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A wireless connection isn't just handy when you're out and about. There are more options for going wireless at home, whether it's so you can enjoy catch-up TV you've downloaded on your actual telly (rather than the PC screen) or so you can work in a peaceful corner of the house.
Faster Wi-Fi in the form of the 802.11n chipset is now available in the latest Vista and Mac-based laptops. Updating the backbone of your home Wi-Fi setup to match therefore makes sense.
It's easier than ever to set up a home network. The hope is that this will mean consumers end up with secured Wi-Fi, rather than skipping the encryption part of the installation process.
1. Setting up a wireless network involves choosing a suitable wireless router (with a built-in modem, if you're starting from scratch) and checking it will work with your existing Wi-Fi kit. If you're getting a draft-n router, this will work with b and g hardware, but 802.11a kit is now largely obsolete.
2. Follow the instructions that came with your router to install the hardware. You may be prompted to check online for firmware updates that will boost performance and aid compatibility. These are issued extremely frequently, so this is worth doing. Once installed, the router will automatically change any settings it needs to.


text: Job Discussion Forums :: View topic - Reliable taxis at Otopeni Get TEFL Certified & Start Your Adventure Today! Job 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 Reliable taxis at Otopeni Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Romania View previous topic :: View next topic Author Message scot47Joined: 10 Jan 2003Posts: 15343 Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 1:51 pm Post subject: Reliable taxis at Otopeni Does anyone have contact with reliable taxi company or taxi driver who can pick up at Bucharest Airport and take passengers to destinations in Northeast Bulgaria ? If it works - there is a growing niche market for this. Lots of honkies have houses in NE Bulgaria. Sofia is far away. Flights to Varna are seasonal and limited. Bucharest (Otopeni or Baneasa) is a better hub.Last edited by scot47 on Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:58 pm; edited 1 time in total Back to top scot47Joined: 10 Jan 2003Posts: 15343 Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:18 pm Post subject: I have done this trip now. Current rate for a taxi Bucharest-Russe in Bulgaria is 60 Euros. Contact me for number of a reliable BG taxidriver who will collect you at the airport. Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Romania All times are GMT Page 1 of 1 Jump to: Select a forum Where to Begin----------------General DiscussionNewbie ForumCurrent Events ForumTechnology ForumOnline Teaching Forum Africa Forums----------------General Africa Forum Asia Forums----------------CambodiaChina (Job-related Posts Only)China (Off-Topic)Hong KongIndiaIndonesiaJapanMalaysiaPhilippinesSingaporeTaiwanThailandGeneral Asia ForumVietnam Caribbean Forums----------------General Caribbean Forum Europe Forums----------------Czech RepublicFranceGermanyGreeceItalyMacedonia and the BalkansPolandRomaniaRussia & C.I.S.SpainTurkeyUkraineUnited KingdomGeneral Europe Forum Latin America Forums----------------ArgentinaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaMexicoMexico (off-topic)PeruGeneral Latin America Forum The Middle East Forums----------------BahrainEgyptIsraelKuwaitOmanQatarSaudi ArabiaUnited Arab EmiratesGeneral Middle East Forum North America Forums----------------General North America Forum Oceania----------------Australia/New Zealand 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 This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling. Contact Dave's ESL Cafe Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved. Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group Teaching Jobs in China

subset: commoncrawl


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|Deutsch English
Netherlands – English
България – Български
Česká republika – Čeština
Danmark – Dansk
Deutschland – Deutsch
España – Español
France – Français
Great Britain – English
Hrvatska – Hrvatski
Italia – Italiano
Magyarország – Magyar
Македонија – македонски
Österreich – Deutsch
Polska – Polski
Portugal – Português
România – Român
Schweiz – Deutsch
Suisse – Français
Svizzera – Italiano
Suomi – Suomeksi
Sverige – Svenska
Türkiye – Türkçe
North- / Southamerica
Brasil – Português
Canada – English
Canada – Français
Chile – Español
Colombia – Español
México – Español
Perú – Español
USA – English
South Africa – English
Asia / Oceania
Australia – English
India – English
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Россия – Pусский
UAE – English
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中国 – 中国的
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Precise marking of logos with MARKATOR marking systems
As different as the products or services of companies worldwide are, each company uses a logo for unambiguous recognition. No matter whether it is a medium-sized company or a large corporation - the logo is of enormous importance for every company. An attractive logo remains in the memory and links expectations and experiences with the company. As an important part of the corporate identity, there is hardly a better marketing tool than a logo with recognition value. For this reason, the company logo may not be missing on any product, business card, website or brochure.
Even in the metalworking industry, products are often provided with company logos. MARKATOR® offers the possibility to create and mark individual customer logos. With the help of a specially developed logo software, customer logos can be created very precisely and suitably for the respective marking system. The logo dimensions and the technical requirements for the marking play a major role here. One difficulty is often that the logo must be marked on uneven surfaces. Classic punches come to their limits here. The typeface is often blurred and does not bring the desired marking quality.
MARKATOR® offers the perfect solution for these requirements with its marking systems. Depending on customer requirements, logos can be marked with the battery operated handheld marking system FlyMarker® mini, scratch and dot peen marking systems or benchtop marking systems such as the MV5 T0 ZE 301XL. The specially developed marking needles from MARKATOR® also mark uneven components with consistently high quality. Unevenness on the component is compensated by the automatic height tolerance compensation. This function ensures a consistently good marking result. Depending on the version of the marking system, the marking is done by a hard metal needle brought to oscillate by compressed air or by scratching with a diamond needle. Due to the stable mechanics of the marking systems, the marking image is very precise and achieves marking depths that make markings readable even after years of intensive use.


text:
If your contact information has changed, please take a moment to update your records. Update information...
Exxon Qualified Settlement Fund
P.O. Box 21945
Seattle, WA 98111
1-800-EX-SPILL or (800) 397-7455
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© 2007 by Lynn L. Sarko (Exxon Qualified Settlement Fund Administrator) All rights reserved. You may reproducematerials available at this site for your own personal use and for non-commercial distribution. All copies must include theabove copyright notice. All photographs courtesy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council.


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During development process, things are constantly changing (especially in early phases). Requirements change, UI changes, everything changes. Pages that clearly belonged to specific controller, mutated to something completely different in the future.
For example. Lets say that we have website for managing Projects. One page of the website was dedicated to managing existing, and inviting new members of specific project. Naturally, I created members controller nested under projects which had proper responsibility.
Later in the development, it turned out that it was the only page that was "configuring the project" in some way, so additional functionalities were added to it:
- editing project description
- setting project as a default
- ...
In other words, this page changed its primary responsibility from managing project members to managing project itself. Ideally, this page should be moved to "edit" action of "projects" controller. That would mean that all request and controller specs need to refactored too. Is it worth the effort? Should it be done?
Personally, I am really starting to dislike the 1-1 relationship between views and controllers. Its common situation that we have 1 page (view) that handles 2 or more different resources. I think we should have views completely decoupled from controllers, but rails is giving us hard time to achieve this.
I know that AJAX can be used to solve this issue, but I consider it an improvisation. Is there some other kind of architecture (other than MVC) that decouples views from controllers?


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Waterford residents continue to watch waters rise
Residents in Waterford continue to watch the Fox River rise, but officials say the waters will crest this weekend.
Officials at the National Weather Service said waters in the village are expected to crest Saturday night or Sunday morning.
Waterford residents can pick up sandbags at the Public Works building, 801 Ela Avenue, at any time on a first-come, first-served basis.
Residents are responsible for loading their own sandbags.
Officials also said any home or business owners who wish to report flooding damage should call the village hall at 262-534-3980.
Village officials also issued a slow-no-wake order on the Fox River and closed the public boat launch due to high water, strong currents and debris.
You can send us flooding photos through ulocal. Email us at email@example.com.


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Highly recommended I have been teaching Photoshop Elements since version 7 and have used Ms. Brundage's series of books for version 7, 8, and 9. This book is an A to Z manual on Photoshop Elements. One feature I particularly like is that the author lists a number of websites for additional material such as plug-ins. Also, she will reference a book not published by O'Reilly, an action for which both the author and publisher deserve credit.
As the author states in her introduction, this is a how and when book. The book instructs one how to use various techniques and tools, as well as when not to use them. In addition to the book content, one can go to the O'Reilly website to download additional material that is pertinent so that one can better complete various exercises in the book.
The bottom line; if you use Photoshop Elements 10, buy this book.
Charles Heisterkamp, III, M.D.


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Our pals over at Hoonigan — World Rally Championship participants, makers of the wonderful Gymkhana videos, and purveyors of great auto enthusiast merch — found themselves the victims of theft in Los Angeles this weekend. Can you help them get their trailer back?
Hoonigan reported on their Facebook page that a 20-foot combined enclosed trailer and merchandise booth was taken from downtown L.A. Its base color is white but it has an all-black wrap with the Hoonigan logo. One side has a pop-up door as seen in the photo.
I reached out to Hoonigan to get some more details on the theft, including where and when it was taken and what license plate number it has. I'll update this post if I get more on what happened.
Until then, anyone with information is asked to email email@example.com.
Let's see if we can help Hoonigan find their trailer!
Update: Here's what Brian from Hoonigan told us in an email.
We were lucky, the trailer was empty, aside from 10 or so tires. The trailer was taken from our place in DTLA. The chain on our gate was cut and they must have also broken the tongue lock we had on the trailer. Since so much effort was put into getting the trailer, I can only assume they hoped to find one of our cars inside. There's a good chance it's already been ditched, and someone will spot it.
The trailer was a 24 foot enclosed unit with a concession door cut into the passenger side. This will be the best identifying feature as it was a custom job and does not match the hardware used on the rest if the trailer. We use the trailer both for moving cars and merch sales at events. The trailer is white underneath the flat black vinyl. The trailer had Hoonigan logos on the back bottom on both sides.
We assume the trailer was stolen between 1AM and 5PM on Sunday. We reported it Monday AM at 6:30AM. We know the time line as I was at the shop Saturday night and Matt from fifteen52 who shares the space with us noticed the lock undoen on Sunday but it didn't occur to him the gate was popped, he just thought it was left open. It was dark, he missed the broken links of chain on the floor.
Something of interest is that there have been a wave of trailers getting stolen in the SoCal region over the past year. I feel like every month I hear about another car and trailer gone missing in motorsport. Again, lucky for us, ours was empty.
Plate: California 4DV4997
VIN: 5ycbe20269h000599
Additional photos are below. If you see the trailer, please call police or email Hoonigan.


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It's that time again...Daring Baker's time, that is! This month's challenge was a complicated French dessert called L'Opera Cake. I'd like to give a big "thank you!" to our 4 hosts at: Cream Puffs in Venice, La Mia Cucina, Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie, and Whiskful. You can find the recipe in its entirety HERE.
I was a little intimidated when I saw the first photos of an Opera Cake...it's such an elegant dessert, and I was unsure if I could pull it off. But, I'm always up for a challenge...especially when it's something I've never even heard of. The recipe looks long and daunting, but if you approach each section of the cake separately, it's really not that bad. I broke the process up over 2 days. I made the buttercream, joconde, and syrup on the first day...and then the glaze and mousse on the second day. Assembling the cake definitely took some patience and attention to detail, but I think it came out pretty good...at least for my first one...hah.
The cake has alternating layers of joconde (sponge cake), buttercream, and sliced strawberries. It's topped off with a luscious layer of hazelnut mousse and finally the white chocolate glaze. Traditional Opera Cakes are made with coffee and darker chocolate. However, this challenge limited us to light flavors/colors. Honestly, I was a little bummed when I found this out, because we are such big coffee fans. Any chance that I get, I love to incorporate coffee and chocolate into desserts. However, the cake was still awesome. We were allowed to play around a little bit with the flavorings. My main flavors turned out to be white chocolate, hazelnut, and strawberry. I decided to add strawberry slices in between the layers of joconde, and I'm very glad that I did.
This is what I used:
Joconde: Hazelnut meal
Syrup: Vanilla Extract
Buttercream: Vanilla Extract, Melted White Chocolate and Strawberry Slices in between layers
Ganache/Mousse: White chocolate and Frangelico Hazelnut Liquer
Glaze: White Chocolate
Buttercream: Vanilla Extract, Melted White Chocolate and Strawberry Slices in between layers
Ganache/Mousse: White chocolate and Frangelico Hazelnut Liquer
Glaze: White Chocolate
Here's some interesting information about the origins of L'Opera Cake from Epicurious.com:
"There are many stories about the origins of this cake, known as both Clichy cake and Opéra cake. Many believe that Louis Clichy was its creator because he premiered the gâteau, with his name written across the top, at the 1903 Exposition Culinaire in Paris. It became the signature cake of Clichy's shop on the Boulevard Beaumarchais. However, another pastry shop, Dalloyau, sold a very similar dessert, known as L'Opéra (in honor of the Paris Opera), and some claim that theirs was the original."
Without a doubt, I probably would have never made this dessert if it hadn't been for the Daring Bakers. I had a lot of fun with this challenge, and hopefully this won't be my last attempt at an Opera Cake! ;)


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Minimum Pricing: Battle lines are drawn
There is an article in the Mail Online today that will warm the hearts of every good liberal.
Whilst Home Office Minister Jeremy Browne MP has been gagged (as has Farming Minister David Heath MP,) on the topic of minimum pricing of alcohol, word has leaked out that Jeremy is clearly on the side of the angels:
"…friends of Mr Browne have told The Mail on Sunday that he disputes claims that the policy is certain to cut binge drinking – or reduce the number of pub fights."
"A source close to Mr Browne said: 'Jeremy's view is that the thug who has downed nine cans of lager is hardly going to think, "Oh dear, I can't afford a tenth because of minimum pricing. I think I'll go home to bed instead of starting a brawl."
Needless to say his stance has meant that Tory Police Minister Damian Green has been given the task of speaking publicly in support of the policy. Jeremy is right of course. As is the assertion made on his behalf :
"Jeremy maintains that the middle-class woman in Oxfordshire who drinks a £10 bottle of Chablis every other night will not be affected because it won't go up in price and she can afford it anyway,' said the source.
'But the working-class woman in Oldham who drinks a cheap bottle of Lambrini will be hit because it will cost more"
Well said that man. Is his, and other MP's, opposition enough though? It would appear sadly that there is no 'organised' campaign against minimum pricing to date. It is not clear if this is because the supermarkets & drinks companies are following the strategy of appeasement, looking at the likely boost to their incomes such a policy will deliver regardless of the hurt it will cause their customers, or were genuinely taken by surprise. Perhaps they feel the policy is too absurd to worry about?
But history tells us that you need more than having right on your side and reasoned arguments to win against the relentless, rich and powerful lobbying health "charities". With privileged access to policy makers, often funded by those they lobby, these fake charities rarely fail their paymasters in delivering the desired outcome in such "public" consultations.
There are signs of a resistance building. An e-petition against minimum pricing was created a while ago but has trebled signatures in the past 24 hours and an informative facebook page here (and an event to sign up to here) has appeared in the past couple of days (that from which we harvested much info – thanks!) .We have also seen the excellent Chris Snowdon step up to the plate with a must read report (co-authored by statistician John C. Duffy) "Minimum evidence for minimum pricing" and enjoyed his many and brilliant turns on the media. And of course we have the efforts of Pub Curmudgeon, Dick Puddlecote, Frank Davies, Spiked! ASI, IEA and TPA, (and many others) to count on. (We also hear tell of a newspaper campaign though can't pin that one down right now).
Whether their efforts, combined with the fact that minimum pricing is illegal , fails the evidence test, is based on a flawed model, punishes the poor, the sensible and the moderate, and of course that public opinion is against it, is enough to win out against the might and money of the government's own pet groups, on a mission to deliver Mr Cameron's desired outcome, however remains to be seen. For now our thanks and appreciation to Jeremy (and many other MPs) for standing firm.
Ps if you want to get the minimum pricing widget (above) for your web site, click here (courtesy of the marvelous Pub Curmudgeon).


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In an emergency, it is easy to "forget" even the most well-known information. That is why it is crucial for you to complete the information in this form for each member of your household. Then, distribute copies to each member of your household. Also, post all copies by each telephone and in easy-to-find places in your home, car, or work. Be sure to update the information often.
Also, make copies for nonresident relatives, babysitters, caretakers, neighbors, teachers—anyone who has contact with you or who is periodically responsible for your children (or any disabled or older adults in your home).
If you own a cell phone, put two different contacts in your phone under ICE for "in case of emergency," so emergency room staff can call your contacts in the event you can not communicate. Examples could be ICE-mom or ICE-husband to identify your contact. Newer smartphones have apps that you can download to make this information easier to access. Don't rely on your smartphone however, as it may be out of power, overlooked, or not with you at the time. It is still critical to have additional copies of this form.
Emergency transport system(if the 9-1-1 system is not available in your area)
Post the poison center telephone number by every telephone in your home. The national, toll-free poison control center locator number is: 800-222-1222.
From here, you will be automatically redirected to the nearest Poison Center in your area.
Poison control
Healthcare provider's name and telephone
Hospital emergency room
Person's full name
Date of birth
at last physical in:
at last physical in:
Home address
Directions to home
Home telephone
Medical conditions
Current medicines
Contact person #1
Work or home address
Contact person #2
Contact person #3


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'Selfless' Hunter soaking up return trip to ASG
Part of All-Star lore, outfielder determined to win World Series
NEW YORK -- Truth be told, Torii Hunter wasn't sure he was going to get back here.
He had three All-Star selections in a four-year stretch from 2007-10, then had slow starts and fast finishes the past two years that kept him out. His two-year deal with Detroit was intended to give him one more good chance at a World Series, not a Midsummer Classic.
The next generation of American League All-Star outfielders was moving in, including ex-teammate Mike Trout. Graybeards like Hunter were moving out. He had gone from star player to a legend in a supporting role.
"I always say that I'm not a selfish player anymore to put up big numbers," he said. "I'm more of a selfless player that wants to win a World Series, so I'll do whatever it takes to get on base for Miguel [Cabrera] or set the table for Miguel and Prince [Fielder] and Victor [Martinez] to eat. It's more of a selfless act for me. If I get to the All-Star Game, that's fine, but to get to a World Series is way better than this."
His fellow players looked at Hunter's start this year and felt otherwise. Thus, while Cabrera, Fielder and Max Scherzer led a star-studded Tigers contingent at the All-Star festivities, there sat Hunter, soaking it all in.
"I definitely think it's special right now because I'm healthy, I look good, I feel good and I'm playing great baseball," Hunter said. "And I'm also a lot smarter as a player."
He has been around these enough that he can talk about the tie game in 2002 in Milwaukee from experience. It was his first All-Star Game, and it's the only one he has started. It's also the one where his catch to rob Barry Bonds created one of the lasting highlights in All-Star history.
"That was a long time ago," Hunter said. "It's my fault now that we have to play for something. That's what I get all the time."
He was the young punk then, robbing the aging superstar. The tables, he admits, have now turned.
"A young Torii Hunter jumps up and takes the ball away from one of the best hitters in the game with everybody watching," Hunter said. "You can't beat that, and I'm looking to seeing someone like [Baltmore's Manny] Machado or Scherzer, these guys in their first All-Star Game, to do something special and something they'll never forget."
Hunter has a chance to enjoy the All-Star Game before he turns 38 years old on Thursday. He's doing his best to use fuzzy math. His .315 average at the break -- the best first-half average of his 16-year career -- with 24 doubles, seven home runs and 44 RBIs, required no such fudging.
"I'll be 28 on Thursday," Hunter said with a wry smile, "but I'm going to take it in. You just don't know, because the older you get, you don't know if you're going to make it. I'm going to soak all of this in, I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to talk to some of the guys, get to know them, because one day I'm going to have to be on TV and talk about these guys and how they stink and how good I was.
"It's going to be a lot of fun for me personally. I'm just going to soak it in and enjoy it."
Hunter wasn't the only one soaking it in. Jhonny Peralta is 31 and only has one previous All-Star selection to his credit, but he had a point to prove after his numbers dropped from a 2011 All-Star to a player whose starting job in Detroit seemingly was at risk in the offseason.
He, too, was enjoying his trip to New York.
"It's special for me to be here for the second time," Peralta said. "It's a lot of competition at shortstop. I feel proud to be here right now and enjoy it with all the guys."
Like Hunter, Peralta was selected on the players' ballot. His .303 average and .808 OPS arguably gave him a chance to beat out Baltimore's J.J. Hardy for the starting nod, but Hardy ran away with the fan vote.
The final phase of All-Star Game voting will again have fans participating in the official voting for the Ted Williams All-Star Game Most Valuable Player Award presented by Chevrolet. During the Midsummer Classic, fans will vote exclusively online at MLB.com via the 2013 All-Star Game MLB.com MVP Vote, and their voice will represent 20 percent of the official vote determining the recipient of the Arch Ward Trophy.
The 2013 All-Star Game will be played at Citi Field on Tuesday. Come to MLB.com for extensive online coverage of the All-Star Week festivities.
The 84th All-Star Game will be televised nationally by FOX Sports, in Canada by Rogers Sportsnet and RDS, and worldwide by partners in more than 200 countries via MLB International's independent feed. ESPN Radio and ESPN Radio Deportes will provide national radio coverage of the All-Star Game. MLB Network and SiriusXM also will also provide comprehensive All-Star Week coverage. For more information, please visit allstargame.com.


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How is being on a major label treating you?
Jo: So far, in terms of the way we function as a band, the things we do, it hasn't changed that much. In a lot of ways it still feels very DIY in the sense that we're still making decisions and it didn't change making the record at all because we made it before we got the deal.
So you made the record before you signed?
J: We did a good amount of final mixes after we had the deal. JD: But we'd completely done the writing, the production. J: So the stuff that has changed is stuff external to the band. Efficiency and business.
Do you have as much control over that side of things as you have enjoyed previously?
J: Well there was nothing like that before, we never really did have any marketing, anything like that. It was really just doing interviews. It's not like there was some kind of marketing campaign to approve of. I think what's nice is getting to cities and seeing that there's posters up for our shows (laughs). JD: And in terms of marketing and stuff like that, you'd be surprised how much of the Universal team are total freaks or queers or whatever and they definitely are marketing to our fans, which was something we were excited to see. It's not like the people working there are all guys in suits. The people who we talk to are actually really cool.
What made you choose to sign to a major this time? [Former label] Mr Lady aren't releasing records any more are they?
Kathleen: They decided not to put out any more records, so that was our hint to go somewhere else. So we started looking at all different kinds of labels, along with us deciding to experiment with getting our music in the mainstream and to see what kind of feminist following we could find. I think also we were using ProTools which really lends itself to pop music structure. So we decided to try it, but at the same time we also started our own independent record label and put out our back catalogue on that. We definitely have feet in both doors.
How has your audience changed since your popularity has grown?
JD: I think we're getting a lot of younger kids, a lot of younger girls and younger poor kids. That's really exciting because what we set out to do by going to a major label was to see how many more people in our community there were that just didn't know about us. The vibe has really stayed the same, and yeah it seems that there are a couple more men, but they're really nice guys. J: I think sometimes it's like there's still alternative people, but maybe people who hadn't heard about our bands, like I see some goth kids in the crowd sometimes. Or there's always the random gay guy with dreadlocks, or people you wouldn't typically associate with our band, but that have found out about us and that's really cool.
Presumably you watched the elections, obviously it didn't turn out quite as well as it seemed to be going at the beginning. What's the atmosphere like post-election?
J: I actually just heard from some friends of mine… you know it was the anniversary of the war on Iraq? And there was supposed to be a big protest in New York, but I guess not many people showed up, which was depressing news. But I think that it'll take a while. It's not like people are going to bounce back immediately. Progressive people really put there hearts into getting Bush out of office. I don't think anyone's giving up the struggle…
What do you think of the way the war's going? Obviously everyone said it was all over two years ago, but there have been more casualties since then.
K: We don't even really hear about the casualties of people who aren't American. They don't tell us, like the only people who matter are Americans. I don't even think the casualty numbers for Americans are correct. We passed a thousand, but I bet we passed that a long time ago.
So you don't think general people on the street know what's going on? Do you think they really want to know?
K: Well you have to go out of your way to get real news, you have to go on the internet to specialist sites. It's hard to read stuff off the computer for me, personally. And some people can't even afford computers. And you have to spend all this time trying to find out what's really going on, but most people are working more than eight hours a day. They go home and they're not even really off work, they still get phone calls the whole entire time they're at home. People who have kids. There's no decent healthcare in our country, you have to pay for it yourself. No one has any time. I feel really embarassed to come from a country where people are so blatantly lied to and don't seem to care and still vote for somebody who's so against everyone's best interests. But at the same time how can you fault people for being poor and being busy? Even the middle classes are totally shrinking in the United States.
One thing I found quite interesting recently was the Martha Stewart debacle. We haven't really heard anything about it over here…
K: There's a rumour that she got put in prison when she did for doing something very minimal, like insider trading that tons of people do, for like $40,000 dollars, which is nothing, especially compared how much she's worth. And there was speculation that the reason is because the elections were coming up and she gives quite a lot of money to the Democratic party. So they wanted to tie up all of her money. J: Oh that's interesting. K: Yeah, it happened right after she gave a bunch of money to the Democratic National Commity. J: I mean I knew that she was tried for $40.000, but compared to what has been going on in the United States in terms of insider trading and government corruption, war profiteering… K: I mean the Vice President was the CEO of Halliburton, which is supposedly rebuilding after a war, and if that's not insider trading… and then you're sending Martha Stewart to jail! But she's gonna bounce back stronger than ever. JD: I heard that she stole spices from the kitchen in jail (all laugh). K: They should probably execute her for that (laughs).
So she's like a professional chef?
K: She's like Jamie Oliver or Nigella Lawson. She's totally like Nigella Lawson, but not as sexy. J: It's like décor and crafts… K: But she built her empire out of nothing. JD: It's more like she's a business person. J: She's like Jay Z. All: Yeah (laughs). K: I just read this really funny article that she got out of jail and decided to make her Martha Stewart home magazine and TV show more for people with lower incomes, because when she was in jail she met all these people who were poor. I thought that was really funny (laughs). Like the first time she met someone who was poor and then said, "oh," which is kind of rad, but it's also kind of hilarious. JD: She was poor when she grew up though. K: Oh, really? JD: Yeah, she didn't grow up wealthy that's part of the reason why she's so into never letting anything go to waste. K: Oh, I didn't even realise. From the article, they were kinda making fun of her.
Looking back, what kind of impact do you think Riot Grrrl has had on music?
K: Well it says Ladyfest '03 right up there on the wall. To me that means it was a success. There are still women organising things and a lot of the woman who interviewed me for fanzines 10 years ago are now interviewing me for Spin magazine and Rolling Stone. It's nice that there's smart people, women or men, that are journalists, it makes it easier to be in a band, you know? And I think if there's feminist journalists around it definitely makes it easier for a feminist band to exist. And I think that's something that Riot Grrrl had a big a hand in doing. A lot of people who were involved back then are now promoteres and writers and still doing stuff like setting up Ladyfests. I feel like it has had more of an influence on audiences than it really has in terms of music. I wish that there could be more good music. I felt like Bis was actually really influenced by Huggy Bear and that was a cool lineage and it would be nice to see that keep going on where people take bits of what I think is the better music that came from that time period and build on it. But I think the fact that more women and more gay kids in general are coming to shows is one of the biggest contributions that it has made. Just that people who typically are left out of pop culture and underground culture were invited back. There were brief moments in the '70s and early '80s, especially in England with X-Ray Spex and The Slits and The Raincoats, bands that were more popular over here, where people who typically weren't included were included and I think that Riot Grrrl invited those people back in and they're still going to our shows.
Hey, it's time to go dance…


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Hopefully you did a little better than me and caught the corner removing the last of your bear troops and catching at least part of the bull offensive. I may not have caught the turn, but the discipline of sending troops home each step of the way during the wave 3 left me with just a few troops caught in the bull rampage and ready to redeploy for a 5 of 5 in a major way as next week approaches.
The charts below show the adjusted wave 5 momentum channels for the major indices along with fib retraces from both the Jan 6 and Feb 9 highs. I've ovaled in a couple of target areas that if reached I will be looking to redeploy bear troops at that point in the battle field. 770 is also the 02-03 bear market low as well as an important pivot going back to the late 990s. If the bears manage to pierce that level, 800 will be the next important trench the bears will fall back to. If the bulls manage to retake the 800 Maginot line you have to adjust your battlefield bias towards the bulls in the medium term as they will control that important trench.
If front running isn't your thing then I've also included 20 day charts showing the short-term momentum the bulls have right now. As long as the bottom trend lines holding up these channels offer support, the bulls remain in control. Any bear troops you deploy ahead of a break have the potential to get ground right up at the same rate bear troops got hammered last week.
Finally a 2 year ES chart showing where we are in the big picture. Last week's rally looks like the blip it was when scaled back to these levels.
- DoctorMad
Sunday, March 15, 2009
DoctorMad - Welcome to Wave 4…
The General is looking over all the battle maps this weekend. For the uninitiated, he is speaking about wave 4 up/sideways of wave 5 down. The /ES are the S&P futures, the /TF are the Russell 2,000 futures (RUT), and the /NQ are the Nasdaq 100 futures (NDX)…
Posted byAmy Jamison at1:21 PM


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Denver Post uncritically quoted McElhany on GOP support of 2004 property tax freeze
A Denver Post report on the state Senate's passage of an education funding plan uncritically reported Republican Sen. Andy McElhany's comments in which he downplayed GOP support of a similar 2004 bill by claiming that at the time, four Republican lawmakers "voted for a bill they didn't understand." But the article did not include any comments from those legislators.
A May 2 Denver Post article about the Colorado Senate passing an education funding plan uncritically reported the comments of Republican Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany (Colorado Springs), who downplayed GOP support for a similar proposal in 2004 by claiming that back then, four Republican legislators "voted for a bill they didn't understand." The article, however, failed to provide comments from any of the Republicans to whom McElhany referred or explain if the four in fact did not "understand" the 2004 school funding bill, which also proposed freezing property tax rates.
As the article by Mark P. Couch reported, "Gov. Bill Ritter's proposal to freeze property-tax rates to benefit public schools squeaked through the Senate on Tuesday -- setting the stage for a legal challenge by Republicans who consider the measure a tax increase." The article about Senate Bill 199 later noted:
Lawyers for Ritter and for the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Legal Services concluded that the change is not a tax increase, according to the terms of the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, an amendment added to the state constitution in 1992. TABOR requires voters to approve tax increases.
"The prudent course would be to refer this to the voters," said Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction.
"I think it is extremely clear that this bill is a violation of TABOR," said Sen. Steve Johnson, R-Larimer County, who called the move "unconscionable."
Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, pointed out that Republicans spawned the property-tax idea in 2004 and said that four previous supporters were still in the chamber.
In 2004, Sens. Johnson, Ken Kester of Las Animas, Ron May of Colorado Springs and Jack Taylor of Steamboat Springs voted for a school finance act that included a similar provision. All were no votes Tuesday.
Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, dismissed those concerns.
"The worst they can be accused of is that they voted for a bill they didn't understand," he said.
The article included no comments regarding McElhany's assessment from Johnson, Kester, May, or Taylor.
Furthermore, a May 1 Post editorial noted, "In recent days, Republican strategists, led by Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, have tried to paint the property tax freeze as a tax increase. But it is nothing of the kind -- as Republicans themselves recognized in 2004 when they passed the very same plan in what was then a Republican-controlled Senate. Even then-Senate President John Andrews, whose aversion to tax increases is legendary, voted for the freeze."


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Bonsignore: Dwight Howard doesn't sound like Lakers material
If you were looking for Dwight Howard to tip his hand about his future with the Lakers, Tuesday was not your day.
"I want to get away from everything and focus on me and making the decision for me," Howard said after his exit meeting with Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak.
"And that's not happening today."
If you were expecting him to come out and express his undying devotion to the purple and gold, or even just a warm feeling and the upcoming free agency thing is just a mere formality before he signs a long-term contract to stay in Los Angeles, Howard isn't your guy.
Not even close.
"For me, I'm going to do what's best for myself, what's going to make me happy," Howard said.
Does that sound like a guy who needs to be talked out of playing for the Lakers? Or into it?
Based on his words, body language and demeanor Tuesday, I'm beginning to lean toward the latter.
It wasn't just what Howard said, but what he didn't say.
He compared his first season in Los Angeles to a nightmare in which he couldn't escape from being the bad guy. But he never mentioned the motivation to come back next year, confront the boogeyman once and for all and make things right.
He did say there were positives about playing for in Los Angeles, but he quickly pointed out it has its share of negatives, too.
"It's the best place to be when you win," Howard said. "When you're losing, it's not so good."
Funny, he expressed no inclination to sticking around and finding out what L.A. has to offer the next superstar to lead the Lakers to a championship.
The truth is, Howard didn't talk much about the Lakers at all. As usual, it was all about him.
He said he needed to get away from the raw emotions of the season in order to make an intelligent, wise choice about where he wants to spend the next four to five years of his life.
He talked about making a decision that satisfies himself and one that meets his needs and his objectives.
"I'll do what's going to be best for myself, what's going to make me happy," he said.
But he wouldn't address where the Lakers fit into that process.
"We're not going to talk about that today," Howard repeated.
Living and playing in Los Angeles?
Howard said it wasn't as sunny as he imagined.
"It rained a lot," Howard said.
The challenge and responsibility of being a star player for the Lakers?
"Some days it's good, when I have a good game," Howard said. "Some days it's not so good."
Does he envision a time he'd be happy wearing the uniform of the Lakers, the team that can offer a longer contract and more money than anyone else?
He wouldn't go there.
"I'm not going to talk about that," Howard said.
What he did talk about was how this decision was all about him.
"I can't control who likes me, who dislikes me, but I have the right to be happy," he said.
With that he was gone, off to somewhere quiet and peaceful where he can contemplate whether he wants to make a long-term commitment to the Lakers.
And that's his right.
He's put in the necessary time to dictate where he'll go to spend the next phase of his career. And if he's wise, he'll take all the time he needs to make that decision.
But if you're the Lakers, ask yourself this: If someone has to think long and hard about playing for one of the most storied franchises in sports - and can offer more money than anyone else - how badly does he really want to stay?
I don't know about you, but after Tuesday that seemed lukewarm at best.


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|GE Healthcare
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Hollywood mobsters helping mom-and-pop theaters
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Some of Hollywood's big-name mobsters joined forces with a Florida-based non-profit Friday to help save small-town theaters.
Owners of small cinemas across the country must switch from 35 mm film to digital -- or go silent. The conversion requires new projection equipment, computers and a sound system that can average around $70,000 per screen.
"We tried very hard to raise the money that we need to convert, but we could only come up with a fraction of the cost," said Rachel Daddezio with Cinema Saver in Endicott, NY. "We received so many stories of what our theater means to the community, how families wouldn't be able to go out if we weren't there."
Daddezio was presented Friday with a new screen, projector and processor for the theater with the help of Save America's Cinemas, a non-profit started less than a year ago by Water T. Shaw.
"They don't have a roller rink or bowling alley in some of these communities," said the filmmaker and former jewel thief for the mafia. "All they have is these theaters. Now we want to take that away from them? I'm not going to let that happen."
Shaw turned to his "Goodfellas" friends to do good: Tony (Paulie Walnuts) Sirico and Vincent (Big Pussy) Pastore of "The Sopranos" and Mike Starr and Debi Mazar from "Goodfellas."
"Going to the movies for me was a family experience," Mazar told the audience. "It made me become an actor. It's really a shame that we are losing these beautiful theaters. We can't stop time from marching forward, it's a modern world," but "these cinemas need our help."
About 67 percent of the nation's 5,750 theaters have switched to all-digital equipment, said Patrick Corcoran, a spokesman for the National Association of Theater Owners. But while the big chains can afford the digital transition, smaller theaters are forced to open a bank loan or turn to the community for help with paying for the equipment. Others hand over the keys to not-for-profits in the hopes of saving the town's main attraction.
Shaw said about 60 cinemas have reached out to him for help and he has committed to saving at least 400 theaters. It is not known how many small-town theaters have closed down since the switch to digital began with the 1999 release of "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace." But for Cinema Saver, which needs $200,000 to convert the five auditoriums in its one location, the new equipment with the help from Save America's Cinemas is a good start.
"It's a small town, but it means a lot to the community," Daddezio said.


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A second cruise liner hit by the norovirus vomiting illness has arrived back in the UK.
The Azura docked in Southampton yesterday morning and was leaving later for a 12-night Christmas cruise to the Canaries.
P&O Cruises said: "There has been an incidence of a mild gastrointestinal illness among the passengers on Azura.
"This illness is suspected to be norovirus, which is highly contagious and typically transmitted from person to person.
Norovirus is common throughout the UK, Europe and North America and has affected a number of schools, hospitals, nursing homes and children's day care centres."
The ship had been on an 11-night Iberia cruise. There were 3,059 passengers on board, of whom ten are known to be suffering symptoms.
Another P&O liner, the Oriana, was dubbed "a plague ship" after it was struck by the virus.
The ship, which carries 1,843 passengers, returned to Southampton yesterday from a 10-day Baltic cruise and left last night for a 23-night cruise in the eastern Mediterranean.
Scores of passengers were laid low by the virus.
During the cruise, passenger Paul Gilman, 62, told the Daily Mail: "People were falling like flies, yet the crew were trying to insist everything was fine.
"Everyone is saying, 'this is a plague ship'. It's a living nightmare."
Birmingham City Hospital yesterday told visitors to stay away after it was forced to close three wards due to the norovirus infection.
Other hospitals have also taken to Twitter to caution visitors and potential patients.
Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust tweeted: "Please don't visit hospital until at least 2 days after last symptoms of vomiting diarrhoea norovirus Stay home, rest & take fluids."
Recent figures from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) show that more than 750,000 people could be affected by the outbreak of norovirus that has swept the UK.
There have been 2,630 confirmed reports of norovirus so far this season, but for every reported case there are likely to be a further 288 unreported sufferers, the HPA said.
It means 757,440 people could be affected by the stomach bug - representing a 72% increase on the same period last year.
The infection has led to the closure of dozens of hospital wards.
Norovirus is highly contagious and can be transmitted through contact with an infected person or contaminated surfaces and objects. It is known to spread rapidly in closed environments such as hospitals, schools and nursing homes.
Symptoms include sudden vomiting, diarrhoea or both, a temperature, headache and stomach cramps.
The bug usually goes away within a few days.
Although people can suffer from norovirus at any time of the year, activity increases in the winter months, with most cases seen between October and April.
By Telegraph Reporters, The Daily Telegraph


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11:00AM Q-munity Yoga for LGBTQ Community via ZOOM
December 5 @ 11:00 am - 12:15 pm
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 11:00 am on Saturday, repeating indefinitely
With Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz and Leah Allen. Engage in community building and self-care while practicing all levels, life affirming yoga with other queer, radical, gender creative, and otherwise non-conforming folk. As an offering to/for our community, a sliding scale donation is requested of those who are able ($5-15 per class.)


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Richard Walter Lambeck ( Male ) was 22 years old at the time of the arrest. Richard Walter Lambeck was arrested on 2020-11-21 09:32:00.
Below you can find more information about the charges of Richard Walter Lambeck (if available).
This official record of Richard Walter Lambeck is redistributed by FindMugshots.com and is protected by publishing, constitutional and other legal rights. The official record was collected from local law enforcement agencies of South Carolina. Not all of outcomes of this arrest report are known or final.
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Hey everybody – Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays! When it comes to gift-giving this year, I've decided my lofty goal for gifts to family, friends, clients & co-workers this year is three-fold: the gifts I'm giving have to (1) be adored, (2) used almost immediately, and (3) be inexpensive. Impossible? Not at all! Think FOOD!
I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating – in Victorian Times, it was commonplace for a household to spend at least 25% of their income on food – can you imagine? Given how expensive the most basic of food items was back then, a gift recipient was thrilled to receive a high-quality food item for the holidays! I'm here to bring that holiday tradition back into brilliantly frugal vogue with some fantastic food gifts that everyone on your list will love, all inexpensively found in local discount groceries and beautifully put together in any of the (if you're like me) 8217 baskets you have around the house!
Gift Basket Idea #1: Fruit, glorious fruit! Traditionally, fruit gift baskets have been marketed to adults (especially grandparents) but I have to tell you, if my 8-year old and 5-year old saw a basket filled with gorgeous fruit they'd probably lunge at it as well. Keep it simple with lovely produce straight from Produce Junction – the prices are fantastic and the quality is superb. If you're making it for a family, keep it to a maximum of two or three pieces of fruit per family member. If you're making it for a person living alone, keep it around 6-8 pieces of fruit total. If you really want a showstopper, make sure a beautiful tropical pineapple is showcased front and center.
Gift Basket Idea #2: Caffeine – the gift that just keeps on giving. You already know me to be a caffeine addict of the highest order. For me, it's not just a food group, it's a blood type. That kind of habit makes paying $8-$12 for a bag of java borderline ridiculous in my book. Time to hit your local discount grocery yet again where you'll find those same bags of gorgeous, gourmet coffees for $2-$5 instead. Put three together with the flavored creamer of your choice, et voila! A gift your most devoted caffeine aficionado will adore.
Gift Basket Idea #3: Specialty food basket – we all know someone who is steering clear of a certain food group nowadays. Maybe they're steering towards organics, or steering away from carbs, fats, gluten or dairy. You name it, we all know somebody who's avoiding it. Often, those healthy dietary choices are hitting people big time in the pocketbooks – what could be better than to receive a gift basket filled with everything they love (and can enjoy with no guilt!). Fill a basket with organic snacks, or perhaps gluten-free goodies, and watch the recipients' eyes light up every time.
This holiday season, remember that gift giving is about telling the important people in your life how much you care, not how much you spend. Final bit of food for thought: In Andy Williams' "It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year" not once did any of the lyrics mention spending thousands of bucks (that they didn't have) on over-priced presents, using credit cards charging 22.5% interest. Just sayin'. Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays, everybody!


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@DirkWilhelm Yes that is what we currently do. Matter of fact we HAD to because of the size of the apk.
Sorry to say that I am looking into React Native instead. I spend more time looking for workarounds than actual coding. C# is my preferred language but Xamarin forms needs about 2 years of solid work. The forms previewer always fails with unknown error. So I have to dev and rerun to see UI changes. React Native is just click RR on the keyboard to see UI changes. Also the documentation is bad in Xamarin forms. Its old and incomplete. Microsoft needs to really hire and staff it to make Xamarin production ready.
It looks like the EntityFrameworkCore takes ~4 seconds to execute its "Migrate()" method consistently in every startups on Android. So as we would expect this adds up to the Xamarin.Forms initialization timing resulting up to ~8-10 seconds at the startup. This is way too much to have from a user's stand point. Inserting the db init code in the Splash Activity on a different thread (like below) believing Xamarin.Forms init and the db init would run in parallel, doesn't seem to be making any difference. Any help/suggestion would be much appreciated!
protected override void OnResume() { base.OnResume(); System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Run(() => { App.DbFolder = System.Environment.GetFolderPath(System.Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal); App.InitializeDb(); }); StartActivity(typeof(MainActivity)); }
Thanks, @EZHart . So at least it does not get worse with this change.
What I'd really like is that my users don't have to use two different controls (Button and AppCompatButton) depending on if they use AppCompat or not. I'll open a thread in the Evolution Forum for that.
@DavidOrtinau I was just wondering if you have any comment/suggestion on my recent post above? (Posted on 20th April 7:19AM).
@AbdullahNA - Is it taking 4 seconds when there are actual migrations to apply? Or does it take 4 seconds even when there's nothing for it to do?
@DavidOrtinau said:
@nadjib said:
Startup time is far from optimal especially on Android. 5 to 10 seconds to launch an app, means we'll loose customers. It's as simple as that. You should bring it to < 3 seconds.
Yes, we continue to look for opportunities to improve startup. What's your minimum Android API version?
What impact does the minimum Android API have on performance?
@EZHart No matter, if there is a migration to apply or the db is upto date. It consistently takes ~4 seconds in every startup.
Also, just was wondering, why the parallel run with a different thread contributes to the startup time?
@AllDayer said:
What impact does the minimum Android API have on performance?
Forms currently supports API 15 and up. In order to do that, it has to do a fair amount of things like "if we are currently running API 21 or higher, do X, otherwise do Y". One of the options we've been looking at is whether we can improve performance by changing how we support different API levels, which is why that's a question we're asking people.
@AbdullahNA said:
@EZHart No matter, if there is a migration to apply or the db is upto date. It consistently takes ~4 seconds in every startup.
Also, just was wondering, why the parallel run with a different thread contributes to the startup time?
Do you typically have DB updates to apply? If not, I think it's possible to turn off the migration step.
As for why running in another thread doesn't help, without seeing the source code it's hard to say.
Possible reasons I can think of:
Something in your MainActivity is making use of the data access layer, and is blocking until the database initialization is complete
Something in MainActivity is using a resource that the database initializer also needs (e.g., maybe both of them are reading/writing local storage heavily)
But that's just speculation.
@EZHart on android I see this on startup taking the longest. I am using the timing debug log
Runtime.register: type=Xamarin.Forms.Platform.Android.PlatformRenderer, Xamarin.Forms.Platform.Android, Version=126.96.36.199, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null
What is this doing?
That's the main renderer for the platform being registered with the Java runtime in its constructor. I'm not sure how you're measuring the time it's taking, but what you're probably seeing is the main page for the application being set and the renderer for it being initialized (which includes setting up and laying out all of the child elements and renderers of the main page of the application). For many applications, this is where the bulk of
LoadApplication(new App()) is spent (though YMMV if you're doing a lot of database work or network stuff during startup).
@EZHart it is a simple login screen with a stack, few entries and a button
See this link
@RinoJohnsen said:
I would like to raise the question on UWP animations. ... The one thing we haven't been able to solve is the choppy animations on UWP.
@RinoJohnsen I'm not seeing any UWP animation bugs in https://bugzilla.xamarin.com, but my search may have missed them. Do you have one open that I can point someone at? If not, could you open one? Be sure to include whether you're seeing this on phone/desktop, what hardware you're seeing it on, etc., and a reproduction project if possible.
@EZHart I don't, however if you don't call "Migrate()" the app doesn't work. To utilize your db you need to call "Migrate()" all the time, that's how the EFCore() for SQLite is designed.
Also, my main activity doesn't do anything that leverages db. I am just calling "Migrate()" on a different thread, that's all. So is my expectation NOT to impact the startup.
@DH80 Okay, I think the question you were asking me is "Why does a XF app's OnCreate method take longer than a XA app's OnCreate method? What the heck is XF doing that's taking so much longer?"
I'm going to try to answer that. This answer isn't meant to say "there is no problem" or that "there is no room for improvement". It's just to shed some light on the issue.
I can't speak to Kent's measurements in the linked tweet, because I don't know what settings he had (e.g., is XAMLC turned on?) and what he means by "comparable project". So I'll just discuss this with a couple of my own projects. The first is the default Xamarin.Forms "new project" (with the "Welcome to Xamarin.Forms!" message). The second is a Xamarin.Android "new project" with its layout set to a single LinearLayout with a TextView which says "Hello World". These are fairly similar projects (at first glance).
I'm measuring startup times in Debug mode with the Linker set to All; Shared Runtime is off, as are all the other options, and I'm only building armeabi-v7a. For the Forms project, I've turned on XAMLC. The device is a Nexus 7 2012 tablet that's running Android 6.0.1. AOT is not turned on for either project.
To be clear, I am just timing from the MainActivity constructor until the end of OnCreate (so after LoadApplication is finished on Forms; after SetContentView on Android). The actual launch -> display time for each application is much longer (you can find this in your Device Log by looking for the ActivityManager tag and the "Start proc" and "Displayed" messages).
Running both apps, the Android app blows away the forms app; the Forms app spends about 3 times as long in OnCreate. Why?
The short answer is that Forms is taking care of a lot of stuff for you; it's setting up a bunch of defaults and features that you'll probably want.
For example, the Forms app is using AppCompat and Material Design by default; the Android app is not. If you add AppCompat support to the base Android project and re-measure, you'll start to see the startup time creep up a bit, because now there are 8 more DLLs to load and more code to JIT compile. (I tested this, and it increased the startup time by about 14%.)
Forms is doing several other things for you, like setting up the deep linking provider, handling the status bar background, setting up handling for alerts and action sheets, toolbar support, and some other stuff I'm forgetting at the moment. And handling the API level checks and Forms abstractions, too. If you started adding all of these features to a plain Android app, the gap between startup times would start to close pretty fast.
So that's the main reason a new XF app spends more time in OnCreate than a new XA app. It's not that we accidentally left in a
Thread.Sleep() call or that someone wrote an
On^n algorithm or anything like that. It's that Forms is doing more behind the scenes.
Again, this doesn't mean that there's no room for improvement. We recognize that it's an issue, and that's why we've been focusing on it. There are almost certainly more places within the startup process where we could lazy-load a feature or make initialization more efficient. The latest pre-release contains a few fixes like this, and we're working on more.
excellent @EZHart . Thanks for your work
@EZHart excellent answer. Any idea what the impact is of having lots of different assemblies to startup times? I try to minimize the amount of nugets used, but with a few plugins and the support libs an app easily grows to 20+ assemblies. Is this the reason why it is investigated to pull the whole of Xamarin.Forms into one dll?
You guys take too long time for this performance issue: Add RetainsRenderer option for page, improve page performance
especially for UWP performance. The code getting older, for me It's hard to continue update and merge after so long time.
@rmarinho to get our metrics we use a couple of methods:
1- Hierarchy viewer, Android - gives us total draw/layout time. We run it a few dozen times and get the average. However, more importantly, it shows us the generated views. You can run it by going to Tools -> Device Monitor in Xamarin Studio, then hitting hierarchy view.
If you create a hello world app with XF and then with normal xamarin android, you'll see the tree depth is twice as deep in the XF version.
2- Measure time for the main Content = view assignment. Start a stopwatch, do the content assignment, stop the stopwatch. We've also overriden OnLayout and OnMeasure to do a perf measurement as well.
3- Overdraw measurement - you can toggle this on from the phone settings -> developer options -> show overdraw. I've yet to build a Xamarin Forms that didn't have at least 3x overdraw.
That said we decided not to move to 2.3.5 yet since there were too many subtle UI regressions (especially with the keyboard and editable fields). We'll wait for that stuff to be resolved.
@TonyD would you please send me some details on the 2.3.5 regressions you're seeing? I'm scanning Bugzilla for 2.3.5 and don't see any reports about that.
@MigueldeIcaza https://github.com/xamarin/Xamarin.Forms/pull/897/commits/11d5359ac28025b8c42f2d95abdf033e5d707c8e
This sounds very good! But can you provide some info other than "improves performance by 25x"?
Will this be a noticable boost in rendertime if you have 99% of your layout colored with hex values?
@stevefoxover.5931 I messaged you to get more detail about those issues so we can fix them.
@AbdullahNA said:
Android app startup is taking ~10 seconds. I am using Xamarin.Forms 2.3.4.x. It runs faster ~3 seconds on Android Emulator for Visual Studio, but it consistently takes ~10 seconds on real devices. I tested on the following devices (I am surprised the timing is almost same in debug as well as in the release mode).
Test Results
- ~8 to 10 seconds on Samsung Galaxy OnNXT
- ~5-6 seconds on Xiaomi Mi Max Prime
- ~4-5 seconds on Redmi Note 3
- ~9.5 seconds on Asus Zenfone2
I've cut off everything else that @AbdullahNA included in his post, but the big thing is Newtonsoft.Json. Initialization on that thing takes FOREVER the first time it has to deserialize something. And if that something is required to draw the UI, you can count on your device skipping frames. In the Android Emulator it's a relatively manageable 3-4 seconds, but on actual devices (I have a Moto Z Play to test on) it's locking up the UI upon its first call for close to 10 seconds. That same screen that locks up the first time runs fine the second time. Doesn't matter if it's a debug package or a release package, the sluggishness is always there.
Since it's not a Xamarin package, it might be up to Newtonsoft to fix, but it's included by default in a new project so I thought it was worth mentioning here.
I found the issue by using a debug package to write to the console line by line as it walked through the page setup from download through drawing the UI. When I search for "newtonsoft json slow android" I found this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/42285254/json-net-slow-on-first-use-on-xamarin-android
@BenjaminFunk I bet it is a lot of JIT compiling for Newtonsoft.Json. Try using AOT to see if this helps on release mode. Note it will bloat your APK size but it is a good test of how JIT affects your startup
Thanks for the suggestion, @DH_HA1. It did, as you said it would: make the storage requirement much larger (nearly double in size for the APK). Unfortunately it's not making a difference.
The JSON record that's getting deserialized is pretty large if it contains an optional string with a base64-encoded image. But even if that image isn't present, the device locks up on the first load. Leave that screen and come back for another record (which still gets downloaded and deserialized) and it's fine.
Just for fun, I gave it something to deserialize at startup. It fixed that page, but startup takes around 30 seconds and it's just a white screen while it starts up.
My team is currently getting demolished by overhead in Android, pages can take up to a few seconds to load even with minimal layout. AOT helps this but not by much.
@BenjaminFunk I would suggest doing the least amount possible on startup. Get a screen up and then show a loading image to load this data.
@DH_HA1 said:
@BenjaminFunk I would suggest doing the least amount possible on startup. Get a screen up and then show a loading image to load this data.
That's a good point. I've done this and now I have a nice logo screen, but it hasn't helped the time it takes to login since that page displays while everything spins up. And I can't put an activity indicator on that page, because it's just frozen, making the app look broken.
I'm going to break this out into its own thread.
I know I've talked a bit about AOT in this thread before, but I'm still not 100% done with the topic. Here are some pros and cons about using AOT on Android:
Can the JIT'et code be cached on the device? This would lead to smaller apk's and only a hit from the JIT compiler the first time a function is called.
From looking at the mono sources this seems to be possible using some switches and compiler magic. Anyone from the compiler/Android toolchain teams like to explain/elaborate on this?
@rogihee said:
@EZHart excellent answer. Any idea what the impact is of having lots of different assemblies to startup times? I try to minimize the amount of nugets used, but with a few plugins and the support libs an app easily grows to 20+ assemblies. Is this the reason why it is investigated to pull the whole of Xamarin.Forms into one dll?
Sorry for the late answer. I don't have great numbers on the overhead of loading many assemblies vs a few, but my suspicion is that it's small (but non-zero). The real startup issue is the time to JIT compile the code, and that's somewhat dependent on what code from those packages you actually use.
If anyone does have some good data measuring the impact, I'd love to see it; it's difficult to measure, and someone else doing the work would save me a lot of time
AFAIK, this wasn't the reason for investigating a single Xamarin.Forms DLL, though shaving a few fractions of a second off of the load time would be a nice side effect.
@EZHart: When you say "The real startup issue is the time to JIT compile the code" - could you please elaborate on how JIT'ing is performed on Android (see my previous question) - Can JIT'ed code be cached on the device?
Forms is doing several other things for you, like setting up the deep linking provider, handling the status bar background, setting up handling for alerts and action sheets, toolbar support, and some other stuff I'm forgetting at the moment. And handling the API level checks and Forms abstractions, too. If you started adding all of these features to a plain Android app, the gap between startup times would start to close pretty fast.
@EZHart I think it might be a good idea to let developers choose what to load at startup. As you mentioned, maybe some of these things can be lazy loaded until first use or loaded after the first page is rendered on the screen.
@ChristianFalch said:
@EZHart: When you say "The real startup issue is the time to JIT compile the code" - could you please elaborate on how JIT'ing is performed on Android (see my previous question) - Can JIT'ed code be cached on the device?
Caching the JIT compilation results doesn't really make sense; the results would contain addresses which won't be correct on subsequent process restarts. Also, I suspect re-using JIT results would defeat some of the optimizations JIT compiler can make.
There are some UI regressions from upgrading from 2.3.3 to 2.3.5 which we are trying to fix but once those are out we'll push our app to production and post some comprehensive numbers on perf improvements
Unfortunately my team has found 126.96.36.199-pre3 to be significantly slower than 18.104.22.168 (the last release for us that compiles successfully for both Android and iOS). I added timing logic to two pages in our app - the home page and a read only style page with 93 labels and no input controls which I thought might make an interesting test. Note, we have no custom label renderers and I was using debug builds on a physical Android device not attached to the debugger.
The home page was consistently 25% slower to construct and display, and the label heavy page ~40% slower. I restored the XF NuGet package back to 2.3.4, re-ran the tests, and was back to the original timings.
I'm not sure if there's a go fast button we are meant to push, but we're disappointed with these results. The only positive we could draw on was that the iOS app builds successfully, unlike with 220.127.116.11 & 184.108.40.206.
I've seen several posts about the latest Mono update slowing down Android apps. I can confirm this behavior, and I have found that Newtonsoft deserialization is where my issue is at. However, the slowdown only happens the first time an object is deserialized (for each unique class).
I don't think it's related to Newtonsoft since it was working fine before, but I am positive others will start seeing this issue since it's pretty much the goto library.
My gut tells me something has completely broken Reflection Android. Can anyone please confirm this behavior?
I have the latest Forms release (126.96.36.199). Using Newtonsoft 10.0 is completely broken now on Android, so I downgraded to 8.0.3 and the performance is better.


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This is a breakout board for NewHaven's NHD-C12832 graphic display, a 128 x 32 pixels display with an SPI interface. I like this display mainly because it's cheap (about $11) I think it was the cheapest one I could find with this resolution, and it also looks great. However, it has an unusual package (tight pitch pins and four holes, two for the backlight and two for the screen) so I had to spend some time working on the footprint and PCB, but the end result was good.
The repository includes the Eagle files and the Arduino sketch.
I placed all components on the backside of the PCB to keep it as small as possible, the board has a 3.3v 150mA LDO regulator (the display operates from 2.6v to 3.3v) and a level shifter (74VHC541) to convert the logic signals to the operating voltage, so it's compatible with 5.0v logic and can be powered from 3.3v up to the maximum rating of the voltage regulator. The backlight is connected to the regulator via a MOSFET (it draws 45mA maximum) which can be controlled with PWM. The display has an SPI interface and draws about 0.45mA maximum.
The display controller is supported by u8glib, so I wrote small Arduino sketch to test drawing a bitmap, to generate the bitmap, I used gimp to convert the image to black and white (1-bit) and then exported it to hex (save as .xbm) and then included that as a header in the sketch...
The repository includes the Eagle files and the Arduino sketch.
hg clone https://code.google.com/p/nhd-c12832-breakout


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The Suunto Vector, the original watch to pack altimeter, barometer and compass functions, is to come out in a new color.
One of Suunto's most popular watches, the legendary classic will get a new black / lime edition. The Suunto Vector Black Lime will join the existing line-up, which includes the Vector XBlack, Vector Orange and Vector Black among others.
As Suunto's original mountain watch, the Vector Black Lime offers full functionality for serious outdoor adventures. Its ABC functions are trusted by mountain professionals around the world while it's light and extremely robust, making it the perfect choice for every adventure. Vector HR variants also offer heart rate monitoring.


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H7216A/B-110 Bluetooth Technology Fundamentals
1 Days | Classroom Training | Where & When | Advantages of Keysight Training
Audience: Managers and engineers with fundamental knowledge of RF and digital communications, who are new to Bluetooth and want to get a technical overview about the Bluetooth system.
Bluetooth® is an open standard for speech and data transmission. Besides the applications for this new technology, e.g. the wireless connection between mobile station and terminal equipment, also the structure of the Bluetooth system architecture is presented. The set-up of so-called shortrange ad hoc networks (piconets and scatternets) will be introduced.
The participant gets to know the used transmission principle over the air interface and the Bluetooth RF test requirements. Also, the used protocol architecture for Bluetooth will be discussed. Furthermore, basic procedures in this system, e.g. security functions (authentication, ciphering) access procedures (inquiry, paging) and connection set-up are presented.
Bluetooth and the Bluetooth logos are trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc., U.S.A. and licensed to Keysight Technologies, Inc.
What you will Learn
- An overview of Bluetooth qualification
- Advantages and limits of Bluetooth - a comparison
- Bluetooth system architecture
- Development and standardization of Bluetooth
- Application fields for Bluetooth
- Basic knowledge of telecommunications
- Short introduction of wireless communications
- Applications of Bluetooth technology
- Development and standardization
- Transmission principles
- Air interface testing requirements
- Channel and packet definitions
- Overview of Bluetooth qualification
- For complete course details, click on the Education Datasheet below
Where & When
|For more information
|call for price
|Call to Schedule
|+1 877 894-4414
|How to Enroll
Prices shown are list prices and are subject to change without notice. Terms & Conditions
Training & Event Materials
Bluetooth Technology Fundamentals - Course Overview
This is a 2-page, black and white course overview of Bluetooth Technology Fundamentals. Learn the Bluetooth technology as a new technique for wireless communication.
Data Sheet 2014-07-31


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Some Decisions Are Really Hard
October 15, 2014
Amanda Shea
Original @ Free Patriot
Advertisement space can be very pricey, especially for drivers who can't take their eyes off of it and cause a motor vehicle accident from their distracted stare. That was what happened as a result of a failed experiment for one Moscow advertising agency.
The commercial ad group Sarafan Advertising Agency attempted to drum up new clients by convincing potential customers that their ad space is lucrative for businesses. They used a truck as a moving billboard to convey their message of the company's effectiveness by plastering a massive photo of a nude woman holding her breasts to both broad sides of the freight truck, the Daily Mail reported. The photo also displayed a note that read: "They attract."
Unfortunately for many drivers with crashed cars, the ad did attract – distract. Sarafan unwittingly caused over 500 traffic accidents with this inappropriate ad.
Rather than keeping their eyes on the road and the cars ahead of them, drivers watched the pair of giant breasts parade by. The news source reported that police received a total of 517 accident reports in under a 24 hour time period.
The amount of calls became so overwhelming that cops decided it was in the public's interest to corral the chesty truck until the ads could be removed. One driver, Ildar Yuriev, caught up in the ordeal when a separate driver crashed into his car while on his way to work in Moscow, explained his personal experience with the breast photo fiasco to the Daily Mail:
"I was on my way to a business meeting when I saw this truck with a huge photo of breasts on its side go by. Then I was hit by the car behind who said he had been distracted by the truck," Yuriev said. "It made me late and left my car in the garage, and although I am insured, I am still out of pocket."
The agency's spokesman apologized for the incident, saying his company will happily cover the financial costs of the accidents.
This experiment gone wrong is a reminder that using gratuitous porn in advertising can be dangerous. There are far more creative and lucrative ways to earn business (and respect) from others, without selling out to sex.
Email: We just thought we would send you a Halloween wish that you might just appreciate. You still like boobs, right? Anyhow, use the ones you can if you want, that's why we are sending them. Jackie & Jill


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Shitting on society's "losers" is such a great national sport.Posted in change the record, doin' it wrong, New Zealand on November 28th, 2011 by steph – 1 Comment
(Note: This post was actually written a week or so ago, before the election, and was motivated by the general nastiness towards people in "undesirable" jobs that seems to be picking up speed – or, perhaps, it may be the case I am just noticing it more. Anyway, given the election results, I don't really imagine that this sniping at society's "losers" – i.e. anyone who is perceived to be lower in status than the person who is doing the criticising- will ease up.)
Maybe I've just been naïve not to notice it before, or maybe it really is getting much more prevalent, but the attitude towards people who are "unmotivated", "lazy", "moochers", or have the "crap jobs" has made me extremely angry and upset lately. So many people seem to feel entitled to shit on people who are obviously less awesome then they are, and are exercising what they seem to think is their right to aggressively and nastily criticise anyone they think is in a bad situation, because apparently all it takes is hard work and enough desire for anyone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become a lawyer/doctor/millionaire entrepreneur/the Prime Minister. And usually this attitude also includes some obligatory criticism of the types of jobs that these non-awesome bottom feeders are doing (with apparently no motivation to ever better themselves, because if they had that then they would've swiftly risen through the ranks to become the manager/boss/own a whole damn franchise chain). Apparently these jobs – in fast food, cleaning, care work, factory work, etc – are piss easy jobs that are handed out to any warm body on the street, and why should someone in a job like that be paid more than five bucks an hour to mindlessly put things into boxes or mop the floors?
Well, I'm fed up with these arrogant, nasty, heartless jerks talking smack about how monkeys deserve their peanuts. These jobs are so easy and effortless, are they? Barely even count as real jobs? As someone who has worked in a few different "drone jobs", I feel very strongly about this topic. As someone who worked as a supermarket checkout chick, I want to know this: if that kind of job is so easy and inconsequential, then I guess it wouldn't matter if I had sat back and read a magazine and left my work to the manager of the store. No biggie- it's not like my job was any real effort or work, right? And seeing as we had rows and rows of monkeys sticking things in bags- a job that a two year old could apparently do, by the way-, maybe we should just scrap all those jobs and the manager can do all of them- after all, people doing those jobs are really just being kept busy as box openers and being paid as little as the bosses can get away with. Oh, except that if you only think that the "important" jobs (switch important with prestigious, enjoyable, high-paying, desirable – they appear to be interchangeable) are worth decent compensation for doing, and that other jobs barely even count as jobs, then the people doing the "big" stuff wont be able to do their work because they're be swamped with the work of a hundred other "monkeys". And everything will be great when you walk into a supermarket where there's no food on the shelves because none of the monkeys are there to stack it anymore, and no monkey working the register to ring up your groceries (although I guess you could just saunter behind the till and immediately know what to do because it's such a low-level skill, like breathing). And who's going to pack your groceries into bags- you? Come on, we all know that job is beneath you. And who are you going to subtly belittle for working such a low-paying , unskilled job if nobody's doing those jobs anymore? (Yes, when I worked in a supermarket I had customers behave very condescendingly towards me). Some people are just rude and don't know when to keep their stupid little stereotype-based opinions to themselves). It kind of takes the fun out of things when you can't patronize the loser working the cash register as your checkout line treat.
So, we're working with the idea that people should be smarter than to stick with crappy, low paying jobs, right? People who do those jobs lack ambition and don't contribute anything of value to society. So from now on, there will be nobody to flip your burgers, nobody to pick those yummy cherries you want to eat with Christmas dinner, nobody to make sure that the bathroom at your office is clean when you arrive at work every morning. If these jobs are for barely functional losers and require no skills or effort, then why not just tack these jobs onto the jobs of other people? If they're barely jobs at all, it won't make a difference, right? I can see it now: you're finally packing up after a stressful day at work, and as you make a move for the door your boss hands you a toilet brush. Have fun scrubbing your workmates' shit stains every day on top of your actual work. Any loser could be an office cleaner, so who cares if you have to do a little industrial vacuuming before you head home to cook dinner? Any numbskull could pick fruit all day, so why don't you go get that heavy ladder, lug it from tree to tree, and pick those delicious cherries in the burning sun. People who work at burger joints are just box-openers, and surely someone as smart and successful as you knows how to open a box, so it won't be a big deal for you to take on that job too. Maybe that McDonalds manager should do the job of all of their monkey staff members if those jobs are so easy and worthless- one person staffing is probably all a place like that needs, anyway.
Oh, and before you go to work in the morning you'll also have to deal with your garbage. I mean, rubbish collectors just hang off the back of a truck all day and intermittently throw rubbish bags into the truck- that doesn't involve any actual skills, so why the hell are we paying those mooching losers?! Nobody should be rewarded TOO well for such a low-level job or you're basically rewarding them for doing nothing. And if it's a job that barely even qualifies as a job, maybe you can just do that yourself, too. I'm sure you can't wait to get up close and personal with big piles of stinking rubbish, because I know you love that so much. And it's no big deal, right? Any chump could do that job, so you should manage just fine because you have mad skills, and it's obviously within your capabilities.
I've worked on the checkout at a supermarket (and for more than minimum wage, which I was very grateful for when I was a struggling student making JUST enough to get by each week). I've also done a few summers of various orchard work- picking, packing, grading, and there's no feeling like the back-breaking physical effort of lugging huge crates of fruit to be exported and sold at astronomical prices for the grand reward of very little money and pain in your whole body. Without people doing these jobs, all the people with their big important jobs who love to complain about the deadbeats working at McDonalds would probably fail to function. Sorry to insult any of you who have big important jobs and actually understand this – you aren't the people I mean when I say this. It's the horrible, nasty jerks who don't even think about who makes their coffee, cleans their office, pumps their petrol, picks up their recycling, rings up their purchases, picks their fruit, babysits their kids, or fries their fish and chips. You jerks: if those jobs are for stupid, hopeless losers with no skills, then why don't you go out and just do all that stuff for yourself, given that you are so skilled and awesome at life. If a monkey could do those jobs, then why pay a person; lets get some actually monkeys in here and see how long it takes one of them to learn how to bag up the new clothes you've just purchased. I feel that if we test this by using actual monkeys, your perspective that any monkey could do such a job might be disproven, and my perspective that these jobs involve actual WORK might be validated. And hey, if I'm wrong and a monkey really could collect your garbage and take it to the dump for you, then it's a huge win because we'll be able to scrap the minimum wage altogether and just pay monkeys for doing those shitty jobs in food. Think of all the money we'll save!
Oh, you were just using monkey as a perjorative term! Silly me. (Does that make me some sort of stupid sub-human for failing to grasp your oh-so-intelligent derogatory point? Probably). Well, if some half-asleep 8 year old could do those jobs, then we should just give them those jobs. Kids will be occupied outside of school hours (and thus unable to sneak around getting stoned in their school playground at 9pm at night, which will alleviate Peter Dunne's fears), and they'll also learn the value of hard work from a young age! Or, as I said earlier, if these jobs are so piss-easy, then maybe we should just add them on to the jobs of everyone else, and eliminate the low-status jobs by amalgamating them into the jobs of the awesome regular people with awesome jobs that require awesome skills. After all, if they require so little effort –no special skills, no energy, no time- then this should have absolutely no effect on the work of people who now have to do them. So, there's no downside to this at all: minimum wage monkey jobs are taken care of by other people, and the regular work of those people is obviously not affected in any way by having to do one or two tasks that require no more effort than scratching one's arse. Perfectly realistic, and problems with those pesky losers and their scabby little excuses for 'jobs' are all solved – no lazy bum will be getting paid for a job that basically amounts to just standing around doing nothing all day!
People who do these jobs – the kind that sneering idiots like to look down on as being jobs for thick people – are important. These jobs are important. Not everyone can be a doctor or a lawyer or the Prime Minister, and not everyone wants to. And unless we can get hold of some robots to do all of those "little" jobs for us, we will still need people to do them. People who act like chucking a 10 cent coin at someone doing one of those jobs would be more than enough compensation for that work should probably think about whether they would be happy to take on that work or not, and how they would feel doing a job and being told that it doesn't count as work and how they, as an employee, are essentially expendable. And they should think about who would do those jobs if the people doing them now didn't, and imagine how much it would affect them. But, naturally, people who are smug, entitled jerks probably don't care about any of this, because really their perspective boils down to "I have a good job, and I am a good person with good skills and lots of ambition, therefore people who do the jobs I consider to be bad must therefore be bad people with no skills and no ambition". Either that or they are just egocentric assholes who don't see these people as actual human beings that even belong in the same category as them, and thus are fair game for criticism and derision.


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About 2 weeks ago Micah Claire had a bit of some sort on her leg. Well apparently she picked at it and had a fever at the same time (probably from cutting teeth) which led to the bite turning into a virus. It looked terribly; but Dr. Ward said it was not as bad as it looked and she only needs to be on antibiotic for a few days. Well…. those few days of antibiotic caused a major diaper rash. I mean it was terrible! It took the 2 of us to hold her down when we had to change her diaper. She would just cry and scream NO! It was truly heart breaking. But, I am super happy to say it has finally cleared itself up! We had to let her go without a diaper as much as possible. I just couldn't resist taking a few pictures of her cutie tootie hinny (she'll probably want to kill me one day when she sees these).
I had no idea, but apparently she was peeing right as I was taking this picture. If you zoom in on it you can see it coming down and a little wet spot on the carpet!
As I mentioned she has been cutting more teeth; which hasn't been bad at all (not normal at all for her). She now has her two bottom 12 month molars in! It so strange to see them when she laughs real big. She is really growing up these days. She has even started to put a few words together. She has said: bye Nana; bye poppa; hi daddy; and hi Bruce (our lab). She is just picking up words left and right these days and I tend to forget that. As you probably know I call Shawn, Willie; actually my entire family calls him that now; I guess it's just catchy. Since the day Micah Claire's been born he has made it VERY clear that she is to NEVER call him that. Well……….. Saturday night I was giving M.C. a bath and I noticed a little bruise on her ribs. Even though the child is very accident prone I didn't remember any fall that might have caused that bruise; I wonder if Willie had. So I said Willie… and got no response. I thought maybe we was across the house so I yelled it a little louder; no answer. I thought okay maybe he's stepped outside; so I yelled it a little louder a few more times. Now the entire time that I am hollering for him M.C. is yelling something too; but I wasn't paying much mind to her b/c she babbles so much. I finally stopped and looked at her and said what it's; what are you trying to tell momma. ....... And then she said it………….. Willweeee. YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I tried not laugh but was so dang funny and so dang cute I couldn't stop myself. When I finally calmed myself I said Micah Claire we can't say that daddy will not be happy with mommy. She said it again and then fell out laughing. About that time Shawn came back into the house. I said Daddy could you come here. I have to tell you something….I told him the entire story. I could tell he wanted to be mad; but it was just too funny for him not to laugh. I guess my days of calling him Willie may be over for a while!
Last Friday I decided to go ahead and put up our Christmas tree! I love Christmas and every year it seems to go by faster and faster. So this year I thought I would get a jump start and put the tree up earlier than I ever have. Some days M.C. doesn't pay it any attention but other days she tries to pull every ornament off the tree (which keeps mommy very busy). I haven't had time to put up all the decorations around the house; but hopefully they will all be up soon! And I am super pumped to announce that I have ALL my Christmas shopping DONE! I have never in my life been finished this early so I am super happy!!!!!This picture doesn't do my bow justice. I LOVE IT. Jeanette made it for me 2 years ago. (I swear the girl could give Martha Stewart a run for her money!)
And for the SUPER EXCITING NEWS!!!!!!!! My brother Eric has finally asked Ashley to marry him!!!! Ashley and I have been the best of friends for almost 9 years now; so I couldn't imagine a more perfect person for Eric to marry. I have known for almost of month now that he was ready to pop the question. It has killed me to keep it from her. I have had to tell her soooo many lies that I was to the point where I couldn't keep up with the lies. I have to say Eric planned the perfect engagement all by himself! He got her to go play golf (in super cold weather). At the 9th hole he placed the ring box down in the hole. So when Ashley hit her ball in (Which took forever; sorry Ashley but your just not a good golfer J ) she found the box. He then dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him. She had no idea but all her friends and family and all his family was watching from the country club. So, we all came running out and congratulated them. Then we had finger foods and cake and spent a couple of hours celebrating. Poor Ashley was so excited she couldn't eat. Here are some pictures from the big day!!! I hear they are thinking about a May wedding!!!!!!!!
Here is Eric moving the flag so he could drop the ring box down into the hole!
A little champagne toast for the newly engaged couple!
This cake was great!
Here they are cutting the cakeHere is me and my future SISTER-IN-LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here is Ashley showing off her new ring! I have to say Eric did a great job picking out the ring!!