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CHICAGO, IL–January 24, 2011–Momentum is building for the new, regional PASS SQLRally conference. PASS SQLRally is the latest conference in the growing list of SQL Server training events organized by the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS).
In addition to almost fifty technical sessions, PASS SQLRally will provide up to five hundred attendees with the opportunity to get first-hand experiences with the latest vendor offerings specifically for SQL Server users. Dell will be present in full force as the Presenting Sponsor for the inaugural event. Other sponsors include Idera, Confio Software, SQL Sentry, Inc., Red Gate Software, and Quest Software.
"PASS SQLRally was developed to address the needs of the SQL Server community looking for high-quality, affordable education close to home," said PASS president Rushabh Mehta. "The vendor community is embracing the opportunity to meet with our technical audience in a friendly environment that's focused on getting the most out of SQL Server."
The first PASS SQLRally conference will take place May 11-13, 2011 at the Marriott World Center in Orlando, FL. Conference details can be found on the event website www.sqlrally.com with updates on Twitter using hashtag #sqlrally. For information on sponsorship opportunities or to receive a Sponsor Prospectus, contact PASS SQLRally Sponsor Manager, Al Shuler, firstname.lastname@example.com.
SEATTLE, WA—November 11, 2010— The Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) officially opened registration for PASS SQLRally 2011, the new regional event that fills the gap between the free PASS SQLSaturday 1-day events and PASS Summit, the world's largest conference for the SQL Server community. PASS SQLRally 2011 is hosted in partnership with the local Orlando PASS Chapter, OPASS.
500 database professionals are expected to take part in the inaugural PASS SQLRally event on May 11-13, 2011 at the Marriot World Center in Orlando, FL. PASS SQLRally delivers two full days of technical training sessions, an optional day of pre-conference seminars, and session subject tracks focused on four areas: BI, DBA, Developer, and Professional Development.
Attendees will benefit from Microsoft SQL Server and BI best practices sessions, effective troubleshooting, and issue prevention tips and tricks from industry experts and community influencers. PASS SQLRally also promises to deliver great networking opportunities with SQL Server peers in a fun, casual environment.
The four pre-conference full day seminars now open for registration are: Business Intelligence Workshop; Query Performance Tuning, Start to Finish; Maximize Your SQL Server 2008 Coding Skills; and Leadership and Team Management Skills for the Database Professional.
PASS SQLRally is for professionals of all levels of expertise who work with Microsoft SQL Server, including: BI architects, data analysts, developers, and administrators, database administrators, developers, and IT professionals and managers responsible for SQL Server.
For more information and to register visit http://www.sqlrally.com. For specific information on the pre-conference seminars, visit http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2011/orlando/Agenda/PreConferenceSeminars.aspx. For information on the Orlando PASS Chapter visit http://www.opass.com
About PASS
The Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) is an independent, not-for-profit association dedicated to supporting, educating, and promoting the Microsoft SQL Server community. From local user groups and virtual chapters to webcasts and the annual PASS Summit, PASS enables knowledge sharing, in-depth learning, access to the Microsoft SQL Server team, and the ability to influence the direction of SQL Server technologies. For more information about PASS and the benefits of becoming a member, visit the PASS Web site at http://www.sqlpass.org.
All brand names, product names, and trademarks belong to their respective holders.


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OAKLAND -- Their final act Wednesday provided the most thrills, but what the A's pulled off in game No. 162 was merely an extension of the magic they've spun all season.
They stumbled early against the Texas Rangers, only to storm back and complete one of the most amazing sports stories the Bay Area has witnessed.
With a 12-5 victory before a sellout crowd at the Coliseum, the A's secured their 15th American League West championship.
Surely it was their most improbable.
They became the first team in major league history to win a division after trailing by five games with less than 10 to play.
They're also the third team in history to win a division or pennant while spending exactly one day in sole possession of first place. That came Wednesday, the final day of the regular season, when they completed a 6-0 homestand and a three-game sweep of the Rangers.
"If any series shows what we're capable of doing, it's this series right here," A's first baseman Brandon Moss said inside a raucous home clubhouse. "We went out and played what was supposed to be the best team in the American League, and we swept them to take the division."
The A's, who traded three All-Star pitchers last offseason, were believed to be years away from contending. They endured a nine-game losing streak in May and were buried 13 games out of first place as late as June 30.
Then they embarked on a four-month hot streak that never ended. From June 2 on, the A's went a major league-best 72-38.
Right fielder Josh Reddick was asked about the fact his team spent all of one day in first place.
"One day don't matter," he said. "It's like a race. You can lead 300 laps, but if you don't get the last lap, it don't count."
Wednesday's victory, coupled with the New York Yankees' winning the American League East, means the A's (94-68) take on the A.L. Central-champion Detroit Tigers in the Divisional Series. The first two games of that best-of-five meeting are Saturday and Sunday at Comerica Park.
The A's, as the higher seeded division winner, play the first two on the road but will get the final three (if necessary) at home. The top-seeded Yankees will play in the other A.L.D.S. against the winner of Friday's Texas-Baltimore wild card game.
Only four previous teams had trailed by 13 games at any point in the season and came back to win a division or pennant.
The A's made their second-half run due in great part to a revolving cast of unheralded players who took turns stepping up on any given day.
One of Wednesday's unlikely heroes was reliever Evan Scribner, who relieved starter A.J. Griffin in the third and tossed three shutout innings to hold down the fort after Texas commanded a 5-1 lead with five runs in the third.
That rally deflated a standing room-only crowd of 36,067. But the A's, who made a habit of comeback victories all season, answered with a six-run rally of their own in the fourth to take the lead. They never looked back.
"It's kinda like the story of our whole season -- nothing's been easy," reliever Sean Doolittle said. "We've had injuries, we've had
young guys stepping up. You could feel the vibe (Wednesday). It was that same feeling from all the walk-offs. It wasn't if we were gonna do it, it was how and when we're gonna do it."
It was fitting that Moss led the offensive attack with three RBI. He provided one of those unexpected midseason jolts, getting
promoted from the minors in June and hitting 21 homers.
A's general manager Billy Beane reflected on the A's remarkable turnaround.
"We wanted to create a team that had a chance to get better from the first day forward," he said before the game. "We just didn't know where we were going to start from. Maybe we were a little further ahead when we started than anybody anticipated."
A few hours later, Beane received a pie in the face -- courtesy of Reddick -- inside a clubhouse that hosted its second champagne party in three days. The A's celebrated clinching at least a wild card berth Monday night.
* The back end of the A's bullpen enjoyed a dominant run against the Rangers.
Doolittle, Ryan Cook and Grant Balfour combined for nine shutout innings over the three games. Cook and Balfour both pitched Wednesday for the fifth consecutive day, by far the hardest manager Bob Melvin has pushed his relievers all season.
He tried to stay away from Balfour in the ninth with a seven-run lead, but the fiery Australian was having none of it.
"He wouldn't have the conversation with anybody," Melvin said. "He just wanted to be out there."
Balfour recorded the final out on Michael Young's fly ball to center fielder Coco Crisp, and the A's poured out of their dugout.
* The A's will fly to Detroit on Thursday. Melvin said he didn't know his playoff rotation yet. Jarrod Parker has pitched very strong in September and would be throwing on normal four day's rest were he to take the ball in Saturday's opener.
Melvin said winning the division allows the A's to be more conservative with Brett Anderson's comeback from an oblique injury. He suggested Anderson might be an option for Game 3 in Oakland on Tuesday, which would indicate Tommy Milone figures to pitch one of the games in Detroit.
* Surprisingly, Melvin did not close the door on right-hander Brandon McCarthy being available should the A's advance deep. McCarthy underwent brain surgery Sept. 5 after being struck in the head by a liner, but he's recovered well to this point and has played catch.
* The 94 wins are the A's most since they posted 96 in 2003.

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National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Certification
The Fairfax County Department of Public Safety Communications (DPSC) is now a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) 9-1-1 Call Center Partner, demonstrating their commitment to protecting and ensuring the safety of all children in Fairfax County. Through both administrative and operational training, and the adoption of best practices in policies and procedures pertaining to the response of missing and exploited children, DPSC is adequately prepared to respond to all calls reporting a missing, abducted, or exploited child. By completing the partner program with NCMEC, DPSC has created a child-centered 9-1-1 system based on the belief that there is nothing more important to the community than protecting children.
Fairfax County 9-1-1 is the 68th of a potential 6,100 9-1-1 centers in the United States to achieve this recognition.


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On a cold Saturday night in February, Santa Fe Drive is swarming with teenage life. The Aztlan Theatre is hosting an event put on by Roofless Productions, a local promoter that specializes in electronic music and tends to draw young crowds. By 11 p.m., kids are convening from all directions, coming in colorful droves -- holding hands, laughing, skipping along in pastel baby Ts, sporting Manic Panic dye jobs.
Just inside the Aztlan's door, a young woman -- maybe fifteen, sixteen years old -- in glittery eye shadow and platform boots shouts to a friend above the lobby's rambunctious din. She's excited that four DJs are scheduled to spin -- even more than at the last party she attended -- and seems almost oblivious to the fact that her hands are raised high in the air as she's frisked from head to toe by a female security guard. But in the girl's bag, the guard finds something that could be a problem. There are a lot of rules she's supposed to follow, and she's not sure how this particular object fits into them.
"Hey, what do we do about birth control pills?" the guard asks her partner, who's conducting his own search of a young male at the front of the line. Eventually, they decide that because the package appears to be authentic -- it's sealed and has the girl's name on it -- she'll be allowed to bring it inside. Her candy necklace is a problem, however. It will have to go into The Box, which already holds an assortment of confiscated sundries: about a dozen Blow Pops, tubes of Chap Stick, candy rings, Tootsie Rolls, cough drops, a Swiss Army knife, some baby pacifiers and a couple of surgical-style dust masks.
On their own, the objects inside The Box seem pretty innocuous. But because tonight's event is a "rave," they're all viewed as potential carriers of illegal drugs, trip toys, high-sustainers. Contraband. And these days, smart promoters -- such as Roofless owner Ryan Rushing, a DJ who's been staging Colorado events since 1995 -- know better than to let anything slide through. Tonight's rave falls one day after high school student Brittney Chambers slipped into a coma after taking Ecstasy at a party for her sixteenth birthday; talk of the dangers of "club drugs" is all over the TV and newspapers. Although Brittney's party took place at home, not at a club, invariably the news reports allude to the very type of event Rushing is hosting, which only intensifies the challenges he faces. From a business standpoint, he has to throw a good party, entertain his audience, pay his staff and his performers -- DJs John Debo from Boston, Hardware from Florida, Thomas Michael from Los Angeles and G-Spot from Honolulu -- and, with any luck, walk off with a few dollars of his own. But he also has to prove something to the city of Denver: that he can throw a rave party where hundreds of kids show up, dance and stay up late -- without causing trouble.
"There is so much work that goes into removing the stigma that's attached to the word 'rave,'" Rushing says. "There are so many people opposed to raves in this city; it's a very fragile situation for a promoter. You can't afford to make too many mistakes."
Over 800 teenagers now fill the Aztlan. Most dance and socialize on the main floor; others chill out in the balcony, where they talk or just listen to the compulsive electronic music coming from the stage. Although raves are often characterized by their very late hours, tonight's event, like all of the parties booked at the Aztlan these days, will end at 2 a.m. After that, the more dance-happy members of the crowd will make their way to the Root in Boulder, one of the area's last legal bastions of after-hours dancing.
The shortened hours are among the changes that rave promoters understand to be the future of the industry, along with tightened security, restrictions on the age of party patrons, and the confiscation of candy contraband at the door. It's the price of legitimacy in volatile times, when law enforcement and municipal officials seem to view all raves, legal or not, as very real threats to their communities. And that's a perception many promoters aren't willing to fight.
"When you're trying to demonstrate that you have done everything in your power to minimize the presence of drugs, you really don't need some sheriff to see a grown man running around sucking on a pacifier," says Cris Campbell, a Denver attorney who's currently helping a loose coalition of about a dozen rave promoters, including Rushing, fight for the right to let kids party -- and for the promoter to make a living in the process. "You take their dust masks, their pacifiers. Anything that might be interpreted as paraphernalia.
"I prefer to take the focus away from the actual rave thing," he adds. "It needs to take a step forward. Police, city officials are afraid of the idea of the all-night party, and I'm really not equipped to fight them on that. The late-night thing kind of gives these events their uniqueness. But if people truly do come for the music and not for drugs, it won't matter if it closes at two or at five. The kids have to realize that things change.
"And sometimes, you have to change along with the system."
Ten years ago, impromptu promoters weren't above smashing locks and windows in order to gain access to vacant buildings in lower downtown and the desolate Platte Valley. Back then the events weren't raves, but parties -- a local offshoot of the underground, electronic dance music scene that had started in the British subculture and in the late '80s moved into abandoned warehouses across America. By the early '90s, Denver had caught the buzz. Hundreds of scenesters were connected or committed enough to find the local parties; in most cases, their locations were announced the day of the event, sometimes mere hours before they were to set to start.
Like the punk rockers who'd been holding their own warehouse events in Denver since the mid-'80s, early rave promoters enjoyed a thrilling, if precarious, existence. For many, the goal was to throw a party without raising the awareness, or the ire, of Denver cops -- and they sometimes succeeded. In impressive feats of subversion, they'd stage events at which hundreds of people danced to loud music beneath pulsing colored lights -- and no one outside even realized that a party was under way. But other events were not as successful, and eventually the Denver Police Department added the pesky parties to its list of downtown irritants. A few promoters managed to develop law-enforcement relationships that allowed them to continue to operate; sometimes they even hired off-duty cops to work security. But for many others, the cat-and-mouse game of eluding the police was part of the party mystique. It added to the sense that you were part of something decidedly outside the norm -- a tribe of club kids who shared an appreciation for beats and for beating the system.
In rave circles, the early '90s are now considered the "good old days" -- the days before cops, weary of simply stumbling upon events in progress, started figuring out how to stop them in advance by accessing the various Web sites and information hotlines that are the primary means of communication between planners and partygoers. They were the days before "rave" became synonymous with "drugs" in the mainstream media consciousness, before everyone from 60 Minutes to Time magazine to Beverly Hills 90210 (in one episode, an unsuspecting Brandon Walsh is dosed with a fictitious drug with properties similar to those of Ecstasy) attempted to understand and explain this strange new phenomenon that was taking hold in American communities and keeping its children up all night.
Today, of course, electronic music is neither underground nor anti-establishment -- a fact evidenced both by its presence in Gap commercials and by its SoundScan figures. In 1999, techno savant Moby went platinum with his release Play, while artists such as BT and Paul Oakenfold began selling out traditional concert venues. The genre's popularity among the high school set has nearly equaled, if not surpassed, that of hip-hop and rock and roll; its fashions -- the baggy, zippery pants, the cutesy, emblem-emblazoned T-shirts -- are available everywhere, from the Wal-Mart rack to the Calvin Klein circuit.
"Right now this music is 100 percent mainstream," says Rushing. "It's not like this top-secret world that only a few people here and there know about. That's how it used to be. And most of the rave promoters are still motivated by a love of the music. That's what separates us from your average concert promoter who's going to bring in any act of any kind as long as he thinks he can make a profit. But everyone knows there is money to be made in this if you know what you're doing. And, right now, you have got to know what you are doing."
"All of a sudden, things just kind of blew up. It got a little bit ridiculous," says Chris La Soya, a longtime raver who was involved with a couple of local production companies before he launched Pure Form Atmospheres in January 2000. "In the beginning, it was 300 people who were there because they loved the music. But then the music got so huge. It's big-league. You could hide 300 people. You cannot hide 5,000. It's like you wouldn't even think of trying to hold a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert in the middle of nowhere and hope that no one would notice. It wouldn't be smart. It wouldn't be safe. But that's what started happening with some of these promoters."
Clothing-store owner Thomas Heath operates a production company called Out of Our Heads with partner Chris Irvin. Like Rushing, Heath has watched Denver's scene give birth to one raver generation after another, with the numbers getting bigger each time. "Madonna is nominated for a Grammy right now with an electronic album that's not unlike the music that you would hear at one of my events," Heath says. "This music has already persevered for more than twenty years. It's pretty obvious to everyone that it's not going away."
The music may not be going away, but raves could be headed in that direction. The death of Brittney Chambers and the even more recent hospitalization of a Highlands Ranch teenager who became critically ill after attending a rave in Boulder have intensified the state's efforts to stop the use and spread of Ecstasy, a task that seems to start with putting an end to raves.
"What happened with Brittney Chambers is a fine example of the fact that we have got to expand our efforts to get ahold of the Ecstasy phenomenon," says Dennis Follett, a public-information officer with the Denver field office of the Drug Enforcement Administration, one of 22 regional offices nationwide. "We know that the drug is spreading from these club and rave circles into a more recreational drug, but the fact remains that these events, to our experience, provide an environment for a high level of drug activity," Follett says. "And we simply cannot allow that to continue."
Drugs aren't the only reason law-enforcement officials don't like raves. The parties tax resources. They're weird and unwieldy. They pop up without notice and attract unsavory elements. And this past year, a handful of poorly planned but well-publicized events didn't do anything to improve the image of raves. Last March, Liquid Soul Productions -- then affiliated with coloradorave.com, a Web site that's a main source of local event information -- threw a rave in the gymnasium of Colorado Springs's Rampart High School and sullied not only the space, but also that city's feelings toward rave promoters; a month later, a farmland rave in Elbert County drained the sheriff's overtime budget when unprepared deputies were suddenly required to direct traffic and help addled teens; and in July, a teenage mother from Wyoming disappeared after attending a rave in Vail.
But the biggest blow to raves came this past August, when local, national and international law-enforcement officials and representatives of narcotics agencies, including two agents from the DEA's Denver field office, converged on Washington, D.C., for the DEA's National Ecstasy & Club Drugs Conference. Speaker after speaker - among them Richard Fiano, DEA chief of operations, and then-drug czar General Barry McCaffrey -- described a startling increase in the nationwide consumption of MDMA, also known as Ecstasy, which is now on the DEA's list of dangerous drugs alongside such standbys as heroin and cocaine. According to Fiano, Ecstasy use was up 56 percent among twelfth-graders; in 1999, 1.5 million people between the ages of 18 and 25 had tried the drug.
"The DEA has really isolated Ecstasy as public enemy number one," says Campbell. "Still, all of the evidence suggests that Ecstasy deaths are really uncommon. Fewer than meth, cocaine -- even alcohol. There's this Ecstasy hysteria building up, and so much of it is focused on raves. It's disproportionate to what's actually happening. Every single kid in high school knows what Ecstasy is, and not that many of them have anything to do with raves."
But at the DEA conference, Ecstasy's use was inextricably linked to raves. "All-night dance parties" -- the mass media's preferred description of raves -- have become the primary outlet for widespread distribution and consumption of the drug, agency officials said. In an instructional video, the DEA did its best to simulate a rave environment: Lights flashed in time with an amphetamine-fueled beat while a stern voice described the dangers of MDMA and its chemical kin. "Taking club drugs," the narrator cautioned, was "dancing with darkness."
By the end of the conference, the DEA had made its position very clear: A unified attack on Ecstasy use in the U.S. was not only necessary, it was to be considered among the country's highest priorities. Nationwide, the connection between raves and drugs had already prompted some legislation; as early as 1997, cities such as Gainesville and Orlando in Florida, Riverside, California, and Charlotte, North Carolina, had begun drafting anti-rave laws aimed at stopping all-night parties and the drug activity that accompanied them. The Denver DEA office had initiated its own rave awareness campaign a year before the conference; according to Tom Ward, assistant special agent in charge, by the middle of 1999 his office had come to regard raves as the primary source of personal Ecstasy use and had helped to alert other state agencies to the dangers.
"Because of their role in the distribution and use of certain drugs," Ward says, "local law enforcement is very interested in monitoring raves. In the Denver metro area -- I'm talking about the six surrounding counties -- there is a high police presence, and they are watching out for these types of events, in part because of our ongoing efforts to educate them on the growing issue of club drugs."
Not surprisingly, around this same time, it got pretty hard to throw a good party in metro Denver.
"It is nearly impossible to hold an event in the city these days," says Rushing, "The process of finding an unlicensed venue and bringing it up to code is exhaustive. After you figured out zoning, licensing, permits, police, fire department, building inspections, insurance, it would take a year to turn a warehouse into a place where you could hold a party. Unless you own your own club, your only option right now is to rent different venues and shut down at 2 a.m."
"Denver simply does not want them to happen," says Heath. "Raves have gotten such a bad name that even if you are a professional company putting on professional events, they look for any little loophole to shut you down or prevent you from even planning an event."
Last July, Heath and Irvin were forced to cancel Summer of Love, scheduled for the Mishawaka Amphitheater, after Larimer County Sheriff James Alderden petitioned a judge to issue a temporary restraining order preventing the event. In court, the sheriff voiced concerns about traffic and rampant drug use; he also suggested, erroneously, that the party had been sold over capacity. But Irvin was not permitted to respond to this or any other assertion; the judge didn't let him speak. Had he been able to address the hearing, Heath would have pointed out that by leasing a licensed concert venue, obtaining insurance and hiring a security force and paramedics to work the event, Out of Our Heads had met, and actually surpassed, all of the requirements that Larimer County imposes on concerts and special events.
"I found out later that there had been a rave in Fort Collins the week before where some kid overdosed," Heath says. "The promoters were idiots who had no idea what they were doing. When the county found out about our event, they didn't realize that we were not the same company, that we were professionals. It sort of felt like they were on a mission, a manhunt. They found out about the event through the Web and sent deputies to our map point in Boulder to find out about the location."
Summer of Love was canceled at 11 a.m., about nine hours before ticket-holders were expected to start trickling in. After an ill-conceived effort to relocate the event (to an empty field that was located on the Pawnee National Grasslands, as Heath learned from the rangers who showed up to ticket him), Heath and Irvin were forced to admit defeat. They refunded all ticket sales and ate the money they'd spent on talent; whether or not a DJ actually plays a set, he must still be paid for one, put up for the night and flown home. In this case, four DJs, including Linus out of England, had to be accommodated.
"I still have not recovered from the financial blow of that," Heath says. "It bankrupted me. I refuse to believe how much money that cost me. But I think it proved something about us. If we were a fly-by-night company, if we weren't dedicated to what we were doing, we would have been out of here after that. I think the biggest test of whether a promoter is legit is if they can take a hit and come back."
Heath himself is taking a break until promoters and law-enforcement officials can reach some common understanding. But his bust also served as a wake-up call for other area promoters, who envision the same nightmare scenario for one of their events. Electronic artists now command fees that rival those of popular rock artists; since most raves feature three or four DJs, the talent budget alone is daunting. It's not unusual for events that once cost anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 to now reach the $150,000 range, Rushing says. That's a lot of money to gamble on an event that skirts the boundaries of legality and could be shut down at a moment's notice.
Recognizing these new realities, some promoters have realized that the only way to sustain themselves and the scene is to follow the music's evolution and move wholly aboveground, joining other promotion companies already there. Companies like Denver's Together Productions, which began as Come Together in 1993 and has since grown into the state's biggest production company. And although they sometimes suffer the criticism of scenesters and other promoters who feel they've become too corporate and turned into traditional concert promoters, owners Brad Roulier and Jason Bills have done more to smooth relationships with city officials than any other rave promoters in the state.
In 1999 the pair signed a contract with the Colorado Springs Parks and Recreation Department that allowed them to rent City Auditorium -- a fully licensed, city-owned historic concert venue -- for three bona fide rave events that year and five the following year. In 2000, they began working with the City of Denver to place events in the Denver Coliseum and the National Western Stock Show Complex. For Together Productions, the notion that self-preservation is analogous to a sellout simply demonstrates ravers' romantic -- and false -- sense of their place in the world.
"The facade of this being some sort of movement that can't be treated like a business is totally over," says Bills. "We still do things to kind of maintain the mystique. We usually won't print the location of the event on our fliers. But the city and the police department are well aware far in advance of what's going on. All they have to do is look at our contract with the City Auditorium, and they'll know what we have planned for the next twelve months."
According to Bills and Roulier, renting licensed, fully operational buildings is not only easier -- there's no need to worry about renting fifty portable toilets, say, or a myriad of other things that open-air or non-traditional venues require -- but it also sends a clear message.
"We could throw a party in an airplane hangar in the middle of nowhere if we wanted to," says Roulier, "but what's the point? I would rather put my energy into planning the best parties that I possibly can instead of standing in front of a city council or a committee trying to prove what a legitimate businessman I am. I could make some money, the kids might think I'm cool, but unless I jumped through all of the hoops to make it legal, I would have completely damaged my reputation with whatever legal entities were affected by the event."
"Our goal is to always be welcomed back to the place where we held our last event," says Bills. "And I don't know why, for various reasons, there are a lot of promoters out there who could care less about that. And they screw it up for everyone. Because of them, our events are put under a microscope. So we've had to blatantly say that we have nothing to hide. We want the police to come in and help us make it safe. We want them to arrest people for drugs. And part of that was moving into traditional concert venues where we don't have to worry about getting busted."
Still, even with a legitimate city contract in place, Together Productions has had problems. Last October, after learning that the Colorado Springs Police Department had voiced concerns to City Auditorium managers over their willingness to rent the space for raves, Bills and Roulier set up a meeting with the department. At the meeting, Metro Vice Narcotics Commander Robert Ownbery, Deputy Chief Luis Velez and other officers reiterated many now-familiar complaints. Their department had seen the worst of the Rampart High School debacle in March and was now wary of inviting a repeat episode.
"I would say that event single-handedly did more to damage the rave scene than any other event in Colorado," says Bills. "We are still apologizing for that one -- even though we had absolutely no involvement with it and totally agreed with everyone who was shocked by it."
Eventually, Bills and Roulier invited the officers to attend their next event -- a November 18 rave that went off without significant incident. Soon after, Together Productions signed a contract with City Auditorium for 2001.
"I do recall being somewhat surprised that these promoters actually called us and initiated a dialogue," says Deputy Chief Velez. "I have always thought that if people meet face-to-face, they can find some common ground. And I would say that did occur between our department and their company. The officers who attended their event reported that it was well-run, professional, that there were no problems that exceeded that of any other concert that comes to the Auditorium."
Chris La Soya thinks Together Productions has forged a path that other promoters would be wise to follow. "Together really pioneered a lot of the responsible rave promotion in the area," he says. "They were working so hard to build their name and show that not all promoters are trying to pull something off or hide something. They showed us that a good promoter is an adult who places safety on the same level as the music and throwing a good party."
"A year and a half ago, there were a lot of things that I was willing to take my chances on," says Ha Hau, a Denver college student whose Triad Productions has found a niche with local Asian teens. "If I didn't have a venue, I was pretty sure I could find a way to get one. I wasn't totally interested in dealing with the police. I was pretty confident I could pull it off, no matter what. But now I have to make decisions based not only on business and what I have to do just to break even, but on how I can address the pressure that's on the scene. Because of the weight of the image that we carry, it's almost impossible to change."
Gradually, more and more promoters are doing something that once would have seemed antithetical to the rave culture's nonconformist origins: They're getting organized. They've hired attorneys, incorporated their companies and filed the appropriate papers with the secretary of state. But even as they act more like businessmen, they've found that Colorado often doesn't want their business.
As the promoter behind A&E Productions, André Galaviz has been putting on Denver shows since the early '90s. And like Heath, he's recently taken a break from an atmosphere that's growing increasingly hostile. Over the past year, Galaviz says, he's made repeated attempts to meet with Denver police chief Gerry Whitman, only to be told by an aide that the chief is not interested in discussing raves -- period. Last June, Galaviz sent a letter to Mayor Wellington Webb, in which he outlined the dearth of business licenses available to promoters like himself. No one from the mayor's office responded.
"If you call any city agency, whether it's Excise and Licenses or zoning or the police -- if you say anything that sort of signals that 'rave' alarm bell, you are immediately cut off," Galaviz says. "You'll get into describing the kind of event you want to hold. They'll say, 'Is this one of these rave things?' Click."
According to Helen Gonzales, director of the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses, the city is not in the business of shutting down or excluding legal businesses -- even raves. In considering license applications, her office does not consider the nature of an applicant's event so much as whether all requirements have been met. For entertainment-type endeavors, these usually include public hearings where members of the community are invited to voice their views. "We're bound by what the ordinances tell us," she explains. "The fact of the matter is that it is not currently possible to have an event that goes past 2 a.m. unless you have a permanent license. Maybe when the promoters call us up and they describe their event and someone tells them it's not possible, it's not because it's a rave. It's because the ordinances currently don't provide for what they're asking.
"To tell you the truth, I'm not even real sure what raves are," Gonzales adds. "Someone explained one to me, and it made sense, and it all sounded pretty harmless. I certainly won't accept a blanket statement that all raves are bad, though it does appear that some -- some -- of the promoters are not as on the up and up as they should be."
In his letter to Webb, Galaviz had complained that Chief Whitman routinely prohibits off-duty officers from working rave-type events that run past 2 a.m. By denying promoters access to police, he said, Whitman was actually undermining legitimate promoters' attempts to reduce drug activity at their events. But according to Lieutenant Tony Lopez, commander of the DPD's vice and narcotics bureau's street-enforcement section, the department is simply unwilling to provide off-duty personnel for events that, characteristically, are rife with illegal activity. "The chief recognizes that the majority of these events pose a potential threat to his officers, and he has every right to place limits on his officers offering their services to them," Lopez says. "We will respond when called to one of these raves. We will make arrests, and we will uphold the safety of the community as best we can. There's just no reason why we need to be sending Denver police officers to work as part of a staff for a clandestine event."
Lopez's office deals with about one illegal rave every month, most them held in warehouses or easily rented spaces such as churches and public halls. He's open to the concept that some promoters are attempting to host concert-type events that fall within the boundaries of the law. He just hasn't seen any, he says.
"I applaud the promoters who provide an environment where kids can express themselves," Lopez adds. "I'm very glad to hear that there are responsible events going on at places like the Aztlan. But at every experience I have had with raves, there hasn't been one instance where we weren't able to make multiple arrests. In most cases, we were limited only by our manpower."
Some weary promoters are now looking outside Denver for venues: to open spaces, barns, vacant buildings in rural counties that can be leased from entrepreneurial landowners. The cost of moving into the no-man's-land of such unincorporated areas can be formidable, since a promoter becomes responsible for providing all of the facilities that are part of the package in licensed venues. And small, unexpected charges -- like the neighbor who might not call in a noise complaint if he's paid $500 -- pop up everywhere. Still, promoters often find it a price worth paying, since unincorporated areas have fewer permit and licensing requirements than cities and towns, and they're more likely to tolerate all-night events. Besides, unexpected sites are part of a rave's allure: Promoters who move around tend to find favor with crowds bored of set environments such as the Root and the Aztlan.
"People get tired of the same old places," Hau says. "You always have a back-up venue. But you're always looking for a better one."
Last July, Triad landed Caffeine, a mega-DJ tour sponsored by the record label and clothing company of the same name. Hau's original venue -- the Youth Outreach Center in Colorado Springs -- fell through three weeks prior to the party's date, but he had another venue in mind, some land he planned to rent from an associate in Pueblo County. It was a huge show, with a lot of money at stake. Realizing the need to insure his investment, Hau was the first promoter to hire Cris Campbell, an aggressive attorney who attended raves, enjoyed the subculture, knew promoters and understood the legal challenges they faced. Campbell made sure Hau was operating within the state statutes and county ordinances applicable at the site. He assembled a file that documented Hau's lease, insurance permits and approval by the fire marshal, and also addressed sanitation, waste and emergency issues.
On the night of the event, Campbell put his girlfriend, his dog and his grill in his truck and headed down to Hau's rave -- ready to greet the Pueblo County sheriff and a marshal who showed up at 8:30 p.m.
"It was clear that they were there to shut us down," Campbell remembers. "I invited them to look through the binder where I had everything laid out to show the event's organization. You could just see them searching, trying to find something. There was something vague in the language of one of the statutes about disorderly assembly, and the trooper pulled that out. So I did what I always do: I threatened to sue. I told the marshal that if he planned to shut the event down under the pretext of it being a disorderly assembly, I would pull five witnesses who would swear otherwise. I told him that I would sue the state and the trooper individually."
The event was allowed to proceed as planned. The sheriff seemed impressed when Triad's security booted a raver who'd been caught selling the veterinary sedative ketamine inside, Campbell remembers.
After Caffeine, Campbell started spending a lot more time in the company of ravers. Over the past eight months, he's represented almost a dozen promoters, helping them find venues that are friendly and avoid those that are not; if asked, he attends events as a preemptive strike against shutdowns. When Roofless Productions' Sun rave at the Aurora Airpark attracted more than 5,000 partygoers last August, Campbell was at the ready, binder in hand. He also accompanied Together to its October meeting with the Colorado Springs Police Department.
In December, Campbell appeared in Denver District Court on behalf of new clients, Heavenly Daze promoter Juan Fernandez and Aztlan Theatre owner Tim Correa. The Department of Excise and Licenses was threatening to shut down an event Fernandez was throwing at the theater that same night; Campbell requested that the court issue a temporary restraining order against the city. But although the Aztlan's amusement-facilities license allows for "the performance of music, dance ...and similar live and recorded entertainment," the judge ruled that Fernandez's event was a concert and thus not covered by the license. When Campbell's motion was denied, the attorney responded to the ruling with such robust disbelief that the judge nearly found him in contempt of court.
Most of the time, Campbell's legal dealings are less explosive. He's working to build a relationship between rave promoters and law enforcement, to put a legitimate face on a group that's been anonymous for too long, a group that he believes has the U.S. Constitution on its side. For Campbell, the current Ecstasy crisis has escalated to the point where legitimate promoters -- the only kind he represents, he says -- are being denied their right to equal protection under the law.
"A lot of people think that what's at issue here is the First Amendment, the right to assemble, which to an extent it is," says Campbell. "But the government has the right to place restrictions on any kind of assembly. It's not a free-for-all. The real concern here is that because the word 'rave' is such a hot button right now, the rave promoter is treated differently than any other promoter, simply because of the connotations of the word."
He's particularly concerned about new municipal measures designed to curtail rave activity. In August 1999, the Northglenn City Council passed the "Non-Alcoholic Dance Club Ordinance," an emergency response to late-night activity at an all-ages dance club. The measure, similar to blatantly anti-rave laws in other states, set a static requirement on the number of security personnel -- two per every hundred patrons. A year later, Thornton passed its own ordinance after residents voiced complaints about "rave parties" at Roller Express, a roller rink leased by numerous promoters as a standby venue. This time, however, the hours of operation were extended until 1 a.m. on weekend nights.
While Denver does not have a similar law on its books, promoters say the city has enforced licensing-requirement technicalities much more stringently in the past year. "There is so much misinformation and negativism toward these events," Campbell says, "that even those who comply with the law are being subjected to intense scrutiny for no reason."
Of course, there are those who argue that they're right to be suspicious of raves. Reputable promoters such as Together are the exception, not the rule, they say, and if promoters are held to a stricter standard because of possible safety risks, so be it.
"I put a question mark behind statements that these kind of rave promoters are conducting legitimate business. I'm sure there are good promoters out there. But most of them, if they're legit, they wouldn't hide anything," says Captain Phil Spence of the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office. "They wouldn't do like they were in Elbert County. When the authorities weren't notified until after the event had started, it impacted law enforcement there. They had to scramble to address all of the related safety issues, like traffic. There was trash and debris left afterward. It upset the neighbors, people who have to call at midnight because there are suddenly 3,000 people next to their horses. That conduct, to me, is not a sign of legitimate business."
Although Spence acknowledges that Campbell, in particular, has been cooperative and professional in his dealings with Arapahoe County, he says he's not comfortable with the idea of promoters shielding themselves behind a fast-talking lawyer. "If we were to have a rodeo out here, we might be talking to an attorney, but we would also be talking to the promoter, face-to-face," Spence points out. "If they are so professional, if they have done everything that are supposed to, then why are they hiding?"
Spence's county played reluctant host to three raves over the past year. The biggest, Rushing's Sun event, resulted in only 29 arrests out of more than 5,000 partygoers -- a ratio comparable to that of traditional concerts -- and was described in the media as going "smoothly" despite its size. Spence, however, recalls it differently.
"At all of the rave parties we have experienced, drugs have been rampant, and that Aurora Airpark one was no different," he says. "We had deputies in the parking lot, thirty-year-old guys who didn't really fit in, who were approached and asked if they wanted to buy some drugs. When you have this kind of activity going on so blatantly, it doesn't do a lot of for the idea that these are safe events."
Spence speculates that the number of arrests would have increased dramatically had deputies gone inside the venue rather than remained on the perimeter and had he had a bigger staff. "Drug arrests are paper-intensive, and we just didn't have the manpower to deal with it all," he says. "And not knowing what kind of a situation we would have faced inside, we stayed out. But I had calls the next day from families who said they were driving down 1-70 that night, and the smell of marijuana was coming through the vents. The next day, there were kids laying all over, and I think some of them wouldn't have woken up if our deputies hadn't woken them."
To some extent, Rushing agrees with the captain's assessment. "There's a lot of talk in the scene about how it's all about music," he says. "It's the idea of PLUR -- Peace, Love, Unity and Respect -- and for a lot of people, that really doesn't involve drugs. But when you can't get cops to come inside and help you, there's really no motivation for people to try to conceal their drug use. Our security guards can only do so much. We can kick them out, but we can't arrest them. I welcomed those sheriffs to come inside, but they wouldn't."
Despite the modern raver's tendency to downplay the role of drugs in rave culture, Campbell recognizes that drugs are an inevitable part of the parties. "I would say about 75 percent of the kids who show up are on something," he says. "But it's getting to the point where it's not too cool to be fucked up all the time. You don't want somebody laying around in a spot on the floor that could be used for dancing. From the promoter's point of view, though, you cannot do anything about some kids getting fucked up at home or in their car before they come in. You do everything you can to prevent anything from getting inside."
That may not be enough, responds the DEA. "At all of the raves that our office has gathered intelligence information on -- every single one of them -- there has been a very high level of drug activity inside the premises," Dennis Follett says. "From what I've seen, the searches at the door are not very thorough at all. Any person with an ounce of intelligence could smuggle something in. So even if a promoter himself isn't selling or providing anything, if he turns a blind eye to the use of drugs within his rave, he could be held accountable for facilitating drug activity." Follett's office is currently researching how the federal "crackhouse" law -- which makes it a crime to provide a facility for the use of drugs and in January was invoked against rave promoters for the first time, in New Orleans -- might be used to stop illegal raves in this four-state region.
"The crackhouse law really opened a window for us," Follett says. "In law enforcement, there's a learning process that goes on, especially when you're dealing with a relatively new threat like Ecstasy. You see what other states have done. The law sort of outlined the ways in which various factors -- like, does a promoter supply glo sticks and pacifiers and bottled water at a high price? -- fit into a greater argument that he has a fundamental awareness of drugs at an event he's putting on. If our investigations reveal this kind of thing and we can get a district attorney to prosecute, there's a very real possibility that some of these people will face very serious criminal charges."
Campbell is optimistic that none of his promoters will experience this fate. "From what I understand of the crackhouse law, you would have to prove that a promoter was organizing and hosting an event for the purpose of the use of drugs," he says. "When you have DJs flying in from all over the world, when there's dancing and socializing and tickets sold, it would, in my opinion, be difficult to argue that the sole purpose was drugs."
In September, Campbell invited his rave-promoter clients to a meeting in his office. He proposed forming an association that, through benefit shows and membership dues, would build a financial war chest to challenge the legality of the sorts of ordinances Northglenn and Thornton had passed.
Campbell's idea met with mixed reactions. Some clients, such as Out of Our Heads, welcomed the opportunity to show the state a unified front, while others, including Together, were unwilling to attach their companies' names to less professional promoters. Still others simply lacked the money to get involved. Although the association idea is currently on hold, Campbell seems anxious to find a promoter with the reason, and the resources, to proceed with some form of litigation.
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He might have both in Bills and Roulier, who say they'd be willing to consider a lawsuit if Colorado Springs were to approve a similar ordinance, as that city's police department has suggested. "If we are suddenly told that we are not legitimate because what we do involves a person spinning records instead of a four-piece band, then we will become extremely aggressive," Roulier says. "We will sue you."
"We absolutely do not want to go down that road," adds Bills. "We are willing to bend. We'll break. We have already compromised so much. But in the end, the fact is, I have a family. We all do. This is my career, my livelihood.
"I envision myself doing this for a long, long time. And I will absolutely do whatever's necessary to protect that possibility."


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Much of the discussion heading into the Reform movement's biennial, now taking place in California, revolved around reaching the whole Jewish community, not just the affiliated, wherever they are.
Congregation Beth Or, a Reform synagogue in Maple Glen, has a 65,000 square-foot building that in 2006 cost some $19 million to construct. But nowadays, its rabbis, cantor and educators are making house calls in order to teach a little Torah.
Beth Or's "Take Out Judaism" program is about making Jewish learning more convenient and accessible. It's also meant to appeal to those who aren't eager to step into a synagogue buildings.
Congregants can go to the synagogue's website, choose from a number of different courses, and —presto — they are studying Torah and other topics without leaving home.
Last month, Kim Marks, the mother of two young children, selected a class in Jewish ethics and had 10 of her girlfriends over to learn with the synagogue's rabbi, Gregory Marx.
"By bringing it into the home, it's a cozier atmosphere," said Marks, who noted that about half the people she invited didn't even belong to the congregation.
Having a rabbi teach in a congregant's home may not be particularly revolutionary. But, as the Reform movement's biennial gets underway in San Diego, many are saying it's the kind of thing rabbis need to do if congregations are to thrive — or even survive.
As many as 6,000 people are expected to attend the California conference, including 115 from the Philadelphia area. It's running from Dec. 11-15.
Much of the discussion heading into the biennial is revolving around finding new ways to reach people where they are and serving the whole Jewish community and not just synagogue members. Conference organizers have attempted to broaden the tent and the discussion by inviting participants and speakers unaffiliated with the movement.
Congregations across the religious spectrum are seeking to adapt to a new reality — brought about in part by advances in digital technology and part by the fact that people are living and identifying differently.
One might think this would be the time for Reform Judaism to be celebrating a victory lap of sorts.
The October release of a Pew Research Center Survey on American Jewish life illustrated that the Reform movement, far and away, is the dominant stream. Many attribute this to the fact that Reform temples have been viewed as more welcoming to intermarried families than their Conservative counterparts.
According to the survey, 35 percent of American Jews identify as Reform, compared with 18 percent who identify as Conservative. Until the 1970s, the Conservative movement had
enjoyed the largest following among American Jews.
And while Philadelphia has long been known as a Conservative town and Conservative synagogues have historically had some of the largest memberships, now it is mostly Reform congregations, like Beth Or and Congregation Rodeph Shalom and others, that boast the biggest memberships.
Yet the Reform movement is facing many challenges that have Reform religious and lay leaders concerned.
The Pew Survey showed that 28 percent of Jews who grew up Reform no longer consider themselves Jewish by religion, compared to 17 percent of Conservative and 11 percent of Orthodox Jews. Half of married Reform Jews have a non-Jewish spouse.
And many Reform synagogues have seen their numbers go down. For example, Old York Road Temple-Beth Am in Abington has, over the past few years, declined from about 1,000 families to about 850, with only about 750 actually paying dues, according to Rabbi Robert Leib.
Leib said that he worries that the movement is stagnating.
"We need to think out of the box. It is an uphill battle," added the rabbi, who is attending the biennial. "Either you are a serious Jew or you are not a serious Jew. We need to try and enlarge that inner core of serious Reform Jews."
Reform Judaism grew out of a 19th century effort to modernize the faith to bring it in line with contemporary life, largely by emphasizing ethics over rituals. Unlike Conservative thinkers, who upheld Jewish law, the early Reformers reframed Jewish tradition as a guide for modern behavior rather than as a set of laws to be followed.
Many traditional practices were deemed anachronistic, such as wearing kipot and tallit during services. Today, most congregations embrace such traditional elements that were absent in previous generations.
Still, several rabbis acknowledged that a perception exists that a Reform Jew is not observant or serious about practicing Judaism.
Rather, they said, Reform Judaism should be seen as offering a framework to deeply engage tradition through the prism of meaningful personal choice.
For Rabbi Gregory Marx, the lesson he took from the Pew survey is that synagogues and rabbis need to double their efforts to get people to think of Judaism in religious, rather than cultural, terms.
"We need to be true to our core values, but we need to be more flexible," said Marx.
The challenge, he continued, is to make Jewish content more accessible without diluting the message or making it all about the individual instead of the community.
For instance, he said the rise of "entrepreneurial" rabbis who offer private B'nai Mitzvah tutoring and ceremonies to unaffiliated families is one of the more disturbing trends that has arisen, making Judaism a private experience rather than a communal one.
Offering the "Take Out
Judaism" program, he said, seemed like one way to spark interest and cater to people's schedules while maintaining something of a communal experience.
Hoping Jews will come to the synagogue to find community "is not something we can rely on."
Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell, a Philadelphian who serves as rabbinic director for the URJ's East Geographic Congregational Network, said that few in the movement were surprised by the Pew results. The URJ,
Elwell said, is doubling down on its efforts to invest in young people through a variety of initiatives.
One example, she said, is the plan to open the first Reform day camp. It's slated to open this summer in Bryn Mawr.
And more than a year ago, the URJ launched the B'nai Mitzvah Revolution project, a national effort to make the rite-of-passage experience more meaningful. Several local congregations are participating in the project.
"I'm optimistic about where we are right now," said Elwell. "We can always do better. We are not resting on any laurels."
Audrey Fein, an 11th-grader at the Julia R. Masterman High School in Fairmount, is immersed in the movement through her involvement with the youth group affiliated with her congregation, Rodeph Shalom, and through the Pennsylvania chapter of the movement's national youth group, NFTY. She serves as religious and cultural vice president for the Pennsylvania region. She's made her best friends, not through school, but through NFTY, she said.
"What I love about the Reform movement is all the options. I really like the concept of Judaism through choice," she said.
Part of the reason she signed up for the biennial in San Diego is to get ideas about how to convince more teens to get involved in NFTY — no easy sell in today's world of overscheduled young people. In recent years, Fein said, the local NFTY chapter has formed a membership task force and looked for ways to reach more teens.
"There definitely is a lack of interest for some kids," she said, echoing what many of her adult counterparts are saying about the grown-ups. "How can we make Reform Judaism accessible enough for everyone?"


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PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Echo Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ECTE), a company developing its needle-free Symphony® tCGM System as a non-invasive, wireless, transdermal continuous glucose monitoring system, today issued the following corporate update to its shareholders:
To Our Shareholders:
As we begin the new year, we are pleased to report that the last year was one of significant accomplishment and progress that has set the stage for a very exciting and productive 2013. In this letter, we would like to reflect on our achievements and, more importantly, look forward to the objectives we intend to achieve in the coming months.
2012 Business Review
Over the past year we achieved several major milestones:
Upcoming Catalysts
Building on the strong foundation with which we finished 2012, Echo is focused on completing several key milestones during 2013 that will enable us to begin generating revenue.
Thank you for your investment in the continued success of our company. We look forward to keeping you informed of our progress throughout the year.
Patrick T. Mooney, M.D.Chairman and CEO
About Echo Therapeutics
Echo Therapeutics is developing the Symphony tCGM System as a non-invasive, wireless, transdermal continuous glucose monitoring system. Our target is patients who could benefit from glucose monitoring in the hospital setting, including critical care. Significant opportunity also exists for patients with diabetes to use Symphony in the outpatient setting. Echo is also developing its needle-free skin preparation component of Symphony, the Prelude® SkinPrep System, as a platform technology to enhance drug delivery of topical pharmaceuticals.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements
The statements in this press release that are not historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Those risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, risks related to regulatory approvals and the success of Echo's ongoing studies, including the safety and efficacy of Echo's Symphony tCGM System, the failure of future development and preliminary marketing efforts related to Echo's Symphony tCGM and Prelude SkinPrep Systems, Echo's ability to secure additional commercial partnering arrangements, risks and uncertainties relating to Echo's and its partners' ability to develop, market and sell diagnostic and transdermal drug delivery products based on its skin permeation platform technologies, including the Symphony tCGM and Prelude SkinPrep Systems, the availability of substantial additional equity or debt capital to support its research, development and product commercialization activities, and the success of its research, development, regulatory approval, marketing and distribution plans and strategies, including those plans and strategies related to its Symphony tCGM and Prelude SkinPrep Systems. These and other risks and uncertainties are identified and described in more detail in Echo's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011, its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and its Current Reports on Form 8-K. Echo undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.
For More Information:Christine H. OlimpioDirector, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications(215) 717-4104 email@example.com
Connect With Us:
- Visit our website at www.echotx.com
- Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/echotx
- Join us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/echotx
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120801/NE50071LOGO )
SOURCE Echo Therapeutics, Inc.


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george micheal, as one of the first musicans in the american mainstream, anounced that he would abandon the music industry because he feels that he needs no more money and can't take the greed involved in the music industry. further he said that any more albums he might produce will be available for free on the web.
i don't really like his music but still it's great that there are people who think this way in the industry. in germany more and more people, especially in the hip hop direction, have similar tendencies, too. some bands even started to include a blank cd with their albums or labled their album with something like : "copy our music".
hmm, george micheal, isn't he the guy that made "shoot the dog" where he pictured bush with tony at the white house and made tony look like a dog or somthing like that??
not sure. he's that guy that got arrested for getting a blowjob from some other guy in a toilet in some state that i can't remember
ROFL, why would he get arrested for that? OMG, that is so funny :lol: . do you know how long he was in the jail for?
because it was illegal to be gay in that particular state or because it was illegal to give or receive blowjobs in that state no i don't know for how long he went to jail


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At Gritt's, agri-entertainment is an art
facebook.com/GrittsFarmBUFFALO, W.Va. -- The kids are running and playing everywhere. Through the corn maze. Atop and through the tunnels of the hay maze. They come shooting down through corn slides into a soft landing in a pit of foot-deep corn kernels. They launch apples for distance from apple cannons and slingshots.Lois and Bob Gritt couldn't be happier. Call it what you will, but in a few short years they have quietly mastered the art of agri-entertainment at what they are calling Gritt's Fun Farm during Halloween season."Last year, we did a little bit under 10,000 people," Bob Gritt said a week before Halloween. "This year we're already over 20,000."The visitors come to try to puzzle their way through a vast 10-acre corn maze. Or they amble through the smaller, more kid-friendly 2-acre maze chopped through a field of cornstalks."It's our second big year," said Lois Gritt, who when asked how many people have been coming out, initially just smiles and says "a lot." "We easily a lot of days do 200 to 300 kids in school groups. Then, on weekends it's just been packed," she said. "We're attracting people from all over the state. We're getting people out of Kentucky, Ohio."Fall weather at the sprawling Gritt's Farm used to just mean selling mums and already-picked pumpkins. A little over a decade ago, Bob Gritt opened up a pick-your-own pumpkin patch."All of this has kind of blossomed from that," said Lois Gritt, gesturing toward the mazes. The children's play area and beyond. They first added a small play area, got a good response and Bob and crew kept on building and adding."So, last year he decided to move the play area out here. He built the big corn slide area, the hay maze. The wagon rides, the big 10-acre maze, the slingshots. All of that was added last year.""We got a tremendous response from that," she said. "So this year he decided to expand and get the new corn building that would accommodate more than four or five kids. And he built the big slides, which would accommodate adults as well as kids. We put in the apple cannons instead of just the apple slingshots. We've just had an overwhelmingly good response this year to people coming out."The corn building is like a huge sand box only filled to the brim with a slide, toys and corn kernels deep enough for children to bury themselves in.Gritt's Fun Farm is the very definition of family-friendly fun, said Lois Gritt."It gets kids and parents outside doing something. It's a place kids can play with their parents, not just the parents watching their kids play. They can literally play with the kids. It's definitely an interactive farm -- let's everybody be a big kid for the day."The growing Halloween season-focused business at Gritt's Farm has also been great news for the place's bottom line, said Bob Gritt."Oh yeah," he said. "It's pretty much saving my farm to keep farming. I do greenhouses in the springtime and produce in the summer. Both of them are big business but not a big moneymaker."There's not much money in the produce and greenhouse business right now, but there is pretty good money in, I guess, agri-entertainment is what you call it."He has a lot of money tied up in this new fall business with 25 to 30 people working on weekends and 6 to 8 during the week. Things have come a long way since he started that pick-your-own-pumpkin patch, he conceded."I mostly just started it so the kids would have fun coming out picking pumpkins and not just going to a box store. One thing kind of led to another..."Reach Douglas Imbrogno at firstname.lastname@example.com or 304-348-3017.


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Griffin Slap for iPod Nano 6G - Black
Flexible wristband for iPod nano 6th gen.
By Griffin
We're sorry! This product is not available.
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For your iPod, we've equipped Slap with a generous frame of silicone that holds your iPod securely and shrugs off bumps and jolts. Slap protects the dock connector and volume controls but leaves the headphone port open so you can plug in and listen any time. Speaking of time, you can press the Sleep/Wake button through the frame to check the time or control iTunes. The watch face display of your iPod nano turns Slap into a fun, handy classic timepiece.
Your iPod nano plus our Slap wristband case — together they create the most useful and entertaining wristwatch your arm has ever seen.
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Artest consultant on future NFL career: Terrell Owens!
November 22nd, 2010, 1:35 pm · Post a Comment · posted by KEVIN DING, OCREGISTER.COM
EL SEGUNDO Ron Artest revealed Monday one of the NFL players with whom he has talked about his hoped-for post-NBA football career is Terrell Owens.
Artest said Owens will help determine whether Im crazy or I have a legitimate shot.
Insert punchline.
Artest did say Friday night that the football players laughed at him, but on Monday afternoon Artest said Owens was nice enough to consult with Artest on the matter this offseason and make a gauge. Artest said Owens would also help determine if Artests tentative plan to play tight end was logical or another position was better. But Artest said of Chargers tight end Antonio Gates, whose lead-up to NFL stardom was basketball is definitely a big inspiration


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Understanding Library of Congress Call Numbers
Have you ever wondered how library books are assigned their places on the shelves? Did you know that the call number -- the number placed on the spine of the book -- is a code which provides valuable information about the book? This page will provide an introduction to understanding and using library call numbers.
What are call numbers for?
Each book in the library has a unique call number. A call number is like an address: it tells us where the book is located in the library. It also puts books on similar subjects close to one another on the shelves.
Call numbers appear:
Note that the same call number can be written from top-to-bottom, or left-to-right.
Muskingum College Library uses Library of Congress Classification for call numbers. This system uses a combination of letters and numbers to arrange materials by subjects.
Reading Call Numbers
Putting Call Numbers in Shelf Order
To understand how call numbers are put in order in Library of Congress Classification, again look at each section of the call number.
What does the call number mean?
Remember that Library of Congress Classification arranges materials by subjects. The first sections of the call number represent the subject of the book. The letter-and-decimal section of the call number often represents the author's last name. And, as you recall, the last section of a call number is often the date of publication.
Why is this important to know?
Because books are classified by subject, you can often find several helpful books on the same shelf, or nearby. For example, within the same call number LB2395, there are other guides for college study.
Since Library of Congress Classification arranges materials by subjects, knowing the letter(s) for your subject area gives you a place to start browsing the shelves. Which letters represent your subject? View the Library of Congress Classification Table.
Text on this page adapted with permission from Honolulu Community College Library


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2013 Sub-3 Hour Marathon Training Thread
Just dropping in to wish rachel good luck at Gold Coast.
8 w/ 4@HMP today for me. I did my normal tempo route backwards so the first 2mi are slightly uphill and the last 2mi are slightly downhill. /\ is always slower for me than \/. I think starting on a downhill is good for the same reason negative splitting is good.
Same here, I did a 4th of July 4 mile race in 22:10. I did about a 1.5 mile warm-up and cool down. I felt like crap, didn't run well. Still on antibiotics for an upper respiratory infection. Was so disappointed with my time. I often punish myself with mileage for ****ty efforts. Yesterday I decided to spare myself, take the rest of the day off, go to the beach and do doubles on Friday. Got to the beach didn't feel like sitting in the sand, so I ran 7 miles in the sand and water. Almost stepped on so many kids, the beach was crowded it was an obstacle course but I made it fun by splashing hard into the kids face and onto people for not keeping my running lane open. The kids don't look just around just dash back and forth. No one was hurt on my 7 mile run except my foot and ankles. I used to love beach runs.
As for the nudist there were some easy on the eye naked and topless women, but they were also forgettable moments. After getting your eyes scalled by a woman 6'3" 220 lbs in a floss bikini with the front the size of a halls candy wrapper and it was quickly devoured by her huge mons.... anyway her partner wore a thong and was the size of Shaquille Oneal. There was a cop on the beach a sign said "Clothing Required" still people were letting it all hang out. The scars inflicted by three hundred pound men and women walking nude was traumatic. Since the hurricane there is no longer a nude beach but they still show-up and show off. This was all going on with tons of kids and family. Ok so you're a nudie stay off the surf, stay in the dunes, where no one sees you and you get your perfect tan. If you come down to the water wear appropriate attire. I am not a prude but I believe there is a time and place for every thing. There were a million people on the beach so people were spread out on top of each other cut back on nudity. Don't walk the beach nude when kids from 2-6 are running back and forth bouncing into your junk.
I guess in the end we are all inconsiderate. It was way too crowded for a run but I ran anyway, it was way too crowded for nudity but they displayed anyway.
PiwiKiwi - Your daughter locked away. Give her to me. I take. She will sweat alot with me. An active lifestyle. Run, work, make babies. Repeat recursively.
Mikkey - The only one I would have babies with, is with you. You are coming to race in Berlin, aren't you? I've reserved a room in the best Hotel in town, the Adlon. 500 meters from the starting line. And A muse is all mine.
Slammin - What to say. Being considerate or inconsiderate. A good question to consider.
Chicago - Congratulations on the upcoming Baby. Keep up the great running.
This evening a 2 hour bike ride, stopped at the stadium with a track, olympic point. Ran one easy lap. Niggle in right foot reappeared. I'm wondering if I should downgrade to a 12/70. The niggle does dissappear, I wonder how it will react to fast running. I want to push through this training plan. As long as the niggle doesn't persist or get worse and doesn't alter my gait.
dkggpeters - my decision is made to start the 12/85 on July 8th as planed. I've thrown exceptions on my running diet today and tomorrow. I will need to fuel the engine. We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for the journey.
Do you have a daughter?
Nils - If you end up on the FIRST plan then you can forget about us making babies together...it's not gonna happen because I'll not respect you.
More miles, more miles, more miles...and another 20 miles after that. Bang those miles out!
Nils - If you end up on the FIRST plan then you can forget about us making babies together...it's not gonna happen because I'll not respect you.
More miles, more miles, more miles...and another 20 miles after that. Bang those miles out!
Mikkey - Miles, more miles and more miles.Miles make Champions. Now I'd like to see you in preparation for Berlin bang out 2 Ten Milers per day. For a Grand total of 140 MPW. You'll be the king on this thread.
Bang those miles out. It's better than sex.
I'm worried about banging out the miles, miles and more miles and ending up like Swampangel.
I will try to pretend that two 10 mile runs each day is better than sex. Bloody hell.
Rachel through the half on pace for 2:46 at Gold Coast!
Go Rachel!
Watch it Mikkey! Your goading is not going to make me change my training or my racing strategy!
25 km in 01:38:46. Go Rachel!
35km in 2:19:10. Slight fade in the last 5k. Still on pace for sub 2:48.
Rachel finished in 2:49:21. Looks like she won her division. Congrats!
My week
S - 11 w/ 6@ 6:40
F - 10.15 W/ 4x1200 @5:40 mile pace
S - Off
55 miles total. Feeling pretty good about my pacing and goals right now.
My week 58 miles. Pfitz 18/70 starts tomorrow with a rest day I believe haha.
Congrats to Rach with another superb sub 2.50.
Hey dudes, just checking in. Thanks for the cheers and support. I was on pace for high 2:47s until the final 4 miles - started to fade a bit and then the u-turn at mile 23 put me straight into a moderate headwind. There was nobody around to draft off - well, one guy but he was going too slow - so I had to pretty much go it alone. I did pass a good few people including 2 chicks though, and held it together (in survival mode just trying to keep it sub-7:00 pace) to finish 10th female and 1st AG. No PR but hey, that's what Boston is for I think.
My big toes are both totally destroyed and I can't even walk right at the moment, so I'll be on vacation pool-side if anyone needs me! Over and out!!
PS congrats JP on both counts! Babies rule your life until they grow into kids, when they still rule your life but also give you attitude and do random stuff like demand M&Ms at inopportune times. But it's totally worth it!
Congrats Rachel and enjoy some days off running.
My week:
Mo: 8.5 @7:25
Tu: 12 progressive to 6:20, avg 7:05
We: -
Th: 8.5 @ 7:00
Fr: 10 @ 7:25 including strides
Sa: 7 @ 7:40
Su: 15 including 6 @ 6:16
Total 61
Piwi Kiwi - what does TBH mean? There are 5ks all the time around here, lots of them with thousands of people, but they aren't very serious. I like them because of the immediate feedback. You can basically constantly run them through a training cycle to gauge fitness. These 18 week marathon cycles kill me and I end up doing stupid things like saying I'm changing my goal to 2:55 6 months after my 3:12 debutacle.
Calbearsfan - you posted about my MP pacing last week and I forgot to reply. I've decided I'm shooting for 2:55 this time around. Apparently I don't learn from my mistakes.
Raven14 - "15 including 6 @ 6:16" wow. Was there a 10k race in there or are you just really fast?
Congrats Rachel on a very near PR. Enjoy that vacation. Nice tempo interval raven, that is about a 38:30 10K right? Solid week frank. Here is my 2nd post marathon week:
M: 5@8:34 + strength
W:5@7:30+ strength
Tr: 8@7:19
F:6.5 @7:47 on trails and strength
S: 7, the first 6 on trails@8:10, decided to let it rip the last 1 on the road @5:50.
Sn: 12.1@8:30 w/ my better half.
50.6 total. The strength is usually 5 circuits of chin ups, lunges, push ups and crunches.
I am planning to start a modified pfitz 12/70 in two weeks for an October 20th marathon. My plan is to add some extra easy miles so it is more around 75 tops and starts higher than the mid 50's. Also, I will probably swap the 600s and 800s for mile repeats at 5K pace because I think I get a lot more out of them. Training paces will be based on my 2:54:44 plugged into the McMillan calculator. My goal for the marathon is still TBD, probably to PR. Good running all.
Rachel 2 sub 2:50 marathons in less then 6 months. Awesome. Had a pretty good week
M: 6 easy
T: 10 w/ 10 strides 7:35
Wed: 14 7:50
Thurs 6 easy
Fri: 12 7:45
Sat 6 easy
Sun 20 w 2 at GMP at the end 7:45
74 total.
Rachel: Congrats on the great race and thanks.
Had a pretty easy week this week. It looked like this:
Mon: 6 miles easy with 4 "hill" sprints that were about 125 meters long (I put hill in quotes because it is more like a 50 foot high incline, but it is all I have). I tried some hill sprints because of suggestions from Slammin' and others on here. Trying to find a way to build a little speed.
Tues: 5 miles easy
Wed: 3 miles easy
Thurs: 5K race. 17:57. PR. 8th overall out of 700, 1st in the male 35-39 age group.
Fri: 5 miles easy
Sat: 6 miles easy with 5 hill sprints.
Sun: 6 miles easy.
Overall: 36.1 miles.
I think I have one more low mileage week and a 5K on July 15 before I start building up for Chicago. I'm on vacation this coming week with my better half. I'm looking forward to some hilly runs and a lot of wine in Sonoma.
First week officially back post Grandmas. Ran everyday, but also ran easy except for a Friday night workout to see how the pain was. All systems go to kick off a Pfitz 12/85 in about a week.
Monday - 6 miles easy
Tuesday - 7 miles easy
Wednesday - 7 miles easy
Thursday - 7 miles easy
Friday - 10 miles with 6 at 6:40 pace
Saturday - 5 mi.es easy
Sunday - 8 miles easy
total - 50 miles
My week has consisted of about 7 hours of cross training.
How fast to run the recovery runs? Pfitz says that these workouts aren't necessarily jogs, they should be noticeably slower than your other workouts of the week. Is that 9, 10 minutes a mile?
Piwi Kiwi - what does TBH mean? There are 5ks all the time around here, lots of them with thousands of people, but they aren't very serious. I like them because of the immediate feedback. You can basically constantly run them through a training cycle to gauge fitness. These 18 week marathon cycles kill me and I end up doing stupid things like saying I'm changing my goal to 2:55 6 months after my 3:12 debutacle.
Calbearsfan - you posted about my MP pacing last week and I forgot to reply. I've decided I'm shooting for 2:55 this time around. Apparently I don't learn from my mistakes.
Raven14 - "15 including 6 @ 6:16" wow. Was there a 10k race in there or are you just really fast?
Racing 5k's all out week over week would kill me, sure recipe to get sidelined quickly. In fact I do not dare racing even one of these during marathon training as I'd have aches and small issues almost guaranteed. Too fast for my body...
As for the 6:16 tempo, it started at 6:25 run but I upped the pace gradually without really noticing. Felt really good, half marathon pace-ish.
Very well done Rachel, you obviously went for it and had a slight fade and still managed another sub 2:50. Leave nothing on the course...that's what it's all about.
My week has consisted of about 7 hours of cross training.
How fast to run the recovery runs? Pfitz says that these workouts aren't necessarily jogs, they should be noticeably slower than your other workouts of the week. Is that 9, 10 minutes a mile?
My recovery pace is 8:20-8:40 per mile.
Recovery pace for me is 8:40 to 9:15. Sometimes on Monday morning after a particularly hard work out, I can barely get past 9:30. Usually hit some technical trails and do super short steps.
Raven- nice tempo. Should be sub 1.24 half with that result. Whats your half pr ?
Nils- im similar speed to you and would run recovery at 5.30/km. I just cant go slower without feeling like im walking.
Swamp- nice solid 50 to kick off your training.
Frank- TBH to be honest. I hate abreviations too.
Pfitz 18/70 starts for me today which is rest day of course.
The heat and humidity is getting old this week. Another good week and I have average just over 100 MPW for the last 3 weeks. I am starting to get tired and will cut back to mid 80's this next week to consolidate gains.
dkggpeters - I believe those your exactly the same words which you said last week . You are an animal, without quotes, especially looking at the average pacing of those 100+ miles...
rachel - congrats on another sub 2:50 race in such a conditions. Very impressive race.
frank - I think 2:55 is possible for you in your next race. I wish your mileage would be a little bit higher...
my week:
Mo - 10.5 recovery
Tu - 9 recovery
Wed - off
Th - 7.1 with 10K race at @ 40:05 - I continue suck helplessly at everything shorter than FM
Fr - 12.1 easy
Sa - 12.2 easy
Su - 12.3 easy with last 3 @ 6:40
Total: 63.2 mi
P.S: Recovery pace according to Pfitz are runs with 70-75% of HRMax
Raven- nice tempo. Should be sub 1.24 half with that result. Whats your half pr ?
Thanks PK. Best half is 1:21:59, with last 10k of that at 38:09 and last 5k at 18:41. There is some room for improvement with better pacing but I am a slow starter.
last 2 weekly miles were 48 and 63. Had a long run of 18 miles yesterday @7:35 and one interval workout earlier in the week on a treadmill (camping site in Corsica midday with unbearable heat) 3x10mins@6:26 to test my calf muscles and the next day they felt good so i ran 8 miles progression from 8.26 to 6:13. The calves wore sore the next day but not that sore to keep me off the road. ran easy miles for the rest of the week.
JP nice PR in the 5km.
430 and Swampangel congrats on the new PRs too! excellent racing from both of you.
Rachel well done. rest up and give your body lots of time to recover. you have been running like a maniac for a long time now !!
Nils 12 weeks to berlin. loads of time to recover if you are disciplined. "suffer the pain of discipline or suffer the pain of regret" you once quoted.
and a big welcome to all the new runners on this thread.
Congrats Rachel a job well one. I'm certainly going to be watching to see if you get back to 100 Mile weeks before I do.
Mon 7 miles easy
Tue 10 miles easy
Wed 5.5 miles easy
Thu 14 miles ( 8AM 1.5 mile warm up 4 mile race in 22:10 1.5 mile cool down, 7 mile beach run @ 2PM)
Friday 8,5 miles easy
Sat 8.5 miles easy
Sun 15 miles real easy in 1:58 pace forgettable in 97F & 98% humidity
68.5 mile week
God I hate this heat. At 8:45 this AM temp is a humid 86.3° Feels Like 96°. fml. Run yesterday was supposed to be a 12 mile w/ 7MP, but absolutely couldn't do it. Stopped to walk multiple times in the first 3 miles. Turned around in shame but got a bit of a second wind to turn it into a 10 miler at least.
calbearsfan - per your comment about more miles: I'm actually a little ahead of my mileage goals that I set a year ago. I'm trying to add 10 mpw every 6 months. I was supposed to be at 45 mpw by the end of June but averaged over 50 for the last 6 weeks. I'd like to finish this cycle with a big chunk (8 weeks or so) averaging over 55, but my periformis is acting up and this week might be a cut back week.
carlbrad - glad to hear you are getting some miles in and that the calves are holding up ok. You still planning on doing Berlin?
piwi kiwi - tbh = to be honest. Of course. I was assuming it was some kiwi slang or something. I dated a kiwi back in college and could barely understand half of what she said.
mikkey - you still thinking about running guernsey? I saw your miles from last month and am pretty sure A Muse won't be having your babies after that.
nils - I usually leave my gps at home on recovery days and just run really slowly. For me that is 8:30 to 9:30 pace depending on how I'm feeling.
Mo - 16mi @ 7:01 (counts as previous week)
Tu - 5mi @ slow
We - 12mi @ 7:15
Th - 8mi @ slow
Fr - 8mi w/ 4@6:24
Sa - 11mi @ 7:04
Su - 15mi @ 7:30
Total - 59mi
Start of the week was really bumpy. I was still getting over illness, and I missed my usual Monday rest day, and I took the Monday long run too hard. Tuesday was a failed tempo in spectacular fashion as I didn't even get past 8:00/mi at any point. After that I was gunshy on the tempo and the long run. Hoping for a better week this week. Zero miles and counting!
Awesome race Rachel, congrats on sub 2:50.
Nice reports to read and keep the motivation to get the miles in. My week:
Mon: Off
Tues: 8 miles
Wed: 8 miles
Thursday: 11 miles
Friday: 8 miles
Saturday: 15 miles (3 five mile loops of a hilly course- did a number on my legs)
Sunday: 8 miles- My legs were really stiff the 1st half of run.
58 miles for the week.
This morning I ran 8 miles as I do not know if I can get in a run on tuesday because of work schedule. Again, my legs felt very stiff and tired for the 1st half of the run. Averaged a total 7:24 pace with first mile being slowest and last being fastest at 6:51, but legs are tired. Ice bath/Massage/Heat to help??
62 last week. Cut the long run short due to heat. Debated going out again in the evening to pick up at least 8 of the lost miles, but it never got cooler. So basically, started the cutback week a day early.
Pulling up the mileage rear:
Mo - 8.25 mi @ 7:40
Tu - 8.25 mi @ 7:25
We - 8.25 mi @ 7:30
Th - 1.3 warm up, Terrible 18:48 5k Race
Fr - 11.25 mi mountain road run @ 8:15
Sa - 9.5 mi mountain road run @ 7:40 avg including 2.5 @ 6:50
Su - Rest Day; Awesome rocky, hilly 12+ mile MTB ride in the beautiful West Virginia mountains; crashed 3 times; only minor injuries
Total ~ 50
Are we all running our recovery runs too fast? Mutai runs his recovery runs at 8:00 Minutes/Mile ds_mod once wrote on this thread. Another runner was saying that most runners run their RR too fast. Mutai is a 3:00 Minutes/KM runner, that's about 5:00 Minutes/Mile MRP. According too that calculation we should all be running RR between 9 and 10 Minutes/Mile. That seems very slow, slower than a jog.
Are we all running our recovery runs too fast? Mutai runs his recovery runs at 8:00 Minutes/Mile ds_mod once wrote on this thread. Another runner was saying that most runners run their RR too fast. Mutai is a 3:00 Minutes/KM runner, that's about 5:00 Minutes/Mile MRP. According too that calculation we should all be running RR between 9 and 10 Minutes/Mile. That seems very slow, slower than a jog.
A lot of people say they can't run 9:00/mile without sacrificing form. I have no problem with it. I concentrate a little on form (stay quiet, keep cadence up at a decent level). I don't consider it slower than a jog. The main problem is not yelling at everyone that passes you "I'M FASTER THAN YOU ARE!!!!"
A runner on another thread commented that they couldn't do MP - 90s without sacrificing form. A Muse commented that he runs the first few miles of all his long runs AT LEAST another minute slower than that. I'd say I'm similar to that. MP somewhere under 7, recovery and first mile or so in the low to mid 9s.
Recovery runs are contextual, though. One runner may have really good balance in training and recover fine from day to day. Another runner is building intensity or volume into his/her week and needs extra recovery. A third runner has a full gamut of training but wants to add some more mileage, knowing that it has to be super easy in order to stay on top of recovery. There will be great variation between what each of these runners considers to be 'recovery pace.'
Canova refers to recovery runs as 'regeneration runs,' so obviously for his runners (and Mutai is at least advised by him) these runs really exert no aerobic demands at all. Of course, they're running 160 miles/week. Maybe a lower mileage runner needs less padding.
I try not to look at my watch during a recovery run unless I feel that I am accelerating and should back off.


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IDIS 304/3.0 - British Studies I
Instructor: Kate Turner
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
IDIS 304 is an interdisciplinary course that offers a critical overview of British history, culture and politics. Looking at themes such as POP CULTURE, LONDON, BRITISH HEROES, STEREOTYPES, BRITAIN AND THE WORLD, NATIONAL DISHES, THE ROYAL FAMILY and THE SECOND WORLD WAR it tackles the most famous of British myths, analysing the ingredients of our postcard images of Britishness. At the same time it invites students to think how their own national identities are formed and how their personal experience of Britain develops along the way.
Different theories on identity-making will frame the course, while its material will be derived from history, politics, current affairs, literature, art and popular culture. Particular effort is made to ensure that the course requirements are accessible to those who don't have background in one or more of the course's disciplines.
By the end of the course students will have knowledge of:
- British modern history, culture, politics and ideologies
- All contemporary debates on the future of 21st century Britain
- What makes a nation, and how national identities are formed and constantly re-imagined
Students will also have developed their skills in:
- thinking critically about their own identities
- engaging critically with all different types of primary sources
- comparative analysis across national cultures
- imaginative approaches to presenting their research findings
There are two field trips in the course:
- Central London. We take a walking tour of the heart of the British nation, from the river Thames and the Houses of Parliament to Downing Street and Trafalgar Square, exploring how identities are projected and how they are experienced by the public.
- Mass Observation - the most important archive on modern British popular opinion and everyday life. We will look at diaries of 'ordinary' British people from the 1930s to today on a range of topics, from food and music, to foreign affairs and race relations.
IDIS304 students will be in constant engagement with different types of primary research, through:
- the field trips: students are instructed on how to transform from passive observers to critical thinkers, evaluating and analysing, reflecting on how their identities affect their experiences and vice versa.
- archives: we will visit the Mass Observation archive, while among the suggested material for the students' projects there is a wealth of first hand information, like the 'Observing the 1980s' project by the University of Sussex, which hosts diaries and interviews on a wide range of themes.
- documentary sources: all seminar sessions use primary sources (newspapers, songs, TV programmes) that students are asked to engage critically with.
- interviews: students will be asked to interview their peer group on the question of national identities and to analyse their findings.
Attendance and Participation counts for at least 20% of the final mark.
The rest of the assessment will take place through a combination of the below tasks:
- one essay
- group research projects and presentations,
- short reports (max 500 words) on primary research (eg archives and interviews) and other research tasks (eg terminologies and definitions, reflections on class discussions)
There are no exams at the end.


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text:
eKartingNews.com, the leading karting media outlet, is continually adding to their Trackside Live program. The new channel will be able to provide karting fans at home the chance to see and hear the on-track action live, including interviews and podium celebrations throughout the weekend coverage.
There are no videos in the library at this time.