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The gay community has gone too damned far.
I tried to be cool. Even through their "Gay is the new Black" slogan, which offended me deeply.
After all, I think it's silly for oppressed groups to compare oppression.
But it happens. And every group seems to come directly to African Americans to compare their hard times to ours.
I'm sick of it and now I'm angry.
In addition to comparing their oppression to ours, many in the gay community have now been making demands of the Black community, as though we owe them something.
The gay community is angry at the Black community for not fighting for their marriage rights.
And, gays around the nation are expressing anger at President Barack Obama for not moving faster on gay issues, even though he's been less than swift on Black issues, because there are NATIONAL issues that must be addressed first.
But in case you didn't know, Barack is Black and he is not gay. He has a full plate and minority politics will come around.
And I never heard such outcry over the non-gay activism of George W. Bush or any of the other White presidents.
To be clear, for every gay person who supported the Civil Rights Movement, there were and are Blacks who supported the Gay Rights Movement. Many of us have marched in your parades and many more of us have protected our gay relatives and friends.
And now, we are hearing from gay people who are also Black that there is racism inside of the gay community. We openly acknowledge that there is some anti-gay sentiment in the Black community–why can't/won't your community acknowledge its own prejudices?
Many of us have even encountered racism from gay people who are quick to assert their Whiteness above their status as members of an oppressed group.
My first encounter with gay racism was in 1992.
I was working on a magazine that I would later purchase. My partner at the time had a rainbow coalition of employees, including one gay man who had just come out of the closet to his parents with a letter. That letter was in his desk when two other employees decided to pass it around the office and make jokes.
I took the letter from them and forcefully discouraged any further mirth at this man's expense. He profusely thanked me and ranted on about how the gay community and the Black community are kindred spirits and must stick together. Without openly countering his position, I assured him that it was a human issue for me.
That was in 1992 after Rodney King got the dog dirt crap beaten out of him at the hands of the LAPD for being Black in Los Angeles.
Flash forward to the verdict of the cops who beat King and when the "Not Guilty" verdicts came in–the gay man who spoke volumes of a Black/gay alliance went immediately to his Whiteness, spewing: "I'm glad there is justice in this country. Who knows what that King guy was up to."
Attempts to explain the wrong-headedness of such a sentiment fell on deaf ears. This gay man who gushed of the unity of the oppressed, now proclaimed that there was no racism in America and that Black people simply needed to "get over it."
This was the same gay man who, after OJ Simpson's "Not Guilty" verdict angrily cried: "There is no justice in America."
My point?
This White man was clearly racist at the most and blind to racism at the least. Yet, because of his status as a gay man, he not only wanted to claim minority status, but also wanted an alliance with the Black community to support his issues.
I get it.
For many factions in America, the Black community is to be called upon for support, but not answered when support is needed.
Such sentiment has created bad relationships analogous to one of my ex-girlfriends who treated me horribly and abandoned me in a time of need, but called upon me to defend her from her new boyfriend who was abusing her.
I quoted the rapper Common, when I told her what I'd like the gay community to hear: "I'm not hating, I'm just not paying you any attention."
And that's where many in the Black community are right now with respect to gay issues. We're not hating or homophobic, we're just not paying any attention.
Many of us just don't care.
Sorry, gay folks, but your desire to have a legally recognized partnership pales in comparison to my desire to not have the police kick the crap out of me for having Black skin.
Your apples. My oranges.
Perhaps we could have had a real alliance if your community was intrinsically active and concerned from 1964 forward. But somewhere along the way, when more of you were able to garner public recognition, you cared less about our issues.
I'm okay with that as long as you don't expect me to care about yours.
And lately, I've been reading about how your community, just as many other communities in America, allows racism to rear its ugly head unchecked.
Yes, I've heard about how the "N" word is tossed about freely at gay pride parades and in gay bars, and even at demonstrations in support of gay marriage.
And, you have the nerve to demand our support of your issues?
To be clear, gay is NOT the new Black-Black is the new Black as well as the old Black, which is why it's Black and NOT gay. Got it?
In an effort to destroy the comparison of your oppression to the oppression of African descendants in America, here's some stark divergence:
While some in your community have behavior that makes them stick out like a sore thumb, most look as regular as anyone and are accepted as such unless and until they announce their difference.
On the other hand, I can not simply be quiet about who I am and pass through society the way most of the members in your community can.
Because my magnet for discrimination is outward and immutable, while yours is more behavioral, there is no intrinsic comparison.
You were never enslaved, you just can't get married.
I'm certain there will be gays who decry my ignorance of gay issues. My reply will be: "So what?"
Be angry if you want, but I don't give two craps. There is no reason for any other oppressed group to proclaim that they have the same oppression as Africans in America and when you make such comparisons you create a schism instead of fostering harmony.
Perhaps you should have chosen a better cornerstone for your current activism.
You'd get more alliance mileage out of the beating of gay men and women, because many of us are keenly concerned about the beating of young Black men and the mistreatment of young Black women.
But gay marriage?
While we search for common ground and common concerns, there is something you can do that will make more of us open to an intrinsic alliance:
In efforts to stop discrimination against you, make good effort to stop discrimination against us.
Especially when it comes from you.


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The right advice, the right business structure at the right price.
Choosing the right business structure is an important decision and is critical to your business success. We'll guide you through the business structure options and determine the appropriate structure for your personal and business circumstances. The right structure will allow for effective risk and tax minimisation and asset protection.
We advise clients on these structures:
- Sole trader
- Partnership
- Discretionary (Family) Trust
- Company
In additional to providing advice on proposed business structures, we can review your existing business structures. We strongly advise business owners and investors to regularly review their current business structures. A structure that was once suitable for your business may not be the most effective structure now for tax minimisation or asset protection.

subset: commoncrawl


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International Teaching Placement
This content was COPIED from BrainMass.com - View the original, and get the already-completed solution here!
Please help with the following questions, hypothetically:
(a) Why you would wish to undertake the international practice teaching placement in Jamaica (Kingston)
(b) The qualities one should have that will ensure success in a challenging practice teaching placement and environment, especially your resiliency and your capacity to get along with other people,
(c) What one would hope to learn and accomplish in the placement,
(d) Any additional information you think will demonstrate suitability for an international placement.
Maximum length is one page. Please use 12 point font - single spaced, minimum 1-inch margins.
Solution Preview
Although you will need to use your own skills and talents for this subjective assignment, I can provide you with an Illustrative Example to use as an exemplar for writing your final copy.
Let's take a closer look.
I would undertake the international practice teaching placement In Jamaica for two major reasons. First, increasingly teachers must be prepared to teach diverse student populations. In fact, most teacher accreditation standards explicitly require that teacher candidates develop a knowledge base of theory, research, and effective instructional practices through direct experiences teaching diverse populations of students. Consequently, teachers who develop such a knowledge base are better prepared to modify and adapt instruction for all learners, ...
Solution Summary
Through an illustrative example and by answering the suggested questions, this solution provides a one-page report demonstrating suitability for an international teaching placement.


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World of Outlaws
There's no real explanation for World of Outlaws. If you claim to be a car nut, this is one of those things you need to experience, a lot like shifter karts. The things these cars do, on dirt, with turns, in a pack of cars; it's just crazy.
I mean, when you need another V8 just to push the thing and get it started; and when you only have "in gear" and "out of gear", you have to instantly understand how ballistic these things are. They're missiles on wheels.
Push-rod, single cam, 410 cubic inch and solid axles doesn't scream performance to the average car guy these days. Couple that with an adjustable aero package, dry sump pumps, staggered tires and true drivers you will understand that this is everything good about racing. Real drivers hustling real cars around a few corners faster than most vehicles make it down the drag strip.
A half-mile, in 13.892 seconds when you add in two turns is insane. That's about as fast as Mark IV Supra TT get's down the strip.
Center lock wheels with a myriad of wheel spacers help to adjust the left to right traction conditions. You would be surprised at how much grip dirt allows. They will hook up in the turns enough to corner on one wheel. Sit back and think about everything that goes into making a turn, on one wheel, over 90mph in a 1400lb race car.
I didn't have the opportunity to weigh one of the tires for myself but lets just say, you can lift two in one hand. They're a special construction of nylon and rubber with the perfect properties for flying on the ground.
2 responses
Cool pictures, never gave much thought on these. I hope you still post every now and then, if not could you provide a FB or IG? Thanks
07/23/2015 at 5:12 pm


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Get Lucky This St. Patrick's Day in Buckhead!
Event expired or is no longer available.
Everyone is Lucky in Buckhead this St. Patrick's Day weekend! Make your plans to start your celebration a day early on Saturday, March 16th at Atlanta's Largest St. Patrick's Day event. "Lucky Leprechaun in Buckhead" with 10+ participating bars, restaurants & clubs.
Ticket Includes: Irish themed comp shots & food specials, 3/2/1 Specials ($3.00 Well Cocktail or $2.00 Beer or $1.00 Shot), live music, DJ's, party beads & no covers. Map with food & drink offerings info is given out at registration.
Participating Establishments (Drink & Food Offerings)
Fadó Irish Pub: Free Entry to Outdoor Party after 10pm ($20 Value)Hole in the Wall: Comp Shot (No Dedicated Line after 11pm)Moon Dogs: Comp Shot & $3 Evan Williams Cocktail, $4 Car Bomb, $5 Pints of Guinness & Harp, $6 Paddy's Irish Whisky Shots, $8 Classic Car Bombs & $12 Pitchers of Green Beer (Bud Light or Bud)Red Martini Bar: Comp Shot (Free entry til midnight w/ wristband)Lost Dog Tavern: Comp Shot with $3 beer purchaseDive Bar: $3 Cocktail or $2 BeerElbow Room: $4 Well or $3 Domestic Beer & $10 18? Large Cheese Pizza (Toppings Extra)Red Door Tavern: 321 SpecialsIrby's Tavern: 321 Specials
(Bars and drink offerings are subject to change)
Party Registration Location: Hole in the Wall
Address: 3177 Peachtree Rd, Atlanta, GA 30305
Check In Time: 7:00 pm - 11:00 pmEvent Time: 7:00 pm - 2:00 am
* MUST HAVE A VALID ID and be 21 & UP TO ATTEND EVENT *
* RAIN or MOONLIGHT (No Refunds)
More Info: www.atlantabartours.com


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Heat in, bugs out!
It's great to have a warm mug of tea or coffee in the garden but very often, by the time you take a sip, the drink is cold or worse-still a bug or leaf has dropped into your drink. These natty gardener's mugs are shaped like garden pots and come with a clever lid to keep your drink hot and the bugs out. What's more, the lid acts as a perfect tray for a couple of biscuits, provided they aren't chocolate ones!
Also Availabe in teal here.
Product of the Week
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In his closing remarks for the TANDEM panel discussion at IPPEA on 20 June 2014, Franco Bianchini (Professor of Cultural Policy, Leeds Metropolitan University), placed TANDEM in the current European political and socio-economic context. Prof. Bianchini's analysis leads to the conclusion that the programme's relevance lies is the support and development of an active community of cultural change makers across Europe.
"...in this really difficult economic political context, I consider the work of TANDEM and other European participatory cultural practitioners in Europe [...] crucial, because they can respond to populist simplifications,..."
You watch the full video (5min6) below.
For further information about the conference visit the TANDEM website.
This programme is an initiative of the Dutch Cultural Participation Fund (FCP) and European Cultural Foundation (ECF), implemented by MitOst e.V. in partnership with the British Council and the Dutch Centre of Expertise for Cultural Education and Amateur Arts (LKCA).


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Featured datasets
All of our open datasets are available for you to use for free.
All of our open datasets are available for you to use for free.
Food hygiene ratings and API.
Full list of approved food establishments.
Latest Food and You survey data.
A monthly-updated list of all FSA spending over £25,000. Published as part of the Government's commitment to transparency in expenditure.
Financial transactional data, including reconciliations and journals.
Listings of the cost centres, structure and account codes available for use.
Core Tables as required by FReM detailing the FSA's Administration budget
Details of the Non-Current Assets held on the FSA's Statement of Financial Position.
Quarterly summaries of FSA expenditure approvals for ICT, advertising and marketing, recruitment, property and consultancy controls.
Expenditure on FSA research programmes under science and evidence.


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Click to read CNM's tribute honoring the life of former CNM President and CEO Lewis Lavine.
Read more from the Nashville area of the Grant Professionals Association (GPA) about this opportunity for a free one-year professional membership.
Parking is always free for CNM visitors, but please note these important updates when visiting.
Check the schedule provided in this post for information about the next Planned Giving Council of Middle Tennessee meetings.
Read more about the invitation for proposals for activities that promote ongoing, mutually-beneficial, health-oriented research partnerships between community organizations and academic researchers.
After nine years of steadfast service and flawless event management, CNM is wishing a tearful bon voyage to our long-time employee Avé Trotter at the end of this year. Avé has accepted a position with Interfaith Dental Clinic, a CNM member and frequent user of our services, as the Director of Business Development. She will begin at Interfaith Dental Clinic in 2018.
Event open to nonprofit professionals from Prevent Child Abuse Tennessee
Learn more about CNM new board members in this press release.


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or make 4 interest-free payments of $20.00 fortnightly with More info
Cover: Beautiful soft-stretchy polycotton
Cushion insert filling: A secret recipe of FiBeads (polyester fibers + micro beads) that makes this pillow amazingly soft, encased in a liner.
105 cm long
The Huggy Roll is a fun animal shaped body pillow to snuggle up with. The soft stretchy cotton cover feels beautiful on the skin and the filling is simply irresistible. Great for everyone who sleeps on their sides or love a good cuddle.
The cover comes off to wash. Simply machine wash in a normal 30 degrees cycle, inside out, and hang to dry.
Best for:
Snuggle, cuddle, hug, sleep, small kids, big kids, pregnancy.
Bulk Orders:
Please contact us for a special price if you need heaps of rolls!


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Our Story
Anyone who works in the nonprofit sector or on social issues knows two things to be true:
▪ It seems there is never enough funding or other resources to do the work that is necessary.
▪ Any social reform is far too complicated for any single organization to tackle alone.
In light of these two challenges, the Open Gov Hub was founded in 2012 to break through traditional silos between different sectors and organizations, and to catalyze sharing and collaboration needed to rise to the global challenges of our time, particularly related to good governance and opening up governments.
By bringing together researchers, data analysts, communicators, technologists, lawyers, journalists, and more, we began to uncover the tremendous potential of this themed model of co-location and collaboration, particularly as we worked on opengov related issues in many different countries and contexts.
The year of our founding was a key moment in time. A window of opportunity appeared to capitalize on the momentum around a new global movement for open government. This term began to take off around 2011, when President Obama announced the creation of the Open Government Partnership at the UN General Assembly that year in response to the historic Arab Spring and other people-powered social movements worldwide. At the same time as this movement, an exponential growth in the number of physical hubs, such as coworking spaces, incubators, and resource centers, began to be established around the globe.
With both a clear vision and the serendipity of the commitment and needed resources coming together between our two founding non-governmental organizations — Global Integrity and Development Gateway — the Open Gov Hub was launched and a new vehicle for social impact was born.
The first version of Open Gov Hub existed in 2013 and 2014 in the old offices of Development Gateway at the Organization of American States building. This 1.5 year incubation period gave time for our founders to recruit early tenant members and to find an appropriate space for the vision they had in mind for the Hub. Then, on April 1, 2014, the second version of Open Gov Hub was launched at our current 20,000 custom-built space in downtown Washington D.C.
Since then, both the membership, programs, and collaborations of Open Gov Hub have grown tremendously. We invite you to explore the rest of our site to learn more.


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Products Liability
A baseball umpire would call you out after three strikes. But in a recent case, Piper Aircraft won once, twice, three times and then, a fourth time, in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
The case began in 2008 when a South African company bought a new Piper aircraft from an aircraft dealer in South Africa. The parties signed a purchase agreement identifying the aircraft by serial number, but in later communications the buyer asked to instead purchase another new aircraft (same model) with a different serial number. The purchase agreement wasn't amended in writing but everyone continued with the sale, and all required payments were made to the dealer. A representative of the buyer eventually travelled to Florida for training and to tour the Piper facilities. The aircraft was flown by a ferry pilot from Miami to South Africa. Then, after 60 flight hours, a fuel leak was reported. Instead of submitting a warranty claim and allowing Piper to simply repair the leak, the buyer refused to allow Piper to fulfill its warranty and chose to file suit.
So how was the case won so many times?
The buyer first filed suit in South Africa where he sued the aircraft dealer and Piper Aircraft, as the manufacturer. Unable to overcome jurisdictional and other legal hurdles, the buyer was forced to dismiss the case and was ordered to pay Piper's legal costs, including attorney's fees.
That was the first out.
Then the buyer refiled the case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami, presumably expecting U.S. law to help him recover his claimed millions of dollars in losses from a single leak. Oddly, in the Miami case, the buyer changed his position and argued that he hadn't really purchased the aircraft from the South African dealer, since the purchase agreement had never been updated to reflect a different serial number aircraft. Instead, he said he bought the aircraft directly from Piper, through an oral agreement, made when he visited the Piper facility after making payments to the dealer. Judge K. Michael Moore didn't agree and granted Piper Aircraft dismissal because the claims were precluded by Florida's economic loss rule.
That was the second out for this plaintiff.
But then came a change in the law as Florida's Supreme Court, in an unrelated case, limited the applicability of the economic loss rule. The buyer seized the opportunity and moved for reconsideration of the summary judgment. An amended complaint under the new law was filed and Piper responded with another summary judgment motion. In a well-reasoned opinion, Judge Moore found that, regardless of the discrepancies in the written purchase agreement, there was absolutely no evidence of a sales contract between the buyer and Piper Aircraft, nor was there any evidence that Piper made fraudulent representations to mislead the buyer, and Piper should have been given an opportunity to repair the leak under its warranty. Judge Moore again granted summary judgment for Piper Aircraft.
That was the third out.
Not yet ready to concede the loss, the buyer appealed to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. After extensive briefing and oral argument, the Court of Appeals, on July 3, affirmed the summary judgment issued by Judge Moore. For the fourth time, after six years and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent in legal fees, Piper won its case.
Surely, four outs and you're done?
Maybe. Time is still running for a request for a request for reconsideration and/or a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court, so there's always a chance for a fifth out . . . maybe a sixth . . . even a seventh . . .
Stay tuned!
(Originally posted July 14, 2014)


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Journal Information
Journal Policies and Operations Procedures
Peer review
Reviewer's Check List
Editorial decisions
Proofs and reprints
Reviewing Feature Articles and Opinions
Unlabeled use
Content validation
Patient consent
Statistical analysis
Publication ethics
Data sharing and reproducibility
Ethical Publishing Practices
Peer Review
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Editors are selected either by self-nomination, in which case TMT reviews curriculum vitaes and conducts interviews with the candidate and/or colleagues and experts in the field; or by nominations that are made from the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board whereby the same review and interview process is conducted. TMT seeks the experts of the highest caliber and passion for the field, and prefers candidates that possess knowledge of academic journal workflow and familiarity with the peer review process.
To become a member of the TMT Peer Review board, please send a letter to the editor, with your CV attached, to firstname.lastname@example.com.
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All submissions are reviewed to determine if plagiarized content is contained. If so, submissions are returned to the author with comment(s), or rejected outright. The Editor-in-Chief reviews all submissions prior to peer review. Once a submission has been accepted for peer review, expert reviewers are asked to assess the technical and scientific merits of the work.
TMT strives to ensure peer review is fair, unbiased and timely. All manuscripts and associated material submitted to TMT remain confidential while under review. TMT endeavors to review submission within 14 business days.
Two to three peer reviewers are assigned to each paper. If we do not possess board expertise to conduct a review, we will ask the author for suggestions for expert reviewers, and invite them to act as expert guest reviewer for the submission. This will likely delay the review process. We will inform authors to expect delays if inviting a guest reviewer is required.
TMT Peer Review is double blind. All manuscripts submitted for publication undergo peer review.
Submissions are rejected most often due to poor formatting, lack of substantiating claims, plagiarism, and citation manipulation. Submissions that rehash general information already in the public domain are rejected. Submissions that are commercially oriented are declined outright. Previously published materials and white papers are not acceptable unless COPE guidelines are strictly followed. For more information, please contact the managing editor with questions at email@example.com
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Authors can request to exclude a specific reviewer from reviewing their manuscript as long as the process remains objective, impartial, and a thorough assessment of the article is given. A decision letter is sent to the author when all reviews are received and considered.
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Revisions are generally requested if a manuscript is considered appropriate. Minor revisions are usually requested as a final step before acceptance. The managing editor and Editor-in-Chief, together, make a decision based on the reviewers' comments.
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For feature/opinion articles, TMT editorial judgment for readability and engagement is decidedly important. An appeal is less likely to overturn our decision. You are welcome to submit a detailed rebuttal letter. Only one appeal will be considered. The Editor-in Chief's decision will be final.
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Articles published by TMT may contain information and discussions of published and/or investigational uses of devices and agents that are not indicated by the Food and Drug Administrations (FDA). Partners in Digital Health, publisher of TMT, does not recommend the use of any device or agent outside lawful and labeled indications.
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As recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/). Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, 01/02/2018. Available from: http://www.ICMJE.org., authors will ensure the guidelines below are followed. TMT has quoted the text below from ICMJE Protection of Research Participants for authors to know and follow:
"Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. Identifying information, including patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that a patient who is identifiable be shown the manuscript to be published.
Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, however, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is usually inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning and editors should so note. When informed consent has been obtained it should be indicated in the submitted article."
Statistical analyses
Ensure the methodology has been accurately described for statistical analysis. Include details and access to original data to verify results. Provide confidence levels, and define terms and symbols. Include software used. In comparative studies, power calculations are usually required. In research manuscripts, requiring complex statistics, the advice of an expert statistician should be sought at the design/implementation stage of the study. It is appropriate to include statisticians as co-authors. Should you have further questions, please contact the managing editor.
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TMT strongly urges authors to share data to build public trust. This is a function of both research and innovation communities' willingness to share, build, replicate, and expand the current knowledge base. Making raw data publicly available will accelerate the pace, understanding, adoption, and use, of blockchain technology. TMT encourages all authors around the globe to openly share data for purposes of reproducibility. TMT also asks authors and readers to share articles to encourage broadening the sector's knowledge base.
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TMT is a member CrossRef and Similarity Check, iThenticate. This is a plagiarism tool to verify originality of content. TMT screen all manuscripts upon submission. If the editor identifies plagiarized content, the submission will be returned with comment(s), or rejected outright.
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Additional resources on publication ethics are available from COPE, ICMJE, and WAME.


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Over the last 5 years I have been drawing daily in his little red books. I carry them around in my back pocket and draw from observation. Due to the transient
lifestyle I have been living, these books are jam packed with drawings from over 20 different cities across, Europe, Asia and Australia.


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This is a basic activity taken from Aikido and further elaborated on for our purposes in Seishindo. Performing this Practice from time to time will give you an active experience of developing a calm presence. When you are feeling fully present you will notice that your thinking mind and your feeling mind are both calm, yet active.
In the beginning you might find that doing this Practice leads you to understand just how fluid and perhaps unstable in some regards, your overall sense of balance is. Although you might not love this experience right from the very first, if you stick with it you will find that this simple Practice can be highly rewarding.
This Practice is a primary part of the process that I teach to people wanting to excel at leadership and public speaking.
Stand in Hanmi
These directions are meant to be "approximate" in nature, and not exact. As you practice standing in "hanmi" you will find that your posture and footing changes some over time. If I was there to show you this in person, it would be quite simple to understand. Use my words as a general guide, and don't be concerned with whether or not you get it all "just right."
Stand facing in the direction of the two arrows that run parallel to each other (See the diagram just below). As you stand facing "forward" the arrow splayed to the left represents your left foot, with the "head" of the arrow meant to be the tip of your left foot, and the back of the arrow meant to be your left heel. The arrow splayed to the right represents your right foot. Both feet are splayed at approximately a 45 degree angle from "straight ahead." If your spine was to extend all the way to the floor, it would touch the floor at the space of the darkened square.
The distance between the two parallel lines with arrows, is about four inches. This alerts you to the fact that your heels and thus the width of your stance as measured from your heels, is about four inches. Both legs are straight, but ever so much soft at the knees. Your weight is equally distributed in both feet.
The distance between the two horizontal vertical lines is also about four inches. This alerts you to how much the toe of the right foot is in front of the heel of the left foot.
Once you have all of the above in place then you rotate your trunk somewhat towards the left, approximately 30 degrees from straight ahead, in the direction of the green arrow.
Gaze out into the distance as if you are looking at a panoramic view.
You can also reverse this stance and have your right foot forward.
When practicing this posture on a regular basis, it is best to alternate from left foot forward to right foot forward, each time you practice. Right foot forward during one time, left foot forward during the next.
1) Prior to getting into position, develop an "I am" statement.
Think about something that you would like to accomplish. Then, make a statement about what you would like to accomplish, imagining that you have already accomplished your goal.
"I am feeling fit and slim and enjoying my body."
"I am enjoying my work and my interactions with my colleagues."
Once you have the statement clearly in mind, stand in hanmi and from time to time, in a nice, slow, relaxed rhythm, repeat your "I am" statement to yourself. If you are by yourself, say you can say your "I am" statement out loud.
At the same time that you are doing all of this, notice from time to time how various aspects of your experience change. Your breathing, the movements of your body, your vision, the sounds around you, etc.
2) Stand in hanmi while practicing giving a speech, or making a declaration to someone.
3) Stand in hanmi and imagine yourself being calm and connected during a time of challenge.
4) Stand in hanmi and pray for the well being of yourself, or someone you care about. Stand in hanmi and imagine getting exactly what is most important to you. Stand in hanmi and give thanks for all that you have.
No matter which activity you do, be certain to take some deep breaths from time to time.


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Come Closer exists to unite believers for the purpose of loving our city to life in Christ.
Our partnerships are built on some basic ideas:
- God has given us the people and resources within the walls of our churches to make a greater difference outside our walls.
- The name written on our hearts is more important than the ones on the side our buildings.
- The unity of God's people enhances the witness of God's people.
- We can do more together than we can alone.
- When we connect the people of God with people who need God, God things happen!
Our efforts are aimed t meeting the following types of needs:
- Needs in our city that are greater than those any of us can meet alone.
- Needs that present opportunities to make disciples.
- Needs that coincide with those God's people are called to meet in Scripture.


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THIS POST (and all future posts) CAN BE SEEN IN THE BLOG SECTION OF WWW.IMAGINARYWARS.COM
So I really haven't been very awesome keeping the blog up to date this year. There's been a good deal of the standard reasons behind this happening (requires effort, haven't set out a scheduled time slot just for bogging …too lazy, too tired, too much to do –you've heard them all before); however, there's also been some pretty legitimate reasons as well—well, okay, one legitimate reason: we've updated the Imaginary Wars website–not only that, we've incorporated a blog page into the store's website!
This, of course, means I'll soon be directing this blog's traffic over towards the www.imaginarywars.com blog page–or at least I'll be directing what little traffic still drops by (undoubtedly to see if I've yet kicked the habit of being lazy) over to the store's website. And by soon, I mean this week (shock, gasp).
So that's a bit of a big change; this blog has been a pretty big part of my life since starting it April of 2009. Sure, times like the last couple of months, it's been not much of a factor, but for the most part it's been a dominant part of my life. Now, in a way it feels like I'm shutting the thing down—which is silly, because I'm not. Mind you, I'm the guy who's never been good at thinking any biggish change was anything but huge, scary, epochal change; so I guess wistful emotions cropping up when I decide to transfer my blog to a different address should come as no surprise. (What makes my wistfulness even more silly is that all the blog posts here have been moved over to the store's website blog page.)
So, to wrap up: starting ASAP, this blog will be posting a link to the new blog address (still a WordPress site but one linked directly to the store's website), and we'll be moving forward from that point.
So what else have I been doing with myself since my last post, back in the middle of June? Work mostly. Work and some holidaying. Holidaying and recovering from holidaying. Recovering and planning for the fall season.
Holidaying this year took the form of a camping road trip. With all of June's flooding that had crippled Calgary (and indeed much of southern Alberta and all parts mountainous) , we decided to head away from the mountains visible from any higher vantage in the city and explore the eastern edge of the province.
The sheer size of the province made an impression on us: we traveled from Calgary, mid-way up the province to a lake that practically straddled the Alberta-Saskatchewan border (a six-hour drive), camped for a few days then drove down to Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park (which ended up being roughly a nine-hour drive) and camped for a few more days.
Other highlights included driving on the Veteran's Memorial Highway (Hwy36) to the small town of Warner. There's not much in Warner beyond the gas station, the main street (most its buildings vacant) and the town's civic building. The civic building is Warner's main attraction: a dinosaur museum and a settlers museum. The pride and joy of the museums: the fossilized dinosaur egg (with a nearly complete baby skeleton inside) and the section of the Settler's museum dedicated to the First Special Services Force–The Devil's Brigade (Warner sits on the junction of the Highway 36 and Highway 4; Hwy 4 was renamed in 1999 to commemorate it having been the route the Canadians joining 1st FSS used to get to Fort Harrison).
Speaking of World War II: my summer activities that didn't involve traipsing across the province included putting some more work into my mid-war Canadians. I finished painting up my first platoon and managed to get them on the Battlefront urban rubble bases (they are, after all, in Ortona!) and now I just need to paint those bases. And add snow.
No good shots yet exist of the whole platoon in one frame; and even though all the squads are now on rubble bases, no pictures yet exist, so these will have to suffice. Updated photos (hopefully) soon to come!
With the first platoon mostly finished, I also started on the second and third infantry platoons (platoon #2 is the photo below). But I've ground to a halt and have been derailed by a different Flames of War project.
The local Flames of War club decided to do something a little different that got me inspired and motivated: themed gaming. The theme they chose was recon armies using modified Tank/Infantry Aces rules as the backdrop. Armies would be small: no more than 600 points. List structure is intentionally more loose: the 600-point armies must be made up almost entirely of reconnaissance platoons (with up to 150 points of non-recon platoons being allowed). Even better: all games will be played with different missions (which helps overcome the malaise that sets in after a lot of games have been played: when they all start to feel sort of the same).
No pictures yet, but I've started building a Late-War German Panzerspahkompanie (armoured cars & mechanized scout vehicles). I've opted to go the horde route and rather than take a few hard-hitting scout vehicles such as the Panzer II Luchs or the Puma armoured car, I decided to take a lot of lighter reconnaissance vehicles. We'll see how things go.
I've also managed to progress more with my Heavy Gear collection. My first cadre is pretty much finished, needing only decals; and I've also got my Sagittarius strider to the same spot (though it still needs to be transplanted to its permanent base). I've even managed to hit the half-way mark on the second cadre for my Southern army!
Somewhere along the way I managed to stop posting progress shots of my 'gears, so here's some progression shots of my first cadre's Black Mamba and a couple of shots of my Sagittarius strider.
I guess it's not so much that the store has taken over my ability to still have a hobby life. And really, I did, find time to play some Warhammer last week, some Star Trek Attack Wing the week before and the Star Wars: X-Wing game the week before–all while staying caught up with of my "to read" pile of comic books!
It's that I lack the discipline (energy?) to blog regularly about it that's problematic. Or, hopefully, at least that was the case for the summer. With the store's website a lot closer to what we want it to be (for now), I'm planning on blogging about the other store-related things that interest me, namely board games and comic books on top of miniatures, leagues and tournaments. I may even be able to get our new guy to write a sporadic blog post about Magic the Gathering.
But this is where I sign off, reminding anyone who still comes here that this will be the final blog post at this address. All future blog posts will occur at:
So after our last post, celebrating the store's first anniversary, I was waylaid by prepping for our participation at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo (which included getting a new website for the store up and running) …and then suddenly time got away from me and here I am updating the blog.
Two months later.
So….here we are; it's time to get back on the blogging horse. But first: a recap of the last two months.
The Heavy Gear league wound down, and was generally successful.
There were things I was scared were going to happen, and generally they did happen. The points escalation was set so that players' armies would grow by 300 points every two weeks; there were some on the Dream Pod 9 forums that said such a rate was a bit too ambitious. And they proved out to be mostly right. After resetting the escalation to an easier-to-handle 200 points every three weeks, I was afraid that the league would go on longer than people could commit for (as far as showing up every week for gaming). That fear also proved to be true, and the last few weeks of the league had less participation than the opening weeks.
All in all, the league was a huge success, and we grew our Heavy Gear player base by double or more–at the league's conclusion, I'd say we have a player base of roughly ten committed players plus another five who are on their way to having full armies. Not bad. Not bad at all.
April and June saw Games Workshop acting convincingly as though they believed there exists in Warhammer 40,000 more than just Space Marines. We saw the re-release / revamp of the Tau in April –and were treated to a rather candid display of just how disconnected GW is: they had absolutely NO clue how Tau would be received, as evidenced by their inability to fill more than 40% of their orders for the new models. That's right: they missed filling SIXTY PERCENT of all their Tau orders. Not only that, but it wasn't until the first week of June that stores (such as mine) were able to restock any model of their choosing from the Tau range.
The arrival of Eldar this June was definitely not the clusterf*ck that the Tau release was. What's more, unlike the last time Eldar were revamped, this time around the book has actually managed to revitalize and energize the Eldar player base. Funny how not putting out a codex written primarily by the copy and paste buttons on the keyboard will do that. The net result of the Tau and Eldar releases has been a reinvigorated 40k community: six months ago every battle on every table had one (or both) sides comprised of Plague Marines and Aegis Defence Lines; and I'm glad to say that variety has made its appearance once more in the shop.
Which brings me to…
Date: Saturday, July 6.
Place: Imaginary Wars Gaming and Hobbies (Unit #150, 10233 Elbow Drive SW)
Time: 08:00 – 18:30
Entry Fee: $20
Army List Due Date: Saturday, June 29.
This is not a standard tournament, and my use of the word "tournament" to describe this event is not quite accurate of what we're aiming to do this coming weekend. The primary goal of this event is NOT the same as most competitive events –that is, to provide players with a controlled environment where they vie to build the best army possible and compete to decide which army performs best under controlled conditions. This event focuses less on being a competitive tournament and more on creating a collaborative opportunity for the participants to help shape an unfolding story.
This event requires players to build an 1800-point army list that will represent their army's expeditionary force dropping down to the planetoid, Anomaly J2512. However, AT NO POINT will the players field all the models in their list in even one of the games. To represent the focus on recon that the armies would have in this situation, the forces players will be playing with in every battle will range from 650 points up to approximately 800 points. The 1800-point army list is essentially a menu of options so that players can modify their armies from one battle to the next and adjust their army to meet the challenges of the next mission.
This is an ideal tournament for players who, having played enough games of sixth edition are comfortable with the prospect of gaming outside the relative safety and comfort of the standard missions from the rulebook. Definitely, asking players to change their army list with each battle –and presenting them with scenarios that will demand it– will be asking players to understand their army, rather than simply understanding their army list. I think it's also appealing to those who are starting a new army, seeing as how battles will be limited to 800 points or less.
- Force List Maximum: 1800 points
- Maximum ONE flyer per 1800-point army
- No Fortifications
- No allies
- All the battles during the day will be set at approximately 700-800 points.
- No Unit can be worth more than 225 pts (dedicated transports do not count towards this point total; however the transport as well cannot be worth more than 225 points).
- Maximum THREE HQ Choices following these guidelines:
–You can have ONE Expeditionary Force Captain worth no more than 200 points.
–You can have up to TWO Lieutenants worth no more than 150 points each.
This is an event that celebrates both gaming and the hobby that is intrinsic to the Warhammer 40,000 game. As such, all models MUST be fully painted and on completed bases.
Fully painted in a tournament setting means: the model is appropriately displaying three or more colours. Primer is NOT a colour. Models don't have to be masterpieces; they just have to evidence some effort on its owner's part. (…And by "appropriate" I mean your model's paint job shouldn't be doing its best impression of a Jackson Pollock.)
If you're trying to prove your chops with abstract expressionism, this event is the wrong venue for doing so.
Go to university for that.
Completed bases simply means your models are not on bare, black plastic bases, nor are they on a basic base that has simply been painted over; models based this way cheapens whatever effort has been put into the models and robs from the magic created when two fully painted armies are on a gaming table with painted terrain. All I ask for basing is simple flocked bases –which is actually easier and less time-consuming to do than painting a model's base.
Proxies will NOT be allowed and all models must be What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get. The only exception is on vehicles with secondary weapon upgrades where the upgraded weapon doesn't come stock with the kit. (Though similar proxies can be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.) Because this is a tournament that allows players to switch their army list from battle to battle, I don't have much sympathy for players who feel they need to have their models be armed with weapons the miniature isn't modeled with. I would suggest instead of arguing for a proxies, include another squad (or what not) in your master list that will do the job of the weapon option you want to proxy.
I consider home-built models dangerously close to proxy models. Anyone looking to use custom, built-from-scratch models in the tournament MUST take that up with the Tournament Organiser (IE: me) before the tournament list is due (IE: June 29).
Any proxies that aren't approved beforehand that show up on tournament day risk being counted as casualties before the start of any game they are used in. You have been warned.
Why So Specific?
Why? Because most players put a ton of effort into their armies out of love for the hobby. To go to a hobby-based event without displaying honest effort to a similar degree as the others at the event displays a complete lack of respect for your fellow enthusiasts. Being a game with tons of variables, endless possibilities and myriad ways of understanding (and interpreting) its rules, respect for your opponent is paramount.
The other way this tournament is different is that it will be used to kick off the store's summer campaign for Warhammer 40,000!
More info on that will be presented soon.
One year ago today, Imaginary Wars opened its doors for business.
What can I say? I'm exceptionally grateful to all the people who have helped and supported the store this past year. Without all the awesome people in the community around me, this store would never have come into being, never mind still being here one year later.
I was hoping to do a bit of a review of the store's highlights over our first year, but I've ended up having all my time getting devoured by my getting ready for the upcoming Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo, the International Table Top Day we ran in the store last weekend (to great success, I might add!), I've also been keeping abreast on our Heavy Gear League (which includes me having to paint up my own stuff –have I mentioned that my painting pace is …glacial?), trying to post on this blog more regularly, and managing our promotions for Games Workshop's Tau releases as well as the new set for Magic the Gathering's Ravnica block, Dragon's Maze. On top of that, I've been running the store's first year anniversary Facebook Contest …and finishing planning some sort of festivities for Saturday, April 6 when we'll be officially ringing in our first year.
After re-reading that last paragraph, I'm left wondering what I'm doing still writing today's post. However, I am exceptional at getting too caught up in taking care of things (or looking towards the next fire I might need to put out) that I quite regularly forget to mention and thank all the unsung individuals who help me out every day–my wife being first among them. There are plenty of others, but she's the one who puts up with me (and the store) the most. There's also my business partner and the family and friends who helped get the ball rolling and the store started, all of whom –just as with my wife– I cannot thank enough.
Anyways, I'll end things here –but if you live in Calgary (or close enough by), come down to the store THIS Saturday, April 6 and celebrate our first year with us. OF COURSE there will be cake and refreshments and board gaming and maybe a few more things going on that day …like deals! I'll be at the store ALL day.
If you don't live in or near Calgary, just remember that **shameless plug** if you live in Alberta, shipping is free, with no minimum purchase amount!
The store's Heavy Gear league is in full force, and unfortunately one slow week followed by my personal life crowding into (paving over?) my blogging time has resulted in me not posting a league update for, what–FOUR weeks?? Ugh. Well without further ado, how things are in the league right now –and just in time for this week's league night!
I was only able to pop in momentarily on this evening; and, due to it now being buried in the depths of time, I'm a little unsure of who showed up to play on that league night. I know it was a slower night for Heavy Gear gaming, but I'm pretty sure three or four people showed up and played a couple of games (even though there had been plenty of other miniatures games being played that night–solely of the historic variety: Victory at Sea, Black Powder and Flames of War). Geoff, Bradford, Adam(S) and Curtis were all gaming that night, but I have no clue who squared off against whom; I also seem to recall some Saturday Heavy Gear gaming in this week between Bradford and Curtis.
This was the second week in a row that showing up for league night just wasn't in the books for me. I managed to swing by the store to grab some paperwork; and I did my best to survey the turnout during the five minutes I was in the store. I think the highlight of this week –another slow week for turnout– was that the league had new members! Sean and Justin bought starter army boxes earlier in the week and both showed up this evening. A third person also joined the league, a second Justin (a friend of mine who, like me, almost started playing the game a few years ago but then got distracted by other things and never came back to Heavy Gear). So, while the only established league player showing up on this evening was Adam(S), he had a game against Justin(P) and showed off the mechanics to the other Justin and Sean. The net result of this week was that the league's roster grew by thirty percent!
For the third week in a row, I was unable to do anything more than pop my head in the store–this time almost literally, as I stopped in to grab something before hitting the highway for a weekend excursion to Edmonton (to make use of my free passes to see the Star Wars Identities exhibit …and drink the nights away with old friends!). So, in the few moments I was in the store I checked out attendance for league night; and it was exceptional: we had seven people come out to play! Both Justins showed up as did Geoff, Curtis, Alem and Jimmy. Aric was also at the store with his Caprice force now fully constructed. By the sounds of it, the gaming was really good this week also, which was a fitting end to the 300-points stage of the league.
This was the first week of 600-point armies –a week that I think Curtis, Alem and Bradford have all really been looking forward to (they all have more than 600 points fully painted). For me, family movie night with the Avengers meant I didn't arrive at the store until it was too late to play, but I came nevertheless to see how the night had shaped up. Bradford, Alem, Adam(S), Sean and Curtis had all played games this night. From what I gathered, Curtis played twice that evening: against Bradford and Sean; Alem and Adam also squared off against each other.
It was a solid night of gaming –and really, I could have played that night too: the store ended up staying open late to allow the Magic the Gathering FNM night to finish properly. However, myself and Justin(P) managed to play a game at the 600-point level on Saturday! It ended up being pretty long: this was the first game I've played without someone more knowledgeable at hand, resulting in our 600-point game being fought over a couple of hours. Despite the game length and the undeniable loss on my part, the game against Justin(P)
Because Fridays have been working for league nights so well, and because Saturdays have been a better "standby" Heavy Gear day than Wednesday was, the store changed its March Nightly Gaming schedule and took Heavy Gear off of Wednesday evenings–no need to accidentally have someone drop by on a Wednesday and leave the store thinking that no one plays Heavy GEar …because our community all tends to show up on a different day of the week.
Also, whereas it's pretty easy for four guys to agree to paint 300 points of Heavy Gear every two weeks; it's an entirely different matter once triple the amount of people are involved. In the last league update post, I made changes to better accommodate everyone's schedules: I decided that we'd be gaming at each the point level for a little longer than originally planned. I've adjusted things again but this time just the points levels for the last two thresholds in the league's timeline. Instead of the next points limit increasing by 300 points and the one after by only 100 points; we've decided that the next two tiers will increase the points limits by 200 points each time. Our goal still remains 1,000 points of painted miniatures by the end of the league.
Below is the dates and points level for each period; none of the league's other basic rules have changed.
Weeks 4, 5 & 6 – 600 pt. Forces – Runs from Wednesday, March 6th to Sunday, March 24th.
Weeks 7, 8 & 9 – 800 pt. Forces – Runs from Wednesday, March 27th to Sunday, April 14th.
Weeks 10 – 1000 pt. Forces – Runs from Wednesday, April 17th to Sunday, April 28th.
With the first anniversary of Imaginary Wars Games and Hobbies fast approaching (the first week in April, for those curious), the store's plate of events is getting more and more full! Today's post will be focusing on one of the lead-up events to our first-year anniversary:
We'll be having members from our local Flames of War club, Calgary REGIMENT [link] coming by to show people how to play Flames of War. They'll be providing everything needed to play a small, fifteen-minute game! This is being done in conjunction with Battlefront miniatures as part of their Rangers program (where they send players to local stores and get them to introduce the game to new people), and I'm really excited to host a day dedicated to introductory gaming with Flames of War.
What I also like is that the members of The Calgary REGIMENT club also really pay attention to what makes miniatures games cool: the overall effect you achieve when playing solely with painted models and using scenic gaming boards. I've encountered very few individuals, tournaments –or stores even– that pay attention to the overall look of a miniatures gaming board like this club does. They strive for playable tables that look almost like dioramas depicting World War II European battlefields but use loose, movable terrain so as not to sacrifice re-playability for looks.
To get a sense of just how good a job they do, check out the post on their blog detailing the game set up to replay the Carentan battle following the D-Day landings in 1944. What was really cool was that the whole game was inspired by the Band of Brothers episode where Easy Company fought to take Carentan.
I'll be getting into this a bit more in another post (hopefully) in the next few days, but for now suffice it to say that coinciding with the Ranger Day for Flames of War, we'll also be commemorating the International Table Top Day that was initiated by Wil Wheaton's Youtube show, Tabletop.
However, before I can post more details, I'll need to take care of some coordinating with the people who have already volunteered to help make the day a success. Until then, for a better idea of what kinds of games we'll be hosting that day, I'd recommend watching any of the episodes of tabletop on their Youtube channel. If you've seen any of their episodes, you'll already know what kind of board games the show tends to showcase; if you haven't I've included the episode where Wil Wheaton shows off the 2003 Game of the Year winner, Alhambra.
Rather than risk boring everyone with my non-stop Heavy Gear updates, I thought I'd take the time to bore people in other ways –namely by highlighting the in-store gaming for this month!
Over all my years in hobby retail, I've worked at stores that were role-playing games focused, comic-books focused, Warhammer Focused and board-games focused; over all this time, I've learned it's the warm bodies in the store –the ones that aren't employed there– that makes a store feel like it's thriving …or at least like it's not in its death throes. Hence, every games store that isn't blessed with being a high foot-traffic location tries to have in-store gaming as much as possible just to feel like the place is a busy hub …and also to keep away the oppressive crushing silence that dominates an empty store during business hours.
I was first going to give a synopsis of how gaming's been going and then follow through with a run-down of what games are being played on which days. However, at the starting point of writing that, I realised I being fairly redundant …and then I looked at the games-nights flyer and saw that if I continued on that course I'd be triply redundant. Triple redundancy is a great thing in passenger planes …and the space program. For a blog: not so much. I've decided to simply scribe a few thoughts with each day's gaming (the format of the flyer we hand out and display really limits how much we can say / advertise for each gaming night; some of the gaming days could stand some fleshing out).
Infinity Mondays
Infinity has really surprised me: I'm of the view that any game where the one of the first things players say about it is "and you'll never need more than a dozen models" is a game that is likely living on borrowed time. Infinity sure seems to be bucking that trend! My hobby plate is more than a little full, so I've side-stepped this sci-fi skirmish game, but it sure seems to scratch enough itches that the players who buy multiple factions are more the norm than the exception. For an upstart game, our nights are well attended; we do get some slow nights, but we get some quite busy ones too.
Tuesday's Warhammer Fantasy Battles
Warhammer nights for us are up and down. That said, we have a few regulars, one of which has been posting battle reports on Youtube regularly (quite a few of them done at Imaginary Wars too!). What's interesting is that on more than a couple of occasions, we've some guys (relatively) new to Warhammer 40,000 show up on Tuesday evenings –mainly because their schedules can't accommodate Thursday or Sunday gaming. Say what you will about Games Workshop, but the pervasiveness of 40k in the gaming world easily rivals Coca-Cola's in the world abroad.
Wednesday: Canadian Minis Night becomes Strange Aeons & Paint Club Night
With the Heavy Gear slow-grow league in full force …and being regularly attended on Fridays and (some) Saturdays, I felt having a Heavy Gear night in the middle of the week was risking players showing up to play on several days during the week without ever actually meeting other players.
So for now, gaming on Wednesdays will focus specifically on Strange Aeons. As has become tradition, Uncle Mike (the creator of Strange Aeons) shows up at the store on the first Wednesday of each month to run introductory games, show off new rules etc; and though our Wednesdays are attended by a smaller crowd, our Strange Aeons players show up every week …almost religiously. They are one of the store's most solid groups, and anyone hoping to get into this more casual skirmish game (it's almost a mash-up of X-Files, Call of Cthulhu and Mordheim) could do no better than to come down to the store on Wednesdays.
(In other Strange Aeons news, it should be pointed out that a new scenario was just released for free on the Strange Aeons website!)
Warhammer 40,000 OWNS Thursday Evenings
Once, we had this one disastrously slow Thursday evening (I think there was a blizzard or something to that effect) and only six people showed up to play 40k. Not all nights are crazy-busy, but Thursday is one of the best nights of the week for guaranteeing players an opponent.
Eclectic Fridays: More than FNM!
Where Thursdays are dominated by 40k, Fridays usually sees double the amount of players engaged in a broad assortment of different games. The tent-pole games are really Magic the Gathering's Friday Night Magic and Flames of War, but we've added Heavy Gear to the repertoire (which is seeing success; I think we have 12 people active in the league right now!). That said, Friday Nights at Imaginary Wars have been no strangers most recently to Victory at Sea and previously Dystopian Wars, Black Powder and Firestorm Armada.
Saturdays: Open Gaming and Events
Saturdays remain the domain of open, unscheduled gaming and special events. We've run more than a couple very successful tournaments on Saturdays; non-tournament events tend to fall on Saturdays as well and they've all been well received. I've been pondering making Saturdays our board game day…
Sunday: 40k in the Afternoon
Proving that Warhammer 40,000 is the game 'round these parts, we have it running on Sundays as well –though on Sundays we also tend to see one or more Firestorm Armada games hit the tables as well. For me, Firestorm Armada scratches the itch that GW's Battlefleet Gothic stopped being able to take care of years ago. Though games regularly take longer than standard 40k games, the rules are elegant enough that players rarely notice the time going by. Easy to learn, difficult to master, great game play and awesome models: all reasons to get into the game!
Paint Club?
Paint club is our effort to provide space (and supplies) for players to meet up and paint their models. This is all done under the auspice that when people do creative work in concert with others, their productivity flourishes. Sometimes that productivity is evidenced by how much work is done, other times it's in skills learned or ideas that would never have been struck upon had others not been around to help germinate the initial thoughts and ideas.
Anyways, this is what I experienced in university …and (oddly enough) while working at Games Workshop. In fact, ask any ex-Red shirt who worked for GW –back when the Hobby Centres painted store armies– about how their painting improved during their tenure with the company. This is my hope with our painting club night (right now being directed towards Wednesday evenings).
So there you have it:
that's what a week of gaming at Imaginary Wars tends to look like. In the coming days, I'm hoping to do an update about our Heavy Gear Slow-Grow League, as well as announce some exciting events on the horizon for the store concerning Flames of War, Firestorm Armada …and possibly Warhammer 40,000 (and maybe Heavy Gear also).
Also, Imaginary Wars Gaming and Hobbies: the store hits its first anniversary next month, and we're going to do something special for that!


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Bollywood is so dynamic, it seems to fuse with just about anything! Has anyone seen any fusions (of any ratio, not just 50/50) that really work as memorable dances in their own right?
I've seen on Youtube a Kathak/Flamenco duet that was great, but the two forms were kept separate.
I've been wanting to see one myself, but haven't yet. I know it's still growing in popularity here in the west, and probably would have grown more so if FiTV didn't drop all of it's fit programs. I'm going to see if I can find anything good on youtube.
ETA: Found an amazing one in my opinion. Definitely sharing with the forum too.
I mean the official claim is that this song is a fusion of Belly dance and Bollywood style Chikni Chameli -- Official Full Song Video from Agneepath - YouTube but I'm not to sure if it is, I would be interested to here a more professional opinion on it.


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UN Volunteers Viet Nam would like to express their sincere thanks to all volunteers and supporters who have made a contribution to the development and maintenance of this UNV Viet Nam website.
In 2006, this website was created by two UNV volunteers – Communications Specialists Mr. Vern Weitzel and Mr. Tran Nam Anh, with the support of Mr. Ho Tiet as English language Editor, Mr. Dam Anh Tuan as Technical Assistant, and a team of Online Volunteers for the translation into Vietnamese. Those Online Volunteers were Ms. �?ang Thuy Anh, Ms. Nguyen Ha Phuong, Ms. Nguyen Huong Giang, Ms. Nguyen Thuy Linh, Ms. Phan Thi Lien Huong, Ms. Ta Nguyen Mai, and Ms. Tran Thi Hoang Hoa.
In late 2007, University Volunteer Alvaro Broseta Gómez helped with the technical switch from static HTML to the CMS website (Content Management System).
From July - October 2008, the website was redesigned, upgraded with a new layout and additional features, and the Vietnamese content has been updated by a group of Online Volunteers with the coordination of a UNV volunteer – Communications Specialist Ms. Luu Thi Ngoc Anh. The Online Team included Web Designer Mr. Thinh Van Hieu and three Translators: Ms. Hoang Thi Phuong Thao, Mr. Nguyen Duc Minh, and Ms. Le Thi Thu Hang.
Currently, three Online Volunteers - English language Editor Mr. Gareth Graham (since October 2008) and Translator Ms. Hoang Thi Phuong Thao (since October 2008) are working to help update the content; and Web Designer Mr. Thinh Van Hieu (since October 2008) is providing technical support for both websites.
UNV looks forward to receiving further support of Online Volunteers so that information on volunteerism for development from Viet Nam will continue to be available to a national and international audience.
If you have any comment or suggestion for the improvement of UNV Viet Nam website, please contact us via


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Play your cards and watch the Gods come to life in this full 3D Tactical CCG. Move your forces into position and unleash divine powers to secure the win.
Gameplay and art are subject to change
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I've worked with a lot of therapy clinic owners over the years, and I ask each one of them the same question: what are the top three metrics you track when assessing the health of your business? The answers are usually the same: total visits, the percentage of missed visits (e.g., cancels and no-shows), and average reimbursement rates. While these are all crucial metrics for business success—and even the slightest change to any one of these indicators can impact a business's bottom line—I'd posit that there's another important metric that's missing: patient retention. Truth be told, we've become a little obsessed with the patient retention metric around here. And if you're running a rehab therapy clinic, you should be, too. Read on to learn more.
The Two Forms of Patient Retention
1. Course of Care Retention
Course of care retention rate is the percentage of authorized visits a patient attends for which the clinic is able to bill. If it is 100% for any given patient, then that patient's therapist has done an excellent job establishing your clinic's value proposition—and that patient has clearly bought into the services you provide. A low retention rate, however, is indicative of a patient who (1) did not see the value of the services your team provided and (2) is likely responsible for:
- driving up your cancellation and no-show percentage,
- driving down total visits at your clinic, and ultimately
- having a negative effect on profits.
In many cases, your course of care retention rate offers a much more actionable metric than cancels and no-shows alone.
2. Clinic Retention.
Clinic retention rate is equally valuable. This metric reflects the percentage of patients who return to your clinic for a new course of care. While this can be a bit more difficult to track, a high clinic retention rate clearly shows that that your clinic has a positive reputation among your patients. Patients who return are often the best evangelists for your clinic, so knowing who they are—and how they came to be retained patients—is crucial for repeating the process.
The Patient Retention Management Process
As with any other business objective you set out to achieve, in order to improve your patient retention, it's important to start with a plan. While it's easy to understand the value of patient retention, many PTs aren't sure how to go about setting up a system that helps them consistently retain their patients. For this, we've developed the patient relationship management process.
The diagram above breaks down the Patient Management Process into three main phases: education, engagement, and empowerment. The circles represent key patient milestones along the way: new referral, current patient, retained patient, and patient evangelist. Let's take a closer look at each phase.
1. Educate
As new referrals enter your system, register for their first appointments, and attend their initial evaluations, many have questions—questions such as what their diagnoses mean, how long their recovery is it going to take, and where should they park to best access your facility. Being a good listener and responding to patient questions as they come up is crucial. However, patients won't think of every question they have when they're in your office, which is why it's a good idea to provide additional educational resources to new patients in the form of a frequently asked question (FAQ) list or a new patient resource center on your website. It's even more important to provide a reliable method of contact to your patients, so they can reach you should additional questions arise. This extra step can go a long way toward making your patients feel comfortable and at ease at the start of their treatment.
Education is more than logistics; it's your first opportunity to demonstrate value.
Still, education is more than mere logistics. This is your first opportunity to demonstrate value. Have you ever been frustrated with patients no-showing after their first visit? The truth is, often you only have one shot to get your value proposition across to new patients. This encounter is just as important as any marketing materials you publish—and it's a great opportunity to put your customer personas to use. As therapists, we are great at setting plans to help our patients reach their goals. Well, understanding your patients' goals right from the start and educating them on the steps necessary to reach those goals—including completing their entire course of care—are of the utmost importance.
Your actions leave a lasting impression.
Finally, remember that your actions leave a lasting impression. Wow your patients with your service and your commitment to their recovery by providing them with resources they can use on their own to better understand their diagnoses and begin their independent home routines. These resources can be as simple as websites, blogs, and YouTube videos—or they can be more interactive tools such as those available within the very best patient relationship management (PRM) software. Ultimately, the goal of your education endeavours is to make sure your patients know you are doing everything you can to ensure they succeed, feel comfortable with the services you provide, and leave believing that physical therapy is the treatment of choice for improving their condition.
2. Engage
We've talked about the importance of patient engagement before, and it's the cornerstone of the Patient Management process. In order to experience consistent patient retention, therapists must develop strategies to engage their patients. Before we go any further, though, let's define patient engagement—something that's easier than said than done in our industry. In this entertaining piece, physician Rob Lamberts opines over just how "buzzwordy" patient engagement has become: "What is patient engagement? It sounds like a season of The Bachelor where a doctor dates hot patients," he wrote. I second this opinion. And while Lamberts doesn't directly define engagement, he does conclude his piece with one of the best definitions I've found yet: "Engagement is about interaction, listening, and learning in relationship to another person. Engagement is not a strategy, it is care."
Engagement is a two-way street.
To simplify, engagement is all about communication, and it's not a one-way street. While this definition is painfully simple, the truth is, we're still pretty bad at engaging patients. This struggle is one of the factors that led Leonard Kish to pen the now-infamous proclamation that patient engagement is the "blockbuster drug" of the century. It's no secret that a patient who is more involved—and thus more engaged—in their course of care will have a better outcome, but the trick is consistently getting your patients involved and knowing how to measure engagement so you can improve it.
Your patients' engagement—or lack thereof—may be connected to your own.
Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet for improving patient engagement, and there is certainty not an app for that. But there are things you can do to help your patients take a more active role in their care. In fact, the best place to start is often looking in the mirror and considering whether your patients' lack of engagement has something to do with your own. Truth be told, there's probably a connection. All too often, we get stuck in a rut of documentation, overbooked schedules, and commonplace patient presentations that we forget that we're treating a person, not a diagnosis. Patients care that we care about them. And, going back to what Lamberts said, to engage is to provide care. By listening to your patients' challenges, goals, beliefs, and fears—and then connecting them to your treatment plan, thereby providing relevance—you create a dialogue centered on collaboration rather than compliance and conversation rather than a doctor's orders.
They're just not that into you, so be relevant.
The key to providing value to your patients is offering relevance. Patients don't care that they lack full shoulder flexion, have an innominate rotation, or are suffering from a weak VMO. Sure, it's important to explain it at some point, but what they really want to know is if they are going to go be able to play in their adult slow-pitch softball tournament next weekend (it's the police vs. firefighters game, after all). Even with the best diagnosis and treatment skills, you will fail to engage a patient if you can't be relevant and offer them something they care about.
There's also room to step up your game when it comes to behavioral change.
In many ways, healthcare providers are in the business of behavior modification. The problem is, most of us don't know how to apply behavior change strategies effectively. If terms like social cognitive theory and transtheoretical model only remind you of that one class in PT school you skipped a little too often, then it might be time for a refresher course, because it turns out that people aren't great at following through with the healthy behaviors we try to help them practice when we create our care plans. And if you don't know how to help them do so, then there's a good chance they are going to fail. As it stands, only about 35% of patients complete their home exercise program as prescribed—and only about 21.7% of the general population exercises regularly.
Without understanding the processes most people go through when trying to develop a new habit or change an old one, we're going to continue failing to help our patients make the life changes that they need to remain symptom-free or experience optimal outcomes. By knowing how to use tools like behavioral staging and self-efficacy evaluations to improve your patients' success, though, you'll have a much better shot at both achieving desired clinical outcomes and improving patient engagement.
Measurement is critical to improvement.
You can't improve what you can't measure. So, determine what meaningful patient engagement looks like for your practice, and measure it religiously. Some simple data points we like to keep an eye on are cancel and no-show percentage per patient and utilization of home program resources. Having a home exercise program that quantifies patient engagement can be immensely helpful for this. If you have a secure messaging system, then you should also track messages sent and received per patient. This is a great way to measure engagement; after all, one of the best indications a patient is involved is if he or she is asking questions.
3. Empower
The final step in the Patient Management Process is empowerment. Often overlooked, empowering patients is the key to improving clinic retention rates at large. As a physical therapist, you have the opportunity to be an incredible resource to your patients. Empowering them with the tools and techniques that will help them maintain a successful long-term outcome is one of the best ways you can provide unmatched value to the patients you treat. It'll also ensure that what they're sharing with their colleagues, friends, family, and online networks is overwhelmingly positive, thus helping you reach even more patients.
Discharge presents a huge communication opportunity.
If you're giving your patients an HEP handout and a few resistance bands before showing them the door, then you may want to reconsider your approach. True value comes through enabling your patients to reach their overall health goals and continuing to serve as a resource for them—even after discharge. Whether this comes in the form of a custom-tailored exercise program or guidance about activity modifications and new healthy habits, the most powerful empowerment tool you can provide is your continued knowledge and feedback. That's why it's crucial that everything you provide at discharge comes with an easy means for communication.
Continued communication is the foundation of engagement.
As the basis for sustained engagement, a communication channel that is easily accessible post-discharge can be an incredible resource to patients. But, with today's busy clinics, sometimes a phone call can be impractical. In that case, implementing a secure messaging system can be a great way keep the communication channel open for your patients without having it interfere with your daily practice. While some PT's have been known to offer an email address or even a personal phone number, make sure you consider the legal ramifications before using one of these unsecured communication channels (read: you really shouldn't do it).
Improving patient retention can be incredibly valuable to your clinic. And having a process and a quality set of tools to help facilitate that improvement is crucial. Every clinic will find what works best for that particular organization, and the Patient Management Process is just one way to increase both course of care and clinic retention. Ultimately, educating, engaging, and empowering your patients is all about improving the relationships you have with your customers. By providing this level of service to go along with your incredible treatment techniques, you can ensure that every patient you treat gets the most out of every interaction with your clinic.


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text: Return to all articles 8 easy energy saving habits that could cut your bills Posted on 30 June 2016 Tired of big energy bills but not sure how to tackle them? Simply changing your normal routine and how you carry out tasks can save hundreds of pounds each year. Many believe reducing your energy bills means making big changes or investing heavily on devices, but you can actually cut your energy usage and save money just by altering everyday behaviours. If you want to save hundreds of pounds each year, start with these 8 simple energy saving habits. 1. Hang your clothes to dry Ever used a tumble dryer when the weather's pleasant outside? A 2014 study by the Energy Saving Trust found that UK families were collectively wasting more than £120m a year using their tumble dryers during summer months. In total, you could save £18 on your annual bills by pegging out the washing in June, July and August. If you don't want to rely on the weather, invest in a clothes horse or hang your items up in an isolated room. 2. Turn off your lights Simply switching off your lights when you exit a room or leave the house can save 20% on your electricity bills. Change to energy-saving lightbulbs for even more savings! 3. Wash clothes in cold water Up to 90% of the energy used by a washing machine is used heating up water. Washing your clothes in cold water still removes stains and offers an energy efficient alternative. Cold water washes are increasingly popular, while detergents have been introduced specifically for this type of spin 4. Keep water in the fridge Did you know running the tap while you wait for the water to turn cold can waste more than 10 litres a day? Instead, place a jug of water in the fridge for when you need to quench your thirst. 5. Boil only the water you need Ever filled the kettle up to the top unnecessarily? It takes longer to heat the water and you'll probably waste it anyway. Try filling your mug up first and only heat the amount of water you need. 6. Close doors and curtains Keeping draughts out could save you between 5% and 30% on your bills each year. Close internal doors to keep the heat in and shut curtains - this can reduce heat loss by more than 10%. 7. Switch off standby The average UK household could save up to £80 each year by turning off items left on standby, including phone chargers, printers and DVD players – which are some of the most expensive. You don't need it so switch it off! 8. Choose energy efficient appliances When purchasing new appliances, get into the habit of looking at their energy efficiency rating. You'll often find that new appliances now have EU energy efficient labelling; A+++ is the most efficient while D is the least. By choosing the most energy efficient fridge freezer, for example, could save you £62 a year! Find out more about how to find the most energy efficient appliances for your home. Got any interesting energy saving habits? Share them with us via Twitter! Share this story Previous article Next article