text:
To carry out any discussion of K-12 education reform, you have to focus on both the numbers and the history. The numbers are pretty simple - and pretty devastating. About 30 percent of Arizona kids do not graduate from high school, and of the 70 percent who do graduate, about half do not have an education of sufficient quality to succeed in college.
Of the 35 percent of the total who are so-called college-ready, about a third require some remediation to be able to take college-level math, science and English; and, eventually, only about 25 percent of all kids earn a college degree.
This places Arizona in the bottom half of the United States, which has fallen from No. 1 among countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), insofar as college completion rates, to its current position of No. 13.
The history of K-12 education reform is equally disturbing. Starting in 1958 with the publication of "Pursuit of Excellence," we have had a constant stream of blue-ribbon studies, including "A Nation at Risk," "Before It's Too Late," "Rising Above the Gathering Storm," and several National Governor Association studies that have all outlined what is needed to improve K-12.
The common-sense solutions outlined in all these documents parallel what we find in today's high-performing education systems around the world. The simplified interpretation is that you need high expectations, great teachers who know their subject material, and some tension or feedback loops in the system to help struggling students, teachers and administrators.
Despite these studies, we find ourselves in a situation in which K-12 results in the U.S. have been stagnant for decades, while those in many other countries have improved dramatically. Today, the U.S. ranks in the bottom half of nearly every indicator of education performance in OECD countries. This is hardly the position you want for 21st-century success when knowledge is king.
The best interpretation of what is wrong with K-12 education is simply that the system we put in place 100 years ago is totally resistant to change. It is not an education issue but a political issue.
A public system that led the world in the first half of the 20th century has become inefficient, ineffective and politically structured to serve the adults, rather than the kids. The system focuses on inputs like teacher certification, teacher tenure, work rules, class size, social issues, social-graduation rates, and dollars spent per student, and essentially neglects the key output variable: whether kids actually learn something.
Assuming we have known what needs to be done for 50 years, it seems safe to assume that there is no silver bullet, no simple solution to correct the K-12 ills. Yes, the problem is complicated, but we know in general what needs to be done. Below, I have outlined five general areas that we need to address to move forward. All these suggestions require a key ingredient: the political will to challenge the status quo. Without this ingredient, we face decades more of the same substandard performance.
Competition: The public K-12 system has proved itself resilient to change and improvement. Like any other system, it needs competition if it is to change. Competition can come in many forms, but for public schools, the key competition (choice) is the charter school, where the education process is not held captive to the existing bureaucracy. Private schools also offer choice, but their cost is prohibitive to most families.
Arizona has excellent charter-school laws, and over 10 percent of our kids have already taken this choice. But we need more. The fastest way to get more (and better) charter schools is to minimize the funding differentials between charter and normal public schools. Assign each child the same amount of annual funding and let him or her spend it where their family wants. Charter schools are succeeding because they are output-oriented and generally adhere to the principles necessary for education excellence.
High expectations: Four things are needed here. First, poor performing schools (public or charter) should be shut down. Second, we need to raise our expectations of acceptable performance (student learning). The current AIMS test is just not a realistic measure of performance. The closest thing we have to an internationally benchmarked test, the NAEP test, shows that less than one-third of our kids are proficient at grade level. We need to face that fact and raise our definition of student accomplishment. No system ever improves if you allow substandard performance to masquerade as acceptable.
Third, we need our university presidents to take a strong position that the output of our K-12 system is not meeting their input requirements. What other business willingly accepts poor raw material and expects to be successful without demanding that their suppliers improve performance?
And, lastly, we need to put some burden on the kids. They need to know we are serious about improving performance. How about demanding that kids either be enrolled in school or have achieved a high-school diploma in order to qualify for a driver's license?
Quality teachers: No education system can be high quality without high-quality teachers. We have many dedicated and capable teachers, but studies have shown that our schools of education are simply not graduating enough teachers with the skills necessary to impart learning to their students.
Additionally, many teachers are teaching outside the range of their expertise, especially in the areas of math and science. While we figure out how to upgrade our teacher-education process (remember we have been studying this for 50 years), why don't we just start hiring university graduates who are content experts (who have actually majored in math, science, history, English, etc.), put them through a short boot camp like Teach for America or BASIS Schools, and use their content expertise to drive learning? Our universities are moving in this direction, but we are moving too slowly, and too many existing teachers do not have the subject-matter expertise we need.
Intelligent use of technology: Technology has two uses in education. First, it can track student, teacher and school performance, and allows us to help struggling students, teachers and administrators. Without this sort of real-time feedback loop, we will continue to complain about the system without having the tools to help and/or reward success in the classroom.
The second area of technology use is to make education more interesting and exciting for students, most of whom are more technology savvy than their parents or teachers. Animations, distance learning, access to the Internet, etc., all allow kids to increase their understanding and appreciation of subject material. One of the obvious challenges here is requiring teachers to be comfortable with the technology. (What other profession does not make extensive use of technology today?) As important as technology is, the best thing we can put in each classroom is a great teacher.
Private-sector involvement: The private sector has a vested interest in the quality of education in the U.S. After all, the private sector is the primary employer, and the deficiencies of the education process become the liability of the employer.
More companies need to get actively involved in the discussion about improving education. They need to lobby government officials (strengthen their backbone) to make decisions necessary for improvement. Change the Equation is a coalition of more than 100 major U.S. corporations that recently entered this arena. We need essentially every Arizona employer to take a stand and demand that the above changes be made. Their workforce quality and ultimate viability are at stake.
The common-sense suggestions for education reform have been around for decades. We have many demonstrated examples of how these suggestions produce excellent results. It is time that our elected officials, our private sector, and our citizens all stand up and demand better across the board. We know what to do. Unfortunately, we have allowed the system to dictate the rules of the game; and as long as the system is rewarded independent of the outcome, we will get the same poor results.
Craig R. Barrett is retired CEO/chairman of Intel Corp. He is president and chairman of BASIS School Inc. He is co-chairman of Achieve Inc. and chairman of Change the Equation, a national coalition of CEOs seeking to create widespread literacy in science, technology, engineering and math.
View subscription options


text:
Yes,WWF is a new, green file format, that can't be printed out.It was developed as initiative to save trees and Discourage unnecessary printout of PDF files.Read more about WWF Format So,If you are sure for documents that dont need printing out,save them as WWF file and join "Save Trees" Campaign.
The Software is free to download for Windows Systems/Mac Systems and use it ,to save the file in wwf format. A WWF format file,can be read in any of the PDF readers ,but disables the printing capability. External User wont be even able to find the difference of file ,if wwf format is renamed to pdf format since ,every option seems to be the same except the printing option. Think Green and support the new campaign to save trees.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
In the hospital at Knoxville, Tenn., on the 14th ult., of chronic diarrhoea, Robert McBride, of Co. F,
79th regiment (Highlanders) N.Y.S. Vols., aged 24 years and 10 days. A native of Irvine, Ayrshire,
Source: NY Times, Sunday, Jan 10, 1864
Source: NY Times, Sunday, Jan 10, 1864
Some additional excellent resources for your research are:
Link to DistantCousin.com
Back to Home Page
Privacy Statement


text:
Nice mobile platform you have there. Shame if anything happened to it…
Amid the tangle of lawsuits and patent claims involving mobile technology, it is becoming clear that Microsoft is seriously focused on gathering royalty payments from Android, as a result of past IP rulings in its favour.
A patent agreement just signed with Compal Electronics – the Taiwan based manufacturer of notebook PCs and LCD products – is now the tenth such licensing deal that Redmond has sealed. It provides, says Microsoft, "broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for Compal's tablets, mobile phones, e-readers and other consumer devices running the Android or Chrome Platform".
The amount of royalties that will be paid is undisclosed. Previous Android-related agreements have been signed with the likes of Samsung Electronics, Quanta Computer, Acer, and Wistron.
"We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Compal, one of the leaders in the original design manufacturing, or ODM, industry. Together with the license agreements signed in the past few months with Wistron and Quanta Computer, today's agreement with Compal means more than half of the world's ODM industry for Android and Chrome devices is now under license to Microsoft's patent portfolio," said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel, Intellectual Property Group at Microsoft.
"We are proud of the continued success of our licensing program in resolving IP issues surrounding Android and Chrome."
You can read Microsoft's announcement on the Compal agreement.
Read these articles for more comment on the development:
RedmondMag.com – Microsoft: Most Hardware Design Partners Inking Android IP Deals
TalkAndroid.com – Microsoft inks licensing deal with Compal Electronics, 10th deal and climbing
CBR – Microsoft signs tenth license agreement for Android devices


text:
Zenia Delgado
Investment Associate
Zenia Delgado has 10 years of experience in the financial services industry and joined J.P. Morgan Securities in 2010. As an Investment Associate, Zenia develops asset allocation strategies and portfolio recommendations.
Zenia previously worked at Deutsche Bank from 2008-2010 as an Executive Assistant. She began her career in 2005 as a Sales Assistant at UBS Financial Services Inc. where she was responsible for account administration.
Zenia graduated from the University of Southern California with a B.S. in Corporate Finance. In her free time she enjoys surfing, swimming, tennis, horseback riding, and traveling.
Phone: 310.201.2612
Fax: 310.975.6815
Email: email@example.com
Registered States: AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, SD, TX, UT, VA, VI, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY


text:
NFU SCOTLAND have criticised proposed changes to the Nitrate Vulnerable Zones rules, warning that any environmental gains would be minimal compared to the negative effects on farmers.
The union is particularly opposed to two amendments which would extend the closed period by two weeks on heavier soils for arable and grassland – with effect from October 2013 – and increase the livestock manure nitrogen efficiency standard values used in calculating available nitrogen with effect from January 2014.
Further, it noted the Government's proposals on both issues ran against the recommendations of Scotland's own environmental body, SEPA.
NFUS vice-president, Allan Bowie, who farms in the NVZ area of Fife, said: "It is difficult to see why the Scottish government is pushing for these changes to its Nitrates Action Programme. NFUS agrees entirely that farmers should apply slurries and manures in a way that minimises environmental risk, however, rules must be science-based and strike a balance with the practical and financial realities that farmers face.
"The evidence quoted by the Scottish government to justify some of its proposed changes relates to England and Wales only, and is out of step with SRUC research relating to Scotland. This is one reason why, in its submission, SEPA questioned the proposals to increase the livestock manure nitrogen efficiency standard values."
The key rule amendments are:
n Extending the closed period (when manure with a high nitrogen content may not be spread) by two weeks on heavier soils (soils that are not sandy or shallow), effective from October 1, 2013 for arable land and October 15, 2013 for grassland;
n Increasing the livestock manure nitrogen efficiency standard values used in calculating available nitrogen with effect from January 1, 2014;
n Reducing the time for which records need to be kept from five to three years;
n An increased individual field allowance in any 12 month period where compost is applied.
The Scottish government said that it will also be considering options to reduce record keeping for low intensity farms and reducing buffer zone widths through the use of precision equipment.
Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead said of the changes: "It is vital that we protect our magnificent countryside and water quality from the adverse effects of pollution – for biodiversity, our water dependent industries, and the benefit to Scotland's people. But, equally, we must ensure we strike the right balance and do not allow bureaucracy to prevent our farmers from farming."


text:
Actor George Clooney and his girlfriend Stacy Keibler were spotted leaving out the back door of Craig's Bar And Grill after having dinner with Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber in West Hollywood, CA last night (April 26).
I'm glad to see that the couple is still doing well. That said, Keibler has given her next boyfriend the blueprint of what she looks for in a man.
She tells Men's Fitness magazine, "I'm not really that attracted to a big, jacked guy. I think that's a little excessive. I'm attracted to moderation – someone who just takes care of himself from the inside out."
And Keibler insists chatting her up isn't difficult…
"A simple compliment goes a long way – for a guy to just come over and say, 'You have great hair,' or, 'I really like your dress,' and then just smile and walk away, that's a great move, because he's sort of putting himself out there by doing that, but it won't lead to any embarrassment if the girl isn't interested.
"And if she is, she can go find him, because it'll be like, 'Wow, that was pretty cool.'"


text:
I'm going to say it. She's not quite looking as skeletal as she has of late. Could her recent intake of slushies and Big Mac's have anything to do with it? That said, what is up with the scarf thing that Nicole and her friend are sporting? Why do so many women mimic the fashion style of their friends?
More photos of Nicole Richie in a bikini, after the jump.


text:
May 31, 2016
Because of a narrow margin of victory in relation to the total number of votes cast, Alabama's governor's race nearly landed in court, similar to the 2000 Presidential race.
University of Alabama law professor, Dr. Hugh Lee, represented a plaintiff in Florida over alleged absentee ballot irregularities. He now predicts Alabama will have to do something about its own election laws.
"There will probably be an initiative from the governor or legislature or both and I would expect that initiative to address specifically recounts and whether there needs to be an automatic recount statute when the margin is less than one percent, say, or two percent," said Lee. "We'll see hopefully some movement toward consolidating our various election code chapters."
Lee adds that he believes even poorly written or outdated state laws should apply to federal elections. The director of U.A.'s Student Legal Clinic says an automatic recount provision would be helpful in any close election.
"Because it de-politicizes the process of recounting votes so we can get an accurate count and by taking the decision to recount out of the political sphere," Lee said. "We're making it simply an administrative process that you do automatically. Like anything else, there's not really a way to characterize as political maneuvering or in some way funnying up the vote."
Lee said one problem Alabama and other states face is that voting methods have changed, but laws have just been added, rather than the entire code being rewritten.
Click Here to access the online Public Inspection File
Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
Belay that last, mate. Based on your prompting, I just started scrolling the Telescope option and there it was! I guess I just never looked that far before!
Yes, there's a pretty big chunk of sky unavailable unless "pier" is selected. I think you'll enjoy not having to deal with the warnings (I know I did!).


text:
I bought one of this type of light (claimed to be 1800LM but about the same as my 800LM flashlight, both could be much less ). Not as impressed as I thought I would be. I used it twice. It shut off more than half of the time without warning. I finally found out at least some incidents were caused by the cable from the light to the battery being totally disconnected--the connection between the battery and light was too loose. Is there an easy solution to this? Also, how strong is the rubber ring that is used to mount the light to the handlebar? When the road is bumpy, the light tends to slip downward on the handlebar; may fall some day.
Although it's reasonably bright, I find it doesn't throw very far. It lights up very close vicinity. My flashlight has a longer beam.


text:
I don't know if it has been mentioned yet, but thank you Brian for inventing the CK Award which has once again terrorized a hyped team and its overzealous followers. I can't help but think that the CK spotted us at least a point or two yesterday.
landing spot. will be interesting to see how he does.


text:
You limited your search to:
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
County: Ector County, TX
Serial/Series Title: 82nd Legislature of Texas
Collection: Texas Laws and Resolutions Archive
82nd Texas Legislature, Regular Session, House Bill 969, Chapter 246
Date: June 17, 2011
Creator: Texas. Legislature. House of Representatives.
Description: Bill introduced by the Texas House of Representatives relating to the election of directors of the board of the Ector County Hospital District.
Contributing Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department


text:
Content Analysis
See how deluxeblonds.com describes itself, and other content related analysis like family-safe content, language of the website etc.
|Family safe content:
|Malware detected:
Deluxeblonds.com is 5 years old and located on the IP 126.96.36.199. The website content is safe for family. No malware was detected on the website.
See how deluxeblonds.com describes itself, and other content related analysis like family-safe content, language of the website etc.
|Family safe content:
|Malware detected:
Whois records for deluxeblonds.com. These records provide information about the registration of a domain, for example: when the domain was acquired, when the registration will expire, contact details of the registrant etc.
|Registered Owner:
|admin contact
|key-systems gmbh
Whois Server Version 2.0 Domain Name: DELUXEBLONDS.COM Registrar: KEY-SYSTEMS GMBH Whois Server: whois.rrpproxy.net Referral URL: Name Server: NS1.ROOKDNS.COM Name Server: NS2.ROOKDNS.COM Status: clientTransferProhibited Updated Date: 02-dec-2013 Creation Date: 25-oct-2010 Expiration Date: 25-oct-2015 The Registry database contains ONLY .COM, .NET, .EDU domains and Registrars. ; This data is provided by Ask J Investment ; for information purposes, and to assist persons obtaining information ; about or related to domain name registration records. ; Ask J Investment does not guarantee its accuracy. ; By submitting a WHOIS query, you agree that you will use this data ; only for lawful purposes and that, under no circumstances, you will ; use this data to ; 1) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission of mass ; unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations via E-mail ; (spam); or ; 2) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes that apply ; to this WHOIS server. ; These terms may be changed without prior notice. ; By submitting this query, you agree to abide by this policy. Domain: deluxeblonds.com Registry Domain ID: 1622209446_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.rrpproxy.net Registrar URL: Created Date: 2010-10-25T22:52:47.0Z Updated Date: 2013-12-02T10:09:39.0Z Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2015-10-25T22:52:47.0Z Registrar: Key-Systems GmbH Registrar IANA ID: 269 Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse[at]key-systems.net Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: - (Please send an email) Reseller: Ask J Investment Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited Registrant Contact: O-COL339 Registrant Organization: Colours Ltd Registrant Name: Registrant Street: Midtown Building, Suite 3 Registrant City: Charlestown Registrant Postal Code: NV Registrant State: Registrant Country: KN Registrant Phone: +1.7752414802 Registrant Phone Ext: Registrant Fax: Registrant Fax Ext: Registrant Email: Admin Contact: P-AGC1713 Admin Organization: Admin Name: Admin Street: Midtown Building, Suite 3 Admin City: Charlestown Admin State: Admin Postal Code: NV Admin Country: KE Admin Phone: +254.7752414802 Admin Phone Ext: Admin Fax: Admin Fax Ext: Admin Email: Tech Contact: P-AGC1713 Tech Organization: Tech Name: Tech Street: Midtown Building, Suite 3 Tech City: Charlestown Tech Postal Code: NV Tech State: Tech Country: KE Tech Phone: +254.7752414802 Tech Phone Ext: Tech Fax: Tech Fax Ext: Tech Email: Billing Contact: P-AGC1713 Billing Organization: Billing Name: Billing Street: Midtown Building, Suite 3 Billing City: Charlestown Billing Postal Code: NV Billing State: Billing Country: KE Billing Phone: +254.7752414802 Billing Phone Ext: Billing Fax: Billing Fax Ext: Billing Email: Name Server: ns1.rookdns.com Name Server: ns2.rookdns.com DNSSEC: unsigned URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System:
Alexa history shows how the alexa rank of deluxeblonds.com has varied in the past, which in turn also tells about the site visitors.
Find out the details about the computing infrastructure which powers deluxeblonds.com , e.g. where the servers are located, which software is used to serve the website and which hosting service is used by the website.
Find out the IP of deluxeblonds.com servers.
Reverse IP lets you find out about the websites which are located on the same server with deluxeblonds.com. In case of dedicated hosting, the sites sharing the IP address are owned by the same organization, or in case of shared hosting, it means that the websites are using the same hosting provider.
|mymaximconnet.com - mymaximconnet Resources and Information. This website is ...
|Earn Online Club Different Ways to Make Money Online
Complete DNS information for deluxeblonds.com.
Deluxeblonds.com has 1 A records (IP Addresses) with a TTL (time to live) of 3600 seconds. Its DNS records are handled by 2 nameservers with a TTL of 3600 seconds.
|Record Type
|TTL (in seconds)
|rname: hostmaster.parkingcrew.com
retry: 7200
mname: ns1.parkingcrew.net
refresh: 28800
minimum: 86400
expire: 604800
serial: 13549951
If you are owner of deluxeblonds.com, you can place these widgets on your website, by placing the HTML code given below the images.


text:
Jie Liu, Bodhi Priyantha, Feng Zhao, Chieh-Jan Mike Liang, Qiang Wang, and Sean James
June 2008
The IT industry is the fastest growing sector in US energy consumption. Improving data center energy efficiency is a pressing issue with significant economic and environmental consequences. Heat distribution is a key operational parameter that affects data center cooling and energy consumption. However, typical data centers lack effective finegrained sensing systems to monitor heat distribution at a large scale. In this paper, we motivate the use of sensor networks as a dense instrumentation technology to understand and control cooling in data centers. We present Microsoft Research Genomote sensors designed for data center monitoring, and the RACNet for reliable data acquisition. We describe lessons learned from early pilot deployments, and discuss architectural and technical challenges in developing data center sensor networks.
|Publication type
|Published in
|HotEmNets (ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Embedded Networked Sensors)
|ACM – Association for Computing Machinery
© ACM. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version can be found at http://dl.acm.org.


text: The Powerstep Pinnacle insole is the exact product that I purchased from my doctor for $50. The Insole Store price is 34% less with free shipping. Received the shipment in 3 days. These insoles were prescribed by my doctor and have provided pain free relief for the last 2 years.


text:
Sports magazine Podium hits selected newsstands from third issue featuring footballing legend Pelé
PODIUM, the upmarket sports magazine aimed at affluent men, will be sold at Harrods, Selfridges and other upmarket retail outlets from January 2012, following its successful launch earlier this year. The third issue, currently out, features an exclusive photoshoot with legendary Brazilian footballer Pelé by photographer Simon Emmett and interview by PODIUM editorAndy Tongue. Read more »
River launches The Big Walk Map for Ramblers
River are delighted to announce the launch of an innovative online mapping tool for the Ramblers' online magazine, walkmag.co.uk.
Dubbed The Big Walk Map, the interactive map is powered by Google and features over 100 routes created for Walk Magazine for the Ramblers - the leading authority on walking in the UK.
Think wins big: Independent Publishing Company of the Year and Customer Magazine of the Year at the PPA Independent Publisher Awards 2011
Think is thrilled to announce that it took home two of the biggest awards at the PPA Independent Publisher Awards ceremony held yesterday. Think won Customer Magazine of the Year for BEER, produced for CAMRA, and then celebrated winning the coveted prize of Independent Publishing Company of the Year - a title previously won by Think in 2009. Read more »
This Holiday season is set to be especially happy at content specialists Cedar, where they are celebrating an extraordinary year of global growth and innovation. Read more »1Comments
John Brown acquires Hong Kong agency
To support its expansion in Asia, leading print and digital media agency John Brown has acquired Kleio, a Hong Kong-based content agency which produces pioneering social media, online and print content for a range of clients including Amex Centurion, Time Warner, Swire Hotels, Moet Hennessy Diageo, Cartoon Network, Nespresso, KPMG and Canon. Read more »


text:
Posted by Pengshan on June 05, 2002 at 05:04:55:
We are a manufacturer of stainless steel utensil, i.e. ice bucket, wine cooler, wine shaker, salad bowl, ice cream cup, coffee maker, aright container, milk jug, salt/pepper shaker, measuring cup, etc. we pass the ISO9002 and all products sell well in Germany, Italy, Unite Kingdom, France and other European and American markets with a competitive price and guaranteed quality. Welcome to visit our website: http://www.sskitchenware.com, or e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com for more information.
Follow Ups:
Post a Followup


text:
- Community Images
Lightweight and outfitted with premium down, the MontBell U.L. Super Spiral Hugger #0 Sleeping Bag hugs you for warmth through starry nights and winter squalls.
- Ballistic Airtight Nylon shell boasts a DWR coating to slough moisture
- Premium 800-fill goose down offers optimal insulating power while maintaining compressibility
- Super Spiral Stretch System combines bias stretch, gathered quilting, and elasticized baffles to provide flexibility without creating cold spots
- Double draft collar and tunnel hood prevent the intrusion of unwanted breezes
- Auto-locking zipper prevents zipper-slip during the night
- Reviews
What do you think about this product?
Have questions about this product?
Properly Rated, Incredibly Comfortable
- Familiarity: I've used it several times
A bag that lives up to its temperature ratings is a rare bird indeed, and this one does. Hit a new low at -4F and found this bag to be quite sufficient.
Very comfy too. I find the hood ever so slightly claustrophic, but I suppose that's the point.
In Medium S2S EVent Bag
From the end.
You don't gain much in percentage compressed, but you do gain some volume in your pack.
Here it is in an eVent Compression Sack
Neck baffles
A quick pic of the neck baffles.
Side view...
For reference..
End View
Could get smaller with a compression sack, but here it is right out of the box in the supplied stuff sack. (Note that there is a little perspective at work, making the sleeping back seem a little smaller than it actually is. Still... a small 0 bag!)
Amazing Bag
- Familiarity: I've used it once or twice and have initial impressions
Just bought this bag and "field tested" it at a High Sierra lake last night. It's a zero degree bag that would probably actually keep me warm down to zero. I'm used to layering up clothes in my sleeping bags because I sleep cold. Last night I was taking things off. It didn't get down to zero, but it probably hit fifteen. I also like all the space in it. I'm a small person (5'2" and 115 pounds), but most bags feel cramped. This one didn't. Granted, there's a bit of a weight penalty, but this bag weighs less than my -5 Marmot Aiguille and that bag is a "short."
Bottom line: It probably won't appeal to the minimalist crowd out there, but I love bag. I've had other clothing products made by MontBell. They've all held up exceptionally well, so I'm expecting this bag will also.
Amazing 0 Degree Bag
I am a side sleeper and so the stretch system in this bag really appealed to me. I have never been more comfortable in a sleeping bag in my life. I was able to sleep comfortably in the fetal position, knees bent and all. The loft on this bag is also phenomenal, by far the warmest most comfortable bag I have owned. I am 5'9" and I have a bunch of room in the footbox so the regular would definitely fit someone up to 6'.
this is the one!
I expect quality from Mont-Bell, as I have for many years....I own the Alpine Light down sweater and always knew that they did down very well and that this bag would be good, very good. After several friends gave great reviews of the bag....I purchased it for my Guide/counselor/outdoor teacher son.
He is in the Wind Rivers this summer and sends back notes of how much he loves it and the great range of temps that it covers and how durable it is and how it gives him the much needed rest that you must have taking people out in the high country.
He is 6' ( we got a regular), 150 and sleeps cold....but, not with this bag.
I will expect it to last as long as my Sierra Designs down bag, that I bought in 1970..... But I will snag this bag from my son,to use, every time I can - which will not be much- I expect him to guard it.
If you afford it, get it....it is the 'one' !
I am very interested in this bag but am concerned whether its temperature rating will hold up in rain forests and coastal hikes of the NW and Western Canada. I sleep cold and have been using two synthetic REI bags layered, 15F and a 45F plus a silk liner ..and sometimes my montbell trou & sweater ...see what I mean..I need a bag! I also am concerned with weight and packing size as I often go out alone for 10-14 days. My pack is an Osprey Aura and if I go somewhere I have to cary a bear can, my space is very limited. I would appreciate advice from anyone with experience in coastal/rainforest areas with a down bag. Thx:-)
Angie, this bag should hold up to it's 0F rating fine. However if you're layering that much and still cold, what's your ground insulation look like? If you don't have a warm sleeping pad (like a neoair xtherm or exped down mat) in cold weather, you'll lose a ton of warmth to the ground. I used to sleep really cold myself until I improved my sleeping pad and now I sleep "warm" by most standards.
Also the older REI bags had optimistic ratings at best...the newer ones are EN rated so should be more accurate.
Boom! Montbell Delivered
Superlight and really wide-expandable and comfy. Ive owned several bags and had to move up to something a bit warmer for some higher elevation trips. This by far is the warmest and most comfortable out of all the ones Ive owned. Everytime I get it in, I dont want to get out. No other bag compares! Highly recommended!!
John, I have a question for you. I have had a Western Mountaineering bag for over 10 years, the MegaLite. I really love it, very packable and light, with excellent construction. I have went on countless trips with it, even lived out of it exclusively for 7 months in Afghanistan. Now I am looking at getting a new bag, the Western Mountaineering Versalite. But you say that this is the best bag around, and after lots of research on my own I have to agree it looks like it might be "the one". I guess what I am trying to ask is do you think that this bag is superior to the Versalite? Appreciate any input you have!
Hi Kyle, they are both great bags. I have used a WM bag before and they are great! However I would lean towards the Montbell. I use this bag for Alpine climbing trips where its cold. At first I wasn't sold on the Stretch feature but after a couple of trips in the bag I wouldn't own any other type. I like to sleep on my side with my legs in a open scissor position, with the stretch it is comfortable to do and doesn't feel constricting. Personally I would only pick the Versalite if you are concerned about weight and saving a couple of bucks. It's all about preference, but you can't go wrong either way. I hope this helps.
John- Thank you very much for the insight. I sleep the same way so I am glad to hear that you found it more comfortable. My WM bag fills the niche for a 3-season bag, and I think this one will be my high elevation/winter bag. I have cut weight in so many places in my pack that my bag can weigh an extra 13 ounces. Once again, great advice- thanks!
Anyone know the EN ratings for this bag?
Anyone know the EN ratings for this bag?
Can anyone tell me definitively the...
Can anyone tell me definitively the difference between the "Super Spiral" bag and the "Spiral" bag? My guess has been that the "super" is extra stretchy, but I can't find the information anywhere... Thanks!
The super is wider in the shoulders, and just a few ounces lighter than the non-super. Those are the only differences as far as I can tell, but that may be it considering there is only a $10 price difference.
Thanks Laura. I was stumped because it seems kinda crazy for Montbell to keep a whole extra set of SKUs, product literature, etc. (and cause this sort of consumer confusion...) just for the sake of a $10 difference. Your answer confirms what I'd suspected: there's very little difference.
Still. For $10 I get to call it super. Vanity wins!
Found this link under another bag:
What is the difference between this bag...
What is the difference between this bag by Montbell and the same bag but the non U.L. version? Am I saving about a pound of weight and an inch of pack space for almost $200 more or am I missing something?
No you're not missing anything. Basically the UL version is made with a higher fill power of down, 800 vs 650 fill. What this boils down to is that it will take less down to give you the same amount of warmth. Less down = less weight. Also the higher fill down compresses smaller than the 650 fill stuff. Bottom line is that if you're not counting ounces and can stuff it into your pack, then save yourself $200. However usually winter backpacking/camping means more gear, which means more weight, so the lighter the better. Also, if you're planning on car camping or only hiking a couple of miles then definately go with cheaper bag. Hope this helps with your decision.
but what does it weigh? And is 0deg inF...
but what does it weigh? And is 0deg inF or C? Big Difference!
0° is in F. This is the most anti-metric country in the world, after all. USA! USA!
It weighs 2 lbs. 15 oz. Oddly enough, that's 2 oz more than last year, but it's all extra fill. I have no idea why they needed to add 2 oz of down while keeping the same temp rating.
You will not find a better bag. I had the older model in a regular and just got the new one in a Long to have more space for drying clothes while I sleep. With the older one I have used it all over from -20 to 30 degrees F. I have done tons of research and tested many bags and this one just kills it.


text:
Tom Hanks Says Toy Story 4 Is Happening
By Josh Tyler 2014-04-07 22:57:50 comments
In addition to being one of the best films released last year, Toy Story 3 was the perfect finale to the story of the toys in Andys room. That was the way to go out, and the film itself seems to be a promise that theyll never do another Toy Story film. In fact last summer Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich made it clear that they wouldnt do a Toy Story 4, and instead theyre supposed to bring the characters back every now and then for short films, like the one that played in front of Cars 2 this past weekend. But maybe the Pixar which made Toy Story 3 and had the good sense to know when to stop, no longer exists, because now theyre going ahead on Toy Story 4.
Hot on the heels of Cars 2, a movie widely regarded as Pixars first bad film, this is particularly depressing news. Since it comes straight from Tom Hanks, Woody himself, theres not really much reason to doubt its validity. Bleeding Cool caught Hanks on the BBC where, when asked if there would be a Toy Story 4 he responded, "I think there will be yeah. Yeah, yeah. Theyre working on it now. There you go."
Has everyone at Pixar gone completely mad? We dont need this. Toy Story 3 was the perfect finale and, frankly, they dont need to do sequels. Theyre Pixar, theyve built up such an amazing brand name that they have a blank check with audiences to do just about anything, and people will show up to see it. They could be using their power over audiences to bring more original ideas to the screen, something no other Hollywood studio seems to get away with at the box office, but instead they keep cranking out sequel after sequel. Cars 2 isnt the only one on the horizon. Theyre already working on Monsters University, a sequel to Monsters, Inc.. Add Toy Story 4 into the mix and that means out of their last four movies only one, Brave, is an original property.
Its not that we dont love the characters of Toy Story, its that we love them so much we dont need to see any more of them. Toy Story 3 was all about knowing when to let go of the things you love. Making Toy Story 4 all but spits in the face of everything Toy Story 3 seemed to be trying to tell us. Maybe the people at Pixar should take a minute, and sit down to rewatch their own movie. Our only hope here is that Hanks has somehow confused work on an upcoming Toy Story short with a fourth film. Toy Story 3 needs to be the end.
UPDATE! Back in 2011 Tom Hanks was convinced that Toy Story 4 would happen, but now we know that he was wrong and Pixar is completely done with the Toy Story movie franchise. Instead the future of Toy Story is in amazing shorts and holiday TV specials, like Toy Story Of Terror which aired on ABC over Halloween in 2013.
Back to top


text:
|Hospital Quality
|Patient Satisfaction
|Appointments & Offices
10 Steps to Pick the Right Doctor
Whether you need a primary care doctor or a specialist, these 10 steps will ensure you find the right doctor for you. View Slideshow
Procedures Dr. Schutz Performs
Dr. Schutz does not have any procedures listed. If you are Dr. Schutz and would like to add procedures you perform, please update your free profile.
Conditions Dr. Schutz Treats
Dr. Schutz does not have any conditions listed. If you are Dr. Schutz and would like to add conditions you treat, please update your free profile.
Background Check for Dr. Schutz
Education & Training
Medical School
- Univ Of Ks Sch Of Med
- Graduated in 1982
Residency Hospital
- Chldns Mercy Hosp
- Truman Med Ctr
Languages Spoken by Dr. Schutz & Staff
- English


text:
Joe Basil Chevrolet - Depew NEW
- 5111 Transit Rd
- Depew, New York
- 14043
- Phone: (716) 206-1770
This dealer has been temporarily suspended from listing inventory on LemonFree.com. This suspension is a result multiple negative feedback submissions in regards to the integrity and accuracy of vehicle and/or seller information.
We apologize for the inconvenience while this is pending further internal review.
For additional information, or if you would like to challenge the suspension, please contact email@example.com.


text:
Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest
Contact Information
Forest Headquarters Offices
500 Hanson Lake Road
Rhinelander, WI 54501
District Offices click here:
Contact Us
This is a family favorite! The 174-acre lake is extremely clear, and its 500-foot beach provides a great swimming area. Take a pleasant hike on the two and one-half mile trail that connects with Kentuck Lake Campground, and then enjoy a refreshing dip in Spectacle Lake. Keep your eyes open and listen carefully! You are likely to see and hear lots of wildlife while you're here!
Spectacle Lake Campground is located near Eagle River. To get there travel from Eagle River 7.6 miles to FR 2178 (Military Road). Turn left (north) on FR 2178 and continue 2.9 miles to Kentuck Lake Road (FR 2465). Turn right (northeast) on FR 2465 and continue 1.7 miles to FR 2196. Turn left (north) and continue 2.2 miles to Spectacle Lake Road (FR 2572). Turn right (east) and travel 1.2 miles to the campground.
Click here to print an information sheet including a map about Spectacle Lake Campground.
Map showing recreational areas.
Map Information
Current Fire Information
Forest Service Home | USDA.gov | recreation.gov | USA.gov | Whitehouse.gov
Plug-Ins | FOIA | Accessibility Statement | Privacy Policy | Important Notices | Information Quality


text:
Arthritis Research UK has now awarded funding for its first three new national centres of research excellence. All receive £2.5 million over five years. Arthritis Today reports on their progress to date.
Our newest centre is Arthritis Research UK's National Pain Centre at Nottingham University, which aims to improve treatments for arthritis – the most common cause of chronic pain.
As the world's first national centre for research into understanding pain in arthritis, with further £3 million from the university, it will be officially opened in spring.
The centre represents an ambitious bid to tackle chronic pain involving a multi-disciplinary, integrated approach to clinicians and scientists from different research fields including rheumatology, neuro-imaging and psychology.
The researchers' aims over the next five years will be to gain a better understanding of how people experience pain, to use that knowledge to fully understand the biological basis of pain in osteoarthritis, to develop new drugs to treat pain more effectively and to target existing drugs more effectively at individual patients.
Director Dr David Walsh from the School of Clinical Science's Division of Academic Rheumatology said the centre offered a "wonderful opportunity" to produce more effective pain treatments. "There is a huge unmet need for better pain relief for people with arthritis," he said.
"Current treatment can help some people, but the future holds huge potential for developing new and better treatments for the millions who suffer from chronic pain. Bringing together a team like this, of world experts in their fields, to look at the problem from completely different angles presents us with a wonderful opportunity."
Professor Alan Silman, Arthritis Research UK medical director said: "Pain is the number one concern for all patients with arthritis, and there have been too few recent advances in how to manage it. Several million people suffer both day and night, with only conventional painkillers helping to keep the pain at bay.
"Our new centre is charged with a truly innovative approach; covering the basic pathways of pain perception and the changes in the tissues caused by arthritis to identify completely new targets for developing effective, safe and acceptable treatments."
Current drug treatments to relieve the pain of osteoarthritis are unsatisfactory, and although exercise, weight loss and self-management help some sufferers, many more people struggle to find adequate, side-effect-free pain relief. Joint replacement surgery is available for people with severe, unremitting pain, but even this is not a solution for everyone. Many osteoarthritis sufferers turn to unproven supplements, but few have been shown to work.
Dr Walsh and his team will use osteoarthritis of the knee as an initial model for their research, although it is expected that their work will help people with other types of arthritis pain over time.
"It is well recognised that the experience of osteoarthritic pain involves the interplay between the way that the nerves present in the joint (the peripheral nerves) detect changes in the joint tissues that occur in osteoarthritis, how these nerve signals from the joint are processed by the spinal cord and brain and translated into feelings of pain, and how this is influenced by the way a patient thinks and feels about their pain," explained Dr Walsh.
"However, our understanding of the relative contributions of each of these factors to the final experience of pain is incomplete – which is our great challenge."
A full-length feature on the new pain centre will follow in Arthritis Today in April.
Arthritis Research UK Biomechanics and Bioengineering Centre at Cardiff University was officially opened by His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester in September.
The Duke met researchers, arthritis sufferers, clinicians and fundraisers during the opening ceremony. The centre is dedicated to world-leading research to find bioengineering solutions to arthritis, and brings together biomedical scientists, medics, engineers, rheumatologists, physiotherapists and orthopaedic surgeons.
One exciting new aspect of the research is to relate molecular changes in the joint to pain and inflammation, to then show how overworked joints are linked to pain and disease development. This should lead to better drugs and physical therapies, as well as improvements to joint replacement techniques and, further in the future, to identify novel alternatives to orthopaedic surgery.
Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan described the new centre as "a real feather in the cap for Welsh science."
The first of our national research centres, Arthritis Research UK National Primary Care Centre was officially opened by the then health Minister Lord Darzi in December 2008 and has enjoyed a productive first 12 months.
One of the centre's main aims is to have a direct impact on the way people with common musculoskeletal problems such as osteoarthritis and back pain are treated and to increase the status of research in the primary care setting (ie the GP surgery) where most people with arthritis receive their care.
Centre director Professor Peter Croft is enthusiastic: "Our first year has been an exciting one," he says. "The stability and the resource provided by the charity's investment in centre of excellence status has given tremendous impetus, energy and sense of purpose to our staff and our NHS partners in the research, and to the patients and public who support our studies, the local community and Keele University as a whole."
One main objective of the charity's investment strategy was to provide the centre with the basis to mount strong bids for external funds from sources which have often not prioritised musculoskeletal illness in the past. During the centre's first year, it was awarded two of the Department of Health's National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) programmes of £4 million over five years: to investigate optimal care for osteoarthritis in primary care and how to enhance the treatment of patients with low back pain.
Adds Professor Croft: "These awards directly recognise the framework for applied health research supported by Arthritis Research UK. They provide evidence of the expansion of applied health research into common musculoskeletal syndromes and of support for individuals to carry out and lead such research."
The Primary Care Sciences Research Centre, where the Arthritis Research UK centre is based, is also due to receive the prestigious Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Research, a national honour awarded every two years for work of outstanding excellence, at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in February.


text:
Michael Collins
|Release Date: October 11, 1996
|Running Time: 132 mins.
|MPAA Rating: R
|Box Office: $11,085,316.00
|Genre: Biopic, Drama, Historical, Period, Romance
Liam Neeson
Ian Hart
Julia Roberts
Aidan Quinn
All Cast & Crew >>
Summary:Michael Collins came of age in the early 20th century, when a monumental history of oppression and bloodshed had divided Ireland and its people, making hatred and distrust a national heritage and a way of life. In 1916, in what became known as the Easter Uprising, Irish revolutionaries surrendered after a six-day standoff at Dublin's General Post Office to the overwhelming military power of the British forces. Many followers, including Michael Collins and his close friend Harry Boland, were imprisoned. Upon their release, they found themselves the new leaders of the Irish independence movement. Collins' efforts to create a free and peaceful country, like the epic history of Ireland itself, w... Full Summary >>


text:
Say "Cheese!"1
The name pretty much says it all. There is, indeed, lotsa cheese in this recipe, and the results are outta this world. (It's so good that we seem to have lost our grip on the Queen's English.)
If you're looking for a fine way to see out the old year, this recipe's for you.
You can always go cheese-free in 2013. (But why would you want to?)
Fix-It and Forget-It 5-Ingredient Favorites, page 162
Makes 10 servings
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 3 hours
Ideal slow cooker size: 3-qt.
1 lb. dry macaroni
1 lb. Velveeta cheese, cubed
8 ozs. extra-sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 qt. milk
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, cut into small chunks
1. Follow package instructions for preparing the macaroni, but cook the macaroni only half the amount of time as called for. Drain. Pour macaroni into slow cooker.
2. Add remaining ingredients and stir together well.
3. Cover and cook on High 3 hours, stirring occasionally.


text:
Gold prices have certainly been a roller coaster ride over the last few weeks. Tumbling from record highs down to the $1,600 an ounce range, many investors in the sector continue to be puzzled by the metal's recent actions. After all, most of the reasons for investing in the precious metal still exist. Europe and the United States still have their massive debts to deal with; currency debasement is still occurring and high inflation looms on the horizon. With these circumstances still in place, one major gold supporter is telling investors to stay the course and that we'll see higher gold prices soon enough. (For more, see 5 Best Bets For Buying Gold.)
Investopedia Markets: Explore the best one-stop source for financial news, quotes and insights.
A Golden Founding Father
In the gold and silver world, Rob McEwen is as big of a celebrity as Jim Rogers or Eric Sprott. After taking a relatively small $50 million dollar investment in a handful of junior mining firms, he transformed them into the mining powerhouse, Goldcorp (NYSE:GG). With one of the richest gold mine deposits in the world (Red Lake, Ontario) as well as one of the lowest cash costs of any major miner, Goldcorp has emerged as one of the largest and most profitable majors in the sector. So, McEwen certainly knows his way around the gold industry. His latest predictions for precious metals prices are enough to make any gold bug excited.
Speaking to the Geological Society of Nevada, McEwen firmly stood behind his prediction of $5,000 an ounce for gold and $200 an ounce for silver, within four years. Robert urged investors to think about gold as a source of money and that it is a currency. To that end, central banks in China, Russia and India are buying gold in spades as a way to diversify their reserves and restore confidence in their currencies. The mining guru believes that the Chinese and Russians will eventually increase their gold holdings to the level that the percentage of their total currency will be greater than that of any other currency in the world. At this time, they will assert that their currency should become the reserve currency of the world. With this immense buying going on, coupled with the difficulties in finding new supplies of gold, McEwen sees gold surging in price over the next four years and could see prices spikes above $5,000 if conditions are right.
Playing McEwen's Bullish Forecast
For investors, McEwen's bullish long-term forecast for gold prices is certainly appealing and with gold trending downwards lately, it could be a good time to strike. While McEwen agrees that physically backed gold ETFs, like the ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (ARCA:SGOL) have their appeal, he prefers the mining firms. His fondness drifts especially towards the junior miners with their "potential to explode to the upside if they are lucky." The Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (ARCA:GDXJ) is still the easiest way to gain exposure to a basket of these firms and has fallen hard over the last few weeks. Similarly, the Global X Gold Explorers ETF (ARCA:GLDX) can be used to bet on the smallest of gold mining firms. (For related reading, see The 5 Best Performing Gold ETFs.)
For those investors willing to bet directly on McEwen's potential success at creating the next Goldcorp, U.S. Gold (NYSE:UXG) could be the answer. He also holds 20% of the shares in the firm as well as owning 30% of the shares of Minera Andes Inc. (OTCBB:MNEAF.OB) and plans on merging the two in order to form a new company called McEwen Mining. The combined company would have zero net debt and large copper, silver and gold reserves and would be on the S&P 500 Index by 2015. The only other gold firm included in the index is Newmont Mining (NYSE:NEM). Additionally, investors looking at other gold juniors may want to consider Rubicon Minerals (AMEX:RBY). McEwen sold his stake in the firm to focus on the merger plans, but the firm's outlook still remains the same.
The Bottom Line
Rob McEwen is slouch when it comes to the gold industry and his latest forecast is enough to get the blood of any gold bugs pumping. For investors, the recent downturn in gold prices is a great buying opportunity to add gold equities in the wake of his $5,000 an ounce prediction.
Use the Investopedia Stock Simulator to trade the stocks mentioned in this stock analysis, risk free!
At the time of writing, Aaron Levitt did not own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this article.


text:
Canal cruises and dining
Hebden Bridge Cruises
Based on the Rochdale Canal at the Stubbing Wharf, Hebden Bridge Cruises offers scheduled cruises including Sunday Roast Cruises, Afternoon Tea Cruises, and even Pirate Parties for the kids.
You can even charter your own cruise for any other event: gather your friends for a party or get your colleagues away from the office. All the catering is provided by the Stubbing's kitchen.
For more information about Hebden Bridge Cruises, please phone 07966 808717, or visit our web site www.hebdenbridgecruises.com
Sean, Mary and the team at Hebden Bridge Cruises have a narrow beamed craft, Gracie, named after Rochdale's finest, Gracie Fields. The boat was built especially for the canal. Originally built for twenty, it now takes a maximum of twelve, so there's room for all.
Gracie is equipped with small galley and bar serving soft drinks and copious amounts of tea, Fair Trade coffee or delicious hot chocolate. and copious amounts of tea, Fair trade coffee or delicious hot chocolate.
For 2015, we have a full range of cruises including, Afternoon Tea Cruise, Sunday Lunch Cruise, and the very popular CelebrationCruise for you to create that perfect day out for your family or friends celebration.
We also offer a fish and chips cruise on Friday lunchtime.
Treat yourself and indulge in a meal from the Stubbing Wharf's kitchen whilst you cruise on a traditional narrowboat in the heart of the Pennine hills.
You also have the option to charter our boat with skipper and crew.
School educational trips also available.
For further information please visit our website www.hebdenbridgecruises.com
Did you know?
The Rochdale Canal is 32 miles long and was built over the Pennines virtually by hand and requires 92 locks. It took less than 10 years to build and was opened in 1804.


text:
July 11, 2014
DALLAS (SMU) – Both SMU swimming and diving teams posted grade point averages above 3.0 to earn CSCAA Scholar All-America Team honors for the 2014 spring semester, the organization announced on Thursday. The women's team posted a 3.40, while the men had a 3.25.
The honor, which is supported by Nike Swim, is presented to college and university swimming and diving teams who have posted a team GPA of 3.0 or higher.
On Wednesday, seven swimmers also achieved university honors for the spring semester. Senior Natalie Schauwecker, junior Elizabeth Krane and sophomores Ursa Bezan and Nicholas Hook earned Honor Roll with High Distinction, while graduated senior Jordan Newman and sophomore Bryce Klein earned Honor Roll with Distinction accolades and sophomore Hayden Corley was named to the Honor Roll.
For a full release and list of teams click here.


text:
$ 1,000.00
Deep-blue polo neck in cashmere-silk blend, with a timeless charm. This item is the perfect product of raw materials and manufacturing, meeting two fundamental requirements: on the one hand, it boasts high-quality yarn and knitting techniques, and on the other, it fits superbly underneath a jacket. The height of fine, lightweight knitwear.
Thursday is the new black: an exclusive online promotion is waiting for you in the next days.
Register for the newsletter to be one of the first to get it


text:
STATESVILLE � Investigators say they have arrested one suspect and are looking for another man in a fatal shooting outside a home in Statesville.
Witnesses told police that two men on scooters shot and killed 22-year-old Dantae Stokes on Thursday afternoon.
Officers arrested 22-year-old Byron Smyre on Friday. He is charged with murder. A murder warrant has also been issued for 18-year-old Dewayne Pickett. It wasn't known if either man had an attorney.
Investigators have released little information on what led to the shooting or whether the victim and suspects knew each other.
Location, ST | website.com


text:
Poor old Willie Hague seems doomed to employ the world's worst PR spinners. The outrageous Amanda Platell did for him by getting him to pose in a silly baseball cap, attend a Gay Pride march, and boast of drinking 14 pints of beer a day when he was a lad. Now we have his disastrous public statement about his Special Advisor and all that guff about his marriage. This gave the story legs; without it the whole fiasco would be over. Who cares if he walks on both sides of the street? There have been whispers amongst the chatterati that Willie's sexuality has been a matter of speculation since he made his well-remembered speech at the Tory Party conference when he was only 16 because he never had anything to do with girls. Why? It seems much more likely that Willie never thought about rumpy-pumpy because he only ever thought about politics. He married the charming Fi when he became Welsh Secretary; she was a prominent member of the Taffia.
An excess of testosterone is part of the essential make-up of a politician. Exposures of toe sucking, copulating in a Manchester United football shirt, self-starring porno videos made within the hallowed precincts of Westminster, 'Shagger' Norris with his plethora of concurrent mistresses, Jeremy Thorpe and the Great Dane, Mandelson and his Latino catamite, fatalities during weird sex-games, and John Prescott laying his secretary (anything is possible, even that unlikely episode) – I tell you, it's like the Ball of Kirriemuir' in there. Going back further, we had the Profumo Affair, and Harold Macmillan's wife was the long-standing mistress of Bob Boothby who sodomised the queer Kray brother when Dorothy was not about. Ambidextrous was our Bob. These guys are game for anything as long as it stands still long enough. I don't care, although I draw the line at the strange activities of one (ex) Lib-Dem MP whose tastes ran to rent boys and excrement. But I guess some of the women MPs will die wondering.
Interestingly, a week-end opinion poll showed overwhelming support for Willie; the vast majority believed him to be telling the truth (as opinion polls of politicians' veracity are concerned, this one should get in the Guinness Book of Records). The wisdom of issuing the Press Statement was about equally divided, although my firm practice has always been to follow the military maxim 'never explain, never complain, never apologise'. The ST did a good commentary piece about voter hypocrisy and the prurient interest in the admittedly diverse and inexhaustible sex lives of politicians. Of course, this can cut both ways. If Edwina Currie had published her memoirs revealing not just her affair with John Major but also the impressive contents of his Y-fronts in 1996, he might have won in 1997. When rumours spread during an election campaign in eighteen hundred and frozen stiff that Lord Palmerston had been caught in flagrante delicto in his 80s, the leader of the opposition said 'Don't let it get out; he'll sweep the country'.
This seems to be 'Gotcha' time in UK politics. Andy Coulson, Dave's spinmeister, is also under the spotlight, with the comrades implying that he is or has been deeply involved in hacking into MPs' mobile phones. He was accused of this when he was Editor of the Screws of the World, but exonerated – or rather it was 'not proven'. The deeper question is what Dave thought he was doing in appointing the head hack of the lowest of the Red Tops apart from Sunday Sport.
I have not seen any reference to Dr Kelly in the Blair apologia; he does observe that the Queen was 'haughty, which I take to mean that she was not impressed with Tone's charm or Cherie's vulgarity. When Cherie asked Princess Anne to call her 'Cherie', HRH replied that 'Mrs Blair' would do fine. Ouch. But the masterwork is flying off the shelves, to the benefit of old soldiers. Tone admits that it was deliberate policy to encourage immigration purely for the sake of enticing the Tories to react adversely so that he could shout 'nasty party' again. The Tories were not falling into that obvious trap. But when immigration became a major issue in this year's election, Cameroon said that a Tory government would bring it under control with a system of quotas and vouchers, and all others would be deported.
A slight snag here. Most immigrants come from Eastern European countries that are members of the EU. So they can't be sent home. Back to the drawing board, Dave. Tsarkozy is up to the same stunt to repair his terrible ratings. He is beating his little chest and chucking out the Roma. They will just come back again, as they are entitled, but it does boost the wee chap's Napoleonic image, which needs all the help it can get. And a new book implies that la grande horizontale might have to be buried in a Y-shaped coffin.
Not everybody is convinced by the establishment's defence of the Dr Kelly findings. Here is Richard Ingrams in The Oldie magazine:
Dr Norman Hunt, the pathologist who examined Dr David Kelly and who this week has described his death as "a textbook suicide", is one of 43 pathologists on the Home Office register qualified to investigate suspicious or violent deaths. In his fascinating book The Strange Death of David Kelly, Norman Baker, now the transport minister, raises the interesting question of why Dr Hunt, relatively inexperienced at the time, should have been chosen to deal with what was a sensational case. Coincidentally, the same kind of question is now being asked about another pathologist, Dr Freddy Patel, who on Wednesday was found guilty by the GMC of five instances of neglect and incompetence and may now be struck off the register. Despite the fact that he was under investigation by the GMC, Dr Patel was selected by the coroner to examine Ian Tomlinson, who had died after last year's anti-G20 demonstration in London. Unlike Dr Hunt, Dr Patel was not on the Home Office register. After this week's GMC's ruling, the Tomlinson family issued a statement asking how Dr Patel's appointment "could have been approved by the City of London police who paid part of his fee". So long as these questions – like those relating to Dr Kelly – remain unanswered, we are fully entitled to believe that in both instances there has been a cover-up.
This story has been around since last December and refuses to go away. The group of doctors who first raised it will shortly be in the High Court seeking a declaration that an inquest should be held. It now seems unavoidable if the 'cover-up' allegations are to be refuted.
A revealing comment from Blair when asked why he never sacked the awful Broon was that it would have split the Labour Party; instead he merely ruined the country.
The Great Pakistani Cricket Scam will not go away, either. It now emerges that the Old Bill has been following the go-between for months. It will be a very complicated enquiry, so there won't be any closure in the short term. If the players are charged in London, which now seems increasingly likely, they will be bailed. The intriguing question is whether they will answer bail and return from Pakistan to face trial. If they don't, I foresee the future of Pakistan cricket as being extremely uncertain. The Pakistani authorities have handled this appallingly, with the High Commissioner suggesting that the News of the World video was a fake. Bad move. The News of the Screws will be all over him now. England have been playing international cricket since the 1870s, but big money and big temptation only arrived with satellite TV coverage a few years ago. The rot centres on the Indian sub-continent because that is where the illegal bookies operate.
For more, go to whydonttheylistentous.blogspot.com


text:
Sign in to participate
The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of each author and do not necessarily represent the views,positions,strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management. IBM reserves the right to remove content deemed inappropriate.
We've moved!
This blog is no longer being maintained. Follow us on In the Making, the new IBM Systems blog.
Follow Us
Why Do You Need Governance in the Cloud? Project and Service Governance
Ryan Boyles 100000UX41 firstname.lastname@example.com | | Tags:  cloud amywohl service project soa governance
0 Comments | 7,523 Visits
Companies (and individuals) often choose to mitigate risks by buying insurance. This doesn't keep bad things from happening, but it reduces risk and helps you return to a steady state. In the cloud, governance is a kind of insurance; it provides a structure for managing multiple projects, avoiding redundant work, and allowing your organization to exploit investments in services by managing your service portfolio.
But planning and implementing governance is often incremental. In fact, most cloud usage starts with no governance at all (except that SOA governance may already be in place). Early cloud usage is often associated with projects at the departmental level; it's hard to justify or "sell" governance, which represents an additional expense, before the deployment of additional projects makes it clearer what benefits governance offers. (Of course, if you can convince cloud users to start with governance, or provide governance as an IT-funded service, so much the better.)
Governance can help manage consumer/provider relationships. It can manage contracts for SLAs and charge-backs and manage the provisioning of services such as check approval and credit card processing. But to consume these fine-grained services, governance is required; otherwise, each time the service is used it will probably be written again.
If SOA governance is already in place (and in many large enterprises it will be) governance for cloud services may be implemented on top of it; otherwise, you will want to implement SOA governance first. SOA governance defines essential governance and management processes for consumer/provider environments including portfolio management, project management, service management, and policy management. Cloud governance requires extensions of SOA service provisioning to support business models that are more contract-driven.
As services (such as HIPPA compliance) begin to become available from industry services providers, governance will enable consuming and integrating these services. But buyers need to be aware of what they're buying; standards are still in their infancy and providers may be using de facto standards rather than broader ones, opening buyers to the possibility of vendor lock-in.
The cloud will drive a significant acceleration in change, making it more important than ever to be able to consume and re-consume services, rather than writing and rewriting custom code. Governance allows this to happen. Already it is apparent that well-governed organizations (on every level from IT governance to SOA governance to cloud governance) perform better because they are dynamically better at adapting to change. For more information about the relationship between SOA and Cloud Governance download this PDF.
In the next blog post, we'll talk about the role of accelerated workload integration and performance.
0 Comments
There are no comments to display Add a Comment Add a Comment


text:
Here is a collection of 4 More Free Kindle Books you will want to snap up today!
Did you know we post over a dozen free books every day? Make sure you don't miss another deal: Click Here to get our Daily Email updates!
Though free at time of posting, prices may change at any time. Please verify that the "Kindle Price" is $0.00. If you see a price for "Prime Members" or "read for free", then the book is NOT free any longer.
For non-U.S. readers, Kindle content availability and pricing will vary.
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs, Romance, Suspense, Thriller
Simple Simon
by Ryne Douglas Pearson
For fans of David Baldacci, Tom Clancy, and Robert Ludlum…
He's brilliant. Innocent. Helpless. And he's marked for death…
It took years to develop. Cost billions to perfect. A cryptographic system so advanced it safeguards the United States' most vital secrets. It is secure. Impenetrable.
Until sixteen year old autistic savant Simon Lynch happens upon a forgotten snippet of code, his damaged brilliance breaking the cipher with ease and unwittingly marking him for death. Soon, elements of a pathological government security apparatus are hunting him, as is a beautiful, sadistic Japanese assassin working for enemies who will stop at nothing to learn the secret locked in Simon's mind.Only FBI Agent Art Jefferson stands between the innocent young man and these corrupt forces, putting his career, his freedom, and his life on the line to save Simon.
Simple Simon was made into the Bruce Willis film Mercury Rising.
Every Precious Thing
by Brett Battles
FREE on Kindle
From award winning author Brett Battles comes the second Logan Harper thriller.
It was supposed to be a fun weekend, a celebration of a marriage and growing family. Alan Lindley couldn't have been happier…until his wife Sara disappeared.
Asked by a mutual friend to help look for her, Logan Harper is sure he'd discover a wife who simply wants out of the marriage.
What he finds instead is a woman who didn't exist, a diabolical plan, and people who would do anything to keep it a secret, including taking the life of the person most important to him.
What would you do for those precious to you?
South Beach Cinderella
by Sharon Potts
FREE on Kindle
Somewhere over the rainbow… is a giant dumpster. At least, that's how things appear to Frankie Wunder when she discovers her husband's been cheating on her and there are no fairy tale endings on her horizon. But Frankie, a successful South Beach realtor, isn't prepared to leave her future up to the wave of anyone's wand.
Determined to find a man who meets her criteria for the perfect husband and father of the child she desperately wants, Frankie goes on a diet, assembles a list of prospective candidates, and immerses herself in the South Beach dating scene. But is a man who's rich, successful, and willing to take care of her what Frankie really wants?
As she works her way through a deceitful doctor, a lecherous lawyer, and a rakish real estate executive–the men most South Beach Cinderellas would gladly lose a slipper to–Frankie realizes her dream men are nightmares and her true Prince Charming is nothing like the guy in the fairy tale.
The Bookie's Runner
by Brendan Gisby
'The Bookie's Runner' is the gorgeously, hypnotically told tale of Brendan Gisby's father, Derry, and his dream of the big win on the horses, the one that would relieve his adored family of poverty and redeem him in the eyes of his angry and disappointed wife.
For decades he worked on his system. It had to be foolproof. He could only afford to run it once. He meticulously studied the form for every race ever recorded – the horses, their characteristics, their lineage, their combinations, the race track, the conditions, the outcome – and made his predictions for the next race.
Then, just as he entered hospital for what would prove to be his final illness, he was ready. His system worked; it really couldn't fail, he was sure of that. His family would be set up for life, he would be a hero, he would fulfil the dreams of every one of his betting friends – to beat the bookies once and for all at their own game, again and again.
From his hospital bed he carefully placed his bets…
If you only read one more book in your life, bet on this one. It is every bit a winner as Derry McKay was, even if everybody thought he was a certain loser until that moment…
* * *
Looking for more Biographies, Memoirs, and Non-Fiction Kindle Books?
Discover Health, Wealth, and Happiness with the best Non-Fiction Kindle Books at the cheapest prices – Power Reads!
Prices are subject to change without notice. For non-U.S. readers, Kindle content availability and pricing will vary.


text:
Adorable Dog Goes Bananas on a Leaf Blower
Does this dog have a split personality? It sure looks like he might.
Does this dog have a split personality? It sure looks like he might.
This guy's roommates are a couple of balloon-atics.
If you've ever tried to give a cat a bath—or even just bring the cat anywhere near a bathtub—then you know how these people feel.
Generally, when something requires a forklift, it's pretty heavy and tends to be quite valuable. Hence the required training. But sometimes, even the most well-trained driver has an off-day.
Tree-cutting is a dangerous activity, one best left to professionals. But these folks don't care.
It's time for a refresher on what exactly not to do with your grill.
It sure is fun to ride a big wheel; any 5-year-old can tell you that. But when a grownup tries to do it? Well ...
Gambling can become an addiction, one that affects us all. Even cats.
Cats have many enemies — dogs are the obvious one, but they have several other rivalries as well.
Ah, we can remember the first time we tried a Warhead. Especially our cheeks, which have never been the same.


text:
March 1, 2006
By Jeff Honza
MURRAY, Ky. - Grant Gerrard and Ryan Enata each posted career-highs of four hits, while Matt Brewer and Dean Cademartori launched two-run homers to lead Southern Illinois University (9-1) to its eighth-straight victory. The Salukis edged Murray State (0-6), 8-7, earlier today in a wild one at Reagan Field.
SIU, who posted its second-straight one-run win, led 8-1 after scoring five runs in the first and three in the fourth. Those two innings proved to be the difference, as the Dawgs ended up stranding 15 baserunners.
"I thought we gave some at-bats away and that we had an opportunity to put Murray State away in the first four innings," said Saluki head coach Dan Callahan. "With the way things ended up, I was just glad we held on."
Every Saluki came to the plate in a disasterous first inning for MSU right-hander Matt Scalfani.
Scalfani started his outing by issuing back-to-back walks to Kevin Koski and Nathan Emrick. After two passed balls by Thoroughbred catcher Daniel Miller, SIU had runners on the corners with no outs.
Gerrard then doubled home Koski, while Emrick scored on a sacrifice fly by Hunter Harrigan. Shortly after Gerrard touched home on a wild pitch, Cademartori drew the third walk against Scalfani.
Ahead 2-0 in the count, Brewer followed with his first home run of the season to give SIU an early 5-0 lead.
Scalfani lasted just two-thirds of an inning, where he allowed four hits and five runs to go along with three walks. He also threw 31 pitches, 14 were strikes.
With Emrick already on base via a bunt single, Cademartori went yard for the second time this year to ignite the rally. Brewer and Scott Elmendorf followed with back-to-back hits, before Ryan Enata's single plated Brewer.
The clutch piece of hitting turned out to be huge.
"Good teams score runs with two outs," said Callahan. "As much as I'm disappointed in all the scoring opportunities we squandered, I'm happy with the damage we did with two outs."
MSU, who slowly got back into the game with a run in each of the fifth, sixth and seventh innings, gave SIU a big scare in the ninth.
Pinch-hitter Chaz Ebert reached on an error and Brett Mullins singled to start the Thoroughbreds' final at-bat. With one out following a fielder's choice, Tyler Pittman knocked in a pair of runs on a double to center.
Brewer, who struck out two as part of a one-two-three eighth, started the ninth, but left the game after Pittman's double.
Freshman Dusty Baker then took over and struck out Michael Perconte on three pitches for the second out of the inning. However, on the next play, Brett Wilson singled to cut the lead to 8-7.
Needless to say, Baker kept his poise and battled back to catch Lincoln Kent looking on strikes for the final out of the game.
One of SIU's most pleasant surprises as of late, Baker earned three saves and a win in four-straight relief appearances.
Freshman left-hander Charlie Weber made his first collegiate start and earned the first win of his career after striking out four, allowing five hits and giving up two runs in five innings. Weber also held the `Breds scoreless in the first, third and fourth frames.
"It feels good to get my first win," said Weber. "I struggled early, but settled down, especially in the last few innings, where I felt like I really got control of my curve ball."
Callahan also commented on Weber's performance.
"I thought Charlie did a good job competing without having his best stuff," added Callahan. "We're very excited to see him get his first college win."
SIU, who remained perfect (5-0) when scoring first on its opponents, registered 14 hits, six of which went for extra bases.
Gerrard had half of those extra base hits, as he finished at 4-for-6 with three doubles, a run scored and one RBI. The four hits surpassed his previous career-high of three, which came at Stetson on Feb. 12, 2005.
Enata, who had no more than two hits in a game prior to today, went a near-perfect 4-for-5 with a run scored.
"We got eight hits from Grant and Ryan today," said Callahan. "It's nice to see Grant rack up some hits and I'm happy with the way Ryan played in his first start of the season."
Brewer rounded out SIU's multiple-hit performers with two hits, including his 15th career home run.
SIU returns home to host Northern Illinois in a three-game series beginning Friday at 2 p.m., CST.


text:
|Claim this listing
Modern memorial services for the 21st Century, serving the Monterey Bay through San Francisco Bay areas. A great life demands a great goodbye. Let us help you create a moment which does justice to the one you've lost, and which helps you to heal and move forward. Traditional funerals and memorial services no longer meet the needs of many people. We will craft a celebration of your loved one's life based on who they were and what you need.


text:
This was a fabulous trip. Our tour guide, William, really took the time to make it a special experience. We had crazy weather with snow so our plans were deterred and our return flight to Shanghai was cancelled. We felt no stress and William and the tour company took care of everything. Even down to him running around the airport and staying with us until we were completely set on our new flight. He asked us what was a must so we did get The Great Wall and it was magnificent covering in snow. Despite low temperatures we had an awesome experience and would highly rec this tour if you only have one day to get to The Great Wall Don't miss it!
A long day but well worthwhile. The Forbidden City, Tiamen Square and the Great Wall all live up to the high expectation I had. Thee guide was excellent - Friendly , informative and professional. Air delays into and out of Shanghai mar the tour.
I booked this tour for my 15 year old daughter and me not really knowing what to expect. However, from the Lobby call to the pre-processed airport checkin we were surprised how smoothly everything went. The meeting at Beijing continued the flow and we were continually surprised and delighted the day ahead. The history of Beijing combined with the hospitality if our English speaking guide and his capable driver made this one of the most memorable days of our trip. If you love history and want to make the most if a wonderful day out we certainly recommend this tour. A fantastic day that will stay in our memories for a long time to come.
If you only have a day, take this tour! We were very lucky with the weather and our guide was really fantastic. Be prepared to walk, we covered a lot of territory in one day. The only weak point was lunch at the Jade shop. If you're a foodie, this is disappointing. However, I'll bet you can get your guide to go to a more interesting stop for lunch if you have an adventurous appetite.
Bing USA
It was AMAZING to see so much of Beijing in such a short time! My guide was very professional and friendly. I've learnt so much about Chinese culture and local life from him. Everything went smoothly and I highly recommend this trip!
It was well worth doing and Jason was an excellent guide and so was his driver.
Excellent organization. Great guide and driver. Pick up from hotel on time. Superb itinerary. Highly recommend.
It was amazing to see all the top attractions in Beijing in one day and back to Shanghai at night. It was super organized and one of the best experiences I've ever had around the world. I mean, what a brilliant idea! btw the lunch was superb as well!
Great tour, started a little early. Delivered as promised airfare, airport driver, tiananmen square, forbidden palace and great wall all by a knowledgeable english speaking tour guide. Only other complaint is the standard tour of a jade factory and silk factory. Really just a slightly pressured sales trip after the tour which only lasts five minutes.
My tour went well. The tour guide and driver were nice people and made the day interesting android ex me with a great insight into every day life in Beijing. The Great Wall was amazing and I recommend that every one does the climb for as far as they can. It is truly a magnificent piece of Architecture and history. The slide cars were a fun way to come back down the Mountain. I will use viatoura again when I travel.
The trip was perfect for my needs. I only had a day, and I didn't want to leave China without seeing the Great Wall. Transportation was convenient: A driver picked me up from the hotel, had my printed plane ticket, then the tour guide and driver for the day picked me up from the airport, and the same driver picked me up at the airport at the end of the day. The tour guide was very nice and easy to understand. I enjoyed the Forbidden City and the Great Wall the most. I was also shown a tea shop, jade shop, and silk shop which were good to see, but also encouraged buying and haggling a bit... I didn't mind much, but by the end of the day, I was tired and just wanted to go back to the airport (I was the only person on the tour). I recommend this tour if you're on a tight schedule, but it would be more fun with someone else too.
First, the good parts- we really enjoyed visiting the Great Wall- this part is definitely worth doing.. The Forbidden City was also interesting. The guide and driver tried very hard to get us everywhere quickly, despite the terrible traffic in Beijing (including a quick stop at Tienanmen Square) and the guide gave us lots of information. The pick-ups and drop-offs went smoothly. However, it was a very long day. It would have been better to put us on an earlier return flight to Shanghai. In order to save time, we could suggest cutting out the trip to the Chinese Medicine Clinic in the afternoon, under the guise of getting a "free" foot massage! This was an unexpected consultation with a doctor and his translator who wanted us to spend thousands of dollars on medicines and they were not impressed when we did not buy their recommended treatments. We did not set out to go to a doctor's appointment on our holiday- the whole experience was quite unpleasant and we felt ambushed. The "free" foot massage was not complimentary either as we were pressured into leaving a tip. At lunch, we were given the "opportunity" to buy jade but this was more low-key at least. Overall, it was interesting but tiring and a bit stressful -between the long hours ( nearly 18 hours from pick-up to drop-off), the sales pitch and the seemingly never-ending traffic gridlock of Beijing. It would have been nice to have water available on board the bus as it was a long time between lunch and further opportunities to eat and drink (i.e.at the airport, several hours later)..
Note from Viator: Thank you for your review. We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced during your tour. We have contacted the tour company and have addressed your concern with them. Thank you for helping us ensure the quality of our tours.
Julie S United Kingdom
Our tour guides English was extremely difficult to understand, so we had to just nod and smile in hopefully all the right places - so missed out on loads of info She kept telling my son that he looked just like his 'daddy' - my son is 27 and we were with his step father! We asked to go for 2 minutes to Tianamen Square which was opposite the forbidden city but she got very stressy and although she agreed to go, she told us we were now running late and would get no lunch and have to go to another location of the Great Wall. Still starving , she then proceeded to rub my husbands stomach whilst telling a story about a 'happy Buddha'!! All in all this was a very expensive day trip and a complete disappointment.
Note from Viator: Thank you for your review. We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced during your tour. We have contacted the tour company and have addressed your concern regarding guide service with them. Thank you for helping us ensure the quality of our tours.
Page: 1


text: This is my 8th E-man in 9 years (did Bay Swim in 1 of those years, instead), and did 2 Cambridge Triathlon in 1990-1991, before that. In the old Cambridge Triathlon years, we actually swam across the Choptank, then ran 13.1 to a high school, then rode 55 miles! Old Fletch Hanks directed those races, and there was NO race support on the bike, so whatever you needed for fluid /nutrition, you had better properly prepare (an ex-Marine mentality)! Usually, racers were out of fluids by mile 30, and 1 of the reasons I didn't want to do the Cambridge race again. Thanks Vig for making the bike ride supported with lots of awesome volunteers.Jason Woo (club member), and I traveled to Cambridge / Salisbury together. Jason doesn't have a car and he offered a hotel room in exchange, a good deal all the way around, and the drive company makes the trip go quicker. While I have a bike roof rack, for long-haul trips, I normally put the bike in the trunk (with part going into the folded down back seat) and room in the back seat for the other transition paraphernalia. Jason's bike is smaller so rather than fit his in the truck also (which could have happened with padding)we were able to put his in the back seat, so it worked out great, considering that there was intermittent showers the whole trip down, and some heavy rain, at times. Leaving about 10:30am, we arrive in Cambridge about 12 noon, and were surprised at how many others were already there, and parking lot was full. This year registration process was much improved, where USA Triathlon membership verification is separated from photo ID check at packet pickup. Line seemed to move quicker as a result. This year's premium was an outstanding transition bag, with LOTS of room, and something we can all use. Last year was a travel bag, which was nice, but not something that could be used on race day, other than for an overnight bag.Also, this year, there was a separate Ironman tent outside, with lots of merchandise (with accompanying premium prices). I tried not to spend too much, (which can be hard with Ironman logo merchandise) and wound up spending well over $130, with only a few items. By the time we registered, bought some Eagleman gear, ate lunch, and racked bike in transition, 4hrs gets burned quickly. We saw Mark Yost, who we planned to meet for dinner in Salisbury, and headed to Salisbury around 4pm, for a 6pm dinner date. Stayed at Sleep-In near corner of Rt. 113 and Rt. 50, (which is being seriously remodeled). Registered and relaxed for about 1.5 hrs before dinner. Only 3rd floor was open and the hall carpet still had a new carpet smell. Really nice upgraded rooms and everything was new. Hallway still had brand new mattresses stacked up in original packaging. 3rd Floor even had new washer/dryers, and when we got back from dinner, some kids were playing in the outdoor pool.The restaurant Mark original was planning to go to, was closed up, so we tried a different Italian restaurant near Salisbury State U. (Fratelli's), which has really good food at very reasonably prices. With Mark, Jason, Wade Gaasch, and I were joined by 3 other triathletes friend of Mark's. We were finished dinner by 7pm, and were back at the hotel by about 7:30pm. Plan for race morning was to get up at 3:30am, and be on road for 30 min drive by 4:00am. We were both asleep by 9:30pm. Everyone who knows me, know that I am all about the parking spot on race morning. By the time we got close to race site, there were already LOTS of cars parked, but always go to down and was lucky to find a spot at the end of the street, and under a tree for shade for a relatively short walk to transition.Swim time: 45:19. Swimming is my challenge, and I have been doing Master's AM swim practice for almost 2 years to help improve stroke, which has help, but there is still much more room for improvement! Triathlon philosophy is that you can win the race in the swim, but you certainly loose it. I am clearly giving up too much time in the swim to make up later. Started with Sergio in wave 6 (7:15AM) and came out of water about same time, and even though he is a Clydesdale, but being much younger, he swims much faster than me at Masters, so was glad to see me keep up with him, at least.Prior swim Splits:2005 - 44:202006 - 44:412007 - 35:58 (favorable current)2008 - 42:282009 - 41:252010 - 57:50 (no wetsuit)2012 - 41:28Knowing the wet conditions at The Great MOSH Park the day before, I placed tap over my bike shoes' cleat, knowing that I was going to wear my bike shoes out of T1. This worked great, and just pulled the tap off at bike mount, and running though the mud, did not put that in the cleat. I wish I had thought to carry my bike rather than push it through the mud. The way back was much worse than the trip out of the entrance to transition.Bike Time was very respectable 2:36:34 avg 21.5mph. Two problems that I experience on the bike. First, my bike computer was not registering correctly, and did not realize it until I was about mile 22 but my bike computer only showed me riding only about 35mins! Checked my stopwatch and noticed I had ridden about 1hr, though I checked it in transition and look OK. The other problem was when I had was going around a turn, about mile 15, hit a rumble-strip and lost my full water bottle on the left side of my rear holder, and was half way through the first, so my nutrition on the bike was only going to be water and the gel flask I had. Part of my run suffered from that.Prior Bike Splits:2005 - 2:44:292006 - 2:45:252007 - 2:35:272008 - 2:40:162009 - 2:45:072010 - 2:44:062012 - 2:36:03Some of the E-man bike course is only 1 lane road with no shoulder, packs sometimes can't helped to be formed, mostly ad-hoc. But some pack I saw were not speaking English and it seemed that there were lots of Europeans coming to E-man for Kona spot, and were working together in pack AS A TEAM and not ad hoc!!! Some of these packs were going well over 23mph. This also was evident when there were announcements that someone needed a helmet, and it was due to their helmets not being USA compliant.Took my time in T2 (4:38), and got shoes on at bike spot rather than carrying them out and washing feet of at water stop just out of T2. Again, lesson learned.Run splits: 9:55, 9:10, 9:08, 9:37, 9:34, 10:20, 11:19 (port-o-potty and had to wait for 1 to be open) 10:17, 10:13, 11:33, 10:42, 11:25, 10:53 (including .1), Total: 2:14:06 As a sign of how crazy this death march can be, I was starting to do a little "Marty Python" stick…."bring out your dead…I'm not dead yet..I can't take him, he's not dead…he will be soon….I think I'm feeling better…."Prior run Splits:2005 - 2:12:14 2006 - 2:03:41 2007 - 1:50:45 (mid70s, not humid/ideal conditions)2008 - 2:20:242009 - 2:07:40 2010 - 2:27:092012 - 2:08:56Like everyone who raced and relaxed at the MMTC tent afterword, Captain Elysia and Joann took such amazing care of everyone and the iced towels were amazing. Also, THANK YOU FOR PROVIDING BEER…and Homer Simpson would say…Beeeer, my love for you will never die.


text:
I usually draw my comics on a usual manuscript-paper with maru-pen and indian ink with beta. I've heard that you should not use usual manuscript-paper when drawing comics with maru-pen and I've discovered why -___________-'''
It's sometimes impossible to make fine lines with maru-pen, some advice in techniques? Does I have to draw in a different way? (I'm left-handed)
Comic Talk, Tips and Tricks
Some help about Maru-pen
Mirre at 10:40AM, Dec. 18, 2006
last edited on July 14, 2011 2:02PM
Eunice P at 2:45PM, Dec. 18, 2006
last edited on July 14, 2011 12:23PM
©2011 WOWIO, Inc. All Rights Reserved Google+


text:
North County government meetings for the week
• The Encinitas City Council will meet at 4 p.m. Monday in the City Council chambers at 505 S. Vulcan Ave to discuss its committee appointments for 2011.
• The Poway City Council will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the City Council chambers at 13325 Civic Center Drive. The council will decide whether to add $3 to parking tickets to accommodate a new state requirement and whether to allow a business to continue operating as a child-care center.
• San Marcos City Hall will be closed Friday. The next City Council meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Dec. 28.
• Escondido City Hall will be closed Thursday and Friday. The next City Council meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. Jan. 5.
• The district offices and all schools in the Escondido Union School District and Escondido Union High School District will be closed today through Dec. 31.
• The Oceanside City Council will meet at 2 p.m. Tuesday and at 4 p.m. Wednesday in the City Council chambers, 300 N. Coast Highway. The council will interview the candidates and select a new city treasurer Tuesday and will discuss council committee appointments Wednesday.