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On March 20, 1990, in the middle of the night, paramedics were called to the de Cordova home at 1875 Carla Ridge Road, in the Trousdale section of Beverly Hills. Freddie de Cordova, the executive producer of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, and his wife, Janet, a leading local socialite sometimes referred to as the Duchess of Trousdale, were asleep in their separate bedrooms. The problem was downstairs, in the servants' quarters, where Gracie Covarrubias, the longtime housekeeper, was trying to revive her husband, Javier, who was dying of a heart attack. When the paramedics arrived, they muted their sirens. Javier was removed on a gurney and driven to Cedars-Sinai hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Early in the morning, Gracie Covarrubias returned to the house, and at eight o'clock Freddie de Cordova appeared at the breakfast table. He began to go through a pile of newspapers and the Hollywood trades, in preparation for his ritual midmorning phone call with Carson, in which they discussed the headlines that might make fodder for Carson's monologue that night. Gracie fixed de Cordova's breakfast, then, according to a close friend of the de Cordovas', "waited until after he ate to approach him, saying, 'Mr. De, I have something to tell you.' Freddie asked, 'What's that, Gracie?' She said, 'Javier is dead.' Freddie was stunned. He said, 'Why didn't you call us?' Gracie said, 'I didn't want to wake you up. I called the police, and I told them not to use their sirens.' She added, 'I didn't want them to wake up my lady.'" Janet de Cordova, a late riser and a heavy user of sleeping pills, was still in bed. Gracie, as usual, took her her breakfast tray at precisely nine o'clock.
"Of course, Janet was very disturbed when she heard Javier had died," the late Dominick Dunne, a friend of Janet's, told me. "It got to the point where Gracie, after all those years working for Janet, was very well known to the Beverly Hills set. This is one of those stories where the servants become more than just the help."
Michelle Phillips, the former Mamas & the Papas singer, who was a protégée of Janet's, recalls, "Janet kind of freaked out. She kept screaming, 'Where is he?' But that was Gracie. She always kept the messy things away from Janet. She wanted everything to be like a flowery sweet bouquet for her. She took on the problems herself and kept Janet's world running smoothly."
According to Dunne, "In Trousdale, there is a kind of urban legend. If you say 'Javier is dead,' it's like a code for a certain generation. They know exactly whom you are quoting, what you mean. It's like something out of Trollope or Edith Wharton—a lady and her maid. Janet could be a very demanding and difficult lady, but there was something special about her bond with Gracie."
"Attached at the hip" is how Nancy Reagan, another of Janet's friends, characterizes it.
When Johnny Carson retired from The Tonight Show, on May 22, 1992, an era also ended for the de Cordovas. Freddie had produced the show for almost 25 years. Although he stayed on for a brief period as a consultant to Jay Leno, Carson's successor, his importance in the Hollywood hierarchy—chief gatekeeper to the most revered man in the entertainment industry and executive producer of NBC's most profitable late-night hour—was over. It was a tremendous blow to his ego. "Leno paid Freddie a pittance, maybe $500 a week," Janet told me in 2009, shortly before her death, with bitterness in her voice. (An informed source says the network paid him more than three times that amount.) "Freddie started to dress in the worst way," she continued, "ordering clothes from these horrible catalogues, wearing white shoes and black socks, even though he had closets full of Carroll & Co. suits. He was worrying about me—letting me spend on my clothes, and he would dress cheaply. It was getting pathetic."
Carla Ridge, as they called their pavilion-like modern house, had been a glittering hub of L.A.'s social scene, and the thought of giving all that up was hard to take. "We were living high off the hog," said Janet, whose spending was legendary.
"Everything with Janet had to be big and the best," says her friend Betsy Bloomingdale. "If it was caviar, it had to be big caviar. She always had wonderful things—Lalique, Baccarat—and did wonderful things, always with Gracie behind the scenes, making sure it was the way Janet wanted it."
"Janet was an absolute perfectionist," says Joanna Carson, the third wife (1972–83) of Johnny Carson. "Everything in its place. If an ice bucket on the bar was one centimeter out of place, she would veer over, pass by, touch it back into place, and say something to Gracie or one of the other girls who worked there—I think there were always three girls, Gracie and two under her." Anne Douglas, the wife of Kirk Douglas, recalls, "The dinners at that house were things of beauty. Janet did not slave in the kitchen, but she made sure everything was either brought in from Chasen's or was the caviar pasta from Le Dome—her favorite because it had lots of vodka and lots of caviar." Producer and director George Schlatter (The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In) tells me, "I think she single-handedly introduced Château d'Yquem to this town."
For years, whenever Carson threatened to quit, Janet would make a play behind the scenes. "Every time," Joanna Carson recalls. "If Johnny's contract was coming up, which was every two years, he would say, 'I'll give up this show.' He didn't want any more money; he just wanted more time off. Then the phone would ring. Janet: 'Jo-aann-ah! What are we going to do?' I knew it wasn't going to happen—Johnny loved that show too much—but she always went behind Fred's back to me to try to make sure it wasn't going to end when it didn't need to."
"The de Cordovas' raison d'être," said Dominick Dunne, "was to live an A-list life. The A-crowd in Los Angeles was a mix of Hollywood and society, with the Reagans very much at the center of things." The de Cordovas were among the very few TV couples allowed into that rarefied group. "They were untouchables," in the words of George Schlatter, "in a group of all above-the-title people—the Gary Coopers, the Jack Bennys, the Frank Sinatras, the Billy Wilders, the Dean Martins, the Jimmy Stewarts, the Armand Deutsches, the Lew Wassermans, the Ray Starks, the Earle Jorgensens, the Gregory Pecks, the Jules Steins."
Freddie's Demise
What Janet did not know as the curtain finally rang down on Freddie's career was that her husband had, in effect, already confronted the end of the road with Carson. According to several friends of Janet's, Freddie was too ashamed to tell her that he and Carson had had a very ugly break at the studio a year previously. Author Bill Zehme, who is at work on a book titled Carson the Magnificent, says, "It was when Johnny returned to the air after his son Ricky died. I've studied that tape like the Zapruder film, where Carson did this tribute at the end of the show, talking about his son, a nature photographer, who had died when he was shooting on a mountain and his car rolled over him and took him down the mountain. So Carson goes through a normal show with no mention until the very end. He's clearly going a little bit long with the tribute, but there are all these majestic nature shots, and Carson is talking about his son—heart-wrenching. Carson was never so naked on the air. And then his eyes start darting over to where Freddie is, and you can see a little register of annoyance. I learned later that Fred was over there actually giving him the 'Wrap it up' sign [to indicate that the show was running over]. That was July 1991, so what happened next was Johnny exploded in the after-show meeting in his office. He took Freddie off the floor, and he was never allowed back on. That was the deathblow."
On September 15, 2001, at age 90, Freddie died at the Motion Picture Home, in Woodland Hills, California. The Kirk Douglases had pulled strings to get him into the retirement community for members of the entertainment industry. "He thought it was the chic-est thing to go there," recalled Janet, who remained at Carla Ridge, despite Freddie's desire that they sell the house and play out their nearly 40-year marriage together at the home.
There was another thing Janet did not know: for several years her husband had been in dire financial straits. Though Freddie had made about a half-million dollars a year at the height of his career, they had burned through most of their savings. According to Dunne, Freddie had been trying to signal Janet that she would have to sell Carla Ridge to survive, but she didn't want to hear it. Jack Deamer, an interior decorator who had worked on the house and become close to Janet, told me it was clear to him that "the money was running out when Gracie taped pennies to the inside of the front door, a Mexican superstition to bring money to a house."
"Freddie did not believe in banks," Janet explained to me. "He had been the son of a con man during the Great Depression—they went from first-class hotel to hotel with all their clothes on their backs. He had also made a bad investment once on the advice of Alfred Bloomingdale, who was his best friend from when they worked for the Shuberts [the Broadway producers] in New York. So he was spooked by banks."
According to Zehme, "The fear of banks was so acute that he did not deposit money. He kept it stashed all over the house. Alice Lassally [wife of Tonight Show producer Peter Lassally] and Fred's assistant, B. J. Freebairn-Smith, went through the house after Fred passed, and they found cash almost literally stuffed in mattresses. He was a poor money manager, and I think they always feared for money, because they spent like drunken sailors. I don't know whether Alice and B.J. scooped up close to six figures on the premises, but it was really a horrible embarrassment."
The six figures were not enough, and Carla Ridge went on the market in 2001, selling for about $2 million, just enough to sustain Janet and Gracie in comfort at Le Parc, a French Regency-themed Century City condominium complex, where Janet had one wing and Gracie the other.
The big-caviar days had officially expired.
"Freddie was very fearful of her spending," said Dunne. "He always, from the beginning, had her on a clothing allowance." Deamer says the interior-decorating costs came out of the clothing allowance. "She had her own checking account under her maiden name, Janet Thomas." Jolene Schlatter, George's wife, says that when Janet told her the amount of the clothing allowance, "I almost fainted. I thought, Oh, my gosh! With that kind of money I'd have a diamond ring or three."
She continues: "It used to drive Audrey Wilder [wife of director Billy Wilder], who was Janet's closest friend, crazy. She used to say, 'Janet's going to wind up with nothing, the way she spends. Why isn't she thinking about tomorrow? What's wrong with her?'"
"When you spend it, people say how stupid you are," Janet de Cordova told me, "especially later, when you don't have it. If you don't spend it, you don't enjoy it, and I think it's pretty stupid not to enjoy it. Believe me, I enjoyed it."
'It was a real blow to Janet to lose the house," says *V.F.'*s Los Angeles editor, Wendy Stark Morrissey, a close friend. "It hurt her pride." Things continued to get worse as Janet's eyesight weakened and funds dwindled. She and Gracie looked at assisted-living facilities in the Beverly Hills area, and they were a shock to Janet, a bigger shock than the Motion Picture Home. Then the unthinkable happened. After 40 years with Janet, Gracie announced that she was retiring to her hometown, San Luis Potosí, Mexico, where she had built a house with her savings. That seriously shook Janet, who for years had declared as a joke, "When Gracie goes, I go, too."
According to Janet, "When it came to the time when I knew there would be no Gracie, I had two lovely caretakers, but I was terrified to be alone when I was losing my eyesight. Oh, I had heard stories!" Gracie tells me that their search for a home for Janet upset her. "Oh, my God, it was not what I expected, and when she saw the conditions, she said, 'Me neither.' So the time comes when she said, 'Gracie, you are all I have.' And that's understandable: I worked with her for 40 years. My children are very lovely and everything, but I didn't feel them as close as she was with me. So I asked her, 'Would you like to come to Mexico with me?' She said no. I said, 'Think about it.' A minute later she put her hand to her head, closed her eyes, and said yes. And I said, 'Think real good, because you don't have a doctor there or your friends.' And she said, 'But I have you.'"
Janet made a series of phone calls to her friends, delivering the news. "I burst into tears," says one Beverly Hills socialite. "None of us knew what to think. Poor Janet moving down there? But then we thought, Well, she will have Gracie, so it may be O.K." In 2006, Gracie packed Janet's Volvo and an S.U.V. and began the three-day drive to San Luis Potosí. Anne Douglas had advised Janet to send her favorite furniture ahead in order to re-create her master suite in Gracie's house. Gracie arranged for Janet to have the main bedroom.
When Janet pulled up to the house, located on a street with other large houses, she must have been surprised. It was not just the bedroom that would transport her back to Carla Ridge; Gracie's house, a modernist box with double-height rooms and walls of glass, was "very similar, really based on the Carla Ridge house," says Wendy Stark Morrissey. "I was so surprised—and I think Janet must have been, too—when I walked in to see so much of Janet's furniture fitting in so well, and the architecture so much the same."
Dominick Dunne heard from other friends who went to visit that "Gracie's house was a replica of Janet and Freddie's." The grand staircase, the large seating area with the white, U-shaped sofa, and the indoor-outdoor California feel of the place were all unmistakable Carla Ridge. Janet's objets were even placed around the house. Dunne told me, "When Michelle Phillips went to visit her, Janet made a grand entrance down the main staircase, with her signature flower, a gardenia, pinned to her shoulder."
Lady in Retirement
I happened to view the same grand entrance when I interviewed Janet in Gracie's house, in 2009. Gracie had made a large Mexican dinner, and Janet, dressed in cream Armani, decked out in gold and diamonds with the gardenia in place, was helped down the staircase by Gracie's grandchildren and presided at the head of the dining-room table. Nearby, mixed with some traditional Mexican décor, were a Baccarat crystal ashtray in which rested a matchbook from the Reagan White House and old, silver-framed autographed photos from Jack and Mary Benny, Johnny Carson, and Audrey and Billy Wilder. Next to them was a photo of Janet, inscribed: "To Gracie, All my best, Mrs. de Cordova." Janet raised her glass in a toast: "To San Luis Potosí! My adopted hometown."
The next day she received me in her bedroom, propped up on her Porthault-covered pillows, in a silk nightgown. She was no longer the flawless Mrs. De of 40 years ago, but at 89 she was still very elegant. Her blond helmet had been freshly shellacked by her hairdresser, Yuki, for the photo shoot for this article.
Gracie told me that Janet had not been out of bed for several years, with the rare exceptions of a few lunches and dinners. Her scores of Armani suits in Jordan-almond colors (with matching shoes) were sheathed in plastic and hung in an adjacent dressing room. She was very frail from osteoporosis, nearly blind from macular degeneration, but her mind was still quite sharp.
The first thing she showed me, as I took a seat in the slipper chair next to her bed, was a handwritten letter from Johnny Carson. "Here, read this. Read it to me," she said, handing me the engraved notepaper.
Dear Janet, I am sorry for the loss of Freddie. I will always remember the great moments we shared. I know he would understand my not attending his funeral services, and I hope you will also. It is not out of any disrespect for him. I admired him greatly. I know Fred was not a great money manager, and you are no doubt encountering unexpected financial demands. Please look on the enclosed as a bonus for almost 25 years as Tonight Show producer. Right now I have this strange feeling that Fred is telling Saint Peter how to do his job better. Love, Johnny
"Johnny never went to services," Janet said, "not even his own son's. He knew it would be a circus if he came, and so did I. But he wrote me a letter and a very handsome check—a hundred grand. Now that he is gone, I can make it public. People should know what a classy guy he was."
In our long conversations, Janet was somewhat cold and distant about her late husband. "He was very articulate, and he was very known for his good looks" was probably the most endearing thing she said. At one point, recalling a breakup letter he had written while they were courting, she referred to him as "the monster."
"She was very proud of where she had landed with Freddie," Alice Lassally tells me, "but it wasn't a very good marriage. It was sort of an arrangement, really. He wasn't very good to her. One day, in front of her, he said, 'I never had a better housekeeper.' I wanted to kill him. But I think they wanted to go to all the Hollywood parties, and they needed each other for those occasions."
Freddie was known to be an affable charmer in the presence of a star or a V.I.P., but with underlings he would invariably get acerbic. "He loved to dress people down," says Zehme. "You didn't feel destroyed by it. You felt a little stung, because you were taking it half-seriously, but he had the amazing ability to insult you in the kindest fashion and then keep moving. It was almost like a [Don] Rickles effect." Janet also had a sharp tongue, and as a couple they were known as the squabbling Bickersons, a reference to a man and wife in a 1940s radio show, played by Don Ameche and Frances Langford. "There is a famous Hollywood story about them fighting," says Alice Lassally. "When Jack Benny was on his deathbed, a group of close friends gathered at the house and were sitting downstairs in the living room, waiting for it to happen. Janet and Freddie were among them, and they were fighting the whole time until they left. Moments later, the Bennys' daughter, Joan, came down the stairs and said, 'Jack is gone.' The witty playwright Leonard Gershe responded, 'And, thank God, so are the de Cordovas.'"
Hollywood's Most Beautiful Blonde
Janet Thomas arrived in Hollywood from Kentucky in the early 1940s. "She had been sort of an orphan, raised, along with her sister, by an uncle, and not well off, but she was a petite blonde and a knockout with a southern drawl," said Dunne, adding, "a glamour girl, who went out to Hollywood to make it in show business but got a lot farther as a kind of high-powered lady friend and wife." According to Janet, after a few weeks in Los Angeles, as a good-looking 20-year-old, fresh out of Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky, she walked onto the Fox lot, made her way to casting director Thomas Moore's office, and asked for a screen test. And she got one.
"It was the worst screen test in the history of Hollywood," she told me. "They put me in a Betty Grable outfit with terrible hair and makeup." Eventually, however, it led to a contract at Paramount. As a hopeful starlet—who ended up never making a movie—Janet was noticed by the powerful gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. "She put me in her column and talked about me on her radio show," Janet said, quoting from memory: " 'Consensus of opinion is that the most beautiful girl at the party was young blonde Janet Thomas,' and from that point on Hedda always referred to me as 'Hollywood's most beautiful blonde.' Which was kind of a pain in the ass for Lana Turner and the rest of them. And not exactly true, but that is the way it went."
Buck Henry, who was a student at the Harvard School for Boys in Los Angeles, and who had a summer job as a gofer at actors Charles Farrell and Ralph Bellamy's Racquet Club, in Palm Springs, recalled in a story he wrote for Interview magazine about Hollywood during World War II, "The prettiest girl in the area was Janet Thomas, now the wife of Freddie de Cordova. … She wore a daring black one-piece bathing suit cut in a V shape up the front, causing … gents to gasp and little boys to remember it 45 years later."
"The first time I went to the Racquet Club," Janet told me, "William Powell [the star of the Thin Man films] was there, and he was very nice to me. My idol was Jean Harlow. I wanted to look like her. I had platinum hair like her, and when she died I cried. Powell took my ears, held on to the lobes, and said, 'You have devil's ears, just like a girl named Jean Harlow.' I just about died, and from that point on we were best friends." Powell had been engaged to Harlow.
According to Betsy Bloomingdale, "Janet was an icon of that time, when certain girls had a good time, when girls had different friends … well, you know what I mean—lots of lovers—and lots of fun, in the era when people would go to El Morocco or Mocambo. This kind of girl no longer exists in Hollywood. Today they all seem to get married and have three kids immediately and then divorce."
"A dame!" is how Janet's friend Gore Vidal describes her. Dominick Dunne added, "She was known for her many marriages—three before Freddie—but only the one with Freddie, for some reason, endured."
There were, in fact, four marriages before Freddie—but to three men. The first, fleeting marriage was to a high-school sweetheart named Joe Lilly. "The most handsome man I ever laid eyes on," Janet told me. She left him soon after they migrated to Los Angeles during the war. Lilly ended up with a contract at RKO. Husband number two was a prominent P.R. man for Howard Hughes known as Johnny "Pick Up the Check" Meyer. Their first wedding, in Mexico City in 1948, was kept a secret. Hedda Hopper broke the news of their divorce, in Mexico City, in the May 6, 1949, edition of the Los Angeles Times: "Janet and Meyer probably know more people and go to more parties than any other couple in town. And not one soul here but themselves knew their secret."
"Johnny didn't want Howard to know we were married," said Janet, going on to explain that the richest man in the film industry would have been jealous. Hughes called on Janet at her apartment a few times while she was dating Meyer, she said, attempting to exercise his droit du seigneur.
"Pick Up the Check" was a nickname Meyer earned about the time of the Senate War Investigating Committee hearings of 1947, when he testified on Hughes's behalf concerning government contracts to help build the "Spruce Goose," an enormous flying boat intended for military transport. Janet had her own moment of infamy when senators questioned Meyer about some of his expenses, and he said that they were for Janet Thomas, a friend (secretly his wife), whom he had sent to Paris on an extended vacation so that she could avoid being called before the committee.
"I liked Johnny a lot," Janet told me. "He was different than anybody I'd ever known. He was not good-looking. He was heavyset and bald, but he had a hell of a personality. They used to say that Johnny was either livid or laughing, and that was about the truth. There was a lot of innuendo around that he was a procurer for Howard, but nobody had to get ladies for Howard, believe me. But Howard used Johnny in such a way that it raised suspicion. When Howard was 'busy,' he would have Johnny take girls to Mocambo, because he had about six of them going at the same time. Johnny would take Lana Turner dancing when Howard was busy. "
Janet also had a reputation as a procurer. "I was told by one woman that she was a madam of sorts," says Jack Deamer. "She told me that when Janet was young she got the girls for the parties." Janet may not have seen this as procuring but simply as part of the game of getting ahead in Hollywood. More than one friend of hers told me that she was often a go-between for Carson and potential conquests—"the one who would follow a girl into the powder room at '21' and tell her that Johnny was interested," according to one.
Husband number three was a Russian noble, Gogi Tchichinadze, who had a nightclub in New York called Gogi's LaRue. That marriage lasted three years, and then, during the late 1950s, Janet was the paramour of the agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar and a hard target for Frank Sinatra, who, she proudly informed me, made a play for her on her 40th birthday. "I had a party and served a lot of stingers, and Frank had taken a lipstick and written 'Ring-a-ding-ding' on my mirror—which was his thing." Then he called her to go out, but she declined. "I never, ever, ever went on a date with Frank Sinatra," she said. "I just didn't want to be one of those girls he engaged and then dropped. There were dozens of them."
By the time Janet started to date Freddie, she was in her early 40s. He was in his 50s and still a bachelor. She had turned down a proposal from Lazar. "He made me a proposition," said Janet. " 'We'll get married, and you'll take care of your hair and your clothes, and I'll take care of the house and the expenses.' Oh, he loathed how much I had my hair done! But I had some Polaroid stock which went sky-high, so I could take care of myself."
"I think, at forty-something, she had stayed too long at the fair, and really needed to find someone for security," says Alice Lassally. It was down to the tall, suave Freddie or the short, bald Irving. Irving was more successful. Freddie was better-liked. "Freddie was the one I was interested in," said Janet, "but he had never been married. So everybody thought I had a fat chance and was very stupid to let Irving go."
Freddie lived with his mother, and even many of his friends thought he was gay. "He joked about it," says Lassally. "He called himself 'the old queen.' I think those days were behind him when he got into his 50s, but who knows? He would talk about his affairs with old movie stars like Joan Crawford—he was very proud of those stories. He was good-looking and very funny and entertaining. He was a walker in Hollywood for a long time."
I asked Janet if she thought that either of her paramours may have been hiding a secret about his sexuality. "Nobody ever thought Irving was gay," she said. "They may have thought that Freddie was, but you didn't say that. You said 'mama's boy' or something. But actually Freddie had a long romance with James Mason's wife, Pamela. Pamela was a bitch to me, for no reason, because I think she'd already given Freddie the heave-ho."
The Power Couple
Janet and Freddie were married in November 1963, three days after the Kennedy assassination. "They moved into Freddie's apartment, on Blackburn Avenue, which was part of a duplex, with Mama in the downstairs," recalls Betsy Bloomingdale. "Perfectly nice, and she did the apartment over, but not really ideal." Janet recalled, "You'd walk out the front door and see the supermarket carts at the end of the walkways. It wasn't my thing." Freddie's mother was not a Janet fan; she was well aware of her daughter-in-law's reputation as an expensive lady to keep, someone who had been around. "We are not talking about a saint here," says the actor Robert Wagner of Janet. "The blond dye job was not just on her head."
At the time of their marriage, Freddie was directing Jack Benny's TV program and making good money, but not the princely sum Janet aspired to spending. When Freddie's mother died, Janet persuaded him to leave the Blackburn duplex, and she found a glamorous house in Trousdale, then the height of contemporary, flat-roofed chic in Beverly Hills. They bought Carla Ridge in 1968, and at last had the proper setting for her social rise.
"At that time, this town wasn't social and Hollywood mixed," recalls Jolene Schlatter. "It was mainly Hollywood. The Republican social group stayed by themselves, in Pasadena and Hancock Park. But Janet became very prominent with them, very active." According to George Schlatter, "Janet went back and forth, pitching the Republican social group to the Hollywood group, helping to bring the two together. She really helped change the social structure of the town. She built a big power base, and she could do it because of the power of The Tonight Show, combined with Freddie's old ties to the Hollywood studio system." Freddie had directed feature films in the 40s and 50s, including Bedtime for Bonzo, starring Ronald Reagan and a chimpanzee, and he made sure to keep the relationship with the Reagans strong. Janet recalled, "When we were at the White House for a state dinner, in the Red Room after, the president said to a group of people, about Freddie, 'This man is responsible for my being president. After I made Bedtime for Bonzo, there was no place for me to go in Hollywood." Freddie's autobiography was called Johnny Came Lately—Janet's title.
Freddie's social contacts got him his Tonight Show perch. "Mrs. Carson number two [1963–72]—Joanne—engineered Freddie's ascent," says Zehme. "After meeting Freddie and Janet at the Beverly Hills Hotel in the early 70s, she saw they were something of A-list royalty in L.A. It's hard to believe, if you're the director of My Three Sons—which was Freddie's job at the time Carson tapped him—but I think the Jack Benny imprimatur is probably what elevated him above all, because Carson worshipped Benny, and their Reagan connection, certainly. Carson teased endlessly on the air about Freddie's 'exotic A-list weekends'—he would discuss how he had spent the weekend sorting his sock drawer while Freddie was out hobnobbing with the gods."
"Freddie knew Hollywood," says Bob Dolce, one of *The Tonight Show'*s talent coordinators. "The show was done in New York until we moved to Burbank, in 1972. Johnny had everything but social entrée in L.A., so Freddie was important." In 1970, just after Freddie took over the show, to mark his ascendancy as chief producer, celebrate an L.A. visit for Carson, and telegraph to Carson that they wished he would relocate the show to Los Angeles, Freddie and Janet had a party at Carla Ridge, which was described by Dolce in a letter to his wife:
When we arrived the mammoth sized doors opened automatically, I thought. Actually, a butler had been waiting for us. The house has a foyer that's about the size of the Metropolitan Museum's lobby. … Janet, the king's wife, is a Lana Turner type. Very attractive, very lean, flawlessly groomed, 50-ish and bra-less. Her boobs were worn around her waist. All her attention was directed to J.C., since he showed—a coup. We were so unimportant to her that I don't know why they bothered. She is on her fifth, count them, marriage. She and old Fred have separate bedrooms and talk openly about leaving notes under each other's doors. He said, "Janet buzzed me to see if I was watching the Cavett show." They have three permanent servants and had hired a fourth for the festivities. There were tons of flowers, all perfect, and superb hors d'oeuvres. Tartar steak came from Chasen's, and every time someone dug into the mold it disappeared and came back perfect again. They also served little salmon things with capers and onions—all one size, like they took one ring and threw the rest of the onion away for kicks.
Janet and Gracie
There are probably 101 tales of Gosford Park, Trousdale-style. Certainly there are many stories of ladies who lived in the fast lane and became prominent Hollywood wives. There are also houses much grander than the one owned by the de Cordovas, with much larger staffs. There are few upstairs-downstairs tales in the annals of Beverly Hills history, however, that have reverberated as strongly as the story of Janet de Cordova and her devoted servant, Gracie Covarrubias.
In the best of days, Janet and Gracie could be seen gliding down steep Hillcrest Road, the route from Carla Ridge to the Beverly Hills shopping district, with Gracie at the wheel of Janet's banana-yellow Mercedes 450 SL with its matching banana interior. (Janet so favored yellow that only sponges of that color were allowed in the house; the pink and blue ones that came in the package with the yellow ones were stacked by the hundreds in the garage.) There were frequent missions to the Giorgio Armani store on Rodeo Drive, and to Il Piccolino for ladies' lunches with Betsy Bloomingdale or Nancy Reagan. "She always said she had the best collection of Armani in Hollywood," says Alice Lassally. Gracie was also well turned out. "She had all of Janet's hand-me-downs," recalls Jack Deamer. Janet was well known for never leaving the house without having her hair dressed by her stylist, Yuki, who made house calls, sometimes on a daily basis. "Janet and Jennifer Jones were the only two I did in their homes," says Yuki, one of the masters of the "ram's horns" helmet hairdo, which became Janet's consistent look, starting in the late 1960s. When Janet hired Deamer to freshen the décor at Carla Ridge, she told him she wanted the job done by the time she got back from the hospital after her face-lift. "I thought, She's now 82 and going in for a face-lift?" he recalls. "Her skin was already so paper-thin that you could see the veins in her forehead. She was pulled and waxed and peeled so much her face was like a child's face."
The bond between Janet and Gracie was cemented on September 15, 1969, the day after Janet's 50th birthday, when Gracie and Javier had a baby girl, Selene. "Janet raised the daughter as if it were her own child," says Betsy Bloomingdale. "She and Fred never had children, and Janet adored that child, but in a strange way Gracie became like Janet's mother, even after that little girl was born. Gracie took care of her. Told her not to take a drink or she would take it away from her."
Bloomingdale recalls, "This gal from Mexico was someone very special to Janet, and not really a maid as you and I would understand a maid, or a housekeeper. She did everything. She ran the house, and in Janet and Freddie's time it was a very important house for social occasions."
Janet and Freddie became the official godparents of Selene. They spoiled her with riding lessons and trips abroad. Joanna Carson taught her how to tap-dance. There are fading Kodachrome photos of baby Selene being passed between Janet and another grande dame of the period, Mary Benny, the wife of Jack Benny, who was Janet's role model. The social columnist David Patrick Columbia recounts that the Bennys' daughter, Joan, "told of the time back in the 1960s when marijuana had become inside-fashionable. The Bennys were at a dinner party at the Armand Deutsches'. After dinner, back in the living room for demitasse, Janet lit up a joint and passed it around. Mary Benny, who was then in her 60s and very square but famously insecure, took a puff when it was passed to her. Then she stubbed it out in an ashtray. A few minutes later the Deutsches' butler came by to empty the ashtrays, and when he came to the one in front of Mary Benny, he held it up before her and said, 'Madam, would you like your roach?'"
"I was no angel," Janet confessed. "I used to be able to walk into a party and say, 'I smell marijuana.' Johnny Carson used to say, 'They ought to bring you to the airport instead of the dogs.'"
Janet's attachment to Selene made some guests ill at ease. One visitor recalls the child sitting with Janet and Freddie at cocktail hour, "while Gracie served everyone drinks. I thought, This is a bit strange. Then Janet would ball Gracie out because the ice wasn't right. There was a thing about the ice. It had to be a very particular way. I think 'particular' is the best word for Janet."
(Gracie's recipe for ice at Carla Ridge: "You take the ice cube, a square one, and you crack it, so the ice is cracked but not crushed. You do it by hand with a special little metal hammer, one cube at a time. The hammer has a rubber tip and is bent. For me, it seems like uncracked ice would last a little longer, but she liked it that way.")
'When Janet was not entertaining or shopping, she was in bed most of the day, at least through lunch," says Alice Lassally. "Gracie would ask her, 'What do you want for lunch, Mrs. De?' She would say, 'I want a soufflé,' and Gracie would go make it for her. She was on the phone all the time. That was a big part of her life."
The beige rotary-dial phone next to Janet's bed helped her monitor the latest gossip as well as people's movements in the house, says Deamer. "There were lit buttons on it, so you could see who was on the phone in what room. Her bedroom had windows overlooking the double-story living room, so she could see and hear everything going on in the house. Everything was very precise. At nine o'clock the draperies would open—very special draperies, made from the heart of ostrich feathers, put on a loom, and woven into the fabric. They hung them upside down so that they were teardrop. Janet and her friends liked to watch the feathers fluttering in the air-conditioning. At five o'clock, Gracie would appear and close the ostrich draperies. The house was lit, always. It was lit like important company could come through at any moment, even when there was no one on the calendar for a social call, and at the end there never was. When I'd visit, she'd be in a towel, because Yuki would be coming up and doing her hair and makeup. Once, she was naked in bed with the sheet pulled up. She was still the showgirl, at 80, still acting the part."
Michelle Phillips recalls, "One day I was sitting there with her at cocktail hour. At 4:30 p.m. every day she would say, 'The bar is now open!' Gracie was tending to her. She was having her vodka on the rocks, always Ketel One. I had scotch, and she would get so mad at Gracie because she poured me J&B. 'No, Gracie, she likes Dewar's!' I'd say, 'It's O.K.!' 'No! Gracie, change her drink!' Then Gracie would hover over her, and about 10 minutes into the conversation, she leans over Janet, inserts a handblown Murano-glass swizzle stick into Janet's glass, and stirs her drink."
Alcohol was not her only poison. "Are you going to mention drugs?," Jolene Schlatter asks me. "We never could figure out how she got the joints rolled," says Dani Janssen, the widow of the actor David Janssen. "She could never do it herself." Deamer recalls, "Once, she and Mary Lazar [Irving's wife—they ended up living directly across the street on Carla Ridge Road] were drinking absinthe during the afternoon, and to stay awake they would do lines. The funniest thing was when they heard that the cops were cracking down on drugs, and the two of them—in their 80s—took their pipes and stash up to the end of Hillcrest Road and threw it all into the ravine. They were panicked they would be raided and hauled off to jail."
'Everyone is six feet under," said Janet when I asked her if she missed her life in Beverly Hills. "If you had asked me that 10 years ago, I am sure I would give you a different answer, but my life as I knew it was really over. I still hear from a few friends on the phone. Ginny Newhart [the wife of the comedian Bob Newhart] sends me the word jumbles from the L.A. Times. She clips them out for me. George Segal wrote me a nice letter. But the people and the way of life were all gone. To be honest, what I really miss is Nate 'n Al's," she said, referring to the venerable Jewish delicatessen on Beverly Drive.
"When Janet was with me, and being reflective," recalls Alice Lassally, "she noted that they had never had children. She was talking about the long marriage and kids Peter and I have—all of the grandchildren. We were never part of the A-group. We never fiddled with that. Finally she said, 'You two have done it right. I haven't.' I think she was looking ahead and seeing no one around to take care of her in her old age."
Joanna Carson recalls checking in, with trepidation, on Janet in San Luis Potosí by telephone. "I was crying when I heard her voice, but then when we spoke, she said the most lovely thing. She said, 'Joanna, for the first time in my life, I have a family.' I cried more for her, but this time tears of joy."
On September 1, 2009, Janet died. Her body was cremated in San Luis Potosí and taken to Los Angeles by Gracie and Selene. She was interred next to Freddie at the Holy Cross Cemetery, in Culver City. Only Gracie and Selene and Bob Dolce attended the private graveside service, which was unannounced. Some weeks later, Janet's friends had a memorial service for her at Il Piccolino, near Beverly Hills. Michelle Phillips led Robert Wagner, Jill St. John, George Segal, Joanna Carson, Betsy Bloomingdale, Wendy Stark Morrissey, Dani Janssen, Shirlee Fonda, and dozens of others from the dwindling old Beverly Hills A-list in a toast.
"The story of Gracie saving Janet is a brilliant one," says a socialite in the Reagan circle who knew Janet well. "But the real story is: where were all of Janet's supposed friends when she was an old lady without her husband and needed to be saved? This just shows you who your friends are."


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MS-05 Zaku First Refined Type 185th Airborne Paratrooper Use
Overview: The Zaku First Refined Type 185th Airborne Paratrooper Use, coloquially known as the Para-Zaku, is a variant on the MS-05B Zaku I. Using standard armor parts from the Zaku II, these were made for the 185th Airborne Paratrooper Division. Though MUCH slower than a Zaku II, Para-Zakus can do almost everything they can. And, they even have one special trick. Mounted on the left shoulder is a terrifying weapon. The Atomic Bazooka. Firing shells which contain a nuclear payload, Para-Zakus were usually deployed against heavily armored targets, such as bases, militaristic colonies, and the like. Despite the offset load, Para-Zakus never showed any balance issues. A truly terrifying powerhouse. ...But, at least you can probably outmaneuver it.
General Characteristics
- Overall Height: 17.5m
- Standard Weight: 50.3 metric tons
- Power Plant: Minovsky Ultracompact Fusion Reactor
- Power Output: 1000kW
- Sensor Range: 2900 m
- Armor: Super-Hard Steel Alloy
Movement Characteristics
- Max Acceleration: 0.65g
- Max Speed: 68 km/h (Land), 500 km/h (jets)
- 180° Turning Time: 2.9 seconds
- Rocket Thrusters: 40,700kg
- Great Shoulder Shield (Mounted on right shoulder)
- Shoulder/Knuckle Shield (Mounted on left shoulder/forearm)
- Optional Shield Spikes
- Atomic Bazooka
- I-Field Generator

subset: commoncrawl


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Although Twitter was launched in 2006, one can notice a shift during 2009 and 2010 towards "business tweeting" by all sizes of brands, corporations and businesses aiming to connect with their customers and position themselves as modern, interactive, fast reacting and resourceful. As of today, despite still some strong resistance among Internet bloggers to accept the use of Twitter as a form of business/brand communication & messaging, many companies and organizations utilize Twitter as their primary or key word-of-mouth channel to spread announcements and information. Interaria's web host MediaTemple announced recently that it has stopped sending email alerts about service down times and rather for now on would announce them in the company's Twitter page. Another side for an example: The University of Texas in Austin was able to spread the world fast to its thousands of students when a disturbed gunman terrorized the campus area.
At first glance it feels that Twitter is all about the numbers. The higher the number of followers, the higher the popularity. Companies, brands and organizations that have a high number of users, members or subscribers have no trouble getting followers. For smaller specialized businesses – that deal with a small but special customer base – connecting with a large follower base is not an easy task. For instance, our company Interaria, runs at max. about 10 – 20 projects a year. In quantitative numbers that is less than the number of people entering to a brand store, say Whole Foods in Plano, within 30 minutes.
Interaria recently launched its Twitter page. Interaria's Twitter account's TFF Ratio (Twitter Follower-Friend Ratio) is clearly less than 1.0 of which many Internet bloggers out there classify as "not getting much Twitter Love in return". As a company we advise to approach these type of classifications calmly, and not to take the personalized and often narcissistic nature and genre of social media too personally. Just like with exercising, rather set your own goals and objectives as a business in tiers, rather measuring your own progress than comparing yourself to others.
One of the biggest targets of critique by social media bloggers are (of course) other social media bloggers who have self-claimed their position as social media gurus* and from this position of expertise and popularity give advise and instructions on the proper use and best strategies on Twitter. Interaria is new to Twitter but we suggest that your company does some independent research. Start simply from the Twitter's user rules page (http://support.twitter.com/articles/18311-the-twitter-rules) that clearly state the policies for the proper use of Twitter. The closer you follow the policies, the better longevity.
In its rules page Twitter clearly sets the rules against spamming and excessive self-promotion, outlining a policy for balanced "organic" use of Twitter. For instance, Twitter rules outline not to grow the number for accounts "followed" much higher than number of "followers". This can be hard at first and we also had our first stumbles – and we still do.
As we've grown to use Twitter, our own experience has been shifting away from the numbers game to use tweeting (and blogging and other social media activity) as an input for inspiration to do more research, grow as a company, and develop our service offerings. We at Interaria think that providing real quality resources and help is the way to go. In the end, if that value cannot be measured in a clear cut number on a public page then so be it. You will get as much back, if not more, as you give, and just like in life there's no guarantee of endless love, and heck, we never asked for it.
* Self-promotion aside, Interaria regards that web design / development companies need to have some kind of responsiveness to this topic. As a web design / development company we need to be ready to give proper answers and advise to our customers, and be sure to inform them about their choices. As popular as social media is, many of our customers are new to this topic.
© 2010. Interaria. By Meri Kuusi-Shields. All rights reserved.
Below are the main points from the Twitter rule book (unedited, without a spin). We sincerely ask our clients to read these rules thoroughly:
Direct Source: http://support.twitter.com/articles/18311-the-twitter-rules
Username Squatting:
You may not engage in username squatting. Accounts that are inactive for more than 6 months may also be removed without further notice. Some of the factors that we take into account when determining what conduct is considered to be username squatting are:
- the number of accounts created
- creating accounts for the purpose of preventing others from using those account names (…)
- You may not use the Twitter service for the purpose of spamming anyone.
- What constitutes "spamming" will evolve as we respond to new tricks and tactics by spammers.
- Some of the factors that we take into account when determining what conduct is considered to be spamming are:
- If you have followed a large amount of users in a short amount of time;
- If you have followed and unfollowed people in a short time period, particularly by automated means (aggressive follower churn);
- If you repeatedly follow and unfollow people, whether to build followers or to garner more attention for your profile;
- If you have a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following;
- If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;
- If you post misleading links;
- If a large number of people are blocking you;
- The number of spam complaints that have been filed against you;
- If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account;
- If you post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #;
- If you post multiple unrelated updates to a trending or popular topic;
- If you send large numbers of duplicate @replies;
- If you send large numbers of unsolicited @replies in an attempt to spam a service or link;
- If you add a large number of unrelated users to lists in an attempt to spam a service or link;
- If you repeatedly post other users' Tweets as your own;
- If you have attempted to "sell" followers, particularly through tactics considered aggressive following or follower churn;
- Creating or purchasing accounts in order to gain followers;
- Using or promoting third-party sites that claim to get you more followers (such as follower trains, sites promising "more followers fast," or any other site that offers to automatically add followers to your account);
- If you create false or misleading Points of Interest;
- If you create Points of Interest to namesquat or spam.


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Sonia's 20th Century: An American Life, Paintings by Fern Loos Beu
Easton | Website
This event occurred in the past.
Fern Loos Beu presents snapshots in oil of the life of her Hungarian cousin, Sonia, documenting her progress from immigrant to vaudevillian, belly dancer to nightclub owner. These black-and-white paintings with inspired flashes of color give us an independent, glamorous American woman whose incident-rich life spanned a country and a century. Opening: Friday night 5-8 pmArtist's Reception: Saturday night 4-7 pm. food, wine and music by the jazz trio, Brilliant Corners


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The owner of Oriental City in north London, Development Securities, wants to knock it down and rebuild it to accommodate flats and a superstore.
Traders have "pulled the stops out" this year to show their "strength of commitment" to saving the area.
"This is not intended to be a farewell to Oriental City," said trader Fai Liu.
The Colindale centre attracts 10,000 people a week to its shops, restaurants and events.
Strong spirit
The Chinese Ambassador will be among dignitaries attending Saturday's event, billed as the centre's most spectacular to date.
It will feature fireworks, acrobats, Far Eastern dancing and displays including traditional Chinese dragon dances.
The Chinese embassy wrote to the mayor to express its concern over the redevelopment of what it calls London's "second Chinatown", but he is not attending the event.
Yip Fai Liu, of the Save Oriental City campaign, said it was important to demonstrate the community's commitment to London's "real Chinatown".
"This is not intended to be a farewell to Oriental City," he said.
"It is intended to demonstrate the strength of commitment that thousands of people have for this cause.
"We will not give in because it is vital to the well-being of our communities that we succeed in saving Oriental City."
Development Securities wants to rebuild it with 520 flats, a school and a superstore.
Although existing tenants will be allowed to return to the new centre, they face up to three years of displacement while it is built.
The project received planning approval from Brent Council in November.
Building work is due to start within 12 months.
Thousands of people are expected to attend Chinese New Year celebrations in central London on Sunday from 1100 GMT.
The main events marking the start of the Year of the Pig are taking place in Chinatown, Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square.
Most Popular Now | 56,514 people are reading stories on the site right now.";


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In honor of World Water Day, Levi's employees across the globe are taking the plunge: by pledging to wear the same pair of jeans or khakis every day for a week without washing it once. The denim giant also equipped each staff member with a Water<Less-logoed sponge for sopping up spills. Each employee is documenting their efforts with a daily snapshot, and they're inviting you to do the same. To take part, simply tag a photo of yourself on Instagram with #gowaterless to help spread the word about reducing water use. Up for a bigger challenge? Levi's has a series of actions you can take to whittle your water footprint even further.
+ Levi Strauss


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LONDON (Reuters) - European shares, oil and the euro bounced back on Tuesday from a selloff caused by rising political risks in southern Europe, as data confirmed the region's economy is showing signs of recovery.
The euro, which had taken the brunt of the selling and fallen from a high of over $1.37 at the end of last week to under $1.35 on Monday, rose 0.3 percent to trade at $1.3560.
European shares followed a similar path, recovering from the Monday sell off, while U.S. stock index futures indicated Wall Street would rebound from its worst daily session since November when trading resumed later on Tuesday.
Analysts saw the market's gyrations as a necessary stage in a rally linked to signs of increasing euro zone economic stability and an improving global outlook, underpinned by the easier monetary policies of major central banks.
"Our working hypothesis remains that, after the correction, the trends in place before will continue, as the two main drivers are still there - namely central banks continuing to inject liquidity and more and more proof of an economic recovery," said Philippe Gijsels, head of research at BNP Paribas Fortis Global Markets in Brussels.
The markets regained their composure on Tuesday after data confirmed the euro zone's still struggling economy was starting to turn around.
Markit's Eurozone Composite PMI, which gauges business activity across thousands of companies and is seen as good gauge of future growth, rose in January to a 10-month high of 48.6 - though this still means the region's economy is contracting.
"The euro zone is showing clear signs of healing, with the downturn easing sharply in January and the region moving closer to stabilization in the first quarter," said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.
But the data also highlighted a growing divergence in the euro zone between the performance of its biggest economy, Germany, and those of other partners, leaving some doubts about the region's prospects.
Markit's composite German PMI chalked up its biggest one-month rise since August 2009, reaching its highest since June 2011. But in neighboring France it fell to its lowest level in nearly four years.
"The downturn we saw at the end of last year is starting to peter out, but I don't think we're going to see any spectacular growth yet," said Peter Westaway, chief European economist at Vanguard Asset Management.
After the data, the broad FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of top European shares was up 0.6 percent while London's FTSE 100, Paris's CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX were between 0.3 and one percent higher.
Analysts said the euro and equity markets could see further volatility on Thursday when the European Central Bank holds its monthly policy meeting and President Mario Draghi is due to address a news conference.
None of the 75 economists surveyed in a Reuters poll last week expect the ECB to cut rates from their record low of 0.75 percent at Thursday's policy meeting, but Draghi may be pressed to comment on the recent sharp rise in the euro.
MSCI's world equity index was down around 0.1 percent reflecting an earlier sell-off across Asia when investors joined in the global correction in prices and ignored positive economic news from China.
The HSBC China services purchasing managers' index rose to a four-month high of 54 in January, underlining the strengthening momentum in the world's second-biggest economy, which is expected to grow 8.1 percent this year.
The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.9 percent, led by a steep 1.7 percent fall in Hong Kong shares, after the pan-Asian index had climbed to an 18-month high on Monday.
Investors will next look at data from the vast U.S. services sector, due later on Tuesday, to gauge the monetary policy outlook after recent releases have painted a mostly upbeat picture of the world's largest economy.
Bond markets were also stabilizing on Tuesday after the sudden upsurge in political worries about Spain and Italy had caused a sharp rise in yields on peripheral euro zone debt and fresh demand for safe-haven German government bonds.
Spanish 10-year government bond yields eased back six basis points to 5.38 percent, while equivalent Italian yields were a four ticks lower at 4.43 percent.
German Bunds meanwhile rose slightly to be up four basis points at 1.67 percent.
Commodity markets were more mixed. Brent crude oil, which has dropped almost 1.5 percent since the start of the month, rose over $1 a barrel to $116.75 while growth-attuned copper slipped 0.2 percent to 8,290 a ton.
Platinum and palladium consolidated around multi-month highs, as traders chose to sell into the rally to lock in profits, while gold was again little changed.
Palladium dropped 0.3 percent to $753.54 an ounce, having peaked at a 17-month high of $759.75 an ounce on Monday. Platinum was up 0.2 percent at $1,695.99 an ounce, off a four-month high of $1,705.25 hit in the previous session.
Gold, which has been trapped in a tight $1,660 to $1,680 range since late last week, again saw little movement with investors increasingly wondering whether its 12-year rally is now over.
Monetary stimulus was a driver of gold's rise in the last few years, and an improving U.S. economy has stirred thoughts that the Federal Reserve might curtail the bond-buying that has dominated its support efforts.
"People are mostly waiting for more data from the United States to assess how the economy is and whether quantitative easing will continue," said Ronald Leung, a dealer at Lee Cheong Gold Dealers in Hong Kong.
Additional reporting by Marc Jones and Atul Prakash; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and David Stamp


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Rural Responsibility or Ruin?
Tenants living in USDA Rural Development (RD) financed Sections 514, 515, and 516 would have to pay a minimum rent under the new budget provisions. According to RD, this will help tenants be more financially responsible and move onto the "path to homeownership."
However, points out Gideon Anders: "This change will impact the most destitute tenants who have the least capacity to pay minimum rent. They are vulnerable households who temporarily or permanently do not receive Social Security, Disability, or other assistance and have no regular full time employment. They are simply unable to pay minimum rent."
"Elderly and disabled persons with less than $2,000 in annual income are more likely to become homeless from the imposition of minimum rents than to become successful homeowners," Anders argues.
RD says that these tenants will be able to claim hardship exemptions. Yet in similar HUD programs, an extremely small percentage of households were able to use such exemptions.
"RD estimates that if fully implemented, the imposition of minimum rents will ultimately generate $20 million in revenue," Anders continues. "Given the fact that the Rental Assistance program alone costs the federal government over $1.1 billion, the savings is paltry."


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Idaho pastor shot day after leading prayer at Ted Cruz rally
Altar Church pastor Tim Remington, 55, left the church around 2 p.m. on Sunday when he was confronted by the suspected shooter. Remington, who has often worked with prison inmates and those who suffer from drug and alcohol abuse, was shot in the head, lung, hip and shoulder, according to church outreach pastor John Padula.
Pastor who prayed w/ @SenTedCruz, shot in head a day later. Manhunt underway. https://t.co/JFnJZ1iU02pic.twitter.com/BPWU370xUV— Anne Bayefsky (@AnneBayefsky) March 7, 2016
The shooter, identified as 30-year-old Kyle Andrew Odom, according to the Associated Press, shot Remington up to six times and drove off in a silver Honda Accord.
A former Marine, Odom is still on the loose. Law enforcement has described him as six feet tall and 170 pounds, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
"For the Coeur d'Alene Police Department, this is all hands on deck," Police Chief Lee White told The Spokesman-Review. "We're getting everybody out here to investigate this crime."
Suspect wanted in shooting of N. Idaho pastor in church parking lot https://t.co/ZdBThGdE2Wpic.twitter.com/lNNPNk7oFK— KING 5 News (@KING5Seattle) March 7, 2016
Meanwhile, Danny Cleave, the youth pastor at Altar Church, said Remington "is doing awesome."
"He's recovering, he went through surgery, and doctors said he is extremely lucky. We know it's not luck; it was totally God," Cleave told KREM News. "Pastor [Remington] spends his life trying to reach people like this. So the fact that this happened to him, and he really shouldn't be alive, honestly, as many times as they shot at him and as close as they were – it's a miracle."
Parishioners praying through tears @KHQLocalNewspic.twitter.com/R5jtNbKaiT— Katie Chen (@KHQKatieChen) March 6, 2016
The day before Remington was shot, he gave the invocation at a rally for Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is running for president.
"We've been waiting for somebody who represented God for a long time," Remington said at the rally, according to CNN. "We are here to pray that God's will be done."
Idaho pastor shot in church parking lot https://t.co/GrllTxVyi8pic.twitter.com/ohRO20bTAd— FOX8 WGHP (@myfox8) March 7, 2016
The Cruz campaign also issued a statement regarding the shooting.
"Our prayers are with Pastor Tim, his family, and the doctors who are supervising his care," campaign spokesperson Catherine Frazier said to NBC News. "We pray for his full recovery and are thankful for the efforts of law enforcement to ensure the attacker is swiftly brought to justice."


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|Quest Started By:
|This is a shared task (1-6 players) whose purpose is to progress its grand task "Crafting the Triumvirate's Downfall" (given by Sentry Stone of Illdaera).
It begins with "a thelasa ereth of Illdaera" in the Sentry Stone of Ryken's room in Sepulcher East (the northernmost sentry room) at about 1550, -750, 9.
Pre-requisites for requesting the task:
- Must have completed "The Fracturing of Order".
- Minimum Alaran Language: 88
Pre-requisites for participating in the task:
- None
You say, 'Hail, a thelasa ereth of Illdaera'
a thelasa ereth of Illdaera says, in Alaran, 'Worshipper of Illdaera, you have my support! Let us collect alsa thel!'
A task window pops up and offers a random one of four different tasks.
You have been assigned the task 'Relic of Oratory: Philosophical Rejection'.
Kill 8 denizens of wind 0/8 (Sepulcher East)
Any mobs will do.
Speak with a thelasa ereth of Illdaera 0/1 (Sepulcher East)
You say, 'Hail, a thelasa ereth of Illdaera'
You gain experience!!
Note: This task has a 60-minute lockout timer (shared with other tasks of the same relic).
150 platinum
Experience (about 1 AA at Level 95)
6x "Alsa Thel of Oratory"
|Send a Correction


text:
Deep within the forests of the Pacific Northwest, the battle for supremacy rages on between two vampire coalitions: Guardian enforcers sworn to protect humanity, and Darkbloods, rogues who kill like their ancient ancestors… Hot-blooded and hard-edged, Tristan Santiago has an uncanny ability to see beneath the surface-a power that serves him well as the Guardians' region commander. But when a deadly plot against his fellow vampires is uncovered, he must turn to the one woman he can't read: the beautiful yet mysterious Roxanne Reynolds, whose sensual presence soothes his tormented memories. Roxy had put love before duty once before, with devastating results. But to root out a dangerous traitor in their midst, she must put her faith in Santiago, the one man skilled enough to break through her defenses. Posing as lovers, Santiago and Roxy work side by side-and discover a powerful craving that threatens to consume them both.
Seduced by Blood is the fourth book in the Sweetblood series, and it's the first book I've read in this series. In her introduction, Laurie London explains that each book in this series "stands alone." And she's right; I got right into this fun (and kind of racy) vampire tale. It took me a few pages to figure out what Sweetbloods are, but I got up to speed quickly. London explains all of the details of her story line while telling this story. I don't always start a series at the beginning, because I just read what piques my interest when I read a story blurb. That leaves me feeling confused sometimes, but London's story was easy to get into and run with.
As we all know by now, there are good vampires and evil vampires (you knew this, right?). Santiago and Roxy are the good kind of vampires, but they are both carrying around lots of emotional baggage. When they meet, there's an instant attraction that neither one wants to deal with; after all, they are both kind of busy, and trying to protect humanity after all. Santiago's a hard ass because he has to be, not wanting to be the type of vampire/man his father was. And Roxy is still struggling with the death of her fiance, and a mistake she made that…well, I won't give any more away.
Roxy and Santiago dance around each other at first, then they must pretend to be lovers, and their relationship starts taking twists and turns, increasing the sexual tension between them as things around them get more dangerous. I like the way London keeps the tensions going in this story, as Roxy and Santiago start to trust one another and things heat up between them.
The sex scenes between Santiago and Roxy are fairly explicit. I would not say they are pornographic, but they are very direct and leave little to the imagination, so if this offends you please be warned. Santiago, Roxy, and all of the Guardians are fighting a war with the Darkbloods, and the danger they are all in kept my interest from the first page to the last.
Seduced by Blood is top-notch Harlequin vampire romance; I read it in one day, in between getting laundry and vacuuming done. Contemporary vampire fiction is lots of fun, in my book, because you never quite know what characteristics, what powers, the authors will give their vampires. We've come a long way from the days when vampires sucked blood at night and slept in coffins during the day. And London's vampires have their own human-like characteristics, just like us "normal" folks do (like Santiago not wanting to have his father's bad traits).
Laurie London lives in my neck of the woods, and I'm delighted she sets her stories in the Pacific Northwest. I'm going to get my hands on all the stories in her Sweetblood series (Bonded by Blood, Hidden by Blood, Embraced by Blood, A Vampire for Christmas, and Tempted by Blood). I'm giving Seduced by Blood 4 stars, a quick, fun and easy read that's sexually explicit in parts and fun the whole way through.
Click here for the paperback!
Click here for the Kindle book!


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8 comments:
- Anonymous2/4/14 12:34 pm
I'm about to start a Dark Angels army, what colour do you use for the turquoise? I want a consistent colour for eyes, plasma coils, and power weapons and that looks amazing.ReplyDeleteReplies
Hey Skilder, the plasma color is P3 Arcane blue. P3 have quite a lot of nice colors available. Hope that helps :)Delete
Agreed. Vallejo Scarlet Red is really awesome. I was doing Tau with that color, insanely beautiful.ReplyDelete
How does Vallejo Air metallic colours perform in Airbrush?ReplyDelete
Do they need some special precaution?
I usually use Vallejo Airbrush Thinner for thinning paints in airbrush...Replies
Ive not any problems with the metallics they do. The color that always clogs me the most is Vallejo model air white.Delete
- Anonymous2/4/14 7:56 pm
Perfect example of why to not use a white background. The extreme contrast between the background and the bloodletters body makes any thing difficult to see, and the white is pushing into the torsos further complicating things.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous2/4/14 8:30 pm
Awesome work. They look brilliant.ReplyDelete


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» Biker-friendly » Wigtownshire
Hotels, Bed and Breakfasts (B&Bs), Guest Houses, Pubs and Inns in WIGTOWNSHIRE
Find a friendly welcome for both you and your dream machine. Whether you ride a Harley or a Hyabusa, these establishments - from hotels to B & Bs and guest houses etc - have specified that they are motorcyclist friendly! From biker-owned and operated establishments to simply biker-friendly places, some with extras such as ground anchors or secure storage for your precious bike, our range of accommodation is ready to welcome you.
* Please read our Terms & Conditions and Disclaimer
Showing 1 - 1 of 1 Biker-friendly places in Wigtownshire, Scotland
The Bladnoch Inn
Wigtown, Newton Stewart, Wigtownshire, Scotland [Google Map]
Visit Scotland 2 star
- Amenities: Restaurant,Non-smoking (throughout),Ironing facilities,Internet access (wireless) in public areas,Bar,
- Parking: Off-site parking, Free parking, On-site parking,
Quick facts...
4 rooms, with prices from £
We are:
- Biker Friendly
- Business Traveller Friendly
- Child & Family friendly
- Cyclist friendly
- Gay friendly
- Groups Friendly
- Solo Traveller friendly
- Walker friendly
DG8 9AB ScotlandAddress: The Bladnoch Inn, Bladnoch, Wigtown, Newton Stewart, Wigtownshire


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Hosting email server at home but ISP blocks port 25, any solutions?
I am trying to set up an email server in my home network for my hobby blog site. Comcast blocks port 25 so I cannot run the server on port 25. Any workaround?
You don't specify whether port 25 is blocked inbound or outbound, but I'm going to assume the latter as that's what most ISPs do.
Unfortunately, the only solution for this is to use an outbound SMTP relay service. Theoretically, you might be able to relay all of your outbound mail through your ISP's SMTP server, but that may or may not work depending on your ISP's restrictions on outbound mail. Alternatively, there are third-party providers that offer mail relay services expressly for this purpose. EasyDNS' easySMTP comes to mind, and I know the DynDNS used to offer a simple service for this, but I think it's been wrapped up into their bigger enterprise-level offerings, so I don't think the basic relay service still exists. You can probably shop around and find others.
That said, there's probably no reason you can't give Comcast a shot for this, since as you say it's mostly a hobbyist thing. You'd need to configure your outbound mail server to use port 587 and authenticate to Comcast with your Comcast user ID and password. How you do this will depend entirely on what mail server you're using.
Thank you for your input. Port 25 was blocked both inbound and outbound. I did set up the email server on port 26 but had to use inbound and outbound SMTP relay. I used Dynu's email store/forward which receives emails for my domain and forward them to my server on port 26.
I took a look at EasyDNS' easySMTP, but $70+ a year was a bit over my budget. Luckily the same Dynu offered outbound SMTP relay as well. Paid $9.99/year for 200 emails a day.
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Windstream restores phone service after widespread outage
Windstream phone services have been restored after a widespread outage Monday.
A statement on Windstream's website said service had been restored to "all but a handful of customers" as of 5:30 p.m.
The outage apparently began shortly before noon.
An announcement on Windstream's home page, Windstream.net said at the time: "Windstream's network operations and engineering teams are working a widespread outage affecting long-distance and toll-free call processing.
"This has also affected inbound calling to our support centers. Windstream is working with the manufacturer on a resolution to the issue."
The message also said there were "reports that local inbound and outbound calling might be disrupted for some customers."


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Gregorian Chants
Texas A&M mascot at last declared innocent by Norm Stewart
As they exchanged banter during a news conference previewing tonight's "Return To The Hearnes" honoring Mizzou's 1993-94 men's basketball team, former Tigers coach Norm Stewart and current coach Frank Haith, then a Texas A&M assistant, recalled those teams meeting around that time.
That funneled the discussion to a game the season before, an 81-55 MU victory in the tight confines of the old G. Rollie White Coliseum in College Station.
"You flew in the day of the game and beat us," Haith recalled, citing one of Stewart's traditional approaches.
In that environment, the Aggies collie mascot had a certain presence.
"That dog was barking that whole game," Haith said, turning to Stewart. "Remember that little dog over there barking at you?"
Did he ever. And for that matter, so did any of us who covered that game.
That's because the action featured Jevon Crudup, in fact, blocking a shot into Reveille.
Told that had happened after the game, Stewart said, "Oh, really? Good."
But don't call the ASPCA. That was just part of Stewart's inventive penchant for good theater.
Entering the game, he had told (concocted?) a tale that Reveille had bitten his son Lindsey during a game at A&M when Lindsey was playing at Rice.
As Stewart retold that part on Tuesday, Haith scoffed and said, "Nooo."
And Stewart fessed up.
"Well, he didn't," Stewart said. "But that's the advantage of being older. Stories get better as you tell them."
They were pretty good at the time, too.


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This summer the owners of The Canyon Salon in Westlake, CA transformed their stylish boutique salon into a spectacular celebration to honor the memory of Sharon Perry. Sharon lost her battle with pancreatic cancer in 2012 only a couple days before the first Style-A-Thon was held. This year her daughter Shannon, son Randy Newhart, and two nieces Christy Calfati & Nikki Corzine hosted the 2nd Annual Style-A-Thon with a deeply changed and equally passionate perspective.
The community poured in from babies on up to a 90 year old. Supporters made appointments for blow-drys, deep conditioning treatments, manicures, braids, haircuts, and much more. Nearly 400 people came through the doors eagerly anticipating appointments with stylists that would go above and beyond.
Baskets filled with expensive hair care items were displayed for raffle and the festivities included a photo booth, glitter tattoos and face paint for the kids. A DJ played tunes to energize everyone as they enjoyed an elaborate spread of food and beverages including a purple martini named "The Sharontini." A special treat was in store for one local woman who was selected as "Queen for the Day". She had been the caregiver for her husband who is currently battling cancer. Event organizer Ingrid Jensen said "The community was really able to get involved, all in the name of someone they knew and loved. She was absolutely touched and delighted to be pampered all day! She had a facial, her makeup done, a manicure, and her hair magnificently styled. It was a pretty powerful event!"
The Canyon Salon has become a place where staff and clientele continue to support the family's efforts to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer. "This event has been so successful two years running now. Not only is it a success in terms of the money raised but also for the growing knowledge our community has of this horrible disease. It is an avenue for loved ones to put thoughts to action", says Shannon. Canyon Salon staff make the event possible by donating their time at no cost and they've continued the tradition of raising funds as TEAM SHARON at the LA Cancer Challenge.
Shannon declared, "The Style-A-Thon will run every year for years to come. A generous friend of my mother's paid $1000 for his haircut! Any proceeds raised in honor of my mother, Sharon Perry, will always go to the Hirshberg Foundation. The group behind the cause is such a dynamic, beautiful, warm and dedicated group of people. My mother and I shared wonderful moments with the people of the foundation. That is priceless."


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These are the top 20 Music Videos according to me. They are all off the youtube and some of them are random thing with music behind them. I tried my best to pick ones that did by to get ones that do not have adds
1. What a Feeling - Irene Cara
2. Eventful - Ami Suzuki
4. My Dear Boy - Murning Musume
5. Wild - Namie Amuro
7. We Will Rock You & Eye of the Tiger - Red Hot Chili Pipers
17. Mon Chavalier - Emilie Simon
18. Barracuda - Rasputina
19. Potential Breakup Song - Ami Suzuki
20. I Go Chop Your Dollar - Uzodinma Okpechi


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Wouldn't it be possible to translate this article? There are so many people, who aren't that well in understanding English. Especially me: I undertand German best, but am also able to undertand English and French. But with that many special words, isn't it really easy to understand. So I wish that this page gets translated in future!
And: I can offer a page, where you can help to build up an english version of this page: Leciel
Please visit it! Mta 16:28, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
- Bezüglich deutschsprachigen Übersetzungen brauchst du dich nur an mich oder Avatar wenden. Und, ich werde die Seite gleich mal auf meine ToDo-Liste schreiben. Gruß Tomsen (talk) 08:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
- Danke vielmals! Mta 08:32, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
- I agree to whatever you guys are saying, but shouldn't something about making somebody else and admin be included? {{SUBST:User:Zheliel/sig}} 09:53, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
- Good point - I've added a brief note to a link at the end, but Help:User access levels is what you need. Kirkburn (talk) 14:21, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
- I know, but it took me quite some time to find out how to do it. Zheliel 11:13, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Becoming an administrator Edit
How do you become an Administrator does the founder of the particular wikia have to make you one? --Gruntijackal 20:42, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
- Either the founder has to grant the rights (through votes, discussion, or otherwise), if the founder is inactive please see Wikia adoptions. — Charitwo (talk) 20:47, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
- Yes but how does the founder grant rights? There's no obvious link I can find that will allow me to make another user an admin of my wikia. Broier 16:59, March 18, 2010 (UTC)
- If you're a founder, or a bureaucrat, you can access Special:UserRights by searching it up from the sidebar. You can also access it by using the "Special pages" link on the sidebar toolbox. Down the list of special pages should be a link in bold labelled "User rights management". The 888th Avatar (talk) 09:21, March 19, 2010 (UTC)
- I'm a founder and I can't find this "Special pages" link or the sidebar you mention, is it gone? Having to type in the url or search for these special pages is a pain in the ass. Gakera 23:41, February 23, 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, it is gone. The link mentioned is Special:SpecialPages. You can also put a few of those special pages into your toolbar..AB 11:50, February 24, 2011 (UTC)
- Oh, cool, that's handy adding it to the toolbar. I was confused by that Customize link, I pressed it when I was looking for what I later found out is called the "Theme Designer" - I wanted to change the background on my wiki (what I consider to also be "customizing"). It might be better to spell it out, "Customize Toolbar" or just "Customize these links". And it took me forever to find the Theme Designer, I must say that this aspect of the Wikia platform might benefit from a UX study :) My suggestion is to add a "Control Panel" or "Dashboard" link somewhere prominent for administrators, that presents these Special links in the context of some workflow (Change Background, Assign Admins, Revert Edits etc...). Gakera 12:55, February 24, 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, it is gone. The link mentioned is Special:SpecialPages. You can also put a few of those special pages into your toolbar..AB 11:50, February 24, 2011 (UTC)
- I'm a founder and I can't find this "Special pages" link or the sidebar you mention, is it gone? Having to type in the url or search for these special pages is a pain in the ass. Gakera 23:41, February 23, 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggest Gakera. We actually have been discussing an admin dashboard, so you may see it in the future. We just released a new Wikia Labs product where you can test new features. You can learn more about it here: http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Sarah_Manley/Introducing_Wikia_Labs. Happy editing, --Sarah (help forum | blog) 23:33, February 24, 2011 (UTC)
Link to tar manual Edit
The link to tar manual in section "How do I block a troublemaker?" is 404. Another possible link would be http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/html_chapter/Date-input-formats.html --a_morris (talk) 03:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
Question Edit
Hi, I'm the admin of the new wiki about LEGO.com games. I would like to know how to make other people admins. I would also like to know how to make a better page design. Thanks! Signed, Secretam.
- Try Special:UserRights on the wiki to change user rights of a user. Page design: skin help at Help:Customizing Monaco and design help at Help:Beyond the basics and Help:Features_FAQ. Good luck! Joey (talk) 07:48, July 9, 2010 (UTC)
A query Edit
Is it the done thing to remove an admin's admin rights when the said admin is inactive? -- Dragonfree OVER 4,000 EDITS 20:50, July 16, 2010 (UTC)
- Only if there is consensus to do so. There have been long debates about it on English Wikipedia. — Jeff G. ツ 17:52, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
Requesting help from admins here Edit
I have created a talk page section requesting a change to a protected page at Talk:Rollback, but I could not find a way to alert an admin to the need for the change, like Wikipedia:Template:Edit protected. Please create or make it easier to find such a way, and also please review my requested change. Thanks. — Jeff G. ツ 17:52, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
New member message Edit
You know that message you get after your first edit on a wiki. How do I change that up. I am an admin on the Fairy Tail Fanon.--Zicoihno (Talk to Me) 21:25, February 27, 2011 (UTC)
- Sure, see User:Wikia for instructions and the right pages to change those messages. --Charitwo (talk) 06:46, February 28, 2011 (UTC)
Can't make somebody an admin? Edit
I am a bureaucrat on my wiki and I want to make a user an admin. However, when I go on the user rights management page, I find that all I can change is the categories related to chat. The admin/b'crat/rollback check boxes are grayed out and moved over to the left column. Is there a way to change this, and if so, how? Forestpaw13
- What wiki is this happening on? --Sarah (help forum | blog) 16:34, July 8, 2011 (UTC)
How do you make a user admin?Ivan Kakooza 03:42, January 1, 2012 (UTC)
- You can learn how to here. Sarah (help forum | blog) 17:03, January 3, 2012 (UTC)
how do i talk to administraitors i was banned by something i did not mean to do i am new and di not know the rules


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Petra wrote:Stormlight is meh and massively overrated.
Jestin wrote:Oh sorry forgot to mention I read those two books, they were good! But not as good as GoT I thought. Probably comparing apples to oranges. What do you guys think would be similar in quality to GoT?
Thanks for the help guys.
Razhak wrote:I've been recently digging into the "Old man's war" series from John Scalzi.
Quite enjoyable, reminds me of Starship Troopers (the book by Heinlein, not the movie )
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests


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Getting started on a new blog, on a new server, is harder than I thought it would be. I'm still learning. Slowly. Hopefully this will eventually be as easy as blogger. I'm also still trying to decided exactly what direction I want to go. I know I want to add my photography, memory keeping and a sprinkling of everything else. But, with that being said, I'm not sure where to start, so maybe I'll just start.
Here goes nothing. I guess I should let you know a little about me. I'm currently a stay-at-home mom to two little ones. Hudson is my 3-year-old son and Harper is my 18-month-old daughter. They are quite a handful right now, but also a ton of fun and in my opinion, super cute! My husband's name is Jeremy. He's awesome! We just celebrated our 5-year-anniversary last August with a trip to Big Sur, California. Loved it! I've always loved art and photography, so it just made sense to get into the photography business, finally. I've wanted to be a photographer my entire life, but never felt confident enough until now. I'm working hard to get things going and finally be able to photograph clients.
I think it was my love of photography and art and that got me into scrapbooking at the ripe old age of 14. It was my freshman year of high school when I started my first album. I was in love! I made scrapbooks for each year of high school and college, as well as graduation, cheerleading and vacation scrapbooks. I took a break after college though. I felt burned out and uninspired. It just wasn't fun anymore. Then I had a baby and suddenly I felt the urge to document his life in that special way that only a scrapbook can, so I started up again. I was finally starting to enjoy it again. A year later I discovered Project Life by Becky Higgins and I knew I absolutely HAD to document our everyday lives with this awesome system. The more I did, the more I loved it. I started off just doing it the simple way, but have evolved into adding more embellishments and inserts. I can't even tell you how much it's changed my way of memory keeping in the best way possible.
I made my first mini album to document our Big Sur trip and loved creating it. I used Elise Cripe's summer mini book and it was perfect. I can't wait for the right time to put together another one, only next time I think I'll make my own mini album!
Along with the scrapbooks, Project Life and mini album, I also create family year books every year. I started in 2009, so I have three so far, but I just started adding 2012's photos to MyPublisher in order to get started on our 2012 yearbook.
As you can tell, memory keeping is incredibly important to me and a huge part of my life. It's my quiet time, and without sounding too cheesy, my way to focus on all the little blessings that life has to offer. It's awesome.
I also love to run, cook, craft and am working on slowly updating our home. Which means I will most likely be adding blog posts about all of it. I love spending time with family and friends as much as possible, but I also enjoy "me" time with a cup of coffee and a good book or peaceful meditation, which I'm very new at and have a ton to learn. I'm convinced I would be best friends with Reese Witherspoon and Ali Edwards if ever given the chance to meet the. What you don't think so?! Ha!
My guilty pleasures include anything with chocolate, all kids of cheese, and a good glass of red wine, oh, and Instagram.
And last, but not least, my favorite shows (because who isn't interested in knowing my favorite shows?!) are The Walking Dead (obsessed!), Parenthood, Modern Family, Revenge and 30 Rock. Does anyone else watch The Walking Dead? Isn't it like the best ever?!
So that's pretty much it for now. Talk about rambling! That went on longer than I planned, but I hope you'll come back again for another visit!
And just to end things on a cute note, I thought I'd add a couple of photos I took of the kids when we actually had snow on the ground.
Have a great weekend, and I promise to get my stuff together and figure this whole thing out!


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I've just been on Twitter and the news for a few hours now and it's official: Michael Jackson passed away today of cardiac arrest. He was 50 years old.
On a strictly historical level, Michael Jackson was truly one of the greatest forces in music and style that the world has ever known. With Thriller holding the record as the highest-selling album of all time and multiple hits within his vast catalog of music, the man was the indisputable King of Pop for many generations of fans. We can remember him as a singer, composer, and one Hell of an entertainer. His talent and music will be sorely missed.
One cannot also think of Michael Jackson without thinking of the impact he had on fashion and style. From a white sequined glove to the red "Thriller" jacket to buckles and a penchant for military gear, Michael Jackson had a huge historical impact on fashion and style. Many of us owned a replica of one of the jackets (I can't help but smile when I think of the return of Balmain's military jackets and motorcycle jeans last season) and there isn't an aspect of style he didn't touch: nightlife is always better when a Michael Jackson song is played, everyone at one point has tried to moonwalk (don't lie) or dance like the King of Pop.
As a lifelong fan of his music, I would like to take a moment and thank him for the positive influence he has on my life and my personal style. He will always be remembered in my heart as the dancing machine with unlimited creativity and who marched to the beat of his own drum. MJ, we salute you for your fashion, your style and the beauty of your creativity which touched the lives of millions.
Please do enjoy my personal favorite performance of the King of Pop, the one that launched Thriller as the biggest album of all time and the white glove that sparked my own childhood awe: the Motown 25th Anniversary performance where we first heard "Billie Jean."
Rest in peace, MJ.


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Oblivion Song – Gideon Falls – Power Rangers Shattered Grid | Talks Comics! #8
Welcome to another episode of Talks Comics! A monthly YouTube show from My Comic Universe's Brandon and Brian, where we talk about a few comic book news updates then get into our main comic book topic. The main topic of today's episode is independent comics. We discuss a few new comic book series from Images […]Continue Reading


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07 Apr 2015 18:01
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Re: evaluating functions and displaying results numerically
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg126162] Re: evaluating functions and displaying results numerically
- From: Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu>
- Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2012 06:05:39 -0400 (EDT)
- Delivered-to: email@example.com
- References: <email@example.com>
- Reply-to: murray at math.umass.edu
Correct, the result of Sin[1] is _exactly_ Sin[1], whereas Sin[1.] will give you a decimal result that approximates the exact value. This is one of the most basic ideas of Mathematica -- that it can deal with exact symbolic quantities, like Pi or E or Sqrt[2] or Sin[1]. Perhaps you need to read some of the introductory tutorials provided with Mathematica. On 4/21/12 12:33 AM, Eduardo Fontana wrote: > Once in a while a face a problem with Mathematica in which I cannot > get a straightforward numerical output. > I have a function defined in mathematica, I try to evaluate the > function with numerical arguments and mathematica returns a replica of > my function with the same arguments. It must be something I set > without noticing. I cannot get numerical results at all. > In another instance, I have a summation of about 1000 terms defined as > a function of 3 arguments. When I use numerical arguments, instead of > Mathematica calculating a numerical result it generates a symbolic > output with all 1000 terms. Even if a try something very simple such > as > In[1]: Sin[1] > the output is > Out[1]: Sin[1] > Could anyone give me a clue on this? > regards > -- Murray Eisenberg murray at math.umass.edu Mathematics & Statistics Dept. Lederle Graduate Research Tower phone 413 549-1020 (H) University of Massachusetts 413 545-2859 (W) 710 North Pleasant Street fax 413 545-1801 Amherst, MA 01003-9305
- References:
- evaluating functions and displaying results numerically
- From: Eduardo Fontana <email@example.com>
- evaluating functions and displaying results numerically


text: Srinagar: Two soldiers have been martyrd and three injured in the on-going gunfight in South Kashmir's Shopian district. However, there is no confirmation about the number of militants killed in the operation. One army soldier was shot and four others injured on Saturday as a fierce gunfight raged in Awneera village of Shopian district. The injured soldiers were shifted to army's base hospital in Badami Bagh area of Srinagar city. "One of the injured soldiers succumbed in the hospital today", police said on Sunday. After receiving intelligence inputs that a group of two to three militants were hiding in the village, security forces including Rashtriya Rifles, state police and the CRPF surrounded the area on Saturday. As the security forces surrounded the hiding militants, they were fired upon, triggering the gunfight, police said. Unconfirmed reports said two militants had been killed during the gunfight, but there has been no official confirmation of this so far. Reports said that the youth clashed with the security forces in Awneera to break the cordon around the village on Saturday. Seven civilians had sustained pellet injuries during clashes. Police also denied rumours that a mosque was damaged during the gunfight between the security forces and the militants.