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Simmons First National On Top Among Mortgage Lenders
Posted 1/13/2003 12:00 am
Updated 2 years ago
January-October 2002
Instituion — mtg./dep.* — mtg. value (millions) — mortgage volume
Simmons First National? — 125.23% — $82.34 — 300
BancorpSouth Bank? — 115.91% — $103.23 — 656
Bank of Little Rock? — 106.93% — $84.24 — 674
One Bank & Trust — 66.53% — $109.77 — 598
Arvest Bank? — 59.78% — $93.80 — 563
Bank of the Ozarks — 51.04% — $157.79 — 958
Pulaski Bank? — 50.97% — $146.71 — 1,282
National Bank of Arkansas? — 37.67% — $36.06 — 287
Twin City Bank — 36.79% — $51.34 — 252
Delta Trust & Bank — 34.10% — $17.61 — 69
Metropolitan National Bank — 31.84% — $174.60 — 838
Community Bank — 31.08% — $18.58 — 99
First Arkansas Bank? — 29.30% — $46.08 — 456
Regions Bank? — 25.55% — $274.84 — 1,487
Eagle Bank & Trust — 21.34% — $13.67 — 94
Superior Federal Bank — 15.59% — $38.33 — 430
Bank of America? — 12.09% — $143.44 — 1,371
Capital Bank — 11.36% — $7.49 — 24
U.S. Bank? — 11.34% — $57.59 — 675
*Rankings are determined by the ratio of total mortgages filed by a bank and its total deposits in Pulaski County as of June 30, 2002. That number is reflected as a percentage. ?Activity of mortgage subsidiaries is included. Lender must have deposits of at least $50 million in Pulaski County as of June 30, 2002.
Fairfield Sale
A 61,000-SF office building in west Little Rock changed hands in a $5.8 million deal.
11001 Executive Center Drive LLC, led by Dickson Flake, bought the former headquarters of Fairfield Communities Inc. at 11001 Executive Center Drive.
The seller is Fairfield Resorts Inc. of Orlando, Fla. The deal is backed with a two-year loan of $5.2 million held by Regions Bank of Birmingham, Ala.
The nine-acre development previously was tied to a December 1998 mortgage of $5.2 million held by North Little Rock's Mercantile Bank of Arkansas.
Fairfield assembled the location in two buys totaling $972,000 ($2.48 per SF).
The company purchased seven acres in February 1996 for $755,000 and an adjoining two acres in August 1997 for $217,000.
The seller in both deals was Westrock Partnership, led by Gus Blass III of Capital Properties Ltd., Chester D. Phillips of Phillips Development Corp. and Robert Vogel of Vogel Enterprises.
The property was part of an 89-acre tract that Westrock acquired in June 1995 from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for $2.63 million (68 cents per SF).
Dental Development
A 9.8-acre office development is in motion after a $2.15 million land deal (about $5 per SF).
Delta Dental Plan of Arkansas purchased the site near the northwest corner of Wildwood Avenue and Country Club Road in Sherwood from Baptist Health of Little Rock.
Baptist Health acquired the land as part of a 11.6-acre deal in July 1995 for $1.92 million. The sellers were Metropolitan Trust Co., led by Terry Paff, $1.28 million; and Lilac LLC, led by Andy Collins, $641,000.
Metropolitan Trust Co., founded by Justin Matthews Sr., had owned the property since February 1926. Metropolitan bought the land from C.E. Moore for $8,800 as part of a 160-acre deal.
Acreage Acquisition
More than 160 acres in Maumelle rang up a $589,000 deal.
Country Club Development LLC, led by Ray Parker, John Wright and Jack Wilson, acquired the land on the north and west side of the Maumelle Diamond Center from the city of Maumelle.
The city of Maumelle bought the land in December 1999 as part of a nearly $1.67 million deal encompassing 661 acres. The seller was DeVore Farms Inc., led by James M. DeVore. W.J. and N.J. DeVore purchased the land for $5,000 in March 1946 from the U.S. Government.
Commercial Transaction
A near one-acre commercial site in southwest Little Rock rang up a $388,000 deal.
Main Street Realty LLC, led by William R. Shelton, bought the land between Baseline Road and Mabelvale Plaza Boulevard. The seller is Conservative Development Co., led by Rick Ashley.
The deal is backed with a $900,000 loan from Simmons First Bank of Searcy.
Conservative Development purchased 44.4 acres in September 1992 from Agnes Martin and Marilyn Garner for $1.62 million and 41 acres in March 1992 from Billy Jane McGourik Bussa for $1.03 million.
Conservative Development sold 23.9 acres of the Bussa land in March 1992 to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for $2.07 million.
Chenal Abode
A 7,650-SF mansion in west Little Rock's Chenal Valley neighborhood is under new ownership after a $1.6 million deal.
Joseph and Brenda Blankenship bought the home from Joe White Jr. and his wife, Kimberly.
The residence previously was linked with an August 2001 mortgage of $1.2 million held by Arvest Bank of Little Rock.
The Whites purchased the home site for $275,000 in May 2001 from Jock and Jo Cobb. The Cobbs acquired it for $135,000 in April 1991 from Charles and Anita Middleton.
Residential Swap
On the back side of this transaction, the Whites received a 6,000-SF home in the Valley Falls Estates neighborhood and three residential lots in west Little Rock valued at a combined $1.18 million.
The valuations were: the house, $610,000; two Valley Falls Estates lots, $370,000; and a Hickory Creek lot, $200,000.
Blankenship purchased the house site in Valley Falls along with one of the undeveloped lots in April 2002 for $370,000. The seller was VFE LLC, led by Rick Ferguson.
Blankenship acquired the other Valley Falls lot for $180,000 in March 2002 from VFE LLC. Blankenship purchased the Hickory Creek lot for $200,000 in April 2002 from Richard Toll.
Motel Mortgage
The 78-room Springhill Suites project in west Little Rock was used to help secure a $15 million funding agreement.
WB Pineapple RP LLC of San Clemente, Calif., obtained the loan from GMAC Commercial Mortgage Corp. of Horsham, Pa.
The near 1.8-acre development at 306 Markham Center Drive previously was tied to a January 2001 mortgage of $3.5 million held by Whitney National Bank of New Orleans.
The limited liability company acquired the Springhill Suites project for $3.4 million last year.
The seller/developer was Brothers O'Krepki Accommodations Realty of Little Rock Springhill Suites Ltd., led by Richard O'Krepki.
Innwood Loan
The owner of a 10,000-SF office building in west Little Rock picked up a $720,000 financial package.
Innwood Partnership, led by Willis Smith, Lee Stephens, John Sawatski and Andy Schaus, received the five-year loan from BancorpSouth Bank of Tupelo, Miss.
The 1.1-acre development at 5 Innwood Circle previously was linked with a March 1999 mortgage of $660,000 held by Pinnacle Bank of Little Rock.
The partnership purchased the land through Smith Stephens & Associates. The October 1993 purchase from the Otis W. Howe Trust closed at $115,000 ($2.40 per SF).
Commercial Refinance
The owners of a 0.71-acre development in west Little Rock recently landed a $700,000 funding agreement.
FC 2.5 Inc., led by Alan Fureigh, secured the 10-year loan from Arvest Bank.
The 9,000-SF building at 10901 Financial Centre Parkway, dubbed Financial Centre 2.5, houses a 4,200-SF Kidco Child Care center and a 1,700-SF Sturbridge Cleaners outlet.
The project previously was tied to a June 1999 mortgage of $700,000 held by U.S. Bank of Minneapolis.
The corporation acquired the site for $173,000 ($5.58 per SF) in January 1991 from Financial Centre Corp., led by Ed Willis.
Clean Funding
A Sherwood cleaners development is financed with a $667,935 mortgage.
Arkansas Cleaners Inc., led by Matthew Enderlin, obtained the one-year loan from Regions Bank.
The Capri Cleaners at 3980 E. Kiehl Ave. previously was linked with an August 2000 mortgage of $700,000 held by Twin City Bank of North Little Rock.
The corporation bought the half-acre project for $325,000 nearly 2.5 years ago from Capri Cleaners Inc., led by Mark Garner.
Construction Financing
A west Little Rock office project is backed with a $600,000 financial package.
Lubavitch of Arkansas Inc., led by Pinchus Ciment, received the six-month loan from Community Bank of Cabot.
The 7.4-acre site at 11905 Fairview Road previously was tied to an October 2001 mortgage of $295,000 held by Lucas Family Ltd., led by Jay Lucas.
The corporation purchased the land 15 months ago from the limited partnership for $395,000.
Woodcrest Loan
A North Little Rock project was used to secure a $552,000 mortgage.
Woodcrest Co., led by James P. Matthews, landed the three-year loan from Allied Bank of Mulberry.
The 1.4-acre property at 4601 E. 43rd St. previously was linked with an April 1999 mortgage of $755,000 held by Community Bank.
The Matthews family acquired the land for an undisclosed sum in October 1963 from Jewell Van Hoozer.


text:
Moonrise Kingdom has been on the top of the per theater chart for close to a month now. The past weekend it managed an average of $12,571 in nearly 200 theaters. Unfortunately for the box office as a whole, it was the only film to reach the $10,000 market. Your Sister's Sister did come close with an average of $8,402 in thirteen theaters, which is good enough to suggest some potential to expand.
Usually the opening week theater counts for limited releases start to trickle in on Wednesday and by Thursday we have quite a few to report. A few more arrive late on Friday, while annoyingly, some are not reported till Monday. This week, we only have one limited release reporting its theater count. That film is Your Sister's Sister, which is earning great reviews and equally good buzz, so there should be at least one hit in limited release this week. The Woman in the Fifth also has a shot at success. Its reviews are not as good, but it has a strong cast and that might make the difference.

subset: commoncrawl


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LaGrange Park mailman who invented board game Diplomacy is dead at 81
BY MAUREEN O'DONNELL Staff Reporter Twitter @suntimesobits March 1, 2013 11:02PM
Allan Calhamer, inventor of the board game "Diplomacy"
Article Extras
Updated: April 4, 2013 6:47AM
To people in La Grange Park, Allan B. Calhamer was the postman who delivered the mail.
But to people who played "Diplomacy" — the addictive board game he designed as a law student at Harvard — Mr. Calhamer was a geek god.
With its shifting alliances, deception and backstabbing, Diplomacy resembled a Fortran-era version of TV's "Survivor" — set in pre-World War I Europe. Reportedly, it was popular with President Kennedy, broadcaster Walter Cronkite, and Nixon-era Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. It's in the Hall of Fame of both Games Magazine, and boardgamegeek.com, where fans worldwide are mourning his passing.
He died Monday at 81 at Adventist La Grange Memorial Hospital.
Mr. Calhamer said the game can "make some people almost euphoric and causes others to shake like a leaf,'' in an article he wrote for diplomacy-archive.com.
"It's pitiless, because in the game Diplomacy, there will be one winner," said game designer Steve Jackson, founder of Steve Jackson Games. "You negotiate, you make deals, you lie."
Mr. Calhamer's invention isn't just a fan favorite. Industry analysts say "Dip" influenced generations of designers.
More than 50 years after he invented it, enthusiasts sometimes engage in Diplomacy all-nighters. Long periods of quiet strategy are punctuated with shouts like: "You gave me your word you would attack Berlin!" and "My own mother took part of Russia from me!" That's according to chatter on boardgamegeek.com. More profane invective is heard from an enthusiast at a "DipCon'' — Diplomacy Convention — on YouTube, where Mr. Calhamer sat in at the table.
It's jokingly referred to as a pastime that has been "Destroying Friendships since 1959," said Mike Webb, vice president of marketing and data services for Alliance Game Distributors.
It doesn't use dice or chance. Instead, players represent a power: Austria-Hungary, England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia or Turkey. They manipulate armies, fleets, supply centers and negotiations to try and control Europe.
"In many ways, the hobby game industry as we know it owes its existence to Allan Calhamer," Webb said. Diplomacy "moved away from pure strategy games like chess and from straightforward die rolls for conflict resolution, and introduced bluffing, lying and manipulation. . . . Diplomacy opened up entirely new dimensions to gaming, truly bringing a new level of social interaction into gaming, a legacy that can be seen today in hundreds of hobby games."
"It sort of started a new genre of games, because you're playing up to seven players, and making secret deals, and then coming back to the board and making your moves," said Wayne Schmittberger, a game designer and editor in chief of Games Magazine, who used to stay up all night to play it at Yale University.
Diplomacy spawned books about strategies and armies of enthusiasts who engage FTF (face-to-face), or PBM (Play By Mail, or zine) and PBEM (Play by email).
One fan, Jim Burgess, wrote about how he reconciled his religion and the game's treachery in an article on diplomacy-archive.com: "Why I am a Christian" and a Diplomacy player.
On that same website, Mr. Calhamer suggested the game may have had its origin in 1945, when he was about 13 — and intrigued by a Life magazine article about the Congress of Vienna.
His childhood friend, Gordon Leavitt, said a vintage find also stoked his interest in world affairs.
"He had an old house with a big attic, and they kept some schoolbooks there . . ." Leavitt said. "We looked over this old schoolbook that had a map of Europe before World War I, with Serbia and the Austro-Hungarian empire. . . . It seemed to be when he got interested in politics, and power and history."
"His mother was a schoolteacher, and she believed in exciting the imagination," Leavitt said. "She would encourage us to draw maps of imaginary countries and flags."
Leavitt and a young Allan Calhamer attended Lyons Township High School together. Both landed scholarships to Harvard, where Mr. Calhamer enjoyed studying geopolitics.
"They weren't really going to a lot of parties or meeting girls," said his daughter, Tatiana Calhamer. "They would just stay up all night, talking about politics and history, and dad started working on this game."
After a year at Harvard Law School, he worked as a systems analyst for Sylvain Labs and as a tour guide at the Statue of Liberty, she said.
In New York, he met Hilda, who would become his wife of 45 years. She was from the Dominican Republic. With their mutual grasp of world affairs, they determined that Hilda would speak Spanish to Tatiana and another daughter, Selenne Calhamer-Boling, so they would be fluent.
He continued to collect royalties from Diplomacy, but tyat didn't pay the bills. Working for the Post Office did. As he walked La Grange Park on his rounds, "He would look at license plate numbers, and figure out their prime factor," his daughter said.
Leavitt repeated an opinion he offered to Edward McClelland, who wrote a 2009 Chicago Magazine profile of Mr. Calhamer: "He should have been a history professor."
He wasn't always socially adept, and it didn't really bother him. His preferred lullaby to sing his kids to sleep was "Battle Hymn of the Republic." He might sign greeting cards to his family with the rather formal "Regards, Allan."
But he had a wickedly deadpan sense of humor that kept them in stitches.
Once, Tatiana presented him with a Valentine's Day card that mentioned those "three little words."
"Breakfast served anytime," he intoned in his deep professorial voice.
When he used a label maker to make little signs for objects around their home, he added one that was quirkily endearing.
He placed a label above the cat's bowl, at feline eye level.
It read: "It is essential in this life that you be your own cat."
Sometimes, Dip geeks would appear at his home, unannounced.
"They would show up at the door — 'I'm so-and-so. I play Diplomacy,' '' Tatiana Calhamer said. "My mom would bring them orange juice, and they would sit and talk with dad."
He invented a couple of other games after Diplomacy, but they never really took off.
It was a little bittersweet for him that he never matched the popularity or recognition of a game like Monopoly, she said.
"He made one wonderful game, and he made two no one has ever heard of," Jackson said. "But the one wonderful game is really enough."


text:
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Sept. 22, 2013
KANSAS CITY, Mo. The federal government welcomes state experimentation when it comes to the Medicaid expansion encouraged under the health-reform law, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Saturday.
"I do believe in the phrase that the laboratories of democracy are state government. The opportunity to innovate, the opportunity to share good notions," Sebelius said, speaking to about 500 state officials at the national conference of the Council of State Governments. "But I think also the federal government can play a key role in helping you acquire the beakers, mixers and test tubes that allow your states to produce better results, and we stand ready as a partner.
"We have done a lot of work in my time as secretary with various states to see Medicaid differently, depending on where they are in the country. We are open to a very flexible example. We want to see what states have in mind," Sebelius said.
She cited examples of states that are expanding Medicaid using a private insurance model for higher-income Medicaid recipients and others that are incorporating wellness strategies into their programs.
Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government has offered to pay 100 percent of the expansion cost to states that increase Medicaid eligibility to 138 percent of the poverty level for the first three years. After that, the federal government would cover 90 percent o the cost, leaving the other 10 percent to the states. Currently, states pay about 40 percent.
Neither Kansas nor Missouri has expanded Medicaid through the ACA. Kansas, however, has won federal approval to move its Medicaid population into a managed care system called KanCare, an initiative that began Jan. 1.
Sebelius is a former elected official from Kansas, including terms as governor and insurance commissioner.
The executive director of the Council of State Governments is David Adkins, a former Republican state lawmaker in Kansas. He served with Sebelius in the Legislature.
Sebelius' speech Saturday was part of a two-day visit here where she discussed health-reform with a variety of audiences. After appearing at the state government conference, she spoke at the opening of an all-day conference here on mental health issues.
On Friday, she met with various community representatives to discuss implementation of the new health insurance marketplaces created under the health-reform law. Open enrollment for the marketplaces begins Oct. 1.
In speaking to the state officials, she repeated her argument that the time for political debate about the health reform law is past.
"It's the law," she said, "and it will be as long as President Obama is in office."
The mental health conference was one of several taking place across the country, at the behest of the Obama administration, following the school shooting in Connecticut last year. The conference drew about 300 people, including consumers and mental health workers.
The Kansas City conference also came just days after a fatal shooting at a military installation in Washington, D.C.
"The shooting in the Navy Yard has once again galvanized some national attention" on what can happen in instances of untreated mental illness, Sebelius said.
She said that 60 percent of all Americans who have mental health conditions and 90 percent of Americans with substance abuse disorder do not get the treatment they need.
"We would never let that happen if (that involved) 60 percent of people identified with cancer or who had heart attacks or who had an open wound — we would not let that happen in this country," she said.
The Affordable Care Act mandates an essential benefit package for health insurance policies, which includes coverage for mental health and substance abuse.
But, Sebelius said, new laws can only change so much.
"We have to change hearts and minds," she said. "We have to break down the social barriers" that lead people to hide their mental health problems.
Sebelius said she had experienced the mental health system first hand during the past six months, when two members of her family experienced crises. She said that experience led her to sympathize with people who have to navigate the system every day.
Solutions come at the local level through conversations like the one here, she said.
"Your willingness to have this conversation is huge," she said.
Sebelius's appearance was an important boost for the Kansas City event, said Carolyn Lukensmeyer, executive director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse, which is heading up the steering committee coordinating the national mental health dialogue.
"She made it clear she was listening," she said.
The KHI News Service is an editorially independent initiative of the Kansas Health Institute. It is supported in part by a variety of underwriters. The News Service is committed to timely, objective and in-depth coverage of health issues and the policy-making environment. All News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution, including a link back to KHI.org when a story is reposted online. An automatically updated feed of headlines and more from KHI can be included on your website using the KHI widget. More about the News Service at khi.org/newsservice or contact us at (785) 233-5443.


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The Outland daily circle
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Quests, Factions, Making money
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Filed under: Herbalism, Mining, Alchemy, Engineering, Items, Economy, Quests, Features, Guides, Insider Trader (Professions)
Having had a chance both on the live and test servers to do the Shattered Sun Offensive dailies, I think I can safely say that Blizzard has thoroughly outdone themselves. There's variety, there's travel (instead of staying in the same small area all the time), there's excitement, there's good loot, there's all kinds of varied quests that make me think that I may never go back to Ogri'la or Skettis ever again unless I really need something from the vendors. There's still things that could be slightly better, but for the most part, Blizzard has shown that they've taken valuable lessons from previous content and stepped up their design for patch 2.4.
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text: And there, in my inadequacy, with my head down, ashamed and a mess yet again… there, love came down. It didn't storm my house or my heart or give me tongues of fire through which to speak. Rather, this love gently crept in a little at a time. When my defenses were down and tiny cracks allowed this nectar of life to enter me, love became enough. Love made me enough. And because God is love, God made me enough. There are countless ways to lose ourselves and our intentions. And the odds of rediscovering them on our own are slim to none. We'll never try hard enough, pray hard enough or "sober up" enough to make lasting change. It is only in this love that is enough to heal all wounds, bind all broken hearts and banish all our addictions that we find life…that we find hope. And so, while we can't love enough to resurrect our own purity and innocence, we can celebrate that He is love enough to conquer death, bring us life and save us from ourselves. God is enough. God is love. Love is enough. And today and everyday there is love enough for me… and love enough for you. There are few emotions or states-of-being as stressful, lonely and painful as inadequacy. Yet from the time we're born, our lives…our very souls seem to be measured, weighed and compared until we are terrified that one day, we'll come up short. One day, we won't be enough… And then…life happens and we learn—we never were enough. As human beings in a broken world, there is nothing within us intrinsically that is enough to overcome our addictions, afflictions and pain. We are not enough. The truth is, if we were, God would be irrelevant and the cross unnecessary. Is that a flaw? A hiccup in our genetic makeup? Is inadequacy simply the state we poor, weak humans must accept? Not entirely. Inadequacy, much like sorrow, pride, anger and jealousy are consequences. They are the results of the fall that will inevitably permeate our earthly world until Christ returns. So…given that a consequence is a result, it can't also be true that it's intrinsic. In other words, consequences, like inadequacy, are not part of God's design for His children. And when we choose to follow Him, to invite Christ into our hearts and lives and begin a walk in faith with Him, inadequacy dissipates. In God's eyes, He now sees us through and under the blood of Christ—no inadequacy there. Now, it's also true that most of our human emotions aren't going to just go away as soon as we accept Christ in our hearts. I came to Christ when I was seven years old, but for years, I have been a slave to the pursuit of perfection and the maintenance of an image that I deemed appropriate or "good." For years, I have fallen short, often becoming depressed and embarrassed, running to something to medicate the pain. When I saw how painfully far away I was from ever being enough for this world, I spiraled into a place where I wouldn't have to feel anything. And there, in the midst of addiction, eating disorders, inappropriate relationships… I began to see what God has known all along— inadequacy is my earthly condition. And I will never be whole apart from Him... apart from Christ. love enough In weakness anD sHame, tHere Is lOve enOugH fOr lIfe : christ, life, faith By cAROlINE luSK 14 CCM


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Learn more about scleroderma and the Scleroderma Foundation in this video hosted by Chris Harrison, the host of ABC's hit shows "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette." Find out more about this disease and her personal stories from people living with scleroderma. You also will learn how your fundraising efforts for events like "Stepping Out to Cure Scleroderma" help the scleroderma community.
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text:
2009 Cross Country
Did not compete during the 2009 season.
Clocked a personal-best time of 1:57.79 at the Texas Tech Invite in the 800 meters ... Finished 14th overall at the MWC Indoor Championships in the 800 ... Helped the men's 4x800 finished first overall and set a new complex record at the LSU Relays ... Ran on the 4x800 at the Penn Relays and Texas Relays ... Clocked a fifth-place finish in the 800 meters at the TCU Invitational.
2008 Cross Country
Did not compete during the 2008 season.
St. Thomas High SchoolA three-time all-state selection in cross country, Hill competed at St. Thomas High School in Houston ... Hill, who was a two-time all-state selection in track and field, closed out his career, winning the state championships in the 800 meters and as a member of the 4x400 ... The freshman set a new school record in the 800 as a senior, clocking a time of 1:54.75.


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2. Neutrogena® Microdermabrasion System Puff Refills deliver noticeable results every time you use them. Your skin will be softer, firmer, more luminous and younger looking within weeks. Each puff is pre-dosed with ultra-fine crystals and mild purifiers.These puffs are for use with the Neutrogena® Microdermabrasion System applicator. $13.99 for 24 puffs.
3. Truth or Dare a new perfume created by Madonna as a tribute to her mother who died of breast cancer in 1963. "My oldest memory of my mother is her perfume. I carry it with me everywhere. She always smelled like gardenias and tuberose, an intoxicating mixture [that was] feminine and mysterious. I wanted to re-create this scent, with something fresh and new. Something honest and yet daring—hence the name Truth or Dare," Madonna told Womens Wear Daily. Available in two sizes, 50 and 75 ml Eau de Parfum, as well as body lotion and shower gel. From $24-$68.
4. Nickel Le Grand Bluff Self-Tanner tans the skin naturally providing a gradual tan with no streaking or orange effect. The enriched super-hydrating sugar derivative will prevent dullness, and give your skin a natural, healthy glow. Price at $33.


text:
The Toronto Transit Commission displayed a model of one of its new 204 Bombardier streetcars that will be rolled out of the Ashbridges maintenance facility over the next couple of years. The National Post's Emily Innes had a chance to view the latest technology. And, for one day anyway, no tokens were required.
1:35 I arrive at the TTC Hillcrest complex and get a "visitor" sticker to put on before being ushered to a tent. A tent? I guess this means I won't be riding the new streetcar today.
1:40 I see part of the new model, not on tracks, beside a make-shift ramp. Definitely not going for a ride today.
1:41 A woman in a wheelchair exits the streetcar, demonstrating the accessibility of the new low-floor model, and another woman in a wheelchair enters. Point made.
1:45 I venture aboard and am overwhelmed by "new car" smell.
1:45 I finish the walk-through. The model is only 2/3 the size of one of the new cars, so it was a short journey. The real streetcar will be about 30 metres, double the length of current models, and will have five modules, the fourth of which will sport bike racks.
1:46 I sit in the driver's seat and gain an immediate sense of power and control. All that's missing is the captain's hat.
1:50 I sit across from Karen Stintz, the TTC chair. The seats are relatively comfortable, but lack a La-Z-boy-level of comfort. On the bright side: air-conditioning. "I think the public will really be pleased when the new streetcars get delivered," said Ms. Stintz.
2:02 Brad Ross, TTC director of corporate communications, talks about the updated technology, including this: No mirrors! The cab will be equipped with cameras to view traffic and incoming passengers.
2:05 Mr. Ross explains that the front is more narrow because that is where the wheels are located. There are front and rear facing seats, and 70 seats in total. The "crush load" will transport 250 people. Current cars usually hold 75 passengers.
2:33 I'm sent over to look at the old streetcar models, probably to make the point that the new model is superior. Stuart Gilchrist, superintendent of Harvey Shops, describes the three models on display. One is called Peter Witt, from the 1920s, and there is only one remaining. It's like being transported back to a simpler time. I might just prefer it to the new model. If it had air conditioning.
National Post


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@retro1active 2 years, 6 months ago
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Tags: Best Coast, Chloë Moretz, Miranda Cosgrove
Best Coast - "Our Deal" Video
Here's the complete version of the previously reported and teased video Drew Barrymore directed for Best Coast's "Our Deal." It stars Chloë Moretz looking like Marnie Stern in a touching West Side story with great use of graffiti and handwriting and celebrity cameos (like Alia Shawkat, Miranda Cosgrove, and Donald Glover). Being willing to engage with your feelings while watching is recommended, unless you are an antisentimentalist in which case avoiding it is recommended:
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Tags: Alia Shawkat, Best Coast, Chloe Moretz, Donald Glover, Drew Barrymore, Miranda Cosgrove, Shailene Woodley, Tyler Posey
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News You Need To Read™
September 2010
September 30, 2010 - Middle class tax-cut issue backfiring on Democrats Click here ; Obama aims to reconnect with town hall meetings Click here
; Rupert Murdoch Calls for Amnesty for 'Law-Abiding' Illegal Immigrants Click here
; McDonald's denies report of dropping health care Click here ; Reid aide assails GOP on 'injustice' Click here ; Obama gives Stewart's rally a boost Click here
September 29, 2010 - Obama: Yes to 2011 climate bill push Click here ; Christie proposes changes in how teachers are paid, promoted Click here ; Distrust in media hits record high Click here ; Obama asks college students to prevent Dem 'blood-letting' Click here ; Hoyer, GOP spar over history of tax cuts Click here ; Byrd's family will receive remainder of his salary Click here
September 28, 2010 - Democrats to stuff 20 bills into post-election lame-duck session Click here ; Census: Income gap widens between rich and poor Click here ; R.I. intends to use all $8.1 million in stimulus funds to help the poor Click here ; Gallup Poll Finds 30 Percent of Americans Now Support Tea Party Click here ; Poll: Clinton gets high ratings Click here ; Texting bans may add risk to roads Click here
September 27, 2010 - U.S. Wants to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet Click here ; Boehner ducks on earmark ban Click here ; Obama looks to youth vote for a late midterm surge Click here ; Behind GOP surge: Male voters Click here ; Van Hollen calls tax cuts for rich 'nonsense' Click here ; Local Tea Party group may have uncovered massive vote fraud in Texas Click here
September 24, 2010 - Pelosi Counters GOP Pledge, Says Democrats 'Stand By' Obamacare Click here ; Md. job-creation tax credit gets few takers so far Click here ; Jeffco schools to increase some teachers' pay to more than $100,000 Click here ; Mass. gets $27m to try teacher bonuses Click here ; Liberal media goes on attack against GOP's Boehner Click here ; U.S. Has Spent $1.39 Million on Study Surveying Married Tajik Migrant Workers in Moscow, and Interviewing Some of Them, Their Wives, Girlfriends and Prostitutes Click here
September 22, 2010 - Health provisions begin phasing in Thursday Click here ; Blue Dog Democrats Use Health Care Overhaul as Campaign Punching Bag Click here ; Hillary Clinton Wants Global Standards For Cookstoves Click here ; Teacher bonuses not linked to better student performance, study finds Click here ; GOP senators demand assurance of no 'backdoor' illegals amnesty Click here ; Green Party Senate candidate fatally struck by SUV while biking Click here
September 21, 2010 - National Security Experts: Shariah Law Is 'Preeminent Totalitarian Threat of Our Time' Click here ; Short of Repeal, G.O.P. Will Chip at Health Law Click here ; Tea party picking up steam nationwide Click here ; Approval of Congress at All-Time Low for Midterm Election Year, Says Gallup Click here ; Dem operative 'involved' in New Black Panthers call Click here ; Obama's aunt: 'The System Took Advantage Of Me' Click here
September 20, 2010 - Energy Department Says It Has 'Mandate' to Force 'Market Transformation' for Household Appliances Click here ; Obama soft-pedals reforms at U.N. Click here ; Health insurers seek rate hikes, citing new reform law Click here ; Colin Powell Says Illegal Immigrants Do His Home Repairs Click here ; Sen. DeMint Warns of Possible Death for GOP Click here ; Christine O'Donnell Forced to Defend Long-Ago Comment on Witchcraft Click here
September 17, 2010 - Europeans Push Global Tax to Fund Poverty-Reduction, Climate Change Causes Click here ; Obama Picks Warren to Set Up Consumer Bureau Click here ; WJLA-TV fires veteran anchor Doug McKelway, cites insubordination, misconduct Click here ; Five suspected Islamist terrorists arrested over assassination plot Click here ; Jimmy Carter Slams Ted Kennedy On Health Care Click here ; Child Still Expelled for Toy Gun - a Year Later Click here
September 16, 2010 - White House Science Czar Says He Would Use 'Free Market' to 'De-Develop the United States' Click here ; More Democrats break with Obama on tax cuts Click here ; Fear of GOP takeover forces unions to back Dems critical of health Click here ; US homes lost to foreclosure up 25 pct on year Click here; Christine O'Donnell's big win in Delaware sends message to Republican establishment Click here ; State agency forgoes 'retardation' in name Click here
September 15, 2010 - Dems thrilled as tea party win stuns Delaware GOP Click here; O'Donnell Says She's Listening to the People, Not the 'Experts' Click here ; Reid adding amnesty measure to defense bill Click here ; Poll: Voters Disapprove of How Obama Is Handling Illegal Immigration Click here ; Justice Breyer Suggests That Burning a Quran Could be Like Shouting 'Fire' in a Crowded Theatre--Thus Not Protected by 1st Amendment Click here ; Bill Clinton: New-look GOP makes Bush look liberal Click here
September 14, 2010 - In Senate, GOP digs in on tax cuts Click here ; One in Four Democrats Disapprove of Dems' Performance in Congress, Quinnipiac Poll Finds Click here ; U.S. Border Patrol Agents in 'Firefight' With Mexican Gang Click here ; First Lady Calls for Kids' Menus With Healthy Choices; Says French Fries Should Be Special 'Request' Click here ; Justice IG probing Black Panther case Click here ; Dem aides could face massive layoffs Click here
September 13, 2010 - Tea party rallies nationwide focus on Nov. 2 rather than 9/11 Click here ; Conservatives Say They Will Hold the Next Republican Majority Accountable Click here ; Newt Gingrich Predicts House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Will Retire Click here ; Healthcare reform faces low participation in high-risk pools Click here ; Middle class tax cuts gain support Click here ; Feds Spent $800,000 of Economic Stimulus on African Genital-Washing Program Click here
September 10, 2010 - CBO Predicts U.S. Debt Crisis If Deficits Are Not Controlled Click here ; Citing Quran-Burning Threat, Islamic Body Wants U.N. to Outlaw 'Offenses Against Religion' Click here ; ICE Proposes New Policy That Would Let Illegal Immigrants Go Free Click here ; Court voids Hazleton, Pa., law targeting illegal immigrants Click here ; Sanford Bishop steered scholarships to family Click here ; Police: Mom pulls gun on volleyball team Click here
September 9, 2010 - Obama Added More to National Debt in First 19 Months Than All Presidents from Washington Through Reagan Combined, Says Gov't Data Click here ; Gov't: Spending to Rise Under Obama's Health Care Overhaul Click here ; Whatever Happened to Obama's Army? Click here
September 8, 2010 - ICE Says It's Caught-and-Released 506,232 Illegal Aliens Who Are Now Fugitives Click here ; Republican leader urges 2-year tax rate freeze Click here ; Auditors: Staffing shortages stymie stimulus Click here ; U.S. Government Loaned Mexican Government More Than $1 Billion to Drill Oil in Gulf of Mexico Last Year Click here ; Light bulb factory closes Click here ; Toyota Courts Latinos With Free Hispanic Pride Stickers Click here
September 7, 2010 - As Dems Kick Off Fall Campaign, Obama Promises Another Multi-Billion Stimulus Program Click here ; Plan would create government bank Click here ; Uncertain Business Climate Is Hobbling Employment, Conservative Governor Says Click here ; Obama to back more business tax breaks Click here ; Democrats run away from health care Click here ; Republican Runs Street People on Green Ticket Click here
September 2, 2010 - Oil rig platform catches fire in Gulf of Mexico Click here ; DIA Report Had Confirmed 18 Released Gitmo Detainees Returned to Terror--Including in Afghanistan--Before Obama Ordered Closing of Prison Click here ; Primary 'enthusiasm gap' points to November GOP turnout advantage Click here ; Could investors fleeing stocks become a lost generation? Click here ; Discounts spur surprising Aug. retail sales gains Click here ; Gang members: Chicago's top cop unfair Click here
September 1, 2010 - 3 hostages safe, gunman shot at Discovery Click here ; Reid puts renewables mandate in play, eyes lame-duck energy bill Click here ; GM, Ford Sales Slump as `Nervous' Buyers Stay Away Click here ; WH economist calls for more spending, less taxes Click here ; Audits: ICE isn't cracking down on illegal immigrant employers Click here ; NYC man plunges 40 stories, lands on car, survives Click here
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Velour Chinos
Selected the 3 November 2010 by Romano as "the garagerocker"
Looking for some sober pants to go with a pair of dress shoes? Here are some slim chinos from Velour, they're very smart. I don't need to remind you how charcoal is fashionable these times. And you've noticed how it could match perfectly with the Folk shoes we've been talking about. Regarding Velour, it's a Swedish brand that "offers an alternative to the ordinary fashion brands". Their collections are most of the time uncuttlered with some colourful touchs.
retail price £100
by Romano as "the garagerocker"
Retrouvez les conseils de Romano as "the garagerocker" on French Truckers
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ICF International
Categorized Under: Health, Research + Evaluation
A U.S. federal mandate that school districts devise and implement local wellness policies (LWPs) has potential widespread impact on the nutritional content of foods and beverages available in schools and on the amount of physical activity that students engage in; however, evidence concerning the mandate's effectiveness is limited. This study, published in the Journal of School Health, a publication of the American School Health Association, describes the content of LWPs of six U.S. school districts and steps taken toward their implementation and evaluation.
In recognition of the role that schools can play in improving students' health and in response to the growing obesity epidemic, the Child Nutrition and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Reauthorization Act of 2004 required each school district participating in a federally funded meal program to establish an LWP by the start of the 2006–2007 school year. These LWPs were to include nutrition guidelines for the foods and beverages available on school campuses during the school day; set goals for nutrition education, physical activity, and other school-based activities designed to promote student wellness; and describe how LWP implementation will be monitored. School districts were also required to involve a variety of stakeholders in the development of the policy.
Vice PresidentICF International
Nicola Dawkins-Lyn is a behavioral scientist with expertise in community health, focusing on the connection between health and surrounding environmental and social determinants. She provides corporate and technical oversight for projects to ensure excellent standards for quality, client satisfaction, and resource management. She has more than 18 years of experience in developing research designs to assess policies and programs, developing and administering questionnaires and surveys, facilitating expert panels, conducting interviews and focus groups, and performing sophisticated quantitative and qualitative data analysis.
Dr. Dawkins-Lyn applies her skills in initiative design and formative, process, and outcome research and evaluation to many health-related initiatives. Her wide-ranging public health content expertise includes obesity prevention, health disparities, community-institutional partnerships, and women's health. She is skilled in evaluability assessment, particularly the Systematic Screening and Assessment (SSA) method, and has delivered several presentations and trainings, prepared manuscripts, and coedited a journal issue on the method that received the American Evaluation Association's (AEA) 2011 Outstanding Publication Award.
Dr. Dawkins-Lyn has multiple degrees from Emory University: a Ph.D. in Sociology, an M.P.H. in Behavioral Science and Health Education, and an Executive M.B.A.
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ACP Pledges Support for Enactment of S. 3101, Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008
"Enthusiastic Support" Results from Bill Addressing ACP's Top Legislative Priorities
Washington - The 125,000-member American College of Physicians (ACP) today pledged its support for enactment of S. 3101, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008.
"The College is able to enthusiastically support S. 3101 because it addresses and incorporates three of our top legislative priorities," ACP President Jeffrey P. Harris, MD, FACP, wrote Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
Writing on behalf of the largest medical specialty society - and second largest physician membership organization - in the U.S., Dr. Harris said, "I am writing to congratulate you" on introduction of the bill because:
- The Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) physician payment cuts will be replaced by 18 months of positive updates.
- Medicare payment policies will be improved to address the growing crisis in access to primary care services.
- It includes increased funding for the Medicare medical home demonstration project and authorizes the Secretary to expand it if the demo achieves measurable improvements in patient care.
"We had three top legislative priorities for the Medicare bill, all of which are included in S. 3101: 18 months of positive updates instead of the SGR cuts, improvements in payments for primary care services (change in budget neutrality adjustment from work Relative Value Units (RVUs) to the conversion factor, increases for primary care services in Physician Scarcity Areas (PSAs), and funding and authority for the medical home demo, and all of these are included in S. 3101," noted Dr. Harris. "ACP policy also supports the benefit improvements in the bill: coverage for preventive services and phasing out of the higher mental health co-pay."
In his letter to Senator Baucus, Dr. Harris also congratulated bill co-sponsors Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), who provide an important bipartisan element to the bill.
"Based on ACP's policies, we are pleased to lend our full support to the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 and to urge its enactment," Dr. Harris concluded.
Dr. Harris's letter is available on request. A similar letter to all Senate offices urging support for S. 3101 will be available later today. ACP members include 125,000 internal medicine physicians (internists), related subspecialists, and medical students. Internists specialize in the prevention, detection, and treatment of illness in adults.


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CFPB REQUEST FOR COMMENT: MCUL Comments on CFPBs Agency Information Collection Trial Disclosures
On July 18, 2013 the MCUL responded to the CFPB's request for comment regarding their trial disclosure program. The MCUL expressed in its comment letter the bureau's lack of necessary information and requested clarity regarding what they are looking for with this type of request. While the MCUL appreciates the CFPB's willingness to consider the potential burdens of information collection activities on credit unions, it expressed the importance in the CFPB identifying in their requests for comment, the specific areas in which they wish to collection information, identify burdensome areas, and work to alleviate the burdens while providing necessary information to consumers.
The CFPB's request for comment can be found here.
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December 22, 2014
HEMET, Calif. (AP) - Five people are in jail and $1 million worth of marijuana plants growing in plain sight have been uprooted at a Southern California pot farm.
Plywood fences blocked a street view of the three-acre marijuana operation in rural Riverside County near Hemet.
But the strong odor of marijuana detected by a sheriff's deputy and a helicopter flight confirmed on Tuesday that 184 large pot plants were growing behind the makeshift walls.
The Riverside Press-Enterprise says the five people arrested have been booked for investigation of marijuana cultivation and possession of marijuana for sale.
They have been placed on immigration holds by the U.S. Border Patrol pending charges.
Copyright 2014 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Cars > 4speed's Garage
About 4speed's Garage
My first car
my first car was a 73 chevy longbed with a three speed on the tree
Car I wish I still had
my first 79 monte carlo. had it for years but had to move.
My dream car
my car i have now. its a 79 monte with a factory 4speed,no power steering and manual brakes. its perisian blue with deep dish rallys
- Type of racing: drag racing
- Driver: john force
- Driving song: Fuel. by metallica
- Car movie: christine
- Car magazine: super chevy
— Profile last updated: Jul 20, 2008
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- Aug 3, 2008 at 11:03 pm
- your montes look good. i just love monte carlo's! i just washed my tonight.. looking good!
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< Systems Development Services >
Video eats bandwidth, and large traffic doesn't always pay for itself. Virtual enterprise systems are making a significant dent in the cost of traditional enterprise systems development, but it takes specialized knowledge to integrate existing infrastructure with virtual systems.
SilverCine, Inc., builds enterprise networking systems for video management and delivery. We have built realtime streaming networks that are capable of servicing hundreds of thousands of customers consecutively, and we know how to integrate hierarchical, traditional systems with virtualized environments.
Do you use Amazon Web Services for your front-end web? Do you need virtualized encoding systems for your backend? What is the best method for encoding inhouse and transcoding on a virtualized system for realtime deployment in mobile?
SilverCine, Inc., can answer these questions. We know all about workflow optimization and deployment. Contact us today to discuss an enterprise, virtual machine system that works for your company!


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Blog Home
Management/Success/Leadership: Mostly Bullshit
Mar 12, 2013
General Nonsense
Sometimes I think the field of management/success/leadership is nothing more than a confusion of correlation for causation. For example, I blogged recently that "passion" isn't so much a cause of success as a
of success, and it grows as the success grows. Success can make anyone passionate about what they are doing. When the experts say we need passion to be successful, that's mostly bullshit. What you need is energy, talent, hard work, a reasonable plan, and lots of luck.
Company culture is another area that I think the experts get backwards. The common belief is that you need a good company culture to create success. But isn't it more likely that companies with awesome employees get both a good culture and success at the same time? A good corporate culture is a byproduct of doing everything right; it's not the
of success as much as the outcome. Success improves culture more than a good culture can cause success.
And how about that charisma thing? That's important, right? Everyone says so. Look at Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, and Larry Ellison. Those guys have plenty of charisma so it must be important to success, we assume. But let me tell you what causes charisma: success.
I'm in a unique position to judge the success=charisma hypothesis because I slip in and out of famousness all day long. Cartoonists aren't normally recognized, and when I walk into a room as a "normal" I exhibit no charisma whatsoever. I might even be absorbing some charisma that is already in the atmosphere. But when I enter a room at an event where people are expecting me in my capacity as a semi-famous cartoonist, suddenly I appear to have some charisma. I feel like Moses in a room full of water. Trust me when I say that if Steve Jobs had not been successful so young, he'd be known as the lying asshole who needs a shower, not the guy with the reality distortion field. Charisma is bullshit.
Today I was reading an expert's opinion that companies get better results when managers learn to avoid micromanaging employees. But how do we know those non-micromanaging managers get better results? Wouldn't it also be true that wherever you have the most highly capable employees - the ones most likely to create success - you have a boss who knows he can back off the micromanaging? One would expect more micromanaging in companies with untalented employees. So how do you know what causes what?
Consider the thousands of different books on management/success/leadership. If any of this were real science, all managers would learn the same half-dozen secrets to success and go on to great things. The reality of the business world is more like infinite monkeys with typewriters. Sooner or later a monkey with an ass pimple will type something that makes sense and every management expert in the world will attribute the success to the ass pimple.
How about the idea that every hourly wage slave should "act like an entrepreneur"? How do you think that would play out with Apple's 50,000 employees? The unsexy reality is that everyone in the company can't be creative risk-takers. Someone has to actually work. My guess is that Apple would fall apart if more than 5% of its employees acted like entrepreneurs. And maybe the tipping point is only 2%. Entrepreneurs are disruptive, rule-breaking risk-takers. A little bit of that goes a long way.
I first noticed the questionable claims of management experts back in the nineties, when it was fashionable to explain a company's success by its generous employee benefits. The quaint idea of the time was that treating employees like kings and queens would free their creative energies to create massive profits. The boring reality is that companies that are successful have the resources to be generous to employees and so they do. The best way a CEO can justify an obscene pay package is by treating employees generously. To put this in another way, have you ever seen a corporate turnaround that was caused primarily by improving employee benefits?
The fields of management/success/leadership are a lot like the finance industry in the sense that much of it is based on confusing correlation and chance with causation. We humans like to feel as if we understand and control our environments. We don't like to think of ourselves as helpless leaves blowing in the wind of chance. So we clutch at any ridiculous explanation of how things work.
My view is that success happens when you have a coincidence of talent, resources, and timing. One can explain the existence of successful serial entrepreneurs by the fact that once successful they gain resources, credibility, extra talent, contacts, and the opportunity to live someplace such as Silicon Valley where opportunities fall out of trees. You would expect that group of people to get lucky more often than someone just starting out.
Dilbert came to fame in the nineties when the working world was experiencing an unprecedented "bubble" of management bullshit. Every time a new business book became a best seller, middle managers across the globe scurried to buy a copy and started spewing its jargon. Eventually the sale of business books dropped off when, I assume, people realized there couldn't really be 10,000 different sure-fire formulas for success.
But lately I've been feeling another bullshit bubble forming in the world. And I don't mean only the financial markets, which are sketchy for lots of reasons. It's just a feeling, but it seems to me that the management/success/leadership bullshit bubble is once again reaching full inflation.
Are you feeling the bubble too, or is it just me?
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Jul 5, 2013
I am an "indian" among "chiefs" who are for the most part panting after those with power to gain any boost in title, money and more pointless meetings on their calendar so they can feel important while doing absolutely nothing.
The word LEADERSHIP is sacred here in the great bastion of higher education. We create those leaders and CEOs of tomorrow! So it's important that there be only maybe two actual people in the entire school that can answer a phone or make a photocopy. Everyone else is too busy leading. If big business is !$%*!$%*! Thank the business schools folks. The jargon, the "branding" messages, the organizational behavioral charts that accomplish absolutely nothing while the quant side - supply chain, finance, accounting? That part about being able to read a spread sheet and understanding general management strategies? That makes sense. The rest is !$%*!$%*! The ego drives the !$%*!$%* and leaders must have their toadies surrounding them and protecting their own turf at the same time. It's exhausting for them while a few do the actual work. What is depressing is the !$%*!$%*ters and the complete self-centered what is in it for me that will throw the welfare of a company or organization under the bus? They rarely get hit by that bus. After years in academic, congressional, nonprofit and corporate settings? There is not much difference. Far too few genuine good honest fair people. Way too many users, !$%*!$%*ters, fake it big to make it big types and absolute cut throats. Watching the action from the peanut gallery? We see things the management gurus and researchers don't see and are too pompous to try and understand. So Dilbert gives us some reason to smile. Employees at the administrative level here have not gotten raises in five years due to "economy" and "budget" woes. Yet some "senior" level staff? income has doubled in four years from 100K to 200K with no one knowing what he does his title is so !$%*!$%*. Our fearless leader left our organization to move on to bigger and better things. Her salary went up almost 100K and while she was here she didn't do much but check off boxes and there was "no beef" to any of the laurels she rested on that her toadies sighed over as she basked in her leadership. We knew you did not look behind the curtain if you wanted to keep your job. And so it goes.
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Mar 15, 2013
I interviewed for a management position one time that was currently empty. The manager I was interviewing with fortuitously happened to say that the productivity of the group normally went up when they didn't have a manager. I then asked why have a manager at all. He said that after about a month the productivity went down.
He then went on to say best managers (based strictly on productivity which was quantified by output passing inspection) are ones who are there and don't do anything.
I immediately said I was qualified. Unfortunately I didn't get the job. Apparently I was over qualified.
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Mar 14, 2013
You scored another big hit with this one, Scott. I'm 56 years old and have seen so many business plans come and go it isn't funny anymore.
Whenever some bright-eyed imbecile in a dark suit starts spewing corporate philosophy with a straight face my eyes automatically half close, my arms cross and my dill hole meter goes off the charts. The big thing at big companies now are Gallup polls. Nobody wants to participate, everyone hates them, the meetings are pointless and the time wasted is endless. But worse than that is the fervent albeit hushed opinion that the company would serve its employees better if they'd divvy up the millions they spend on Gallup every year and give it to the workers. But that's way too simplistic.
An acquaintance of mine is a little younger than I am and fully retired with millions in savings. He did it by getting his Masters in statistical mathematics then starting a consulting firm. Hobnobbing with CEOs was a brilliant "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" strategy. He once told me when the economy tanks his business skyrockets. When business is down the board of directors turns the screws and the easiest response any CEO can make is, "I've hired a brilliant consulting firm to review our processes and pinpoint areas of improvement." Then of course the study will drag out for years with the resultant hair brained, half !$%*!$ madness eventually falling into the laps of the employees who just shake their collective heads.
Trace it back and I think you'll find most of these idiotic philosophies are the direct result of business consulting firms pandering to CEOs in an effort to make them look like they're deserving of their ridiculously exorbitant salaries. But, hey, there probably isn't anybody that wouldn't stop do exactly the same thing if they were in their shoes.
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Mar 14, 2013
[ Regarding the Alcoa turnaround, the safety focus was a clever way to improve communication and accountability. That is basic management. Add accountability to any environment and you will have improvement. That is quite different from offering the employees free beer on Fridays and hoping their happiness translates into productivity. ]
If improving communication and accountability is basic management, then why do so many managers suck at it? I agree it SHOULD be basic management. In practice, though, it isn't, which to me indicates that it is harder than it looks. Actually, forget that. It IS harder than it looks. A lot harder. I've been a people manager for ~15 years and still struggle with it. Someone who can do it naturally and effectively is a rare commodity.
Friday beer may not be the same, but not all employee benefits are so frivolous. For example, Google gives its employees free food -- breakfast, lunch, dinner -- in their corporate cafeterias. They do it because they recognize that the cost of food is minimal compared to the cost of employees arriving late, or leaving early, or going out to lunch every day. Another example, a lot of tech companies offer employees free (or heavily discounted) memberships at upscale health clubs. They don't do this because having toned, fit bodies makes the work environment more pleasant; they do it because, statistically speaking, healthy people spend less time absent from work.
A well-designed benefit package is nothing but a set of cost/benefit analyses spin-doctored into, "We care about our employees."
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Mar 14, 2013
For a more rigorous debunking of the management BS, read "The Management Myth: Debunking Modern Business Philosophy" by Matthew Stewart. It is a well-researched take down by a former management consultant, and it is a pretty enjoyable read.
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Mar 14, 2013
CNBC ran a story on Valve on March 5. Valve is a $4 billion company with no upper level management or HR. Decisions on hiring/firing/bonuses are made by peer consensus.
Whether this is idyllic as it sounds is anyone's guess and Valve is supposedly a fairly secretive company about its inner workings.
But my simple guess is that management only adds unnecessary layers of inefficiency and politics in settings where employees are autodidactic, self-motivated, and passionate. This is probably a small slice of the total number of companies that exist in the world - and very few companies with high value, like Valve. Nonetheless, if employees are drawn from the top 1-2% of individuals and have the aforementioned qualities, the question of whether management would add or detract from efficiency is fair game.
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Mar 14, 2013
Rule #1 for a successful manager (personal success, not necessarily that of the enterprise): Try not to make a decision. When absolutely forced to do so, chose the option that has already failed elsewhere. That way, when it fails for you, there is no blame. If it succeeds, you are a genius.
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Mar 14, 2013
I felt the bubble ... then I farted. Oh and one more thing, ass pimple is OK but next time try "butt zit". I feel it has more of a business ring to it.
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Mar 14, 2013
C'mon, there's even a name for this: "sample bias" - looking at the "common" features of your existing sample, and assuming they are unique to your sample.
You see it in Mutual Funds and other financial institutions already - "Mr. Smith is one of the Top 3 fund managers of his generation - he must know what he's doing!" What they don't tell you is 20,000 other people started as fund managers the same year he did, 15 or 20 years ago. If you just randomly pick half of them to fail, and half to survive each year, how many would be left? that's right, about 3....
When you see articles about "7 habits of successful people", you have to ask - did the author survey all of the people who have the **exact same habits** who did NOT succeed?
Passion doesn't hurt - but I see passionate failures. Type-A personalities? I seen more than a few drop of a heart attack.
Maybe there is some element to success - but I've yet to see an analysis that could also be replicated by chance...
Don't get me wrong; you can most CERTAINLY guarantee failure (among other things: don't try**), but a great deal of success is due to factors you did NOT control. Accept it, be grateful, and help others along the way.
(**Old joke: guy sitting at home, complaining to the sky "God, why haven't you given me a winning lottery ticket?" God's voice booming back down "It would help if you actually bought one sometime")
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Mar 13, 2013
I hope there's not a bubble coming. I just wrote a a management book and I'd hate it to get lost in all the other !$%*!$%*!
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Mar 13, 2013
Speaking of management trends: When did companies start having potential hires interview with entire departments over the course of 6 or 7 call backs? That combined with the requirement that your most recent experience exactly match the job description limits potential hires to people who:
1) Lie well
2) Are completely non-threatening to potential peers, managers and direct reports
3) Have nothing better to do than show up for endless rounds of interviews
I played that game for a few months before meeting my current boss at a social event. She hired me with no interviews other than a test project she evaluated with her team.
Is that how all hires are actually made? Is the HR interview-go-round process just a game to keep the lawyers happy? How much of what passes for management today is really just data-driven CYA?
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Mar 13, 2013
[I think that management books are half BS, and half useful; the useful half is probably similar to listening to a motivational speaker - there are very few new ideas and no silver bullets, but you get energized to focus on important strategies/processes.]
Im with you on the half useful part but not on the reason. My own opinion is that many management books contain ideas that proved to be useful somewhere and very likely are useful in other places, but the trick is to recognize where those other places are, where they arent and implement those ideas correctly. They become fads and sometimes lead to bubbles when managers try to implement them where they shouldnt or overestimate their ability to implement correctly.
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Mar 13, 2013
I think that management books are half BS, and half useful; the useful half is probably similar to listening to a motivational speaker - there are very few new ideas and no silver bullets, but you get energized to focus on important strategies/processes.
There is certainly something to be said for good managers. I've worked for very good, very bad, and some in between. Like everything, luck helps, but there's no substitute for quality management.
I agree that benefits will not create success, but I'm confident that culture matters. Many a start-up or struggling non-profit have succeeded partially based on culture (which include: cooperative, entrepreneurial, supportive, rewarding, etc). And many successful companies have been brought down by bad culture (selfish, unrewarding, backstabbing, lazy etc). Great products and employees can counteract this a bit, but in the long run great employees won't stick around.
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Mar 13, 2013
I do think there is such a thing as charisma that is related to a person's biology, as well as to his or her environment and past experiences. Add Ted Bundy to your list of examples. Psychopaths are likely to be highly charismatic, even if their past is just a jumble of irresponsible, bumbling failures, as it often is. Part of charisma is the "look and feel" of another person -- how they appear and how they behave -- and some of that comes from their genetics. To my observation, there are, on the tails of the bell curve, some highly charismatic failures as well as some unappealling, reclusive successes.
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Mar 13, 2013
I'm not in management, and the one time I tried it out... I wasn't very successful. So, let me use that as a glowing endorsement on my management advice.
The main skills of a manager are:
1. Dealing with personalities and conflict.
2. Understanding, developing, and enforcing process to the extent that it's necessary.
3. Paying attention to important tasks that nobody else cares about.
At least at the lower/mid levels. Higher level management is dark magic as far as I'm concerned. And I've often suspected that dark = brown, and magic = moist and stinky.
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Mar 13, 2013
[ To put this in another way, have you ever seen a corporate turnaround that was caused primarily by improving employee benefits? ]
Actually, yes: Paul O'Neill and Alcoa. By focusing on one specific thing -- worker safety -- O'Neill was able to drive a culture of accountability into a prototypically mismanaged giant of American industry. The change was too specific, and the results too dramatic, to allow argument over cause and effect. You can argue that "worker safety" isn't an employee benefit in the sense that you meant it, though it's hard to think of a benefit that people would value more than a safe workplace.
[ Wouldn't it also be true that wherever you have the most highly capable employees - the ones most likely to create success - you have a boss who knows he can back off the micromanaging? ]
Scott, I can't believe that anyone who has demonstrated such a keen understanding of corporate culture would make such a statement. I don't know whether micromanagers are born or made, but I do know that their behavior has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the competence of their employees. In this case it is you who has the cause and effect backward.
It is true that there are people leaders who are able to switch back and forth between micromanaging and a laissez faire attitude, as the situation requires them to. These people are called "great managers" and it is no surprise, to me anyway, that they are successful. Unfortunately they are the corporate equivalent of unicorns in terms of their abundance.
Here's how I see it: people who are truly gifted at leading others are almost universally successful. However, there are so few people like this that there is plenty of room for others to also be successful. In that population, your hard-work-and-luck hypothesis is by and large accurate. The problem is that the signal-to-noise ratio is so low that it is easy to believe that there are no truly gifted leaders. But there are! I've seen them, and worked for some of them. I've been in situations where they have taken over for a poor leader, and the change from one to the other was night and day. It's hard to describe just how much more motivating it is to work for someone that you believe in.
One of the defining moments in my career as a manager was when I was working for just such a person. In a one-on-one meeting, I told him how much I appreciated the fact that he was not a micromanager, having worked for one in the past. He just laughed, and said, "You do realize, don't you, that I don't give everyone the same leeway I give you?" It was truly a "light bulb moment" for me.
[Regarding the Alcoa turnaround, the safety focus was a clever way to improve communication and accountability. That is basic management. Add accountability to any environment and you will have improvement. That is quite different from offering the employees free beer on Fridays and hoping their happiness translates into productivity. And if I might add a grain of skepticism, I highly doubt the safety focus was as responsible for the improvement as has been reported. It smells fishy to me. -- Scott]
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Mar 13, 2013
Managers only need to be seen as doing something and that what they get paid for. companies succeed in spite of all the "Management/Success/Leadership: Mostly !$%*!$%*! not because of these.
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Mar 13, 2013
In itself, Management/Leadership is most definitely not !$%*!$%*!$%*!$ the way it is practiced in the real world is !$%*!$%* 99% of the time.
"But isn't it more likely that companies with awesome employees get both a good culture and success at the same time?"
I can say no to this, because I've seen what happens when you have great employees, but no leadership. Without direction, everybody starts doing what they think is best, pull in a million different directions, and the company starts to drift.
Also, success doesn't create a good company culture either. If anything, it creates lazyness. Without struggle, there's no evolutionary pressure to improve your current ways.
In general, management is so damn hard that they're all looking for the magic pill. In the process, they over-complicate things instead of just getting the fundamentals right (which matters the most by far). So you get all sorts of weird management styles that involve NLP, personality tests, etc etc in an attempt to gain traction.
I believe that the world is getting more complex everyday, and all the !$%*!$%* management advice there is out there is a manifestation of our struggle to keep up.
The best advice I've seen on management is to make sure that every single person in your company, at all levels of the organization, is able to give clear answers to 4 simple questions:
1. What is expected of me? (performance-wise, which tasks to be done, etc).
2. How am I doing?
3. What's in it for me?
4. If I am not performing, where can I go to get help?
Its intuitive, it makes sense, and it doesn't try to invent some weird new terminology, something that !$%*!$%* management courses love to do.
(The advice was given in a presentation by Paul Schutz, CEO of Porsche, in 1987).
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Mar 13, 2013
So if leadership is mostly !$%*!$%* and luck can be self acquired by shifting the universe like you explained before, do you mean all I need is talent?
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Mar 13, 2013
Six Sigma makes process control look like rocket science... A little to complex for me.
In regards to fords failings. Ford made some not so quality cars in the early to mid 2000's.
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Why Has the Federal Government Stopped Enforcing Court Orders to Integrate America's Schools?
Photo Credit: Monkey Business Images via Shutterstock.com
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For decades, federal desegregation orders were the potent tool that broke the back of Jim Crow education in the South, helping transform the region's educational systems into the most integrated in the country.
Federal judges, often facing down death threats and violence, blanketed Southern states with hundreds of court orders that set out specific plans and timetables to ensure the elimination of racial segregation. Federal agencies then aggressively used the authority of the courts to monitor hostile school systems, wielding the power of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to strip federal dollars from districts that refused to desegregate.
The pace of the change wrought by the federal courts was breathtaking. In 1963, about 1 percent of black children in the South attended school with white children. By the early 1970s, the South had been remade 2014 fully 90 percent of black children attended desegregated schools. Court orders proved most successful in the South, but were also used in an attempt to combat de facto segregation in schools across the country, from New York to Michigan to Arizona.
Today, this once-powerful force is in considerable disarray.
A ProPublica examination shows that officials in scores of school districts do not know the status of their desegregation orders, have never read them, or erroneously believe that orders have been ended. In many cases, orders have gone unmonitored, sometimes for decades, by the federal agencies charged with enforcing them.
At the height of the country's integration efforts, there were some 750 school districts across the country known to be under desegregation orders.
Today, court orders remain active in more than 300 districts. In some cases, that's because judges have determined that schools have not met their mandate to eliminate all vestiges of segregation.
But some federal courts don't even know how many desegregation orders still exist on their dockets. With increasing frequency, federal judges are releasing districts from court oversight even where segregation prevails, at times taking the lack of action in cases as evidence that the problems have been resolved.
Desegregation orders were meant to guarantee black and Latino children the right to an equal education. They addressed a range of issues including the diversity of teaching staff, racial balance in schools, curriculum, discipline and facilities.
The orders uniquely empower parents to fight actions by school districts that might lead to greater segregation or inequality. In districts under court order 2014 having been found in violations of the constitutional rights of black children 2014 parents do not have to prove intent, only that black students could be harmed.
Since the 1990s, the Supreme Court has sharply curtailed the power of parents to challenge racial inequities in schools. Districts not under court orders are largely prohibited from considering race to balance schools. And parents in these districts must show that school officials are intentionally discriminating when they make decisions that adversely affect black and Latino students.
And so, as desegregation orders are ignored, forgotten or lifted, black parents are losing the ability to effectively challenge school inequality.
Over the course of months, ProPublica has compiled the nation's most comprehensive and accurate data on active desegregation orders. We used legal databases, academic studies and contacted more than 160 school districts across the country.
The effort uncovered a world of confusion, neglect and inaction.
For example, the lawyer for the school district in Hollandale, Miss., said he didn't know if the desegregation order that had long ago been imposed on the district was still in effect.
"I haven't looked at anything or researched it. I've never read the order," the lawyer, Bennie Richard, said.
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Rave Reviews
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Phat Tyre Pro 90-5 Pack RULES!!
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Summer vacation movies: ''The Sandlot''
WHAT IT'S ABOUT New kid on the block Scotty Smalls (Tom Guiry, above, far right) makes friends with the neighborhood boys and learns how to play baseball. After they hit a baseball over the fence into the home of a ball-eating dog called ''The Beast,'' they plot to get it back.
WHY WE LOVE IT It's a nice reminder of the good old days, when neighborhood kids actually used to play sports together during the summer (instead of huddling in front of Grand Theft Auto for hours on end).
FUN FACT James Earl Jones pops up as the owner of ''The Beast.''


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This is exciting news for me because it's going to be close to my house. I love Panera. Apparently it's going in near (next to?) the Breakfast Place on Peach Street. I thought this was new news until I wrote my old bosses at the Erie Times-News about it, and one of them sent me back a story about it from last August. Sigh. Guess I'm out of the loop these days.
Anyway, in case you missed that story like I did: A new Panera is coming!
My friend Christina tells me that some Panera's have drive-thrus. For those of us with kids that would be a huge bonus. It's exhausting to even think about dragging two kids out of their carseats, dragging them across the parking lot, jostling them through the crowds inside…t's a lot easier just to eat at home. Even if all you have is moldy bread that you have to cut off the crusts to make edible. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything.
So hey! Panera people! Pay attention! We need a drive-thru. (If you want to give them your two cents about this, I found a comment form on their website here.)
The story from the Times said construction is expected to start this spring or summer.
Since I'm feeling a tad guilty about hyping a big chain, let me also say that my absolute favorite spot for bagels in town is Jo's Brooklyn Bagels, a simple little spot in the plaza in the 800 block of West 38th Street. The woman behind the counter even has the authentic Brooklyn attitude. Which isn't necessarily a positive. HOWEVER. Their bagels more than make up for it. You should try it — especially their sandwiches. Yumminess.


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Volunteers clean up rundown park in Fairbanks' University West neighborhood
Fairbanks Stump Grinders was on hand to helpWith full crew, our chipper and debris removal truck we provided 8 hours of our service to this important community project. The cost for the crew and use of the equipment was just over $3000.00 and worth every penny. We were happy to help out and write it off as a complete donation to see that your children and mine have a nice place to play.
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