text:
Important Notice
Arrangement regarding the regional outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Asia
and 13 Special Announcements
Change Language
Hong Kong, 15 September 2017 – Dream Cruises is making a big splash in the market ahead of the much-awaited arrival of World Dream with a grand kick-off celebration showcasing all the new fun experiences that await guests, and getting everyone to take part in breaking a world record.
The excitement begins with Dream Cruises' innovative "#TogetherWeBuildDreams" campaign, which engages consumers in the building of the world's largest LEGO® cruise ship. The 8.44-meter cruise ship replica of World Dream is expected to be certified by the Guinness Book of World Records and completed in time for World Dream's arrival in Hong Kong.
This November, Dream Cruises will take families, couples and groups into a world of wonder on board World Dream with fascinating journeys to exotic and popular destinations in Asia, enhancing every voyage with new world-class entertainment and recreation features, including a state-of-the-art virtual reality and game zone, dazzling laser and fireworks displays and new signature shows, as well as new dining concepts and expanded duty-free shopping and marketplaces.
World Dream began construction in February 2016 with the traditional steel cutting ceremony at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany. Her recent float out from the shipyard was another key milestone, and soon, she will travel across the River Ems to the North Sea to embark on an epic journey home to Asia.
"World Dream will play a key role in Genting Cruise Lines' growth strategy in Asia. By building on the success of her twin sister ship Genting Dream, World Dream is expanding our capacity and strengthening our market leadership in the region," said Mr. Kent Zhu, President of Genting Cruise Lines. " We are as excited to welcome World Dream at her homeports in Hong Kong and Nansha this November to further grow the Pearl River Delta as a cruise centre and increase the FlyCruise market in this part of Asia."
World Dream will start sailing from Hong Kong on 17 November and from Nansha on 19 November, and take guests on two weekly alternating 6-day/5-night itineraries to exotic and popular destinations including Boracay and Manila in the Philippines and Ho Chi Minh and Nha Trang in Vietnam, as well as 3-day/2-night weekend cruise from Hong Kong around the Pearl River Delta.
"The making of World Dream is a truly monumental endeavour and we are delighted to celebrate the anticipated arrival this November of our newest luxurious ship with this remarkable LEGO® project. At Dream Cruises, we aim to inspire and push the boundaries in vacation experiences. This project is a great metaphor for our remarkable journey," said Mr. Thatcher Brown, President of Dream Cruises Lines. "We are focused on consistently delivering the Dream Cruises' luxury brand experience which is 'Asian at Heart and International in Spirit'. World Dream will reinforce our commitment to exceptional service. With our new facilities, we are creating enhanced and targeted vacation experiences for families and couples as well as MICE and special interest groups. We are also setting a new standard for our Dream Palace with our new all-inclusive concept."
Maintaining its market leadership position in the Pearl River Delta, World Dream will proudly continue Genting Cruise Lines' 24 years of commitment to cruising in Asia, supporting tourism and related industries at large.
"We are excited to welcome the maiden voyage of World Dream and her first homeport season in Hong Kong. The deployment of World Dream to Hong Kong, offering a world-class cruising experience, strengthens the city's position as Asia's cruise hub and enhances its attractiveness as a cruise destination. The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) will continue to work closely with Genting Hong Kong and other cruise partners through collaboration and regional alliances to attract more visitors and fuel the growth of Hong Kong's cruise and tourism industry, "said Anthony Lau, Executive Director of the Hong Kong Tourism Board.
Purposely built for Asia, World Dream will have a capacity of 3,400 guests and 1,686 staterooms with triple and quad sharing, 70 percent of which will have magnificent views of the ocean. New features and facilities include:
• Dining: New Vintage Room chef table in partnership with Penfolds Wine, and two new seafood and steakhouse restaurants, which will be among the 35 restaurants and bar concepts.
• Entertainment: The largest virtual reality game zone at sea including state-of-the art Vesaro car racing simulators, new signature shows including "Sogno" and "Some Like It Hot" crossover classic and Latin ballroom show, new laser shows and ongoing fireworks displays, redesigned outdoor plaza, and new programs for families, children and teenagers.
• Dream Palace: New all-inclusive concept designed to enhance the first-class experience for Dream Palace suites and garden penthouses with an unparalleled array of complimentary on-board and in-room services, including the new al fresco seafood dinner at the private pool deck.
• Retail: Expanded duty-free shopping with new shops and brand partners, a beauty bar with personal beauty consultants, interactive product wall, and new marketplace and bazaars.
• Wellness: New specially-designed spa packages based on organic products and traditional and western treatments, which are combined with fitness for a truly holistic and healthy holiday at sea.
To build on the excitement of World Dream's impending debut, consumers and LEGO® enthusiasts will have the chance to join fellow LEGO® builders from around the region to take part in this unprecedented world record attempt by logging into www.facebook.com/dreamcruiseshq for live feeds. The world-record breaking initiative will be led by Andy Hung, the first LEGO® Certified Professional in Greater China region.
"I am truly honoured to take part in this meaningful project to commemorate the inaugural voyage of World Dream, which will once again put Hong Kong on the map as the first homeport of Asia's newest luxury cruise ship," said Andy Hung, Director of Legend Creative. "This will be our biggest LEGO® ship structure challenge to date, and we are very excited to make history in collaboration with fellow LEGO® enthusiasts from different regions in Asia. We look forward to make this dream a reality!"
As part of the campaign, Dream Cruises will hold roadshows where consumers who booked their 5-night cruise (balcony deluxe and above) can participate in the actual building of the balcony cabin model, which will be included in the final record-breaking ship replica of World Dream.
(L to R) Mr. Andy Hung, Director of Legend Creative; Mr. Troy Taylor, General Manager of LEGO Group, Hong Kong & Taiwan; Mr. Kenneth Wong, General Manager, MICE & Cruise of HKTB; Mr. Kent Zhu, President of Genting Cruise Lines; Mr. Thatcher Brown, President of Dream Cruises; Ms. Grace Chan, Hong Kong celebrity; Ms. Becky Ip, Deputy Executive Director of HKTB and Ms. Christine Li, Head of Marketing, Senior Vice President of Genting Cruise Lines kicked off the countdown celebrations for World Dream's arrival.
For more information about Dream Cruises, please visit dreamcruiseline.com, and follow us on Facebook, Weibo and Weixin.
View Dream Cruises' Awards & Accolades
Media Centre
Press Releases and Media Enquiry Form
Travel Agents
Dedicated page for our agents and business partners
Mobile App
Click here to download Mobile App
Popular Links
Popular Destinations
Booking Hotlines
Hong Kong, China:
Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia):
Mainland China:
Taiwan, China:
Email Reservation :
Get Cruise Offers
By signing up, you agree to the proposed use / transfer of your personal data for direct marketing. Read more.
Subscription successful.
This email is already subscribed.
Please enter correct Email.
Server error.
The text you enter here is displayed at the end of the form.
Our Group
© 2020 Dream Cruises. All rights reserved.


text:
Boeing unveiled its fix for its troublesome 787 battery and is aiming to wrap up testing within two weeks.
The Company hopes to get quick approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration and bring an end to the grounding of the plane that began on Jan 16. Company executives said yesterday the plane could be flying again within weeks, although aviation authorities in the US, Japan, and elsewhere will ultimately decide the timing.
Boeing still does not know the root cause of the fire on a parked 787 Dreamliner in Boston on Jan 7, or of the smoldering battery that forced an emergency landing in Japan on another 787 nine days later. Boeing executives said they may never know.
Instead, they are building a battery they hope cannot burn.
The battery's eight cells will each be wrapped in an orange tape that will not conduct electricity. A glass laminate sheet protects the cells from the aluminum case. The wires on top are getting extra heat-resisting insulation. And the whole works now goes inside a new sealed steel tub that looks like a kitchen trash can tipped on its side.
If a cell overheats, a titanium hose will carry the gases to the outside of the plane through a new inch-and-a-half hole in the fuselage.
The changes make it "very unlikely" that another battery event will happen, said Ron Hinderberger, Boeing's Vice-President for 787-8 engineering.
Boeing hopes the new steel box will not just contain a battery fire, but will prevent one from starting at all by choking off the flow of oxygen and venting the battery gases and air inside the box outside of the plane.
The new design was tested before Boeing proposed it to the FAA. It will be retested so it can be certified for use on the plane, Hinderberger said. That should be done within a week or two. After that, approval will be up to the FAA.
He said it would be inappropriate to speculate on how long that would take.
Boeing shares rose $ 1.81, or 2.1 per cent, to close at $86.43. They have been rising in recent weeks as investors have been anticipating a fix for the battery problems.
Hinderberger's assessment was more cautious than statements from other company officials, who suggested Thursday that the 787 could be flying within weeks.
Each 787 has two of the lithium-ion batteries. The fix will add 150 pounds to the weight of each plane, Hinderberger said. Weight is a key issue for the fuel efficiency of any plane, and Boeing has struggled to keep the 787 at the weight that it promised to customers.
Boeing rolled out the changes first in Japan yesterday morning, and then later in a conference call with Hinderberger. All Nippon Airways has 17 Dreamliners, more than any other airline, among the world's fleet of 50.
The emergency landing in Japan was an ANA 787, while the battery with the fire in Boston was a Japan Airlines plane.
About one-third of each Dreamliner, including the batteries, are made in Japan.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Enter PIN code to check availability in your area.
Cash on delivery available
15 days return/exchange on all non-mask products
Return/Exchange not applicable on Masks
For the ultimate ladylike look this season, grab this maxi skirt in stripes. This elegant piece features a button down look with front slit and attached fabric belt.
Work It - Looks cute with an off shoulder top and a sling bag
Material: Cotton
Maxi Style
Self Fabric Belt Detail
Full Front Button Closure
Length : 40 Inches
Country of Origin : India
NOTE: There might be a slight variation in the shade of the actual product and the image shown on the screen, due to the screen resolution and photography effects.
Dispatch: Within 48-72 Hours
Delivery time within India - 3-5* business days
International delivery time - 7-10* business days
Return/Exchange: If you are not completely satisfied with your purchase, simply select the option of return/exchange within 15 days of receiving your order from your order details page and we will process your return, no questions asked.
* Delivery of products may take longer due to region-wise lockdown and diversion of routes.


text:
Sharks withstand Cheetahs comeback to triumph
BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa (AFP) - Coastal Sharks withstood a brave second half comeback by Central Cheetahs to win a Super 15 opening round clash 29-22 Saturday.
Sharks, runners-up to Waikato Chiefs last season, led by 21 points with 30 minutes to go at sun-baked Free State Stadium before Cheetahs finally came alive in an all-South African showdown.
Tries from flank Pieter 'Lappies' Labuschagne and new centre Johann Sadie and two conversions and a penalty from fly-half Johan Goosen narrowed the gap to just four points 12 minutes from time.
Many in the 14,500 crowd were dreaming of a Cheetahs victory only for Sharks fly-half Patrick Lambie to complete a memorable individual performance with a close-range penalty that closed the scoring.
Not that Cheetahs gave up without a fight! Full-back Hennie Daniller sprinted forward to grab a kick-off and was stopped just short of the try-line, and a turnover from lock Pieter-Steph du Toit stopped another promising home surge.
But all the Bloemfontein team had to show at the final whistle was a bonus point for losing by fewer than eight points -- not the ideal start with an Australasian tour starting next weekend against Chiefs.
"We knew the Cheetahs would come back and I am proud of my team for holding on and getting the win we desperately needed," said Sharks centre Francois Steyn, the stand-in skipper with loose forward Keegan Daniel injured.
Official man of the match and incumbent Springbok No 10 Lambie, who contributed 19 points from five penalties and two conversions, did not miss a shot at goal and his tactical kicking was often superb.
"I felt really good out there even if my lungs were ready to explode on a few occasions because of the altitude," he said. "Cheetahs were really formidable opponents with the X-factor all over their backline."
Cheetahs were first to score with No 8 Philip van der Walt barging over after a line-out, but three Lambie penalties and the conversion of an opportunist Lwazi Mvovo try allowed Sharks to turn 16-5 ahead.
Marcell Coetzee dived over after a forward surge and Lambie converted and added a penalty to push Sharks to a 26-5 lead before a Cheetahs side struggling in the scrums and line-outs clicked.
Cheetahs face Chiefs next Saturday in Hamilton and Sharks host Western Stormers, who lost 25-17 at Northern Bulls Friday, in a repeat of the 2012 semi-final.


text:
Search Constraints
You searched for: Subject Oceans Remove constraint Subject: Oceans Subject Contours (Cartography) Remove constraint Subject: Contours (Cartography) Subject Coasts Remove constraint Subject: Coasts Place Ventura County (Calif.) Remove constraint Place: Ventura County (Calif.) Year 2006 Remove constraint Year: 2006
Search Results
1. Contours: Hueneme Canyon and Vicinity, California, 2009
2006. Dartnell, Peter, Phillips, Eleyne L., Ritchie, Andrew C., Kvitek, Rikk G., Johnson, Samuel Y., Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, and Golden, Nadine E. This line shapefile represents contour lines at 10 and 50 meter intervals for Hueneme Canyon and the surrounding vicinity in California. This layer... Geological Survey (U.S.).
2. Contours: Offshore of Ventura, California, 2010
2006. Golden, Nadine E. and Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center. This line shapefile contains bathymetric contours at 10 and 50 meter intervals for the offshore area of Ventura, California. This layer was generat... Geological Survey (U.S.).


text:
art & culture
No matter what the season, festivals and other exciting events are always taking place somewhere in the Laurentians. Lovers of music, dance and theatre can vibrate to the rhythm of numerous different festivals and discover the creative universe of artists from here and abroad. On the sporting side, a number of major events take place each year against the beautiful background of the Laurentians, and feature an impressive variety of sporting disciplines. Lovers of fine food are also well provided for, there being many an invitation to come and participate in the pleasures of the table. Families can have fun together all year round at one of the many events designed for the amusement of young and old. Up North, fun times are always on the menu!
Route des Gerbes d'Angelica invites you during holiday weekends to visit the illuminated enchanted forest. A beautiful explosion of 350 000 lights and colors.
This initiative of Regroupement ski de fond Laurentides is intended to promote outdoor activities for the whole family.
Park entry fees apply.
More details to come.


text:
Hon. Martha Walsh Hood
A 1979 honors graduate of Syracuse University College of Law, Judge Martha Walsh Hood has been a Family Court Judge for Onondaga County since 2000.
Judge Walsh Hood was designated as an Acting Supreme Court Justice in January 2003. She was the Presiding Justice of the Onondaga Integrated Domestic Violence Court from its inception until June 1, 2005.
Judge Walsh Hood was assigned in 2006 to the Dedicated Matrimonial Part in Supreme Court and to the Onondaga County Family Treatment Court in 2008. She was appointed Supervising Judge of Family Courts in the Fifth Judicial District in January 2010.
Judge Walsh Hood is a member of the Statewide Advisory Committee on Counsel for Children, the New York State Family Court Judges Association, the National Counsel of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the Onondaga County Bar Association. She has served on the faculty of the State Judicial Institute at Pace University and as an instructor for Town and Village Justices training through the Office of Court Administration.
Prior to her judicial appointment and subsequent election, Judge Walsh Hood was engaged in the private practice of law for ten years, served as an Onondaga County Legislator from 1996 to 2000 and held the position of Senior Attorney at the Frank H. Hiscock Legal Aid Society in Syracuse New York from 1983 to 1990.
Judge Walsh Hood has been married to Paul R. Hood for 30 years. They have two wonderful children Allison, age 23 and Sean, age 20.
Information about Judge Walsh Hood is also available on the Judicial Directory.


text:
Japanese retailers and import shops are showing a new release for Team ICO's PlayStation 2 classic Shadow of the Colossus, due to hit Japan early next year. With The Last Guardian coming "soon", is this a good sign?
Because Shadow of the Colossus has already hit Sony Computer Entertainment Japan's "The Best" line of budget re-releases, so a re-issue means... well, we're not sure. That they're simply out of copies and that someone in Japan is hungry for Colossus slaying on the cheap?
The bad news is that this is not a a God of War Collection-style release for the PlayStation 3, giving ICO and Shadow of the Colossus a high-def once-over to drum up interest in The Last Guardian. But it may be a good sign that Sony sees value in Team ICO lead Fumito Ueda's desire to give the first two games in the series a PlayStation 3 caliber presentation.
Shadow of the Colossus re-release next February? [Team ICO Gamers via One Last Continue]


text:
With the 45th anniversary of this 1970 book approaching in 2015, it would be good to review the book's still-intact relevance. It remains today on my top-ten list of essential reads. The following is the second installment of my condensation of favorite sections and passages. –SB
Toffler, Alvin. Future Shock. Random House, 1970.
THE 800TH LIFETIME: In the three short decades between now [1970] and the twenty-first century, millions of ordinary, psychologically normal people will face an abrupt collision with the future. Citizens of the world's richest and most technologically advanced nations, many of them, will find it increasingly painful to keep up with the incessant demand for change that characterizes our time. For them, the future will have arrived too soon.
This book is about change and how we adapt to it. It is about those who seem to thrive on change, who crest its waves joyfully, as well as those multitudes of others who resist it or seek flight from it. . . . It is about the future and the shock that its arrival brings.
Western society for the past 300 years has been caught up in a fire storm of change. This storm, far from abating, now appears to be gathering force. Change sweeps through the highly industrialized countries with waves of ever accelerating speed and unprecedented impact. . . .
. . .
. . . A strange new society is apparently erupting in our midst. Is there a way to understand it, to shape its development? . . .
Much that now strikes us as incomprehensible would be far less so if we took a fresh look at the racing rate of change that makes reality seem, sometimes, like a kaleidoscope run wild. For the acceleration of change does not merely buffet industries or nations. It is a concrete force that reaches deep into our personal lives, compels us to act out new roles, and confronts us with the danger of a new and powerfully upsetting psychological disease. This new disease can be called "future shock," and a knowledge of its sources and symptoms helps explain many things that otherwise defy rational analysis.
The parallel term "culture shock" has already begun to creep into the popular vocabulary. Culture shock is the effect that immersion in a strange culture has on the unprepared visitor. Peace Corps volunteers suffer from it in Borneo or Brazil. Marco Polo probably suffered from it in Cathay. . . .
. . . culture shock is relatively mild in comparison with the much more serious malady, future shock. Future shock is the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future. It may well be the most important disease of tomorrow.
. . . unless intelligent steps are taken to combat it, millions of human beings will find themselves increasingly disoriented, progressively incompetent to deal rationally with their environments. The malaise, mass neurosis, irrationality, and free-floating violence already apparent in contemporary life are merely a foretaste of what may lie ahead unless we come to understand and treat this disease.
Future shock is a time phenomenon, a product of the greatly accelerated rate of change in society. It arises from the super-imposition of a new culture on an old one. It is culture shock in one's own society. . . .
Take an individual out of his own culture and set him down suddenly in an environment sharply different from his own, with a different set of cues to react to—different conceptions of time, space, work, love, religion, sex, and everything else—then cut him off from any hope of retreat to a more familiar social landscape, and the dislocation he suffers is doubly severe. Moreover, if this new culture is itself in constant turmoil, and if—worse yet—its values are incessantly changing, the sense of disorientation will be still further intensified. Given few clues as to what kind of behavior is rational under the radically new circumstances, the victim may well become a hazard to himself and others.
Now imagine not merely an individual but an entire society, an entire generation—including its weakest, least intelligent, and most irrational members—suddenly transported into this new world. The result is mass disorientation, future shock on a grand scale. . . .
. . . what is occurring now is, in all likelihood, bigger, deeper, and more important than the industrial revolution. . . . a growing body of reputable opinion asserts that the present moment represents nothing less than the second great divide in human history, comparable in magnitude only with that first great break in historic continuity, the shift from barbarism to civilization.
. . . Kurt W. Marek . . . observes that . . . "We open our eyes like prehistoric man, we see a world totally new."
One of the most striking statements of this theme has come from Kenneth Boulding, an eminent economist and imaginative social thinker. In justifying his view that the present moment represents a crucial turning point in human history, Boulding observes that . . . "The world of today . . . is as different from the world in which I was born as that world was from Julius Caesar's. . . . Almost as much has happened since I was born as happened before."
. . . It has been observed, for example, that if the last 50,000 years of man's existence were divided into lifetimes of approximately sixty-two years each, there have been about 800 such lifetimes. Of these 800, fully 650 were spent in caves.
Only during the last seventy lifetimes has it been possible to communicate effectively from one lifetime to another—as writing made it possible to do. Only during the last six lifetimes did masses of men ever see a printed word. Only during the last four has it been possible to measure time with any precision. Only in the last two has anyone anywhere used an electric motor. And the overwhelming majority of all the material goods we use in daily life today have been developed within the present, the 800th, lifetime.
. . .
. . . if agriculture is the first stage of economic development and industrialism the second, we can now see that still another stage—the third—has suddenly been reached. In about 1956 the United States became the first major power in which more than 50 percent of the non-farm labor force ceased to wear the blue collar of factory or manual labor. Blue collar workers were outnumbered by those in the so-called white-collar occupations—in retail trade, administration, communications, research, education, and other service categories. Within the same lifetime a society for the first time in human history not only threw off the yoke of agriculture, but managed within a few brief decades to throw off the yoke of manual labor as well. The world's first service economy had been born.
. . . Ten thousand years for agriculture. A century or two for industrialism. And now, opening before us—super-industrialism.
. . . Perhaps U Thant, Secretary General of the United Nations [1970], came closest to summarizing the meaning of the shift to super-industrialism when he declared that "The central stupendous truth about developed economies today is that they can have—in anything but the shortest run—the kind and scale of resources they decide to have. . . . It is no longer resources that limit decisions. It is the decision that makes the resources. This is the fundamental revolutionary change—perhaps the most revolutionary man has ever known." . . .
. . .
In our lifetime the boundaries have burst. Today the network of social ties is so tightly woven that the consequences of contemporary events radiate instantaneously around the world . . . .
. . .
. . . the final, qualitative difference between this and all previous lifetimes is the one most easily overlooked. For we have not merely extended the scope and scale of change, we have radically altered its pace. We have in our time released a totally new social force—a stream of change so accelerated that it influences our sense of time, revolutionizes the tempo of daily life, and affects the very way we "feel" the world around us. . . . this acceleration lies behind the impermanence—the transience—that penetrates and tinctures our consciousness, radically affecting the way we relate to other people, to things, to the entire universe of ideas, art and values.
To understand what is happening to us as we move into the age of super-industrialism, we must analyze the processes of acceleration and confront the concept of transience. If acceleration is a new social force, transience is its psychological counterpart, and without an understanding of the role it plays in contemporary human behavior, all our theories of personality, all our psychology, must remain pre-modern. Psychology without the concept of transience cannot take account of precisely those phenomena that are peculiarly contemporary.
By changing our relationship to the resources that surround us, by violently expanding the scope of change, and, most crucially, by accelerating its pace, we have broken irretrievably with the past. We have cut ourselves off from the old ways of thinking, of feeling, of adapting. We have set the stage for a completely new society and we are now racing toward it. This is the crux of the 800th lifetime. And it is this that calls into question man's capacity for adaptation—how will he fare in this new society? Can he adapt to its imperatives? And if not, can he alter these imperatives?


text:
IT solutions customized to meet your needs...
Whatever your IT service needs are, we're here for you! With a proven track record we can provide resolution to any IT issues you may be experiencing. If you are in need of reliable, cost-effective IT services contact us today!
What our customers are saying...
"We have utilized Think Connected's services to manage our corporate IT since day one. Their effective and proactive communication, planning and execution have enabled us to capably..."
Chris Dolan, President and CEO, 365 Main
"Our company serves companies that need agile communications support that's available 24/7. Without a highly reliable and cost effective IT infrastructure, we wouldn't be able to keep up..."
Alex Clemens, Founder, Barbary Coast Consulting
"We chose Think Connected to augment our data center staff thus allowing us to achieve our goals without increasing our headcount..."
Nicholas Portolese, Senior Manager - Data Center Operations, Nielsen Mobile
We can help you with all or a portion of your IT service needs
allowing you to concentrate on your core competency.


text:
Come visit: South Korea's leader invited to North Korea
Kim Yo Jong, center, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and the country's nominal head of state Kim Yong Nam, right, arrive to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the presidential house in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2018.
A rare invitation to Pyongyang for the South Korean president marked Day Two of the North Korean Kim dynasty's southern road tour Saturday, part of an accelerated diplomatic warming that included more handshakes, some Korean liquor over lunch and the potential shared joy of watching a "unified" Korea team play hockey at the Olympics.
Nothing has been settled on any trip north by South Korean President Moon Jae-in. But the verbal message to come at a "convenient time" from dictator Kim Jong Un, delivered by his visiting little sister, Kim Yo Jong, is part of a sudden rush of improving feelings between the rivals during the Pyeongchang Olympics. The result: a heady, sometimes surreal, state of affairs in a South Korea that has seen far more threat than charm out of the North.
Still, it wouldn't be South Korea if people weren't asking the perennial question when it comes to North Korea changing gears and showering its rival with apparent affection: What's in it for Pyongyang?
Past "charm offensives" have been interpreted as North Korea trying to recoup from crippling sanctions on their nuclear program, or trying to drive a wedge between Seoul and its U.S. ally.
A massive military parade in Pyongyang on the eve of the just-opened Pyeongchang Games has been used as Exhibit A by skeptics: In it, Kim Jong Un highlighted several huge intercontinental ballistic missiles, which were successfully flight tested three times last year and could reach deep into the U.S. mainland when perfected.
Even so, there's also cautious optimism, or curiosity at least. If peace isn't imminent, a summit in Pyongyang between Moon and Kim Jong Un seems better to most than the threats of recent months.
Moon spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said Saturday that Moon told Kim Yo Jong that the North and South should continue to build conditions for a summit. The U.S. and the North should quickly resume dialogue, he said.
The lunch Saturday at Seoul's presidential mansion between Moon and Kim Yo Jong is the most significant diplomatic encounter between the rivals in years. The night before, Kim Yo Jong and other North Korean delegates attended the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, watching a "unified" Korean team march under a banner showing an undivided Korean Peninsula.
In a surreal mixture of dignitaries, the Olympic Stadium's VIP box included Kim Yo Jong and North Korea's nominal head of state, Kim Yong Nam, sitting above and behind U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and fellow hardliner Shinzo Abe, the leader of Japan. Pence and the Kims seemed to go out of their way not to acknowledge each other.
That was not the case with Moon — either at the games, when he enthusiastically reached up to shake Kim Yo Jong's hand, or at the lunch the next day.
South Korean television showed its smiling president entering a reception room Saturday and shaking hands with the North Koreans.
The public part of the talks was mostly about the weather: Pyeongchang was colder than Seoul, it was agreed.
"You went through a lot of trouble braving the cold until late" last night, Moon told the North Koreans, referring to their attendance at the frigid opening ceremonies.
After sitting at a table, Kim Yo Jong placed a blue document folder in front of her. She later gave that folder to Moon, and Moon's office it was her brother's personal letter to Moon; officials didn't reveal what was written in it. Moon's office said Kim Jong Un's invitation to visit was delivered verbally by her sister.
After their meeting with Moon, the North Korean delegates got on a bullet train to Gangneung, a coastal city that hosts the skating, hockey and curling events during the Olympics. Moon and Kim Yong Nam, North Korea's 90-year-old nominal head of state, were expected to attend the debut of the inter-Korean team at the women's ice hockey tournament Saturday night; it was unclear whether Kim Yo Jong would also attend.
Pence's office didn't directly address Kim's invitation to Moon. "The vice president is grateful that President Moon reaffirmed his strong commitment to the global maximum pressure campaign and for his support for continued sanctions," Pence spokeswoman Alyssa Farah said when asked about the developments.
Moon is eager to use Kim's presence at the games to restore regular communication with North Korea and eventually pull it into nuclear talks. Many in Seoul, however, while interested in the warming high-level contacts, are also tempering expectations for a real breakthrough.
There's worry too that the proposed summit Pyongyang may come with preconditions — a North Korean specialty. A big one could be a demand to cease the U.S.-South Korean war games that North Korea claims are preparation for invasion. They start in March, and Washington has so far been adamant that they are crucial.
But Moon, a liberal who has always wanted to engage the North, will also have to convince a good portion of his own people who are deeply wary about North Korean intentions. Throw in there the accusations that South Korea has had to arrange huge payouts for past meetings, and that these earlier encounters, while certainly producing indelible images, have done little to slow North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons.
After the threats, missile launches and general nastiness from the North over the last year, there is still a lot of anger, fear and skepticism in the South. No amount of handshakes or smiles, or even Korean booze, can remove that.
Even if there are more meetings between the rivals after the games, to discuss the nuclear standoff, to discuss ways their militaries could ease friction, accomplishing something is another matter. South Korea wants a northern neighbor without nukes; North Korea vows to keep its weapons until the United States discards its "hostile" policies against the country.
Hours before Friday's opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, Japan's Abe warned Moon not to fall for North Korea's "smile diplomacy" during the Olympics, according to Moon's office. Pence carried a similar message.
"Kim Jong Un is clearly serious about reviving talks with the South to improve relations. He sent the country's nominal head of state and also his sister Kim Yo Jong to Seoul and they would need to have something to show for it when they return home," Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korean expert at Seoul's Dongguk University and a security adviser to Moon, said.
"It seems clear," he said, "that the countries have entered a phase of restoring a regular level of contact."


text:
In three days, I will be homeless.
This is not by choice (although many individuals before me have chosen this lifestyle and enjoyed the freedoms that it can offer, and if that is what works for them, kudos!) Personally, I enjoy having a permanent residence and the sense of stability and security that it gives me. I look forward to living in an actual house again. However, it is what it is – in three days, I will be homeless. There are no caveats here, no "maybe" or "unless" or "possibly I can come up with something before then". Come Thursday, February 26, I will be making my way on the streets of Orange County as best I can, and I will be considered that most stigmatized of people – a homeless woman.
Initially, the idea of this terrified me. Here is a summary of the commentary that first ran through my head: This would never happen to me. I am not the kind of person that lives on the street. I have a life, I have friends, I have a dog, I have stable employment and residential history, references, education, skills, talents – I have worked hard all of my life to ensure stability for myself. How did this happen, HOW CAN I DO THIS?!?!?!?!
So, I cried for a few hours. I cried and I let the panic run its course. Then, I started planning.
I wonder how many other people like me are out there. People who had the stereotypical idea of a homeless man or woman, who believed that it would not, could not, happen to them. The truth is, we never know the whole story. We don't know other people's circumstances. You can speculate that the wino sitting outside the 7-11 begging for change is there because he's too lazy or stupid or uneducated or selfish or mentally ill. But will we ever truly know? Look at me. I've worked hard for all of my adult life (and all of my adolescence), sought out a college education, worked for corporations and executives, built a life and a "secure" foundation to fall back upon. Yet, here I am. So, now what?
You may wonder how I got here. I will give you a summed-up, generic background on me:
I grew up in Orange County, CA. I got excellent grades and tested in top percentiles at school. I was considered a precocious student and skipped a grade. I taught myself to read at 2 years of age, and I read newspapers, novels, anything I could get my hands on. My family situation was never the best (I have a mentally ill parent who has rejected consistent diagnoses, medication, and advice from various friends, doctors and therapists. It all boils down to the fact that you can't help someone who refuses to admit that they have a problem). I was subjected to various physical/mental/emotional abuse for the majority of my life, and sexual abuse from an estranged family member while a toddler. Despite all of this, I strove to rise above my personal situation. I created a mental image of who I wanted to be. I fought, and continue to fight, to live up to that image and resolve some of the less savory tendencies that I have, whether they are biological or learned from the examples that I witnessed growing up. I am proud of the progress that I have made and the life that I have built. I am proud of who I am, as well as who I am evolving into.
I started working "under the table" at 10, as I knew how to pass for older than I actually was. I got a legal work permit at 12 years old and went to work full-time in addition to schooling (how many 8th grade students do you know with two secular jobs after school lets out?) I supported my parent and younger sister from ages 12 – 18. At two points as a teenager, I was physically thrown out of the house while my parent was in the throes of a bipolar depressive episode. Both times, I was on my own for a couple of months, until said parent tracked me down through school, reported me as a runaway and sent police to retrieve me from the friends' house where I was staying.
At 18 I left for good and got a roommate. Over the next several years, I enrolled myself into college and worked my way from entry-level, minimum-wage jobs into administrative and legal secretary positions, then onwards up to an Executive Assistant at a major corporation. For a long time, I always had at least two jobs, sometimes three. When I landed my Exec. Asst. gig, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had arrived, I could concentrate on only one job, I was earning the means to live on my own, in my own house, sans roommates. I rented a cute cottage towards the beach area and enjoyed the little life that I had built for myself. I got myself a dog. I dated. I loved. I worked. I had fun. Even with the occasional disappointment or blip that happens to everyone, life was good.
In July of 2008, my corporation had mass layoffs. The economy was beginning to crumble, and the auto industry was the first to be affected due to the skyrocketing prices of gas. Over 280 out of 500 employees were laid off, and I was among them. The company that I worked for was enormously kind and fair to each and every one of us, and compensated us well with a severance package, so I was OK for a while. I did some temp-to-hire work for an environmental engineering company for a few months, but they ended up having layoffs right before Christmas 2008 and again I was out of a job. Since then, I have been searching for employment without success. I am on extended unemployment benefits, but I prefer actual work. Salaries have been slashed by at least 20% (often more) so I have no hope of making what I used to, but that is to be expected – I'm in good company, at the moment it's a status symbol simply to have a job at all.
In the past three months I have sent out several hundred resumés and applications, some as far away as Los Angeles and San Diego counties. Whereas it used to take me a matter of days to find employment, it is now rare for me to even receive calls for interviews – there are simply too many people out there responding to every advertisement. I do all that I can to make my application stand out, but when it comes down to it, hiring managers must sift through hundreds of resumés for every single position. My chances are severely handicapped at this point, but all I can do is forage on.
Against my better judgment, I moved out of my cottage and in with my bipolar parent at her suggestion. I figured that it would be relatively temporary and would cut my living costs dramatically while I continued to search for unemployment. For just over two months, somehow I made it work. Until two days ago. On a downward bipolar cycle, my parent attacked me and ordered me out of the house. I have been told to leave immediately, but police informed me that I could require a 30-day notice, which I waived as long as I had five days to find other arrangements.
Could I ask friends for help? Possibly. However, my closest friends have so many problems of their own right now – many of them are out of work, or live in small apartments, or have various other personal problems and I am certain that I would be a burden and an imposition on them. There is also the problem of my (very large) mastiff, who I would not dream of selfishly dragging with me into someone else's home.
So, here I am.
Luckily for me (and my dog!), I recently inherited a truck and travel trailer. Around New Year's Eve, my biological father committed suicide. I had not seen or had any form of contact with him in over 20 years. There was no suicide note, and it fell to me as the eldest child to divy up his assets (of which there were few) among his four surviving children (my sister and I, and two half-sisters from a second marriage, whom I had never met before). This successfully accomplished, I was left with the aforementioned truck and travel trailer, both of which have registration and insurance paid up through July.
If you are an individual in a similar situation (especially a single, vulnerable woman), I hope that by detailing my experiences in this blog, I may help you come up with tips and ideas for survival and safety for however long your present circumstances may last. Perhaps you didn't choose for this to happen, but it is what it is. It is happening and you must stay strong and level-headed, so that you can make opportunities happen for yourself and dig yourself out of this hole.
Perhaps you're not homeless, have never been homeless, and are currently not faced with the threat of becoming homeless. Maybe you are reading this because homelessness is a topic close to your heart, or maybe you just feel that you should cultivate some knowledge on survival skills, because with the economy the way it is right now, who knows what will happen in the future? In any event, I hope that my postings will give you something to think about and/or something to laugh about, for humor can be mined from even the most dire of circumstances.
I have just over $300 cash to my name, in addition to various personal belongings. I have three days to take my plans for the coming weeks/months and put them into motion. I have never been homeless before and I will not deny that I am afraid, but I plan to face this with humor and dignity. I can do this. I can do this without becoming a casualty or a stereotype. I can be homeless and still clean, nourished, confident, well-dressed, dry in the rain, and warm at night. I can make wise and preventive decisions that will help protect me and keep me safe in tenuous circumstances. I can and will continue to bring in revenue, interview, and locate permanent employment. I can be a tall woman with flaming red hair, a jowly and imposing Neapolitan mastiff, and a 30-foot RV in tow and still manage to remain inconspicuous and under the radar (…right?). I think that if a wussy chick like me can do all of this, then anybody can.


text:
Feb 21st 2013
Ham Nation 86
A Tribute to Wes Schum
Hosted by Bob Heil
Hands-on with the TS-990, a tribute to Wes Schum, and a homemade outpost.
Records live every Wednesday at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific / 01:00 (Thu) UTC.
Hosts: Bob Heil (K9EID), Gordon West (WB6NOA), and George Thomas (W5JDX). Hands-on with the TS-990, a tribute to Wes Schum, and a homemade outpost. Guests: Don Wilbanks (AE5DW), Nick Tusa (K5EF), George Maier (W1LSB), and Cheryl Lasek (K9BIK). Download or subscribe to this show at http://twit.tv/hn. Submit your own video to Ham Nation! See the Video Guidelines, http://www.frozen-in-time.com/guide/ We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv. Thanks to Joe Walsh who wrote and plays the Ham Nation theme. Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.


text:
Climate Change and Water Temperature of Lake Baikal, Russia53.1N 107.6E
Lake Baikal, the world's largest, oldest, and most biotically diverse lake, is responding strongly to climate change, according to recent analyses of water temperature and ice cover. By the end of this century, the climate of the Baikal region will be warmer and wetter, particularly in winter. As the climate changes, ice cover and transparency, water temperature, wind dynamics and mixing, and nutrient levels are the key abiotic variables that will shift, thus eliciting many biotic responses.
Among the abiotic variables, changes in ice cover will quite likely alter food-web structure and function most because of the diverse ways in which ice affects the lake's dominant primary producers (endemic diatoms), the top predator (the world's only freshwater seal), and other abiotic variables. Melting permafrost will probably exacerbate the effects of additional anthropogenic stressors (industrial pollution and cultural eutrophication) and could greatly affect ecosystem functioning (click here for more information).


text:
What March Madness is to basketball, Marsh Madness is to red drum fishing in the Carolina's. One happens in March, and the latter happens throughout fall.
Fall for 'Marsh Madness' in the Carolina's
Cast and Blast Gives You Better of Two Worlds
Cast and blast, or fishing and hunting trips combined into one, is the ultimate fantasy turned reality for the avid sportsman.
Now is the Time to Book Waterfowl Hunts to South Louisiana
Home Run Fishing Charters & Lodge has an over 78 percent rate of repeat business for a reason. The saltwater fishing for species variety and trophy size is better than anywhere else in the nation.
Rig your Carolina Skiff for Waterfowl Hunting
Versatility is one of the benefits of owning a Carolina Skiff. Some models are known as the pickup truck of skiffs. Others are three-in-one setups for fishing, utility work, and family cruising.
Book a Cajun Cast-and-Blast Trip for Exceptional Fishing, Hunting
If you hunt and fish the idea of combining the better of two worlds in one trip seems impossible. There is one place you can do both, and that is in a special corner of south Louisiana.
Gain all Access Mobility with Roundabout Woodsman
You are a waterfowler hunting solo with your prized retriever. Getting to the blind takes a four-wheel drive to pull through mud holes and keep on the two-track
HEVI-Shot Choke Tube Systems—Waterfowl
Up until now, finding the perfect waterfowl choke tube was like mission impossible. Ask any serious waterfowler and they will agree, when a perfect ammunition/pattern marriage is formed, duck and goose totes fill up in a hurry. Environ-Metal Inc., makers of legendary performance waterfowl ammunition have filled the gap and launched a true game changer—a […]


text:
A couple weeks ago, near the "First Crossing" of the Santa Ynez River, I joined Paul Willis at the dedication of a new placard on the site of the Los Prietos Civilian Public Service Camp, where the poet William Stafford spent time as a conscientious objector. The valley narrows here, and the road emerges from the thick oaks and descends toward the riverbed. Asked to read a few poems at the dedication, I thought of Stafford's lines about an "Un-National Monument," another serene, out-of-the-way site where "no one killed—or was killed." There, "birds fly without sound" and the scene is "hallowed by neglect and an air so tame/that people celebrate it by forgetting its name."
That late January afternoon was a good prelude to February, when the Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot exhibit offers its own "plein air" glimpses on nature's tranquility and the Gaede Institute's 12th annual conversation will explore war and peace as liberal arts. February has always seemed to be the month when the pace of college life acclerates. At present, we have many faculty searches—in art, business, English, global education, kinesiology, music and sociology—underway. During the month we will also honor Dallas Willard with a Martin Institute conference for church leaders. And the pace will certainly pick up for the basketball season, with our two teams well poised for strong finishes.
Let me take a quick moment to thank Brittany Myles in the Office of Public Affairs for all of her help with the imagery and design of these reports. Thanks also to Caitlin Postal, a new student intern in our office, who is assisting with research and writing.


text:
Patrick Ebert -- Sunday, August 11, 2013 -- 8:27 PM PDT
Tyler Kolek set a record at the Classic by peaking at 99 mph
Congrats to the West team for beating the East 8-6 in the 2013 Perfect Game All-American Classic presented by Rawlings. Jakson Reetz was named the game's MVP as the West pulled ahead in the 11-year series 6-4-1. Check back later for the full game score.
In the meantime, here are the peak pitching velocities:
Tyler Kolek – 99
Dylan Cease – 96
Touki Toussaint – 96
Grant Holmes – 95
Kodi Medeiros – 95
Brandon Murray – 95
Luis Ortiz – 95
Sean Reid-Foley – 95
Zack Shannon – 95
Justus Sheffield – 94
Joe Gatto – 93
Michael Kopech – 93
Keaton McKinney – 93
Brady Aiken – 92
Cobi Johnson – 92
Mac Marshall – 92
David Peterson – 92
Foster Griffin – 91
Devin Smeltzer – 89
Patrick Ebert -- Saturday, August 10, 2013 -- 1:03 AM PDT
Jakson Reetz peaked at 93 mph during his one inning appearance
Teams workout, East squeezes by West 3-2 in scrimmage
For as powerful message and overall experience it is annually to visit Rady Children's Hospital, and for as powerful of an impressive visiting the Mariners Corp. Air Station Miramar, the players and coaches were anxious to finally take the baseball field on Friday night as part of the event's first team practice and scrimmage.
Each team took batting practice to open the evening, which was conducted at newly (and beautifully) renovated Fowler Park at Cunningham Field, the University of San Diego's baseball field. After BP, each team took infield drills before taking part in a six-inning scrimmage.
Monte' Harrison, who continues to make strong impressions both on and off the field, is a dynamic three-sport athlete that has committed to play for Nebraska for football. For as relatively inexperienced as he is in baseball, he swings the bat incredibly well with great strength in the batter's box, and shines in all aspects of the game (he also made a strong impression during the day's visit to Ray Children's Hospital). Harrison has performed incredibly well all summer long and may be looking at yet another bump up Perfect Game's class of 2014 player rankings after his strong BP performance, and he also added a single that he smoked to right field in the scrimmage.
Trenton Kemp didn't get a hold of any balls during BP, but continually stung the ball hard.
You can see why onlookers are so excited by Marcus Wilson's future. Incredibly slender through the waist, Wilson has very impressive bat speed and very quick hands, giving him the ability to drive the ball a long, long way.
While Bryce Carter didn't put on a dramatic show of power during BP, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better looking left-handed swing.
Alex Jackson and Jon Littell, who hit the in same BP group as Carter, both squared up the ball consistently well and drove it to all parts of the park. While Jackson hit more line drive lasers, Littell showed the ability to use his impressive natural strength to add loft to his swing.
Justin Smith, similar to Trenton Kemp, also his fair share of screaming line drives during BP.
Carl Chester continues to prove that he's much more than just his world-class speed, although him sprinting from second to home in the scrimmage was one of the day's biggest highlights, as he drove the ball high and deep to left field consistently during BP, evidence of his budding power.
Gareth Morgan didn't hit too many right on the screws, but the ones that he did travelled well over the wall in left-center and left the ballpark in a hurry.
Justin Bellinger is a ridiculously large and strong individual for a soon-to-be high school senior. He hit the most balls out that drew the most audible gasps from the crowd.
Ti-Quan Forbes is nowhere near Bellinger in stature with rail-thin yet wiry strong, lanky limbs, but he can put a charge in the ball and it's easy to dream on what he may become once he adds more strength.
Michael Chavis hit the ball consistently hard, adding loft to his quick swing while muscling a few out of the park.
Reese Cooley, somewhat similar to Monte' Harrison, is a strong and physical overall athlete with the ability to put a charge in the ball and send it a long way.
The last batch to take BP was easily the most impressive collectively: Michael Gettys, Greg Deichmann, Braxton Davidson and Kel Johnson.
The ball makes a different sound off the bat of Gettys, and it travels a long, long way. There's an obvious confidence about Getty's swing and overall approach, and he's an extremely fun player to watch in a situation like this, as his incredibly arm strength was also on display as part of the pre-scrimmage infield.
Deichmann's power was well chronicled at the PG National Showcase at the Metrodome, and he continued to show that power stroke through BP.
Davidson is such an accomplished hitter, he makes everyone look easy in the batter's box routinely driving balls hard to right field.
Onto the scrimmage, a contest in which the score really doesn't matter, but one we still keep for the records (and one the players clearly take seriously, as every athlete wants to win no matter what the situation).
Due to the importance of keeping pitchers fresh since they will be taking the mound for one-inning appearances during Sunday's Classic, not a single hurler expected to throw Sunday made an appearance in the scrimmage. Instead, three primary position players from each team went one inning a piece, with one pitcher on each squad (Kiko Garcia and Aaron Pinto) being added to the scrimmage that aren't on the Classic rosters to help give the hitter's more plate appearances. Garcia and Pinto are from nearby Chula Vista and West Covina.
Here's a quick rundown of what the pitchers threw, starting with the West:
Jack Flaherty (inning 1): Pretty easy 88-91 mph heat. Worked quick and added quality 71-73 curveball, using one to freeze Reese Cooley to close out the frame.
Jakson Reetz (inning 2): Not only does he have one of the strongest and most accurate arms as a catcher, but he also pumped easy 91-93 mph heat with a sharp 79-81 mph slider. He would have great success in college, should he honor his commitment to Nebraska, if he went to campus and was allowed to perform both as a pitcher and as a position prospect.
Scott Hurst (inning 3): Surprising stuff for a smaller athlete, working at 88-91 with is fastball and mixing a pretty effective if not sharp 74-75 mph curveball.
Kiko Garcia (innings 4-6): Pitched 85-87 with his fastball and a slow 73 mph curve.
The East pitchers:
Nick Gordon (inning 1): No stranger to pitching, Gordon continued to show his electric arm strength by sitting at 899-92 with his fastball while dropping in his usually sharp 74-77 mph curveball, striking out a pair of batters.
Braxton Davidson (inning 2): Davidson also struck out a pair of batters, and was surprisingly effective with his 83-86 mph fastball from sneaky a low three-quarters delivery. He looked comfortable lulling hitters to sleep with his slow, upper-60s curveball before busting them up with his fastball.
Reese Cooley (inning 3): Cooley was mostly 85-87 mph, touching 88, with his fastball and also threw a fairly impressive upper-70s changeup.
Aaron Punto (innings 4-6): Using a 82-84 mph fastball, you could tell Punto was a little nervous facing the talent-laden Classic roster. That said, he did a nice job overall, recording three strikeouts in his three innings of work.
Some quick hitters from the rest of the scrimmage:
All-Americans get a "Top Gun" taste at Miramar
Montes de Oca happy to be part of program
SAN DIEGO -- The biggest player on either the East or West teams' rosters for Sunday's 11th annual Perfect Game All-American Classic presented by Rawlings won't throw a pitch, swing a bat or field a ground ball at all this weekend.
But Lawrence (Kan.) High School senior and University of Missouri commit Bryce Montes de Oca is determined to make the most out of the PG All-American Classic opportunity that he has been presented with, even if Tommy John surgery performed in early April will keep him from competing.
"I'm very excited to be a part of this," Montes de Oca told PG after adding his autograph to All-American Classic posters, bats and balls and being fitted for his West Team uniform on Thursday afternoon.
"It's a great honor to be named to this team and even though I'm still hurt it's an honor to be able to come down here and attend the game," he said. "I'm going to do as much as I can, whatever that will be; I'm just happy to be here."
Montes de Oca, a right-hander listed at 6-feet-8 and 265 pounds, suffered ligament damage in his elbow while pitching in a high school game on April 4 and had the Tommy John surgical procedure performed on April 11. He is currently undergoing physical therapy that is set to be complete by the first week of September when he'll start a throwing program that will run into next February.
His surgeon was Dr. George Paletta, the head team physician for the St. Louis Cardinals' sports medicine department. Dr. Paletta's surgical techniques and rehab program have been successful with many major league players and Montes de Oca swears by him.
"I'm sticking with what (Paletta) tells me to do and I think that's the right thing to do," he said.
The rehab has involved a lot of band work and a lot of movement work in an effort to get his range of motion back. The process can be tedious at best at times, but Montes de Oca has persevered.
"It was frustrating at first, just trying to get use to not being able to play baseball," he said. "After awhile, probably the first few weeks, you just kind of learn how to deal with it and I've tried to find the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm trying to get something good out of it. I'm just working hard and trying to get better."
Montes de Oca was a little bit of an unknown on the national scene until he joined the Midland Redskins at last October's PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla. He impressed the hundreds of scouts in attendance with a fastball that sat 93-95 mph complemented with a 78 mph curveball. He accomplished that despite coming off a less severe elbow injury the previous summer.
"I went down there and did well and that's when I kind of got (better) known," Montes de Oca said. "After that I was kind of progressing and working hard and just pitching; just doing what I can. And then the (high school) season came around and I got hurt, and I was back to square one."
"Square one" isn't as lonely of a place as it once was. Hundreds of you players at every level --position players and pitchers alike, from high schools, colleges and the professional ranks -- have come back stronger than ever from the Tommy John procedure. Montes de Oca is confident he will join the ranks of success stories.
"I know I will," he said when asked if he felt like he could be among the success stories. "I've worked very hard and I'm going to keep on doing that. Other people have had the surgery and they've either come back the same or even better and I'm determined to come back better than I where I was."
Montes de Oca has committed to the University of Missouri from the Southeastern Conference, noting that the Tigers were the first NCAA Division program to every contact him and stuck with him when he first experienced some elbow discomfort in the summer of 2012.
"That loyalty means a lot to me," he said. "They're progressing in the SEC and I have confidence in the coaches and everyone in the organization that they'll make the best decisions for me and for the team."
MLB scouting departments will follow Montes de Oca's recovery closely. His 6-foot-8 frame, previous velocity and even his smarts (he carries a 4.0 GPA at Lawrence High) will be hard for any MLB general manager to take a pass on in next June's First-Year Player Draft. Montes de Oca has memorized his best-case scenario time frame.
"I'm very confident that I will be 100 percent by (the draft)," he said. "My 10th month is my technical end to my surgery (recovery period) and that's when I should be 100 percent, but people know that it takes longer to get the feel (for pitching) back. By the time of the draft it will have been 13 or 14 months (since the surgery) so hopefully I'll be where I want to be ability-wise.
"I'm just doing what I can right now and I can't control what's going to happen; I can only control what's going on right now."


text:
How can we help you?
We matched that to:
What is Verified by Visa?
Verified by Visa is a free joint effort between the Visa issuing banks, Visa Canada and participating retailers to provide you with increased security and convenience when you shop online.
Visa offers comprehensive fraud protection, but Verified by Visa goes even a step further, adding an extra layer of security when you enter credit card information online.
You are automatically protected – and no additional sign-up or password is required.
This program is offered to Visa cardholders at no additional cost and exists to help protect you against fraudulent transactions.
All you need to do is shop as you always do online; Verified by Visa operates invisibly in the background.
Thank you.
Please note that the answers to the questions are for information purposes only for the products discussed. Individual circumstances may vary. In case of discrepancy, the documentation prevails.


text:
Phylogenetically, the lycophytes sit between the bryophytes and the euphyllophytes, which include the ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants. As such, lycophytes are key to understanding how major innovations evolved in order for plants to survive and thrive on land. These innovations include vascular tissue, leaves, stems, and lignification, traits that are important both in agriculture and biofuel production.
The spikemoss Selaginella moellendorffii has a genome size of only ~100Mbp, which is the smallest genome size of any plant reported. The sequence of the Selaginella genome by JGI provides scientists an important reference genome necessary for deciphering the evolution of biochemical, physiological and developmental processes unique to land plants.


text:
Katie Miller and her family have a lot of birds show up in their backyard, but none is as unique as the one they lovingly named "Butchy boy."
"He's bald," Miller said of the cardinal that frequents their feeder.
Miller said that the feather-challenged bird has been coming to their home in the spring and summer for the last two years. "I always know it's him because of a little peep he makes," said Miller.
She said he's no different than other birds except for being bald. "He eats fine and doesn't fight with the other birds," she explained. He also appears to have a female friend.
Miller noted that she also saw a blue-jay that was bald, but it wasn't as bad.
That would bear out what we found: the main birds that are reported to bird experts as being bald each year are cardinals and blue jays. But even the experts don't agree on why it happens, because it hasn't been studied in depth.
"My thought is parasites," said local expert Ranger Steve Mueller.
Birds can get feather mites or bird lice that eat the feathers. Usually a bird can get rid of them by preening, but they can't reach their head.
Another idea suggested by experts is an aberration in molting, when they lose all their feathers on their head at once, instead of gradually.
And another idea is a traumatic injury.
Regardless of the cause, the feathers supposedly grow back in four to six weeks.
Whether that's true in Butchy Boy's case, might remain a mystery.


text:
SAN FRANCISCO — A 752-foot oil tanker sailing in the fog collided with a tower of the Bay Bridge on Monday morning, spilling no oil but raising alarming new questions about oil tanker safety in San Francisco Bay.
The ship, the Overseas Reymar, based in the Marshall Islands, had unloaded its oil at the Shell refinery in Martinez only hours before it grazed the "Echo Tower" of the Bay Bridge at 11:18 a.m., between Yerba Buena Island and San Francisco. Although it was carrying thousands of gallons of bunker fuel, authorities said it appeared none of that spilled.
"We're still keeping an eye out to make sure," said Coast Guard Petty Officer Barry Bena. "But as of right now, initial reports from the pilot, the Coast Guard and local agencies show no pollution has hit the water."
The pilot of the ship was identified as Guy Kleess, 61, of San Francisco, a former Exxon oil tanker captain who has been involved in at least three other shipping accidents since 2009.
The incident provided a stark reminder of a similar Bay Bridge collision five years ago, when the Cosco Busan, a 901-foot-long cargo ship, hit the adjacent tower of the Bay Bridge, spilling 53,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel into the bay, fouling 69 miles of shoreline and killing thousands of birds.
That an oil tanker similar in size to the Exxon Valdez, with the capacity to haul millions of gallons of heavy crude oil, hit a bridge in San Francisco Bay alarmed environmentalists.
"With a quarter-mile of visibility, they probably should not have been transiting the bay. This was a close call," said Deb Self, executive director of San Francisco Baykeeper, an environmental group. "The ship's capacity is 505,000 barrels of oil. Luckily, it was empty. Or we could have had a real disaster."
Biologists for years have said that if a large oil tanker spills in the bay, the currents could carry much of it southward, where it would devastate egrets, herons, harbor seals, salmon and other species in the marshes and wetlands. Because of the weak tidal action in the southern part of the bay, the oil would take months, if not years, to remove.
According to state records, Kleess has been a pilot guiding large ships on the bay since 2005. He graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in 1976, and after that worked for Exxon as a third mate, second mate, first mate and captain on oil tankers until February 1989. Exxon became infamous on March 24, 1989, when its tanker Valdez hit a reef, spilling 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska. State officials said that Kleess, who worked in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Mexico in the 1990s, has not caused significant accidents in the past.
"Capt. Kleess has a good record. He's had no major incidents," said Capt. Allen Garfinkle, executive director of the State Board of Pilot Commissioners.
State records show that over three days in 2009 Kleess ran aground a 550-foot cargo ship in the Sacramento shipping channel and crashed a 600-foot cargo ship into a catwalk near Stockton. In 2010, he also was found at fault when a tugboat he was sailing ran aground in the Richmond inner harbor.
Pilots are local mariners who board oil tankers, freighters and other large ships before they enter San Francisco Bay. They help ship captains maneuver and provide expert advice about local conditions. Because of the high level of risk — a major oil spill could cost a billion dollars and destroy wildlife and tourism — shipping companies are required under state law to pay pilots.
Among the key questions Monday: Why was the ship sailing in significant fog? After the Cosco Busan spill in 2007, the Coast Guard put in place rules limiting large ships from sailing when there is less than half a mile of visibility. Coast Guard officials said Monday that the visibility was a quarter-mile at the time of the accident.
Also, did Coast Guard officials who track ships on radar warn the vessel it was about to hit the bridge tower?
And why did the ship or its contracted emergency response crews not deploy boom — floating barriers that protect against oil spills — until hours after the accident?
Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Shawn Lansing said the ship, which was built in 2004, had a double hull, which is required under a federal law signed by President George H.W. Bush after the Valdez spill. At a news conference Monday afternoon, Lansing said investigators don't yet know the cause of the crash but are looking at human error as a possibility.
Bart Ney, a spokesman for Caltrans, said about 30 to 40 feet of the wooden and metal fender on the bridge tower was damaged, but the bridge suffered no structural damage, and traffic wasn't disrupted.
Capt. Peter McIsaac, president of the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association, said his organization tested the pilot on board for drugs and alcohol after the accident.
"He passed his alcohol test, but we don't get the drug test results back for a couple of days," McIsaac said.
Kleess is scheduled to be interviewed by the Coast Guard on Tuesday.
McIsaac said it appears the ship, with a crew of about 20, had offloaded its oil and sailed under the Bay Bridge to wait at an area called Anchorage 9 to refuel and take on food before heading out to sea. Its itinerary shows it was heading for Esmeraldas, Ecuador, a major coastal oil refining city. As the ship sailed toward the ocean, it clipped the Bay Bridge.
"There was an ebb tide and limited visibility," McIsaac said.
John Cota, 64, of Petaluma, the local bar pilot who was guiding the Cosco Busan five years ago, pleaded guilty in 2009 to federal water pollution charges and served 10 months in jail. An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found that the spill happened because Cota was impaired after taking Darvon, Vicodin, Zoloft and other medications for sleep apnea and other ailments, and that he should not have sailed in the heavy fog. The NTSB also concluded there was poor communication between Cota and the Chinese captain.
In September 2011, state and federal authorities announced a $44.4 million settlement with the Cosco Busan's owner, Regal Stone Ltd., and its operator, Fleet Management Ltd., both based in Hong Kong.


text:
Lindor all business at second Futures Game
Indians' top prospect excited about his recent promotion to Double-A
NEW YORK -- On Monday, he'll pack up his bag with the bat he swings selectively and the glove with "Lindor B.C." ("Be Consistent") written on it and travel to his new temporary home in Akron, Ohio, where his Double-A career is about to begin.
But first, Francisco Lindor, the Indians' top prospect and one of the more highly touted young bodies in all of baseball, had business to attend to here in the Big Apple, where he made his second SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game appearance in as many years.
"Every day you play nine innings, you've got to win," Lindor said beforehand, even though this was only an exhibition. "No matter what. Last year, I played, and we lost, and I'm not trying to go through the same thing again this year."
Lindor went so far as to give the World Team a "99.8 percent" chance of beating the U.S. in Sunday's game at Citi Field.
In the end, Lindor was incorrect, as the World came out on the short side of the 4-2 result at Citi Field. And his brief appearance resulted only in a groundball double play on the sharp one-hopper he hit to short in the seventh.
But Lindor's attitude and approach is part of what evaluators from the Indians and elsewhere love about him. The kid's a competitor who believes in himself, and his confidence rubs off on those around him. Though he is just 19 and still a couple steps from his big league break-in, Lindor's already being hailed as a born leader.
"That's an honor," he said. "Being a leader takes a lot, from a mental standpoint, and you've got to go out there and perform and do everything. I'm not trying to say I'm a leader and you have to follow me. I'm just doing my thing. Being consistent, being helpful, being responsible, taking ownership of every little thing I do. And I guess that works."
It is a credit to the depth of upper-echelon shortstop talent in the Minor League pipeline that Lindor didn't start Sunday's game. Both Lindor and last year's No. 1 overall First-Year Player Draft pick, Carlos Correa of the Astros, served as backups to the Red Sox's Xander Bogaerts. It's no secret, though, that the Indians envision Lindor in a starting and starring role in the not-terribly-distant future, particularly with current starting shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera only signed through 2014.
Lindor is like every other Futures Game participant (or Minor Leaguer, for that matter) in that he can't tell you what his exact timetable will be. But he feels ready for the challenge of ascending to Double-A.
"I'm pumped, man, I'm pumped," he said. "I can't wait."
Lindor earned the promotion with a .306 average and .373 on-base percentage at Class A Carolina this season, and his defensive range and agility continues to make scouts drool. Though he hasn't flashed much power in his professional career, to date, he has shown an above-average ability to work counts, and he's been impactful on the basepaths.
"I'm going to grow into some power, little by little," he said.
For now, he said, his goal is to mentally exhaust both himself and the opposing pitcher each and every plate appearance.
"You've got to be locked in every single pitch," Lindor said. "You can't take one pitch off. If you take that one pitch off, it might end up being the pitch you should have driven and then you start chasing and you're out of that at-bat. You have to be ready to attack every single pitch."
A taxing proposition, to be sure, but Lindor does not let up on that "B.C." mitt mantra, which he uses to remind himself that consistency is the key to success in both ball and life.
"With teammates, with friends, with everything," he said. "Be consistent."
And Lindor has that one other goal: To be a winner.


text:
The following cosplayers have used my photos - click on their name to visit their page!
Total Fans: 144
Filter by Cosplayer:
Please Choose
ACP, ACE, ACS are part of the ACParadise.com Network, Copyright © 2000-2020
"pretend that giant storm in the sky is @genri looming down at you, and you're a bowl of delicious curry. all the rain is his saliva, dripping down on you because he's incredibly hungry."


text:
Thanks to nine processors on a single silicon die, the Cell Broadband Enginea processor jointly designed by IBM, Sony, and Toshiba and used in the PlayStation 3promises lots of power. The good news is that the Cell is really fast: It provides enough computational power to replace a small high-performance cluster. The bad news is that it's difficult to program: Software that exploits the Cell's potential requires a development effort significantly greater than traditional platforms. If you expect to port your application efficiently to the Cell via recompilation or threads, think again.
In this article, we present strategies we've used to make a Breadth-First Search on graphs as fast as possible on the Cell, reaching a performance that's 22 times higher than Intel's Woodcrest, comparable to a 256-processor BlueGene/L supercomputerand all this with just with a single Cell processor! Some techniques (loop unrolling, function inlining, SIMDization) are familiar; others (bulk synchronous parallelization, DMA traffic scheduling, overlapping of computation and transfers) are less so.
Computing Is Changing
In the last 10 years, processors are faster mainly due to increasing clock frequencies or more complex architectures. The trend can't continue because fabrication technologies are reaching physical limits. Transistors are getting so small that a gate is only a few atoms thick. Additionally, smaller circuits means higher heat production: It's more and more difficult to remove heat fast enough to avoid circuit burndown.
This is why the computing community is so interested in multicore architectures: IBM is pushing the Cell, and AMD and Intel quad-core processors. Intel also has shown its TeraScale prototype, a single chip with 80 cores. Architectures are changing fast, and developers have to keep up.


text:
Nitrogen Oxides at Memorial Academy
This page last reviewed October 20, 2010
Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are defined as the sum of nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). NOx contributes
to the formation of ozone and particulate matter pollutants, both of which are major air pollutants.
Most NOx emissions are produced when nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2) in the air react during the high-temperature combustion of fuels. On-road motor vehicles and other mobile sources currently contribute approximately 80% of (man-made) NOx emissions in California. Industrial sources contribute approximately 17% of anthropogenic NOx emissions. Significant natural sources of NOx emissions include lightning, biomass burning, and soil biological activities.
NOx emissions from on-road motor vehicles have declined by over 30% from 1990 to 2000 and are projected to decrease by an additional 40% between 2000 to 2010, due to stringent emission standards on motor vehicles and the introduction of a cleaner burning process of fuels. Emissions from industrial sources have also decreased, largely due to a switch from fuel oil to natural gas and the implementation of combustion controls.
No standards have been established for the total NOx concentration. National and California standards for NO2 are:
|State NO2 Standards:
250 ppb* for 1 hour average
|National NO2 Standards:
53 ppb for annual arithmetic mean concentration
*ppb means parts per billion.
Ambient Monitoring Results
Ambient levels of NOx are routinely monitored hourly at approximately 120 sites in the California ambient air
quality measurement network. Based on the standards, daily maximum of 1-hour NOx measurements is a useful parameter
to indicate the NOx levels. During year 1998 through 2000, the statewide average concentration of daily maximum
of 1-hour NOx measurements was 84 ppb (parts per billion). Relative to the statewide average, the San Diego region
was 2% higher for the same time period.
The ambient monitoring results at Memorial Academy are provided here:
- A graph comparing the monthly summaries of NOx at Memorial Academy with historical statewide and regional levels
- A table of summary statistics
- Raw data in Excel format


text:
Find out information that you'll need to help your business during the COVID-19 outbreak. We will update this page on a regular basis.
We want to reassure you that our services will remain consistent throughout this period. On top of that, we've been working hard to release new products and services that will help you get paid from a distance. You can learn more about all the remote payment options by clicking the button below.
Here, you'll find tips and resources to help you during this challenging period.
Financial support
The government has announced schemes to help businesses who are impacted by COVID-19. Find out more here.
Business tips
Take inspiration from businesses who've adopted new services like deliveries, vouchers, and online courses. Read more.
Digital tools
Keep in touch with your customers via social media, newsletters or through an online store and with remote payment methods. Find out more.
Crisis updates
From health advice to the latest government news, we've collected some helpful resource links below.
Keep your customers updated with videos and photos to use on your social media profiles. Simply click to download.
Here are some links to useful websites with updated advice on health and working recommendations and requirements.
WHO: Get your workplace ready for COVID-19
FSB: Advice and guidance for small businesses and the self-employed
GOV.UK: FAQs from businesses
For more tips and advice head over to our blog:
- How to start an online store
- How to adapt your business during covid-19
- Keeping a relationship with your customers from a distance
We've extended our support opening hours during this time. If you'd like to share how your business has adapted to the outbreak, or if you have any questions, contact us.
Call us on 020 3510 0160
Monday to Friday: 9am to 10pm
Saturday and Sunday: 9am to 6pm
This page includes links to external websites which are not under the control of SumUp. These links are being provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only. However, SumUp is not responsible and makes no representations or warranties of any kind for the nature, completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to external websites.


text:
After Revis deal, Jets GM Idzik focuses on draft
Recommended Video:
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- John Idzik's first headline-making move as New York Jets general manager was trading away his best player.
While it sure angered some fans who are already preparing themselves for another dismal season, Idzik will now try to find a few guys who can help get the franchise -- which was a win away from the Super Bowl in the 2009 and '10 seasons -- back on track.
With all eyes on him.
Since being hired in January to replace the fired Mike Tannenbaum, Idzik has been renovating the Jets' roster following a 6-10 season. The biggest move came Sunday when he dealt cornerback Darrelle Revis to Tampa Bay for the Buccaneers' first-round pick in the NFL draft that starts Thursday night, and a conditional pick next year.
"When we made this decision," Idzik said a few hours after the deal was official, "we felt like this was the best for both the short and long-term success of the New York Jets."
Idzik cited several factors that went into parting ways with one of the greatest players in the franchise's history, a guy Rex Ryan called one of the best he's coached. First was the money issue, as New York insisted it wanted Revis to stay but wasn't going to come close to the six-year, $96 million deal the cornerback got from Tampa Bay.
Another was the cornerback coming off a major knee injury that sidelined him for most of 2012. And, with the draft just days away, timing became a factor as the clock was ticking on the chance to get what the Jets felt was appropriate compensation.
"Obviously, when it involves a very talented player who's had a significant impact to our team and our community, there's much, much thought put into a move like this," Idzik said. "It's not taken lightly."
Idzik got the 13th overall pick from the Bucs, as well as a fourth-rounder that could become a third-rounder in next year's draft. The Jets also have the No. 9 overall pick, so Idzik will be plenty busy early in the first round -- unless, of course, he makes trades to get even more picks.
"I'll say it is like game day," Idzik said. "You get revved up."
Idzik spent the last six seasons with Seattle after previously working in the front offices of Tampa Bay and Arizona. He helped build all three organizations into playoff contenders. Idzik is charged with the difficult task of doing the same in New York.
From the moment he arrived, Idzik has insisted the Jets will build through the draft. He'll get a chance to make an immediate impact -- and impression.
"I don't think it's more pressure with any one decision," he said. "It's just an axiom in football; we're all grinders at heart, and part of the grind is being prepared. When you're going through the final stages of draft preparation, this is a culmination of over a year of evaluating these guys. It's a culmination of evaluating your roster (and) the status of certain players on the roster.
"When you feel like you've thoroughly researched everything, I don't know that it's pressure."
But after trading a Revis, he'll be expected to get a franchise-type player with his first-round picks.
"We're committed to putting a team on the field that's a winning team and doing it in a deliberative and sound way," owner Woody Johnson said. "I'm encouraged. I think we've got some young players that will be better. We'll have the opportunity to pick up some very good players in the draft, and I'm extremely optimistic."
There are plenty of holes to fill on the Jets, including the one in the secondary vacated by Revis.
"Nobody can tell, 'How does a trade make you better, make you worse, are you talking about for one week, are you talking about a season, are you talking about a future?'" Ryan said. "We don't even know who we're going to select at those picks. So a lot of things will be decided. I will say this, and I mention it over and over again: We will play great defense to the New York Jets standards, and that's how I've approached it from the day I took this job."
The Jets are sorely in need of a pass-rushing presence, so LSU linebacker Barkevious Mingo or Georgia linebacker Jarvis Jones could go at No. 9 to give the Jets what they would expect to be impact players immediately. If Alabama cornerback Dee Milliner slips to No. 9, he could be a replacement for Revis, or at least challenge 2010 first-rounder Kyle Wilson for a starting spot opposite Antonio Cromartie. Florida State cornerback Xavier Rhodes could also be an enticing option.
After guards Matt Slauson and Brandon Moore left via free agency, New York might look to reload its offensive line, with perhaps North Carolina's Jonathan Cooper with one of the picks.
There's also the question whether the Jets will consider a quarterback such as West Virginia's Geno Smith or Syracuse's Ryan Nassib so high in the first round. New York is stuck with struggling Mark Sanchez, deemed a franchise quarterback when it took him at No. 5 overall in 2009. Sanchez has a big contract that includes $8.25 million in guaranteed money this year.
But with an eye on the future, the Jets might consider North Carolina State's Mike Glennon or Florida State's EJ Manuel in the second round.
"There are some quarterbacks in this draft that are going to play in this league (and) are going to start," said Jeff Bauer, the Jets' director of college scouting. "At the ninth (pick), we can't say that (we will pick a quarterback)."
Either way, whatever Idzik does on his first draft night as an NFL general manager will go a long way toward setting up his tenure with the Jets.
"What happens is if you have a conviction as a staff, it goes back to the preparedness of your staff, if you have vetted out everything and researched it," Idzik said. "You feel pretty confident when you go in there on draft day. It may differ from public opinion. It may differ from opinion around the league. It may differ from some draft experts, but that does not matter. The key thing is, collectively, you feel real good about a player."


text:
|Problems? Is your data what you think it is?
comment on
|( #3333=superdoc: print w/replies, xml )
|Need Help??
Well, the idea isn't so much as to limit normal people, but rather to give another chance to fend off the trolls.
For example, this morning someone started creating "anti-known monk" handles. This is the sort of thing that this would address.
What if we modified the proposal slightly to say that if, after seven days, no votes had been registered, then the handle is automatically approved?
That reduces the active amount of work on the special teams unit and still allows us to step up with a troll starts playing games again.
Furthermore, what happens if someone creates a blatantly offensive nick?
I'm not trying to create another layer of maintenance, but rather trying to come up with a troll prevention device, as well as another broom in the closet.
In reply to Re: (Guildenstern) Re: New Power Proposal
by footpad


text:
U.S. Escort Carriers in the Battle of the Atlantic
- Subject: eBook Editions | General Military & Naval History
- Format:
- Pages:
- Published:
April 15, 2012
- Product Dimensions:
9 × 6 × 1 in
- Product Weight:
7 oz
The pursuit of German U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic has long been considered one of the most exciting stories of World War II. This definitive study takes readers into the cockpits and onto the flight decks of the versatile and hardy U.S. escort carriers (CVEs) to tell of their vital, yet little-known contribution to the anti-U-boat campaign. Sailing apart from the Allied convoys, the CVE captains had complete freedom of action and frequently took their ships on "hunt and kill" missions against the enemy. The German submarines were allowed no respite and no place to relax without the fear of discovery.
World War II historian William Y'Blood explains that in the eighteen months between the spring of 1943, when the escort carriers began to prowl the Atlantic, to November 1944, the average number of U-boats in daily operation was reduced from 108 to a mere 31. Though land-based aircraft, various support groups, and the convoy system itself helped win the Battle of the Atlantic, the escort carrier groups' influence was profound. In addition to documenting the escort carriers' exciting operational history, the author also traces the CVE's development and construction and examines its tactical and strategic uses.


text:
Why the Next Oprah Will Come From YouTube
When Oprah abdicated the daytime talk show throne in 2011, Katie Couric seemed destined to fill the void. But she didn't, and media trendsetters are guessing that's because the daytime demographic is shifting to YouTube. Katie Rosman reports on Lunch Break. Photo: Michal Czerwonka for The Wall Street Journal.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... I ... welcome to lunch break ... just in line I'm Simon Constable ... when Oprah LinkedIn daytime talk show thrown in two thousand and eleven ... Katie Couric seem destined to fill the void but she did use the media trends ... guessing ... that's because the daytime demographics demographic be shifting to you to explain ... his Wall Street on the photo reporter Katie Rosman ... so ... good to see what the with the disease and what's different about the takes time audience that means the market shift the streaming from the ... rest we will pay off well like all TV audience as big a tightening in the traditional feel a sense that the time audiences relieved to sync sound because people's behavior team since they're not Sackett comment that mobile phones ... they can watch what they wanna watch when they wanna watch it ... and sell I think daytime TV is felt the pinch of that now meanwhile I knew to bed and other digital platforms including yes no and ... there's ... there's the desire for premium content that's can help raise the age a little bit of viewers may know YouTube is super Populaire mind getting people but ... consumer product ever ties is really wanna get to the people by household stuff which often means ... yes ... and and and isn't this ... the ... so called the CEMB ... Dome OMTs Medan on CBO is one about a month the euro is being produced by ... I've maker CPNO in Los Angeles it's a very high and production ... the women chosen to be closer people who have significant due to falling said ... the thing you know can bring their audiences with them ... and are ... looking for men to yes last season this season they're going to lie and I'd I can get lunches July eleventh ... sale again trying to really get that look and CEO of daytime TV and that ... energy of the eye to eye because of the forty two followed by getting a slightly older demographic um uh the the the I didn't and we don't know yet because they don't we know that that generally due to jet incorrect data traffic is eighteen to thirty four where and ... when I've the week I do think that there's that add shifts and make you know what to make me tear my circling of the times are really out of what they really tried to align with bling monitors again to be home to enormous very closely on his ... and so what what we spend a lot of money and they do number one number two ... they're on their mobile phones all the time so marketers wanted to ... have come tend to advertise against that it's going to these sort of cinematic three ... in keeping with this sort of things that the advertising etc ... I you know it's it's going somewhere probably that is there's a show called I am no which is has been created by a company called awesome this TV which is ... this guy is that he now movie and TV producer and director to notice that as kids never turned on the TV was only watching this out on their phones ... at less than the year-ago concern in this YouTube Chan on this whole sort of ... forgot to think ... that is anchored around a show called IMI which is a talk show and ... he has sold his company less than the year after thirty three million dollars DreamWorks so it's a box of mice mice was that some ... how some of the more popular ... it isn't daytime shows shifting from TV to to the web ... well I'm some on or some art on the telly and in Alan's gender is Alitalia's she's doing gangbusters minute it was an early adopter to make ... her feel marries irreverent and sort of Macs today the culture of the way they add ... her criticism really tried to focus on it I make whether it's looking people who are going to have some sort of YouTube and stressed out that the fall ... upon viral ad on YouTube or have you know sort of wedding contest ... and also producing content that stand alone just for YouTube because advertisers now see how much ... traffic that Kelly Jennings getting just on YouTube and they're saying the one it does ... come up with something a beacon to sever ties and bright and new to Apple's because you get looks equipment itself but that it ... can be you can be moved the region audience they otherwise wouldn't say emails yes and and sixty percent of people watching Alan and YouTube according the production company ... are outside the U S and other otherwise have access to watch her shots so it's just growing their brand its parts ... much to the harassment of the will Street gentle


text:
Infant's hat with embroidered name and two-inch brim to keep the sun out of their eyes
About This Deal
After purchasing this deal, you will need to visit the website listed on your voucher to complete redemption. See voucher for more information.
Personalized Embroidered Infant Hats
- Embroider any name up to 14 characters on the rim of these infant bucket hats
- Blocks sun rays from baby's eyes
- Size: 6" circumference at top; 5" tall includes the 2" brim
- Made from 100% polyester
- Hand washable in cold water
- Hat comes in:
- Light pink
- Light blue
- Magenta
- Navy blue
- Embroidery thread comes in:
- White
- Black
- Dark Pink
- Light Orange
Need To Know
Promotional value expires 90 days after purchase. Amount paid never expires. All fees charged in USD. Limit 1 per order. Valid online only. Offer is valid for US/AK/HI/Canada. Shipping not included; shipping costs for Canada will be higher than the US. See shipping FAQ here. Offer is in US Currency. Limit 3 per person, may buy 2 additional as gift(s). Must use promotional value in 1 visit(s). Merchant is solely responsible to purchasers for the care and quality of the advertised goods and services.
About GiftsForYouNow.com
GiftsForYouNow.com keeps its digital storeroom packed to the brim with thousands of personalized gifts for just about every occasion imaginable. Besides the perennially popular T-shirts and sweatshirts, the online shop's inventory covers all aspects of your loved one's lives, from drinkware and home decor to keepsakes such as memorial garden stones and jewelry boxes. Each gift can be personalized with unique designs, inspirational quotes, or even special titles such as Mom and Dad or Grandma and Grandpa.


text: Recently Yahoo Finance discontinued its Free API service to retrive quotes and historical stock market data and the service dead now. It is a big blow for financial market traders/investors who uses Excel, R, MatLab, Python based applications in their studies which fetches from Yahoo Finance API. If you are searching for the alternative then AlphaVantage will surely catch your eyeballs.