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If you want to read David Aldridge comments about where lebron will play, you can click on the link
David Aldridge
As often happens, an alert fan gets all the credit.
Debbie Leaper sent this e-mail to me on Feb. 22:
...I'm wondering if you can answer a question I can't find an answer to. Where the heck is Steve Javie? I've not seen him referee games in months. Yes, I have the NBA ticket so I watch/peruse games regularly. And since I've been a fan since 9 years old (I'm a 53 y.o. female), I know/notice a few things. I appreciate your response. You probably know off the top of your head. Me, I probably missed that particular ESPN/TNT broadcast.
Actually, Debbie, I had no idea, either. As it turned out, after checking box scores throughout the month of January, it turned out you were exactly correct. Where the heck was Steve Javie -- who has, at 55, established himself as one of the best, if not the best, officials in the league?
Though fans never seemed to get over Javie's early years, when by his own admission he was a bit of a hothead (yes, he did work a game when Hoops, the Washington Bullets' mascot, was asked to leave a 1991 game, but Javie didn't throw Hoops out, which few people have gotten right over the years -- I know because I was the Bullets' beat writer at the time -- and Javie explains what really happened below), most coaches and GMs would acknowledge that Javie was now at the top of the game.
But ever since early December, Javie has not worked a game. And he may never work an NBA game again.
Javie's right knee is just about out of cartilage. Three days a week, he's rehabbing near his Philadelphia-area home, trying to coax a couple more years of running up and down the court out of it. But it's not getting any better. And if there isn't any improvement by the summer, the 24-year veteran who's done 18 Finals games and 190 playoff games will call it a career.
A knee injury could mean the end of Steve Javie's lengthy career as an NBA ref.
Garrett Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images"It's tough," Javie said by telephone Friday; the league, which normally does not allow its referees to do interviews, made an exception, letting Javie talk about the last four-plus months he's spent on the sidelines.
"The regular season's one thing, obviously," Javie said. "With the rigors of the travel, by April, you're kind of, 'oh, my God.' But the playoffs are always that rejuvenation. It is tough. I watched a game like (Thursday) night in Boston, and you see the fans going crazy, and you just wish you were there. You're so used to that. And when Garnett throws that elbow up at Quentin Richardson (in Game 1 of the Celtics-Heat first-round series), you want to be in the mix.
"And that's the juice that we got ... the more intensity, the more times you want to be there. Sometimes it can be hard to watch because you wish you were there, but other times you just sit there and take it all in. I think you kind of appreciate it more when you don't have it there."
Several other veteran referees -- Mark Wunderlich (microfracture surgery), Joe Forte, Violet Palmer and Olandis Poole -- are out of the playoffs as well. But Javie's absence is the most obvious. He and Joe Crawford, his mentor, are at the top of the ref list, along with Finals veterans Danny Crawford, Ken Mauer and Joe DeRosa.
Javie's knee has been bothering him for the last few years; he's had it scoped a couple of times. The last two years, he's gotten it drained two times and gotten coritzone shots to get him through the postseason.
"Toward the end of last year, in the playoffs, it really started bothering me," he said. "I really couldn't wait until the end of the playoffs just to give it some rest. And I did give it rest at the end of the playoffs. But then when I started to work out again, it wasn't as good as it had been in the past, getting ready for this season. And it only took a couple of weeks before it really blew up again. Not only was it swelling up a lot, the pain was there too, where it was tough just getting off the elevator and getting to my hotel room."
An MRI determined that, like many players who've spent years running on hardwood, Javie's knee was almost bone on bone, in arthritic condition. He saw specialists in Philadelphia and New York. He looked into cartilage replacement from cadavers, but that would mean eight to 10 months of rehab, and Javie is only going to do this for another year or two even if he gets back on the court next year.
"There really isn't much they can do," he said. "There's nothing you can do arthroscopically, of course, because there's nothing to scope. And a couple of people suggested replacements of some sort. But once you have a replacement, whether it be partial or even a full one, they don't recommend running on it to the rigors of our job. So if I ever got a replacement it would be like the end of the road for me."
He's walking now, but the real test will come next month, when Javie will start running again, using an unloader knee brace that is designed to help keep the bones in the knee from rubbing against one another, which lessens the pain. The plan is to go every other day and see if the knee holds up. He wants to inform the league by mid-summer one way or another, so it can plan to replace him if he has to hang up his whistle.
During his rehab, Javie has maintained contact with the Philly Wing of the referee fraternity -- Crawford, Wunderlich, Ed Malloy and Mike Callahan.
"Joey's great," Javie said. "I think Joe is more devastated by this injury than I am. We joke about it, but it's like, 'Joe, can I do anything to make you feel better?' I try to console him instead of him consoling me. But it's the guys reaching out, either texting or calling, just asking how you're doing and so on. It means a lot."
Sitting in the bar, or on the 19th hole, or in his living room like the rest of us, Javie hasn't missed a call in four months. But watching on TV only amplifies what referees always say: it's all about the angles. The referee on the court doesn't have a look straight down into the basket via a camera placed on top of the backboard to determine whether there was offensive basket interference; they don't have five monitors of replays to look at over and over again. Nor do they have the benefit of time.
"My dad never criticized another official," Javie said. "He just said, 'you didn't have the angle this guy had.' He's making a judgment from the angle he has on the court. And that's what makes it so challenging. I'm not complaining about it. That's what gets us going, the fact that it's such a challenging job, and we're under such scrutiny, and I know sometimes we don't like the scrutiny. But that leads to even more of a challenge, to be as perfect, or as good as you can get every night."
That march toward perfection has sometimes left Javie walking things back. He's had celebrated run-ins with Pat Riley, and Allen Iverson, among others, over the years. (You ref for 24 years, you're going to have a few dustups.) The most infamous was early in his career, five years into his NBA job (he'd started as a baseball umpire after a nascent career as a pitcher stalled in the minors, then shifted to basketball, working his way up through the CBA). In April, 1991, Javie was working a Washington-Portland game at the old Capital Centre in the fourth quarter with officials Don Vaden and Bill Spooner when, as then-Blazers coach Rick Adelman said afterward, "all hell broke loose."
As Javie allows now, "I don't think we (the three referees) had 10 years between us."
It started when Bullets guard Darrell Walker argued a non-call in the fourth quarter, screaming at Javie -- who threw him out with one technical. Soon after, Washington center Pervis Ellison caught the ball as it was coming out of the basket after a Portland field goal and tossed it toward Spooner. Hard. Spooner had no reaction, but Javie came crosscourt and tossed Ellison. That brought Washington coach Wes Unseld onto the court; Javie T'd him up twice and ran him, making four techincals and three ejections in the span of one minute, 14 seconds.
Here's where Hoops came in. The Bullets called timeout, and during the break, Hoops, the team's mascot during its Bullets days, spent that time gesturing to the crowd, egging it on to rain abuse down upon the officials -- which it gladly did.
"Donnie Vaden called me over and said 'Steve, the mascot's making fun of us behind your back,' " Javie said. "It was late in the fourth quarter. And I walked over to Dolph (Sand, the Wizards' game-night host) and I said 'Dolph, can you do me a favor' -- I'm grabbing a drink of water -- I said 'can you just make sure that the mascot doesn't come on the floor any more tonight?' Just like that. It wasn't like I threw him ... and all of a sudden, Dolph's getting security, saying 'he's outta here, get him out,' and I'm looking at it going 'holy (bleep), what the hell is happening now?'
"It went from I'm trying to be as subtle as I can to now, I threw him out. I'll never forget what Joey said. He said 'you know what, Steve? This might be the best thing that ever happened to you. These players think you're crazy now.'
"The next night, Reggie Miller, in the warmup line, looks at me and said 'a mascot?' I just shrugged my shoulders and said 'what can you do?' "
The son of an NFL back judge -- Stan Javie, who worked 29 years and made four Super Bowls, working Super Bowl XIV in 1980 in his next-to-last season -- Steve Javie would like to go out while it's still his decision, like his dad.
"The league still wanted him to go another couple of years," Steve Javie says. "I think he was always thinking more about his ability to officiate, that he would lose it in a couple of years. He wanted to go out while he still could officiate. We all know how it is. You see it: 'he stayed too long,' and 'when are you going to get rid of him?' I think if you have any kind of pride in yourself, in your job, you don't want people talking that way about you at the end, that you're just lingering on just to collect a paycheck."
If this is the end for Javie, he would like to stay affiliated with the NBA in some capacity, but wherever he winds up, he hopes it's a place where he can help train younger officials, just as Jack Madden and Jake O'Donnell and Darrel Garretson and Crawford did for him when his career was getting started. And he hopes his valedictory as a referee is a simple one.
"I guess the main thing, and Joey's the one that instilled this in me, and my father instilled it in me, too, was the fact that when I walked on the court in a big game, that both coaches looked at me, and the players, and said 'we have a fair shake tonight,' " Javie said. "That's the key. I'm not there to be liked. Sometimes, that's the problem. As a human being, we all want to be liked. But I'd rather be known as the official that went out there, and everybody out there said 'I have nothing to worry about. I'm getting a fair shake whether home or away. Let's just play the game.' "
Top O' the World, Ma!
(Second round/conference finals playoff edition)
1) Boston (3-0): Biggest turnaround in public perception in Beantown since the Big Dig ended. Doesn't hurt that the Bruins went off a cliff, either.
2) Phoenix (DNP-sweep): Having Robin Lopez back will be huge against the Lakers, but the Suns need Stoudemire to play as big against Los Angeles as he did against San Antonio.
3) L.A. Lakers (1-0): Red flag to a repeat: Bynum says his knee got worse during a week when Lakers didn't play.
4) Orlando (1-1): Cavs fell to pieces when they faced adversity against Boston. Let's see if the Magic is a little tougher mentally after getting slapped around Sunday.
5) Utah (0-1): Gone Fishin', but the Jazz have a lot of different directions they can go in this summer. I wouldn't worry about Utah as long as Kevin O'Connor and Jerry Sloan are still in charge.
6) Cleveland (0-2): Gone Fishin', and who knows what this franchise will look like on opening night next fall?
7) Atlanta (0-1): Gone Fishin', and looking for a new coach.
8) San Antonio: Gone Fishin', and committed to one more year of paying luxury tax, so Spurs can be as active in trades as they want to be this offseason.
9) Chicago: Gone Fishin', but the Bulls move up on LeBron Speculation.
10) Oklahoma City: Gone Fishin'.
11) Denver: Gone Fishin', but George Karl tells the Denver Post he's hopeful he'll be back on the bench next season.
12) Portland: Gone Fishin'.
13) Dallas: Gone Fishin'.
14) Milwaukee: Gone Fishin'.
15) Charlotte: Gone Fishin'.
16) Miami: Gone Fishin', but drops a spot as Chicago becomes a primary opponent for James.
Team of the Week
(Second round/conference finals playoff edition)
Celtics (3-0): Masterful in their planning, astonishing in their execution against Cleveland, and that effort and intensity carried over to Sunday's Game 1 win in Orlando. Every teams knows how it wants to defend James; make him a jump shooter, build a wall, blah, blah, blah. It's a little harder to carry out when he's in front of you with the ball. But Boston pulled it off, with Kevin Garnett seemingly everywhere. Boston's old heads beat the Cavaliers to just about every loose ball, and Rajon Rondo controlled the series. Sunday was more of the same -- great defense on the ball, great help, great rotations -- against the Magic, as Kendrick Perkins and Rasheed Wallace played outstanding low-post defense against Dwight Howard.
Team of the Weak
Cavaliers (0-2): The light and heat of the playoffs is searing, but illuminating. Antawn Jamison had a target on his back all series, attacked by Garnett, Wallace, Glen Davis and anyone else the Cavs tried to hide him on defensively. Mo Williams got off the deck in Game 6 but lost a lopsided decision to Rajon Rondo. J.J. Hickson piled up DNPs; Anderson Varejao was MIA. Mike Brown's adjustments were way too late. LeBron? Who knows? It's telling that the most consistent Cleveland player -- not the best, but the one whose performances didn't fluctuate wildly -- in the series was 38-year-old Shaq, who's been in a postseason game or two (hundred and fourteen). Nobody died when the Cavs lost, but an entire city is paralyzed.
Nobody Asked Me, But ...
How tough is it when you're not a Lottery pick?
We all know that Tuesday will determine the order of the top 14 picks in next month's Draft. For those players, their lives should be set; they'll make millions of dollars and have the chance to make millions more if they play to their perceived capabilities. But there are a couple hundred seniors and underclassmen who are Draft-eligible, and there are only 60 slots available. With most teams starting their workout schedules this week, the next month and a half will be a blur for the vast majority of college players that are hoping to catch one team's eye.
"I really had trouble sleeping last night," University of Maryland forward Landon Milbourne said last week, after his first workout for the Wizards. Milbourne was one of six players Washington brought to Verizon Center for a two-plus hour workout; like most teams, the Wizards brought in a couple of guards, a couple of wing players and a couple of big men so that each would have someone to work against.
Milbourne has long odds to be drafted by an NBA team. He's making the transition to being a perimeter player again after he played inside for Maryland the past two years. His Terrapins teammate, guard Greivis Vasquez, the ACC's Player of the Year, is likely to be drafted, as is his training partner, Louisville forward Samardo Samuels. But Milbourne, like so many others, has had the NBA dream since he first started playing, more than a decade ago. It's hard to give up.
"In the locker room, I just couldn't keep still," Milbourne said. "I just kept going to the bathroom, trying to stretch, whatever. Just trying to do something. I couldn't stay still. It was a pretty good experience and I'm glad I got this one under my belt. I went to sleep at like 2 and I woke up at like 5:30. I didn't really get that much sleep. Hopefully it didn't affect my play. But I was really excited."
Learning a new position, or mastering an old one, is one way that borderline guys can show teams they're versatile enough to take a second look.
"Just being able to show teams that I am an NBA point guard," said Donald Sloan, a first-team All-Big 12 selection from Texas A&M who had to play most of this past season at shooting guard when the Aggies started running out of bodies. Most mock drafts don't have Sloan being selected, but he is determined to prove them wrong.
Texas A&M guard Donald Sloan is trying to prove to NBA brass he's a capable floor general.
Jamie Squire/Getty Images"I can run a team," Sloan said. "I can run sets. I can do this. That's pretty much the only thing that I really think that I'm coming into these workouts to do. They know everything else that I can do, finishing, creating ... you get in situations where you're playing three-on-three, and you have to make good decisions. I think that's pretty much what they look at. Then you have things like Portsmouth (Invitational Tournament) that they go and look at. You have all these different drills and techniques they kind of critique you at, to see if you're pretty much an NBA visionary point guard. I felt pretty good about those things. I think I did pretty well."
Many of the pre-Draft tournaments and workouts favor guards, because they handle the ball so much, and because there's just more good guards than there are bigs. Sloan took advantage with a strong performance at the PIT, where his team took the championship.
"I'm meeting with all these agents," Sloan said, "and they're like 'you're under the radar. Teams know what you can do. They think you're a second-round guy and you can do this to help yourself, but you're really going to have to play well at Portsmouth.' I really didn't want to have to go to Portsmouth. But at the same time I wanted to go just to prove it to everybody. Getting there and seeing all the high-caliber college players that were there, I was like, 'if I get in here and stink it up, that's it. I might as well just go sit down.' But the first game I played with a lot of confidence. And I had a great team. Those guys really bought into winning three games."
The highest prospect at the Washington workout was probably South Florida junior guard Dominique Jones, currently projected as a late first or early second-round pick (the Wizards have the last pick in the first round from the Antawn Jamison trade and the fourth pick, 34th overall, in the second round). Jones bulled his way onto the NBA radar with a couple of huge Big East games, scoring 47 against Providence and 29 at Georgetown in an upset of the Hoyas. He finished second in the conference in scoring (21.4 per game) and got the Bulls close to the NCAA Tournament.
"People look at me as a scorer," he said. "I'm going to bring a team more than just scoring. Coming from the one (point guard), getting other guys involved, getting assists, rebounding, playing good defense. I'm going to bring a team more than just being a scorer...people are talking about first-round bubble. Before they was talking about not even being drafted, Europe, things like that. I want to be in the top 15. That's just where my motivation has taken me. I'm always confident and I'm never satisfied."
Jones worked out for the Celtics last week, was going to San Antonio Saturday, to Chicago on Sunday and Indiana on Monday. Such is the life of a non-Lottery prospect. Have itinerary, will travel.
"In the long run, I'm going to be a great player," Jones said. "You're going to look back, 10 or 15 years from now, and be like, 'you know, that Dominique Jones was the steal of the draft.' "
... And Nobody Asked You, Either
In Athens, they say "It's all Latin to me." From Nikolas Melissaris:
...I am reading your articles since 2005 and i think of you as one of the most well-informed columnists. I guess, though, you need to do a bit more searching on Greek basketball. Olympiacos hasn't won a national title since 1997, while its arch rival, Panathinaikos, has won 13 championships in the last 14 years and four European titles during that span. In total, Panathinaikos counts 30 national titles while Olympiacos counts the grand total of ... nine.
My mistake, Nikolas. You are absolutely correct about the dominance of Panthinaikos; I was referring to Olympiacos's appearance this season in the Euro Final Four when I said they were Greece's top club team. I didn't mean historically, though that's obviously how it sounded. My bad for not making that clearer.
Do you remember "The Odd Couple?" From Brian Caughel:
How do you see Ricky Rubio fitting in on the current Minnesota roster (assuming it stays the same)? I think Johnny Flynn could be running the point quite well by then .... will they share the job?
Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty ImagesDavid Kahn insisted last year that Ricky and Flynn could play together. I doubted it then, and I doubt it now, even though Rubio has improved his jumper this season in Barcelona, and his team went on to win the European Final Four championship. And what if the Wolves get the first pick in Tuesday's Lottery? Can they afford not to take John Wall, even though Evan Turner is going to be a great player and probably a better fit for their team? Still a lot of questions in 10K Lakes.
I also misplaced my wedding ring and the coupons for half-off entrees at TGI Fridays. From Avaas Sharif:
In your playoff MVP watch, I think you forgot to list Rondo. His team is still in the hunt for a ring and he's convincingly leading his team with about 18 points, seven rebounds and 11 assists a game. Those are some solid numbers to be averaging through a series-and-a-half. You should probably put him fourth behind LeBron, Kobe and Dwight. Deron Williams, despite his nastiness, needs to get bumped off cuz clearly hes not getting the W's.
You complain, I react. See below, Avaas.
As always, send your column critiques, draft questions and snark to email@example.com. If you write it (first and last name, please), and we like it, we just might print it. You've been warned.
Playoffs MVP Watch
1) Kobe Bryant (1 game: 32 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists, .478 FG, .833 FT): Can only imagine that a week off and the prospect of getting back to the Finals -- plus having to again explain that inexplicable Game 7 performance against Phoenix in '07 -- has made Bryant healthy and ornery. A bad combination for the Suns.
2) Rajon Rondo (3 games: 15 ppg, 3 rpg, 9 apg, .541 FG, .400 FT): Dominant against the Cavs, controlilng the pace and tempo of four of the six games, knowing when to get others involved and when to take over himself. Magic got into him more on Sunday, but he still hit a couple of those back-breaking scoops in the second half.
3) Dwight Howard (2 games: 13 ppg, 10 rpg, 4.5 bpg, .533 FG, .556 FT): A sublime 21 and 13 average in the sweep of the Hawks, which wasn't even really competition. But on Sunday, against Perkins and Wallace, Howard got pushed off his favorite spots and spent too much time complaining to the referees instead of re-setting himself in the post and going to work. He has to play through the contact.
4) LeBron James (2 games: 21 ppg, 12.5 rpg, 8.5 apg, .314 FG, .750 FT): They may write books about exactly what happened to James against the Celtics. And we may never really know. All we do know is that the James that ran roughshod through the regular season and won his second straight MVP award was not present in the crucial Game 5, and couldn't get out of his own way (nine turnovers!) in the decisive Game 6. So now...we all wait.
5) Steve Nash (DNP-sweep): At least the Nasty One's eye is looking a lot better.
Dropped out: Deron Williams
By the Numbers
127 -- Number of regular season games won by the Cavaliers the past two years, tied for the most in NBA history (along with the 2005-07) for a team that failed to win a championship in a two-year period.
29 -- Number of appearances, including this year, that the Lakers have made in the Western Conference finals since moving to Los Angeles in 1960. The longest the franchise has gone since its inception in Minneapolis in 1948 without a conference finals appearance is six years (1992-1998); by contrast, the Celtics have gone as long as 14 years, from 1988 to 2002, between conference finals appearances.
$55,000,000 -- Amount of money, according to a study released last week, that local businesses in Indianapolis would lose if the Pacers left town. The study was commissioned by the county board that owns Conseco Fieldhouse where the team plays; the Pacers are hoping to change the terms of their agreement with the city that calls for them to make an annual $15 million payment. If the existing deal isn't altered, the board has suggested that the team could move.
I'm Feelin' ...
1) I criticized LeBron when he walked off the court last year without congratulating the Magic after the Cavs lost the Eastern finals, and then didn't acknowledge the next day that he made a mistake. And so I give him major props for staying on the floor after losing the series to the Celtics and congratulating player after player. That is the mark of a champion -- not just soaking up the plaudits when you win, but standing tall when you lose. It's hardly a consolation, no doubt, but good for him.
Give LeBron James credit for atoning for one mistake in last season's playoff ouster.
Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images2) Jackie MacMullen, the longtime author and writer for the Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated, has been the gold standard for NBA reporters for 20 years. Joe Tait, the longtime radio voice of the Cavaliers is, without question, the second-biggest star in franchise history. They were named recipients of the Curt Gowdy Media Award last week by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, which will be bestowed in August. There are not two more deserving people.
3) Tony Allen had a pretty doggone good series guarding the two-time MVP. Pretty good for a guy that was an afterthought in Doc Rivers's rotation at the start of the season. And pretty good for a guy that's going to be a free agent this summer, with one last chance to cash in before 2011.
4) Somebody needs to get off the dime and thin our analyst ranks at TNT by hiring Doug Collins and Mike Fratello ASAP. You know who they are and you know what they do and you know how much they'll cost. Stop negotiating and make it happen. They're too good to sit on the sidelines another year.
5) Ditto Dwane Casey, who deserves a chance to run a team that has a real chance to win this time. Atlanta would be good. But so would Chicago.
6) Thank you, Law and Order, for a great two-decade run. TV won't be the same without...well, you know.
7) Whenever Gary Smith writes about anything, stop what you're doing for a half hour and read it.
Not Feelin' ...
1) Of all people, I am aware that the demise of the Cavaliers and what it means for LeBron's future is a big, big story. (See above.) But aren't we all blowing this just a wee bit out of proportion? The Celtics' run to the conference finals is a tremendous story in its own right and has barely been mentioned in the last three days; the Suns aren't even on the radar. Somebody needs to save us from ourselves.
2) This was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, I guess.
3) It's not so much that Mike Woodson got fired; six years is a great run these days in the NBA, and the Hawks were awful against Orlando. It's that his job security was always tenuous. He never had the kind of clout that comes with the salaries that even middle-of-the-road head coaches have been getting in recent years. That should have happened when he was extended two years ago.
4) Maybe the Heat isn't as certain about D-Wade's return as it says.
5) Couldn't this guy find a run somewhere on South Beach (video of the not-teenage phenom here)?
6) So, while BP, in the middle of the worst global economic freefall since the Great Depression, was raking in $14 billion in profits last year, there was no one in the company saying 'maybe we should think about what we're going to do if one of our rigs blows up, or is subject to a terrorist attack, or gets knocked over by a tsunami. 'Cause, you know, that never could happen. We're too smart to be surprised by acts of man or God. Our technology is too advanced http://www.oilrigdisasters.co.uk/ to have a disaster recovery plan in place. No one could possibly imagine such a thing happening today. Why would we possibly think a rig could explode ?
7) Sad to hear that the Pistons have parted ways with one of the longest-tenured, and best, PR guys in the league, Matt Dobek, who was very close to the late Chuck Daly and handled things for the family last year after the coach's death. Hope everything turns out okay for Matt and for the Pistons.
Tweet of the Week
What's good tweets!!So everybody is talking bout Lebron today..I'm telling u NOW that he's going to drag this out.He's not signing til AuGust.
-- Suns forward Jared Dudley (@JaredDudley619) -- our first repeat Tweeter of the year, I think -- Friday, 4:45 p.m., making a prediction that will not sit well with NBA reporters if it comes to pass.
They Said It
"I made it easy. I told her, 'you better root for the one you go home with.' "
-- Cavaliers guard Anthony Parker, taking his sister Candace, the star forward of the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks, off the hook of having to decide who to cheer for in the Cleveland-Boston series -- her older brother, or her husband, Sheldon Williams, the Celtics' reserve forward.
"Loyalty is something that hurts you at times because you can't get youth back."
-- Kevin Garnett, when asked if he understood what LeBron James is about to go through in free agency, having had to make a similar decision while in Minnesota. Garnett added that if he had it to do over again he would have forced a trade from Minnesota much sooner than he did, 13 years into his NBA career. Ouch.
"The best coach in the league, Gregg Popovich, didn't have a problem with it last week."
-- Steve Nash, firing back at Phil Jackson after Jackson said that Nash gets away with carrying the ball when he dribbles up court. Classic.
Longtime NBA reporter and columnist David Aldridge is an analyst for TNT. You can e-mail him here and follow him on twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.


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discspeed wrote:Floodj32 wrote:discspeed wrote:Floodj32 wrote:I have two 175 Opto Pain's and I have my opinion about them.
Are you going to share? Otherwise this is a pretty voyeuristic thread.
I shared, what about you Discspeed. Have you thrown the Pain yet?
I got to throw one a few times this weekend. It was a teal GL and weighed 176. First of all, I didn't see it mentioned anywhere how much like a Roc this disc is. In my hand, it felt more like a Roc than a Wasp does. This GL disc was shaped like a perfect Roc with a very nice and even dome. It also flew exactly like a Roc...but not as stable as you guys describe your Optos to be. It had a gentle hyzer pull for it's low speed fade, and it kicked in early like a newish Roc as the disc slowed. The GL I threw however had negative HSS when thrown hard. It was pushing out of it's hyzer angle a little when I was trying to throw it over 300'. I didn't find it to be as fast as my 2FR Buzzzes, rather closer to Roc/Wasp speed. It did glide really nice...better than premium Rocs.
The pain and the Hornet fly nothing alike...The Hornet is much faster, more stable, and driver-like in it's flight characteristics.
I actually prefer the Opto Plastic over the GL anyway, it feels better to me. I hope the Opto will break in to have a little bit of turn like you described with the GL. That would allow me to carry 1 mold for midrange duties.

subset: commoncrawl


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Made In the Shade: Connecticut Shade
For A century, Connecticut farmers have grown some of the world's finest cigar wrapper tobacco
Connecticut Yankees are a no-nonsense, superstitious lot, and that tradition lives strong inside the tobacco barns lining the Connecticut River Valley.
"We don't have a touch of blue mold this year," says Stanton Brown, the patriarch of H.F. Brown Inc., which planted its first Connecticut-shade crop in 1938. The word mold is fresh on Brown's lips as he looks behind him for a thick beam of wood, which he knocks several times with his knuckles. The tall man, his face hidden well by a weather-beaten baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses, peers down at a visitor. "We don't count anything until it's in the shed."
Brown is standing in the gloom of a hot tobacco barn. The leaves of Connecticut shade hanging above him are considered by many to be the finest cigar tobacco in the world. Connecticut shade is wrapped around Macanudo, Davidoff, Montecristo, Ashton and Fonseca cigars, among many others.
Cigarmakers say aficionados buy with their eyes, and nothing seems to draw them in like oily, golden-brown Connecticut shade. "I would estimate that 50 percent of the handmade cigars sold [in the United States] are made with Connecticut-shade tobacco," says Theo W. Folz, the president and chief executive officer of Consolidated Cigar Corp.
The Connecticut River Valley tobacco region, which stretches north from Hartford, Connecticut, across the border into Massachusetts, had been free of blue mold for 19 years when an outbreak struck with a vengeance in 1997. The next year it reappeared. The voracious fungus is the bane of cigar tobacco, capable of destroying a field overnight. In the past two growing seasons the quiet sound of workers snapping off thick, ripe leaves was replaced by the roar of bulldozers plowing under fields infected with the fungus.
"The crop was very poor last year, probably the worst ever," says John Oliva Sr., the president of Oliva Tobacco Co., which grows tobacco around the world. "I don't think there's been much money made in Connecticut over the last two crops."
Blue mold thrives in cool, damp weather. Carried aloft by winds, it's a regular threat to burley tobacco farmers in the southern United States. Recently a National Enquirer-style news clip described blue mold invading from Cuba, as if the Bearded One himself were standing atop the Malecón, blowing spores toward America like a child holding a dandelion. Regardless of where the 1998 outbreak came from, cigarmakers and tobacco growers alike say it caused farmers to harvest earlier than usual, resulting in a greenish crop that will taste of youth when it's finally smoked.
"Last year was the worst that I ever had," says Angel Daniel Nuñez, 48, the senior vice president of tobacco for General Cigar Holdings Inc. Nuñez has worked at General for 25 years. The company is one of the oldest cigar growers in the valley; the Cullman family, which controls General, planted its first Connecticut tobacco crop in 1906. General is a rarity in the business, a large cigarmaker that grows its own Connecticut shade. It makes enough to wrap all of its Macanudo cigars and sells wrapper to other cigarmakers in the Caribbean and in Europe.
The 1999 shade harvest has been blessedly better than in years past. The record-high temperatures this summer that made the eastern United States swelter kept the fungus to a minimum (some growers reported isolated outbreaks of mold in late July, which was checked by applications of fungicide) and was fueling a big, high-quality crop. "Tobacco really loves that kind of hot, humid weather," says Nuñez. He looks proudly at a plant, whose wide leaves are reaching for the sunlight above the tents. "When the tobacco smiles," says Nuñez, "you can see it."
The uninitiated are amazed that cigar tobacco grows so far north of the Caribbean, but native Americans grew tobacco in Connecticut before the arrival of Europeans, and historians say locals have grown cigar tobacco there since the 1600s. Tobacco is one of the fastest-growing plants in the world. Seedlings a few inches tall are placed in the soil in May, and by Independence Day the plants will have soared to nine feet. By the end of August, when the final priming is harvested, a Connecticut-shade tobacco plant might stand 12 feet tall.
The soil around the valley is silty, the product of glaciers that scraped the northeastern part of America as they crept down from the Arctic. People have planted Connecticut seeds in various parts of the world--Ecuador, Honduras, even Canada--but only tobacco grown in this small valley looks and tastes like true Connecticut shade.
"A lot of people mistake Connecticut-seed tobacco grown in other parts of the world for Connecticut shade," says Brown. "But Connecticut shade is only grown in the Connecticut River Valley."
The first Connecticut tobacco was grown in the open sunlight, which makes a leaf thick and dark, with veins like ropes. That variety is called Connecticut broadleaf, a brawny tobacco known for its heavy flavor and less than elegant appearance. Today, broadleaf is used on brands such as Henry Clay, on many maduro varieties of premium cigars and on a host of cigars made by machine, which include Muniemakers, Backwoods, Marsh Wheelings and Toppers.
Marion Nielsen, curator of the Luddy/Taylor Connecticut Valley Tobacco Museum in Windsor, says, "Prior to 1900, they just grew broadleaf tobacco in Connecticut. In Sumatra, they were growing this beautiful plant that was ruining our trade, and farmers went over and brought back Sumatra seed. But when they grew it, the leaves burned in the sun." Someone noticed that the growing season in Sumatra was overcast--compared with the bright, sunny weather typical of a Connecticut summer--so farmers erected cheesecloth tents to cover the fields and shield the tobacco from the direct rays of the sun.
"The first tents went up on River Road in the Poquonock section of Windsor in 1900," says Nielsen. The result was extraordinary: the leaves grew thin and supple, with barely noticeable veins. When cured and aged, the leaf turned golden brown and oily. Most experts say that was the origin of shade tobacco, which today is also grown in Cuba, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.
"Connecticut," Oliva says emphatically, "was a pioneer in shade tobacco. Not a doubt."
The term shade is a bit of a misnomer. Walking under the cheesecloth tents in the middle of summer isn't like taking shelter under a Caribbean palm. While the tents filter out direct sunlight, they raise the heat, and sweat blossoms on a visitor's forehead five steps under the tents. The air inside is heavy, hot and humid. Farmers say that when the temperature hits the upper 90s, as it did this summer for weeks at a time, their plants can grow two to four inches in a single day. You can almost hear them creak upwards, pushing against the tents.
The shade protecting the tobacco works in two ways. The synthetic cloth above (it was made of cotton in the early days) shelters tobacco leaves from the sunlight. Cloth on the side of the tents keep insects away from the tobacco. Every plant is tied with a string, ensuring that it grows straight, even in the wind. The process of draping the fields, tying the plants and coddling the leaves makes farming Connecticut shade an expensive endeavor.
Wrapper is the most expensive type of tobacco, and no wrapper costs more to grow than Connecticut shade. "It's the most expensive, most labor intensive, most risky type of tobacco to plant," says Folz. The highest-grade shade tobacco from Honduras retails for around $20 to $25 a pound, while top-quality Connecticut wrappers sell for $45 to $50 a pound.
The perils of growing wrapper can make crystal chandelier juggling look easy. Rain can stain a leaf; so can blossom rot, which occurs when parts of a flower fall on a leaf and decompose. (Tobacco plants in Connecticut, unlike those on other wrapper plantations around the world, are not topped, or removed of their flower.) A worker or visitor who nudges a plant while walking through the crowded rows can do all kinds of damage, as can hail or a windstorm.
Blemishes greatly degrade the value of a tobacco leaf. In most parts of the world, rejected wrappers are sold as binders, but that is an uneconomical proposition in Connecticut. "It's not worth it," says Folz. Expensive binder tobacco sells for about $8 a pound, not enough for growers in Connecticut to recoup their costs.
Some clever growers have devised ingenious ways to limit damage. At the Brown farm, a worker sits on a modified exercise bike while another worker picks the leaves inside the rows, placing tobacco on a mat that runs the length of the row, between the plants. When the mat is full, the biker pedals, cranking in the mat, and a worker removes the leaves and places them in crates. This limits the number of trips between the tobacco plants and speeds the harvest.
"Jean, who invented the bike?" asks Stanton Brown, repeating a reporter's question. Brown's children smile. "My grandfather," says Jean-Marc Bade, comanager of the Windsor Shade cooperative of growers, which grows more Connecticut shade than any other organization in the valley. The question and answer are repeated often on a tour of the Brown farm.
Bade's grandfather, Maurice Bourquin, is also the answer to the question "Who came up with an automated sewing machine that stitches tobacco leaves together for hanging in the barns?" In the Caribbean, the process is done slowly, by hand.
A Connecticut-shade farmer is much like an auto aficionado with a European sports car--everything costs him more. Just as the price of tires, plugs and an oil change for a Jaguar XJ6 will run you much more than it will cost your neighbor with the Ford Escort, maintenance and labor costs for northern tobacco growers are far more expensive than those attached to growing tobacco in other regions.
"Labor's the biggest expense," says Kathi Martin, the daughter of Stanton Brown and a member of the Windsor Shade cooperative. Martin and her family have a dormitory to house migrant workers who are brought in from Jamaica and Puerto Rico during the harvest season, which begins in early July and lasts through August.
In addition to high labor costs, Connecticut farmers are faced with staggering costs for their tobacco barns. Caribbean casas del tabacos can be built for $40,000, but barns in Connecticut cost $100,000 to $230,000 apiece.
While New England tobacco barns are built more sturdily than their Caribbean counterparts, they're not immune to weather. "In 1979 I lost a bunch of sheds to a tornado," says Brown. Buying seven old barns from a neighbor, dismantling them, and shipping the pieces to his farm was cheaper than rebuilding.
The wooden doors of the drab gray tobacco barn swing open, and a current of hot, humid air escapes. Inside, rows of ripe, green cigar tobacco hang from the rafters, sewn neatly in place on long sticks. They bleed their ammonia into the air as they cure, and the aroma stings a visitor's eyes. On the floor, hooded gas fires burn blue and red, glowing in the dark like a sea of jellyfish near a beach. Within weeks, the tobacco will turn brown, and be moved to a storage facility for aging. Two years or so down the road, they will be wrapped around premium cigars in the Caribbean or Central America.
"This is the Bentley of the whole tobacco business," says Nuñez, looking up at the barn with pride. It's 200 feet long, 40 feet wide and 40 feet high, and can hold three acres of tobacco. It cost more than $100,000 to build. General, one of the largest growers in the valley, will fill more than 125 tobacco barns just like it with shade leaf this year.
Connecticut tobacco barns are entirely different animals than Caribbean barns. Thatched roofs are fine for Cuba, where January temperatures can be 80 degrees, but outside of Hartford it's not uncommon for a foot of snow to fall in a Yankee storm. Connecticut barns can take a beating, so they sport roofs made of asphalt shingles. Yankee hinges-- long, narrow boards running vertically and hinged at the top--can be swung open to lower the temperature when needed. Gas burners create tropical conditions inside a barn to help the curing process. Workers known as firemen must be on hand 24 hours a day to watch the flames, and at night they often eat roast chicken and vegetables that they placed atop the burners in the afternoon. It's a labor-intensive, job that hasn't changed much in 100 years.
The Connecticut River Valley was immortalized in the 1961 film Parrish, which starred Troy Donahue as an ambitious young man trying to make a living working on a Connecticut-shade tobacco farm. An evil tobacco baron played by Karl Malden gets in his way. (Even in a movie about growing cigar tobacco, only the villain regularly chomps cigars.) In an early scene, a tie-wearing Donahue walks up to a woman working in a tobacco seedbed. "Why don't you plant 'em right in the field?" he asks. A violin kicks in as the woman answers. "It's too delicate. Tobacco's like a baby," she says. "It never leaves you alone, and you can't leave it alone."
There's far less tobacco in the ground today than there was when Parrish was filmed. Growing reached its peak in 1921, when 30,800 acres of shade a year were planted in the valley, according to Bade. In those days the growing region stretched from Portland, Connecticut, all the way up to Brattleboro, Vermont. The shade tents seemed to go on forever, as if some giant had wrapped most of the valley with bright white cloth, like a Christmas present. "It was the second largest industry in Connecticut, behind insurance," says George Gershel, senior vice president of tobacco for Consolidated Cigar.
In the days when the United States was still a major producer of handmade cigars, Connecticut supplied much of its wrapper. The creation of homogenized, or sheet, tobacco wrapper in the 1950s ushered in the decline of the valley. Sheet tobacco is the particle board of the industry, a mixture of chopped scrap tobacco and an adhesive, which is extruded into a sheet that can be cut to any size.
Cigarmakers switched to sheet wrapper on many brands to cut costs, and that cut into the plantings of natural wrapper. Expensive real estate once covered by tobacco plants gave way to businesses, houses and golf courses. The decline that began with the invention of sheet continued as cigar smoking waned in popularity.
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The status of Haiti has grown worse in the 11 months since the earthquake: the recent hurricane and the cholera epidemic are proverbial insults added to massive injuries.
By Yussuf J. Simmonds
Sentinel Managing Editor
There is a natural disconnect when a massive influx of Westerners seek to aid and rescue peoples in the under-developed countries in the world. When affluent countries reach out to aid other countries, often that aid comes with strings attached and that even applies to Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and maybe in the entire world. It has been 11 months since the horrific 7.0 earthquake struck an already poverty-stricken Haiti, and since then the devastation has been compounded by a hurricane and most recently, a cholera epidemic.
Many have reached out, but looking at the news and seeing the conditions that still exist forces the question: what has really been done so far? As an example, on the news last weekend, it was reported that the builder who is leading the massive rebuilding efforts has been stymied by a bureaucratic snafu. Someone apparently "dropped the ball" and as a result, hundreds of containers of materials that are desperately needed to build badly-needed housing are just languishing on the docks at Port au Prince harbor.
Some of those who are charged with the responsibility of correcting the wretched conditions that millions of Haitians have been forced to live under, are either incompetent or overwhelmed by the magnitude of the devastation. And the tragedy continues, multiplying exponentially every day.
Here are some of the statistics according to the Haiti Children Relief Project (HCRP):
— Over 500,000 lives have been lost since the quake and the resultant effects prior to the outbreak of cholera
— Women are having C-sections without the benefit of anesthesia to blunt the pain and patients are having their limbs amputated under the same conditions.
These are some of the urgent immediate needs:
— Needed in massive amounts are antibiotics, vaccine, medicine, clothing, food and all the basic necessities for everyday living
— Heavy-duty and light transport vehicles and equipment to assist in the removal of the debris before massive rebuilding can be started
— Financial assistance to support schools; under the aforementioned conditions, schools (buildings) are not even available to send the children
— More volunteers and partners in the medical field (doctors, nurses, etc.), teachers and construction workers
— To sum it up, the people of Haiti need lots of non-perishable products, over-the-counter drugs, personal care and household items, just to name a few of the necessities.
An organization named "Friends of Haiti 2010" is bent on trying to link all leaders of the Haitian communities in the Diaspora in order to network and rally HAITIANS worldwide for the development of HAITI. However, in the process the organization is focusing on educating the people on civic principles and encouraging competent citizens to engage at all levels for democratic governance. While that sounds admirable, hungry, homeless people are not really concerned about democratic principles — they want food, clothing and shelter.
The Friends seem to have their priorities misplaced. They recently sponsored a presidential debate in Miami, noting that it was the 'first and only presidential debate to be held outside of Haiti.' Of course, it was held 'outside of Haiti'. The people of Haiti have not the faintest idea of a political solution to their problem. They want food, clothing and shelter first and foremost, and it is very likely that they do not care the political affiliation of the hand(s) that bring them relief.
According to news reports that covered the debate, the important issues such as the presence of the UN in Haiti, the role of the International Community in the rebuilding of Haiti post the January 12th 2010 earthquake, double citizenship and any amendment to the current Haitian Constitution, the role of the Haitian Army, disaster preparation and relief going forward, free education to all citizens, free health care for all citizens, and finally, how do you get a bankrupt, corrupt government out of the darkness into the light with transparency, liberty and justice for all its citizens.
That sounded quite eloquent but no where did they discuss the real bread-and-butter issues BY NAME — the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter. They were inferred but never spelled out and therein lied many of the problems of the people of Haiti. Everyone is debating their homeland, their countries and talking about them but not to them about their immediate needs and how to best solve their immediate problems.


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Now Viewing:
The Canon RM-25 V2.0 Monitoring & Recording Software supports the full range of Canon's network video cameras, allowing access and control of PTZ cameras through a full range of motion, modes, and two-way audio capabilities. Enhanced and expanded security monitoring capabilities are at your fingertips with the RM-25 Recording Software's ability to manage multiple cameras in various locations simultaneously from a single monitoring center or security station.
With the RM Viewer, a single screen will display the output of all the cameras under control. The RM-25 Recorder allows the user to record and access stored video taken from up to 25 security cameras on your network. Since you store, manage and access the video by computer, archiving and playback is simplified over tape-based recordings.
Among the developments found in this version of Canon's recording software are improved interface for PTZ control, multiple monitor support, dynamic layouts, easy camera search, and multiple viewer client support. You can build a comprehensive system for security monitoring, recording, and reviewing with the combination of the RM Recording Software and the full range of Canon network video cameras.


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Submit News
NASA: Hotter Summers Since 1980 Caused by Global Warming
Tiffany Kaiser
August 7, 2012 1:21 PM
Recipient E-mail
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The past 30 years has seen more "hot" (orange), "very hot" (red) and "extremely hot" (brown) summers, compared to a base period defined in this study from 1951 to 1980
(Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio)
Hotter summers have become the norm from 1980 to present compared to 1951 to 1980 (the base period)
NASA researchers have claimed to find new evidence for everyone's favorite topic:
global warming
James Hansen, study leader from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), as well as GISS researchers Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy, have concluded that summer heat waves (mainly in the U.S. Midwest) have become the norm over the last 30 years compared to a base period 30 years before 1980 -- and it's because of global warming.
Their study works like this: the team collected mean summer temperatures from 1951 to 1980. This was considered the base period for the study. They then looked at the surface temperature data from the last 30 years (1980 until now) to determine whether
extreme heat events
were increasing.
From there, the team wanted to see how much heating and cooling occurred in both time periods. To do this, they used a bell curve, which is a common tool that places the middle ground at the top of the bell (for instance, if this were a grading curve, a "C" would be at the top while the next tier down on each side would be a "B" and a "D," and the bottom of the bell would be an "A" and an "F). In this case, the top of the bell would be mean temperature, the next tier down would be "cold" on one side and "hot" on the other, then "very cold" and "extremely cold" on one side moving down while "very hot" and "extremely hot" are moving down the bell on the other side.
Researchers then applied mean temperatures from 1980 until present, and found that 1980s, 1990s and 2000s fell more to the hot side than cold. The curve widened and flattened as well, which means there was a broader range of variability. This is important because Hansen once predicted that global warming's connection to extreme events would become more apparent in the decades from 1980 to present, but natural variability can play a role too and actually mask the trend. It was important to distinguish the two.
This wider curve created the new "extremely hot" category, which was barely there in the base period. However, hot has become considered normal in the last 30 years. To be more specific, 75 percent of land area on Earth had "hot" summers in the last decade alone, where only 33 percent had "hot" summers from 1951 to 1980 total.
According to the researchers, an "extremely hot" summer is considered a mean summer temperature that is experienced by less than one percent of Earth's land area during the base period. But since 2006 alone, approximately 10 percent of land area across the Northern Hemisphere had a summer like this.
"This summer, people are seeing extreme heat and agricultural impacts," said Hansen. "We're asserting that this is casually
connected to global warming
, and in this paper, we present the scientific evidence for that."
The study noted "extremely hot" summers in other areas besides just the U.S. Midwest, like Texas, Mexico and Oklahoma in 2011 and Eastern Europe, Western Asia and the Middle East in 2010.
This study was published in the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Science Daily
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
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June 29, 2012, 6:01 PM
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September 15, 2011, 4:20 PM
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Leaders and Practitioners: There Really is a Difference
EP Editorial Staff | July 1, 2001
Here is an example. Plant No. 1 has worked for more than two years to implement Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). They have yet to see any real measurable, sustainable results from their efforts.
Plant No. 2 started using TPM last fall to address a production bottleneck. They purposely stayed away from implementing TPM on a broad scale. Their results were impressive and sustained.
Plant No. 1's TPM efforts were led from the maintenance and reliability department as a way to reduce the need for equipment maintenance by expanding operator involvement. The reliability mana- ger fashioned a training program for operators and developed a training center staffed with instructors.
Plant No. 2's TPM efforts were led by the plant general manager, who recognized the importance of proper maintenance, as a way to improve production throughput and reduce operating costs. He was an active leader—he walked the talk. He explained how TPM activities were to be used to achieve production goals to make the plant more competitive and responsive to customers' needs. He actively participated in all TPM activities from the leadership committee to hands-on training.
Plant No. 1 focused on eliminating well-documented equipment problems, but not necessarily on the production bottleneck.
Plant No. 1 saw virtually no results from its efforts. Because the starting point was too large, the operators had little or no discretionary time to do any of the equipment maintenance procedures they learned. Production supervisors also kept them focused on making product to meet production quotas. Equipment continued to be unreliable which caused more downtime and demanded more production overtime just to meet quotas.
Plant No. 2 focused on improving competitiveness, and ensuring the future by targeting the production bottleneck.
Plant No. 2 saw fast and sustainable results from the TPM efforts. Last fall they were making weekly production quotas using five machining cells running three shifts with 14 percent overtime. After their first applied TPM training event and the completed action items, they were achieving the same weekly production quotas using four machining cells running two shifts with 3 percent overtime, and the cost to produce a product was significantly lower. They are now focusing TPM on the next machining cell that is a known bottleneck. Their goal is to make weekly production quotas using three machining cells on two shifts with 3 percent overtime, achieving still lower production costs and improved throughput.
Plant No. 2 focused on a problem area first and created a "pocket of excellence" in the plant. With that, they defined what they wanted for the future of the plant, and for the people who work there. They provided examples of their workplace and work culture of the future that they could see, touch, measure, and discuss with very little abstract speculative examples.
What are the differences between the two plants? One is obvious—the purposes of their TPM initiatives: focusing on maintenance problems vs. business goals. The other difference goes back to the difference between practitioners and leaders. While a practitioner may be practicing a profession, the leader is leading change. The practitioner focused on maintenance and reliability improvement while the leader focused on improving throughput and reducing production cost, not to be confused with cutting costs. The leader created an overall work environment conducive to engaging people on the plant floor in making improvements in their machines and work areas.
Are you a practitioner or a leader? Are you practicing the profession of maintenance and reliability or are you leading improvements by making the plant or facility core competitive? Are you focusing on results and also changing the work culture or facilitating the latest initiative? In today's market with a growing shortage of skilled maintenance people, practitioners will have to find ways to also become leaders of change in the way maintenance gets done. MT


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Backyard Genius: 10 Ingenious Amateur Builds for 2012
Basis Audio Inspiration Turntable
Price: $45,000
So you think this turntable's Volvo-like price tag is ridiculous? Well, the Inspiration is actually billed as a more accessible alternative to Basis Audio's $150,000 Work of Art turntable model.
According to the Basis Audio website, the designers behind the pricier model entered into a "musical withdrawal" after realizing that no other product would ever match the "magic of the Work of Art." Seriously. Eventually, they pulled themselves out of despondency and put out this model for the masses.
Highfalutin language used to justify price tag: "A revelatory audio experience. Music lovers comment that listening becomes a musical event more than listening session. No other turntable/tonearm combination convinces the listener in this way."
Bang & Olufsen BeoCom 2
Price: $900
Today's smartphones can do a million different things. The Bang & Olufsen BeoCom 2 can do exactly two things: make phone calls and let the world know that you're rich. The phone features a weird two-column keypad. If you're used to the traditional phone keypad, you can kiss your muscle memory goodbye. But, hey, it's pretty!
Highfalutin language used to justify price tag: "BeoCom 2 challenges conventional assumptions about telephone design. Crafted from a single piece of aluminum, it sits naturally in the hand, while its gentle curve matches the shape of the human face."
Who Makes the Toughest Flashlight? Abusive Lab Test


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Ever wonder what sneakers will look like in the very distant future — say, 2015?
Nike is here to remind us. They've released 1,500 pairs of Nike Air Mags, the futuristic shoes Michael J. Fox (as the beloved Marty McFly) wore in Back to the Future II as he tried to fit in in the year 2015.
Buyers can head to eBay — where bidding as of Friday afternoon was well into the thousands — until Sept. 18, when the auction ends. According to reports, a pair went for $37,500 at a live auction Thursday night, too. All proceeds will benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.
Marty himself — a.k.a. Fox — showed off a pair Thursday night on the Late Show With David Letterman.
"This brings together three populations of people with major Joneses," Fox told Letterman as he made the shoes light up, just like in the movie. "The sneakerheads, the Back to the Future people, who, believe me, are out of their mind … in a good way! Thank God for them. And the people in the Parkinson's community who have an interest in research."
Nike says they've "been urged to release the shoes for many years," and now that the company has done it, they didn't mess around. According to a release, "the aesthetic is an exact match, down to the contours of the upper, the glowing LED panel and the electroluminescent NIKE in the strap." Tell us: Would you bid on a pair of Nike Air Mags?
–Sara Hammel


text:
Main Page | Risk Factors | Symptoms | Diagnosis | Treatment | Screening | Complications | Reducing Your Risk | Talking to Your Doctor | Living With Type 2 Diabetes | Resource Guide
You have a unique medical history. Therefore, it is essential to talk with your doctor about your personal risk factors and/or experience with type 2 diabetes. By talking openly and regularly with your doctor, you can take an active role in your care.
General Tips for Gathering Information
Here are some tips that will make it easier for you to talk to your doctor:
Specific Questions to Ask Your Doctor
You'll likely have many questions about diabetes, and it is important to discuss them with your doctor. Here are some questions to get you started.
About Your Risk of Developing Type 2 Diabetes
About Type 2 Diabetes
About Treatment Options
About Monitoring
About Lifestyle Changes
About Your Outlook
Diabetes mellitus type 2 in adults. EBSCO DynaMed Plus website. Available at: http://www.dynamed.com/topics/dmp~AN~T113993/Diabetes-mellitus-type-2-in-adults. Updated August 29, 2016. Accessed October 5, 2016.
Type 2. American Diabetes Association website. Available at: http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/type-2/?loc=DropDownDB-type2. Accessed August 23, 2016.
Tips for talking to your doctor. Family Doctor—American Academy of Family Physicians website. Available at: http://familydoctor.org/familydoctor/en/healthcare-management/working-with-your-doctor/tips-for-talking-to-your-doctor.html. Updated May 2014. Accessed August 23, 2016.
Last reviewed September 2016 by Kim Carmichael, MD, FACP
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Copyright © 2012 EBSCO Publishing All rights reserved.
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text:
Hello Everyone!
I am currently studying world religions in college and have become drawn to Buddhism. For this reason I have chosen to do my semester project based on an interview with someone who practices Buddhism. If there is anyone on here with some time that would be willing to share a bit about themselves and their beliefs with me I would be so grateful!
Thank you,


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American Pinot Noir
Great American Pinot Noir is no longer the wine version of a UFO
Joe Rochioli asserts he's "just a farmer."
"My father grew hops here in the Russian River Valley," says the 65-year-old owner of Rochioli Vineyards. Indeed, an elegant stone-faced hop kiln, easily identifiable by its distinctive pyramidal roofline, stands adjacent to the Rochioli ranch. Sonoma County is dotted with kilns, as hops were once a major crop.
But today, in western Sonoma County's Russian River Valley, wine grapes are the big cash crop. All sorts are successfully grown: Zinfandel, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and many others. But Pinot Noir put Russian River Valley on the map. "Whoever thought people would be saying 'great American Pinot Noir'?" asks Rochioli, who, with his winemaker son and partner, Tom, creates some of those very Pinot Noirs.
All the area's grape varieties reflect a familial finesse, a restraint and delicacy born of Russian River Valley's cool, Pacific Ocean-influenced climate and the winemakers' sense of community. The river undulates through the valley's flat, open expanse, twisting on the ground like a landed fish.
The Russian River runs through Rochioli's property, a fact that somehow makes a tasteable difference in the wines--the Pinot Noir, anyway. For example, among Rochioli's multiple Pinot Noir bottlings are two that come from contiguous four-acre plots. The plots look the same, but their wines don't taste the same. One (called West Block) is closer to the river; the other (Three Corner Vineyard) is farther away. West Block is always better. "Dunno why," Joe Rochioli says. "It just is."
That's the thing about Pinot Noir. It's the world's most sensitive wine grape, and no other variety is so indicative of its site. Pinot Noir will broadcast the most minute distinctions of site--exposition, air flow, water drainage, soil temperature--like a tattletale little sister with the lungs of a hog caller.
This is one of the reasons for America's new Pinot Noir accomplishment. Unlike other red wine grapes, Pinot Noir demands your attention. It subtly reveals elements in the earth you can't even see, yet it is assertive enough to tell you they're there. Winemaker Tom Dehlinger of Dehlinger Winery, another Russian River Valley producer creating some of America's best Pinot Noirs, displays a map of his 16 acres of Pinot Noir. "I have it broken down into 60 sections," he says, without a trace of awareness of just how, well, crazy that is. "It's all based on different soil types, ripening times, all kinds of things that have made themselves known over the past two decades.
"When I make the wines," Dehlinger continues, "I separate them into 12 to 15 different lots to see how they evolve. Then, depending on the vintage, I'll blend these into between two and five different bottlings each year." Does this intense focusing make a difference? The results speak for themselves. Dehlinger's Pinot Noirs have improved steadily over the years. Today, his mailing list is closed and Pinot Noir lovers clamor to obtain a single bottle of his wine.
If your soil doesn't have what Pinot Noir likes, well, you're better off growing hops. It's less embarrassing. However, when you hit, it's a gold mine. Consider, for example, the success of Williams & Selyem Winery, across the road from Rochioli. It was Burt Williams's wine-making success with grapes purchased from Joe Rochioli that put him and Rochioli on top. Neither Williams nor his partner, Ed Selyem, owned any vineyards. All the Pinot Noirs they made, beginning in the early '80s, came from a number of northern California vineyards, mostly from western Sonoma County.
But winemaker Williams had what can only be called a "touch." His Rochioli Vineyard Pinot Noir made Rochioli famous. In turn, the Rochioli's grapes were essential to Williams' & Selyem's success. The symbiosis was so effective that, in 1998, Selyem and Williams sold the winery--a nondescript warehouse plunked in a vineyard managed by Rochioli--to John Dyson, the owner of Millbrook Vineyards & Winery in New York State, for $9.5 million.
What Dyson really bought (along with the building and existing inventory) was the brand--and the critical commitment from the Rochiolis and other growers loyal to Williams & Selyem to continue supplying grapes.
The landmark transaction shows just how far American Pinot Noir has come. It wasn't always so. As far back as 1897 an article in the San Francisco Chronicle made no bones about slighting California Pinot Noir: "Much wine is made and sold in California as Burgundy, but we have produced no wine which resembles the Burgundies of France. Our Pinots have proved a failure, probably from the lack of proper methods and care in fermentation."
That's all changed. More exciting yet is that the success is just beginning. Although fermentation techniques certainly play a role in Pinot Noir quality, today's stunning new Noirs really are all about vineyards--their location, what's planted there and even how it's planted.
Take Saintsbury in Napa Valley's Carneros district, which abuts breezy San Pablo Bay. In the early '80s, it looked as if Carneros might be California's ideal place for Pinot Noir, thanks to its cool climate. The wines that originally emerged--especially Saintsbury--were appealing. They were generous Pinot Noirs, plumped with a pure raspberry/cherry Pinot fruit.
But soon it became apparent that that's all they were. Carneros Pinot Noirs lacked depth, dimension and the kind of breadth of flavors that sets apart Burgundy's Pinot Noirs. Saintsbury, among others, went back to the drawing board.
Saintsbury co-owner David Graves is honest about those challenges and the winery's evolution. A serious, even scholarly, man, Graves doesn't flinch in acknowledging the limitations of those early Pinot Noirs. "There's no doubt that we've evolved into something richer and more concentrated, but with a recognizable Carneros core of fruit," he says. "It's been the result of a lot of things: a different, vertical canopy in the vine trellising so the sunlight penetrates better. Different, better rootstocks. Denser spacing of the vines. And not least, a lot more clones."
Clones, or strains, are part of America's new Pinot Noir accomplishment. All grape varieties have multiple strains, genetic mutations that occur naturally in the vineyard. For centuries, growers have kept a lookout for them, as some strains yield better or show greater disease resistance.
More than any other red grape, Pinot Noir mutates more readily. The range of Pinot Noir clones is vast, numbering in the hundreds. Starting in the 1970s, French vineyard researchers based in Dijon in Burgundy began to isolate these clones and run trials on them, giving them numerical designations such as 113, 114, 115 and so on. They were looking for consistent taste characteristics (a pronounced raspberry scent, for example), good crop levels and disease resistance.
After decades of investigation and selection, a number of "new" Pinot Noir (and Chardonnay) clones trickled onto the market, cultivated by commercial vineyard suppliers. Collectively, these are known as the Dijon clones. They have performed especially well in very cool climates, such as Oregon and northern California.
Saintsbury latched on to these clones with its usual aggressive vigor, setting up clonal trials in its vineyards. After all, just because a clone performs well in Burgundy doesn't automatically make it ideal for Carneros. Besides, American growers already had a good collection of "older" clones, brought in over the decades and identified by names such as Pommard or Martin Ray or Joe Swan, all referring to the original source of the cuttings.
Saintsbury grows its clones mostly in one block, segregating each clonal batch and making individual lots of wines. These are aged in neutral-tasting oak barrels, which allow the clonal differences to reveal themselves.
When you sit in Saintsbury's wine "library"sampling six different Pinot Noirs isolated by clone, you quickly see just how great the differences are. It takes no wine-tasting expertise to recognize the intensely perfumey, raspberry scent of clone 115, which is almost an exaggeration of what some people consider a classic Pinot Noir flavor. Clone 667 shows a strong "black fruits" scent. It's rich, slightly gamy, but coarser. Clone 777 has a strong note of black cherry, while the widely planted Pommard clone displays its characteristic chewy, chunky, dense qualities with its signature "cola" scent.
Which clone is the "best"? As all Pinot Noir growers already know, a blend of them. "I like the grip and mid-palate astringency of the Pommard," says Graves. "Clone 115 makes a complete wine; about 30 percent of our Reserve bottling is composed of 115. I like all the Dijon clones," he adds. "They have a different mix of flavors and tannins than I'm used to seeing." Until very recently, no one thought--few even dared to think--that America had anything on Burgundy. Great American Pinot Noir had long been the wine version of a UFO: many sightings but no real proof. Tantalizing reports filtered in for decades.
Then, as now, it came down to location. Pinot Noir, like a flying saucer, is a now-you-see-it, now-you-don't sort of grape, even in Burgundy. Walk 500 feet and you've literally lost the thrilling flavor of the adjacent plot. One such early "sighting" was the now-legendary telegram sent to the late Martin Ray, the purist winegrower whose 2,000-foot-elevation vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains sometimes yielded extraordinary Pinot Noir. In 1936 the famous New York-based wine connoisseur Julian Street, no friend of California wine making, telegraphed Ray:
Your Pinot Noir 1936 tasted tonight is first American red wine I ever drank with entire pleasure. Color superb bouquet beautiful. Flavor unmistakably Pinot Noir big and full. Wine still somewhat hard with slightly bitter aftertaste nevertheless remarkably fine. I am astounded. Warmest congratulations.
It was then, and is today, all about that one vineyard. Martin Ray's original vineyard--with his original clonal selections--is today Mount Eden Vineyards. The present winemaker and co-owner, Jeffrey Patterson, continues the tradition, creating classic Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir, which is dense, a bit burly, profound and long-lived. It's utterly different from the silky perfume-like characteristic of Russian River Valley wines, yet no less a member of that breed.
Such sightings continued with one or another Pinot Noir of fleeting impression popping up in various spots. In 1969, for example, one of the more frequent Pinot sightings came from Chalone Vineyard, 1,600 feet above the town of Soledad in the dry Salinas Valley of Monterey County, California. Although the limestone soil gave Chalone's Pinot Noir a classic Burgundy-like goût de terroir, or savor of site, the streaming sunshine sapped the wine of delicacy. It was then and remains today an intriguing, if less-than-classic, Pinot Noir.
Another such sighting popped up in the 1980s with Calera Wine Co. near the town of Hollister. Owner Josh Jensen was looking for limestone soil--a Burgundian standard--and found it about 20 miles from Chalone on the eastern flank of the Gavilan Range. (Chalone is on the western flank.) Again, the resulting Pinot Noirs were rich, meaty, sun-filled experiences redolent of chocolate but wanting in delicacy and grace. Still, they suggested possibilities.
Such occurrences were not confined to California. By the early 1980s, more than a few observers were convinced--and remain convinced--that the most promising place in America for Pinot Noir is not California, but Oregon, specifically the 100-mile-long Willamette Valley in the northwestern part of the state. Oregon became a sort of Roswell for its extraordinary, if sporadic, Pinot Noir occurrences.
Take, for example, the most famous Oregon Pinot Noir event, which actually occurred in France in 1980. The Eyrie Vineyards South Block Reserve 1975 Pinot Noir came within two-tenths of a point of beating the first-place 1959 Chambolle-Musigny, a wine from shipper Joseph Drouhin, who organized the tasting. Drouhin was obviously impressed. Seven years later the Burgundy firm purchased vineyard land in the Willamette Valley and established Domaine Drouhin Oregon.
Pinot Noir likes it cool. The best Pinot Noirs, no matter how dense in flavor, must display a kind of delicacy or finesse. This is Oregon's strong suit. More than any other American Pinot Noirs, the Oregon versions are exemplars of finesse. But this comes at a price.
In Oregon, the price is variability. The Willamette Valley's cool, rain-swept climate means that every harvest in late September is a race to get Pinot Noir ripe enough before fall rains damage the crop. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't. When they win--1993, '94 and likely '98--the results are lovely: Pinot Noirs redolent of wild berries delivered with balletic grace. However, when the vintages are less than ideal, many Oregon Pinots are thin. You can say the same for Burgundy.
Consistency is hard-won among Oregon Pinot producers, but a few wineries get close to the mark. Foremost among them is Domaine Drouhin Oregon, which relies on densely spaced vines to deliver an unusual resonance of fruit, especially in its Laurène bottling.
The thinking is that, somehow, more Pinot Noir vines crammed onto the same space produces fruit of greater depth and dimension. Part of Drouhin's vineyard has 3,100 vines per acre, which is three to four times as many vines as conventionally spaced vineyards. This growing approach shows in the wines, which are deeper flavored and have greater resonance.
Another producer with a denser-than-usual planting is Beaux Frères, or brothers-in-law, an aptly named winery. One of the brothers-in-law is renowned wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr. Beaux Frères Pinot Noir is a big wine by Oregon standards, a bit too laced with sweet vanilla-scented oak for some, but the underlying fruit is superb. It, too, has unusual resonance and depth, most likely from closely spaced vines.
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A CRASH between a car and a van closed Main Road in Hockley for more than an hour this evening.
Fire crews from Hawkwell and Rayleigh Weir attended to free a man trapped in his car before he could be taken to hospital.
The smash took place near the junction with Bullwood Road, around 7pm.
A spokesman at Rayleigh Weir fire station said: "We had one person medically trapped in their car. We waited with him and spoke to him to reassure him and keep his heart rate down until the ambulance arrived then we got him out to safety."
The driver of the van was not injured in the incident. The road was not expected to re-open until at least 9pm.


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When Miki Ando was chosen for the Olympics over Yukari Nakano there was a big fuss about whether the Japanese Skating Federation was pushing Ando because of all her commercial endorsements.
I never understood this, because why would the Japanese Skating Federation care whether it was Ando or Nakano who got rich?
A recent article in Spotlight in Skating explains the deal more clearly. First, apparently it was the Japanese Olympic Committee, not the Figure Skating Federation, who stood to gain.
"Many Japanese journalists suspect that Ando was chosen because the JOC has annointed her, along with Suguri and Arakawa, as "symbol athletes." The JOC controls the three skaters' image rights and receives payment when they appear in commercials. Ando is in high demand; she has appeared in commercials for eight companies this year and recently signed a long-term deal with Toyota.
"'Symbol athletes' receive one million yen (about $9000 in U.S. dollars) a year for their endorsements, but compaies pay the JOC far more. Japanese news outlets report that the JOC's profit between 2005 and 2008 is expected to reach 7.8 billion yen, a huge increase over then prior four years."
I wonder if these "image rights" contracts extend to the years after the skater turns pro?


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Phillips does it all in victory over Brewers
Homers, drives in two and makes spectacular defensive play
CINCINNATI -- Brandon Phillips has long reveled in being a hit-taker and a heart-breaker on defense. On Friday against the Brewers, the Reds' three-time Gold Glove second baseman didn't even need his glove to make the play of the night -- just his right hand and left knee.
Phillips also notched an RBI single and his solo home run in the seventh proved the difference in the Reds' 4-3 win over the Brewers.
Not bad for a night's work.
"He's one of the best I've seen at that position, and he works at it," Baker said.
Cincinnati took a 3-2 lead into the seventh inning when reliever Sam LeCure backed himself into a corner with back-to-back one-out walks. Next was Ryan Braun, who worked LeCure for 10 pitches, then hit a high bouncer up the middle.
Phillips broke to his right and made a barehanded stop, then touched second base with his left knee. As he fell to the ground, he twisted and threw successfully to first base to complete the inning-ending double play.
The crowd of 33,251 fans at Great American Ball Park roared with amazement.
"I don't know how I made it, but I'm glad I made it," Phillips said. "I just took a gamble to try and turn the double play. I would have used my glove, but I knew it was going to be a short hop. I knew if I put my glove down, it would probably hit the bag."
Instead of Aramis Ramirez coming to the plate with either the bases loaded after an infield single, or runners at the corners with two outs after a forceout at second, Phillips' double play took the Reds out of harm's way.
"That's the best double play I've ever seen turned from second base," Baker said. "That was a game saver. If we won't turn that double play, who knows? They had some dangerous guys up that inning."
LeCure pointed to Phillips with gratitude as the team came off of the field.
"Sometimes I guess maybe we take it for granted, because we see it on a daily basis, but I certainly did not take it for granted tonight standing on the mound," LeCure said of Phillips. "That was a huge play in the game.
"I just kept telling myself, "It's going take one pitch, it's going take one pitch." Definitely wasn't what I had in mind right there. The double play was, but how it was turned was not. That was pretty unbelievable, man. That was huge for him, and I'll definitely try to take him out to dinner for that. "
Throughout most batting practice or infield drills, Phillips will attempt a variety of flourished plays -- behind the back catches, no-look tosses to second base and anything potentially out of the ordinary. You never know when that dexterity could come in handy.
It certainly did on Friday.
"I've practiced the short hops with the bare hand, but I never had a bag in the way," Phillips said. "I've touched the bag with my knee plenty of times, but I've never caught a short hop barehanded by the bag. That's a first."
Brewers shortstop Jean Segura was forced out at second base on the play.
"No, I've never seen one like that," Segura said. "It was a good play. He was lucky, he got that ball in his hand -- his bare hand -- and turned to first and made that throw. ... There's not too much you can do about that."
In the bottom of the seventh with one out, Phillips provided big insurance as he hit a 1-0 pitch from Michael Gonzalez for a solo homer to left field to make it 4-2. It was his sixth of the season and it gave him a National League-leading 31 RBIs.
It proved to be the game's difference as Aroldis Chapman gave up a two-out single to Norichika Aroki in the top of the ninth. Aoki went to second base on indifference and a pair of Chapman wild pitches allowed him to score, making it 4-3.
The early portion of the game lacked any flash as Reds starter Tony Cingrani and Brewers ace Yovani Gallardo each labored with four-inning outings and high pitch counts.
Gallardo, who threw 100 pitches and only 53 strikes, walked five batters and allowed three runs, including a Phillips RBI single and Jay Bruce RBI double in the third -- both with two outs. Cingrani gave up two runs on a pair of fourth-inning home runs to Segura and Braun and left after his pitch count reached 85.
Until the fourth, Milwaukee had only two singles against Cingrani, but that changed when Segura led off with a fly ball to right field that carried just enough over Bruce's glove for a homer. On the next pitch, there was no doubt about Braun's drive to right field for back-to-back homers.
For the eighth straight game, the Reds did not get a quality start.
A two-out RBI single by Zack Cozart provided the Reds the go-ahead run in the fourth.
Following his homer in the seventh, Phillips had a chance to blow the game open in the eighth. His one regret was that he missed the chance with the bases loaded by striking out.
"If there were two outs, maybe it's a different story," Phillips said. "There was one out. One of my goals is to get 100 [RBIs] since I've moved into the fourth spot. I just feel like I had a chance to at least get one [run]. I didn't do my job, but I'm glad that we won. That's a plus also."
Mark Sheldon is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Mark My Word, and follow him on Twitter @m_sheldon. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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WCU Students Named to Who's Who
Hattiesburg, Miss., March 22, 2013 - Thirty-seven students from the Hattiesburg campus of William Carey University were named Who's Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges. This is one of the most prestigious awards in the academic community, and has become one of the most highly regarded and long-standing honors programs in the nation.
Selected students are Nancy Barnard, Laurel; Charrie Berard, Sumrall; Audrey Bergeron, Apple Valley, Ca.; Haley Bryant, Bassfield; Michael Chancellor, Hattiesburg; Eric Cooper, Sumrall; Courtney Daley, Carson; Jennifer DeMelo, Kenner, La.; Patrick Earley, Raceland, La.; Anna-Lauren Fontenot, Waynesboro; Jacquelyn Godshaw, Richton; Amanda Guin, Moselle; Rachel Harris, Petal; Melissa Hays, Mendenhall; Sean Hodges, Vancleave; Amber Jones, Huntsville, Ala.; Jua Kim,Yangchenghu, South Korea; Alex Lahasky, Overland Park, Kan.; Douglas LaRue, Gulfport; Cassie Lasher, Lumberton; Rebecca Lefler, Petal; Jessie Martin, Lumberton; Marian Mauseth, Indianola; Caleb Prentiss, Leakesville; Stefan Sartori, Belgrade, Serbia; James Nikesh Singh, Kathmandu, Nepal; Cynthia Smith, Petal; Brett Stewart, Laurel; John Sullivan, Petal; Fernando Garcia Vega, Metepec, Mexico; Danielle Walters, Carriere; Joshua Webb, Lucedale; Christopher Whitfield, Hattiesburg; Christopher Wood, Coalbrookdale, England; Randy Wright, Hattiesburg; Laila Younes, Picayune, and Talal Younes, Picayune.


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|Sport, 1 pitch
|YDS: 5.10c French: 6b Ewbanks: 20 UIAA: VII ZA: 20 British: E2 5b [details]
|Murray Judge and Gugi Rylegis, 1979
|Page Views:
|Submitted By:
|William Prehm on Jan 1, 2001
|2017 Seasonal Closures - Partial Closure Lifting MORE INFO >>>
|Comments on Mighty Thor
|Add Comment
|Show which comments —
Comments displayed oldest to newest — Skip Ahead to the Most Recent Dated Jun 14, 2017
By Barrett Cooper
Nov 26, 2001
|As I remember it the first couple bolts are a lot of fun and require a good bit of balance as you smear up the seam. The climb gets its rating fromt he crux moves at the white headwall above the seam. It it easier the taller you are but there are good spots to rest in before and after the crux that helped me a lot. From the bolt above the crux traverse up and left to get to the anchors. The traverse presents a minor penduluming danger but thankfully has fairly good footing to the ledge with the anchors.
By Sean O'Dell
Apr 26, 2002
|Some key beta for this one: First of all, Mighty Thor takes every inch of a 60m rope to TR. 2 - For some reason, I seem to remember that you need 14 quicks/slings to lead it, although I've only TR'ed it, so I'm not sure. 3 - If you're 8' tall, you should be all over this route. That crux move is an off-balance, reachy son of a...
By Darin Lang
Jun 2, 2002
|It might be as much as 14 QDs. Half the fun of this great route is dealing with rope drag and avoiding Z-clips through and above the crux section. Not that I minded the extra pro ...
By Jon Cannon
Jun 5, 2002
rating: 5.10c 6b 20 VII 20 E2 5b
I think I counted you using thirteen draws on this route, Darin. It definitely behooves the leader to NOT clean the last three draws or so of this route, as a fall at the crux implicates a pretty good-sized pendulum (translation: the second would have a devil of a time getting back on route).
The crux move is in the middle of a fantastic sequence, when the main headwall begins to loom menacingly over the intrepid climber. You're gonna explore the limits of Stealth rubber on this one!
By Adam Hicks`
Jul 17, 2003
|Explore them I did as I took a pretty major whipper whilst attempting to clip the second bolt. It actually wasn't the stealth, however, instead my flight having its beginnings in the left hand that popped off of a pinch. A bad fall it was, too, for as I put my hand out in front of me the rope found itself wedged between it and the rock and glided along my palm giving me an unforgetable burn. Ouch! This route is amazing and tricky. I also love that old Garden drilled angle for pro thing. You'd think people would wise up and stop climbing in the Garden, eh? Not bloody likely!
By Terrence Johnson
Aug 7, 2003
|The scariest part about this climb is the heinous american triangle for the anchors. I say that whoever wants to climb it cut off the frayed cable and bring a couple pieces of webbing with them and rig the anchors correctly. The frayed cable is destroying the piece of webbing on there and would destroy any other webbing someone might put on it too.
By Chris R
Sep 5, 2003
|Cable anchors are in bad shape; one of the cable threads has snapped, and the remaining two or three aren't far behind. Also, the cable is placed in the "triangle of death" fashion. I left a short blue 1" sling equalized through 2 of the 3 pins, that being all I had at the time. Be cafeful....
By Dan Russell
Sep 6, 2003
|Most of those cable anchors seem to be placed as triangles.
By Larry Shaw
May 28, 2004
rating: 5.10c 6b 20 VII 20 E2 5b
|Noticed about 4 of the pins were bent. I'm 6'2 and had enough wingspan to reach the bucket semi gracefully. I feel sorry for shorter climbers on this one. The cable anchor has been backed up by webbing and is safe.
By Stewart M. Green
Jun 8, 2005
|Mighty Thor has new anchors! Stewart Green and Brian Shelton replaced the old pitons (including some stamped 1952) with three 5-inch-long stainless steel sleeve bolts with stainless steel descending rings. Many thanks to Climbing Magazine and Petzl for donating the new anchors. The old ones were definitely a hazard with a frayed cable and brittle webbing.
By Darin Lang
Jun 9, 2005
|Thanks, guys! That frayed cable/random sling/old piton set up *may* have been safe, but it never looked it.
By Stich
From: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Mar 29, 2008
|There's a bail quickdraw up on this route as of today. FYI.
By Joe Mokrycki
From: Lincoln, Nebraska
Apr 14, 2008
|I hate to say it but I busted a hold off the start of Mighty Thor. Somewhere around the 25 ft mark there is now a gaping flat spot where a beautiful blocky chunk used to be. It was a great hold for your left hand, but when I got my foot up on it it busted, depositing me into the arms of my belayer.
By Scott Matz
From: Loveland, CO
Aug 5, 2008
|If you plan to send bring 14 + draws and maybe a #3 TCU for the start. Don't forget your other rope, well protected crux, awesome.
By Doug Lintz
From: Kearney, NE
Oct 2, 2008
|This is a fun and well-protected route (after reaching the first pin of course). If you don't have 14 draws, there are several spots where you can securely back-clean your last clip.
By Taylor Tolle
From: Colorado
Mar 5, 2009
|Loved the route, I took my very first lead fall here. Once you pass the crux you have a beautiful, sidewalk-sized ledge to roll on to but with fiew handholds to get there.... The bomer took me 25-30 feet past the crux with a single four letter word echoing down to the Sunday morning tourists "I apologize". I do not recomend top roping Thor, the rope pulls you off to the right and away from the holds.
By Phil Lauffen
From: The Bubble
May 12, 2009
|Cool climb! Harder for shorter people for sure. I'm 5'8" and it involved some trickery to get to the jug, while my partner who was a little above 6' cruised it. Forget the cams. there are plenty of bolts. Too many perhaps.
By Dan Petty
From: Wheat Ridge, CO
Aug 15, 2010
rating: 5.10b 6a+ 19 VII- 19 E2 5b
|Top-roping can be done easily by redirecting the rope through a quickdraw clipped to a fixed pin above the crux move.
By EricJochens
From: Co Springs, CO
Aug 30, 2010
|Crux move looks worse than it is. I slipped while hanging off my right hand on the ledge jug only to realize that if you move your hand 6 inches right it is bomber. Safe clean fall if you miss it.
By Graham Montgomery
From: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Jun 14, 2017
rating: 5.10c 6b 20 VII 20 E2 5b
|Climbed this morning. Onsighted the route but was super gripped by the rusty pitons. There are a lot of them, but their condition is iffy. There are so many that I probably would have only clipped every other one if I trusted them, but I wanted the redundancy for sure. The anchor is pretty fresh looking stainless steel w/ good looking rap rings. The bolt on the left is a bit spinny and could use tightening if anyone has the tools feels inclined.


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A Washington State couple was arrested Monday morning after officers responded to a motel for a reported domestic violence call and reportedly found garbage bags of pot, the Fort Bragg Police Department reported.
According to the FBPD, a caller at the Super 8 Motel on South Main Street reported at 6:20 a.m. Feb. 25 hearing a man and woman fighting in what was believed to be an incident of domestic violence.
When officers arrived, they reportedly found a woman yelling at a man and when they contacted one of the subjects near their motel room, the officers reportedly noticed "the smell marijuana coming from inside the room."
After obtaining a search warrant, officers then reportedly found more than 16 pounds of dried marijuana, and evidence that the drug was going to be packaged and sold.
The suspects, Alexander M. Kattau, 27, and Nicole P. Rudrud, 32, both of Port Angeles, Wash., were then arrested on suspicion of possessing marijuana for sale and booked into Mendocino County Jail.


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14 choices may seem like a bit much, but if you compiled a Roc list as comprehensive a list as the buzzz list is, it would be longer than Gene Simmons' tongue.
Also, I think the poll would be more representative of the true taste in buzzz plastics if the poll allowed 2 or three choices, not just one. Many of us throw numerous buzzzes (FLX, ESP, and old production Z for me) so a better percentage would emerge.
I forget exactly what the guy said above, but there's truth to the desire for a roc-like disc in premium plastic for cheap. That's what I consider my wasp to be. I'd buy a ton of them if there was ever any need, but I'm still working on my first one (~2 yrs) with a single backup waiting to go if coach ever puts him in the game. For now all he sees is late 4th quarter action to stay limber.
New poll!