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Do you like the idea of relaxing to amazing live music with picturesque water views? Get ready to enjoy some gorgeous Newburyport summer nights featuring awesome live music when you attend the Yankee Homecoming Waterfront Concerts. The 2018 concert series runs from Sunday, July 29th through Saturday, August 4th. Check the concert schedule and read more about your favorite bands below. You will find a few that everyone associates with the Yankee Homecoming Waterfront Concerts, and a couple of cool new surprises too. Grab your chairs and blankets and come experience the Yankee Homecoming Waterfront Concerts with your friends and family!
If you are looking for some fun things to do in Newburyport before the free live concerts we recommend a walk along the boardwalk, a visit to the Custom House Maritime Museum, and shopoing at our many inviting local shops. If you prefer, you could relax on a comfortable bench and enjoy the live entertainment in historic Market Square!
During Yankee Homecoming Waterfront Concerts and throughout Yankee Homecoming there is delicious food to enjoy from vendors and a wide variety of superb restaurants in Newburyport. Enjoy the Yankee Homecoming Waterfront Concerts, a free live music series on the water, a Newburyport tradition!
Sunday July 29
6:00-7:00 PM – Fourshadow – High School Battle of the Bands winner
7:30-9:00 PM – Slainte (slan-chuh) Irishspeak for cheers!
Monday July 30
6:00-7:00 PM – Sierra & Andrew
7:30-9:00 PM – Overdrive Horns
Tuesday July 31
5:30-7:00 PM – Way to the River
7:30-9:00 PM – Annie Brobst
Wednesday August 1
6:00-7:00 PM – The Coal Boilers
7:30-9:00 PM – B-Street Bombers
Thursday August 2
6:00-7:00 PM – River Valley Ramblers
7:30-9:00 PM – Beatlejuice
Friday August 3
7:30-9:00 PM – Fortune
Saturday August 4
6:00-7:00 PM – David Corson
7:30-9:00 PM – Compaq Big Band
See below to learn more about the 2017 Yankee Homecoming Waterfront Concerts Bands.
Sláinte is a group of 9 friends and musicians, specializing in upbeat Irish folk music. Formed in a dorm room at Boston College, Sláinte has been entertaining crowds throughout New England since 2012, and New York/New Jersey since 2017. With upbeat sets featuring a wide range of tunes from Irish classics to Dropkick Murphys covers, and everything in between, Sláinte always brings the craic!
Overdrive is an eight-piece band with a tight and incredibly funky rhythm section as the driving force behind a killer four-piece horn section that features two… trumpets, woodwinds, and trombone. Dance music from the past three decades, music by Chicago, Tower of Power, the Average White Band, all the number one brass-rock hits, and a large selection of swing and songs from the Stax and Motown eras make up an exciting and exhausting performance.
After moving to North Shore Massachusetts from the Midwest in 2007, Annie Brobst has become one of New England's most talented country singer/songwriters. Her first full-length CD "My First Rodeo" was recently released with much acclaim. In 2017, she was named New England Music Awards' "Female Performer of the Year" across all genres and she is also currently New England Country Music Award's "Local Female Artist of the Year" (for the 2nd consecutive year).
Celebrating 35 years performing live music, the B Street Bombers has been one of the most highly sought after show bands in the Boston area, bringing high energy, world class music to any venue! Formed in 1981, the band is enjoying an unprecedented successful run, and the band has received tremendous notoriety of an outstanding level of musicianship.
Beatlejuice doesn't mimic the Beatles, they honor them! Widely recognized as the finest interpreters of Lennon & McCartney, Beatlejuice combines wonderful vocals, great musicianship and true respect for their heroes. Playing special tribute to the late Brad Delp will be friends Mike Girard and Joe Holaday (Newburyport's own) of "The Fools" along with Jim Rogers, Buddy Bernard, Steve Baker, John Muzzy and Bob Squires. This will be an evening of celebration, love and remembrance and the greatest rock 'n roll music ever written.
Fortune is an 1980s rock band that had a number of hits including "Airwaves" from The Last American Virgin movie soundtrack and from their second 1985 album release including: "Stacy," "Dearborn Station," and "Thrill of it All." This 6 piece band has a reputation for smooth 3 and 4 part vocal harmonies and some of the most talented musicians this area has ever produced. They play hits by Queen, Journey, Boston, Led Zeppelin, and some originals.
The internationally acclaimed Compaq Big Band is an authentic 20-piece big band, with that classic big band sound. They've kept New England swingin' since 1975, with a big band repertoire that begins with the classics from the 30s and 40s as performed by the bands of Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and other greats. They balance instrumental charts and horn features with vocal numbers such as those popularized by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Bobby Darin, Frankie Randall, Nancy Wilson, Diane Schuur, and many more.


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Multiple Teams · Scottsdale Christian Academy Girls Varsity Golf finishes 2nd place
Wednesday, August 23, 2017 3:00 PM Place 2 Points 0 Meet Recap Big Shout Out to our Girls Varsity Golf Team for coming up against a very strong Chaparral Team this afternoon. Not only do they have last yearâs State Champion but two other Seniors both going to college to play golf. The SCA Girls

subset: commoncrawl


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Projects sometimes don't get done very quickly around here. I have a tendency to procrastinate and waste time, looking at stuff on the computer or reading and sometimes napping! All I accomplished all day is putting the binding on that scrappy baby quilt.
It looks cute with the orange binding and a little more quilting.
I put an edging on the small embroidered piece that I showed last time. I took this picture before I glued it to the canvas…just in case I mess it up!
That's the sum total of my accomplishments for today. Yawn…maybe I'll get a nap in, too!


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The New York Times on Saturday published an unintentionally hilarious article from Molly Worthen entitled "Can I Go To Great Books Camp?" The article went through all of the conservative educational programs that teach classic texts in a serious way, including several well known to Power Line readers, such as the Claremont Institute's Publius Fellows, and the Hertog Fellows program (both of which have featured moi as an instructor). In fact, several of the young conservatives Worthen mentions in the story I've had in some of these seminars.
Worthen thinks that liberals ought to have similar "great books" programs for its young people:
Liberals have their own activist workshops and reading groups, but these rarely instruct students in an intellectual tradition, a centuries-long canon of political philosophy. Why have philosophical summer schools become a vibrant subculture on the right, but only a feeble presence on the left? The disparity underscores a divide between conservatives and liberals over the best way to teach young people — and, among liberals, a certain squeamishness about the history of ideas.
Here Worthen veers close to the heart of the matter, but doesn't quite get there. It isn't that liberals are "squeamish" about the "history of ideas." Liberals are actively hostile to the history of ideas, and even when not actually hostile, liberal professors tend to teach the great books in a manner guaranteed to bore students to death. The decline in the number of humanities majors over the last 50 years coincides with the steady rise of the politically correct university. This is not merely happenstance.
Still, we can give Worthen one of modern liberalism's standout achievements—a participation trophy—for some of her unironic observations:
Instead of mocking conservatives' ideological echo chambers and self-regarding fantasies, progressives should learn from them. For one thing, higher education should include a bit of self-regarding fantasy. . .
These conservative seminars make an enormous impact simply by taking students seriously. "They're not at the children's table," said Tom Palmer, who directs Cato University, a program that mixes undergraduates with midcareer professionals and retirees. "No one pinches their cheeks and tells them how cute they are."
There is another insight here: the power of teaching the canon. Most of these programs conceive of the canon far too narrowly, but the canon is an elite debating society that anyone can join. It shows students that the struggle for freedom and justice began long before the 1960s, and that this deep history lurks beneath today's policy debates.
Unfortunately, at most universities, studying political philosophy has become a form of countercultural rebellion, a discipline marginalized by courses in supposedly practical subjects like business and communications. Campus activists may learn organizing strategies and the argot of identity politics, but few study the history of their own ideas.
Worthen would do some good if she would openly state whose fault all this is. (Don't blame the business and communications departments.) But for now, we conservative thank the narrow-minded and shriveled souls of the humanities professoriate that have created a market niche.
One revealing part of the story is how liberal attempts to copy conservative programs have floundered:
A few years ago John Halpin, a fellow at the Center for American Progress, started the Progressive Studies Program. His reading list ran from early Progressive reformers to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Port Huron Statement on to President Obama's Nobel acceptance speech. But he could afford to bring students together for only a day or two. Soon his resources dried up altogether. "It's hard to get long-term funding for ideological training of this sort" from liberal donors, he told me. "We get a lot more support for demographic work."
Naturally. When you think you're on "the side of history," why would you ever look back to see how we got here—or where we might have taken a wrong turn? Being a liberal means never considering we've made a wrong turn.
P.S. While liberals might try to copy conservative programs in great books and great ideas, I'll bet none of them will dare copy the Claremont Institute's Publius Fellows Program, which allocates a day to visit a gun range. Heh.
PAUL ADDS: I once heard Jonah Goldberg tell a story that bears on this post. It went something like this:
A journal of political thought asked five conservatives and five liberals for contributions. Collectively, the five conservatives presented a pretty full array of the various strands of thought that represent conservatism. The five liberals all wrote about how to win the next election.


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Brave or stupid? The art of the breakaway attempt
If you have ever seen the end of a Tour de France stage you will probably know what happens to most breakaway attempts, and it is not pretty.
With the peloton looming like a hungry killer whale behind a seal, a small group of riders who have been clear all day are chased and then devoured by the fast-moving main field, often in the last few kilometres.
Successful or not, escapees work much harder than if they just stayed in the pack and almost always get no reward for their extra efforts. It begs the question, 'why bother?'
"Nine times out of 10, the long break fails," said Jens Voigt,
a veteran competing in his 16th Tour at the age of 41.
"It can be bitter or it can be glorious. But you have got to try it 10 times to make it work once."
Voigt, part of cycling legend as much for his many failed breakaway attempts as his successful ones, initiated the only day-long escape to succeed so far in this year's Tour – in
when a larger group made up of 18 riders from 14 of the Tour's 22 teams got clear.
But the veteran German, who was the first rider to break away from the main field when he
burst away inside the first 2km of the 191km [118 mile] stage,
did not get any glory to go with his Tour stage wins in 2001 and 2006.
He was dropped by his fellow escapees with 15km to go as
Italy's Matteo Trentin went on to take a memorable victory,
leaving Voigt to plan his next attempt.
Why some riders try a long break
If you are not a specialist climber or sprinter, a contender for overall victory or a member of a team that has one, then a long-distance raid for a stage win offers your only chance of Tour de France success. And it can make a huge difference to the life of your average 'domestique' or support rider.
Why else go in a break?
As well as chasing individual success and financial reward, riders in breaks also know they will enjoy plenty of publicity for their team sponsors from the TV cameras – airtime which can prove crucial for the survival of smaller teams.
Teams might also send someone up the road to earn some points in the mountains or points category if it benefits a team-mate, and do the same to set a team-mate up for a stage win or tee up a decisive move in the general classification.
was an important moment," RadioShack Leopard Trek rider Voigt told BBC Sport.
"I was suddenly a more respected rider. I had proved myself. The next day, I had the top riders like Lance Armstrong and Mario Cipollini coming up to me in the peloton and saying 'hey man, that was nice, you deserved it'. I was like 'wow, how cool is that?'.
"And yes, as a nice side effect, I also raised my salary. That is important because, along with having a passion for the sport, I had to feed my family."
And why some don't
Chris Froome's Team Sky team-mate Geraint Thomas told BBC Sport: "The sole reason I am at the Tour is to support Chris.
"We are rarely in breaks if you have a rider who is a contender for the general classification, because you have got to protect him and control the race.
"I could get in a break and go for the stage win but the team could be of the opinion that, although that would be great on that particular day, we are in the Alps in three days' time and they need me to be going well then. So they say 'take it easy today and think ahead'.
That is not an attitude with which everyone agrees.
"There are a lot of teams that just don't want to go in the breaks any more," the FDJR team's sporting director Marc Madiot said
in an interview with American magazine Bicycling during the 2012 Tour.
"They are not interested because they are riding for the general classification. They want to save themselves. They are not that motivated.
"But if you go to the Tour and you are told that you cannot go in any breaks, that you are just there to work for somebody and that you have the right to do nothing else, wow, you might as well work in a factory."
Making the break
Continue reading the main story
"Knowing when I can get away in a break is experience but also instinct. I sometimes have a vision before it happens."
Jens Voigt
RadioShack Leopard Trek rider
Getting in a breakaway is not only a matter of accelerating off the front of the peloton as soon as the stage starts.
The size of the break matters, as well as who is in it, because both play a factor in its strength and whether it will be allowed to continue.
Riders will not be allowed to get clear if they offer any threat to the general classification, or are contenders for any of the other jerseys.
"For me now, knowing when I can get away in a break is experience but also instinct," explained Voigt. "I sometimes have a vision before it happens – I see it in my mind when I will attack – I go 'yes, that is the moment' and I feel nothing can go wrong."
For Thomas, how he and his team-mates police the escapees differs depending on the profile of the stage.
"On a flat stage, the group that goes will probably be quite small – maybe four or five guys because they know there is going to be a bunch sprint and there is no real point going in the break. Publicity is probably the only reason they bother.
"There are other stages where you know in advance that the break could stay away – these are the ones that people like Tommy Voeckler are in and they are a bit more tricky – everyone wants to be in it.
"That's when you are racing for two hours full gas from the start of the stage to make sure the right break goes away, which is what people back home don't really see if they only see the second half of the stage on TV."
That was the scenario at the start of Saturday's stage, when the pace of the main field was kept high – at an average speed of 47.9km/hr (29.8mph). It was the fastest first two hours of any stage of this year's Tour – because Euskaltel and Lampre, two of the teams who did not have anyone in the break, were unsuccessfully trying to prevent it from establishing itself.
Why some breaks work
Saturday was an example of the perfect storm for a breakaway win, especially
coming immediately after Friday's thrilling day of racing against crosswinds that had blown the peloton apart,
and ahead of a potentially decisive stage in the shape of
Sunday's mountain-top finish at Mont Ventoux.
The initial break by Voigt and two other men was not allowed to get more than a minute clear because other teams wanted to get in on the action.
Jens Voigt – the old man and hard man of the peloton
Jens Voigt
Grevesmuehlen, in the former East Germany
The man:
Berlin-based father of six, renowned for his catchphrases and entertaining interview style
The rider:
A 'rouleur' or all-rounder, not strong enough in the mountains to be a contender to win the Tour but known for his many breakaway attempts
RadioShack Leopard Trek
First Tour de France:
Total Tours:
Tour stage wins:
Days in yellow jersey:
Total race or stage wins as a pro:
But, after 42km, 14 other riders bridged a small gap to join them, meaning the group was big enough to stay clear when Euskaltel and Lampre tried to peg it back. It now contained enough different teams [14] to ensure nobody else wanted to help with the chase, and was also evenly balanced. Four teams had two riders represented, but nobody had more than that.
The stage's profile was not mountainous but was too hilly for the out-and-out sprinters like Mark Cavendish, so their teams had no interest in chasing down the break to launch Cavendish into a bunch sprint. Quite the opposite in Omega Pharma-QuickStep's case, in fact, because they had a man in the break in the shape of Cavendish's room-mate Trentin, who went on to take the win.
And the break contained nobody who was a threat to Team Sky, Saxo-Tinkoff or Belkin, the three teams contesting the general classification – the highest placed rider was American Andrew Talansky, who began the day 17th overall, 13 minutes and 11 seconds behind Froome.
"On stages like that, we look at the break and look who is the best man in it," added Thomas. "If he is a long way back then we let it go, and nine times out of 10 it does stay away."
Once Euskaltel and Lampre had realised they were not going to catch the break, it was left to Team Sky – as the team of the man in the yellow jersey – to keep things in check.
They brought the peloton in just over seven minutes behind Talansky, without burning any valuable energy by trying to catch him, but always keeping the race under their control.
And why they usually don't
On the flat stages, the sprinters' teams are the ones who take charge.
"If it is mid-Tour, the best guy in the break could be 20-odd minutes down," said Thomas.
Geraint's glory
On the track:
Double gold medallist in the team pursuit at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics
On the road:
National road race champion in 2010, and claimed his first pro win in the five-day Bayern-Rundfahrt race in 2011. Thomas also won the prologue of the 2012 Tour de Romandie and stage two of the 2013 Tour Down Under, finishing third overall
On the Tour de France:
After Bradley Wiggins abandoned the 2011 Tour with a broken collarbone, Thomas went with a break on stage 12, eventually finishing 36th but winning the Tour's Prix de la Combativite award, given to the most attacking rider of the day
"That is perfect for a team like us with a contender to win the general classification – we will let the break take the stage and they can have 15 minutes on us, and the sprinters' teams know it. We don't have to tell them!
"So we kind of let the break go straight away and don't care.
"Basically, the sprinters' teams take control from the start and have guys riding at the front of the peloton. It is sort of a little day off for Team Sky and the other teams going for the general classification."
As Team Sky did on Saturday, the sprinters' team manage the break. They do not want the gap to get too big but, equally, do not want to catch the break too soon.
If they do, other splinter attacks occur in the closing stages that are much harder to catch –
that scenario saw Jan Bakelants win stage two.
Most of the time, however, the hunters get it right. And the hunted men up front usually know when the game is up – not that they ever throw in the towel.
"I normally know a long time before I am actually caught whether I am going to make it or not," added Voigt. "Generally speaking, the peloton takes back a minute per 10km back when it starts chasing the break.
"So, using that rule, most of the time you basically know you have got no chance.
"But did that ever stop me? No way! I always think 'Jensie, you have been out there for 150km, why should you just give up?'.
Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/23303269


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Legal bills, live streaming and throwing drinks over Alan Carr: How to publicise Monty Python's last hurrah according to John Cleese
What do you do if you've got an £800,000 legal bill to pay? Well, if you're Monty Python, you go on tour again, that's what. Oh, and throw your drink over Alan Carr.


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The End of Gender
A Psychological Autopsy
This erudite review of multiple enactments of gender in the wake of "pomo," or postmodern, theory is an impressive tour de force. Dedicated to "sexual nonconformists and those who love them," it argues that the "mutually impenetrable" fields of psychoanalysis, postmodern theory, evolutionary biology, and anthropology have much to gain from sharing their insights with one another. People must move beyond outdated, socially constructed binary models and closed disciplines in order to understand how sex and gender have become permeable, mutable expressions of identity in the twenty-first century. Queer theory, the author argues, offers the most integrated, comprehensive understanding of gender identity and sexual orientation because it synthesizes the insights of all fields and is limited by none.
A discipline that rejects all categories, queer theory welcomes all sexual identities without giving preference to any. It is, the author argues, "forever indeterminate, a never-ending work-in-progress." Breaking down all hierarchies, it continuously opposes existing modes of thought; if it once allowed itself to become defined, it would become its own enemy. Therefore, it may be more of a "disciplinary stance" than a discipline in its own right because its role is to "expose and critique underlying cultural structures for regulating sexual behavior in all disciplines."
Each chapter looks at a different discipline's core theories about how gender identity develops and what constitutes a healthy person. Concise summaries of Freud, post-structuralism, and French feminist theory combine with keen critiques of each theory's strengths and weaknesses to posit that predetermined, unyielding categories of sex and gender create tragic misunderstanding and great unhappiness. The author bases her argument on cases from her own practice as a psychoanalytically oriented psychologist as well as on an impressive body of research. At her best when discussing her own case studies, she offers an array of cogent data to invalidate rigid sex/gender roles. When a lesbian patient worries that her sexual identity requires her to gain weight, for example, we understand the limitations imposed by stereotypes.
The book occasionally strives too hard for wit, and it could benefit from a subject index. This weakness, induced by the dizzying array of topics covered, only makes it hard to locate one's favorite bit and might slow the efforts of those who want to use it as a reference tool.
The author's first book, Myths of Motherhood: How Culture Reinvents the Good Mother (1994) has had a largely unheralded, yet nonetheless influential, effect on contemporary discourses about motherhood and its role in our culture. This current volume of gender theory offers a similarly wide-ranging, intelligent analysis that can serve as an introduction to the issues while also making its own, unique contribution.
Reviewed by
Elizabeth Breau
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the author for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255.


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20 Interesting DIY Entryway Benches Ideas
An entryway bench is must-have furniture in every home, that can take many forms. It gives you a place to sit and put on your shoes and also to set items when coming into the home. One of the best things about creating your own bench is that you can customize the length and height of your bench to your liking!
So, If you are a person who loves to keep everything neat and tidy, here are 20 interesting DIY benches ideas, that will not only look wonderful in your mudroom, but also increase storage capacity.
1. Build a Bench with Shoe Storage
Not only does it look great but it is so useful.Full Tutorial: boxycolonial.com
2. Shanty Hall Tree Bench
This is a really nice piece of furniture that looks antique! Full Tutorial: shanty-2-chic.com
3. Turn a Cheap Cabinet into Nice Bench
We can say that Mindi turned an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan.
Full Tutorial: myrepurposedlife.com
4. Crate Bench
Made from simple wood crates, screwed together, add feet and wood stained top and paint.
Full Tutorial: operationhomeblog.com


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And that's the lot ready for Monday!
I hope that you have enjoyed this brief glimpse into my initial force and resources for Dux Britanniarum. I am now going away to create some character profiles for my heroes ready for setting off on the campaign trail. Whether Mike and I will do that Monday or just play a practice game, I don't yet know. Whatever happens, I hope to take pics and write a report following Monday's game, so tune in next week to check that out.


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Aussie Schools Introduce Make Up Lessons For Students
In an unorthodox move, some Australian schools have introduced make-up lessons for their students to try and help them cope with the pressures from social media.
Some secondary schools claim students are being influenced by online beauty experts who offer make-up and beauty tips.
Make-up artist Larissa Jones has held workshops in Australian schools told the ABC:
'We've hit an era with YouTube just blowing up with beauty bloggers. It's really important to speak to the young girls,'
'[It's about] helping them realise you've got the power to change how you feel about yourself on the inside.'
Ms Jones has already held workshops in more than 30 schools across the country.
The courses focus on 'inner-beauty' and showcasing kindness, as well as learning better techniques to apply make-up.
Following a session at Karoonda Area School, in south-east South Australia, one student revealed the impact workshops had while getting ready for a school disco.
'When I finally finished (putting a themed outfit together) I hated what I looked like'
'I was frightened of what people at my school would think of me, but then I remembered the self-talk I remembered from Larissa Jones.'
'I started to say good things to myself such as: you look amazing, you are unique, who cares what people think - saying all of this gave me enough confidence to go to the disco.'
'Without Larissa's help I would have never had the courage to go,' the girl concluded.
Among Australia's top make up influencers are Shani Grimmond, Michael Finch and Jaz Hand who have millions of followers on YouTube alone.
Daily Mail


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- Home
- Government
- Departments
- Economic Development
- Manufacturing Day
Manufacturing Day
The City of Dublin is participating in the annual nationwide Manufacturing Day event on Friday, October 5, 2018.
If you are a Dublin High School student or teacher, or a member of the community interested in attending a Manufacturing Day tour or lunch reception at the Robert Livermore Community Center, please contact Suzanne Iarla at 925-833-6650.
If you are a manufacturer located in Dublin, CA and would like to open your facility for a tour, or exhibit at the lunch reception, please contact Suzanne Iarla at 925-833-6650.
Thanks to Logo Boss and AMP Printing for participating in Tri-Valley Manufacturing Day 2018.
Tri-Valley Manufacturing Day 2018 is a regional collaborative effort between local educational institutions, participating manufacturing businesses, and the cities of Livermore, Pleasanton, and Dublin. Our goal is to celebrate modern manufacturing and inspire the next generation of manufacturers. The event features facility tours and presentations at Tri-Valley manufacturers, as well as a lunch reception and exhibit of manufacturers. Selected local high school students from the Tri-Valley Regional Occupation Program, students from Las Positas College, and members of the SME Silicon Valley Chapter will be attending the facility tours. These participants will also be joining the lunch reception and exhibit of various manufacturing businesses in the Tri-Valley area.Manufacturing Day was created to tell the story about the importance of manufacturing in the United States economy. Manufacturing jobs are high wage and high growth. In addition, manufacturing is a driver of the East Bay economy, contributing 70,000+ jobs, and is an important segment of Dublin's economy.
Read the Manufacturing Business & Employment Overview for Alameda County and City of Dublin.


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Tim Lucas / Video WatchBlog
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Ancient Artifact
Thanks to Joe Dante.
Posted by
Tim Lucas
Saturday, April 16, 2016
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Chernobyl 25th & Syrian democracy
Thu, March 31, 2011
Here's a quick round-up of some diva-related media:
The democracy movement is going off in Syria and you might want to check out Holly's new Syria program - just released from Globe Trekker.
Check out the unstoppable Kiran Bedi, featured in Adventure Divas' documentary 'Holy Cow,' in her recent TED Talk.
Babushkas of Chernobyl. This month is the 25th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident (and let's hope Chernobyl keeps that title). Check newsstands for MORE magazine's 'A Country of Women' about the old ladies who refused to leave their contaminated homeland. Also, Globe Trekker "Ukraine," presented by Holly and featuring some of the babushkas, is airing nationwide on PBS throughout April.


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Google has done it again by releasing yet another excellent online API - Google Chart API. If you're easily frightened by that three-letter acronym, just see how easy it was for me to create the following diagram.
So what spell did I cast? Oh I just took this URL:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=t:83.0,17.0&chs=400x200&chl=Fake (83%)|Real (17%)&chtt=A+study+shows+83%+of+all+statistics+are+made+up+on+the+spot.
and stuck it into an img tag. Now that wasn't so hard, was it?
Ok, now you're wondering what all those URL parameters mean. For your benefit, here's what they stand for. :)
cht = chart type
chd = chart data
chs = chart size
chl = chart label (only for pie charts)
chtt = chart title
Want to know even more? Well, that's what the Google Chart API homepage is for. ;)


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|Sighting Report
|Occurred : 8/31/2011 00:00 (Entered as : 08/31/11 0:00)
Reported: 8/30/2011 10:16:54 PM 22:16
Posted: 10/10/2011
Location: Ardmore, OK
Shape: Triangle
Duration:2 minutes
|Triangular craft with three red lights hovering and then circling areas in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
I walked outside for a moment to sit on my back porch, and thought to see a normal red light similar to that of a helicopter. It was coming from the east and heading west. It started heading south and then turned back to head east. It stopped and hovered over my porch. It was lower than a normal airplane and made less noise than an airplane would. It did not make the same sound as a helicopter. When it stayed above my head, higher than my house, but lower than a normal airplane for a moment, I noticed that the one bright light was three. It was shaped like a triangle.
I ran inside briefly to grab my son and husband. We came out side and watched it hover for a moment and head back southwest. It went towards the main city, but moved back southeast. It circled an area before it became out of sight.


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Written by Cindy McNett
The NY Capital Region Road Race is a hill-lover's dream. A circuit race over a twenty mile loop, with several steep wall-climbs, winding descents, and 2 sharp 45-degree turns.
As I surveyed the fit-looking women at the starting line of the Pro 1/2/3 who all appeared to be half my age, I wondered why I was there and what was going to happen to me. This nonsense was quickly shelved as the race got underway and full concentration turned to the task of completing 2 laps and staying with the lead group.
The 3 mile neutral zone led us to the start/finish line, where the racing began. Almost on cue, it began to rain – HARD. All I could see and hear was water spray. Flying down the steep rain-slick descents on egg-shell carbon and faith, everyone was cautious. Up the wall-hills, holding position, trying not to roast my legs. People were falling out of the group, and on one particularly steep wall, 2 riders got away. What remained of the main group organized and tried to reel them in, mile after mile in the rain, passing remnants of the men's fields.
At some point I looked up through the spray and realized the rider just ahead was right behind the pace car! Loop 2 started as we passed the start/finish area, and got into the wall-climbs. Then IT happened, cresting the top of a steep hill. I shifted into the big front chain ring anticipating the down-hill, and dropped the chain. I had to unclip, put the darn thing back on, while watching the coveted top-five finish glide away over the next hill.
Back on the bike now and in full chase-mode, I caught up to the trailing end of the group but didn't fully latch on. On the descents they rolled away, and incrementally the gap got larger.
By good fortune a strong rider named Meagan appeared out of nowhere and we helped each other. I could climb, and she was fabulous on the flats. We could see the leaders but never closed the gap. The last 2 km sported a series of short steep uphills, where I pulled away with whatever I could muster at that point. Nothing on my mind now except dry clothes and HOT coffee!!
This race was great fun, well organized, and well-marked, with a marshall on every corner. I would definitely recommend it!


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Blue Monaco Crochet Handmade Woollen Beret Hat
Regular price Rs. 2,399.00
Rs. 2,399.00
As winter is on its way and to avoid the chilly winds why not try something new this season. Give yourself a treat this winter try our handmade crochet hats and give yourself a vivacious look. Simply slip it on your head and you are to kill the chill.
Care Tip : Wash them only when required. Dry clean them before storing for the next season. Use mild soap to wash them when dirty. Do not keep in the direct sunlight.
Style Tip : Wear this with your neutral color (white, beige, black, brown ) winter garments.


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I'm privileged to be heading to San Jose for another Networking Field Day. The event spans April 5–7, 2017. Presenting sponsors include Gigamon, IP Infusion, TELoIP, and VMware. Just prior to the event I'll be posting a presenting sponsor preview and shortly after I'll cover some of the more interesting and beneficial points that I discover in the process.
In addition, I get the added bonus of meeting some folks whom I've not had the company of before. These include Drew Lentz, John Welsh, Kevin Blackburn, and Nicolas Michel. These fine folks will be there in addition to some friends that I just haven't seen in quite some time. You can view the full list at http://techfieldday.com/event/nfd15/
Join the Discussion
You can join the discussion on twitter and I highly recommend you follow the live stream. Tweet me your questions and I'll make sure they get asked. The Field Day events are a great way to learn about new technologies and discuss cutting edge ideas. If you'd like to be delegate please visit http://techfieldday.com/delegates/become-field-day-delegate/


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Rob reviews Anders Nilsen's BIG QUESTIONS #13 (Drawn & Quarterly).
With the thirteenth issue of BIG QUESTIONS, Anders Nilsen is clearly starting to bring a narrative and thematic conclusion to his sprawling series.  This is the first issue that I can recall that had a guide to the expansive cast of characters on the inside flaps, reminding the audience of who's doing what and why.  There is a density to this comic packed into its 48 pages that we hadn't seen in most of the recent issues that plays out in the way Nilsen depicts light and dark.  Above all else, BIG QUESTIONS has been about belief and doubt, and the ways in which things we can't understand inform our belief systems.  The interplay between light and dark has been a reflection, at a basic level, of the ways in which various characters have approached existential conflict in the series.
That trend continued in the first story, "The Seat of the Soul".  A number of the birds still worshiped the airplane that fell from the sky, and this densely cross-hatched story finds a number of birds sleeping on the plane at night.  One of them accidentally turns on the radio, which causes home base to try to talk to the (absent) pilot.  This scene is fascinating for several reasons: it's a moment where the bird (Eusippius) is struck by both the fear of god and utter bafflement that the plane sounded like a person; it's a moment of high slapstick as Eusippius frantically tries to shush the radio; and it's a bit of an infodump from Nilsen as plot points start to get filled in as to whom the pilot is and why he crash-landed.
The long segment with the pilot forms the center of this issue's structure, as the birds try to come to terms with the pilot's nature.  Some view him as being hatched from the giant bird (the plane) and hence as a sort of messianic figure.  To his great bafflement, one bird even left him worms outside his tent as a form of obeisance.  Another bird reasoned, from a more narcissistic point of view, that the humans were jealous of the birds for not being able to fly, and that the "giant bird" was nothing more than a "flying house" built by the humans.  There's a fluidity to these pages, as Nilsen crams up to 10 panels on a page yet doesn't use panel borders.  That creates a continuity between each panel, playing up the stippled detail on the ground (as well as the rubble, which Nilsen loves to draw) and contrasting it with the panels where he zooms in either on the pilot or on one of the confused birds.
The final segment of the book swings between darkness and light, as Algernon, a bird nursed back to health by a snake with mysterious motives, finally decides to head back above ground after being tended to beneath a tree.  This has been the most interesting but vaguely defined relationship of the series, as a natural predator went against its instincts to help what should be its prey back into a robust state.  The mysteriousness of the snake is subtly portrayed by its blank eyes, reflective of its environment and in direct contrast to the black dots of Algernon's eyes.
With the series ending after #15, this current issue felt like a series of set-ups for a final collection of confrontations.  What will be most interesting is to see how the physical confrontations will affect the spiritual and philosophical dilemmas that have formed the backbone of the series.  Are the belief systems so hardened that physical manifestations will have no impact on them, are they mutable enough to incorporate new information or are they brittle enough to fall to pieces if enough temporal evidence is amassed to smash them?  Those are the questions I'm most interested in seeing Nilsen answer as BIG QUESTIONS, one of my favorite series of the past decade, winds down.
Tags: Anders Nilsen, Big Questions, Drawn & Quarterly, Review


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Reviving Gustav Hasford
You may not remember Gustav Hasford's name but anyone who has seen Stanley Kubrick's film Full Metal Jacket knows him. Not only was the film based on Hasford's Vietnam novel The Short Timers, but Hasford helped write the Academy-Award nominated screenplay. In addition, the main character, the wise-cracking Marine journalist Private Joker, was based on Hasford himself.
Of course, the question of how much of the script Hasford wrote was a bone of contention between the author and Kubrick. As Hasford once said in response to Kubrick's offer of an "additional dialogue" screenwriting credit, "Those fuckers retyped my novel and tried to put their names on it!"
No, Hasford wasn't an easy man to get along with. Even though Hasford was self educated on an endless number of subjects, he never graduated from high school because he stubbornly refused to take the graduation exams for his diploma. He fought with Kubrick for years over the movie and about receiving credit (with Kubrick once stating, "I can't deal with this man"). In addition, Hasford was arrested in 1988 for stealing hundreds of books from libraries in the United States and around the world. When Hasford finally died in 1993 on a Greek island from diabetes and aegina-related problems, he was nearly broke and living by himself in a run-down hotel.
If Hasford had a focus to his life (aside from his writing), it was his decision to enlist in the Marines during the Vietnam War. As Hasford later wrote, "The South is a big Indian reservation populated by ex-Confederates who are bred like cattle to die in Yankee wars. In Alabama there is no circus to run off to, so we join the Marines." After working on a stateside military newspaper for a while, Hasford requested a transfer to Vietnam. From these experiences would emerge his most famous novel, The Short Timers.
When Hasford's first novel was published, it received rave reviews but sold only a few thousand copies. The story is told in the same type of short, staccato writing that Hasford wrote for military newspapers while in Vietnam. This style pulls the reader through as if every word and description hinged on adrenaline-fueled rage. As Harlan Ellison wrote about the book, "It is one of the most amazing stretches of writing I've ever encountered."
Unfortunately, Hasford's novel is now out of print and, without the movie version of the book, would probably be forgotten. This is a shame. Philip Beidler, a professor of English at the University of Alabama and recipient of the Eugene Current-Garcia Award for Alabama's Distinguished Scholar, has called the book a work of "indisputable genius.'' Others have ranked the novel along such Vietnam literary classes as Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato and The Things We Carried and John Del Vecchio's The 13th Valley.
Anyone interested in Hasford's life and writings should read "Mangling Frail Civilian Sensibilities: The story of Gustav Hasford, literary snuffie" by Jason Aaron. Originally published in Aura, UAB's literary journal, and in The Viet Nam War Generation Journal, this article is a fascinating introduction to this almost forgotten writer. Aaron is Hasford's cousin and reprinted the article on a website he has devoted to Hasford, which is Aaron's attempt to keep alive the literary reputation of this Alabama novelist. The website also features complete online editions of all of Hasford's out-of-print novels, including The Short Timers (and its highly praised sequel, The Phantom Blooper).
As one of the initial reviews of The Short Timers stated, "Read it if you dare."