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generic female wookiee
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Rebel-Winter ()
Rebel Legion Reserve
Joined: 09 Dec 2010
Posts: 15
Location: The Land of No Winter
Medals: None
Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2012 3:11 am
Post subject: generic female wookiee
ok so I've been hanging around reading the wookiee building threads and I came across Fruitbats thread about doing a female wookiee, and i went "Hey that sounds cool! I wan't to do one!" but before I start I have some questions.
1. Can I do a female wookiee?
2. would a hight around 6' 6" be acceptable rather then the full 7'?
3. if I made the body structure something like this could it still be approved?
any help would be appreciated. thanks
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Torment (Jason Rucci)
Active Legion Member
Joined: 12 Jun 2005
Posts: 282
Medals: None
Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2012 4:44 am
Post subject:
My personal opinion, which may mean little in this case, is I think in concept it looks cool. However the clothing makes me wonder if it would be approvable? It has been established that clothing on wookies is a no no. I was just recently playing KOTOR and Zalbar was freaking out over a joke about wearing clothes.
There are some sketches of wookies wearing clothes like the sketch of the jedi wookie when they were doing some ideas for the prequels. There is also Mala from the holiday special when she wears an apron.
The real issue at hand I think, is what I think most people are going for, is the feminine form. Speaking plainly the idea of getting breast to show up in a wookie suit like they would in art could be incredibly challenging. The way that hair falls, lays and drapes, I think it would not really come out the way the art depicts.
Looking at the picture above it almost looks like they tried to give Malla a feminine chest. However the hair just killed the shape they may have tried to go with. If you have a great idea on how to do this I for one am excited to see it.
Its something that has been discussed both here and in a few circles around me. But how to achieve it and it look right is the trickiest part. Good luck on this if you do attempt it, and I will watch with great intrest.
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Wookiewannabe ()
Legion Costume Judge
Joined: 16 Mar 2009
Posts: 318
Medals: None
Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2012 1:18 pm
Post subject:
The female wookiee would be able to be approved as a generic wookiee or wookiee warrior. If you make the suit tight enough and flair it out at the right spots a shapely wookiee is possible. Draping cloth or a sash would be ok considering its not being a specific character. I would say go for it! It would love to review it for approval. There are a lot of wookiees approved with a lot of variations to height, hair color, mask, etc.....
Marty Miller
Chewy Layers snow to print
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The Wookster (Ben)
Rebel Legion Reserve
Joined: 13 Sep 2010
Posts: 134
Location: San Diego, CA
Medals: None
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 4:01 am
Post subject:
I like it, go for it!
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Havok69 ()
Active Legion Member
Joined: 20 Jun 2011
Posts: 380
Medals: None
Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 3:35 pm
Post subject:
Definitely go for it. Perhaps in the clothing areas you could omit or only sparsely put in hair to be able to show a more feminine form.
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Rebel-Winter ()
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Joined: 09 Dec 2010
Posts: 15
Location: The Land of No Winter
Medals: None
Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 5:25 pm
Post subject:
Wow Thank you all for the great responses! and so quickly.
one thing that I didn't make clear and I think has caused some confusion is that the picture I posted is NOT the costume I intend to make clothing wise. I intend to follow it for the body of the costume, and we'll see if clothing of any kind is added afterwards.
again I am very sorry I didn't make that clearer sooner, thank you all for your wonderful responses and I will keep you all up dated as I make progress.
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Chewie ()
Active Legion Member
Joined: 07 Mar 2011
Posts: 342
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Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 4:20 am
Post subject:
Last edited by Chewie () on Thu Sep 05, 2013 3:46 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 10:35 am
Post subject:
This would be a very cool build! I hope this works out. Good luck and welcome to the forum.
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Zaxmon (Ryan Ricks)
Active Legion Member
Joined: 01 Nov 2010
Posts: 185
Location: Fort Bragg, NC
Medals: None
Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 3:04 am
Post subject:
I think this is a great idea. Hmm, now I am thinking I want to make a female wookiee. hehe
Chewie-Changa Facebook
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Rebel-Winter ()
Rebel Legion Reserve
Joined: 09 Dec 2010
Posts: 15
Location: The Land of No Winter
Medals: None
Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2012 4:54 am
Post subject:
Hey Guys!! Sorry I haven't posted an update in a while, to summarize whats been happening with the wookiee + not much.
I did decided to add a wookiee cub to the costume though, and seeing how the cub would be a much smaller project I decided to try to finish him by PCC 2012. so yeah well see how that works out.
and I decide that I would need to sculpt some parts to get the highest possible accuracy (hands, feet, and head) with a cloth body and latch hook fur over that the final cub should be about 24-26 inch long. as of this post I have one hand completed.
I was also looking into fur and was wondering what you guys would suggest.
Thanks Rebel-Winter.
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GotWookiee (Matt Pfingsten)
Active Legion Member
Joined: 30 Mar 2001
Posts: 3803
Location: Nashville, TN, USA
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Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:51 pm
Post subject:
Rebel-Winter wrote:
I was also looking into fur and was wondering what you guys would suggest.
Since you mentioned latch hooking, for the hair I would go with kanekalon extensions. It's what most of us are using. Available at any beauty supply shop.
Chewbacca Costuming Resources
Chewbacca Costume Guide (under construction)
Matt Pfingsten - Film & Video Editor
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Rebel-Winter ()
Rebel Legion Reserve
Joined: 09 Dec 2010
Posts: 15
Location: The Land of No Winter
Medals: None
Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2012 11:18 pm
Post subject:
ok well I'm looking in to Kanekalon KK Jumbo Braid Hair from Ikickshins.com, now I'm wondering would 2 packs of hair be enough to cover a 24-26 inch wookiee?
Thanks again hopefully I'll get some production photos to show you guys soon.
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Lumpy (Chris Blackstock)
Active Legion Member
Joined: 31 Aug 2008
Posts: 1351
Location: Kashyyyk
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Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 12:48 am
Post subject:
Probably not.
I don't know that you would need a ton more than that, but 2 sounds a little light to me. Most of us use somewhere between 40-60 packs on a full size Wookiee.
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GotWookiee (Matt Pfingsten)
Active Legion Member
Joined: 30 Mar 2001
Posts: 3803
Location: Nashville, TN, USA
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Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 1:05 am
Post subject:
You're also going to want to get at least 3 or 4 different colors and do a little mixing with a hackle.
The stuff is pretty cheap. Only 2 or 3 bucks per bag. Buy 10-20 bucks worth to start off with. If you find you need more, get some. No big deal.
For something this small I wouldn't order online; just use Google maps to find some local beauty supply shops and see what they have.
Chewbacca Costuming Resources
Chewbacca Costume Guide (under construction)
Matt Pfingsten - Film & Video Editor
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Roheryn ()
Active Legion Member
Joined: 10 May 2012
Posts: 110
Location: Netherlands
Medals: None
Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:50 am
Post subject:
I have also found this picture of a female wookiee, but again, with cloth. I personally like it a lot, to me it is the one big difference between male and female. But for the record, it would be approved?
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Focus on Parts Turns to Tools
A recipe for success: Art Richardson's background in sales and teaching made him one of Cornwell's top dealers.
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In his marketing classes at Bryant, Art teaches that the strategy to selling is not just making sales, but staying competitive.
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Art was a Division 1 college athlete and loves to compete. But while he respects his competition, he does everything he can to "win". This means he doesn't publicly knock his competition. Instead, he prefers to learn from them.
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* * * * * * * * * *
Brad's morning edition. Check back this afternoon for more jokes from Brad.
* A new member of the MECA board has been selected after an extensive evaluation process. Well, somebody followed him home.
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* Let's not forget the true meaning of trick-or-treating: to get a sugar rush that lasts until sometime in March.
* I have a great Halloween costume. I'm going to cover myself with mud and go as the Gene Leahy Mall.
* To scare people on Halloween, Mayor Stothert is going as the Omaha city budget.
* If you're looking for an economical Halloween costume, consider cutting holes in a paper bag and going as a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan.
* The Macklemore show at the CenturyLink Center on Tuesday night featured flames, confetti and balloons. Only in Omaha is there a fine line between our hip-hop concerts and our Olympic Swim Trials.
* After a semitrailer overturned in Council Bluffs Tuesday morning, about a dozen cattle were roaming I-29. I can picture a motorist driving through Omaha. "I can't wait 'till I get to Iowa, away from all this dang road construction. Ah! Cows in the road."
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text:
Some Assembly Required
A Journal of My Son's First Son
Anne Lamott - Author
Sam Lamott - Author
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"If there is a doyenne of the parenting memoir, it would be Anne Lamott."—Time
In Some Assembly Required, Anne Lamott enters a new and unexpected chapter in her own life: grandmotherhood. Stunned to learn that her son, Sam, is about to become a father at nineteen, Lamott begins a journal about the first year of her grandson Jax's life. In careful and often hilarious detail, Lamott and Sam—about whom she first wrote so movingly in Operating Instructions—struggle to balance their changing roles. By turns poignant and funny, honest and touching, Some Assembly Required is the true story of how the birth of a baby changes a family—as this book will change everyone who reads it.
by Sam Lamott
When my mother first approached me about this book, after her editor suggested the idea to her, she spoke to me over the phone in an unsure voice, her Worried Mommy voice, and her tone made me brace myself for what seemed to be a tough question. But when I realized she was asking me about whether I was okay with her writing a sequel to Operating Instructions, my shoulders dropped with relaxation and I shouted, "Yeah! Of course . . . Why didn't I think of that myself?" To this day, that book is the greatest gift anyone has given me; I have a very special relationship with it. When I read any of my mom's books, I hear her voice talking as if she were in the room right next to me. But when I read Operating Instructions, I hear and feel my mother's love for me, her frustration and dedication, her innermost feelings and favorite moments of my first year with her. I will always cherish these memories of our funny family and our friends, and I will always be able to come back to them, even when my mom is too old to remember them herself. (Sorry, Mom.)
Jax, when you read this one day, I want you to know the love, laughter, and endless messes of the most memorable, astonishing, and incredible year of your mother's life and mine so far. I can't wait for you to be able to understand what quirky, loving, loyal characters make up your family and friends; how much we adore you, and how much we mean to each other. It is an honor and a pleasure to be your dad; I don't know how I got so blessed to get you as my son. And I wanted you to have a book like Operating Instructions that is all your own.
In the Beginning
My very young son became a father in mid-July 2009, when his girlfriend, Amy Tobias, gave birth to their son. They named him Jax Jesse Lamott, Jesse after Amy's beloved grandmother Jessie, and Jax because they liked the way it sounded. Amy was twenty when she delivered, and Sam was nineteen. They're both a little young, but who asked me?
Sam's birth, on August 29, 1989, was by far the most important day of my life, and Jax's was the second. Sam and I are quite close, and I'd always looked forward with enthusiasm to becoming a grandmother someday, in, say, ten years from now, perhaps after he had graduated from the art academy he attends in San Francisco and settled down into a career, and when I was old enough to be a grandmother. I was a young fifty-five. Maybe a medium fifty-five. Let's say a ripe fifty-five, with a child just one year past his majority.
The day before Thanksgiving 2008, I had heard that Amy was expecting, when I got a call from Sam, in despair.
"Mom, I'm going to be a father," he said.
I was silent for a time. "Oh, Sam," I said finally.
He and Amy had been together, tumultuously, since his birthday a year earlier, but they had split up a couple of months before—although not, I can see now, in the biblical sense. Amy is beautiful, tiny and Hispanic, with her roots in Chicago and her parents now living in North Carolina. She had arrived in our lives on the morning of Sam's eighteenth birthday, to attend cosmetology school in San Francisco: they had become friends at a camp on the East Coast, stayed in touch by phone and text, and begun a long-term relationship, which I hadn't heard about. One day Sam told me he'd offered her his living room couch until she found an apartment. "Right," I said when he told me this plan: I was not born yesterday.
"God, Mom," he had said. Like, get your head out of the gutter.
She had moved off the couch by lunch that first day. They arrived for Sam's family party at my house at four that afternoon, very much in love. My brother Stevo, his sunny six-year-old daughter, Clara, and his fiancée, Annette, were there, as was our beloved uncle Millard, our aunt Eleanor, our best family friends, including Gertrud, a ninety-year-old German who'd always served as Sam's paternal grandmother, and a scattering of cousins. We were all trans fixed by this beautiful girl who bounced into the house, in tiny shorts that would fit my cat—she is around four-foot-nine, and weighed ninety pounds at the time—with long black hair, huge brown eyes, and a perfect smile; and my first thought was, "Whom did I invite who has a teenage Hispanic daughter?" I thought she might be related to Annette, who is also Latina. Then Sam stepped inside, smiling sheepishly, and introduced Amy to me.
A little over a year later, Amy had terrible morning sickness that lasted a few months, and she spent a lot of time taking naps on my couch, and nibbling bird-sized snacks. I was happy all the time at the thought of Sam's being a father, and my getting to be a grandmother, except when I was sick with fears about their future, enraged that they had gotten themselves pregnant so young, or in a swivet of trying to control their every move, not to mention every aspect of their futures. She and Sam had moved back in together, into his tiny studio apartment on Geary, two blocks from his art school. Although Amy's parents were contributing to her expenses, I was paying Sam and Amy's rent. Amy frequently escaped to my house in Marin, mostly for companionship, as Sam was in school full-time, but also for the sun and relative peace, as their apartment was dark and loud. By the time the morning sickness passed, her belly was huge, especially because she is—or rather was—so tiny. She had an elaborate space-age ultrasound at four months, which indicated that the fetus was a boy: the technician printed out Jax's picture for us. He looked like a bright, advanced baby.
They moved into a one-room apartment a few blocks from the old studio, and created a nursery in a corner of the bedroom.
Sam was woozy with pride and scared to death. Amy was clear, calm, and fiercely into becoming a mother. She did things the way she wanted to, even when it made me unhappy. For instance, two weeks before her due date, she skipped a routine doctor's appointment for some youthful, willful reason, and I spent several days pacing around my house, trying to make peace with the idea that now the baby would almost certainly be born with some degree of disability. I cried. Sam tried to protect Amy from my neediness and anxieties—i.e., they purposely didn't call or text me for days. And they fought routinely. Amy would threaten to move back to Chicago, which made me crazier than anything, but I would not interfere, and Sam would call in despair, and I would stay neutral, with undertones of suppressed rage, and they'd come through their conflict, and I would get to be the beloved tribal elder for having stayed impartial.
We went to our little church, St. Andrew, many Sundays, unless Sam had too much homework. The month before Jax's birth, Sam was both in summer school and working for a contractor, trying to sock some money away. I had promised him a four-year education, but even though he was contributing, it was more expensive than I had expected, and I had a nagging hunch that things were not going to become cheaper after Jax was born.
I had loved being pregnant with Sam, mostly: all the parental blessings of feeling accomplished, envied, completed, astounded, proud, grateful. And I loved Amy's being pregnant with Sam's baby, mostly. I was excited that Sam was going to have all these feelings for someone, too. It would be better for him in some ways than it had been for me; I had not had any money our first few years, and that had been hard. And it could be only good for a baby to have two parents around. Yet having a child ends any feelings of complacency one might ever have, and I knew what Sam was in for. It was like having a terminal illness, but in a good way.
I frequently got to put my hands on Amy's belly and feel Jax roll and kick around in his chambers. She and I would take afternoon naps together on the two couches in my living room. She gained sixty pounds; I gained five. Her mother, Trudy, and I would get to be there at the hospital for his birth, which Amy passionately hoped to accomplish without drugs. Her mother would fly in from North Carolina near the due date, and she and I spoke or texted from time to time, making plans for Amy's hospital stay, and for just after. Amy, Sam, and the baby would come to my house from the hospital, along with Trudy, and then at some point Amy's father, Ray, would come from North Carolina to stay for a few days. We would all be one big happy family, as Ray liked to say.
I prayed every day for a healthy baby, for an easy delivery, for Sam and Amy to be good parents, and for me to let God be in charge of our lives. I prayed to be a beneficent grandmother, and not to bog down in how old that made me sound. I had two slogans to guide me. One was: "Figure it out" is not a good slogan. And the other was: Ask and allow: ask God, and allow grace in.
July 21
Amy delivered late last night by C-section after eighteen hours of hard and heroic natural labor, at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, one of the nation's great teaching hospitals, in the upper Haight-Ashbury, just beyond the southeast corner of Golden Gate Park.
Sam had called me at two yesterday morning and told me to meet him, Amy, and Trudy at the hospital. Trudy is five foot-six, an inch shorter than I am, brunette, and very sweet, a few years older than I. Her grandma nomenclature will be "Grammy," and mine will be "Nana," which is what Sam called my mother. Amy was given a private room, and was plugged into various monitors. Sam coached her for the first few hours, and then Trudy and I coached her, and then Sam again. After many hours, Amy was dilated to six centimeters, but she wasn't getting any further. She refused any drugs for hours, even Pitocin to intensify the contractions, and watching her I felt crazy with powerlessness and thwarted Good Ideas: Let's everyone settle down and take a lot of drugs! Get this show on the road! Of course, I pretended to be supportive of whatever she decided. Sam, Trudy, and I took turns going to the cafeteria for snacks, while Amy was brought hospital meals which no one ate, because the meals looked like upscale pet food, with a side of boiled vegetables. When all was said and done, we ate mostly Cheetos and M&M's. And when I say "we," I mean me.
Amy's contractions were wracking her body, but they weren't quite productive enough. She was in maternal warrior mode, and I was humbled by how hard she was working, how much pain she was able to bear, and how stoic she was. By this point in my own labor, almost twenty years before, I'd already had the Pitocin, an epidural, and a few refreshing shots of morphine to take the edge off. I felt stunned and teary about what a good birth coach Sam was—it wasn't so long ago that we were bickering about wet towels on the bathroom floor or why the hell he can't manage to keep his cell phone charged.
Hours later, Amy finally let the nurses put some Pitocin in her IV, and the three of us took turns breathing with her. But the baby, who had been estimated to weigh nine pounds, was just too big for her small body, and she was exhausted. At seven that night, a number of doctors came by on rounds, with third-year medical students in tow, and said, Tut-tut, like Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood, and then that everything looked fine—and finally, at around eight or so, a doctor who looked a lot like a young Ethel Kennedy, scrappy and beautiful, bounded in, as if we were all on a tennis court. She was about my age and she exuded intelligence, and we all instantly knew she was perfect—although her eyes squinted like a mole would in sudden bright sun. My first thought was, "Oh my God, she's a blind gynecologist. Affirmative action has gone too far this time." There were so many nurses in the room, with a few scattered leftover med students thrown in, and a new batch of med students. Within a minute, Dr. Ethel had most of her arm inside Amy.
All of us held our collective breath when she said, "Oh, jeez, is that the umbilical cord?" and some of the medical students and the labor nurse made the quiet face of studious, hopeful concern that nurses are taught in their first semester. And then the doctor said cheerfully, "Oh, it's just an ear." Like, Silly me! Sighs of relief all around. Then her arm disappeared again, up to her elbow, as if she could wiggle her fingers and tickle Amy's heart. She squinted off to one side, way in the distance, as if to the hills whence help comes, like Mr. Magoo in Pharaoh's Egypt, and I realized she was not seeing with her eyes, but with her hand and her mind. As I watched her bend in, with her head and shoulders sideways, I was reminded of all those times as children when we stretched sideways over a storm drain, an ear pressed against the grille, reached our arms through, and blindly tried to grab a coin from below with our fingertips, before resorting to sticking a wad of bubble gum on the end of a stick.
Finally the doctor's arm reappeared, and she explained to Amy that there was way too much amniotic fluid, which posed a dangerous hurdle, and she needed to break Amy's water. We all nodded knowingly, even the medical students. The labor nurse gave the doctor a needle, and the doctor's arm disappeared again, and after a minute she announced that she had pierced the sac and would let the water out slowly.
But the water gushed out of Amy, about ten gallons of a green soup from The Exorcist, and I thought with my ever-present Christian faith: Amy's dying now for sure; I just hope they can save the baby. But the doctor squinted at the hills again and repositioned the baby's arm and hand; she was, we learned later, trying to keep the rivers of soup from pouring over the sides of the banks all at once: she was siphoning it off.
Amy lay in a widening pool of green soupy fluid; nurses tried to shove towels under her butt without bumping the now one-armed doctor. The doctor's head tilted, in full squint; she worked on until she seemed to listen for a minute, but not with her visible ears. Then she withdrew her arm and took off the glove.
She told Amy that she would give her one more hour, but she didn't think there was a big chance of success, even with more Pitocin. Amy should have a C-section, while there was still a choice. I was silently begging, Please have it. Amy looked to Sam, and he told her that it was her body, that he supported her in whatever she decided. I wanted to scream into his face, "Stop saying that! You're encouraging her," but somehow I didn't say anything. Amy asked for more Pitocin, yet an hour later when the nurse checked her cervix, she said it was just the same. She left the room, and the four of us prayed together as a family. After a few minutes, Dr. Ethel came back, and her arm disappeared up Amy again. In full Mole Squint, the doctor said, "I recommend we do a cesarean," and Amy said, quietly, "Okay."
Trudy and I went off to the waiting room, where we writhed around and read the sacred texts of crisis—People and the National Enquirer—and ate the temple foods—Cheetos and M&M's—for about an hour, until a huge male nurse came to tell us that Jax had been born. Amy was fine, but she desperately needed to sleep for a few hours, before she could begin nursing. He said we could go meet the baby. Trudy and I hugged and jumped and pumped our grandmotherly fists.
We found Sam in the nursery, dressed in scrubs, holding his swaddled new son, peering into his peaceful face, crying and saying over and over, "Hi Jax, I'm your dad. I'm your dad, Jax."
Jax was the loveliest baby boy I've ever seen, a dead ringer for Sam as a newborn, but Latino, gorgeous as God or a crescent moon, with huge black eyes, nearly black hair, lightly tan. I felt as though I was seeing a river gorge, from way up high on a bridge, silenced by the vastness of his tiny face, the depth of his brown-black eyes.
"[Lamott's] crisp writing and self-deprecating honesty ring charmingly true."
"[Some Assembly Required is] full of Lamott's trademark neurotic spirituality, and it's one Lamott's fans will want."
—The Washington Post
"Wonderful . . . [with] Lamott's trademark sharp wit and self-deprecating humor . . . Like so many of Lamott's books, [Some Assembly Required] leaves readers with new insights."
—The Associated Press
"[Lamott's] typical combination of astuteness and wit . . . As always, Lamott's 'raggedy faith' is central to her, and whether you share her concerns or not, you appreciate her candor."
"The story of one year in a woman's life, a year that happens to include the arrival of a blanket-bundled gift for Lamott and her longtime readers."
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"[Some Assembly Required] highlights the trademark humor we've come to expect from Lamott, with laugh-out-loud one-liners that are both self-deprecating and wise … a welcome addition in the larger Gospel of Lamott."
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"Funny, insightful, irreverent…filled with humor and the author's quirky faith…Bound to do for grandmothers what the earlier book did for mothers — bring them insight and sanity in the midst of chaos."
—The Denver Post
"Anne Lamott's singular gift for bringing readers into the intimate circle of her life flows effortlessly in this new memoir, mixing the absurd and sublime with her usual alchemical genius…you'll be seduced by the darkly comic tone, self-deprecating wit, and relentless honesty; she somehow makes the bumps and joys of her life intensely relatable. She can capture the bliss and beauty of tiny emotional events in a few perfect words, then skewer her own worst impulses with brutal hilarity."
—Bust Magazine
My son adored my mother, who was a handful, believe me. She was from Liverpool, which I believe explains all of her most annoying, argumentative tendencies. (I attend twelve-step meetings for the children of the English.) Her real name was Dorothy, which she hated, and when her father died when she was ten, she reinvented herself as Nikki, the name of a popular girl on 1930s English radio.
My brothers and I called her Dot to tease her. She was at her best when being teased, swatting at us and squawking like an injured but good-natured crow. She actually loved being teased: it meant you were loved, in spite of it all. She was always quite plump and wore any old, odd clothes and—sorry, Mom—slapped on loud makeup every morning. Other mothers kept their weight down and dressed with 1960s style and youthful makeup. To us, compared with our mother, all the other mothers looked like Jean Shrimpton.
And she could be simultaneously pleased with herself and angry, in that English way, like a Monty Python character who might suddenly stab you with a passion fruit.
My son was the first grandchild in our family. Mom chose her grandma name, Nana, when I was a few months pregnant. I started calling her Nana most of the time, unless I was trying to show my love by calling her Dot—caw, caw. She and Sam both had huge brown eyes and shiny dark hair. They played together often at her studio apartment and at a postage-stamp-sized beach nearby. He did not find it annoying when she insisted on wearing sweaters during heat waves or asking for a bite of his bacon. He didn't mind that she would argue with me when we were all together. A typical opening salvo from her might be, "But Jack and Bobby Kennedy were great," as if I didn't also feel this way. It made me want to choke her to death. Sam just thought she was funny.
She became sick with Alzheimer's in her last few years and died in 2001, when Sam was twelve, really still a boy, bashing branches against riverbeds and trapping spiders. He was matter-of-fact about her death: she'd gotten to stay in her apartment with her cat until the end, she hadn't appeared to know she was dying, and she'd had us. Sam seemed to be saying, "We should all be so lucky."
I was sad for her, and for Sam, her friends, and me, but to be honest, my life was much easier after her passing, as I no longer had to be a mother to both a prepubescent and a seventy-seven-year-old Englishwoman. And a brand-new relationship with her began to blossom. Her absence provided the breathing space for us to connect beyond our aggravating, codependent history together. I fell in love.
I saw past her faults to her stunning intelligence, saw past her annoying insisted-upon habits to her beautiful bleeding-heart character and lifelong activism on behalf of the underdog, saw past the strange clothes and bad makeup to the immigrant heart of a girl from Liverpool whose father died so young.
I looked forward to funny little moments of contact, through the smells of beaches and yeasty Danish pastries.
Seven years later Sam had a child, my grandson, Jax, who also has huge brown eyes and dark hair, like his daddy and his great-grandmother.
My mother had not cared that I was single and broke when I had my child at thirty-five, because she just wanted to get her mitts on that kid, and she would not have cared about Sam's being so young when he became a father, for the same reason.
So I tried not to, either. Okay, maybe I had a tiny position with Sam's age—nineteen—but mostly I just wanted to get my mitts on that kid, too.
The only important question was: What did I want Jax to call me one day? My rather cold paternal grandmother had been "Grandma," which is what conservative politicians call all older women. And my senile mother's mother had been "Nanny," which is a great name, but for a while I wondered if maybe I should meet the little guy first. Instead I picked my grandma nomenclature when Jax's mother was about four months along, maybe three. Never mind, it's all coming back: it was a month and a half. I chose "Nana."
I wanted to honor my mother, even though she had driven me crazy for most of the forty-seven years we spent together on this earth. I wanted to honor how much Sam and she had loved each other, how ecstatic she'd been about his arrival, although circumstances had not been ideal. But more than anything, I wanted to think about her many times a day, because she was my mother. She put calamine lotion on my stings and rashes when I was little, and blew on my skin gently to cool me off. She read Little Women to me and taught me to make meringues dipped in dark chocolate and sprinkled with slivered almonds. She went to law school when I turned fourteen. She loved the first stories I began to write. She lived to play with my son.
Sam's love for my mother gave her to me, and Jax's love for my son gave Sam to all of us. So I'll hear a piece of music my mother and I loved together—Mozart, or a union song, or Judy Collins, or Ella Fitzgerald—and my heart shimmies for a few seconds as I think, "Mom, listen!" And we smile.
A Few Useful Tips on Parenting Kids of Any Age
By Anne Lamott
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Michael Bublé and wife Luisana Lopilato had dinner Wednesday at Bâoli in South Beach, where, says our spy, "they ordered half of the menu to try everything." The crooner also ordered a bottle of Cristal champagne, which only he drank. They arrived at 8:30 p.m. and left around 1 a.m. Lopilato, several months pregnant with a baby boy, wanted to go back to the hotel to put on a dress and return to the restaurant to dance, which, amazingly, they did.
Rapper Fat Joe walked into Juvia on Thursday with 13 women, but, contrary to how it looked, it was for his wife's birthday celebration. The party stayed until after 1 a.m.
Exotic car dealer Steven Kessler bought a Rolls-Royce Corniche from the Los Angeles estate sale of Hulk Hogan's ex, Linda, Thursday for $120,000 and is selling it in his North Miami showroom, Kessler Auto Group, for $139,000. Kessler made a big deal earlier in the week when he sold a $130,000 Maybach to 82-year-old Tennessee mogul and philanthropist Millard Oakley.
TV host and local best-selling author Brad Meltzer, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho will help celebrate the charity City Year at its annual Red Jacket Ball on Saturday night at Miami Circle Park. How much does Meltzer appreciate the help of local leaders, who have put almost 200 mentors in Miami's most challenged schools? In his newest No. 1 bestseller, The Fifth Assassin, there's a DC police officer named Carvalho. "The real Carvalho is far more heroic," Meltzer said. "Plus, he's got far better hair."
Enrique Iglesias and Anna Kournikova had dinner Wednesday with a group of friends at Caffe Abbracci. Iglesias was overheard talking to owner Nino Pernetti about a chapter in the new Abbracci cookbook in which the restaurateur recalls working in a hotel in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1972 and hiring Iglesias's father, Julio, to sing at the grand opening.
Attending a private function Tuesday on the Betsy Hotel's roof deck, rumored 2016 Presidential candidate Jeb Bush was seen enjoying views and the food from the hotel's restaurant, BLT Steak.
Lil Jon was seen hosting a group of local Miami DJs, including DJ Konflict for a special Tequila Don Julio dinner Thursday at Hakkasan to kick off Ultra Music Festival.
In town for the World Baseball Classic, baseball star and former Marlins player Hanley Ramirez, representing the Dominican Republic, was seen dining with a group of teammates Monday afternoon at Toro Toro at the InterContinental Miami. A few tables away, Tracy and Alonzo Mourning were seen cozying up to each other during a midday date.
Prime 112 was a hotbed of athletes last week. On Monday, Team USA manager Joe Torre and legendary pitcher and pitching coach Greg Maddux were seen dining with a group of people. Other baseball players seen there included Carlos Beltran (St. Louis Cardinals) , Shane Victorino (Boston Red Sox) , and Adam Jones (Baltimore Orioles).


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April 2005
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Dagoba Chai
Name: Dagoba Chai
There was a small selection of these organic bars at Whole Foods. Some are single origin and some are flavored, like this one. Basically I see chocolate in two different ways, some chocolate is for snacking and some is for savoring. It expected this to be savoring chocolate, however, I found it to be extremely snackable.
The Chai bar is milk chocolate with chai spices and ginger. Opening the package I found the spicy aroma quite evident. Not overly any particular spice, it smelled more like a spice cupboard. A little like pumpkin pie, actually.
On the tongue the chocolate melts easily and is immediately sweet. The mix of flavor is not intense but really a great compliment.
I plan on buying some more Dagoba chocolate again. I think I'll try their tasting squares.
Rating: 8 out of 10.
PS - One of the problems with this candy is that every time I hear the name or see it or type it, it reminds me of the Weird Al song called Yoda (to the tune of the Kinks' Lola). It starts with the line, "I met him in a swamp down in Dagoba."
Friday, April 29, 2005
Life Savers Hot Rings (circa 1995)
Name: Hot Rings
I know last week I said that we shouldn't be afraid of strange candy. I might have done something stupid.
I found these Lifesavers at the 99 cent store. Branded with a little Sega Sonic the Hedgehog, I'm thinking that there's another Sonic game coming out. I bought it, thinking it was cinnamon. And we all know that Lifesavers don't come in cinnamon. They should. Reeds come in cinnamon, and I love those.
Upon starting my little photo shoot I look at the package and see this:
Since you can't see all of it, they're running a contest and if you have the right wrapper, you can win a variety of prizes. All prizes must be claimed by MARCH 1995!
This roll of Lifesavers is more than 10 YEARS OLD! And cost 25 cents!
I'm not sure if Lifesavers spoil. What's a better question is if these were ever any good. I unwrapped them and found milky yellow Lifesavers with red specs. They smelled a bit like mint. Again, I was expecting cinnamon. I put one in my mouth and it's more like pineapple with a hit of chili to it. Really.
All I can say is that I'm mystified. Here's an ad from the mid-nineties with this Lifesavers/SEGA cross-promotion.
Rating: 4 out of 10 (yes, I might try another one)
POSTED BY Cybele AT 4:47 pm Candy • Review • Wrigley's • Discontinued • Hard Candy & Lollipops • 4-Benign • United States • 99 Cent Only Store • Comments (11)
Gobs of Gobstoppers
Name: Chewy Centered Gobstopper
I guess it's appropriate to visit the Wonka line of candies since there will be another movie soon. There are very few actual products out there, I reckon, that were created based on a novel. And more than a novelty, some of the Wonka candies are pretty good. The brand itself is an odd one, changing hands from time to time and amassing some other brands in the meantime (did you know that Bottle Caps are now Wonka products?).
Besides the odd history, I thought I'd do a little review of the Everlasting Gobstopper since I found that they've created a new version - the Chewy Centered Gobstopper.
First, a Gobstopper is a jawbreaker that has different flavored layers and in the center is a sweet-tart sphere. When I was a kid the Gobstoppers were large, like real jawbreakers. I haven't seen those in years, but have been able to find the boxes of Gobstoppers that contain little marble sized versions. They come in bright colors and the layers change flavor three or four times before getting to the center. The flavor itself is rather bland, more sweet than tart, but it has a pleasant cooling feel to the smooth surface.
The Chewy Gobstopper has the same flavor except for the center, which is much larger, so the layers are fewer or thinner (I couldn't figure it out because I kept chewing them up before getting to the center). They're very much the same as the regular Gobstopper and I think I might buy them again. Especially if I can find them at the 99 cent store.
Rating: 8 out of 10.
POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:26 pm Candy • Review • Nestle • Hard Candy & Lollipops • 8-Tasty • United States • 99 Cent Only Store • Comments (13)
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Meiji Sweet Candy
Name: Sweet Candy (Fruit Drops)
Ya gotta love anything that comes in a swell flask-shaped tin in this day and age.
Made by Meiji, this tin contains, simply put, fruit hard candies. As far as I can tell the flavors are something like lemon, orange, strawberry, grape, pineapple and melon. But there's also a curious opaque white one that's peppermint (quite a shock when you're expecting pineapple). The candies are nicely flavored. Tart but not overly so. The lemon and pineapple are particularly good.
It's a fun little stocking stuffer or something to keep on your desk. After you're done, you can even put change in the tin - though the largest coin that will fit through the opening at the top is a quarter (but if you've got more money, what are you doing saving it? you should be out buying candy).
Rating: 8 out of 10.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
The Green Pocky
Name: Mousse Pocky (Green Tea)
Pocky is one of those Japanese treats that's gone mainstream in the States. I've seen them at Ralph's and even some convenience stores. I'd never had them before and I think if I had it to do all over again, I'd start with a more common flavor. However, I've got to hand it to the Mitsuwa Marketplace, they had a huge selection. There's also something known as "Men's Pocky" which I haven't quite figured out.
If you've never seen them before, Pocky are little cracker/biscuit sticks dipped in something chocolatey or creamy. My choice was Green Tea. The sticks look just like the package promises. Long, unsalted pretzel looking things dipped in a green, creamy coating. You grab them by a small uncoated end for clean fingers.
The coating is like white chocolate flavored with green tea, and it tastes just like room-temperature green tea ice cream. Smooth, delicately flavored with a crisp bite to the cracker inside. They're definitely addictive and one of the better items I bought on my last Little Tokyo trip. They do have a bit of hydrogenated oils in them (though the main fat is cocoa butter, which is what gives the coating its smooth-meltyness).
I'm eager to try more flavors. The neutrality of the crunchy stick makes it idea for just about anything. Mostly I'm going to see if other varieties don't have hydrogenated oils.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Ginger Delight
Name: Ginger Delight
When I was a kid I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis. In it, Edmund is lured into the White Witch's carriage with promises of Turkish delight. I found something called Turkish Paste at Middle Eastern markets and decided that's what was in the book.
Turkish Delight is basically jellied sugar. Usually just a mixture of sugar, a dash of corn starch and a little flavor. Typical flavors for Turkish Delight are aromatic in nature (there's no sour tang, just sweetness, smooth texture and scent). Most common are rose and lemon.
At Whole Foods over the weekend I found that The Ginger People have created a Turkish Delight with the scent of ginger and even smooth little ginger pieces. First thing to know about Turkish Delight is that it's very messy. The little jelly squares are usually cut into cubes and then dusted generously in confectioners sugar and corn starch to keep them from sticking. You can't help but get it everywhere, so I recommend wearing white when consuming Turkish Delight so as not to look like a slob.
The cubes are not heavily fragranced, but upon biting into them they're smooth and delicately flavored with ginger. Occasionally there's a little treat of a smooth pieces of ginger in there. There's no bite to it, which I was a little disappointed with, but that's not really Turkish Delight's style.
Turkish Delight is not an everyday snacking candy, it's a special treat or for specific occasions. I'll probably buy this again, but not anytime soon.
Rating: 7 out of 10.
POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:50 am Candy • Review • The Ginger People • Ginger • Jelly Candy • 7-Worth It • United States • Comments (3)
Monday, April 25, 2005
Violet Crumble
Name: Violet Crumble
The package says "It's the way that it shatters that matters." Of course the other side calls it "Australia's Crisp Golden Honeycomb." I've had this bar once before and was not terribly impressed. I was hoping it would be malt, but it's not.
What is it? Think of that dense chalky styrofoam and then add some flavor and a sweet aroma similar to toasted marshmallows. One of my problems with this bar is the noise the honeycomb makes when you bite into it. Like biting into a piece of balsa wood or stiff styro. The ingredients also do not lend one to be drawn to the bar (there's no honey), it's mostly sugar and hydrogenated palm oil (yee! I have a cholesterol test coming up!).
That said, I actually like it. I can get beyond the sqeaky sound on my teeth because the crumble is really satisfying, it crackles and yields in the mouth, melting into a blissful sweet puddle. The chocolate coat is actually chocolate, which helps. The coating, I found, is a tad sweet, but I expect that from Aussie and Brit sweets, I suppose. Also, at only a little over an ounce, it's a very satisfying bar because it's so stuffed with air, it looks formidable. It's the trans fat content that has me worried, so I'm going to stick to monosaturated treats for a while.
Rating: 6 out of 10.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Meiji Chelsea Yogurt Scotch
Name: Chelsea Yogurt Scotch
The Taste of Old Scotland! the candy heralds down the side of the tray inside the calico printed box. What Chelsea has to do with Scotland is beyond me. This is a candy blog, after all, not a geography one.
I'm not sure I know what old Scotland tastes like. But these hard toffees are unlike any other toffee I've ever had. First, they're opaque white and glossy when I unwrapped the piece, unlike the toasty cream color I'm used to.
Putting it in my mouth I found it initially tart. Not in a citrus way, but in the way that yogurt is tart. It's smooth and creamy, but with a little bite to it.
I found them pleasant, but a little bland. I plan to finish the box, but it's unlikely I'll buy yogurt scotch again. However, there is another flavor that I saw at the market, regular butterscotch ... that sounds more my speed.
Rating: 7 out of 10
POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:48 pm Candy • Review • Meiji • Hard Candy & Lollipops • Toffee • 7-Worth It • Japan • Comments (8)
Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.


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Save $290.00 - Register for Protective Relaying Principles & Applications, Discussion of Widespread Power System Blackouts and Introduction to Power System Load Models by selecting the session below.
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CAA Football Going Deep - Bob Ford: Father of UAlbany Football
In Week 2 of our Going Deep series, CAA Football visits UAlbany, where Bob Ford has for four decades dedicated his life to Great Danes Football, the Capital District and both his personal family and an extended family of thousands of current and former players. Coach Ford's legacy transcends the stadium that now bears his name. It is engrained in the UAlbany culture, the Capital District community and in a sport in which he has meant so much to so many.
Check out Coach Ford's story via the video player above or the "Quick Links" section to the right. More On Campus coverage from the league's trip to UAlbany can be found here.


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Ok. So this may not be the biggest bug, but still - I need to send more messages. I was playing for Wolves, but wanted to move to a Greek team (one is named after my daughter) and requested a transfer. The last week of December, I get caught with a call girl (I hate this encounter, as I always forget which is the correct response), so my pregnant wife and 3 kids leave me. The next week, I finally get my dream transfer to Xanthi.
Now, here is the bug. In the next month, I get transfer offers (I have only just moved to a team) from different teams (along with my old team - Wolves), and the manager is offering me a transfer listing, as I am unhappy. I also have not played for 6 weeks now (they paid $23,000,000 for me - one would think that I might get a game, yes).
So, not a big bug, but perhaps a small one.


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You must earn 10,000 points to post other members' whiteboard
Thank you Your site looks much better now.
Congratulations on earning 2,253,115 points,, that's real dedication. I can almost see your tail lights. Please give me full access, so that I can share photos with other buddies, also take a look at my Alaska album. Thanks. YB.Shep
Aahhhh, tytyty, for the full access. Now your WB is looking good with all the pic. hung. David
Won't you grant me FULL ACCESS? Afterall, all it does is shows your buddies and their albums. That is it. No personal stuff and can't
access it. With it, it makes your WB not look like a visitor to your WB. Sadly, I will drop our buddy connection in a week. Thanks, David
Congratulations on posting for 900 consecutive days, that's real commitment. May 2014 bring you and yours peace and joy. .YB. Shep
Congratulations on having the perseverance to post for 900 consecutive days. Have a Wonderful 2014! Warren :)
Congratulations on posting for 800 consecutive days,, that's dedication. YB.Shep
Today is our buddy AlleycatMO's birthday, (regardless of what her profile says ;-) ...Please stop by and wish her a happy birthday. thanks!
Nice to meet you.
Noticed your interesting avatar on a mutual buddy site. Congratulations on 700 days posting. Lets be buddies also. Thanks....Shep


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In his final blog for Y! Sports, "The Count" talks about his heated encounters with Belfort.
In his last blog for Yahoo! Sports, "The Count" explains the drastic change in his attitude during fight week.
Michael Bisping is fired up about his upcoming bout with Tim Kennedy. He's fired up about his recovery from an eye injury. And he's definitely fired up about fellow middleweight contender Vi...
Rockhold doesn't mince words when giving his take on opponent Vitor Belfort using testosterone replacement therapy.
In his final blog, Bisping talks about his legacy and what fans can expect Saturday against Alan Belcher.
The middleweight has been near the top of his sport, but has been knocked back each time.
Belcher's absurd videos and trash-talking mask a career that isn't comparable to that of "The Count."
Bisping says he has never dodged Belcher, but simply taken whatever fight was offered to him.
Belcher says he's as good as Bisping in all areas but with better submissions and striking.
Check out Fuel TV's Vitor Belfort vs. Michael Bisping fight highlights video with recap and commentary from Jon Anik and Kenny Florian.
All of the talk heading into UFC on FX 7 was about Michael Bisping's possible title shot against Anderson Silva with a win. Vitor Belfort had other plans.
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Vitor Belfort took his shot at the Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight crown two years ago. Now, Michael Bisping wants his.


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Hi everyone
I have an iPhone 3G 8gb and I am unable to use it. In its current state, it comes up with the message a restore is needed and it requires to connect with itunes since it has the itunes and usb logo.
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Peppery Hush Puppies Recipe
- 2 cups cornmeal
- 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1-1/2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 egg
- 2/3 cup water
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- 1 cup grated onion
- 2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
- 1 small green pepper, chopped
- Oil for deep-fat frying
- In a large bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and baking soda. In another bowl, whisk the egg, water, buttermilk and butter. Stir in the onion, jalapenos and green pepper. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.
- In an electric skillet or deep-fat fryer, heat oil to 375°. Drop batter by teaspoonfuls, a few at a time, into hot oil. Fry until golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towels. Serve warm. Yield: 6 dozen.
Reviews for Peppery Hush Puppies(6)
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I omitted the green pepper and put in two nice large jalapenos. These are beautifully light and crispy! The best!
Thank you for this recipe.
So easy to make and so much compliments from the familie. There is left some batter in de frige, I try to make that tomorrow.
Angelika from the Netherlands
excellent! I chose to make the green peppers optional and still had great raves. this has been put in my favorites file. These are also great to serve with a country meal of blackeyed peas or pintoes with mixed greens (turnip & mustard) and mashed potatoes. thanks for sharing your recipe.
Haven't made this yet, but I know a good recipe when I see it. I'm thinking of adding 2 cans of chopped clams and make a fantastic "Clam Fritter". Omit the water and use clam juice with beer instead. done any way I know this is a winner.
Can't wait to try this recipe ! Sounds like the ones served at a favorite fish restaurant, but Taste of home can you set this up to only print the recipe and NOT the ads ? Waste of printer ink !! Thanks for the recipe Carolyn !


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This beautiful giclée reproduction is virtually unparalleled in quality and range of color, and is at the leading edge of fine-art printmaking. Printed on high quality artist grade canvas with an archival 12 color pigment ink set and 1.5" wood stretcher bars. Black edge. Comes ready to hang or frame.
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JRF is thrilled to welcome Kol HaLev as our newest and second Reconstructionist community in Baltimore, Maryland!
Kol HaLev's roots go back to 2006, when a small group of founders began a dialogue with Geoff Basik, a rabbinical student who was then completing his final year at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Together, they decided to form a new Reconstrucitonist community around Geoff Basik once he had completed his rabbinical studies.
Kol HaLev began holding regular services in the homes of the founding members and also used space in a function hall at the St. Johns Episcopal Church in Mount Washington. The first High Holy Day services were held in the fall of 2007 and drew about 100 attendees. Due largely to word of mouth, the congregation has grown from the original 20 founding member households to about 70 households today. As a result, they outgrew the space at St. Johns, and now hold services at Brown Memorial Woodbrook Presbyterian Church in Baltimore.
The composition of the membership has shifted to include more young families, so in 2009, they established a children's school. They also attract an increasing number of inter-faith families who have seek a synagogue community where they feel comfortable and welcomed. Kol HaLev members have formed new interest groups for "social action," kabbalah study, and cultural activities, indicating the increasing maturity and activeness of the community.
So please join us in welcoming Kol HaLev Baltimore as the second Reconstructionist community in Baltimore, joining our long-standing affiliate Beit Tikvah (http://www.beittikvah.org/), to the Chesapeake Region and into the Reconstructionist Movement!


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When we launched our PSS campaign in 2006, our goal was to alert women to the connection between unpr…
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Dear Scouting Friend,
We need your help!
Scouting costs money to keep going. You probably already know that your registration fees go straight to National, and that the modest fees we charge for summer/winter camp don't even …
Your unit should be 100% Youth Protection Trained they are not!
Come to this training opportunity and we will have access to 30 computers to take care of Youth protection and Committee basic training. Other training …
The District webelos crossover
Will be April 12 @ 2pm at Walnut park. If your webelos are attending the cross over please let me know how many boys will be crossing over and what troop they are …
The Upper Cumberland District Banquet is Tuesday March 18 2014 at Collegeside Church of Christ 6:30 PM
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6:30 pm Cost $14.00 …
June 22-27, 2014
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Hey everyone,
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Richard Phelan
| Published: June 3, 2010 – 5:20 pm
Yesterday, I was sorry to learn of the death of one of my dear college professors, Richard (Dick) Phelan. He was a good man, who lived a good life. His ideas will, one day, change the world. He certainly changed me and for that, I will be forever grateful.
I have mentioned Professor Phelan often to my engineering colleagues, and well, to anyone who'll listen. He specialized in a niche area of mechanical or electrical engineering generally called "control theory."
Professor Phelan realized that the way most engineers and scientists go about controlling things like the temperature of an oven or a house– a thermostat, or the speed of a car– cruise control, is not nearly as good as it could be. And the reason is elegant and mathematically simple.
Thanks for reading this far, if you did. I will go on about Dick's big idea in the next few paragraphs. I hope you get that he had an idea that could change the world and allow us to do so much more with less. Richard Phelan meant a lot to me.
Dick Phelan and Pseudo Derivative Feedback (PDF)
If you're into this kind of thing, you know that most controllers work best with an integrator in the forward loop. For most of us, the classic example is sticking your hand in the shower to get a signal (hot, cold, cool, or warm) that your nerves, brain, and muscles use to set it just right. You adjust a faucet knob and wait. Your brain integrates the signal; you subtract what you feel from a suitable proportion or fraction of what you want, and eventually– Ahh…
An old trick, and a seemingly reasonable one, is to put a differentiator in the feedback loop. That way, the feedback signal gets stronger (uh, bigger), with not just the change, but with the rate of change. All good.
The scheme I described above is Proportional+Integral+ Derivative (PID) control. It is everywhere. I mean everywhere. Even the most sophisticated satellite attitude controller systems are PID. Oh yes, one can analyze the Laplace Transform heck out of those things, what with their spindly struts and drilled-out, mass-saving, trusses, busses, and brackets. But, when it comes down to it, often, very often, our colleagues abandon all the extra analysis and just optimize a few PID variables.
Here's what Dick Phelan realized, pointed out, and fixed. With PID, we're integrating a signal we just differentiated. Any transducer noise or vibration often makes the feedback signal too big, or just wacky.
Instead of PID, try this: Feedback a signal in two places. On a control diagram, it's two summing junctions. Feed the signal back upstream of the integrator, and then, with a separate proportionality constant, downstream of the integrator. The signal downstream of the integrator acts as though we differentiated. But, there is no, or much less, noise.
Dick called his scheme Pseudo Derivative Feedback, or PDF. I've seen others refer to the same thing with an I in front of the acronym to indicate integration. That's not bad, but in tribute to Professor Phelan, I prefer PDF.
Now, Dick Phelan was a bit of character. Although one of his earlier textbooks gives the reader a solid understanding of Laplace transforms, later in life, he didn't think much of them. Consider these words from his textbook: Feedback and Control Systems, Cornell University Press, 1977:
"The apparent justifications for past use of Laplace transforms were (a) it was a good way to keep students occupied in an intellectually stimulating way for quite a period of time, and (b) it established a jargon for the fraternity while effectively sophisticating– in the true dictionary definition of the word– a basically simple field of study into one that was awe-inspiring to the unknowing…"
Well, control theory can get complicated, but it's the key to our future. We have to find ways to not just use less, as traditional environmentalists wanted us to do. Instead we have to find ways to be more efficient, much more efficient. We need to find ways to do more with less. PDF will help us engineers and designers do that. Thanks Professor Phelan. Let's change the world.
5 Responses to "Richard Phelan"
I had Prof Phelan for his controls class in 1985/86 time frame. He was a very good teacher, and I am sorry to hear of his passing on. He was always very enthusiastic about his controllers.
I never designed controllers, but had to pay attention to how structural effects and sloshing could be affected by control systems… i.e., bandwidth of controller and structural /slosh modes had to have a decade of separation.
I always wondered how the PDF controller would hold up to this frequency separation requirement, but never looked into it in depth. His controller seemed to be very high in bandwidth and was not meant to be used with flexible structures; but I admit I never looked into it much.
Professor Phelan was a truly good person.
I never took a course from Dr Phelan but I bought his book, used, at a book store in Berkeley. I got his number, and ever after retiring, he took my phone call, spent a lot of time with me on the phone and sent me a package of notes with the errata and other handouts from the course, did not even ask me for postage! A career change kept me from the controls industry however it was refreshing to study a way to design real versus academic control systems. He will be missed.
I, like you, absolutely revere Prof. Phelan! He took me under his wing my junior year (1974-75) at Cornell, when I was staying after class struggling with the breadboard, trying to understand PID and PDF for the first time. I think initially he was trying to protect his investment of breadboad table top kits from being destroyed by a naive undergraduate who was probably ready to short circuit one of the Op amps inside the box. Anyway, I have used his method to solve many complicated controls problems involving ship stationkeeping and buoyancy, of which many PID purests said it couldn't be controlled; and when shown PDF, dismissed it as "slight of hand".
Sadly, its taken 30 years for the world to finally recognize Dick's remarkable legacy. And funny thing now. Every time I see an Adobe Reader document (.pdf) I think of him… Bill, thanks for writing such a beautiful piece on him.
Dick Phelan actually was a real control engineer as opposed the the pole/zero academics through out academia. The PDF control algorithm he derived really does work and works very well. I know from personal experience, and it is simple and easily implemented, not withstanding derision from control engineers. I'm reminded of the Control Systems book wherein the author, and academic to be sure, after spending the whole book on the pole/zero paradigm at the end of the book recognizes that the real world is non-linear and that therefore the pole/zero methods don't apply. Amazing! Phelan saw that the PDF algorithm would handle the non-linearities very well. And he was right!
I have used the PDF algorithm over and over and always with just a considered guess at the gains to begin with and it always just works!
I've studied Fuzzy Logic and how it can implement how people control things and I always come back to the PDF as being a lot simpler.
The standard PID control algorithm is a hack. It has always been a hack. Here is what it is. First it is a proportional control with an integral added to compensate for the offset and a derivative added to make it faster. That is the extent of it. But it is still a hack! Hell, if you even go through the math the PDF falls out. Not the PID.
Richard Phelan was lucky. He stopped the academic trail before he got to the PHD level and therefore his mind wasn't frozen into the academic ideal and therefore he was able to see the real world and how it worked.
He was a great man for that.
Bill, thank you for posting this. I also appreciate your associated letter in the ASME Magazine. I appreciate your loss. I recall my collage engineering professors. The wiry ones always seemed to be the best ones.
I have spent many years developing control software for the natural gas transportation industry. This is the first time I've heard of the PDF controller. I find it interesting that this isn't a standard control block in most PLC/PAC programming languages. Fortunately modern controller languages let you expand their control functions through add-on instructions. I would like more information on the specific mathematic implementation so I can develop my own add-on instruction for the PDF controller which I intend to put into the public domain. Any suggestions on the best source?


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Last week, I brought you a No. 1 from British actor-turned-singer Jimmy Nail. This week, Ioffer the sensitive 1986 ballad "Every Loser Wins" by popular EastEnders star Nick Berry, who played Simon Wicks (no relation)on the UK soap in the '80s. It was a HUGE hit in the UK – it was No. 1 for three weeks – despite being rather, well, crap. (The description for the YouTube clip simply states, "How bad is this?") Butit's good for a laugh…I'm sure it will become a party favorite for you and your pals.
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Kathy Cassidy
First impression on unpacking the Q702 test unit was the solid feel and clean, minimalist styling.
The top eight Call of Duty: Black Ops II multiplayer teams from A/NZ have been selected for the local qualifiers of the Call of Duty Championships 2013.
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Follow PC World Games on Twitter at @GameProAu or become a fan of the Facebook page.
First impression on unpacking the Q702 test unit was the solid feel and clean, minimalist styling.
For work use, Microsoft Word and Excel programs pre-installed on the device are adequate for preparing short documents.
The Fujitsu LifeBook UH574 allowed for great mobility without being obnoxiously heavy or clunky. Its twelve hours of battery life did not disappoint.
The screen was particularly good. It is bright and visible from most angles, however heat is an issue, particularly around the Windows button on the front, and on the back where the battery housing is located.
My first impression after unboxing the Q702 is that it is a nice looking unit. Styling is somewhat minimalist but very effective. The tablet part, once detached, has a nice weight, and no buttons or switches are located in awkward or intrusive positions.
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