text:
Home Buying in Brooklyn
I started this page because we were looking to buy a home in Brooklyn and wanted to keep links to Brooklyn real estate websites together. I moved those links to the bottom of this page because I wanted to describe the process we took in buying a house in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Although the process for buying a house in New York City was a lot easier than we thought, the time frame from beginning to closing was a lot longer than we thought too.
8/25/17: We have been here for eight years and it was one of the best decision we ever made! If homes were the price they are now, we wouldn't be able to afford a home purchase here. Just before we purchased this house, the the market prices were very high, we waited with our deposit and paperwork and then the market fell and no one was buying a house. Our purchase was a bit easier and faster because of this.
1/2/2012 edit: I made this page because I couldn't find specific info I needed to rest my nerves because I knew the total cost of buying a home in Brooklyn was higher than I was estimating in my head because of closing costs (see below) and I wanted to know EVERYTHING so there were no surprises. Everyone was so calm throughout the house buying process, but I was so nervous that we weren't going to be ready for closing. Buying a home in Bay Ridge is one of the best things we ever did!
Here's how we started our house buying process in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn:
A 1) Figure out what area of Brooklyn you want to live. For us, we narrowed our area down to Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and the beginning of the Bath Beach area. We also looked in Park Slope, Windsor Terrace and Prospect Heights, but found the houses to be too small, plus most didn't have driveways and the backyards were very small as well. We kept our options open and we even visited a house with a gorgeous interior in Bed Stuy as well as homes in Staten Island, Queens and Long Island. We love Brooklyn and realized Staten Island, NJ and Long Island weren't for us right now. I work in Brooklyn and Lee worked in Manhattan. We also like going out in the city on the weekend so we didn't want to be too far away. I've always loved Bay Ridge.
Some people purchase a home based on how well the local schools perform. If you are new to Brooklyn or New York and want to know which school your child will attend in NYC or how well a school performs, you can search Inside Schools or the Great Schools website. (You can also call go to http://www.zillow.com and put in the address of the home you are interested it. When you click on the home's location on the map, it will show the public elementary school, junior high school and high school for that home).
If you are young/artsy, check out Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The place is loaded with hipsters, has a great vibe and it's beautiful too.
*January 11, 2011 Update: A reader commented that Bay Ridge and Park Slope are expensive places to live. They are, but if you are buying a house in Brooklyn and plan to be here awhile, buy it in the best area you can afford to live…..Buy it in the area you love because you are probably going to buy a house only once (possibly twice)
2/19/13 edit: Reader question: What is the best part of Bay Ridge to purchase a home?
I think the area below fourth Avenue from about 78th Street to Marine Avenue is fantastic.
Where are the less expensive homes in Bay Ridge? Above fifth Avenue and before 70th Street
2) Decide what type of home you need. We wanted a standard house – living room, dining room and kitchen plus 3 bedrooms. We also really needed a garage in front so that the home so we would still have a big backyard. We didn't want to share parking and have to deal with a neighbor who was always parking in the shared driveway. When we purchased the home, we wanted to put up a pool in the yard because we love having backyard parties and barbecues. *If you are thinking of living in Bay Ridge you definitely need parking. A friend who had purchased a frame home warned us that frame homes aren't as as warm as a brick homes and that if you are going to buy a home in Bay Ridge it MUST have a driveaway. * Thankfully, most homes in Bay Ridge are brick, rather than frame homes.
We found a home in great condition with a driveway and garage after looking at many homes.
(1/17/12 edit: Don't buy a house in Bay Ridge without parking (SERIOUSLY DON'T DO IT). Parking is crazy around here and I've met three Ridgites who bought homes with shared driveways and ended up purchasing the home next to them because they don't want to have fights with new neighbors.) So many of our neighbors came up to us and said they would have been interested in purchasing our home JUST SO THEY COULD HAVE A PARKING SPOT…..parking is seriously crazy in this area. A tiny house sold on our block this past year and a few of my neighbors were thinking of purchasing it just for the driveway. August 2015 – Some buildings around here were sold and they plan to convert the building to condos and build upward. Buying a home in this area without a driveway or garage would be a big mistake.
8/15 I saw this sign that this Brooklyn comedian made except he's not joking.
* The more we visited with realtors and went to open houses, the more we were sure that we wanted this type of home. If you don't know what type of home you need/want, go and visit some homes during open house and note what is important to you. We saw 66 homes before deciding on the one we purchased. There were days I was frustrated because a lot of homes are poorly maintained and the owners still wanted a lot of money for them. I remained hopeful because I knew that our time would come. 1/13 Update: Remain hopeful – your home is out there!
Deciding on what condition your future home is going to be in is also important. Lee is super handy and can fix anything, but we didn't want to buy a home that needed major construction on it. Why? Because just to start construction on a home in Brooklyn you need to have an engineer make the plans for you. The cost for the engineer's plans is around $2500 to $5000 (the fee includes the expediting service and the printing of the blueprints). Plus the cost of a new kitchen ($30,000 – okay $22,000 if you are frugal) Plus there would be a lot of dust and a mess in the home while the renovations were being done. So expect to do some work, but my suggestion is to look for a home that you can move into and work on while you live in it.
3) Every time you go to an open house, take at least one picture of the house. It's so easy to forget what they look like. When you enter one that you feel might be the one, start snapping a lot of pictures. Take the flash off so you aren't so obvious.
1/12 edit: Who cares if you are obvious when you are taking pictures? You are investing a lot of money – take all the pics you like and use the flash. One tip: Ask to use the bathroom. Flush the toilet in the bathroom and run the water because some old homes in this area don't have good water pressure. Ours is okay, but we checked it (and many other homes in the area) because we rented a place with poor pressure.
4) Take your time in the home and don't be shy about asking to see it again. You are making a large purchase. (1/2/2012: Sit down in the home. We sat down in each room on each floor. No one cares if you sit down on the sofa. A friend told me to do this when I was considering a home. Can you picture yourself in that home? Our realtor was excellent and didn't mind that we took our time while we were looking at the home. He knew we were serious buyers.)
B) Buy a looseleaf binder from Staples and place looseleaf and clear pocket sheets in the binder to keep the documents and paperwork that you need to present to the bank for your mortgage:
In the clear pocket sheets put:
a) A copy of your taxes for the last two years (we prepared our taxes on H&R Block website so this was easy to do)
b) Paystubs for the last few months
c) Two years worth of rent payments (we printed this from our online bank records)
d) Place a copy of your most recent bank and financial institution statements (401K, IRA, pension, stock and mutual fund papers)
On the looseleaf:
A) List all of your assets (bank accounts, stocks, retirement funds or any other items you have)
B) Then list your debts on another sheet.
C) On the third sheet, make a list of your monthly bills. List any car payments, credit card bills and then list your monthly cost for gas, electricity, phone and Internet.
D) Do some research for the area you want to live. How much have houses sold for? Make four columns: the house address, asking price and square footage and sale price/price per sq. This will help you figure out how much you should bid on the home you will purchase. It will also allow you to log how many houses you have seen. We used Trulia's sold homes to check out prices.
Before Visiting a Realtor:
Before visiting real estate offices and looking for a home, visit the bank or lending institution to get preapproved. The bank loan officer does not need to run your credit report (and you need to let him or her know that you are not running your credit report until you are find the home and are ready to take a mortgage. Your credit score becomes lower each time information is requested about you). The bank loan officer can use your salary and assets/debts to determine what price range you can purchase in. Banks love to loan money so don't go by their figures you see on websites.
After the loan agent tells you what you can be lent, calculate your monthly bills and figure out what you want to pay for a mortgage. You can use the calculator below or go to CNN Money and try their How Much Can You Afford Calculator. We also used some of the calculators on http://bankrate.com to help us decide what we wanted to spend for a home. You have to pay the mortgage AND be able to live comfortably as well.
We choose Chase Manhattan Bank – 86th Street and 5th Avenue for our mortgage. Do not use this bank! Our loan officer was unprofessional and denied us many documents that should have been given to us in the first three days of a loan application. RESPA laws have been set up to protect consumers like you and I. Chase violated RESPA laws by not providing a GFE (Good Faith Estimate) within three days and when we asked for help, the bank supervisor's response was very poor as well. RESPA laws require that any bank supply the mortgage applicant with certain documents to disclose information to the applicant through the GFE. (Sample GFE or Another GFE Sample). This guide here explains the GFE. We had excellent credit and our paperwork was in order before we started the process, so we were shocked that Chase failed to provide adequate communication and service. Leon also banked with Chase for most of his life, so if they treated us this way, they aren't going to treat you any better. We are not sure what the Chase Loan officer or his supervisors were trying to hide. When we filled out the application, the loan officer was always whispering to us, rather than talking in a normal tone. Chase's Loan Officer also said that we may or may not have points put on by the underwriter, but we couldn't understand why. At closing is when we found out that there were no points. When I called to check on the status of our mortgage application, the Chase's Loan Officer still had my file on his desk. I started to use e-mail to document our contact with him. He never initiated contact with us, but he did return our phone calls. A bank which is doing business with people should be originating phone calls. Our loan officer's supervisor did not answer phone calls or e-mail until after we contacted his supervisor. When he did answer e-mail, it was four or five days later and his knowledge of mortgages and banks was minimal. Do yourself a favor and find yourself a bank in which the employees understand their job is to help people. Clearly that is not this Brooklyn Branch of Chase Manhattan Banks goal. 12/3 Update: We went to another Chase Bank on 3rd Avenue and 92nd or 93rd Street….their bank reps are much more knowledgeable and helpful.
8/15/15 An associate at Chase Bank on 3rd Avenue between 92nd and 93rd Streets called me on my birthday after the branch office was closed. He wanted me to discuss my account with him over the phone, which I don't do. I asked to speak to a manager because the call seemed fishy (I haven't received any courtesy calls from Chase since we took the mortgage). I asked the bank manager if he was looking at my file. He said he was. I asked him to tell me what was significant about the date – he said nothing – he couldn't tell me it was my birthday. Banks don't feel that they need to offer customers any safety.
D) Find a realtor you want to work with. There are plenty of Brooklyn realty offices that we wanted to work with, but frankly, there are a lot of realtors who don't follow through or who are just too busy. In a dead market, we thought that we would have received better service than we did. Many realtors after taking our personal information said, "I'll call you." and never called or would call two months after we met with them in their office. We even had realtors confidently tell us they would find us a home in 30 days.
I can only recommend one realtor, Ed Davis of Remax on 3rd Avenue and 95th Street. I didn't know him prior to this house hunt in Bay Ridge, but I saw his (and his brother's) name on signs all over Bay Ridge. Like all realtors in Brooklyn, Ed is a seller's agent. This isn't a terrible thing, it's just the way real estate is sold in Brooklyn (Long Island too as we looked there early on). So even though Ed was a seller's agent, we felt he was easy to work with. I contacted Ed through the Remax website and told him what we wanted. Since our needs were very specific, Ed didn't call us just to see homes randomly throughout the area. Ed called us when an estate sale for a home like we described came into his Bay Ridge office. We met Ed for the first time that Saturday as we walked through the home. During some open houses that we attended, we've had realtors stand over us as we walked through the house. Ed gave us the time to look around and get a feel for the place and then he pointed out the house's strengths. Throughout the home buying process, he was pleasant, professional and had great communication. One of the best things for us is that Ed uses and answered e-mail rapidly. I highly recommend him if you are serious about buying a home in Bay Ridge.
E) Contact an attorney. Yes, contact the attorney before you find the home. Go with someone's recommendation! 2/15/13 Update: I wish I could recommend mine, but I can't because he allowed a serious mistake on my paperwork that we discovered when we refinanced. Our home is a two family on the city register and the bank gave us paperwork where sometimes it said one family and sometimes it said two family. This mistake held up our refinance for months. When you hire someone, you think they are reading all the documents. Everyone makes mistakes, but this one was pretty big in the mortgage world. Update: A reader just wrote and asked me how do you hire an attorney for your home purchase. You call up the office and you tell the attorney you would be interested in using him/her to represent you in your home purchase. The attorney agrees and you just give your attorney info to the seller's agent and the bank when the time comes. You pay the attorney at closing (closing rates didn't vary much from attorney to attorney – most were around $1200 – $1500)
E) After finding a home you want, schedule a home inspection with a licensed engineer. A licensed engineer is great because he pointed out so many things that we missed on the walk through. I used Mike Baglivo, an engineer located on the corner of Ovington Avenue and 11th Avenue in Brooklyn 718-259-8799 (he works out of Afederal Exterminating and Home Inspection store front. August 2015 – Mike told me everything that was wrong with the home and I still consult the book he gave me.
12/3 Update: We were in awe of the house on the walk through and we missed things that were worth knowing before purchasing, rather than being annoyed later. We loved getting the engineer's full report in a book (yes a huge binded book). It was very reassuring to hear his assessment of the house. We told the realtor that we were going to give the engineer his number. The realtor and engineer were there for the inspection as we both had to work. The engineer was at the home for over an hour and he tried all of the appliances (he filled the jacuzzi tub and ran the jets, tried all the air conditioners, microwave, lights, opened the awning on the deck, etc).
The inspection cost $250.00 and was well worth the money. The engineer also does the termite inspection which is needed for the closing (that termite inspection paper is also included in the $250 cost) I used Mike Baglivo, an engineer located on the corner of Ovington Avenue and 11th Avenue in Brooklyn 718-259-8799 (he works out of Afederal Exterminating and Home Inspection store front. If you are considering buying a house, you really should consider getting an engineer to check it out. (January 2012 edit: Over the past two years, we used that report to correct any of the small problems in our home. Mike was very thorough and I was very happy with his inspection).
F) Before bidding on your home, research the home. I almost bid on a home that had work stop orders because the former owners did a lot of illegal construction on the home. (7/28/14 edit: Five years later, the house still hasn't sold!) 8/15/15 – it's still not sold.
Beautiful, right?
The house was gorgeous and I found out later that many people have gone into contract with the owners and lost some money (and time) because the owner has not corrected the illegal work. We are glad we didn't get involved with it. The house still remains on the market almost a year later. So go to the New York Department of Buildings and put in the house's address on the leftside of the page. There you will be able to see if there are any complaints or violations. If it says "0" the house is clear, but if there are open violations, check them out and see if they have been corrected.
Next, go to Acris and find the block and lot for your perspective home. (You can also find the any home's Block and Lot in NYC by visiting the NYC Finance Site). After you have the block and lot, you can use Acris to see when the house was last sold and the price it has been sold at. You can check if this is someone's attempt at a flip or if there is still a large mortgage on the home. Besides, it's interesting to see the records of the home. You can see what year your potential home was built by scanning the map here.
Find the NYC property tax assessment for the house. Bay Ridge is in the section called Brooklyn 1 – then you select your street and find the address. You can also find out the neighbors on the block of your perspective home. And who doesn't want to know who are the neighbors for their home? Blockshopper also has neighbors of the home listed (the oldest house in Bay Ridge appears to be 7313 Stewart Avenue or 524A – 94th Street)…. Built in 1800
Do a google search on the owner's name. You can find out interesting information about the owner this way. Also search the home address to see if anything comes up. In one home that we looked at in Staten Island, there was a murder at the home seven months prior to the open house. Another home we looked at was only one the market with the current realtor for two weeks, but when we searched the address we found the home had been on the market for 8 months with several different realty offices. We found that many homes and condos in Brooklyn were at varying prices. Also do a Trulia search & Property Shark search on the home (put address midpage) and you will be able to find comparables for the home. Also do a Zillow Search on the home to see what Zillow is setting the price of the home at. Don't be too upset if it isn't as much as the home is worth. Zillow sets the price based on the area not the home's amenities (jacuzzi bath tub, automatic garage door, new kitchen, etc.). Our home was slightly lower on the Zillow Zestimate ($12,000 less than we paid) when I initially searched, now it is just $3,000 under the price we paid. We found that some home price estimates like RealEstate.com and Yahoo Real Estate allowed a large span of prices and didn't seem very accurate for Bay Ridge, but were good to find the comparable prices for the area.
There used to be a site called Rotten Neighbor where you could check out complaints neighbors have about others in the neighborhood, but the site is down. (2012 edit – the Rotten Neighbor site is gone) A new site called Street Advisor has comments from people who live in the neighborhood.
Finally, check that there are no creepy people (pedophiles) on the block or surrounding blocks to your home at weirdos by searching Crimereports with the home's address. You can also go to Family Watchdog and put in your address. Yes, this may be extreme research, but buying a house was a big investment for us. We wanted to make sure the area was good. I have shown this site to many friends who are interested in purchasing a home and one friend decided against a home purchase because a neighboring home had a convicted rapist on it.
G) Bid on your home, win the bid and go into contract. Sounds simple, right? It is a lot easier than we thought.
– How much should you bid? We are in a buyers market. That doesn't mean that you should low ball and bid 30% off comparable homes in the area. In Bay Ridge Brooklyn, we watched the market for awhile. We saw that people who won home bids were winning them at $30,000 – $50,000 under the asking price. (We created a notebook in which we listed the address, asking price and square footage. Then when property shark listed the price it sold for, we recorded that as well). 12/3/09 Update: It's 98 days since we purchased our home. We realize that we got a wonderful deal on it and we love the house. We were afraid we were going to have buyer's remorse, but we haven't felt any remorse because the price was right. If you are thinking of buying a home, research asking price and selling prices for the area you are interested in purchasing. (1/2012: No buyer's remorse ever – we loved the house from the start and felt we paid a fair price for it.)
Could you bid very low? Sure, you can do anything you want. But you want to appear as a serious buyer to the seller and the seller's agent. Remember, the seller's agent doesn't want his/her time wasted either. The seller has an asking price in mind and you don't want to low ball if you are interested in buying the home. After you make your initial offer, you will hear a counter offer from the seller. You can put in another bid with the seller's agent. We didn't. We bid, the seller split the difference and we felt it was a fair price so we accepted. We were asked to come to the office and sign a sheet stating that was our bid. We didn't sign any other papers except the bid sheet and gave our attorney's name and phone to the seller's agent.
2/19/13: Reader Question: Where can I purchase a home with very little money down? Usually deals like that are offered in areas that selling is slow. I have seen deals in other states where the owner offers a car with the sale or even rent with the possibility of owning. Bay Ridge is a vibrant area and I have never seen anyone have an incentive offers or offer have money down offers. But maybe if your money and past credit is good, a bank could offer you a low money down deal for your home purchase.
A contract was drawn up by the seller's attorney and sent to our attorney within three or four days. We went to our attorney's office and signed the contract. We sat with our attorney and we went over the contract. He specifically wrote in certain things to protect our rights in case there was a problem with the home. We actually signed four or five copies of the contract. At that time, we also had to give our attorney a check for 10% of the total house cost to be put in escrow (so if the house is $800,000, then you need to give an $80,000 check for the escrow account). That money will be deducted later from your deposit ($800,000 – $80,000 – $720,000)
G) The Waiting Game – wait for your mortgage to be approved. The bank will tell you in a short time – about a week – if you are approved. We applied for a home loan Memorial Day weekend, finalized it with our paperwork the following week and we did not see any paperwork from the Chase Manhattan mortgage processor until the beginning of August. The communication from Chase Bank representatives was poor so hopefully, you won't have to wait so long.
H) You need to get Home Insurance. We applied three weeks after we applied for the mortgage. I looked online and tried a bidding site, but that didn't help. On a piece of paper, list the home address, square footage of the house, the number of rooms, mortgage amount and contact info of your mortgage company. Also you will pay less if you have smoke alarms and an alarm system that is connected with a company. You also should know the distance of your home to the nearest fire department (call 311 to ask which is your local fire department and then google map the address to the property).
We visited Allstate in Bay Ridge (7002 – 3rd Avenue). Initially, I liked this company, but after they lost my check and didn't return a half dozen phone calls, I can't recommend them. When my check was lost, the agent I dealt with said that it was no big deal and not to worry about it. She or the owner should have offered to pay the stop check fee as they lost the check. Update: 12/3/09: Two weeks ago, Lee wrote to them and told them they need to reimburse us $30 for the stop check fee. Although we were contacted by an associate of the owner, we have not been reimbursed yet – nor were we ever. (See blog post here) Update: 2/19/13: There is another office on 93rd Street 9309 3rd Ave Brooklyn NY (718) 748-0600
*Note to home buyers in Bay Ridge – many companies like Allstate and Geico do not want to sell insurance to Bay Ridge home owners who are less than 2500 feet from the water. A few years ago, there was a small tornado that went through a few blocks of Bay Ridge so not all insurance companies don't want to take on new insurance policies with homeowners in the area. Our house is 2,100 feet away from the shore (below 4th Avenue) so finding an insurance company to cover us could have been difficult. Other Brooklynites have had trouble with AllState and State Farm dropping them as well. Liberty Mutual, America, the Brownstone Agency, Tristate (around $1600)and Chubb still insure the area. Chubb's insurance is more expensive ~ about $3000 -$5000 for the year and they need to walk through the home prior to giving their bid. Many historic homes in Brooklyn use Chubb.
Insurance now runs just under $2000 for the year.
July 2015 Update: Our insurance company was downgraded by AMC (the insurance rating company) and then it merged with another company. So we have a new insurance company in case you are looking for insurance – this is the company.
12/26/09 Update: Closing
Closing is when you and the seller sign the documents to transfer the property to you and you get the keys to your new home. Closing is also the time when the Title Company does its work. I didn't mention the title company before because in NYC, usually the attorney choose the title company that he usually uses. Before the closing, the title company checks city records that the house is free of liens. Then you pay the title company for title insurance. This is insurance that you will only pay for once. It's not an outrageous price – a few thousand. I will add that cost here when I have a chance.
1/2012: Everyone is shocked by the high closing costs of buying a home in Brooklyn, NY because the mortgage tax is very high in NY.
Some people are surprised by mortgage tax. Uncle Sam loves to tax everything ya know! Closing costs didn't take us by surprise because we had friends who closed on their homes and they shared their experience. If you don't know anyone who has a closed on a home in New York then the mortgage recording tax will surprise you. The NYS/NYC mortgage tax is around 1.875% of the loan amount. You will probably pay around $13,000 – $16,000+ in mortgage in tax. You can use the Mortgage Tax Calculator here. The title company takes this amount, pays NY and then gives the documents to your attorney. Your attorney's office will send them to you when they are ready.
A closing date will be given to you about 5-7 days before closing. You will be given the date, time and location. We posted ours on the refrigerator. When you have the closing date, call the real estate agent and schedule the final walk through.
The Walk Through
I didn't have to call the agent to schedule my walk through because he called me first. We walked through the house and it was beautiful. Everything was clean and nice. I didn't notice any holes in walls or anything broken. Everything seemed like it did when I first visited the house, except now there was no furniture in it. *If something is broken, then you can have your attorney ask at the closing table to subtract the cost to replace the item and they will. Some people sometimes discover broken windows, molding or cabinets. I have friends who have received credits from $150 – $4000 for damaged areas.
Bring to Closing:
– Check that you and your spouse (or whoever else is signing the mortgage with you) has a valid NY license. You need to present your identification to the closing.
-Your attorney will tell you to being two bank checks with you. One will be the balance of the down payment and the other will be for closing costs. It's better to be over the amount then under because they can issue a check back to you right there at the table.
– Bring your checkbook just in case someone left out a fee and your bank checks are short.
– Bring a bottle of water as it takes awhile to sign all of the documents.
– Get your champagne and glasses ready as you will probably go to your new home after you close. If your bottle of champagne needs a cork screw, check that you have one. The people who sold us our home left us a bottle in each refrigerator.
Actual Closing Day:
Our closing took place in the office of the bank's attorney. It was a small room with a oval table.
People at closing: You and your attorney, the seller and his/her attorney and the banks attorney. I was the only woman at a table with eight men. At one top of the table was the title closer and at the other end was the attorney for the bank. The seller sat with his attorney across from Lee, me and our attorney.
What happens at closing: When we first went in the room, we gave our licenses to the title closer. He made copies of our ID and then started marking up the title document. The attorney for the bank handed our attorney two stacks of documents 2 inches thick. Your attorney has read through the documents already and he will now be stamping, signing and showing you where to sign.
Be ready to sign your name about 40 times as there are many documents and several copies of each that need your signature. If you forget to sign any of the documents, the bank has the right to call you back to sign them (you actually sign a document which says this). I signed and then Lee signed and before handing the documents back to our attorney, I checked that we both signed because I didn't want to be called back.
We had a delay at our closing so we went outside and called friends. After all of the documents arrived from the bank, checks were given to the banks attorney, the seller, the closing company and your attorney. The seller gave a check for NY tax and to the realty.
The seller gave us the keys and wished us well. He was cool and he gave us a copy of the original sale of the home to his grandmother. We thanked everyone and everyone left rapidly :)
1/2/12 They left very fast – I think they were hungry :)
After Closing….
We went to our new home and found that the seller had left us a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator. I brought champagne, but it got warm when we went in to sign the papers because it was summertime. When we got to the house, we discovered the sellers left us a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator. We drank the champagne, danced and ran through our empty new house. I am not sure I ever felt so much joy. We kept laughing just so we could hear our laugh echo in the house.
I brought a few things with us – champagne, champagne flutes, an American flag because I saw a flag holder outside. Lee loves flags and I thought that would show we arrived. I also brought a sign with the verse Jeremiah 29:11 (very similar to the one below) because without God none of this would have been possible.
I bought some suction cups and some stained glass from Etsy for the front windows too. The night before closing, I loaded the car with all of the paint I had purchased. I had a 5 gallon bucket of ceiling white paint and a 5 gallon bucket of primer. Plus, I purchased two gallons of Benjamin Moore paint for each room, brushes, drop clothes and I made a bag of rags from old shirts. We were ready to start our painting party that day! When we knew we were closing, we packed vigorously. We paid the following month's rent because we wanted to have time to paint and get the house ready.
In the Week that Followed Closing: – Register here to receive any changes to your deed. Now don't get freaked out, but their are crumby people who try to file fraudulent deeds (seriously do people have nothing better to do?)
We called the Gas, Electric and security companies to change the bills over to our name.Gas – We use what almost everyone uses – National Grid (formerly Keyspan and even formerly Brooklyn Union Gas) You can call them at 1-718-643-4050 and tell them to change the bill to your name. Ironically, they asked me to fax them my identification before it could be changed. I said I would, but I was busy painting and never sent it. Don't worry though, I got the bill 6 days after calling them. Yes, I had to pay the bill for the few days of August that I owned the home (we bought the home on 8/27). 1-800-75-CONED (1-800-752-6633) Cable in Bay Ridge: FIOS and Time Warner are available in Bay Ridge. Time Warner sold my info to telemarketers and we received many calls before we gave the number to anyone). You can always call Cablevision and check with them 1-866-694-3660
– Find out about what tax rebates your home qualifies for.a) Star Basic Rebate: Apparently every 1-3 family NYC home owner qualifies for this discount. In 2009, it was about $201.00 off your home tax. More information on STAR here. At the time the application wasn't on the site, so I called 311 and asked them to send me Star Rebate Form – it's one for all home owners. We also qualified for the $8,000 tax rebate through the federal government (well some of it anyway). The federal government offered this until 2010. Your tax preparer will handle this for you.
Moving: The boxes at Home Depot and Lowes vary considerably. Home Depot has smaller size and cheaper, more manageable boxes, while Lowes boxes are a lot better quality. I'd recommend Home Depot's boxes for books, toys, DVD's and clothes, etc. I'd recommend Lowe's boxes for your computer equipment, china and important items. We used the Lowes boxes over and over. Hire a reputable company. Before calling the company, count up the rooms in your house and write down the items of large furniture that will need to be wrapped well so they aren't scratched (televisions, dining room table, antiques, etc.) Let the associate at the moving company know that these items need to be fabric wrapped so they can give you an accurate fee. Ask about sales tax on the move and get a final estimate. Be sure to ask if there are any additional fees. I've heard about companies tacking on fees during the move for additional covers or for additional trips (even though you may have agreed to pay by the hour).
Using colored paper from Staples, we printed out the words for each of our rooms: "First floor – first room" Kitchen, Bedroom front, Master bedroom, Hallway 2nd Floor – whatever you have. The day before the move, we labeled each room with the colored sheets of paper and that seemed to help on moving day. We knew we couldn't be on three floors and at the old house with the movers.Buy soda and solo cups for your movers. The move is a lot of work and the men get thirsty.On the morning of the move, many movers like to begin earlier than the company stated. Be prepared for their early start by waking up even earlier.
Changing Your Address: We changed our address online with the US Post Office. It cost $1.00 and they change a lot of catalogs for you too. Lowes, Home Depot, West Elm and Williams Sonoma will send you the 10% off coupon. Benjamin Moore Paint also sent a few buy two get one free coupons. Sweveral other local companies will send welcome letters and coupons as well.Places to call/e-mail about your address: Your human resources department, union (if you have one), health care companies, credit card companies, any charities you give to, magazine subscriptions and any other companies you order from online (like Amazon.com) Utilities to Cancel: Electric, Gas, Home Phone and Cable. Be sure to return the cable box within 30 days or they will try to charge you almost $500 for the box. We got a warning bill and we returned the box right away to Cablevision.
First Mortgage Payment: The first month flew by fast. We didn't have to make a Mortgage Payment until month two. Be sure to change to your new address at the bank. Chase did not do this for us. We would have thought that it would be a pretty obvious thing to do, but we had to call and change the address. The bill for the mortage comes just a few days before the mortgage is due.**Many banks including Chase have programs that if you set up automatic bill pay on your mortgage, you will receive 1% of your mortgage back. Ask the associate at your bank. 100 Days of Being Home Owners Lee and I celebrated 100 Days of Owning a Home and we are very happy. We don't have any buyers remorse and we feel we got a great deal for this great home. 12/26/09: We just celebrated our first Thanksgiving and Christmas in our new home.We're really happy here and we hope everyone can find their dream home! If you have any questions, you can always e-mail me at queenoftheclick AT yahoo Or catch me on twitter.
After moving to Bay Ridge, it's time to enjoy the local community – here's some great people/groups to follow
1/1/11 Purchasing this house was the best decision of our lives. We are so happy here. It's a great area and neighborhood with very nice people.
1/3/12 It was the best thing we could have done. We love it here. There are a lot of fun community events throughout the year that I love to attend here in Bay Ridge.
1/2013: We refinanced and we love the home even more because our mortgage payments are lower!
7/28/14 It's almost five years later and we still love out home, the neighborhood and our life here!
Good luck on your search. If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me:
Find Homes in Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bath Beach & Bensonhurst
Bay Ridge Real Estate Offices
Alpine Real Estate – Bay Ridge real estate
Apollo Real Estate
Barbara Piazza Realty- Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst
Brooklyn Realty Center – Bay Ridge
Corcoran Real Estate
Jabour Realty -BayRidge
John McGuire Realty– Bay Ridge
House and Key Real Estate – Beautiful office/nice people here
Remax – Michael Davis Listings here
Velsor Realty – Bayridge and Staten Island
Other Sites for Brooklyn Homes:
Brooklyn Multiple Listings or here


text:
Sources: Kathy Brockway, 785-826-2695, email@example.com; and Oscar Rodriguez, 620-290-6562, email@example.com
Hometown connection: Garden City and Salina
News release prepared by: Natalie Blair, 785-826-2642, email@example.com
Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011
Hometown Help: Grants to K-State Salina Benefit Local Students, Small Business
SALINA -- A Kansas State University Salina student organization will use two recently awarded grants to help the community.
The Students in Free Enterprise team on the Salina campus has received the 2012 American Free Enterprise Project Partnership grant for $2,000 and the Sam's Club Step Up for Small Business Project Partnership grant for $1,500.
"We are very excited about these two grants and the opportunities they provide for our team to partner with local organizations," said Kathy Brockway, associate professor of business and Students in Free Enterprise team adviser. "The grants will affect a wide variety of people in Salina, from students, to consumers, to business owners."
As part of the American Free Enterprise Project Partnership, the team is partnering with the Salina Area Chamber of Commerce and Salina Area Young Professionals. The grant will be used to create a program that educates local high school and college students about professional opportunities in the area.
Through an application/interview process, eight high school and college students will be selected to participate in the partnership. Participants will attend monthly Salina Area Young Professionals events to network with young professionals and discover local career opportunities.
The program will culminate with an essay contest, judged by representatives of the chamber of commerce. Two winners will receive a $500 scholarship to be used at a local college of their choice.
"Our goal is that this program will help keep homegrown talent at home," said Oscar Rodriguez, junior in engineering technology and technology management, Garden City, and president of the Students in Free Enterprise team.
The $1,500 Sam's Club Step Up for Small Business Project Partnership grant will pair the team with local small business Prairieland Market.
Grant money will be used to purchase reusable shopping bags, which will be provided to Prairieland Market customers. Customers will be encouraged to use the bags each time they shop at any store, not just at the market. In addition, Prairieland Market will run monthly contests on its Facebook page.
"The SIFE team estimates that the bags will keep nearly one ton of waste out of the local landfill," Rodriguez said.
This is the second year that the Students in Free Enterprise team on the Salina campus was selected as a recipient of the Sam's Club Step Up for Small Business Project Partnership grant. Students in Free Enterprise is a student organization dedicated to providing the campus and the community with services that foster financial literacy and create economic opportunity by working and partnering with local and national business leaders.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Space Wars Are Go: Sci-Fi RTS Etherium Out Today
While some folks clamour for real-time strategy games, I'd quite fancy a spot of real time strategy, divorced from the laughable human 'linear' time. Show me everything, all of it, all at once, forever unfolding and forking down infinite paths. Show me how even one single move – or no moves! – will end in countless tragedies, let me become paralysed with indecision, realise only one moral move exists, and so let me stop the entire universe from even starting.
If you're one of those real-time strategy lot, though, hey, look: Etherium [official site] is out today.
Etherium sees three different factions going to war over the eponymous exotic resource in ye olde RTS way, harvesting it and building warthings to kill the other warthings. It does have a few tricks up its sleeve, with special 'command skills' (or superpowers, or whatever your '90s RTS of choice called them), and weather like sandstorms and blizzards which affect battles and can be controlled in some ways.
That's the brief feature list roundup, and I'm told we'll have someone telling us Wot They Think about Etherium at some point.
Etherium is made by Tindalos Interactive, and will cost £24.99 on Steam when it arrives some time today. Here's the launch trailer:


text:
Accounting services for small businesses
Just provide your invoices & bills, and we take care of the rest ..!!!
Get 'beautiful' financial reports to manage your business
Try us 'Free' for the first month
Featured in
Accounting services with bookeeping software
We provide you both Accounting software & a dedicated bookkeeper
With our web-based software, you can easily understand your financial performance and manage day-to-day finances in minutes.
Our friendly bookkeeper will collect all the details from you to manage your bookkeeping.
You don't need to deal with any complex accounting software features, your bookkeeper will deal with that
How Impanix Accounting Services Work?
Easy Invoicing with Assisted Accounting
Just add all your monthly invoices and let your accounting software do the rest for you
Want to earn ? Refer a friend and start earning
What our satisfied customers says
Impanix accounting is easy & accurate. I recommend this to all my friends. It was very easy for me to just upload by invoices and get the accounting done.
Richard Dell
Founder, Silicon Valley Startup
My bookkeeper is has been extremely helpful in solving all my financial questions. As committed, I was able to focus on my business a lot more
Jeff Ellison
CEO, Printing Company
I grew from a store in Boston to Multiple Store. Impanix helped me through all the financial & accounting transitions and other services too.


text:
67 Baynard Park Road, Sea Pines, Hilton Head Island
Recently chosen as one of the top 25 rental homes worldwide. This newly constructed oceanfront home is nestled between the teaming salt water tidal marshes and white sandy beach of Hilton Head Island. As you enter the property you are greeted with endless views of the Atlantic Ocean. The chef's kitchen was designed with state of the art appliances & an open-concept layout, so you can take in every view. The pool deck is spacious and provides plenty of space for dining & lounging. The home features a four story spiral staircase, six bedrooms, eight full bathrooms, & media room. The top floor provides a spectacular roof top deck.
Cable TV, Ceiling Fan(s), Central Vacuum, Elevator, Fireplace, Handicap Access, Jetted Tub, Multiple Closets, Multiple Master Suites, New Paint, Separate Shower, Smooth Ceilings, Window Treatments
Convection Oven, Dishwasher, Disposal, Double Oven, Dryer, Gas Range, Microwave, Oven, Refrigerator, Washer, Water Softener
Impact Glass, Window Treatments
Vacation Homes of Hilton Head, Inc
We do not attempt to independently verify the currency, completeness, accuracy or authenticity of the data contained herein. It may be subject to transcription and transmission errors. Accordingly, the data is provided on an "as is," "as available" basis only and may not reflect all real estate activity in the market. © 2020 Multiple Listing Service of Hilton Head Island, Inc. All rights reserved. Certain information contained herein is derived from information which is the licensed property of, and copyrighted by, Multiple Listing Service of Hilton Head Island, Inc.


text:
Item added to basket:
- Brands
- {{brandName}}
- Categories
- {{tierName}}
- Products
- {{product}}
This site uses cookies to deliver our services and provide a basic level of website functionality. The four different types of cookies are: Strictly Necessary cookies, Functionality cookies, Performance cookies and Advertising cookies. By checking the box and clicking the button below, you are informing Rapid Electronics Ltd that you agree to the use of these cookies as detailed in our Privacy Policy.
When working outdoors and mother nature unleashes the elements, it pays to have the best outdoor equipment within easy reach. Rapid stocks everything from cigarette bins, stands and racks for bicycles, clamps and barriers, compatible with a number of vehicles. Cargo nets and elastic straps keep heavy objects secure, while outdoor covers and tarpaulins protect vehicles from inclement weather.
Products from JSP offer eye, ear and full facial protection against a range of dusts, fumes, fibres and other risks posed by working environments.
If you need a product in a quantity higher than our final price break, our quotation service gives you the opportunity to request a lower unit price.


text:
Arizona Cardinals (4-7) at New York Jets (4-7)
I've started using net points per drive to compute real line. It makes sense. Net points per drive measures how much you outscore opponents by on a given drive and if you take the difference between the two team's net points per drive and you multiply that by the average number of drives per game, 11, and add 3 points either way for home field, you can get a pretty good estimate of what the line should look like.
There are other things to consider, like strength of schedule, which is why I like to look at the DVOAs, which are net points per drive based, but take into account strength of schedule, among other things. Trends and other human element type things are also very important, but net points per drive is a good starting point.
The Jets rank 27th in the league in net points per drive at -0.64, while the Cardinals rank 21st at -0.19. If you take the difference and multiply by 11 and add 3 points to the Jets side for home field advantage, you get that Arizona should be favored here by a point. However, here's where you need to take other stuff into account. Arizona is 22nd in DVOA, while the Jets are 26th, which closes the gap some.
The Cardinals have also lost 7 straight and are on their 3rd and worst quarterback of the season. They were actually decent when Kevin Kolb was their quarterback, but then John Skelton came in when he got hurt and he was terrible, getting benched for 6th round rookie Ryan Lindley, who is one of the worst quarterbacks I've ever seen at the NFL level, even worse than Skelton.
At San Diego State, he never completed more than 57% of his passes in a season against weak competition. He's got the tools, but I don't know how he ever could have been considered to potentially be a starting quarterback in the NFL. Against Atlanta after taking over for Skelton, he went 9 of 20 for 64 yards and then against St. Louis, he went 31 of 52 for 312 yards, but with 4 interceptions to no touchdowns and his interceptions were horrible, if you watch the replays, with two going for touchdowns.
The Cardinals also suffered a serious injury on the offensive line, losing center Lyle Sendlein, who was really their only competent offensive lineman. About Sendlein before the season, left guard Daryn Colledge said, "he would be the worst one [to lose] probably on the whole football team. He is the key cog, especially for this offensive line. He is the captain and he is our guy," before saying the "wheels might come off" without him.
I think that's a pretty accurate assessment and if you can believe it, this offensive line can actually get worse. Right now, they have the league's worst pass blocking efficiency rating and rank dead last in run blocking. The only reason they aren't starting 3 players who rank dead last at their respective positions on ProFootballFocus is because they benched left tackle D'Anthony Baptiste for 7th round rookie Nate Potter, who hasn't been much better. Potter starting makes 2 rookies starting for them, as right tackle Bobby Massie is a 4th round rookie. And Sendlein's loss makes them worse.
The Cardinals are also in a bad spot trends wise. They are non-conference road dogs before being divisional road dogs. Teams are a ridiculous 11-30 ATS in this spot since 2002. They go to Seattle next week. They also have to travel across the country for a 1 PM ET start on the East Coast as a West Coast team, which is normally very tough for a team, though the Cardinals have strangely had success doing this over the past couple years, upsetting the Patriots and Eagles in major upset fashion and almost doing the same to the Ravens.
The Jets, meanwhile, are actually in a good spot after being blown out by the Patriots last week. They've had 10 days to rest and teams are 117-97 ATS on a Sunday after a Thursday Night game since 1989. Teams tend to do well after losses by 30 or more, going 83-55 ATS in this spot since 2002, including 27-18 ATS when the previous game was divisional. Teams tend to be undervalued, overlooked, and embarrassed coming off a blowout loss and if history is any indication, the Jets will definitely play well in this spot.
The Jets always seem to be at their best when they're at their lowest point, especially this season. Remember when neither their 1st nor 2nd team offense scored a touchdown all preseason and they were the laughing stock of the football world and then week 1 they crushed the Bills? Remember when they got shut out by the 49ers and then covered in 3 straight weeks? Remember when they were 3-6, having lost 2 straight by 21+ and they had the whole "someone in the locker room called Tim Tebow terrible" controversy, and then they upset the Rams in St. Louis?
This is a similar situation. All they've heard all week is about how much they suck and about how Mark Sanchez ran into a butt. I think they bounce back in a similar fashion. It's not a big play on the Jets, but they should be the right side. I just really hate taking the Jets as 5 point favorites over anyone. This is dangerously close to being six and six territory (teams who finished 6-10 or worse are 23-64 ATS since 2002 as 6 point favorites or more). I don't understand how anyone can make a big play on this game. It's either Jets -5 or Ryan Lindley? PUKE.
Public lean: NY Jets (60% range)
Sharps lean: NYJ 12 ARZ 4
Final update: No change. The Jets are at -6 in some places in which case I would take the Cardinals for a unit on principle because of the six and six rule, but I can't bet heavily on either side. That would be nuts.
New York Jets 16 Arizona Cardinals 9
Pick against spread: NY Jets -4.5 (-110) 1 unit


text:
Sensors play a vital role in printed electronics. Continuous miniaturization of sensors, due to the development in sensor manufacturing technology, has raised the demand of printed and flexible sensors in various applications. Sensors detect alterations and change in parameters, in terms of quantities, in a device. Various companies dealing in printed electronics use printed and flexible sensors in their products. Printed sensors are manufactured using screen printing, a method in which the transducer is a printed layer of polymeric or ceramic material. Printed and flexible sensors are generally used to measure optical or electric signals.
Access This Full Report at:
Advancements in printed electronics enable sensors to be fully printed and flexible. Optomec, a provider of 3D printing solutions, launched Aerosol Jet Technology for 3D printed electronics applications in March 2015. Equipment suppliers are introducing innovative machines in the market to meet the needs of printed electronics manufacturers. For example, Xenon launched Sinteron 3000 that provides more flexibility and energy per pulse to the metallic ink, which were not available in previous products. Printing comprises different processes such as dip-pen nanolithography, vapor-phase printing, inkjet, microcontact, nanoimprinting, lamination, laser processing, hot embossing, stamping, transfer printing R2R photolithography and etching.
The major application areas of printed and flexible sensors are healthcare electronics, breath sensing, consumer electronics, drug screening devices and smart packing. Printed and flexible sensors are small in size, light weight and cost-effective compared to conventional sensors. Printed and flexible sensors are also used in various healthcare and consumer electronics portable devices, owing to its light weight property as compared to conventional sensors.
On the basis of type, the printed and flexible sensors market can be categorized as piezoelectric, capacitive, gas sensors, piezoresistature sensors, digital x-ray sensors, hybrid CMOS sensors, temperature sensors, photodetectors, and biosensors. And based on technology, the printed and flexible sensors market can be categorized as ink-jet printing, gravure printing, screen printing and flexography.
Rapid growth in the end-user industries of printed and flexible sensors, low-cost manufacturing of printed and flexible sensors as compared to conventional sensors and performance benefits in terms of product life cycle and sensing efficiencies over conventional sensors are some of the major growth drivers for the printed and flexible sensors market.
Surging application of printed and flexible sensors in medical electronics devices, and considerable growth in Internet of Things (IoT) market, presents new market opportunity for the printed and flexible sensors market.
Factors restraining the growth of printed and flexible sensors market include challenges in conductive ink printing and insufficient technological accessibility, such as organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays.
Some of the competitors operating in the printed and flexible sensors market are GSI Technologies, KWJ Engineering, PolyIC, Vista Medical, Meggitt A/S, Arkema group, NikkoIA SAS, Tactonic Technologies, Electrozyme, Peratech, Synkera Technologies, DropSens, Tekscan, Thin Film Electronics, PST Sensors, BeBop Sensors, Temptime, Fujifilm Holding Corporation, Sensitronics, Interlink Electronics, ISORG, Plastic Electronic GmbH, and T-Ink.
Browse All Reports of This Category at:
Report Coverage
Provides comprehensive understanding of the market with the help of informed market outlook, opportunities, challenges, trends, size and growth, competitive analysis, major competitors and Porter analysis
Identifies the key drivers of growth and challenges of the key industry players. Also, assesses the future impact of the propellants and restraints on the market
Uncovers potential demands in the market
Porter analysis identifies competitive forces within the market
Provides information on the historical and current market size and the future potential of the market
Provides sizes of key regional markets using yardsticks of processes, segments, products, end user and technology, etc (as applicable)
Highlights the competitive scenario of the market, major competitors, market share, benchmarking, investments and merger acquisitions
Provides profiles of major competitors of the market including details of their operations, product and services, recent developments and key financial metrics. Profiles provide better understanding of competition as well as the demands of the market.
About Acute Market Reports
Acute Market Reports is the most sufficient collection of market intelligence services online. Acute Market Reports provide online reports from over 100 best publishers and upgrade Acute Market Reports collection regularly to offer direct online access to the world's most comprehensive and recent database with expert perceptions on worldwide industries, products, establishments and trends. Acute Market Reports database consists of 200,000+ market research reports with detailed & minute market research.
For More Information, Visit Acute Market Reports
Media Contact
Company Name: Acute Market Reports
Contact Person: Chris Paul
Email: email@example.com
Phone: +1-855-455-8662
Address:Office No 01, 1st Floor, Aditi Mall, Baner
City: Pune
State: Maharashtra
Country: India
Website: http://www.acutemarketreports.com/report/printed-and-flexible-sensors-market


text:
Since years Infineon wows audio customers all over the world with its technologies and products.Now it is time for setting new standards. With MERUS™ Infineon establishes one brand synonymous for excellence in Class D audio throughout all application categories.
Infineon's MERUS™ class D audio amplifier solutions address a wide range of applications in the field of portable/battery powered, home and professional audio applications. The broad portfolio covers power ranges from 20W to 2kW per channel from the smallest single-chip devices and multi-chip module (MCMs) to highly scalable discrete audio amplifier solutions consisting of powerful MOSFET/CoolGaN™ enhancement mode (e-mode) HEMT and driver ICs combinations.
Target applications
- Home
- Portable / battery powered
- Professional audio.
- Family of monolithic amplifier ICs: MA12040P, MA12040, MA12070P, MA12070
- Additional on-chip MOSFETS to produce outputs with a higher signal granularity
- Scalable signal granularity keeps the power loss extremely low
- Proprietary circuits architecture -> virtually no switching loss in idle mode
- Multilevel switching for ultra-high power efficiency and filter-less amplification
- In realistic audio playback situations (i.e. average output power) traditional Class D audio amplifiers consume significantly more input power (~1 W on average) than MERUS™ integrated multilevel audio amplifier ICs (~0.25 W)
Highly efficient, fully integrated, digital audio power amplifier IC, based on multi-level switching technologyBUY


text:
The Canadian Press reports:
A highly touted meeting between Stephen Harper and Barack Obama on a perimeter security pact has been pushed back as Canada and the United States wrestle with the difficulties of making the complex arrangement a reality.
Insiders say the signing summit is now expected no earlier than February and possibly as late as spring.
They say increased information sharing — a prospect that raises privacy concerns in Canada — will be key to the effort to secure the outer boundaries of North America.
The idea is to control who enters and leaves the continent in a consistent manner, allowing officials to ease security at the Canada-U.S. border, paving the way for a return to more free-flowing passage of vehicles and cargo.
Read more on CTV.ca
Thanks to the reader who sent in this link
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.


text:
A "Targum" is a translation, but the term is usually used specifically to designate Aramaic translations of the Bible. According to an ancient Jewish tradition, the public reading of the Bible in the synagogue must be accompanied by a translation into Aramaic, which was the spoken language of most Jews in Israel and Babylonia during the Talmudic era. The normal practice was that after each verse was read from the written scroll, an official known as the "Turgeman" or "Meturgeman" would then recite orally an Aramaic rendering of the previous verse.
As the use of Aramaic declined, the practice of reciting the Targum in the synagogue fell into disuse in most Jewish communities.
The title of "Targum Yonatan ben 'Uzziel" is based on an erroneous attribution. Rabbi Jonathan ben 'Uzziel was a first-century rabbi who is credited in the Talmud with the composition of an Aramaic translation of the Prophetic books of the Bible, and such a translation does exist. Based on literary and linguistic analysis, it is clear that the present work is a much later compilation.
It is widely believed that the mistaken ascription to Jonathan ben 'Uzziel resulted from a mistaken deciphering of an abbreviation in a manuscript, where the intended designation was to "Targum Yerushalmi"; i.e., the Jerusalem [Palestinian] translation.
The final editing of this Targum may have taken place around the eigth century, though it includes materials from much earlier times.
The textual tradition contained in this version was first attested prior to the sixteenth century in Italy, and no similar text has yet been discovered in manuscript, not even among the many examples of Palestinian Targum contained in the Cairo Genizah.
The Targum Yonatan is a typical example of a Palestinian-style Targum, in that it does not confine itself to a literal rendering of the Hebrew, but rather incorporates many additions based on rabbinic traditions. This reflects the manner in which the Bible was read in ancient Palestinian synagogues: After each verse was read from the Hebrew scroll, a special official (Turgeman) would recite an elaborate and expanded Aramaic version of that text, usually including a significant element of creative improvisation.
Since the Hanau 1614 printing of the Rabbinic Bible, many versions have included a brief explanatory commentary to the Targum Yonatan composed by Hayyim Feivel ben David Zechariah Mendel.


text:
- Updated: March 20, 2014
Basketball could get a funding lift in Scotland with the strategy of funding individual athletes from the public purse is set for a review following the Commonwealth Games, with Institute of Sport chief executive Mike Whittingham revealing that team sports may get extra backing in a bid to raise the levels of participation.
It comes in the wake of criticism of UK Sport's confirmation that it will axe Lottery backing for the likes of basketball and volleyball due to a lack of Olympic medal potential despite the high numbers of people taking part.
Sportscotland currently use £14m of its £74 annual budget on elite performers but with team sports calling for extra money, Whittingham has hinted at a switch in emphasis from 2015.
"They are expensive but they are really important to us," he said. "If you look at women's football, at netball, basketball and rugby sevens, we probably need to have another look at how we fund those because we need to find a link between participation and performance. There shouldn't be a gap.
"In some sports, we have a very small membership, like Nordic skiing for example. We don't have a huge number so we can fund a small programme. With an exciting sport like basketball, we will take our time before we make a decision. So even though UK Sport have taken their route, it doesn't mean we have to follow."
Basketball has been deemed the biggest loser within the London-based agency's no compromise stance with calls to address a perceived lack of coherence in the strategic approach to delver sporting success with UK Sport charged only with Olympic and Paralympic success, the four home nation sports councils largely targeting grassroots development, but with a gulf in between.
"I can understand why UK Sport do what they do in terms of saying they don't have the resources to win medals in every sport," Whittingham adds. "It's tough on basketball. But from our point of view, we won't make our decisions in terms of basketball for 2016 until post-Glasgow. And it could well be that we review things and we're more adaptable."
Basketball will return to the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast in 2018.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login


text:
West-Central - Goshute
Goshute Tribes of West-Central Utah
(West-Central Utah, Great Basin Desert Region)
Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservations
PO Box 6104
Ibapah, UT 84034
Goshute Indian Tribe
PO Box 6104
Ibapah, UT 84034
(435) 234-1138
Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians
PO Box 448
Grantsville, UT 84029
(435) 882-4532
Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians
3359 South Main Street #808
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
Ancient Habitation Sites, Rock Art Panels, and Museums
West-Central Utah - Goshute Region
Fremont Indian State Park and Museum at the Hwy 89/ I-70 junction 24 miles southwest of Richfield or 15 miles east of I-15, has a collection of Fremont Indian artifacts from nearby Five Fingers Mesa. Short, maintained trails lead past several impressive panels of rock art figures. The museum interprets the culture of the Fremont civilization which existed throughout Utah around 500-1300 AD, www.stateparks.utah.gov/parks/fremont.


text:
Course Title: Emergency Paediatric First Aid
Course Duration: 1 Day (6 hours contact time)
Fee per Person: £80
Remote Learning: Not Available
This one-day Emergency Paediatric First Aid course has been designed for those who have an interest in child and infant basic life support.
If you have a professional interest, i.e. you are a child-minder or school teacher, etc. then this course partly fulfils the requirements of OFSTED and the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). OFSTED and the Early Years Foundation Stage require you to have 12 hours of paediatric first aid training, so the 2-Day Award in Paediatric First Aid would be required to fulfil their requirements.
A range of subjects is covered including –
- Responsibilities and reporting
- Assessment of the situation
- Dealing with an unresponsive casualty
- Wounds and bleeding
- Resuscitation
- Minor injuries
- Anaphylaxis
- Shock
- Epilepsy
Assessment is ongoing by the instructor in respect of the learner's practical ability, along with a multiple choice question paper.
A three year certificate will be issued, subject to assessment.
A maximum of 12 learners are allowed, they must be a minimum of 16 years of age and a certificate can be offered to all, subject to assessment


text:
The Annadel Gap Vineyard is the greatest pride of Westwood. Planted in 2001, the site is carved into a narrow pass of the Sonoma Valley between Mount Hood and the Sonoma Mountains. With a cool, windy climate and a blanket of fog each morning, the vineyard has proven particularly well suited to Pinot Noir and Rhône grape varieties. As of 2018, famous consultant Philippe Melka has joined as head winemaker.
Located just off of Sonoma Square, the cozy Westwood tasting room is conveniently situated for those spending the weekend in town, or just dropping in for lunch. The attentive staff guides guests through the flight of wines. It feels like a living room, as if you were dropping by the home of a new friend or casual acquaintance. If you're already in the vicinity and don't feel like hopping in the car to trek out to another estate, a visit is here is perfectly charming.
WHAT TO TRY: Westwood focuses their portfolio on Burgundian and Rhône varieties. The Pinot Noir is good, but Westwood's real strength lies in its Rhône blends. The Roussanne-Viognier is fleshy, waxen and broad – tasting of cantaloupe and blood orange peel, while the Grenache-based "Elevation" cuvee summons the rustic spice of Châteauneuf-du- Pape.
INSIDE INFO: Just across the square from Westwood stands the famous Mission San Francisco Solano. It took me years of visiting Sonoma before I ever stepped inside this historic landmark, but I'm glad I finally did. Founded in 1823 by Franciscan monks, this is the northernmost and final Spanish mission built in California.
Learn more about what it means to be biodynamic an organic in the wine industry.


text:
Late yesterday it was confirmed by E!Online that ABC has cancelled Pushing Daisies. This doesn't come as a surprise to anyone, given the dismal ratings the series has been receiving this season, especially compared to its pre-writers' strike numbers. Entertainment sites and blogs have speculated for weeks that the show was as good as dead, but ABC refused to make a decision until a week after the thirteenth and final episode was in the can. They seem to have been waiting for this week's numbers, but unfortunately after a two-week break, the latest episode "Oh Oh Oh, It's Magic" earned its lowest ratings yet—a mere 4.6 million viewers.
Frankly, I didn't think the show would last even this long, because of its quirkiness, my assumptions about the tastes of television-watching Americans, and my fear that the premise couldn't be stretched out for too long. The creator, Bryan Fuller, told Kristin Dos Santos of E! Online "I'm really not feeling very boo hoo about it. I am so proud of the show." But I wonder if there's some measure of relief there, because it was becoming difficult to write the show and keep it fresh while staying faithful to those special early episodes when we had never seen anything like the show before. In the last couple of episodes, some of the seams were beginning to show, even as the plot went in interesting new directions. Perhaps the series would have been better as a planned miniseries, rather than assuming the "brilliant but cancelled" status of Fuller's previous efforts Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me.
Still, if any show can be brought back from the dead, it's Pushing Daisies. Dead Like Me has recently been resurrected as a direct-to-video movie, Life After Death, which would be more exciting if Fuller hadn't left the series during its first season. Fuller has promised that a comic book may be in the works with DC to wrap up the cliffhanger ending of Pushing Daisies, and has even mentioned the possibility of a theatrical film.Whedon showed it could be done with a Firefly movie and comics continuing Buffy and Angel beyond their final seasons, so anything is possible. How many times has Babylon 5 returned to the well, not to mention Star Trek?
Some fans are even clamoring for the show to move to another network, but I say, let it rest in peace. I wonder sometimes if it's better to have a limited number of fantastic episodes of a show, while it's still in its prime and full of potential, rather than have several seasons where the shark jumps through hoops over and over again until the show no longer resembles the one you loved. It seems that Bryan Fuller may just return to something safe and resume writing Heroes, a show that should have been canceled by now. They certainly need help from someone who knows how to write characters and plot.
As for "Oh Oh Oh, It's Magic", it seems that like the over 8 million viewers who abandoned Pushing Daisies, Ned doesn't believe in magic. When even Fred Willard, playing the Great Herrmann, can't save a show, there's just nothing to be done. To cut to the chase, Ned grows to accept his two half-brothers, and Chuck's secret is jeopardized when Dwight Dixon tries to rob her grave but finds her body missing. The moral of the episode, and a bittersweet epitaph for the series, is that "magic isn't just what disappears, but what reappears when you least expect it." Hat's off to you, Mr. Fuller, and better luck next time.
How many of you are interested in seeing Pushing Daisies continue in another form? I think the charm of the show will be even harder to translate to a comic book (no Lee Pace!), but I'd be interested in seeing how the plot lines resolve. What do you think?
And remember, though the show has been cancelled, its lame duck season still has seven episodes left, which ABC has promised to air. Unless the schedule changes, the show returns next Wednesday at 8pm EST with "Robbing Hood." Watch it! Or don't. It doesn't matter anymore.


text:
Results of five clinical studies evaluating the predictive value of VENDYS®, the new FDA-approved cardiovascular test, will be presented at the 2009 Annual Scientific Sessions of the American College of Cardiology in Orlando, Florida. The studies, amazingly, show that a simple, inexpensive test that measures temperature changes at the fingertips can help detect hidden coronary artery disease.
Orlando (PRWEB) March 27, 2009 -- Results of five clinical studies evaluating the predictive value of VENDYS®, the new FDA-approved cardiovascular test, will be presented at the 2009 Annual Scientific Sessions of the American College of Cardiology in Orlando, Florida. The studies, amazingly, show that a simple, inexpensive test that measures temperature changes at the fingertips can help detect hidden coronary artery disease.
Presentation Number: 1036-264
Abstract Title: Vascular Dysfunction Measured by Digital Thermal Monitoring Strongly Correlates With the Extent of Coronary Artery Disease
Diagnosed by 64 Slice Multidetector Computed Tomography
Presentation Time: Monday, Mar 30, 2009, 9:30 AM -10:30 AM
Topic: CT Coronary Angiography
Presentation Number: 1036-281
Abstract Title: High Risk Subclinical Coronary Atherosclerosis Is Associated With Impaired Macro and Micro -Vascular Reactivity
Presentation Time: Monday, Mar 30, 2009, 9:30 AM -10:30 AM
Topic: CT Coronary Angiography
Presentation Number: 1040-102
Abstract Title: Vascular Dysfunction Measured by Digital Thermal Reactivity Is Strongly Associated With the Severity of Obstructive Coronary
Artery Disease Presentation
Time: Monday, Mar 30, 2009, 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Topic: Vascular--Pathophysiology--Clinical
Presentation Number: 1045-255
Abstract Title: Relationship of Oxidized LDL Biomarkers, Persistent Vascular Dysfunction Measured by Fingertip Digital Thermal Monitoring and Progression of Coronary Artery Calcification Presentation
Time: Monday, Mar 30, 2009, 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Topic: CT Coronary Calcium and Noncoronary CT Applications
Presentation Number: 1054-235
Abstract Title: Vascular Dysfunction Measured by Fingertip Thermal Monitoring Is Associated With Abnormal Myocardial Perfusion
Presentation Time: Tuesday, Mar 31, 2009, 9:30 AM -10:30 AM
Topic: Nuclear Cardiology/PET
"We now have hundreds of patients studied at our center with VENDYS, and the results have consistently shown strong correlation between low fingertip temperature rebound and high burden of coronary plaques. The lower the temperature rebound, the more plaque buildup and blockage," said Dr. Mathew Budoff, Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Cardiac CT Laboratory at Harbor UCLA. "This is truly amazing! VENDYS is the only non-invasive, non-imaging, office-based test that I am aware of with such a high predictive value for detection of high risk coronary patients. We are seeing similar results in CT angiography, as well as nuclear, studies."
Researchers hope that VENDYS, by measuring a dynamic marker of vascular disease, can fill the gap in existing cardiovascular risk assessment and complement traditional risk factor measurements as well as advanced, structural imaging tests, such as CAT scan and MRI.
"I acknowledge that it doesn't seem logical that measuring the temperature of your finger can predict your likelihood of having a heart attack," said Dr. Craig Hartley, a Professor of Cardiovascular Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine. "Many of us were skeptical too, but the physiology for evaluating vascular reactivity is well established, and the preliminary data clearly show the potential of the method."
Researchers at Harbor UCLA Medical Center examined patients with the VENDYS® test before they underwent coronary CT angiography and a thallium nuclear scan. The study showed that those with coronary blockage and abnormal scan results often had low fingertip temperature reactivity. Dr. Budoff and colleagues also studied apparently healthy individuals with a family history of heart disease or with other cardiovascular risk factors. They discovered that the lower the fingertip thermal reactivity, the higher the chance of having a coronary blockage or calcium score >100 -both of which would place these individuals at a high risk of a future heart attack.
"The VENDYS technology was originally developed at our laboratory in the Texas Heart Institute while working on vulnerable plaque detection," said Dr. Morteza Naghavi, inventor of the VENDYS® technology. "Despite exciting developments in intracoronary plaque characterization, it became obvious to me that we needed a non-invasive and inexpensive way to screen and monitor at risk patients, simply because you can't cath asymptomatic people, nor can you put stable patients into CT or MRI machine every 3 months to evaluate their progress." He added, "Frankly, at the time, I didn't expect it to be so surprising in terms of its predictive value compared to risk factors. But now, looking at the data, it makes sense, because it does not measure an individual risk factor, like cholesterol; instead, it reflects vascular function which is affected by numerous risk and protective factors, much like blood pressure. Furthermore, unlike coronary calcium or carotid IMT, it is a dynamic marker and changes quickly with the progression and regression of the disease."
Every year, over 1.4 million heart attacks occur in the United States and many more worldwide. About half of these heart attacks happen in healthy-looking individuals who had no previous symptoms of heart disease. Had these individuals been tested by existing, cardiovascular risk factor-based screening tests on the day before their heart attack, the majority (over 70%) of them would not have been classified as high risk. This clearly illustrates the shortcomings of the status quo (Problem 1). The other half of heart attacks happens in patients with known heart disease, who were believed to be on adequate treatments. This illustrates the inadequacy of existing methods of monitoring patients' response to treatments (Problem 2).
Current methods for screening and early detection of CVD include blood tests for measurement of traditional risk factors (such as high cholesterol) or advanced, non-invasive imaging techniques such as CAT scan and MRI. While traditional risk factors are good for long-term prediction of future CVD, they do not assess the state of an individual's vascular health. Moreover, advanced imaging modalities are costly (e.g., MRI) or pose hazardous radiation (e.g., CT scan); therefore, they cannot be used frequently (weekly or monthly).
"I am amazed by the predictive power that VENDYS has shown in these studies," said Dr. Harvey Hecht, Chairman of Endothelix Scientific Advisory Board and Director of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography at Lenox Hill Heart and Vascular Institute. "In terms of sensitivity and specificity for the detection of high risk patients, its area under the ROC curve is well above all traditional risk factors put together. If these findings are corroborated by others, it will be the first non-imaging test that has exhibited a predictive value close to that of imaging tests, which obviously are far more expensive and less suitable for mass screening. I am so impressed that I have personally incorporated VENDYS into my office practice, and I believe it can improve risk assessment in patients with low to intermediate Framingham risk."
About Endothelix
Endothelix Inc. is based in Houston, Texas. The company is positioned as the first to incorporate non-invasive, non-imaging vascular and neurovascular function monitoring technologies into the existing risk factor based assessment of cardiovascular risk. Endothelix aims to help physicians address the two major problems that exist in cardiovascular care today, namely 1) inaccurate individualized assessment of cardiovascular risk and 2) inadequate monitoring of vascular response to treatments.
Note: During the ACC 2009, Endothelix will hold a "Drink & Draw" event at Rosen Plaza Hotel Backstage Club where a lucky person will win the VENDYS round-trip business class ticket to AHA 2009 (Annual Scientific Sessions of American Heart Association which will also be held in New Orleans in November).
Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/03/prweb2275624.htm.
|Source: PRWeb
Copyright©2009 Vocus, Inc.
All rights reserved


text:
Public Libraries Benefit from Innovative Document Imaging Preservation Services
Digital Memory Media, a subsidiary of Innovative Digital Imaging (IDI), maintains a state-of-the-art digital imaging facility in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Libraries with limited space have many projects which can benefit from digitalization, and IDI has signed up some of its New Jersey library neighbors for recent projects.
(PRWEB) May 01, 2015
Digital Memory Media, a subsidiary of Innovative Digital Imaging (IDI), maintains a state-of-the-art digital imaging facility in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Libraries with limited space have many projects which can benefit from digitization, and IDI has signed up some of its New Jersey library neighbors for recent projects.
Haddonfield Library has a contract to digitize 100,000 documents containing the town of Haddonfield's real estate records including color and black and white photos of the individual homes. The project was completed at the end of January.
In December 2014, The Waldwick Public Library contracted with IDI to digitize its local history consisting of yearbooks and scrapbooks. The project was completed in four weeks and IDI also hosts the library Digit-Find-It web portal for browsing and key word searches across its collection. The portal will be linked to the Waldwick Public Library website.
Both Westfield and Cranford Public Libraries have individually contracted with IDI to host their local history content on the Digit-Find-It portal. The collections consist of yearbooks, city directories, oral histories (converted by Digital Memory Media from cassettes) and local newspapers including the Westfield Leader and the Cranford Chronicle.
Joyce Nencetti of Suffern, NY said "We received an enthusiastic response from our community when we offered them the opportunity to digitize and preserve their treasured memories. It was a great fundraiser for our Library."
The public library projects are just one example of how modern digitization capabilities can be of service to individual communities. On a larger scale, IDI has completed some huge digitization projects. The company has successfully completed the Stage II scanning of the Gilder Lehrman Collection for Adam Mathews Publishing at the New York Historical Society. The full collection consists of over 300,000 images and is considered one of the great archives of American history. It contains some of the country's most important historical documents such as one of the original twelve copies of the signed Declaration of Independence and the original Emancipation Proclamation. A one-half hour documentary on the project is available on the Innovative Document Imaging web site http://www.idiimage.com and the Adam Mathews web site http://www.amdigital.co.uk/m-collections/collection/american-history-1493-1945/.
The availability of this material is an invaluable resource for teaching courses on American history and as a platform for undergraduate essay work and postgraduate research. The amount of work which has gone into the digitized preservation of these records is amazing. The technology making the preservation possible is equally amazing and has easily available application to the photos, letters, videos and mementos that are forming Twenty-First Century history.
Many people do not realize how much photographs and videotapes deteriorate. Because of the chemical makeup and the development process for photographs, deterioration is expected through the years. Videotapes lose their magnetic signal over time as the binder holding the magnetic particles to the polyester base decays. The friction between the VCR head and tape causes the quality and color to deteriorate. The tape grows brittle and eventually breaks. The same technology used in making sure the Gilder Lehman Collection survives for use by students, researchers and history buffs can make sure the record of birthday parties, high school musicals, weddings and other personal events will still be around for future generations to enjoy.
Customers across the United States and around the world are using the services of Innovative Document Imaging to digitize their important memories. For more information, visit http://www.idiimage.com.


text:
Passed the chef exam
Our staff member, Daniel Dickert passed the chef exam in May 2011
Winner at the 39th Achenbachpreis
Our trainee H. Andreas Glöbl won the 39th Achenbachpreis and now cooks in the summer for the coveted trophy the "Achenbachpokal Deutschland" in Frankfurt am Main.
Winner of the "ratisbona-pike" 2007/2008
At the youth competition of the catering profession 2007/2008, Andreas Glöbl, chef trainee in the hotel restaurant, won the "Ratisbona-Spieß" and was awarded with the Josef Triltsch Challenge Cup.
Second in the horseradish competition in Höchstadt
Members of the cooking team Stefanie Karl (second year of training) and Andreas Glöbl (third year of training), finished in second place in the "Meerrettich Wettbewerb" in Höchstadt, just 1,2 points behind first.


text:
Giuseppe Verdi
Macbeth – Giuseppe Altomare
Lady Macbeth – Olha Zhuravel
Banco – Pavel Kudinov
Macduff – Rubens Pelizzari
Malcolm – Marco Voleri
Il medico – Luca Dall'Amico
Un domestico di Macbeth / I apparizione – William Corrò
Il sicario – Andrea Pistolesi
II e III apparizione – Velia Moretti de Angelis, Valeria Cazacu
Ecate – Anbeta Toromani
Fleanzio – Dario Vinciguerra
Coro Lirico Marchigiano 'V. Bellini'
FORM – Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana
Daniele Callegari, conductor
Pier Luigi Pizzi, stage director, set and costume designer
Filmed at the Sferisterio Opera Festival, Macerata, Italy, 2-5 August 2007.
Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: Dolby Digital 2.0 / Dolby Surround 5.0 / DTS 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 152 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
Verdi was justifiably pleased with Macbeth , his tenth opera and his first on a Shakespearian subject – it would long remain his own favourite among his 'early period' operas. Eighteen years later, at the invitation of the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, he substantially revised the score, and this version (sung in Italian) is presented here in Pier Luigi Pizzi's visually arresting 2007 production. The talented young cast is headed by Giuseppe Altomare as Macbeth, one of Verdi's most profoundly modern anti-heroes – a political animal driven to bloody regicide yet doomed by his very success – with Olha Zhuravel as his obsessively ambitious wife, driven to madness by her own guilt.
Verdi, Giuseppe
Maffei, Andrea; Piave, Francesco Maria
Callegari, Daniele
Marchigiana Philharmonic Orchestra
Coro Lirico Marchigiano V. Bellini
Altomare, Giuseppe; Corro, William; Dall'Amico, Luca; Kudinov, Pavel; Pelizzari, Rubens; Pistolesi, Andrea; Voleri, Marco; Zhuravel, Olha
Label: Naxos
Genre: Opera
Period: Romantic
Catalogue No:
Available Worldwide
Release Date: 01/2009


text:
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on
I am sure that some of you are aware of our #ZENTips hashtag on Twitter. All our tweets with this hashtag contain a tip for agency recruiters to get more out of their business. One of those tips has caused a lot of people to message me to find out more.
The tip?
"Build a sizzle pack for meetings AND drops #ZENTips"
I have been asked by a few people about what a sizzle pack is. I have also been questioned about 'drops', what are they and do they work?
The Sizzle Pack
What is a sizzle pack? The name is derived from the sales and marketing adage "Sell the Sizzle and not the Sausage". No clearer?
Imagine you were tasked to sell fresh sausages, what will get them selling quickest? Cold flaccid sausages on the counter, or the sound and smell of freshly cooked sausages as you enter the store?
As a business professional the features and facets of your service is the sausage in this analogy. What your service will actually deliver to your prospects in terms of benefits and results is the sizzle.
So what should a recruitment consultant have in their Sizzle pack?
Case Studies. Proper ones. Good case studies describe a problem, a solution and an outcome. Once you start to create case studies on this basis you are starting to develop the sizzle. A single sheet case study like this is very powerful to give to prospects as it provides social proof and authority – two of the powerful weapons of influence mentioned by Cialdini in his book on persuasion in our review of books for recruiters. Two or three of these and it becomes very persuasive.
What else could we include?
I remember, as a recruiter, working for a large corporate how some in the business would moan about the lack of 'marketing' collatarel to take to client meetings. I never felt that a brochure about the PLC was going to win me a client. Anything written at head office is only going to be corporate vision and tub thump about numbers of offices and FTSE250 clients. Most of my prospect clients weren't really interested in that. They were more interested in who was going to help them and work their assignments. Included in my sizzle pack was my profile – A summary of my experience and recent assignments I has recently completed. Looking back, it was much like a mini Linkedin profile. Today I think with a good PDF editor and my Linekdin profile I could produce something even more 'professional' than the word doc it was back then. As well as my single sheet profile I also included shorter synopses for the rest of the team. I also made sure I included recent testimonials from clients and candidates. Even back then there were recruiters who were concerned about candidate experience. Each testimonial from a client was married to the testimonial from the candidate who was placed there.
Essentially this sizzle pack gave a benefit rich pack to leave behind with a client that produced much better results than leaving a corporate brochure and a mouse mat. It was also cheaper and I had much more editorial control of the content. I liked it – because clients loved it. It made it easier for them to say 'yes' to the proposition as they had a greater level of comfort in the decision making process.
In Summary a Sizzle Pack Includes:
- Case Studies – Relevant to the sector, industry, product, skill set or business size (or all of them!)
- Recruiter Profile – Background, summary of recent assignments and demonstrated capability to deliver
- Team Profile – Smaller synopses of relevant team members to demonstrate breadth of coverage, depth of knowledge and additional resources to call upon
- Testimonials – From happy clients with associated candidate testimonials
I am sure you will be able to refine a Sizzle pack for your business and market. The important thing is that it focuses on results, benefits and solutions NOT feature lists and service offering content.
What are drops? A drop is when you enter a business premises, identify a contact and leave a pack of information. The pack I used to leave behind was the Sizzle Pack above with 2 additions – A covering letter and a profile of a candidate I was representing at the time to showcase the types of individuals I worked with. A drop is not turning up in reception and expecting to catch a decision maker for a meeting. That is door stepping. I have also tried door stepping and found it unproductive (we all learn through trial and error don't we?).
The concept of drops at the time was that if I was going out to see a client about a specific recruitment project I would make the most out of the journey by visiting the businesses in the immediate (walking distance) vicinity. Such as next door. The process was pretty easy, as receptionists would provide me with a compliment slip that I would write down the name of the decision maker (in this case normally MDs and FDs) and I would give them a manila envelope with "BY HAND" written on the front and the decision maker's name. Very, very rarely did this envelope not make it to the decision maker. It then gave me a follow up call to make the next day that often began with the decision maker asking me about the drop process itself! Rapport building (most of the time) and certainly standing out from my competitors. The more of this I did the more success I experienced with it. Industrial estates were easiest but I also did a few office blocks using the 'paparazzi swerve' routine – another blog post perhaps.
With 25 manila envelopes in the boot of the car I always had enough to make sure that once I was out of the office I made the most out of every trip I went on. For those of you who start to think "that won't work for me…my market…my clients…" I thought that once upon a time. Then I did it.
"The greatest gift that extraordinarily successful people have over the average person is their ability to take action." – Anthony Robbins