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"We're going to be moving so fast that you have no room for error. It's going to come down to who comes out on top in
those scrambles." - John Dodson
John Dodson is equal parts Pinky and the Brain.
Nine months ago, prior to his first fight in the UFC's new flyweight division, the long-time Team Jackson-Winkeljohn representative unveiled his ambitious plans for world domination: three titles in three different weight classes, starting with the flyweight belt.
Like the genius half of the genetically-modified cartoon duo, Dodson was dreaming big, and he had already crafted the blueprint for how to turn his dreams into reality all laid out in his head. He'd start with the flyweight title, and work his way up, sticking around each division long enough to defend the title a couple times and solidify his standing as champion prior to moving up in weight to conquer another weight class.
Like the hyperactive, happy-go-lucky half of the greatest mouse tag team in history, the 28-year-old veteran was also just happy to finally be competing on the biggest stage in the sport, hopeful that he could entertain the masses with his rambunctious brand of fighting.
Saturday night, Dodson will get to indulge both halves of his cartoon alter-egos when he steps onto the biggest stage of his career opposite Demetrious Johnson in a battle for the UFC flyweight title live on FOX.
"Not that many people get to do it. It's one of the things every fighter dreams about," admitted Dodson in a deliberate, reflective manner, a departure for the man who usually speaks as quickly as he moves inside the cage. "Not only am I headlining an event – a major event – I'm headlining on national TV. People can go watch it on FOX. Shoot, I get to fight on one of the biggest stages across the globe; not just this nation – across the globe.
"I'm going to go out there with the biggest smile, dancing my way into the Octagon, and enjoying every single moment of it. I don't know when I'm going to die, but I want to remember this moment forever."
Getting the chance to fight for a UFC title is something Dodson wasn't sure he was ever going to get to do in his career.
After being discussed and speculated about for some time, the flyweight division only came to life in the sport's premier organization last March, when Johnson, Ian McCall, Joseph Benavidez, and Yasuhiro Urushitani ushered in the 125-pound ranks with the semifinal round of a four-man tournament to crown the division's first champion.
And it was only a little more than a year earlier that the UFC adopted the featherweight and bantamweight classes as well, bringing over the 145- and 135-pound divisions from the WEC, a move that ended up giving Dodson the opening he needed to win his way onto the roster through Season 14 of The Ultimate Fighter.
"I had a lot of ups and downs in this sport," reflected Dodson, who started his career in 2004. "Coming into the UFC, coming onto The Ultimate Fighter, I always wondered if there was going to be a light at the end of the tunnel for me. I was sitting in the dark wondering where I was going to go, what I was going to do. When the big fights were going to come through? Do I have to go up a weight class? Should I retire and get a real job?
"I never wanted to (walk away). These are my dreams, and they've started to come true, and that's why I smile so much every time I'm in the Octagon, walking out, getting punched. I feel like I'm getting to fulfill my dreams.
"I actually stayed because of coaching," continued the 15-5 flyweight title challenger. "Coaching everyone else kept me motivated to fight myself. It helped me stay in the game when all those guys are telling me how much they want to see me fight, and understanding what I was going through. Helping those other fighters learn and get better, they were the ones encouraging me to stay in the game, and keep looking for fights."
That's part of what makes Saturday night in Chicago so special for Dodson.
Along with "The Magician," this weekend's fight card for the UFC's return to FOX features several other members of the Jackson-Winkeljohn fight team Dodson has been an integral part of for his entire career.
"It makes it so much better for me because I get to enjoy it with my team," said Dodson, who will follow teammates Shawn Jordan, Clay Guida, and Donald Cerrone into the cage on Saturday night. A fifth member of the team, middleweight Buddy Roberts, was scheduled to compete, but was forced out of his bout with Michael Kuiper due to an illness. "The people that have been helping me grow as a fighter are going to be there – my teammates, my coaches, my family – and they're all going to be supporting me, and watching me go out there. That's all I care about."
It might be what he cares most about heading into tomorrow night's meeting with Johnson, but it's not really all the charismatic contender cares about.
Dodson also cares deeply about exciting the crowd and giving them their money's worth when he takes to the cage. Thus far, the flyweights have received a rather frosty reception, with Johnson and Benavidez fighting for a place in the history books to a soundtrack of boos in Toronto, while Dodson and Jussier "Formiga" da Silva received a similar response when they fought a month later in Minneapolis.
"It's heartbreaking to tell you the truth," Dodson said of the competing with a chorus of boos echoing throughout the arena. "To always hear them booing makes you want to try and step up, do something impressive so they can start cheering. You always want the fans on your side throughout the fight – it gives you that extra motivation, that extra boost when you're down and out.
""With Formiga, he's a tough opponent, and I was trying to take it technical, but apparently the fans don't like it when you think. They want you to give them mayhem and carnage all the time."
Dodson eventually delivered carnage, stopping the highly respected Brazilian newcomer with a flurry of punishment late in the second round to vault himself into position opposite Johnson.
It's a fight that Dodson has been eying for the last year, and not solely because a win would bring him the first of the three titles he ambitiously hopes to acquire over his career.
He and "Mighty Mouse" are viewed as two of the fastest competitors in the UFC, and a bout between the two has the potential to be a frenetic blend of kicks and punches, takedowns and scrambles; technique and precision mixed with calculated risk-taking, all delivered at 100 miles per hour.
"We're going to be moving so fast that you have no room for error," assessed Dodson. "It's going to come down to who comes out on top in those scrambles. Who cuts better corners? Who can make the tighter punches? Who can have a shorter distance on their takedowns? Who can pick them up faster? Who can hit his reversal or sweep? Who can attack first off a break?
"Those are all going to be things that are major, major factors in this fight because Demetrious is so technically sound he can keep people in a slow pace when he's moving backwards so that they drop their guard, and then he attacks. We'll see if I can capitalize on that or if he can capitalize on something I'm going to do.
"I know he's going to use everything in his arsenal and try to really push for those takedowns. His level changes are among the best in the game, so knowing that I have to compete with such a strong wrestler, I have to be able to be ready for that, and prepare for me scrambles. I had to go back to basics with my own wrestling – doing sprawls, getting back my speed, having fast shots, and fast defense – just so I can compete with this dude. I want to make sure we have a good fight and I can match him in every area to the point where I have no disadvantages in any area, and it can be a straight-up brawl.
"I'm going to hit him as many times as I can, and one of those is going to put him down. I'm either going to hit him with a body shot or one to the face – probably a combination of both. Maybe I'll hit him with a "Dragon Punch" like in Dragon Ball Z."
For the animated flyweight challenger, emerging from the cage victorious on Saturday night would be validation of his persistence, and a realization of one his dreams.
Winning UFC gold is a life-changing experience and a career-defining moment, but as much as Dodson will revel in the excitement if he defeats Johnson, it's not going to change his long-term plans.
"To tell you the truth – I would probably be the happiest man in the world at that time. It probably wouldn't really hit me until two weeks later that I'm the actual champion, but at that point in time, it would be one of those life-changing events. It'd be like winning the lottery, and not the little lottery where you win $7 million – the one where you win $746 million."
Dodson releases a rapid-fire laugh, and then unveils more of his blueprint for dominating the UFC's three lightest weight classes.
"If I do win the title, I want to defend it a couple times so I can solidify my championship status. You're not a real champion until you defend the belt. I want to do that in each weight class. If I can do that at 125, I would like to go up, win that belt, defend it a couple times, and go back down to '25, defend that again, and then go up to 145."
In other words, as much as waking up with the flyweight championship in his possession on Sunday morning will be something he'll never forget, come Sunday night – and every night after that – the plan remains the same: try to take over the world.
UFC Performance Institute
Dana White On The Opening Of UFC PI Mexico


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DORAL, Fla. – The statement released by his handlers was almost as bad as the kid's decision to walk out on the tournament.
It was the first big mistake of his career, at a time when the golf world was enthralled by such a young talent. He was criticized by the press and by his peers for his selfish behavior, though there was hope that he at least would learn from his mistake.
This was Tiger Woods, 1996.
In his fourth straight PGA Tour event since turning pro, the 20-year-old Woods effectively locked up a spot on tour with his tie for third in the B.C. Open. The next week he had another sponsor's exemption to the Buick Challenge. Woods showed up at Callaway Gardens before abruptly leaving town, and IMG released a statement that he was exhausted. It looked even worse when Woods didn't even stick around for the Fred Haskins Award dinner to honor him as college player of the year.
Eleven days later, Woods won in Las Vegas and all was forgotten.
That's the best way out for Rory McIlroy. Good golf goes a long way.
McIlroy laid the foundation for seeking forgiveness in a 25-minute telephone interview Sunday night with Sports Illustrated. He said what everyone else suspected: It was frustration over his game and not pain from his wisdom tooth that led him to walk out on the Honda Classic just eight holes into his second round. He was 7-over par, and with his second shot in the water on No. 18, it was about to get worse.
So he turned in his scorecard and bolted for the parking lot.
"What I should have done is take my drop, chip it on, try to make a 5 and play my hardest on the back nine, even if I shot 85," McIlroy told the magazine. "What I did was not good for the tournament, not good for the kids and the fans who were out there watching me. It was not the right thing to do."
Expect to hear much of the same when he speaks Wednesday at Doral.
He was practicing at The Bear's Club just hours after he withdrew from the Honda Classic. Ernie Els saw him "practicing his tail off" all weekend, and then McIlroy played Monday afternoon in the Pro-Member tournament at Seminole. They spoke privately. That's all the Big Easy would share.
"We'll see what he says tomorrow," Els said.
It really doesn't matter.
Most reasonable people know by now that Boy Wonder made a boyish blunder. Jack Nicklaus weighed in by saying if only McIlroy had waited five more minutes, he would have thought the better of leaving. There's nothing McIlroy can do to change that now, and nothing he can say that will change anyone's opinion.
"When it comes to being where he's at, you've got to maybe think a little bit more than two minutes," Els said. "In a couple of years' time, he won't even think about this or talk about this. If he wins this week, it will be the last thing we talk about. It will be history, and that's what it should be. It's something that's happened and we should move on from that. He's a great kid. He's a great player. And if he admits he's made a mistake, then that's that, and let's move on."
The 23-year-old from Northern Ireland won his second major last year, captured the money title on the two biggest tours, swept all the important awards and established himself as No. 1 in the world. He also signed a big deal with Nike said to be worth upward of $20 million a year. And he was eager to prove it.
McIlroy noticed a flaw in his swing when he watched the first Nike commercial he made with Woods. There are questions about how well he is adjusting to the driver and the golf ball, even though his bad play the last two tournaments was attributed to his iron game.
He told Sports Illustrated he needed to be more like Woods.
"He might be the best athlete ever in terms of his ability to grind it out," McIlroy said. "I could have a bit more of that, if I'm honest."
Honesty has rarely been a problem for McIlroy.
He was probably too honest when he told three reporters who followed him to his car that he was "not in a good place mentally." When he blew a four-shot lead in the final round of the 2011 Masters with an 80, he stood in the locker room and took every question about his epic meltdown. He was honest on Twitter when he lashed out at a TV reporter who questioned McIlroy's caddie, referring to the reporter as a failed player and telling him to "shut up."
Justin Rose knows about expectations.
He was 17 when he tied for fourth in the 1998 British Open at Royal Birkdale, turned pro a week later and missed the cut in his first 21 cuts as a pro. He later realized that fans didn't care as much about his results as he thought they did. He worked his way out of the slump eventually and now is No. 5 in the world.
"I guess you can play your way out of trouble a lot quicker when you're No. 1 in the world," Rose said. "Facing a little bit of pressure and expectation that's on Rory right now, he has the skill set and the talent to possibly turn it around a lot quicker."
The sooner the better.
McIlroy has played only 80 holes in three tournaments this year — a missed cut, a first-round loss in the Match Play Championship, and a withdrawal. He has gone through rough patches before. It was only 10 months ago that he missed four cuts in five tournaments. His shoulders sagged. He threw a few clubs.
But he never walked off the course without finishing, and that makes you wonder if his psyche is really that fragile.
He has two more tournaments on his schedule before the Masters, and the good news about Doral is that it's a World Golf Championship with no cut. McIlroy is guaranteed four rounds for the first time this year. The first step is his press conference Wednesday.
For McIlroy, honesty will go a long way toward putting this behind him.
Winning will go even further.

subset: commoncrawl


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"My last fight was so unsettling and frustrating that, in a way, it made
everything I did before that fight not matter. It felt as if it was
erased. Now it feels as if I'm starting over" - Jake Ellenberger
The thrill of victory is the ultimate motivator for an athlete, but there are times when an unsettling defeat can fuel the fires of determination to new levels. This is the position UFC welterweight Jake Ellenberger currently finds himself in and "The Juggernaut" is eager to return to the win column.
The Omaha native battled his way to the upper tier of his division on the strength of a six fight win streak. Following his unanimous decision victory over Diego Sanchez, Ellenberger appeared to be at the helm of the rising tide as he moved within striking distance of a title shot. But that momentum came to a halt after he suffered a loss at the hands of fellow contender Martin Kampmann in June.
The defeat to "The Hitman" threatened to reshuffle Ellenberger in the competitive deck of the 170-pound weight class, but rather than allow himself to tread in the waters of an opportunity lost, he used the experience to propel forward on the quest for self-growth.
It is a journey which has remained the foundation of his very career and Ellenberger is excited to display his reinvigorated passion and progression.
"I'm hungrier now more than ever," Ellenberger said. "I had some early success in the UFC but this last bump in the road has only made me realize how bad I want this and just how much I want to succeed. My last fight was so unsettling and frustrating that, in a way, it made everything I did before that fight not matter. It felt as if it was erased. Now it feels as if I'm starting over.
"In a way it feels as if my back is against the wall coming off a loss, and I have to reset and refocus. You have to put that behind you and realize this is MMA and anything can happen. I've definitely worked on my patience and not being reckless. I'm extremely focused, disciplined and there's nothing I want more."
Throughout his career, the Marine Corps veteran has learned to adapt to the changes which come with the fight game. While originally slated to face welterweight bad boy Josh Koscheck, an injury forced the former contender out of the bout and the UFC tapped veteran Jay Hieron to step in.
Then the two men were set to square off in Las Vegas at UFC 151, but the card's cancellation pushed the matchup to Minneapolis for UFC on FX 5. It will be a rematch from a previous meeting under the now defunct IFL banner. In that bout, Hieron emerged victorious by way of unanimous decision and handed a young Ellenberger the first loss of his professional career. It is a favor he plans on returning on Saturday night.
The co-main event bout will also mark Hieron's first step inside the Octagon since 2007. While "The Thoroughbred" has kept busy in other promotions, Ellenberger has surged on the sport's biggest stage against some of the world's best. Ellenberger isn't necessarily convinced this issue will factor into the fight, but make no mistake about it; a fight is what he intends to bring.
"I would like to think the level of competition I've been facing will be a factor in this fight, but at the same time I can't really say it will," Ellenberger said. "I've definitely been facing better competition in my opinion, but he's still a dangerous guy. I can't look past that at all. I've seen a lot of his fights and there were a few that were controversial decisions, but he's still done very well. I can't overlook that.
"It is weird how things work out. When Jay was signed on for the fight it was kind of surprising to me, but we don't choose who we fight. At this level everyone is tough and there are no easy fights. Jay is really similar to Koscheck in a lot of ways. He is athletic, a good wrestler and has solid striking. He is pretty good everywhere, but my focus is on where I'm confident. I have to go in there with him again and prove that I'm the best. He's just another guy I have to face.
"I'm coming into this fight a lot more focused and disciplined. I'm constantly improving and I'm looking to make this into a fight. I think it's a good matchup for me and not a good fight for his welcome back to the UFC."
With a strong test directly in front of him, Ellenberger's focus is laser sharp. He understands the dividends of victory and the consequences of defeat. But despite the pressures which come from fighting at the sport's highest level, what matters most to Ellenberger is his ability to grow as a mixed martial artist. It is what he believes will bring him to his ultimate goal of one day holding championship gold.
"My focus has never really been on my opponent," Ellenberger said. "It has been on my progression and quest for improvement. That may sound a bit selfish, but to be successful you almost have to be. There are a lot of things I know well but at the same time there are things I have yet to learn. I'm not oblivious to that at all.
"When you are an extremely competitive athlete, the quest for self-improvement is never ending. You are always asking questions and looking to improve in every aspect possible. You can never stop learning. I'm very happy, but at the same time I'm not content. There are still a lot of unsettled feelings and things I want to get better at. I really want to make a statement.
"One thing I've always strived to do is be really confident in my strengths and what I'm good at. I've always believed if I could optimize what I'm really good at, it will keep me successful. I'm still fighting for one reason and that's to become the world champion. That's it. If I continue to focus on my strengths and use more discipline, I believe I can reach that goal."
UFC Performance Institute
Dana White On The Opening Of UFC PI Mexico


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Balancing Act #279 Houston Llew Summer 2023 Release (part 2)
"Take each step with care and intention, and you will find balance along the way." – Lao Tzu
This is the second part to Houston Llew's Summer release. Like a flamingo standing on one leg, we all know the feeling that balancing act.
Every Spiritile by Houston Llew is handcrafted in Atlanta, GA. From American made copper, glass and wood. Finely ground colored glass is hand-painted on copper, then fired by kiln at 1500 degrees. It's like drawing with sand, Houston says, then toasting it on a very hot fire.
Spiritiles visually share the brilliant moments that make up your unique story. As gifts, they share brilliant moments with the people you love. They can wall hang or stand alone, and will never fade or tarnish.
Molten Glass on Copper Tile
Tile Size: 5.25 X 1.75 X 8.5 in.
Here is Nicole to tell you a little about the Spiritiles:
About the Artist:
It is not a simple task to branch out from an established medium and create something new. Late night hours, artist wages, and ramen noodles join the blood, sweat, and tears of growing a new art concept from a classic medium. But all of the hard work and long hours can pay off when combined with a vision for telling stories in enameled wall art. Houston Llew started his venture inside a hot garage in Atlanta in the summer of 2008- at the depths of the worst recession since the Great Depression.
A combined vision for art and an eternal optimism turned a dreary economic situation into an opportunity as Spiritiles deliver a beautifully handmade art product to a market looking for affordable pieces to show their fine art collectors. Today, Houston no longer makes Spiritiles out of a garage -"Llewtopia," as he calls it, is an expanding art studio near downtown Atlanta employing ten full-time artists and artisans as of October 2013.
Each Spiritile is carefully handmade using a series of intricate stencil techniques. From the beginning, Houston's vision for his enameled artworks drew from the beauty of simplicity. He sought after animagistic theme for his work rather than pursuing the abstract often seen in other enameled wall art. The image is just the beginning – each piece is paired with a quote sgraffitoed around the sides to create an inspiring story through words and images in glass.
Inside look at the enameling process:


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PITTSBURGH -- The Pittsburgh Steelers remain convinced they're a tweak or two away from another Super Bowl run. The Cleveland Browns, meanwhile, are ready to start all over. Again.
There's nothing stopping them now.
Ben Roethlisberger threw three short touchdown passes, and the Steelers avoided their first losing season in nearly a decade with a 24-10 victory over the Browns on Sunday in a meaningless finale that merely served as a speed bump to impending change for both franchises.
New owner Jimmy Haslam already pushed out team president Mike Holmgren, and there's a good chance general manager Tom Heckert and head coach Pat Shurmur will follow Holmgren out the door.
Shurmur -- who is 9-23 in two seasons -- gave an emotional postgame address to his players after another competitive game slipped away in the second half. While he hasn't spoken to Haslam about his status, Shurmur could sense his tenure is now measured in hours, not years.
"We really did not win enough games and we're not competing next week," he said. "I was never really worried about (next year) and I have no regrets."
Pittsburgh, however, certainly does.
The Steelers were 6-3 and rolling in early November. Their victory on Sunday was only their second in their last seven games, a collapse that will send them home before New Year's Day, well short of the standard set by the team with seven Super Bowl titles.
"It's a disappointing season just as far as the talent we have," linebacker Larry Foote said. "We're 8-8, that's who we are. We've got to own it. A lot of letdowns, a lot of pluses too. We just didn't get it done."
Yet even with nothing on the line than the chance to avoid the first losing season in nearly a decade, the Steelers found a way to beat the Browns. Pittsburgh's top-ranked defense forced four turnovers and Roethlisberger hit Antonio Brown, Plaxico Burress and Leonard Pope for scores.
"I said earlier in the week that we wanted to come out and finish the year with a win and have a good feeling going into the offseason," Roethlisberger said. "That is what we did. I'm proud of the way the guys finish."
Cleveland's mistakes marred an otherwise steady NFL debut third-string quarterback, Thaddeus Lewis, who completed 22 of 32 passes for 204 yards with a touchdown and an interception. The Browns outgained Pittsburgh 320-212 but were undone by Lewis' ill-timed pass right into the hands of Steelers safety Troy Polamalu and three fumbles -- two in Cleveland territory.
"We just need to find a way to win, stats mean nothing," Browns linebacker Craig Robertson said. "You have two columns, wins and losses. That's all that matters."
Shurmur insists the building blocks are in place and for a brief stretch this season the Browns looked as if they had turned a corner. Cleveland put together a three-game winning streak spanning late November and early December that had some doing the complicated math necessary to put the Browns in the playoffs.
The optimism died just as quickly as it arose. Cleveland came back to earth in a 38-21 whipping at the hands of the Washington Redskins two weeks ago, followed by a blowout loss in Denver. Given a chance to sweep their biggest rivals for the first time in 24 years, the Browns instead lost to the Steelers in the regular-season finale for the fourth time in the last five seasons.
The changes in Pittsburgh won't be so widespread, but with an aging roster and salary cap issues. Nose tackle Casey Hampton, linebacker Larry Foote, offensive tackle Max Starks and wide receiver Mike Wallace are among those who will be free agents.
"You want everybody back but you know that is not what is going to happen," Roethlisberger said.
The Steelers insisted they wanted to end a miserable December with some dignity but hardly appeared interested during most of the first half. Playing in a rare meaningless finale, Pittsburgh sputtered for long stretches in front of the smallest crowd in Heinz Field's 12-year history. The Steelers needed more than a quarter to pick up a first down as Roethlisberger struggled to stay comfortable.
The Browns, trying to win one for their embattled coach, were a little livelier but no more effective.
Shurmur, injecting a bit of risk-taking in a tenure filled with playing it safe, called a fake punt from the Cleveland 25 early in the third quarter that Ray Ventrone turned into a 35-yard gain, equaling the team's longest run of the season.
The Browns tied it at 10 a few plays later when Lewis found Greg Little for a 7-yard touchdown pass.
The veteran wide receiver -- brought in over a month ago to shore up a depleted unit -- took a pair of bows after his first scoring catch in a year. It was a fitting gesture considering the Steelers soon exited stage right. A season that brimmed with hope after a win over the Giants on Nov. 4 collapsed in a five-week span that included four costly losses.
"I don't want to sweep it under the rug because we had some good times this year," Foote said. "But the expectation here is we've got to win."
NOTES: Polamalu's interception was his first of the season and 30th of his career ... Phil Dawson's 51-yard field goal in the second quarter tied for the second-longest in Heinz Field history ... Lewis was the 18th different quarterback to start for the Browns since 1999 ... Roethlisberger is 7-0 at home against the Browns ... Cleveland PR Joshua Cribbs passed Dennis Northcutt as the team's all-time leader in punt return yardage.
Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press


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Sep 9, 2013
Local law enforcement officials are hoping a new tool along U.S. 41 will help police find people who have outstanding warrants. Through a partnership with Lamar Advertising and law enforcement in Winnebago County, Digital Billboards are now advertising mug shots of those who are wanted.
Read more »
Aug 27, 2013
Tennessee football is ready for the season to get going, and it is sporting an entirely new look in 2013. The Vols have a new coach, new uniforms, and now, a fancy new billboard marking their territory.


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Contact Info
Dignity Memorial | West Resthaven Funeral Home
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We are proud to be a member of the Dignity Memorial® network of more than 1,600 funeral, cremation and cemetery service providers. When you choose a Dignity Memorial provider, you not only receive the compassionate care you expect from a locally operated establishment, but also the value you deserve from the largest and most trusted network of funeral, cremation and memorialization services. We understand losing a loved one is an emotional and difficult experience, and we are committed to helping our client families with compassionate, professional and personal service.
All of our services are designed to help our client families through one of the most personal and challenging stages of life. As a Dignity Memorial provider, we offer an array of unmatched services, including National Transferability of Prearranged Services, Bereavement Travel Services, a 24-Hour Compassion Helpline® and much more.


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Cooking is much more fun when you have all the right gear to make your food dreams into food reality. If you have a contentious relationship with your kitchen, the problem may have to do with things like dull knives or the wrong tools, requiring you to undertake boring, repetitive tasks to make the simplest things. We teamed up with a group of chefs to come up with a list of gear for your kitchen that will transform the way you cook—and eat—without breaking the bank. [jump]
I love to cook, and I think part of the fun for me is having the toys in my kitchen to play with when a recipe strikes my fancy or I get a crazy idea. Of course cooking is going to be more fun when you have the right equipment—laboring away in an under-equipped kitchen can lead to a ton of time-consuming, boring, manual labor that could be easily accomplished with the right multi-taskers in your kitchen cabinets. You just need to have the right equipment on hand to make cooking fun again. To find out, I asked three chefs which kitchen items they can't live without—the tools they suggest every home cook have. Here's what they said.
A Good, Sharp Knife
If you haven't used a quality knife while cooking, you haven't lived. There's nothing like flying through kitchen tasks with a trusty, sharp blade to make you feel like at home in the kitchen. Just make sure you buy quality, buy sharp, and buy a knife that compliments you. We'll get to that in a moment, but before we go further it's worth noting you don't have to break the bank on quality knives—consider them an investment, but there's no need to take out a second mortgage.
The Best Bang for Your Buck: Victorinox Fibrox 8 and 10-Inch Chef's Knives ($25/30)
We're big fans of the Victorinox 40520 8-inch Chef's Knife ($25) and the Victoninox 40521 10-inch Chef's Knife ($30), both of which perform like knives well over twice their price. We're not the only ones who think so—they've been recommended by Cool Tools and the folks at Cooks Illustrated.
Chef Anthony Thomas' explains, "Your knives do not need to be the latest and greatest available, only well maintained. Knives should fit who you are, your cooking style, your hand, and most importantly, your budget." We agree. Make sure you try out before you buy, and you should probably have two or three good, sharp knives that you like in your kitchen.
Keep Your Knives in Top Condition
Chef Thomas also suggests you keep your knives happy: "Sharp knives cut and dull knives tear. This is something that a chef in culinary school taught me and I will never forget it. Sharp knives allow you to be precise, get professional grade cuts, butcher proteins with ease and make chopping veggies a lot easier." He notes that if your knives are losing their edge, pick up a honing steel—something we've shown you how to use before. If you wait too long to use a honing steel and your knife is damaged, he suggests a 1000/6000 grit sharpening stone and a practiced hand. If you're not sure how to use a sharpening stone, read up first or find someone to do the job for you.
A Reliable Standing/Immersion Blender
Our chefs all agreed on the importance of having a good standing blender in your home, an immersion blender, or preferably both. They're versatile, useful for making drinks, soups, sauces, salad dressings, and just about anything else that requires you to mix liquids—and best of all, they save you from doing it by hand.
The Best Immersion Blender for Your Buck: The Cuisinart Smartstick ($30)
Chef Shaya Klechevsky explained that an immersion blender changed everything for him: "My life has literally been transformed from the invention of this amazing item. It's amazing for any kind of blending and instead of having to pour whatever you wish to blend into a blender, then pour it back out and have to wash the pesky blender pitcher, you just stick it into the pot or whatever is holding your ingredients, blend away, remove and then rinse! You're done!" Sounds good, but which one should you buy? He explains, "There are a bunch of different companies that make immersion blenders with various attachments (some have a food processor attachment and even a whisk attachment). The really good ones have at least 2 speed settings and some attachments. I would stick to known kitchenware brands however since you'd want a company you can trust in case you need to fix it." Sounds good to us. The Cuisinart Smartstick 200-watt immersion blender retails for less than $30 and comes highly recommended at Amazon, but if you're willing to spend a little more, $100 gets you this five-speed KitchenAid immersion blender with all the attachments you could possibly want.
The Best Standing Blender for Your Buck: The KitchenAid 5 Speed Standing Blender ($100)
What about a traditional standing blender? Chef Thomas says he can't live without his. "As a chef the blender is my go to tool. I love using it for a multitude of things. I can make sauces, emulsify vinaigrette, make soups (bisque), blend broths and much much more. You need a good, high quality blender, so if you are planning to splurge on your kitchen items this should be on the top of your list." A good blender doesn't have to cost a lot of money, but a super-cheap blender is almost always a bad one. Don't run out and spend $400 on the famous Total Blender from Blendtec, but do check out this KitchenAid 5 speed standing blender for $100. Fans of Good Eats may be more interested in this Waring Food and Beverage Blender, which Alton Brown often used on set, and is a little less expensive than the KitchenAid.
A Microplane, or Fine Zester/Grater
A fine hand grater is great for shredding cheese, grating spices, and more. Best of all, they're easily stored and inexpensive. You can pick one up without doing too much shopping around—just stick to a known brand and you'll be fine. Chef Chris Whitpan has a tip for you when you get one: "It shaves things very fine like hard cheeses and chocolate, but where it really shines is grating fresh nutmeg. It does a wonderful job of zesting citrus too." We couldn't agree more—there's nothing like grabbing a nutmeg seed and grating a little fresh nutmeg into your coffee, or getting real lemon or orange zest for your recipes as opposed to trying to peel off thin layers by hand. Photo by thebittenword.com.
The Best Fine Grater for Your Buck: The Microplane 46020 Premium Zester/Grater ($15)
Chef Thomas suggested making sure you get something with a pretty high grade—just to make the job of shredding anything you run across is easier, and to make sure your microplane grater will last as long as possible. For example, I have a variation on this $15 Cuisinart hand grater that I picked up at a department store on a whim. I have no complaints with it, but Microplane is actually a brand name, and if you're looking for the real thing, this Microplane professional grater and zester is the same price, and extremely well-liked. They're cheap and they'll change your world, trust us.
Trusty Cast-Iron Pans
The last time we talked about some must-have tools for your kitchen, we said you needed to have at least five good pots and pans. You should definitely have a few quality ones (Chef Thomas notes, "Spend a little extra to purchase copper bottomed pans and be wary of buying sets at huge retail stores. If they also sell clothes, it's probably not the best place to buy your pots and pans."), but when it comes to pans, we—and the chefs we spoke to—agree: cast iron is the way to go.
"When seasoned and maintained correctly they provide a unrivaled kitchen companion with even heating, a non-stick surface, and durability," Chef Thomas explained. "This is a must have for any home cook." Chef Klechevsky went further: "Any self-respecting kitchen will have, at minimum, a cast iron skillet. Maintenance on cast iron is mid-to-high, but I find that the benefits of the cookware outweigh the slight difficulty and of course its heft. Cast iron is great for good even heat, its versatility in being able to go from stovetop to oven immediately, and prolonged use (and proper cleaning) makes for even better seasoned cookware." Photo by Bruce.
The Best Cast Iron Pan for Your Buck: Lodge Logic 10-inch Pan ($17)
We've shown you several methods of seasoning your cast iron cookware in the past, so maintenance should be no trouble, but which should you pick up? Chef Klechevsky has a suggestion here, too. "You don't have to break the bank buying the highly stylized Le Creuset brand of cast iron (which is also enameled). I personally prefer the Lodge Logic brand of pre-season cast iron cookware. They're great quality, relatively inexpensive and already come pre-seasoned (update: a previous version of this story said the pre-seasoning was done with a Kosher oil. This was true in the past, but Lodge Logic has removed that statement from their site, and callers asking about it are told the oil is not Kosher, so we can only assume their pre-seasoning technique is no longer Kosher.). I love my Lodge Logic grill/griddle which could just as easily be used on a gas range, in the oven or directly onto a barbecue (also great for camping!). I also have a great 10" cast iron skillet which I've had for years and I love to cook with - especially tomato sauces for pasta!" That 10" Lodge cast iron skillet is only about $17 at Amazon, and I have one, so I can vouch for it too. I can also vouch for the Lodge grill/griddle pan he mentioned—it's about $40, and is staple in my kitchen as well, and does everything from steaks to bacon without blinking. When I'm done, it goes in the oven to keep its season while I bake other things.
An Easy to Use Timer and Thermometer: The Polder Digital Timer/Probe Thermometer ($25)
Another item that appeared on several of our chefs' must-have lists is a good digital read thermometer and timer. Specifically, this $25 Polder Digital Timer and Probe Thermometer. Good Eats fans may recognize this one too, Alton Brown used it when he wasn't using his trusty Thermapen. The Polder, however, features a heat-shielded cord to the probe (so you can keep the probe in your food and the thermometer base out of the oven while the door is shut), and the probe is detachable from the body so you can set the timer and carry it off with you. You can also set the thermometer to go off at a specific temperature, so you'll know the food is ready to eat by that beeping sound coming from your kitchen.
Bonus Gear: Salt and Pepper Mills, Pressure Cookers, and Other Items to Splurge On
In addition to the budget gear that we asked our chefs to put together, we also asked them what they thought would make a big impact in a home cook's life if they were to save the cash to buy it. Some of the items are small purchases that may sound superfluous (at least, until you have one in your own kitchen), and others are big purchases that are for the most dedicated home cooks and home bakers. Here's a quick rundown.
A quality salt mill and pepper grinder. Chef Thomas noted that both of these are small purchases, but there's no replacement for a good wooden salt mill and a quality pepper grinder. Find two that match your style, grinds the way you like, and use them often. In the same vein, Chef Whitpan suggests you always keep your kitchen stocked with a big box of kosher salt, a suggestion we can't argue with.
Le Cruset Cast-Iron Cookware. Even though we mentioned the brand earlier as one you don't have to buy, Chef Whitpan pointed out that if you can get your hands on some from a restaurant supply store or outlet, do it. They're definitely high-end and out of reach for most people, but he loves his: "The one that I just love, and have from the first time I cooked with it, is a good, solid, enamel coated cast iron pan. Nothing can compare to the distribution of the heat, the consistency of how it cooks, and it's even easy to clean. Who can ask for more? Start small, buy one at a time, buy seconds at an outlet with a coupon, and you can have a set rather affordably."
A Good Cutting Board. Again, the rules are pretty loose here, and you should get one that matches your style and the amount of prep space you have in our kitchen. If we can offer a few basic rules though, consider wood before plastic, and never glass—they'll damage your knives and if they ever break, you'll regret it. Chef Thomas reminds us that a good cutting board will make your job easier and even keep your knives sharper longer.
A Pressure Cooker. Chef Klechevsky says his pressure cooker is one of his favorite kitchen appliances. "I have one of those old school ones where you lock it into place and then it just builds up the pressure and you just cook. I also received as a gift a pressure cooker with a low and high-pressure setting so you have a greater level of control over the kind of pressure inside your pot. Whenever I can, I pull those pots out and get to work - it really saves me a tremendous amount of time in the kitchen."
A Chinoise strainer. If you love velvety soups and sauces, or vinaigrettes that are so smooth they seem to coat your tongue when you eat them, you'll want a Chinoise strainer. It's extremely fine mesh will strain out solids in just about any liquid you pass through it, and the end result will be smooth and silken. Chef Thomas explains, "This strainer is so fine that it makes for the smoothest sauces that you will ever taste. During my time working in a local restaurant, I had to use a Chinoise five times on a particular sauce. Yes, FIVE TIMES, but using it made it the silkiest sauce that I have ever tasted."
It's quite a shopping list, but odds are that if you're reading Lifehacker, you already have some of these in your kitchen. We know many of you have and cherish your cast iron pans, and many of you will have a lot to say about our knife selections—and are ready to offer your own!
So what would you add to the list? Do you have alternative suggestions for the gear we mentioned above? What does your must-have kitchen gear list look like? Share the tools you'd never set up a kitchen without in the comments below.
Chef Anthony Thomas hails from California and works for Fresh and Natural Food Service, Inc.
Chef Shaya Klechevsky is the owner of At Your Palate and the author of the At Your Palate Blog. He competed on an episode of Food Network's competition cooking show Chopped, and is a personal chef and food writer in the New York metro area.
Chef Chris Whitpan is a 20-year kitchen and restaurant management veteran, and the author of The Kitchen Hacker.
All of these gentlemen volunteered their expertise and experience for this post, and we thank them.
Title photo remixed from Aleksandra Novakovic (Shutterstock).


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R&B's biggest superstar of the new millennium, a vocal and performance dynamo with chart-busting albums, film roles, and married to rap mogul, Jay-Z. On September 4, 1981, was born Beyoncé Knowles, r&b vocalist.
One of the most recognizable figures in contemporary music, Beyoncé rose to fame as the central member of pop-R&B group Destiny's Child before embarking on a multi-platinum, record-breaking solo career in 2001. Booming record sales, Grammy awards, movie roles, and marriage to rapper/CEO Jay-Z combined to heighten her profile in the 2000s. Billboard named her female artist of the decade, while the RIAA acknowledged that, through 64 gold and platinum certifications, she was the decade's top-selling artist. Once she released her fifth solo album in 2013, it was evident that the singer, songwriter, and dancer wasn't merely an entertainer but a progressive artist as well. Born in Houston in September 1981, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles began performing at age seven, winning over 30 local competitions for her dancing and vocal abilities. She joined her cousin Kelly Rowland and classmates LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett in forming an adolescent vocal group. Mathew Knowles, Beyoncé's father and Rowland's legal guardian, signed on to be the girls' manager, eventually quitting his full-time job to focus on their efforts. This situation would ultimately lead to the creation of one of the most popular female R&B groups of all time -- Destiny's Child. Destiny's Child gained momentum throughout the '90s. They appeared on Star Search in 1992 (under the name Girls Tyme) and weathered several lineup changes before signing to Columbia in 1997. Four studio albums later, the group had officially become the best-selling female group of all time, with such smash hits as "Jumpin' Jumpin'," "Bills, Bills, Bills," "Say My Name," and "Survivor" bolstering the young women's momentum despite lawsuits from former members Roberson and Luckett (who contested Mathew Knowles' management, claiming he withheld profits and unjustly favored his daughter and niece). In 2001, Beyoncé, Rowland, and replacement member Michelle Williams allowed themselves a break from the group to pursue individual solo careers. Before landing several movie roles, Beyoncé became the first African-American female artist and second woman ever to win the annual ASCAP Pop Songwriter of the Year Award. An appearance in the MTV drama Carmen: A Hip Hopera quickly followed, but it was her role as Foxxy Cleopatra in 2002's Austin Powers in Goldmember that established her as a true Hollywood star. While her inclusion on the movie's soundtrack failed to chart nationally, Beyoncé's full-length solo debut, 2003's Dangerously in Love, reached multi-platinum status. Featuring collaborations with Sean Paul, Missy Elliott,OutKast's Big Boi, and romantic interest Jay-Z, the album spawned a total of four Top Ten singles and garnered the singer five Grammys. Destiny's Child reconvened the following year to release Destiny Fulfilled; upon completing the resulting tour, the group issued one final album, a greatest-hits compilation entitled #1's, and subsequently disbanded. Beyoncé turned her full attention to her burgeoning solo career. She released B'day in September 2006 and, three months later, turned in an award-winning performance for the movie musical Dreamgirls. The singer then embarked on theBeyoncé Experience concert tour and released a live DVD in November 2007. The following year proved to be another busy one as Beyoncé landed the role of Etta James in Cadillac Records, a musical biopic that explored the heyday of Chicago's Chess label. Shooting commenced in February 2008, with Beyoncé also serving as co-executive producer. One month before the film's December release, the singer released her third studio album, I Am...Sasha Fierce. The double-disc effort emphasized her two distinct personalities, allowing Beyoncé to explore both mainstream sounds and traditional R&B. Some live releases followed. Released in 2009, I Am...Yours, a CD/DVD set, documented an August 2009 performance at Wynn Las Vegas, while 2010's I Am...World Tour, available in separate audio and video formats, was recorded at London's significantly larger O2 Arena (a few months after the Vegas program). She followed ten Grammy nominations with 2011's 4, which debuted at the top of the Billboard 200. One of her most energetic and empowering tracks, "Run the World (Girls)," was issued as the lead single, while "Love on Top" eventually won a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance. Giving birth to Blue Ivy Carter in January 2012 didn't slow her down. Within a few months, she was performing in Atlantic City, and she later appeared at President Barack Obama's second inauguration. Joined by Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland, she headlined the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show.Life Is But a Dream, a documentary, first aired on HBO in February 2013, and was followed by appearances on albums by Rowland, the-Dream, and Jay-Z. New material, such as "Bow Down" and "Standing on the Sun," trickled out without proper release. Then, on December 13 -- with no preceding announcement -- Beyoncé released a self-titled album with accompanying videos. Her husband and daughter, along with Drake, Frank Ocean, and writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (via a sampled TED talk), made guest appearances. Knowles, assisted by the likes of Hit-Boy, Pharrell, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, and Miguel, co-wrote and co-produced the majority of the album's material. Like Beyoncé's four previous solo albums, it went to number one, and quickly went platinum in the U.S. "Honor the past, don't just remember it." Dizzie Gillespie https://www.facebook.com/groups/DukeofEarlGroup/ |
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Bonds 757: Well, that was fast. As quickly as "756" mania could hit sports fans, it's gone. Just another milestone en route to whatever Bonds' final total is. But every time Bonds jacks another -- and, at this pace, there will be many "anothers" -- the target moves. "756" had its 15 minutes of fame; much like the country's overall Bonds loathing, everything is moving on...
Meanwhile, 756-catcher Matt Murphy seems to have launched his media tour.
Reggie Miller on the Celtics? This is a genius idea by the team – and one that Miller, if he feels up to it, should accept (even though his specialty – jump-shooting – is exactly the same as Ray Allen's). "Let's get the old gang back together" is a wonderful motto: Every player ever thwarted for a ring should clamor out of retirement and join the Celtics. It's the "Dream Deferred Team."
PGA Championship: Umm, OK, I'll take Tiger.
NFL Camping: Did Saints LB Scott Fujita injure himself at a water park after a team excursion? What the hell is the team doing at a place as injury-magnetized as a water park?
Meanwhile, Big Ben had his foot stepped on and limped off the field. Mike Tomlin doesn't seem worried. Bet Ben slides in fantasy drafts held today, though.
MLB Dud: Dontrelle Willis, who hasn't won a game since May 29, going 0-9 with 4 NDs since then.
Who's Now: I'm late on this, but just to get some closure, please remember that when Who's Now launched, I predicted that Tiger Woods would win in a runaway -- why bother asking the question? Page 2's old obsession with brackets (for which I was a happy obsessive) foreshadowed how Who's Now would play out.
Mascots: The Steelers' new "Steely McBeam" could be the worst mascot name in history. It's as if the Steelers PR team didn't know that the default way to make fun of people is to call them "Something-y McSomething-Unflattering" (like Steely McEmbarrassment).
Prediction: "Steely McBeam" is either phased out (quickly) or abandoned (entirely) by the start of the regular season (if not by the end of next week).
Fantasy Markets: ProTrade is launching their NFL team stock-market valuations today. This might become my default way to evaluate where teams stand.
Varsity Dad: Have you seen the YouTube video of the baby crying whenever she hears the


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School just started Tuesday at Park Day, and there's only six weeks to go to the East Bay Mini Maker Faire. So to get in the mood and generate some juice, we've invited author, teacher and tinkerer Gever Tulley to speak to the Park Day School's Parent Participation Association on "The Maker Way of Learning." The talk will be this coming Wednesday evening, September 15th, at the Park campus's new Magnolia Building (old Matilda Brown building).
I first ran into Gever 4 years or so ago when searching for some un-boring content for a parent education series I was programming for my youngest son's preschool. Searching the internet, somehow I ran across Gever's now infamous TED talk, "5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do".
That 2007 talk has now morphed into a fabulous book, "50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)." Gever explores simple things that we can do to raise our kids to be creative, confident, and in control of the environment around us. Things like letting our kids play with fire, own a pocket knife, and throw a spear.
Gever is also co-founder of the Tinkering School, a sleep-away camp in San Mateo County where kids do hands-on exploration and experimentation, building and making.
Gever's spirit and approach might be summed up by his teenage babysitting rule: "If you're going to play with fire, we have to go outside." It took him many years to come back to that philosophy and shape it into a life's mission, but we're ever so glad he did — and are very happy to welcome him to Park Day School.
Gever's talk will cover the fundamental principles of Tinkering School and looks at how making can be a powerful alternative to traditional education approaches. (If you're interested in attending the lecture and are not a family at Park Day School, please write to email@example.com for more information.)


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WEST POINT, N.Y. (AP) — There are brothers in arms and bands of brothers, and now there are Noah, Sumner and Cole Ogrydziak, three Texas brothers who began their cadet training together at West Point this week.
For one of the few times in its long history, the U.S. Military Academy accepted three siblings into the same class. Twins Sumner and Cole, who just turned 18, and their 19-year-old brother, Noah, of Nederland in southeast Texas, have each signed on for four years of academics and military training. If all three make it through the rigorous program, they will simultaneously toss their caps into the air as newly commissioned second lieutenants in the Army in 2017.
"It helps knowing that your brothers are here, even though we're going to be separated all across campus in different companies, but I'm sure we'll see each other and it will help keep morale a little bit higher," Sumner said after a bus dropped the brothers off early Monday along with some 1,200 new arrivals.
Within hours of their arrival, the brothers swapped their running sneakers for black dress shoes and were issued gray T-shirts. Close-talking junior and senior cadets drilled them on how to toe a line (figuratively and literally) and marched them under rainy skies in short gray lines. Over the next six weeks, they will take part in West Point's cadet basic training, a rigorous civilian-to-military shakedown sometimes called "Beast Barracks."
The three Ogrydziak (pronounced oh-GREE'-zee-ack) brothers received presidential appointments, which are available for children of career military personnel. Their father, Coast Guard Capt. Randal Ogrydziak, is a deputy sector commander based in Corpus Christi, and their mother, Kristine, served in the Coast Guard for 10 years. Both grandfathers served in military.
Though Noah is older, he spent a year at West Point's prep school. Now he is entering the academy the same year as the twins, who were each accepted this year. Noah, with a year on the Hudson River grounds under his belt, has passed along some tips to the twins. Still, Cole needed some brotherly prompting Monday to recall the advice.
"Just things to be ready for ...," Cole said.
"... How to fold your socks," offered Noah.
"How to fold socks and shirts," Cole said.
"How to salute," Noah said.
"How to salute."
"Ranks and insignia."
It's not uncommon for siblings to attend a service academy at the same time, but three entering together is rare. West Point is aware of two previous cases there, the most recent in 1981 when twins Rose and Anne Forrester were admitted into the same class as their older brother, John. Rose Forrester Burwell, out of the military and living in Williamsburg, Va., recalled that the three siblings would make a point of meeting for brunch about once a month at the academy.
"Even though you don't see your siblings, I always thought in the back of my mind, 'Well at least I know there's two people here that love me,'" Burwell said.
Despite the family's military heritage, the Ogrydziak brothers did not grow up with a burning zeal to join the Long Gray Line (their eldest brother is studying chemical engineering at Lamar University in Texas). But the family does value discipline and achievement. At their Texas home, Randal and Kristine keep photo albums of their sons as they progressed from little boys in overalls to teenage achievers. One shot shows the trio as Eagle Scouts, another shows Noah at 14 with tennis medals.
Randal said a TV documentary following service academy students around piqued their interest and a visit with West Point cadets in Houston got the boys fired up.
"If you go to West Point, they're going to push you really hard," Cole said. "In the end, they want you to succeed. Whereas any other college, they just want your money."
Noah wants to work with high-tech networks with the Signal Corps. Sumner is thinking about engineering or aviation. Cole wants to study medicine.
The family will avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars in education costs for three brothers. And like any West Point graduate, the brothers will be obligated to serve in the Army after graduation — something their parents have already thought through.
"They're going to be in harm's way, I've been there myself," Randal said. "And I applaud them for doing this. But as a father, it's like, 'Geez, am I doing the right thing?' I think so."
Associated Press writer Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Nederland, Texas, contributed to this report.


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Painting Contractors can increase the value of your home by $1,110
Painting your home's facade and insides constantly adds value, regardless if you're improving your home's look and feel for many years to come or adding curb appeal to sell it. Overland Park painting contractors definitely know what a homeowner wants and they are available to provide the services of painting your home. Painting a house may look like an easy task. Some may even think that with just a brush and a bucket of paint, they can go around doing the job. However, there are several factors that need to be considered before you decide against hiring a professional painting contractor. A good wall or ceiling painting is something that can be seen at first glance. Professional painting contractors in Overland Park have years of experience applying paint coats evenly on walls without the bumps and bubbles. The type of paint is important too since a wall's material and built may require a specific paint only. Most homeowners do not know this and end up applying the wrong kind of paint and ruining their wall's features.
Fair price breakdown
Painting contractors in Overland Park can possibly charge a flat job fee for exterior spots like siding, garages, decks or sheds. In any other case, they commonly charge on an hourly basis. A painter's total quote will be based upon the number of hours they presume may be needed to finish the project, in addition to a few varying aspects, that include location, type of job (interior versus exterior), painter's experience, and the season. For a 250 square feet wall, the basic estimate of labor costs that includes preparation of the wall, planning, equipment, material, area preparation, setup, and cleanup would amount from $1,121 up to $1,121 for 4 hours.
Estimated final cost for painting contractors
Item | Quantity | Fair Price |
Home Exterior Labor | 36.4 Hours | $1,772.10 |
Home Exterior Job Materials and Supplies | 1600 Square Feet | $456.35 |
Totals - Cost to Paint House Exteriors - 1709 Square Feet | $2,228.45 | |
Average Cost Per Square Foot | $1.39 |
Find the Best Costs on Painting Contractors - Overland Park, 66204
It is highly advisable for homeowners to start small when it comes to budgeting the cost of the painting project. Remove things that may add difficulty to the task and may cause extra fees. Try to do the wall preparation like cleaning it or scraping it yourself. It would lessen the labor cost of a professional Overland Park painting contractor if they will not have to do the preparation.
Johnson County Painting Contractors FAQ
Last Updated: Jan 27, 2024
Local pros & Availability
Painters available in your area
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- Closed


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During the period of time a breed is designated Preliminary New Breed, the Preliminary New Breed Class Breed Committee will include all of the active TICA breeders of the breed. The Executive Office shall furnish the Preliminary New Breed Working Group Chair and the Board appointed liaison with a list of the Preliminary New Breed Class Breed section members.
The Preliminary New Breed Class Working Group Chair shall provide an electronic report on the status of the breed development and other issues relevant to the breed to the Genetics Committee, the Rules Committee, and the Executive Office for inclusion in the Agenda at least 60 days prior to each Annual Meeting. Any member of the Genetics Committee or Rules Committee may submit comments on that report, or on any aspect of the breed, to the Board of Directors.


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By Farhad Manjoo
A few years ago, Google's human resources department noticed a problem: a lot of women were leaving the company. Like the majority of Silicon Valley software firms, Google is staffed mostly by men, and executives have long made it a priority to increase the number of female employees. But the fact that women were leaving Google wasn't just a gender equity problem – it was affecting the bottom line. Unlike in most sectors of the economy, the market for top-notch tech employees is stretched incredibly thin. Google fights for potential workers with Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and hordes of start-ups, so every employee's departure triggers a costly, time-consuming recruiting process.
Then there was the happiness problem. Google monitors its employees' wellbeing to a degree that can seem absurd to those who work outside Mountain View. The attrition rate among women suggested there might be something amiss in the company's happiness machine. And if there's any sign that joy among Googlers is on the wane, it's the Google HR department's mission to figure out why and how to fix it.
Google calls its HR department People Operations, though most people in the firm shorten it to POPS. The group is headed by Laszlo Bock, a trim, soft-spoken 40-year-old who came to Google six years ago. Bock says that when POPS looked into Google's woman problem, it found it was really a new mother problem: Women who had recently given birth were leaving at twice Google's average departure rate. At the time, Google offered an industry-standard maternity leave plan. After a woman gave birth, she got 12 weeks of paid time off. For all other new parents in its California offices, but not for its workers outside the state, the company offered seven paid weeks of leave.
So in 2007, Bock changed the plan. New mothers would now get five months off at full pay and full benefits, and they were allowed to split up that time however they wished, including taking some of that time off just before their due date. If she likes, a new mother can take a couple months off after birth, return part-time for a while, and then take the balance of her time off when her baby is older. Plus, Google began offering the seven weeks of new-parent leave to all its workers around the world.
Google's lavish maternity and paternity leave plans probably don't surprise you. The company's swank perks – free gourmet food, on-site laundry, Wi-Fi commuting shuttles – are legendary in the corporate world, and they've driven a culture of ever-increasing luxuries for tech workers. This week, for the fourth consecutive year, Google was named the best company to work for by Fortune magazine; Microsoft was No. 75, while Apple, Amazon, and Facebook didn't even make the list.
At times Google's largesse can sound excessive – noble but wasteful from a bottom-line perspective. In August, for example, Forbes disclosed one previously unannounced Google perk – when an employee dies, the company pays his spouse or domestic partner half of his salary for a decade. Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that Google doles out such perks just to be nice. POPS rigorously monitors a slew of data about how employees respond to benefits, and it rarely throws money away. The five-month maternity leave plan, for instance, was a winner for the company. After it went into place, Google's attrition rate for new mothers dropped down to the average rate for the rest of the firm. "A 50 per cent reduction – it was enormous!" Bock says. What's more, happiness – as measured by Googlegeist, a lengthy annual survey of employees – rose as well. Best of all for the company, the new leave policy was cost-effective. Bock says that if you factor in the savings in recruitment costs, granting mothers five months of leave doesn't cost Google any more money.
The change in maternity leave exemplifies how POPS has helped Google become the country's best employer. Under Bock, Google's HR department functions more like a rigorous science lab than the pesky hall monitor most of us picture when we think of HR. At the heart of POPS is a sophisticated employee-data tracking program, an effort to gain empirical certainty about every aspect of Google's workers' lives - not just the right level of pay and benefits but also such trivial-sounding details as the optimal size and shape of the cafeteria tables and the length of the lunch lines.
In the past couple years, Google has even hired social scientists to study the organisation. The scientists – part of a group known as the PiLab, short for People & Innovation Lab – run dozens of experiments on employees in an effort to answer questions about the best way to manage a large firm. How often should you remind people to contribute to their retirement savings, and what tone should you use? Do successful middle managers have certain skills in common – and can you teach those skills to unsuccessful managers? Or, for that matter, do managers even matter – can you organise a company without them? And say you want to give someone a raise – how should you do it in a way that maximises his happiness? Should you give him a cash bonus? Stock? A raise? More time off?
Some of Google's HR lessons won't apply to other companies. The search company has been insanely profitable for much of its history, and many of its problems are atypical. Google has the luxury of worrying about the best way to give people more money instead of, say, the ideal manner in which to lay them off. Still, a few of POPS' findings – like how to train a better core of managers and how to improve interviews – will apply to most other firms. And among the tech giants – many of which are also quite profitable and face some of the same problems Google does – the search company is alone in trying to answer its HR questions scientifically. "We make thousands of people decisions every day – who we should hire, how much we should pay them, who we should promote, who we should let go of," says Prasad Setty, who heads POPS's "people analytics" group. "What we try to do is bring the same level of rigour to people decisions that we do to engineering decisions. Our mission is to have all people decisions be informed by data."
This effort to bring rigor to HR grew out of Google's larger culture. Most of its workers are engineers, the kind of people who demand data to get them to change their ways. One of the earliest examples of this was POPS's effort to streamline Google's hiring process. In its first few years, Google became infamous in the Valley for asking prospective candidates to endure lots and lots of interviews. "The intuition was that staffing was everything for Google, so everyone at the firm should be able to interview a candidate," Bock says.
The people in HR were sceptical of this approach; not only was the interview process slowing down hiring, it was also harming Google's reputation among prospective candidates. So Todd Carlisle, who is now Google's director of staffing, did a study to find the optimal number of times a candidate should be interviewed. He analysed dozens of Google's hiring decisions, keeping track of the scores that each interviewer had given a candidate after an interview. After crunching the data, Carlisle found that the optimal interview rate – the number of interviews after which the candidate's average score would converge on his final score – was four. "After four interviews," Carlisle says, "you get diminishing returns." Presented with this data, Google's army of engineers was convinced. Interview times shrunk, and Google's hiring sped up.
Google's HR department has uncovered many such nuggets of optimal organisational behaviour. Among the biggest finding is that middle managers matter, which overturned Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin's onetime presumption that you could run a company in which nobody was the boss of anyone else. POPS determined this by looking at scores the firm's managers received from two-sided feedback surveys, taking into account both what a manager's underlings and a manager's manager thinks about his work. When analysts compared the highest- and lowest-performing managers, they found a stark difference – the best managers had lower attrition rates (meaning fewer people left their teams), and their teams were much more productive across a range of criteria.
"We were able to show them that those pointy-headed Dilbert caricatures actually make a difference to their jobs," says Jennifer Kurkoski, a PiLab analyst. More importantly, the analysts were able to use their findings to make bad managers better. After scouring the feedback that successful managers got from their teams, the researchers boiled it all down to eight bullet points. They sound obvious and overly vague – "A high-scoring manager is a good coach," "a good communicator," "doesn't micromanage" – but the bullet points worked: When POPS spread these truths through the organisation and targeted unsuccessful managers for coaching, they found that the company's managerial ranks improved. As a result of the coaching, Google managers' collective feedback scores have improved every year since 2009.
Another major POPS finding concerned how to give an employee more money. In 2010, buffeted by the recession and increasing competition from other companies (especially Facebook), then-CEO Eric Schmidt decided to give all Googlers a raise. It was the job of POPS to determine the best way to offer that increase. The group ran a "conjoint survey" in which it asked employees to choose the best among many competing pay options. For instance, would you rather have $1000 more in salary or $2000 as a bonus?
"What we found was that they valued base pay above all," Setty says. "When we offered a bonus of X, they valued that at what it costs us. But if you give someone a dollar in base pay, they value it at more than a dollar because of the long-term certainty." In 2010, Schmidt announced that all Google employees would get a 10 per cent salary increase. Setty says Googlers were overjoyed – many people cite that announcement as their single happiest moment at the firm, and Googlegeist numbers that year went through the roof. Attrition to competing companies also declined.
Then there are the smaller findings: To nudge someone to contribute to his retirement account, POPS found that it's best if you send him many reminders and that it's better if your reminders call for "aggressive" savings goals. If you implore an employee to contribute $8000 to his retirement rather than, say, $2000, he'll tend to save more - even if he can't afford $8000, he'll put in more than he would have if you'd suggested $2000. As for the cafeterias, researchers found that the ideal lunch line should be about three or four minutes long – that's short enough that people don't waste time but long enough that they can meet new people. The tables should be long, so workers who don't know each other are forced to chat. And, after running an experiment, Google found that stocking cafeterias with 20-centimetre plates alongside 30-centimetre plates encouraged people to eat smaller, healthier portions.
Bock's ultimate goal is to use Google's experience to answer some big questions about the workplace: Are leaders born or made? Are teams better than individuals at getting things done? Can individuals sustain high performance over their lifetimes? POPS isn't close to being able to answer those questions right now, but Bock argues that Google can eventually shed light on some of them. "We have the luxury of being a data-driven company with people with the analytic chops who can do the math," he says. "We also have a large enough scale so that when we run experiments, they're statistically valid."
In time, Bock argues, Google's findings – which it often shares with other HR professionals – may improve all our jobs. "You spend more time working than doing anything else," he says. "If you work eight or 10 hours a day, it's more time than you spend sleeping, more time than you spend with your spouse. When you add it up it gets really depressing. You like your job, but for all time it should be – and it could be – something more. So why isn't it?"


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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they floated restoring protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, several people briefed on the meeting told the Washington Post.
"Why are we having all these people from s-?-?-?hole countries come here?" Trump said, according to these people, referring to countries mentioned by the lawmakers.
Trump then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries like Norway, whose prime minister he met with Wednesday. The president, according to a White House official who spoke to the Post, also suggested he would be open to more immigrants from Asian countries because they help the United States economically.
In addition, the president singled out Haiti, telling lawmakers that immigrants from that country must be left out of any deal, these people said.
"Why do we need more Haitians?" Trump said, according to people familiar with the meeting. "Take them out."
The comments left lawmakers taken aback, the newspaper reported, speaking to people familiar with their reactions. Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Richard Durbin, D-Ill., had proposed cutting the visa lottery program by 50 percent and then prioritizing countries already in the system, a White House official said.
A White House spokesman defended Trump's position on immigration without directly addressing Trump's remarks. White House officials did not dispute the account.
"Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people," spokesman Raj Shah said in a statement issued after the Post first reported Trump's remarks. "?… Like other nations that have merit-based immigration, President Trump is fighting for permanent solutions that make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation."
Trump built his candidacy and presidency around hard stances on immigration, vowing to build a wall along the Mexican border and cut legal immigration by half, among other positions. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security have increased immigration raids, including dozens earlier this week at convenience stores across the country.
The president's remarks were quickly met with scorn from Democrats and some Republicans and could throw another wrench into bipartisan discussions on immigration, which had shown promise in recent days, according to legislators.
Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, D-Ill., said the comments "will shake the confidence that people have" in the ongoing immigration policy talks.
"Democrats and Republicans in the Senate made a proposal. The answer is this racist outburst of the president. How can you take him seriously?" Gutiérrez said. "They (Republicans) don't believe in immigration - it's always been about people of color and keeping them out of this country."
Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said on Twitter that Trump's remarks "are further proof that his Make America Great Again Agenda is really a Make America White Again agenda."
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Explore all your optionsSome Republicans also raised objections. Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, whose family is from Haiti, said in a statement that Trump's remarks were "unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation's values. This behavior is unacceptable from the leader of our nation."
"My grandmother used to say, 'Digame con quién caminas, y te diré quién eres.' 'Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are,' " said Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., who represents most of Harlem and is an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. "If he's walking around with white supremacists and supporting them, this kind of talk doesn't surprise me."
The New York Times also reported last year that Trump said immigrants from Haiti have AIDS. The White House denied that report.
In a statement condemning Thursday's remarks by Trump, Haiti's ambassador to the United States, Paul G. Altidor, said that "the president was either misinformed or miseducated about Haiti and its people." He said the Haitian Embassy was inundated with emails from Americans apologizing for what the president said.
Democrats were quick to note that Trump employs Haitians at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and that he praised Haitian Americans during a roundtable in Miami in September.
"Whether you vote for me or don't vote for me, I really want to be your greatest champion, and I will be your champion," Trump said at the roundtable.
Alix Desulme, a city council member in North Miami, home to thousands of Haitian Americans, said the president's latest remarks were "disgusting."
"Oh, my God. Oh, my God Jesus," Desulme said. "I don't know how much worse it can get."
"This is very alarming. We know he's not presidential, but this is a low," he said. "It's disheartening that someone who is the leader of the free world would use such demeaning language to talk about other folks, referring to folks of color."
Trump's critics also said racially incendiary language could damage relationships with foreign allies.
For many of Trump's supporters, however, the comments may not prove to be particularly damaging. Trump came under fire from conservatives this week for seeming to suggest that he would be open to a comprehensive immigration reform deal without money for a border wall, before he quickly backtracked.
"He's trying to win me back," conservative author Ann Coulter, who has called for harsh limits on immigration, wrote on Twitter.
Outlining a potential bipartisan deal, the lawmakers discussed restoring protections for countries that have been removed from the temporary protected status (TPS) program while committing $1.5 billion for a border wall and making changes to the visa lottery system. Lawmakers mentioned that members of the Congressional Black Caucus had requested that some African countries be included in a deal, according to a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
The exchange was "salty" on all sides, this person said, with the president growing profane and animated while discussing immigrants from other countries. "It did not go well," this person said.
The administration announced this week that it was removing TPS status for citizens of El Salvador. Haitians were added to the TPS program because of a strong earthquake that devastated Haiti eight years ago.
Trump had seemed amenable to a deal earlier in the day during phone calls with lawmakers, aides said, but shifted his position in the meeting and did not seem interested in the bipartisan compromise.
The scene played out hurriedly in the morning. Graham and Durbin thought they would be meeting with Trump alone and were surprised to find immigration hard-liners such as Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., at the meeting. White House and Capitol Hill aides say Stephen Miller, the president's top immigration official, was concerned there could be a deal proposed that was too liberal and made sure conservative lawmakers were present.
After the meeting, Marc Short, Trump's director of legislative affairs, said the White House was nowhere near a bipartisan agreement on immigration.
"We still think we can get there," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at the daily White House news briefing.