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As an adventurous Bulldogs fan, you need a hat that can keep up with your fast-paced lifestyle while still brandishing your Georgia spirit. Columbia's Collegiate Bora Bora Booney II hat was made for the active fan with its wide brim, adjustable chinstrap, a mesh ventilation band and an embroidered applique school wordmark. This hat features Columbia's Omni-Shade technology that provides SPF 50 protection from the sun's rays so you can enjoy tailgating, cheering at the Bulldogs game or any other outdoor activity in safety and comfort.
- 100% Nylon shell
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- Omni-Shade technology provides SPF 50 protection
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- Brand: Columbia
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Cap-weighted indices - a bigger scandal than Libor?
The manipulation of Libor and foreign exchange rates by traders has led to an unprecedented outcry and an onslaught of regulatory probes. But the losses suffered by investors pale into insignificance compared with those they have endured through their exposure to cap-weighted indices.
The annual drag on the performance of pension schemes across the world as a result of their construction could total tens of billions a year.
The thousands of cap-weighted indices littered across the world include renowned brands such as the S&P 500, FTSE All Share and MSCI World.
They are compiled according to the market valuation of companies, providing an easy reference point for size. Based on earnings forecasts rather than turnover, and biased to growth stocks, they facilitate the raising of capital, which banks like. The bias to large companies means cap-weighted indices are liquid, which traders like.
But they were never designed to serve the interests of investors. Princeton University professor Burton Malkiel famously observed in 1973 that a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at share prices listed in financial newspapers had a decent shot at outperforming them.
The inefficiency of cap-weighted indices infuriates Tim Gardener, global head of consultant relations at Axa Investment Managers. And not just because he likes the smarter lists manufactured by his firm. I recall he was pretty dubious on the merit of cap-weighted indices back in the late 1980s when he led Mercer's global investment business.
In those days, following euphoria in Tokyo, Japanese equity values were nearly half the global total. Gardener recommended his clients to avoid the overweight and split their equity portfolios equally between Europe, North America and Asia.
Pernicious influence
Those who followed Gardener's advice profited mightily, as the euphoria ebbed. But it did not take long before cap-weighted indices reasserted their pernicious influence.
The smart indices manufactured by Axa Rosenberg give big weightings to companies with sustainable earnings records and low share price volatility.
A global version of this index would have beaten the MSCI by two percentage points a year since 1989, according to back-testing.
Gardener says: "This has consequences for passive investors. It also suggests active managers have been given an incredibly low hurdle to jump."
He argues managers could have also improved their performance by two percentage points if clients had provided a better list of weightings than those contained in cap-weighted indices. This would imply a drag worth tens of billions of dollars on a global pension scheme movement worth upwards of $30 trillion.
Problems are compounded when active managers become reluctant to stray too far from the index for fear of losing their fee income.
Some of the tedious larger stocks that managers feel obliged to own include those that are highly placed in indices by having a huge number of shares in issue, as opposed to good prospects.
Telecom stock Vodafone weighed down portfolios for more than a decade, following its 1999 mega-bid for Mannesmann of Germany. It finally sputtered back into life last year, by which time many investors had capitulated.
Financial stocks, not the best bet of recent years, comprise a fifth to a quarter of cap-weighted indices. The domestic Chinese A50 exchange-traded fund launched by Source last week has a staggering 65% weighting in financials.
Worse, when would-be growth stocks within the indices have raised their acquisition finance, cap-weighted investors need to live with subsequent disappointments. Again, think Vodafone. Or, if you happen to be French, Vivendi. Or, if you are American, Microsoft.
Axa Rosenberg is one of several firms who use a systematic approach to avoid the influence of cap-weighted indices. They have beaten them by an annualised one to two percentage points over the long term. Such managers include Dimensional Fund Advisors and Intech. Providers of alternative exchange-traded funds have also invaded the space.
Indices compiled by Rob Arnott's Research Affiliates use weightings in line with corporate fundamentals. They have outperformed for years (see chart).
APG, manager of the Dutch civil service pensions scheme, customises its strategies to avoid cap-weighted bias. The tweaks have added 50 basis points to performance over three years.
The Imperial Tobacco pension scheme has removed cap-weighted bias from its corporate credit portfolio, and benefited accordingly. Manager Phil Hughes said: "Our experience to date has been encouraging."
What's going on?
We need to take a look at research by Eugene Fama, who won the 2013 Nobel prize for economics, and his associate Ken French.
Fama has proved the price of stocks is primarily driven by market-related sentiment, known as beta, which is fairly obvious. But this market-driven sentiment drags money away from stocks that lurk in the shadows.
Fama found small-cap stocks outperformed their larger brethren over time, as their prices caught up with the mainstream. He found that value stocks, priced below their book worth, also tended to do well. More recently, Fama found that companies that sustain profitable records, after stripping out accounting adjustments, also outperform.
If you cut through the marketing spiel, in fact, just about any product that isn't driven by cap-weighted indices outperforms.
Even the monkey throwing darts can outperform because a clear majority of stocks listed in the financial pages are small-cap or value stocks. Its approach isn't smart, but it is smarter than cap-weighting.
There is, sadly, no such thing as a free lunch. As Fama has pointed out, investors backing value and small-cap investments run the risk of periodic underperformance.
Even the sleepiest large cap can outperform when it is cheap enough. Portfolios tilted to small-cap value stocks have only beaten the cap-weighted market two thirds of the time since 1930.
The credit crisis was also bad news for active quant managers who used leverage to overpay for some alternatives to cap-weighted indices, which had looked safe before the crisis.
As James Montier, senior strategist with asset manager GMO, has said: "Leverage can never turn a bad investment into a good one, but it can turn a good investment into a bad one."
APG of the Netherlands concedes big moves in favour of alternative indices could dilute smart returns, one day. But it believes its approach will reward the Dutch civil service for some time to come.
Consultants Mercer, Towers Watson and Aon Hewitt have given diversification away from cap-weighted indices their blessing. And managers are less frequently obliged to track a cap-weighted index than in the past.
For the record, consultants are smarter than asset managers like to pretend. And investors who fail to acknowledge the risks lurking within portfolio benchmarks risk being incredibly stupid.
--This article first appeared in the print edition of Financial News dated January 13, 2014

subset: commoncrawl


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The owner Chicaro's Bar in Enid, Oklahoma, is getting international attention after saying he will not serve gay patrons.
Bar owner: 'If you act too gay, I'll kick you out'
Published On: Feb 13 2014 07:39:03 AM HST Updated On: Apr 30 2014 08:58:14 AM HST
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Get in touch with us and we'll have a solutions expert contact you as soon as we can.
+1 866 903 9129
The following is a Q&A intended to help OnSync users, Partners, & customers achieve the best possible experience when using OnSync in a high-quality production environment.
The team at Commonwealth Media Services is among the smartest we've seen when it comes to production-quality broadcasts using the OnSync platform. So, under pressure from our user community to deliver the down-and-dirty details for achieving incredible, yet reliable, TV-quality live event streaming over the web, our first call was to Jerry Kambic & Tug Bressler at CMS. They were kind enough to share their knowledge via this Q&A:
[Note: JM is Jonathan Maley from Digital Samba, TB is Tug Bressler from CMS]
JM: Before we even begin, I think it's important to offer some background and context to those who might read this Q&A. Commonwealth Media Services (CMS) is a division of the Department of General Services for the State of Pennsylvania. CMS, in a nutshell, provides media-related products & services to State Agencies, including Department of Banking, Office of Administration, Department of Public Welfare, and others. Basically, CMS is the go-to authority for all things audio/visual at the State level. True?
TB: That's correct.
JM: As it relates to OnSync, CMS has been a client & Partner of Digital Samba since 2008; if I recall, we started out small with a subscription service model, but quickly outgrew it. Today, CMS has somewhat of a custom OnSync Enterprise solution, fully administered by you, but hosted and maintained by us. Some might call it a "managed service", I guess. You guys are very self-sufficient, so we don't always know what you're up to. Give us some background on how you've used the system so far.
TB: Sure. We've used it for everyday internal staff collaboration and video conferencing around town, across the state, and even as a means of connecting DMVA with a soldier on-base in Iraq. It's perfect for that because it's easy – there's no software, and we use built-in laptop cameras. Simple, portable, and good quality. However, I suspect it's our not-so-ordinary high-end production-quality OnSync broadcasts that have drawn the attention of your other Partners and certain customers.
JM: You're right. We think you have secret knowledge for getting exceptional, television-like quality out of OnSync. So let's get right to it. Most of your high-profile events originate in what's called the "Capitol Media Center" over in the Capitol building, not far from the rotunda. I've been in there, and it's like a studio. What kind of cameras are you using in there?
TB: Currently we are using some old composite Sony broadcast blocks with Telemetrics robotic controls and Canon glass. We are in the process of replacing them all with Vaddio HD-18 robotic 1080p cameras that are fairly inexpensive; about $5000 each. But, your customers and Partners should keep in mind that there are lots of different cameras out there, each geared towards different budgets and scenarios. The HD-18 cameras look great but they need a lot of light, which is why they're so inexpensive. We can get by using those for the Capitol Media Center because it is already very well lit.
JM: Obviously, these aren't simple USB webcams. If they're analog cameras, how do you convert the signal to digital – something that can be fed into the PC where the OnSync session is running? We're familiar with basic analog-to-digital converter cables, but have heard that the quality is low, certain video sizes aren't always supported, & they're only 480 lines.
TB: Which 480i cables or devices have you tried?
JM: I'm too embarrassed to tell you, so I won't.
TB: A lot of the cheaper "480i" capture devices are actually a "340p" or "320p" device that only samples half the fields. The signal needs to be progressive to get into most applications, so rather than putting a 480i-to-480p converter inside the device, they just sample half the fields, making it progressive. This saves a ton of money in production.
JM: Okay, excellent. Good thing to be aware of.
TB: Another thing that really helps quality is to have a camera that is a higher native resolution than the 480i output. The thing that makes standard-definition broadcast cameras look really good is oversampling. For example, a Sony DSR-570 broadcast camera is actually 700 lines resolution, even though the output of the camera is only 480 lines. The CCD chips sample everything at 700 lines and then the DSP circuitry inside down-converts to 480 lines. The result is a much sharper picture. Sorry for boring you with camera theory, but I hope this explains some of what you see.
JM: Are you kidding? This is great stuff. So, just to be clear, despite the more sophisticated cameras and converters, you end up at 480 lines, too?
TB: Yes, what we're doing ends up only being 480 lines, too. If you're using the encoder built into Flash Player (normal OnSync with internal video), the max you can do is standard definition (480i).
JM: And you don't use an External Video Source, such as Flash Media Enconder, to encode the live video stream being sent through OnSync?
TB: No. Flash Media Encoder is not supported on Mac; besides, we think it's easier to simply use the standard built-in OnSync video controls.
JM: Good to know. Tell us more.
TB: So, we're using a MOTU V4HD connected to a Mac. It works well with a PC, too. Even though the device is HD, we're only using it in SD 4x3 mode. We didn't buy the MOTU specifically for doing OnSync; we happened to have it lying around from another project, and were able to repurpose it for this.
JM: Anything you'd like to change about this setup?
TB: When we rebuild the Capitol Media Center, everything will be set up to 720p60 through the entire system. The Panasonic video switcher we purchased has a down-converter card inside that can take the 720p signal (16x9), down-res to 480, interlace the signal, then side-crop to 4x3. The cool thing about doing it through the switcher, rather than direct from a camera like we do now, is that you can set up that output as an aux bus. Basically, without changing cables around, you can switch which camera or video source goes to the output. You can also set the aux-out to mirror the program (switched) output of the switcher. Most of the time we'd just want the camera that's the straight-on headshot, but it's nice to have that kind of flexibilty. We've actually done some training events where we switched between the head-shot and pre-recorded content to feed into OnSync.
JM: Wow.
TB: At this point I think I'm taking the SD-SDI output from the Panasonic switcher and pushing it into one of the AJA IO interfaces we have. The only disadvantage is that they are Mac only. Now that everything we do is HD, we can't really use them for anything, so it would be a good re-purpose for them. I'm planning on keeping the MOTU for a portable rig. I actually have it rack-mounted in a small case with power conditioning and an 8-port 1gig switch (with fiber and copper so we can connect to pretty much anything).
JM: Tug, we really appreciate your time and willingness to share your knowledge. As a software company, we're pretty focused on development of the platform. We rely pretty heavily on the user community, and especially Partners, to provide this deep-level expertise on related systems, hardware, and integration. Thanks for delivering! You guys are really talented.
TB: No problem.
JM: So what's it like working around high-profile politicians?
TB: Awesome.
JM: I have a feeling there's more we could talk about. Are you open to doing a part 2 of this Q&A for a future post on similar topics?
TB: Yes.
JM: Meantime, can we, our customers, and our other Partners, call you?
TB: Yes.
JM: What's your home phone number?
TB: Don't even think about it.
Tug Bressler is a Digital Technology Specialist at Commonwealth Media Services. Again, special thanks to Tug and the good people at CMS for their time and assistance!


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New products aim to deliver more youthful hair
- Next1 of 11H&M Fall 2013; Imaxtree
- Previous Next2 of 11Courtesy of Pantene
- Previous Next3 of 11Courtesy of Redken
- Previous Next4 of 11Courtesy of Philip Kingsley
- Previous Next5 of 11Courtesy of Nexus
- Previous Next6 of 11Courtesy of Toppik
- Previous Next7 of 11Courtesy of G Mele
- Previous Next8 of 11Courtesy of Alterna
- Previous Next9 of 11Courtesy of Clean
- Previous Next10 of 11Courtesy of Garnier
- Previous Next11 of 11Courtesy of Oribe
- New products aim to deliver more youthful hair9 Things You Need to Stop Doing to Your Skin ASAP
- 15 Pretty Celeb Looks To Steal
- Beauty Secrets From A VS Supermodel
- 8 Unusual Beauty Tips You've Never Heard Of
- The 9 Hottest Nail Colors For Summer 2014
- 10 Beauty & Style Trends From South America
- Outrageous Nails: International Edition
- 13 Waterproof Beauty Products That Work
- 11 Cult Makeup & Hair Products From Asia
- 12 Ways You Apply Your Makeup Wrong
- This Season's Hottest Blonde Hair Colors
- 10 Essential Makeup Tips For Blondes
- 15 Most Iconic Blondes Of All Time
- Glo Tested: The Best Sunscreens for Summer
- 9 Short & Easy Celeb Haircuts To Steal Now
- 12 Beauty Secrets From a Top TV Host
- 13 Drugstore Beauty Buys the Experts Swear By
- 20 Life-Changing Ways To Use Bobby Pins
- 18 Next-Big-Thing Beauty Products
Anti-Aging Hair Care1 of 11
By Laura Vogel
At first glance, the idea of "anti-aging" hair products might elicit skepticism: On top of everything else, do we really need to worry about our hair looking old? Well… yes, if you want to keep your strands thick, glossy and strong. As celebrity colorist Kyle White at Oscar Blandi New York explains, "As we mature, our hair changes and it requires more care, like everything else in our body." To keep your hair looking young and healthy, here are our picks for the ten best anti-aging products.
Strengthen Strands2 of 11
As we age, hair loses moisture. To give strands a hydration boost, Pantene has a brand-new collection of products that are rich in B vitamins and promise to help combat everything from dryness to thin strands.
SHOP NOW: Pantene Age Defy Collection, from $9
Thicken Up3 of 11
One newly released product holds some promise for thickening hair at the very root. It purportedly improves your hair's health with ingredients such as zinc PCA (a naturally occurring trace element that reduces sebum) and vitamin E (which conditions and plumps follicles).
SHOP NOW: Redken Intra-Force Shampoo for Thinning Hair, $16
Good Stretch4 of 11
Elizabeth Cunnane Phillips is Philip Kinglesy's head trichologist (someone who studies the scalp and hair) in New York. She says, "While it's vital to match the correct products and deep moisturizing products to your hair type, it is also crucial that we consider the health of the scalp." This is her recommendation for a deep scalp and hair moisturizer.
SHOP NOW: Philip Kingsley Elasticizer Pre-Shampoo Treatment, $47
Quenching Collection5 of 11
"Hair gets more coarse with age, so heat-protective products can be helpful," says Elizabeth Tanzi, M.D., board-certified dermatologist in Washington, D.C. The brand-new Nexxus Youth Renewal Collection contains a pre-heat-treatment spray and a hydrating finishing serum. Both products are rich in omega 3s, vitamin E, keratin and argan oil, all of which help to smooth the hair cuticle, making hair appear thicker and glossier.
SHOP NOW: Nexxus Youth Renewal Collection, from $17
Powder Keg6 of 11
A handy product that coats hair strands, making it look instantly fuller, is a 100 percent keratin colored powder. It works in two ways: It helps to coat the scalp to diminish its show-through. It also clings to hair strands—even the finest—to give the appearance of thicker, darker locks. A perfect choice for commitment-phobes, it washes out easily with shampoo.
SHOP NOW: Toppik Hair Building Fibers, from $50
Shine On7 of 11
The new G Melé Anti-Aging system is designed to infuse hair with moisture and, thus, subtract years from its look. Made without any harsh chemicals (it's sulfate-free), it contains natural sugars, which its maker claims help lipids adhere to strands. The moisturizing products help to seal the cuticle, preserving the pigments in color-treated hair.
SHOP NOW: G Melé Anti-Aging products, from $20
Caviar Dreams8 of 11
Longer hair goes through a lot: "If your hair reaches the middle of your back, the hair at the ends is about eight years old," says White. "It has endured many summers in the sun, chlorine and heat styling, and you can definitely use richer products on the ends of your hair than on your scalp." This treatment contains plant-derived melanin to help shield the hair from damaging light—including UVA and UVB rays—while micro-emulsion beads full of fatty acids and vitamins (the "caviar") help smooth the cuticle.
SHOP NOW: Alterna Caviar Anti-Aging Photo-Age Defense, $35
At the Root9 of 11
"As we get older, it's important to treat the scalp properly—both exfoliating and moisturizing at the roots," says White. The new Clear hair-care line is aimed squarely at caring for the scalp. To deep-clean your scalp, White says to rinse wet hair with apple-cider vinegar before shampooing. Follow that with a nourishing wash, like this one: It includes aloe; vitamins B5, C and E; as well as sunflower, almond, soybean and coconut oils.
SHOP NOW: Clear Scalp and Hair Beauty Therapy Shampoo, $6
Hue Knew?10 of 11
"When you color hair, it fattens the strand and makes it look fuller," says White. "There have been amazing advances in hair color—L'Oréal just came out with the first no-ammonia oil-based professional color and it literally improves the condition of hair," says White. On the market now for home use is the new Olia line by Garnier (a L'Oréal brand) which also contains no ammonia, and has been getting rave reviews from consumers.
SHOP NOW: Garnier Olia Oil-Powered Hair Color, $10
Glossy Finish11 of 11
"Shine is one of the key ingredients in keeping hair looking youthful," says Oribe. "Our new Shine Spray is great because it gives hair luster. You can also use it to blow the hair out, and can also add more afterward for added moisture and shine." This light formula uses argan oil and lemongrass to tame flyaways and add a gorgeous sheen.
SHOP NOW: Oribe Shine Light Reflecting Spray, $36


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Calvin Johnson: Detroit Lions Receiver
Megatron earned a blizzard of national attention by posting the best statistical season of his NFL career in 2011. He posted a career high 1,681 receiving yards and 16 touchdowns. In week four against the Dallas Cowboys, Johnson helped rally the Lions from a 24-point deficit to a 34-30 victory by snagging two 4th quarter touchdown passes. This performance gave Johnson eight touchdowns through the first four games of the season and tied an NFL mark for most consecutive games with multiple touchdown receptions at four. In a week 17 game against Green Bay, Johnson had a career-best 244 receiving yards in a 45-41 loss. Johnson and the Lions clinched a playoff spot for the first time since 1999 with a 38-10 win over San Diego on Christmas Eve. In the playoff loss to New Orleans, he caught 11 passes for 211 receiving yards and two touchdowns, breaking the Lions playoff record of 150 receiving yards.
Johnson had a remarkable season for the Lions, but we just have to ask, does anyone remember American League Cy Young Award winner and MVP Justin Verlander?
Kirk Cousins: MSU Quarterback
The clear runnerup in our survey, Cousins was a three-year starter for the Spartans. In 2011, he set a single season record with 26 touchdown passes. When his career ended after the thrilling triple-overtime Outback Bowl win over Georgia on Jan. 2, 2012, Cousins held the MSU career records for passing TDs (66), passing yards (9,131), completions (723), passing efficiency (146.1 rating), total offense (9,004 yards) and 200-yard passing games (26). He's the winningest QB in Spartan history with 27 victories over his four-year career.
Denard Robinson: U of M Quarterback
Though he also placed in Best status, Express readers named Shoelace the runaway winner (?) of Worst Michigan Athlete in our survey. That, despite leading U-M to a win over that hated team from Ohio. Maybe most disappointing is more accurate. After his amazing 2010 season, the Wolverine QB played under a new offensive system and wasn't nearly as flashy in 2011, and Michigan lost again to MSU. Robinson still earned second team All Conference recognition for the second year in a row and was voted team MVP for the second straight year by his teammates.


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Stepfather denies murder; Mother screams, charges defense tableFebruary 24,2014
By Brent Curtis
Staff Writer
A Poultney man charged with the murder of his 2-year-old stepdaughter denied the offense and was ordered jailed on $250,000 bail Monday.
Dennis Duby, 31, faces 20 years to life behind bars for the killing of Dezirae Sheldon who Vermont State Police investigators say died from skull fractures inflicted by blunt force trauma.
Duby told investigators that he believed the child had fallen off a table and said he'd seen her fall from a toilet and a sink on the afternoon of Feb. 19. But an autopsy of the little girl showed that she had fractures to either side of her head.
"It appeared that someone held her head so tight her skull cracked," a doctor who treated Dezirae at Rutland Regional Medical Center told investigators.
Chaos erupted at the end of Duby's arraignment as his wife - the girl's biological mother, Sandra Eastman - charged the defense table screaming "What did you do to my (expletive) baby."
She was intercepted before she reached Duby by Rutland County Sheriff's Deputies who were at the hearing in strength due to the large number of angry family members and supporters who filled the Rutland criminal courtroom to capacity.
An hour before the arraignment, protesters gathered outside the state Department for Children and Families office in Rutland's Asa Bloomer Building, where they railed against that agency's decision to return Dezirae to her mother after Eastman was convicted in July of abusing her daughter.
DCF Commissioner Dave Yacovone, who came to Rutland on Monday and spoke with the family of her biological father, said his agency would perform both an internal and external investigation into the circumstances of the toddler's case.MORE IN This Just InMONTPELIER A new report from a commission that studied the cost, availability and quality of... Full StoryVermont fish hatchery changes focus, looks inland
BETHEL, Vt. Full StoryHONOLULU (AP) A group of Hawaii musicians and a Hawaiian Airlines flight attendant provided... Full Story
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Oh no. There he goes again. Indeed, dear readers, my errant and oft annoying colleague, Mr. Krause, is in desperate need of some verbal "fire" — the vitriolic, infernal, flesh-eating kind most notably invoked by the devil and his evil minions.
He did the unthinkable.
He threw down the gauntlet.
He insulted Albert Pujols' mama.
Where does Mr. Krause find all this idle time to waste on shameless maternal attacks? As a Cardinal fan sitting on top of a 10 game lead in the NL Central, I can certainly see where I would have the time from now until October. But Mr. Krause would make better use of his by pondering the pain he will feel once his streaky Tigers get eliminated early on in the ALDS.
Meanwhile, I'm feelin' pretty damn good… so good that I'd like to just go on a rampage and say:
- Miguel Cabrera's mama is so ugly, she makes Willie McGee look like a GQ model!
- Carlos Zambrano's mama is so lazy, she makes Big Z look like a hard worker!
- Ryan Braun's mama's teeth glow so yellow, she can almost lead the Brewers out of the darkness of the NL Central! (nah, nothing glows that yellow)
- Manny Ramirez's mama is so dirty, her batting helmet has a biohazard label on it!
- And, of course, Mr. Krause, yo' mama is so dumb, she'd probably fall for this lame Glenn Beck advance:
Hate me 'cuz I come back fivefold, just don't hate me 'cuz I'm right.
Happy Friday!
12 Comments
There are just some people in this world who need to wait about 30 seconds each time before they speak. Glenn Back is one of them.
I'm with Julia. What a sanctimonious tool.
Juila — I agree. Papelbon would be another.
Jonestein — Never has the word "sanctimonious" been used so cleverly. I dig it.
It's all in the delivery and where it's delivered…cause that line works for the guys at Girls Gone Wild, but not by someone in a suit, with a smug smile, and looking uncomfortable, didn't anyone tell Beck he has to poor a couple of alcoholic beverages down a girl before making a request like that…
Outside the Phillies Looking In
Peter — Guess that line works better on young boys in airport restrooms… so I'm told.
Jeff- LMAO… I am not sure I even want to touch that one… maybe that's a bad expression….but it does generate some questions…who the hell told you that?… what was the conversation about?… how did the conversation get on to that subject?… thats like a whole new subject for a post and you left yourself wide open for Allen to launch an attack….LOL….
Outside the Phillies Looking In
Jeff- I thought you were going to say Billy Bean, you know the former Tigers player..hahaha
Hehe. Perhaps, Peter. Perhaps. A little bird named Larry Craig told me that one😉
Glenn Beck's a perv. And I can spot the pervs. Believe me.
We don't wanna know what's on the guy's hard drive.
Another name to go on the "think before you speak" list: Milton Bradley. That'll be all.
Prince — You're right. I definitely don't.
Ginny — Indeed.
Lisa — Oh, he's the president of that list/club.


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Genealogist and Licensed Private Investigator
a3Genealogy - Accurate, Accessible Answers - specializes in military, naturalization records, Native American and African American ancestry. The a3Gen blog is penned by Kathleen Brandt, an international genealogy consultant, speaker and writer. a3Gen clients span from Europe, Asia and Africa to the Americas.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Researching Children of War
Genealogist and Licensed Private Investigator
2 comments:
This is very helpful! Thank you!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 15, 2012 at 6:45 AM
Please help! I am doing the opposite research. A female friend of mine believes that she may have been born to a woman from one of the islands in the South Pacific but was raised by her father; the WWII vet. He has passed away and the woman she has known as her mother brought out pictures of her father with an islander and stated that she looked like the woman in the picture. Her known mother treated her differently all of her life than her brothers. Where can I help her search? She looks different than all of her family. Her father was stationed in Guam in 1945 and 1946. My email is firstname.lastname@example.com. Any help would be appreciated. Thank youReplyDelete


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If, like Jeff, you spent your Christmas like this:
Hopefully this will help you forget the indignity as you start your 2012:
Happy New Year…or Die Hard!!
And this one time. At band camp. …well, the court's records have been sealed so we don't actually know how that sentence shoud end, but I understand that Santa was in therapy for years afterwards.
— Kristen
Hah! Happy New Year!
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This is amino acids 1 to 17 fragment of b-amyloid peptide labeled with HiLyte Fluor 488, HiLyte Fluor 488-labeled b-amyloid (1-17) has a brighter intensity than FITC or FAM-labeled b-amyloid (1-17), Abs/Em=503 nm/528 nm.


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CHIHUAHUA, Mexico (AP) - An out-of-control monster truck shot into a crowd of spectators at a Mexican air show, killing eight people and hurting 79, officials said.
Video taken from the stands, shows the truck coming down nose-first and bouncing, before heading straight into the crowd. Some witnesses said the driver appeared to have hit his head as he drove over the old cars. Some spectators reported the driver's helmet came off as the huge vehicle bounced over the cars, leading to speculation that the driver was incapacitated.
The driver was detained Sunday on suspicion of manslaughter. Officials said they were investigating possible safety violations during the setup of the show.


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CNJ staff photo: Andy DeLisle ENMU senior Zach Gerleve has been close to qualifying for NCAA Division II national track and field meet in each of his first three years, but finally made it this season.
By Dave Wagner: CNJ sports writer
PORTALES — Zach Gerleve has always been close to earning a berth in the NCAA Division II national outdoor track and field championships.
In each of his four years at Eastern New Mexico University, the senior from Truth or Consequences has reached the "provisional" qualifying distance in javelin, meaning he's thrown far enough to perhaps be invited at the NCAA's discretion.
This time, he got the call — as did junior triple-jumper Kyle Harris. They are the school's first NCAA qualifiers in the sport, and compete today at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C.
Gerleve is scheduled to throw at 9:30 a.m., while Harris' event is set for 3:30 p.m. (MDT).
"Zach's been our only provisional qualifier (previously)," ENMU track coach Eric Boll said. "This year we qualified five provisionals, and two of them made it.
"I just hope it's going to continue to grow. Any time you have some national exposure, it attracts attention from better (potential) athletes."
Gerleve and Harris, a transfer from New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell from Altamonte Springs, Fla., play running backs on the football team.
Gerleve, who has one semester of eligibility remaining in football, posted a personal-best throw of 200 feet in the New Mexico State Spring Classic, and is seeded 17th out of 18 entrants.
Only one thrower made the automatic qualifying distance of 218 feet.
"I always missed (qualifying) by an inch or two," Gerleve said. "My first year they took 22 (to nationals), and another year they took 16."
He knows his work is cut out.
"But anything can happen in the javelin," said Gerleve, who thinks he's capable of throwing 210. "I've got to get one good one. There's a lot of people right around 200 to 205. I think I can make the finals (top eight), for sure."
Harris has been nursing an ankle injury, and was doing most of his work on a stationary bike earlier in the week. Despite that, Boll is confident he'll be ready to go.
"It does (serve as an obstacle)," Boll said of the injury, "but Kyle's one of those kids that's so athletic.
"I'm more concerned about him being healthy than (not) practicing."
Harris' season-best outing came in the David Noble Relays at Angelo State, when he jumped 49 feet, 4 inches. He is seeded 14th out of 18 jumpers.
"I think I'll be able to make the finals, at least," Harris said. "I've got to go at least 50 feet; if I do that, I'll make it."
He said before this year he hadn't triple-jumped since high school.
"I didn't think I could (make nationals). But I'd say it's like riding a bike — you don't forget how to do it. I just had to pick up my workout a little bit."


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Indiana Voter: Nineteenth Century Rural Bases of Partisanship, 1870 (ICPSR 30)
Principal Investigator(s): Hammarberg, Melvyn A.
This data collection contains information on adult males living in nine counties of Indiana in 1870. The variables provide individual-level demographic information, such as county and township of residence, age, race, place of birth, parents' place of birth, status within the family, occupation, religious affiliation, and literacy level. Other variables provide information on the individual's and the family's real and total wealth, respectively, political party affiliation of the individual, disability condition, number of years the individual lived in Indiana, and percentage of life spent in Indiana.
Access Notes
These data are available only to users at ICPSR member institutions. Because you are not logged in, we cannot verify that you will be able to download these data.
This study is provided by ICPSR. ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for a diverse and expanding social science research community.
Study Description
Hammarberg, Melvyn A. INDIANA VOTER: NINETEENTH CENTURY RURAL BASES OF PARTISANSHIP, 1870. ICPSR00030-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [producer and distributor], 1998. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR00030.v1
Persistent URL: http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR00030.v1
Export Citation:
- RIS (generic format for RefWorks, EndNote, etc.)
- EndNote XML (EndNote X4.0.1 or higher)
Scope of Study
Subject Terms: census data, counties, demographic characteristics, foreign born, males, nineteenth century, occupations, personal wealth, place of birth, place of residence, political affiliation, political parties, political partisanship, religious affiliation, rural areas, voters
Geographic Coverage: Indiana, United States
Time Period:
- 1870
Universe: Adult males living in nine central counties in Indiana in 1870.
Data Types: census data, and administrative records data
Data Collection Notes:
The data maps are provided as ASCII text files, and the codebook is provided by ICPSR as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.
Data Source:
(1) United States Census of 1870, and (2) 1874 PEOPLE'S GUIDE
Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Original ICPSR Release: 1984-06-20
Version History:
- 2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 3 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.
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text:
Weekly Celebrity Twitter Roundup: Jan. 19-26, 2013
Welcome one, welcome all to this week's Twitter roundup, where we put all the best Twitterings and Instagrammings in one place for you to see, in one bite-sized package! This week, President Obama's inauguration, Seacrest crowns Justin Bieber the Grand Pooh-Bah of Twitter, some old men join the internet, Shakira gives birth, Seth Macfarlane brings civil rights to Tweets and more.
President Obama reflecting on his successes at the 2013 inauguration
"I want to take a look one more time. I'm not going to see this again."—The President pausing at the Capitol yesterday twitter.com/BarackObama/st…— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 22, 2013
Is 50Cent having some romance issues?
Every time I try to be cool shit go BAD. people who say they Love you hurt you more then enemies.— 50cent (@50cent) January 24, 2013
Kelly Osbourne fights against the system.
January 24, 2013
Jimmy Fallon welcomes two classic comedians to Twitter.
Welcome @danacarvey and @robinwilliams to Twitter!! #sanfranlegends #lovethis— jimmy fallon (@jimmyfallon) January 24, 2013
Seacrest congratulates Justin on his ascension to the Twitter throne.
@justinbieber btw congrats on hitting #1 on twitter!! with gr8 power comes great responsibility ;)— Ryan Seacrest (@RyanSeacrest) January 23, 2013
Jim Carrey has been deeply affected by the Beyonce Lip-Synching scandal.
I couldn't sleep last night. How can any of us move forward without knowing for sure whether Beyonce lipsynced or not!;^P— Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) January 23, 2013
Denis Leary wants to help the firefighters and their families who sacrificed so much during Sandy.
Help FF's who were devastated by Sandy: active.com/donate/teamlff…— Denis Leary (@denisleary) January 23, 2013
Miranda Kerr shows off baby pics of her and her beloved brother.
So blessed to have such a wonderful brother ❤ mattykerr26 instagr.am/p/UzksZykMDe/— Miranda Kerr (@MirandaKerr) January 23, 2013
Shakira finally pops and gives birth to a baby boy.
Milan Piqué Mebarak shakira.com/post/412280894…— Shakira (@shakira) January 22, 2013
Seth MacFarlane is advocating for emoticon affirmative action.
In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, can we please get some black emoticons?I'm tired of using this— Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane) January 21, 2013
That's all for this week! Check back next Saturday for another Twitter Weekly Roundup.


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The city's Department of Emergency Management announced Wednesday that it will roll out the Oahu Emergency Evacuation Plan Project beginning early in 2013.
The $500,000 one-year project funded by a grant from the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization with match funding from the City and County of Honolulu will identify high-risk coastal evacuation areas on Oahu and develop a strategy to designate evacuation routes and placement of evacuation signage.
The project team consists of six firms led by Robert Collins of Atkins North America, Inc. who will provide project management. Other team members include Group 70 International, Solutions Pacific, LLC., Martin and Chock, Inc., University of Hawaii Sea Grant and Dewberry and Davis, LLC.
Project objectives include performing a gap analysis that addresses a community tsunami risk assessment, evacuation capability, behavioral science and strategies to minimize traffic congestion.
An integral part of this project includes public outreach meetings in evacuation high-risk areas to seek planning input from local organizations and Oahu residents.
"We recognize that our residents have been requesting coastal evacuation routes and evacuation signage for quite some time.", said Melvin Kaku, director for the Department of Emergency Management. "The project, information and public input gathered during this one-year study will ensure that we, the City, approach evacuation routing and signage as a holistic process to ensure consistency across Oahu. I especially want to acknowledge the support we have received from key community organizations in Ewa, Hau'ula, Kailua, Nanakuli and the North Shore who have come to the forefront as community disaster preparedness stake holders."
Regional community outreach meetings are planned in identified high-risk coastal evacuation areas on Oahu. Specific dates and locations of these public meetings will be released as soon as site hosting agreements have been completed.


text: Help! My baby is 6 weeks and colicky. He has no latching issues but only breastfeeds for 5 mins and then he pulls himself off and screams, I burp him to help and try again only to have the same thing happen over and over. This seems to have gotten worse lately and I don't know what to do. He takes pumped milk from a bottle really well with no issues. Anyone had the same issue?


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She was born on April 9, 1954 in Mexico to Javier and Alicia Maldonado Puerto. She was a homemaker. She married Juan De Los Santos on August 24, 1974 in Kenedy.
Survivors include her husband Juan De Los Santos of Kenedy; daughter, Jessica De Los Santos of Karnes City; sons, Juan Xavier (Stephanie) De Los Santos of Runge, Simon De Los Santos of Pheba, MS, and David De Los Santos of Lake Jackson; sister, Agatha Deluna of Runge; brothers, Enrique Puerto of Des Moines, Iowa, William Puerto of Charlotte, NC, Javier Puerto of Kenedy, and Shane Puerto of Pa.; grandchildren, Juan Denzel De Los Santos, Favian Nathan De Los Santos, Justin Wade Martin, Solona Alicia De Los Santos, Michaela Attalla McLean, Jordan Nicole De Los Santos, Victoria De Los Santos, Michael De Los Santos, Marina De Los Santos, Kristen De Los Santos, Jon David De Los Santos, and Jacob Riley De Los Santos, and four great-grandchildren.
She is preceded in death by her parents Javier and Alicia Maldonado Puerto.
A prayer service was held Thursday, July 31 at 7 p.m. in the Eckols Funeral Home Chapel.
Funeral services were held Friday, Aug. 1 at 10 a.m. in the Eckols Funeral Home Chapel with Rev. Walter Hill, III officiating.
Interment followed in the Kenedy Cemetery.


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Home List of Titles A contextual model of professional attainment : results of a longitudinal study of career paths of men and women
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/34425
- Title
- A contextual model of professional attainment : results of a longitudinal study of career paths of men and women
- Author(s)
- Poole, Millicent E.; Langan-Fox, Janice; Ciavarella, Michelle; Omodei, Mary
- Abstract
- This study investigates the importance, in adolescence, of motivational, contextual, and demographic variables in predicting professional attainment in the early stages of career development. Using a synthesis of two theories; the Levinson Life Cycle and the Astin Theory of Career Choice, longitudinal data derived from approximately 3,000 adolescent students over a 10-year period from final year secondary school through to the age of 27 was analyzed using LISREL structural equation modeling. Predictor variables were selected from the data in line with a new contextualist theoretical model of career choice that contained variable blocks or conceptual 'career tracks', comprising socioeconomic background, sex role socialization, work motivation, external constraints operating on choice, and career planning. Results from the study showed that external contextual factors such as socialization influences from the family parental expectations and occupational expectations and individual factors such as ability and attainment were powerful determinants of professional attainment. Sex differences revealed that student perceived parental expectations for sons had a stronger effect on school attainment and expectations than did parental expectations for daughters. Further, the effects of constraints operating on college attainment and professional attainment were stronger for women than for men. Analyses indicated that the Astin model of career choice needs further refinement and the value of a contextualist framework is suggested.
- Publication type
- Journal article
- Source
- The Counseling Psychologist, Vol. 19, no. 4 (1991), p. 603-624
- Publication year
- 1991
- Keyword(s)
- Adolescent development; Australia; Contextual associations; Demographic characteristics; Longitudinal studies; Motivation; Professional development
- Publisher
- Sage Publications
- 0011-0000
- Publisher URL
- Copyright
- Copyright © 1991 Division of Counseling Psychology of the American Psychological Association.
- Peer reviewed


text:
Diet Soda and Depression?
By Health Day
You may want to drop that diet soda...new research suggests it could be a downer.
A brand new study makes a connection between sweetened drinks especially diet beverages...and depression.
The data comes from a large study done by The National Institutes of Health. Nearly 264-thousand adults 50 years and older participated. Consumption of a variety of drinks including soda, fruit punch, tea and coffee was tracked from 1995 to 1996.
Some 10 years later, researchers asked the participants whether they had been diagnosed with depression since the year 2000. A total of 11,311 had been.
Those who drank more than four sodas a day were 30 percent more likely to develop depression than those who drank no soda. Four cans of fruit punch a day upped that number to 38%.
Digging deeper, the risk was even greater for people who drank diet soda, diet fruit punch and diet iced tea - all containing artificial sweeteners.
On the other hand, people who drank four cups of unsweetened coffee a day were about 10 percent less likely to be depressed.
The bottom line from researchers? Cutting down on sweetened diet drinks...or making the switch to plain coffee may offer some natural protection, but they strongly emphasize that people taking depression medication prescribed by their doctor should continue to do so.
I'm Dr. Cindy Haines of HealthDay TV with news from today that can lead to healthy tomorrows.
Most Popular
Monday, December 5, 2016, Watertown, NY


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Sign, outhouse, and President Obama creating controversy in the eastern New Mexico town of Tucumcari.
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Are you looking to add a little fun to your drink? Look no further than these stainless steel straws. Designed with a slight bend at the neck and is slightly longer than a typical disposable straw allowing them to fit more variety of shapes and sizes of glasses. They are built to last a long time without rusting or tarnishing and are dishwasher safe. They are made of a durable 18/10 stainless steel which resists odors and taste. Join the reusable movement with these sophisticated eco-friendly stainless steel straws. Imported
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Sunday, February 5, 2012
Return to the Icy 8 Hour Trail Run
It's been three years since I ran the inaugural Icy 8 hour run in 2009. That year I was able to cover 50.3 miles on a day that saw quick running early due to a frozen ground, but fairly muddy conditions later.
Feb 4, 2012 was now the fourth running of Athletic Equation's popular winter event. For starters, I wasn't actually sure I was going to be running. The race was sold out and RD Alex Papadopoulos suggested I drive out to the race early and if someone didn't show, I could have dibs on the first slot. So, at 3:45am I drove two hours down to Lake Anna and was pleasantly surprised to hear I was going to be running. The talent that came out to this year's run was greater than any of the previous years. On hand were the 24 hour ATR winner Steve Speirs (2:45 marathoner), Thad Meyer (2:59 marathoner), Iain Banks (2:40 marathoner), and ultra stud Olivier Leblond (2:48 marathoner). And then there was me with my modest 3:33 marathon PR. Talk about feeling like an under dog about to get his butt handed to him. It truly looked like it could anyone's race, and the type of deep field that would force everyone to max out their 8 hours on the trail.
My goal prior to the race was to run eleven 4.7 mile loops (51.7 miles). This race does offer the option to mix and match either an 8, or 4.7 mile loop. This would be a new course record and personal best, though I believed many of the other talented runners were equally, if not better, suited to raise the bar higher.
A little after 7:30am the run starts and the 100 runners make their way into the first loop. Almost imediately I knew that the course conditions were far too muddy for me to set a PR. I felt like the first loop had been run at a pace I was slightly uncomfortable at, and was even more startled to see it still took 41:30 to complete. To compare, on the dryer 2009 course we came through loop one in under 41 minutes at an effort that felt much more relaxed. The perception was that the mud was slowing things down as much as 15-20 seconds per mile, and perhaps even more as the day progressed and conditions only worsened. Doing the math, if each loop was taking 1.5-2 minutes longer, I would lose roughly 20 minutes by the end of the day. Time to redo the strategy.
I opted to throw in an eight mile loop in hopes that I could at least match the 50.3 I had run in '09. However, even by mile 18 my day was not looking so good. I could feel my muscles really starting to feel worked, and the fatigue levels were a good bit more than what I was used to only 18.8 miles into a run. The eight mile loop is where I hit my first major crux of the day. I thought there was a satellite aid station at the midway point of the long loop, so I neglected to refill my water bottle, or grab any food to take on the go. As I completed the 3.3 mile extension of the long loop I realized I had made a terrible error and there was no aid. Needless to say, I bonked hard, ran out of water, and dragged myself to the start/finish on fumes.
Although I had completed 26.8 miles in 4:08, I felt horrible. My body was aching, my energy non existent, and I was 12 minutes slower than my '09 splits. I was honestly contemplating walking one more 4.7 mile loop and just calling it a day at 31.5 miles. I would have still run a 50k, which would have been enough to collect a nifty beer glass award. Respectable, right? So, I sat around for a few minutes, took in a heaping load of calories and tried to get my head back in the game. Leaving on lap six I reminded myself that I have done well here before, and this was not the kind of showing I knew I was capable of. There were 3 hours and 50 minutes to turn things around, and I knew well enough that these eight hour runs don't really become competitive until after the five hour mark. I thought back to the wise words of MC Hammer and was determined to be too legit to quit. So I put my head down, sucked it up, and trudged on. I reached the 50k mark in 4:54 and started building back some momentum.
But, at mile 36.2 I had some decisions to make. I could either attempt three 4.7 mile loops and likely risk not completing the third loop, which would bring my total to 45.6 miles. Normally this could get me in the top 3, but with the deep field, I just felt like it was going to take more than that to do it. I went ahead with the decision to attempt another 8 mile loop, and then finish with a 4.7 mile loop. It was a fairly big roll of the dice, because if I bonked hard again, there would not be enough time to complete the last loop and I would be stuck with 44.2 miles (even less than the 45.6 with the other strategy). I had 2 hours and 10 minutes to cover 12.7 more muddy miles. Gut check time.
The eight mile loop was tough, but felt easier the second time around. The short steep power line climbs came as a nice excuse to walk, albeit a few moments. I will say it was tough to figure out how much effort I wanted to put into this loop. I wanted to give myself a reasonable time cushion to complete the last 4.7 mile loop, yet I did not want to blow up with an hour left on the clock. I completed the 8 mile loop strong, which brought me to 44.2 miles in 7:07:30. That gave me a nice buffer of 52:30 to run the final 4.7 miles. Though I was confident I could cover the loop in time, there was always a slight fear that any given low point could cost me. Afterall, only completed loops within the eight hours count. While it wasn't blazing fast, I finished the last loop in 47 minutes, thus ending a tough day with 48.9 miles in 7:54.
I am very happy with this run for two big reasons. First, I believe in dryer conditions, this effort could have netted that 51.7 mile goal I was aiming for. I will say, as history has shown, the Lake Anna course may just always be a very muddy course. Secondly, it has been a while since I have struggled so early in a run, recovered, and was able to bounce back for a strong finish. When you don't feel good 18 miles into an event, it is almost impossible to talk yourself into wanting to go for another 31 miles. I haven't been that exausted at a finish line in quite some time, but with so many strong looking runners all day, there was never room to ease up. My advice for people who want to be competitive at timed events like this is to have a flexible game plan and use as much time as possible. Sounds rather obvious, but it can be risky trying to max out the mileage, though smart planning can allow mediocre runners like myself do well. I'm sure some of the faster runners actually hit quicker cumulative mile splits, but perhaps left 20-45 minutes on the clock. 4th place runner Steve Speirs actually ran 50 miles a good 15-20 minutes faster than my 48.9, but he only got credit for 46.1 due to a missed turn. Sans his missed turn, which I've done plenty of myself, I would have fallen back to 3rd. In the two years I have run the event I have used all but 6 and 3 minutes. My two combined Icy 8 hour finishes total 99.2 miles in 15 hours and 51 minutes of running. This proves good clock management can, to some degree, compensate for lack of speed.
Congrats to all the finishers. There were a remarkable number of runners who eclipsed the 40 mile mark, including 68 year old Gary Knipling's 41.4 miles. The results spoke for themselves on what a strong field ran. Six runners broke 45 miles, and Olivier Leblond's course record of 54.1 miles should be safe until he decides to run again. Three women ran 40 miles, or more, and quite a few people completed their first ultra, or set a personal distance record. Thanks to Athletic Equation and all the fine volunteers to braving the chilly conditions to help us out.
Mike Bailey
3 comments:
- david stango said...
Great run. Definitely a good day! Just curious, how did you get the photo?
- February 14, 2012 at 5:52 AM
- Mike Bailey said...
Solid run to you as well! In regards to the photo, a friend of mine told me one of the guys at the race had posted a bunch of photos to facebook, so she sent me the link. The runner's name, or nickname, is The Manimal, and he apparently posted a couple really good galleries on his page. I always make sure to give credit for whatever photos I borrow for my blog. Hope that helps!
- February 14, 2012 at 11:28 AM
- William said...
Mike, I was one of the newbie ultra runners out there. You passed me several times, and I only realized by reading your blog that you were hurting or having doubts at any point in the race. You looked like you were floating! Great job - I hope to be able to *look* half as comfortable and quick as you one day!
- February 7, 2013 at 9:50 AM


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The world's first watch driven by belts
The Monaco V4 is the world's first watch with belt drives, linear mass and ball bearings. Industrialized and entirely hand manufactured in TAG Heuer workshops, this double patented timepiece is the next step forward in the evolution of TAG Heuer's iconic squared-faced Monaco — the audacious chronograph first seen on Steve McQueen's wrist in the 1970 race film classic, Le Mans. This breakthrough innovation redefines the accepted conventions of watch engineering and aesthetics.


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No doubt asking for it…
I'm not sure how long I'll leave this post up, but since it's my place to dish about what I want to, I'ma gonna make a response.
Perhaps you've noticed I like to include humor in as many aspects of my life as possible. It was in the spirit of making someone smile that I commented on someone else's baseball blog:
"This is a RHETORICAL question–but when I'm at the pub watching the Mets/Yankees games, why do fans of both teams ask me to take my top off? Because Mets fans? That won't help them win. And Yankees fans? Dream on."
The response this female blogger gave me was that I "set female fans back 30 years."
Uh oh! I mentioned the very real fact that sometimes as a female fan, you get catcallled. And then I made a joke about it! In my opinion, it'd be more of a setback for female fans if we pretended that obnoxious male fans don't exist. Thankfully, they're quite few in number. For this I am grateful. But so far every time I've retorted back to an overanxious guy with a quick, witty comment, I've been subsequently left alone. I think if I had lectured, showed offense, or moved to another location, etc. etc., that'd be seen by the obnoxious guy as a "win" for them. Not as a "lesson."
However, if that's what a woman in that situation wants to do? Go for it. More power to her. I'll support however any female fan wants to react in an unfortunate situation that just sometimes happens.
And by the way? I love my pink hat. I also have a dark blue one. I have a regular blue colored Mets t-shirt and a baby blue one. And I feel anyone who disdains my pink gear should start worrying about their own selves. More than anything, what have we women fans gotten in the past 30 years? Choices.
To each her own.
6 Comments
GReat post GO METS beat up those yankees i9 cant say that
enough!!!!GO METSSSSSSSSS!!!!
(P.S. My favorite retort to an overzealous guy fan? "*You* take your top off. Your b**bs are bigger than mine.")
Nothing like shame to shut a guy up forever.
I deleted my comment on my site before you even responded because I felt it was too harsh.
But, as a woman who grew up around men who never took my love of baseball seriously and treated me like nothing but 'a girl'…and as a blogger who is inundated with emails from men telling me 'women know nothing about baseball', I still believe that your comment, placed where it was on my blog, came across sounding like a 'stereotypical girl fan' and I since I still fight those obtuse folks on my own blog, I chose to take out the comment rather than have the trolls coming back to say "see, we told you 'chicks' don't know anything about baseball".
In the context of your own blog, it's totally different.
And Cyn, I *totally* support your right to delete a comment on your own blog. Thanks for the note!
Nice post Zoe… and I dug your Floyd poem from the other day. Hopefully Cliff can put a hurt on the Yanks tonight. And those pink hats are cool! Let's Go Mets!


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Lessons to be learnedNovember 04,2013World War I was called the war to end war. Optimists genuinely believed that once peace was achieved there would never again be sufficient support for war because the price paid by the participating powers between 1914 and 1918 was simply unbearable. The United States didnt join the war until 1917, yet 600,000 Americans lost their lives fighting in Europe. Nations involved from the beginning lost millions of troops.
But within a few years, the drums of war were heard again, and one major contributor to the inevitability of the next world war was the manner in which the first wars victors dictated the peace terms in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. All of this comes to mind as Washington seeks to arrange a graceful exit from Afghanistan, one that doesnt leave the Afghan people at the mercy of either a corrupt government or the primitive priorities of the Taliban religious extremists.
Complicating the situation is the enduring and even worsening enmity between Afghanistan and its next-door neighbor, Pakistan, and the United States needs to have both of them, along with India, as allies in the war on global terror. And Washington dare not overlook the fact that India and Pakistan remain bitter enemies.
Any hopes for a peaceful future in that part of the world are hardly bolstered by the examples left over from World War 1, and the damage then wasnt limited to the most famous of the several peace treaties, Versailles.
Although today only historians may remember them, other (related) treaties had a major impact on the losing countries. Austria-Hungary, for example, was given no choice but to sign separate treaties while becoming two separate nations. Both of them were obliged to give up precious land to neighboring countries. In fact, Czechoslovakia (which has since split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia) came into existence as a result of the peace settlement. Large parts of Hungary were given to Poland, Romania and the newly created Yugoslavia (which no longer exists). In addition, some Austrian territory became part of Italy. Separately, Bulgaria lost some land to Yugoslavia.
But other than Germany, no nation fared worse than Turkey, the center of the suddenly obsolete Ottoman Empire. The Turks were left with only a small part of Europe (the remainder of Turkey is in Asia) and the Turkish Straits were placed under control of the League of Nations, the short-lived international agency (a precursor to the United Nations) that was the cherished dream of President Woodrow Wilson, who was famous or notorious for his idealism. In addition, France ended up with Syria and Lebanon while Britain gained control of Iraq, Jordan and Palestine.
And after the Allies prevailed (at a tremendous cost to all sides) in World War II, almost immediately they found themselves in a tense and perilous relationship it would become universally known as The Cold War with its wartime partner, the Soviet Union. The world breathed a collective sigh of relief in 1989 when, for reasons that are still disputed by historians and political scientists, the Soviet Union collapsed and there suddenly was new hope that peace would indeed prevail, though soon enough trouble erupted in several places.
Was the American invasion of Afghanistan worth it? The answer to that question is probably best left to future historians, who can better understand the context in which the war was fought. But nobody should be lulled into thinking that ending this war means a guarantee of peace. The opposite result has happened far too often.MORE IN CommentarySure, you can buy your uncle a necktie that he wont wear, or your niece an Amazon certificate... Full StoryA lot of serious long-term national issues simply werent addressed in the recent national election. Full StoryI have written on the anomaly of the separation of the private and public sectors in our society,... Full Story
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Reviewed By Phuong V (Alexandria, VA) Reviewed for a 2013 Lexus RX 350 —7/7/2015 11:55 AM
I have 2 of these unit and I just had them for about 2 week now, working good so far. Working right out of the box, very handy instructions came in the box that make set up step more easily. Not thing to complain, just one down side is the night vision, little bit too dark to see anything. But I guess you can't ask more for that affordable price.


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Home List of Titles Validity and reliability testing of the FAMCARE scale: measuring family satisfaction with advanced cancer care
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/193194
- Title
- Validity and reliability testing of the FAMCARE scale: measuring family satisfaction with advanced cancer care
- Author(s)
- Kristjanson, Linda J.
- Abstract
- The purpose of the study was to test the validity and reliability of the FAMCARE Scale which was developed to measure family satisfaction with advanced cancer care. The FAMCARE Scale was developed based upon earlier qualitative research which identified indicators of family care satisfaction and a subsequent Q-sort study that reduced those items to the most salient indicators of satisfaction according to a larger, representative sample (N = 210). A pilot test of the FAMCARE Scale using a convenience sample of 30 family members of advanced cancer patients was conducted. The scale achieved internal consistency estimates of 0.93 at two testing times, a test-retest correlation of 0.91, and estimates of criterion validity using the McCusker Scale of 0.80 and 0.77. Cluster analysis of the scale suggested 4 subdimensions. Although the scale requires further testing to establish its reliability and validity, these preliminary results indicate that the scale may be a psychometrically sound instrument useful for measurement of family satisfaction with advanced cancer care.
- Publication type
- Journal article
- Source
- Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 36, no. 5 (Mar 1993), pp. 693-701
- Publication year
- 1993
- FOR Code(s)
- 1117 Public Health and Health Services
- Keyword(s)
- Cancer; Families; Satisfaction; Treatment outcomes
- Publisher
- Pergamon
- 0277-9536
- Publisher URL
- Copyright
- Copyright © 1993 Elsevier Science Ltd.
- Peer reviewed


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Help please!
My 5 month old DD is nursing fine, in terms of amounts, but she is hurting me!!! She pulls on my nipple, sucking very hard, and then pushes with her fist back against it, until it pulls out VERY PAINFULLY I try to hold her hands, but she is very forceful. She also tilts her head way back, again pulling on the nipple while sucking hard, and when I try to guide her head back to me, she pushes harder. Sometimes I try to see if she is done at that point, but she will then still nurse for a long time, and is very hungry. She also turns her head to the side often, as if she's trying to look behind her, but she takes my nipple with her along the way!!! She is clearly distracted at times, and I try to make sure she nurses in quiet/private (easier said than done with the 3 year old), but it's happening more and more frequently. I'm afraid my nipples will never be the same.


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The event will continue Saturday with vendors opening booths at 9 a.m.
Santa Claus will arrive at noon Saturday on a longhorn and artist Dalhart Windberg will return to his hometown Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. inside the SoHo to sell and sign some of his work.
Ms. Ruby's Corral will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with authors signing their books.
The Market House Museum will be open all day Saturday and the "Best Dressed Dog Contest" will be Saturday on the Square at 3 p.m.
At dusk Saturday, the General Zaragoza Society will host Las Posadas at Presidio La Bahia.
The Beeville Community Choir will perform Saturday at 8 p.m. at Goliad State Park's Mission Espiritu Santo.


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Vernon can look to Maine town that lost its nuclear plantBy David Abel
The Boston Globe | September 22,2013AP File Photo
The dome that housed the nuclear reactor at the decommissioned Maine Yankee nuclear plant is demolished in September 2004 as part of the $500 million decommissioning of the plant in Wiscasset, Maine.WISCASSET, Maine In a wooded area behind a camouflage-clad guard holding an assault rifle, dozens of hulking casks packed with radioactive waste rest on concrete pads relics of the shuttered nuclear plant that once powered the region and made this fishing town feel rich.
In the 17 years since Maine Yankee began dismantling its reactors and shedding its 600 workers, this small, coastal town north of Portland has experienced drastic changes: Property taxes have spiked by more than 10 times for the towns 3,700 residents, the number living in poverty has more than doubled as many professionals left, and town services and jobs have been cut.
I have yet to meet anyone happy that Maine Yankee is gone, said Laurie Smith, the town manager. All these years later, were still feeling the loss of jobs, the economic downturn, and the huge tax increases.
Such words are a caution to residents of Vernon, Vt., home of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. Entergy, the owner of the 41-year-old nuclear plant last month shocked its 630 employees about a third from Massachusetts by announcing it is closing next year.
Activists opposed to nuclear energy have long opposed the regions plants, raising safety concerns that peaked two years ago after the tsunami in Japan caused a series of meltdowns at reactors there. But the New England plants have been economic boons for the small towns where they were built as long as they remain open.
The residents of Vernon now face mass unemployment and the loss of about half the towns tax revenues. Compounding their challenges will be the difficulty of doing anything with the valuable property.
Like at other nuclear plants shuttered in the region, such as Connecticut Yankee in Haddam and Yankee Rowe in northwestern Massachusetts, the radioactive waste must remain on the property until the federal government finds a suitable location to store the spent fuel.
That could take decades, as politicians have feuded for years about where to store the waste permanently and strict federal regulations require a security cordon around the property.
Were all in the same position: We want to go out of business, said Eric Howes, a spokesman for Maine Yankee, which retains a small staff to maintain its 64 casks of radioactive waste, each of which weighs more than 300,000 pounds, emits temperatures of up to 114 degrees, and releases small amounts of radiation into the air.
The land could be reused for other purposes, but as long as the fuel is there, it cant be used for anything, Howes said.
The plant in Rowe, Mass., which cost more than $600 million over 15 years to decommission, also left a path of woe for the towns 280 residents when it closed in 1992. The plant had nearly as many employees as the town had residents and local companies suffered from the loss of business.
Wiscasset officials would relish the opportunity to redevelop the Maine Yankee property and bring in a new employer. The plant, which paid for 96 percent of the towns budget until 1996, remains the largest payer of property taxes providing about 10 percent of the towns $10 million budget.
But residents are still coping with their abrupt plummet in wealth and their lingering expectations of extensive services.
The town lacks money to repair leaky windows and roofs in school buildings. The high school has fewer than half the students it had two decades ago, and about 50 percent of them rely on subsidized lunches.
Sewer and utility services are no longer free and residents reminisce about how they once indulged in amenities such as a ladder truck for their fire department, even though the town lacks buildings taller than three stories.
Using an average of data collected between 2006 and 2010, the U.S. Census American Community Survey found that more than 33 percent of Wiscasset residents were living in poverty, more than double the percentage found in the 2000 U.S. Census. Wiscasset ranked as the fourth-poorest community in Maine.
To the throngs of summer tourists who pass through on Route 1, the downtown seems prosperous. But on a recent afternoon at one of the many lobster shacks in town, Tony True recalled working a contracting job on a steam generator at the plant when the company announced it was closing. Everyone around him walked out.
It became a ghost town, said True, 51, who has lived in Wiscasset most of his life.
Like others in town, he remains angry that the 900-megawatt reactor closed after a quarter-century of generating electricity, a process that took nine years and cost $568 million. (Officials at the plant, which is owned by a consortium of utility companies in New England, blamed the difficult economics of running the plant, which had maintenance issues and required expensive work, a similar explanation provided by officials at Vermont Yankee.)
Trues property taxes, which used to run $180 annually, now exceed $4,000 a year. He laments the state of the schools and the animosity that arises every year over the towns meager budget.
I wish Maine Yankee never came here, he said. We went from having anything we wanted to having nothing, like going from being spoiled children to having no parents. The closing really put a curtain on Wiscasset.
Sue Thompson, who has lived in the town all her life, has seen the sharp plunge in everything from road maintenance to sports championships at the high school.
Many of her friends left town for jobs elsewhere and she complains about the high cost of trash pickup, which used to be free, and the lack of public works staff to shovel sidewalks. But shes one of the few residents who sees a benefit from the plants closing.
Most of my family died of cancer, and I think the plant was the reason, said Thompson, 55, a cashier at a fireworks shop.
Howes, the plant spokesman, said it operated safely. Most other residents interviewed in town said they rarely worried about the plants safety and have few concerns about the remaining radioactive waste.
But the plant faced serious allegations of safety violations and falsifying records around the time it was closed, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Agency investigators found Maine Yankee relied on inadequate computer analyses to demonstrate the adequacy of its emergency core cooling system; willfully provided inaccurate information to the NRC about its ability to vent steam during an accident; and provided falsified records of safety-related equipment.
Many of these violations and underlying causes were longstanding and appeared to be caused by ineffective engineering analyses, NRC officials wrote to Maine Yankee shortly after the plant closed.
They added that Maine Yankee was a facility in which pressure to be a low-cost performer led to practices which over-relied on judgment, discouraged problem reporting, and accepted low standards of performance.
Ashley Dowdy and her four young boys recently moved about a half-mile from where the casks are stored and can see the plants remaining administrative buildings from their house.
We never worry about it, said Dowdy, 25, who grew up in Wiscasset. She remembers using outdated textbooks and how the high school sports program went from upgrading equipment and uniforms every year to abandoning many of its teams.
High school principal Deb Taylor remembered when teachers routinely took students on field trips and the staff had generous health insurance. Now, field trips are rare and the school requires teachers to take their spouses health insurance.
Were an entirely different school and community than we were in the time of Maine Yankee, Taylor said. We have a student population with greater need and we have less ability to meet that need.
The gulf between the past and present, as well as the nostalgia, has made the challenge greater.
We face our issues still living under the perception that we are a wealthy place, she said. Theres a mismatch in who we feel were supposed to be and our current reality.
At town hall, Selectwoman Judy Colby ticked off vestiges of Wiscassets bygone wealth: seven gleaming fire engines, two state-of-the-art ambulances, a prized community recreation center, three modern piers, sewer and water lines that reach the most rural parts of town, and cable television available in every home.
But they now all come with a hefty price.
Its now a real struggle for a lot of families to pay their taxes, said Colby, whose annual tax bill spiked from $289 for 50 acres of land in 1996 to about $5,000 for 48 acres now. People still want all the amenities, but theyre finding it very hard to pay for them.MORE IN National / World BusinessNEW YORK Its not just the musical Hairspray that will air live on NBC tonight. Full StoryOXON HILL, Md. Far from the Las Vegas Strip, MGM Resorts International opens its $1. Full Story
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Phoenix Quotes & Notes
Hamlin Quotes on Phoenix
What is the key to getting around Phoenix?
"For me, the key to being fast at Phoenix is how you brake getting into the corner. It's a tricky place to get around, but I have found that if I set my car up good getting into the corner, we get so much more speed getting off the corner and down the straightaways. I really like racing at Phoenix and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it reminds me a lot of the places I raced when I was growing up. I spent my early career running flat tracks in Late Models and this track feels like that to me. It's flat and requires you to be really good with your setup if you are going to be quick through the corners."
Will you be sad to see the track repaved after this race?
"I will be disappointed to see the old surface gone. I'm the type of driver that loves worn out race tracks, and Phoenix is one of them. Right now, it's pretty much a one-groove race track, so passing is tough, but it really puts things in the drivers' hands. They say they are going to reconfigure the track a little bit to get two grooves of racing, so we'll have to see when we come back in November. I want to get the last win on the old surface and I think we have a good shot at it."
FedEx Racing Express Notes
Denny at Daytona: Denny Hamlin was in prime position to make a run at the checkered flag in the Daytona 500 before a lap 198 incident collected the #11 FedEx Express Toyota, causing extensive damage and a 21st-place finish. Hamlin was drafting with Ryan Newman in the outside groove down Daytona's backstretch when Regan Smith was turned across the track and in the path of Newman and Hamlin. The #11 Camry — which led seven laps late in the race — incurred damage to its nose, and the repairs on pit road put the FedEx team a lap down to the leaders for the two 'green-white-checkered' attempts.
Hamlin Headed to Phoenix: Hamlin and the #11 FedEx Freight Toyota head to Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) this weekend, the one-mile desert oval that caused so much pain and heartbreak one season ago. The #11 team headed to PIR last November holding a 33-point lead in the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings and were the car to beat throughout the race, leading 190 of 312 laps. However, a pit stop for a splash of fuel with 10 laps remaining — when the other race contenders could make it the distance — caused a 12th-place finish, turning a near-insurmountable points lead into a scant 15-point advantage heading to the season-finale in south Florida.
The April race at Phoenix in 2010 brought literal pain to Hamlin, who was just 10 days removed from surgery to repair the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Hamlin turned in a gutsy performance, finishing out the race even after mechanical issues put the #11 car a couple laps down, driving to a 30th-place result.
Hamlin is making his 12th Cup Series start at Phoenix on Sunday, and has five top-five finishes to his credit at the track. His best result of third has come four times, most recently in Nov. 2009. He also recorded third-place runs at April 2008, April 2007 and Nov. 2006. The 30-year-old captured the pole position in his first Cup race at PIR in Nov. 2005 — in just his sixth series start — the year before he earned 'Rookie of the Year' honors.
Kyle Busch Quotes on Phoenix
How is your relationship with Dave Rogers heading into your second season with him?
"We both did learn an awful lot last year and we've both talked a lot this winter. We spent some time together and we've had some good talks and some good opportunities to think about what we want to do and kind of develop our plan and our strategy for moving forward into this year. We've gone over most of that and, hopefully, we can put it all into effect here at the beginning of the year and get our momentum rolling and stay strong all throughout the year."
Is there anything different about your team this year that makes you believe you can win the championship?
"I think the biggest thing that's different with us is just having a full year under my belt with Dave Rogers (crew chief) and, now, going into the season with that year's worth of experience of working with Dave and to trying to reach our potential and little bit more this year. Unfortunately we've kind of fallen shy of that the past few years. This is the year we'd like to change that around and make it to where we get through the regular season okay and get to the Chase and then, once we get into the Chase, we stay consistent with what we're doing. Then, if we can make it through without motors blowing up or getting involved in wrecks or something like that, we can have a shot come Homestead."
How do you feel about heading to Phoenix this week after having a strong Speedweeks?
"I'm glad to go back to a racetrack that drivers matter and car handling matters. You always want to win at Daytona, so don't get me wrong. But taking everything into account, I'm pleased to get a top-10 finish and start off the season on the right foot as far as the points go. I ran really well at Phoenix in both races last year, but circumstances kept us from winning there last year. The late caution in the spring race hurt us and not being able to stretch out fuel mileage in the fall race obviously hurt us, as well. I'm looking forward to getting back there, for sure, and hoping we can get Combos into victory lane again, as well."
What does it take to be successful at Phoenix?
"You've got to have a good car, but you've got to have good brakes. You've got to have a good-turning car, and you've got to have a good car that can accelerate off of turn two and go fast down the backstretch. There's a lot involved at Phoenix, but being a day race and being hot and slick, it makes it that much more interesting."
In addition to two Nationwide Series wins at Phoenix, you also won in your second Sprint Cup start at the mile oval. Do you enjoy racing at Phoenix?
"Phoenix is a pretty neat place. For some reason, I've always run well there. I don't know if it's that I'm comfortable being back close to home on the West Coast, or what. I always have a little more fan support out there, as well. As for the track itself, you have two distinctly different corners at Phoenix. Turns one and two are different than three and four, and there's also a kink in the backstretch. Being able to run well there depends on how well you can turn in the center of turns one and two and yet still have a good drive up off the back straightaway because it's so long and fast. Then, getting into turn three, you really need to rotate. Just past the center of turns three and four, you have a little bit of a kink on the apron, where you need to be able to turn and get a good drive off the corner. It's really dependent on how I like the car set up so I'm able to make a good lap time. There are plenty of tricks to that place that you need to know to be successful."
Kyle Busch: Looking for the Right "Combo" at Phoenix
In the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, the relationship between driver and crew chief may be the single most important element for a team to be successful. The communication between the guy on top of the pit box on race day and the guy behind the wheel of the racecar had better be good – or the results aren't going to be.
Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team, who've combined to win the last five Sprint Cup championships, and Denny Hamlin and Mike Ford of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) team, are the latest examples of long-term driver/crew chief combinations that have been successful over the past several years.
Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 Combos Toyota for JGR, and crew chief Dave Rogers are also quickly becoming a potent "combo" since first joining forces at Texas Motor Speedway in November of 2009, where they led the most laps and narrowly missed a win in their first race together.
So far, the Busch-Rogers combo has worked well and has grown stronger despite working together in just 40 Sprint Cup points-paying races. It's proven to be one of the top driver/crew chief tandems in the sport as it found victory lane three times in 2010 and put the No. 18 team back in the Chase for the Sprint Cup after missing it in 2009. The Busch-Rogers combo will look to add to its victory total this weekend when Combos Camry takes part in Sunday's Subway Fresh Fit 500k at Phoenix International Raceway in Avondale, Ariz.
The Busch-Rogers combo got off to a strong start this season, leading laps and contending late while finishing a solid eighth in the Daytona 500 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. Busch rolls into the second race of the season at Phoenix seventh in the standings.
Neither the fourth-year JGR driver nor Combos as a primary sponsor are strangers to victory lane at the mile oval in the Arizona desert. Combos was on Busch's Nationwide Series car last April at Phoenix when he scored the win in dominating fashion.
In 12 Sprint Cup starts at the "Diamond in the Desert," Busch has one win and seven top-10 finishes, including four in a row from the spring 2007 through fall 2008 events, and he won the pole for the spring 2006 race. The talented 25-year-old from Las Vegas was in position to win both Sprint Cup races at Phoenix in 2010, but late-race pit strategy did not work out either time.
Still, Busch has shown a penchant for winning at Phoenix in NASCAR's Nationwide Series and Camping World Truck Series. In 11 Nationwide starts, he has three wins, eight top-10 finishes and three poles to go with his Truck Series win in the fall 2007 race.
So, the question remains: Will the combo of the crafty Rogers and the young Busch result in a new track being added to their list of collaborative wins? It's certainly tough to look past what has quickly become one of the strongest driver-crew chief combos in NASCAR as, together, they hope to prove their worth as bona fide Sprint Cup title contenders in 2011.
Joey Logano Quotes on Phoenix
"I like Phoenix a lot, aside from Charlotte it is one of my favorite tracks on the circuit. I've had good runs there the last two times in The Home Depot car, but I've run really well there in the Nationwide car too. This is going to be the first real test on the track for the new nose this season. I don't think we are expecting too much of a difference but we will find out on Friday.
"The last race in Phoenix was an example of how far this team has come since my rookie year. We started out in the top 10, but fell back then got blocked in the pits. My first year and a half we wouldn't have been able to rally back from that, but in November we did and finished third. That shows the strength and confidence this Home Depot Team has now."
The Home Depot Team Notes of Interest
- Joey Logano will be making his fifth Phoenix International Raceway start as the driver of the Home Depot Toyota. The one-mile track has been one of Logano's most consistent tracks on the circuit. In 2010, he earned top-10 finishes in both events at the desert track including a third-place effort last fall.
- About last week: Logano and The Home Depot Team were running a clean, smart race in the Daytona 500 despite the new drafting style at the recently paved speedway. Unfortunately the No. 2 car spun late in the race and clipped the right rear of the No. 20 Camry causing extensive damage. Logano came into the pits for repairs and was able to finish in the 23rd position.
- The Home Depot's monthly Kids Workshop will feature the No. 20 car driven by Logano on Saturday, March 5 from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. Kids Workshops are a FREE family activity, designed for children 5-12, available the first Saturday of every month at all The Home Depot stores. In addition to instilling safe DIY skills and a sense of accomplishment, each child gets to keep their car, along with a Kids Workshop apron, achievement pin and diploma.
- Meet Logano! Fans in the Phoenix area can meet Logano at The Home Depot Store down the road from the track on Feb. 24 from 6 – 7:30 p.m. The store is located at 5230 W. Baseline Rd in Laveen, Ariz. There will be photo opportunities with the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota and an autograph signing by Logano. Wristbands will be distributed starting at 5 p.m. to the first 700 fans.
- Welcome aboard The Home Depot associates from store #3615 in Cary, N.C. The store number will ride along with Logano this weekend for the Subway Fresh Fit 500. Cary is the home to the founder of the popular HowStuffWorks, Inc., Marshall Brain. Brain started the company with www.howstuffworks.com in 1998 and by 2008 had over 58 million visitors annually.
- The No. 20 Home Depot Team is taking chassis #275 this weekend for the race in Phoenix. The team used this chassis five times last season and it has four top-10 finishes. Logano piloted chassis #275 to a third-place finish at Dover International Speedway, a ninth-place finish at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, crossed the stripe 10th at Michigan in August and most recently drove it to a sixth-place run at Martinsville.
- To access information on The Home Depot Team visit: www.joegibbsracing.com and follow twitter.com/homedepotracing, twitter.com/joegibbsracing and twitter.com/jlogano.
Brian Scott Quotes on Phoenix
"I've traditionally run well at short tracks and flat tracks, so Phoenix fits my driving style. Joe Gibbs Racing has a really good track record at Phoenix and that adds to my confidence going into this weekend. The keys to Phoenix are track position and a decent pit stall. It's going to be important to have a good practice and a solid qualifying run. There has never been a green-flag stop in the Nationwide race at Phoenix because there are so many cautions. That also means that you usually see some sort of wreck during one of the many restarts, so you want to get up toward the front and stay there to avoid those kinds of situations."
"This is the last race on this track configuration. I'm excited about the new track because it will really help from a spotter's standpoint with the pit road issues and the restarts. That will make the race easier for them to call, better for the drivers and should result in better racing for the fans."
"Obviously last week was disappointing. So we will need to adjust our goals and objectives heading into the next three races. We need to focus on finishing the race first of all, but getting solid finishes. What we can't do is try to overcompensate for Daytona. We still need to race hard but we need to be smart about it. We can't afford to get ourselves in a deeper hole. If we can get top-10 finishes at Phoenix, Las Vegas and Bristol we can readjust our goals again."
Shore Lodge Team Notes of Interest
- Brian Scott will be looking for redemption after a disappointing first race as a member of the Joe Gibbs Racing organization. Scott was spun on lap 15 at Daytona International Speedway in the NASCAR Nationwide Series last weekend and was forced into the garage for repairs. Scott started from the 11th position, drafted his way into seventh but finished 34th in his Shore Lodge Toyota after the early race incident.
- Scott will be making his fourth start at Phoenix International Raceway this weekend in the Nationwide Series. Scott has top-20 finishes in all of his three starts including an 11th-place run in November of 2010. In addition to his three starts in the Nationwide Series, he also has three starts in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series where his best finish of fourth came in 2008.
- Scott, the runner up for the 2010 Nationwide Series rookie of the year, joins JGR following his first full season in the series where the 23-year-old tallied five top-10 and one top-five finish. The addition of the No. 11 team gives the JGR organization an opportunity to run for the series championship with the rule change this season. Following Daytona, Scott sits 23rd in the Nationwide driver standings. He joins teammates Kyle Busch in the No. 18 Toyota and Joey Logano in the No. 20 Toyota this season.
- Scott's No. 11 team is headed up by crew chief Kevin Kidd who led Logano to two wins, eight poles and 24 top-10 finishes in just 25 starts last season. Several member of the No. 20 moved to the No. 11 with Kidd and will support Scott's efforts this season.
- Scott, along with several other NASCAR Nationwide Series drivers, will sign for fans at Phoenix International Raceway on Saturday from 10:30 – 11:15 a.m. in the fan midway area behind the Bobby Allison grandstand.
- Former NASCAR Nationwide stand-out Tim Fedewa will be Scott's "eye in the sky" for the 2011 season. Fedewa will guide Scott and the No. 11 Shore Lodge Toyota as they look for victory lane for the first time this season. Fedewa has four Nationwide Series wins and 66 top-10 finishes on his resume.
- To access information on Brian Scott and No. 11 Team visit: www.joegibbsracing.com and follow twitter.com/bscottracing and twitter.com/joegibbsracing.