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Texas Supreme Court rules using local property taxes to fund public schools unconstitutional…Federal government extends Hurricane Katrina and Rita hotel housing program…National Retail Federation raises growth forecast for Christmas season…
The Texas Supreme Court ruled today that local property taxes used to pay for public schools amount to an unconstitutional statewide tax. Justices have given the state until June 1st to fix the system. By a seven-to-one vote, the state's highest civil court agreed with one of three arguments made against the state by hundreds of school districts. But justices also found that overall school funding is adequate and that poor districts have equal access to facilities funding. Justice Scott Brister was the only member of the nine-member court to dissent. Newly sworn justice Don Willett did not participate. Hundreds of property-rich and poor school districts sued the state, contending its method of paying for public education was inadequate. The state argued that great strides had been made in Texas Public Education over the past decade. It said changes to the funding system should be made by the legislature, not the courts.
The federal government is extending its hotel housing program by more than one month in ten states affected by Hurricane Katrina and Rita. People in Texas, as well as in Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, California, Tennessee, Arkansas and Nevada now have until January 7th before the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency stops paying their hotel bills. The previous deadline of December 1st had drawn criticism as being unfair to displaced evacuees–especially as the holidays approach. Hurricane Katrina slammed parts of the Gulf Coast in late August. Rita made landfall in Southeast Texas on September 24th. Several hundred thousand evacuees–mainly from Louisiana–made their way to Texas. Officials estimate more than 50,000 displaced people are still in Texas hotels and motels.
FEMA wants to transition some 50,000 Hurricane Katrina and Rita evacuees into longer-term apartments and houses. FEMA has established a toll-free Housing Locator Service at 800-762-8740. To be considered for a wider range of services and financial assistance, evacuees must first register with FEMA by January 11th, 2006. FEMA is still spending about $1.3 million a night on hotels and motels for evacuees. Most evacuees will have had their rate paid by FEMA through at least March 1st of next year, but many are eligible for the Individual Assistance Program, which could pay their rent through March of 2007. That number is 800-621-3362. Applicants may qualify for Other Needs Assistance, administered by the states, for expenses such as household items.
FEMA has approved a $1.38 million Public Assistance Grant to Texas as reimbursement to the Ark-Tex Council of Governments for providing temporary shelter to Hurricane Katrina evacuees. FEMA has also approved a $2.28 million grant to reimburse Lumberton for removal of debris throughout the city resulting from Hurricane Rita.
The Federal Flood Insurance Agency is resuming payments to flood victims, now that President Bush signed a bill increasing the agency's borrowing authority to $18.5 billion. Bush signed the bill late Monday that Congress has passed last week after he returned from Asia. The agency had run out of funds because of hurricane-related claims. FEMA had advised the 96 insurance companies that sell flood policies to stop payments to policyholders until the agency was authorized to borrow more money. There have been at least 204,700 claims for Katrina, 13,300 from Rita and 12,800 from Wilma. Tropical Storm Alison in 2001 generated more than 30,000 claims.
Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn has released a new directory of federal and state programs to provide financial resources to communities impacted by the hurricanes. The directory, found on the comptroller's Web site, highlights 20 federal and state programs that provide grants and loans to local governments and businesses to replant crops, repair damaged infrastructure and provide job training. Strayhorn says federal reimbursements and short-term disaster recovery programs help get local governments and businesses running again, but other programs offer resources to rebuild.
The progress being made in restoring offshore natural gas facilities damaged by hurricanes likely won't bring down the cost to consumers. The head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says that's because demand continues to outpace supply. FERC Chairman Joseph Kelliher says gas production that's been disrupted along the Gulf Coast has gone from 54 percent of normal output three weeks ago to 32 percent now. While that's significant progress, the remaining damage continues to disrupt supply. Kelliher says he doesn't think gas prices will "go back to the level they were a few years ago." Twenty percent of U.S. natural gas supply comes from the offshore facilities in the Gulf. Kelliher says what people pay to heat their homes with natural gas this winter will depend on further recovery work, the weather and conservation efforts.
A provision in a pension reform bill that passed the Senate last Wednesday would allow Enron workers enrolled in a 401(k) plan at least six months before their company went bankrupt to boost their contributions to an Individual Retirement Account. Former workers could contribute up to $7,000 a year to a tax-advantaged IRA, where the current limit is $4,000. Congress is considering the help for former Enron employees to catch up on their retirement savings. The language was not included in legislation in the House, so the catch-up allowance would have to be negotiated in a Houston-Senate conference committee.
It was designed to protect against pirates. But now Sony is being accused of burdening computers with spyware. The Attorney General of Texas has sued Sony over the XCP technology the company has embedded in some of its music CD's. The software prevents buyers of the CD from making repeated copies by installing itself on the computer and monitoring what the user does with the disc. Critics say the technology leaves computers vulnerable to hackers. Last week the company recalled the CD's, after critics complained about the practice. A California-based digital rights group has also sued Sony, saying the software secretly reports what music the computer is playing. In addition, removing the software–if you can find it–can disable the computer's optical drive.
Phone customers will start seeing a new AT&T logo design with their December monthly bill, but only on the envelopes. The invoice will bear the new logo beginning in February. The new corporate logo, unveiled on the new AT&T's first full day of business, is a variation on the familiar AT&T blue globe with the company's name just below. The new company was formed by the SBC Communications purchase of its former parent company, completed last Friday. Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre unveiled the new logo at the headquarters of the new AT&T in San Antonio. About 50,000 SBC and AT&T vehicles will eventually sport the new logo, as well as 6,000 buildings and 40,000 uniforms and hardhats. The rebranding of SBC's services will happen after all legal and regulatory name-change filings are complete.
The Greater Houston Builders Association unveils its first new corporate logo in 65 years, as it prepares to roll out a branding program in early 2006. The GHBA is a nonprofit organization for home builders, developers and remodelers. The group represents about 110,000 jobs in the region and $9 billion in local income.
The world's largest retail trade association says the holiday season looks brighter than it first predicted. The National Retail Federation is raising its growth forecast for the Christmas season to six percent, from its five percent forecast announced back in September. An economist for the trade group says things looked gloomier two months ago. Katrina had just hit and oil prices were higher. But since then, the federation has seen stronger-than-expected retail sales in October and falling gasoline prices. Total retail sales for last year's November-December period rose 6.7 percent compared to the previous year.
Texas is getting almost $26.5 million to help dozens of counties pay the cost of detaining illegal immigrants. The funding was announced by U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. She says the money from the Justice Department will assist 96 counties. Hutchison says she's pleased with the funding for local communities, but says a way must be found to ease the burden permanently. The Texan says our borders must be secured.
The cost of birth and death certificates in Texas will go up starting December 1st. The Texas Department of State Health Services is increasing the fees to help pay for converting paper and microfilm records to electronic files. Birth certificate fees will increase from $11 to $22. Death certificate fees will go up from $9 to $20. The state needs to convert some 48 million records dating back to 1903. The $18 million project will include birth, death, marriage records and other vital documents. State officials say the project is necessary to protect records from floods, fires and other catastrophes.
Fresh Brew Group USA has sold its office coffee service division to Filterfresh Coffee Services, which is the U.S. division of Montreal-based Van Houtte. Fresh Brew will continue to expand its food service hospitality and vending businesses. The company is affiliated with Crispy Choice, a frozen-to-oven vended food service.
Crude oil prices have edged above $58 a barrel, as a winter storm heads for the northeastern United States. Forecasts for a blast of winter during the Thanksgiving period are boosting expectations that demand for heating oil will grow over the next few weeks. Light, sweet crude for January delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 85 cents to $58.55 a barrel. While crude prices are well below the all-time high of $70.85 set August 30th, they remain around 20 percent higher than a year ago.
Natural Resource Partners has acquired coal reserves in Ohio and Pennsylvania for $29 million from subsidiaries of American Financial Group. Houston-based Natural Resource Partners owns and manages coal properties in Appalachia, the Illinois Basin and the Powder River Basin.
Woodlands Development is donating about 69 acres of land to the Conroe Independent School District for use as wetlands mitigation, according to the Houston Business Journal. The land is east of I-45 near Harper's Landing. In order to develop a proposed sports stadium on the South Montgomery site, CISD is required by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to replace the wetlands.


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ID fraud gang broken up
Page Tools
A good samaritan who handed a lost CD wallet into his local police station gave police the clues they needed to crack Australia's largest identity fraud ring.
Federal and state police on Wednesday charged two men and raided five properties, seizing thousands of forged documents and computer templates used to create fake identities.
The $50 million collection of fake visa, Medicare and driver's licence computer programs has been declared the largest identity fraud haul in Australia.
But it may not have come to light without a chance roadside discovery by a pedestrian more than five months ago.
NSW Acting Fraud Squad commander Col Dyson said on Thursday that a good samaritan had picked up the misplaced CD wallet on a street in Ashfield, in Sydney's inner west, in the hope it could be returned to the owner.
"The police looked at the content of those discs and realised they'd discovered a lot of identity templates used to produce fake licences, visas and Medicare cards," Det Insp Dyson said.
In Wednesday's raid, Identity Crime Task Force officers seized Photoshop templates which allow the user to easily cut and paste names and photos onto identity cards.
Laminating machines and blank plastic cards also were found.
Det Insp Dyson said it was not yet known if the users were creating fake names or taking over people's identities.
"The legitimate identity of a person (could be) taken over for fraudulent intentions," he said.
"That's why we constantly (warn people) to look after your personal information because people could be planning to use your personal information to open accounts or raid your own bank account."
Federal Agent Craig Mann said the documents were high quality, complete with watermarks, holograms and other duplicated security features.
"They certainly have the capability to produce documents that would be extremely difficult to detect, to the point where we would be relying on database verification to check them," Mann told reporters.
In their search of a graphic design company and commercial printers, officers also found piles of allegedly forged documents, including high-quality reproductions of bank letterheads.
Mann said the documents would have been used with the ID cards to build the points needed as proof of identity.
"This is the largest single seizure that we've made ... of that scale where almost every proof of identity document in Australia has been found in the one location," he said.
A 51-year-old Newtown man will appear in Sydney's Central Local Court on December 10 and a 40-year-old Balmain man will face the same court on December 15.
The men were each charged with 236 offences under Commonwealth and state laws, and were formally refused bail today.
A third person arrested during the raids - a 36-year-old Bellevue Hill woman - will appear in court at a later date on five drug charges.

subset: commoncrawl


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If you caught it, pun unfortunately intended! ;)
Just a while ago, Sara (Icyabstract) mentioned that she was breaking out from her current moisturizer, the Kawaii Tokyo Brighten-Up Gel. Since reading her post, I've been wanting to do a post on excellent moisturizers that I've tried and love.
Most of you already have an ideal moisturizer and if it works for you, stick with it! However, the following products work so well for me that I just had to share them with you. :)
Firstly, for pretty much most people, I'd recommend the Hydrating Light Moisturizer by Simple. I've been using this for ages and it's performed marvellously! Having normal skin myself, my skin can really go both ways - Either dry, flaky and dehydrated, or greasy and an absolute oil-slick. With this product, it's light enough to keep my skin oil-free in Singapore's humidity and soaring temperatures, yet adequate for all but the frostiest months when I'm back in Japan. Best of all, I like that it hydrates and moisturizes (yes they do mean different things).
I also like that the consistency is neither thick nor runny and the moisturizer absorbs very quickly. I definitely won't say immediately, but the product shouldn't leave any traces of stickiness nor greasiness after you rub it in and wait a few seconds. It's also great that this moisturizer leaves the skin perfectly smooth and ready for makeup. For sensitive skins, this will probably work well for you as it is hypoallergenic and completely fragrance-free, like the rest of the Simple line. :)
On the other hand, it moisturizes just so, which is perfect for my normal skin but I can definitely see individuals with either very dry or very oily skin disliking this. Overall though, with a price of just around S$14.00, this product is definitely something I'd repurchase over and over (as I already have)! :D
Now, if you suspect that your sebaceous glands are producing more oil than even a regular oily-skinned person, I suggest you try out Clinique's Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel. This stuff's pretty expensive, at S$59.00 to S$89.00 a pop (depending on which size you get) but still well worth the price. It's a very solid (not literally) daily moisturizer that works very well and can be used in the day and/or the night. I used this product as a teenager and loved it to bits! I still have a bottle of this atop my counter that I use on the hottest of afternoons or for days my skin swings towards oily.
True to the Clinique brand, this product's advertised to suit even those with sensitive skin. Watch out though! They've another product called the Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion that is packaged and looks exactly the same! However, the latter is far too oily for me and even some slightly dry-skinned ladies I know.
For a cheaper fix however, you might want to try Mentholatum Acne's Medicated Oil Control Moisturizer. This works similar to Clinique's offering and is good for its price, but definitely mediocre compare to Clinique. Think of it like a budget Clinique, but at least what you pay is slightly less than what you get! The thing about this is that it has a slightly powdery finish due to the oil-control powder suspended in the formula, though foundation goes on quite well nonetheless. There's nothing much to complain nor rave about here; this is just a solid drugstore moisturizer that'll do good on oily skins, but just doesn't cut it for me in terms of moisturizing and hydrating my normal skin. It retails for S$8.90, I think.
Any oiler however, and you might have to use the Hazeline Snow Moisturizing Cream. I've tried this after reading rave reviews on it here on Onsugar, but I find that, unless you have pretty oily skin, this probably won't work well for you. However, if you've combination skin and a really oily T-zone, apply this product there might be just the trick to mattify the area! The other complaint I have about this product is how you'll almost definitely need a primer if you're going to layer makeup over it. If not, you might end up with seriously unflattering flakes. :( On the bright side, at less than S$3.00, this stuff is cheaper than day old chips!
On the dry end of the spectrum, I'd say that layering the Garnier Aqua Defence Essence and Moisturizing Cream (in that order) would be a great idea. Otherwise, using one or the other with a normal moisturizer like the one from Simple mentioned above also works very well. I've already done a review of the Essence here, so I shan't go into that again. The Moisturizing Cream works splendidly too, leaving no trace of stickiness nor greasiness and does well to hydrate the skin while moisturizing commensurately. I love how both products leave my skin plump, fresh and velvety smooth!
Unfortunately, as mentioned in the review that I've linked to, these products are fragranced and may thus be unsuitable for sensitive skins. Otherwise though, this is another drugstore gem that I will definitely repurchase and I know that Chantana (Everbluec) already has! :D
For those who find that the Gobi is located on their faces though, try the Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion. I've mentioned this in an above paragraph and I must reiterate that this product should be reserved for very dry-skinned individuals. The formula does feel too oily for most ladies to take, especially in our tropical climate. Just be careful not too slather this stuff on, or you'll be greasy before noon if the formula even manages to absorb! Otherwise, the lotion has all the great qualities of its gel counterpart and is well worth looking into if you find that normal moisturizers are inadequate. This retails for the same price as the gel, as listed above.<p>
Finally, if you practice the Japanese 5-Step skincare routine as I do, you'd know that there's a double-moisturizing step to tie with the double-cleansing one. Basically, we use a moisturizing lotion before our creams. Anyway, if you're in need of an extra boost for your moisturizer and/or hydrator, do look into Hada Labo's Super Hyaluronic Moisturizing Lotion. This product, while still relatively obscure in Singapore, practically has a cult following in Japan. Although it takes a lot of patting (not rubbing, mind you) to get it to absorb (and even then it might be a bit sticky or heavy), the results are undeniably amazing.
All my friends, family and acquaintances who have tried this in Japan swear by the product; men and women alike. It performs remarkably at both moisturizing and hydrating the skin, regardless of the season or temperature. As with the Simple moisturizer, most people should be able to use this, unless you have either very dry or very oily skin. I will always, always stock up on these when I'm back in Japan.
Hold your horses though; Hada Labo is not available in Singapore at the moment. However, I only brought it up because I've heard that the Guardian in Malaysia has been importing and distributing it since last year. Furthermore, I've recently stumbled across Ateliergal's post where she mentions that she was gifted with a bottle of the good stuff. Is it wrong to assume that we can expect to see this brand hit our shores soon? ;)
I hope this has been a comprehensive and helpful post for anyone looking out for a moisturizer. :)
Stay beautiful! :D


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Our Name Says It All
Fences have multiple purposes in our lives. They serve as barriers, protecting us from unwanted intruders. They are boundary markers, delineating where one property ends and another begins. And, of course, they offer aesthetic appeal and can substantially increase the curbside value of any home. Here at Complete Fence Co., we understand the value of a quality fence and the impact it can make on your property, and we work hard to provide you with superior services and a wide selection from ornamental to chain link fencing.
With our guaranteed quality services, you can be sure that the professionals at Complete Fence Co. will surpass your expectations in every way and meet all your fence and fence-related needs.
Fully Insured
Insurance Work
Free Estimates on New Installations
Now Offering Sealing and Staining of Wood Fences
Check Our Low Prices
Year-Round Installations
A Message from Our President


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I've been using the Quartz plugin for Grails on a recent project and ran into a minor annoyance after (partially) following Burt Beckwith's clustering example. Part of the problem was caused by not wanting to have Hibernate auto-run the DDL for the quartz tables, so I didn't follow his steps for the Quartz.*.hbm.xml and hibernate.cfg.xml files. Instead, I ran the appropriate DDL on my production and development environments. Easy enough.
The annoying part was when it came time to run my integration tests against the h2 database, the quartz tables weren't installed. If I left quartz.properties on the class path even with autoStart=false and jdbcStore=false for the test environment, grails would exit with the error:
Error creating bean with name 'quartzScheduler': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is org.quartz.SchedulerConfigException: DataSource name not set.
The problem was, the plugin's doWithSpring closure configures the quartzScheduler bean based on the values in quartz.properties, which was setting the jobStore class to the jdbc implementation. Luckily, further down in QuartzGrailsPlugin.groovy, we can see this:
// And now load quartz properties into main config def properties = new Properties() def resource = classLoader.getResourceAsStream("quartz.properties") if (resource != null) { properties.load(resource) } if (config.quartz.containsKey('props')) { properties << config.quartz.props.toProperties('org.quartz') }
Which shows that we can defined a 'props' block inside our config's 'quartz' block rather than using quartz.properties. So, the final solution was to delete quartz.properties, and create a closure in QuartzConfig.groovy that I use in the dev and prod environments, but leave out of test. Here's what that looks like:
quartz { waitForJobsToCompleteOnShutdown = true exposeSchedulerInRepository = false props { scheduler.skipUpdateCheck = true } } jdbcProps = { scheduler.instanceName = "reporting_quartz" scheduler.instanceId = "AUTO" threadPool.class = "org.quartz.simpl.SimpleThreadPool" threadPool.threadCount = 3 threadPool.threadPriority = 5 jobStore.misfireThreshold = 60000 jobStore.class = "org.quartz.impl.jdbcjobstore.JobStoreTX" jobStore.driverDelegateClass = "org.quartz.impl.jdbcjobstore.PostgreSQLDelegate" jobStore.useProperties = false jobStore.tablePrefix = "qrtz_" jobStore.isClustered = true jobStore.clusterCheckinInterval = 5000 plugin.shutdownhook.class = "org.quartz.plugins.management.ShutdownHookPlugin" plugin.shutdownhook.cleanShutdown = true } environments { test { quartz { autoStartup = false jdbcStore = false } } development { quartz { // Toggle scheduled tasks for local "run-app" environment autoStartup = true jdbcStore = true props(jdbcProps) } } production { quartz { jdbcStore = true autoStartup = true props(jdbcProps) } } }
Java ActiveMQ Example
This type of example is surprisingly hard to find, so here's a simple JMS client I use for pushing out messages to test one of our message driven services, that does _not_ require hooking into JNDI.
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
if (args.length < 1) {
ActiveMQConnectionFactory connectionFactory = new ActiveMQConnectionFactory(args[0]);
QueueConnection queueConn = connectionFactory.createQueueConnection();
Session session = queueConn.createQueueSession(false, Session.AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE);
ActiveMQQueue theQueue = new ActiveMQQueue("queue.theQueue");
MessageProducer producer = session.createProducer(theQueue);
MySerializableObject obj = new MySerializableObject();
Message configMsg = session.createObjectMessage(obj);
Working with SVN and Heroku
We've decided to host our latest project on Heroku which uses Git as it's deployment mechanism. Getting up and running with their toolchain was dead easy, especially since I've been using git-svn to work with our existing SVN repository. However, it raised the question of how to easily share changesets between Heroku and SVN. I didn't want to use raw patches because it would either mean three steps for every commit (commit, patch, commit) , or losing granularity.
The solution is based on this Stack Overflow answer. The initial state involved two local repositories: one that I had initially cloned from SVN, the other had been cloned from Heroku. The solution was to add a remote tracking branch for the heroku repository to the SVN repositry, then using gitk to cherry-pick from heroku to svn.
1. From the existing repository cloned from SVN, create a remote for the heroku repository:
git remote add heroku file:///path/to/heroku/repository
2. Fetch the remote info:
svn-proj rpercy$ git fetch heroku warning: no common commits remote: Counting objects: 202, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (148/148), done. remote: Total 202 (delta 74), reused 147 (delta 38)
3. Create a remote tracking branch to heroku:
svn-proj rpercy$ git branch --track heroku heroku/masterBranch heroku set up to track remote branch master from heroku.
4. From the svn master branch, use gitk to cherry-pick commits
svn-proj rpercy$ gitk heroku
5. GitK will open for the heroku branch, right click each commit you want on the top left and choose "Cherry Pick this commit".
6. Verify that all commits were applied to the svn branch using 'git log' and then push them up to SVN with 'git svn dcommit'
Happy Coding
I just finished reading The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor. Check out his TED talk if you haven't yet seen it. In spite of its title, this is not a fluffy book on self-motivation. (Though, I think it pretends to be). Its thesis is: the generally accepted belief in success leading to happiness is backwards. Achor presents recent research and a number of studies in positive psychology as convincing evidence that happiness has a strong causal relationship to success. As he says:
We become more successful when we are happier and more positive. For example, doctors put in a positive mood before making a diagnosis show almost three times more intelligence and creativity than doctors in a neutral state, and they make accurate diagnoses 19 percent faster. Optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56 percent. Students primed to feel happy before taking math achievement tests far outperform their neutral peers.
As a software developer, this resonated at a number of levels. I'm an introverted nerd, so my default approach to a stressful problem is to lock myself away and work on the solution. Impossible deadlines have meant evenings and weekends in the office. Precisely the success-breeds-happiness mentality that Achor debunks. Now, I genuinely love writing software but, usually after the fourth or fifth 80+ hour week, my positive feelings start to erode.
I've suspected there was something sub-optimal about by approach for a while. Most, if not all, of the rockstars I've worked with seem to have two things in common: they are extremely productive at work, and they have very rich (and time-consuming) personal lives. Of course, it's common knowledge that a balanced life is better, but that's optimizing for health or happiness, not productivity. Right?
The Advantage
As evidence that happiness leads to success, Achor cites a number of studies including a 2005 paper by Lyubomirsky, King, and Diener: The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success? The authors performed a meta-analysis of over 200 scientific happiness studies on 275,000 people worldwide. From the abstract:
The results reveal that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes, as well as behaviors paralleling success. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that positive affect—the hallmark of well-being—may be the cause of many of the desirable characteristics, resources, and successes correlated with happiness
This is something I've always suspected. It's why I'm a firm believer in hiring people you can trust and giving them the tools and toys they need to stay happy and productive. But, there is obviously a not-so-small percentage of managers (and managees) that believe in the power of fear or anger-based motivation. What I've found challenging is quantifying the benefits of an enjoyable workplace to those with opposing views.
Self-fulfilling Prophecies
Oh yeah, and managers need to be happy too. Obviously, its pretty hard to have happy developers if their manager is always pissed off, but there's more to it. Achor describes studies showing how the Pygmalion Effect (greater expectations leading to greater performance) manifests itself in teams. The studies were based on two management theories: X and Y. Theory X says employees won't work if you don't watch them, and Y says that employees work better if they aren't micromanaged.
When researchers try to study what happens when X (or Y) workers are exposed to leaders with the opposing view, they run into a very telling snag. Very few managers have employees with opposing theories. Managers who believe Theory X turn out to have workers who need constant supervision, while managers who hold to Theory Y have employees Y have employees who work for the love of the job.
He goes on to state that this is indeed a causal relationship. No source is given, but there was a related study by the University of Tel Aviv.
This alone is encouraging. I hate mandating work hours and technologies. My hope is: if my team is made up of smart, trustworthy people, I shouldn't have to specify where, when, or how they work. We're a Groovy/Java shop, but you prefer Ruby for automating functional tests? Go for it. If a Groovy developer can't work with Ruby, then something's wrong. There is obviously some risk involved in this philosophy. How do you really know that Steve's project isn't late because he's been slacking off at home for the last two weeks? How can you be sure someone can pick up another language or framework in a reasonable amount of time? You can't, but apparently chances are good that they'll meet your expectations. Plus, the added productivity of a happy team is worth the risk.
First Impressions of Stanford on iTunesU
Since it seems like Stanford's online SaaS and NLP classes are going to be delayed even further, I decided to checkout their iPad and iPhone App Development (Fall 2011) course on iTunesU. In the past, I've favoured written documentation over videos when ramping up on a technology, because the former tends to be more information-dense (or at least its easier to scan over the fluff). In this case, I've been blown away by how effectively the material is presented.
Prof. Paul Hegarty does an excellent job of introducing the core concepts, each one building on the next, and pointing out common gotchas and best-practices along the way. Coming from Stanford, you'd obviously expect a quality curriculum, but it's much more than that.
Learning the syntax of a new programming language is easy. Learning the idioms of that language and the paradigms its built on takes a little more time. Learning the common frameworks and libraries that all the cool programmers use takes for-frigging-ever. That's why the best way to ramp up on a language is to a) use it a lot and b) read other people's code. Learning Objective-C/Cocoa Touch/iOS is no different -and that's the beauty of these videos. They provide the rare combination of having a competent programmer point out the why's and how's combined with a good number of not-so-trivial assignments to hack on.
I have to say, I'm really liking the new trend in open online courses. From now on, I'll be supplementing my reading with more of these sorts of videos.
– Robin
Creative, Self-Motivated, Geek
Those are the only qualifications I look for when interviewing for my team. I don't care which languages you've worked with before. If you're a geek, you'll jump at the chance to learn our stack. You know how to dig into a new technology and research solutions to common problems. If you're creative, you'll find novel solutions to uncommon problems and identify new opportunities as well. Finally, if you're self-motivated, then I don't have to babysit you. You want to succeed and build something cool – so do I. We'll collaborate, brain storm, and leave each other alone when it's time to crank out code..
A team built out of these qualities leads to productive, no bullshit cultures like what github seems to be cultivating .
Remote Profiling with JConsole
This is the third time I've wasted an hour hunting down the magical combination of JVM args to enable remote profiling. Writing them down seems like a good idea. This is how they appear in my Service Wrapper config, the -D's would be added as cli options if you were calling java directly.
Useful references
Junior Rockstars
One of my primary filters when interviewing new hires is whether they hack in their spare time. This seems to surprise many of my colleagues and I'm not sure why. I want to work with Rockstars. Rockstars are experts at their craft (I'm making a convenient distinction between Rockstars and Pop Stars). They don't just play a gig and leave their instrument in the case the rest of the time. The only way to reach their level of skill is to practice like hell.
Studies have shown that good programmers are orders of magnitude more productive than bad programmers and that the relationship holds at all levels of experience. So I apply the same filter regardless of a candidates seniority. A junior rockstar is someone that may not have the depth or breadth of knowledge, but she's well on her way. She's scanning aggregators, reading books on new technologies, and hacking on side projects. This means three things for me:
- She's well practiced at investigating and learning on her own; She's not likely to need much hand-holding and will be able to quickly absorb the information we throw at her.
- She can write code – not necessarily good or clean code – but she knows how to get her hands dirty with it. This is especially important at the Junior level. Real-world development feels a lot different than what we did in school.
- I'm going to be a better programmer for working with her. Chances are good she's looked into some technology, methodology, or concept that I haven't come across yet. So the learning goes both ways, regardless of seniority.
That alone are why I value rockstar indicators over all other attributes, even familiarity with the technologies we use. Technologies can be taught and, regardless of past experience, a new hire is going to have some learning to do. I'll trade a bit of ramp up time for those qualities any day.
I recently set this up for Bamboo and figure it's worth writing down. Atlassian and Apache have decent docs, so I'm not going to repeat them. If you don't already have Apache setup with mod_jk, check out the HowTo. I'll assume that Bamboo standalone is already installed.
The first step is to ensure bamboo starts with the service wrapper. Bamboo 2.6.1 for Linux has a bug (BAM-4197) in the wrapper.conf, all references to ../lib should be changed to ../wrapper/lib. Confirm that it starts with:
$ BAMBOO/wrapper/start-bamboo start
Next, configure the service wrapper to load connector settings from jetty.xml so you can override the defaults. Instructions can be found here, but the key step is to edit wrapper.conf:
- You will need to replace the argument which specifies your port number "wrapper.app.parameter.2=8085" with "wrapper.app.parameter.2=../webapp/WEB-INF/classes/jetty.xml".
- You will need to comment out the other arguments: "wrapper.app.parameter.3=../webapp" and "wrapper.app.parameter.4=/"
Then, follow these instructions to setup the AJP connector. Download the AJP connector for Jetty from http://repository.codehaus.org/org/mortbay/jetty/jetty-ajp/ to BAMBOO/webapp/WEB-INF/lib. The connector version needs to match the pre-installed Jetty libs. Next, add the connector config to BAMBOO/webapp/WEB-INF/classes/jetty.xml:
<Call name="addConnector"> <Arg> <New class="org.mortbay.jetty.ajp.Ajp13SocketConnector"> <Set name="port">8009</Set> </New> </Arg> </Call>
JkMount /bamboo* bamboo1
Oh yeah, and don't forget to set the base URL on Bamboo: http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/BAMBOO/Specifying+Bamboo's+URL
Less is More in Developer Resumes
We're looking for an intermediate Java dev at the office so I've spent some time scanning resumes and interviewing recently. Being on this side of the table inevitably gets you thinking about how people present themselves as candidates. What surprises me is how out of touch many of them are with what an employer really wants to know.
People seem to have this need to cover every aspect of their previous job on a resume – no matter how boring. This usually leads to choosing the most general statements about what they did, since they're also trying to be concise. You get bullet points of stuff like 'Developed enterprise Java software on JBoss with ActiveMQ and MySQL'. Great, so does that mean you had a senior dev that setup the JBoss instance, wrote the EJB skeletons and asked you to fill in the code? Or were you the dev that Systems called in the middle of the night because a connection pool was exhausted and they needed your skillz?
If you're applying for a greater-than-junior job, go ahead and list JBoss, Hibernate, and RabbitMQ in the Technologies section of your resume. I'll just assume you can handle the mundane stuff. Now, what were the most painful, exciting, and brain-hemorrhaging 150 hours of your three years at that job? That's where I really get to see what you've learned. Two weeks to get XA transactions working only to realize 3 months down the road that distributed transactions were developed in Satan's private lab? Cool. Five hours, the night before your 2 week vacation started, troubleshooting a memory leak in the Biling System you just deployed? Sounds like the kind of fun I want to know about. Even if the best you can give me is, "configured DataSources for our Tomcat development server", I'll take it.
In short, don't feel compelled to list every boring part of your last N jobs on your resume. It just ends up diluting the good stuff. Instead, list the extremes, good and bad. In fact, the more painful the better – you're more likely to have learned something from it.


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Hotel & Hostel Friedrichshain
Select your stay dates to check availability at Hotel & Hostel Friedrichshain
Hotel & Hostel Friedrichshain
About the Hotel
Property Location
With a stay at Hotel & Hostel Friedrichshain in Berlin (Friedrichshain), you'll be convenient to Mercedes-Benz Arena and Alexanderplatz. This hotel is within close proximity of East Side Gallery and Computerspielemuseum.
Make yourself at home in one of the 40 guestrooms. Cable television is provided for your entertainment. Bathrooms feature showers, complimentary toiletries, and hair dryers. Conveniences include desks and blackout drapes/curtains, and you can also request cribs/infant beds (complimentary).
Make use of convenient amenities such as complimentary wireless Internet access, a television in a common area, and tour/ticket assistance.
Take advantage of the hotel's room service (during limited hours). Quench your thirst with your favorite drink at a bar/lounge.
Business, Other Amenities
Featured amenities include express check-in, a 24-hour front desk, and multilingual staff.
Hotel Facilities
- Smoke-free property
- Bar/lounge
- Express check-in
- 24-hour front desk
- Accessible bathroom
- Total number of rooms - 40
- Number of buildings/towers - 1
- Number of floors - 4
- Breakfast available (surcharge)
- Free WiFi
- Roll-in shower
- Television in common areas
- Luggage storage
- Elevator/lift
- Tours/ticket assistance
- Multilingual staff
- In-room accessibility
Room Facilities
- Free toiletries
- Shower only
- Cable TV service
- Hair dryer
- Free cribs/infant beds
- Desk
- Blackout drapes/curtains
- Room service (limited hours)
- Rollaway/extra beds (surcharge)
Hotel Policy
National Rating
Hotelstars Union assigns an official star rating for properties in Germany. This property is rated 3 stars.
Know Before You Go
- One child 5 years old or younger stays free when occupying the parent or guardian's room, using existing bedding.
The following fees and deposits are charged by the property at time of service, check-in, or check-out.
- Fee for buffet breakfast: EUR 7 per person (approximately)
- Pet fee: EUR 7 per pet, per night (maximum EUR 10.00 per stay)
- Rollaway bed fee: EUR 15 per night
The above list may not be comprehensive. Fees and deposits may not include tax and are subject to change.
Mandatory Fees and Taxes
- A city tax is imposed by the city of Berlin. Business travelers with proof of business-related travel are exempt from this tax. For more details, please contact the property using the information on the reservation confirmation received after booking.
We have included all charges provided to us by the property. However, charges can vary, for example, based on length of stay or the room you book.Show all hotel policy Show less hotel policy


text:
This WebPage is being updated.
GOOGLE no longer supports it because it is not REMOTE ACCESS FRIENDLY
See the new WebPage at:
More About our Greatest WebSite
In addition, WE ARE NOW ADVERTISING FREE
If required, we have updated the new WebPage
Train Stations of Connecticut
There are many train stations in Connecticut. Some have been rebuilt.
Some are no longer used and have been converted to other uses.
Some have restaurants in them or close by. One of these is Paci's in Southport, Connecticut
Hartford's Union Station does busses too!
Welcome to our Railroad Stations of Connecticut WebSite
Here's a preview of some of the exciting projects we have put together for you:
Our feature article is "Connecticut's Depots" . We have extensive coverage of Connecticut stations (and restaurants in or close to them). We have separate articles on stations in Canaan , Simsbury , New London , Waterbury , Stratford , and Bridgeport .
Find out how many train stations are there in Connecticut?
See our entire list of Connecticut Stations We have a lot of coverage of Connecticut commuter developments . Commuter Statistics: Metro North Railroad
See WCBS NewsRadio 880 talks about Springfield-New Haven
If you commute in Connecticut, you should see all about the "Fix My Station Photo Campaign"
Commuter Statistics: Metro North Railroad
See an in-depth study of Railroad Stations on the Danbury Branch
Railroad Stations around the country, art deco stations, and refurbishing Connecticut stations
KC Jones BLOG about Railroad History
Want to find out all about YOUR station? We show you for each active railroad station in Connecticut: Passenger schedules, driving directions and other information
Freight railroad serving this station and contact information
Picture of station and, in some cases, history and development plans.
There is no "brrreeeport" in Connecticut, but there are plenty of towns that are served by freight railroads.
Search them out!
Typical of Connecticut rail towns is Stratford.
The West-bound station is a restaurant.
The East-bound station is a helicopter museum.
Visitors have taken the trains for years to see such attractions as their Shakespear Festival.
Find out about Challenge and Fair Promise
Traveling in Europe?
Newington Junction Station in 1930's
Newington Junction is a section of the town of Newington, Connecticut. It is centered at the intersection of Willard Avenue (Route 173) and West Hill Road in the northwestern part of the town, in the area generally just south of the Hartford city line. The name of the area refers to the railroad junction where the railroad line from New Haven meets with the railroad line from Bristol and Waterbury. The depot on the left was built in 1891 by the New York & New England RR. The passenger station on the right and the freight depot behind it were constructed by the NYNH&H in 1890.
For more information about Newington Junction station, see
Tyler City Station, The most authoritative source for information on Connecticut railroad stations.
Go back to the Newington index section
See more about Newington Stations in history
More on Restaurants in Connecticut
Greatest kids restaurant in Connecticut is "Pizza Works" in old Saybrook. It's in the old train station. Upstairs there's a big HO scale model train exhibit that's amazingly detailed and runs continuously. Downstairs there are G-scale trains circling the room on a shelf on the upper part of the walls. Outside are the tracks of Amtrak's "Shoreline" division.
Harbor Park Restaurant in Middletown offers a view of the swing bridge that carried New Haven's Air Line across the Connecticut River.
In Simsbury, an old train station has been converted to One Way Fare, a popular pub.
The Nauti Dolphin is a little Italian restaurant right in the Fairfield train station. It's a good place to grab a quick sandwich if you're running late and have a train to catch. There's no seating inside - it's all take out, but the food is excellent. It's not worth making a special trip, but if you've got a few minutes before your train leaves, it's good.
The Whaler's Inn in Mystic is closeby the train station.
Close by the Greenwich train station is the Delmar
Modeled after a Tuscan Villa, this splendid boutique hotel offers a waterside destination where the emphasis is on elegance and European-styled service. The DELAMAR, (Italian for "From The Sea") is the only hotel in Connecticut to have membership in the exclusive Small Luxury Hotels of the World. Snuggled beside a cozy harbor in Greenwich, it features 83 guest rooms including 9 suites. Many rooms have private balconies overlooking its yacht-filled dock and Long Island Sound.
The Trackside Brick Oven Pizzeria in Wallingford is a pizza restaurant that uses as its dining room the body of a retired Philadelphia subway car. It is a 1927 rapid transit car (Broad Street subway car) manufactured by JG Brill.
Not all old stations are safe yet. In Windsor Locks, one is boarded up. This station has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, since it celebrated its 100th anniversary back in 1975. The station itself was built in 1875, and was operational to the mid-1970s. It is perhaps best known for being the train station where local resident Ella Grasso boarded a train, headed for Hartford and her inauguration as the state's first female governor to be elected outright. Since 1978, Amtrak, owned the station. Amtrak currently has a train that stops at its new location further down Main Street.
More Connecticut Train Stations
We have found even more on Connecticut's railroad stations!
ec-bp.com The Forum for Supply Chain Integrationec-bp was established in 2005 as the advocate for lowering the barriers to the adoption of EDI, and our email newsletter has been published every month since that time. Our focus has expanded beyond EDI to encompas the full gamut of supply chain practices and technologies. In addition, our readership has grown to become the largest of any similarly focused publication, and has expanded to include more than 90,000 professionals involved in nearly every aspect of the supply chain.
Today's supply chain is more than simple transport of EDI documents. The complexity of maintaining compliance with trading partners, managing the ever increasing amount of data, and analyzing that data to drive constant improvement in processes and service take supply chain professionals far beyond the basics of mapping EDI documents.
Find out about Project and Fair Promise
Railroads in Canaan Connecticut
The last section of the old rail line now ends in the northwestern corner of Windsor, near Griffin Road, an area of former tobacco farm land that is now the site of a modern industrial park. It is near Bradley Airport and there has been talk of reviving a short section of the Connecticut Western, now known as the Griffin Line. During I.C.C. hearings prior to the Penn Central merger, it was estimated that one-third of the New Haven's mileage generated 80% of its total revenue. Further-more, 20% of its total miles produced less than 2% of its total freight revenue. During 1962 alone, the New Haven filed applications for the abandonment of 16 segments of branch line totaling 140 miles. Old maps of the New Haven in Connecticut show more lines than those on a California Raisin. Railroads in Connecticut were definitely overbuilt!
The state of railroads north of Hartford 100 years ago can be seen from the following letter of September 17, 1888 to the editor of the HARTFORD COURANT: "This morning I left Hartford (by train) with my wife to spend Sunday in Saratoga. On reaching Simsbury I found that the parlor car had been discontinued for the day, and that the train did not even connect with the Fitchburg train for Saratoga! If the management of the road has any excuse for such treatment of the public, let them offer it."
Since I have found so many old railroad stations converted to restaurants, I have decided to continue being a restaurant critic.
The Canaan Depot is located at the junction of Routes 7 and 44. The restaurant always looks crowded because the bus company that replaced the railroad picks up from the parking lot. The restaurant also looks busy because the staff seats the front window first. However, we found no trouble being seated without reservations. Beware though -- summer is probably different.
The Canaan Depot is located at the junction of Routes 7 and 44. The restaurant always looks crowded because the bus company that replaced the railroad picks up from the parking lot. The restaurant also looks busy because the staff seats the front window first. However, we found no trouble being seated without reservations. Beware though -- summer is probably different.
Featured was a special, $18.72 for two entrees. Service was good and the waitress seemed eager to please. The menu was adequate but not extensive. It is about the only decent action within miles, especially on a Tuesday night when some other restaurants between Albany and Canaan are closed. I ordered Coquille St. Jacques with wild rice while companion opted for the 10 ounce steak and baked potato. Trains to Campbell Hall are advertised on a fascinating blackboard (dated 1891) in the lobby. There were 36 trains/day at that time. The depot was built a year after the railroad from Hartford was built. Rail pictures adorn the walls. While you are waiting for your meal, take time to wander around and peer at them.
A small section of debris-covered, abandoned railroad track is all that remains of the Connecticut Western Railroad, once a major transportation link to the west from Hartford. During the late 1880's and the early years of this century, trains followed miles of track that tied northwestern Connecticut towns to the Hudson River Valley and the Pennsylvania coal fields.
The Hartford & Connecticut Western Railroad was opened in 1871 and provided passenger and freight service for nearly 70 years from Hartford to Winsted and New York State. It abandoned passenger and most freight service during the 1930's. About a half-dozen years ago, the last freight trains stopped running on the remaining bit of Connecticut Western's tracks, about eight miles, from near Hartford's Union Station to Bloomfield and into Windsor.
Connecticut Western trains once stopped in Bloomfield, Tariffville, Simsbury, Canton, Collinsville, Pine Meadow, New Hartford, Winsted, Norfolk, Canaan, Twin Lakes, Salisbury, Lakeville (all in Connecticut) and Millerton in New York. These trains even reached Rhinecliff, Hopewell Junction and Poughkeepsie. Numerous small connecting railroads were involved in this route. Typical of these was the Poughkeepsie & Eastern, which ran 45 miles from Poughkeepsie to Millerton. It was chartered in 1866, opened in 1872, and sold to the Poughkeepsie, Hartford & Boston. In 1877 it was consolidated with the Hudson River & Boston to form the New York & Massachusetts Railway. The Lakeville Branch from Canaan lasted until just a few years ago.
In the early 1890's, the Philadelphia & Reading put together a group of small railroads known as the Central New England & Western to form an outlet for anthracite coal. In addition to the line reaching from Hartford to Canaan and into New York State, they consolidated the Poughkeepsie Bridge & Railroad Company. After a series of bankruptcies/reorganizations, the New Haven purchased the route in 1904, thus acquiring the Poughkeepsie Bridge over the Hudson River. Except for the portion that formed New Haven's freight route to Maybrook, it was operated separately until 1927 when it was fully absorbed by the New Haven, only to be mostly abandoned in 1938.
By Ken Kinlock at email@example.com
This is what Bridgeport's station looks like today.
Here's the old Bridgeport station. This is from an old post card I found in St Joseph, Michigan
Find out about accomplishments and Fair Promise
Here's another of the old Bridgeport station. This is from an old post card found in St Joseph, Michigan
RailwayStation.comhas provided a 1942 Quiz Book on Railroads and Railroading.
Here's some interesting questions and answers:
How many passenger and freight stations are there in the United States?
In 1939 there were approximately 59,000 railway passenger stations, and in 1936 there were approximately 67,000 railway freight stations, in the United States. It is estimated that cities and towns served by railroads and the territory adjacent to railway lines embrace more than 98 per cent of the total population of the country.
How many train stations are there in Connecticut?
In order to count the train stations in Connecticut, we have to first classify them.
The first thing we have done is to determine:
how many Amtrak stations?
How many Metro North stations?
How many Shore Line East stations?
How many joint stations between these agencies?
Now our work gets more difficult.
How many abandoned stations remain?
Of these, how many have been restored?
Anyway, watch our progress!
Union Station. New London's Gem
The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad
Here's the list of Connecticut stations we have information on or pictures of.
Hartford, Providence & Fishkill; New Haven; abandoned Penn Central
Metro-North (Waterbury Branch)
New Haven Highland Division
New Haven Shepaug
Beacon Falls
Metro-North (Waterbury Branch)
Amtrak (Springfield Line)
Metro-North (Danbury Branch)
Metro-North (Danbury Branch)
Shore Line East
See more photos from Branford
See more
Shore Line East
See more
Guilford / PanAm
See more
Central New England (abandoned)
Metro-North (Danbury Branch)
Central New England (abandoned),Canal Line (abandoned)
Shore Line East
Collinsville; and another view of Collinsville.
Central New England (abandoned); New Haven RR (abandoned)
Cornwall Bridge
Cos Cob
Metro-North (Danbury Branch)
Providence and Worcester Railroad Company
Metro-North (Waterbury Branch)
East Granby
Central New England Railway
East Hampton
Abandoned New Haven
East Haven
Shoreline East
East Norwalk
Foxwoods Casino
Glenbrook; and an older view of Glenbrook Station.
Greens Farms
Shore Line East
Amtrak (Springfield Line)
HigganumRailroad Station (Essex Line)
Hopewell Junction. New York
See more
New Haven Maybrook Line (no passenger)
Central New England (abandoned)
Central New England (abandoned)
Shore Line East
New Haven Highland Line (abandoned)
Matteawan, New York
See more
Metro-North Beacon Line (no passenger)
Central New England (abandoned)
Amtrak (Springfield Line)
Merritt 7
Metro-North (Danbury Branch)
Metro-North (Waterbury Branch)
New Britain
Ex-New Haven now Pan Am used to be Guilford
New Canaan
Metro-North (New Canaan Branch)
New Haven
Shore Line East
New Haven - State Street
Shore Line East
Newington Junction
East-West:Hartford, Providence & Fishkill, New Haven Highland Division, Pan Am
North-South: Hartford & New Haven, New Haven, Amtrak (Springfield Line)
See more about Newington Stations in history
See a 1930's Newington Junction photo.
For the most complete information about Newington Junction stations, see
Tyler City Station, The most authoritative source for information on Connecticut railroad stations. .
New London
Shore Line East
New Milford
Housatonic (abandoned)
Shore Line East
Central New England (abandoned)
Noroton Heights
Providence & Worcester (no passengers)
Old Greenwich
Old Saybrook
Shore Line East
New York & New England
Providence & Worcester (no passengers)
Guilford (was New Haven Highland Line) (no passenger)
New Haven Canal Line (abandoned)
Former NY&NE. Abandoned 1968
New Haven (abandoned)
Metro-North (Danbury Branch)
New Haven Ridgefield Branch (Abandoned)
Central New England (abandoned)
Sandy Hook (Newtown)
New York & New England (abandoned)
Metro-North (Waterbury Branch)
New Haven Canal Line (abandoned)
Sound View
New Haven Shoreline
South Norwalk
Metro-North (New Canaan Branch)
Springfield, Massachusetts
Amtrak (Springfield-New Haven line)
Stafford Springs
(No Passenger)
Shore Line East
Housatonic (abandoned)
See more
Central New England (abandoned)
Talmadge Hill
Metro-North (New Canaan Branch)
Guilford / PanAm
Twin Lakes
Central New England (abandoned)
Amtrak (Springfield Line)
Shepaug Railroad (abandoned)
Metro-North (Waterbury Branch)
Shore Line East
West Redding
Metro-North (Danbury Branch)
P&W (formerly New Haven)
Metro-North (Danbury Branch)
Central New England (abandoned) Naugatuck
Amtrak (Springfield Line)
Windsor Locks
Amtrak (Springfield Line)
List of Connecticut Railroads
Virtual tour of train stations
New England Train Stations
Train Stations of the United States
Tyler City Station, The most authoritative source for information on Connecticut railroad stations
Connecticut Transportation Strategy Board
Connecticut Station Map
Interesting Railway Stations
Train Stations that fell to the wrecking ball
Simsbury, Connecticut Station Today
Matteawan station today.
While not in Connecticut, this station is closeby in New York State and very unusual.
The Matteawan station building still serves as apartments, a beauty shop and nail salon on the
revitalized Main Street of the City of Beacon. In the distance you can see the factory building
with the markings from the tower that was knocked down by the derailment.
The ND&C RR (Newburgh, Dutchess and Connecticut Railroad) established an operation that survived through good times and bad for over 25 years until it was absorbed into the Central New England Rwy and later became part of the New Haven RR. Still later 11 miles of the old ND&C line became part of the ill fated Penn Central, next Conrail, then the Housatonic RR and currently Metro-North.
After many years and many different names, these tracks are still in service and owned by Metro North MTA. There is no regular train service on this "Beacon Branch" but they are keeping the line open for possible future use.
To see more about this historic rail line, once a part of the Central New England Railway in New York State and the New Haven Railroad, click here
This site is intended in aiding you to locate HAND TOOL suppliers. You may search by product or by manufacturer. We add both products and manufacturers, so keep checking back.
Connecticut Commuter Developments
The New Haven – Hartford – Springfield Commuter Rail Implementation Plan (2006) was initiated to develop rail and transportation plans that support the vision of the communities along the corridor.
With traffic on I-95 seemingly getting worse and worse, more and more people are hopping on the Shore Line East trains.
A March, 2006, proposal for a new train station and commercial complex in Fairfield is getting a lot of attention. Not everyone is happy about it. We're talking about a million square feet of commercial space. A hotel, a conference center and it's all part of a new train station.
April 27, 2006:
Approving one of the year's biggest priorities, the state House of Representatives voted for a $2.3 billion, 10-year transportation package that would pay for new railroad stations and more trains around the state.
No discussion of Connecticut's railroad stations would be complete without historic and unique Waterbury Station.
Meriden Connecticut Railroad Station
A new high-speed service has hit the tracks, TGV East. Not only does this new line offer speed, but service and comfort
that exceeds expectations.
With its sleek exterior and colorful, upbeat interior, a trip on the TGV East is a stylish journey at 199mph! Travelers will appreciate the extra time they have to spend in their destination city as this new line brings European cities even closer.
See Gare SNCF in Nice
Newington Connecticut Railroad Station
What is shown above is the 1891 NY&NE depot - NOT the original station.
For complete information about Newington Junction station, see
Tyler City Station, The most authoritative source for information on Connecticut railroad stations
Go back to the Newington index section
Go to the 1930's Newington Junction photo.
The above article discusses the 1891 NY&NE depot being built.
The New Haven – Hartford – Springfield Commuter Rail Project studies and
proposes many things: Train frequencies, parking, busways, integration with
existing mass transit, redoing the double track, etc.
Naugatuck Connecticut Railroad Station
Niantic Connecticut Railroad Station
Connecticut Department of Transportation maintains a WebSite: Train Station Visual Inspection Report. Each active station between New York State Line and New Haven, including New Canaan, Danbury and Waterbury is included. No Hartford line or ShoreLine East yet. Great pictures and a wealth of information about each station.
Old Postcard of Mystic Station
Newer view of Cos Cob Station
Newer view of Newtown Station. See an older view of Newtown
Find out about liberty and Fair Promise
Commuter Statistics: Metro North Railroad, New Haven Division
Ever wonder which stations had the most inbound passengers each day?
Here's the list:
1. Stamford (6185)
2. Larchmont (3534)
3. New Rochelle (3472)
4. Greenwich (3052)
5. Bridgeport (3039)
6. New Haven (3020)
7. Fairfield (2702)
8. Port Chester (2457)
9. Mamaroneck (2440)
10. Pelham (2400)
11. Westport (2326)
12. Rye (2303)
13. Harrison (2207)
14. South Norwalk (1953)
15. Mt. Vernon East (1866)
16. Darien (1382)
17. Milford (1205)
18. New Canaan (1173)
19. Noroton Heights (1134)
20. Old Greenwich (955)
21. Stratford (925)
22. Cos Cob (825)
23. Riverside (679)
24. Green's Farms (549)
25. East Norwalk (531)
26. Rowayton (485)
27. Springdale (446)
28. Glenbrook (439)
29. Talmadge Hill (379)
30. Southport (233)
31. Danbury (226)
32. Branchville (195)
33. Bethel (182)
34. Wilton (178)
35. Cannondale (115)
36. Waterbury (105)
37. Merritt-7 (97)
38. Redding (59)
39. Naugatuck (38)
40. Derby-Shelton (27)
41. Seymour (26)
42. Ansonia (23)
43. Beacon Falls (7)
See the full station list (and number of parking spaces) for all of Metro North
The Global Highway:
Interchange to Everywhere
A portal to the World. The Global Highway leads everywhere! Follow it to wherever you might want to go. We have something for everyone! Travel and other great links!
Hurricane Sandy at Milford
Supply Chain Management Control Towers
Control towers are used in many industries for different purposes: airports and railroads use them for traffic control; power plants have control rooms to monitor operations; and third party logistics providers use them to track transportation activities. These are places where operations run well. Why not a
"SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT CONTROL TOWER"in order to monitor and assure your supply? Talk to us, we build them!
So just what is an SCM Control Tower? What are the functions of a Supply Chain Control Tower? Who staffs your Supply Chain Management Control Tower?
If you use an EDI VAN for your business, this message is for you. Move past the ancient VAN technology. JWH EDI Services Electronic Commerce Messaging System will bring your EDI operation into the 21st Century. The power of our global EDI network is available on your server, your cloud platform or your application. AND you cannot beat our prices.
You can connect and communicate with all your customers and trading partners through the JWH EDI Services Electronic Commerce Messaging System - Connect with trading partners around the world on a single Network-as-a-Service platform, get real-time transaction visibility and eliminate those manual network processes. It is a pay as you need model. We track all interchanges from the moment they enter the system, along every step across the network, and through the delivery confirmation.
How can we help you? Contact us: Ken Kinlock at firstname.lastname@example.com
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Faculty Aide Program
The Faculty Aide Program provides half a student's wage, with the professor or academic department paying the other half. The Faculty Aide Program will match up to $1500 during the academic year and summer. A student can earn up to a total of $3000 for the academic year and summer. Faculty members may hire up to two students during either award period. If hiring more than 2 students, a separate application must be submitted for approval by the Student Employment Office. Approved applicants are awarded one $1500 grant to be used by one student or divided among several. Faculty may not receive more than one Faculty Aide award of $1500. Each dollar earned by the Faculty Aide(s) must be matched by the faculty member. To participate in this program, Harvard faculty members apply to the Student Employment Office using the FAP application form. Applications will only be accepted once a student(s) has been hired.


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->"''So, fifty years from now, it'll be ''three'' years from now.''"
-->-- '''Tom Servo''', ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''' [=S08E21=] Film/TimeChasers
->''"''VideoGame/SmashTV'' takes place in the grim, cold future of 1999, only a few short years after the conquest of Earth by the [[VideoGame/RevolutionX New Order Nation]]."''
-->--'''''[[http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/smashtv/smashtv.htm Hardcore Gaming 101]]'''''
->''"In a few scenes that seem like theyre writing prompts for a class on [[SlashFic slash fanfic]], Professor X tells Jubilee about how he met [[{{ComicBook/Magneto}} his handsome young friend]] at a hospital 'after a war'... I really do like that Xavier keeps things vague about this war, though. It allows for that experience to form the basis of their friendship without having to pin the characters to a particular date. Even though Magneto works best as a Holocaust survivor, tying him to a particular date limits what you can do with him. If its just 'a war,' it can be anything, and we have no shortage of wars and atrocities that can keep Magneto as young as a story requires.\\\
Huh. ''That'' got awfully depressing. Lets just move on."''
-->--'''Chris Sims''' [[http://comicsalliance.com/x-men-episode-guide-1x03-enter-magneto/ on]] ''WesternAnimation/{{X-Men}}'', "Enter Magneto"


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US President Barack Obama's decision to help America's car manufacturers could end up being what helps drive him back into the White House.
Some 850,000 jobs in the critical battleground state of Ohio are tied to autos and Obama's campaign constantly reminds voters they'd be jobless if not for the decision to inject taxpayer dollars into General Motors and Chrysler.
The presidential election is a state-by-state battle, and analysts say that Ohio, more than any other state, could decide the race.
Obama's auto bailout has not translated into automatic support for the President, even in areas that depend on the industry. Republican Mitt Romney is also pitching these voters hard with his message that Obama hasn't balanced Washington's budget the same way voters must.
One in eight jobs in Ohio can be linked to the auto industry - whether it's working on a factory floor or selling groceries to plant workers.
Since its restructuring, the General Motors plant in Lordstown Ohio, a town of 4000 people southeast of Cleveland, has added a third shift - and 1200 new workers with it - to produce the popular compact Chevy Cruze.
GM has pledged US$220 million ($267m) in updates to the factory and to keep the 4500 workers, suggesting the town in the former steel-heavy Mahoning Valley has some stability ahead.
Romney opposed using direct Government money to save the car companies in a 2008 op-ed piece in The New York Times, titled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt".
Romney preferred a managed bankruptcy, without direct federal money, but was open to post-bankruptcy loan guarantees from Washington. He has maintained that the rescue - as it was executed - was unfair, unnecessary and political payback to labour unions.
"If we had taken your advice, Gov. Romney, about our auto industry, we'd be buying cars from China instead of selling cars to China," Obama said in this week's presidential debate.
His statement sparked one of the most contentious moments of the evening, with the two interrupting and arguing over one another about what impact Romney's idea would have had.
"I would do nothing to hurt the US auto industry," Romney said, touting his affection for American cars, his Detroit roots and his father's leadership of American Motors Corp.
Obama insisted Romney was "trying to airbrush history" and suggested voters check the record.
While GM paid back its loan and the Government took an ownership stake, the Treasury Department estimates Washington might lose about $25.1 billion on its investment. It smacks of Government waste for its critics.
And so it continues through the state, where polls are close and both campaigns are in overdrive.
No Republican has ever won the White House without carrying Ohio, and John F Kennedy's 1960 campaign was the last Democratic effort to win the presidency without it. Voters there are bombarded with campaign ads and candidate visits, mail at the ends of their driveways and phone calls at all hours.
Obama's allies never hesitate to raise the bailout in visits to the state. "Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive," Vice President Joe Biden roars at rallies, always a sure-fire applause generator.
Back in Trumbull County's city of Warren, just across the railroad tracks from the Lordstown plant, General Motors retiree George Vukovich cast his ballot early for Obama.
"In this valley, we are autos. Obama took care of us. He kept his promise. Now, we have to have his back," Vukovich, 61, said before acknowledging the auto industry's heyday had been in its past.


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Technology has taken medical school teaching tools to a new level. Students can listen to lectures on their iPods and practice on virtual reality patients. But a new study conducted by a researcher at the U-M Medical School found that technology has not been able to create a robotic replacement for the real-life student-teacher experience.
The study, published in the June issue of American Surgeon, points to a powerful, but often overlooked, tool for influencing students' attitudes about their surgical training in school.
Peter Ehrlich, M.D., MSc., an associate professor of pediatric surgery at the U-M Medical School, and colleagues found that the quality of the student-teacher interaction was the main reason behind a positive experience during the clinical training portion of the curriculum.
"What I really learned from this study is that what students wanted 20 or 30 years ago and still want today is for instructors to interact with them. Even with all the modern day technology in teaching tools, nothing can replace face-to-face contact," says Ehrlich.
Students were more likely to recommend a rotation to other students and enjoyed their experience more if an instructor spent time with them, challenged them to think, provided useful feedback, and had a positive attitude toward students and teaching.
"It didn't matter if subjects were male or female, or if they had any previous career interests in surgery; what really made the difference was whether teachers spent time with them," says Ehrlich.
The study also found that students listed medicine and surgical subspecialties as their most common career interests and one quarter of the participants had a pre-existing interest in surgery. According to Ehrlich, this stresses the importance of clinical training in attracting students to a surgical career, since there is a sizable pool of potential surgeons.
Another interesting finding was that males were four times more likely to have a prior interest in surgery than females. According to previous studies conducted by other groups, one influence on a female student's choice of specialty may be that women experience more gender discrimination and sexual harassment during undergraduate education.
"Surgery is still a male-dominated profession, and this should also be addressed," says Ehrlich, "The surgical and clinical experiences in medical school must be monitored carefully to ensure that half the potential pool of future surgeons is not turned off by a surgical career."
During the study, 113 students at the West Virginia University School of Medicine completed a 27-question survey to evaluate their experience after clinical training. They had nine surgical areas to pick from and each student trained in four of these for a total of 452 surveys.
The questionnaire was surgery-specific and included questions about general surgical tasks, demographic information, students' pre-existing interests, and subjective and objective questions about various components of being a surgeon and the student-teacher interaction. In addition, they had to evaluate the teacher.
Ehrlich created the survey because he felt that a better review of the quality of education was needed. Currently, students take surveys a year or more after their clinical experience and the questions are broad and generic. These evaluations are often used to influence promotions, tenure, and important changes to the curriculum.
"We always get evaluations from students about teaching, but a year or two after their clinical training, and there's no difference between the surveys for different areas of clinical training. I felt this made them fairly meaningless," says Ehrlich.
Ehrlich, who also teaches surgery to medical students, believes that instructors who take an interest in students and their educational needs can really influence career choices.
"When you find a teacher who really turns you on to a particular field, that's what you end up doing. I had a teacher in medical school who really made an impression on me and he's one of the main reasons I'm a pediatric surgeon today."
The study was co-authored by PA Seidman, M.D. from the West Virginia University School of Medicine, where Ehrlich served as director of surgical and medical education before coming to U-M.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Michigan Health System. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Cite This Page:


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Garry J Armstrong is an Ottawa Retirement Homes listing. Please mention that you found
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If you would like to modify this Ottawa Retirement Homes listing, please contact us.
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Advertise with us, send us Suggestions and find more about Ottawakiosk.com


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MILFORD -- Police arrested three men yesterday at The Hilton Garden Inn after hotel employees found an estimated $50,000 worth of heroin in their room.
Employees notified police after they found heroin and materials typically used to cut and package heroin for sale. The three men attempted to rent the same room later in the day while police were at the hotel, according to a press release from Milford police.
Police found a total of 7.6 ounces of heroin. Some of the heroin was found in 508 packaged wax folds, and the rest was found in its solid form. They also found cutting agents, packaging materials, strainers and scales.
Curran Lake of New Haven and David Jefferson of Bridgeport were both charged with possession of narcotics, possession of narcotics with intent to sell, operating a drug factory, possession of drug paraphernalia as well as conspiracy for all the offenses.
Sean Reid of Bridgeport was charged with conspiracy for the above offenses.
The three men were each held on $250,000 bonds and are expected to be arraigned today at Milford Superior Court. Lake was found in violation of parole conditions and remanded to State of Connecticut Parole Office custody.
Call Rich Scinto (203) 789-5748 Twitter: rscinto_nhr


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- 127 total posts
- 120 comments
- 7 questions
Questions from evesue
Going from expanders to implants and fat grafting. Is it possible to use a smaller implant and more fat?
When going from expanders to implants is it possible to use a smaller implant and more fat? to do this should I get a little over expanded as to not have my skin compress the... READ MORE
In viewing a lot pictures of diep flap procedures I am really confused. Why do they look so different from each other?
. .some people have circle scars around the areola ,,some have gigantic football looking grafts..some just look like they have had a reduction with one vertical scar.. does it... READ MORE
Can a flap reconstruction be done after tissue expansion is already underway?
I am having second thoughts about having silicone implants placed after reading about some of the horrible things happening to some of these wonderful ladies on this forum.... READ MORE
When the exchange is done to implants can that capsule be used to support the fat transferred grafting for mastectomy patient?
Since a capsule forms around tissue expanders.. when the exchange is done to implants can that capsule be used to support the fat transferred grafting and the implants be on... READ MORE
How does alloderm help reduce capsular occurrence ?
I have alloderm in place to form the pocket for my tissue expanders but i read doctors comments saying they use it additionally to reduce risk of capsular contracture when the... READ MORE
What sequence of reconstructive grafting should I pursue ?
I want to get rid of silicone implants I had placed after bilateral mastectomy..if I try to rebuild with fat grafting only I may be able to achieve a half size breast which... READ MORE
How is an areola grafted onto a reconstructed breast..where does the donor tissue come from?
How is an areola grafted onto a reconstructed breast..where does the donor tissue come from? and how does it get a blood supply to thrive? does the nipple get formed from this... READ MORE
Recent comments from evesue
My belly button was crusty for awhile too started putting hydrocortisone on it and vitamin e oil and it improved; ;will your doctor do a stage 2 scar cleanup surgery at a later date? im 12 weeks out and standing perfectly straight... READ COMMENT
His website says you cant have an armlift if u have had a mastectomy?? so now im confused? do you like your armlift? im debating asking him about one..was it outpatient also? can I ask what did it cost? READ COMMENT
So did he redo your pap scar on your second surgery as well as your diep scar? id love to see pictures can you pm me? ive had similar proceedure READ COMMENT
I took 5 weeks off work for my 4 stacked flap surgery but truthfully I could have gone back in 2and a half since I don't do any heavy lifting .. so I think you over estimate the recovery time for gap flaps alone.. READ COMMENT
I cant believe a breast surgeon would even work with a ps that does this kind of work..i had implants and hated them too,,very irritating..and they were put in correctly....get katy steligos guide to reconstruction book and find dr... READ COMMENT


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As promised, TSA is moving forward with the TSA Pre✓™ pilot, and what better way to kick off 2012 than with the addition of two more airports – Salt Lake City (SLC) and John F. Kennedy (JFK) – to the program.
There are a lot of moving pieces, so here's a quick look at next steps for the pilot in the coming months:
Early 2012
United Airlines and US Airways will begin offering the program to their eligible frequent flyers
Minneapolis and SLC will offer the program to pilot participants traveling on Delta
Los Angeles and JFK will also come on board for participants traveling on American
Stay tuned! US Airways and United recently began notifying their eligible frequent fliers, and TSA will announce more details on start dates and locations at new airports as soon as we have them. TSA also plans to build on the pilot's initial success and continue expanding the program to additional airlines and airports once they are operationally ready.
We've received positive feedback from the overwhelming majority of the nearly 200,000 passengers who have been screened through TSA Pre✓™ since the pilot rolled out. TSA continues to gather encouraging feedback from those who have experienced the program at the participating airports [Atlanta (ATL), Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), Detroit (DTW), Miami (MIA) and Las Vegas' McCarran (LAS) airports].
If you want to learn how to sign up for TSA Pre✓™, click here.
For those who might not be familiar with TSA Pre✓™, there's lots of info on our blog and on TSA.gov.
See our previous announcements for: LasVegas, LosAngeles, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Atlanta,Detroit, and Miami.
If you'd like to comment on an unrelated topic you can do so in our Off Topic Comments post. You can also view our blog post archives or search our blog to find a related topic to comment in. If you have a travel related issue or question that needs an immediate answer, you can contact a Customer Support Manager at the airport you traveled, or will be traveling through by using Talk to TSA.


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The Russian connection: See all our coverage | Read about our investigation
The woman who calls herself, among many other names, Wendy Cortez, is a former employee of the famous "Canal Street Madam" who has acknowledged that Louisiana Sen. David Vitter was a client at her establishment more than once in the 90s. Cortez outed Vitter yesterday, saying that she was "perturbed that he portrayed himself as a politician who would bring moral authority to his office when he was using her services on the side."
It turns out that Cortez is the same woman allegedly linked with Vitter when he ran for the Senate in 2004. At the time, Vitter said that the accusation was "absolutely and completely untrue," and part of "crass Louisiana politics." He continues to deny any association with Cortez, and his attorney continues to point out that Vitter was not part of the federal investigation that closed the New Orleans establishment in 2001, and that his name was never found in any records by either the lead defense attorney or the U.S. attorney during the investigation.
A former romantic partner of Cortez's has told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that he believes Vitter was not only a client of Cortez's, but that they also had a romantic involvement of some kind. He describes some photographs of the two of them together, one of which shows a woman with her hand on Vitter's crotch. However, Canal Street Madam Jeanette Maier says the woman in the photos is not the woman whom she knew as Wendy Cortez.
Cortez has no known arrests for prostitution, but she does have an arrest record for forgery, parole violation, fleeing from justice, and fraudulent use of credit cards.


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From MPR's Madeleine Baran:
In Ramsey County, the second day of the recount ended with 67 new ballot challenges, including 56 from Emmer's campaign and 11 from Dayton's.
Some had predicted a flurry of new challenges from Emmer's team, driven by Ramsey County Election Manager Joe Mansky's decision not to deem any challenges frivolous. Mansky said Monday that he will send every challenged ballot to the State Canvassing Board.
Instead, the number of ballot challenges was up only slightly over Monday's figures.
"Maybe the only unusual thing about today was how normal it was and how regular the process was," Mansky said, speaking after the recount ended Tuesday.
Monday's recount in Ramsey County yielded 48 ballot challenges from Emmer's team and 7 from Dayton's. Mansky attributed some of Tuesday's slight increase to an earlier start time. Ramsey County started at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, a half hour earlier than Monday, and was able to count about 1,000 more ballots as a result, he said.
He expects the county will finish its recount on Friday.


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Some of the Most Important Scientific Images in History
Images and photos can convey emotion, information, and even a good bit of inspiration at times. But a select group stand out above the rest, having a long lasting and extremely influential impact on humanity. Sit back and enjoy PBS Digital Studio's selection of important scientific images and photos from history in today's video.
Are there any particular images or photos that you feel have had a significant impact on scientific understanding and advancement? Make sure to share your thoughts (and favorites) in the comments!
The Most Important Science Images Ever | It's Okay To Be Smart | PBS Digital Studios [YouTube]


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Quilting! and pampering my poor ole' hubby who is feeling neglected.
Welcome to the Quilting Board!
Quilting! and pampering my poor ole' hubby who is feeling neglected.
A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever
I have a long list of things I should be doing instead of reading the board - maybe I'l do some of them tonight - maybe not.
Nothing yet. I'm just sitting here drinking my morning coffee. Soon I have to get ready to take my son to a Dr appt.
uh oh, I'm at work and I guess I should get off this board.!
I "should" be thinking on what to make hubby and I for dinner. lol, I'm sure we'll figure something out! It's only the two of us so thank goodness the days of large dinners are long gone
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
-Oscar Wilde
The dishes...and some laundry are waiting for me to do. But they can wait...just got done with dinner and a long day at work...a bit of relaxing at the computer to de-stress is more important!


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1980 Honda cx500 carb adjustment ? Hello everyone I figured someone would know, My right carb seems to be running rich, my left carb smells fine well i am going by how it smells out the back end... lol, should I adjust the air mixture on the right or bottom both out and take em out 2 turns each any help would be awesome...
1980 Honda cx500
1981 GL500 , UK MODEL,needing a bit of tender loving care
1982 GL500 , UK MODEL,my daily ride.
Andalucia,in the south of spain
aka spanish bandit
Be careful when sniffing exhaust and trying to diagnose carb issues. Besides the obvious issues of sniffing exhaust, the stock H-box is not just a box as it has internal cross-overs to redirect flow. For example, your right cylinder can be rich, and the left muffler outlet is the one that may smell more like it. A better way of determining rich vs lean is to pull and view spark plugs.
In the stable...
'81 GL500 Interstate
'82 GL500 Interstate
'82 CX500 Custom
'82 GL1100 Interstate
'07 1100 Vstar Classic
'99 Valkyrie Interstate
Past rides... '76 CB200T, '79 CX500, '81 Yam XS1100s, '81 GL500i (x 2), '84 V45 Sabre (x2), '85 V65 Sabre, '85 V30 Magna, '80 FL Shovelhead, '82 GL1100a, '84 GL1200i (x2).
Cool thanks guys did not think of that, will do. I will take pics this morning & post. When its cold i see more gas fumes out of right side exhaust then left when warn none just the smells rich. i know i need to rebuild carbs but that won't happen till a few weeks from now. she idles ok, rides fine 3.8 gallons of fuel burned got me 135 miles. think i could be doing better. thanks will post pics in a little while.
1980 Honda cx500
Ok Guys here is the pic of the plugs you asked for. Any ideas they look the same to me.
1980 Honda cx500
Having just taken my carbs apart & cleaning the idle jets, replacing the throttle cables... She runs much smoother! I ran the mixture screws out 1 5/8 turns each & all seems good. Before I tackled the carbs she idled & ran ok... I was getting 46 mpg over the last 3,100 miles. So your 35mpg seems low. Very easy job!
Good Luck
1980 CX500D-W/Vetter Windjamer III Fairing
1978 CX500-In process


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PB: Do you still speak polish?
Monica: I do, badly, but I do.
Vlad: I was born in Prague and I am Czech and still speak Czech to this day with my parents. So we are pretty much neighbors!
Monica: Yes we are! I could tell you have an Eastern European look.
PB: One of the things that many people wanted to know on our Botkier forum; Bot-key-é?
Monica: You can say either way. Bot-key-é or Bot-key-er
PB: Of course. So one of the things that many people wanted to know on our forum was why Target? Why did you go into that?
Monica: It is a great question. At this point I am seeing that the best of the best of young designers are being asked to do these projects. It is quite a challenge. It is not about taking one of my hits and re-doing it in cheaper leather, for me I took it real seriously. I took it on as an artistic project. I was really flattered because so many big designers are doing something similar; Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney doing for H&M.
PB: Why not take the path of Marc Jacobs, similar to how we created Marc by Marc?
Monica: Because I feel like the niche that we are in is just the right niche. We are a designer brand that is very approachable. Everything is like a designer brand. We do custom hardware, designs, leathers, ad campaigns. But you are not paying the thousand-dollar price point. We are really around the $595 to $695 range. I really like the place that we are. With the shoes we are trying to create the same thing. It is not a Louboutin but it is a thong for $225 but it is hand crafted in Italy, same designer approach.
PB: There was a question about your manufacturing locations. First you started off crafting your bags in the US and then moved to Indonesia. Would you ever consider doing a small premium price collection to be based out of New York again?
Monica: Well let me tell you that the quality is superb. We work with a Korean based factory that works with some of the biggest names in the industry. They have 30 years experience. The owner treats everyone like family. The attention that we get, the quality, the on time delivery, well it was not happening in New York. In New York the ability to customize the hardware was lagging along with the quality. I feel very comfortable with what we are doing. I would love to, for more patriotic reasons, to keep this in my hometown. But it just was not working. I want people to feel comfortable because these factories have major experience. It is a real relationship; we see them 2-3 times per season, they come here, we go there. I think the customers are getting better quality.
PB: Are there any particular designers that you admire or take inspiration from?
Monica: Probably my favorite designer label right now is Miu Miu and it has been for a while. I love what they do.
PB: I find myself drawn to Miu Miu more than Prada lately.
Monica: It is very special line and has a very strong direction. It is edgy and feminine at the same time.


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Babysitting, bullying, regularly moving home and hunger are some of the reasons Northland secondary students are the worst in the country for skipping school.
And the region's principals warn the situation will not get any better unless more resources are provided to check on truant students.
The absence rate in Northland schools last year was 13.1 per cent - the national average is 10.2 per cent.
Kaipara schools recorded the highest truancy rate in the country at 16.5 per cent, an increase of 5.6 per cent from 2010. Far North schools registered 14 per cent and Whangarei 11.6 per cent.
More than 20 per cent of Northland pupils missed school at least one day a week, according to an attendance survey based on Term 2 of last year.
Northland Secondary School Principals Association president Anne Cooper said there were several reasons for Northland's truancy rate, with high transience the main factor.
Truancy was only a symptom that involved a lot of underlying factors, such as financially struggling families and the large geographic areas that some schools covered, she said.
Ms Cooper said most, if not all, schools neither had the resources nor the funding to chase truant students on a daily basis.
"There's quite a degree of variability because Northland is a huge geographic region and transience is [one] of the things we struggle with.
"In some struggling families, older children need to look after younger ones so there's a whole range of factors from learning difficulties to home circumstances and, sometimes in secondary schools, it's very hard to change those circumstances," the Whangarei Girls' High School principal said.
Kaitaia College principal William Tailby said truancy had been a major problem among a significant group of students in his school.
"It's an issue the school and my board has been battling with and last year we were concerned about truancy in a number of senior students."
He said the reasons for skipping school varied but his school employed all the mechanisms available with limited resources to get students to their classrooms.
Those included sending attendance officers to the homes of truants and texting and calling their families.
Te Ora Hou manager Lou Davis oversees the School Attendance Services (SAS) division at The Pulse.
There could be many reasons for students' absence from school such as incorrect uniforms, lack of lunch, bullying to, from and/or at school, poverty, and having to look after family members at home.
An initiative known as Slam Bunk was launched in Whangarei in mid-2009 to help families of hard-core truants get their kids back in school.
The initiative involving police, the Ministry of Education and Child Youth and Family, is aimed at tackling serial truancy, with the final step being court action.
Under the Education Act, students who are absent for more than 20 days can be automatically removed from the school roll. The lowest non-school attendance was Tasman, at 7.3 per cent.


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Author tweets, June 1
Writers' Tweets
Published 5:26 pm, Friday, May 30, 2014
Maybe this will be the summer I finally have a poignant coming of age experience.
author of "Middle Men: Stories"
A theoretically bad smell that I actually like is distant cigarette smoke on a dry spring day.
author of the novel "O, Democracy"
America and its gun laws are like watching a dear friend do drugs, insisting they can handle it. Nobody knows what to say or do any longer.
Aminatta Forna
author of the novel "The Hired Man"
I feel as though I have been in this Starbucks forever, but there are people here who predate my occupancy.
Latest entertainment videos
author of "Thunderstruck and Other Stories"


text: Red Giant Trapcode Tao v1.0 For After Effects | 474 MB Create beautiful complex motion graphics with animated extrusions, spheres and N-gons. Tao quickly generates procedural 3D geometries using built-in auto paths, mask shapes, and the motion from After Effects 3D lights. Tao uses After Effects 3D cameras and lights, so you can fully integrate your Tao geometries and paths with your motion graphics and VFX shots. ANIMATE Powerful offset tools make it easy to animate your extruded paths and geometries. REPEAT Create intricate, complex geometric designs using 2 sets of repeaters. LOOPING Loop animations for motion graphics and backgrounds with Trapcode Tao's powerful offset and looping system LIGHTING Illuminate your motion graphics with After Effects lights, specialized Tao Lumi lights, or Image Based Lighting for fast and realistic renders. MATERIALS AND TEXTURES Create photoreal motion graphics with textures and included reflection/environment maps. Tao includes 14 HDRI maps for use in your work. TAPER Taper your paths and geometries and then animate their growth, for organic looking motion designs. Requires AE CS6-CC 2015 Code: http://www.nitroflare.com/view/FDD31C8C11C3069/Tpc0deTAO1.rar