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Google recognizes a unit of measure called a smoot, which is equal to 5'7", the height of MIT alum Oliver Smoot. more...
November 15 , 1867 : The world's first stock ticker debuted in New York City. more...
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While stainless steel edging is often thought of in regard to bathroom and kitchen countertops, there are also other styles and uses. Stainless steel edging is a great product for finishing countertops but it is also finding its place in the realm of landscaping. Different types and sizes must be used for different projects, but stainless steel edging can add a lot of style. Adding any type of trim to a home improvement project is like adding a frame to a picture; it gives it a much more finished look. Stainless steel can add shine and definition that other trims don't offer.
In the bathroom, stainless steel edging is great for counters. This edging is especially popular with retro counters and laminate countertops. Tinted steel adds to this look and can help create a more authentic vintage bathroom design. Matching knobs and drawer pulls, especially in funky shapes help complete this look. The same is true for the kitchen, although many types of counter can benefit from stainless steel edging. It doesn't have to be retro to look good with a steel edge.
As far as other projects go, wall art can also benefit from the use of stainless steel edging. It creates its own frame for custom pieces and works perfectly with modern design plans. Indoor uses are many but stainless steel edging is also attractive in the yard and garden. From pathway edging to framing a patio, there are several ways in which to use metal edging.
Many property owners add some sort of border to decorative items or fountain areas to separate and frame them. While brick and stone are popular choices, stainless steel adds a different element, which can be simple or high style. Metal edging can enhance the look of a contemporary garden through adding more clean lines.
Creating separate decorative areas, such as sectioning off a tree, fountain, or rock bed, is a great way to add some style to the landscape. Doing so can also be a practical choice for areas where grass simply does not grow well or where it is difficult to trim and mow. Decorative elements also tend to add value to the property.
Adding stainless steel edging is a great way to separate decorative areas from grassy areas of the lawn or garden. Doing so, while very attractive, is not just for cosmetic purposes. It also helps contain gravel, sand, mulch or other decorative items, to keep them from spilling into the grass or onto walkways. This helps make yard maintenance simpler and more efficient.
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Besides the above, it is important to know that stainless steel is used as an essential material in the food industry because of its low adhesion of bacteria, easy cleaning and maintenance. There are different types of steel used for this purpose as this example shows.
One of our editors will review your suggestion and make changes if warranted. Note that depending on the number of suggestions we receive, this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Thank you for helping to improve wiseGEEK!


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A Michigan electrician on a hunting trip spent a week stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with no food, shelter or warm clothes. Adrian Knopps was stranded for seven days in September after his hunting partner, Garrett Hagen, drowned while boarding their boat, according to a report from Detroit News.
Knopps, 51, who is a self-employed electrician from Grand Ledge, Michigan, was sleep-deprived, hallucinating and slipping into hypothermia.
Sharing a river delta with bears and wolves, he was pelted by rain the whole time including a storm packing 70-mph winds. Because of the wet conditions, he rarely sat or lay down, sleeping three hours the entire week. During high tide in the middle of the night, he clutched the upright roots of an overturned tree while surrounded by a mile of water in all directions.
"You try to live one moment at a time and do what you have to," he told The Detroit News in his first extended newspaper interview about the ordeal. Coast Guard officials in Alaska said they had never seen anyone survive so long under those conditions....(Detroit News)
Knopps was convinced was going to die and carved a goodbye message into his rifle, hoping a hunter would find it and pass along to his family. But a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter rescued him. He attributed his survival to God, luck and guile.

subset: commoncrawl


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Does My Renters Insurance Cover My Roommates?
"Does my renters insurance policy cover my roommates?" It's a very common question. The short answer? It depends.
While it may not be the best option for most renters, sharing a policy is an option. However, before you sign that dotted line on a shared policy, it's important to know what you're getting into. Use this guide to help you understand the ins and outs of roommates and renters insurance.
Can I Add My Roommate to My Policy?
First things first — in order for your roommate to be covered by your renters insurance, they have to be listed on the policy. However, before that can even happen, their name usually needs to be on the lease. That means subletters and friends temporarily crashing at your pad don't qualify (sorry guys!). Keep in mind that the rules on sharing a renters insurance policy with unrelated roommates vary state by state, depending on insurance laws. Your agent will know all about the details.
So, Will All Our Possessions Be Covered?
If you and roommate decide to share a renters policy, there are few things to note regarding property coverage. All insurance policies have this pesky thing called coverage limits, which is the maximum amount of money an insurance company will pay you in the event your stuff gets damaged or stolen. Now here's the tricky part: when you add a roommate to your renters policy, your coverage limit will not increase, and instead gets split between the two (or more) of you. So, if you do decide to add a roomie, it's always a good idea to take a look at the combination of your possessions and decide whether your coverage limit is enough to cover the both of you. Check out the cost of renters insurance — you might just decide it's so affordable you may as well each have your own policy!
How Does Liability Work?
So here's some good news — when it comes to liability coverage, most details of your basic renters policy don't change. However, one thing to note is that theft from a roommate — whether they're on the policy or not — is not covered by a renters policy. That includes other intentional damage as well — so make sure you choose your apartment buddy wisely! Here's some great tips for finding a roommate.
Liability coverage is a part of your renters policy that helps cover the costs due to accidental bodily injury and property damage of others. It also will help cover the cost of lawsuit expenses should something happen in your apartment.
For example, if you're found liable for breaking your neighbor's window when playing catch, your landlord most likely won't cover the cost to fix it — but your renters liability insurance will. Or if you were to start a fire in your apartment by leaving a pizza too long in the oven, your landlord might have you cover the cost to repair damages to the unit. Your liability coverage on your renters policy will help pay that price.
Okay, so What if One of Us Needs to Make a Claim?
When you share a policy with your roommate, making a claim is where things can get a bit complex. Should you file a claim, the reimbursement check will be made out to the both of you, which means even if the money is for covering damages that only affect your belongings, your roommate would still have to co-sign it.
One last point to make, is that any claims made on your shared policy — whether you or your roommate make them — will go on your personal insurance history. What does that mean for you? Well, it means that claim will be on your record and factored into any insurance quotes you get in the future, and can have an effect on how much you pay.
The Bottom Line
While it's not recommended, sharing a renters insurance policy with your roommate is possible. Before you do so, make sure you're on good terms and have an honest conversation regarding expectations. Once you're both on the same page, you'll both have peace of mind knowing you're protected. Connect with an American Family Insurance agent to learn more about renters insurance and roommates.
Related Topics: Renters


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The Cathedral has a long history of serving the city and engaging with civic and business life.
The Going Public exhibition has strengthened our relationship with the city, as we support the arts and culture of Sheffield. It is a joy to be welcoming visitors coming to view the art installations. Art such as this, displayed in an ecclesiastical setting, is giving us many opportunities to share the life of the Cathedral.
In the coming week we will once again host a service of thanksgiving following the installation of the Master Cutler. I will be privileged to support the new Master Cutler as his chaplain, as the Revd Captain Mike Reeder CA has done in the past year. The Cutlers Company of Hallamshire has a long and illustrious history rooted in the manufacturing industry of the city and region.
Last week at a service in St Paul's Church, Covent Garden, traditionally known as 'the Actors' Church', I was commissioned to serve as chaplain to Sheffield Theatres. The work of theatre chaplains is coordinated nationally by the organisation Theatre Chaplaincy UK (TCUK). It serves to offer pastoral and practical support to those of all faiths and none, who are engaged in the performing arts. TCUK, through the work of its chaplains, seeks to bring together faith and theatre for the enrichment of both. Take the chance to learn more about them by visiting: www.theatrechaplaincyuk.com.
These are all opportunities to serve the life of the city in the name of Christ. Please remember these events and ministries in your prayers over the coming months.
Canon Keith Farrow
Canon Missioner


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Today's fun kids snack is easy to prepare. How easy? Prep time is 15 minutes, and then cooling time is another 15 minutes. The best part about making these is that kids can help with many of the steps. So get those kids in the kitchen, and let's make some Muddy Buddies!
Muddy Buddies are essentially a Chex-like cereal with melted chocolate, peanut butter, and powdered sugar. If you want to make some for yourself, gather up the following items:
- Any flavor of Chex cereal or similar – 4 1/2 Cups
- Powdered sugar – 3/4 Cup
- Chocolate chips (semi-sweet or regular – we used regular) – 1/2 Cup
- Butter or margarine – 1/8 Cup
- Vanilla – 1/2 Tsp
- Peanut butter – 1/4 Cup
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The GEO Flagship GOS4M (Global Observation System for Mercury is part of the GEO Work Programme (2016-2025) and has a strong foundation on the outcomes of the former GEO Task HE-02 "Tracking Pollutants" established as a part of the GEO Work Plan (2009-2011).
GOS4M is aimed to support the MC Secretariat, the UN Environment and all Nations in the follow up of the COP-1 (Conference of the Parties) decisions related to the Effectiveness Evaluation and Global Monitoring framework. GOS4M aims to federate existing regional and monitoring network and work closely with Nations in providing assistance and promote capacity building for filling existing geographical gaps in the global monitoring.
GOS4M will be built on existing networks and observing infrastructures – currently it provides a link to the Global Mercury Observation System (GMOS – www.gmos.eu), nd as soon as the governance will be defined will include also the existing regional networks like Atmospheric Mercury Network (AMNet), the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (MDN), the Asia-Pacific Mercury Monitoring Network and other national sites. The worldwide observation system for the measurement of atmospheric mercury in ambient air and precipitation will include ground-based monitoring stations, shipboard measurements over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and European Seas, and aircraft-based measurements. A specific section will report mercury in biota.
The challange of GOS4M is to foster the sharing of monitoring data and modelling tools to support the policy implementation.
Expected outcomes are:
- a new portal based on the EUROGEOSS Broker (www.eurogeoss-broker.eu/) aimed to discover information.
- new web services for reporting information, like for example concentration in atmosphere indifferent World regions, pollutants' deposition/release in different environmental compartment
(e.g. soil, oceans);
- development of tool oriented to include stakeholder participation in information discovery (e.g. help pregnant women deciding how and which fish eating).
The main impact of GOS4M will be on primary stakeholders, which are parties to the Minamata Convention, governments, IGOs, NGOs and the scientific community. The latter in specific fields shares the interest within the scope of the Flagship and can contribute to gathering information and mobilizing social groups.


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The Vikings paid free-agent quarterback Kirk Cousins a ton of money in the offseason. More recently, they paid less money (but still a lot) to fourth-year receiver Stefon Diggs. On Saturday night, Cousins and Diggs provided a glimpse regarding what a pair of guys making more than $42 million per year combined can do.
Cousins and Diggs connected three times on three targets in the opening drive of the game, capping the effort with a one-yard touchdown reception. After the game, the two players spoke about their still-budding relationship.
"We have been working for nine weeks in OTAs and several weeks here in training camp," Cousins told reporters. "Even over the summer, we were thinking about football. We finally get to go out into a game setting and produce. It is great to see [Diggs] do what we know he can do. We'll need to see a lot more of that all season long."
Diggs seems to expect it, based on what he already knows of Cousins.
"It's just Kirk being Kirk," Diggs said regarding a 28-yard connection between the two teammates. "He's a good quarterback making some great throws. I'm just trying to do my job to the best of my ability. He gave me a great ball and I've got to make the play. That's all."
Diggs nevertheless realizes that a lot more work needs to be done.
"It's still a growing process," Diggs said. "We are still going as we're going. It's not done so developing that chemistry is really key to just making plays when they're called, him giving me a chance and me making the play. That's all it real boils down to."
The more Cousins can develop that connection with other targets in the passing game — from Adam Thielen to Kyle Rudolph to whoever ends up being the No. 3 and No. 4 receivers — the more of a return the Vikings will realize on their huge investment in Cousins.
In four weeks, the first official installment when Cousins puts his $28 million per year on the line against 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and his $27.5 million per year.


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Vitamin C possesses definite, scientifically validated virtues that really do prevent and reduce wrinkles as well as rejuvenate skin, but what products really work? Why do some products with Vitamin C not work as effectively as others.
Well, here are some interesting facts that may help you choose your next skin care product:
- Vitamin C is an indispensable component of collagen synthesis – the most important structural element in skin that aids in wrinkle prevention and elasticity.
- Vitamin C is an all natural antioxidant that helps skin protect itself against free radicals.
- Vitamin C is easily oxidized because of its instability. This means that products containing Vitamin C should be tightly sealed to ensure its potency.
- You can evaluate the oxidation of your Vitamin C containing skin care products by checking for yellowing of the product.
So next time you're looking for a lotion or a topical wrinkle cream keep these tips in mind. We recommend checking out products like H2T Body Moisturizing Complex.
Filed under: Health, Vitamins & Nutrients |


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I recently saw a poster advocating the vaccination of parents as a reasonable means of protecting children. Fair enough: if the parents are immune to that particular virus, then they probably won't pass the virus onto their kids. There can be other pathways to infection, but at least that from the parents is eliminated.
Are viruses the only things that parents need to worry about? What about bad habits? Crass language? Being lazy? Gossiping? Questionable fashion tastes?? Oh but there is so much more that can seem harmless enough at first glance. What are mom and dad's favorite TV shows? What do they really think about this or that issue? What is their attitude towards this or that ethnic group? Do we drive safely and legally?
And what about faith and morals?
It was only in becoming a father that I was truly challenged to be a disciple of Christ. If I want that of them, then I must be a good one myself. If I am truly convinced that Christ is the Way, Truth and Life, then I should want that of them.


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"We have a vast wealth of Pawnbroking knowledge"
We have a professional and friendly approach to pawn loans and gold selling. With more than 30 years experience, we're dedicated to offering the best rates we can.
Services we offer
Retail Jewellery
BuyBack Electronics
Currency Exchange
Cash for Gold
Cheque Cashing


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Friday, July 6, 2012
Gratetful Heart
It's a cardmaking kind-of-day and I just want to share them with you today.
This first one was made using the Tuesday Trigger at Moxie Fab.
For this next card.... we go over to Colour Q.
All color box: cyan, royal blue,scarlet and tangerine. White cs is PTI. Gems are Recollections.
Thanks for stopping by today!
12 comments:
- Lisa said...
Someone has some new PTI goodies and I love what you did with them! Your colors are so fresh and summery. And those doilies...WOW Michelle you've combined the colors on each one beautifully!!!
- July 6, 2012 at 11:50 AM
- Marybeth said...
Both are so pretty . I LOVE the one for TT just gorgeous! Love the bright colors you used Michelle.
- July 6, 2012 at 4:01 PM
- Rosemary said...
both cards are soo bright and fun!
- July 6, 2012 at 5:23 PM
- Robin K. said...
The first card is a wonderful interpretation of the trigger-adore that layered flower! And the second one is awesome! Love how you used the doily images! So fun!
- July 6, 2012 at 9:38 PM
- Deanna Jean said...
Michelle both card are great. I love all those beautiful layers of color you did on on the second one. Great use of this weeks colors. Thanks for joining us at the ColourQ.
- July 6, 2012 at 10:07 PM
- Sylvia said...
Love your stamping, Michelle, the doilies are so pretty! Thanks for joining us this week at the ColourQ and sharing your card.
- July 7, 2012 at 1:01 AM
- Maria said...
Ahhh...more lovely CAS cards! These cards are so colorful and with great design!
- July 7, 2012 at 11:10 AM
- Ros Crawford said...
This is stunning ... what a shame you didn't enter it at our challenge at CCCB
- July 7, 2012 at 3:48 PM
- Marlena M. said...
Both of your cards are beautiful Michelle. I love the flowers,doilies and swirls. ;)
- July 7, 2012 at 11:47 PM
- Kelly Griglione said...
Michelle, I love both of your cards! The doilies are just fantastic!! When I hear "doilies" I think Grandma's house, pouffy curtains, and little frilly things. But your doilies are so modern and fun! Great job mixing the colors!
- July 8, 2012 at 1:11 PM
- Cath said...
Hey Michelle! Thanks for linking this up to this week's Tuesday Trigger in the Moxie Fab World! I'm so glad you joined in on all the fun! :)
- July 9, 2012 at 12:18 PM
- Arielle ~ SnappyStamper said...
WOW - this card is so striking - I love it! So happy you could play with us at the colourQ!
- July 10, 2012 at 1:16 AM


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Podcast: Download (Duration: 16:39 — 11.6MB)
Enough with the Shakespeare already?
A few months ago, the Geeks came across an article by Brendan Kiley, writing in the Seattle-based The Stranger. The post in question is titled "Ten Things Theaters Need to Do Right Now to Save Themselves," and it's a pretty good read, even though some of the content is more geared toward professional theatres rather than community theatres.
This is the first of two episodes in which the Geeks discuss a couple of Kiley's assertions, and part two will post simultaneously with this one.
In this episode we talk about Kiley's comment that maybe Shakespeare is more liability than asset for many theatres. The Geeks' home theatre has never really done Shakespeare (unless you count the musicals "Kiss me Kate" and "All Shook Up," but we think it's a point well taken. Or not, depending on the Geek in question.
Music provided by Music Alley
Link to The Stranger


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Semprevino are proud supporters of Pleasure Garden, the Victorian Garden Party Exhibition of the Decade.
"The Conservatory swings open its gates to an eclectic crowd of society's fashion elite, promenading and celebrating the blossoming of the Pleasure Garden. This intoxicating recreation has been brought to life in the enchanting gardens of Melbourne's iconic Rippon Lea by Gerard O'Connor and Marc Wasiak on behalf of the National Trust. This is the garden party of our time – drink in the opulent decadence under the watchful eye of the most magical creatures."
Semprevino is pleased to be supporting this event through the supply of our 2015 Pinot Grigio for guests attending the opening night extravaganza.
This event forms part of the 2015 Melbourne Spring Fashion Week and is supported by The City of Melbourne.


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Do you really need to contact me? Can't you see I'm a busy person?
I've got places to go, people to see, and things to do. Plus, I need my nap.
If you must get in touch with me, you can do it one of several ways....
email - webmaster @ this sites name with that dot com thingy at the end.
Smoke signals - First build a fire. once it gets good and hot, toss some wet grass and leaves on it. Smoke will rise. That should get my attention.
Advertising spotlights - I have been known to chase them down. Could be my desire to be a superhero like Batman.
If you are cute and single you can use this form.


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Johnson Soils Company's core business is the investigation sites for construction projects. This includes the evaluation of sub-surface conditions to determine the structural characteristics of the underlying soils and the evaluation of the foundation types needed to support proposed structures. The investigation takes into account adjacent structures, utilities, water bodies and land masses.
Services Include:
- Review of geologic and soils maps
- Soil borings
- Test pits
- Rock coring
- Percolation testing and soil profiling
- Ground water studies
- Sample recovery and laboratory testing
- Report of findings
- Recommendations based on the project needs


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Know more about this business than we do? Cool! Please submit any corrections or missing details you may have.Help us make it right
Huntsvilles choice for delicious southern cooking with a unique touch. Open for lunch, dinner, takeout and catering. See our daily specials and dont forget the wine list.
Be the first AL.com user to add photos or videos of Lyns Gracious Goodness Delictsn


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Evolving needs of end customers and RIAs, and the need for reliable digital channels of communication and access to portfolio-management tools, have created an opportunity for WealthTech trailblazers. These days, tech companies are helping the asset-management industry embrace the digital transformation to lower operational costs, become more tech-savvy, and add more personalization to stand out from the crowd.
What changes is WealthTech facing nowadays, and what are the key drivers behind those changes?
Overall Automation of Financial Advising
The need to automate financial advice emerged from the necessity to make collaboration faster and more efficient to reduce operational fees, which were too high in conventional operating models.
For example, the client onboarding process used to be time-consuming; filling in papers and waiting for the account to be opened was a standard procedure that took a while. By outsourcing some of the manual tasks to machines, and further adopting a robo-advisory component, asset-management firms have been able to enhance operational efficiency by cutting down expenses on rule-based routines and diversifying customer experience. Apart from customer onboarding, automation use cases include the following:
- custom-tailored portfolio reports;
- background checks;
- account rebalancing (elimination of manual Excel spreadsheet analysis).
Industry experts insist that robo-advisory is likely to be a great add-on (rather than a full-time alternative) to traditional human consultants.
When it comes to millennials, for example, they are more tech-savvy compared to previous generations. Min Zhang, CEO and Co-Founder of Totum Wealth, thinks that millennials are used to interacting via smartphone and obtaining digital advice, and is less reliant on classical human-to-human interaction. They're likely to go for automated solutions when it comes to managing their wealth.
According to Cindy Taylor from FintekNews, both millennials and Gen X are more used to technology. However, Cindy feels that money is such a touchy subject that the majority of customers need to know they can direct their query to a human consultant at any time.
Jeremy Floyd, CEO of Finworx, is confident that "bionic advisory" is the future of wealth management. Such a combination of technology and conventional business models will allow humans to be part of the relationship, while outsourcing everything mechanical to robos. Jeremy emphasizes the important role digital solutions play in advising, but from a trust point of view, there is still a need for human financial advisors.
Lex Sokolin, Global Director of Fintech Strategy at Autonomous Research, suggests that, nowadays, humans are continuing to use technology to enhance their relationships with other humans; however, taking into account wealth transfer to younger generations, more and more potential wealth-management clients are going to prefer chatbots to meet their needs.
Darren Duffy, Head of Wealth Management Business Solutions at Thomson Reuters, agrees with the above experts that future wealth-management firms will incorporate both digital and human advice. Technology will complement what advisors do to enable CFAs to focus more on value-added services than on daily routines.
Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to Rewire
Another gap filled by WealthTech start-ups has been efficient utilization of big data. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have become the tools tech players use to help aggregate, process, and differentiate piles of data that "legacy" infrastructure was not capable of doing. As a result of big data and AI infusion, wealth management has seen more dashboards with real-time analytics for RIAs and custodians that help experts identify the bottlenecks in workflows and sources for further growth based on the existing portfolio of clients.
Min Zhang, Totum Wealth, states that the short questionnaires completed by clients mean there is a need for bigger data to process the insights and to define the "risk capacity" prospects are comfortable with.
Darren Duffy, Thomson Reuters, finds companies that deal with AI and cognitive computing to be the most fascinating because these technologies touch every aspect of the wealth-management industry, allowing market players to gain operational efficiencies.
Jeremy Floyd, Finworx, thinks that using data across a broad range of the population is necessary to really hone in on not just the risk factor but also the behavioral or economic biases that are present in people's minds. According to Jeremy, it is important for financial advisors to be able to give the very best advice. Instead of filling in a traditional risk survey, it's vital to really drill into all the factors at play in someone's mind when they make decisions.
April Rudin, President of Rudin Group, concludes that when applied correctly, the technology will remove the mundane and routine tasks that can be better executed by an algorithm, or using AI where applicable. The expert feels, however, that AI or any other tech implementation in WealthTech is not a question of replacing B2B professionals, but rather a future of work and landscape changes, of what skills are there.
John Logan, Founder of SafeGuard Guaranty Corporation, states that the company does not use any algorithm-powered software to automate processes yet, as it is not in the market yet, but once it is that aspect will become highly salient. It is logical that SafeGuard wants benefit from outsourcing as much as possible to reduce costs and pass that value along to consumers. John states: "What we'll probably do is to find a very smart group that does that kind of investment for a living and outsource it to them. Obviously, we would be very, very interested, again, in companies that leverage that kind of AI, for obvious reasons."
Application of predictive analytics will result in additional insights into customers' behavior. This will include mining the information from historical datasets to define and model possible future scenarios and trends.
The Rise of Blockchain
After all the buzz around Bitcoin and Ethereum, tech pioneers cannot escape thinking about the use cases of distributed ledger technology (DLT) to come up with offerings for the WealthTech industry. According to Deloitte, after banking, wealth-management companies are the next in line to benefit from using blockchain. Possible use cases for DLT vary: smart contracts, real-time settlement mechanisms, as well as single point of truth ("SPOT") are just a few applications of this technology. As per EY insights, DLT can be used to create client profiles that will enable storage of personal information and preferences, account details, digital footprints, and net worth, and making all these details available on demand with distinct access levels for different users (edit, read only, etc.).
Florian M. Spiegl, Co-founder and COO at Hong Kong-based FinFabrik, discussed with us the "power shift" from large banks to innovative tech companies, which can adopt new technologies much more easily. DLT has potential to go far beyond just cryptocurrency in wealth management, creating room for more players to change the industry infrastructure. Florian is positive that blockchain will completely reshape the post-trade world. It will be a trade in real time, as it should be. There will be no settlement risk anymore because it will be t+0, it will take no time for an electronic transaction to settle. The large machinery that we now have in the back of all trading activities, which is attached to wealth management, will disappear after more and more companies start utilizing blockchain. As soon as big players understand this technology from both the process and the regulations points of view, blockchain will be used broadly.
John Logan thinks that DLT is going to be more of a B2B-type use case than B2C, because blockchain is still evolving and there aren't many people who, even being experienced, understand the best use for that kind of thing on an individual basis. From a company standpoint, it is possible to easily reduce the transaction fees and encounter errors in terms of where data is or isn't in terms of sending money back and forth and getting things done with blockchain.
Lex Sokolin points out issues of timing and of operating stack. In the US, there's a separation between where the money sits (the custodian), how investments are traded (the broker), who's providing the advice (the registered investment advisor), and other consumers. Each part is fairly isolated. Blockchain, in its logical application, would mean that everything—all money, all equities, all bonds, an exchange rate of funds, an asset allocation, digital assets, all trading from start to finish, every ETF rebalancing, every money movement, every single thing to do with the client portfolio, retail or institutional—happens on a shared ledger.
I am certain that there are ways in which the technology can be implemented to improve practice management. The reality is that many advisors are already doing one of two things. They are either investment professionals with very deep understanding and expertise in something specific, whether it is fixed income or some kind of specific equity. Although they're doing that type of investing, they're using portfolio-allocation tools for other things. When you look at advisors' side, the portfolio performance is not negligible—it's important, but the differences are small. The biggest difference is in the relationship that they're offering. From the company's perspective, it is about efficiencies.
In this digital era, the efforts of WealthTech players are mainly aimed at risk reduction and compliance increase, higher operational efficiency and productivity, as well as the creation of a more client-centric ecosystem in the niche. Market players that are able to synthesize innovations and create solutions that utilize the best use cases of leading technology will lead the field in the long run.


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Tessa makes theatre and performance to pose questions about how we see the world and interact with each other. She plans one day to be a neuroscientist. Tessa has worked with many companies as Director, Dramaturg, Researcher and Assistant Director including STC, STCSA, Contemporary Asian Australian Performance, Playwriting Australia, Ontroerend Goed, Force Majeure, Vitalstatistix, Drop Bear Theatre and Restless Dance. She works with Emma Beech and James Dodd as The Australian Bureau of Worthiness and with Mutiel Imbach and Cedric Leproust in Switzerland on a project Blue is the Distance. Tessa has been part of the Griffin Studio, was selected and participated in the Seminaire d'Avignon at Avignon Festival, and in TPS: Nomad, attended IETM: Campus in Italy, was resident at PYT Fairfield and is currently the Associate Artist at Belvoir. She is developing a new work Swimming Pool with PYT Fairfield and continues to work on many new writing and devised works across the country. isthisyours? has become an essential part of her expression as an artist and is the place she feels most challenged and inspired.
Louisa loves action, mystery, medical conditions, women who change history, unnecessary commando rolls and high kicks. This is why she tries to incorporate all these things into isthisyours? theatre shows. When she isn't making her mind explode and being completely inspired with these women, she is a regular sort of actor. Sort of. Louisa has worked on the stage for Griffin Theatre Company, Belvoir St Theatre, Bell Shakespeare Company, Tamarama Rock Surfers, Sport for Jove and Windmill Theatre. For the small screen she has appeared in; Rake 2, 3 & 4, Fat Tony and Co, East West 101, Miss Fishers Murder Mystery, My Place & Wonderland. Films include; Infini, Trust Fund, Two Fists One Heart, Spike Up, Nocturn, She Loves Me She Loves Me Not, & Latte e Miele, which Louisa wrote, directed and starred in. She just finished working crew on short film Souls of Totality, which made cinematic history as the first film to successfully shoot the total solar eclipse in one take. No high kicks were involved... this time.
Nadia dreads writing bios, mainly because she finds it weird talking in the third person (hello it's me! Nadia!). Ellen has had to remind her several times to do this for the website. Nadia also has a terrible memory. Moments in her life she will never forget; the conversation with Tessa when she proposed we form isthisyours?. The first show we developed, Make Me Honest, Make Me Wedding Cake and the Adelaide Fringe Award that followed it. Taking our first show on tour, Best We Forget. Realising that she works from a closely personal level and sometimes shares embarrassing secrets with the audience and she's ok with that. Realising the reason she is ok with that is because isthisyours? is the most exciting, terrifying and inspiring world Nadia has had a hand in creating. Nadia has also been welcomed into the creatively amazing worlds of Windmill Theatre Company, State Theatre Company of South Australia and The Border Project.
Ellen's theatre debut came when she was five and decided to ditch prearranged choreography and instead freestyled to "All I Want For Christmas is my Two Front Teeth". This disreputable beginning has led down a path of largely devised (read: freestyle) work and seen her perform all around Australia, Asia and North America with companies including the State Theatre Company of South Australia, Windmill Theatre Company, Vitalstatistix, Slingsby, The Border Project and Patch Theatre Company. As an independent maker she has developed work with TerryandTheCuz, Spilt Second and Zoe Meagher (Next Wave), Aphids, Little Black Box (Adhocracy), Misery Children (FOLA) and Sanctum Theatre. Closest to her heart is the work she has made with isthisyours? which constantly makes her question the big stuff, delve into the small issues, laugh so hard it sometimes hurts to breathe whilst all the time pondering the small miracles that can occur after 3pm when everyone in the room is wearing tracksuit pants.
Associate Artist
At a young age Lydia found herself having to choose between being a performer, a writer or a scientist. Later in life she was relieved to find there was a secret option where she could moonlight as all three. Lydia studied at Flinders Drama Centre and has performed widely in Sydney and Adelaide as well as devising and performing with isthisyours? for many wonderful high-kicking, scratchie-losing years. Lydia was part of ATYP's Fresh Ink playwriting ensemble and has written shows for the Powerhouse Museum, the Rock Surfers, Urban Myth Theatre Company and received the Minter Ellison Fringe & Beyond award for her solo show I'm not pale, I'm dead which she has toured extensively. Whilst not being a scientist per se Lydia enjoys playing with liquid nitrogen and gushing about steam engines and has written science and history programs for young people at the Powerhouse Museum, the Australian Museum and the British Museum, helped along by her Masters of Museum Studies where she learnt how to use words like qualitative and quantitative in a sentence. Lydia's theatre-making work is inspired by her attempts to unpack very tricky concepts into small parcels, her love of fantasy and science fiction worlds and her own very mediocre knitting skills.


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Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death
Slaughterhouse-Five is part autobiographical, part science-fiction, part sarcastic master work by Kurt Vonnegut. It is often assigned by college and high school reading and writing classes, especially when our President wants us to go out and kill somebody. Slaughterhouse-Five came out in 1969 near the height of the War in Vietnam. At that time, our President told us the Vietnam War was a war we had to fight to protect the freedom loving people of South Vietnam from being overwhelmed by the Communist North. We lost that war. Kurt Vonnegut's long awaited war novel proved to be a miracle of compression. It is a contemporary Pilgram's Progress with a hero named curiously enough Billy Pilgrim. He is the son of an American barber. He serves as a chaplain's assistant in the Second World War, is captured by the Germans, survives the largest massacre in European history, the fire bombing of Dresden. (Vonnegut, too, was a prisoner of war and saw that fire storm.) Billy Pilgrim becomes an optometrist after the war, makes a great deal of money, is kidnapped by a flying saucer from the planet Tralfamadore on his daughter's wedding night. He is mated in a public zoo on that planet – to a star of many Earthling blue movies, the gorgeous Montana Wildhack. And so on. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. speaks to the younger generation. Once mistakenly typed as a science-fiction writer, he is now recognized as a main-stream story teller often fascinated by the magic and comic possibilities of the magazines. His books are widely used in college courses and the groundswell of his present popularity began on college campuses where he was in great demand as a speaker.
Product Details
|Random House Adult Trade Publishing Group
|Publication date:
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|Product dimensions:
|4.20(w) x 6.70(h) x 0.90(d)
About the Author
He was born November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis Indiana. Vonnegut attended Cornell University but dropped out in January 1943 and enlisted in the United States Army. As part of his training, he studied mechanical engineering at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) and the University of Tennessee. On May 14, 1944, Vonnegut returned home on leave to visit his mother for mother's day, only to discover that his mother had committed suicide the previous day. Vonnegut was then deployed to Europe to fight in World War II and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was interned in Dresden and survived the Allied bombing of the city by taking refuge in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned.
I first became aware of Kurt Vonnegut when I was a kid and read an article by him in Colliers Magazine about a trip to Mars. We believed that there had really been a trip to Mars and our government was covering it up and keeping it a secret. It was a while before we realized the article was science fiction. I wonder how many others were fooled by this.
He died April 11, 2007 (aged 84) in Manhattan New York City, USA
Date of Birth:November 11, 1922
Date of Death:April 11, 2007
Place of Birth:Indianapolis, Indiana
Place of Death:New York, New York
Education:Cornell University, 1940-42; Carnegie-Mellon University, 1943; University of Chicago, 1945-47; M.A., 1971
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. I've changed all the names.
I really did go back to Dresden with Guggenheim money (God love it) in 1967. It looked a lot like Dayton, Ohio, more open spaces than Dayton has. There must be tons of human bone meal in the ground.
I went back there with an old war buddy, Bernard V. O'Hare, and we made friends with a cab driver, who took us to the slaughterhouse where we had been locked up at night as prisoners of war. His name was Gerhard Müller. He told us that he was a prisoner of the Americans for a while. We asked him how it was to live under Communism, and he said that it was terrible at first, because everybody had to work so hard, and because there wasn't much shelter or food or clothing. But things were much better now. He had a pleasant little apartment, and his daughter was getting an excellent education. His mother was incinerated in the Dresden fire-storm. So it goes.
He sent O'Hare a postcard at Christmastime, and here is what it said:
"I wish you and your family also as to your friend Merry Christmas and a happy New Year and I hope that we'll meet again in a world of peace and freedom in the taxi cab if the accident will."
I like that very much: "If the accident will."
I would hate to tell you what this lousy little book cost me in money and anxiety and time. When I got home from the Second World War twenty-three years ago, I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to do would be to report what I had seen. And I thought, too, that it would be a masterpiece or at least make me a lot of money, since the subject was so big.
But not many words about Dresden came from my mind then not enough of them to make a book, anyway. And not many words come now, either, when I have become an old fart with his memories and his Pall Malls, with his sons full grown.
I think of how useless the Dresden part of my memory has been, and yet how tempting Dresden has been to write about, and I am reminded of the famous limerick:
There was a young man from Stamboul, Who soliloquized thus to his tool: "You took all my wealth And you ruined my health, And now you won't pee, you old fool."
And I'm reminded, too, of the song that goes:
My name is Yon Yonson, I work in Wisconsin, I work in a lumbermill there. The people I meet when I walk down the street, They say, "What's your name?" And I say, My name is Yon Yonson, I work in Wisconsin..."
And so on to infinity.
Over the years, people I've met have often asked me what I'm working on, and I've usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden.
I said that to Harrison Starr, the movie-maker, one time, and he raised his eyebrows and inquired, "Is it an anti-war book?"
"Yes," I said. "I guess."
"You know what I say to people when I hear they're writing anti-war books?"
"No. What do you say, Harrison Starr?"
"I say, 'Why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead?' "
What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.
And even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.
When I was somewhat younger, working on my famous Dresden book, I asked an old war buddy named Bernard V. O'Hare if I could come to see him. He was a district attorney in Pennsylvania. I was a writer on Cape Cod. We had been privates in the war, infantry scouts. We had never expected to make any money after the war, but we were doing quite well.
I had the Bell Telephone Company find him for me. They are wonderful that way. I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone. I get drunk, and I drive my wife away with a breath like mustard gas and roses. And then, speaking gravely and elegantly into the telephone, I ask the telephone operators to connect me with this friend or that one, from whom I have not heard in years.
I got O'Hare on the line in this way. He is short and I am tall. We were Mutt and Jeff in the war. We were captured together in the war. I told him who I was on the telephone. He had no trouble believing it. He was up. He was reading. Everybody else in his house was asleep.
"Listen" I said, "I'm writing this book about Dresden. I'd like some help remembering stuff. I wonder if I could come down and see you, and we could drink and talk and remember."
He was unenthusiastic. He said he couldn't remember much. He told me, though, to come ahead.
"I think the climax of the book will be the execution of poor old Edgar Derby," I said. "The irony is so great. A whole city gets burned down, and thousands and thousands of people are killed. And then this one American foot soldier is arrested in the ruins for taking a teapot. And he's given a regular trial, and then he's shot by a firing squad."
"Um," said O'Hare.
"Don't you think that's really where the climax should come?"
"I don't know anything about it," he said. "That's your trade, not mine."
As a trafficker in climaxes and thrills and characterization and wonderful dialogue and suspense and confrontations, I had outlined the Dresden story many times. The best outline I ever made, or anyway the prettiest one, was on the back of a roll of wallpaper.
I used my daughter's crayons, a different color for each main character. One end of the wallpaper was the beginning of the story, and the other end was the end, and then there was all that middle part, which was the middle. And the blue line met the red line and then the yellow line, and the yellow line stopped because the character represented by the yellow line was dead. And so on. The destruction of Dresden was represented by a vertical band of orange cross-hatching, and all the lines that were still alive passed through it, came out the other side.
The end, where all the lines stopped, was a beetfield on the Elbe, outside of Halle. The rain was coming down. The war in Europe had been over for a couple of weeks. We were formed in ranks, with Russian soldiers guarding us Englishmen, Americans, Dutchmen, Belgians, Frenchmen, Canadians, South Africans, New Zealanders, Australians, thousands of us about to stop being prisoners of war.
And on the other side of the field were thousands of Russians and Poles and Yugoslavians and so on guarded by American soldiers. An exchange was made there in the rain one for one. O'Hare and I climbed into the back of an American truck with a lot of others. O'Hare didn't have any souvenirs. Almost everybody else did. I had a ceremonial Luftwaffe saber, still do. The rabid little American I call Paul Lazzaro in this book had about a quart of diamonds and emeralds and rubies and so on. He had taken these from dead people in the cellars of Dresden. So it goes.
An idiotic Englishman, who had lost all his teeth somewhere, had his souvenir in a canvas bag. The bag was resting on my insteps. He would peek into the bag every now and then, and he would roll his eyes and swivel his scrawny neck, trying to catch people looking covetously at his bag. And he would bounce the bag on my insteps.
I thought this bouncing was accidental. But I was mistaken. He had to show somebody what was in the bag, and he had decided he could trust me. He caught my eye, winked, opened the bag. There was a plaster model of the Eiffel Tower in there. It was painted gold. It had a clock in it.
"There's a smashin' thing," he said.
And we were flown to a rest camp in France, where we were fed chocolate malted milkshakes and other rich foods until we were all covered with baby fat. Then we were sent home, and I married a pretty girl who was covered with baby fat, too.
And we had babies.
And they're all grown up now, and I'm an old fart with his memories and his Pall Malls. My name is Yon Yonson, I work in Wisconsin, I work in a lumbermill there.
Sometimes I try to call up old girl friends on the telephone late at night, after my wife has gone to bed. "Operator, I wonder if you could give me the number of a Mrs. So-and-So. I think she lives at such-and-such."
"I'm sorry, sir. There is no such listing."
"Thanks, Operator. Thanks just the same."
And I let the dog out, or I let him in, and we talk some. I let him know I like him, and he lets me know he likes me. He doesn't mind the smell of mustard gas and roses.
"You're all right, Sandy," I'll say to the dog. "You know that, Sandy? You're O.K."
Sometimes I'll turn on the radio and listen to a talk program from Boston or New York. I can't stand recorded music if I've been drinking a good deal.
Sooner or later I go to bed, and my wife asks me what time it is. She always has to know the time. Sometimes I don't know, and I say, "Search me."
I think about my education sometimes. I went to the University of Chicago for a while after the Second World War. I was a student in the Department of Anthropology. At that time, they were teaching that there was absolutely no difference between anybody. They may be teaching that still.
Another thing they taught was that nobody was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, "You know you never wrote a story with a villain in it."
I told him that was one of the things I learned in college after the war.
While I was studying to be an anthropologist, I was also working as a police reporter for the famous Chicago City News Bureau for twenty-eight dollars a week. One time they switched me from the night shift to the day shift, so I worked sixteen hours straight. We were supported by all the newspapers in town, and the AP and the UP and all that. And we would cover the courts and the police stations and the Fire Department and the Coast Guard out on Lake Michigan and all that. We were connected to the institutions that supported us by means of pneumatic tubes which ran under the streets of Chicago.
Reporters would telephone in stories to writers wearing headphones, and the writers would stencil the stories on mimeograph sheets. The stories were mimeographed and stuffed into the brass and velvet cartridges which the pneumatic tubes ate. The very toughest reporters and writers were women who had taken over the jobs of men who'd gone to war.
And the first story I covered I had to dictate over the telephone to one of those beastly girls. It was about a young veteran who had taken a job running an old-fashioned elevator in an office building. The elevator door on the first floor was ornamental iron lace. Iron ivy snaked in and out of the holes. There was an iron twig with two iron lovebirds perched upon it.
This veteran decided to take his car into the basement, and he closed the door and started down, but his wedding ring was caught in all the ornaments. So he was hoisted into the air and the floor of the car went down, dropped out from under him, and the top of the car squashed him. So it goes.
So I phoned this in, and the woman who was going to cut the stencil asked me, "What did his wife say?"
"She doesn't know yet," I said. "It just happened."
"Call her up and get a statement."
"Tell her you're Captain Finn of the Police Department. Say you have some sad news. Give her the news, and see what she says."
So I did. She said about what you would expect her to say. There was a baby. And so on.
When I got back to the office, the woman writer asked me, just for her own information, what the squashed guy had looked like when he was squashed.
I told her.
"Did it bother you?" she said. She was eating a Three Musketeers Candy Bar.
"Heck no, Nancy," I said. "I've seen lots worse than that in the war."
Even then I was supposedly writing a book about Dresden. It wasn't a famous air raid back then in America. Not many Americans knew how much worse it had been than Hiroshima, for instance. I didn't know that, either. There hadn't been much publicity.
I happened to tell a University of Chicago professor at a cocktail party about the raid as I had seen it, about the book I would write. He was a member of a thing called The Committee on Social Thought. And he told me about the concentration camps, and about how the Germans had made soap and candles out of the fat of dead Jews and so on.
All I could say was, "I know, I know. I know."
World War Two had certainly made everybody very tough. And I became a public relations man for General Electric in Schenectady, New York, and a volunteer fireman in the village of Alplaus, where I bought my first home. My boss there was one of the toughest guys I ever hope to meet. He had been a lieutenant colonel in public relations in Baltimore. While I was in Schenectady he joined the Dutch Reformed Church, which is a very tough church, indeed.
He used to ask me sneeringly sometimes why I hadn't been an officer, as though I'd done something wrong.
My wife and I had lost our baby fat. Those were our scrawny years. We had a lot of scrawny veterans and their scrawny wives for friends. The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought.
I wrote the Air Force back then, asking for details about the raid on Dresden, who ordered it, how many planes did it, why they did it, what desirable results there had been and so on. I was answered by a man who, like myself, was in public relations. He said that he was sorry, but that the information was top secret still.
I read the letter out loud to my wife, and I said, "Secret? My God from whom?"
We were United World Federalists back then. I don't know what we are now. Telephoners, I guess. We telephone a lot or I do, anyway, late at night.
A couple of weeks after I telephoned my old war buddy, Bernard V. O'Hare, I really did go to see him. That must have been in 1964 or so whatever the last year was for the New York World's Fair. Eheu, fugaces labuntur anni. My name is Yon Yonson. There was a young man from Stamboul.
I took two little girls with me, my daughter, Nanny, and her best friend, Allison Mitchell. They had never been off Cape Cod before. When we saw a river, we had to stop so they could stand by it and think about it for a while. They had never seen water in that long and narrow, unsalted form before. The river was the Hudson. There were carp in there and we saw them. They were as big as atomic submarines.
We saw waterfalls, too, streams jumping off cliffs into the valley of the Delaware. There were lots of things to stop and see and then it was time to go, always time to go. The little girls were wearing white party dresses and black party shoes, so strangers would know at once how nice they were. "Time to go, girls," I'd say. And we would go.
And the sun went down, and we had supper in an Italian place, and then I knocked on the front door of the beautiful stone house of Bernard V. O'Hare. I was carrying a bottle of Irish whiskey like a dinner bell.
I met his nice wife, Mary, to whom I dedicate this book. I dedicate it to Gerhard Müller, the Dresden taxi driver, too. Mary O'Hare is a trained nurse, which is a lovely thing for a woman to be.
Mary admired the two little girls I'd brought, mixed them in with her own children, sent them all upstairs to play games and watch television. It was only after the children were gone that I sensed that Mary didn't like me or didn't like something about the night. She was polite but chilly.
"It's a nice cozy house you have here," I said, and it really was.
"I've fixed up a place where you can talk and not be bothered," she said.
"Good," I said, and I imagined two leather chairs near a fire in a paneled room, where two old soldiers could drink and talk. But she took us into the kitchen. She had put two straight-backed chairs at a kitchen table with a white porcelain top. That table top was screaming with reflected light from a two-hundred-watt bulb overhead. Mary had prepared an operating room. She put only one glass on it, which was for me. She explained that O'Hare couldn't drink the hard stuff since the war.
So we sat down. O'Hare was embarrassed, but he wouldn't tell me what was wrong. I couldn't imagine what it was about me that could burn up Mary so. I was a family man. I'd been married only once. I wasn't a drunk. I hadn't done her husband any dirt in the war.
She fixed herself a Coca-Cola, made a lot of noise banging the ice-cube tray in the stainless steel sink. Then she went into another part of the house. But she wouldn't sit still. She was moving all over the house, opening and shutting doors, even moving furniture around to work off anger.
I asked O'Hare what I'd said or done to make her act that way.
"It's all right," he said. "Don't worry about it. It doesn't have anything to do with you." That was kind of him. He was lying. It had everything to do with me.
So we tried to ignore Mary and remember the war. I took a couple of belts of the booze I'd brought. We would chuckle or grin sometimes, as though war stories were coming back, but neither one of us could remember anything good. O'Hare remembered one guy who got into a lot of wine in Dresden, before it was bombed, and we had to take him home in a wheelbarrow. It wasn't much to write a book about. I remembered two Russian soldiers who had looted a clock factory. They had a horse-drawn wagon full of clocks. They were happy and drunk. They were smoking huge cigarettes they had rolled in newspaper.
That was about it for memories, and Mary was still making noise. She finally came out in the kitchen again for another Coke. She took another tray of ice cubes from the refrigerator, banged it in the sink, even though there was already plenty of ice out.
Then she turned to me, let me see how angry she was, and that the anger was for me. She had been talking to herself, so what she said was a fragment of a much larger conversation. "You were just babies then!" she said.
"What?" I said.
"You were just babies in the war like the ones upstairs!"
I nodded that this was true. We had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood.
"But you're not going to write it that way, are you." This wasn't a question. It was an accusation.
"I I don't know," I said.
"Well, I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs."
So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies.
So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise: "Mary," I said, "I don't think this book of mine is ever going to be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne.
"I tell you what," I said, "I'll call it 'The Children's Crusade.' "
She was my friend after that.
O'Hare and I gave up on remembering, went into the living room, talked about other things. We became curious about the real Children's Crusade, so O'Hare looked it up in a book he had, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles Mackay, LL. D. It was first published in London in 1841.
Mackay had a low opinion of all Crusades. The Children's Crusade struck him as only slightly more sordid than the ten Crusades for grown-ups. O'Hare read this handsome passage out loud:
History in her solemn page informs us that the crusaders were but ignorant and savage men, that their motives were those of bigotry unmitigated, and that their pathway was one of blood and tears. Romance, on the other hand, dilates upon their piety and heroism, and portrays, in her most glowing and impassioned hues, their virtue and magnanimity, the imperishable honor they acquired for themselves, and the great services they rendered to Christianity.
And then O'Hare read this: Now what was the grand result of all these struggles? Europe expended millions of her treasures, and the blood of two million of her people; and a handful of quarrelsome knights retained possession of Palestine for about one hundred years!
Mackay told us that the Children's Crusade started in 1213, when two monks got the idea of raising armies of children in Germany and France, and selling them in North Africa as slaves. Thirty thousand children volunteered, thinking they were going to Palestine. They were no doubt idle and deserted children who generally swarm in great cities, nurtured on vice and daring, said Mackay, and ready for anything.
Pope Innocent the Third thought they were going to Palestine, too, and he was thrilled. "These children are awake while we are asleep!" he said.
Most of the children were shipped out of Marseilles, and about half of them drowned in shipwrecks. The other half got to North Africa where they were sold.
Through a misunderstanding, some children reported for duty at Genoa, where no slave ships were waiting. They were fed and sheltered and questioned kindly by good people there then given a little money and a lot of advice and sent back home.
"Hooray for the good people of Genoa," said Mary O'Hare.
I slept that night in one of the children's bedrooms. O'Hare had put a book for me on the bedside table. It was Dresden, History, Stage and Gallery, by Mary Endell. It was published in 1908, and its introduction began:
It is hoped that this little book will make itself useful. It attempts to give to an English-reading public a bird's-eye view of how Dresden came to look as it does, architecturally; of how it expanded musically, through the genius of a few men, to its present bloom; and it calls attention to certain permanent landmarks in art that make its Gallery the resort of those seeking lasting impressions.
I read some history further on:
Now, in 1760, Dresden underwent siege by the Prussians. On the fifteenth of July began the cannonade. The Picture-Gallery took fire. Many of the paintings had been transported to the Königstein, but some were seriously injured by splinters of bombshells, notably Francia's "Baptism of Christ." Furthermore, the stately Kreuzkirche tower, from which the enemy's movements had been watched day and night, stood in flames. It later succumbed. In sturdy contrast with the pitiful fate of the Kreuzkirche, stood the Frauenkirche, from the curves of whose stone dome the Prussian bombs rebounded like rain. Friederich was obliged finally to give up the siege, because he learned of the fall of Glatz, the critical point of his new conquests. "We must be off to Silesia, so that we do not lose everything."
The devastation of Dresden was boundless. When Goethe as a young student visited the city, he still found sad ruins: "Von der Kuppel der Frauenkirche sah ich diese leidigen Trümmer zwischen die schöne städtische Ordnung hineingesät; da rühmte mir der Küster die Kunst des Baumeisters, welcher Kirche und Kuppel auf einen so unerwünschten Fall schon eingerichtet und bombenfesterbaut hatte. Der gute Sakristan deutete mir alsdann auf Ruinene nach allen Seiten und sagte bedenklich lakonisch: Das hat der Feind gethan!"
The two little girls and I crossed the Delaware River where George Washington had crossed it, the next morning. We went to the New York World's Fair, saw what the past had been like, according to the Ford Motor Car Company and Walt Disney, saw what the future would be like, according to General Motors.
And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.
I taught creative writing in the famous Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa for a couple of years after that. I got into some perfectly beautiful trouble, got out of it again. I taught in the afternoons. In the mornings I wrote. I was not to be disturbed. I was working on my famous book about Dresden.
And somewhere in there a nice man named Seymour Lawrence gave me a three-book contract, and I said, "O.K., the first of the three will be my famous book about Dresden."
The friends of Seymour Lawrence call him "Sam." And I say to Sam now: "Sam here's the book."
It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds.
And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?"
I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee.
I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that.
As I've said: I recently went back to Dresden with my friend O'Hare. We had a million laughs in Hamburg and West Berlin and East Berlin and Vienna and Salzburg and Helsinki, and in Leningrad, too. It was very good for me, because I saw a lot of authentic backgrounds for made-up stories which I will write later on. One of them will be "Russian Baroque" and another will be "No Kissing" and another will be "Dollar Bar" and another will be "If the Accident Will," and so on.
And so on.
There was a Lufthansa plane that was supposed to fly from Philadelphia to Boston to Frankfurt. O'Hare was supposed to get on in Philadelphia and I was supposed to get on in Boston, and off we'd go. But Boston was socked in, so the plane flew straight to Frankfurt from Philadelphia. And I became a non-person in the Boston fog, and Lufthansa put me in a limousine with some other non-persons and sent us to a motel for a non-night.
The time would not pass. Somebody was playing with the clocks, and not only with the electric clocks, but the wind-up kind, too. The second hand on my watch would twitch once, and a year would pass, and then it would twitch again.
There was nothing I could do about it. As an Earthling, I had to believe whatever clocks said and calendars.
I had two books with me, which I'd meant to read on the plane. One was Words for the Wind, by Theodore Roethke, and this is what I found in there:
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go.
My other book was Erika Ostrovsky's Céline and His Vision. Céline was a brave French soldier in the First World War until his skull was cracked. After that he couldn't sleep, and there were noises in his head. He became a doctor, and he treated poor people in the daytime, and he wrote grotesque novels all night. No art is possible without a dance with death, he wrote.
The truth is death, he wrote. I've fought nicely against it as long as I could... danced with it, festooned it, waltzed it around... decorated it with streamers, titillated it...
Time obsessed him. Miss Ostrovsky reminded me of the amazing scene in Death on the Installment Plan where Céline wants to stop the bustling of a street crowd. He screams on paper, Make them stop... don't let them move anymore at all... There, make them freeze... once and for all!... So that they won't disappear anymore!
I looked through the Gideon Bible in my motel room for tales of great destruction. The sun was risen upon the Earth when Lot entered into Zo-ar, I read. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven; and He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
So it goes.
Those were vile people in both those cities, as is well known. The world was better off without them.
And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.
So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes.
People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.
I've finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun.
This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt. It begins like this:
Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
It ends like this:
What People are Saying About This
"Poignant and hilarious, threaded with compassion and, behind everything, the cataract of a thundering moral statement."—Boston Globe
Very tough and very funny . . . sad and delightful . . . very Vonnegut."—New York Times
"Splendid art . . . a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears."—Life
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I'm going into my junior year of high school in the fall, I read this book during the 1st days of my summer vacation because: a) My English teacher told my class how amazing and absurb Vonnegut was and her plot synopsis captured my interest b) The same English teacher spent all semester telling my class how are brains were turning to mush from reading Twilight/Harry Potter and that we should read more classics. So I decided to start reading CollegeBoard's 100 books for incoming college freshmen. I was told from the get-go that this was a very very very eccentric novel and thats the kind of book I enjoy. I was very frustrated with myself up until about the last fifty pages because I did not understand the significance of the novel. However, the last fifty pages clicked all of the seemingly disconnected pieces together. Mrs. Weil, my beloved English teacher, told us that if you cannot see the point of a piece of literature, you didn't read it carefully enough. This especially goes towards this novel, you have to read extremely closely if you want to understand or get something out of it. In the end, the book was very insightful and I suggest that everyone read it.
Set during World War II, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five is a humorous antiwar book. Billy Pilgrim is a war veteran who becomes "unstuck in time." He seems to be obsessed with the aliens, called the Tralfamadorians, that supposedly abducted him and could see in the fourth dimension. Right off the bat, Slaughterhouse-Five has caught our attention. As we read through the novel, the way we experience it is the same as Billy sees time, disconnected and random. The book keeps jumping from time period to time period, thoroughly confusing the reader. In some places, Vonnegut makes himself a character in his own novel. It is confusing to the point that the reader has no idea if Billy or Vonnegut is talking.
The novel makes us slightly disillusioned in the fact that we don't know the difference between real and fake. We are convinced (as is his family) that Billy is crazy and what he tells us about the Tralfamadorians is obviously untrue. But how are we to know if everything else he tells us of the war is true? The satire and irony in this book add comic relief to what would usually be a depressing scene, to our enjoyment.
The genius of Slaughterhouse-Five is that Vonnegut seems so apathetic about war in places that we wonder why this is even considered an antiwar book. But the reality is that his use of understatement and reverse psychology arouses feelings in us. When he says war cannot be stopped, we think (more passionately than if he was agreeing with us) that yes, it can. When he says there is no such thing as free will, we say yes, there is. All in all, Slaughterhouse-Five is an enjoyable read, I highly recommend.
A quick, and absolutely imperative read. This was my first Kurt Vonnegut read several years ago and I've grown to love his work. This book is a great step for anybody interested in Sci-fi books. The manipulation of time in this book is brilliant.I liked the book...you just have to remember that it is about one of the first accounts of a person sufferring from 'post traumatic stress syndrom'. I don't think ptss was even named at that time. You just keep thinking that someone should do something to help him...but at that time, WHAT?A thoughtful description of war in how indescribable it really is to experience. It claims there is war and always will be war. You'd have better luck at stopping a glacier. Also that hell is better than war. Since at least there would be no innocents suffering. Deals with things in a matter of fact tone. Anytime someone dies he will say, "so it goes." He gets lost in his own timeline and wanders. Aliens take pity on him and show him that time is something that humans can't grasp. Everything that happens always will happen, always has happened and cannot be changed. A downer. Oh and "war is fought by babies". It's thoroughly glamorized in movies and fiction. The reality is usually a bunch of teens straight out of high school fighting those battles.In my opinion this is the kind of book I should have studied when I was in school. There is so much to this little book that it deserves more thought than the poolside read that was my investment. Having said that, this is a really good book and I would fully recommend it. I just wish that I could have discussed this in English class in school, I would be interested in hearing other peoples opinion and in developing my own
I read this book on the advice of a friend. I couldn't put it down once I started it. It normally takes me 2-3 weeks to finish a book, but I finished Slaughterhouse-Five within 3 days. It sticks with you even when you're finished with it. It's a fantastic book.
As a person who suffers from P.T.S.D., This book is ridiculous from that perspective. As is all Hollywood or written versions of it. As a science fiction book I think it is a good read, sometimes it is nice not to read to much into a book and just enjoy it. War is not something anyone wants especially the people who have to fight it. To read a book and think it can give you any understanding of what true violence is like is an insult. Read a book for the books sake
I thought overall the book was fairly good. I had troubles during some scenes. For example, Vonnegut has an unique style which includes random flashbacks and flash forwards. Another reason why I believe I enjoyed this story is because of the history involved. It gives quite the accurate description of the Battle of the Bulge. Overall, I believe Vonnegut wrote a very good book. Out of ten, I'd give it a 9. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys uniqueness.
To me this book is so very anti-life, beyond depressing.
Brilliant. Vonnegut's rye humor perfectly balances what is ultimately a rather dark view of life.
One of the first true novels I read outside of school requirements and probably the book that turned me into an avid reader. Witty, acerbic, irreverent, and an all around fun read. He truly sets the standard for contemporary fiction writers.
I had heard a lot about this book, and finally had it assigned for a literature class. I was expecting to dislike it, but in fact, it was fascinating and very, very well written. If you want something that is meta-fictional, perplexing and has a sprinkle of psychological thrill and science fiction, you should definitely read it.
oddly this book displayed a certain interest in bringing to mind odd images. it perpetuates a need to be read as if it cannot contain its massage, although after it has been read one would not say that it brought to mind any new ideas but simply forced opp on us again the stupidity of humans. like many of Vonnegut books it feels as if he really dose not care about much. Although it is fun to watch the main character be screwed it can eventually form a since unrealistic and becomes harder and harder to relate to. overall all pretty good book.
This book is excellent.
This is the standard by which all other experimental writing must be judged. Of all of Vonnegut's work, only Mother Night is near to it's quality.
I think a lot of people end up disappointed with this book because they buy it expecting something totally different that what they find. The plot can be a bit confusing at times and I think that turns some people off, but this book is amazing if you take the time to really read it and read between the lines as well. This book is so much more about the message it sends than it is about telling a story. Kurt Vonnegut is telling us all through this book that war is absolutely absurd, in fact, it's as absurd as the story in this book. He wants to show us that the world is a crazy place and that in every situation there is good and bad. While the firebombing of Dresden was a horrible thing, it's also what shaped Kurt's life, so there is positive amongst such a terrible event. To understand this book, you must not take the story seriously, but take the message that Kurt is communicating to us to heart. The message that life is absurd, crazy, nonsensical and filled with horrible things, but despite that, we must carry on and be good to others, or else, what's the point of being here?
Vonnegut composes with a genius equal to Dostoyevsky, in a common voice (just as Dante composed the Comedy in Italian, not Latin) that makes it readable for all. His satire will make you laugh, and then make you kick yourself for doing so. Vonnegut effectively and accurately paints a picture of the human 'soul' and its struggle with facing life's cruelties. Without question, one of the greatest novels I have read so far. It urges the reader to analyze theirself, and ask the question: should i be one that turns away, or choose to become a pillar of salt? Undoubtedly a must read.
Slaughterhouse Five isn't an average anti-war novel. Through a persisting undertone of Determinism bordering Fatalism, an unreliable narrator seen through a lack of distinct chronology, and the dark humor of someone who has seen mankind's capacity for evil, the novel portrays the horrors of war in an unconventional way. Vonnegut's self-proclaimed failure of a novel explores complex themes of free-will and the acceptance of one's own irrelevance to the events of the universe. Vonnegut explores the inevitability of wars and the futility of one's attempt to stop them. His work, though Vonnegut himself may disagree, is effective in presenting these themes. By traveling through time and depicting the insecurity felt by a human who has faced countless atrocities, he conveys the lack of control and stability many soldiers feel upon returning from war. It illustrates the uncertainties faced in a human life, especially due to mankind's capacity for evil. This is heavily implied by the many meaningless and undeserving deaths that take place throughout the book. To emphasize the inevitability of death, Vonnegut follows every loss of life with his now-famous line, "So it goes." It clearly articulates the apathy he feels, and that must be felt, to deal with and accept the awful circumstances that result from war. People die, wars take place, glaciers move – so it goes.
Kurt Vonnegut's Sixth Novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, is a psychedelic journey through the life of a time displaced American man named Billy Pilgrim. In a seemingly absurd decision on Vonnegut's part, the captivating story is as scrambled as an egg, with events like Billy, the main character, dying before the end of the book. The book's mix of realistic and absurd segments provokes confusion and Vonnegut's infuriating insistence on non-cohesive storytelling is a powerful tool in creating the dark, heavy hitting yet strangely comical tone. In the book itself, Billy Pilgrim is a time-displaced soldier in the second world war, living through separate times of his life at completely random intervals. The reasoning behind Pilgrim's timeline predicament stems from his supposed abduction by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, who show him a new perspective on time itself. The entire situation can be interpreted multiple ways. Perhaps the story is told by an old Billy Pilgrim, likely suffering from brain damage from the plane crash he survived with a skull fracture, who can't cohesively remember when he is, thus fabricating the time travelling elements of his life. Then again, Pilgrim's story could be entirely true, and Vonnegut's recounting of his wartime experiences and anti-war sentiment are purposefully mixed with fictional events to create a more interesting or desirable tone. Nevertheless, Billy Pilgrim's life is seemingly centered around his time spent in world war two, particularly his survival of the firebombing of Dresden, Germany in the February of 1945. Pilgrim's survival is owed in part to the meat factory he sheltered in throughout the bombings. Kurt Vonnegut's novel is intentionally non cohesive, slightly confusing, dark, and comical with a non conventional structure. However, the semi-biography is a captivating experiment in delivering a common anti-war message while ignoring the conventions of typical book structure and genres. Because of this, Slaughterhouse-Five is an incredible novel to read, and will keep you pondering its contents for weeks to come.
I read this book many times over the last 40 years. It is one of my favorites.
Slaughterhouse Five Book Review Slaughterhouse Five is a novel that is realistic fiction with sci-fi elements. slaughterhouse Five is written by Kurt Vonnegut. This book talks about the horrific details of Dresden and includes an alien planet, Tralfamadore, while Billy "time travels." Billy "time travels" through many different parts of his life and also to Tralfamadore. The key conflict of this novel is telling about Dresden and remembering things about Dresden. Slaughterhouse Five was very unique and in depth. This book was also very hard to read. I would recommend this novel for people who can comprehend a high reading level, who do not get confused easily, who like details about war, and sci-fi.The reason I recommend this book to a person who can comprehend a high reading level is because the book does not go in chronological order, so it is very is to get confused.I also recommend people to read this novel who like details about war and sci-fi because this is what the book is about. This means if you do not like those, you probably would not be interested in this book.
Slaughterhouse-Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut, explains and describes how war can have both a psychological and emotional effect on people having to fight. The book takes place in Dredson during World War II. He goes through his whole experience with war and talks about the horrible things that he saw, but in a very unusual way. He uses a place called Tralfamadore to explain his view on what happened during the war. There are rapes, murders, and all kinds of things that you would only expect in a horror movie. Through the book, he has random flashbacks. He goes from being in his bed to being on the front lines in Germany. He is confused and lost until he meets the aliens from Tralfamadore. They explain what is going on and he understands now what is going on. He uses these "time travel" experiences to explain what is going on in his real life. He has flashbacks all the time about the things that he saw and went through and it is a great way to let the world know what war really is and how it can affect people in war. I didn't like how the book jumped around, it was unorganized. I like how he used something like aliens and time travel to explain everything because without that, his audience would have been very slim due to the graphic descriptions he gives all throughout the book. It is a book I would recommend to people who like war books and are against war. I thought it was a very creative piece of writing that is and will always be a classic for everyone above the age of 13 to read.
Sometimes hard to follow with the jumping around.
If you like science fiction and philosophy this is a good book.
A Tale of World War, Tralfamadorians, and time traveling, Slaughterhouse 5 is confusion and clarity for life. Billy Pilgrim, who is usually perceived as Vonnegut himself, is "unstuck in time" looking for a purpose in life after being in the Second World War. He seems to be obsessed with the aliens, called the Tralfamadorians. His life after the war consists of looking into the past, present, and future. His story telling skills is what is known as psychotic and all over. It is enriching with information and shows exotic experiences. I would recommend this book to people ages 14 and above, due to some nudity and sexual intercourse that occurs very generally in the book. The mixing of Sci-Fi to a PTSD protagonist was brilliance. His life really much is a circulation around the sci-Fi element and the bombing of Dresden, where he was. Vonnegut, I believe shoved a bit of his personality and life experience in there as well, for he was in Dresden and he was a soldier in WWII. There isn't much to say, for you really have to read the book to comprehend how amazing it is, though it can be confusing. Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why. ~Kurt Vonnegut
I thought that Slaughterhouse Five was an awesome book. It started off as a war story, and I was not expecting much from it, but as the story went on, I started to enjoy it a lot more. I thought the weirdest part of the book was when Billy was abducted by aliens. I was not expecting that whatsoever and I was laughing really hard when he compared them to toilet plungers. I thought that was just downright hilarious. Overall this was a bizarre book, but I really did enjoy it though. I would recommend this book to anyone who asks about it. And if someone out there has to do summer reading, and book is one of the options, I highly recommend it!
I really enjoy reading almost anything he writes.


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Some time ago, I wrote a post about switching one of my Google-step-child-sites from a hand coded site to a Joomla site. I made the switch because I originally hand coded the site several years ago and things have changed since then (and I've learned a lot since then).
Not to belabor the point (for the folks who have heard the story before), but I originally created the site when I was new to the world of the internet, used content from free article directories plus my own content and started making money. Back then I didn't know that original content was key and my earnings and traffic eventually plummeted along with my Google rankings.
Not wanting to give up on the site, I decided to use Joomla as the back end platform because I had great ideas and visions for the site. Joomla (WordPress on steroids) seemed to be the right tool for the job. A website with about 400 pages and a set menu structure seemed to be too complex for WordPress. Although converting my site to Joomla was a large task, I felt it was the platform that would best serve the site…until now.
Recent Observations with the Site
I've let the site sit dormant, sort of, over the last few months. I would add a discarded eHow or Demand Studios article to it, but pretty much let it sit. I still get a few hundred hits a day on it, but the traffic is way down from its heyday.
One of my recent observations is that each of my WordPress blog posts, whether its here on NJFM or on other less popular blogs, are indexed by Google within 10 minutes or so. My new articles on the Joomla site are indexed in a week or so, if ever. Go figure.
I've got a blog that I started a few months ago, and it gets indexed more quickly than the Joomla site. The Joomla site has been around for about 4 years. I added new articles each day last week and only 3 of the seven have been indexed. Hmmm…..
A Wonderful Joomla Plugin
Last night when I originally wrote this blog post it had a different ending. It's amazing what comes to you in the quiet hours of the morning before your brain is fully up and running.
Like a bolt, the thought entered my mind "Ping." Yep, ping services, that's why the WordPress blogs are so quickly indexed by Google. Joomla needs a ping service to let the whole world know that new content had been added to the site.
Lo and behold as I did a search this morning I found Easy Ping for Joomla. It's simple to install and configure. I downloaded, installed and configured it in about 3 minutes. This little plugin saved me from converting a 400 page site into a WordPress blog.
Only Time will Tell
Over the next few weeks I'll continue to add content to the site to see if the extension is the answer to my problem. If not…I guess I'll have to begin the conversion process.
In the meanwhile, I'm working on switching yet another old hand coded site that I created back in the late 90's to a WordPress blog. There's always something to keep me busy.


text: More scrap art! Since I've been interning for blogger and stylist Brittany Jepsen, I die every time I see pink! She's converted all the interns to this color, I swear! I found this beautiful Japanese paper in my scraps basket and that pink just screamed Chanel! So I started tearing and then one thing led to another, next thing I know I'm splattering ink everywhere! Oh the art process, you never know where it'll take you! Oh and those smaller scraps that I tore, you best believe I'm saving those for another project! Waste not, want not!


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Nov 8, 2013 – FIFA Under 17 World Cup 2013 Champions: Nigerian Golden Eaglets Celebrates Victory
The Golden Eaglets fuelled by a deafening atmosphere inside Zayed Stadium, brought El Tri down to their knees with an outstanding display to win the tournament for a fourth time
Nigeria made an easy meat of Mexico 3-0 to win the 15th edition of the Fifa U17 World Cup played on Friday evening in Abu Dhabi.
A first half own goal by Erick Aguirre and second half strikes from Kelechi Iheanacho and Musa Muhammed were all the highly-talented Nigerians needed to seal a fourth title on Asian soil.
The Golden Eaglets were in supreme form inside a rasping Stadium, ripping the defending world and Concacaf champions to continue their unbeaten run, and claim the trophy for a record fourth time, alongside their triumphs of 1985, 1993 and 2007.
El Tri dominated the early seconds of the tension-soaked encounter but were unable to near the rock solid Nigeria defence. Samuel Okon made the first attempt at goal in the fourth minute but his shot was not enough to threaten the Mexican goalie.
Few minutes later, Ivan Ochoa forced Dele Alampasu to a brilliant safe after his header was punched for a corner kick by the towering Nigerian goalie. Mexico's dominance was short-lived after Erick Aguirre's own put the Garba Manu boys ahead in an attempt to clear away Taiwo Awoniyi's well laid pass meant for Musa Yahaya.
Mexico launched a comeback but their attacking forays were brought under constant check by the Musa Muhammed anchored defence. Alampasu made another brilliant save midway in the first half after saving Ulises Jaimes's header off a free-kick taken as a result of Aliyu Abubaker's foul on Alejandro Diaz.
The Eaglets could have scored more goals but were unlucky as Yahaya's chance in the 40th minute rattled the cross bar before Awoniyi's side-netted his chance off a pass from Kelechi Iheanacho.
With less than a minute to the end of the first half, Awoniyi's bicycle kick was parried by goalkeeper Raul Gudino who was well positioned to clear away the Imperial Academy forward's attempt after Iheanacho- who was voted the player of the tournament floated a brilliant cross.
Golden Eaglets' onslaught continued 11 minutes after the restart when Iheanacho put goal past a shell-shocked Mexico, who showed their ineptitude at both ends when captain Musa Muhammed barrage of shots was parried into the way of Nigeria's no 10 by Gudino.
Though, Raul Gutierrez made all his changes mid-way into the second half, that could not hand his team a glimmer of hope as Golden Eaglets stamped their authority in every departments of the game.
Mexico had a few chances to restore a little pride, but Ochoa's header from close range went off target.
However, Muhammed sealed the win with less than nine minutes to play courtesy of a well taken free-kick outside the penalty area of the Mexican after Iheanacho was fouled by Teran.
In addition to this, Nigeria holds the record of the most goals in a single U17 World Cup tournament with 26 goals eclipsing the record set by Germany in Mexico 2011.
[Source: Goal.com]


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It's that time again! This is helping me sift though my photos and forcing me to display them, I'm a photographer and right now, looking at my house, you wouldn't know it. Since moving last May (a year ago) I have not put up a single picture! I know, lame. Every house prior I had wall displays, mini albums and other displays of my kiddos sprinkled nicely here and there in every room Oh wait...I have one picture on my wall. It's in Brielle's room. Pictured below. But that's the only photo displayed right now. {shaking my head with embarrassment}
These posts are getting my mind thinking about ideas and I'll try to post some of the ones I do along the way.
Lately, I've been trying to figure out how to organize and decorate my office (well every room in the house really) and I want it to be a creative space that represents me and this passion of mine. I'm struggling with design ideas since there are so many directions I want to take with that space. Right now I'm obsessed with just a hodge-podge of photos on walls. This is a little unlike me since I like clean lines and no clutter, and this is a very cluttered look but it's organized, creative clutter and I'm drawn to that. If I had a couch like this I think I would want to do the same as the image below. I found this on Flickr and fell in love with it! The one below that had me thinking about our new (well soon to be new - it's not up yet) mantle. I found that image on Flickr too.
This one makes me think of my workspace. It's just eye candy...you can never get sleepy with a wall like this in front of you each day. {I found this image here.}
For a little more of an organized look, I thought this was cute. Might look great on a small wall or in a girls bedroom. I think Instagram pictures would look really cool in this collage format.
So my mind is spinning with ideas. I can't wait to share more cool finds next week. If you have a unique display to share please e-mail me at kara@karamayphotography and in the Title write: Dysfunction Photo Friday. Thanks!!


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If you're not at Flashtival, Rotterdam right now you're missing out on what I think could be the coolest Flash talk of the year. Peter Hall is just presenting a session on DDF (Document Driven Flash) which allows pages to be reused as both HTML and Flash.
Using simple Dreamweaver generated HTML, some JavaScript and XPath magic he's showing us a great framework to quickly and easily use the same content in both HTML and SWF format. It's not meant to be a full XHTML parser (check out DENG for that) but the idea is pretty cool to say the least.
I believe he's doing the same presentation at FlashEurope so if you missed out today, you can try to make it over then.
I've just finished my own session on JSFL and building Flash MX 2004 extensions and will be posting some of the cool stuff I've built while preparing for this session in the coming days! ;)