text:
Story highlights
- In the U.S., you can name a team almost anything, says Bob Greene
- The one certainty is that no one will call a major league team "the Senators," he says
- Greene says Washington Senators, once in the American League, came from simpler time
- Today's politicians are so disliked that no one would cheer for them, he says
In American professional sports, you can name a team almost anything.
You can give the team a ferocious name (Tigers, Lions, Bears, Grizzlies, Bengals). You can go for a swashbuckling image (Pirates, Buccaneers, Trail Blazers). Colors are all right for a team name (Reds, Browns, Blues). Birds (Orioles, Falcons, Eagles). You can sound regal (Royals, Titans, Kings). Aeronautic themes work (Jets, Flyers, Rockets). Fish (Marlins). Religious imagery (Saints, Padres). Even insects (Hornets).
There are some names -- and mascots and logos associated with them -- that have become controversial, but that are still used: Redskins, Indians, Braves.
But I have been talking with sports experts and sports-marketing specialists, and they are in agreement that there is one name -- a name that used to belong to a famed big-league baseball team -- that would be met with such antipathy by America's fans that no team today would even think of using it.
I refer, of course, to the Senators.
"Not a chance," said Rob Fleder, former executive editor of Sports Illustrated and editor of sports books including "Sports Illustrated's The Baseball Book" and the baseball anthology "Damn Yankees."
The Washington Senators were a charter member of the American League, and were around, in one form or another, from 1901 until 1972. For a lot of that time they were a terrible baseball team -- they were derided with a popular saying: "First in war, first in peace, last in the American League."
But although the team was lousy, no one minded the name. "People associated 'Senators' with something revered, something held in high regard," Fleder said. "The team wasn't distinguished, but the name was."
With polls showing that the approval rating for Congress is minuscule (around 15% in many polls, 12% in a recent New York Time/CBS News poll), "no marketing person in his right mind would name a team the Senators," Fleder said.
Indeed, when, after 33 years without a big-league baseball team, Washington was awarded one for the 2005 season, the owners, probably wisely, went with Nationals, not Senators, for a name.
"You need a name that has a chance to be loveable," Fleder said. "That leaves 'Senators' out."
That's an awfully melancholy commentary on the current state of our public attitudes. Yet purely as a business decision, calling any new big-league sports team the Senators would be seen as ill-advised. Ferguson Jenkins, the Hall of Fame pitcher who broke into the major leagues in 1965, when baseball's Senators were still playing in Washington, said last week:
"I don't think that any team today would choose to call itself the Senators because of all of the controversy in Washington. I believe that people would think that the name was too political."
Indeed, today's poisonous political environment is the main reason that what was once a perfectly good sports-team name would be a nonstarter now. Sports historian David Krell, author of the forthcoming "Blue Magic: The Brooklyn Dodgers, Ebbets Field, and the Battle for Baseball's Soul," said:
"The term 'Senator' once sounded much more austere. The country felt differently about Washington. My father said that when men and women would go to the movies, and the newsreel came on and Franklin Roosevelt would appear, the people in the theater would cheer." Krell recalls hearing an older American proudly "tell a story about how, as a boy, he memorized the names of all the senators. They were giants.
"But I just don't think you could use that name for a team now. It would be a punch line. Something that Jay Leno would make jokes about every night."
In Canada, a country that may have a more tolerant attitude toward the machinations of government, the professional hockey team in Ottawa was named the Senators early in the 20th century, and, as a member of the National Hockey League, still is. And in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the minor-league baseball team was christened the Senators in 1894, and continues with the tradition of the name.
But in the multi-billion-dollar, high-stakes world of U.S. major-league sports -- and even at major U.S. colleges -- it would doubtless be seen as foolhardy to take a chance on using that name.
"Now that the approval ratings for Congress are within the margin of error for ax murderers, it is inconceivable," said Ron Rapoport, who traveled the country for decades covering all the major sports for newspapers in Los Angeles and Chicago, and who is the editor of a forthcoming anthology of the greatest sports columns in the history of Chicago newspapers.
"Some of us remember the Washington Senators," he said, "but if someone proposed calling a team the Senators today, young people would scratch their heads and think: 'What a strange choice.'"
The current turmoil in Washington likely hasn't helped matters. Michael Talis, president of Talis Sports Marketing, a company that arranges baseball fantasy camps featuring former big-leaguers and organizes appearances by retired players, said he would worry about the emotional well-being of athletes compelled to wear the uniforms of such a team.
"Players having to take the field with the word 'Senators' stitched in big letters across the front?" he said.
"Can you imagine the kinds of things the fans would be yelling at them?"
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion
Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion


text:
35 of 44
Pulled Jerk Chicken Sandwiches
Slow-cooked chicken with a zesty orange juice, spice, and habanero jerk marinade.
Jerk chicken normally gets marinaded forever and a day and then grilled up quickly. Here we throw it in the slow cooker so it marinates while it cooks, killing two culinary birds with one stone.... Read More
View Recipe

subset: commoncrawl


text:
All the hullabaloo about Microsoft getting into the hardware business when it announced its Surface tablets must have been puzzling to the folks at the company's hardware division, which has been making keyboards, mice and such for 30 years.
That tradition continued Monday with the unit introducing some new wireless mice and keyboards designed for mobile users, as well as updating its Touch Mouse to better support Windows 8, expected to be released at the end of October.
The "Wedge" mouse ($69.95) and keyboard ($79.95) connect to a notebook or tablet through Bluetooth 4.0 so you don't have to worry about cables or USB transceiver.
The Wedge Touch Mouse can fit in your pocket and supports four-way touch scrolling and navigation, which minimizes the rodent's real estate requirements. BlueTrack Technology is also supported by the device so you can obtain top performance from the mouse regardless of the surface it's operating on. Another nice feature is its Backpack Mode. That conserves the unit's battery life by powering it down when the computer it's paired to powers down or enters sleep mode.
The Wedge Mobile Keyboard has a very slim profile and has a Windows orientation, supporting the operating system's hot keys and media controls. To protect the keyboard from the elements, it includes a durable cover which, in a clever turn by Microsoft, can, when not in use, double as a stand for a tablet.
If you can live without extreme slimness, you can save a few bucks with Microsoft's two other new offerings: the Sculpt Touch Mouse and Sculpt Touch Keyboard, both Bluetooth devices selling $49.95 each.
The Sculpt mouse is optimized for Windows 8 navigation. For example, it has a four-way touch scroll strip that lets you move smoothly around documents and applications with simple finger swipes.
The Sculpt keyboard is full-sized, weighs a little over a pound and has a distinctive curved shape that's designed for better ergonomic placement of the hands on the keyboard. The offering also has a sleep mode that saves power when it detects a period of inactivity in the device it's paired with.
In addition to the new mice and keyboards, Microsoft is also updating its Touch Mouse ($79.95) to support Windows 8 gesture settings, such as swiping, two-finger management of app functions, three-finger zooming and thumb gestures for moving backward and forward within apps.
"[I]f you already own a Touch Mouse you don't need to buy a new one for Windows 8!" Brandon LeBlanc wrote in The Windows Blog. " All existing Touch Mouse customers will be able to take advantage of these new gestures for Windows 8 when Windows 8 is released this fall."
Follow freelance technology writer John P. Mello Jr. and Today@PCWorld on Twitter.


text:
There's a bug—thankfully, a relatively rare one—that's wiping people's save data under certain circumstances when downloading the game's new DLC.
The new Hidden Secrets pack, which basically just collects various preorder bonus gear and missions, is for most people just fine. But if you try and download it while already playing the game, you can be affected.
An Ubisoft rep writes on the game's forums:
Just a quick heads up, we're able to reproduce this issue at the studio and are working on a fix/workaround.
From what we can tell, this problem seems to be rare and should generally only affect a very small number of players. That said, we're taking the speedy and complete resolution of this very seriously.
AVOIDING THIS BUG: Do not load your saved AC3 game while the DLC is downloading in the background. This appears to be the key trigger for this bug. You can do anything else you want to do, just don't load up your saved game and play it while the DLC is downloading.
Got that? Good. This week is in no need of further salty tears.
AC3 DLC Has Reset My Game! HELP! | Forums [Ubisoft]


text: Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums :: View topic - comedy movies Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!" FAQ Search Memberlist Usergroups Register Profile Log in to check your private messages Log in comedy movies Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Film and Cinema View previous topic :: View next topic Author Message Tsuchihito KusakaJoined: 09 Nov 2008Posts: 5Location: Japan Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2008 11:15 pm Post subject: comedy movies Hello! I like watching movies in a cinema. Especially, I love comedy movies such as "Rush Hour" or "Home Alone." These make me laugh and please me!! After watching these movies I always feel contentment. There are many genres of movies. However I love comedy movies! Do you like comedy movies? Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Film and Cinema All times are GMT - 8 Hours Page 1 of 1 Jump to: Select a forum Student Forums----------------ComputersCurrent NewsCultureEnglish SchoolsFamilyFilm and CinemaFoodHealth and FitnessHelp CenterHobbiesHolidaysLearning EnglishLiteratureMaking FriendsMusicOpinionsPetsScienceSportsThe Strange and MysteriousTOEFL and Other English ExamsTravel You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum Dave's ESL Cafe is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling. Banner Advertising | Bookstore / Alta Books | FAQs | Articles | Interview with Dave Copyright © 2018 Dave's ESL Cafe | All Rights Reserved | Contact Dave's ESL Cafe | Site Map Teachers College, Columbia University: Train to Teach English Here or Abroad Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group


text:
Will northerners, beset by major storm, want to come to Sunshine State?
Tourism officials in Southwest Florida worry that Hurricane Sandy could put a crimp in an upcoming tourist season that was shaping up as one of the strongest in years.
Before Sandy, the industry was poised for a record-breaking year, fueled by pent-up demand, beefed up marketing efforts and an incrementally improved national economy.
But officials now fear that the historic superstorm and the billions of dollars in damage it wrought could dull the winter high tourist season — one of the most important economic drivers for this region.
"If someone's home is flooded, their priority is going to be getting their house back in working order," said Elliott Falcione, executive director of the Bradenton Area Convention Center and Visitor's Bureau. "That may leave them with less time or money to take the vacations they originally planned for."
The storms comes in the wake of years of economic recession that crippled local tourism venues, and perceptions in 2010 that a large BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had polluted area beaches.
With the late-season storm, though, officials fear those gains — sparked in part by the May 2011 designation of Siesta Public Beach as No. 1 in the nation — could erode in the soggy aftermath.
Tourism is critical to Southwest Florida and the state, accounting for one in every seven jobs. Statewide, it brings roughly 80 million visitors a year and more than $70 billion in spending. In the second quarter, Sarasota County's tourism tax collections rose more than 8 percent.
Unofficially, high season in Southwest Florida begins at the end of October, when residents from Canada and states like New York, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania leave cold weather behind for milder climates. Snowbird season typically ends around Easter, depending on when the holiday falls.
The immediate effects of Hurricane Sandy have kept some vacationers stranded in Sarasota for longer than their intended stays.
Carriers at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport grounded flights to and from New York City, Boston and Washington, D.C., on Monday and Tuesday. Tampa International Airport had more than 100 flights canceled those days.
"We have not yet been informed when those flights will be coming again," said Michael Walley, an airport spokesman. "It all depends on how bad the situation is up there."
But tourism officials and industry participants caution that it is too early to assess the storm's impact, and that, ultimately, it may have little impact on tourism season.
Vacation rental companies are not reporting any cancellations for booked properties, although they are braced for what could come.
"We get a lot of business from New York and the eastern seaboard, but we have not gotten any calls yet," said David Teitlebaum, president of Anna Mara Island Resorts LLC.
"The busy season does not peak for us until January," said Teitelbaum, who owns and manages four beach resorts on Anna Maria Island.
Likewise, Tom Heatherman, a spokesman for real estate brokerage firm Michael Saunders & Co., which operates a vacation rentals subsidiary, said he is confident that the rental market is strong enough to absorb any lingering effects of Sandy.
If cancellations do occur, be believes it will not take long to rent any unexpected vacancies.
"People want to come here," he said. "We will have no problems filling vacancies, if there are any."
For some the storm is having is having the opposite effect.
Bob Progner said he cannot wait to get to Sarasota after riding out the hurricane in Cape May, N.J., the eye of which passed just 10 miles away from his condominium.
"They were expecting much more flooding, but thankfully we made it out OK," said Progner, who spends about the half the year in New Jersey and the other half in a Siesta Beach condominium he owns. His property was spared because the storm did not come in at high tide.
"If the damage was worse, it's likely we would not have been able to come to Florida at all," Progner said. "We should make it to Florida a week or two later than our usual time in mid-November."
Tourism officials are hoping Progner's experience is more typical.
"We've seen this happen before, where a storm comes up and ends up being somewhat of a wash," said Virginia Haley, president of Visit Sarasota County. "Right now it is just too early to tell."
The storm did cancel an agency promotion, where members of the Sarasota Orchestra were to fly to New York City on a JetBlue flight for an event inside the terminal.


text:
6.0710 Replacement of spoiled ballot.
In districts using paper ballots or cards, if a qualified elector spoils a ballot or ballot card, he may obtain another upon returning the spoiled one. The ballot returned shall be canceled immediately, and the reasons for the cancellation endorsed thereon and signed by the district officials.History: 1977, PL 15-42 § 1.


text:
I want to explain a psychological and behavioural process to someone via email.
I start off in first-person and speak to them in second-person, but what do I use when I want to explain a process abstract from either of us?
"... the person is aware of..."
"... the person uses..."


text:
DETROIT – As the reality of a payroll tax increase sets in, many may be looking for ways to make-up for the cash lost from each paycheck.
About 160 million American workers are seeing their take home pay shrink as the Social Security tax returns to 6.2 percent, after a two years of a lower
rate (4.2 percent).
The average worker will lose about $700 a year, money that could be spent on food, clothes, and other expenses.
Making up the money:
1.Adjust your tax withholding: Many of you might get a big income tax refund each year. If you tweak your withholding, you can get more cash in your paycheck, and hopefully come out even at the end of the year. Almost all financial planners will tell you to withhold less, so the government isn't holding onto your money all year long. Figure out the number of withholding allowances you should claim by using the worksheet on the IRS
website at www.irs.gov.
2. Max out your 401(k). If you have a retirement plan at work, make sure your contributing the maximum amount allowed.
That can help reduce your taxable wages, which lowers the tax you pay, and it will give a boost to your 401 (k).
3. Look for savings on insurance, auto, life, property. Review all your insurance expenses to see if there's savings you may have missed.
4. Refinance your mortgage- Interest rates on home loans remain at historic lows. See if you can reduce your monthly payment, and you might not miss that extra cash as much.
5. Check all the fees you're paying. Are there any accounts you don't use anymore? Switch to credit cards with lower rates.
6. Finally, it's probably the least attractive option, but it might help to get a second job, but maybe it can be something you like more than your current full-time job. You could use the experience to explore new career options that might improve your life even more down the line.
More headlines:
Real estate refund; Attorneys point out mistake.
WOW! cable customers experiencing problems.


text:
NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., (API), a privately held biopharmaceutical company that develops innovative targeted radio-immunotherapeutics, announced the presentation of a scientific poster summarizing the results for a Phase I study of Actimab-A, its antibody directed alpha emitter drug candidate for the front line treatment of acute myeloid leukemia in older patients. Actimab-A was evaluated in a Phase I dose escalating trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). The poster entitled, "Phase I Trial of the Targeted Alpha-Particle Nano-Generator Actinium-225 (225Ac)-Lintuzumab in Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)" will be presented at the 8th Annual Hematologic Malignancies 2012 Conference to be held from October 10-14, 2012 at the Hilton Americas Houston in Houston, TX.
The poster summarizes key findings from the Phase I trial conducted at MSKCC with Dr. Joseph Jurcic as the Primary Investigator. The goal of the trial was to determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD), toxicity, pharmacokinetics, and antileukemic activity of 225Ac-lintuzumab. It was a first-in-man, Phase I, dose-escalation trial.
This is the first study to show that therapy with an antibody targeted alpha particle generator is feasible in humans. The study has demonstrated that Actimab-A (Lintuzumab-Ac-225) has significant antileukemic activity across all dose levels and the drug candidate is now being further investigated in a multicenter Phase I/II trial in combination with low-dose cytarabine for older AML patients.
Dr. Jurcic will present these findings at the Hematologic Malignancies 2012 Conference at 6:30 PM on Wednesday, October 10, 2012.
"We are pleased that these findings confirm the utility of Actimab-A in the treatment of elderly acute myeloid leukemia," said Jack Talley, CEO of Actinium. "AML is one of the most difficult to treat diseases, especially in older patients and we are looking forward to providing a front line treatment for the majority of older patients who cannot tolerate current intensive chemotherapy regimens. As we continue to announce key milestones we are moving quickly towards a Phase II trial which is targeted to start early in 2013."
About Actinium 225
Actinium-225 decays by giving off high-energy alpha particles, which kill cancer cells. When actinium decays, it produces a series of daughter atoms, each of which gives off its own alpha particle, increasing the chances that the cancer cell will be destroyed. The technology was first developed by Dr. David Scheinberg at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
About Lintuzumab (HuM195)
Lintuzumab is a monoclonal antibody that targets CD33, found on myeloid leukemia cells. It is the humanized version of M195, the antibody initially developed by Dr. David Scheinberg of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
About Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Acute Myeloid Leukemia is the most difficult to treat form of leukemia. The majority of patients are older than 60 and most of them do not qualify for the commonly used chemotherapy regimens and their median survival following diagnosis is about two months without treatment.
About Actinium Pharmaceuticals
Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a New York, New York based biopharmaceutical company that develops innovative immunotherapeutics based on its proprietary platform for the therapeutic utilization radiopharmaceuticals in association with monoclonal antibodies.
For more information:
Visit our web site www.actiniumpharmaceuticals.com or contact:
Jack Talley, CEO
Actinium Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Tel: (646) 459-4201
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Jeff Ramson
ProActive Capital Group, LLC
Tel: (646) 863-6341
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Dennis S. Dobson Jr.,
Tel: (203) 258-0159
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Forward-Looking Statement for Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
This news release contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management's current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause results to differ materially from those set forth in the statements. The forward-looking statements may include statements regarding product development, product potential, or financial performance. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual results may differ materially from those projected. Actinium Pharmaceuticals undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
SOURCE Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc.


text:
The Kansas Wildlife and Parks Commission approved 2006 big game hunting season regulations at a public hearing in Junction City April 27th.
Seasons approved for big game include the following:
* Early muzzleloader season: Sept. 9 through Sept. 22
* Youth and disabled persons season: Sept. 23 through Sept. 24
* Archery season: Oct. 1 through Dec. 31
* Early firearms (urban units only) season: Oct. 14 through Oct. 22
* Regular firearms season: Nov. 29 through Dec. 10
* Extendcd whitetail antlerless-only season: Jan. 1 through Jan. 7, 2007
* Extended archery (urban units only) season: Jan. 8 through Jan. 31, 2007
Application deadlines are May 31 for all nonresident deer permits, July 14 for limited draw resident permits (firearm and muzzleloader "Any Deer" permits), Dec. 30 for unlimited antlered permits (resident "Whitetail Either Sex," "Archery," and "Hunt-Own-Land" permits), and Jan. 30, 2007 for antlerless whitetail permits and game tags.
There are three notable changes from last year's deer seasons, including:
* Hunters may purchase an antlerless-only deer permit or game tag AFTER Dec. 30, 2006, without having first obtained a permit that allows the take of an antlered deer.
* The extended whitetail antlerless-only season was shortened by one day.
* No check stations will be required in the 2006 season. ANTELOPE
* Archery season: Sept. 23 through Oct. 1 and Oct. 14 through Oct. 31
* Muzzleloader season: Oct. 2 through Oct. 9
* Firearm season: Oct. 6 through Oct. 9
Application deadlines are June 9 for firearm and muzzleloader permits, October 30 for archery permits. One change for 2006 is that unlimited archery permits will be available for nonresidents, as they are for residents. Firearm and muzzloader permits are still restricted to resident hunters only.
Proposed season dates outside Fort Riley include the following:
* Muzzleloader season: Sept. 1 through Sept. 30
* Archery season: Oct. 1 through Dec. 31
* Firearm season: Nov. 29 through Dec. 10 and Jan. 1, 2007 through March 15, 2007 Proposed season dates on Fort Riley include the following:
* Any-Elk permit holders: Oct. 1 through Dec. 31
* Antlerless-Only permit holders: Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, with one-third of permits valid in each of the months of October, November, and December.
Units open for elk hunting were expanded to statewide use, except that Morton County is closed to elk hunting. Permit holders, upon harvesting an elk, are required to contact KDWP staff within two days to arrange for collection of tissue samples, to monitor for occurrence of chronic wasting disease. The commission also approved the use of shotguns using slugs 12 gauge or larger for elk hunting.
[1] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biggamehunt.net%2Fnews%2Fwildlife-parks-commissioners-approve-2006-big-game-seasons&linkname=Wildlife%20%26amp%3B%20Parks%20Commissioners%20Approve%202006%20Big%20Game%20Seasons%20%7C%20Big%20Game%20Hunt
[2] https://www.biggamehunt.net/sections/Kansas


text:
Red Propaganda is a Sydney-based digital consultancy. We work with leading businesses to bring innovative websites, systems, apps and technology to Australia and the world.
Built for maximum scale, flexibility and security, Red Propaganda builds custom publisher platforms and responsive websites.
Red Propaganda builds robust, powerful and flexible custom information systems for mid to large enterprises.
We build simple, intuitive, stunning apps for businesses and consumers.
Successful brands like Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, Qantas, Google and Kimberly-Clark entrust us with their websites, apps, out-of-home campaigns and digital marketing strategies. See why by browsing our latest projects.
Your digital journey starts at the corner of Bathurst and Kent in Sydney's CBD. Drop in for a visit.


text:
Greetings blogfriends. Tonight is the first night of the Full Moon and i have a bunch of things to do. As usual, a rosemary pentagram is to be made and left as an offering to my favorite crossroads, as a thank you for the greatest gift the Goddess ever gave us. Also, i recently bought a pretty moonstone amulet for protection for the baby and tonight it is to be charged. What i am kind of dragging my feet around, is going outside and tending to my plants. I have negleted them and deprived them of my love and care. Of course they are watered regularly but there is so much more i need to do. Since the rain has ceased for a while the neighborhood birds are to be fed today. One of the last feedings for the Winter. When Spring comes i gradually provide less food to them until the weather gets cold again.
Since the Wheel is about to turn, i have to do some fairy work as well. Their tree( a big pomegranade one) is about to bloom again and i have spotted a couple of brand new four leafed clovers under it). Offerings are to be made, spells to be cast and definitely some meditation time is in order.
If after all that i have some energy left(i am still recovering from the cold) i will bake a cake to have some to offer but also for some belly yumminess!
Have a blessed Esbat and a magical weekend!
First night of the Full Moon!
Greetings blogfriends. Tonight is the first night of the Full Moon and i have a bunch of things to do. As usual, a rosemary pentagram is to be made and left as an offering to my favorite crossroads, as a thank you for the greatest gift the Goddess ever gave us. Also, i recently bought a pretty moonstone amulet for protection for the baby and tonight it is to be charged. What i am kind of dragging my feet around, is going outside and tending to my plants. I have negleted them and deprived them of my love and care. Of course they are watered regularly but there is so much more i need to do. Since the rain has ceased for a while the neighborhood birds are to be fed today. One of the last feedings for the Winter. When Spring comes i gradually provide less food to them until the weather gets cold again.
I am ready for Spring already!
Greetings blogfriends! How are you? I am trying to focus on the positive of this cold and hard winter. I hate cold and i love summer. The hotter the weather the happier i am, which i know it is not something you find often in people. But the winter is almost coming to its end there are a few things that we still get to enjoy. So, i will focus on them.
I love the hot steaming teas and coffees( although to be completely honest i prefer the iced versions of them!). I love the warm clothes and the accesories. I love that i get to hug my husband for long periods of times and spoon with him under the covers. We do not do it as the weather gets hot because he has a very fast metabolism and although he is skinny he sweats like a pig. Even now in the middle of the winter, i hug him and he is often covered in sweat while i am shivering.
I love the mist that covers everything in the night. I love watching the wood burning in the fireplace and listen to the sounds of it. I love watching the trees while they dance to the wind. I love eating food hot from the stove. I love watching my cats sleeping in front of the fire, and putting the pink fluffy coat to my dog, so she can enjoy her walk(she hates the cold too, dreads rain and can't stand snow).
But most importantly i love that the winter is ending!
How about you? What is your favourite thing about winter?
I guess i need a shrink!
I used to enjoy waking up before everyone else and enjoy the day just as she was being born. But then i fell in love with a drummer and if we ever get to go to sleep around 1 am we call ourselves lucky. I need my sleep. 8 hours is the minimum for me. I can not function with less. I can not work with little sleep, because when i am doing a reading i have to be as close to feeling perfect as possible. I tend to overeat when i have n't slept well. Sometimes i get headaches and i am in such a bad mood.
I wonder in what ways our life will change now with the baby. I always wait for Petros to come home from a gig or a rehearsal, or a trip. That is mostly because i can't sleep well without him but also because when Phoebe(the dog!) hears him park the car, she starts running up and down, sobbing from joy, taking down numerous stuff in her path and i eventually wake up. If i wake up in the middle of the night it is extremely difficult for me to get back to sleep, so i choose to stay up and wait for my husband to return patiently. Well, obviously that will have to stop.
It is hard for me not knowing how some things will work. I am a planner. I need to know what is up ahead. It is in my blood. I do a daily reading for me, and a montly one and a yearly one and when something is bothering me, or stresses me out i read my cards many times a day. So, not knowing exactly how things will work is bugging me, the least... I understand that this is one of the things you can not prepare, or anticipate, when you are a first time mom, and that i just have to wait and see, but i have so many questions constantly in my head. How exactly will i be working? Could i have the baby with me in the readings like my mom did? How much Petros's schedule will change? Will he be enough around? Will i need extra help? Will i manage to take next January my diploma or i will just go for a degree and get it over with? Will i bother the baby when i sing? And the biggest one of all.. Will i do a good job? Am i going to be a good mom for her?
So for now all i can do is prepare the best way possible. Make the nursery, baby proof the house, find music for her, plan her wiccaning, work on spells for babies, learn about breastfeeding, learn about babies in general(i know so little, it is scary), find a couple of good pediatricians and well relax.
Today i have been searching for the best dreamcatcher for her crib. I have n't bought the crib yet, but i know which dreamcather i want. I am also working on the best combination of herbs for a peaceful sleep pouch, because until now i have made only ones for prophetic dreams(and that is definitely not peaceful!) .
Wishing you guys lots of luck and love, happiness and magic.
Back on my feet!
Greetings blogfriends. I want to thank you for all your positive wishes, healing thoughts and magick.I am so much better today. No diarrhea, no throbbing throat pain, no being sick to my stomach. If i did n't sound like a baritone and my nose was n't still leaking, i would say the cold is gone. It is amazing what a good sleep can achieve. Yesterday night i was miserable, today i am almost healed, with just the help of some vapor rub and some chamomile tea.
I caught this cold from Petros. He was miserable for almost a week, the poor thing. I took good care of him and now he does too. I did my usual herbal potions with a healing Gaia spell for him and then me. Hopefully this is it for this year. This was my second cold (and Petros's millionth). In the past i used to be miserable with bronchitis, and even some times pneumonias, or in the most usual cases with tonsillitis for almost the whole winter. Until, i stopped using antibiotics. The first time i tried it i ended up with a horrible case of bronchitis so i had to take antibiotics. The second time i tried it, it took me about 15 days to actually heal, but i managed. And then i got sick less and less and last year i got sick just a couple of times and this year the same. This time i even convienced Petros to not take antibiotics, and hopefully he will stop getting sick all the time. I know it sounds crazy that antibiotics make you more vulnerable, but this is what happened to me.Of course now i take vitamin D3 and cod liver oil which are excellent immune boosters but that was n't the case last year.
What do you do to boost your immune system in the winter?
Wishing you wishes of health and strenght.
Big whining baby!
Hi blogfriends! This week did not start the best way possible! I will spare you the details( you are thankful for that trust me!) but i will tell you that i am sick and sort of disgusting! And today i have a very full day work wise and i am trying to get into a functional state. Goddess bless chamomile and honey! This soothes all the things that need soothing in my body right now. Being sick while pregnant gives a whole new meaning into the word miserable. I can't wait to take a shower. Yesterday i could n't because i was shivering.
My husband just asked me if i was telling everybody that i am sick. And i responded that i am whining in an international level. Sorry for that by the way. This sort of negativity does not go well with Monday mornings.
Wish me a fast recovery, plpease, i need your healing enrgies!
Love potion!
Greetings dear blogfriends! How are you? I am surviving this day so far just fine. You see i am sugar free for some time now and a big chocolate junkie so this day was supposed to be hard. But till now neither my husband or any friends caused a chocolate invasion, so everything is manageable!
Down to business. There is a love potion that i think i have n't shared with you already that my great grandmom showed my mom. It is like a mulled wine recipe.
You will put in a pot two glasses of red wine, two teaspoons of honey, two cloves, two cinnamon sticks, two nutmegs and the peel of an orange in two pieces. You will stir while you visualise an ideal(hot!) moment between you and the person you want. When it comes to a boil you withdraw it from the fire. And here comes the grewsome part, but feel free to skip it. You take a long needle and you pierce your left index finger and let two drops of blood fall into the wine, while you chant, we share now the blood of my heart(for like a gazillion times!). You then drain the liquid and put it in the refrigerator to cool. You can serve it like a sangria with apple cubes.
This is supposed to be made under the full moon and given to the object of your love on the same night(each person drinks its own glass of course). But hell it is Vday and this stuff is yummy so go ahead and have some. It has afrodisiac qualities. It brings mostly lust and passion, excellent for a cold February night, don't you think?
Have lots of (safe) fun tonight!
Solomon's Seal
Good morning blogland. I want to thank everybody yesterday for all the help. I managed to delete over 40 blogs. I checked most of them but in case i deleted any blog of your own that is indeed active please let me know because i did by mistake. I am very happy that i can find now over 40 new blogfriends. I love to hunt down new blogs to love and people to stalk! Anyone scared yet?
New moon is coming in 3 days(February 10) and i can not wait for that. There is a lot of cleansing to be done and then 4 pieces of Solomon 's Seal(polygonatum) will be put in the four corners of the house, to replace the old ones. I have n't done that in over two years, maybe more. This will protect the house, but before the pieces are put in place, the house must be clean and cleansed. After that it feels like a protective bubble. When people come into my house they do not want to leave. They feel serene and calm and many have described the feeling like being in a small church. Especially for my clients that i see in my office, it is a time to breath freely and regroup. I like the fact that people feel so nice here, but sometimes i have hard time to stay within the limits of time of each appointment, and see everyone in time.
One of the reasons that my house needs all this cleansing is the amount of people that come in it. Everyone enters here with a specific set of problems and sorrows, things to fix, relationships to mend and emotions to release. Although energies are supposed to be exchanged it is important that they do not get stuck in my place, and that both the home and i are protected. So, i do a lot of smudging, water spells, salt spells, rituals, prayers and i burn various incenses. It seems excessive but it is really not.
So, if you feel the need to protect your home or even workspace, smudge while chanting an incantation you prefer for cleansing and then set four pieces of Solomon's Seal on the four corners of your place. Go deosil starting from the East, and hide the first piece there, somewhere that it is not in danger of being thrown away, vaccumed, or seen( it does n't matter if it a bit in the South side, or in the North. It is not easy to make a perfact square in a house. Then put the second in the South, the next in the West(or West-ish) and the last in the North corner of the house. Solomon's seal can also be a part of powerful talismans and it has great protective qualities. If you are not familiar with it yet, find some. I am sure you will love it.
Be blessed, be lucky , be smart and be charmed!
Love ya!!
Question to blogfriends..
Hey you guys.. Do you remember the old blogger, that it was easy and fast and everything was logical? You wanted to follow a blog? There you had it, easy! You wanted to leave a comment, there you had it, without a gazillion numbers to type that made you dizzy! The old days, you could manage easily the blogs you followed, now there is only a sad little add button. The thing is that this way there are many blogs that are n't active anymore and since there is n't a follow button on their sites i am stuck with them. That wwould n't be a problem if i have n't already reached the maximum amount of blogs to follow(300). Do any of you know if there is still a way with the new blogger to manage your blogs???
Hugs and kisses!
Spring cleaning- Imbolc
Hey blogpeople!! Don't you just love it when the Sun shines brightly and kicks you in the ass and off the sofa? Right now, i am typing this from a sofa but that is not the point. Since i bacame preggers and doc told me i had to rest, all the chores i was in charge of, became part of poor Petros's never ending to do list. Now if he was a woman he would end up over stressed, sleep deprived with a fully accomplished to do list.
Since he is a man, he was stress free, well rested and with a full room of clolthes that need washing, that he probably figured out i will get on to as soon as i have the baby. You probably think i am exaggerating about a room full of clothes and for that reason i am very sorry i did n't take a before picture! Just imagine that at some point my wonderful husband went out and bought himself some new clothes. If it was n't for clean underwear and my constant nagging he would n't have used the washing mashine at all these months. Well, to actually get to my point, last Friday the Sun shined brightly and the weather was n't as horrible as it was before, so reluctantly i begun washing clothes and towels, sheets and blankets and various other things. I pulled my back, a stomach muscle and a nerve in my arm, and although it is Tuesday and the poor washer did n't have a break yet, i still have a lot to go. I have clothes drying in the most weird of places and the whole house looks like a refuggee camp, but i am happy. I also cleaned up the kitchen, and went through most of our stuff, with an ending result of bags full of things to donate, recycle and throw away. Of course, as it always happens in those cases the house looks much worse than it did before, and i look like i was hit by a train, but i feel so much calmer.
Imbolc came with the promise of spring. Not just the promise of a better weather but an actual openness in our hearts and souls. I could feel the energies shifting, as they always do inside me and changing course from an introvert spiral to an extrovert one. That being said, since i was so busy, i did n't see any of my friends yet. But i decluttered not just my house but my soul as well. If i could just stop eating i would feel perfect. Imbolc came and i thought it would be nice to celebrate with a pudding(since it is dairy) which i ate(inhaled) and i have n't stopped eating since. My ever expanding belly is growing in an unnatural way. I look like i am ready to pop and i am only in my 6th month. But i loved celebrating this holiday while pregnant. The feeling of my baby kicking while i am in the middle of a ritual is undescribable. Although, it is sometimes surprisingly difficult to center or ground yourself, because of all the new energies, it is wonderful to do anything magical in this condition. You have so much more love to give and you care more deeply than before for everything around you and when this transforms into magical energies, it is a fantastic sensation.
I did a lot of cleansing. I used all the elements and casted various spells , because it was much needed. There is still one more to do but i am waiting for the new moon. It is a three day spell of cleansing and protection , in the form of return to sender spells. I do not do spells like that often, but when an injustice has occured those sorts of spells are the only ones that can rid you of these energies. Someone stole from my wallet. It was only 50 euros, but nothing brings bad luck as if when someone steals from you. I always thought that was not fair, but it is the universe's way to alarm you to protect yourself. I am not being vindictive although when i first realised it i was pretty pissed, but we are all responsible for our actions and the energies we release into the cosmos.
Be blessed my loves, be happy and feel the Spring coming towards us.


text:
If you're currently planning a wedding, have ever planned a wedding, or have ever helped someone plan a wedding, you know how many paper products are involved not only in the days leading up to the
We have a number of articles focusing on the importance of making one's work environment better for the health of employees and the planet, but there are always new actions and measures being thought
If you have an older dishwasher model built before 1994, you could be using more than 15 gallons of water per cycle. And when 80 percent of the machine's energy goes to heating the water, that machine
There's a fragrance-laden personal product men use every day that exposes users to skin allergies, neurological disorders, and respiratory issues: aftershave. While aftershave generally contains
Since the answer to this eco-debate isn't as black and white as simply taking all RVs off the road, RV campers must do as much as possible to diminish their impact on the environment. After all,
More and more carpet manufacturers are focusing on the environmental impact of their product and are developing new products and materials that will one day make carpet recycling possible. But for now
When we purchase camping products made with recycled material and natural fibers like hemp, cotton, coconut husks, and bamboo, we are reducing our dependency on non-renewable oil products and lessen
Bike frames made of bamboo might sound weird, but it actually makes a lot of sense when you find out that bamboo has a higher tensile strength than steel and is extremely absorbent of vibrations and
Old guitar strings are usually thrown out so to help cut down on destructive metal mining and the tons of metal disposed of annually, ChasingGreen decided to do some research on how guitar strings can


text: This dynamic piece is just the thing for an on-the-go outdoorsman or handyman. The twelve-function multi-tool comes equipped for any occasion. Nestled safely inside a case crafted of solid American Cherry, the foam inserts keep the multi-tool well protected. The inserts are removable to make the box useful for a variety of other things as well like holding small tools, collectibles, or parts. This box measures three inches by four inches.


text:
Miles Netsch
TERRIL – Funeral services for Miles Netsch, 94, of Terril will be held at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013, at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Terril with Pastor David Doellinger officiating. Visitation will be 4-7 p.m. Friday at Henry-Olson Funeral Chapel in Estherville. Interment will be at Fairview Cemetery in Terril.
He died Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, at Prairie View Home in Sanborn.
Miles Ernest Netsch, the son of Ernest and Hilda (Mether) Netsch, was born July 19, 1919, in Logan. He completed his education in the Logan Schools.
On Jan. 18, 1942, Miles was united in marriage to Edith Pedersen in Terril. The couple made their home in the Terril area and raised their family. Miles was engaged in farming and owned a fuel bulk plant, gas station and a repair shop. Later he was employed as a salesman. In his leisure time he enjoyed woodworking.
He was a member of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Terril where he served on various church boards and was an Elder. Miles was also a past member of the Terril School Board.
Left to cherish Miles' memory are his wife, Edith, of Sanborn; children, Robert Netsch and his wife, Pat, of Spirit Lake; Barbara Ansorge and her husband, Robert, of Storm Lake; Richard Netsch and his wife, Terresa, of Milford; Roger Netsch and his wife, Susan, of Indianola; Kenneth Netsch and his wife, Annette, of Milford; 11 grandchildren; 15 great-grandchildren; one great-great-grandchild; brothers, Clifford Netsch and his wife, Shirley, of Mountain Lake, Minn. and Paul Netsch and his wife, Diane, of Spirit Lake and many nieces and nephews.
Preceding Miles in death were his parents; sister, Lois; brother-in-law, Karol Kersten and sister-in-law, Velma Netsch. Online condolences may be sent to www.henryolsonfuneral.com


text:
I'm having trouble with this specific problem at the moment. The theorem states that if $n/m$ is a rational root of a polynomial with integer coefficients, the leading coefficient is divisible by m and the free coefficient is divisible by n.
Using this theorem, I'm supposed to prove that $ \sqrt{1 + \sqrt[3]{2}} $ is irrational. I don't have any idea where to start on this one.
Any help or hints are appreciated.


text:
If you are a wealth manager who evaluates and invests in private ventures on behalf of your clients, you can bet that startup entrepreneurs and issuers will find a way to your door. This is certainly good for deal flow, but unsolicited inbound venture pitches can put a strain on your time unless you properly manage the process.
In last month's column, I shared an efficient and effective script for advisors to screen unsolicited private venture investment opportunities. (See "Five Questions to End Unsolicited Deals," Investment Advisor, April 2012.) Schedule permitting, I suggested that you give the entrepreneur five minutes of your time to hear the opportunity, in a manner that you control, in the form of five questions:
- What's your elevator pitch?
- What is your competitive edge?
- How will you make money?
- How big is the opportunity?
- Why is your team capable of pulling this off?
If the answers to these questions resonate with you, you'll likely want to take a closer look, but you still should retain control of the conversation and the subsequent due diligence by clearly identifying the items that you wish to see next.
Rather than fall into the "send me something and I will take a look" trap, make a specific request that the entrepreneur send you the following 10 items:
- A 1–3 page executive summary.
- Detailed biographies for the founders and key employees.
- The deck that is used to introduce the company to prospective investors.
- The marketing deck that is used for business development.
- A summary history of the company's capitalization to date, including the dates, amounts and terms of each round of funding.
- The three closest competitors to the business model.
- The three most recent clients or the company's first three client targets (if pre-revenue).
- Revenue history to date.
- A one-page narrative that provides more specifics with respect to the company's sustainable edge, unique differentiators or competitive advantages.
- Please don't include anything else, but put this all in a single PDF.
As one who subscribes to the notion that it is better to invest in an "A" team with a "B" idea than a "B" team with an "A" idea, the deeper dive into the background of the founders and key employees is critical. The capitalization history provides a meaningful time line and indication of contemplated valuation. The marketing deck for business development should convey the clarity of the company's value proposition to its market, and a substantive response to item No. 9 is material to the success of any venture.
The single PDF is a time saver that enables you to print out or pull up one single document when you get around to reviewing the opportunity.
Invariably, the entrepreneur will ask you for more time to talk by phone or in person to provide background or color with respect to the history of his company or some of the items that you requested. Avoid this time trap. Your review of these 10 items will determine if a follow-up conversation is in order. Similarly, don't accept his offer to include the offering documents as there is simply no immediate reason to review them at such an early stage of due diligence. Finally, if the entrepreneur asks you to sign a non-disclosure agreement—don't. That request illustrates his naiveté and is a waste of your time.
If after receiving and reviewing these 10 items you continue to be interested in the proposed opportunity, in due course you will request financials, the capitalization table, a summary of intellectual property, a detailed use of proceeds, term sheet and full offering memorandum and subscription agreement. Controlling the process will save you time and produce better due diligence.


text:
EDITORIAL: Superstorm Sandy's big bill isn't only shock
On Tuesday, the House approved another $50 billion for expenses related to Hurricane Sandy.
Assuming the Senate signs on, that would bring the total federal lawmakers have authorized for Sandy relief to about $60 billion, and that might not be the last of it.
Americans have all sorts of reasons to be shocked.
They should be shocked at the scale of the storm's damage, of which this is another reminder. It's not clear how much human-induced global warming contributed to last year's superstorm. But seas are rising, and higher seas mean higher surges during big storms. As climate change continues, natural disasters will almost certainly become more common, more severe or both.
We should also be shocked at how much the federal government might spend. Congress just got through a nasty battle over the Bush tax cuts, and the result of that acrimonious debate was about $60 billion annually in new revenue. Now lawmakers are proposing to spend $60 billion outside the normal budget process and, barring a last-minute change, without sacrificing elsewhere to finance it. Despite intemperate howls from Northeastern lawmakers, the House was right to take some time to examine the package and to scrub from it some of the more egregious spending provisions in the Senate version.
Finally, Americans should be shocked that lawmakers still haven't reformed the slapdash way Congress deals with disasters. The claim that those future big storms have on federal funds is potentially massive -- $10 to $25 billion in a normal year and $80 to $170 billion in a bad one, according to a 2010 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research that, with the help of the New York Federal Reserve and The Post's Brad Plumer, has been circulating recently. Though costs are hard to predict, Congress should at least budget disaster-assistance money upfront to the greatest extent possible and through the normal appropriations process, where the spending trade-offs are clearer and lawmakers don't have to legislate under the duress of emergency.
Increasingly, too, Congress has been investing in infrastructure upgrades as part of disaster relief, under the compelling logic that spending some money to prepare now will head off much higher costs later. Lawmakers have considered doing the same in the Sandy recovery effort. That worthy goal, though, deserves the rational structure of a long-term plan that assesses how much the country can afford to protect and determines where to invest, instead of being tacked here and there to disaster-relief bills. Among other things, a coherent strategy would discourage Americans from building in vulnerable areas the government is unlikely to protect.
Congress is set to be consumed with unrelated budget battles over the next year. But lawmakers' decisions about disaster relief significantly affect lives, property and the federal balance sheet. They can't pass the Sandy package and forget about it.
Editorial from The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com.


text:
Bronx Eats: The Bruckner Bar and Grill After Sandy
The building that houses the Bruckner Bar and Grill sits at the edge of the Bronx, in a corner of the borough that is, in the cultural lexicon, more commonly associated with The Bonfire of the Vanities than omelets and art. To get there, you must walk under the Major Deegan to a busy intersection in a desolate neighborhood. There is a motorcycle shop called Master Cycle next door, and a feeling of isolation in the air. In Williamsburg, they would call this an ideal location. In a borough saturated with unsavory dive bars and little else in the way of nightlife, it has become something of an enclave for those who still believe in the promise of what the Bronx was meant to be.
Originally opened in 1999, the Bruckner was taken over by current owner Alex Abeles in 2006. Local art now hangs on the walls. It is likely the only bar south of East 161st Street serving the Macallan. Michael Max Knobbe, a Kingsbridge-native and executive director of public television channel BronxNet, remembers events hosted by former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion and seeing friends like Bill Aguado of the Bronx Council on the Arts and musicians from Los Plenaros 21 there.
"Community events and receptions began to take place there. Sometimes I would see gatherings of municipal workers, or a meeting of urban planners," Knobbe told me. "You could see it was thrilling for a lot people attending and being at this place for the first time because there was a sense that this was part of something special and fresh springing forth in the South Bronx."
The Bruckner was not in a flood zone, but the water came anyways. Joseph Diaz, the general manager, told me that none of the other buildings in the area were damaged. But the bar's location below sea level did it in. The flooding was intense, though not so much as in southern Brooklyn, and was complicated by the presence of an adjacent sewer pipe. In the basement—where they kept their dry storage, office, kitchen, wine cellar, liquor cabinet, and kegs—the water rose to eleven feet during the storm. On Monday, six feet of water remained. Everything was lost, tarnished by the surging waters of the Harlem River.
The salt line left by the flood on the front door was lower, roughly three feet high. But they will have to rip out the floors nonetheless. Although most of the cleanup has already been done and the bar has already been closed for a week, they will be not open for another two. Diaz, who previously was a server at Dinosaur BBQ and had joined the restaurant six months ago, is organizing a fundraiser to help support his employees. He knows, from personal experience, how they cannot afford to miss so much work. As of Monday, the Bruckner is still without power. The dining room was stripped of its contents, the kitchen equipment and tables pushed back into the performance space.
Diaz estimates that they lost roughly $20,000 in inventory. Half of that in food, another $6,000 to $7,000 in beer, and another $3,000 in liquor. We did not talk about the losses they will incur from the lack of business. But he did tell me that they had just gotten a shipment of beer in Wednesday, that they sell $3000-4000 worth of beer, $10,000-12,000 in food, and $6,000-8,000 in liquor a week.
"The loss, which we hope is only temporary, is a big one for the community. For years it has been a Bronx favorite in an area that for some time lacked great places to eat and grab a drink," Ed García Conde, the author of the Welcome2Melrose blog and the neighborhood's "unofficial mayor," wrote in an email. "But the loss isn't just about an eatery but, really, a place many call their second home. Bruckner Bar and Grill serves as a cultural spot where regulars are more like family than just friends.* They opened during a time in our local history where people thought they were crazy and that it wouldn't last. But the neighborhood proved everyone wrong."
* Emphasis added.
Bruckner Bar and Grill
1 Bruckner Boulevard, Bronx, NY 10454 (map)
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


text:
St. Patrick's Day ski deals available on NH slopes
Some tickets at many resorts available for just $17
St. Patrick's Day is Sunday this year, and that means $17 lift tickets are available at Waterville Valley, Attitash and Wildcat.
Also offering a special deal is Bretton Woods, where if you show up wearing green, one person pays a full-price ticket and the other gets his or her ticket for $17.
Granite Gorge in Keene also has a similar deal of buy one ticket at regular price and get the second for $17. They are hosting their Spring Bash and Pond Skim at that time as well, so it should be a fun day there.
Often, St. Patrick's Day deals are on weekdays and often, there is not much snow left for those taking advantage of the deals.
This year is very different with all ski areas in the area having a ton of snow.
Wildcat, for example, has had over 175 inches of snow this year.
So, get your work done on Saturday and pack the car for a fun and inexpensive day on the slopes before the season is over.
Paula Tracy writes about the outdoors for wmur.com and can be reached at email@example.com.


text:
Last year was the Year of the Deal in life sciences. There were 43 U.S. healthcare initial public offerings (IPO), triple the number in 2012. There were 60 mergers and acquisitions (M&A), with the average deal size 49 percent larger than the previous year's. And according to FTI Consulting's fourth annual Life Sciences Investment Survey, investors expect the party to continue in 2014.
But before you pop the champagne, regulators are scrutinizing many life sciences transactions to sniff out those done solely for the purpose of tax avoidance. Meanwhile, investors are asking more questions, activists are stirring the pot and a consolidating payer base is continuing to bring new challenges to product marketing.
In the wake of the survey, summarized here, FTI Consulting convened a panel of life sciences investment experts to review the prospects and challenges in 2014 for companies and investors in Big Pharma, biotech and specialty pharma. The panelists included:
Judy Brown, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Perrigo Company, a leading global healthcare company and the world's largest manufacturer of over-the-counter pharmaceutical products.
Tom Crawford, Senior Managing Director, Strategic Communications at FTI Consulting. Based in Washington, D.C., he advises boards of directors, executive teams and senior decision makers on public-policy issues.
Alan Hartman, Partner in Centerview Partners, a leading investment banking and advisory firm providing advice on mergers and acquisitions, financial restructurings, valuation and capital structure to companies, institutions and governments.
Barbara Ryan, Managing Director, Strategic Communications at FTI Consulting, and panel moderator. Based in New York, she has more than 30 years of Wall Street experience as a sell-side research analyst covering the biopharmaceutical industry.
Here are their perspectives.
BARBARA RYAN: 2013 certainly was the Year of the Deal from the standpoint of collaborations and mergers and acquisitions, as well as initial public offerings. Life sciences investors are expecting even more of these deals this year. Alan, what are your clients saying?
ALAN HARTMAN: Life sciences is split into three subsectors: Big Pharma, Big Biotech and a broad category of specialty pharma/generic companies, which is where most of the deals last year and so far this year have taken place. We've seen much less activity in the first two sectors except in their non-life sciences portfolios such as consumer and animal health. Big Pharma companies are less willing to do transactions and have less firepower today due to the hefty dividends they must pay and because much of their cash is offshore.
On the other hand, companies in the specialty pharma area want to diversify their product lines. Many started off making one or two products and now want to handle more, and the market likes that. The fact that these specialty pharma companies have the ability to use cash, have greater risk tolerance and are driven by the need to supplement their small internal R&D [research and development] actually puts them in a better position than Big Pharma to do mergers and acquisitions. So that's where the vast majority of deals have happened, and they've been incredibly well-received. That fuels more activity because the investor base seems to want more and more transactions.
BARBARA RYAN: You raised a good point about dividends. The Pfizers of the world have been pushed to pay out more than 70 percent of their free cash to shareholders, who are demanding even more.
One big winner in today's environment has been Perrigo, which started out at $115 a share last year and currently is about $170. Judy, can you talk about Perrigo and its strategy as a potential future acquirer in this environment?
JUDY BROWN: In the last several years, Perrigo has been doing many acquisitions. The Perrigo story has been built on a combination of a lot of M&A and strong organic growth — 17 transactions over the last five years. Most of them were small acquisitions of similar businesses or those located in geographic areas where we want to expand. But our most recent one – Elan – is what I call a "super charger." This deal has changed the game for us. It increases our cash flow and puts us in a better situation tax-wise. That means we can think differently about the size and types of transactions we could undertake. Having a footprint in Ireland signals our intentionto grow internationally.
Because of the Elan acquisition, we now are an Irish company. That gives us more flexibility in where we deploy cash and how we invest globally. To Alan's point, we are being proactive in this large cap growth phase in creating the kind of financial balance sheet flexibility that we will need going forward.
BARBARA RYAN: Tom, I know that you and Judy have worked together on Washington tax policy issues and collaborated on the Perrigo-Elan deal. Because Perrigo essentially relocated its tax headquarters from Michigan to Ireland, let's talk about how U.S. tax policies are driving inversion and why companies are relocating to another country to avoid our tax structure. It's a very current and controversial subject.
TOM CRAWFORD: Companies around the world are competing for markets in the United States and elsewhere. They're facing global challenges related to revenues, struggling economies, jobs and the inability to provide services. For companies that want to expand to a specific country, sometimes the easiest strategy is to try to capture an enterprise that's already there.
Of course, people today are outraged about organizations that invest overseas solely to avoid paying taxes, especially following the economic collapse. However, companies like Perrigo are in a different category. Perrigo was based in the United States for 126 years and enjoyed a mid-80 percent market share in its space. It wanted to grow and had a business proposition — in terms of consumer cost and healthcare — that would provide value around the world. Instead of talking about inversion, the company made a strong business case for relocation. Top executives talked about international growth: having a platform, being able to export homegrown expertise and supporting its activities in the United States. Management has been vocal about how U.S. tax policy causes problems but also showed why the Elan strategy would make Perrigo a stronger company and benefit its U.S. operations and employees. Judy testified in front of the House Ways and Means Committee when very few companies were willing to do so.
Because of this strong narrative, Perrigo has escaped the criticism that frequently comes when companies move the headquarters overseas. Businesses need to be proactive about building relationships and helping the public understand what the company wants to do and why. Organizations spend too much time thinking about the deal and forget to talk about who they are, what they're about and where they're going. Policymakers are not looking to crucify companies that explain themselves and have a rationale for what they're doing, but the government will come down hard on those who try to arbitrage the system for a tax benefit.
BARBARA RYAN: Alan, if you look at the IPO climate today, companies that want to strengthen their pipeline clearly have more options. (In the past, the only choice was to go to Big Pharma and strike a deal or be acquired.) That must make the M&A landscape for Big Pharma much more expensive and challenging.
ALAN HARTMAN: The IPO market is white hot for companies in oncology, rare diseases and other specialty areas. These companies can attract capital without partnering with Big Pharma. In the rare disease area, a lot of people wonder whether Big Pharma is even useful if the peak sales of a product will be $300 million, $200 million or perhaps as low as $50 million in some cases.
This is not what Big Pharma is looking for. More than 90 percent of the deals that have happened over the last five years have been for marketed drugs. So for Big Pharma, which is struggling to cut its own R&D budget, it doesn't make sense to take on another R&D-based project. This could force the head of R&D to cut some program he's just told the CEO [chief executive officer] is critical. That's a very difficult thing to do and pay a purchase price at the same time.
Such deals face a tough dynamic in today's environment. It may be easier for Big Biotech to do — the Celgenes of the world that have more R&D space in their budget for external deals than Big Pharma does today. Investors also have changed their attitude about diversification. If I go back almost 10 years, when we put Biogen and Idec together in a merger, many investors said, "Hmm, I don't really like that. I could have bought Biogen; I could have bought Idec. I would have moved back and forth between them. You don't need to diversify for me." But today's investors want diversification. They understand how all these interrelated factors — different assets coming in, others going off patent, new clinical trials, etc. — bring greater stability to capital markets. For a huge chunk of companies, the market is saying, "We'd like you to be bigger. We'd like you to be diversified. We think there's real value in that."
Taxes: The Elephant in the Room
BARBARA RYAN: Tom, let's go back to the elephant in the room: U.S. tax policy. What should we be thinking about?
TOM CRAWFORD: We need to think about two aspects of tax policy: R&D incentives and the treatment of intellectual property [IP]. Regarding R&D, there's a movement around the world to try to capture innovation. The R&D tax credit in the United States has become very cumbersome, with a complex structure and lots of audit issues. Many want to replace it with some form of alternate, simplified credit or a system that makes getting a credit for investments much easier.
Another problem is that many of the leading U.S.-based innovators don't have any revenues yet. I represent the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and I handle capital formation policy for the group. What we're trying to do is reintroduce structures like the R&D partnerships from the early '80s, which yielded a lot of significant developments. Amgen came out of one of those partnerships and was successful in turning molecules into cures and therapies. The idea is to allow these pre-revenue companies to pass their losses along to their investors so there's an immediate yield as opposed to having to wait a long time for a return on investment.
We also are competing with other countries that offer incentives for businesses to create intellectual property, which adds good jobs and spurs economic growth. Places like China will pay for infrastructure. In this competitive global landscape, U.S. tax reform has to focus on what our economy will look like in the future.
Even more controversial than inversion is IP migration. This means you develop IP here in the United States and then export it to some low-tax or tax-haven jurisdiction. Sometimes you can structure a scenario in which 100 percent of your revenues are in the United States, but it's all booked abroad, thus avoiding tax here. That has provoked a very negative response to pharma in particular even though it's legal.
But it might not be for long. The OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development], the European Union and the G20 all are working on new rules. Companies that want to be in a jurisdiction for tax purposes would have to demonstrate that it's not solely for the purpose of avoiding or minimizing tax. The company must have boots on the ground, or facilities, or some sort of management presence in its declared jurisdiction. The OECD has rules out right now for country-by-country reporting. That's the first step in gathering the information that you need in order to be able to go out and attack IP in the strategies and structures that companies are using.
The United States recently put out a very aggressive proposal that effectively says if you're not managed and controlled in a given jurisdiction, you can't be taxed there. This proposal is not retroactive so it doesn't affect companies that already have established themselves in a foreign jurisdiction.
The OECD effort that I'm talking about is a direct reaction to Amazon, Apple, Google and Starbucks. The Minister for Finance of Ireland told us, "I'm going to keep our Irish rate — we're not going to give that up. But I'm going to call the bad guys in and tell them you have to get right or you're getting out." This new attitude is spurring change around the world, and deals that appear to be made for tax purposes only are going to have trouble.
JUDY BROWN: While those of us in life sciences have worked with the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] for many years, we now must be mindful of these changing tax policies worldwide and understand how they may affect companies' R&D and IP strategies. Management teams must take this into consideration when making long-term investment decisions. As Tom pointed out earlier, you have to have a narrative and you have to think about long term implications of your investment decisions in various jurisdictions.
The Activist Investor
BARBARA RYAN: Let's talk about activist investors and their impact on capital markets. Even those who were not traditionally activists now are investing more purposefully. How is this changing the conversations and motivations among your clients?
ALAN HARTMAN: Activism in the life sciences space has proved to create exceedingly good investments for the Carl Icahns of the world. Two prime examples are Genzyme and MedImmune. Both companies sold quickly and reinforced the activist view that Big Pharma should own biotech. A lot of activist investors continue to have that opinion, though it hasn't really panned out — but sometimes they get lucky, as Icahn did. He was in Biogen when, all of a sudden, it discovered BG-12 [an oral multiple sclerosis treatment]. He deserves credit for being in the stock for a better part of five years, but the new management team also merits kudos.
I think it's hard to overestimate the importance of activists. When they show up, they are incredibly successful at forcing change. It may not be immediate — that's the surprise. It may take a year or two or three, and it may require one or two or three meetings, depending on the situation. Patient activist investors in healthcare can enjoy returns that, frankly, sometimes are off the charts.
BARBARA RYAN: I think the most obvious defense is a good offense: maintaining a high multiple, which means the market thinks you're doing lots of things right.
JUDY BROWN: You also must go on the offensive by communicating continually. The conversation doesn't necessarily have to be about the stock price — which goes up and down. In today's activist environment, we must strive for transparency: Disclose more, not less; take every phone call. There are no dumb questions from any current or future shareholder. We want them to feel that if they have an issue or a question, they can come to us.
Shaping the Narrative
BARBARA RYAN: Companies no longer are the sole source of information. Shareholders will talk with your competitors. They'll talk with people in Washington, and they'll talk with regulators — and with anyone and everyone. Alan, are more companies feeling as if their shareholder communications are falling short?
ALAN HARTMAN Companies today are definitely more sophisticated in their investor communications. They think about it, learn from others' mistakes and strive to be proactive. But it's hard for me as an advisor to say to a senior executive, "You need to communicate more," when that obviously takes away from the attention needed to running the company. Some shareholders expect free access to the CEO and CFO [chief financial officer] and complain if the investor relations guy is the highest level of contact. But as operations become more global, CEOs and CFOs will have many more demands on their time and may not be able to deal directly with shareholders as much as shareholders would like.
Everybody is clamoring to know about a company's next big deal. They want to know because they are anxious. In essence, a possible transaction presents a lot of unknowns. So the more positive a company sounds about doing a deal, the more positive the stock will be rewarded in the short term. It's a unique moment in time and doesn't last very long.
Ultimately, even great-sounding strategies and well-explained transactions can fail to deliver. Maybe the operations become just too diverse and can't be run especially well. This eventually will happen to some organizations, and then it will be much more important to distinguish why Company X, Y or Z is different. If your strategy depends upon the equity multiple in order to continue to do deals, your cost of debt is important as well so it's crucial that the market have confidence in your strategy.
JUDY BROWN: Companies have long-term shareholders, many of whom invest with a three-to-five year horizon and only want to talk about the overall growth rate and what the balance sheet is going to look like five years from now. Other equally valuable investors are short-term and are in and out of the stock more frequently. For them, an announcement merely implies that you're willing to do a deal as opposed to the deal itself. It's hard to satisfy both kinds of investors.
But, as they say, I love all my children equally. You know that they each have different needs and desires, and, therefore, you try to treat everyone fairly and consistently — but don't change your story. Consistent, constant communication is key.
Other Perspectives
BARBARA RYAN: What should we all be thinking about in 2014?
TOM CRAWFORD: I would mention one dynamic that we haven't touched upon: Buyers seem to be consolidating. Distributors are going global and are combining — at least on the purchasing side — with retailers and others. This may impact revenue growth rates and pricing. It hasn't yet affected organizations' financials, but there certainly are a lot of companies looking at the issue.
BARBARA RYAN: I've recently been on the road talking with life sciences companies that are in the development stage of going public. In every meeting, management and investors alike are discussing not only the science itself and what that means but also the commercial strategy and how that is going to resonate with payers for reimbursement.
JUDY BROWN: The FDA's movement toward switching a greater number of prescription drugs to over-the-counter is putting more and more healthcare in the hands of patients and consumers. This trend of proactive personal health and wellness will create opportunities for some players and close doors for others.
TOM CRAWFORD: I would follow very closely the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The emerging discussion about pharma and biotech is whether or not healthcare reform lowers or increases the cost curve. If costs increase dramatically, people will blame it on the cost of drugs and will put extra pressure on reimbursement and coding practices. There also is a very big trend toward generic. As healthcare costs continue to rise, pharma will be an easy target. This is ancillary to all these other tax policy and business matters, but I think it's a big issue.
BARBARA RYAN: Thank you all for your perspectives.


text:
Review: THE TREESOME CAFÉ
Here, in rocking Versova ( Oooh! I love Versova) I am bopping around the globe in the ten day old "The Treesome Café". While the food itinerary is not coherent, the trip is a lot of fun. As our my Versovite guests. Foodies to the core (one is a budding chef) they not only love checking out new restaurants but also live next door to this one. It's a fun yet inspirational evening, as in these selfish and materialistic times, it is a joy to meet selfless crusaders.
Be it the lovely Natasha Sara owner of an eclectic hair studio (which combines hair fashion with spiritual wellbeing guidance for body mind spirit) Or her friend and brilliant criminal lawyer Suman Prasad. Together, for the past three years, they have taken on the welfare of an abandoned old lady in Versova. The crusading twosome is doing this through the law and government in order to help many other senior citizens in this similar plight. Having trained as a chef, Asmita Prasad gives us her culinary insights to the food here. They all live close by and are sure to be regulars at this new Versova Cafe.
Pleasant. A fairly small, boxed in airconditioned area and an alfresco one (total of 1300 sq ft) are done up in casual, relaxed style. Two bars, exposed industrial- pipes look and tree mural on the wall complete the décor.
Be prepared to get your tastebuds assaulted, cajoled and seduced.Many a bar-bite and very few main courses serve up desi-global innovative flavors. South Indian masala infuses the delicious Rajnikanth omelette, while the butterchicken gives a spicy charge to the bland risotto.Unerringly cooked plump garlic Barcelona prawns, thermidor sauce drenched grilled fish delight. Flavorsome Goan prawn curry, chicken cafreal and must try Kheema pav too. Innovatively plated on trays made of grey slate (the dish of yummy baby burgers is served under a bird cage. Pl see pic). Many a creative cocktail, try the chatpatta Jamun mojito.
Uncomfy seating, big, fat sofas crammed into a small indoor space. Not enough vegetarian options (I am told they are adding to the veggie menu) Indie steak (paneer and dal makhani) is a mish mash, the bhel lacks zing and the so called Maldivian fish cake Bokiba is lackluster and avoidable. Chewy Chicken
Gangnam Style ( served skewered in four fluted glasses). Stodgy Shroom cupcakes and the pizza base not crisp enough. No beef and only one pork dish. No desserts on the menu.
Open through the day, Treesome café (named after the fig tree outside) is more of a bar ( many an innovative cocktail) with many a bar bite. Although the menu has weak spots, with a few dishes not from the heart but from a marketing plan, the gifted chef Rohan DSouza's (who has worked with Marco Pierre White) cooking is exuberant and reflects a steady, precise hand.
It's mostly a mix of pubgrub stalwarts comfort foods, pizzas, burgers, bhel, kheema pao et al, creatively served (sometimes over the top). Beyond bits of mild nonsense and odd affectation are real merit and considerable merriment. Three cheers! Tree cheers!
THE TREESOME CAFE Jewel Shopping Centre,
Seven Bungalows, Andheri Ph 60020202
Open noon to 1.30 am
Meal for two: Rs 2000
Wow! Each one of you has made such insightful and relevant remarks (on instagram and twitter) that I wish I could print them all. Sorry space constraints.
(Butterchicken risotto…
Ultimate indo-italian soul food)
mariyakach ( Rajnikant masala omlette is the yummiest. Great ambiance and food)
(YummmmYummmmYummmm…. And full of tasty fluff)
(Can eat yummiest Omlette and burger anytime of the day) @mansidavda
(Tasty Cupcake Shrooms , Orange & Lemon Grass Cooler)
(Great place!! Amazing food )
The opinion was divided about the presentation (esp bird cage) many found it gimmicky, too loud, others loved it.
@meghasarin @chicorychai@ekazloveatfirstbite
@cookingfiesta1 @ila_ii@ankitawagle
Thanks for your feedback @karanrajkohli @riotofflavours
@ankitawagle @simranimita @rajvi85
@pereiraaaron@d_diane@the_locamojo @shunzie
@dubai_fo0d @arunkatiyar
value your feedback. Instagram and twitter @rashmiudaysingh mail firstname.lastname@example.com. Waitingly yours.


text:
Teen, 19, dies from cookie with peanut oil
Teen had acute, fatal reaction to peanut oil
A family and community are in mourning after the sudden death of a 19-year-old college student in Plymouth.
Cameron Groezinger Fitzpatrick, 19, died on Friday of a peanut allergy after eating a cookie offered to him by a friend who didn't realize it contained peanut oil or peanut butter.
Fitzpatrick's parents said they do not blame the friend.
"It just was given to them and they thought it was safe to have it. He inquired a few times: do you think it's alright to eat it? You don't smell peanut butter or anything. But somebody who doesn't have nut allergies wouldn't necessarily know," Robin Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick was a freshman at Bryant University and had just made the Dean's List.
His stepfather, Marc Fitzpatrick, said family and friends are shocked.
"He ate peanut oil and it took his life. I shoved peanut butter down my throat like it's nothing. It's so amazing that it can do that to somebody," he said.
Fitzpatrick was at home when he began showing symptoms.
"Within the half hour after that I watched my son suffer awful, awful struggling to breathe and begging for help," Robin Fitzpatrick said.
The teen died at Jordan Hospital after numerous emergency attempts to revive him.
Friends are holding a memorial for Fitzpatrick , an avid athlete and hockey player, at Armstrong Skating Rink in Plymouth at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Robin Fitzpatrick cautions anyone with medical concerns or allergies.
"Be your biggest advocate always if you have any kind of an allergy. Please don't take it for granted. Always inquire, always ask, don't just go on other people's say so. Really truly be your biggest advocate," she said.


text:
PromoteMe allows other people to promote themselves in your raid.
How to use:
-- Enabled by default. Anyone can now whisper "!promoteme" to you to promote themselves in your raid. Disable with "/promoteme toggle". If you want to change the command used to whisper, it is located on line five of PromoteMe.lua.
Beta Warning: This version is a little rough around the edges and has not been tested in a raid setting, but it should work. Let me know if there are any bugs to be worked out.


text:
(Labeled panorama of the peaks of the Palisade Traverse, by Steph Abegg.)
The Traverse
It is possible to do the traverse from Thunderbolt to Sill (or Sill to Thunderbolt) in a single 22-mile car-to-car push, but Mark and I wanted to enjoy the beauty of the area (and do some night photography!), so we established a wonderful camp on the lower Palisade Glacier. We planned to do the Palisade Traverse in a day from basecamp. However, we ended up only climbing Thunderbolt, Starlight, and North Palisade before darkness forced us to forgo Polemonium and Sill and descend down the couloir from the U-Notch. Fortunately, though, we successfully climbed what are thought to be the three most aesthetic summits of the traverse.
Our inability to complete the traverse before nightfall was due to a few factors, such as having to scope out the unfamiliar route, some early-summer snow on the route that forced us into convoluted detours, and too much roped simulclimbing and belaying. However, that said, more often than not climbers end up bivying or descending early on this Grade IV route; most of the successful traverse-in-a-day attempts are done by unroped soloists.
Below is a labeled panorama of the peaks of the Palisade Traverse, a map of the route (the complete route as well as our truncated route), and a profile.
Map, route overlay, profile:
(Labeled panorama of the peaks of the Palisade Traverse, by Steph Abegg.)
(Map of the route, by Steph Abegg.)
(Profile of the route, by Mark Thomas.)
The Approach
route: North Fork of Big Pine TH to camp on Palisade glacier
miles: ~9 miles to glacier camp (~7 on trail, ~2 cross-country)
elevation gain: ~4550 ft from TH (elev. 7750 ft) to glacier camp (elev. ~12,300 ft)
We chose to approach the Palisades via the North Fork of Big Pine trail, which gains about 9 miles (the last 2 are cross-country) and 4550 ft as it winds through a series of lakes to Sam Mack Meadows and then up to the Palisade Glacier. The trailhead is just west of Big Pine. Due to the early-summer snow cover, we turned off the trail before reaching Sam Mack Meadows and ascended the snow above Third Lake directly to the glacier. It was a pretty easy approach, but gains a lot of elevation so would definitely make a car-to-car push on the Palisade Traverse a good workout!
Photos from the approach:
Summit 1 - Thunderbolt Peak
elev.: 14,003 ft
route: North couloir (~40° snow)
on summit: 10:08 am
With the early-season snowcover, the traverse to the base of the North couloir of Thunderbolt was easy. The bergschrund was also covered, which can present a problem in later season. The route took a straightforward 35-40° snow couloir to the ridge (take a left spur near the top unless you feel like adding some time to the traverse). From there, we roped up and simulclimbed along the ridge to the summit. The best route probably takes the left (NE) side of the ridge.
The summit of Thunderbolt has a wildly exposed summit block. The east face looks like it would go at 5.9, but it is slabby and unprotectable, a fun boulder problem if not for the sheer drop on all sides. Previous reports indicate that you can set up an aid system on the summit block. Skeptical, I gave Mark "10 minutes," feeling that given the traverse ahead of us, each minute was just as valuable as a foot closer to the true summit. After about an hour of schenanigans that produced a sketchy looking anchor where the rope was only held in place by a protruding old bolt pin, we decided to forgo the final 10 feet and head onwards. This was a source of contention between the two of us, and kind of put a damper on the rest of the climb. Sorry Mark.....(Update: On a later trip just to climb Thunderbolt, Mark did successfully lasso the summit block and get on top; without the time crunch of needing to continue on to traverse 4 more summit, he and his partner had a lot of fun doing it.)
Photos from Thunderbolt section:
Mark's annotated overlays for the Thunderbolt section:
Summit 2 - Starlight Peak
elev.: 14,200 ft
route: NW ridge, traverse from Thunderbolt
on summit: 2:44 pm
Traversing from Thunderbolt to Starlight was mostly 4th class over loose blocks, generally on the right (west) side of the ridge. There are a few low 5th moves on the downclimb from Thunderbolt, but they are pretty easy. Many trip reports indicate it takes about 30 minutes to 2 hours to traverse between the two summits, but it took us far longer due to some poor route-finding decisions and rope drag (I'd suggest staying unroped rather than simulclimbing; in fact, in the interest of time, the traverse in general requires mostly exposed unroped climbing).
The summit block of Starlight, called the "Milk Bottle" because of its distinct shape, is perhaps the coolest summit I've climbed. This was one summit block we were not going to bypass - we didn't bring along the pink cowboy hat for nothing! Although slabby and exposed, the moves were actually pretty easy (5.7ish?) on great holds, and Mark led easily up to the top. I had no problem following in my boots. To get down, we rappeled off the bolt that is on the top.
Photos from Starlight section:
Mark's annotated overlays for the Starlight section:
Summit 3 - North Palisade
elev.: 14,242 ft
route: NW ridge, traverse from Starlight
on summit: 7:28 pm (uh oh....)
Starlight and North Palisade are quite close, but there is a difficult gap (aka "Notch" or "stem of faith") to cross which requires a tricky swing from one side of the chasm to the other off a set of slings (some reports mention downclimbing a chimney and then being able to step across the gap lower, but this looked a bit tricky too). From the gap, various reports suggest taking the right (SW) side, even though this side appears to be less featureless than the left (NE) side. We opted for the blocky left (NE) side, but ended up encountering a lot of early-season snow that forced us into convoluted and difficult detours; perhaps the right (SW) side is indeed a better choice. At least the evening lighting was nice when we reached the summit of North Palisade!
After the summit of North Palisade, the traverse requires descending to the U-Notch, which is an easy scramble and a couple of rappels from some slings. (Note: it is also possible to avoid the rappels by downclimbing the Class 4 Clyde variation, which descends the drainage to the right (west) side of the peak. Cairns mark where you leave this drainage about 400 ft down, turning left and traversing on some exposed but solid ledges that deposit you in the W Chute about 50-100 ft below the U-Notch. You could also downclimb the area where the rappels are, which is low 5th.) By the time we reached the U-Notch, it was getting dark. Rather than spend a cold night in the notch, we decided to try to descend the U-Notch couloir, hoping that since it was early season the condition of couloir would be more snow than ice (the couloir is a popular alpine ice climb in later summer). Fortunately, we both had crampons and 2 tools, and we encountered no ice, so we were able to back down the 2000' of steep snow in the darkness without a problem. There is a bergschrund at the base of the couloir, but we found some rappel slings on the side wall (climber's right) and our rope just reached over the schrund. While we were setting up our rappel, some giant rocks careened down the couloir right where we had been about 10 minutes previous. Yikes. From the base of the couloir was an easy traverse across the Palisade Glacier to our camp, which we reached around midnight. I made some hot chocolate, snapped a few shots of the Milky Way above the moonlit Palisades, and joined Mark who was already snoring away in the tent. It was disappointing not to have completed the five-summit traverse, but at least we climbed the three more difficult summits, enjoyed that part of the route, and made it safely back to camp. I will definitely have to return for the full traverse, someday....
Photos from North Palisade section:
Mark's annotated overlays for the North Palisade section:
Summit 4 - Polemonium Peak
elev.: 14,200 ft
route: W ridge, traverse from North Palisade via U-Notch
on summit: N/A
(Since Mark and I did not climb Polemonium or Sill, my descriptions here are just general descriptions gleaned from other trip reports. There are no good photos of the route.)
The traverse between North Palisade and Polemonium first involves an easy scramble and two rappels to the U-Notch (see previous section for description). From the U-Notch, it is not far to the summit of Polemonium. Ascend a series of Class 4 ledges up and right to a notch in the ridge (1 pitch). The toughest part of this section is the beginning, and the pitch ends short to reduce rope drag. From the notch, ascend the ridge, deviating slightly to the left (north) side of the ridge for a short 5.2 finger crack crux move. Above this is easy 4th class scrambling to the summit on an exposed and airy crest!
Photo of Polemonium from North Palisade at sunset:
Mark's annotated overlays for the Polemonium section:
Summit 5 - Mt. Sill
elev.: 14,162 ft
route: W ridge, traverse from Polemonium via V-Notch
on summit: N/A
Mt. Sill lies quite a distance from Polemonium, but the route is straightforward and can be done quickly. After the short Class 4 section of downclimbing from the summit of Polemonium, it is just 2nd-3rd class scrambling near the ridge all the way to Sill. Whenever the ridge gets more difficult, drop off to the right (south) side of the ridge.
From reading other trip reports, the descent from Sill to the Palisade Glacier is apparently not that fun. The descent starts a bit below the summit of Sill (on the route between Polemonium and Sill). The descent route is marked with cairns. At a step/slight notch in the ridge, turn right and downclimb a series of 4th class chimneys, traversing slightly right (east). From here there are some exposed and sandy ledges that traverse to a notch between Mt. Sill and Apex Peak. This whole section may have verglas form on it in various spots at night and the rocks are loose.
From the notch, either descend the L-Shaped (north) Couloir to Glacier Notch, or if you don't have crampons, descend to the left (north) side of the snowfield on class 2-3 blocks, with loose blocks and scree. At the leg of the "L" there is a rappel station for clearing the final section of snow. This puts you at the Glacier Notch at 13,200 ft. Descend one of the earlier couloirs closer to Apex Peak and NOT at the lowpoint of the ridge closer to Gayley. This descent to the glacier is class 2-3 and has extremely loose rock and scree. From there there is a 30-35 degree downclimb and traverse along the edge of the Palisade Glacier to the moraine and climbers trail, which leads back to Sam Mack Meadows.
Photo of Mt. Sill from North Palisade at sunset:
Mark's annotated overlays for the Mt. Sill section:
At Camp
We had a beautiful camp on the lower Palisade Glacier, well-placed for both the approach and descent from the traverse. The Palisades were beautiful in the light of the waxing moon, so Mark and I both spent some time doing some night photography. It was fun to have a climbing partner interested in being awake to enjoy the stars as well!
Photos from camp:
Hiking out
Although we had hiked in via the snow slopes above Third Lake, we chose to hike out via a quick glissade to Sam Mack Meadows. The trail was snow free after the Meadows, and visions of a post-climb meal propelled us onward. I will definitely have to return for the full traverse, too bad it's so far from Seattle, maybe I can link it with a Yosemite climbing trip...
Photos from the hike out: