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Popular property highlights
Located in Oud-Zuid, Bilderberg Garden Hotel is a leisurely stroll from popular sights such as Concertgebouw and Stedelijk Museum. This 124 -room, 5-star hotel has a restaurant, free in-room WiFi, and a 24-hour business center. It's in central Amsterdam and also close to Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum.
This hotel serves as home to a bar, along with a restaurant that specializes in international cuisine. Satisfy your hunger from the comfort of your room with 24-hour room service. For your convenience, a buffet breakfast is served each morning for a fee.
The 124 rooms are air-conditioned and have an array of amenities, including coffee makers, safes, and phones. Guests can expect to find free WiFi and wired Internet, plus flat-screen TVs with satellite channels and DVD players. Bathrooms offer hair dryers, free toiletries, bathrobes, and slippers. In-room massages are available, and rooms also include desks.
Bilderberg Garden Hotel features free WiFi in public areas, 5 meeting rooms, and conference space. If you drive, self parking is EUR 29.50 per night, or you can take advantage of the airport shuttle (available on request) for EUR 17.00 per person. The front desk has multilingual staff on hand 24/7 to help with dry cleaning/laundry, tours or tickets, and luggage storage. Other amenities at this luxury hotel include a 24-hour business center, coffee/tea in a common area, and a computer station.
Property features
- Walking distance to Concertgebouw and Stedelijk Museum
- Free WiFi and wired Internet in rooms and public areas
- Onsite dining
- 24-hour business center
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Bilderberg Garden Hotel
Renovations & Closures
- Dining venue
Hotel Amenities
Hotel Amenities
Bilderberg Garden Hotel's guest services include currency exchange, dry cleaning, shoe shine, laundry facilities, and 24-hour reception. The hotel is located in a shopping district. Massage treatments are available on site (advance reservations required). The hotel features 5 conference rooms among its business amenities. The business center is open 24 hours a day. Free Wi-Fi is available throughout the hotel. Dining options include the popular De Kersentuin restaurant featuring chef Stefan van Sprang, the lounge just off the lobby, or 24-hour room service. Up to 2 cats and dogs are welcome in the rooms (surcharge), as long as they are kept in a carrier or cage and not left unattended. A shuttle to and from the airport can be arranged by request (surcharge). Supervised childcare is available for a fee.
- Babysitting or childcare (surcharge)
- Supervised childcare/activities (surcharge)
- Breakfast available (surcharge)
- Bar/lounge
- Airport transportation (surcharge)
- Total number of rooms - 124
- 24-hour front desk
- Dry cleaning/laundry service
- Babysitting or childcare
- Elevator/lift
- Number of floors - 4
- Coffee/tea in common areas
- Free newspapers in lobby
- Conference space
- Fireplace in lobby
- Tours/ticket assistance
- Free WiFi
- Free wired high-speed Internet
- Computer station
- Laundry facilities
- Meeting rooms 5
- Multilingual staff
- Terrace
- Luggage storage
- Restaurant
- Safe-deposit box at front desk
- Self parking (surcharge)
- 24-hour business center
- Conference space size (feet) - 5511
- Conference space size (meters) - 512
- Number of meeting rooms - 5
- Smoke-free property
- Number of buildings/towers - 1
- Supervised childcare/activities
- Television in common areas
- Use of nearby fitness center (discount)
Available in all rooms: Free WiFi , Free wired high-speed Internet
Available in some public areas: Free WiFi , Free wired high-speed Internet
Self parking (surcharge)
Room Amenities
Bilderberg Garden Hotel offers 124 air-conditioned accommodations with DVD players and safes. Flat-screen televisions come with satellite channels. Bathrooms include shower/tub combinations, bathrobes, slippers, and complimentary toiletries.
Guests can surf the web using the complimentary wired and wireless Internet access. Business-friendly amenities include desks and phones. Additionally, rooms include coffee/tea makers and hair dryers. In-room massages, hypo-allergenic bedding, and irons/ironing boards can be requested. A nightly turndown service is provided and housekeeping is offered daily.
- DVD player
- In-room safe
- Hair dryer
- Hypo-allergenic bedding available
- Air conditioning
- In-room climate control (air conditioning)
- Blackout drapes/curtains
- Phone
- Coffee/tea maker
- Turndown service
- Private bathroom
- Bathrobes
- Free toiletries
- Shower/tub combination
- In-room massage available
- Slippers
- Satellite TV service
- Iron/ironing board (on request)
- Desk
- Daily housekeeping
- Flat-panel TV
- Free WiFi
- Free wired high-speed Internet
- Room service (24 hours)
- Free cribs/infant beds
Where to Eat
De Kersentuin - Well-known by locals for its innovative, fresh French/international-style cooking in a casual atmosphere. Open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Closed on Sundays and Public Holidays.
The Lounge - Open onto the hotel lobby, this bar offers guests coffee, sodas, cocktails, wine, beer, and a selection of liquor. Open daily from late morning through late night.
Nearby Things to Do
Guests get 25% off the rates at the nearby fitness center. Ask at reception for details.
Guests can explore Amsterdam by foot, tram, bus, taxi, or canal boat. Bicycle rentals are available at the front desk, for riding the bike-path (fietpads) network that crisscrosses the country. Vondelpark, three blocks from the hotel, is popular for jogging, walking, cycling, and roller skating. Spread over several hundred acres, this lovely park also features outdoor cafés, a film museum, gardens, duck ponds, a playground, and wide open spaces for soccer, Frisbee, or soaking up the sun.
The recreational activities listed below are available either on site or near the hotel; fees may apply.
- Scooter/moped rentals nearby
- Bicycle rentals on site
Spa Services
- Massages
If you have requests for specific accessibility needs, please note them at check-out when you book your room.
Hotel Policies
Minimum check-in age is 18
Special check-in instructions:
Check-out time is noon
Payment types
Children and extra beds
- Children are welcome.
- Free cribs (infant beds)!
- Pets allowed for an extra charge of EUR 25 per pet, per day
- Dogs and cats only
- 2 per room
- Restrictions apply
- For more information contact the property at the number on the booking confirmation
You need to know
Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on property policy.
Government-issued photo identification and a credit card or cash deposit are required at check-in for incidental charges.
Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges. Special requests cannot be guaranteed.
Special cancellation policies or charges may apply for group reservations (more than 8 rooms for the same property / stay dates).
No rollaway/extra beds available
24-hour check-in
- Deposit: EUR 50 per night
- A 4.7149 percent city/local tax will be charged
- Energy surcharge: EUR 1.90 per person per night
Optional extras
- Fee for buffet breakfast: EUR 23.50 for adults and EUR 11.25 for children (approximately)
- Airport shuttle fee: EUR 17.00 per person
- Self parking fee: EUR 29.50 per night
- Pet fee: EUR 25 per pet, per day
Hotel Name
- Bilderberg Garden
- Bilderberg Garden Amsterdam
- Bilderberg Garden Hotel
- Bilderberg Garden Hotel Amsterdam
- Bilderberg Hotel Garden
- Garden Hotel Bilderberg
- Hotel Bilderberg Garden
We should mention
This property offers transfers from the airport (surcharges may apply). Guests must contact the property with arrival details before travel, using the contact information on the booking confirmation. Reservations are required for massage services. Reservations can be made by contacting the hotel prior to arrival, using the contact information on the booking confirmation. Guests can arrange to bring pets by contacting the property directly, using the contact information on the booking confirmation (surcharges apply and can be found in the Fees section).
Awards & Affiliations
National Rating
This property does not have a Netherlands Tourist Board rating. For the benefit of our customers, we have provided a rating based on our rating system.


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Practical Cross Platform SIMD Math
Peer Reviewed by Josh Vega, Vilem Otte, jbadams
C++ C language SIMD math cross platform C++ 11
This article is built using the environment from prior articles and as such you may want to read those. It is not required reading as the work done here is focused on the Intel SSE instruction sets and some minor examples of ARM Neon for comparisons. Only minor details of the build environment will need to be understood to take advantage of the presented material. If you are interested; the prior article series can be found here: Article
Unlike prior articles, this will simply present the reader with the final library which is hosted as a live project on Google Code. ARM Neon is discussed as a possible target but at this time the library is incomplete in that area, it will get progressively better in the future so check for updates. The code is hosted at: code. The directory "MathLibrary" corresponds to this article.
For the rest of the article there is a bit of vocabulary in use which needs to be understood or things can become confusing. First off, what is SIMD? The terse definition is "Single Instruction Multiple Data". Used as such, it is referring to a subclass of instructions which the target CPU supplies. This does not mean it is specifically Intel SSE, Power PC Altivec (VMX) or ARM Neon instructions, it is a general term to refer to the class of instructions on a given target CPU. This article will be focused on the Intel SSE instruction set as it provides the most complicated variation, though when referring to other instruction sets, the specific name of the target will be given as: Neon, or VMX as examples. Additionally, as SIMD refers to a set of instructions, the term will not be used when describing the process of converting normal math code to use the instructions. Instead the generic term for applying SIMD instructions is 'vectorization' which is appropriate as SIMD instructions are also often referred to as vector processing. Understanding the differences in terminology will be crucial to the remaining article.
The goal of the presented math library is to show multiple targets of SIMD instructions both based on specific CPU targets and levels of support given a target CPU. For instance, there are at least eight different variations of SSE on Intel CPUs at this time. Each level of SSE becomes significantly more powerful and corrects for missing items from prior versions. For instance, SSE 1 only supports vertical concepts of manipulation. In other words an SSE 1 based library loses considerable performance during the vectorization process due to an inability to occasionally work horizontally. SSE 3 added horizontal manipulations, specifically add and subtract, because of how useful they are in certain contexts such as performing dot products. Solving how to write a library which can support SSE 1 and SSE 3 (and higher) variations in a maintainable manner is one of the goals.
A secondary goal is to perform the systematic vectorization on various types yet still allow best fit selection of the underlying implementation. Using the Steam Hardware Survey, it is possible to conclude that targeting SSE 3 is quite viable given that 99.5% of all surveyed hardware in use supports that level of SSE. This is a simple solution and very reasonable, but what happens if you target your personal machine, enable SSE 4.2 and find that it is a very large performance gain for you? You might go look at the survey again but this time you find support is around 50% and would make the game less broadly acceptable. There are several solutions to this which we wish to support. You can compile your game twice, one for SSE 3 and the other for SSE 4.2, create a little launcher app which chooses which version to load. Another variation is to compile the game itself for SSE 3 and then move all the really heavy math portions into a shared library which can be recompiled for variations of the instruction sets which you load at runtime based on the availability of instructions. While the details of each method are beyond the scope here, supporting them is intended to be covered.
The final goal is to expose the SIMD instruction sets in a manner where systematic optimization using vectorization is possible. Simply vectorizing a 3D vector or a matrix is going to give notable gains, but applying vectorization to entire algorithms can make that seem trivial in comparison. Exposing the actual SIMD instructions in a manner which allows their use without using specific knowledge of the target is going to be possible. Of course this is quite a large topic and only the generic idea of how to approach it is covered, but the work is ready for expansion and usage in such a case.
SIMD Instruction Sets
SIMD instructions come in many forms. If you have been using Intel CPUs for a while, you have probably watched the evolution from MMX to today's latest and greatest AVX instruction sets. Today, if you target hand held devices (iDevices specifically in this article), the ARM Neon instruction set is a relatively recent addition to the family of SIMD instruction sets. SIMD instruction sets are not new concepts, other processors have implemented such things for a while, the instructions are simply somewhat new to mainstream CPUs. In this article, we will focus on the subset of instructions intended to manipulate 4 floats at a time which is fairly common to most SIMD instruction sets.
One of the difficulties with SIMD instructions is specifically caused by Intel and the way they implemented the original SSE instructions. The intention was not to support horizontal math and they instead tried to push reorganizing data in programs to match the new instruction data layout expectations. Sometimes this was possible to do, but often it is really not a viable approach. As such, on the Intel CPUs, you often waste much of the performance gain with swizzling instructions. This changed as of SSE 3 with the addition of horizontal adds and related instructions which greatly speed the handling of functionality such as dot product and magnitude calculations. Even better, as of SSE 4.1 a single instruction dot product is available which speeds things even more in some cases.
Dealing with the multiple levels of SSE on Intel platforms is rather complicated and can lead to difficult-to-maintain code if done poorly. Targeting a completely different set of instructions for ARM Neon is even more difficult when maintaining a uniform interface. The similarities of the instruction sets help ease this difficulty but do not completely remove the problems.
Starting the process of vectorization, we need to limit our scope to something fairly simple to begin with. At this point we are going to implement only a 3D vector class. There will be two implementations, not counting SIMD instruction set variations. One version is a normal C++ implementation which does not impose alignment requirements nor does it have a hidden 4th component. The other version is the vectorized variation with all the additional impositions added. Why two classes? Serialization is an area where vectorized types can get in the way. Unless you are writing a high performance binary serializer, it just doesn't make sense to deal with the imposition of alignment and the hidden component in such a system. Awareness of the types is of course important but different systems have different needs and forcing vectorization where it does not belong is not good practice.
The names of the classes will follow a modified version of the Open GL conventions. The modification is simply a case of dropping the 'gl' prefix, since we use namespaces and modifying the postfix notations a little bit. So, the names will be Vector3f for a 3 component floating point standard C++ vector and Vector3fv for the vectorized version. The modified postfix naming just changes the meaning of 'v' from meaning a pointer to array of elements to mean vectorized. The concepts are similar and as a pointer type doesn't make sense in the case of a primitive, the naming change does not cause conflict. This is not a particularly original naming convention but it works for the purposes of this article.
Initial Work Environment
In prior articles I mentioned that I had a reason for duplicating the name of a library under the 'Include' directory but never got into the details. At this point we are about to use one of the reasons for the additional directory name. Instead of coding the Vector3f and Vector3fv classes side by side, we are going to split into two separate libraries for the time being: "Math" and "Math-SIMD". While this is not required in general, the idea is to leverage the layout such that in a team where the primary math library could already be in use, you don't want to introduce the vectorized types into the code base until they are ready. Of course you also want to be continually committing your work while you go, so moving the code to the separate library keeps it out of the way for others. But, you also don't want to have different include paths which would have to be fixed up later when you merge the libraries. As such, both libraries can reference "Math" files via: "#include "Math/xxx.hpp" style inclusion but obviously only when you explicitly include the 'Math-SIMD' library can you access the new functionality.
While this is not required, it is a handy way to work in isolation for a while. Splitting libraries is a key feature of the build environment when discussing refactoring. When applied to large systems, you can move sections into temporary work locations, point to the original library and the new sub-library so nothing seems as if it changed. But, you can then make another library and rewrite a completely new version switching between implementations as needed. This variation of the usage is not covered here but it is a large benefit to the setup.
Alignment Issues
One item to cover briefly is making sure any class which uses a vectorized math primitive can align itself in memory. Unfortunately the state of C++11 support is still in its infancy so it is required in this case to fall back on per-compiler style alignment specifications. Also, since this is a generic item needed through out the codebase, we will be placing it in the 'Core' library to be shared. If you look in 'Libraries/Core/Include/Core/Core.hpp' you will see the following subsection:
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Per compiler macro's. #if defined( COMPILER_MSVC ) || defined( COMPILER_INTEL ) # define BEGIN_ALIGNED( n, a ) __declspec( align( a ) ) n # define END_ALIGNED( n, a ) #elif defined( COMPILER_GNU ) || defined( COMPILER_CLANG ) # define BEGIN_ALIGNED( n, a ) n # define END_ALIGNED( n, a ) __attribute__( (aligned( a ) ) ) #endif
The macro has to be split into two pieces since MSVC-style compilers and GNU-style compilers use different methods of specifying alignment. MSVC compilers use a pre-class name '__declspec' directive while GNU compilers use a postfix 'attribute' directive. When C++11 is better implemented, it will be possible to remove this bit of macro trash, but until then, this is the practical solution.
There are several downsides to this solution. It does not cover new/delete and as such if you new up a vector it will not be guaranteed to fit the alignment requirements of the underlying vectorized type. Another problem case is putting vectors into a std::vector or other container, there is no guarantee the memory will be aligned correctly until full support of 'alignof' is pushed out to the compilers. Finally, and most annoying, because we are wrapping a fundamental intrinsic type, passing an item to functions by value is not supported and may also break alignment rules. We will be working around these problems in general but they are important to keep in mind.
SIMD Intrinsic Includes
With the ARM Neon instruction set, life is fairly simple. There is only one include file required and no varying levels of support to be dealt with. But this does not mean everything is simple due to the development environment for iDevices. When targeting a real device the ARM Neon instruction set is of course supported, but when targeting the simulators they are not. Xcode supports switching targets from the device to the simulator in the IDE, as such we need to differentiate between the targets at compile time. This is fairly easy but does mean, on the simulator, we have to disable the Neon instruction set and fall back to non-SIMD code. (NOTE: You could switch to Intel SSE due to this being a simulator and not an emulator, but we'll just turn it off for now.)
Intel SSE is a bit of a can of worms as it is broken into various levels. For ease, we don't follow the actual levels of SSE as they progressed but instead the header file levels which Intel supplies to compilers. The levels are thus broken down into MMX, 1, 2, 3, 3.1, 4.1, 4.2 and AVX. While the library will not actually supply unique code for all of these levels, there will be a structure in place to allow future specialization. Also, we list out MMX as a possible target, though it will not be used initially. The includes in highest to lowest order, with some notes:
immintrin.h - AVX 256 bit SIMD instruction set. (Defines __m256.)
wmmintrin.h - AVX AES instructions.
nmmintrin.h - The Core 2 Duo 4.2 SIMD instruction set.
smmintrin.h - The Core 2 Duo 4.1 SIMD instruction set.
tmmintrin.h - SSSE 3 aka SSE 3.1 SIMD instruction set.
pmmintrin.h - SSE 3 SIMD instruction set.
emmintrin.h - SSE 2 SIMD instruction set.
xmmintrin.h - SSE(1) SIMD instruction set. (Defines __m128.)
mmintrin.h - MMX instruction set. (Defines __m64.)
The modifications to compiler options, the specifically exposed CMake options and detection of the various levels to select appropriate includes can be found in the math library environment. Specifically dealing with the different includes and the Xcode oddities is handled in the file "Math-SIMD/Include/Math/Simd/Simd.hpp". It is a fairly ugly little header due to all the SSE options and the simulator difference, but it gets the job done properly.
The Intrinsic SIMD Abstraction Layer
In order to support the different target processors we need to begin abstraction of the data types. At the same time, we are going to be implementing a fallback case for CPUs without SIMD. In fact, implementation of the reference support is a key feature of the library. What we are going to be writing is something similar to the SSEPlus library abstraction of the Intel intrinsics. (See: http://sseplus.sourceforge.net) We will only be dealing with the 4 element floating point types, so we don't really have that many intrinsics to abstract; basic math, load/store and some manipulation abilities are all we really need. There are exceptions we will be dealing with, but for now this is a good enough starting point.
Doing The Real Work
For the time being, we start the Vector3fv class as an empty class. We will be refactoring this to be the vectorized version once we get some preparations out of the way. The first step is defining how we will be working, as implied previously we are using the intrinsics and not going directly to assembly language. Beyond just being easier, using the intrinsics provides nearly as much performance gain as hand coding assembly in this case. In fact, with the compilers involved, quite often using the intrinsics produces faster code since register allocations are chosen to fit into surrounding code better. Having said that, the math primitives will not be the most cutting edge and blazing fast items in the world, just a good starting point for further optimization.
Our next step is setting up the SIMD instruction set such that it is usable by the Vector3fv class (and other systems as desired) in a manner where it is an abstraction on top of the specific SIMD instructions. There are a number of items which can be used which, beyond naming, behave pretty much identically on all the different SIMD instruction sets. For instance, the ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide are pretty much common on each CPU and as such should be as light a wrapper as possible. We'll be following the same basic style of abstraction as presented in the Intel SSE intrinsics themselves, just at an extra level of abstraction. The primary header to figure out the instruction set selection is "Include/Math/Simd/Simd.hpp", by default it always allows use of the reference C++ implementation so even if you turn off all Simd, everything will continue to compile and function. After inclusion, a macro is defined named: "Simd_t" which is the primary abstraction into the build selected default instruction set. This is a macro since, as part of the goals, we want to be able to run multiple and simultaneous versions of the code based on different variations of the instruction sets, a typedef would not be able to be overridden by other code.
The first thing we need in order to use the SIMD instruction sets is a type. The primary 4 element floating point type is defined as "Simd_t::Vec4f_t". The reference implementation defines this as simply a structure wrapped around a 4 element array of floats, the Intel SSE implementation defines the type as '__m128' and ARM Neon defines the type as 'float32x4_t'. The first rule is to treat these types as completely opaque black boxes, even if you know it is an '__m128', don't go using the structure underlying the type directly, always use the "Simd_t" exposed functions. Of course, a nice benefit to maintaining the reference library is that if you break the rules, either the reference version or whatever the active Simd instruction set implemented version will likely fail to compile.
In order to structure and maintain the multiple abstractions we add the following structure to the project:
Include/Math/Simd Include/Math/Simd/Reference Include/Math/Simd/Sse Include/Math/Simd/Neon
Each new directory implements the specific instruction set and variations of each. So, 'Reference' and 'Neon' both contain single files which expose the SIMD abstraction and 'Sse' contains several different files. The content of the files end up defining structures in the namespaces as follows:
Math::Simd struct Reference; Math::Simd struct Sse; Math::Simd struct Sse3; Math::Simd struct Sse4; Math::Simd struct Avx; Math::Simd struct Neon;
Notice that for SSE we only support 1, 3, 4 and Avx. The reason is that, for the time being, there is no use implementing MMX, SSE2 or the inbetween versions since they add nothing significant to the math instructions. SSE2 may be included eventually so as to support double types but this is a future extension. Also, if you look in the supplied code, Avx derives from Sse4 which in turn derives from Sse3 etc. We use the simple hierarchy to hide progressively lesser capable variations of the instruction set.
With all the structure out of the way, the method to use it needs to be discussed. Our first abstraction is going to be dealing with the need to initialize SIMD types. While all the current types we are targeting can be initialized with aggregate construction such as the following:
Simd_t::Vec4f_t mine = {1.0f, 2.0f, 3.0f};
This leaves a bit to be desired and may also not work on future instruction sets if specialized types are introduced. The undesirable feature of this is that the fourth component is left uninitialized and for purposes of the abstraction, we want the hidden component always to be 0.0f. In fact, when we add debugging, asserting that the hidden component is 0.0f will be part of the checks. So, we introduce our first abstraction function, which just happens to be the standard form for all future abstraction functions:
namespace Math { namespace Simd { struct Reference { static Vec4f_t Create( float x, float y, float z ) { Vec4f_t result = {x, y, z, 0.0f}; return result; } } } }
The function simply creates a temporary, initializes it and returns it. Because this is such a standard form, most compilers will completely optimize the function out of release code and the cost of the abstraction remains zero. Visual Studio, Clang and GCC all deal with this form of optimization (often referred to as the Return Value Optimization) fairly well and only a few slower code generation mistakes result from this. With this function in hand, it is possible to initialize our Vector3fv.
First, there is some preparation to perform. We need to modify the Vector3fv to be an aligned class or the optimized SIMD instructions will fail:
class BEGIN_ALIGNED( Vector3fv, 16 ) { private: Simd_t::Vec4f_t mData; } END_ALIGNED( Vector3fv, 16 );
There is still a problem though. We don't actually want to tie this class to the default data type based on build settings, we need to be able to change as desired. So, we will be renaming this class and templating it as follows with a default typedef to stand in as Vector3fv:
template< Simd = Simd_t > class BEGIN_ALIGNED( Vector3f_Simd, 16 ) { public: typedef typename Simd::Vec4f_t ValueType_t; private: ValueType_t mData; } END_ALIGNED( Vector3f_Simd, 16 ); typedef Vector3f_Simd< Simd_t > Vector3fv;
With the general changes to the class behind us, let's use the SIMD abstraction and create the constructors:
template< Simd = Simd_t > class BEGIN_ALIGNED( Vector3f_Simd, 16 ) { public: typedef typename Simd::Vec4f_t ValueType_t; Vector3f_Simd() {} Vector3f_Simd( const Vector3f_Simd& rhs ) : mData( rhs.mData ) {} Vector3f_Simd( float x, float y, float z ) : mData( Simd::Create( x, y, z ) {} private: ValueType_t mData; } END_ALIGNED( Vector3f_Simd, 16 ); typedef Vector3f_Simd< Simd_t > Vector3fv;
A key note here is that the default constructor does not initialize to zero. The type is intended to be used much like a fundamental float type and with the same rules. From a class purity point of view, yes this should default initialize to zero though. The general reason for this decision to act like a fundamental type is that compilers are still fairly weak at removing some unneeded temporary initializations and in the case of primitive math types it gets very expensive. The class of bugs caused by this is no different than missing float and int initializations though unfortunately the compiler will not always complain about such things. Debugging additions will be used to catch such errors later though.
Another note is that the fundamental type exposed as Vec4f_t can be copy constructed like any fundamental type. This is critical to leverage as the compilers are able to leave types in registers longer while in use if they recognize copying and optimize appropriately. Gcc seems to be the weakest of the compilers in this area but still does a fair job of not flushing registers until really needed.
The First SIMD Instruction
At this point we will show the first SIMD instruction abstraction. It will also be the last individual instruction as the basics are the same for each. We'll look at more complicated functionality in the next section.
We will expose an operation for "Add" in the SIMD abstraction and then implement the addition operator within the vector class. In SSE, the _mm_add_ps intrinsic (addps in assembly) is quite simple:
__m128 _mm_add_ps( __m128 lhs, __m128 rhs );
For Neon, the intrinsic is:
float32x4_t vaddq_f32( float32x4_t lhs, float32x4_t rhs );
Basically the instructions are identical except in name and type. This makes it quite simple to implement things for all targets.
So, let's start by implementing the reference C++ version:
// in Math::Simd::Reference: static Vec4f_t Add( const Vec4f_t& lhs, const Vec4f_t& rhs ) { Vec4f_t result = { lhs.v[ 0 ] + rhs.v[ 0 ], lhs.v[ 1 ] + rhs.v[ 1 ], lhs.v[ 2 ] + rhs.v[ 2 ], lhs.v[ 3 ] + rhs.v[ 3 ] }; return result; }
It is worth noting that we are passing by reference in this function but in the other abstractions we will be passing by value. This is a minor optimization applied to the reference implementation which may or may not be required. But in general it has no effect on usage as C++ will figure out the proper passing style be it reference or value. Also keep in mind that while the 3rd index is hidden, we still operate on it because that is how the SIMD instructions function and we are not targeting just Vector3 but eventually 2 and 4 dimension items also.
Now the SSE implementation:
// In Math::Simd::Sse: static Vec4f_t Add( Vec4f_t lhs, Vec4f_t rhs ) { return _mm_add_ps( lhs, rhs ); }
The Neon implementation:
// In Math::Simd::Neon: static Vec4f_t Add( Vec4f_t lhs, Vec4f_t rhs ) { return vaddq_f32( lhs, rhs ); }
And finally the operator:
Vector3f_Simd operator + ( const Vector3f_Simd& rhs ) const {return Simd::Add( mData, rhs );}
If you build and compile a test which tried to use this, you would currently get an error since you can not construct a Vector3f_Simd from the fundamental SIMD type. We will add the constructor for this, it is both required and proper. Of course it should be noted that any conversion operator or constructor should 'usually' be marked explicit (conversion operators are able to be marked as such in C++11) we want to encourage passing the fundamental type around as it will pass in a register and generally be faster than passing the wrapper class. So, in this rare occasion I leave the constructor and operator as non-explicit.
As you can see, this pattern is very easy to implement, once the conversions are handled. We won't perform all the repetitions here as there is nothing notable to learn from such grunt work. Instead we move onto the more interesting bits.
The Dot Product
The dot product of two vectors is the first composite operation to be presented. It is also a case where the different levels of Intel SSE provide additional operations which speed the computation up significantly as higher levels of SSE are used. In order to maintain the abstraction and provide the benefits of the higher level instructions, we treat the entire dot product as a single intrinsic instead of attempting to implement it using the currently exposed intrinsic instructions. Without getting into the details, we'll just present the reference version of the operation to start with:
static float Dot3( const Vec4f_t& lhs, const Vec4f_t& rhs ) { return ( lhs.v[ 0 ]*rhs.v[ 0 ] + lhs.v[ 1 ]*rhs.v[ 1 ] + lhs.v[ 2 ]*rhs.v[ 2 ] ); }
The operation is basically a SIMD multiplication of all elements, though ignoring the hidden in this case, and then an addition of each resulting element. From a terminology point of view, this is generally called a vertical multiply followed by a horizontal addition. Unfortunately, the original Intel SSE did not support the horizontal operation which causes a signficant loss of performance. The Intel SSE version is thus considerably more complex:
static float Dot3( const Vec4f_t& lhs, const Vec4f_t& rhs ) { static const int swap1 = _MM_SHUFFLE( 3, 3, 3, 2 ); static const int swap2 = _MM_SHUFFLE( 3, 3, 3, 1 ); float sresult; __m128 result = _mm_mul_ps( lhs, rhs ); __m128 part1 = _mm_shuffle_ps( result, result, swap1 ); __m128 part2 = _mm_shuffle_ps( result, result, swap2 ); result = _mm_add_ps( result, part1 ); result = _mm_add_ps( result, part2 ); _mm_store_ss( &sresult, result ); return sresult; }
Without getting into details, after multiplying the individual components, we have to swap things around a bit in order to add them all together and then store the result. While generally faster than the reference version, it is not a major win due to the swizzle instructions. Thankfully, in steps the SSE 4 version though, at less than half the cycle count:
static float Dot3( const Vec4f_t& lhs, const Vec4f_t& rhs ) { float sresult; __m128 result = _mm_dp_ps( lhs, rhs, 0x77 ); _mm_store_ss( &sresult, result ); return sresult; }
By inserting these functions into the library of support files and structures, we have access to a per target optimized dot product. By expecting only that the container classes are properly aligned, the implementation of the vector type becomes identical to the non-vectorized version when finished. The level of abstraction is a bit fine grained but we are using assembly language instructions, which are about as fine grained as possible anyway, we are actually stepping back just a bit to contain complete concepts. Further extensions such as performing transformations on entire buffers can be done as single abstractions and optimized heavilly for each target, the speed increases compared to vectorizing just the Vector3 types is fairly impressive in comparison.
With the example implementation and the overview, hopefully this has given you a method of using a SIMD math library in a manner which does not intrude on everyday work. While not a particularly long or detailed article, the overview of the design and architecture of the code should provide a simple to follow pattern which extends to nearly any specialized math processing which can be used in general purpose programming. The example library will be fleshed out and expanded on for the next article in which it will be used further. At that time I will also be introducing a simple testbed for the library which will become a benchmarking item for future work.
Note On The Results
While the next article will cover some of this, I figured I'd drop some results of the work:
Using a simple brute force ray tracer with
1024x1024 3x SuperSampling on a simple scene.
Normal : ~43500ms
Reference : ~53400ms
SSE : ~41400ms
SSE 3 : ~33800ms
SSE 4 : ~29300ms
Secondary note: the performance differences also include enabling additional compiler options which speed up the overall program. The next article will use a better controlled timing method which will reflect only the Vector3fv optimizations.

subset: commoncrawl


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Home › Forums › Campfire › Hiking Partners / Group Trip Announcements › Joshua Tree CRHT Run
Nov 30, 2012 at 8:12 am #1296597
What: A single day (not overnight) crossing of the California Riding and Hiking Trail in Joshua Tree National Monument. Roughly 38 miles (according to trail markers).
When: Late February?
Option A: Car camp at Black Rock Campground on a Friday night, run Saturday, shuttle back, spend the night, and leave Sunday.
Option B (more adventurous): Same as option A but…doing it as a night run with a full moon has always been high on my to-do list. We could start just before sundown and run until…
February 2013 full moon is on Monday, Feb. 25th. Saturday the 23rd moonrise is at 4:02PM at 97.2% illuminated. Barring clouds, it would be BRIGHT out there.
***Date is totally negotiable. But I'll likely need at least a month and a half from now to get my legs back.
I'm obviously in favor of the moonlight traverse.
Who: Anyone that understands the nature of running self-supported* across nearly 40 miles of desert trail (possibly at night). High temps for Feb are ~65, lows are ~37.
*There are ways to stash water on the route.
Oh, and PRIZES!!!!
Who doesn't like PRIZES?!
I'll likely do up a commemorative batch of beer mugs, ramen bowls, or gigantic neck medallions.
If I don't hear from any interested parties within a week or two, I'm just going to plan on a solo Feb. 23rd moonlight run and go from there…
So who's game?Nov 30, 2012 at 11:41 am #1932169
hmmmm, how old is this thread ? J Tree is a National Park now :-)
been to Josh over 600,000 times, but its been a few years and most of them were climbing trips.
would be nice to see the place again.
haven't done much hiking running in the Park.
where does the trail begin ? Blackrock CG ?
end ?????
I could probably get one or two others to tag along.
—Nov 30, 2012 at 1:36 pm #1932205
Oops…I forget it's a park now. I'm remembering the old days…
The CRHT runs from Black Rock Campground to the North Entrance station near 29 Palms. It can be done either direction with a shuttle and water can be stashed at the halfway point near Ryan Campground. It makes sense to camp at Black Rock as you can reserve sites there from home…
It runs through some good park scenery…I like the Covington Flats area of the beginning quite a bit.
What do think of a night run with a bright moon Art?Dec 1, 2012 at 8:45 am #1932386
First off, looks like you started 2 threads for this topic.
Maybe consolidate and cancel one before we get any further down the road.
Night run
not opposed to it, and my buddy John is up for anything unusual.
but I do love the desert vistas … I suppose with a full moon there is still a lot to see.Dec 1, 2012 at 9:03 am #1932391
I'm guessing that people new to the trail or area will want to do it by day for the views…which is fine by me.
How does Saturday, Feb. 23rd sound for the run?
I'll go consolidate that other thread now…Dec 1, 2012 at 1:47 pm #1932435
Craig- count me as a definite maybe :) Looks like I could fly into Phoenix and then a 4 hr drive, we have an airline that has cheap rates to Phoenix (but only flies a couple of times a week).
As I've never been there, day would be preferable- although a night run sounds neat as well.
MikeDec 3, 2012 at 11:50 am #1932772
talked to John and he's in too,
so better start that training Craig.
my one concern with a night run is just how well marked that CRHT is. desert trails are sometimes less obvious in places.Dec 3, 2012 at 12:09 pm #1932775
I think we should go for it as a day run at this point. I've done 50% of it at night and it wasn't bad, but it will certainly complicate things and likely just kill the view for most people doing it. I really only want to do it at night because I've been through it in the day already.
Let's just say I'm simply out to finish.Dec 3, 2012 at 12:16 pm #1932776
finish is our only goal too, but you want to be able to sit up at the end, hold that beer up high.
do you know of a trail map, want to check if the trail goes by any of my old climbing spots.Dec 3, 2012 at 3:03 pm #1932814Dec 3, 2012 at 4:23 pm #1932835
The CRHT swings wide of most of the established climbing areas, staying mostly in more of the backcountry. I use a Nat. Geo. topo for Joshua Tree; theirs has pretty good detail.
Mike, look into whether or not you can get a flight into Palm Springs. If so, you could likely be picked up and avoid dealing with car rentals/driving.Dec 6, 2012 at 4:12 pm #1933673
Nick GatelBPL Member
@ngatelLocale: Southern California
All the major airlines go into Palm Springs — cost is usually minimal. And if you are really ambitious just hike from the airport to Long Canyon in Desert Hot Springs to the campground. Probably around 24 miles.Dec 6, 2012 at 5:15 pm #1933692
You should come out and have a beer/dinner with us Nick.Dec 6, 2012 at 5:24 pm #1933697
Nick GatelBPL Member
@ngatelLocale: Southern California
"You should come out and have a beer/dinner with us Nick."
You think I can't run with you young bucks?
… well you're right! Maybe I'll take my camper up there and make it a weekend with my better half.Dec 7, 2012 at 3:13 pm #1933890
Jacob DBPL Member
@jacobdLocale: North Bay
Craig, I was quite stoked by the adventure that you and the others embarked on across the Grand Canyon and back – inspired enough to get me out running on roads, trails, whatever… which traditionally I've sorta despised. Strangely, now I sort of bask in the experience.
My hopes are that one of you guys (you know who you are) will be thinking about putting a long run/hike like this together around fall of 2013 when I'll be better prepared.
I'm *probably going to sit this one out, but just out of curiosity…. has anyone found/looked at an elevation profile?
And, how many hours are you out there start to finish on this (ballpark)?
– Jacob.Dec 7, 2012 at 6:10 pm #1933938
haven't seen an elevation profile, but this link describes the trail pretty well (w/ elevation gain/loss)
from what I've read the majority of the trail is runnable, I'd think anywhere from 8-12 hours would be in the ballparkDec 7, 2012 at 6:55 pm #1933946
Jacob DBPL Member
@jacobdLocale: North Bay
Mike, is the link you were going to post?
Doesn't sound too bad at all from that description.Dec 7, 2012 at 7:30 pm #1933950
would be nice if I actually posted a link! :)
here's the one I was looking at
that's a useful link you providedDec 8, 2012 at 7:35 am #1934014
thanks for the good links describing the route.
it does not seem like a difficult route, except for some staying awake so as not to get lost.
for me personally, I'd say somewhere from 8.5 – 10.5 hrs, leaning toward the slow side because we may have to carry extra water, and of course I'd like to take in the scenary a bit too.Dec 9, 2012 at 8:38 pm #1934400
Coming from the R2R2R and the likes, it's certainly not a hard route. Rolling and flat terrain with only one small climb to really speak of.
Does Saturday, February 23rd sound like a good day for the run? I'd like to finalize the date soon for training purposes and to reserve a campsite for Friday and Saturday night.Dec 10, 2012 at 8:20 am #1934478
Feb 23 is perfect for me and John.Dec 11, 2012 at 7:53 am #1934715
I'm going to go ahead and try to book a site at Black Rock for Feb. 22nd and 23rd then. I believe each site can have 2 cars and 8 people so everyone that has expressed interest so far will be covered.Dec 11, 2012 at 5:07 pm #1934842
Hey everyone…
How would you all feel about the following weekend instead, running on Saturday, March 2nd? I'd then reserve a site for Friday the 1st and Sat. the 2nd.
We have another runner that can't make the 23rd but could do the 2nd.
Let me know so I can finalize (again).
Thanks.Dec 11, 2012 at 5:57 pm #1934857
March 2 is ok with me but no later than that.
need to talk to John.Dec 11, 2012 at 6:05 pm #1934860
Craig- I'm still a maybe, but no conflicts w/ either set of dates
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The animal kingdom has a new member. On September 12, researchers unveiled to the world a newly discovered species of monkey. The primate is called the lesula, short for its Latin name, Cercopithecus lomamiensis. The lesula is only the second monkey species discovered in 28 years.
Meet the Lesula
Scientists first saw the lesula in June 2007 in the town of Opala in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Democratic Republic of Congo, often called the DRC, is located in Central Africa. The lesula lives in the lowland rainforests of central DRC. The monkey found in Opala was the pet of a local family. Researchers say the species was already well known to hunters. The found additional lesulas in the wild.
The lesula has been compared to another species of monkey called Cercopithecus hamlyni, better known as the owl-faced monkey. This animal earns its name for having a long, flat nose and a face that that looks like that of an owl. The lesula and the owl-faced monkey are similar in size and both have a stripe on their nose. These new findings on the lesula prove that the two monkeys are close relatives, but different species. Scientists say the lesula usually weighs about 12 pounds and measures about 20 inches. It has a mane of long blond hair and a cream-colored stripe running down its nose. The lesula eats a vegetarian diet. Its habitat extends nearly 11,000 square miles across the DRC's eastern central basin.
Saving Forests, Saving Species
Robert Kityo is a zoology professor at Uganda's Makerere University. He says that the lesula discovery is proof that the eastern central basin is filled with species yet to be discovered. This new find also creates awareness about the importance of preserving, or protecting, African rainforests. Many forests are threatened by illegal logging and hunting. Preserving these rainforests allows new species like the lesula to continue to grow and change.


text:
I had a fun visit at the New York Public Library during Thanksgiving week. While I had explored the stacks many years ago with my husband when we were newlyweds, I had never taken the time to see one of the free exhibits. They are very well done!
My mother-in-law and I took the train into New York City together on the day before Thanksgiving. I had the chance to see my first-ever Broadway play, Evita! Sadly, Ricky Martin was on vacation but it was still a fantastic show and I was so happy to see it.
After a quick lunch near the Empire State Building, we had some time to spare. As GeekMom Kathy shared earlier this year, there are so many free things to do in New York, we didn't have to break the bank looking for things to do. We took our time walking northward towards Times Square and the Marquis Theatre. We enjoyed the free holiday-decorated windows in front of Lord & Taylor, and watched ice skaters at Bryant Park. Our route happened to take us past the New York Public Library; I hadn't been inside in many many years. My mother-in-law and I ducked inside to see what was going on.
Continue Reading "The New York Public Library's Free Exhibits: Lunch Hour NYC" »


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The people who stand on street corners and try to get you to sign petitions or give money to save babies or save wales or stop dog fighting.
This greenpeace street vulture seems to have grown a British accent in the 2 months since he physically blocked me from crossing the street.
by drbrain May 14, 2010


text:
Town Square
Gunn, district staff again defy school board on counseling
Original post made by Curious, Fairmeadow, on Jun 10, 2013
The school board meeting comes on the heels of the district's 2013 strategic plan survey, which found "a large gap in non-academic counseling satisfaction across Gunn and Paly": 54% of parents at Gunn expressed satisfaction compared with 73% of Paly parents, and 58% of Gunn students versus 68% at Paly. See Web Link, pp. 27-28. For availability of counselors, 63% of Gunn students and 75% of Paly students were satisfied, while for quality of support the gap was 60% versus 73%.
The study also found that for college and career counseling "overall satisfaction is much higher at Palo Alto High School." For example, 72% of Paly parents but only 46% of Gunn parents said that their students receive effective college counseling. These gaps tracked closely a 2012 district survey on counseling at the two high schools.
At its March 19 meeting, the school board heard the report of the Gunn Advisory Committee (GAC), which was appointed in fall 2012 to devise improvements in Gunn guidance counseling following a year and a half of controversy over a large gap in service and satisfaction with Paly. The committee's recommendations included dozens of measures, including an expansion of the Titan 101 freshman advisory program to include sophomores, juniors and seniors.
At the March meeting, board members told Gunn principal Katya Villalobos and PAUSD Director of Secondary Education Michael Milliken that they were unwilling to approve a one-year plan that lacked specifics on full implementation of the GAC recommendations. Board members also demanded a statement of who at Gunn would be responsible for each component of a multi-year plan. Villalobos and Milliken promised to return with a plan incorporating those details. See Web Link.
The Gunn proposal, for which Villalobos and Milliken are seeking approval on Tuesday, does not mention many of the GAC recommendations, including the expansion of Titan 101. It also does not identify staff members responsible for implementation. Instead, it proposes a "Creative Scheduling Committee" composed of parents and staff that would meet in the fall and winter of 2013-2014, culminating in a vote of Gunn staff in March 2014. See Web Link.
Board members expressed their frustration during the March meeting at the lack of specifics about how to define or achieve comparable guidance services between Paly and Gunn. At that meeting, Milliken admitted under questioning from trustee Melissa Caswell that he had deliberately instructed the GAC not to consider comparability, despite the Board of Education's instruction to the contrary. Milliken also told the board that he would be unable to define "comparable" until fall 2013 at the earliest. Milliken announced last week that he is leaving PAUSD to assume the superintendency at the Belmont-Redwood Shores school district.
The Gunn proposal is the latest development in a years-long struggle over what to do about the gap in parent and student satisfaction with guidance services between Paly, which has a teacher advisory guidance model, and Gunn. In 2008 Noreen Likins, then Gunn principal, pushed for a teacher advisory model with strong student support. Resistance from staff and Likins' resignation stalled the effort, but contributed to the rollout of Titan 101 in 2011.
In 2012 a district survey found large gaps in satisfaction and services between Gunn and Paly, but the school board's directive to Gunn to consider teacher advisory in response foundered on staff resistance, led by Superintendent Kevin Skelly. See Web Link.
Comments (29)
a resident of Adobe-Meadow
on Jun 10, 2013 at 11:07 pm
Thanks curious! I <3 your posts. Wow those numbers are just stunning. The gaps are huge in satisfaction between Paly and Gunn. Can't wait to hear Mumbles Milliken try to explain those. Maybe everyone who is happy with Gunn counseling was stuck in traffic the week of the survey. Power outage. No Internet. Also, they could have had chicken pox. Or the dog ate the surveys of those who were happy with counseling. Maybe all the people who were happy with Gunn counseling were meeting with their counselors for long, personal sessions in which they received excellent personal service during the week of the survey and had no time to answer the survey. There must be some explanation other than the fact that Paly's TA system is just a lot better and parents and students are a lot happier with it. We already know that can't be true.
a resident of Hoover School
on Jun 10, 2013 at 11:17 pm
Gunn is obviously so superior because of the higher test scores! If the test scores are high then it must mean that the students are getting good counseling. The Paly people are just jealous of all of the Ivy League placements that the Gunners get. It's as simple as that. Why doesn't Paly just quit trying to wipe it's system on Gunn. We Gunners are headed to the stratosphere with our overly awesome test scores.
a resident of Crescent Park
on Jun 11, 2013 at 6:10 am
[Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]
a resident of Adobe-Meadow
on Jun 11, 2013 at 10:22 am
I think its awful that all those parents and staff took all that time to serve on the GAC only to see their recommendations ignored and not implemented. I also think its unbelievable that that board keeps saying that they want comparable services and the district and Gunn admins keep ignoring that direction. There should be by now a plan to make Gunn comparable to Paly, with a timeline, metrics, a person assigned responsibility for each task, and accountability. When is someone going to make this staff see the light? Look at this statistic from the strategic plan survey:
46% of Gunn parents think that their student received "effective college counseling" compared with 72% of Paly parents.
Why aren't we done with this yet? We have a 25 point gap in satisfaction with COLLEGE COUNSELING. This isn't about touchy-feely social-emotional health (where there are also huge gaps). This is about whether your kids get effective college counseling, Gunn parents. Are you kidding me? How does the school board think it is doing its job when its own strategic plan survey shows that half the people in PAUSD are getting royally shafted in what we all agree is one of the most important areas, college advising. What gives? Why would we let the teachers vote on whether or not to fix that problem? That's your solution?
Let's get this straight. Suppose that we discovered that on the north side of town, police response to burgler alarms was 5 minutes, but on the south side of town, it was a hour. Would we let the police officers patrolling the south side of town vote on whether or not to decrease their response time to equal that of the north side?
What if we found that fire stations on the north side of town respond to 911 calls within 6 minutes and routinely save burning homes and businesses, but on the south side, they get there after the house has burned to the ground. Would we let the slower fire station VOTE on whether or not to improve to the level of the northside?
What on earth is going on with PAUSD's board that they can't see what is going on? Here's my hypothesis: THERE ARE NO GUNN PARENTS OR FORMER GUNN PARENTS ON THIS BOARD. Four of the five are Paly parents, and Heidi has never had a child in high school. When her children get to Gunn she will understand the problem but of course it will be too late for the thousands of kids who will graduate between now and then and get inadequate college counseling.
a resident of Hoover School
on Jun 11, 2013 at 12:17 pm
Why are those present Gunners and future Gunners not connected to the school board or admins.? Of course I forgot that the top guy in the district (mr. Skelly) is. GUnner parent. Yikes!! That is scarey!! I think he will be a Gunner parent for at least one more year assuming he still has a job. That means that our Superintendent mr. Skelly is THE TOP GUNNER!
a resident of Palo Alto High School
on Jun 11, 2013 at 1:02 pm
Pretty simply, the Gunn admin and teachers do not want to adopt the Paly counseling program and do not want to make the changes recommended by their own Gunn committee so they are delaying as long as possible. The BOE and Dr. Skelly can only do so much, they come up against union rules regarding what teachers can be required to do.
This isn't an issue of North vs. South or Paly vs. Gunn parents on the BOE (if you want Gunn parents on the board, then Gunn parents need to run).
a resident of Adobe-Meadow
on Jun 11, 2013 at 1:22 pm
"The BOE and Dr. Skelly can only do so much, they come up against union rules regarding what teachers can be required to do."
There are no union rules that prevent implementation of a TA system at Gunn. There is one at Paly -- same union, same rules. Dr. Skelly isn't doing it because he is personally hostile to TA. The Board isn't making him because the board is useless. This is not about the union rules this is about Skelly refusing to follow Board direction and the board failing to hold him accountable.
"This isn't an issue of North vs. South or Paly vs. Gunn parents on the BOE"
Yes it is. Don't be silly. That's exactly what it is. Gunn is the poor relation. What we are being given is a system that is plenty good for the immigrant and less well-off residents of South Palo Alto, which is to say, severely inferior. This has been proved to be the case over and over and over. There has been study after study, committee after committee. Last time the BOE heard a staff report, Michael Milliken announced that he had personally decided to simply tell the GAC that they didn't have to consider comparability. Did he experience any consequences for that act of insubordination?
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jun 11, 2013 at 3:45 pm
Curious Fan,
When you look at student responses, Gunn rated less favorably but not by lots.
Gunn students say that they want more time with their counselors which could be why they answered the way they did. That is easy to fix. Gunn just needs to match Paly's spending. Resources are not infinite though, so shifting money means that something else will get short shrift, undoubtedly earning it lower ratings next survey round.
No fear mongering on college counseling please. 74% Paly compared to 65% Gunn is hardly an earthshaking difference and nothing close to the "royal shaft" label you put on it.
And your claim that "we all agree" that college counseling "is one of the most important areas," you might want to look again. Our community placed it 7th.
According to our community, THE most important thing our schools do – by a wide margin- is academics where PAUSD gets a 90% approval rating.
a resident of Charleston Gardens
on Jun 11, 2013 at 4:01 pm
I don't know what your definition of "lots" is but the gap among students regarding college counseling is 10 points. I call that lots. And whe viewed in context it is clear that it isn't just time it's also quality. Those gaps are just indefensible. You are saying gunn parents should be satisfied even if they get less because its cheaper. Thanks.
a resident of Hoover School
on Jun 11, 2013 at 4:10 pm
Let's face it, the gunners win hands down when it comes to test scores and everybody knows it test scores are the most important thing!!
Higher test scores equals more Ivy League appointments!!
Is that really what PAUSD district is all about?
Just get with the program Paly and figure out how you can get more people into Ivies like those Gunners.
Gunners rule!
a resident of Terman Middle School
on Jun 11, 2013 at 4:22 pm
I have been watching this for two years now, and its moved from comedy to tragedy to farce. It will probably settle down into tragedy. I thought sure my daughter (8th grade next year) would get a decent counseling support when she gets to Gunn. Now I doubt it.
This is absolutely an issue of North v. South. Dana Tom, Melissa Caswell, Barb Mitchell all live in the rich part of town. Camille Townsend is in the Paly district. I guess the new one, Emberling, is in the Gunn district but doesn't know what is coming.
If Paly had this kind of gap for this long, the school board would be moving heaven and earth to fix it.
a resident of Palo Alto High School
on Jun 11, 2013 at 4:36 pm
Curious - my reference to union rules just meant that I don't believe teachers can be "forced" to do anything besides teach. If teachers at Gunn don't want a TA a system, they can't be forced to volunteer to be a TA. I don't think Skelly is hostile to a TA system, I think he is reluctant to try to implement something that does not have buy-in from the Gunn teachers.
Gunn is not the poor relation, they have great teachers, great students and great test scores. There is however, a big difference in the level of involvement of the parents from both areas, that is reflected in all kinds of things from who coaches little league to who runs for school board.
Hmmm- thanks for bringing up resources. Gunn CHOOSES to spend less money on their whole counseling program than Paly. I believe they spend more money on small English classes because they have a larger portion of ESL kids (almost 10% of Gunn students are ESL), I think Mandarin is actually the second highest "language spoken at home" for the Gunn students, even more than Spanish. A number of families from Taiwan and China view Gunn as a "private" school option for them, for the cost of renting an apartment for their child, they can send them to a top school.
a resident of Palo Alto High School
on Jun 11, 2013 at 4:46 pm
Terman dad - yep, most of the School Board (and the City Council) are from north Palo Alto. If people want more representation from south Palo Alto, the need to run for office! It will not magically happen. There are also more little league coaches, etc. from north Palo Alto, all of which tells me that parents are more willing to volunteer.
And to everyone that considers north Palo Alto "rich", yes there are people with money, but there are also lots of renters and people that struggle. Paly and Gunn have a pretty equal number of "socio-economically disadvantaged" students, Gunn has about 8.6%, Paly has 7.7%.
a resident of Barron Park
on Jun 11, 2013 at 5:46 pm
I am absolutely in sync with terman dad. I know teachers at Gunn who would love to be a TA. There is a group of teachers many of them Instructional Supervisors who run the school along with the union and they don't want TA. I like Katya but she lets them run right over her. Dr. Skelly doesn't want TA at Gunn, didn't you read the stories last year about he told them not to do it even though the school board said to?
What can we do about the school board not caring about Gunn students? I don't care why they don't care, and I don't want to hear about having to elect people from south of Oregon to get decent services at Gunn. Barb Mitchell is the worst, she really doesn't want to do anything for Gunn. She is loving this long delay, it is exactly what she was trying to do all last year.
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jun 11, 2013 at 6:06 pm
Gunn parent,
I agree. There is room for improvement. But moving to TA that 1 out of 4 Paly students are unhappy with is not something I'd do before a lot of digging to see what about TA missed the mark for so many students.
I don't agree. The satisfaction spread between the two schools - about a 10% lower satisfaction rate - is important to note but likely in the noise.
I'll say again. It is a matter of the choices the schools make. Gunn invests slightly more to provide academic support where needed according to Paly parent and so, no surprise, it typically rates slightly higher than Paly on academic measures. (Recall that our community just called out academics as its #1 priority so most would say that was money well spent.) Paly spends slightly more on counseling (ranked 7th) and so it slightly trumps Gunn on that.
All that is going on here is that Gunn's past priorities didn't happen to align with yours.
You and other posters should be thrilled now that Gunn moved counseling to the top of its to do list and is implementing a 100+ page improvement plan.
Web Link
To the poster who commented on the mental health of Gunn students: The two schools are identical on "at risk" emotional measures: eating disorders, depression, suicide attempts.
Web Link
So why are you all still so unhappy? That this very complicated thing called counseling didn't get changed yesterday?
We all should be thankful that Gunn is taking the time needed to make sure that changes will be done well. I don't see any subtext or conspiracy, just lots of prudent planning.
a resident of another community
on Jun 11, 2013 at 6:39 pm
@Curious - Thank you. I am also a Curious fan. I hope you will be able to follow up on some issues you raised recently. After reading your posting, above, I added the following to my Open Address to Ken Dauber calling to form a Shadow Board -
Dear Mr. Dauber - Sorry for my late address. I learned only last night that the board was going to follow up on the Gunn guidance issues (Thank you "Curious"). I am sorry - I did have ample time to collect my facts, research.
Almost three months have passed since I first addressed you, calling to look, basically, into the iceberg, the possibility of Pandora Box.
As far as I recall - only documents that were provided after exercising the Brown act revealed that Gunn officials were instructed, sometime way in the past, not to consider the "North" TA program. I do not know if these instructions were ever retracted.
I have listed an imaginary King family above - may I suggest to have in mind, when considering the following, a potential academically driven kid of this family? It seems to me that this family may reflect the "silent majority" - those who can not afford private college planing and application counseling or do not have the access to in house advice that many in Palo Alto have, naturally.
Few questions that come to my mind, below, using North and South (a notion mentioned many times). Obviously, I am no professional in polling etc.
1. Is it possible that not all within the school system feel free to speak their minds?
2. Is there any way to figure out the root of Gunn's teachers resistance to the system used in the North? Especially important if the answer to #1 is yes.
3. Was Gunn ever given freedom to explore all options?
4. Is it possible to really know how effective the north system is ?
4.1 Is there any way to know % of those who are satisfied that use some outside support for college planing and applying?
4.2 Any way to know if the King family ever responded?
4.3 Any way to know if the King kids ever responded?
5. Is it possible that the South satisfaction level responses are impacted by knowing what is going on in the North?
6. Is it possible that those who did well in the North would have done the same in the South, and vice versa? specific students do not have control group.
Basically I am suggesting the possibility that the data available now may be contaminated by the lack of transparency and lack of best practices. When there is fear of retaliation and lack of transparency everything is possible.
link - Web Link
a resident of Terman Middle School
on Jun 11, 2013 at 6:58 pm
If even one person in a school knows them well enough to care, a student's chances of success go up dramatically. In small groups that can focus on a range of subjects without the usual teacher evaluation layered on top of the relationship, teachers and students can form new bonds and set new standards for a personalized education experience. What parent would not want the chance for their child to experience this with a teacher? Why is advisory provided for my children 6-9th grade and then discontinued when they need it the most?
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jun 11, 2013 at 7:03 pm
Barron Parker,
Grabbed this off an old thread which shows that the board did NOT tell Gunn to switch its counseling to Paly's TA program.
Board Member Barb Klausner to Gunn:
"'I hope you, Tom and your guidance department did not interpret the suggestions for change to be a negative reflection on any of your work thus far. As I stated last night, after reading the report and finally understanding the way the Gunn system works, I am that much more impressed by what our counselors ARE able to achieve.'"
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jun 11, 2013 at 7:34 pm
Four parents spoke tonight during the counseling part of the meeting. [Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.] How many parents are there at Gunn? If this was a huge problem, there would certainly be more parents there.
a resident of Duveneck/St. Francis
on Jun 11, 2013 at 11:00 pm
Nobody said that the board told Gunn to switch its counseling model. The board noticed that Gunn delivers worse services than Paly, and told them to consider TA. From one of the articles linked above:
"But several school board members expressed "a sense of urgency" for Gunn to explore changes, pointing to student survey results indicating consistently higher levels of satisfaction with counseling at Palo Alto High School than at Gunn High School.
Though saying they were loath to dictate specifics, a majority of board members suggested Gunn shift to a counseling system closer in structure to that at Paly, which augments its four-member guidance-counseling staff with 46 "teacher advisers" and several college counselors."
That said, the school board tonight folded up, and accepted a plan from Gunn that includes only small changes, with no requirement for showing comparability. Only Caswell tried to push back, but Tom abandoned his earlier support for change at Gunn, leaving her without allies. Tom in particular seemed to have lost interest in the issue of equity between Paly and Gunn. Clearly geography matters on the schoolboard.
a resident of Midtown
on Jun 11, 2013 at 11:19 pm
The board broke faith with the Gunn parent community who showed up to serve for a year on the GAC. The whole thing was a bad faith stall and delay and it worked. Well played Board your string of getting pwned by Skelly is unbroken. Worst moment; Dana Tom's weird hissy fit about how data doesn't matter. Best moment: when Trinity Klein lied about having sought feedback from the GAC parents and one of the parents happened to be there and called her out. Runner up: when Klein and villalobos trashed Titan 101 in an effort to not have to expand it. Bottom line: there will never be comparable counseling at Gunn. [Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]
a resident of Gunn High School
on Jun 11, 2013 at 11:34 pm
Heidi is very sweet but she is hopelessly naive and unprepared for the job she now has. But in due time, her kids will get to Gunn and she will know exactly how bad she handled this. We can take some minor satisfaction from that inevitable fact.
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jun 12, 2013 at 6:58 am
You have the board you deserve: unresponsive, lost, and leaderless. None of their work has helped kids. Never have I seen local politicians fight so hard for petty positions. None of the board members will go on to higher office. They simply lack the talent. As for Kevin Skelly, he'll have his salary for three more years, thanks to Barbara Klausner and the other four one year ago. Skelly's next evaluation, in closed session so not for you and me, is next week and nothing will come out of it. He'll get his $300K in salary and perks for superficial task forces, study sessions, and committees. Skelly has played this community well by waiting out critics, withholding information, and digging in, none of this in the interests of kids. Critics need to applaud his effort. He beat you and kept his job. This is a town of citizens with money and prestigious degrees, but to admit that they got deceived would be an admission of a collective lack of intelligence.
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jun 12, 2013 at 7:10 am
Not curious anymore,
[Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]
As for trashing Titan 101 - it was students who expressed reservations about it and what I heard at the board meeting is that Gunn is trying to respond to their concerns. It is no surprise that students are not keen on "forced" getting-to-know you sessions. Would you be? (Despite what parents said at the board meeting last night, not everything kids dislike is good for them. This tack - adults know better - is a complete 180 from Ken Dauber's "listen to the kids" plea when the guidance discussions started last year btw.)
Twisting the story, disregarding student interests, and placing blame is not what Gunn is doing.
What it is doing is implementing the Gunn advisory committee's recommendations: listening to students, upping college counseling by staffing a new office for it, adding more counselors so they will have more time for students, forming small group counseling sessions to give students more touch points, developing a standardized counseling curriculum so all students are sure to get the same material, improving Titan 101 by increasing the role of peer mentors, etc.
No part of that reads "bad faith stall and delay."
As for showing comparability, didn't PAUSD last night promise to put out annual guidance satisfaction surveys? Given that survey results started this discussion last year, survey results will continue to be a very useful tool for measuring comparability and identifying where adjustments are needed.
a resident of Midtown
on Jun 12, 2013 at 7:50 am
They aren't implementing the GAC recommendations. They are implementing very selectively. Only 12/40 recommendations are implemented (a slight improvement since in March only 8/40 were implemented). The Board told them to come back with a timeline and plan to implement all 40 including dates and person(s) responsible, and to work with the GAC to do it. None of that happened. There is no timeline to implement these recommendations. Staff cherry-picked what they wanted to do, threw away the rest, and then lied to the board and said that they had "run it by" the GAC. You are obviously staff, so let me tell you that it is incredible to me how easily you just lie. Trinity Klein just flat out lied about having sought feedback from the GAC parents when directly asked by Melissa Caswell. Only because a mom from the GAC was there did she get caught. But it didn't matter. It's not like anyone stopped and said "why did you just say that?" or "Let's make sure that happens so come back when it does." Those parents on the GAC were window dressing, and now everyone knows it. On suicide: right now Gunn has a student/counselor ratio of 275:1 at best. Paly has 75:1 at worst, plus a grade level counselor. The board said that comparable services included the ratio, touchpoints, and division of labor. But then it folded up like a cheap suit, declared the issue concluded and that is that. So sorry, Gunn students. When the epidemic happened, there weren't enough adults at Gunn in touch with students. There still aren't but now that has receded into memory. As Camille said, look at all those colleges painted on the graduating seniors hats! Look at the pretty hats! How can anything be wrong in a school with all the colorful hats? She's a joke, but this is no joking matter. Sorry students, parents tried.
a resident of Barron Park
on Jun 12, 2013 at 8:08 am
[Post removed due to same poster using multiple names]
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jun 12, 2013 at 8:28 am
[Post removed due to same poster using multiple names]
a resident of Charleston Meadows
on Jun 13, 2013 at 4:19 pm
"Let's get this straight. Suppose that we discovered that on the north side of town, police response to burgler alarms was 5 minutes, but on the south side of town, it was a hour. Would we let the police officers patrolling the south side of town vote on whether or not to decrease their response time to equal that of the north side?"
Apples to Oranges. What if even with an hour response time, the south side burglaries were solved at 75% vs 50% up north with a 5 minute response time?
Thats apples to apples.
a resident of Gunn High School
on Jun 13, 2013 at 4:30 pm
Finally it is decided that the TA program is not worth the expense. If it was any good then the board would insist on having it at Gunn. But they decided it isnt worth it. what Gunn has is good enough for district students. That is really good news because that means we can save a lot of money ending TA and putting in Gunns system at Paly. I hope now that the board can look at why we are maintaining a wasteful and expensive TA program at Paly. Those Paly students deserve the same great program we have at Gunn. We need to bring comparable services to district students and the right way to do that is to replicate Gunns system and get rid of TA. What do you think Paly parents? You're fine with that right?
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text:
Movie Review: Kings of Summer

The Kings of Summer is a sweet, smart, highly entertaining little oddball movie.

Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts Rating: R Studio: CBS Films Stars: Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso, Moises Arias, Nick Offerman
The Kings of Summer is a sweet, smart, highly entertaining little oddball movie. It's a coming-of-age comedy (don't wince) about three 14-year-old high school guys (Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso and Moises Arias) at the end of the school year who, stuck with their eccentric families, run off and hide in the woods, build a fort, create their own brotherhood and live off the land – well, with occasional secret visits to Boston Market, anyway.
Things go askew courtesy of a copperhead snake, the unpredictability of nature and a beautiful girl (Erin Moriarty). Chris Galletta's screenplay, directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, somehow manages to mash Lord of the Flies with Goonies and Stand by Me, cross-pollinated by the spirit of John Hughes movies, with a sprinkle of Wes Anderson-esque quirk and whimsy. So long as you're not troubled by pesky reality – the police don't comb the woods for three missing 14-year-olds? These teen dudes can live without texting or cellphones? They don't even let their families know they're alive? Why is the subject of one of the character's possible homosexuality or cystic fibrosis raised, then played-off?
The slight, likeable movie stays airborne on the charm and skill of all three young actors, the beauty of their surroundings and the cutting, very funny dialogue. Nick Offerman plays Robinson's ramrod single dad, while Megan Mullaly and Marc Evan Johnson are Basso's parents and as funny and skilled as they are, they're still stuck playing overly familiar, one-note caricatures. First time director Vogt-Roberts sometimes leans too hard on the lyricism and the film's symbols clash very loudly. But, never mind. In a moviegoing summer full of hot air, Kings of Summer feels like a cool, welcome breeze.


text: I agree (and I think Scott would make a great coach someday). I really doubt Marina could create a team from scratch. Igor could, even if I wouldn't necessarily love their style. D&W already have their technical stuff down cold so she basically just had to create choreography this year. V&M are dealing with a chronic condition that involves changing their skating technique and training methods, and they have chosen to do new elements and need a coach to see that through. Basically, IMO Marina is in over her head.


text:
[quote user="Gonzo88"][quote user="repeatchamps"][quote user="Gonzo88"][quote user="repeatchamps"]
[quote user="Gonzo88"]You have to twist Julio Jones' numbers a bit to make it work, and assume he'll be healthy in the future, but if you take the last six games the rookie dynamo has started and finished -- which excludes Atlanta's first game against New Orleans -- and lay the average out over a full 16-game season, you get 72 catches, 1,579 yards and 21 touchdowns. The yardage figure would be in the top 20 all-time, and the touchdowns would only be outranked by Jerry Rice in 1987 and Randy Moss in 2007.[/quote]

Other than the TD's number, those are basically Victor Cruz's exact numbers. So my question to you is, how do you stop that?

[/quote] Brent Grimes from What I understand you will have CWebb on Roddy and Ross on Julio? that cant be good for the Giants[/quote]

No way will Ross always be on Jones one on one for the entire game. Giants don't play exclusively man coverage. They play zone more than anything with man press mixed in and have done more man press the last two weeks. Jones is a huge threat no doubt but the pass rush and different coverage looks will help contain him and White as well as Gonzalez.

[/quote] Very good point, but if you double Jones then White will be 1 on 1 and gonzo shouldn't have any problem with Boley. He stopped witten last week but Romo couldnt stay on his feet and had a f'd up hand. Clearly we will have max protection on Ryan giving him some more time to pick apart a zone defence[/quote]

Few TE's this season other than Graham down in New Orleans diddamage against the Giants this year even when Boley was hurt. This includes Finley in GB, Celek in Philly, Davis in Washington, Davis in SFand yes even Gronkowski and Hernandez in New England and more. Gonzo will be a big challenge though no doubt. Giants have beaten max protect with ease the last two weeks and they are mixing upand disguising zone coverages. If Atlanta gives Ryan the time and is not harassed like the Giants can do it will be a tough one for the Giants to win. I can at least admit that.


text:
Day six: Farewell Burn to Nikolai
I wriggled out of my bag and took my first look at the fresh air outside. About three hours had gone by since I laid down, and it was now 2 a.m. The sky hung still and calm and dark - the Northern Lights were gone. The night left behind a deep and piercing cold that I could scarcely imagine, and there I was, living it. It needled into my skin even without wind and wracked me with shivers before I had even taken a few steps away from my bag. I darted for chemical warmers in my bike bag and tore open five or six. They were as solid as blocks of ice, and just as cold. I massaged them inside my mittens, but nothing happened. They were as dead as the night.
All around me, soft things had frozen to rigid hardness ... my backpack, my bike pogies, the top of my bivy sack. Everything covered in thick frost. I felt like a tomb was closing in around me and I could scarcely believe it. I was in the middle of nowhere. I did not dare, DID NOT DARE, look and my thermometer. Some cyclists who passed me at 11:30 p.m. estimated it was about minus 25 when they went by. It could have easily dropped down to minus 30 or minus 35 in that area overnight. It can definitely be worse, but that was beyond anything I had ever experienced, and I couldn't deal with it. I crawled back into my bag and shivered until I stopped. Then I ate the rest of my chocolate bar, sipped a little water before kicking the icy bottle to the foot of my bag, and went back to sleep.
I tried to get out of my bag one more time overnight with similar results. I briefly considered just abandoning my bike and sprinting what I figured to be 25 miles into Nikolai, but finally decided to wait until the sun hit my bag before waking up. That didn't come until 10 a.m., nearly 12 hours after I crawled into the sack in the first place. It was in hindsight a horrible waste of time. I didn't sleep well and didn't make any forward progress. Veteran racers still gawk when they ask, "Did you really bivy for 12 hours out on The Burn?" Yes, I really did bivy for 12 hours out on The Burn. At the time, I felt I had no choice.
I climbed out of my bag one last time into the sun, knowing something would have to happen. A stiff wind had kicked up overnight, driving down the windchill, but the sunlight at least made the air feel tolerable. I reached into my bag and grabbed my water bottle. It was frozen solid. It had frozen. Solid. Inside the bag. My Camelbak, which I had left out overnight, was almost certainly in a similar condition. I stomped around and screamed, at no one, really. There was only The Iditarod Trail. And The Iditarod Trail did not care. It had no sympathy for for the fact that I had 25 miles to grind out, into the wind across a flat frozen expanse with no wind protection, all the while with no water, and the wind blowing so hard that I was doubtful whether I could get my stove to light in order to melt snow. The Iditarod Trail did not care. And I had no choice but to accept it.
I packed up and stuffed the insulation of my frozen Camelbak bladder with the chemical warmers I had torn open the night before, which I managed to ignite by sticking them under my arms inside my sleeping bag. I then stuffed the bladder inside all the layers wrapped around my torso, an ice baby against my chest and abdomen. I hoped my body heat would melt a little of the block ice I was now hoisting as dead weight. Then I ate a little snow, and pushed on, into the wind, toward Nikolai.
Drifted sugar snow obscured the trail and made long stretches impossible to ride. Even packed stretches were a chore to grind out at anything faster than 5 mph. Blasts of wind regularly knocked me right off of the bike. Across the long, open swamps, I could often hear a gust long before it hit me. I would step off my bike, put my head down, and brace for the furnace blast that tore through the air vents in my goggles and layers and layers of clothing protection and kicked up zero-visibility ground blizzards for hundreds of feet in all directions. When the wind wasn't gusting, I would sweat profusely. My thirst was hitting fever pitch, but I was too terrified that one of those gusts would freeze me solid to take off any layers. The Burn was no longer a joke to me. I really was among the walking dead.
About 12 miles from Nikolai, I came to an abandoned fish camp with a small cabin on the shore. I joyfully sprinted up to the structure - here was a wind-protected place where I could at least melt some snow and quench my raging thirst. But snow had drifted in against the door and frozen to concrete consistency. I kicked at it and kicked at it but I couldn't get it to budge. There was no way inside. As I did this, a plane flew over my head. It doubled back against the wind and flew over again. "Oh great," I thought, "they're looking for me now." I knew I had been going really slow. I knew I had stopped a lot. I knew I was suffering, but I also knew I was OK. I did not want to be rescued. I tried to wave at the plane, but I wanted to be careful not to send a distress signal. I made a small wave with one hand that I'm unsure the pilot even saw. I then pulled the Camelbak out of my coat, opened the bladder, and tipped it up against my parched tongue. To my extreme surprise, crisp, cold water came trickling out. It wasn't much, but it tasted like the nectar of heaven and it gave me a surge of strength and sense of well-being. I knew I could survive the last 12 miles. It would likely (and in fact, did) take me three hours to traverse, but I could survive it.
I arrived in Nikolai trail-battered and humbled. The tiny community of about 60 people suffers from a scourge of economic depression and out-migration. The buildings are weather-beaten and the youth are all moving away. Those who remain live by subsistence off the land and a handful of government jobs. They get by, but they know they are very poor compared to urban dwellers. But as I stumbled into the Interior Bush town, I believed they had everything, and I was grateful for all of it. I was taken in by Nick and Olene, and older Native couple who every year open their home to battered Ultrasport racers, feed them and given them a place to sleep. I was practically in tears when Olene offered me a cup of coffee and a big bowl of moose stew with white bread. "You probably won't like moose stew," she said. "It's the most delicious thing I've had yet," I answered. We talked for a while about Nikolai and her childhood in a fish camp, how all of the families moved into the town when the school opened, and how all of their children were now moving to the cities. All the while, Nick massaged the bloody skin of a beaver before stretching it out to dry on a rack in his living room. And there I was, Jill from Juneau, home. Night descended and I was not ready to leave. I did not want to leave. Ever.


text:
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A day before Hurricane Katrina tore through the Gulf Coast, more than 230 workers were evacuated from stormwater pumping stations in the neighboring New Orleans community of Jefferson Parish; parish president Aaron Broussard made the difficult decision in the face of an impending Category 5 hurricane bringing winds of almost 200 mph and a storm surge nearly two stories high. While local public works leaders had an obligation to safeguard the community, they also had to protect parish workers.
As the hurricane passed, it took the pumping station crews almost 24 hours to return from their refuge more than 100 miles away in Washington Parish. Many residents of the communities of Metairie and Kenner—some of whom have joined a class-action lawsuit—argue that the flooding that damaged thousands of homes in the area was a direct result of the abandonment of the stations.
"When Katrina arrived and we were ground zero for a Category 5 hurricane, they evacuated to save lives," said Ali Pirsalehy, drainage assistant director for Jefferson Parish. "All this happened as a consequence of that evacuation. We weren't hit directly but we don't know what would have happened if we were."
While the issue likely will be debated for years to come, contractors and parish leaders are rushing to construct "safe rooms" at 20 pumping stations in the parish—a move that can protect both lives and property. Described by some engineers as "elevated bomb shelters," the rooms are designed to withstand winds up to 250 mph, which would match the force of the most powerful hurricanes in history. Each safe house measures approximately 250 square feet, and each contains a restroom and just enough space for 10 people, a generator, four bunks, and critical supplies such as food and water. Pump station personnel will retreat to the safe houses when winds reach 60 mph.
"The good thing about the safe rooms is that they will reduce the response time," said Pirsalehy. "As the storm has passed, we'll be able to come out and resume operations." Downed trees, debris, and unfavorable road conditions prevented the workers from returning to their posts in a timely fashion. Neither the diesel nor electric pumps can run unmanned at stations.
The four safe rooms already in place before Katrina were only built to withstand a Category 3 hurricane. Reda Youssef, director of the Jefferson Parish department of capital projects, said the department had planned to complete 20 new structures by the June 1 start of hurricane season at an estimated cost of $17 million. In conjunction with a new emergency plan, the structures would allow pump station workers to remain onsite throughout a Category 5 storm. However, at press time, the department had received only enough funds to complete eight of the safe houses.
The maintenance and operation of a typical pumping station during a storm calls for two operators and a team of up to eight screen cleaners, who clear the debris that constantly accumulates at the station during a flood. Jefferson Parish has 47 drainage pump stations with 130 pumps that have an entire capacity of more than 35,000 cubic feet per second—the equivalent of 16 million gallons of water per minute.
— Craig Guillot is a New Orleans-based writer.


text:
Trevor Rosenthal is expected to enter the 2014 regular season as the Cardinals' closer.
Yonder Alonso (knee) is back in the Athletics' starting lineup on Tuesday night.
Avisail Garcia is out of the White Sox starting lineup Tuesday due to the flu.
Yasiel Puig (back) is in the Dodgers' starting lineup on Tuesday night against the Cardinals.
Dallas Keuchel (neck) plans to return to the Astros' rotation Saturday against the Orioles.
Kolten Wong (elbow) remains out of the Cardinals' starting lineup on Tuesday night against the Dodgers.
An MRI taken Tuesday on Trevor Cahill's right shoulder showed no major structural damage.
Padres manager Andy Green has confirmed that pitching prospect Dinelson Lamet will be called up to start Thursday against the Mets.
Junior Guerra (calf) told reporters that he is preparing to start Friday against the Diamondbacks.
Dodgers activated 2B/3B Logan Forsythe from the 10-day disabled list.
Jameson Taillon (cancer) threw 25 pitches off a mound Tuesday.
Nationals recalled RHP Joe Ross from Triple-A Syracuse.