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Thursday, December 03, 2009
Koerner Signs with The North Face Athlete Team
Verbiage from the Official Press Release:
Hal Koerner Joins The North Face Athlete Team
The North Face reinforces its ultrarunning heritage, welcoming one of the world's best runners to its team.
SAN LEANDRO, California—December 2, 2009— The North Face, the world's premier supplier of authentic, innovative and technically advanced outdoor apparel, equipment and footwear, today announced ultrarunner Hal Koerner has joined its global athlete team. The North Face has a team of more than 60 professional global athletes which includes runners, snowboarders, skiers, rock climbers and mountaineers.
"Hal embodies the passion of The North Face," said Aaron Carpenter, Vice President of Marketing for The North Face. "His determination, enthusiasm and fresh take on the ultrarunning scene not only inspires the running community, but the entire family at The North Face. We are excited to work with Hal in accomplishing his goals."
A world-renowned runner, Koerner has raced in almost 100 ultramarathons (classified as anything longer than 26.2 miles) and has placed in the top three in 75 percent of them. Koerner set the speed record for the Colorado Trail (≈500 miles, topping out at 13,334 feet) in 2003 with a time of 9 days, 10 hours and 19 minutes. Koerner is a two-time champion of the Angeles Crest 100 mile Endurance Run and five time champion of the Bear 100. He set course records at the Whiskeytown 50k Trail Run in 2006 and the World of Hurt 50k in 2007.
Just in 2009 Koerner placed first in the MacDonald Forest 50k Trail Run and the grueling Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run (his second win of the race). He took third in the Chuckanut Mountain 50k Race and sixth in the epic Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run. For 2010, Koerner will attempt to win his third consecutive Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run, his favorite ultra race, in hopes of completing in less than 16 hours.
"There is a thread in all races where the juxtaposition of dirt and air, camaraderie and solitude, adrenaline and guts, winning and losing all go away, it's then that you know you love it," said Koerner. "I'm excited to run for a team that has so much talent, breadth and combined experience."
Koerner will be making his debut as a team athlete for The North Face this coming weekend, December 5, 2010, at The North Face Endurance Challenge Championships in San Francisco, California, taking a shot at the $10,000 grand prize. The North Face Endurance Challenge is a nationwide series featuring four course lengths - 10K, Half Marathon, 50K and 50-Mile – designed to push people to run farther than they ever have. It will be his second time running the race.
"The North Face has been committed to the ultra scene for some time now and hasn't backed down. I'm attracted to this characteristic and would love to make trail running a more familiar activity," said Koerner. "I think that enthusiasm creates motivation. I like to promote ultrarunning as much as one person can and hopefully steer more people into making the uncommon, common."
Koerner, the owner of a successful running store in Ashland, Oregon, will be working closely with The North Face Research, Design and Development team, especially on footwear. His expertise and experience will add to the rapidly developing collection. When he's not running or at the store, Koerner can be found hanging out at home or at a concert in Ashland, Oregon, with his fiancé, Carly, and their dog, Abbey. He organizes a number of races that help foster running and trail work in the greater Rogue Valley of Oregon.
For more than 40 years The North Face has teamed up with the world's finest ultrarunners, mountaineers, alpinists, climbers, skiers, snowboarders and endurance adventurers who have defined the limits of what is humanly possible. The North Face Ultrarunning Team includes Nikki Kimball, Diane Van Deren, Lizzy Hawker, Kami Semick, Dean Karnazes, Sam Thompson, Tim Twietmeyer, Michael Wardian, Tsuyoshi Kaburaki and Sébastien Chaigneau. The North Face Athlete team works closely with Research, Design & Development, creating innovative designs that push new technologies and inspire cutting-edge products.
For more information on the The North Face Running Team and The North Face Endurance Challenge, check out www.thenorthface.com
About The North Face®
The North Face, a division of VF Outdoor, Inc., was founded in 1968. Headquartered in San Leandro, California, the company offers the most technically advanced products in the market to accomplished climbers, mountaineers, snowsport athletes, endurance athletes, and explorers. The company's products are sold in specialty mountaineering, backpacking, running, and snowsport retailers, premium-sporting goods retailers and major outdoor specialty retail chains.
10 comments:
- Annie Taylor said...
Congratulations Hal! You deserve it.
- Thursday, December 03, 2009 6:18:00 PM
- Kurt said...
Congrat's Hal !!! Are you going to help them make a lightweight shoe I hope ??
- Friday, December 04, 2009 2:33:00 PM
- John P said...
Karnazas and Koerner? Hmm, the possibilities!
- Saturday, December 05, 2009 1:59:00 PM
- Yassine said...
congratulations Hal...that's awesome...you inspire so many! Hey, I hear there may be an inaugural 100-miler down in the Ashland area for 2010. Any idea when we might hear more about that? The only two 100's that I've run have been inaugural events and I'm looking to keep my streak going! Thanks
- Sunday, December 06, 2009 6:05:00 PM
- Rogue Valley Runners said...
Thanks everyone, as you know this partnership means a lot to both parties and will do more to further your pursuits as well as mine.
I've seen some very promising products the last few days. 2010 and 2011 will unveil more commitments by TNF as it relates to endurance and trail.
- Monday, December 07, 2009 12:53:00 PM
- Rogue Valley Runners said...
Oh yeah, a little teaser. The Pine to Palm 100 Mile Endurance Run is slated for 18th of September. More news to follow in January....
- Monday, December 07, 2009 12:56:00 PM
- Tammy said...
This is exciting news Hal! Congrats!
- Monday, December 07, 2009 2:18:00 PM
- Speedgoat Karl said...
See you in Ashland on the 18th!
- Monday, December 07, 2009 7:53:00 PM
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7th St.
Long Beach
Part Two
Its my love of the carniceria store paintings. I've always had a fascination with them ever since I was a little kid. Seeing these somewhat surreal and fanciful paintings depicting the foods that I would be eating later that day. Taco stands, bars and restaurants will make their way on this site as well. This is my tribute to those paintings and the artists that made them. Bon apetit!


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Who knew Purrfect the Cat would turn out to be a one-season wonder?
The Voice coach Cee Lo Green is replacing his fan-favorite feline sidekick with a cockatoo for the singing competition's upcoming third season, he tells People.
Find out when The Voice and more NBC shows return this fall
The salmon-colored Moluccan cockatoo named Lady made her debut earlier this week at The Voice's first blind audition tapings. "Lady's name says it all," Green told the magazine. "She's my little lady with a big opinion. Sometimes whispers inappropriateness in my ear, but always ladylike."
It's unclear why Green, 38, felt the lovable and pun-happy Purrfect needed to be replaced. When asked how he decided on a cockatoo, Green said he "met her flying around in a fantasy of mine. She was wild and free just as I'd like to be! Birds of a feather we are." OK, glad we cleared that up!
Check out Purrfect the Cat and more of our TV MVPs
But how does Purrfect feel about being replaced? "Have to say, [Lady] is pretty...for a bird," she tweeted Thursday. "Don't see HER in Papa Cee Lo Green's lap now do ya?" No word yet on what Purrfect plans to do next.
Fans can get to know Lady better by following her on Twitter at @CeeLosLady.
Watch Cee Lo introduce his new pet partner-in-crime in this video:
Are you sad that Purrfect won't be back for Season 3 of The Voice? Or do you think Lady is up for the job? Sound off below!


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You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'automation' tag.
Electric Imp is excited to announce our new impWorks Developer Tools Release 1.
In this first release, impWorks includes the Builder Preprocessor and the Sublime Text Editor Plugin, which combine to boost the efficiency, control, and workflow of the software development process. Read all about it here and try it out today.
— Terrence


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Serial dater Jessica Simpson has a new man on the hook, and she's got the awkward photo to prove it.
Giving the paparazzi a day off, the "Dukes of Hazzard" starlet Jessica Simpson tweeted a pic of her and her new boyfriend sharing an intimate moment. In the snap, new guy Eric Johnson leans in, looking like he is about to plant a wet one on Simpson's nose.
In the accompanying text, Simpson tweeted, "Romance 101...getting kissed by my Yalie...me not lookin' so smart... but YUM!"
U.S. & World
Stories that affect your life across the U.S. and around the world.
This new flame is a recent grad-school dropout, reports Us Weekly. According to the magazine, Johnson, 30, walked away from his Ivy League business program to join Simpson in L.A.
This spring, it was Billy Corgan who was romantically linked with the girl who used to wear mom pants.


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In a 500-series reality world where TV personalities can make all the difference between success and failure, networks are always in search of those that can draw a loyal audience:
The Duggars
Family values matter most to '19 Kids and Counting' clan
While Jon & Kate and their eight became tabloid fodder over marital problems, and the Octomom became more freak show than superparent, TLC's big-family stars the Duggars — of "19 Kids and Counting" — seem to be giving reality auds a taste of how smiley and smooth-running a packed household can be. Merging elements of organization voyeurism, playfulness and values-preaching, the show has turned the devoutly religious Jim-Bob and Michelle into warm-hearted parenting models who miraculously avoid seeming like robotic day care center operators. The kids, meanwhile, are a rare reality-world portrait of youth that isn't materialistic or drama-obsessed, but rather cheery and helpful.
Matt Paxton
'Hoarders' host helps clear the clutter conundrum
Sure, there's a whole show built around dirty jobs, but taking in what junk-junking specialist Matt Paxton has to contend with on A&E's "Hoarders" is enough to think that no salary is too big for that kind of work. Paxton, who has a Richmond, Va., business called Clutter Cleaners, is an author on the subject and one of the show's hoarding specialists. He is also its most charismatic and sympathetic figure when guiding disturbed souls through the agonizing process of emptying out their monstrously trashed, wretchedly unsanitary residences. Whether acting as a project cheerleader, talking tough to behaviorally sensitive subjects or attacking houses riddled with waste in all forms, Paxton has become a quietly heroic figure in a reality niche that, in the case of the grimly watchable "Hoarders," showcases the desperate and mentally ill side of extreme makeover candidates.
Giuliana & Bill Rancic
Couple not afraid to share trials, trauma in tumultuous year
Reality television of one form or another initially brought Bill Rancic and Giuliana DePandi separately into our homes: Bill as the first winner of "The Apprentice" and Giuliana as an E! correspondent. They became their own reality stars as a romantic duo, however, with Style network's "Giuliana & Bill," which for five seasons has chronicled their coupledom from engagement through the first years of their marriage. The pair's specialty is a kind of camera-ready openness (steeped in their clearly strong bond) about a wide range of husband-wife issues, from day-to-day entanglements and work vs. home concerns, to life curveballs like their struggle to conceive and, this past year, Giuliana's breast cancer diagnosis.
Adam Richman
Passion for pastrami resonates for food connoisseur
Food television is littered with in-your-face personalities, but Adam Richman is the genre's stuff-your-face hero. His eating challenge-based Travel Channel show "Man v. Food," which ended its run this past year (hopefully for his health alone!), proved to be an ideal merger of subject and fanatic. Richman's style is aggressively pig-out-friendly but with a strong self-deprecating streak, foodie-friendly descriptive powers and plenty of humor. As a tour guide through America's comfort-food meccas, Richman's enthusiasm for all things salty, gooey and artery-clogging is infectious, even if the visual of him after a particularly gnarly throwdown — so many pancakes or fiery hot wings within an insanely short time frame — isn't exactly what most food-based shows would consider appealing. Next up for Richman is "Adam Richman's Best Sandwich in America."
Patti Stanger
Dating dilemmas bring out advice from 'Matchmaker' who thrives on taking charge
For viewers looking for the kind of hot-blooded personality with an accessible but confrontational style, Patti Stanger's arrival with "The Millionaire Matchmaker" was for Bravo watchers a case of love at first sight. Though the show is ostensibly built around the New Jersey native's dating service for wealthy, unattached men, Stanger's unbridled passion for telling off clients who don't follow her exacting standards for proper courting has made her a take-no-prisoners star. Although occasionally taken to task for being single herself — which, one could argue, paradoxically reaffirms the rigors of her dating rules — the brashly confident Stanger remains a popular figure in the advice-for-the-lovelorn world with an unpredictable verbal panache (don't ask what "juicy goosey" means).
And here's the pitch. . . | Fundraising a huge obstacle for documakers | Hinterland heroes all the rage | 'Frozen Planet' proves cool for Discovery | Why we watch: Personalities that keeps auds glued | Reality: A genre bursting beyond the seams


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Richard Koch
Photo: © Aaron Calder
About the Author
RICHARD KOCH is the author or co-author of 19 books about ideas and how to use them for greater personal and business success. Chief among them is The 80/20 Principle, a major international bestseller that has sold over 700,000 copies worldwide, including over 100,000 in each of the U.K., U.S., Japan, and Korea. It has been translated into 26 languages and has spawned a number of offshoots, such as Living the 80/20 Way. He is also a highly successful entrepreneur and investor who rescued the Filofax company from near death and has started or helped to expand many other ventures, including Belgo restaurants, Plymouth Gin, and most recently Betfair — Europe's largest and most profitable online gambling business.


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Pirates Top Reds On Pitching, Defense
James McDonald doesn't consider himself a strikeout pitcher.
Funny, he's sure starting to look like one.
The Pittsburgh Pirates' right-hander extended his strong start, striking out seven in 6 1/3 innings and relying on his defense for the rest in a 3-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday night.
McDonald (2-1) has 25 strikeouts over his past three games and is growing into Pittsburgh's most reliable starter.
"James gave us just what we needed again tonight," Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said.
Neil Walker had two hits, including his first homer since last September, and Alex Presley added a solo shot for Pittsburgh. Joel Hanrahan worked a perfect ninth for his fifth save as the Pirates continued their weird start.
Save for a brief two-game slide in St. Louis earlier this week, Pittsburgh has alternated wins and losses since April 18. Most of the games have followed a similar script -- six have been decided by three runs or less.
"You think, let's get that one hit, something to break it open," Hurdle said. "That's not where we're living right now."
Instead, the Pirates are getting by with pitching and defense. They turned four double plays -- only one of them conventional -- and received a big boost on Jose Tabata's running grab to end the sixth that preserved a one-run lead.
"This might be one of the better games we played, and needed to play, to win the game," Hurdle said. "It was above and beyond what you normally get. Those are big-time plays. We needed every one of them."
Cincinnati starter Mike Leake (0-4) remained winless but showed improvement after a rough opening month, allowing three runs and four hits in seven innings. He walked four and struck out four.
"It's definitely a step in the right direction," said Leake, whose ERA dropped from 6.65 to 5.97. "Even though I had four walks, I was still happy with the way I threw the ball. I had a couple more mistakes than what showed, but they made me pay for two of them."
Walker hadn't homered since Sept. 4, 2011, but his two-run shot in the third gave McDonald an early cushion before Pittsburgh's bullpen staved off a late Cincinnati rally.
Though the switch-hitting Walker isn't a power hitter, he's a vital part of Pittsburgh's offense. His drought included a homerless spring training, too.
"I was looking for a pitch up and got it and was able to get the barrel on it and get it in the seats," Walker said.
Joey Votto had two hits for the Reds, but Cincinnati was undone by some slick Pittsburgh glovework and the quickly maturing McDonald.
The 27-year-old right-hander is beginning to harness his control, a problem that's plagued him early in his career and made it difficult for him to pitch deep into games.
There were no issues on Saturday, as he worked into the seventh for his third straight start before running into trouble after Jay Bruce tripled and scored on Scott Rolen's single.
Juan Cruz came on in relief and escaped further damage when Ryan Ludwick lined to center and Rolen was tagged out at second trying to advance.
The Reds drew within one in the eighth against Jason Grilli when Zack Cozart doubled home Devin Mesoraco. Grilli struck out Drew Stubbs and intentionally walked Votto to get to Brandon Phillips, who struck out swinging as Grilli pumped his fist.
Hanrahan retired Cincinnati in order in the ninth to blunt the Reds' momentum. Cincinnati came in 7-3 in its last 10 games to move over .500 for the first time in a month.
The Reds, however, couldn't get two games over .500 for the first time all season after running into trouble on the basepaths.
Votto ran into a double play in the fourth when Pittsburgh first baseman Casey McGehee grabbed Bruce's grounder, stepped on first and fired home, where catcher Rod Barajas blocked the plate perfectly.
Rolen had similar issues in the seventh after trying to tag up and go from first to second on a fly ball by Ludwick. Andrew McCutchen's throw from center easily beat Rolen to the bag.
"I think we hit into two (double plays) and ran into two more. There's eight outs right there," manager Dusty Baker said. "You usually don't win when you run into that many double plays."


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WASHINGTON, July 15 (UPI) -- U.S. health officials need to address the mental illness and substance abuse needs of baby boomers, a non-profit group warns.
A report by the Institute of Medicine said millions of baby boomers will likely face difficulties getting diagnoses and treatment for mental health conditions and substance abuse problems unless there is a major effort to significantly boost the number of health professionals to supply this care as this population ages.
Dan G. Blazer of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., said the magnitude of the problem is so great that no single approach or isolated changes in a few federal agencies would address the problem.
"There is a conspicuous lack of national attention to ensuring that there is a large enough healthcare work force trained to care for older adults with mental health and substance use conditions," Blazer said in a statement. "These conditions are relatively common, they can be costly, and they can have profound negative impacts on people's health and well-being. This report is a wake-up call that we need to prepare now or our older population and their extended families will suffer the consequences."
The committee, which prepared the report, conservatively estimated between 5.6 million to 8 million older Americans -- 14 percent to 20 percent of the nation's overall elderly population -- have one or more mental health conditions or problems stemming from substance misuse or abuse.
Depressive disorders and dementia-related behavioral and psychiatric symptoms are the most prevalent, but rates of accidental and intentional misuse of prescription medications are increasing, Blazer said.


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File Download: PCL Driver, Xerox User Interface
- Filename CFF_pcl_English.zip
- Version 220.127.116.11
- Date Nov 1, 2007
- Size 7.5 MB
Windows Vista/2000/XP/Server 2003 32-bit PCL driver.
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Halifax Minster has a long tradition of music making and this includes choirs, the Harrison and Snetzler organs, and an ever expanding concert programme. Currently the Vicar is Director of Music supported by Graham Gribbin as Organist and Robbie Lumb as Organ Scholar. Dr Simon Lindley, formerly of Leeds Minster, also supports the choir.
The Minster Choir
The Minster Choir sings every Sunday during term time and rehearse Tuesday evenings in the Song School of the Minster. The Choir regularly performs both for television and radio, and we are always looking for new members.
View the video of our choir trip to Aachen in August 2017
Choir Tour of East Anglia 2018
Click below to read the the story of our trip.
The Minster Chamber Choir
The Minster Chamber Choir is for experienced singers who sing occasional services, and some concerts. The standard is high, and an ability to read music is essential. Joint occasions with the Minster Choir and Brass make for an exciting performance, especially around Christmas and the Minster Summer Festival. New members always welcome.
Organ Recitals
The Friends of the Music organise weekly Organ recitals which take place each ThursdayMarch to November 2018 at 1pm.
Concert Programme
The Minster hosts concerts throughout the year. Further information can be found in the Events section of the website, and enquiries about hiring the Minster for a concert or charity fundraising event should be made through the Minster Offices.
All enquiries with regard to Music should be made with the Vicar Hilary Barber.
(01422) 355436


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be had up (for something)(redirected from be had up for something)
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be had up (for something)
To be indicted, arrested, and/or tried (for a crime). The CEO was had up for embezzling nearly $18 million of company money.
See also: up
have (someone) up (for something)
to invite someone to a place that is on a higher level or in the north, for a meal, party, cards, etc. (Fixed order.) We would like to have you up for dinner some evening. We will have you up soon.


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Kontakti i drejtpërdrejtë për produktet Lindab dhe sistemi në shtetin tuaj (gjuhët lokale).
Consists of a DTU damper with a pneumatic actuator installed. The actuator consists of a polyamide housing and metal parts of stainless steel.
When air pressure rises, the actuator open. When air pressure falls, the actuator close under the tension of the spring inside the actuator. The damper blade is closed when delivered.
There is a separate assembly, measuring, balancing and maintenance instruction for this product.
Ø 250–315 fullfills pressure class C in closed position.
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- Prayer and Worship
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Disciples Called to Witness: The New Evangelization
A statement by the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis
How often do we fail to realize that we are called to be Christ's witnesses to the world? How often do we reach out to our missing brothers and sisters by inviting them to join us at Mass or by asking why they no longer feel welcomed at Church? Did you know that through our baptism, we are called to proclaim the Good News to all people, everywhere and at all times. How often do we fail to realize that we are called to be Christ's witnesses to the world?
Join us in a journey to re-discover the faith or answer questions about reconnecting with the Catholic Church.
Diocesan and parish leaders seeking to develop faith
formation programs for the New Evangelization are invited to explore
this website which is an interactive version of the document, "Disciples
Called to Witness: The New Evangelization."
Disciples Called to Witness: The New Evangelization
Discípulos llamados a dar testimonio: La Nueva Evangelización
By accepting this message, you will be leaving the website of the
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sponsoring organizations.


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There are dog houses – and then there are specially crafted dog kennels like the ones at Hometown Sheds. Take a closer look at these beautiful (yes, beautiful) dog kennels that give your dog all the comforts of home. With personalized details and quality craftsmanship, a new kennel from Hometown Sheds will welcome your pet home, day after day, year after year.
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Click on the images for a closer look and a floorplan.


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Samsung Throws Another Galaxy Tab at the Wall
Feb 13, 2012 9:36 AM PT
Samsung on Monday announced its latest tablet, the 7-inch Galaxy Tab 2.
The tablet has a 1 GHz dual-core processor and runs Android 4.0 aka "Ice Cream Sandwich." It will be available in 3G and WiFi versions in Europe from March, starting with the UK market.
"Samsung's playing all over the board," Tom Mainelli, a research director at IDC, told TechNewsWorld. "They're certainly not shy about trying every form factor and screen size under the sun to figure out what's going to be competitive with Apple."
What the Galaxy Tab 2 Is All About
Through Ice Cream Sandwich, the Galaxy Tab 2 will offer access to more than 400,000 Android applications. It will have a redesigned app gallery for easier content sharing.
Ice Cream Sandwich "will bring more usability to this tablet than the previous ones [offer]," Michael Morgan, a senior analyst at ABI Research, told TechNewsWorld.
Samsung didn't upgrade predecessors to the Galaxy Tab 2 because "it's a hardware issue," Morgan said.
The Galaxy Tab 2 will offer access to Samsung Hub services. These consist of the Music Hub, which is a music store with more than 17 million tracks; the Readers Hub, which offers access to more than 2.3 million e-books, 3,500 magazines and more than 2,000 newspapers in 51 languages; and the Video Hub, which offers more than 1,000 film titles for purchase or rent.
Samsung has introduced its Touchwiz user interface on the Galaxy Tab 2. This features Hub widgets for easy access to users' content in Hubs. It also includes the "S Suggest" feature, which puts up real-time app recommendations on the home screen. The UI now has a swipe control feature for applications.
Further, Samsung has introduced its new content-sharing service AllShare Play on the Galaxy Tab 2. This lets users play, stream or transfer their multimedia content on the tablet to and from PCs, other Samsung smart devices, or third-party Web storage.
The front and rear cameras and other features are essentially similar to what's available in earlier versions of the Galaxy Tab.
Samsung did not respond to our request for further details.
Happy Talk
The 3G version of the Galaxy Tab 2 can double as a smartphone. Users can arrange multi-party video calls through Google+ hangouts. ChatON, Samsung's cross-platform communication service, will connect all phone users on any platform using their phone numbers so they can chat and exchange video and text messages.
"I think [the smartphone capability] is an excellent value add if operators are on board with this because now you're bringing voice to the media tabs," ABI's Morgan suggested. "I've seen some hacks in Europe that allow this but operators haven't been on board with it."
How Much Is That Tab 2 In The Window?
The Galaxy Tab 2 WiFi-only version will sell in Sweden for 2,995 SEK, and the WiFi+3G model will go for 3,695 SEK (about US$450 and $555, respectively).
Those prices may not be identically reflected in other markets, though.
"You might want to wait until the UK prices come out to get a more realistic picture," Gangar cautioned. That's because prices in the UK tend to be lower. "An entry-level iPad 2 costs around $680 in Norway and $630 in the UK," said Kunal Gangar, cofounder of SammyHub, which focuses on Samsung-related news.
He expects prices for the Galaxy Tab 2 will come down once the price for the UK market is disclosed.
Why Buy a Galaxy Tab 2?
Releasing the Galaxy Tab 2 "is an iteration of one of [Samsung's] current strategies -- let's make media tabs and see who's going to buy them," ABI's Morgan remarked.
Still, there "certainly is a market for 7-inch tablets," IDC's Mainelli pointed out. "Smaller screen sizes than Apple's iPad 2 will be more acceptable in Asia and Japan."
The iPad 2's screen measures 9.7 inches.


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A pocketbook with identification, as well as jeans, shoes, and a cellphone believed to have belonged to missing Craigslist escort Shannan Gilbert, were found Wednesday after a two-day police search of marshland near the exclusive Oak Beach gated community in Long Island.
"We believe that Shannan Gilbert ran into that area the night she disappeared," said Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer at a press conference. Gilbert, who was wearing dark jeans, black sandals, a blouse, and a brown leather jacket, was in a hysterical state of mind on the night she vanished 18 months ago, he said, and most likely drowned after she got stuck in the marshland.
The search for the 24-year-old Jersey City beauty over the last year has turned up the bodies of eight women, a toddler, and a cross dresser along a lonely, narrow stretch of Ocean Parkway in Long Island, about 45 miles from New York City. But Gilbert's remains have never been found, and detectives have been investigating the possibility of a link between her May 1, 2010, disappearance and the serial murders.
"It is our belief her body or parts of her remains are in that area. Hopefully we will find her remains and will move the investigation closer to a conclusion," Dormer said, adding that the search for her body will continue Thursday.
The police announcement came just days before the anniversary of the discovery of four bodies, all those of young online escorts who were strangled and buried shallowly in burlap sacks, 40 feet from the parkway in tall, thorny thickets. The first body was found Dec. 11, 2010; the other three on Dec. 13, 2010.
Gilbert went missing after visiting the Oak Beach home of Joseph Brewer, who police said answered her ad on Craigslist. Before she fled Brewer's house, she called 911. Police said she appeared to be "disoriented and confused and not rational and paranoid."
Gilbert was last seen at about 5 a.m. by Gus Coletti, who lives a few doors down from Brewer's home, after she furiously knocked on his door asking for help. When he asked her what was wrong, "she just stood there," he said. As he was dialing 911, she ran out of the house. Coletti said he saw a car driving slowly down the street and confronted the driver, Michael Pak, who was Gilbert's chauffeur. "I came down and looked at him and said, 'Where do you think you're going?' He said, 'We were at a party at the [john's] house and a girl got upset.'"
Coletti said he last saw Gilbert running toward the ocean.
At the time, many people theorized that Pak and Brewer had something to do with her disappearance, but police quickly ruled them out as suspects.
Gilbert's case remained dormant for six months, until Suffolk police officer John Mallia and his dog, Blue, found the remains of a body while doing a training exercise between Oak and Gilgo beaches. Two days later, three more bodies were found within 500 feet of each other. They were all in various states of decomposition and stripped of their jewelry, identification, purses, and clothing. It appeared they had been killed elsewhere, robbing detectives of valuable clues.
The bodies would later be identified as those of Melissa Barthelemy, 24; Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25; Megan Waterman, 22; and Amber Lynn Costello, 27, all of whom were working as online escorts when they went missing.
The discoveries triggered the first alarms that a serial killer was loose. In April, police launched an extensive search, deploying FBI planes with high-tech photography, horses, dogs, scuba divers, and fire-truck ladders to search the thick brush along the beaches. The search resulted in the gruesome discoveries of six more victims: four additional women, a toddler believed to be between 16 and 32 months old, and a male cross dresser.
Last week, Dormer told The Daily Beast that a single killer was responsible for the slayings. He added that police did not believe Gilbert was killed by the same person and indicated that she was probably dead.
On Monday, law-enforcement officers began searching for Gilbert anew and examined "90 points of interest" or anomalies discovered by the FBI after they snapped high-resolution photographs of the site. Police said they decided to focus on the marshy area near Oak Beach where Gilbert vanished because Tropical Storm Irene could have unearthed new evidence. At the time, local papers speculated that the police were searching the area because they had received a tip about the whereabouts of Gilbert's body, but Dormer disputed that claim. "That is absolutely untrue," he said.
"I don't know where Shannan is," said Gilbert's sister Sherre. "There is still that bit of hope, but if Shannan is gone, I want her to be at peace and buried somewhere."


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Item Description
Letter, E. B. Whitman to George L. Stearns
Author: Whitman, E. B.
Date: February 20, 1858
This rather lengthy report from Lawrence addressed many issues, especially those surrounding the Lecompton constitutional controversy. With "the Topeka Movement . . . abandoned," the question was what would take its place to resist the Lecompton Constitution if it were accepted by the Congress. The territorial legislature had formally "protested against the admission of Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution," and "the Mass of the people are determined" to resist its imposition. Whitman went on to make many other interesting observations about the political situation, regarding Democrats and Republicans and even abolitionists: "men who seek here and now, on this issue, to break the back bone of slavery forever." In addition to the political, Whitman described his "labor of distributing the clothing . . . for the relief of Kansas," and discussed in some detail the financial situation regarding the Committee, his personal debt, and Kansas relief and support to John Brown.
Location of Original: KSHS Call Number: George L. Stearns Collection, #507
Item Number: 100478 Number of images: 10
Keywords: Abolitionists; Buchanan administration; Constitutions; Democratic Party (U.S.); Douglas County, Kansas Territory; Free state support; Lawrence, Kansas Territory; Leavenworth Constitutional Convention, March-April 1858; Lecompton Constitution; Minneola, Kansas Territory; Republican Party (U.S.: 1854- ); Robinson, Charles, 1818-1894; Stearns, Geo. L. (George Luther), 1809-1867; Topeka Movement (see also Free state movement); Whitman, E. B.
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The Toronto Film Festival is widely considered to be the place where a majority of the buzz for so-called "awards films" begins, and this year one of the biggest surprises was Derek Cianfrance's (Blue Valentine) crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines. The pic stars Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper and centers on the intense feud between a professional motorcycle rider turned bank robber (Gosling) and a rookie police officer (Cooper). The film premiered to an enthusiastically positive response at TIFF, with heavy praise given to the film's scope and impact; our own Matt Goldberg called it an "epic family saga" in his positive review.
Focus Features acquired the film for 2013 distribution, and many figured the drama would be poised for an awards season release sometime in the fall. Now Box Office Mojo reports that we'll see the pic much sooner than expected, as The Place Beyond the Pines has been dated for a limited release on March 29th, 2013. This is great news for those of us eager to see what everyone was buzzing about back at TIFF, but it's a little surprising that Focus is dropping this one so early in the year.


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This shot was taken for an assignment for a photography hangout I take part in on Google+. The idea was to shoot an advertisement style beer shot. I happened to have several bottles of Paulaner beer and the proper glasses they're served in so I figured this would be the best choice of subject for my shot.
For the composition I wanted to some how show the bottles and glass in various states of falling down. You'll notice the glass starting to tip over, and the bottles either on their way down or horizontal already. I also wanted to show the typical 'sweating' look that you see in a lot of beer advertisements in magazines and on television.
For this shot I used 3 strobes, some white foam core boards for bouncing, a piece of translum plastic sheet (I found that on B&H – great stuff) to make a shooting table, poster putty, glycerin and water.
After setting up my shooting table, I posed all the bottles and the glass. I used a little poster putty (the stuff you can use to hang posters on the wall with) to prop the glass to show it leaning over. I wanted to get all the lighting set before filling the glass with beer and also giving the bottles and glass the 'sweaty' look.
I place a strobe fitted with my DIY strip box off to the right and shot through a diffusion panel. I had a second strobe on a boom up above the subject aiming back to to light the background. Just above the subject I had a small piece of foam core to remove the light spill from the second strobe from blowing out the whites on the bottle caps. I then had a third strobe just left of the camera fitted with a DIY snoot (I used a paper towel roll center and gaffer tape to attach to strobe) aimed at the labels to get those to expose correctly.
Once I had the shot the way I was hoping for, lighting wise, I spritzed the bottles and glass with a mixture of glycerin and water. I just made a 1:1 ratio mixture. This gets the water a bit thicker to help having staying power on the surfaces so they don't just drip away. Last but not least, I filled the glass with beer. I wanted to have a proper head on top and though this is a hefeweizen beer, I didn't want the yeast to cloud the glass so I had to pour carefully.
To get the final shot I made one exposure. I didn't a little color correction in Lightroom and then brought the image into Photoshop and spend a few hours cleaning the image. I made sure the background was white. I also had a few shadows I wasn't happy with so I removed those as well.
All comments are much appreciated. If you like what you see, please consider following my blog and passing it on to others who may be interested in learning how to do these types of shots. I do hope you found this post to be helpful for you in your own photographic endeavors.
Please also find below this final image a few outtake shots and bts(behind the scenes) shots I took with my phone.
If your interested in following me on Twitter you can either click on the link below or go to twitter and click on follow. I'm now also on Google Plus which is a great new platform. Are you on Facebook? If so please 'like' the Maugiart Photography Page.
Here are some BTS (Behind the scenes) shots of my setup. This first shot below shows the strip box above on the boom and the strip box to the right through the diffusion panel. You can also see the foam core I used to reduce light spill. I also had a diffusion panel to soften the light on the back side of the subject.
Here is another angle showing more of the same, but gets you a better idea on the setup.
This final shot shows the strobe with the DIY snoot to focus light onto the labels of the bottles. It also shows my camera position.Follow @wordpressdotcom


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Watch CBSN Live
Some of the world's most prized landmarks and monuments, including the Statue of Liberty and Tower of London, could disappear before our eyes in the next 2000 years if the climate continues to change at current rates, according to a new study.
The study calculated the temperatures at which the 720 UNESCO World Heritage Sites would be impacted by sea level rise, concluding that 136 are in danger if global average temperatures rise to 3 degrees Celsius above pre-Industrial levels. That number is well within the range projected in the latest UN report on climate change, which projected that global average temperatures would rise by 0.3 to 4.8 degrees C by the end of the century.
Read on to see more of the UNESCO sites that could be under threat.
Read more: Statue of Liberty, Tower of London among UNESCO sites threatened by climate change
Credit: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
A medieval historic settlement in Belgium.
Credit: Alexander Klein/AFP/Getty Images
Hué , Vietnam served as the administrative center of southern Vietnam in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Credit: UNESCO
The rock-cut Elephanta Caves, in western India, were constructed about the mid-5th to 6th centuries AD.
This Spanish Island is home to both ecological diversity and a wealth of archeological sites.
Credit: David Ramos/Getty Images
This ancient city in Bangladesh was founded by the Turkish general Ulugh Khan Jahan in the 15th century.
This Brazilian city was founded in the 16th century by the Portugese, the town's history is linked to the sugar-cane industry.
This Italian square houses a group of world famous monuments, including the "Leaning Tower" of Pisa.
Credit: Fabio Muzzi/AFP/Getty Images
Called the "Venice of the North," with its numerous canals and more than 400 bridges, this Russian city boasts an architectural heritage blending Baroque and pure neoclassical styles.
The massive White Tower is a typical example of Norman military architecture, whose influence was felt throughout the kingdom.
Credit: Scott Barbour/Getty Images
The Stone Town of Zanzibar is a fine example of the Swahili coastal trading towns of East Africa.


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Oprah Winfrey can pinpoint the moment she fell in love with longtime boyfriend Stedman Graham. But that doesn't mean she'll ever walk down the aisle with him.
"I'm just not the marrying kind," the talk show queen and media mogul told Piers Morgan in a taped interview for his inaugural CNN show. Click here for more on Morgan's debut.
Asked by Larry King's replacement Monday to explain her pairing with "Stedman," Winfrey said it was a "good relationship" but she "wasn't in love with him for a long time."
U.S. & World
What changed for her was how he reacted to a family member who Winfrey said betrayed her in the '80s by selling her story to the tabloids for $20,000.
"Stedman came into the room with tears in his eyes and he said 'the story is out,'" she recalled. "'I have a copy of it if you want to see it. And I'm really sorry, you don't deserve this.'
"I looked at him and I thought, here is somebody who is willing to stand in and stand up for you, and that's what love is," Winfrey said.
Pressed by Morgan for more details about her relationship, Winfrey said, "You're wasting your time on the Stedman thing."
But she said she was sure that if she had ever been hitched, she "wouldn't have remained married."
"The reason why this relationship has worked as well as it has is that we each got to define ourselves in it and not in a traditional form," Winfrey said.
As an example, she cited having recently taken a break while working on her "OWN" network to cook Graham dinner.
"I want to make you a meal when I want to make you a meal," Winfrey explained. "I won't want it to be my responsibility to make you a meal."


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I was all set to be ready, this month.Even if I had to resort to a "grocer's bunch"…I was going to wow everyone with my Flowers In The House.
And then it rained. I mean, really rained.The sort of rain that whooshes down, drenching everything, then goes out to sea and we all dash about washing the curtains that got wet and rejoicing in the lovely, soft, damp earth that makes weed-pulling a picnic in the park.
And then it rains again.Look, not to bore you, but we have had quite a few rainy days.And some thunder storms.
So…back to the "grocer's bunch." Um, no. I think someone left the grocer's would-have-been contribution out in the rain!And the cheeky blighter was still asking half my housekeeping budget for the wilties!
So what does Dinah do? Calls on an orchid to step into the breach…
Phalaenopsis. It may have a cultivar name, but its label is long gone. The Man brought it indoors last week, fearful that the rain would mash its petals.Mostly, it sits on the dining table, looking lovely. No, this is NOT the dining table! This is a scruffy old table where we do all sorts of grubby things. Like mixing shellac, painting things and potting seedlings. But the orchid is indoors in the top picture.
I've done a massive amount of weeding and some more pruning and hope to get some things out of their pots and into this rich, soft chocolate-y soil. Soon, very soon. And I re vamped the herb boxes and put in some rocket/arugula which is coming along very nicely.I always have trouble with that in summer heat, but it's looking good. If I can find a space that gets enough sun I might plant some chard(silver beet).
The orb spider's cocoon is still under its leaf and tied back to a pole for safety.Another female spider is looking quite plump on her web, but the other one was gone yesterday morning. Still very slender, I think she became a snack. 😦
Is it just me, or are other people struggling to keep up with blogging? I know some of you feel "empty" and I can understand that. But blogging , for me, was a comfortable way to write. And I felt connected.But lately? I find it harder to write what I think people might like to read. Maybe I'm being pulled in other directions? Yes, I do venture into Facebook's waters, but that's hardly "writing."
I suspect that I'm getting a taste for gallivanting! Good thing I renewed my passport!
I'd better get back to the kitchen and show my Kerala coconut curry some respect…
Here's my spider and her beautiful golden egg sac…
If you click these pictures you will (should!) see that beautiful golden silk shining in sunlight.No wonder it was used on the raiments of the wealthy and clergy!
Time has passed…the curry was, indeed, delicious. As was the juice of the crushed grape. And, to top it off, we enjoyed a re-run of QI.


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Now in its 14th season, Sirk's Notebook is an independently-written feature that often focuses on the irreverent side of the Crew experience. A local fixture, it has appeared on TheCrew.com from 2000-2003 and 2008-present. Any opinions expressed in Sirk's Notebook are not necessarily the views of the Columbus Crew organization. Especially when he makes fun of other teams.
The Crew's 3-2 loss at New England last Saturday had a number of unfortunate consequences. For example, the result eliminated Columbus from playoff contention. That's a big one. It also prevented me from declaring that Foxboro is located in "Massivecrewsetts." I was totally going to write that if the Crew won. Alas, it was not to be.
Now that we've ruminated on what could have been, let's move on to the road trip Notebook. We'll start with a few game-related things, then I will tell travel stories and bombard you with a million trip photos like the most annoying person on earth. Since I can't sidle up next to each of you and swipe from photo to photo on my cell phone, this will be the Notebook equivalent.
But first, a few game things, like Crew interim coach Brian Bliss' description of the 3-2 thriller:
"It was entertaining if you were sitting in the stands," he said. "Sitting on the bench, it's a heart attack a second. We couldn't play it any way other than that way because of what was at stake. They were in the same boat we were and the game opened up after the first call and it was an entertaining game. Both teams went at it."
Playing his first game since injuring his shoulder on July 20, Aaron Schoenfeld came off the bench to start the second half with the Crew trailing 1-0. In the 59th minute, he helped the Crew level the score by serving as a target, then dishing the ball off to Dominic Oduro, who lasered a shot into the net to knot the score.
"I just remember getting it through traffic and hearing Dom scream," Schoenfeld said. "I got it to him and he hit a bomb. All credit to him on that goal."
"On my goal, we did have a bit of a good passing sequence," Oduro said. "Aaron was able to hold the ball inside the 18, he saw I was wide open and then he slipped me a good pass. From my angle, I had a good touch that bounced well for me to have a blast into the net."
With the Crew later trailing 2-1, Schoenfeld and Oduro would reverse roles in the 71st minute, scoring just two minutes after New England reclaimed the lead. This time Oduro fed Schoenfeld, who collected the ball and dusted off the "Stern Turn" that Stern John made famous in Columbus in the late 1990s. Schoenfeld's spinning left-footed blast into the upper corner tied the score and put the Crew in a position to push for the necessary win.
"On Aaron's goal, a shot deflected off a New England player, I think, and fell right in front of me," Oduro said. "I wanted to try and take it on my right to shoot, but I picked my head up and saw Aaron in a good spot to pass, which I did. He was able to hold it and then make a perfect turn in the box to hit a curling shot to score."
"Dom gave me the ball and I didn't feel any immediate pressure," Schoenfeld said. "So I took the turn and had a hit and it went in."
Schoenfeld's huge performance came when the Crew needed it most, with the season on the line. He said he was well prepared by the coaching staff heading into the weekend.
"We worked on a few different scenarios this week depending on the situation," he said. "One of the things we worked on was what we would do if we were losing. So we went over the 3-5-2 and what we would do to try to catch the game. The option to put me up there was something we worked on this week, so I just tried to carry it over from training. I got the message at halftime and I just wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to help our team."
"There was a little bit more direct play going," Bliss said, "so we decided at halftime that if both teams are going to play a little more direct and look for second balls, then Aaron would be a little more helpful than a couple of other guys we had on the bench and it proved to be right. I give (assistant coach) Mike Lapper a little bit of credit, because he pushed me in that direction."
Despite the loss, Schoenfeld's teammates were happy to see all of his hard work validated in a clutch late-season performance.
"He played a great game," said goalkeeper Matt Lampson. "He was a great target for all of my balls in and his goal was unreal. It was a hell of a shot and a great turn. He deserves it. He works his ass off in training and he's a great guy, so I'm really happy for him and I'm proud of him for what he did when he got the chance. He played incredibly well and was a great bright spot in that second half."
Alas, for Schoenfeld, his memorable night will leave him with mixed emotions.
"As a forward, you're judged on the goals you score," he said. "I got the monkey off my back. Hopefully there are more to come. I just wanted to come in and make a difference in any way possible. It's just hard to see the season go down like this."
One of the truths I've learned over my many years writing about soccer is that goalkeepers are the perfect player to ask about goals allowed. In some ways, that's unfair because it's not like every goal allowed is the goalkeeper's fault, so quizzing them about the goals shouldn't be taken as such. In fact, there are games when the goalkeeper couldn't have done a thing about the goals that went in. Still, they tend to have the best view of the breakdowns and they also tend to have an encyclopedic memory of what transpired. Soccer is a game of chaos, whereas goalkeeper is a position of focus. With that in mind, minutes after a heartbreaking loss, I bugged Matt Lampson to tell me about all three goals from his vantage point.
The first goal came off of a set piece in the 32nd minute. A.J. Soares expertly flicked a header off of a low service into traffic by Kelyn Rowe.
"It was a fantastic ball in," Lampson said. "It dipped low to the point where I couldn't see it anymore. It was a great flick on by Soares. I didn't see it until late. It came up out of the bodies and went by me. It was great ball in and a great finish, but it's another set piece goal that we gave up and it's inexcusable."
New England's second goal came in the 69th minute on a penalty kick. Lampson made the save on a Rowe breakaway, but Tony Tchani made an ill-advised lunge in the heat of the scramble for the rebound. The ball and the man were moving away from the goal when the foul was committed. Lampson went to the correct side on Chris Tierney's penalty kick, but the ball still tucked into the side of the net for a goal.
"I didn't guess," Lampson said of his diving effort. "I wanted to stay up as long as possible, but I can't cover as much range if I don't guess. He put it past me. If it's in the air, I think I save it."
New England's game-winner came in the 76th minute on a swift attack of the Crew's penalty area. Tierney's overlapping run resulted in a low cross. Diego Fagundez eluded Tchani's mark for an easy finish into the open net.
"The third goal was a tap-in," Lampson said. "I was set for the shot from Tierney and it went across. There was a near-post run, so I had to check up on that. Unfortunately, we couldn't come up with a big defensive play and I couldn't come up with a big save. That's the way the game goes."
After the team's summer swoon, you'd be hard-pressed to find many pundits who though the Crew would be playing for the playoffs in the penultimate weekend of the season. I'll admit I sure didn't. But there they were, trading goals with the Revs as both teams played for their season. Although disappointed in the result, the players are optimistic about the team's future. Their late-season run under Bliss has given the locker room fresh energy heading into the season finale and beyond.
"In all honesty, I thought we played a hell of a second half," Lampson said. "That's a credit to Bliss. We didn't have a good first half, but he got us prepared for the second half and we came out on fire. If we don't go to three in the back, I don't know that we let in that third goal. I think he's got us playing and I think it's a sign of the great things that this team can accomplish. We just need to put it all together on a consistent and regular basis."
"I think you can see through the last several games that we were definitely playing better soccer, which is something people at times didn't believe that we could do," Schoenfeld said. "I'm just proud that we were able to string those games together and go down fighting when a lot of people didn't believe in us."
"That's how it's been since Blissy took over," said midfielder Wil Trapp. "I think this push has been a testament to our toughness and it will transition into next year. We have a chip on our shoulder because we didn't cut it this year. Nobody likes to be a loser. I think we'll respond well to that."
My sense over the past several weeks, as evidenced by some of the quotes like those above, is that the players love playing for Bliss and I think the postgame scene from Saturday night can be illustrative as to why. Having fallen short in a hard-fought end to end battle that officially ended their playoff dreams, the players were obviously down. Leaving for Columbus right from the stadium left no chance for the players to go out and let off some steam. It was going to be a long, quiet bus ride and flight back to Ohio.
As the bus started to pull out from the underbelly of Gillette Stadium, Bliss asked the driver to stop and shut off the engine. His voice raspy from 90 minutes of sideline shouting, Bliss addressed the team.
"Look, I know we made some mistakes and there are some plays you want back and I know you're [bleepin'] disappointed," Bliss said, "but if you look at the stats— and I know some say stats are for [bleepin'] losers and I know we lost the [bleepin'] game—but if you look at the stats in terms of the shots and the possession and the duels won and those kind of things, it shows me that we came here, in a game that both teams needed to [bleepin'] win and we went at them. I'm proud of how we came to play and how you [bleepin'] battled those guys. and I want you to know that if this was game 24 instead of game 33, we wouldn't have been [bleepin'] around with three in the back. That was dictated by the circumstances and the risks we needed to take. Okay? We have these guys again, so let's work this week and not let New England get into the playoffs on our [bleepin'] back. I thank you for your effort."
And with that, Bliss dropped back into his seat, the bus started up and the team was on its way back to Columbus. The hoarse and coarse soliloquy sucked the tension out of the bus. It struck me as a coach reading his team and saying exactly what needed to be said at that moment. Sure, there were mistakes to go over and lessons to be learned, but the bus and the flight were neither the time nor location conducive to such endeavors. Rather than let the guys silently stew in misery for the rest of the night, Bliss simply acknowledged (and genuinely shared and empathized with) his players' frustration and disappointment and thanked them for giving their all. It lifted the mood considerably.
For Bliss, the rest of the trip was spent with a DVD of the game popped into assistant coach Mike Lapper's laptop computer. The entire flight back, the two coaches made their first pass through the game film, rewinding, pointing at the screen, analyzing, gesticulating and taking notes. They put in a solid two-plus hours of film work to get a head start in preparation for the following week's training.
Film study and training would be for players' minds, but the bus speech was about the players' hearts. From my vantage point, it appeared to be a good reading of the mood and the situation and a course of action that many players would respect and appreciate.
Last weekend's trip came nearly 15 years after the first time I traveled with the team, which was a 1998 sojourn to Foxboro. I have many fond memories from that trip, but this year's trip was nothing like it from a travel standpoint. In 1998, we all waited at the airport terminal and then boarded a Southwest Airlines flight that was maybe 1/3 full. It's hard to imagine the days of such cheap fuel that airlines didn't mind running flights that were more than half empty. The good news was that players had plenty of room to stretch out, some even lying across all three seats. But the defining memory for me is when the pilot came on over the intercom and announced, "We have some very special guests on our flight. The Columbus Crew soccer team is on board and we want to wish them the best of luck in their tournament this weekend." Ah, the good old days when MLS was in its infancy and any soccer team was presumed to be a tournament-bound youth club.
Fast forward 15 years and the flight was something else entirely. With a 30-person charter, no airport security was required. Just pull up, park, walk into the building and then out to the plane. If you needed to go to the bathroom before the flight, the aviation company's men's room had preposterously large stalls for…urinals.
So this is how the wealthy pee.
The flight was smooth and comfy. Here's a shot of the Crew-filled cabin…
The descent offered some nice views of the famous New England fall foliage.
When we landed, instead of one of those jetways, there was a little shrub-lined pathway that would have taken us into the building.
The shrub path would have been a nice touch, but instead the group exited the plane and boarded the bus that was waiting right there on the tarmac. On the ride to Foxboro Andy Gruenebaum asked me to take a photo of him for his #DigiBaum series on the Crew's Instagram account. The look on his face was priceless.
The hotel was located at Patriot Place, the shopping center adjacent to Gillette Stadium. The hotel afforded spectacular views of a stadium that had once been described to me as a "soulless vessel."
More photos in a bit. First, some more little stories.
As we waited for our departing flight, Ben Speas' arrival was greeted with much enthusiasm by Lampson. He reached over to the table next to his chair and held up a Tim Horton's bag.
"Look what I brought for you, Ben," Lampson said, handing it over.
Speas excitedly accepted the bag and thanked Lampson.
"You don't even know what's in there," Lampson warned. "What if it's something you hate?"
"I know I'll love it," Speas said as he opened the bag, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the treasure it contained—one Boston cream donut, his favorite. He quickly devoured his gift.
"I like to make people happy," Lampson said. "Look at the smile on Ben's face right now. That smile is worth it."
On the ride to Foxboro, the bus passed a work truck for Costello Dismantling. The company's logo is a praying mantis. So wait, was it dismantling? Or did I misread it? Maybe it was "Dis-mantis-ing." Perhaps they are a very specialized insect extermination company. Ohio has stinkbugs…maybe Massachusetts has a praying mantis problem.
I suggested that, like cockroaches, by the time you see one praying mantis, maybe it means there are already thousands of them hiding in your home.
"By the time you see one, it's already too late," team physician Dr. J concurred, playing along.
I agreed that the sight of a praying mantis in the home would definitely be a case where you'd want to call in a dis-mantis-ing company. It would already be past the point of no return.
"When you're past the point of praying…" offered Crew communications manager Tim Miller.
Perfect! Now we had a slogan: "When you're past the point of praying, call Costello Dis-mantis-ing."
"That would be perfect for radio or TV," said Dr. J, "but it wouldn't work in print because of the a/e thing."
I assured Dr. J that the praying mantis gets its name because it looks like it is praying, so it is spelled with an "a." I could understand his confusion, though, since a praying mantis is preying on other insects. It is a preying praying mantis. He looked up the spelling anyway to confirm.
To be fair, Dr. J earned that title as a medical doctor, not an entomologist. Dr. J is my go-to guy whenever I need a medical term. For example, in Boston, people can drive like maniacs on the side of the freeway. That's allowed at rush hour, so as to increase the traffic flow. I said they must have a heck of a cleanup crew in Massachusetts, because even if you were allowed to do that in Ohio, you would constantly encounter blown out truck tires and mutilated deer carcasses on the…. on the…uhhh…on the…
"Shoulder," Dr. J said.
See! Medical term!
"Anatomy term," he corrected.
Oh. Anyway, where was I? Right. Dis-mantis-ing. Here is the logo for Costello Dismantling:
When I told this story to my friend Rob, he thought that maybe the company chose the praying mantis as a mascot not because of the "mant" aspect, but because the female praying mantis physically dismantles her mate after the completion of the procreative process. It's a solid theory.
Rob and I also debated what to call a praying mantis infestation. For example, bees would be a swarm. We eventually settled on "a congregation." So you would call Costello Dis-mantis-ing and say, "My kitchen is crawling with a congregation of praying mantises! I desperately need your dis-mantis-ing services!"
These are the things I think about.
I have a tendency to be annoyingly pedantic for my own amusement. Seeing the movie "Airplane!" when I was six years old is undoubtedly the source of this character trait, which surfaced during a conversation in the hotel lobby with Chad Marshall and former Crew communications guy Marco Rosa, who now lives in Boston and works for Major League Lacrosse.
MR: "This will be the second MLS game this year I'll be attending as a spectator."
SS: "Yeah, I haven't played in any either."
[Marco gives me the "are you effing serious" look.]
MR: "Anyway, this will—"
CM: "Sorry, man. He just blew you up. Story's over."
It was good to see Marco, even the 99.9% of the time I wasn't blowing him up with pointless pedantry.
Every time I travel with the team, I am reminded how boring travel can be for a professional athlete. Going to an away game is a blast for fans. There are sights to see, bars to close and tailgates to attend. Even the team staff can go out and have some beers and stay out late. For the players? Not so much. It's all about getting ready for the game.
Friday night means a team dinner at the hotel and maybe a leisurely walk around the hotel area. Saturday morning is breakfast, a team walk to loosen the limbs, a team meeting and then a lot of down time. Books are read, crossword puzzles are solved, televisions are watched, iPads are played with and naps are taken. It's all about resting up for the main event. Then it's time for the team meal and the bus to the stadium. For the most part, as an athlete, the road trips are infinitely more mundane than glamorous. (and that's still true even if, in this instance, the charter flight upped the glamor quotient and eliminated the terminally mundane—waiting around at the airport.)
I'm sure a post-game night out can be fun, especially after a win, but for the most part, like those of a musician, athlete travels are more boring than most people would probably imagine.
One meaningful aspect of the weekend for me was that I got to spend a lot of time with Kirk Urso's brother, Kyle and Kyle's girlfriend, Erica. They came down from New Hampshire to support the Crew in New England, as they always do and they even got to spend some time with some of Kirk's teammates. I've spoken and corresponded with Kyle and Erica in very small doses, so that weekend was the first time we really got to hang out for a prolonged period of time. When the three of us walked around Patriot Place on Saturday afternoon, we encountered many interesting things.
For example, we saw a scarecrow on stilts with funky flamingo knee joints and enormous bell bottoms…
The scarecrow also walked around with a crow on his arm, projecting the image, "I suck at my job."
(Actually, it was a stuffed crow, not a live crow, so maybe I am being too harsh. Perhaps the image he was projecting was, "Get anywhere near me, crows and I will wear your hollowed-out carcass like a wristwatch.") (Perhaps he would call it a Crowlex.) (Do professional scarecrows need joke writers? If so, I'm available.)
After gawking at the awkward scarecrow, we gave Erica "five minutes" to shop and then we saw a petting zoo a half hour later.
It had bunnies to make Andy Gruenebaum homesick…
It also had ducklings, and chicks, and a pig, and a fence-climbing goat…
Beyond the goat, you will see wooly creature with horns. It appeared to be some sort of sheep.
"It's a ram," Erica said.
"A Dodge Ram," Kyle said.
"Exactly," Erica said. "It's a Dodge Ram because he's dodging all these kids."
After we watched the zookeeper smear goat poop into the sidewalk with a broom and dustpan, we continued on our journey and saw some sort of pumpkin decorating contest.
From this vantage point, we also had a good view of Gillette Stadium, the aforementioned "soulless vessel."
On the way back to the hotel, I took a picture of the Patriots' mascot, who I assume was spending his afternoon shopping for boots that fit better. Or, as Erica teased, I was quote-unquote "taking a photo of the Patriots' mascot." Please note that the mascot is centered. My motives were pure.
As Erica shopped again "for five minutes," Kyle and I came across a bakery called Cupcake Charlie's. What caught our attention and ultimately lured our business, was this sign above the shop:
"Charlie the Cupcake is holding a tray full of other cupcakes," I noted.
"He's betraying his own kind," Kyle said.
"That would be like you or I holding a tray of other people to eat."
"But he doesn't find it revolting."
"Well, he's either a crazy cupcake cannibal or these cupcakes are so good that he's not repulsed by the idea of feeding his fellow cupcakes to people."
"He's smiling about it," Kyle said. "It makes him happy. Those cupcakes must be really good."
"Right," I said. "Charlie is taking a huge risk too. He's hoping to feed other cupcakes to people, but there's also risk involved since he himself is also a cupcake and once people get a taste, they could turn around and eat him."
"Then we definitely gotta try one," he said.
So we did. Messy and delicious. We were not served by a tray-toting cupcake, so we can only hope that Charlie was not gobbled up while serving an earlier patron. But that's probably what happened to him. Either that, or the other cupcakes staged a violent insurrection to put an end to Charlie's treacherous reign of sacrificial people-feeding cupcake terror.
More travel photos! I trust that the yawn you just gave was merely your brain gasping for oxygen so it could fully process and appreciate the following images in all of their cell-phone-quality glory.
First, the bus that carried Columbus to the stadium was off by one digit…
Since the Crew were in the visiting NFL locker room at Gillette Stadium, there were warning signs pertaining to NFL games and, in retrospect, the 2006 World Cup Final.
Despite it being a code-red inventory risk, equipment manager Rusty Wummel asked me to lay out the candy, gum and crackers. He assured me I did an excellent job, so I apparently have a future in that sort of thing if my scarecrow joke-writing career doesn't pan out.
Here's a corner of the Crew's locker room once Rusty got it all set up.
Seeing as that we were at Gillette Stadium, it should come as no surprise that they take razor safety VERY seriously.
Here's a field-level shot of the aforementioned "soulless vessel," looking out toward its iconic light tower.
Here's a shot of the Patriots' three championship banners. I couldn't find any MLS Cup banners for the Revolution, so these will have to do.
With new Crew chairman Anthony Precourt being on record as wanting to change the Crew's logo, this match could have been one of the final meetings between the only two logos to remain unchanged since the league's launch in 1996.
With an exuberant crowd of over 26,000 on hand and with an exciting win giving them so much to cheer about, the "soulless vessel" turned out not to be soulless after all.
As Dominic Oduro walked toward the team's bus and New England coach Jay Heaps walked toward his postgame press conference, Heaps called out to Oduro for a quick chat. He told Oduro that he played well and that he would see him next week. Then Heaps offered the following parting plea: "Slow down, will ya?"
Not a chance. Sunday's game should be a fun one.
Questions? Comments? Think this Notebook would have worked better a slideshow? Feel free to write at firstname.lastname@example.com or via twitter @stevesirk


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Which societal and technological developments will influence the future of intralogistics?
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Feedback 3/04
This story appears in the March 2004 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
Spirit of Giving
Our congratulations to Rieva Lesonsky for her appeal to business owners to carve out time to help new entrepreneurs ("Editor's Note," December). Here's a suggestion on how an owner can "give back": Join a local community-service organization such as Rotary or Kiwanis, and organize a committee of business owners to conduct free evening courses [for] would-be entrepreneurs. We know from experience that the sharing of business expertise in a classroom is hugely satisfying and warmly appreciated by recipients.
Phil Holland
Chairman and Founder
Just the Fax
Steve Kirsch is so disturbed about his unsolicited faxes that he is suing ("Hot Seat," January). He is concerned about the cost of the reams of fax paper he is apparently using and fax signals on his voice lines. He is suing for $2.2 trillion. That will buy a lot of paper. Attention, Staples.
If he is doing this in his spare time, as the article claims, maybe there is too much spare time. Where does this end? Will it eventually come to "Do not e-mail, fax, talk, speak, knock or look"? And federal government lists for [all of them]?
Steve Kirsch owns San Jose, California-based Propel Software Corp.-can't he just route his faxes to a computer and press the "delete" button? Seemingly a natural business practice for a software company. This is my procedure at my low-tech rep business. Note: The "delete" button [also] works on e-mails.
Just for the legal record, as I don't have any part of $2.2 trillion, Steve Kirsch has not received an unsolicited fax from me. We are truly becoming people [in need of] a federal nanny.
Richard M. Davis
Metro Travel Marketing
Foreign Policy
I would like to confirm the negative impact of H-1B visa holders (/magazine/entrepreneur/2003/may/61058.html) in my industry, SAP consulting. Using the percentages of H-1B visa holders to U.S. citizens on projects that I've worked on for nine years as a guideline, my industry is about 80 percent H-1B visa holders. The market in my industry fluctuates, and when it dropped last year, H-1B visa holders found themselves desperate to find projects. They drove the hourly rate from about $120 per hour plus expenses down to about $50 per hour (expenses included).
H-1B visa holders have two months to find work before they have to return to their countries and start the green card process all over again. This drives the desperate need to find a project-at any cost! Additionally, many H-1B visa holders who aren't accustomed to our higher standard of living find that living in hotel dumps and walking miles to work for a project are acceptable terms.
You can't tell me that this doesn't negatively impact our economy and our small-business initiatives. I own a small, woman-owned business that is suffering from these open immigration laws. If politicians want to help entrepreneurs and small businesses succeed, they'll limit the number of H-1B visa holders to reduce U.S. unemployment and increase small-business growth!
Name Withheld
Via e-mail
Looking Ahead
First, I would like to thank you for including me in your article "About Face" (January). [Because space did not permit a full explanation of what my business does, I would like to explain further].
My company, Design Travel Management Group Inc., is a unique concept in the travel industry. Our location is the homebased office to over 30 travel agents. We are a travel resource management company contracting professional travel counselors who specialize in trip preparation.
I realized back in 1995 that travel agents were going to have to change the way they sold travel, as the airlines began cutting their commissions. I developed a vehicle that has become the agents' facilitator, allowing them to operate their businesses from their homes. My company provides administrative functions and holds the necessary accreditation for them to sell travel without the overhead associated with operating a business of this kind. The concept is called a host agency, and [Design Travel] is among the first in the country to provide this service. Design Travel's customers are essentially travel agents, who pay Design Travel a monthly fee in return for services rendered.
A major factor in my decision to start Design Travel was to provide a unique service to travel agents, considering the changes in our economy and industry. It wasn't necessarily because I wanted to work from home and make my own hours. I have spent many years of my life in the travel industry and simply wanted to create a business that looks to the future.
Nancy Peklo-Nosal
Design Travel Management Group Inc.
Arlington Heights, Illinois
Help Wanted
Bravo to your article "At Risk" ("Smarts," January). I'm a regular reader of multiple small-business and entrepreneurial magazines. Entrepreneur is the first in years to respectfully address addiction in high-achieving professionals.
As an addiction psychiatrist, medical school faculty member, speaker, and consultant on substance abuse issues, I can reliably state that at least 10 percent of your readers will see themselves in the article. With your large circulation, that is many thousands of suffering people! The million-dollar question is whether they will take the necessary steps to get healthy.
How possible is recovery for intelligent, driven, self-starting individuals? Each case is unique, but the entrepreneurs I see daily in my practice do extremely well. They quickly see their lives getting out of control from their drug and alcohol use. Since they desperately want back their zeal for life and work, they are motivated for treatment.
Some who read the article will pick up the phone to call for help. Their lives will be restored thanks to your article. My prayers and wishes to those whose addiction won't let them pick up the phone.
Stephen Gilman
Addiction Psychiatrist
New York City
Trend Blending
In "Hot Stuff" (December), Entrepreneur magazine identified multiculturalism and luxury as two of the hot trends, and I totally agree.
However, if you combine multiculturalism and luxury you get cosmopolitanism, an upscale version of multiculturalism. Since cosmopolitanism runs parallel to globalization, it is a trend that will be here for a while.
So what are the opportunities that cosmopolitanism offers? Look for more blending of global cultural influences in music, food, design and fashion. High-end fusion is not multiculturalism, but cosmopolitanism.
The greatest opportunities rest in bringing cosmopolitanism to a broader market. Therefore, even inexpensive products and services should have a feel of elitism . . . even if they are available to most of us.
Stan Skrzeszewski
ASM Consultants
London, Ontario
Family Circle
As first the son and now the father in a 30-year-old family business, I agree with all the points in your December "What's the Point?"column; however, there is one other key point that was omitted: the training and preparation of the next generation to assume the management duties of the company. If the next generation isn't prepared, the firm will fail or, at best, end up in [the] control of somebody other than the family.
There should be a formal training program just as in the large corporations, where the younger generation spends meaningful time in each of the company's significant areas of operations. Product development, manufacturing, purchasing, sales, accounting and any other significant areas should all be covered by the younger ones.
They should spend time in the one area that they are absolutely disinterested in, as they will especially need to master that aspect of the business. Ideally, they should spend time managing each business department under a senior's guidance or mentoring, although that's not always possible, as it could upset nonfamily managers.
In addition, this provides the younger generation with the opportunity to meet and interact with other employees in the firm. They will get a once-in-a-career opportunity to earn the respect of the rank-and-file employees and to see the world from their point of view. Invaluable information and relationships can be formed that will help in the first years after the succession of ownership occurs.
Kent Milius
Management Recruiters of Colorado Inc.
Englewood, Colorado
Making Winning Connections
Male Care (a one-stop service facility for men) was featured in Entrepreneur magazine in 2001 and 2002. Because of this national exposure through your magazine, Rick Calloway and I met with John Salley, host of [Fox Sports Net's] Best Damn Sports Show Period, and four-time NBA basketball world champion, to sign an agreement in which John Salley will be the national personality for Male Care.
This agreement allows Male Care to use Salley's name, likeness and image in the promotion of franchise sales and unit operations, as well as in national and local advertising, circular offerings, etc.
We are eternally grateful to Entrepreneur for featuring us and giving us national exposure. It was because of your article, and others, that we were able to meet Salley.
Fred Calloway
Male Care
Augusta, Georgia
Corrections: January's "Digital Edge"column said 45 percent of U.S. workers telecommute; the correct statistic states that 45 percent of U.S. companies have formal programs encouraging telecommuting.
The Web site for The Entrepreneur's Source is www.theEsource.com("Where the Money Is,"January).
Contact Info:
- To subscribe or check on your subscription status, go to www.entrepreneur.com/subscribe.
- Share your comments
- . Write to Letters, Entrepreneur, 2445 McCabe Wy., #400, Irvine, CA 92614; fax (949) 261-0234; or contact us at www.entrepreneur.comor AOL keyword: Entrepreneur magazine. Letters may be edited for brevity and clarity.


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Bitcoin is an experimental system that combines aspects of a currency (like Dollars, Euros, and Yen) with a payment system (like Paypal) and a commodity (like gold). It does all this without any central authority such as a company, bank, or government being in charge. The system works by many users running the software and communicating via peer-to-peer (p2p) software.
What you can do with Bitcoin:
-Start accepting Bitcoin by simply running the software without the requirements such as having a bank account.
-Purchase and use fractional bitcoins. The system uses 8 decimal digits so each Bitcoin can be broken into 100 million pieces.
-Purchase products without submitting personal information. Bitcoin payment are not reversible so a merchant does not need to collect personal information to verify payment. If they don't have it, they can't lose it!
-Transfer Bitcoin to anyone, anywhere in the world any time of the night or day for a small fee (usually a few cents).
-Donate to causes without concern for restrictions or revealing your personal information.
-Conduct business with parts of the world not serviced by conventional financial services.
-Invest in Bitcoin. Bitcoin's supply is capped at 21 million. (Note that Bitcoin is still experimental and the exchange rate is highly volatile and investing in Bitcoin is very high risk).
-Many third party services are available to mange your bitcoins, trade bitcoins, convert bitcoins into other currencies, or immediately convert bitcoins into your local currency.
Bitcoin Basic Concepts
- Bitcoin is a shared ledger. It is essentially a spreadsheet that shows how many bitcoins each account contains. All the complications come from the need to make sure it is valid and everyone see the same ledger.
- The current state of the ledger is determined by a decentralized and trustless consensus. It cannot be controlled at any central point.
- Bitcoin "mining" is the process of adding transactions to the ledger and is done by solving math problems that take substantial computational power.
- The "consensus" is achieved by users and "miners" deciding to run compatible versions of the software and enforcing the consensus rules.
- Users can run "nodes" using peer-2-peer connections that shares the ledger. By running a full node a user can completely verify all transactions without the need of a third party service.
- Nodes enforce the rules by only broadcasting transactions and sections of the ledger that fit within the consensus rules.
- A user can easily verify the shared ledger took a huge amount of computational power to create as a way of trusting it is real.
- Miners get transaction fees and "block rewards" as an incentive to use their computer power.
- The "block rewards" are a way to initially distribute the currency and are cut in half about every 4 years until all 21 million bitcoins are distributed in 2140. Due to the nature of "halving" most bitcoins are distributed during the first few halvings. It was 50 Bitcoins for the first 4 years and is currently 25 Bitcoins. In 2016 it will be 12.5 and in 2020 it will be 6.25.
- Bitcoin addresses are secure because the numbers are so large that all the computers in the world cannot come close to cracking it.
- A Bitcoin can be broken down to 8 decimal digits so each one has 100 million pieces.
- A Bitcoin transaction can be used to indirectly store information in the permanent shared ledger without trusting a third party.


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I've never been to Las Vegas, and my experience of gambling casinos is limited to a short visit to a modestly sized casino in Windsor, Ontario. The experience was, however, quite memorable. I went in prepared to lose $100 just to have the experience of gambling in a casino. Surprisingly, I ended up some $121 and change to the good. But leaving before losing wasn't the only lesson. The enlightening moment was walking out the doors of the casino and noticing the difference as the summer glare and the wave of hot humidity hit me in the face and everything shone brilliantly in the sunlight of the northern summer.
Many observers have pointed out that the artificially illuminated 24-hour world of casinos seems timeless. What I noticed was that the flashing of the lights brought attention to the slots and the overhead lighting brought the other gaming tables into focus. Everything else was in a kind of twilight, and the message was clear: What's important is where the light is. Of course, in these windowless rooms, the only vote as to what's important came from those who designed the environment. The generous impulses of the sun were excluded. Sunshine is, perhaps, too egalitarian in its deployment for the designers of the casino, playing no favorites by shining on everything alike.
So, there's a moment of disorientation on leaving the casino environment, and especially on such a blue-sky afternoon in July here in North America, when the contrast between the cave of the casino and the light of day seemed particularly strong. After only a couple hours in the tight focus and eternal twilight of the casino, jazzed as I was on the juice of momentary gains and losses, natural light and the vivid expansiveness of external reality seemed strange. Further, after looking at emotionally charged numbers and symbols for a time, encountering outdoors the plain inscrutability of everything, everything, everything . . . right down to the stones shining with traffic wear through their encasement in asphalt, was in a way appalling: What does it all mean? It means nothing. I cannot "read" it. This is no game. And without the game, there is no meaning.
No wonder people can get used to being in casinos. They are womblike in their dark constancy, and simultaneously dreamy and intense in their abstractions and symbolism. The spinning wheels, shuffling cards and rolling dice are their eternally recombining DNA.
People are wonderfully adept at hypnosis via their own abstract dreams and symbol systems. Seeing this, I work with the assumption that waking up to Peak Oil and preparing for Transition is just a special case of awakening in general, and that waking up requires really looking at the symbols we've created and how we relate to them. The casino is a creation of the mind. With casinos as with the rest of modern infrastructure, the power of fossil fuels has been applied to the manifestation of an abstract dream, just as the energy available in every previous society has been applied to the creation of symbol systems and their related artifacts--- in a word, culture. What makes fossil fuels special in a historical sense is that their concentrated energy has allowed for an unprecedentedly rapid expansion of these abstract symbol systems and artifacts, to the point that many people in Western society are predominantly occupied with the maintenance of abstract sign systems and held firmly in their thrall. Somewhere, it is true, ore is mined, and somewhere the mechanized combines thresh the grain that keeps us going, but these are not immediately present in the lives of many people I know, and even then often seem to become just another layer of abstraction and dream projected upon the body of the earth. Pork bellies perhaps represent a mortgage payment for the farmer, and for the commodity broker they are even more abstracted as they are traded on paper or in pixilated bytes.
So the experience of the casino is useful because it epitomizes the human capacity to get lost in our own abstractions and can help us discern what's going on as this takes place. We look and we see money changing among nervous hands, all right, but strangely, no work is being accomplished and it is dissociated from external realities to remarkable degree. Perhaps this is why, for most of the history of the United States, gambling was outlawed as a dangerous and socially corrosive vice.
But there is a yet deeper level on which casinos provide an illuminating glimpse into the challenges of waking up within our entrenched and often tyrannical systems of signs, which is one way of describing the challenge of responding effectively to Peak Oil and Climate Change. As a mental creation, the casino can also be likened to the mind itself. While there is creativity and beauty in how our dreams can be projected outwardly to shape our feelings and the world, there is also an awful tendency for humans to be trapped within their symbol systems. At my blackjack table, as the cards fell and the $5 chips appeared and disappeared, what mattered to all present was the next card, and the next, and the next to fall. The logic and energy of the symbols within the construct of the game compelled the players to stay, and in fact to stay overlong, while the mathematics intrinsic to the system ensured that on the whole they would lose.
And here's the big question that occupies me today: how is sitting at a gaming table any different than when, in our ordinary awareness, we remain ensconced in a habitual series of thoughts? Thoughts have their own internal logic, their own compelling rhythm of signs, and in daily life they tend to follow, for the most part, as card follows card from the familiar deck. It's rare, in our thoughts, to turn up the mental equivalent of the Jack of Nasturtiums, or anything else that doesn't fit into our established patterns. And, just as with the blackjack table, there is a very strong tendency to stick with our mental games even when their intrinsic structure and logic mean we will come out the loser.
The fact that this happens in poeple as individuals helps to understand how it can happen in groups. In Jared Diamond's description of the Easter Islanders in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail, the author vividly describes how an entire society can be undone when its abstract dreams collide with the systems within which they are embedded. Diamond describes the enormous energy and resources devoted in that island's culture to the quarrying, transport, and erection of their famously gigantic stone statues. Others have written about it also, wondering what might have been going through the minds of the people who cut Easter's last trees in this pursuit, thus also cutting off the means to leave the island via the oceangoing canoes that brought them there.
While the social significance of the statues is still a matter of conjecture, what is clear is that the people did not find the capacity to collectively get up from the blackjack table of culturally determined significances before they bankrupted their environment and endured devastating losses. And before we are quick to judge them, try, for example, getting by as a pedestrian in modern American infrastructure, or to imagine living without the gigantic corporations that have insinuated themselves into every aspect of our lives. In most places in the United States, the inner logic of the dream we've projected onto the landscape compels us to continue to move 2000 pounds of glass and metal wherever we travel, even as we go broke doing so, even as the environment is paved over and polluted and our communities disintegrate. The call then goes out to bring gas prices down; within the game we're playing, that seems the only desireable option.
Likewise, people in our culture have invested their lives in corporate success through their careers, retirement plans, and general participation in the money economy, and we look daily to these abstract entities to sustain us with the resources they have commandeered through symbol manipulation or brute force, much as the social structure on Easter demanded participation to build ever larger and more numerous statues. In time, however, I am guessing that people will look back and wonder at the significance of our automobiles and corporations, just as explorers and archeologists wonder today about those statues on that desolated island. And they may ask: Why did those people drag those things around so long? Couldn't they see the staggering losses mounting all around them?
Being human, we're going to create signs and significances; that's a given. We're going to dreamily think and thoughtfully dream, project our dreams onto the world, be at times delighted by and at other times undone by them, and then, if we will, wake up to think and dream again. Personally, I like the Green Hand and what it has come to represent to me, but there are many many ways of stepping into a new game and finding a new system, perhaps more in harmony with the larger systems in which we are embedded. Maybe you can try putting your hand out, too.
I'll see you outside; I believe the sun is shining!


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