text:
Let me begin with the fact that my daughter and I had a joint account since she was 17 (about 3 years ago). When she turned 18 and was going to college in Texas she got her own account with WaMu. I tried to take her name off the joint account but was told we would both need to come in to a branch to do that, well that's kind of difficult when she is in TX and I was in WA, so I asked if I could just close the account and get me another one and was told I couldn't do that either for the same reason. So we left things be.
Never had any problems until just recently when her account was overdrawn. WaMu decided to take everything I had in my account $94.54 and transfer it into her account without any prior notification or asking for my permission, they basically robbed me. I didn't even know what had happened at first. I went online to see if a $75 check I had mailed had come out yet and instead I was horrified to see my balance at $0 and no the check had not come out yet. All it said was Transfer Withdrawal and the amount, not where it went or who approved this transfer.
I called them immediately and after getting the runaround on their automated phone system I finally got to talk to a live person who informed me that their resolution center was now closed and I would have to call back in the morning. I spent a sleepless night waiting for 6am Pacific time so I could call them back. When I called them back, after I had to go through the spiel with the automated system again, I finally got a person on the line.
I explained the situation once more and asked what the heck was going on, why was all of my money taken out of the account? She told me it was because my daughter's bank account was overdrawn and since her name was still on my account they were allowed to take the money out of mine to put it in hers to bring her negative balance down.
Well, I was outraged at that point and demanded to speak with a supervisor. She wasn't much help either, after I explained my situation yet again she just simply said that they were allowed to do this because my daughter's name was on the account. I told the lady that this was MY money and that my daughter hadn't done any transactions with this account for over three years. I also told her that I had two checks coming out that needed to be paid and would now bounce as a result of them taking my money.
It was obvious that the lady didn't give a hoot and informed me that if there was any checks that were going to be returned for insufficient funds I would get an insufficient funds charge of $34 for each one. Say what? They rob me of every penny I had and then they going to charge me another $34 on top of it for bounced checks that shouldn't even be bouncing because I had enough funds in the account to cover them?
My daughter and I now both live in Idaho, so we went to the WaMu branch here to close the account. And guess what? They didn't need both of us, I was able to close the account just fine without my daughter's signature or even asking for her approval. When we questioned the clerk about this, she said I was given false information back in Washington when I first tried to either remove my daughter's name or close the account then. This whole situation could have been avoided if they would have let me take her off the account then.
The reason I closed this joint account is that I also have a joint account with my ex-husband and I don't want them taking money out of that account when my other one goes negative due to the insufficient funds charges, they could just do a chain reaction transferring funds. I have no idea what will happen with the bounced checks now either, one of them is for less than $5 and I'm sure they'll charge me another $34 insufficient funds fee for that one as well, bringing the grand total of the rip off to $162.54!
I'm not sure if they can legally do what they did but it certainly isn't very ethical. I feel like I was robbed and in a sense I was. I went on the FDIC website and filed a complaint with them. I don't know how much good it will do but if you do business with Washington Mutual aka WaMu BEWARE!!!
GEORGIA -- I opened a Washington Mutual checking account about 6 years ago when I moved to Georgia. I was impressed with the "free" checking and the "new" way they did business. Until recently I had every reason to believe they were the company they said they were. Then I had a problem.
On December 12, 2007 my purse was stolen out of my car. The thieves were quick to use my debit card but only were able to spend about $200 before I cancelled the card. When I realized my purse was stolen I immediately called WAMU and cancelled my debit card and stopped payment on the checks that were in my purse. I had no reason to believe that the thieves would be able to do much with them plus I was told there would be a flag of some sort on my account since I reported it stolen.
I reported the fraudulent activity the day it happened and it took 12 business days for me to get credit while they investigated. Although it was a ridiculously long time and it was inconvenient since Xmas was around the corner, I was actually OK since it wasn't a large amount and I thought everything had been caught.
Then on January 11th I noticed two large withdrawals from my checking account. They were not made through the ATM but at two different branches. The withdrawals pretty much emptied my account. You can only imagine my horror. I immediately called customer service to find out what was going on. I was told that I would have to call the actual branches where the withdrawals were made to talk about possible fraud. I was annoyed but agreed.
I called the first branch and spoke to a teller. I told him about the theft that occurred in December and he said that he would freeze my account from all further transactions and directed me to Risk Operations. When I asked the teller how something like this could have happened when my debit card was inactivated, he said the person who made the withdrawals probably looked just like me and used my debit card and license as proof of identification. Umm suspicious but I let that go.
So I talked to someone in Risk Operations and she says she will request the withdrawal slips from both branches and start an investigation. While she was talking to me she asked me in a very rude manner, "When your purse was stolen why didn't you just close the account?" Now just imagine how upset that comment made me when I'm looking at my only bank account that is practically empty; on a Friday afternoon; two kids; and some creeps driving around the city with my license and money!! Needless to say, I told her why I did not close the account and that I was assured that there would be an alert on my account since my info was reported stolen.
After that weekend I went to a branch to open a new account. The process was annoying. At first the tellers acted like they didn't understand what I needed them to do, then they didn't know how to get the hold lifted from my old account to get the few dollars I had left. I asked to close my account and was told I couldn't because I had two pending claims (the one from December and the one from January). I said, "OK" and verified several times that NO transactions would come through the old account. Everyone said there would be no more activity on the old account.
I also asked the branch manager how my account could have been compromised. He said it may have been someone who went through the drive through. He told me that the customers have to show two forms of ID and the ATM/Debit card can serve as one of them. [WHAT??]
In the meantime I had been calling customer service to get updates on when my funds would be credited or returned. I was consistently given the run around. Every time I called, the reps I spoke to didn't have a clue what I was talking about. Every time they said they had no record on my account of the January fraud. I spoke to managers and reps all who gave me conflicting information.
During this time I had to go into branches to handle business. On one occasion I went to one of the branches where the fraud occurred. Rather than get into the details of the visit I'll give highlights: None of the tellers knew what to do. The branch manager did not listen to me when I told him what the situation was. Rather than calling customer service the branch manager called the branch that put the original hold on my account to ask them why they did that. The branch manager gave ME a hard time about my ID (duplicate driver's license).
When asked how my account could have been compromised at his branch the reply was: "You only need one form of ID to make withdrawals and they gave us your license. Since they went through the drive through we could not verify ID because we cannot see people in the drive through." To which I said, "So you don't verify ID when you go through the drive through?", his response, "No." [Are you kidding?]
On January 22th I spoke to a rep who again couldn't find any record of the January fraud but she would start the process for me. She told me I had to request a copy of the original withdrawal slips. These slips would be sent to me at my home. Then I would have to take those into both of the branches and try and get the money back that way. That made no sense to me but she insisted that was the only way to resolve the matter.
On January 25th a charge appeared in my old account for $10.00 for copy fee. When I called to complain I was told it was an error and actually it was from them investigating my case. In any case the charges were removed but it proved that they were working very slowly on my case and that they were allowing transactions on my account. At that time a manager told me that two forms of ID are needed to make a withdrawal and the ATM/Debit card is not considered ID.
The next week they allowed an electronic withdrawal to go through my account. This caused an overdraft and an subsequent fee. I called, got the run around, and then spoke to yet another person who didn't have a clue as to what was going on. I was told to go into a branch and transfer funds into my account to cover the charges and that it would never happen again. Finally on January 30th the full amount into my new account. That was a full 2 1/2 weeks!
Going through all this I realized that WAMU has serious training and policy issues. They are not concerned with the security of our accounts, don't care about providing good service, and hire idiots. Other banks in my area pledge to return money lost to fraud within 3 business days to your account. They may charge more in fees but to know my money is safe and will come back to me in a reasonable time if stolen is 100% worth it. I will NEVER bank with WAMU again.
PENNSYLVANIA -- I am so disgusted I don't know where to turn at this point. I had seriously contemplated posting this on here, but I really feel I am at a loss as to where to go next. My husband opened an account with Washington Mutual last year. At the time, we decided that he open the account first and then I would be added later when I started my new job. Anyway, once it was time to add me, my husband had to write a letter stating it was OK to add me and in that letter I had to provide a copy of my photo driver's license and social security card (notarized) and send it to a main branch in NJ.
We had done all of this and still they had not added me to his account even after several follow up phone calls with them saying it was the right procedure and someone who contradicted it. Ridiculous! So I opened my own account and made the funds transferable back and forth between my husband's account and mine. For a while all was going well. Since my husband is an over the road tractor trailer driver, I would monitor both his account and mine online from home.
Within the first week of his employment following school, I noticed some very unusual bank activity being done that was not his. Along with the 3 letters in the mail of someone trying to get a cell phone and the banking going awry, my husband and I felt strongly he became a victim of identity theft and his banking information was compromised.
What started it was an unauthorized payment posted to his account from a company we do not deal with. Since he hadn't received a paycheck from his new job yet, this transaction put the account in the negative. I called the bank immediately to inform them of the transaction and that it wasn't him. I told him he's sitting in a tractor trailer with a trainer and has no access to any banking. They informed me that because I was not on the account, they could not talk to me NOR document the discovery I had made. Following that, I called my husband and informed him of the news.
A few days later when he came home, he called the bank. This was the first week in June that this occurred and my husband called on June 8, 2007 to request that the account be shut down immediately or at the very least halt all transactions coming or going from the account. In the past 6 weeks, we have made additional phone calls and written statements demanding the account be shut down and they are REFUSING and are continuing to bill us for NSF and Overdraft charges of $32.00 per transaction. At the time we reported it, we were only in the negative by @ $50. To date, they have hit us with so many fees it has driven the account to nearly -$400.
I can't get them to stop and they continue to refuse to shut it down. Is this legal? We have consulted a company attorney, but because my husband has not completed his 90 day new employee probation, his services are limited. We have no financial means to hire one ourselves. I am very fearful this will continue and we can do nothing. I don't know what to do. I have paper after paper of emails and responses from them claiming they are investigating it, but nothing happens and no one calls or gives any indication of an update. The account just continues to go further and further in debt.
We even told them we referred it to an attorney and still they refused. No reason has been given as to why they refuse. This is robbery and they will come after me to pay this huge balance. I'm appalled and deeply upset by this. They will do nothing to protect their customers. One response I received states it takes 5 business days to conduct an inquiry to one of the transactions I questioned. When I got the response it had already been 2 wks since I inquired and to date, I have heard nothing. They can't even give my husband an update. No one calls, we can't get anywhere, they argue with us, very rude and will not help.
WHAT DO I DO??? I don't even know where this would fall under legal matters to look online. We have since stopped any money from being deposited into that bank and opened a new secure bank account that we share with no one. How do I fix this mess with WAMU? I will pay for what is truly ours, but I disagree that I should be penalized to pay any charges following June 8, 2007 when they were first informed it was compromised.
PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND -- WAMU had me jump through so many hoops in order to officially change my name on an account, including filling out a form and having it notarized. Months after I did everything they required I do and that they stated was necessary for the name change on the account, I still find the old name on my account statements, on-line and on checks sent from my on-line account. In addition, I have requested to have an empty account closed and I followed the required steps to do so and then months later found that the account is still open!
I have never dealt with such an inconsistent, unreliable, unprofessional, disorganized, disappointing, frustrating bank that no matter which steps one takes in order to achieve goals or who one talks to, NOTHING gets accomplished aside from going in circles and feeling extremely irate and frustrated. 10-15 years ago, this was a good bank. Since then, and especially in the past few years, it has had such a sharp decline in its management and customer service that it is just unbelievable and irreversible. Good luck JP Morgan to you and those that choose to actually stick around and give you a chance!
CALIFORNIA -- Washington Mutual has it set up so that all the transactions of the day go though from the Highest to the lowest amt. on withdrawals. By doing it this way they are able to receive more overdraft fees. If I have a check for $250, $25, $10, $9, and $5 then they will withdraw the one for $250. Supposing my acct. balance was only $245. By processing the check for $250 first then I will have an overdraft for that check and each one after that. If they were to process the smaller checks first I would only have one overdraft charge.
Another thing that they do is process all debits at the end of the day before processing any deposits. That way they will have overdraft charges taken before the deposit is made. Even though the debits and the deposits were made on the same day. They are squeezing every penny out of us that they can. Let me know if you are experiencing the same thing at your bank. Does anyone know what can be done about this?
CALIFORNIA -- I don't think I have ever really truly felt disappointment in any of the banks I've been with until now - with Washington Mutual. Years ago, I remember starting out with Bank of America and then moving to Wells Fargo because I always had some sort of a complaint about their outrageous fees or customer service. Eventually, I landed with Washington Mutual because of their "Free Checking" and being a college student, the word "Free" always meant a good thing, right?
So about a month ago, on a Sunday in November, there was an outrageous amount withdrawn from my checking account, using my debit card, or so I was told by a WAMU representative. Luckily, I must have caught it the day it had been done because it hadn't posted to my account yet.
So I called the 1-800 number and talked to someone, who I guessed was not located at a U.S. call center since she had a very thick accent. I discussed my problem with her and calmly told her that I had not charged anything that huge to my account and that would they please block it from going through to keep my account from being extremely negative and me getting charged with an overdraft fee. Of course, the woman says "No, we can't do that. We have to wait for it to post..."
I couldn't even file a dispute about it at that time! Basically she told me that I had to go for a few days with a -$900 in my checking account. I was furious! This wasn't a credit card, where I couldn't care less about the balance while the company did their investigation - this was cash that I had to live on to pay bills, eat, buy groceries or even pay my rent!! And they couldn't do a damn thing about it except wait for the fraudulent charge to go through?!
After the initial shock and frustration wore off, I walked into the nearby branch the next day and spoke to the branch manager. He didn't really tell me anything different - I have to wait for the amount to post, sign an affidavit the next day when the amount should have posted and then they'd go ahead with the investigation. He closed my current debit card and issued me a new one.
About a week later, the mysterious pending charge went away - probably because there wasn't enough funds for it to go through - and I thought OK, maybe they fixed it or it really was some sort of mistake on the merchant's side. I even thought that may be WAMU was trustworthy, after all. By this time, I had received my new debit card - minus its PIN number, and it was right on time because I was due for a week-long vacation!
So what happens when I come back from vacation and try to cash in two refund checks I had received in the mail in one of their branches?? Can you imagine this - strolling into the branch to cash in checks right before work, thinking that your only intent is to cash in the checks to have cash in your pocket since you can't access your account through the ATM. I get up to the teller window and she even tells me to sign the checks but a minute later she says that there was a restraint put on my checking account! The teller had to make some inquiry calls. So I've already waited about fifteen minutes in line and if I didn't leave right then I would be very late to work.
After about three minutes that the teller was put on hold, I tell her "I'm sorry, but I can't just wait here while you're waiting on the phone because I have to go to work. I'll just come back tomorrow." And I left with my two uncashed checks and only about three dollars in cash in my pocket.
I returned the next day, about two hours before I was due at work to give myself plenty of time in the bank. I ended up speaking to the branch manager who told me the same thing. ACH put a restraint on my account because it had been compromised and that they couldn't do anything about my money in the account until they took off the restraint, which wouldn't be during the weekend. So he compromised with me - he would open a new account and cash my refund checks so I'd have money for the weekend. And that I just had to return on Monday to transfer my money from the old account. I said OK.
On Monday, I went back. Honestly, I was starting to get sick of having to go back to the bank almost everyday just to straighten out my account. I told the person helping me that I wanted to leave some money in my old account because I had an automatic debit going through for a bill. So she says OK, ends up transferring everything into the new account and tells me that there's a "penny pay-through" that would allow any automatic payments in the old account pull funds from the new account. And I said OK because it made sense to me.
I asked her if I was able to use my new debit card and she assures me it does work - it is linked to the new account. Then I finally leave the branch, thinking "Finally, it's settled, I have a new account that works." And what happens to me at a department store when I try to buy a simple gift certificate?? The card doesn't work.
I try to pay with a new check I was issued when I opened up the new account. That check doesn't work as well! I end up paying with cash and going back to the bank branch. I told them neither the card nor the check worked. What the hell was I supposed to do?? They still assured me that the card should work and that the checking account was active - maybe it took a day for the systems to update. Great, so I decided to pull out a bunch of cash for just in case, leaving a good amount in the account for my automatic charges.
The next day I decided to check my balance to see if my automatic payments went through. One went through for my cellular phone payment. But to the old one where there was no longer any money in it. My question - what the heck happened to the penny pay through crap?? So I had to take care of this.
Luckily, I was able to transfer funds back from my new account to cover the balance but I definitely refused to pay the overdraft fee that they were trying to charge me. Why should I pay for it when they obviously know I have money with them and it was them that made me transfer everything over in the first place instead of leaving some money in the old account. I had to talk to about three or four different people before I finally got to a supervisor who was able to credit me back for that overdraft fee.
My only problem left was the most important preauthorized payment I had that should have gone through did not. Another WAMU customer representative told me that the payment had been bounced back to the company instead of pulling funds from the new account. So instead of calling the 1-800 number again I call my branch instead and spoke to the bank manager who had opened up my new account. He was unable to reverse the blocked payment but he offered to pay any fees the company charged.
After I called the company they said they couldn't set up another automatic debit - it was either a MO, cashier's check or a wire transfer, which all of them costs a certain fee, plus whatever fee the company charged me for the unsuccessful debit.
It was like one problem after another after another. I didn't even get a single call from WAMU to notify me of the "restraint" they put on my account. Their online banking says they'd send an email. But if you're going to put a restraint on a person's checking account which would you prefer - contact via email or via phone? I would prefer to be notified by phone where an actual person explains to me WHY. OK, I understand it's a means to solve the compromised account but they should really let you know ahead of time and not just do it so I find out when I walk into the branch and all I'm trying to do is cash in a simple check.
This situation just makes me feel uncomfortable with this bank and completely unable to trust WAMU with my hard-earned money or automatic bill payments. It's just a huge, huge inconvenience for me to pay extra fees just to wire a payment because the payment of the month was bounced back - courtesy of WAMU, when I was told - assured - that it should have gone through after opening and transferring money into a new account.
The bottom line? I'm saying good-bye to the bank I was so loyal to for 6 years. I'm so extremely disappointed in your services and don't think I could ever do business with you again. By the way, did you know that many of WAMU's call centers are located in the Philippines?? Sometimes it's even hard to understand the person you're talking to because their English is limited. It's true. I found the information online.
The free checking is terrible, it takes the bank an average of 1 week to post a simple charge, and then you charge your card, and still that won't post until you have about four or five recurring charges on your card, and they charge you four or five NSF charges! It's absolutely ridiculous!
I opened an account a few ears ago and was told the checking account would be free if I transferred $25.00 a month into my savings account. For the past few months I have not used my account except to deposit a little money to maintain it. Come to find out... My savings account is now being charged $5.00 a month. How free is that?
ATLANTA, GEORGIA -- I was sucked into the whole "free checking different kind of banking" hoopla that Washington Mutual advertised, and am now incredibly disappointed in the service I have received. I make a deposit, twice a month, from the same company (my employer), for the same amount. Recently, I made that same deposit, and for no reason whatsoever, Washington Mutual put a two day hold on my funds which resulted in an NSF charge which they told me they would not remove since it wasn't a bank error. That I would have to wait whatever time frame they imposed on check holds to use my funds.
So, you get a checking account to better manage your money, and then aren't allowed access to it until they arbitrarily deem it ready. DON'T USE WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANKING!!! AND SPREAD THE WORD!!!
CALIFORNIA -- I ran out of deposit slips for my Washington Mutual checking account. Since I was able to deposit a check into an ATM without one, and this deposit cleared, I did not really need to use deposit slips, but wanted to get more as a courtesy to the bank personnel. The customer service person I reached by telephone was either very new on the job, incompetent, or distracted. The call took a very long time, as I was repeatedly told that "the computer" was processing something or other. At no time was I informed that there would be charge for deposit slips. I certainly never would have paid for these items for which I personally get no benefit.
I was shocked to see a charge for $6.75 appear on my account statement for 100 deposit slips. I called customer service again and was on hold for fifteen minutes. Even though I explained that I had never given permission to have my account charged, nor was this possibility ever even suggested to me, the representative would do nothing. The response was basically, "That's the way it is."
No, it is not. A consumer is never responsible for paying any charge for any item or service when the charge is applied after the fact. Washington Mutual is totally responsible for denying me an opportunity to decide whether or not to pay for deposit slips. I then tried to send a message to customer service via the website. The messaging system itself is horrible. I managed to send a badly truncated message, but the response was more of the same. Washington Mutual has yet to reverse this totally unjustified charge.


text:
Play-by-Playmate: Jaime's Fantasy Football League
Find out how you can join a fantasy football league with Jaime!
Subscribe to Play-by-Playmate
Halleluiah, praise Jesus, my threat to withhold my 10 unreleased pictures worked, as the NFL lockout came to an end last week, just as we had presumed. And the first few days of the new season has seen a flurry of activity on the free agent front, which made me think just how some people jumped the gun on their fantasy football league drafts.
Still, all those middle-aged, suburban guys whose dreams of playing football on Sundays were shattered when they threw out a shoulder, or who still dream big of one day running their own team, basically live for fantasy football. And you can count me among those masses.
Now, I'm no stranger to fantasy football; in fact, I'll be co-hosting with Playmate Pilar Lastra a weekly fantasy sports show on SiriuxXm Fantasy Sports Radio. But during the lockout I basically fantasized over how I would run my own league. And now my time has arrived. I'm going to pattern my league from the television show The League (minus the vinegar strokes; the show's fans will know what I'm talking about). I lived vicariously through The League after downloading and watching both seasons over the span of a few days.
In my league, I want to have video board messages where I basically tell people to "suck it," like they do on the show. I also want to have a trophy for the league's winner, just like Shiva Bowl, and have it sit in the winner's house for an entire year. Now, I won't talk out of my ass, like someone did in one episode, because I don't think my readers would ever look at me the same. But this is my dream fantasy football league. Having all of those elements would make it that much better. I'll have a few notable participants in the league, who will be announced at a later date.
And to make my fantasy football league appeal to you, the reader, I've decided to open up two spots to fans of this blog. Here's the catch: whoever sends me a Twit Vid of the best video board message, as if it's a Sunday and you're my opponent, will get to join. Of course, I'll be the judge.
But don't worry about hurting my feelings or taking it easy on me just because I'm a girl. The characters on that show – they're mean to each other. They're friends during the week and on Sundays they're opponents. So if you make my league I'm not going to take it easy on you. Let's see what you've got.
So I got beat pretty bad this past week in Home Run Derby by one of my Twitter followers, Kevin, which means I'm going to take the week off to lick my wounds. In the meantime, make sure you're on the lookout for the upcoming Playboy Fantasy Football show on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210/XM 87), which I'll co-host with Playmate Pilar Lastra and Scott B. Huff. The show will air on Thursdays starting after Labor Day at a time TBD. Pilar was in New York City last week for the 2nd Annual Celebrity Fantasy Football Draft, which included New York Giants offensive lineman David Diehl, Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains and a handful of other celebrities. Click here for coverage of the event and to see who Pilar drafted. And remember to follow me on Twitter at @JaimeEdmondson.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
forum: Campaigns and Community
Pages: 1 … 3 4 5 6 7 … 59 | Home » Campaigns and Community » Chat about Jamie's Food Revolution and connect with others
#41 Wed 24 Mar 10 5:37am
- Member
- Member since Wed 24 Mar 10
Re: Chat about Jamie's Food Revolution and connect with others
I lead an award winning campaign called Nourishing Our Children - on the world wide web at nourishing our children dot org (the link was not accepted because this is my first post). I'd love to get Jamie our presentation and audio book electronically - because I think it will resonate deeply with him based on the first Food Revolution episode I saw -- how can I send links for Jamie to download?
#42 Wed 24 Mar 10 5:50am
- Forum champ
- Member since Wed 23 Jul 08
Re: Chat about Jamie's Food Revolution and connect with others
email your links to missioncontrol<at>jamieoliver.com, and Danny, Eric and the crew will do the best they can to get the info to Jamie.
#43 Wed 24 Mar 10 9:13am
- Member
- Member since Wed 24 Mar 10
Re: Chat about Jamie's Food Revolution and connect with others
Sharonbrookes wrote:
Hi Jamie, I just watched your show tonight on Huntington school. I cannot believe the ignorance of the dinner ladies there, they probably feed that same crap to their own families "Yuk" They are absolutely ignorant and do not seem willing to take good advice and appreciate what you are trying to do for them. Good luck with that, you have more patients than me.
They don't know how to find their own country on a map, let alone what to feed their children. I also see Canada following right behind them, everyone I see lately is obese. It is just pure laziness!
Ms. Brooks,
I too just watched Food Revolution, but I have a little extra insight into the people of Huntington that you may lack. I am from Huntington. I don't condemn Jamie for his efforts here, I praise him. He did a great thing for my community, and made enormous sacrifices to do so. However, your comments on the "ignorance" of the public school cooks (I would call them lunch ladies too, Jamie) are a bit out of line. I personally am ashamed of the behavior of the people I have seen in the show, and hope that as the show progresses I will see that they have grown. (Because if they haven't they may find an enraged me taking up Jamie's fight) The lunch ladies were not and are not ignorant. They may have been ignorant as to the way to go about making a change and standing up for a better way of living, but nearly everyone is ignorant of that. Imagine your own job, are there not things that you feel should be done differently to make life for those you serve better? But how does one person make that kind of difference? Those lunch ladies didn't, and I would wager still don't, have the power that Jamie has. He is a world renowned chef with money, fame, and influence. I'm not saying he is like a president or prime minister, but to a lunch lady, he might as well be. Those women are stuck in a horrible bureaucracy that dictates what they can and what they must do. I will admit that they could have acted with more excitement and eagerness at the chance to change the eating habits of the children they serve, but I can understand their reluctance. People in this area are portrayed as ignorant, uneducated, backwater hillbillies, and that makes them distrustful of outsiders. Is it right? No. Not at all. But understandable. I ask you, watch the episode again, and try to understand their position a bit better. You are a career lunch lady, in arguably the poorest state in America, in the unhealthiest city in America, and you have this man with his camera crew questioning what you've been doing for 20+ years. Its not going to be easy.
I think I've rambled on enough.
I'll say it in every post,
Thank you Jamie. Thank you very much.
#44 Wed 24 Mar 10 2:02pm
- Member
- Member since Wed 24 Mar 10
Re: Chat about Jamie's Food Revolution and connect with others
My daughter is a public school teacher and I hear her tales of the "food" being served our children in SC, and it is not pretty. I praise Jamie for this huge undertaking! May it spread to the entire USA. However, if I may recite 2 proverbs to remember: "Rome wasn't built in a day" and "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." Persevere, Jamie. And, to the rest of our great nation, we should all remember Jamie in our prayers.
#45 Wed 24 Mar 10 2:06pm
- Member
- Member since Wed 24 Mar 10
Re: Chat about Jamie's Food Revolution and connect with others
Jamie, you are my hero! Thank you!!!
#46 Wed 24 Mar 10 3:05pm
- Member
- Member since Wed 24 Mar 10
Re: Chat about Jamie's Food Revolution and connect with others
Hey Jamie,
I applaud your Food Revolution and congrats on winning the TED award. The seed has been planted. Your show reminded me of PBS's Scientific American Fronters - episode: Fat & Happy, hosted by Alan Alda. Filmed back in 2001, it's another example of Americas obesity epidemic and with a message similar to your's in Food Revolution - we all need to change the way we eat to stay healthy. I do hope you get a chance to view this if you have not already. Well worth the view.
Danny, I hope you can pass this on to Jamie. Thanks, Charlie.
Well, I get an error when I post the link... try:
h t t p : / / (with no spaces)
Miami, FL
#47 Wed 24 Mar 10 4:11pm
- Member
- Member since Wed 24 Mar 10
Re: Chat about Jamie's Food Revolution and connect with others
Just want to thank you for your new show. Saw the preview and it has really inspired me to try to cook better and eat better. We will be watching as a family every week. My daughter, age 11, has already made the decision to stop eating the "hot" lunches at school because it is the same 8 unhealthy things over and over again that they are just heating up in the microwave. I have signed your petition and hope that you can turn this countries mindset around. We are all so busy that we need something we can just eat instantly and have lost the importance of food- the nurishment of our bodies and our relationships around a dinner table. Keep up the hard work and thank you for caring about our children.
Chicago suburbs, IL
#48 Wed 24 Mar 10 4:51pm
- Member
- Member since Wed 24 Mar 10
Re: Chat about Jamie's Food Revolution and connect with others
Hi Jamie,
I just wanted to offer my support for what you are trying to achieve with your food revolution.
I am sorry you have encountered so many ignorant people and admire you for your perseverance and tenacity.
Good luck,
Canberra, Australia
#49 Wed 24 Mar 10 5:04pm
- Forum champ Occupation gardener/farmer
- From eastern washington
- Member since Sun 27 Dec 09
Re: Chat about Jamie's Food Revolution and connect with others
we taped jamie's show Sunday and just watched it yesterday evening. i thought he did a great job. there's a 2 hour show coming Friday. can't wait to see his progress.
the point made about the USDA approving all that food for kids, that was crazy! and the cooks (lunch ladies) thinking the food was healthy cause the first ingredient listed was chicken, beef, whatever, was amazing! as jamie pointed out, what about the rest of the list???!
jamie at the family's house where he cooked all their food and piled it on the table was another terrific, hard hitting point, imo. good job! i think the visual does help people to understand.
perhaps there needs to be some sort of course where kids can identify with the food they eat? maybe make it fun for them? can't wait to see jamie's suggestionms.
what shocked me at the school was all the food being thrown away! unbelievable!
go jamie go!
#50 Wed 24 Mar 10 5:22pm
- Member
- Member since Sun 14 Mar 10
Re: Chat about Jamie's Food Revolution and connect with others
Hopefully someone in Jamie Oliver's organization is responding to Michelle Obama's call for ideas on how to combat childhood obesity.
Its a lot of technical stuff, but at least they are trying within the established framework. A tiny baby step.
Others...jump in!!
Link here: http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/ … 6480abe53d
Responses need to be submitted by Mar 26.
Didn't know where else to post this.


text:
THE-N.A.S.A-SpACE-MissionGene Merritt
THE-N.A.S.A-SpACE-Mission, 1994
felter pen and pointball pen on paper
35,5 x 28
© photo credit
Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne
Merritt, Gene (1936-2015), USA
BiographyGene Merritt (Clyde Eugene Merritt) was born in South Carolina, in the United States. A bout of high fever when he was about five left him with a mental handicap. His childhood was marked by his parents' alcoholism, regular stays in foster homes, and his mother's suicide. After this dramatic event, he went to live with his father in Fort Mill, and likewise lapsed into alcoholism. In 1972, when he was thirty-six, Merritt found himself alone and dependent on social welfare. Later he moved into a caravan at Rock Hill.
He started to draw, using a ballpoint pen, developing a highly individual graphic style: the faces of television, film or music stars are put together from thousands of fragments, like a jigsaw puzzle, each one named in a short caption placed in round or square brackets. He also draws vehicles, mainly collector's cars. His pictures are done from memory, mostly on tablemats or lined paper. In his spare time he plays both the electric guitar and the bass.
Exhibition(s) at the Art Brut Collection


text:
Green Economy Take Action
Building local, equitable economies is central to displacing the structures that give corporations power over people and the planet. By promoting the alternatives, it is our hope to advance our world from profit centered to people centered, from currency to community. As Kevin Danaher says, "The only real antidote to corporate globalization is the local green economy." Take action today.
Get involved with our Green Economy Leadership Training Program
Get involved with Energy Action Coalition


text:
Create a free account to check out faster, store multiple shipping addresses, view and track your orders in your account, and much more.
Please enter your password to continue.
That drugstore bar soap isn't doing your skin any favors. Trade up to Archipelago's triple-milled formula, which pairs a pure vegetable oil base with rich mango seed and shea butters. White tea and cranberry extracts provide an antioxidant boost but the star is pomegranate, a power ingredient that has benefits for both skin and psyche.


text:
Too cute !!
Welcome to the Quilting Board!
That is awesome!
The little boy balancing the bottle was intriguing and the cat giving the dog a back massage enjoyaable but the laughing baby was the best.
Make it a scrappy happy day!
That's one brave rat!
People who start projects and never finish them are cooler
than people who never start projects at all.
Don't know where you find all of - but thanks for sharing with us.
Thank you! That was fun to watch!
Annee from Arizona
Very cute!! Thanks for sharing!
My newest Grandson, Caleb Austin, was born May 29th. I am now Grandma to 4 precious babies. I am so blessed!!!!
The giggle baby made me laugh I thought the bear waving back was cute, usually they want to eat you.
Thanks again Ditter. You make my day!


text:
Gah, stupid brain. I need to remember that the modified pattern space after a series of sed commands will only be printed and deleted right away if that modified pattern space doesn't match the addresses of any later commands. If it does match, it might get further modified and then not printed. Stick
;p;d after the series of commands to avoid that, and not spend an hour scratching your head.
In more interesting news, I've been having fun with new Fedora releases. I upgraded my desktop to F17, because it's not possible to upgrade straight to F18 from F16, but once there I found it so miraculously beefy I decided to keep it. On x86_64 F18 doesn't offer me much that isn't in F17, and what I really want is glibc 2.17 which includes the most excellent change I asked for, but isn't in F18. Following the advice of freenode's #fedora-devel I've got a
mock chroot where I can use rawhide, so that I can make some changes to libstdc++ so that a high-resolution
std::system_clock will be enabled by default on systems using glibc 2.17+
I have, however, installed F18 (beta) on the shiny ARM chromebook I got for xmas, thanks to lots of help from #fedora-arm. That's a huge improvement on my ageing eeepc netbook. Kudos to the Fedora ARM team on excellent work.
I've also got round to sending my paperwork to the FSF so I can contribute to GDB, which means I should resume working on my patch to teach GDB about C++11 rvalue references. That's been on hold while I sat on the paperwork, wrote a C++ standard proposal and started work on my talk for this year's ACCU conference. (If my wife wasn't working so hard on her studies she'd probably be asking me to stop all these extracurricular activites by now!)


text:
Facebook is finally going public.
On Wednesday, Facebook filed the prospectus for its initial public offering. The social giant seeks to raise $5 billion in initial funding. That's in line with some of the largest IPOs in technology history, and it comes eight years after the company was first launched in the Harvard dorm room of CEO Mark Zuckerberg. According to the company's IPO filing, in 2011, it recorded revenue of $3.7 billion, operating income of $1.75 billion, and net income of $1 billion. While the company's S-1 filing does not list how much shares will cost upon the date of the IPO, Facebook's most recent estimate as of December 31 puts the per share price at $29.73.
Given Facebook's size and popularity — the social network has over 845 million members worldwide — eight years is actually quite a long time. Over that period, Facebook had unprecedented access to capital, and on sites like SharesPost and SecondMarket, pre-IPO prospectors have been able to purchase and trade shares in the company from employees and other early stakeholders. The company's relative maturity means that most of the millions — or billions — that could be made from buying public shares have probably already been made.
This could mean Facebook's IPO will meet a fate similar to that of this year's other high-profile tech IPOs. Both Zynga and Groupon actually sank below their IPO share price — right out of the gate — a sign of failure on Wall Street. "The tech class of 2011 has underperformed," said Paul Kedrosky, a prominent financial blogger and senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, in an interview. "Because of secondary markets, that post-IPO balance happened pre-IPO. My expectation is, Facebook will see a very similar phenomenon."
Regardless, the IPO will put cash in the pockets of the many paper millionaires surrounding the company, and it will inject a massive amount of capital into Facebook's coffers. This capital will allow the company to invest more in its products and grow its revenue streams. But this comes with its own problems. In order to grow revenues, some analysts believe, Facebook must find a way to better target ads on its service. This means tapping the vast array of personal data it has collected about its users, which could easily raise the ire of both users and government regulators.
And fine-tuning its ads is crucial, given that it's the company's predominant revenue stream: Currently, advertising accounts for 84 percent of the company's $3.7 billion in revenues.
What's more, when the company is traded on public markets, it must be more transparent and more regularly disclose its finances and activities. Soon, all prospective investors — that is, everyone — will be privy to information the company has previously been reluctant to share beyond a close inner circle of early investors and friends.
The Facebook Paradox
Facebook is a paradox. Throughout its history, it has been both open and closed. It began as a closed social network for Harvard students, but within that closed network, it sought to push the boundaries of each user's privacy. So much of Facebook's culture — especially its boundary-challenging, generation-defining norms of sharing and privacy — stems from those early days as a place where Harvard students could meet, socialize, and share (often embarrassing) photos of each other.
The irony is that there were fierce fights about whether to open the network to students from other colleges. Facebook eventually opened the service not only to other colleges, but to the world at large, and it gradually changed the service's default privacy settings so that more and more data was shared among its members. But at the same time, it has consistently sought to extend the sense of comfort that comes from a private network.
The company's funding process has followed a similar trajectory. After early investments by elites like Sean Parker and Accel Partners' Peter Thiel, the fledgling company opened itself up to an "Ivy League" of investors. This includes institutional investors and partners like Microsoft, but also a cleverly brokered deal from Goldman Sachs that allowed both the investment bank and its private clients to buy over $2 billion in Facebook stock at a $50 billion valuation.
Now, it's going completely public. And this will force the company to seek new revenue. As it does so, it will have to make use of all that data openly shared by its members. But as usual, it must also ensure that it doesn't push the boundaries too far.
Are You Just Yahoo In Disguise?
As it stands, many advertisers love Facebook. The attraction is that it's less expensive and resource-intensive than traditional kinds of advertising. This makes it especially useful to small- and medium-sized businesses, who often don't have the resources to produce a television commercial or magazine ad.
Even a powerhouse like Proctor & Gamble — which traditionally has a large marketing budget — is betting big on Facebook to help hold costs down. P&G is operating under the assumption that it can repeat its viral Old Spice hit, which generated 1.8 billion free impressions.
But what if P&G and other companies aren't so lucky again? "We're hearing from our clients that their return on investment from Facebook ads doesn't look anything nearly like what it does for TV, print and radio ads, or from Google advertising," said Forrester analyst Nate Elliott.
"I don't think this will be a problem in 2012…. But if marketers find in 2012 that Facebook ads still aren't delivering, I would worry about how much they spend in 2013."
Elliott argues that if Facebook is to make good on its IPO, it has no choice but to make better use of the mountains of data it has collected about its users. Far from being an all-powerful juggernaut of personalized marketing, Facebook has coasted along on its popularity. "Facebook's revenue model is exceedingly simplistic," Elliott told Wired. "They sell lightly targeted static advertising badges. This is an ad model that hasn't really changed since 1997."
Thanks to the sheer number of visitors to Facebook, those simple ads have turned it into a multi-billion-dollar business, but ultimately, it's not that different from any other web portal. "For a site that makes almost all its money from advertising, and which claims 96 of the top 100 U.S. advertisers as customers, Facebook harbors a dirty little secret: Marketing on Facebook doesn't work very well," Elliott writes on the Forrester blog.
"Facebook is the new Yahoo," Elliott told Wired. "And they desperately don't want to be Yahoo."
Governments' and privacy advocates' biggest worry about Facebook is its stash of private data and how that data is used, but Elliott argues that Facebook hasn't used that data as aggressively as it should. With the mind-boggling amount of information Facebook owns, it could create a system that powers intelligent, highly targeted ads not just on Facebook, but everywhere.
"Google is the template," says Elliott. "Google has been a pioneer in finding creative and aggressive ways to use its data that are still legal and acceptable."
Eye of the Regulator
The key words here are legal and acceptable. Facebook would have to walk a very fine line, properly anonymizing its data so that it doesn't violate privacy laws anywhere (an increasingly difficult proposition) and making it clear to users how their data is being used.
A legislative or regulatory smackdown from Washington could stop Facebook in its tracks as easily as a user revolt. Even more worrisome is Brussels, where the European Union has been especially active in proposing internet privacy laws that make life exceedingly difficult for Facebook and other e-commerce sites.
Brussels could, for instance, author a simple mandate, one that Elliott says has been rumored to be proposed in 2013: All social networking and commerce sites have to allow for simple, universal, one-click export of all a user's personal data.
On its face, it seems like the kind of thing users would want — and that the European Union or any other government in its capacity of regulating privacy and preventing monopolies would be within its authority to demand. But it would also leave Facebook at the mercy of any competitors, whether Google or anyone else, who could benefit immediately from the user data that Facebook's platform has supported over the years.
After its IPO, Facebook will almost certainly invest some of its extra cash in advertising systems. But it will also pump additional dollars into public marketing and government lobbying. It must. A misstep in one direction, and it angers regulators and users. A misstep in the other, and it may lose advertisers.
The Next Facebook
Its a difficult position. But Facebook has a history of defying expectations. Federated Media's John Battelle says that it's still possible for Facebook's sheer scale of users to surprise us — for the already-mature global company to continue to grow and change.
"Facebook is an extraordinary cultural phenomenon and a pretty extraordinary company," Battelle told Wired. "They have an intensely high-speed culture, which is to their benefit. They're fast, they're iterative, they can adapt new features into their platform very quickly. And its leadership certainly doesn't mind imposing its own sense of what should be normal on its users."
All of this adds up to one formula: "Facebook is in the midst of becoming something other than what we thought it was."
The company is trying to redefine itself as more than just a social network in the narrow sense in which we've understood it. "Facebook is now moving to another phase where it wants and needs to compete at any number of levels with Google, Microsoft, and Apple," said Battelle. "Just as Google, after their IPO, became more than just search, and quickly made billion-dollar acquisitions, and then $10 billion acquisitions, and is now involved with just about everything, the same is true of a company that people think now is just social."
"All of these companies are competing to become the operating systems of our lives," Battelle added. "They want to be the place where we engage and store all of our data, and use it to do just about anything."
These companies also share something else: they're strongly founder-driven, which helps offset the demands of the stock market. "The companies that have been the most notably successful — Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft — all are guided by the supreme arrogance of their founders' long-term vision," Battelle said. "It's almost a messianic quest to change the world."
Zuckerberg, Battelle says, seems like that type of leader — and Facebook that type of company. After a $5 billion IPO, it will have to be.Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.


text:
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is ugly and innovative, powerful and limited, a success and a disappointment. With its superb quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM, it's the most powerful Android tablet yet, while its stereo speakers mean it's the best-sounding. Its Wacom-based S Pen and tailored apps/interface make it an amazing creativity tool, and it comes with some great pre-installed software like Photoshop Touch. On the other hand, its connectivity is restricted, while its looks, screen and battery life are merely average. However, at under £400 the Galaxy Note 10.1 is still an excellent buy if its feature set appeals.
No items found.
More information -
Trusted Reviews is part of the Time Inc. (UK) Ltd Technology Network
Get TrustedReviews' award-winning reviews and advice delivered to your inbox for free!


text:
Buzzing around Bolivia
Trip Start Sep 02, 2006
35Trip End Sep 01, 2007
Map your own trip!
Loading Map
Loading Map
Show trip route
Hide lines
Our (in)famous happy go lucky spirits were being stretched to their limits as we entered the city limits of La Paz. Which at 3,700m above sea level is set stunningly in a crater.
Interestingly the homes up the sides house the poor with the poorest people living right at the top. They have the best views of the city however the climate is meant to get nasty the higher you go so all the rich folk live in the swanky part at the bottom of the crater. Personally I'd pick the view over the climate.
La Paz unlike Cusco is generally not an old looking city, with nearly all the buildings looking like they are from the 70s or later. The architecture is therefore not all that impressive however the setting is ridiculously spectacular. The centre is built on a series of hills which was a great work out for the thighs.
We arrived on a Saturday night and like Guatemala we had a nightmare getting money out of ATMs. Especially Emily whose card seemed to hardly work in any place. Again like Guatemala there was lots of people with guns wandering around the place. Now this time they weren't the public but riot police. Though I am not sure if that is better or worse...regardless I did feel pretty safe.
Bolivia is definitely cheaper than Peru and by far the cheapest place I have been to since leaving Asia. Presumably that's why we had so much difficult getting change for notes. It proved to be a pain in the booty to change 100 Boliviano notes, even though that is only US$12.
While in La Paz yours truly turned the ripe old age of 33 and my birthday treat was for another (travelling) partner in crime to arrive. This time it was Vicky and she arrived on a big iron bird from Chicago the night of my birthday. That day being April 15th - please note that in your diaries.
It got its rather quaint name by being classified as the World's Most Dangerous Road a few years back. However, that particular title has since been snatched by the Chinese...
Personally after being in China I think it is more because they have the World's Most Dangerous DRIVERS as their idea of passing is to pull out at any place on the road and blast their horns as they go around a blind corner on the wrong side of the road...
Having the World's Most Dangerous Road is not really all that good a thing so the government decided to build a new road to by-pass the old one and that is much safer. Mind you we didn't take the old one we took the original (and still best) 'Road of Death'...
It is really tight and twisty so is not for the faint hearted however it's not that steep a descent. Don't get me wrong it's still a large descent. You drop 3,600m from the snow capped start at 4,800m to the tropical ending at 1,200m above sea level. However, we cycled 64km (40 miles) over 5 hours to drop that far.
It's not all good news for him as he's now languishing in jail waiting for his trial.
I distinctly remember seeing a few Israeli graves along the way. Somebody told me it's maybe because they don't ride bikes at home. This is probably true however I also think they generally have a low regard for consequences and will just about do anything and not think about it.
Post bike sweatiness we had a few richly deserved beers, a swim in a hotel pool then became mosquito food. We got absolutely chomped to bits and this was just the beginning of the feastings...boy did the mosquitoes take a shine to us in the jungle. Particularly Vicky who became quite the fav of the flying locals.
We had decided to take a bus after the bike ride into the jungle rather than returning to La Paz and flying in - big mistake.
The only thing going for it is that it overlooks the beautiful Yunga Valley and we ended up having a glorious view from our hotel room across the Valley.
Probably the best view I have ever had from a hotel room.
Mind you we nearly never had this experience as they initially wanted to charge us the ridiculous amount of $30 per night. Not much I know...especially considering it was $30 BETWEEN us...but it was the principal of it! I have always been a man of principles...low morals but high principles...Anyhoo we got them down to $27 and all were happy.
The bus from Corioco to the jungle town of Rurrenabaque proved to be quite the experience and more dangerous than 'Road of Death'.
On this stretch of road vehicles have to drive on the opposite side of the road so that the driver can see that their wheels don't go over the edge. There was so little room that I am amazed he managed to achieve this all the time. Our nerves weren't helped by a Canadian guy (who we subsequently dubbed 'Dr Death') saying over and over again 'we are going to go over the edge, we are going to go over the edge'! A lot of the time I was prone to agree with him, but I sure as heck did not need to hear it from him on a permanent loop.
We hadn't been particularly looking forward to the scheduled 16 hour bus trip so were ecstatic when 21 hours later we rolled into Rurre after breaking down numerous times. Twice after damaging an axle on ruts in the road and goodness knows how many flat tyres.
Remember Madidi National Park? Yip that's the one that claims to be the most bio-diverse area on the planet. Well we didn't go there as I'd already been on a jungle trip in Manu and the pampas tour sounded like you would get to see a lot more wildlife and get closer to them too.
The Pampas is an area of wetland which floods heavily during the rainy season so you can navigate through it by boat and recedes back during the dry season to enable the wildlife to feed more easily.
Well we just about got there at the perfect time as the rainy season had just finished so the waters were high but we weren't getting peed on from high. We wanted to choose an eco-friendly tour as the others didn't seem to be at all - they encouraged activities like swimming with freshwater dolphins, hand feeding alligators...Not wanting to encourage that kind of behaviour we ended up paying a lot more than average for our tour.
However, it was no big deal as we still only paid US$105 for 3 days. The standard price is a stupidly cheap US$55 for a 3 days. They really need to charge more.
The waterways we went through in small narrow boats were often only 10-15m wide. So we got really close to lots of bird life - owls, herons, storks, hawks....plus there were lots of monkeys and turtles.
I flippin' love monkeys and we saw mucho monos (many monkeys in Spanish), apparently much more than was normal. It seemed like every few hundred yards there would be a bunch of monkeys (often skinny little yellow monkeys) swinging around like maniacs in the waterside trees. At one time a pack of them even jumped on our boat. Our guides fed them bananas as they jumped around us. I know...I'm a hypocrite as that's not exactly very eco-friendly but don't worry I gave myself a good hard flogging afterwards...
Oh yeah I forgot, before this we had stopped at one of the riverside lodges and came face to face with Diego the alligator. Big beggar so he is and came across to us as he thought we were going to feed him. He was out of luck there.
It definitely turned out to be worthwhile to spend a few extra scheckles on the more expensive tour as we cruised through the pampas with only 3 of us perched primly on comfy lawn chairs, while other tours seemed to cram 6 or so people into the boats with their bums welded to hard benches - plebs! More importantly we got to see more wildlife once we had passed the sections where the vast majority of the tourists stopped. Presumably because they weren't as used to being disturbed.
Seeing all this wildlife was great but my 2 highlights were definitely getting to see a sloth and a plethora of pink freshwater dolphins.
I had no idea there would be freshwater dolphins. Let alone pretty pink ones. They weren't advertised well at all, unlike in Kratie, Cambodia where they made a big deal of them and were not half as impressive. We got to within 3 or 4m of them and I will always remember waking up on the second day and watching them frolic around a pool next to our huts jumping around and generally having a whale of a time.
It was Emily's birthday and she celebrated it deep in the pampas at the cattle ranch tucked away which was to be our home for our night. We had expected to stay a couple of nights but the bugs and mosquitoes were absolutely ferocious in their desire for such sweet white meat that we decided to go back a little early.
Unfortunately I disappointed them by proving myself to be both as strong as an ox and as agile as a mountain goat as after an almighty shove our Landcruiser shot out of the mud sliding like a maniac to safe ground...
The driver must have had a hot date he was in danger of missing so hammered it down the road regardless of the road conditions. At one point there was dust everywhere then suddenly there is a guy walking along the middle of the road so we had to throw the anchors on and swerve around the guy. This put 5 years onto me and 10 years onto the driver but we finally got into Rurre and about 100m before we were to get dropped off the jeep ran out of petrol...
I was particularly excited about the flight as we were flying with TAM - the Bolivian military airline. I had been hoping for a green camouflage plane and having to skydive into La Paz so was a little disappointed by an old white Russian Fokker plane and landing normally in La Paz. However, it was a lot better than the bus would have been.
Eager to move onto the South of Bolivia and the salt flats of Salar de Uyuni we took a bus overnight to the highest city in the world - Potosi. It is a mining centre and back in the 1700s (when I was a young pup) it was bigger than all of NY, Paris and London.
This was because it is surrounded by hills which were chock a block with silver and other precious metals. 'Was' being the operative word as the hills have now been ravaged of most of its mineral wealth. Initially the Spanish wanted a lot of the silver so at to mint coins for back home. This was done in the mint in the centre of Potosi which houses one of the most interesting museums I have been to and definitely the best I had been to in South America. Again the guidebooks don't mention it much, but in my opinion they should.
Now Bolivian coins are no longer minted there. Instead this is now done in Canada and somewhat perversely Spain...what goes around comes around.
Even though Potosi is a mining city it has remarkably attractive architecture and presumably this is because back in the day it was one of the richest cities in the world. And as we all know rich people like nice things around them especially when they have to endure such a harsh climate. Takes the edge off of it...
There are about 15,000 miners and boy do they work hard. They work between 10 and 24 hours at a time. Chewing coca leaves nearly constantly. The beauty of coca leaves is that by chewing them they will trick your body into working for 24 hours without water, food or rest.
The Spanish soon worked that out and offered the miners as much of it as they could chomp on - as long as they stayed down the mines working that is...
Down there it's narrow, hot, hard work and difficult to breathe. Nasty, nasty conditions and there are no working regulations to talk of. Kids as young as 13 start work down there. It's not good paying work by Western standards but by Bolivian standards it's really well paid so there are no shortage of people wanting the work. Now I personally won't be signing up to join them especially after helping them fill one basket and after a couple of minutes I was blowing out my bum. I hate to imagine doing that for 10 or more hours at a time, 6 days a week.
I admire them for encouraging such loyalty to home brands as most of the rest of South America seem to be addicted to Western brands like Coca Cola, Pringles and Kraft.
Buying dynamite was cool. I thought it would just be a stick of dynamite but you also bought some loose granule materials to go around it and a plastic bag to keep it packed in. What was even more cool was BLOWING it up...BOOM...Or rather we got to put it together and then our guides scarpered off to blow them up.
After an...explosive...day we headed to the bus station for another overnight bus. This time to Uyuni and the salt flats. There was a student protest which nearly caused us to miss our bus, however we just made it and there we met Joao who was to be our token Portuguese travel partner for the next week. He had been scheduled to go to Uyuni with other friends however when they were in the bus company's office one of them had put down one of their bags for a second to get out their bus tickets and someone had followed them in and stolen it.
If that was not bad enough this particular bag contained their passport, camera and other valuables so they weren't going anywhere that night...except to the local police station. So he tagged along with us.
South America is (in)famous for thefts in bus stations and this was further proof to always be vigilant in and around bus stations.
Joao hadn't however was lucky enough to get a space in our jeep. Or rather they ripped his arm off for his money and squeezed another body into the jeep...
The trip was 3 days in a jeep with 7 of us. 2 Dutch guys (Paul and Joris), 1 Portuguese (Joao), 2 Yanks (Emily and Sam) and 2 Brits (moi and Vicky). It sounds terribly cramped however it wasn't too bad. Unless you got stuck in the front seat with the driver and the prop forward cum cook. So the boys took turns in the front.
The trip is definitely a 'must do' in Bolivia if not a 'must do' for the whole of South America. The whole trip covers not just the salt flats near Uyuni but unbeknown to me the lagoons further south and the weirdly coloured landscape in the desert near Chile.
Before we could even get to the Salt Flats we visited a train graveyard on the outskirts of the town of Uyuni. There is only one rail track to and from Chile and this is definitely not an actively expanding railway.
As it is so starkly white there is no depth perspective so it seems to go on forever and you just can produce some loony photos which mess with your mind. We could have spent many more hours taking photos and had to be dragged away back into the Landcruiser.
The Salt Flats are massive - they stretch something like 80 miles (120km) - and on the south edge of it we stayed in a 'Salt Hotel' that was actually made of blocks of salt. I can confirm this as I licked one and it was really salty though not entirely unpleasant.
I don't know why but I thought you got flamingos in Africa and not South America - again shows how little I know.
At the largest one - Laguna Colorada - there used to be 70,000 of them. Sadly there are much less now but still more than enough to impress a poor country boy like myself with their big beaks, pink plumage and tendency to sift through dirt for food...
The reason for getting up so early was to go and see some geysers that were conveniently situated at the highest and coldest part of my South American trip so far. They were at 5,000m above sea level and we reached them at 5.30am so it was still dark and a tad parky. Mind you it was spectacular watching them appear as the sun gradually rose. It reminded me of the moon, not that I've been to the moon - next trip maybe...
There is even one mountain which contains seven distinctly different colours and Salvador Dali loved it so much he based one (or possibly more) of his paintings on an area near the Chilean border - which was to be our next stop and where we said adios to Sam who was heading south towards Santiago then Easter Island. We even took a wee wander across the border so that Vicky and Emily could say they'd been to Chile. I'll be going later on so I'll see a lot more of it then.
The Salar de Uyuni trip did involve very early starts, questionable food and lots of driving however we all made good friends and the scenery was out of this world. It is easily my Number 2 recommendation for South America (after the Inca trail to Machu Picchu).
Go there you'll not be disappointed.
So two weeks had nearly come and gone and it was time for Vicky and the rest of us to head out of Bolivia. However, we still had a couple of days to enjoy in La Paz. So what did you do I hear you cry? Settle petal - here you are...
I wanted to visit the Coca museum as everywhere I had been in South America coca leaves was a big part of the locals life as they invariably wandered around chewing them.
The museum was really well done and utterly fascinating. Did you know that; one of the first cocaine users was Sigmund Freud who ended up getting nasal cancer? Or that a lot of pain killers have a cocaine base and most oddly that legally some countries can produce a limited amount of cocaine annually. The UK can produce 360kg while the US can produce 500kg. With the only company in the US allowed to do this being owned by Coca-Cola...Why?
Most of the information I am sure is correct though there were some dubious statistics. Like - apparently the US has 5% of the world's population but snorts 50% of the cocaine produced each year globally...mmm not so sure about that.
I highly recommend it as it's got some interesting commentary and they take you to a great lookout point which displays how beautiful the crater setting of La Paz really is.
We had now been in Bolivia for a bit more than 2 weeks and admittedly we'd seen plenty but we'd had to skip a lot of the country and you could easily spend another couple of weeks exploring the rest of it.
So many people I've met travelling say that Bolivia is the highlight of South America and it was fun.
Well sadly it was time for us to leave the country and after Vicky got back on the big iron bird to the land of the free, Emily, Joao and I headed towards Cusco. This time the trip was much better than the 20 odd hours coming from there...
My other memories of Bolivia were -
(2) Sir Francis Drake is regarded as being a pirate in South America rather than that fine maritime captain we all know him to be in Britain.
(3) Bolivia is one of the poorest (if not the poorest) country in South America. The average wage is about $4 (2 GBP) per day. It's also really young with 40% of the population being younger than whipper snappers younger than 14 year olds. Ah the days...
(4) The mighty Chicago Bulls sweeping the (crappy defending NBA Chumpions) Miami Heat.
(5) Bolivia is full of Israelis and English. I didn't meet any Scots but I never seem to meet many of them anyway. It's rather disappointingly the number that seem to travel. Ireland has an even smaller population than us however there's tons of them wandering the planet.
I am going to try and go to another game in Argentina also which should be crazy menthol.
(7) In La Paz, watching local rappers and break dancers performing an impromptu show outside a post office in the city centre. Those Bolivians truly have mad skillz.
(8) In Rurre, Vicky being a sugar mama to 3 young guys we'd met on the bus trip there. I got mullered that night so left her and Emily to it and went back to the room, promptly passing out. Shame for the girls that, as they didn't have a key and it took them over an hour of banging on the door before I woke from my slumber.
(9) Kicking a grate in Rurre and splitting open my big toe. Flipping hurt and I spent the next couple of days hobbling around the dusty streets trying my best not to get the wound infected. Fortunately (?) I got sunstroke and this took my mind off of it as this made me feel like real poo.
Probably the highlight of that illness was puking down an open sewer on my way back to our hotel. One of the local kids took too much interest in the gringo chucking up and nearly got covered in the second wave...
I expected to see a kibbutz in Rurre as the place was over run by Israelis. No joke, more than half of the tourists there were from Israel with most of them walking around with the same t-shirts they got from one tour company. That particular company - Anaconda Tours - must make an absolute killing.
(11) A cab in Potosi was well weird. It was a right hand drive car which was changed to left hand drive by only moving the wheel and pedals across to the left hand side. The dials were all left on the right hand side...
(12) Down the Potosi mines watching the miners lifting a 1 ton carriage around a corner as the rails weren't built correctly for it. Those miners are sturdy citizens every one of them.
(14) Joao telling me about Couchsurfing.com and hospitality.net. For the uninitiated these are community-like websites where you can offer people places to stay when they are in your town and when you are travelling elsewhere you can stay with someone else within the 'community'. Sounds like a blinding idea and when I get to Amsterdam I might try it.
(15) It takes about 40kg of coca leaves to make 1kg of cocaine and chewing coca leaves suppresses your appetite and redirects the body to take energy from your body fat. Sounds great for dieting but apparently it takes fat from your stomach lining too - so Andean people are renowned for having stomach issues.
(17) In La Paz there are lots of guys walking around in ski masks. Looks at first kind of scary, however apparently they wear them as they are embarrassed as they are so poor they work by shining shoes. Also I heard that it also hides the fact that a lot of them sniff glue under the masks to get themselves high.
(18) Sam we met on the Salar de Uyuni trip is taking a gap year off before starting Harvard. Sounds pretty daunting to me however he should be okay considering he'll be the 11th family member to go there!
Must be all the starches and carbs they eat to keep out the cold. They also wear bowler hats at a jaunty angle. The men are short too but not so cube-like in shape.
(20) 3 years ago I saw a photo of the Bolivian Salt Flats on a website [http://blogs.bootsnall.com/theglobaltrip/] and thought I have to go there...and I did.
(21) For you Johnny Depp fans, Pirates of Caribbean 3 was partly filmed at Salar de Uyuni. Remember the bit with the stone crabs? There.
(23) Bolivians are protective over there minerals (fair enough) and are trying to protect them from being exploited by foreign companies. So as of now, they only let a few foreign companies in to mine so that the country can get enough money to afford to extract the minerals themselves rather than be pillaged by foreigners. Must pee off a lot of Western companies however that's just tough.
(24) San Cristobal is a small village which lay on the side of a minerally rich mountain. To get their hands on the good stuff inside the mountain a US mining company agreed to move the whole village a few miles down the road. This included taking apart and exactly rebuilding the local church.
(25) There is a poster at La Paz airport showing Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Bolivian president - Evo Morales - displaying their unity together against Western countries. I admire them for protecting their own country's values and resources. More countries should do the same.


text:
Create a free account to check out faster, store multiple shipping addresses, view and track your orders in your account, and much more.
Please enter your password to continue.
It's time to put away the harsh cleansers. This intelligent two-in-one face and body wash effectively gets rid of dirt, bacteria, and excess oil while also sloughing off dead skin cells. It's particularly great for blemish-prone skin.
I have extremely sensitive skin and struggle with finding products that will diminish painful acne. I normally use it on my back and arms in the shower. It is very foamy with a loofah. I am not a fan of the smell though. My skin has broken out into pimples since I have started using it. I will continue to use it to finish it up and see if it improves overall.3
This was recommended to me at the BB store in SoHo to help with my recent flareup of hormonal acne and it has really helped clear up my skin in a short time. It's a gel consistency and foams up just a bit so it doesn't overdry. The algae helps with exfoliating but it's very gentle and not harsh like those regular exfoliating beads.
Highly recommend this!
This is a great product! It's really helpful and it gentle on my sensitive skin. The consistency is a little strange- there are little flecks of leaves or something in the soap (which I'm sure is intentional) but it caught me off guard the first time I used it! Definitely would suggest if you have problematic, acne-prone skin.4


text:
Chalet Chanrossa Reviews
We've just returned from a fantastic holiday in Courchevel 1650 staying in Chalet Chanrossa. 3 adults and 2 children aged 14 and 12. We were so lucky with our Chalet host. The food was brilliant and Ed couldn't have done enough for us. It was a real joy to come back at the end of a day's skiing and tuck into one of his delightful cakes! Courchevel 1650 is a really easy resort to get to everything - but would recommend hiring a ski locker at the top of the escalator where you buy lift pass etc. This made life so much easier and was worth every penny (approx 60 euros for the week). I loved this resort and would definitely come back again. We also couldn't fault Mel the rep who was with us for the transfer from the airport and Elliott who was our in resort rep. He popped in regularly to check we were ok and even booked us a restaurant for the night that Ed was off. All the staff we came into contact with were cheerful, helpful and friendly.
Apres Ski: 3/5
Accommodation & Value: 4/5
Vicki Wainwright
1 of 1 people found this review useful.
Did you find this review useful? Please Login to vote.


text:
UTSA student group at Best Fest 2007
Best Fest: UTSA student group fall fundraiser
(Oct. 30, 2008)--The UTSA Campus Activities Board will host its annual student organization fall fund-raising festival, Best Fest, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Friday, Oct. 31 at Sombrilla Plaza on the 1604 Campus.
Today's headlines
- La Prensa Foundation is newest member of UTSA Lone Star Society
- UTSA alumna Jordan Kaufmann wins $50K for new stent-graft start-up
- UTSA begins new way-finding sign installation this summer at Main Campus
- USA Today: UTSA long jumper Tyler Williamson rescues three-year-old boy
Article tools
Everyone is invited to the celebration featuring music by the Austin Band, Alpha Rev, student performances, inflatable games, food, drinks and festivities.
The event is one of the largest fundraisers for UTSA student organizations. Each organization will have a booth with games or food and drink items -- and this year more some 70 organizations are participating.
This year's Best Fest includes a Giant Twister game, Laser Tag, Adrenaline Rush, Custom Photos and a Zero Gravity game.
For more information, contact the Campus Activities Board at (210) 458-4727.


text:
By Rob Kelly
Kieran Gibbs believes Sunday's FA Cup third-round clash at Swansea is one of Arsenal's biggest games of the season so far.
Michael Laudrup's side have attracted a host of plaudits this term for their attractive style of play, and they beat the Gunners 2-0 at Emirates Stadium last month.
Gibbs accepts it will be a major challenge to win at the Liberty Stadium, but is confident the team can kick off their cup campaign in style.
"It would be great to get a trophy, of course. We go to Swansea like it's one of our biggest games of the season," the full back said.
"We need to go there and realise that this is another opportunity to get a trophy and we want to go there and win.
"Obviously we're out of one cup now so we need to make sure that we're fully focused on Sunday and realise that we have a chance to put a trophy in the cabinet."
After struggling with injuries earlier in his career, Gibbs is enjoying a fine season so far and was delighted to sign a contract extension last month.
"I've always been committed to the club ever since I was given my chance by the boss," he said. "I wanted to show him how dedicated I am. I hope that over the last few months I've done that.
"I'm happy with the first half of the season. I've been able to get in a good number of games and this is the closest I've had to a full season. Hopefully I can keep that going for the rest of the season and keep myself fit and strong.
"It's been important to get some momentum. It's what I've wanted to do for so long now and I'm happy just to be fit, playing and getting games."Copyright 2017 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source


text:
By signing up for Oreck emails you'll be the first to know about special discounts, private offers and new products!
read our privacy policy
Soft Black Nylon Bristle Carpet brush attachment for the Oreck Orbiter. Designed for use on high pile carpet with the Oreck Dry Carpet® Cleaning System or for cleaning textured tile and linoleum surfaces.
Orbiter® Complete Clean Value Kit cleans wood, tile floors and carpets. Removes dirt, mildew and odor for Oreck professional cleaning with carpet brush, scrub brush, soil release spray, cleaning powder and wood floor cleaner.
and never miss a Great Offer
Call 1-800-219-2044 to order.Mon-Fri: 8:00am - 6:00pm CST.Sat: ClosedSun: Closed


text:
Reports | Ethiopia, Iran, Journalist Assistance, Mexico, Somalia
Journalists in Exile 2010
An exodus from Iran, East Africa
At least 85 journalists fled their home countries in the past year in the face of attacks, threats, and possible imprisonment. High exile rates are seen in Iran and in the East African nations of Somalia and Ethiopia. A CPJ Special Report by María Salazar-Ferro


text:
Guy Hoffman:
Robots with "soul"
What kind of robots does an animator / jazz musician / roboticist make? Playful, reactive, curious ones. Guy Hoffman shows demo film of his family of unusual robots — including two musical bots that like to jam with humans.
Similar topics
- TEDx
- Entertainment
- Jazz
- Music
- Robots
- Technology
This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxJaffa 2013, an independent event. TED editors featured it among our selections on the home page.
Related talks
135 comments
Enthusiastically agree? Respectfully beg to differ? Have your say here.
Log in to comment Don't have an account? Sign up now — it's fast and free.
Sort comments by
There are currently no comments for this talk.


text:
Your Biggest Texting Dilemmas—Solved!
"The Couple App is the best for long distance relationships—I have used it with my boyfriend for four months! We could sketch to play games like hangman and make lists of upcoming things we wanted to do, places we wanted to travel, and reasons why we loved each other! Plus, the app lets you 'thumb kiss,' where you to match each other's thumb on the screen and your phone vibrates!" —Kelly, 20, CO
"We made a couple Tumblr blog where we would put up funny jokes, date ideas, and pictures of cute couples. We also did challenges where you had to answer random questions once a day. Not only was it a great way to get to know each other better, but getting a sweet note once a day was also a really great treat!"
—Kaila, 20, WI
10 Ways To Make Over Your Love Life!


text:
Sponsor message.
RainWatch: (March 22) More rain clouds building
12:10 PM Friday Mar 22, 2013
A mostly dry weekend is on the car for NZ but we have bands of rain heading our way – starting in the deep south of the West Coast rain will slowly spread up the western coastline across Saturday and Sunday. Showers may affect Gisborne and East Cape – with one or two isolated showers elsewhere. Warmer weather is also coming in for the east – before a wetter southerly change for both islands.


text:
BTW dezz - i didn't really go back and watch the film completely but i did rewatch the touchdowns we gave up
On the one to Vernon Davis - Greg Jones covered the wrong guy in man and Vernon Davis ran completely open. Also how sick of a jump was that by VD? I watched that play a couple of times, Phillips caught him in the air as he was still going up and im pretty sure he could of dunked on a 12 foot rim
The second one where they ran it in was COMPLETELY on Paysinger. Had he been aggressive and shot the gap he could of had that back (forget which it was) for a tackle at the LOS
Truth of the matter is that we got beat defensively in man to man WAY more than anything. And if u really think that SF's offense is that bad - maybe u have your answer as to why we play zone more than you'd like
alrite im out - got to go get a tooth pulled at lunch (joy). Then I get to follow up with another visit tom for a root canal


text:
Fair warning: the next Canadian that I meet is getting kissed hard and long — by way of explanation, I'll simply whisper Argogently into his ear.
Argo is the title of the taut, entertaining Ben Affleck political thriller just released, and its story is based (with some dramatic license) on previously-classified, real-life events reported in 2007 by Joshuah Bearman in the excellent Wired article "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans From Tehran."
Essentially, the story is this: In 1979, Iranian anti-American sentiment hit a fever pitch when the United States allowed the deposed Shah of Iran to enter the US in order to receive medical treatment for late-stage cancer. Iranian students and Islamist militia who had already been protesting daily outside the American embassy then climbed the embassy's walls and took over the building, and almost everyone inside the embassy was taken hostage, only to be released 444 harrowing days later as Ronald Reagan was inaugurated president. Six individuals working in the American visa office were able to escape capture, however, due to the fact that their office had an exit that lead directly out onto the street — and this group of six ultimately found sanctuary at the the home of Ken Taylor, the Canadian ambassador for Iran.


text:
Seriously spooky Halloween thrills and chills at historic Fort Nelson - Monday, 11 October 2010
Looking for a great event to get the kids in the mood in the run up to the spookiest night of the year? Then join mad Victorian scientist Dr Terror on a spine-chilling journey into the dark tunnels and chambers beneath Fort Nelson, near Fareham.
Venture into the Vampire's Tomb and witness the hideous new additions to one of the most ghoulish collections known to man – including frightening freaks, mighty monsters and hordes of hideous horrors!
Spooky highlights include ghoulish sound effects, spectral sightings, and all manner of things that go 'bump in the night'.
The event runs from Tuesday, October 26, to Saturday, October 30, and early booking is advisable although any unsold tickets will be sold each day. Tickets are available now (T: 01329 848500 Prices: 16+ £5, 3-15 £2.50, under 3s free, or buy a family ticket for £12 – two adults/up to two children.)
Operations manager Mark Selwood said, "The Fort is a fantastic, atmospheric setting and is ideal for staging Halloween events. Dr Terror and the Vampire's Tomb is a great way to keep kids entertained during the October half-term and is an ideal build-up to Halloween itself."
On a less chilling note, there's also a chance for kids to enjoy other Halloween activities, including free hands-on sessions where children can make horrible Halloween handicrafts to take home
Further details of this and the full Royal Armouries' Dangerously Entertaining Events calendar by visiting:
Reporters and photographers are welcome at the event, please call in advance if possible.
Media contact
Joss Loader
Tel: 07838 379599
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Notes to editors:
Free admission will still apply for the museum and daily gun firings for non-event visitors. The café and shop will be open for business as normal.
- The Royal Armouries at Fort Nelson houses the national collection of historic cannon and big guns. The museum houses one of the world's finest collections with over 350 cannon dating back over 600 years. The collection originated at HM Tower of London and has been on display in Hampshire since 1995.
- The Royal Armouries at Fort Nelson also tells the story of the Palmerston Forts, built to protect Portsmouth from a feared French invasion in the 1860's.
- Every day, visitors can see one of the big guns fired in salute, watch our resident actors bring to life characters from 1,000 years of history, explore secret underground tunnels and enjoy incredible views from the ramparts. An extensive programme of special event spectaculars takes place throughout the year.
- Fort Nelson is open every day except 24-26 December. April to October 10am –5pm (Wed 11am-5pm), November – March 10.30am – 4pm (Wed 11.30-4pm).
- Admission to the Royal Armouries is FREE.
- Admission charges apply to some events.
- Information line: 01329 233734
- Website: www.royalarmouries.org
- Email: email@example.com
- The Royal Armouries is the national museum of arms and armour with sites at Fort Nelson, Leeds, HM Tower of London and Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
- The Royal Armouries Museum should not be confused with Royal Armouries International plc, the private sector corporate hospitality business.