text:
Saint Augustine's Conversion
Garry Wills - Author
The fourth and final volume of Garry Wills's acclaimed translation of Saint Augustine's Confessiones
As relevant today as it was when it was originally written sixteen hundred years ago, Augustines Confessiones continues to influence contemporary religion, language, and thought. Reading with fresh, keen eyes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Garry Wills has brought his superb gifts of analysis and insight to bear on this classic of Western tradition in a series of ambitious and critically acclaimed translations and interpretations. In Saint Augustines Conversion, Augustines story draws to its dramatic conclusion in what Wills calls the hinge chapter of the bishops confessional opus. With an illuminating introduction and extensive notes throughout, Wills provides a richly rewarding and inventive interpretation of Augustines seminal work for a new generation of readers.part i
1. The Book of Conversions
Book Eight of The Testimony tells the second most famous religious conversion story in Western literature, second only to that of Saint Paul, on which it is modeled. These two accounts have jointly determined much of what has been thought and written on the whole subject of conversionin such classics on the subject as William Jamess The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) or Arthur Darby Nocks Conversion (1933). The stories of Paul and Augustine have led to a belief that real conversion is sudden, effected by the incursion of an outside force, and emotionally wrenching. Certainly Augustine does everything he can to create that image in the emotional paroxysm of the garden scene that closes Book Eight. He prepares for that moment by an elaborate arrangement of conversion storiesseven of them, with his own coming as the climactic eighth case, and with Pauls as a ninth one implicit in the text that Augustine reads in the garden. The artistry of Augustines presentation as well as the gripping nature of its contents has made Book Eight the most famous and most cited book in The Testimony. Among other things, it contains the most frequently cited sentenceLord, give me chastity and self-control, but not just now [17].
But what does conversion mean here? We often use the word to indicate the adoption of a new religion. One is a Jewish convert, or a Muslim convert. But Augustine tells us he had accepted the Christian faith before he went into the garden. He already believed in the basic doctrines of the church [1, 18]. In fact, only one of the conversion stories he uses involves the acceptance of a new creed, and that one, exceptionally, is not recounted to Augustine by another person but inserted by him into one such reported story. This tale- within-a-tale (of Sergius Pauls conversion at Acts 12.612) is used to show that celebrity conversions are worth encouraging. Everyone else converted here was already a Christian in belief, and most of them (Anthony, the four in Trier) were not only doctrinal believers but had been baptized. The only such convert who had not been baptized is the subject of the first and longest story, about Victorinus, who was a believer though he did not want to sacrifice his worldly position by open profession of Christianity. His is a baptism story, and the story is expressly told to Augustine (by Simplician) to make him give up worldly ties by undergoing baptism.
With the exception of this baptism story, the other conversion narratives are more properly vocation narratives, telling how a person already Christian (and already baptized) receives a higher callingto the monastic life (Ponticians friends) or to a hermits life (Anthony). Augustine has chosen his parallel narratives carefully, since his own case will combine both kinds of spiritual changehe will come not only to accept baptism, but to undertake a further commitment, to celibacy. These are separate matters, as Augustine tells his mother in reporting the garden struggles outcome. He reports that her prayers have been rewarded beyond her own expectation. She had wanted him, when she had a dream about him (T 3.19), to be converted from Manicheism to Christianity, joining her on the rulers edge of belief in Jesus. He now tells her that the garden experience has gone beyond the conversion she prayed for, giving him the further call to celibacy [20]. This is more properly a vocation story than a conversion onewhich is why he chose six of his seven parallel narratives from people already converted to the faith.
Of course, conversion in the broad sense does not necessarily entail a change of creed. It can refer to any significant spiritual reorientation (whether sudden or gradual). In that sense, Augustines life up to the garden scene was one long tale of conversionsfrom Christianity to Manicheism, from Manicheism to a Ciceronian Skepticism, from Skepticism to Materialism, from Materialism to Neoplatonism, and from Neoplatonism to Christianity. None of these breaks was absolutely clean. As a Skeptic, he still felt a need for the savor of Christs name (T 5.25), something that had retained its hold on him from the time when he begged for baptism during a childhood sickness (T 1.17). And he would always retain a Manichean sense of the struggle with evil (O 3.48). The Christianity he embraced in Milan retained for a long time as many Neoplatonic as gospel elements. The conversions of Augustine were many, and they did not end in the garden in Milan
(O 1.xlii). There was as much continuity as disjunction in his lifes developmentwhich makes the clean break described in Book Eight so striking by its contrast with what went before.
It is a contrast striking enough that one must ask whether Augustine has not, for theological or other purpose, exaggerated its suddenness and violence. This suspicion is reinforced by the conflict between what he was writing, in or near Milan, at the time of his conversion and what he tells us, over ten years later, in Book Eight. The garden story has long been doubtedat least from 1888, when Boissier and Harnack challenged it, and that has involved Book Eight in controversy. It is hard to sort out all the problems of the book because so many of us first approached it with presuppositions derived from what we knew, or thought we knew, or had been told, about Augustines life and conversion. There are many myths that have accumulated around this subject. In calling them myths I do not claim that they lack truth of some orderjust what kind and degree of order will be the matter for decisionbut that they do not give a literal report of what was happening or being thought at the time being described. There are at least four such mythsthat of Monnica, that of Ambrose, that of Paul at Damascus, and that of Augustine in the garden. In order, then:
He did not initially share her admiration for Ambrose, the bishop of Milan who would baptize him. He did not join her in the church when Ambrose held his long vigil of defiance against the empress Justina (T 9.15). He did not, at that point, believe in church miracles (as opposed to gospel miracles), and he no doubt differed with her on Ambroses theatrical introduction of miracle-working martyrs bodies into his fight with the empress (T 9.15).3 This attitude toward miracles would not have made him well-disposed to his mothers claim that she could tell divine visions by their odor (T 6.23). Nor would he have sympathized with her semi-Manichean rites at martyrs tombs, from which she would not have desisted but for her reverence toward Ambrose (T 6.2).
These misgivings, no doubt stronger at the time than when he records them a decade later, are countered, of course, by the marvelous tribute he pays to Monnica in Book Nine of The Testimony. But that tribute follows on his rediscovery of Monnica at Cassiciacum, just before his baptism, when for the first time she was included in the discussions of his philosophical friends. Before this, he had the prejudice of his time and class against the intellects of women. His first plan of a philosophical community, formed in Milan, fell through over the issue of including women (T 6.24). ODonnell suggests that Monnica may have been illiterate (O 3.115). Monnica at first resisted her inclusion in the Cassiciacum discussions, but Augustine encouraged her.4 He laughed with surprise at her earthy wisdom, on this first occasion of her displaying it to him.5 He tells her, I am daily struck anew by your natural ability.6 The sexist compliment he pays her is itself revealing: Forgetting her sex, we almost thought that some important man had joined us.7
On the basis of his new respect for Monnica, the mystical experience he shared with this unlettered woman (as first reported a decade later from his bishops residence) is meant to destroy the presumption that soul- culture demands exercise in the liberal artsthough he continued to hold that view for some time after the reported experience. Monnica did not lead him to baptism. Rather, baptism led him to Monnica. The long excursus on her in Book Nine is very likely derived from a eulogy composed first for the benefit of her children and grandchildren. We know how much his own son loved his grandmother (T 9.29). Presumably, Augustines sister and brother had the same feeling for her, as did his brothers children. If, as Courcelle plausibly maintained, Augustine could write the tribute to Alypius (T 6.1116) for Paulinus of Nola, surely he could have done the same for his own relatives.8 Augustine only realized her worth in Monnicas last months, after his conversionfor which she was not responsible, except by prayer.
Except for brief interviews on business, there was clearly no occasion to pursue fully all that I desired from that oracle of yours, his breast. To pour out my needs would have taken up time that was simply not available (T 6.4).
Those passages are enough to refute the old idea that Augustine was referring to Ambrose when he wrote his Neoplatonist mentor, Mallius Theodore, about conversations held with you and our priest friend (presbyter noster).9 The man referred to is clearly Simplician, Ambroses Neoplatonist teacher, who baptized Ambrose and succeeded him as bishop of Milan. Augustine went to him for spiritual guidance. He corresponded with Simplician in later years (Epistle 37), something that Augustine never did with Ambrose.10 It was as the doyen of Milan Neoplatonists that Simplician would have known and conversed with Theodore. And Theodore, to whom The Testament makes only glancing and denigrating reference (T 7.13), is described by Augustine, when he was at Cassiciacum, as a leading force in his conversion and Christian aspirations.11
Ambrose no doubt did have an influence on Augustine, but only after the garden scene. Augustine did, finally, get a very full sample of Ambroses symbolic reading of Scripturebut only during his intensive preparation for baptism, six months after the garden sceneand he did, finally, come to realize the importance of that indoctrination. He first acknowledged its importance five years later.15 Indeed, Ambrose became increasingly useful to Augustine after he became a bishop himself and had to address many issues of power that he had scorned in his fervent days after baptism. Then, when Augustines consecration as a bishop was challenged, it became important that he be known as Ambroses convert. Furthermore, in the fight with the Pelagians over continence, Ambrose was a powerful and moderate alternative to Jeromes views on virginity and sex (O 1.xxxix). But it is anachronistic to read such indebtedness back into Augustines state of mind before and during the garden scene.
James admits the existence of more gradual, conscious, and self-governing conversion, which he calls the volitional change of the once-born. But he prefers the sudden, semiconscious, and self-surrendering type of the twice-born, because it is more radical and more interesting.19 He thinks it is more authentic because less consciously controlled: self surrender has been and always must be regarded as the vital turning point of the religious life.20 Protestantism lacks some of the aesthetic awareness of Catholicism, however superior in spiritual profundity it may be to Catholicismbut that is a small price to pay for profundity.21 Which should one prefer, better art or spiritual profundity?
James was drawing on a burst of new interest in conversion at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1881, Granville Stanley Hall had delivered at Jamess own university, Harvard, a series of public lectures on the religiosity of the young. He concluded, from surveys and interviews, that conversion is most common in and around puberty, a thesis he developed in his two-volume work Adolescence.22 He also found that more conversions are gradual than sudden (two thirds to one third). Halls work was extended and verified in 1897 by Edwin Starbuck, from whom James took the terminology of two types of conversion, those of volition and of self-surrender, while he ignored Starbucks finding that the average age for conversion of females was 13.8 years and of boys 15.7.23 Of Starbucks study, expanded later into the two-volume Psychology of Religion (1899), a later scholar wrote: His work remains today as the most complete and authoritative of its kind.24
Starbuck, too, found that most conversions are gradual, not sudden. Though James refers to Starbucks findings on adolescent conversion, he preferred to collect and study adult accounts of sudden conversion, since they seemed to him more interesting and profound than adolescent stories.25 That means he is studying the least common type of conversion in the age group where it least occurs. Survey after survey, subjected to analysis after analysis, found the average age of conversion somewhere in the span between ten and nineteen. Paul Emanuel Johnson, conflating the findings of five major studies of conversion, pinpointed the average age at 15.2 years.26
Naturally, the experience is not uniform for all teenagers entering into this averagethere are variables by class, locale, and education.27 As James Bissett Pratt put it, conversions come most often to those brought up in a church or community which taught them to look for it if not to cultivate it.28 And Johnson says: The type of conversion is influenced by social expectation. There are styles of conversion, as there are of worship and theology.29 He thought that adolescent conversions would decline in numbers as sterner religion faded in America; but cults, Eastern spirituality, Transcendental Meditation, and New Age concepts continue to provide ample opportunity for teenage conversions. Later studies of converts have confirmed the basic outline of these pioneer investigations.30
Jamess emphasis on suddenness is misleading, since With most religious people conversion (of the genuine moral sort) is a gradual and almost imperceptible process, with an occasional intensification of emotion now and then during adolescence.31 Jamess celebration of crisis-conversions may be unfortunate since it could lead to complacency about the sudden feeling of being saved. One of the most frequent and most studied forms of conversion in our time is the treatment of addiction by twelve step programs, where one is warned against the feeling that one heady moment of resolve is an adequate cure. The emphasis on steps, on social reinforcement, on mentoring, on one day at a time, is meant to dispel the illusion that a quick reorientation can be effected. James noticed the conversion experiences of alcoholicsindeed, he quoted an unnamed medical man as saying, The only radical remedy I know for dipsomania is religiomania.32 But he did not let that distract him from the study of conversions he found interesting.
Why did James so exclusively direct his attention to sudden conversion? The reason for that must go farther back than sociological studies at the end of his own century. He grew up in a culture that staked a great deal on the saving experience of Puritan culture. He was not raised in a Calvinist familyquite the oppositeand he did not belong to any Congregationalist church. But the individualism, the introversion, the autobiographical urges of the New England region pervaded the culture. The private and temporally precise experience of being saved was the condition of membership in Congregationalist churches. This need preyed on the minds of young people, whether they were yearning to join the church, afraid that they could not do so, or determined to defy expectation.
Each person had to meet the Spirit alone, and then give a convincing account of this transforming moment to the examiners of the church. The specific time and place of the rescue were importantas they were in Augustines garden experience. Joseph Addison, in The Spectator, mocked this obsession with the timetable of a Calvinists conversion, asking a character in one of his essays what was the occasion of his conversion, upon what day of the month and hour of the day it happened.33 What Edmund Morgan calls the demonstration of saving grace became an art form as well as a personal rite of passage in seventeenth-century Massachusetts.34 It was something no one else could do for the individual. Even those born into God-fearing families were not presumed to be saved, and therefore qualified to join the churchs visible saints, until the conversion had been privately experienced and publicly aired. It was considered a backsliding, a tainting of the church, when later halfway covenants let children of the saved take communion without undergoing their own saving moment.35
These conversions would seem to come as close as anyone could wish to the pure model James presents. They are highly conscious, tested by the one undergoing the experience and by those best qualified to judge its nature and effects. Many of them were keyed, like Augustines conversion, to the impact of a single verse from Scripture.36 If anything could heal the sick soul and give permanent comfort, it should be this. But the diaries of the time show that the sudden stroke was not as efficacious as the theology shaping it would suggest. Even that paragon of Calvinist awakening, Jonathan Edwards, could never be sure his conversion took. After he became a pastor in the church, he could still write:
Drawing on her extensive use of the letters and diaries of the saints, Patricia Caldwell concluded that the failure of New England, of state and country alike, to meet the spiritual expectations of the individual who is trying to articulate his experiences, devolves back upon that person and presses him into a doubtful limbo of semiconversion or even nonconversion.38 The stakes placed on conversion were so high that they induced the very anxieties conversion was meant to dispel. This record makes it seem that James was too sunny-minded himself on the efficacy and permanence of sudden conversions. Conversion was a process, even for those who felt that they must be changed suddenly. Edwards deplored the way fervent mass conversions during the Awakening led to relapse. All things considered, it seems that James underestimated what the great Quaker Anthony Benezet called the inward gradual work of grace.39
It is significant that Paul himself, in all his extensive writings, never tells the story of his experience on the road to Damascus. He tells of other mystical revelations (II Corinthians 12.24). He says that Jesus appeared to him (I Corinthians 9.1, 15.8), and that he received his teachings direct from him (Galatians 1.12). But he connects none of his own visions to a conversion experience in general, or to the Damascus road in particular. That story is told only by Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, where the story is told three different times, a little bit differently each time (9.119, 22.121, 26.1518)which suggests that literal reporting is not the main concern. The important thing for consideration here is that none of Lukes three versions of his tale matches anything Paul says of his mystical experiences. He says later that he saw Jesus, but he does not see anyone in the Damascus event, which involves not a vision but a photism (bright light) and an audition (disembodied voice). Nor does a conversion take place on the spot. Saul is told that he should go to the city and await further enlightenment. It is only after Ananias heals his blindness that Saul is baptized. This seems to be shorthand for a gradual teaching and healing process that takes place after the photism.
Sending Paul to a city resembles the messages sent to prophets in the Scripture, who are given a mission and a message to deliver. Though Saul is told to receive a teaching rather than to deliver a message, the literary genre that Luke is using to create a double ministryone for Peter, with direct experience of Jesus, and one for Paul, with indirect experienceseems to draw on vocation stories, not conversion ones. Alan Segal argues that Luke is using the genre of prophetic commissionings as his model in Actsthe Damascus story is especially close to that of Ezekiels calling.40 After being stunned by a vision of Gods glory (Hebrew kavod), Ezekiel says:
That Segal is not just making a wild guess is confirmed by Lukes third telling of the Damascus tale. In the first two, the voice says simply, I am Jesus, whom you persecute. Rise up and enter the city and you will be told what you must do (Acts 9.6). But in the third account, a long speech is recorded, and it is clearly a vocation statement, the call to a mission:
It is important, for Lukes purpose, that all three versions of the Damascus experience begin with the question Why do you persecute me? Pauls former persecution is the recommendation he himself uses to show the authority of a gospel even he has come to receive. That is how Paul uses his earlier life as a teaching credential (Galatians 1.13). In the same way, Augustine uses the fact that he was not only a heretic but a sinner to show that grace can redeem even him. This is typical of the evangelical use of conversion stories (a tactic Augustine justifies in his citation of celebrity converts like Victorinus and Sergius Paul). It is most reasonable to conclude that the Damascus story is Lukes theological construct to give the inner meaning of Pauls ministry its supernatural credentials.
We should also note that the recruiting of other apostles came from a vocation call that only gradually led to conversion in their beliefs: Come with me, and I shall make you fishers of men (Mark 1.17). The conversion of the disciples, the revelation of the meaning of Jesus, was gradual, and was not completed even by Christs passion and resurrectionsince they were told that the full meaning of these would be revealed to them only by the Paraclete, sent after Christs ascension (John 15.26, 16.79). Even if we take the Damascus event as literally true, therefore, Paul would be the exception among apostles in undergoing a sudden conversion, as Pratt noticed.41 But there are many reasons for not reading Luke literally. Paul himself does not use conversion language (metanoein, epistrephesthai) of his response to God, but mission and vocation language (kl¯etos, apostolos).42 The Luke story is misleading if it is used to say something not only about sudden conversions but about conversion itself. It is mainly a tale of vocation, not of conversion.
The vocation to which Augustine felt called used celibacy only as a meansas one of the disciplines to free the mind for philosophical adventures. Augustine shows his bent at Cassiciacum in the Dialogue with Myself (line 20) where it is the intellectual life that concerns him.
Augustine, like many Christians and some non-Christians, took the view that concupiscence in marriage was sinful. Admittedly, one was allowed to indulge in sex for procreation, though even that should be done in a decorous way, without losing self-control (T 6.22). But where procreation was not possible, sex in marriage was a sin, though a venial one, for the one demanding the act, though not sinful for the one acceding to the demand (out of what Paul called the marriage debtI Corinthians 7.3).45 Augustine knew himself well enough to recognize that he would not find it easy to be as close to a woman as he was to his sons mother and abstain from sex on all occasions when procreation was not desired and possible. Even if this was only a venial sin in itself, inordinate repetition of the demand could become a more serious matter.46 Besides, repeated sinfulness and indulgence of the flesh would clash too painfully with the pure aspirations he was entertaining for himself and his intellectual soul mates. Marriage would make a mockery of those ideals. If he could not be chaste in marriage, it were better to forgo marriage entirely. It was a matter of all or nothing. His attitude at the time of his conversion is plainly stated in the Dialogue with Myself (17), When asked by Reason if a beautiful and virtuous wife would appeal to him, Augustine answers:
The doubters of the garden story so far cited all work from the contrast between the writings at Cassiciacum and The Testimony. But some have been troubled, more generally, by the artificial presentation of the tale, the pat way conversion narratives surge up opportunely and converge on the dramatic climax to Book Eight. Even the highly wrought rhetorical presentation makes some uneasy about the sincerity of the account. Book Eight does not give us a spontaneous account, but a calculated one. Augustine relishes his storytelling giftsthe heightened alliteration, for instance: volvens et versans me in vinculo (churning and chafing in my chains). Or the epigrammatic paradoxes: crazed to be sane ... dying to be alive. Or the patterns of antithesis: aware of how bad things were with me, unaware of how good ... But if rhetoric of itself precludes truthfulness, then we had better give up on Augustine entirely. He cannot speak at all without using his inmost language, which is rhetoric.
The idea that calculation cannot go with sincerity is naive. Bachs religious music is not insincere because of his immense technical cleverness. Nor is Fra Angelico lacking in piety because he learned Florentine perspective and sophisticated color harmonies. Augustine, in the same way, is a master of words because he sees in their paradoxes the mysteries of the Word. He could describe the souls interior only through convolutions of language he had mastered as a tool for knowledge, not a mere exercise in ornament. The rhetorical presentation of his own turmoil is no different from his highly rhetorical presentation of the life and suffering of Jesus. He is entirely serious and sincere in both.
Of course, everyone admits that some points in Augustines treatment of the garden scene are a matter of imagery, not of reportagethe way lusts pluck at his garment, for instance, or attack him from the back; or the way God wields over him a double whip. No one could think those things were actually seen or suffered in a literal sense. Even more striking is the revelation of Self-Control as a female beckoning him to cross over into the company of the pure. Such personification as a way of representing a moral problem was traditionallike the appearance of the Laws to Socrates, asking if he will disobey them by escaping the verdict of his fellow citizens.49
Well, what about the fig tree? Was that real or figurative? Why mention it at all if it were real? This was not a moment to digress into dendrology. What relevance can the species of tree have to Augustines inner state? Courcelle argued, convincingly, that the fig tree was charged with such scriptural symbolism in sermons and Bible commentary, that Augustine must have that tradition in mind when he refers to the fig tree.
In that case, which scriptural reference was foremost in his mindthe fig tree under which Jesus saw the disciple Nathaniel (John 1.4748), or the blasted fig tree of the parable (Matthew 21.1921), or the fig tree from which Adam and Eve took leaves to cover their nakedness (Genesis 2.7)? Courcelle thinks it is the first of these.50 ODonnell says that it is all three (O 3.5758).
One could go along easily with the idea that Self-Control was figurative, as well as the nagging lusts, and the double whip, and even the fig tree. But Courcelle destroyed the last vestige of literalism when he said that even the voice telling Augustine Tolle! Lege!, even the reading of a crucial Pauline verse, were also figurative. He said that the voice was internal, and the reading was a summary of longer delvings into Pauls work. He found support for this in a textual variant. Instead of saying that the voice came from vicina domo (a nearby house), one manuscript said that it came from divina domo (Gods house).51 But the computer indexing of Augustines words now establishes that domus divina was not a locution Augustine used, with one possible and partial late exceptionhis preferred form for Gods house was domus Dei (O 3.5961).
Besides, if the voice were coming directly from God, why would Augustine not only take the singsong as being chanted by a child, but search his mind to decide whether this was a chant connected with any childhood game he knew? Augustine treats this voice in a way different entirely from the way he responds to his own image of Self-Control. He did not ask himself whether that virtue normally had her arms full of temperate people. He says that Self-Control addressed him in some such words as the ones used, not in the direct but puzzling quotation Tolle! Lege! Unless that quote were exact, Augustine could not have asked himself to make sense of it. The whole presentation of the childs voice is meant to emphasize its literal reality. If there was no such literal reality, then Augustine has been at some pains to deceive us. If we are not to call Augustine a liar, then, we must conclude, as unambiguously as Courcelle concludes the opposite, that the voice was real.
But that does not mean that Courcelles approach is fundamentally wrong. The point is not whether the voice occurred, but what Augustine made of its occurrence, both at the time and in writing The Testimony. After all, other events actually occurred, but were used retrospectively to make theological points in Augustines program for The Testimony. The pear thefts meaning is elaborated far beyond the literal facts involved, presuming (as I do) that there were some literal facts at the base of the elaborations. The same is true for his fathers comment in the public baths, for the death of Augustines friend, and for the garden experience with Monnica. All are the subject of later reflection on their ultimate meaning for Augustine; yet all depart in some way from what can be accepted as a real event.
I would go further, and say that they all have meanings that are linked with the overall structure of The Testimony, and therefore with the book of Genesis. The entire Testimony moves toward the probing of the mysteries of God to be found in the opening book of the Bible. Augustines Testimony is an act of purification from sin, of the kind priests invoke as they prepare to read Scripture in public. It is, then, a prayer to be made worthy, a petition for entry into the sacred revelation. In this light, Augustine is approaching Genesis by a process that attunes him to it, makes him see its patterns in his own life, revealing the relevance of what he has undergone to what he is proposing. It is a case of ontogeny forecasting phylogeny. Each of the events in the book that is given profound theological reflection has a relationship to the Genesis mysteries.
Why is this vivid scene included in the book? Various psychosexual explanations have been resorted to; but the norms of inclusion in this book are primarily theological. Considering how much is omittedall about his siblings, for instance, or his life under Romanians patronage in Thagasteone must ask why this, of all things, is reported. Those who think Augustine is obsessed with sex have answers for thistoo many answers, in fact.52 Few concentrate on what is the most surprising and revealing word in the passage, indutum. Augustine says that he was nude but was clothed in unstable young manhood. Unstable (inquietum) because man is fallen, no longer secure in the garden of Edenour heart, Augustine memorably says, is unstable (inquietum) until stabilized in God (T 1.1).53 He is clothed, as the naked Adam was clothed, in the shame of a damaged humanitywhich Adam tried to cover with fig leaves.
The encounter with his father in the public baths looks forward to Book Eights garden scene, where he moves from the fig tree to Pauls admonition to be clothed (induite) in Christ. That is what happens at baptism. The baptizands, after undergoing a scrutatioan inspection of the body, like (but how unlike) his fathers gazewent naked into the water, to come out on the other side and be clothed in Christ, wearing white robes of regained innocence.
Of course, after long psychological rumination, Augustine concludes that his sin was not really motivelesshe would not have done it alone, so his motive was solidarity with his fellow delinquents (T 2.17). That, too, brings the sin close to Adams, since Augustine argued that Adam was not swayed, as Eve was, by the Devils spurious promisesAdam knew they were false. Then whey did he sin? He did it for the comradely compulsion (socialis necessitudo) of solidarity with Eve.54 There can be no doubt that Augustine wants this scene to be read as referring back to the sin of Adam. He says that the young felons took away huge loads (onera ingentia, T 2.9) of pears, and the hell-raising would hardly have made its mark if only one tree were strippedyet Augustine refers to a symbolic single tree, to underline its relationship with the tree in Eden. A passionless sin is what is at issue when Augustine takes up the heritage of original sin by, in effect, repeating its commission. This puts the pear scene in alignment, as well, with the scene in the baths that preceded it in Book Two. The shame-in-nudity at the baths showed the potential of sin inherited from Adam. The pear theft shows that potential becoming a reality.55
Is the garden scene not true, then? Only if we assume, as too many do, that Augustine is writing an autobiography. He is not. The whole work, and not just the final books, is a theological work, a preparation for the reading of Scripture, for an entry into Gods mysteries which God must himself make possible. The God of Genesis is not a text in the past, but an unrecognized constant in Augustines life, deeper in me than I am in me (intimior intimo meo, T 3.11). The garden scene is based on a real event, as were the scenes in the public baths, in the pear orchard, at his friends deathbed, or with Monnica in Ostia. But they all fit into a larger testimony that celebrates the word of God more than the life of Augustine.
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NYC Parks Events Calendar
Get up, get out, and do something! Just about any day of the year, you can find something fun, informative, and healthy to enjoy at an area park. Feel free to browse the listings below, or use the search tools to find an event that matches your interests and location.
Viewing 1–10 out of 16,621 events
from February 6, 2013 (x) to April 25, 2026
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Repetition in Design
at Queens Botanical Garden, Queens
8:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
A series of oil paintings on canvas along with original sketches by Queens artist Gennadyi Gurman.
Category: Arts & Crafts, Art
Raoul Wallenberg Forest: Care for Young Trees - FULL
at Raoul Wallenberg Forest at 232 Street (in Riverdale Park), Bronx
9:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
Come out and join the Natural Areas Volunteers (NAV) at Raoul Wallenberg Forest to care for newly planted trees.
Category: Nature, Volunteer
Mad. Sq. Art: Sandra Gibson & Luis Recoder Exhibition
at Southern End (in Madison Square Park), Manhattan
10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Madison Square Park Conservancy's Mad. Sq. Art announces a new installation to inaugurate the spring 2013 season: Topsy-Turvy: A Camera Obscura Installation (2013) by Newâ?¦
Category: Education, Art, Kids
Birding for Families
at Charles A. Dana Discovery Center (in Central Park), Manhattan
10:00 a.m.–11:00 a.m.
Experience Central Park as a precious bird habitat and learn how to spot our feathered neighbors on a walk with NYC Audubon.
Category: Birding, Education, Nature
Woodland Discovery Kit in Central Park
at Charles A. Dana Discovery Center (in Central Park), Manhattan
10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Visit The Wild Garden: Discovering Central Park Woodlands exhibit and start exploring the North Woods on your own.
Category: Birding, Education, Nature, Art, Kids
The Wild Garden: Discovering Central Park Woodlands Exhibit
at Charles A. Dana Discovery Center (in Central Park), Manhattan
10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Use this hands-on exhibit to illuminate the history, ecology, and management of the woodlands and learn why these landscapes are so essential to the purpose of Central Park.
Category: Education, Nature, Art, History
Introduction to the Trails
at Parking Area (in High Rock Park), Staten Island
10:00 a.m.–11:00 a.m.
Learn the fundamentals of hiking, get a great workout, and enjoy the outdoors! Please wear hiking boots or all terrain shoes.
Category: Nature, Fitness
The Orchid Show at The New York Botanical Garden
at The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx
10:00 a.m.
Beginning March 2, The Orchid Show dramatically transforms The New York Botanical Garden's landmark Enid A. Haupt Conservatory into a lush rain forest.
Category: Nature, Art
Wave Hill Family Art Project -- Primitive Prints
at Ecology Building (in Wave Hill), Bronx
10:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
Search for prints made by critters venturing out into the March mud and turn them into works of art.
Category: Arts & Crafts, Nature, Kids
Waking Up The Farm at La Finca Del Sur / South Bronx Farmers
at La Finca del Sur, Bronx
10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.
Volunteers and future members, come help clean up, start seeds, plant bulbs, learn about the programs at a women-led community farm.
Category: Volunteer, Women's History Month
Related Information
- Get information on upcoming events directly in your inbox by signing up for our Email Newsletters.
- Know about an event that's not on the calendar? Send us a tip!
- Planning an event and considering hosting it in a park? Make sure to read our Planning an Event page.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Yay! BunnyVoid started a thread! I like your art :3 Hope to see more soon!
Havel Khevah <3 my main original character, who also happens to be my alter ego. This character has helped me reflect a lot on my life. My dreams, anxieties, problems, joys, thoughts, principles, beliefs, and life experiences... we have gone through a lot because i pour my everything whenever i write his story. He is a very personal character.
mysterycookie is callesthe here on mt
emodante is dante13 here on mt
Callesthe owns Yoru, Iriven, Saya, another two friends own Himeko and Leo
i won't be able to make all of these without my experience here on mt and da. thank you all!
(___)0 VOID "Every act of creation, is first of all an act of destruction" - Picasso
Yay! BunnyVoid started a thread! I like your art :3 Hope to see more soon!
Website!: www.ceruleandreams.org
Updated 4/6/13: Please Critique
I think the 3rd pic is my fave
Love the second one. You have a really cool style, I prefer your sketches over your coloured pieces though, they have so much more character! Keep it up <:
Yayayayaayayayayyay, BunnyArt yeah, I think I need to agree with Linz, the pencil sketches you put up feel a lot more organic and have much more emotion and character in them for some reason looking forward to new artwork soon
The kombucha mushroom people, sitting around all day.
meh thank you everyone :3 heheheh will be doing more sketchies then...
let me hug you all :3
(___)0 VOID "Every act of creation, is first of all an act of destruction" - Picasso
aslkdfjalksjdgasdf they are still so cuteee ahahahaha ohh i love those ghosties around yoru, hehe very very awesome draws, i hope you'll get some time to draw some new things as well!!
Havel is so pretty even I can tell as a straight guy.
Havel is still adorable >W<
I am actually Roy Mustang.
wy thank u everyone lololol.
matt that is awesome ;3 at least i know he still has appeal from straight guy population :3 lololol :3
mc yus ghosties :3 hehehhehe :3 glad u like them still ;3
havana Havel <3s u too.
monthes ago, my friend kurimu-tan.deviantart.com grandpa died... so i gave him present
when james wasn't feeling well. me and dante tried to cheer him up ^u^
grimcody.deviantart.com and I have gone through a lot :3 <3 This is his character Cain and my character Qayin :3
mehehehehe and here is iriven, one of Havel's first and closest friends. They get along very well ;3
Havel also gets along well with Dante's Satoshi hehehhe. Satoshi is trying to save Havel from succumbing to his evil side. Dante made inks on this one i did colors OuO
I also get lots of trade with demonfyre, (Yo james we should draw some more! I missing these ;3 hehehhehe u motivate me to draw females)
I also tried to cheer him up after we kindah quarreled >.<
This one is a collaboration comic with http://arrol-lal.deviantart.com/. He wrote this and he is the main character! lololol fun and easy to make. Too bad i got really busy, we dropped it. it was supposed to be weekly comics... >.> OTL
I also had friends from DA fight rp group who i made art for :3 lol :3
And made a thank you art for http://kittylafurr.deviantart.com/ for giving me premium membership
and then greeted others with birthday greetings! heheh ;3 sorry to those i didn't greet while i was away. I PHAILLLL>>> OTL
(___)0 VOID "Every act of creation, is first of all an act of destruction" - Picasso


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Signs of a Good Leader:
1. A leader is confident, able to carefully articulate his thoughts into words and can persuade his audience with ease. Leaders ought to be patient, perseverant and understand human behavior.
2. A leader must be able to interact easily with others in the group.
3. A leader should be able to motivate others and make the group willingly follow his suggestions.
4. Everybody possesses a different temperament, sociability and communicates differently. A true corporate leader can manage people of myriad viewpoints and maintain composure even in sticky situations. It is important to remain calm in the harshest situations.
5. The leader must smoothly steer the dialogue in the right direction and see that it reaches the intended conclusion. Apart from other attributes, it is the crisis management which makes him acceptable to all.
6. A leader is able to tactfully deal with arguments of the participants and provide an opportunity to every candidate to speak their mind.
7. A leader should also be able to demonstrate his intellectual excellence and leadership quality and utilize it to steer the discussion away from the murky waters
8. A leader must be able to express views logically and cogently within two or three minutes.


text:
Food Sale
Black Maca Gelatinized Powder 1 lb
Maca is a nutritious root of ancestral consumption from the heart of the Cordillera de los Andes Mountain range of Peru. Maca grows in an inhospitable region of intense sunlight, violent winds, and below-freezing weather. With its extreme temperatures and poor, rocky soil; yet, over the centuries, maca has evolved to flourish under these conditions. Maca was domesticated about 2,000 years ago by the Incas, and primitive cultivars of maca have been found in archaeological sites dating as far back as 1600 B.C. Because of it's powerful nourishing properties it was one of the most important resources for nourishment in pre-Inkan and Inkan times.Learn More
Our Black Maca is gelatinized. The gelatinization process removes the starches from the maca which increases its digestibility. It also makes it about 15% more concentrated than raw organic maca. In additonal to all Maca's benefits one unique attribute of Black Maca is that it has been shown in the medical study to increase sperm production. Other Black Maca specific benefits are listed below.
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If you have never tried Goldenberries before, you're in for a real treat! From pristine, exotic regions in South America comes one of the world's most unique berries. Still relatively unknown in the natural foods world, Ayni Food's Goldenberries are tart, tangy berries that look like golden raisins.
To produce this unique product, the berries are first hand-picked, then washed, inspected and ultimately shade-dried to the optimum moisture levels.
They are free of any chemical pesticides, sulfur or heavy metals since they are inspected again and tested for purity before packaging. Goldenberries are simply delicious right out of the bag. They also are amazing in trail mixes, desserts, and a wide variety of other recipes.Learn More
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These crunchy morsels are more than just an uplifting snack - Cacao Nibs may be one of the most nutritious foods on Earth!Learn More
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Raw Organic Wheat Grass Juice Powder - 4 oz
AYNI FOODS Organic Wheat Grass is one of nature's most powerful sources of green leafy vegetable nutrition. Just one scoop in your favorite beverage helps you achieve your or recommended 5 to 9 daily servings of vegetables. Dehydrated below 107 to preserve the raw food properties.Learn More
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AYNI FOODS Organic Wheat Grass is one of nature's most powerful sources of green leafy vegetable nutrition. Just one scoop in your favorite beverage helps you achieve your or recommended 5 to 9 daily servings of vegetables. Dehydrated below 107 to preserve the raw food propertiesLearn More
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text:
Brand New 8GB Apple iPhone. It's an OTB (out of the box) 1.1.2 firmware which is activated/jailbreaked
This phone are NOT UNLOCKED
It is the responsibility of buyer to get the phone unlocked.
It comes with all original accessories. Box has been opened only to activate the phone and take pics.
2pcs left
PM for more details
Thanks for looking


text:
A Further Education college in south-west London has become the first European recipient of ETC Unison Paradigm, ETC's architectural control system.
Roger Hennigan, technical sales manager from White Light, the dealer which supplied and installed the system, says: "The college has recently completed an extensive rebuilding programme to construct a 6,000 sq m Sixth Form Centre, including drama and dance studios. The theatre space can be divided into up to three areas, depending on how the tutors want to use it.
"One of the college's stipulations was that the tutors must to be able to quickly and easily control the lighting in any of the spaces. So we specified Paradigm, with its touch screen panels, so that anyone is able to control the house and production lighting regardless of how much training they have had. Alternatively, the better trained tutors, staff and students can use one of the two ETC Ion control desks either in the control room or in the studio and access the same moving and conventional lights."
Paradigm was devised by ETC as a solution to providing the complete control that traditional architectural light products have been unable to supply. The touch screen panels fitted each side of the doors were custom designed by White Light to offer the exact control that the college needs. By dispensing with the distinction between 'architectural' and 'entertainment' functionality, ETC has proved that Paradigm is far more comprehensive and adaptable than regular building and house lighting control systems – bringing greater power to any level of venue.
The Paradigm installation is just one part of a large installation by White Light. For performance lighting control in the main theatre space, the company supplied two ETC Ion lighting desks, providing full control of conventional or moving lights and able to be located in the control room or studio as required. A dimming system consisting of 82 ways of ETC Sensor modules (60 dimmers, 12 contactors) was also supplied and installed.
In the smaller dance studio, White Light supplied and installed a simpler lighting grid again offering 16 amp and DMX data outlets, fed by a 12-way ETC SmartPack dimmer rack controlled by an ETC SmartFade desk.
Lambeth College, London, UK
K College, Tonbridge, Kent, UKETC dealer Northern Light recently finished a technical installation at the newly refurbished and renamed K College in Tonbridge, Kent, UK (formerly West Kent College).View this installation >
Helena Middle School, MontanaThe rigging system in Helena Middle School's 1,065-seat theater was in need of major repair to ensure safety. It had rope rigging equipment with original wood blocks that dated back to the 1930's, five counterweight systems with wire guides from the 1950's, and12 motorized yo-yo-style winches that had been installed in the 1970's. Some parts of the system were even handmade. While the theater and its equipment had been well maintained through the years, the equipment no longer met current industry standards and posed potential safety hazards. ETC Prodigy® motorized hoists brought the theater up to code and provided safe, affordable and compact rigging solutions.View this installation >
Morpeth School, London, UKThe Morpeth School, in London's less well off Tower Hamlets area, specializes in arts and music. The school recently received a financial boost with a £13.5m ($26 million) grant from the local authority, which led to a complete rebuilding program. As part of that rebuild, the school has a new performing arts block -- including three drama studios and a theater that doubles as an assembly hall.View this installation >
Decio Theater, University of Notre DameThe Patricia George Decio Theater in the University of Notre Dame's DeBartolo Performing Arts Center upgraded to ETC's brand-new Unison Paradigm architectural lighting control system in June 2008. The Paradigm processor controls the house and lobby lights at the Decio and, for rehearsal, work and tour situations, also interfaces with the Decio's ETC Expression™ system to enact preset configurations of the stage lights. The 350-seat Decio is the proscenium theater of the five-venue DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, which opened in 2004.View this installation >
University of California, Berkeley, CAZellerbach Playhouse at the University of California, Berkeley, recently underwent a $1.1 million lighting systems renovation — a long-awaited project that equips the school's technical theater program with the latest tools of the trade, including state-of-the-art controls, dimming, distribution and fixtures by ETC.View this installation >
Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PAMuhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is a small liberal arts college with a strong technical theater program. For 15 years, Muhlenberg used ETC's Expression®-family control consoles to handle their stage lighting. With a performance-heavy schedule, and tech students testing their lighting design know-how on a variety of shows, Muhlenberg has now graduated to ETC's new Ion®.View this installation >
H2O, Fort Worth, TXThe Disney Channel's blockbuster original movie High School Musical has become a phenomenon across the country and is creating more buzz with its live version, High School Musical: On Stage, with more than 1500 grade schools and high schools showing interest in staging the production. Disney selected two high schools in Fort Worth, Texas, to perform the musical to be filmed and featured in a 'docu-musical' – called High School Musical: The Music in You – airing this fall as part of a public affairs initiative in association with the NAMM Foundation, a non-profit organization that advocates for musical education. To support the schools and the work of NAMM, ETC donated the lighting equipment for the production.View this installation >
Novosibirsk State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet (NSATOB), Novosibirsk, RussiaThe Novosibirsk State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet (NSATOB) is the biggest theater complex in Russia, a whopping 670,000-square-feet larger than the Bolshoi (Big) Theater in Moscow. It is also now one of the most technologically advanced in the country thanks to a recent $5.6 million government grant for renovation.View this installation >
MTSU, Murfreesboro, TNAs universities and academic performing arts centers employ increasingly sophisticated lighting rigs, they need powerful lighting consoles to control them. And consoles themselves become essential learning tools within the curricula of lighting-design and theater-technology programs. Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) is among the most recent schools to add ETC's new Eos lighting control system to its program.View this installation >


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Glock Square Rear Sight 6.1mm .240" Height Steel Black White Outline
Suggested Products
Product Information
All factory Glock rear sights are interchangeable and elevation changes are made by switching out the rear sight (all factory Glock front sights are the same height). A shorter rear sight will lower the point of impact, whereas a taller rear sight will raise the point of impact. A one-step change (up or down) in rear sight height on a Glock 17 will result in approximately 2.4 inches of impact difference at 27 yards.
Glock rear sights are identified by markings on the right side consisting of one or more horizontal bars. A single bar indicates the most common rear sight height: 6.5mm (.256 in). A long bar with a short bar beneath it indicates a 6.1mm (.240 in) height and a long bar with a short bar above will measure 6.9mm (.271 in) high. The tallest of the factory Glock rear sights is the 7.3mm (.287 in) with markings consisting of a long bar with two shorter bars above the long bar.
Standard Factory Glock Rear Sight Heights:
Customer Reviews
The statements and opinions expressed within Customer Reviews reflect each author's personal perspective and do not imply endorsement by MidwayUSA, its Employees or any other organization. Customers should in no way infer that MidwayUSA has validated review information as safe, accurate or appropriate.
We reserve the right to correct typographic, photographic and/or descriptive errors.


text:
How Will WAN Optimization Help My Network?
An ideal WAN optimization solution will allow you to prioritize traffic and guarantee a certain amount of available bandwidth for mission critical applications. Wide-area network (WAN) optimization describes applications and products used to manage and accelerate the flow of data across a wide-area network (WAN). In this Webopedia slideshow you'll learn more about some of the specific technologies used in WAN optimization.
WAN Optimization Defined
A Wide-area network (WAN) is a computer network that spans a relatively large geographical area. Typically, a WAN consists of two or more local-area networks (LANs). Computers connected to a wide-area network are often connected through public networks, such as the telephone system. They can also be connected through leased lines or satellites. The largest WAN in existence is the Internet.
WAN optimization is an important part of network management because it allows you to prioritize traffic and guarantee a certain amount of available bandwidth for mission critical applications. Complete WAN optimization solutions allow a business to do much more than simply queue the bad traffic. They can block unwanted (in and outbound) traffic, allow it at certain time during the day, give priority to certain hosts, and enforce many other related policies. They will optimize the actual traffic as well, providing lower latency and higher throughput for the most critical applications.
VPN: Virtual Private Network
Wide Area Networks can accelerate application performance and increase throughput and increase network and bandwidth scalability in addition to application performance. An ideal WAN optimization solution will allow you to prioritize traffic, and guarantee a certain amount of available bandwidth for mission critical applications.
One optimization technology, VPN tunneling or Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), is used to avoid packet delivery issues in shared WAN environments. This technology enables one network to send its data via another network's connections. Tunneling works by encapsulating a network protocol within packets carried by the second network. This WAN optimization technique is important for any business that transmits business-critical data over a public network.
WAN Technologies
An ideal WAN optimization solution will help to manage and accelerate the flow of data across a wide-area network (WAN). Some of the specific technologies used in WAN optimization includes: data compression, data prioritization, streamlining data protocols, deduplication to eliminate redundant data transfers, caching, VPNtunneling and other technologies. Using WAN optimization offers increased network and bandwidth scalability, improved application performance and high availability.
Bring it all Together
An ideal WAN optimization solution will allow you to prioritize traffic and guarantee a certain amount of available bandwidth for mission-critical applications. Complete WAN optimization products let a business do much more than simply queue the bad traffic. It's important that employees have access to the data and applications they need over a wide area network as if they were on the local area network. Using application acceleration, wide area file services (WAFS), and WAN optimization, businesses can increase productivity and save money by reducing server and storage sprawl and the number of necessary software licenses.
Congratulations! You now understand how WAN optimization works and the benefits it can provide to your business.
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text:
B&B Le Giron de l'Isle
Quebec City, Quebec Bed & Breakfasts
located 25 minutes from the old Quebec, you will enjoy the cosy comfort of the countryside. Our newly renovated home, located 1400 feet from the main road and by the St.Lawrence River, offer you all the modern comfort you are looking for.Private bath...
US $110 Per Night
Motel Le Luxembourg
Quebec City, Quebec Hotels & Resorts
At 3 miles from Quebec airport and 10 miles to Old Quebec,Close proximity to restaurants and shops,You will find 33 rooms with private bathroom in each unity. Adapted for wheel chair. Some with Queen bed and whirlpool and some with kichenette ,Suites...
Starting at C$ 69 Per Night/Room
Large Country Homes, around Quebec City, Canada
Quebec City, Quebec Vacation Rentals
Our rates can be as low as $25 per person, per night, at maximum occupancy on a 3-5 or 7-night stay. Large Country Homes for rent near Quebec City, Canada. Chalets can accommodate from 12 to 80 people each and contains from 4 to 32 bedrooms....
Starting at US $1,500 Per Week
Old Quebec elegant small hotel
Quebec City, Quebec Hotels & Resorts
Located in the heart of Old Quebec, Le Château de Pierre is a small hotel recognized for its English Colonial style. The 15 rooms follow the rich and warm styling of the early 1900's....
C$ 135 Per Night
Friendly Family Motel
Quebec City, Quebec Hotels & Resorts
Family owned and operated.Situated between Quebec & Charlevoix. 25 modern units with private bathroom and color t.v. with cable. Many tourist attractions & activities nearby.We offer tours of Quebec City and whale watching in Charlevoix.See you soon...
US $72 Per Night
SKI IN / SKI OUT Château Mont-Sainte-Anne
Quebec City, Quebec Hotels & Resorts
Chateau Mont Sainte Anne offers a ski-in/ski-out location at the gondola of Mont Sainte Anne and only 20 minutes from Le Massif; two mountains of international reputation with the most impressive and picturesque skiing area in East of the Rockies. By...
Best Western City Centre/centre-ville
Quebec City, Quebec Hotels & Resorts
Our downtown location, unbeatable rates and quality amenities make staying at our Quebec City hotel an easy choice. ...
US $171 Per Night
Hotel Le Priori
Quebec City, Quebec Hotels & Resorts
A New Hotel In An Old Building, Delightfully Modern And Innovative. The Rooms Are Refreashingly Different. A Wonderful Mixture Of The Very Old, The Very ...
US $199 Per Night
Royal William Ascend Collection
Quebec City, Quebec Hotels & Resorts
The Royal William Ascend Collection located in the trendy New St. Rock district of downtown Quebec city is Quebec/Jean Lesage International Airport (YQB). ...
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Hotel Chateau Laurier
Quebec City, Quebec Hotels & Resorts
Conveniently near the airport, Hotel Chateau Laurier is in the heart of Quebec, within walking distance of Battlefields Park, Parliament Building, and ...
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Hotel Pierre du Calvet
Montreal, Quebec Hotels & Resorts
La Maison Pierre du Calvet offers luxurious rooms, a gastronomy table with a prestigious selection from its wine cellar, access to its impressive library, its indoor garden and terrace which breath with comfort, sophistication and originality....
Starting at C$ 295 Per Night
Auberge La Camarine Inn
Beaupré, Quebec Hotels & Resorts
Hotel La Camarine Inn is located at the foot of the Mont-Sainte-Anne ski resort, near Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré and at less than 30 minutes from Quebec City....
Starting at C$ 99 Per Night
Quebec:Saguenay and Charlevoix Bike - Freewheelin
Saguenay River, Quebec Bike Tours
Seven days. Cycling, hiking, and optional kayaking. Cycling is on quiet rolling paved roads and bike paths around Lac St-Jean, with one day in the hilly riding in the Charlevoix region, and a stunning hike along edge of the Saguenay fjord....
Starting at C$ 2,495 Per Person
Ekocamp International
Montreal, Quebec Summer Camps & Programs
Ekocamp is a Canadian traditional summer camp with an emphasis on learning either French or English. Our summer school and language camp offer youth (10 to 16) a wide variety of activities. Join us and discover what summer was meant to be....
Hôtel Universel
Gaspe Peninsula, Quebec Hotels & Resorts
Services • Atrium • Piscine intérieure, 3 spas, 2 saunas • Coffret de sûreté • Service de bagages • 7 salles de réunion • Centre de conditionnement physique • Service de télécopie disponible à la réception ($) • Servi...
A real jewel of style and elegance
Montreal, Quebec Bed & Breakfasts
The Hotel Le Pomerol with its ultra-design décor filled with finesse and warmth is a real jewel of style and elegance. As you will pass our doors, calm and well-being will overtake you. ...
US $105 Per Night
Fully furnished & equipped suite in Montreal
Montreal, Quebec Vacation Rentals
Luxury touches sparkle against the dark hardwood floors in the beautiful Cosmopolitan apartment. With an open concept design that flows wonderfully from the dining and kitchen area to the living area, everything you need is right at your fingertips...
Starting at C$ 2,100 Per Month
Heavenly Quiet Peaceful Restful Montreal Nights
Montreal, Quebec Vacation Rentals
A 1st Floor "HEART OF MONTREAL" private designer's home on the sunny side of a quiet "tree lined street'. A Bob Dylan type "BIG BRASS BED", all totally renovated with a full size kitchen with all major appliances even a clothes washer....
Starting at US $95 Per Night
Quebec city tours
Acton Vale, Quebec Sight-Seeing Tours
We are dynamic, attentive, licensed Quebec City tour guides driven by a passion for the history, the architecture and the general culture that make Quebec City what it is....
Starting at C$ 26 Per Person
Quebec: Eastern Townships - Freewheeling Adventure
Eastern Townships, Quebec Bike Tours
Moderate. Seven days. Hilly cycling through Qu�bec's lovely south, with luxurious lodging, outstanding cuisine and the prettiest forests and farmscapes in Central Canada....
Starting at C$ 2,795 Per Person
|Link Code


text:
Digital Cinema Arts is cutting edge communication. It is technology. It is pixels, bits, CCDs, algorithms, lasers, and liquid crystal displays. But that's just one part of the picture.
At its core, Digital Cinema Arts is imagination. It is vision and creativity. It is collaboration and synergy. It is drama, suspense, beauty, and meaning. Although we surround ourselves with the tools of our trade, and while they are an integral part of what we do, Digital Cinema Arts at Lindenwood is fundamentally about the art of storytelling. The technology is important, but in the end it is merely a means to transmit the medium. The LCDs and software of today are no more constant than the vacuum tubes and typewriters that were part of our lives not long ago. The ability to craft a compelling story, on the other hand, is timeless, enduring, and one of the most valuable skills for any professional communicator.
The Digital Cinema Arts degree at Lindenwood is designed to give graduates broad and useful knowledge and experience. In the core classes, students learn principles that are the keys to everything from creating an entertaining movie to producing an effective informational video. Each student tends to forge a unique career path, and the opportunities that exist now might not be the opportunities that exist after graduation. But whatever the opportunities may be, the abilities to meet challenges, engage audiences, provoke thought, and elicit emotions will always be at the top of the list of qualifications.
The success of Digital Cinema Arts students is built on three strong foundational pieces:
|1827-2014 Lindenwood University • 209 S. Kingshighway • St. Charles, MO 63301
|Switchboard (636) 949-2000
Undergraduate Admissions (636) 949-4949
Evening & Graduate Admissions (636) 949-4933


text:
By Mr. Moore, petition (accompanied by bill, Senate, No. 1340) of Walz, Turner, Puppolo and other members of the General Court relative to the eligibility of certain faculty for contributory group insurance of public higher educational institutions [Joint Committee on Public Service].
|Referred to Joint Committee on Health Care Financing


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Shoot a (non-explosive) fireworks light show from your fingertips!
Marble Copter is a light up flying toy that is great for nighttime fun. Fling the copter high into the air using the rubber band wand. It flies up to 50 feet in the nighttime sky, lights up and glows, as the light reflects off the hologram wings, and then helicopters to the ground.
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There are no upcoming Signature Events scheduled at this time. Please check back soon! You can view a list of upcoming community events here.
Past Events
Local teen raises funds for UNC Lineberger with "Monday after the Masters" golf tournament
High school senior Evan Norfleet organized a memorial golf tournament in memory of his grandfather, Dr. Edward A. Norfleet. Funds raised will go to UNC Lineberger to fund pancreatic cancer research.
27th Annual Lineberger Club features longtime UNC fundraiser, cancer survivor Jamie May
"The UNC Lineberger medical staff, volunteers, and donors who have made UNC a leading center for cancer care and research have saved my life and those of many, many others. They tend their garden with remarkable dedication and extraordinary competency. Indeed, medicine, as practiced in the N.C. Cancer Hospital, is a North Carolina treasure."
Charli Ramsey Hat Drive donates over 1,800 hats to the N.C. Cancer Hospital
Elizabeth Stewart honors her daughter's memory with an annual hat drive for pediatric oncology patients and bone marrow transplant patients at UNC.
"Corona Cares" contributes $150,000 to patients, families dealing with cancer
Funds from the campaign will support programs that benefit patients and families receiving cancer treatment at the N.C. Cancer Hospital.
Fast Break Against Cancer raises nearly $180,000 for cancer research and treatment
Coach Roy Williams' 9th annual Fast Break Against Cancer kicks off basketball season with live auction breakfast event.
Rackets raised for cancer
A high school student organized Serve For the Cure tennis tournament to raise money for UNC Lineberger.
Sell-out crowd kicks off Blue Ribbon Gala
UNC Lineberger kicked off its Blue Ribbon Gala on September 27, 2013, gathering more than 450 people to celebrate advancements in cancer care at UNC. The black-tie event raised more than $225,000 for UNC Lineberger.
Pedal for Peds raises money to support UNC's Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology
On Saturday, September 21 over 100 bicycle riders from all over the Carolinas participated in the 4th Annual Pedal for Peds (pronounced pēds) bike ride.
Get Heeled 5K raises over $53,000 for UNC Lineberger's Pediatric Oncology and Hematology Clinic
On September 14, over 1,000 people gathered at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill for the Get Heeled 5K to walk, run and raise money for UNC Lineberger's Pediatric Oncology and Hematology Clinic.
Lucky 13 bicyclists finish coast-to-coast ride and surpass fundraising goal
UNC Lineberger is lucky to have such dedicated volunteers. This year, for the fourth time, a group of intrepid young men, organized a summer trip to raise funds for UNC Lineberger.


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Army contract
Seventy contract awards to 43 companies were made by the Army as part of a $495 million contract for chemical and biological defense.
The U.S. Army Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense made the awards in multiple domains including acquisition, logistics and IT support.
The awards were made in December. A number of contractors won awards in multiple domains, bringing the total number of contractors awarded this contract to 43.
The office that awarded this contract is the Joint Services advanced developer for research, development, acquisition, fielding and life-cycle support of Chemical and Biological Defense equipment and medical countermeasures, according to the GSA's FedBizOpps website.
Here are the winners on the award, broken up by domain category:
Acquisition Domain:
B&A Domain:
E&T Domain:
IT Domain:
Logistics Domain:
Medical Domain:
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Mark Hoover is a staff writer with Washington Technology. You can contact him at email@example.com, or connect with him on Twitter at @mhooverWT.
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Join Washington Technology's Editor-in-Chief Nick Wakeman as he analyzes the annual Top 100 list and reveals critical insights into how market trends have impacted its composition. You'll learn what movements of individual companies means and how the market overall is being impacted by the current budget environment, how the Top 100 rankings reflect the major trends in the market today and how the biggest companies in the market are adapting to today's competitive environment.
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So do I get to decorate ??
Hmmmm.....plush sofas and chairs with ottomans in soft teal and sandlewood. Enough for all.
Large windows and french doors leading to a veranda with huge pots dripping with flowers....delphiniums and lilacs...
Ocean view.....beach just a few hundred yards away.
Balmy breezes and calm surf always.
Butlered drinks and snacks 24/7.
Music to just float with....
And a "come to you" full service spa at our beck and call.
How's that?
Could we have any more different ideas......??
Hey.....I'll plunk my butt down on anything..leather, plush....whatever....
I'm thinking beautiful soothing blues, greens, dashes of warm goldenrod and mellow roses.
And the clean smell of the ocean combined with the wood burning fireplace.
Damn. FSA is going to have a fit.
I'm stressing here.... nothing A-related, but life is just sucky right now and I think my H's PA behavior is contributing to his lack of focus i.e. failure to get a job. Who was it on here that said they were tired of being the one taking care of everything?
Hmmmmm..... Calgon take me away....
Who was it on here that said they were tired of being the one taking care of everything?
Thanks SVS and BT for your well wishes on the stupid PAP. Miner thing in the big picture, but just pisses me off.
Shirley - Take good care of yourself. I just had a slight cold over the holidays and it sucks. If you're hacking up a lung you must really be feeling crappy. Lots of fluids and TLC!
OK, ocean front digs it is! I'm overruled on the winter lodge it looks like. I'm just as happy on the beach.
I know FSA is going to be pissed. Sorry hon! We'll leave a whole room for you to decorate.
Check out the new digs!
Rustic nordic lodge by the sea, surrounded by high cliffs and the only sounds being the cries of the gulls and the waves lapping at the edges. Safe and cosy. Beautiful.
Just a few weeks left till the 30th. You are going to be just fine.
Their PA gets us everytime, doesnt it? Its so difficult to ignore when it affects us directly. H was supposed to send his suit in for drycleaning over a month ago. Usually I would just take it in, but now I am learning to let go. If he asked me to, I would, but he hasnt. He keeps reminding himself, but doesnt do it. I am not stressed because it doesnt affect me. Before it would have irritated me no end, and I would have just done it, but now....
On the other hand, he had promised after dday1 that he would get a new job. His present one is with the same company he has been with for the last 10 years. I hate their work ethic, and also it is a link to OW#2 and that situation.
Now theres a possibility that he may go back to his old regime of staying away for the week, and coming home on weekends. Not his choice but there you go.
I am furious! We have built up a new family system with him being home everyday. The kid and I like it. we feel like a family. He helps with the kids and the house etc. To go back to doing everything myself again...
We wouldnt be in this position if he had found a job close to home like he promised he would...1.5 years ago!
He says he will sort something out..we'll see.
Shirley, plenty of rest and fluids.And lots of time hanging out here with us!
Hey FSA! You can get the next one, ok?
And how did the church class go anyway??
We'll leave a whole room for you to decorate.
Another work day, better go.
If a man says something in the woods and there's not a woman there to hear it, is he still wrong?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try. -- Yoda
HB, We also had to change many patterns. I do not jump and do it all now. Had to learn to just not react immediately and take everything on.
He is taking on things that he never would have thought of....like always calling on his way home to see if I am still tied up and we need anything from the store. And like Lost, I no longer react about things don't get done that really don't pertain to me.
Read somewhere that having a cold is the psyche's way of getting a rest and being able to "cry" in public with no explanation.
A bit "out there".. but hey, whatever makes it easier.
Hope you feel better.
LMAO!!! Im sure this functionalist theory was written by some fucktard group of academics all banging their little academic assistants! What a crock of shit! talk about coming up with a theory from your one brain to serve the other brain!
Lost - have you talked to your H about keeping his promise to look for a job closer to home?
Oh Fnf, we had this conversations so many times in the beginning, then he missed his deadline and asked for an extension of another 6 months, then that deadline went on the wayside too. I didnt hassle him the first time, cos by then I had gone deep into the abyss, and attempted S. The 2nd one slipped by because by then they had landed a client in London, and wanted him to handle that project.So he has been home ever since, and I really couldnt complain. How do you say that the company itself triggers you? That I dont like it when they ask him about work from the former client (where OW2 was)as I feel it brings al that back to both of us.
Yesterday he recieved a Xmas card from old place wherein the woman whom I suspect he had an EA with, also signed it. It just feels like we will never be able to leave all these women behind. Last night I dreamt about OW1, and woke up this morning feeling hopeless.
He said he will sort it out, and I guess like OTC said, I have to surrender to it. Let him prove himself.Hopefully he will get this right this time.
After the masseuse and facials, we will do tea. But no unhealthy stuff! Its green tea (euwww!),muffins (bran, pecan, carrot), theres a fresh juice bar as well, and muesli.Oh and just for BT,some weetbix!
HB. My H has been out of work since last July. He had garden leave for the first three months, so that was fine. He then actively pursued a job (probably in the same way as he pursued OW relentlessly) and has one starting next week. I loved having him home, but I have a real problem with doing those domestic tasks with him around. I know that OW wouldnt have been ironing, washing floors, having washing hanging around the house, etc, etc and I WANT WHAT SHE HAD. On the other hand, Im back to him being away at nights again. Groan, trigger, sigh.
Oh, can we have some of those nice fluffy white towelling robes and slippers? Saves the fag of dressing and undressing all the time for our treatments.
Nothing big, but I walked to the garage, took the sledge hammer and pounded the crap out of it. It felt Great!!!!
And I worry when H goes to work. That was where and when A started/continued. They don't work together anymore and he says her office moved to a new location further away.....But I am not sure that is the truth. If not she works across the street. Too close for comfort IMO.
When will I stop obsessing about her and move on? How will I ever really know that they are NC?
OK, now I am PMSing and it is so difficult right now. This too shall pass.....keep saying that over and over. Will it?
Maybe I should get out the sledge hammer again!!
I mean he expects me to be responsible because I am. Just one of the catch-22s, either I'm capable or I'm not. It's something he "admired" in me, and then used against me. He whined to MC early in R that I was so "needy" he didn't recognize me.
I haven't been miss patty perfect since leaving work. I haven't done it all around the house and he "dings" me about that too. He says it's "joking" (again). Then tells everyone how tough we have it now that I'm out of work. A full year's salary of mine in the bank no less.
Lately, all I've asked him to do are things that I don't really care if they get done... will he stop and get me cigarettes or milk. And rather than ask straight out, I go round-a-bout. Like "Are you planning on stopping on the way home, because if you do, I'd like (blank)." Why can't I just say "do me a favor and stop for milk or bread." Why do I worry that he has to go out of his way for me?
If it's something I need done immediately and he's watching tv or writing bills, I have to wait until he's done. I just hate his anger and the way he expresses it.
When will I stop obsessing about her and move on? How will I ever really know that they are NC?
I could have written that. My wh adn the ow worked together as well. He is a nurse and she was a tech on teh same floor. She moved to a new floor a year ago (he thinks). Says he never sees her. But in realiy, they are in the same hospital He wil see her eventually. But will he tell me? He says he will. But he got a brief email form her a week after dday saying "where are you???" and he deleted it adn never told me. I found it. For all I knwo he coudl have responded. He says he never read it and deleted it and forgot about it.
I think therehas been so much betrayal and lying that for him to be doing so well now is hard to believe, hard to buy. I am alwasy worried that I am missing some sign. I wonder if I will ever get over this and would it be beter to just start over fresh with someone new. But then there are kids involved and he is very willing. It's so had.


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text: Check Wimbledon off the list. The ongoing British quest to claim a first men's -- sorry -- gentlemen's singles title since 1936 at last ended Sunday with Scotsman Andy Murray's victory over top-ranked Novak Djokovic. I'm not sure I've ever sat down to watch a Wimbledon match for reasons of wondering whether a Brit would win it, but then again I'm not British. Still, it has been a running storyline at Wimbledon for as long as I've been watching it, and I go back to the McEnroe-Borg classic in 1980. At least it was something to talk about, whether or not Murray, or before him Tim Henman, would end the drought. But now he has so what's next? When was the last time a Frenchman won it? Or a Cuban? Or for that matter, an American? What will Wimbledon talk about now? We've seen a lot of famous sports droughts end in the last decade. A lot of teams or players or even people of certain nationalities or ethnicities have done what for a good while we collectively surmised they were incapable of doing: winning a title. And it's either made for a great story or ruined one, one of the two. ** The Boston Red Sox blew apart the so-called "Curse of the Bambino" with their World Series title in 2004, and for good measure added another win in 2007. ** For the first half of his career, Peyton Manning couldn't win the big one. And then he did, in 2006. ** LeBron James just wasn't, you know, "clutch" enough, until he was, winning the last two NBA titles with Miami. And so on. Europeans don't win golf's U.S. Open, but now they've won three of the last four. European captains can't win the Stanley Cup, and then Nicklas Lidstrom does. Jim Boeheim doesn't know how to win the big one, and then, in 2003, he wins it. (That was 10 years ago already?) We fudged the unwinnable Grand Slams of golf and tennis with Tiger Woods and Serena Williams, but no one could win four straight majors, until they did. Phil Mickelson, his mettle long questioned in the big events, has won four majors! Dome teams have won Super Bowls. Wild-card teams have won Super Bowls and World Series. An eight-seed won the Stanley Cup! Is there anything left to wonder about? I suppose there is. The Chicago Cubs haven't won since 1906 and they're not about to win either. The city of Cleveland is still looking for its first major sports title since 1948, and there have been some famous close calls. And, oh look, there's Buffalo. I've said it before, I like these droughts. They keep things interesting. You can talk about and wonder whether or not a certain athlete or team is flawed in an irreparable way. Wimbledon is a good test for me, in a way. I enjoy watching tennis and always have. It's a big sport in my house. Through the 1990s I often watched the big tournaments, but not always. Then, in 2003, Roger Federer showed up on the scene and changed everything. The shots Federer could hit were indescribable for their difficulty, yet he pulled them off with style. Yes, Federer has won more Grand Slam tournaments than any other man, but I don't think it's that that lines analysts up to call him the best ever. It's his shot-making. He raised the game. Djokovic and of course Rafael Nadal have beaten Federer more than their fair share of times. But neither carries the same amount of flair or genius onto the court, and, likewise, neither is as enjoyable to watch. So now, as Federer gradually disappears from the top ranks, it feels to me and many others that the game has lost something. It's not as fun to watch without him, and I dare say it's also less fun than it was before he showed up because of how the standard changed. And now this Murray storyline is dead. He can win majors, and has. Even Wimbledon. I guess for that one you don't have to watch anymore. If you really love a sport, you probably don't need these catchy angles like droughts to draw you in. You'll watch it anyway and imagine what could come next. But the subtractions of these stories test my passion for sports, and often I end up wondering whether I love them much at all. I've often said, while it's been frustrating to put up with Buffalo's sports inadequacies over time, I'm glad still to have the championship chase to care about. Once we win one, I don't expect to care about it as much. My whole ethos in Buffalo sports is and always has been built on how we've never won a title. Crack that and all bets are off. Still, you have to root for that.


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Best Blogs: Outdoors Junkie November 25, 2008
I think I have the solution for our no-snow situation
Posted by Ann Driggers Saturday, Nov. 22 at 7:36 a.m. • Despite making what I thought was a very valiant and quite public plea to summon snow two weeks ago, absolutely…
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After personally having gone through some of the world's most popular diet scams, before finally hitting upon a solution that gave me real results (Fat Loss Factor), I know how much pain a person can go through, when they put their trust in a weight loss program only to never get the results that they were promised.
With Fat Loss Factor I finally came to the realization that losing weight wasn't easy and that there were no such things as overnight successes. The key to losing weight is following a real diet plan that is full of healthy and nutritious foods and working out on a regular basis. Simple, hard but extremely effective.
But imagine if someone was offering you the dream of never having to eat healthy foods or exercise a day in your life and still be able to get into the best shape of your life?
Now while you and I may finally have realized that there is no shortcut on the path to losing weight there are millions of people out there that fall for these scams every single day, thinking that they will get amazing results if they put in the work.
So here are some of the world's largest diet scams, some of which I fell for too:
1. Fat/Carb Blocking Pills
Are you in the mood for a plate of pasta, covered with some thick cheese? Well, now you can eat all you want because all you need to do is pop a pill and all your worries are gone!
But wait on a minute that is just a lie that the maker of these so called fat/carb blocking pills will want you to believe.
The most popular of these types of pills is one that goes by the name of Alli, which tells you that it will prevent your body from absorbing any fat by giving you things such as severe stomach cramps, chronic gas, persistent diarrhea. You will be amazed that all of these side effects are included in their marketing campaign, where they recommend that you actually remain patient until your body warms up to the chemicals that are in the pill.
Well, you may be wondering whether these side effects are worth it. Truth be told, no. Simply because there is no evidence that these kinds of pills actually help a person to lose and keep off fat for long periods of time.
2. Kimkins Diet
Yes, on the surface this diet looks truly amazing. It's based on the extremely famous diet known as the Atkins diet, but not only do you reduce the amount of carbs you eat but also the amount of fat, fiber and overall calories.
So if you literally have to reduce every aspect of your diet then what on earth are you going to be left to eat? The truth is not too much. Believe me the meal portions that are recommended on this diet are close to starvation level which is no way to go if you actually want to lose weight.
To add to the scam of this insane diet is the fact that the woman who created this diet has never revealed who she actually is. Reports claim that this woman has no health related credentials and instead of stopping people from continuing on with this terribly unsafe diet, she has continued to sell the idea that people will lose weight if they keep eating dangerously low portions of food.
And those so called success stories that you will find on their site? Well, you will be amazed to know that all of them are just pictures of random Russian mail order brides…. ha!
3. Herbal Weight Loss Teas
There are a lot of people out there that claim that you can lose the vast majority of your excess body fat simply by drinking things such as green tea. The reality is that it can be true for a short period of time.
The reason is that drinks such as green tea contain caffeine in them, which is one of the most power natural diuretics that you can get. So you may think you are losing weight when you get on those scales but the reality is quite different. You will gain all that weight back once you drink a glass or two of water.
The only time drinks such as green tea will help you lose weight is if they are a replacement for high calorie, sugary drinks such as coke.
4. Diet Patches
Yes, there is some evidence which suggests that tobacco patches actually work, but no evidence to suggest that diet patches work.
Essentially these patches are about as useless as the pills I've mentioned above, with there being zero evidence that these so called chemicals that help you to lose weight will even penetrate through the skin.
Don't waste your time or money with this useless weight loss gimmick.
5. Body Wraps / Sauna Suits
There are some crazy people out there that really want to get everything that they can out of a workout session. Even going as far as wearing a silly suit in the pursuit of trying to lose weight. The only kind of weight that you will ever lose with these kinds of suits is water weight.
So believe me, while you may lose a little water weight by putting on one of these suits, the reality is that you will put that weight right back on the moment you drink a few glasses of water.
So there you have it, some of the most common and ridiculous scams out there that claim to help you lose weight.
If you are at all serious about losing weight and keeping it off, I'd recommend the only program that bought about real results for me. I lost over 100lbs and counting with a program called Fat Loss Factor. Check it out if you want.