sit down it's time to look at the menu. In a nice restaurant they'll bring a menu to you. If it's really fancy there may even be English on it! Then when you order you can point to the thing you want.
The majority of restaurants only have a menu on the wall though. No English. Just lots of Korean characters. If you don't read hangul you're basically screwed. If you do read hangul you're still screwed because there are so many different types of meat sold that it's hard to know what you're looking at.
That's what made it so daunting for us to go into a restaurant. You can't exactly stand up and point at the wall, can you? (You could, but it'd possibly be incredibly embarrassing.)
To make life easier on yourself, you could learn Korean…or if you feel it's a little too much to ask (learning a whole language to eat in a restaurant) you could write down these three types of meat and check if they're on the menu.
- Sam-gyup-sal. 삼겹살
A cut of meat from the stomach of a pig. It exists in pretty much every barbecue restaurant.
- Soh galbi. 소갈비
Another popular cut of meat. The rib meat of a cow.
- Dway-gee galbi 돼지갈비
The rib meat of a pig. Cheaper than soh galbi.
If it's a barbecue restaurant, chances are it will sell one of these cuts of meats, unless you see fish tanks everywhere around you. If in doubt ask for sam-gyup-sal 삼겹살. Often a restaurant specialises in a certain animal or type of meat, you can tell which one by looking outside the restaurant. If there's a picture of a happy cow then they'll sell beef so you can assume they'll sell galbi.
Meat is actually sold per serving, so you also need to decide how many servings you want before you order. Once you decide what to eat, you can communicate it to the waitress. Either by writing it down, pointing to the menu or best of all speaking (which is actually pretty easy.)
Like so:
Type of meat…
Soh galbi
Dway-jee galbi
…x…number of portions…
Eel (1) …een boon
ee (2)…een boon
sam (3)…een boon
sah (4)…een boon
oh (5)…een boon
For example: Samgyupsal sam een boon juseyo. (Samgyupsal, three servings, please.)
If you want to keep it simple you can just say the name of the meat. Then use your fingers to communicate how many servings you want.
If you've struggled to keep up so far, don't worry. You could always just say "go-gee juseyo" which translates as "meat please.' They'll no doubt take pity on you and bring you some meat, although I've never tried this personally!
Once you ask for your meat, the server may do a number of things:
- Nod and walk away. Woohoo! You're getting your meat.
- Shake her head and say something like "ob-sa-yo". This means they don't have the meat you asked for.
- Shake her head and say something about the number of servings. We've tried to order two servings of meat lots of times and the servers says we need to order three. Bear this in mind if there's only two of you.
- Possibly ask if you want drinks.
- Sometimes ask if you want rice. Listen for the word "bap".
For all of these things it's easier to look at body language. If the waitress asks about drinks she'll probably do the universe sign for drink – an invisible bottle coming up to her mouth. If she's talking about the number of servings she'll do numbers with her fingers, etc.
How to order drinks
Once you've ordered your meat, you may want drinks to go with it. The most popular drink for Koreans is soju, a strong rice liquor, which is often drunk straight. It's cheap as anything and similar to vodka. If you want to get drunk and have an authentic experience then this is what you want.
Otherwise barbecues also offer beer (really just lager) and soda (Cola, Fanta, Sprite [Which is actually called cider in Korea]). To see what lagers and sodas the restaurant has, simply look for the drinks cabinet nearby.
If you don't want to buy drinks, restaurants bring you a complimentary bottle of water to drink as you enter.
You ask for drinks in much the same way you would meat.
Drink name…
Mak-ju (Beer)
Koh-lah (Cola)
Sah-ee-dah (7up)
…number of bottles…
Han (1) byung
Doo (2) byung
Say (3) byung
Nay (4) byung
For example…sah-ee-dah say byung juseyo. This would be "Three bottles of Sprite, please!"
Again, if you don't know Korean you can easily express what you want with body language and by saying a drink name.
Cooking Your Meat
Once your meat is ordered, the waitress will bring a lot of side dishes to your table. These are called banchan and differ depending on the restaurant you go to. The waitress will also put some ssam on your table. Ssam is a number of different leaves which you use to wrap your meat in.
As always, the way your meat is cooked depends entirely on the restaurant. Some restaurants have staff which cook your meat for you, while some restaurants let you cook your food yourself.
Every table has controls for the barbecue allowing you to put the flame on high, low or turn it off entirely. Often restaurants put charcoal into the middle of your table which is heated by the flame until it is hot, then you can turn the flame off and allow the coals to cook your food.
Usually I wait for the charcoal or grill to heat up for a few minutes, then I'll turn it down and throw some meat on. If the waitress doesn't cook the food for you then you'll be completely in control. Use common sense in that case. If you leave the flame on high your meat will burn. With no flame though, it might not cook.
Each table is provided with scissors so you can cut up your meat once it's cooked or while it's cooking. You cook your meat in the middle of the grill and once it's done you can move it to the sides where it's cooler, or turn the flame off so the heat goes down.
While the meat cooks, you can throw some of the side dishes onto the grill as well. If a waitress is cooking for you, it's up to you to put the side dishes onto the grill.
You can cook kimchi (which turns yellow and translucent when it's done – and is delicious), peppers, garlic and anything else (within reason).
Once your food is cooked you're ready to eat.
Eating Your BBQ
Now for the best part. Eating. There's about a hundred different rules you'll read for eating Korean barbecue and my own opinion is that you should just do whatever you like. It's your food so eat it however you want. Every person in Korea eats differently, so why should you have to follow one person specific rules on the Internet?
The standard way of eating Korean barbecue is to make a "sandwich" with the meat, ssam and banchan. Grab a leaf, put some meat in the middle (which you can dip in some side dishes), add a little cooked kimchi, a little sauce, and a few pieces of roasted garlic. Roll the leaf up, pop it in your mouth and chew. It's like a taste explosion!
Some people state that Korean's always throw the whole sandwich into their mouth, but I feel this is another rule that's not really a rule. Just take as many bites as you want and enjoy it! Beware though, it's easy to burn your mouth and the meat may be super hot!
One definite rule that you should never break is:
Never leave your chopsticks standing up in your rice.
Whenever you're not using your chopsticks, place them over your bowl. Aside from that I've seen pretty much every "rule" be broken at some point without anyone seeming to care.
Getting More Food / Drinks
If you figure you want more food or another drink, you can get the attention of the waitress in a number of ways. Some restaurants have a handy call button on the table which calls over a waitress – otherwise you can just do what you do anywhere else – make eye contact and wave.
The most common method used in Korea is to shout towards the waitress "Chogi yo!" which means "Excuse me!" She may come over to you, or may just expect you to continue shouting what you want.
Side dishes are all complimentary meaning that if you run out and want more, all you need to do is ask. Grab the attention of a waitress, hold up the thing you want more of and say "Daw juseyo" – "more please". Or simply show her the empty container and she'll get the idea.
Paying the Bill
Once you're full and ready to leave there's no need to get a bill. Look around the room and you'll see a computer or till somewhere. Head to this and the waitress will top up your bill for you. Often the total will come up on the computer screen for you to look at – in tourist areas they may type the total into a calculator.
As you leave, don't forget to say thank you! It's only polite. Gam-sam-needa!
If you have any questions about eating at a Korean barbecue, feel free to ask them in the comments.
Photo by Laura D'Alessandro published under a CC license.


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We sow direct as we have never found transplanting to be successful as the plants seem to suffer a setback and fail to produce strong plants.
Once the bed is prepared a trench is scooped out.
If the ground is really dry, as it has been for a good part of this year, the trench is watered really well.
A very generous amount of seeds are sprinkled in the trench, hence the large bag of seed. We sow far more than is advised to compensate for any poor germination or foraging wildlife.
The soil removed from the trench is mixed with some compost from last years grow bags.
The peas are then covered with this mixture.
This is watered again to settle everything in.
Pea sicks are spread over the trench to deter animals from walking over the soil or birds dust bathing etc. This will double as supports once the peas are growing away.
Then it is important to keep the peas well watered, especially in seasons as dry as this one has been. We regularly give each row at least a can of water and often two cans especially once the pods are setting.
The first sowing of peas are usually slower growing and so are often checked by pea weevils that leave the telltale notched bite marks in the leaves.
If the peas grow particularly slowly this can be rather devastating but if the peas are growing strongly they will battle through. This is one reason that we grow Onward as we have found some of the more celebrated varieties don't grow strongly enough.
Another pest is the pea moth which lays its eggs on peas that are in flower. The tiny caterpillars then feed off the pea seeds. When fully developed they emerge from the pods and pupate in the soil. To help control them it is important to rotate your pea crop. You can also cover peas with mesh but to be honest it could get to the stage where the whole plot is covered with mesh to protect from one pest or another. We are just careful when podding the peas.
If you would like to watch our action packed pea sowing video I have posted it below. It's about 12 minutes long.


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BSCL2 gene
BSCL2, seipin lipid droplet biogenesis associated
The BSCL2 gene provides instructions for making a protein called seipin, whose function is unknown. Within cells, seipin is located in the membrane of a structure called the endoplasmic reticulum. The endoplasmic reticulum modifies newly produced proteins and also helps transport proteins, fats, and other molecules to specific sites either inside or outside the cell.
The BSCL2 gene is active in cells and tissues throughout the body, particularly in nerve cells that control muscle movement (motor neurons) and in the brain. The gene is also active in fat-storing cells called adipocytes, which are the major component of fatty (adipose) tissue. Studies suggest that seipin plays a critical role in the development and function of adipocytes. In particular, seipin is involved in the development of lipid droplets, which are structures within these cells that store fat molecules.
Genetics Home Reference provides information about Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.
At least 25 mutations in the BSCL2 gene have been identified in people with congenital generalized lipodystrophy (also called Berardinelli-Seip congenital lipodystrophy) type 2. This rare condition is characterized by an almost total absence of adipose tissue and a very muscular appearance. A shortage of adipose tissue leads to multiple health problems, including high levels of fats called triglycerides circulating in the bloodstream (hypertriglyceridemia) and diabetes mellitus. In some cases, this form of the condition is also associated with intellectual disability, which is usually mild to moderate.
Most of the BSCL2 gene mutations that cause congenital generalized lipodystrophy type 2 lead to the production of a nonfunctional version of the seipin protein or prevent cells from making any of this protein. A loss of functional seipin disrupts the normal development and function of adipocytes, including lipid droplets, which prevents fats from being stored normally in adipose tissue. The resulting lack of body fat underlies most of the signs and symptoms of congenital generalized lipodystrophy type 2. A loss of seipin function in the brain may help explain why intellectual disability can occur with this form of the condition.
At least two BSCL2 gene mutations have been identified in people with distal hereditary motor neuropathy, type V, a progressive disorder that affects motor neurons in the spinal cord. It results in muscle weakness and affects movement of the hands and feet. The mutations that can cause this disorder each change a single protein building block (amino acid) in the seipin protein. In one mutation, the amino acid serine is replaced with the amino leucine at position 90 (written as Ser90Leu or S90L). In another, the amino acid asparagine is replaced with the amino acid serine at protein position 88 (written as Asn88Ser or N88S).
It is unclear how BSCL2 gene mutations cause distal hereditary motor neuropathy, type V. These genetic changes probably alter the structure of seipin, causing it to fold into an incorrect 3-dimensional shape. Research findings indicate that misfolded seipin proteins build up in the endoplasmic reticulum. This accumulation likely damages and kills motor neurons, which leads to muscle weakness.
At least two mutations in the BSCL2 gene, the N88S and S90L mutations described above, have been reported to cause Silver syndrome. This condition is characterized by muscle weakness and wasting in the hands and abnormal muscle stiffness (spasticity) in the legs. The mutations likely result in misfolded seipin proteins that accumulate within neurons, leading to cell damage and cell death. The loss of neurons causes muscle weakness and spasticity in people with Silver syndrome.
It is unclear how the same mutations in the BSCL2 gene can cause Silver syndrome; distal hereditary motor neuropathy, type V; or another disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome in different people. People with Silver syndrome sometimes have family members with the same BSCL2 gene mutation who have one of these other conditions.
Cytogenetic Location: 11q12.3, which is the long (q) arm of chromosome 11 at position 12.3
Molecular Location: base pairs 62,690,262 to 62,709,619 on chromosome 11 (Homo sapiens Updated Annotation Release 109.20200522, GRCh38.p13) (NCBI)
- Berardinelli-Seip congenital lipodystrophy 2 (seipin)
- seipin
- Auer-Grumbach M, Schlotter-Weigel B, Lochmüller H, Strobl-Wildemann G, Auer-Grumbach P, Fischer R, Offenbacher H, Zwick EB, Robl T, Hartl G, Hartung HP, Wagner K, Windpassinger C; Austrian Peripheral Neuropathy Study Group. Phenotypes of the N88S Berardinelli-Seip congenital lipodystrophy 2 mutation. Ann Neurol. 2005 Mar;57(3):415-24.
- Bienfait HM, Baas F, Koelman JH, de Haan RJ, van Engelen BG, Gabreëls-Festen AA, Ongerboer de Visser BW, Meggouh F, Weterman MA, De Jonghe P, Timmerman V, de Visser M. Phenotype of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease Type 2. Neurology. 2007 May 15;68(20):1658-67.
- Bird TD. Charcot-Marie-Tooth Hereditary Neuropathy Overview. 1998 Sep 28 [updated 2016 Sep 1]. In: Pagon RA, Adam MP, Ardinger HH, Wallace SE, Amemiya A, Bean LJH, Bird TD, Ledbetter N, Mefford HC, Smith RJH, Stephens K, editors. GeneReviews® [Internet]. Seattle (WA): University of Washington, Seattle; 1993-2017. Available from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1358/
- Cartwright BR, Binns DD, Hilton CL, Han S, Gao Q, Goodman JM. Seipin performs dissectible functions in promoting lipid droplet biogenesis and regulating droplet morphology. Mol Biol Cell. 2015 Feb 15;26(4):726-39. doi: 10.1091/mbc.E14-08-1303. Epub 2014 Dec 24.
- Cartwright BR, Goodman JM. Seipin: from human disease to molecular mechanism. J Lipid Res. 2012 Jun;53(6):1042-55. doi: 10.1194/jlr.R023754. Epub 2012 Apr 2. Review.
- Ito D, Suzuki N. Seipinopathy: a novel endoplasmic reticulum stress-associated disease. Brain. 2009 Jan;132(Pt 1):8-15. doi: 10.1093/brain/awn216. Epub 2008 Sep 12. Review.
- Ito D. BSCL2-Related Neurologic Disorders/Seipinopathy. 2005 Dec 6 [updated 2012 Jun 7]. In: Pagon RA, Adam MP, Ardinger HH, Wallace SE, Amemiya A, Bean LJH, Bird TD, Ledbetter N, Mefford HC, Smith RJH, Stephens K, editors. GeneReviews® [Internet]. Seattle (WA): University of Washington, Seattle; 1993-2017. Available from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1307/
- Magré J, Delépine M, Khallouf E, Gedde-Dahl T Jr, Van Maldergem L, Sobel E, Papp J, Meier M, Mégarbané A, Bachy A, Verloes A, d'Abronzo FH, Seemanova E, Assan R, Baudic N, Bourut C, Czernichow P, Huet F, Grigorescu F, de Kerdanet M, Lacombe D, Labrune P, Lanza M, Loret H, Matsuda F, Navarro J, Nivelon-Chevalier A, Polak M, Robert JJ, Tric P, Tubiana-Rufi N, Vigouroux C, Weissenbach J, Savasta S, Maassen JA, Trygstad O, Bogalho P, Freitas P, Medina JL, Bonnicci F, Joffe BI, Loyson G, Panz VR, Raal FJ, O'Rahilly S, Stephenson T, Kahn CR, Lathrop M, Capeau J; BSCL Working Group. Identification of the gene altered in Berardinelli-Seip congenital lipodystrophy on chromosome 11q13. Nat Genet. 2001 Aug;28(4):365-70.
- Rohkamm B, Reilly MM, Lochmüller H, Schlotter-Weigel B, Barisic N, Schöls L, Nicholson G, Pareyson D, Laurà M, Janecke AR, Miltenberger-Miltenyi G, John E, Fischer C, Grill F, Wakeling W, Davis M, Pieber TR, Auer-Grumbach M. Further evidence for genetic heterogeneity of distal HMN type V, CMT2 with predominant hand involvement and Silver syndrome. J Neurol Sci. 2007 Dec 15;263(1-2):100-6. Epub 2007 Jul 30.
- Wee K, Yang W, Sugii S, Han W. Towards a mechanistic understanding of lipodystrophy and seipin functions. Biosci Rep. 2014 Oct 2;34(5). pii: e00141. doi: 10.1042/BSR20140114. Review.
- Windpassinger C, Auer-Grumbach M, Irobi J, Patel H, Petek E, Hörl G, Malli R, Reed JA, Dierick I, Verpoorten N, Warner TT, Proukakis C, Van den Bergh P, Verellen C, Van Maldergem L, Merlini L, De Jonghe P, Timmerman V, Crosby AH, Wagner K. Heterozygous missense mutations in BSCL2 are associated with distal hereditary motor neuropathy and Silver syndrome. Nat Genet. 2004 Mar;36(3):271-6. Epub 2004 Feb 22.


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Tonic WATER LILIES Nuvo Jewel Drops 3 Pack 2002n2002n
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This amazing range of Jewel drops consists of colors that are different to Tonic's other drops because they allow you to create a translucent drop. This gives you a glass like effect and can be paired with different card stock to give different effects. The colors in the range have more of a pastel appearance and are softer colors in comparison to Tonic's other drops. They also dry harder than other Nuvo drops allowing you to make small beads to add to a number of projects outside of paper crafts. 30ml in each bottle.
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• How location specific filters are spreading a travel-centred culture •
"Travel is the only thing you buy that can make you richer," goes the age-old adage. And it's true: travel introduces you to new cultures and customs that enrich your lives in a way that a new dress or phone never can. While travel has long been a popular activity, with budget airlines and travel deals popping up, it's never been so affordable to partake. More importantly, with cameras on our smartphones, we are able to share our experiences in real time. Traveling has become the new consumable, something we collect and show off. No longer is it enough to have the most expensive designer bag on your arm or the newest smartphone in your hand, now it's all about that holiday you took last week and the ways in which you share your experiences.
While initially an activity for only the wealthiest, over the years, travel has become more and more affordable. Since the 1990s, budget airlines have become increasingly popular as a way to cheaply jet-off to a new destination, while start-ups like Airbnb provide affordable alternatives to hotels. As the internet connects the world, planning foreign holidays becomes easier and more accessible, and so tourism continues to rise. According to the UN World Tourism Organization, international tourism has increased by more than 4% in 2015. This means that in the first half of 2015 alone there were 21 million more international tourists than in 2014.
More and more people are choosing to spend their time and money on travel. Because of this rise, it's become more important to millennials to have their friends see them traveling. The places you visit and things you see become social currency, a representation of your status. Just like that designer bag, sharing that picture of the beach or the local street market proves you have the time and means to get away and explore new cultures.
With different ways to tag your location and share your experiences in real time, social media is the biggest proponent of this idea of travel as a consumable. As you wait to board a plane, Facebook allows you to tell your friends where you're headed. Instagram and Facebook both have little maps to show your friends and followers your exact location. These posts allow us to share that we have gotten away from the monotony of daily life. And while it may be fun to post a status, it's much more satisfying to show rather than tell. Instagram now rivals Facebook as the most popular form of social media, and Snapchat, that fleeting way to send pictures to your friends, comes in third, proving that pictures really are worth a thousand words.
While you're able to upload and tag a location on both Instagram and Facebook, Snapchat has taken it a step further with their geofilters. Introduced in mid-2014, the geofilter allows Snapchat users to add a fun design denoting where they are in the world. Originally rolled out in New York City and LA, the geofilter has spread to different spaces around the world. Moreover, Snapchat's website allows users to submit their own idea for a filter, providing the potential for a tag for every town, neighbourhood, or destination across the world.
Snapchat geofilters provide the perfect outlet for sharing your travels. Filters can be super specific: a cartoon squirrel and sign declare Hyde Park, Oxford Street has a yellow flag flying over your picture, a graphic of red buses and the Eros fountain frame your image at Piccadilly Circus, and an illustrated Tower Bridge can mirror the real thing. Big cities have filters for each specific neighbourhood. In New York, there's a filter for Manhattan, Midtown, Queens, Brooklyn, Union Square, the list goes on. Even tourist attractions such as the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona come with their own filter. The creative aspect of each filter makes it fun to discover how the space's character is captured in an illustration. And so it becomes fun and addictive to "collect" these spatial stamps, just as we enjoy collecting stamps in our passports; even more so, though, because we get to share them with our friends.
What makes these filters so appealing when traveling is that they can only be accessed from that specific location. Unlike on Facebook and Instagram, there is no option to search for and add a location you may not actually be. You must be in the exact right spot in order to access a certain geofilter, and this adds a desirability and uniqueness to sharing that particular moment.
Filters also add context to your image. Joseph Bayer, a researcher at University of Michigan who focuses on social media and its role within social cognition and well-being, explains, "Without a geofilter, a shot of an airport runway or city skyline does not provide enough information about one's current place in the world." Geofilters ensure there is no mistake as to where you are.
While budget airlines and affordable Airbnbs make weekend trips and holidays more accessible to everyone, there is still a level of status attached with being able to get away. Experiencing a new city or country is exciting, and on some level we want our loved ones to know where we've been. But there is the possibility this will elicit jealousy from our friends and family. Snapchat's ephemeral nature makes it a safer choice to share with those we're closest with. "Sharing travel can lead to feelings of jealousy among others (especially for non-close relationships), and sharing travel events may make one worry about others' reactions," says Mr. Bayer. "However, if the shared content is temporary and/or directed at close ties, the stakes are lower."
The beauty of the geofilter, though, is that it allows anyone to partake in a little "travel." Because of the specific nature of each geofilter, and the fact that anyone can submit one, a weekend trip to the next town over can result in sharing of new filter. While passport stamps require crossing a border, a new geofilter can be accessed by venturing out of your normal bubble. So instead of spending money on a new pair of expensive shoes, we're seeking adventures and weekend trips where we can experience something cultural, and share that experience through the context of a filter. So while it may not be as cool to send a snap with a filter of the neighbourhood down the street, the geofilters allow for anyone to consume a travel-centric lifestyle.
Just as it was once enough to collect designer handbags, now we seek to collect experiences. Where passport stamps are a personal way to catalogue your travels between countries, Snapchat geofilters are a public way to catalogue those travels from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, city to city, country to country. Your ability to collect varied and diverse geofilters represents your traveling life (or lack thereof). And so the obsession with site-specific sharing begs the question, does it really matter if you were there if there wasn't a geofilter to send?


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Flyer for your new year's eve party!!!
Everything is made using shape layers, You can resize the design to whatever size you want without compromising quality (except background image).
- High resolution 300 dpi cmyk Ready to print (include bleed).
- Editable layered Photoshop PSD file with editable text.
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Hi! Welcome to my blogging page Metz's diseños where thoughts were put into words and packaged together with imagination and creativity.
My name is Metz Miranda. I am a FREELANCE DESIGNER, BLOGGER, I do DATA ENTRY jobs at Unemployed Pinoys an In-House Contributor ofKINGGED.COM and bragging I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
I am open-hearted, passionate, and loves anything about Artistry like drawing, painting, dancing, sketching, writing and still loves every minute and second of it.
You may support me by following me on Facebook and Twitter.


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When I go to meet Lemony Snicket, bestselling children's author and alter ego of novelist Daniel Handler, outside his hotel in midtown Manhattan, it is a dreary day in October and there seem to be an unusual number of men milling about the rain wearing dress coats and fedoras. This seems entirely in keeping with the tone of his new series, All the Wrong Questions, the first since his Series of Unfortunate Events concluded in 2006, at unlucky book number thirteen.
While the first series, about the trials of the three Baudelaire orphans, riffed on gothic literature, the inspiration for the new series is clear from the first line: "There was a town, and there was a girl, and there was a theft." Yes, this time Snicket intends to introduce children to the hardboiled noir fiction of Chandler, Hammett, and Ellroy.
But those are hardly his only references. Much as his earlier childrens' novels were dense with literary allusions, vocabulary words, and sophisticated recipes, the first novel of the new series, Who Could That Be at This Hour? includes references to novels by Vladimir Nabokov, George Orwell, Roald Dahl, Louise Fitzhugh, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. This time, however, the references are even more oblique than before (The Dahl allusion, for example, comes when Snicket suggests that his cabdriver check out a book about "a champion of the world," to which the cabdriver replies, "By that author with all the chocolate?")
The Snicket who narrated A Series of Unfortunate Events was a morose older gentleman, perpetually mooning after his lost love, Beatrice. The Snicket of the new series is a wisecracking, fresh-faced youth, on the cusp of thirteen.
Both Handler and Snicket have had collaborated with some of the coolest graphic artists and musicians around: Brett Helquist illustrated the first series; Maira Kalman illustrated both a Lemony Snicket title and Why We Broke Up, Handler's book for young adults; Handler's wife, children's author and illustrator Lisa Brown, illustrated several other titles; the new series is illustrated by graphic novelist Seth, best known for Palookaville. Handler has also been a collaborator, occasional touring member and accordion player for the Magnetic Fields since the 1990s; lead songwriter Stephin Merritt has written many songs for Snicket novels, including the new series.
Daniel Handler greets me in the lobby, bearing two green apples. "My son is reading that book," he says. That book is a pocket-sized version of Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems. Otto, son of Daniel Handler and Lisa Brown, is eight years old.
We stay inside, looking out at the rain, and discuss pen names, old records, imaginary films, Agatha Christie, precocious children, the Occupy movement and, of course, Frank O'Hara. —Amy Benfer
The Barnes & Noble Review: In this new novel — as in your first series — you play with the idea of pen names right off — one of the characters is named S. Theodora Markson, which clearly is a name a person would only use as an author. How do you feel about Lemony Snicket, your own literary persona, nearly fifteen years on?
Daniel Handler: I keep going back to the beginning: When the first two Snicket volumes were published, HarperCollins sent me to see a bunch of other children's authors do their presentations. They were mostly terrible. They had this notion of, "Let's deconstruct, let's demystify what literature is." "I'm going to show a slide of the desk where I work and different drafts," and stuff like that. 826 [the writing centers started by McSweeney's] does that, and I think that's an excellent way to teach kids who are actually engaged with writing how to write. But if you are just a reader, and you're young, I didn't see the point in demystifying it. I wanted to mystify it. So I saw those presentations and I thought, Oh I'm going to not say, "OK, it's me. I'm Lemony Snicket." Is that more interesting? I don't know. I hope it is, because now I am stuck with it.
BNR: The first pen names, especially in children's literature, weren't single authors at all, but multiple authors, all writing for a literary syndicate. There wasn't a real Carolyn Keene; there were many. But many children who grew up in reading those books had no idea. I told my mother this when she was in her fifties. She had never known. She said it was like learning there was no Santa Claus.
DH: At the height of Snicket madness, with the film and all, you could definitely see that was the assumption some companies began to work towards. They would say, "We're going to launch fifty books, to all different audiences." And I'd say, "I don't have the time or the interest to write fifty books." And they'd say, "We'll take care of that part for you." And I would say, "No, no. That's the only thing!" There are plenty of authors who are writing series who can't wait to get to the part where they get to sit at a desk with their feet up and not write anymore. I'm not interested in that. I want to put my feet down on the ground.
It's great to see children's literature out of the ghetto that it once was in. But I think there's still an assumption that it's not literature, that it can be moved around in such a way that I don't think, say, Denis Johnson gets asked to do.
BNR: Right, that it can be manipulated, that children's literature can be treated like genre or commercial fiction.
DH: I believe that children's literature is a genre. I resisted the idea that children's literature is just anything that children are reading. And I certainly resisted the idea that certain books should get promoted out of children's literature just because adults are reading them. That idea is enraging too. That's what happens to any genre, right? First you say, "Margaret Atwood isn't really a science fiction writer." Then you say, "There really aren't any good science fiction writers." That's because you promoted them all!
BNR: What appeals to you about doing original series fiction, with repeating characters?
DH: P. G. Wodehouse has always been a model for me. He's not a children's writer, but — this is going to sound self-lacerating — I take comfort in P. G. Wodehouse. One of the reasons I take comfort is in the sum of the parts working together. You think of P. G. Wodehouse as a massive work, and you take pleasure reading it. You might have a favorite P. G. Wodehouse, but there's not one P. G. Wodehouse novel everyone should read. You read one, and if you like it, you should read twenty.
BNR: This book is the first of the new series. But in between the last book of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and the first book of this series, you've had a couple of stand-alone Lemony Snicket books, and a YA book, Why We Broke Up, as Daniel Handler. How do you choose which books are Handler books and which ones are Snicket?
DH: It's hard for me to pin down what a young adult novel is. I have a much easier time pinning down what a children's book is. In terms of whether it's Handler or Snicket: Snicket has his own voice, and he's narrating events that are somehow important to him. He might stop and tell a story, like Thirteen Words. But he's not going to pretend to be a teenage girl. That would be a complicated layering.
BNR: Your very first novel, The Basic Eight, also had teenage protagonists, and that's part of the reason your editor thought you might be good at writing for children. But that was still very much considered a novel for adults — with all the sex and murder and mayhem and all.
DH: One of the reasons I ended up writing for children is because it took a long time to get The Basic Eight published. And kind of in desperation, my agent said, "Why don't we give this to some people who are publishing YA?" It was a different time. It was 1997, I think. Everyone said, "There is no way we can publish this for young people. It has sex! It has drugs! It has drinking! It has violence!"
Now, it would be hard to get a YA novel published that didn't have one of those things. If you said to someone, "I've written a YA novel, but it has no drinking, drugs, sex or violence in it," they would say, "It had better have vampires in it. I'm telling you now!"
There's been talk — I don't know if it will happen — but there has been talk of re-packaging The Basic Eight as a YA novel, which just tickles me. Years later, it would be repackaged for the exact same reasons it was rejected. So that doesn't help me figure out YA literature.
BNR: The new novels are a portrait of the artist as a young Snicket. Did you have any idea of what Snicket was like as a child when you were writing Unfortunate Events?
DH: When I was writing the later ones, I thought if I ever did another series, it would concern itself with noir fiction, the way that the earlier series concerns itself with gothic fiction. And then it seemed to me that if he was going to go back and write real things that were important to him, it would be about his own childhood. I couldn't imagine him saying, "Now, I've completed thirteen volumes about these children who concern me very much, but there's this other thing happening." That seems exhausting. But the idea that he would say, "Here are some things I wrote down when I was young," that was interesting to me.
The other idea that interested me was that this lonely, Byronic figure was, in his childhood, Philip Marlowe. That he would be a brash detective with a mouth on him, who was observant, but mystified, and willing to get into a scrape that maybe he didn't have to get into. Those are all things that felt like childhood to me. Being told to lay off the case when there's something that really interests you. I liked the idea that you're born Philip Marlowe and you end up Heathcliff.
BNR: We also discover that, in his youth, Snicket, like Sunny, is an eater and cooker.
DH: There is a lot of food in both series. I'm an eater and a cooker. I think it's something you can actually do when you are young that is empowering and makes you feel sophisticated. When I was in high school, I had a lot of dinner parties. It made me feel like a grown-up, that I could buy fish and prepare it and make pasta sauce. It's that world I always wanted access to when I was young, and it's the allure of that world that happens in the Snicket books, too.
BNR: I kept a running tally of all your allusions in this book. With most of them, you would have to know the original to get it. Do you think the kids will go running off to solve the riddle right away, or are you anticipating them having a jolt somewhere in the future when they finally run into it somewhere else and figure it out?
DH: When A Series of Unfortunate Events was just starting up, the world was such that I thought, these kids are going to read about the Baudelaire orphans and then, ten years later, they're going to be in a college poetry class and they're going to say, Oh, my goodness.
Now with interactivity, and the world becoming a search engine, you actually can find that out instantly. So then I thought it's more interesting to have Snicket get in a conversation about a book, but there's nothing you can Google. I'm sure there will still be forums, or chat rooms where one person has figured it out. But you have to figure it out in some other way.
BNR: That's interesting: the idea that greater technological transparency pushes you towards greater literary obscurity.
DH: I recently had this really incredible experience. I'm writing a column for the Believer in which I read one book by each Nobel Prize winners in literature. I read this French novel by someone who had won the prize some years back. There was this sheet of notes tucked into my old used copy. Most of them were just page numbers. But then it had a few jotted down phrases, as if someone was planning an essay. One of them was a quote. I put that quote into Google, and I found this review of the novel in Time magazine from the 1950s, in which all those phrases are used. So probably I have the literary critic's copy of the book, with all the notes that were used to write the article.
I loved how all of the technology came together. That wouldn't have happened with an eBook, that you found someone's old notes. But then, you couldn't have found who it was without Google. I wouldn't have said, "These look like a critic's notes. Let's find every extant review of this novel." It was a goose-pimply moment.
BNR: Do you still write marginalia in your books? I used to mark up everything, but now find I mark up galleys, but I like to keep my hardcovers neat.
DH: I don't mark them up too much. I put a list of pages in the back. Then a little dot on the table of contents next to the ones I like. [He brings out a hardcover copy of Theodore Roethke poems, which has been marked up in such a way.] I read poetry when I'm on the road. I find it's the best thing to read on the road, because you can actually read two poems in a green room and be transformed someplace, whereas if you have a novel under your arm, you are thinking, What was happening again? Then you're out of time.
I always have three books on my bedstand. I have the book I'm reading, then I have a little book of poetry, then I have some big thick thing that I am going through slowly, which is often collected poetry.
BNR: So how did your son get into Frank O'Hara?
DH: We go to Dog-Eared Books a lot. We'll have a taco, and then we'll walk down to Dog-Eared Books. He has not been the quickest reader, but he saw a copy of Lunch Poems, and those were two words he could read right away. Then he saw it was poetry. He's seen me marking a dot in the table of contents next to poems I liked, and he was really into the idea that you could do that. So he said, "I want to get this copy of Lunch Poems and put a dot next to the poems I really like."
And I said, "Of course, we're going to buy you a copy of Lunch Poems." Why wouldn't we? He remains a sophisticated favorite of the staff at Dog-Eared books, largely because he walked right past the giant Harry Potter display to put a copy of Lunch Poems right on the counter.
BNR: That sounds like something right out of a Snicket novel. You started writing the Snicket novels many years before you had a child. Now he is Snicket reading age, right?
DH: He's scared of the books. He has not read them. He's timid about the subject matter and we've raised him, perhaps irresponsibly, on a very low media diet so he hasn't had a lot of scary stuff in his world. He's uncomfortable with that, because certainly his classmates are reading Snicket. He's certainly excited this year to have a dad who does what I do, but he's still scared of the shadowy villain on the cover.
BNR: We've talked about the Philip Marlowe references, but you also mention a "roadster," which seems to be a wink to the books put by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which included Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys novels.
DH: I wasn't a big Hardy Boys fan. I think the only time I read a Nancy Drew book was in a women's studies class at Wesleyan University. Isn't that pathetic? But I liked Agatha Christie. I hopscotched past the Hardy Boys and read a ton of Agatha Christie in fifth and sixth grade. I've reread a couple of them, and they're full of things I couldn't possibly understand in fifth and sixth grade. I really wish I could peek at my brain then and see what I was getting out of it.
BNR: I remember jumping to adult books really early, too, and I'm not at all sure I understood everything. Although I did learn a lot about sex and drugs and drinking and all the rest from adult fiction.
DH: I do wonder about that with young adult fiction. I read John O'Hara at a fairly young age. My parents had a copy of Sermons and Soda Water. I thought, "That's a cool title. I'll try that." In John O'Hara, a drink goes without saying. Everyone is having whiskey. It's not a sign of anything. Now, in young adult literature, there's not a lot of drinking in young adult literature that's harmless. It's a character study, it's how you know someone is a villain or reckless or in trouble. In John O'Hara, it's like a necktie. Everyone has a drink. I wonder if it makes alcohol more tempting — to have all these novels where it is the ultimate sin. When I read John O'Hara, I thought, well, my dad drinks bourbon. It smells gross to me, but I didn't think, "Oh, it's a sign of social disintegration."
I read my first noir in early high school. A man has a party and a woman comes and says, "I really need to talk to you." And then they leave and they go to the roof of the building and they have a drink. I thought that was the most glamorous thing in the world. I waited for that to happen to me throughout high school. To go to a party, and to be led away, then handed a drink by a woman on a roof, fraught with trouble.
BNR: I guess one could say that in that way, presenting salacious content — sex, drugs and drink — and associating them with the "bad" kids is actually a form of moralizing.
DH: That has a deep history. Victorian pornography novels would always have these introductions that say, "This is a case study in what you should never do." And you turn the page and it's, "I met three sailors and I took them up to my room."
BNR: In Why We Broke Up, all your didactic moments were for films. But they were all films that didn't exist. Some of those films sounded wonderful. I imagine many readers were disappointed they were ones they could never see.
DH: That's a good example of how the Web works. A reader said, "The first thing I did was go to buy a Hawke Davies record on iTunes. And then I was really frustrated to learn that he didn't exist."
That might be a decade long search of record stores back in the day.
I sound like Andy Rooney when I talk about this, but when I think about how accessible pop music is now…I just did it. I watched an episode of Girls on the plane and I heard a song I really liked. When I got to the hotel, I Googled "Girls, episode, music list," I found the song, I downloaded the song, it's on my iPod. It used to be you would hear a song in a restaurant and you would think, What is that beautiful song? And then you would hear it five years later and pray that the DJ would outro it. You'd buy the wrong record sometimes. You'd say, "Oh, I like this song by New Order. New Order has a new record out." You'd buy the album, you'd take it home, and the song wouldn't be on there. Now I see kids wave the phone in the air, and they buy it right there on their phone.
BNR: But on the plus side, you might find something else you like on the album. I'm a record collector, and sometimes DJ, and I have made it a point sometimes to intentionally buy records I don't know. I'll look at the cover art, the track listing.
DH: That's more the experience of literature. You can read a paragraph online, or a few pages in the bookstore, but it's going to take you seventy-five pages or so to see if you really love a book. You have to take it home. There's nothing else that can convince you.
BNR: Last year, when you wrote a statement for Occupy, the statement was from Snicket, not from Handler. Was there an intention behind that?
DH: It was a way that I could talk about that kind of archly, so that someone might read it. I had an encounter with a successful, entitled jerk and I thought I want to say something about this. If you work hard, and you're wealthy, it doesn't mean you're wealthy because you work hard. I thought if it came from me, it would sound sneering, but if it came from Snicket, it just seemed charming. Tweetable, as they say.
BNR: And it's a way to help children understand the movement too, perhaps.
DH: Part of it was definitely having a child. We get The New York Times and the Chronicle every morning, and he likes to look at the front photograph and ask me about it. It's like a pop quiz every morning at six-thirty. And it was Occupy one day, and I tried to explain about how we gave the banks money, but now they are not giving other people money and he said, "That makes me so mad, I want to smash a window." He said that! And it was funny, because I could say, "Well, look over here on page A12, it made these people mad enough that they are actually smashing windows!"
I thought, I can't be the only one having this conversation, so maybe I can give somebody a sound bite, because I wish someone had given me one when I had to explain it.
BNR: Are you still working with Magnetic Fields?
DH: Yes. I haven't played with them on the East Coast for a while, but I still do often on the West Coast. It's the fulfillment of the rock star fantasy: I don't have to do any of the hard work, and sometimes I get to go into a studio and have fun, and sometimes I get to be onstage and feel like a rock star, and when they say, "Would you like to go with us to the Deep South in the middle of the summer to play shows?" I get to say no.
My son loves the Magnetic Fields. That's another example. His favorite song is "God Wants Us to Wait." That's deadpan, mocking look at a fundamentalist view on sexuality. Every part of that is unknown to my son. So I don't know what he gets out of it.
BNR: My friend and I used to play Magnetic Fields for our kids when they were around that age. It was the late nineties, so that was the 69 Love Songs era. They loved those songs.
DH: It's a big children's record. It's fascinating. I've worked with Stephin forever. He just wrote me a new song that I'm performing on this tour. Both of us have ended up with a large audience of children that we never in our lives thought we would have. His production on 69 Love Songs, because it changes genres so much, is great for a short attention span. He didn't plan that it meant you could listen to it in kindergarten, but it totally works out that way. You just have to run to the skip button before "How Fucking Romantic," comes on, that's what I've learned. I think it's track 14 on the first disc. I'm still a disc person. [Ed. Note: The song in question is, in fact, track 14.]
You Have to Take It Home: Daniel Handler on Lemony Snicket
When I go to meet Lemony Snicket, bestselling children's author and alter ego of novelist Daniel Handler, outside his hotel in midtown Manhattan, it is a dreary day in October and there seem to be an unusual number of men milling about the rain wearing dress coats and fedoras. This seems entirely in keeping with the tone of his new series, All the Wrong Questions, the first since his Series of Unfortunate Events concluded in 2006, at unlucky book number thirteen.


text:
Thread: Roll Call, 1/27
Alexsmom, I am impressed with the amount of flexibility you show in trying to find the right things that work for your kids. So many of us get bogged down in the "but I paid for this, we have to use it" mentality, rather than chucking the whole thing and trying something else. Also, hope the quinoa works. We find it an improvement over rice, but we're not your dh, so who knows? (Also envious of the open door--I'm freezing right now sitting next to a closed window!)
MapleHill, I hope they find some answers for your husband. It must be hard for everyone in the family. You seem made of some pretty strong stuff though. But if you ever need to vent, we're here!Carol
Homeschooled two kids for 11 years, now trying to pay it forward
Daughter -- a University of Iowa graduate: BA in English with Creative Writing, BA in Journalism, and a minor in Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies
Son -- a Purdue University graduate: BS in Computer Science, minor in math, geology, anthropology, and history
I learned about Konmarie here on SHS back in 2015 (I searched back posts). The idea of having clothes where I cant see them or underneath others seems alien to me now. Im still not the best housekeeper, and I cant summon up enough love to enjoy folding clothes, but now I am just embarrassed by dust and a layer of dog hair when guests come over, not clutter like I didnt know you had a room there.
As far as flexibility for schoolwork, Im sure a lot is because of the charter. A lot of curriculum is there in a library, so I can try whatever I think will spark joy. In the 8 years we have been there, theyve never told me I couldnt get something disposable (like workbooks), either. Their reading specialist recommended AAR (I loathe those tiles!), their SpEd person recommended the online one... and it just costs me time and frustration when they dont work for us. Everyone in America should have access to these damn charters, imo. The local school districts seem to HATE the principle of allowing this education model, perhaps that is a reason they arent elsewhere?
My non-murdered tomato bush is still going crazy with flowers. It seems the tomatoes stay green - maybe it needs long warmth to ripen? Its a horticultural mystery of life to me.
BB5EE350-B691-476A-A9E9-C9D4966F8E4A.jpegHomeschooling DS13, DS6.
My spelling was fine, then my brain left me.
The idea of seeing everything so it doesn't get flung or disheveled every time a kid wants to find their favorite shirt of the day was one of those face palm moments for me. Like "geesh, that is so simple and makes so much sense, how did I not think of that?". I've been pretty out of touch with the "outside world" for years now, hence the reason I hadn't heard of it until the show on Netflix. I hate folding clothes, always have and always will, but I hate Mount Clean Laundry even more so folding laundry just becomes the lesser of two evils. lol
I agree about the charters, Alexsmom. We had one very similar to how yours is set up when we lived in Okinawa. Basically, in exchange for the DoD schools to count my kids as students so they would get the funding for them, we got a share of the funding and all kinds of resources like the lending library and computers and internet service paid for and teachers and specialists we can consult with whenever we wanted. It was win-win for everyone, the schools got extra funding and we still got to homeschool with very little oversight and a generous amount of money to spend on curriculum. The program for military dependents living overseas in the Pacific was run by a charter program out of Alaska. The program was open to anyone, military or not, if you lived in Alaska but it was only open to military and military contractors stationed in the Pacific region outside of Alaska. We've actually considered moving to Alaska and access to the charter was on the list of pros lol!
Can't help you with your death fruit, I mean, tomato plants. I'm anaphylactically allergic to tomatoes, carry an epi-pen and everything. You have no idea how many things have tomato in them until you can't eat them lol! Oh and my two favorite cuisines before finding out I was allergic... Italian and Mexican... sigh.
Inmom, I don't know about how strong of stuff I'm made of, I just take things one day at a time and one therapy appointment a week. I know I don't share a lot here and what I have shared is just a tiny fraction of everything, but I do appreciate knowing I can vent here if I need to. ;-)
That tomato plant is insanely huge. Is it like a bush tomato variety; it does not seem to need much support/tying up. I don't know why they don't ripen. Maybe pick some off or remove some growth so it can put more energy into the fruit you have remaining?
MapleHill, hope you can find somewhere for your son to ride if you wish to go down that path. I know horses are technically a hugely dangerous animal to be around, but I have always found them to be super calming and riding is a mental health/meditative thing for me. There's a reason they use them for therapy. Having owned a pony as a child vs. once a week riding lessons and the odd trek as an adult, I have also found I don't need that full on horse owning experience to reach my horse zen. Sure I would be happy with more lessons per week, but one does it. It is hard finding somewhere to ride that keeps you safe (does not push you too far) and has learner friendly horses. I have found the best luck for a riding program for myself at the local therapy stables. They run an able-bodied program as a fundraiser to feed/keep their horses. Good luck for your DH too. I hope you find something that improves his quality of life.New Zealand-based freelance science copyeditor. Homeschooling DD 11 (year 7) and DD 6 (year 2).
Maple, here are some other horse pics for your DS. A station bred clydesdale cross paint and an appaloosa that I have ridden on other horse treks during the past year.
Last edited by NZ_Mama; 01-29-2019 at 03:14 PM.New Zealand-based freelance science copyeditor. Homeschooling DD 11 (year 7) and DD 6 (year 2).
- Join Date
- Nov 2014
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Hi All!
I've been out of the loop for a while. Have decided to jump back into HS after taking a year to try PS again, while we got our small cafe up and running. DS started Kindergarten there and DD went to 4th. However, between deciding to spend part of the year in the states and lengthy strikes here in CR I'm jumping back in.
We haven't started school yet...sounds like we might be on the same school schedule NZ. I'm a little nervous but extremely excited to start up again. This will be DS's first experience with hs and DD is not super excited to not be with her friends but, here's to hoping for the best! I plan on going back to BYL and haven't decided on math yet but I'm really liking Dimensions Math from Singapore. We don't have a lot of resources here but I do have a friend that runs a private school where I'm thinking about sending both kids to on Fridays for extra classes. I'm hoping this might ease DD's transition back into hs.
AM, I am so happy to have found you in this thread. You helped me out so much when I was starting out. I so appreciated that! Oh, and it's 85 but the feels like temp is 'surface of the sun' degrees.
Loving this Roll Call! Thanks so much!
Last edited by fairymegs; 01-29-2019 at 03:23 PM.
Did someone say Marie Kondo?!
I binged watch the series over our winter break and proceeded to tear apart half of the house. This is my daughter's sheet drawer. Now she can see everything and find what she's looking for. It works much better than the mess it was before. But all my other closets look much nicer as well.
@AM - If you are looking to get away from simple carbs - have you tried Banza pasta? It is made from chickpeas, and pretty tasty. Not as delicious as white wheat pasta - but a good compromise. We never used the tiles with AAR - they made me crazy, and DS hated them. Also, I'm so envious of your lemon tree. My aunt and uncle lived in SD when I was a kid, and I always remember the field of citrus trees they had. They smell amazing in bloom!
@Carol and anyone else in the Arctic air path - hope you are staying warm!
@ NZ - beautiful horses <3.
@MapleHill - have they said how many more spinal taps before they consider a shunt? Your poor hubby. Hang in there.
Last edited by RTB; 01-29-2019 at 04:38 PM. Reason: thoughtsRebecca
Year 9
So far so good on staying warm. Have shoveled snow every day including this morning (wind chill -13 F), but I'm done now until Friday. I have no tutoring kids coming over until then, so the darn driveway can just drift shut. I managed to get out this morning to the YMCA to take care of my cabin fever (a run and a swim) and stopped for groceries and bird seed.
Tomorrow is supposed to be the worst day of the week. We are supposed to be colder than Antarctica. Our hourly temp for tomorrow is below. The second # is wind chill. Thankfully, classes for DD in Iowa City and for DS at Purdue (W Lafayette, IN) have been cancelled. One can get frostbite in minutes.
On a positive note, the temp will be in the 30s on the weekend in in the 40s on Monday. It will be a relative 80 degree temp difference when you factor in wind chill. It will be T-shirt weather!!
Homeschooled two kids for 11 years, now trying to pay it forward
Daughter -- a University of Iowa graduate: BA in English with Creative Writing, BA in Journalism, and a minor in Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies
Son -- a Purdue University graduate: BS in Computer Science, minor in math, geology, anthropology, and history
NZ_Mama - You just made ds's day! His current favorite horse is an appaloosa. We definitely want to get him into riding if that's what he wants. Problem is, there are lots of trail riding clubs around here, for tourists and whatnot that want a scenic ride up the mountain or through the country, but no riding stables that specialize in teaching people how to ride, much less children, that aren't at least a 90 minute drive away. As dh's grandma puts it, most people around here learned to ride in their mama's laps and never had riding lessons. I've never had an interest in riding or horses but my sister (who lives far away and I have no contact with) has been riding English style and going to competitions since she was a teenager. I used to drop her off at her lessons before she had a license and she kept her horse at my dad's house when I was living with him while my (now-ex) husband was in boot camp joining the military. I know just enough about horses to not know much about it all lol! I've been researching a lot though since it seems to be ds's passion and dh's grandma is trying to find someone willing to teach him in the area. We live on a portion of Grandma's 7 acres of land (which is in a trust that will be passed to dh when grandma passes) and hope one day to get ds a horse if he stays interested. Ds asked Grandma this past weekend if he could turn her detached garage into a barn for his horses. She asked him how many he was planning on getting and his answer was "At least 10." lol
RTB- Love your drawer picture lol! We don't know how many more spinal taps they will do sadly. One of the prescribed treatments for IH is therapeutic spinal taps where they do them every time the pressure comes back up but that's more for people who get several months or even years of relief from the spinal tap. The fact that they couldn't even remove enough spinal fluid to bring the pressure down to normal range (they can only remove up to a certain amount of spinal fluid at once without causing more issues) and that the pressure went back up so quickly, we are hoping they will just want to do one more to see how much the pressure rose since the last one and then start scheduling the necessary appointments to get the shunt placed. But we will find out something in about 3 weeks when we go back to the university hospital.
- Join Date
- Nov 2014
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- 21
@inmom, hope you're hunkered down Where in IN do you live? I went to JR high and HS in Carmel. My dad's in Illinois and a lot of my friends are in the Indy area so I've been keeping up with the weather via Facebook posts. Looks like it should warming up again this weekend. Hopefully, it doesn't stay for too long.Mama of two, DS (6) and DD (11). 4 dogs, 3 guinea pigs, and 2 cats. My cup and plate overfloweth but life ain't boring, that's for sure! Pura Vida!


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By Sean Reifschneider Date 2008-08-11 01:57 Tags sean reifschneider, technical, vim
When I'm coding, and sometimes when I'm writing, I like to see a lot of code. Usually I just maximize my window vertically, which gives me around 51 lines, and to the side of it I have a couple of windows I can use for a Python shell, regular shell, or another editing session. Sometimes I just want to see more code… Read on for a nifty trick I found in vim.
I had an idea that I might like to run with a vim window in full screen mode, split into two long windows side by side. I did a quick help search in vim and found the "scrollbind" option, which causes multiple windows to scroll together. This is how the "vimdiff" scrolling works.
So, you can have two windows side-by-side with one page continuing onto the next, like with a book.
To try it out, open up vim on /etc/services (for example), preferably with your window as big as you can make it, then do the following:
Now, you can scroll in the window to on the left (or the right window even), and the other window moves with it.
If I reduce the size of my window font a little bit, I can even get 3 side-by-side and do my editing in the middle window, with additional page before and after on either side. With this smaller font, I get 75 lines in each window, 3 across. That's a lot of context.
Not sure if I'll find it useful, but it's worth trying.comments powered by Disqus


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