text:
LIVE BLOGGING: One Daddy's BlogHer Weekend Alone With The Kids!Serge Bielanko
Monica is off to the Big Apple.
This time, she's off to a thing called BlogHer, which is a convention for…well, bloggers. Lady ones, in particular.
So, I have Violet and Henry all to myself until Saturday night. That's approximately 60 hours of solo wrangling ahead of me.
Wish me luck.
Monica, for her part, may chime in from time to time on her end, but there is no guarantee from me on that. It's understandable, I guess. I mean, when you're partying with other bloggers in Manhattan, chugging down wines and beers and Jager shots out in the real world, in the big town, the last thing you're probably gonna want to do is more cyber scrawling, but what the hell do I know?
So, join me, as I bring you The Amazing Adventures of Violet, Henry, and Me, in real real time.
Thursday, August 2nd
Monica, 10:02AM: First time blogging from a phone here. Hell, it's my first time blogging from a bus.
I am on a Manhattan-bound MegaBus.
A jam-packed bus. But I don't mind. All I have to do for the next four hours is sit here. After day after day after day of full-time parenting, sitting elbow-to-elbow with a stranger is a damn vacation, is what it is. Scored the armrest. I think it belongs to me anyway. I am next to the window using the middle armrest, which I think is mine as my seatmate has sole access to the aisle armrest.
Sooo … Am headed to BlogHer because I live pretty close to NYC and because Babble is having a little shindig, and it's nice to meet folks you work with when you can. It's nice in theory, I mean. For me it is often awkward because I am so socially awkward. Now, don't get all excited that you might find me in a bathroom stall making the acquaintance of a full-blown anxiety attack or anything fun like that. I hide the panic well. It's all on the inside. The only giveaway that I am dying on the inside is loud talking and excessive complimenting.
It's what I do.
What I don't do — SERGE — is Jager shots.
Mostly, I am excited to see NYC. To wander down busy streets and feel electrified just by being there. I have had a crush on the city since I was a kid. Serge seems to think London is competitive but to me New York City is beyond compare. I can't wait to bring Violet and Henry for the first time. Show them Mom and Dad's first apartment as a married couple, the spot on the sidewalk out front with S + M and Max carved into the concrete circa 2005. It's where the story of our family really got underway…
Serge, 11:05 AM: Okay, so she's off to the Big Apple.
Violet is at daycare for a couple more hours and I just put Henry down for a nap.
There is always a nervous energy that comes over me in the first few moments of being alone with the kids. I get both excited and a little leery because, let's face it, anything can happen. The last time Monica went away, the kids both got pretty ill almost as soon as she walked out the door. And this time seems a bit better though, to be honest, Hank has a very runny nose and Violet had one just yesterday, so I have that to contend with.
Overall, though I will take that as opposed to the hive mania and up-all-night symptoms of my first weekend alone with them.
As I sit here writing this in my garage, the sound of Henry's Brazillian Lullabye is wafting across the driveway from the window where I have the baby monitor set up.
It's a gentle scene, way different than the chaotic one Monica will be living in the next few days. And I hope that is a sign of things to come.
Serge, 12:13 PM: I went to the doctor's this morning "to get my … prescription filled." I have never been to this guy before but Daddy needs his anti-depressants and so, once a year, I have to put on my nicer Willie Nelson concert shirt and my cleanest cargos and comb my mop and march into someone's office to tell them that I would like for them to sign off on yet another Golden Year of Pharmaceutical Candy for me.
As I was getting ready to leave, the nurse hands me a bunch of papers that cover every spectrum of survival known to humanity, from bug bites to lightning strikes to diseases.
'Hey thanks so much!,' I told her.
But really I was like …WTF?
Then I get back home here, ready to take this whole weekend with the kids by storm and I start leafing through the papers and chuckling to myself when I come across this one that has a big chart on it.
Figure out your BMI, it promises! Figure out your own Body Mass Index!
Hmmmm, okaaaaaay. I bite. I start doing the crazy additions and divisions like it tells me, plugging in my height here/my weight there/adding 262,206 for whatever the hell reason they came up with that step.
I get my final number and roll my finger up to the top of the paper to check what the final word is here.
Then: bam!
That's what it says I am. Not 'overweight,' mind you. Nonononono, that category is unfit for me.
I land in the f-in OBESE column!
Next time, just give me my damn pills and kiss my ass.
Obese. Unreal.
(BTW, I am 5'9″ and weigh 487 pounds. So, you know, they are liars.)
Monica, 1:15 PM – My seatmate is maybe the greatest seatmate of all time. Tiny woman who folded into herself like origami the second she sat down, put on her headphones, lowered her hat and hasn't moved since noon. I am listening to some intense Radiohead (intense Radiohead is redundant, right?) and feeling like I should be thinking deep thoughts but am really quietly geeking out on the fact that I am sending out these little web missives from a bus! In the middle of nowhere! I will never get over technology.
I like riding the bus. Much better than a plane. Buses are adventurous and the American landscape is endlessly fascinating. We are maybe an hour away from that first sighting of the NYC skyline. I always get jazzed for that. I just ate a protein bar and drank a tomato juice and am wondering if Serge felt my smug condescencion all the way back home. Yesterday he told me my newly purchased flax seeds and protein powder give me a "condescending air." It made me chuckle because flax seeds ARE condescending. Other condescending foods include tofu and related products (tofurkey!), wheat grass, all Starbucks specialty drinks, pistachios and tiny finger sandwiches. But flax seed is exceedingly condescending. Like, the Gwyneth Paltrow of the food world.
Serge, 2:06 PM: Just brought back Violet from daycare and whipped up some lunch for her and H.
Here's how that went:
– I serve the First Course of the meal. Multi-colored Goldfish crackers. They are a hit. They are always a a hit.
– I ask Violet if she wants a hot dog like Henry is having. She says, "yes."
– After nuking two hot dogs and chopping Henry's into small slivers, I cover each with yellow mustard and ketchup.This might be the most Americana lunch of all-time.
– I present each child with their hot dog.
– Neither kid touches it.
– Violet asks for yogurt. I play hardball and tell her to eat her dog first. She pretends I don't exist.
– Henry decides to touch his hot dog and paints himself with chunks of it so that he looks like a Jackson Pollack.
– He doesn't eat any of it though.
– I wipe cheeks and clean shirt-fronts and cave in to the prisoners in the yard rioting for yogurt. Then, I set them free.
– I am a 40-year-old man eating off a Goofy's face on a Disney plate. I pop a bits of hot dog nub salad, splattered in condiment paint all mixed in with Goldfish crackers, into my gob as I look out the window.
-I am glaring out the window.
-To the east.
– I am evil-eyeing the sky stretching away back over the ridges towards New York City.
Serge, 2:49 PM: We just had a hardcore Tinker Toys session on the playroom floor in which I made a dog and Henry destroyed it and Violet attacked Henry.
Now, I'm trying to type this on the couch and H just showed up with the Tinker Toy box and he has that wild beautiful look in his eye.
It's ON!
Serge, 3:59 PM: Henry and Violet are in 'Quiet Time' now. Man, what a good idea that has been so far. Every afternoon, we take them into their rooms and let them just chill out in there for a while.
Henry usually takes a good nap.
Violet … well, she is a different story. Some days she kills it, just laying back with a dinosaur book or some stickers and winding down until she zonks out for a spell. But, just as often, Monica and I just settle in for some
'afternoon delight writing, when we hear the creak of a door/patter of footsteps/and there she is, proclaiming things like,"Hey, what's goin' on? I'm back!!!"
Then, it's one of those strangely tense situations when my wife and I stare at each other across the room and try and convince the other one, with gunfighter eyes, that it's THEIR turn to try and convince Violet to return to her sanctuary/give us a bit of space and time to
get busy work.
But, so far this afternoon, I'm not hearing so much as a peep from up there.
So, I think I'm just going to sneak off for a few hours of fishing!
Psyche. I wish.
Truth is though, there is something inherently calming in knowing that big love is just a flight of stairs away, but at the same time, knowing it isn't right there in your face for a little while. 'Quiet Time' started as an idea. And now, it's an institution of higher chillaxing.
(Okay, it's 4:10 PM exactly. Now that I just wrote that, I want to time how long it is before someone shatters this peace. I give it six minutes tops.)
Serge, 4:22 PM: No lie. Violet just appeared with her stuffed dalmatian and announce, " Hi Dad! I have dalvation!"
'Quiet Time' is officially over, I guess.
So be it.
Monica, 4:44 PM: This is what I look like right now. So if you are here and see me, come over and say hello because this is what I will look like for most of the night, only more so of THIS as the evening progresses. Because, well, this was taken Before Alcohol:
And now I must adjourn to the subway to go to this here thing where I will meet very exciting women and then I am headed to a party at Babble HQ. I will try and get the gossip on all the folks behind the scenes at Babble so I can dish it all here on Babble. It will tear a hole in the space time continuum .
Serge, 6:06 PM: Just back from a double-stroller walk up the country road.
Things were okay until we saw the 'little white puppy' who lives up at an Amish joint. She always comes out to say hello to passers-by and this time was no different. Knowing that Violet likes the pup, I offered for her to come down out of the stroller and pet the dog.
Bad mf move.
As soon as my daughter gets out of the seat she begins to lose her sense of humanism and calm afternoonism. I'm standing there dripping bullets of sweat down onto the front walk of the Amish people's house as I become witness to my kid turning into a nasty werewolf critter right before my eyes.
She starts wiggling and squealing and my first thought is that maybe she has a wasp in her butt-crack or a honey bee in her ear hole. Then she is crying out that she scared the dog, which she didn't incidentally/the dog is like 250 years old and has seen werewolves before/I just know it.
I'm a little dazed now, standing out in the sunshine.
Henry thinks her little fit is funny; his chin is propped up on the plastic bar on the side of the stroller and he is giggling something fierce. Even if she had lunged deep into my windpipe and come back out dripping some of my vocal chords down her messy chin, ol' Henry would have just sat there and enjoyed the show, I reckon.
As far as Henry knows, hell, if a man has to perish in a wolfkid's jaws right there beside his ride, well….he might as well take in the entertainment while it happens. This is a small village, after all, and no one can say for certain when excitement might get all lost and wander down these scattered lanes again.
"Violet!", I scolded her a little in my best trying-to-keep-cool-in-the-presence-of-the-Amish voice, a sharp tangy cheese of snake-strike speed that I keep tucked under my breath, like an old forgotten tooth sleeping for centuries under a Victorian dust pillow.
She responded by bolting away from me and screeching, "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" She ran out into the road.
Now, see, that right there?
That right there is one of my pet peeves, you know?
I am a nervous-ish man by nature, standing on a bundle of twitchy jitters out there somewhere between Woody Allen and, I dunno, Howie Mandell? And, I do my best to keep my steel polished when I'm with the kids, but it doesn't always end up staying that way.
Kids can smudge things without lifting a crummy thumb. A kid could wipe snot across the face of the full moon if they wanted too. They have powers we don't know about. They can do shit we don't even wanna know about.
But, I hate the running out into the road thing. Its so…amateur. It's so sloppy and un-thought-out, And it can't ever be good.
Ghosts play in the road.
Dead vapors play out in the road.
She didn't get twelve steps away from me when she took a header all on her own and skinned a knee and laid down on the loose stones and the concrete and gave away the fact that she was a tired-ass little girl who skipped her nap and all the world was gonna pay for it.
Or at least, Daddy was.
I couldn't be mad now. She was ashamed and confused and spider-bit, laying out there at the feet of the ghost who did me the favor and tripped her up.
I helped her back over to the stroller, Henry looking at us, smiling, waiting for the punchline/'there better be a punchline, Dad'.
We made it back to the house, the walk cut short by things we cannot see or control.
We made it back and I threw some fish sticks and fries in the oven for them and some Miller Lites in the fridge for me.
We made it back.
We always seem to get that part done, at least.
Serge, 8:20 PM: I was tucking Violet into bed when she looked up at me sleepily and asked, 'Dad, can I go to the potty?"
We went in together.
She ended a really cool interesting day by presenting me with her fourth pee-pee in the potty in as many days.
What a way to march off into the sunset.
Thanks, kiddo.
I love you so much.
(Talk to you guys tomorrow morning. Hope you'll stop by.)
Friday, August 3rd
Serge, 8:30 AM:
Oatmeal for me and Violet.
Henry is still asleep, which makes sense since I heard him crying on the monitor at about 4 this morning and went in there to find him sitting up, Indian-style, in his crib.
He had a look of utter bewilderment on his face. I could tell he wasn't sure if he was in Dreamland or back in the real deal.
I literally poked his arm with my pinky and he tipped over on to his blankets. My guess is that he was out like a light again before he even hit the mattress.
Getting up in the night for a crying kid always sucks, there's just no two ways around that. But, if they all went back down as easy as Henry did early this morning, we'd never even bother to mention it.
So, I reckon I have to remember exactly what I fed him yesterday.
And then feed him that same stuff for the next six years or so.
We all want different experiences out of our experiences, I reckon.
New waves wash up on our beaches, and new ideas get left behind there, mixed in with all the seaweed and busted oyster shells and severed crab pinchers (who the hell is disarming so many crabs anyhow…is anyone looking into that?) So, we are constantly re-inventing ourselves as people and as entities without even knowing it half-the-time.
Monica, my wife is a great example of this lately.
There was a time when she would have had a wild time out there in the Manhattan night.
There was a gal, the gal I fell for, who would have been hitting the parties at the BlogHer convention and schmoozing and sipping on wines and beers and laughing in the middle of a crowd, her eyes lit up like 65th floor skyscraper windows in the setting sun.
But not anymore, I guess.
She called me late last night and told me that she had skipped all of the parties and the revelry. Instead, the newly gentle mother of my children went alone to one of her favorite places in the city, The New York Public Library.
And rather than running with some wild crowd drinking and galavanting down those city streets, she chose to sit in the urban dusk and sip on a take-away chai and read from the sacred texts of Buddha, first by sunlight…and then by lamplight, as the traffic and people and the swift ephemeral hours passed her by unnoticed.
Alone, isolated, adrift on a sea of knowledge, my wife, clung to the bobbing driftwood of her inner-most contemplations.
I am very proud of her for reaching that higher level of consciousness, too.
I know I damn sure couldn't have done it.
I know I would have partied my face off until somebody drug my ass back to my hotel room; or anybodies room; or a half-decent spot behind a Hell's Kitchen alley grease-dumpster for that matter.
It's almost too much for me to buy.
But, that's what she told me.
And, to each her own, I guess.
Monica, 9:30 AM: He's lying, of course. About reading at the library. As a result of the nervousness of meeting new people I ended up drinking too much on an empty stomach and got sick.
I blame everyone but me. People just kept handing me drinks and, in an effort to be polite, I drank them, I guess. Because I don't even remember ordering my own drink! So I got a little loopy because I AM SO DAMN POLITE. It is a cross I will have to bear.
I am sitting here recalling snatches of conversations I had with people I admire and hoping I wasn't an idiot. I got to meet a lot of the folks behind the scenes at Babble. There are my favorite ladies, whom I've met before – Andrea and Dara – and I got to talk to Jack, whom I've long admired, whose life seems to be unfolding in the same vein as an action/adventure movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The guy is definitely taking the road less traveled and I really admire that, really dig getting the chance to talk to someone of his intellectual caliber.
I got a little loopy and have a vague memory of getting all drunkenly sentimental on Amy — she of Amalah fame. You can also find her right here on Babble Voices. I finally got to meet Tracey (Sweetney!) and her super hunk of a baker man, Charlie, who is as smooth in person as he appears in pictures and who, I'm told, rescued my enormous SocialLuxe swag bag from a dirty New York City sidewalk after I left it behind.
It was all fun and crazy and overwhelming for someone who rarely gets out of her little neck of the woods in Central Pennsylvania. Not only meeting so many new people all at once, but meeting co-workers, employers (that I am trying very hard to impress because they help mama pay the bills, yo) and mostly, meeting people whose words have long inspired me — particularly Tracey, Amy and Katie Granju.
Katie. Dear Katie … Thanks for the assist.
And so day 2 begins with me blogging in my underwear, looking out a window at the jagged skyline of the Upper West Side – roofs of buildings so filled with charm they could play the backdrop for a chimney sweep dance that could rival the epic scene in Mary Poppins, terraces filled with trees – gardens in the sky.
I am just blocks from my old job working as a news producer at WABC on Lincoln Square. I think I'll go get myself my favorite fatoush salad from the Greek joint down the street and hit Central Park.
Serge, 10:31 AM: Trip to duck park postponed til afternoon due to Henry's complete bath-time meltdown and unpredicted need to nap.
When that kid come unhinged, he come UNHINGED.
Am still quivering from the fallout.
Serge, 11:15 AM: Me and Violet just watched Dumbo for the 662nd time.
It never gets old, really. Old Disney stuff still maintains some kind of real magic. The years don't sand it down at all. Now: Bambi. I keep meaning to get a copy of the soundtrack on vinyl off Ebay. It's actually some pretty elegant music; classy and parlor-esque (is that a word? what does it mean?).
Be damned.
Did I just say I was in the market for the Bambi soundtrack?
My how times has changed.
It's weird but having a DVR on our TV has proven to be pretty astounding for us. I try and capture stuff like Bambi and Dumbo and I keep waiting some other classics to come around because Violet seems to love them a lot. And Henry digs whatever big sis digs.
What was the one with Brer Rabbit/Zip-a-dee-doo-dah? I wanna record that one too.
The other thing Violet is real into these days?
Old original Scooby-Doo. I keep hearing Casey Kasem's voice rolling out of the playroom, which is slightly creepy, to be honest.
Anyway, it's getting super-mighty retro up in here lately, and I'm down with that.
Serge, 3:29pm:
In drive-thru line at at Burger King an hour ago; I had promised Violet some ice cream since she had been a great girl this morning as she waited patiently for Henry's endless nap to end; she was excited to be getting her small chocolate milkshake.
Me: Wait, I just ordered you hot soup. You said you wanted hot vegetable soup, right?
Violet: Ummm…hot soup?
Me: You said you DID NOT want ice cream, right? Or did I hear you wrong?
Violet: Okay.
Me: Okay, what? Is hot soup okay? You like hot vegetable soup, don't you?
Violet: (whispers through her confusion) Hot soup?
Me: Yeah! Hot potatoes and big carrot chunks and hot celery flavor! Does it sound good?
Violet: Nooooooooo. I wan chocwit icecweem.
Me: Oh man! I thought you said soup! I think it's too late now! I got Henry his ice cream because he said that's what he wanted, but you said soup, right?
Violet, No, Daddy, I didn say soop! I sayed chocwit icecweem!
(I pay and get the stuff and quickly put her milkshake down next to my feet on the floor.)
(We pull over into a parking spot.)
Me: Okay Henry, here's your ice cream!
Me: Violet, your soup is too hot yet, I'm going to keep it here until it cools off, okay?
Violet: (staring out the window, barely audible) Too hot?
Me: Okay, here it is…you're hot vegetable soup. (The shake has whipped cream on top and a cherry and the whole nine yards)
(She paws it and looks at it closely.)
Violet: It's not hot!
Me: (smiling) Oh Daddy! You fooled me! You made me think it was HOT SOUP! Oh Daddy!
Violet: (stares out her window/bringing the first flow of shake up the long straw pipe/ a weak smile appears as she drops straw from her lips.)
Violet: Oh, Daddy. (she offers, ever so weakly.)
Serge, 4:56PM: Henry is napping,but Violet came into my room ten minutes into 'Quiet Time' again.
No breaks for either of us then, I guess.
So, she crawled up on the pillow beside me where I was typing and I said," Okay, name an animal.
"Cows," she blurted, without missing a beat.
So I typed in cows for my idea and lo and behold ten seconds later she was in hysterics as we watched this. (PS: don't eat the brown acid)
Video: YouTube/Cyriak
Serge, 9:02pm:
Man, I am whipped.
This solo wrangling stuff is so demanding.
You are the ref, the cook, the policeman, the bartender, the driver, the bodyguard, the politician, the preacher, the program director, the cheerleader, the partner, the enemy, the confidant, the therapist, the interventionist, the nurse, the doctor, the stretcher, the butcher, the cheese monger, the water company, the electric company, the first responder, the traffic light, the laundress, the janitor, the bank teller, the bank, the napkin, the tissue, the paper towel, the towel, the jester, the joker, the roadie, the band, the King, the Peasant, the ass-wiper, God, and Darth Vader all at once.
In line, at the Walmart check-out, I went to pay for some crap a few hours ago and I just couldn't even remember the pin number for my ATM card. It's a number seared into my steak. It's carved into my trunk.
But, I just stood there, unable to look the clerk girl in the eye, punching in numbers that make no sense until she informed me that the card wasn't going to work now. I had flipped the damn machine.
I think I paid her with some of my fillings. I can't even recall.
We got the stuff though.
But, I'll be damned if I know where any of it is.
Probably, still in the bag, on the carousel of bags.
(Goodnight, then. It's beer-thirty. Thanks for reading/Talk tomorrow.)
Saturday, August 4th
Monica, 7:17am: Just talked to Serge. And Henry. "Hi mama. It's mama. It's mama. Bye mama". His tiny voice echoing down the phone killed me. I want to go home. Although it's a fantastic event and it's super cool to get to meet a few people and catch up with others, I don't think Blogher is for me. I think that, if I really enjoy someone's blog, if their words really inspire me, I think I prefer NOT to meet them. I really do. I'll probably write more about why I feel that way at a later date but, for now, I've got to head down to this Babble breakfast thing where an "exciting announcement" is going to be made. I think I'm going to try to move my bus up so I can leave at noon instead of four, so I've got to get going. I want to be sitting on my porch swing by evening.
Serge, 7:40am:
I felt her crawl into bed with me but I was way too dead to the world. Sleep had been mine, all mine, but in that instant of thumps and tiny grunts I knew that Violet was scaling the other side of the mattress.
And I knew that, with the snap of some celestial pair of God fingers somewhere in another cosmos, my sleep was over. My fate had arrived. At like 4:45 in the freaking morning.
Still, I pretended to sleep.
She didn't care.
"Daddy?" I could feel her breath all over my eye lids. She had moved in for an instant kill.
I gave no sign of life.
Hmph? I gave her one of those.
(It occurred to me then that it was my first hmph, actually. My first groggy response to the same toddler alarm clock that has been hopping into Saturday morning parental beds/pine needle piles since the birth of fire. I'm glad I was conscious enough to at least note the milestone)
"Daddy, wanna watch cows wit me?!" She was talking about that cow video I posted above. We'd watched it a whole lot since I first ran across it.
I thought about my plan of counter-attack here.
I mean, what are you supposed to do in this situation.
You aren't thinking too straight/you want sleep/sleep is gone/you have to accept things/it's her, your kid and yeah you like hanging with her, but now?/ you don't wanna be a bastard to your own daughter and blow her off totally/ you should extend the bounds of discipline a bit and blow her off totally/will this lead to everyday-waking-me-up-bullshit?/ should I be getting up now anyway?/ am I too lenient?/ she must be tired still/ I wonder if she's getting spoiled?/how do you know if you are not disciplinarian enough?/ that cows video is actually pretty hilarious/ I wonder how many people on Earth watch that cows video in the wee small hours/ I might be hungry/I need to get one of those remote control coffee-makers/ why not just put the coffee-maker on my nightstand?/she's still there/I haven't opened my eyes at all yet, but she knows that I'm in here/ she can hear my voices talking inside here, huh?/oh damn/ I'm about to watch dancing cows, huh?/I'm opening my eyes, I guess/ morning is here, I see that now/I'm opening my eyes now/there she is/there's the kid/smiling at me through the fifty shades of mf-ing five o'clock in the goddamn morning grey.
"Hi, Dad!" She's excited to have me now.
"Hey,"I mumble.
"Dad, wanna watch cows wit me?!"
What is that? She tacks on this whole 'with me' thing to just about every question/plea now and it suckers me in every time. How does she know to ply that sort of psychological stuff? It's unsettling how quickly a three year old can know the value of pandering to someone's weaknesses. She is still in diapers but she can scale some of my steepest castle walls without even spilling her drink.
"Okay. I guess so."
I hit a few buttons, the power hits the runway, lights light up, tap/tap/tap, she smiles in the monitor's glow, she squeaks.
Good morning, you fat beautiful weirdo cows.
Serge, 9:16am:
The only difference between this downstairs bathroom I am now hiding in and a Great White shark cage is: there is no difference.
Serge, 11:18am:
Talked to Monica a while ago and it sounds as if she is ready to come home.
For all the madness that life with young kids brings us, for all of the time it chews up and eats right in front of our faces, once you're in that life, the life of a parent, you miss it a lot when you leave. I think she's hit that wall now. Probably there are a lot of women in NYC at this BlogHer conference that are starting to feel that way.
It's so good to be able to walk away from those heavy responsibilities sometimes. It's actually healthy and essential. Constant cyclic life is do-able when we know that there will be respite here and there. But, routine can spoil hard when there is nothing on the distant horizon but more routine. So, I think Monica got what she needed this weekend. She had some laughs and some drinks and met a bunch of people and saw a few old friends.
Plus, she got to go to sleep for a few nights and wake up for a few mornings without having to stare down the barrel of everyday life.
Most of us can't really ask for more than that, right?
This morning, while it was still way earlier than we had any reason to be awake, I brought Violet down to have some breakfast. I made coffee for me, some pancakes for her.
At one point, I remember vividly talking to myself, asking myself whether I figured that I could actually squeeze an entire plastic thing of Key Lime Yoplait out into a bowl just by crushing the sides of the container. (Yes. The answer is yes, I could do that.)
When I turned around to dump some granola cereal on top of the green goo I remember registering that Violet was shoveling a fork full of pancake into her mouth first, with a second though immediately following that one which stated: Violet's face is also covered in blood.
She seemed oblivious to it, too, which, quite honestly, freaked me out beyond the heart attacks exploding down in my chest. Because, in all honesty, at this strange toddler junction in Violet's life, if she can find an excuse to whine or cry about something she usually will.
So, it scared the hell out of me. She was wiping red streaks across her entire face, painting her own self with her own blood, and she had no clue.
Talk about unsettling. It was a 'Shining' moment for me.
My first thought was like fifty-thousand thoughts, but I remembered that Monica often tells me that if I kind of freak out or shriek like a baby-bitch when a kid falls or something than you end up scaring them more than the fall itself will, so I tried my best to be cool.
"Oh my, Violet," I said to her. "You have a messy face, kiddo."
By now, I had figured out that her nose was bleeding and there was really no way for me to help get it sorted out without her being in on it, you know?
Still, like an idiot, I tried. Right in the middle of her pancake breakfast I acted like," Oh hey, Violet, daddy feels like holding you in his arms right now! Let's go sit on the couch and watch CNN and you can/must put your head in my lap, eyes skyward, okay!!??"
She must have seen the fear in my eyes.
Young noses bleed with particular horrific gusto and that was what I was peering at. She must have recognized that their was some slight tremble in my words, a sort of uncertainty that she wasn't at all comfortable with.
She was on to me. Then she looked at her wrist and she saw the wide smears of her blood.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, it's red! It's sooo red!,' she started up. The tears were quick to follow, of course, and I knew there was nothing I could do but get her to relax as best I could.
"Oh, this is nothing, kid. You just have a sharp booger up there, you see." I told her, trying to use my no-big-whoop tone." Stupid sharp booger, cutting up Violet's nose tunnel!"
"Stupid shark booger!," she echoed me.
In the meantime, I was thinking bad shit, man. I hate that about me, and I'm working on it, but my immediate thought was that she was having some sort of toddler stroke or something uncommonly insane like that.
I got her on my lap on the couch and used some tissues like a plug and talked to her as if we were splitting a bowl of ice cream in the evening. After a minute or two, the bleeding just stopped.
I called Monica, of course. I needed to process what I had just witnessed. That's how lame I am.
I whispered down the phone line to her, like a spy or a perv or something.
"Violet's nose was just bleeding. Can you hear me? Violet's nose. Was bleeding!'
She blew me off, told me kids with colds and nose bleeds go together like white on rice.
And, then, instantly, I felt better, which was all I guess I really wanted.
And then me and V went back into the kitchen and I wiped the red away with a wet paper towel and she finished up her pancakes and I had my first cup of coffee and that, thankfully, was that.
Serge, 3:42pm:
Monica is on an earlier bus and should be home in the next hour or so. I have to get the kids in the Honda ad go pick her up at the drop-off.
So, I'm closing this thing down now. Thanks a lot for joining me and the kids for the last three days.
Yo Adrian!


text:
Deborah Southwell offered mixed reviews of her two trips over the summer to the Allegiance Health emergency room.
The first time, she went for treatment of depression and suicidal feelings and after taking too many over-the-counter drugs.
"They didn't treat me very well," the Jackson resident said of the experience. "It took forever to see a doctor."
She said she waited about 20 minutes in the waiting room and then about two hours to see a doctor after she had been moved to a room.
"It was very smooth," she said. "Any time I've been in pain they've taken care of it."
That's the type of review Allegiance wants and hopes to earn more often by hiring a new contractor to take over the medical direction and physician staffing of its emergency room. Beginning Oct. 1, Royal Oak-based Independent Emergency Physicians will take over the job from the University of Michigan, which has had the contract since 1995.
"The culture is going to change down there," said Dr. Mark Smith, a Jackson native and partner with IEP, who will become emergency care and express care medical director for Allegiance.
A UM spokeswoman referred comment to Allegiance.
"Our patients have complained about long lengths of stay," said Jacalyn Liebbowitz, vice president for patient care continuum at Allegiance.
"Our goal is to get to a set length of time."
The most recent statistics show the average wait time in the Allegiance emergency department, from arrival to exit, is 3 hours and 46 minutes, hospital spokesman Shannon Scholten said. That compares to a national average of 3 hours and 42 minutes. Those statistics are from 2005, before the hospital opened a new emergency room.
Rising patient count
Allegiance serves about 63,000 patients a year who come through the ER doors, or about 180 a day, Liebowitz said.
"It keeps climbing," she said.
About 50,000 patients a year came to the emergency room five years ago, when the hospital began planning a $30 million addition to ease crowded conditions, and hospital leaders projected an increase to more than 67,000 patients by 2014.
The new emergency department, completed in January 2007, was said to be capable of handling 68,000 patients a year.
Rising patient counts are attributed mostly to a growing number of people without health insurance.
"More and more people don't have insurance and they use the ER for their primary care," Scholten said. "We don't anticipate that changing any time soon."
Likely because of the long waits, 3 percent to 5 percent of patients get up and walk out of the ER without being seen by a doctor. Liebowitz said one goal is to reduce that number to less than 1 percent within a year.
Patient-satisfaction surveys show 85 percent of emergency patients at Allegiance describe their care as good or very good, Scholten said.
However, at current patient levels, that score means about 9,450 patients leave the emergency room each year with a less-than-complimentary opinion.
Addressing wait times
One of the biggest problems is how long it can take to see a doctor.
Wednesday night, Jackson resident Jennifer Wetmore was walking her dogs when she tripped over a branch and injured her upper chest bone. In pain, she went to check in at the ER.
"They said it would be a four-hour wait before I could see anyone," Wetmore said.
She said she was advised by the staff to go to Allegiance Express Care, an urgent-care center located in the former Doctors Hospital on Elm Avenue.
There, she said she waited less than an hour and was treated and released.
One reason for long waits is that an emergency room relies on multiple systems to function, Smith said.
"It's not just the doctors' fault. It's not just the nurses' fault," Smith said. "It's a system problem."
The staff in the emergency department is excited about the changes, she said.
"They feel the frustration of long patient waits," she said. "It's a whole team that has to work together. I've had nothing but great feedback."
Liebowitz said the hospital conducted a national search and chose IEP because of its experience in improving the emergency care process.
IEP provides emergency department physician staffing for five other hospitals across the state.
Smith said IEP won't be increasing the number of physicians to help alleviate the long wait times. Instead, he said, the staff will focus on finding what is causing the delays.
Smith's staff will provide 80 hours of coverage in a 24-hour period, with four working during the ER's typically busiest times. There are 20 total ER physicians.
The UM physicians who work in the ER now were all offered positions with IEP, Smith said, but some were not interested. Smith did not know how many doctors are leaving but said at least four IEP physicians will be coming in.
"We're by no means kicking people out," he said. "Our goal is to take the physicians that are there and change the way they approach the same problems."
Stacy Stott said she went to the ER in July because a tumor in her lower back had caused internal bleeding, making her skin stretch very fast.
"This is something that is painful," Stott wrote in an e-mail. "I never had to wait for any pain medication. The doctors and nurses made sure that I was completely comfortable until I was able to be shipped to U of M for further treatment."
She said all of the Allegiance staff were kind and compassionate.
"I could not have asked for better staff members than I had that night," she wrote.
Southwell said she recognizes changes the staff has already been making and was pleased to hear the hospital is trying to further lessen wait times.
"In the last five years I've had more good experiences than bad," Southwell said. "I think that's a great improvement."
Staff writer Brad Flory contributed to this report.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
I don't believe in god... I do believe in the possibility of unwanted/unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.
'nuff said.
If I was a teen girl of an age to date/have sex with Gadsie I wouldn't have been in a long term enough relationship with him to be sure that he had never picked up something from some other girl.
And I probably don't want a baby... duh.
I may be blonde but I'm not stupid.


text:
Join the Indiana Youth Musicians for this two-part program. First we explore the various ensembles and instruments of classical music. The second program is a special interactive performance where children apply what they have discovered about classical music. Ages 3 and up.
MCPL Childrens Services
Notify me about similar events [5]


text:
St. Paul-area Lutherans on Saturday went on record against changing the state Constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and woman, the Star Tribune reports. About 430 Lutherans representing 115 congregations in the St. Paul Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted on a resolution opposing the marriage amendment at an assembly in Burnsville.
Meanwhile, organizers of Sunday's "One Day United" event hope to see thousands turn out at "house parties" throughout the state to pledge defeat of the ballot measure, WCCO reports. Gov. Mark Dayton plans to attend one.
CNN on Saturday had a feature story on Minnesota and its struggle with the issue of gay marriage.
CNN says: Minneapolis is a conflicted city. It's home to one of the largest gay pride festivals in the Midwest and was once dubbed the "gayest city in America" by The Advocate magazine. The metropolitan area is also home to the conservative power base of Rep. Michele Bachmann. And in six months, voters there and across the state will decide whether to amend the state's constitution to ban same-sex marriage. (Three other states will, too.)
This week, a group representing 80 Catholic priest broke with the church and said they did not support the marriage amendment, MPR and others reported.
It was just earlier this month that President Barack Obama became the first sitting president to publicly support gay marriage, in an interview he did with ABC News.
The Associated Press also examines how Obama's stance adds fuel to the fiery debate in states like Minnesota.
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow set up the debate to come in Minnesota in this report last year.


text:
Ken Scott Vintage
geometric print maxi dress
Out of stock
Unfortunately this item is out of stock
Brown and white maxi dress from Ken Scott Vintage featuring a geometric print, long sleeves, front button fastening and a standard collar. Please note that vintage items are not new and therefore might have minor imperfections.
Made in Italy
Designer Style ID: CN1500
Farfetch ID: 10316395
Models Measurements
- Composition:
- Nylon 100%
Your order will be shipped directly from the boutique to you. Farfetch ships worldwide, and you will be able to track your order at any time. The cost of shipping your order will be calculated at the checkout.
Import duties information
Delivery duties are included in the item price when shipping to all EU countries plus USA, Canada, China, Australia, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Singapore, Republic Of Korea, Kuwait, Qatar, India, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, U.A.E., Japan.This means all import duties are included in your order, so the price you see is the price you pay. You will not receive an additional duty bill from the courier to receive your shipment. If you are ordering from within your own customs zone or country, import duties will not be applicable anyway, however you may have to pay VAT or local Sales Taxes where applicable (for the UK and USA these are included at the checkout).
Delivery duties are not included in the item price when shipping to all other countries. This means you may be liable to pay import duties on receipt of your order.
Free returns pick-up
You have 14 days from receiving your order to return the item to the boutique using our free returns pick-up service. We strongly recommend that you book your free returns pick-up within 7 days of receiving your order to ensure that it arrives back to the boutique in time. Please note for standard orders we can only collect returns from the same country to which your order was delivered. For click and collect orders we can collect your return from the country your order was delivered to and also the country of the original boutique you ordered from. Click here to read our full returns policy.
Ken Scottis the designer of modernity and color, the "fashion gardener" with eclectic personality. His art is made by peonies, roses, poppies, sunflowers, petunias, asters, morning-glories. A dazzling bloom of flowers and nature splashed on shirts, foulards, beach-jamas, swimsuit, shirt waists, and then on bags, luggage, textiles and articles for the home, in a luxury ance of creativity quite fitting for what would become one of the most extraordinary seasons in fashion, a style that marked the 1960's, won cult status in '70s culture.


text:
Lindsay Lohan showed off her new cover of Nylon magazine with a party cohosted by DKNY Jeans at New York City hot spot Tenjune Wednesday night – but the crowd was buzzing that she was also showing off the new man on her arm: British TV personality Calum Best.
Joined by her mom, Dina, and a few friends in a private banquette by the DJ booth, Lohan, 20, sat next to Best, 26, all night (when she wasn't up dancing to Eminem or air kissing VIP well-wishers).
Just after midnight, Lohan and Best – who spent time together in London last fall and also kept close company while out on the town the previous night – shared a very discreet kiss.
After smiling as DJ pal Samantha Ronson spun Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" and posing for a quick photo with her mom and Best, Lohan focused again on the man a number of friends referred to as "her new boy toy," at one point leaning in for a 30-second smooch.
A moment later they were up, holding hands on their way out of the club. Their next stop: Marquee, where they also shared a couple of kisses before Lohan and friends called it a night shortly before 3 a.m.
Best and Lohan were first linked by the British tabloids last summer, and were spotted hitting the London nightlife scene in the fall after Lohan was a presenter at the World Music Awards there.
Meanwhile, Lohan also spoke to David Letterman Wednesday about pal Paris Hilton's jail sentence ("It's terrible") and her troubles while filming her new movie, Georgia Rule. "I was out too late a few of the times. I had a boyfriend. I was fighting with him," she said. "I was very immature. I was very irresponsible. And I understand that."
Reporting by TIFFANY HOPKINS
New British Beau for Lindsay Lohan?
Jamie McCarthy/WireImage


text:
Les Miles Impressed With UT's "Thong"
October 17th, 2011| by Lost Lettermen
Les Miles has done it again.
Just a week after brutally misspelling faux pas and channeling his inner Shooter McGavin, LSU's "Mad Hatter" started his Monday press conference by admiring Tennessee's "thong" of fans after the Tigers came out of Knoxville with 38-7 victory.
Tweeted Jim Kleinpeter of the The Times-Picayune: "#Miles: Les opens up by admiring the "thong" of fans in Knoxville, rather than "throng". This should be a fun week. #lsuau"
Considering that Neyland Stadium was filled with over 100,000 rabid Volunteer fans on Saturday, we're also assuming that he meant to say "throng," but with Les Miles, you never know.
Related: Les Miles' Top 10 Kookiest Moments [Nov. 2010]


text:
- Text Size:
- ASmall Text
- AMedium Text
- ALarge Text
Gov. Tom Corbett has signed an execution warrant for 57-year-old Hubert Michael Jr.
Photos: Pa.'s execution chamber
Michael is on death row for the 1993 murder of a 16-year-old Dillsburg girl. Trista Eng was walking along Route 15 near her home when Michael kidnapped her. He took her to some nearby state game lands and fatally shot her.
Michael's execution is scheduled for Sept. 22 at the state correctional institution at Greene, Pennsylvania.


text:
The following terms are often used to describe leases:
a. Direct
b. Full-service
c. Operating
d. Financial
e. Rental
f. Net
g. Leveraged
h. Sale and lease-back
i. Full-payout
Match one or more of these terms with each of the following statements:
A. The initial lease period is shorter than the economic life of the asset.
B. The initial lease period is long enough for the lessor to recover the cost of the asset.
C. The lessor provides maintenance and insurance.
D. The lessee provides maintenance and insurance.
E. The lessor buys the equipment from the manufacturer.
F. The lessor buys the equipment from the prospective lessee.
G. The lessor finances the lease contract by issuing debt and equity claims against it.


text:
Meet hot gay men at matchmakers' Roseway personals. Our site has thousands of queer men, gay, bisexual, transgender and transsexual Roseway gay personals area. Same sex relationships and looking for men seeking Roseway men then create a free profile today, it's easy!
RosewayJoin Now Free!
Roseway | Roseway Girls | Roseway Men | Roseway Lesbians
Black Singles | Asian Singles | Latin Dating
Matchmaker is a free Roseway gay personals site for your local area. We have the hottest attractive and available Roseway gay men on the Internet from cute bad boys to sexy older gay men; our site has it all! If you are a single gay man in Roseway and are looking for gay friendship, casual encounters or a serious relationship, create your free profile today!


text:
From Mirror reports
READING - Phil Irwin bent against the R-Phils on Thursday, but he didn't break.
Reading had a runner on third with less than two outs in the third, fourth and sixth innings, but Irwin got himself out of each jam in the Curve's 7-1 win at FirstEnergy Stadium. The contest was the rubber match in a three-game set and started 1 hour and 3 minutes late due to a rain delay.
The Curve had an offensive outburst in the eighth, scoring six runs, but every time Irwin got out of trouble, the game was knotted at 1-1. Though he doesn't get credit for a win, Irwin still had a solid outing, going six innings and allowing just one run on seven hits while striking out two.
Reading had runners on the corners with one out in the fourth, but Irwin got Darin Ruf - the Eastern League's RBI leader - to ground into an inning-ending double play. Irwin then dug his deepest hole in the sixth as he loaded the bases with one out, but Leandro Castro grounded out and Irwin struck out Jiwan James to escape the threat unscathed.
Altoona only had three hits in the eighth, but the team took advantage of two Reading errors and five of its six runs came with two outs in the frame. Brock Holt had the hit that broke things open, as his single scored both Anthony Norman and Elevys Gonzalez, and Greg Picart also came home on the play thanks to a throwing error by the left fielder Castro.
Fact Box
Next stop
Tonight: Altoona at Akron, 7:05 p.m.
Pitchers: Curve LHP Nathan Baker (3-6, 5.40) vs. Aeros RHP Paolo Espino (0-2, 3.43)
Record: 28-30
Holt was one of four Curve batters to have a two-hit performance, as Jarek Cunningham, Quincy Latimore and Jeremy Farrell all followed suit.
All six runs in the eighth were charged to Reading reliever Colby Shreve (0-1), but only one of the runs was earned. R-Phils starter Austin Hyatt did strike out seven in six innings while giving up one run, but his effort was wasted.
Jhonathan Ramos (2-0) relieved Irwin in the seventh and pitched a perfect inning to pick up a win. Kris Harvey closed things out with three strikeouts in two innings.
Game recap
Key player: SS Brock Holt was 2-for-4 with two RBIs.
Key play: Holt drove home two runs with a single in the eighth, and an error also allowed pinch-hitter Greg Picart to score on the play.
Key stat: The Curve are 5-2 in their last seven games.
How they scored
Top 1st: Holt walked, scored on Latimore single (1-0).
Bottom 2nd: Tripp solo homer (1-1)
Top 8th: Cunningham singled, scored on Farrell single (2-1); Durham intentionally walked, scored along with Farrell on Ruf error (4-1); Norman reached fielder's choice, Gonzalez reached on error, both scored on Holt single (6-1); Picart walked, scored on Castro error (7-1).


text:
Splits Emerge Among Egypt's Young Activists
CAIRO—Egypt's youth activists and opposition leaders are beginning to jockey for position, jousting over their revolutionary credentials and firing off accusations of going soft on the military, as the camaraderie that united them at the height of the uprising is replaced by rough-and-tumble politics.
Wael Ghonim, the Google Inc. marketing executive whose online activism was a critical rallying point for activists, has come under withering attacks from fellow activists for comments that some activists felt undermined their cause.
When Mr. Ghonim called on protesters to go home after President Hosni Mubarak ceded some power but refused to step down, many activists were outraged at what they perceived as premature surrender. Mr. Ghonim didn't respond to requests to comment.
After activists met Sunday with two generals on the council that is now running the country, Mr. Ghonim said on his Facebook page, "I trust in the Egyptian army." Others at the meeting said they needed more evidence of the military's commitment to democracy.
Three Facebook pages devoted to trashing Mr. Ghonim have gone online in the past few days. They have titles such as "Ghonim Traitor," and already have over 40,000 members.
"He's a good man, but I think he keeps saying things that aren't very politically savvy or strategic," said Ahmed Maher, a longtime friend of Mr. Ghonim and a member of the Revolutionary Youth Alliance.
After protesters of all stripes achieved perhaps the one goal that united them—the ouster of President Mubarak—grudges and rumor have joined substantive debates. Some youth followers of opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei have split amid disagreements over, among other things, how deferential to be to the military, and who has a right to claim a role in toppling Mr. Mubarak.
"It's all changing so fast, movements and parties are being born and disappearing and dividing and uniting and changing faster than anyone can keep track of it all," said Sally Sami, an activist with the Cairo Institute for Human Rights.
The military is proving to be a wedge issue. Human-rights groups raised new charges Thursday of torture by military police, who they allege are holding at least hundreds of detainees. The military has been silent on the subject of detainees in its public statements. On Sunday, Egyptian generals told activists the detainees would be released, the activists said.
On Thursday, Egypt's prosecutor said he had ordered the arrest of four ex-regime officials, including former Minister of Interior Habib al-Adly, as they face corruption investigations.
As Egyptian democracy springs back to life, the Muslim Brotherhood, banned under Mr. Mubarak, has said it will form a political party as soon as restrictions on doing so are lifted. It has one of eight spots on a military-appointed committee to amend the constitution—the only clearly partisan political force to get a seat, which has unsettled some secular opposition activists. Several groups of activists have announced their plans to form parties representing a broad range of ideologies, from revolutionary socialists to the fundamentalist and once-violent Islamic Group.
Revolution in 18 Days
Regional Upheaval
A succession of rallies and demonstrations, in Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Algeria have been inspired directly by the popular outpouring of anger that toppled Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. See how these uprisings have progressed.
Clashes in Cairo
Ghad Party head Ayman Nour, who ran against Mr. Mubarak in 2005, has declared himself a candidate for president.
Several activists said they have been infuriated by reports that Mr. Ghonim is among those who, some activists say, are in talks to form a party with Hossam Badrawy. Mr. Badrawy was named to head the former ruling National Democratic Party midway through the 18-day uprising and then abruptly resigned after Mr. Mubarak failed to step down when expected.
Mr. Badrawy, who has had a reputation as a reformist within the ruling party and earned occasional praise from activists, drove Mr. Ghonim home after he was released from detention in the midst of the uprising. Activists said it was a deft political move for Mr. Badrawi, who appears to be looking to distance himself from his ruling-party roots.
"The party issue is all in an early stage and premature to confirm," Mr. Badrawy said. "I am just meeting groups of citizens from all over the country trying to respond to requests."
Mr. Badrawy said he hadn't met with Mr. Ghonim in the past week, but he said "he would love to involve him."
Abdel Moneim Imam, a friend and political ally of Mr. Ghonim's, said the reports that Mr. Ghonim was linking up with Mr. Badrawy were baseless.
Mr. Imam said his own group, made up of supporters of Mr. ElBaradei, was in talks with Naguib Sawiris, the chairman of Orascom Telecom Holding SAE, about forming a party.
Mr. Sawiris said he "encouraged the young people to form a party," but is "waiting to see how the new constitution is formed," before deciding if he will be involved personally.
A rival ElBaradei camp is a major player in the Revolutionary Youth Alliance, a coalition of youth movements that helped to kick off the protests.The relationship between the two camps is acrimonious.
Mr. ElBaradei couldn't be reached to comment.
The alliance angered some activists after some of them went to the closed-door meeting with the military Sunday—which seemed to some to suggest they had assumed the right to negotiate on behalf of all the protesters.
Later, labor activists accused the Revolutionary Youth of selling out the workers after they endorsed the military's call for striking workers to return to their jobs.
"They're not real revolutionaries," said Gigi Ibrahim, a youth activist with the Revolutionary Socialists.
—Matt Bradley contributed to this article.
Write to Charles Levinson at firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
by Pete Prestipino
Posted on 02.15.2013
share this
Anyone who writes or develops content has been there before – at your desk staring at a blank screen and blinking cursor, because despite how hard you try to sit down and focus, nothing is coming out. In other words, you're trapped in the throes of writer's block.This problem has plagued creative professionals for as long any of us can remember, but it's likely worse in our digital age. Since we are expected to produce more content than ever, content publishers and marketers are scrambling to produce as much material as possible to drive visitors to their websites and increase engagement.Dealing with digital writer's block is frustrating for most Web workers (trust me), but not impossible. There are plenty of useful tactics that have had proven success for other professionals. So, ease your restless mind for a bit and look at these methods for overcoming the creative stalemate. BrainstormingWhen focusing is the problem, brainstorming is one of the best remedies. This is because it can help a writer organize his or her thoughts. In fact, writers should take 15 minutes to jot down all of the ideas that come to their head regarding a specific topic, and then organize those ideas by creating a mind map or an outline. Aside from old school pen and paper, there is also a multitude of mobile apps available to help with the organization process, such as Simple Mind, MindMeister or Mindjet.Social MediaWhile most writers use social networks to market their content, these sites should also be used to generate inspiration. However, if you don't want to spend time sifting through the random content in your feeds, there are many tools available that can help you pinpoint information, such as Monitter, Twitterfall and Inboundwriter. While both Monitter and Twitterfall can be used to discover and filter Twitter conversations relating to a specific subject, Inboundwriter not only assists writers in optimizing their content for search engines, but can also be used to find insights and popular topics from hundreds of sources on the Web, including social networks.RSS FeedsSometimes other authors can help you get rid of writer's block, which is why it is important to keep your RSS feed full of publications and blogs that relate to your expertise or topics of interest. After scanning headlines and skimming through a few articles, inspiration should strike. At the very least, you have given your brain a break from the task, which also helps combat writer's block.Change your RoutineRoutines are tricky. They can help keep someone organized and provide a sense of comfort, but can make life mundane (leaving little room for inspiration). This is why writers should test how changing a few aspects of their normal routine could negatively impact their writing process. For instance, looking at your social or RSS feeds during different times of the day may help you discover content you would have otherwise missed, while even taking a different route to work could present something as simple as a new billboard that could help spark inspiration. If all else fails...
Stop and WaitSometimes, when you're trying to produce the right words (or characters, these days), you can get a little overwhelmed; and the real kicker is that this anxiety usually only serves to prolong your bout with writer's block. In these cases, the best thing you can do is to stop staring off into your empty computer screen and just take some time to compose yourself and gather your thoughts, because obviously what you're currently doing isn't working.The time you spend not directly mulling over the topic at hand will allow you to free up your brain and get your creative juices flowing again. These kind of mental breaks are an absolute necessity to any creative professional, and if you're especially proactive, you can even take a few minutes to go for a walk or meditate, which are both proven methods for clearing your mind and getting it ready to go back to work. Plus, there's always the chance that you'll stumble upon something that will provide the inspiration necessary to finish your project. It can also help to strike up a conversation with other people; this not only serves as a good distraction for your overworked brain, but can be another source of inspiration, as well.However, the key to being able to do this is to set strict deadlines (either of your own or from some sort of supervisor). This is because everyone is likely going to fill up the amount of time they're given to complete a project. So, despite how much time you need to stop and ruminate on your work, you're going to have to complete it eventually. As you approach that deadline, the virtual adrenaline will kick in and (hopefully) help you finish, but that only works when there is a deadline in place.
Not already a part of our community? Sign up to participate in the discussion. It's free and quick.
The Changing Landscape of Affiliate Marketing...
Social Commerce Advancements that Sell
Google's Real-Time Penguin Finally Emerges
View all...


text:
Welcome to American Granite and Marble Concepts
Enhance your home with ageless beauty, inviting elegance and unsurpassed luxury. Enhance your home with American Granite & Marble.
American Granite & Marble is Northeast Ohio's premier natural stone countertop fabrication and installation company, serving a diverse customer base of homeowners, remodelers, builders and contractors throughout the area. In addition to stone countertops, our products and services include cabinets, cabinet design and install services, tile and tile installation services, various styles and models of sinks and Zodiaq, Silestone, Caesarstone and HanStone quartz surfaces. Doing so gives us a significant advantage over our competitors: a One Stop Shop. American Granite offers a full service operation from concept to design to completion giving consumers a variety of budget-friendly choices paired with unmatched customer service along the way!
See for yourself why American Granite & Marble is a leader in the natural stone industry for both your home and commercial space. Browse our website and learn more about the products and services that we offer. Discover the American Granite & Marble difference, and discover a wonderful new look for your home.
A product that not long ago was only found in extremely high-end homes has now become an affordable luxury for the masses. Prices vary greatly depending upon the type of stone, level of difficulty to quarry and fabricating techniques. American Granite & Marble offers more than 300 different color options to choose from.
What do we provide?
What products do we have?
Have a project? Get a quote
- Ready to get started? If you have a project coming up and are ready to get a quote, let us be the ones to help. Get Your Project Quoted
Our Location
American Granite and Marble Concepts
7325 Fairoaks Road
Oakwood Village, OH 44146


text:
The World Is Not Enough
Release Date: November 19th, 1999
PG-13|2 hr. 5 min.
Plot Summary
Bond (Pierce Brosnan) must race to defuse an international power struggle with the world's oil supply hanging in the balance. Elektra King (Sophie Marceau), is the daughter of a murdered oil tycoon whom Bond is assigned to protect. The villain is Renard (Robert Carlyle), who has a bullet lodged in his brain rendering him unable to feel pain. Also featuring nuclear weapons expert Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards).
Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards, Robbie Coltrane, Judi Dench, Desmond Llewelyn, John Cleese
Director: Michael Apted
Genres: Action
Distributor: Metro Goldwyn Mayer


text:
Borussia Dortmund midfielder Mario Götze has agreed to join Bundesliga rivals Bayern Munich next season. The attacking midfielder's release clause in his contract has been activated, according to his agent Volker Struth and his club, and he will join the German champions on 1 July. The fee is reportedly set at €37m (£31.5m).
Mario Götze to Join Bayern Munich from Borussia Dortmund
From Guardian.co.uk
Use your ← → (arrow) keys to browse more stories
Mike Hewitt/Getty Images


text:
Acer Aspire One D250-0BB
Average of 2 scores (from 1 reviews)
Reviews for the Acer Aspire One D250-0BB
The Frugal One. With the Aspire One A110/ A150, Acer has passed other Asus EeePC clones last year and reached the Netbook throne. It seems the Taiwanese company has found the right price-performance mix as they sold more and more items without any spectacular aspect and reached a market share of 37 %. With new additions, the product mix covers a wide spectrum of Netbook segment. We had reviewed the immediate successors Aspire One D150 and Aspire One 531 and now focus on the Acer Aspire One D250. Our review shows the improvements built into the model and how it fares with competitors.
Source: Notebookcheck DE→EN
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 06/14/2009
Rating: Total score: 85% performance: 48% display: 74% mobility: 89% workmanship: 90% ergonomy: 82% emissions: 83%
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 is an integrated (onboard) graphic chip on Mobile Intel 945GM chipset. It is a faster clocked version of the GMA 900 and supports no hardware T&L (Transform & Lightning) accelleration (which is required for some games).
These graphics cards are not suited for Windows 3D games. Office and Internet surfing however is possible.
» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List.
Intel Atom: The Intel Atom series is a 64-Bit (not every model supports 64bit) microprocessor for cheap and small notebooks (so called netbooks), MIDs, or UMPCs. The speciality of the new architecture is the "in order" execution (instead of the usual and faster "out of order" execution). Therefore, the transistor count of the Atom series is much lower and, thus, cheaper to produce. Furthermore, the power consumption is very low. The performance per Megahertz is therfore worse than the old Pentium 3M (1,2 GHz on par with a 1.6 GHz Atom).
Power efficient, cheap and slow Netbook single core CPU. Because of the in-order execution, the performance per MHz is worse than Core Solo or Celeron M processors.» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.
This is a typical display size for tablets and small convertibles.
Large display-sizes allow higher resolutions. So, details like letters are bigger. On the other hand, the power consumption is lower with small screen diagonals and the devices are smaller, more lightweight and cheaper.
1.07 kg:
This weight is typical for big tablets, small subnotebooks, ultrabooks and convertibles with a 10-11 inch display-diagonal.
Acer: Acer Incorporated is a Taiwanese multinational electronics manufacturer. Its product lineup includes desktops and laptops, as well as personal digital assistants (PDAs), servers and storage, displays, peripherals, and e-business services for business, government, education, and home users. Acer is the third largest computer manufacturer in the world (by sales) after HP and Dell Inc (2007). The company owns the largest franchised computer retail chain in Taipei, Taiwan. Originally named Multitech, it was founded in 1976. Gateway and Packard Bell are economically connected with Acer. Market share regarding sales of personal computers in 2007 (market research IDC): HP 18.9 %, Dell 16.4 %, Acer 9.9 %, Lenovo 7.5 %, Apple 5.7 %
83.5%: This rating should be considered to be average. This is because the proportion of notebooks which have a higher rating is approximately equal to the proportion which have a lower rating.
» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.


text:
Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Swartz, Muncy, observed their 50th wedding anniversary Oct. 5, 2012.
They were married by the Rev. Oscar Saxe at a Methodist church in Hughesville.
They are members of First Baptist Church of Elimsport, Allenwood.
Article Photos
Mrs. Swartz, the former Carol Bieber, is a native of Hughesville. She is the daughter of Alberta Bieber, Muncy, and the late Steven Bieber. She graduated from Hughesville High School in 1962. She was employed by the Williamsport Sun-Gazette as a motor route carrier in Elimsport.
Mr. Swartz, a native of Bryantown, is the son of the late Ethel and Carleton Swartz. He graduated from Hughesville High School in 1958. He was employed by the Williamsport Sun-Gazette as a motor route carrier in Allenwood and retired in 1996 from West Co. as a supervisor.
They are the parents of a son, Randy, Ocala, Fla., and a daughter, Yvonne Winters, Montgomery.
There are five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.


text: On the sunny side of the Albis Pass, at the entrance to the Sihl forest and a stopping place for many walkers on the way to the Hochwacht. Especially when it's all foggy below 800 m, sun-lovers are attracted to the restaurant's terrace. Here they serve mainly good traditional cooking, but lovers of Italian food will find something to please them too.


text:
Stop the Shame: Anger Is a Normal Part of ParentingBrian Gresko
Our anger bellows in a voice so loud and persistent it drowns out logic and reasoning, and sends our self-control scurrying. A fit of rage can be similar to drunkenness, scary and yet thrilling, a neurochemical roller coaster ride. Like a good cry, screaming and yelling and cursing leaves me pleasantly emptied of emotion, wrung out. Unlike sorrow, though, giving into anger also brings the shame and embarrassment of having gone too far, which is why, as Wendy Bradford's powerful essay on The Huffington Post makes clear, anger is an aspect of raising kids that parents rarely share with one another.
Bradford writes, "Rage in parenting is not something we talk about. It does not garner the empathy that sadness or apathy does. It is not passive, and it has innocent targets."
I struggled with anger during my first year as a teacher, when I taught at an under-performing public school in an impoverished area of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. I had only a few weeks experience in a classroom prior to meeting my fifth grade class and spent most of my nights as a student myself, in graduate school. Like a new parent, I was perpetually tired, overwhelmed, and had the sense of being behind the curve, not hip to some secret other teachers either knew or somehow intuited. I looked down the hall and saw colleagues who weren't hollering at their students to stay in their seats, who didn't seem to be walking on eggshells about to cry at the drop of a hat, or struggling with deep rooted feelings of failure and ineffectiveness, or suffering from insomnia and nightmares. Though I approached my classroom with good intentions and interesting lesson plans, I had no idea what to do when students began brawling on the classroom floor and school security wouldn't answer the phone, or when the principal told me to stop sending that loudmouthed smart aleck to her office as punishment, and parents asked me to not call them about their child's behavior and instead step up and run the class myself. It was disheartening, and the anger that grew inside me was something I had never experienced before that.
I recognize now that I was responding to feelings of being out of control. Part of the myth of parenting (and teaching) is that you can control your kids, that you can somehow wave a magic wand, or that you can, by force of will, exert your authority and your children will respond. Parents use punishments and rewards to manage their children's behavior, but those systems are only effective if the children buy into them. When you have a child who is so defiant that he says, "I don't care," when you punish him, then you have a problem on your hand that seems unsolvable.
When I would tell people about my son's behavior issues as a toddler they would ask, "Have you tried time outs?" Of course I did! I'd have to stand guard in front of his door as he banged on it so hard with his little fist that he'd hurt his hand and lean into it with all my weight as he braced himself against his bed and pushed on it with his legs, and try to ignore — and hope my neighbors would ignore— his incessant shrill screams. "Just keep at it," I heard. If a three minute time out doesn't work, maybe he needs five to calm down. But what happens when the child is, like mine, so strong willed that he would come spitting, clawing, and punching out of the room no matter how long you left him in there to "calm down?" Punishments only served to intensify, rather than correct, my son's bad behavior.
As the situation escalated, I'd lock myself in the bathroom against his barrages, or curl inward to protect myself from getting head-butted in the crotch, and sometimes something in me would snap. The social order was being turned on its head, reversed — he should fear and respect me, I shouldn't be scared of him!
It was at these times that, I'll admit, I gave in to my anger. Sometimes, in a gut reaction to him hurting me or drawing blood, I slapped his cheek. For a brief period, at the advice of other, more experienced parents, I tried spanking. Always, I yelled at the top of my lungs. We'd both be storming around the kitchen, our home a war zone, with opposing soldiers facing one another in brutal, animalistic conflict.
My rage did not change my son's behavior. Nor did it make me feel better. Quite the opposite: I felt deep shame and upset, and deeply disappointment in myself. And so, I never talked much about it with anyone. As Bradford writes, we don't discuss our resentment and loss of control, no matter how normal these experiences are for most parents. "It's too ugly, and the risks are enormous. What will my friends think if they know what I'm really like when I'm angry? If I talk to someone, they may take my kids away."
The situation around our house these days is a lot more peaceable. We've come to understand that our little guy has a low frustration tolerance, a great defiance toward authority, and the tendency to express himself physically rather than with words. He can react without thinking, and respond to confusion and disappointment with aggression. My wife and I meeting his fire with fire of our own does no good — we would burn the whole house down. Still, deep breaths and positive thinking have their limits, and there are times, especially on weekends when we're all together for extended periods, where blazes occur.
These happen. It's normal, whether you are the parent of a challenging kid like mine, or even the parent of the sweetest child in the world. All kids push us to and sometimes beyond our limits, and all of them, not knowing how they fit in the world, challenge us as they try to figure it out. It's ok to talk about it. Pretending that anger is not a part of the parenting experience only adds a heap of guilt to the conflagration.


text:
Tablet Videos
Watch the most popular, latest and new tablet videos and tablet video clips. Make sure you check out the latest funny videos and new videos.
Elephant Plays With A Galaxy NoteMeet Peter the Elephant, he likes touch screen tablet computers. Here he is playing with a Galaxy Note.Tags: elephant, samsung, galaxy note, playing, tablet, touch screen


text:
We'd better get to it – we don't want to be "dragon" our feet!
24. H.R. Pufnstuf, H.R. Pufnstuf
John M. Heller / Getty
23. Albi the Racist Dragon, Flight of the Conchords
A lovable dragon whose bodily fluids turn into delicious treats – what's not to like? Oh right, his violent prejudice against people of different races.
22. Cassie, Dragon Tales
21. Spot, The Munsters
Eddie Munster's pet dragon was the Wilson of his day: often heard, rarely seen. Knowing the special effects available in the 1960s, that was probably a good thing.
20. Fin Fang Foom, Marvel Comics
Courtesy Marvel Comics
19. Bub and Bob, Bubble Bobble
No, Bubble Bobble is not a shameless rip-off of Donkey Kong. You play as a dragon, not a plumber, and you have to dodge monsters, not barrels. It's completely different.
18. The Male Dragon, Reign of Fire
The dragons in Reign of Fire are basically your bog-standard dragons – they fly, they breathe fire, they're really mean – but for one evolutionary quirk: There's only one male of the species. When you're a roving band of dragon hunters led by Matthew McConaughey, that's the kind of knowledge that comes in handy.
17. Dragon Maleficent, Sleeping Beauty
No one wants to admit it, but Dragon Maleficent totally let Price Phillip off the hook. She made him lose his unusually fireproof shield – perfect time to move in for the kill! But no, she hesitated and ended up with a sword in her belly. Props for trying to get one last bite in, though.
16. The dragon, Beowulf
Moviestore / REX USA
15. Puff the Magic Dragon, Puff the Magic Dragon
He's not a marijuana metaphor! One viewing of the Puff the Magic Dragon will set you right: Puff is an articulate, organized planner with his head on straight. You think he'd be able to get little Jackie Paper out to Honalee if he was a pot-smoking layabout?
14. Elliott, Pete's Dragon
Moviestore Collection / REX USA
13. Dragon, Shrek
She's not scary, just misunderstood. We personally wouldn't want a dragon to fall in love with us, but Donkey seemed to make it work.
12. Spyro, Spyro the Dragon
Like many dragons, Spyro is quadrupedal. Unlike those other dragons, though, his four-limbed nature eventually caused problems for his creators: Insomniac Games has said the fact that he couldn't hold anything in his hands made it hard to come up with new ideas for levels.
11. Haku, Spirited Away
10. Hungarian Horntail, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Dragons, Hagrid assures us, are misunderstood creatures. That would be easier to believe if Hagrid didn't think that every dangerous animal was misunderstood. If we don't know any better, we'd say the organizers of the Triwazrd Tournament were trying to get Harry Potter killed.
9. King Ghidorah, various Godzilla films
Courtey Toho
8. Charizard, Pokémon
Courtesy Poké mon / Nintendo
7. Vermithrax Pejorative, Dragonslayer
1981's Dragonslayer may have its detractors, but even the haters have to acknowledge the glory of Vermithrax Pejorative, one of the great movie dragons. She's dangerous, yet she moves with elegance and grace, and you can't argue she has the best name of any dragon on this list.
6. Falkor, The Neverending Story
Warner Bros.
5. Drogon, Game of Thrones
The Mother of Dragons might say that she doesn't play favorites, but HBO clearly does; when was the last time Rhaegar or Viserion got as much screen time as Drogon? Still, it's for good reason: The only thing scarier than the site of Drogon approaching is the knowledge that he'll only get bigger.
4. Smaug, The Hobbit
Don't blame him for Peter Jackson splitting The Hobbit into three parts. The literary Smaug is one of fantasy's great villains, with the arch and slightly debonaire mind of an upper-crust playboy existing in the body of a terrifying dragon.
3. Draco, Dragonheart
Moviestore Collection / REX USA
2. Mushu, Mulan
Arguably the least intimidating dragon on this list (though you wouldn't hear him admit it), Mushu makes up for what he lacks in size and strength with something just as important – style.
1. Toothless, How to Train Your Dragon
Most dragons are mystical, distant creatures that we look at with a mixture of awe and fear. Toothless is not one of those dragons. But over the course of How to Train Your Dragon, we felt something we'd hardly felt for a dragon before: a real emotional attachment.
Like us on Facebook for more stories like this!


text:
Complications of nephrosis have been described since early in the history of the disease. This report deals only with clinical observations on and attempts at treatment of two of these complications, the peritoneal syndrome and erysipelas-like lesions of the skin.
The association of pneumococcic peritonitis with nephrosis was first recorded by Volhard and Fahr,1 in 1914, when they reported 3 such cases. Volhard2 added 3 more case reports in 1918. Munk3 also reported a case in 1918. Bock and Mayer4 described another in 1920, and thereafter the reports became more frequent. Mortality rates were not discussed in these earlier reports, but practically all cases of peritonitis were described from postmortem rather than from clinical observations. Stewart5 in 1930 collected from the literature case reports of 23 patients, 21 of whom died. In all cases the diagnosis was proved by culture. He added case reports of
Thank you for submitting a comment on this article. It will be reviewed by JAMA Pediatrics editors. You will be notified when your comment has been published. Comments should not exceed 500 words of text and 10 references.
Do not submit personal medical questions or information that could identify a specific patient, questions about a particular case, or general inquiries to an author. Only content that has not been published, posted, or submitted elsewhere should be submitted. By submitting this Comment, you and any coauthors transfer copyright to the journal if your Comment is posted.
* = Required Field
Disclosure of Any Conflicts of Interest*
Indicate all relevant conflicts of interest of each author below, including all relevant financial interests, activities, and relationships within the past 3 years including, but not limited to, employment, affiliation, grants or funding, consultancies, honoraria or payment, speakers' bureaus, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, royalties, donation of medical equipment, or patents planned, pending, or issued. If all authors have none, check "No potential conflicts or relevant financial interests" in the box below. Please also indicate any funding received in support of this work. The information will be posted with your response.
Some tools below are only available to our subscribers or users with an online account.
Download citation file:
Customize your page view by dragging & repositioning the boxes below.
More Listings atJAMACareerCenter.com >
Enter your username and email address. We'll send you a link to reset your password.
Enter your username and email address. We'll send instructions on how to reset your password to the email address we have on record.
Need assistance?
Athens and Shibboleth are access management services that provide single sign-on to protected resources. They replace the multiple user names and passwords necessary to access subscription-based content with a single user name and password that can be entered once per session. It operates independently of a user's location or IP address. If your institution uses Athens or Shibboleth authentication, please contact your site administrator to receive your user name and password.


text:
Lifestyles Photos
See 15 stunning 'space-age' iris varieties
Photo: Bonnie Nichols
Standards off-white with purple veining, falls pale yellow with random blotching and bleeding of beet-root purple
Related Content
To post a comment, log into your chosen social network and then add your comment below. Your comments are subject to our Terms of Service and the privacy policy and terms of service of your social network. If you do not want to comment with a social network, please consider writing a letter to the editor.


text:
Now showing items 31-40 of 61
What is natural? The importance of a long-term perspective in biodiversity conservation and management
(American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2006)
Ecosystems change in response to factors such as climate variability, invasions, and wildfires. Most records used to assess such change are based on short-term ecological data or satellite imagery spanning only a few ...
Holocene palaeoclimate reconstructions at Vanndalsvatnet, western Norway, with particular reference to the 8200 cal. yr BP event
Analyses of organic content, magnetic susceptibility, grain size and pollen in sediments from the proglacial lake Vanndalsvatnet in western Norway provide a high-resolution terrestrial record and pollenbased quantitative ...
Pattern and process in Norwegian upland grasslands: a functional analysis
(Opulus Press, 2002)
Four classes of functional and morphological plant traits (FMT) – established strategies (the CSR scheme sensu Grime 1979), life-forms (sensu Raunkiaer 1934), morphology, and regenerative strategies – are used as tools for ...
Distribution and autecology of chrysophyte cysts from high Arctic Svalbard lakes: preliminary evidence of recent environmental change
(Springer, 2004)
Chrysophycean stomatocyst assemblages were analysed from the sediments of 17 lakes and ponds from Svalbard as one component of a multi-proxy investigation of recent environmental change in the high Arctic. Sediment cores ...
Recent increases in species richness and shifts in altitudinal distributions of Norwegian mountain plants
Opportunities for observing long-term changes in natural biota are rare. Observations on the distribution and frequency of vascular plants were performed on 23 mountains situated along a west–east gradient in Jotunhei men, ...
Dispersal limitations matter for microbial morphospecies
(American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2006)
In contrast with macroorganisms, whose geographical ranges are typically restricted, many microbial species appear to have cosmopolitan distributions. This observation has been explained as a consequence of ubiquitous ...
Recent environmental change and atmospheric contamination on Svalbard as recorded in lake sediments – modern limnology, vegetation, and pollen deposition
(Springer, 2004)
Twenty-four lakes on Svalbard were sampled for palaeolimnological studies and are described in terms of their geographical location, catchment characteristics, water chemistry, and flora. No sediment could be retrieved ...
Palaeolimnological responses of nine North African lakes in the CASSARINA Project to recent environmental changes and human impact detected by plant macrofossil, pollen, and faunal analyses
(Springer, 2001)
This paper presents multi-proxy palaeolimnological analyses from recent sediments in the nine CASSARINA lakes in northernmost Africa, three from each of Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt. The lakes are diverse, ranging from ...
What is the observed relationship between species richness and productivity? Comment
(Ecological Society of America, 2003)
Lake-sediment evidence for local and remote sources of atmospherically deposited pollutants on Svalbard
(Springer, 2004)
Twenty-one lakes along the west coast of Svalbard were cored between 28 July and 14 August 1995. Five cores were 210Pb dated and analysed for spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCPs), indicators of deposition from fossil-fuel ...


text:
To determine if the inflammatory phospholipid platelet-activating factor (PAF) participated in the symptomatologic, metabolic, and counterregulatory hormonal responses of human endotoxemia.
In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, five subjects received 10 mg of the PAF antagonist Ro 24-4736 orally, while five control subjects received a placebo. Eighteen hours later, all subjects were administered 4 ng/kg of endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide) intravenously.
The Clinical Research Center of The New York Hospital—Cornell Medical Center.
Healthy male volunteers.
Main Outcome Measures:
Repeated measurements of vital signs, symptoms, cytokine and hormone levels, resting energy expenditure, platelet aggregation, and bleeding times were performed during a 24-hour period.
Subjects who were pretreated with the PAF antagonist experienced fewer symptoms, including rigors at 1 hour (P<.05) and myalgias at 1 through 4 hours (P<.05) after administration of lipopolysaccharide. This was in concert with a diminished peak cortisol level (668±107 vs 959± 159 nmol/L in controls; P<.05), epinephrine secretion (1057±165 vs 2029±431 nmol/L in controls; P<.05), and almost complete inhibition of PAF-induced platelet aggregation ex vivo.
These findings in the face of unaltered circulating cytokines tumor necrosis factor α, interleukin 1β, and interleukin 6, as well as the tumor necrosis factor receptor-I s, suggest that PAF may influence some endotoxin-induced, counterregulatory hormonal responses and symptoms through cytokine-independent mechanisms. This study further supports the role of PAF antagonists as an adjunct to cytokine blockade in the treatment of gram-negative sepsis.(Arch Surg. 1994;129:72-79)
Thank you for submitting a comment on this article. It will be reviewed by JAMA Surgery editors. You will be notified when your comment has been published. Comments should not exceed 500 words of text and 10 references.
Do not submit personal medical questions or information that could identify a specific patient, questions about a particular case, or general inquiries to an author. Only content that has not been published, posted, or submitted elsewhere should be submitted. By submitting this Comment, you and any coauthors transfer copyright to the journal if your Comment is posted.
* = Required Field
Disclosure of Any Conflicts of Interest*
Indicate all relevant conflicts of interest of each author below, including all relevant financial interests, activities, and relationships within the past 3 years including, but not limited to, employment, affiliation, grants or funding, consultancies, honoraria or payment, speakers' bureaus, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, royalties, donation of medical equipment, or patents planned, pending, or issued. If all authors have none, check "No potential conflicts or relevant financial interests" in the box below. Please also indicate any funding received in support of this work. The information will be posted with your response.
Some tools below are only available to our subscribers or users with an online account.
Download citation file:
Customize your page view by dragging & repositioning the boxes below.
More Listings atJAMACareerCenter.com >
Enter your username and email address. We'll send you a link to reset your password.
Enter your username and email address. We'll send instructions on how to reset your password to the email address we have on record.
Need assistance?
Athens and Shibboleth are access management services that provide single sign-on to protected resources. They replace the multiple user names and passwords necessary to access subscription-based content with a single user name and password that can be entered once per session. It operates independently of a user's location or IP address. If your institution uses Athens or Shibboleth authentication, please contact your site administrator to receive your user name and password.


text:
Print this page
Welcome to James Cook University Brisbane > Careers > Joblinx
Employment & Careers
James Cook University Brisbane offers a unique service to its students through Joblinx services.
This includes part time, casual, graduate employment, along with an extensive range of training programs and workshops.
Go to the Joblinx website to find more.
Why Choose JCU Brisbane?
- 3 Start Dates A Year - March, July & November
- Professional Internships
- Free Employment Services
- Library


text:
Two typhus cases so far in Orange County this year
As vector control officials work to trap flea-carrying feral cats in Santa Ana, the Health Care Agency said there have been two confirmed typhus cases this year in Orange County.
An adult living in Orange was diagnosed in January. A child in Santa Ana was diagnosed in April. Both have recovered, agency officials said. Typhus is usually transmitted by flea bites.
Since 2006, when one case was reported, typhus has been endemic to Orange County, meaning that it is now established here. The highest number of cases was 15 last year. Before 2006, the last reported case was 1993.
The following information comes from the county:
What are the symptoms of this disease, and how do you treat it?
Infected persons may experience fever, headache, chills, and muscle aches 6 -14 days after contact with an infected flea. A rash that starts several days after the initial symptoms is also common. Nausea, vomiting or cough may also be present. Most illnesses are mild, but about 10% of patients have a more severe illness and need to be hospitalized. Death from typhus is rare. Most persons recover within a few days after starting treatment with antibiotics.
How do you protect yourself from endemic typhus?
Remove pet food and other outside food sources, cover garbage containers, and trim vegetation around buildings to discourage opossums, rodents and stray cats from around your home. If you see live or dead opossums, cats or other animals on your property, call your local Animal Control agency. Keep pet cats indoors as much as possible, and consult your veterinarian about proper flea control on pets.
To learn more, visit ochealthinfo.com/epi/typhus
Most Popular
- Police say 3 deaths in Fullerton are not a murder-suicide; teen missing
- Marlins say ace pitcher Jose Fernandez has been killed in boating accident
- Singer belts out a fight song for cancer patients - including herself
- Brush fire burns hill above San Juan Hills Golf Club
- Police seek man, woman accused of pushing, berating a boy with autism
User Agreement
Comments are encouraged, but you must follow our Privacy Policy Policy & Terms of Use
Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to allow Orange County Register Communications, Inc. the right to republish your name and comment in additional Register publications without any notification or payment.


text:
What's up, Emericans?Go to the rants (0)
Barack the Vote!
Name: Phil Imhof
Age: 20
About Me: I like to do things.
haha thanks, let me know next time your back in greece
yea i like every philly team
I saw you on the "cool new people" I was like, PHIL?
Barack the Vote!


text:
shoppers recently viewed this!
Alanna Bess Jewelry
Peach Moonstone & Wood Bracelet
- Color:
- wood
Qty: 1
- 1
- 2
- 3
Description: 18K yellow gold vermeil and wood bracelet with peach moonstone charm details and apatite accents
- 8½ inches long with option to be worn as short as 6 inches long
- 0.3 inch charm drop
- Sliding closure
- Please note: Stone shape and size may vary due to natural gemstone variations. These pieces should not be worn in the shower or pool.
Material: 18K yellow gold vermeil, wood, moonstone, apatite, and silk
Brand: Alanna Bess Jewelry
Origin: United States


text:
on February 9, 2011 - 12:01 AM
Spring may seem far off, but now is actually the perfect time to sign up with a farm to receive produce boxes for the 2011 growing season.
Community Supported Agricultures are a different way to buy vegetables. You pay in advance for 10 to 20 weeks of produce direct from a local farm. Your payment is actually a sort of investment in exchange for a share of the farm's harvest. You don't usually get to choose what kind of vegetables you receive. Some CSAs deliver to your door, but most drop off boxes at a central location such as a farmers' market or neighbor's porch.
CSAs can be a slight money saver, but if you end up not using up the produce you're paying for, they could end up being a money-waster.
Before you jump into a membership, make sure you're a good candidate, advises Erin Barnett, director of LocalHarvest.org, a website that connects consumers with farmers.
"Sometimes people with good intentions use the idea of the CSA as a way of trying to change their whole way of eating, and that doesn't generally work," Barnett said. "If you don't cook already, if you don't eat a wide range of vegetables, you may find that joining a CSA is challenging."
There are two main factors in choosing which CSA to join: delivery location and the size of the share.
Some farms offer just one size box. Because you ended up with too much last year, pick a farm that offers options.
I recommend comparing prices before committing and contacting the farm directly to verify pricing and claim any discounts available. Price comparison is not easy, because the farmers only provide estimates, at best, as to how much food you are going to receive.
"What's in the CSA [box] is going to be contingent on the success of the farm that year," said Rob Gardner, editor of TheLocalBeet.com, a website about eating local. "That's the whole beauty of the CSA -- you don't really know what you're getting until you get it."
To get a feel for the volume, and even more important, the quality of the produce and the reliability of delivery, ask customers. Local Harvest posts customer reviews and ratings. Or just ask around in your community.
Another important person to speak with is the farmer, Barnett said. Ask how long they've been participating in community-supported agriculture. Also ask what happens if you decide that you don't like being a member partway through the summer.
"Some farms make it very clear that if you want out for any reason, they'll prorate the balance of your season and you can leave," she said. "Others say, 'This is a seasonlong commitment, and once you're in, you're in.' "