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The Humanity of the Web: Reflections of a Social Computing Evangelist
A little while ago Courtney Hunt, from the talented Denovati Group, reached out to me through Twitter, and then LinkedIn, to ask me whether I would like to contribute to a book project they are working on to go and celebrate the World Wide Web's Coming of Age, since this year, 2014, we all, collectively, celebrate its 25th anniversary. Yes, I know, I couldn't just reject such kind, generous and overall wonderful opportunity, as I am sure you would all agree with me on how much we owe Sir Tim Berners-Lee for such life changing invention with a huge impact on each and everyone of us, not just in a work context, but also in our personal lives and our society. I mean, could you possibly imagine a Life Without the WWW today? I know I couldn't, and that's why I thought about participating further along to that effort with my humble contribution, as a token of immense gratitude for a lifetime transformation journey from, once being a technophobe, back in the day, into, nowadays, truly loving the enablement power of the Web that's helping us regain our very own essence: our humanity.
What you will find attached below, since it is already now publicly available at the Denovati Group Web site, is the book chapter that I submitted where I reflected on my own overall experiences and interactions with the World Wide Web from over the course of the last 17 years that I have been actively making the most out of it, day in day out. It hasn't been an easy task to do, more than anything else, because there have been so many anecdotes, stories, life changing experiences and good overall transformation all around that I eventually decided to just focus on what I feel is perhaps the most profound impact that the World Wide Web has had in yours truly over the course of the last 15 years. Of course, I am talking about the Social Web and I am sure, as you continue to read further along, that you would probably be envisioning what single experience I picked up to reflect further on that would describe that shift from hating technology / computing (back in my high school years) to absolutely loving the WWW for what has done not just for me as a knowledge (Web) worker, but also for everyone else, for that matter.
The title of the article / book chapter is "The Humanity of the Web: Reflections of a Social Computing Evangelist" and you would be able to find it as well over here. However, since it has been out already for a good few days I thought I would also take the liberty to reproduce it over in this blog as an opportunity for me to reflect and continue to celebrate perhaps one of the most profound and of deep impact inventions in the history of the human race on this planet. Most probably, at the very same level as the invention of the Printing Press, if not even more significant.
Thus, without much further ado, here's the article, on its entirety, reproduced below:
"There was a time when I didn't quite like technology. Back in my high school years, computing was one of the subjects that I kept struggling with time and time again. Eventually I gave up on it. You could say I was a bit of a technophobe. I moved on to a career in humanities instead. Fast forward to 2014 and today I wouldn't be able to get by without the World Wide Web. What happened then? Well, transformation is what happened. The Internet changed my life 17 years ago, and my relationship with it is still going strong.
On January 20th, 1997, I started working for the largest IT firm in the world, IBM. From the very beginning, at the infancy of the World Wide Web, I realised that perhaps my high school experiences with computing didn't provide the best foundation for my relationship with technology, and maybe I needed to move forward and restart with a clean slate. That's when the transformation journey commenced.
As time went by, I started to get more and more heavily involved with technology. It all began for me with customer service – first the mainframe, then PCs, then ultimately the Internet. It was in 2000, when I was exposed for the first time to something called "wikis," that I had that aha moment, realising how the Web – the Social Web that was then only just getting started – would change us all for good, whether in our personal or work lives. There would be no turning back.
That was the time when I realised the key, paramount role that technology and the Web would play in helping us collaborate and share our knowledge much more effectively in the workplace. It was that time as well when I realised that, if anything, the main purpose for the Web was to help us connect, build relationships, collaborate more effectively and eventually do our jobs better. The Web as an enabler – a very powerful enabler, reflecting a fundamental shift in terms of how we would get our work done, how critical remote, virtual collaboration would become over the course of time. How hoarding and protecting your own knowledge would be very limited in the long run. And, instead, how sharing it openly and transparently, through the (Social) Web, would give us an opportunity to change how the business world works – and for that matter, society as a whole.
During those early years, as I got more heavily involved with wikis, profile aggregators, blogs, social bookmarks, file sharing, podcasting, tagging, messaging, and various other key elements from the so-called Web 2.0, I continued to nurture the excitement of how technology would have a much more significant impact than anything we may have witnessed over the course of the last few centuries. And so I became a Social Computing Evangelist.
It's not an easy task to help people understand how they can benefit from the Web, especially all the various social networking tools, but I have learned over the course of time that the job of a social computing evangelist becomes a whole lot easier when you practice what you preach. That's essentially when people will start noticing the potential impact of the Web, when they can see it working in real day-to-day work interactions not just for the benefit of a few, but for everyone. That's why, after years of evangelising about the enabling capabilities of the Social Web, I decided to take things to the next level and make it an integral part of my work and personal lives.
Email has been with us for over 40 years, and most people would probably tell you they couldn't live without it. It's become so integral to how we share information, stay in touch, get work done, etc. that to imagine a world without email would be probably more of a nightmare than anything else. Well, that's exactly what I did – I not only imagined a world without email, I lived in it!
In February 2008, after 8 years of evangelising about the power of social networking, both in a work and life context, I decided it was a good time to put my actions where my words were. To help demonstrate what the Social Web was capable of, I decided to tell the whole world that I would no longer use email in a corporate environment to get work done and collaborate with my peers. It was pretty much like that already in my personal life, where the vast majority of my interactions happened through the Web, so I figured I might as well give it a try at work and see how it would play out.
Many of my colleagues thought I was crazy. You know, "How are you going to survive in a large corporate environment without using email?" they would say. "There is a great chance that you would end up getting fired if you continue pursuing that unrealistic idea," they added. Yet I was convinced more than ever that the move would open the door to a new reality of sharing, caring, and helping one another, which is essentially what the Social Web has been enabling all along. And as stubborn as I am, I decided to continue pulling it off to see where it would take me.
Initially, plenty of people thought that I just wanted to kill email, ban it for good, get rid of it, annihilate it from the corporate workplace. I must confess that back then I too had those thoughts. However, things didn't work out that way. Throughout all of those years of living a "Life Without Email" I realised that I didn't want to kill the tool, or the system. I just wanted to improve the way we work together, as a team, as a network, as a community. And that's when it all turned into helping people understand how this movement I founded over 6 years ago had then a single premise: open up to a new world of interactions, of connections, of serendipitous knowledge discoveries that, sooner or later, would affect the way we work and eventually become the new norm: an interconnected, hypernetworked (business) world.
The Web is a wonderful thing, especially the Social Web. We owe a great deal to Sir Tim Berners-Lee for helping change our lives forever. Indeed, all of these social media capabilities have helped us generate that conscious collective knowledge of wanting to do wonderful things, of repurposing and creating a new meaning for what we do with our daily lives: connectedness. It's developed an ability to regenerate our empathy by caring and helping one another that we humans can't just deny, neglect or ignore. We have been born with an innate urge to help each other when in need. It's in our genes. Part of our DNA, our social fabric.
And that's what makes the Web so special. It's got that ability to help us humanise ourselves, to remind us all tof our ability to connect, share and build relationships with others no matter where they may be in this world. And that's exactly the journey I started over 17 years ago, a journey that has proved how an initial dislike of technology (from my high school years) can turn itself into an unprecedented love of technology. The Web is helping us regain our very own sense of humanity: that of belonging to the group, our tribe. The one with which we can make the world a better place. One human at a time. Not just for us, or our children, but for our children's children.
That's the legacy the Web will be leaving behind. That's our legacy: leave this world a better place than we found it. The Internet is us, we are the Internet. And all of that, without using a single email but through the power of the Connected, Social Web.
Hello, my name is Luis Suarez, a.k.a. @elsua. I am one of the billions of netizens out there… Are we connected yet?"
Happy anniversary, our very dear World Wide Web! May you keep flourishing for many, many decades to come!
We don't need no regulation.
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the network
Government: Leave our net alone
Hey! Government! Leave our net alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall
Written by Luis Suarez
Chief Emergineer, People Enabler and Charter Member of Change Agents Worldwide and a well seasoned Social / Open Business evangelist and 2.0 practitioner with over 15 years of experience on knowledge management, collaboration, learning, online communities and social networking for business, and has been living, since February 2008, a (work) life without email challenging the status quo of how knowledge workers collaborate and share their knowledge by promoting openness, transparency, trust, sustainable growth, engagement, connectedness and overall smart work. He can also be contacted over in Twitter at @elsua, Google Plus or LinkedIn.
There Can Be No Resilience Without Transformation
It has been nearly two weeks since the last post that I put over here in this blog, so I am sure that plenty of you folks out there may have been thinking I have been on holidays, or taking the typical summer break, and that at some point in time I may well be coming back to blogging on a regular basis, along with picking up my external social networking activities. Well, not really. I have just concluded, and be dealt with for good, I hope, what I think is the first time ever in my 13 years of social software exposure what I never thought I would be confronting: a week of denial of the Social Web.
Goodness! That was intense. Indeed, to the point where it nearly broke me apart and made me gave up on the whole thing altogether. Those who know me well, specially, fellow colleagues, know that the last two to three weeks have been incredibly emotional at work and with quite a draining toll that I don't even have the energy just yet to write about. And those two last weeks of July finally paid off with this last week of denial for the Social Web where I just basically withdrew from the whole thing. And it was painful. Very painful. And it was ugly. Very ugly. With the end result that at the end of the day I just had to bounce back. That's just what passion does for you, I guess. It lets you go through your odd moments of weakness, so you can do plenty of thinking and reflection on what's going on with you, your surroundings and whatever else you may be interested or rather passionate about, to then help you re-focus and bring back the phoenix in you, restore the faith, restore the commitment, the urge, the purpose and meaning of wanting to still make a difference and, in a blink, just like it started, that week of denial is just gone. Gone to never return!
Perhaps what kicked off that week of denial was that article I put over here under the heading "Google Plus – Who Owns the Filter Bubble?", more than anything else, because my last haven for hope for the Social Web out there just vanished into becoming what most social networking tools are nowadays at best: vulgar and ordinary, just to help us continue being stoned with that digital bliss where it seems to be the only model that works is to have you glued to your computing device(s) hitting refresh constantly, so that you wouldn't miss a single thing happening from what's delivered to you by those so-called social networking providers that keep claiming they know better than yourself what you need, when they themselves refuse to engage or provide you with support, thinking that, after all, you are just that, the mob. And you know how it goes. We don't talk to the mob. We just keep it entertained and hooked, so that we can get away with our own agenda(s). Well, I have got news for all of you. Enough is enough. It's time to wake up, everyone! There is just a whole lot more in life than just being an ignored product of the system. Life is too precious to waste it just like that.
See? The reason why all of these social networking tools are so popular with 2.0 practitioners is not necessarily because of the technology, which is, as I have said above already, rather vulgar, ordinary and miserable, if, as a result of it, your own health is at risk. It's actually the people who keep dragging us all into the whole thing. Vast majority of practitioners don't really care what features a social networking tool may well have or not, if the community is there. You stick around because those people who you have built wonderful personal (business) relationships with over the course of time they keep coming back, just like you do. That's actually one of the reasons why I haven't been actively sharing content across, but I have been observing how my networks have been interacting during that week, without me, and, interestingly enough, things have changed quite a bit and not sure it's for the better. But I think I may know why that's happening, because I am starting to see it at work as well. And it's not pretty.
A couple of days back, I celebrated my fourth month on the new job as a Lead Social Business Enabler at IBM and it just feels like such a long long time ago already. I guess time flies when you are still having lots of good fun enjoying what you do the most: enabling and helping practitioners adapt to a new way of working where collaboration and knowledge sharing through social technologies take a new meaning by becoming more open, trustworthy, public and transparent. Essentially, more effective and productive at the same time by understanding that the corporate world is no longer ruled by the scarcity of knowledge stocks but by the abundance of knowledge flows through multiple social networks.
The thing is though that, while I have been getting more and more involved with the new job, where scalability has taken a new meaning for me, I have had a chance to witness, and experienced fully!, how the 2.0 bubble I may have lived in for the last 6 to 8 years may have already burst. For good. Why? Well, for multiple different reasons that I am going to be blogging about over the course of time, but mainly because of a single one to kick things off: knowledge workers are no longer allowed to Play, Learn, Work, as my good friend, Harold Jarche blogged about beautifully just recently. No, they are not. They are just told, advised, and encouraged to just carry on their work into exhaustion, as if they were androids. And what would you expect they would do? Indeed, they have, eventually, become commoditised robotic entities that do their work and once those resources are no longer deemed helpful or relevant they are easily disposed of.
It's certainly, extremely worrying, how all of that passion, enthusiasm, energy, and huge effort by early adopters and first thinkers on helping set the stage, act as pathfinders, provide the initial roads to get started with that wonderful journey of becoming a Social / Open Business are now things of the past. That's what I have been noticing these past few days while going through that stage of denial of the Social Web. You see? People nowadays are just putting check marks on their massively ever growing to-do lists that they have tweeted, plussed, facebooked, linkedined and what not, so that they can move back into their real work: the one that doesn't require critical, constructive thinking, engaging, conversing, caring, or helping others and so forth for that matter. Essentially, people are back to what has gotten them to the stage of being androids: their meetings and email Inboxes. Those wonderful hide-out places where you can just get by, good enough, pretending you are working, when you know you aren't. But, hey, that's what your boss wants you to do, right? Why change? Why bother? Why trying to look for new, better, more effective ways of working if your boss and your senior management / leadership team(s) keep accumulating fatter and fatter bonuses anyway? You know, you are just sitting inside of your own little mental cubicle, your own comfort zone, that one that doesn't require you to think much in order to go through 12 to 14 hours of hard automated work each day for who knows what business value.
It's really interesting to see what you get to learn when you start questioning everything you have believed in over the course of the last 13 years, in this case, for me, around social networking, but even more interesting when instead of going into broadcasting mode, that is, that industrialisation of your social activities, just like everyone else is doing, you decide to pause and reflect and see how people really interact. Don't worry, you won't have to look into it with much detail. Actually, people just don't interact anymore. They post whatever they have been told they need to share across, or, even better, they scheduled it all, so that they don't have to leave their Inboxes and really important meetings, then they place the check marks on their to-do lists and the whole thing dies. Right there. But, you know, that's all right, because they have done their work already, that is, put a check mark in their lovely spreadsheet, so that it all shows lovely green even though no-one else would be looking into it anyway.
You see? This is what's happening right now. And not just externally, but also internally, behind the firewall, with all of those Enterprise Social Networking tools and across the corporate world. We have defaulted to stop learning, to stop with all the play and, eventually, we have stopped to do our real work more effectively (The work we are truly passionate about), when we all know we can deliver and so much more, but, yet, we don't, because we no longer feel engaged employees anymore and our managers, bosses and senior leadership teams are right there ready to remind us through our monthly paychecks and bonuses what happens when you are not heads down supposedly.
Exhaustion and overwork, but, specially, fear (I will be blogging plenty more about this one, not to worry), are not helping people go out and play with other fellow social networkers, in order to promote and engage on meaningful conversations to get work done. Instead, people just keep putting on more and more hours of work, just because they want to keep up with those extra work pressures that have been imposed on them, as they wouldn't want to lag behind their colleagues. See the trend? It gets better. Managers and senior leadership only care about how much money you have made for them today. Anything else is redundant and they will keep reminding you of it, in case you didn't deliver the fat bonuses to their front door. So when they come to you telling you you need to be social they all make it look like it is, yet again, another spreadsheet to fill-in, put the checkmarks in place and move on. It's easier to manage individuals as exhausted and overworked androids than to treasure and nurture powerful networks that thrive in free flows of knowledge where the hierarchy is no longer the one that calls the shots anymore. You need to earn both the merit and your reputation with total strangers. Every day. Every single day of the year. Year in, year out. And that's pretty though, you know, specially, when you are not used to. So what do you do?
Very simple. The same good old thing you have been doing all along, except that at the moment you have got a new spreadsheet with a bunch of to-dos where it says "Be social or else. Spread around my own messages, so I don't have to do the homework. Represent the brand according to the corporate branding guidelines, never mind your own personal brand, we don't care, and, above all, ensure our customers know about our same good old messages, because we still know more than they do". Whoahhh! I know! That's what I keep seeing, more often than not, when I hang out on both internal and external social networking tools nowadays as I watch, learn and observe how people pretend to interact on the Social Web.
My goodness! Where did we go wrong?!?! How could we possibly waste 6 to 8 years of some wonderfully inspiring 2.0 thought leadership that we knew was going to change the business world for good? Where did we get off the train? Why have we stopped this absolutely inspirational journey to go out there and keep making a difference? And instead go back right into our comfort zones, our spreadsheets, meetings and email, where little thinking is required and minimum action is encouraged so managing things still is relatively easy.
Exactly, that's why I needed to finish off with my own week in denial of the Social Web. That's why I needed, I wanted it!, to bounce back. I had enough of it. It was just killing me to witness how all around me, both inside and, most worryingly outside!, over the course of the last three weeks, I have spent far too much time experiencing what that exhaustive, overworked, under pressured work mentality can do to the corporate world. To all of us, me included. And, in essence, it's managing to do one thing very well: kill all of our passion, all of our critical thinking skills, because we just want to fit in, all of our motivation and purpose to want to do interesting and relevant things, and, eventually, become, at long last, an engaged employee.
That's why instead of giving up on it altogether and move on with the flow (with that rather dangerous inertia of just wanting to blend in, not being noticed) I decided, over the weakend (while I have been on full recovery mode from some rather exhaustive and emotional work experiences through multiple interactions with the business 1.0 world, but equally inspiring and rather thought provoking – I am really looking forward to blog some more about) to … bounce back!
To keep up the fight. Because, amongst several other things, there can be no resilience without transformation. And this is what it is all about, folks: transformation and our ability to shake up everything we have been experiencing and living over the course of the last 150 years and realise that in order for us, knowledge workers, to survive in today's corporate environment, the sooner we adapt to living the values and philosophy of Social / Open Business and how they apply to how we work, the sooner we will finally transform not only the way we work, but also the way we live. And that's just so important.
Why? Well, because since a few years back it's a matter of our own mere survival: that one of the Knowledge Web Worker, finally, fully embracing that digital transformation we all keep talking about, but that we keep seeing slipping away from our fingers time and time again, because we refuse to change.
Change is hard, I think we all know that, but it's now time to take a new grip. And don't let go. Play, Learn and Work like you have never done before! It has always been part of our human nature, an integral part of who we are, so we might as well awaken ourselves and embrace what's inevitable: our very own human digital transformation.
Boy, I am game. And you?
Life Without eMail – Year 6, Weeks 21 to 24 – (Newcomer Challenging for King Email's Crown)
After having just returned from another business trip to the US (Westford, MA, this time around, to participate on a client workshop on Social Business and Knowledge Management to figure out whether they could blend and become one and the same, but more on that one later on…), I guess it's probably a good time now to share another blog post over here on that progress report around Life Without eMail, specially, after my last article on the topic, where I was mentioning what it was like going back to basics through that massive hard reset I experienced earlier on this year. I am sure plenty of folks are wondering where I am with it today and whether I am back on track, or not, right? Well, yes, I surely am! In fact, today's entry will be about a Newcomer Challenging for King eMail's Crown.
If you would remember, about a month ago, I put together the last progress report to date where I was indicating how for the first 20 weeks of year 6 of Life Without eMail I was noticing a rather steep increase in the incoming number of emails received. Nothing to do much with the fact I moved on to another job (Although it contributed as well somewhat!), but, essentially, that intriguing trend of how both my social networking activities, as well as my incoming email, grew up further along hand in hand highlighting perhaps another interesting trend I have noticed as of late: over-sharing of information and knowledge all over the place, just for the sake of making yourself visible and ensure everyone knows you are out there, working really hard, whether on social spaces or in email, so that people would not jump into the wrong conclusions of you slacking off while at work. I guess tough times and work pressures are kicking in stronger and harder than I ever thought they would.
And while email seems to be Crushing Twitter, Facebook for Selling Stuff Online (Very worth while reading Wired article, by the way, on the power of email in terms of its successful conversion rates vs. what social networking tools out there are doing), we should not forget though how emailing gives us all a false sense of progress. And if there is anything that I have learned during the course of the last few weeks from year 6 of having ditched corporate email is that realisation that I am now more convinced than ever about the paramount role that social networking tools will play in a business context in terms of how we share our knowledge and collaborate helping accelerate both our innovation efforts and our decision making processes, to the point where email still is a massive disruptor of that free flow of knowledge and information across the board. And it shouldn't be.
Indeed, email fosters closed, private, secretive interactions amongst a few people, what I have been flagging all along as sharing your knowledge across on a need to know basis vs. what social networking tools do, which is promote that wonderfully inspiring mantra of default to open. It's been rather interesting to note as well how email is pretty much used nowadays as a way of managing your employees and your knowledge workflows vs. perhaps walking along the virtual aisles of social networks to find out what your team members are doing in terms of opening up the conversations, narrating their work or working out loud. And all of that without having to even ask a single question once. Somehow the latter approach sounds so much more of an effective use of our time than the selfish, egotistical use of email just to fit our own individual purpose(s).
So while that transformation keeps taking place I am sure you may be wondering what has happened in the last 4 weeks since the last progress report I shared over here, right? Well, like I hinted above, at the beginning of this article, things are slowly, but steadily, coming back on track. As you can see from the attached snapshot, after the massive peak of email activity for Week 20, with the highest amount of incoming emails for a single week that I can remember in years!, there has been a steady decrease on the amount of emails received for the following four weeks, which I can think can only be, but some really good news. For a moment, I thought all of that hard work of over the course of the last 6 years around Life Without eMail was just gone! Well, not really. We were just having a break, apparently…
As you can see, the average amount of incoming emails is still sitting on 31.2 per week, which is pretty much the very same volume of incoming email that I was receiving back in 2009, but the good news is that over the last four weeks you will see a decrease on the total amount of emails received, and that is a good sign that things are going back to normal, the new normal: a Life Without eMail.
Yes, this year it may well have been a bit of a bumpy road, but that's a good thing, because, amongst several other things, it's allowed me to revisit, review and reposition the whole movement since I started it, and, if anything, I have also learned that I may have gone back to levels of email activity as I had them in 2009, but I have got plenty of years of first hand experiences of how to turn it back on the right track, once again, by living social, by living Open. And I know I am not just ready yet to let things go away like that forgetting everything we have done in the recent past. There is still a good fight out there to go for. One where we transition from closed systems of record into open systems of engagement. One where we continue walking the talk, leading by example on what really matters: a much more purposeful, meaningful work where openness and transparency through social networking tools help us all become more effective and eventually more productive at what we do, i.e. get our work done collectively as teams, networks and communities. And that can only be a good thing for businesses that want to promote sustainable growth as their primal reason for survival in today's Knowledge Economy. After all, when was the last time that you could do your job without the help or support from your (extended) team(s)?
And talking about that Openness and Transparency, I just couldn't help closing off this progress report post sharing across a recent article I had the privilege, and true honour, of writing it for The Times where I basically shared some additional insights in terms of how king email's crown is getting more and more challenged by the day by a certain newcomer that's transforming the way we work: social networking for business. Indeed, over at The Social Business report, pages 12 and 13, you would be able to read "Newcomer Challenging for King Email's Crown" where I mentioned the larger impact all of these social technologies are having around how we get work done in a business environment nowadays:
"Social sharing, when occurring in the workplace, is becoming more focused, purposeful and is making a meaningful contribution to productivity. […]
Knowledge workers are more comfortable with sharing work-related items in the open, but they are also encouraging transparent working. There is an understanding that the more business-related information available out there for practitioners to benefit from, the better the decision-making. It is increasing the ability to share responsibility and accountability"
Yes, I know, I just couldn't help teasing you all with a couple of paragraphs from that article, so that, if you would be interested, you could have a look and read on, specially, if you are keen on finding out plenty more how that openness and transparency are challenging the traditional role of management, decision making, knowledge sharing and, eventually, executing work. Resulting, all in all, in helping us address what I still think is the number #1 business problem of today's corporate world: employee engagement.
Because, after all:
"Socially integrated enterprises have been empowering happy employees to create delighted customers, all through the clever use of digital tools. Social technologies have just become the new overlord. It's about time."
[Oh, and before I forget, here's a friendly reminder, in case you may want to find out further more, to come and join us at the Life Without eMail Google Plus Community where a bunch of us (Including the coiner of the well known mantra I have been reusing for years > "eMail is where knowledge goes to die") have been having some rather interesting, refreshing and thought provoking conversations of how social technologies are reshaping the workplace by helping email repurpose itself into better things…]


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Jubilee Neutral RugPrice: $3,087.00
Design by Rosita Missoni.
Made in Italy by Missoni Home.
The Jubilee Neutral Rug delivers a rich, earthy color palette in a striking striped composition that is exceptionally luxurious and quintessentially Missoni Home design. Alternating sections of earth tones and black and white stripes scroll across this 5-Ft. 6-In. x 7-Ft. 9-In. area rug made from a high quality wool and viscose blend. The clean and colorful appeal of Jubilee Rugs can be enjoyed in a variety of modern aesthetics and living spaces.
Material(s): 80% wool, 20% viscose
Dimensions: 5 Ft. 6 In. X 7 Ft. 9 In.
Designer: Rosita Missoni
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The Missoni fashion legacy began in 1953 when Rosita and her husband Ottavio opened a small shop selling bold, patterned knitwear north of Milan. Since their humble beginnings, Missoni has exploded into one of the most renowned fashion brands of the century. After stepping down from her responsibilities at Missoni the fashion brand, in 2004 Rosita Missoni took over Missoni Home and transformed the business into a dynamic home décor company with products that she herself would want to purchase. In 2009, Rosita brought the quintessential Missoni patterns into the hotel business by overseeing the opening of the first Hotel Missoni in Edinburgh. You can expect to continue finding the signature Missoni Home fabrics in new and exciting places. This 79-year-old entrepreneur does not plan on slowing down anytime soon.View other products by Rosita Missoni
Manufacturer: Missoni Home
Missoni Home: Bold, Relentless Appeal.
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Constantly seeking new niches to explore, the Missoni Home brand was launched in 1983, an intuitive leap into home décor from a reputable legacy in the fashion industry. First and foremost a textile artisan, Rosita Missoni sits at the helm of Missoni Home today with an infectious passion and relentless vitality, leading the brand's expedition to expose and develop the common thread in fashion and home design.
Missoni Home collections reveal a persistent evolution that follows marketplace trends in a timeless fashion. From signature stripe and chevron patterns to oversized graphic and floral prints, Missoni textiles are coveted for their current color palettes and larger than life designs that create warm and welcoming living spaces, arouse emotion and curiosity, and offer an oasis of color and moods.View other products from Missoni Home

subset: commoncrawl


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You're right at home at williamsburg plantation
Welcome to the website for the Williamsburg Plantation Homeowners' Association. We are a master planned community located in Jacksonville, North Carolina – part of Eastern North Carolina's beautiful Crystal Coast. We are a growing community, currently consisting of over 600 single-family homes within seven "Park" neighborhoods. Our next Homeowners Meeting is November 1, 2014, 10:00 am at the Pavilion area.
Residents of Williamsburg Plantation have access to our community's 6-acre park, which includes a children's playground with swings and slides, as well as a large covered pavilion with picnic tables, and a snack bar building. More than 10 miles of walking paths wind their way throughout the seven community neighborhoods of Regency Park, Hyde Park, Richmond Park, Huntington Park, Kensington Park, Emerson Park and St. James Park.
If you're a Williamsburg Plantation homeowner, you'll find a wealth of resources here, including governing documents, board meeting minutes, community newsletters and other community information.
If you're looking to move to the Jacksonville area, we hope you will consider our community as your new home!
Here is a list of some amenities and attractions near our community:
Next Homeowners Meeting November 1, 2014, 10:00am Our Pavilion Williamsburg Parkway.


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Gregory's Box'd Beverages - Tea with Lemon, Green Tea with Honey, Tea with Peach & Old Time Lemonade Premium Beverages.
August 29, 2012
Hannaford and Sweetbay
Owned by the Belgian Delhaize Group, New England and Florida are now selling Gregory's BOX'D Beverages through two of their flagship chains Hannaford and Sweetbay. Hannaford with 177 stores and Sweetbay with 103 stores recently placed Tea with Lemon, Tea with Peach, Green Tea with Honey and Old Time Lemonade on their shelves in the Tea aisle. By September 30, they should be complete in adding them to their tea shelves.
Shop Rite
Shalom Kosher
Gregory's BOX'D Beverages comes to the south! Over 200 Ingles stores in North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia now carry Gregory's BOX'D Beverages. Headquartered in Black Mountain, NC , Ingles is carrying all 9 flavors of Teas, Lemonade and Juices…including 100% Tropical Fruit Punch, 100% Apple, 100% Grape and a Cranberry Juice Cocktail. If you love Gregory's BOX'D Beverages, you can certainly find it at Ingles.
Price Chopper
Price Chopper is rolling out two flavors of Gregory's BOXD Beverages starting in early May. Tea with Lemon and Tea with Peach will soon be available for all of Price Chopper customers who have been patiently waiting for Gregory's BOX'D Beverages to arrive, especially in Eastern Upstate NY (but also includes locations in MA, CT, NH and VT). A total of 115 stores are targeted to carry the product in their shelf stable tea section.
Bed, Bath & Beyond
Bath & Beyond is testing Gregory's BOX'D Beverages in 6 of their World Market Stores (Washington D.C, East Hanover, NJ, Sunrise, Florida, Auburn, Washington, Gurnee, Illinois, and Westbury, NY). In addition to BB & B's domestic merchandise, these stores offer unique food and beverage items. A perfect fit for Gregory's BOX'D Beverages innovative, unique dispensing system coupled with our delicious tasting teas and lemonade. [Further rollout pending test results]
King Kullen
King Kullen on Long Island, NY will also test our Gregory's BOX'D Beverages in a number of select stores coming this May. [Further rollout pending test results]
Roche Brothers
Gregory's BOX'D Beverages comes to Boston, MA!
Roche Brothers stores are located in
West Roxbury


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Juha Tuomi/dpa - Math student
Berlin Start-Up: Math42
When brothers Maxim and Raphael Nitsche were 15 and 14 year-old math tutors, they received the same questions over and over. So they created an interactive iPhone app that guides students through complex problems. Now at 19 and 18 years old, their "Math42" app has at times been the most downloaded educational app in Germany and the U.S.
dpa/Uwe Gerig - Quedlinburg
Explore DE: Christmas markets with traditional charm
Derailing the Train: How Intercity Buses Are Changing the Way We Travel in Germany
Until recently, if you wanted to travel the length of Germany—let's say from Hamburg to Munich—you had three options: drive, fly, or take the train. Long-distance buses were, quite literally, forbidden. All of this changed at the beginning of 2013, which saw the liberalization of a German law resulting in the sudden and aggressive rise of the Fernbus.


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By David Horsey
Welcome to your discussion forum: Sign in with a Disqus account or your social networking account for your comment to be posted immediately, provided it meets the guidelines. (READ HOW.) Comments made here are the sole responsibility of the person posting them; these comments do not reflect the opinion of The Sentinel and Enterprise. So keep it civil.
Fort Worth firefighters use oxygen to save cat
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — North Texas firefighters have used oxygen on a cat that was rescued from a burning house after the residents escaped on their own. Full Story
(Mark Pokorny/AP)
'Hobbit' goes out on top with $90.6 million 5-day debut
NEW YORK (AP) — While Hollywood continued to wrestle with the fallout of the Sony hacking scandal, the weekend box office offered the solace of a moviegoing truism: Hobbits sell. Full Story
Commentary: Sony's fear and 'The Interview' decision set terrible precedent
Seth Rogen and James Franco film unlikely to remain in a vault after costing $44 million.


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CEA Reports: January/February 2013
CEA Reports: January/February 2013
January 06, 2013
Innovation Entrepreneur Awards
CEA's inaugural Innovation Entrepreneur Awards (IEA) program, sponsored by
It Is Innovation (i3)
magazine and the
Small Business Council
(SBC) recognized the contributions of one executive and two small companies in the CE industry that innovate to grow their businesses and also excel in community outreach at the Industry Forum member luncheon. Participation is limited to CE companies with annual domestic revenue under $30 million.
The winners are
GrandCare Systems
and Sandy Gross. EcoATM was founded in 2008 by Tom Tullie as an automated eCycling Station for eWaste recycling. Its automated kiosk buys back used CE products like cell phones and provides cash or an in-store credit. GrandCare Systems integrates daily activities into a touch-based system for seniors. Charlie Hillman originally created the system to help his great-aunt live independently. Gross is co-founder of Polk Audio, Definitive Technology and his latest business, GoldenEar Technology. To see videos of the finalists or to make a nomination for 2013, visit
Vote on the Best Shots
While at CES, vote in the fourth annual
"Best Shots" digital photo contest
, presented by CEA in partnership with Eye-Fi. All photo entries will be displayed at the LVH in the PMA@CES exhibits. Judges will select finalists in four categories – people, travel, pets and cell phone shots – then an online vote will be held for the winners. Ten prizes will be awarded:
One Grand Prize:
Canon EOS Rebel T3i with Eye-Fi Wireless Memory
SD Card
Four Top Prizes:
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Nikon Coolpix P300 with Eye-Fi SD Card
Sony Cyber-shot DSC -WX 150 with Eye-Fi SD Card
Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS20 with Eye-Fi SD Card
Fujifilm FinePix F770EXR with Eye-Fi SD Card
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Eye-Fi SD Card
World's Most Energy-Efficient TVs
Super-efficient Equipment and Appliance Deployment (SEAD ) Initiative
Global Efficiency Medals
to Samsung and LG. With televisions 33 to 44 percent more efficient than those with similar technologies, Samsung and LG took top awards at the first SEAD Global Efficiency Medal competition for flat-panel televisions in October. The program encourages the production and sale of super-efficient equipment, appliances and electronics, focusing on products with energy savings potential. For more information:
superefficient.org/ TV awards
New Home for Start-ups
CEA has a new membership category for CE start-ups for 2013 to provide these companies with access to member benefits to help grow their businesses and help CEA strengthen its relationship with new market entrants. CEA 's Small Business Council (SBC ) already provides education and training, conference programs, networking opportunities and a mentoring program.
These programs are being expanded to address the needs of start-up companies. New initiatives also are being developed such as entrepreneur meet-ups to bring this audience together to network.
Eligible companies include:
Start-ups seeking outside funding
Angel/venture investor recipients
Strategic corporate capital recipients
Small business innovation research grantees
Research park companies
State development incubated companies
University research spin-offs
For-profit incubated companies
Advanced development teams
Venture capitalist firms, private equity firms and institutional banks that invest in disruptive innovation.
For information, contact Denise King at
or 703-907-7562.
Calling Entrepreneurs
Startup Weekend starts on January 4-6, at the InNEVation Center in Las Vegas – just days before CES opens. This non-profit brings entrepreneurs together with one goal: going from idea to launch. The weekend has three segments: pitch, build and present. Friday is pitch night where anyone with an idea has one minute to present to the group which then votes for the top eight to 10 ideas. Teams are formed and build until Sunday afternoon when they present their ideas to investors. The winning team exhibits at CES Unveiled that evening. For information:
CEA Staff
"Best Shots", "CEA Member Benefits", CES, ecoATM, "GrandCare Systems", "Innovation Entrepreneur Awards", jan-feb-13, "Sandy Gross", "Small Business Council", "Startup Weekend", "Super-efficient Equipment and Appliance Deployment "
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Photo Credit: Medioimages/photodisc/Getty Images
So check out what Mad Men star January Jones has to say about her eating habits, in the new issue of Allure:
"I have never dieted," says the actress. "I just listen to whatever my body craves. I don't deny myself anything. I don't crave sweets or unhealthy things very often. But when I do, like if I'm in a bad mood and I'm in traffic, I'll stop at McDonald's and get a strawberry shake and fries and not feel guilty at all, because I deserve it."
Tricky, right? Because at first, it sounds so awesome. No dieting! We love that! Listening to what your body craves! Rad! Never craving sweets or unhealthy things... well, she is a Hollywood actress and thus perhaps not quite human. That's cool.
Getting the McDonald's shake and fries because she deserves it? Well, that's where you lose me.
Don't get me wrong: We all say stuff like this all the time. As mentioned before, I'm a stress shopper. The last two weeks have been wicked stressful, ergo, triple-digit MasterCard bill and shiny new spring wardrobe that I completely deserved.
And we definitely say it about food. As in, "I went to the gym, so I deserve this cookie." "I've been stuck in traffic for three hours, I deserve this bag of chips. And also those two cookies." Or per January, "I'm in a bad mood, bring on the strawberry shake."
We even use this "I deserve it!" line to make the decision to indulge feel like a point we're scoring in the name of a healthier relationship with food. January's doing just that when she says she doesn't "feel guilty at all." Translation: She's way too empowered to feel bad about what she eats. All those messages about good foods and bad foods that make the rest of us so crazy just bounce off her shiny blond hair like it's coated in Teflon.
But here's the thing: Usually, when someone says "I deserve it!" what they're really thinking is "I so do not."
It's wicked hard to give ourselves permission to grab the forbidden fruit, because we're conditioned to think that anything delicious is a privilege. And privileges have to be earned. Preferably with as much sweat and tears as you can muster, whether that's via a nasty break-up, a terrible day at the office, or an impossibly intense cardio schedule.
Now don't get anxious. I'm not saying you can't resort to a little culinary comfort after a rough day. It sure does take the edge off. And it's also a fine idea to enjoy some deliciousness when you're celebrating the good times. That's why they serve cake at weddings.
But maybe, just maybe, it's also okay to eat fries or cookies or whatever on perfectly ordinary days. When we haven't been to the gym or crushed a deadline, or slayed a personal demon. When things are fine but not amazing and not horrible either. We can eat these things because they exist in the world and they taste good.
No special qualifications required.


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The fact that it's American Red Cross month along with the recent disaster in Japan, both signal that it's time for a post about Japan. I've been putting it off. I am also half Japanese, in case you didn't know.
One of my last hurrah's was in Tokyo. I am about 5 months pregnant in the photo above. See those lights? They were voluntarily dimmed after the tsunami to save power. I can't imagine what the city would be like without the lights.
Also, you might say that I'm biased, but wherever we are in Japan, the people have always been incredibly generous. We received great service all around from taxi drivers, hotel staff and shop owners. Nice people on the street always help us get around as addresses can be difficult and there isn't a ton of English signage. It's just a pleasure to be there.
We witnessed a wedding at the Meiji Shrine. The shrine is a must see, if you're in Tokyo.
On this trip, I shopped until I literally dropped. Christmas was coming, plus I have a love of Japanese paper and decor. I was thinking about taking La Jolla Girl to Tokyo Disney soon. I'll try harder now to make this happen. Putting my dollars there, is always one of my ways of showing support.
The LUXE Tokyo Guide has awesome walking shopping tours for Ginza, Aoyama and other areas of Tokyo. I would highly recommend picking up a copy of this little booklet if you visit Tokyo. It can slide into your pocket or wallet. We also stayed in the awesome Frank Lloyd Wright designed Imperial Hotel on this trip. If you want to be near Ginza, it's conveniently located.
Here is La Jolla Girl in the Japan Airlines Narita Airport lounge, after raiding the sushi counter. Everyone there could always tell she was Japanese, which shouldn't surprise me, but it always does. Some of the staff even recognized us after a while. Nice, nice people.
We'll return to Japan as soon as we can. It's one of my favorite places in the world to visit. The American Red Cross is taking donations specifically for the Japan Earthquake, as are a number of other organizations.
If you can, the country sure could use the help. A recent CNN article points out the obvious. And a 60 Minutes segment last night pointed out that in the coastal communities, there aren't enough living to take care of the dead. It's awful.


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(Warning: The language in the following entry may be offensive to some readers with tender eyes and fine sensibilities. Proceed with caution.)
The nurses at the table nearby at the hospital cafeteria, when they weren't whispering about the fat man eating three cheeseburgers, gossiped about a recent admission. A black man had been found wandering around the countryside with his eyes gouged out and brought in by ambulance. Just as soon as I finished my cheeseburgers, and fries, and jumbo Coke, and pushed away an untouched salad, I followed one of the nurses back to her floor and found his room just to hear his story.
"You want to know how I'm doing?" he replied when I found him, head swathed in bandages. "A' right, those motherfuckers got my eyeballs, that's how'm I doin'. I'll be tapping around with a white cane while they're showin' 'em off to make an example of my black ass. Some motherfucking Witness Protection Program they got here. You want to know how I'm doing? You can see how I'm doing and I can't see who the fuck wants to know. Y'got me any a that morphine?"
"You'll have to ask your doctor for morphine when you see him," I said, impersonating a hospital staff member.
Now, I knew that he was never going to see a doctor whether one came or not, for he was more blind than a bat. Bats at least have got their sonar to help them get by. He couldn't even see that the Colorado Springs policeman, placed for his protection, had abandoned his post outside the door. I expect he'd have a conniption about that, too, if he knew about it. His chart, which I helped myself to, claimed his name was Tyrone White and that he was stable.
He had a monitor by his bedside, as I had by mine a couple days ago, patrolling heart rate and pulse. It did not indicate the condition of his spirit. The nurses could only note non-compliant, and, combative in the chart, I wanted to know if there was anything else that could be said about him.
"The readings say you're doing quite well, Mr. White."
"Fuck Mr. White," he said. "That fuckin' name is some motherfuckers' idea of a bad joke. If you think giving me a new name and putting me in this hick town is gunna turn me White and make everything all right, then you're a chump. Now they got my eyeballs in the drug dealers' Guinness book of fucking records. I'm telling you I need some more a that morphine."
"Please, Sir," I said, "There's nothing I can do to get you more morphine."
The hospital, that temple of science, keeps nothing but drugs around with which to tend to a wounded spirit. But it may be just as well. For many, healing the spirit is not what they want. All they all want is drugs.
"Shit, where I come from you can get anything you want. Morphine, heroin, weed, crack cocaine, you name it. You don't think I never done that stuff? Any time I want. I used to sell that shit. If I still be selling, I wouldn't be lying in this bed right now. Oh, no, I'd be having it going on."
It would be easy to hate this man who so well impersonated evil. But evil at a distance always turns out to be pitiful humanity when you get up close. Then if you look closer at humanity, like you would a magic eye picture, you might even catch a glimpse of The Divine.
"You were in the Witness Protection Program?" I asked, trying to see The Divine in him more clearly. It wasn't coming in too well.
"Motherfucking Witness Protection Program made me what I am today," he declared, not caring who heard. It seemed he would say it to anyone who would listen.
"I was sick of the city, you see. I had it going on, but I was still sick of it. In eighth grade I be wearing tailored clothes and buying everyone lunch, but you can't go out on the street without strapping three guns on y'. I'd wake up in the morning and I'd have a piece in my hand before my feet hit the floor 'cause there's a war going on in The Projects. Fucking Bagdad. I shot at people and people shot at me. There's plenty more'd like to shoot me. When you're at the top of the heap, everyone wants a piece of you. In The Projects everything's about image. You can't be letting people see you look weak or you're dead. Well, I was getting weak; I was getting weak and sick of the whole thing. So I was out of there, man."
I know the reason I eat so much: it's to hide the person I am. I don't really need to eat three cheeseburgers for lunch, I'm not that hungry, two would do; but I've got to keep up appearances as a fat man. When people see a fat man, they think they know all about him, but of course they don't. They don't know anything about his broken heart. I aim to keep it that way and keep people, especially myself, away from my broken heart. It's all about image everywhere, not just on The Projects. Yes, I know that my fat can and probably will kill me, but it also makes me, the part of me that counts, invisible.
He went on: "I was fucked up all the time, you see. When you're selling crack cocaine you're also smoking it and you don't give a shit, you'd just as soon kill or be killed. I went into rehab a couple times, but when I got out, it's right back to the same thing. I wasn't feeling myself. I wasn't getting anywhere. Then they comes and picks me up. They wants me to name names and places where they'd be, almost like they knew I was getting sick of it. Then I think, here's the man who wants to give me a ticket out of here. I say, a' right, I give you the names you want, just get me the fuck out of here."
You don't think I've ever wanted to get out of this fat body? Unzip it like a set of coveralls and step out? Every time I lose my breath I do. Every time I can't get out of a chair. Every time I can't tie my shoes.
"But nobody gets out, ever," he said.


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The Shine a Light program, launched by American Express and NBC Universal, allows consumers to nominate their favorite small business for a $100,000 prize for grant and marketing support. Nancy Smith, Vice President of Global Media and Content and Community at American Express, was contacted about the company's involvement.
What is the ultimate goal of the program? "Shine a Light" calls for people across the country to nominate and vote for the small business story that most inspires them based on innovation, community spirit, and/or customer service. The primary goal is to recognize and reward small business owners for all that they do and the role that they play in driving economic recovery. American Express wanted to find an engaging way to encourage the public to get involved by shining a spotlight on inspiring small businesses nationwide.
What is American Express's involvement with this program? American Express co-created the "Shine a Light" campaign with NBC Universal. American Express will furnish the winning small business with $100,000 in grant and marketing support, and award $3,000 American Express Gift Cards to each of the three people who nominate the three finalists.
"Shine a Light" provides American Express with a unique opportunity to raise visibility for small business owners across the country by providing the public with an interactive way to honor and thank them for what they do. Along the way, through submissions on Shine a Light, small businesses will receive national recognition.
American Express has been a staunch supporter and advocate of small businesses throughout the years. With NBC Universal, we have an opportunity to share our respect for the small biz community with people across the country, online, and on-air.
Is there anything you would like to add? We hope "Shine a Light" will encourage everyone to use their collective power to recognize and reward small businesses owners. The program is part of American Express's ongoing commitment to serving both consumers and merchants alike.
For years, American Express small business credit cards have helped merchants establish and grow successful businesses. Now, AmEx wants to give back in a more tangible way--by rewarding those who reward others.


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SELF Magazine Pick: "At SELF, we're big fans of fitness guru to the stars Tracy Anderson! Now you can sculpt sexy curves and get buff (not bulky) with this fun workout, which A-listers swear by."
This Mat video is very dear to Tracy Anderson because it is the first time she has ever released her muscular structure work to the public. The purpose of this video is to re-engineer your muscular structure, wake up your accessory muscles, pull in your larger muscles and shift your shape into something that you never knew you could achieve!
Brand: Tracy Anderson
Who was trainer Tracy Anderson's first client? Herself. While working as a dancer in NYC, Anderson began to study physical training techniques and developed a computer program to get her in the best physical condition of her life. Anderson's workout method caught the interest of some of Hollywood's best bodies, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Lopez, Courtney Cox, and Kristin Davis. Now one of the top names in fitness, Anderson has become a celebrity in her own right — creating her popular Metamorphosis DVD series as well as the Hybrid Body Reformer and other systems. From tough treadmill workouts to muscle-toning mat work, Anderson's products and techniques will help you shape up in the comfort of your own home.


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Amber Blackman
Dec 4, 2014
Jonathan E. Benedict
Oct 30, 2014
Darrell W. Cook
Oct 2, 2014
Michael Polchies
Sep 25, 2014
Home » News » Crime
Friend says killing 'makes no sense'
John Hogarty, 53, of Manchester, was arraigned in District Court Thursday for first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Michelle Hogarty. (DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER)
John Hogarty, 53, of 316 Mammoth Road, said only two words - both "yes" to Judge Gregory Michael's questions regarding his request for a court-appointed attorney - at his arraignment on first-degree murder Thursday morning in 9th Circuit Court, Manchester District Division. He is being held without bail.
He is accused of stabbing his wife, Michelle, 46, to death in the couple's duplex at 316 Mammoth Road. Police said they went to the home after receiving a 911 "call for service" at 4:54 a.m. Wednesday and discovered Mrs. Hogarty's body. Senior Assistant Attorney General Susan G. Morrell would not say who called 911.
Michelle was a fun woman who loved the beaches and mountains of New Hampshire and rocked out to Stevie Nicks, said Jean Beauchesne, who said she'd been friends with Michelle for 14 years.
"I don't understand this," Beauchesne said. "This just makes no sense to me."
Beauchesne said she last spoke to Michelle the day before the murder. It was Beauchesne's birthday, and she called Michelle to thank her for a birthday card she'd received.
"We talked about going out to dinner," she said.
Beauchesne, trying to hold back tears, said Thursday evening that her "best friend" liked watching funny movies and "a good tear-jerker" and would frequently show up at Beauchesne's office.
"I'd look up and there she'd be with this big smile," she said. "I loved her dearly. I just hope I'm finding the right words to describe how wonderful she was."
Beauchesne said Michelle had struggled recently with battles against throat cancer and fibromyalgia, a condition characterized by chronic body-wide pain.
"She didn't really talk about it much," Beauchesne said.
Nina Cullen, owner of Nini Bambini, a business that provides support groups, play groups and classes for new families, said Michelle and her son, Ryan, visited for about two years after he was born. But her husband was extremely controlling and wouldn't let her do much, Cullen said in a telephone interview.
"She was an incredibly sweet woman and a loving, caring mother. She just lived for that kid," she said.
Morrell said the 6-year-old is being cared for by relatives. She would not say if the child witnessed his mother's murder.
Mrs. Hogarty was not working at the time of her death, but about three years ago had worked as a part-time cashier at Hannaford Supermarket on Hanover Street, not far from where she lived. John Hogarty worked as a mechanic for Subaru of Milford, according to Morrell.
Hogarty, on her Facebook page, said she was from Salem and a graduate of Salem High School, Class of 1985.
"I'm a sports loving girl with a son, whose name is Ryan. He is a handful, but I couldn't imagine life without him in it. Unfortunately, a lot has gone on in my life lately and I'm just trying to soak it up and take it all in. I myself, feel like a handful at times. Anything else, just ask!!" was an undated post seen in the "about" section on her Facebook page Thursday morning.
By the afternoon, however, the post was replaced with one from three years ago which said: "I am a 43 year old mother of one. He is 3 and giving me a run for my money. I am a stay at home Mom, not to exciting life. My days are spent running after my little man and watching Nickelodeon, gotta love it. I have a wonderful husband and two cats."
Search and arrest warrants were sealed in the case, although public defender John Newman requested the court unseal them, saying the defense needed the information to prepare for a probable cause hearing set for May 14. Judge Michael took the matter under advisement.
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- Merrimack teen allegedly held girl captive, assaulted her - 0
- Former Colonial Theatre finance director indicted - 0
- Troy welfare officer indicted for misusing town's money - 0
- Man arrested for failing to register as sex offender - 0
- Two Keene men charged with burglary and assault - 0
- Shooting victim's spouse's car being searched - 0
- Altercation leads to suspect fleeing, threatening police - 0
- Crash ends high-speed chase in Lyndeborough - 0
- Good Samaritan pins Manchester purse snatcher - 0
Merrimack teen allegedly held girl captiveREADER COMMENTS: 0
- NHIAA Basketball: Memorial needs shootout to get by Bow - 0
- Man arrested after chase that led from Pelham to Lowell, Mass. - 0
- No shortage of post-holiday shoppers at local stores - 0
- West junior advising College Board on its entrance exams - 0
- Sullivan in the top running for state's Assistant Principal of the Year - 0
- Derry making progress with efforts to honor POWS, MIAs - 0
- Lions Club blood drive draws on spirit of giving - 0
- Last Week's Rare Bird Alert - 0
- Murder suspect fit for trial? - 2
NHIAA Basketball: Central rally stuns MemorialREADER COMMENTS: 0
'Interview' buzz spreads to NH
Murder suspect fit for trial?
Pipeline push gets a second wind
Pipeline push gets a second wind
'Interview' buzz spreads to NH
Murder suspect fit for trial?
Merrimack teen allegedly held girl captive
- Whom do you think bears the brunt of the blame for the mayhem this weekend in Keene?
- KSC students
- 37%
- KSC administration
- 2%
- Police
- 6%
- Visitors from out of town
- 18%
- A combination of any/all of the above
- 37%
- Total Votes: 2483


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American Association of Zoo Keeper EventsSupport the Greater Sacramento Chapter of AAZK at these wonderful events!
Dining for RhinosA $10 donation gets you a coupon card that saves you over $50 at local restaurants and venues (listed below) with 100% of funds raised going straight to Rhino Conservation. Dining for Rhinos complements the larger Bowling for Rhinos campaign hosted by AAZK Inc. These campaigns help raise awareness and fund rhino conservation. Our goal this is to raise $2500!Email firstname.lastname@example.com or firstname.lastname@example.com to get your card today!
Evan's Kitchen: Purchase 1 entree, receive 50% off 1 entree of equal or lesser valueCaffe Latte: Purchase 1 breakfast, receive 50% off 1 breakfast of equal or lesser valueBig Spoon Yogurt: Purchase 1 yogurt get 1 FREE yogurt of equal or lesser valueMasullo Pizza: 50% off 2nd pizza with purchase of 1 at full priceThe Red Rabbit Kitchen and Bar: $5 off of $25 or more excluding alcoholKru: Buy $10, Get $15Esquire IMAX Theater: FREE small popcorn with purchase of ticketKampala Café at Sacramento Zoo: 50% off food purchasePeet's Coffee and Tea: $1 off any Espresso beverage *1050 20th Street only Burgess Brothers Burgers: FREE smokehouse burger with purchase of 1 at full priceRobeks Juice: $1 off any medium or large smoothie or juice Scandia Family Fun Center: Purchase 1 round of golf, receive 1 round FREE David Girard Vineyard: One FREE wine tastingAuntie Anne's Pretzels: FREE signature pretzel with purchase of a pretzel nuggetThe Sacramento Sweets Co.: FREE small ice cream cone with purchase of 1 full price
Missing Orangutan Mothers (MoM's) Day Book & Bake SaleMay 11, 2014: 10 am to 3 pmAt the Sacramento Zoo Buy some delicous palm oil free baked goods, a good book and learn about how orangutans are excellent mothers. Find our table near the Orangutan exhibit. Purses for Primates will be at the front of the zoo selling gently used purses. All poceeds go to support Orangutan Outreach Missing Orangutan Mothers (MOM), an organization that aids orphaned orangutans in the wild.
Stuffed Animal Veterinary ClinicMay 24, 2014: 10 am to 2 pmAt the Sacramento Zoo on the Veterinary Hospital LawnIs your teddy bear feeling under the weather? Does your stuffed animal have a cut that needs fixing? We are here to help! A Stuffed Animal Veterinarian will assess the overall health of your stuffed animal and make a diagnosis based on the symptoms. Exams are just $3 per stuffed animal. Repairs with exam are $5 and suffed animals adoptions with exam are $4. Proceeds benefit Greater Sac AAZK.
Member Evening Enrichments June 12, 2014: 5:30 to 8:30 pmAt the Sacramento Zoo Are you a Sacramento Zoo member? Join us for the Member Evening, which is just for you! AAZK is hosting an enrichment fair that night, where you have the chance to play an active role in the enrichment of our Zoo animals. Purchase pre-made enrichments from zoo keepers and watch as the animal enjoys it on the spot! Keepers will also be on hand to answer any of those animal questions you have just been dying to ask. Proceeds benefit Greater Sac AAZK.
Owl ReleaseDate & time TBDLand ParkWe are partnering with Wildlife Care Association (WCA) in a truly unique fundraising experience. Each year WCA rehabilitates thousands of animals, releasing them back to the wild after their recovery. Come witness this spectacular release of rehabilitated owls as they take flight and continure their wild lives. To reserve a spot for $10 email Maureen Cleary. Also ask how you can play a more active role in the release! Proceeds benefit the Wildlife Care Association.
MoM's day bake sale
Black & white ruffed lemur enrichment
Red Panda DaySeptember 27, 2014: 10 am to 4 pmAt the Sacramento ZooJoin us for an interactive and educational event about Red Panda awareness and conservation. Kids (and adults too!) can become "Red Panda Rangers" after stopping at the various Red Panda Stations and completing the Panda activities. Other stations include face painting and an opportunity to decorate your own flag that will be added to the ones currently surrounding the Red Panda exhibit. This year we will have a raffle! Come by and purchase raffle tickets for a chance to win your favorite Red Panda themed artwork, décor, and other keepsakes. All proceeds benefit The Red Panda Network (RPN), a conservation group working directly with community-based organizations in Nepal. RPN staff will also be here to answer any questions about their work saving these incredible animals!
Orangutan Awareness WeekNovember, date & time TBDAt the Sacramento ZooThose red-headed primates need our support! This week focuses on Orangutans and the perils that face their wild populations. What can you do to help them? Join AAZK and the Sacramento Zoo Teens for fun activities, educational keeper chats, and interactive crafts. AAZK will have a booth near the Orangutan exhibit where you can purchase paintings by our very own Orangutans.
Wreath/Mistletoe SalesWeekends, December 13-21: 11:30 am to 1:30 pmAt the Sacramento Zoo Celebrate the holiay season with homemade wreaths! We will be at the front of the Zoo during the December weekends selling beautiful wreaths for your home. Proceeds benefit Greater Sac AAZK.
Barn owl release
Greater Sac AAZK Members
What is AAZK?AAZK is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit volunteer organization made up of professional zoo keepers and other interested persons dedicated to professional animal care and conservation. AAZK's purpose is to foster a professional attitude in animal keepers and aquarists by encouraging them to become active members of professional teams at today's zoos and aquariums. AAZK supports the promotion and implementation of zoo keeper education and strives to make the general public aware of our concern for all deserving conservation projects and the need for the preservation of our natural resources and the species that depend on those resources.
Who is Greater Sac AAZK?Mission Statement: Greater Sac AAZK is a chartered member in good standing of American Association of Zoo Keepers, Inc. Our purpose shall be to educate and assist zoological personnel in their roles as animal caretakers, public educators, scientific researchers, wildlife conservationists and to promote our zoological institution as a cultural establishment, dedicated to the enrichment of human and natural resources.
We will support and publicize our concern for deserving conservation projects and do our part in educating the general public to the need for preserving our natural resources and animal life. We will promote public education on the topics of zoos and related animal care facilities as well as promote and establish good relationships amongst professional zoo keepers. We strive to establish a means to stimulate incentive and create greater interest in sound captive animal management through the zoo keeping profession; and to promote projects and programs that will strengthen the professional zoo keeper's knowledge.
Questions?(916) 808-5888Email
Find us on Facebook
Flamingo FlockingSend a flock of flamingos to a lawn near you and support AAZK!Read details here.
PresidentMatt Ardaiolo, Keeper
Vice PresidentChrista Klein, Keeper
TreasurerSummer Copeland, Keeper
SecretaryBrittany Burkhalter, Keeper
LiaisonMaureen Cleary, Keeper
The Sacramento Zoological Society // 501(c)(3) nonprofit3930 West Land Park Drive, Sacramento, CA 95822 // 916-808-5888© 2014 Sacramento Zoo, All Rights Reserved


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You Said It: The Worst Gifts You've Ever Received!
From sweaters your grandma wouldn't even wear to a bonsai treeseriously, what?!readers share the gifts that took them by surprise (and not in a good way!).
By Emily Laurence
Sparkly Poodle Purse
"When I was 15, my uncle gave me a pink, glittery, poodle-shaped purse that was meant for a six year old. I guess he forgot how old I was!" Mallory, 17


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Black-and-white photograph of children on the Porch of the Lafayette Hotel, c.1890.
Made possible by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on November 4, 2008. Administered by the Minnesota Historical Society.
Minnesota Historical Society • 345 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55102-1906 (Map) • 651-259-3000 © .
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The LaGrange, Ga.-based Frontier Bank had nine branches, including two in Sylacauga on Broadway Avenue and James Payton Boulevard and one in Childersburg on Eighth Avenue. Through an agreement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, all branches are now operating as HeritageBank of the South.
"We are pleased to welcome the customers of Frontier Bank to HeritageBank of the South and count them among our valued family of customers," said Leonard Dorminey, president and CEO of Heritage Financial Group, in a press release.
Dorminey added that the company is "excited by the opportunities this acquisition presents to our company, including the overall continued growth of our franchise in Georgia, Alabama and Florida."
HeritageBank is based in Albany, Ga., and has about 30 locations between three states.
The Georgia Department of Banking and Finance said in a press release that it took possession of the Frontier Bank in accordance with state code, which allows such action when any state-chartered financial institution is "either insolvent or operating in an unsafe or unsound condition to transact its business, is operating in violation of any court order, statute, rule or regulation, or requests the Department to take possession of its business and property."
According to an FDIC press release, depositors of Frontier Bank automatically became depositors of HeritageBank. Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship in order to retain their deposit insurance coverage up to applicable limits.
Former customers of Frontier Bank should continue to use their existing branch until they receive notice from HeritageBank of the South that it has completed systems changes to allow other HeritageBank branches to process their accounts as well.
Over the weekend, depositors of Frontier Bank could access their money by writing checks or using ATM debit cards. Checks drawn on the bank will continue to be processed. Loan customers should continue to make payments as usual.
According to the FDIC, Frontier Bank had approximately $258.8 million in total assets and $224.1 million in total deposits as of December 31, 2012. In addition to assuming all the deposits of the failed bank, HeritageBank of the South agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets.
No advance notice is given to the public when a financial institution is closed.
Customers with questions should call the FDIC toll free at 1-866-674-8944. The phone number is operational from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., Eastern Time. Interested parties can also visit the FDIC's website at www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/frontier-ga.html.
The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund will be $51.6 million.
Frontier Bank is the fourth FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the first in Georgia. Other Frontier Bank branches were located in Valley, Auburn, Chelsea, Pelham and Vincent.
Alabama Trust Bank was the last bank closed in Sylacauga when it was taken over by federal regulators in May 2012 due to a dissipation of assets because of unsound practices. It now operates as Anniston-based Southern States Bank.
Contact Emily Adams at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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computer engineer, semantic web, 3D data visualization, rdf, linked data, AI, genealogy, father of two :-) bio from Twitter
Semantic Web advocate, engineer, and entrepreneur. Husband & dad. Amateur photographer & cook. Passionate U.S. sports fan. bio from Twitter
Director of Corporate Relations and Development for the International Society for Computational Biology bio from Twitter
Healthcare 2.0, participatory medicine, universal access advocate, working on collaborative clinical knowledge management and healthcare data standards adoption bio from Twitter
http://jonasalmeida.info bio from Twitter
getting by bio from Twitter
Semantic Web, Open Data and Bioinformatics.(or electro music and burning man). bio from Twitter
VP Research Data Collaborations @ Elsevier. Low-temp physicist / publisher / linguistics PhD. Quest: how can we improve science communication using technology? bio from Twitter
Life's too short to drink something inferior! Bryn's personal twitter, so you might want to try @ConnDisco for something more serious..... bio from Twitter
Knowledge engineering and knowledge management in life sciences R&D.
United States United States, Cambridge
27th February to 1st March 2013


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How's your weekend going?
Find a Conversation
|Fri, 01-28-2011 - 11:15pm
I started mine with a viewing of "The Princess Bride" (which apparently isn't available for Netflix streaming in the US, so we actually have an advantage for once here in Canada, where our Netflix selection is still quite slim in comparison).
It was supposed to be a "Community Watch" with online friends, where we'd use a voice chat (thanks to an author who also plays World of Warcraft and allows us access to the voicechat server) and all enjoy the movie together. Took about half an hour to get started and at first it seemed like everyone was enjoying themselves, but gradually the folks in the East were tired and others had Internet problems. Not the rousing time I was expecting. At least the movie's always good, no matter who the company is. ;)
The kids went to bed about a half-hour into the show and I haven't heard a peep for a while. Hopefully I won't bother them if I decide to catch up on dishes - I used naptime today to finish a book, so I could profit from some alone time and improve a slightly sour mood. I didn't like the end of the book, but it sure was nice to have a quiet house! (Tim wasn't taking naps but we've started to put him in bed with a book and sometimes he does catch up on lost sleep from Ben's bad nights and/or early mornings. I really like having a little break, even though I tend to keep busy with chores.)
I think Hubby will be taking a drive to our hometown tomorrow - he has a bank account there we can't transfer for a certain amount of time, so he'll deposit some money and probably come right back to spend the rest of the day with us, hopefully playing lots with the boys and causing them to be in good moods so there's little fighting. ;) Meanwhile I'm just planning to relax as much as I can to shake the monthly grumpies. Maybe we'll get to the library and I'll do some writing here and there - started something new last night even though I have a novel to edit and another half-finished novel-length story to fill in.
Speaking of novels, I just wrote one. ;) Thanks for reading it and I hope you're having a good weekend!
|Fri, 01-28-2011 - 11:49pm
I'm hoping to BBQ this weekend...either rib eye steaks or salmon steaks. We were supposed to have baked potato bar tonight, but DH & the boys were working in the yard & forgot to bake the taters, so we bought chicken on the way home from work -- lots of leftovers for the weekend!!
|Sat, 01-29-2011 - 1:08am
Work tomorrow for me. (so why am I awake at midnight??)
I work the next 3 Saturdays. How did that happen.
Oh well, I'm planning on writing a book about the assisted living place where I work. I'll change the names to protect the innocent, lol, make it fiction, just based on real life characters.
There will be lots of romance! Now, if only I can work on it at work, that would be good.
|Sat, 01-29-2011 - 1:40am
Sometimes buying a bra really is exciting. ;) I bought a sports bra recently for my workout times. For some reason I've been dying to say that it's not flattering, just flattening. ;) I now have a deeper appreciation for my everyday models. LOL
I vote for salmon steaks! I made shepherd's pie today, so we'll have leftovers tomorrow, I think. I'm hoping Hubby will want to cook on Sunday. :)
|Sat, 01-29-2011 - 1:43am
|Sat, 01-29-2011 - 10:47pm
But I can get away with writing a little because it just looks like I'm busy. lol
|Sun, 01-30-2011 - 12:07am
|Sun, 01-30-2011 - 12:35am
Buying a bra might have been more exciting if DH hadn't gotten the bright idea that I should take Levi with me to get him a new pair of pants. Really, I would have gone bra shopping sooner if I wanted to take a kid with me...getting to the store alone is the hard part. Try bra shopping with an 11yo boy!! I took the easy way out & checked the size & style of the bra I bought recently & got the same thing only in a fun raspberry-ish color -- kind of excitlng, but I can't really wear it to work under my white shirts!
We went with surf & turf tonight -- rib eyes with shrimp skewers & grilled veggies -- yummy!! Might try to do salmon Tuesday, but the weather is cooling off again for a bit, so I might not be grilling them. Of course, they are frozen, so I can wait. Tomorrow night will be baked potatoes! Shepherd's pie sounds like a good meal for our cooler weather next week.
|Sun, 01-30-2011 - 12:47am
|Sun, 01-30-2011 - 1:02am
|Mon, 01-31-2011 - 12:04am