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One of the benefits of being a CALS and AEM student is the flexibility that the requirements provide–and that's not something I've taken for granted at all. Case in point: As a second semester senior that was interested in experimenting with a new academic field, and knew very little about wine, I recently signed up for VIEN 1104: Introduction to Wines and Vines. (There is a Hotel wine class as well, which is generally larger.) Let me tell you about my experiences in the course, as it's definitely been a unique experience!
I'll start off by saying that if you think this is a course that students take simply to get drunk in class, you'd be sorely mistaken. If anything, students like that would be weeded out pretty quickly–as we're only a few weeks in, and it's been a pretty comprehensive introduction to wine principles and grapegrowing. In fact, many of the students in the class have experience in vineyard management! Topics covered so far have included the history of wine production, fermentation, and sensory evaluation. (Who knew there were so many ways that grapes could grow?)
And yes, there are regular wine tastings in class! And not an insignificant amount is being poured. As we bring 4 wine glasses to class every day, the TA's come around a few times per lecture to fill each one up a little less than halfway. I've really been surprised by the diversity of wine flavors and aromas that exist based on the type of winegrapes and how they're grown–and have sampled firsthand beverages with aromas that students have described as fruity, bitter, spicy, and similar to "cat pee" (yes, that's a thing). Those that aren't 21, or those that aren't in the mood to drink, don't have to–it just improves the classroom experience. Additionally, there's no shame in tasting then spitting. What you are not allowed to do, however, is wear excessive perfume/cologne: this understandably affects "your and your neighbors' sensory perceptions of wines" (from the syllabus).
Something cool I've learned in Wines and Vines is that wine perception varies a fair amount based on the individual, due to the uniqueness of each person's senses. Whenever we do a tasting, it's usually followed by an I-Clicker multiple choice survey question that asks what we thought of the beverage, or to compare it to another one. Seeing how the class reacted to a particular drink, compared to your own opinion, is pretty neat.
So how's the experience been overall? Great. Despite being at night near the Vet School (quite the walk from Collegetown), This is the quintessentially great Cornell course. Why? Because it's on a subject matter that I have no experience in, but thanks to the well-designed course and passionate professors, has sparked my interest in the field. Will I be an expert viticulturist one day? Probably not…but at least I'll be able to carry with me an interest in viticulture and enology for the rest of my life.
One quite literal "take-away" from the class are some cool Cornell CALS wine glasses that we were able to buy (as pictured). Hopefully I'll be able to put 'em to use regularly after the course is over. Heck, maybe if my business career allows for it down the road, I'll be able to move to Napa Valley, buy a few acres of land and apply what I've learned in the class!


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Friday, January 18, 2013
THE MATADORS_Girl Don't Leave Me
The Matadors from Janesville,WI;Jerry Stephani,Larry Black,Ron Buchek and Phil Holzbauer, present in the Kreiter's guide with...
-Girl Don't Leave Me/Alright. Feature Records-1966.(Sides without a doo wop sound).
To Listen or Download,please visit,https://www.box.com/s/7u7183uii8hcge1b1q8c
Or go to Youtube(video with a wrong picture group)...
Posted by Whitedoowopcollector at 1:02 AM
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subset: commoncrawl


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Fighting the Bad Guys: Cancer patient sworn in as cop for a day
Esmeralda Rocha, Staff Writer
February 13, 2019
Houston-area 6-year old Abigail Rose Arias had her dream come true when she became the newest member of the Freeport Police Department. Abigail was sworn in by the Chief Ray Garivey after he learned about her interest in law enforcement. According to KPRC, Abigail has been battling cancer for two years. She h...
13-year-old Wisconsin girl escapes abduction, kidnapper charged
Vivian Reyes, Staff Writer
January 24, 2019
Jayme Closs was abducted from her family's home October 15, 2018 in Barron, Wisconsin. An attacker forced his way into the Closs family home where he shot and killed her father and mother. Jayme Closs was thirteen years old when found in her family's home during the time her parents were shot...
Texas Sized Early Voting Turnout
Sarah Al-Shaikh, News Editor
October 29, 2018
As the clock struck 4:30 pm, the last couple of early-voters for the day trickled into Harris County Public Health Main Campus. While there was not a line leading out the building, as we saw on the first day of early voting, the energy and eagerness to vote were nonetheless still in the air. Several...
House Bill 2223
Ana Ramirez, Staff Writer
November 3, 2017
For too long, developmental education has been a well-intentioned, but failed investment
Harvey could impact victims' mental health
Jimmieka Mills, Editor-in-Chief
September 20, 2017
To say that emotions around Houston are high would be an understatement. The devastation that Hurricane Harvey left in its wake was not limited material possessions, many residents in the Houston area are experiencing a mental hurricane of emotions that they themselves may not be able to make sense of. "It...
Congressman Al Green to hold public forum on Medicaid
Egalitarian Staff Report
June 23, 2017
Congressman Al Green and Special Guests: Children's Defense Fund-Texas, Houston Women's March, Seven Acres Jewish Senior Care Services, Houston Area Urban League, Light and Salt Association, Indivisible Houston, Indivisible Spring/Montgomery, Black Lives Matter: Houston, Houston Rising, Pantsuit Republic...
SpringBoard South hits HCC
Jimmieka Mills, Editor-In-Chief
June 23, 2017
Make sure not to miss SpringBoard South Saturday June 24 and Sunday June 25 at The Heinen theater located on HCC's central campus!!! The music festival which is celebrating it's sixth year gives musicians from around the world an opportunity to be seen and heard during a weekend of amazing performances. Local...
Chris Cornell lead singer of 'Soundgarden' dead at 52
Skarleth Velasquez, Egalitarian Staff Writer
May 18, 2017
Chris Cornell, Lead singer of Soundgarden and Audioslave passed away at the age of 52. Cornell, who had been on tour, died Wednesday night in Detroit, Brian Bumbery said in a statement to The Associated Press. Cornell had performed a Detroit concert with Soundgarden that night. Cornell's rep called th...
Omega Sigma top 100
Alyssa Foley, News Editor
April 26, 2017
Houston Community College's Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society chapter ranks as one of the top chapters internationally. HCC's Omega Sigma chapter placed in the top 100 chapters out of more than 1,250 chapters around the world. From Phi Theta Kappa's international convention in Nashville, Tennessee,...
1,000-pound animal, 10-year-old girl
Alyssa Foley, News Editor
March 22, 2017
During most of March, the NRG Center seems more like an air-conditioned barn than a convention center. Rows of thousand-pound animals line up in stalls inside. The majority of the heifers are raised by high schoolers, but right next to the Calf Scramble check-in table in row J is a heifer tied...
Honor students take trip to Italy
Ana Ramirez, Staff Writer
March 22, 2017
On March 9, the Houston Community College Honor College students started their travels to Venice and Florence in Italy. Every year the sophomores of the honors college go on a trip during spring break to learn more about what they have been learning in class. The trip is funded by HCC and the HCC boa...
HCCPD assists in HPD matter
Alyssa Foley, News Editor
March 22, 2017
Houston Community College Southwest Brays Oaks Campus was caught up in a shelter-in-place last month while police searched for a suspect in a nearby police shooting. The shooting did not occur on the HCC's 8855 West Bellfort property, but the campus fell at the edge of the shelter-in-place area i...


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CHASE, - A First Nations band in British Columbia has issued an eviction notice to the company that owns the Mount Polley tailings pond, which spilled millions of cubic metres of waste in the Cariboo region.
The Neskonlith are urging Imperial Metals Corp. (TSX:III) to leave their land, which is in the Thompson Okanagan region, about 48 kilometres east of Kamloops near the village of Chase.
Imperial Metals is surveying a 211-square-kilometre area for zinc and lead for a project called the Ruddock Creek mine, which is unrelated to the Mount Polley mine.
The band issued a statement saying the group will not permit any mining development that would contaminate water or destroy salmon habitat, as elders do not want the area poisoned.
The band says it opposes the Ruddock Creek Mine because Imperial Metals failed to protect First Nations land when the Mount Polley tailings pond breached.
Imperial Metals did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Neskonlith was not directly affected by the Mount Polley breach, but it is one of 17 bands that form the Secwepemc (She-whep-m) First Nation, some of which were affected by the accident.


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Group Counseling
Counseling Center
** Groups cancelled for the rest of the Spring 2020 semester **
Fridays 2:30 - 3:30 pm
49er Room (left of CAO desk)
Queer and Questioning is a group that provides an affirming and confidential space to gather for exploration and support. There is no agenda. Come as you are, whenever you can.
Questions? Contact Aaron Geringer firstname.lastname@example.com in the Counseling Center
Group Counseling in a Nutshell
Group counseling is a powerful tool for growth and change. The power of group therapy lies in the unique opportunity to receive multiple perspectives, support, encouragement, and feedback from other individuals in a safe and confidential environment. These interpersonal interactions can provide group members an opportunity to deepen their level of self-awareness and how they relate to others (a common concern for college students), in addition to developing more effective ways of responding to life experiences and managing emotions. Group can be a great space in which to seek feedback from your peers and to practice new behaviors in a trusting setting. Although you will primarily be interacting with your peers, a trained professional will be present at each group meeting to assist in facilitating conversation and to provide input as needed. Confidentiality in group counseling is highly valued and will be discussed in depth when students join group. If you have questions about confidentiality, please speak with your intake therapist.
Group Offerings
Groups vary according to semester and client demand. Open and honest communication in group therapy can lead to improved self-awareness and understanding of how one functions interpersonally, and self-disclosure can have a profound impact on working through our own concerns while normalizing those of others.
Depending on demand, other group offerings may be available. Please check with your intake therapist to learn more about specific group offerings/topics. In the past, topic groups have included the following: GLBTQA Support Group, Worry Group, Mood Group, Grief Support Group, etc.
Advantages of Group Counseling
- Connect with students struggling with similar concerns. As others work on similar concerns, you can learn much about yourself and recognize that you're not alone.
- Learn to relate more honestly and openly with others, and experiment with new ways of relating to others.
- Receive feedback from multiple people with multiple perspectives.
- Give and gain support to and from your peers.
Myths about Group Counseling
I have to tell my deepest and darkest secrets.
No one is forced to disclose anything that they are not comfortable with. Members learn to identify their personal boundaries and respectfully communicate those boundaries with other group members. Learning to set and express boundaries is great practice for other relationships too!
If I don't talk a lot, group won't be helpful for me.
Most people are anxious when they begin group, and this is completely normal. Observing and learning from others with similar concerns stimulates self-awareness.
Group isn't as good as individual therapy.
Research has shown that group participants are often as equally satisfied with group counseling compared to individual counseling. Though neither form of counseling is inherently better than another, some concerns are better suited for group counseling.
I'm Interested in a group. What now?
Contact the Counseling Center. JSU 204 or 507-933-7027


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Machine Learning for Website Categorization
Endurance caters to the web presence related problems and needs of small businesses across the world. The needs of the customers do vary based on the business that they do, effectively the needs of end consumers. For example, hosting needs for an entertainment website are different from that of a food delivery business or an e-commerce website. Thus it becomes important to come up with an intelligent and automated way of figuring out business vertical of any given website.
Simply put, a website is made up of texts and media. The focus of this article is on categorizing websites based on the text contained in it. So, the problem of categorizing websites is reduced to the well known Document Classification problem.
A classifier needs 2 things: features and label. In our case, we would need the text content of the websites and their known business verticals. The question is: how to represent the text content as features? We need to come up with a vector representation for the meaning of the document.
Natural Language Features : Bag of Words
Bag of Words is a well known technique for representation of text into numerical features that can be used as input to any machine learning model.. In this approach, frequency of occurrence of each word is used as a feature for training our classifier. Let's understand it with a simple example.
Let's say we have 2 Documents A,B containing texts. A: Tim likes having pizza. Tim likes football too. B: John loves football. Based on these documents, we create a "bag" of word: ["Tim", "likes", "having","pizza","football","too","john","loves"] Now, we can create 2 feature lists corresponding to each documents: ["Tim", "likes", "having","pizza","football","too","john","loves"] A: [2,2,1,1,1,1,0,0] B: [0,0,0,0,1,0,1,1]
Frequency of the word "Tim" is 2 in document A and 0 in document B. Hence the entry corresponding to document A and the column representing "Tim" is 2 & entry in the corresponding cell for Document B is 0.
Bag-of-words features have some major weaknesses:
- Loss of ordering of the words : When we constructed the "bag" or list of words earlier, there was no ordering of the words corresponding to each document. All we cared about is the frequency of occurrence of the words in the documents.
- Semantics of the words ignored : The same word can be used in different contexts in different documents. It isn't preserved.
- Data Sparsity: "bag" of words is constructed from all unique words across all documents. Most of the documents will have entries corresponding to few words from the Bag. In the feature list for Document B, we can see that there are only 3 entries. This will be the case for most of the documents.
- High Dimensionality: As we add more documents, the entries in the bag of words will increase considerably. Let's say we add another Document D containing the text: "Man is mortal". Now, the words "man" and "mortal" will be added to the Bag. Similarly, imagine for 30,000 documents, we will have thousands of unique words in the Bag. Thus number of columns increases as we keep on adding more documents. This leads to the classical Curse of dimensionality. High dimensional training data reduces predictive power of models if there are fixed number of training samples available.
In order to overcome the shortcomings of BoW model, we use Doc2Vec algorithm to represent documents as vectors.
Natural Language Features : Doc2Vec
Doc2Vec is an unsupervised algorithm which associates documents with labels. It is an extension of Word2Vec which is used to generate word embeddings. What this essentially means is that, word2vec takes a huge corpus of words as input and generates vector representation for each word in the corpus. The vectors are correlated to each other in such a way that words used in similar context are placed closer to each other. Similarly, Doc2Vec takes a large corpus of Documents as input and represents each document as vectors such that similar documents are placed together in the vector space. One of the good aspects of Doc2Vec is that you can specify the dimension of vectors you want your document to be represented in. Hence, the curse of dimensionality as mentioned earlier can be avoided.
Here are the 2-D projections of vectors generated by BoW and Doc2Vec techniques. We can visually differentiate the business categories in these graphs. In the following visuals, each point is a unique website colored by corresponding business vertical.
From the projections of Doc2Vec vectors, we can observe that categories which are closely related in nature like "Computer and Electronics" and "Internet and Telecom", "Business and Industry" and Finance" are placed closely. Similarly, "Arts and Entertainment", "Games", "Sports" & "News and Media" are visual neighbours.
Building the Classifier:
A. Get Data
There are 2 steps involved in getting the data for our classifier:
- Get the list of websites along with their categories. We obtained the list from DMOZ where you can get name of websites labelled by their hierarchical categories.
- Crawl the html from the homepage of all of these websites.
B. Preprocess the website data
- Extract plain text from html pages.
- Tokenize.
- Remove all punctuations , stop-words, foreign characters and words having length less than 2.
C. Convert Documents to Vectors
- Train Doc2Vec model using the preprocessed documents and their corresponding labels.
- Infer vector for every document.
We had collected around 2000 websites per category. We kept around 90% of the dataset to train & validate our classifier and the remaining dataset ( hold-out) to test it.
Steps A through C makes our raw labelled webpages ready to be used for training our classifier. We used Support Vector Machine (SVM) as our classifier.
Classifiers are machine learning algorithms which learn the association between input features and output categories. Once a classifier has been trained on labelled data, it can predict labels for unseen data. Of course, we have to provide the unseen data in the same format as the input. There are several classification algorithms available such as Random Forest, SVM, Naive Bayes, etc. Now, each of these classification algorithms has some specific tuning knobs which cannot be directly learned from the training process. The parameters need to be tuned depending on the kind of dataset we are dealing with. There are various methods of tuning the prior parameters : grid-search, random-search and Bayesian hyper-parameter optimization techniques. We performed Bayesian hyper-parameter optimization and obtained the best hyper-parameters for our classifier.
The two most important components of any machine learning system are the quality of input provided to it and the learning technique used. We discussed the issues with BoW representations because it suffers from the curse of dimensionality and it doesn't take semantics into consideration. Doc2Vec generates fixed length vectors from documents. So, we could train the classifier better by adding more documents per category.
The classifier can be further improved by two suggested approaches:
Get more data
That's true of any predictive models you'll build. The more the training samples available to your classifier, the better it will learn to classify unseen documents.
Semi-supervised approach
Use semi-supervised modelling on top of billions of websites to create a better classifier. In simple terms, it means inferring vector representation of new websites using our Doc2Vec model and labelling them as belonging to certain category if it's closer to vectors of
certain categories. This way, we get to have lots of training data for our classifier to learn from.


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About HealthITGuy
Michael Heil has been working in the healthcare IT field since 1995. His approach to IT has been to look at what makes logical sense, use deduction to determine the answer, maximize your resources and allow your staff to be creative and challenged.
- Member of HIMSS
- Cisco Unified Computing Technical Advisory Board Member
- VMWare vExpert 2009, 2010
- VMWare Users Group Leader, Greensboro, NC
- Bachelor of Arts from Michigan State University
- Masters of Science from Michigan State University
3 Comments »
I am the editor of SearchNetworking.com and am working on a story about some benchmark testing done by The Tolly Group on the Cisco UCS that claims throughput to be much lower than Cisco promises. Tolly says that while the UCS chassis can house 8 server blades, each of which can have its own 10GbE converged network adapter, the maximum number of active uplinks to the top-of-rack switch is 4. Thus, even though the blades have a theoretical aggregate capacity of 80Gbps, they all have to communicate to the top-of-rack UCS 6120 XP Fabric Interconnect (switch) via the maximum of four 10GbE uplink ports of the UCS 2104 Fabric Extender that plugs into the UCS chassis.
I am wonder Tolly's desciption of UCS has being "oversubscribed" is worthwhile considering his set up may not be a real-world use scenario.
Would you be able to offer some perspective on this?
Comment by Rivka Little | February 25, 2010 |
I am so sorry I didn't see this response earlier. I hope that you have recovered smoothly from your surgery.
Thanks for the response, it was very helpful.
Comment by Rivka Little | June 25, 2010 |


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A broken wireless internet card has been all that's between me and a few postings here lately. So this post will be a little down & dirty on formatting. But it's been a busy few days nonetheless. Yesterday, I found my journal from the wilderness trip that I did in college, complete with a grocery list of the food supplies that thirteen of us carried into the woods for two weeks. For your enjoyment, I'll reprint that list below. Besides the obvious humor in peeking back in on my newly minted adult mind (I left home for the trip on my 18th birthday), I truly enjoyed refreshing the inspiration for what eventually led me down the road to this blog. You see, even though it was a very important time in my life, it wasn't until I read my old words that I remembered the daily excitements of it, no matter how hard I'd tried to remember. Reading ten pages of foods I wanted to eat when I got back to civilization, listed as I sat alone in a field of blueberries on my two-day "solo" at the end of the trip, was as entertaining and revealing as any life lesson I could hope to relate from the experience without aid of a book.
What does this have to do with off-grid living, you ask? By keeping a journal of my progress throughout that trip, I created a living document that I can return to multiple times in life, that others can also use, should they have the opportunity, to inspire and learn a lesson or two about the experience. Of all the myriad papers I wrote in college, this first one, the one I wrote for myself, is the most relevant and important to me. When you start your walk away from the grid, or even just a new project along the way, you have a prime opportunity to keep a journal of your activities. It's easy to wonder why you bother when taking time from your day to write something down that already happened. This is normal. The gem of journal writing is best recognized after that journal has sat in the back of your closet a few years, and you honestly can't remember who your inspiration was when you were (insert age here). That's when the refresher course can save you having to make mistakes over again because you've wandered off your path.
Solarious is my off-grid energy journal, which doubles as a repository of great ideas and inspirations I see along the way. No doubt, I'll be looking back at this great experiment in alternate living one day with similar emotions as to the trip in college. Of course, this is a different forum from an 18 year old's diary, and personal details are necessarily a bit more brief here. But the point is that when you have that day (and you will, we're all human) when you wonder, "How the heck did I get here? Why is this so important to me that I'm willing to forgo thirty minute showers, an Escalade, and Big Macs?" you'll be able to go back and talk to yourself from a more rational mindset and check yourself back into the program. Unless you're superman and you never have doubts or forget anything, in which case, stop reading now and start saving the world. The rest of us hapless humans need people like you on the case!
Here's the grocery list (for 13 on a zero-impact trip of 2 weeks) from Project WILD: (1=can, mostly)
1 sweet peas
1 maple syrup
1 butter
2 tuna
1/2 bagels
Bag rice
3 blocks cheddar
1 strawberry jam
2 spaghetti
3 tomato paste
1 lima beans
2 bags prunes
1 smoked eel
1/2 bag peanuts
2 blocks monterey jack
Bag cous cous
Bag refried beans
3 boxes graham crackers
2 packs pesto sauce
4 cans tomato sauce
3 bags pita bread
Bag veggie chili mix
Bag grits
Bag animal crackers
Bag oatmeal
2 beanie weenies
11 bags cocoa mix
Bag banana chips
1 pineapple
Bag macaroni
Bag granola w/ raspberry
1 fishsteaks
2 pinto beans
1 mayo
Bag tang
1 soy sauce
Bag cream of wheat
Box rye crackers
1 english muffins
7 oranges
2 bags dates
1/2 bag raisins
bag pancake mix
1 apple butter
1 sardines
1 hot sauce
1 black beans
3 cans carrots
1 peanut butter
1 can mandarin oranges
bag jell-o
1/2 bag apple rings
1 spice kit
Bag pretzels
1 dijon mustard
1 green beans
13 pop-tarts
Bag plain granola
Bag mashed potato mix
1 onion
Bag apricots
1 marshmallow fluff
1 "mystery can"
11 packs spiced cider
1 vegetable oil
1 honey
1 honey mustard
3 slices bread
Bag powdered milk
Bag tortillas
Bag fruit punch mix
Bag lemonade mix
Bag brown sugar
2 cans corn
And iodine for water


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Will the reader please cast their eye over the following lines, and see if they can discover anything harmful in them?
The topless towers of Oxonium. Not a cloud to spoil the view.
TILT DOWN to BIRD'S EYE VIEW – wet flagstones… rain.
Coloured umbrellas pass below. A song and dance number begins. An 'Outside Broadcast' for a 'Light Entertainment Special' featuring MIMI, a chanteuse. HUGE STYROFOAM LETTERS spell out her name. DANCERS in coloured RAIN GEAR splash their way around the quad as…
MIMI: Like summer tempests came my tears, love, when I learned you'd been untrue. But after rain must come a rainbow. So, until then here's what I'll do…
(or Les infortunes de la vertu)
An exclusive ENDEAVOUR interview
Composed and conducted by Damian Michael Barcroft
Lyrics by Russell Lewis
With thanks to Lorenz Milton Hart and Richard Charles Rogers
& Matthew Slater for the images of RAK Studios
DAMIAN: I remember the day well and, of course, that bloody song – talk about involuntary musical imagery! And good God, wasn't it hot?
RUSS: Extremely. The dancers in their plastic macs, sou'westers and good quality rubber boots had my sympathy. As did Sharlette – our wonderful vocalist. But yes – perhaps our most blisteringly hot shooting day since we began in 2011.
DAMIAN: Aside from Tiger-gate, was opening an episode of Endeavour with a pop song and dance routine one of the most bold and surprising creative decisions thus far?
RUSS: Ha! Always with the tiger. It wasn't for me. Like Mister Walken – I'm a hoofer at heart. The sequence began as a salute to Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, and evolved from there.
DAMIAN: I've said this before but you're a very modest fellow, often frustratingly so for the purposes of these interviews, but let us simply assume, for the benefit of this piece, that you are indeed a VERY accomplished and successful screenwriter. The songs you wrote for CANTICLE, particularly 'Make Believe', were extremely catchy and, if we didn't know better, genuinely sounded like a popular hit from the period. So, at what point did you feel confident as a lyricist and discover these hidden musical talents?
RUSS: Well – like the man said, I've a lot to be modest about. As a youth I used to weep in Rod Argent's Keyboard Shop on Denmark Street. The usual teenage thing – bands; song-writing; colour me Les McQueen. That particular creative muscle hasn't been exercised for a long time, but if one has any facility for that sort of thing – it's a bit like riding a bike. And, of course, I was very fortunate to have Matt Slater on hand to do the heavy lifting.
DAMIAN: Are you familiar with another song entitled 'Make Beileve' from Show Boat?
RUSS: I haven't seen Show Boat for decades. I landed on that for a title as it was a massive hidden clue and a pointer towards the dangerous delusion at the heart of the matter.
DAMIAN: Wouldn't it have been a bit naff and possibly even embarrassing if the songs weren't up to scratch, and if that had been the case, would you have had someone else rewrite the material or perhaps scrap it all together?
RUSS: Seeing as much of the story depended on a credible soundtrack, I can't imagine we'd have scrapped it. We just had to apply ourselves.
DAMIAN: Matthew told me you wrote some sections of the song in the script but then he asked you to write more verses to help him complete the music which you both did in about thirty minutes? Thirty minutes! This can't be true can it?
RUSS: I think it was about that. We were clearly dragging our feet that day.
DAMIAN: And is it really true that two actors during one of the playback scenes were trying to Google one of the songs to see who originally wrote it back in the sixties?
RUSS: I did hear that this was the case.
DAMIAN: You visited the recording of the songs at RAK Studios, what was it like to hear your lyrics performed alongside a rhythm section, brass and strings?
RUSS: Enormous fun. Like Abbey Road, it's a place with an incredible history. So – hugely exciting. The place was packed. Sharlette; the boys from The Wildwood; Shaun came down; Helen Ziegler [producer]; Michael Lennox, the Director. And I was there with my son James. All of us cluttering up the control room – getting under the feet of the engineers, &c. It was a very special day. And in the middle of all the madness was Matt Slater – keeping his head and getting on with business. It was a privilege to see him working, as always. Whatever madness we've thrown at him over the last couple of series, he never fails to deliver all we've asked for, and always a great deal more besides.
DAMIAN: Did you celebrate with Rum, Scotch and Coke?
RUSS: I would refer you to Endeavour's opening line in First Bus to Woodstock.
DAMIAN: In addition to Tony Hancock and those bloody Carry On films, almost every set of our interviews contain some mention of The Beatles. Can you remember when they split up and were you one of those fans who retreated to their bedroom in tears?
RUSS: I would have been seven – so… unlikely.
DAMIAN: And what about when Zayn left One Direction?
RUSS: I'm still mourning Geri's departure from the Spice Girls.
DAMIAN: Do you listen to much modern music and what was the last album you purchased?
RUSS: I listen to all sorts of things. iTunes tells me my last purchase was a movie soundtrack that was in heavy rotation during the writing of MUSE.
DAMIAN: The first few films including First Bus to Woodstock, Girl, Fugue and probably quite a few more since feature typewriters and very particular mention of typefaces (a Smith Corona Deluxe Electric typewriter and Elite Number 66 typeface in Canticle) is this yet another example of your curious fascinations?
RUSS: A writer's pre-occupation. I started on type-writers. Rewrites were a particular treat. Change a word or a line – re-type the entire page.
DAMIAN: Again, and far too many to mention them all, there are lots of literary and cultural references but I'm especially intrigued by connections to The Wind in the Willows which feature in CANTICLE. Is Kenneth Grahame's classic a particular favourite?
RUSS: Published only six years before all the old certainties were blown to hell by the Great War, there's something about its prelapsarian idyll that seems to connect with the back to The Garden innocence of the flower-children.
And the tragic death of Alistair, a.k.a. 'Mouse', the Grahames' only child, while up at Oxford, to whom The Wind in the Willows had first been told as a bedtime story, lends another layer of connection. It doesn't take much detective work to get from there to The Piper At the Gates of Dawn.
DAMIAN: And there's some interesting narrative parallels with Cherubim and Seraphim from the original series isn't there?
RUSS: Very much so. I think Morse's comment to Lewis about his never having taken recreational drugs still stands. Endeavour was poisoned with hallucinogens. I draw a distinction.
DAMIAN: And finally before we move on from the references and nods, are you an avaricious consumer of the Marquis de Sade's work?
RUSS: Essential bedtime reading.
DAMIAN: Let's now talk about some of the characters. Given his dislike for hippies and Germans, the fact that he won't even hug his own son in public as he leaves for the army and generally displays certain personality characteristics that are probably out of touch even in the sixties, isn't it somewhat surprising to find that Thursday has such liberal views on recreational drugs and homosexuality?
RUSS: It didn't strike me as particularly liberal. He states that he smoked hash as a fact, and that it didn't do much for him. That's hardly an endorsement. He upholds the law that he's obliged to uphold. I think the war probably put a lot of things into perspective for him. When you've looked death in the eye, you tend not to sweat over the small stuff. Judge not.
DAMIAN: Thursday has a difference of opinion on homosexulaity in an unfilmed scene in which Strange says that 'poofs' are 'not right' and 'neither use nor ornament', to which Thursday replies 'We had one in the platoon. North Africa. Harris. Bravest man I ever knew… Sniper [shot him at] Second El Alamein. I closed his eyes. Brave to the last. If he'd made it back to Civvy Street, I might've had cause to nick him. And that can't be right. Comes down to it, we all bleed red'. Is it realistic that a soldier would have been openly gay during WW2 or is this something the chap simply told Thursday in confidence?
RUSS: If you'll forgive me – there's a danger of overthinking this. I can't imagine it was a conversation that ever took place. There's nothing new about don't ask, don't tell. It was an assumption made, I'm sure, based upon Harris's demeanour – as right or wrong as that might seem to us now. Had Thursday served with… I don't know… our own Charles Highbank – the window dresser from Burridges, played by best beloved Adrian Schiller – it's somewhat unlikely Thursday would have mistaken him for a raging heterosexual. There's really no more to it than that. But I think the important thing here is that such experiences – living cheek by jowl with a man, sharing the same foxhole – would have made Thursday, and others, question the orthodoxy – and indeed the law – that invited – if not required – them to view such men with suspicion and contempt.
DAMIAN: Were Strange's comments cut for fear the audience might find them offensive?
RUSS: Never. No – for length.
DAMIAN: Is there sometimes a certain danger that television is rewriting history and is it convincing that most of the main characters of period dramas happen to share the contemporary views of the people who write them?
RUSS: Which is why I had Strange express the views I did. Had it made the cut, it would have given some of the more predictable period context to offset Thursday's view.
DAMIAN: I'm not sure if you're allowed to say but to what extent was Mrs. Pettybon based on Mary Whitehouse?
RUSS: Mrs.Pettybon was a composite – much like The Wildwood. The inspiration was Edna Welthorpe (Mrs) – Joe Orton's alter-ego – guardian of public morals — created in the 50s long before Mrs.W came to public prominence. What we were looking to present was a type, of which Mrs.Whitehouse was perhaps the most well known – but she was certainly not alone in her crusading. It was an attitude one was holding up for inspection, rather than an individual. As I've possibly mentioned before, '67 saw the death of Orton, Brian Epstein and Joe Meek. This, together with the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality, as a result of the Sexual Offences Act 1967, was in my mind when I started developing the story.
The packaging of a certain kind of manufactured rock and roll band – the management keeping wives and girlfriends out of the picture, so as not to puncture the myth of their potential romantic availability to the young fandom, lest it affect record sales, &c, was also a building block. The morality of that deceit seemed worth examining – just as much as the moral soapboxing of Mrs.Pettybon.
You know – we're in the whodunit business, and the notion of a bigger, darker – at least for the period – secret, beyond that being presented on the surface, is key.
But the other big jumping off point was in thinking about whether it would be possible to murder someone without killing them. If you change their personality, their cognitive abilities, irreversibly – say through spiking them with hallucinogens – it could be argued that the person they were beforehand has effectively been – for want of a better term – 'murdered'. The period certainly contained enough 'acid casualties' to make it something worth exploring.
DAMIAN: Were the OCD characteristics displayed by Mrs. Pettybon such as the extreme scrubbing of her hands a bit much and didn't she run a slight risk of becoming something of religious caricature?
RUSS: Out, damned spot! She did drive her husband to suicide – so she had something to be guilty about. How does one depict someone who is a religious caricature? The point is that she wasn't genuinely religious at all. The dissonance between her professed faith and her eagerness to cast the first stone seemed to me vast and obvious. There was an exchange which we lost from the final cut between Mrs.P and the band's manager after their appearance on Julian Calendar's show. It seemed to my mind to sum up what she was about.
MRS.PETTYBON: Is our car here?
ENDEAVOUR: Yes, yes, it's, er… A taxi.
MRS.PETTYBON: What happened to the nice car that brought us?
RALPH: That's showbusiness, Mrs.Pettybon.
MRS.PETTYBON: I'm not in showbusiness.
RALPH: Actually, dear, you are. Boys.
RALPH loads his charges into the TAXI.
She was a fame hungry charlatan who would turn up to the opening of an envelope. That was the point. The only appropriate response is ridicule and derision.
DAMIAN: Her daughter, Bettina, is yet another character who has something of a crush on Endeavour, what do you think makes him so attractive to women – especially those who might best be described as vulnerable or troubled?
RUSS: That he looks remarkably like Shaun Evans possibly has something to do with it.
DAMIAN: Why were references to Bright's spasms of pain deleted from this and the previous film, surely their inclusion would have made the events of the next film more dramatic and less out of the blue?
RUSS: Length – again – very likely. What can I tell you?
DAMIAN: There were two beautiful moments that appeared in the script but sadly didn't make it on film as originally written: the first has Thursday hold the hallucinating Endeavour gently rocking him back and forth as he calls out 'Fred?', to which Thursday replies: 'That's right, son. That's right. It's Fred. You're safe now. I've got you.' I'm sure this would have elevated an already great scene to one of the most touching in the entire series so why cut it?
RUSS: On the day, that was the way it went on the floor.
DAMIAN: The second is the corned beef scene in the hospital at the end of the film which originally began with the following 'ENDEAVOUR – a whiter shade of pale. Somewhere between this world and the next. An angel's wings brush his cheek. A pair of soft lips find his own' and Joan says off screen 'Look after yourself, Morse.' Again, this is beautiful so why lose it?
RUSS: As with the previous. 'Ask me no more…'
DAMIAN: So, while CANTICLE revealed your flair for lyrics, what can you tell us about CARTOUCHE and what new tricks or talents might you still have hidden up your sleeve?
RUSS: Hmm. I don't know about new tricks. Just an old dog's selection of fire-sale novelties, gee-gaws and bagatelles from a well-travelled sample case of deceit and legerdemain. Umm… What can I tell you about CARTOUCHE… Tonight's late-night double-feature examines – amongst other things — the fading grandeur of the local flea-pit. Other aspects of the story were a sobering reminder that all too often the more things change, the more they stay the same. So… Two for the Circle. And don't forget your popcorn.
DAMIAN: Will there be any more singing and dancing in this series?
RUSS: Some.


text:
Hey everyone. Hope your all having a good Saturday. Hard to think it's April. Today is a great day to do a product review. The product is from Keeva, and it's their bath bombs.
I was one of the luckily people allowed to try Keeva's bath bombs. This was an 8 bath bomb gift set. These bath bombs are unique because the fragrances come from essential oils. Mostly these bath bombs are from natural ingredients, and are hand made.
These bath bombs are a great way to have a hot, indulgent bath. So each bath bomb is 4 oz, and their large bath bombs. This scent collection covers fruit, and floral scents. My favorites are the fruit scents, and my very favorite is the Sunshine Grapefruit.
Each scent or fragrance is true to it's name. These bath bombs are all natural, and I love that. These Keeva bath bombs are hand made in the USA. Yet aspect to love about Keeva. I place one bath bomb in a tub of hot water, and it's starts fizzing. Scents are lovely, but don't overpower. Nor do they leave a residue in your tube. I would for sure buy these again.
Disclosure: I received this product complimentary in exchange for an honest, and unbiased product review. Below is a link to purchase the item on amazon.


text:
Relax and be Adaptable
Traveling can be stressful, so keeping a good attitude will help your kids keep a good attitude as well. If something doesn't go right, adapt. If the place you were headed to is closed, don't simply return to the hotel room. Take the opportunity to walk around and find something else to do that wasn't on your scheduled list of activities [source: Travelwithyourkids.com]. Who knows? You may discover something new you didn't expect to see, and you might even make a vacation memory while you're at it.
For example, when the Neigers took their family on vacation to the Great Smoky Mountains, it began to rain just as they reached the top of one of the lookouts. After hours of driving in the family minivan, they were determined to not give up that easily. Eventually, they returned to their vacation home drenched and tired, but along the way they had built a family vacation memory that they wouldn't soon forget. Instead of letting the rain ruin their trip, they kept a positive attitude. "Always try to make a memory of something" Neiger said.
For more information about traveling with children and other related topics, follow the links below.
Related Articles
- Burns, Jim. "Have a Stress-Free Family Vacation." The Christian Broadcasting Network. (Feb. 19, 2010)http://www.cbn.com/family/familyadvice/Burns_vacation.aspx
- Mahoney, Tatiana. "Traveling with Kids? Use Our Checklist!" Parents Magazine. Dec. 2007. (Feb. 19, 2010)http://www.parents.com/fun/vacation/planning/traveling-with-kids-checklist/?page=1
- Neiger, Tim and Jess. Parents of five. Personal Interview. Conducted on Feb. 18, 2010.
- Travelwithyourkids.com. "Top 5 Family Travel Tips." (Feb 18, 2010)http://www.travelwithyourkids.com/before-you-go/top-5-family-travel-tips
6 Crazy Theme Cruises
HowStuffWorks Now looks at some of the strangest theme cruises sailing.


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One of my favourite cities, amazing architecture and culture, a must see.
Somewhere to stay:
Budget Backpackers
Travel fanatic, nature lover, adventure junkie, and photography enthusiast.
Photography and musings from a rustic life in the Northeast woods
Exploring Vancouver's backyard (and beyond)
Adventures in hiking...
Typical university graduate with too many interests not knowing what to do next.
Suit & heels by day, spandex & sneakers by night
Explore the World's Backstreets
My journey to working holiday heaven...
Stories from Our Journey
Life should be an adventure!
It's all about the way there
Everyday is adventure! ニューヨーク州・ハドソンバレーにて田舎暮らし。大自然とともに生きるアウトドアライフの記録。
Climb Rocks, Love Dog. The North Face | Rozik Wear
The official blog of BigPigOutdoors.com
Travel & Photography
Providing tangible, actionable tips to lead your most vibrant life
Small town kid becomes a renegade travel writer, and kills it.
A Luxury Travel Blog from Yorkshire via The World
Road trips and travel tips


text:
I haven't done this in a couple of weeks – I'm fascinated when people Google stuff and end up here. Most of the time what they're searching for was only mentioned in passing, or there was only a single article on the subject.
Without further ado (if you want further ado, I can provide that upon request), here's the list of search queries that led visitors here:
- "Kingdom of Loathing": By far the most popular search term was for "Kingdom of Loathing" which was asked for 4 times. Yeah, it's a fun, nonsensical game I've mentioned – go play it at Kingdom of Loathing – it's free, and funny. Let's see who my foe would be today if I logged in:
This is one of the Ninja Snowmen of Mt. McLargeHuge. These ninjas are as cold as ice, and willing to sacrifice your love. And by love, I mean life.
He ninjas you in the shoulder. Ow! Eek! Oof! Eek! Ow!
But I hardly play anymore since I just don't have the time – too busy working and blogging 🙂 . There were 12 (twelve!) people searching for "Pastamancer", and other searches for "descriptions kingdom of loathing items," "kingdom of loathing wand," and "secret code kingdom of loathing." If I actually had useful information here on that game, I could be the encyclopedia for that game. Alas, I have no useful information except for a wee bit on ninja snowmen that I posted just now.
- "String of fast food suits expected by end of year": Wow. Almost word for word on the name of my post that day.
- Iraqi soldiers save wilson: Wilson? From the movie Castaway? That's the only Wilson I know of.
- "lonely man suspensory": Again? The guy that searched for this term last time dropped off a comment and confessed (he was trying to find out if there was any rhyme or reason to this stuff), but now apparently somebody's search for it again. If I'm not the source for Kingdom of Loathing, then I want to be the best resource for Spam Poetry anywhere.
- "cheese poems": Or cheese poetry. Or even better, Spam with Cheese poetry. Mmmm.
- "$1000 bill pic": No idea. No place (until just now) do I mention a $1000 bill anywhere. I mentioned a $10 Reagan bill though.
- "livejournal new icon superhero": No less than 7 seaches for this. Actually, I'm quite proud of this little pic. I needed an icon for my original Livejournal blog (don't bother looking for it, all of the posts were moved over here) and I was trying to be zuper zecret. I started with this picture:
Gadzooks, those are huge muscles. Scary. With a little bit of special effects and editing, I ended up with this icon for my Livejournal posts:
- "livejournal swirl backgrounds": I wonder if anybody's swiped my blue swirly background yet?
- "chasing the wind," "chasingthewind," "chasingthewind.net": Cool. Somebody was actually looking for me, and then they found me. Yippee!
- "the washington dispatch faulkner," "george bush this girl lost her mother on 9 11," "hoax washington dispatch ashley": Several searches for this story. I'm not surprised they ended up here; this story wasn't picked up anywhere else. One of the searchers was also trying to find out if it was a hoax. It's not; I linked to the original story at The Washington Dispatch. That picture must drive liberals crazy – they try to paint George Bush as some cruel, uncaring monster, yet here he is, away from the cameras, comforting a girl that lost her mother during 9/11. Face it, liberals – George Bush has more compassion in his little finger than your whole corrupted billionaire-financed MoveOn.org does in the entire organization.
- "mulroney eulogies": Mulroney did a eulogy for Reagan – the eulogy isn't here, but I did link to it at Outside the Beltway.
- "wordpress metaldreams": If the blue swirly style I made bugs you, I installed some alternate styles on the left – one with a polar bear playing in the water, a toned down swirly for Spritzy, and a couple of others including one called "Metal Dreams." I wonder if somebody is just trying to find out if it's being used anywhere.
- "chronically biased": Chronically Biased is a local Houston based blog that rips into our local left-wing newspaper. The Houston Chronicle drives me nuts, too – I cancelled my paper years ago, but they still give it to me free often. The Houston Chronicle isn't as bad as the L.A. Times, but they happily rip into Tom Delay weekly, praise the local Metro toy choo-choo train that goes nowhere and has caused 46+ accidents so far this year, ignore the C.L.O.U.T. effort of 30,000 taxpayers whose property tax is skyrocketing, and generally ignore any story that doesn't fit their agenda.
That's all the ado I have for today. 🙂


text:
Hubspot 3 launches
The Hubspot brand is well known for blog posts chock full of actionable information about marketing online. Whether it's how to create a landing page that really converts, fine tune your email marketing, or how to make sure nobody misses your next webinar, Hubspot puts out great inbound content to learn from.
When I tell people I'm a Hubspot partner, the universal reaction is "Ooooh, I love Hubspot, they get it!". While that is definitely true, I'm amazed to hear people don't really know what Hubspot does. Hubspot's marketing tools help you create inbound marketing through blog posts and landing pages optimized for maximum effect and amazing analytics to give you real insight on who comes to your website. You can create lead nurturing email campaigns that keep giving great information to your visitors and use those inbound marketing techniques to turn visitors into prospects and prospects into leads.
This new release really make it super-easy for a Hubspot client to create inbound marketing campaigns using the new workflow processes built into Hubspot 3. You can create a landing page to market your product in an easy drag and drop interface, customize the forms a user sees, create a clear call to action to draw people to the landing page and conduct A and B testing on all of it to fine tune your marketing and really see what works best to reach your target market. The best part is; now what used to take you a fair commitment of time can be done in minutes. The new workflow tool really streamlines the process for you.
All through the Hubspot process you can nurture leads and create workflows to continue the lifecycle of that contact and conversion to a sale.
Landing pages
Creating landing pages to focus a user's interest on a specific topic and give them great information is key to inbound marketing. But creating and publishing a landing page can require a designer, a coder, the marketing team and possibly a consultant in SEO, user interface and conversion! Yeesh, no wonder it takes so long to get these things done. Now Hubspot is changing that. They've already done the conversion optimization for you within their templates.Pick your template as a starting point and add your own content. When you open the editor you see a preview of the landing page in real time and you can add interactive forms that tie into your lead nurturing program.All in a drag and drop interface. No programming required.
Smart forms
The new forms in Hubspot 3 use "Smart Forms" that actually remember a user when they visit your site. If they have downloaded an e-book in the past, smart forms will recognize them and fill in the required fields. This is going to remove one more barrier for users who simply don't want to fill in all the fields every single time they download something. Good for the user, good for you because they don't leave!
Social media publishing
With the social media publishing tool you can view blog posts, landing pages and calls to action in a visual browser right in the tool. This allows you to easily promote them on your chosen social networks and schedule them to post at a particular time. The Hubspot tool even suggests the most appropriate times to post to reach your network most effectively. There's also a bookmarklet, so you can post to your social networks from your browser on the fly.
Know your contacts
The social media contacts tool give you amazing insight into your contacts. Once someone is entered into your contact database, either by adding a client list or when they download one of your e-books, you can follow what that person is saying on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin and interact with them directly, turning a prospect into a warm lead the right way, by having a conversation and providing value. No more cold calls! In addition the smart contacts toll shows the history of that contact with your company and give you an idea of where that lead is in the decision making process, making it easy for you to reach out to them with the right information at the right time.
For me the analytics in the old Hubspot were a real eye opener. Hubspot 3 really makes those analytics even better. You can see what pages are assisting in conversions, which ones really convert a casual visitor to a buyer and see what path users really take to converting to buyers, including which inbound links got them there in the first place. Is your social media outreach really generating direct leads? Is your paid search getting people to the website and then losing the conversion? Use this data to fine-tune your inbound marketing strategy with the built-in A and B testing capabilities.
Get a demo!
So, all this sounds great right? Wanna peek under the hood? Cool, I can give you a tour of the new Hubspot features and even set up a free demo.


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Chesapeake Bay Watershed Students: Visualize Your Water Challenge
High school students in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed are invited to become part of the Visualize Your Water Challenge sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other partners.
Visualize Your Water is an exciting challenge that will equip high school students with new technology skills and help to broaden their understanding of nutrient pollution issues. Students will submit their best, most innovative visualization that tells a story about nutrient pollution in a local waterway.
The Challenge seeks to engage the innovative spirit of high school students in the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay watershed states to create compelling visualizations about nutrient pollution using GIS software and water quality data collected by federal, state and local efforts.
How do teachers get involved? This challenge is an opportunity to bring GIS and water quality education into the classroom! Teachers can use this challenge in or out of the classroom, and provide students the opportunity to engage (singly or in teams) with an important environmental issue (water quality) and a robust technology for visualization and analysis (GIS).
Where To Begin?
The Getting Started Guide provides students and teachers with resources and instruction on how to use digital mapping technology to prepare submission and how to enter the Visualize Your Water Challenge.
The U.S. Geological Survey, Minnesota Sea Grant, Wisconsin Sea Grant, Center for Great Lakes Literacy, Great Lakes Observing System, and the National Geographic Society, with the assistance of the U.S. Department of Education are also partners in this initiative.
Visit the Visualize Your Water Challenge webpage for all the details.
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Sophie Danby, the Director of Online Communications, SysAid – a leading IT Service Management Company has recently interviewed Ashok Srivastava, the Senior Manager- Solutions and Services,Read more
DevOps – A Bridge Between ALM and ITSM
DevOps is about bridging the often mutually competitive groups, which have conflicting goals, within an IT organization – developments and IT operations. Whereas the developmentRead more
From the Desk of the CEO – March 2011
Dear Friends of Kovair: Welcome once again to our monthly update communication. We are focusing on two areas this month for our communication. One isRead more


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A leading organization in the advancement of peace, sustainable development and intellectual collaboration
To promote building of peace, eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intellectual dialogue through education, sciences, culture, communication and information
KNATCOM derives its mandate and functions from;
- The UNESCO Constitution;
- The Charter of the National Commissions for UNESCO; and
- The Kenya National Commission for UNESCO Act of 2013.
Generally, the functions of the National Commission are to;
- ensure permanent presence of UNESCO in Kenya;
- disseminate information on UNESCO;
- coordinate ratification of UNESCO related international conventions and protocols;
- coordinate, Kenyan delegations to all UNESCO international foras;
- participate in the planning and execution of UNESCO activities;
- collaborate with other National Commissions in UNESCO globally;
- participate in the search for candidates for UNESCO international prizes and awards;
- participate in the search for candidates for UNESCO jobs,
- assist in the placement of UNESCO fellowship holders;
- foster close liaison between institutions concerned with education, the sciences, culture and communication &information;
- coordinate capacity building in education, sciences, culture and communication&information;
- support mobilization of resources for implementation of UNESCO programmes and activities and to the evaluation thereof; and
- provide expert advisory service to the government in education, sciences, culture, and communication and information.
The operational environment is governed by a set of moral standards which constitute the desired organizational culture. These values are:
- Integrity: Committed to operate in an honest, accountable and transparent manner in all undertakings.
- Professionalism: Commitment to the highest levels of achievement obtainable through competence and critical skills.
- Teamwork: Embracing teamwork and collaboration both within the KNATCOM for UNESCO and partners
- Excellence in Service: Upholding the highest standards in service delivery to all
- Courtesy: Endeavoring to be courteous to all clients at all times.
- Fidelity to law: Commitment to respecting the rule of law in all undertakings.
Who we are
A leading organization in the advancement of peace, sustainable development and intellectual collaboration
The Kenya National Commission for UNESCO (KNATCOM) was established in 1964 as a Department under the then Ministry of Education. This establishment was subsequent to Kenya's Membership to UNESCO in April 7, 1964 as the 73rdMember and in line with UNESCO Constitution of 1945.
Over the years, KNATCOM has continued to promote and coordinate UNESCO's activities in Kenya and supported UNESCO's agenda at the international levels. At the same time, KNATCOM is also the point of contact for the Association for Development of Education for Africa (ADEA) and the Commonwealth.
KNATCOM was transformed into a State Corporation on 25th January, 2013 following the enactment of the Kenya National Commission for UNESCO Act 2013. This transformation was consistent with Article VII of the UNESCO Constitution of 1945 and the provisions of the 1978 Charter of National Commissions for UNESCO.
As a Commission, KNATCOM has a dual mandate of promoting Kenya's national interests in UNESCO and UNESCO's international interests in Kenya, Regionally and Globally. In summary, the Commission: mobilizes financial, technical and informational resources from UNESCO;promotes collaborations between national and international institutions; promotes knowledge and information sharing; facilitates national and international policy formulation in the fields of education, sciences, culture and communication & information among many other functions.
ASPNet Schools


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my experience with faxing
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Vonage® VoIP Forum - Vonage News, Reviews And Discussion
Fax - Tivo - Alarms
Vonage Forum Associate
Joined: May 28, 2004
Posts: 10
Sun May 30, 2004 2:26 am
Post subject: my experience with faxing
I see many posts discussing attepts to fax using
. Let me tell you about my experience. I do a lot of faxing (no, I'm not a junk faxer!), and, simply put, the
connection is simply not good enough for faxing.
For years I faxed using my modem. When I switched over to
, I spend considerable time fiddling with the modem's fax settings, with little success. I read somewhere that faxing from PCs was unsupported, so I bought a HP LaserJet 3300 multifunction device. No improvement.
During my tribulations I was sending faxes through my eFax account. While the per-page fees can seem excessive, they may acctually be competitive compared to paying for a no-frills POTS line for faxing.
If faxing was the only data connection I needed, eFax may have been the solution to the problem. But I also need to make a modem data connection at least twice a day (no the service does not have an IP based solution). Whereas the fax service can be duplicated, the data service cannot, and this is why I gave up and finally got a plain-jane POTS line for my fax and data connections.
Some users have been able to improve fax performance by reducing connection speed and disabling error correction. While this may work for someone who only faxes occasionally, I don't think this is a viable solution for those of us who do a fair amount of faxing. First, newer fax machines can connect at speeds up to 33600 baud, whereas with you'll be lucky to connect reliably at 9600. By transmitting faster you'll free up both your and your client's lines sooner. Second, error correction features really do make the fax come out nicer on the other end.
So, my advice to anyone who does any significant amount of faxing is to keep an analog voice line.
Vonage Forum Master
Joined: May 05, 2004
Posts: 183
Mon May 31, 2004 12:03 am
Post subject:
YMMV. I believe there is a codec being developed specifically for putting fax data over
lines but it's not finalized yet. Once that's done I imagine all the larger
players will include it.
- Gary
Vonage Forum Senior
Joined: Jan 31, 2004
Posts: 104
Mon May 31, 2004 11:02 am
Post subject:
Fax has been in decline now for a number of years though clearly it has it's place.
protocol for fax is T.38 and BOTH the sending and receiving end must support this. Unfortunately, inexpensive MTA's typical don't support T.38 and even if it did depending on how and where the call is routed, there is no guarantee that the remote end supports T.38.
and others typical resort to using the G.711 protocol (effectively clear channel comunications). G.711 generally works well EXCEPT it transmits at a full bore ~ 90 kbps. If your uplink doesn't support this speed on a consistent basis -- you'll find difficulties in sending or receiving faxes.
Vonage Forum Master
Joined: May 05, 2004
Posts: 183
Mon May 31, 2004 11:11 am
Post subject:
Ah, yes, T.38 was what I was thinking of, thank you. I didn't realize both ends had to use it, either (thus making it mostly useless until it's likely both ends are using VoIP).
I agree that fax is declining, but for some things it's still in heavy use. I remember at one of my house closings the lawyers had to fax a bunch of stuff to another party right away. As a stand alone method of mostly duplicating printed graphics it's not an entirely bad way to go. I wish it could be replaced, but I guess that's not likely.
- Gary
New Forum Member
Joined: Apr 06, 2004
Posts: 8
Tue Jun 01, 2004 10:12 pm
Post subject:
I have started to use eFax (Free to receive) to receive ALL my fax's with, This has been really GREAT. But they charge a fee to send.. I have not found any thing good to send.. I receive more I send, MY G85 does not have any setting to force the 9600 baud.. So it takes seveal tries using the *99 to send..
IT would be great if there was a fix.. I only send 1-2 fax a month so a fee any more then $2-3 would be to much..
Vonage Forum Senior
Joined: Jan 31, 2004
Posts: 104
Wed Jun 02, 2004 9:18 am
Post subject:
In terms of T.38 and BOTH ends ...
T.38 is basically a method for encapsulating fax data packets, sending them over IP and managing flow control between for the fax.
T.38 MUST be supported by BOTH the MTA (our
Motorola and/or Cisco device) AND the gateway. In the case of
, this gateway is where your call is handed from the IP network back to the traditional PSTN network.
Thus fax machines themselves have no clue about T.38.
Despite the relative slow speed of fax transmission, this older technology made extensive usage of the fact that all telephony networks have strict synchronization rules (they're all effectively on the same clock).
It's amazing to me that
would advertise their service specifically for fax transmissions when the Cisco ATA doesn't support T.38 AND recognizing the many interop problems that fax bring in a
Vonage Forum Associate
Joined: May 03, 2004
Posts: 14
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Mon Jun 07, 2004 9:50 am
Post subject: REALTORS® still using fax a lot
I am a REALTOR® and faxes are a still a big part of our business. I use pdf files when I can but others do not. The fax part of
is not 100% reliable and that is unacceptable when an offer or counter offer has to get thru.
I can receive a little better than I can send. I will say that sending and receiving from win fax works pretty good. But still not good enough for business purpose.
Vonage Forum Junior
Joined: Apr 16, 2004
Posts: 35
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Tue Jun 08, 2004 3:14 pm
Post subject:
Hello again Caledonia!
I had the same fax issues, I tried in vain to get my faxmodem working. I finally said to he|_|_ with it and ordered a local e-fax line. I don't fax much but even at 12 bucks or so a month, considering all I am saving by switching to
, it is more than a bargain. Of course, at 10 cents a page, e-fax may not be cost-effective for a REALTOR®.
-- Bill in Grandville
Vonage Forum Junior
Joined: Feb 28, 2004
Posts: 25
Thu Jun 10, 2004 1:25 pm
Post subject:
Here is a good discussion on
and faxing at DSL reports.
Please read :
Check it out. decent info.
New Forum Member
Joined: Jun 11, 2004
Posts: 1
Fri Jun 11, 2004 1:37 am
Post subject:
Should I assume that everyone who is having problems with faxing are either paying the extra $9.99/mo for a Residential plan or on a Business plan?
Also, if you are not paying for fax service with
, you truely cannot fax anything over the line?
Thanks, Tom
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Information on Zuiko Lenses
Zuiko AUTO-Zoom 65-200mm f/4.0 MACRO
I always thought Zuiko lenses presents very good value to their users and this Zuiko zoom is another typical example. At the time, most manufacturers were offering tele-zoom lenses which usually came with a popular range falls between 80-200 or 70-210mm, Olympus has created another zoom with an rather uncustomary zoom range from 65-200mm during a period probably between* 1984/1986. Although odd on papers but it is very practical as the wide-end of its zoom approaches filed of view close to standard vision at 37° and its 3.07X zoom ratio is the widest in its class. Come to think of it, actually it is one of its kind in an all OM custom essence but who bothers as long as we consumers benefits from its thoughtful design ? So this "new" zoom range remains as an Olympus' proprietary original design and there is no comparing optic with similar zoom range being offered thus far.
<<< --- Credit: Image courtesy of Mr. A. Lorincz "Attila"® <email@example.com> Image copyright © 2003. All rights reserved. Please respect the visual property of the contributing photographer.
* There are some inconsistency relating to actual period of introduction of this lense - I have a few OM literature where an 04/84 publication indicates this Zuiko zoom was in the lense group, an OM-4 publication in 07/85 does not mentioned it at the lens chart section but an OM system catalogue has a picture of it but not being mentioned at the Lense-chart section while the last copy of the OM system catalogue in 10/92, there are only 4 remaining Zuiko zooms left in its lenss chart section (the remaining ones are the S.Zuiko AUTO zoom 35-70mm f/3.5~4.5, Zuiko AUTO zoom 35-70mm f/3.6, S.Zuiko AUTO zoom 35-105mm f/3.5~4.5, Zuiko AUTO zoom 50-250mm f/5.0). But a more believing year of introduction was 1984.
Well, up to the early '90 as this lense is one of the two remaining tele-zoom Olympus was still offering in their Zuiko lineup, if it can still such sustaining power cruising through evolution in lense development all these years - it must have its own strength, right ? Yes. first of all, this highly portable one touch-zoom has a very practical focal length, its single zoom and focusing control is easy and quick to use, it has a fairly fast aperture as compared with other Zuiko tele-zooms in its class and lastly, it delivers more than acceptable optical performance that one would expect it to be with just a modest price it calls. * A used, mint condition unit at approx. between USD220.00 - USD250.00.*Source: MacBroom's Camera Blue Book. Picture at left shown how this lense is compared to a Zuiko AUTO zoom 85-250mm f/5.0 in physical form.
Sunrise, Oasis Road, rural Johnson County
<<< -- Credit: Image courtesy of Mr JOEL Wilcox® <firstname.lastname@example.com>. Joel has an excellent landscape photographic website on his own. Image Copyright © 2003. All rights reserved. Please respect the visual property of the contributing photographer.
As this lense was considered as among the new generation of MF Zuiko zoom lenses introduced at the time which uses prevailing zoom lense design characterized by one-touch zoom/focusing, a moderarely fast maximum aperture, compact/lightweight and incorporating a macrofocus capability; similarly, this lovely Zuiko zoom also offers such similar basic essential features to fulfill needs of OM photographers. Basically, the main threat of Olympus actually came from third party manufacturers and the Company just has to react to competitions in ensuring OM users still sticking onto an OM label. The clear advantage of this lense is, naturally, it has a longer zoom range than comparing optics while it also packs all basic features one would expect in a high quality zoom lense would deliver.
<<< --- Credit: Image courtesy of Mr. Jone Quinn <firstname.lastname@example.com>. Jone Quinn runs a popular Ebay Store and he specializes in selling OM photo gears. Image copyright © 2003 All rights reserved.
The macrofocus is set at the 200mm furthest end of the zoom setting. The lense basic configuration only permits it to close focus at 1.2m (4.0 ft), it can narrow down the minimum focusing distance to just 0.85m while a remarkable reproduction ratio of 1:3 can be achieved. The thoughtful macrofocus function shows how Olympus has taken minor things in detailed consideration as unlike many other comparing zoom with similar feature, Olympus has designed the mechanism to function at 200mm and only photographers who often works at close focus photography will appreciate such design as firstly, it allows a more comfortable working distance and equally important is the natural perspective such focal length can provide to an eventual capture image. Well, the close focus capability adds another layer to its already impressive lists of features and probably now you can understand why this Zuiko zoom can still find itself a solid footing amidst in the ever-changing market place. Note: Olympus warns the depth of field scales and infrared index canot be used as reference once you are in macrofocus mode.
At 760g, this lense is not entirely be considered as lightweight and almost comparable to its 50-250mm f/5.0 MACRO counterpart in weight. The diaphragm stop down to a minimum aperture of f/32 which is effectively useful in many situations, in particular when operating at its Macro setting for extended depth of field control. Further, one touch zoom offers a better visual reference in relation to depth of field scales and this lense provides only two indicative settings, f/32 and f/16 along with an red-coloured infrared index.
<< --- Credit: Image courtesy of Mr. A. Lorincz "Attila"® <firstname.lastname@example.com> Image copyright © 2003. All rights reserved.
Technical Specification for Zuiko AUTO-Zoom 65-200mm f/4.0 MACRO
Lense type: One touch tele-zoom design
Focal length: 65-200mm
Maximum aperture: 1:4.0
Lens construction: 14 elements in 11 groups
Picture angle: 37° (f=65mm) - 12°(f=200mm)
Diaphragm: Automatic, full aperture metering
Aperture scale: f/4.0~ f/32
Distance scale: Graduated in meters and feet from 1.2m (4.0 ft) to infinity (oo)
Focusing: Rotating helicoid system, by turning the focusing ring
Zooming: push and pull control via single zooming/focusing ring
Filter attachment size / Filter(s): 55mm, Screw-in type
Lens hood: Built-in retractable type
Minimum photographic range: 48cm x 32cm@65mm; 17cm x 11cm@200mm
Maximum reproduction ratio: 1:3 @ its closest focusing distance at 0.85m at 200mm setting
Length: 147mm
Maximum diameter: 71mm
Weight: 730g (25.7 oz)
Recommended Focusing Screens: 2-4**, 2-13**,1-1*, 1-2*, 1-3*, 1-4N**, 1-6#, 1-10*, 1-13* and 1-14*. * Compatible. #Can be used. They will provide for accurate and easy focusing but meter built into the OM-1 and OM-2 (on MANUAL) will not indicate correct light readings. With the OM-2 on AUTO, correct exposures are made on the film, but the meter needle does not give correct light readings.** Compatible, only with applicable OM bodies introduced at later stage.
<<< --- Credit: Image courtesy of Mr. Jone Quinn <firstname.lastname@example.com>. Jone Quinn runs a popular Ebay Store and he specializes in selling OM photo gears. Image copyright © 2003 All rights reserved.
Zuiko AUTO-Zoom Lenses - Main Index page
| S-Zuiko AUTO Zoom 28-48mm f/4.0 | Zuiko AUTO Zoom 35-70mm f/3.6 | S-Zuiko AUTO Zoom 35-70mm f/4.0 | Zuiko AF AUTO Zoom 35-70mm f/4.0 | S-Zuiko AUTO Zoom 35-70mm f/3.5 ~ f/4.5 | S-Zuiko AUTO Zoom 35-70mm f/3.5 ~ f/4.8 | Zuiko AUTO Zoom 35-80mm f/2.8 ED | Zuiko AUTO Zoom 35-105mm f/3.5 ~ f/4.5 | Zuiko AUTO zoom 50-250mm f/5.0 | Zuiko AUTO zoom 65-200mm f/4.0 | S-Zuiko AUTO zoom 70-210mm f/4.5 ~ f/5.6 | Zuiko AUTO Zoom 75-150mm f/4.0 | Zuiko AUTO Zoom 85-200mm f/4.0 | Zuiko AUTO Zoom 85-250mm f/5.0 | S-Zuiko AUTO Zoom 100-200mm f/5.0 |
A Brief overview on Zuiko Optics
Zuiko Fisheye Lenses 8mm f/2.8 Circular Fisheye | 16mm f/3.5 Full Frame Fisheye
Zuiko Ultra-Wideangle Lenses 18mm f/3.5 | 21mm f/2.0 | 21mm f/3.5 | 24mm f/2.0 | 24mm f/2.8
Zuiko Wideangle Lenses 28mm f/2.0 | 28mm f/2.8 | 28mm f/3.5 | 35mm f/2 | 35mm f/2.8 |
Zuiko Standard Lenses 40mm f/2.0 | 55mm f/1.2 | 50mm f/1.2 | 50mm f/1.4 | 50mm f/1.8 | Zuiko 50mm f/2.0 PF
Zuiko Medium-Telephoto Lenses 85mm f/2.0 | 100mm f/2.0 | 100mm f/2.8 | 135mm f/2.8 | 135mm f/3.5
Zuiko Telephoto Lenses 180mm f/2.0 EDIF | 180mm f/2.8 | 200mm f/4.0 | 200mm f/5.0 Auto-T (brief)
Zuiko Super-Telephoto Lenses 250mm f/2.0 EDIF | 300mm f/4.5 | 350mm f/2.8 EDIF | 400mm f/6.3 | 500mm | 600mm f/6.5 |1000mm f/11.0
Special application Zuiko optics: 24mm f/3.5 Shift | 35mm f/2.8 Shift | 500mm f/8 Reflex | AF Zoom 35-70mm f/4.0 | Zuiko 50mm f/2.0 PF
Tele-Converters: 1.4X-A / 2X-A
Zuiko Macro/Close focus lenses: Zuiko AUTO MACRO 20mm f/3.5 | Zuiko AUTO MACRO 20mm f/2.0 | Zuiko AUTO MACRO 38mm f/3.5 | Zuiko AUTO MACRO 38mm f/2.8 | Zuiko AUTO MACRO 50mm f/3.5 | Zuiko AUTO MACRO 50mm f/2.0 | Zuiko AUTO MACRO 1:1 80mm f/4.0 | Zuiko AUTO MACRO 90mm f/2.0 | Zuiko AUTO MACRO 135mm f/4.5
| Back | Index Page of OM Zuiko lenses
| Back | to Main Index Page of OM1(n) & OM2(n) Series SLRs
| Message Board | for your favourite Olympus OM-1(n) and OM-2(n) series models
| Message Board | for your Zuiko Optics in a shared environment
| Message Board | Specifically for Dispose or Looking for OM Photographic Equipment
About this photographic site.
Home - Photography in Malaysia
Copyright © 2000. leofoo ®. MIR Web Development Team.
Maintainers for OM Zuiko Site & Message Board: Rick Oleson (Email: email@example.com Website: http://rick_oleson.tripod.com), Bruce Hamm (firstname.lastname@example.com), John Orrell (firstname.lastname@example.com), Simon Evans, (http://www.mawddwy.freeserve.co.uk); Shaun (email@example.com), Andy Radcliffe (email@example.com)
Special thanks to: Gregory P. Logiodice, Bob Gries, Erwin Voogt, Joel Wilcox, Rick Oleson, Simon Evan and many others for granting permissions to use their images of either lenses, cameras and own pictures appeared in this Zuiko website.
Credit: My old time buddy, Ahmad Ikram, Dr of Rubber Research Institute (RRI), Malaysia who shares the same passion with me and also lending his OM-1n, OM-4 and the Motor Drive 1 to me for preparing some images in this site; Mark Dapoz <email@example.com>for reminding some broken links; Mr Poon of Foto Poon, Ipoh, Mr Richard, Ampang Park, Mr Lim and Miss Jenny of Foto Edar for their generosity for their OM1(n), OM2n camera and some Zuiko lenses. Mr Hans van Veluwen for mistakenly using some content earlier from his OM website; J Sorensen for providing some useful images to rectify some technical "flaws"; Mr Gen Holst for helping during the early stages of development of this OM site; Mr KKLow for some of his earlier images on the OM-1appeared in this website; Miss Wati and Mirza for helping me to convert this Operation Manual into a HTML format. Mr MCLau for rectifying some mistakes made on the earlier preview sites. A personal tribute to the creator of the OM system and also a site dedicated to all the fans of Olympuses and Zuiko Optics worldwide. Some of the content and images appeared in this site were scanned from OM official marketing leaflets, brochures and instruction manual(s) for educational purposes. Olympus is a registered trade name of Olympus Optical Inc., Japan. Site created 'unfortunately again with an IMac.


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07 January 2011 10:30
NVidia GeForce Graphics Cardsby cryogenius (via)
GeForce is a brand of graphics cards designed by Nvidia. The first GeForce products were discrete GPUs designed for use on add-on graphics boards, intended for the high-margin PC gaming market. Later diversification of the product-line covered all tiers of the PC graphics market, from cheaper motherboard-integrated GPUs to mainstream add-in graphics cards. Most recently, Geforce technology has been introduced into Nvidia's line of embedded application processors, designed for electronic handhelds and mobile handsets.
1 (1 marks)


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Posts Tagged Twitter
You got to love a great Meme
Posted by Bridget Schaumann in Fun for all on May 24, 2012
Replace a word in a famous quote with librarian. A bit of fun going on on Twitter. Posted today on the Australian Listserv by Ann Weaver of the fantastic and full of lovely links blog Readingpower this is totally, stupendously hilarious. Join in the meme! The best bits here and here are the comments.
Twitter? Why Twitter?
Posted by Bridget Schaumann in 21st Century libraries, Professional development on August 9, 2011
Twitter is one of those things that is something you need to 'get', I find non tweeters don't 'get' why tweeters tweet. Does that make sense? Anyway, if you are one of the people who really can't see that 140 characters is enough to say anything interesting, then maybe you need to take a look at the Glogster here sadly it won't embed in this page.
Tonight I came across this interesting post by Tom Barrett called 10 Steps To Kick Start Your Twitter, and I thought it might be useful to anybody who 'get' Twitter and Tweeters. It explains rather nicely how it all works, what the terminology is and why people do this thing. I know that after the conference lots of familiar names turned up as followers but I haven't seen Tweets from them yet.
If you scoot on down to the end of the article to the comments area you will find the tweets that others have made about this article.


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Elvis and Priscilla Presley`s former home is back on the market since it was listed for the first time ever more than two decades ago. The house was first purchased by Hard Rock Cafe founder Peter Morton for $9.8m. There were also rumors that he planned to tear down the mansion and redevelop the parcel.
Fortunately, he was prevented by a massive public outcry so he flipped the property for $14.5million four years later. The anonymous buyer waited two years and it`s now selling it for $30million.
As seen from the photos the mansion looks updated with new flooring, new laundry room, fresh paint, new electrical wiring and a brand new kitchen.
The 5.367 square-foot, three-bedroom residence is still the same from the outside as it was back in the 60`s and 70`s.
The mansion also features a carport, motor court and an attached guesthouse.


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Yesterday when Master came home we walked down to the mailbox on our way to our normal walk. There was a package slip in the mailbox so I hurried down to the mail center, and a box was there! ^^ I was so excited, I ripped it open right then and there and found Season 1 of the Guild on DVD! How swanky is THAT?! I almost started watching it right then and there, but I decided to hang onto it for this weekend when I'm getting over my wisdom teeth. It'll give me something to watch. <3
Today, I was hanging around waiting for my repaired xbox 360 to arrive, when I got a knock on the door from UPS. He did not have my repaired xbox. Instead, he had a package from another of my three muskateers! I got a VEGAN COOK BOOK! It's my first cook book, and I was SO excited. <3 There are so many recipes I cannot wait to try. Seriously.
Thank you both so much. I really appreciate how you guys went out of your way to make my birthday special. It was really, really sweet, and I feel so grateful and lucky! Thank you both so much. *purrs and huggles*
Tomorrow is wisdom tooth removal day. I'm a lot less worried now that I've managed to talk to a couple people who have had their wisdom teeth out. (Thanks Nico) Prior to that, all I had to go on was WebMD.com, and honestly, I was getting queasy reading the info over there. >.< Most people I talk to say it'll be fine, and hopefully I'll sleep through it. Woo hoo.
Anyway, I decided I wanted to make my dentist a cake. This dentist has seriously been the nicest dentist I have ever had. He takes the time to explain things, he stops if you're in the slightest bit of pain, and he even calls you that night to check on you – even if you've only had a cavity filled. How sweet is that? I wanted to do something nice for him, something which would let him know that I really appreciate how nice, professional, and diligent he has been. Here's a picture of the cake:
Okay, so I'm no cake decorator… That's supposed to be a happy tooth with kitty ears on it. lol. Either way, I am hoping this cake brightens his day. Mew mew!
Tonight Master and me are going to run out to get some chocolate soy milk, and a few avocados so I have something to eat when I'm toothless. (We're going to mash the hell out of the avocados, maybe even blend them.) Yeah. Guess that's it for now. Mew mew.