text:
Category Archives: Blogging
Déjà Vu: Why Melissa Writes –– or Doesn't–– of Passage
I could swear you've been here with me before. And before that.
June 30, 2011, Singapore
You remember? I was sitting on this same chair, tapping on this same laptop, pushed up to this same desk. Around me worked a team of moving men, preparing to ship our life (and file upon file of a yet-to-be-written but contracted book, Global Mom: A Memoir) off to a new life in Switzerland.
At the same time and as part of that pre-publication ramp-up, I was advised to launch this blog right away because the whole conceit of Global Mom was based on moving, moving internationally, moving internationally often and at times unexpectedly, and doing all that while raising a family of global citizens. On this blog, I was to take you with me, real-time. Show you some of the guts of global momming. Strap you to my forehead the way sky divers strap on Go-Pros and shu-weeeeeeee! Take you for a swift transglobal spin. Prepare you for that thud-and-roll landing.
What you didn't see, I'm afraid, was the scary stuff, all the gum-flapping and limb-flopping that was going on behind the camera. As you who've done any of the following know, 1) raising a family takes one's absolutely full concentration, 2) moving that family to a new country demands even more of one's absolutely full concentration 3) helping your family adjust and integrate once in a new country requires that much more concentration, and 4) writing and promoting a book in the midst of all that…Well, just cue non-stop gum-flap, limb-flop.
That lasted a year. I released Global Mom a year after leaving Singapore, and just when I felt maybe things were getting steady enough for my children here on the idyllic Swiss front, I signed a contract to write and publish my second book, On Loss and Living Onward.
Just as that book went to press last spring, we announced we'd be moving again. Unlike the previous move triggered by a restructuring of international headquarters, this relocation was wholly our initiative, one we'd been deliberating for some time. We knew we needed to remove our youngest from a school environment that was unhealthy for him and causing our family much heartache (to frame it in the very gentlest terms.) Gum-flapping and limb-flopping don't come anywhere close.
June 30, 2014, Switzerland
There's a moving team milling through my house as I type. Same chair, same laptop, same desk. This week alone, I've seen my piano, refrigerator and Norwegian farm table go out the carmine red door of my soft yellow Swiss village home with is green shutters, its plump tufts of lavender, and tumbling velvet geraniums. Such a pretty, idyllic picture. Yet there's sorrow and fatigue creasing the corners of my eyes. Two deep breaths, and I fill my lungs with optimism and gratitude. I work alongside men –– one French, one Swiss, one Kosovoan––packing our lives in cardboard, padding my concerns in bubble wrap, and heading things in a big metal box with wheels northward. To Frankfurt.
My husband has long since preceded us to Germany, where he's been living weeks-over in a sterile hotel room as he starts up a new job. One moment, I'm talking with a Jean-Michel about shutting down our Swiss/French phone lines; the next, I'm talking with a Johann or a Manfred about opening a German bank account. Our Claire is at my side, mothering her brothers and helping me negotiate the 17th move of my married life. Luc is choosing classes online for what will be a German international school. Dalton, now 18, is practicing his cockney accent and reworking his Singaporean Mandarin for when he heads in August to South London for a two-year mission for our church.
You remember? You're right. We've been here before.
June 30, 2007, Paris
A moving team is arguing about how to get our massive Norwegian table out of our Paris apartment. I'm refereeing. Randall's been living in Germany for several months already, starting his new job while we finish the school year and an eight-year French epoch. Dalton and Luc, 11 and 7, are finishing their French elementary school and once in a while I drop a German phrase or two into our talks, just to prep them for the next phase in our lives. Claire, almost 16, is inseparable from our 18-year-old Parker, who's just graduated from ASP (the American School of Paris) and is heading tomorrow for a summer of leadership courses at college in the States. He'll use the next months to complete the applications to serve a two-year mission for our church. Come winter.
Sorrow, fatigue. Deep breaths. Optimism, gratitude. Days are spent shutting down French phone lines and opening up German bank accounts. My daily discipline of writing so-and-so many pages? I set it aside, knowing I only have a few weeks left with all of us together. How we are. The all of us. Like this. Sure, I'll see Parker over the summer. We've made those plans. And he'll come to us in Germany over Christmas to stay for a few weeks before launching out as a missionary. But still. I only want to be with him. The sails of life are stretched taut with stress, but also with gusts of hope, and we're cruising on momentum, headlong into the cresting, broad, blue seas.
June 21, 2014, Paris
"We're pleased to welcome the family of Parker Bradford to today's ceremony. We've invited their son Dalton to the stage."
A dark blonde, blue-eyed kid wearing a white shirt, navy suit and his big brother's tie strides up to the school administrator at the mic. It's the same gentleman, a Mr. H., who'd handed Parker his diploma seven years earlier. Now, he hands Dalton a heavy plaque with his brother's name engraved in brass and in ornate letters.
The kid blushes. His face is neither smiling nor frowning, but hangs between emotions. Or above them. He shifts from foot to foot. The sibling resemblance is eerie.
"Dalton, like all of you here," says Mr. H., "has just graduated from high school, only in Geneva. He'll be presenting the Parker Bradford Spirit Award to this year's graduating senior who best embodies the qualities of tolerance, enthusiasm and buoyancy that typified Parker, Dalton's older brother. Parker was a student here at ASP for eight years. One month after graduating in June of 2007––just like you're graduating today––Parker lost his life while trying to save a college classmate from drowning."
The blonde brother stares out over an audience of quiet faculty and families. I'm in the back-most row in a corner, yet can hear––can nearly feel––his heart beating. I tuck my chin to my chest.
I'm struck in that moment by the flaccidity of words, how they fool only those who trust words to convey the true proportion of certain truths, realities simply too vast for language. I'm sobered by how vulnerable that whole auditorium full of families is, but how they do not know it. How luminous the boy Justin is to whom the Parker Bradford Spirit Award is given. How magnanimous the school has been to our family, how empathetic. How utterly vital a healthy school community is for families, especially those in transition. How we could have used that these last two years.
Above all, I'm struck by how quickly it's over––the presentation of the award itself, the graduation, the passage, this life.
How I have been here before. How everything is different.
How, because everything is different, I vow to do things differently this time.
How, for this passage, I'll truly be there for my family.
Which means that for a little while at least –– for however long it takes –– I won't be here.
One Last Time On Loss and Living Onward
This is post #199. In a couple of days, I'll give you my final and 200th post. Between now and then, I invite you to order and read this book. 🙂
On Loss & Living Onward came to be over months of unprecedented searching and researching. By "searching," I mean grieving, which, after the initial implosion of traumatic loss, is intense, prolonged yearning.
Yes, I was searching. Not for release from grief or its pain, but specifically for Parker, for God, for community, for truth, for understanding, for strength, for light. Sometimes, for air.
And I was researching. From the introduction to On Loss:
"…Every morning when the children left for school and Randall left for the office or for the airport, I turned to my daily pattern of digging and searching amid piles of books spread about me in a circular mountain range. I sat cross-legged on the floor with sometimes twenty books open at once: Testaments, both Old and New and other scriptures of my faith; a poetry anthology; a modern French novel; a German lyric; a prophet's or pioneer's personal journal; a Norwegian memoir; a commentary on the book of Job; a stack of professional journals on parental grief; collected talks from great spiritual leaders past and present and from the East to the West; discourses from Plutarch and Plato; my Riverside Shakespeare; accounts of Holocaust survivors, 9/11 survivors, tsunami survivors; and Parker's own words, which we have treasured in his journals, poetry, school essays, letters, and lyrics.
Oh. And my laptop.
For hours to months on end, I went spelunking through others' words. When someone's words hit the bedrock of the Spirit, I knew it in half a breath. There were revelatory moments when a correct insight stunned me to immediate tears or, more often, head-to-toe stillness. At times my heart would leap a hurdle or my eyes would stretch wide open; other times I would hold my breath or exhale audibly in gratitude. Whatever my physical and intellectual response, every time a writer got it, I'd quickly type those words into my files.
Unswerving, I kept at it—mining, sifting, cataloging; grieving, mourning, learning, writing; adapting. While I never found the one book that for me addressed the desperate underside of grief as well as the magnificent promise of the loving bond that endures and evolves despite physical separation, I was (to my surprise) on my way to writing one.
And today—almost seven years after Parker was taken in an early harvest that plowed our souls right open—I finished this book. I lovingly pass it on to you."
One Last Time from Global Mom
As I approach my 200th and final post here at Melissa Writes of Passage, I want to share one last time with you the reason I began blogging in the first place: This book below.
We're heading into an intense passage, we global nomadic Bradfords, with a new job in a new country, and each of our children heading in different directions geographically and metaphorically. In order to navigate this period I need focus, focus, focus. When our family has eventually found its bearings in our new life in Frankfurt, Germany beginning late this summer, I'll be establishing my new, beautiful author website. It will merge channels for my books as well as all forthcoming writing projects alongside any public appearances and readers/audience reviews. There, you'll also find my regular blogpost-like essays. I hope you'll come back to it all golden and zen-ified after a peaceful summer vacation.
In the meantime: thank you for reading my first book. In the next post, #199, I'll post a reminder of my second book. And finally, in blogpost #200, I'll summarize what these two years of blogging and publishing have meant to me and my family. Come back then, if only to let me know what lies in store for you over your summer!
Much warmth to my friends and readers–
Loss and Living Onward. . .To Press
In one month my second book, On Loss and Living Onward: Collected Voices, will be in your hands. As I write these words, talented lay-out and cover designers David and Maggie are making last-second tweaks, and sending the manuscript off to press.
Let me admit something: This book has been pushing itself up and out of my very pores for nearly five years. It's been close to publication with two other publishing houses. And I've been teetering on that slick ledge of giving up on it, oh, 174 times. But I have a persistent (bossy and endearing) cheering committee, and they wouldn't let me hunker down in the safe retreat of silence. Finally, this book has found its rightful channel to reach the public.
I am grateful. I am joyful. I am tired. I am anxious.
When cataclysm erupted in our family's life, I turned to literature for a community, common experience and spiritual knowledge. People who know me well know that, with the exception of math, marbled meats and sometimes sleep, I don't do much half-heartedly. So that same intensity translated into gathering hundreds upon hundreds of statements on loss and grief. Not with a mind to ever publish an anthology, mind you, but with a heart that was stunned to a sputtering speechlessness and needed understanding. I scraped and spelunked through other's words to speak for and to me. In time, and without having had a plan on the outset to do so, I had the makings of a major tome on grief. Those quotes–at least those for which my publisher could acquire legal permissions– together with 17 of my best personal essays, have evolved into this substantial book. I can hardly wait to get it out there.
I sent a friend and fellow bereaved mother a galley (pre-published) PDF copy. Here's what she wrote to me just this week:
Dear Melissa,
I've had the immense pleasure of spending much of this past weekend with your wonderful book…My husband was not feeling well, so we were both at home, and I read and read. I can't tell you how often I picked up my computer and said to my husband, "Read this," because you were able to articulate just how I was feeling so much of the time. And you did it so eloquently and beautifully. You were able to put into words what I felt but could not express and you did this so much better than any other author I have read.
I loved the quotes at the beginning of each section. I must admit though that I hurried through them so that I could get to your writing. I do plan to go back and highlight as soon as I get my hard copy. There were so many wonderful nuggets where I paused and smiled because they nailed feelings I had experienced and interpreted what I was still trying to identify.
One of my favorites was the grief beast section. My grief beast looks a lot like yours, and now I can put a name and description to it. It's still lumbering around but it doesn't come as often as it did before and it doesn't stay as long. But I think that now I will talk about that beast to others so they can have a better idea about how awful grief can be.
I can't imagine how heart wrenching it must have been for you to move to an entirely new country and new community right after Parker's death. How did you survive? I'm so glad that you wrote. It must have been healing for you, but now it is healing for so many others. Even though you were so alone, you have been able through your writings to reach out to so many.
I'm so grateful that you have such a gift for writing. All of us who have experienced the loss of a child feel like your book is balm for our grief. I shed a ton of tears as I read, but I felt so understood and valued. I will read it again and again. Thank you. Thank you.
You know those emails that make your throat sting and nose prickle like you'd just breathed in a whole room full of dry ice fumes? This one. If she says it works, I'm convinced. I need that kind of reassurance. Similar to my fears of publishing Global Mom, I have had some nagging fears for this book, too. What if I turn my son into an artifact? Will I be misunderstood as bitter, gloomy, morbid, or strangely proud of or elitist about our family's loss? Will my family's story not be fairly represented? Will I make grief look too easy? Too hard? Too dreamy? Too predictable? Too comprehensible? Too tidy? Will its most helpful pages not be the ones that were the hardest to write, which were the descriptive ones (my essays), but the most helpful will be the prescriptive ones, which took just a day to whip together (the two appendices with What To Do/ What Not To Do and a suggested readings list)? Will my deep faith and profound, repeated experiences with the spiritual alienate readers who do not, perhaps, consider themselves people of faith, or "spiritual" types? WiIl this book speak with humility the truth I've known?
I've run down this list of questions plus a longer one, be assured. But I'll let you read my writings, and you can decide.
Visit my Loss and Living Onward Facebook Page to find daily updates as well as quotes I could not include in the hard copy itself.
You can preorder now on Amazon, or wait until May 6th to order and receive your stack for yourself and for
US Mother's Day, May 11th,
US Memorial Day May 26th.
Unpacking in Prague: Women's International Network
Packing for Prague. I like the sound of it.
This week, I'll be in the capital of the Czech Republic as a presenter at the global Women's International Network conference. The W.I.N. conference is an annual happening that draws in both women and men from around the world, and from among global business and opinion leaders, entrepreneurs, executives, academics, NGO representatives, artists, and yes, a couple of us writers. Over several days, we'll participate in plenary sessions, workshops, forums, dinners and networking activities. For this, I'm packing, among other necessities, yoga stretchies, a great-fitting suit, dental floss, my scriptures, and a ball gown. To give you an idea.
I'll first be presenting an extended workshop entitled, "Making a Home in the World: The Whats and Whys of Raising a Global Family." I'm all ready to roll this one out, an audio-visual, bells-and-whistles journey through our life, packed with years of my personal research into the various angles of expatriate living. How many of "us" expatriates are there in the world? What is the average failure rate of expatriate assignments? What are the primary reasons for that failure? What can expatriates themselves and sponsors of expatriate relocations do to avoid such failure? And then I've rehearsed a tap-dancing interlude, if things go really well. (Or if they don't. Either way, I might have to dredge up my inner Ginger.)
That, friends, promises to be the high energy, speedy, dynamic and entertaining part of this week for me.
Then there's another moment. For it, I'll have neither Power Point nor body mic. Not a single bell. Nowhere a whistle. No tap shoes. I'll be part of a forum panel, which will address issues of feminine resiliency. My contribution is entitled, "When Crisis Hits: Tragic Loss, Resilience, Living Onward With Grace." As you intuit, this is where I'll share our family's story from the point of view of the mother. Whereas in the first workshop I recount how and where we've come this far geographically, in the second I'll describe how and where we've come spiritually. Scriptless and ready to field questions, I'll get to share with complete strangers what drills directly into the marrow of my soul's bone.
When I arrive tomorrow in Prague, and find myself alone in my hotel room, I'll lay out my yoga pants and glam gown on my bed, then dump out my cosmetics from their Ziploc bags onto the small bathroom counter. I'll then turn on my chosen inspirational music on my phone. (Coldplay, Ella, and the MoTab are set to drown out my droning self-doubt.) Then I'll roll my impossibly heavy carry-on to a corner, the one bursting with 50+ copies of this book I've written, the book that will be sold at the conference bookstore, the one that, like my newly-minted business cards, has my face on its every surface.
It could make one feel important. For about nine seconds.
Finally, I'll take out four enlarged and framed pictures. I'll find a place in this hotel room to line them up for company and for comfort. One picture, a girlfriend in Singapore made. It is a posthumous family portrait (how else to put it?) with all of us smiling in 2010, and she photo-shopped in our oldest, Parker, absent to the eye since 2007. There he is, though – right there! – smiling more broadly than any one of us.
Next to that picture, I'll place three more shots just of Parker. There's the shot of him leaning against a lamp post in Montmartre. And then the shot taken right before he rode that sling shot contraption in the Tuileries. And in the third picture, he's drumming his djembe in front of the Eiffel Tower, his favorite place to hang out. He's drumming that djembe with abandon, and with a beaded head band a little Moroccan girl had just gifted him. "I put it on to make her laugh," he told me when I saw that picture in June. "And she did! Man, she was so sweet." A month later, he died.
Here's part of what I'll be thinking, maybe, as I unpack in Prague. That over 25 years ago I dreamt of a moment like this : I would write a book. Pages, a front and back cover. And I would arrive at some international conference to talk about that book. In an auditorium. Where there would be (in my dream) many languages. A microphone. Beads of sweat. I'd be pretending (as everyone with a book, an auditorium, a mic and sweat must pretend) to be confident.
Certain realities , it turns out, can be more powerful than certain dreams. The me of 25 years ago would never have believed it. Yet the me of today is living it. The Reality that we chose and that has driven us became this: a loving (and imperfect) marriage and four splendid (and human) children with whom we've pursued a life that skipped, groveled and hiccupped across many geographies. Reality, for me, meant I needed to be with these children in an intense manner to hold stuff together. There was simply no bandwidth in that Reality (and less and less personal ambition, over time) for pursuing certain Dreams. And of course there was the Reality of death.
While we've crawled through death, it seems the Dreams have hung there, waiting for another Reality to catch up with them.
Tell me, though. Are these photos in a hotel room – these precious children, this flawed but thriving family, that smiling spirit son, this carry-on of published words – are they not Reality? To what do I ascribe the convergence of a misty Dream and a rock hard Reality? The luggage-tagged and framed-smiling evidence of something I have lived? On this autumn day? In Prague?
Is the human heart even engineered to handle so much gratitude and so much pain – such Dreams and such Realities – and keep on beating? And strongly enough to speak about it all?
Wish me luck.
Parisian, Peruvian, Mexican, American: Multicultural Mom Writes a Strong Review
Your nationality might be easier to pin down than is Maria's. Born to a spicy combination of Peruvian and Mexican parents, educated in the U.S., married to a Frenchman and raising young (trilingual) children in the swoon-worthy countryside west of Paris, Maria Olivares Babin is a real global mom. An expert on mingling cultures and nurturing a family while straddling linguistic and geographic borders, she also keeps on top of a blog that is as lively, lovely and photogenic as is her family.
How does someone planted in Normandy, France stumble across another writer-mother-nomad living near the banks of Lake Geneva, Switzerland? You can guess it was not on a morning stroll. The story's a bit more involved than that.
The story is bitter-sweet, too, and I won't share it all here because for today, I want to focus on the kind of happiness and deliberate joy Maria radiates, as you'll soon discover, right off the computer screen. But I'll reveal this: a few weeks after we lost our oldest son to a tragic drowning accident, my husband and I were invited to speak at a large conference in Versailles, France. Maria and her family, recently installed in their French life, happened to be in attendance.
Years passed, and our family moved, as we tend to do – Munich, Singapore, Geneva – while Maria and her Babins dug into that legendarily mulchy soil that grows France's best apples and produces that country's richest dairy products. The parents (or was it the fertile soil?) continued to expand their family. Along these two divergent routes of two global mothers, I continued to hear stories of the Babins. I asked always for updates, marveling at Maria's graceful mastery at integration.
Should I admit? I was fascinated – FAscinated! – by this exotic yet grounded woman, whose rich background complemented her quiet gumption. She was the Whole Multicultural Shabang.
Emphasis on the Bang.
Now you can read her voice.
Enjoy this generous review of Global Mom, written by another global mom.
I'm sure you'll understand why it's such an honor for me to merit her time and reflection. Just thanks, Maria.
The Dangers of Water Skiing, Or, What Social Media is Doing to Our Reading, Writing, Thinking
Years ago, a girlfriend, nearly breathless with zeal, sent me a copy of what she said was the "hottest new publication," a magazine called "Fast Company." One of the article titles on the cover was something like, "Power Lunch, Elevator Style." I thanked my friend for thinking of me, but disliked and discarded the copy before ever opening it.
The concept of "fast" – fast company, quick lunch, slick and obsequious elevator rides, speed reading – touched a nerve in me. Why? Because unless it has to do with saving someone's life or making dinner in less than 20 minutes, I dislike "fast." Or at least I'm sharply suspicious of it.
This wariness, I think, was heightened because when I got that copy of "Fast Company," I was living in Paris, a place where lunches (and their conversations) last at least a full hour, and where dinners (and their conversations) last sometimes three. Where no respectable anyone eats while riding from floor three to fourteen, and where, in a way I can hardly describe without growing drooly, the slow lane overtakes the fast one.
It's where taxi drivers have chunky, worn volumes of Hugo, Proust and French Symbolist poetry on their dashboards. And they read them. (Going from the airport to downtown? Be ready for The Conversation.)
I believe in slow. I trust gradual. I'm wired for plumbing downward or probing upward, not for skimming horizontally. When it comes to reading, writing, and the way I keep my company, I'm a scuba diver.
Years since Paris, since my days of vetoing "Fast," since that time when I disciplined myself to check email only once a week, (Wednesday afternoons for two hours – I know, I can hardly believe it, either), and rarely texted except to keep track of my teenagers out in a big city, I never would have dreamed of doing much of what I do today: writing this public blog, having not only a private but a professional Facebook page, T-t-t-t-weeting. Somewhere along the way, I began mastering the lite-write.
This world, in case you hadn't noticed, is all new. It's one made by and for water skiers! It might even breed them. In any case, I'm convinced it's breeding water skier brains.
(This is another tangent , but don't you wonder if this hyper-connected world also breeds extroverts? If you do, and this concerns you, read Susan Cain's Quiet.)
The vast waters of connectivity call out for us to grab a rope, slap on some skis, and knot a cable around our waists. This boat's taking off like a bullet, folks, and because it's moving at Mach speed, it demands that you skim, scroll, and ski across a spray of surfacey sound bytes. And they have to be no more than sound bytes, of course, because we're passing them like billboards lining the Indy 500.
E-mail is too wordy, time consuming. So we shave it down to a phrase or two on Facebook.
FB takes too long. So we distill it to Twitter's 140 characters.
Yet with all the social platforms we're managing, who has time for 140 anything?
So we Instagram. Because who needs words when a snap shot paints a thousand of them?
(Or so we think.)
Others are concerned as I am. In his utterly fascinating, The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing To Our Brains, Nicholas Carr argues that our brains are devolving to adapt to being dragged across the thin surface of visual image, bullet points, and maybe the occasionally well-wrought jingle. Jaron Lanier, in You Are Not A Gadget, considers what this high pitch surface velocity does to our sense of self, our place in humanity. And here, Edan Lepucki shares the experience of disconnecting (for a spell) from social media altogether.
What can we conclude? What can I learn from the personal proof that my own brain is jumpier, more staccato, and that my spirit is more jittery, more pinball-ish since "connecting" in several directions? What's happening if I haven't sunk into a dense work of true literary value in months? That, over the same time, I haven't been able to conjure a single line of poetry?
For people who dive, water skiing can be frightening, alienating, not to mention exhausting. What if you're the type that shrinks from gum-flapping velocity, hang-on-for-dear-life tautness, from hopping wakes at break neck speed, or zhwooping from point A to point Z? What if you want to write a poem about – and not just whizz past – the blurred landscape?
What if you feel most alive hunkering over the majesty and potency of words, tonguing them during long stretches of stone-like silence? What if you aren't interested only in linear efficiency (getting from point A to Z), but are more invested in making (and expanding and elaborating on) a point? What if you long to dive into the deep end and discover the magic of those compressed realms?
If we are, as some argue, evolving into beings that write and think in txt msg abbrvs, will we lose our ability to read and write and live in ever-descending spirals, probing and penetrating the Otherworld? Will we in turn lose dimensions of our humanness? If the brusque slash-and-pin-prick of an exclamation point – the punctuation mark du jour – overrules the curved concentration of a question mark, what are we heading for?
What, in your opinion, are our options, besides letting go of the social media rope altogether? But wait! What would happen if we did? Would we sink, helpless and limpid, into the water? Into irrelevancy? Into oblivion?
Heard Yet? Global Mom and Global Mom Are Splitting Up
With my new Facebook Page devoted exclusively to Global Mom: A Memoir, (release date: July 15th), I'm happy to be able to declare this website the space dedicated to things. . .
Global Mom: A Melissa.
Curious about the release of the book? Then go here, to Global Mom on Facebook, where this coming week I'm starting a vlog visit series with a string of other global moms. They have vastly contrasting stories, have lived in all corners of the planet, and have survived to tell you about it.
I'm also keeping you updated there on the ins and outs of recording the audio version of the book. Go to that address to be updated on all other booky stuff. Love your visits and appreciate your comments!
Then come here (like. . . truly, literally here-here, no hyperlink needed) for conversations with me about, yes, writing and being a global mom, but beyond that, what touches me as a person in this writing/living/nomadding lifetsyle. . .and everything else.
And there's a bit of "else."
Events, ideas, struggles, disappointments, mini-triumphs, local travel and on-the-ground responsibilities – all aspects of my behind-the-book personal life. This is the gamut of writing I've not adequately shared with you while I've been posting excerpts of the book or otherwise introducing you to the crew (publisher, editors, PR people) teaming up for Global Mom's release.
What is "everything else"? Things related to:
1) Integrating in French-speaking Switzerland (Want to see why Switzerland is so clean? I'll show you live footage of the guts of its garbage disposal system.)
2) Negotiating yet another new school system (Who wants a seasoned insider's peek at international schools? And do you want a quick-'n'-dirty on the famed International Baccalaureate degree? What's it like to educate your kids multilingually?)
3) Raising teenaged boys on the global road (Make that a bumpy global road lately. . .I've been seriously wondering what in the world we were thinking signing up for this, and what we've done to our children.)
4) Having our daughter serve as a full-time missionary in Italy (From run-ins with the local Mafia in Sicily, to gypsies stoning her in Rome. Santa patata and honest to Pete.)
5) Continuing the lifelong adaptation that follows having buried our oldest son. (It just never ends, my friends. Never. But then, neither does life.)
Those kinds of things.
It's here I can share and process all that, and I am truly hoping you'll help me through.
Then there are the other things:
6) Travels to farther destinations. (Didn't I mention Paris? Watch very soon.)
7) Visitors from abroad. If you follow me on Twitter (MDBGlobalMom), you know I just had some favorite relatives here. And soon I'll host a whole gang of favorite friends. (One ultra-talented visitor will be here shooting the trailer for my book.)
8) My volunteer service overseeing a delightful group of the local leaders and adolescent girls of our church, all through the Geneva region and into parts of France. (Google-map it: from Chambéry, France, to Morges, Switzerland).
9) The signed contract to write a book with Randall on Strengthening Long Distance Marriages. (Coming in 2014)
10) And finally – and most sweetly – the signed contract to bring you my substantial book on Grief & Grace. (Watch for it: Memorial Day 2014)
See you here!
Or there?
Or everywhere.
How Technology and Social Networking Shape Publishing
It was early summer, 1977. . .
. . .when I stood blinking in the movie theater after the final credits rolled. I wore cork platforms. I had a Toni home perm that I was trying to grow out. My date's name was Clay. I'd been home fewer than 48 hours from living most of that past year in Austria. Maybe that fact – that I'd been out of the US loop for a while, residing on another planet, playing lonely goatherd near Salzburg – is the reason I said the following words as Clay and I got ready to leave the theater:
"Well, hmmm," I mumbled, "I can tell you one thing: that thing's never gonna catch on."
Clay cocked his head, trying to check if I was joking. "But you didn't even think those. . .those Stormtroopers were–?"
Head shake.
"And not even Princess Leah?"
"What about Han Solo? Don't you think he was-?"
Contorted, noncommittal, wrinkled Calvinist librarian grimace.
"Oh, come on! Not even that little – what was his name? C3P0? But that was pure genius!"
Dead pan glare.
"Mark my words," I said with disdain and self-assurance, "The soundtrack's good, yeah. But the rest? It'll never catch on."
Forget that my flippancy was an insult to my date who'd just paid for my opening night ticket. Forget that I made him awkward. That I then felt awkward. I squirmed a bit in that windy gape of silence, teetering on my cork platforms, fluffing the frayed ends of my Toni perm.
Forget all that. The real deal, the reason this moment has stuck with me, is that I. Hadn't. Gotten. It. I hadn't gotten something really big, important, sea-changing, intergalactically cosmically epic.
Seven episodes, 25 Oscar nominations, (10 Oscars), video games, Halloween costumes, books, spin-offs, a global cult following and an oribatid mite genus named darthvaderum later– and I'm chawnking on my words.
What Else Have I Not Gotten?
I just don't seem to get the genius of some things. And a lot of those things end up spinning the planet.
For instance, I remember 20 years after Star Wars when a friend told me that the "next wave, Melissa – watch for it, it's coming fast – the next wave," she said, "is technology."
"Aeck," I said. "You really think so? Aeck [again], I hope not."
In those days, I wrote (by hand, on onion skin paper, with special pens and in gorgeous calligraphy) epistles to my friends. I resisted my first computer. My second one. My third. When friends' responses to my handwrought letters popped up on my PC screen, I thought they looked as personal as ingredient lists on a cereal box. Sterile, generic, dehumanizing sound bytes.
I clutched my fountain pen in defiance. I licked postage stamps until I got drunk on the glue.
But it didn't take long to realize that as a writer, my quaint Thoreauvian methods of communicating just weren't going to cut it in a rapidly changing world. So I capped my pen, shelved my envelopes, plugged my nose, and dove into email.
(So you know: I dove like Jacques Costeau. Ask my friends. They call my emails "Melissives." I write dense emails. Daily. )
And Then There Was This Thing Called a BLOG.
"Melissa, listen: You just have to start a blog!"
This was my technobility friend, one whose career has kept her steeped in that cyberocean since the days it was no more than a puddle. For years, she'd been following our global life through me (on parchment, then, when I caved, via email), and was trying, I dunno, to oil me up for the 21st century.
I balked. Blog. BLOG? It sounded like a bloated trunk of a hacked down Sycamore rotting in an eddy of the Mississippi Delta. Never on your life. It couldn't be real writing, I protested. Besides, from all (the 3 blogs) I'd sampled, it was too exhibitionist, intrusive, prone to much-too-long daily dwelling in one's own head. (Don't these folks have jobs?, I thought. Families? Obligations? Water meters to read?)
Then my publisher, Christopher Robbins, crash-coursed me about authors' blogs. Today's serious authors maintain robust blogs. I scoured dozens of them. They're packed with great practical material, some truly fine writing, tips on the craft, and links to (you guessed it) more blogs.
And so here I am. And here you obviously are. I'm doing this blog thing with conviction and exuberance, while also doing my job, loving my family, fulfilling my obligations (like significant ones I carry within my beloved church). And I've not yet neglected our water meter.
"Alors, Qui Ici N'est Pas Encore Mon FRIEND Sur FACEBOOK?"
As with Star Wars, email and then blogs, I initially winced at the drug called Facebook. But now I'm a dealer. At church. It was last night, in fact, in our church parking lot after a big activity with my sweet Swiss and French charges, that I called out: "So, who here's not yet my Friend on Facebook?"
Nearly every last person was. Facebook's become not only the mechanism that keeps my personal self interconnected globally, but it's also the portal through which my professional self shares her voice and gathers a readership. (You). And it's where you can offer me feedback and invaluable reader's insights. You cannot fully appreciate how much I love your feedback!
(Haven't visited the Global Mom: A Memoir FB page? Bah, voilà: Click right here and be sure to "like" it.)
Crystal, Kim, and Chirpster
Email? Blogs? Facebook? How far can a former technophobe possibly slide down the slippery social network slope?
My two PR mavens have taught me. Crystal and Kim at BookSparks are the minds behind my book's summer release campaign. (Still pinching myself, honestly, that there's a team so invested in making my words fly. And yes, I fawn all over their expertise). They have events in the works for NYC, Utah and LA, and have hoisted me onto various social media platforms. This is why I'm now linked to Chirpster (Oh. You call it Twitter? Hm. That's cute.) And am cuckooing every day. Join in, if you want, at MDBGlobalMom.
Between this blog, the Global Mom: A Memoir FB page, and Twitter, you're bound to bump into me on a daily basis. I'm signing off here so I can go work on some promotional pieces I'm writing for Crystal and Kim, and so I can also go edit the first installment of my Global Moms vlog series, which you can access on my YouTube Channel or the Global Mom: A Memoir FB page.
As long as you're here, how about a vlog clip? Watch. Leave a comment. Tell me what you think, what you would change to improve this piece, and what questions you would ask mothers like myself who live this kind of internationally nomadic life.


text:
Interview with Todd Boyer
"All right, you better lock these doors before I run out of here," Todd said of the conference room doors. He was really excited to talk to me about his projects.
"So, um, what do you want to tell me?" I asked him.
"Don't you have a list of questions or something?"
"Just describe the project," I said. "Please."
The Seneca was originally The Seneca Hotel. It was one of the tallest buildings in Columbus and a pretty big deal. Al Sulser, former principal of the firm, had his high school prom there. Todd's Uncle Jack had his honeymoon there. It was an iconic hotel complete with a ballroom and a mezzanine overlooking the lobby accompanying the rooms.
Post-hotel at the Seneca: office space. Post office space: vacant. It was empty for ten to fifteen years and was scheduled to be demolished before investors purchased it with the intention of turning it into off campus student housing. The Seneca is on the corner of Grant Avenue and Broad Street, a short distance from Franklin University and Columbus College of Art and Design.
"We spent two and a half years on that construction. It's got a gym in it. It was on America's Most Haunted Places. One guy took a picture when we were in there and swore it was a ghost. It was creepy. I didn't know if it was a ghost or a homeless guy," Todd said jokingly. Mostly jokingly.
"Okay, but what was the biggest obstable?" I asked.
"Preserving the historic details and essence of the building while trying to accommodate market rate apartments was huge. It's on the Ohio Register of Historic Places, which means you cannot touch it," Todd said. Once they got the building to the bare bones, they had to replace everything with the same detail it harnessed before, like the windows. "New windows had to look just like the 1915 windows."
"Anything else you would care to share with the readers?" I asked Todd.
"Uh, no. This project was a really big deal for us and in general, but no."
2005 Pop Culture Facts
"All the women who independent, throw your hands up at me." This is a line from the popular Destiny's Child song, Independent Women. I'm sorry to report that they split up in 2005, but you know who didn't split? Quite the opposite. Todd Boyer got married. It was the year of love (pronunciation: lerrrrrrrve). Tom Cruise went a little nutty over his love for Katie Holmes on Oprah's couch. Edward Cullen showed Bella Swan the meaning of selfless love in the release of the first Twilight book. Wedding Crashers premiered and taught us that people can change for love. Finally, YouTube was released and Todd and Sara sat on their couch to watch their wedding video on a Thursday night after Grey's Anatomy premiered.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Toughest son of a bitch,/rock star/ dragon warrior/mage you'll ever meet.
Draco Battle Sorceror 4 (like sorceror but better HD and BAB, and light armor, but I lose one spell known and spell per day per caster progression) Draconic Bloodline (Gold) CN Str 14 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 12 Wis 7 Cha 20 (including +2 human and +2 cloak)
Gear: +1 chain shirt +1 spear longsword light xbow cloak of cha +2 scroll of identify scroll of mage armor scroll of silent image scroll of unseen servant scroll of reduce person scroll of fly wand of burning hands (4) misc gear
skill ranks Knowl arcana 4 (+8) Bluff 4 (+12) Intimidate 3 (+11) spellcraft 4 (+8) UMD 1 (+9)
Feats Combat Reflexes, Arcane Strike, Still Spell
Spells Cantrips Arcane mark acid splatter detect magic prestigitation open/close mage hand
level 1 (7 a day) magic missile mage armor shield burning hands
level 2 (3 a day) scorching ray
Hp: 40 AC: 18 FF:116 T:12 F+3 R+3 W+2 Init +2 BAB +3 Spear +6 (1d8+5) light xbow +5 (1d8) longsword +5 (1d8+3) {marked top to bottom with draconic style runes} Languages: Common, Draconic
Overall description: At first glance, Draco looks like an average infantry warrior because of his gear and physical build. A closer look brings to recognition his very tan skin (native american style), long hair and smooth face. Those who care to look on find a freaky dude with red eyes and almost misshapen hands. He exudes confidence wit his bold stance and gestures even under normal circumstances. Hanging around Draco for a while gives you a foreboding feeling, like he will be the death of you, but you follow him anyway because you believe that no matter what happens, it's gonna be awesome.
The name's Draco. No last name, he's a one name, one dragon mage spectacle. Raw magic runs through his veins, though discipline and restraint does not. Truly impulsive and showy, Drake is brash and lacks both foresight and hindsight. He studied at a magic academy for a while, though he preferred to "wing it" than engage in actual study. Other magic users often berated and bested him, so he decided to become the toughest bastard with blades, armor, and arcane prowess. Mom is actually whore who paid no attention to him, so "son of a bitch" is factual but doesn't bother him. In fact,tell Jezebel that Draco sent you and you get a discount. Father is unknown but he suspects him to be a former general (bastard trait) famous for his fearful claw like hands, that was promised a lot of land, but after dieing in combat the claim was "mysteriously lost". This was of course, Erdrick the legendary Dragon Warrior. His claim to fame is a ring Erdrick left behind with his signet at mom's nightstand. Drake uses that Signet as his Arcane mark(a mix between Prince's symbol and that tattoo that Girard from OOTS has), which he uses all the time. Mom pawned the ring recently so Draco decided to take manners into his own hands (or claws) and has been hounding the local aristocracy to acknowledge his claim. After a while of his convincing, and the fact that they were sick of him, they put him on track for the Stolen Lands. Time to spread the fame of Draco throughout the land.


text:
R for Statistical Analysis
taught by Institute Staff
In this online course, "R Statistics," you will "Learn R via your existing knowledge of basic statistics". "R Statistics" does not treat statistical concepts in depth. After completing this course, students will be able to use R to summarize and graph data, calculate confidence intervals, test hypotheses, assess goodness-of-fit, and perform linear regression.
See related course (right) "R Programming - Introduction 1," for an introduction to programming in R.
WEEK 1: The One-Sample T-Test in R
- A manual computation
- A data vector
- The functions: mean(), sd(), (pqrd)qnorm()
- Finding confidence intervals
- Finding p-values
- Issues with data
- Using data stored in data frames (attach()/detach(), with())
- Missing values
- Cleaning up data
- EDA graphs
- Histogram()
- Boxplot()
- Densityplot() and qqnorm()
- The t.test() function
- P-values
- Confidence intervals
- The power of a t test
WEEK 2: The Two-Sample T-Tests, the Chi-Square GOF test in R
- GUI's
- Rcmdr
- Tests with two data vectors x, and y
- Two independed samples no equal variance assumption
- Two independed samples assuming equal variance
- Matched samples
- Data stored using a factor to label one of two groups; x ~ f;
- Boxplots for displaying more than two samples
- The chisq.tests
- Goodness of fit
- Test of homogeneity or independence
WEEK 3: The Simple Linear Regression Model in R
- The basics of the Wilkinson-Rogers notation: y ~ x
- * y ~ x linear regression
- Scatterplots with regression lines
- Reading the output of lm()
- Confidence intervals for beta_0, beta_1
- Tests on beta_0, beta_1
- Identifying points in a plot
- Diagnostic plots
WEEK 4: Bootstrapping in R, Permutation Tests
- An introduction to bootstrapping
- The sample() function
- A bootstrap sample
- Forming several bootstrap samples
- Aside for loops vs. matrices and speed
- Using the bootstrap
- An introduction to permuation tests
- A permutation test simulation
- Aside for loops vs. matrices and speed
Homework in this course consists of short answer questions to test concepts and guided data analysis problems using software.
In addition to assigned readings, this course also has practice exercises, supplemental readings available online, and an end-of-class project.
R for Statistical Analysis
Anyone who wants to gain a familiarity with R to use it to conduct statistical analysis. Also, teachers who wish to use R in teaching introductory statistics.
Note: The statistics prerequisites are noted here because this is a "Learn R to do statistics (with which you are somewhat familiar)" course, not a "Learn statistics using your R skills" course.
You should be familiar with introductory statistics. Try these self tests to check your knowledge.
This course takes place online at the Institute for 4 weeks. During each course week, you participate at times of your own choosing - there are no set times when you must be online. Course participants will be given access to a private discussion board. In class discussions led by the instructor, you can post questions, seek clarification, and interact with your fellow students and the instructor.
At the beginning of each week, you receive the relevant material, in addition to answers to exercises from the previous session. During the week, you are expected to go over the course materials, work through exercises, and submit answers. Discussion among participants is encouraged. The instructor will provide answers and comments, and at the end of the week, you will receive individual feedback on your homework answers.
Time Requirement:
About 15 hours per week, at times of your choosing.
Students come to the Institute for a variety of reasons. As you begin the course, you will be asked to specify your category:
- No credit - You may be interested only in learning the material presented, and not be concerned with grades or a record of completion.
- Certificate - You may be enrolled in PASS (Programs in Analytics and Statistical Studies) that requires demonstration of proficiency in the subject, in which case your work will be assessed for a grade.
- CEUs and/or proof of completion - You may require a "Record of Course Completion," along with professional development credit in the form of Continuing Education Units (CEU's). For those successfully completing the course, CEU's and a record of course completion will be issued by The Institute, upon request.
- Digital Badge - Courses evaluated by the American Council on Education have a digital badge available for successful completion of the course.
- Other options - Statistics.com Specializations, INFORMS CAP recognition, and academic (college) credit are available for some Statistics.com courses
The course text is Using R for Introductory Statistics by John Verzani.
You must have a copy of R for the course. Click Here for information on obtaining a free copy.
To be scheduled.
R for Statistical Analysis
To be scheduled.
Course Fee: $549
Do you meet course prerequisites? What about book & software? (Click here to learn more)
We have flexible policies to transfer to another course, or withdraw if necessary (modest fee applies)
Group rates: Email jdobbins "at" statistics.com to get information on group rates.
First time student or academic? Click here for an introductory offer on select courses. Academic affiliation? You may be eligible for a discount at checkout.
Add $50 service fee if you require a prior invoice, or if you need to submit a purchase order or voucher, pay by wire transfer or EFT, or refund and reprocess a prior payment. Please use this printed registration form, for these and other special orders.
Courses may fill up at any time and registrations are processed in the order in which they are received. Your registration will be confirmed for the first available course date, unless you specify otherwise.
The Institute for Statistics Education is certified to operate by the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV).
Want to be notified of future courses?Yes
- Ana HenryDirector Product Management at Pharsight CorporationI need to know R to perform my job as I am a product manager for a software company that interacts with R. I am now able to understand R scripts and hopefully contribute some of my own. The instructor's videos were great. Just hearing his voice made it more personal. This was my first ever web based course and I really enjoyed it although I had to work hard.
- Pernille KoefoedUniversity of CopehagenI took the course to get starting using R, thus I think this will help with my use of statistics in the future. I really think these online courses are great.
- Kathleen GobushVulcan, IncThank you John and the TAs!! You've made my fear of R vanish-- the pace of the course definitely helped with building confidence
- Kama KennedyUS Forest ServiceThis course will definitely be used for my work... This course should be called Intro to R for Busy People. I'm really glad I took this course and will recommend it to others.
- Fabiana MacMillanRosetta StoneBoth professor Verzani and the TA's were always ready to answer questions. This is probably the most actively I've ever participated in an online class. I really benefitted from this course and I appreciate all the thought and effort put into making it such a valuable resource for R users!
- Vinuth TulasiJuniper NetworksProfessor John Verzani is excellent. I used to be thrilled to see his long explanation on the concepts. It was so helpful and makes us love the subject. If you understand the subject, you start loving the subject and this is exactly what I realized and professor's explanation made me start loving R. Assistant Teacher (Shweta Jadhav) really was so helpful. Her feedback, comments were so very valid and felt really blessed to meet and get taught from such wonderful people. Every one at Statistics are such wonderful and nice people. I am really blessed to be part of such an institute :)
- Melissa BrewerSage ProductsAll of the courses I have taken through Statistics.com have been excellent in providing understanding of statistical concepts by focusing on the logic and theory behind the equations and formulas, which has allowed me to maximize my learning experience
- Ming ZhangSenior Statistical Analyst, Northwestern MedicineInstructor John Verzani provided timely and detailed responses to each and every question posted on the forum. His depth of knowledge in both statistics and R and his passion for teaching are the major contribution to the success of this class!
- Vinuth TulasiJuniper NetworksEvery professor has unique and great qualities in them and the unique and great quality that I found in Prof Anthony Babinec is that he can write pages of explanation for each and every line in the book... He is an awesome professor. He explained each and every doubts we had to the perfection.
- Karolis UrbonasAmazonThe Statistics.com courses have helped me a lot, pushing me to the limit and making me learn much more than I expected I could. The knowledge I gained I could immediately leverage in my job ... then eventually led to landing a job in my dream company - Amazon.
- Raul BauzaSr. Manager, Global Risk Management - Risk Technology at ScotiabankI am working for Scotiabank/International Banking-Marketing (Toronto-Canada). Since we are manipulating tons of data at the customer level for more than 27 countries, R would be the perfect complement tool (we have been using SAS) for customer analytics. I am new on this R world but I would like to apply it on a daily basis soon.
- Karen TowleThe professor and assistant instructor were incredibly responsive and helpful. This was my second Statistics.com class - your faculty are an incredible asset, making these classes the best learning experience I've had online. (And thank you, thank you, thank you for not *requiring* discussion board participation. It makes the discussion much more organic, relevant, useful, and enjoyable.
- Karen TowleYour faculty are an incredible asset, making these classes the best learning experience I've had online.
- Katherine MichaelSound Healthcare Solutions LLCOverall, the instructor and the assistant instructors were responsive and helpful. The homework grading was done in a timely way and the model answers were helpful. All in all, I learned a lot and am eager to practically apply these strategies.
- Jennifer OeschThere are many things I like about your educational product. You include variety, such as the videos, the homework, the quizzes, the textbook, and the discussion board. You have well-thought out curriculum that shows a respect for good pedagogy. Your instructors are amazing! They are brilliant, and they respond very quickly! You apply real-world needs to the material being taught instead of having students memorize formulas or be confined within an academic-only practice of modeling.
- Brooke EastmanWest Virginia UniversityI am now confident that I can use R and continue learning on my own. The course also helped me to explore other resources within the R community online. I'm looking forward to using R in data analysis for my masters thesis and beyond.
- Jonathan JenkinsGreat explanations provided by the course instructor in the videos and on the discussion board. The Assistant Teacher was very diligent and professional in reaching out to me and giving me every opportunity to be successful in this course! Definitely a wonderful experience!!!
- Julie KezikYale UniversityAs a SAS programmer, I believe I will continue to use SAS for data manipulation but will utilize R when running models and exploring large data sets.
- Laila ShaarI would like to thank you for offering such a chance for people to extend their knowledge in the fields of statistics, and consequently provide them the adequate tools for better performance and sound achievements in their jobs and research.
- Karen BehrendOver the last two summers, I've taken the two stats courses meant to prepare future AP Stats teachers. Those courses were invaluable to me and gave me the confidence I needed to tackle a difficult subject.
- Herbert TurnerAnalytica, Inc.I think the resampling approaches are refreshing and insightful. And the textbooks are marvelous in their clarity of expression and real world examples. I have told many of my colleagues about this wonderful and refreshing online medium for learning about statistics.
- Herbert TurnerAnalytica, Inc.Taking as many courses through Statistics.com is one of my lifelong learning goals; I have told many of my colleagues about this wonderful and refreshing online medium for learning about statistics.
- LaVera Crawleyempirical bioethicist and Asst. Professor at the Stanford University School of MedicineI just completed another of your courses and yours is without question the best online educational resource available.
- Herman ChavarriaKinetic Concepts Inc.This is my fourth course that I have taken at statistics.com and I am very satisfied with the level and quality of instruction. I will continue to look for ...courses that I can take whenever possible.
- Floyd DemmonArcelorMittal USAOverall, this was the kind of strong, structured introductory exposure to a topic I've come to expect at statistics.com.
- Sheryl HorowitzChief Research and Evaluation Officer at Connecticut Association for Human ServicesI have been telling people about the course. I think you are doing a great job!
- Brett BergData Manager, Center for Innovative OT SolutionsI look forward to taking another course on statistics.com - a great way to continue learning in a structured manner, but flexible enough to participate while Life continues.
- David PlumsteadMy statistical knowledge and base continues to increase significantlynow with each additional Statistics.com course taken. While I may not be usingall the learnings directly in my day-to-day work (for example, regressionmodeling or calculating sample sizes), they are all influencing how I thinkabout, approach, and work with data every day; the way in which I describe andpresent data and findings to others; and the way in which I interpret otherstudies and reports from other researchers, analysts, and statisticians, etc
- Benjamin EsterniCytelAll was perfect Thanks!
- Paula Pelletier-ButlerExcellent team. Once again, I'm impressed with the level of interaction that is made almost daily from the instructors and support team. Thank you for all your help.


text:
Read the full copy from the story below:
Exclusive: Stream Ted Leo's Cover of "Heroes" from Forthcoming All-Ages David Bowie Covers Album
Today we're excited to exclusively share Ted Leo's exuberant cover of "Heroes," one of David Bowie's most legendary songs, from the forthcoming all-ages Bowie covers album Let All The Children Boogie: A Tribute to David Bowie.
When reflecting on the passing of a great figure like Bowie, it's easy to assume that they'll always be widely revered. But legacies are transient, and there's already a young generation that wasn't immersed in Bowie's music like those who grew up during or in the shadow of his "golden years" in the '70s and '80s (please excuse the irresistible pun).
So Let All The Children Boogie's mission is to introduce Bowie to a new generation. Due to be released on Nov. 18 by Spare The Rock Records, the album will feature covers by a wide range of artists, from The Mekons' Sally Timms and Jon Langford to Sonia De Los Santos and Elena Moon Park of Dan Zanes and Friends.
And that also includes the man of the hour, punk- and indie-rocker Ted Leo. Leo has made a radiant reinterpretation of "Heroes." It begins more sparsely than Bowie's version; the first verse has a soft bass and a subtle drum, and spotlights the voice. The song slowly builds to a powerful, joyous conclusion.
If you're going to share Bowie's messages with youngsters, "Heroes" is a great song with which to do it. The lyrics are about two lovers who live on either side of the Berlin Wall; after Bowie's death, the German government thanked him for helping to inspire the takedown of the wall with his 1987 performance of "Heroes" in West Berlin.
It's also Bowie's second most-covered track (after "Rebel Rebel"), and has been sung by the likes of The Wallflowers and Peter Gabriel. Ted Leo's version is an excellent addition to this body of covers, and indicates great things to come for the rest of Let All The Children Boogie.
The forthcoming album will benefit It Gets Better, an LGBTQ youth charity organization. You can pre-order it in full here, which will earn you an instant free download of Ted Leo's cover, or purchase "Heroes" by itself here. Listen to the tune below via the Paste Cloud, and find the Let All The Children Boogie tracklist beneath that.


text:
Featured Book
No products were found matching your selection.
Showing all 7 results
Our german team-member Julia from Hamburg. She loves her city, FC St. Pauli (soccer) and travelling. Due to her former job at a big publishing house she moved to Hamburg over 10 years ago. in 2014 she joined our team as a art director.


text:
- Annoying Pop-up's
- Shows commercial adverts
- Connects to the internet without permission
Our researchers have classified PaceItUp as an adware infection that poses a significant threat to your system's security. It is recommended that you remove this seemingly innocent-looking application in order to ward off any potential security threats. The app has been deemed a threat, because it displays unreliable commercial advertisements that might be brought to you by various shady businesses. PaceItUp could show misleading or fake advertisements of various websites and gather personally identifiable information about the infected computer's user. Therefore, we have composed a guide that will help you remove this infection manually.
PaceItUp is advertised as broadband quality tester that is claimed to show the exact speed of your Internet. However, research has shown that the program is only partially functional, meaning that the results are not objective, because not all variables are being tested. Therefore, this application is unreliable, since it cannot adequately perform the functions it ought to perform. So, we recommend that users remove this application at their earliest convenience. But, nevertheless, we still have more information about this app.
This infection has been classified as adware, because it displays commercial advertisements that can only be regarded as unreliable. PaceItUp could be used by dishonest advertisers to promote misleading or fake content. Consequently, you might get redirected to an infected website and get your computer infected with malicious applications if you were to download anything. Note that the infections could range from easy to remove adware to very difficult to remove ransomware. So, if your computer gets infected with ransomeware, manual removal would not be an option. To get rid of it you will need an anti-malware scanner such as SpyHunter.
In any case it would be best to remove PaceItUp before any other uninvited infection start to wreak havoc on your computer. This program, belongs to a family of clones that include: Speedcheckme, SpeedChecke, TestSpeeder and Ineedspeed, among others. In addition, PaceItUp has its own website at Paceitup.co, but the download button does not work. So, this infection can only be distributed via freeware bundles found on websites such as Softpedia.com, Brothersoft.com, and so on.
As you can see, this application is not as useful as its advertising claims it to be. In fact, the program is merely an infection that you should remove, because it poses a significant threat to your system's security. Your computer could be infected with malicious applications, which will be very difficult to root out. So, once again we advise you to remove this infection.
How to remove PaceItUp
Windows 8 and 8.1
Windows 7 and Vista
Windows XP
Download Spyware Removal Tool to Remove* PaceItUp


text:
Large Gun Safes
Have questions about which type of large gun safe to buy? Want to know what to expect with your purchase? Give us a call today and have us walk you through the steps!
Call Us at (877)442-9964
V-Line 3842 Keyless Quick Access Shotgun Case with Mechanical Lock
With V-line shot gun cases you can safely secure long guns out of reach of children and still maintain quick and easy access. The V-line hard rifle case is larger than the shot gun case. These models are designed to be mounted directly to your wall or floor; can be installed horizontally or vertically. Great for use at home, office, RV or boat. The shot gun case comes with an easy-access mechanical lock and one of two tubular key locks. For quick access you can use the mechanical lock, or it you prefer, you can use keys only.Learn More
Compare At: $276.00
Our Price: $239.80
You Save: 13.12%
V-Line 31242 Quick Access Keyless Long Gun Safe with Mechnical Lock
The V-Line Rifle Safe, model 31242-SA, is a compact, yet sturdy way to store your long guns. Our steel construction, pry resistant clam shell design, and high security locking system combine to keep your gun both safe, and handy. The 2 additional key locks give you added security when quick access is not needed. The premium powder coated finish will last for years, and will protect the steel underneath. The V-line rifle safe is wider than the V-line shotgun case.Learn More
Compare At: $349.00
Our Price: $315.00
You Save: 9.74%
Barska AX11652 Biometric Rifle and Shotgun Safe
New Quick Access Biometric Rifle Safe by Barska allows you to keep rifles, guns & ammo stored securely and quickly accessible with a scan of your fingerprint. Store up to 4 rifles securely with removable storage shelf for guns and ammo. Easy to use system allows you to register fingerprints in seconds. You can mute the beeping feature on the fingerprint pad if you chose. The door is secured with a three point dead-bolt locking system. It has earned the approval of the California Department of Justice for the safe storage of firearms.Learn More
Compare At: $607.25
Our Price: $349.99
You Save: 42.36%
Add to Cart for Discount!
Stack-On 10 Gun Safe SS-10-MG-C with Combo Lock
If you need a smaller gun safe, this Stack-On gun safe holds 10 firearms up to 54" tall. It Includes a removable shelf. Shelf is positioned in front of the unit so longer guns can be stored along the back wall. This Stack-On comes with a CA DOJ approval for security. It includes a hardened steel plate behind the combination lock. The interior of this gun safe is fully carpeted.Learn More
Compare At: $555.31
Our Price: $416.48
You Save: 25.00%
Add to Cart for Discount!
Amsec DV652 Under Bed Rifle/Gun Safe with Electronic Lock
There's no better place to store your home-defense weapon within arm's reach than under your bed in the secure and easily accessible AMSEC Defense Vault! The High Security electronic lock is easy to use, and in a matter of seconds, the door is open and the weapon is in hand!
Whether you currently have a safe or not, the Defense Vault should seriously be considered for any gun owner. Features AMSEC's new ESL5 electronic lock with an illuminated keypad. Bright, backlit keys let you enter your PIN code, even in the dark.
The AMSEC Defense Vault is constructed of 14 ga. steel with a unique 5-point slide locking bar and features a foam-padded slide-out gun tray and 4 pre-cut anchor holes with mounting hardware.Learn More
Compare At: $609.00
Our Price: $456.75
You Save: 25.00%
VLine 51653 Closet Wall/Floor Gun Vault w/ Mechanical Pushbutton Lock
This listing is for the new version of the V-Line 51653 has been refitted with a new 3 point locking system, which means quicker opening and no lost keys!
The V-line closet vault is designed for easy installation between studs in a closet. The closet vault can also be easily installed in an RV, on the floor or any wall. The closet vault features a five button mechanical lock. You never need to worry about batteries. The closet vault lock's code can be changed with a key (included). Count on the closet vault for secure storage not only for firearms but for any valuables, papers or cash.
See accessories PBCV peg board for door storage, just search for 51653 in the search bar above
HSCV half shelf for inside of Closet Vault
FSCV full shelf for inside of Closet Vault
PRCV pistol rack for peg board
GCCV includes pistol rack and gun caddy for pistol for mounting on peg boardLearn More
Compare At: $552.00
Our Price: $481.30
You Save: 12.81%
Stack-On Convertible Double Door Cabinet - GCDG-9216 w/ Key Locks
This product has been discontinued, please see substitution products below, if applicable. Call us if you have questions.
If you need indoor delivery for this 141lb safe, please call 1-877-442-9964. There is an extra charge.
Stack-on is experiencing some delays in its re-stocking. Most safes are taking two-three weeks to ship. For more information call 877-442-9964 or email customer service firstname.lastname@example.com
Use this versatile Stack-On gun safe for 31 long guns or configure shelves to hold pistols or other important items. This Stack-On gun safe has the approval of the California Department of Justice for the secure storage of firearms. One side of the gun safe is prepared to hold barrel rests (extra barrel rests included). This same side of the gun safe has padded sides and bottoms to reduce scratching.Learn More
Compare At: $721.64
Our Price: $541.23
You Save: 25.00%
Add to Cart for Discount!
Out of stock
Stack-On SS-16-MB-E-DS Boltable 16 Rifle/Shotgun Safe w/ Digital Lock
This electronic gun safe is a California DOJ-approved firearms safety device. A California approved firearms safety device rating means that an electronic gun safe meets the requirements of California Penal Code Section 12088 and the regulations issued thereunder. The electronic lock includes a drill resistant, hardened steel plate behind the lock for greater security. A trouble key is included. Batteries are accessible from the front of the safe and are easy to replace so you will never be locked out of your electronic gun safe..Learn More
Compare At: $748.99
Our Price: $561.74
You Save: 25.00%
Add to Cart for Discount!
Stack-On FS-8-MB-E 8 Gun Fire Safe with Digital Lock
The FS-8-MB-E Stack-On electronic guns safe allows easy and fast access with its key pad lock. Stack-On makes sure their electronic gun safe is just as drill resistant as a product with a combination lock would be because it includes a drill resistant, hardened steel plate behind the lock. The electronic gun safe lock operates with 4 AA batteries which can be changed from the front of the safe. This feature plus the over-ride key assure you will never be locked out. Add the ETL fire rating and you can't find a better small electronic gun safe!Learn More
Compare At: $873.28
Our Price: $654.96
You Save: 25.00%
Add to Cart for Discount!
Mesa MBF1512E Burglary/Impact/2 Hour Fire Safe
MESA's MBF Series Burglary and Fire Safes offer a unique design that combines all the security features of a burglary safe and the peace of mind achieved with a fire safe. The MBF Series safes are designed to protect all your valuable possessions against both theft and any fire emergency.Learn More
The burglary features of the safe includes an all-steel construction, battery-operated electronic lock, massive one-inch diameter live locking bolts and heavy-duty hinges. The all-steel construction ensures durability, strength and lifelong use that can withstand heavy physical attacks from burglars. The battery-operated electronic lock is protected by a drill resistant hard-plate and a keypad lockout feature. The keypad lockout penalty feature will initiate once multiple combinations have been entered incorrectly. This prevents the unauthorized user from attempting to enter more combinations. The massive diameter live-locking bolts drive into the steel body of the safe and the heavy-duty hinges prevent any thief from prying the safe open.
The fire-resistant safe features include a two-hour fire rating that is tested in temperatures of up to 1830 ° Fahrenheit. This ensures that the contents of the safe remain at room temperature and stays intact all while withstanding extremely high temperatures of heat. The fireproof safes are especially designed for those that live in areas where wildfires are likely to happen or in hot climate areas.
With both combined features you are able to protect, secure and store all valuables such as important documents, passports, cash, birth certificates, jewelry, deeds, receipts and other irreplaceable records. Save yourself the hassle of losing your important paperwork when the unexpected happens.
Compare At: $928.00
Our Price: $665.00
You Save: 28.34%


text:
How to Create Accurate Graphs on the TI-84 Plus
The TI-84 Plus graphing calculator can do only what you tell it to do — which doesn't always produce an accurate graph. Following are the three main causes of inaccurate graphs, and their solutions:
The graph is distorted by the size of the screen.
Because the calculator screen isn't square, circles don't look like circles unless the viewing window is properly set. How do you properly set the viewing window? No problem! Just graph the function, and then press [ZOOM][5] to invoke the ZSquare command.
ZSquare readjusts the window settings for you and graphs the function again in a viewing window in which circles look like circles.
The viewing window is too small or too big.
If you don't know what the graph should look like, then after graphing it you should zoom out to see more of the graph or zoom in to see a smaller portion of the graph. To do this, press [ZOOM][3] to zoom out, or press [ZOOM][2] to zoom in.
Then use the
keys to move the cursor to the point from which you want to zoom out or in, and press [ENTER]. It's just like using a camera. The point you want to move the cursor to is the focal point.
After zooming in or out, you may have to adjust the window settings.
As an example, follow the progression of graphing Y1.
It was first graphed in the Standard viewing window. Then it was zoomed out from the point (0, 10). And finally, the window settings were adjusted to get a better picture of the graph.
Vertical asymptotes may not be recognizable.
In all graph styles except Animate and Dotted Line, the calculator graphs one point, and then the next point, and connects those two points with a line segment. This sometimes causes vertical asymptotes to appear on the graph. The last graph illustrates an example of when a vertical asymptote is present. Don't mistake this almost-vertical line for a part of the graph. It's not; it's just a vertical asymptote.
In a different viewing window, the vertical asymptote may not even appear. This happens when the calculator graphs one point, but the next point is undefined because the x value of that point is exactly at the location of the vertical asymptote. Here is an example of re-graphing the last graph, using a viewing window in which the vertical asymptote does not appear.
How to Measure an Angle with GeoMaster
For GeoMaster on the TI-84 graphing calculator to recognize the existence of an angle, tha...


text: I'm trying to do a D9P on point with sashing around each block. I can't seem to wrap my brain around which blocks to put the sashing on and how to sew the next block to the one with the sashing. I know you don't put sashing around every block because that would make it too wide. I also can't figure out how to sew the blocks together once they are on point. How do you finish the edges? I've googled but can't seem to find what I'm looking for. Then again I'm not sure what I'm looking for :shock: Can anyone figure out what I'm trying to do and explain it to me in plain english? :D


text:
City offers Occupy LA a deal, that City Hall PR contract gets messy, a new dance company from Benjamin Millipied, new board members at the Press Club and Father Dollar Bill dies.
City officials have offered Occupy L.A. protesters free downtown office space, access to land to farm and other incentives to get them to leave the camp outside City Hall, camp negotiators said at last night's general assembly. LAT, DN
That PR contract we told you about for the City Council's redistricting panel has of course turned into a political contest among firms with lobbying deals and other ties to City Hall. "I don't think this will be viewed as a positive development," said Councilwoman Jan Perry. LAT, DN
The chancellor of UC Davis apologized in a tense speech before about 1,000 students and others for the campus' police use of pepper spray on peaceful students, and placed the police chief on administrative leave. LAT, Bee
Lt. John Pike, the UC Davis police officer believed to have pepper-sprayed students on campus Friday, is a former United States Marine who was given an award for valor in 2007 when he saved other officers from a scissor-wielding patient at the school's medical center. Sacto Bee
California's campus movements dig in their heels. NYT
A Times editorial suggests the paper believes Sheriff Lee Baca reopened the Natalie Wood case to divert attention from criticism of his department. LAT editorial
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will hold a December 2 fundraising reception and dinner co-hosted by Rob and Michele Reiner, Steve Bing, Laura and Casey Wasserman, Controller Wendy Greuel and Austin Beutner, among others. THR
Michelangelo Signorile was named Editor-at-Large of HuffPost Gay Voices. Via release
Robert Kovacik of KNBC and Barbara Gasser, an Austrian reporter based in L.A., were elected to two-year terms on the Los Angeles Press Club board. President Will Lewis, Jill Stewart, Beth Barrett and Jane Engle were reelected. Gloria Zuurveen, owner and editor of Pace News, was appointed to a vacancy.
Rev. Maurice Chase, the Catholic priest known as "Father Dollar Bill," gave away $1 bills to the homeless on Skid Row on holidays, such as Thanksgiving and Easter, for 32 years. He died Sunday night of cancer at age 92. KTLA
Brandon McInerney, the Oxnard teenager who shot and killed a gay schoolmate three years ago, agreed to serve 21 years in prison and avoid a second trial. LAT
Choreographer Benjamin Millepied is launching a new local dance company, L.A. Dance Project, with a commission from Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center. LAT
Warner Bros. has recreated the old Slapsy Maxie's nightclub in a former Bellflower supermarket for an upcoming movie, Gangster Squad, in which Sean Penn plays the late mobster Mickey Cohen. Patrick Goldstein/Big Picture
Ira Michael Heyman, the former UC Berkeley chancellor who became the first non-scientist to lead the Smithsonian Institution, has died at 81. LAT, Wash Post, Smithsonian


text:
The problem is straightforward: more than nine million children die each year in Africa. That is the number of people in the entire state of New Jersey.
African kids die from infectious diseases such as HIV, TB, malaria, respiratory illnesses, diarrhea, worms, parasites, and vaccine-preventable diseases, malnutrition and -- far too often -- during childbirth itself.
In an exclusive interview with HuffPo, Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, M.D., M.P.H. spoke to me about Africa, child mortality, and an intelligent, charismatic women who has learned much about both: Madonna.
Millennium Villages help care for children in Africa.
Dr. Sonia Sachs is a public health specialist and serves as the health coordinator for the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
She is also married to another brilliant thought leader and global citizen, Prof. Jeffry Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute, and Special Advisor to the U.N. Secretary General on the Millennium Development Goals.
Sonia is the pediatrician who was with Madonna in Malawi when the singer met one-year old David Banda. Sonia explained to me that the evening David left the orphanage to spend his first night with Madonna in a hotel in Lilongwe, he was very ill and could have died, as did his other siblings before him. She credits the entertainer for saving the child's life.
I had not realized that Madonna's project, Raising Malawi, was helping to support one of Jeff's Millennium Villages near Lilongwe. That was one of the reasons Sonia was with Madonna on the trip.
"David would have died that evening or the following day if it were it not for Madonna. I can tell you with certainty that he would have died had he stayed in the orphanage," Sonia told me.
"The evening David was handed over to Madonna, he had a very high fever and was in acute respiratory distress -- meaning he had difficulty breathing."
"We took him to a private clinic, where a colleague and I examined him carefully, took a chest X-ray, diagnosed his respiratory infection, and treated him immediately with an inhaler, and intramuscular antibiotics. Lower respiratory infections like pneumonia are a common killer of so many children in Africa every year."
As founder of Orphans International Worldwide, I have experienced the death of one of our children in Haiti. The pain of losing a child is indescribable.
Last fall, Sonia presented to our Orphans International Worldwide Congress -- held at N.Y.U. Medical School -- on the grim story of African child mortality. She explained about preventable and treatable conditions such as extreme nutrient deficiencies, infectious diseases and unsafe childbirth.
The deaths of African children are all about food, water, and cooking stoves. Sonia explained that there is usually no public health system in place to address this tragic litany of otherwise very approachable issues.
Simple, non-clinical health interventions make a big difference in saving lives, Sonia believes. Improved nutrition through school meals, better cooking stoves to reduce open fire and indoor air pollution, clean water, mosquito bed nets, and de-worming are all essential, interventions needed but not affordable by people living in extreme poverty.
Through her work, Sonia has come to know Madonna a little bit. "I have found Madonna to be an impressively solid person dedicated to her children and to the welfare of thousands of neglected orphans in Malawi."
A Millennium Village doctor examining a child.
Sonia has personally witnessed Madonna's compassion and motherly instincts more than once.
In Malawi some people practice witchcraft. On occasion, a boy's entire genitalia are removed by villagers based on ancient superstition. One little boy Madonna met had been so mutilated he could not stop wetting himself. The physical and emotional suffering was unbearable.
Madonna held the boy and pledged to care for him, which she has done to this day by looking after his medical and educational needs. Thanks to Madonna, the boy continues to improve.
Children learning in a Millennium Village in Africa.
Madonna somehow speaks to the children of the world. From Africa to Asia and the Americas. My own teenage son Mathew -- adopted at the age of ten months from Indonesia -- has informed me that if I ever meet Madonna without him, he will disown me.


text:
High School Sports
Clovis cross country runners score top finishes at major meets
Buchanan High's outstanding cross country duo of Corie Smith and Meagen Lowe, coming off a 1-2 sweep at the state meet, finished in the top 21 Saturday at the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Ore.
Lowe, a junior, ran the 5,000-meter course in 18 minutes 5.6 seconds for 16th place out of 198 finishers. New York sophomore Katelyn Touhy won in 16:44.7.
Smith, a sophomore and last week's state champion, was 21st in 18:09.8. Buchanan's team placed 12th. Other Bears results were sophomore Amanda Dolberg (19:30.2, 104th), senior Sydney Fox (20:04.2, 146th), senior Clare Hernandez (20:06.8, 152nd), senior Alyssa Destasio (20:14.9, 157th) and senior Katie Nili (20:32.2, 169th).
Many top area runners competed Saturday in the Foot Locker West Regional Championships in Walnut. Highlight finishes there were Clovis High's Olivia Herrera winning the Junior Girls race in 19:03.1 and Buchanan senior Hayden Hansen (17:03.2) 99th in the Seeded Boys race.


text:
From Liesl Jobson
Karabo's Question, by Natalie Edwards, Liesl Jobson and Marike Beyleveld
Little Karabo watches all the grown-ups in her family, and wonders, 'What do I do? What do I know?'
Created at Book Dash Johannesburg on 27 July 2015 by Natalie Edwards (illustrator), Liesl Jobson (writer) and Marike Beyleveld (designer).
Available in:
- English (en)
Download source and print-ready files
Book Dash Jozi, 27 June 2015
We teamed up with the lovely folk at African Storybook to bring Book Dash to Jozi on 27 June 2015. Teams worked together to create new children's books in just twelve hours.
Together We're Strong by Liesl Jobson, Alice Toich and Nazli Jacobs
From the day she was born to the day she died, Albertina Sisulu lived a life of love and sacrifice. A brave girl who rode a horse, she was a blessing to her family, to her community and to South Africa. This story of a unique and powerful woman, who stood up for her beliefs no matter what, will inspire and enchant.
The story of Albertina Sisulu, created at Book Dash Cape Town on 30 August 2014 by Liesl Jobson, Alice Toich and Nazli Jacobs.
Available in:
- Afrikaans (af)
- English (en)
- isiXhosa (xh)
- isiZulu (zu)
- Sepedi (nso)
- Sesotho (st)
Download print-ready files
Download MP3 audiobook
Book Dash Cape Town, 30 August 2014
Our third Book Dash was Women's Day themed, and organised in collaboration with Rock Girl and the African Storybook Project. Each team wrote a biography of an inspiring African woman.
Mandela Day Handout, 18 July 2014
Book Dashers congregated at Jireh ECD Centre in Mitchell's plain to hand out 750 Book Dash books to children. Each child got to take home three beautiful Book Dash books.
A Fish and a Gift, by Jesse Breytenbach, Liesl Jobson and Andy Thesen
Yusuf waits on the beach while Papa pushes out his boat. Surfers, turtles and sharks come from the sea. What will Papa bring back for Yusuf?
Created at Book Dash Cape Town on 28 June 2014 by Liesl Jobson (writer), Jesse Breytenbach (illustrator) and Andy Thesen (designer).
Available in:
- Afrikaans (af)
- English (en)
- Français (fr)
- isiXhosa (xh)
- isiZulu (zu)
- Sepedi (nso)
- Sesotho (st)
Download print-ready files
Download MP3 audiobook
Book Dash Cape Town, 28 June 2014
Our second Book Dash saw ten teams working for 12 hours at Cape Town Central Library. The space buzzed with creative energy as each team created a story from scratch.


text:
Students at Alvarado Elementary South were treated to visitors from the community last week as part of the district's Indian Friend Reading Day program.
Community and business leaders in Alvarado volunteered to read to a class and speak with the students about what it is they do in the community.
"Our 10th annual Indian Friend Reading Day was a great success" principal Karla Moore said. "We planned this day to coincide with World Read Aloud Day. Our focus was Kindness, so all of the books selected had a theme related to being kind to one another. Our students enjoy being read aloud to from various people around our community."
Readers included representatives from Thompson Pipe, Alvarado Police Department, Alvarado Fire Department, First Financial Bank and local churches, as well as students from Alvarado High School's Leo Club.


text:
About Tailgating For A Cause.
Tailgating For A Cause is a 501c3 non-profit based in Knoxville, Tenn. This organization is a people-focused vehicle for change, designed to bring together folks who love two things – helping others, and having fun. Founded upon the idea that fun and philanthropy aren't mutually exclusive, our mission is to give the community the opportunity to come together and support local charities, and have a whole lot of fun along the way.
For a small group of local Vol fans, the passion was already there. They were lifelong football enthusiasts who just happened to love helping people. Bringing the two together was just the next logical step.
Thus, on an unseasonably warm fall day in 2014, Tailgating for a Cause was born. It started small, with just a grill, a single TV and a few cases of, uh, Powerade, but in the three years since, has flourished into an experience unlike any other on campus. And with a multitude of local and national charities now benefiting from its largesse, a bevy of events year-round, and the support of countless local businesses, food, and beverage sponsors, the Tailgating for a Cause movement is more exciting than ever!
Come on in! We'd love to spend our Saturday with you.


text:
Monday, April 6, 2009
The Ugly American- Part Deux
I didn't bother to get up and turn off the TV so at 4 a.m. I was awakened by the screen showing the bama in Paris getting pulled down by some smelly French chick who kissed him-long and hard. Then it showed him in the next stop on his European-American- Bashing- Travels in Prague. I closed my eyes hoping the report would get off him.
I could hear the crowds in Prague screaming and carrying on as the bama spouted off Chech history and how much he loved them when he was in Chicago… AND then I looked up again…there he was in the middle of thousands who had gatherd in the square… standing in front of TWO OBVIOUS TELEPROMPTERS.
Enough! Enough! I got up and the screen went black.
Posted by MLWELZ at 3:28 AM
Labels: BashingAmericanTour


text:
Snacks - Finger Food
(Recipe Collection)
26 Recipes Created by KARENSUEBURTON
Sometimes we use these as in-the-car breakfast or lunches!
Recipes in this Collection
Celery & Laughing Cow CheeseSubmitted by MELTINGMIMI
Submitted by KARENSUEBURTON
These are unbelievably easy and unbelievably fantastic! Chewy, gooey and not bad at all!Submitted by NICOLETTEDIMON
These are SUPER easy, quick and amazing--perfect for snacking on the go. Submitted by FANNETASTICFOOD
Saw this one on Rachel Ray. Wonderful little treat or a breakfast on the go. Half a recipe packs more protein than a bowl of oatmeal for only 124 calories.Submitted by KARENSUEBURTON
Grabbed this one off the Quaker Oats box. We LIKE these! One cookie is 60 calories, so as long as you can eat just one, a cookie might be a good thing now and then. Or, for a really funky meal, spread 1 oz. of cream cheese between 2 cookies.Submitted by KARENSUEBURTON
Great, refreshing on-the-go snack.Submitted by KARENSUEBURTON
We really enjoy chips and dip, and this is a not-so-unhealthy way to have that snack without blowing our diets.Submitted by KARENSUEBURTON
Simple, nutritious, satisfying snack. My husband and I each take one of these to work every day for a mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack. He likes peanuts in his. My 2-year-old grandson also enjoys this one. You can use 1 oz. of any kind of nut. Submitted by KARENSUEBURTON
Cookbook creator says: have not tried this yet - but peanut butter cookies without flour is worth a shot!Submitted by SQUEEZYELYSEE
This isn't really a light recipe, but it is definately tasty and a big hit when entertaining. It's my most requested dish.Submitted by KICKASS1
Cookbook creator says: I used parmessan cheese, garlic powder, salt and parsley. A lot of recipes called for dill and/or ranch dressing mix.Submitted by JAMERS99
Can make into balls for a snack or appetizer, or can bake in a casserole dish.Submitted by KARENSUEBURTON
This slimmed down version of your favorite dip is easy to make--and it's light enough for you to load up on it! Submitted by STEPFANIER
From Dr. Oz's website. Agave is sweeter than sugar, so less is needed. Nice "to go" snack to keep on hand.Submitted by KARENSUEBURTON
This homemade alternative to store-bought granola bars, is a good source of protein, fiber and healthy fats. Tasty and so simple to make! A quarter cup of raisins (not included here) also make a yummy addition!Submitted by COACH_NICOLE
These bite-size tacos are always a hit in our house! Have some fun with this recipe; try adding chopped chives, avocado, different varieties of beans, or red onions.
Submitted by CHEF_MEG
Who can resist thick, creamy decadent cheesecake? Try this low-fat version in the single-serving size.
I love cannoli but with the calorie content this is a great alternative and just as delicious. What you want to do is use the packaged mini phyllo dough shells instead of the sheets Submitted by TGHEIDI


text:
The Forgotten
September 22, 2016
I've been meaning to write this for some time. It's heavy, bare with me. I recently met the ladies who run San Mar Treatment Foster Care in Boonsboro at Brunswick's First Friday's event. As many of you know, the idea of adoption has been weighing on my heart for some time, but right now is … More The Forgotten


text:
Many people have inadvertently burned our hand or arm while removing clothes from a hot dryer, so it isn't a stretch to conclude that anything that can heat up to such a degree may also be fully capable of triggering a fire. The clothes dryer has become a staple of almost every home or apartment complex in the country, an indispensible part of our lives when it comes to keeping clothes cleaned and ready to wear.
Add to that the fact that fabric and lint are tossing around inside this superheated unit, and you end up wondering why we don't hear about dryer-related fires more often.
Make yourself aware of them. Take a few seconds and familiarize yourself with them If there is a chance that the clothing item contains flammable materials such as alcohol, gasoline, spot removers, or cleaning solvents, do not risk exposing them to the high temperatures found in many drying cycles. Know what is on your clothing before putting it in your dryer.
Many flammable substances generate vapors that could not only cause a fire, but trigger an explosion. A saturated lint trap can easily catch fire if left unattended for too long. The less lint trapped in your dryer, the better off you will be. Be sure to clean the lint traps in your dryer between loads, and that alone will go a long way towards preventing fire problems.
Read the owners' manual. In addition, look behind the dryer where lint can become trapped (this is something that most of us do not do). The manufacturer has put together a list of warnings for your benefit. Warning markings are also located on the interior of the dryer door. The good news is that dryer fires can be avoided with little or no interruption to your daily routine.
Fortunately, improvements in industry standards and manufacturers' quality control have helped cut down the number of occurrences of dryer-related fires by about 35% since the late 1970s. This means that the filters and vents are becoming clogged and not doing their job effectively. Providing proper service and maintenance of your dryer can significantly cut down on the chances for an unexpected blaze
Plastic or vinyl hoses are also fire hazards and should be replaced by heavy duty flexible metal hoses. Have the interior of the dryer as well as the venting system professionally cleaned by a qualified service technician every year or so. You will know it is time for such maintenance when you start noticing longer than average drying times.


text:
Heyyy! I'm Genevieve!
...and I'm your Intentional Living + Abundance Mindset Coach!
I help people become Free & Abundant forces for Good in this world through Coaching, Mindset Work & In-Home Sessions. I also teach, write & speak about Minimalism + Low [Zero] Waste.
I partner with people through High-Level Coaching Programs as well as In-Home Abundance Sessions where we can focus on removing the 'Lack' in your life through Decluttering your Home, Budget & Mindset so that you can receive all the Abundance coming your way.
The Classy Hippie Blog is a space for me to share insights and tips into living more Intentionally while shifting into Abundance as well as my own personal journey + fun things like Travel and what I'm learning and thinking about.
My ultimate goal & dream is to create a School // Commune where people come to learn about themselves, their communities, the arts, social justice and Mama Earth. The Podge Co. is that School // Commune, or as I like to call it, an Educational Collective. I have no idea how to start a School // Commune - but I'm excited about the journey and excited to take you along for the ride! [More to come later this year.]
If you're interested in working together through Coaching, In-Home Sessions or Collaborating on Guest Blog Posts, Speaking Engagements or Partnerships, you can contact me directly through my email email@example.com or by using the form Here>>
Thanks for visiting!
Love & Learning,
Genevieve | The Classy Hippie