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And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. ~Hebrews 10:24-25
As a mom I have the privilege of walking with my children in the deepest parts within if they will allow. In a conversation with one of them the other day, when they were brave enough to crack open their heart and lay out their battles, I was struck by how common the battle really is. This one was aching, churning, and warring within over the lack of spiritual fruit and the feelings of worthlessness and doubt.
In this passage from Hebrews, the author has just stated that we can come before God confidently because of Jesus Christ's blood shed for our sin – our faith is assured, our hearts clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with His water. We are to hold tightly to the Gospel because Jesus is faithful. He who justifies will continue to sanctify us, and one day He will return and we will be with Him eternally. But it's easy to waver. It's easy in the moments of the day to see sin, to see failure, and accept the enemy's lies of defeat or discouragement.
If I can encourage you in one area, it would be to listen intently and pray fiercely in moments of discipline with your children. Be willing to be up long past your bedtime in order to allow the Holy Spirit time to hack off the calluses on your child's heart to expose the soft tenderness underneath in which He works. Dwell with your children there in their exposure, not as the one who has it all sorted out but as a fellow sinner redeemed by His grace, seeking to walk out the faith He has given in the daily mess of life.
I am not one who is quickly convicted and repents with vigor; the Holy Spirit is patient, often tender, and works with me on my sin to bring me to repentance on issues. So why do I think that my young believing child is going to do an about face in ten minutes? I shouldn't because I fully believe that most of the time they will hide behind an apology without delving into the motivations of their heart and allowing the ugliness of their sin to be seen and met with grace. Many days I have to remind myself to slow down and take the time to ask probing questions and really listen to the answers. Invest the time.
This verse is a bedrock verse for me in terms of discipling my children. I know we often quote this in order to support going to church, but I think it aptly applies to parenting and discipling anyone.
- Let us consider – In the Greek, the meaning here is to think up and down, exactly, attentively; to fix your eyes or mind upon. Let me consider my child, let me spend the time praying for the Holy Spirit to enlighten me to the climate of their heart, the winds of doubt or fear that may be blowing, the storm that may be quietly occurring underneath a thin layer of protection.
- how to stir up one another to love and good deeds – to stimulate or incite in another the agape love solely based in the Holy Spirit and from which actions flow. Parenting and discipleship are not about behavior correction. It's about pointing or directing that child to the truth of the Gospel in direct opposition to the lies of this world and calling them to walk in faith.
- but encourage one another – parakaleo in the Greek; to make a call being up close and personal; to admonish or exhort; there is a legal connotation to this word – to make an exhortation from a close place that stands up in God's court. This encouragement must come from intimacy, and intimacy grows with time invested.
So I want to encourage you – if we were across from each other at coffee or lunch, I would exhort you to spend time with the One who intimately knows your children, seeking His truth for their lives. Fight the impulse to make other things more important than seeking the heart of your child. Ask the quiet questions about their faith and listen intently to what they know and what they believe. Point them to the Word, to direct truths that meet their doubts or fears. We do not grow their faith – that is the work of the Holy Spirit. But we can walk together with them in their journey, encouraging and cheering them on. The laundry can wait.


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When we moved to Connecticut from Texas in the summer of 2013, with a 4-month-old baby in tow, I would frequently joke, "This is it. We're never moving again. This is the house he's moving out of when he's 18." While my half-serious comments were mostly inspired by frustration around the buying, packing, moving, and unpacking process, they were also something I really wanted to be true. I deeply hope this house can be our forever home.
There are a lot of reasons I feel this way (and yes, one of them involves never wanting to pack up and move ever again) but I think the biggest reason is because of where I lived as a kid. The family homestead.
I grew up in the same house where my dad was raised. My grandparents built it in the late 1940's. It sits on almost 30 acres, and to me, it's pretty close to paradise. Designed by an architect who studied with Frank Lloyd Wright, it's definitely reminiscent of places like the famous Fallingwater. Built into the side of a hill, looking over a creek and woods, it's still a very special place to me.
We spent our Spring Break just last week visiting my parents there. It was wonderfully relaxing, not just because of the time with family, but because of the place itself. I loved walking around the property with my son, helping him climb up to the tree house that was built when we were kids, trekking on trails that I had memorized by age 5.
The property is something of a local legend in my tiny hometown, as well. This week, we walked through the woods to the elementary school playground just beyond, to give Little Man some much-welcome outdoor playtime. As we were walking back, we ran into a woman walking her dog. She asked where we were headed, and I heard my wife explain, pointing to me, "Her family's property is just over there." The response was immediate, "Oh, yes. You're McCandlesses! G.C. was my doctor." G.C. is what everyone–EVERYONE–calls my grandfather, who opened his medical practice in our town in 1929.
The house and property are a lot to take care of, and since none of the three of us siblings have ever shown much interest in moving back, I know my parents will probably sell it within the next ten years or so. I want to get back as much as possible in the meantime, to give my son as many of the wonderful memories of our family homestead as I have.
Because, I have a feeling, that place will always be "The McCandless Property." And it will always be home.

subset: commoncrawl


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Oil & Gas
Water is an essential component in many of the processes used for oil and gas production. For example, the hydraulic fracturing used to extract natural gas on a commercial level employs slick-water equipment that consumes massive amounts of water. Extraction from horizontal shale walls may require more than a million litres of water per stage of the process. This has created challenges in the supply and treatment of adequate water for not only municipal but also industrial purposes.
Marine Water Makers
Areas that have limited surface water or groundwater, or even no available fresh water may choose to acquire water from marine sources. Innovative industrial filtration, purification and desalination systems have been developed that are suitable for even the most challenging situations. For example, workers living on off-shore oil-rigs need a fresh supply of water from commercial water filters, as do those dwelling in coastal desert community who live under constant drought conditions.
Seawater Reverse Osmosis Plants
Reverse osmosis (RO) is an increasingly common method for the desalination of seawater. RO plants consume relatively low amounts of energy and in recent years have become even more efficient, with the standard energy consumption dropping to approximately 3 kWh per m3. This is largely a result of improvements that allow the recovery of energy during the process. The IDA (International Desalination Association) has estimated that RO plants make up 66% of the total installed desalination capacity, which equates to 44.5 of 67.4 Mm3 per day. Almost all new desalination plants fit this category.
Seawater Reverse Osmosis Systems
When it comes to reverse osmosis systems for the purification of seawater, the aim is to remove various types of molecules and ions from solutions, including bacteria and organic matter. Spiral wound membranes are often the preferred membrane geometry for these purposes due to their high success and efficiency rate. RO systems may be used in conjunction with ultra and nanofiltration, where the highest grade of polyamide thin-film composite materials are used to construct the RO membrane. This ensures high performance and retained integrity during the process.
Desalination is often the only option for seagoing vessels and offshore communities. Although the current figure is only 1% of the world's population which is dependent on desalinated water for daily needs. However, this figure is expected to have risen to 14% by 2025 as more and more of the world's population encounter water scarcity.


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News9.com - Oklahoma City, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports
The Uniformed Services University and Veteran's Administration have partnered to open the national PTSD Brain Bank, where researchers will investigate the impact of stress, trauma and PTSD on brain tissue. This work is being conducted in order to advance the scientific knowledge of PTSD, particularly the identification of PTSD biomarkers. Recent media coverage of the Brain Bank, its relevance and potential impacts can be found here.


text: I did not know Tim Hunkin had revolutionized Southwold pier until I met him at the great PINC.nl ideas festival in the Netherlands a few weeks back. Tim gave a great talk about how he builds crazy slot machines for fun, but also highlighted the fact that to do so you have to think with your hands. In the course of the interview I realized where I had seen him recently. Ive been digitizing some old radio programmes I made. I recalled that Tim had also interviewed the great Gerald Wells of the Vintage Wireless Museum in Dulwich. His encounter was about five years after mine in a series of programmes Tim wrote, drew and presented that aired on Channel 4. These looked at how stuff worked, often involving building something to demonstrate a process or phenomenon. The series has a mad professor feel to it, although I mean that in the nicest possible way. I love anything that makes complex ideas simpler. When you have seen this video, do make the trip over to timhunkin.com where there's a whole catalogue of stuff waiting to be discovered, including the vintage TV series. And if you're ever in Suffolk, head for the pier. Opening times are here southwoldpier.co.uk . I also need to credit Tracy Williams for using some of the pier footage at the start of the interview.


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How to Protect From CEO Fraud?
With the advances in the field of information technology, the world is changing. It provides a lot advancement in every sphere of life, but the world is also not saved from the threats of hacking. Many valuable information is lost due to phishing, spear phishing, executive whaling, etc.
CEO fraud is basically a type of spear phishing in which the cybercriminal sends an email to a company that is also working internationally and impersonates himself as the CEO and gets the secret information or the HR of that company. As a result these fraudsters divert the payments into their own bankaccounts and leaving the company empty-handed. It's very difficult to trace the fraudster because within only 24 hours the chances to recover are null.
Some target methods
You might be wondering that how can such guys do this CEO fraud. Number one is Phishing method. Emails are sent to a large number of people and the likely candidate is captured. In Spear Phishing the email is sent to only the person and the content of email includes some personal data also.
Next is Executive Whaling in which the executives or the CEOs of the companies are targeted. The last but not the leastis the Social Engineering in which the people are tricked to get the confidential data and revealing the access to their company's accounts.
Possibilities for the CEO fraud
Most commonly fraudsters take advantage of people who are working with foreign companies. They pretend as the lawyers of the company and get valuable data. They take over the email account of the worker and send money to false accounts. The fraudster send email imposing him as CEO of the firm and requests the employee to send money to some other account, but they send emails from the genuine email address and it seems real. Facebook and other social media apps provide a lot of organizational personneland help them commit CEO fraud.
Preventive measures
The company should train all the users about CEO fraud, so that the company shouldn't fall into such fraud. Complete security must be adopted and the employees must be taught to tackle the odd conditions. Cyber-risk planning must be done and the most risky users should be identified. Don't show any response to the emails that require your personal account data. Considering the sender is the major step to avoid such fraud.
Victim response steps
What are the steps the victim should take? Although the CEO fraud has 90 percent successful rate yet the victim should do these steps as immediately as possible:
Report your bank; use IT forensics; contact the executives and board of company; seek the help of security specialists; make more plans for better security; contact law enforcement, etc.


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Redfield Elementary reading achievers rewarded with annual Bank of the West pizza party
By Shiloh Appel
On September 6th, at 11a.m., the Bank of the West held their annual pizza party for Redfield Elementary School summer reading achievers in the RHS auditorium. Due to a shortage of buses available, this is the first year that the pizza party was held in the school auditorium, as it was previously held annually in the Redfield armory. However, there was no less excitement among the children.
Pictured above are all of the elementary summer reading achievers, Grace Aaker-Lemmer, Chloe Appel, Jaycee Appel, Isaac Banister, Jaedyn Banister, Aleah Bebo, Darien Dey, Tia Esser, Katryn Evans, Deven Fliehe, Rylen Frericks, Ava Gatzke, Brynn Giblin, Layla Hardie, Madison Hardin, Silven Hardin, Tiy Haskell, Kasey Hermann, Kylie Hermann, Davanee Kuykendall, Jazlynne Lechner, Peyton O'Daniel, Autumn Olsen, Addyson Rice, Willow Ronneberg, Sophie Schaffer, Hannah Schlechter, MaKayla Schulz, Braylee Siebrecht, Kendyl Siebrecht, Logan Siebrecht, Kinley Smith, Kalli Spotanske, Jadie Turner, Leah Walder, Kevin Weller, and Tatum Zens. Not pictured are reading achievers Derrick Bogart, JaLia Miles, Jack Mills, Christian Peterson and Mikayla Schaffer.
Receiving top honors for the most books read over the summer was second grader Hannah Schlechter, who read 102 books. Kasey Hermann had the second largest number of books read over the summer, 54, and Kylie Hermann came in with the third largest number at 32. Addyson Rice and Jaycee Appel read the fourth largest amount of books at 17 each, and Sophie Schaffer, Kalli Spotanske and Tatum Zens all came in close behind with a total of 16 books read.
The children enjoyed all they could eat of pepperoni and cheese pizza, bottled water and large chocolate chip cookies for dessert, all provided by Bank of the West. The gift of a fidget spinner for each of the reading achievers was also received with a wave of excitement and cheers. After gathering together for the annual pizza day photo, the students returned to their classrooms with full stomaches.


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Body Shop Gift Sets Review and Giveaway! CAN 01/05
I was very happy to have been given the opportunity to participate in this Holiday Gift Guide Review. I remember the Body Shop products as far back as the early to mid-90s, when the Body Shop t-shirts, promoting activism and condemning animal testing, were popular with all the kids.
The Body Shop has built its brand on a strong foundation of ethics and caring for others – be it people or our furry and feathered friends. Their values include refusing to participate in animal testing, community fair trade, activating self-esteem, defending human rights, protecting the planet, and ethical trade.
Those that know me know that education is very important to me and ensuring that under-privileged children have valuable access to every opportunity to learn is such a worthwhile endeavour. So, I am thrilled to let you know that The Body Shop has partnered with War Child on a special project. Every gift you buy at The Body Shop this year will provide a class to a child in a war-torn country. A class for every gift! The Body Shop is aiming to provide over 6 million classes this holiday season. I think this is a great project and it applies to all of the items in my review.
Jon, Mary and I had a lot of fun reviewing these items.
First up, The Body Shop Mango Treats. This included a Mango Shower Gel (60ml), Mango Body Whip (60ml) and an Orange Mini Crinkle Bath Lily. The total value of this package is $10. I absolutely loved the scent of these products. The gently fruity smell of sunny mango is fabulous at this time of year. All that's missing is some sand and a book on the beach! Both products left my skin soft with just a hint of mango. I think this cute mini gift cube would be a great stocking stuffer for a girl/woman of any age.
The Body Shop Coconut Treats is a cute little bath and body set valued at $10 which consists of Coconut Shower Cream (60ml), Coconut Body Milk (60 ml) and a Cream Mini Crinkle Bath Lily. These bath and body treats are scented with tropical coconut. In recognition of The Body Shop values, this product is made with Community Fair Trade Organic Virgin Coconut Oil. As with the mango mini set, I loved the coconut scent and it also made me think of a sunny vacation during our current snowy season. In consistency, the Coconut Shower Cream is thicker than a shower gel and the Coconut Body Milk is thinner than a typical moisturizer. I liked both products and felt that they absorbed well and left a lovely mild scent. I'd highly recommend this set for women of all ages!
The Body Shop Olive Beauty Bag is filled with fresh olive scented treats at a very fair price of $15. These olive oil bath and body products are made with organic Community Fair Trade olive oil from Italy. This gift package included an Olive Shower Gel (60ml), Olive Body Butter (50ml) and an Olive Body Scrub (50ml). Of all the products, these had the mildest scent and would be suitable for men or women. I loved them all, and my husband is a big fan of olive oil products so I also used the Body Scrub and Body Butter on his feet and calves as a mini-spa treatment. He enjoyed that the scrub wasn't too harsh. I think this would be a great gift for any special woman or man in your life.
The Body Shop Moringa Festive Picks came in a beautiful printed green box and has a value of $25. This set includes a Moringa Shower Gel (250 ml), Moringa Body Butter (50ml), Moringa Body Scrub (50ml), a Moringa Soap (100g) and a Cream Mini Bath Lily. Moringa is a plant native to parts of Africa and Asia. These products had a floral scent and were the strongest smelling of all the ones I reviewed. Though I don't typically enjoy florals as a body scent, my daughter went wild for these products and hid the Moringa Body Butter in her room so she could have it all for herself. The shower gel and body scrub are both good quality and the thick scrub would be ideal for anyone who likes a deep clean feel. Of note, the soap is more like a bar of thick moisturizer, and as with all the other items I reviewed, left my skin soft, rather than dried out as can be problematic with other brands. This gift box is so lovely, you don't even need to wrap it. Just pop it under the tree for a lucky someone.
For more information, please check out http://www.thebodyshop.ca
You can also follow The Body Shop here:
Disclaimer: I received the products mentioned above from The Body Shop in order to write this review. The opinions are my own.
As you can tell, I am a big fan of these products and I hope you'll all enter the giveaway!
Enter to Win these gift sets:
- The Body Shop Mango Treats
- The Body Shop Coconut Treats
- The Body Shop Olive Beauty Bag
- The Body Shop Moringa Festive Picks
Value $60
The giveaway is open to Canadian Residents and ends on January 5th, 2015 at 11:59 EST.
Good luck!
Rules: Open to Canadian residents 18 +. You have 48 hours to reply by email once you are notified as the winner. If you don't, we will draw another entry. Prize is non-transferable. No substitution or cash equivalent of prizes is permitted. The selected winner must correctly answer a mathematical question in order to win the prize mentioned above. The Ottawa Mommy Club is not responsible for prize fulfillment and for the delivery/shipment of the prize(s) mentioned above. For our complete set of rules, please click here.
Category: Beauty, Family, Giveaways Archived, Living, Moms, Products, Reviews


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The Horse Gazette Newspaper
Available at horse related businesses throughout Texas... Ask for it!
Published monthly since 1996
"I read it in The Horse Gazette!"
Performances - Steeped in Tradition
With Master Horseman, Jerry Diaz
With Master Horseman, Jerry Diaz
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If you have not been to a Jerry Diaz Productions performance, you are definitely missing out. The excitement builds as you follow the string of taillights down the tree lined gravel road towards the brightly lit arena. The large round charro arena was filled with spectators from all walks of life. The crowd was buzzing and all eyes were turned toward the center ring and master of ceremonies, Jerry Diaz on his beautiful, black, Friesian stallion, Rosario. This was not your standard charreada... no, this truly was an extravaganza!
The evening held traditional charro events mixed with several masterful equine demonstrations and delightful musical entertainment. Mariachi Internacional performed, the young Isabel Marie Sanchez entertained, and Jerry himself, sang a ballad to his beautiful wife while on horseback. His balance of historical accuracy and modern entertainment makes for a grand cultural event indeed. To understand his process, you must visit with Jerry at his ranch, watch him work horses, and hear him tell the stories of his past.
Jerry's every move was calculated and his eyes were ever watching to catch the slightest reaction from his new equine students. These nameless horses came here with no preconceptions or manmade habits, only the natural instincts of the herd. Jerry works with them daily and develops a bond and respectful relationship, and only then does he choose their lifelong name to suit their personalities. This was not your average production line of training horses; these were training sessions adjusted to meet the needs of each individual horse and their specific needs. These are (as are all of the horses) special, and this great horseman treats them as such.
His skills are not learned from a book nor a classroom. Jerry is a fourth generation charro. His father was the master horseman, Don Jose "Pepe" Diaz. Jerry mentioned him often and even wears his father's chaps when working horses. Pepe taught him well and this is reflected in Jerry's professionalism and success. As he proudly shows you his horses and 50 acre facility, you can see the results of hard work and dedication. The hours training client horses, the hours schooling his own horses, , the hours in managing farm operations, the hours creating/producing/directing/performing up to 50 shows a year nationwide. . . these are the hours of his life spent doing what he loves and with who he loves; horses and family.
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Jerry is not alone in this business. He is sponsored by Hutchinson HW Brand and has a long standing, 22 year, relationship with Purina, advancing from "Influential" to "Ambassador" status. This support is essential for the business, but nothing is more essential than his wife Staci and son Nicolas at his side daily in both the ring and at the farm. Their son Nicolas is only 12, but already a natural horseman performing with his parents regularly. Staci is an accomplished equestrian and spectacular entertainer. She is a third generation equine performer whose style and grace enhance every performance.
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The Diaz Ranch is not just an event center, it is the family home and horse training facility for the Diaz family. Jerry works with every type of horse imaginable; vastly different backgrounds and breeds. He regularly receives young, unhandled horses from a ranch in West Texas. "They herd these horses from the plains, into a pen, on to a cattle trailer, and haul them across the state for me to start their education," Jerry states. He continues to say, "It is a rare opportunity to work with horses with so little contact with humans. That can be a good thing!"
Together this family offers riding lessons, horse training, clinics, and entertainment. Jerry Diaz Productions will finish out 2016 here in Texas. They can be seen Sept 22-24 at the Comal County Fair and Rodeo and Sept 30-Oct 23 at the State Fair of Texas at Fair Park in Dallas. The 2017 calendar starts off with the National Western Stock Show & Rodeo in Denver followed by the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo in Fort Worth.


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Multiple domains causing a headache? Projects, blogs, and e-commerce side jobs running here, there, and everywhere? Why not simplify our online livelihood by administering all your websites through one, single hosting plan? New for spring, through May 9, Broadspire Hosting has arranged a special Bundle Pack for Rhizome members that includes up to five separate accounts for one monthly payment. Each account may take its own domain name and includes an individualized email account and web traffic stats. A total of 500MB storage space is to be divided among the five, however you like, and there's a roomy 10GB limit to monthly transfers. Daily data backups and 24/7 technical support as well! All for a $50.00 setup fee and $29.95 per month, plus the peace of mind of having everything under one roof, not to mention of keeping Rhizome healthy, active and multivalent. - Rhizome.org
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Let's face it – you're too cool for a tour bus.
Now you can make the most of San Francisco's unique geography and history by going on an urban hiking tour! Urban hiking gets you killer views with your workout while you explore the secret stairways, hilltop views, and hiking trails of San Francisco. Whether you've been in San Francisco for 10 minutes, 10 days, or 10 years, you're guaranteed to see something new.
On this 2 hour tour, you'll:
• Take in sweeping views of the city and Twin Peaks at night from Kite Hill
• Slide down the Seward Street Slides
• Take an unmarked hiking trail to the summit of Twin Peaks
• Learn about the Mt. Sutro eucalyptus forest's early origins as well as its dark past
• Soak in panoramic views of Golden Gate Park, the Golden Gate Bridge, and downtown SF from Tank Hill
• Wander ghost streets and quaint stairways from Acme Alley to the 211-step masterpiece, Pemberton Place
Originally from New Jersey, I've lived in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Paris. While living in New York in 2004, I took a vacation to San Francisco and realized I didn't want to come home. It took three years, but I finally moved to San Francisco in 2007. When I bought my one-way ticket out west, my father bought me a copy of Adah Bakalinsky's book "Stairway Walks of San Francisco". At the time, I worked an hour outside the city during the week, so on weekends and inspired by the Stairway Walks book, I would take off to explore my new home on foot. One fateful day, a native San Franciscan friend brought me on a walk to the Embarcadero via the Vallejo and Filbert Street Steps. I loved the views afforded by the stairways, I loved the exercise I got from climbing them, and I loved how they seemed to be a secret to most. From that moment on, I was hooked on urban hiking. I love finding new secret spots in the city and now I want to share my findings with you! Full profile
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The members of the Oklahoma City Thunder team are a bunch of young, quiet, unassuming and extremely confident young guns. That is when they step off the basketball court. When they are on the court the Thunder go through a massive transformation into a group of young men that defy gravity and conventional wisdom with their mercurial basketball skills.
Off the court, as I discovered last year as my family and I sat waiting to be seated at a famous Los Angeles eatery, Thunder players don't walk around with their chests puffed out asking for preferential treatment. They're quite the opposite.
Center Kendrick Perkins, NBA Sixth Man of the Year James Harden and about as many as four other Thunder players walked into Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles restaurant in Los Angeles with as much fanfare as an ant going into a mole hill. There was no drama.
There were no groupies hanging out waiting for them to get out of their vehicles. Autograph seekers weren't madly rushing up to them in droves. There they were, the potential future of the NBA, walking into one of the hottest eatery spots in the city, sitting down eating their food as if they are just regular folks.
There was no pretense about this group. There was no celebrity aura encompassing them. When people talk about folks being real, what I saw that day was a group of young men not caught up in the hype of their own press clippings.
Heck, they just wanted to get their eat on like everybody else. Why is this big deal? It really isn't, except for the fact that provides a backdrop of what type of cats the Thunder players are. These guys are cool, collected and confident. When they're away from the arena where they make their money, Thunder players can be fun and engaging.
It's a different ballgame when they're on the court. The Thunder team is a brash and bold bunch. They don't back down. The Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs can attest to this. All three teams have a degree of championship pedigree in them. The Thunder knocked off Dirk Nowitzki and the defending NBA champions Mavericks in five games in the first round of the playoffs.
Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers, and all of their 16 titles, were pushed aside by OKC in six hard-fought games of the second round. After making it to the Western Conference Finals last year in which they fell in five games to the Mavericks, OKC showed their growth and grit in ousting Tim Duncan and the highly-favored San Antonio Spurs to make it to the NBA Finals this time around.
Instead of showboating, the Thunder let their play do all the talking. And it all begins and ends with the NBA's three-time scoring champ Kevin Durant. Durant is the clear-cut leader of this squad. Each team usually takes on the makeup of their leader. In the case of OKC, Thunder players basically emulate Durant, who is about as low-key as a superstar as one can get.
While Durant is the defacto leader of Thunder with his effortlessly artful of putting the ball in the hoop and quiet intensity, Los Angeles native Russell Westbrook brings the noise and hammed with youthful exuberance and high-flying act.
Westbrook is both boisterous and demonstrative, serving as an effective counter balance to Durant's even-keel demeanor. Then there is the X-factor force that is known as Harden.
If you need a three-point bucket in crunch time, Harden can be you man. If the team needs an on-court facilitator, Harden can do that with the best. The beautiful thing is that Durant, Westbrook and Harden, are all under 24. With the exception of former Lakers great Derek Fisher, who hooked up with the team near the end of the regular season, the Thunder are essentially a bunch of baby-faced basketball take-out artists.
Right now, OKC is the best team in the Western Conference. And from the way it looks, that fact will probably hold true for a very long time to come.
Dennis is editor and publisher of News4usonline. A news and sports reporter, Dennis has written about civil rights, education, government, crime, and social justice. Dennis covers the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, and NCAA. He is a graduate of Howard University. HU!!


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Remote Starters
Serving Monmouth County and the surrounding area
Stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer with a professionally installed remote start system! We have over 18 years of remote start installation experience.
We provide a lifetime installation warranty.
- Top quality Viper, Avital and Fortin electronics
- No cut wires
- Does not affect your factory warranty
If you have a smart phone, you can now turn your car into a smart car!
- Have your phone send you weather time and vehicle interior temperature based reminders to start your car
- Get status reports from your car to let you know if a door or trunk is left open
- Control your windows, radio, and many more features right from your phone
- Have your phone find where you parked your car, and keep track of parking meters
- Use GPS tracking to check speed, location, and notify you when your car leaves a specified area


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Apple loses in Digital Millennium Copyright ruling
Library of Congress gives thumbs up to jailbreaking
AFTER YEARS of taking a very conservative approach to the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), the US Library of Congress has issued a wave of rulings that all but turn the law on its head.
Every three years, the Library of Congress reviews its policy on the DMCA and releases its opinions about how it should be interpreted.
This time the Library allowed widespread circumvention of the CSS encryption on DVDs, under some conditions. And in an opinion that sails up the nose of Steve Jobs it has ruled that jailbreaking Iphones qualifies as "Fair Use". It also will let punters crack their legally purchased e-books in order to have them read aloud by computers.
The Register of Copyrights has allowed for digital restrictions management (DRM) circumvention for DVDs that are "lawfully made and used for educational uses by college and university professors and by college and university film and media studies students, documentary filmmaking, [and] noncommercial videos". Youtube, here we come.
It has decided to allow the use of jailbreaking software or firmware that is designed to "enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telecommunications network". The condition is that the operator has to allow the jailbroken device to be connected to its network. However it does mean that jailbreaking mobile phones is completely legal. It might be interesting to see what happens with future attempts by Apple to prevent jailbroken handsets from accessing its services. We would think it illegal to block a legal right.
DRM on video games can be bypassed for the purpose of "good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities". So it is okay to hack video games if you are looking for flaws in the software.
You are also allowed to hack computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.
Lastly, if you have an e-book that is protected by DRM you are allowed to hack it if it contains access controls that prevent enabling either the book's read-aloud function or screen readers that render the text into a specialised format. µ
INQ Latest
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The cost of a sponsored post on Instagram has shot up 1,125 per cent since 2014
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But eager game streaming beavers will have to wait until 2020


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Monthly Archives: December 2016
Anthony Davis hosts 100 children for Christmas toy giveaway
December 22, 2016 | In the Press
Click here for the original post on Nola.com BY JOHN REID firstname.lastname@example.com Anthony Davis hosted 100 children from RainTree Child Services and Kingsley House for a Christmas shopping spree Thursday night at Target in Metairie. The New Orleans Pelicans forward signed autographs and helped the kids pick out their presents. Raintree Child Services and Kingsley House…


text: While Calzaturificio Diemme may not be a name that rolls off the tongue of sneakerheads, it is still the name of a highly regarded manufacturer of fine leather footwear. Based out of, appropriately, Montebelluna, Italy this premium supplier has put some of their fine leather to work on something far from extravagant, giving the classic Vans Lo LX a luxurious upgrade. A slip-on in leather is far from new, but the pairing of Vans and Diemme is a juxtaposition prompted in footwear heaven, and everyone from skaters to counts will feel comfortable n these kicks. No exact release date, but expect to see these hit shelves at Vans Vault retailers in October.


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1/2 Pint (8 fl. oz.)
Make comfort food even more delightful with our Amber Rich pure maple syrup infused with the flavors of autumn. Use as a glaze over roasted meats, mix with sour cream to top a baked sweet potato, mix into whipped cream for pie, or drizzle into a latte.


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Stornoway RNLI has been gifted a total of 25 stunning drawings and paintings completed by artist Richard Walker (1925-2009), to be sold to raise funds for the local lifeboat station.
And all are invited to view and purchase the works at the Art Sale, due to take place in the Morning Room at Lews Castle on Friday, June 23rd, from 7.30pm.
Admission is free and prices range from £20 to £80, so there's something for everyone.
Born in Surrey, Walker's artistic skills were first recognised when he was 13 years old and won the Founders' Prize of the Royal Drawing Society. He then went onto have a picture hung in the Royal Academy and secured an art scholarship to Cranford School.
After a spell at Queen's College, Oxford, and service with the RAF, Walker trained at the Croydon School of Art, then at London University and the Slade School.
He worked as a professional artist throughout his career, hosting many successful one-man shows, and many of his works hang in private and public collections.
A member of the United Society of Artist, The Society of Graphic Fine Art, and the Armed Forces Art Society, Walker was a frequent exhibitor at the major London art societies' exhibitions; and his portraits and landscapes now hang as far away as the Kjarval Museum in Reykjavick, Iceland.
Working in all mediums, Walker studied lithography as a specialist subject, and from the outset was interested in portrait painting, which he taught in his own studio in Croydon.
Some of his portraits include the composer Herbert Howells (for the Royal College of Music), conductor Vernon Handley, and the atomic physicist Sir William Penney.
The donated works – which range from simple pencil studies to larger paintings and watercolours – were delivered to Stornoway RNLI by Walker's friend Richard Halsey following the artist's death, and depict scenes and places around the Lewis and Harris.
Speaking of his friend's love of the Western Isles, Richard Halsey said: "Richard [Walker] developed a special love of Lewis and Harris, which he visited first in the 1960s and regularly from that time.
"Richard found inspiration in the hugely varied island landscape: the rugged coastlines, the rock formations, the colours of the wide open vistas, dilapidated buildings and subtle groupings of sheep."
He added: "My own first visit to the islands was with Richard in 1978, when the village of Garenin, quite recently abandoned, was a melancholy sight, with an uncertain future. His pictures of old Garenin are in marked contrast to the scene which the restored village presents to the visitor today."


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Share your requirements and we'll get back to you with how we can help.
Node.js is a developer platform built on Google's V8 JavaScript engine. It aggregates the qualities of other server-side languages to produce an irresistible package that is also modular, accessible, and concise.
Node.js is a good choice for applications that require real time communication between users, clients, and servers across the web. It can power the back-end of real-time collaboration software and easily scale up to support very large number of users.
Real-time communication requires fast, non-blocking input/output (I/O). In Node.js, the non-blocking I/O is based on an event loop and uses asynchronous callbacks for I/O. All I/O intensive tasks are passed to this event loop which efficiently manages asynchronous operations. This non-blocking programming model allows you to work with network traffic with a lower server footprint.
AppJS is a software development kit that we utilize to build cross-platform desktop applications using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. With Node.js at its core, AppJS acts as a simple but powerful tool to build applications for Linux, Windows, and Mac. Mobile apps developed using Node include applications for social networking and sending greeting cards.
Get a free quote for your next application.
Online portal for tracking scores that integrates talent management, player evaluation, and custom workout implementation along with social media features.


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Hotel Discounts
The following host hotels offer special discount rates to general race participants and/or complimentary rooms for our invited/elite athletes. Book online, or call early to ensure your room.
Discount Rate: $119/night plus tax (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights only, November 26-28).
Less than a mile from the race venue, the Hyatt Place San Jose/Downtown is located in beautiful downtown San Jose across from the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, the Center for the Performing Arts, and the Tech Museum of Innovation. The hotel offers Turkey Trot participants a comfortable, convenient home away from home and top-notch lodging. Includes complimentary continental breakfast and free Wi-Fi.
To make your reservations, visit https://www.hyatt.com/en-US/group-booking/SJCZJ/G-TRT1
Discount Rate: $109/night plus tax (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights, November 26-28).
The Hilton San Jose is located about 1/2 mile from the general participants' starting line and about 3/4 mile from the elite races starting line in the heart of San Jose— flourishing with industry, culture, and beauty, rich with history and a vibrant nightlife. The hotel is within an easy walking distance of the San Jose Museum of Art. You will find our guestrooms offers all the comfort and conveniences expected from a first class hotel.
Discount Rate: Starting at $136/night plus tax (Wednesday, November 27 thru Saturday, November 30 only).
Located about 1/4 mile from the general participants' starting line and about a mile from the elite races starting line, the Fairmont San Jose luxury hotel blends historic grandeur with the high-tech excitement of Silicon Valley. Guests can relax and recharge at the fourth-floor rooftop pool, fully-equipped Fitness Center or our Tova Day Spa. A short drive will take you to more than 60 wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains Appellation, and to the famous Monterey Peninsula. Enjoy The Fairmont's sumptuous Thanksgiving Day Buffet Brunch in the Imperial Ballroom and Fountain Restaurant with all the trimmings.
To make discount room reservations, call 1-800-346-5550 and ask for the discount "Applied Materials Turkey Trot – General Participant Block" or with the code TURK1119_001.
RSVP by Nov. 15
AC Hotel San Jose Downtown by Marriott
Discount Rate: $109/night plus tax (Tuesday and Wednesday nights only, November 26-28).
Located about 1/4 mile from the start and finish lines of the general participants' races and about 1/2 mile from the elite racers' starting line, the brand new AC Hotel San Jose Downtown by Marriott will open in October 2016. The 7-story hotel offers sweeping views of our Bay Area, mountains, and city, a fitness center, pool, free high-speed Internet, all King beds, and mini-refrigerators.
Book your group rate for Applied Materials Turkey Trot – PENDING
RSVP by Nov. 19
Hotel De Anza – PENDING
Discount Rate: $139/night plus tax (Tuesday, November 26 thru Sunday, December 1 only).
Located a couple of blocks from the race venue in the heart of downtown San Jose and within walking distance to a variety of restaurants and attractions, the Four Diamond –rated Hotel De Anza offers the ultimate combination of personalized service, attention to detail, and exceptional accommodations. The hotel completed an extensive renovation in late 2015 to make it even more spectacular and enjoyable for you during your visit.
To make your discount reservations, call the front desk at 1-408-286-1000 and reference "Turkey Trot" to receive the discount rate. Or, to make your reservations online click here, then click on the "Book Now" box. Make sure to enter TurkeyTrot in the Promo Code field under Promo Type to obtain the discount rate.


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BẾN TRE – United Nations (UN) Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson made a fact-finding trip to the southern province of BếnTre yesterday to find out about the impact of the ongoing drought and saline intrusion. Meeting with a local household victim, Eliasson vowed to seek solutions to help affected farmers.
He later inspected a landslide in Bảo Thuận Commune where tens of hectares of soil have been lost to blasting sea waves every year. Trương Duy Hải, deputy chairman of the provincial People's Committee, said over 20,000ha of winter-spring crops have been completely destroyed, leading to food shortages.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Đức Phát informed the UN Deputy Secretary-General that not only the Mekong Delta, but the central and Central Highlands are suffering from severe drought.
The Mekong Delta has lost one million tonnes of rice and over 9,000ha of fruit orchards while more than 200,000 households lack enough water. Eliasson suggested Việt Nam work with countries to devise a joint action plan and solutions that take climate change into account.
He vowed to assist Vietnamese victims in drought-stricken areas and informed international organisations about Việt Nam's ongoing disasters. The UN official said he will convey information and images of Việt Nam's climate change-induced losses to a meeting in Turkey later this month. — VNS


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I have been working on modifiying VOIPONG to be executed on-demand, so that Voipong doesn't have to record all streams, just the ones we tell it to. Several things had to be modified for this to work properly. First off, I had to figure out a way to tell Voipong to only look at network traffic for one specific host. The easiest way to accomplish this without modification, was to simply pass in a different configuration file for each recording request. The configuration file allows to specify a startup filter which was used to simply limit the berkley packet filter to only look at traffic for a specific ip address.
startup = "host ' . $ip . ' and udp"
Secondly I had to modify Voipong to exit properly after it is done recording the phone call. Then, I also modified it to handle passing in a new filename prefix to attach to the file, so that we can pass in a specifc identifier to link the file to a particular record in a database.
I wrote a small client-server application to execute the modified Voipong executable. The back end is a C program that runs on the server through the inetd facility. Inetd handles all of the socket connections and closings. For each simultaneous connection, an instance of this program will be executed. I have tried to keep it as simple as possible so that it is easy to troubleshoot.
I have built in the following error codes in the different steps along the process to help troubleshoot potential problems.
Client Error Messages
- 400 – Did not get propper get vars
- 401 – Not able to connect to ldap
- 402 – No Phone Ip Address
- 403 – Not able to connect to server service
Server Error Messages
- 500 – Invalid command
- 501 – No config file for that phone ip address
- 502 – the filename for the recording already exits
- 503 – voipong already running or stale pid file
Client connects -> Server at port 11200 //or whatever port you want
- Server:HELLO
- Client:RECORD //Or other command
- Client:10.10.10.100 //IP Address of phone
- Server:OK 200
- Client:92381 //file name prefix
- Server:OK 200
- Server:RECORDING
- close connection
The server is a simple C program, reading and writing data through stdin and stdout. Inetd server is used to make the actual socket connections. When aconnection is made to inetd, inetd executes the compiled version of the server, and the server outputs "HELLO" to stdout which is sent to the client. The protocol is followed by the client sending a command back to the socket of what to do. So far the only valid command is RECORD. The RECORD command is sent through the inetd facility and then back into the server instance this is reading data from stdin. The protocol continues on reading and writing data or an error message through stdin/stdout, until the command set is complete. Upon the final step, execl is called to execute a modified voipong instance. Simple, right!
The client can be written in any language that has network connectivity to the Voipong server, and that is able to read and write data to a socket. I used PHP to make a simple script that does just that.
$server = '10.10.10.10′;
$port = '11200′;
//$debug = 1;
–Chat should go as follows–
Client connects -> Server 11200
Client:RECORD /Or other command
Client:10.10.10.100 /IP Address of phone
Server:OK 200
Client:92381 /filename prefix
Server:OK 200
close connection
—Client Error Messages—
400 – Did not get propper get vars
401 – Not able to connect to ldap
402 – No Phone Ip Address
403 – Not able to connect to server service
—Server Error Messages—
500 – Invalid command
501 – No config file for that phone ip address
502 – the filename for the recording already exits
503 – voipong already running or stale pid file
if(!$_GET['tempsid'] || !$_GET['uid']){
echo "ER 400″;
//Connect to LDAP to get users phone ip address.
if ($ds) {
// verify binding
if ($ldapbind) {
$justthese = array("phoneDeviceIPAddr");
$sr=ldap_search($ds, $sdn, $filter, $justthese);
//$sr=ldap_search($ds, $sdn, 'uid=*');
$entry = ldap_get_entries($ds, $sr);
$phoneidaddr = $entry[0]['phonedeviceipaddr'][0];
} else {
echo "ER 401″;
$total_records = count($entry);
if(!$phoneidaddr || strlen($phoneidaddr) < 8){
echo "ER 402″;
$fp = fsockopen($server,$port, $errno, $errstr, 10);
if (!$fp) {
echo "ER 403″;
} else {
// Initial Connection get prompt
$result = fgets($fp, 6);
if($result == 'HELLO'){
// Send Command
if($debug) echo "\nSend Command: RECORD";
fwrite($fp, "RECORD\r\n");
$result = fgets($fp, 7);
if($result != 'OK 200′){
echo $result;
// Send Phone IP
fwrite($fp, "$phoneidaddr\r\n");
if($debug) echo "\nPhone Ip: $phoneidaddr";
$result = fgets($fp, 7);
if($result != 'OK 200′){
echo $result;
// Send filename prefix
if($debug) echo "\nSend filename:" . $_GET['tempsid'];
fwrite($fp, $_GET['tempsid'] . "\r\n"); // filenameprefix
$result = fgets($fp, 7);
if($result != 'OK 200′){
echo $result;
$result = fgets($fp, 10);
if($debug) echo "\nFinal Result:";
echo "$result";
For this example, all that you need to do is fetch the url that the php script exists as with the $uid and $temsid varibles defined. Of course in this example I am pulling the phone's ip address out of ldap based on the uid, but you could obviously do this however you like.
I have the source in working condition, but want to clean it up before pushing it out. I have done the modifications to the 2.0 devel version of VOIPONG. If you would like to test it, send me an email and we can work something out. [ alex -~AT~- 4devz . com ] When I get a chance, I'll try to get a patch for voipong together, and the server I wrote.
PS. Here is a little php script I threw together to generate all the config files.
// PHP Script to create individual voipong configuration files.
// to be placed in 10.10.10.10:/usr/local/etc/voipong/client
$ip = "10.10.10.$x";
$filename = "./$ip.conf";
$config = '#
# voipong.conf
# VOIPONG konfigurasyon dosyasi
# VoIPong Voice Over IP Sniffer
# Copyright (C) 2004,2005 Murat Balaban
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
# as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
# of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place – Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
# $Id: voipong.conf,v 1.10 2005/12/04 14:27:35 murat Exp $
logdir = /usr/output
logfile = voipong.log
cdrfile = voipcdr.log
networksfile = /usr/local/etc/voipong/voipongnets
pidfile = /var/run/' . $ip . '.voipong.pid
mgmt_ipcpath = /tmp/voipongmgmt.sock
soxpath = /usr/local/bin/sox
soxmixpath = /usr/local/bin/soxmix
modpath = /usr/local/etc/voipong/modules
mixwaves = 1
defalg = lfp
rtp_idle_time = 10
#device = fxp0
device = bge0
promisc = 1
snaplen = 1500
readtmt = 500
outdir = /usr/output
startup = "host ' . $ip . ' and udp"
$fp =fopen($filename,"w");


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Phillip Jamison/ Class 9: Financial Literacy
223. How would you gauge your level of financial literacy today?
I have a strong understanding to the functions of finances. I this day and age, I have to understand the concept of this, for it's a requirement to meet my survival needs. Possessing the knowledge on how to balance a check book, build credit, prioritize bills, etc. is an essential skill needed to build my future. With out financial literacy, I hinder myself from balancing my life.
224. To what extent would you suppose that financial literacy relates to your probability for success upon release?
Financial literacy will have a strong impact on my future. In order for me to be successful in today's world. I must understand how to manage my financial affairs. I have a goal and aspiration to one day grow with a business and manage the company. It would be beneficial for me to consistently educate myself on understanding the constant change and fluctuation of the financial world. By understanding how to build more capitol, this will allow the company to grow. Therefore allowing my success to grow with the company.
225. What opportunities exist for prisoners to improve their financial literacy?
The prison I'm currently confined to offers a financial education class with in it's Release Preparation Program (RPP). This would help me to understand the basic principles of budgeting my personal finances during and after confinement. If I wish to broaden my knowledge on my financial literacy. I can also achieve this through various distance learning classes. There are a wide variety of colleges around the U.S. that offers a prisoner courses on gaining a stronger introspective on the financial world. Other means of gaining knowledge around the prison can be acquired through reading books. Books offer information on business, stocks, investing, etc. Additionally, more knowledge can be taken away through Entrepreneur, Time or Money magazines.
226. How would you summarize the total costs of your imprisonment?
For the F.B.O.P. to house me for a 30 month sentencing. I'm estimating a total cost of $90,000 at $100 a day. It is my belief that this is a frivolous use of taxpayers income. Contrary to my belief, if the F.B.O.P. offered a prisoner more opportunities to enroll into programs that consist of personal growth and behavior modification. This would be a more valued means to invest the taxpayers income. With in these programs/micro cosmos, prisoners can learn how to live addictive free lives and gain the essential tools to deal with life's challenges beyond prison. He can also learn the benefits of following values and create clearly defined goals. In summary, he can work towards becoming a positive pro-social member to society. The added bonuses upon completion of these programs is a sentencing reduction, for the prisoner is now ready to be released back into the world. I believe that all prisoners who haven't committed a crime involving harm to another should be eligible for these corrective programs. This would be a great investment decision on the American people.
227. Describe ways in which in an understanding of the stock market may help you value investment opportunities.
I believe that if I understand the value in where I can analyze the stock market. I can successfully expand my financial playing field. However, I do understand the stock market to have it's risks, for there are constant changes and fluctuations with in it's functions. In fact, by me understanding and studying the functions of other industries out there, I can become more diversified. This will lead me to make more calculated investment decisions toward risks. The willingness to meet the uncontrollable with a measure of choice and will power is to conquer with risk and triumph with glory.
228. How would improving skills to analyze the fundamentals of a particular stock lead to becoming a better small businessman?
By understanding a particular stock I will become more efficient as I decide what small businesses I can invest into. By studying the fundamental of the stock I gain a stronger introspective toward the overall condition of the industry. In addition, I can examine and evaluate the success and growth of the business. This will lead me in deciding the niche market that sparks my interest and skill set.
229. Describe the level of thought you are giving to your financial future.
Although money can't buy happiness, it certainly eliminates a lot of problems. I say this because I'm the kind of man who believes more in having a job that I enjoy – regardless of the fact that it pays a lot or a little. It is said, if you love your work, than you'll never work a day in your life. But in theory, it would benefit me more to elevate my salary wages and build a strong financial future. For this reason, I think highly of it and continue to persist in bettering myself and expanding my knowledge on gaining a firmer understanding on how to expand my playing field. By expanding my playing field, I expand the quality and comfort of my life and the lives of my children.
230. Describe the level of preparations you are making to prepare for retirement.
I consider myself to be a young individual still progressing in building a strong foundation for my future. In summary, my preparation is like building a hamburger. This includes the 3 layers consisting of the bottom bun, the meat/cheese, and the top crown. My main focus has been the laying of my bottom bun. This consists of my values, education, work history, etc. When I finally meet these goal requirements, I'll then add my additional garnishing (lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, 401k, IRA, trust funds for my children, etc.) through my desired career. Through this growth I'll eventually be ready to lay down my crown and retire…
231. In what ways would an understanding of the U.S. tax code contribute to your preparations for release?
Understanding the U.S. Tax Code laws and regulations will help me avoid any further issues with the law. By understanding the functions and legalities behind it I'll be more at a financial advantage, for I'll be capable of filing my own taxes. In addition, I'll be aware of my wage deductions, money owned to the government and tax returns. All in all, by possessing the knowledge on the in's and outs of the taxes codes. I can live with comfort and confidence!
232. What is your understanding of entrepreneurship?
Prior to earning my incarceration, I was working toward building a small business teaching Mixed Martial Arts "MMA". Additionally, I wanted to sell MMA training equipment and sports nutritional products locally and through the Internet. I have a strong understanding of the requirements needed to build and expand a business. I understand various contracts such as bi/unilateral contracts. Furthermore, the functions of Search Engine Optimization "SEO" and Paid Per-Click "PPC" as well as general marketing strategies for drawing traffic to my business. After all, the owner doesn't expand the business, the customers do…
233. What would you attribute as a primary reason for business failures in the United States, and why?
To my knowledge and working with in the field of Internet Advertising and Marketing. I've witnessed businesses fall apart due to poor management. This constitutes in poor planning, a lack of knowledge in marketing tactics and strategies, and under capitalism. Additionally, I've witnessed management fail to understand the true value of taking advantage of the wonderful world of Internet Search Engine Placement S.E.P. The power to drive traffic to a business through Internet linking, keywords, etc gives a business the power to expand with more ease. Like a fine wine, Search Engine Optimization gets better through time as well as the business. Although this may be true, many times I've heard business owners say the words "I don't believe in the Internet". The harsh reality of unplanned failure stems from the failure to properly plan, thus gaining a proper understanding on how to succeed.
234. If you were going to run your life as a business, how would you describe your preparation to succeed?
I began preparing for success many years ago in the U.S. Navy through self help, tech schooling and work experience. Despite my current obstacle of facing an incarceration, I'm still progressing forward. I'm taking care of business by furthering my knowledge and education on business. But first, I've made it a goal in becoming a stronger and more assertive communicator, a better thinker, and greater modeled citizen by adhering to values and clearly defined goals. I will continue enhancing my ability in becoming a better person for myself and others. I've been doing this by only setting my sights of the negative aspects and liabilities of my life that have hindered my abilities in becoming a successful individual in the past. By focusing on my negative traits and unfavorable blind-spots. I can learn how to rectify these self defeating areas with in my life. After I've successfully rectified these areas and dumped off my garbage. I'll then focus more on reaching for the sky – this time more objectively and with a clearer head and an opened mind.
235. What resources do you have available to you now?
An availability I've managed to engage myself in is the Michael G. Santos Foundation/Straight-A-Guide. This has had a major impact on the building blocks of my future beyond incarceration. In addition to my availabilities, I've successfully involved myself in a 500 hour Residential Drug Abuse Program aka R.D.A.P. Although I've successfully earned a sentencing reduction upon completion of R.D.A.P. I've gained something more beneficial for my future. I've gained a stronger sense and understanding on how to deal with life's challenges beyond imprisonment. Furthermore, I've gained more values and tools to lead a meaningful, respectful, productive and addictive free life. I've also learned how to build stronger relationships with others and how to choose my peers more objectively. By integrating these to programs together as one. I have enhanced my ability to achieve success after my incarceration and never again return prison. Although this journey has rendered to be stressful and involve risk and struggles. The greater these struggles have been, the more glorious the triumph now is!
236. What potential markets exist for you?
Over the last 12 years, I've been expanding my knowledge and expertise in (HAZMAT) Hazardous Material Transportation and Logistics. This consisted of munitions, firearms, pyrotechnics and explosives material. Occationally I'd be tasked to transport other forms of HAZMAT such as fuels, aircraft chemicals and so forth. A high level of knowledge, responsibility and discipline comes with possessing this job field. This experience was gained through the U.S. Navy. Additionally, I've strengthened my public speaking skills and leadership qualities. Furthermore, I've strengthened and accelerated my knowledge in physical fitness training and marketing strategies. With this being said, the potential markets that exist for me and match my skill set are area's with in the national and international shipping and transportation department. Also the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or Department of Energy (DOE). Other avenues that exist for me are operating my own gym or starting my own personal training academy. Although some of these marketing avenues may seem to far fetched for a felon to fulfill… "That's a mouthful." By following a strategic plan of action and strong values I can gain the knowledge to build the proper network needed to reach these heights.
237. What level of resources do you anticipate having on the day of your release?
I'm anticipating a high level of resources available for me upon my release. In summary, throughout my incarceration, I've built a strong support network that has assisted me in overcoming my imprisonment safely and with more ease. I have the faith in the willingness and care they possess to progress further in supporting me beyond prison. I additionally have support through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for my medical needs and/or employment needs if needed. Furthermore, I have the Internet, A/A and N/A, my church and most of all my Probation Officer. These are resources and skilled help who increase my success rate beyond the prison gate.
238. What level of earnings do you project during your first three years after your release?
I'm looking into acquiring a job that offers benefits and a starting wage salary with in the realm of 45-55k a year. Next to this, I plan on enrolling back into college and reactiving my Post 9/11 GI Bill with in the Bay Area. This bill offers paid tuition fees, book fees and housing fees. With in the time frame of 1-3 years after my release, I'm estimating a calculated figure of 65-80K a year.
239. What level of earnings do you project during your first decade after your release?
It is my goal to elevate my wage salary earnings up to $100,000 a year and beyond. Through the future plans I've mapped out, I will achieve this. Part of my plan of action is to not only focus on accelerating my own experience and knowledge with in my line of work. I'll also seek and discover new methods and idea's for the company I'm with in to expand and grow as well. Whether it's creating a new product line and/or new platform to take on – if the company can grow, the staff members can grow as well. Therefore resulting in the elevation of my own financial and career growth.
240. What action steps can you begin taking to increase your financial literacy?
As a prisoner, I'll continue further my financial literacy through self-help books and magazines. I've also expressed a level of humility and willingness to reach out to other prisoners with in the facilities to gain a stronger understanding of the world of finances. In spite of this being a federal prison. There are still individuals with in the prison who possess a high level of knowledge in area's such as stocks, retirement and finances. I believe it to be highly beneficial for anyone coming into a federal prison to seek out individuals of this nature – after running them through the S.W.O.T. Technique. Many of them have a wide varity of knowledge and experience to offer… Later, after I've transitioned back into the community, I plan on furthering my education through college and the Internet.
241. What relationship do academic credentials have to enhancing financial literacy?
Credentials, in summary, expresses the level of intelligence an individual has towards the subject matter at hand. To a greater extent, if I look at persons academic credentials deeper and from a different introspect. This conveys their level of discipline, dedication and commitment with in the persons will to learn and achieve. The relationship between academic credentials such as mathematics, reading and writing and communication all work hand and hand with financial literacy. Strengthening ones academic credentials sharpens a persons level in retaining the knowledge delivered, thus executing the knowledge possessed. By possessing high academic credentials – through time, this will support them in heightening their understanding towards the functions of the monetary system to a greater extent. The more a person commits themselves in expanding their minds, the more they master the art of understanding much.
242. In what ways would fluency with mathematical concepts and equations enhance your potential earning power or opportunities upon release?
Enhancing my fluency in mathematical concepts will open new avenues of opportunity for me beyond release. This will strengthen my ability to gain potential employment opportunities with in area's that involve accountability. The ability to maintain order, stock and inventory or even payroll with in a business makes me a potential asset to the company. Additionally, I'll have the ability to understand the stock market and balancing out company revenue. With is in mind, I'll have the power to expand businesses and enhance my percentage on becoming more successful… 1 strong mind + 1ME x 2gether = 4titude
243. In what ways would developing your skill with regard to reading, writing, and speaking enhance your potential earning power or opportunities upon release?
Developing strong reading, writing and speaking skills will promote my success after prison. This will grant me the ability to properly fill out job applications, create my own resumes and more. Additionally, it will better assist me in properly speaking and selling myself to prospective employers. Collectively, this will without a doubt enhance my chances in landing employment. Looking at it from another angle, this will benefit me in communicating with authoritative members such as my probation officer, halfway house staff or peace officers. Lastly, I can even continue building up my network of skilled help and positive peers.
244. Describe the types of books that might broaden your financial literacy and thus help you prepare for success upon release?
Books that have broadened my financial literacy are textbooks pertaining to various levels of mathematical education. I've also used self-help books such as Basic Financial Knowledge and Finances for Dummies. Furthermore, I've utilized magazines like Forbes, Economists and Entrepreneur. All of these resources have assisted me in broadening my knowledge on financial literacy. As a prisoner, there are limitations the prison has to offer on furthering their education on financial literacy. A prisoner would need to exercise their own willingness and initiative to order their own self-help text/workbooks.
245. What resources will you rely upon to make financial decisions in your future?
The resources I can rely on when making financial decisions are the tools I've gained through the Straight-A-Guide and the Residential Drug Abuse Program. I can run my thoughts through the Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats Technique (SWOT) to weigh the pros and cons of my decision. I can even create a formatted grid utilizing the quadrant theory technique. Furthermore, I can run my thoughts through the 5 rules of rational thinking to look ahead of the possible consequences and see if my choice will help me meet my short and long-term goals. I'll additionally use my support network to assist me in brainstorming my ideas. But above all, I'll exercise my ability to make proper valued based investment decisions…
246. To what extent do you anticipate investment decisions having a role in your future?
Investment decisions will strongly influence my life after prison. I have a lot of rebuilding of relationships and reconstructing of my life that has to be done. Earning this incarceration created a powerful ripple effect that destroyed many of my past relationships and trust with in society. It will help me to understand the value of my choices. Further, I need to understand if my decisions will only be based satisfying my short-term goals or benefit me in the long-run? The decisions I make could dictate the success or failure of my life after imprisonment. I want every decision I make to be one that will benefit my life, my children's lives and our future. An investment in the knowledge to make the right decision always pays the best interest, for a good decision could also lead to a good return on investment R.O.I.
247. Describe the resources you anticipate relying upon as you advance in age.
Resources I'll need to depend on as I grow older are a steady flow of income. I'll also need medical care and dental care. But as I advance further in age. It would gratefully benefit me in investing income into retirement, for I can't work forever. So I'll want to look into investing in a Roth IRA or 401k. Additionally through time, I want to continue advancing my support network of skilled help and positive people.
248. What role will these resources play in sustaining your life?
All of these roles will play a strong factor in sustaining the balance of my life. They will help me to live comfortably and worry free. It will keep me rooted – protecting my physical health, emotional health and relationships. Additionally they'll help me meet my daily survival needs as well as my children's needs. To a further extent, it will assist me in one day being able to lay my crown-down on top of my hamburger aka retire!
249. How will you adjust your tolerance for risk as you age?
I will continue advancing my knowledge on nutrition and healthy living. I'll especially stay active in maintaining a well disciplined physical fitness regiment to stay fit. Moreover, I'll practice and commit myself in living in congruence with the "Activity Theory". According to gerontology studies, if I stay physically active as an adult and with in my elderly years. This will add years to my life. With this being said, I'll participate in more recreational activities with my children. I'll have more fun with my family and friends. I'll even involve myself in more sporting activities as well as create more hobbies. Other means of advancing my tolerance are to save up and build up enough income to live free of worry. Additionally, I'll want to have enough income invested into my IRA and/or 401k.
250. What influence would another problem with the criminal justice system have upon your financial stability?
Everything I've established would be meaningless if I failed to live my life in accordance to my values and it constituted in earning another incarceration. The damaging consequences – like a wrecking ball will destroy everything I've worked for. I will lose the trust and respect from family and positive peers and my support network. I will also lose my possessions and the foundation I've created for my life. Additionally I'll be required to pay more court and attorney fees. The ripple effect would be more devastating, for this discredits all I've accomplished to overcome my past failures. But more then anything, these actions that constitute in earning time back in prison becomes an outside condition for my children… They'll be forced to mature without their daddy. This could later lead them in following irrational behavior themselves and constitute in them suffer the same adversity as I did. This linear belief window I've created through my own irrational actions becomes their cognition. In spite of the fact the I don't truly know what my future holds for me; I do know who holds my future. Without a doubt, I plan to never again return back to prison.
Phillip Jamison/ Class 10: Leadership Training


text:
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text:
We're probably going to have to put Alpo (the youngest of the family) down today, due to kidney failure. Here's the last set of pictures of all five of the cats. :
Kaizen (改善): David Beroff's Journey
Recent Entries
You are viewing the most recent 25 entries.
10th August 2017
Family Picture
We're probably going to have to put Alpo (the youngest of the family) down today, due to kidney failure. Here's the last set of pictures of all five of the cats. :
9th March 2017
My tweets
13th November 2016
My tweets
16th July 2016
[I was recently asked to introduce my skills to a small, private mastermind. Here's what I wrote.] :
I see my specialty as being a bridge between techs and "the rest of us". While even the mention of technical writing may induce yawns, it's a skill that can be critical to the success of a project, and it's something that I do very well. The more concrete one can be in describing a project, the better chances that it has in reaching goals, meeting client needs, avoiding unrealistic expectations, and so on. Also, while one would never directly use the material for marketing and sales, it still often proves useful to compare "this is what we tell people we do" to "this is what we actually do".
That skill, in turn, has led to several hundred successful small outsourcing projects, (emphasis on the word "small", as that's part of the key to success). I'm both a client and a worker on Upwork, and on vWorker prior to that. The ability to define things in excruciating detail excites those who know how to actually get things done, and scares those who don't.
While it makes sense that database design is done by techies, the better that a project is defined from "the rest of us", the higher the chances are that the database will be designed correctly up front. This, in turn, has a significant impact on how quickly software can be delivered. Conversely, there are too many times when the techies find out "oh, I didn't know that you really meant that" way too late in a project for something that was designed and built into the fabric at its very beginning. Think of it as making sure that you pour the correct and sufficiently robust foundation for your dream house before you build the rest of it.
Yeah, I also do PHP and MySQL, but it sounds like there are already enough techs here in the soup.
I've also learned a lot about voice acting over the last two years, and I can also do reasonably well when it comes to basic video editing. Tie those together along with my tech writing skills, and I can create some killer educational and sales videos. Here's my current demo reel:
26th June 2016
How to upload/transfer an MP3/WAV file from Windows 7 to a Google Voice outbound voicemail message
I spent way too many hours trying to figure this out for a client, so I thought, once I finally did, I'd outline the steps here. One would think that it would/should be a seemingly trivial task... except that it wasn't. (And I'm embarrassed to admit that I had actually done this once before, for a different client, but something had changed, and I just couldn't precisely reproduce my earlier steps, or I forgot something, or... who knows?) Part of my headache was that the articles and tutorials that I found each explain one part well, but then gloss over one or more of the other steps. OK; enough preamble. :
Get latest Realtek driver: In retrospect, I probably didn't need to do this, but every article on "Why Stereo Mix doesn't work" stressed the need to update the driver, and, (in theory), doing so shouldn't hurt. I will say that some of those articles offered dodgy ways to obtain said drivers, and that's precisely how one invites trojans in to infect one's machine, so, yeah... don't do that. Go to the official Realtek site, click on the legal agreement page, and then the actual download page that should subsequently appear, (but doesn't always). The fileset is stunningly huge, but you can't pick and choose, so just take the whole thing.
Use Stereo Mix: Think of this as a virtual microphone that listens to your speakers. (More on that sentence in a second.) Start > Control Panel > Sound > Recording. Right-click and ensure Show Disabled and Disconnect Devices are both checked. Right-click, enable Stereo Mix, and disable everything else. Yeah, it's finicky.
Use physical speakers: Sound > Playback, select and enable. Plug them in and turn them on and up. In the end, this was the step that caused me hours of angst. I am so used to constantly using my USB wireless headset for my voice acting work now that I had never considered that it simply doesn't "count" for this. At all. It wasn't until Cat Lady went to bed, when, (so I wouldn't disturb her), I switched from internal speaker to headset on her machine, and all of a sudden, her "guinea pig" machine Stereo Mix setup stopped working, that it finally dawned on me that the playback device makes a serious difference.
OK; that's half the battle. Now, the task is to connect all this to the POTS (plain old telephone system). Google Voice doesn't have an upload mechanism, and the next obvious path, using Google Hangouts/Chat, has also been reported to not work. So, we need a softphone. Since we already had Vonage, I checked there first, but their softphone option seemed rather pricey for making a single call.
Get a minimal Skype plan: If you're going to be doing this for a bunch of clients, get the $10 credit pack, which they claim doesn't expire. I chose the $3/month bare-minimum plan for US-only, low usage, with no inbound calls.
Set a reminder to cancel said plan in three weeks or so.
Set a Google Voice PIN: Remember, this Skype plan doesn't allow inbound calls, so the PIN is required to allow a call from Skype to Google Voice to set up voicemail. Also, while you're in the client's Google Voice account, make sure to jot down both their Google Voice number and the number of one of the phones used for forwarding calls, such as the client's actual cell number.
Coordinate with the client when you'll be doing the next step, as you don't want to wake/disturb them, and, (if they haven't temporarily disabled call forwarding), they'll need to know to temporarily not pick up their phones while you do this.
Prepare two windows on your screen: Skype and a player, such as VLC Media Player. Call the Google Voice number, let it ring into voicemail, hit "*" (on Skype's numeric keypad) during the default outbound greeting, enter the PIN and forwarding number when prompted, then navigate to greeting (and optionally name) setup. Get ready to play the prepared audio in the other window when prompted, and then return to Skype to hit "#" when that's done. Stereo Mix is what connects the two windows.
Let the client know that it's done. :-) Also remind them to change their Gmail password and their voicemail PIN.
Don't forget to cancel your paid Skype subscription when you are certain you no longer need it.
Like I said, once you know all of the steps, software, and magical incantations, it's reasonably straight-forward. :-)
18th June 2016
Synchronizing video to alternative audio
This is just a quick, little test where I took poor audio (with poor video, but that part's ok) and replaced it with a better recording of my own voice, aligning each syllable to get them to match the lip movements on the video. :
19th May 2016
Recent videos...
A collaborative effort with : Adam Fulford for one of his local retail business clients:
The Magic Members Quick Setup Guide, currently on their front page:
And... male enhancement, non-FDA style. Ad for SupaSize is NSFW/18+... obviously!
My tweets
Even Nigerian Princes Demand the BEST Ghost Writers!
We all know about the Nigerian Prince scam, but did you know THEY use ghost-writing services, too? : Read the whole story here!
#ad (A 3-way collaboration between Laurence Pollwade, Adam Fulford, and myself.)
2nd May 2016
Another short video I can be proud of
The client asked me to stress that I only made minor edits to a previously existing video, in addition to contributing the whole voiceover, of course. :
29th April 2016
Improving client-side code with thinner database tables
A friend of mine was telling me about the tons of code he has to write to deal with a Company table which has dozens of parameter columns. I suggested that he use a Parameter table, and then replace all of the parameter columns with a many-to-many table to set the Parameter values for each Company. A lot of the parameters are essentially enumerations, (each can only be one of several values), and that logic can be maintained in the database, as well, ( : but not with literal ENUM's).
Then, since I was taking Cat Lady to get her hair cut, I decided that, while I was waiting for her, I might as well sketch out a proposed outline of how this whole approach could look in MySQL. To wit:
CREATE TABLE Company ( CompanyID INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY # Now need far fewer columns here! ) ENGINE = InnoDB; CREATE TABLE ParameterType ( ParameterTypeID VARCHAR(8) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY # e.g., "INTEGER", "DATE", "BOOLEAN", "STRING", "ENUMERAT", "FLOAT", etc. ) ENGINE = InnoDB, COMMENT = 'Basic data types allowed for Parameters.'; CREATE TABLE Parameter ( ParameterID VARCHAR(8) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, # e.g., "STRUCTUR", "STATUS", "LISTED", etc. ParameterTypeID VARCHAR(8) NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT ParameterParameterTypeIDFK FOREIGN KEY (ParameterTypeID) REFERENCES ParameterType(ParameterTypeID) ON DELETE RESTRICT ON UPDATE CASCADE, SortOrder SMALLINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL UNIQUE KEY COMMENT 'Presentation order', # Recommend assign by thousands, e.g., 1000, 2000, etc. Description VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL ) ENGINE = InnoDB, COMMENT = 'Parameters which describe Companies.'; CREATE TABLE ParameterValue ( ParameterID VARCHAR(8) NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT ParameterValueParameterIDFK FOREIGN KEY (ParameterID) REFERENCES Parameter(ParameterID) ON DELETE RESTRICT ON UPDATE CASCADE, ParameterValueID VARCHAR(8) NOT NULL, # e.g., For "STRUCTUR": "PRIVATE", "PUBLIC", "LLP", etc. PRIMARY KEY (ParameterID, ParameterValueID), SortOrder SMALLINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL UNIQUE KEY COMMENT 'Presentation order', # Recommend assign by tens, e.g., For "STRUCTUR": 1010, 1020, etc. Description VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL ) ENGINE = InnoDB, COMMENT = 'Allowed values for enumerated Parameters.'; CREATE TABLE Attribute ( CompanyID INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT AttributeCompanyIDFK FOREIGN KEY (CompanyID) REFERENCES Company(CompanyID) ON DELETE RESTRICT ON UPDATE CASCADE, ParameterID VARCHAR(8) NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT AttributeParameterIDFK FOREIGN KEY (ParameterID) REFERENCES Parameter(ParameterID) ON DELETE RESTRICT ON UPDATE CASCADE, PRIMARY KEY (CompanyID, ParameterID), ValueInteger INT NULL DEFAULT NULL, # For use with "INTEGER", "DATE", "BOOLEAN", etc. ValueString VARCHAR(255) NULL DEFAULT NULL, # For use with "STRING", "ENUMERAT", etc. ValueFloat FLOAT NULL DEFAULT NULL # For use with "FLOAT", etc. ) ENGINE = InnoDB, COMMENT = 'Association between Companies and Parameters.';
Ergotact Digital Computer Glasses
I actually rewrote the entire script to better suit American ears, but the client politely declined all proposed changes. That's how it goes, sometimes. :
21st April 2016
Delivery Speeds: How FAST can he go?
As a follow-up to : this post, I put together this video:
16th April 2016
"...and I approved this message!"
The client didn't hire me for this job, but he was kind enough to give me permission to use the audition for my own marketing, and he even paid me for my time. :
9th April 2016
8th April 2016
Another translation project
I recorded an introduction to : Consuelo.mx, based on their native video:
Original Spanish voiceover:
25th February 2016
My tweets
24th February 2016
My tweets
21st February 2016
My tweets
18th February 2016
My tweets
16th February 2016
How you know your flights will be full
I've been on flights where they ask for volunteers to get off once they've already boarded, and I've even done so, myself, in earlier years. But this was the first time that I went to check in (online), a day in advance, and got asked even before the final check-in. Delta asked me to bid how much it would take to not fly, from $200 to $500, with lowest bids "winning", (or losing, depending on perspective). :
13th February 2016
(tap, tap) ... Is this thing still on?
I'm flying out on Wednesday to spend a week in New Mexico with my daughter and her husband. :
Wunderground offers ten-day forecasts, which I take with a grain of salt, since it's very hard to accurately predict weather even a few days out. Still, they've been consistently showing a snowstorm here that morning, ever since the 17th appeared on the ten-day horizon. The amount of snow has fluctuated wildly, with as much as a foot predicted at one point, but it hasn't gone away completely at any point. It's ironic that, a few months ago, my concern was the snow in New Mexico in February, (especially as the plan had called for camping at one point), but their weather has cleared up considerably in the last two weeks or so, at least at the lower altitudes.
Altitude. That's the other concern. Lack of oxygen was enough to prompt Cat Lady to beg off of this trip; it'll be our first time apart in the almost six years we've been together. As soon as I land in Albuquerque, at 5,300', I'll immediately be going to take a cable/ski-lift vehicle up to the top of Mt. Sandia, at 10,300'. (I had to schedule an eight-hour layover between flights there, so I figured I'd leave the airport and make the best of it.) So I've been ramping up my daily exercise for the past two months, and I also decided to try using some leftover Theravent nose filters to reduce oxygen flow for the next few days, in an attempt to pre-acclimate my lungs.
8th February 2016
Tweet from space
8th December 2015
My tweets
2nd December 2015
Dipping my toe into the green screen pool
Just about a month ago, a client hired me for a rush job, including some video work, and then changed their mind a few days later. Thankfully, they then agreed to reimburse me for time and materials, which included a "green screen" cloth for some : chroma key scenes that we had planned.
I hadn't even unpackaged the cloth until I decided to learn some more about chroma key today. Lesson One: If your face is well lit, it's going to cast shadows on the green screen, and that's bad. I guess ideally, one needs a second set of lights just on the green screen itself. {sigh} Lesson Two: Creases from recently-packaged cloth are also bad. Lesson Three: Do not iron "cheap" green screen cloth to remove said creases; it melts immediately!! (Thankfully I didn't need the entire piece.)
I also learned more about my Logitech HD Webcam C525 today, which also hasn't seen much use. (Hey, I've been focusing on audio, not video.) Even though it allows me to use my Samson C01U Pro USB Studio Condenser Microphone, the software included with the webcam does some sort of processing that really distorts the audio, making it pointless to use the better mic. Plus it kept complaining that it couldn't hear the mic, even though it could. Oh, and video and audio fall noticeably out of synch. Maybe different software might make a difference? Not sure. At least I was able to hide my silly kitty-litter-jug microphone mount and pop filter. Another annoyance was that the webcam (software?) kept auto-correcting color, changing my skin tone to match my purple shirt; you'll see all this below.
Still, I'm going to try to not stress over these points. Considering that my target audience for this short is video creators, these problems may possibly work in my favor, i.e., I'm looking to help them, not really compete with them.
Here's one scene of the raw video:


text:
Kara+Paul // Married // Charleston
They honeymooned out on Kiawah Island over 10 years ago so two kids, two moves, many losses and wins later, we came back.
We drank wine, told stories and they read letters aloud written to one another.
This was a good, good day and I'm so thankful.
As always


text:
Suppose you have found a favorite YouTube playlist, and want to download all videos in the playlist to play them back locally. There are several ways to download YouTube videos in a batch.
youtube-dl is one of the most powerful YouTube downloader tools available on Linux. In this tutorial, I will describe how to download YouTube playlist by using youtube-dl.
First, install youtube-dl on your Linux by following the guide here.
Next, find out the URL of the YouTube playlist that you want to download. To do so, go to the YouTube playlist page that you want, and copy the URL. The URL format of a YouTube playlist is http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=XXXXXXXXXXX, as shown in the screenshot below.
Now, go ahead and run the following command to download all YouTube videos in the playlist.
The command-line arguments used in the above command are as follows.
- -c: resume partially downloaded video files
- -i: continue upon download errors
- -t: use video title as the file name
- --max-quality FORMAT: download video in the highest quality format
If you want to download all YouTube videos in the playlist, as well as extract MP3 audio from each video file, then first install FFmpeg on your system, and run the following command.
The additional "-k" option in the above makes youtube-dl keep downloaded videos. Without this option, youtube-dl will erase downloaded video files after extracting MP3 files from them.
The following screenshot shows youtube-dl in action.
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