text:
Run straight out of Stockholm, Studio Barnhus was established as an active label back in 2010 by Kornél Kovács, Petter Nordkvist and Axel Boman. Together, they set up shop in the basement of an old stone building in central Stockholm, which they dubbed Studio Barnhus, working closely together in a refined environment, the label naturally began to take shape.
Since 2010 over 40 records, produced by the founding members as well as friends, internationally and domestically have made it out of the 'Barnhusgatan basement', touring the world in record bags of some of the worlds most notable deck smiths. Here are our top 5 releases on the label.
Kornél Kovács - Baby Step
The B-side on an epic compilation, which features all three of the label founders. A lo-fi authentic groove and intelligent sample working in harmony to provide a dance floor filler.
MLiR – People
A groove led bass line featuring dreamy soundscapes and guitars from MLiR, a Swedish musical collective fronted by Marco Gegenheimer and Einar Christoffersson.
Gino Bomino - For Sharon
A refreshing disco cut from Gino Bomino. Upbeat and constructed for to move the floor, 'For Sharon' was released on the first ever release from Studio Barnhus.
Shakarchi & Stranéus - Something...
A slightly more minimal take on things, Shakarchi & Stranéus' 'Something…' focuses it's attention on the bassy side of things.
Axel Boman - Modern Fluids
A jazzy, tech house cut, but not by any means cheesey. Modern Fluids is a bass lead, driving record. Modern Fluids also featured on the first ever releases from the Stockholm based label.


text:
To ensure that critical voices of Africa's large youth demographic are heard, the global software giant, Microsoft has introduced first four youth members to the 4Afrika Advisory Council .
The youth members were selected from a pool of notable candidates from existing African youth leadership groups, including U.S. President Obama's Young African Leaders Initiative, the African Leadership Network, the African Leadership Initiative, the Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellowship Program and the World Economic Forum's Forum of Young Global Leaders.
The council will meet in person twice annually and will also hold regionally focused meetings throughout the year.
It would be recalled that Microsoft 4Afrika Advisory Council, announced last October, is an external board of advisers tasked with guiding strategic investments undertaken by the Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative.
The Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative launched last year was designed to help Africa improve its global competitiveness and, in just under a year, has successfully launched programs across the continent.
"The information and communications technology (ICT) field is not only redefining how we conduct our major businesses on the continent, it is increasingly improving the efficiency of critical support services, such as education, health, and disaster mitigation and management.
"The young demographic is playing a big role in integrating new solutions to these services, and this has helped create new industries and employment opportunities,†said H.E. Benjamin Mkapa, chairman, Microsoft 4Afrika Advisory Council, said.
According to Mkapa, "The Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative will be critical in defining a framework that other global and indigenous organizations in the ICT space can adopt to leverage this emerging space and promote economic development in Africa. We are excited about the induction of the new 4Afrika Advisory Council youth members because it helps the initiative stay true to the spirit of youth, enterprise and innovation.â€
The youth leaders who have joined Microsoft 4Afrika Advisory Council will include:
*Akaliza Keza Gara (Rwanda). An entrepreneur and founder of multimedia company Shaking Sun, Gara is a mentor at open technology hub kLab in Kigali and a member of Girls in ICT Rwanda. Gara is currently setting up an animation studio to create cartoons and films for African children.
*Chude Jideonwo (Nigeria). An award-winning journalist, media entrepreneur and youth development expert, Jideonwo is co-founder and managing partner of RED, an innovative media company that owns the Future Awards Africa, the continent's premier youth event. Jideonwo also founded Enough Is Enough Nigeria, one of Nigeria's foremost civic groups, and has been awarded several accolades, including being selected by the World Economic Forum as a Global Shaper.
*Tayeb Sbihi (Morocco). A Moroccan entrepreneur, Sbihi has a bachelor of science, a master of science and an MBA, and he has 10 years of professional experience in multinational companies specializing in new technologies. With a wide knowledge of the telecoms market, he founded his first company, B2N Consulting, offering a wide range of telecom services and solutions to Morocco and Africa.
*Olivia Mukam (Cameroon). A social activist and entrepreneur, Mukam was a student when she helped solve the problem of waterborne diseases in West Cameroon by giving 5,000 villagers access to clean water. She then founded the NGO Harambe to engage Cameroonian youth to be national problem solvers.
Thousands of youth were trained with business skills, and the for-profit business that Mukam co-founded, Solutioneurs SARL (LLC), taps into the Harambe database of skills to deliver affordable solutions to small businesses in Cameroon, Nigeria, the U.K and the U.S.
"I'm very excited to be joining the council as a youth leader,†Sbihi said, adding that, "I look forward to meeting the rest of the members and exchanging ideas. We all come from different fields and countries, which helps create richness. Our skills complement each other, and we bring different insights, be it technological, political, environmental or social. We represent a good mix, and we'll work together to do something good.â€
For Mteto Nyati, vice chair, Microsoft 4Afrika Advisory Council, "Africa has a relatively young population. This can be either a curse or a blessing. The aim of our 4Afrika Initiative is to unleash the potential of Africa's youth. Our ambassadors will guide us as we strive to achieve this goal,†said Mteto Nyati, vice chair, Microsoft 4Afrika Advisory Council.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Incidences of breast cancer have risen dramatically in six counties in Texas with extensive fracking:
Because the rise in local cancer rates occurred in the same counties as those with the Barnett Shale's most intense gas drilling development, some residents are concerned about toxic exposures.
In 2010, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality inventoried emissions sources from natural gas production equipment in all 24 counties of the Barnett Shale. The six counties with the most production equipment are Denton, Hood, Johnson, Parker, Tarrant and Wise counties — the same six counties with high breast cancer rates.


text:
It seems that the buzz about SharePoint 2010 can be found anywhere, but have you experienced SharePoint 2010 for yourself? Since it's release in May 2010, I am sure that you, and others at your organization, have heard about SharePoint 2010, but do you know all of the ways in which your organization can take advantage of SharePoint 2010? Microsoft SharePoint 2010 makes it even easier for people to work together, increasing collaboration both within and outside of your organization. Using SharePoint within your organization gives your people the option of setting up websites to share information with others, manage documents from start to finish, and publish reports to help everyone in your organization make better decisions.
OTT, Inc. invites you to learn more about SharePoint 2010 by attending our Introducing SharePoint 2010 session which will be held on Tuesday, November 16, from 9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m., during our 2010 Summit.
In addition to the SharePoint 2010 session, the 2010 Summit offers an additional 34 sessions, with a wide variety of topics including Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Information Technology, Executive, HR/Payroll Users, and Independent Software Vendors.
For more information on SharePoint 2010 or on OTT, Inc.'s 2010 Summit, you can contact us at [email protected] or 651.262.2615.
Learn more:
- Visit the OTT, Inc. Website
- Visit the 2010 Summit Website
- Follow OTT, Inc. on Twitter
- Follow the OTT, Inc. Summit on Twitter
By OTT, Inc., Minnesota SharePoint Partner


text:
The critically acclaimed soprano Measha Brueggergosman was awarded the Grand
Prize at the 2002 Jeunesses Musicales Montreal International Competition and
has been a prizewinner in other renowned competitions including the Wigmore
Hall in London, George London Foundation in New York, and Robert-Schumann in
Germany. In a busy international career she has appeared throughout North America
and Europe, including a Royal Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth II. She
also appeared as Liuin Turandot in a return engagement with Cincinnati
Opera. She has been honoured to sing for the Prince of Wales and for Nelson
Mandela. Recent operatic engagements have brought appearances in Turandot,
Elektra and Dead Man Walking with Cincinnati Opera, and, in the concert
hall, a recital debut at Roy Thomson Hall, and the Verdi Requiem with
Helmuth Rilling at the International Beethoven Festival Bonn.


text:
Bug Tracker Settings
When making a commit, metadata about bugs fixed by that change can be recorded by using the --fixes option. For each bug marked as fixed, an entry is included in the 'bugs' revision property stating '<url> <status>'. (The only status value currently supported is fixed.)
The --fixes option allows you to specify a bug tracker and a bug identifier rather than a full URL. This looks like:
bzr commit --fixes <tracker>:<id>
where "<tracker>" is an identifier for the bug tracker, and "<id>" is the identifier for that bug within the bugtracker, usually the bug number.
Bazaar knows about a few bug trackers that have many users. If you use one of these bug trackers then there is no setup required to use this feature, you just need to know the tracker identifier to use. These are the bugtrackers that are built in:
URL Abbreviation Example https://bugs.launchpad.net/ lp lp:12345 http://bugs.debian.org/ deb deb:12345 http://bugzilla.gnome.org/ gnome gnome:12345
For the bug trackers not listed above configuration is required. Support for generating the URLs for any project using Bugzilla or Trac is built in, along with a template mechanism for other bugtrackers with simple URL schemes. If your bug tracker can't be described by one of the schemes described below then you can write a plugin to support it.
If you use Bugzilla or Trac, then you only need to set a configuration variable which contains the base URL of the bug tracker. These options can go into bazaar.conf, branch.conf or into a branch-specific configuration section in locations.conf. You can set up these values for each of the projects you work on.
Note: As you provide a short name for each tracker, you can specify one or more bugs in one or more trackers at commit time if you wish.
Use bzr commit --fixes lp:2 to record that this commit fixes bug 2.
If present, the location of the Bugzilla bug tracker referred to by <tracker>. This option can then be used together with bzr commit --fixes to mark bugs in that tracker as being fixed by that commit. For example:
bugzilla_squid_url = http://www.squid-cache.org/bugs
would allow bzr commit --fixes squid:1234 to mark Squid's bug 1234 as fixed.
If present, the location of the Trac instance referred to by <tracker>. This option can then be used together with bzr commit --fixes to mark bugs in that tracker as being fixed by that commit. For example:
trac_twisted_url = http://www.twistedmatrix.com/trac
would allow bzr commit --fixes twisted:1234 to mark Twisted's bug 1234 as fixed.
If present, the location of a generic bug tracker instance referred to by <tracker>. The location must contain an {id} placeholder, which will be replaced by a specific bug ID. This option can then be used together with bzr commit --fixes to mark bugs in that tracker as being fixed by that commit. For example:
bugtracker_python_url = http://bugs.python.org/issue{id}
would allow bzr commit --fixes python:1234 to mark bug 1234 in Python's Roundup bug tracker as fixed, or:
bugtracker_cpan_url = http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id={id}
for CPAN's RT bug tracker.


text:
Our diverse and evolving range of extra-curricular clubs and activities provides every opportunity for Pipers' girls to broaden their horizons and develop new skills.
All girls are encouraged to follow a healthy and active lifestyle. Girls have opportunities to participate in a range of team sports and, if they choose to, an energetic programme of competitive sports fixtures.
From gym to technology there are lots of clubs taking place at lunch time and after school for Senior School girls to join. Some examples of current clubs are:
For girls involved in sports, Pipers participates in a busy fixture list against other Schools.
Girls can take part in school visits to places of interest both at home and abroad. From historic castles in England, to the battlefields of the Somme, the ski slopes of Austria and the sheer beauty of the volcanic landscape of Iceland, it is by taking the girls out into the world that we can open them up to new possibilities and experiences which are essential both academically and personally.


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Holt Sweeps Titles at ITF Grade B1 Pan American Closed; Day Claims Girls Singles Championship
©Colette Lewis 2015--
Tulsa, Oklahoma--
Brandon Holt and Kayla Day will return to Southern California with ITF crystal after claiming three titles Saturday at the Grade B1 Pan American Closed.
Holt, a wild card, won both the singles and doubles championship, defeating JJ Wolf 6-1, 6-7(5), 6-0 for his first ITF title, then partnering Vasil Kirkov to take the tournament's last match, the boys doubles final.
Day, the No. 2 seed, defeated roommate and friend Kelly Chen 6-4, 6-1 to collect her first ITF Grade 1 title, with the girls doubles championship going to Ann Li and Natasha Subhash on a cloudy and cool morning at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center on the campus of the University of Tulsa.
Holt won the first five games of the match against the unseeded Wolf, but the score was deceiving, with Holt needing to save break points in each of his first two service games. Wolf was making errors and Holt was avoiding them, but that changed in the second set, despite Wolf going down 2-0 to start.
Breaking back to go up 2-2, Wolf then took his first lead of the match, holding serve for 3-2 from 15-40 down. Holt, who is the picture of composure most of the time, berated himself briefly, then held and broke to take a 5-3 lead. With Wolf making more forehands and hitting with more pace, the points offered high quality entertainment, and Wolf held to force Holt to serve for the match. Holt didn't get to match point, with Wolf forcing two errors from 30-all, but he got another chance when Wolf was broken at 5-all. Again Holt couldn't close, and he was broken in one of the quickest games of the match to send the set to a tiebreaker.
Wolf played well to earn a 6-2 lead, but Holt won three straight points to put the pressure back on Wolf. Wolf delivered with a third-shot backhand winner, but if Holt was frustrated by the momentum swing in the match, he didn't show it.
"He played an amazing tiebreaker," said Holt, a 17-year-old from Rolling Hills. "I was a little down on energy, I don't know why, but I guess it makes sense when I didn't serve it out in two chances. I came back to 6-5, but he hit a too-good backhand cross court."
Holt thought back to a time when he might not have handled the situation well.
"Probably three years ago, I would have been really, really mad after that and gone crazy," Holt said. "Not go crazy like throwing my racquet, but go crazy in my head, why am I out here I had all these chances. But I thought, just come out and play like I did in the first set. Against JJ Wolf, I'm happy to be in the third set any day. He's been playing amazing, a great US Open, and he's a great kid also, amazing sportsmanship."
Holt was able to find that first set form at the beginning of the third, and Wolf was not able to match that level, with the racquet claps and "good shot" compliments that both boys displayed earlier coming mostly from Wolf in the final set.
"I think I kind of caught him by surprise," said Holt, who like Wolf, won a sportsmanship trophy at Kalamazoo this summer. "He thought I may have been more down on myself. But I played well, and I'm happy about that. At 5-0 you may think you have the match under control, but I was still nervous, because I know he's not going to roll over."
Three match points came and went with Wolf serving at 0-5, but the fourth went Holt's way, with Wolf's backhand catching the tape and bouncing wide.
Wolf was disappointed he could not get in front of Holt.
"When he gets up, it's hard to come back," said the 16-year-old from Cincinnati. "He gets more aggressive and more confident. He went after it a little more, and I didn't. It didn't seem to bother him too much, splitting sets after serving for the match. He got an early lead and I couldn't get back in it. I did my best, but I made way too many errors, although he forced a lot of them."
Prior to the girls final, Day and Chen were instructed by USTA coach Erik Kortland to give each other a little space. Day and Chen had roomed together all week, had eaten breakfast together, had come to the courts together and warmed up together, but neither had any difficulty putting that aside for the final.
Day, who had saved two match points in her 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(3) semifinal win over Abigail Desiatnikov, came out determined to play more aggressively in the final, and she took a 2-0 lead. The ninth-seeded Chen broke back and held, and Day stayed even, saving two break points for 3-3. Chen was broken at love in the next game, but Day gave the break right back. One more break, the fifth of the set came next, giving Day a chance to serve out the set, and she did, cranking an ace to take it.
Day, a left-hander, said her serve was a bigger part of her success in the final than it had been in the semifinal.
"It was definitely better," said the 16-year-old from Santa Barbara. "Not perfect, but better. When I serve wide on the ad court, it pulls them off the court, so I'm able to go open court or behind them, which is a good way to start the point. And on my T serves, the spin is just different, so it throws them off a little bit."
Chen was broken to start the second set, and she had difficulty winning points after losing that game, with Day playing consistent, confident tennis while waiting for unforced errors. Chen held in the fifth game, but Day did not give her any opportunities to work her way back into the match.
"She played really well," said Chen, a 16-year-old from Cerritos, California. "I thought I kind of lost my energy in the second, but she picked it up after the first set. I thought I had some chances in the beginning, but I didn't take it, and that got me in trouble. Her serves were on today, so I had trouble returning, especially her first serves."
Day was pleased that she could rebound from her long, tense semifinal win Friday afternoon.
"I think I was a little bit tired mentally, because it was a very dramatic match yesterday," said Day. "On those match points, you're just trying to stay in the match, you're not focusing on anything else. I think it's really great that I was able to come out and play great today, after a long, tough match yesterday."
While Chen and Day have spent all week together, that ends today, with Chen heading to Florence, South Carolina for Sunday's first round of qualifying for the $25,000 women's Pro Circuit event there. Day heads back home after a long stretch away from the West Coast, having returned from the Junior Fed Cup in Madrid as a silver medalist, then trained at the USTA Center in Boca Raton prior to traveling to Tulsa.
"It was so much fun," Day said of her week in Spain, where she won six of eight matches. "I had never played in a big team competition before, so it was a great experience. We had a lot of fun and did well. I really liked the clay."
The girls doubles final was a close one, with Li and Subhash taking it 7-6(4), 6-3 over Hurricane Tyra Black and Meibel Chi, who also were unseeded. There were a total of nine deciding points in the no-ad format, with Li and Subhash winning seven of them.
Li and Subhash don't claim to be particularly adept at deciding points, however.
"It depends on how we're feeling," said Li, a 15-year-old from Devon, Pa. "It's just who plays better on that point," added Subhash a 14-year-old Fairfax, Va. resident. "So, yeah, it depends.
Li and Subhash have had success together in other tournaments, so this result, the first Grade 1 title for either, is not a surprise.
"We have fun out there and communicate really well," said Li. "We know each other's games." "We're really good friends too," Subhash added.
The boys doubles final was even closer, with the unseeded Holt and Kirkov defeating No. 6 seeds Sebastian Arcila of Puerto Rico and Gerardo Penchyna Cardenas of Mexico 6-4, 2-6, 10-8.
Holds of serve were rare, with only five in the first set and two in the second set. That theme extended into the match tiebreaker, with half of the points going to the returner.
Holt and Kirkov went up 7-4, but lost four points in a row. Holt then won both his points on serve, with a backhand volley winner making it 8-8 and an ace getting his team to match point. Arcila missed his first serve and he couldn't handle the return of the second, with his backhand hitting the net cord to end the match.
"I was glad I picked up a good partner at the last minute," said Kirkov, who was scheduled to play with Sam Riffice, who was injured during the Junior Davis Cup earlier this month in Spain. "I was really happy that he needed a partner, since he was in the finals of the US Open."
Holt was impressed with Arcila and Penchyna.
"They were taking their returns really early, so we had to hit low first volleys on our serves," said Holt. "It came down to a few points," said Kirkov, a 16-year-old from Tampa, Fla. "They hit a couple of good volleys, a couple of good returns. But that didn't get us down, and we played a couple of good points to extend the match."
By winning both singles and doubles titles this week, Holt's ITF junior ranking will rise dramatically, but other than its role in entry into tournaments, he isn't too concerned about that number.
"I don't know much about rankings," said Holt, who will be heading back to classes at Palos Verdes High next week. "I don't know how many points I'm getting for this or anything, but I'm not really worried about my ranking. It obviously affects seeding and stuff, but that didn't affect me here."
Complete draws can be found at the ITF junior website.


text:
Vegan Spinach Lasagna
Eat Heal Glow
1 package no cook lasagna noodles
2 boxes thawed and drained spinach – or 2 bags fresh spinach
2 jars or 8 cups homemade tomato basil pasta sauce
1 package vegan mozzarella cheese (I like Teeze or Daiya)
1-cup vegan cheddar cheese
1 small onion chopped
Vegan Parmesan or cashew cheese
Fresh basil
Vegan Ricotta
For the Vegan Ricotta:
1 block of extra firm tofu drained
1 block of silken or soft tofu drained
Juice of 1 lemon
Fresh basil and parsley to taste
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
1/3-cup nutritional yeast
1-teaspoon umeboshi vinegar
2 teaspoons miso paste *Optional
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste
Mix well in a food processor until ricotta like consistency. Adding a little more oil if necessary.
Preheat oven to 350F
Sautee the onions, and spinach in olive oil.
To Assemble:
- Put a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of a large baking dish.
- Cover with a layer of lasagna noodles – slightly overlapped. Follow with vegan ricotta spread thinly across the noodles.
- Sprinkle with ¾ cup of vegan mozzarella.
- Add 1/3 the spinach mixture over top.
- Pour on more sauce
- Repeat: Noodles, ricotta, mozzarella, spinach, sauce. Noodles, ricotta, sauce, spinach, sauce.
- End with noodles.
- Pour more sauce overtop
- Top with vegan mozzarella and cheddar mixture
- Cover pan tightly with foil, put in oven at 350 F and cook about an hour.
- Remove foil for the last 10 minutes of cooking.
- Serve with a light crisp green salad. Enjoy!!!
Optional Additions or Substitutions:
- Replace noodles with sweet potato or eggplant thinly sliced with a mandolin for a gluten free veggie option.
- Add chopped artichoke hearts or green peppers to the spinach mixture.
- Mix the spinach mixture with the vegan ricotta.
- Add arugula or extra herbs to the vegan ricotta.
Nancy Bond firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Lolo Jones Caught Up In New Bobsled Scandal After Making USA Team
Poor Lolo! She must have been so excited to make the U.S. Olympic Bobsled team, but now critics and some bobsledders who didn't make the squad are saying she was only chosen because of her 'celebrity status.' How rude!
Lolo Jones' teammates are coming to her defense after she beat out fellow bobsledders Emily Azevedo and Katie Eberling for the final spot on the U.S. Olympic Bobsled team, causing an outcry in the bobsledding community. While critics say that Lolo didn't deserve to make the squad, her teammate Jazmine Fenlator insists Lolo is an "integral" member of the "wolf pack."
Lolo Jones At Olympics — New Scandal After Athlete Makes USA Bobsled Team
Lolo totally earned her spot on the team and she worked just as hard as anyone else to get there, Jazmine tells TMZ in a new interview.
"The Olympic team has developed a bond," Jazmine says. "We have each other's backs."
"We have great chemistry together," she adds. "Don't know how the team would do without her."
At least someone has Lolo's back!
USBSF Defends Lolo Jones Pick
The U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation also defended its decision, saying Lolo was chosen based on her performance, not on the amount of publicity or endorsements she generates, ESPN reports.
"Nobody put any pressure on us," the federation's CEO, Darrin Steele, said. "We haven't made a single deal based on Lolo Jones."
"At the end of the day, the selection committee, we don't look at Twitter or anyone outside our sport," Darrin added. "We're more concerned about inside our sport. There's a lot of factors in making our decisions. Performance is the biggest one."
What do YOU think, HollywoodLifers? Are you glad Lolo made the U.S. Olympic Bobsled team? Let us know!
— Tierney McAfee


text:
Sometimes these moments of diabetes fatigue hit me out of nowhere.
Last night my pump site was itchy and sore. I'm not due to change it until tonight, so I figured I'd ride it out and just put up with the sore site for a day.
This morning I woke up late, rushed in to work without testing in the morning, and only checked when I got in to the office. I'd been going on my cgm values, which were a little high but nothing too critical.
My BG once I got to work? 18.7.
The most likely culprit is a site that's not absorbing properly any more. I know that to fix it the next thing I should do would be an injection (not a correction delivered through my pump!) and a set change.
I open the "diabetes drawer" at work, pull out my spare reservoir and Mio set... and I pause.
I just don't want to.
I'm actually finding myself contemplating getting the vial of long-acting Levemir that I keep in the fridge at work and switching back to shots for a day or two.
I know that a sore site makes me much more likely to want to take a break from pumping. A sore site is a reminder that I've got a plastic cannula below the skin, making a tiny part of my body itchy and uncomfortable.
For now I've delivered my correction and am waiting on the whole set-change-or-not issue. There is no need to decide right now.
It is uncomfortable, painful, and unfortunate, but it is not currently life-threatening. I can afford to take a minute to try to remind myself why I started pumping in the first place.


text:
7-Outlet Home Series SurgeMaster®
F9H700-06 / {{blVariant}}
This item is added to your Wishlist
The seven-outlet Home Series SurgeMaster from Belkin offers three-line AC surge protection for your general electronics and home appliances. It has an energy rating of 885 joules and provides a maximum spike current of 45,000 Amps. Along with seven surge-protected outlets with sliding safety covers, it features a Spoiler Cord System for easy, clutter-free cord management. Our handy BlockSpace outlets provide extra room for block-style plugs and adapters without covering other outlets, and LEDs illuminate to let you know your equipment is protected.
- Features 7 surge-protected outlets with sliding safety caps
- Provides BlockSpace outlets for large, AC block-style plugs and adapters
- Filters EMI/RFI noise up to 43 dB reduction
- Includes Spoiler Cord System for easy clutter-free cord management
- Comes with a Belkin Lifetime $75,000 Connected Equipment Warranty


text:
VS Pink v neck // Hollister cardigan, old // Hollister denim, old // Asos sandals (I sized down 1 full size)
it's no secret that my favorite color is pink, so to pair it with cream and white was perfect for a casual night hanging out 🙂 I'm loving our warmer weather, but it can be breezy especially in the evenings so a light cardigan is definitely a go-to!
white denim is super on trend (like it has been for a few years now) and I feel that instead of being trendy white jeans are really a staple piece, just like dark wash denim or black denim. we all need a great pair of white jeans in our wardrobe! 🙂 I have a dog and a baby and I'm not afraid to wear white, things can be washed, dry cleaned, bleached 😉 honestly, I know I had something dirty on my leg and still went ahead and took pics 😉 that's life and what can we do about it?! just embrace the mess!
I hope you're having a great week!
we are busy, busy at work! 😉


text:
When you're trying to live a clean, healthy and/or organic lifestyle, usually you start off by cutting out the obvious no no's like cookies, chips, and other junk foods (at least, I know I did). But as you learn more and more about your food and where it comes from, you're going to become more picky about the foods and even the food brands you choose.
I wrote one of my first posts and longggg time about about making a taco salad that was a healthy alternative to Chipotle. Sure, the post is good. But I was still making some food mistakes that I wouldn't even dream of doing today. In other words, I was still using a processed ingredient that most people don't even think about when they're making Mexican or Latin-inspired food: taco seasoning.
Why IS Taco Seasoning So Bad?
So let me just make one quick disclaimer before I get to the bad news about taco seasoning. Will taco seasoning kill you? Probably not. In the grand scheme of things, taco seasoning is a drop in the bucket of processed and unhealthy foods. But if you're like me and cleaning up your diet, over time you want to avoid as many additives and preservatives as possible. Sure, they're safe for now. But no one really knows the long-term effects of these foods, and in my eyes that's the argument that wins every time.
The taco seasoning you loved as a kid might taste all fine and dandy, but it's definitely got some hidden ingredients in it:
- MSG—We've talked before about how dangerous this chemical is and how you don't need to worry about it only when ordering Chinese take out. MSG adds a savory or umami flavor to a lot of foods. It has also been linked to hunger and obesity by stimulating the part of your brain that stores food as fat instead of as fuel you're body can readily use.
I did a little research on Old El Paso's taco seasoning, which is one of the top brands in the market. First off, when I wanted to read the nutritional information on the site, the link I clicked on brought me here. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but to me it looks really sketchy when I can't figure out the ingredients for a simple spice mix. Why is Old El Paso hiding this from me and other consumers who want to know more about their product?
When I finally did find an online ingredients list, it still wasn't even for the plain taco mix. I came about it when looking at all their taco and burrito dinner kits. Of course, I could just go to the store and buy their product or read the ingredients label at the grocery store. But in a world fraught with technology, the internet, and an overall digital culture, there's no reason their site shouldn't have the same information.
- Citric Acid—This is a preservative used in many food products to prevent mold and other forms of spoilage. It also adds a sour note similar to lemon, lime, and other citrus foods. McCormick's taco seasoning uses this ingredient, and while I'm not happy about it, at least they're honest. Citric acid is just another preservative you don't need to expose yourself to. Skip the artificial ingredients and simply make your own seasoning!
- Other Hidden, But Common Allergens—Often these seasonings and mixes will contain gluten, milk, refined oils, and other ingredients you wouldn't normally think of in spice mixes. One of my favorite organic guacamole mixes actually has milk in it. If you have moderate to severe or even just mild allergies, it's best to avoid these products and make your own seasonings instead.
I've seen DIY taco seasonings before that make GIANT batches, then store these mixes in mason jars until it's time for use. But what if you're in a hurry and don't have time for a few cups of seasoning and need something quick? This DIY taco seasoning is super easy in that you probably have most of these ingredients on hand. I literally improvised this one night when I was browning turkey for tacos and it tasted exactly like the taco seasoning I loved as a kid.
Also remember you can use this mix for other Latin-inspired dishes. Whether it's ground turkey, ground beef, poultry, or even rice/beans, this seasoning mix is my go-to for Latin dishes.
|Prep Time
|5 minutes
|Cook Time
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp Mexican chili powder
- 1/4 tsp pink Himalayan salt
- 1/4 tsp tsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- 1-2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1-2 tbsp fresh lime juice (juice of about half a life)
- Simply brown your meat or poultry as you normally would. Add a the spices and tomato paste in the last 10 minutes of cooking. Serve as you would normally serve tacos.


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Chris Brown & Rihanna's Night Together? New Evidence
Chris and Rihanna have plenty of access to each other while in St. Tropez, and Chris hasn't been sleeping on his boat, a source reveals to HollywoodLife.com EXCLUSIVELY! Read on for details.
Reports indicate that Chris Brown chartered a helicopter to take him to Rihanna's private yacht in St. Tropez on July 22. We've learned from a source close to Chris that not only was this possible, but Chris didn't return to his yacht on the night in question!
"All I know is [Chris] wasn't where we all [are] staying when I woke up," the friend revealed to HollywoodLife.com exclusively, though they couldn't confirm where Chris was instead.
Our source said that it wouldn't be hard for Chris, 23, to get to 24-year-old Rihanna, revealing "[he has] access to boats and planes … out here, so getting to her [isn't hard]."
It appears that Chris and Rihanna both being in St. Tropez at the same time is no mere coincidence. Our source alleges, "[They've been] planning this s**t. You think it was a coincidence she just happened to be hours away here? She's [infatuated] and so is he."
The source couldn't confirm whether the pair had actually met, but did leave us with this: "[Chris is really] happy with a smile on his face…I'm just saying."
What do you think, HollywoodLifers? With this new evidence, do you think Chris and Rihanna spent the night together?
— Reporting by Eric Mitchell, Written by Billy Nilles
More Rihanna & Chris:
- Chris Brown & Rihanna: Spending Nights Together In St. Tropez? Report
- Rihanna Planned St. Tropez Trip To Be Close To Chris Brown
- Chris Brown — Real Reason He's In St. Tropez, Close To Rihanna


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Warm Royal Down Duvet 150x210cm
This 100% down duvet surprises you with the softness of its down filling. When you hide under your duvet, you can only feel the incredible airiness and lightness, until the even warmth takes over and you fall asleep with beautiful dreams.
Joutsen is the only manufacturer of down duvets and pillows that has been awarded the allergy label by the Finnish Allergy, Skin and Asthma Federation. The allergy label is a mark of reliability awarded to products that have been studied and proved safe by an independent entity.
Washing instructions
- Wet the product through before washing.
- Select a 60 °C washing cycle with an ample rinse and a long and efficient spin cycle.
- Use Joutsen down shampoo or another mild detergent with no bleaching agents.
- At most one third of the normal detergent dose is sufficient.
- Do not use fabric softener.
- The product can be dried in a tumble dryer at a low temperature setting, or in an airy space, fluffing it intermittently by hand.
- The drying period varies greatly, depending on the product. The drying time in a dryer is approx. 2–4 hours and when air-drying, 2–3 days.


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If you receive a message like "untrusted" or "unverified security certificate" when you try to access the library's databases, you are not alone.
While we are not sure what prompts this issue, know that this is a valid website. If you have an option to ignore the warning and proceed, this should correct this issue.
If this does not work, it can help to try a different browser.
To access off campus, your username will be your first initial + last name + last four digits of your seven-digit Clatsop Student ID#
Your password will be your date of birth in the following format: YYYYMMDD. If you have changed your password to login to the Computer Lab, use the changed password. This is a separate from your MYCCC and your library account.
Example: For Jane Q. Student with Student ID# 000-1234 and date of birth January 31, 1991, her username will be : jstudent1234 and her password will be: 19910131
If you have any questions, please contact the library at:
(503) 338-2462


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Access thought leadership to know our latest innovations.
Learn more about our customer's success stories with Glassbeam.
Get insightful visualizations of the key IOT technologies and how industries can leverage them.
Get detail technical reports about the impact Glassbeam is delivering to our customers and partners.
Insightful and informative videos on the latest research and industry perspectives on Machine Data Analytics and the impact of IoT.
Here are the key presentations delivered by Glassbeam at major events across United States.


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The Cemix waterproofing range protects above and below ground structures from water damage. Among the extensive waterproofing range, are the products that are suitable for a wide range of waterproofing applications. For large projects, or if you are uncertain, please contact the Cemix team on 0800 ASK CEMIX. Proper maintenance of the concrete structure is essential in order to guarantee a prolonged design life and ensure the longevity of any waterproofing system.
Other than Cemix Rubberguard, none of the products in this range are suitable for undertile waterproofing. Please refer to Tiling for these.
For more information on our sealers range, see our Waterproofing brochure or watch our videos on our youtube channel.
2L, 4L and 10L
Cemix Pond and Trough Waterproofer is a non-toxic, solvent free, water based, high performance, polyurethane based, elastomeric and flexible exterior grade, brushable waterpoofer with long term UV and weather resistance to exposed and permanently immersed areas.


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Texas Democrats are embracing legalization and possession, the immediate legalization of medical marijuana, removal of cannabis from the banned substances list and the release of pot prisoners and expungement of pot-related misdemeanors. And, they're calling for the legalization of hemp for agricultural purposes.
The Dems stepped up to the plate a week after the Texas Republican party held its convention and approved decriminalization, expanding MMJ and rescheduling weed under federal law.
Similar pro-pot political activity also went on in New Hampshire over the weekend of June 23-23, when Democratic delegates voted to add cannabis legalization to its platform, which would also imply removing it from the Controlled Substances Act.
"The passage of the pro-legalization plank in New Hampshire reflects a significant policy evolution—but the path to its approval wasn't necessarily smooth," writes Marijuana Moment.
Party officials debated the initial language of the plank, which said the state should "treat cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol." The plank was changed to satisfy some members did not like the references to alcohol, The Concord Monitor reported, although party delegates adopted the legal marijuana endorsement.
New Hampshire's Republican party has yet to take up legalization as a platform plank. They should probably get with the program soon, especially as Democratic party delegates across the country line up behind cannabis reform policies such as decriminalization if not outright legalization.
Iowa's Democratic party went so far as to call for the legalization of all drugs.
Increasing support for legalization among Democratic state parties reflects the increasing trend toward cannabis acceptance. This was revealed in a recent poll noting that nearly two-thirds of U.S. voters back legalizing marijuana.
The survey, undertaken by think tank Center for American Progress (CAP), noted that sixty-eight percent of Americans – of all political persuasions – not only support legalization but also support the idea of sealing the criminal records of nonviolent offenders who serve their sentences. The survey was released on Wednesday June 20.


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Partner with us
PCYC Queensland thanks the Queensland business community for their continued assistance and support as we work towards our mission of building safer, healthier communities through youth development.
We welcome the opportunity to establish new corporate partnerships to continue our work with young people in the community. Corporate partnerships with PCYC Queensland will deliver positive outcomes through programs involving young people in Queensland. We would love to work with you on a tailored partnership plan across some or all of the areas below:
- Cause related marketing
- Corporate social responsibility
- In-kind donations
- Corporate fundraising events
- Sponsorship packages
- Workplace giving
To discuss forming a partnership with PCYC Queensland in more detail, please call (07) 3909 9573 or email [email protected].
View some of PCYC Queensland's current corporate supporters and suppliers.


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Is investing in flats a good idea?
By Carl Agar
Thinking of buying an investment property? Wondering what type of property to invest in?
Well right now many savvy investors are putting their money back into flats and apartments. So what's driving this behaviour?
Firstly, an advisory note, there are over 300 housing markets in the UK (in my opinion) and all have their own demands, so before you invest anywhere make sure you understand the needs and demands of the Town or City you are investing in.
A higher and more stable return
Having said that, in terms of flats and apartments there are many reasons to go down this route but one of the main points has to be that you are more likely to make a higher and more stable return on this type of investment.
The millennials market
It's also worth considering the 'millennials' market. They prefer apartments and flats much more than houses - especially in cities on the up such as Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle and Glasgow in particular.
This because this tenant type is choosing to rent and wants the flexibility that renting offers in order to take up opportunities. Traditionally this market flocked to London to chase the dream jobs - but the growth of many large companies outside of London has created the demand in many other cities around the UK. Follow the companies, find the flats.
Be warned though this market is choosing to rent because they want to not because they need to and often can afford to buy so their standards are high!
Single parent families and divorcees
But it's not only professionals that are chasing the apartments and flats. It's also one parent families and divorcees. Recent years have seen tough economic times, and consequently couples that separate do find themselves seeking more affordable accommodation such as a flat or apartment.
Less maintenance
So if we can agree there is a growing demand for flats and apartments lets also consider another big advantage - which has to be the fact that there is less maintenance involved and it is easier and quicker to build your portfolio.
Do It Yourself
My advice is to purchase the right buildings and create your own flats. If you purchase a small commercial office for example it can be converted into two one bed flats relatively cheaply.
By doing this you will save on VAT, increase your equity and very quickly be up and running with two investment properties on one freehold.
This type of investment is seriously worth considering but as always make sure you do your due diligence.


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More results...
Marty and Cory were outstanding to deal with. The best car buying experience I've ever had. I highly recommend Anderson Kia of Grand Island, Marty and Cory, and will definitely be returning to make my next car purchase.
Test-drives and purchased vehicles delivered to your home.
Service and body shop appointments pick-up & drop-off available.
Work your vehicle purchase online; schedule & pay for service online.


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RootX Sewer Line Root Killer
One of the most common causes of sewer line blockages is tree roots invading the pipe. They sneak in through joints or cracks in the pipe looking for water and nutrients. Over time they grow, debris gets caught in them, and this leads to blockages and even backflow.
We love our trees, but not when their roots invade our sewer lines. A blocked sewer pipe isn't just inconvenient, it's a health hazard that can be expensive to fix. Left unchecked, the sewer line may be destroyed by tree roots.
If you suspect tree roots may be a problem in your sewer line, ask your DS Plumbing technician about RootX – it may be the perfect solution.
For emergencies call us 24/7 or Book Online
There's A Better Way
RootX is a chemical root killer that your plumber uses to treat the pipe. On contact with water, it forms a foam that quickly spreads throughout the inside of the line. It does not block the pipe, and the foam dissipates within 15 minutes. Within 1 hour it starts killing the roots it comes in contact with – and only those roots. The dead roots decay over time and are washed away with your grey water.
Why RootX is better than mechanical root cutting:
- Just like pruning a tree, cutting the roots can actually encourage bushier regrowth.
- RootX works faster.
- RootX has longer lasting results, because it leaves a barrier around the inside of the pipe that discourages new roots.
RootX is guaranteed to keep a 4 to 6-inch pipe free of root blockages for 12 months, and an 8-inch pipe running for 24 months. Once a pipe is known to be vulnerable to tree root invasion, regular repeat treatments are recommended.
If your pipe is completely blocked by roots, your plumber may advise a combination of physically cutting the roots and a RootX treatment to make sure everything is completely cleared and regrowth is discouraged.
A Sewer Line Root Killer That's Safe for Sewer Pipes and Waste Systems
RootX will not damage your pipes. It is non-caustic, and does not contain standard root killing chemicals like metam sodium, copper sulphate or diquat dibromide. That means it is safe for your sewer lines, septic systems, and municipal wastewater treatment plants.
Amazingly, RootX is Environmentally Friendly
RootX only kills the roots within the pipe that gets treated. It will not harm any other vegetation growing above the pipe in your garden.
The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has approved RootX for general use across the United States (EPA registration #68464-1). It is also approved for use in Canada.
It is non-systemic, which means it is not soluble enough in water to be absorbed by plants and transported to the rest of the plant. It is also non-fumigating, which means it does not form a poisonous gas.
Only Available from DS Plumbing
You can't get Rootx at your local hardware store. We'd be happy to assess your sewer line blockage problem, and if it's a tree root issue we will likely recommend RootX.
For emergencies call us 24/7 or Book Online


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Product Description
Nobody knows quite where they came from, but Red Velvet cakes are believed to have originated in the Deep South. This fabulous cake, which has to have a healthy dose of cocoa to be considered truly authentic, became popular in the 1920s at the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York and enjoyed a return to popularity after the 1989 film Steel Magnolias. Our best-selling Red Velvet range exudes a sultry, retro vibe - delicious and stunning in equal measure.


text: If you can't afford to spend so long dreaming up plans for world domination, business podcasts are a great help. They can be enjoyed while you're on a break or on the move, which is particularly handy for the 3.7 million UK workers who spend at least two hours a day commuting. To ensure you get the most out of your idea exploration, we've listed our five favourite business podcasts and why they're worth your time.Read the story


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hen life gets pulled out from under you, it takes a while to resettle. Today, I felt the final dust, lingering in the air since childhood, return to its rightful place.
I was twelve when my childhood magic carpet ride took a turn. One day I was playing with dolls, the next I was wearing a bra. One day I was the star in the school play, the next my mother had cancer. One day we were planning our Disney vacation, the next I was holding my mother's head as she retched into the toilet. One day I was applying to colleges, the next we were bankrupt.
My mother was told she had six months to live, and she lived sixteen years longer. We woke wondering if today was The Day. Yet what happened in the middle, while the rug hovered in the air, searching for a place to land, created the map from where I was to who I am.
There's my mother now, wringing her fragile bird fingers. "We have no insurance," she is saying to my father, whose lip curls up in what he wants us to believe is disdain. Instead, he shared our fear. He didn't know where the rug was going to land either.
"Jeannette," he sneered, "you don't even have a second opinion. You're just like your mother: you've been dying all your life."
My mother grasped those bird hands, and her eyes looked down, not up and angry, like usual. "Better my mother than yours," she said. I didn't know how to react. Normally, I was scared to touch her, for she sometimes lashed out with a slap or a "get-away-from-me-I-can't-take-that." Today she seemed to need me, but I stood there, mute and immobile. The sun shone through the four diagonal panes in our front door and hit the family portrait over the piano.
That piano was my salvation. My grandmother had convinced my father to buy it. She'd heard me composing a simple tune on her piano when I was three, but I'd waited until I was nine to start lessons. We'd had to save to afford such a luxury. Now our piano was halfway paid off. When I was tired or worried, afraid or frustrated, I went to the piano like most girls did their friends. Unless my mother told me she couldn't take the noise. Then I'd put the sheet music back in the bench, careful its hinges didn't squeak. After my mother's second round of chemo, I'd let them squeak. She'd come along and bang the lid down on my fingers. We had no insurance for an x-ray.
Father had quit his government CPA job to go into business for himself. He was a self-starter, my mother told him. He should invest in himself instead of the local government, which she viewed as corrupt and lazy. She thought of the government like a person, and she probably believed Father to be just as lazy, if not as corrupt.
Without health insurance, we ended up paying for my mother's medicine and chemo out of pocket. My pockets were pretty shallow. I had my $32 saved up from babysitting and my leftover lunch money. I loved counting it, along with my faded blue trading stamps I got every time I bought notebook paper or a pencil case that listed the world's capitals or erasers that smelled like tree sap. My skinny brother's pockets were fuller: he only spent his money on bubble gum and candy. His sugar consumption made me afraid he might end up getting cancer too. People with cancer were skinny. Even my mother got thin for a while, and when her hair grew back, it was as white as the feathers in her pillows.
She liked lots of pillows, arranged just so. She also liked chicken soup with the noodles picked out and bran cereal with the raisins separated into another bowl. That took time, which I had in quantity until I started high school. That's when things in our house became like the inside of a matchbox—all lined up in rigid formation until friction is applied.
The day I ran away was like that. I'd neglected to extract all the noodles. When I served my mother, she took one glance and sent the bowl flying. The noodles stuck there on the opposite wall, deciding whether to hang or drop. As I heard the key grind in the back door lock, I prayed Father would be in a better mood than she was. When he saw the shattered bowl, his wrinkles formed wrinkles, and I knew I was in trouble. What kind of man yells at his dying wife? I was fair game in her stead, like when the herd hears a branch snap and leaves Bambi standing dazed and still, a little twig hanging from beneath that little black velvet nose. Father's eyes caught mine, and something wild and kindred leaped across the room between us. Then, just as suddenly, the light in his eyes went dull.
"Dori," he said, clenching and unclenching his massive fists, "clean up this mess." His voice was so soft I could barely distinguish his words. I did as I was told, keeping my eyes on those fists. After mopping, I sat on the piano bench. I was worried about a stain I'd left on the Oriental rug in her bedroom. I caressed the keyboard lid, imagining the thirty-six blacks, fifty-two whites underneath, just out of reach. There was almost nothing I didn't enjoy playing. I could sit for hours doing my scales. My best piece (what my piano teacher called my "popcorn piece," meaning it could be played on command from memory) was Schumann's "First Loss," from Album for the Young, and I was beginning to peck out Rhapsody in Blue. The notes seemed strung together solely for my hands, although when I stopped, I communed with all the others who had played them. The notes transported me out of the house, like I had turned to vapor and could shape-shift through the chimney, connecting me with all those hands before me, and hands yet to come.
I became one with sound. Back before the chemo, I would finish with fingers aching, hours spinning out like golden thread from an ever-replenished spindle. How I longed to open the lid to play again. I didn't dare. I'd need to stay under the radar for a while. I wished it were already tomorrow morning at the school bus stop, even if it was freezing outside.
When Father walked in, I could tell he wasn't angry anymore, because his fists had turned back into hands. He had talked to Mother. He sat down beside me on my bench. I could smell the nicotine-tobacco that stained his nails. He scratched his head where the hair was beginning to disappear.
"Dori," he said, his tone measured, "we've run out of money for the month. We're going to have to let the shop repossess the piano."
The room was still. I looked down again at the piano lid, where dust floated above the wax I'd put on yesterday. I tried to hear my heart. The dust hovered there, silent, with no answers.
"Dori?" he prodded.
I knew it was hopeless. My mother had demanded he punish me. Why else would he be getting rid of the piano today? She hated when I played it—said it made her anxious. Jealous was more like it.
"No," I said, then louder: "No!" I ran to the closet, grabbed my coat and gloves, a hat for good measure. I ran to my room and grabbed the babysitting stash I kept in my doll's wedding dress, making sure I put a few changes of my clothes in a plastic garbage bag, then robbed my brother's piggy bank.
I walked out of the house with $57 and change, and what I believed to be a new lease on my life. I strode down the wooded street still covered with a spotted carpet of ice from the season's last storm. I didn't stop until I'd reached the bus station, although I did look over my shoulder a few times. Father hadn't tried to stop me.
I boarded the bus that led to Grandmother's front porch, two states south. When she saw me standing in front of her, she rubbed her eyes, as though I were a mirage. "Dori," she said as she adjusted her cat-eyed glasses on her long nose, "where did you come from?" My grandmother, with the light behind her, looked just like a fairy.
"You said I could always call you if I was in trouble," I said.
Her eyes grew wider. "Did they hit you?"
"No," I said, half ashamed, and fell weeping into the soft folds of her sweater. "Worse."
She held me, extracting reasons for my grief like they were impacted wisdom teeth. I was afraid if I told her about the piano, she would convince me I had to let it go. I could not bear those words from her.
"Go play the piano," she finally sighed, swabbing my chapped cheeks and combing through my damp hair, "while I call your father."
Grandmother's piano wasn't like mine. It was all Victorian carved wood with real ivories that resembled coffee-stained teeth, and two notes that clunked. The middle sostenuto pedal stuck. It wasn't a practical instrument; in fact, it was more one-person art show than orchestral showpiece. Annual tunings had ceased to be effective. Still, it offered a sort of aged solace. It dominated the living room. The carver had decorated the entire piano case with blossoms and birds on the wing, like a tapestry. Instead of a bench, a rotund stool could be cranked up or down to suit the pianist's height. Its sheet music was eclectic—fraying at the edges, like old wrinkled velvet, soft to the touch, smelling of must. I began to play "Moon River" and was humming along to the theme from Love Story when Grandmother reappeared.
"You play beautifully." Her voice was soft and a bit sorrowful as she touched the crown of my head. "And the notes you were humming were straight and true."
My eyes welled up again. "You're going to tell me I have to go back, aren't you?"
She walked to the fireplace, picked two peppermints out of the candy dish on the mantle, popped one in her mouth and the other in mine. "Each piano has its own distinct voice, just like we do," she said. "They're individuals. Time wears them down. My old piano sounds dull and lifeless now compared to when I used to play every Sunday at church."
I felt my brow wrinkle. I loved her old piano almost as much as I loved my own.
"Remember your voice, Eudora," she said, and then: "We always have to go back, child. One way or the other, we must always deal with what life gives us. Just try not to let it wear you down too soon."
My sobs came quick now, like birthing spasms. "Won't—you—come—back—with—me?"
"She doesn't want me there, sweetheart," she said. She took my hands in hers. "Stay the course. My old piano will always be here for you. You can stay here until tomorrow, until you get your bearings."
She led me into the room I called mine, though it once belonged to my father. Painted Wedgewood blue, it had a Dutch-blue quilt, ragged at the edges, which had always covered the maple bed. I smiled at the squares, which I knew by heart. That one there was my father's first shirt. That one, over there, was from the dress my grandmother wore to his college graduation. There was one with dogwood petals, and one with plaid, and even one with treble and bass clefs. I threw off my Keds and lay down. Sometime that afternoon Grandmother left a PB&J on the nightstand, built by my long-dead carpenter grandfather. Travel weary, I never woke to eat it.
The next morning dawned sharp and shrill, the twittering cadence of early-morning birdcall almost drowned by the syncopated staccato of a woodpecker. Yet over it all, a distant partridge cooed his resonant "bobwhite," calming me for my return trip. I boarded the bus with extra pocket money from Grandmother, along with a pail of fried chicken and biscuits and a thermos of cold lemonade. Best of all, wrapped in burlap and tied with an old rope from the shed, was the quilt. The bus ride was just as long going as coming, but I wanted it to last forever. I put my hand inside the rough burlap and felt the quilt's warm bumps with each mile closer to my destiny, whistling "Moon River."
My piano was gone when I got back; Grandmother's piano remained there for me. I played it on rare visits, and I grew to cope with—if not understand—my mother's wrath and my father's feigned stolid passivity. Then came the day that my grandmother passed and my father left to sell what she owned, just as he had done with our belongings.
We lived in a small apartment now, and I was doing secretarial work for a medical office, putting stamps on pieces of paper to make them official. Those stamps and my father's three jobs paid the rent. What time I had left, I spent on music. Music gave me what people did not. Instead of movie dates or tense setups from well-meaning friends, I listened to my stereo, then my Walkman, then my iPod at night. Madonna turned into Hootie & the Blowfish turned into the Black Eyed Peas. A woman I worked with, a former opera singer past her prime, was teaching me bel canto, and I had fallen in love with opera—Carmen and Mimì, especially. My parents couldn't censor them as they could potential friends. I sang every chance I got, which was every time I was able to leave the house, and now I had earphones, so I could listen without reprisal. I was saving for my own place—and my own piano.
When Father knocked on my door with the bad news, I jerked my earbuds out, thinking Mother needed me again. I'd bathed her and wiped her face twice already. I'd readjusted her pillows and pulled her up to meet them. Perhaps she wanted some warm milk. On top of the cancer that would not leave, she now had a rare arthritis. The doctor told us she would not live more than a year without better nutrition. He'd given us some calcium shakes, but she would have none of it. She wanted real milk shakes, so I went to the ice cream parlor and asked a boy there to show me how to make them. He had gone to my high school, and now was working his way through graduate school. He flirted with me, his eyes lighting on the top of my sundress, but I told him I was engaged. I was, in a way, to my mother's needs. He left me alone after that, but I went home with a cream soda as well as a real shake, helping my mother and me live another day.
Yet my grandmother was dead. Father told me Grandmother had passed alone in her sleep the night before. I felt a hard sadness in my chest, the kind that won't let you cry. The next morning, as he was leaving for the funeral, giving me instructions how to reach him should my mother have an emergency, I asked about her piano.
"I figured it was my inheritance," I said.
"That old thing?" he guffawed. "What would you do with it? It hasn't been tuned in a decade. Where would you put it?" He put his hands behind his back and turned to leave.
I knew better than protest. I wasn't helping him enough. He needed me more each year, and his mother had just died. I let it be.
"Will you just take a photograph of it?" I called after him, and when he turned and nodded, I could tell he would humor me. He did bring a photo back, a yellow-toned Instamatic shot, which eventually faded and peeled. I kept the photo close—in my wallet, suitcase, or jewelry box—sometimes under the quilt, which frayed more each day. I looked at the photo the day my brother left for the war in Iraq. I was looking at the photo as they put me under for surgical removal of a fibroid. I reached for the photo the day I got the call my mother had died.
It's funny how the memory of my mother walking in and telling us she had cancer is so piercing, while the months after her death are frayed like that quilt and fuzzy like my favorite photo. I worked, practiced singing, and worked some more. I slept more than I wanted to.
When I ran into Danny, I didn't even know he was there at first. He'd been working the next block down and had noticed me long before, remembered me from the soda shop, but I'd never known. I was exiting the restroom after washing red ink off my hands—an everyday occupational nuisance. I was looking down, examining them, my earbuds on full blast. "Hey, watch it!" he yelled. I swerved. Our bodies didn't collide, but my heart leaped.
You don't get over all that spilled chicken soup as quickly as all that. Your heart might not open at all, or it might unfold like time-lapsed film, one petal at a time. Yet it's not all about opening your heart. It's about letting someone in. Then, after all that's done, it's about believing they want to be there. He was trying to make my life easier, but I was still trying to make it the hard way. It took time.
It's the same with singing. You let out a note, and someone says you hit it right. Then you sing a measure, and someone pats you on the back. Then someone asks you to sing in front of a group, then a wider audience. They all clap. At first, you think they're just being nice. Then you think, this is all too easy. Sometimes you think, I can't do this…I don't have any formal training; I don't read music well. Mostly, you think, I don't have a piano. I mean, isn't life supposed to be like that chicken soup on the wall, with the noodles deciding whether to fall or stay put? Isn't life supposed to be about losing pianos, and hopes, and people—mopping up the mess?
Then, in one exact instant, someone you barely noticed before bumps into you, and you begin to reexamine things. You finally realize that it doesn't have to be that way. It took Danny half a decade to convince me that life may not be a magic carpet ride but it can be magic. People can love you. People can stay. You will die one day, but until then, you can sing. People will listen. You don't need a piano. You had your instrument within. All this time, it wasn't about the piano, the quilt, or old photographs. It was about you, but you had the rug pulled out from under you, so you couldn't see what was right in front of you. You were the instrument all along.
That's Danny, down there in the third row, second seat in, next to his sister. They have the same curly hair, give me the same sideways smile as they await my first note. I'm still pinching myself that I'm part of their world. Yet Danny's incisive eyes send me his secret "I know what you got in there" glint, which travels through the air, dispelling the dust that the spotlight has found. I watch the dust particles—human skin cells, animal dander, plant pollen, all the molecules, dead and alive, that make up our world—float down, down, down, coming to rest on the stage in front of me.
You may think I got to this point because my grandmother believed in me, or because I almost collided with a man in a hallway who coached me into believing in myself. Maybe even because people applaud my efforts. But you'd be wrong. Danny, and several others, hoisted me back up, but I had to find my way myself. We all do. Through the dusty, musty, soiled corners of our lives.
That's all I can say for now. They're waiting for me to begin. I take a deep breath. There's not that much to prepare, no backup band that needs to tune its instruments, just me, a capella. I open my mouth and sing.


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Penny-pinching is more often discussed than practiced by Boston's elected officials, who never seem to be at a loss for new ways to spend taxpayer dollars.
The ''easy come-easy go'' attitude of the Boston School Committee should be of concern to all property owners in the city; soon they may be digging deeper into their pockets to provide salaries for the big spenders.
There's a compelling case to be made for providing nary a dime to the 13 -member panel responsible for setting policies for Boston's shrinking public school system, but fighting for it may well be a lost cause. Even the city's private fiscal watchdog, the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, seems resigned to the idea of School Committee compensation.
The timing of such a move could hardly be worse, following the layoffs of several hundred municipal employees. Many more soon may be receiving layoff notices. The research bureau, for example, has recently warned that slimming the city payroll by another 685 workers may be needed to get the current fiscal 1985 budget in balance. And there is little doubt that many of those to be terminated are loyal, hard-working men and women.
In fairness to members of the Boston School Committee, it should be noted that their counterparts in a dozen other communities in the commonwealth - including neighboring Cambridge and Quincy - are compensated for their service. So, too, are a number of other school boards around the nation.
But throughout the United States and in Massachusetts, the vast majority of the elected panels that shape the public education programs and policies provide their services gratis. These include five of America's seven largest cities - Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, and Philadelphia. In each of these cases the school board is smaller, which might mean there's a heavier workload per member.
In most places, such posts are part-time commitments of less than a full day a week, if that. The role of a school board is not to administer the day-to-day operations of a school system. That's the function of a professional superintendent.
There's no reason the situation should be any different in Boston, if, indeed , that is the intent of the 13-member panel elected last November to chart a program of quality elementary and secondary public education for the nation's 20 th largest city.
The state enabling act, which allows Massachusetts communities to pay their school committees, has been on the books for two years. However, those now pushing for compensation made no mention of their zeal for a stipend during last fall's election campaign. But it was not very far into the year before the newly enlarged (from five to 13) School Committee began its move to be paid. Since mid-March, the School Committee has sent letters to the City Council urging provision for School Committee salaries.
The latest communique, dated July 25, from committee president Rita Walsh-Tomasini on behalf of the members, advised that it was a matter of great urgency.
Two City Council measures aimed at clearing the way for paying the School Committee members something for their services, although perhaps not the $15,000 annually being sought, were scheduled to be aired yesterday before the council's committee on government operations, chaired by Councilor Christopher A. Iannella.
The first of the proposals, filed by Councilor James Kelly last February, calls for amending the city's charter by deleting language specifying the School Committee will be unpaid. That approach would require a special so-called home-rule petition to the state legislature.
A second option - this one involving the simple acceptance of the 1982 enabling act by the council - is embraced in a measure filed in June by Councilor David Scondras.
Either approach needs the assent of Mayor Raymond L. Flynn, who so far has not indicated his position. If each of the 13 members receives the requested $15 ,000, it would boost the city payroll by $195,000 a year. The Municipal Research Bureau has endorsed another stipend - $4,800 for each of the School Committee members. Even that would add up to $62,400 a year.
Whatever compensation is set should not come at the expense of the schoolchildren of Boston or their teachers. At the same time, it is unfair to expect that School Committee pay might come through increasing the School Department budget more than a nickel. Where the money might come from is through reductions in the personnel account for the committee members, each of whom now has $43,000 a year for administrative and secretarial aides.
Regardless of whether the 13 committee members get any kind of compensation, there is nothing to suggest they would do a better job. When they were elected, they gave voters the impression they were volunteering their talents. Thus, if there is to be even a tiny compensation for the committee members, it should not come until January 1986 after the next election. That way, those in the running would know in advance whether and how much they would be paid. Such an arrangement would only be fair to people who may have run last time if they knew a stipend would be involved.
Presumably, School Committee candidates knew what sorts of demands the position entailed. Mrs. Tomasini and at least three of her colleagues are veterans to their posts.
Should any of the current School Committee members find the monthly meetings and related demands too great to bear without getting paid, they can always resign and let a successor more committed to the concept of voluntarism take the seat.
Most US cities with paid school-board members have compensation levels lower than what the Boston School Committee is asking. In addition, the council membership is usually smaller. Boston's panel would be the second most highly paid in America, outranked only by the seven members who are appointed (not elected) to the school board in New York City.
A 1983 survey by the National Association of School Boards showed only about half the larger public school systems provide any type of remuneration. For those that do, the stipend or expense allowance is nominal, usually ranging from a few hundred dollars to $3,000 a year. For financially hard-pressed Boston, the idea of paying School Committee members even a token salary seems to make little sense.


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"Time marches on," Dolly Parton said as Truvy in Steel Magnolias, "and sooner or later you realize it's marching across your face." As sad as it is for me to admit, I'm at that tipping point where "it will happen one day" has become "it's happening now." It's time to ask myself a serious question: What would Dolly do? She'd pull out the big guns and she'd fight the march of time. So that's exactly what I did.
In this instance, "big guns" means a BBL laser, which I experienced at Facial Aesthetics Center of RI. BroadBand Light therapy is a laser treatment that treats discoloration like rosacea and sunspots, stimulating new collagen production in your skin. Long story short: it makes you look younger. But, it's also a laser. A hot, hurty laser that I was going to let someone apply to my face a lot of times, in the hopes that afterwards I would like what I saw in the mirror more than I did before.
When Licensed Medical Esthetician Jennifer Amaral asked me what I wanted to concentrate on, I gestured to my face, with its ghostly little lines and sunspots, and said, "I want to fix all of this." So she went to work - and I went under the knife, literally. To start, Jennifer did a Dermaplane, which is a manual exfoliation of the face. Unlike a chemical exfoliation that dissolves the gunk, this uses a surgical blade to remove the top layer of dead skin and fine hair. Think of it like an old timey barbershop shave. It sounds a little scary, but it was totally painless, took only a couple of minutes, and left my face smooth and radiant. That alone would have been a huge step in the right direction for me, and the Dermaplane is usually done in combination with a facial, but can be done alone, too. After, we did a Hydrafacial, which is a fast and very effective facial treatment that deep cleans your pores and leaves your skin glowing from the inside out.
Now my face was cleaned, prepped, and ready for the main event: the BBL laser. It went like this: a one-second hot zap, followed by a few seconds of cool, and then onto the next section. It didn't feel like nothing, but it didn't feel nearly as bad as I imagined a laser on my face would feel. The whole thing took maybe 20 minutes. Jennifer concentrated on rosacea and brown spots on my face and the emerging marionette lines around my mouth. After, to calm my skin down, she applied a Skinceuticals Phyto Masque to soothe redness and inflammation, followed by a regimen of high-powered Skinceuticals products: Phyto Gel, Hydrating B5 Gel and Ultra Clear SPF.
Jennifer had warned me that I might have a few days of downtime, and that I needed to be vigilant about sun exposure for three weeks. I felt like I looked very red when I left the spa, but when I met a friend for dinner immediately afterwards, I had to point out the color before she noticed. For a couple of days, I felt tender and looked a little swollen, but nothing that made me feel uncomfortable leaving the house. Through the next couple of weeks, as my skin fully repaired itself, I started noticing subtle differences. My skin looked plumper. The tone was more even. Those tiny lines filled themselves in. I had a glow that was definitely new. The amount of makeup I wanted to wear lessened each day, until it was just tinted moisturizer and mascara. Very unlike Dolly. And very unlike my normal self. This is a war I might just win.
Facial Aesthetics Center of RI
2730 South County Trail, East Greenwich


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Troy 101 Info Meeting
Posted August 20, 2013
Troy 101 Info Meeting
This run/walk group is for the individual who wants to train from the couch to 5k. Prior to starting this program the individual should be able to walk for a brisk 30 minutes. Up and Running will provide coach led workouts, training schedules, technical product, weekly updates, and much more. Registration fee of $50.00-includes weekly coaching, training shirt, race registration, and great perks at UAR! Please Contact Us for more information.
We are excited to announce Troy Running 101 Program dates! The info meeting will be held on September 4th at 6:00pm UAR Troy. The 12 week program will start on September 11th with the graduation race in Piqua on December 7th!
Store Hours
Sunday 12pm-4pm
Monday 11am -6pm
Tuesday 11am-6pm
Wednesday 11am-6pm
Thursday 11am-6pm
Friday 11am-6pm
Saturday 10am-5pm
Dayton (937) 432-9210
Troy (937) 401-0295


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The mythological siren's song enchants the wary sea traveler, tempting him closer until his ship is cast upon the rocks of a nearby island. In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus orders his men to tie him tightly to the mast of his ship, to plug their ears with beeswax, and not to untie him (no matter his pleas) until they pass through the treacherous strait and out of earshot from the sirens' calls. (Spoiler alert: They make it through.)
While the sirens promised the renowned Odysseus knowledge, the sirens of today's financial markets promise low-risk returns. Just as Odysseus commanded his men, the best way to navigate these waters is to plug one's ears. Many opportunities look enticing—tech stocks, yield plays, short volatility—each opportunity carrying its own song, and each with the potential to bring the reckless portfolio manager to shipwreck.
Of course, we must take risks if we want the opportunity to earn a real return. This quarterly commentary will take the pulse of the market environment today as well as address the opportunities and risks we see on the horizon.


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The Secrets behind Success of Alibaba Group Founder Jack MaAugust 13, 2019
Money Isn't Happiness, It's a Responsibility.
Don't Think Only for Today, Think Ahead.
You Will Not Need Connections to Achieve Success.
Live and Experience Life.
Don't Complain or Whine.
To Change The World, Invest In Youth.
He Doesn't Have Enemies.
The most successful Chinese billionaire internet entrepreneur, Jack Ma -Founder and ex-CEO of Alibaba group is a inspiration for all of us. People who want to be successful always want to know how he did it. Actually it is not secrets anymore. There are very few people on this planet to accumulate net worth more than 20 billion dollars, as well as maintaining a sensible perspective and devoting to work. One of the richest men, Jack Ma reveals the secrets behind his success.
Jack Ma Explains Secrets behind His Success and being Billionaire:
Life is not a bed rose. So, it was not easy for Jack Ma to become one of the most successful and richest men. Rejections were very equivalent with this man. You probably won't believe how many times he has been failed and rejected in his early life. Well, nothing was in his favor during his study and job. But you are not here today to know his failures. I will let you know what kind of secrets key help him to become a billionaire in a snap and make him gained success.
When Jack Ma graduated, he earned $20 a month. For him it was fantastic. He learnt English in China after college. He said – you're a lucky person if you have one million dollars; you've got troubles and headaches when you have 100 million dollars, when you've 1 billion dollars or more than a hundred million dollars, it's a responsibility you've. He also said, it's not the money, it's the trust people have for you, as people believes you can spend money in a better way than others.
I believe -To get sunshine in tomorrow, you have to work hard today. It's not that something you are successful today because you've done something great today. You have to hold a plan for your future. The Chairman of Alibaba, Jack Ma once said, We got Successful today, not for we did a great job today, we had a dream fifteen years ago.
Jack Ma started his Alibaba at his apartment in Hangzhou, China. He said that they don't have a rich father or a powerful uncle, they only have the customers. He also said not to involve in politics. You should understand that money and political power never can stay in same hand.
Jack Ma always tells himself that we are born to enjoy life and not to work. We are born to make things better for one another. You are going to regret if you are living your whole life working. It's not a matter how successful you are in your life; you must remember we are here to live.
It isn't a big deal if you complain or whine sometimes. Don't make it habitual. It will be similar of drinking. The more you drink, the more you get addicted. You should remember, successful people are not whiners and they don't complain often.
Jack Ma once said the secret that you must help those who want to be successful. He believes to help young people and small guys because you can bury seeds on their minds and when they grow up, they will change the world.
Jack Ma's one of the most unique business aspects is business philosophy. He has got the idea of friendly competition. He doesn't see his competitors as his enemies. He assume them as his friends and learn to achieve his full potential from them who challenge him.
Exceptionally optimistic and determined entrepreneur changed the face of the business and internet across the world and China. His strong beliefs and morals made him what he is today. If you want to share anything about this tycoon please comment in the below.


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Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2008/01/31/kerviel/
How to lose $7.2bn with just a few Basic skills
SocGen: it could've happened anywhere - and still might
Posted in Business, 31st January 2008 12:01 GMT
Special report As I swept through Kent and Calais on a Eurostar last week, the financial markets again threw some entertainment my way in the shape of the SocGen debacle.
My last Reg piece explained that the credit crunch was partly fuelled by VBA and that is what appears to have happened again.
However, Eurostar trains don't have Wi-Fi, and my only access to the world was a BlackBerry. So getting Kerviel's number took hours, by which time he had gone to ground. He has my mobile number if he wants a chat...
Nevertheless, in various Paris bars over the weekend, fragments of the story grew in the telling. There were a few common threads, but the consensus was not surprise that this had happened - just that it happened to SocGen, which has an enviable reputation throughout the market as a "smart" bank.
Absolutely no trader or quant has said to me "couldn't happen at my bank". A couple of sharp risk managers correctly speculated that the numbers involved would grow, and that because he had compromised the systems no honest final number would be available soon. Since it appears that it was an external source who complained about the problem, not SG risk management, this seems highly credible.
SG say it is going to sue Kerviel, but according to the lawyer I was travelling with, this could be a six year case if he makes a fight of it. His low rank meant that none of the traders seemed to know him personally, implying that the great bank had been bitten hard by a junior henchman, and he had dug himself in a hole in an attempt to claw himself up from a 75K entry level package.
Most of the media have yet to pick up on the fact that he was supposed to be an arbitrageur, someone who makes riskless profits by spotting things that have been given the wrong price. Instead he bet on prices going up and down. One idea that caused much merriment late Saturday on the Ile Saint-Louis is that his work was deemed to be so low-risk that no one looked all that hard at it.
Oh how we laughed.
Another reassuringly expensive lawyer held the underyling cause to be the "tick box" mentality, whereby every bank produces a thick "compliance manual" which no one ever reads; part of a process where people do what they are told rather than think.
Market Impact
More than one person pointed out that SocGen were likely to lose money just to get out of this mess, as banks spend good money on "market impact models"; confections of hard maths that try to avoid your bidding up prices against yourself. Also, they would be forced to offload regardless of market conditions, so this may end up more expensive than the original foulup.
Qui est cet homme?
No less a figure than the President of the Bank of France called M. Kerviel a "computer genius", which is frankly just about as silly as M. Noyer's apparently blind acceptance of the lines fed to him by SocGen. One can only speculate on what else he has swallowed in this matter. SG's CEO Daniel Bouton referred to Kerviel as a "mutating virus", to bolster the notion of a hi-tech attack by the love child of Lex Luthor and Bill Gates.
But I headhunt people for the high end of banking, and Kerviel's CV is not that of a BOFH. We have quite literally hundreds of PhDs on our books from quantum physics through exotic mathematics, incomprehensible dealings in game theory, and bleeding edge programming in F#, to cruel and unusual C++. A few have made serious money out of poker. Some are fighter pilots. In this field a bit of VBA does not impress.
But I can infer he was a superior tactical programmer because he was promoted out of the wilderness, which implies he can work hard, and so commands some respect. He might have downloaded some scareware, but the idea that he did any hardcore hacking seems like a fanciful attempt to make SG look less negligent. No one would blame a bank that was raided by heavily-armed special forces, but SG was in effect taken by the man who mends their guns.
Je pense que...
I used to be head of IT at a city firm, was director in charge of the British government's secure network to monitor investment banks, and have done time as a tactical developer in several banks, but not SocGen. So the rest of this piece is inference spiced with direct personal communications as a headhunter with people who discreetly shared unattributable insights over fine wine or shouted them across mediocre lager. Short version: This is informed guesswork.
There have been the inevitable articles on "warning signs" that should have been spotted, and it's hard to argue with that. But to put that into context, everyone who has worked in trading firms has seen position reports that imply that you've accidentally bought up Microsoft, swapping it for your stake in SCO and an option to buy a goat.
Kerviel could explain these signals away because he had worked in the mid office responsible for risk management. When asked why he apparently had a huge position, he would easily have been able to say "sorry, when we built that report, we got it wrong in the way we handle failed trades", and maybe even offer to fix it. For a given value of "fix", of course. Certainly he would have enough excuses to get over the head of a manager chosen on the golf course (you know who you are).
How many passwords would you like M. Kerviel?
SG's official statement claims he stole passwords, but this is highly unlikely to be entirely true. As a mid-office developer he'd be freely given a pile of passwords and access rights. I would actually be quite surprised if all of these were taken away when he was promoted; and as for the passwords of his colleagues, they are shared far more often than the security policy of any bank would permit. I have seen junior staff on trading floors told to log on as other people (no, I'm not saying where, but it's common). The way it works at most firms is that as his new job required more access, this would have been added to his profile, but no one would have asked whether he should be taken off the mid-office servers.
Many organisations deal with "permission creep" by randomly deleting access every year or so, and waiting for people to complain (yes really, it's not just your firm, happened to me more than once). But a common bad technique is to embed usernames and passwords into applications, especially Excel report sheets. These tend to be powerful administrator or developer accounts, granting unlimited access with little or no auditing. I have seen what happens when these accounts are deleted without asking the developer, and it is not pretty. Who, me? Would I do such a thing?
Of course this rarely happens to "important" people, and the food chain at most investment banks has even junior traders like Kerviel in the top tier, so I'd bet money no one even asked why he still had the old access rights. Realistically, being able to do extra useful things and sort out problems with "lower" areas would have made him a more valued member of the trading team, so anyone trying to take his access away would therefore have had a fight on their hands. Such is the menial position of IT in most firms, most would not even try.
Assuming all of this, there are several classical ways he could have hidden what he was up to armed only with VBA, Walkenbach and the right passwords. Marking trades as having been done by someone else is the most obvious, yet not entirely trivial to stop. A critical requirement of trading systems is to allow others to handle your position when you are off sick or on holiday, creating a set of vulnerabilities. My information is that he may have exploited this, and avoided being away from the office in a way quite atypical for French workers to avoid being caught.
London firms have a rule that one is supposed to take a block of at least two weeks every year, but it's hardly enforced, and of course US workers hardly get any annual leave at all. SG is known to use SunGard risk management software; but as with all such systems, if you have the right passwords you can make it say what you want. SunGard is much like other risk systems - basically a big expensive reporting tool. It cannot stop you making trades, and although it is technically possible to hook up risk to trading systems to physically halt trading, I've never heard of this being applied across a bank because of the pain it would cause. So Kerviel's claim that other traders also broke their limits is entirely credible, since even the most careful traders accidentally do this occasionally, and of course admit to "temporarily" stepping over these boundaries.
His other claim that his bosses knew also makes some sense since they will have received limit reports, but in the blizzard of tick-box generated reports that infest banks, they may have missed it. However, it defies belief that they'd allow a position of this size by a junior trader, unless the systems were feeding them bogus numbers.
It is possible that he "upgraded" the report spreadsheets that would have caught him, since at most firms they are not secured, and can be changed by anyone in the department. Often this just results in ghastly errors , but they can be used for darker deeds. Some banks use products like Xenomorph to seal and manage spreadsheets, but most just hope for the best.
His VBA skills would have helped him a lot to keep the illusion alive. Traders hit spreadsheet problems so hard that I've helped a couple of banks build teams of thick-skinned Excel jockeys who can hack them into shape in real time under pressure - but most banks do not have these, so you have untrained people helping each other. Knowing Excel, he would have been asked to sort out his colleagues' spreadsheets, and left sitting at their PCs able to execute any number of misdeeds while his colleague went off for lunch. That covers the claims that he intercepted emails and carried out all sorts of technomancy on the risk systems without using a network sniffer or hacking the Windows kernel.
Could it happen here ?
France and Britain represent the opposite poles of regulation. Under EU tutelage Paris passes market laws which are policed "politically", i.e. not on important French companies, while the British FSA applies gold-plated regulations with a staff so underpaid that they can't hire the right level of people. But the technology and business logic is identical in London, NY, and Paris - so of course it is in no way limited to the French way of banking. ®


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excellent for the district
Thank you very much for your help. It is greatly appreciated.
We hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving and they have a safe and happy Holiday - New
Year season. We should add that your product has been excellent for the district and we would
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Three-Piece Traditional 155" Sectional in Sable
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Additional Information
Product Description
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