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Think of Sin City and you imagine large, glitzy casinos, pulsating nightclubs and semi-naked women cavorting on tables. So where does your child fit into all this? Surprisingly well actually, as the city offers a large array of other activities for kids of every age. Here are ten reasons to take them along on your next trip to Las Vegas.
The Stratosphere Tower rides
The Stratosphere Casino, Hotel & Tower may not be ideally located at the centre of the Strip, but its iconic tower is America's tallest freestanding observation tower. If you're wondering what this has to do with your child being entertained, be warned that the resort offers some of the most thrilling free-fall rides in the world. The SkyJump Las Vegas ride drops you off the 108th floor at lightning speed, so if your child is an adventure junkie, he'll be suitably impressed. For less intense kids, there's also Insanity, with an astounding view of downtown Las Vegas, the X-Scream rollercoaster and BigShot, which propels you 160ft in the air from a 921ft high tower.
The Stratosphere Casino, Hotel & Tower, 2000 Las Vegas Boulevard South (+1 702 3807777; www.stratospherehotel.com) Ride tickets from US$12 (Rs630); SkyJump from Rs 5,790
Ethel M Chocolate factory
As well as treating your children to some sweet delights, you can also show them how they're made at Ethel M Chocolate's factory. After the chocolate-making tour, let your kids choose from the vast selection of milk, dark and white chocolate to fillings like flavoured satin crèmes, nuts, fruit, caramels and pralines at the shop. If you feel the need to indulge yourself, there's also a variety of cocktails and crème liqueurs like mojito, margarita and chocolopolitan. For botanically-inclined kids, the factory houses a Botanical Cactus Garden which has over 300 species of plants.
Ethel M Chocolate factory, One Sunset Way, Henderson (+1 702 458 8864; www.ethelm.com)
Fountains of Bellagio
The dancing fountains of Bellagio will not just entertain you, they will also impress your kids. The spectacular combination of music, light and water with the magnificent hotel as a backdrop will keep them spellbound for a couple of hours. If you don't want to take them out at night, there are shows running from 3pm-8pm every half hour on weekdays and from noon to 8pm on weekends.
Bellagio, 3600 Las Vegas Boulevard South (+1 702 693 7111; www.bellagio.com)
A taste of the Big Apple
What if you haven't been able to squeeze in a visit to New York on this trip? Staying at the New York-New York Hotel & Casino is probably the closest you can get to the Big Apple experience without actually going to the east coast. Your kids will love its New York-style skyline complete with the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Brooklyn Bridge, Grand Central Terminal, and even a 150ft Statue of Liberty. If all this hasn't convinced you, the hotel also has The Roller Coaster ride– with trains designed to look like NYC taxicabs cruising through the surrounding skyline.
New York, New York Hotel and Casino,3790 Las Vegas Boulevard South (+1 800 689 1797; www.newyorknewyork.com) The Roller Coaster tickets from Rs 737
Free performances
When you're done checking out all the tourist attractions that Vegas has to offer, take your kids to see one (or more) of the many free performances that the city is so well known for. There's something here for every taste, from an underwater fish-feeding show at the Silverton hotel and a clown show at Circus Circus Las Vegas Hotel & Casino to fashion shows at the Fashion Show mall and the Sunset Stampede at Sam's Town Hotel & Gambling Hall. Identify the shows you'd like to see in advance and plan your day accordingly.
MGM Grand Lion Habitat
If you want to give your kids a taste of caring for animals in a fun setting, take them to honour the lion at the MGM Grand Lion Habitat at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino. With its lush green forest-like surroundings (climate controlled, of course) and purified air and water, these lions are spoilt for comfort. Trainers rotate the lions every few hours and there is plenty to keep the kids entertained while you go and try your hand at the hotel's expansive casino.
MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, 3799 Las Vegas Boulevard South (+1 877 880 0880; www.mgmgrand.com)
Madame Tussauds Las Vegas
Never mind that you've missed this wax attraction in London or New York –Vegas's Madame Tussauds houses enough wax statues of pop and movie stars, political figures and sports icons to keep your little ones entertained for hours. Kids will enjoy singing with Simon Cowell, sinking Tiger Woods' putt or even marrying George Clooney while you slip out and have some real fun on the roulette table at the nearby Bellagio hotel casino.
Madame Tussauds Las Vegas, 3377 Las Vegas Boulevard South Suite (+1 866 841 3739; www.madametussauds.com) Tickets from US$15 (Rs790) for kids aged seven to 12 and US$25 (Rs 1,315) for adults
Las Vegas Natural History Museum
If your child is a history buff, he won't want to miss a visit to the Las Vegas Natural History Museum. The museum has several vast galleries such as the Marine Life Gallery, Engelstad Family Prehistoric Life Gallery, International Wildlife Gallery, The Pharaoh's Tomb and the MGM/MIRAGE Young Scientist Center, so kids can spend the entire day exploring the subject they enjoy the most. Make sure you check the events calendar before your visit – there are lots of exhibitions and events to choose from.
Las Vegas Natural History Museum, 900 Las Vegas Boulevard North (+1 702 384 3466; www. lvnhm.org) Tickets from US$8 (Rs 420) for kids aged three to 11 and Rs 526 for adults
The Adventuredome Theme Park at Circus Circus Las Vegas Hotel & Casino
Five sprawling acres of indoor theme park fun with 25 rides, Adventuredome is a packed a day of fun for your little ones. Suitable for kids of all ages, it has rides ranging from Family and Junior to Large and Premium. If you get bored of all the energetic action, there are also clown shows taking place throughout the day. From 4D movies to laser blasts, this adventure park has it all.
The Adventuredome Theme Park at Circus Circus Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, 2880 Las Vegas Boulevard South (+1 866-456-8894; www.adventuredome.com) Full-day pass from Rs 895 for kids under 48" and Rs 1,420 for those 48" and taller
Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino
If after all this your kids still need more entertainment, take them to Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino's Shark Reef Aquarium. The US's only predator-based aquarium and exhibit has 15 different species of sharks along with other sea animals such as green sea turtles, lionfish, golden crocodile and komodo dragon lizards. To make things more exciting, they offer scuba diving with sharks and a Touch Pool where you can touch sharks, rays and horseshoe crabs.
Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay Hotel &Casino, 3950 Las Vegas Boulevard South (+1 877 632 7800; www.mandalaybay.com) Tickets from Rs 630 for kids aged five to 12 and Rs 947 for adults
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subset: commoncrawl


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Since Jan 21, 2008
You know someone has lost the argument when they start to adopt the tactics of the loony liberals. i.e. the common "you criticize X, therefore you are an X-hater" defect found in left-wing rhetoric.
It seems that some Mormons, unable to defend themselves against assertions that they are, in fact, a cult, have adopted this loony lefty model. Some fringe bloggers (http://framreport.blogspot.com/2009/03/introduction.html) have tagged 50 fine Free Republicans, including myself, as "Mormon-haters" because we choose to tell the truth about their religion. -mq
Quinn is;


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jGuru Forums
Posted By:
Posted On:
Saturday, November 26, 2005 06:47 PM
Good day.
I have an application the use JavaMail 1.3.3_01 for sending an e-mail with attachment.
The attachment is an Excel file with extension xls.
The program run under Windows XP and jdk 1.5.0_04.
When the message is sent an error occurred. the attach sent for the class has .xl extension (without s).
This is the error:
550 Error: Attachment type not allowed. File "dmx.xl" has the unacceped extension "xl".
If I attach a text ascii file having xls extension the error is identical.
My code is:
String corpo = "x";
Multipart multipart = new MimeMultipart();
BodyPart messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
messageBodyPart.setContent(corpo, "text/html");
messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
String sfa = "dmx.xls";
DataSource source = new FileDataSource(sfa);
messageBodyPart.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(source));
I have try to print the value of MessageBodyPart.getFileName()
and the value returned is dmx.xls.
If I try use any others attchments all run correctly.
For example: if I rename the file in dmx.xlx the e-mail is sent normally.
Where is the error?
Best regards.
Stefano Errani
Re: problem sned mail winth xls attachment
Posted By:
Posted On:
Monday, November 28, 2005 11:07 AM
Posted By:
Posted On:
Sunday, November 27, 2005 10:14 AM
550 Error: Attachment type not allowed. File "dmx.xl" has the unacceped extension "xl".
I think that is coming from your SMTP server. Apparently (? ask your postmaster/sysadmin) it has been configured to try and guard against viruses, by rejecting certain extensions, on the suggested filename of attachments to messages it handles.


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Most visitors are surprised that there are so many opportunities to catch freshwater fish on and near the Outer Banks. From the northern reaches of the Currituck Sound to inland lakes and rivers, if it's freshwater you want to fish … you've come to the right place.
Sometimes the line between freshwater and saltwater can be hard to know down here. If you are confused, visit Descriptive Boundaries for Coastal – Joint Inland Waters.
Jigging is a technique for catching lots of different species of fish on the Outer Banks. It can be used on a boat while deep sea fishing or fishing for stripers. You can jig off the pier for blues and Spanish. You can jig for fish off your own private boat.


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Google Product Forums
Re: Monetization submission not saving according to Video Manager?
Feb 21, 2012 5:10 AM
Posted in group:
YouTube Help Forum
Non of my videos get monetized -.- this situation sucks so much. I used free to use music, never had problems before. Just uploaded a video without any sound, it got monetized within a few seconds. Fuck it.
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Communications Equipment
Company Overview of Xirrus, Inc.
Executive Profile
Dirk I. Gates
Founder, Executive Chairman and President, Xirrus, Inc.
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Mr. Dirk I. Gates co-founded Xirrus, Inc. in 2004 and has been its Executive Chairman since June 2012. Mr. Gates serves as the President of Xirrus, Inc. He served as the Chief Executive Officer at Xirrus until June 2012. Mr. Gates has more than 15 years of executive management experience as well as a track record of success evolving a high-tech startup into a world class, publicly traded company. He served as Vice President and General Manager of the mobile communications ...
Corporate Headquarters
2101 Corporate Center DrivePhone: 805-262-1600
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text:
Health care utilization is affected by several factors including geographic accessibility. Empirical data on utilization of health facilities is important to understanding geographic accessibility and defining health facility catchments at a national level. Accurately defining catchment population improves the analysis of gaps in access, commodity needs and interpretation of disease incidence. Here, empirical household survey data on treatment seeking for fever were used to model the utilisation of public health facilities and define their catchment areas and populations in northern Namibia.
This study uses data from the Malaria Indicator Survey (MIS) of 2009 on treatment seeking for fever among children under the age of five years to characterize facility utilisation. Probability of attendance of public health facilities for fever treatment was modelled against a theoretical surface of travel times using a three parameter logistic model. The fitted model was then applied to a population surface to predict the number of children likely to use a public health facility during an episode of fever in northern Namibia.
Overall, from the MIS survey, the prevalence of fever among children was 17.6% CI [16.0-19.1] (401 of 2,283 children) while public health facility attendance for fever was 51.1%, [95%CI: 46.2-56.0]. The coefficients of the logistic model of travel time against fever treatment at public health facilities were all significant (p < 0.001). From this model, probability of facility attendance remained relatively high up to 180 minutes (3 hours) and thereafter decreased steadily. Total public health facility catchment population of children under the age five was estimated to be 162,286 in northern Namibia with an estimated fever burden of 24,830 children. Of the estimated fevers, 8,021 (32.3%) were within 30 minutes of travel time to the nearest health facility while 14,902 (60.0%) were within 1 hour.
This study demonstrates the potential of routine household surveys to empirically model health care utilisation for the treatment of childhood fever and define catchment populations enhancing the possibilities of accurate commodity needs assessment and calculation of disease incidence. These methods could be extended to other African countries where detailed mapping of health facilities exists.
Keywords:Namibia; Fevers; Treatment; Spatial; Utilisation; Malaria
Understanding population health care utilisation and defining the catchment sizes of health providers are important for efficient planning and resource allocation [1,2]. Utilisation is a function of access to health services and is affected by geographical accessibility, alongside many other factors [3-9]. In low income countries, such as those of the African continent where the burden of ill health is greatest [10-14], adequate information on the location of populations, health services, facility workload, patient addresses and socio-demographic characteristics are rarely available to develop high resolution utilisation models nationally [15,16]. Available data on health care utilisation are mainly from routine national household surveys undertaken every 3 to 5 years [17], while few countries have a spatial database of health service providers [18,19]. Recent developments in high spatial resolution population mapping in Africa [20] provide opportunities for understanding the location of services in relation to populations. There are no previous attempts, however, that combine routine household survey data on treatment seeking, such as the MIS, with health facility and population maps to develop spatial utilisation models at the national level in Africa.
Previous approaches to quantifying geographical accessibility to healthcare have included straight-line (Euclidean) distances [19,21-26], drive times [8,27,28] and network analyses [26,29]. Euclidean distances fail to account for different patterns of service use and topography and assume utilisation rates are uniform within facility catchments and that patients always use the nearest facility [6,25,26]. Drive times have been shown to be a preferable measure in developed countries [30] where vehicular transport is widespread, but are unlikely to be useful in a developing country context where a large proportion of the population walk to the nearest facility [26]. An alternative, the cost surface based on travel times, showed closer agreement with the pattern of use in rural South Africa when modelled as a logistic function [31]. These forms of distance measurement have been used to analyse utilisation by using metrics such as number of health facilities within a certain predefined distance of the facility, the average distance to n number of health facilities and the gravity model [6,32]. The gravity model is a spatial interaction model analogous to Newton's law of gravity where the force of attraction between two bodies varies proportionally to the product of their masses and inversely to distance between them [33,34]. In this form, patient interaction with healthcare is denoted by flow from patient origin to the health service while the masses are represented by various utilization effects such as cost, size of health facility or propensity of patient groups to use healthcare [15]. The other distance metrics either ignore the interaction with other possible providers within the considered region or may assume that patients always use the nearest facility [35].
In this study, utilisation of the public health sector in Namibia was modelled using information on source of treatment of fevers from a routine national household survey. First, theoretical surface of travel times to nearest health facility were developed and combined with reported treatment seeking patterns to predict probability of using a facility on a 1 km by 1 km grid. The theoretical surface of travel times was used to define spatial catchments around public health facilities while the predicted probability of use was used in combination with population distribution and fever burden to define cases unlikely to seek care from the public health sector.
Health system in Namibia
Namibia is divided into 13 regions (administrative level 1 boundaries) and 34 health districts. Health care services are provided by the government (more than 70%), mission or faith-based facilities, and the private sector [36,37]. The mission facilities are predominantly located in rural areas. The health system is decentralised with regional-based directorates overseeing management at district levels [36,38,39]. The country is sparsely populated with some regions having very low population density [38]. The government of Namibia allocates about 12% of the national budget to health care [40]. Of the total expenditure on health, over 60% is aimed at inpatient and outpatient care.
Healthcare facilities
In an effort to understand service provision and improve resource allocation, the Namibia government, with support from multilateral agencies, conducted a facility census in 2009 [37]. During the census, facilities were classified by level of service provision and provider with hospitals ranked as the highest level followed by health centres, clinics and sick-bays. The majority of these facilities were mapped using global positioning system (GPS) receivers. For those that had not been positioned using GPS, coordinates were derived through geocoding of place or village names, using reference settlement datasets and online sources such as Google Earth [41] and Geo-names [42].
Population distribution
The Namibia population surface from Afripop [20] was used for this analysis. It was developed from a combination of census and land cover data using dasymetric techniques [43]. Dasymetric methods involve the decomposition of census data to improve their spatial resolution [44]. A detailed description of this population map layer is provided in Linard et al. [41] and is also available at http://www.afripop.org/ webcite. In brief, land cover map from MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) (GlobCover) was combined with fine spatial resolution data on settlements to produce a population layer in raster format [45]. Settlements data for Caprivi, northern-central and Kavango regions were obtained from the environmental atlas project [46-48] while an estimation of urban population in Windhoek was based on water demand report from water resources management review and included information from the census of 1991 [49]. GlobCover was originally provided at a spatial resolution of 300 m and its land cover classification is compatible with the UN land cover classification system (LCCS) [50]. During the production of the population layer, a finer land cover or land use layer was created to include detailed information on roads, rivers and settlements extents. The resulting classes were then assigned a weight value calculated based on density. The value was then used to re-distribute population polygon data in 1 km by 1 km spatial pixels [45]. The resulting national population map was then projected forward to 2010 using the United Nations' (UN) urban and rural inter-censual growth rates http://esa.un.org/unup/ webcite. The number of children under the age of five years for each region was estimated by multiplying the proportion in this cohort at regional level, from UN national census estimates [51] with the national population map.
Healthcare utilisation
Data on the prevalence and attendance at a health facility for treatment of fever at household level among children under the age of five years were obtained from the Namibia Malaria Indicator Survey (MIS). This survey was carried out in the endemic malarial areas in northern Namibia, namely the Caprivi, Kavango, Kunene, Ohangwena, Omaheke, Omusati, Oshana, Oshikoto and Otjozondjupa regions from April to June, 2009. It was based on a random two-stage cluster sampling design in which clusters were first sampled within each region and, within each cluster, households were sampled randomly [52]. A cluster in the MIS consisted of approximately 25 households that were mapped using GPS. The tools used to carry out the MIS were developed by the Monitoring and Evaluation Working group (MERG) of the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) programme and include questionnaires, manuals and guidelines based on the Demographic Health Surveys (DHS) [52,53].
Ancillary data
A roads layer was downloaded from a freely available online archive [54] while hydrological data were obtained from the digital atlas of Namibia [55]. Elevation data set, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer-Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER-GDEM) was downloaded from online resources available at http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/gdem-wist.asp webcite. ASTER-GDEM was released in 2009 jointly by NASA and Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). The elevation data have a spatial resolution of 30 m (0.000277° by 0.000277°) and are archived using 1° by 1° tiles in GeoTIFF format. Downloaded tiles were mosaiced in ArcGIS (ESRI, Redlands, CA, version 10). A land cover surface for 2009 was obtained from the MERIS GlobCover product http://ionia1.esrin.esa.int/ webcite[56] at 300 m spatial resolution.
Developing a surface of travel time to public health facilities
A raster surface of travel times between facilities and population grid squares was generated using a combination of land cover (GlobCover), elevation, road and river layers in AccessMod (version 3.0) [57]. In deriving this surface, each GIS layer was converted into a raster surface at 1 km by 1 km and each pixel was assigned an impedance value. The resulting raster layers were then combined into a single 'cost' grid based on cumulative travel speeds. The modeled travel times were chosen as the best representation of access because (1) people readily relate to travel time to health facility compared to physical distance and a question on travel time to facility is included in MIS surveys and (2) travel times are more comparable across different countries. Travel speeds were assigned to different land cover types, roads and slope by assuming multiple modes of transport within a single journey to a health facility. For the primary and secondary roads, motorized transport was assumed because a simulation of both motor transport and walking on the same route requires a more complex algorithm. Speed on these roads was assigned based on the Namibia national guidelines for roads [58]. For tertiary roads, a correction for non-motorized transport (cycling) at 10 km hr-1 was applied [57]. It is possible that a walking correction can also be applied to the tertiary roads, but this would also require a complex representation to simultaneously correct for both modes. Ray and Ebener [57] recommended the use of different travel speeds for different land cover or land use classes. Land cover classes were assigned travel speeds (Table 1) based on these recommendations and from previous studies [26,31]. The maximum walking speed assigned to tree cover class, sparse vegetation and shrubs was 5 km hr-1, while for desert landscapes a 2 km hr-1 speed was used. Slope was derived from elevation data using the ArcGIS (ESRI, Redlands, CA, version 10) raster analysis tools and different speeds calculated for each degree rise based on Tobler's equation (V = 6*exp(-3.5 abs[Tan(slope in degrees/57.296) + 0.05]) [59] where V is the calculated speed. Hence, on flat terrain, the walking speed is about 5.0 km hr-1 while for a 20° rise in slope, the speed is lower (1.4 km hr-1).
Table 1. Description of various data and their sources used as input into the development travel time to the public health facilities in northern Namibia.
Fitting distance decay models
Travel times to the nearest facility were calculated for each household in the MIS survey (n = 2,823). First, to evaluate the potential impact of using travel times rather than a simpler distance measure, travel times were compared to straight line distance, derived in ArcGIS (ESRI, Redlands, CA, version 10), between household and the health facility. Pearson's correlation coefficient was estimated to assess the association between computed times and straight line distance. Second, a logistic model of the form Y = C/(1 + e(A-x)/B) [60] was fitted to measure the effect of theoretically derived travel times on attendance at a facility, with attendance versus non-attendance at a facility as the dependent variable and travel time as the explanatory variable. The model has three coefficients: C, a limiting function on the y-axis that measures probability of attendance when distance is zero; B, a distance decay parameter; and A an asymptote factor at an inflection point of the model. A goodness-of-fit statistic, t, was examined for each estimated coefficient along with the p-values. A model representing the decay in probability of attendance with travel time was fitted to the survey data.
Defining health facility catchments and catchment population for children (0-4 years)
Catchment areas were calculated for each facility using 'cost' allocation Spatial Analysis tools (ArcGIS 10; ESRI Inc.). Using the travel time surface and limiting the maximum travel time of any facility catchment to 3 hours based on the travel time decay model, catchment areas were modelled. Unlike previous approaches where all individuals were considered to be within the catchment area of a facility [1,25,26,31], this travel time threshold approach produces more realistic catchments areas in which certain populations are outside the reach of a health facility. Population counts for children under the age of five years in each catchment boundary were extracted and multiplied by the probability of attendance for fever treatment to derive the proportion of children likely to attend a public health facility. Population outside any health facility catchment were similarly estimated. Derived population counts were then aggregated by region for comparison.
Estimating the burden of fever in the public health sector in northern Namibia
Prevalence of fever among children under the age of five years in the northern Namibia was derived at a sub-national level (administrative 1 boundary) from the MIS and applied uniformly to each health facility's catchment population. The result was an estimated number of febrile under-five children within each facility's catchment. Within each catchment the number of fever cases that will attend the health facility for the treatment of fever was further calculated by multiplying the probability values at each pixel by the number of fever cases at the same pixel. The number of fever cases unlikely to attend the public health sector was finally calculated by subtracting those likely to seek treatment from the total fever burden. It is noted that the proportion of fever cases that seek treatment at a public health facility is likely to be different from overall fever burden [61]. Calculated fever counts by treatment seeking were aggregated and compared at sub-national level.
Fever and facility attendance
In the MIS survey, 13,569 individuals in 120 clusters (Figure 1) were interviewed of which 2,283 (16.8%) were children under the age of five years. Overall, 401 or 17.6% [95%CI: 16.0-19.1] of these children reported to have had at least one episode of fever two weeks prior to the survey (Table 2). Of those who reported to have had fever, attendance at a public health facility was 51.1% [95%CI: 46.2-56.0]. Overall, the proportion of children with fever in the MIS was fairly homogeneous across all the regions surveyed.
Figure 1. Location of the 2009 MIS clusters shown as red dots (N = 120) in relation to public health facilities shown as blue dots (N = 245) in the nine northern provinces of Namibia where the 2009 MIS was undertaken (Kunene, Omusati, Oshana, Ohangwena, Otjozondjupa, Omaheke, Kavango and Caprivi). Subsequent analysis was restricted to only these nine regions.
Table 2. A summary of treatment seeking behaviour for fever among children under the age of five as reported during MIS 2009 undertaken in the northern provinces of Namibia
Model fitting results
Figure 2 shows the modeled decay curve in utilization with increasing travel time on the x-axis for northern Namibia. The curve shows that treatment seeking decays more rapidly after travel times of approximately 180 minutes. The coefficients of the logistic model, fitted for the modelled travel times against attendance of the public health facilities for treatment of fever by children under the age of five years reported during the MIS, were all significant with P < 0.001 (Figure 2). In the model, the residual standard error was 0.020 with the sum of squared residuals equal to 0.005 indicating a good model fit to observed fever treatment patterns
Figure 2. Probability decay function for the MIS survey showing probability of attendance (y-axis) for treatment seeking group against increasing travel times (x-axis); Y = C/(1 + e(A-x)/B) where C (0.766) is the limiting function on the y-axis; A (3.736) is the asymptote factor at the inflection point of the model; B (-0.609) is the decay parameter. The model was run using log transformed travel time (x-axis) and later back transformed for presentation purposes. The attendance pattern (1 = attendance and 0 = non-attendance) is also superimposed on the decay curve. The coefficient of all parameters were significant at p < 0.001.
Probability of attendance at public health facilities
Probability of attendance was estimated and mapped for the northern parts of Namibia based on the utilisation model and the map of health facilities (Figures 3 and 4). The proportion of children likely to seek treatment for - fever in public health facilities was estimated based on probability of attendance at a given travel time. Out of the estimated total of 162,286 children under the age of five years living in northern Namibia, 160,294 (98.8%) children were estimated to live within public health facility catchments (Table 3). Figure 4 shows the distribution of children under the age of five years by probability of attending a public health facility when sick with fever. Although the majority of children (82%) were within distances where the probability of attending a public health facility was ≥ 60% (Figure 4), a minority (4.6%) had much lower probabilities of attendance (less than 0.5) including the few who lived outside of the catchment of any public health facility. The estimated overall fever burden in the north of Namibia in 2009 was 24,830 cases assuming a single episode of fever per child per year (Table 3 and Figure 5). Of the estimated burden, 8,021(32.3%) were within 30 minutes of travel to nearest public health facility and after adjusting for the probability of attendance 8,616 (34.7%) of these cases were unlikely to have been treated in the public sector.
Figure 3. Map of probability of attendance for treatment fever by children under the age of five years at the nearest health facility based on the MIS 2009. The map shows the 9 regions in north Namibia where MIS was carried out namely; Kunene, Omusati, Oshana, Ohangwena, Otjozondjupa, Omaheke, Kavango and Caprivi. The lowest probability was 0.02 and the highest probability was 0.76.
Figure 4. Number of children under the age of five years (y-axis) against an increasing probability of attendance for fever (x-axis) at the nearest public health facility. Majority of children were at a probability greater than 0.5 with maximum probability of attendance of 0.76.
Table 3. Estimated number of children under the age of five by province and their modelled treatment seeking for fever at the nearest public health facility
Figure 5. Map of northern Namibia showing health facility catchment areas developed using the modelled travel time to the nearest public health facility overlaid with the probability of attendance of a public health facility by children less than five years of when sick with fever. The health facilities are shown as blue dots. Darker shades of red represent increasing probability.
Data from MIS showed a moderate self-reported use of public health sector (51.1%, 95%CI: 46.2-56.0) for treatment of fever among children under the age of five years northern Namibia. Using this data, utilisation of the public health sector in northern Namibia for the treatment of fevers among children under the age of five years was modelled as a function of travel time. This function was used to model the probability of attendance at a health facility and the number of children likely to attend the nearest facility. Not surprisingly, the probability of attending the nearest health facility for the treatment of fevers was greatest in areas where there was a high concentration of public health facilities and population. Of the estimated 162,286 children under the age of five years in the northern provinces, 160,294 (98.8%) were within a public health facility catchment with overall fever burden of 24,830 cases. The proportion of fevers within the catchment of the public health sector in northern Namibia was 90.8% (22,553) and 16,195 (65.3%) were likely to use the public health sector. This implied that overall, 8,616 (34.7%) febrile children were unlikely to use at a public health facility in northern Namibia including 4,030 (47%) fever cases that lived outside of a health facility catchment (Table 3, Figure 5).
This analysis builds on previous work to define facility catchments with information on utilisation patterns. Approaches similar to the one used in this study were presented in Tanser et al. [31] but using a two parameter logistic model and in Noor et al. [26] using a transect algorithm to characterize facility choice. These studies used local rather than national data sets with Tanser et al. [31] considering all forms of healthcare utilisation, not specifically fever. Whereas our fever-related attendance data suggest not all households used facilities at a travel time of zero, the Tanser et al. [31] study assumed that all households attended the healthcare facilities when the travel time was zero and the distance decay was more rapid than that observed here. This assumption is unlikely because regardless of proximity of households to a given health facility, treatment seeking behavior varies and are driven by other individual, household and community level choices [62]. The model presented here also differs from the two parameter logistic model in that a third parameter was included to represent the phenomenon discussed by Pinheiro and Bates [60] which can be thought of as a generalization of the two parameter model where facility attendance is less than 100% at a travel time of zero. Previously, such models have been common in resource growth applications [63], but not in public health applications such as modeling facility utilisation. The third parameter C in the model significantly modifies the behavior of the logistic function. It represents a horizontal asymptote at a limiting value C which can be less than 1 (whereas the two parameter model eventually levels off at an asymptote of 1 as it approaches -∞) [64]. This value does not relate directly to the proportion that sought treatment, but represents the maximum probability. Therefore, the logistic function never exceeds this value. The rate of decay of the logistic function is determined by the exponential function, e(A-x)/B, in the denominator. An additional difference from the approach used here and those of previous studies is the application of a travel time threshold (3 hours) based on the distance decay curve, outside of which individuals were regarded to fall outside the catchment of any public health facility. Finally, to compute the number of fevers that will use a public health facility the continuous probability surface was multiplied with the fever case burden maps with assumption that, at every distance, the probability of using the public health sector will be < 1, thus, some will not seek treatment at a public health facility regardless of proximity or will seek treatment at facilities that is not the nearest. This approach, we believe, models a scenario closer to real-life utilization of health services in many African countries.
The methods used here have some limitations. First, in modeling travel times it was assumed that patients travel to their nearest facility by either walking, using a bicycle or any form of public transport. In contrast, people might not use the closest clinic due to various factors such as choice of better quality provider or income, socio-economic status, individual and community preferences and severity of illness [4,22,26,35,65,66]. However, since the MIS does not identify the specific healthcare facility used by an individual, it is not possible to model such effects from the available data. The exclusion of these determinants into the model are likely to change the probability of attendance computed for each travel time band and may be a reason for higher utilization than that reported in the MIS (14.2% difference). In addition, for various land cover classes an assumption was made that a patient would either (a) walk to their nearest facility with a correction for particular land use or land cover class and slope, (b) use a car as a form of transport to the facility or would walk to the nearest road then use public means of transport for rest of the journey or (c) cycle to the health facility. In reality, the distribution and use of public transport may be more sporadic and less predictable at the national level. Such discrete assumptions, however, are a tradeoff between model complexity and precision and empirical data to test and improve these assumptions are rarely available in sub-Saharan Africa settings. In estimating the fever burden for each facility's catchment, aggregate fever prevalence rates within each region were used. In reality fever prevalence is likely to vary by facility catchment and rates at this level may be considerably different to the regional mean prevalence which masks fine scale heterogeneity. Finally, the analysis focuses only on the northern regions of Namibia where household treatment seeking data are available and where the concentration of health services and population are highest. It is likely that the geographically larger but very sparsely populated southern regions will have different service utilisation patterns. Additional data is needed to model a nationwide estimate of service utilisation, catchment areas and catchment populations.
The relationship between travel time, service utilisation and disease outcomes has been demonstrated in several studies. Moïsi et al. [67] showed increasing travel time (greater than 1 hour) from a hospital was associated with disease severity among children under the age of five years with pneumonia and suspected meningitis. Another hospital case-control study carried out in Yemen illustrated similar outcomes, with children (6 to 10 years) likely to develop severe malaria with increasing distance (greater than 2 km) from the hospital [68] while O'Meara et al. [69] showed that incidences of malaria hospitalisation doubled after 2 hours of travel time from health facility. In these studies, children living at a further distance were likely to wait longer before using a health facility, leading to severity of illness that required in-patient care. Recent findings from a study in Ethiopia [70] suggest a five-fold risk of death (all case mortality) amongst children in rural population at a greater travel time (2 hours) from a nearest health facility. While the effect of travel time or distance has been associated with poor health outcomes, few studies demonstrate treatment seeking patterns within a health facility catchment which in turn are potentially useful in forecasting commodity needs for case management [71], optimization of facility-based interventions [66,67,70,71] and estimating underlying populations to define disease incidence [72]. Okiro et al. [72] defined facility catchments at several hospital sites in Kenya using enumeration areas where over 90% of malaria cases resided, while Gething et al. [66,73] assumed that catchment populations could be linearly related to total case loads observed for a long period of time (over five-years) at a facility and used this to standardize out-patient clinically diagnosed malaria data.
National representative health sample surveys such as the MIS, DHS, Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and the AIDS Indicator Survey (AIS), usually constitute a representative sample of the national population and are being used to study health outcomes and impact of interventions in Africa [74-76]. Although the Namibia MIS of 2009 was only undertaken in the northern regions, this study nonetheless demonstrates the potential of routine household survey data on treatment seeking for fevers to model public health care utilisation, catchment areas and populations in Africa. This provides the opportunity to model facility catchment population, compute disease incidence and determine risk and resource needs. This approach could be extended to the large accumulation of DHS, MIS and the MICS surveys conducted by the United Nations Children's Fund in several countries Africa. This possibility is further improved by the availability of high spatial resolution population maps of Africa under the Afripop project [20] and the increasing spatial resolution of ancillary spatial data such as roads, elevation, drainage, land cover and land used data. The input data, however, require improvements in two important ways. First, countries must have maps of all their health facilities or at least of those that are in the public sector. Secondly, even though utilisation patterns appear stable regardless of time of survey, treatment seeking data are available only for children under the age of five for almost all the national household surveys. In a recent MIS undertaken in the 15 northern states of the Sudan, a country with similar ecology and utilisation patterns as Namibia, fever treatment seeking among all ages was recorded showing minimal change in treatment seeking with age [77]. While it is not clear if this holds true for all other African countries, focusing on a narrow age group in areas where fever prevalence is low may result in unstable sample sizes and low model precision. Future surveys should, therefore, explore the possibility of capturing information on a wider age range, preferably for all ages.
ASTER: Advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection radiometer; AIS: AIDS indicator survey; AIDS: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome; DHS: Demographic health survey; ESRI: Environmental system research institute; GDEM: Global digital elevation model; GIS: Geographic information system; GlobCover: Global cover; GPS: Global positioning system; ITN: Insecticide treated net; LCCS: Land cover classification system; MDG: Millennium development goals; MERG: Monitoring and evaluation reference group; MERIS: MEdium resolution imaging spectrometer; METI: Ministry of economy trade and industry; MIS: Malaria Indicator Survey; MoHSS: Ministry of health and social services; NASA: National aeronautics and space administration; RBM: Roll back malaria; UN: United nations; WHO: World health organization.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors' contributions
VAA was responsible for study design, data cleaning, analysis, interpretation, drafting and production of the final manuscript. PU contributed to the data assembly, cleaning and contributed to final manuscript. JW was responsible for study design, analysis, interpretation and production of the final manuscript. AMN, PMA and RWS were responsible for overall scientific management, analysis, interpretation and preparation of the final manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
VAA is supported by the Wellcome Trust Fellowship (#090633). AMN is supported by the Wellcome Trust as an Intermediate Research Fellow (#095127). RWS is supported by the Wellcome Trust as Principal Research Fellow (#079080). This work was partly funded a grant from the Namibia Ministry of Health and Social Services-Global Fund Programme and a Wellcome Trust Major Overseas Programme grant to the KEMRI/Wellcome Trust Research Programme (#092654). This work forms part of the output of the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP, http://www.map.ox.ac.uk webcite), principally funded by the Wellcome Trust, UK. VAA, AMN and RWS also acknowledge support from the Kenya Medical Research Institute. The funders played no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
We are grateful to the many individuals and organizations that provided us with community survey data. We particularly thank the National Vector-Borne Disease Control Programme and Kudzai Makomva of the Clinton foundation for support in providing the MIS survey data. We are very grateful to John Mendelsholn of RAISON for his help with most of the spatial data. We are also grateful to Dr Richard Kamwi for his overall scientific support and guidance. This study is published with the permission of the director of the Kenya Medical Research Institute, Nairobi.
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Best Wicking T
I'll give another vote to Duofold, which I find to be lighter and dry faster than anything else I've tried. Capilene is greatly overrated from my experience on the wicking, drying, comfort...
Pentax Optio 5Si
I purchased the Pentax Optio 5Si and an extra proprietary battery with a 1GB memory card for a 9-day hiking trip. The camera, card, and extra battery weigh less than 5 ounces. The new Optio WP ca...
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Granite Gear Nimbus Ozone
I've used this pack for 4 AT section hikes in Virginia and New Hampshire. This is a very comfortable pack at 25-30 pounds, with the ability to carry 35-40 if you really, really need to. I'm fine wi...
Bozeman Mountain Works Torsolite Pad
I switched from a Therm-a-Rest Prolite 3s to the BMW TorsoLite in my never-ending quest to save a few ounces. I haven't noticed any loss of comfort when combined with my empty Granite Gear Nimbus Ozon...
FlexAir Pillow Dual Compartment Ultralight
I purchased one of these also, but frankly I think I'll stick with my Wal-Mart water wing pillow, which is about a third the price, a little lighter, and just as comfy if wrapped in my fleece jacket.
Pentax Optio WP
I purchased the Pentax Optio S5i, the non-waterproof 5MP predecessor to the Optio WP, perhaps a month before the WP came out last year. At 4.2 ounces (with battery and memory card) it's a bit lighter...
Black Diamond Ion
Very light, and sufficiently bright to read by, at least for my 50-year old eyes. I certainly wouldn't try to night hike with this single LED. Even using it to go a tenth of a mile down the trail to ...
Jolt Gum
I find that I rarely require caffeine when I'm backpacking, so I only brought several pieces of Jolt to chew when I knew a major climb was coming up. Frankly, the taste wasn't all that good and I real...
Integral Designs eVENT Shortie Gaiters
Great combination of waterproofness and breathability. I wouldn't wear them otherwise. Can't beat the weight either. I don't seem to have problems with rocks getting in from the top, but it only to...
Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo
The first generation Lunar Solo is a 1.5 person sil-nyl single wall with a lot of protected mesh in a great side-entry design. It even gives you a vestibule for your boots and some equipment! Uses a...
Snow Peak Gigapower Ti
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text:
Photo: Will on Fight or Flight V,6 © petemacpherson
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Hidden - AltLd - 02/Mar/14
peter.herd - AltLd - 02/Mar/14 with Steve Walls
Hidden - 2nd - 16/Feb/14
Super climbing. Buried in fresh snow but easily cleared for gear. Fuselage gully would be a phenomenal ski at the moment! the prop is buried and only a few patches of avoidable slab at the top.graeme gatherer - 29/Jan/14
Hidden - Lead dnf - 05/Jan/14
Lester - Lead O/S - 05/Jan/12 with James Trundle, Ben Sadd
Hidden - 2012
Malcolm Bass - AltLd O/S - 2012 with Andy Brown
Hidden - AltLd O/S - 29/Oct/08
sgl - AltLd - 29/Oct/08 with Konnie and Duncan
First route of the winter. In October!
Watch out for loose blocks on this route.decs - AltLd - 29/Oct/08 with Sam and Korad
Hidden - 2nd O/S - 04/Mar/08


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Truffles on the Tree! Candy
5 packages White Candy Melts® Candy for one ornament
Chopped nuts
Each truffle serves 1.
Truffles on the Tree - Ornament Panel
Techniques Used
- Cookie Sheet or warming tray
- Waxed paper
- Toothpicks
- Knife
Step 1
In advance: Use Sports Ball Pan to make candy shells. Use ring from set to stabilize ball halves in refrigerator.
Step 2
Also: Make candy shell for ornament topper using Standard Baking Cup. Refrigerate until firm; unmold, then brush on White Pearl Dust.
Step 3
And: Mold 20 white candies in Truffles Candy Mold, filling cavities only 3/4 full. Chill, unmold then brush on white Pearl Dust. Make cocoa truffles to fill ornament following recipe.
Step 4
Tint 6 oz. fondant red; roll out 1/16 in. thick. Use pattern to cut 12 triangles. Roll with ridged wheel of Cutter/Embosser to imprint lines, starting 1/2 in. from edge and meeting at tip. Use Cake Divider to divide each shell half into 6ths. Brush backs of triangles with damp brush and attach to candy shell within divisions.
Step 5
Roll 48 red fondant balls, 1/4 in. diameter; attach to fondant triangles, about 3/4 in. apart, using fondant adhesive. Cut 1/4 in. wide red fondant strips and attach around white section edges of bottom candy shell with melted candy to be even with red edges. Attach white candies around outside edge of shell using melted candy; position so half of candy extends above edge of candy shell. Fill bottom shell with cocoa truffles. Position top shell. Attach ornament topper with melted candy. Roll a 4 in. long fondant rope, 1/4 in. diameter. Bend for ornament hook and let set about 1 hour. Attach to topper with melted candy; brush on white Pearl Dust. Brush red fondant triangles with red Pearl Dust.
*Combine Red-Red with Christmas Red
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5' Pre-Lit Sky Blue Fir Artificial Christmas Wreath - Blue Lights
5' Fir Commercial Artificial Christmas Wreath
Item #K124361
This winning wreath is an exciting hard-to-find designer sky blue color. The light sets on this wreath are also a designer color with matching blue wire and blue bulbs.
Our designers worked very hard to find the perfect shade of dazzling sky blue to create this outstanding masterpiece with all the matching components....so you won't find colors like these just anywhere because they were custom made just for us.
760 branch tips
Pre-lit with 200 blue mini lights
Light sets on wreath are UL listed for indoor or outdoor use, however the wreath itself is recommended for indoor use only
Blue lead cord
Plug contains 1 end connector which allows you to stack multiple plugs on top of each other (not to exceed 210 watts)
Includes a heavy duty double ring metal frame backing for hanging
2-Piece easy assembly
Dimensions: 5' diameter - measured from outermost tip to the opposite side's outermost tip
Material(s): PVC/metal/glass bulbs/wire
NOTE: Picture shows the wreath with blue and clear lights, this ad is for the wreath with blue lights onlySKU: VCO K124361
In Stock: 1
$399.99 $311.99You save $88.00 (22%)


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New Music: Bei Maejor – 'Upside Down' [Mixtape]
Jive Records signee Bei Maejor is turning the game on its head—literally—with his mixtape, uÊop Çpısdn (Upside Down). The 23-year-old Michigan native, known for his Keri Hilson-assisted single "Gamez," has created 12 additional tracks for the effort. Besides Hilson, the singer-songwriter-producer called on rappa-turnt-sanga T-Pain ("I'm On It"), crooner Trey Songz ("Drinks On Me"), Drake ("July Part 2"), and DJ Clinton Sparks ("Barbershop Talk")—who also hosts the tape alongside Monsters Ink—for an assist.
Tune in to the Maejor project below, which acts as a sampling of what's to come on his forthcoming debut, due later this year.
Download: Bei Maejor – Upside Down


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Buried Treasure
I was clearing out my bookmarks this evening and looked what spilled out!!
–Floaty-mouse images of Dublin City in June 1961 and June 2011, a then-and-now sort of collection. Look at all the dinky cars! (Stolen from Jo :)
This is what real love looks like.
-US Actress Tina Fey's 'A Mother's Prayer for Her Child'; it's as though she's inside my head.
–10 Words You Need To Stop Misspelling Read these, and write them out twenty times, you naughty children!
–How to make a gift box out of a bank note. For when you couldn't be arsed buying that voucher.
–Arty Bollocks Generator because everybody needs an artist statement!
Oh, and a creepy picture by Lori Nix. Click the image to magnifify it.
Syntax Error
-Your brother's a retard!
The second those words left my lips, I felt the scarlet rise. It just slipped out. To a room full of parents of kids with special needs too, no less.
Cringe. The flush burned my cheeks and made the capillaries on the tip of my nose tingle. My heart skittered like a ball of grease on a hot frying pan while the clock ticked a silence of undefinable length.
-Yes it's true.
Somebody else nodded.
-You need to show them what words to use in self defence!
-True, true…
I was at a meeting to discuss Sibling Workshops, an initiative 'they' have set up to help families with disabled children. See? 'They' aren't all bad! Brothers and sisters of kids with special needs have all sorts of issues that I had never even considered. Like… when a special needs kid passes a milestone it's an amazing feat worth certificates and rounds of endless applause, yet nobody says a bippy when his younger brother passes the same milestone. From small droplets big waterfalls grow.
My question was about teaching some sort of self-defence mechanism to kids prone to bullying in the street… but it kind of came out funny.
I think my filter needs replacing.
A missed photo opportunity.
It was ten o'clock this morning before I remembered that it is my firstborn's birthday today. A kid in a wheelchair (how brilliant is it to have a kid in a wheelchair in Puppychild's class?) in Puppychild's class reminded me of the date for some reason… I was on Library Duty at the time and he had chosen a buke called 'Time'.
I rushed home and dived into Laughingboy's room, where he lay suffering a scorched arse and an aching belly and I kissed him a whispered happy birthday. He had been diagnosed with a bowel infection y'see, more than five days before and in spite of his antibiotics, was seemingly getting worse. If he could have clutched his belly he would have been doing so with gusto. With 82%(!) of the family in ribbons what with some condition or other, I'd completely forgotten the date.
Poor kid.
I rushed out again with Sir Fartsalot to buy copious gifts, which were presented sometime later along with a muffin, a flaming candle, and a Puppychild who led us in birfday song. We knew he couldn't eat the muffin being a tube-fed sort of urchin, but it was good enough that his sister could enjoy it beside him, maybe, if not only for the company.
He wasn't arsed with his new runners or his lava lamp. The Spongebob whoopie-cushion idea was lost on him… something that farts is probably not the best gift to give someone with a bad case of the squits though, in hindsight.
Well known voices turned up, as did those not-so-well-known (to the preturbinance of Sir Fartsalot) which blew me away, it felt being visited by fairy godparents and angels but Laughingboy was not in the mood.
He turned double-digits today.
That's ten years since I became somebody's ma!
I've to drop stool samples into the local hospital every day for three days now, it seems. I'm not squeamish really, but being a mother can be very graphic sometimes. And I think about how hard it is on me, and how hard it is on him, and I suddenly feel like I owe him a much better birthday someday somehow. Like a trip down the liffey on an elephant, or at least sparklers to the playground with the bucket swing and the squeaky see-saw.
I owe him so much but I yearn for ideas as to entertain a kid like him.
Does anyone have a recipie for home-made fireworks?
No Fly Zone
It happened today, a random brush with death, that awful moment when you realise there may be someone up there calling your number. I swear there's an entity up there that does these things deliberately.
A three-lane motorway is a powerful thing. It gets you from A to B without you hardly having to even touch the road. It was here, at roughly 130kmph (81 mph for you metriphobes) that I got an itchy forehead. I was overtaking a fuel truck at the time so my scratching it was a very automatic thing. It never occured to me why my forehead was suddenly itchy until the culprit bounced off my nose and landed with a thud on my lap.
Yes, I felt a thud. This was a considerably large piece of something.
I glanced down (whatever this was would need an examination period of roughly a semi-split-second, to be exact) to see a spider scuttling between my legs towards the business end of my tracksuit bottoms.
It's moments like these, when you're hurtling along way above the speed limit and you suddenly learn that there's a large spider roaming around beneath your crotch, this is when you truly feel alive.
Eyes on the road.
It tickles.
Eyes on the road!
I did eventually manage to pull my van onto a slip road and escape fairly sharply into a random carpark in Firhouse where I promtly exited the vehicle to do The Spider Dance. You know the one, it's an arms and legs all over the place with much self-smacking sort of affair… hilarious to watch but very uncomfortable to perform.
Someone laughed and beeped as they passed. You know who you are. I have your registration number. Expect an eight-legged parcel through your letterbox really soon, bud.
I'll have a pint of serotonin, please.
Right, that's it. I'm sitting down to write something, anything, on this poor blog. I'm sick of being afraid of it and feeling the nausea surge in close proximity to anything socially computer-related, much like that old friend or relative that needs calling upon, the longer you leave it the worse that feeling gets.
All I want to do is to be invisible, dammit! I want to stay indoors at all times and answer the door by cracking it ajar to give strangers the beady eye before yelling at them to get off my territory 'til I release the rabid cats. I don't want facebook or twitter, don't want people to know what I'm doing, what I like or dislike, or where I'm hovering. I just want to be a non-K8. Healthy it isn't, but oh-so familiar, comforting and predictable it most definitely is.
And yet now a corner has turned in our lives as TAT drops out of the workforce and hangs up his taxi plate… driving was probably not the best profession for a man with a dodgy back to partake in, but surgery looms nonetheless and disability has been claimed so I must take over and get a job.
Get a job?!? Ahhh! You mean I have to go out into the scrutinous public eye and do stuff and be bubbly and interesting all of a sudden? Somebody pass the bucket… I'm not at all sure about this, don't feel well all of a sudden at all at all. Normal people scare the bejeesus out of me.
But, you'da bin so proud… I did get a job as a bar-wench in a local pub and it was almost fun, that one day I worked. Shame the pub closed down four days later, hey.
So what now? Prostitution? Dog pedicures? Getting this blog out of the darkness might be a good start.
So how have you been?
Playing God
Try to imagine for a few minutes that you're a Deity, a remote entity looking after a country roughly the size of France, and in this country there are several billion people all milling around doing their workaday jobs and living happily.
Life is good for this country for several years, you're doing a good job it would seem. Then one day a small group of terrorists moves in to the country and starts creating havoc… what would you do to take care of your country?
Would you:
a) Detonate an atomic bomb thus killing said terrorists instantly, and sacrifice several billion happy people so that your country is doomed to restart its population from scratch?
b) Recognise that the country's own law inforcement is making good progress with the identification and capture of these terrorists, and maybe help them along a bit with re-inforcements via your super powers?
c) Run away?
Sir Fartsalot developed a fairly high fever last week, bugs are rampant this time of year and I had run away to Galway for a girlish weekend thus depriving him of my antibacterial b@@b juice… a bad dose of the snots had taken hold of him. Immediately I was faced with the question above, and from all angles I was ordered to choose answer (a) and it was inferred that I would be a bad mother not to.
"Bring down that fever!! Bring him to the doctor and get him antibiotics!!! Quick!!!"
What nobody seems to realise, is that a fever in a person (above the age of… say six months let's say) is a very GOOD thing. It means that the body realises there's something wrong, and it's reacted by kicking all self defence mechanisms into gear. Roast dem germs out. Swollen glands rock!
Why everybody has this urge to dose a fever with paracetamol in order to surpress it is beyond me. Why I'm ordered to nuke the kid's immune system with antibiotics is just plain lunacy!! Yet, it's an argument I have again, and again, and again, and usually my theory works but nobody seems to notice. Echinacea, a good diet and gallons of water works most of the time… the chidler's antibody population blooms.
This phobia we have, this distrust in our own immune systems is a beautiful cash-cow for pharmaceutical companies, but people are blind to it. They have us terrified of influenza under any name, they have us overdosing on vaccinations, and they terrify us with threats of the potential with that ever-steady mantra they sing: 'better safe than sorryyyy!'
It's all bollocks, I say. Not nearly enough stock is placed in a mother's instinct like it used to, but then again there's no money in that so things shall remain exactly as they are and I shall argue and be deemed a bad mother and I don't care one little bit.
Burning the cradle at both ends
Every day. Every sodding day.
Every day I wake up and swear blind that I'll go to bed early for a change. I hate waking up… that is I hate waking up when I know I have to get up; I love waking up and finding out that I don't have to get up for another two hours, no surprise there, my homo brethriens. My best friend is the snooze button on my mobile phone (the same phone I won two years ago! I'll miss my Ericsson should I ever go iPhonebound).
It's just so HARD to go to bed at night.
From 08:00 to 21:00 every day, I belong to somebody else, many people in fact. Six dependants depend on me to keep them alive and happy, and this causes quite a lot of noise, because I can't deal with them all at once: My baby needs input and a clean bum-hole. My eldest son needs music and attention and someone to remind him to stop grinding his teeth. My daughter loves to hang around with me and do things with me and asks me constantly to look at her doing funny things, which is a beautiful gift and something I adore and enjoy very much, but only in medium doses. My dog needs exercise, a luxury I'm too lazy to afford him which cuts me up, and he whines and gives me big dark sad eyes to rub salt on the wound. My cat meanders around my busy feet and trips me up… and through it all, my husband needs silence while he sleeps. Daytime silence, three children and a large dog – these are difficult things to shuffle!!
And so the last child is tucked into bed, and Einstein's theory of relativity kicks in.
Silence. Pure, peaceful silence, the possiblities endless.
And so I dive for the fridge for a can of beer, and I wonder how to fill my night. And while I wonder how to fill my night, I fall into the Facebook pit and drown in stupid television and give in to the munchies and waste my hours on pointlessness. When 11pm comes round, I feel unfulfilled and ignored. I can't go to bed unfulfilled and ignored!!!
It seems to be a common theme among people, that need to burn the candle at both ends. Two hours of selfish time is just not enough when you're a nightowl like me. Sleep tortures us and wakes us up at night time and hates us the next day, and stolen naps create demons with sticky eyes, it's just not fair. You know what I mean.
I vote for a re-jigging of the 24 hour clock… Days should be longer and weeks shorter for starters, I bet the moon would be up for that. The sun might get in the way somewhat but we'd get used to it pretty quickly with a bit of black-out lining and a heavy duvet. It can't be all that difficult to arrange, the re-invention of time!?
The three day week… yet another thing I'd do if I was Teeshirt.
Of Overpopulation and Things
If I was the Teeshirt of Ireland I would do the following two things:
1. I would solve overpopulation of prisons by putting criminals of a lesser threat to hard work in war-torn or third world countries. Fraud is such a clever felony, I'm sure such a brain would be of great use to school children in Malawi, it's such a waste having them rot away in their en-suite (all mod cons) prison cells and chewing through so much tax.
2. I would make adoption of said third world or war torn orphans faaaar less expensive. Couples all over Europe have trouble conceiving kids of their own, yet have large houses more than capable of rooming several disadvantaged kids but they can't, because adoption (at least in Ireland) costs roughly the same amount of yoyos as a brand new Jaguar X-type. I don't understand why with a bit of vetting, they're not throwing those kids at us. They should be on sale in Lidl, they should be giving them out free with Happy Meals but they're not!! They're leaving them to die or selling them to rich people who aren't necessarily better parents just because they're rich. So bizarre.
Thankfully I'm not the Teeshirt of Ireland and never will be (because the country would most likely go to pot and all the small furry animals would die because I seem to have that effect and would probably have a hard time explaining that to Ryan Tubridy).
I would however welcome the present Teeshirt of Ireland to read my blog and steal my ideas and also fertilize my crops in Farmville for me sure aswell while he's at it by way of thanks.
Speaking of small furry animals…
I miss Worzel Gummidge :(
I have been told today by two seperate people out of the blue that I need a Christening cake. I had no idea that there was such a thing. I have decided that I won't bother, but will obsess about this constantly for the next week until the last second when I will change my mind and most likely pay over the odds for something that tastes a bit weird. I know that now, but will do nothing about it because that's just the way it is. Acupuncture would probably fix this kink in my general thought pattern, but I can't afford it! I need a new head. That's what it is.
(image thieved from here)
Pass the Bread Soda
That's the thing about eight-seater taxis… you're so muffled up the front in the driver's seat that you can't hear the bloke behind you spewing his Bacardi all over the kip so by the time you find out about it, it's too late.
There's an Aviation Day in Newcastle happening right about now, I had meself all geared up to bring the kids for a bit of face-painting, flight simulating and skydiver admireage, but it just wasn't meant to happen I reckon.
Nope, it just so happens that our eight-seater taxi is also Laughingboy's only mode of transport so one whiff of the pen in that taxi when I opened her up was enough to convinve me to make other plans. The heat of the sun had warmed her insides up a little, see, so the vomitus belch of stench that erupted was so strong it just wasn't worth tolerating for the sake of an interview with the Irish Air Corps.
AND I've lost my rubber gloves.


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Testing Accommodations
The Center for Student Success provides an alternate testing service for eligible students. Students can find distraction reduced testing rooms, use assistive technology, and extended test time (up to double time). All students must be approved by AccessAbility Services for testing accommodations.
Students with documented disabilities seeking testing accommodations must contact AccessAbility Services at email@example.com or 607-431-4195.
Testing Accommodation Procedures:
- All students must request testing accommodation 2-3 days prior to a scheduled exam.
- Students must complete the online testing request form.
- This form will need to be completed in order for testing requests to be approved.
- Instructors must clearly communicate how they will deliver exams to the Center for Student Success.
- Faculty are strongly encouraged to send exams electronically to firstname.lastname@example.com or hand deliver to the Center for Student Success.
- Faculty are strongly encouraged to pick up completed exams at the Center for Student Success or clearly specify on the testing request form the best option for delivery of a completed exam.
Please note: Once students have submitted the online testing request form, faculty MUST respond to the email and complete the remainder of the form. If this is not done, the testing request will not be valid.
For a more detailed explanation of our testing policy and procedures, please click here.
Thank you for your cooperation. Following these procedures will make it easier to meet the testing and learning accommodations of our students.


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Los Angeles, CAUSA
Hometown: Riverside
February 3, 2013
Yes, tutoring kids, beach clean ups, at hospitals
Moral fiber means giving your best to strengthen the quality of our community.
I am new to the city.
I am open to all groups.
Meet up site
I would like to find an organization to donate my time.
Meetup members, Log in
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SOLD, Look for her in northern Virginia!
Members: 14
Latest Activity: Jan 18, 2014
Ok, This is one of Coolest I have seen yet..
still have the caddy home???
Amazingly I've seen a few of these. From what I"ve heard they make an excellent base for an RV, very stout underneath.
my grandpa built one of these in the early 60's ill never forget, it had a blood red leather/vinyl bench seat up front.


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Jaquetta Wheeler looked fab in a multi-coloured floral ruffle dress with her blonde locks tied back and minimal accessories.
British Fashion Awards
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Bob's Bloggers
A community of bloggers who live and die to DIY
furniture, repurposing
Dining Room Table: The "Finally" Edition
By buffalo-roam.com on Oct 26, 2012
We've been in the house for about, oh, 5 months now and have just had a giant gaping hole where the dining room set up should have been. We sold our other set knowing that
we D was going to build us a new one. Some of you have followed this progress on Instagram (@amymccarter_br), but for the rest of you…. our table is done!
We got the legs from a table we bought for $25 at an antique store, then painted them black.
They had to come in first, because the table top is so unbelievably heavy. It is made from three planks of apple wood that came out of the old BNSF (Santa Fe rail road) box cars that carried wine. They were already a beautiful color, and I liked the remnants of detail, so D lightly sanded and then poly'd about three layers.
They weigh about 100 lbs each. That is not an exaggeration.
I tried to help D carry it in. Honestly, I did. But my wimpy arms could barely lift it off the stand, so we had to call for back up in the form of Nate, D's heterosexual life partner.
God bless that man.
I recall extra grunting and cursing at this point.
But they got it in without incident! And used 4 1/2 inch black screws to fasten it directly to the legs.
You can see Nate's hatred of my wimpy arms in his eyes.
But it's in! And I love it with my whole heart.
(Those are the flowers D brought me after being out of town. D'awww…)
Next stop: Chairs!
And something for that big blank wall.
My favorite view.
We bought a huge stack of those boards, at about $15 a piece, plus the $25 for the legs. We already had the poly and we used the same black paint as on the kitchen cabinets. So we are in to this table for about $70. Not bad… not bad…
Major props to my main man, D. I am continually impressed with and proud of how hard he works to give us these beautiful and affordable things.
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BPL Community Profile
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CL Monterey Vapor Trail FS
http://monterey.craigslist.org/spo/1517269811.html Hi all, new to the forum. I'm not affiliated with this gent at all. Here's the deal. I've been searching for a Vapor Trail for ...
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Vitamin B12:
Supplement Facts:
As a dietary supplement, take one capsule daily or as directed by a health care professional.
It restores the iron balance in our blood and give us some quick energy as well. This is the best iron tonic, it has increased my energy. If any body suffering from the symptoms of iron deficiency this product will definitely help to increase the iron and we can feel better.
This is a perfectly great B complex supplement. It is gluten free with amino acids, calcium and magnesium. These really help my energy level. Highly recommended.
This product is valuable source of iron and vitamin B.When i get very fatigued this tonic restored nutrients and energy.
I take it daily in the morning with my regular vitamins. It has helped with my overwhelming tired feeling. I feel great.
More effective than other brands with same potency. I use if for thinning hair and weak nails.
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HKEx buys the London Metal Exchange
A historic deal will see Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd attain a long-sought aim of diversifying into commodities.
HKEx on June 15 agreed to pay 1.4 billion pounds (US$2.15 billion) to buy the London Metal Exchange (LME), the world's largest market in options and futures contracts on base and other metals. The deal will be the first overseas acquisition for HKEx.
It gives the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Asia's largest bourse, a much needed entry into a commodity trading platform. It also brings LME members closer to China, the world's biggest metals buyer.
The offer must now be approved by the LME board. Completion of the deal is expected by the fourth quarter of this year.
HKEx will finance its acquisition of LME through existing funds and with a 1.1 billion pound bank loan. The deal will help HKEx maximise commodity trading opportunities across Asia. The bourse has previously been mostly geared towards equity markets.
HKEx CEO Charles Li said his company believes the combination will allow the LME and its members to significantly increase trading volumes through improved access to China, and form the foundation for the growth of its commodities platform.
HKEx, the world's second-most valuable stock exchange, said the acquisition will add to its earnings from the third year after completion.
HKEx competed with several exchanges to win the auction, including the InterContinental Exchange, a U.S. commodities exchange. HKEx had previously ignored a wave of consolidation among exchanges early last year.
In 2011, LME reported a 19% fall in net income to 7.68 million pounds even as revenue rose 21% to 61.2 million pounds.
LME offers futures and options contracts for aluminum, aluminum alloy, NASAAC (North American Special Aluminum Alloy), cobalt, copper, lead, molybdenum, nickel, steel billet, tin and zinc.


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Review of Seattle's Ruth's Chris Steak House – Downtown
Posted on : 23-08-2011 | By : yummyfinds | In : Happy Hour, Seattle, Steak house
Tags: Downtown, Seattle, Steak House
No doubt you've heard about Ruth's Chris Steak House for great steaks, but did you know that they have an awesome Happy Hour? Chris and I love going to Happy Hour when we travel down to the States (they really should have more here in Vancouver!). Recently, we've discovered our new favourite Happy Hour hang out.
Ruth's Chris Steak House offers Happy Hour (or as they like to call it their "Prime Hour") nightly from 4-6pm and 9-11pm (9-10pm Sundays). They serve good quality eats and very yummy drinks and cocktails at pretty awesome prices. Be sure to visit downtown Seattle for this treat! (There is also a Bellevue location, but it's not as yummy).
For yummy eats, the Prime Rib Sliders (2 for $5.95) are to die for! These have got to be the most juicy and succulent lil things I've ever tasted! Moist tender slices of flavorful prime rib beef tucked into little warm slider buns. Perfectly comforting finger food.
The BBQ Shrimp ($5.95) is another favourite. Large plump pieces of prawns in a savoury creamy garlic sauce. I can't quite pinpoint all the ingredients in the sauce, but damn it's yummy! Chris and I clean the plate everytime with the crispy garlic toast on the side. Definitely not your everyday BBQ shrimp.
We've also tried the Seared Ahi Tuna with Spicy Mustard ($5.95). But we're not too fond of this dish. The smokey flavour of the Ahi Tuna overpowers the actual taste of the tuna. And the spicy mustard does not help.
The drinks and cocktails are also oh-so-good, and only $3.95 (including glasses of wine)! My favourites include the Lemon Drop Martini and the Apple Martini, both are sweet and refreshing. And just because the price is small, there is no skimping on the alcohol content!
So, if you happen to be downtown Seattle and looking for some yummy eats and drinks to unwind, Happy Hour at Ruth's Chris Steak House is a definite must!
Ruth's Chris Steak House – Downtown
727 Pine Street, Seattle
Ruth's Chris Steak House Website
Ruth's Chris Steak House Menu


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Block Story combines the popular block mining game play with exciting and addictive role playing.
Posted by Protektor on Dec 19th, 2012
Block Story combines the popular block mining game play with exciting and addictive role playing. Features: * Infinite world even up and down * 25 Quests, that give you objectives and hours of fun * Leveling up, and skill points to improve your character * Beautiful terrain generation with Hell, biomes, floating islands, forgotten sky, underground world and coral reefs. * Torches you can make and carry to light your way through caves * Equipment you can wear like "My Precious" (a powerful ring), and flippers (to swim faster) * Crafting, combine resources to create tools and weapons * Many weapons, like swords, magic, shields, guns, bow and arrow * 88 realistic mobs, from lizards to dragons, from clownfish to giant sharks. * Beautiful graphics, with colored lights, epic night sky, and bumped terrain * Vehicles like cars and boats for your long trips (more coming). * Very fast, it works well even in older computers.
Enjoy Block Story and many other great games on Desura.
Pretty ******* stupid. Go create something unique. Another Infini-miner rip-off isn't needed in this world
Don't say that. Ace of Spades and Minecraft are pretty damned good, and offer experiences you can't have in Infiniminer.
The upcoming Blockland and Cube World are looking very unique and inspiring too.
This here looks very unpolished and bland, though.
Ace of Spades and Minecraft are the only 2 exceptions, as those do offer a unique experience. But after those two, there's nothing else unique you can really create with a block based world.
Sure there is. That's like saying there's nothing unique you can really create with any game that's already been done - FPS, RPG, tower defense, etc. There are an infinite number of games that can be created from a block world (just not this one apparently).
The guy who is making Cube World was hired by Mojang - Wollay.blogspot.com That one looks pretty unique.
There are tons of things found here that are not in infiniminer or minecraft. The tip of the iceberg:
* Quests
* Infinite up and down
* Colored light
* Colored glass
* leveling up with skill points (run faster, fly faster...)
* Mana
* Spells you can cast on mobs
* cars
* guns
* flying linked to mana
* Forgotten sky
* Hell
* Moria
* Floating islands
* 1km high mountains
* full compatibility between mobile and desktop
* 60% cheaper
* 10x the framerate. I get 1000 fps in my laptop (not a typo)
The only thing we have in common with infiniminer and minecraft is the voxel terrain and crafting. Everything else is different.
Funny how I can see textures of a MC texture pack. I wonder. Did you ask the creator?
yes. we did ask the creator. we also gave him credit right here:
Though, all those textures have already been replaced with higher resolution ones