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Stephenville UFO sighting 2008: looking back + latest updates (part 1 of 4)
Posted by dandare on April 16, 2008
I thought it would be an idea, to post all the information, on the stephenville sighting ( 2008 ), in four large parts… so you can look through them much quicker, all in four parts (otherwise 24 links= a bit bland possibly?)…. i had planned on just adding the links, but thought that i would repost them in full again, for much easier reference ( i hope!).
As i have not properly reported about what has gone on since my last post on the sighting/sightings, i thought it would be good to catch up in my last part ( part 4 ). As links to external sources are not recent, i am afraid that they may not be available now…. please bear this in mind, as they are now relatively old.
These posts ( as they are relatively large ), will probably take time to load….please be patient. thank you. I have noticed that all Stephenville empire tribune posts: you have to login, and also pay to see the posts… ( i do have the posts archived on computer though for future reference ).
So i started on january 17th…
Posted by dandare on January 17, 2008
After i was alerted by Steve at ufospider.com (thanks for that, as i missed this…. his link to this can be found here , with different videos), i've managed to find quite a few articles and videos to this event; it seems to be gathering momentum.
The basic facts, that i have so far found are:
Where: Stephenville, Texas
When : January 8th, 2008
Spotted by : Quite a few witnesses ( i think initially by 30-40, but might be more now, as more have come forward? ) prominent among them – pilot/business owners/county constable.
What: UFO (thats Unidentified Flying Object) – bright lights ( some suggest like strobe lights) – low flying + fast (however, various other descriptions are given too); also some say it was chased by jets.
Officials respond by saying it was possibly a plane ( due to light conditions, made it seem more extra ordinary ); some witnesses suggest a military aircraft ( unknown to the public,possibly ). Also, it seems it has caught the attentions of the Mutual UFO Network, which plans to go there and find out more..
Below are some ( not all, by any means ) of the articles/posts/videos available… none ( of the videos ) that we know of, have the ufo in question, just their opinions on what they saw.
Stephenville Empire Tribune "Possible UFO sighting" ( posted january 10th,2008 )
cbc.ba mantions that "Multiple reports of ufo-like sightings in Texan town" ( 14th january,2008 ).
nationalledger.com "Video, Texas UFO sighting: What was spotted over Stephenville?" ( posted january 15th,2008 )…. with video link near bottom of article (or see http://video.nbc5i.com/player/?id=205072 ).
SFgate.com reports that "Dozens in Texas Town report seeing UFO" ( posted january 14th,2008 ).
ITN.co.uk for video at "UFO fever sweeps texan town" ( updated january 15th,2008 )
KLTV 7 "UFO sighting inErath County, Texas cause speculation, consternation" ( posted 16th january,2008 ) with video link.
Postchronicle.com "Stephenville UFO sightings video: photo reward offered " ( posted january 16th, 2008 ).
nbcsandiego.com says "Texas town buzzes over Rumoured UFO sightings" ( posted january 15th, 2008 ).
san angelo live mentions "UFO sightings in Stephenville, Texas, keep the city and nation abuzz" (posted 16th january, 2008 with a discussion with MUFON ( with podcast included **** worth listening too ).
I will update on any further developments…. i believe MUFON will be there this saturday intervewing the witnesses? hopefully we can find out what is going on.
On 18th january 2008: texas ufo sighting update
Following on from yesterday's blog post here it seems we have, from the news articles/videos ( not extremely reliable, but all i have ):
An initial sighting on the 8th january at 6.15pm; it seems this happened over a period of 2 days? Government/military say commercial planes reflecting light, the cause?
It was moving fast ( a pilot gave an estimated speed of 3000 mph ), so unlikely lanterns, ect.
There were 40+ witnesses
Military deny that it was chased by jets ( as some report seeing? ).
So therefore, it gives us alot of questions, without any real answers yet? I hope MUFON, who arrive on saturday ( will be taking statements from witnesses from 1pm ) will be able to fill in the gaps for us all.
There are different reports of this UFO ( is it shape shifting? )…. the witnesses could be therefore seeing the same thing, but in a different form ( obviously, just speculation here ); or could it be something else?
Could they really be seeing something explained….. or an IFO ( Identified Flying Object? )
Checks on NASA's ( recent debris ) database site, reveals that no man made space debris was re-entering around the dates mentioned.
Most report seeing a large UFO ( similarities to Guernsey UFO sighting,as in size?, In the channel islands, posssibly? ) See my link to this sighting here and here ).
Larry King live on friday will be interviewing MUFON investigators, and this will be worth watching (i hope).
Just to add… Stephenville empire tribune (archive)
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/11/news/news01.txt ( 11th january )
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/13/news/news01.txt ( 13th january )
http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2008/01/14/news/news01.txt ( 14th january ) sorry for gap above….unable to resolve?
For more interesting information.
Also man claiming to have seen similar over Lake Travis ( not sure about this.. By MY Fox Kansas city- posted 17th january )…. I would question this photograph, as he says he did not see anything unusual in the sky at the time he took the photo?? this could be absolutely anything, i'm afraid.
Also just seen…. Pilot says he can explain Stephenville UFO sighting ( updated 17th january )… its flares??
The best thing too do here, is to keep an open mind, although we will be inundated by quite alot of mindless rubbish, i shouldn't wonder.
UPDATE : 18th january,2008
For map of some of the sightings please see link below (tried to be as accurrate as possible).
ON the 19th jan: Stephenville UFO discussed on Larry King (video from you tube)
Thanks to ghf4 for posting these links to the Larry King show ( they come in 4 parts ), which was aired on january 18th,2008. ( just updated late 19th january, as ghf4's videos were taken off….thanks to lalasufo ..phew! ).
If you like, and acting as an alternative to the you tube site (if it still has problems showing the videos),see this link : http://www.livevideo.com/media/favorited.aspx?cid=9AC45C3DF3A6418BB0D9509F29A8EAE1
for all videos edited by livevideo.com (including the Larry King live show*((which is only briefly shown)) on the Stephenville ufo, but also other interviews,ect which gives a good insight into what is going on). Other alternative sites (to you tube) for the Larry King Live show will be found.
PART 1 of 4
PART 2 of 4
PART 3 of 4
Part 4 of 4
The only other fairly recent UFO sighting of that size, was in 2007, in the UK: so for interests sake i have put it on here ( apart from the size they are different ).
and also from the same sighting
Plus : Stanton Freidman talks about the 1996 yukon incident….
For those interested, it is below:
Giant UFO in Yukon Territory, 1996 ( an interesting video** )
For later shows please see link https://dandare.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/latest-larry-king-show-24th-27th-january-2008/
20th jan: MUFON visits Dublin, to talk to Stephenville UFO witnesses
MUFON arrived saturday 18th, 2008 to talk to witnesses of the Stephenville UFO sighting which occurred on january 8th. There are conflicting reports as to how many witnesses there were, from about 50 to 200 witnesses ( i would suspect it was nearer to 50 ), to fill out questionaires and to talk about what they saw to MUFON. The hall at Dublin was full, with about 500 people, and the ever present tv cameras, and journalists.
There are several good news articles that i would like to draw your attention too;
Star-Telegram.com has a good article "UFO investigators land in Dublin to quiz locals" ( 20th january 2008 ).
It mentions "Before talking to investigators, witnesses filled out forms that included questions about the object's direction, distance and flying behavior. They were asked to sketch what they saw. Then they sat down to be interviewed by MUFON investigators for about 15 minutes each" (extract from article). It also says that MUFON will take, from a few months, up to a year, before a report will be made available.
From the same media "Maybe it came from the dog star" ( posted 20th january,2008 ); this talks mainly about a photo (taken on a cell phone), on front of the news story (star-telegram), on friday…..and it was a sun dog; 2 scientists say it is not related to the incident. This is in relation to….. "Truck driver Sean Kiel is the center of attention in downtown Dublin on Saturday. He took a photo of a strange object in the sky Jan. 8 on Interstate 20 near Cisco" (extract from article).
cbs11tv.com "Mutual UFO Network comes to Stephenville" ( posted 19th january,2008 ) Short article.
There are a couple of videos from dallas news worth having a look at:
http://www.dallasnews.com/video/index.html?nvid=210042 about MUFON at Dublin
And witness accounts at ….http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/dmnphoto/index.html?nvid=210036
The transcripts to the Larry King show on friday 18th january 2008 can be found here .
Any more updates i will relay on UFO Online……. Thanks for visiting.stephenville ufo
24th january: Stephenville UFO latest; Air Force:Flights of Fantasy or Chasing a Cause?
This is the latest on the Stephenville UFO….. I will start on the media links to this first,and then add my thoughts.
image below is of an F-15 (not F-16 sorry) that is vertical deploying flares during the day
Star-Telegram.com "Military says it had aircraft where UFOs were spotted" (posted 23rd january, 2008). A short article, the main point being:
"Ten F-16s from the 457th Fighter Squadron were performing training operations between 6 and 8 p.m. on Jan. 8 in the Brownwood military operating area, which includes Erath County.
""In the interest of public awareness, Air Force Reserve Command Public Affairs realized an error was made regarding the reported training activity of military aircraft,"" said today's press release from the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth" (extract from article).
cbs5.com "Texas UFO Mystery Solved?" (posted 23rd january, 2008 ) …. "Originally, the 301st Fighter Wing at the Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base said none of its jets were in the area that night" (extract from article).
KVIA.com reports (short article) "Miltitary now says jets on training mission during mysterious lights" (posted 23rd january, 2008); similarar information to Star-Telegram above.
chron.com "Military now says jets in area of reported UFO sightings" (posted 23rd january, 2008, with more information on this article) ; of interest ""This supports our story that there was UFO activity in that area,"" said Kenneth Cherry, the Texas director of the Mutual UFO Network, which took more than 50 reports from locals at a meeting last weekend. ""I find it curious that it took them two weeks to 'fess up. I think they're feeling the heat from the publicity"" (extract from article).
Also from chron.com "Military says planes in area of Texas ufo reports (with video) " (posted 23rd january, 2008). "Allen said that the planes' training area in the Brownwood Military Operating Area that includes Stephenville's Erath County does not include the airspace where he saw the object. Also, Jan. 8 was not the only day sightings were reported" (extract from article) and "Some residents aren't buying it, though, saying the military's revelation actually bolsters their claims because several reported seeing at least two fighter jets chasing an object" (extract from article).
nbc5i.com "Military offers Reason for UFO reports" (posted 23rd january, 2008 ) also with a video…. it mentions
""I think it's a little late … then there is a comment here about an error. The military isn't supposed to make errors. I think it's just a standard cover up. That is immediately what I am thinking … some kind of cover up,"" said Hudgeons. ""With the lights going around as quick as they said they were … I just don't see them being aircraft"".
If the lights were military aircraft, Hudgeons wants to see them again, NBC 5's Omar Villafranca reported" (extract from article).
And to add this into the melting pot at the end, an interesting article entitled "more UFO sightings reported over texas" (not sure of posting date, by axcessnews.com).
"Meanwhile, WOAI Radio in San Antonio reported that UFO sightings took place that same night over the city and were seen by dozens of witnesses. The Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, reported that accounts were coming in as far away as Corpus Christi, all identifying similar UFO characteristics as the lights seen over Stephenville earlier that night.
MUFON's Texas chapter website carries eyewitness accounts of UFO sightings taking place the following evening and again on January 10th, reporting similar characteristics of bight lights, no sound and rapid high-speed travel" (extract from article- also warrants analysis by me, and a post soon).
dallasnews.com "Texas UFO mystery solved" (posted 24th january,2008 ) ; I have added a quite long extract from this article as it has some very good points (and brings up an old theory)….
"One battle tactic used routinely by F-16s involves the ejection of flares that are intended to confuse heat-seeking missiles. The flares can be ejected several at a time, and could form a pattern of bright lights traveling across the sky.
But such activity would not match other aspects of the descriptions of the Stephenville lights. Witnesses generally described what they saw as silent, apparently changing speeds and passing over populated areas. That does not sound like a flare release, said Jay Miller, an aviation consultant and historian in Fort Worth.
For one thing, any jet that dumps flares would also be trying to get away as fast as possible.
"He's going to be in full afterburner," Mr. Miller said, and that's very loud. But the jets wouldn't be the only noise associated with flares.
"Flares don't burn silently. They actually burn quite loudly," he said.
Flares are also extremely hot and dangerous, and it's highly unlikely that any drill would involve their use over populated areas, Mr. Miller said". (extract from article).
thelede.blogs.nytimes.com "F-16s at scene of UFO sighting in Texas" (posted 24th january, 2008 ).
There are other articles, but many are either very brief, and/or cover the same ground.
You may well ask, what is going on? and to be honest so do i?
To start with, what disturbs me, is the fact that the Air Force takes 2 weeks to do a U-turn and then admit that 10 F-16s were in the air; of course, the obvious question to be asked here is, were they in the air around this area (between 6 and 8pm), and if they were, were they chasing these UFOs.
So basically, is it a cover-up story, to try to knock the stuffing out of the story; problem is, that there may be a flip side to this, and it might (hopefully) highten the story for more answers by the military.
Hudgeons (from MUFON) makes a very valid point, in that, if this was the Air Force, then there should be no problem redoing/recreating the event for all to see (would never happen mind, but i like his thinking/method).
At this point, i ask these questions……
1 Why is a training exercise classified? as they will not go into operational procedures, not even the basics?
2 F-16s do not hover (unless i am wrong in this).
3 F-16s create sound ! and lots of it.
4 F-16s are not 1 mile wide.
Remember, all we are trying to establish here, is whether it is an UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) nothing more at this stage.
Maybe, the media should attempt to contact the F-16 pilots and ask them for a response (unlikely due to national security issues, i should imagine, but worth a try). Ask for a copy of their communications with ground controllers (AWACS). I hope they will generally put the heat up a bit, and apply pressure…. we need answers to our questions?
I'm also waiting for the Air Force, to next say that flares where used (does this sound familiar), see extract from dallasnews.com (Texas ufo mystery solved, in red writing)… this all has very good questions to be asked, if the time arises, especially using them in populated areas.
Also MUFON has had eye witness accounts, from the same time period, either side of the 8th january, in other areas, all with the similar accounts to Stephenville… were their trained F-16s all over the place? I believe MUFON will soon be interviewing these witnesses too, soon.
Will the Air Force hide behind classified information, and National Security, to bluff their way out of this one. Again, i say we need answers to questions? whether we will get them is another matter?
What do you think is going on? is it a cover-up? is it that they are hiding tested super secret stealth aircraft, with F-16s tailing it, to test the local populations reaction to it? is it an IFO (identified flying object)? Is it a UFO? are you worried that the Air Force does not seem to know where the hell (supposedly) their planes are?
Is the Air Force using flights of fantasy or chasing a cause?
I would be very interested to hear your views.
UPDATE: 25th january 2008
The 301st Fighter wing website can be found here .
The Air Force Reserve command link for FOIA can be seen here with email and address to write too. Photos of F-16s can be seen here and here.
25th january : Stephenville ufo: not just here, but in areas such as San Antonio?
It seems that the UFOs were not just confined to Stephenville, but were seen in San Antonio, Victoria and even at Corpus christi.Walter Andrus Junior, (from MUFON)mentions that on the 8th january, something else was going on at San Antonio…. a UFO was seen at Interstate 10 and Wurzbach road. They reported seeing a cigar shaped UFO, with a multitude of lights.
He then goes on to mention that MUFON, will now talk to these people as well (that is from San Antonio, Victoria and near Corpus Christi). The report of all this, looks like it will not be ready until the end of 2008 now. It does not say what the witnesses say at Victoria or near Corpus Christi?
Not sure of the relevance of this, but thought it wise to mention this on here.
This entry was posted on April 16, 2008 at 8:51 pm and is filed under are we alone?, extraterrestials, flying Disk, Larry King -on stephenville ufo from youtube, news, newspapers, out of this world, science, stephenville ufo, stephenville ufo sighting 2008, texas ufo 2008, ufo, ufo cover up, UFO Documents/archives, ufo in north america, ufo research, ufo video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


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The most important biographies of Lord Byron are listed in the "Bibliography of Secondary Works" on this site.
1. The Affaire
Byron's affair with Lady Caroline Lamb has been retold scores of times by his, her, and many others' biographers. What these accounts generally do not recognize is that it lasted longer than merely the five months between March and September 1812. Though there was no question of their getting back together, Byron nonetheless agreed to see Caroline as late as fall of 1815, not long before his marriage to Annabella Milbanke, which took place in January 1816.
Two other aspects of their affaire are not widely understood. One is how intensely Byron responded to Caroline. It was a strong infatuation on both sides. The other is the intellectual nature of the infatuation. While they were undoubtedly sexually attracted, this was mostly an affaire of writing and talking.
After reading an advance copy of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Lady Caroline wrote her first letter to Byron, dated March 9th, 1812, telling him, that he deserved to be happy and should not "throw away such Talents as you possess in gloom & regrets for the past." She wrote again within forty-eight hours imitating Childe Harold. Byron's poem begins,
Oh, thou! in Hellas deem'd of heav'nly birth,
Muse! form'd or fabled at the minstrel's will!
Since sham'd full oft by later lyres on earth,
Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill . . . (Childe Harold 1:1)
Lady Caroline wrote:
Oh that like thee Childe Harold I had power
With Master hand to strike the thrilling Lyre . . .
(see Malcolm Elwin's Lord Byron's Wife, p. 141, for the text of this letter).
Byron was swamped with letters from such "star-gazers," as Thomas Moore dubbed them (Moore, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron 1:260). On finding out his correspondent was Lady Caroline Lamb, however, Byron immediately broke his resolution not to answer such letters. Byron's friend and literary advisor, Robert Dallas, described him as "so enraptured, so intoxicated, that his time and thoughts were almost entirely devoted to reading her letters and answering them."
One morning in April, Dallas entered Byron's rooms at 8 St. James's Street and found the poet so absorbed in writing a letter to Caroline that he appeared not to notice when his friend spoke to him and sat down across the table for a while reading the newspaper. Byron had "a peculiar smile on his lips; his eyes beamed the pleasure he felt from what was passing from his imagination to the page." Dallas thought his friend so completely in love that he had practically entered another world (Dallas, Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron, 246-47). The lovers wrote daily to each other, often multiple times.
Sadly, very little (and that mostly on Caroline's side) has survived out of a correspondence of more than three hundred letters—a conservative estimate. In October of 1813, Lady Caroline asked Byron's publisher if he would be interested in publishing a collection of "250 letters from a young Venetian nobleman--addrest to a very absurd English Lady." Byron continued for years afraid of what Lady Caroline might eventually publish from his side of the correspondence.
2. Glenarvon and Don Juan
Glenarvon paints Byron as attractive but pretentious, a manipulator who "unites the malice and petty vices of a woman, to the perfidy and villainy of a man" (Glenarvon, 2:359). When he was preparing to jilt Caroline, Byron made a show of "tears, which you saw & know I am not apt to shed." Byron's letter was reproduced as a lithographic facsimile, apparently by Lady Caroline for Thomas Medwin, after publication of his Conversations with Lord Byron. Leslie Marchand accepts the letter as undoubtedly Byron's handwriting, suggesting that it must have been composed on 12 August, 1812, just after Byron had convinced Caroline to rejoin her husband (see Byron's Letters and Journals 2:185). Caroline had portrayed Byron as a feminized man, and he embraced and elaborated this character in Don Juan.
In the conclusion of Canto 1 of Don Juan, Byron also created a (somewhat) masculinized woman: It was Donna Julia, who writes, "[m]y eyeballs burn and throb, but have no tears," and the narrator underscores it: "[S]he did not let one tear escape her" (Don Juan 5.70, 5.72). Normally, for Byron, a woman's teardrop "melts," while a man's "half-sears" and must be forced from his heart. Again, normally, for Byron, women employ tears to gain their ends, and their target is his alter-ego, Don Juan, who (in a later canto) dissolves "like snow before a woman crying" (Don Juan 5.118 and 5.141). Julia's dry eyes, however, link her to Caroline, the woman who (in Byron's words) "has no sex" (Byron's Letters and Journals 5:93).
Byron's affair with Lady Caroline Lamb and his reading of Glenarvon help account for certain elements of his masterpiece, Don Juan, from the dedication, in which he tries to dissociate himself from any Glenarvon-like betrayal of Irish Patriots, to certain aphorisms on sex and marriage. But it is Byron's near elopement with Caroline in August 1812—as revised and retold in Glenarvon—that takes shape as Don Juan's "earliest scrape" with Julia in Canto 1 (Don Juan 1.199). Julia's letter from the convent to which she has retreated at the end of the Canto is a touché for Caroline's inclusion of Byron's letters in her novel. Julia's letter begins with a benediction: "I have no further claim on your young heart, / Mine was the victim, and would be again." But a reproach lies implicit in Julia's forgiveness:
"I loved, I love you, for this love have lost
State, station, heaven, mankind's, my own esteem,
And yet cannot regret what it hath cost,
So dear is still the memory of that dream;
Yet, if I name my guilt, 'tis not to boast,
None can deem harshlier of me than I deem:
I trace this scrawl because I cannot rest—
I've nothing to reproach or to request. (Don Juan 1.193)
Byron had probably gotten just such phrases from Caroline's own letters to him (now virtually all lost), but he also had the ones Lady Calantha writes in Glenarvon: "Remember that you are all on earth to me; and if I lose that for which I have paid so terrible a price, what will be my fate!" Another letter says, "I forsook everything for you" (Glenarvon 3:61, 78). Calantha never tires of naming her guilt: "It is myself alone I blame, on me, on me be the crime." Yet she won't regret: "Think not that I wish to repine, or that I lament the past" Glenarvon 3:60, 61). She repeats many times Julia's sentiment that she has "nothing to reproach": "Glenarvon, I do not reproach you, I never will"; "Oh fear not, Glenarvon, that I shall intrude or reproach you"; "I will never learn to hate or reproach you" (Glenarvon 3:58, 59, 77).
Another stanza of Julia's letter focuses upon the contrasting possibilities for men and women:
Man's love is of his life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence; man may range
The court, the camp, church, the vessel, and the mart,
Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange
Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart,
And few there are whom these cannot estrange;
Man has all these resources, we but one,
To love again, and be again undone. (Don Juan, 1.194)
These ideas have been traced to other sources, like Madame de Staël's De l'Influence des Passions (1796) and Corinne (1807). They occur also, however, in Glenarvon, where Calantha says, "You know not what a woman feels when remorse, despair, and the sudden loss of him she loves, assail her at once" ( Glenarvon, 3:79). Glenarvon's narrator underscores this theme: "That which causes the tragic end of a woman's life, is often but a moment of amusement and folly in the history of a man. Women, like toys, are sought after, trifled with, and then thrown by with every varying caprice. Another and another still succeed; but to each thus cast away, the pang has been beyond thought, the stain indelible, and the wound mortal." The narrator subsequently comments that "Calantha saw Glenarvon triumphant and herself deserted" (Glenarvon 3:90-91, 119).
The conclusion of Julia's letter offers many parallels with Glenarvon. Julia writes,
My breast has been all weakness, is so yet;
I struggle, but cannot collect my mind;
My blood still rushes where my spirit's set,
As roll the waves before the settled wind;
My brain is feminine, nor can forget—
To all, except your image, madly blind;
As turns the needle, trembling to the pole
It ne'er can reach, so turns to you my soul. (Don Juan 1.195)
In Glenarvon, Calantha also complains that her lover has seduced her with his power of attraction: "I am nothing, a mere cypher: you might be all that is great and superior. Act rightly, then, my friend . . . I have followed you into a dark abyss; and now that you, my guide, my protector, have left my side, my former weakness returns, and all, that one smile of your's could make me forget, oppresses and confounds me." (Glenarvon, 3:60-61). Repeating the theme that the man will go on to glory, Julia writes, "And so farewell—forgive me, love me—No, / That word is idle now—but let it go." These lines echo Calantha's sentiments: "Generously save me: I ask you not to love me" ((Don Juan,1.196 and Glenarvon, 3:80). In the conclusion of her letter, Julia says: "My misery can scarce be more complete." Calantha's words are: "Glenarvon, my misery is at the utmost" and "I am as lonely, as miserable in your absence as you can wish" (Don Juan, 1.197 and Glenarvon, 3:76, 58). These typical recriminations and rationalizations of the jilted might have come from many places, but the evidence argues that Glenarvon gave them their particular form in Byron's poem. When Juan comments that Julia's seal read "Elle vous suit partout [She follows you everywhere]," the phrase comments on Caroline's notorious pursuit of Byron, a recurring theme of his letters (Don Juan, 1.198).

subset: commoncrawl


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My Fiance's Letter to His Pre-Autoimmune Self: "Congratulations! You're About to Get Real, Real Messed Up"
In October 2014, my then-boyfriend, Andy, showed the first signs of dermatomyositis, an autoimmune disorder that affects the muscles, skin, and joints.
We were just moving in together, so we were ready for more, but the consequences of this sickness forced increased intimacy on us at a speed we weren't prepared for. There were Andy's physical and mental challenges, of course, but the stress and anxiety on us both — the question marks of what? why? how can we make this better? — were just as relentless.
It was clunky and crazy the way we rode this thing out. Not that it's over; with autoimmune, it's never over. But it is at bay and Andy is doing worlds better.
We make a good team we like to say now, referencing everyday problem-solving, but the origin of this sentiment feels rooted in the way we faced my now-fiance's illness together, even if it was hanging by two tangled threads.
Straightening things out in the aftermath, though, felt somewhat separate. I think because we finally found some sense of security in the unfolding normalcy — it no longer required holding onto one another for dear life.
Both of us are writers, so that way of processing things was a big part of the healing process. I've shared a bit about my experience, but what Andy shared with UnderstandingMyositis.org is comprehensive — a letter "to that version of Andy standing there in the doctor's office, completely unaware of what's to come."
Get ready for an honest, witty read: A Few Words for the Moment Before Myositis.


text:
This is a story about the love between a mother and her son. See, the mother loved her son and when he drowned, she decided to get avenge his death by killing everyone she believed was responsible. When the mother was beheaded by one of her intended victims, the boy somehow sensed his mother's death and rose up from his watery grave to attack his mother's killer. He would then begin his own campaign to continue his mother's work, spawning a legacy of terror that would reign for decades. That, in a nutshell, is the motivation for today's movie (as well as all of the subsequent sequels), Friday The 13th Part 2.
The plot – Two months after surviving the murders at Camp Crystal Lake, Alice Hardy is still recovering from the ordeal in her apartment. Waking up from a nightmare of reliving her encounter with Mrs. Pamela Voorhees, and dealing with a phone call from her concerned mother, Alice goes to get her cat some food but as she opens the fridge, she is horrified to find Pamela's head inside the fridge, just as a mysterious assailant stabs her through the temple with an ice pick. Five years later, Paul Holt is hosting a camp counselor training session at Crystal Lake; with his assistant Ginny, Jeff, Sandra, Ted, Mark, Scott, Terry, and Vickie among the attendees. As they all sit around a campfire that night, Paul tells the assembled counselors about Jason, how his body was never recovered from the lake and some of the locals believes he is still wandering the woods near Camp Crystal Lake. He also tells them about Alice and how she had disappeared, with nothing but a lot of blood found in her apartment and how some say that Jason had gotten his revenge on her. After Ted scares the counselors by wearing a mask and waving a spear, Paul tells the group that Camp Crystal Lake is off limits, then has everyone head back inside the cabins. As the counselors all have some fun before heading to bed, Crazy Ralph has made his way to the camp to try and warn the counselors to leave the area but as he is hiding behind a tree, someone uses some barbed wire as a garrote and kills him. The next day, as the counselors all head down to the lake, Sandra convinces her boyfriend Jeff to go with her to Camp Crystal Lake but they end up getting caught by Deputy Winslow. After telling Paul to keep the counselors away from the camp, Winslow heads back towards town but spots someone wearing a burlap sack for a mask race across the road heading towards the camp. Winslow gives chase, eventually finding a cabin deep in the woods and as Winslow checks inside, he sees something in the back room that terrifies him, just before the mystery person kills him with a hammer. That night, Paul invites all of the counselors to a night on the town before the training gets serious, with Jeff and Sandra staying behind as punishment for their running off, and Terry Scott, Mark, and Vickie stay behind as well. After the counselors all leave, Terry decides to go skinny dipping in the lake but as she is out in the water, Scott steals her clothes and tauntingly tosses them to her as she gets out of the water. As Scott runs away from her, he ends up caught in a snare trap and suspended in the air. Terry considers leaving him there but decides to get something to cut the rope with and while she is gone, someone slits Scott's throat. Terry returns to free Scott but when she sees that he is dead, she starts screaming, only to be confronted by someone. Meanwhile, at the bar, Ginny is talking with Paul and Ted about Jason and whether he could possibly be alive, but they both laugh off the notion. Back at the training center, Jeff and Sandra head upstairs to have sex, leaving Mark and Vickie downstairs. Vickie asks Mark about how he ended up in a wheelchair and as they get closer, they start making out and make plans to spend the night together. Vickie heads to her cabin to get ready but after she is gone for a while, Mark gets worried and goes looking for her, only to be struck in the face by a machete and sent rolling down the stairs. The killer then makes his way inside the main cabin and heads upstairs, where he kills Jeff and Sandra as they finish having sex. Vickie returns to the main cabin and when she doesn't see him waiting for her, she heads upstairs to ask Jeff and Sandra if they have seen him, only to be surprised by the killer and stabbed with a kitchen knife. Paul and Ginny come back from the bar to find the lights out in the cabin and a mass amount of blood on one of the upstairs bed. As they head back downstairs to wait for the rain to stop so they can look for the others, Ginny sees the killer rise up behind Paul and shouts out a warning. Paul and the killer struggle in the dark and Ginny loses sight of them but when the killer rises up, Ginny screams and runs off. The killer chases her through the cabin and grounds, forcing Ginny to run into the woods to try and hide, where she eventually comes across the cabin. Calling out for help, Ginny enters the cabin but as she looks around, she sees Pamela's desiccated head on a table in the back and realizes that the killer is Jason. Jason starts to break into the cabin so Ginny quickly dons Pamela's sweater and tries to convince Jason that she is his mother, telling him he has done a good job. Getting him to kneel down, Ginny goes to slash him with the machete but as she moves, Jason sees his mother's head and realizes he is being tricked. Jason deflects the blow, then slashes Ginny's leg but before he can kill her, Paul shows up and jumps onto Jason. The two struggle, with Jason getting the upper hand but before he can kill Paul, Ginny swings the machete into Jason's neck, dropping the killer. Ginny takes off the sack and Paul and Ginny react in horror to Jason's face then head back to the cabin, where Paul starts to tend to Ginny's wound. Hearing something at the door, the two arm themselves and Paul opens it to discover it is Terry's dog Muffin but as the relax, Jason bursts through the window and grabs Ginny, dragging her outside. When morning comes, Ginny is being loaded into an ambulance by the authorities, with her asking where Paul is, but there is no sign of Paul or Jason.
Friday The 13th Part 2 was panned by the critics, holding a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The critical consensus on the site is, "Friday the 13th Part 2 sets the template for the franchise to follow with more teen victims, more gruesome set pieces, and fewer reasons to keep following along." When Adrienne King was asked to reprise her role of Alice, she said that she wanted to only be on screen for a short time, as she was dealing with an obsessed fan after the release of Friday The 13th and feared for her life. The stalking was so bad that this resulted in her not taking any on screen roles for almost 30 years, though she did do some voice over work for several movies in the 90's. While it didn't earn as much as the original, the movie was still a box office success, earning $21.7 million off of a $1.2 million budget.
I'm not ashamed to admit it, these movies have always entertained me for how ridiculous they can be, but even I can admit that they should have never made a sequel to the original movie. That being said, this is still a pretty decent horror movie, even though it was rather predictable how it was going to turn out. The acting was ok, with Amy Steel doing a good job in her role as Ginny. I did like Adrienne King and Betsy Palmer reprising their roles of Alice and Pamela from the original movie and thought their small parts did a decent job in trying to keep the two movies connected while also expanding on it. The story was a pretty basic horror movie fare, but I did have a couple of problems with it. First off, I hated the ending, primarily the fate of Paul, as you are left with no idea if he lived or died. But the thing that bothered me more than anything was towards the beginning, when Jason kills Alice and as he leaves, he takes the tea kettle off of the burner. Why would he even bother doing that. It honestly made no sense and actually killed the mood, as it made it seem more comedic that scary. The special effects were ok, though some of the kills seemed to be a little muted, which is a little odd for a slasher film. This mainly involved the deaths of the women. For some reason the director seemed to be a little squeamish about showing excessive violence against the women (Terry's death actually happening off camera and never shown as to how she died), even though there was no such hold up in the original movie. For all my issues, this is still a decent horror movie to watch, if for no other reason than to laugh at how ridiculous it is.
Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5


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Before I was hired for my present job I went through an interview with the young man who was CEO at the time and then a team interview with everyone except him. In the team interview one of the developers asked me if I ever worked with Macs before. My reply was something like, "Well, I never had to, but I can learn." He chuckled and said, "'…never had to,' I like that." It all worked out and I got the job, but I still had to get accustomed to a big, bright, shiny iMac.
Having only used Windows for all of my adult life up to that point I felt almost as though I was learning my way around a computer for the first time. It's been over a year and I am pretty experienced with Apple software, but I even now I don't like it. The fact remains, though, that it certainly feels superior to any version of Windows I've ever used. That is why I believe it is the "gold standard" which a Linux distro needs not only to match but also surpass.


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This article demonstrates how to set up Mozilla Thunderbird to access an A2 Hosting e-mail account. If you have not already installed Mozilla Thunderbird, you can download it by visiting http://www.mozilla.org/thunderbird.
To configure Mozilla Thunderbird to work with your A2 Hosting e-mail account, follow these steps:
For more information about Mozilla Thunderbird, please visit http://www.mozilla.org/thunderbird.


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One of the best ways to communicate any message to your children is through regular rituals that are woven into the fabric of your family's lives. The consistency of intention and action help ingrain the messages you want your children to get most. The use of rituals is very effective in teaching your children about a love of nature and their responsibility for taking care of Mother Earth.
From a very early age, my wife, Sarah, and I created family rituals for our daughters, Catie and Gracie, that taught them about caring for nature and environmental stewardship. For example, they are expected to throw their waste into one of three recycling bins in our kitchen (compost, paper, and plastic) after meals. On Monday evenings, they help me take this recycling from the kitchen and deposit it into the big bins outside which we then roll out to the curb for Tuesday morning pick up. One of our longest-standing rituals involves eating an orange together after dinner. It is my job to peel the orange and it is Catie's and Gracie's job to take turns bringing the rind to the compost.
Tanya created two rituals for her son and daughter for picking up trash they come across. Once a month, they walk the length of their street with trash bags and collect the many bottles, cans, and assorted trash that accumulate on the side of the road. She thinks of it as a kind of "adopt-a-highway" without the official imprimatur. Their neighbors often come out to greet and thank them, providing another conduit to reinforce her message of environmental stewardship. She and her children have been big hikers since as soon her kids could walk and Tanya saw a great opportunity to have a spontaneous "adopt-a-trail" experience. While out on a hike, Tanya will see some trash, pick it up, and announce her catchphrase, "I love Earth!" Within a short time, with no explanation or discussion, her children have begun to follow her lead by picking up trash that they see and then declaring "I love Earth!"
Even though her family lives in the suburbs, Nancy is committed to driving as little as possible. Fortunately, they live in a town in which many stores are not far from their home. She makes biking to the grocery store and on other errands a weekly ritual with her son Andy. Andy loves the different ways he gets to go biking with his momma. At first, it was on one of those handlebar seats where he had a front-and-center view. He then progressed to a bike trailer where he was able to read and play with his stuffed animals. From there, he moved to a trailer bike that enabled him to pedal. Andy, at age six, now rides his own bike when they go shopping. Nancy has found this ritual one of those special times that she can really connect and have fun with Andy. Plus, in addition to the environmental message, she's able to send other positive messages about physical health and enjoying the outdoors.
Mark and Rachel decided to celebrate "Green Day" every week with their three children, the goal of which is to use as little energy as possible. On Saturdays, they walk or bike instead of driving their cars, use candles for light and the fireplace for heat, use only the smallest amount of water, and won't use any large appliances such as the washer/dryer, stove, or oven (they did keep their fridge plugged in though). Plus, the family chooses an activity that will make the Earth happy, for example, pick up trash in the neighborhood or ride their bikes to town.
This blog post is excerpted from my third parenting book, Your Children are Listening: Nine Messages They Need to Hear from You (The Experiment Publishing, 2011).


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We have updated the campaign materials section of the website and we have new window posters for downloading.
The first features one of The Queensbury's youngest users – little Ray – who will definitely spit his dummy out if his community space is taken away.
The second poster shows quite starkly what we are faced with if the planning application is approved – a monstrous tower block replacing a lovely old Arts and Crafts building.
Both posters can be downloaded in either A3 or A4 sizes, take your pick and put one in your window – show your street that you care about the Queensbury.
Click here to go to the campaign materials page to download the posters.


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Paleo Coffee - Light-Medium Roast Whole Beans 1kg
1000gr Bag
From Mae Sruay, Chiang Rai
- ฿825 per 1kg Pack(ex VAT)3 left in stock0 in cart
- Single-estate - Certified 100% USDA Organic Arabica beans - Lab tested for mold & aflatoxins - Fair Trade to promote chemical-free farming - Freshly roasted once a month - Hand-selected beans roasted to perfection by our artisan roaster Sarnies Our Light-Medium roast is recommended for filter coffee like Aeropress, V60 and french press. Flavour notes this month: Cashews / Raisins / Fresh Toast Arabica Cultivars: Mix Bourbon, Typica & Catimor The villagers in Mae Sruay, Chiangrai province, hand-pick ripe red coffee beans at just the right time, which grew in the shade of their natural watershed forest at an altitude of 900-1300 meters. Paleo Robbie selected these beans because of their freshness (coffee beans are a fruit!), bold aroma and unique full-flavour, and being truly organic with evidence to back it up. The fresher the beans the higher in anti-oxidants they are. From picking, the beans are washed and processed within 24 hours and sent to our speciality coffee roaster who hand-selects the beans and removes any substandard beans to obtain the perfect flavour and character for your coffee. You'll notice the flavour is very smooth and doesn't have a 'burnt' flavour common with dark roasts because we wanted to have a very high quality coffee with maximum anti-oxidant levels. Pro tip: The size of the grain is the most important factor in making perfect espresso. Good grinders allow you to adjust the ground size.
|Per Jumbo
|Total Fat
|0 g
|Total Protein
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|Volume 6, Number 45 April 26, 2017
Dear Healthcare at Home Colleague,
It is New Technology Week in healthcare, not by our declaration but by virtue of the proliferation of product releases that landed in our inbox this month. Click on the headlines below to learn about a new electronic signature system for your referring physicians, a travel-sized CPAP for patients no longer homebound, and an app that lets you wait at home and notifies you when your turn is coming up at the ER or doctor's office.
"Client Sidekick" promises to be easy for your referring physicians to use as it streamlines your claims submission process, not to mention lowering your paper costs and your CFO's anxiety.
ResMed unveiled "AirMini" on Tuesday. It is a 300 gram CPAP that will make it far easier for sleep apnea sufferers to travel.
If you have ever sat for hours in a hospital emergency department waiting room, you will be glad to learn about Jellyfish Health. The Florida company developed an app that lets you get in a virtual line and wait at home instead of in that germ-infested ED waiting room. It works for physician appointments too. We offer a couple of suggestions as to how it can benefit in-home care providers.
Worth the trip
We will be on many of those airplanes with you and hope to meet as many of our subscribers as we can before it all goes quiet in August. NHPCO in Washington DC is coming up next week. I'll be on the faculty list in Colorado and Florida, talking about all the new technologies you have never heard of but desperately need. I have also been invited to the Post Acute LINK conference in Chicago in June. It was well-attended last year and they expect even more home health and long term care providers to put their heads together to improve patient care and transitions this year.
About last week
We did not attempt to answer either of those questions while reporting on the birth of ElevatingHOME and on the opinions of providers and their technology vendors that we have been hearing over the years. Those answers are up to you. Our mission is to keep you informed so you have a more solid framework upon which to base your answers.
We do, however, have one wish. Whether there are two, five or ten trade associations, what will best serve the industry -- and its patients -- is their willingness to set egos aside and work together.
Have a great week. Keep making a difference!
Tim Rowan
Did you receive this issue as a forward from a colleague? Would you like to have your own free subscription? Click here.


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BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn -- Pinto refers to a kind of lunch box in Thai, kind of like a Japanese bento box. But the food served at Pinto is a little more gourmet than what you'd put in a lunch box.
Pinto is nestled on a brightly lit corner at 128 Montague Street right in the heart of Brooklyn Heights.
Unless you know Pinto refers to a lunch box in Thai, you might not know that this is a Thai restaurant.
"The way we decorated the restaurant is not screaming very, very Thai restaurant. I just wanted to have a very comfy, sit-down dinner that you can have casual, easy to eat with the family to enjoy," said chef and owner Teerawong Nanthavatsiri, who goes by 'Yo'.
He opened his first Pinto ten years ago in the West Village. But he'd come to New York from Bangkok to study theater. His dream of directing was supplanted by food.
"Since I don't have my own theater, the restaurant is my theater," he said. "It's my show. I come in to cook everyday for guests who come in to see my show, which is the food."
And most of his dishes have a bit of a theatrical twist. You can find traditional Pad Thai here, but there's also a crispy version.
Mushrooms replace banana in a crunchy appetizer. Crispy chicken with five seeds ramps up a traditional chicken with cashews.
Khao Soi chicken is pan roasted instead of steamed.
The ice cubes for the Thai iced tea are made with tea, and the crab fried rice is served in a young coconut.
Chef Yo first toasts that coconut, then he scrambles eggs with crab meat and already steamed jasmine rice, along with oyster sauce, fish sauce, scallions, salt and sugar.
That goes into the coconut, which is topped with eggs scrambled with more crab meat.
Tip it all out on a plate and scoop out some of the coconut meat.
"Once you see the face of the guests smiling and they're fulfilled with the service, they're fulfilled with the food, that makes you happy and at the end it's fun," said Chef Yo.
Recipe for Crab Fried Rice in young coconut
1 cup cooked jasmine Rice
2 cups crab meat
4 fresh eggs
2T oyster sauce
1t premium fish sauce
2 pinches of salt
1 pinch of sugar
1 whole young coconut
1 chopped scallion
cup cooking oil
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
On stove top, turn on burner and place fresh young coconut (already with top sheared off) over the flame to toast it. Once slighted toasted on outside and slightly on inside remove from flame.
In a wok or large pan, heat half of the oil and scramble two eggs, adding half of the crab meat. Cook for 1-2 minutes then add the rice. Toss a couple of times and add all seasoning, except only half of the salt. Toss in scallions. Remove from pan and fill the coconut with this rice.
Place inside the coconut and place in oven to finish cooking for 3-5 minutes.
In same pan, add remaining oil. Scramble remaining two eggs and toss in remaining crab meat and salt. Cook for about 2-3 minutes.
Remove coconut from oven and place this scrambled egg with crab meat on top. Serves 1
Neighborhood Eats: Thai cuisine at Pinto in Brooklyn Heights
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In another twist to a year of bizarre weather patterns, the Met Office warned parts of the South West and Wales could witness rare scattered flurries, while other Northern areas reported snow on Monday.
Britain is expected to shiver through one of the coldest May days in years, with daytime temperatures 10C colder than usual.
While higher ground areas face "wintry" hail, sleet and snow on Tuesday night, forecasters said it is unlikely to settle. In Scotland snow is still on the mountains.
A month's worth of rain is also due to fall in the same areas, as well as the Midlands, while the rest of the country faces colder than usual conditions.
In the south, temperatures will struggle above 6C (42.8F) while in the east and north it will also be cooler than usual at between 10C (50F) to 12C (53.6F).
"It will be an exceptionally cold day for the time of year," said Met Office forecaster Dave Britton.
The Met Office blamed the jet stream, a band of wind that travels across the Atlantic from west to east bringing rain and wind, being further south than usual. It is expected to last until the weekend.
It is feared the weather pattern will get "stuck in a rut" over Britain, meaning another wet summer.


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It's so easy to get distracted on what to do with your social media accounts. With all the "Facebook ninja tricks" and "secret conversion methods" that get promoted out there, it's not wonder so many fit pros get lost on where to start.
But when you step back and look at your social media plan on a whole, there really is only one place to start to have success on social media for personal trainers. And that's creating a content calendar for what you're putting out.
There are a number of reasons why it's important to create your content calendar, but I'm going to give you the two biggest ones.
1. You'll actually be putting out a consistent message, which allows your prospects to understand what you and your business are about. And hopefully whether it's the right one for them.
You may not think that you have much to share, but I can assure you that even if you never learned another things for the rest of your life, you'll still not be able to share everything you know. And whether you realise it or not, there are people out there literally dying to meet you. You could be the one person who will help them get off the anti-depressants, or make them feel good about themselves, or actually help them lose weight for the first time in their lives.
Pretty deep, I know, but that is the real power behind social media. But this only happens when you are able to communicate what you're all about.
2. When you think through your marketing via social media, you'll actually get new clients from it. If you're anything like me, you want to help as many people as you can, but at the end of the day you have to put food on the table. So you need to be generating new clients from the time you spend on marketing. And yes, that's what social media is.
If you think through what programs you have coming up and can preframe it with thought out content, you'll get fans and followers actually contacting you. But this doesn't happen for most fit pros because they just reactively post random things. How many times have you thought, you man I haven't posted on Facebook today, better throw something up. If you haven't, then well done. But you'd be surprised how many fit pros do this.
Now before you real off 101 reasons why you don't have time to do this, let me share with you some of my best strategies that will allow you to.
First off you need to figure out what social media channels you're going to focus your time on developing. I typically recommend that you start with 2, build some momentum and a following before adding any more social channels.
So how do you determine which ones to focus on? That's simple, it's where your prospects hang out. I would highly recommend that Facebook be one of them because of their in depth advertising platform, but that's for another article.
If you're unsure what social network you prospects are active on check out these usage graphs for 2015:
Once you've picked your 2 main social channels it's time to figure out what you're going to post. This is where most fit pros get stumped, but it's really not the hard. I'm going to give you a way to plan out your content for all 4 major platforms, but I'm also going to give you some additional platform specific tips as well.
I find the best place to start is with your Facebook page, and I like people to pick a topic or theme for each day. This will not only help you save a ton of time creating the content, but also give your posts some consistency.
Here is a list of some idea's:
- Motivational Quote
- Healthy Recipe
- Training Tip
- Exercise of the Week
- Question
- True or False
- Throwback Thursday
- Testimonial Video
- Client Appreciation/Shout Out
- Food Fact
- Blog post
- In Action Workout Video
- Upcoming Events
- Session Action Shot
- Poll
- Success Story
- Time Management Tip
- This, This or That (ex. Squats, Deadlifts or Lunges?)
- Yoga Pose of the Week
- Stretch of the Week
- Humpday Humour
- Photobomb Friday (my personal favourite)
- Did You Know
You can even use a tool like PostPlanner to help you find the most viral social media content to use on your own platforms.
So as you can see the possibilities are endless. Two things you really want to think about when picking your different themes are what will my fans find helpful and what can I share to help my fans get better results. But don't forget to make sure that you allow for posts that let your fans see your clients success, along with your personal side. No one wants to deal with a corporate social media page.
A couple of other things that you will want to write out before you start creating your content is a list of any upcoming events, programs or announcements that you will want to promote. So if you have a new fat loss program coming up you may want to talk about "fat loss tips" leading up to announcing the program to get people thinking about it.
You'll also want to make a list of any upcoming holidays or events coming up that you can use on your social channels. Things like the Superbowl or the Academy Awards could make for some very engaging posts for your followers.
Now once you've figured out a topic or theme for each day, set aside some time at the start of the week or month to create your content. Personally, if you struggle with time management then I highly suggest you do this monthly. This way you can power through and create 4 posts for each topic/theme and have a whole months worth of content in 30-90 minutes.
I usually recommend picking your topics/themes to create your Facebook posts, then from there see what you can repurpose for your other channels. Not all of it will work, but use what you can since a percentage of your fans will miss out on your posts each day.
Here is how I would repurpose your Facebook content:
For Twitter I would schedule and share a whole months worth of posts in a week, then share it weekly at different times each week. So each week you'd share all 4 motivational posts, and all 4 recipes, and on and on. Then the following week just switch up the order they get shared. I'm a big fan of Socialoomph for scheduling my Tweets, but you can also use Hootsuite or Buffer.
If you want to add more tweets to your schedule, I would make a huge list of motivational quotes, blog posts and recipes and just have these on a schedule to go out regularly. This will help bump up your feed. This is especially powerful for getting more eyeballs on your blog posts.
You could even go one step further and use a program called Sniply which allows you to have a clickable link pop up on the page you share which allows people to opt in to your list.
If you do have a blog, here is a super tip for your Twitter feed. Make a list of all your blog post URLs, then for each blog create 5-7 different tweets that include a link to the blog post. You can use Sniply or Bit.ly to shorten the link. Again, the more eyeballs you can get onto your site, the better. Especially if you've got your Facebook retargeting pixel set up on it!
For Instagram go in and create captivating images using Canva.com. This program will make you look like a photoshop pro and allows you to create images in the right dimensions for every social channel including Instagram (which is 800×800 in case you're wondering). Again, not every theme may work directly with Instagram, but you can modify or just summarize what you've created for Facebook.
Now if you really want to share some time, create 7-12 different templates/layouts on a single page on Canva this way you can go back and re-use these templates over and over again. This also allows you to brand your Instagram artwork with similar text and colours so hopefully over time your fans recognize your posts. If you've not used Canva before this is probably a little confusing, but don't worry because as soon as you try it, this will all make sense.
Pinterest – for Pinterest I would either create or add to one of your boards each week with 1-2 of your themes. This way will save you time, but also keep you from pulling your hair out.
Again, I would use Canva to create your images, and try to use the 7-12 templates over and over again. One thing you'll want to do is to try to have as many pins as possible link back to your website or other social channels.
At this point you might be wondering how the heck will you keep track of all this. Well here is a screenshot of a simple Google Sheet that I've created for you:
Click Here To Get Your Content Calendar
It doesn't have to be anything fancy, it just needs to work for you. So now that you know how to create your own content calendar, have a sample one you can start using, there's no excuse to not start sharing great info with you followers. Remember, there are people out there who are dying to meet you, so get your message out there.


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Grace glanced down at her new dress. "I suppose my parents would be upset if I got this all dirty." She didn't seem too worried about poisonous spiders, however.
"How many ornaments we need?" she asked, selecting another one similar to the one Kaelin had while looking toward the stairs her friend had indicated.
Ditto Town Holiday Mansion, 2018Home of chat, writing, and role-play.
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Re: Ditto Town Holiday Mansion, 2018
But all night, Aslan and the Moon gazed upon each other with joyful and unblinking eyes.
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Re: Ditto Town Holiday Mansion, 2018
Well, it sure was fun having you all visit! Unfortunately, it is time for our visit to come to a close, as some spectral spooks elsewhere are in need of my attention. Fear not, however! There is more fun in store. On the 28th of this month (that's January, for you temporal Earth-dwellers) a new Flash Fiction Challenge will commence, and you can expect the Mansion to re-open its doors on March 15. Until then, you are welcome to discuss this Mansion or any other salient character and plot points in the Cavern Tavern, or simply hang out with your fellow writers and Dittotopians in the Town Square, as the weather is usually fair there.
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< Architectures | ARM
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= Saturday =
= Saturday =
Revision as of 22:53, 18 January 2013
Members of the Fedora ARM project are attending the 2013 FUDCon event in Lawrence, Kansas (Kansas University). We have sessions on Friday (Primary Arch promotion, builds), Saturday (community involvement, getting to know the Fedora ARM project), and Sunday (additional), with some informal events besides. Please see below for further details.
The following people can help you find the ARM team in Kansas, or help with ARM-related concerns:
- Jon Masters (IRC: jonmasters, cell: +1-617-759-1337).
- Brendan Conoboy (IRC: bconoboy, cell: +1-714-326-9657).
- Chris Tyler (IRC: ctyler, cell: Canadian roaming, are you kidding?)
NOTE: Dinner is at Tellers at 8pm. We are heading out from the conference hotel (ride sharing) at 7:30pm (please contact Jon Masters by text on 617-759-1337 if you need picking up from somewhere else). If you have not RSVPed please contact Jon to let him know you are planning to attend.
- ARM to Primary (Brendan Conoboy, ARM team)
- ARM Building Exercises (Mark Langsdorf)
- Jared Smith brought an OpenBlocks AX3 ARM server (based on the Armada XP processor) that is currently running Debian, and he'd like some help getting Fedora on it -- both to show the OpenBlocks folks how we got it working, as well as to help Jared learn more about getting ARM running on a new piece of hardware.


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Magical Exchange Short Stories
Original novel written by: 御我 (Yu Wo)
The Melancholy of Jealousy—translated by Minna (proofread by Trespasserby & Arcedemius; C/E edited by lucathia)
On the high school's track field was a group of lively teenage girls.
"Lü Zi, don't run so quickly!" Ma Sheng tried hard to keep up with the girl in front of her.
"You're just too slow," Lü Zi shouted back toward the girl who had fallen far behind her.
"Ma Sheng just can't run that fast," Ma Sheng whined, her originally high-class, beautiful air immediately changing to a pretty and cute one.
But no matter what, she is still very beautiful and attractive. This line of thought flashed through Lü Zi's mind. Compared to the beautiful and tall Ma Sheng, Lü Zi, with a face full of pimples and her naturally dark skin, couldn't seem to compare at all.
"Who told you to slack off from practicing?" As Lü Zi spoke, she couldn't help but feel happy on the inside because track and field was the only thing she could beat Ma Sheng at. She and Ma Sheng had been friends since elementary school, had gone to the same middle school later on, and were even attending the same high school, so naturally they were very close. Since elementary school, Ma Sheng had already been a beauty. Now that they were in high school, she had grown even more beautiful. Her admirers could surely fill the whole track field. Lü Zi had always been Ma Sheng's best friend, and Ma Sheng was also… Lü Zi's good friend. Alright! Saying that she wasn't jealous would be a lie, but it was okay. At least she still had track and field, the only place she could excel over Ma Sheng. Out on the field, Lü Zi was always the most confident.
After school ended, Lü Zi and Ma Sheng walked home together like they always did.
"Lü Zi, are you confident about what we had for math today? I thought it was quite easy. There were many questions on it I helped review with you. The teacher only changed them up a little bit," Ma Sheng said happily.
"Ehm.. Yeah sure!" Lü Zi replied with a guilty conscience. She basically hadn't understood practically half the questions. She was going to get a failing mark again.
"Lü Zi, I have to tell you something!" Ma Sheng suddenly reddened. "But please, don't tell anyone else."
Curious, Lü Zi stopped. "What is it? You can tell me!" She waited impatiently to hear the new gossip.
"Today, Xia confessed to me, and I… said yes." She stopped for a moment, and asked urgently, "You don't mind, do you? Because you also like him very much."
It was as if a loud "bang" rang inside her head—Lü Zi felt her world collapse. Xia, whom she had secretly liked since elementary school, had confessed to Ma Sheng, her best friend. She almost didn't know how to react. But Ma Sheng kept pulling on her arm, saying that she hadn't done it on purpose, that she also liked Xia, and that Xia had confessed to her, which was the reason why she… Lü Zi didn't want to hear any more of her words; she only wanted to cry. She nodded her head without thinking.
"You don't mind anymore?" Ma Sheng asked, doubtful.
Lü Zi nodded her head again numbly.
"I'm so relieved."
The moment she returned to her room, she finally started to cry loudly. Why? Why was everything she ever wanted always snatched away by Ma Sheng? She really hated Ma Sheng right then, hated her so much that she wished for her death. If Ma Sheng were dead, everything would be great. Then, she wouldn't have to be the small wallflower at Ma Sheng's side anymore. That's right! If Ma Sheng were dead…
"Lü Zi, can you go buy some salt? I want to cook, but there isn't any salt left." Her mom's voice suddenly sounded from downstairs.
Lü Zi hurriedly wiped her tears away. "O.K.!"
After she bought the salt, Lü Zi walked back in a daze. She was lost in her thoughts. On one hand, she scolded herself for having the terrible thought of killing Ma Sheng, but on the other hand, it was truly tempting…
Suddenly, without conscious thought, she lifted her head, and what flooded her view was a peculiar shop. "God 'n Devil"—the antique shop sign only had those three words. The whole shop was some sort of little wooden cottage, a rare, black one.
"What an extraordinary shop. When did it open? Is it an antique shop?" The shop had an unusual attractive quality, as if it were calling out to her to come in. Lü Zi eyed the bag of salt in her hand, and thought, A short glimpse shouldn't be a problem, right?
Lü Zi lightly pushed the door open. "Is anyone here? Can I have a look around?"
"Of course you can. Please come in, my dear young lady." A deep, alluring voice replied to Lü Zi.
As she stepped into the store, a nefariously handsome man entered her vision. His hair was a deep black, his eyes as red as wine, and he wore a smile on his lips as though he were mocking the world. He was leisurely sitting by the table.
"Please sit down, young lady." He waved his hands, motioning for Lü Zi to sit down. "Do you like coffee?" He didn't wait for Lü Zi to reply, and poured her a cup of coffee.
"Excuse me…" As it was her first time seeing such a handsome man, Lü Zi's voice was as small as a mosquito's.
"My name is Devil Chaos, and I am one of the owners of the God 'n Devil Magical Exchange," Devil Chaos answered Lü Zi before she could ask, wearing his enchanting smile throughout.
"Magical Exchange?" She had only ever heard of the stock exchange and had always thought that exchanges were supposed to be in skyscrapers. Are there exchange markets located in small wooden houses?
"That's right. We're very different from the stock exchange! The focus of our business is to grant the innermost desires of our customers." He stopped for a moment, wearing a very mysterious smile. "It doesn't matter what you wish for. We will grant it."
She didn't know why, but Lü Zi remembered her thoughts of wanting to kill Ma Sheng. Furthermore, the desire seized her more and more. Right then, she practically wished to see Ma Sheng lying before her, dripping with blood.
"Do you have anything you would like to entrust me?" The enticing voice swayed Lü Zi's heart even more. "You only have to sign this contract, and Devil Chaos will help you accomplish it." A piece of parchment and a quill pen had appeared on the table at some unknown point.
"I…" Lü Zi took the quill without thinking. She was about to recklessly sign her name…
"Devil Chaos! Oh, we have a customer." A warm and soothing voice made Lü Zi freeze.
Lü Zi lifted her head and looked right into a pair of soothing, blue eyes. She suddenly felt calm. He was a fair, blue-eyed man, as good-looking as Devil Chaos, but the difference was that he put people at ease. Looking at him was almost enough to heal her wounded heart.
However, Devil Chaos raised his eyebrows unhappily. The person who had made him unhappy appeared not to notice and seemingly didn't have any intentions to leave, either.
"Hello, my name is God Charity. I am the other owner of Magical Exchange. Would you like to tell me your name?"
"Lü Zi."
"Ms. Lü Zi, then. Did Devil Chaos tell you about the details of the contract?" He stopped for a moment. His eyes flicked over to Devil Chaos, who had turned his head away from him. "If you wish to do evil, Devil Chaos will help you, but there will be a price. The price will be decided upon how large or small your wish is."
As soon as she heard the words "do evil," Lü Zi shrank inwards. She couldn't believe that she had almost hired a killer to murder Ma Sheng. How could she have such evil thoughts? She hurriedly said, "No, I don't want to ask Devil Chaos for anything, I… only came inside for a look. I'm sorry, I'll leave immediately."
After she finished speaking, she didn't wait for God Charity's or Devil Chaos's reaction, and left through the door in a rush.
"God Charity, you drove away my customer. We agreed not to interfere with each other's business," Devil Chaos said in a displeased voice. His red eyes glinted dangerously.
God Charity only smiled. "I only came out to see if someone was breaking the rules by secretly using a bit of hypnotism."
"I only said one sentence." Devil Chaos's eyes flickered to the side.
"One sentence of yours is much stronger than the world's best hypnotism!"
"Hmph! Well, I don't need that business deal anyway." Devil Chaos knew that he was in the wrong, and to dispute over who was in the right wasn't beneficial for him. He most certainly wouldn't do anything that didn't benefit him.
God Charity didn't mind him. He only watched the door, hoping in his heart that the girl wouldn't come back anymore…
"Good morning, Lü Zi." Ma Sheng approached Lü Zi, giggling.
"Good morning." Lü Zi almost couldn't look Ma Sheng in the eye because she had actually thought of causing Ma Sheng's death yesterday. The always kindhearted and amiable Lü Zi had wallowed in shame the whole night, and in the end, had made up her mind that she would congratulate Ma Sheng and Xia properly even though her heartache was still gnawing at her.
Not having looked at Ma Sheng directly, Lü Zi missed Ma Sheng's expression. It showed surprising spite, and her smile gave off an equally surprising feeling of delight at another's torment. "Lü Zi, let's go swimming at the pool after school today, alright? Let's meet up at the gym and go there together, after we get changed."
Lü Zi excitedly walked to the gym. Swimming had always been her favorite. She just never expected that the sight she was about to see would be so painful. Lü Zi, who was just about to enter the gym, was greeted with the scene of a couple making out—it was Ma Sheng and Xia. She covered her mouth tightly to prevent her cry from bursting out. Why? Why did God make her see this scene? Even though she had decided to congratulate them, it didn't mean that she would be strong enough to see them being lovey-dovey together.
She almost sank into despair, watching Ma Sheng and Xia in front of her. In her heart she tried hard to repeatedly tell herself, Lü Zi, you have to congratulate them. You aren't allowed to have any other thoughts. Congratulate both of your good friends…
But Ma Sheng had noticed Lü Zi a while ago because she had purposely planned this scene. Her heart was full of delight from tormenting Lü Zi. Good friends? Foolish Lü Zi, really too foolish.
"Ms. Ma Sheng," a voice filled with enticement suddenly echoed jarringly from a shadowy corner. A cool, demonic looking man with black hair and red eyes emerged shortly after.
Devil Chaos? How could he be here? Lü Zi's mind was filled with surprise. Could it be that he had come to make her sign a contract again? But he called out Ma Sheng's name just now…?
"Where did you come from?" Ma Sheng had gotten a fright. When she had looked just now, there definitely hadn't been anyone standing there, right?
"That isn't important! The important thing is my payment!" Devil Chaos's smile dripped with evil intentions.
Payment? Ma Sheng made a contract with Devil Chaos? Lü Zi was even more puzzled than before.
"Tell me how much money you want already." Ma Sheng impatiently waved her hand. She didn't want Lü Zi to find out the truth.
"What I want isn't something worthless like money." Devil Chaos smiled dangerously. He didn't mind Ma Sheng's rudeness in the slightest.
"Then what—" Before Ma Sheng could finish her sentence, Lü Zi interrupted her.
"Wait! Devil Chaos, why are you here? Ma Sheng, how come you know him?" Lü Zi didn't know why, but she thought it had to do with how Xia, who was standing silently to the side, had suddenly lifeless eyes.
"Oh, it's you, young lady Lü Zi." Devil Chaos laughed with evil intent and thought of a way to make things even more chaotic. "It's nothing, I'm only here to collect my payment, and it's to be collected from this girl because she made a contract with me. Her wish was to be able to control that boy."
Lü Zi couldn't believe it as she stared at Ma Sheng, whose face turned ugly. She opened her mouth with much difficulty and asked, "Why?"
Ma Sheng hatefully glared at Lü Zi, who hadn't ever seen her wear that kind of expression before. Lü Zi was rooted to her spot, stupefied. "This is all your fault. Lü Zi, you're so dumb. Except for stupid gym class, I'm better than you in every aspect, no matter if it's looks or homework, yet everyone likes you better. You're always able to happily chat with our classmates, but what about me! I can only pretend to be a gentle and refined girl beside you because no girl is willing to talk to me. Do you know how much I envy you because everyone likes you? I couldn't accept it. I at least wanted to steal away the person you liked the most, Xia, but when I confessed to him, he said that the one he likes is you."
Lü Zi stood there, shocked, for a long time. Xia liked her?
Ma Sheng's smile was full of wickedness. "It was then that Magical Exchange appeared. Devil Chaos told me he could grant me any wish. Haha, at first, I didn't carry any hope, but from that day onward, Xia started to obey my every word. He's mine forever. Hahaha."
So, the cause for Xia's lifelessness was this. Lü Zi looked at Xia, who was in the dark about everything, her heart full of pain. "You, how can you do this! Xia isn't your doll. He's a living, human being. How can you control him like that?" Lü Zi almost begged, "Let Xia go! Ma Sheng, the one you hate is me, so control me then."
"Wait a moment, the two of you. If you want to fight, can you wait until after I collect my payment and then fight?" Devil Chaos, who was already fed up with watching, grudgingly said this with a menacing tone.
"Tell me what you want quickly then!" Ma Sheng said, ten times as impatient.
"Well, controlling a person for a lifetime is actually very hard work! But seeing as it is your first time visiting, I'll give you a twenty percent discount." Devil Chaos laughed evilly. "Originally, I wanted fifty years of your youth, but now only taking forty is enough for me."
"What nonsense are you talking about? How can you take something like youth?" Ma Sheng disdainfully thought that the guy in front of her was a lunatic.
"Contract, come here!" Suddenly, a gush of wind rose around Devil Chaos, and a piece of parchment appeared in front of him. "According to this contract, I, Devil Chaos, have fulfilled your heart's wish. I will now collect my payment—forty years of youth." When he finished saying that, the whirl of wind suddenly wrapped around Ma Sheng.
"Ah… What's this? Hurry and let me out," Ma Sheng shouted from the inside, terrified.
Lü Zi didn't know what to do, either. She was only able to blankly watch the unbelievable scene before her eyes.
After a while, the whirlwind returned to Devil Chaos's side once again and slowly vanished into the parchment. At last, Devil Chaos raised his hand, and the parchment simply disappeared in his grasp. "Exchange successful! This was a pleasant collaboration. Feel free to visit the God 'n Devil Magical Exchange again," Devil Chaos finished saying with a mysterious and slow voice. His silhouette followed his voice and slowly faded away before Lü Zi and Ma Sheng.
"What the heck happened?" Lü Zi, whose head was in a mess, was rooted to the spot, dumbfounded.
"He actually disappeared." Ma Sheng stared incredulously at the spot where Devil Chaos had disappeared. But the second she spoke, she and Lü Zi both thought that something was strange—her voice was off. It didn't sound like a girl's voice, but more like a fifty- or sixty-year-old middle aged woman's.
Lü Zi slowly turned to look at Ma Sheng. She remembered what Devil Chaos had said before leaving. The payment was forty years of youth. Could it be possible? Is it possible to take away youth? But in the next moment, she knew, because the person in front of her wasn't a youthful sixteen-year-old Ma Sheng anymore, but a fifty-year-old middle aged woman. Is it? Is it Ma Sheng? She simply didn't dare believe it.
And seeing the disbelief in Lü Zi's eyes, Ma Sheng's confused, surprised, and incredulous feelings all mixed together. She stumbled to the nearest mirror… "Ahhhhhhhhh!" The shrieking person reflected in the mirror was a fifty-to-sixty-year-old woman.
"Why? Why did it turn out this way? I don't want this. I don't want this. Give me back my youth! Give it back to me," Ma Sheng shouted, on the verge of insanity.
"Ma Sheng…" Lü Zi, who was just as disturbed in heart and mind, didn't know what to do either.
"I don't want this. If it's like this, I'd rather die!" The hysterical Ma Sheng abruptly ran outside.
"Ma Sheng, wait!" Lü Zi followed her immediately.
Crap, I lost her. Where the heck did Ma Sheng go? Lü Zi searched in a frenzy. Even though Ma Sheng had done something like that to spite her, she was still softhearted. In Lü Zi's heart, they were still friends, after all. She couldn't just not care about the present Ma Sheng.
All around, a crowd had gathered and was making a racket. What caught Lü Zi's attention was how they were all pointing to the school building's roof. Some people were even screaming. As she raised her head, Lü Zi also started screaming. That's Ma Sheng. The person standing on the roof is Ma Sheng. "Don't do this, Ma Sheng!"
"Ah!" Everyone started yelling because the woman on the roof had jumped. Sprays of blood splashed everywhere. Lü Zi, who was standing right in front of the school building, was coated all over with Ma Sheng's blood. She didn't even have time to cry out or feel horror when she heard the crowd's second outcry. She numbly raised her head to look.
Xia appeared on the rooftop, standing at roughly the same spot as Ma Sheng had. Lü Zi already knew what would happen next, and how much heartache it would cause her. Everything would turn into a tragedy…
Lü Zi numbly walked home, her heart aching so much that she couldn't speak. Even the tears she'd shed after Xia jumped had run out. She had lost her best friend and the boy she loved the most. How did things turn out this way? Is there really no way to change it?
A white, wooden cottage appeared next to her on the street. Lü Zi, who hadn't taken notice of anything since the suicides, still saw it. Three words appeared in front of Lü Zi—God 'n Devil. She should have been resentful. After all, it was this exchange's contract that had caused things to turn out this way, but the present white, wooden cottage emitted an air of comfort and warmth. Lü Zi's numb heart tightened and tears began to fall again. Without hesitating, she entered.
God Charity was standing right behind the door, using his soothing eyes to look into the depths of Lü Zi's heart. He didn't say anything, but calmly opened his arms, and Lü Zi threw herself at God Charity's embrace without hesitation. She cried to her heart's content and let out a heart shattering wail.
After venting her anguish, Lü Zi calmly drank the tea God Charity passed her. She was making up her mind about things. She couldn't let things end like this, not if she could help it.
"God Charity…"
God Charity interrupted her speech, as if he already knew Lü Zi's newfound resolution, "I am in fact able to make a contract with you, to help you fulfill your heart's wish, but the price for resurrecting a person is your life."
Lü Zi shrank for a moment, but immediately stated, "Xia was innocent. At least save him, at least…" She paused, What about Ma Sheng then? Even though Ma Sheng did bad things, nevertheless in being Ma Sheng's good friend and never noticing Ma Sheng's odd behavior all these years, she had practically caused Ma Sheng's death indirectly. Could she give up on Ma Sheng just like that and only save Xia? Lü Zi grew silent.
God Charity was also silent. A kindhearted youth indeed.
"Are you really able to do anything?" Lü Zi asked in an unguarded manner because she had thought of a way to kill two birds with one stone, but it was an extremely wild thing to imagine. Although she had seen Devil Chaos's power, she couldn't help but question if God Charity would be able to do it.
God Charity smiled, unwilling to let go of his pity for the kindhearted girl. "Yes, anything."
"Then, I want to sign a contract with you. Please fulfill my wish." Lü Zi took a deep breath. In her heart, she thought, Yes, this is the best way. It won't hurt anyone, including my parents. "I wish I never existed." This way, Ma Sheng wouldn't make a contract with Devil Chaos to hurt Xia because of her. Her mom and dad wouldn't be sad about losing her. This, truthfully, was the best way.
God Charity only sighed. "Are you sure? Lü Zi, are you sure about sacrificing yourself?"
"Yes," Lü Zi firmly nodded her head. "As for the price, even if you take away my soul, I would have no regrets."
God Charity's heart twinged. He already had a plan. "Alright! Contract, appear. You only have to sign your name on it, and you will be able to accomplish your wish to never have been born."
Lü Zi took the quill, and after writing down her name firmly, looked at God Charity. Her silhouette slowly faded away. "Thank you."
God Charity just nodded his head, watching Lü Zi finally fade away before him. The white light, Lü Zi's soul, slowly floated to his hand.
"What an unprofitable exchange." Devil Chaos's mocking voice echoed from behind God Charity. "The power spent to make her never be born into this world can't be a small matter! You only received a tiny soul. You took an enormous loss, God Charity."
"I feel it is worth it," said God Charity lightly. Then, he added on, "I obtained a kindhearted little servant as a result."
"Servant?" doubted Devil Chaos. He suddenly had an ominous feeling.
God Charity slowly raised his hand and from within, Lü Zi's soul unexpectedly gave off a dazzling light. The light gradually molded into a form—a child's form. At last, a cute, small girl appeared, fair-haired and blue-eyed, resembling a doll.
God Charity looked at her, and then said with a smile, "Let's call you Angel Doll! You're going to be my little servant." After he spoke, he kindly patted Angel Doll's head.
Angel Doll also smiled happily. "Little servant! Starting now, I'll be big brother's little servant."
"Oh my god!" Devil Chaos looked at Angel Doll, who was obviously a mischievous little girl. "Couldn't you have made a beautiful woman instead? What's the use of making a kid?"
God Charity simply smiled while Angel Doll hid behind him. She looked at Devil Chaos with contempt and even stuck out her tongue.
"You brat! Watch me punish you thoroughly, and see if you still dare to stick your tongue out at me." Devil Chaos reached out his hand to catch Angel Doll. Unfortunately, Angel Doll suddenly unfolded a pair of angel wings, flitting about in every direction, stubbornly keeping out of Devil Chaos's reach.
God Charity looked at the two gems in front of him, his heart brimming with amusement. "It seems that I won't be lonely anymore."


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Diabetes 365: Diabetes is Every Day.
There's been a handful of photographers who have tackled the Diabetes 365 project for this year, and I'm proud to be in their company. It's a very inspiring experience, to see how diabetes is reflected in the lives of the members of D365, and how it is captured through their camera lenses.
Some of us are using our DSLR cameras, some of us our point-and-shoots, some documenting with our iPhones or our Blackberries, but every last one of us is showing our lives with diabetes, every day. I know I've talked about this project before, but watching the photos stack up in the Diabetes 365 Flickr group and seeing how, and what, people with diabetes are choosing to document their lives with this disease is incredible.
You didn't need to join the group in January - it's a rotating door of participants. If you want to join the Diabetes 365 group, you can jump in anytime and start. Every day can be Day 1.


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Four-person crews mean UFA gets there slower but helps you faster
May 30, 2018 12:41PM
By Mariden Williams
4-person crews can tackle emergencies much more quickly than 3-person crews. (Unified Fire Service Area)
By Mariden Williams | [email protected]
About six months ago, Riverton transitioned from housing three three-person firefighter teams to two four-person teams. This has had some interesting results on emergency response times.
"We basically are seeing about 24 seconds of increased response time because of only having two units instead of three," said Unified Fire Authority Chief Dan Petersen. "But one of the core benefits we gain out of the four-person crews is a decreased amount of time to actually take action on-scene."
Studies have shown that it takes about 5.1 minutes less to put out a house fire with a four-person crew than with a three-person crew. Additionally, a four-person firefighter crew can immediately enter a burning building, but, due to OSHA regulations, three-person crews must wait for a fourth firefighter to join them before taking action. So while with three-person crews, it may not take as long for firefighters to arrive on scene, with four-person crews can solve the problem much more quickly.
"In a perfect world, we'd have three four-person crews in there, but that would be an extremely expensive change," said Talsan Schulzke, the UFA's strategic data manager.
"We felt good about the data, even though we're only looking at a six-month window," said Petersen. "We've added a little bit of response time but shrunk the call-to-action time by about five minutes per crew."
As Petersen explained, response time—namely, the amount of time from when you dial 911 to when firefighters appear at your door—is actually less important than call-to-action time: the amount of time from when you dial 911 to when the fire is out and your problem is solved.
Increasing the number of four-person crews is not the only change the UFA is looking at making in the near future.
"Something we're really excited about is this data port that we're going to have," said Schulzke.
Accessible through the UFA website, the data port will allow city officials and residents alike to analyze response times, where different stations are what types of calls most frequent in which areas and more, all through an interactive GIS map.
"We're putting that in place right now, and we're very close to having it online," Schulzke said.
"We've worked real hard on getting accurate data," said Petersen. "It's been kind of a challenge over the years, and we've been able to get a lot of that refined."
Analyzing data and crunching the numbers is critical to making sure emergency services can get to the scene and fix your problem as quickly as possible.
"Our system is really built on this design where we place our companies where they need to be to get them as close as possible," said Schulzke. "We try to put them into those places and get the stations built in a good manner that allows us to get to the scene quickly."
Another upcoming change that should decrease response times is the addition of a "peak load" ambulance.
"We're running today with two ambulances in the city, and they serve that south-end area, and as we get more busy, we bring in ambulances from other parts," Petersen said.
The peak load ambulance would float around from jurisdiction to jurisdiction depending on where it was needed most. So if, an area on the east side was receiving lots of calls, there'd be less likelihood of pulling a Riverton ambulance over to pick up the slack.
"That will allow us to move us into different areas based off of the demand for the day, without stripping other regions," Petersen said.


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Update on the "Trust Services" (for Windows Azure) is available!
Microsoft Codename "Trust Services" is an application-level encryption framework that can be used by developers to protect sensitive data stored inside their cloud applications on the Windows Azure Platform. Data encrypted with Trust Services can only be decrypted by authorized data consumers. This empowers data publishers to freely distribute and share data by first encrypting the data using Trust Services. Consumers of sensitive data encrypted with Trust Services can have full confidence that the data cannot be viewed by anyone who is not authorized.
Updated features released include:
- Search on encrypted data
- Encryption of streams
- Role separation for administration, publishing and consumption of data protection
If you are interested to try it out, just visit the "Trust Services" portal.
Technorati Tags: Windows Azure,Security


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South African authorities have detained a Russian cargo vessel suspected of carrying illegal arms.
According to Herald Live, authorities discovered explosives on board the vessel in the course of operations at the Port of Ngqura, just off the coast of Port Elizabeth.
The illicit cargo was said to be headed for Nigeria and US, the report said.
The explosives and weapons — reportedly valued at about R50 million — were discovered following a tip-off, after the ship had offloaded 14 containers at the port.
The containers were reportedly dispatched by a company named Solar India.
The tip-off was said to have alerted authorities to a further hidden 20 containers where the weapons were hidden.
The Hawks, a South African criminal investigative organisation, is said to have commenced an investigation into the incident.
The vessel, named Lada, is currently anchored 15 kilometres off the Nelson Mandela Bay coastline.
Of late, the Nigerian Immigration Service has been reporting increasing discovery of arms illegally imported into the country.


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Monday, February 22, 2010
Reverend's Reviews: Short & Dark Oscar Nominees
Still, all of them are worth seeing despite — and some because of — their dark topics. One even features a gay couple as its main characters. The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2010 are currently enjoying a theatrical release in select cities courtesy of Shorts International and Magnolia Pictures, and they can be downloaded for viewing at iTunes for a limited time.
Here's the rundown on all ten nominees, as well as my predictions regarding the Oscar winners to-be:
Animated Short Film:
French Roast (France, 8 minutes): Former DreamWorks Animation artist Fabrice O. Joubert crafted this amusing, computer-generated study of a man in a coffee shop whose wallet goes missing, leaving him unable to pay his bill. Helps comes from an unlikely source in the film's poignant finale. Great character design.
Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty (Ireland, 6 minutes): A very funny, Tim Burton-esque take on bedtime stories. A little girl is terrorized by her grandmother's decidedly unorthodox version of the classic fairy tale. Designed and directed by the talented Nicky Phelan.
Logorama (France, 16 minutes): I'm not sure permission was secured from the many corporations featured in this audacious spoof, so lawsuits may follow its likely Academy Award win. Michelin Men police are hot on the trail of the maniacal, red-haired namesake of a famous fast-food chain. Featuring the voices of director David Fincher and screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, best known for their successful, behind-the-scenes pairing on 1995's Seven.
The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte) (Spain, 8 minutes): Antonio Banderas produced this treat, written and directed by Javier Recio Gracia. The Grim Reaper and an excessively aggressive doctor battle over a little old lady who just wants to die already. A hilarious critique of end-of-life ethics and a potential Oscar-winner.
A Matter of Loaf and Death (United Kingdom, 30 minutes): Four-time Oscar winner Nick Park returns with his popular Claymation creations, Wallace and Gromit. While there is a more-of-the-same quality to this still-enjoyable outing, Park's history as an Academy favorite could result in this film beating Logorama to the gold.
Live Action Short Film:
The Door (Ireland, 17 minutes): Lovely but very sad glimpse into a family reeling from the after-effects of the 1986 nuclear meltdown of their previous home, Chernobyl. Based on a true story from the tragedy, the short benefits from Juanita Wilson's sensitive writing and direction as well as the beautiful photography in Ukraine locations by Tim Fleming. While the next nominee will give it a good fight leading up to the Oscars, I expect The Door to win.
The New Tenants (Denmark/USA, 20 minutes): Several familiar faces are featured in this black comedy, including Vincent D'Onofrio, David Rakoff (Capote) and Jamie Harrold (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar). The latter two play gay partners who have just moved into a new apartment, which they discover has a very violent history that isn't over yet. The bigger names in this entry may end up giving it an edge over The Door.
Instead of Abracadabra (Sweden, 22 minutes): Offbeat story of a jobless, accident-prone young man who yearns to make it as a magician. He gets the chance to prove himself at his father's birthday party, but can he avoid injuring the guests in the process? I was reminded at times of the goofy Napoleon Dynamite while watching this short by Patrik Eklund.
Kavi (USA/India, 19 minutes): Writer-director Gregg Helvey won the 2009 Student Academy Award for this, and he hopes to duplicate his success next month among the professionals. Similar in plot and tone to last year's big Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire, Helvey focuses on a young boy who yearns for his family to escape their harsh, slave-labor existence.
Miracle Fish (Australia, 17 minutes): This creepy film by Luke Doolan starts out innocently enough, as a boy celebrates his 8th birthday. By the climax, however, his teachers and fellow students have disappeared and he has a disturbing encounter. The ending is haunting, and this short is neck-and-neck with The Door in the running for my personal favorite in the Live Action division.
For more information on where and how to see the nominees, visit the official website of Shorts International.
Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.
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