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The # 1 Window Installation Company In Cox Mill, NC
For years Carolina Remodeling Pros has offered companies and homeowners with a wide variety of window replacement and installation solutions. We can improve the present look of your home or business, or we are able to help create a totally new appearance.
Welcome To Carolina Remodeling Pros
When It Comes To Cox Mill, NC Window Installation, There Is Only One Company To Call
Here at Carolina Remodeling Pros, we have created a way to replace your old windows and install your all new windows in such a way that it will be the best choice your household has ever made. But just how exactly did we accomplish that? We discovered that fantastic window installation is only as good as the business behind it. We understand that a top-notch, quality experience depends the business and its crew. We only employ the most ideal window installers obtainable. We train them and provide them with all the tools necessary to do the job right every time. Every project is unique. Installing a replacement window is not just putting a new window into an opening. It has to do with professionally and expertly putting that brand-new customized window into your house. Our crew can do that and a lot more. We take pride in our services, we respect your home, and our professionalism and reliability is unrivaled, setting us apart from all of our competitors. Contact us today to request a TOTALLY COST-FREE in-home evaluation and let's begin!
What We Offer
Window Installation
Our installation team will care for your home as if it were their own. We will put in your new windows, dispose of your existing windows, and clean everything up in the end.
Does your residence have one-of-a-kind windows, casings or sills that needs custom-made glass? That's no problem. We offer our clients with customized glass services.
Do you live in an older home and your windows have become drafty, cracked or caught shut? Phone us! We are skilled in installing replacement home windows.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you are only replacing a window of the identical size into the current opening, then the response is no. That being said, if you have decided to increase the window measurements, a larger hole must be cut in the wall to fit the brand-new window size. This is also true if you want a different shaped window, in that case, the wall surface will also have to be changed. But don't worry, our crew can deal with any kind of project, big or small.
That's a fantastic question. That will depend on the form of project that is being done. An uncomplicated replacement will not take much time whatsoever, but if you are modifying the type of window or the shape of the window that will definitely take more time and additional equipment to accomplish. Regardless of the task, our crew does the job promptly.
Our team would never dream of leaving a mess after we finalize a project. We will take care of your older windows, take care of any kind of mess that is left behind and make certain that our workspace is tidy. Truthfully, we have been informed many times over the years that the area looked even better right after the project was finished than before we started. We look after our clients homes.
4 Easy Steps
Free Consultation
In contrast to some of our competitors, here at Carolina Remodeling Pros, we offer you a COMPLIMENTARY in-home assessment. You will never be charged for a consultation or estimate.
Worried about having to take measurements of all of your windows? We can put those fears to rest. We will perform all the required window measurements for you.
Select Your Window
Not sure where to start when it involves selecting all new windows? Don't panic! Our design team will help you select the best, and most fitting windows for your house.
After we have helped you pick your windows and taken all the essential measurements, we will then get rid of and dispose of your old windows and install the new. We take care of everything from beginning to end.
Gorgeous New Windows!
We contacted business for a window project we have needed to accomplish. They were professional, kind, and quite fast. I will highly recommend that crew to every person I know! Thanks again!
Super Impressed!
Our house is old and has a great deal of custom dimensions and strangely designed windows. That did not stop this provider. They are true to their word; they truly can set up any type of window! Thanks business
On-Time and Knowledgeable!
We had a huge job that I believed was mosting likely to drag on endlessly. Boy was I wrong! This team was on-time daily, experienced and very fast. They wrapped up in under a week! I will suggest this provider to everybody!
We also provide window repair services in the following cities
More About Cox Mill, NC
3 Helpful Hints For Choosing A Neighborhood Window Installation Company
Do you really need windows replaced or installed? Then, then you'll should take time to find the best window installation company in your area. Picking out the wrong company could cost lots of money. There are numerous things that can go wrong when a window is not properly installed. Here are a few helpful hints for avoiding disaster and choosing the best possible window installation company.
1. Steer Clear Of The "Jack Of All Trades"
It's understandable that companies desire to make the maximum amount of money as you possibly can. Because of this, they often times branch out and will include a number of different services. Unfortunately to the customers, this may lead to too little focus. A business that spreads itself too thin will never really specialize in a single area, meaning they can never really be the greatest.
With regards to window installation, you need to select a company that focuses entirely on windows. They may remove, replace, install, and look after windows, however it isn't the same company that does your landscaping or fixes your roof. You need to employ a company that may be installing windows each day and therefore has a ton of knowledge about windows.
2. Find Out About Their Window Quality
It's very easy to get so focused on the organization and its particular workers which you forget about the windows themselves. Its not all windows are the same rather than all installation companies take advantage of the same suppliers. There's no sense in being the best installation company if you're planning to install sub-par windows for your clients.
One method to ensure the quality of the windows is to discover when they are CSA certified. The CSA Group certifies products that meet a very high level of safety and quality. Doors and windows are two goods that are normally certified with the CSA Group. In case the installer doesn't use CSA certified windows, chances are they simply aren't making use of the best product available.
3. A Lot More Certifications
Certifications for windows are fantastic and are therefore certifications for people and businesses. The CSA Group doesn't certify businesses or contractors, but there are numerous services which do. A couple of different certifications to look for would be the American Window and Door Institute (ASDI) certification and the Window Wise certification.
What happens if the corporation has certifications from the different organization? It will be up to you to look into that organization and figure out if their standard of quality is sufficient. There are many organizations which simply offer certifications for any fee and so they ought not to be given serious attention. Seek out organizations that have strict standards and regularly require retesting.
Don't Forget To Inquire About Around
Finally, don't forget to ask friends, family members, and co-workers should they have experience with any local window installation companies. Odds are, somebody you are aware has been doing business with one. They could either offer a recommendation or inform you which businesses are best to avoid. But remember to help keep the above mentioned hints in mind even if considering a recommendation coming from a trusted friend.


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Perfect For A Stylish Getaway! Ethiopian Model Liya Kebede In THE OUTNET 'Summer Edit'
Summer wardrobes are top of mind! THE OUTNET.COM launches an exclusive summer edit of 17 limited-edition styles. The designer pieces are all travel essentials – perfect for a stylish getaway.
Shot in the south of France, the summer edit features Liya Kebede, Ethiopian-born model, philanthropist and clothing designer, as the face of the campaign. The edit features a style from Kebede's own collection, Lem Lem, as well.
Check the looks out below.
Shop the collection here!
Leave your views in comments box below.

subset: commoncrawl


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The candidate for the presidency of the autonomous community for Changing the Region of Murcia, Josķ Luis ┴varez-Castellanos, defended this Tuesday in a ceremony held in the penitentiary of Campos del RĒo to which a hundred inmates attended the assumption by the Government Murcia of the powers in matters of penitentiary health.
┴lvarez-Castellanos, accompanied by number 2 on the list, Adoraci¾n Pe±as, answered the questions of those present, who were focused on issues related to health and the absence of public transport to the center.
The head of Change Region list recalled that in October 2016 the Senate unanimously supported that the autonomies managed penitentiary health, instead of the Ministry of Interior, as hitherto.
"We believe that basic public services are better managed from the administrations closest to the citizens," the candidate said.
┴lvarez-Castellanos denounced the health situation in Campos del RĒo since there are only three physicians on staff for more than 1,100 inmates, a ratio "more than insufficient" that worsens when there is the loss of some doctor, because "there have been months they have been covered and there was only one doctor for so many people. "
Another of the concerns expressed by the inmates was the lack of public transport to reach the prison and, in this sense, the head of the Change of Murcia list promised to demand in the regional Assembly the expansion of the interurban network bus that covers the northwest to pass through the center.
For its part, Pe±as said the importance of supporting from the Administration the implementation and strengthening of occupational workshops, prevention, rehabilitation and socio-cultural activities within the prison, made by different NGOs and social organizations and aimed at promoting both culture as of the professional and educational competences of the inmates to achieve the goal of social insertion after leaving the center, the final objective of the sentences that is also included in the regulatory framework.
Source: Cambiar la Regi¾n de Murcia


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EagleEye Photography will be photographing all graduates as they enter the stage and receive their diplomas at the upcoming graduation ceremony. Our team of professional photographers will be documenting this memorable occasion and capturing the excitement throughout the day!
By submitting your information to us early, we guarantee you will be notified as soon as the photos of you or your loved one are available to view and purchase through our website. Register for the 2019 Winter Commencement by Friday, December 13 to receive a 10% discount on orders.
Graduation photos are typically available within 4-6 weeks from the Ashland University Commencement Date.


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Todays Offering is another from one of those great bands that grace us with fantastic music without being given anywhere near the recognition they deserve.
The Leylines hail from Weston-Super-Mare. This song was released today to raise money on behalf of four great charities. Please support the bands efforts and help the charities.
Help raise money for the 'sat in a field' festivals chosen charities, Children's hospice southwest, Myeloma UK, Somewhere house Somerset, and the Nikita Jade disability fund.
You can buy the single from the bands website


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Editor | Thomas Bosket
Gesture is used to understand movement and the forces at play in an object (or situation). These works are all by students in the AAS GD program at Parsons. The one above is a five minute gesture by Tyler Rubin.
These two are from student Lauren Devalt. The one on the left was done before any instruction the one on the right was done two hours later. This seems to point to the fact that much of drawing "skill" is in how we think, more than whether we are "talented" or not.
(My apologies, I do not have this students name.)
Tyler Iorillo
In this assignment a student is asked to make twenty drawings of an object slowly increasing the speed from a second up to a few minutes per drawing. The first few give us a sense of the most fundamental information about the object while the later drawings show us the symbolic image our mind creates. In between the drawings frequently cross over those two worlds and show a range of emotional or content driven drawings.
(Same student I apologized about above.)
This piece from Ana Leshen shows the two states of gestures, after instruction on the left and before on the right. Ana had much strength and laughed often within her growth process. I think the humor she found is rare in a "serious" academic setting, but has the ability to open up the creative process like no other tool!
Thanks to my students for all the work and sharing!


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Take a look at this pic, is it possible to configure openbox to have this sort of blurred effect?
You need to use compositor for that. Like compton or compiz with emerald. There is original reddit post
You need to use compositor for that
What is a compositor exactly?
Compositor application which render your window. It's composite extension for X. You can read about different compositors on arch wiki
cuddly_bear Oh so it basically I install a compositor with OpenBox then.
cuddly_bear Is it possible to do the same thing on KDE plasma as well?
joe213 yes. KDE has build in functionality for that. It's theme dependent.
MrSatan Thanks
MrSatan What do I do to get this theme exactly?


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Winning Eleven Kicked on to Xbox 360
Konami's FIFA-beater is coming to Microsoft's new box (and the DS and more) and it's got a bunch of new gameplay too. First screens.
While EA's FIFA series has held on to the crown of best-selling football game for a while now, the Pro Evolution Soccer series is catching up fast. To speed that process up, Konami is getting with the times and bringing its beloved series to the next generation.
There are a lot of changes coming to Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007. Outside of the obvious graphical jump that comes with the move to the Xbox 360, the game's controls have also been revamped.
Snap shots will be more plentiful this time around and series producer Shingo "Seabass" Takatsuka has reworked the volley and half-volley too. Your teammates should be more of help, thanks to improved AI that pushes them into open spaces when they're off the ball during drives. The ever-popular fancy dribbling techniques have been rejuvenated too, giving your players better control of the ball.
One of the areas where FIFA has always dominated over Pro Evolution Soccer is in the breadth of its official licence, but Konami is making ground here too. Solid advancement in recent years is boosted in this new instalment by more official kits from Argentina, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Sweden.
Whether you want to just play a quick match, guide your country to victory in global tournaments, or live the life of a manager and experience the rollercoaster of guiding your team through years of tournaments, Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 should have you covered.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games


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This is the second instalment of a two part interview with Thomas Dolby on the occasion of the publication of his memoir on October 11th. To pre-order via Amazon UK, click on the graphic of the cover.
I'm about forty minutes into my call with Thomas Dolby, and glancing nervously at my watch.
He's softly spoken and articulate, lucid, only occasionally pausing to find precisely the right phrasing or word. Engaging too. He listens carefully to the questions and takes care to answer them properly. There is a proper beginning, middle and end to his responses.
It's fascinating and I'm lapping it up. And that's a problem, because I've only got a one hour slot booked and I want to talk about Prefab Sprout. We've already spoken at length about his formative years, about how he works, about his expeditions of exploration into the world where technology meets the sublime. And about his memoir. Which, with every word he speaks, I'm looking forward to more and more.
I could quite happily carry on like this for the whole hour. But this is a Prefab Sprout blog, and I have to move the conversation onto that subject. By the time I do we're so short of time I have to beg for the indulgence of an extension, which thankfully is granted.
I've written previously about Thomas Dolby's meeting with Prefab Sprout, and I sent him a link to that as part of the emails arranging the interview. When we talk about it he guesses I'd pieced things together from various interviews, and I suppose that's at the base of it. But in my mind the story appears as a sort of imaginary biopic, and what I did when writing the piece was essentially just to describe that film. Because the story does have the stuff of a low budget but lovingly constructed British film about it.
In my mind, an early incarnation of Ewan McGregor – "Shallow Grave" era – takes the Dolby role. Gawky, bespectacled, a little louche, lounging slightly bored in the Roundtable studio and gradually losing patience with his co-reviewers. And so on. The train journey out of metropolitan civilisation. The inevitably incomprehensible Geordie taxi driver taking Dolby from the city centre into a remote but beautiful countryside. There's an element of the Addams Family meets Rocky Horror in the nervous pause between him knocking on the door of the gothic McAloon residence and Martin appearing to answer it. Like Lurch. Jeremy Irons takes the role of Paddy of course, Colm Meaney as Martin, and the young Meryl Streep as Wendy. And a cameo from Sting as the n'er do well and aspiring but unsuccessful local pop singer Gordon Sumner, whose grandmother worked in the church next to the house, and who idolises Paddy.
So engrained is this imagery that I do have to remind myself mentally that I'm talking to someone who was actually there in reality, and that my own story is pretty much all made up. It's a very strange realisation. So, pinching myself, I started by exploring what each side of the relationship brought with it.
Let's talk about Prefab Sprout. There's the old saying about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, which is that he brought her class, and she brought him sex appeal. So in your relationship with Prefab Sprout, who was Fred, and who was Ginger?
"[Laughs]Paddy tried to be the Fred Astaire of words… And comparisons of Wendy with Ginger Rogers are a little bit unfounded, despite the attempts of some video makers to turn her into a screen goddess…"
But going back to the underlying point behind the question, did you bring refinement or did you bring surface sparkle and pizzazz?
"Hmmm, well I don't think they were refined when I met them at all. They came at it in a really interesting way, and this is maybe one of the things that is fascinating about them. It started with Paddy's lyrics. He never intended them as poetry, he always meant them as lyrics, but everything grew out of that.
"And as you well know and as you've written, he lived in a little bedroom where the bed was built on a stack of piles of lyrics and they were often written on music manuscript paper. The lyrics would be there and then there would be little notes above, musical notes, E, Am, Cm7 written over the top. He would write them accompanied by a chord book that showed him the fingering to play those chords on the guitar and when he strummed the guitar he was reading and singing his lyrics and the guitar accompaniment was made to fit the phrasing of the lyrics so that some bars ended up having 5 or 3 beats in them and some phrases ended up having 7 or 9 bars in them.
"And he would just keep strumming until it felt appropriate to sing the next line. And when he was singing, depending on the shape his voice was in, if he felt that he was in the wrong octave he would suddenly jump an octave in the middle of a phrase. But it was all to serve the lyrics.
"Martin would sit opposite Paddy with a bass guitar and would look at the bottom string on Paddy's guitar and would match that on the bass. But often the bottom string on the guitar isn't actually the root note of the chord, so Martin would end up writing these very interesting and unusual bass lines that weren't conventional bass lines because he wasn't really playing the root note of the chord.
"You add a drummer into that, and if he's a clever drummer he'll say 'Paddy that's really interesting the way that phrase has got 7 bars in it and I thought if I just added this little paradiddle on my hi-hat in the 7th bar then that would lead quite nicely into the next phrase.'
"And Paddy would sort of say, 'ah OK', and if there was a chord change that was a little strange and Martin didn't know what note to play he would just do a big slide to sort of cover it up.
"Then Paddy would say 'well but I want some harmonica on it because I love Stevie Wonder', or whatever it would be. So that the way that their stuff was put together was fantastic and off the wall and sounded unlike anything else that I'd ever heard.
"But it was meaty and it was not just simple relationship songs they had, because there'd be songs about a whiskey priest in Mexico or whatever, and it seemed to me that they just had this literary escapism to the songs.. It was like reading a book but trying to simultaneously piece together a musical puzzle and I just found it fascinating
"And also it's not precious, which is really interesting. I mean it's highly literary and yet within a single verse it would go from first person to third person or present tense to past tense and a lot of literary minded people wouldn't allow that. He allowed himself to be very incorrect, he was unselfconscious about that and I loved that. And I also loved the fact that there are lyrics in there that you can't make any sense of, they're beyond cryptic, you know, it's a bit like, I mean Bowie always did this, a lot of what Bowie wrote, it would make you scratch your head… there was a question mark about it and there was no deeper meaning to it really, he'd just do it and it worked well.
"But listening to the Sprouts in those days was quite a didactic thing. You couldn't dance around to it, you could barely tap your foot to it. It was challenging listening and so I had the odd word in my ear from Muff Winwood or Keith Armstrong saying 'Thomas if you can make this a bit more accessible we'd really appreciate it.'
"I fell in with that not because I wanted to make it more accessible and therefore sell more copies but because I just felt there was something a bit deterrent about their music for most people. It was just too challenging but if you could iron out some of the rough edges and make it a bit more symmetrical it would be easier… it would be an easier point of entry .. it would grow them a fanbase more rapidly if they could simplify it without losing the essence and the personality of what was there, that was the challenge.
"But that was a very appealing challenge to me for the reasons we've mentioned when discussing arranging. It was about economy and turning some of those 7s and 9s and 5s into more symmetrical figures. Which in turn meant Paddy slightly re-learning the way that he sang things and phrased things. And then with the bands arrangements, just saying 'let's keep it simple, where's the focus?' If there's a harmonica in the intro, we need that harmonica to go away and leave a hole into which the lead vocal will fall.
The story about you hearing "Don't Sing" on Roundtable is well known. But what happened next?
"Well the way you documented it is largely correct. I suppose you pieced that together from various interviews and things? I got a call from Keith Armstrong because he'd heard me saying nice things about them on Roundtable and he said they'd signed a deal with CBS and they were looking for a producer and would I be interested. And absolutely I was interested and he said 'well you should meet with the band and it might be best if you went up and met with them in Cumbria.'
"So I took the train up and I went to the house and was very warmly welcomed by Paddy and Mart and their mum. It was a fascinating place, you know, a very remote house, formerly a rectory as you know and there were still a couple of icons on the stairs so it definitely had that feel to it. After a large meal I just went and sat with Paddy for a few hours in his bedroom and he would just pull out these stacks of songs from under his bed and he'd start strumming. He'd have to remind himself of them, some of them were relatively recent but I think some of them were already five years old at that point.
"I was running a tape recorder and on the train back I listened through to them. I'd recorded probably 40 songs like this and I just picked out my favourites. And that pretty much became Steve McQueen although the one addition to that was that when we were sound checking at Marcus Studios they played a little bit of Hallelujah which hadn't been one of the ones I'd picked from Paddy's demos, but when I heard the band playing that I really liked it so I said 'oh let's do this one as well.'"
So what was running through your head as you were listening to Paddy playing?
"Oh just the raw talent was astonishing. You know it was just… they were so evocative and had so many possibilities. It felt like a bit of a blank canvas to me because this was not a band that already had many years of history behind it with a preconception of their sound or what they sounded like, you know. They were open enough to my input that I could have an effect, but at the same time there was so much raw talent there that I didn't need to impose myself on it, all I really needed to do was to be the editor, be the filter, and then add a little fairy dust of my own with the keyboards
"It was just a very nice balance, and a very good working dynamic because Paddy was so modest about it. He didn't let me walk over him and he had his own opinions about things obviously but it was a true collaboration, we would arrive at decisions together and very constructively, we didn't row about very much, but there was pushback and there were decisions to be made and it fell in very naturally.
"So yeah, that was the process. There was a lot of rehearsal time before we went in the studio while we were fine tuning the arrangements we were narrowing down. We were actually nailing down the length of intros and instrumental sections and things which had never been nailed down before. They had left them fairly loose when they played them up to that point but we had to nail them down and be very specific about the arrangement, to a drum fill or a guitar riff or a bass run or whatever it may be. It got very specific and so we practiced so we could be effective when we went in the studio. And by the time they went into the studio the arrangements were so good that once the mikes were set and the sounds were approximately set it basically mixed itself. And then what we added were the glossier layers adding lots of Wendy vocals and doubling those with Fairlight and my piano and things like that."
What do you remember about the songs that didn't make the cut? Like the legendary "Snowy Rents a Dog"?
"I don't remember very much about rejected songs. I do remember that song from the demos but I don't know why that was passed up really. I think probably as time went on and they became more commercially successful, I think the preconceptions took hold. That's what happens in the music industry, it's that there's this mould that everybody wants you to start to fit into and if you do something that doesn't fit the mould you start to get pushback. You have the prerogative to push back, to put your foot down and say this is absolutely the way I want it, and they will usually say 'OK, we respect you, you're the artist, have it your own way.' But behind the scenes you lose co-operation and things start to get more difficult.
"I think that was happening to them as well and I think the climax to that really was when Paddy made his album with songs like 'Ride Home to Jesus' on it and so on, and the record company rejected it because it had too much God in it."
You only produced four songs on the follow-up, 'Langley Park to Memphis', one of which includes my favourite Sprout song, 'Venus of the Soup Kitchen'. What can you tell me about how that was arranged, and where the choral section came from?
"I don't remember very much about that. They wanted me to produce that album and I was living in LA and I was doing other things so I said 'look I can't come to the UK and record a whole album with you.' So they said 'well what about if we came to you and we did some songs in LA and take it from there?'
"So they headed over and I can't remember whose idea it was to add the choral thing, but I was able to find this choir in LA called the André Crouch singers. They're pretty well known, they've won Grammies and things for gospel stuff. We met up at Stevie Wonder's studio and it was fantastic. I think there were about 30 of them but there were only 4 or 5 of the principals, and they sat Paddy down at the piano and lined the piano and they just looked at each other and they figured out their harmonies and then they passed those harmonies onto the rest of the choir and all of this was done without writing anything down.
"They were very much in their element and they loved it. I remember André Crouch saying to Paddy 'You're a church boy?' And Paddy answering 'Well in a manner of speaking…'
"But yeah that was an interesting experience, and I think Stevie Wonder wandered in at some point and made himself known and that led to him playing harmonica for them later."
Did you feel that as the relationship went on into subsequent albums that Paddy was bringing much more finished things to the party so there was less to do?
"Yeah, Paddy got very good at making demos himself at home and very often in later years – and certainly in the 90s when he was sending demos – I felt there was nothing for me to do here. He could have put things out like they were and they'd be just great. We could have spent a fortune and a lot of time in the studio and only add 5%.
"In fact by the time we got to Jordan, I was actually terrified of the responsibility of going to try to improve on the best songs from the demos. In particular 'Wild Horses' or 'Jesse James Bolero'. I heard those and I thought 'what can I possibly do to improve these?'
"But Paddy felt very strongly that unless it was recorded in a top professional studio and so on that it wasn't good enough to put out, that was always the feelings that he had. Probably the biggest point of contention that I ever had with him was that in later years I said 'Paddy just put this out, let Martin build web sites and social media and grow your fan base and you could put out 2-3 albums a year that you recorded at home for next to nothing and make a perfectly good living, you don't need a big record company!' And he'd reply 'Oh no Thomas it's got to be done right.' He always believed that real records were made in real recording studios and that they'd come out and the poster would be in the window of WH Smiths and they'd be in the charts and the wall of Woolworth's and they'd be on Top of the Pops, and that was what a real record was."
And at about this time you drifted away from the music business?
"Yeah, well I mean I got very disenchanted with the music business at the end of the 80s. Part of this was probably my own fault because the managers and record labels would have liked me to have distilled the formula that had made me commercially successful and just churn out a few more hits.
"And if I'd said to them 'Ah, I want to make organic, introspective, atmospheric music and write songs like 'Screen Kiss' and 'Budapest by Blimp' they probably would have said 'all in good time, Thomas, all in good time, let's first establish you as a stadium selling act with a string of platinum albums, then you can diversify into more interesting stuff.'
"But I wasn't going to stick around and wait for that. I thought 'well I don't mind foregoing the commercial aspects of it if I can record 'Screen Kiss' today, so I lost their co-operation, and the repercussions of that were worse than I thought. I was sort of trapped in the contract and once you lose the co-operation of the label it's very hard to get things done.
"You start to feel very frustrated as an artist. So as the music business in general was starting to go down the pipes, I mean the cracks were starting to appear and record sales were trailing off, there were the first signs of piracy via digital files and the music industry was just not a happy place.
"In 1992 I was living in Los Angeles but I'd been doing more and more trips to Silicon Valley to see software and hardware companies I'd been working with, like Apple and Digidesign and so on and I found it a fascinating world. It was just an enthralling and thrilling place to be.
"I saw immediately that sound was very undervalued in this world. The big tech companies, the Microsofts and the IBMs and the Intels preferred to not even have loudspeakers on their products because it would annoy the guy in the next cubicle. But they would take meetings with me because it was kind of hip to meet a MTV star and maybe hit up some backstage tickets for the next Rolling Stones concert, and so I was able to get into meetings with all of these tech companies.
"They would listen to my ideas and I would be telling them how there needed to be music on computers, not just professional musicians computers in recording studios, but the general public needed to have music on their computers. And that with the internet coming we could all be distributing music instantaneously with a file download instead of this whole retail manufacturing thing.
"But it fell on deaf ears for the most part. I mean the tech companies didn't want to hear it, the music industry definitely didn't want to hear it because if I was right then all of those pressing plants and fleets of trucks and things that they controlled would no longer be the only game in town, suddenly Intel or Microsoft could be distributing music, and EMI didn't want to hear that. So nobody was really listening to me. But it was thrilling at the same time and surrounding myself with programmers and so on I was able to invent and build new stuff and it was much more stimulating to me than trying to struggle in this moribund record industry."
Finally, have you listened to Crimson Red? It struck me that there was a little more acid, more aggression and swagger in that album, I suppose because Paddy was pissed off at being told he had to record it?
"[laughs]Oh yeah, I totally agree, I think that is vital. You know I think the word 'Antiques' in 'Faron Young' typifies what you're talking about, and I missed that by the time he got to Andromeda Heights period, it was all a bit breathy and gentle and I was missing that anger. So yeah, I agree with you that 'Crimson/Red' has got a little bit of that back in, and I think that's a crucial piece of the puzzle, that you have this gentle man and you just sense there's this sort of something churning about underneath.
"Controlled but passionate, and in fact he doesn't need to scream for you to be aware of that. I mean I think of a song like Ice Maiden and it has this lovely dreamy sort of feel to it, and yet there's this sort of… well I guess he does a bit of screaming in that because he goes 'Girl when I burn, hell, nothing's the same', etcetera, but that to me is a later example of that amazing balance between that sort of gentle sensuality and something a lot fiercer which is sort of unexpected from a such an unassuming man [laughs]."
And with that I decide to push my luck no further and I thank Thomas for his time. About eighty minutes into a one hour call. It will take me 24 hours to stop buzzing.
One of the comments I had on twitter when I posted the first part of the interview was to bemoan the fact that Dolby had stuck to the contracted memoir length. "I'd love to read the 300,000 word version", the tweeter said, ruefully.
You and me both.


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Salmon Fishing Scotland Tay, Perthshire 2017 Opening Celebrated with Major Announcement.
This was an article in the Courier written by Richard Burdge.
A ten mile stretch of a Perthshire river is to be "brought back to life" thanks to a landmark agreement.
It means that spawning salmon will have access for the first time in over 60 years to the tributary of the Tay which could lead to 1,500 adult salmon returning to the river annually.
After decades of extensive water abstraction for hydro power, ten miles of the Garry which has been essentially dry since the mid 1950s, will run again.
The formal announcement was made at the Tay District Salmon Fisheries Board's (TDSFB) annual ceremony to celebrate the opening of the Tay salmon fishing season, at Meikleour Fishings.
The traditional blessing of the boat and river with a Quaich of whisky was performed by James Smith of SSE.
In Highland Perthshire another ceremony was held at Kenmore where anglers were piped down to the river by the Vale of Atholl Pipe Band, led by Provost Liz Grant.
SSE confirmed that engineering work will commence in a few weeks to restore flows to the River Garry, some 15 miles north of Blair Atholl and an initial breach has already been made at the Struan Weir to begin this process.
Mr Smith, SSE's Managing Director of Generation, said the announcement was in tune with their environmental responsibilities.
"We recognise this stretch of the River Garry as a special case for water restoration," he said. "Although it will result in a loss of potential hydro energy for SSE we are delighted to play our part in restoring water flow and allowing salmon back to the upper Garry."
Mr Jack added: "This most welcome news is a milestone in salmon conservation."
"Some ten miles of the main river and seven miles of tributary will once again be capable of producing salmon," he said.
"We estimate that this is likely to produce an additional 1,500 adult, predominantly spring, salmon returning to the river annually.
"We are very pleased to have been able to work with SSE and SEPA to a successful conclusion."
Salmon Fishing Scotland - By Robert White


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True Vintage Victorian Gold Plated Bar Brooch, Center Red Stone, 2 Pearls, 2.25"
$ 30.00
Victorian Gold Plated Bar Brooch - detailed and ornate - with a center raised crown like accent with two raised white lustered 3mm pearls and a center garnet to amethyst colored 4.5 mm round stone. The stones are set with multi-prongs, not just four. The bar brooch is 2.25" wide and slightly over 1/2" at the widest point. It is layered with various accent pieces that can be seen in the photos. The biggest piece has a stamped nugget or alligator skin type pattern. See photos for the various designs and accents. It has the older wide C clasp and the pin extends beyond the brooch itself which dates the pin to Victorian. The finish on most of this is remarkably good - there is some minor finish change put in general - a very nice brooch. It is not signed. This came from a PA estate. See Photos.
Lot. Loc. No. Win.1024.3115.1X1
You can find me on pinterest under pinterest.com/mariasvinta0654 where I have my items for sale across all my venues categorized in very easy-to-search boards. You can find me in a general browser search too at mariasvintage.com and mariasvintage2 and also I am on ebay as sellername stampshopgirl.
I will combine shipping across all venues. If you pay shipping ahead, I will refund the overage.
Photos are magnified so things will appear larger than they are and they are likely in better condition than the photos depict due to the magnification. They are never enhanced.
Thank you for stopping by.
Please note that most of my photos are taken at 10X magnification. This shows any blemishes much more magnified than they really are.
I keep great notes about each item and can answer most questions quickly, but I do not store fine jewelry on premises, so answers about specific measurements may take some time as I arrange to inspect the piece again.
In addition to this website, Maria's Vintage, I am on eBay as stampshopgirl, on Etsy as stampshopgirl, and on StorEnvy as Maria's. I have many vintage jewelry items and other vintage and new items - a very wide variety.
I will combine shipping, even if you buy items from one of my other stores. If you purchase one item and know you'll be picking more, just email me and let me know and I will ship them at the same time and refund the shipping over the combined limit.
Given the number of different items I carry it is hard to know what combination of items can be purchased to pre-plan the shipping, so just email me and we will work it out to save you shipping charges whenever possible.


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Webinar: Beyond the Box - Innovative Cost Management Strategies for Enterprise Mobility
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Pull yourself together, Jesus said.
Think of how an umbrella is
like a composed statesman
after a rainstorm. How he draws
himself in. Can't you be more
retractible like that? Collapsible
as a magic cup? But I thought
only: ducks, shaking out their wings,
secondhand rain flying
in everyone's faces,
pissing off the swans
who act like rap stars in lobbies.
And then quacking, in despair,
I rolled my eggs into the creek,
because they were only more ducks,
passive-aggressive despair,
like the rain. Like the rain,
I am a badass.
Pull yourself together, Jesus said.


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Bert [Bertille] went to funeral of Mr. Grahlerr to church, wasn't so large. Pallbearers were Geo. Parker, Geo & Joe Groosheim, Joe Gregson, Nic Helfrich, Ignatz Neff. Henry & Leona went to Belleville left Billy [Willis] here. Washed this afternoon, scrubbed basement, washed kettles. Emil came but didn't stay, we were busy. Mr. Herbert looked at horse. Emil came over, again this eve. awhile; he told us Louie Gregson was ill; Alf. Eckert upset his dodge Sun. eve. by Belleville. Otto Koch's girl Erma is missing since Sun. nite, got the fellow down in Chester, but he didn't talk up yet; she is from Red Bud.
Wednesday, December 1, 1937
Filed Under: 1937, December, Tillie's News Diaries from the 1930s Tagged With: Belleville, Brand, car_accident, Chester, chores, church, death, died, Dodge, Eckart, Eckert, Emil, funeral, Grahlerr, Gregson, Groosheim, Helfrich, Henry, Herbert, horses, illness, Koch, Leona, missing_person, Neff, pallbearers, Parker, Red_Bud, runaway, Willis


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At Monday's Helsinki summit presser, Vladimir Putin said Russia would gladly let Robert Mueller and his investigators interview the 12 Russians indicted for election meddling in exchange for Bill Browder ... the 'FOX News Rundown' speaks with Bill Browder.
You probably knew that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, but did you know that Germany attacked Cape Cod? Massachusetts local, Jake Klim, is the author of "Attack on Orleans: The World War I Submarine Raid on Cape Cod."
Plus, a commentary by Karol Markowicz, columnist for FOXNews.com and the New York Post.


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"More Than A Game" is not your typical documentary.
Through his excellent cinematography and devotion to the characters in the film, first-time producer and director, Kristopher Belman, was able to tell the story of LeBron James and his high school teammates in a compelling and unforgettable way.
"More Than A Game" chronicles the incredible seven-year journey that the "Fab Five" (LeBron James, Dru Joyce, Romeo Travis, Willie McGee and Sian Cotton) experienced individually and as a team.
Watching the documentary, it's easy to see that their strong bonds on and off the court are what helped this team from St. Vincent-St. Mary work their way to the top and win the National High School Championship in 2003.
The film's structure was very well thought-out by Belman. Rather than focusing the movie on the NBA superstar, he took an in- depth look at each player from the Fab Five, as well as their coach, by delving into their personal lives with private interviews from family members, never-before-seen home videos and memorable photographs.
Through rare behind-the-scenes practice footage and thrilling game footage, Belman was able to illustrate how each member grew athletically and personally over the years.
He was also able to highlight how each one of them truly contributed to the success of the team as a whole.
This film is very well-balanced. It makes viewers laugh in some scenes, like when LeBron and his teammates rap on the buses to and from games. It keeps audience members on the edge of their seats as they watch the final minutes of crucial games.
And finally, it touches hearts when adversities, such as James being suspended in his senior year, threaten the team's hopes and dreams.Also, fans of James get to see a side of the King that they don't normally see on the court.
James doesn't hold back in private one-on-one interviews where he describes his humble beginnings, his relationship with his mother and his appreciation for finding four lifelong friends.
He is sincere and modest, even getting choked up at times, and viewers can see that he is truly thankful for where he is today.
The movie doesn't solely focus on the sport, but is a depiction of the power of friendship and loyalty.
It also puts a huge emphasis on the importance of family and is an inspiration to people of all ages to pursue what they really love in life, even if it seems impossible.
The documentary took first runner-up at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival, losing to "Slumdog Millionaire." "More Than A Game" opens in New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and other select theaters Oct. 2, 2009.


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Photo: Alison Miksch; Styling: Claire Spollen
Add heartiness to a simple spinach salad by serving herbed shrimp and tomatoes over greens.
How to Make It
Step 1
Combine first 7 ingredients in a mini food processor; process until finely chopped. Combine 1 1/2 tablespoons parsley mixture and shrimp in a medium bowl; toss to coat. Combine remaining parsley mixture and tomatoes in a large bowl; toss to coat. Heat a grill pan over high heat. Lightly coat pan with cooking spray. Add shrimp to pan; grill 3 minutes. Turn shrimp over; cook 1 minute or until done.
Step 2
Add spinach, radicchio, fennel, and mint to tomato mixture; toss to coat. Arrange spinach mixture on a platter. Arrange shrimp on top of spinach mixture; sprinkle with feta.


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Shri Ram School students have long had a reputation for active interest in conservation and environmental issues. They have been at the forefront of campaigning to save the tiger, especially through Kids for Tigers.
One particular issue that is often hotly debated is the relationship between tiger conservation and tourism. Here is an excerpt from an NDTV programme on the subject:
Filed under: Educators of tomorrow, Life, Our Environment, School | Tagged: environmental awareness of children, Kids for Tigers, NDTV - Save the Tiger | Leave a comment »


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Our fall foliage tour this year will be very diverse and one that will fill your photo albums and scrapbooks! Starting out in Lubbock, we will overnight in Texarkana, Nashville, and Roanoke, VA, making our way to West Point Military Academy for a historical tour. Our next stop is Plymouth, MA where we ride a trolley to see the town, Plimoth Plantation, Plymouth Rock, and Mayflower II. That afternoon a step on guide will give us a tour of Cape Cod which includes Hyannis Port and Provincetown! The next day a tour of Lexington, Concord and Salem is planned with our overnight on the waterfront in Salem. We will then make our way toward Portland, ME, stopping at various lighthouses along the way. The next day we drive along the coast to Bar Harbor, ME, stopping for many photo ops and stay overnight at a beautiful oceanfront resort. The next morning is a bus tour of Acadia National Park, then begin our journey toward Vermont. As we travel through Vermont there are several stops planned at maple farms and country stores. We will overnight in Sayre, PA, and the next day visit the Little League Museum in Williamsport, PA and meet the famous groundhog in Punxsutawney, PA before spending the night in Zanesville, OH. The next night will be spent in Kentucky, with a tour Land Between the Lakes the next morning before arriving in Springfield, MO to spend the night. On our way toward Lubbock we overnight in Oklahoma City, with some surprise stops along the way. As with all of our tours there will be surprises along the way!
The cost is single: $4426 per person; double: $3158 per person and triple: $2742 per person. A $100 deposit PER PERSON reserves your space. A $1600 PER PERSON deposit is due no later than Sept. 6, with the remaining balance due no later than Oct. 2. Cost includes transportation, lodging, breakfast each morning, and all activities.
Activity level: medium


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- Guitar Wiring Upgrade Kits
- Pickups
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Jackplate for Les Paul®, Chrome plated, with Screws. Jack hole diameter is 3/8" (9.5mm). 1-11/32" square, with the mounting screw holes spacing - 1" (25.4mm). The jackplate has a slight curve to match the body's curved sides. Manufactured by Gotoh.
Note:This is intended for use 1/4" jacks and will not work with guitars using metric sized components.
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How do Drug Costs, Copays, Co-Insurance and cost sharing impact me?
What are maximum out of pocket costs?
Step by step guide for shopping for health insurance
Health insurance can save you a lot of money. But even if you have insurance, you'll still pay some money out-of-pocket on healthcare. The average out-of-pocket expenditure was $747 (in 2016, among middle-income Americans who spent any money out-of-pocket on healthcare), according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
However, those figures don't include spending on non-prescription drugs or home healthcare. And healthcare costs have risen. In 2019, the average American will spend $1,202 out-of-pocket on healthcare including non-prescription drugs and home healthcare, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Health insurance is complicated, which makes it tricky to figure out how much it can help you save.
The biggest part of the picture is the premium and the deductible. Dexur's guide to figuring out what premiums are worth paying is here. The deductible is a fixed amount that you have to pay before your insurance covers other costs - except for preventative care, which your insurance always pays for.
The other important parts of a plan to check are cost-sharing and the out-of-pocket maximum.
If you know what kinds of treatment you're going to need in the next year, you can choose a plan whose cost-sharing gives you the best deal on those treatments.
Many health insurance plans are relatively simple: you pay your premium and costs up to the deductible. The insurance company pays any costs that go over the deductible. About half of health insurance plans cover drugs this way.
Other plans have "cost-sharing", where you pay part of the full price of the drug even after your deductible. Some of these plans let you pay less than full price even before your reach your deductible. This can save you money if you expect to spend less money than your deductible.
There are two kinds of cost-sharing:
-Copays are how much you pay each time you get a prescription filled.
-Coinsurance is a percentage of the cost of treatment you pay. If you know you'll need an expensive drug, check what category your plan counts it under. A plan with a copay might be cheaper.
Plans that have cost-sharing usually charge a copay for all generic drugs and certain brand-name drugs; and charge more expensive coinsurance for specialty drugs like chemotherapy.
Among plans with cost-sharing, here's how much they charge on average.
|Mean coinsurance
|Median coinsurance
|Mean copay
|Median copay
|Generic Drugs
|Non-preferred Brand Drugs
|Preferred Brand Drugs
|Specialty Drugs
Many plans have cost-sharing for medical care, not just drugs. For example, you might need to pay a copay each time you visit a specialist.
Plans often have different copays and coinsurance for mental health, emergency care, and other categories. If you know what kinds of treatment you're going to need in the next year, choosing a plan with copays instead of coinsurance for the services you'll need can save you a lot of money. (And if you can't find one, go for the plan with lower coinsurance).
About half of health insurance plans cover all doctors' visit costs once you've hit your deductible.
Many others charge copays for common doctor's visits, but coinsurance for hospital visits.
Copays for primary care physicians and specialists tend to be low. If you know you need to see your doctor regularly, a plan with a copay can save you a lot of money over a plan with coinsurance.
|Mean coinsurance
|Median coinsurance
|Mean copay
|Median copay
|Emergency Room
|Inpatient Facility
|Inpatient Physician
|Primary Care Physician
Going to the hospital is expensive no matter what. If you or a family member have a condition that could lead to frequent hospitalizations, then it's time to look at maximum out of pocket costs.
This is the most you could ever have to pay if you buy this plan. Once you've paid up to the out-of-pocket maximum, your insurer covers all remaining costs.
(The out-of-pocket maximum is the most you could ever have to pay. Some plans used to have a "stop-loss", which was the most the insurer would cover; beyond that, it put the costs back on the patient. Stop-losses contributed to many medical bankruptcies. This is now rare. The Affordable Care Act made it illegal to put a stop-loss on Essential Health Benefits, and then defined Essential Health Benefits to include most medical care).
If you're worried about catastrophic costs - history of cancer in the family, or you work a high-risk job - then choose a plan with a low out-of-pocket maximum and low deductible. It will probably have higher premiums, but the risk of losing everything will be lower.
One shortcut is to look at the plan's "actuarial value." If you buy a plan with high actuarial value, the premiums will be high, but the deductible and out-of-pocket maximum will be low.
This means a plan with high actuarial value costs a lot if you don't get sick - but saves a lot if you do get seriously sick. A plan with a high actuarial value can be a good choice if you're worried about catastrophic costs - e.g., a history of cancer in the family, or if you work a high-risk job. Typically, you can buy plans whose actuarial value is "standard" (70%), 73%, 87%, or 94%. (The Kaiser Family Explanation explains what these percentages mean well: "For example, a plan with an actuarial value of 70% (referred to as a "silver" plan in the ACA) means that for a standard population, the plan will pay 70% of their health care expenses, while the enrollees themselves will pay 30% through some combination of deductibles, copays, and coinsurance.")
Plans with high actuarial value usually have low out-of-pocket maximums, but high premiums.
Low-deductible, low-maximum plans are common, and a good choice if you're willing to pay higher premiums to avoid worst-case scenarios.
High-maximum plans can have a wide range of deductibles. Plans like this can save you money on premiums if you're in good health.


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You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'Gulf of Nicoya' tag.
The day after my return to Monteverde from the Caribbean, I was invited to go on a hike to Vera Cruz. This is land a little to the southwest of Monteverde, some owned by the Reserve as well as private farmlands – we would call this cattle range country in Canada. Luis Angel Obando, our friendly forest guard, was accompanying a group of youths, the Junior Rangers led by Dulce Wilson, to a mysterious place called the Casa de la Piedra – the House of Stone. The forest guards get out on regular patrols on trails all over the large expanse of Reserve land, looking for signs of squatters, hunters and tree poachers, and can often incorporate their trips with guiding groups to various destinations. Mercedes Diaz, who is Head of Environmental Education at the Reserve, decided to accompany the group and would lead them in an exercise about making environmentally-sound decisions. The last person in the group was Rosai, another forest guard, who would stay with the group once they were settled – and take care of the two characters who I think worked the hardest of all, the two pack horses. Although I had barely got my beach clothes out of my own pack, I didn't want to miss the chance to go overnight into the forest.
The sad part of this for me was the fact that this was the first time that I was going on a trip into the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve without Wolf Guindon. It has been several months since he decided not to go on long hikes. His knee is bothering him, he gets tired, and he has lost a bit of the spirit for the long treks, although he walks the couple of kilometers back and forth to the Reserve most days. He is good on flat stretches but there isn't much of this land that stays flat for very long, and the long slogs up and down the hills are getting too difficult to be fun for him. So he didn't want to join us and I felt the loss. Luis is now Head of Protection, the position that Wolf created and held for more than a couple of decades. Luis in many ways is just like Wolf – full of energy and strength and humor and patience – and his love for being in the forest is constantly apparent. But Wolf is a very unique man and nobody will truly follow exactly in his footsteps. The day before the hike, I did walk with Wolf to his farm to meet Lucky's niece, Sylvia, and we made our way through the beautiful bullpen. This is the St. Augustine pasture carved out of the old forest by the Campbell family where huge trees were left standing to provide habitat and shade and felled ones were left laying to rot – one of my most favorite places in Monteverde, that alone the world.
So on Thursday morning, Luis and Rosai picked me up in the trusty Suzuki and after getting Mercedes, we drove down to the meeting spot in San Luis. There we met Edgar who had brought the two horses and we were to wait for Dulce's group to arrive. The meeting time was ten a.m. but what with one thing and another, we didn't get on the trail until one p.m. A group of twenty-one kids between the ages of nine and sixteen made up the pack. The horses had been employed to carry the bulk of the provisions – tents, food, stoves – well, those poor animals were wider than they were high by the time they were loaded down.
Better them than me I suppose. By the time we got to our camping spot, my respect for these creatures had grown immensely. The trail was part old roadway, part groomed trail, but much of it was cattle paths through old pastures. Although the sun was beating down on us as we were getting our equipment ready, we weren't very long on the trail before the rain started and stayed with us until close to four hours later when we were settled for the night.
Of course Luis and Rosai were the only ones who knew where we were going and what to expect. I've put my faith in these men of the forest so many times and have always been rewarded for the experience, so I don't question, I just follow. But adding a group of this size to the mix was even more challenging – I know that Luis has many years of experience assisting groups of foreign students as well as Costa Ricans in their travels in the forest. But we got started very late and the rain slowed us down – we were trekking through thick mud much of the time – and although the Casa de la Piedra was our destination, Luis kept reconsidering our possibilities of where we could spend the night. How far could we get before dark? How tired, wet and cold would these poor kids be? And where was there water safe for drinking, meaning a mountain stream, nearby? His concern was only apparent because his usually smiling face looked a little pensive, although I doubt that many in the group would have noticed. But I could tell he was always thinking about just how far this slow-moving group could reasonably get before nightfall, which here is roughly 6 o'clock.
The land we walked through was beautiful. We could see layers of ridges, some cleared for pasture, some covered in new growth forest, with deep forested valleys in between. The Reserve had bought a lot of this land fifteen years ago and so the forest has been regenerating but some of the ridges were so windswept and severe with a sandy soil that only bushes and grasses could grow. Other pockets were well into a new generation of forest. There were some working pastures still, with bright specks on the distant hillsides representing cows. In other places, we could stand on the ridge and look into down upon the huge cedros and higuerons, the big ol' trees stretching above the rest of the forested valleys. Luis' keen eyes and ears could pick out white-faced monkeys playing a kilometer away, so high up in trees that you had to wonder what happened if by chance they ever lost their grasp.
Around 5 o'clock we arrived at an abandoned homestead that used to belong to someone named Pipé. It was a small flat pasture of long grass with the remains of a cabin on it. The views stretched west to the Gulf of Nicoya and there was a stream a few minutes walk away. We were still about an hour and a half from the magical stone house and it was going to get dark fast, so the decision was made to stay. Well! I've never seen such a disciplined group of kids in my life, although I haven't hung out with many armies before, although I did work for years at a canoe camp in northern Ontario.
Dulce had those kids in formation, taking care of the necessary tasks, so fast that I couldn't believe it. It was decided that they would all stay on the wooden floor under the roof in the cabin which would also protect our gear and where we could cook and not get wet. They immediately set up a large tent outside one of the doorways to use as a changing room for this mixed crowd of boys and girls. Dulce set the rules of where people could walk with boots or not – since we had walked through so much mud, and would continue to be wet and dirty, it was imperative that once the plastic tarps were down for sleeping, nobody should walk there in boots.
Rosai unpacked those poor horses who had trogged through the mud, up the steep inclines, in the narrow hollows that defined the path, with hundreds of pounds of weight – how they keep their balance and their humor (I'm sure horses must have a sense of humor), I'll never know. They were then tethered loosely to trees and left alone to lazily eat the lush grass of the pasture which I can attest they did all night long. Luis set up two tents that the guards and Mercedes and I would sleep in, to have a little space from the large pack of youths. Mercedes and Rosai went down to the stream with containers to get water. I set up the stove and started what water we had boiling to get some hot coffee into us as quick as possible. We were all soaked and tired and it was going to get dark fast. It wasn't that cold by mountain standards but the wind was blowing and everyone was chilled. I set up the second stove in the middle of the cabin for the kids to gather around like a campfire. In this wet world, it isn't as typical to have a bonfire outside as in Canada – between the wet wood and wind, it can be almost impossible to start sometimes. They did have plans to make one later and one of the boys chopped out a fire pit in the pasture. Those older boys never stopped working from the time they arrived – at least they stayed much warmer that way. The younger ones were tired and stood about shivering, waiting for the tent to be put up so they could get inside and change into dryer clothes. I gathered whatever water was left from personal water bottles and put a pot on to heat on the second stove so they could have hot chocolate. Beyond that, Dulce and her group were pretty much on their own, and we four adults took care of ourselves. We made a great supper of hot soup, rice, tuna, pejivalles I had cooked and brought along to eat with mayonnaise, and shared the organic avocado that my friend Roberto had given me from his land in Cahuita. It tasted really good up there on the mountainside.
After dinner, Mercedes did her exercise with the kids while Luis, Rosai and I spent the evening laying in the tent together, talking, staying warm. We were all asleep by 9:30 I would think, but awake long enough to see the waxing moon brighten up the sky and the sparks of the fireflies twinkling throughout the forest.
The next morning, after lots of coffee and a good breakfast, Luis took Mercedes and I ahead of the rest to go and see the infamous Casa de la Piedra. We hiked through the wet forest in bright sunshine, up and up, until we got to the top of a ridge where we had a full 360 degree view of the ridges all around us. It was pure sand that only supported a type of miniature pampas grass and alpine plants.
There was the remains of a recent landslide which would have taken us a couple of hundred feet down without stopping. The misty clouds hung low in the valleys and the sun kept us warm despite the strong wind. We then descended down, down, down into the forested valley of Rio La Nica (who knows how and why these rivers get their names – Luis imagined that somebody brought a Nicaraguan wife here and therefore this river got called La Nica).
The river was a beauty – huge rocks strewn about by mythical giants, white water tumbling down various channels only to meet up again in pools of clear water, tropical ferns and vines hanging down over the banks as if to drink.
Luis showed us the first "Casa de la Piedra" which was a huge triangular conglomeration of rocks, trees, and strangler fig roots – maybe forty feet high and immense. We continued down the river edge until we were walking beside a massive wall of rock – and this was the outside wall of the House of Stone. Around the corner and up a rocky ledge and we entered a cave – maybe twenty-five feet deep and twenty feet high but narrow enough to touch both walls with outstretched arms, light streaming in from breaks in the rock above – it was impressive.
Bats flew about as we disturbed their daytime slumber with our flashlights and camera flashes. Luis told us that people used to live amongst these rocks – in fact, one of the young employees at the Reserve apparently was born in the house of stone.
When Rosai, Dulce and the rest of the group arrived, we left and went down to a pool in the river. Mercedes put on her bathing suit but spent most of the time sitting on a rock in the sun, shivering. Luis wouldn't even go near the water.
I, on the other hand, northern bush babe that I be, swam like a seal in the channel of rushing white water that came through the rocks, happy as a Canadian clam. The mountainous water was about the temperature that the northern lakes I swim in generally get to at the height of summer. I could have stayed there all day and I suspect I will take the opportunity to go back to this rocky spa again just for the chance to swim.
We quickly had to get dressed and start the long slog back up, up, up the trail – we stopped on the top of the ridge where Luis had cell phone reception so he could call his kids and check in. Cell phone in one hand, machete in the other, GPS receiver in his pocket – this is a modern day forest guard.
Luis, Mercedes and I quickly ate some lunch and packed up, leaving Rosai and the group to stay another night. We got on the trail around three in the afternoon and moved quickly as the afternoon rain came down on us. We had flashlights with us but didn't really want to be walking in the dark. Luis took us on shortcuts – although Wolf wasn't with us, I was reminded of him often. Luis would point out some piece of trail that Wolf had hacked out while short-cutting his way through the forest, or some tree where during a rest stop Wolf had told some funny story. Wolf's spirit is so omnipresent in this forest that he will be felt here forever. Luis is very much like Wolf, but whereas Luis would say, as the night was closing in on us and he was deciding which animal trail to follow to cut down our travel time, "we might end up lost" – I know from experience that Wolf would never admit to being lost – he'd just say we may end up in a different place than we hoped to be.
The final bit of Luis' shortcut took us through a cattle pasture of very rough walking in horrible mud churned by animal hooves – but with beautiful views of the sun setting beyond the ridges and the clouds settling down into the valleys as if to sleep for the night. We came over a ridge top and heard a mad-sounding cow ahead of us. As Mercedes and I caught up to Luis, he told us that it was a mother cow who had just delivered her baby – you could see the very young calf hidden down on the hillside in the grass – and the mother was acting mad to keep the rest of the cattle – and us – away from her newborn. Mercedes and I – non-farmers that we be – were a bit worried as we made our way past this angry large-horned mother but Luis just made jokes and said it was all show. The other cattle were more interested in us than the calf and in the end, we were all amused.
We made it back to Edgar and the jeep in San Luis right as darkness gathered around us. I was at home by 7, unpacked and showered by 7:30 and sound asleep by eight, accompanied by dreams of clouds floating by me, long grass wrapping around my ankles, and a bed of mud cushioning my sore body. It was all perfect, except for the missing Wolf.
My home and the natives' land, Temagami
I am once again writing from the lowlands. I've come to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. Before I talk about sand and surf however, I want to acknowledge the fact that I missed Canada Day on July 1st. I'm not a flag-waving patriotic type, but I am happy and thankful to be Canadian and remember that no matter where I am, just not necessarily on THE DAY. There have been things that have reminded me however – the odd Canadian flag here in Puerto Viejo, the picture of Tom Wilson on the hamilton365.com website that I follow (Larry Strung's daily photographic diary of Hamilton (my hometown) people in 2008 – I am featured on February 26) If I were to choose a Canadian singer-songwriter who speaks for me of where I live, it would be Tom. He's all attitude, talent, irreverent, and a great entertainer/singer/guitar player/composer. So Larry's choice of him as the Canada Day portrait on his website struck a huge chord with me, one that sounded a lot like the beginning of "Oh Canada"…but I digress (and also stopped writing this…)
More than a week has gone by, and a warm wonderful week it was. I arrived back in Monteverde last night on the bus – amused by the reaction of a couple from New York sitting beside me to the never-ending road. We went up in darkness but you could still see the steep precipices that dropped off to the sides in the shadows. The woman looked horrified – when we got to Santa Elena, I told her to be sure to leave on the 6:30 a.m. bus when they were ready to go, as that is the most beautiful ride back down the mountain. The sun will be coming over the mountain and glimmering on the waters of the Gulf of Nicoya and lighting up the flatlands of Guanacaste – the clouds will be at play all around you, drifting up from the valleys, hovering in the mountains, and tumbling across the lower landscape. And she will truly see what she couldn't in the darkness – the narrow winding road that we just crawled up, alive with milk trucks, tourist buses and other early morning machinery – the whole effect tends to wake you up very quickly. I have noticed this year that there is even more traffic on the roadway and on each bus trip there have been numerous occasions that the bus had to back up to make room so that it could clear the sides of a passing transport truck, or pull off as far to the edge (whatever you do, don't look!) so that some other large vehicle could pass. I've been on the bus much more this year than any other but this is a new phenomena, a sign of the great increase in business and vehicular traffic in Monteverde.
Fortunately the weather up here has been beautiful they tell me. The rains have come as they should, a little downpour each afternoon, but otherwise it is sunny and hot. Bodes well for the beach babe recently returned – it is hard to leave the beach when you like sun and water and lazy days, and returning to cold, wet, windy and busy Monteverde can be a harsh shock. So I appreciate that I can walk out this morning in summer clothes and perhaps not have to think about my rubber boots, umbrella and raincoat till later in the day.
My week on the Caribbean was made up of reunions with three friends, two of whom I hadn't seen in years, hours spent floating in the warm sea and wandering through the shady jungle, a great book (End of the Spear by Steve Saint), and a lot of fish and fresh fruit. The bus ride from San José to Limón and then down the coastal highway to Puerto Viejo was very smooth. You get used to the fact that in Costa Rica the state of the road changes quickly. They get fixed and freshly paved but it doesn't take long before the pavement is washed out and huge potholes appear, forcing vehicles to wind their way slowly around the obstacles. This route had obviously been recently done as we practically flew on a very smooth flight.
You leave the city and go up over the mountain range of Braulio Carrillo National Park where it is always cool and often wet and windy but with spectacular views over the protected forests. The road winds down near Guapiles and from there heads straight and flat across the lowlands, passing over wide rivers and past the endless banana plantations along with the acres of trucking containers that transport the bananas for Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita to places throughout the world. The foliage and landscape change to something mossier and drippier in a different shade of green than the western side of the country. The light is different as well. Coming over the mountains to the Atlantic side of the Costa Rica is like coming into another country without a border crossing. Even the color of people's skin turns a darker brown – this is the Afro-Caribbean province and there is also a noticeable population of indigenous – Talamancas and Mestizos especially.
When I got to Puerto Viejo, I went to the home of my old friend Susana Schik, who appears on one of the last pages of Walking with Wolf, but who hasn't appeared in my life in probably eight or ten years. She used to live in Monteverde, teaching natural history courses, but now does that down in Puerto. She is married to a lovely man, René, and has a very sprightly four-year-old daughter named Hannah. Once Hannah got over her initial shyness with me, our time was spent trading wild cat screams and responses – and this girl can roar! Susana and René care-take some vacation houses along the Black Sands beach on the north side of Puerto and they offered that I could use an apartment that was empty in one of these houses.
Beautiful! I spent three nights with a great balcony, cable TV, phone and very hot shower – more than I've had in most places I've stayed. The only head-shaking part was the amount of locks and barriers involved – every window not only had heavy wooden shutters but iron grates and locks. The doors had deadbolts, the iron grates were double locked. And even then, there were signs that someone had been trying to hack their way past the deadbolt in the few days since Susana had last visited there. She told me not to leave the house less than thoroughly locked up even if I only leave for a few minutes to go to her place or to the store – someone will surely break in. The signs of people trying to get at whatever they can, to share illegally in the obvious wealth that exists for some in Costa Rica, are omnipresent.
I took the local bus through the now-almost-city of Puerto Viejo, full of surfers, rastas, university students on vacation, and locals working in the bustling service industry, to quieter Punta Uva, a few kilometers down the coast. My friend Sarah Dowell, prolific and extraordinary artist, lives there. We have been friends since I came to Monteverde in 1990. She lived in a great funky house with its artistically displayed shell collection (Sarah commented that they collected these shells a few years ago but now have a hard time finding many of these shells – they want to donate this as an exhibit somewhere in the town) up on the mountain. I would go and visit while she painted. This is how she makes her living and so she is quite disciplined about the time she spends painting each day. She works from photographs – of nature, animals, flowers, and various human models she's collected images of. I was a model for her many years ago and get a thrill each time I recognize some part of my anatomy, if not all of me, in a painting. Her paintings are for sale at the Hummingbird Gallery here in Monteverde, where I once worked, and I often stop and visit with the owners and look at the fresh crop of Sarah's water colors. They range from very green jungle scenes with nudes running through the foliage, to underwater sea life, to vibrant exotic flowers. Simply beautiful. Sarah gave me a painting that my likeness is in, standing in a pool at the base of a waterfall along with a nude man (the model was Bill Kucha, another artist). I have shown the painting to a couple of people and they knew that it was me and also know that I would happily be standing nude in a pool of water at the base of any waterfall. So thank you Sarah, for that gift.
Sarah's home and gallery in Punta Uva
Spending several hours in Sarah and her partner Mel's open-air home (a beach version of her Monteverde home) and studio, with her paintings, great coffee, and birds singing and howlers chuckling around the large open windows, talking about anything and everything we could in our attempt to catch up, was time spent in pure enjoyment. At some point, Sarah's grand-daughter, Ashanti, joined us. She is another enchanting four-year-old. We walked down the path to the beach and played in the water. It is always fun to be with a child just learning to swim and who is confident enough to take chances – the only way to learn. Sarah lost her own son, Singer, in a car accident a couple of years ago. She is finally recovering and there is no doubt that having Shanti close by, and the child's mom Connie (who gave me a fantastically relaxing massage on the beach), helps. To have a bit of her son alive in this funny, smart, energetic little girl is another gift.
Sarah and Shanti on the beautiful beach at Punta Uva
We saw a sloth. This is my favorite animal here and this was the first of many I saw this week. I've had many great sloth experiences. The first one I saw my first year here was on this coast, a dead one, washed up after a few days of terrible rains that had no doubt knocked down the tree that the sloth was in and washed the poor animal out to sea. My Tico friend, Macho, and I came upon it, this peaceful looking creature seemingly asleep on the beach, curled up like a baby, all covered in a fine coating of green – these animals live their lives in the trees, and are basically mammalized containers of chlorophyll. This poor little guy was very dead – I wanted to take pictures, they would have been beautiful, but Macho was appalled that I would take pictures of the dead, even an animal, and so we moved on (as I recall, it also involved returning to the cabin to get my camera – which was more of a problem than his reluctance).
Another time I protected a sloth as it slowly ran through downtown Cahuita very late at night. While the fiesta rages on in the bars, the sloths often make their way through town, holing up in the trees of the park, then making a "run" for it to get to the next bunch of trees. Well, if you have ever seen a sloth move, you want to pick them up and help them along. It is a silent movie slowed down to almost pause. But I can always imagine the inside of their little leaf-filled brains screaming, "run, man, run – I'm outa here", even as their long arms and legs slowly move them along the ground. That particular night, I fended off the drunken boys who wanted to harass the poor creature, and walked with him till he got safely back into the shadows. Gary Larsen, the cartoonist, has a great drawing called "what sloths do when no-one is around" – which shows a very happy sloth boogie-ing on the ground to the music from a boombox – and I identify with that. We tend to have ideas of how others live by how they appear – and we never really know what happens when the doors are shut, the lights are off, and there is no one else around.
These are turtle tracks, the mama come out of the sea to lay her eggs…could be tractor tracks come to dig up the beach…we spent awhile raking the tracks away so noone would find the nest and steal the eggs.
The amount of growth in Puerto Viejo is staggering – as in so many parts of the country. The issue of concern now is the proposal to build a large marina. The original concept was for 400 slots! That would bring an immense amount of traffic off the seas into this already bursting town. They have downsized it to one hundred berths and even that will make a disaster of the reef, the sea, and the community. I didn't spend a lot of time investigating this – I just look at development as it has occurred in so many parts of this little country and see that the planning has been haphazard, the execution swift, and the result often devastating to many, while obviously profitable to others. Of course, there is that idea of not stopping progress, but there is also that big question "is this really what you call progress?" Hmmmmm…
I left Puerto and went half an hour up the road to my old stomping grounds of Cahuita. There has always been a huge difference between these two neighbouring communities. People tend to be either a Cahuita person or a Puerto person (like red and black beans I guess). Back in 1990 I spent a week in Cahuita and fell in love with it – and then traveled down to Puerto for one night before quickly returning to Cahuita. Whatever the differences were then, they are more obvious now – Puerto Viejo has grown immensely and stretches over a large area and it is busy with a surfer-dude subculture due to the legend of the Salsa Brava wavebreak (even though I think it was negatively affected by an earthquake years ago that shifted the coral reef) – Cahuita is smaller and more laid back with an older crowd moving slower. In Cahuita everything takes place in a very small area – the two main bars for beer or dancing are beside each other and the beautiful white sandy beach and National Park is two blocks away. You can stay in a pension, walk two minutes to any restaurant for Caribbean food, dance, shop, and walk along the shady path that follows the beach until you get to the quiet waters where you can float or swim lazily. I always spend a lot of hours on that beach in the shade of the trees when I'm not afloat in the warm water of the Caribbe.
I have known many characters in this town – some pretty unsavory, others classic Caribbean. I won't get into what I have seen and witnessed over the years, for without explanation I know it all sounds rough. But being on the Atlantic is a very different culture than in other parts of Costa Rica – one that is very laid back up until there is a problem between people, then it can be very aggressive. As long as you don't put yourself in the middle of anything, you have no worries. The drug trade has affected this coast perhaps more than other parts of the country (though all of Costa Rica has become a clearing house for Columbian cocaine and marijuana). It is not far across the sea from South America to this coastline and people work at making money in their nefarious ways. Unfortunately, you also see the affects on the people themselves of a poor economy mixed with cheap drugs and the opportunity to make a fast buck. I've seen the result on many friends on both coasts who have fallen to the constant fiesta. But these temptations are part of life all over Costa Rica, as well as in many other parts of the world. And you can either focus on that and reject the place, or appreciate the other aspects of the Caribbean culture, the warmth of the people, the spice of the food, the relax of life stewed in coconut juices.
In short order, I bumped into my old friend Roberto. We go way back, a history of love, friendship, and conversation. There is a famous song written by a Cahuitan calypsonian, Walter Ferguson, called "Cabin in the Water." My friend Manuel Monestel and his group Cantoamerica play and have recorded this song (Walter himself recorded it, finally, at the age of 83) – it tells the story of Bato, a man who built himself a simple cabin in the water off of the beach and was living there when Cahuita National Park was created. The administrator of the park came and told him, "Bato, you can't live here, this is now a National Park." He held his own for a long time but eventually moved up to another beach. Bato was a very interesting man. If you came across him in his hammock on the beach, you'd think he was just the marine equivalent of a street person – but he was actually a very intelligent, poetic philosopher. He knew what was going on in the world. I knew Bato through the 90s when I spent a lot of time here (he died about six years ago) and would go and sit and visit with him. Even as an old man, he never lost his ability to attract females, even young ones, and was quite the charmer. But my business with him was talking – listening to his tales and his ideas, told in his lilting Caribbean patois. I was always amazed how his home changed – one year I would arrive and his house would be a construction as big as a castle, built by driftwood, flotsam and jetsam that had washed up from huge storms. He would have walls, roof, tables, bed (although still sleep in his hammock) and decoration. The next time I came, the sea would have taketh away, and he was back to the simplicity of his hammock, maybe starting with another table assembly from fresh driftwood. He was a man who chose to live life with little money and less possession, but still lived. He wasn't always a nice man, but he was an interesting one. And my friend Roberto is his son.
Roberto Levey grew up in Cahuita, was on his own by the time he was fourteen years old, and moved to San José where he became a shoemaker. He came back after twenty years to Cahuita and lived in a little casita a few minutes walk from town. When I met him in 1994, he was a fisherman and sold organic fruits from the trees on his land. A rasta with a life time growth of dreads on his head, he lived a very earthy life by the sea. I was charmed by his kindness and his positive energy and his humor, but truly impressed with his intelligence. He sang in local reggae and calypso bands and wrote poetry. His house had his own graffiti all over it. He was a friend to me and my old boyfriend, Macho, and we often camped in his yard and he fed us breadfruit and akee. Nothing was sweeter in Cahuita than lounging in his hammock and listening to him reciting poetry or talking politics or explaining the Caribbean culture which was very different from anything I knew. As I got to know his father, I could see the genetics, even though Roberto had never lived with him. He inherited his father's way of viewing the world and living his life, with a minimum of money and a whole lot of interest in what made the world go around and a great sense of humor about even the ugliest of human behavoir.
Women easily fall in love with him, as I did, and he has children on three continents. The phenomena of foreign women coming to exotic places and getting pregnant by, sometimes marrying, perhaps taking the local boys home is easy to criticize but more complicated in its effect on both the beach men and the foreign women. Roberto is not happy that he has five children who live far away from him – as they get older, they will no doubt reappear in his life, or at least some probably will. In the meantime, their father continues to live his life just as his father before him did, under the shade of tropical trees, to the rhythm of the calypsonians, holding on to the idea that love and peace are worthy goals. I saw Roberto a couple of years ago and he was in a very hurting state, his heart once again broken and so he was surviving by medicating himself – at the time I could only admonish him, tell him that he was worth so much more, plead with him to get it back together, and leave him with the hope that he would come through this horrible period. When I arrived this year, I knew that he was back to himself, smiling, thinking, warm and relaxed. He had bought a little piece of jungle a short walk out of Cahuita and was living, just like his father, off the land, making just enough money by selling produce when he needed to, and living in his own peace.
I told him that I'd like to give him a copy of Walking with Wolf as long as he'd read it and he said he was very interested. So as I floated in the sea, I'd look up and see him reading and when I came out of the water, he'd talk about what he had been reading, asking questions and expressing his own take on some line I'd written or statement of Wolf's. It was as pleasant of an intercourse about the book as I've had with anyone. If you saw Roberto, his heavy head of dreads tied up over his 55-year-old face with white beard, his clothes smelling of the wood stove he cooks on, and his poverty obvious, you'd probably assume he was just another pothead with too much party going on and little to live for. And once again, you'd have judged the man quite differently from his reality. I spent a morning sitting by the stream outside his jungle shack and the conversation never bored or stalled. I felt privileged to have been invited to Roberto's home in the jungle.
Sarah Dowell is anxious to return to Monteverde, in a large way because of the level of thinking and depth of conversation that exists throughout this community. She repeated a line from a Bill Bryson book that says "the cheery vacuity of beach life", and she is dying from that particular virus. But in my week on the beautiful sands of the Caribbean, spent with Sarah, Susana and Roberto, I never lacked for intelligent conversation and intriguing analysis of life and society. Maybe I'm just lucky in the people I know, yet often they are not at all what they appear to be. Fortunately I've learned to look past the color or state of the paint on peoples' houses and that ability has led to some of the richest experiences of my life.


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