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Emerging Elitism
There's something off kilter about the cover of the brochure for the elite private academy known as the American Heritage School, and at first it's hard to pinpoint what the problem is, exactly.
The cover design is plain to a fault -- just a simple, oblique-view photograph of the front of the main campus administration building on a sunny day, with a black bar running across the top of the page and the name of the school spelled out in gold. Overall, it's nothing flashy, nothing head-turning, unless your head is easily turned by neoclassical stodginess.
Then it hits you -- it's that tree. That tree in the foreground. That tree is strangely... leafless.
Also frondless. That's no palm tree, nor is it a melaleuca or an Australian pine or any other kind of tree that would offer a clue to the school's location in the heart of South Florida. What that is, is an oak tree. Suddenly you realize that, other than the sunshine, nothing in the photograph seems to have anything to do with South Florida.
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A half-day tour of the actual campus (conducted in a nifty electric golf cart driven by school founder and president Bill Laurie) strengthens one's sense of geographic dislocation. Not only are there no palm trees visible in the heart of this 35-acre campus, there are no Day-Glo colors, no Art Deco flourishes, no buildings constructed in the style of Mediterranean villas -- in short, nothing that would give a visitor any impression of actually being in Broward County.
It's not as if the school couldn't afford to dress itself up and put on some South Florida style. With 1800 students from kindergarten through 12th grade paying an average annual tuition of $8700 each, it's making money. Laurie has spent an estimated $10 million in the past five years on new construction for the private school, and he's not done yet. (Next up: a performing arts center that will seat 800 people, which is more than even Parker Playhouse can hold.)
And while Laurie likes to boast that he lets parents work off their bills by serving as teachers' aides, you can bet you won't find American Heritage parents like Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne or state Democratic Party chief Mitch Caesar clapping erasers for discounts. Anyway, the budget is based on an expectation that at least 90 percent of students will bring in the full retail tuition rate.
So if Bill Laurie wanted palm trees, he could afford them. Instead, he's constructed his campus in a dry, spinsterish Colonial style that one imagines would make Sam Adams feel right at home. The administration building (the one featured on the brochure cover), for instance, sports a 15-foot-deep portico the outer facing of which consists of a huge wooden triangle supported by four commanding white Greek Corinthian columns. The windows are set off by old-fashioned square wooden shutters. The construction materials are red brick and white-painted wood.
Seeing this Williamsburg museum gift shop of a building basking in the Florida sunshine provokes the sort of cognitive dissonance you'd imagine by hearing Jimmy Buffett play at a Harvard convocation. But then when you learn of the school's history of financial dealings, nasty feuds, and political intrigue, you feel better. There's a little South Florida in the place after all.
To hear Bill Laurie tell it, there's a simple reason his school buildings are built this way. "I really like brick," he says. No surprise there; he also likes solid yet outmoded blue blazers with shiny gold buttons and old-fashioned rimless glasses with lenses tinted a strange, archaic yellow.
"That classical image -- like a New England campus, like Harvard -- that's his style," says Paul Tavilla, Laurie's former business partner and the parent of two children currently attending the school.
But of course there's more to the choice of building materials than simple preference. "All the Colonial architecture is meant to convey a sense of tradition, conservatism," says former student Catherine Bachman. "It also tells you that this is a serious place."
The place certainly seems serious enough. "They have drug dogs come in while you're sitting in class and come down each row sniffing your backpack," says Ericka Krupka, a 14-year-old ninth grader. "If there are troublemakers, they get rid of them."
Non-troublemakers are issued photo identification cards ("to be carried at all times, to be presented upon demand," warns the student/parent handbook) and required to adhere to a strict dress code. Shirts must be "regulation cotton-knit (red, black, or white with Heritage logo)". Socks must also be "red, white, or black" (no logo required). Hats are out. As for trousers, "the 'baggy' look is not in keeping with our traditional, conservative look."
The dress code is a visual reflection of a philosophical approach that disdains fads in favor of tried-and-true methods, says upper-school Principal Patricia A. Butts, who has been Laurie's partner at the school since 1982. At American Heritage, children are taught to read phonetically, not ebonically. Grades are based on the traditional letter scale that skips directly from D to F. There is no "E" for effort on the report card.
But while "conservative" may be the academic watchword at American Heritage, as an adjective it fails to do justice to the frantic ambition with which Laurie has turned a series of scattered storefront classrooms into the largest and fastest-growing private school in Broward County. Considering the school has had near brushes with bankruptcy, clashes with the IRS, and nasty feuds with various neighbors and city officials, a better word to describe Laurie's business style might well be radical.
Another might be controlling. No question this school has been Laurie's baby since the beginning. Originally a series of after-school programs, the school went full-time in 1971 when Laurie quit his job with the Broward School District in a fit of revulsion over the district's decision to embrace the "open school" concept, a faddish notion holding that walls between classrooms were bad things.
Recalls Laurie, then a principal at North Side Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale: "The system was already overcrowded, and the idea that you could accomplish anything by putting 800 students into a building with no interior partitions was just ludicrous."
With an initial stake of $10,000 of his personal savings, Laurie bought the old Bethany Presbyterian Church building on Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale and threw out the hippies who'd been squatting in it. The venture was an immediate success, as parents who were equally repulsed by "open schools" pulled their kids out of public education to follow him. The first year the school started with 65 students; the second with 350; the third with 500. In the fall of 1973, Laurie opened a second campus in Hollywood and, a year after that, another in Wilton Manors.
Laurie reveled in his newfound administrative freedom. Florida law barely touches private education beyond requiring that private schools register with the state. The real regulatory bodies are accrediting associations that a school may join or not as it chooses. (American Heritage is accredited by the respected Association of Independent Schools of Florida and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.)
Freed from public school bureaucracy, Laurie lost no time in instilling the school with his own educational tastes and preferences. Touting a policy of "complete acceptance," he instituted a no-cut policy for sports teams and eliminated auditions as admissions criteria for fine arts classes. He also began the process of building what is today the only private fine arts program in the state to regularly compete in and win state-sponsored theater and band competitions.
In 1973 the school bought what would become its most meaningful piece of real estate: a single acre of pasture on the corner of West Broward Boulevard and Flamingo Road in the far western reaches of Broward County. Why Plantation? Simple demographics. "I read the studies, and it seemed to me that development was going to center on this location," Laurie recalls.
At first the bet worked out well, with the school benefiting from the westward expansion of middle-to-upper-class suburbs. As families poured into western Broward County, new cities such as Weston, Sunrise, and Coral Springs sprang up, as did thoroughfares such as the Sawgrass Expressway and Interstate 595.
Then and now, the most serious competition for students comes from Pine Crest School in northeast Fort Lauderdale. Pine Crest, founded in 1935, is generally acknowledged as the best private secondary school in South Florida. "Pine Crest is highly competitive, with lots of structure and lots of pressure," says Martha Moses, an educational consultant based in Miami. "They don't want failure, they want to place a lot of kids in the Ivies."
Pine Crest has a built-in advantage over American Heritage in that it is organized as a nonprofit corporation, which means parents and graduates receive significant tax advantages when they donate to the school. American Heritage by contrast was then and is now a private, for-profit corporation. Although this cuts down on resources, it leaves Bill Laurie firmly in control. "I've never wanted to answer to a board," he says. "I'd rather have the freedom to make my own decisions and make sure things get done quickly." As for profit: He says he has always sunk any surplus back into the school.
Despite competitive disadvantages, enrollment kept climbing steadily throughout the '70s and '80s as Laurie added classrooms to accommodate the growth. However, the luck was not to last.
In the late '80s, the school found itself unable to make payments on its debt, which at the time consisted mainly of two mortgages that together totaled more than $10 million. Parents got their first inkling of a problem when Laurie approached them with what he called "an opportunity," meaning a chance to invest in the school. He told them straight that the school was in trouble, but he also said that he wasn't seeking handouts; instead, he was marketing investment vehicles in the form of high-interest notes.
Paul Tavilla recalls this gambit as "an act of desperation. [Laurie] was offering crazy interest rates -- 19, 20 percent -- to try to be competitive, and he was just giving away the store, just digging his hole deeper and deeper." Eventually the school wound up with about 80 high-interest bondholders and an unpaid tax liability that by late 1990 had risen to a level of nearly a quarter of a million dollars. (The tax liability was eventually paid off after years of making negotiated payments.)
Worse, the school was losing students. In the space of a single year, from the 1989-90 to the 1990-91 school year, enrollment dropped from 756 to 628, a wounding 17 percent decline. Laurie attributes the decline in students to a combination of economic problems and the loss of scholarship money. To compensate, Laurie was forced to begin laying off teachers and aides.
The school was saved by Tavilla, who put up $5.8 million of his own money to buy the school's two mortgages. To protect his investment, he set up an office on school grounds and moved in. His first endeavor: to improve the school's marketing.
"They really didn't know much about the most rudimentary aspects of marketing," he says. "They had these old swing sets that looked kind of rundown, which nobody had really paid much attention to. Well, you couldn't bring parents in to show them the school with those things sitting there." Under Tavilla's direction the swing sets were ripped out and replaced with a colorful play area where parents could leave their toddlers while touring the school.
By 1995 enrollment was again climbing, and the school was able to secure a new mortgage to pay off Tavilla and the other bondholders. "I never really thought he'd be able to pull it off," Tavilla now says. "But the man is like a pit bull; once he gets something in his teeth, he just doesn't let go."
Back from the brink of destruction, Laurie didn't waste any time getting into trouble again. The new mortgage was for $15 million, enough not only to pay off Tavilla but also to allow Laurie to tackle the next phase of his plan to turn American Heritage into the Choate of South Florida.
Beginning in 1995, new buildings and facilities began popping up on campus like mushrooms. The school added a science building, a field house, a clock tower, and various classrooms while adding more than 1000 students. No other member of the Association of Independent Schools of Florida has come close to achieving such a furious rate of growth over the same period, say local educational consultants.
Laurie is touchy about the subject. He doesn't want to come off as some kind of megalomaniac empire-builder. "It's not been growth just for growth's sake," he insists, slipping into salesman mode. "But to offer a facility that provides the best-quality education that we possibly can provide for our students."
But the school's growth hasn't come without cost to the surrounding neighborhood. When Henry Latimer built his house 19 years ago just south of a large wooded lot owned by the school, he was looking for "space and foliage," he says. "Bill Laurie told me that lot would never be developed," recalls Latimer, now the managing partner for Eckert Seamans Cherin & Millott.
Then one morning in the spring of 1994, Latimer awoke to the sight and sound of graders growling and scraping on the lot that abuts his property to the north. He wasn't the only alarmed resident. The whole neighborhood could hear the construction, and someone apparently decided to drop a dime.
On July 21, Plantation Acres Improvement District (PAID) engineer Ray Chester issued a stop-work order after an inspection revealed "large amounts of fill material being dumped on school property without proper permitting... Proposed construction and improvements appear to be under way also without any approved plans or knowledge of this district."
Ten days later Chester returned in response to another complaint and discovered that the grading had started up again. "Stop order being violated," he scrawled in the margin of his field report, followed by his signature and the date "8-1-94."
But that wasn't the only violation Chester found -- or even the most serious one. Since the mid-'70s, American Heritage had owned and operated a fleet of buses that it had parked and maintained on a gravel parking lot just north of a canal called the C-1 that bisected the school property parallel to West Broward Boulevard. Taking a look at this bus-maintenance facility, Chester cited Laurie "for having installed discharge pipe from fuel containment area into the C-1 canal. This pipe was ordered to be removed immediately." The C-1 canal, according to PAID district engineer David Fradley, is "one of the major canals in our district, and it runs right through their campus."
This citation caught the attention of Plantation Building and Zoning Director M.A. (Manny) MacLain. MacLain was surprised to learn that bus maintenance was going on at all on school property. Several years before, he'd warned Laurie not to try to operate a bus garage without city approval, and Laurie had assured him that all they were doing was parking the buses and perhaps doing the occasional minor repair.
Now it turned out that what the school considered a minor repair apparently included "putting in a new engine," recalls former councilman Ralph D. Merritt III, who has received "numerous" complaints over the years from neighbors of the school.
So MacLain got tough, demanding documentation of ownership of the buses, a written description of their intended uses, and proof that Laurie had gotten approval from the city utilities and fire departments. In vain. "The Applicant never provided the information...," he wrote in a memo to the city council.
MacLain says he took seriously the existence of an unauthorized bus-maintenance garage complete with a diesel-fuel storage tank operating on the grounds of a school. "This could have been a very dangerous situation," he recalls.
At the time, he wrote to the council, "Because of the Fire Department's concern over the fuel storage tank, the containment area not sealed, the drain [having] no shut-off valve and draining into the canal, [the existence of] a hole in the drain and lack of fire extinguishers, I could not allow any further procrastination."
On March 14 of that year, the Plantation code-enforcement board voted to fine the school a total of $1250 a day, or $250 a day for each of five violations relating to the building of the running track and the operation of the bus-maintenance facility. It was a hard-knuckle ploy to force the school to find some other place to park the buses or at least some other place to maintain them.
And it was a ploy the school fought. Laurie tried to argue that he'd been parking the buses on school property since 1975 -- before the city of Plantation had even been incorporated -- and he felt he'd already gotten all the approval he needed to continue doing so.
On the other hand, those fines were piling up daily, and MacLain had found yet another way to apply pressure. According to the South Florida Building Code, a company that's not in compliance with codes isn't supposed to get any further construction permits until it fixes the problem, but Laurie still had ambitious plans for the school.
Meanwhile back on campus, the school was gearing up to start the year as usual. Students were stocking up on shirts with Heritage logos; kids with weird hairdos were getting haircuts; teachers were planning classes. And on August 29, the school made a hiring decision, one that city activist Nick Perris likes to call "judicious." It hired city council president Rae Carole Armstrong to teach geometry.
Today Armstrong is the odds-on favorite to replace long-time mayor Frank Veltri in next March's elections. Back then she'd been serving on the city council for 11 years, occupying a seat that for the eight years previous to her election had belonged to her husband, Tom.
She still works at American Heritage (though she says she'll quit her school job this winter to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest). But that's not due to fantastic teaching skills. "She'd come in and lecture and it was very... um, it wasn't an exciting class. It was 'just get the job done,'" recalls former student Bachman. "She wasn't one of my favorites."
Says Dorre White, former vice president of the parent-teacher organization with two children attending the school: "I only knew she was not effective as a teacher. She spent one year teaching math and that was it. They took her out of there."
Armstrong was bumped over to the admissions office, where the ability to draw on a 20-year network of political connections counts more than performance in front of a class. For the record Armstrong denies she was an ineffective teacher and says her subsequent transfer to the school's admissions department was simply a matter of moving to a better job. And Laurie says the notion that Armstrong's initial hiring had any connection to construction-related issues is absurd. "Look, I didn't have anything to do with her hiring," he says. "Personally I'd rather have her on the council voting than working for the school and abstaining."
It's true that, once her contract with the school was signed, Armstrong took meticulous care to abstain from voting on school-related issues. But at the very least, she skirted the edges of accepted ethical guidelines.
"No county, municipal, or other local public officer shall vote in an official capacity upon any measure... [that] he or she knows would inure to the special private gain or loss of any principal by whom the officer is retained.... Such public officer shall, prior to the vote being taken, publicly state to the assembly the nature of the officer's interest in the matter from which he or she is abstaining from voting and, within 15 days after the vote occurs, disclose the nature of his or her interest as a public record...," says Chapter 112 of the Florida Code of Ethics For Public Officers and Employees.
Back up to August 17, 1994, or 12 days before Armstrong signed her teaching contract with American Heritage. At that night's city council meeting, heavyweight Plantation developer Emerson Allsworth (whose grandkids attend American Heritage) stood up and asked the council to approve the school's plans to remodel its computer-science classrooms. Manny MacLain was on record opposing the request. He was still concerned about continuing violations regarding the diesel tanks and the buses.
Armstrong joined with three other council members to override MacLain and issue the permit. Although the minutes indicate she made a pro forma declaration of having discussed the issue of zoning compliance with Laurie, she didn't say anything about getting a teaching job with the school.
When questioned about the matter, Armstrong at first said she'd applied for the job in "mid-August" of that year. Reminded of the August 17 vote, she says she must have sent in her application in "late August."
Meanwhile something strange happened to the accruing fines the school was facing that year. They were neither confirmed nor overturned by the council but instead quietly forgotten. Minutes of the monthly code-enforcement board meetings indicate the fines were continued from meeting to meeting until they simply disappeared from the agenda in January 1995.
That's not the usual procedure, says councilman Merritt, who says he was unaware the fines hadn't been paid at some point. "Without a formal vote to forgive those fines, they're still there, as far as I'm concerned," he says.
At a rate of $1250 a day, the fines should be just about $2.15 million by the time this issue of New Times hits the streets. Meanwhile many of the same things that had so annoyed the school's neighbors in 1995 are still annoying them in 1998. The buses are still parked on the property, the running track was completed and is now in use, there's still a diesel fuel storage tank on school grounds, and the school has gone right ahead with its other construction plans.
"I don't understand how they could just flout all those rules and laws and then end up not even having to pay a fine," says Cheryl Szary, who lives across the street from the school. Since it began expanding in the mid-'90s, Szary says she's had to deal not only with all the usual problems that go with living near a school -- traffic backing up at the beginning and end of every school day, kids taking shortcuts across back yards, lights and noise from sports games and other school functions -- but also all the usual problems that go with living near a construction site.
In 1995 Szary organized a petition drive opposing the school's continued expansion. Signed by 70 percent of the families living in the neighborhood south of the school, the petition stated: "We the undersigned believe that any more expansion to American Heritage School will be detrimental to our property values and lifestyle. We strongly oppose any more expansions to American Heritage School."
However, Szary has never been able to persuade a majority of the city council to agree with her. "They think it's so great, to have this private school here in Plantation. Everybody's so happy about it, and they don't see it for what it is -- a commercial venture that's trying to take over a residential neighborhood," she says.
Szary is convinced that her real nemesis is Rae Carole Armstrong. Armstrong, she says, has served as a quiet, behind-the-scenes influence to help smooth the school's relations with city officials. Hogwash, responds Armstrong. "I feel strongly about education in this city," she says. "And American Heritage is a wonderful school."
American Heritage isn't the only school that's been trying to expand, however. In 1993 Armstrong was one of the most forceful voices arguing against another growing school's request to create more classroom space. That school was South Plantation High School, where 2800 students -- 1000 more than American Heritage has -- are squeezed onto the same-sized campus.
South Plantation High is where Szary's daughter Nicole goes to school, and Nicole has seen firsthand how much more crowded the school has gotten over the past several years. "You walk down the stairs, and it's like you get shoved from side to side," she says.
In 1993 South Plantation High School approached Plantation city officials with its own proposal for expansion. That year the school had found itself in serious need of additional space for its student population, which had reached 1730 and was rapidly climbing. So district officials proposed swapping a five-acre, city-owned vacant lot across the street from the school for district-owned land elsewhere in the city.
"We presented the city with several options for working a deal," recalls Charles Fink, school property and real estate manager. "There was a proposal to just outright buy the land, and there was a proposal for some kind of land swap."
Although the proposal faced loud opposition from neighbors who didn't want to give up any green space, some who were on the council at the time recall trying to figure out a way to work a compromise. "I helped form a committee of community members to see what could be worked out," recalls Ralph D. Merritt III, the former council member who is now considering taking on Armstrong in the mayoral race.
After a series of meetings and letter exchanges that went on for nearly four years, the city council killed the deal, largely because of Armstrong's "vehement" opposition to providing any city land to the county high school, says Merritt.
Armstrong denies any parallel between her support of American Heritage's expansion and her opposition to South Plantation's expansion. In the South Plantation case, "this was city land," she says. "This land was designated as parkland."
Despite that designation, the parcel, Armstrong acknowledges, was never anything more than an empty lot. Today, five years later, Merritt says, "It's still a dump."
Asked about the differences between the public school system and American Heritage, Laurie puts on a sideways grin and says in his characteristic drawl, "Ninety-seven days."
He's talking about how long it took him to build a clock tower on the corner of Flamingo and Broward this past summer, not to mention a state-of-the-art science building right next to it. "We had to have it done by the time the semester started," he says.
As a former public school principal, he knows there'd be no way to accomplish that in a county school. (For the purpose of comparison, a Broward School District task force announced last May that the infrastructure of Dillard High School was falling apart, and it's still holding meetings to decide what to do about it.)
There are other telling differences between public and private schools. High-school classes at American Heritage contain no more than 16 students, and often far fewer. Catherine Bachman, who was co-valedictorian last year, recalls a meeting with advisors at the beginning of her senior year, in which they asked her what courses she wanted to take that year. When she came up with a couple ideas for courses the school had never offered, administrators went ahead and created them -- custom-designed them just for her and a couple other top students who also expressed interest. In one of her classes, an upper-level Spanish course, she was the only student in the class.
How many students at public high schools get a one-to-one student-teacher ratio? None at South Plantation High, where the combined 1997 SAT scores averaged 40 points lower than at American Heritage.
But then it's superstar students like Catherine Bachman who hold the key to success for ambitious private schools like American Heritage. Without a reputation for placing graduates in top colleges, a school that charges nine grand a student is going to have a hard time filling its classrooms. With Bachman's grades and accomplishments, she had a shot at getting into a top Ivy League university and in fact was accepted at Cornell University, the only one to which she applied. (Eventually she opted to take a scholarship package put together by the University of Miami.)
Parents do pay attention. Last year Katrina Zalewsky, a doctor with two children at American Heritage, tried to convince her daughter, Magdalene, to leave there and go to Pine Crest instead. Why? "I talked to a recruiter from Harvard," Zalewsky says, "And she had not heard of American Heritage School."
Although the curriculum is designed for college placement -- offering advanced placement courses in English, French, Spanish, calculus, American history, economics, government, biology, chemistry, and physics -- compared to Pine Crest, "they've got a ways to go," says Moses, the educational consultant. American Heritage parent Dorre White says the quality of the hard-sciences curriculum especially could stand some improvement. "Their fine arts and drama departments are topnotch, but they could stand to work on their academics."
Magdalene Zalewsky is, in fact, another Catherine Bachman in the making -- that is to say, another student whom any private school would want on its campus. Just 14 years old, she speaks three languages (English, Polish, and German), plays basketball, and has an air of calm maturity that belies her years. (In the end, she decided to stay at American Heritage to stay with her friends.)
Of course the big losers in the competition for top students like Zalewsky and Bachman are the public schools, which miss out on the positive influences such serious and mature students can bring. In Bachman's junior year at American Heritage, "I took a psychology course at Broward Community College, and I was amazed! People in the class could not write!"
Although 14-year-old sophomore Nicole Szary lives two doors down from Magdalene Zalewsky and across the street from the American Heritage campus, Nicole has never gone to that school. Has she ever thought about applying to American Heritage? With a small shrug, she replies, "No, it's not really my style." For one thing she likes her Tommy Hilfiger jeans too much. They'd be banned at American Heritage. "I'm happy where I'm at."
It's just as well. "I can't afford American Heritage," says her mother. Her husband, Walter, is nearing retirement after a 20-year career as a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, and Cheryl works full-time as a telephone solicitor to help make ends meet. Now she faces the prospect of having her house face the rear of an 800-seat performing arts center. In the meantime continued opposition against such a powerful foe has taken a toll on Cheryl Szary. "I just want [Laurie] to buy our house, and we'll leave. He can have it. I've told him that," she says.
Bill Laurie says he has no interest in buying Cheryl Szary's house. It's on the wrong side of the street.
Szary lives on the south side of SW Second Street, a dead-end road just south of campus. Laurie says he'd eventually like to buy up the whole north side of the street, and if you look at a zoning map, it's not hard to see why. That line of plats marks the only blemish in what would otherwise be a perfectly square piece of property owned by the school and extending from the street to the C-1 canal.
He's already bought one of those houses, and the circumstances of the purchase says something about the way he operates. Last May, while the city council was pondering a school request for a permit to construct a performing arts center the back side of which would face SW Second Street, the council received a letter from one Larry Miller.
The letter praised Laurie for having been "very cooperative" in working out Miller's concerns about the construction of the performing arts center. "Mr. Bill Laurie and I have been working together to successfully buffer my property from the school," Miller wrote. "I believe that the approval of the conceptual master site plan would not be detrimental to the area."
The letter reflected a 180-degree change in attitude for Miller. A year earlier, at a March 5, 1997, city council meeting, Miller had opposed any further expansion of the school, complaining that foliage the school had planted as a buffer "does not reduce the noise."
What Miller's 1998 letter to the council failed to mention was that Miller and Laurie at the time were also working together to successfully sell Miller's house to the school. The sale of the house was closed on May 18, shortly after which Laurie moved in. So now Laurie lives across the street from Szary, who, when the center is built, will presumably be able to look out her front door and see its rear wall looming over the neighborhood.
Driving around the property in his golf cart, Bill Laurie is proudly pointing out how he turned an empty lot into a beautifully landscaped running track. From the north come the sounds of workmen milling about the $3 million field house, which will hold a state-of-the-art gymnasium and coaches' offices. They're just laying the interior tile. To the east is the now-empty lot where the performing arts center will stand.
The conversation turns to the future. Is there anything he can think of that this campus needs but doesn't have? Is there anything yet to build? Laurie sits silently for a while, then his answer comes: "No, I can't really think of a thing. With the performing arts center, we'll have about everything we need."
And with the science building, the clock tower, the performing arts center, the running track, the field house, and the myriad new classrooms, the campus has pretty much filled up anyway. If he wanted to build anything else, he'd have to find a new campus.
This summer Laurie and a partner formed a new corporation based in Miramar. He seems surprised when asked about it. "Oh that," he says. It turns out that he's been thinking about creating another elementary school to serve as a supplement or eventual replacement for the elementary school currently on the Plantation campus. "I think eventually we could have several campuses," he says. None of them, of course, would have palm trees.
Contact Paul Belden at his e-mail address: email@example.com
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Topic: EFT Going For It !
Emotional Freedom Technique Study..... I will be starting Next Monday. I will continue all other treatments I'm currently doing, but will be doing EFT with a Practitioner weekly and be doing my home work during the week, like a good litttle student. I will be working on about a hundred twenty seven of emotional issuses that popped into my head, since from about age 5 up. My intention is to collaspe all these issues to free up and unblock energy that is being held hostage by these past emotions. In turn, allowing me to channel and balance the flow of more energy to improve my physical and mental health. I will be blogging/sharing at least weekly of my experiences if not more,right here on the site. As I blog, if any one has a question, wonders, or doubts, feel free to post your thoughts. EFT is a modern version of ancient techniques to include accupuncture, but with out the the needles. If I had not already experienced a few positive results and actually see Dr. OZ on the Oprah Show, explaining the benefits of ancient techniques and how it plays a role in our health,I probally would have stayed in the privacy of my own home. However, I have volunteered to participate in this free study with a completely open mind, with the hope of many positive outcomes.
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Jeff G.

subset: commoncrawl


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75 1/2" x 75 1/2"
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A kit for this quilt is available from Kindred Quilts, 21 E. Main Street, Clinton, NJ 08809; (908) 730-8896; firstname.lastname@example.com; www.kindredquilts.com. To order, send $119.95 plus $10.95 shipping (NJ residents add 6% sales tax). Kit includes fabrics for quilt top and binding.
Find Quiltsmart® products at your local quilt shop or online at www.quiltsmart.com, or call toll-free: 888-277-4501. The interfacing pack for the featured quilt is $34.95 plus shipping.
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Posted 5 years ago
(393 items)
Pictured above is the Westclox S5 or Bachelor. Westclox produced this clock In three colors, Black, Ivory, and Brown. Of the three the black one is the rarest, then the Ivory.
These two are in remarkable good shape for their age, the Ivory one does have a crack in the upper right hand of the lense. but other than that they are fine. They both run, and make noise when the alarm goes off. I prefer the Ivory over the black one, it just looks classier to me.
Both are 4.75 high, 6 wide, and 1.50 in depth.
I have had the black one for almost a year and recently aquired the Ivory one.
Westclox re-issued the Bachelor model in 1947 in blue and red.


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Addressing Psychosocial Needs and HIV Risk in Indian MSM
- Full Text View
- Tabular View
- Study Results
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
|HIV/STI Risk HIV/STI Incidence
|Behavioral: Behavioral intervention
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single (Outcomes Assessor)
Primary Purpose: Prevention
|Official Title:
|Addressing Psychosocial Needs and HIV Risk in Indian MSM
- Changes in HIV Risk Taking Behavior - Number of Condomless Sex Acts Per Participant [ Time Frame: up to 6 months ]We will examine sexual risk taking among the sample using self-report (interviewer administered) measures.
- Acquisition of STIs - Number of Participants That Acquired STIs [ Time Frame: 6 months ]We will test for locally relevant STIs at baseline and 6 months.
- Changes in Psychosocial Mediators [ Time Frame: up to 6 months ]We will examine the degree to which hypothesized mediators change differentially across the experimental and control arms.
|Study Start Date:
|January 2010
|Study Completion Date:
|November 2010
|Primary Completion Date:
|November 2010 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)
|Assigned Interventions
No Intervention: HIV/STI voluntary counseling and testing
Participants enrolled in the control arm will receive study assessments only.
Experimental: Behavioral intervention
Participants enrolled in the experimental condition will receive 4 group sessions and 4 individual sessions over 3 months. This intervention focuses on psychosocial concerns and HIV risk for MSM in India.
Behavioral: Behavioral intervention
The behavioral intervention will consist of 4 group sessions and 4 individual sessions over 3 months. The overall focus is on psychosocial concerns and HIV risk.
Other Name: Psychosocial intervention for MSM in India
Detailed Description:
MSM in India are at increased risk for HIV in a stigmatizing environment that includes discrimination and violence. There is a need for evidence-based MSM HIV prevention interventions that address HIV risk in the context of these psychosocial issues. This study consists of formative qualitative work followed by the development and testing of a pilot behavioral HIV prevention intervention for MSM in Chennai, India. Study goals are to maximize intervention feasibility and acceptability, estimate an effect size for a power analysis, and prepare for a full-scale trial to follow.
PHASE 1-Intervention Development. This phase involved the collection of formative data through MSM focus groups and key informant interviews to develop a subsequent pilot behavioral intervention.
PHASE 2-Open Pilot. Following Phase 1, the team conducted an open-phase non-randomized pilot of the intervention. Enrollment involved a baseline assessment that included an interviewer-administered behavioral assessment and voluntary counseling and testing for HIV and the STIs, syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. Eleven MSM in Chennai then completed 6 group sessions and 4 individual sessions over 3 months. A follow-up behavioral assessment was administered upon completion of all sessions, and 6 months after baseline participants were again administered the questionnaire and HIV/STI testing.
PHASE 3-Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial. The study is currently in Phase 3, and the data articulated in this registry is for Phase 3. We are now conducting a pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the intervention among 6 "batches" of 8 MSM in each group (n=48). Comparison groups (n=48) will receive the same baseline assessment and voluntary HIV/STI counseling and testing as the intervention groups. Based on Phase 2 findings, the intervention groups will meet for 4 group sessions and 4 individual sessions. Those assigned to receive the comparison condition will not receive these sessions. Participants complete the assessments approximately 3 months after randomization, and again 3 months after that.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years and older (Adult, Senior)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
- Man who has had unprotected sex with another man in past 3 months
- Resident of Tamil Nadu state, India
- Identifies as Khothi or Double-decker
Exclusion Criteria:
- Does not identify as a man (i.e. Hijra/ Ali/Transgendered)
- Under age 18
- Unable to complete or understand informed consent procedures
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01266122
|United States, Massachusetts
|Massachusetts General Hospital
|Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02114
|Fenway Community Health
|Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02215
|Tuberculosis Research Centre
|Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
|Principal Investigator:
|Steven A. Safren, PhD
|Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
|Principal Investigator:
|Beena E. Thomas, PhD
|Tuberculosis Research Centre, Chennai, India
|Responsible Party:
|Steven A. Safren, Director, Behavioral Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT01266122 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
5R21MH085314-02 ( U.S. NIH Grant/Contract )
|Study First Received:
|November 24, 2010
|Results First Received:
|August 4, 2014
|Last Updated:
|May 14, 2015
Keywords provided by Steven A. Safren, Massachusetts General Hospital:
Psychosocial problems
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on September 21, 2017


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POLLYANN Tanner, 51, is principal of Tanwood School for Performing Arts, which recently celebrated its 70th anniversary. She lives in Swindon and has three daughters aged from 15 to 25, each of whom learned to dance at the school, and a baby granddaughter.
SOME of Pollyann Tanner's earliest memories are of watching Tanwood performances from backstage.
The theatre was usually the old Playhouse, part of the Mechanics Institute. She was still a toddler when she took that stage herself.
"I sort of remember when I was two, getting my first cups in competitions at the Playhouse. That was the British Rail Festival – British Rail sponsored it.
"I don't remember being on stage then but I do remember being backstage at the Playhouse in my dressing gown on many, many occasions because my mother used to run pantos there."
Pollyann's mother is Mollie 'Miss Mollie' Tanner, founder of the school of performing arts which is an iconic Swindon institution.
Her father, John, 91, was known to generations of pupils as 'Mr John'. A draughtsman by profession, he provided piano accompaniment to countless thousands of performances, rehearsals, exams and practice sessions.
It was perhaps inevitable that Pollyann would be a performer.
"My first professional job was aged nine at the Wyvern, in their first Christmas production, which was Toad of Toad Hall during the day and a panto in the evening.
"I played Lucy the rabbit and a frightened stoat – and Mr Badger was Charles Dance."
He was only one of many stars Pollyann worked with during a performing and choreography career that would last until she took over the running of Tanwood on March 3, 2003.
At school she considered careers including medicine, but the allure of the stage was constant.
By 16 she was in panto in Poole with Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H Corbett, known to millions as Steptoe and Son. The ensuing years saw her work with Barbara Windsor, Danny La Rue, Fiona Fullerton, Wayne Sleep, Crossroads mainstay Noele Gordon and many others.
Pollyann has appeared many times in the West End and been involved with stage productions in Britain and across the world. She has worked on commercials for everything from Maltesers to McDonalds and also on several of the extra-long Woolworth commercials that signalled the approach of Christmas during the 1980s.
Other credits include a stint presenting Freeze Frame, a Plymouth-based Televison South West magazine show for young people. This made her such a regional celebrity that when she agreed to a pantomime in Plymouth one year, the announcement made a bigger impact in the press than the fact Danny La Rue had agreed to star.
"Had I not known him I think he would absolutely have gone mad. I kept in touch for many years and whenever he came to Swindon he would always ask to see me."
Pollyann was among the mourners at the star's funeral in 2009.
The 11th anniversary of her becoming principal of Tanwood is fast approaching.
She said: "It was a massive learning curve, because I went from having to worry about me to having to worry about lots of pupils."
Tanwood has upwards of 150 pupils and 10 staff. Pupils are aged from two to adult.
"Although I had taught them, being a teacher is very different to being a principal. You have the admin, the building and the parents of the children to worry about.
"But I quite like the idea of business – in fact, at one point I wanted to be an accountant. Maths and paperwork come easily to me."
Prospering for 70 years involves moving with the times, which is why the Tanwood curriculum incorporates new developments in the world of dance, such as street dance.
One difference between some of the would-be pupils of today and those from years gone by is an expectation of instant success.
"I call it X Factor Syndrome. They want the fame without the hard work. They forget a lot of people who appear to have instant fame had been trying for 10 years to become an overnight success.
"We have quite a lot of students that need motivating into working hard at every class, not just doing it when there's a medal at the end of it or 600 people watching them."
With plenty of shows to work toward, though, incentives are never thin on the ground and students soon learn that dedication pays.
In recent years alone, Tanwood has had about eight pupils in Billy Elliot, 40 in Annie, 20 in The Sound of Music and scores of other successes. Pupils have appeared in national tours and West End shows, and two Tanwood youngsters are waiting to hear whether they'll soon join the cast of Matilda.
In one sense, though, Tanwood is a victim of its own success.
"We seem to have this reputation that you have to be experienced to go to Tanwood, but you don't. We'll take them as babies and we'll nurture them."
Visit tanwood.webs.com.


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Fall Fashion Week 2011: How to Get Runway Hairstyles At Home
Three hot hairstyle trends from the Fall Fashion Week runways of New York.
Fall styles aren't the only things showcased on the runways of Lincoln Center. Here are three major hairstyle trends coming from the fall 2011 runways of New York that you can easily achieve yourself with minimal effort.
Wearing hair to the side will earn you fashionista status this year
Side Dish
Want to be fashionable and on trend this season? Sound like a lot of work and effort? Wrong! It's as simple as taking your comb and changing up your part. Shows like Porter Grey, Tadashi-Shoji are saying center parts are officially out. If you want to appear in the know this season, make sure to keep it to the side. To create an extreme side part, simply use your comb and begin your parting by aligning it with the outside corner of your eye. Try to keep it as clean and straight as possible for a really dramatic effect. To accentuate your parting, use a high-shine styling crème, gel or pomade to help smooth the hair down.
Wearing your hair any way on the side will earn you fashionista status this season. Not just extreme side parts, but also side-swept styles, including braids. To the left, to the left! Everything is to the side this season!
"Next Day" hair requires very little effort
"Next Day" Hair
Soft, "next day" hair is romancing the runways this fall. We saw it at Nicolas K, Rebecca Minkoff, G-Star and more. The great thing about "lived-in" hair being on trend is that it requires little to no effort on your part. Effortless chic doesn't require a lot of product, either, as it's a really soft, touchable, natural looking "next-day" look that you're striving to achieve. In the morning, instead of washing hair and starting fresh, simply scrunch some volumizing or texturizing spray into your hair and go. Some other great products to create "next-day" hair are Aveda Pure Abundance Volumizing Hair Potion, dry shampoo like Kloranes, or even a great texturizing spray like Bumble and bumble Surf Spray.


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Summer isn't over. Not quite. The nights are still long, the sun warm, the water inviting. And yet, it's an unavoidable fact that autumn with its mists, mellow fruitfulness and unexpected chill, is lurking around the corner.
These are the dog days of summer. Still splendid but dog days nevertheless ? and that's a very good reason for fitting in one final life-enhancing swim: a climatic alfresco plunge to savour and recall over the long dark months ahead (for those of us in the northern hemisphere at least).
So where to go? Well we've pinned down eight of the very best late summer swim spots. Some are salty, some freshwater, but all allow a breeze to caress your skin under a vast canopy of cyan sky, surrounded by widescreen nature rather than four tiled walls. There are rock pools massaged by Pacific surf, Greek heat and Cornish winds, exquisite landscapes worthy of a Hollywood lens and one African showstopper to leave your heart in your mouth. Occasionally man has intervened to give nature a nudge, creating the perfect outdoor swimming spot, but all, without fail, feed the soul and the senses. Your wild water awaits.


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Maintain ideal pH conditions in your freshwater aquarium with safe, long-lasting results. Marineland pH Regulator is a state-of-the-art formula that safely maintains ideal pH conditions unlike quick acting products that can raise pH levels too high or cause pH shock to your aquarium fish. Marineland pH Regulator also adds beneficial vitamins, minerals and electrolytes important to aquarium health. Made in USA. 8 oz (237ml) treats 474 gallons.
Add Marineland pH Regulator weekly to maintain optimal aquarium chemistry. Marineland pH Regulator maintains ideal pH in the range of 7.2 to 7.8.
Shop all Aquarium pH Conditioners.
Please click "More Information" for directions for use.


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GENEVA & LONDON — P&G Prestige has entered into a licensing agreement with Alexander McQueen to manufacture and sell designer fragrance products under the Alexander McQueen brand name.
"Alexander McQueen has captured the imagination of the world in a unique and indelible way. The brand has become synonymous with modern British couture and will bring their incredibly passionate and emotional point of view to fragrance," stated Joanne Crewes, president of P&G Prestige. "Alexander McQueen brings a unique perspective to the P&G Prestige portfolio. The contrasting elements of their design approach — fragility and strength, tradition and modernity, fluidity and severity — is incredibly rich territory for fragrance development. This creative approach, combined with our expertise in fragrance and brand building, creates a wonderful opportunity for global growth and expansion. It is a tremendous privilege to partner with Alexander McQueen and to bring this incredible brand into beauty."
"With the growing popularity and interest in Alexander McQueen, signing a fragrance license was a natural development for the house in expanding our product offering to reach a wider audience. P&G Prestige has showed such passion and belief in our brand; coupled with their expertise and knowledge in fragrances, I am confident that this will be an exciting and successful collaboration," stated Jonathan Akeroyd, president and CEO of Alexander McQueen.


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The EASA today grounded the Dassault Falcon 7X, via an emergency Airworthiness Directive, following a runaway pitch trim event experienced in one of the trijets yesterday during descent. According to the EASA, the crew successfully recovered the aircraft to a stable flight profile and performed an uneventful landing. However, the incident prompted Dassault to ask the EASA to ground the 7X "out of an abundance of caution." An FAA spokeswoman told AIN that the U.S. agency is "looking at issuing something similar" to the EASA emergency AD, though it has yet to actually do so. "Dassault Falcon's preliminary analysis of information downloaded from quick access recorder and the fault history database confirms the event but did not enable us to determine its origin," the French aircraft manufacturer said in a statement. "Dassault has dispatched a team of experts to research the cause and to create a solution, both of which will require further investigation." The 112 Falcon 7Xs in the worldwide fleet have accumulated more than 75,000 flight hours, and Dassault said this is the first event of this nature that's been reported since the aircraft entered service in 2007. "Determining its cause and a solution is our utmost priority." A posting on a professional pilot message board indicated that the incident occurred in Malaysia, but neither the FAA nor Dassault would confirm this to AIN.
EASA Grounds Falcon 7X, FAA Action To Follow
- May 26, 2011, 11:42 AM


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found a new home!
Plenty of my friends are looking
for one too. Find a pet to adopt.
I am already neutered, up to date with shots, good with kids, and good with cats.
Indy's adoption fee is $75. And you can get a discount for adopting kittens in pairs. We encourage all adopters to take into consideration that most cats do better when they have a companion. All of our cats and kittens are kept current on shots, worming, and will be microchipped by us. And when it's time, we'll take care of their spaying. Plus, they come with a 3-week health guarantee and a 2-week satisfaction or refund guarantee; although we think you'll fall in love and never want to let them go. Call 937-271-1411 or email email@example.com to inquire about any of our adoptable cats and kittens. . Many of our kitties can also be seen at Pet Supplies Plus on Saturday from 1 to 6; we alternate between Centervillle and Kettering stores so call for that weekend's location before you come.
Indy-Clark County Litter, a Fairborn Domestic Shorthair kitten was adopted! Here's how you can benefit by looking at adoption as an option to buying a Domestic Shorthair for sale in Fairborn, or seeking a Domestic Shorthair kitten from a breeder in Fairborn.


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I am sat here watching TV and playing with my laptop, and must have seen something on television to make me remember The Wimpy Bar - although I think these days it is just called "Wimpy"
I am in my mid (ahem) 40's and can remember a time when MacDonalds and Burger King did not have the monopoly when it came to buying a burger.
I remember a time when it was possible to be shopping of a Saturday afternoon and decide to have burger and chips, and you could sit down at a table, a waiter/waitress would take your order and bring you a knife and fork to eat your burger and chips with. Yes, certainly you could get a takeaway if you wanted one, but generally people didn't - it was a very civilised way to have a Burger.
Then, I believe the early 1980's happened and our high streets became more Americanised.... small Cafe's like Wimpy became considered a poor relation to the large MacDonalds popping up everywhere - don't get me wrong, I have no problem with MacDonalds in the slightest, but it is a shame that Wimpy has been forgotten. They have gone from a fast food restaurant in most high streets, to small restaurants in quieter streets in, very often, quieter - less affluent towns.
Anyway, I am going back through memory lane now.. The Wimpy does still exist and should not be forgotten, a few weeks before Christmas I popped out for the afternoon to pick up some shopping and I went to Littlehampton in West Sussex, and there it was - a little Wimpy, off the main street, opposite a cheapie bargain store and also opposite Iceland food shop.
My hubby, daughter and myself decided to pop in for a bite of lunch, and although there are new things on the menu, also the menu had exactly the same things on there that used to be all those years back.
My hubby had a Quarter Pounder, Cheese and Chips... (Now I used to work in the Wimpy in Chichester about 26 years ago, and was there when it changed hands to an independant cafe, and the Quarter Pounder was the best burger the served back then, and to be honest it looks like it still is)
I had a cheese burger and chips and my veggie daughter had a jacket potatoe.. Now adding Jackets to the menu is something that never used to be there - so it is good that they have moved with the times..
Hubby and I both had a cappuccino - totally delicious and my daughter had a coke.
Our final bill was just a little shy of £18, which I suppose is a few pounds dearer than MacDonalds would have charged us, but what we did get from Wimpy was a pleasant, quiet 45 minutes, sat out of the cold, being waited on - being offered salt, vinegar and ketchup with our burger and chips !! We drank our coffee from cups and saucers.
Yes, the decor is a little dated and tired now, but the cafe was spotless and the service impeccable, I am not suggesting that you must give your waiter/waitress a tip, that is up to you, but the difference in going somewhere where the staff know that it makes a difference if they serve you with a smile and a pleasant word, rather than reading from a script, parrot fashion... "is that large?" "do you want fries with that?" is somewhat refreshing..
Altogether a much nicer experience!
If you ask someone what they think of Wimpy, you will usually get a blank stare. If you remind them that it is a Fast Food restaurant, you normally get a weird look and a "what? does that still exist?"
Yes folks, Wimpy does still exist. Perhaps they don't have anywhere near the number of restaurants they did in their hey-day but they continue to battle on. In the times of Macdonalds and Burger King dominating the fast food market, I can only imagine that Wimpy have hung on for nolstagias sake and nothing else.
I live in Lewisham, where a Wimpy continues to stand proudly on the high street, defiantly over the road from the busy Macdonalds. In comparison to the trendy looking Maccy D's, Wimpy looks like it hasn't moved on in style since the 1970s. In fact, the only thing you can say for it is that it looks clean and that it is quiet. In fact, it's so quiet, when I ventured in with a friend yesterday to investigate whether they still did the famous Brown Derby, there were more staff members than there were customers. In fact, we we the only customers, unless you count the old man with a cup of tea, but he looked like he'd been there so long he was probably part of the furniture.
So, what's it like in a Wimpy? Very much like your bog-standard greasy spoon type caff. Plastic laminated menus, plastic, hardbacked seats and all the furniture bolted to the floor. And very bad lighting. I will say though that despite this, one of the big pluses of a Wimpy is that while you can eat it, or takeaway, if you choose to eat in, it's waiter service! What WOULD Ronald say? Call me old fashioned, but I like the fact they have waiter service. Nothing like a strong cuppa in a greasy spoon or Wimpy.
I know a lot of people turn their noses up at Wimpy, but I do think that their menu is vastly superior to their more popular competitors. They do all the typical burger type meal deals you'd expect and the prices seem to be fairly similar - maybe slightly more, varying at £4-6, but hey, it's plated and it comes with a knife and fork! They also do paninis, jacket potatoes, the Wimpy Bender, Quorn meals for veggies and toasted tea cakes for the OAPs. And me. I like toasted tea cakes. Mmmmm. Anyway, their menu is much more vast and I think the portion sizes are slightly bigger. Although I'm not a chip fan, so I don't feel qualified to comment, I would say that their burgers are also of good quality. I find most fast food burgers taste greasy and are quite flimsy in quality. Wimpy burgers are wonderful; they taste juicy and succulent and don't seem greasy at all. In fact, they taste like a good quality grilled burger and they have fresh, crispy lettuce in the bun, with lovely tomatoes - not limp rags like other places tend to favour.
The other thing I really like about Wimpy is the fact that if you say you don't want something on your food, they get the order right and bring it how you request. The menus are also good - everything is clearly described and calorie content is also listed, along with allergy advice. Handy if you have dietry requirements.
The desserts at Wimpy are the best and the Brown Derby was the real reason for my visit yesterday. I had a craving and I am pleased to note that the Brown Derby is as messy, unhealthy and delicious as ever. For the unaware, the Brown Derby is a ring doughnut, topped with vanilla ice-cream and smothered in nuts and chocolate sauce. It is a seventies classic and it is amazing. Wimpy also specialise in banana boats and the classic knickerbocker glory - nolstagia at it's best.
Ok, so it isn't fine dining. It's fast food. I don't even like fast food, but I like Wimpy. It looks forgotton about and like it's stuck in the seventies. The food isn't imaginative. The restaurant is nothing special. But somehow, visiting Wimpy is comforting and like going home. And if you choose to sit there with your paper for 6 hours with a pot of tea, no one will mind.
Its funny because when anyone initially thinks of wimpy your first impression is that its the failed fast food take away store that used to rival mcdonalds and yet in no means can it do so nowadays, however through personal reviews and experiences there people love wimpy and I am for sure one of those people.
Perhaps like for others wimpy is an incredibly nostalgic setting for me, as I used to go as a child and I remember so clearly the wimpy birthday parties that I used to go to and mr wimpy coming out with his bucket of badges. I used to absolutely love them and again going for a lunch with my family and being thrilled at the thought of the fast food but being delivered on a plate.
Nowadays all fast food is shunned and of course it should be, full of fat, grease, and processed food that is only bad for our bodies and souls, however there is just something quite endeering and old fashioned almost about wimpy, which cant be replaced and hence its somewhere we go to on occassion usually if we are travelling and its easy and ok to eat in.
I have never been treated badly in a wimpy restaurant and always had brilliant customer service so this is a plus in my books, of course its no ritz but its not meant to be so. I have fond memories of this restaurant when my aunt took me there to cheer me up as my grandfather was being treated at home whilst he was living his final days. I was a child and needed a comfort and for me at such a young age to have a treat of burger and chips was something great and hence I have fond memories ever since.
The food is reasonably priced and has a variety of options from burgers, all day breakfasts, fish, scampi and even steak. Of course classic chips and jacket potatoes are serviced but you can sit with your mum and eat a tea cake and a cup of tea if you wish, which is again a nice memory of childhood whilst a child sits eating their burger and chips. They do pretty good deals also such as toasted sandwiches and a tea for a cheap price or teacakes and meal deals.
Ok yes its bad food, its a fast food sit in and take away, but as one offs and a little treat for your little one or whilst travelling this is a nice place to go, and it shouldnt be downgraded below mcdonalds as its far nicer and great customer service.
There is only one Wimpy near me in the North of Scotland and it is so worthwhile travelling there just to get one of the Quarterpounders with cheese and a strawberry milkshake.
It made be classed as a fast food restaurant but it is so much better than he others with the burgers actually tasting like proper burgers. The burgers are lovely and thick. I always choose the Quarterpounder with cheese so can't really comment on any of the other burgers but this one is always made perfectly in a brown roll with cheese, lettuce, onion and a lovely tasty burger sauce. Yummy. I'm not to keen on the chips but hey you don't really chips to be brilliant when the burgers taste soooo good. The strawberry milkshake is also lovely made from ice cream and flavouring mixed together, it is definately a thick shake and the best I've ever tasted.
They still do parties in their restaurants as well which reminds me of my childhood and the best thing ever is they still have Mr Wimpy who comes in at the party...kids still love him!! I do think the restaurant does feel a bit like an American Diner but that's all part of it's charm
Ok now to the prices, for a Quarterpounder with Cheese meal it will cost you about £4.65 which is a wee bit expensive but definately worth it. The burger alone is £3.05. They do also have quite a lot of vegertarian options as well as healthy options and I noticed recently they do jacket potatoes and are now also doing panini's. And if the main meal wasn't enough for you they have desserts as well. Definately a place worth going to.
I like Wimpy!
I like being able to go in and sit down and browse their menu at leisure, in the full knowledge that I am going to order the same thing as I did last time. Frankfurter in a Bun with chips and a glass of coke. Their frankfurter is somewhat odd in that it is a sausage which manages to curl its way around the inner perimeter of the bun (or as we used to call it in the UK a 'roll'). So, I call it a 'bendyburger' because the sausage is bent, well not so much bent as they cut little slits in the sausage so that it will bend.
the 'bendyburger also has a slice of (processed?) cheese in it, tomato ketchup and very finely chopped onions.
Then the chips - they are always hot, soft on the inside and crisp on the outside and a delicious blonde colour.
And the coke, well coke is coke. They dont fill half your glass with ice though. Service is always good in Wimpys. It is not as cheap as Mcdonalds and maybe a little dearer than BK, but the food is nicer, you are not rushed, and sometimes it is nice to have someone serve you.
Wimpy is a fast food chain that is much different to Mcdonalds. For a start you don't have to queue up tp order - you just sit dwon and the waitor/waitress comes to your table. The food is served on a plate; the drinks are served in a glass and you get knives and forks.
Now to the most important part - the menu! Wimpy has a wide variety of burgers including vegetarian. You can have them with or without chips. They are really high quality. There is other items like fish and chips; hot dogs and fish bites. They do breakfasts; teacakes and grills.
The wimpy also does jacket potaoes with a choice of toppings; baguettes and salads. There is side orders of salads; onion rings; chips and baked beans. The wimpy also caters for kids with their kids meals that come with a choice of chips or salad.
The dessert menu is very mouthwatering. It has the brown derby (a doughnut topped with ice cream, chocolate sauce and nuts); apple pies; chocolate fudge cakes; sundaes; mr whippy ice creams and many other tempting desserts.
The drinks menu consists of thickshakes (chocolate; vanilla; strawberry and banana); smoothies; orange juice/squash; fizzy drinks; water; hot chocolate and tea and coffee.
The wimpy now has nutrition information on the back of it's menus; so if you are counting calories you can pick the right meals.
The Wimpy is more expensive than Mcdonalds!
Unlike the other review, I personally find that Wimpy offers a service that is reliable and above average. When entering the restaurant (at the top of Gabriels Hill, Maidstone), you are instantly greeted by the lower economic side of the town. Whilst these people look slightly degenerate and rough, their do great you with a gesture of goodwill and are quick to find you a seat. I found the restaurant to be clean and fresh, with little mess or dirt on the floor. The menu's were all laminated and I could tell that they were wiped over often. A good sign in any small chain restaurant I find. I immediatley ordered a cheese burger and banana milkshake (Wimpy's delicacy) and within 15 minutes, my meal was brought out to me. To my astonishment, the burger looked rich and full and I soon found that the taste was sensational. A great place to eat and a look cost to match!
The interior of the restaurant was painted a calming cream whilst the seats were extremely soft to sit on (always a bonus when you're eating a nice meal).
As far as the menu choice is concerned, what can I say. Everything from crunchy salad to tantalising meat was available with a large variety in side orders, desserts and soft drinks to choose from. Prices ranged from £3 for a salad to $5 for a large burger with cheese and other assorted attachments to make your meal just that little bit nicer.
The scenery is magnificent as you look round at the South Lakeland hills. The lake at Killington is calm and blue. A group of wind surfers skit too and fro as you look from the car park towards the restaurant. The Killington Lake Service area on the M6 has a reasonably priced restaurant with fast service and the magnificent view is yours to enjoy, totally free of charge. However, the Wimpy Restaurant that has recently appeared inside the same building is a different matter all together. We left the car in the car park and noticed that four coaches had just pulled up near the doors. I hurried inside hoping to beat the ravenous tourists to the counter, but I was too slow. However, I immediately saw the solution. A new Wimpy Restaurant had recently opened on the site. There was nobody at the counter. Infact the place was empty so I marched up to the counter feeling pleased with myself. I didn't look at the menu and I didn't even bother to ask myself why it was empty when the other restaurant was full. I ordered two burgers in buns and two teas. The burgers were very small and came wrapped in thin paper napkins that refused to be parted from the burgers. The tea puzzled me. It was light brown in colour and came complete with milk and one sugar but it tasted like nothing I've ever tasted before. We concluded that this was because it had been made with lake water which, I believe, gets a little brown coloured after heavy rain. (This negates the need for teabags and cut down on overheads for the restaurant.) The burgers inside the buns resembled those leather elbow pads you sometimes see stiched to hacking and riding jackets. Cups of lake water tea and burgers were no hotter than the air temperature in the restaurant. Posters on the wall extolled the virtues of 'Wimpy' hotdogs at three pounds (um, that's the price for a hotdog sausage in a finger roll w
ith a squirt of mustard.) Special all in meals at 5.75p looked appetising in the picture but I did catch sight of another unsuspecting customer scowling at the rather cool, meagre contents of his roll and inspecting a cup of something that only slightly resembled coffee. He tasted the drink, licked his lips, sugared it again, tasted, stirred, tasted, scrutinised, and promptly threw the cup plus contents into the bin. He did eat the fries though. It was cold and we couldn't wait to get back into the car for some warmth. The cost of this Wimpy Restaurant feast was just a penny under ten pounds. My advice if you are travelling in this area is don't bother with this Wimpy Restaurant. If you do stop at Killington Lake use the regular services restaurant which is warm, clean and certainly no more expensive. Even if its busy don't be tempted like I was!
If you ask my friend Alex to name three things that I like he most likely will say bins, rocks and cutlery. Why cutlery well we got on to the conversation of fast food places and he said he liked Mc Donald's while I said I like wimpy because you got cutlery. But its not just cutlery that makes wimpy my favourite fast food place to eat. It's the whole atmosphere and the fact that it really isn't that fast at all. So go back to a time in your mind when there was no Mc Donald's, no Burger King and the most popular place to go was wimpy. I can just about remember it. I was very young and everyone's birthday parties at school were at wimpy when today they wouldn't even be considered. Do 5 year olds even know wimpy exists? The birthday parties would be where you all went in and sat down. Ordered you meal from your seat with waiter service and then would play games. A man would always be dressed up as the little wimpy man and the whole party was just fun. What happened to those days? I'm 16 now and me and my boyfriend of the time last year decided to go round all the restaurants in Chelmsford (where he lived) and eat in them. This would take a long time to do and we noticed that next to the bus station was a wimpy. I didn't know they were even there anymore, I mean who eats at wimpy right? We went round as few fast food places, fish and chips and pie and mash and then it came to the turn of wimpy. I could remember the parties but not the food. Not the service and not the cutlery. We went in and it was almost empty. We sat down at the little tables and looked at the menu. There were two menus and on the wall were the desserts – mainly ice cream. I ordered a bacon burger and a glass of coke. They also serve tea, milkshakes and many other fizzy drinks. The waitress then gave us paper napkins and cutlery. She brought over our drinks in glasses and gave us straws. Then we could h
ear the sound of the fresh burgers being cooked – not micro waved like places such Mc Donald's and Burger King does. Our burgers and chips were then brought over to us on a plate and the waitress gave us a bottle of ketchup, salt and vinegar – no chips are good without all of the three together – yum. We ate all our food and then decided to splash out on an ice cream Sundae. It was lovely. Three flavours of ice cream, chocolate sauce and cream, lovely. There is a special menu for students that are kept on the wall. You can order from this and it is a lot cheaper than the menus, although I cant say that they are very expensive either. You have to go up to the counter to pay. They except Luncheon vouchers as payment as well as cash. They don't take a tip for service but there is a little pot on the counter and you can tip if you want to. So how does wimpy rate along side a busy competitive world? Well I can't say wimpy is what it used to be, its no way as busy but it is apart from that the same. Ok so there is no man dressed up as the wimpy man but hey, is that really needed. So wimpy cooks food fresh, Mc Donald's and Burger King microwave. One point to Wimpy. Wimpy waits on you at your table. Mc Donald's has lots of queues and you join them and order then make your way to your seat. I have to say being waited on is nicer but can be longer than joining a queue. So it's a tie. One point each. Wimpy serves on a plate and gives drinks in proper glasses. Mc Donald's and Burger King serve on cardboard and similar items, which are less environmentally friendly and litter the streets. One point to wimpy. Wimpy is a lot less busy while I can never find a seat when I'm in McDonalds. One point to wimpy. At the end of round one… Mc Donald's, Burger King and other similar chains – 1 Wimpy - 4
I hope I've reminded you or told you about wimpy positively. I think it's a great place to eat and try to go there over other fast food places. It's cheap and really nice inside. I only wish there was more than there are. Sara


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Kindergarten & 1st Grade Programs
Program Schedule
- Separate sessions for boys and girls
- Kindergarten: 8 sessions on Saturday afternoon
- First Grade: 8 sessions on Sunday afternoon
- 1 1/4 hour session. First half training and second half games
- Kindergarteners - play 3v3
- First Graders - play 4v4
- Both groups use size 3 soccer balls and small goals
- No goalies
- Fall program is ~ September to November
- Spring program is ~ April to June
- Each In-Town player receives a SYSA tee shirt
- SYSA provides each coach with practice balls, cones, pinnies and first aid kit
- Players must wear their team shirt each week. On colder days the shirt must be worn over warmer clothing
- Players must wear soccer cleats or sneakers. Soccer cleats are not required, but are recommended
- Shin guards are required
- Soccer socks must be worn over shin guards so they are not exposed
- Each player should bring a water bottle
- Players are not allowed to wear jewelry, earrings, hats, or anything metal in their hair for safety reasons.
Parent Volunteers
- Parent volunteer coaches are essential to successfully run this program.
- Parents can sign up to volunteer on their child's AdminSports registration account.
- Each team must have two coaches for the program to work effectively.
- No previous experience is required.
- All coaches are strongly encouraged to take the F on line coaching course through MYSA
- Coaches will be provided with a weekly session plan.
- All necessary coaching equipment will be provided.
- A criminal background check (CORI) will be conducted on all youth coaches per Massachusetts law.


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The Fine Print:
We reserve the right to validate all price matches. Total price matched is the absolute total including shipping. Clearance product is excluded.
No promotions can be combined with any price matched item. This offer/guarantee may stop at any time without notice.
The Backpackers Cache Food Container Replacement Lid is the replacement lid for a lost or damaged locking lid for the Backpackers Cache Bear Resistant Food Container.


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I have mentioned earlier that I have spent the past few months working on setting up an IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) Greater China. Recently, there have been some major developments. But before I get into those, I would like to talk about what I have learned. IAB is set up as a non-profit business association […]Read More...
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CINCINNATI -- Macy's Inc. announced that it is taking new steps to become a more sustainable company.
"Our company has embraced the principles of sustainability, and we continue to take actions that are tangible, measurable and meaningful in reducing our use of scarce resources and improving the efficiency of our business in serving customer needs," said Tom Cole, Macy's chief administrative officer. "We have made significant progress over the past several years, and we continue to move forward with new ideas in 2011 and beyond."
Macy's said that, beginning this fall, it will use environmentally-friendly matte black hangers for most apparel merchandise sold in its stores, replacing clear hangers that have been the industry standard for several decades. According to the company, which uses nearly 300 million hangers, the new hangers can be manufactured using recycled plastic materials, saving on the new petroleum-based resins used to make clear hangers. Macy's will be asking its apparel vendors to begin shipping merchandise to Macy's on black hangers in fall 2011, with the transition expected to be complete in spring 2012.
In addition, Macy's, in partnership with ECOtality, said it is expected to become the first major department store to pilot the use of self-serve electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, through The EV Project. The company plans to install two electric vehicle charging stations this fall outside each of six Macy's stores in the San Diego metropolitan area (locations are being identified). The charging stations will provide an added convenience to EV drivers and help promote the reduction of fuel consumption and the transition to clean, renewable energy.
The company also announced that it has become a Recyclebank Rewards Partner, allowing customers across America to earn special discounts at Macy's when they increase household recycling, reduce household energy usage and practice green lifestyles.


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Just saying.
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Just saying.
Wow, that kinda sucks, seeing as how I already asked about it, and if it were possible for the #4 + players, and was immediately shot down as if I asked you to trade Popeye Jones, for Greg Oden straight up.
I guess it's only 'touchable' for a top 3 draft pick, + players?
Last edited by burnzone; 07-08-2007 at 12:25 AM.
Sorry about that; I only changed my mind recently.
is there a list on the site with the draft picks, i think i kinda of deleted my email with that data...
Ya Think Ya Used Enough Dynamite there Butch...
1. New Castle
2. Amsterdam
3. West Lafayette
4. Burnzone
5. London
6. Cedar City
7. Gotham City
8. Harlem
9. Manila
10. Canadian
11. Gnawbone
12. St. Somewhere
13. Harlem (from New Zealand in the Bynum-Dunleavy trade)
14. Bad News
15. Bangkok
16. New Zealand (from Harlem in the Bynum trade - Harlem received from Cleveland in the Shaq trade)
17. Dynamite
18. Roaming Gnome
19. San Antonio
20. Denton
The draft order will hold for rds 2 and 3 except NZ will pick 13 and Cleveland will pick 16 in those rds.
The poster formerly known as Rimfire
I heard Al Horford was doing goodthings in Summer League, Mal [wink, wink] .
2012 PD ABA Fantasy Keeper League Champion, sports.ws
2011 PD ABA Fantasy Keeper League Champion, sports.ws
2006 PD ABA Fantasy League runner up, sports.ws
I am allways looking to trade up the ladder and welcome any offers of potential trades for any player on my roster..
Ya Think Ya Used Enough Dynamite there Butch...


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A jumping spider named Nefertiti that lived on the International Space Station in a habitat designed and built by a University of Colorado Boulder team has returned to Earth after 100 days in space and found a new home at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.
Dubbed the "Spidernaut," the arachnid was part of a worldwide science project contest called "YouTube Space Lab" in which officials invited students aged 14-18 from around the world to submit two-minute videos suggesting science experiments that could be conducted aboard the space station. The winning proposal from 18-year-old Egyptian student Amr Mohamed, to see if jumping spiders could adjust their natural hunting behavior to catch prey in microgravity, was transformed into an actual space experiment by researchers at CU-Boulder's BioServe Space Technologies.
"We never would have guessed our little jumping spider would become so famous," said Stefanie Countryman, business manager and outreach coordinator for BioServe. "One of our major thrusts over the years has been to provide educational opportunities for K-12 students around the world, and this was another opportunity for us to work with students on space payloads, a unique project that we hope will help steer many students from around the world into careers in the sciences."
The jumping spider's new home is the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History's Insect Zoo, one of the institution's most popular exhibitions. Upon return from ISS to CU-Boulder, Nefertiti was transported from Colorado to Washington, D.C., by National Museum of Natural History Director Kirk Johnson, formerly the director of Denver's Museum of Nature and Science.
Countryman said BioServe worked closely with Paula Cushing at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and Mary Ann Hamilton of the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster, Colo., to obtain the jumping spiders and analyze their behavior. BioServe designed, developed and built the spider flight habitat, which was placed inside a BioServe-built device known as a Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus, or CGBA, on the space station.
BioServe also developed an HD camera system to record high-resolution still images and HD video of the spider habitat, which included the arachnid and its food, fruit flies, Countryman said. One of BioServe's CGBA devices on board ISS provided power for the lighting system and thermal control of the spider habitat.
During the space experiment the spider's behavior was observed by NASA astronaut Sunita Williams in space and streamed online to Earth. The results? Nefertiti was indeed able to adjust her feeding behavior to account for the effects of microgravity and still catch her prey, said Countryman.
After circling the Earth more than 1,500 times and traveling more than 41 million miles, the spider will spend the rest of her life, estimated to be about six months, at the Insect Zoo. The student space contest was sponsored by YouTube, Lenovo and Space Adventures with the involvement of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japanese Space Agency.
BioServe is a nonprofit, NASA-funded center founded in 1987 at CU-Boulder to develop new or improved products through space life science research in partnership with industry, academia and government, said BioServe Director Louis Stodieck. Since 1991 BioServe has flown payloads on 40 NASA space shuttle microgravity missions and additional payloads on several Russian and Japanese space vehicles.
For more information on the YouTube Space Lab visit http://www.youtube.com/spacelab. For more information on BioServe visit http://www.colorado.edu/engineering/BioServe/.
Stefanie Countryman, 303-735-5308


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I have the opportunity to work with many Civilian Agencies,
Department of Defense and Joint Intelligence. In addition to optimal decision
reliability for effective portfolio management and the inter-dependencies of
strategy, initiatives, capabilities, programs, projects, systems, products,
requirements, issues, change request, resources and budgets, we need to manage Risk. Rational Focal
Point is a configurable 100% web-based portfolio software platform that
incorporates the ability to effectively manage your risk portfolio and the
relationship (impact, cost, exposure, consequence and avoidance probability) to
portfolio artifacts such as the examples mentioned earlier.
Federal Agencies are able to leverage risk governance, continue to be advantageous per existing process and/or implement more favorable automation as an agencies maturity grows. For example, agencies can implement a methodology such as the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST). This provides the following disciplined and structured process that integrates information security and risk management activities into the system development life cycle for the Risk Management Framework (Please click image to enlarge):
Categorize the information system and the information processed, stored, and transmitted by that system based on an impact analysis.
Implement the security controls and describe how the controls are employed within the information system and its environment of operation.
Assess the security controls using appropriate assessment procedures to determine the extent to which the controls are implemented correctly, operating as intended, and producing the desired outcome with respect to meeting the security requirements for the system.
Authorize information system operation based on a determination of the risk to organizational operations and assets, individuals, other organizations, and the Nation resulting from the operation of the information system and the decision that this risk is acceptable.
Monitor the security controls in the information system on an ongoing basis including assessing control effectiveness, documenting changes to the system or its environment of operation, conducting security impact analyses of the associated changes, and reporting the security state of the system to designated organizational officials.
Rational Focal Point helps Risk Portfolio Managers create
value, be an integral part of organizational processes, be part of decision
making, explicitly address uncertainty and assumptions, be systematic and
structured, be based on the best available information, be tailor-able, take into
account human factors, be transparent and inclusive, be dynamic, iterative and
responsive to change as well as be capable of continual improvement and
Users are able to implement a risk governance process, risk identification classifications, visibility into top project (and other portfolio artifacts) risk,
mitigation strategy response plans, risk exposure score card, risk matrix, risk metric business analytic reports, key performance
health indicators based on configurable thresholds, history & trend
analysis, executive dashboards, role based risk views, email notification and
cost/benefit/strategy/RISK trade-off analysis. The following figure is a screen shot of Rational Focal Point portfolio management and risk management with the likes of Risk identification/classification, RMF Assessment, Mitigation Response Plans Issues and related inter-dependencies of the overall portfolio. Please click the image to enlarge.


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Spring is here. As the weather and seasons change, so do our habits, our surroundings and our environment. The foods available to us, the smell of the air, how the sun shines, which way the wind blows, and in fact our daily lives are affected by the changing of a season. So too, would be our logical wine choices.
As I go into the (early) autumn of my own life, I am cheered by the promise of the youth and freshness the spring season brings to my everyday existence. The very word "spring" sounds youthful, energetic, bouncy, and I want to also mention sparkling and clean. My autumnal circumstance can only provide me with a portion of the above-mentioned attributes, yet I can get all of these things from the wines I choose to drink during this season.
Winter is out of here, so I say, big, full-bodied red wines, oak-laden white wines, take a breather. It's time to trend toward the new life, another cycle of enjoying wines that replicate the nuances we get from this invigorating time. Through wine, I know I will live and experience the fragrance of this budding season with the constant dipping of my proboscis into the bowl of my trusty wine vessel.
We have fresh vegetables budding from the earth's floor. Sprouts, beans, herbs, crisp lettuce. How can we resist the offerings we've been blessed with? We can't, or shouldn't. So let's take those beautiful delicacies and match them to the joyous benefits of wine.
Here are a few spring wine guidelines to follow:
- Lighter white and rosé wines are best wines to choose.
- Avoid heavily oaked whites and heavy red wines. Think steel tank fermentation, clean flavors.
- Look to screw-cap bottles. Mostly, they are made to be devoured in their youth.
I have selected some excellent wine types as well as some specific vintages and producers to look for. My recommendation is, as always, to find a wine shop you like and trust and tell them what you like, or what you would like to try.
Sauvignon blanc: Clean, sometimes herbaceous, generally has firm acid and is great with salads and other foods.
My recommendation: 2011 Fleur de Cap Sauvignon Blanc, Stellenbosch, South Africa. For around $10, it is quite excellent and distinctive, with generous fruit and a clean, crispy finish.
White wines from Italy: These include pinot grigio, falanghina, Orvieto, verdicchio, tocai friulano and gavi. These wines are generally dry, quite refreshing, not oaked, with nice mineral components.
My recommendation: 2010 Friulano by Scubla, around $20. From Northern Italy, the lively acid keeps the expansive, medium-weighted fruit in check. A delicious mouthful!
Riesling: German or domestic. This is an underappreciated varietal. If you buy a fine bottle of riesling, it will be great with food or on its own.
My recommendation: 2011 Pfeffingen Dry Riesling, Rheinphalz, Germany, under $20. I'm recommending a German riesling, partly because it is lower in alcohol, but also because this one has honeysuckle fruit, which is countered by a citric-tinged acid that keeps your mouth watering.
Dry rosé: This can be from anywhere in the world. Just make sure it is not sticky sweet. Rosé wines are made from all kinds of red wine grapes these days and can be an exciting companion to our foods of spring.
My recommendation: 2011 Terre Rouge Vin Gris D'Amador, about $15. Dry and rich, rivaling some of the best rosé from France. Nutmeg spice, strawberry fruit, crisp finish.


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Frieda's Inc., Los Alamitos, Calif., has introduced The Stokes Purple Sweet Potato.
The potatoes are grown in Livingston, Calif. by A.V. Thomas Produce, and Frieda's is the exclusive distributor and marketer, according to a news release.
Frieda's will give informational resources for produce staff at the retail level and consumer education elements with signs and other point-of-sale materials.
The potato is different than other sweet potatoes in its flavor and it's not overly sweet, according to the release. They are available in 15- and 40-pound cases, according to the release.
The Stokes Purple Sweet Potato makes its official debut at the 2012 Produce Marketing Association's Fresh Summit, Oct. 26-28, in Anaheim, Calif.


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You are here: Kidspot Activity Corner Party games Mermaid swim races
Mermaid swim races
Beat the heat at your next pool party and stay cool by playing mermaid swim races. This mermaid swimming game is a great activity for a pool party, a little extra sibling rivalry or just because there is a great gathering at the pool.
Number of players:
What you need:
- swimming pool
- plastic shells
- string
Run some string through some plastic shells to create a shell necklace for each "mermaid" swimmer. Tie the ends securely.
Line up the swimmers at the end of the pool and explain the first "mermaid" to reach the end of the pool is the winner.
Yell "Go" and watch as the mermaids take off!
Learning benefits of play, craft and activities:
- Benefits of crafts for kids
- Craft ideas to make for babies
- Why reading is important
- Your child's development milestones
- Why play makes kids smarter
- The importance of outdoor play
- Types of play
- How craft helps unplug kids from screentime