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Florida insists Sugar Bowl foe Louisville is legit
NEW ORLEANS - Florida seniors Jon Bostic and Omar Hunter are done dwelling on what might have been if not for their lone loss to Georgia.
After finishing third in the BCS standings, one spot too low to play for a national title in Miami, the Gators asserted they remain highly motivated heading into Wednesday night's Sugar Bowl against two-touchdown underdog Louisville.
Hunter even suggested a victory for fourth-ranked Florida (11-1) over No. 22 Louisville (10-2) would be a "program changer," because Florida has not been to a BCS bowl game since Tim Tebow left after the 2009 season.
Last year, the Gators nearly missed out on the postseason, finishing the regular season 6-6 before posting a 24-17 victory over Ohio State in the Gator Bowl. This season, only a 17-9 loss to Georgia on Oct. 27 got in their way.
"Being able to get this program back to a BCS game and possibly winning the game is big for our program," Hunter said. "Being able to say that you brought Florida back to the top before you left is going to be special for these seniors."
The Gators are hesitant to buy into the idea they'll just roll over the champions of the Big East without much resistance.
One reason is their familiarity with Louisville coach Charlie Strong, who was Florida's defensive coordinator from 2003-09, a period that included national championships in the 2006 and 2008 seasons.
"I played for his defense and I know how he talked to us and got us ready for games and I know their defense is going to be ready," Hunter said. "Coach Charlie Strong is a great coach. He's going to give everything he has to those guys and those guys are going to come out ready."
Strong has sought to motivate his players by playing up their underdog status.
"Nobody really gives us a chance," Louisville defensive end Marcus Smith said. "We kind of take that to heart and want to show everybody what we can do."
Cardinals safety Calvin Pryor said he believes Louisville will "shock the world."
"I have confidence in my team and the guys who I play with and I feel like this is a big statement game for us," Pryor said. "I feel like we're going to make big things happen on Wednesday."
Strong said he may get a little sentimental when he walks onto the Superdome field and sees some of the players he recruited on the other sideline and hears the Florida band play the fight songs with which he became so familiar over the years.
Yet the importance of the game for Strong has more to do with matching his team against an opponent from the Southeastern Conference, home to national title winners the past six years, than the fact he used to coach in the Swamp.
"It's going to be key for our program because we have a chance to go play a Southeastern Conference opponent, an opponent that's one game away from playing for a national championship," Strong said. "If you look at the Southeastern Conference, look at the national championships over the last few years, it speaks for itself. ... Our team, they're really excited about it."
Strong had a chance to rejoin the SEC as Tennessee's head coach, but chose instead to remain at Louisville, an indication of how far he believes he can take Cardinals football, particularly if he keeps prolific sophomore quarterback Teddy Bridgewater around the next couple seasons.
Bridgewater, an exceptional passer and scrambler, ranked eighth in the nation in pass efficiency, throwing for 3,452 yards and 25 TDs. Although he was worn down up by the end of the season, he was tough enough to overcome a broken wrist and sore ankle, and played a crucial part-time role in a 20-17 victory over Rutgers in late November that punched Louisville's BCS ticket.
He's now had a little over a month to rest, and is doing better, though Strong was coy about how much better.
"Our game plan is all about Teddy. So Teddy's healthy now," Strong said. "I'm not saying he's 100 percent, but he's going to be better than he was in the Rutgers game."
Bridgewater led an offense that scored an average of 31 points this season, and Florida's defense is assuming the quarterback is healthy. But the Gators aren't exactly lacking confidence in their ability to slow him down. The Gators rank first nationally in pass defense efficiency, fifth in total defense and third in scoring defense, allowing an average of 12.9 points.
With its defense playing so well, Florida was able to win this season with a ball-control offense that did not ask too much of quarterback Jeff Driskel, who completed about 65 percent of his passes for 1,471 yards and 11 TDs.
The Gators largely rode running back Mike Gillislee, who rushed 1,104 yards and 10 TDs, and who is a threat to break off long runs.
"You look at the big plays he's had in the open field, he can do a lot of things," Louisville defensive coordinator Vance Bedford said. "One thing we cannot allow him to do is cut back on us. If he does, he's probably going to take it to the distance."


text:
Keyhack G toggle health, H toggle ammo, J add cash.
Fight off endless hordes of zombies in this rogue-like arena based shooter. Explore a space station over run by zombies, buy and upgrade weapons and assemble a team of super soldiers to aid you in your battle. How long will you last?
Mouse to aim and shoot.
Arrow keys or WASD to move
Space or Down arrow or S to interact/activate
E or Shift to open the weapon wheel
P or Escape to pause

subset: commoncrawl


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Allow kids to be kids with children's clothing from Pumpkin Patch. This range is made from high quality, comfortable fabrics and available in timeless styles, so both you and your child will love the morning dressing routine.
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Get the latest kids tops with wonderful frills, ruffles, spots and checks, all mixed together for summer fun, or seriously soft and durable stretch denim pants.
For wardrobe staples all year round now, shop the entire Pumpkin Patch range now, and pay later with Afterpay.


text:
- Check if your spelling is correct.
- Remove quotes around phrases to search for each word individually. Algebra Geometry will often produce more results than "Algebra Geometry"
- Consider broadening your search with OR. Algebra OR Geometry will often produce more results than Algebra Geometry
Here are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.


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Hunter Smith of Frankland Estate Winery, Frankland River, Western Australia
Signature Wines/Prices: Olmo's Reward $56, Isolation Ridge Riesling $40
Where were you born? Where do you live now? I was born in Frankland River and spent my early childhood growing up on our then "broad acre" farm (growing crops and sheep grazing) that my parents purchased in the early 1970's. Due to our geographical isolation, when I was 11 years old, I went to boarding school in Perth. This was the start of 15 years of living and working away from the family property until my return in 2001. However, school holidays were enjoyed on the family farm and emerging vineyard and winery.
How did you get into the wine business? I grew up with my father and mother's love of wine–a bottle was always on the table for nearly every meal (breakfast excluded, sometimes)! My parents were, and still are, Bordeaux drinkers – it was commonplace to have a bottle of Bordeaux at the dinner table. My parents encouraged me to do other things outside of the wine industry, so my desire to be actively involved in wine came quite late. It wasn't fully cemented until I worked a vintage in Austria and Germany in the year 2000. It was then that I really decided to get involved with our family business.
What is most and least rewarding about being a winemaker? I have a fondness and interest for all kinds of agriculture and agribusiness. Winemaking is such a divers and rewarding career. One day you are in the vineyard kicking the soil and talking about microbiology and that afternoon you will be on the phone to your importer in California. To see your wines on the wine lists in some of the great restaurants of the world is hugely rewarding.
What are the benefits and challenges of making wine in your region? I will start with the benefits, there are many but to list a few important ones: The Frankland River region is remote and enjoys its inland position off the south coast. We get high temperature variation from day to night and cool persistent winds which make viticulture a real pleasure and allows us to quite comfortably grow in a low disease-pressure environment. Hence, our Isolation Ridge Vineyard that surrounds the winery is certified organic. The isolation of our winery provides many positives. However, it also has its challenges, perhaps the biggest being that our major markets are, literally, on the other side of the world!
Have Australians' wine preferences changed in the last 10 years? Absolutely. Australia like many of the markets we export to, is continually evolving and we have seen the Australian wine drinker become more savvy and more discerning. The increasing amounts of imported wines into Australia have really changed the wine landscape in a positive way and I think this has lent itself to the food-friendly, balanced styles of wine, a style we have been conscious of making from day one at Frankland Estate.
Have you been to the U.S.? Do you think Australia gets an unfair reputation in the U.S. for producing unbalanced, fruit bombs? I have, over the past 10 years, spent about 4 weeks a year travelling and selling our wines in the USA. It has been a great market for us at Frankland Estate and our focus has very much been in the premium end of the market. We have always felt Australia in general has a lot of work still ahead of it in promoting its best wines into the US market; you only had to go to the best restaurants of the USA to see the lack of great Australian wines on the menu. When currency was more in our favor it was possible to have nice, fruit-driven wines at an inexpensive price-point. Now this segment is tougher and we have seen stronger interest in the premium market; in wines that reflect terroir, are balanced and show a sense of location and identity.
Which wine or grape is the least understood or respected? WOW…this is a tough question. I am going to have to say Riesling! If everyone loved Riesling as much we do as a family here at Frankland Estate, every wine drinker would have a fridge full of it! It's an amazingly transparent variety that can show a sense of place and a winemaker's personality like no other variety. It also has many stylistic possibilities which I am sure adds to the complexities of understanding the variety for the average consumer. But, with a little knowledge, it can be some of the most rewarding drinking…from great "value for money" perspective, to some of the rare Trockenbeerenauslese wines and ice wines.
What excites you most about Australian wine right now? People are really doing a lot of soul-searching. Australia has enjoyed some amazing growth in export markets. However, due to a number of reasons, competition is strong and people are evaluating what sort of wines they are making. We have seen a strong push for winemakers generally to produce wines that are even more regional, more vineyard specific and more varietally- typical of their region. I think there are some amazing wines being produced by great young winemakers and these, I hope, will find their way out into the wine world and celebrated.
What do you drink when relaxing at home? A lot of Riesling. As I said before, there is great "value for money" in Riesling, but I do also have a love for wines from the northern Rhone.
What types of food do you like to eat? Any special dishes you make/care to share? I like eating! It's an excuse to have a glass of wine in front of you. We live in an amazing part of the world and as a family we grow a lot of vegetables, fruit and meat on our own farm. My father has an incredible vegetable garden and as a family we go out of our way to eat fresh locally grown (if not our own grown) food. We are just a one hour drive to the south coast, where a fresh whiting or flathead can be on the dinner plate in a matter of minutes. It is this freshness and honesty in food that I like most, I believe it's quite often referred to as "rustic food."
What music do you listen to? I'm a bit of dork when it comes to music. I still haven't moved on from the soft rock of the 80's and 90's; artist like the Stones, R.E.M and more recently casual stuff like Bon Iver.
Which non-Australian wines do you like? Variety is the spice of life and to limit it to just a region or two is hard. I spend a lot of time out in the markets selling wines from Frankland River — a region that is gaining in awareness but still has a long way to go. For this reason, I would consider I have a very open view on trying new wines. I prefer to drink wines that show their origin.
If you could be traveling somewhere else right now, where would you be? I would like to take a backpack and wander through inland China. It sounds amazing!
Is there a winery dog? We have dogs that help with our sheep work but we leave the winery to the winery cat!
Anything else you care to share…. We look forward to hosting your readers at Frankland Estate. It's worth the visit!


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Business News from Around the State
CHIEF EXECUTIVE magazine recently ranked Louisiana No. 11 in the U.S. – the state's highest position ever – in the publication's annual ranking of Best & Worst States for Business. The ranking further illustrates Louisiana's ongoing rise in national business circles. Here are some highlights of businesses making news around the state.
JEANERETTE – A boat builder that recently expanded in Jeanerette already plans more growth, creating close to a hundred new jobs in the area, a company official said recently. Metal Shark Boats, which custom-builds durable vessels for the U.S. Coast Guard, Navy and Army, in March announced a $1.5 million expansion of its local shipyard. The growth comes on the heels of a previous expansion undertaken when the company won a $192 million contract to build security response vessels for the Coast Guard. Metal Shark expects to double its manufacturing capacity and grow its local work force by 30 percent during the next four years, company president Chris Allard said.
BATON ROUGE – A $30 million investment by computer hardware heavyweight IBM promises to dramatically expand technology education at Louisiana State University and create 800 jobs in Baton Rouge. The company announced it will develop a software services center as part of a mixed-use development along the river in the capital city and employ a broad range of college graduates and experienced professionals.
Louisiana will provide $14 million in funding aimed at increasing the number of computer science graduates from LSU, which expects to double its computer science faculty and triple the program's graduates in five years. IBM will work with LSU faculty to shape courses around the center's needs and will also reach into high schools, technical colleges and other universities to promote interest in fields relevant to the center's work. A separate 11-story building planned by private interests within the footprint of the new complex would create 100 new residential apartments and townhomes.
WAGGAMAN – The state's chemical corridor landed a big one when Utah-based Dyno Nobel America announced it will partner with Cornerstone Chemical Co. on a $1 billion investment in Waggaman. The project will include an $850 million ammonia plant that is designed to use less energy and produce less air pollution than other such plants. The new facility will produce up to 880,000 tons of ammonia a year.
Cornerstone also will upgrade its Fortier Manufacturing Complex on the west bank of the Mississippi River in Jefferson Parish. The project will create 65 new jobs, with as many as 750 construction jobs during a three-year period. Cornerstone already produces acrylonitrile, melamine and sulfuric acid at the 800-acre Waggaman site and will integrate the new plant into the existing complex.
NEW ORLEANS –Textron Marine & Land Systems continued to deepen its footprint in New Orleans and Slidell as it announced a $5.5 million contract award from the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command to provide 12 armored turrets and support services for the Colombian Army's Armored Personnel Carriers Company. An operating unit of Textron Systems, the New Orleans-based Textron Marine & Land Systems produces advanced, wheeled combat vehicles and cutting-edge maritime craft for U.S. and international armed forces, as well as civilian entities around the globe.
SHREVEPORT – Startup auto manufacturer Elio Motors recently unveiled a version of the three-wheel vehicle the company plans to build in Shreveport. The Phoenix-based firm has been showing the two-passenger vehicle around the country as it touts its low-cost, high-gas mileage features. Elio brought the prototype to the former General Motors assembly plant in west Shreveport for private viewings followed by a public showing. The vehicle is considered a motorcycle by the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards but is fully enclosed. The base price of the unnamed vehicle is projected to be $6,800 when deliveries start in July 2014.
GEISMAR – The local economy continues to percolate along the river as Methanex Corp. prepares to move a second methanol plant from Chile to a 225-acre site in Geismar. The company announced last year it would relocate a plant to the Ascension Parish site, and in April it followed with the announcement of a second relocation. The combined plants represent a $1.1 billion investment in the local area that will create 165 jobs, plus 2,500 construction jobs.
In support of the new developments, Houston-based Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP announced it will invest almost $60 million to expand its chemical storage capacity in Geismar.


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Bloomberg Buys BusinessWeek
As expected, Bloomberg has won the bidding for Businessweek magazine, beating out the investment firm ZelnickMedia. They ended up paying more than the cost of McChicken, after all.
Businessweek's Tom Lowry reports:
But knowledgeable sources say that Bloomberg's cash offer is in the $2 million to $5 million range and that it has agreed to assume liabilities, including potential severance payments. It remains to be seen how much of the magazine's 400-plus staff Bloomberg plans to cut, but reports of a planned scorched earth campaign are overblown, say sources.
Indeed, our own sources also shot down a report earlier this week that Bloomberg had plans to dump virtually the entire staff at BW. Which is not to say that the magazine's employees should feel safe; it's still early in the process, but Bloomberg is reportedly considering a range of options including merging its own website with Bloomberg's. All signs point to probably layoffs at BW out of necessity, but Bloomberg is almost certainly not going to be as ruthless in cutbacks as a more financially-strapped buyer would have been.
Several million for the magazine is not so bad, by today's standards. By the standards of, say, five years ago, it's awful.


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Story by
Matt Brian
Matt is the former News Editor for The Next Web. You can follow him on Twitter, subscribe to his updates on Facebook and catch up with him Matt is the former News Editor for The Next Web. You can follow him on Twitter, subscribe to his updates on Facebook and catch up with him on Google+.
Determined to give schools a hand at getting kids to code, Google will donate 15,000 Raspberry Pi Model B units to schoolchildren all over the UK as part of its Google Giving initiative.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced Google's offering on its blog earlier today, sharing that company chairman Eric Schmidt had visited Cambridge to assist Raspberry Pi co-founder Eben Upton in teaching a group of children to code.
With 15,000 Raspberry Pis ready to give out, the Foundation will team-up with six educational partners — including CoderDojo, Code Club, Computing at Schools, Generating Genius, Teach First and OCR — to select the schools and areas who they think will benefit from owning a Raspberry Pi computer.
OCR will also assist the Foundation with teaching materials, creating 15,000 free teaching and learning packs to ship alongside the microcomputers.
Google's major computing gift shows its commitment to helping children get into computing and tackling the lack of computer science education in the UK. The Foundation credits Google with "helping some of our future engineers and scientists find a way to a career they're going to love."
''Britain's innovators and entrepreneurs have changed the world – the telephone, television and computers were all invented here," said Eric Schmidt. "We've been working to encourage the next generation of computer scientists and we hope this donation of Raspberry Pi's to British school pupils will help drive a new wave of innovation."
Related: Raspberry Pi launches its first app store to showcase games, tools and tutorials and Raspberry Pi Model A board arrives with 256MB RAM for $25
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Twenty-seven years later, we're still losing our shit over Len Bias.
A controversial request for state money to erect a statue of former basketball star Leonard "Len" Bias at Northwestern High School in Hyattsville will be withdrawn due to concerns about the message the honor would send to students.
Mount Rainier Mayor Malinda Miles said she was opposed to the statue because she thought it would send the wrong message and felt there were greater needs to be addressed at the school with the bond money.
"To have died of an overdose of drugs, regardless of the reason or circumstances, is not something I would want my grandchildren to model," Miles said.
That's from last week's Washington Post, though the quote at the end seems to have beamed in from the year 1986. There are lots of good reasons for not wanting to spend $50,000 of public money on statuary. That a statue of Len Bias in his athletic prime might encourage high school kids to stuff the northern coast of Colombia up their nose is not one of them.
But then, it's always 1986 again whenever we start talking about Len Bias. You know the story by now. He died of heart failure brought on by a cocaine overdose two days after getting drafted out of Maryland by the Boston Celtics, whereupon the country went and got hugely stupid in his name, and stupid have we remained ever since. The ur-text here is Dan Baum's terrific Smoke and Mirrors (Michael Weinreb's great ESPN feature from a few years back is required reading, too).
Immediately upon returning from the July 4 recess, Tip O'Neill called an emergency meeting of the crime-relate committee chairmen. Write me some goddamn legislation, he thundered. All anybody up in Boston is talking about is Len Bias. The papers are screaming for blood. We need to get out front on this now. This week. Today. The Republicans beat us to it in 1984 and I don't want that to happen again. I want dramatic new initiatives for dealing with crack and other drugs. If we can do this fast enough, he said to the Democratic leadership arrayed around him, we can take the issue away from the White House.
"In life," Baum writes, "Len Bias was a terrific basketball player. In death, he would become the Archduke Ferdinand of the Total War on Drugs."
Bias's death loosed all kinds of terrible ideas on the nation, foremost among them our famously destructive mandatory-minimum sentencing regime, which was enshrined into law in October 1986. It began the process of militarizing the sports world according to the hysterical exigencies of an unwinnable drug war, a process that accelerated when Ben Johnson tested positive for stanozolol at the 1988 summer Olympics in Seoul and turned performance-enhancing drugs into the war's newest rhetorical front.
Len Bias's legacy is all around us even still. It's the cup you have to pee in before starting a new job. It's the demographic nightmare of crack sentencing. It's the monthly freakout over recreational drug use among athletes. It's Barry Bonds on the federal docket, being prosecuted by morons. It's the ongoing attenuation of our Fourth Amendment rights, helped along by the work of sports league- and media-enabled drug warriors like Jeff Novitzky.
The Maryland state senator who submitted the statue bond bill, Victor Ramirez, told the Washington Post he'd grown up with a Len Bias poster in his room. "He represented someone who could make it," he said. "He was one of us.
"I think it was a tragedy, but you can't allow that one night to take away from who he was, what he stood for. …"
But "concerns were raised about hailing the athlete as a positive role model," as the Post put it, and Ramirez said he'd decided to pull the bill until he could "bring everyone to the table to make sure everyone is comfortable."
Forget the statue. Here's the tribute we've already paid to Len Bias's memory: He has been so thoroughly subsumed into our anti-drug frenzy that his name is now synonymous with the stuff that killed him. Len Bias is drugs, and drugs are bad. Just say no to Len Bias, kids.


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In this house, for quite a long time now, Anthony Horowitz has lived in a box labelled 'A Great Author But Not For Me.' I might have bought his books as gifts for younger relations, I might have considered his recent sequels if I ever finished reading Conan-Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes stories, but that was about it. Until I saw this book and I thought it could have been written for me!
It's not going to be the easiest book to write about without giving too much away, but I have to try.
'Magpie Murders' is a wonderful pastiche of a golden age murder mystery, wrapped up in a contemporary mystery. Each one was a wonderfully engaging story and an intriguing puzzle; and the cleverness and originality of the connection between the two made this book a joy to read.
The book begins in the present day.
Susan Ryeland works as editor for Cloverleaf Books, a small, independent publisher, that has stayed in business because it has one hugely successful author. Alan Conway is the author of the hugely successful Golden-Age-style series featuring German detective Atticus Pünd. Susan has never warmed to the author but she has always loved his books, she knows that a proposed BBC television adaptation will be very good for business, and so she is delighted when a new manuscript arrives and she can get to work.
The title of Alan Conway's new work is 'Magpie Murders'.
As soon as the situation in the present day has been established, the book turns into the manuscript that Susan has begun to read.
She reads a story set in the 1950s, in the little English village of Saxby-on-Avon. One of the villagers, Mary Blakiston, has been found dead at the bottom of the stairs in Pye Hall, where she worked as a cleaner. It could easily have been an accident, she might have tripped over the cable of the vacuum cleaner at the top of those stairs, but somebody who wanted justice to be seen to be done called in Atticus Pünd has in to investigate.
This is the beginning of a wonderfully engaging mystery. There are a number of suspects, and they all seem to have something to hide or something that don't want to talk about. There are events in the past to be uncovered and understood. There are a great many clues, many of which may well be read herrings. And there was an intriguing puzzle to be solved.
There were lovely echoes of real Golden Age mysteries – especially those written by Agatha Christie – and that made this original story feel wonderfully familiar.
I knew it was a manuscript, I could see some things that needed tidying up, and that worked very well, reminding me that I was reading a manuscript but not detracting from the story I was reading.
Such clever writing!
The manuscript ends at the point in the story when Atticus Pünd has announced that he has the solution to the mystery but before he has explained or there has been a grand denouement. The final chapters are missing.
Back in the present day, Susan in perplexed.
When she learns that Alan Conway has died at his country home she realises that the circumstances of his death, believed to be suicide, might just be murder. She knows that she has to find those missing chapters; she wants to know how the story end, and she know that her professional future might depend on it.
As she searches Susan finds striking parallels between the fictional world of Saxby-on-Avon and world of its creator, Alan Conway; and she finds a great deal to help her understand the man himself rather better, and like him even less.
I loved this story too.
It gave me some lovely insights into the world of publishing; it helped me to place one or two points in the manuscript that had felt very familiar, and it was just as engaging and compelling as the story in that manuscript.
I know I've mentioned that links and the parallels between the two stories already, but I have to mention them again because they were so well thought out and so lovely to spot.
I spotted some of the clues and some of the red herrings; I suspect that I fell into one or two traps along that way; but I don't mind at all because I had such a wonderful time watching the story unfold, and thinking how clever and how well executed everything was as the truth was gradually revealed.
There are so many interesting things woven into this book.
The author played fair – the clues were there – and while the story was clever and beautifully engineered it wasn't that just for the sake of it. Everything was there for a reason, and I always had the sense that the author loved what he was doing and that her had read and loved many of the same books that I had.
If you pushed me I could find a few small niggles – I didn't find Susan's personal life 100% convincing; there was an aspect of the denouement of one of the stories that was a little overdone – but in the end that didn't matter. Both stories were resolved beautifully, and as a whole the book worked wonderfully well.
I'm a little sorry that I'm not able to read more about Atticus Pünd's past cases.
But two excellent, intertwined mysteries for the price of one really was an excellent deal!


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Applicants, bosses both at fault as jobs go unfilled
NEW YORK – Many potential employees don't follow directions on job postings, are no-shows at interviews and sometimes accept a job only to say at the last minute, they're going to work for somebody else.
It's a situation that makes small business owners wonder as they wade through piles of resumes, are many job applicants unskilled, unreliable slackers? Many of the complaints are about younger workers, but human resources consultants say it's an issue across the age spectrum and pay scale. But the problem isn't just a flippant attitude on the part of job applicants. Employers have contributed to a change in job search etiquette.
Brian Schutt is one of the frustrated bosses. His company, Homesense Heating, got about 300 applications for an administrative position, and the office manager interviewed 25 candidates. Schutt expected to meet with a dozen people in the second round of interviews, but only one showed up. Younger applicants in particular seem to have a different work ethic, says Schutt, whose company is in Indianapolis.
"They just want to play and have fun and smoke," Schutt says. "I've gotten a very cynical view of what I've seen of folks under 25 that we've tried to bring on board."
The lackadaisical attitude of some applicants compounds a difficulty finding skilled employees that owners have reported for several years. In a 2013 survey of 1,200 local employers by St. Louis Community College, 56 percent cited applicants' poor worth ethic as a problem. In a survey last year by the nonprofit Seattle Jobs Initiative, nearly 35 percent of employers said most applicants for entry-level positions weren't reliable.
At Vacasa, a vacation home management company, chief strategy officer Scott Breon asked applicants for a marketing position to perform a simple task: Design a sales flier showing why they're the best one for the job. He got three emails. After he posted the job again without the assignment, applications poured in.
"If you have very few requirements, you get flooded with generic responses, the same letter they sent to 100 other companies," says Breon, chief strategy officer for the Portland, Oregon-based company.
Rob Wilson, president of a company that provides human resources services, not only hears about hiring problems from his clients, he also encounters them. Chicago-based Employco got hundreds of resumes for several open positions. Wilson and his staffers winnowed that number down to 30 and began setting up interviews. Out of six people scheduled, only three showed up. Because of their unprofessional attitude, those who stood up Wilson can forget about working for Employco in the future.
"If they're a no-show, there's no second chance," Wilson says.
Employers may be partly to blame for applicants' uncaring attitudes, says James McCoy, a vice president at the staffing company Manpower. Many human resources or hiring managers never acknowledge applications. Candidates are following their example, McCoy says.
Three-quarters of candidates surveyed last year said they never heard back from an employer after applying for a position, according to job search company CareerBuilder. Sixty percent said they went on interviews but weren't informed afterward they hadn't gotten the job.
Job-seeker Becky Cole has skipped second interviews or canceled when a would-be employer wasted her time or was condescending during an initial meeting.
"How I respond depends on the person. If they have made an effort to be a human being during the interview, I will email to cancel and let them know why I don't plan to show up," says Cole, who has been looking for a job as a technical writer in the St. Paul, Minnesota, area since January.
Applicants may also be burned out by the increasing demands and low chances of success in job searches since the recession.
A job posting for the lighting company Lumitec required applicants to write a cover letter that included five attributes that made them good candidates for a technical position. Many highly qualified candidates didn't take the time to comply, probably because they were applying for a number of jobs at once, says John Kujawa, president of the Delray Beach, Florida-based company.
"They had so many things to go after, and every one of those is a long shot," he says.
Job postings probably turn some applicants off rather than inspire them to put their best foot forward, says Melissa Trocko, a managing director at human resources provider Insperity.
"All these job ads, thousands of them, say, 'I need this skill and that skill and that many years of experience,'" Trocko says. "There's nothing exciting in them about the job."
But she agrees many job seekers don't make much of an effort.
"They're probably applying for jobs while at work, not reading the job postings, not following all the rules," Trocko says.
Glenn Boehmer deals with that problem as he sifts through resumes. People apply for jobs at his printing business they're not qualified for.
"We can get 40 responses, but rarely do I have one that's specifically what we're looking for," says Boehmer, owner of Sentinel Printing in Hempstead, New York.
Perhaps most frustrating are candidates who accept jobs and then change their minds.
One day before a new staffer was supposed to start at Erika Flora's technology consulting company, Beyond 20, he sent an email saying he'd taken another job. The work she'd put into the selection process, including four rounds of interviews, was wasted.
But Flora, whose company has offices in Washington, D.C., Phoenix and San Diego, is philosophical.
"I'm glad we found out. He didn't have much integrity," she says.


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Meteora Eats: Archontariki
My hostess recommended a taverna to me when I asked her where to eat. She said the place served fresh off the market, traditional food at a good price. Archontariki was just a minute's walk from where I'm staying at. Just off the town square.
I was told I can seat anywhere I fancied so I chose a table near the window and got settled in. Since I seem to have only time for dinner on this trip, my evening meals tend to make up for the rushed ones of the day.
Browsing through the menu, I decided to have a starter, a main, and of course, dessert!
Due to the fact that I'm in Greece, I was craving for feta cheese.
For mains, I had lamb. Something that seems to be of a specialty. I asked for it to be paired with rice coz a meal just isn't the same for me without it! Other options were potatoes, pasta, or vegetables.
Dessert was another opportunity to try something local so I had kataifi. I was advised by them to let its temperature get warm first as it was from their fridge so that it'd melt in your mouth when you eat it. It tastes quite like baklava – very sweet. I was only able to eat half of it.
Being very satisfied with mu dinner at this taverna that night, I came back again for my dinner the next day. My total expense for the previous meal was 15euros! I wanted to try other dishes. :)
I still wanted my feta cheese so even if I was really tempted to have another plate of grilled feta cheese, I opted for something healthier and had Greek salad instead. Yummy!
For mains, I opted for a meat I love (chicken) and ordered for a souvlaki. It is a Greek dish where pieces of meat are skewered then grilled. Of course I paired it again with rice – wouldn't have it any other way! hehe
I didn't order any dessert as I was looking forward to eating my freshly picked pomegranate once I'm back in the hostel. I did order for a Greek coffee though. I was (pleasantly) surprised to learn when they told me that it's on the house!
I highly recommend this place!