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Published on November 1st, 2013 | by thehungrymanc0
San Carlo Bottega at Selfridges
Bottega – the studio of an Italian artist where others come to learn.
An ambitious boast perhaps, but certainly given the successes of the other 2 Distefano family run restaurants on King Street West, namely San Carlo and Cicchetti, it seems this particular chain is on a mission to educate us beyond the pastas and pizzas with which we're all pretty familiar.
Now, no doubt, there will be cries of "yet another Italian Restaurant?" But given that the restaurant wasn't officially open when they held this preview lunch, the place was pretty much at capacity. So it seems there is still an appetite for quality Italian cooking. With the new offering, San Carlo have also taken influences from further afield – with some nods to Southern France on the menu.
Occupying the former Aubaine site on the second floor within Selfridges at Exchange square the restaurant offers views of the Cathedral and the Corn Exchange. I can imagine it being a great spot to sit of an evening looking out across the square; however, imaginings are all there can be at the moment as sadly the restaurant has to close at the same time as the store which is currently 8pm.
If you're already familiar with the Cicchetti (see here) offering then expect more of the same; small sharing plates, to be dined on as you wish. Order a couple for a lighter meal or just keep ordering and feast. As with the other 2 restaurants in the city there is a commitment to only use the highest quality seasonal ingredients.
Of the dishes I tried the venison meatballs and the oxtail ragu with wet polenta were easily my personal favourites but there was little to complain about with any of the dishes.
I had to scarper before the desserts were served but I hear that the Rum Baba is a treat.
In a couple of weeks San Carlo are also due to open a sweettoothed dream in the basement too. Farmacia del Dolci will be serving up ice cream pastries and cakes for those after that sugar hit.
Now, whether you're a fan of the San Carlo offering or not, it cannot be denied that the food is great, the interiors look slick and personally I have never had a complaint about the service.
Are they the masters of their craft? Could others learn from them? Well that is certainly not for me to judge. But as an accessible offering of fantastic Italian food they seem to be getting it right.


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41th Jazz Days 23-25. 10. 2015 INCHEBA Bratislava
Bratislava Jazz Days SLSP
Thank You all for the fantastic spring club event of the Bratislava Jazz Days: Jacob Collier, Cory Henry, Kinga Głyk and the terrific audience.
See You at the festival in October, more info and lineup coming soon.
Snarky Puppy is a Brooklyn based instrumental fusion band led by Grammy Award-winning bassist, composer and producer Michael League.
Gregory Porter iis an American jazz vocalist, songwriter and actor. Porter won the 2014 Grammy for best jazz vocal album, Liquid Spirit. Since his 2010 debut on the Motéma label, Porter has been well received in the music press. The New York Times described Porter as "a jazz singer of thrilling presence, a booming baritone with a gift for earthy refinement and soaring uplift" in its review of Liquid Spirit.
Grammy-nominated supergroup Fourplay has enjoyed consistent artistic and commercial success by grafting elements of R&B and pop to jazz, appealing to a broad mainstream audience.
GRAMMY® award-winning singer-composer-bassist Esperanza (Emily) Spalding is announcing spring and summer tour dates for her newest project Emily's D+Evolution... Rekindling her childhood interest in theatre, poetry and movement, this new project delves into a broader concept of performance.
The famous drummer Jeff Ballard would play at our festival as a leader of the trio with sax player Chris Cheek, and the singer/guitarist Lionel Loueke.
Canadian bassist Alain Caron's musical career began at the early age of 11 when he joined some top 40 bands performing American, south-American and French standards. At the age of 14 he discovered the music which would become his life's passion - jazz. Later he became member of the legendary UZEB.
Marla Glen is an American singer. She is known for her unique voice, haunting lyrics, for her fierce commitment to social change and the cause of human unity.
Andreas Varady is the gipsy guitar player wunderkind. At the age of fourteen he was contracted by Quincy Jones to his management company, and later supported his hero George Benson in Europe and America. His family trio would be supported by legendary Slovak sax player Radovan Tariška.
Bob Mintzer is a jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, and big band leader based in Los Angeles. While touring with the Yellowjackets or his own quartet, or big band, Mintzer writes music for big band, various small bands, saxophone quartets, orchestral and concert band music.
A creative and surprising violinist, Luca Ciarla easily transcends the boundaries among genres to trace an innovative musical path, a magical acoustic seduction in perfect balance between written compositions and improvisation, traditional and contemporary sounds.

subset: commoncrawl


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Is Apple responsible for creating over half a million jobs, or is it fuzzy math?
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. blames the versatility of Apple's tablet for destroying publishing industry.
Cupertino want ad seeks a specialist in cloud services.


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Country Trivia – What Was Elvis' First No. 1 Hit?
As we honor the 35th anniversary of the passing of Elvis Presley (August 16, 1977), today we recognize Elvis' first No. 1 hit. Although many people assume 'Heartbreak Hotel' was 'The Kings' first No. 1, his first chart topper was actually released one year before that signature smash.
Elvis Presley's very first No. 1 record ever was on the Country Music charts with his hit 'I Forgot To Remember To Forget.' The song landed at No. 1 in 1955 and stayed put for 5 weeks on the Billboard Country charts. Prior to this, Elvis began his career in Country Music with his first singles 'Baby Let's Play House' and 'I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone.'
'Heartbreak Hotel' would become Elvis' second No. 1 hit on the Billboard Country charts and his first No. 1 on the Pop charts. Elvis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1998.


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"The Young and the Restless" seems to have been in turmoil since several of the actors in pivotal roles were either let go or quit due to disputes over contracts or storylines or both. A rumor started that Jill Farren Phelps had been given her walking papers just before the show picked up six Daytime Emmys.
The rumor of Jill Farren Phelps firing from her position as executive producer at "The Young and the Restless" is, thus far, false. But, according to a report on June 29 fans had a lot to say to CBS and Sony about the fact that Phelps has not yet been fired.
"Young and the Restless" fans have never been shy about speaking their minds, and until recently the producers and writers were sensitive to fans reactions to storylines they did not like. Over the past few years fans have voiced their displeasure with the lack of creativity in the writing of their beloved soap. And then fan favorites started leaving the show.
Three actresses who have left the "The Young and the Restless" include Marcy Rylan, who portrayed Abby Newman. Now using the name Emme Rylan, she joined the cast of "General Hospital" as LuLu Spencer. Michelle Stafford, who portrayed Phyllis Newman, lapsed into a coma after a fall down a flight of stairs.. After nearly a year spent working on "The Stafford Project," Michelle blew into Port Charles as Nina Clay. Maura West, formerly Diane Jenkins on "The Young and the Restless," portrays Ava Jerome on "General Hospital."
A list of cancelled soap operas lies in Jill Farren Phelps wake, and fans are uncertain how the former executive producer of the failed "Hollywood Heights" remains at the helm of "The Young and the Restless." Viewership has dropped by nearly a million and a half viewers and "General Hospital is quickly gaining ground. Many predict that "General Hospital" will unseat "The Young and the Restless" as the number one soap opera, especially if Billy Miller or Michael Muhney joins the cast.
Speculation is that both actors have been cast in roles on the show. There are three pivotal male roles vacant on the canvas of "General Hospital." They include Jason Morgan, Lucky Spencer and A.J. Quartermaine. Though both the Jason Morgan and A.J. Quartermaine characters have been killed off, fans are hoping that they are alive and well and headed back to Port Charles.
Suggested Links
- Is Michael Muhney headed to 'General Hospital' as A.J. Quartermaine?
- 'General Hospital' casting rumors: Has Billy Miller been cast as Lucky Spencer
- General Hospital casting rumor: Is Billy Miller headed to Port Charles?
- 'Young and the Restless' casting rumors: Cameron Mathison tweets denial
- 'Young and the Restless' casting: David Tom out, Burgess Jenkins in


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For all its concrete, bright lights, honking cars and nightlife, New York City is a wonderful town for kids. From the gigantic, green oasis of Central Park and Broadway's memorable musicals, to the classic waterfront amusements on Coney Island, there's frankly too much to do to fit into one trip.
Let's start with Central Park: Smack dab in the center of Manhattan is 843 acres of lawn, trees, playgrounds, basketball and baseball facilities, fountains, memorials, lakes, gardens and eateries. Here you can rent a rowboat, take a horse carriage ride, rent a model sailboat or visit the zoo.
One of its grandest attractions is the Carousel, which opened in 1871. Originally, a mule and horse powered the attraction by walking in a compartment underneath it. The current incarnation was built in 1908 and is one of the nation's largest merry-go-rounds, with 57 hard-carved horses and two decorative chariots. It's located at Mid-Park and 64th St. $3 cash only.
In Manhattan's Upper West Side, kids of all ages will gaze in awe at the massive Tyrannosaurus rex in stalking pose at the American Museum of Natural History's fossil room. I can't think of a museum more fascinating about our worlds' creatures and climate. Plus, it's a New York CityPASS ticket booklet attraction. Current exhibitions include the Power of Poison, Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs, and the 3D Mysteries of the Unseen World.
If your kids are still energetic and eager for more museum fun, the Children's Museum of Manhattan has five floors of interactive activities. Afterwards, you can treat your little lady to a special afternoon tea at Alice's Tea Cup, which also has a huge selection of scrumptious desserts.
In Lower Manhattan, an important, but solemn, stop for the family is to visit the World Trade Center site and the 9/11 Memorial to reflect on the lives lost, the names engraved and how it changed our nation. In addition, use your New York CityPASS ticket booklets to take the ferry out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Because CityPASS provides, front-of-line access to attractions, you'll be glad you have it when you see the line to go through security. You should definitely allow at least two hours to visit one island, or five hours to visit both islands.
If you're keen to hike to the stop of the Statue of Liberty to its crown, you must make reservations well in advance. Plus, it's not a climb for young kids, as it is a strenuous journey of 393 steps (or approximately the height of a 27-story building). Plus, the climb takes place in an enclosed area with high temperatures in the summer, with no lifts.
A less strenuous option would be to see the Statue of Liberty from the ferry, but stop at Ellis Island. It provides a fascinating review of how our nation benefitted and grew from immigration, and it even has a database to help you see if your ancestors arrived at Ellis Island.
In Midtown Manhattan, a great way to spend an afternoon or evening is at one of Broadway's many kid-friendly theater performances. This season's most popular shows include Wicked, The Lion King, Newsies, Aladdin and Matilda.
In Brooklyn, ride the subway (an unforgettable adventure all its own) to Coney Island, which describes itself as having a flavor that is rooted in "the traditions of P.T. Barnum, dime museums, burlesque, circus sideshows, vaudeville, and Coney Island itself." It's a place that harkens back to fun before televisions, where you can play on the beach, enjoy the view from the top of the giant wonder wheel, ride its famous Cyclone roller coaster, try your luck and drain your wallet at carnival games, and eat a real Coney dog. You think you got something better to do with the kids in New York? Fuhgettaboutit.


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WASHINGTON (AFP) – The 33 infants and children that an American Christian group tried to smuggle out of quake-hit Haiti are being reunited with their families, the US-based aid group now caring for them said Tuesday.
The children were picked up last week by members of an Idaho-based Baptist group called New Life Children's Refuge who tried to take them across the border to the Dominican Republic where they planned to establish an orphanage.
But some of the children are not orphans at all.
"The parents now are coming to the village to reclaim their children," Heather Paul, the CEO of SOS Children's Villages USA, told NBC's "Today Show". "We already hear that many are saying that we have parents."
Police seized five men and five women with US passports, as well as two Haitians, as they tried late Friday to cross into the neighboring Dominican Republic with the children aged between two months and 14 years.
The case came to light as authorities in the capital Port-au-Prince expressed concern that some Haitian children may have fallen prey to human traffickers or been misidentified as orphans. Read more...
For more info: If you or someone you know in the Huntsville, Alabama area needs help please visit, Family Services Center, 600 St. Claire Ave., Huntsville, AL. phone (256) 551-1610. To report child abuse, sexual abuse or neglect please contact Department of Human Resources (256) 535-4500 , Huntsville Police Department (256) 722-7100. Crisis Services of North Alabama. Source: AFP


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Home / LSA Students / Academics & Requirements / Majors & Minors / Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) /
Asian Languages and Cultures Minor
Effective Fall 2012
A minor in Asian Languages and Cultures is not open to students with another minor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures.
The minor in Asian Languages and Cultures provides a means for majors in other departments to add to their undergraduate program a substantial and structured course of study in an Asian language, combined with a number of courses focused upon Asian culture. The minor offers guidance to students who want to acquire usable language skills and insures that the study of language is grounded in knowledge about the larger culture in which the language is historically produced and used. Undergraduates minoring in ALC will be equipped with specific linguistic capabilities and cultural knowledge they can apply to their inquiries within other disciplinary major. The minor can be elected in conjunction with any of the languages taught through the third year in ALC.
Prerequisites to the Minor:
Two years (fourth-term proficiency) in an Asian Language.
Requirements for the Minor
At least 15 credits, chosen in consultation with and approved by a department advisor, in the following categories, as stated:
Two terms of an Asian language, taught in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, at the third-year level or above.
Asian Studies: At least two courses on Asian culture that will familiarize the student with the contexts of the language the student has studied; one of these courses must be at the 300-level or above.
At least 6 of the credits must be elected at the University of Michigan or through an overseas program associated with the U-M.
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"Getty is a skilled and imaginative composer who does, in fact, use dissonance to create tension and, as he says, "to suggest a degree of disorientation." His music is melodic, often tuneful, but always well crafted….Lisa Delan has a lovely, bright soprano voice that she can color appropriately…Fritz Steinegger plays the colorful piano parts very well, and partners the soprano perfectly….. I have returned to this disc with pleasure more than a few times already."
Henry Fogel - Fanfare
"Getty, in this well-traveled 1981 song cycle, wisely matches the poetry's no-frills tone….It's touching how he takes her words to heart. It's also impressive how Delan steps into her character, even dressing for a performance in period clothing."
M. K. G - Buffalo News
"The White Election is a cycle of 32 songs based on Poems by Emily Diuckinson. Gordon Getty (b. 19333) has written mostly for the voice, and The White election stands as a clear masterpiece.. The physical sound has a spatial fullness, yet the miking on Ms Delan's voice is precise and intimate. Delan projects well and her voice isn't so powerful as to overwhelm the lyrics… Each work here is a small jewel and should please just about anyone, whether you're familiar with Emily Dickinson's poetry or not"
Cook - American Record Guide
"With only a few exceptions, the songs are simple — even simplistic, as if the composer were channeling music that Dickinson herself, an amateur pianist and singer, could have come up with for her own poems. As Getty puts it in the notes, "I have set them, in large part, just as Emily might have if her music had found a balance between tradition and iconoclasm something like that in her poems…..The soprano Lisa Delan, a Getty favorite, performs the cycle with attractive facility and understanding."
Joshua Rosenblum - Opera News


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Juan Cole, author of Engaging the Muslim World, discusses the void in Iraqi politics created by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim's death, Al-Maliki's failure to reconcile with Sunni nationalist groups, shifting coalitions within the United Iraqi Alliance and the overstated increase in Iraqi violence since the U.S. troop pullback.
MP3 here. (21:35)
Juan Cole is the author of Engaging the Muslim World. He is a Professor of History at the University of Michigan and writes the "Informed Comment" blog at Juancole.com.


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6/22/2016 Bucharest, Romania (Day #1)
I left Seattle, Washington at 1:46pm Tuesday afternoon. I arrived at the Bucharest airport in Romania at 3:30pm the same day. Funny how when flying half way across the world a person can land in another country almost the same time they left 8 hours ago. Unfortunately, just like the Cayman Island vacation, my luggage was delayed coming in. How these things happen, I have yet to figure out. It's one bag and as long as it follows the bag in front off it, it shouldn't have a problem getting to the next destination, right? One would think so. My worst fear was finding out that my bag was left in Seattle because when I checked in I had to go to a customer service desk because my passport wasn't scanning. That's sort of what happened last year when I went to the Cayman Islands. But I won't continue to bore you with lost luggage stories.
I met my girlfriend, Alex and her Aunt at the front gate and this was my reaction:
(Picture to come later. Check back soon…)
As you can see, I wasn't too happy. After flying nine hours from Seattle to Amsterdam and sitting on the tarmac in Amsterdam for an additional 40 minutes and then a three hour flight from there to Romania, then finding out my luggage was lost. Yeah.
We arrived at my girlfriend's Aunt's friends house, Mr. Nic to spend the night and an extra day or two before we headed out into the country. They live in this beautiful house that costed them roughly $20,000 U.S dollars. It was absolutely stunning. They have this huge vineyard out front with a few fruit trees and this mean Belgian Malinois dog locked in a kennel for protection. The dog, (named Max) was let out at night to guard the home. Romanians typically have dogs to help them with things around the house or farm like guarding property, herding animals, and there is a stray dog problem in the country but over the years it has been getting better. Romanians typically don't feel too emotional about dogs because most have them as farm dogs and they aren't as connected to them as Americans are to their dogs. Americans typically have them as pets and consider them part of the family. I'm not saying Romanians are mean to dogs or hate them, but it's just a different relationship. So the stray dog population had grown out of control because there wasn't much control over breeding. But like I said, they are taking action now and things are a lot better.
After getting home, we had a huge pan full of meat for dinner…
…and let me tell you. This meat is 100% organic, straight from the farm to the butcher to the house to our stomachs. There is no heavy processing or added chemicals or fillers. Its pure meat and it was very tasty.
The next day we headed into the city of Bucharest. Romania used to be under heavy communistic rule and a lot of the landscape still shows the remanence of that era. It's extremely interesting and depressing at the same time because Romania, after communism ended, a lot of things changed and not necessarily for the better, (but we will get into that later).
Communism ended in December of 1989. If you're a history buff, you'd know that communism was forced upon a lot of these smaller countries in Europe by Russia. Romania had originally backed Germany during World War one but switched sides to back Russia part way through. During the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (the German/Soviet non-aggression pact) kicked Romania leaders out of the meeting and thus forced communism on the country. Basically, Germany and the Soviet Union said, "these smaller countries can't beat us in war so let's just split them all up". It was more than just Romania effected by this. There's a lot to read on this and it's pretty interesting.
Things like the trolley system and apartment buildings are still occupied by Romanian's today. We used the trolley to go from the place we were staying to the modern era mall:
You can see the old apartments in the background behind the trolley. They look horrible on the outside but they are very nice and clean on the inside. The trolley's have no air-conditioning so during the summer time it's extremely hot and muggy when it's 90 degrees or more. And during the winter time, there is no heat. So it's very, very cold. Romania may give the appearance that it's a poor country but it's actually a very healthy and beautiful country.
That evening we drove to Cismigiu Park where I proposed to my girlfriend of almost five years. It was the most stunning, most wonderful part of the trip so far:
I wanted to make it a once-in-a-life-time thing. My girlfriend, Alex, (now fiancé) was born in Romania and her mother took her to this park many times when she was a child. They moved to the United States when she was five for a better life. So coming back with her to meet her family was very important for the both of us and asking her to marry me in her home country was equally important.
After our memorable moment in the park, we walked to the Monte Carlo restaurant. The dinner was a celebration of the marriage proposal by one of Alex's family members; Aunt Lilly. There was a lot to eat…
…and drink:
Plus a stunning view of the nearby lake…
…and then, of course desert:
On our way home, we stopped at a statue in Bucharest. The statue was of Mihai Viteazul (Michael the Brave) on the back of a horse…
…and he was one of Romanian's greatest heroes dating back to the 1500's.
After visiting one of the most iconic statues in Bucharest, we bummed around the mall and bought a bunch of new clothing for me since the airline had left my bag in Amsterdam. The U.S dollar is very strong in Romania so a $100.00 goes a long way. We bought four shirts, one pair of shorts, one pair of shoes, four pair of socks, three underwear, one toothbrush, one toothpaste, one thing of deodorant, one pajamas set and shaving cream with a razor all for about $300 Lei. Which translates to about $75 dollars. Pretty amazing. So if you ever plan to travel to Romania, it's fairly cheap with U.S dollars.
Here's a picture of me riding back on the trolley:
Noapte buna!
5/28/2016 Safeco Field
During batting practice, it was all Nelson Cruz and Robinson Cano. In fact, Nelson Cruz hit a ball completely OUT of Safeco Field. Click this link to watch the video highlights.
Lots of baseballs were tossed up into the stands and due to it being "Salute to Kids" night at the ballpark, the majority of them were tossed to kids and most were either dropped or bobbled around. The ones were dropped were easily glove-tricked out from behind the walls…
….I easily secured two balls during batting practice:
One kid used a blanket tied to his glove but he forgot the most important element of his glove-trick: the rubber band. I literally watched this kid for 10 minutes trying to dangle his glove over a baseball but it wouldn't secure into his glove because there was nothing to hold onto the ball. Ultimately, a security guard went down behind the wall and picked up the baseball for him.
I sat with my Twins rooting girlfriend, Alex in the outfield hoping to snag a home run ball during the game:
She isn't really a Twins fan. I bring both visiting and home team hats for autograph opportunities. Lately, I've been striking out when it comes to autographs. I usually get my ticket signed by someone before the game. And for the last three games I've attended I've been trying to get a picture with former Mariners Dave Valle but he hasn't been showing up to the Root Sports broadcast booth for some reason. Today was no exception. Again, a no-show.
The game was pretty entertaining. The Twins beat the Mariners in the end by a score of 6-5 and we left towards the top of the ninth to beat traffic. Aoki smacked a home run in the first inning to give the Mariners the lead but the Twins managed to rally back and hold the lead.
Next month I fly out to Romania so I'll be busy trying to keep up every day with daily blog entries on the trip.
Total Lifetime Games Attended: 121
Total Baseballs Snagged This Season: 9
Total Lifetime Baseballs Snagged: 343
Total Lifetime Foul Balls Snagged: 1
Total Lifetime Home Run Balls Snagged: 0
5/14/2016 Safeco Field
For the better part of the afternoon, I watched the security guards fumble with the table at the gate…
….priorities, I tell ya. Today turned out to be a gloomy, raining, wet day at the ballpark. I bought the cheapest tickets possible ($26.00) which put my seats up in the 300 level of the stadium. I wanted to spend the majority of my time in The 'Pen. Today's goals seemed simple enough: snag a bunch of baseballs, get a picture with Dave Valle, get Jose Mota's autograph and snag a home run ball during the game.
Being that it was Kyle Seager bobblehead night, I figured it would be a sold out game. It came close. 42,687 showed up and I'm assuming 3-5 thousand probably left after they got their bobbles because while I walked around the stadium, it didn't feel like a capacity crowd. During batting practice, it wasn't that bad. I snagged my bobblehead and glove tricked my first ball out of the bullpen. My second ball came by just leaning over the railing and picking it out of the bullpen after it was hit into there and rolled around for a little bit. I made my way across the seating bowl securing my third ball that I picked out of a cup holder (put there by an usher) and my fourth and fifth balls came bouncing into the stands; one on the third base side and one on the first base side.
After BP I set up near the Root Sports broadcast table and I waited and I waited and I waited some more for Dave Valle to show up. I checked his Twitter and found out that a new ice cream machine was placed up in the broadcast booth and I suspected that's where Valle was at. Getting ice cream:
By then it was too late to run down to the Angels dugout to get Jose Mota's autograph. My night was slowly falling apart. If you've never been to Safeco Field and have never experienced The 'Pen (on College night or any other night for that matter) you aren't missing much. It usually gets overly crowded full of drunk people and the music is so loud you can barely hear the person next to you. So after about the 2nd inning, I made my way up to my seat to watch the game from there…
…of course when I bought my ticket, I forgot to buy the one without the "obstructed view" warning.
I watched the game from my seat for a few innings and then I wandered the stadium. I actually got up close and personal with the new timer that was installed last year in all of the stadiums…
…and the premise behind this new addition is to attempt to speed the game up. Ever since Manfred took over from Selig as baseballs Commissioner, he's been doing everything in his power to speed the game up. He's told the players that they have to keep one foot in the batters box at all times and if they don't they could receive a fine. Then they installed the timer which gives pitchers two minutes between innings to get ready. Now I've been hearing that intentional walks will be changing. The batter simply takes his base. Along with that, the umpires are enforcing shorter mound visits.
I understand that games can be long and lack action and excitement. The game I attended yesterday lasted over three hours. And I didn't stay for the whole game, either. I don't agree with changing these little things about the game. I don't agree with the Manfred era of baseball. I don't agree with the netting in front of the dugouts and down the first and third base lines in an attempt to "keep fans safe". These rules where the catcher can't block the plate and late slides into second base have become illegal take away so much from the game. I think there needs to be some level of fan accountability where the fans who attend games should have some reasonable expectation of a game that might last longer than anticipated. I also think that fans need to be more alert and provide safety measures for themselves instead of relying on Major League Baseball to keep 35,000 people safe. If you can't stay alert during play or can't stay off your cellphone for two minutes during a game, maybe the outfield seating is best for you.
Going into the ninth inning, the Mariners were holding on to the lead 7-6. Steve Cishek came in to close out the game and left a pitch over the plate for Albert Pujols. He hammered a 3-run home run and the Angels went on to win the game 9-7. Final.
Cishek later posted this one Twitter…
…he receieved plenty of support, there were still many nay-sayers. The Mariners have never really had a successful closer since I've been a fan. And I've been a fan since 1989.
Total Lifetime Games Attended: 121
Total Baseballs Snagged This Season: 9
Total Lifetime Baseballs Snagged: 343
Total Lifetime Foul Balls Snagged: 1
Total Lifetime Home Run Balls Snagged: 0
5/13/2016 Safeco Field
Willie Bloomquist is one of my favorite players and when he announced his retirement it made me sort of sad. I was never able to get any memorabilia signed by him or meet him at any of the games while he was active on the field. But I'm happy he's retired and doing the things he wants to do. He recently accepted a job with the front office with the Diamondbacks so there's still a chance I can catch him at the ballpark to get something signed.
I recently connected with him on Twitter and asked him how retirement was going…
…seems like everything is going well at the moment.
The Angels were in town this weekend and I always try to make it out to the stadium to see them. Mainly I like heckling Albert Pujols because he seems to make it a point to ignore the fans. So whenever he takes his at-bats, I like to obnoxiously yell "Puuuujjjjoooolllls!". On a positive note, I like to wave and cheer on Mike Trout because he always responds to his fans, and I like seeing that from him.
My girlfriend, Alexandra accompanied me for the game and we stopped at the Pyramid Ale House prior to game time. I ordered the beer battered fish, which by the way, was awesome but the service wasn't so great…
…we've been here before and our last visit the service was sub-par as well. We both decided this would be our last visit here.
When I entered the stadium, I spotted my first baseball of the day on the ground near the Root Sports set up. Once the rest of the stadium opened up, I managed to find three more baseballs in the right and center field bleachers and one was hit my way and I was able to snag it on the carom.
Alexandra and I headed down to the Angels dugout and once at our seats, we found this stuck to the front of my seat:
Here's a closer look at what it says:
This was the view from our seats during the game:
By the bottom of the fourth, the game was tied 1-1 until Nelson Cruz hit a high drive out of the park in the bottom half of the fifth. Then in the bottom of the eighth, Angels pitcher, Joe Smith walked Norichika Aoki and then literally tried to pick him off at first base several times. The crowd became extremely restless and then on about the sixth or seventh attempt, Mike Scioscia challenged the play:
It was the first time I'd ever witnessed a live challenge and so it was interesting to watch the umpires put on the headsets and watch the video over and over again. The call stood; Aoki was safe at first. It was still pretty cool to see.
The game had lasted well beyond three hours so we left after Robinson Cano belted a double into the gap. The Mariners had the lead at this point by one run. Steve Chisek would be in to close the game out and by the time I got home and checked the score, I learned he blew the save. The one thing I was happy about was the fact that Robinson Cano had extended my Beat The Streak game streak to 16 with his double to the gap. The Mariners losing in the 9th? Not so happy about that but it's baseball.
Total Lifetime Games Attended: 120
Total Baseballs Snagged This Season: 4
Total Lifetime Baseballs Snagged: 339
Total Lifetime Foul Balls Snagged: 1
Total Lifetime Home Run Balls Snagged: 0
Seattle Mariners Fanfest 2016
The main goal was to attend this fan fest and get Jay Buhner's autograph on a baseball bat. I had purchased a nice wooden bat from a sports retailer the night before, packed up the camera and headed into Seattle.
The last time I attended a fan fest was a few years ago and I really had a good experience. I wasn't trying to mirror this experience to last times but I was imagining some quality time with Buhner. After all, it's fan fest!
When I got to Safeco, the lines were already wrapped around the stadium:
The rules for autographs were pretty simple: the first 200 people in line that claimed vouchers upon entry would get that players autograph of their choice and so on and so forth until there were no more vouchers for that player. The players were staggered at various times so all you had to do was enter the ballpark, walk to the banner with the players name on it that you wanted, grab the voucher from the staff member and beat feet up to wherever the autograph session was taking place. Make senses? Okay, good.
Jay Buhner was signing autographs right at 10:30am so as soon as I got inside, I grabbed the voucher with his name on it and I just followed the signs that led me up to this hallway:
There were all kinds of cool things to look at waiting in line but all I really wanted to do was meet Jay Buhner.
I have been a Mariners fan since 1989 when my Mom took me to my very first Mariners game in the Kingdome. We sat up in the 300 level near the 3rd base side and the Mariners played the Baltimore Orioles. That was the first game I witnessed Cal Ripken Jr. play and all of my Mariner favorites. Since then, I've attended handfuls of games growing up with my Dad and we always sat where we could see Ken Griffey Jr.
Over the last few years, I've met a lot of players and I wanted to start meeting my childhood favorites like Jay Buhner and Dan Wilson. I met Edgar Martinez a few seasons ago by being in the right place at the right time.
Anyway. When Buhner finally arrived I had a question in mind that I wanted to ask him. And when I got up to the table to have my memorabilia signed, the staff member who was with Buhner was handing him so much stuff so fast for him to sign, I think Buhner was a little flustered. He even made a comment to the guy, something along the lines of "you're handing me stuff and I don't even have time to sign it!" Something like that.
When I handed my bat to the staff member, I stood in front of Buhner…
… and asked him, "Jay, when do you think Ichiro will hit his 3,000th hit?" He immediately replied with. "How many hits does he got?" I think at the time Ichiro had 2,919 or something like that. I was soon cut-off by more fans walking in front of me to get their picture taken with Buhner and the staff member kept piling on the memorabilia for him to sign. So I just picked up my bat and sort of walked away. I turned back once or twice more to watch but I was soon greeted with, "Have a nice day!" from another staff member which sort of meant, "please exit this way".
Wow. I stood outside of the doors and just watched Buhner scurrying to sign balls and bobble heads and cards and all sorts of stuff. He had his head down and was just signing away.
Occasionally he would look up and laugh or whatever and shake a hand or two, but it was all business getting everything signed in front of him. I felt bad for him and I felt bad for the fans. Buhner had 200 autographs to sign in an hour and a half and I guess the point of the whole thing was to just get something signed and move on. But I wanted to at least talk to him for a minute or two like I got to talk to Edgar Martinez. I got to tell Edgar how I went to games as a little kid, and cheered for him and chanted, "Ed-GAR! Ed-GAR!" with my Dad and we drove home that night smiling after a M's win. I shook hands with Martinez and took a picture and all was right in the world.
All wasn't right in the world on this day. Buhner was a mad man signing autographs. I don't blame him, though. It's all about making the fans happy, I suppose. And if it's just spending two quick seconds getting something signed from a baseball player and not having much interaction, then I guess that's what makes people happy.
I feel fortunate as a baseball fan, though. I have a decent sized collection of signed baseball memorabilia from some of the greatest baseball players who've ever played the game. I've met and took pictures with many of my favorite players, I've traveled to 14 different MLB stadiums, I've seen MLB games in both Japan and Australia, I've caught a foul ball and I've shook hands with Nelson Cruz in Macy's in down town Seattle. So over the years it's been fun.
I walked away from Safeco today feeling happy that I got Buhner's autograph on a baseball bat that'll forever be in my collection but at the same time, I felt a little frustrated. I sort of put myself in Buhner's shoes for a moment, too. He gives a lot of his own time to the fans. He raised the 12th man flag at the Seahawks game and he seems to be pretty involved in the community around the area, plus he goes to these fan fests just about every year. My only wish is during these autograph sessions, the process could just go a little slower.
GeoCaching 2015
I picked up a new hobby. It's called "Geocaching". Some of you may heard of it and some of you probably won't know at all what I'm talking about. I'll tell you all about it in a minute.
This year, I really didn't do a whole lot of baseball related stuff. I went to a couple of Mariners games and my girlfriend and I traveled to the Cayman Islands for a week. I also flew to Chicago and met Jake Arrieta during the Catch in the Confines event. You can read all about that here.
As the result of not going to many games obviously my "ballhawking" stats have slowed down quite a bit. I've snagged 334 baseballs in 119 games (which averages about 2.81 a game) at 15 different stadiums. I have focused more on getting pictures with different players and getting good autographs from my favorite players. I've gotten two bats signed; one by Eric Davis and one by Miguel Olivo, I caught Dustin Ackley's batting glove a few years ago and I have signed baseballs from Mark McGwire, Will Clark, Jake Arrieta, Brandon League and a few others.
In 2016, I would like to snag my 400th baseball but that might be a stretch. I have tentative plans to see the Pirates play at Hiram Bithorn stadium in Puerto Rico in May, as well as taking a trip to Europe and Hawaii later in the year. And I would like to travel to Los Angeles to see the Dodgers and possibly get to Arizona next year.
So back to this geocaching thing. While sitting in the lobby of a shop waiting for my motorcycle to get some work done, I overheard a couple people talking about geocaching. They were saying how they're from England and came to Washington State to geocache. Since I'm a big fan of traveling, I thought I could get into this when I'm bored when visiting other countries. So I Googled it and found it to be truly interesting. There are 2.7 million caches hidden around the world and since February of this year, I've found 193 of them. So far I'm on an active streak of finding at least one cache per day for nine days straight right now. My numbers seem minimal and that's fine. I just started caching this year.
There's a lot of different caches and I tend to like the traditional caches and the Earth Caches the best. Earth caches are defined as finding a historical land mark or a type of geological find and taking your picture with it and logging some questions to the person who placed the cache there. I've found a handful of these and have learned a lot about glacial erratic rocks. Since I'm living in the Pacific Northwest, there are a lot of these. Traditional caches are just a container (big or small) hidden somewhere in the landscape both urban or rural. Urban caching, as I like to call it, makes me feel like a weirdo stalking around and acting suspicious. Rural caching is much better because I usually take my dog with me and we are hiking back trails and digging around in the bush. So it looks pretty normal.
I do miss the baseball stadiums, though. In 2013 I traveled a lot and saw a lot of different cities and stadiums. It was a lot of fun and I think this is a much needed break from the daily grind of going to as many games as possible and trying to catch as many baseballs as I can. I'll probably never snag 1,000 baseballs within my lifetime and, really, I don't intend to. I probably won't even catch 500. My goal is to get to all the stadiums and catch at least one ball. Sadly, Turner Field is going to get demolished at the end of 2016 and I may not make it there.
So to conclude 2015, I had a great year. 2016 will probably be better and I hope to blog a lot more.
I hope everyone is having a great holiday!
6/28/2015 Grand Cayman Islands (Day #6)
I took this picture as we headed to the hotel lobby to get our cab and head to the airport. This is 4:30am and the sun was just starting to come up. It was absolutely gorgeous.
I don't normally blog about a "travel day" because typically nothing very eventful happens while sitting in the airport for hours on end waiting on flights. Since we had such a miserable flight coming to the Grand Cayman Islands, I thought I'd share some more nightmare-ish flight adventures.
As you know, (if you've been reading since day one) Alaskan Airline left our luggage in Seattle on our way over to Grand Cayman. Oops. No big deal, right? Except for the fact that we needed clothing because after traveling for a day and a half we weren't exactly feeling very fresh anymore. So on our first day on the island, we went out and spent $300 dollars on some swim stuff so we could at least enjoy the pool while we waited on our luggage. Our flight itinerary was basically this: Seattle to St. Louis, St. Louis to Miami and Miami to Grand Cayman. Every flight after arriving to St. Louis was delayed for one reason or another. It wouldn't be such a big deal except that one delayed flight screws up the entire order of things.
American Airlines was our main flight provider, and although they were extremely helpful in helping us get our luggage, they really didn't offer us much more than an apology over Twitter. And that seems to be the norm on their Twitter account. Endless apologies for things that have happened to other travelers.
Soooooo fast-forward to our travel day back to Seattle. Our flight from Grand Cayman to Miami was seamless. When we got to Miami, our flight was supposed to leave at 2pm. That didn't happen. About five minutes before boarding at our gate, they changed our gate number and we had to go to our new gate which was literally on the other side of the airport. When we got there, the American Airlines guy kept saying something about interference on the field or something, we couldn't understand what he was saying. We didn't board our flight until around 3pm. Then we sat on the tarmac for ten minutes before finally leaving for Dallas/Fort Worth. We knew when we got to Dallas/Fort Worth airport, we'd have about ten minutes to get to our gate. Luckily, we didn't have far to go when we arrived. Unfortunately, our seats were literally at the back of the plane.
We arrived closer to 5pm local time and I thought to myself that were still in good shape to get to our gate. I also thought that American Airlines would communicate to any connecting flights that there was a half hour delay and to hold any planes for arriving passengers. Apparently, they don't do that anymore. We hustled to our gate with moments to spare. 5:05 PM to be exact. The plane was departing at 5:15pm. I figured since every other flight we've been on from American Airlines has been late, I assumed this one would be too. I expected to encounter a long line of people or a nice lady with a smile on her face welcoming us onto our flight. We received the exact opposite. It's like a storm cloud followed us over to our gate and we got some unhappy, rude woman standing there. I said, "hold on, hold on! We are on this flight!" I attempted to hand my boarding pass to the woman and she instantly stated "No, you were on this flight" like it was our fault that we were late. "Excuse me? What do you mean "we were"?! I replied. "I already gave your seat away…"
Oh, hell no. You did what, American Airlines? You gave my seat away?! Is that what I heard correctly?! Every flight on this trip has been late by 30 minutes or more and I'm late by TWO minutes and you give my seat away?! I was floored. No apology. No sympathy, nothing. One of the rudest person I've ever dealt with in my life was standing in front of me and I had to do everything in my power not to literally verbally destroy this woman in the middle of the airport. I was blown away at how cold and uncaring this person could actually be. Flying domestically has become such a travesty. There isn't any customer service anymore. The airlines (and not just American Air) nickel and dime everyone. They don't even hand out small bags of peanuts and most airlines won't let you have a full can of soda. It's shocking that stuff is even free anymore.
After getting a new flight (now departing at 6:50pm) we trekked across the airport again only to get to our new gate to get the news that our gate had been moved again. Good grief. Of course, I took my complaints and frustrations out on Twitter and started tweeting about how miserable this experience was with American Airlines. What do you know, they responded, and apologized:
The American Airlines Devil Woman at the desk who kept me on my flight that I paid for, you know, the one that gave my seat away? She wouldn't even look at me let alone give a sympathetic apology. I had to go fishing for an apology on Twitter. That's pretty pathetic.
I get that airlines like to run flights at near-full or full capacity to turn more of a profit. Unfortunately, they are sacrificing good customer service. The American Airlines Devil Woman made it seem like it was all our fault for being late. Like, we were nursing a hangover or out boozing it up at a local bar in the airport. No, lady. We weren't. It was the airline that you work for that made us late. We were early for all of our flights like they say to be. Two hours before your flight you need to be at the airport and blah blah blah. Why, so I can sit at the gate and be redirected two or three times to another gate only to have our flight delayed by some mechanical error or some other issue and have to sit on the tarmac for an hour like my flight back to Seattle from Chicago earlier this month?
Our flight was supposed to depart at 6:50 PM and when we finally got to our gate the flight information read that it was delayed to 7:05 PM. Prefect. Why wouldn't our flight be delayed. This was American Airlines after all. I wouldn't expect anything less. We started boarding at 7:05 PM and when our group was called to board the reader board stated that all the overhead bins were now full and people were told they had to start checking their luggage. Great. American Airlines ought to put "it's a surprise" under the departure time instead of an actual time. It was now 7:39 PM when I actually sat down in my seat on the plane. At approximately 8:01 PM, the flight took off from the runway and we were Seattle bound. Un-freaking-believable.
We arrived at Sea-tac around 10:30 PM and while we were walking passed the baggage claim area, we overheard a conversation between a customer and an American Airline staff member. Something along the lines of "it's showing your luggage was left in Dallas and was never put on the plane". Well, that's no surprise.
I don't want anything from American Airlines. I surely don't want a travel voucher or a free flight. What I want is my time back. I want my three hours back. I should have been home at 7 PM instead of 11PM. That's what I want. I want my time back but American Airlines cant give me back my time. Even if they offered a free flight, I would decline. I wouldn't give it to a friend or a family member either because I wouldn't want to put anyone I know through the kind of hell they put me and my girlfriend through. I wouldn't wish this kind of torture on my worst enemy. The best thing American Airlines can do at this point is to tell Devil Woman to get rid of her Resting Bitch Face and start treating customers like they have some kind of value to the company. To tell someone who's been traveling all day "you were on this flight" and "I already gave your seat away" because they were two minutes late was a pretty good slap in the face. It was rude and I should have cussed her out. But I didn't. I'm above all of that kind of nonsense because it doesn't solve anything.
Sorry, American Airlines, but I'm not sorry. You have offensive and ill-mannered employees. And it's not just with Devil Woman. I've noticed a handful of other employees having attitudes as well. Maybe this company needs to invest in better customer service programs. The customer service industry can be a real pain and it's not easy but that doesn't mean your employees need to take it out on their passengers.
It's no wonder that American Airlines had to file for bankruptcy back in 2011.
6/27/2015 Grand Cayman Islands (Day #5)
Our last full day before we had to head back to the United States. Boo! Leaving this tropical paradise would be so hard but at the same time, it would be bittersweet. After seeing what Georgetown had to offer us yesterday, my girlfriend and I ventured off to see Seven Mile Beach.
Seven Mile Beach is the number one place on the Grand Cayman Island. The water is crystal clear, the sand is so fine and it literally feels like walking on cotton balls. It was the place to be. After arriving to the beach, we instantly regretted not coming out here sooner. But our whole premise behind the trip was to not be rushed and try to cram a bunch of stuff into our day and be exhausted at the end of our vacation. I felt a little rushed when I went to Australia last year and I certainly wanted to just enjoy my stay on the island and not be all wore out when it was time to go home.
The beach was absolutely stunning…
…and what vacation wouldn't be complete without a beach selfie:
The sun felt so good on us. The sand was so pure and soft between our toes and the water was warm and it cooled us down from the hot summer sun. It was everything we wanted it to be and purely amazing to be here. For the next few hours, we sat underneath a grape tree and talked about life. We stared out into the vast Caribbean sea taking in all her beauty. It was so breath-taking. To think we would be leaving soon to go home kind of made me sad but it would be great to get home and share our memories with friends and family.
We splashed around in the sea for a while longer and then decided to head back to the hotel. Our flight was leaving early the next morning and we needed to pack and get good rest. Plus, our hotel was prime real-estate for a beautiful sunset.
Here's a few more pictures of us having fun in the Caribbean sea:
If you ever get the chance to visit the Grand Cayman Islands, I highly recommend the Holiday Inn and Resorts. It's a little out of the way of everything but the hotel offers a courtesy shuttle that runs every hour on the hour from 9am to 5pm and will literally take you to all the places you'll want to go. If you want to venture out further, you'll have to take a cab but they are reasonably priced and the cabs are not metered . So you'll pay a flat rate which is awesome. I've been ripped off by so many cab drivers in my travels thus far and quite frankly, it's really nice to see some kind of control so people can't get taken advantage of in foreign lands.
From day one the staff has been extremely helpful and polite. Everyone from the house keeping staff to the cab drivers are extremely friendly. People go out of their way to help others here and the Holiday Inn staff made us feel extremely special. The food was amazing wherever we went. It was a little pricey so make sure you bring plenty of money when you visit but it was so worth it. They do have some fast food places like KFC, Wendy's and Subway, but we weren't interested in those places so we never stopped in to see if the food quality was any different from the United States.
Aside from Alaskan Airlines leaving our luggage behind in Seattle, (which we got two days later) I would certainly come back. I'd recommend visiting all three islands, though. There's Grand Cayman (where we stayed) and then just East of this island there is Little Cayman and then Cayman Brac. Eventually, I plan to see all three islands in another visit. Also, there's Rum Point where you can see sting rays swimming around and a turtle farm about ten miles North of our hotel. We didn't get to all of those things mainly because we were on "island time" and we just let our day unfold as it did. We were in no rush to do anything except what we wanted. Isn't that the point of a vacation?
Tomorrow we'd be flying out and that made us sad. But we finished strong and ordered a huge pizza from the Blue Iguana and ate some ice cream afterwards.
6/26/2015 Grand Cayman Islands (Day #4)
Now THAT is a yogurt parfait! Holy smokes! Another great meal at the Blue Iguana just like yesterday, the day before and our first day on the island.
Today we'd experience Georgetown. That was the plan. Georgetown was one of those places where it's extremely tourist-y and just about every shop sells the same little knick-knacks and trinkets. Alexandra ended up buying a shirt for her Dad and a few little hand-made turtle figurines for her cousins. I bought a much needed coffee mug that had the map of the Cayman Islands on it and a small little turtle figurine for my Mother. My Dad is rather hard to shop for so I'm keeping my eye out for something special for him.
Who knew there'd be a Hard Rock Café around here…
…and here's another street view picture of Georgetown just to give you an idea of what it was like:
Do you notice the direction of travel that the cars are going? It's looks backwards, right? Well, that's because here on the Cayman Islands they drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel in most cars is on the opposite side of the car. Pretty crazy, right? It took a couple of cab rides to get used to it, to be honest.
We did a few more hours of shopping before we finally headed back to our hotel room…
…and on our way back, we found this awesome home-made sign that had directional arrows pointing to different destinations around the world:
After exploring Georgetown for most of the day, it was time to head back and get poolside to enjoy some much needed rest and relaxation…
Some days a person just needs to kick back and relax.
6/25/2015 Grand Cayman Islands (Day #3)
Initially, my girlfriend and I, Alexandra, were going to go to Georgetown today. But since we were so badly sunburnt from the day before we decided to stay indoors for the better part of the morning. We finally braved the sun and ended up in Camana Bay.
I don't know about other hotels within the area, but the Holiday Inn has been exceptionally good to us on this trip. We've had complimentary shuttles all week so we haven't had to take a cab anywhere. When I went to Chicago earlier this month, I used Uber and other taxi services to get to and from Wrigley Field but it was entirely too expensive.
Camana Bay was awesome. We ate at a place called The Upper Crust…
… and Alexandra ordered the Croque Madame…
…and I got the Fish n' Chips:
I know, I know. I'm in the Cayman Islands and ordering typical American dishes at restaurants. Rest assure. When we hit up Georgetown and Seven Mile Beach, we will be eating exquisite seafood once we find a place. The shopping center was really pretty and the few shops that we did go into, the merchandise was extremely expensive. We went into a store called Sand Angels and they had swim suits in their for $80 dollars! Since Alaska Airlines had lost our luggage, we had to buy some swim wear so we could at least enjoy our first day in the Caymans and the store we went to was called Divers Supply. They had a lot of name brand stuff like Oakley and Polo Ralph Lauren, Hurley, etc. We ended up spending $313 dollars on one pair of board shorts, two pair of flip flops and a bikini for Alexandra. $313! Wow! Good thing the airline is reimbursing me.
We ventured over to a small island that had a bridge connecting to it…
…and once we got over there, you wouldn't believe what we saw running in front of us in the sand:
Yep! Another Iguana!! We think the one we saw here is one of the Blue Iguanas that are protected because they were literally going extinct ten years ago.
We took our pictures on the sandy island and caught our courtesy shuttle back to the hotel:
On our way back, I noticed how much gas prices were…
…and we also passed through Georgetown. What an amazing town. We were totally excited for the next day to come to spend all day in Georgetown and while we were stopped, we snapped a bunch of pictures of three giant cruise ships that were docked close by. It was amazing to see these mammoth ships up close but the people on them have got to be the most obnoxious, egotistical humans that have ever walked this earth.
While at our hotel a couple of days ago, a huge group of people passed through while we were at the pool. One guy was chugging beer and smoking cigarettes while in the pool and they left a huge mess which allowed the Ching Ching birds to come in and scavenge all the left over food. It was pretty horrific and I couldn't even eat my lunch because the birds wouldn't leave me alone. That group acted so entitled like, "hey look at us, we are on a cruise". Dumb.
Time to wrap this up and get some rest for tomorrow!


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Monsanto, DuPont, Dole, and a host of other readily recognizable corporations have been pumping chemicals, GMO's, and toxins into our environment for decades. In California this past year a proposition to add to food labels whether the food inside was from organic or GMO stock was opposed by many of the major food corporations averaging over $1 Million per day spent to defeat that proposition. Why?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =RF1qKII_iUkXX
I've observed that the number of people who actually care in a community will be reflected in the courtesy shown on the roads of that community. There was a time when East Tennessee had the most courteous drivers of anywhere I've been. Not anymore.


text:
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AFAIK there are three major structure types used for storing Oracle index data: B-tree, R-tree and Bitmap. All indexes use one of these structures. However, not sure about CONTEXT, CTXCAT and CTXRULE Oracle text indexes...
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A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor
The View From Mrs. Sundberg's Window
I was the naughtiest girl in third grade
October 19, 2010
Listened to the show Saturday and it was not bad. I'm having a hard time focusing on what I'm supposed to be doing because it's just so dang beautiful outside. It's the tail end of the colorful time, and there are few things more pleasurable than walking through leaves on an autumn afternoon. The cool musky scent of the fields, the tang of fresh apples, the smoky orange of pumpkin piles, the light wind on the skin, the darkening skies to the west, the sound of children playing in the yard a few houses down.
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about what I'm supposed to be doing. Not like the laundry and such, and cooking and getting the kids going and so on, but purpose-wise. The Big What I'm Supposed To Be Doing. The Meaning of My Life kind of thing. Big picture thinking.
Never one for lofty vision-type thoughts or grand horizon plans or such, I'm not thinking I'm on a world-changing path. Leave that to Mr. Gates and his wife and the great humanitarians and thinkers and philanthropic livers of life and heroes and scientists, who are doing just fine. John Wesley, the great Methodist, said once to simply, "Do all the good you can." I can aspire to that, but I'm only human and don't always use the best judgment. I remember being told I was the naughtiest girl in third grade. I've been incarcerated for being disrespectful to a police officer. I've coveted gardens and stolen my share of tomatoes, and a few times I've even wished things would fall on Mr. Sundberg so he'd stop talking.
I read somewhere that you'll find your purpose at the crossroads where the needs of the world and what you can offer meet up. Seems to me the world needs just about everything, so I ought to be able to come up with something. Maybe a little bit every day will add up to a life of purpose. Today we'll start with a pie for my neighbor. Pumpkin, I think, with a bit of nutmeg and clove. I'll see about tomorrow when tomorrow comes. Focus on today, Mrs. Sundberg. Pie.
Fried Apple Pielets
I've always enjoyed things fried, and deep fried pie has got to be one of the great inventions of the modern kitchen. Try this one on your dearest friends, and you're sure to be the talk of the bridge game. Or the book club. Wherever your friends may be.
2 cups flour
1/2 cup shortening
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold water
2 apples
1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup vegetable oil
Peel and dice apples. Add sugar and cinnamon. Cook in a saucepan on low heat until soft, then mash with fork to form a thick sauce.
Sift flour and salt together. Cut in the shortening. Add water and mix with fork. Roll out on a floured surface to about 1/8 inch thick. Cut with a large cookie cutter (4 inches in diameter). In each round, place 1 heaping T fruit. Moisten edges with cold water, fold and press edge with a fork.
Heat oil in a large skillet on medium-high heat. Fry pies, a few at a time, 2 to 3 minutes on each side until golden brown, Drain on paper towels.
Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar.
Makes 8 small pies.
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The View From Mrs. Sundberg's Window Archive
- Prime Time for Deep Thought
- Figuring Out Who We Are
- Wonder and Possibility and What If
- Some Things Work and Some Don't
- The Flour Hit the Fan
- Check Out the Flip Side
- Happy to be There, Happy to Leave
- The Real Comfort
- Where "Home" Comes From
- The Adventure Never Ends
- Not Quite Sex, but There is a Resemblance
- A Mazillion Small To-Dos Before School Starts
- You Never Know What Moment Will be a Golden One
- Be Mindful of the Route You Take
- One Fine Stretch of Days
- Just Be
- This Too, People, Shall Pass
- Mother Nature Will Have Her Way
- Letting Go is Tough
- A Fulfilled Life
- Consider Patience
- Life is Meaningful Because it Stops
- The Celebration of a Life
- A Monumental Act
- Smell the Flowers
- Boredom and Terror, and Sweetness
- An Exercise in Forgiveness
- It's Time to Get Out There
- A Wanted Woman
- Anything Worthwhile is Going to Take Some Effort
- Looking Back Toward Home
- The Journey Changes You
- So Much to Look Forward To
- Anything Worthwhile Deserves Patience
- Go With Whatcha Got
- This Land of Seasons I Love
- A Simple Question
- The change you wish to make
- Where words just don't cut it
- A nod to Pancakes
- When you're sick, you're sick
- A life lived is not about things
- I'm not put off by the thought of my own funeral
- The adventure of the ordinary day
- A lot we didn't get around to
- Where did Christmas go?
- Take Heart
- A table full up with Christmas
- Gifts can be a challenge
- You have each other to love
- The gift of the story of Three Perfect Strangers
- Gemutlichkeit
- For many of the best things in life, a person has to wait in line
- The things we can't not do
- Never met a perfect person
- Just ask a question or two
- What I get in return?
- Listen awhile, and you'll hear it, too
- A day of good hard work
- New friends vs. old friends
- There will be joy like this again in my life
- A lonesome place to spend some time
- Whatever makes you grow is gonna hurt somehow
- Hold someone close to you today
- A Postcard from Mrs. Sundberg
- For goodness itself, thanks
- How blessed can a woman be?
- All about purpose and meaning
- As it should be
- This is where the party is
- Our wants have changed and our needs are few
- A day may be perfect, but we aren't
- Nice to have home to return to
- How time moves along
- Feet are a funny thing
Complete The View From Mrs. Sundberg's Window Archive


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It's said you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Thankfully, Ian Anderson didn't get the memo.
The 65-year old Anderson spent much of 2012 performing Tull's seminal 1972 album Thick as a Brick in its entirety for the first time ever, along with its then-new sequel, the aptly-titled Thick as a Brick 2. The back-to-back performances made for one hell of a live multimedia extravaganza—replete with funny video clips—and transcended concert norms by featuring a trained actor, costumes, narration, and choreography.
Available tomorrow (August 26) on Eagle Rock Blu-ray and DVD, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson: Thick As a Brick—Live in Iceland captures said show for home-viewing posterity.
The show's first half recounts the tale of Brick's young anti-hero, Gerald "Milty" Bostock, a troubled but talented boy whose worldview sours after he's eliminated from a writing contest because of his provocative, oddball verses. Following the forty-minute epic, Anderson and company return with Brick 2, an hour-long progressive rock parable offering not one but five different outcomes for the adult Gerald over the course of sixteen or seventeen tracks.
Anderson's two visionary epics—separated by four decades on record but united here for the first time ever—pack moments of musical drama and bursts of mind-blowing virtuosity from everyone involved. But there are also delicate instrumental passages and quiet spells wherein singing narrators Anderson and understudy Ryan O'Donnell chime in, pondering the works' myriad "What Ifs, Maybes, and Might-Have-Beens" like modern analogues of a Greek chorus.
Rather than take their places at drums and keyboards, Anderson's backup musicians stride onstage dressed like factory workers—who begin taking inventory, conduct inspections, and sweep the floor. Then the house lights dim, cueing Act I—and a introductory film shows a grown Bostock (unseen, off-camera) visiting psychotherapist "Maximilian Quad" (Anderson), who goads the patient into recounting the sources of his depression.
"Tell me how it all began," says the shrink, prompting the musical retrospective.
Appearing stage left, Anderson—clad in a black skullcap, colorful vest, and grey jeans with matching Sketchers boots—stums a ¾ size-guitar and coos how Bostock's befuddled prodigy-poet "might make you feel but can't make you think." Then it's was off to the races, with pied piper Ian leading his charges through the original Brick's two album sides (each clocking in around twenty minutes).
30-year old Bavarian guitar sensation Florian Opahle works magic with a gold-tinted Les Paul, wearing all black (but for his red suspenders and shoes). Drummer Scott Hammond—who's played for members of Iron Maiden and Moody Blues—keeps time even when the meters got odd, or just downright bizarre. David Goodier thumps bass and contributes background vocals, and keyboardist John O'Hara tinkles away on his Roland and Hammond, his hair mussed like a mad scientist.
Apart from Anderson, the real draw is 32-year old O'Donnell, the British theatre vet who slips in and out of various Brick characters—and provides a sort of younger version of Tull's tooting titan. Sporting a dichromatic shirt and pants (evoking the court jesters of old), O'Donnell shares lead vocals with Anderson and mirrors his dance moves, kicking his leg into Ian's signature stork stance. A three-foot stick serves as a prop cane and air flute for the young doppelganger, who goes back-to-back with the maestro, sometimes manifesting a nifty double-image.
Act II commences with a video snippet of Colonel Archibald Parritt (Anderson again, in "posh man in garden" disguise) conducting a tour of his swanky castle estate at the behest of the St. Cleve Chronicle—the same publication that covered Bostock's ill-fated poetry contest (as seen on Brick's newspaper-like album sleeve). Now decked out in vest and derby, O'Donnell prefaces Brick 2's "divergent and hypothetical" possibilities for an adult Bostock as troubadour Anderson strums away.
"Upper Sixth Loan Shark" and "Banker Bets, Banker Wins" paint the protagonist as a successful—but greedy—stockbroker, while "Swing It Far" and "Adrift and Dumfounded" picture him as a slovenly vagrant haunted by memories of schoolmaster abuse. "Old School Song" and "Wootton Bassett Town" imagine Gerald as a traumatized soldier. "Give Till It Hurts" and "The Power and Spirit" put O'Donnell in a priest's frock for Gerald's turn as a "puritan of moral fiber," caught in a losing battle with a nasty sanctimonious streak. "Cosy Corner" and "Shunt and Shuffle" plant Bostock behind the counter at a hobby store. It's a modest, less complicated fate, but one that leaves him lonely and despondent.
The eight-minute, riff-laden "Change of Horses" brings the karmic wheel full circle, concluding the patient's confessional. Video clips for Act II parallel the subject's many incarnations, with Anderson and the band counting money 'round a conference table (the banker); black-and-white stills of soldiers in combat (the war veteran); photos of stained-glass windows (the priest); and images of model trains on thrift store shelves (the shopkeeper). But the cameras never lose sight of Anderson and his ace ensemble.
Ian huffs and hole-shades on his silvery flute, slurring his notes during face-offs with fleet-fingered guitarist Ophale. Goodier and Hammond also enjoy a bit of spotlight. O'Hara—whose earlier accordion assaults make for nice contrast—handles John Evan's bluesy piano intro magnificently, and Opahle duplicates Martin Barre's iconic guitar parts with accuracy, while injecting his own personal touches.
The sound is sublimely mixed and the lights accentuate the drama without distracting from it. The bifurcated performance is top-notch, really; a concept-driven musical journey rendered by precision players for whom three chords and a 4/4 beat just won't do for longer than a measure or two.
Live in Iceland is also available in audio format (2 CDs).
Anderson's latest solo album is Homo Erraticus, another Brick-related entry that loosely follows the Bostock character.
The DVD bonus features include a pre-show interview with Anderson (by Oli Palli) wherein the Tull flautist explains why he brings his instrument everywhere he goes: He says he has two main flutes—neither of which is custom-made nor especially valuable, notwithstanding their sentimental appeal. He claims one of his flutes has travelled over 100 million miles, having travelled to the International Space Station.
Anderson retraces the history of Thick as a Brick and its follow-up, and remembers how in 1972 he decided to beat the critics who called Aqualung a "concept album" by delivering the "mother of all concept albums." But the Tull front man says he arranged the original Brick as a parody of prog rock, using "a comedic mask" to disguise some of the darker elements of the narrative.
Anderson also confesses he gave up playing guitar after hearing Eric Clapton, because he knew he'd never be that good. So he traded his six-string for a flute he saw hanging on the wall at a local music shop.
"It was an odd little moment, but life-changing," he recalls.
Anderson also dishes on why his recent work is billed under his name rather than the J-Tull handle. He concedes "there's a danger in branding," and that casual fans come to expect "a certain repertoire" and key sounds (like blues rock guitar) from albums and concerts marketed with the Jethro Tull label.
"It's a subtle signal," concedes Anderson. "I feel more comfortable when it's just 'Ian Anderson,' because it's not just a rock concert."
Another segment contains a jam on Tull hit "Someday the Sun Won't Shine for You" at Montreux in 2012. Anderson goes toe-to-toe on harp (er, that's harmonica) with late, great jazz fest founder Claude Nobs on the ten-minute romp in front of a cozy little audience—then pulls out his flute for a duel with a female flautist. It's a fitting salute to Nobs, apart from being a unique (and spine-tingling) rock and roll moment that can't ever be repeated.
The extras conclude with a pair of video selections taken from Anderson's show proper in the Auditorium Stravinsky in July 2012 at Montreux Jazz Fest: "Upper Sixth Loan Shark" and "Banker Bets, Banker Wins."
The disc is the latest in a string of great concert (Peter Gabriel, ZZ Top, etc.) and music documentaries (Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, etc.) from Eagle Rock. This one makes a nice companion to Anderson's 2007 Orchestral Jethro Tull DVD.
Available now at Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/jwqz722
Suggested Links
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- Peter Gabriel still has the touch in new concert film Back to Front
- Moody Blues front man Justin Hayward goes solo acoustic on new DVD
- Howard Jones, Tom Bailey to play Cleveland PAC with Retro Futura Tour
- The Orchestra enchants Cleveland PAC with Electric Light hits


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Consider the following rooted tree, each of whose vertices (except for the root) is labeled with an integer $\in\{1,\dots,n\}$: let $s(v)$ be the sequence consists of the labels on the path from the root to a vertex $v$ (including the label of $v$), and
- if $s(v)$ has a decreasing subsequence, $v$ is a leaf, and
- otherwise, $v$ has $n-|s(v)|$ children, labeled with positive integers not belonging to $s(v)$, where $|s(v)|$ is the length of $s(v)$.
The question is how many leaves this tree has.
Background: I'm analysing the sorting algorithm that examines paths from the root to every leaf.
Addendum: Sequences of length less than 2 are not decreasing.
Addendum 2: Let $r$ be the root, then $s(r)$ is the empty sequence $()$, so $r$ has $n - |s(r)|=n$ children labeled with $1,\dots,n$.


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A 3,10 torus knot is a knot that loops around a 2-torus (or doughnut) three times with one continuously strand of string that winds through the center hole ten times. Is this 3,10 torus considered topologically equivalent to a 2-torus?
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Under the interpretation given by anon in the comments, yes, what you have is a knotted torus, but a torus all the same (that is, homeomorphic to a torus). Think about slicing through it, then unravelling it from the torus it loops around, giving you a cylinder, then gluing it back together along the slice: that gives you a torus, so the original was just a torus, albeit embedded in 3-space in an amusing way.


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- A Hundred Thousand Faces
- "Target Audıence: 0-99 Age Group"
- Istanbul Is Still Where It Used To Be!
- The Many Faces Of Istanbul
- Baroque Music Days
- "I Design Novels Like Cars"
- Reflections In Crystal
- Turkey Aims High At Dakar 2010
- 'Alev's Ceramics' In Vallauris
- Traces Of The East In Dresden
- The Charlie Chaplin Museum
- Masked Ball In Venice
- Agenda /January 10
- The Magnificent Carpet
- Untimely Reading
- Ayfer Tunç's Adapazari
- Going To Libya Easier With Turkısh Airlines
- Turkish Airlines is Bridge To Japanese Cinema
- Miles&Smiles Gets New Partners
- Karlıtekin Leaves
- Turkısh Airlines Receives Top Catering Award
- Turkish Airlines Awarded for Growth in China
- Turkısh Airlines Supports Medical Tourism
- Star Alliance Products Promoted On Turkish Airlines
- Turkish Airlines' Farewell to 2009 Party in Budapest
- Turkish Airlines marks 50 years in Rome
- Turkısh Airlines is The New Sponsor For Barcelona
- Turkısh Airlines Receives Academy Award'in Tourism
A Writer's Poetic Paris
Paris is a city where you can find whatever you are looking for in every tone and every nuance. And the Paris you find will be in proportion to the depth of your own appreciation of its elegance and refinement. But the most wonderful thing about Paris is that it appeals to all five senses at once.
Below Pont Mirabeau
flows the Seine
And our loves
If remember I must
Joy always followed after pain
So begins 'Le Pont du Mirabeau' by my beloved poet, Guillaume Apollinaire. And in speaking of this unforgettable city, this city of 'not forgetting', he is subtly telling us that Paris is more than just the Eiffel Tower. Reading it, one realizes that even a bridge can inspire a work of art and asks oneself why one loves Paris so much.
Naturally everyone has his own reason for loving Paris. And for me there are so many... First of all, Paris is one of my best childhood memories. The culture into which I was born and grew up, the records played at home ever since my childhood, and of course, its impact, despite everything, on the intellectuals of that period - they have all engendered in me a feeling I would describe as my 'first period' love of Paris. When I consider why I love Paris now, I line up photographs of all the other cities I love next to those of the French city on the Seine. Heidelberg, for example, and Bruges, even Damascus. Cities so distant and different from each other that they seem to belong to different planets. Then I consider what the common denominator is that draws me to them, The river of my mind joins the flow of time and I say to myself, it's the Middle Ages! These are all medieval cities. At the same time they are all modern cities that are moving apace into the future. In 21st century Europe, it is still possible to see medieval spectacles with fire-eaters, jugglers and people walking on stilts in the streets and squares of Paris. This concept of modernizing while remaining true to the medieval spirit in all its streets, bridges, buildings and other enchanting aspects makes Paris a city that feels lived in. If you know how to look at it, Paris is a city of such depth and richness that you can find everything you're looking for there. Just like a symphony orchestra. A polyphonic orchestra in which a vast ensemble of instruments all play the same tune in different ways but in which each separate instrument with its own unique rhythm is nevertheless part of the same harmony, the same melody. That is why Paris is so spectacular. It is a city where you can find everything you seek in its every tone and every nuance. And the Paris you find will be in proportion to your own appreciation of its elegance and refinement. The most wonderful thing about Paris is that it is capable of appealing to all five senses at once.
This is a different city because it is open to every lifestyle and every form of vital energy, harboring in its many layers a manifold of energy, diversity, sounds and tastesun. Paris is a place that a person sees through his own bank of knowledge and experience. If a narrow street in Paris is crooked rather than straight, it is said to be a relic of the Middle Ages. In a period when dueling was rampant, streets were laid out crooked so that one party could not spot his rival from afar and shoot him down in cold blood. If you visit the place where Balzac drank coffee you will get a whiff of one of the most important literary geniuses of all time in streets redolent with the aroma of java wafting up from the cafes on the banks of the Seine. And a little further ahead at the Conciergerie you will find Marie Antoinette's final letter, written to her sister-in-law.
And of course the Latin Quarter... Saint Germain des Prés where I spent my student years, and the Latin Quarter's other broad boulevard, Saint Michel. The teeming crowds of students on this boulevard with its cafes, cinemas and giant bookstores signify another aspect of life in Paris. And anyone going to the city should definitely be advised to see them. But for me in my life, it's still the Luxembourg Gardens that I regard as one of the most special spots in Paris. One of the readings we were assigned as an example of French literature in the language prep class at Saint Joseph Lycée when I was a boy was a book written by Anatole France when he was 41 years old describing the Luxembourg Gardens back when he was only seven. Years later when visited the Luxembourg Gardens, those readings were my implicit compass and roadmap, and I realized how consciousness of time and space preserves the soul of a city.
And then you come to the Eiffel... To the Fourth Arrondissement, one of the city's oldest areas of settlement. Although it has been called by some a heap of iron and no work of art at all, this gigantic tower is for me an expression of bold courage. The courage to build a structure of this magnitude out of iron for the first time, making something that had never been made before. It is only fair that this tower, erected on the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution, one of the turning points in human history, is the symbol of one of Industrial Society's most illustrious nations. How appropriate is it, however, that this icon alone should symbolize the capital of a country that is struggling to cope with the chaotic structure and dynamism of post-industrial society? To see Paris it is not enough to roam its streets. Paris is a city that comes into focus the more you look at it... And as you look, you see that it is also a city of love and loneliness. The stark contrast between its external brilliance and the sadness of its inner life is evident in the city's face, making that loneliness all the more poignant. Perhaps it harbors sadness in its heart, but because it expresses that sadness in a riot of mad color it whispers the lines of a completely different poem in the human ear:
L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante/Love goes away like running water flows/L'amour s'en va/Love goes/ Comme la vie est lente /How slow is life/Et comme l'Espérance est violente/And violent like Hope/Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure/Night comes the hour chimes/Les jours s'en vont je demeure/The days pass, I remain.


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Ruminations, May 18, 2014
Is inflation on the horizon or not? It depends on who you ask.
Paul Krugman, economist and columnist for the New York Times, is scornful of those who are concerned about inflation. In fact, he believes that a cure for the economy is a fiscal program that would produce more inflation.
Can inflation be a problem? Of course it can, but Krugman is not worried. Neither is former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner who, in response to a question by Fox' News Bret Baer, responded that the Fed can "absolutely" control inflation if it happens to occur – although he acknowledged that a one percent increase in interest rates would put interest payments higher than the budget for the Department of Defense.
Fed Chief Janet Yellen isn't worried about inflation yet either. As the economy improves, she believes that people will return to the workforce and that will keep employment inflation non-existent. (The Fed relies on what is known as the Phillips Curve, which states that as unemployment goes up, inflation goes down and vice versa. However, former Fed Chiefs Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker think that the Phillips Curve is a lot of hooey.)
It looks like the big guns aren't worried about inflation so why should we be concerned? Well, it almost seems that for every economist's opinion, there is an equal and opposite opinion. And so it is here.
Economist Martin Feldstein thinks that the Fed has been paying too little attention to inflationary risks. The late Milton Friedman said that when a nation has high monetary growth, as we have had, the risk of high "inflation is always and everywhere." And economist Alan Meltzer last week wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled, "How the Fed fuels the coming inflation."
Well! We have opinions that contradict each other and from knowledgeable economists. Maybe we need to consider what is happening in the real world. Krugman points out that inflation hawks have been concerned about inflation for years and there has not been significant inflation during that time. The Fed has been pumping money into the economy for years and there is little inflation. Could Krugman et alia be right?
They could … but they could also be wrong. In April, the consumer price index (CPI) jumped 0.3 percent – an annualized figure of 3.6 percent – and the producer price index rose 0.6 percent – three times what analysts expected. To be sure, that is only one month's worth of data. On the other hand, the CPI increase is twice the Fed's target (approximately 20 percent over 10 years), enough to prompt Greenspan to state "the presumption that [inflation is] no longer on the horizon … is a mistake."
"Why is there such a weak response to such an enormous amount of stimulus, especially monetary stimulus?" Meltzer asked. While admittedly there was a large financial component to the Great Recession, the Fed has focused exclusively on that component – that's the only area where they can have an impact. So the Fed printed more money, assuming that this semi-inflationary action would prompt economic expansion. Instead, businesses and lenders reacted to losses that the Great Recession inflicted upon them – and to the uncertainty of new Federal restrictions (such as the Dodd-Frank Act and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). So, as the old aphorism says, "when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." The Fed's only tool was the money supply so they naturally increased it.
And then there's the Keystone pipeline. Had construction begun when the pipeline was first approved, it would have been operational last January. Since it is not operational, oil producers have resorted to moving the oil via rail, causing a severe shortage of rail capacity. Last Wednesday's Wall Street Journal reported that "The rail snarls have created a backlog in fertilizer supplies, raising fears that farmers … won't have adequate nutrients to sow corn, wheat and barley. At the same time, farmers have struggled for months to get enough rail capacity to ship grain harvested last year to processing plants." And what effect do you think that this will have on food prices?
When the Fed's policies fail, they look for excuses. Now, it must be admitted that the Fed policy of printing money has created inflationary pressures. But rather than saying that it hasn't created jobs and stimulated the economy, they use excuses such as, "it would have been a lot worse without more fiat money," or to blame one-time events (the cold winter, el Nino, the Japanese tsunami, the Greek bailout, the sequester or debt ceiling debates.) If and when things go well, there will be no excuses.
Who is right about inflation? Is it Krugman, Geithner and Yellen? Or, is it Feldman, Friedman and Meltzer? If you took a poll among economists you would find no consensus. Will the Fed policies lead, as some have suggested, to financial speculation, instability and inflation? "It's premature frankly to jump to that conclusion," Yellen remarked in a forum last month. But then she added, "There can be surprises."
Quote without comment
Economist Allan H. Meltzer, writing in the Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2014: "Never in history has a country that financed big budget deficits with large amounts of central-bank money avoided inflation. Yet the U.S. has been printing money -- and in a reckless fashion -- for years."


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Price: $9.95
The Cache La Poudre/Big Thompson Trails Illustrated map is the most comprehensive recreational map for the eastern gateway forest and wilderness areas surrounding Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.
Coverage includes Arapaho and Roosevelt national forests, Cache La Poudre River and Wilderness, Poudre Park, Pinewood Springs, Midway, Glen Haven and Homestead Meadows, Big Thompson River and Canyon, Pinewood Lake, Lake Estes, Viestenz Smith Mountain Park.
More than just a map, National Geographic Trails Illustrated topographic maps are designed to take you into the wilderness and back. Printed on tear-resistant, waterproof material, this map can go anywhere you do. Each map is based on exact reproductions of USGS topographic map information, updated, customized, and enhanced to meet the unique features of each area. The maps include valuable wilderness tips and "Leave No Trace" guidelines, along with updated trails, trailheads, points of interest, campgrounds, and much more. With a new color palette and stunning shaded relief, backcountry navigation has never been easier.


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Corey Antonio Moore
Position: LB
Height: 5-11 Weight: 225 lbs.
Born: March 20, 1977 in Brownsville, TN
High School: Haywood
College: Virginia Tech (school history) (Moore college stats)
Drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the 3rd round (89th overall) of the 2000 NFL Draft.
Weighted Career AV (100-95-...): 2 (11632nd overall since 1950)
Sponsor this page for $5 and help Pro-Football-Reference.com provide this service. Your message will replace this ad.
Output includes all games from 1920 to 2015.


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Fairfield Guest House5
FAIRFIELD GUEST HOUSE Trellech Road, Llandogo, NP25 4TL
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About the hotel
This 5* rated guest house is set in the scenic Wye Valley in Llandogo, Monmouthshire. It offers en suite rooms with free Wi-Fi and peaceful secluded gardens, 3. 5 miles from Tintern Abbey.
Smart rooms at Fairfield Guest House feature views of either the gardens or the Wye Valley, a flat-screen TV, and tea and coffee making facilities. There is also a suite with its own private lounge area, and all guests can enjoy the property's sitting room, study & sun terrace. Breakfast includes fresh fruit, cereals and cheeses, along with cooked options including egg, locally sourced sausages and thick cut bacon. Evening meals are available upon request and packed lunches can be provided for days out. The Wye Valley Walk & Offas Dyke footpath are both close by. The area is ideal for walkers & cyclists and Fairfield offers secure equipment storage. Fairfield Guest House has free private parking, is within 15 minutes' drive of Monmouth & Chepstow and holds a Welsh Tourism Gold Award for 2014.
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- TV , [Channels] News , [Channels] Childrens , Radio
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Reinprecht, Sharkey and U.S. Field Hockey Headed to Pan Am Semifinals
After going 3-0 in group play, Katie Reinprecht '13, Kathleen Sharkey '13 and the U.S. Field Hockey National Team have advanced to the semifinals at the 2013 Pan American Cup in Mendoza, Argentina. Team USA is set to play northern rival Canada on Thursday, Sept. 26 at 5:30 p.m. ET.
The U.S. opened the tournament amidst a snow flurry, but came out with a 6-0 shutout victory over Mexico on Sept. 21 behind a pair of Reinprecht insurance goals.
The next day the Americans displayed resilience overcoming early pressure by Chile to earn a 5-1 win. The Chileans struck first, but Sharkey was there five minutes later to knot things up with a rocket from the top of the circle.
In Team USA's final match of the group stage versus Uruguay both Princetonians found the back of the net in its 6-1 victory on Sept. 24. Sharkey put the U.S. up 4-0 with 30 seconds left in the first half and Reinprecht closed out the team's scoring effort by getting the ball in a scrum to add the sixth goal.
For live in-game updates follow @USAFieldHockey.


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Tonight at the Pickwick Theater, 5 South Prospect Ave., Park Ridge, the Tyrone Power Centennial (1914-2014) gets underway with a special screening of two Power classics--"In Old Chicago," and "Jesse James."
Providing pre-screening entertainment will be the Chicago Silent Film Society's Jay Warren, who will be enlightening guests via the 1928 Mighty Wurlitzer, beginnign at 6:30 pm. The films begin at 7 pm, and admission is $7 for adults and $5 for seniors.
Also in attendance will be Taryn Power-Greendeer (daughter of Tyrone Power) and Michael Butler (Godson of Tyrone Power) to introduce the films.
Limited edition copies of Romina Power's biography Searching For My Father Tyrone Power will be available for purchase.
Tonight's screening is part of the Pickwick Classic Film Series. For more information go to www.parkridgeclassicfilm.com