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Archived Posts from this Category
Posted by TheShot on 12 Jun 2015 | Filed under: Barista, Beans, Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew, Roasting
Portland Brothers Sam and Nick Purvis were quite busy last year. In addition to opening a bar and general market, they opened (with partner Dustin Evans) two locations of Good Coffee. The first began as a coffee cart service for several months until the café formally opened. A few months later they opened this sister spot.
Both brothers bring coffee credibility to the table. Older brother Sam worked a number of Portland area cafés: working alongside Matt Higgins when he was separately starting Coava, working at a Barista PDX location alongside eventual 2014 USBC champ Laila Ghambari, and working at Coava where he won the 2011 Northwestern Regional Barista Competition. Younger brother Nick worked at Santa Barbara's French Press and was trained by Chris Baca and crew at Verve Coffee Roasters, eventually going on to compete at the USBC level himself.
It's a small, bright space with tall windows on the two edges of the corner shop. There's rough wood-paneled floors, corner seating at metal chairs and wood slat café tables, and a mix of small inner tables with odd choices for uncomfortable, impractical chairs. The design aesthetic of a few newer newer Portland coffee houses seems strangely drawn to uncomfortable, over-designed chairs.
There's a large central rack of coffee and coffee accessory sales, and the place seems to have a clientele heavy on spandex yoga pants — partly due to a nearby gym.
Good Coffee is dedicated as a multi-roaster café — serving Madcap, Roseline, Coava, and Heart at the time of our visit. They offer cortados and mochas, but no pour-over coffee — just batch-brewed and espresso drinks.
Using a three-group La Marzocco Linea PB Classic and showcased white Mahlkönig grinders, they pulled shots of Madcap Ethiopian Yirgacheffe (they offer no blends) that came with a pale blonde, relatively thin crema. It had a complex aroma and a narrow flavor profile that you'd classically expect from a single origin shot, but it surprisingly wasn't a brightness bomb. There was some balance in the narrower profile as three quite flavorful sips: vanilla, butter, and some turpeny elements that stretched into cedar.
It was a pleasant surprise in that the shot defied my usual heuristics for what makes a great espresso, still delivering an interesting and flavorful shot anyway. And to his credit, the barista made at least four sink shots before dialing in the shot he served me. Served in notNeutral white cups.
Read the review of Good Coffee in Portland's Buckman.
Posted by TheShot on 17 Feb 2015 | Filed under: Beans, Foreign Brew, Local Brew, Roasting
As we mentioned in our last review of a remote Martinez, CA coffee house: good coffee is everywhere. In fact, the modern boom in good coffee purveyors is akin to the boom of mom & pop video rental stores in the 1980s and '90s. And as some of these small businesses grow a little larger to form local chains, they've become a little like the current surge in home solar installation businesses. The local demand is there and the barriers to entry are generally low.
While the ubiquity of good coffee has its obvious benefits for coffee lovers, it also raises the spectre of market saturation and business sustainability. As good coffee houses open everywhere, they're no longer rare nor special.
Earlier this month, in response to news of Verve Coffee Roasters planning to open a future location in SF's Castro District, SFist asked a newly valid question: "Hasn't the Castro reached Peak Coffee"?
SFist is probably being a little alarmist before we have to worry about carpet-bombing-levels of good coffee in the neighborhood. Verve would have something a little different to say than the others already there, but the nagging old question of espresso sameness comes up. I would be particularly concerned if someone was planning to open yet another coffee shop serving Blue Bottle from La Marzocco machines just like the seven others within a three-block radius.
But in such a saturated environment, discovering a new coffee house with something a little different to offer can be a draw. Sometimes you have to go as far out as Martinez to find something that unique.
Opening in the latter half of 2013, Mountain Grounds is in the middle of nowhere but is unique enough, and has high enough quality standards, to make it well worth a visit. If nothing else for the uniqueness of its coffee sourcing.
Located in a Martinez strip mall of four stores (what else are you going to find outside of old downtown Martinez?), it's a tight space inside with window counter seating in front and hardly a few seats next to the service counter. Outside there are a few café tables along the sidewalk under the strip mall porticos — along with a couple of lounging chairs and a heat lamp.
Owner John Cassidy and his wife, Danielle, gregariously operate this shop. One of John's longtime friends is Gary Theisen of Revel Coffee Roasters in Billings, Montana. Revel ships in the coffee from Montana every Monday. (The shop's working business phone number also betrays John's Montana roots.) Mountain Grounds also follows the unusual practice of prominently designating their coffee options by their growing altitude (1900m, etc.).
Mountain Grounds follows some creative small-town practices, such as accepting orders via SMS text in advance. (Easier to handle with low volumes.) They also offer a variety of specialty coffee drinks, including crème brûlée lattes (set aflame before being served for the crispy top) and the S'more. At one side of the cramped shop is a menu on the wall titled "A Taste of 3rd Wave Coffee Shops", which features a double ristretto, a 1 'N 1, a macchiato, a cortado, a cappuccino, and a con panna.
They pull espresso shots from a newer two-group Nuova Simonelli with a modest layer of even, medium brown crema with good coagulation. There's a fruity brightness in the cup of cherry and berry, but a lack of the apple-like acidity that you might find with typical coffee from newer Cali roasters (e.g., Sightglass). This makes it a unique and rather balanced cup.
Milk-frothing here is pretty even. They offer weight-measured Chemex and pour-over coffee. The shop's loyal following includes those who also take home Revel beans, which are packaged in clear plastic drinking cups with lids. With no real sink in this tiny shop, coffee drinks are served in paper only except for large ceramic logo cups for the bigger milk-based drinks.
Read the review of Mountain Grounds in Martinez, CA.
Posted by TheShot on 01 Feb 2015 | Filed under: Beans, Café Society, Local Brew
One of Blue Bottle Coffee's great challenges today is to continue growing with the success of their coffee and café operations while avoiding becoming a commodity: a boilerplate coffee shop with a flavor profile so consistent that it becomes a little monotonous and boring, despite its obvious quality. Back in 2007 we wrote about Blue Bottle's role in the Bay Area's budding espresso sameness fatigue.
Coincidentally, that reference was in an article about Piccino Cafe — which has since closed, reopened to a larger restaurant space, and switched from Blue Bottle to Sightglass roasting. Sightglass has also since opened a second roasting operation in the Mission District where they immediately addressed the sameness concern by roasting and offering select coffees that aren't available at their other locations.
Just a few blocks from the second Sightglass roastery is this Blue Bottle Coffee outlet located inside the garage door of a Heath Ceramics production and retail warehouse. The location suits Blue Bottle's alliance with Heath, and it also offers another unique space for them to operate. Even if Blue Bottle has yet to diversify their coffee offerings as much as the smaller-scale Sightglass.
Off to the left in this space is the in-house Blue Bottle retail café, with a decent-sized service counter, a lot of shelf space dedicated to whole bean sales, and a rear shelf of merchandising. To the center is the café seating area, adorned with the warm colors of wooden benches and chairs for seating inbetween the café and Heath's production plant residing behind glass windows.
The area is decorated with succulents and tall white ceilings with a lot of exposed pipes. At the service counter they employ a two-group La Marzocco Strada machine. Going just a little off what was expected at the visit, they served espresso using their Colombia Las Margaritas Red Bourbon Honey single origin roast instead of their traditional three-bean blends. This gave the cup a bright fruitiness that shown throughout the cup — or disrupted the balance, however you perceive it.
The flavor is sharp: mace, cloves, and bright spices. It comes with a mottled medium brown crema and is served with a small glass of sparkling water on the side in a Heath Ceramic cup (of course).
While it's a very astringent cup, at least they are experimenting beyond the expected at some of their cafés. Even if we had to deduct a few points for the annoying hipster barista who insisted on calling our shot a "spro". (The groan-worthy "spro" being the #yolo of coffee vernacular.)
Read the review of the Blue Bottle Coffee Company at Heath Ceramics in SF's Mission District.
Posted by TheShot on 13 Jan 2015 | Filed under: Beans, Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew, Roasting
It has been over 20 years since I last spent real time in Arizona. And back then it was either the Flagstaff or Tucson areas — deliberately not Phoenix, with its then-legendary saturation of Denny's-per-square-mile, above-ground cemetery lifestyle, all the bad things about Los Angeles (smog, traffic) and none of the good (beaches, movie stars), and in-state locals who frequently tried to extricate those they felt were trapped in Phoenix itself.
Did I unfairly give Phoenix a bad rap without spending any first-hand time there? Absolutely. Is it for me? Phoenix can be very scenic and pretty, despite traffic landmarks like The Stack, and the people are outwardly nice in a way that would make any Bay Area resident suspicious. However, it's probably a place I'll visit but keep in the arm's-length acquaintance category, even if I know and met a number of locals who love it there. One of my Über drivers raved about the area, but then he grew up in Sudan.
No matter — much like the rest of America these days, there's good coffee to be had in town.
Sola Coffee Bar previously stood on this Old Town Scottsdale location, until the owners wanted out of the business in 2011. (Scottsdale sits as a large suburb on the northeast of the Phoenix border.) Jason Silberschlag, owner of the Cartel Coffee Lab chain, loved the location and moved in immediately.
It's a relatively modest space with exposed wooden panels and fans on the ceiling, a number of exposed supporting posts, and an open art-gallery like space. Outside there's a sidewalk bench. Inside there is stool seating along the street windows in front and some long, cushioned seating along internal glass walls with small café tables designed like small, squat sections of tree stumps. The few real tables inside are the size of picnic benches with various red and white colored metal chairs about.
Off to one side they serve multiple microbrews on tap along with wines. At the back is their coffee service bar. It covers brewing using anything from Aeropress, V60, Clever, and Chemex, and they offer drinks in 8oz, 12oz, 16oz, and 20oz sizes — a dimensioning of their coffee service that I haven't quite exactly seen before.
Part of their bar surface is covered with these brewing devices in a sort of Noah's-Ark-like 2×2 formation. A wall of mounted crates offers their merchandise, from roasted coffee to the devices behind any of their various brewing methods. Except one…
Using a two-group La Marzocco Strada behind the bar, they pull shots with an even, medium brown crema that's a little light on thickness. It has a sharp acidity with a flavor of citris and some cedar, though it seems a little light on body and lacks much of any rich, body-forward flavor notes. Served in a shotglass with water on the side.
Overall, it's a good espresso that tastes inspired by many West Coast roasting stereotypes, but it has enough of its own personality to not taste like a San Francisco or Portland knock-off.
Read the review of Cartel Coffee Lab in Scottsdale, AZ.
Posted by TheShot on 04 Dec 2014 | Filed under: Beans, Consumer Trends, Machine, Quality Issues
This is that insufferable time of year where reading any sort of coffee news Web site or blog means dodging an onslaught of "gift ideas for coffee lovers" advertisements feigning to be articles. These cyclical (and cynical) bits of fake journalism are often accompanied by multi-page image galleries requiring you to click through each item — to maximize tedium while inflating Web site engagement metrics and advertising exposure.
So it was with a breath of fresh air this week that I received this article from a great friend in Canada: Gift Guide: Think twice before buying a Keurig coffee maker – The Globe and Mail. The topic was simple and one we've long contended: if you're thinking of buying someone a Keurig machine, here's why not. And it inspired the subject of today's post here: the anti-gift guide article, or what not to buy this holiday season for that special coffee lover in your life.
OK, sure, I'm a fan of Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping and Buy Nothing Day (aka "#OccupyXmas"). And it seems irresponsible to further stir up the consumer feeding frenzy that inspires maiming and even deaths at Black Friday Wal-Marts just to save $20 on a TV.
But if you're going to be purchasing holiday gifts anyway, what should you avoid wasting your money on? Well, you've come to the right place. With coffee's Fourth Wave — the gadgetization of coffee — in high gear, today the consumer coffee gear marketplace is flush with stoopid money. So much so that even classic coffee equipment designs — such as the moka pot and the Chemex — are (rightfully) looking to cash in on stacks of some of dat mad cheddar with new premium gadget introductions just in time for the holidays.
So without further ado, let the dishonor roll begin…
Either spend the $25 on a stovetop moka pot or hold off until you can hit that magical $800+ mark. Everything in-between really just isn't worth it. All those Krups, Jura, and DeLonghi machines that litter the shelves at Sur La Table are just disappointment bombs ready to explode like IEDs on their hapless new owners. And before you point out that a moka pot technically does not brew espresso, it's no worse than what you get out of a device made by one of these vacuum cleaner and toaster oven manufacturers.
If you recall the Island of Misfit Toys from the classic 1964 Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer animated Christmas special, I fully believe that there's an Island of Misfit Coffee Appliances where cheap, dysfunctional, and abandoned espresso machines like these pile up like a Staten Island garbage barge.
As for simple camping devices like the Handpresso, you may as well drive your car on four donut emergency spare tires. And if you can't afford the extra $200 for a decent burr grinder, you may as well purchase a Lamborghini mounted on donuts.
Speaking of coffee and camping, stay away from those custom coffee travel kits. You barely see your friend long enough away from the Xbox in his basement. Like when's the next time he's really crossing the Andes Mountains on foot like some sort of airline crash survivor?
The latest "Look, there goes Elvis!" technique from the modern coffee machine marketing playbook is to appeal to technophiles through seemingly advanced technology, such as iPhone or Android application controls. Yet we know just from their price tags that whatever WiFi and electronic investments they put into these machines, none of it went to the one thing all coffee brewing equipment must achieve to avoid complete failure: holding an accurate and consistent brewing temperature.
Your basic Technivorm can barely pull that much off without any smartphone gimmicks. Thus what you're really buying is the equivalent of a baby busy box app — just designed for easily duped adults who somehow need more excuses to keep staring at their smartphones. And good luck when Apple releases iOS9 next year and you discover you can't upgrade your coffee machine's operating system.
Seriously, if you're going to buy one of these, just stick a wad of your cash directly into a landfill. The inevitable result will be the same, just that you'll achieve your goal much sooner and you'll be much more environmentally friendly in the process.
This is an oldie, but it still applies today. I know there are a lot of coffee fans whose favorite coffee style or flavor profile is simply "hot". But since making coffee is cooking, the concept of using a hot plate is essentially the same as putting your meal under a fast food heat lamp. Sure, you might keep the desired serving temperature longer. But you evaporate out many of coffee's water-soluble flavor components, thus leeching out a lot of its good flavors while concentrating the remaining stale dreck in its place.
While attending CoffeeCON in SF this year, Kitchen Aid sent me their new "SCAA-approved" Pour Over brewer. The one thing I don't like about it? Its ridiculous hot plate that I have to work around to avoid.
This is going to be a controversial one, as there are a lot of great roasts to be had by mail these days. But that's precisely the point.
There are a lot of new coffee middlemen who operate subscription services. While they ship with regularity so you have the convenience of not having to think about it, most of them pretty much ship whatever inventory they want to unload. It changes from month to month.
This is fine if you're a newbie coffee lover and you want every coffee experience to be a new discovery. But playing coffee roulette gets old quickly once you learn more about what you like. With just a couple of clicks on a roaster's Web site, what you really want is on your doorstep within 48 hours: no subscription required.
There's a reason why most people don't stick with a wine-of-the-month club for a full year.
This is another controversial one. Because despite identifying the few reasons you should — and the many reasons you should not — roast your own some five years ago here, I've been home roasting about every other day for more than a year now. I can't even remember the last time I purchased retail roasted coffee. After nearly a decade of declining use, a combination of newer equipment, outstanding green lots from Rwanda, and changes in home coffee drinking habits have me in something of a home roasting revival these days.
That said, I still have to say that it's a hassle that's not worth it for most people. It's even one of the few times I wholly agree with Nick Cho.
Perhaps your gift recipient loves to make their own kombucha. Though if that's the case, any suggestions for making flavorful coffee are probably pointless. Who can trust the taste buds of anybody who willingly drinks tea made from soiled diapers?
We've said it before, we'll say it again. If it needs a recipe, it's not coffee.
Would a serious, legit book on wine cram itself with recipes for kir royales and beef bourguignon?
Just as state lotteries are often called a tax on people who can't do math, I've called crowdfunding services like Kickstarter a tax on people who don't understand business loans or venture investing. If you can't secure a decent business loan with your brilliant product idea, then throwing it out to the unwashed masses of the Internet for charitable donations doesn't exactly make it that much more viable.
On the other hand, maybe you as the inventor could secure the bank loans, and you could establish a business that could support the product well after its first prototypes ship. But why? Especially when you can simply take the money of gullible Internet users with virtually no strings attached.
Either way, the formula isn't so attractive on the consumer end of this equation.
The Wilfa Precision Coffee Maker… the Canadiano… the Ratio Eight … Enter the Dragon… These days an endless parade of "new, revolutionary, and even better!" coffee brewer come-ons bombard home coffee lovers seemingly every other week, suddenly relegating last week's revolutionary brewer to the Salvation Army donation pile.
Do you have the disposable income to keep replacing your home setup every other week for the promise of a potential 0.002% quality improvement in your cup? Are you starting a collection of forgotten coffee brewing devices for the Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame Coffee Trivia History Museum?
If your answer to both of these questions is "no", then the $20 Bonmac dripper you've been knocking around with for the past several years will continue to do just fine. And it will continue to do so for years to come. If your intended gift recipient is starting from scratch, it's worth a look at these new gadgets. But just once — and not again for probably many years.
Posted by TheShot on 15 Oct 2014 | Filed under: Beans, Consumer Trends, Machine
Working my first job out of college in the Baltimore area, I encountered a summer phenomenon that the locals call "going down ocean" (Bal'mer accent required). People would flock to Ocean City, MD and the Delmarva coast to escape the heat and have a good time.
But one thing that puzzled me were the many visitors from the Baltimore-D.C. area who quite deliberately chose not to escape Margarita Maggie's — a now-defunct chain Mexican restaurant, akin to a Chevy's Fresh Mex, with locations in Ocean City and all over Maryland at the time. In fact, I encountered many making the escape who insisted on eating the same exact food at the same exact chain restaurants they had back home.
A few years later I was on a business trip with my boss in London. It was the first time for both of us. After acclimating for a day after 11 hours of flying, my boss suggests we grab dinner at a Pizza Hut. A Pizza Hut.
Isn't the joy of travel about eating local foods, experiencing local customs, and expanding your horizons just a little?
I'm reminded of these personal stories whenever I come across news about the latest strategy for taking your coffee with you wherever you go. Four years ago we derided the neurotic need for carrying a coffee suitcase. Today we received an email from Blue Bottle Coffee announcing their latest designer Travel Kit.
The email went on with their target customer profiles:
The urban traveler, weary of stale hotel selections. The weekend adventurer, gearing up for a surf session or camping trip. The road tripper, now liberated from the scorched (and sometimes blueberry-flavored) disappointments of gas station urns. Starting now, the proper tools are collected and within reach. It's time to Brew Where You Are.
All of which begs the question: where do you draw the line at packing it in and carrying everything with you? If carrying your own coffee and coffee equipment is normal, what about carrying your own wine bottles because you don't trust the wine lists of the local restaurants? Is packing your own meat freezer and gas grill taking it a little too far? Hotel pillows suck, so is BYOP just a little neurotic? What about the three-ply toilet paper you're so used to at home? It's super soft.
The issue is not even about packing light (which remains highly underrated). The issue is about being so terrified of potential disappointment that you close yourself off to new experiences and the possibility of learning something.
There's a certain aspirational quality of adventure travel to these products and come-ons that reminds me of how ginormous four-wheel-drive SUVs are sold to suburban moms who never go more off-road than the church parking lot. Most people seem barely capable of surviving for two hours away from their Facebook or Twitter feeds. But to read these taglines, who among us isn't climbing the remote wilds in the southern Andes of Patagonia later this month?
Yet the truly adventuresome pioneers leverage their resourcefulness when they get there — they don't pack it all with them. And even if you are in the wilds, I've had a camping coffee kit for 20 years that consists of a manual hand-crank grinder, a red plastic Melitta filter and #2 papers (not to mention a Nalgene press pot). No news here: nothing about that has changed.
The far more common, and relevant, scenario is the basic business or social trip to a different town. I can't comment on gas station and hotel room coffee other than to say, "Seriously?! That's the best you can do before deciding you must carry it all with you?" Other than drug addicts (sorry, coffee addiction is the lamest white person's whine around), what makes coffee the only consumable where carrying it and all of its preparation paraphernalia seemingly rational?
It's 2014. Good coffee is ubiquitous. So much so, the antiquated idea of there being coffee cities — such as Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco — makes about as much sense today as there being wine cities. Even New Yorkers have forgotten about how bad their coffee options used to be just a few short years ago.
An Internet connection and a GPS-enabled mobile phone aren't exactly the stuff of NASA astronauts these days. Using either of them, decent coffee can be found just about anywhere. Yes, James, even in Oklahoma City. Wasn't it that adventuresome spirit that lead you to Blue Bottle and weaned you off of your dirty Starbucks habit in the first place?
Posted by TheShot on 10 Jun 2014 | Filed under: Beans, Café Society, Consumer Trends, Local Brew, Machine, Quality Issues
This café is the brainchild of former middle school teacher and Ritual Coffee barista, Kevin "Tex" Bohlin. Starting as a pop-up in SF's South Park (which has since closed in Dec. 2013), this over-designed flagship café opened in Oct. 2013 to a considerable amount of gushing praise.
It took over the former Teashi spa, and the spirit of past mani/pedis and Brazilian waxings still sort of haunts the place. On the sidewalk out front there's limited wooden café table seating. Inside in front there's window counter seating for four on stools right next to shelves of coffee merchandising, just shy of the long service counter.
It's a long space that is deceptively airier than its limited seating would suggest. There's an array of a few café tables against a shared wall bench; these are typically the domain of laptop zombie squatters. Further back there's an upstairs under bright skylights that offers two larger, semi-private tables.
Here there is an overwhelming sense of someone's idyllic vision that a café should be more like an Apple Store. There are stark, plain walls and wood grain paneling plus a wannabe kanketsu "service philosophy" of removing as many barriers as possible between barista and customer.
This is exemplified by their unique, Modbar-like espresso machine: a two-group, under-the-counter job either called the Jepy Minim (per the engineer/designer John Ermacoff, aka Jepy) or the Ghost (per project designer Ben Kaminsky). It's the guts of a perfectly acceptable Synesso Sabre, but Frankensteined beyond recognition as a sacrifice to form. This worship at the Holy Church of Makerdom might promise greater temperature control, etc., but what only matters to us as coffee lovers is what it produces in the cup.
They specially source limited coffees and roast them through Ritual Coffee Roasters for their own private label, and our review here is of their Little Brother Espresso — which comes at a whopping $3. (They also served a Costa Rica Los Crestones for $4.) It's served slightly full with an even, medium brown crema. There's a balance to the flavor with hints of bright fruit, but there's primarily a mid-palate of herbal pungency.
In short: it's a very good shot. But for all the pomp, technology, design, and the price, it doesn't measure up to expectations — failing to rank in the Top 35 of SF coffee shops. We need to revisit to ensure we didn't catch them on an off moment, but that would be surprising given they've been open for eight months and their machine has dialed down espresso shots to a push-button level. The good news for Saint Frank is that there are clear opportunities to improve. (That might also include banning all employees here from openly calling it "spro", dude.)
Served in white Le Porcellane d'ANCAP cups. They also offer V60 pour-overs and use Malkhöning EK 43 & K30 Twin grinders.
Read the review of Saint Frank in SF's Russian Hill.
Café Arms Races That Don't Involve Coffee
This will read like an attack on Kevin when he's done some very interesting things with unique coffees, and he's certainly trying things. Yet Saint Frank is also symptomatic and emblematic of what seems so very lost and misguided with what the industry holds as the new standard of coffee shop today. Among all the toys and distractions of late, coffee quality in the cup seems to have again taken a back seat.
If you're going to charge $3 for an espresso, it should at least break the Top 35 in the city. Among the 700 active espresso purveyors currently surveyed in SF, Saint Frank's standard espresso shot is the most expensive in the city that's served outside of a restaurant setting. (Presuming the Nespresso Boutique & Bar qualifies more as a restaurant, where you're paying more for white tablecloth service and a global smoke & mirrors marketing campaign.)
We should all be paying more for coffee — but for better coffee. Based on our ratings, it's not better. For the reported pedigree of their sourced coffees, it doesn't even have a different or unique flavor profile. So what exactly am I paying extra for?
First, there's the promising lure of shiny new equipment and it's empirically consistent failure to deliver better coffee. In the past we've noted the likes of Sightglass who have been guilty of this for years. In Saint Frank's case, it's not even so much a "better brewing" sales come-on than superficial aesthetics: i.e., a low-profile workspace primarily conceived to address the First World coffee problem where my barista doesn't get to see more of my crotch.
Fortunately the Modbar isn't weighed down by outrageous costs — you can get a full system for under $10k. Hopefully Saint Frank's custom lookalike (the Jepy Minim or Ghost, depending upon whom you ask) follows suit in that department. But with new, "revolutionary" ways to brew coffee even more perfectly being announced every week, we've often wondered if any of the takers ever get the chance to dial-in on them, with a serious dose of experience, before they roll on to the next big thing — looking to technology to bail them out from substandard practices.
This is a little of what former USBC champ Kyle Glanville recently called the "fancy equipment arms race": "People are spending shit tons on machines to brew coffee when they should be investing in their own palates and understandings of flavor, and the knowledge of how coffee brewing actually works"
So what about making your café look like an Apple Store? Blue Bottle Coffee has been compared to the Apple of coffee shops, and they're even sporting Apple-inspired service table designs. And CoffeeRatings.com has had plenty of good things to say about Blue Bottle.
Except Blue Bottle's resulting coffee quality is noticeably better than Saint Frank's. Now any café owner is entitled to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in a custom espresso machine, killer grinders, and a Zenlike service design experience. But if it doesn't translate to a better cup of coffee, those costs are being passed on to me to satisfy completely different concerns. You'd be better off having your baristas selling me $400 sweaters.
What results is a place that seems enamored with all the trappings of what's expected of a wannabe Fourth Wave coffee place, but with no improvement in the coffee itself. Which suggests more of our cynical definition of a Fourth Wave coffee shop from four years ago. We then joked that if the Third Wave was about letting the coffee speak for itself and enjoying coffee for its own sake, the Fourth Wave was about appreciating so much of the gadgetry and trappings surrounding coffee service that any actual coffee was no longer required.
But can any of us blame Kevin? The status quo of the industry's most popular coffee media encourage this focus. For example, a Dear Coffee, I Love You seems to care more about subway tiles than coffee roasting. While Sprudge heavily promotes their "Buildouts of the Summer" promotional series as if coffee were a construction project. And in professing "we would never grade coffee shops", Sprudge seems too terrified to lift a judgmental finger to critique any of the coffee and potentially hurt someone's feelings.
This leaves a massive void of any popular critical thought about retail coffee quality. Instead of learned coffee professionals, this gap is filled instead by the arbitrary standards of "top 20 coffee shops in America" lists on popular news and travel web sites — often written and compiled by interns most enamored by double-tall, four-pump vanilla caramel macchiatos in paper to-go tubs, whose understanding of coffee quality extends little beyond the MSRP price tags of the commercial coffee machine fad of the month.
Or worse: the void is left to the whims of the "man in the street" on review sites like Yelp!: where electrical outlets for laptops, cute baristas who flirt, and cheap extra large muffins count for more than any coffee quality.
Imagine a perverse wine world where the like likes of Wine Spectator or Wine Enthusiast gave everything identical 90-point scores while devoting the bulk of their writing to the wood and fixtures used to build their tasting rooms and the designers of their high-tech wine openers. It's of little surprise that we have ended up with coffee writing that reads more like an interior design arms race sponsored by Home Depot®. Meanwhile any actual quality judgement on coffee is suppressed to the level of American youth soccer: everybody is recognized with a trophy just for participating. Why even bother with the farce of barista competitions if "everyone is a winner"?
Over a decade ago, one of the major inspirations for creating CoffeeRatings.com was our immense frustration with all the existing books and online reviews of coffee houses at the time: it was impossible to find any critical reviews of coffee places that critiqued any actual coffee. Most of the attention was spent on ambiance: the style of the clientele who hung out there, what novels they read, and how good the bagels were. With all the attention now given to new machines, service counter layouts, and who makes the wooden countertops, we seem to have relapsed to those more ignorant days.
I never thought I'd miss what six years ago I called the Malaysian street food experience. Then the environmental design slight-of-hand was in making you feel like a hipster for sipping your espresso while sitting on a cinder block in an alley filled with spent heroin needles. Even so, at least the quality of the coffee still ran as the headline. Today I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe it's time to go back to those days.
Posted by TheShot on 07 Apr 2014 | Filed under: Barista, Beans, Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew, Home Brew, Machine, Quality Issues, Robusta, Starbucks
As we noted last month, tonight on Rai 3 — a regional TV news network in Italy — they aired an investigative exposé on the state of espresso in Italy titled "Espresso nel caffè": Report Espresso nel caffè. Rai 3 produced this as an episode of their Report program, which has been something of a platform for barebones investigative journalism since its inception in 1997. (Think a scrappier 60 Minutes on a shoestring budget.)
The 51-minute segment isn't groundbreaking for either journalism nor for any awareness of coffee standards. That said, it is aspirationally legitimate coffee video and television. Far too often on the Internet, the idea of a good "coffee video" — with few exceptions — is equated with a sensory montage on YouTube or Vimeo packaged like a roaster's wannabe TV commercial.
There's never any storytelling ("Plot? We no need no stinkin' plot!") — just coffee porn close-ups of the stuff either roasting or brewing, complete with a coffee professional's platitudes voiced over B-roll. Coffee fanatics have largely only encouraged these low standards by joining in on the self-congratulatory social media circle jerk that follows video after identical video.
The Report episode begins by covering the necessary espresso machine hot water purge before pulling an espresso shot — and by noting how few baristi know to follow this practice. A Lavazza trainer notes how 70% of the aromatic properties of coffee are lost within 15 minutes of grinding it. Comparisons are shown of a correct and incorrect coda di topo (or "rat's tail") pour from an espresso machine, showing how equipment can get gummed up without proper and immaculate cleaning. The program also reviews how few baristi know how much arabica versus robusta is in their blends, noting the resulting impacts on flavor and costs.
They visit cafes such as Gran Caffè Grambrinus and Caffè Mexico at Pizza Dante, 86 in Napoli. They interview some heavy hitters — from Lavazza to Caffè Moreno to Kimbo, from Biagio Passalacqua himself to Davide Cobelli of the SCAE (featured last month in Barista Magazine) to Luigi Odello of Espresso Italiano Tasting fame. And probably too many guys in lab coats.
Overall, the program is a bit condemning of espresso standards across all of Italy. But remember, this is a national news program that targets the general public: the goal is to educate and, in some ways, outrage the public about what they may be putting up with currently. If only one percent of the coffee porn videos in English would attempt something so high-minded as that.
Defensive posturing aside (he's not alone), the commissioner also welcomes those interviewed for the program to visit local Napoli coffee shops and producers to witness the mobilization Napoli has mounted in response. As such, Andrej Godina has done God's work: raising public awareness of lagging coffee standards, starting a dialog, and inciting action to improve these standards.
Posted by TheShot on 05 Feb 2014 | Filed under: Beans, Café Society, Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew
Napoli is a town of doppelgängers. Perhaps fitting with their con artist reputation, Neapolitans are masters of location-based bait-and-switch marketing.
Just take Pizzeria Sorbillo. Operated by Gino Sorbillo and considered one of the greatest and most historical pizzerias on the planet, it is located at via dei Tribunali, 32 and attracts long lines of tourists, foodie blog zombies, and multinational TV crews. Its relatively quiet neighbor at #35 to the east is also called Pizzeria Sorbillo (operated by Gino's brother, Patrizio). The next door further down at #38 is the ever so slightly more popular place called … wait for it … Pizzeria Sorbillo (operated by Gino's cousins, Antonio and Gigi).
This might not seem too dishonest given that there are 21 pizza-making siblings from the same Sorbillo family. But they are three distinctively different pizza places with three different owners, three different menus, and three different pizza ovens.
Easy enough, I mixed them up my first time here: it's quite confusing. Read the reviews on TripAdvisor or Google or Yelp.it — even the ones written in Italian — and you'll notice that some 10-20% of them undoubtedly reviewed the wrong place and to this day believe they ate somewhere else. Perhaps more accurately, they probably presumed there was only one Pizzeria Sorbillo on via dei Tribunali.
Which brings us to Caffè del Professore, the café (or bar if you will). Many consider its espresso as some of the best in all of Napoli. Its name also refers to the Caffè del Professore roaster, based in Palermo, which is one of the most prized small roasters boasted on the front signage of many a local café in Napoli.
Given its Sicilian origins, Caffè del Professore, the roaster, is actually a little unusual for the region. Culturally speaking, the many discerning Neapolitan espresso drinkers have embraced and prized the local micro-roaster idea for generations. By contrast, New York City only started toying with the idea since around the time that Justin Bieber got his first tattoo. Many cafés in Napoli proudly post signs professing their coffee sources — and the smaller and more local, the better.
But this is supposed to be a review about Caffè d'Epoca, right? Right. And when you walk in front of this small café and look at the bold signage above the door, in the back of the establishment, and along all the sidewalk seating in front, you'd be hard-pressed to say this wasn't the famous Caffè del Professore on Piazza Trieste e Trento in Napoli.
But the reality is that it isn't: that place is actually called Il Vero Bar del Professore (i.e., "The Real Professor's Bar") at Piazza Trieste e Trento, #46 — and this is #2, just partially around the square. Like many a Twitter handle, at some point the confusion compelled Bar del Professore to add "The Real" as part of their official name.
Confusing? It's by design. Il Falso Bar del Professore indeed. Oh, they use Caffè del Professore coffee alright. But you will not find the name Caffè d'Epoca posted anywhere here — save for the printed register receipt. That sort of Neapolitan cultural curiosity made us want to check out this place even moreso than the three-chicchi-rated Il Vero across the way.
Despite ample outdoor seating on the front sidewalk under Coca-Cola parasols, inside the space is very tight and quite dark. Locals do come here in addition to a few misguided souls believing they are somewhere else. The locals come largely to avoid the line of tourists across the way and to have a solid espresso shot at only €0.90. And like Il Vero nearby, they promote their own Italian-style hot chocolate: here it's 32 flavors of Eraclea.
Using a four-group La Spaziale machine at the rear of the dark bar (what, a semi-automatic??), they pull shots of espresso with a medium brown crema that dissipates relatively quickly in the MPAN Caffè del Professore logo cups. It has a balanced flavor centered on spices and some herbal pungency, but it's surprisingly of restrained strength.
With Pizzeria Sorbillo, even if you didn't wait for an hour to get into il vero Gino's, you'll find that it may not be the world's best, but good pizza still doesn't fall far from the family tree. Similarly with Caffè d'Epoca, even if you are fooled by the Caffè del Professore branding (other than the suspiciously out-of-place espresso machine), the espresso is still pretty darn good.
Read the review of Caffè d'Epoca in Napoli, Italy.
Posted by TheShot on 12 Jan 2014 | Filed under: Beans, Café Society, Fair Trade, Local Brew
Taking a short respite from our series on espresso in Napoli and the Amalfi Coast, we have a couple of local coffee shop reviews to catch up on. One is the obscure and eponymous CoffeeShop_.
This dive of a coffee shop has been operation since 2012, but the overwhelming majority of locals in the neighborhood wouldn't know it. It kind of defines the term "understated", so you pretty much have to stumble upon it.
It's a tight space with no seating, inside nor out, though thankfully they do offer their espresso in "for here" cups anyway (Pagnossin cups with no saucer). Though even with the tight space and nothing to sit on, you'll often find people hanging out inside.
In addition to espresso drinks they sell Hario drip coffee (they also sell the drippers) and baked goods from Batch. Their coffee is proudly sourced from Emeryville's Ubuntu Coffee Cooperative, which also explains some of the other "hippie crap" on the drink menu such as yerba mate and matcha.
Using a two-group Promac, they pull shots with a very creamy texture. It has an even-textured medium brown crema with a flavor of pepper and mild spice with some modestly sharp brightness (to let you know the coffee is freshly roasted). But without potent fruitiness or candy-like sweetness.
Three generous sips, and we're still not entirely sure why the espresso shots get the nickname "Dirty" here. (As in: "I'll have a Dirty, please.")
Read the review of CoffeeShop_ in Bernal Heights.


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Mind the Children
Byline: The Register-Guard
Advocates of marijuana reform in Oregon are expected to collect enough signatures to qualify one or more measures for the Nov. 4 general election ballot that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Colorado voters approved such use in their state 17 months ago and the law went into effect on Jan. 1. A glimpse of the challenges Colorado officials are dealing with in implementing recreational marijuana regulations came in a panel discussion last month at the annual meeting of the Association of Health Care Journalists in Denver, foreshadowing issues likely to arise in Oregon.
The panel members included Dr. Larry Wolk, executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, and Michael Elliott, executive director of the Marijuana Industry Group, an international advocate for marijuana reform. They agreed there are serious health and safety concerns regarding marijuana use by children and adolescents, and that the recreational use of the drug by adults needs to be closely regulated by the state. But while Elliott viewed legalization of recreational pot as a political cure-all, Wolk stressed scientists' frustration with federal restrictions that hamper research into marijuana's effects.
Noting that the nation is 45 years into the war on drugs, Elliott said the universal availability of marijuana in middle schools is proof that the drug war hasn't worked. Legalization, he said, is better than prohibition and "dramatically" increases citizens' freedom. He said current laws regulating alcohol and prescription drugs provide a good model for how to regulate marijuana.
But Wolk said much more research is needed before scientists will understand how marijuana affects the brain, especially the developing brains of teenagers. …

subset: commoncrawl


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School of Public Affairs
The School of Public Affairs prepares students to become contributing members of their local, regional, national and global communities through instruction, research and community outreach.
We approach public policy using a wider lens than other universities. In addition to the political science-based interpretation of public policy, we integrate other disciplines and fields that directly contribute to the management of the public interest.
We are able to adopt this approach because of our excellent faculty. Our professors have distinguished track records and share the common goal of producing graduates who go on to have successful careers in the private, public and nonprofit sectors
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The World is Flat Book Discussions
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February 10 and 11 Atwood Memorial Center and St. Cloud Kelly Inn
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Community Reinvestment Act:
Preliminary Results of GAO's Study on CRA Problems and Proposed Reforms
T-GGD-95-113: Published: Mar 8, 1995. Publicly Released: Mar 8, 1995.
Additional Materials:
- Full Report:
(202) 512-4800
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the implementation of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). GAO noted that: (1) CRA requires bank regulators to assess banks' community lending performance during examinations; (2) community groups urged the passage of CRA to curb what they believed to be a lack of adequate investment in low- and moderate-income areas; (3) community groups have raised concerns about limited CRA enforcement and insufficient disclosure of information on banks' community lending performance; (4) bank regulators have proposed reform initiatives to clarify bank performance standards, make assessments more consistent, improve enforcement, and reduce the cost and burden of CRA compliance; (5) successful implementation of the proposed reforms can be achieved if regulators provide clear guidance and comprehensive training for all examiners performing CRA assessments; (6) many bankers, regulators, and community groups have taken part in a variety of initiatives to improve banks' community lending practices; (7) through these initiatives, many banks have been able to overcome lending barriers; (8) some regulators are developing new techniques to reduce bank examination time or shift the responsibility for conducting such analyses to the banks; and (9) some bankers have lowered the high transaction costs and credit risks of community development loans by sharing those costs and risks through multi-bank programs.
Feb 4, 2016
Innovative Manufacturing:Commerce Should Target Program Outreach to Address Capital Access GapsGAO-16-271: Published: Feb 4, 2016. Publicly Released: Feb 4, 2016.
Sep 29, 2015
Disaster Contracting:FEMA Needs to Cohesively Manage Its Workforce and Fully Address Post-Katrina ReformsGAO-15-783: Published: Sep 29, 2015. Publicly Released: Sep 29, 2015.
Mar 25, 2015
Denali Commission:Options Exist to Address Management ChallengesGAO-15-72: Published: Mar 25, 2015. Publicly Released: Mar 25, 2015.
Feb 19, 2015
Flood Insurance:Status of FEMA's Implementation of the Biggert-Waters Act, as AmendedGAO-15-178: Published: Feb 19, 2015. Publicly Released: Feb 19, 2015.
Feb 12, 2015
African Growth and Opportunity Act:Eligibility Process and Economic Development in Sub-Saharan AfricaGAO-15-300: Published: Feb 12, 2015. Publicly Released: Feb 12, 2015.
Dec 17, 2014
Federal Emergency Management Agency:Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Oversight of Administrative Costs for Major DisastersGAO-15-65: Published: Dec 17, 2014. Publicly Released: Dec 17, 2014.
Dec 12, 2014
Hurricane Sandy:FEMA Has Improved Disaster Aid Verification but Could Act to Further Limit Improper AssistanceGAO-15-15: Published: Dec 12, 2014. Publicly Released: Dec 12, 2014.
Dec 11, 2014
Flood Insurance:Forgone Premiums Cannot Be Measured and FEMA Should Validate and Monitor Data System ChangesGAO-15-111: Published: Dec 11, 2014. Publicly Released: Dec 11, 2014.
Oct 23, 2014
Small Business Administration:Additional Steps Needed to Help Ensure More Timely Disaster AssistanceGAO-14-760: Published: Sep 29, 2014. Publicly Released: Oct 23, 2014.
Jul 29, 2014
National Flood Insurance Program:Additional Guidance on Building Requirements to Mitigate Agricultural Structures' Damage in High-Risk Areas Is NeededGAO-14-583: Published: Jun 30, 2014. Publicly Released: Jul 29, 2014.
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Junghee ShinBorn in Korea, Republic of. Lives in: London
chelsea Collage of Art
In this society where the false turns to the true and the true is hidden beyond the false, how are the people living like? In this work, original photos turn to totally different independent photos by placing objects like toys on the photos which I took already, and then the final outcomes became to have new spaces. By using the toys, I made a confusion society which some part of them in photos; there is neither perfect truth nor perfect falsehood; the confusion would not be noticed at a glance, yet it did not seem too true to make viewers think it was real without doubt.
Work of art I would like to makeNowadays toys have been being used as a main object on my work because I found a huge attraction from them as one of the greatest social objects that have a lot of meanings. Thus I will keep using some toys or small figures, and I will try not only photography but also other various expression ways like installation art and drawing. I, however, will keep making artworks about confusion which are caused by ambiguous boundary between truth and falsehood same as before.
Also I am interested in humour, funny things. Thus I have some plan to make story based on newspaper articles. The story will be also about fiction and reality. Actually this main concept will not be changed for a while.


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Many years ago, when I was a college student, I took a course from John Kenneth Galbraith. On the first day of class, Professor Galbraith gave a brilliant opening lecture, after which the students gave him a standing ovation.
Galbraith kept on giving brilliant opening lectures the whole semester. But, instead of standing ovations, there were now dwindling numbers of students and some of them got up and walked out in the middle of his lectures.
Galbraith never got beyond the glittering generalities that marked his first lecture. After a while, the students got tired of not getting any real substance.
Senator Barack Obama's campaign this year reminds me very much of that course from Professor Galbraith. Many people were ecstatic during the early primaries, as each state's voters heard his glittering generalities for the first time.
The media loved the novelty of a black candidate with a real chance to become president, and his left-wing vision of the world was largely their vision as well. There was a veritable media honeymoon for Obama.
There was outrage in the mainstream media when ABC anchor man Charles Gibson asked Obama a serious question about the economic effects of a capital gains tax. Who interrupts honeymooners to talk economics?
The fact that Senator Obama did not have a very coherent answer made things worse-- for Charles Gibson. Since Obama can do no wrong in the eyes of many of his supporters, they resented Gibson's having asked him such a question.
The question, incidentally was why Senator Obama was advocating a higher capital gains tax rate, when experience had shown that the government typically collected more revenue from a lower capital gains tax rate than from a higher rate.
Senator Obama acted as if he had never thought about it that way. He probably hadn't. He is a politician, not an economist.
Politically, what matters to the left-wing base that Obama has been playing to for decades is sticking it to "the rich." What effect that has on the tax revenues received by the government is secondary, at best.
What effect a higher capital gains tax rate will have on the economy today and on people's pensions in later years is a question that is not even on Senator Obama's radar screen.
Economists may say that higher capital gains tax rates can translate into lower levels of economic activity and fewer jobs, but Obama will leave that kind of analysis to the economists. He is in politics, and what matters politically is what wins votes right here and right now.
Creators Syndicate


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Bethesda, MDUSA
May 17, 2012
Financial Advisor with Edward Jones. I live in Bethesda with my wife an two kids. Great group here. Look forward to seeing you all soon.
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Estee Lauder Pure White Linen
86 reviews
68% would repurchase
Package Quality: 4.1
Price: $$$
Package Quality: 4.1
Price: $$$
Age: 44-55
Skin: Dry, Fair-Medium, Neutral
Hair: Brown, Wavy, Fine
Eyes: Blue
The original is my mother's signature scent. And, I love it on her. Pure is more for me. A clean sharp floral. I detect lilac in pure. However, I don't believe lilac is one of the notes. Must be the combination of notes or my chemistry. I love lilac, it is uplifting to me. My husband really likes pure, and prefers this over all other fragrances I own. Most usually I spritz some on before going to bed. I will probably always own a bottle of pure white linen. Just wonderful.
Age: 18 & Under
Skin: Combination, Fair, Not Sure
Hair: Red, Other, Other
Eyes: Green
I actually Like this perfume I feel clean and like I have just showered once I have just sprayed it. However I have had about 10 people ask me if I am wearing Nivea Moisturiser on the days that I have worn it. I find it quite embarrassing to say "no this is my perfume". But the fresh smell and feeling lasts for hours.
Age: 25-29
Skin: Dry, Olive, Not Sure
Hair: Brunette, Wavy, Fine
Eyes: Brown
This is a very lovely fragrance. Its a very fresh, clean cotton smell, like freshly washed linen... I love the clean "just showered" smell of this fragrance. This is perfect for those days when you want to smell CLEAN and fresh not like you are wearing perfume- but obviously soap wont make you smell this good all day long. This is what I will use to smell clean and fresh especially in summer. LOVE it... Will definately repurchase.
Age: 36-43
Skin: Combination, Other, Not Sure
Hair: Black, Other, Other
Eyes: Black
Just purchased PWL. I really love it. To me it's a soapy clean floral and I like that kind of scent sometimes. I like White Linen on other people but it was too harsh for my chemistry. Luckily, I have PWL and it works great w/ my chemistry.
Age: 25-29
Skin: Combination, Fair-Medium, Warm
Hair: Brunette, Other, Fine
Eyes: Brown
Im a fan of annick goutal petite cherie' , bvlgari rose , and slvatore ferragamo charms... Im always in love with those 3 perfumes n always go back to them. Ive to add pure white linen to dis list , coz i loveeeeee it so much. It's au de parfum , meaning d scent lingers from morning to evening without additional touch up. Its not too overpowering, it doesnt make me dizzy,it's fresh + sweet ,perfect for daywear..dis one is a keeper. Ive tried Pleasure , but its not for me coz its way too floral.. I definitely prefer pure white linen than plasure!
Age: 18 & Under
Skin: Combination, Fair-Medium, Cool
Hair: Black, Straight, Medium
Eyes: Brown
The scent is nice and clean with strong floral notes, and a hint of citrus I believe. The fragrance reminds me of Spring because of the strong floral notes. What I love most about this perfume is its crisp scent. It's not over-powering which is what I was expecting because of the strong floral notes, but it adds that nice ''I just smelt a bunch of roses'' touch. This perfume in particular last's the longest out of the many I have tried over the years. I spritzed this on my wrist in the early morning and by the time I got home in the late afternoon, the scent was still there and the strength of the scent remained almost the same as when I first applied it. I'm very happy with this scent :)
Age: 30-35
Skin: Combination, Fair-Medium, Not Sure
Hair: Red, Other, Other
Eyes: Hazel
Like many other people, I find it difficult to conceive this as a flanker of White Linen- a fragrance I really like by the way. Perhaps White Linen was the clean smell in the context that saw its birth but today it smells more ambitious and even avant-garde to my nose. Pure White Linen, on the other hand, is clean, crisp, elegant, understated but very very present. There is nothing piercing in it. It gives its user a sense of no nonsense confidence and I think it would appeal to anybody who enjoy clean, light refreshing fragrances. To my nose, it is greener and grassier than PWL - Light Breeze during the heart notes and slightly more flowery at the base. I think linden adds it a different touch, too. This is the kind of fragrance that you can buy many times and would not disappoint you. I'm giving it a 3 because my skin soaks this up and it becomes almost unnoticable on me after 3 hours. Otherwise, I would rate it a 3.5 - 4.
Age: 30-35
Skin: Combination, Fair, Cool
Hair: Brown, Straight, Fine
Eyes: Blue
I was gifted an adorable mini bottle of Pure White Linen. In vain, I tried several times over to wear her, but from start to finish, SHE WORE ME. I suspect that the culprits are tuberose, gardenia and cedar, as these three notes just sit on my skin in a most screechy, unpleasant way. I rarely get headaches, but nine times out of ten, tuberose and gardenia will induce a near-blinding pain right between my eyes. Reading the notes listed here, I feel cheated that I do not detect any fruits at all and only the faintest of aldehydes. Perhaps if my skin had picked up some of the fruity notes, it may have worked. Thus far, Juicy Couture's original EDP is the only fragrance with tuberose that wears beautifully on me. Maybe if I could have picked up on the aldehydes, it may have added some sparkle. Addtionally, while I adore the scent of real honeysuckle in the summer, I have yet to find this note enjoyable in a perfume. On my best friend, white florals make magic on her skin! She literally smells like a delicate, pretty, feminine little flower when she wears her signature, Pleasures. I can see Pure White Linen being a good one for her, as well.
Like most perfume lovers, it has been a trial and error process to discover what "gels" with my chemistry. It is safe to say that I need not bother with any more creations in the "white floral" category.
Age: 25-29
Skin: Combination, Other, Not Sure
Hair: Brown, Other, Other
Eyes: Black
I have a sample from a friend to try or else I wont even buy coz it smells so strong when i was trying it at the counter..Well at first it does smell strong..but after a while the strong smells disappear and the sweet fragrance surfaces..Very girlish smell..good to wear while going out for a cocktail party or when u feel girlish :P will buy again if my current perfume runs out ;)
Age: 30-35
Skin: Very Dry, Fair-Medium, Neutral
Hair: Black, Curly, Fine
Eyes: Hazel
Perefctly apt name. Just purchased this and it is a nice clean everyday scent that is reminiscent of freshly washed laundry. It is as close to a clean linen smell. It is new and sophisitcated as a scent like white florals. It is something for the day and probably for an older audience who will apprecaite the scent as it is strong but very fresh something for the 30+ definately. It reminds me of clothes blowing around on the washing line in a field full of blooming flowers.
There is a hint of citrus also that gives it a zing but overall it is more floral for me.
This is perfect for those summer holidays when you are walking around in the breeze as this is very natural as a scent and I think it makes a great pressie for a mother or grandmother.
Popular Fragrances
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Jean Remington Yawkey (January 24, 1909 – February 26, 1992) was the wife of Tom Yawkey and owner of the Boston Red Sox from 1976 to her death in 1992.


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- Kuppinger Cole, "Leadership Compass: Access Governance," March 8, 2013.
- Kuppinger Cole, " Leadership Compass: Identity Provisioning," October 15, 2012.
- Gartner, Inc., " Magic Quadrant for User Authentication," Ant Allan, March 7, 2013.*
- Gartner, Inc., " Magic Quadrant for User Administration/Provisioning," Earl Perkins, December 27, 2012.*
- Gartner, Inc., " Magic Quadrant for Identity and Access Governance," Earl Perkins, December 17, 2012.*
- Gartner, Inc., " Content-Aware Data Loss Prevention," Eric Ouellet, January 3, 2013.*
- Gartner, Inc., " Application Services Governance," Paolo Malinverno, August 8, 2013.*
- Forrester Research, Inc., " The Forrester Wave™: Identity and Access Management Suites, Q3 2013," September 4, 2013.
- Forrester Research, Inc., " The Forrester Wave™: API Management Platforms, Q1 2013," February 5, 2013.
- Forrester Research, Inc., " The Forrester Wave™ Risk-Based Authentication, Q1 2012," February 15, 2012.
CA Technologies Named A Leader In Access Management And Federation By KuppingerCole
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When shares of funeral-services company Carriage Services slid amid disappointing profits last year, Chief Executive Melvyn Payne sensed...
When shares of funeral-services company Carriage Services slid amid disappointing profits last year, Chief Executive Melvyn Payne sensed a bargain.
He says Wall Street dismissed his prediction that 2007 would be strong. "I had to say to myself, 'Put your money where your mouth is.' "
In November and December, Payne spent $400,000 buying shares. The investments were impeccably timed. Shares rose about 25 percent in February after a strong earnings forecast.
"The insider buying was a huge signal in retrospect," says James Clement, an analyst with Sidoti & Co.
- Seahawks' Marshawn Lynch announces retirement in his own, unique fashion
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Most Read Stories
Many investors view share purchases by top executives as indications to buy. (Selling is not as predictive; it may be based on an insider's need for cash.)
Insiders "know more about the company than any analyst could hope to glean" from financial statements, says David Coleman, editor of Vickers Weekly Insider.
Stocks of companies that saw insider buying outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 index by 13.7 percentage points between 2003 and 2006, according to a Morgan Stanley study.
Insider transactions should pick up now that most quarterly earnings are out and trading restrictions are lifted, says Ben Silverman, InsiderScore's director of research.
Transactions can be viewed for free on the Web site of the Securities and Exchange Commission, www.sec.gov, or via paid services.
For investors, big trades by the most senior executives are key. Timing also matters.
A Citigroup study of insider buying by British executives found that purchases just after the release of results were more closely tied to stock gains than purchases at other times.
Of course, insider buying should be one of many factors in a stock decision. Some insiders have lousy timing.
Executives at media companies lost an average 19 percent on their purchases, the Morgan Stanley study shows.


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Saddlebred® Solid Pique Polo Shirt
$17.99 Original Price $30.00
Savings: $12.01 (40%)
This easy-care knit is ready to wear straight out of the dryer paired with your favorite Saddlebred bottoms.
- Short sleeves
- Cotton; polyester
- Machine washable
- Belk Exclusive
- Imported
Shipping & Returns
Shipping your purchase is easy on belk.com. Depending on the destination of your package, you can expect it to arrive within 4-7 business days. Shipping Information
Returns are easy on belk.com. Easy returns
This item is also part of the collection:
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Residence Inn San Jose South Morgan Hill
Residence Inn San Jose South Morgan Hill
Hotel Guest Rating: 8.4/10
18620 Madrone Parkway
Morgan Hill, CA 95037
Welcome to the Residence Inn San Jose South Morgan Hill
With versatile kitchens, Wi-Fi, and complimentary breakfast buffet, the non-smoking Residence Inn San Jose South Morgan Hill offers plenty of room to spread out.
Hotel Features
The three-story Residence Inn offers accommodation for you and your pets. The 90 suites have sleeping areas featuring extra-thick mattresses covered in crisp linens and living areas including sofa beds and flat-panel TVs with premium cable channels and on-demand movies. Wi-Fi keeps you in touch with the outside world. Kitchens with full-sized refrigerators, microwaves, stoves and dishwashers mean you don't have to eat at a restaurant for every meal, and a grocery-shopping service helps you stock up on ingredients. One meal you won't have to cook is breakfast, as a buffet is offered every morning in the spacious dining area. There's a heated indoor pool and hot tub, an outdoor volleyball court and a fitness room packed with cardio equipment. Parking is free.
Hotel Location
With an easy-on, easy-off location near Highway 101, the Residence Inn gets you on your way with a minimum of fuss. When you need some retail therapy, the huge Gilroy Premium Outlets is 11 miles south. Eagle Ridge Golf Club is 14 miles away, Gilroy Golf Course is 13 miles and other courses are within a short drive. San Jose International Airport is 24 miles northwest.
Guest Favorites
Boasting "easy access from the freeway," this Residence Inn appeals to on-the-go Priceline guests with its "quiet rooms" and "good breakfast."
Residence Inn San Jose South Morgan Hill Amenities
- 24-hour front desk
- Accessible facilities
- Accessible parking
- Air conditioning
- Air conditioning individually controlled in room
- Alarm clock
- AM/FM radio
- BBQ/Picnic area
- Boarding pass print-out available
- Buffet breakfast
- Business center
- Business services
- Cable television
- Child programs
- CNN available
- Coin operated laundry
- Color television
- Complimentary breakfast
- Complimentary buffet breakfast
- Complimentary cocktails
- Complimentary coffee in lobby
- Complimentary full american breakfast
- Complimentary in-room coffee or tea
- Complimentary newspaper in lobby
- Direct dial telephone
- Dry cleaning
- Efolio available to company
- Elevators
- ESPN available
- Exercise gym
- Express check-in
- Express check-out
- Fitness center on-site
- Free high speed internet connection
- Free parking
- Free toll free calls
- Front desk
- Full service housekeeping
- Grocery shopping service available
- Gym
- Hairdryer
- HBO available
- Health club
- High speed internet access
- High speed wireless
- Hot breakfast
- Housekeeping - daily
- Individual Efolio available
- Indoor pool
- Interior corridors
- Iron
- Ironing board
- Kitchenette
- Laundry/Valet service
- List of movie channels available
- Local calls
- Managers reception
- Meeting rooms
- Motorcycle parking
- Non-smoking rooms (generic)
- On-site business center
- On-Site parking
- Onsite laundry
- Parking
- Pets allowed
- Pool
- Premium movie channels
- Public area air conditioned
- Remote control television
- Safe deposit box
- Security
- Telephone
- Valet cleaning
- Valet same day dry cleaning
- Voice mail
- Wakeup service
- Wireless internet connection in public areas
Hotel Information
Upon check-in photo identification and credit card is required. All special requests are subject to availability upon check-in. Special requests cannot be guaranteed and may incur additional charges. Guests are required to show a photo identification and credit card upon check-in. Please note that all Special Requests are subject to availability and additional charges may apply.
Hotel Guest Reviews of the Residence Inn San Jose South Morgan HillOur hotel ratings and reviews are from real hotel guests. Priceline.com ensures that its reviews are guests-only by proactively sending hotel surveys to customers after they've completed their hotel stays. In the post-stay surveys, priceline.com hotel customers are asked a number of questions about their stay and the hotel. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best, the survey asks guests to rate their overall experience and specifically rate the hotel's cleanliness, staff and location. Priceline.com does not allow site visitors to post unsolicited hotel reviews.
January 7, 2016
Solo Traveler
January 3, 2016
January 2, 2016
Group Traveler
December 1, 2015
November 26, 2015
Business Traveler
October 11, 2015
Solo Traveler
January 5, 2015
The bathroom layout was strange and, if sharing the room with someone else, you may hit him/her with the bathroom door while he/she is using the sink by the bed.
December 30, 2014
Family Traveling with Young Children
December 23, 2014
Family Traveling with Young Children
December 23, 2014
Business Traveler
We also were almost charged when we came in even though we had prepaid. If I had not stopped the person at the desk he would have run my card again. Than it took about 20 minutes for him to get back the old reservation. We were tired and wanted to get back to our room. We asked for another room when we heard the highway noise but by the time they got back to us we had already used the bathroom and lied down on the bed so said no. This was before we saw all the stains on the furniture if we had noticed this earlier we would have moved. But don't have faith that another room would be better. ...
(1 - 10 of 26 reviews)
- Courtyard By Marriott San Jose South/Morgan Hill from $139 (0.1mi)
- Extended Stay America - San Jose - Morgan Hill from $85 (0.3mi)
- Budget Inn Morgan Hill from $89 (0.9mi)
- Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites San Jose-Morgan Hill from $117 (1.9mi)
- Quality Inn Morgan Hill from $67 (2.3mi)
- Boxseat Sports Grill (3.0mi)
Most Popular Guest-Rated Hotels in Morgan Hill
- Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites San Jose-Morgan Hill
- Courtyard By Marriott San Jose South/Morgan Hill
- Residence Inn San Jose South Morgan Hill
Most Popular Business-Friendly Hotels in Morgan Hill
- Courtyard By Marriott San Jose South/Morgan Hill
- Residence Inn San Jose South Morgan Hill
- Hampton Inn Morgan Hill
Most Popular Family-Friendly Hotels in Morgan Hill
- Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites San Jose-Morgan Hill
- Residence Inn San Jose South Morgan Hill
- Courtyard By Marriott San Jose South/Morgan Hill


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Design Notes
December 19, 2013
What's that delicious smell?
Mmmm…. it's the Cookie Contest!
Hiya! Don't forget that the 2013 Cookie Contest is underway!
With so many tasty treats so far, it's going to be hard to choose a winner… especially if you've got something special up your sleeve! Or on your sleeve. Baking cookies CAN get pretty messy =D
The 2013 Creative Cookie contest ends December 31, 2013, at 11:59pm.
Read the full rules here BEFORE making (and eating!) your masterpiece.
Best of luck, you culinary conjurer!
xoxo Beleen
Our Web GamesAll Artix Games


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See definition in Oxford Advanced Learner's DictionarySaltos de línea: lease|hold
Pronunciación: /ˈliːshəʊld/
Definición de leasehold en inglés:
sustantivo[mass noun] chiefly British
1The holding of property by lease: a form of leasehold [as modifier]: leasehold premises Often contrasted with freehold.
Más ejemplos en oraciones
- There are other traditional leasehold structures including terminating leases of 50-100 years.
- For instance, a 10-year leasehold interest may not be like-kind with an 18-year leasehold interest.
- With a well-written lease and a properly managed building, a leasehold flat should provide a perfectly good home for occupants and a secure investment.
1.1 [count noun] A property held by lease: it is still a leasehold
Más ejemplos en oraciones
- Timeshares and leaseholds are available in fully furnished 15th century buildings of various sizes.
- Do the people who buy leaseholds even know they will have big problems when their leasehold expires?
- In declining real estate value environment, long-term leaseholds could become an liabilities instead of assets.
- leaseholder
- Oraciones de ejemplo
- The cost of maintaining these areas is recharged to the leaseholder as part of the annual service charge.
- This handbook is for leaseholders whose flat is in a building owned and managed by Lewes District Council.
- In this booklet ` tenant' is used to describe both long leaseholders and other tenants.
Pronunciación: /ˈliːshəʊldə/sustantivo
Early 18th century: from lease, on the pattern of freehold.
Definición de leasehold en:
- Diccionario Inglés de EE.UU.
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• Plastic bottle holds waterless hand cleansing, alcohol-based product
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- Homepage >
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- Article
2011 JBLM Bodybuilding Championships are a different kind of rush
June 9, 2011
By Marisa Petrich/Northwest Guardian
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JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. -- It's an environment where spray tans, Speedos and sequins collide with weights and resistance bands " and for some it's a total rush.
The annual bodybuilding competition, which took place Saturday at Nelson Recreation Center, has been going on at Joint Base Lewis-McChord for more than 20 years, and it's seen a lot of changes. But even though the sport has moved away from the steroid-ridden days of the 1980s, it's still nothing short of extreme.
"Some people bungee jump, some people skydive to get a rush," Air Force Master Sgt. Llewyn McFarlane, 62nd Airlift Wing, said. "This is what I do."
This was his second year in the JBLM competition and he admits it's not for everyone " but for McFarlane, the atmosphere of almost-too-much is what keeps things interesting.
"This separates the boys from the men," he said.
And really, it's tough to blame him. Backstage at the event, competitors alternated between lifting dumbells, doing push-ups and getting rubbed down in a full-body coating of orange. Incredibly buff women stepped on resistance bands with their impossibly high, clear platforms, their make-up and French-tipped nails perfectly intact. Guys who might, in another context, be taken for tough perfected their posing in front of mirrors.
"It's definitely a sport where vanity factors in," guest poser and judge Gerri Deach-Davis said. "And it's a very introverted sport."
The nationally ranked heavyweight bodybuilder pointed out that the competition is all about the individual's physique and pose, and as a result can get very me-focused. Still, achieving a competition-ready body takes dedication.
On top of intense workout regimens, participants adhere to strict diets and some extreme techniques " cutting down on water intake the week before competition, for instance, helps make muscles more defined.
Carbs and salt are also off-limits.
Army Command Sgt. Maj. Dawn Rippelmeyer, 42nd Military Police Brigade, started each day with a
pre-workout protein shake, followed by six to eight egg whites, chicken breast, tuna and vegetables. Her one seasoning was salt-free Mrs. Dash.
"She became my friend," she said.
Rippelmeyer makes a point of taking on new physical challenges, particularly around her birthday. The JBLM competition was the culmination of her first try at bodybuilding, just days before her 47th birthday.
For her, the effort was worth it if only because of her personal progress. She also likes to set an example.
"As a sergeant major it was important to me to do this show so I could show my Soldiers you can do this, you can be physically fit," she said.
Many of the competitors were more than ready to ease off of their rigidly controlled pre-competition routines. But Deach-Davis, who made bodybuilding a lifestyle, knows that if you really want to win you have to be all in.
"I love the way muscle looks, I'm fascinated by the way it moves," she said, an attitude on display in her broad and bulky frame.
She knows she isn't exactly achieving the mainstream ideal of female beauty, but says the sport has made her physically, mentally and emotionally strong. It's something that she does for herself " no matter who disapproves.
"If you don't like it," she said, "don't look."
Marisa Petrich: email@example.com


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soniagabriela's Mom Answers Activity
soniagabriela is a star in these topics:
Baby > Crying & Colic (1 helpful answer)
Tylenol while teething?
Most recent answer (11/02/2014):
My daughter is a bit over 4 months and i giver her Tylenol when she is in pain and it does seem to help,Especially before bed,Though some...posted by aprildonovan87
Why is my baby so clingy??
Most recent answer (08/27/2014):
My 11 month ols son has recently started crying and nearly freaking out if i get out of his sight. He will sit at my feet and scream if i...posted by JessSkye34


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Vote Now: Solids Quilt Contest
It's voting time for this week's Solids quilt contest. Grab yourself a cup of coffee and a pencil to make note of your faves. You can vote for THREE favourites this weekend.
Jojo's Quilt Shoppe is this week's sponsor and they've donated four lovely charm packs for this week's winner.
Now it's time for you to vote for your favourites!
- Voting is open Friday – Monday, August 27th at 8 a.m. (EDT)
- One vote per person (based on IP address NOT email address), so have your family and friends cast a ballot for their favourite quilt (from home if you send it to coworkers)
- Winner announced Monday afternoon/evening
How to Vote:
- Review the photos and stories below… there are several, so you'll need to scroll down to see them all. You can also click the link to the slider version to review the quilts in the large format and then return to this page to vote.
- Underneath the photos, scroll down, you'll see the names of all the quilts with a square button** beside each one. Select the buttons for the quilts you want to vote for. You can select up to THREE favourites this week.
- Then scroll down, all the way, until you get to the bottom of the names of the quilts. Press the vote button.
** Note: If you don't see the square buttons to vote, but instead see the voting results, that means someone on your IP Address already voted, or that the voting period has ended, or that you need to refresh the page to see the voting options. Shared IP Addresses are very common in home or work networks.
Quick stats:
- Total submissions: 18
- Total countries: 5
- Total provinces: 1
- Total states: 13
You can click on the photo to view a larger version.
|30s Barn Raising
By: Michelle,
Oregon, USA
Blog: Michelle's Romantic Tangle
I think this quilt, which I designed for the Moda Bake Shop, is the only solid quilt I've made so far. I usually play with a wild mix of prints and make things as scrappy as I can.
Quilt size: width: 60" height: 60"
|Companion Qube Quilt
By: Maria W,
Blog: Not Only Quilts
This quilt was made for my fiance, we both really love the puzzle game Portal in which you get a little companion cube with a cute heart on it. And this quilt is a pixelized version of the Companion Cube you get in the game. It's made of ca 600 3″ individually pieced solid squares of Kona cotton.
Quilt size: width: 56" height: 56"
|Don't Touch Me
By: Amanda,
Michigan, USA
Blog: Fabric Engineer
This quilt is called Don't Touch Me because none of the colors touch themselves…and they only touch other colors at their points. (The back is called Hug and Make Up, where there are nine HSTs and the colors are touching each other.)
Quilt size: width: 36" height: 36"
|Fiesta Ware
By: Carrie P.,
North Carolina, USA
Blog: A Passion For Applique
I made this quilt during the Bowls with Borders blog hop.
Quilt size: width: 10" height: 29"
|Gee's whiz! i Bend wanting a quilt like this! Thanks Row 10!
By: upstatelisa,
New York, USA
Blog: upstatelisa
This was a collaborative row quilt that was done with my "Row 10" flickr friends. When it was my turn, I asked for Gee's Bend inspired rows and each of my friends made me a row which I then pieced together and hand quilted with perle cotton thread. It proudly hangs in my home!
Quilt size: width: ~60" height: ~74"
|Happiness, color and heat-Alegría,color y calor
By: ana-ane,
Blog: ana-ane puntadas con gusto no….pican
Noelia y Ganix son una pareja de amigos de mi hija que celebraban su matrimonio, esta colcha la hice como regalo de boda.
Noelia and Ganix are a pair of friends of my daughter who were celebrating his marriage, I did this quilt as gift of wedding.
Quilt size: width: 59,5" height: 59,5"
|Lunch with the women of Gee;s Bend
By: nmoten,
Alaska, USA
Blog: Running Out of Thread
I was inspired by modern quilts made by the women of Gee's Bend. I decided to jump into my stack of solids that I have been collecting an create my own quilt. I called this quilt Lunch with the women of Gee's Bend. I used strip pieceing, half square triangles, and 9-patched.
Quilt size: width: 45" height: 45"
|Modern Solids Sampler
By: Persimon Dreams,
Wisconsin, USA
Blog: Persimon Dreams
A dramatic modern sampler quilt using 12 unique quilts blocks in Kona solid fabrics will look great in a family room or on the end of a bed. The unexpected combination of grays, lime green, pink and yellow truly pop and look fantastic together.
Machine Quilted by Barb Raisbeck of QuiltsbyBarb.
Quilt size: width: 45" height: 59"
|Off The Grid
By: Patti Shanks,
Saskatchewan, Canada
I used all Kona solids on this quilt which was done as part of a QAL .
Quilt size: width: 80" height: 80"
|ohio star tree skirt
By: grace thorne,
Maine, USA
this is made from a commercial pattern but i really think it is so very christmas-y regardless. looks fantastic under a brightly decorated real tree and would probably perk up an artificial one as well.
Quilt size: width: 42" height: 42"
|Painted Dahlia
By: Katie Wiseman,
West Virginia, USA
Blog: Katie's Quilts and Crafts
This quilt is made totally of White Kona Cotton. I quilted it, free-hand with a giant dahlia quilting motif. After it was quilted, I painted each feather plume in a different color. I used Jacquard Textile Paints, and mixed the colors to make a rainbow gradation.
Quilt size: width: 30" height: 30"
|Puddle Quilt
By: Carolyn Braun,
New Jersey, USA
Blog: Sweet Boater Chick
I was nervous working with all solids when I started this quilt, it was way outside my comfort zone, but, I am very happy with how it turned out. This pattern is Curious Nature by David Butler. I Quilted it by echoing the triangle sections that make up the puddle. It makes me want to jump right in!
Quilt size: width: 66" height: 66"
By: MaxNTopeka,
Kansas, USA
I was participating in a scrappy mystery quilt project with a group. But after the first step I rebelled against following further instuctions and sewed my blocks together. I love working with solids because of the clean uncluttered look of the quilt.
Quilt size: width: 48" height: 48"
|Roman Stripes in a Hurry
By: Maya,
California, USA
Blog: Passing Precious Time
I went to see the Amish Abstractions in San Francisco in 2009 and for days I could only think in solid colours! I wanted to make one of every quilt I saw, in a smaller size of course. One of my favourites was a black & red Roman Stripes quilt from 1912. This miniature was made based on that design.
Quilt size: width: 20" height: 22"
|Spell It Out
By: Esch House Quilts,
Michigan, USA
Blog: Esch House Quilts
I love words. I've collected text fabrics for a long time and I decided to design a quilt that included a word. This quilt was a commissioned baby quilt for a raffle, but there are so many great words someone could put on their own version.
Quilt size: width: 47" height: 49"
By: Sara Amerine,
Oklahoma, USA
Blog: Army Quilting
I made this quilt in a recent quilt along. It reminds me of growing up. Oh how I miss those days. :)
Quilt size: width: 16" height: 24"
|The Barcode Quilt
By: Kristine,
Blog: Sew Miss Maggie
This quilt was inspired by the book "city quilts" by cherrie house. As soon as i saw it i knew it woud be perfect for my sons 14th birthday present. He loved it and told me it was "sick" which is a great complement coming from a teenage boy.
Quilt size: width: 60" height: 88"
|Trip Around The Neighborhood
By: Victoria Carroll-Parkhill,
New Hampshire, USA
Blog: Park Hill Farm
This was an early effort on my part before I even knew how to do strip piecing so all these squares were machine sewn individually. It was a UFO for 20 years but I found it and finished it even if it was small in size, hence the name. Linda Monasky of The Bear Paw Gallery in Alton, NH quilted it.
Quilt size: width: 40" height: 62"
- Painted Dahlia (41%, 309 Votes)
- Happiness, color and heat-Alegría,color y calor (18%, 131 Votes)
- Gee's whiz! i Bend wanting a quilt like this! Thanks Row 10! (9%, 67 Votes)
- Rebellion (7%, 51 Votes)
- 30s Barn Raising (7%, 50 Votes)
- Spell It Out (7%, 50 Votes)
- Roman Stripes in a Hurry (6%, 42 Votes)
- The Barcode Quilt (6%, 42 Votes)
- Fiesta Ware (5%, 36 Votes)
- ohio star tree skirt (4%, 29 Votes)
- Off The Grid (3%, 25 Votes)
- Trip Around The Neighborhood (3%, 24 Votes)
- Don't Touch Me (3%, 20 Votes)
- Modern Solids Sampler (3%, 19 Votes)
- Puddle Quilt (3%, 19 Votes)
- Lunch with the women of Gee;s Bend (2%, 16 Votes)
- Tetris (2%, 16 Votes)
- Companion Qube Quilt (1%, 7 Votes)
Total Voters: 746
Next Week's Quilt Contest
The theme for next week's quilt contest is Leaves, Trees & Flowers. The theme can be represented by the quilt design or in the fabrics chosen for your quilt. You can submit quilts, wall hangings, pillows, etc. using any technique (pieced, appliqué, embroidery) as long as the item you enter is completely finished (i.e. bound and quilted).
To enter the weekly contest, read the rules and guidelines, then submit your photo by next Friday, August 31, 2012 at 8:00 a.m. (EDT). Voting will start shortly thereafter and last until the following Monday, September 3, 2012 at 8:00 a.m. (EDT).
Weekly Quilt Contest Links
- Guidelines
- Submit your photo
- 2012 Themes, Winners & Sponsors
- Sponsor a contest – only three dates left this year:
October 22 (Dots, Checks, Stripes)
November 12 (Sports)
December 3 (Christmas Table Runners)
Stay in touch ... Join my NEWSLETTER:
This post was published on August 24th, 2012. Post topics: Quilt Gallery. Post tags: Weekly Themed Quilt Contest.


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School districts are required by law to provide services for special-needs kids.
And the only moments of pathos were watching Rick Santorum talk about his special-needs 3-year-old, Bella.
Her candidacy set off a controversy about whether she was neglecting her children, in particular her special-needs baby.
Well, have you done it with a toddler, a special-needs kid, and a pushy 6-year-old?
Among the many pains of having a special-needs sibling, the one that hurts most is the pain of feeling forgotten.
How has having a special-needs sibling affected your marriage, friendships, and your adult relationships?
As a group, siblings of special-needs children are often overlooked.
With so many able-bodied people out of work, why would Markell choose to focus on the special-needs community?
Sue has boundless love for her special-needs sister, so none to spare on anyone else.


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Best bike baby names
Set a new trend with these bike-related baby names.
Portland is first U.S. city to make protection the default for all new bike lanes
All new bike lanes in the city will be physically protected unless someone can explain why not.
70 percent of U.S. mayors would back bike lanes over parking or passing lanes
The survey was of 89 mayors from cities of all sizes and wealth.
Vision Zero Network will feature seven Green Lane Project alumni cities
A new network dedicated to the concept of eliminating preventable traffic fatalities is rich with Green Lane Project expertise.


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Fall Color, Denali by iamintheprocessWatch
©2012-2016 iamintheprocess
Fall Color, Denali
This is an absolutely gorgeous photograph. When I saw it appear on the new deviations page, I had to get a better look. Although it isn't the most original photograph, it is very clear and has an array of gorgeous colors.The photographer captured the vividness of the colorful fauna quite beautifully. There are no blurry areas or areas that seem washed out. There is perfect balance in the composition and color. The eye is immediately drawn to the tree in the right side of the picture. It is then drawn to the blue background, which contrasts with the warm colors in the foreground. The only tip I can give is to find a different angle at which to photograph the scene. Think outside the box; don't just photograph the scene straight-on. Other than that, it is perfect!
The Artist thought this was FAIR
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