text:
| ! Hunting & Fishing Licenses | Boat Registration Renewal
Caucuses Work to Preserve Outdoors Tradition
By DAVID RAINER
When members of the U.S. Congress with a love for the outdoors realized how the basic freedoms that those of us who pursue outdoors recreation were being eroded, the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus was formed in 1989 to advocate for those freedoms in Washington, D.C.
The Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation was quickly formed as an action arm of the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus. The evolution of the effort led to the formation of the National Assembly of Sportsmen's Caucuses, which has representation from the state legislatures in 38 states.
Jeff Crane, president of the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, said both Republican and Democratic members from the U.S. Congress realized there was no way to identify members from other states who were pro hunting or pro fishing, pro outdoors, pro sportsmen.
"They created the caucus just for that reason – they didn't want to see those rights eroded," Crane said. "They wanted to have a unified voice, an ability to get the word out and to get strong on legislative policy. That's when the caucus was started in Washington and the foundation was started about the same time.
"About eight years ago, we looked at this and realized how effective it had been. There were a few states that had a sportsmen's caucus but it was less than 10 states. We decided we should roll this out on a state-by-state basis. To make it even stronger, we should unify these state caucuses under an umbrella we call the National Assembly of Sportsmen's Caucuses (NASC)"
For the past seven years, NASC has convened a meeting at different sites across the U.S., and this year's meeting occurred last week at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear.
"Twenty-five states have legislators represented here," Crane said. "I don't think there is any other forum where you get this many legislators together. These are the guys who push the yea and nay buttons. All of us can talk about the things we do to support good policy, but ultimately they are the ones who have to cast the votes."
When the idea of a states-based organization was hatched less than 10 states had sportsmen's caucuses. Alabama's caucus was formed two years ago and now there are 38 states with caucuses.
"The individual states have the autonomy to do what they think is best and deal with the issues," Crane said. "The issues in Alabama are not going to be the same as say in one of the Rocky Mountain states. Each caucus is entirely independent. What this forum is for is to exchange ideas, see trends that are coming, pass good model legislation that will work from state to state, and watch for the stuff coming down the pike from the antis and be ready for it. It's really starting to pay dividends."
One example of a unified coalition that prevented what would have been a serious black eye for sportsmen was the idea of internet hunting, Crane said.
"You could sit at your computer and fire a real gun at a real animal and use your computer mouse," he said. "These caucuses quickly got together and passed legislation to shut that down.
"Access is a huge issue for us. We put together something called the Hunting Heritage Protection Clause, also known as no-net loss. It states that if the DNR closes down land that is traditionally open to public hunting that they have to find land to offset that loss for hunting and fishing."
Another effort NASC is involved in includes the recruitment and retention of hunters, which involves making it easy for people to experience hunting for the first time through mentor programs.
"The apprentice hunting license is one of those 'try it before you buy' deals," Crane said. "We're finding that that is helping a lot. Once they get a little taste of it, they tend to get hooked."
During the NASC meeting, the forums dealt with issues like the wolf management in the West, states along the Atlantic Seaboard that don't have Sunday hunting, the widespread problems with feral hogs, as well as oil and gas exploration and how that interfaces with being good stewards of the environment, Crane said.
"We try to model these sessions to be thought-provoking and we listen to the legislators to find out what they doing in their own states," he said. "Some of those ideas, people say 'wow, let's take that home and see if it works for us.' That's what we're doing.
"We're delighted to be in Point Clear and to be in Alabama. We've been meeting mainly but we will get to enjoy some of the great outdoors recreation this great state has."
Rep. Randy Davis of Daphne, co-chair of the Alabama Legislative Sportsmen's Caucus in the House of Representatives along with Rep. John Robinson of Scottsboro, said the Alabama caucus was started two years ago with a $10,000 grant from the Alabama Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation. The Alabama caucus has 82 members in the Senate and House and has been able to pass a no-net loss bill.
"The next thing we're going to try to do is reauthorize Forever Wild," Davis said. "That will be a real focus of our efforts this year. Part of the mission of the caucus is access to land to hunt or fish. Forever Wild has been very successful in giving the lay person access to hunting land.
"As you know, we finance the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources through hunting and fishing licenses, so we need to make as many opportunities available through acquisition of land suitable for outdoors recreation."
John McMillan of Stockton, who was recently elected Alabama Agriculture and Industry Commissioner, helped line up some of that outdoors recreation for the visitors. McMillan realizes what an important role these caucuses play in the future of hunting, fishing and other outdoors pursuits.
"First of all, it's very important that the Alabama Legislature participates in this group and other interest groups in Alabama," McMillan said. "It's particularly significant for us to be able to host it. As part of this event, we're going to take some of these legislators from other states deer hunting and hog hunting. I tend to emphasize hunting this time of year, but some folks are going fishing, both inshore and offshore. These legislators will be able to go back where they came from and let everybody know we're not covered up with oil and we have great hunting, fishing and seafood.
"One of the reasons I am here is to hear about what's going on with the feral hog situation in other parts of the country, because that's something that dramatically affects people in Alabama that have any relationship with the land, whether it's forestry or row crops or whatever. As you well know, we are covered up with that same problem. It's enlightening that other people are working on that problem."
As an ex officio member of the Alabama Conservation Advisory Board, the Agriculture Commissioner-elect said it is important for him to stay informed on issues that affect outdoors recreation, as well.
"This forum is important for the people of Alabama, particularly legislators and policy makers, in that they can become aware of issues in other parts of the country, for example, the issues with gun ownership and sportsmen's values," McMillan said. "We need to stay informed on those issues and ensure that our legislators are informed."
Corky Pugh, Director of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources' Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division said having advocates in the legislatures helps ensure outdoors recreation will continue to be enjoyed now and in the future.
"The members of this group are really important to us," he said. "Only seven percent of the population hunts. So having members who are knowledgeable on the issues and have the perspective of a hunter and angler is really valuable. As sportsmen legislators, they help drive public policy that helps maintain the broad base of participation in hunting and fishing and help ensure those opportunities are available. If we keep that base solid, that continues to provide funding for protection and management of fish and wildlife resources. If people don't buy hunting and fishing licenses, then the funding goes away for maintaining those resources that all people enjoy.
"Another way these sportsmen legislators have a positive impact is because of their appreciation for the resource itself and the state agencies that maintain the resources. Most of these folks realize that when it comes to managing fish and wildlife you have to use sound science. Thirdly, they drive public policy that helps to maintain fair chase. The majority of people do not hunt, but the majority do approve of lawful, ethical hunting. Maintaining fair chase is essential to maintaining that base of support."
PHOTO: (By David Rainer) The sportsmen's caucuses in state legislatures, as well as the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus, have made it a priority to that the outdoors tradition is passed on to the next generation through youth hunting programs and land acquisition programs that provide hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation opportunities to the general public.


text:
The following continues the new serialized tale from Ari Marmell—author of Agents of Artifice. Be sure to check back each week for the next chapter in this ongoing tale of Ravenloft!
While the majority of the details portrayed over the course of Chapters One through Three are purely fictionalized, the background circumstances are, alas, entirely factual.
On July 15, 1099, the "pilgrims" of the First Crusade—led by, among others, the Duke Godefroy de Bouillon of France—collapsed portions of the defensive walls of Jerusalem, putting an end to the siege of the city. The next twenty-four hours were among the bloodiest in the history of the Crusades, as seemingly-maddened knights and soldiers slaughtered an enormous portion of the Holy City's population: Muslims, Jews, and even some Christians; men, women, and children. Nobody was spared the violence and anger of the crusaders; and while historical accounts claiming the soldiers waded in blood up to their ankles are almost certainly exaggerations, they still represent a chilling view of what happened that day.
This is not fiction, much as we might wish it were. This is history.
And if there are Dark Powers, scouring the many worlds for those "worthy" of their embrace, surely such horrors committed in the name of God would be exactly what they sought.
Instantly, they were surrounded. Redbreasts with pikes, with swords, with bows, emerged from every corner of the spacious cellar. Two carried lanterns. The flickering light, glinting from their polished armor and crimson tabards, suggested a constantly shifting patina of blood.
Behind the rows of soldiers, a second set of stairs led upward, presumably into whichever of the nearby homes this cellar truly belonged. Diederic eyed the Redbreasts and the distance to the door. If he and Violca tried to retreat the way they had come, the pikemen would cut them down, or the archers perforate them before they'd gone halfway. If they could break through, however, take the stairs just beyond the archers, they might avoid the clearest lines of attack….
With the heavy tread of booted feet upon those distant stairs, Diederic's half-formed plan shifted from foolhardy to suicidal. Defeated for the nonce, he let his shoulders sag and stood motionless, awaiting the appearance of this newcomer.
He was a large man, in all senses of the word. He wore a heavy hauberk, custom-suited to his substantial girth, over which he sported a black tabard, trimmed in crimson and boasting the ensign of the sixfold sun in richly embroidered gold. As he reached the base of the stairs, Tobar darted by the prisoners to stand at his side.
"Here they are, your worship," Tobar simpered, "just as I promised. I told you that you needn't send out so many to search for them, that it would be I to find them, did I not?" "You did." Even from afar, Diederic and Violca heard the tone of revulsion in his words. With a twitch of his fingers, he called over one of the guards, who dropped a small leather pouch into Tobar's waiting palm. It clinked loudly as it landed.
"Stay a bit, Tobar," the man ordered. "I may have further use for you.
"My name," he announced, raising his voice until it seemed to force the air from the cellar, "is Oste van Brekke, First Confessor of the Empyrean Inquisition, Right Hand of his Eminence the Pontiff Cornelis Antheunis the First, Defender of Malosia's Faith.
"And you," he continued without so much as a pause to think about it, "would be Violca Hanza and 'Sir' Diederic de Wyndt."
Diederic caught himself just before he glanced worriedly at his companion. If nothing else, he would deny this man the satisfaction of seeing him surprised.
Instead, he asked, "And what would a fellow of such impressive stature want with us?" Van Brekke scowled beneath his beard. "The Vistani woman claims unnatural powers of sight. You appeared to my men out of an empty bank of mists. You slew several of my soldiers in your escape from Perdition Hill, others in the Forest of Cineris, and while I can offer no proof of it, I suspect more murders in the weeks since."
It was Diederic's turn to scowl. "You'll not take either of us back into those dungeons of yours, van Brekke. We'll die, the both of us, before that happens, and I swear to my God and yours, we'll take more than a spare few of your Redbreasts with us!" Several of the soldiers snarled, clasping hands on hilts or stretching bowstrings back with an ominous groaning of wood.
"Oh, still your axe and your tongue both, de Wyndt! I'd like nothing better than to see you both burnt and broken before being stretched by the neck from the rafters. But I've not had my own people watching the Church soldiers, nor paid spies scouring every spot of trouble in this city, just so I could kill you first!"
Van Brekke trundled into the center of the cellar, shouldering his way through the wall of soldiers, and motioned his "guests" to join him. Suspicion warred with curiosity within Diederic, but as curiosity had the Redbreasts on its side, it swiftly won out. He advanced to roughly a spear's length from the First Confessor; the looks on the Redbreasts' faces told him that any closer would be unwise. Violca remained at the base of the stair, seemingly deaf to the conversation.
"There is a poison within my Church, de Wyndt," van Brekke told him without preamble. "A toxin that rots away the Empyrean heart, and threatens to bring down all that I honor, all that I love."
Despite the blades threatening him, Diederic smiled. "Lambrecht Raes." It was not a question.
Van Brekke nodded. "None other. We share an enemy, de Wyndt. Yet so long as he operates under the auspices and approval of the pontiff, my own oaths bar me from acting against him."
"You're perfectly willing to send another to act in your stead, though. Tell me, van Brekke, is hypocrisy something they teach in the seminary? So many priests I've met seem well educated in—"
"If you would prefer, I am quite happy to lock you away, or watch you die trying to stop me!"
"Ah, no. No, I'd rather not."
"So." Van Brekke paused a moment, waiting for his breath to slow, the angry red in his face to fade. "You will remove Lambrecht from my Church, de Wyndt, or at least provide the means whereby I can act to do so myself. You will not harm any more of my men, nor any members of the clergy, and most especially not the pontiff, in the process."
"I'm not certain that's going to be poss—"
"Once you succeed—assuming you succeed, and only if you succeed—you will be permitted to depart without further prosecution by myself or my soldiers, and will remain free of said prosecution so long as you never again violate our laws. The slightest such violation, however, renders all such pardons and indulgences void. Am I clearly, completely understood?"
"I should think so."
"Excellent. Tobar here will lead you and your companion into the grounds of the Basilica—yes, Tobar, for an additional fee, of course. From there, you're on your own. My command over the Inquisition is absolute, but I have less influence over the Church regulars, and any attempt to reduce or remove the guards would draw far too much attention."
"My, but you're helpful," Diederic spat bitterly.
Van Brekke ignored him. "While I can make no promises as to Lambrecht's location, I strongly suggest trying his quarters and his office. He's rarely elsewhere, unless meeting with the pontiff. He—"
A bowstring thrummed, an arrow pounced: a striking serpent with fangs of steel. Van Brekke's speed belied both girth and age as he twisted aside, but he could not wholly avoid the attack. Chain parted, flesh parted, and the arrow settled into the meat of his upper arm with a dull thump.
Even as he staggered back against the steps, a trio of Redbreasts leapt upon his attacker, dragging him down before he could nock a second arrow, ignoring their blades to pummel him with fists. Over and over their hands rose and fell, until even the man's mother could scarcely have recognized the bloody, pulped mass that had been his face.
On and on they pounded at him, their indignant cries rising to a fever pitch, until they were little more than squeals—animal calls without anything so coherent as words within.
Other Redbreasts dove into the fray. Perhaps they sought to pull their companions off the mangled corpse, or perhaps they agreed with the first attacker that the First Confessor's words amounted to treason and heresy against the Church. It mattered little. One soldier reached out, placing his hand firmly upon the shoulder of another who crouched over the body, and abruptly found a sword protruding from his thigh. He fell with an angry cry—a cry that became an obscene giggle as his head struck the floor. Blades, nails, and teeth alike reddened with blood, and what had been a disciplined assembly of the Church's finest soldiers degenerated into an abattoir of madness and gore.
Across the cellar floor that was swiftly turning from dirt to mud—that same scarlet-tinted sludge that had clung to Diederic's boots in Jerusalem—van Brekke propped himself up on the steps, surrounded by a trio of soldiers who tended his wounds, their expressions grim, refusing to be drawn into the chaos while their commander needed them. His own face pale, coated in a film of sweat, his body shaking, the First Confessor gestured up the stairs with the thumb of his good hand.
"Go!" he ordered, whatever pain he felt utterly absent from his commanding voice. "Go, now, while you can!"
Diederic and Violca, already edging away from the carnage, broke into a dash. The knight lashed out as he ran, snagging Tobar by the collar, dragging the Vistana along as they pounded up the steps, through someone's kitchen, and out into the streets.
"Perhaps," Tobar suggested as they slowed their pace, "I should receive my payment now. If, gods forbid, van Brekke should be slain below—"
"Should van Brekke be slain," Diederic snarled, "then the Inquisition will be thrown into chaos. You'll have to consider that sufficient payment, if you receive no second bag of silver."
"I could refuse to guide you…."
"Yes. Yes, you could do that."
In those words, the Vistana heard the emptiness of the grave. Swallowing once, he smiled.
"But of course, I would do no such thing. I understand the importance of what we do here."
"Then lead."
Tobar led. Diederic glanced at Violca, opened his mouth to ask some question, and closed it again with a sharp clack. Her face was as rigid as stone, her eyes locked straight ahead. It occurred to him only then that she had not said a word during the discussion below, had barely seemed to register the goings-on at all.
Had she gone mad too? Is this what the bloodlust of the Grimoire looked like on a Vistana? Diederic didn't think so—she was too controlled, too contained—but before he could again attempt to question her, to speak to her, to simply gain her attention, she was off and following Tobar as he slipped and twisted through the crowds of pedestrians. With a grunt, Diederic followed, but his gaze remained locked on his companion, rather than their guide.
Another roundabout odyssey ensued, traversing major streets and back alleys alike. As before, Tobar sometimes led them through small storerooms or old houses. Once or twice he even led them through underground passages, ancient halls of stone whose purpose in Caercaelum had long been forgotten. Several times Diederic asked the Vistana how he knew of such places, and several times he found himself brushed off with such meaningless replies as "We Vistani know many things."
They emerged from an old storm grate to find themselves at the very edge of the Basilica's grounds. From beneath the surrounding wall, they peered past an old tool shed and over the single most important piece of property in Malosia entire.
Grasses of the most impressive springtime green stretched over the rolling, wavelike slope of Scions Mount. Pebbled pathways wound around tiny hillocks, burbling fountains, tiny orchards of rich fruit trees, and imposing marble sculptures of pontiffs and Church luminaries past and present. Pikemen in the white and gold of the Church livery stood at their posts, still as those statues, or walked the walls and the paths, alert for trouble but rarely expecting any. Pages darted back and forth on errands for men far more important than they could ever dream of being, and priests clad in black and crimson strode the grounds, heads down in thought or raised in philosophical debate.
Rising above it all, the walls of the Basilica itself—or rather the outermost buildings attached to the Basilica: libraries and dormitories and workrooms and shops, all intended to service the clergy so that none need ever descend into the city proper. Even these walls were whitewashed, so as to blend with the marble walls of the cathedral itself, and gleamed in the reflected gold of the minarets and domes above.
"I fear I can bring you no nearer," Tobar whispered. "None of the passages I know of travel directly beneath the Basilica. You'll have to—"
"Tobar?" It was the first word Violca had spoken since they'd entered the cellar. So startled was Diederic that he turned in answer too, as though she'd called his own name.
Thus he was able to watch, slack-jawed, as Violca sidled up to Tobar and slid the entire length of her wicked knife into his gut.
Tobar's entire body shuddered violently, and he doubled over, only to catch himself in Violca's embrace. His mouth moved, gasping and fish-like, but no sound emerged save for a single bloody cough.
"Vishnadd lunadi," she hissed. "Let justice be done! You are no Vistana!" Violca thrust higher even as Tobar folded, her blade ripping, tearing, puncturing. When she finally withdrew, knife and wrist covered in warm blood, there was nothing left in Tobar to hold him upright. Eyes still unblinking, she knelt beside the fallen body, calmly wiping her weapon clean on his tunic. Then, as an afterthought, she slipped from his waist the coinpurse given him by van Brekke.
At Diederic's incredulous stare, she merely shrugged, rising again to her feet. "No Vistana betrays another to giorgios without suffering for it," she told him, her voice absent of any remorse, of any emotion at all. "If it makes you feel any better, blame it on the book.
"In the meanwhile, tell me how you plan to get us across dozens of yards of open grass, let alone the twisting halls of the Basilica itself."
"Actually," Diederic said, giving himself a mental shake, "I have a thought about that." For a long time he said nothing more, staring out over the grounds, timing the paths of the various soldiers on patrol. Hours drifted by and the sun had grown low in the western sky, when he finally nodded.
"Lend me a hand," he ordered, bending down to lift the dead man from the floor, "and be ready…."
"Stop fidgeting! This is going to be difficult enough to manage without you twitching like a beheaded chicken!"
"What do you want from me, giorgio! I've never worn one of these damn things before! I feel like my shoulders are going to fall off."
Both clad in the hauberks, tabards, and—perhaps most importantly—helms of the Church guard, Diederic and Violca strode across the grounds with military posture and precision. Or at least Diederic did. Violca seemed to be having issues.
This, the knight bemoaned mentally, for the umpteenth time, is never going to work.
Indeed, his desperate plan left far too much to chance. Violca's face was partly hidden within the helm, and the hauberk and tabard concealed her more feminine attributes, but her unfamiliarity with the armor showed in her posture, in every step, and anyone who cast her more than a passing glance might well notice that the entire ensemble was too large on her.
Nor was the Vistana the only potential flaw in the scheme. Diederic himself looked more the part of a Church soldier, and indeed made efforts to keep himself between his companion and any observers. But he didn't know his way around the Basilica and remained ignorant of any potential passwords or customs, any one of which could expose him. Further, while the bodies—Tobar and the two soldiers they had lured from their patrol with the Vistani corpse—were hidden deep within the storm drain, there was still no telling if and when they might be discovered, or the two guards missed.
So they made their way across the wide property, their shadows stretching beneath the setting sun, and prayed to God or gods that they might go unnoticed just a few moments longer….
And strangely enough, they did. The grounds began to empty, priests and messengers retiring to their evening meals, neither giving the guards so much as a second glance. More suspiciously, at least to Diederic's eye, the soldiers began to clear too. Patrols grew less frequent, but those that remained now moved about in larger numbers, and the assembly of sentinels at the gates to the Basilica grew thick. The ambient noises of the night—birds and insects—grew faint beneath the low but constant rumble of hushed conversation from the guardposts.
"What's happening?" Violca whispered, glancing about as much as the confining helm would allow.
"They're readying for an attack!" Diederic answered, his voice worried. "The soldiers…. They're moving from a ceremonial patrol pattern to duty stations. We'd best move faster, before some officer decides we belong at one of the gates."
Fortune was with them again, and they arrived at the complex before such a fate could befall them. Wide stone steps led to a towering portal of brass, standing open a few more moments before it would be shut and barred for the night. The sentinels beside it scarcely acknowledged Diederic and Violca at all, save with a distracted nod that the two imposters swiftly returned.
Despite the pressing need for alacrity, neither could help but halt and stare for a moment upon passing through the door. The hall was formed of perfectly aligned bricks, fit together so tightly that the addition of mortar had been little more than a formality. A rich crimson carpet stretched to infinity, running down the center of the hall, and glass lanterns hung from intricate sconces at regular intervals. The passage smelled thickly of incense, doubtless added to the lanterns to overpower the oily smoke. Doors of rich wood and additional hallways provided dozens of means of egress, and both newcomers suddenly understood that the various sayings comparing the halls of the Basilica to the winding streets of a small town were no hyperbole at all.
Around them were even more soldiers, pages, and priests, all scurrying this way and that. Bits and snippets of conversation drifted to Diederic's ears, and they were enough to chill his blood. The Basilica had indeed gone on the defensive, due to growing riots and random bloodshed in the streets of Caercaelum.
The madness of the Grimoire was spreading.
It was that realization that offered Diederic the inspiration he needed to find their way through the winding halls. Reaching out, he gruffly snagged the collar of a passing pageboy. The child yelped sharply, but drew himself to shaky attention at the sight of the soldier who had grabbed him.
"I've vital information regarding the riots, boy," Diederic rumbled in his best battlefield tone. That announcement drew curious and frightened attention from other passersby in the hall, but there was no helping that. "You will escort us, and announce us, to the Pontiff. At once!"
Why do you not report to your commanding officer, and have him funnel the intelligence upward? Why do you require an escort, or a herald? Why me?
All these questions, and more, Diederic saw flashing in the boy's eyes—and, as the knight had expected, they stayed there, without ever reaching his tongue. Too well trained to question the orders of a superior, any superior, the page spun about and proceeded through the hall with Diederic and Violca at his heels.
Diederic dropped back and gestured for the Vistana to do the same, allowing the page to move a few paces ahead. "It would have been far too questionable," he whispered to her, "had I asked to be taken to Lambrecht's quarters. I would have no conceivable business with him, nor way of knowing him. As an advisor to the pontiff, though, his chambers should be nearby. We can find them from there."
"Yes, thank you, Diederic. I had, in fact, come to that conclusion myself."
The knight glowered, but said nothing more.
At any other time, he would have loved to explore, to examine the Basilica's wonders. As they neared the center and climbed stairway upon stairway, it only grew richer and more fantastic. The walls were no longer brick, but marble—or at least faced in marble. Niches in those walls held intricate busts of saints, fabulous tapestries depicting scenes and passages of the Septateuch hung from the walls, and the lantern sconces were replaced by hanging chandeliers of brass and crystal.
When the stairs climbed no higher, and the brass on the chandeliers was replaced by gleaming gold, they knew that they were close indeed. Nudging Diederic to draw his attention, Violca gestured at the pageboy's back and frowned. Diederic nodded once.
"This'll do, boy," he commanded. "We can take it from here. Return to your duties."
"But you said… that is, yes, sir." Puzzlement clear on his young features, the child slipped past them and vanished once more down the stairs.
Even standing on the proper floor, in the general vicinity of the Basilica's highest quarters and offices, they had a fair bit of searching to do. Thus it was some minutes and many hallways later that Diederic and Violca turned a corner and found themselves face to face with half a dozen guards.
They wore neither the white tabards of Church soldiers nor the crimson of Inquisitors, but rather gold, the sixfold sun emblazoned across their chests in deepest red. One of the lot, boasting a gold feathered crest on his helm, stepped to meet them.
"Nobody sees the pontiff right now," he announced from behind a bushy mustache. "He's holding emergency consultations." Abruptly, he cocked his head to the side. "What are you doing up here, anyway, soldier? You should be on station! Why…?"
His eyes drifted to Violca, and suddenly narrowed. The Vistana had been discovered, and she knew it. She had only one option left to her.
"Halt!" She kicked at the back of Diederic's leg, and he dropped to one knee before her, shouting more in surprise than in pain. With the rasp of steel on leather, her sword was in one hand, held at Diederic's throat, just beneath his helm; the other hand clutched the top of that same helm, forcing his head back. "One false move, and your man dies!"
Faster than the eye could follow, all six soldiers bristled with blades, broadswords and hand-axes ready to slay. At their officer's gesture they flowed forward swiftly and competently, two on each side of the hall, one with the commander moving down the center. Some two paces from the stranger and her "hostage," they stopped.
"I haven't the first notion of what you hoped to accomplish here, woman," the officer said calmly, "but it's clearly failed. Let him go, and perhaps we can discuss possibilities for you to leave here alive."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you both die." His tone was chilling, unwavering. He might as well have been discussing two potential options for supper. "We all know the risks we take when we swear to serve God, Scions, and Pontiff. Should he fall here, he will be well rewarded in Heaven. Will you?"
Violca shoved Diederic from her with a cry. Even as he tumbled, the knight tensed and lunged, pushing off from the leg on which he knelt. He crashed into the calves of the two men in the center of the hall, bringing them down in a single jumbled mess. His dagger in hand, for there was precious little room to swing an axe, Diederic stabbed once, twice, and stood alone when he rose to his feet.
Four against two: still poor odds. He had to be fast—faster than ever before—and trust Violca to follow his lead. His dagger spun through the air, and he had his axe in hand before the blade struck its target. It careened, harmless, from a third soldier's armor, but that was enough. Distracted by the sudden attack, the soldier failed to note the approaching Vistana until her stolen sword slashed deep, below the trailing edge of the hauberk, severing tendons at the back of his knees. Even as he toppled, screaming, she shoved him forward with a shoulder so that he fell at his companion's feet. It wasn't enough to trip him up as she had hoped, but it kept him from dancing aside as Diederic's axe swept in to crunch through his protective mail. The sound was not unlike that of a bird biting into a beetle.
The final two guards were upon them from across the hall, and the battle became a furious dance of steel on steel, broadsword on axe. Inexperienced in such matters, Violca held back, watching wide-eyed as Diederic parried blows intended for both of them, and knew that he must inevitably slip, react that split second too late.
Better, then, not to wait. She crouched low behind her human shield, waited until the man to her left swung once more, and reached out with the stolen broadsword and stabbed him hard through the foot.
He cried out despite himself, dropping his weapon to clutch at his mangled limb—and that was the end of it. Focusing on one man alone, Diederic stepped in and guided his axe through an intricate whirling pattern that ended deep within his foe's throat, then turned and ended both surviving soldiers' suffering for good measure.
Carefully he wiped his axe clean, replaced it in the loop at his belt, and only then did he allow himself to collapse to his knees, gasping and panting for air.
"That was impressive," Violca complimented him, stepping around pools of sticky crimson to put a hand on his shoulder.
He had no reply for her as he struggled to catch his breath, but the glare in his eye was answer enough.
"What would you have had me do?" she asked with a shrug. "It's not as though I could have taken the time to explain what I was about to do, could I?"
Still he glowered, an expression that slowly grew less angry, more puzzled, as the burning in his chest finally eased. "Where's everyone else?" he asked.
Violca instantly took his meaning. She turned about, surveying the empty hall. "The doors look thick enough," she said finally. "Perhaps nobody heard?"
"Or perhaps they're cowering in wait, while additional guards are on their way." Diederic rose to his feet. "We haven't the time to search every one of these doors, Violca. How do we find him?"
Pointedly, the Vistana faced the door at the very end of the hall, a door bound in gold and covered in intricate carvings of the sixfold sun. The door before which the guards had originally stood their post.
"We go," she said, "and we ask someone who knows."
Diederic followed her gaze uncomprehendingly, and then suddenly paled. "You're jesting!"
"Who better to know where to find his chief advisors?"
"Please tell me you're jesting?"
"It's even possible Lambrecht is in there with him, you know."
Diederic shook his head, but he had no other ideas.
"If this isn't Hell," he muttered as he approached the door, "I'm certainly going there now." Placing one hand on the knob, he was unsurprised to find it latched. He hurled his shoulder into the heavy wood. The door itself was solid enough to withstand any such battery, but the ornate ceremonial latch was not. Once, twice, and it gave. Muttering further under his breath, he advanced to interrogate the Pontiff of the Empyrean Church.
He wasn't all that impressive to look at, especially when viewed by one who had been present at Pope Urban's powerful, soul-stirring call to retake the Holy Land. He was old, this Pontiff Cornelis, and he wrapped his years about him, hanging from his shoulders, as thoroughly as he did his cloud-white robe of office. His hair was gray and wispy, protruding only in tufts from an otherwise balding head, and his ancient fingers shook as they clasped the arms of his thickly cushioned chair. From his neck hung a heavy gold chain, on which dangled the ubiquitous sixfold sun, and on the table before him sat a red shawl and skullcap—the other accoutrements of his office.
He seemed to shrink back as his door exploded inward, as though trying to vanish into the cushions themselves. The lines and wrinkles of his face cast the illusion of wisdom, but in his eyes there was only an ancient fear.
Diederic found himself faintly disappointed.
Still, this was a man who ruled a Church, a Church that itself ruled a nation, and he was not about to let himself be cowed. Rising to his feet, supported by the heavy arm of the chair, he pointed furiously across the table.
"How dare you, either of you! Do you know who I am? Do you know the wrath and the terror you've brought upon yourself with this intrusion?"
"I know, your Eminence," Diederic began, bowing low. "And I apologize, but—"
"Who are you? Where are my guards?"
"My name is Diederic de Wyndt, your Eminence. And your—"
"De Wyndt!" Despite himself, the pontiff quailed, though he steadied himself with a breath. "I know you. I know of your witchcraft, and your heresy! So you thought to bring your evil here, did you? I'll have none of it! I shall personally watch as van Brekke breaks your joints and burns your flesh, and you will beg my forgiveness, and God's, and his Scions', before you perish! And just perhaps, I will be merciful enough to offer it!
"Now where are my guards!"
Violca, long run out of patience for the old man's shouting, shrugged at Diederic. "Guards? What guards?"
The knight, too, found his awe and respect rapidly overshadowed by his growing irritation. "I think those would be the corpses we passed in the hall."
"Ah, those." She offered a condescending smile to the old man. "Not very effective guards, corpses. You might consider hiring the living instead."
Perhaps it was the cavalier tone in which they spoke of murder, but the fear roiling within Cornelis finally broke through into his expression. His jaw sagged, and he staggered back to sit within the deep chair.
Amid all the anger and the indignation and the frustration, Diederic felt a slight twinge of guilt.
"Listen, your Eminence," he said, somewhat more softly, "we've no intention of harming you. That's not why we're here. All we want is to find one of your associates."
"Father Lambrecht! He warned me about you, told us all about your wicked ways! He…." As though recognizing the obvious for the first time, the Pontiff gazed fearfully across the table at which he sat. "He was right here…."
"Oh, I'm here still, your Eminence. I would never abandon you to the likes of these."
Diederic's soul turned to ice at the sound of that voice. Lambrecht stood in the open doorway, though he could not possibly have slipped past them. He wore a white robe, much like the pontiff's own, albeit trimmed in black; and about his neck he wore a crucifix in lieu of the sixfold sun. One hand fiddled idly with the dangling icon, while the other held something to his mouth—something Diederic could not see, something on which he chewed that squished juicily with every bite.
Diederic never paused, never spoke, hardly even drew breath. Between one heartbeat and the next, he was pounding across the floor, his footsteps muffled in the heavy carpet. He raised his axe high, fully prepared to spill Lambrecht's life upon the floor before the foul priest could speak a single word of plea or incantation. He could feel the exultation rise within him, the sheer unmitigated bliss of finally ending the bastard once and for all. No sudden escapes, no spells, no rising mists. With a mighty swing, the blade descended…. And froze with an arm-bruising clang as a heavy broadsword flickered over Lambrecht's shoulder to intercept.
Feet dragged and armor clanked, as first one, then another of the dead guards from the hall shuffled into the room. They made not so much as a moan as they came, nor drew breath through gaping jaws. Still they surrounded Lambrecht in a protective ring as swiftly as they had moved when yet they lived.
An animal snarl rumbling in his throat, Diederic was forced to retreat, moving out of reach of the dead men's blades.
"Perhaps corpses are not so useless as you implied, Vistana," the priest observed. He bowed his head. "Apologies, your Eminence. I know these men were loyal servants and friends." Standing so near him, Diederic could see the fresh blood that stained Lambrecht's teeth a sickening pink.
"Save your apologies, my son," the pontiff commanded, though his face, already pale with fear, had now turned shades of sickly green. "Do what you must, and we will deal with the consequences later."
"Oh, there won't be a later," Diederic growled. "You think I cannot take six of your abominations, Lambrecht? Violca and I have battled worse. We—"
But Lambrecht was gone, vanishing abruptly from the doorway. Three of his corpses followed, while the others raised their blades and began an unsteady advance.
"Oh, no! Not this time!"
Diederic lifted one of the heavy chairs and crashed into the trio of dead men like a great tide, hurtling them back and aside. He left them there, struggling to rise, as he pounded after the retreating priest, Violca only a step behind.
Timidly, but determined to see what happened, to know the fate of his greatest advisor, Pontiff Cornelis followed after.
A door slammed at the far end of the hall, one far smaller and more plain than those that led into the clergyman's quarters. Bits of dust sifted from the frame, suggesting that the room had seen little recent use. Again Diederic did not slow, slamming into the door with a hauberk-covered shoulder, then dropping into a forward roll to avoid any lurking ambush.
None came.
Instead, Diederic and Violca found themselves in what could only be another storeroom, albeit one with far fancier occupants than those through which they'd passed on their way here. Long tables, perfectly good save for small ground-in stains; sturdy chairs whose only flaw was a slightly flattened cushion; crates of tools and utensils grown discolored through years of usage…. All these and more stood like symbols of the Church's past, a history of indulgence writ large, then locked away.
The dust was a carpet unto itself, and the entire room was obscured with layer upon layer of cobwebs. From wall to floor, from ceiling to crate, they hung like rotted silk—ghostly curtains to protect the privacy of the Church's own ghosts. They looked….
They looked not entirely unlike mist.
Diederic and Violca peered through the wavering shroud, blown this way and that by the breeze of the open door, and both wondered at the same question.
How had Lambrecht and his creatures passed through without disturbing the webs?
As if in answer, Diederic felt a sudden pressure against his wrists, his arms, his legs, even his face. The webs held him tight, ever tighter, where he stood. It wasn't that they wrapped themselves about him, exactly, so much as they always seemed to grow thickest in whatever direction he tried to move. He could not raise a weapon to cut them away, could not take a step to free himself from their grasp, could not even shout; for he could hardly breathe at all against their rising pressure.
Lambrecht strode through the shroud of cobwebs, and the strands flowed around him as though fleeing from his path. In his hands, raised before him like a beggar, he carried his pages of the Grimoire. He flowed toward them—ignoring the pontiff who stood wide-eyed and staring in the doorway, ignoring Violca—to move straight to the knight himself.
"I told you," he whispered, his lips pressed almost lovingly to Diederic's ear, "that you would bring it to me."
From Diederic's pouch, he pulled Bellustaire's scroll. A horrible moan erupted, not from any man present, but from some far, far distance and yet emanating from the book itself. Again it moaned, and again, and behind that voice were all the screams of the dead, the dying, the damned. And beyond even that: terrible cries and alien words voiced by inhuman throats, unintelligible to human ears and unimaginable to human minds.
Stitches popped audibly, separating the pages from the scroll. Like dying birds they flapped, one atop the other, forming half-recognizable patterns of percussion.
And then the moaning, the screams, the snap of parchment on parchment was gone, and there was just the Laginate Grimoire, whole and unmarred, in Lambrecht's covetous grasp.
"Thank you, Diederic." Again he slid through the webs, neither touching nor touched, until he stood once more beside the pontiff. "Your Eminence?" he asked. "Do you mind? They are far too dangerous to risk a second escape."
The pontiff nodded, though he'd paled even further. "As I told you, Lambrecht: do what you must."
The priest whistled—just whistled—and the webs began to quiver. Through the strands, Diederic could hear the scuttle of tiny legs. He recalled once more the swarm beneath Jerusalem, the sentries of Birne's orchard, and still he could not scream. He twisted about, desperate to escape, but his thrashing was for naught, only digging him ever deeper into the web.
Then they were there, scuttling over his exposed flesh and Violca's as well, disappearing down collars, up sleeves, into ears and noses and mouths. Spiders there were, absolutely, but other things as well; things with too few legs to be called spider, or things with far too many, things with hot and fetid breath, things that moaned and giggled obscenely as they sank mandibles and teeth and tongues into quivering, helpless flesh.
And all Diederic could do in these last moments was listen, listen to the whispered prayers of a terrified old cleric, and the low chuckling of a man who, with Diederic's horrible death, would have everything he wanted in this world.
He would not laugh for long.
From the far end of the hall came the sudden tromp of heavy boots, echoing in the cramped confines of the stairway. The priest and the pontiff spun as one, confused as to who could possibly be intruding on this terrible, wonderful moment.
Ari Marmell was born in New York, moved to Houston when he was a year old, moved to Austin when he was 27, but has spent most of his life living in other worlds through a combination of writing and roleplaying games. He has been writing more or less constantly for the last dozen years, though he has only been paid for it the past five. He is the author of multiple roleplaying game supplements including work on Dungeons & Dragons. Ari lives in Austin with his wife, George, and two cats.
Look for Agents of Artifice, the new novel from Ari Marmell -- out now!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
January - June 1999
Organisers: GF Hewitt (Imperial College), PA Monkewitz (Lausanne), N Sandham (QMW), JC Vassilicos (Cambridge)
Research Programme on Turbulence
Symposium on
Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences,
Cambridge, UK
in Association with ERCOFTAC
June 21-24, 1999
Background Organisation Programme (updated 20.05.99) Further Information
Different turbulence problems are encountered in different non-linear systems described mathematically by different partial differential equations (PDE) or systems of ordinary differential equations (ODE). In the world of PDEs and ODEs the Navier-Stokes equations and Navier-Stokes turbulence are a notable example. Nevertheless, the dynamics of many non-linear systems gravitate around a few common central themes, intermittency, order/coherence and disorder. These features affect scalings and lead to deviations from gaussianity. Intermittency may be the universal outcome of a large class of non-linear systems, however the universality properties of specific non-linear systems, that is the dependencies of the intermittent structure on initial and boundary conditions, remain open questions. What is the appropriate kinematic description of intermittency, and how different is it for different non-linear systems, different boundary and initial conditions? The challenge is that a general kinematic description of intermittency should encompass both order and disorder and mixtures of both. Finally, what are the dynamics of intermittency and the mechanisms that create it? To what extent and in what sense is intermittency related to deviations from self-similar dynamics and to dissipative properties of the non-linear system? What are self-similar dynamics and what are their dissipative properties?
This Symposium will consider the mathematical properties of intermittency as a feature of the Navier-Stokes equations and other nonlinear dynamical systems.
The Symposium is being organised by J.C. Vassilicos in collaboration with the other Organisers of the Programme
Monday 21 June
09.00-10.00 Registration
10.00-10.05 Introduction by Professor HK Moffatt
10.05-10.50 A Tsinober (Tel Aviv) On the origins of intermittency in real turbulent flows
10.50-11.15 Coffee
11.15-12.00 P Constantin (Chicago) TBA
12.00-12.45 G Eyink (Arizona) Intermittency in turbulence: what is it and does it matter?
12.45-14.00 Lunch
14.00-14.45 F Busse (Bayreuth) Phase turbulence induced by heteroclinic cycles
14.45-15.30 A Vulpiani (Rome) Exit time approach as a probe for Lagrangian and Eulerian intermittency
15.30-16.00 Tea
16.00-16.45 R Temam (Paris Sud) Control of turbulent flows under unknown disturbances
16.45-17.30 JC Vassilicos (Cambridge) Wind tunnel turbulence and intermittency behind a 3-D fractal grid
Tuesday 22 June
09.00-09.45 A Newell (Warwick) TBA
09.45-10.30 V Yakhot (Princeton) TBA
10.30-11.00 Coffee
11.00-11.45 K Gawedzki (Paris) Turbulent advection and breakdown of Lagrangian flow
11.45-12.30 G Falkovich (Weizmann Inst) TBA
12.30-14.00 Lunch
14.00-14.45 U Frisch (Nice Observatory) Pdfs of derivatives and increments for Burgers turbulence
14.45-15.30 JG Brasseur (Pennsylvania State) Physical-scale-space dynamics of intermittent Burgers shocklets
15.30-16.00 Tea
16.00-16.45 M Jensen (Copenhagen) Inverted structure functions
16.45-18.00 Posters & Wine Reception
Wednesday 23 June
09.00-09.45 K Sreenivasan (Yale) Small-scale by any name does not scale the same
09.45-10.30 S Ciliberto (ENS Lyon) Scaling law of boundary layer of turbulence
10.30-11.00 Coffee
11.00-11.45 A Arneodo (Bordeaux) Revealing the non-self-similarity of the energy cascading process in fully developed turbulence
11.45-12.30 J Jimenez (Madrid) Cascades and structures
12.30-14.00 Lunch
14.00-14.45 S Kida (Nagoya) TBA
14.45-15.30 K Ohkitani (Kyoto) Analytic ODE approach for the enstrophy of 3D Euler flows
15.30-16.00 Tea
16.00-16.45 C Doering (Michigan) Anomalous scaling and regularity of the Navier-Stokes equation
16.45-18.00 Posters
19.30 Conference Dinner at Sidney Sussex College
Thursday 24 June
09.00-09.45 P Tabeling (ENS Paris)
09.45-10.30 W Van der Water (Eindhoven) Angle-dependent structure functions for fully developed turbulence
10.30-11.00 Coffee
11.00-11.45 B Shraiman (Bell Labs) Lagrangian tetrad dynamics and the statistical geometry of turbulence
11.45-12.30 A Pumir (Nice) A numerical study of the Lagrangian dynamics of tetrahedra in turbulence
12.30-14.00 Lunch
14.00-14.45 T Mullin (Manchester) Can we learn anything from chaos?
14.45-15.30 J Lumley (Cornell) Low-dimensional models of the wall region and intermittency
This Symposium will consist of:
Confirmed Invited Lecturers:
A Arneodo (Bordeaux, France)
J.G. Brasseur (Penn State, USA)
F.H. Busse (Bayreuth, Germany)
S. Ciliberto (ENSL, France)
P. Constantin (Chicago, USA)
G. Eyink (Arizona, USA)
G. Falkovich (Weizmann, Israel)
U. Frisch (Nice, France)
J. Jiménez (Madrid, Spain)
A. Leonard (Caltech, USA)
J.L. Lumley (Cornell, USA)
A. Newell (Warwick, UK)
K. Ohkitani (Kyoto, Japan)
P. Tabeling (ENS, Paris, France)
R. Temam (Indiana, USA)
A. Tsinober (Tel Aviv, Israel)
A. Vulpiani (Rome, Italy)
W. van de Water (Eindhoven, Holland)
V. Yakhot (Princeton, USA)


text:
Arizona Fall League: Greg Reynolds, Rex Brothers Make Debuts
Monday Pebble Report: All our affiliates are belong to them
"I had no idea at all," Brothers said. "It was a surprise, a good surprise. They told me to go to Tulsa, keep pegging along and don't do anything to try to impress anybody."True Tales from Thurman Field - Rex Brothers on his promotion
Friday Rockpile: Who says the four-letter network doesn't give the Rockies any love?
Colorado Springs: W 5-3 Kurt Birkins pitched well and Matt Miller hit his eighth home run of the season for the Sky Sox. Tulsa: L 5-10 Cole Garner continues his torrid August by hitting two home...
The Rockies have come to terms with three top 100 picks from this year's draft.
It's only a 50% tear, but it's the same injury Jeff Francis has. Looks like passing on his talent in favor of Rex Brothers was the right move.
What sort of precedent is there for signing a guy like Tyler Matzek? Does a mid-market team like the Rockies have any hope?
Wednesday Rockpile: Rockies Win Sixth Straight, Draft Day Aftermath
Rockies select Sac St OF Tim Wheeler and Lipscomb LHP Rex Brothers with two picks received from losing Brian Fuentes
We'll email you a reset link.
If you signed up using a 3rd party account like Facebook or Twitter, please login with it instead.
You must be a member of Purple Row to participate.
We have our own Community Guidelines at Purple Row. You should read them.
You must be a member of Purple Row to participate.
We have our own Community Guidelines at Purple Row. You should read them.
Choose an available username to complete sign up.
In order to provide our users with a better overall experience, we ask for more information from Facebook when using it to login so that we can learn more about our audience and provide you with the best possible experience. We do not store specific user data and the sharing of it is not required to login with Facebook.


text:
Availability: Rendezvous Hotel Sydney The Rocks
Stay 2 Nights and SaveMax Occupancy: 3 guests (up to 2 children, 2 infants)
StudioMax Occupancy: 3 guests (up to 2 children, 2 infants)
Studio - Bed and BreakfastMax Occupancy: 3 guests (up to 2 children, 2 infants)
Harbour View Studio with BalconyMax Occupancy: 3 guests (up to 2 children, 2 infants)
Studio - Business PackageMax Occupancy: 1 guest
Standard Studio with BalconyMax Occupancy: 3 guests (up to 2 children, 2 infants)
One Bedroom ApartmentMax Occupancy: 4 guests (up to 3 children, 3 infants)
English Heritage TerraceMax Occupancy: 3 guests (up to 1 child, 1 infant)
Harbour View Studio ApartmentMax Occupancy: 3 guests (up to 2 children, 2 infants)
One bedroom With B&BMax Occupancy: 4 guests (up to 3 children, 2 infants)
Terrace house with Bed & BreakfastMax Occupancy: 3 guests (up to 2 children, 1 infant)
Harbour View One Bedroom ApartmentMax Occupancy: 4 guests (up to 3 children, 3 infants)
Sydney boutique property near Museum of Contemporary Art
Located on the border of Sydney's historic Rocks area and central business district, this hotel is 1 block from the Museum of Contemporary Art and near Circular Quay and the Sydney Opera House.
Property amenities
Combining self-contained living with hotel service, this hotel features an indoor spa tub, a heated outdoor pool, and a fitness center.
Guestrooms are outfitted with beechwood finish throughout and feature kitchenettes with microwave, refrigerator, stove top, and kitchen utensils.Information missing or incorrect? Tell us!
Rendezvous Hotel Sydney The Rocks Amenities
- General
This 61-guestroom hotel, with several buildings dating back to the 1860s and a main hotel tower built as recently as 1989, has a 10-meter heated outdoor pool, a poolside breakfast lounge and courtyard, an indoor spa tub, and a fitness center containing weights, treadmill, bike, and rowing machine. Guests enjoy a breakfast buffet with hot items each morning (surcharge). Wireless Internet access is available throughout the hotel and is complimentary 3 hours per day; high-speed wired access is available at an Internet kiosk (surcharge). The hotel has parking (surcharge) with limited availability at Wilson Parking next door and is for single entry/exit only. A shuttle from the hotel to the airport is available for a surcharge.
- Outdoor pool
- Spa tub
- Sauna
- Concierge services
- Complimentary newspapers in lobby
- Fitness facilities
- Room service (limited hours)
- Airport transportation - drop-off (surcharge)
- 24-hour front desk
- Multilingual staff
- Total number of rooms - 61
- Express check-out
- Dry cleaning/laundry service
- Number of floors - 6
- Restaurant
- Elevator/lift
- Wireless Internet access - surcharge
- Luggage storage
- Laundry facilities
- Business center
- Self parking (surcharge)
- Breakfast available (surcharge) hot and cold buffet
- Safe-deposit box at front desk
- Smoke-free property
- Internet
Available in all rooms: Wireless Internet access (surcharge)
Available in some public areas: Wireless Internet access - surcharge
- Parking
Self parking (surcharge)
- Room Amenities
- Premium bedding
- Hypo-allergenic bedding available
- Climate control
- Air conditioning
- Blackout drapes/curtains
- Kitchenette
- Refrigerator
- Coffee/tea maker
- Microwave
- Daily housekeeping
- Complimentary toiletries
- Hair dryer
- In-room childcare (surcharge)
- Cable TV service
- Iron/ironing board
- Sofa bed
- Rollaway/extra beds available
- Cribs/infant beds available
- Free local calls
- Minibar
- Complimentary newspaper
- Wireless Internet access (surcharge)
- Designer toiletries
- Desk
- In-room safe
- Stovetop
- Cookware, dishware, and utensils
- Egyptian-cotton sheets
- Dining
A hot and cold buffet breakfast is offered each morning (surcharge) in the poolside breakfast room and outdoor courtyard. The resturant is only open for breakfast.
The property does not serve lunch or dinner, but there are several dining options within the surrounding area.
Nearby restaurants:
Lowenbraw Keller
Amo Roma
- Recreation
The hotel has a 10-metre heated outdoor pool and a small fitness centre containing weights, treadmill, bike, and rowing machine.
Guests wanting exercise can walk/jog to Observatory Park and/or the Royal Botanic Gardens (both 1.5 km away). They offer walking and jogging paths with harbour and city views. Sydney Harbour cruising and sailing options can be booked at Circular Quay, 500 metres from the hotel.
The recreational activities listed below are available either on site or nearby; fees may apply.
- Bicycle rentals nearby
Rendezvous Hotel Sydney The Rocks Policies & Fees
- Check-in
Minimum check-in age is 18
Check-in time starts at 2 PM
Special check-in instructions:
Please note that due to Vivid Sydney Festival, Harrington Street will have restricted vehicle access between 24th May 2014 and 10th June 2014 from 7 PM to midnight on weekdays and 5 PM to midnight on weekends. Guests may still drive to and park at the hotel, but proof of stay must be presented to gain access. For more information and for details of alternative transport option, please contact the hotel using the contact details on the booking confirmation.
- Check-out
Check-out time is 10 AM
- Payment types
Accepted at this hotel: American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard, Visa
- General
Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on hotel policy.
Government-issued photo identification and a credit card or cash deposit are required at check-in for incidental charges.
Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges. Special requests cannot be guaranteed.
- Fees
- The following fees and deposits are charged by the property at time of service, check-in, or check-out.
The above list may not be comprehensive. Fees and deposits may not include tax and are subject to change.
- Breakfast fee: AUD 24 per person (approximately)
- Fee for in-room wireless Internet: AUD 10 (rates may vary)
- Fee for wireless Internet in public areas: AUD 10 (for 60 minutes, rates may vary)
- Self parking fee: AUD 40 per day
- Crib (infant bed) fee: AUD 30 per day
National Rating
- Details
This property does not have an official STAR Rating from AAA Tourism Pty Ltd. For the benefit of our customers, we have provided a rating based on our rating system.


text:
Cash for Clunkers is dead. For good this time.
Aug 20, 2009 by Jefferson Bryant in Announcements |
The Obama administration officially announced this evening that the Cash for Clunkers program will end on Monday, August 24th. The $3 billion is pretty much gone. Hopefully, dealers won't get shafted if there turns out to be a deficit, we don't need something like this to hurt any businesses. If you want to go out and get a new car and trade in your old junker, now is time. Stop waiting or it will be too late. The early bird gets the worm and all that stuff.
The program has been touted as a success, despite a few pitfalls. There have been lengthy delays for the dealers getting paid for the vouchers. This puts the dealer in a serious cash crunch. There are some dealers that have not been able to make payroll and pay their taxes because the money just isn't there yet.
To combat that problem, all of the major manufacturers (Ford, GM, Chrysler, Honda and Toyota) are offering short-term loans to their dealers that have been hit hard with the delays. Nothing like bureaucracy creating more problems. This all comes on the heels of GM and other manufacturers announcing they were ramping up production to keep up with the new demand for new cars. Hold the presses, you might not want to do that just yet, General.
Unfortunately, the biggest problem with this entire program is that it is costing the American taxpayers. They can say all they want about the coming from other places, but in reality, every cent the government has comes from us in one way or another. I hope we get through this recession and administration soon so we can go about fixing the real problems.
Woodward Dream Cruise event a huge success
Aug 18, 2009 by Jefferson Bryant in Uncategorized |
The Woodward Dream Cruise is hands down the coolest car event ever. This year marked my first visit to the world's largest single-day car event and it will not be the last. We arrived in Detroit on Thursday, and after checking into the hotel and having some dinner, we decided to take the 15-minute drive to Woodward Ave. to get the lay of the land. Little did I know that starting in April, Woodward is loaded with locals cruising, and only gets more packed heading up to the fabled cruise event.
Thursday evening was not so packed that we couldn't actually drive. There were sections of the road that slowed to a snails pace, and then it would open up and you had some full-tilt drag races going on. I partook in one such race, against a '70 SS Chevelle, it was so much fun. We didn't get much over 80, but it was amazing. Special Thanks to Chrysler for providing me with the 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8.
On Friday, things got a lot heavier. The traffic was thick with muscle cars, hot rods and classics. Woodward is a major artery to the small townships it runs through, so there is a lot of non-cruise traffic. You know that those non-cruisers were freaking out for getting caught in one of the 1.5-mile stretches where there are no intersections and it takes over an hour to travel a mile. The Challenger got decent gas mileage except in those gridlocked sections, it went down to 7 MPGs at one point. Read the rest of this entry »
Does modern technology bring families together or push them apart?
Aug 12, 2009 by Jefferson Bryant in Uncategorized |
*Picture a 6-year-old girl rubbing two ear buds together and then says "clear" playing as if the ear buds are a defibrillator jump-starting the heart on here headless Barbie. I don't think that is going to save this poor decapitated doll.
Traveling on vacations and such with children is much different than it was just 10 or 15 years ago. Since then, the entire world has changed. Mobile DVD, satellite TV, and now wireless internet are all available in just about any new car, and can be retrofitted into just about any vehicle. While it certainly makes a long trip more relaxing, it does take a little away from the whole experience. As a kid, my family always took two long summer vacations, at least a week at a time. We went to Colorado at least once, and sometimes twice. I would have loved to have had something to do, a video game, watch movies, anything to pass the time. The speed limit was 55, so it took several more hours to get there than it does now, where driving 75 is no problem. Read the rest of this entry »
Chrysler offers the most technolgy available in a minivan (or any car for that matter)
Aug 10, 2009 by Jefferson Bryant in Uncategorized |
Just 10 years ago, getting a TV in your car was a challenge. Cutting up the head rests or paying $3,000 for a small flip-down tv was commonplace. In 2009, just about every minivan has a rear-seat entertainment system from the factory, and SUVs come with the option available. OEM technology has finally caught up to the aftermarket, and in many cases left it in the dust. Case in point- the 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT.
As my family and I are headed to Detroit for the Woodward Dream Cruise, we are discovering the fantastic level of technology loaded in this car. Chrysler lent me the vehicle specifically for this trip, to get an idea of what Chrysler has to offer. I have to say, it is impressive to say the least.
Starting with the 4.0 liter V6 and 6-speed automatic, this minivan hauls. I am certainly not going to sit here and tell you that a minivan is super quick, nimble or any of that, but when you tell it to go, it growls back and pushes down the road. We had no trouble passing on the highway, doing well over the posted limits (I may be driving a minivan, but I am still a gearhead). The best thing about it is that the exhaust is whisper quiet until you floor, it actually sounds like a car with some balls, and it likes showing them. Full-throttle blasts down the interstate are met with ease, the van does not sound like it is straining. For a minivan, its pretty fun. Read the rest of this entry »
The iPod just won't go away (probably because it hates me too)
Aug 09, 2009 by Jefferson Bryant in Uncategorized |
I recently read an article by Arik Hesseldahl about where he saw the iPod heading. I was inspired by this article to share my own thoughts on the subject. In retrospect, I saw my post as too similar to Arik's, so I pulled it down.
It is obvious that I am not a fan of the iPod, never have been. Maybe it is my fear of certain types of change or just the fact that I didn't come up with it, but to me, the iPod represents something evil in modern marketing. It is forced down your throat and you have no choice but to accept it. But then again, maybe that's just my inner "crotchety old man" talking.*
What the iPod is likely to become in the next few years will be a serious intrusion into your life. We are already too linked in. I'm currently driving around in a Dodge Grand Caravan with mobile WiFi. Even when I am driving around, I am at work. Not that I don't like being at work, I love what I do, but come on, when does it become too much?
Personally, I absolutely love technology. The new 1 terabyte SD cards are going to revolutionize media storage. Which is why I predicted iPods will be available in terabyte flash memory soon, within the next few years. Additionally, I see the iPod moving away from the media storage device and toward the pocket-PC (sorry Mac lovers) realm, with a mobile Mac OS and an infrared keyboard. You will be able to be in the office while you are on the subway.
While I was researching this post, I stumbled across an article posted yesterday (Aug 7, 2009) about Apple's rumored new tablet. The big iPod is scarily similar to what I envision for the pocket version. It is just a matter of time before all of these capabilities are rolled into one portable hand-held device.
While I prefer to listen to my digital music via a Samsung P2 player (just like an iPod Touch, but without a few key features and all that iTunes crap), we may all soon be required to use the newest gadgets from Apple, because it is tied to your 4-year contract with AT&T mobile, your DirectTV satellite provider and is also the keys to your iCar (available in 2-door, 4-door and iEntry).
*Now get off my lawn, ya' dang whippersnapper.
Update! Cash for Clunkers has been refunded!
Jul 31, 2009 by Jefferson Bryant in Uncategorized |
Congress voted to tell the treasury to print up $2 billion more dollars. Cash for clunkers is now full of money, at least for the next couple of weeks. If you want a new car for a few thousand bucks, hit up the nearest dealership for some clunker action. I am still not excited about the plan. The price of quality used cars is going to increase for two reasons-
1. every jackass selling a car for $1500 now thinks their car is worth $4500.
2. The used car pool, which consists of cars mainly 10-15 years old, is going to be seriously depleted. While these cars will be going into the salvage lots, which will drive salvage parts prices down, buying a running car will cost you more.
Cash for Clunker Update! White House announces the plan is not suspended, needs more money
Jul 31, 2009 by Jefferson Bryant in Uncategorized |
While I reported yesterday that the cash for clunkers program has ben suspended, the White House announced late last night that the plan was still on and would be on until at least Friday. Congress is rushing around, trying to put together an additional 2-billion dollars in the fund, pushing the total up to $3 billion. If you want to buy a new Dodge Caliber for 9k, you better do it today, this program may not last much longer if Congress can't find $2 billion. Of course, all they need to do is look under the cushions of the couches in each member's office. I am sure they could find at least $2 billion in change from lobbyist's pockets…….
Cash for Clunkers program suspended
Jul 30, 2009 by Jefferson Bryant in Uncategorized |
Well, it was good while it lasted. Apparently, the folks in Washington have gotten spooked by the popularity of the program. I posted about the clunker bill a few weeks ago, and though I was not excited about the plan, it has certainly sparked some deals in the car industry, which needed the boost. So much so, that the auto dealerships have spoken up about the huge backlog that currently exists in the system. Since the Gov allowed the rebates to be retroactive to July 1st, there are thousands of deals that have not been processed. To date, there has been over $96 million in rebates, a total of 22,782 cars. The program was officially launched July 27th, that was last Monday. Seriously? $96 million in less than a week? Since there is such a heavy backlog, Congress called a late meeting today (that's Thursday the 30th of July) to suspending the cash for clunkers plan. At least for now, cash for clunkers has been crushed.
How do I get my system louder?
Jul 27, 2009 by Jefferson Bryant in Industry News |
One of the greatest tools in the audiophile toolbox is math. What? Math sucks you say. Well I say get your calculators out and start working your brain. This will be fun, honest.
In retail, chat forums and lunch rooms across the country the single most common questions are "how do I get my system louder" or "how loud will these subs be". I can personally guarantee you that you ask ten people this question, including the guys at the stereo shop, you will get 13 different answers and none of them will be basing their answers on facts. They simply do not know how it works. There are some basic physics at work here.
Volume, which is measured in decibels (expressed by dB), is a function of power, cone area, enclosure design, and transfer function. Oh, you knew that already? Ok, sure that last statement might seem a little obvious, but undestanding how they interact togethr is critical to calculating volume. That's right, you can calculate exactly how loud you system will be. Enough BS, here is the worksheet. You won't find this anywhere else, send your friends.
This formula requires a few specs. First, you need the sensitivity of the sub(s). This listed on the woofer spec sheet in dB. It is sometimes notated as the SPL of the sub. Next, you need to know how much power your amp puts out. An amp birth-sheet (usually included in the box) will have the actual power the amp displayed when it was tested at the factory. Not all amps come with these. If you do not have such a sheet, you can use the power ratings, or even better, you can test it yourself (that is whole other enchilada and we will get into that another time). Other specs you need are more simple- what type of car do you have- truck, hatchback, or sedan; and what kind of box is it installed in. The enclosure will make a big difference, if it is a crappy home-built box with lots of leaks, held together with carpet and liquid nails, it probably won't function as well as a professionally-built enclosure (like the Q-Logic pre-fab enclosures- shameless plug) and how many woofers you have. Have fun.
Plastic, Fiberglass or Wood for Car Audio?
Jul 22, 2009 by Jefferson Bryant in Q Logic Products |
When discussing Q-Logic Q-Forms or Q-Customs, often I get the same question- Why Plastic? With all of the different types of materials available, why use plastic, why not wood or fiberglass? There are several answers to this question, and I will get to all of them.
Wood- Wood is great for the basic flat enclosure. It is cheap, dense, rigid and easy to work with, which is why it is the single most common type of material used for subwoofer enclosures. The problem with wood is that it is hard to bend. It can be bent and molded to a point, but mimicking the shapes of a car is way beyond what regular wood is capable of.
Fiberglass- This stuff is awesome. It can be formed to any shape, it's strong as hell, super lightweight and costs a fortune. Oh wait, that is not a good thing. The price of fiberglass resin is expensive, and it keeps going up. Five years ago, the price for a gallon of resin was around $30, now it closer to $60. Considering that you can easily use 2 or 3 gallons in even a small two-10" sub enclosure or a gallon of resin for a pair of kickpanels means that the project becomes very expensive. While fiberglass is very strong and resists flexing (to the point that it just breaks), building tooling molds for fiberglass is more expensive than the materials to make the part. The molds must be two or more parts and it takes around a day to make a single set of parts from one mold, depending on the size of the part. This makes it cost prohibitive for use in our type of manufacturing. Sure, building a show car with fiberglass molds is not a big deal, you are only going pull a few parts from each mold and you have bigger budget, but for mass-production, it simply is not worth it.
There are several different types of plastics that are used for manufacturing. I am going to touch on the three most common types.


text:
Maid in South Africa
When I was growing up in South Africa in the 1980s it was impossible to imagine that any household could make do without a housekeeper. Even a modest three-bedroom bungalow in a lower middle class suburb would need servant's quarters.
Servants were witness to the most intimate details of white households from marriages, infidelities, divorces, sickness and deaths as well as the minor events such as school activities, first boyfriends and girlfriends; all the things which give shape and narrative to an ordinary family's existence. Whether or not the relationship between a housekeeper and the family was good, the very nature of the situation meant that it was invariably intimate. Sometimes the relationships were close, though they were usually strange and sad. I attended a wedding at which the housekeeper and the gardener of the bride's parents stood at the back of the church for the ceremony and afterwards were given a cooler box with sodas, beer and sandwiches to enjoy in the park while the white guests attended the reception at a hotel. It was not simply a question of the white guests excluding the black guests; the housekeeper and the gardener would have been deeply uncomfortable at the reception. But the housekeeper, it is worth noting, was part mother to the bride during her childhood and confidant to the bride's mother during her divorce.
In other countries we tend to think of the relationship between employer and servant in terms of class, but in South Africa the social system was engineered such that class coincided with race. This difference both enabled the intimacy and created sufficient 'cultural space' to make the relationship between employer and servant in a modest home possible. A white woman would be less concerned about her black servant knowing intimate details about her life than someone from her own community. When a black maid became a surrogate parent to a white child, the situation was less threatening to the parents precisely because the surrogate was black. Equally the indignity of serving an average middle class family, in particular the children, was mitigated by the fact that it was not in your community. Maids could speak to one-another in a language we did not understand and return to communities we would not know or visit. Moreover it was easy to distance ourselves from what we were doing because of apartheid, irrespective of what one's political convictions may have been. You, the servant, find yourself in the position you are in, because you are black, and you may unite with your brothers and sisters of our kitchens and backyards against the injustice and indignity of the situation, but it is an external and seemingly immutable force configuring these relationships. Apartheid meant that even in the same room there was enough separateness, to make the situation tolerable.
I am curious as to the relationships that exist between black families and their housekeepers in South Africa today. Not only will these relationships not have the same degree of 'cultural space' in terms of language and background but there must be precious few black South Africans who don't have a family member that at one time or another found themselves in the employ of a white household. Most black South Africans will at the very least have strong connections to townships and rural communities where this servant class are from. If the relationship between employer and servant is slowly being transformed from one of race to one of class, which implies a space (also to some extent ideological in nature given the ANC's embrace of an uncompromising capitalism) it can never in any way resemble the 'separateness' that existed before. For me a comparable situation would be to grow up with an older Afrikaans woman as a housekeeper, and whatever it may say about the effect South Africa had on me, I find the idea almost impossible to contemplate; the shared culture would not allow sufficient distance to make the enforced intimacy possible.
Our housekeeper worked for my family for twenty years before retiring after I left for university. With Janice* seeing to the everyday household chores my mother was able to complete her PhD while we attended primary school. South Africa was so deeply patriarchal, that even in a supposedly liberal family like ours, there was no question of my father preparing meals or cleaning the house. As uncomfortable as the relationship makes us, employing a housekeeper had a significant impact on my mother's life. But these relationships also brought benefits to the servant. Not only was the income important in supporting extended families, employment often meant hand-me-down school books, bags and uniforms, emergency loans and on rare occasions the presence of a white employer who might intercede with bureaucrats or police or the other machinery of government that seemed to whir dangerously beneath one, if you were part of the large black underclass.
To a lesser extent this is still true today although the nature of domestic employment is gradually being transformed through legislation. I believe that the practice of engaging domestic servants is wrong. The closeness between servants and white children often came about because maids were, and still are, separated from their children for extended periods – the children of the employer were surrogates too. These relationships, however loving and close, are borne of an unnecessary and sometimes damaging separation that cannot be justified by what is, after all, just laziness. Janice left school at fourteen and began employment the following year. She confided that as a child she had hopes of becoming a nurse. These were not the sorts of confessions we liked to dwell upon. After all, who wants to be made complicit in unfulfilled dreams and wasted potential? However if I lived in South Africa today, and I had the means, I would probably still employ a housekeeper, and not only because I am lazy. In a country with high unemployment, low levels of education and a grossly uneven distribution of wealth, you'd have to be a very high minded and cold person not to provide an unskilled job if you could. The challenge is to ensure that the practise does not become so entrenched that out of apartheid arises a class system so rigid and intractable that it resembles what preceded it. For this is unlikely to stir the sympathy of the world and will be much harder to overcome.
* Name has been changed


text:
Order and viewing options
- Download size approximately 64.5 MB
You can view this digitised record at The National Archives.
Found an error? Suggest a correction to help improve our descriptions.
User Tags
Users have not yet tagged this record
User Collaboration
Use the form below to include your knowledge of this record. If your description includes any citable references, please add these to the "Citable References?" field on the right, remebering to seperate each reference with a comma, for example (FO 176/1/1, FO 178/2/1, and so on...)
All departments
- CAB Records of the Cabinet Office
- Records of Cabinet Committees, etc, 1945 onwards
- CAB 148 Cabinet Office: Defence and Oversea Policy Committees and Sub-Committees: Minutes and...
- CAB 148/211 Defence and Oversea Policy Committee: Sub-Committee on the South Atlantic and the...


text:
If Boston College guard Tyrese Rice gets a hot hand today, N.C. State coach Sidney Lowe could dig into his basketball "junk" pile and pull out the old box-and-one defense.
But Lowe has used that "junk" scheme -- one defender playing man-to-man and four in a zone -- only once this season, in a nonconference game.
Trick defenses, typically most effective for short periods, can wreck rhythm and take a sharp shooter out of his game. Conversely, they create gaps in the defense and ACC caliber players generally can exploit the open spots.
The schemes, designed to cool one or two opposing players, aren't as frequently utilized these days as in the past. Lowe contends the box-and-one or triangle-and-two are higher risk now partly because of the quality shooters on most teams.
"Some years ago, a lot of teams were pretty similar,'' Lowe said. "They had a point guard who ran the show, but maybe didn't score a lot. The two [guard] could shoot and the three [small forward] was a decent shooter. The [post players] were big men.
"Today the tallest players might be 6-7 or 6-8 and all can shoot. And maybe four guys can shoot from 3-point range. We haven't used it since we started ACC play."
Lowe's former Wolfpack coach, Jim Valvano, masterfully employed junk defenses. Wake Forest's Carl Tacy and Marquette's Al McGuire were others who successfully worked the man-zone combination.
Yet the "junk" hasn't been trashed like junk mail. Wake Forest faced the box-and-one against Indiana and UNC-Wilmington and won both games. Deacons coach Dino Gaudio says "we have so many scorers it would be hard to run it against us."
This season, Loyola (Md.) might have tried the most unusual strategy of any team.
It ran the box-and-one against Davidson's Stephen Curry. It also used the triangle-and-two, guarding the Wildcats star with two defenders. Curry, averaging about 29 points per game, didn't score. But Davidson won decisively as other players generated offense.
"That was an abnormal game," Davidson assistant Matt McKillop said. "But we always prepare for [those schemes]."
Southern Cal's Tim Floyd has thrown a lot of "junk" at foes in the past. But he said he hasn't used those ploys this season or seen another Pac-10 team show them.
"If two players score 60 percent of their team's points, maybe we would use it,'' said Floyd, who is sticking mostly to man-to-man.
NBA scout George Felton, who watches about 150 college games per year, says he has seen less of it among Division I teams for the past several seasons.
But Felton remembers Valvano and called him "the master" of the junk.
Valvano, who guided State to the 1983 national championship, favored the one-three-and-a-chaser if a hot-shot opponent started lighting it up. Frequently, it changed the complexion of the game.
On one occasion, Valvano even assigned point guard Chris Corchiani to defend Georgia Tech's tall post player, Tom Hammonds. The surprise strategy kept the Yellow Jacket off balance.
"It frustrated him to a point,'' Corchiani recalled. "I always found it to be a good defense to use in certain points of a game. It's not something you see a lot of anymore. I really don't know why. Coach Valvano's [philosophy] was 'never let the best player on the opposing team beat you.' "
In 1977, McGuire's Marquette team might not have won the national championship if he hadn't switched strategy in an NCAA regional game against Wake Forest.
The Deacons led at the half. Then Marquette turned to the triangle-and-two, disrupted Wake's attack, won the game and went on to claim the title with a victory over North Carolina in the NCAA finals.
"We didn't handle it very well,'' Wake's Carl Tacy said. "I felt it cost us the game. It's the reason I started using it."
Tacy employed it judiciously and reaped some benefits. Once when trailing Virginia Tech at halftime, he installed the triangle-and-two and the Deacons claimed a comeback victory.
Sometimes, even now, a little junk could turn into a jewel.
email@example.com or 919-829-8948


text:
We're always bringing new things to the Museum! Some of our newest exhibits include:
- Blast Off! - It IS rocket science! Fill a rocket with pressurized air and press the launch button!
- Google Liquid Galaxy - Fly around the globe or zoom in on your home in this immersive exhibit!
- Recollections - We've completely redesigned this perennial favorite to make it even better!
- Block Party II - Our popular Block Party exhibit has been rebuilt with even better blocks!
- Magnetoscope - Manipulate magnetic fields to create amazing patterns in the fluid!


text:
Matt Weston finishes up his review of Whitney Mercilus's performance in the 2013 season. How is the Texans' first round pick from the 2012 NFL Draft coming along?
Matt Weston of Battle Red Blog begins revisiting the Houston Texans' 2013 season by looking at Whitney Mercilus's play last season.
Whitney Mercilus is finally going to start. It was nice knowing you, Locker.
I love me some Whitney Mercilus and Jared Crick.
BRB's newest writer breaks dowm the performance of several Texans rookies from the win over Miami.
The Texans have officially signed their first pick of the 2012 NFL Draft, Whitney Mercilus.
Not every draft pick is a home run to draft analysts and Whitney Mercilus is no exception. However, some criticism is contradictory and Battle Red Blog is here to point that out.
You love Whitney, his family, and friends, and anyone else who was at that party now, don't you? That is what the kids call "unbridled joy," my friends.
A look at Whitney Mercilus and what the Houston Texans are getting.
We'll email you a reset link.
If you signed up using a 3rd party account like Facebook or Twitter, please login with it instead.
You must be a member of Battle Red Blog to participate.
We have our own Community Guidelines at Battle Red Blog. You should read them.
You must be a member of Battle Red Blog to participate.
We have our own Community Guidelines at Battle Red Blog. You should read them.
Choose an available username to complete sign up.
In order to provide our users with a better overall experience, we ask for more information from Facebook when using it to login so that we can learn more about our audience and provide you with the best possible experience. We do not store specific user data and the sharing of it is not required to login with Facebook.


text:
By Mike DeFabo
Times West Virginian
After sorting through about 90 applications, Fairmont State Director of Athletics Tim McNeely announced Tuesday that Patrick McGinnis has been named the Falcons' first-ever women's soccer coach.
This isn't the first time McGinnis will be building a program from the ground up. He spent the last six seasons at Alderson-Broaddus, where he turned a startup program into a national contender. Twice McGinnis was named the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Coach of the Year (2009 and 2011). He led the Battlers to an NCAA tournament appearance in 2011 and followed it up by winning the WVIAC regular-season championship in 2012, the final conference championship before the league was disbanded.
McNeely believes McGinnis' track record of getting programs off the ground will help him do the same for the Falcons when they play their first Mountain East Conference games in 2014.
"We are very excited to welcome Patrick (McGinnis) to Fairmont State as the first women's soccer coach," McNeely said in a statement. "Patrick did a tremendous job building the A-B program over its six years and we are very confident that he can have the same success at Fairmont State."
While McGinnis is eager to build the Falcons into an MEC powerhouse, he acknowledges the challenges of building a fresh program. He was careful not to be overly ambitious when asked of his goals for the first season.
"I just want to be competitive," the 32-year-old said. "What this first year does is really helps to build the foundation and make sure that the foundation is set.
"Wins and losses don't matter as much to me. We want to be competitive and make sure we have the fundamentals in place. That's the biggest thing. You don't want to bring in a group and then start over two years later."
McGinnis, who played collegiate soccer at what is now Salem International, began his coaching career in 2005 as a graduate assistant at the university. After three seasons, he joined Glenville State University's athletic department where he worked on compliance issues in addition to serving as the sports information director.
The Columbus, Ohio, native has also been part of the West Virginia Olympic Development Program staff since 2005, and he serves as the director of coaching at West Virginia United/Mountaineer United Soccer Club.
McGinnis plans to select his assistant coaches in the coming weeks. He said he has a short list of candidates based on previous experiences.
He also will begin the recruiting process immediately to get the ball rolling.
"Any time you're starting from scratch, you have to make sure you have all your ducks in a row," he said. "More than anything it's going to be about getting the word out to let the local club and high school coaches know what you're trying to build."
Email Mike DeFabo at firstname.lastname@example.com or follow him on Twitter @MikeDeFaboTWV.


text:
Forget Rasterbator, Posterazor!
To the Klooj folks:
You are mistaken: The pronunciation can go either way. i.e., Either
way is correct. There are alternate spellings as well.
I'm with Shawn, klooj just sounds idiotic whereas kludge actually sounds like
what it describes.
A librarian in the North.
I thought your eye was always that way
Funny thing, when I first got linux journal and looking at your editorial shot, I just assumed you had a messed up eye (stroke or something). It was not until I starting watching these tech tips that I realized you were doing it on purpose. Thought you might think that was funny and I wonder how many other people think the same thing.
That's great. :)
Shawn Powers is an Associate Editor for Linux Journal. You might find him chatting on the IRC channel, or Twitter
Wikipedia Disagrees
It appears as though both pronunciations (and spellings) are accepted. Besides, "klooj" sounds funny to me. :)
Feel free to blame it on my locale. I live near Mackinaw in Michigan, the fudge capital of the world. Figures I'd rhyme it with fudge. :)
Shawn Powers is an Associate Editor for Linux Journal. You might find him chatting on the IRC channel, or Twitter
Your pronunciation works
Your pronunciation works just fine in Wisconsin, too.
Linux rocks!
Personal blog: zootlinux.blogspot.com
You beat me to it...I've
You beat me to it...I've always hated the wrong pronunciation of kludge......kinda makes one look like a n00b ( or is it nub?)
It is actually on dictionary.com (complete with voice sample), phonetically spelled "klooj"
Long U, rhymes with stooge. I know other people say it your way, but it's not right.
Linux has become a key foundation for supporting today's rapidly growing IT environments. Linux is being used to deploy business applications and databases, trading on its reputation as a low-cost operating environment. For many IT organizations, Linux is a mainstay for deploying Web servers and has evolved from handling basic file, print, and utility workloads to running mission-critical applications and databases, physically, virtually, and in the cloud. As Linux grows in importance in terms of value to the business, managing Linux environments to high standards of service quality — availability, security, and performance — becomes an essential requirement for business success.
Sponsored by Red Hat
If you already use virtualized infrastructure, you are well on your way to leveraging the power of the cloud. Virtualization offers the promise of limitless resources, but how do you manage that scalability when your DevOps team doesn't scale? In today's hypercompetitive markets, fast results can make a difference between leading the pack vs. obsolescence. Organizations need more benefits from cloud computing than just raw resources. They need agility, flexibility, convenience, ROI, and control.
Stackato private Platform-as-a-Service technology from ActiveState extends your private cloud infrastructure by creating a private PaaS to provide on-demand availability, flexibility, control, and ultimately, faster time-to-market for your enterprise.
Sponsored by ActiveState
Trending Topics
|Reglue: Opening Up the World to Deserving Kids, One Linux Computer at a Time
|Jul 29, 2014
|diff -u: What's New in Kernel Development
|Jul 23, 2014
|Great Scott! It's Version 13!
|Jul 21, 2014
|Adminer—Better Than Awesome!
|Jul 17, 2014
|It Actually Is Rocket Science
|Jul 16, 2014
|Android Candy: Repix, Not Just Another Photo App
|Jul 14, 2014
- Reglue: Opening Up the World to Deserving Kids, One Linux Computer at a Time
- Numerical Python
- Download "Linux Management with Red Hat Satellite: Measuring Business Impact and ROI"
- NSA: Linux Journal is an "extremist forum" and its readers get flagged for extra surveillance
- diff -u: What's New in Kernel Development
- RSS Feeds
- Readers' Choice Awards 2013
- Linux Systems Administrator
- Senior Perl Developer
- Technical Support Rep
Featured Jobs
|Linux Systems Administrator | Houston and Austin, Texas
|Host Gator
|Senior Perl Developer | Austin, Texas
|Host Gator
|Technical Support Rep | Houston and Austin, Texas
|Host Gator
|UX Designer | Austin, Texas
|Host Gator
|Web & UI Developer (JavaScript & j Query) | Austin, Texas
|Host Gator


text:
Sagamore Beach Vacation Rentals with Cable Tv(32)
32 Results
9 more choices from the HomeAway Network
Recent Sagamore Beach Reviews
The house was very neat and clean upon arrival. It was very well outfitted. We wanted for nothing. The view from every room and deck was spectacular. We are already looking forward to next year.
We where shocked when we got to the door thought we where at the wrong house. This house went over a total renovation and came out perfect. We had our family get together here and had a blast. The kids loved being able to play on the beach and swim in the pool and so did the adults. Very spacious tons of room to just relax and listen to the ocean. Believe it or not my favorite had to be the kitchen loved the stove (weird I know but when you love to cook this is the stove to cook on). This house has it all to make great summer memories. Our daughter is already asking when can we go back.
My family of 9 had a very comfortable and fun filled time at Sandy Toes. We enjoyed Boston and Fenway Park, whale watching in Provincetown, Plimoth Plantation, Hyannis, bicycling on Martha's Vineyard. There was something for everyone. We found great restaurants and loved eating in as well. The beach was quiet. The house was comfortable and clean. The owner was delightful.


text:
The NASA wester nationals are in town tomrow. I plan on going, just to watch, and it will be my first powerlifting event to ever go to. Just wondering if anyone had advice as to what I should observe to help me get into the sport, as Im expecting to be a little overwhelmed by whats going on.
Last edited by Kyolked; 05-05-2007 at 12:53 AM.
"Tom explained that when he came in he was in awe of the lifters in the group and that you can never become what you're in awe of."
"keep smoking weed, fail the test, and learn a ****ing lesson."--MrWebb78
"Chicks dig lifters because they know lifters arn't affraid of commitment"