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Scott, There are so many over there. I wasn't thinking of any place specific. Adam is over there a fair amount. Maybe he knows a bar (old man not hipster) that might be a little less trafficked. Maybe not. Just a thought.
Norma, I am perfectly happy to ride the subway with anyone who may need to and/or could use a little help gettting around via the train, so don't worry about that. As long as the train takes it often takes just as long or longer to travel by car depending on the time of day, so I wouldn't look at the subway as slow necessarily. There are express trains can speed things up considerably.
I hate to upset the apple cart,as it were, but the only thing about Paulie Gees at 10 is whether Norma and I can make it to the Port Auth. to make the last bus at 12.15. If Norma and I have to skip PGs, so be it.
I can take another 4 in, and don't mind driving around, I just have to split early to make it back here for the dinner shift.
( company vehicle fits 3 + me )
My 2cents...and it might be worth less than that, but my daughter has an apartment on McDougal street , a block from Artichoke. While the name is alluring, and I love my artichokes, , the pizza is god awful, way, way, way overly salted and not worth the room it will occupy in your gut. Skip it and save belly room for rest of your ambitious and delicious sounding day...
There are, however, three large places in proximity to Best and Paulie Gee.
Jeff Orlick@JeffreyTastesapp comment: Fascati's is w/out a doubt amazing! Been going here for about 20 years now, and was just there last month. Better than ever!..https://twitter.com/#!/JeffreyTastes/status/174562967768154112


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Services on Demand
Related links
- Cited by Google
- Similars in Google
Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy
On-line version ISSN 2411-9717
Print version ISSN 0038-223X
LOMBARD, F. and LYMAN, G.J.. Comparing two mass size distributions. J. S. Afr. Inst. Min. Metall. [online]. 2012, vol.112, n.7, pp.613-619. ISSN 2411-9717.
We consider in this paper the use of a modified version of Hotelling's statistic in the analysis of particle size distributions. The statistic can be adversely affected by the presence of outliers among the data. We propose a competitor to the statistic that is based on ranks, and hence is less sensitive to outlier effects. The results of a Monte Carlo study suggest that the rank test is highly competitive with the Hotelling test in its ability to detect differences between two mass size distributions. The calculation of the rank statistic is explained in detail and its application is illustrated on two sets of data.
Keywords : mass size distributions; bias testing; rank statistic..

subset: commoncrawl


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We've heard it many times before - "this is the future of computing". First it was the PC, then the network, then Windows, then the internet, then outsourcing, then blah, blah, blah. And now we have Cloud Computing and Virtualization. Where does it end? It seems like whenever anything new comes along, we're told "this is the future…". More often than not though this approach seems like it's just another way for the big boys to sell us more "stuff". I'm sure you'd agree that as a business owner, I'm tired of being told how to spend money. Rather, I'd like to be shown how we can save money. How we can get "more for less". Especially these days. What we hear from our clients is - How can we get more value from the technology we've already invested in while reducing our overall costs?
What we're seeing now is a huge push in the industry towards addressing this. It's an industry wide move towards fixed fee IT support - or what the industry has dubbed "Managed Services". The idea of this isn't revolutionary, but rather evolutionary. It's about time. For years, clients have been asking pretty much for two things - 1) to know what their IT support costs are going to be and 2) to know that their IT Solution Providers are on their side. It's hard to preach that you're objective and a trusted advisor when the whole Time and Materials billing concept is at odds with that. The more we work on something the more we get paid. It's sad but true. So, how are we truly on our clients' side? Regardless of our integrity and honor and the trust we've built up over decades with clients, this methodology of billing for our services is still at odds with what the client wants - which is the least amount of fees as possible.
Well, now the industry has a solution for this - and it's called "Managed Services". Because of the maturity of the monitoring systems and underlying technology, we're now able to truly and (more importantly) proactively "manage" a network. These new tools give us the power to see events and deal with them BEFORE they become critical problems. Before they create time intensive repair work. Before they become nightmares. We can now really KNOW what's going on with a network immediately, without being onsite, and without having to manually do anything. It's simplifying the management of a computer network down to something like having an "oil change" light on your car. Well, almost this simple. Not that the response is any less technical than before, but now we can deal with the symptoms rather than at the time of crisis.
These tools also allow us to automate certain tasks that we used to have to do manually. We can now push service packs and patches down to specific machines. We can now run scripts to install software across multiple machines. We can now remote control machines and devices quickly, easily, and with an audit trail. We can now have a real time inventory and know whenever a user installs something they shouldn't have onto their machine. We can now run reports and have quantifyable information about the network that we never had in the past.
So, how does this give us the ability to offer support at a fixed fee? Well, it allows us (the service provider) to commit to a better service level, because we can now prevent many things from happening, increasing the uptime, and ultimately decreasing the frequency and impact of issues. This now gives us the ability to be in control of the network rather than the network controlling us. Essentially, we're changing the IT Support paradigm - from a reactive approach to a highly proactive one. This gives us the ability to be accountable and responsible for the network. This gives us the capabilities to OWN IT!
So, is this truly the future of computing? In time (and not that long), every business computer system will be monitored and under a Managed Services or Flat Fee Support Plan. How can they not?


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Interested in joining the SVA? Email Hunter at email@example.com. Meetings will begin on Tuesday september 4 at 3:30.
Contact UsOfficersPresidentHunter GladfelterVice PresidentKyle MobryTreasurerCody BrynerSecretaryErin MurphyYou can email Hunter at email@example.com if you have any questions or want to join.
Veteran's Service OfficeBox 191871 Old Main DriveShippensburg UniversityShippensburg, PA 17257
Educational Gratuity program provides financial assistance to children of honorably discharged veterans who have service-connected disabilities and served during a period of war or armed conflict or children of veterans who die or died in service during a period of war or armed conflict.
Payments: Payment will not exceed $500.00 per term or semester per qualified child to each approved educational institution upon submission by that approved educational institution of proof of matriculation of the applicant. Educational gratuity payments may not be made for longer than 4 scholastic years.
Statute: Chapter 87, Title 51 Procedures: Chapter 5, Title 43
How to Apply?
What documentation is needed to apply?
Shippensburg University and Shippensburg University Student Services, Inc. recognize more than 100 student-centered clubs and social organizations. The University provides web space for these sites, but the sites are created and maintained by the students.


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Sparrow Court is a residential cul-de-sac in North Davis.
For over 10 years, we've served communities without any advertising, spammy corporate partnerships or user-tracking spyware. We're a small nonprofit supported by donations from people like you. And right now, we need your help.
To stay free and make sure the site continues to run well into the future, our goal is to raise $1k/month in recurring pledges. This covers our absolute core hosting, infrastructure and legal expenses. We must raise this amount to ensure that the lights always stay on. That's just 100 people pledging $10 a month.
Make a small monthly donation ($1 goes a long way!) and keep us free forever:
Sparrow Court is a residential cul-de-sac in North Davis.


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Photo File Pittsburgh Steelers Jack Lambert Framed Photo
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text: FRAME|WORK: Untitled XX by Willem de Kooning Yesterday was the birthday of renowned Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning. Today's FRAME|WORK—a weekly blog series highlighting an artwork in the permanent collection—features de Kooning's 1977 painting, Untitled XX, which is currently on view in Gallery 15 at the de Young Museum.Willem de Kooning (American, 1904–1997). Untitled XX, 1977. Oil on canvas. Museum purchase, gift of Nan Tucker McEvoy. 2002.1 April 25, 2012 Read more about FRAME|WORK: Untitled XX by Willem de Kooning Comments Filed under: painting Landscape Artist Birthdays oil paint Abstract Expressionism Willem de Kooning Nude FRAME|WORK Collections Community de Young


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Please check out the BST rules which are posted as an announcement in all of the BST forums, some rules have been removed, some have been rewritten and some have been condensed into others. I've also tried to add as much clarity as possible to make the BST as user-friendly as possible while still providing all the same protection to continue providing you guys with the safest BST in paintball.
If you have any questions at all please direct them to this thread, this sticky will be posted in all of the BST forums so I don't want to have to answer questions, sometimes the same in several different forums.
New BST Rules Question Thread
Started by -ORaNGe-, Jun 22 2011 07:52 PM
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Jenny Boots by Isabel Marant. Slouchy, pull-on suede ankle boot with rounded toe & stacked heel.
Rounded toe / Slouchy boot shaft with tabs over opening at sides / Curved cutout overlay with topstitch detail at instep & heel / 0.75" stacked heel with rubber piece at bottom / Leather sole, insole, & lining / Color: Kaki / 100% Leather / Shoe covers included / Also available in Camel Suede, Noir Suede, Gris Suede, Natural Leather & Noir Leather.


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Fun for the WHOLE family with canine costume contests, dog parade, live music, and much more!
Best Valentines Costume
Best Non-Theme Costume
Best Dog & Owner Look-A-Like
There will be two stages featuring ongoing live music, children's activities, training demonstrations, and more.
Guests can have lunch at one of Midtown's hip, exciting, eclectic restaurants or vendors.
Even if attendees don't plan to enter their pooch in the costume contest, they are welcome to register and walk in the Paws on Parade down Main Street.
For more information about registration, sponsorships, entertainment, vendors, or media, contact BelleForino, Marketing Coordinator for Midtown at 561.282.4623 or email firstname.lastname@example.com
♥ Shelter dogs aren't broken. They've simply experienced more life. If they were human, we'd call them wise. They would be the ones with tales to tell, and stories to write. The ones dealt a bad hand, and responded with courage. Do not pity a shelter dog. Adopt one. ♥ Learn more at www.bdrr.org<http://www.bdrr.org


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Dr. Randal Pinkett (r), with Donald Trump.
Dr. Randal Pinkett, winner of the Donald Trump show "The Apprentice" will speak at Delaware State University at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13 in the Education and Humanities Theatre on campus.
The event is free and open to the public.
Mr. Pinkett is the chairman and CEO of national consulting BCT Partners, a firm that recently landed two separate billion-dollar contracts. He is the co-author of Black Faces in White Places. He is also the author of The Campus CEO and NO Money Down CEO.
He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Oxford University, holds five degrees, and was a Rhodes scholar.
As the winner of the fourth season of The Apprentice, Dr. Pinkett is the only African American to win that prime time reality show.


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Just watched the prodigious direct-to-dvd prequel: "smokin' aces 2."
I was expecting it to suck after really enjoying the first film. Yet, I came away pleasantly impressed by the villain acting and everything built to the climax of the story (beware if you don't like manic, fickle, endings). The gore was right on, as memorable movies show things up to a point, and then rely on connectivity from our emotions to complete the intent. "Smokin' aces'" does this with homicide for pay, concurrently as the characters are annihilating anything that moves. In "Smokin' Aces," viewers see deaths connected with an impressively opposing associated view from the emotions of their killers. Unfortunately, we won't be able to acquire a sense of the true depth of those characters until shown in a larger sample size, like in "Dexter."
It's still relatively new for humans to picture individuals who kill other individuals for money, to have any innate human traits, yet that is what the view of what both of the "Smokin' Aces" movies allow viewers to obtain.
The second movie is getting a ton of negative reactions, even from people who liked the first movie. Am I missing something? Maybe a rewatch is due.


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Ty Segall's New Video Reminds Me Why I'm Repulsed By the Human Body
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
The naked human body: what an awful sight. It's one that ought to be illegal. And thanks to Ty Segall's new video for "Thank God For The Sinners," I'm once again reminded that we're all just a pair of fangs and a million eyeballs away from being spiders. Yuck-eee.
But, in all seriousness, this incredibly unsettling 3 minute psilocybin mushroom trip is the perfect way to kick-off The Day After. I'm just disappointed that this army of hands didn't devolve into a synchronized "Here's The Church, Here's The Steeple" dance routine.
[via The Bay Bridged]


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Topic: Creating a library system for my final year project!
Good Morning everyone!
Like the subject says I am considering creating a library system for thr final year project of my degree. Now I have looked at many other programming languages but I just can't seem to get my head round it. On the plus side I used Ruby on Rails last year at university for one of my modules and I did enjoy it. However before making a decision I wanted to ask the Ruby community what they thought of me creating the project in Ruby. I know it will not be easy but I am ready to put the hard work in..
I don't have advanced knowledge of Ruby but I can say I'm not a complete noob at it either. Therefore what do you guys think?
Secondly could anyone suggest any good books for web development in Ruby. I'd prefer a book which explain it in detail abd it goes step by step!
All your help is very appreciated!
Thank you very much!


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Moderators: peeker643, swerb, Ziner
by Adverb Harry » Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:54 pm
by dmiles » Mon Feb 25, 2013 2:22 pm
Adverb Harry wrote:No one's got anything snarky to say? The pope's resignation, the State of the Union, the meteor explosion in Russia, the "Blade Runner" murder? Nothing? Come on here, people...I'm disappointed.
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Netflix Probably Should Be Bankrupt, Stock Closer To Zero
While I disagree with his view of Amazon.com (AMZN) , I'm on board with pretty much everything else, particularly:
Netflix'slatest sleightof hand is the move to explore taking advantage of the current low interest rate environment, while stating ithas sufficient cash on hand to fund expenses. This is not true. In fact, if Netflix had not issued additional debt, there is a strong likelihood of financial disaster in 2013.
This same argument was used last time Netflix sought financing in late 2011, but this time around, people seem to fully believe the argument. Ironically, Hastings' spin is more misleading than in 2011.
On Netflix's $500 million debt deal, Mintzmyer nails it again:
The debt deal by itself makes sense. The bond markets are starved for yield and Netflix needs the cash. I'm not decrying the offering; my point is that this isn't a Microsoft (MSFT) or Intel (INTC) type of advantage play -- this cash was needed to ensure operations, and Netflix is extremely lucky to receive it.
Bingo. Those three paragraphs sum up the Netflix story.
The second I read about the company's plans to "raise additional cash through new debt financing" in its Q4 shareholder letter , I called B.S. And if you check point No. 4 at the very end of this article from Jan. 17 , you'll see that I called it before it happened.
I can't pat myself on the back too hard though. If you have even a weak understanding of Netflix's business and its inherently broken model, you, like Mintzmyer, realize Reed Hastings cannot move forward with content acquisition as usual, original programming production and international expansion without a cash infusion. I've been through the numbers a million times since I started calling Netflix out two years ago and, trust me, it's simply not possible.
To think that a fine publication such as Gentleman's Quarterly could mislead its readers as it did in a recent article about Netflix is unfortunate. GQ called Netflix "a cash-rich company." Even Hastings has to chuckle when he reads crap like that.
But you can't blame GQ. They're not hip to the game. They don't follow the company like we do. We cannot expect a writer at GQ to read between the lines and sniff out the pure and unadulterated hogwash that pollutes this paragraph from the above-cited Q4 letter to shareholders:
As highlighted previously, we have sufficient cash on hand to fund our current slate of originals and ongoing expenses, and to maintain an adequate reserve, before returning to positive FCF. In addition, we are exploring taking advantage of the current low interest rate environment to refinance our $200 million in outstanding notes and raise additional cash through new debt financing. This would give us additional reserves as well as increased flexibility to fund future originals.


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BoomerCafé Co-Founder and Executive Editor Greg Dobbs has worked most of his life as a television correspondent. First, a quarter of a century at ABC News, and now at HDNet Television's "World Report." Greg is a natural – he has a quick, curious mind, and he's a solid professional journalist. Occasionally, he writes essays about places and people who have caught his attention, like this Letter from Mexico.
December 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
Often when I finally leave a story, I find myself picturing some of the key people I've met, even long after I've gotten home. Just in the past year for example, I still sometimes think of the Colombian soldiers with whom last Spring, along with a crew from HDNet, I dropped down from combat helicopters into the damp wet jungle, the soldiers' job being to take out camouflaged cocaine labs and fight off the bad guys who resist. And of the remarkably inspiring young man on whom I shot a piece in California and Connecticut, the man born with no arms and no legs, but hardly hampered by his shortcomings. There are still people I think about in the Middle East with whom I've spent time and admittedly grown empathetic, who struggle every day of their lives simply to survive, in ways the average American cannot begin to imagine. And those I saw a year ago in Vietnam, whose bodies are gruesomely mangled, apparently from absorbing the dioxin, Agent Orange, that we unknowingly used during the war there. It destroyed some American soldiers too.
Well, for the past week and a bit, I've been in Mexico, and there are two groups of people here who will stick with me a while. One is the group of men (and a handful of women) who staff oil rigs far from the shore in the Gulf of Mexico, literally isolated on a single rig for in some cases 14, in others 28 days at a stretch. The other people I won't soon forget is a group of women — society's dregs — who live in a damp cold house in one of the poorest and most dangerous parts of the city, but for whom the place is a refuge from the world they inhabited most of their sorry lives; it is a charitable home for retired prostitutes.
Let me begin with the oil rigs. Our story is this: back in the early 1970s, a fisherman from a place on the country's southernmost Gulf coast called Ciudad del Carmen started noticing oil mucking up his nets. He thought for a while it might be leaking from a passing ship, but it continued, and continued, and if anything, got thicker. Eventually, the story goes, he contacted Pemex, Mexico's state-owned oil company (the name is short for Petroleos Mexicanos), and what they figured out was that there was crude oil coming up from the sea floor. Lots of it. Within just a few years they had rigs out in the water to exploit the oil, and they called the rich find "Cantarell." Why? Because that was the fisherman's name: Rudecindo Cantarell.
It's only appropriate that they named the area after him, because thanks to the couple of hundred huge Pemex platforms that have been working there for more than 30 years now, as well as abundant resources onshore, Mexico has become one of the biggest producers of hydrocarbons (oil and gas) in the world and, not just incidentally, sometimes the second, sometimes the third biggest oil exporter to the United States (the other biggies are Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Venezuela).
The trouble is, production from Cantarell has peaked, and begun to drop. How bad is it? From a high of three million barrels of oil a day just a couple of years ago, two-thirds of which came from Cantarell, Mexico's total production has declined to just two-and-a-half million barrels per day. In terms of percentages, that's huge, and in terms of money, it's even bigger, because depending on the price of oil, the proceeds from Pemex have accounted for as much as almost 40% of the national budget. Or put another way, five consecutive Mexican presidents have been spending the money. They credit oil for improvements to the nation's infrastructures of transportation, education, and health. And that's accurate; although it's fair to say that they have had a risky undiversified business plan, the fact is that their country is stronger because of the oil. Mind you, it's also fair to say (although some Mexican officials won't openly say it) that their war on drugs today is consuming more than they can afford. Anyway, they need the money, which means that as Cantarell's oil flow slows down, they've got to replace it. Somehow.
And that takes us to the deep water. In the petroleum industry, Cantarell isn't "deep;" to the contrary, it's called "shallow," which means the sea floor where the rigs are operating is no more than 500 meters down from the water's surface; roughly converted, that's a little over 1,600 feet, or almost a third of a mile. Which any offshore oil company knows how to work in. That's why they've called the oil they've been getting out of Cantarell — the second biggest "shallow" field in the world — the "easy oil." That was then, this is now: though it's an exaggeration because things aren't black and white, they now generally say the "easy oil" is gone. But they do have something to replace it, because in other Mexican waters in the southern part of the Gulf, north of the coastal city of Veracruz, there are strong seismic indications of more oil than Cantarell ever produced; the estimates run as high as 29 billion barrels (for comparison's sake, altogether in its 70-plus years of operation, Pemex has produced about 50 million barrels).
The rub? Pemex has never drilled in deep water (which is defined between 500 and 1,500 meters), let alone "ultra-deep" which is beyond 1,500 meters. Yet already, in what some consider an irresponsible headlong rush to replace the revenue from Cantarell, they've started doing just that. In the ultra-deep. As one leading Mexican analyst told me in an interview — she's the head of an energy institute at Mexico's closest thing to Harvard — Pemex wants to fly to Mars, even though it hasn't even reached the moon. Which is the real heart of our story and the question we address: are we headed for another environmentally and costly disaster like BP's Deepwater Horizon?
I can give you the declarative answer even before I deliver the debate: maybe, maybe not. The critics' thinking is, if things could get out of hand in deep water for a company as experienced there as BP and as closely regulated (or, as we have learned in retrospect, sort of closely regulated) as the United States requires, then how can we hope that with no experience in the deep water and thus far no enforceable government regulations to guide it, Pemex will show all the necessary caution to minimize the possibility of another spill on the scale of BP's? We can't.
Why not? First, because Pemex is a state-owned monopoly which operates, according to one critic I talked to, with a military-style "We will damned well do what we want" culture. Second, because although Pemex has been producing oil for the nation for more than 70 years, there never has been and to this day still isn't a government regulator with enforceable powers. Just two years ago, as Pemex was setting its sights on the deep water, a commission was appointed by the Minister of Energy (answerable, of course, to the President); it's called the National Hydrocarbons Commission, intended for the first time to be a watchdog over Pemex. And it is working to create a set of regs that Pemex should follow. But I say "should," because the word isn't "must," at least not yet. The commission has a total staff of about 50 people, which is no match for the 160,000 who work for Pemex, and when it was created, it was given only the power of persuasion; not the power of the law. I interviewed one member of the commission and he had to concede that it has no teeth; what he's counting on is public opinion to force Pemex to abide by the commission's recommendations if it doesn't voluntarily do so. Good luck.
And if it doesn't cooperate, what could happen? Well, the company might suffer a BP-scale spill, but have no workable plan to contain it. After all, despite the strong concern and heavy publicity and sheer resources earlier this year of both the U.S. government and private industry, Deepwater Horizon lived up to its name and gushed for a hundred days. In the event of a leak in a shallow water rig, divers can go down and at least try to plug it up. In the event of a deep or ultra-deep leak, as you might remember from the BP fiasco, they can't do that; they have to rely on repairs by remote control, and I'm sure you remember how badly that went.
And that leads me to the third reason why people have cause to be afraid. Oil drilling can be a dirty business, and dangerous. However, although cost-cutting and carelessness seem to be behind the Deepwater Horizon disaster, they aren't necessarily at the root of every catastrophe involving flammable fuels, which means that even with the best regulations and the best technology, accidents happen. Just a couple of days ago, a Pemex pipeline exploded in the Mexican state of Puebla. 28 people died, half of them children. At first glance, it wasn't Pemex's fault; it seems people were tapping into the pipeline and diverting the flow. A single spark— maybe just a cigarette— probably ignited the blast.
The relevance of that fatal explosion is, when something like that happens on land, you've got fire trucks and other emergency responders who try to keep things from getting any worse. In the water, you just don't know what kind of response can be launched. If the National Hydrocarbons Commission, for example, says that Pemex needs a fleet of a hundred boats and a dozen helicopters prepared 24/7 to respond to a deep water leak, there's nothing to force Pemex to spend the money. Nothing, that is, except its own good intentions.
It is fair to say, though, that the company is not run by a bunch of cowboys; not only have they been at it and quite good at it for many decades, but they are educated Mexicans who I've come to believe care as much about their own environment as we Americans care about ours. Until Deepwater Horizon, the biggest spill ever to foul the Gulf was theirs, back in the late 1970s at a well called Ixtoc. They've been there, done that, and don't want to do it again. But if there's a tug-of-war between the regulators and the accountants, who knows who will win?! The good news is, Deepwater Horizon made everyone in the industry aware of just how big a risk they're taking; a recent estimate put the total cost to BP and its partners at something on the order of $40 billion. Neither Pemex nor anyone else wants to foot that kind of bill again. Having a safe, proper, reliable plan in place is the best insurance against it.
But so far, they don't seem to. We spent two days being taken out to both the shallow water and the ultra-deep…. two days and a lot of air hours, from Mexico City to Ciudad del Carmen, then five helicopter hops around Cantarell, then back to Mexico City to turn around and fly to Veracruz and more hops by helicopter before rebasing Mexico City a second time. I asked the Pemex foreman on the very biggest rig they've got, the one that has started drilling in the ultra-deep waters of the Gulf, what kind of response plan is in place in case there's a serious disaster. He told me they have "contingency plans;" but aside from vaguely referring to choppers and boats and a hotline telephone from rig to shore, he wasn't more specific. Being accountable only to the government as opposed to the way a public company is accountable to stockholders, Pemex doesn't have to say much about what it's doing, and usually doesn't.
However, thanks to a full court press by an aggressive freelance journalist we hired before we traveled Mexico City, we did get a rare interview with the number two man at this multi-billion-dollar company, the head of exploration and production, a man named Carlos Morales. We talked for more than half an hour and I won't burden you with much from the interview, but I think one thing he told me pretty well summarizes his attitude toward drilling in the deep water. He said, "We still have a lot of work to do, we still have to learn a lot, we still have to understand many things, but I can guarantee you that with the things we do, we don't run any unnecessary risks. And we have the latest technology, we have the skilled people, we have the procedures that hold today."
Having flown out to see their newest deep water rig, I have to say, I think he's telling the truth. No outsiders had ever been there before, and I had been warned that we had no chance of becoming the first, so with nothing to lose I went for broke and toward the end of the interview asked Morales on-camera if we could go out to verify the claims he had just made. I felt it might make it hard for him to say no, and to my surprise and my delight, he said yes. We couldn't do it the very next day because we already were due to fly out to Cantarell, but we could do it the day after that. I didn't quite know how lucky we were until we went to party a few nights later in Mexico City with our fixer, the freelance journalist. Almost everyone there was an American journalist who covers Latin America— The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press— and some jaws dropped when they learned who we'd talked with and where we'd been.
From the outset, it was a jaw-dropping trip. We were in a chopper out of Veracruz, flying over empty water for about 60 miles— no rigs, no ships, nothing to see but the glare and the smog over the Gulf— when suddenly like an apparition, we first spotted dead ahead just a vague shape, then the massive form of our target. So let me tell you something about these rigs, both the ones in the shallow waters of Cantarell and the one off Veracruz.
The shallow rigs are amazing enough; the one in the ultra-deep water is even more amazing. Flying out to Cantarell, within about ten minutes you begin seeing spots in the water, which grow into installations, which grow into rigs. You can see up to a dozen or so in a single sweep of the eyes. Many will actually be a collection of four, five, even six platforms connected by steel bridges; some are aligned in a straight line, some spike out of a hub like the points of a star. Many have humongous vertical flames flaring from the tops of pipe-towers protruding from their edges. What they're doing is burning unwanted buildups of toxic or combustible gases, and sending a fair amount of black smoke into the sky. One of the raps against Pemex, by the way, is that the presence of so much burning gas proves that the company is not sufficiently efficient to make better use of the gas and therefore not efficient enough to drill in the risky territory of deep water, and that the company's protestations of concern for the environment are bogus.
For our visits to every rig, we wore "Nomex" jumpsuits, which are flame-retardant; they're the same kind of protective gear I've worn in forest fires. Under the suits, as we'd been told before we left, we could wear nothing but cotton. Anything else in a fire, any synthetic (which might in fact be oil-based), would stick to your skin and aggravate the burns. We also couldn't have cell phones; their radio-frequency transmissions could kick off systems that might actually shut down a whole rig. We sure didn't want to do that! And needless to say, on every rig there are strict rules prohibiting any kind of smoking, and with the risk of mortal danger so high and the need for every resident worker to be always alert, prohibitions against any kind of alcohol.
In Cantarell we landed on the helipads of three different rigs, plus a stationary ship that Pemex is very proud of; it's nearly 350 meters long, which is almost the length of four football fields, and it processes so much crude oil that weather permitting, each day, through a flexible tube, it loads an entire supertanker which then heads off toward a distant port, mainly ports in the United States. There was one slightly strange thing associated with our time on the ship. A landing hadn't been scheduled; we were only approved for a "flyover" to give us the chance to circle and videotape the ship in both a close and a far circumference. But after doing that, to our surprise we did land, and within a minute of clearing the blades of the helicopter we were ushered down to the greeting room closest to the landing pad. And there, we were given a half-hour safety briefing. This isn't unusual; it happens on every rig, and it took at least a half hour at each stop, sometimes longer. They not only repeat the prohibitions about things like cigarettes and liquor, but they explain about lifeboats and muster stations and generally the safety protocol of the place.
And, they demonstrate how to put on a gas mask, which leads me to what happened to our team from our program World Report. There are four of us here from Denver, and I'm the only one who came clean-shaven. The other three guys all had facial hair, meaning, moustache and goatee. But note my use of the past tense "had;" they were required to shave it all off, because if you have to put on a respirator, you need a tight seal, which facial hair would prevent. One of the members of the team had had his beard for 17 years. So long, that we even expected tan lines! Now, mission accomplished, he starts the beard growing again from— excuse the pun— scratch.
Anyway, here's the strange thing about our safety briefing on the ship. We landed, we sat for the briefing, then we climbed back up to the helipad on the stern and lifted off and left! All I can figure is, you cannot be on the ship (or a rig) without them hammering home what you need to know about surviving a gas leak or an explosion; it's just not allowed. So the Catch 22 is, if we were going to land at all, we were going to have to hear the whole thing. Yet by the time it was over, it was time to leave because we already were behind the clock. We weren't quite sure why under those circumstances they put us on the ship in the first place, but believe me, that's not the only question with which I left.
On the shallow water rigs, most of the people working there do 14 days on, then 14 off. It's a very confining environment; part of every rig is a "habitat" where they have rooms and a mess hall and maybe a video theater and a gym and a few other facilities for their off-time. But basically, they wake up, then shower and dress and eat, then work for 12 hours, then eat again and hit the sack before doing it all over again. One of the rigs on which we spent time has 220 people living there, which actually means more like 440 staff the rig week in and week out. It gives you some idea what the oil and gas are worth. 71 different undersea wells feed this one rig (which separates oil from gas). The control rooms are pretty high tech, with computers and controls to constantly monitor temperatures and pressures and water salinities and other factors that could turn into trouble if they go too far off safe parameters. Not to mention the multiple infamous "blowout preventers" about which we all read in connection with Deepwater Horizon. But again, if despite their precautions, something goes terribly wrong, some sort of breakage in the shallow water is considered relatively easy to contain.
Not so for the deep water. Simply because it's so far down and so dark and the pressures are so high, the wells in deep and ultra-deep water are inherently more dangerous. And harder to fix. In Pemex's defense though, I came away from our visit to the new rig that they just got in position in the ultra-deep water pretty impressed that all possible precautions are exercised.
The rig is called Centenário, which means centenary, which stands for the century of Mexican independence. They call it a "sixth generation" rig, because since the beginning of drilling for oil in ocean waters, there have been six generations of new technology, each replacing the old. And Centenário does have the very latest. It is a "semi-submersible," which means the whole 30,000 ton platform is actually floating in the water— four bulbous legs are filled with ballast and are submerged about as deep as a five-story building— and more important, there's state-of-the-art computer technology to execute eight thrusters that despite wild winds and strong seas, keep Centenário precisely where GPS and other technology says it's supposed to be. Which means, directly over the hole it's drilling. The tubes they push through the water and sink through rock beneath the floor of the sea are designed with enough tolerance to bend up to 80 meters. But the day we were there, this 60-million-pound platform, measuring almost 400 feet from the surface of the water to the top of the drill derrick, was only off by an almost incomprehensible 10 centimeters. Think, four inches. I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes on the computers in the bridge of the rig.
And everything— at least every critical system for both monitoring and responding to a problem— has not just redundancy, but double redundancy. Between the thrusters to maintain position and these redundant systems, it makes me think of the space shuttle. Although the funny thing was, while I was in the central command, called "the doghouse," for about five minutes, I asked the man in charge, called "the driller," about the highest of all the high tech devices on the rig, he hit a button and suddenly on every huge glass panel overlooking the main drill, windshield wipers started sweeping back and forth. He laughed and said there were better things than these, but still, it really was pretty cool.
Work on an oil rig is dangerous work. Not just from the chance that there'll be an explosion and you might die, but from the hands-on work itself. You've probably seen movies with "roughnecks," who are sticking their hands into heavy steel machinery that is spinning and rising and falling all at the same time. Injuries, sometimes serious injuries on rigs like those, are common. But not on this newest generation of rig. It's all computerized, so that the driller, in his "doghouse," controls almost all the movement of pipes and drills and bits by remote control; his station looks like something out of Star Trek. And that goes for the blowout preventers too. There's a driller on duty in the doghouse 24-hours a day. The moment anything spells trouble, he can have his finger on the button to activate the preventers within mere seconds. A guarantee? No. Comforting? I'd say so.
Security is another concern. When you think about it, Pemex today has to look out for foreign terrorists, for pirates, for drug cartels. Any of them might cause chaos. And the cartels might be the biggest threat; they already have attacked land-based pipelines and kidnapped some Pemex executives. Every rig has a 500-meter-radius buffer zone, which means nobody is authorized to come any closer. I asked how they're protected from a serious challenge, but understandably, beyond talking about "contingencies," they didn't spell anything out. Hopefully they weren't evasive because their contingencies are thin. So far, out on Centenário, they've only been challenged once— by Greenpeace, as the company's director of communications told me with a wry smile. It was peacefully resolved.
Another fear of the critics is that since Pemex has no previous deep water experience, the people working the rigs will neither understand the technology nor know how to respond to a catastrophe. But my admittedly brief experience on Centenário says, that's not an issue. Both the captain of the ship-side of the platform, and the superintendent of the drilling side, are from the Netherlands, each with more than a decade on the deep water. The "driller" I met in the doghouse is from the U.K. with a similar volume of experience. I went into the engine room, which is impressive: eight massive Caterpillar engines, with more than four megawatts of power, enough to light up a medium-sized city. The two men in charge? Both from Canada, their lives spent on the deep water. The point is, international standards call for any key position to be filled by someone with at least five years experience drilling in the deep. Pemex seems to be living up to that.
The rig itself was built in Singapore, then sailed like a ship for three months across two oceans to its position in the Mexican waters of the Gulf. It now sits a little more than 1,900 meters above the ocean floor (that's well over a mile already) and just since September when it started digging its hole, the drill is down half-a-mile further into the rock. The target, which seismic readings suggest is rich with hydrocarbons, is a full two-and-a-half miles beneath the surface. I'm no geologist, and don't even play one on TV, but those hydrocarbons— the oil and gas underfoot— aren't in big open subterranean aquifers; they are trapped in hard porous rock; to get to it and through it, one of the drill bits they use is about 9-inches in diameter with diamond tips. I got to pick up one core sample of the rock, only about a foot long and maybe five inches across. It probably weighed about 20 pounds. Visually, it's almost like an abstract black-and-gray barber pole, with irregular dark seams and sometimes larger dark splotches running through it. That's the hydrocarbon that has to be brought to the surface. How anyone ever figured out what's down there, let alone how to get to it in the first place, I don't know! Except, I do now know the story of Rudecindo Cantarell. As do you.
The historic importance of oil to Mexico is demonstrated at the base of the Pemex headquarters tower in Mexico City. I've seen Paris, Athens, Rome, probably the three cities in which you'd expect to find the world's most colossal sculptures of everyone from warriors to philosophers to lovers. But I've never seen one nearly as big as the bust— we're talkin' just head and shoulders and I'll bet it's 15 to 20 feet high— of President Lázaro Cardenas. He's idolized in this country, because he's the one who in 1938 nationalized the foreign oil companies then operating in Mexico— mainly British and American. And that's why to this day, for better or worse, Pemex operates alone.
The government actually tried to mollify the company's critics (and attract investors to lighten the load) just a couple of years ago by floating a proposal to actually change the nation's constitution. Since the days of Cardenas, the constitution has prohibited Pemex from partnering with any foreign companies. But the proposal was rejected. It's probably too bad, because if the companies that have been at it for many years could partner with Pemex, people probably would be reassured and possibly, in the final analysis, safer. But oil isn't just a commodity to Mexicans; they call it their nation's treasure. So, while Pemex can hire experienced foreigners to oversee things, and recently won the right to offer incentive contracts to foreign oil companies, it can't give them a stake, which diminishes their involvement because they're not in business to make a dollar-per-barrel profit; they're in business to have the oil so that when the price goes up, so do their profits.
Just one more thing about Pemex, and it's a weird one. In other oil-producing countries I've been in, from Saudi Arabia to Venezuela, the price of gasoline is heavily subsidized for the people living there. Some of you who are reading this letter might remember my story in a letter earlier this year about a border town in Venezuela, where we followed smugglers who bought their gas for pennies in their own country, even filling additional tanks secreted under their vehicles, then crossed the border to sell it for a profit in Colombia. Well, Pemex doesn't do any such favor for its citizens. To the contrary, when you convert liters to gallons, they pay more for gas here than we do in the United States. And that even includes California where prices are outrageous!
Speaking of gas, if you've never been to Mexico City, you wouldn't believe how much is wasted here. By sitting still. In traffic jams. Like some of you, I've seen epic traffic jams in other parts of the world, but Mexico City is like the mother of traffic jams. Leave for the airport at 4:30 (as we did this morning) and you'll breeze your way there. But leave an hour later and you're already in trouble. And we're not just talking "rush hour;" once people are up and about, the congestion never clears. If you're anything like me, you try to figure out what's happening when you're stuck in traffic. Whether I'm on my way home from work or from ski country, I want to understand the dynamics of a stoppage. An accident? Construction? A tunnel (which somehow creates congestion even though there are just as many lanes going through the tunnel as there are going in! What's up with that?)?
One day we went to the top of Mexico City's third tallest building. We wanted to get some "high shots" of this massive city (estimated population: close to 30 million). Well, we didn't get what we wanted because we needed a permit that we didn't have. But it gave me a chance to study the traffic from on high, the 44th floor. Literally as far as my eye could see— and that limit really was reached because of smog, not vision— a four-lane one-way street heading toward the skyscraper was packed with cars, all of them sitting stone still. I had to be seeing at least a two mile stretch. There was no accident, no construction, no tunnel. Just cars. Too many cars. When a light changes from red to green, the block of cars at the starting line begins to move, but because it takes a few seconds for each layer of drivers to react, no more than five or six lines get through before the light goes red again. And there, my friends, you have the best analysis of traffic jams that money can't buy.
Our worst traffic experience — and there were a bunch — was trying to get to the site of a second little story we were shooting in Mexico City because we were there; call it two for the price of one. I'm not even reporting the story; I just went along with the producer and crew because it sounded interesting, and it was. In fact it was fascinating. The story— which will be entirely told with the voices of the people involved— is about a retirement home for prostitutes. It was founded a few years ago by a Mexico City mayor and an advocate who had been a prostitute herself. It is in one of the poorest and most congested parts of the congested city, the central market for cheap toys and cheap food and cheap makeup and cheap clothes, many of which I suspect fell conveniently off the back of a truck. You just look at some of the people brushing by your car while you stand locked in traffic for a minute at a time and you know, lock your doors.
The women — the prostitutes — have to be at least 60 just to get in. And destitute. It's not surprising when you think about it; although a few have relatives who still stay in touch, many have no one to care for them, no one to utter a nice word to them, no one to love them. They are society's castoffs. There are 25 broken-down women living there and I asked the director of the residence whether there's a single one who hasn't been raped and beaten on a regular basis. Her answer was, no.
The story of just one woman apparently is typical. Her name is Sonya. She got pregnant and had a child at 13. Then a year later, age 14, when she refused to dance with a man, he pulled a gun and shot her in the head. To this day, the bullet is still embedded. It partially paralyzed her, which made her unfit in those days for other kinds of work, so since she ended up with three children to support, she turned to sex. And has sold her body for the 46 years since then. She accepts her life, accepts her fate. What's more, she still looks for her kind of work. As you might imagine, this is not a part of town where you find sequined whores the likes of Eliot Spitzer's girlfriend. But still needing money, Sonya charges 50 pesos, about five bucks, just to show up — kind of like the minimum price of a service visit when you call the plumber — then another 50 pesos for the act itself.
For the hour or two that we were there, various other residents drifted in and out of the courtyard where we were working. None is pretty, none is curvaceous, none is stylish. They all seem pretty much used up. Yet there is still a spectrum in how they look. On one end, there was a woman with fingernails painted purple and lips painted red and eyebrows painted amber. Yes, amber. She is heavy and wrinkled, but still doing her best to look nice. On the other end, another woman has a face that reflects the beatings she endured. She is only 60— a newcomer— but permanently hunched over. There's not a tooth left in her mouth.
Since they live a very idle and monotonous life now, sitting around much of the day in this damp place in dirty white molded plastic chairs— except for the ones like Sonya who sometimes still go looking for clients— I tried peripherally to watch the ones just sitting and passing the time to gauge their interest, their curiosity, in what we were doing. This is not a place that sees a television camera every day of the week. But I got nothing. Until we were leaving. At that point— with the crew already outside shooting the teeming market just beyond their safe door— one of the women got up and said to me in Spanish, "We are glad you came. You are welcome here any time." Then she leaned across to me and gave me a hug. Believe me, I had mixed feelings about returning it, but after her was another, then another after that. They all wished me well, and I returned the flattery. I thought about it afterward and certainly don't know, but maybe they warmed to me because I was a man who came and went quickly through their lives without knocking their teeth out.
Up on one wall of the refuge is a poster. It says, "Ni Santas, Ni Puntas, Solo Mujures." What that means is, neither saints, nor whores, only women. Right before leaving, I made a donation on the behalf of our team, a thousand pesos which is roughly a hundred dollars. The director— an attractive psychotherapist in her forties— told me how grateful she was; they operate as you might imagine on a very thin shoestring, and this money would buy them Christmas dinner. Feliz Navidad.
One more thing. Driving away from the retirement residence, we crawled at snail's pace down a street on which young prostitutes were looking for work. Dozens of them in low blouses, short dresses, high heels. Very high heels. I couldn't help but wonder, will these girls who feel pretty and maybe even wanted end up where we'd just been? Some probably will. If we're lucky, we all turn old (just ask me!). The question is, will we have a decent place to be when we get there?
I often say I've got the best job on earth. Maybe you disagree, because reading about me spending my time with risky oil rigs and neglected prostitutes may not make it sound so hot. But look at the range of what I got to see and do just this one week. I was out on a high-tech oil platform in the middle of nowhere that can stay within ten centimeters of its ideal target…. and in a casa for washed-up puntas where dirty clothes are still washed in a sink. I've been with people whose energy and expertise generates billions of dollars for their country… and with others who sell their bodies for about ten bucks. I wouldn't trade a moment.


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Administering enteral tube medications – room for improvement?
- Emergency Medicine (M516), The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia
- Correspondence to Teresa Williams
Emergency Medicine (M516), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia; teresa.williams{at}uwa.edu.au
Implications for practice and research
■ Management of enteral tubes is common in nursing practice.
■ Administration of medication involves several skills.
■ Practices in administration of medication through enteral tubes is inconsistent and some are considered unsafe.
■ Research to provide the best available evidence is needed.
Management of enteral tubes for decompression of the stomach, provision of nutrition and administration of medications is a common nursing practice. Enteral nutrition is the preferred method of feeding for patients unable to take oral nutrition.1 Administration of medications through enteral tubes requires several skills including verifying enteral tube placement and preparing drugs for administration. The preferred method for …


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This also holds good for this dish that I am writing now....
One day when I rummaged the fridge,I saw that there were little bits of this and that.I put them all into the chapathi flour and thus was born this tasty dish.I served it with Potato-peas masal. It has a nice color and nutrients that is good for all of us.The color pleases Lil one and there is no fuss in getting her to eat the veggies.We too liked it as a variation to the regular chapathi.
I used:
Wheat flour - 3 cups
Spinach - 1/2 a bunch
Homemade Paneer - a few tablespoons
Radish- 1, peeled and grated
Carrot-1,small grated
Purple cabbage- 1/2 a small one,grated
Sesame seeds- 1 teaspoon
Salt to taste
- Blanch the spinach,drain and puree without adding water.
- In a large bowl put in wheat flour, crumbled paneer, grated carrot,radish and cabbage,sesame seeds , salt and mix well.
- Add the spinach puree little by little and knead into a firm dough.If the puree is not sufficient, use a little water.
- Pinch out small balls and roll out into chapathis.Use a little flour for dusting if required.
- Cook on a heated griddle till small brown spots appear on both side.You may drizzle a little oil if you wish.
This chapathi is really soft and is a great dish to pack for the lunch box.
Sending this to B is for Breakfast event
and to Toddler breakfast ideas event.
30 Minutes Meals: Gayathri Anand
Baked Goods: Monika,
For On Going Events: Gayathri Kumar, Usha
Kids Friendly: PJ, Savitha, Smitha, Srivalli, Veena Aravind
Rice Varieties: Champa, Divya, Padma
2010 - SPB Shake and Pineapple Chutney
2008 - More Kuzhambu
Bon Appetit...


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2008 PARALYMPIC GAMES: U.S. Swimmers Win Three Gold Medals, Set Paralympic and American Records
BEIJING, China - The U.S. team continued its momentum at the National Aquatics Center tonight with three gold medals, two silver and one bronze. Americans dominated the women's 100m freestyle (S7), with Erin Popovich (Fort Collins, Colo./Silverbow, Mont.) taking gold and teammate Cortney Jordan (Henderson, Nev.) joining her on the podium with silver. Popovich set a Paralympic record of 1:11.82, breaking the Paralympic record she set during the 2004 Athens Paralympic Games.
"I've wanted to go one-two [on the medal stand] with Erin [Popovich] for so long and it's great to finally do it," said Jordan. "This is my first silver medal. It means so much to me."
After breaking the world record in the women's 100m freestyle (S8) this morning, Jessica Long (Baltimore, Md.) took gold with a time of 1:06.91. Anna Eames (Golden Valley, Minn.) made her Paralympic debut tonight, winning the gold with 1:09.44 in the women's 100m butterfly (S10).
Both veterans of the Paralympic Games, Popovich and Long have won two gold medals each so far in Beijing.
"We were right where we needed to be coming out of prelims," said Julie O'Neil, head coach, U.S. Paralympic Swimming Team. "Almost across the board, the team had lifetime best swims."
Adding to the U.S. medal count in swimming - which has reached a total of 15, including seven gold medals - were Lantz Lamback (Colorado Springs, Colo./Augusta, Ga.) and Kelley Becherer (Sheboygan, Wis.) Lamback took silver in the men's 100m freestyle (S7) with a time of 1:02.40, and Becherer earned bronze in the women's 400m freestyle (S13), tying Chelsey Gotell (CAN) with a time of 4:37.50.
"This is just as sweet as the first gold [medal]. It's huge for me to go under 1:12. That's fast. It's been four long years of work - ever since Athens."
"This is a great honor. I'm really excited. I got a medal and did what I wanted to in my best event. There's a lot of pressure here so I'm happy to get first. Going into my other races, I'll have more confidence."
"I was expecting to drop more time but I didn't get out as fast as I wanted. I'm happy with my world record this morning and I'm really proud of this gold. All those 100 free[style] practices paid off - that's what they're for."
"I felt pretty good. I really wanted it. Getting a medal was my biggest goal here in Beijing."
"That was better than Athens. I dropped a second. I did my thing, didn't change anything - just got out there and swam. It's a good start to the rest of the week."
Additional Results
Women's 100m Freestyle (S8) - Amanda Everlove (Colorado Springs, Colo.) - 1:10.65 (4)
Women's 100m Freestyle (S9) - Elizabeth Stone (Grand Rapids, Mich.) - 1:04.86 (6)
Women's 100m Butterfly (S10) - Susan Beth Scott (Colorado Springs, Colo./Cape Girardeau, Mo.) - 1:15.72 (6)
Men's 100m Freestyle (S9) - Cody Bureau (Colorado Springs, Colo./Latrobe, Pa.) - 58.14 (7)
Women's 100m Freestyle (S6) - Miranda Uhl (Alachua, Fla.) - 1:22.22 (7)
Women's 100m Freestyle (S6) - Casey Johnson (Cypress, Calif.) - 1:26.42 (8)
Several American records were set by the U.S. team tonight, including: Popovich/ women's 100m freestyle (S7), Becherer/ women's 400m freestyle (S13), Lamback/ men's 100m freestyle (S7), Bureau/ men's 100m freestyle (S9), and Stone/ women's 100m freestyle (S9.)
For complete swimming results, visit http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRMP/ENG/Schedule/SW.shtml.
For more information, please contact Tara Dugan Kusumoto at 139 1063 1844. If calling from the U.S., dial 011 86 plus the local number.


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Richards ends his campaign for
re-election as Rochester mayor
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I thought you might find this RBJDaily.com article interesting.
Rochester Mayor Thomas Richards, defeated last week by Lovely Warren in the Democratic primary, will not run as a third-party candidate in the general election. Richards, endorsed by the Independence Party and the Working Families Party in addition to the Monroe County Democratic Committee, said his decision was family related and not political.">


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Here's how RW members rated this race in the past (25 votes).
In short: Fast race, but parking was a shamblesIn full: If you're looking for a fast 10k race and really don't mind having to wait an hour to get out of the car park afterwards, this is perfect. The location of the 'race village' relative to the car park was unfortunate, because it meant that finishing runners were filing past the car park entrance, so that vehicles weren't being allowed out of the field until that had subsided. In the meanwhile, the lack of cohesive traffic management in the field led to gridlock...Date of review: September 7, 2015
In short: Fast flat 10k course for PB hunters!In full: Very well organised and marshalled course. Flat and fast on road, traffic free, chip timed, plenty of parking, helpful volunteers, water station. Multiple lap course which was good as you could pace yourself round for the final lap to make sure you get your PB! Defiantly will be returning in 2014. I recommend to all runners of all abilities Date of review: September 3, 2013
In short: Well organised race with excellent PB potentialIn full: This is a fast course that attracts a good mix of runners of all levels.Despite the late notification of additional road closures (nothing to do with the race), it was easy to get to the race with the roads well signposted. Parking was plentiful and speedy thanks to volunteers. Collecting the race number and chip was also easy.The course is a flat 6km loop around some country roads (so you're going around again for the last 4km), all closed off to traffic. Not as scenic as I was expecting but still pleasant enough. Marshalls were in good numbers and supportive, as were the locals.This is a race I will definitely take part again in future.Date of review: September 2, 2013
In short: Well organised and supported race. Great goody bag.Date of review: September 1, 2013
In short: A fast run that was well attended and well organised.In full: A great run that was fairly rural. It's a flat course and whilst its nice enough, probably not the most scenic of run's. The locals were out in force cheering the field on.Good car parking, great goody bag and my fastest time for a few years.I'll be back. Many thanks to everyone who helped organise or simply cheered us on.Date of review: September 1, 2013
In short: Great atmosphere, speed, location and organisation. My fave raceDate of review: September 1, 2013
In short: Super fast 10kIn full: Bit delayed but realised never reviewed this great race at the time. Really fast course, set up by organisers and marshals who really want to attract fast runners as well as support everyone else. Excellent goody bag with a range of massage gels too - fantastic. Not sure about the lip gloss for the men but the goody bag contained a vast array of value items to suit everyone. Thank you.Date of review: March 19, 2013
In short: Good for my first 10kIn full: Really enjoyed this as my first 10k. Flat but I still got left behine due to a lot of chamionships taking place. Well organised but would prefer not to have to lap twiceDate of review: November 14, 2012
In short: Fast, Flat, Well organised raceIn full: A lovely fast 10k on quiet country lanes. The route is entirely closed to traffic making it safe for both runners and spectators.A huge car park with ample parking space and good use of the Church Wilne sports/social club for changing rooms/showers and for post-race drinks and a BBQ. Did this race last year and like many others gave feedback that more toilets were needed. The organisers took note and hired out some portakabin loos but I think they could have done with a few more as the queues were still quite long. I would also suggest a technical t-shirt for the future rather than a cotton souvenir shirt which has been given in both years.In summary - a great race with clockwork organisation. One or two minor tweaks as suggested would make this one of the Midland's Premier 10k road races without doubt. Date of review: September 3, 2012
In short: Well orgainsed PB raceIn full: Well-organised race although my partner and I both had Garmins that measured our run as 10.15k Did anyone else find it long?Would definitely do this race again as it had good parking and lots of space. A short walk from the finish to the race village was a good idea to warm down. Also, the post-race massage was very good for us decrepit oldies!Date of review: September 2, 2012
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Corbett announces Medicaid plan
HARRISBURG, Pa. - Health care coverage for all.
President Obama's Affordable Care Act is supposed to be the answer. But Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett has his own plan.
Governor Tom Corbett says Washington does not have all the answers.
He says his plan is a better way to provide affordable health care for all Pennsylvanians.
After a tour of Harrisburg's Pinnacle Health Hospital's ER and some quick baby talk, Governor Tom Corbett got down to what he hopes is a healthy dose of political pressure for Washington.
"Today I'm sending a formal proposal to the Obama administration," Corbett said.
Dubbed "Healthy Pennsylvania," it's Corbett's plan to reform the state's Medicaid program.
"A Pennsylvania plan based on common sense reforms to our Medicaid program, to make it sustainable now and into the future," he went on to say.
The plan focuses on improving access, ensuring quality and providing affordability.
Such as keeping CHIP and eliminating the mandatory six-month waiting period currently in place. It also seeks additional federal funding to build and expand more primary health care clinics, cut and combine the number of separate Medicaid packages and increase access to health care for the 500,000 state-wide who are currently uninsured.
"Through the 'Healthy Pennsylvania Option' [you] would have the ability to purchase private health insurance plans through the federal health insurance exchange," Corbett said.
The plan gained kudos from the state's Medical Society and Hospital and Healthsystem Association.
"The broad aim of access, quality and affordability align well with hospital priorities," Andy Carter of the Hospital and Healthsystem Association said.
However critics, like the Commonwealth Foundation, a free market think tank say the concern is private premiums for the poor, especially for those on welfare, will become too expensive.
Senate Democrats remain convinced the best and most effective option for the newly eligible individuals is Pennsylvania's existing Medicaid program.
Corbett's plan does need to be approved by Health and Human Services in Washington DC.
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Here are some photos that will inspire you to get out and see more this summer. For tips on taking great mountain photos on your next trip, read BACKPACKER Photo School.
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Beautiful Mountain PhotosA Selection of Backpacker Reader Photos
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Discounts & Benefits
From companies that meet the high standards of service and quality set by AARP.
Members save 10% on the monthly service charge of qualified AT&T wireless plans.
Members pay $9.50 for Regal ePremiere Tickets purchased online.
Members earn points on select Walgreens-brand health and wellness products.
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Ray Hanson
KENILWORTH-Ray Tyrel Hanson, age 28, passed away Feb. 2, 2013 at his home in Kenilworth. He was born Nov. 14, 1984 in Price, Utah to Raymond Bruce Hanson and Glenna LaRae Jensen. Ty was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He ...
Ellie Zamantakis
HELPER-Eleanor Lottie Kurowski Zamantakis, age 82, passed away Jan. 29, 2013. She was born May 15, 1930 in Frackville, Pa. to Frank and Lottie Lech Kurowski. She married George S. Zamantakis on May 24, 1953 in Price at the Assumption Greek Orthodox...
Mary O'Brien
Price/East Carbon-It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our mother, grandmother and great grandmother, Mary O'Brien on Feb. 2, 2013.
Julia Cisneros
EAST CARBON-Our loving wife, mother and grandmother, Julia Lopez Cisneros, age 90, passed away January 30, 2013.
David J. Lemon
EAST CARBON-David Joe Lemon, age 59, passed away Feb. 2, 2013 at his home after a brave battle with health problems.
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text: A school bus crashed into an animal shelter in Niles, Illinois (just outside Chicago) last week, amazingly without injuring or killing anyone of any species. Unfortunately, the shelter building wasn't so lucky; after 10 years building up the no-kill facility, the staff now face the unenviable task of calling on Chicago remodeling firms to rebuild from the ground up. See full article.


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Murrieta is overall a good place to live. More affordable than many other places in SoCal, the schools are really good, crime rate is low and a family orientated community.
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Murrieta goverment... - 7/18/2016
is racist, bigoted and holier than thou. If you love that sort of thing then you'll love Murrieta. [Comment on this Posting]
Population? - 2/22/2016
You show Murrieta as having approx. 61,000 people. We actually have around 105,000 people. This really should be corrected.
It's almost exclusively a commuting suburb. If you have kids, it's a great place to live. If you're single or an empty nester, there is nothing to do (unless you like bowling). Fortunately we're about halfway between San Diego and Los Angeles and only 45 minutes or so to the beach.
If we didn't have a super low mortgage and we were a bit younger, we'd be out of here in a flash. [Comment on this Posting]
Warm and Semi-Arid Valley - 12/11/2015
I wanted to rate my city of Menifee, but it wasn't an option (most people never know it exists), however I live right on the border of Menifee and Murrieta, which is a "commuter city" and lovely overall climate. It is full of parks, hills and new businesses. I will, however mention that Menifee, which has more land and less people, is considered a valley and gets a little hotter since it is further away from the ocean breezes of Oceanside (which is about a half hour away from Murrieta).[Comment on this Posting]
Sweet air Murrieta - 4/7/2015
Murrieta is hotter in summer, colder in winter, a commuter city working to support jib creation, and has adequate schools. All that is true. But kids play freely outside, walk to school, and still run wild as I did 55 years ago. The sky is amazingly beautiful, changing all the time. The ocean air sneaks through the hills from oceanside. The fog creeps over the mountains. You leave your windows open at night and hear the frogs and coyotes, enjoy the darkest nights, the brightest stars, and smell the sweetest air from the orange groves and floral gardens. Great place to live.[Comment on this Posting]
No Carpool Lanes... - 7/13/2014
Murrieta is a wonderful place for the middle-class to raise families, buy beautiful homes, and have access to some very good schools for our children. Unfortunately, it's a city of 'Commuter's.' Many of us here relocated to Murrieta from San Diego and Los Angeles counties. The freeways and access roads here are very slow during rush hour times. There are no carpool lanes in this city. For those of us that work in San Diego, you don't see a carpool lane on the 15-south until you get to Escondido. Even on the weekends local traffic is a little heavy because of great local things to do: wine country, casinos, shopping and more. There is a reason the Temecula Valley has been growing at such a rapid pace in the last 20-years... it's got everything you look for to raise a family![Comment on this Posting]
Best place to live in the Inland Empire - 6/9/2014
We moved here in 2001 and have never been happier in our lives. My husband and I are both born and raised in California and we love the climate, our neighbors and the community. Everyone is friendly. I sell Real Estate here and everyone that I have sold homes to have been very happy in this area.[Comment on this Posting]
Crime - 7/2/2012
The crime rate in the Murrieta/Menifee Valley is low. We are hearing about incidents recently. The police have been reacting well and have been successful. Important that citizens are vigilent and help where they can to keep our communities safe.[Comment on this Posting]
Murrieta - 6/8/2012
Murrieta is a great family friendly city
[Comment on this Posting]
Murrieta is a great place to raise your family. Trust me I have done it and now my grandchildren are being raised here. BUT let me say I do not like the school system...sorry thats the cold truth. They pass you like cattle and some of the teachers are should not be teachers. The GREAT news is murrieta and temecula have great CHARTER schools where you child can go 2 or 3 days of the week or you can homeschool them at home. MORE OPTIONS in murrieta than other counties a big, big place. YES it does get hot in the summmer AC is a must.
Fall is gorgeous you will love it.[Comment on this Posting]
President - 12/14/2010
Nice City[Comment on this Posting]
Murrieta - 4/12/2010
Fantastic suburban community that finished a huge population boom with the onset of the recession. Great public schooling system and plenty of available shopping and infrastructure for comfortable living and mild climate changes year round. Uniquely located between all major cities of Southern California. Suffers from typical California housing problems with higher than necessary housing prices and higher than normal foreclosure rate. Great place for raising a family and enjoyable lifestyle.[Comment on this Posting]
Not My Favorite Place - 10/23/2009
I have lived all over the United States and would like to make some points on the town I have been living in for the last year:
- High Rent
- Low Utilities
- No Jobs (still unemployed and I have a B.S. Degree)
- Good Schools
- Low Wages
- Extreme Weather (very hot in summer)
- Not Alot To Do
- Far From Major Cities
- Horrible Traffic On Hwys
[Comment on this Posting]
A Growing Community with A Lot To Offer - 5/19/2009
While much of the state of California is going down the drain, Murrieta is a thriving community. With great places to shop and eat one does not need to leave the Temecula/Murrieta area. Pechanga is a great casino to spends hours gambling, the wineries are great to spend an afternoon tasting, the golf ranges are great to play a round, and the big movie theaters are a great way to cool off.[Comment on this Posting]
Overall Good Place to Live - 4/6/2009
Murrieta is overall a good place to live. More affordable than many other places in SoCal, the schools are really good, crime rate is low and a family orientated community.[Comment on this Posting]
The Heat - 4/6/2009
By late summer one has to turn on the air conditioner to sleep at night. A large number of people have their own pools, which can get into the low 80s just with sun power. In the winter it can gets down into the mid 30s, but by the afternoon it warms up to the 50s. I have only see it snow here once. My one complaint is that I wish there was less days that got over 100. The best thing about the climate is that in the fall and spring you can still sit outside and eat dinner due to the nice weather.[Comment on this Posting]
cost of living in the summer because of climate - 5/5/2008
Although house prices are at an attractive low, bear in mind the summers here are a good 10 degrees hotter than in other parts of Riverside County. This drives the cost of living up dramatically. It is not unusual to see $300-$500/mo electric bills in the summer due to air conditioner use. Think you can bear the summer without air conditioning? Think again. The breezes, if present, are hot and do nothing to cool you off.[Comment on this Posting]
slower pace in So Cal - 10/26/2007
Murrieta, CA is a well planned and engineered city for families and singles alike. This bedroom community offers a slower pace of life here in Southern California, with plenty of activities for all, many retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and an excellent education system. We've got it all: mountains, desert, ocean, and beautiful clear blue skies!! It's a dream to live in this easy going, sunny, and friendly place![Comment on this Posting]
Murrieta is a Great Place to Live - 8/5/2007
I read Nicole's review and I disagree with several of her points. I have lived in Murrieta for about 3 years and I agree that Murrieta has become a "bedroom community" of San Diego. There really is nothing wrong with it being a bedroom community as Southern California is filled with these thriving communities. Murrieta has a much more affordable housing market than most of San Diego County which draws many people to the area. Murrieta was recently rated one of the lowest crime rates by a national survey and that is due to its 'touch on crime' policy. In my 3 years of living here I have never heard the helicopters overhead or excessive police sirens. The banks are note constantly being robbed as she mentioned, not any more than other areas of So Cal. We settled here in Murrieta because it is such a GREAT place to raise kids with the best schools in all of Riverside County, ones that even rival the best that San Diego County has to offer with the Poway School District. Murrieta has grown to a population of over 97,000 but they are growing it right compared to some other areas of So Cal. Murrieta has made sure that infrastructure and services have kept up with the population. The are aggressively building new schools to meet the future needs of residents. Murrieta has a very business friendly attitude and is seeking to draw in many businesses from areas around Southern California to the residents can work local and not have to commute. They still have a small town feel with some of the bigger town draws like housing, shopping, employment, and other key services. Their medical support services have been lacking a little but they are expanding that as well. Overall, Murrieta is a GREAT place to live, play, and raise a family. Yes, a commute to San Diego or Riverside may be necessary but other businesses are coming to the area and offering new employment opportunities all the time. No, I am not part of the Murrieta area City services or visitors bureau, I am just a resident that makes a commute to San Diego and continues to raise my family here in wonderful Murrieta.
[Comment on this Posting]
When I first moved here in 1999 the cost of a mid-priced house was around $200,000. Utilities were not low but they were reasonable. I should have gotten a clue to the future trend when I learned that people from nearby San Diego county were starting to relocate for affordable housing. Orange County (expensive!) residents had been migrating here for the past 15 years because it was affordable living for them as well. The Murrieta/Temecula area was still a 'small town' by most standards. I thought I had found a great place but apparantly so did too many other people. Over the last 8 years housing and utilities have shot up so much that most folks have to dip into savings to survive. Houses have doubled in price. Illegal immigrants fill the ER's causing great delays in care for residents. Traffic has become a nightmare due in part to the influx of new residents and very much because of poor planning for growth. An easy 10 minute ride to my doctor's office now takes almost 30 minutes depending on the time of day. Very few alternate routes to anyplace are available. City Planners have shown to be in league with Real Estate Developers. This lovely town close to charming wine country is also a mecca for tourists on weekends. I'm ready to move on to a more peaceful location if there is such a place anymore. Many of my neighbors are doing the same.[Comment on this Posting]
Welcome to Murrieta...... - 12/19/2006
This is a commuter city so be prepared to spend a lot of your life in a car. If you're lucky enough to work close to home, your neighbors probably aren't. It's considered along with Temecula to be a "bedroom community" of San Diego. The shopping is awesome where every store imaginable is close by. The crime however was too much for us, the banks were constantly being robbed and frankly I was tired of wakiing up in the middle of the night to the sound of search helicopters and we lived in a $500+ neighborhood. Overall, if you're looking for the best place to raise your kids, I'd keep looking, it's easy for them to get lost in the crowd here. Don't get me wrong the schools are pretty decent and do do some pretty wonderful things for the kids, it's just the sheer volume of people here moving in and out of the area.[Comment on this Posting]