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The Blind Faith of Juan Jose Padilla, the One-Eyed Matador
Last fall, one of Spain's greatest matadors took a horn to the face. It was a brutal goring, among the most horrific in the history of bullfighting. Miraculously, Juan Jose Padilla was back in the bullring—sí, fighting bulls—a mere five months later. And in the process of losing half his sight, he somehow managed to double his vision
I. Zaragoza, Spain—October 7, 2011
What does the bull see as it charges the matador? What does the bull feel? This is an ancient mystery, but it seems like a safe bet that to this bull, Marques—ashy black, 5 years old, 1,100 pounds—the bullfighter is just a moving target, a shadow to catch and penetrate and rip apart. Not a man with a history, not Juan Jose Padilla, the Cyclone of Jerez, 38 years old, father of two, one of Spain's top matadors, taking on his last bull of the afternoon here at the Feria del Pilar, a hugely anticipated date on the bullfighting calendar.
When Marques comes galloping across the sand at Padilla, the bullfighter also begins to run—not away from the animal but toward its horns. Padilla is luminously scaled in fuchsia and gold, his "suit of lights." He lifts his arms high above his head, like a viper preparing to strike. For fangs, he has two wooden sticks with harpoonlike barbs, two banderillas, old technologies for turning a bull's confusion into rage. Padilla and Marques are alone in the sandy pit, but a carousel of faces swirls around them. A thousand eyes beat down on Padilla, causing sweat to bead on his neck. Just before Marques can gore him, he jumps up and jabs the sticks into the bull's furry shoulder. He brings down both sticks at once, an outrageous risk. Then he spins around so that he is facing Marques, running backward on the sand, toe to heel.
A glancing blow from Marques unsteadies Padilla; his feet get tangled. At the apex of his fall, he still has time to right himself, escape the bull. His chin tilts up: There is the wheeling sky, all blue. His last-ever binocular view. This milestone whistles past him, the whole sky flooding through the bracket of the bull's horns, and now he's lost it. The sun flickers on and off. _My balance— _
Padilla has the bad luck, the terrible luck, of landing on his side. And now his luck gets worse.
Marques scoops his head toward Padilla's face on the sandy floor, a move that resembles canine tenderness, as if he's leaning down to lick him, but instead the bull drives his sharp left horn through the bullfighter's jaw. When Marques tusks up, the horn crunches through Padilla's skin and bone, exiting through his left eye socket. Cameras clock the instant that a glistening orb pops loose onto the matador's cheek. A frightening silence descends on the crowd. Nobody knows the depth of the wound.
Marques gallops on, and Padilla gets towed for a few feet, pulled by his cheek. He loses a shoe. Skin stretches away from his jawbone with the fragile elasticity of taffy.
Then Padilla's prone body is left in the bull's dust. He springs up like a jack-in-the-box and hops around. His face is completely red. As the blood gushes down his cheek, he holds his dislodged eye in place with his pinkie. He thinks he must be dying. I can't breathe. I can't see.
Marques, meanwhile, has trotted a little ways down the sand. He stands there panting softly. His four legs are perfectly still. What unfolds is a scene that Beckett and Hemingway and Stephen King might have collaborated to produce, because this is real horror, the blackest gallows humor: the contrast between the bullfighter crying out "Oh, my eye! I can't see! I can't see!" and the cud-chewing obliviousness of the animal.
In the bullring, other bullfighters spill onto the sand and rush to Padilla's aid. They lift him, hustle him toward the infirmary. Meanwhile, the bullfight must go on. Miguel Abellan, another matador on the bill, steps in for Padilla. He kills Marques in a trance-like state that he later swears he can't remember. Tears run down his cheeks. He's survived twenty-seven gorings himself, but what he sees in Zaragoza makes him consider quitting the profession.
Cornadas—gorings—are so common that every plaza is legally required to have a surgeon on site. Bullfighters now routinely survive injuries that would have killed their fathers and grandfathers. Good luck, now, excellent luck: Carlos Val-Carreres is the Zaragoza surgeon, one of the best in Spain.
"I'm asphyxiating," Padilla gasps as they bring him in. Many hands guide him into the shadowy infirmary. Someone scissors off his clothing. Someone inserts a breathing tube into his windpipe. Val-Carreres understands instantly that this is a potentially fatal cornada, one of the worst he's seen in thirty years, and one they are ill-equipped to handle in the infirmary. Padilla, now tracheally intubated, is loaded into an ambulance.
Pronóstico muy grave, Val-Carreres tells reporters.
At 7:52 p.m., half an hour after the goring, Padilla arrives at the emergency room. He presents with multiple fractures to the left side of his face, a detached ear, a protruding eyeball, and hemorrhage at the base of his skull. A five-hour operation saves his life. The surgeons rebuild his cheekbone and eyelid and nose, with mesh and titanium plates. But they are unable to repair his split facial nerve, which has been divided by the bull's horn, because they cannot locate the base of the nerve. Padilla wakes up from the anesthesia to discover that he can no longer move the left side of his face. It is paralyzed.
When he comes to, his first words to his manager, Diego Robles, are: "Don't cancel any of my contracts in South America." Padilla has November bullfights in Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador.
His first words to his youngest brother, Jaime, who is also a bullfighter, a banderillero, and scheduled to perform in two days' time: "Don't cancel your fight. You have to do it for us. You can't let this get the best of you."
"I was there when he saw himself for the first time after the accident," recalls Diego. "He saw the reality in front of him. He said, 'Es que no soy yo—'"
No. That's not me. Here is a vertigo a thousand times more destabilizing than his slip in the plaza: He does not recognize himself.
There is the physical pain, which the doctors reduce with morphine, and then there is the terror. They're telling him he might never again wear his "suit of lights." Never stand before another bull. If he can't return to a plaza, he'll be exiled from his life. Evicted from his own skin.
In his hospital room, as soon as he can move again, he begins to rehearse bullfighting moves with the sheets. And on October 19, less than two weeks after the accident, he gives a press conference in a wheelchair with his face uncovered.
"I have no rancor toward this bull or toward my profession," he slurs into the mike. He makes the following pledge: "I will return to dress as a torero."
**II. The Wild Feast and the Matador's Famine **
A millennium and a half after Moorish cavaliers rode into Spain and began to cultivate the bullfighting tradition, a few hundred years after trendy nobles staged bullfights to celebrate weddings and Catholic festivals, nearly a century since the golden age of the matador, when Juan Belmonte and Joselito "the Little Rooster" pioneered the mad modern style of "artistic" caping (working within inches of the enraged animal), bullfighting remains the national fiesta or the fiesta brava—"the wild feast."
In a standard corrida de toros, the common term for the spectacle, there are three matadors on the bill and six matches total. The fame and fees of twenty-first-century matadors range wildly, depending on official ranking and also "cachet"—a torero's reputation. Group A matadors such as Padilla must perform in at least forty-three corridas per season. These guys are the figuras, and the industry can support only a dozen or so of them. To maintain their status, Group A's need to be frequent fliers and serial killers, traveling fiendishly from February to October, sometimes performing in plazas on opposite coasts in the same week. For Group B matadors, the minimum is thirteen corridas. Group C? No minimums. It's the ladder rung where rookies get classed with semiretired stars. Padilla spent years in Group C before finally breaking through.
Today it's harder than it's ever been to earn a living in the bullring. Unemployment in Spain is nearing 25 percent, and the country's flailing economy is taking its toll on the mundo taurino. ("We will torear la crisis," said Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in a press conference, invoking the figure of the bullfighter to salve Eurozone panic.) Nearly a hundred corridas have been cut from the season, and still plazas are often only half full.
Is bullfighting an art, a sport, torture? Dying out, or more popular than ever? You can find evidence in every direction. Spanish newspapers cover bullfighting in the culture pages, alongside theater reviews. In 2010, Catalonia outlawed corridas de toros; in Madrid they are legally protected as a "cultural good" and publicly subsidized, like the National Ballet. Telemadrid's latest reality show is Quiero Ser Torero—"I Want to Be a Bullfighter."
"We Spaniards don't understand ourselves, the majority of Spaniards, we don't understand our country without our fiesta," says Juan Jose Padilla. "The fiesta unites the nation."
Bullshit, say Spain's anti-taurinos. "The majority of Spaniards are against the bullfight," says Silvia Barquero, spokeswoman for Spain's animal-rights party, PACMA, who believes the Catalonian ban augurs a new and enlightened era in Spain. "We should not cause suffering to an animal that has the same right to life as our species." (You certainly don't have to be a member of PACMA or PETA to find a corrida alienating, cruel, and atavistic.)
Then there is the controversy over televised corridas. In 2006, when the socialist party was in charge, Spain's national TV network, TVE, stopped showing them. Now, with Rajoy and his conservative Popular Party back in power, the bulls have returned to the public airwaves. On August 24, TVE said that it would again air live bullfights after the six-year hiatus. Previously the network had pulled them from its schedule to protect minors from violence, but superfans could still get the afternoon corridas on premium cable channels. This is how Pepe and Ana Padilla were able to watch their son's goring in the instant it occurred.
Not only could they watch it—thanks to a freakish coincidence, you can now watch them watching it: On October 7, a Canal Sur production crew happened to be taping in the home of Ana and Pepe, filming them seated in front of their son's televised image for a newsmagazine segment titled "The Courage of a Bullfighter." When Marques gored Juan Jose, the glass eye of the camera was trained on Ana Padilla's face.
Should I stop taping? asked the cameraman.
"Siga! Siga!" said Pepe. Keep rolling. If these were Juan's pasos ultimos, his final moments, he wanted a record of them.
The cameraman obliged, and the result is an uncanny hall of mirrors. The nested footage of Ana and Pepe reacting in real time to the goring makes the scene exponentially more horrifying. Suddenly the tiny bullfighter is no remote cartoon of pain but a fully dimensioned human: their son. After Marques spears Padilla, his mother's face erupts in sobs. Pepe doesn't think he will ever recover from his son's accident.
"I thought that I had killed him," he says in a raw voice. "I thought that I had murdered my son. I was the one who encouraged him in this profession...."
Pepe Padilla has raised three toreros. (Oscar, the middle son, retired as a banderillero the day after Juan Jose's goring and now runs a chain of pet-supply stores.) Pepe coached his sons after school, caping cows with them in the green hills around Jerez. He once dreamed of being a matador himself. As a teenager, he was a novillero, a matador in training. "But I was a coward," he says, smiling. "Not like my Juan."
Today, Pepe is a charmer in his sixties with uncorrected teeth, gold jewelry wreathed by silver chest hair, and one droopy eyelid. For decades he worked as a baker in Jerez, sleeping three or four hours, heading back out before dawn to support his seven children. (Seven children! Franco years, he grins, shaking his head. Everything scarce and hard-won, including condoms.) Juan Jose appeared on May 23, 1973; Pepe says he was born to torear. When he was 8, he was written up in a bullfighting journal for having "the courage of a 30-year-old matador." When he was 12, he killed his first bull. At 21, he became the first and only man in his family to achieve the rank of professional matador.
"All of my sons were good," Pepe says. "But Juan had something special." He stares into space for a long time, as if seeking the precise descriptor for this ineffable quality.
"Huevos!" He grins. "Cojones!"
Later, as Juan Jose made his bones as a young matador, he earned a reputation for fighting the world's most difficult and aggressive bulls: Victorinos, Pablo Romeros, and especially Miuras, a strain of fighting bull notorious for maiming and killing many toreros. Padilla's style was defined by his incredible—and lunatic—valor. He did moves nobody else would dare. He was one of the few matadors to put in his own banderillas, to cape bulls on his knees. One consequence of this bravura is that Padilla might well be the record holder when it comes to bullring injuries: Before the Zaragoza goring, he had already been seriously wounded by the toros thirty-eight times. He nearly died in Pamplona in 2001, when a Miura bull gored him in the neck.
Overnight, Padilla's story flies around the globe: He's a hero in Spain, elsewhere a grotesque footnote to the "real" daily news. A Twitter sensation: #Fuerzapadilla. His shattered face becomes the public face of bullfighting.
Once the media storm dies down and his condition is stabilized, Juan travels home to the seaside pueblo of Sanlucar, where he lives with Lidia and their two children, Paloma, 8, and Martin, 6. At home, he is left to relearn kindergarten skills in private, miles from any bullring. How to chew and swallow. How to ride his bicycle and grocery shop, cycloptically. The ringing in his left ear never stops. It hurts to talk. Unable to train for a corrida, some days he can't stop crying. Prior to the accident, he was a joyful, open, easygoing guy. Which is not to say that he was necessarily an even-keeler. He has always had a strong character, just like the noble bulls he fights, Pepe explains, "because of his raza," his fiery lineage. Juan Jose can be tempestuous, irritable, "and then there's nothing to be done, you have to leave him alone!"
But the mood that sucks him under in October is something new. Like the eye he can't open, it's black and unchanging.
"I fell into a great depression," says Padilla.
"Estaba fatal," says Diego, his manager. "Estaba hundido hundido hundido."
He was sunk, sunk, sunk.
Lidia is not used to seeing her husband ashamed, in pain. "We were so afraid for him—the children, too, it affected them...."
Lidia Padilla is a sedately beautiful woman, dark-haired, with a doll's porcelain face, and she's been Juan Jose's girl since antes antes, cradle-robbed when she was 14 and he was a high school senior, the handsome bread-delivery boy. Their first date was during Semana Santa, an Easter festival. Juan Jose believed it was his destiny to have a wife like Lidia, a woman both "passionate" and devoutly Catholic. "I found the balance I needed in her," he says.
Lidia has been with Juan his whole career, but she has never once watched her husband perform. Not in a plaza and not on TV, and during the eleven-hour drive to Zaragoza, after the accident, she imagined begging him to retire. But when she saw him in the hospital, the speech she'd prepared dissolved. "I couldn't take that dream from him," she says. "To ask him not to be a torero. It would be like killing him while he was still alive."
Padilla realizes he needs to get back into the bullring as soon as humanly possible. So many people had suffered as a result of his accident, he says, that he wanted to give them "tranquillity, normalcy." He has a habit of describing his "return to normalcy" as something he has to do for other people, as if the Zaragoza fall upset some cosmic equilibrium, knocked the whole world (and not just his world) off its axis.
But what's the rush to resume a career that nearly killed him? Why the sprint back to such a chronically risky kind of normal?
"I couldn't conceive of my life without el toreo," he says. "If I couldn't have returned to my profession, it's clear that I would have been really affected. I could have dedicated myself to other things, business. I had some good offers, but none of that was going to fill me.... Oh, it was affecting my head, I felt such a heaviness, at the beginning I was anguished, it was a tremendous anguish."
In the bullfighting world, there is this saying, Torear la suerte: an aphorism that contains an entire philosophy. Brutishly translated: "Bullfight your fate." Whatever bull God drums up for you, you face off against, you dance with, you dominate, and it's up to you to put on a splendid show, to use every bull as an opportunity to demonstrate all of your arte. Your valor and skill. Torear la suerte, in other words, combines religious fatalism with Nietzchean will.
Padilla's years as a torero, then, have prepared him to view his recovery as a special kind of corrida—a chance to use his faith and courage outside the bullring.
In late October, Padilla travels north to Oviedo to consult with an internationally renowned ophthalmic surgeon, who warns him that his comeback plan seems "unrealistic"—his optic nerve is still not responding to light. The next specialist to evaluate Padilla is Alberto Garcia-Perla, a maxillofacial surgeon. As Padilla recalls their first meeting, his voice grows rough with gratitude: "There was never a moment when Dr. Garcia-Perla responded negatively to my dream of returning to torear. He's always said that I would be the one to decide."
Garcia-Perla, the chief surgeon at Seville's Virgen del Rocio Hospital, will direct a team of eighteen doctors, including plastic surgeons, ear-nose-and-throat surgeons, and an anesthesiologist, in an attempt to repair Padilla's facial nerve. The plan is to reconnect the two ends of the nerve using an implant from the sural nerve in Padilla's leg. If the operation succeeds, Juan might regain the ability to blink and chew, lift both brows in surprise. Garcia-Perla is no stranger to this kind of high-stakes reconstructive surgery; his team successfully performed the second face-transplant surgery in Spain, the eleventh in the world. But they've never had a case quite like Padilla's.
"We've seen facial trauma like Juan's before. What's unique here is the method: the horn of a bull. Ordinarily a goring of that depth to the face...it could have killed him." Think how narrowly he avoided brain damage, says Garcia-Perla. "It was a question of millimeters. He's lucky to be alive, and he's conscious of that."
The surgery gets under way at 9 a.m. on November 22. It lasts fourteen hours. Moonrise, and Juan Padilla has a new face. And within weeks, the repaired facial nerve begins to "awaken." Little by little, Padilla regains limited motor control of his left eyebrow and lips. Over the next six months, Garcia-Perla believes, Padilla might recover as much as 80 percent of his facial mobility. But nerve regeneration is a slow process. One millimeter, more or less, per day.
On December 30, five weeks after his epic operation, Padilla stands in front of a vaca brava, a 2-year-old cow, at Fuente Ymbro, a ranch in Cadiz that breeds fighting bulls. He's here to torear with a live animal for the first time since the accident. The day is cold and cloudless. Scallion green hills descend to an azure lake, and bulls that look camel-humped with muscle tissue percolate slowly around the low buildings. A dozen close friends and family members are standing around the miniature bullring, waiting to see what Juan Jose is capable of in his reconstructed body. It's a "closed-doors corrida"—a test and a performance.
With his eye patch in place, he shakes out the muleta, his red cape, and shouts: "Toro!" Everybody's eyes are full. Only the young cow, with her velvety, bumblebee-like ruff, seems distracted, unaware of the import of this moment. She charges Juan's blind side, and he expertly sidesteps her.
Padilla insisted on this date because he refused to let the year end without "the sensation of dressing as a bullfighter" and standing before an animal. He describes his desire to "grab the cape" in supple, tactile terms, with the longing of a ghost recalling its body. "And above all I wanted to share it, to offer it as a gift to my family and those close to me who suffered through this, to the doctors. Afterward I realized that I hadn't been wrong, to have this hope of returning."
In January the surgeon in Oviedo, the skeptic, examines Padilla and is so impressed by the adaptation of his right eye that he revises his initial prognosis: Padilla is able to measure distances and spaces with only one eye, and so it's "perfectly fine" for him to return to the bullring. Garcia-Perla, who attended the private corrida on the thirtieth, agrees.
So on March 4, in the southwestern town of Olivenza, the Cyclone reappeared, looking like a glittering apparition of his former self, haunting the afternoon, wearing a black eye patch and a laurel green suit of lights. Olivenza is not a major venue on the calendar taurino, but Juan Jose's one-eyed return magnetized the world's gaze. In the moments before his first bull came rampaging onto the sand, nobody knew what to expect: Were they about to watch a man's suicide, a second goring? How much could he really see? Wasn't it just yesterday, practically, that his face was torn apart in Zaragoza? Journalists flinched preemptively, prepared for a literal collision between the man's blind ambition and the sprinting animal. But Padilla swept his cape over the bulls' horns a dozen times, as if he were intent on violently, defiantly erasing every doubt.
**III. Homecoming **
At eight thirty every weekday morning, Juan Jose Padilla drives from his home in Sanlucar to meet with a physical therapist. For thirty minutes, he endures an electroshock treatment that causes his face to convulse and contort. This is ercise for his paralyzed facial muscles, a daily attempt to coax that nerve to regenerate. He also meets with his speech therapist and his ear doctor. Mornings are for doctors' visits, afternoons for the bulls.
At noon, Padilla drives his white Mercedes to the Sanlucar Plaza de Toros, a small, intimate bullring. "My office," he jokes. Walking through the archway feels like entering a seashell, scrubbed clean by years of sand and salt and light. Today, a Thursday in early May, the audience is me, my translator, and Diego's strawberry blond dog, Geto.
What does training look like for a bullfighter?
Padilla strides into the ring, skeletally gaunt in a T-shirt and black bike leggings. An athlete, no question, but with a mauled look. Wild and fragile at once. He's dropped forty pounds since Zaragoza. He's average height, but his extreme weight loss makes him look like a gangly giant; his large hands dangle from his wrists, and his Adam's apple tents his long throat. If Goya were to paint a taurino trading card, it would look like Juan Jose.
"Toro!" Padilla screams at Diego, furiously wagging his red cape.
Diego lowers his head and runs at him.
Diego Robles is 60-plus and leather-skinned, so super-marrón he seems to be getting tan from within, as if at any moment he might hiccup a tiny sun. He's an ex-torero with startlingly blue eyes, and he'll grab his jerky-lean stomach muscles to show you he has no "Michelins"—nary a spare tire.
Diego adjusts his backward powder blue baseball cap, paws the sand with a sneaker toe, and charges again. He runs with his head down, holding a pair of real bull's horns that look like yellowed saber teeth. He circles Padilla, huffing in an unconvincing imitation of a deranged bull. Padilla holds his body erect, drawing the cape over Diego's head with animatronic evenness.
Next, Diego disappears from the plaza and returns with what appears to be a Tim Burton movie prop—a wheelbarrow with a bull's skull affid to its front end. The skull's a little crooked, which makes its grin look somehow bashful. A hay bale is lashed to the cart behind it, frizzing golden straw.
"What do bullfighters call that wheelbarrow?" I ask, preparing for a whimsical yet terrifying new vocabulary word.
"The wheelbarrow," says Diego, looking flustered. Geto greets the skull in cosmopolitan fashion, licking first one bony cheek and then the other.
The skull-barrow rolls my way.
"Grip the horns," says Diego. They're a foot long at least, thicker around than my wrist. It's a sickening ercise to imagine this bovine stalagmite tunneling through Padilla's eye socket.
Now Padilla practices the _volapié—_a death blow delivered to the bull by an airborne matador. He runs at the wheelbarrow, leaps over the skull's horns, and sinks his estoque, the needle-like sword, into the center of the hay bale. "Bien!" claps Diego. The hay bale looks like a cheese cube at the end of a gigantic toothpick. The skull grins vacantly into the stands; Geto, bored, has wandered off to lick his own foot.
To a foreigner, it's an almost comically surreal scene. "Toro!" Padilla screams into the empty ring.
Every May for nineteen years, Padilla has returned to his hometown of Jerez de la Frontera, a thirty-minute drive from Sanlucar, to torear at Jerez's annual fair.
_My twentieth Feria. _
In Spain, every locality from Madrid to the most rinky-dink pueblecito celebrates its annual fair: a big weeklong street party, usually tied to a religious holiday. Portable tents go up like luminous mushrooms; inside these temporary pavilions, everybody boozes and shimmies. Jerez de la Frontera, the fifth-largest city in Andalucía, is located in Cadiz province. Halfway between the sea and the blue burrs of the mountains, it's the true cradle of what Americans consider to be stereotypically Español: sherry, stallions, flamenco, fighting bulls. The Jerez Feria is one of the major events on the bullfighting calendar, this year even more than usual. Padilla's canted face is on posters everywhere in town; he's wearing the laurel green jacket, extending his montera. On the posters his snarl looks stagy and flirtatious, deliberate; in person, you can see that this grimace is frozen onto him, a half smile he can't straighten.
It's Saturday, May 12, and I've been invited to Padilla's house about an hour before he'll leave for the corrida in Jerez. The Padilla homestead turns out to be a Sanlucar monument. Kids on bikes don't know the street address, but when I say "Padilla" their eyes go wide—"Ah! The house of the torero." Sanlucar and Jerez are not wealthy towns—Sanlucar has one of the lowest per capita incomes in Spain—so bullfighting can be something analogous to Hoop Dreams for the poor kids of Andalucía.
The house is a modest mansion surrounded by an eight-foot magenta wall, with a massive backyard that hosts a lemon tree and a bluish tile of Christ's face. There's a play area for Paloma and Martin, and a sandy junior bullring where their dad trains. The interior of the two-story house is set up like a self-curated museum: Every room contains displays of bullfighting memorabilia. Swords, hats, and so many sequined jackets that you wonder if there's not a naked army of Prince's backup dancers wandering around Sanlucar.
The accident, in career terms, has been a remarkable boon. Padilla has contracts everywhere—this season, he is planning to perform in sixty to seventy corridas. Diego can negotiate for fees that are double or in some cases triple what he was making before. He's also getting better bulls: "The people have always associated me with Miuras," Padilla says. "Now there's been a complete change in my professional life. They're giving me new opportunities." For the first time, he's facing off against the best-bred bulls in Spain. Stylistically, he explains, a different choreography is possible with a toro that charges rhythmically and follows the cape.
Half a dozen close family friends, including Dr. Garcia-Perla, are gathered around the coffee table, waiting for their audience with the Cyclone. (The title of the Padillas' lone coffee-table book: The Cyclone.) A papal hush drapes the house. Somehow, thanks to the mysterious intervention of Diego, I am admitted to Juan Jose's dressing room. In the inner chamber, Padilla is putting on a short, rigid jacket, the matador's exoskeleton. It's snowflake white with gold embroidery. He's wearing the matador's coleta, a clip-on bun made of his own hair. He's already got on the cropped breeches, the flamingo pink socks. After his weight loss last fall, he needed a whole new wardrobe.
He says he has around fifty suits, but only eight in rotation for any given season. The sword boy cleans them after each corrida. Padilla's sword "boy" is a kind, bespectacled man in his fifties named Juan Muñoz. He dresses and undresses Juan Jose and hands him his sword at the "hour of truth" and is perhaps the most feudal-manservant-seeming member of Team Padilla. Muñoz doesn't use OxiClean or Shout—no, nothing like that. He says he gets the blood off his boss's sequins with soap and water.
Padilla adjusts his skinny tie in the mirror. He smiles nervously at Lidia, who smiles back. Strides out to greet his fan base.
"How do I look?"
Spotlit by the risk that he's about to undertake in the plaza, Juan looks frailer than he has all week. Mummy-like in white. His legs are matchsticks. His eye patch is a blindfold he can't lift. Suddenly I feel very scared, truly scared, for this corrida.
"Very handsome!" everyone responds. People hug Padilla one by one and file out to their cars. We leave Lidia behind in the foyer.
The next time Juan Jose Padilla appears, he is a completely different person.
The plaza is crammed solid with Jerezanos. It's 7 p.m., but the enormous, cheerfully brutal sol of Andalucía is still shining above the bullring. Every matador on today's lineup is a star—Cayetano, in fact, is the scion of the Ordoñez bullfighting dynasty, and Morante de la Puebla is a legendary artist with the cape. But Padilla is the major attraction, hero and homeboy to all.
"Jerez, it's his tierra," says Diego. "It's going to be an incredibly emotional moment. You have to be strong so that so much emotion doesn't overwhelm you. It can make you tender, weak..."
Acute excitement pulses in the stands. Two nights ago, at the Thursday corrida, this same plaza was nearly empty. Everybody blamed the economy: Even the cheap seats cost twenty-eight euros. But tonight there is no evidence that money is weighing on anybody's mind. FUERZAPADILLA! read banners unscrolling throughout the stadium.
When Padilla, Cayetano, and Morante parade onto the sand, a roar erupts from the open mouth of the stadium into the blue sky of Jerez, loud enough to ripple a flock of low-flying birds. In the foyer of his home, Padilla looked so thin, like something prematurely sprung from its cocoon. But now he is fast, strong; the eye patch looks menacing. His hoarse cry of "Jerez!" brings down the house.
Padilla's first bull comes charging out and silences the rowdy crowd. In a corrida de toros, the matador will have roughly twenty minutes to dominate and kill the bull. This block of time is subdivided into three tercios: "the act of the lances," "the act of the banderillas," and "the act of death." If the matador performs well, the crowd will petition the president of the bullfight to award him trophies: the dead bull's ears or, for an exceptional corrida, the gristly gray ribbon of the bull's tail. Death is always the outcome for the bull, except in rare cases when an unusually "valiant" animal is pardoned.
Many have pointed out that the bullfight is not really a fight at all—a contest between equals—but "a tragedy in three acts." The rite's brutality can make bullfighting feel incomprehensible to a foreigner and indefensible to an animal lover; and yet every bullfighter I spoke to professed to feel what struck me as a genuine love for the toros. What kind of love is this? How is it possible to publicly kill the animal to which you have dedicated all your waking hours? "I give the toro everything, and he gives me everything," Padilla told me. His profession, he says proudly, is "the most dignified in the world" because of "its truth, its reality"—its blood red engagement with the fate shared by all species. Every corrida, the matador greets his future death cloaked in fur, and today is no exception.
Act I: Juan Jose and his banderilleros swing their pink capotes around wildly, each man caping the bull in turn. Out trot the picadors, looking like dapper Lego men on horseback in their wide-brimmed hats and squarish leg armor. Their horses are swaddled in petos, mattress-like cloaks to protect them from the bulls' horns. The picadors insert their lances into the hump of muscle tissue at the base of the neck, the morillo, to get the bull to lower its head; otherwise Padilla won't be able to get over its horns to make the final kill. There is something scarily perfunctory about the way the picadors jab the bull with their long lances—they're like a cavalry of gas jockeys, only instead of filling up the tank, they are draining the bull's life.
Act II: Padilla dismisses his assistants, signals to the crowd that he will put in his own banderillas. Goddamnit, Padilla, qué fuerte. Everyone is aware that this is exactly how he lost his eye. And now, one-eyed, Padilla is flying onto the wooden running boards behind the bull. How does he get so high? He takes a running leap as if the sand were a trampoline and sinks another wooden flag into the bull. He places the final pair of banderillas al violín, a one-handed maneuver that recalls the dramatic acrobatics that caused his fall in Zaragoza.
Act III: Tercio de la muerte. Now Padilla is stalking the bull, with an unexpected sultriness and mock haughtiness. Via a sort of feline strut across the sand toward the animal, he slinks up to the bull and goads it into charging. It lowers its horns, tosses its head in a dozen vain attempts to catch the cape. When it comes up on Padilla's blind left side, we recoil, but we don't have to worry; he seems to have no trouble gauging distance or responding to the unhinged shadows in the bullring.
Padilla's body language changes tone continually over the next seven minutes, as his pasos transmit contempt and urgency, comedy and reverence. Sometimes the bullfight looks a lot like a game of freeze tag, and his pranks get juvenile; he does everything short of blowing a raspberry at the bull. Sometimes it's more like an awkward cocktail party: the bull refusing to charge, Padilla doing the torero catcall that is like emphatic forced laughter: "Eh, toro! He-he-HEH!"
Soon everyone can tell from the bull's ragged breathing that the end is near. Padilla and the bull are staring into each other's faces with an opaque intimacy. Something visible to everyone in the stands, but as ultimately impenetrable as any couple's love-or-hate affair. It's almost sunset now; the planks of blood down the bull's back look violet. As if on the conductor's cue, two seagulls choose this moment to swoop through the invisible membrane between bull and man. Padilla's dark hair is sticking to his head. The matador, underweight, with his twisted face and his eye patch, appears unmistakably mortal. His face fossilizes his brush with death, the way that fire gets incarnated by cold, tender welts. His return to the ring, one could argue, gives the crowd a sense that death will come for all of us, sooner or later, that death is certainly imminent, but _it ain't here yet. _
Inside the plaza's walls, the concrete parentheses that enclose Padilla and the bull, everybody straightens; erguirse is the Spanish verb for this, electric shivers racing up spines. Juan Jose directs the creature's horns around his waist, as if he is carving his own hips out of black space. Drawing beautiful shapes with the cape and the bull. Drawing breaths.
Padilla squares his feet, positions himself for the kill. The bull is four feet away from him. Here it comes: the "hour of truth." It's a crazy, horrible, ugly, enraging, senseless, sublime, endless moment to witness—a moment that swallows every adjective you want to hurl at it.
In the balcony, the orchestra has stopped playing. The conductor is craning over his shoulder, watching Padilla for his cue. His baton trembles in midair at the exact angle as Padilla's sword.
Padilla draws the sword back at eye level, as if the estoque is an arrow in an invisible quiver.
He runs. He flies, just as he did during his training with the wheelbarrow. Volapié. He leaps and leans his torso over the bull's lowered horns and plunges the sword into the vulnerable morillo.
The crowd lets out one single, tidal exhalation.
Did he "win"? Bullfighting is less straightforward than American spectacles like pro football; in this regard, it's a little more like American Idol. But thanks to the thunderous petition of the crowd, tonight the president awards him two ears from his first bull and two ears from his second. Before he exits the arena, Padilla drops onto his knees and kisses the sand of Jerez. Then he is carried through the great doors of his home plaza, de hombros, twinkling like a living torch on his brother Jaime's shoulders. Escorted by the longest ovation you have ever heard.
Forty minutes after his triumphant exit through the Puerta Grande, Padilla is back home in Sanlucar, changing out of his work clothes. Outside, a few guys are loading up the shuttle bus; at 4:30 a.m. tomorrow, Padilla and his entourage will leave for their next fight in Talavera. Some freckly taurine roadie carries swords and a bleached skull to the trunk.
Where is the wild torero afterparty? Lidia and the family friends are having a quiet dinner. Paloma is bouncing around, getting ready for bed. The Cyclone of Jerez emerges from his dressing room as Juan Jose, wearing a suit jacket and spiffy loafers.
"Four ears, Paloma!" he crows to his daughter, sinking into his armchair. ("The kids are always begging him, 'Papi, bring me two ears!'—you know the typical things," Lidia explains.) He smooches her to make her giggle.
How does he feel about tonight's corrida?
"This was one of the afternoons of maximum responsibility in my life," he says. "To be able to dress in my suit of lights in this new phase of my life, in front of my countrymen, my doctors, my family—" He smiles. For the past week, he explains, he's been terrified that it would be "an empty afternoon, a sad afternoon, that the bulls wouldn't help me..." That he would fail to achieve his dream of leaving de hombros, piggybacking on his brother's shoulders through the great gates.
"Well, I think it was a triumphant afternoon. I dedicate it to toda mi tierra."
Is it uncomfortable to get sedimented into legend while you are still alive? Is it like another sort of paralysis?
"I feel supremely content, proud, for all that the bull has given me, all that it's added to my life, personal as well as professional. I can't complain or feel victimized by my injury; this is the profession I chose. And this accident of mine, my recovery, I think it's touched the whole world...." He leans forward, his enormous hands cupping his bony knees, shaping his words carefully. "There was a time when I couldn't show my face, when my head was a little screwed up. But now I've entered a period of great pride, great happiness."
His working eye follows his daughter, who is babbling some song under the taxidermied heads of six Miura bulls that Padilla killed in a single afternoon in Bilbao.
"And there is always a new goal tomorrow." It's the "amor por los toros," he says—his love of the bulls—that drives him.
If some of these phrases sound like Hallmark propaganda, you have to imagine them spoken by a man who is teaching himself to speak again. It's a legitimate medical miracle that Juan Jose Padilla can even vocalize his "love for the toros" today. Tomorrow he'll fight three horned beasts in Talavera; on Monday it's back to the ABCs in speech therapy. Somehow he's managed to surrender without bitterness to his new situation while simultaneously working without pause to reclaim his life. His feats in the bullring are as impressive as they've ever been, but for my money it's Padilla's daily diligence, his unglorious microsteps back from paralysis, that distinguish him as a true _figura. _
For all the talk of rewards and triumphs and miracles, the life of a bullfighter seems incredibly grueling, dangerous, uncertain.
Vale la pena? Is it worth it?
No, says Padilla's mother without a second's hesitation.
No, says Pepe Padilla, who during the Franco years used to ride trains and sleep under the stars to stand before a fighting bull. For the parents of a torero, "there is more pena than gloria."
Sí, says Lidia, _because you see his happiness! _
Sí, says Juan Jose Padilla, smiling as wide as his new face permits him, because God is giving me my recompensa. Now I see better with one eye than two.
Karen Russell's novel, Swamplandia!_, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. This is her first feature for GQ. _


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Peach Pie Ice Cream, Mixed Berry Clafoutis, Big Sur Blackberry Scones & How to Make a Pie from Scratch
Is it even possible to get through the farmers market this time of year without filling half our bags with fruit? I don't think so. But that's ok, because then we have an excuse to make things like this peach pie ice cream with its jammy swirls of fruit and buttery hunks of pie crust, or those breakfast scones from Big Sur Bakery with whole blackberries tucked into every bite. Even better, juice your leftover watermelon and make yourself a cocktail! Have no fear — we have plenty of ideas for how you can justify another pint of berries in your basket.
- Peach Pie Ice Cream
- Individual Mixed Berry Clafoutis
- Blackberry Scones from the Big Sur Bakery Cookbook
- How to Make a Pie from Start to Finish
- Melon Stand Cocktail
- No-Bake Peach Tarts with Ginger and Coconut
- Blueberry Pie
- Baked Berry Breakfast Pastries with Whipped Crème Fraîche
- Sour Cream Pie Crust
- How To Make an Upside-Down Cake Using Almost Any Fruit
Published: Jul 12, 2013

subset: commoncrawl


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QUIP: Onions are amazing - especially the Vidalia - but cutting them can be a real tear-jerker, which has many people asking me, "Is there anything you can do to cut out the tears when cutting into an onion?"
TIP: There is an enzyme present in the shoot part of an onion that, when cut, is released that then reacts with the rest of the onion to release a gas that - when combined with water - creates an acid that burns.
Since we have water in our eyes, the reaction occurs there -if the gas reaches them. Therefore, there are a few ways to prevent this from happening.
Since enzymes are released when cells are broken or crushed, using a sharp knife is more likely to slice through the onion rather than crush it so fewer enzymes will be released.
Chilling an onion in the freezer - about 10 minutes before slicing - is the most effective way to reduce the amount of the acid enzyme released into the air. If you don't have the time, try cutting the onion in a breezy area so that the gas doesn't hang around. Another solution is to cover your eyes with protective eye wear to keep it away from your eyes. Some have found that not cutting into the root end and pointing the onion away from you when slicing helps, too. I use a little of all the above - I turn on the ceiling fan, open a window, use a sharp knife, slice the onion by holding the root end so it gets cut last, cut quickly and move cut onions promptly into a hot pan - away from my face - then wash my hands and all utensils the moment I am through!
If you have a serious issue, you can also try cutting the onion under water. However, if it bugs you that much, for the sake of safety- knife cuts take longer to heal - I would recommend investing in a small food processor for cutting those onions!


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Wearing a dress and bonnet while flouncing around and speaking in a high-pitched whine, Peter Dinklage makes a far different impression in the new production of Molière's "The Imaginary Invalid" than he does in his Emmy-winning, macho turn in HBO's "Game of Thrones." But it's well in keeping with this delicious, all-male staging of the classic 1673 comedy of manners.
Director Erica Schmidt's production begins with the actors performing a celebratory song, and it's entirely well-deserved. While this broadly comic rendition skirts the edges of camp, it somehow all works.
Dinklage plays Toinette, the wily maid of hypochondriac extraordinaire Argan (Ethan Phillips, in the role that Molière himself first played before suffering an onstage hemorrhage and dying hours later), who when first seen is disputing the price of his most recent enema.
The play — here efficiently streamlined to an intermission-free 100 minutes — concerns Argan's plan to marry off his daughter Angelique (Preston Sadleir) to a doltish doctor (Henry Vick) rather than the handsome young Cléante (Danny Binstock) with whom she's desperately in love. He's purely motivated by self-interest, explaining that he wants "a son-in-law who's useful for me."
The feisty Toinette attempts to undermine his plans via a variety of duplicitous means, including, in one hilarious scene, posing as a traveling doctor whose one-word diagnosis for all of Argan's imagined ailments is "Lungs."
Director Schmidt — who previously collaborated with her husband, Dink-lage, on an acclaimed "Uncle Vanya" — has assembled a first-rate ensemble whose wildly entertaining turns and drag posturing contribute to the riotous artifice.
Adding to the fun are Laura Jellinek's clever, two-tiered set design — most of the action occurs on an elevated platform, while the audience, sitting on either side, can peer below as the characters engage in silent activities underneath — and Andrea Lauer's amusing period costumes, including one hot-pink dress worn by Argan's scheming wife (Zachary Booth) that resembles a pastry confection gone awry.
Speaking of confections, let's hope that this delicious theatrical one being presented at Bard College's SummerScape finds a way to transfer to New York City after its all-too-brief upstate run.


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Alfred Lord Tennyson
Alfred Lord Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892 / Lincoln / England)
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The Princess: A Medley: Ask Me No More
Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee?
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New security cameras are scheduled to be installed Monday at several intersections along Anaheim Street, according to the East Anaheim Street Business Alliance.
The installation and maintenance, intended to prevent crime in the area, are fully funded by the Business Alliance.
The business group's board of directors, Long Beach police Chief Jim McDonnell, Councilman Patrick O'Donnell and other business owners will showcase the new equipment.
The event will take place at 1 p.m. Monday at the northwest corner of Anaheim and Redondo Avenue.
"We will continue to take full advantage of innovative and technological advances that serve as a deterrent to potential criminals, and improve the effectiveness of the services we provide to protect the community," McDonnell said in a prepared statement.
Alliance President Rod Wilson said Business Improvement Districts are ideal groups to collaborate with law enforcement to help drive crime rates down, because they are already attune to neighborhood issues and are used to working together to find solutions.
The East Anaheim Street Business Alliance represents nearly 500 businesses.
For more information, visit www.easba.com.


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Mac & Cheese & More: Our 15 Most Popular Pasta Recipes
Welcome to Pasta Week at The Kitchn! In my household, pasta has a special significance. It isn't just a quick and easy option for a weeknight meal. It isn't just a hot, comforting bowl of noodles on a cold fall night, or a supportive base for a scoop of of chunky ragú. At my table, pasta is an overt gesture of love.
It would be false to say that pasta is the only gesture of love my husband recognizes. But I do think it is the most visceral. Pasta is the food that my Italian-bred husband was raised on. He ate it after every single middle school and high school soccer practice. His mother's pasta al forno — all seven pounds of it — came bubbling out of the oven, overflowing with cheese. When he was sick, pasta was the only thing he craved, and it was always his first meal after being released from a chicken soup diet. That butternut squash pasta pictured up there? It was the centerpiece of our wedding meal.
When asked why he loves pasta so much, he gestures helplessly. "It's just… thick, and satisfying, and… it's pasta!" he splutters.
I don't crave pasta the way he does, although I do love it. My cupboard is always stuffed with pasta: Tiny orzo, thick spaghetti, wide lasagna noodles. I pull out fusilli and rotini to sop up thick meat sauces, and I bake farfalle into casseroles. I look for tubular pastas that have light ridges to catch and hold the sauce. I think of cooking a good meat sauce like a meditation, slowly browning the meat, stewing the tomatoes, cooking it down into something worth its weight in gold.
And when I do pull that pot of pasta off the stove, smothered in good sauce and flurries of cheese, the reward is significant. We all know that food and love are closely entwined, and the act of feeding someone else is one of the richest commonplace activities we can engage in. So I'm not saying anything new here (see: Sara Kate's beautiful birthday cake from last week). But that's what pasta means to me: the warmth of knowing that I could not have put anything more delicious, more satisfying on the table for him. And that warmth just lights up the kitchen, does it not?
So, without further ado — a few pasta recipes that have lit up our kitchens at one time or another. Butternut squash, old-fashioned mac and cheese, broccoli pesto sauce, pumpkin pasta casserole — 15 of our most popular pasta recipes.
15 of Our Most Popular Pasta Recipes
• 1 Pasta with Butternut Squash, Sage, and Pine Nuts – A perfect pasta for fall. (I served this at my wedding!)
• 2 Fusilli al Telefono – Pasta, tomatoes, a whole pound of mozzarella.
• 3 Rich No-Cream Wild Mushroom Pasta Sauce – Rich, chunky mushroom sauce, but no cream.
• 4 One-Bowl Microwave Macaroni and Cheese – A simple recipe for comforting mac and cheese.
• 5 Velvety Broccoli and Feta Pasta – Broccoli, lemon, herbs — pesto-style.
• 6 Easy Homemade Macaroni and Cheese – A homestyle mac and cheese.
• 7 Big-Hearted Macaroni and Cheese with Artichokes – A lighter mac and cheese with tofu.
• 8 Brie-Style Mac and Cheese with Mushrooms – One more mac and cheese — a seriously indulgent one!
• 9 Lighter Stuffed Pasta Shells – Shells stuffed with vegetables and cheese.
• 10 Southwest Skillet Ragu – A quick and hearty meal.
• 11 Spaghetti with Mascarpone, Meyer Lemon, Spinach, and Hazelnuts – Creamy, nutty, and sophisticated.
• 12 Vegetable Lasagna with Butternut Béchamel – Another wonderful way to enjoy pasta with butternut squash.
• 13 How To Make Lasagna – One way of making lasagna (of course we know there are zillions out there!), shown in step-by-step photos.
• 14 Tomato, Broccoli and Mozzarella Pasta Casserole – An easy pasta casserole for the late summer and early fall.
• 15 Pumpkin and Ricotta Pasta Casserole – This one comes together so fast: you just need canned pumpkin and a few other ingredients.
Your turn. What pasta recipes light up your kitchen? What's your favorite pasta recipe of all time?
(Images: See linked recipes for full image credits.)


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Georgetown upsets No. 5 Louisville 53-51 for Cardinals' 3rd straight loss
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WASHINGTON – Otto Porter had 17 points and grabbed the game's decisive rebound with 1.4 seconds to play Saturday, leading Georgetown to a 53-51 win over No. 5 Louisville, the Cardinals' third straight loss.
Trailing by one, Louisville had several chances to take the lead in the final 2 minutes. After getting the ball back on a disputed held ball ruling, the Cardinals kept the ball for a final shot. Peyton Siva, who didn't score in the game, missed the jumper, Porter grabbed the rebound and was fouled.
Porter finished with 12 rebounds for the up-and-down Hoyas (14-4, 4-3 Big East), who prevailed in another fast-paced entertaining game to go with the poor-shooting clunkers they have had this season. Georgetown has beaten ranked teams Notre Dame and Louisville in consecutive games, quite a contrast from laborious losses to South Florida, St. John's and Pittsburgh.


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Content Count48
Last visited
About SteveThePirate
Settling In Well
- Birthday 05/15/1992
Profile Information
Ford Model
Fiesta Lx 02
UK/Ireland Location
Happy Birthday SteveThePirate!
K&n Cone
SteveThePirate replied to Nico.'s topic in Ford Fiesta ClubHey Nico. going to use my gaffa tape idea ;)
Ford Back Box
SteveThePirate replied to usmaanirshad's topic in General Ford Related DiscussionsEbay is good for a cheap simple one, looking for something more special(pricey) then cherrybombs
Mk 6 1.6 Vs Mk 7 1.4
SteveThePirate replied to poshpawsfiesta's topic in Ford Fiesta ClubData from parkers.com on the 08 1.6L Petrol Titanium Engine Size 1596 cc Cylinders 4 0-60 mph 9.6 s Power Output 118 bhp Valves 16 Torque 152 Nm 112 lb-ft Top Speed 120 mph
SteveThePirate replied to titanium_s_spec's topic in General ChatI put £35 in the other day and only got 30L. It makes me feel cheated, since although im 17 i can remember the days of 80p a litre and the riots/strikes etc that happened when it reached a £1. Now no one seems to care.
Ideas For Heat Protecting Airbox?
SteveThePirate replied to SteveThePirate's topic in Ford Fiesta ClubWell i had a thought about like cutting the front bit of the cold air feed off. so it still is connected by the two top screws but now it can take air from like all the front rather than one side.
Ideas For Heat Protecting Airbox?
SteveThePirate replied to SteveThePirate's topic in Ford Fiesta Clubok..well would it be a better idea to unplug the cold air feed? since i looked at it today and it seems like ford are very keen to put as much plastic in the way of cold air getting to the stock box as possible.
What Differences Between Mk6 And 6.5
SteveThePirate replied to SteveThePirate's topic in Ford Fiesta Clubah right. so im not missing out on much then :)
What Differences Between Mk6 And 6.5
SteveThePirate posted a topic in Ford Fiesta ClubApart from the changed headlights and body kit ?
Ideas For Heat Protecting Airbox?
SteveThePirate replied to SteveThePirate's topic in Ford Fiesta ClubWell there much be some benefit behind it otherwise people wouldn't be so interested in cold air feeds and getting rid of the standard air box.
Ideas For Heat Protecting Airbox?
SteveThePirate posted a topic in Ford Fiesta ClubSince ford decided to put the air box directly on top of the engine I find that it heats up very quickly, causing performance/mpg drops. Since insurance wont let me change to a cone air filter any ideas on ways O can stop the air box getting hot without invaliding insurance ? :)
spent the day filming a car race
The Small Things That Make You Smile!
SteveThePirate replied to mark t's topic in Ford Fiesta ClubYou mk7s have nothing on the mk6..apart from being faster,lightweight, more efficient and more features.
Foc User Videos?
SteveThePirate posted a topic in General ChatDo you think/ is there a way to put user videos on the FOC videos section. My friend is making a movie soon so would love to put it on the site for all to see. And im sure other users have videos they would like to share :P Thoughts on this?
Off Topic - I'm Glad This Wasn't My Fiesta
SteveThePirate replied to Andy09's topic in General ChatThat cars tyres must be messed up. Although how the car got like that I dont know, since no one drives sideways on a motorway


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Greetings from Birmingham, Alabama where I am for the 2012 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference.
On Tuesday night, I was invited to a bloggers' dinner by FamilySearch. They provided a good meal and shared some of the latest FamilySearch news. It is always a good time.
Here are some of the main points of the evening that may be of interest:
FamilySearch is looking for "records preservation volunteers" to assist in their global digitization efforts. Volunteers can serve at home or abroad, and no special skills are needed. You do not need to be a member of the LDS church to participate. For more information, contact email@example.com .
The 1940 Census project was a huge success. 165,000 people indexed and arbitrated. A record of 10 million indexed records in a single day was set. 434 societies participated. The 1940 census project was completed three months ahead of schedule. Nice job!
Just because the 1940 census is done doesn't mean the work is finished. FamilySearch wants to carry that volunteer spirit over to their U.S. Immigration and Naturalization project. Mobilize your society members and get going.
What's next for FamilySearch? They're going to put more images online and put more digitizing cameras in the field (meaning around the world). They are digitizing books now. Look for digital check-out options in the future, just like checking out an e-book at your library. There are also efforts behind the scenes to improve searching records at FamilySearch including options for alternative spellings.
FamilySearch Family Tree *is* coming...or so I've been told. I am very interested in this, so I will be pestering the FamilySearch booth at the exhibit hall for more details.
Sincere thanks to the FamilySearch team for the dinner, fellowship and informative presentation. I am passing the information they shared because it is of interest to my genealogy pals.
Now back to the conference...


text: After speaking with several women with decades of experience with makeup application, and after applying and playing with makeup myself, I have added a makeup guide (click 'Expand' when you get to that page) to The Regimen instructions page. My goal is to help acne-prone people apply makeup more safely by reducing irritation. Feel free to take a look and let me know if there are any glaring omissions or changes that you think need to be made.


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The CMHC came out and warned about the huge debt load of Canadians. No kidding!? And who helped them get into such a morass of debt and obligations??
OTTAWA (Dow Jones)--Canadians' record level of household debt is a "serious issue" that merits closer monitoring by authorities in the years ahead, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMH.YY) said.
In a year-end publication released Thursday, CMHC - the government-owned provider of mortgage insurance in Canada - said mortgage debt accounts for 68% of total household debt, by far the largest contributor. The agency, which is Canada's largest mortgage insurer and benefits from explicit government backing, said personal lines of credit have surged in recent years, increasing at higher growth rates than any other sub-component of household debt held by chartered banks.
"It is important that consumers and stakeholders continue to be vigilant in monitoring both the magnitude as well as the composition of household debt and take appropriate action," CMHC said.
The major risk in the mortgage market, it added, is the emergence of another, deep recession that sparks a series of job losses that would affect households' ability to pay their mortgages. Still, "most Canadian households have the capacity to deal with adverse economic conditions, due to the high quality of mortgage credit in Canada, the substantial equity position of most Canadian homeowners with a mortgage, and households' ability to adapt their discretionary spending."
Canada's ratio of household credit market debt to disposable income stood at 150.8% as of the third quarter, prompting warnings this month from the International Monetary Fund. The IMF said further "vigilance" is required by Canadian policymakers, including the possibility of increased supervision of CMHC, which the Washington-based body said has emerged as a key financial institution in Canada.
Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has repeatedly warned - as lately as two weeks ago - that Canadians need to exercise caution in taking on additional mortgage and consumer-loan debt. Under his watch, the Conservative government has tightened mortgage-lending rules three times in an effort to avoid a U.S.-style housing bust.
-By Paul Vieira, Dow Jones Newswires: 613-237-0669; firstname.lastname@example.com


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|Hermitage, Tenn.
|High School:
|Donelson Christian Academy
In 2012 (Sophomore): Kendall played in 44 games and started in 38 for the Golden Eagles... had 30 hits and 17 runs including two homeruns at 100 at bats landing her the second highest batting average for the team with a .300 and the highest slugging percentage with a .410... had 41 total bases including three stolen bases with an attempted three... had three doubles, one triple, and nine RBIs... contributed to 15 assists and 153 putouts... awarded with All-American Strength and Conditioning Athlete of the Year by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (April 29).
In 2011 (Freshman): Kendall appeared in 20 games for the Golden Eagles and was utilized mainly as a pinch runner/hitter in her freshman campaign...recorded a pinch-hit RBI against Eastern Illinois (4/2) and drew a bases-loaded pinch-hit walk against Western Kentucky (4/14) to bring in another run...named to the OVC Commissioner's and TTU Athletic Director's Honor Rolls.
(High School): A versatile player under head coach Brent Dorris, Kendall played several positions during her four seasons at Donelson Christian Academy including catcher, pitcher and shortstop…earned five letters in softball to go along with four in volleyball and basketball…in 2009 she owned a .547 batting average and was named all-district.


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Let us show you how NFDC can offer timely and cost effective services!
Use our support section to manage your account, check your online time and find information about using our many services.
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|System: PS3*, Xbox 360
|Dev: Dimps
|Pub: NAMCO Bandai
|Release: November 6, 2012
|Players: 1-2
|Screen Resolution: 480p-1080p
|Cartoon Violence, Crude Humor, Mild Blood, Use of Tobacco
Both of these games also feature cinematic moments where you have to mash buttons harder that your opponent to win a beam struggle, or play minigames in order to attack with a flurry of punches. The games are fun and easy to play and the cinematic cutscenes are cool, but these in-battle quick time events break up the flow of the fight if you are used to more traditional fighters.
However, the real draw to both of these games isn't the versus mode, it's the single-player campaign. Both games retell the story of Dragon Ball Z, with Budokai 1 covering the events of DBZ up until the end of the Cell Saga, and Budokai 3 going through the movies, Buu, and even Dragon Ball GT.
Budokai 3's single-player introduces an incredible array of RPG elements that further enhance the experience. Aside from powering up your character as you fight, you also find capsules that unlock new moves and transformations for your characters to undergo. You have multiple slots to equip these capsules to, and while powerful capsules, like fusions, take up multiple slots, you can use single slots to customize your move set and power up particular moves that you use a lot. Of course, this customization, while awesome in a single-player context, unbalances multiplayer very quick.
Dragon Ball Z Budokai HD made me realize something: All I ever really wanted was a DBZ fighting game. Sure, all the newer Dragon Ball Z releases are cool, but the simple mechanics and customization of DBZ Budokai 3 (and to a lesser extent, 1) was far more enjoyable that the cinematic systems of newer games. Hopefully, the Budokai HD collection represents a return to form for the DBZ series. A brand new DBZ game with a refined Budokai 3 system would be awesome beyond words.
Angelo M. D'Argenio
Contributing Writer
Date: November 7, 2012
Game Features:


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Nick's Cigar World is the largest privately owned fine cigar showroom in the American southeast, making it easy to buy cigars online or in person. We carry generic and brand name cigars online, including: Cohiba Robusto (5 Inch Length in Box of 25), Cohiba Toro (6 Inch Length in Box of 10), Padron Churchill (6.785 Inch Length in Pack of 6 or Box of 26), Padron Magnum (9 Inch Length in Pack of 6 or Box of 26) and Ashton Prime Minister (7 Inch Length in Box of 25). If you love cigars, you will appreciate our online cigar selection and the many cigars online for sale. If you are looking to buy cigars online, but you simply want to order single cigars, we are the online cigar store for you! Cigar buyers can purchase as many or as little single cigars as they would like. Purchasing a variety of single cigars is easy to do with our user-friendly online store. If you can't find the cigars you are looking for online, call us, e-mail us or stop by our cigar showroom. We can process orders over the phone or via e-mail for hard-to-find cigars. For more information about our online cigar selection or to buy cigars online, please click on any cigar link to the left of this web page to visit our online cigar store.
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Terrence Wood
The off left technique is a better solution than
display:none which, as Simon points out, most screen readers honor by not announcing it. See discussion at : http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=ScreenreaderVisibility
No js required, hiding labels can be solved with a little css.
label {
left: -9999px;
That said, IMHO it is better for accessibility to leave the labels visible so you have a bigger target to hit with your mouse – clicking the label focusses the field which is good for people with motor disabilities.


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Also, I think your last name is mentioned in that thread about Source A, will be using your full name when I ask them my questions. Good work, btw on that Source A case. Can't wait to read all of that over at OM to know what's all of the details. Very intriguing story!
I'm EST and you people are what? 5 or 8 hrs ahead of me? But it's 11:07 AM here so I'm going to do a session right now and after the warm up that will take at least a half hour or so, I will ask what the object is. ... may also ask what the color of your hair is to but the session starts now.
Stay tuned...
Zep Tepi wrote:Well, the two desks in here already have a lot of equipment on them. A laptop and large LCD monitor on mine, along with a phone, blackberry, camera, desk fan, calendar, pens, calculator etc. etc. You get the picture (lol). The adjacent desk is no better, a laptop, smaller LCD screen, a router and piles more junk than on mine.
However, above my head is a shelf that stretches the length of the office. Directly above my head there is a black flatscreen monitor, with a larger version next to it up to my right. The space on the left and all the way to the wall is free - about 3ft of space I can use. That is quiet possibly the only space there is left in here...
I could use the meeting room next door, but there is no guarantee that any object I place on the table in there will remain longer than several minutes, let alone several hours.
I'm in East Yorkshire, England, UK.
I've placed the object on the shelf and emailed the picture to Ryan, let me know if that's ok.


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Comfort food recipes that warm up a cold day
From starchy pasta to a hunk of beef, comfort food is meant to warm you up and feel like home. These recipes fit the bill.
Balsamic apricot glazed pork chops
1 teaspoon plus 1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
¼ cup chopped red onion
¾ cup balsamic vinegar
? cup dried apricots (about 10) chopped
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
4 (4-ounce) boneless pork chops (about ½-inch thick)
½ teaspoon salt
? teaspoon black pepper
1. Heat 1 teaspoon of the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, 3 minutes until translucent. Add the balsamic and apricots and boil gently 5 minutes, until the liquid is syrupy. Stir in the rosemary and remove from heat.
2. Season the pork with the salt and pepper. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil in a large, nonstick skillet over medium high. Add pork and cook until lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Turn and cook until an instant-read thermometer inserted horizontally into the center reads 140 to 145 degrees, about another 4 minutes. Add the balsamic sauce to the pan, turning the chops once to glaze both sides. Serve with the apricots spooned over the pork. Makes 4 servings.
Mac and cheese with bacon and peas
16 ounces elbow pasta
6 slices center cut bacon
¼ cup flour
2 cups milk, divided
1 cup frozen peas
3 cups shredded light Cheddar
3 tablespoons butter, melted
½ cup panko bread crumbs
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
1. Coat a 9-by-12-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Prepare oven for broiling.
2. Cook the pasta according to package directions; drain but do not rinse.
3. Cook bacon in a large saucepan and drain on paper towels.
4. Pour off all but about 1 tablespoon of bacon fat from the pan. With the pan off the heat, add the flour and ¼ cup of the milk to the pan and whisk until smooth. Stir in the remaining milk and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture is near the thickness of heavy cream, about 7 minutes.
5. Add the peas, remove from heat and stir in the cheese until the sauce is smooth. Crumble the cooled bacon into the sauce and toss with the pasta. Transfer to the prepared pan.
6. Combine the melted butter, bread crumbs and grated Parmesan; sprinkle over the macaroni and cheese. Place under the broiler until the topping is golden, about 3 minutes. Serve immediately. Makes 8 servings.
Green vegetable lasagna
2 medium zucchini (1 pound) cut lengthwise into ¼-inch- thick pieces
1 teaspoon plus 1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
2 cups chopped onion
10 ounces baby kale (or kale, torn into 3-inch pieces)
¼ teaspoon salt
? teaspoon black pepper
15 ounces part-skim ricotta
1 cup crumbled feta (4 ounces)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
Pinch nutmeg
1¼ cups basil tomato sauce
6 (7-by-3-inch) no boil lasagna noodles
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Coat a shallow baking sheet and an 8-by-8-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
2. Place the zucchini strips on the baking sheet and brush the tops with 1 teaspoon of the olive oil. Bake 15 minutes, until tender; remove from oven and let cool slightly.
3. Meanwhile, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large, nonstick skillet over medium high. Add the onions and cook, stirring often, 3 to 4 minutes, or until softened. Add the kale in batches, tossing constantly, until it is wilted and bright green, about 2 minutes. Add the salt and pepper; toss and set aside.
4. Stir the ricotta, feta, sage and nutmeg together. Set aside ¼ cup of the mixture.
5. Spread ¼ cup of the sauce in the bottom of the 8-by-8-inch pan. Top with one layer of noodles; top the noodles with half the cheese mixture remaining in the bowl (about 1 cup). Top with an even layer of kale, followed by ¼ cup of the sauce. Build the next layer, starting with the noodles, followed by the ricotta remaining in the bowl. Lay the zucchini strips over the cheese, top with ¼ cup of the sauce and follow with the final layer of noodles. Spoon the remaining ½ cup sauce over the noodles and top with dollops of reserved ¼ cup of cheese mixture.
6. Bake until the lasagna is fork-tender and bubbly at the sides, about 35 minutes. Makes 6 servings.
Roast rack of lamb
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
2 (1¾-pound) racks of lamb, 8 chops each
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
1. Combine oil, mustard, garlic, rosemary and thyme. Pat evenly over meaty part of chops. Allow racks to stand 30 minutes at room temperature. Season evenly with salt and pepper.
2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Coat a shallow baking pan with cooking spray. Place one rack with bones facing up and meaty part of chop facing outward on pan. Lean second rack on first, again with meatiest part of chops facing outward. Alternate the bones from each rack to interlace them.
3. Roast 22 to 26 minutes, until a meat thermometer inserted through center of chops (parallel to counter) registers 125 (for medium-rare). Wait 5 minutes before cutting into chops. (Temperature will rise another 5 degrees.) Makes 8 servings.
Slow-roasted tomato pizza
8 plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise
3 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
? teaspoon pepper
1 pound pizza dough
1½ cups shredded reduced-fat mozzarella
¼ cup grated Parmesan
1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves (optional)
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.
2. Place tomatoes cut-side up on pan, drizzle with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil; season with the dried oregano, sugar, salt and pepper. Roast 2 hours, remove from oven and raise temperature to 425 degrees.
3. Stretch pizza dough out to 16-inch round. Place on a clean baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Top dough with the mozzarella; arrange the tomatoes in a spoke pattern. Sprinkle with the Parmesan, fresh oregano if using and remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil. Bake 16 to 18 minutes, or until cheese is melted and dough sounds hollow when tapped. Makes 8 servings (one slice per serving).
Cheesy penne and beef casserole
8 ounces penne pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound 93-percent-lean ground beef
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon dried basil
½ teaspoon dried thyme
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 cup shredded reduced-fat mozzarella cheese
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan
½ cup whole-wheat panko bread crumbs
1. Preheat oven to 475. Coat a medium-size (6-cup or 9-inch- square) baking dish with cooking spray.
2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil; add the pasta and cook according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
3. Meanwhile, heat the oil over medium high in a large, nonstick skillet. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring, 3 to 4 minutes until they start to soften. Add the beef, oregano, basil and thyme; cook, stirring to break up the crumbles, until the beef is no longer pink, 7 to 8 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and simmer 5 minutes.
4. Combine the beef and pasta; stir in the mozzarella and transfer to prepared baking dish. Combine Parmesan and bread crumbs in a small bowl; sprinkle evenly over the casserole.
5. Bake 5 to 7 minutes until top is golden. Makes 6 servings.
Savory bread pudding
1 large (12-ounce) baguette
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
3 leeks, white and light green parts, washed and finely chopped
1 pound shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
Salt, divided
1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
4 large eggs
1 quart half-and-half
Ground black pepper
12 ounces shredded Gruyère cheese
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and arrange a rack in the lower third of the oven. Slice baguette crosswise into ¾-inch slices. Place on a baking sheet and toast until dry and just beginning to color around the edges, about 10 minutes. Set aside.
2. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Brush some butter on one side of each bread slice. Add leeks to skillet with remaining butter and cook until softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and ½ teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms release their liquid, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in spinach and set aside.
3. Whisk eggs, half-and-half, ½ teaspoon salt and ground black pepper to taste together in a large bowl. Add bread slices and gently toss to coat. Layer bread slices in overlapping rows in a shallow, 3-quart baking dish. Pour remaining liquid over bread and let stand 10 minutes.
4. Tuck mushroom and spinach mixture in between bread slices. Sprinkle cheese over pudding. Bake until puffed, golden and set, 45 to 50 minutes. Let stand 20 minutes and serve warm. Makes 4 to 6 servings.
Spaghetti pie
6 ounces sweet Italian sausage (usually 2 links)
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
½ teaspoon salt
? teaspoon black pepper
½ cup part-skim ricotta cheese
½ cup (4 ounces) goat cheese
¼ cup chopped scallions
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
6 ounces spaghetti, cooked according to package directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat a deep-dish 9-inch pie plate with cooking spray.
2. Squeeze the sausage out of its casings into a skillet, place over medium heat and cook, breaking the meat up into crumbles as it cooks. Cook until no longer pink, 6 to 7 minutes.
3. Combine egg, salt, pepper, ricotta and goat cheese, stirring until smooth. Add scallions, tomato, spaghetti and sausage; transfer to prepared pie plate and bake in center of oven 25 minutes, until a toothpick stuck in center comes out clean. Cut into wedges to serve. Makes 6 servings.
Apple and bacon grilled cheese
2 slices center-cut bacon
1 1/2 ounces Irish Cheddar cheese, cut into thin slices
2 slices whole-wheat bread
1/2 apple, cut into 1/4-inch wedges
1. Cook bacon in medium skillet; remove and drain on a plate lined with paper towel.
2. While bacon cooks, place the cheese on one slice of bread.
3. Add the apple slices to the pan with the bacon drippings and cook until lightly browned on each side (a total of about 4 minutes). Place the apples on the cheese and top with the bacon slices. Close the sandwich with the second slice of bread and place in the hot skillet. Cook until browned on the underside, about 2 minutes; flip and cook until browned on the underside again and the cheese is melted.
Penne, cheese and bacon casserole
1 pound penne
6 slices center-cut bacon
1/3 cup flour
2 cups skim milk
3 cups light shredded Cheddar
2 (14.5-ounce) cans diced tomatoes, drained
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1. Coat a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
2. Cook the penne in plenty of lightly salted boiling water until al dente. Drain and set aside.
3. Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a large saucepan or deep skillet. Remove from pan and drain on a plate lined with paper towels.
4. Stir together flour and 1/3 cup of the milk until smooth. Add to the pan and stir; immediately add remaining milk and cook, stirring, 8 to 10 minutes, until thickened to the consistency of heavy cream. Remove from the heat and stir in the Cheddar until smooth. Stir in the tomatoes and toss with the penne. Crumble or chop the bacon and stir it into the pasta before transferring to the baking dish.
5. Combine the melted butter, bread crumbs and Parmesan and sprinkle evenly over the top of the pasta.
6. Place in the oven until the topping is golden, about 8 minutes.
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text:
Kim & Scott's Small Footprint
Like this entry? Favorite it below!
- Name:
- Kim and Scott
- Location:
- Chicago, IL
- Square Feet:
- 675
- Division:
- Little
- What I Love About My Small Home:
- Adaptability. Our home's small footprint motivates us to utilize every space in multiple ways. The office/studio serves double duty as a sometimes guest room, and our kitchen/living space can be a gathering place for a dozen friends - or turn into a relaxing lounge space with the pull of a curtain. The open floor plan affords us multiple purposes (from casual dining to movie nights in), and with small tweaks (plus dimmer switches!), we can change the feeling and mood of an entire room.
- Biggest Challenge of Living in a Small Space:
- After almost a century and multiple renovations on the building, wall space and room sizes are inconsistent and chopped up. We've had to be creative with where wall paint starts and stops, and properly sized furniture is hard to come by. Our longest wall may be a few inches too short for a standard console, and centering your sofa under the off-centered window is not an option! (But tricking your eyes with equally off-centered curtains is.) And when everything you bring into your home results in a battle of inches, it pushes you to be careful with what you choose to surround yourself with.


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HCI-CEO needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 105 designs submitted by 37 freelance designers.
Healthcare Interactive Inc
We are a young startup company with significant growth and need a new logo, new web page and a new feel. So we are starting with the Logo first... and will move to the website immediately afterwards.
It's Ebay, Twitter, and Facebook meet Healthcare. Our existing website with information about our background is located at: http://www.hciacive.com
Although healthcare is a very conservative market, we are looking to match our forward thinking ideas and to help revolutionize the industry. Look at our product logo "Point to point healthcare" here: http://www.p2phc.com/logon
Keywords: Forward Thinking/Revolutionary, .COM, Secure/Conservative, Smart/Intelligent, Healthcare Solutions, Save Money
We are currently in the commercial healthcare market selling our services to insurance resellers, brokers and consultants. We have also launched a new company called Healthcare Interactive Federal. The new logo for Healthcare Interactive must have an added variation ('federal', US flag, government graphic, etc.) to represent Healthcare Interactive Federal. Our main logo is on our current, ugly website and the HCI federal logo is attached.
We don't necessarily require 'Healthcare Interactive' to be spelled out in the logo. Options for text in the logo may include:
Healthcare Interactive
Healthcare Interactive Federal
Required graphic files must include a logos for the company "Healthcare Interactive" and logos for "Healthcare Interactive Federal"
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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If you ever feel your 'idea well' has run dry when it comes to dealing with the chronic shortage of truck drivers in this industry, I suggest giving Kenneth Baylor a call. He's the VP of labor relations for Republic Services, the country's 3rd largest refuse hauler, based down in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. When you look up the definition of the word 'enthusiasm' in the dictonary, you'll find his photo and name -- he gets as fired up as an NFL coach when he starts talking about finding and keeping good people in the refuse business.
He'll tell you that transportation companies of all stripes, but especially refuse operators, are all now entering a critical phase: the labor pool is shrinking as fewer and fewer people want the "dirty job" of driving a truck. Add to that the huge financial impact employee turnover is having on the bottom line of transportation firms today, Baylor said, and you get a recipe for major trouble down the road.
"This is a major league issue for our industry," said in a recent speech. "Our average turnover rate is 19.3% in this industry - among drivers its 23.2%. We also have a lot of 'churn' in this business, where we trade 25% to 35% of our employees with each other in the industry." He explained that the cost of turnover and churn - even though far lower than the 115% level currently experienced by truckload carriers - is astronomical to waste haulers.
"The cost to replace one employee - from hiring through training - is on average 50% of their salary. By some estimates, it's 200%," he said. "In the refuse industry, which had a payroll of $10 billion in 2001, the cost of replacing employees in just financial terms is horrendous. But when employees leave, so do institutional knowledge, skills, and relationships they've forged with customers. That has even larger impact to your business as time goes on."
Baylor said that while fleets must offer competitive wages and benefits, focusing just on monetary benefits alone works only until the competitor down the street offers more. "It's not just about a paycheck: employees want recognition for their efforts, more flexible work hours, financial incentives, and most importantly to be part of a team - to know that they are going to be included, that their advice will be sought."
He stressed that the only competitive advantage waste and freight haulers have today are their people - and that's why employee attraction and retention efforts are going to be far more vital in the near future. "Look, we all use roughly the same equipment and technology to perform the work we do. The only thing that makes us different is our people - and they are the ones delivering the service to our customers," Baylor said. "In this business, we tend to focus on the 8% of the employees that give us trouble - not the 'Steady Eddies' or the super stars."
He pointed to the mantra espoused by FedEx Corp.'s Chairman & CEO Frederick Smith: People, Service, Profits. "If you take care of your people, they provide excellent customer service, and that delivers profits for your company," Baylor said. "That's the kind of environment we need to create in this industry."
You can argue about whether FedEx really delivers on that promise, but I'll tell you one thing -- Baylor tries to put it into practice every day. Once of the biggest points he makes in a speech -- and let me tell you, you need to hear this guy give a speech -- centers around the title of a book published a few years back called 'When Pride Still Mattered.'
"Let me tell you something -- Pride matters today. It never went away," he stressed. "When your employees come up to you and say, 'Who used my truck last Saturday?' THAT is pride at work. THAT is what you want to hear -- they are taking ownership of their job and you need to keep them fired up like that. We WANT them to own that iron, to consider it and their job 'theirs' because that is how you get a motivated, hard working employee to stick with you for years to come."


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To help give producers easier access to farm and field information through their mobile device, John Deere introduces Mobile Farm Manager. The application, which can be downloaded free from the Apple Store, is compatible with iPad and iPhone mobile devices and connects to users' Apex farm management software.
Tyler Hogrefe, senior product marketing manager for John Deere Intelligent Solutions Group, says Mobile Farm Manager has several functions that producers will find useful, such as field maps, historical reports, GPS tracking, field navigation and soil sampling grids.
"With Mobile Farm Manager on their mobile devices, producers now have remote access to the important agronomic information they need in order to make better management decisions," Hogrefe says. "It makes it much easier to analyze field data such as application and fertility maps, soil sample grids and crop product data directly from the field."
Customers with Mobile Farm Manager can share agronomic information with ag service providers, farm managers and other advisors as needed.
To activate Mobile Farm Manager, customers should contact their John Deere dealer to purchase and receive their activation code, which they can enter into Apex. The activation allows the transfer of data stored in Apex to the devices with Mobile Farm Manager.
To learn more, visit JohnDeere.com.


text:
Study raises questions about flu shots during pregnancy
A perplexing new study on flu shots during pregnancy is raising concerns among expectant mothers about the risk of miscarriage. But doctors - and even the study's authors - caution that more research is needed.
The study found that women who had miscarriages between the years 2010 and 2012 were more likely to have had back-to-back annual flu shots that included protection against swine flu.
Vaccine experts believe it is possible those miscarriages did not result from the vaccinations but the older age of those women and other risk factors.
Past studies have found flu vaccines are safe during pregnancy, but there's been little research on their impact during the first trimester.
Before these new findings were published, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) notified the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), anticipating a lot of questions, confusion and worry.
"We certainly want to montior the safety of vaccines. But it clearly needs more research before any significant changes in clinical practice should be recommended," said ACOG Vice President for Practice Dr. Christopher M. Zahn. "The risk of serious illness – the risk of death – from flu fortunately is not very common, but it does occur. And it's completely avoidable with the vaccine."
How would Zahn counsel a pregnant family member seeking his advice on whether to get a flu shot?
"I think it's important that women know all the facts and have all the information in order to make those decisions," he said. "But I would definitely advise women of the benefits of the flu vaccine and recommend that she have it done."
Flu and its complications kill thousands of Americans every year. The elderly, young children and pregnant women are especially at risk. When a new "swine flu" strain emerged in 2009, it killed 56 U.S. pregnant women that year, according to the CDC.
The study's authors, two of whom are CDC researchers, saw a big difference when they looked at women who had miscarried within 28 days of getting a shot that included protection against swine flu, but it was only when the women also had a flu shot the previous season.
They found 17 of 485 miscarriages they studied involved women whose vaccinations followed that pattern. Just four of a comparable 485 healthy pregnancies involved women who were vaccinated that way.
The first group also had more women who were at higher risk for miscarriage, like older moms and smokers and those with diabetes. The researchers tried to make statistical adjustments to level out some of those differences but some researchers don't think they completely succeeded.
Other experts said they don't believe a shot made from a killed flu virus could trigger an immune system response severe enough to prompt a miscarriage. And the authors said they couldn't rule out the possibility that exposure to swine flu itself was a factor in some miscarriages.
Two other medical journals rejected the article before a third, Vaccine, accepted it. Dr. Gregory Poland, Vaccine's editor-in-chief, said it was a well-designed study that raised a question that shouldn't be ignored. But he doesn't believe flu shots caused the miscarriages. "Not at all," said Poland, who also is director of vaccine research at the Mayo Clinic.
Though this study may cause worry and confusion, it is evidence "of just how rigorous and principled our vaccine safety monitoring system is," said Jason Schwartz, a Yale University vaccine policy expert.
Some of the same researchers are working on a larger study looking at more recent data to see if a possible link between swine flu vaccine and miscarriage holds up, said James Donahue, a study author from the Wisconsin-based Marshfield Clinic Research Institute. The results aren't expected until next year at the earliest, he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story


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"Hedwig and the Angry Inch" has a reputation for shaking up the familiar.
Even in the world of flamboyant stage musicals from which it arose, "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" has a reputation for shaking up the familiar.
A biographical rock musical and stand-up comedy routine wrapped into one flashy production, "Hedwig" dons many layers, but not as many as those worn by its titular songstress.
In City Stage's lively production, which plays weekends through Sept. 22, leading lady Hedwig Schmidt is draped in a denim ensemble complete with a cheetah belt, towering heels and her signature sky-high, blown-out Farrah Fawcett up-do. Passionately recounting her gender-bending, so-unbelievable-you-need-to-hear-it life story, Hedwig - pronounced "Hed-VIG" - is a singular personality that has captivated and touched (in more ways than one) audiences the world over since John Cameron Mitchell opened his original production off-Broadway to rapid-fire praise in 1998.
"Hedwig" is the revelatory story of an East German transsexual whose botched sex change operation is but one low point in her less-than-stellar life. Fed up and heartbroken by a young rocker, she starts her own punk rock band through which she spouts personal power ballads and beautifully relatable on-stage confessions for dive bar patrons. Hidden just below the surface of her glitzy set is an outlandish yet profound exploration of identity and the tedious search for one's other half.
In many ways, "Hedwig" is the "VH1 Storytellers" of rock musicals, relying on its stylish headliner to maintain the audience's attention with a story that weaves in monologues as easily as it whips out rock anthems. Donning the drag in City Stage's rendition is Leo Grinberg, who not only embodies Hedwig's dramatic flair with an electric commitment but also emulates subtle nuances that make the character his own.
Mitchell's original text remains a delectable blend of wild puns, self-deprecating one-liners and stretched metaphors that incorporate the symbolism of the divide created by the Berlin Wall and its relevance to Hedwig's duality. But it's also conducive to and welcomes improvisation, which Grinberg gleefully obliges.
Backed by a powerhouse voice that would have many a rock god offering up their first born in exchange, Grinberg is on stage for the entirety of the 90-minute performance, blasting through Stephen Trask's infectious soundtrack, including such songs as "Sugar Daddy," "The Origin of Love" and "Wig in a Box." Even more incredible is his ability to fluctuate, along with Hedwig, through the emotional barriers that come crumbling down as her story gives way to a literal stripping down of herself. As Grinberg loses his clothes and his heavy makeup, he hits the peaks and valleys of Hedwig's journey with astonishing and engrossing accuracy.
Some may point to City Stage's "Hedwig" as a one-man show, but it's merely a stripped-down performance of the source material that relies heavily on both Hedwig and her Angry Inch band. While the grungy Angry Inch bunch - led by Brendan Carter as Hedwig's resentful husband, Yitzhak, and piano/bass player and music director Chiaki Ito in a bright pink wig - grow mossy with boredom behind their larger-than-life leading lady, they become an embodiment of the world that has largely ignored their frontwoman. They aren't there to give her gratification; often times, all they offer are rolled eyes. But when they do rock out and join Hedwig in her musical fury and anguish, it's impossible not bang your head along with their enthusiasm.
The intimacy of City Stage's fifth floor venue allows the show and director Don Baker to play it fast and loose with structure - making for a giddy and unpredictable ride for both longtime "Hedwig" fans and newcomers. As Grinberg paces the stage, enters the audience and wildly dances to the beat, it becomes clear that City Stage's production of "Hedwig's" surprisingly poignant tale may not be something you see every day, but it's most definitely something you should not miss.
Hunter Ingram: 343-2327
On Twitter: @WilmonFilm