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Weekend Playlist: Best Good Wife Ever, Worst Dracula Ever, OWN's Bridegroom
Can't they all just get along? Perish the thought.
Few spectacles are more exciting and satisfying than watching a great series reinvent itself with bold strokes and high drama. In its five seasons, CBS's The Good Wife has never played it safe in boardroom, courtroom or bedroom - but nothing could have prepared us for just how explosively entertaining the war within Lockhart/Gardner was going to be.
It's no spoiler to reveal that everything changes in Sunday's pivotal "Hitting the Fan" episode (9/8c), a remarkable achievement by series creators Robert and Michelle King. Where we left off last week: Diane (Christine Baranski) pulls the trigger after connecting the dots, informing her soon-to-be-ex-partner Will, "Alicia is leaving the firm with Cary and she's taking our top clients." Ouch.
Sunday's episode opens on these same words, from Will's point of view. And from there, it's game on. "You're awful and you don't even know how awful you are," seethes Will (a masterful Josh Charles) in his blistering confrontation with the "Judas" Alicia (Julianna Margulies, performing a symphony of moods, from sorrowful regret to triumphant defiance). Sorry, Will, but one man's "awful" is another person's "awesome."
What follows is a dizzying, exhilarating whirlwind of conflict, as mentors turn on protégés and former allies (especially Archie Panjabi as the inscrutable Kalinda) debate their loyalty amid surprising reversals of fortune. After Alicia's stunning bid for independence, no one will ever be the same. Neither will The Good Wife - which is an incredibly exciting and even dangerous situation for a long-running show, especially for one on a network that tends to reinforce the status quo in its procedurals.
Despite Alicia's protests that her decision to leave with her fellow fourth-year associate rebels was "never meant personally," everything is now personal. This is dramatic hardball at its most hardcore, and The Good Wife has leaped back into the top tier of first-rate dramas. (Though for loyalists, it never really went away.) Emmy voters, are you paying attention?
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FANGS FOR NOTHING: They don't make them like they used to - which can be a blessing or a curse for practitioners of the horror trade. While such cable hits as The Walking Dead and American Horror Story reinvigorate the genre with bold new extremes of graphic realism and psychosexual surrealism, NBC inexplicably whiffs with its mildewed "re-imagining" (a word that's almost always a red flag) of Dracula(Friday, 10/9c).
A classic example of fixing what isn't broke, this laughable attempt to add relevance to a timeless myth manages to drain away whatever allure and danger the old Count still possesses. Of all the many bad decisions made in this clumsily contrived and poorly acted reboot, perhaps the worst is to force Jonathan Rhys Meyers to adopt a flat American accent in Dracula's disguise as industrialist Alexander Grayson, an upstart in the energy trade who takes on a London cabal of stuffed-shirt Victorian oil barons with his demonstration of newfangled geomagnetic electricity.
Yes, this is just about as exciting as it sounds.
And what does it have to do with vampirism, anyway? Turns out Grayson/Dracula's bigwig rivals are part of a secret mustache-twirling Order of the Dragon that turned him into a ghoul several centuries ago and burned his wife at the stake for good measure. This story is his vendetta, abetted by Dr. Van Helsing (Thomas Kretschmann), who in another bad call is no longer the vampire's nemesis but his accomplice in weird science. Dracula is drawn to Van Helsing's fetching protégée Mina Murray (Jessica De Gouw), the seeming reincarnation of his charred beloved, but she and her journalist beau Jonathan Harker (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) are such simpering stiffs they make the love triangle in Broadway's The Phantom of the Opera seem edgy.
So hokey that one torture scene actually shows salt being poured into a wound, Dracula lacks wit, style, surprise - and, most important, bite.
THE FRIDAY GUIDE: The CW's The Carrie Diaries returns for a second season (8/7c), with Carrie (AnnaSophia Robb) living in Manhattan for the summer - where she finally crosses paths with the infamous Samantha (Lindsey Gort). ... As NBC's Grimm launches its third season (9/8c), hero Nick (David Giuntoli) has turned zombie. Because these days, who hasn't? ... Before there was Stonebridge and Scott, we had John Porter (Richard Armitage) and Hugh Collinson (a pre-Walking Dead Andrew Lincoln) rocking the international counterterrorism world. Cinemax's six-part Strike Back: Origins (10/9c) introduces U.S. viewers to the action thriller's first season from 2010, which inspired the pay channel to venture into high-octane first-run production (and spawned the even twistier Banshee, which is back in January). ... There's no music fan quite like a Bruce Springsteen fan, which is the point of the feature documentary Springsteen & I (9/8c, Showtime), produced by Ridley Scott. This collage of music and personal reflection includes material submitted by fans from around the world, sharing their passion for The Boss. ... Hallmark Channel ventures into fantasy with the "Walden Family Theater" movie The Hunters (8/7c), featuring Victor Garber, Michelle Forbes and The Tomorrow People's Robbie Amell in the story of a family of "hunters" who traverse the world, raiding museums to protect fairy-tale artifacts. Are we sure they don't work for Warehouse 13? ... ABC's reality hit Shark Tank (9/8c) crosses a new threshold when a contestant accepts what ABC is calling "an unprecedented amount" for a deal. ... Tapping the same striking-it-rich vein, Discovery's reality hit Gold Rush returns with a two-hour Season 4 premiere (9/8c). ... Bravo's new reality competition Styled to Rock (8/7c), executive produced by Rihanna, challenges 12 designers to come up with looks inspired by music celebrities. It's Project Arena!
THE SATURDAY GUIDE: Having run out of storm metaphors to mangle, Syfy simply names this Halloween season's zombie jamboree movie Zombie Night (9/8c), a nonstop gorefest directed by John Gulager (remember him from Project Greenlight?) and featuring Anthony Michael Hall, a nearly unrecognizable Daryl Hannah and, most indelibly and weirdly, Shirley Jones as a frantic blind granny who's better off not being able to see what goes down. ... The year's best Lifetime movie title: The Husband She Met Online (8/7c), with Dawson's Creek's Meredith Monroe the unlucky heroine who wishes she'd never clicked in the first place. ... Hallmark Channel reprises its longest-running movie franchise with The Good Witch's Destiny (9/8c), the sixth in the "Good Witch" series. Once again, Catherine Bell stars as the bewitching Cassie Nightingale, who fears a curse could put a damper on her birthday plans. ... CBS's 48 Hours (10/9c) examines the troubling trend of dating and break-up violence with the case study of two Massachusetts teens whose parting of the ways had (as is usual for this series) deadly consequences. ... Making their debuts on NBC's Saturday Night Live (11:30/10:30c): host Edward Norton and musical guest Janelle Monae.
THE SUNDAY GUIDE: As the centerpiece of OWN's night of programming dedicated to issues about being gay in America, the moving documentary Bridegroom, directed by Designing Women's Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, receives its TV premiere (10/9c) after a successful run on the festival circuit. (It will also be available on Netflix starting Sunday.) This timely film couches its tragic love story in the broader context of equal rights. It's about a young couple, Shane Bitney Crone and Tom Bridegroom, parted too soon when Tom died after an accidental fall, with Shane's ordeal magnified by being alienated by Tom's family. ... It's preceded by a special edition of Oprah's Next Chapter (8/7c) that focuses on gay Hollywood, interviewing Wanda Sykes, Modern Family's Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Scandal's Emmy-winning Dan Bucatinsky. ... When the lights go out, what would you do? According to National Geographic Channel's speculative verité disaster movie American Blackout (9/8c), we'd all turn to our phones and cameras and obsessively record what we're going through as long as we could.Sounds about right. Like a missing reel from NBC's Revolution, this mock-documentary dramatically chronicles a breakdown of society over a chaotic 10-day period. Who knew batteries lasted that long? ... Smithsonian Channel's three-part Civil War 360 (8/7c) examines the conflict from multiple perspectives of the North, the South and the slaves' struggle for freedom. First up: "The Union," hosted by Ashley Judd. ... CBS's The Amazing Race (8/7c) brings back the dreaded Double U-Turn as teams race through Poland. Is it too petty to hope that one of them is used against the tyrant Marie, who has abused the privilege of holding an extra "express pass" for weeks. ... CBS's The Mentalist (10/9c) continues its hunt for Red John by investigating a death within the Visualize cult. ... BBC America continues its countdown to Doctor Who's 50th anniversary with a salute to one of the most popular incarnations in Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited - The Tenth Doctor (8/7c), featuring David Tennant and executive producer Steven Moffat reliving their adventures from 2005 to 2010. The good news: Tennant returns to the role next month (alongside Doctor No. 11, Matt Smith) in the 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor.
Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!
View original Weekend Playlist: Best Good Wife Ever, Worst Dracula Ever, OWN's Bridegroom at TVGuide.com
Other Links From TVGuide.com
- Andrew Lincoln
- AnnaSophia Robb
- Archie Panjabi
- Christine Baranski
- Jonathan Rhys Meyers
- Josh Charles
- Julianna Margulies
- Michelle Forbes
- Thomas Kretschmann
- Victor Garber
- Ridley Scott
- Richard Armitage
- Robbie Amell
- David Giuntoli
- The Good Wife
- Oliver Jackson-Cohen
- Grimm
- The Carrie Diaries
- Dracula
- Lindsey Gort
- Strike Back: Origins


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Jeff Miller appears to be living the pinball enthusiast's dream. The Tampa-based graphic designer-by-day took a life-long passion for pinball and turned it into his own burgeoning restoration business. The self-proclaimed "Pinball Pimp" began turning tricks in 2005, by restoring his own Bally Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy and hasn't looked back—situating himself as one of the go-to pinball restoration artists in the south-east United States. Further, Mr. Miller has recently expanded his Pimping business (as it were): he now supplies the pinball community with high end cabinet stencils for hobbyists to complete their own restoration work in the comfort of their own workshops. The Pinball Pimp stencil store currently offers twenty complete sets of stencils across two different pinball manufacturers, with the promise of many more to come. Judging by the reception from the community, these stencils are of the highest quality, the easiest to use and the most complete versions available on the market. I had the opportunity to conduct an interview with Mr. Miller concerning the manufacture of his line of stencils, the restoration business and what the future holds for the Pinball Pimp brand.
Credit Dot: How long have you been a pinball enthusiast?
Jeff Miller: I have been playing pinball since I was 8 years old, dating back to 1974. I used to play the machines in front of the Danners 5 & 10 Store on Saturday mornings as a kid. I started all this as a hobby back in 2005 when I restored my first pin which was a Bally Captain Fantastic.
CD: What lead to you offering decal sets for other enthusiasts to use in their restoration projects?
JM: I have been designing vector art for over 25 years and stencils for the past 10 years. I knew for a fact that the other pinball stencils available to the public just did not have the quality of artwork and the exacting standards that I designed for my own use. I then decided to start designing my own stencils each time I restored a game and ended up with a nice collection over 10 years. After hearing the constant frustration people were having with the other stencil vendors and all the rave comments I received on my restored machines, I decided to start offering my own stencils to collectors and fellow restorers.
CD: What are some of the deciding factors when selecting a game to make stencils for? Do you take requests?
JM: I usually only put my design time into game titles that are considered more "A" list, or classic, titles people want to restore. It also depends on whether or not CPR or someone else has made a reproduction playfield for the game. I do take request and do custom stencils/work for people as long as they pay me for the design time.
CD: Can you walk us through the process of creating a new stencil set?
JM: The first step is to start with a cabinet which has nice artwork that you can get a good scan from. Taking off the stainless steel side rails and removing the entire coin door and shooter are even better so you can get scans all the way to the edges of the wood. The next step is to scan the actual cabinet, using a flatbed scanner. I scan the cabinet in sections, with some overlap on each scan, so I can weld it all back together in Photoshop as one full-size image. Once in Photoshop I may spend several hours just cleaning up edges of the artwork so I can get it good enough to make separation. The artwork is then converted from raster JPEG image to VECTOR line art which a plotter can cut. Once it's converted to vector art, the fun begins! This is when I go into my vector program and spend between 8 to 20 hours cleaning up all the artwork based on the full-size JPEG image of the original art… smoothing curves, straightening lines, etc. Once I'm satisfied with the art and have made every tweak, I consider it a master stencil ready for cutting.
CD: How is a stencil set "cut"?
JM: Stencils are cut on an industry standard, low-tack vinyl paint mask using Roland plotters. The master line art file is sent from a computer to the plotter which then cuts the paint mask with a carbide tipped blade. Artwork is then "weeded" or peeled along with a pre-mask material applied on top so all art stays perfectly intact when applying to the cabinet.
CD: How do the Pinball Pimp stencils differ from those of the competitors?
JM: My stencils are designed from actual scans of the actual cabinet with zero distortion, rather than using photographs which can cause perspective issues, lost detail and sizing to be skewed or wrong. My artwork goes through an entire cleanup process to make the artwork for every single title nearly perfect. I also use a unique registration system which guarantees your 2 color stencils lineup perfectly every time.
CD: Your stencils are all approved under license. What is the approval process like?
JM: You have to have a quality product to begin with, otherwise it will have a tough time getting licensed. I had to go through Planetary Pinball to get my stencils licensed by them. To comply with the conditions of the license, I have to purchase holographic decals and each set has its own unique serial number. The serial number and holographic decal are affixed to a Certificate of Authenticity and sent out with every set of stencils I sell. The serial numbers are also recorded and archived.
CD: For those who have never used a stencil kit before, how difficult is the re-stenciling process? Any helpful hints?
JM: The stenciling process is actually not that hard at all. I tried to make it as user-friendly as possible for anyone to use. It's basically just like applying a large decal. With the instructions and the squeegee provided it should be a fairly simple task. It's sort of like using lettering stencils and spray paint.
[Ed. Note: Each set contains multiple stencil sheets, representing the different colours used on the side cabinet, coin door area and the head. The backside of each stencil holds a mild adhesive, making the stencil sheets good for one-time use only. If for some reason, an enthusiast encounters a problem when using the stencils due to their own "user error", Mr. Miller is able to cut a partial stencil set and sell only the necessary pieces of the kit rather than forcing the stencilor re-purchase the entire set. This just another perk of buying from the Pinball Pimp, and should bring comfort to novice pinball restorers and old hands alike. Everyone encounters an "oops" sometimes…!]
CD: What type of paint do you recommend using?
JM: The best EASY paint to use would be Rustoleum or Krylon out of the spray cans. You could also use a water-based paint but I would suggest putting a clear coat on after that for durability. I do not suggest using lacquer paint as it tends to soften the adhesive on the paint mask and may leave residue.
CD: What are some of your pro tips for a smooth cabinet in preparation for re-stenciling?
JM: The best way to get a beautifully smooth cabinet is to strip the entire cabinet down. The more you can take off the cabinet, the easier it will be once you get started sanding and filling. I either sand or chemically remove all we old paint from the cabinet down to the bare wood. I usually fill all of my nicks and scratches with Bondo and then sand smooth. I may repeat this process 2 to 3 times in order to get a cabinet baby smooth. Once this is done, I spray the base coat color on the cabinet, which may require 2 to 3 coats, which should result in a very smooth paint job. The smoother the surface the better the stencils will work.
[The following gallery is a selection of cabinet art restored using Pinball Pimp stencils. An extensive gallery can be viewed by following this link.]
CD: For a typical cabinet, how long will cabinet re-stenciling take, giving curing time for the separate colors?
JM: Once your base coat is dry and you are ready to use your stencils it only takes a few minutes to apply the stencil. It actually takes longer to tape the cabinet up to avoid any over-spray. Depending on which paint you use, and dry times, I usually let the first color dry for a day or 2 before spraying the second color.
CD: Is the sky the limit for Pinball Pimp stencils? Do you foresee an exhaustive line of stencils across all pinball manufacturers?
JM: As long as there are guys out there who want to restore these old classic machines, I will keep trying to design as many classic titles as possible. I'm in the process now of getting the license from Gottlieb to start selling stencils for all of their classic titles as well. I would love to be the curator of all pinball stencils.
CD: An ethical question, of sorts. Late-1970s and early-1980s Bally games have the serial numbers stamped directly into the side of the wooden cabinet. Should a restorer fill and sand these numbers when preparing the cabinet for a re-stencil, effectively erasing the unique identification numbers, or should one leave the indentations as they came from the factory?
JM: I think this depends on the individual. When I do high-end restorations, nearly half of the parts are new reproductions anyway, so I usually fill in the stamped numbers. When the final machine is done, everything is beautifully smooth. I also add a pinball pimp certificate inside the machine with a serial number of 00001, since I basically rebuilt the entire machine from scratch. The way I look at it, it is basically born again.
CD: Stencils are just one part of your "Pimp" business. What kind of restoration work do you undertake?
JM: I restore machines from the mid-70s all the way up to complete decal jobs of the newer WPC games. This all includes playfield swaps, playfield touch-ups, powder coating, chrome and nickel plating parts–the COMPLETE start to finish restore process!
CD: What are some of the most memorable, or most difficult, restorations you have ever tackled?
JM: The most memorable was the full restoration of my 1976 Bally Capt. Fantastic machine. This being an EM machine, I disassembled every hardware mechanism in the lower cabinet, rust dipped and polished, and installed all onto new wood which was painted to match the cabinet color. A very daunting task if you know how many parts are in a 4-player Bally EM. Mind boggling!
CD: Do you rely on restoration projects brought to you by customers, or are you surfing Craigslist for broken-down restoration candidates to fix and flip?
JM: Back when I first started in 2005 used Craigslist to find all of my pinball machines to restore. Since the pinball "resurgence" has taken over, it becomes harder and harder to find decent machines and deals on Craigslist. At this point I have enough customers across the country to where most people just send me their machines to be restored.
CD: For solid state games, do you perform your own board work as well?
JM: I do some of my own solid-state work if it's simple, but more difficult tasks I leave to a friend who is an electronics master. Some clients have me replace they are restored machine with all new boards if they are available.
CD: You also maintain a close relationship with Classic Playfield Reproductions. What work have you done for them over the years?
JM: I'm not currently working on any projects for CPR at the moment since I have my hands full with my own businesses. I have designed four artwork packages for CPR in the past: the plastic sets for Williams Comet and Bally Bobby Orr's Power Play, the speaker panel for Bally Creature from the Black Lagoon and the Bally Fireball backglass which is one of CPR's latest releases.
CD: Is this a full time job for you, or just a part-time hobby? Moreover, do you describe yourself as a businessman or an enthusiast?
JM: What started out as a hobby 10 years ago has basically turned into a full time, second business. I'm still a top level, graphic designer/artist and do freelance work for Samsung and other large companies, but still love the pinball business end of it most.
CD: You are based in Florida—how would you describe the present pinball collector scene in the Sunshine State?
JM: I am based in Tampa, Florida and have been here for 25 years. I'm originally from Columbus, Indiana. I think the collector scene in Florida is probably as good as it is in any other state. Although, I don't think as many older classic games migrated to Florida—most are still up in the Midwest, in the Pennsylvania and Chicago areas. The migration of games to the California market hasn't been replicated on this coast, for the most part.
CD: How did you come about the moniker "The Pinball Pimp"?
JM: Around the time I started restoring pinball machines, I remember watching the TV show "Pimp My Ride". Being in design and marketing my entire life, I thought it was a catchy and easy name to remember. Since my restorations always involved being a little over-the-top with custom accents and exacting detail, I considered my restored machines as being "PIMPED"–hence the name: Pinball Pimp.
CD: What games are currently in the Pinball Pimp collection?
JM: My collection has changed a little over the last 10 years, working towards my ultimate lineup of games—including some buying and selling along the way, obviously. My modern collection contains a Williams Funhouse, Williams Fish Tales, Williams White Water, Bally Creature from the Black Lagoon, Williams No Fear, Williams Tales of the Arabian Nights and Stern AC/DC Luci. My classic collection includes a Bally Capt. Fantastic, Bally Eight Ball, Bally 6 Million Dollar Man, Bally Playboy, Bally Eight Ball Deluxe, Bally KISS and Bally Fathom.
CD: Any closing comments to enthusiasts who may not have the nerve to tackle a re-stenciling project?
JM: Re-stenciling a pinball cabinet is not that hard when using my stencils if the instructions are followed properly. It's not a weekend warrior project that you're going to get done in a few hours. The more time you put into the project the better the result. More importantly, it's about having a passion wanting to restore your cabinet back to its full glory! I guarantee if you take your time and do it right your end result will be a beautiful cabinet that you will be proud of.
Further Reading:
Pinball Pimp Restoration, Sales & Service – Homepage
Pinball Pimp Cabinet Stencils – Homepage
Pinball Pimp – Pinblog
Classic Playfield Reproductions – Creature from the Black Lagoon Backbox Speaker Panel
Pinside – PINBALL PIMP – Bally STRIKES and SPARES – Museum Restoration
Pinside – For sale: PINBALL PIMP CABINET STENCILS – AVAILABLE NOW!
Pinside – Twisted Pins Stencils are Garbage
Tampa Bay Times – In Tampa, Two Pinball Wizards Work to Restore their Hobby, January 7, 2010

subset: commoncrawl


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(visited by Randy Eggert)
01-Jul-2001 -- Getting there is half the fun, right? South central Kansas is so easy, no fences to climb, just plowed soil to leave footprints in.
I spent Sunday getting to/from this point from home, being about 180 miles one way (as the crow flies). I just parked the bike on the side of the dirt road, then carried the GPS to count down the digits 'till all zeros showed up. I walked about 50 yards into the recently plowed field and took the necessary pictures. This spot is also about 125 yards north of the Oklahoma / Kansas border. (I feel guilty this being so easy, particularly after reading of others hiking / climbing for hours getting to their confluence.)
The photo of the GPS shows the ground in the background, a recently harvested wheat field. The low contrast of the GPS is probably due to the batteries about gone.
Back on the dirt road, a fellow drove up behind me asking if I was having any trouble. (Motorcycle parked, me walking) I said no, and I informed him of the confluence project for several minutes. He thought it rather "odd", but then said it was better than watching an afternoon of televison. He then directed me to the shortest distance to paved road, WSW 2.5 miles to Manchester, OK.
Going through Manchester, I recognized the Co-op that a friend and I had stopped at the previous year. The ladies in the office serve a hot lunch during the weekday noon hour for a reasonable price. If I only had my GPS mounted on the bike, I probably would have nabbed it then.


text: We continually strive to be a great company. Lindman Telecom AB is committed to providing high-quality products and services to our customers. Moreover, our efforts extend beyond providing outstanding products and services to those who need them. Lindman Telecom AB conducts researche and participates in a number of initiatives to constantly develop our sector of the industry and to contribute to society. Lindman Telecom AB is implementing a strategy to accelerate growth through innovation, and strengthening organizational and associates' capabilities. Lindman Telecom AB continuously seeks to develop technologies and products that will have a greater impact on workers' safety.


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Photo's from the Red Carpet at ABC's Missing @ The Paley Center
Mingle Media TV was invited to The Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills will present a preview screening of an upcoming episode of ABC's new series Missing, followed by a conversation with the show's cast and creative team.
More About Missing on ABC
Ashley Judd headlines the series as Becca Winstone, a retired superspy and current flower-shop owner who is compelled to dust off some of her old skills—like kick-ass hand-to-hand combat with would-be assassins—after her eighteen-year-old son goes missing in Rome. A woman on a mission, Becca is like Sydney Bristow of Alias, forced back into the international-intrigue game against her will, but hell-bent on succeeding, with her son's life at stake.
Follow Missing at beta.abc.go.com/shows/missing
For more info visit The Paley Center for Media at www.paleycenter.org
For more of Mingle Media TV's Red Carpet coverage visit our website and follow us on Twitter and Facebook here:
Thanks to The Lippin Group
Want to syndicate your videos to more than one site like YouTube, BlipTV, MetaCafe, Dailymotion, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more with ONE upload? visit http://www.oneload.com and sign up today. It's fast and easy to use. Try it out for free today.


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After low-lying clouds scrubbed the first attempt, STS-130 took off at 4:14 am in what is scheduled to be the last night launch of a space shuttle. The Space Task Force was on hand for the historic launch of Endeavour–as we will be for each of these 'Final Five' launches in 2010.
STS-130 is carrying the Tranquility module (formerly known as "Node 3") along with the special multi-window "cupola" viewport. The crew of Endeavour will spend their first two days catching up to the space station before docking to start their mission.
The orbiter is scheduled to return to Kennedy Space Center Stay late on Feb 20 after 13 days in space. Stay tuned to the Space Task Force as we continue our extended mission coverage of STS-130 from rollout to the pad to rollout on the runway.
You can also download the video here: STS-130 Launch!
Filed under: video | Tagged: 130, 2010, cupola, International Space Station, ISS, launch, NASA, night launch, space shuttle, Space Task Force, STS, STS-130, Tranquility | Leave a comment »


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Yappy Hour
September 24, 2018 @ 11:00 am - 10:00 pm
Join us every Monday, June through September, for Yappy Hour on the patio. All well-behaved owners and dogs are welcome! $1 from every Tito's vodka drink sold will be donated to Homeward Pet Adoption Center in Woodinville. Happy Hour menu will be available from 3pm-6pm.


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I've been a bit bogged down with deadlines and the creeping ick that seems to be common this time of year… but I didn't want to miss Wordless Wednesday. And Grandma Trotter has been on my mind lately.
These are my grandparents Elnora (York) and Levie Trotter enjoying the swings at a Trotter-Johnson picnic outside of Potter Park Zoo in Lansing, Michigan in 1980 or 1981. It's a bit fuzzy but it brings back fond memories.
Happy hunting,


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I was going through my phone to delete some pics (I'm too embarrassed to admit how many pics I have and how many are selfies … but, let's just say, too many :P), and came across this braid-out that I never posted here. The things that make this braid out notable for me are that I achieved it with minimal products and styling!!
Two Pocahontas-style braided ponytails have become my go to "style" since I started working out daily for my 365 Days of Fitness.
Told ya!
After pre-pooing, washing, detangling, and deep conditioning, I want to spend as little time styling my hair as possible. In addition, I like to keep my hair off my face and neck during my morning workouts. This keeps me cooler and prevents my hair from getting too sweaty (I sweat in my head, so my hair almost always gets wet to some extent. This is even with good sweatbands, which really just keep the sweat on my face from seeping into my front hairline). Finally, the style has been great for hot summer weekends. Throw on a hat or headband and I'm out the door!
Anywho, all this to say, I've been rocking these braids and the resultant braid-outs all summer. But, I was pleasantly surprised when I got the really great braid-out from the two braids and only two products!! These products are also regulars in my rotation: Kinky Curly Knot Today (KCKT) Leave-in Conditioner and my Jamaican Black Castor Oil (JBCO) mix, which includes a little EVOO and a few EOs (can't even remember what I threw in there). After washing:
- Blotted hair with a tee-shirt so that it was damp, not dripping wet.
- Applied enough KCKT to finger detangle hair in four sections, then combed through the sections with a shower brush to smooth the hair.
- Parted hair down the middle with fingers and made a braid on each side, starting the bases of the braids behind my ears.
- Applied a little JBCO mix to seal the last few inches of hair.
I wore my hair in the braids overnight, tying the top down with satin scarf. Then, I left the braids in for at least one full day (it usually takes one day to totally dry), and when I released the following day …. voilà.
And that's all I have to say about that.
Do you have a super easy, minimal products and tools required, go-to style? Spill so that others can benefit from your cleverness ;)!! And if it's dual purpose, even better!!


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Special and differential treatment provisions
The WTO Agreements contain provisions which give developing countries special rights. These are called special and differential treatment provisions. The Ministers in Doha, at the 4th WTO Ministerial Conference mandated the Committee on Trade and Development to examine these special and differential treatment provisions. The Bali Ministerial Conference in December 2013 established a mechanism to review and analyse the implementation of special and differential treatment provisions.
> The Doha mandate
> The Doha mandate explained
> Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration
The WTO Agreements contain special provisions which give developing countries special rights and which give developed countries the possibility to treat developing countries more favourably than other WTO Members. These special provisions include, for example, longer time periods for implementing Agreements and commitments or measures to increase trading opportunities for developing countries.
These provisions are referred to as special and differential treatment (S&D) provisions.
The special provisions include:
- longer time periods for implementing Agreements and commitments,
- measures to increase trading opportunities for developing countries,
- provisions requiring all WTO members to safeguard the trade interests of developing countries,
- support to help developing countries build the capacity to carry out WTO work, handle disputes, and implement technical standards, and
- provisions related to least-developed country (LDC) Members.
The WTO Secretariat has made several compilations of the special and differential provisions and their use. The latest WTO document setting out the implementation of these S&D provisions is in WT/COMTD/W/271
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The mandate
In the Doha Declaration, member governments agreed that all special and differential treatment provisions are an integral part of the WTO agreements, and that these provisions should be reviewed with a view to strengthening them and making them more effective and operational.
More specifically, the declaration (together with the Decision on Implementation-Related Issues and Concerns) mandates the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) to identify which of those special and differential treatment provisions are mandatory, and to consider the legal and practical implications of making mandatory those which are currently non-binding. In addition, the Committee is to consider ways in which developing countries, particularly the LDCs, may be assisted to make best use of special and differential treatment.
The Declaration
> Declaration explained
> The Decision on implementation-related issues and concerns > Decision explained
> Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration (paragraphs 35-38)
Monitoring Mechanism
The Bali Ministerial Conference in December 2013 established a mechanism to review and analyse the implementation of special and differential treatment provisions. The mechanism, which will take place in Dedicated Sessions of the CTD, will provide members with an opportunity to analyse and review all aspects of the implementation of S&D provisions contained in multilateral WTO agreements, Ministerial and General Council Decisions with the possibility to make recommendations to the relevant WTO bodies aimed at either improving the implementation of reviewed provisions, or improving the provisions themselves through re-negotiations.
> Monitoring Mechanism Ministerial Decision
Special Sessions of the Committee on Trade and Development
On 1 February 2002, the Trade Negotiations Committee agreed that the mandate from paragraph 44 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration should be carried out by the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) in Special Sessions.
Negotiations on special and differential provisions take place in the special session of the CTD. The negotiations have resulted in a number of decisions, such as those relating to least-developed countries (LDCs) contained in Annex F to the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration and the Monitoring Mechanism adopted at the Bali Ministerial Conference.
Reports of the meetings are always issued after each Special Session of the Committee on Trade and Development. They are called the minutes of the meeting. These reports are generally available to the public six months after they have been issued
Search Documents Online
Documents of the Special Sessions of the Committee on Trade and Development use the code TN/CTD/* (where * takes additional values).
These links open a new window: allow a moment for the results to appear.
> help with downloading these documents
- Reports by the Chairman to the Trade Negotiations Committee (Document code TN/CTD/* and keyword report) > search
- Minutes on the Special Sessions of the Committee on Trade and Development (Documentcode TN/CTD/M/*) > search
- Working documents on the Special Sessions of the Committee on Trade and Development (Document code TN/CTD/W/*) > search
- General documents on the Special Sessions of the Committee on Trade and Development (Document code TN/CTD/* and not M or R or W) > search
You can perform more sophisticated searches from the Documents Online search facility (opens in new window) by defining multiple search criteria such as document symbol (i.e. code number), full text search or document date.
Main legal provisionsback to top
The Agreement Establishing the WTO
The Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization(also known as the WTO Agreement, pdf format 144KB) in its chapeau cites sustainable economic development as one of the objectives of the WTO. It also specifies that international trade should benefit the economic development of developing and least-developed countries.
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General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)Goods
GATT Article XVIII (download in pdf format, 353KB), to be read in conjunction with the Decision on Safeguard action for Development Purposes (download in MS Word format, 4 pages, 30KB) and the Declaration on Trade Measures Taken for Balance-of-payments Purposes(download in MS Word format, 7 pages, 19KB), both of 28 November 1979, and the Understanding on the Balance-of Payments Provisions of the GATT 1994 (download in MS Word format, 5 pages, 38KB), gives developing countries the right to restrict imports, if doing so would promote the establishment or maintenance of a particular industry, or assist in cases of balance-of-payments difficulties.
Part IV of the GATT (download in pdf format, 353KB) includes provisions on the concept of non-reciprocal preferential treatment for developing countries when developed countries grant trade concessions to developing countries they should not expect the developing countries to make matching offers in return. However, developing countries claim that Part IV has been without practical value as it does not contain any obligations for developed countries.
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Enabling Clause for developing countries (goods)
The Enabling Clause officially called the Decision on Differential and More Favourable Treatment, Reciprocity and Fuller Participation of Developing Countries, was adopted under GATT in 1979 and enables developed members to give differential and more favourable treatment to developing countries.
The Enabling Clause is the WTO legal basis for the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). Under the GSP, developed countries offer non-reciprocal preferential treatment (such as zero or low duties on imports) to products originating in developing countries. Preference-giving countries unilaterally determine which countries and which products are included in their schemes.
For more information on the GSP schemes and other non-reciprocal preferential schemes being implemented by WTO members, see the Database on Preferential Trade Arrangements.
The Enabling Clause is also the legal basis for regional arrangements among developing countries and for the Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP), under which a number of developing countries exchange trade concessions among themselves.
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General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)
Article IV of the GATS (download in pdf format, 175KB) aims at increasing the participation of developing countries in world trade. It refers, among other things, to strengthening the domestic services competitiveness of developing countries through access to technology and improving their access to information networks.
Article XII allows developing countries and countries in transition to restrict trade in services for reasons of balance-of-payment difficulties.
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Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
Article 66 of the TRIPS Agreement (download in pdf format, 194KB) provides least-developed countries with a longer time-frame to implement all the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement and encourages technology transfer.
Article 67 refers to the provisions of technical assistance.
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Going beyond legal provisions stated explicitly in WTO agreements, actions in favour of developing countries, individually or as a group, may also be taken under waivers from the main WTO rules.
These waivers are granted by the General Council according to procedures set out in Article IX:3 of the Agreement Establishing the WTO (download in pdf format, 205KB).
The June 1999 General Council Decision on Waiver regarding Preferential Tariff Treatment for Least-Developed Countries WT/L/304 allows developing country members to provide preferential tariff treatment to products of least developed countries. The waiver was extended until 30 June 2019 in a decision WT/L/759 adopted in 2009. A subsequent decision adopted in 2019 (WT/L/1069) provided for a further extension of the waiver until 30 June 2029.
The WTO Ministerial Conference in December 2011 adopted a waiver to enable developing and developed-country members to provide preferential treatment to services and service suppliers of least-developed countries (LDCs) WT/L/847. The Bali Ministerial Conference further instructed members to put the waiver into operation WT/L/918.
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Examples of provisions for differential and more favourable treatment of developing countries


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Replacement Parts
North America automotive aftermarket to accumulate substantial proceeds, global industry valuation to cross a humongous USD 1,420 billion by 2024
The changing preferences of consumers toward the comfort, appearance, & performance of vehicles has fueled automotive aftermarket to quite an admirable extent. As customers focus toward leading a luxurious lifestyle, complete with personalized vehicles for commuting in style, courtesy – increasing disposable incomes, automotive aftermarket is likely to witness lucrative gains in the years to come.
The subsequent wear and tear of existing automobiles will quite overtly lead to car owners wanting to replace old parts, enhance the vehicle's appearance, and replace the car's internal components for improved efficiency and safety. Eventually, this would propel the demand for state-of-the-art aftermarket parts, augmenting the commercialization landscape of automotive aftermarket.
U.S. Automotive Aftermarket, By Sales Outlet, 2017 & 2024, (USD Billion)
The ever expanding automotive sector is one of the most crucial drivers of the global automotive aftermarket. Over the last couple of decades, the demand for automobiles has only skyrocketed across the developed and developing economies. According to estimates by OICA, LCVs and passenger cars accounted for a sales figure of close to 86 million units in the year 2017 – apparently an upsurge of 2.4% when compared to the previous year. As the sales of commutable vehicles continue to increase and the demand for afterparts experiences an uptick, the remuneration portfolio of automotive aftermarket will undergo a significant change, as per experts.
Another trend that has lately made its presence felt in automotive aftermarket is the rising deployment of eco-friendly techniques in automotive manufacturing. Driven by a stringent regulatory landscape pertaining to environmental safety and the concerns stemming from rising carbon emissions, the demand for sustainable, alternative automobile parts has considerably increased, thereby driving the global automotive aftermarket share.
Unveiling North America automotive aftermarket trends over 2018-2024
North America, primarily driven by the United States and Canada, has been one of the most significant growth grounds for the global automotive aftermarket, which principally can be attributed to the expanding automotive industry in the region. The continent has been a witness to an upsurge in the production of new vehicles and the enhancement of older ones. Furthermore, the region is a powerhouse of technological advancements in automobile production and upgradation, which is likely to generate novel opportunities for aftermarket companies in the years to come.
North America is also remnant of a consumer base that demands increasing vehicle personalization, Bluetooth connection, digitization, and other interesting automotive electronics. The incorporation of advanced accessories is thus likely to drive North America automotive aftermarket. Incidentally, the region accounted for 30% of the overall automotive aftermarket share in the year 2017.
Get a Sample Copy of this Report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/1166
Another pivotal factor likely to drive North America automotive aftermarket over the forecast period is the improved fuel economy that would quite overtly, augment the average miles that the customer drives, which would lead to increased wear and tear in vehicle parts. This would eventually fuel the requirement for aftermarket spare parts in the continent, stimulating North America automotive aftermarket industry trends.
Technological advancements have indeed had a major impact on the overall automotive aftermarket in the last half a decade. The surging demand for electrification and installation of software has been touted to generate novel avenues for aftermarket workshops and suppliers. The popularity of ADAS, infotainment systems, and telematics will also serve to augment the demand for technologically developed parts, that would help stimulate automotive aftermarket industry growth in the years to come.
Some of the most noteworthy players in automotive aftermarket fall along the likes of the 3M Company, Akebono Brake Corporation, Delphi, Denso, Continental AG, Robert Bosch GmbH, ACDelco, ASIMCO Technologies ltd., Federal-Mogul, Magneti Marelli, and more. In a bid to expand their reach across myriad geographies, these leading contenders have been rather proactive in adopting business growth tactics such as strategic collaborations. Citing an instance of the same, nearly a couple of years back, industry player Faurecia inked its third JV with its partners in Iran with an intention to consolidate its presence in the regional automotive aftermarket.
Author Name :Saipriya Iyer


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Wednesday 03/05/2014
Clemson Head Coach Brad Brownell
Overall thoughts:"Great win by our team. Miami obviously gave us some problems early, we had trouble stopping them. They have great size on the perimeter and we had a hard time handling them. We had to go zone at the end of the half. I thought that slowed them and got us to halftime, where we made some defensive adjustments and then did a better job guarding them in the second half. I thought Rod (Hall) was great again, K.J. (McDaniels) was really good. Adonis (Filer) came in with some good plays in the second half. We were pretty good offensively, we faced everything you can see in a half and shot a good percentage and found a way to win a close game."
On getting to 10 ACC wins:"It helps having a couple extra games. I would pat us on the back, but when they played 14-16 it was a little harder. Having said that, I'm really proud of our team for what they have accomplished. We have won two tough games this week and that says something about the character of our team. We have had a very good year so far, and hope to keep going and make it special."
On winning close games this season:"It feels good, mostly for our players. You see how hard players work and then you go play your tail off and lose by a couple baskets and that's hard. There's really not a big difference between 6-10 and 10-6. It's the momentum that you have from winning close games that help you. When you lose a close one it's hard to rally and bring yourself up. So, it feels good and I'm happy for our players."
On the final minutes of Tuesday's game:"I think there's more of a belief that you're going to win the game instead of having hope that you're going to win. When things seem to be going against you like last year it's tough to change your mindset. One of the things I said earlier this season even in the fall, it's going to be nice to have experienced guards. Rod Hall is much better with the ball in his hands than he was last year. K.J. makes more plays now at the end of games. It was much more difficult getting the ball in the hands of Devin Booker and Milton Jennings at the end of games. When your older players are perimeter players, it really hopes you in close games. Last year we played with a lot of young guys that have learned those lessons and it has helped us this year."
Miami Head Coach Jim Larranaga
Overall thoughts:"I thought Clemson played a very solid game, and I thought our guys did a good job for the most part, but when there was a rebound that both teams needed, they (Clemson) were the ones that got it. They beat us on those 50/50 balls all night long and it gave them second shots, second chance points, and we were not able to corral the most important rebounds in the game. I thought that was the biggest difference."
On the physicality of the game:"Both teams are two of the best at not fouling in the country, and I thought they played good defense. The game was pretty physical, but I didn't think they were fouls. I thought our guys did a good job; they shot a lot more free throws than us because we fell behind and we had to foul in the last three minutes. I thought it was one of those games that both teams really concentrated on not putting other people on the foul line, and they executed well."
May 25, 2023
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April 13, 2023


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10 Ways to be a Terrible Teacher
So, today, I'll share a few of the things I think make a teacher terrible.
Stop and Be Excellent
Some of you will be shocked that I've taken my positive tone out of this post. And I do have a positive message. The positive message is that when we go down the path to be a Terrible Teacher that we check ourselves and stop. That we remember our noble calling and be more. That we move ahead and focus on our students. We can't afford to be a terrible teacher to even one student.
Sometimes knowing what to do means we also know what NOT to do.
10- The teacher is always on their cell phone.
I have a new iPhone - today I'm locking it in my desk during class. Sure, I'm usually checking off my list or responding to a question for IT support at my school but my students don't know that. A cell phone in my hand, whatever I'm doing, says that someone out of the room is more important than the people who are in my room. That is a lie. When I'm teaching, they are the most important thing in the room. Nothing should be between me and them.
9 - The teacher is always on the computer or not paying attention.
Multitasking is a lie. You shouldn't be Facebooking, Tweeting, emailing, surfing, reading your PLN or anything during class - even during a test. You should be up and around in your classroom helping and TEACHING. They are paying you to teach, not hang out in a virtual teacher's lounge. Teaching is work. You need to be part of your class. When you sit down at your desk and disengage with your students, you suck the energy out of your classroom.
I knew a teacher who used to sew on her sewing machine during class. As soon as she started sewing, the class knew they were "free." You are shocked at sewing but I see teachers doing this now with electronic devices. You are paid to be WITH and engaged with your students not doing something else.
8- The teacher is always losing his/her temper or is predictably dramatic.
I lose my temper 2-3 times a year - last year it was twice. Everyone knows it because it is rare. If you're losing your temper a lot you need to figure out why and get help. You might be tired or under a lot of stress, but you are the adult. There is no reason for you to have to raise your voice or constantly lose your temper. It isn't good for you and it isn't good for the students. Teachers who are bullies should be ashamed of themselves.
The predictably dramatic could be when you get soooooooo mad you jump on your desk. The kids are shocked the first time and get quiet. But then, they start plotting. You have sealed your doom.
7- The Teacher shares private student information publicly
NEVER call grades out loud - even for the top students. It is embarrassing. Don't do it. It is a horrible thing when teachers do this. It is also horrible when you berate them in front of the class for ANYTHING. If you want to lose the respect of your class let them see you treat a classmate - even one they don't like- with disrespect. This isn't a contest and it isn't a reality show. Handle private things privately. Period.
6 - The teacher talks without stopping for more than 10 minutes (especially if monotone.)
Do you realize that after 20 minutes they are asleep? Imagine the principal from Ferris Bueller's day off. This sort of thing will kill the love of learning. Learn to listen for cues and watch for them. When quite a few kids start going to sleep DO SOMETHING. Vary your voice. Have them read. Ask a question. Extended lecture should be viewed as going through the motions of teaching for most students. Sleeping is not an option. I have made an exception when a child is getting over a loss or has something going on in their family but typically this is a no no for me.
5 - The Teacher only teaches with one method
Worksheets are so hard for many children. I have one child who really doesn't learn a thing from them. When a teacher sticks to only one modality he/she will teach the children who learn through that modality and everyone else will be "bad students." We can differentiate and we can use multiple modalities. Wanda the One Note Worksheet Wonder will kill the love of learning in a class of students who are auditory learners. Likewise if you only assess learning with tests, you're missing the point and you're probably also missing the learning that could happen.
4 - The teacher who only teaches "good" students and lets the "bad" students do their own thing.
I know of a child with a significant LD who is now one of the most successful thoracic surgeons I know. I now an incredibly gifted graphic designers who has some of the leading Fortune 100 companies knocking on her door but was made to feel like an idiot because she couldn't diagram sentences in middle school. Good teachers work to reach and teach all children. If you only want to work with "good" students then I'm happy that you have such a great teaching environment but the reality of most of our classrooms is that we have some kids who could go either way. I teach only good students because I believe all of my students are great. I get what I believe and expect.
3 - The teacher who teaches the same every year without changing.
I know a math teacher who fought getting a new book because it would mean making out new tests and this person had been using the same tests for over 15 years. Some students don't get a subject and need some extra help and assessment and others don't. When I teach binary numbers, some years I can cover it in 2 days and others it takes 7. It depends on the students.
2- The Teacher whose words mean nothing.
Imagine the traffic policeman who just stood by the road, wagging his finger, and yelling at cars for speeding.
"Slow down .... now... now.."
"I said slow down."
This officer would become a joke because there is no teeth in his actions. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Be consistent. But don't lie to them. Don't threaten with no follow through but if you're threatening a lot, then why? Why should you count? Your word should be enough.
1- Hate your students
Why are you teaching if this is you? When you talk poorly about a student it does get back to your student eventually. I don't respect teachers who I think have a vendetta against a particular student. I admit I've had 3 in my teaching career who were especially hard for me to love. But I had to adjust my own attitude and know that even if that child's goal was to get me, that I was above it. I am an adult doing an important job and I will behave nobly. No one can take away my nobility but me.
When you mess up, fess up.
"You are important to me and I think I embarrassed you. You need to know you can trust me and I will do everything in my power to never do it again. I am so sorry, it wasn't intentional. Will you forgive me?"
I already had a good relationship with that student but now it is a great one. I treasure her and she knows she can trust me. I think that because I admitted this to her and was human about it, she was willing to forgive me. I'm so glad I did. Do you have a student you need to apologize to? Do it.
Photo purchased from IStock Photo - all rights reserved.


text: Leif Nixon <nixon at nsc.liu.se> wrote: > Have you looked at RFC3797? Not sure if it has any solutions for you, but it > at least discusses the same problems. Good reference, I was not aware of that. It gives the same sorts of sources for random numbers as we have come up with here: stock market, sports, lottery. It discusses how stock market data may not be reliable due to market splits and other accounting issues. However, I have determined that the raw data from the exchanges is a terrible choice because it is not available for free, and the values that are freely available, which are posted on web finance sites, are not reliably identical in all digits. Lottery results are a good source except for the black box / black helicopter factors. We don't generally know where those numbers are coming from, and even in those cases where they do tell us, there is no way to verify that any particular lottery drawing wasn't rigged. We have not discussed election results (votes per candidate), but those are, ironically, really unsuitable for this, even though statistically the final set of digits should have a lot of entropy. Mostly election numbers are a problem because they may be revised for long periods after the election, and the numbers could almost always be forced to shift by a challenge by one of the candidates. Every recount will come up with a slightly different result. Examples: the Coleman vs. Franken senatorial contest in Minnesota, or Bush vs. Gore in Florida. So I'm leaning towards sports scores, as those are generated in full view of a multitude of witnesses (often numbering in the millions). It would be extremely difficult to rig the absolute final score. It might be possible to rig the winner, or even the point spread, but to rig the absolute score in a high scoring game like basketball, would be exceedingly difficult, and would likely be obvious to even the casual observer. To rig every digit in the final score of every game played on a given day should be pretty close to impossible. Regards, David Mathog mathog at caltech.edu Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech


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Live Music at The Tasting Room of Travelers Rest
May 25 @ 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 6:00 pm on Wednesday and Thursday, repeating indefinitely
Live music offered every Wednesday & Thursday evening, 6-8:30pm. No Cover Charge. Inside and outdoor seating. Enjoy a glass of wine or craft beer while enjoying local performers.


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11 Million Immigrants: What's In A Number?
Eleven million — that's the estimated number of immigrants living in the United States illegally. The number has become the most-cited statistic in the immigration reform debate. But how did we even arrive at that figure? Who are these 11 million people? And is it even the best number to use?
Jeffrey Passel is the man responsible for the number. He's senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, and to arrive at 11 million, he collected a bunch of government data that would allow him to fill in this equation:
"The total number of immigrants, minus the number of immigrants here legally, is the number here without authorization."
Sounds simple, but it's not. In fact, 26 years ago, when President Ronald Reagan signed an amnesty for three million immigrants, there was much disagreement over how to calculate the number. Many people argued there were three to four times that many immigrants without authorization living in the country.
Pew's formula uses Labor Department survey data that includes workers' country of origin to estimate the total number of immigrants in the country, subtracts the number admitted legally based on federal immigration statistics, then makes some statistical adjustments to reach the 11 million estimate.
"Today there's a much broader agreement about how many people we're talking about and about who we're talking about," Passel said.
So then, let's accept that 11 million figure as the number of people here without documents. That's more than the total population of Greece, by the way. But who are they?
Some of what the Passel has found is probably no surprise. About six million of the 11 million are Mexicans. Sixty percent are men. A majority live in large states like California, Texas, Illinois and New York.
But more than four million now live in other states too, in the South, the Midwest and the Northwest, giving all those regions a larger stake in an immigration reform bill.
"It's part of, I think, the demographic underpinnings of what's turned this into a national debate instead of a local debate," Passel said.
There are also hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Chinese, Koreans and Filipinos. Many of those from countries overseas didn't even start off as immigrants.
"Forty percent entered the country through a port of entry, and then just overstayed their visas," said Ben Winograd, a former attorney at the American Immigration Council.
And if you keeping digging into the 11 million, yet another picture emerges — a picture of families. Passel says a majority of unauthorized immigrants — 80 percent of women and more than half of men — are here with spouses and children.
Families like that of Gloria Mejia, who on a recent afternoon was picking her 8-year-old son Joaquin up from school in San Diego.
Mejia, who is undocumented, recently learned the janitorial company she works for had been audited by immigration officials, and that she'll lose her job at the end of May. She said it's just another way being undocumented has made it hard to help her kids get ahead.
"It makes me sad that I can't help them more," she said.
Even Joaquin, her only child who is a U.S. citizen, has been affected.
She says he wants to join a traveling soccer team, but can't because she's afraid to travel with him. He wants to go to Disneyland, 90 minutes north of San Diego, but she can't take him because she fears occasional Border Patrol checkpoints on the highway route.
"That example you've given is so perfect. That you can't travel across states to participate in a soccer tournament," said Michael Fix, a senior vice president of the Migration Policy Institute. "It may mean that a mother is less likely to go to a PTA conference."
He said recent research has just begun to show that children who are U.S. citizens are negatively affected in the long term — cognitively, socially and educationally — by having undocumented parents who live in the shadows.
Jeff Passel said 4.5 million American citizen children live that situation. And he says that's important to understand when considering the actual impact of a bill that would grant legal status to the nation's 11 million unauthorized immigrants.
"Instead of 11 million people we're talking more about 16 million," Passel said.
For the 11 million number that's become so ubiquitous, that's a pretty big asterisk. But Passel said 16 million may be just as important a number.


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Here Are the Ten Funniest Jokes in All of Britain, Explained
The ten funniest jokes of the famous Edinburgh Fringe—a huge performing arts festival held in Scotland—have been named! And they are hilarious. But will you "get" them? No worries! We've provided helpful explanations right here.
Every year, thousands of people show up in Edinburgh and put on hundreds of different kinds of fascinating shows, ranging from weird Renaissance festival-type stuff to weird Burning Man-type stuff. There is also, for some reason, a "comedy award," given to one person from a group of 24 selected by a group of eight "comedy critics." This year's comedy award went to Tim Vine, who has a standup show called "The Joke-amotive."
After hearing he'd won, Vine said, "I am very happy to win this award and I'm going to celebrate by going to Sooty's barbecue and having a sweepsteak," so you know you're in for some funny jokes here. These are the top ten jokes, accompanied by explanations to really help you fully get the humor:
1) Tim Vine: "I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what, never again."
Explanation: The phrase "once in a lifetime" implies that Vine's holiday will only happen once in his life. Therefore, it's redundant for him to say "never again," because someday he will die.
2) David Gibson: "I'm currently dating a couple of anorexics. Two birds, one stone."
Explanation: Anorexia is a deadly eating disorder characterized by obsessive fear of gaining weight; its sufferers are often dangerously thin. A "stone" is a British measurement of weight roughly equal to the weight of the current monarch's head. In this context, "Two birds, one stone" carries a double meaning, which is hilarious.
3) Emo Philips: "I picked up a hitch hiker. You've got to when you hit them."
Explanation: Philips killed a hitchhiker with his car.
4) Jack Whitehall: "I bought one of those anti-bullying wristbands when they first came out. I say 'bought', I actually stole it off a short, fat ginger kid."
Explanation: In Britain, they sell bracelets to prevent bullying, or something. I think that's the whole joke.
5) Gary Delaney: "As a kid I was made to walk the plank. We couldn't afford a dog."
Explanation: Delaney grew up on a pirate ship. When he didn't earn enough booty to buy his family a dog, they forced him to "walk the plank." Then he survived, and became a comedian, so the joke's on his pirate-family, in the end.
6) John Bishop: "Being an England supporter is like being the over-optimistic parents of the fat kid on sports day."
Explanation: This is about soccer, so, really, who knows.
7) Bo Burnham: "What do you call a kid with no arms and an eyepatch? Names."
Explanation: Frederic Names was a famous French architect of the 19th century who lost both arms and an eye in the Napoleonic wars.
8) Gary Delaney: "Dave drowned. So at the funeral we got him a wreath in the shape of a lifebelt. Well, it's what he would have wanted."
Explanation: Delaney's friend Dave was a famous British lifebelt collector, and his dying wish was that his friends would honor his life's passion at his funeral. Interestingly, he died in his own bathtub, drowning when he suffered from a seizure while taking a bath.
9) Robert White: "For Vanessa Feltz, life is like a box of chocolates: Empty."
Explanation: Vanessa Feltz is a fat person.
10) Gareth Richards: "Wooden spoons are great. You can either use them to prepare food. Or, if you can't be bothered with that, just write a number on one and walk into a pub…"
Explanation: I'm stumped. Is this about spanking, or something? British people are so weird.
For good measure, here are the worst jokes:
- Sara Pascoe: "Why did the chicken commit suicide? To get to the other side."
- Sean Hughes: "You know city-centre beat officers... Well are they police who rap?"
- John Luke Roberts: "I made a Battenberg where the two colours ran alongside each other. I called it apartheid sponge."
- Emo Phillips: "I like to play chess with bald men in the park although it's hard to find 32 of them."
- Bec Hill: "Some of my best friends are vegan. They were going to come today but they didn't have the energy to climb up the stairs."
- Dan Antopolski: "How many Spaniards does it take to change a lightbulb? Juan."


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Whitecaps alum Duane Below Q & A
In baseball, as in any sport, we all love the 'local boy makes good story'. Former Whitecaps pitcher Duane Below could possibly fit that mold this season, as he competes for the Detroit Tigers 5th spot in the rotation, or possibly a long reliever role. The 26 year-old left hander hails from Britton, Michigan and played at Lake Michigan College.
Below was a 19th round pick of the Detroit Tigers, and played with the West Michigan Whitecaps in 2007. His 13-5 record helped his team win the Midwest League Championship that year. He sported a 2.97 ERA and 160 strike-outs in his 26 starts in West Michigan. We were lucky enough to see Duane pitch that season, as Fifth Third Ballpark would usually sell out when he was on the mound.
Last season he make two starts for the Tigers and allowed a combined five earned runs in 9 2/3 innings of work. Later he moved to the bullpen, and pitched in relief twelve times. Three of his outings he pitched two or more innings. All the best to Duane this season, as he competes for a roster spot in Detroit. He's bounced back nicely after having to undergo Tommy John surgery in 2009.
Below recently chatted with James Schmehl of MLive.com:
Q. I heard you reported to camp way ahead of schedule. When did you arrive?
A. I came down here to get a little head start. I pulled into Lakeland on December 4. I was just enjoying the weather, the sunshine and the pool with my girlfriend.
Q. Is this your regular schedule? Do you typically come to Florida in early December?
A. The past couple of years, I've been down here early. Last year, I was here in January. The year before, I was hurt and I was here rehabbing , which is one of the main reasons I felt like I needed to come down here. I came back strong last year and I was ready to go. I want to be ready like that again this year.
Q. What's the biggest difference between working out in Lakeland with the team staff, opposed to working out on your own at home?
A. You train hard at home, but when you get here it's different. It's more competitive. You push yourself a little harder. It's good to be here a couple weeks early before everything starts. Before that, I would stay at home and work out with Kalamazoo Valley Community College.
Q. What in particular are you trying to focus on when you work out during the offseason?
A. I'm just trying to build strength. You can't work out as hard during the season. There's a point where you want to build up as much as you can and try to maintain it. I felt like being down there would the best opportunity. The strength staff put a couple of workouts together for me. Monday and Thursday, I would focus on my lower body and I'd work on upper body strength Tuesday and Friday. Wednesday was core conditioning and long-distance running.
Q. Were you looking to add weight? I know a lot of pitchers tend to lose it as the season progresses.
A. Nah, I didn't add any weight. I'm the same weight–right around 220-225 pounds, but I feel good. I feel strong.
Q. You're one of a few pitchers on the team what have undergone Tommy John surgery. Was there ever a point where you considered packing it up?
A. Nah, I never thought about it. I love this game too much to just throw it away on an injury. I'm going to fight as hard as I can to be in the position I want to be in. And, right now, this si the position I want. I want to be on the team, even if it's in the bullpen or the rotation. You can't quit on this. There's too much I have involved.
Q. How are you handling this spring? You're a candidate for the No. 5 spot, but you're also a candidate for the bullpen. Does that change how you approach this camp?
A. I'm trying to go about my business the same way I always do. I'm just trying to make the team. Basically, I'm just trying to make sure I'm ready for the season. If I'm in Toledo or Detroit, I want to make sure I'm ready. I can't control where I am, so I'm not going to try and wreck what I'm working on.
Q. Speaking of which, what in particular are you looking to improve this spring? I know a lot of pitchers say consistency is the key–does that apply to you, too?
A. Yeah, I'm really looking to better locate my fastball. My curveball, too. I need it to be a better pitch. Basically, I need to rely on my changeup and curveball more often and keep guys off-balance. But, like you mentioned, I need to be consistent with every pitch I have and be confident enough to throw it in any count. It's a learning process, just like anything.
Q. Are you able to enjoy your time in Florida? Your name has been mentioned non-stop as a candidate for that fifth spot. Does it start to get to you?
A. Eh, not so much right now. It's not really nerve-wracking. I'm sure it's going to get crazy around here soon, but it's going to be fun. I mean, how can you not enjoy it? You're in Florida. You're in the sun. It's been a dream come true.
Looks like he's got a great attitude, and I'm hoping he's in a Tigers uniform come April. It's so much fun watching these guys move up through the system!
Photo property of M.I.B.


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Celebrities React to Landmark Same-Sex Marriage Decisions
The U.S. Supreme Court issued two landmark rulings related to the issue of same-sex marriage Wednesday. First, the court ruled that the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, is unconstitutional - paving the way for legally married same-sex couples to receive the same federal benefits as straight married couples. Second, the Court dismissed an appeal against California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state - meaning that same-sex marriage can resume in California.
Supreme Court strikes down Defense of Marriage Act
Celebrities took to Twitter to voice their opinions on the rulings. Here are some of their reactions:
"Today's DOMA ruling is a historic step forward for #MarriageEquality. #LoveIsLove" - Barack Obama
"You're damn right DOMA is unconstitutional!! #equalitymatters" - Kristen Bell
"It's a supremely wonderful day for equality. Prop 8 is over, and so is DOMA. Congratulations everyone. And I mean everyone." - Ellen DeGeneres
"Thank you #SCOTUS, good riddance DOMA, and hello to my Mom asking me once a month why I'm still not married." - Greg Berlanti
"Don't wanna traffic in stereotypes but let's be real: I'm gonna love a gay wedding." - Lena Dunham
"Remember when #DOMA was around and gay people couldn't get married in California? Crazy right!?" - Jesse Tyler Ferguson
"Wow, AND Prop 8 is dead! Good morning, gang. Good morning indeed. :-) #equality" - Jeri Ryan
"What a momentous day. All Americans are equal, no matter who you love. #LoveIsLove" - John Stamos
"A good day for that whole 'Equal Justice Under the Law' thing. More days like this please.... #DOMAdead" - Patrick J. Adams
"If you're gay married in California your gay marriage is now legal. Good. #allmarriageisabitgay" - Russell Brand
"#PROP8 IS GONE! #DOMA IS GONE! #SCOTUS #LoveIsLove" - Ricky Martin
"#Prop8 is no more. Marriage equality & the freedom so many sought is here. At the end of the day we are ALL people who deserve equality!!" - Marlee Matlin
"Down w DOMA! Something to be very proud of this upcoming July 4th. We are making beautiful progress for Equality! #proud" - Adam Lambert
"DOMA-it-just-lost-O Mr. Roboto!" - Neil Patrick Harris
"Oh man. So many dresses to buy. So many themed weddings in my future!!" - Retta
"Gay weddings, f--- yeah! Well done SCOTUS on a KO for DOMA. Love wins, flawless victory. Party in WEHO!!!" - Simon Pegg
"Great news today!! #domafail #prop8" - Kevin Bacon
"Going to gay marry my wife today." - Michael Ian Black
"Woke up to the news of DOMA being struck down. Don't care that it's cold and raining in Portland, it's a beautiful day." - Carrie Brownstein
"DOMA and Prop 8 should get married." - Seth Meyers
"I want to french Justice Kennedy SO hard right now." - Damon Lindelof
"Very pleased about the Supreme Courts rulings today on DOMA and gay marriage in CA." - William Shatner
"Go gay marriage and yes I might be available to sing at your wedding! Bye, bye DOMA and Prop 8" - Kate Flannery
"Great day to be gay." - Kevin Williamson
"Historic day. Well done #SCOTUS." - Leonardo DiCaprio
"I never dreamed I would see this day. The whole world has changed for us all. I can't believe it!! #DOMA #Equality" - Andy Cohen
"Hurray for all Americans and good riddance to DOMA. It's a new day. A happy day." - Padma Lakshmi
"I am SO beyond happy to wake up to the news of DOMA and Prop 8 being voted unconstitutional! FINALLY!" - Busy Philipps
"Today is the day DOMA died and LOVE won!! Life, liberty the pursuit of happiness AND LOVE FOR ALL!!! #DOMA" - Jennifer Carpenter
View original Celebrities React to Landmark Same-Sex Marriage Decisions at TVGuide.com
Other Links From TVGuide.com


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WASHINGTON — A poll of Louisiana Republicans released last week contained some strange news for President Barack Obama: Twenty-nine percent of them said he was responsible for the poor response to Hurricane Katrina — in 2005.
This was slightly more than the 28 percent who said President George W. Bush was to blame. An additional 44 percent thought it over but just weren't sure.
This is a preposterous notion. Everybody knows Obama couldn't have been responsible for the Katrina response because he was in Indonesia in 2005, learning about his Muslim faith in a madrassa. He had moved to Indonesia directly from his home country of Kenya, stopping in the United States just long enough to fake the moon landing.
When I read a report about the poll on the Talking Points Memo website, the first thing that came to mind was the famous campaign-trail quotation from the man who actually was president in 2005: "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"
Evidently, they is not, at least not in Louisiana. Yet ignorance alone does not account for this bizarre finding.
The Katrina result, from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, is somewhat suspect because it is from an automated, push-button polling method. Yet the finding, if unscientific, is revealing: It shows that a substantial number of Republican voters will agree to something they know to be false if it puts Obama in a bad light.
The Katrina question is consistent with the many surveys finding an appalling amount of misinformation embraced by the electorate. At the time of the Iraq War, seven in 10 Americans believed Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. A year ago, one in six thought Obama was a Muslim. In a famous poll several years ago, Americans were three times more likely to be able to name two of the seven dwarfs than two U.S. Supreme Court justices.
Earlier this year, Public Policy Polling found disturbingly high levels of belief in UFOs and aliens, and the believers were bipartisan: Twenty-two percent of Mitt Romney voters said Obama was the Antichrist, and 13 percent of Obama voters said the government allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur.
But Obama's presidency has provoked a particularly steep rise in the proportion of Republican conspiracy theorists. A Pew poll last year found that 30 percent of Republicans and 34 percent of conservative Republicans thought Obama was Muslim — roughly double than thought so four years earlier. Gallup Polling in April 2011 found that 43 percent of Republicans thought Obama was born in another country.
Obama conspiracy theories have flourished in the Deep South, where wealth and educational levels are both low. This makes sense: Where voters are least informed, they are most susceptible to misinformation peddled by talk-radio hosts and the like.
For this reason, voters in reliably Republican states, which tend to be poorer, with lower test scores, are more vulnerable to misinformation. To use one measure, the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress test of eighth-grade reading, all but one of the top 10 states were in Obama's column in 2012. Of the 19 doing worse than average, 14 were red states.
This is what makes the Katrina question so interesting. Certainly, Louisianans are on the low end of the education rankings, fifth from the bottom in math and third-to-last in reading. But this question got around the ignorance question by asking Louisiana Republicans about a topic they know intimately.
All but the most clueless had to know that Obama, a first-term senator in 2005, was not responsible for the botched storm response that Louisianans experienced up close and personally. It's a notion so demonstrably false that they wouldn't have heard anybody arguing for it on Fox News or talk radio. Yet 29 percent of Republican primary voters (the sample size was 274) reflexively endorsed the falsehood.
"Obama derangement syndrome is running pretty high right now among a certain segment of the Republican base," Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling, told me. "There's a certain segment of people who say, 'If you're going to give me the opportunity to stick it to Obama, I'm going to take it.'"
In other words, a large number of that 29 percent who said Obama was responsible for the Katrina response knew that he wasn't but saw it as a chance to register their displeasure with the president. Obama has driven a large number of Republican voters — Jensen puts it at 15 percent to 20 percent of the overall electorate — right off their rockers. And to that, there is only one thing to say.
Heckuva job, Barry.
Washington Post Writers Group
Dana Milbank is a Washington Post columnist.
Twitter @Milbank


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Our council-manager form of government combines the civic leadership of elected officials with the managerial experience of an appointed city manager. Beyond all else, we are a service organization, and we are here to serve our community.
Roseville is the largest city in Placer County and called home by 150,000 people. Find the resources you need here.
We are a place where businesses small and large find success. Ideally located, Roseville provides first-rate services, competitive costs, solid long-range planning and an educated, growing population.
Annual Giving Campaign
For those of us living and doing business in Roseville, community involvement means helping those in need. To that end, the City of Roseville employees began a community giving program in 2003 - the Roseville Employees Annual Charitable Hearts (R.E.A.C.H.) - as a way to give back directly to our local community and their charities of choice. Through these annual campaigns, employee efforts have contributed to over $1.5 million dollars getting into the hands of our local non-profits.
The 2017 campaign theme was "Priceless". Employees pledged more than $100,000 to our local nonprofits - a $10,000 increase over last year's campaign. We hope you enjoy our short photo collage. Find out how you too can become a hero with a donation of your own (see "How Can You Donate" section below).
2017 will also be another "year of giving" in which the R.E.A.C.H. Committee will host a variety of fundraising events including employee blood drives. Our annual All City Coed Charity Softball Tournament was held on October 21 at Maidu Park. City departments made team to play for their favorite nonprofit in this fun summer fundraising event.
Community R.E.A.C.H. Fund
Our Mission Statement
R.E.A.C.H. is dedicated to enhancing and improving the quality of life for South Placer residents by providing funding opportunities to local non-profit organizations serving the needs of our community's youth, seniors and families.
Investing in our Community
In addition to the employee donations to local non-profit organizations, a special fund was created to also allow for community and business donations. These pooled donations are then awarded annually as grants by our Roseville Grants Advisory Commission along with Citizens' Benefit Funds. R.E.A.C.H. grants are awarded to schools, public and non-profit agencies through a competitive public process. The grants process is administered by the City with no overhead costs and 100% of all donations go directly to non-profit agencies in our community. Since it's inception R.E.A.C.H. has awarded over 122 grants totaling over $481,000. Click here for a list of current grant recipients.
Giving to R.E.A.C.H. is EASY, EFFICIENT and GOOD BUSINESS.
Listen in as donors and recipients share their stories how REACH has made a difference in our community.
Thank you to our R.E.A.C.H. Family of Donors
Auernig Auto Body
Bartell Associates
Barbieri Commercial Brokerage
Bullard Construction, Inc
California Bank & Trust
Calpo Hom & Dong Architects
Carter-Kelly Inc.
Coastal Partners, LLC
Cresleigh Homes Corp
Denio's Roseville Farmers Market & Auction, Inc
First Northern Bank*
Hewlett-Packard Company
High Performance Coatings/ Advanced Concrete Technology, Inc
Hunt & Sons, Inc
ICON General Contractors
J-Four Enterprises, Inc
KB Home
The KMS Group
Kobra Properties
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts
Lennar Communities
Mourier Land Investment
NEC Electronics America*
Noodles & Company
Panattoni Development
Parkland Homes, Inc
Pasta Pomodoro
Peter Bollinger Investments
Roseville Automall Association*
Roseville Chamber of Commerce
Sports Restaurants, Inc
Surewest Foundation
The Grainger Foundation
The Miller Family Companies
Total Wine & More
United Auburn Indian Community
Westfield's Galleria at Roseville*
Wells Fargo Foundation
West Yost Associates
* Multi-year commitments


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Archive for January, 2012
You say tomato, I say tomato soup please!
For the record, I hated tomatoes as a kid. Except for ketchup and pizza sauce, this plant with the serious fruit-veggie split personality issue never touched my taste buds (at least not that I can remember). I think my disgust with them may have been at least partially caused by an experience as a young kid at a daycare where I was forced to eat tomato soup. But I can't say for sure.
So, I successfully avoided Solanum lycopersicum for much of the first two decades of my life. Then came college. My junior year, I spent a semester in Denmark. Unlike most Danes, my two host sisters were vegetarians, so my host mom cooked with a wide variety of veggies I had formerly despised. Among them: bell peppers, onions, zucchini and, of course, tomatoes. It was "eat veggies" or "go hungry." Amazingly, I was smitten. My palate was thoroughly pleased with the variety of tastes I had long been ignoring.
But my new found love for the plant kingdom is not the reason for this post. This is about tomatoes. Specifically (and maybe ironically) tomato soup. Done well, tomato soup is one of the best comfort foods around. Paired with a toasted cheese sandwich and a pickle, it's a meal made in heaven.
The best tomato soup I've found has a twist I would have never expected. Balsamic vinegar – another of God's great gifts to humanity. I was introduced to the recipe for Creamy Tomato-Balsamic Soup just over a year ago by a co-worker.
MY NOTES: In making this soup, the big difference for me is no beef broth. I made the soup this week using some of the turkey broth I made and froze at Thanksgiving, and previously I've used homemade veggie broth. Additionally, you will find no cooking spray in my kitchen, so I use butter to grease the pan. Lastly, the only other difference in the way I make this recipe is to skip the straining step at the end. No reason to take out the best part!
One of the main reasons I like this soup in January is I get to use some of my own tomatoes. This week I used some of the heirlooms I canned in the late season when they were out of control.
In addition to the vinegar, this soup is unique in that you bake the ingredients (except the half and half) instead of cooking them in a pot. This really brings the flavors together in a way I don't think you can achieve on the stove top. Not to mention the lovely aroma!
So, as winter (finally) sets in here in Minnesota, turn on the oven, pop open some tomatoes and bake. Soup that is.
Did I mention this is the best tomato soup ever?
Alright folks, I need to take a moment to get up on my soapbox, the one with the podium. It's not about politics or religion. It's not healthcare, education or immigration. But it is definitely about a part of the American way of life which we cannot continue to ignore. It's about a habit we've grown into as a society that our great-grandparents would have cringed at. It's not prolific tattoos or baggy jeans. It's not fast driving or talking on cell phones during dinner.
No, it's wasting food.
During the two World Wars, wasting food in the United States was high on the list of social sins. In fact, one could say that wasting food was close to treason. Ok, that may be my own historical embellishment, but it is not far off when you consider that the American people were asked to abide by rations on sugar, wheat and meat in order to "save it for the troops," and to not waste a morsel of what they did take home. Our grandmothers cooked, canned and cured every edible scrap they could get their hands on.
Somehow, over the last six decades, however, we seem to have forgotten that NOT wasting food used to be an act of patriotism in this country, and we now seem to carry an air of entitlement to waste. Whether it is kids in a school cafeteria, professionals in the corporate work place, a family out to dine at a restaurant or you and me at our own kitchen tables, Americans throw away 40% of the food we produce. FORTY percent. For a nation that generally claims we need to increase agricultural yields in order to grow enough to feed the world, we might do better to take an inward look at our wasteful gluttony first. The insanity of it really is mind blowing if you think about it for more than thirty seconds.
Given my wholesale criticism of all of us here, I will sadly acknowledge the three fingers pointing back at me. A few weeks ago, after a crazy month of meetings, dining out and otherwise ignoring our kitchen, I went through our fridge and threw away an embarrassing amount of food. This is not the norm for me these days – I have worked hard to shop for what we need and not in excess. Unfortunately, as a colleague sometimes jokes, that week I had "really expensive compost." Fortunately, I am able to compost most of our food waste, but it still does not sit any better with my sense of responsibility. A responsibility for caring for the land (that produces our food), the people (who tend and harvest it) and the resources of this planet (extracted to process, package and truck it all)
In May 2011, I participated in an EPA webinar on food waste. It was definitely not the first time I'd thought about food waste, but author Jonathan Bloom had some excellent commentary, which he shares with folks on the blog Wasted Food and in his book American Wasteland. On the same webinar I learned about an awesome marketing campaign against waste in the UK. Called Love Food Hate Waste, this creative effort uses humorous imagery and blunt facts to remind food lovers that we've got to cut our wasteful ways.
Not wanting to be a complete Debbie Downer on this, here are some ideas for reducing food waste – recycled, revamp and regurgitated – from others to me to you:
- Reconsider bulk. I'm not talking about the bulk bins at your local co-op. I'm talking about the Costco kind of bulk. The kind where you buy a (sometimes ridiculously) large quantity of food – amount uncontrollable by the purchaser – because it seems like a good deal, then end up throwing half of it away because you are unable to consume it all in time. Consider instead finding a smaller volume of those perishables from a more sustainable source. Then pay the producer (probably the same as you would at the Big Box) so they can make a living. And finally, waste none.
- Shop more frequently, buy less. This is a super hard concept for Americans in particular I think, but it fits in with the first suggestion. We like the shopping carts large enough to haul an SUV worth of groceries, but what we end up taking home largely becomes trash. Doesn't that seem silly? We pay money for food so we can pay more money to have it hauled away on Tuesdays? Consider buying your fruits, veggies, dairy, meat and other perishables on a more frequent basis and then use them up before heading out again.
- Remember what's in your fridge. Alright, this one is a "personal experience" idea. My husband and I were members of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm for several summers and would often get way more food than we could deal with in a week. In addition to not knowing what to do with all of it before the next box came, I also struggled with remembering what the heck was in the drawers and on the shelves in my fridge. Enter magnetic white board. Left over from my days in the college dorm, this went up on the fridge door and I now track everything in the fridge (at least in the summer when we have lots of fresh produce from the garden and farmers markets). I kid you not, if you keep it updated, it will help with reducing waste, as well as meal planning. Not to mention that it will help reduce the energy wasted every time you stand there with the door wide open deciding what to eat.
- Leftovers – eat 'em or freeze. If you and your family cannot eat leftovers within a few days (or get "leftover fatigue" after a few meals), consider freezing a portion. For example, I love to make soup in the summer when the ingredients are fresh from my garden, but my husband doesn't like hot soups in the heat. So, I make the soups, put a few portions in the fridge for me and freeze the rest for fall and winter. We use produce in season, reduce waste and have homemade frozen dinners ready in the cold months. Triple win.
So, those are some of my tips for keeping us moving down the path of less food waste. What are your ideas? How will you use 2012 as the year to be a better steward of your food?


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You know what is delicious? A Moscow Mule!
I have been thoroughly enjoying this new trend. The drink itself – goes down so smooth, there is plenty of variation options out there so you never get tired of it, but you know what I love too? The mug! It's got just enough shimmer to it, but could be held by men and women alike without fear of judgment. It's easy to hold, and not a pain to walk around a busy room with. And bonus points: the copper mugs are not breakable.
My mind can't help but wonder if the drink/mug combo became trendy because of its two winning elements, or if it caught on so well because the industrial themed slash steampunk inspired party and wedding is on the rise? Referencing industrial age design, event planners, decorators, and brides have been making their own twists on this theme for the last few years, with the concept gaining lots of momentum.
I have to suspect, that a huge part of the reason for this momentum gain is the sheer flexibility and scalability the steampunk and industrial theme allows for. It can be very vintage and grunge inspired, or it can be very modern and clean. It could be used for corporate decor, weddings, events for men or women, day or night, and really, any season. Check out some of the cool pins I've saved that are industrial themed or steampunk inspired.
For this week's industrial glam party in copper and white idea board, I've chosen to go a more modern route, inspired by the Moscow Mule mug, with touches of nature brought in through small clusters of fresh foliage and greenery accents. In my head, this industrial glam themed event is for an evening corporate dinner, but I could just as easily see it transitioned over to a more social event, like a wedding reception.
The major elements to this party theme are:
- Copper mugs and accents
- Edison bulb lighting
- Small clusters of fresh green foliage
Here's what I had in mind:
Be sure to see where I found each element for this industrial glam themed party in copper and white:
Geometric Copper and White Modern Place Setting – spotted on Pinterest
Copper Industrial Modern Place Setting – shared on 100 Layer Cake
Copper Trellis with Greenery and Edison Bulbs Tablescape – shared on Inside Weddings
Industrial Centerpiece of Glass Tubes and Copper – also shared on Inside Weddings
Marble Vellum Invitation Wraps with Copper Wax Seal – created by Written Word Calligraphy
Copper Cups Display with Greenery Border – spotted on Pinterest
Industrial Edison Bulb Wall with Metallic Draping – shared by In The Event
Modern Industrial Metal Bar with Copper Bulb Lighting – shared on Contemporist
Moscow Mule Copper Bar Station – shared on Salve A Noiva
And if you are using this industrial glam party in copper and white for a wedding, might I suggest this as an altar idea:
Industrial Wedding Arbor in Copper with Green and White Floral Accents – featured on Flowers by Janie
Don't forget to pin your favorites for future reference:
Are you more into a modern industrial themed event, or would you prefer a steampunk inspired set of decor?