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Election Leaves Gohmert Blessed But Concerned
Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX-01) released the following statement regarding the election results in Texas and throughout the country:
"This election reinforces that I am the most blessed servant member of the United States Congress. The overwhelming majority of east Texans want their children to at least have the chance for a better life than they have had.
Proverbs says, 'Where there is no vision, the people perish.' Unfortunately, if there was vision in this administration, it has been one of full government intrusion, manipulation, and lawlessness, with limited healthcare, especially for seniors and non-government workers.
This administration has had this country on a course of less opportunity, less respect abroad while creating more enemies and fewer allies. We've had more tax dollars doing less for the country but more for bureaucrats, leaving fewer Americans working than at any time since the Carter days of malaise. American voters from all races, creeds, colors, national origins and both genders realized we needed to get off the track to government on the people, crushing the people and spying on the people, back to a government of, by and for the people.
Opinion polling of voters indicates Republicans have not earned the respect of the people though they overwhelmingly got their votes. Now that we have the majority in both houses, we must end Republican leader lethargy and begin restoring the national economy and our international greatness that has rusted away. Though some wonder what difference it makes to discern our mistakes, we must know what we've done wrong to avoid those errors in the future.
We must restore faith by our allies that we will cease pouring money and weapons into the hands of those who want to destroy us. We must encourage lawful immigration, while making sure that we are secure from disease and destruction coming across porous borders.
Speaking up and standing up on the foundation of truth and our nation's Constitution has been and will remain my charge. I am humbled to be so blessed by such support for my efforts."
Congressman Louie Gohmert is the Vice Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. Prior to being elected to serve in Congress, Louie was elected to three terms as District Judge in Smith County, Texas. He also served as Chief Justice of Texas'12th Court of Appeals.
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org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64 I am not getting any error but it is failing to authenticate the user.
If any one has tried please let me know.
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Replacing com.Ostermiller.util.Base64 with apache's codec.Base64 (0 messages)
- Posted by: Rajendra Sharanappa
- Posted on: February 22 2005 17:14 EST

subset: commoncrawl


text:
This Night-Vision Camera Sees Color
Cameras that can see in the dark are nothing special. But how much detail can you really get from that fuzzy, green, Buffalo Bill-o-vision? The Color Night Vision Camera, though, can reproduce red, blue, and green even through the pitch black darkness, using the magic of infrared.


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Following the fall of the Portuguese and Canadian governments (and don't get us started on Belgium), here comes the latest entrant to the anarchy club. Kuwait's cabinet is expected to resign on Thursday after lawmakers asked to question three ministers, parliamentary sources said on Wednesday. More from Reuters: "The sources said that the cabinet was set to submit its resignation after lawmakers asked to question three ministers who are ruling family members, including the oil exporter's energy minister, who is also the information minister." After all what better way to avoid answering questions in a bona fide "democracy" than to take down the entire government. But this too is bullish: "Ministerial resignations are frequent in Kuwait, which has the most outspoken parliament in the Gulf Arab region." In other words it was priced on. And furthermore, with a globalized corporatocracy long in charge of the world, receiving its lifeblood of endless money and cheap credit, who needs governments anyway.
Third Government Set To Fall In A Week: Kuwait Cabinet Expected To Resign On Thursday "Over Questioning"
- Printer-friendly version
- Mar 30, 2011 11:22 AM
- 66
Cabinet. Like it matters. Countries where the head honch cuts yer nuts off on a whim. Cabinet, my ass.
just can't find good cabinets these days. they're all made like crap.
You forgot one. The Syrian cabinent quit yesterday. For whatever that's worth.
What about BAHRAIN whose dictator is murdering citizens?
So is this how they plan on running their World Governance? Having revolving door politicos that have no real responsibility as they can just walk away?
It's coming; the crack up.
And that would be different how?
The odd thing is that I do not have a rebuttal for your comment. There's nothing that i could say to lessen the blow of reality hitting me in the forehead. Maybe if I facepalm first then I won't feel the impact as tramatically.
Seriously though, at least now it's becoming obviously clear to the world that Government's everywhere are either filled with unbelievably incompetent people, or that the NWO is real. Either way, we're screwed.
"globalized corporatocracy", Bitchez!
Love the vernacular at ZH
"...with a globalized corporatocracy long in charge of the world, receiving its lifeblood of endless money and cheap credit, who needs governments anyway."
Tyler manages to say exactly what I would say if I had an advanced degree in Realistic Sarcasm. I think I'm addicted to ZH because the sarcanol flows faster here than the BS pours out of our 'leaders' pieholes.
It would be nice if Tyler's premise would be only sarcastic ... unfortunatelly reality tells that there are some pretty serious experiments with so called "direct democracy" where taxpeyers and citizens would have online access to comunity decision making systems, law/budget procedures and regulations - making and adopting those along the way.
Of course, system will allow citizens to participate to the level not higher than dealing with basic human needs while all other issues (protection, finance, general laws, energy flows, commodities etc) would be "protected" for "higher level admins".
If you can imagine something like facebook participation and algorithms acting as laws/ordinances on low levels of society.
Scary isn't it? But logical since corporations actually don't need so many parties, bribing, corupt bastard politicians on all levels etc which is increasing total system cost for them.
They only need us to exist, buy, eat and shit!
Who are these mysterious "citizens" of which you speak? All I see are captives with guns to their heads. (some of which are holding the gun to their own heads!)
And if Kuwait wasn't enough, son of Daiichi is smoking. But I'm sure this is nothing, and smoke in the wind. You know..just like at Daiichi. Because TEPCO has assured everyone.
Smoke briefly detected at Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant
Wednesday, March 30, 2011Smoke Briefly Detected At Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant
TOKYO (Kyodo)--Smoke was temporarily seen at the No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant, but it soon disappeared, its operator said Wednesday.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said smoke was detected at around 5:56 p.m. from a power distribution panel on the first floor of the turbine building at the reactor. The company, known as TEPCO, said it made a call to a local fire department.
The announcement came at a time when efforts are under way to contain the nuclear crisis at the radiation-leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, hit by the devastating March 11 earthquake and ensuing tsunami.
The Fukushima Daini plant is located about 10 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, and its four reactors have been stable in so-called ''cold shutdown'' after suspending operations following the quake.
"Smoke was temporarily seen....but it soon disappeared, its operator said...."
Smoke disappeared. As in floatedaway, dissipated, wafted off on a cool, gentle, fresh spring breeze, accompanied by butterflies, flower petals and rainbow shitting unicorns. Correction, miniature winged rainbow colored skittle shitting unicorns..
But what the fuck caused the smoke in the electrical panel which handles the cooling unit? Was it fucking fixed?
Maybe the new President of TEPCO'll go off to join his buddy in the rubber padded Karaoke bar in the sky, too.
Fucking amazing.
Who writes this crap?
Talk about dismissive redirection! Bernays would give this a failing grade. Even the gerbil up my butt can see through this bloody rot.
Don't forget about Syria...
Who cares. I just read that Godzilla ( Radiation) was spotted in New york. Man is futile. My life is in Gods hands.
Good thing this is a regular occurance in Kuwait otherwise I might worry that the CIA was losing control of the whole situation
wow, using current "market logic", that should crush gold and silver while surging oil.
The intangible asset of trust is in crisis.
To come: no debt ceiling raise + no budget cuts =
soon no U.S. government as well...
join the third world, Bitchez.
Shame the Fed hasn't folded.. and how come they get to make everyone wait to give the documents that the courts said they had to give and still haven't?
Now if that was you or me, we would be in jail for contempt of court
"...with a globalized corporatocracy long in charge of the world, receiving its lifeblood of endless money and cheap credit."
Lifeblood? Let's just say that the lifeblood heatmap would not be centered around New York, London and Tokyo. Quite the opposite.
Q-wait, protectorate, it's got oil
ready for turmoil.
Anybody know where I can buy some good sneakers?
No worries...they will all move to USA and build $100 Million McMansions:
Glad to see you include Belgium. Tons of exposure, like France and Italy.
The "Great City" is about to burst into flames.
Re: Belgium (for you Monty Python fans, remember the skit with the "Prejudice Show" with the write-in campaign?):
"I can't think of anything more derogatory than 'Belgian'." (Rousing applause)
"Let's not call them anything, let's just ignore them." (Rousing applause)
""I can't think of anything more derogatory than 'Belgian'."
You probably also think the stuff you drink in your pub qualifies as beer . And the stuff you eat is gourmet I guess . Belgium has the richest diversity in high quality beers and more 3 star giude Michelin restaurants per capita than France dipshit
This is fun:
...Jeremy Clarkson goes to Belgium.
It's biased, out of date and quite long, but still.
Clarkson should take a good look at the UK . Who the fuck wants to live there ? Tell me again what they export that the world needs so desperately ? Germany won WWII and put that in your pipe Clarkson
I was there last summer and what a toilet bowl. Just wow.
And if it's indicative of future U.S., just wow.
Overpriced, polluted toilet.
No offense to our British Friends. Many of the people were pleasant enough (they knew how badly they were being screwed, too).
Ofcourse we have, the eurocrats and frenchspeaking elites have to eat somewhere. As for the beers you are quite right. However I think that belgium should be split because the current construction is undemocratic. Just my 2 cents.
The current construction is a federal state , like Switzerland . The main problem is the ongoing money flow from the productive north (Flanders) to the more easy going south .Spliiting is a problem because the Brussels region (majority French speaking) is completely geographically surrounded by Flanders (dutch speaking) . You could turn Brussels maybe into a sort of EU capital territory .
We don´t have to split the country per se. As long as you seperate the money, you will gain efficiencies. But unfortunately at the current rate of change nothing will happen really and a split of the country would be the only way out. Not only brussels would be a problem. But also the national debt.
"Not only brussels would be a problem. But also the national debt."
Good point !!!
Belgium has the richest diversity in high quality beers and more 3 star giude Michelin restaurants per capita than France
All true -- plus ! --- we have the best coffee and chocolate on the continent as well.
who needs governments anyway
We don't need no stinkin' government!! We have regional assemblies for that crap anyway. Maybe the USA should take note of this and have a rethink about DC.
Don't even start me on food . White asparagus a la flamande . Witlof .
"We don't need no stinkin' government!! "
The country is doing fine without one . I am all for keeping it that way . We are by nature suspicious of every government , even one of our own choice . That's the result of centuries of foreign occupation
Wasn't going to mention the food -- it's probably the best kept secret of all, even from many ZHers..
(Pass the beer..)
Get a sense of humor, you moron. Sorry, I'll upgrade you to total retard.
BTW, I had a Chimay blue the other day. Feel better now? 'Tard....
Thx for supporting the GDP of that humble nation whose contribution to European culture lists artworks by Van Eyck , Van Dyck , Bouts , Breughel , van der Goes , Hals , Jordaens , Memling , Teniers , van der Weyden , Ensor , Delvaux , Magritte
@ PulauHantu29 RE http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2011/03/24/1534042/megamansion-upsets-los-a...
Hollywood Movie Jews need 8,000 sq ft, Mid-East Oil Arabs need 80,000 -
Median Income Americans (MIA) need 800...
What if MIA boycotted the products of the two prior?
Nawh, MIA lives to escape reality/life via movies and driving around
aimlessly from mall to mall.
I'm sure the CIA can find better replacements.
so we can put the "Kuwaiti Question" next to the "Harrisburg IOU"
I'm really finding the geography maps in the news quite informative. For years I've been hearing about these places and had no real idea where they were. And some places like Oman, I had no idea even existed. I wish them all freedom, in whatever form that means to them.
As a Canadian, I feel it important to separate the conditions in Canada from the rest of the world where governments have been overthrown or have fallen.
Firstly of all, the Canadian population is suffering from disinterest and boredom rather than any radical sense of injustice. Voter turnout at elections has been falling for decades. At the current rate we will reach the state where they will call an election and nobody will come.
Secondly, although there are segments of the population living in poverty and child poverty is a growing problem, the primary preoccupation is the price of a Big Mac relative to its shrinking size - not to be confused with the expanding size of the Big Mac eaters. Canada is very much an affluent society. Austerity here seems to be 4 lattes a week instead of 5.
Thirdly, Canadian politicians appear to spend all their time in partisan bickering. Put representatives of three of the parties together in a discussion as CTV news regularly does and you will be amazed at how vacuous 15 minutes can be. One of the gravest current scandals the government faces is that a junior minister inserted the word "not" in front of the word "approved" on a funding recommendation document (as one would assume would be a minister's prerogative and responsibility) and then initially denied it.
If any Canadian dies as a result of their government's actions it will be through total boredom rather than bullets or bombs. However, one could argue that our government, in subjecting its citizens to listening to Question Period in the House of Commons, practices torture.


text:
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You can try these similar gifts instead.
Pink Princess Pimp Cup
Get your drink on with this amusing pimp cup stein! Made of black glass, this handcrafted pimp cup holds approximately 40oz, and is decorated with enough pink, green, and gold bling accents to satisfy any princess.


text:
TechStars Demo Day Yields 10 New Seattle Startups—and a Lot of Work Ahead
(Page 2 of 3)
tried to crack this market. Will probably need to sign big partnerships to get traction.
World Blender
Founders: Mike Arcuri, Peter Schlichting, Jeff Huang
Idea: Location-based strategic war games that friends can play on their mobile phones.
Tagline: Turn the real world into a virtual playground.
Analysis: This was probably the most fun pitch I saw. If the games (GPS Assassin, WarGames) can take off with college students and fraternity houses through Facebook Places, they could potentially reach critical mass. Will make money by selling virtual goods such as long-range missiles and defensive shields.
Founders: Phillip Lee, Bryan Leptich
Idea: Online deal site for renters to find discounted apartments, and property owners to fill vacancies.
Tagline: The best place to save on apartments.
Analysis: This taps into the Groupon-like, buy-it-now mentality for people in urgent need of an apartment, and (after Seattle) it's targeting cities with high vacancy rates like Phoenix, Fresno, and Jacksonville. Craigslist and other classifieds leave room for such sites. But can it get critical mass? And is it sustainable if the economy gets better—or worse?
Deal Co-op
Founders: Nate Schmidt, Mike Schmidt
Idea: Daily-deal marketing platform for organizations and publishers in smaller markets and geographies.
Tagline: The best daily-deal partner on the Web.
Analysis: No rocket science here—this is like do-it-yourself Groupon for smaller communities (the founders come from Alabama). The service lets other websites offer and make money from group-buying discounts. Obviously this is a very crowded space with hundreds of competitors, so the team faces a long slog. But they're already making significant revenues, so are off to a good start.
Founders: Brandon Bloom, Steve Krenzel
Idea: Better online tools for teams and businesses to manage and share weekly status reports.
Tagline: Smart tools for team collaboration.
Analysis: Sounds like it could be boring, but it's not—there's a growing need here. But there are tons of other companies trying to create more powerful and efficient alternatives to … Next Page »
Trending on Xconomy
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We got the NYC Ventana Crew together yesterday to celebrate a Winter day that hit about 55 degrees. Unfortunately, the snow and ice was waiting for us on the trails. Since Schotter is moving to Berlin in a month, we figured why not go for the big Ringwood to Ramapo ridge ride in North NJ. It was brutal, but fun.
2 Brujas, an X-5 and a Ciclon in attendance.
3 NYC bike shops in attendance.... Sid's Bikes, A Bicycle Shop, and NYC Velo....
Results 1 to 5 of 5


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Richard used the word "frogging" correctly in a sentence! As in: "Are you frogging that whole thing?" (with his tone being "What the hell are you doing, it was almost done!") ... I wasn't. My gourd was too long, so I shortened it.
Now I'm in a crocheting mood. I have 3 legs left on the next octopus and I'm most of the way through a cornucopia for Thanksgiving (just have a corn ear and an eggplant left, I'm done with the pumpkin, squash, and apple). After that, who knows? (well, I know. I just cast on for some washclothes that match the yellow/pink/orange shrug for Gracie's 1st birthday. I think I'll buy some cool soap for her since Sabrina has to use the boring soap.)


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Kandi Stinson, Ph.D.
SOCI 101 Introduction to Sociology (honors)
Dr. Stinson's description of her focus for this course and the pedagogical innovations she showcased as the CTE Faculty-in-Residence:
Like other sections of Introduction to Sociology, this course was intended to provide students with an overview of sociological theories and research methods as they are applied to specific topics of interest to sociologists. However, rather than taking the traditional survey approach to an introductory course, in which students learn a little about a lot of different topics, I have moved to a more thematic approach. The theme for the course in Fall 2014 is "Food, Hunger, and Culture." This theme will provide focus for the readings, discussions, assignments, and activities. Students learned how the major sociological theories are applied to issues of food, hunger, and culture and how sociologists go about conducting research on these issues. Substantive topics that are often covered in an introductory course, such as stratification, culture and norms, or societal institutions such as religion or economy, will be directly related to the course theme.
This course was well-suited to exploring the use of space and a "de-centered" classroom. Increasingly I have used in-class time to focus on developing students' abilities to think critically and creatively, that is, the higher levels of learning in Bloom's Taxonomy, Reading and homework assignments due in every class meeting address knowledge and comprehension, with the expectation that students come to class prepared to apply, evaluate, analyze, synthesize, etc. Time was spent in class on hands-on, active learning experiences that are highly interactive.
This section of SOCI 101 was restricted to students in the University Scholars program and first-year and sophomore students intending to go to medical school.
Dr. Stinson also offered several lectures intended for Xavier Staff members.


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Off The Ball summer roadshows kick-off with Cascarino
People of Galway – we're launching our series of Liberty Insurance Summer Roadshows just beside Lough Atalia tomorrow night at 7.00pm when we broadcast live from the plush confines of the G Hotel.
We'll be joined by Tony Cascarino to discuss World Cup's past and present, as well as David Brady, Michael Meehan and Liam McHale to talk about Sunday's Connacht final and there'll be the annual 'what went wrong with Galway hurling this year?' panel.
There's still a few tickets remaining so just text your name and the word GALWAY to 53106.


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Morin, Edgar. (2005) The cinema, or, The imaginary man /Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press,MLA Citation
Morin, Edgar. The Cinema, Or, The Imaginary Man. Minneapolis : University Of Minnesota Press, 2005. Print.
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The cinema, or, The imaginary man /
Edgar Morin ; translated by Lorraine Mortimer.
|Main Author:
|Morin, Edgar.
|Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, c2005.
|Motion pictures. | Motion pictures - Psychological aspects.
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Folk-influenced Atmospheric Pagan Black Metal - ZGARD's sixth full length album, a good continuation of previous release "Totem".
Dark Atmospheric Black Metal from the KHORS/ULVEGR gang. This is a CD+DVD release. CD contains three new tracks 12 minutes each and DVD their (pretty interesting, I've seen it by myself) live show. "If you're looking for some moody and atmospheric heavy music, KZOHH are a great band to check out." (c) Metal Black Webzine
Atmospheric Black Metal - KHORS' fourth album "Return To Abandoned", which was originally released in 2010, already achieved a cult status in metal underground. This is proved by a number of already sold out re-issues of this album. Seven years later it is re-released by Svarga Music in noble 6-panel digipak format with 2 bonus tracks and completely new...
Pagan Black Metal - first time on vinyl mighty split of Ukrainian frontiers NOKTURNAL MORTUM. Originally released in 2001 and pressed on vinyl in 2016. Release contains great covers for WASP, GRAVELAND, BURZUM, MOTORHEAD, SLAYER.
Black/Thrash Metal - 3rd album from Norwegian band SARCOMA INC. After listening of this album we really will go to the psychopatologist, because this album torn your mind by the power of Black/Thrash.
Pagan Metal - third album of Ukrainians PAGANLAND. Carpathia-influenced Pagan Black Metal for fans of early BORKNAGAR, SKYFORGER and MANEGARM but with a Slanovic touch.
Black/Death Metal - 5th album form the Polish project THRONEUM. For the fans of MORTUARY DRAPE.
Oldschool Black Metal - EP from Polish band BLAZE OF PERDITION. It's a real dedication to the Swedish Black Metal scene, because those guys brought the all best things: MARDUK's speed, WATAIN's agression, DARk FUNERAL's power and DISSECTION's melody. Also, there you will find a cover to DISSECTION's "Night's Blood".
Black/Thrash Metal - 3rd album from Norwegian band SARCOMA INC. After listening of this album we really will go to the psychopatologist, because this album torn your mind by the power of Black/Thrash.
Thrash/Death/Black Metal - 2nd album by the Norwegian band THE BATALLION. For the fans of AURA NOIR, DESTROYER 666, KRISIUN and DESASTER.
Oldschool Raw Black Metal - the split from Finnish AZAGHAL and Belgian ARS VENEFICIUM. From the one side we see the titans and legends of Black - AZAGHAL. From the other - young talents ARS VENEFICIUM. But both are ready to play really angry and true oldschool stuff without cloning someone.
Thrash Metal/Crossover - 2nd album from American band TERRA CAPUT MUNDI. They accumulates the best things from first waves of Crossover and Thrash, having the drive and hardball.
Black-Thrash Metal - demo from German band VOLCANIC. It's a mixture between classic evil 80's thrash and 90's Satanic black.
Hurricane Thrash Metal - EP from Greek band ENDLESS RECOVERY. It's an uncontroled hurricane of HOLY MOSES emotions and EXODUS speed with some links to JUDAS PRIEST. Really classic, really fast, really hard.
Ambient/Depressive Black Metal - EP from Ukrainian one-man project MOLOCH. It's the first MOLOCH's release recorded with full line-up like an experiment. Raw, but depressive and atmospheric sound, what reminds about BURZUM's "Filosofem" and "Dauði Baldrs".
Blackened Death Metal - 8th album by the veterans of American Blackened Death.The title of this album translated as "The hour of Lucifer". And this hour has come: SATHANAS made really evil and speedy album, what brings you under the ground.
Noise Experimental Sludge Black Metal - debut album from French band SAISON DE ROUILLE (Season of Rust). And their music is really "rusty" - it destroys your ears, mind and brain. For the fans of noisecore and sludge-black.
Agressive Black Metal - 2nd album by German band KRATER. It's really hard and dominant black metal in GORGOROTH's and INQUISITION's styles.
Oldschool Black Metal - 3rd album by German one-man project MYRKWID. It's a 3rd part of conceptual line, began from "Part 1" (2003). For fans of DARKTHRONE and URGEHAL.
Melodic Atmospheric Black Metal - compilation by Australian one-man project WOODS OF DESOLATION. There you find demos, splits and unreleased tracks between 2005-2008 from one of the best Black Metal acts in Australia. Catchy and fantastic melodies with atmosphere of emptiness.
Atmospheric Black Metal - EP from French band DUX. It's a classic variant of Black Metal with some influences of 80's Thrash.
True Underground Raw Black Metal - debut album from International project APOLOKIA. 2 guys from L'Aquilla (Italy) and Bergen (Norway) make really dirty, noisy and raw underground Black Metal songs. Something rates it as "Nihilistic Black".
Depressive Atmospheric Black Metal - debut EP from Australian formation AUTUMN'S DAWN. Their's music like a dawn: catchy, touchy, exciting beatiful and atmospheric! If you like WOODS OF DESOLATION's stuff, you should check it!
Atmospheric Black-Doom Metal - It's the unreal and fantastic debut album from American band VELNIAS.They combined the atmosphere and viscosity of Doom Metal with fear and pain of Black Metal. Those track really dive you to the deep of their music.


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A day after Republican state Assemblywoman Dierdre Scozzafava abruptly suspended her campaign in the New York special election, she's endorsing the Democrat in the race — not the Conservative Party candidate favored by fellow Republicans.
Scozzafava said Sunday that Democrat Bill Owens is the best of the remaining candidates to build on the legacy of the previous holder of the 23rd Congressional District seat. Republican John McHugh has taken a position in the Obama administration.
A recent Siena College poll showed Scozzafava finishing a distant third behind Owens and conservative Doug Hoffman.
The special election is scheduled for Tuesday.
"It's not in the cards for me to be your representative, but I strongly believe Bill is the only candidate who can build upon John McHugh's lasting legacy in the U.S. Congress," said Scozzafava in a statement released this afternoon.
Owens said he was "honored" to have won Scozzafava's endorsement, noting: "Now more than ever we need bipartisan solutions to help bring jobs to Upstate New York to get our economy back on track and move our country forward," the Washington Post reported.
According to Politico, whileScozzafava's abrupt withdrawal Saturday from the Nov. 3 House election in upstate New York came as a surprise, it shouldn't have — over the past decade or so the New York Republican Party has emerged as the political gang that couldn't shoot straight, an operation so inept that it's sometimes hard to believe it exists in the nation's third-largest state.


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Get certified - Transform your world of work today
Join with Scrum community members from around the world as they gather together in the sunshine of Orlando, Florida for the 2010 Scrum Alliance Orlando Scrum Gathering. The overarching theme for the Gathering is collaboration. Benefit from a mix of experience, information, values and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating the Scrum process.
The theme of this Scrum Gathering is collaboration and we've set up a number of ways participants can share and contribute online:
Event Blog
Follow us on Twitter On Twitter, use hashtag #sg10us
Photos and/or video? use tag sg10us on Flickr and YouTube
Date: 8-10 March, 2010 Location: Orlando, FL, United States
Venue:6000 W Osceola ParkwayOrlando, FL 34746 United StatesGet Directions
Regular Price:
CST/CSC: $1,000 USD ($500 early bird special before February 15th, 2010)
Member: $1,500 USD ($1,000 early bird special before February 15th, 2010)
Agile Alliance member or PMP: $1,700 USD ($1,300 early bird special before February 15th, 2010)
Non-member: $1,800 USD ($1,500 early bird special before February 15th, 2010)
Student/Educator: Student $600 USD (Please contact us for further details firstname.lastname@example.com)
Group discount: 10% for 5 or more registrations (Please contact us for discount code @ firstname.lastname@example.com)
Share in a mix of experience, information, and collaboration with fellow Scrum users. Discover the values and expert insight that provides you a framework for evaluating and incorporating Scrum. Learn from experienced practitioners, Scrum founders, and leaders in the Agile community. Participate in 3 full days of programming including presentations, workshops, case studies, open space and much more.
Program Tracks
The Dialogue Room is the heart beat of the Scrum Gathering. Come experience a lightly structured, free flowing environment where impromptu and spontaneous conversations and activities can take place. It is intended to be a space for those who want to explore Scrum beyond the formal sessions. Anything goes; no formal workshops or talks here. The Dialogue Room coordinators will provide craft materials and games -- that will spur the creation of new structure. Explore and contribute to a gallery of questions and other artifacts. Peruse the live Twitter / Flickr wall.
Got a Scrum ailment that needs diagnosis? Come visit the Scrum Clinic at the Dialogue Room. Sign up for a 20 minute session of private 1-on-1 coaching. Doctors wanted.
7 March 2010 - CST/CSC Retreat 8:30-5:30 St. George (Rm 106 );
CST/CSC Welcome Reception 6:30 -8:30 Executive Center
8 March 2010
Opening comments and Scrum Alliance Overview by Tom Mellor Scrum Alliance President and Chairman of the Board of Directors -
Osceola Ballroom A
Keynote Presentation - Osceola Ballroom A
Scrum + CMMI - Jeff Sutherland and Kent Johnson
Scrum and CMMI with Jeff Sutherland, co-founder of Scrum and Kent Johnson, CTO of AgileDigm. Kent co-authored the primary CMMI book on interpreting the CMMI and is the CMMI Maturity Level 5 Lead Appraiser for Systematic. Our presentation will briefly review how Systematic went to hyper-productive Scrum while maintaining CMMI Maturity Level 5 status and share how companies that want to go to any CMMI level 2, 3, 4, or 5 can cut the cost in half by using Scrum.
Refreshment break
Deep-dive Workshop Sessions
Participants will experience a "deep-dive" workshop into an area of interest.
Osceola 1 – Dialogue Room & Scrum Clinic hosted by Michael de la Maza and Gerry Kirk
Project management, How to: Specify Critical Product Quality Requirements Tom Gilb and Kai Gilb (Sanibel 3)
Quantified, Measurable and Testable. Specified so they are representative of the real requirements that your Stakeholders have, that they are easy to change, and in such a way that Business and your Product Owner can prioritize and the engineers/developers can develop towards them.
Some examples of Critical Product Qualities: User-friendly, Security, Performance, Reliability, Maintainability, Intuitiveness, Style, Correctness, Expandability.
Today, more and more sw and system developers are experiencing project delays and failures caused by unsatisfactory project qualities. The system developed has all the functionality, but the users are not satisfied with some product qualities like the performance, usability, security or reliability. In this focused workshop you will learn, and practice, how to specify the critical product quality requirements for your projects.
1st session: What are Product Qualities, Why are Product Qualities critical, How to specify Product Qualities, Standards and templates for specifying Product Qualities
2nd session: Practical Workshop on specifying Product Qualities for your projects in your domain.
3rd session: Case study.
Software Craftsmanship Workshop - Micah Martin (Osceola 2)
How does one become a Master Craftsman? Practice, practice, practice. In this workshop we will get our hands dirty exploring some of the more common techniques for practicing the software craft. We will perform code katas, working on our sense of code smell, do some randori, and more. Bring your laptop and prepare for a mental workout. You will learn exercises that you can use to train yourself at home and teach your colleagues.
Artful Making Workshop - Lee Devin (Osceola 3)
Theatre and software have much in common: teams create unpredictably innovative products that emerge from the making process itself; they create new things to a deadline; and they use an iterative rather than a sequential method. They make a prototype, not a plan; they see if it works; when it doesn't, they make another, reconceiving to create new ideas out of conflicting ones; they see if the new one works; when it doesn't, they make another; and so on until they have it right. The Artful Making workshop will explore some of what managers and software developers can learn about how theatre artists do that kind of work. The workshop will provide opportunities to learn and practice some of the things actors do as they prepare for creative work, engage in full collaboration, and function productively at the scary edge of their powers. Exercises and discussion will focus on three aspects of any artful collaborative process: Preparation, Concentration, and The Edge.
Coaching the Coaches - Lyssa Adkins (CST) (Sanibel 1&2)
You've learned the principles and practices of Scrum. Your teams are agile—as far as the basics go. Now you're ready to take the next step in your personal development as a ScrumMaster or agile coach. Join Lyssa Adkins in this experiential class, which offers skills essential for coaching agile teams. Lyssa shares practical and provocative techniques from the world of professional coaching, facilitation, collaboration, and conflict management. She demonstrates—and you'll practice in small groups—what it means to apply the "coach approach" to agile teams. Learn how to create the environment for continuous improvement right from the beginning and discover the key points that ensure the product owner, customer, stakeholders, and coach are all doing their parts to support the team. Recognize when to coach the whole team and when to coach individuals. Take away exercises and tools you can use with your team immediately, and start on the path to become that agile coach who activates teams to create astonishing results. Come ready to learn and to make a personal commitment to become a great agile coach.
The Kanban Exploration - Karl Scotland (Destin)
There has been much debate about how a Kanban System for Software Development is either similar or different to a Scrum approach. While many of the principles and practices are compatible with those of Scrum, some may appear to be at odds. This workshop will begin by discussing one definition of a Kanban System, followed by an exploration of the similarities and differences between Kanban and Scrum based approaches to software development through games, simulations and debate. Attendees should come away with an understanding of the benefits of both approaches and how and when to apply them, whether independently, or jointly.
Coaching Self-Organized Teams - Joseph Pelrine (CST) (Osceola 6)
Self-organization of human beings is a tricky thing. Agile coaches, especially ScrumMasters, are constantly challenged with how to motivate/persuade/trick their teams into doing things, without telling them what to do, but there is very little information or training on this topic. Allowing a team to self-organize along the lines of "oh well, they're all adults, they'll figure it out" is just as irresponsible as reverting to the command-and control school of management. This tutorial presents an approach utilizing leading-edge research and techniques from social complexity science and team dynamics. Learning outcomes * An understanding of the social psychological and complexity aspects of teams * A Sense-Making model for analyzing teams and situations * A method for designing non-intrusive interventions for changing team dynamics * Learn what's really needed to get people to work together as teams.
Improv: The Mechanics of Collaboration - Matt Smith (Osceola 5)
This workshop will explore the culture of improvisers, and nail individual communication behaviors that block the creativity of groups (including the groups of voices in our individual heads). We will leave all our "rules" at the door and replace them with a few principles that set us free, and guide us, effortlessly, like gravity, to group creativity and collaboration.
Innovation Games® for Scrum Teams - Luke Hohmann (Osceola 4)
As Scrum teams mature their desire to work collaboratively with internal stakeholders and external customers increases. In this deep dive session Luke Hohmann will show how the serious games described in his book Innovation GamesR: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play can be used to improve many Scrum practices. You will learn how to:
- Identify customer requirements for through the Product Box game- Improve retrospectives through the Speed Boat game- Prioritize your backlog through the online game Buy a Feature- Plan a successful project through the game Remember the Future- Develop better release plans through the game Prune the Product Tree
Buffet lunch served - Osceola Ballroom B
"brown bag" lunch session in the Dialogue Room by David Perry Protecting your IP - Tips from an IP Attorney
1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Deep-dive Workshop Sessions continued
Scrum Gathering Opening Reception - Castillo Fort (hotel side)
Hosted by: Title Sponsor VersionOne and Scrum Alliance
Ongoing Sessions
The Dialog Room & Scrum Clinic are ongoing sessions that include an interactive game session – some sessions to be videoed for trainer/practitioner use.
9 March 2010
Breakout sessions - 5 tracks: Good Practice; Scrum in Context; Edge of Chaos; When Worlds Collide; Huge Scrum Pecha Kucha (PK) - usually pronounced in three syllables like "pe-chak-cha", is a presentation format in which content can be easily, efficiently and informally shown, usually at a public events. Under this format, a presentations are kept very concise in order to encourage audience participation and attention and increase the number of presenters within the course of a single session.
Breakout Sessions
(Osceola 1) – Dialogue Room & Scrum Clinic hosted by Michael de la Maza and Gerry Kirk(Osceola 2) – Good Practice – Tom Perry Treating Impediments(Osceola 3) – Scrum in Context – Darian Rashid Integrating Lean Six Sigma into Scrum-Based Development Environments; Sameh Zeid (PK) Scrum for process improvement projects
One of the most important parts of a ScrumMaster's role is to remove barriers. Lean Six Sigma's DMAIC methodology, used to solve difficult problems with unknown root causes, should be a powerful tool in the Scrum Master's arsenal. Unfortunately, with all the blogs, articles, books, lectures and tweets on Scrum best practices, there are very few on utilizing Lean Six Sigma methods for solving barriers within a Scrum deployment and even fewer practitioners. This may be due to several factors, including misunderstandings in both worlds, resentment from legacy "process" improvement methods, bad historical application of Six Sigma within software development, no cross-realm expertise, and more. This presentation will focus on debunking the myths and misconceptions and present intuitive ways on using Lean Six Sigma methods as a powerful barrier-busting tool in the ScrumMaster's, management's and the team's arsenal
(Osceola 4) – Edge of Chaos – Rod Claar & Doug Shimp May the Forces Be With You
(Osceola 5) – When Worlds Collide – Sanjiv Augustine The Agile PMO: Scaling Scrum through Adaptive Governance
How should we scale Scrum beyond individual projects and find a value-adding role for middle-level managers? How can PMOs avoid being process police and instead truly support Agile teams, enable enterprise rollout of Agile methods, and sustain long-term Agile adoption?
Learn how industry leaders are scaling Scrum with Agile PMOs that:
Sanjiv will share principles and techniques for the Agile PMO, and discuss how those concepts are being applied in the industry to scale Scrum to programs and portfolios of multiple agile and non-agile projects.
This session will present some less known ways of thinking about work management and backlogs and co-existence with traditional methods in large organizations.
In my experience in implementing scrum in larger and more traditional organizations (10s of teams), work management is a difficult problem. In particular Agile style elaboration of requirements causes difficulties in commitments. project status reporting, work allocation and resource planning.
Is there a way to address these issues in an agile manner that recognizes what actually happens in projects? I believe there is and I will present my experiences in these areas.
In particular, I have been rethinking the role of backlogs and releases and will present some (possibly) new way to consider them.
We would like to propose an hour session containing 5-6 Pecha Kucha presentations (20 slides, 20 seconds each).
The overall topic would be "Building Scrum Teams Effectively". If this session is selected, the topic should be published, submissions for the available slots solicited and selected. We have experience with Pecha Kucha sessions and can organize this if required.
(Sanibel 1 & 2) – Edge of Chaos (PK) Jimi Fosdick Living on the Edge of Chaos; Simon Bennett & Mark Summers The Incentive Trap
(Sanibel 3) – Huge Scrum Dennis Stevens Feeding the Agile Beast; Alan Atlas (PK) Using Agile to Scale Agile Trans
There is a thread that runs from the work of W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran, to the Toyota Production System to Six Sigma practices that firmly roots Scrum in historically successful quality practices.
We will explore these connections and elaborate on:
No Scrum implementation lives in a vacuum. Organizational culture, defined by William Schneider as "the way we do things around here in order to succeed", is the air a project breathes day and night. The question we want to pop during this session is if the air we currently inhale is healthy enough for Scrum to live, thrive and sometimes nothing more than survive.
Based on the simple but incredibly powerful model of organizational cultures defined by William Schneider, participants explore their world from a new perspective by posing some crucial questions and comparing their answers to those of other attendants. Inquiries such as where I stand today, where I dream of being tomorrow and wich are some of the necessary steps to get there will be analyzed by attendants as the group of heterogeneous individuals they are.
In this presentation we show how an agile enterprise not only runs internal development processes using Scrum but also its collaboration with customers and suppliers based on cross-company Scrum-Teams and an agile collaboration platform. We will highlight challenges and scenarios of a large, real-world Scrum project.
This presentation will explore the how an Innovation Centric Culture and a Lean Operational Model are necessary in creating a Customer-Pull "Agile Business Framework."
This "Agile Business Framework" leverages Scrum, and has proven to be effective in providing a delivery framework necessary for scaling Scrum upwards of 20+ teams over 4 core sites.
We will discuss the trials and tribulations of promoting localized optimization while scaling Scrum as an organization.
There will be content shared on why non-R&D activity needs to be included in the Lean Operational Model to effectively and regularly deliver in a customer-pull model.
We will show how Business Value is created and how to manage Business Value from the scope of "Release" to "Minimal Marketable Features" down to "User Stories" delivered by the smallest fractal Scrum team.
People often say "We're doing Scrum at my company." What does that really mean? Unfortunately it usually means the organization has picked a small number of Scrum practices they attempt to do without really paying attention to the overall results. If a company is "doing Scrum well" it may even mean they are doing as many Scrum practices as possible. However, in practice there is a big difference between "doing Scrum" and "living Scrum!" Companies LIVING Scrum perform better than companies doing Scrum. They see higher morale among their employees. They use Scrum as a tool rather than a process. Most importantly, living Scrum means being devoted to the principles which drive success rather than hoping the practices will drive success. Come learn the basic principles and how to internalize them so your team, organization or enterprise can LIVE Scrum rather than DO Scrum!
Breakout Sessions(Osceola 1) – Dialogue Room & Scrum Clinic hosted by Michael de la Maza and Gerry Kirk(Osceola 2) – Good Practice – Lasse Koskela Acceptance Test Driven Development
Our industry has pretty much accepted the value of automated developer tests and the practice of TDD is slowly making its way into being a mainstream practice of craftsman programmers for ensuring code's correctness as well as aiding in its design. Similar benefits can be delivered with Acceptance Test-Driven Development (ATDD), a test-driven approach to implementing product backlog items.
We begin with an introduction to the core ideas and rationale behind ATDD, creating a baseline for understanding what kind of benefits one might expect from adopting the practice and for recognizing the dynamic that enables those benefits.
We discuss common variations of ATDD, ranging from completely manual to a fully automated process with executable acceptance tests, and from a serial process to a parallelized process. Before opening the floor to questions, the presenter walks through an example scenario, illustrating what the discussed artifacts might look like in practice.
Self-organization is often referred to as a best practice. Which is strange, because it is actually the default practice of complex systems. Self-organization has relationships with anarchy, emergence, evolution, and self-direction. But none of those are the same. Complexity science can teach us what the differences are.
The Darkness Principle and the Conant-Ashby Theorem are two examples of scientific concepts that explain why we do things the way we do in Scrum, and why delegation and empowerment are crucial.
There are different ways of delegating work to a self-organizing team. First of all, people's level of experience with empowerment is important. Second, there are 7 authority levels that can be selected per task. Third, one can choose between delegating to teams vs. delegating to individuals. Fourth, the order (time-dimension) of delegation of work is important. There is a handy checklist for making sure you've properly delegated work to a self-organizing team.
After delegating work to an empowered team, a leader or manager is responsible for managing himself, managing top-level management, managing the empowered team members, and managing the environment. All stakeholders may have to change their attitudes to make self-organization work.
Finally, we can distinguish 4 types of trust between a manager/leader and team members. They all have to be in place, or else self-organization may fail.
Scrum is a simple framework; the terms and rules can be explained in a few bullet-points.
Unfortunately, novice Agile practitioners often apply Scrum's techniques in simplistic ways, forcing inappropriate practices onto their teams in ways that actually harm the organization.
Thus the too-frequently heard lament from many organizations: "we're supposed to be Agile now, why aren't things better?"
Some successful Scrum practitioners work at a level of underlying truths which cannot be easily distilled into bullet-points. Their mind works in terms of Scrum, rather than applying tools and techniques. This is the primary difference between being highly successful and being somewhat successful. We may being projects to successful conclusions but were you really successful? Have you fostered a change in the way the organization goes about its business or have you just completed another project?
This session will help you gain insight into understanding and putting into practice a different way of thinking about practicing Scrum. Scrum can be applied to many different types of results-based goals. Whether your goal is to deliver products, develop software, further business development, achieve personal goals or tame some other unknown endeavor, you will gain insights, experiences and techniques you can take with you wherever you are.
(Osceola 4) – Edge of Chaos – Alan Cyment Savoring the spirit of Scrum; Richard Kasperowski (PK) Sneaky Scrum
How is a judge to decide on a case? Written law is general, abstract, concrete but not comprehensive. Particular cases, context, subjective issues are not considered in the text. Why is it not trivial to be a judge or a jury member? Because they have to interpret the law. And what have they used for centuries now to support their interpretation? Cases and spirit. Examples and intuition. Both ends meet. And what about Scrum?
Scrum is simple and hard. Why so? Because its definition is clear and concise, but in order to use that definition in real life we need to interpret it depending on the context. We clearly got the equivalent to case law: case studies and good practices have served us well for years now. Examples let us map, consider deltas and readjust depending on the context. But spirit has somehow been absent from the discussion. Or at least it has not had the prominent and explicit role it deserves. But can spirit be portrayed?
During this session we will try and seek to grasp, experience and hopefully gain understanding of the spirit that lives and breathes at the core of any healthy Scrum story. Through the use of interactive activities and brief discussions attendants will take a sip of the spirit, trying to learn with their souls and bodies what we talk about when we talk about Scrum.
Scrum and agile is well defined as a project approach, even though there is still much to learn. As agile projects work better and better, an increasingly common problem is not the project itself, but the surrounding culture and management structures.
To realise business benefit in super speed you need to rebuild the organisation around the projects.
It is one thing to deliver a single successful agile project but quite another to change the culture and organization around the project to ensure successful agile processes are repeatable long term. In some organizations the surrounding culture and structures may be too much even for that single successful agile project.
The seminar focuses on what I over the last ten or fifteen years have found to be needed from management teams and line managers to ensure successful projects. Examples and learning points derived from coaching people and teams in various organizations over several years will be shared with you.
We will follow a project from A-Z while we discuss what exactly (techniques and practices) managers need to do when.
After more than four years of successful experience with Scrum (worldwide 200++ projects), SAP has decided to introduce a lean software development model at a large scale in its development organization based on Scrum as core methodology.
For each organization, introducing Scrum at a rate of thousands developers a year makes a unique kind of demands.
We describe the approach to tackle the key challenges including
Amazingly, only 7% of communication is based on words while 38% is based on tonality and 55% on physiology. This workshop teaches rapport skills through a series of exercises.
We will briefly review the ART model (Acknowledge/Accept + Respond/Respect = Trust) to review verbal (words) rapport skills to contrast with non-verbal rapport. Techniques commonly used in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Psychology/Programming) such as matching angle of the spine and head; matching tonality will be presented. Multiple exercises will be used to understand the model and provide an opportunity to practice non-verbal rapport. One exercise is practice of matching physiology - involves working in trios: Speaker, Listener and Observer. Everyone rotates through active role as speaker matching the physiology of the listener. Observer is there to learn by watching. Listener shares feedback on how it went. Observer comments on how it appeared. This is repeated with tonality.
This talk will describe two large organizational implementations of Scrum which included 5 distributed teams with offshoring, building sales support related applications. The projects are ongoing and the talk will focus on the first 9 months which set the early tone.
Both good news and bad news will be presented as this talk is not about how wonderfully things went, but about choices made and their consequences. Topics covered will include stakeholder involvement, training, estimation and planning, response to issues, team structure/environment, and management involvement.
David Bulkin & Kevin Fisher Large-Scale Portfolio Request Management at Nationwide Insurance
After a successful transition from a prescriptive waterfall process to Scrum and XP, the Corporate Internet Solutions group at Nationwide Insurance found velocity and efficiency stumbling due to the competing and vague priorities of corporate silos and a reliance on Just In Time Requirements Definition.
This presentation discusses how the team evolved the traditional Scrum process to better manage 17 dependent projects, and reluctant internal business partners, through a combination of activities including clear Pre-Discovery activities, scenario planning, RITE usability testing, and a kanban visual management system.
The kanban is a decoupled request pipeline where requirements are graduated in a progression from nursery through to high school, at which point they are ready for Release and Sprint Planning. Decoupling the requirements pipeline from the development iterations allows for, among other things, improved dependency management, better leveraging of scarce experts and the ability for business stakeholders to work on a different cadence.
(Sanibel 3) – Edge of Chaos - Ryan Shriver Evo + Scrum=Value Delivery; Season Tanner (PK) Using Scrum for Service Work
Lunch & Keynote - Osceola Ballroom B
Keynote: Harrison Owen Confessions of a Heretic: All Systems are self organizing
Breakout Sessions(Osceola 1) – Dialogue Room & Scrum Clinic hosted by Michael de la Maza and Gerry Kirk(Osceola 2) – Good Practice – Rafael Sabbagh & Marcos Garrido Real World Critical Factors for the Practice of Agile Values with Scrum
This session is focused on the critical factors that help or disrupt Scrum teams from putting Agile values in practice. Its background is a research made by Sabbagh for his Master's dissertation for a major Brazilian university. He interviewed team members and ScrumMasters of 16 different IT projects from 9 Brazilian states, confronting the data with testimonies obtained from an in-depth research made at the email archives of the Brazilian Scrum User Group.
The attendees will interact and collaborate through participative games. They'll be encouraged to share their experiences and perceptions of what those critical factors are, iteratively analyzing and comparing them to the research findings. Real solutions will be presented and discussed.
Very important and interesting findings have been raised by this research and some are really surprising. They will be analyzed with theory (e.g. organizational behavior, communication and change; toyotism, Scrum theory) in a suitable light way.
Scrum brings software development into much closer alignment with Deming, and a review of Deming's teachings and a fresh look at the application of his principals can help us use Scrum to make an even more powerful impact. This presentation will discuss how we can apply Deming's teachings using Scrum. Specifically, the presentation will discuss: 1. Deming's 14 management principals 2. Quality = Results of work efforts / Total costs 3. The "Plan-Do-Check-Act" process
Carlton Nettleton (PK) Insignts Into Scrum Illuminated by Lean(Osceola 4) – Scrum In Context – Scott Dunn Pragmatic's Practical Product Management; Lyssa Adkins (PK) Positive Psychology and Team Performance
The science of positive psychology is far more than thinking good things, holding hands and singing Kumbayah. It's full of complicated formulas, laboratory experiments and hard data - and it has a lot to teach us about team performance. Come to this session to learn why the leaders in team coaching training focus on positivity as a doorway to improved performance and why a psychology book called "Positivity" has hit the mainstream press in a big way. Would you like more creativity and less pointless conflict on your teams? Positivity can help you get there. In this session, we explore how.
(Osceola 5) – When Worlds Collide – Dan Rawsthorne Agile Metrics
The software development industry has a poor track record for developing and employing effective metrics. Most of the metrics employed are tangential to the true goal of software development (which is delivering business value) and are thus ill-regarded by developers, especially agile developers. However, good metrics are important to management, in order to understand the status and progress of their teams, and to make projections into the future. Therefore, we must provide meaningful metrics that give useful information to the business - but also enforce agile values.
In this class, we discuss the following: velocity, burndown graphs, running tested features, EVM metrics (CPI and SPI), and earned business value. This discussion includes methods for calculation, how to present them to management, why they're important, and how they enforce (or fight against) agile values.
Experience on how we took SCRUM mainstream at HP.
First: I'll introduce the audience to the problem we had at our hands... all this different and isolated teams using Scrum that wanted to take it more mainstream to their organization but had problems doing so.
Second: I'll expose my scars to the audience on all the different routes we tried to take such as offering trainings, use of collaborations tools to be closer to the organizations, work on governance and guidance... just to fall into deadends.
Third: I'll show how we used the Agile Manifesto and Scrum to put real attention to our organizations (individuals) and the interactions with them; and how the collaboration through a team of voluteer CSMs available to coach others took our Scrum implementation to a new level across the company.
Each section will take 15 mins with heavy use of pictures, leaving 15 mins for Q&A's
This mini-course will introduce Business Value Engineering as one of the key engineering practices that must be continuously improvement.
After a brief intro, at each table each team will discuss what Business Value means in the context of the Product Owners' business (product).
And how to estimate it, and how to measure it after the fact. Each team will be asked to quickly document the BV model.
After a partial debrief of this exercise, each team (table) will do a BVE mapping exercise based on the real conditions at the Product Owners' company (or group or department).
Some results from this exercise will be discussed in the group.
Then we will lead a brief summary, to discuss implications, continuous improvement and next steps.
If we must do this in 60 minutes, each part will be short and tight.
If 90 or more minutes, then a more leisurely pace with more Q&A.
This presentation describes how Atlantico, a Brazilian R&D organization, implemented Scrum practices integrated with CMMI model for maturity level 5. The major challenges at the moment are described, and the means used to solve them. One key aspect of this presentation is the discussion of cases and results based on measured results within an organization that already had performance baselines and quantitative management for productivity and quality for traditional or non-Agile iterative methods before introducing Scrum practices. Through the combination of Scrum and CMMI, innovative practices were introduced in the organizational process resulting in a new style of management. Main improvements achieved were related to increase in productivity, directly influenced by high commitment and development of project team. Another interesting result was a methodology and model to integrate Story Points and Agile Estimation with our already established Use Case Points size and effort estimation approach.
(Sanibel 3) – Edge of Chaos - Dan Mezick Team Intimacy & the Hyper-Productive State
Breakout Sessions(Osceola 1) – Dialogue Room & Scrum Clinic hosted by Michael de la Maza and Gerry Kirk(Osceola 2) – Good Practice – Richard Kasperowski From Anyco to Awesomeco
We started as AnyCo, and we became AwesomeCo.
We spent two years applying various agile practices, trying to improve our project success rate.
Then we met Scrum, and 12 months later, we were a great team.
This is a case study of an actual mobile software company, whose name has been changed to protect the innocent.
I joined AnyCo to help transform it to AwesomeCo by applying agile practices. AnyCo's initial software process was waterfall.
We eventually found and rigorously applied Scrum, with great results.
AwesomeCo now delivers truly great software products, with very high quality, predictable time lines, predictable costs, and satisfied customers.
I'll share how we made the transformation, what prompted it, how I got the courage to do it, and our successes and failures.
The presentation includes:
Agility including Scrum began as a very successful approach to deliver development projects and is now well defined. The success of Scrum has made it possible to apply agile principles to other areas of the business, such as business change, line management and more.
Sales Driven Development moves Scrum, Lean and other agile frameworks and principles up to the enterprise level, where effects of synergy are critical. By forming multi disciplinary teams, with a high level of empowerment (budget responsibility), in other areas than software development an organization is likely to create the most powerful products. These products will enable the enterprise to survive in shifting markets.
We introduce how ROI-teams can transform technical development into business product development. In combination with one or more Scrum development teams the ROI-team develops products at the needed speed and the needed level. The seminar focuses on explaining the over-all concepts including several practical examples from real life.
(Osceola 4) – When Worlds Collide – Lyssa Adkins Project Manager Turned Agile Coach; Mike Cottmeyer (PK) Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks(Osceola 5) – When Worlds Collide – Brian Bozzuto & Michele Sliger Institutionalizing Scrum
With the growing popularity of Scrum throughout IT organizations the framework is being applied in a number of large and complex organizations. Many of these face challenges and impediments leading to the situation where Scrum faces the temptation of "institutionalization". It is changed, tempered, or adjusted. Perhaps as a temporary measure, perhaps simply to help align Scrum with other processes, or perhaps it is meant as a necessary adjustment for the specific circumstances. What happens exactly when a change agent finds oneself in this situation? What are the trade-offs being made when Scrum, a fundamentally trans-formative process becomes part of the institution? Join to facilitators who will argue the pros and cons of this situation and invite the audience to participate in the discussion.
Enterprise Scrum is a "Scrum Writ Large," a continuous improvement process modeled after Scrum, but scaled, using fractal thinking, to a much larger organization. It is not Scrum-of-Scrums. It was developed in late 2008 at Citrix Online, and has been iteratively improved since then.
Enterprise Scrum has quarterly sprint cycles, weekly standups, effort measured in "estimated team months," and prioritization partly based on Net Present Value. Prioritization is performed iteratively, to avoid squandering developer time. Several resource allocation strategies were tried, everything from total self-organization to traditional approaches. Through a series of retrospectives and adaptation, a hybrid is emerging.
Evidence for Enterprise Scrum's success is anecdotal, but strong: Executives know and plan against the engineering department velocity, remove blockers, and promote agile in their own departments. Because engineering can quantify its value, funding key engineering projects, including debt reduction, is understood and approved at the CXO level. We have seen situations where other departments voluntarily redirected their funds to the engineering department, because engineering could prove its high profitability.
Based on a large in-house software project, this presentation will illustrate how to incrementally evolve architecture and design for a system across Sprints. One of the principles that we adhered to during architecture and design evolution was: "use before reuse".
At the start of the project, we identified some of the important cross-cutting requirements and desired architectural qualities of the system. But we did not create any up-front architecture. Instead we began by implementing one story without any architecture, and then refactored it to a layered, distributed architecture. We then implemented one more story and refactored to create the first version of an application framework. We verified the framework by implementing a couple of more stories through framework extension. Gradually more architectural features and patterns were introduced in the system through progressive refactoring. Similarly, design and implementation for complex stories was incrementally done through progressive refactoring.
According to the Gartner Group will companies that are trying to restrain their workforce Internet usages be extinct within the next 5-10 years. Children of today use twitter, Facebook, Google wave, as a normal part of their daily lives - it is their network and backbone! The social medias like blogs and twitter are to them what email and phone was to us and our parents. We call these children Digital Natives!
So how do we overcome the need for exposure and social interaction - both regarding recruiting and keeping skilled people in your organization, BUT also in high regards how can we use social media in our agile Scrum projects?
The next wave of Scrum adoptions will take place in systems development organizations. These companies require a unique approach and proficiency in scaling Scrum to successfully lead domains such as software development, hardware development, systems engineering, embedded software development, deployment, supply-chain, and firmware development that often require the complex coupling of agile and business stage-gate processes.
While other presentations might focus on scaling software agility, this session will focus on scaling agility beyond software to the broader complex systems development process. We will provide an overview of agile systems development with Scrum and the resulting opportunities for Agile practitioners including a pragmatic exploration of patterns based on real-world adoptions.
10 March 2010
Scrumming Forward: Issues and Opportunities
Open Space Day with facilitator Harrison Owen -
Lunch - Osceola Ballroom B
Open Space Day continued - all breakout rooms available for sessions
Join the Scrum Alliance in sponsoring the Orlando Scrum Gathering - please contact public relations for detailed sponsorship opportunities including booth information for interactive ways to become involved with the Scrum Gathering! (Limited sponsorship packages available)
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Fabasoft is a leading European software vendor for enterprise content management (ECM), compliance, electronic government and MoReq2-certified information governance, as well as a provider of trusted cloud collaboration services. This offering includes a platform for easy and agile creation of composite content applications. A comprehensive suite of application lifecycle management tools complements this service from development to operation.
Leveraging agile software development for years, Fabasoft brings this expertise to outstanding and innovative products, for example a unique and free service for managing Cross-Company Scrum.
ASPE-SDLC is a training firm committed to providing you with the best skills, tools, knowledge and methods to successfully transform complex business challenges into strategic systems capabilities. We provide real-world, unbiased, pragmatic training and consulting on all aspects of the software development life cycle. Our catalog includes courses in Agile Methods, Project Management, Requirements & Business Analysis, and Software Testing.. Training is delivered to you through our highly regarded on-site (private) delivery practice which allows you to customize content to your specifications, via public open enrollment classes taught in over 75 cities in North America or via our live instructor led e-learning delivery platform.
gantthead.com is the largest project management resource in the world. Project professionals from all fields will find valuable downloads, articles, processes and a social network with thousands of like-minded members to help complete their projects on time and on budget. Our mission is to make Project Managers more successful.
Effective Agile Development and 3Back have joined forces to offer enterprise Scrum and Agile training, coaching and consulting. Successful Agile software development begins with well formed teams. Our combined resources can provide certified scrum training for developers, managers, ScrumMasters, Product Owners. We deliver both team development training and coaching to organizations of any size. To develop the right product on time and at a reasonable cost also requires great analysis and product management. Our team can help any organization improve their skills and performance in the areas of Enterprise Portfolio Management and Agile Analysis. True software development agility requires the development of the highest quality code that is possible. We offer training and coaching in all aspects of code and application quality including software design patterns, unit testing and acceptance testing. Managing today's projects most often requires more than sticky notes and blue tape. Our application lifecycle management experts can help your organization select the right project management platform and provide training and coaching to your team on how to use it in an agile manner.
BigVisible Solutions is a premier provider of Agile training, coaching and transition consulting services. We specialize in working with large enterprises to successfully improve their software product development capability using Agile methods. Based on years of experience, the BigVisible Way is our integrated coaching approach designed not only to ramp-up Agile initiatives, but also support and mature Agile teams. We strive for our clients to achieve long-term productivity, quality and performance.With a broad offering of consulting services as well as both public and onsite programs, BigVisible has the capabilities to support enterprise-wide initiatives, providing the experience and tools to scale Agile methods and Lean practices. Our approach with any engagement is to establish an Agile environment that fits the specific organization. By building teams and empowering individuals, we seek for organizations to own and mature their own process for long-term sustained success
RippleRock formed in 2009 with the mission to assist customers drive dramatic improvements in their software development capability. We apply our expertise across the full lifecycle; facilitating organizational transformation to enable Agile practices, all the way down to improving engineering practices within the teams. The team at RippleRock have a strong track record in the Agile space, some of this through experience gained while at the center of Conchango's Agile Practice and Scrum for Team System tools group. As a specialist in this area we are able to offer access to the most experienced Agile coaches, trainers and consultants with the particular mix of skills required to work with people, process, organizations and tools. RippleRock has operations in the UK and US and travel to Europe and India as part of our engagements.
Stay at the Scrum Gathering hotel and enjoy the convenience of being on site and the after hours collaboration and social time available during the Scrum Gathering event. Reserve your room soon before the Scrum Alliance reserve block of hotel rooms are gone!
If you would like to secure lodging at the Gaylord Palms Resort, please call the hotel reservations call center at 407-586-2000. The Gaylord Palms charges for parking. $15.00 self-serve parking or $20 valet parking per day.
Registrants who book their room reservations by February 15, 2010 will have a $50 per night discount applied to their account if staying at the Gaylord Palms Resort. This discount/rebate will be applied at check out.
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Advisory Opinions
FTC staff issue advisory opinions to help clarify FTC rules and decisions, often in response to requests from businesses and industry groups. To find a specific opinion, use the filters on this page.
Section 604(b): Consumer reports for employment purposes
Section 603(o): Definition of "consumer report" (exception for employment agencies)
Opinion 98-5
Possible applicability of Rule to licensing arrangement in which the seller becomes a minority shareholder entitled to a percentage of the profits of a corporation formed by the purchaser.
Section 605(a)(5)(repealed 11-02-98): Time Limits: Records of arrest, indictment, or conviction
Section 610: Conditions and form of disclosure to consumers
Opinion 98-4
Apparent applicability of Rule to licensing arrangement in which seller provides significant assistance and exercises significant control by restricting geographic territories in which licensees can solicit business.
Opinion 98-1
Phoenix Medical Network, Inc.
re: Physician network of osteopathic services providers
Opinion 98-3
Discusses the "required payment" coverage prerequisite, concluding that Rule coverage will not be triggered by the fact that a seller obtains collateral as security for a non-negotiable note due more than six months after a purchaser opens his or her business.
Pillowtex Corporation
Section 604(c)(1)(A): Reports for non-consumer-initiated credit or insurance transactions
Section 606: Investigative consumer report disclosures
Opinion 98-2
Discusses disclosure updating requirements, concluding that the Rule permits an additional update after the most recent quarterly update to disclose new litigation against a franchisor, but requires such an update only if the franchisor makes earnings claims and the litigation is material to the claims.
North Mississippi Health Services
re: Sales of pharmaceuticals by non-profit hospital to patients of the hospital's cancer treatment center)
Opinion 98-1
Apparent applicability of Rule to company providing locator services to business opportunity purchasers while also offering to sell vending machines.
Section 623(a)(3): Duty of furnishers to provide notice of dispute
Alliance of Independent Medical Services, LLC
re: Network of ambulance and ambulette services providers formed to contract for transportation services with third party payers


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Former IDF Chief: Israel Could Have Paid for Ron Arad's Return
Dan Halutz mentioned the Air Force navigator whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986 to explain current situation with kidnapped solider Gilad Shalit.
Israel had the chance to buy the return of missing Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad, whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986, former IDF chief Dan Halutz said on Saturday.
"We had the opportunity to pay money in order to buy Arad's freedom but because of national considerations, we decided not to do it," Halutz said while speaking at a cultural event in Be'er Sheva.
Halutz made the reference to Arad in order to opine on the current predicament of freeing kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, who was snatched by Gaza-militants in 2006 during a cross-border raid.
"Shalit's kidnapping occurred while I was IDF chief and I understand the frustration," Halutz said. "If it had been possible to do something immediately, we would have done it."
Halutz said they were lacking the intelligence needed to take direct action, although he felt that Hamas should be struck immediately.
"I was of the opinion that we needed to strike Hamas immediately after the kidnapping, and not stop until Gilad was returned."
"Unfortunately, even now we don't have the intelligence needed to do something," Halutz added.
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Photo Tour Location
The Katmai area was declared a National Monument in 1918. In 1980 the boundaries were greatly extended and the region declared a National Park and Preserve. At 4.2 million acres Katmai National Park stands as a sizable chunk of land set aside for the preservation of an amazing abundance of wildlife. Sovereign of which is the grand old Grizzly bear.
Katmai National Park and Preserve lies southwest of Anchorage on the Alaskan Peninsula and is arguably the greatest grizzly bear viewing and photography location in the world. The prodigious salmon runs attract and support a grizzly bear population density that is among the highest in the world.
It's also among the safest places to photograph wild grizzly bears given their plentiful food sources and tolerance of human presence. The bears are generally extremely tolerant of people. This combined with the high bear population density (as many as 70-80 bears in the area) makes it possible to shoot literally thousands of photos in a few short days.
The beauty of a fall trip is that we get the place largely to ourselves. Along with dozens of bears, thousands of salmon, some bald eagles, the odd wolf, gulls, waterfowl, and assorted other wildlife.
Respect for the subject is absolute.
Your and the bears' safety is paramount. We maintain a "safety-first" standard at all times. We have a thorough safety talk before the trip and closely adhere to the most current protocols on safe travel in bear country. Safety-first means caution. It means responsibility and it requires an excellent knowledge of the area: the terrain, wildlife, backcountry camping, etc.
Your guide is also a certified Wilderness First Responder.
We make a concerted effort to not harass and/or disturb the wildlife. A smaller group size not only ensures you the photography opportunities you need but also that our group doesn't bother the bears. We understand the difference between nature photographers and the paparazzi. We will neither approach too closely nor stay too long.
Group Size
By keeping our group size small your trip remains about you and your photographic experience with the bears. Group size is restricted to 4 or 5 people (depending on circumstances). Exceptions will only be considered on a case by case basis.
I think group size is a critical part of the experience and don't like to see hordes of photographers bunched around a subject, crowding and pushing for photos.
Less is more.
In order that we maximize your time in the park you will meet in King Salmon, Alaska and take a charter flight from there to our camp before lunchtime. It is critical you schedule your arrival in King Salmon the day before our trip begins (accommodation not included).
We'll get a chance to shoot the first afternoon and evening, then have 5 more full days of shooting before our final night in camp. We then have a couple hours to shoot in the morning before a midday charter flight back to King Salmon.
It's only a little more than a one hour commercial flight from King Salmon to Anchorage so most folks can be back in Anchorage that evening if they wish.
Expeditions Alaska provide high quality, comfortable tents and we will have an electric fence around the campsite. This trip will be outfitted completely. All camping gear will be furnished for you. You need to bring your personal gear (sleeping bag, clothes, etc, of course). We take care of food and shelter and have our own camp cook.
We'll have solid, secure gear and food caches, plus weather-protected wooden shelters for inside dining in wet weather; even in harsh weather the camping is more than comfortable. If you need assistance with any gear, please don't hesitate to ask. We also carry a satellite phone, as well as both First Aid and Basic Life Support kits.
Guide & Tour Leader
I have over 10 years experience photographing grizzly bears and many trips to Katmai National Park, as well as guiding extended remote wilderness backpacking trips. I work impossibly hard to ensure trip participants have a safe trip and a fantastic experience.
The advantages of being a local Alaska business include knowledge of the place; the relationships of the history, the geography and ecology of the area, promising trip participants a fascinating adventure.
I offer a first rate trip because we keep it small and maintain the utmost respect for the places we visit. This translates to an unforgettable photo tour that I'm more than sure you'll absolutely love. Read more about me and Expeditions Alaska on the About page.
A Review
I think you have raised the bar for photographing bears with your tour. The experience of being with those magnificent creatures will last a lifetime. Everyday brought new and exciting opportunities, being in the water or on the river bank made it so much better. ….
Mark was fantastic, his meals were varied and delicious with an international flavor. The fresh fruit and vegetables were an added bonus. His meals were timely and he worked very hard at keeping everybody well fed and taken care of. His backwoods knowledge added a great deal to the overall experience.
A fantastic experience that I would highly recommend.
Thanks" — Bob Schlatter, Sunny CA.
The Photography
This trip is perfect for the intermediate to advanced or professional photographer looking for a small group to join for a week of concentrated grizzly bear photography. The photography requires some walking, so being in reasonable shape is important. Special attention is given to capturing unique and creative grizzly bear photos, so we make the extra effort to put ourselves in the best spots to shoot from.
By camping on site, we're able to be in place to photograph during the best light; this isn't a vacation and bear viewing trip, but a photography trip. Meals will be scheduled around our photography, ensuring we don't miss any great light or bear action.
Carrying long telephoto lenses, plus other camera gear, we'll walk several miles each day. It is hard work – you'll be tired at the end of a long day and ready for some great hot food and good times by the campfire.
Chest waders are necessary for both safety and optimal photography opportunities. We (and the bears) spend a good deal of time in the water. I'll provide you with more information regarding clothing choices upon your reservation.
2 camera bodies are optimal and you'll also want to bring plenty of extra batteries, memory cards (or film), backup storage, warm clothing, rain gear, and a range of lens choices, from wide to telephotos. All that and a bundle of enthusiasm will make your trip a memorable and successful one.
See a whole of of helpful information on the photo tours FAQs page.
Watch A Video
Trip FAQs
How far are we hiking?
An impossible question. Some days we might walk 5 or 6 miles, other days we might walk 1. Rarely would we cover more ground than this.
The hiking isn't terribly difficult but can be slow going through forest and over the marshy ground near parts of the river.
How about the bugs?
Mosquitoes are generally gone by the end of September. We do have small gnats known as White Socks which can be a pestilence.
Typically they're few in number this late in the year, but that varies with the weather and other conditional factors. If you're bug sensitive, be sure to bring a headnet. I've never needed one on this trip in over 15 years. Your mileage may vary.
What focal length to bring?
I'm a big believer that you can never have too much focal length for wildlife photography. Big fast glass is still premium factor for wildlife photography.
My lens of choice is a 500mm F4 on a full-frame body, or a 80-400mm zoom on a crop favor body.
Bring a teleconverter.
Safety concerns about bears?
We adhere to best and current practices and protocols for bear viewing and bear photography. Katmai NP has long established regulations on bear viewing, and we stick to those at all times.
Move slowly and quietly, stick together in our group, maintain your situational awareness at all times, do not approach the animals and respect their body language.
Listen to your guide.
Do we have access to recharge batteries?
Yes. It's limited availability, but yes. Best practice is to attempt to bring enough battery power to last you the duration of your trip.
Likely temperatures?
This is Alaska. End of September. The temperature can be down in the mid-high teens, or 60˚ F. it can rain, snow, hail, blow hard, or be calm and sunny and tranquil.
Is one week preferable to another?
No. The two weeks are adjacent. I can't think of a place in the world where one particular weeks reliably "better" than either the preceding or following week. It doesn't work like that.
We've had great weather, great bear activity and great fun both weeks. We've also had slow times, drizzly cold spells and less fun on either week as well.
If one week were reliably awful, I'd no longer go that week and change my schedule.
Tell Me About the Camping Setup
Each guest will have their own tent, unless you're a couple, etc and have someone you wish to share with.
Tents are large teepee-style 5 person tents, so they're spacious and comfortable.
We use premium Exped insulated sleeping pads which have been a great hit with everyone. They're awesome.
What makes Expeditions Alaska Photo Tours so special?
I'm a guide. I guide trips for a living. I guide and lead trips for a living with nearly 15 years experience running my own guiding business. I'm a photo tour leader, not simply a photographer. Those are 2 very different things and my experience guiding and trip leadership set what I do apart from many of the other photo tour operators.
— I live here in Alaska. I think one of the most important facets in putting together a photo tour is not simply how well you plan things out but how well you're able to respond to what you didn't plan out. In other words what resources do you have available for your plan B, C & D when plan A fails. And as nature photographers we all know how easy it is for plan A to fall by the wayside. The resources here in Alaska available to me to accommodate changing plans, unforeseen circumstances, inclement weather, etc are vastly greater than someone who arrives in Alaska from Florida the day before your tour begins.
— I have my Alaska State Business Licence, insurance and all necessary Park Service Permits, etc. Be aware that in order for ANY business to operate inside Alaska an Alaska state business license is required. Most operators from outside Alaska who lead tours here don't maintain a current business license from the State of Alaska or permits from the relevant land management agency (such as Commercial Use Permits from the National Park Service). This will inevitably lead to issues. This might not be a big deal to you but it will be to the insurance company you call should anything go awry on your trip.
— I'm a Wilderness First Responder. A lot of times in the field here in Alaska you'll be photographing far from any immediate assistance. If it were me heading out into the field on remote location, I'd want to have some information on what level of first aid assistance is provided and readily accessible. Look at a map and see for yourself how remote a place like Katmai or Lake Clark is.
— Smaller groups. I keep group size limited to 5 photographers and I think that really makes a big difference to how productive the shoot might be. I see some other bear photo tours out there with 8-10 and even more people all trying to shoot together and getting in each other's way. Inevitably some people miss out simply because there are too many people all vying for that one special angle or perspective.
— Environmental concern. I don't know of a single other photo tour operation that has put both their money and time into conservation of the subjects we shoot here in Alaska. I'm currently organizing a photography contribution, for example, to oppose the development of the proposed Pebble Mine near Katmai and Lake Clark National Parks. Pebble Mine is an extractive development project which presents an immeasurable threat to the bears we all so love to photograph.
— I've also just had my business certified by Adevnture Green Alaska Gold Level Standard (one of only 10 businesses statewide in Alaska to qualify) in environmentally friendly and sustainable travel. Expeditions Alaska is also a member of Sustainable Travel Internation, and contributor to many of Alaska's most important environmental organizations. For more information read the Treat Lightly – Our Planet page.
— Location, location, location. I wouldn't keep returning to these places if I thought I needed to go elsewhere to make good bear photos. I've put a lot of time into finding locations that work for photo tours.
— Experience shooting this subject. I've been visiting many of the same locations in Alaska for nearly 15 years now. For example, shooting the same grizzly bears, year in and year out. I photographed those bears for over 10 years before I ever led a photo tour there. I know both the location and the subject extremely well. I see a lot of tour operators coming to Alaska who have spent hardly any time at all shooting these bears, in these locations, a year or 2 at most. In some cases, not even that. If you're looking at other bear tour operators be sure to ask when was the first time they ever headed over to the Alaska peninsula and photographed these brown bears.
— Isolation. Part of the joy of nature photography is being out in nature. Many of the trips we run we're not staying at a lodge surrounded by a dozen other guests and tour operators and other lodges around the corner doing the same thing.
I have more questions
I know you do. As well you should.
I recommend starting with the General Trip FAQ page
More questions? Email me or call me if you like.
Upon your reservation I'll send out a comprehensive trip information packet that covers just about everything and more you might imagine about your trip.


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Cityscape winning the Dubai Duty Free Stakes at Meydan in MarchPICTURE: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)
Cityscape seeks more success on his travels
Preview: Canada, Sunday 10.42pm (live on ATR)
Woodbine: Ricoh Woodbine Mile (Grade 1) 1m, turf, 3yo+
DUBAI DUTY FREE winner Cityscape crosses the Atlantic on Sunday as he chases another lucrative prize in the $1 million Woodbine Mile, where he is joined by British-trained compatriots Worthadd and Dance And Dance.
However, US-trained Wise Dan is sure to start favourite after a number of impressive efforts in top company on various surfaces - and the market leader even gets 3lb from top-weight Cityscape because, though he has won four of his last five, he has yet to score in Grade 1 company this term.
Having been tried over 1m2f in the Coral-Eclipse, Cityscape (Roger Charlton/James Doyle) was a fine second to Excelebration last time out in the Jacques le Marois.
Worthadd (Sir Mark Prescott/Luis Contreras) and Dance And Dance (Ed Vaughan/Garrett Gomez) join Cityscape in Toronto but Wise Dan (Charles Lopresti/John Velazquez), who has won ten of his 17 career starts, is favourite with British bookmakers.
A versatile gelding with Graded-stakes winning form on dirt and all-weather as well as turf, Wise Dan recorded the highest Racing Post Rating achieved by any US-trained horse in 2011 by virtue of an emphatic victory in the Grade 1 Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs in November.
That was on dirt, but he has won two of his three starts on grass as well, including last time out when he scored by five lengths on yielding turf in the Grade 2 Fourstardave at Saratoga a month ago.
"I do think he is better on synthetic and grass but he's pretty good on the dirt as well - and an off [soft] track," said Lopresti, who won this last year with Turallure.
Best of the five-strong Canadian-based team may be Big Band Sound, a former claimer who won a Grade 2 event over 7f here in August over Sunday's rival Riding The River, himself a dual Grade 2 winner at this venue. Turf debutant Hunter's Bay is unbeaten in four starts on the Woodbine Polytrack.
What they say
David Cotey, trainer of Riding The River
"He's a small horse but he's got a big heart. He's been in tight spots, tough situations, yet he still manages to find a way to gut it out. It doesn't always make it easy on the blood pressure, but I'll tell you this, you wish you had 20 of him in your barn."
Ed Vaughan, trainer of Dance And Dance
"Last year when he came sixth was very frustrating. He's always been a slow breaker, and a late finisher, and he just had nowhere to run. Every time he switched left he was blocked. Considering they went a good pace, he ended up being a bit of a muddle at the end. Had he got out, we might have been lucky enough to win."
Charles Lopresti, trainer of Wise Dan
"I'm okay with the gate [drawn three]. I'm glad we didn't get the one hole and I wouldn't want to be all the way on the outside either. Johnny said to me when you get that horse covered up, he's a lot better and he relaxes. He is pretty good on dirt but I do think he is better on synthetic and grass."
Roger Charlton, trainer of Cityscape
"Wise Dan will be tough to beat and because he hasn't won a Group 1 this year he receives weight. Otherwise, though, we are justified in being second favourite and I think that running around a turn suits him better than racing on straight tracks.
"He obviously ran a fantastic race at Meydan and in many ways, Woodbine is a similarly shaped track with a long straight and sweeping turns."


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Complete Case, Manual, and Discs in Very Good Condition. Cleaned and thoroughly tested, Excellent working condition FREE US Shipping Canada $7.99 WORLDWIDE Shipping Available, please message for rates before bidding. Please pay with PAYPAL ONLY within 3 Days. Thank you for looking!
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