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These days, Chris Rock is firmly ensconced in the upper echelons of stand-up comics. Twenty years ago, though, he was a self-described has-been who struggled through four seasons on Saturday Night Live before joining In Living Color only to see Fox almost immediately cancel it. Rock desperately needed a career reinvention and brought it with Bring the Pain, his 1996 HBO comedy special that tackled hot-button topics like race and politics with a newfound ferocity that was still hugely funny.
Premiering on June 1, to rave reviews and big audiences — and after the cut-off deadline for that year's Emmy awards — Bring the Pain proved powerful enough to linger in the public imagination until the 1997 awards cycle, nominated for and winning a pair of Emmys that September and making Rock one of the most popular comics in the country. On the 20th anniversary of its Emmy victory, we spoke with Keith Truesdell and Sandy Chanley — the director and producer, respectively, of Bring the Pain as well as a number of other defining comedy specials for the likes of Adam Sandler, Kathy Griffin, and Bill Maher — about Rock's panther-like performance and how Bring the Pain is like a ballet.
How did you get your start producing stand-up comedy specials?
Sandy Chanley: We started our company, Production Partners, in 1990. Prior to that, we had been working in the comedy industry for another producer, so we were aware of television comedy specials for a good three to four years. After starting Production Partners, we did a couple of specials for HBO. We started getting nominated for and winning CableACE Awards. At the time, that's what cable programming could be up for. So we'd be in the stand-up comedy category at the CableACE's and people would say, "Man, if you lose, you're really a loser!"
Keith Truesdell: I had been directing before we started Production Partners, doing all different kinds of things. Directing was always my position, whether it be live or videotape or television. It's always been what I wanted to do and was very fortunate to get to do it. Sandy and I definitely formed a partnership where we have our specific roles, and watch each other's backs in a really great way.
Chanley: He's not nearly as good a producer as I am. And I suck as a director! [Laughs]
In those early days, did you have a kind of comic you specifically wanted to work with? Did you ever reject anyone?
Chanley: I don't think we ever turned anyone down. We got really lucky and weren't ever offered anyone that wasn't brilliant. Even Andrew Dice Clay; there was a moment in time we almost got to produce a special that he was doing. I think they postponed it, and then we couldn't do it because of scheduling or something. Even with all the crazy sexism the guy was promoting at the time [we wanted to do it]. If you went to an Andrew Dice Clay concert and you were a women, he would start into some of that stuff and men would be looking at you like, "I could do that to you." I said, "We'll put him on the stage, and capture that. It might be a little dangerous."
When did the relationship with Chris Rock start?
Chanley: We knew him through his manager at the time, and produced his first HBO special, Big Ass Jokes, in 1994. The material for that wasn't as edgy, but it was really smart and really funny. There was something really special about how he could deliver a joke and still be adorable. You just want to pinch him on the cheeks.
The Chris Rock we see in Big Ass Jokes is very different from the performer in Bring the Pain. When did you first get the sense that the new material would be such a departure?
Chanley: He was in Los Angeles while working on the Bring the Pain material, and he would go to The Comedy Store at midnight. I'd pop in to see him, and he'd just have this little notepad on the stool next to him. He wasn't even really performing the material so much as he was just tossing it out there to the 10 people sitting in the audience. But the material he was doing! I was sitting there in the back going, "Holy crap!" Sitting there listening to what he was about to lay down on an uncensored network, [I knew] it was going to be a breakthrough. Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor were already grabbing onto these outrageous, but realistic concepts. Chris just took it and went into areas where people still won't go. No one has the guts to do it now. I'd love to stand on a stage doing [the material] somewhere and just see what they would throw at me.
Even the way he moves onstage in Bring the Pain is different than in Big Ass Jokes. He's constantly pacing back and forth, and attacks each joke.
Truesdell: When he was working out the material, he never did that. It was only in the last couple of venues that he was actually getting into that pacing panther mode. You have to know that he's not going to do it the same way twice, and it was really important for me to learn his act as opposed to just watching it once. We traveled to different cities when he was working on the material and I made notes, memorized things and came up with concepts that you didn't see very often at the time. For example, the audience cutaways [in most comedy specials] just cut to the audience and then they go back to the person onstage. I came up with things like, during an applause break, we'll start the camera on the audience and then pan to the stage to tie it in. I really wanted the audience at home to feel like they were experiencing the moments as if they were there. I know everybody says that, but it's a difficult thing to do.
Chanley: As Chris evolved, Keith would evolve how he was going to cover the material. Most stand-up comics stand in one spot next to a stool, and if they even raise their arms up, it's like, "Oh, we've got to get a little wider [with our frame]." Keith was really excited about how to handle Chris's movements. He had to uniquely figure out how all those cameras were going to be able to move the entire time, including a close-up camera, and stay in focus. Keith made it look more like a film. The way he captured it, you really felt the wildness and energy of the crowd. A lot of the techniques he created, we used from that point forward.
Truesdell: It just feels like a ballet to me, you know? If Chris got to the point where he started to calm down, I knew these places where I wanted to ease in to the close-up shot to make it feel like you're right inside what's going on [in his mind]. We did it all live, too. You don't notice it, and you shouldn't notice it, but it's not random things that are happening; it was all planned out. We brought the whole crew from Los Angeles, by the way. We knew we had to have the best of the best.
Chanley: Chris's words were so brilliant, and you could so easily capture them the wrong way. He doesn't have control over everything that surrounds him, so you have to protect his brilliance. We worked with him to figure out ways to stay in the zone before the show. We'd write these posters with words on them like "Pace" and "Attack" and hang them in his dressing room area. It was all part of getting in that zone with him. I think a lot of life was happening to him at that time. As he was growing [as a comic], I think he was getting so much stronger and so much more confident. You have to be; you can't be tackling material that crosses the line that far and not be 100%. You've got to commit.
Let's talk about the actual shooting of the special. How did you decide which performance to film?
Chanley: Chris wanted to be close to Washington D.C. to be with a very urban audience, but not necessarily a wealthy D.C. audience. He wanted regular American people there. So we found this little theater [the Takoma Theatre] that was not a state of the art venue at all. There wasn't even a dressing room per se. There was one little room backstage where Keith designed that opening shot where you would see him come out of the door and along the back of the stage. That was actually a storage closet! Not a dressing room. We put his name on it, so it looked like he's walking out of a dressing room backstage. And it was only a 500-seat theater. People think it was a much bigger venue because of the directorial style. It was actually very intimate.
We typically would tape two shows in one night. If you separate it into a two-night shoot, what's going to happen is that you're going to get a completely different performance and completely different audience. Whereas if you shoot two in the same night, the performer has a much similar energy in both tapings and the audience often is similar, too. There was a rainstorm that night that made it a little insane, because we had put up a VIP tent for anybody from HBO that was coming to the show and the tent got muddy. I remember looking at the sky and going, "God is telling us something. He wants us to know that something real big is happening here, and if we get through it, the show will be remembered."
Were there any flubs or mistakes that you had to cut around while crafting the final version?
Truesdell: No. You can tell it's pretty much straight through because he's pacing back and forth, and if it was edited down, he'd be in a different place on the stage. But it's smooth.
Chanley: He's like a freight train, and once he's off and running, it would be odd for him to stop. Even if the storm had taken all the power out, he'd just keep going. But that's why you tape two shows in case something is off or if you have to dub in the timing of a bit if they don't nail it as completely as they have in the past. Typically, you try to use all of one performance, and just fill in with the second show here and there. I believe the special is mostly the first show; he went out there and nailed it. He was ready.
Obviously, the most famous segment of Bring the Pain is the "N—– vs. Black People" routine. Did you know going in that that would be the show's crescendo?
Chanley: That was probably the most cutting-edge statement in there, the one no one would have been expecting to hear. The black people in the audience were laughing because in those times, that's not something that anyone would have even been thinking. I had heard that material in the Comedy Store really late at night, and the next day I dragged Keith into my office and said, "You are not going to believe what we're about to do. We're about to put words out into America that have never been uttered before." We couldn't pre-determine how the audience would react, so we were prepared, camera-wise, for anything. They could have just gone silent and stared at him, you know?
Truesdell: Then we'd have been in a whole different world, because we didn't sweeten our specials [with a laugh track]. I had to be ready to go wherever the audience took us.
Chanley: But the crowd received it well, and it unfolded in such a big, loud way. Keith looked at it very calmly, just to make sure he'd captured it. That's where live directors really shine — if they have the gift to step out of themselves. A lot of other directors would have got caught up in the energy and done a lot of fast cuts. But he stayed Mr. Cool and captured what was happening.
Given the nature of the material, did he express a desire to have a black filmmaker direct the special at any point?
Chanley: Chris just wants things to be the best they can be. At the time, I think we were known as being the best at what we do. We had a really good creative bond with him, and it's very easy to work with people when they know what they want. What resonated with him is that we care so much about him. He trusted that we'd fight to make sure that everything was great. He's so intuitive and reads things extremely well. Along those same lines, he's also extremely supportive of his community. I know that when we shot Bigger & Blacker [Rock's 1999 follow-up to Bring the Pain], we filmed it at the Apollo Theater. That was very important to him.
Jumping ahead to Emmy night, you were nominated in the Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special category opposite the Tony Awards, the Academy Awards, a Bette Midler concert special, and George Carlin's 40th anniversary comedy tribute. Did you have any confidence you were going to win?
Chanley: I think we were just sitting there smiling, thinking, "What the hell are we doing here?" [Laughs] We knew Chris was brilliant, but we had no confidence we would win. We didn't even know it was eligible for an Emmy! That's how out of touch we were. When we won, Chris Rock, his manager Michael Rotenberg, our former partner Tom Bull, and myself went up to the stage. Chris did all the talking; we just stood behind him, shaking. I don't think he had anything prepared. He had also been nominated for and won Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Music Program, so he won two Emmys that night. Him winning for writing was a no-brainer award, but for the show to win overall was a "Wow" thing. Those statues are heavy! You carry that around all night, and you have a sore arm the next day.
How did the special and the Emmy win impact your career?
Chanley: We thought, "We are solid." But our phone didn't ring at the office for, like, two months! Agents would be telling us that everyone was afraid our rate would be too high. That kind of smoothed over, and people started taking meetings with us because other comics respected Chris Rock so much. And then Bigger & Blacker got six Emmy nominations, including Keith for Outstanding Directing for a Variety or Music Program. Personally, Bring the Pain gave us a bucket load of confidence that we were in the right place at the right time. If you want to Oprah the statement, our mission in life — we were doing it. [Laughs] And we still feel like giddy children that we have those statues in our office. They're very gold, very bright, and very shiny.
What are your feelings about the current state of comedy specials? Netflix is a major player these days, for example.
Chanley: The last comedy special that we produced and directed was Craig Ferguson's Does This Need to Be Said? for EPIX in 2011. So the state of stand-up comedy for us would be that we don't recognize it at all. Keith ended up being a director on Everybody Loves Chris, and I produced the first two seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, so we've branched off into series work and things like that. Our talent isn't in the [stand-up comedy] arena anymore. What we were excellent at is no longer necessary to the way they capture and air stand-up comedy now. It's a lot quicker, and a lot less expensive. We'd spend months on a special following the comic, observing the preparation and how their act would evolve over that time.
Truesdell: I don't know if they do that anymore. I don't think they do. Plus, back then specials like Bring the Pain and Bigger & Blacker motivated people to purchase HBO to watch it. It was a really big deal; people flocked to it and it was reviewed. They still call them "specials," I guess, but I don't know how special they are.
Would you come out of your stand-up comedy retirement if Chris Rock asked you to do his next special?
Chanley: Only for our beloved Chris Rock would we do anything. [Laughs]


text:
Live Beer People Sidebars
All Kinds of Families
All About Beer Magazine - Volume 26, Issue 5November 1, 2005
Ultimate authority rests with the Father. The brewers are all brothers. But in these breweries, there are no blood relationships.
The monastic breweries are a family tradition of sorts—with buildings, properties, and brands—that predates the rise of the family brewers of the Industrial Revolution.
The six Trappist monastery breweries of Belgium represent a multi-generational brewing tradition, held together by values that differ from the strictly commercial market in which they thrive. Like the secular family breweries connected by bloodlines, these spiritual families stress principles that go beyond the bottom line.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Richard I'm only saying this because it looks like this is your first post here? I found most of my problems were due to Improper settings and unneeded programs in the startup Menu? I fixed those and all's well for Now Let's see how long this will last, Give these folks a chance at figuring it out for you, all these Fixes were suggested here on this forum!


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Supply Inventory
A stockless office supply process has been implemented. Elimination of the in-house inventory provides savings to the University as office supplies are purchased on an as-needed basis by the individual departments on campus. Departments have the choice of using a variety of vendors for their supply needs. Many of the vendors offer discounts and various options for payment. Bradley is currently set up with Staples for online ordering, desk-top next day delivery and direct bill. Bradley has hundreds of "contract" items established with Staples for which substantial discounts are given. Contact Shelly at ext. 3945 to get set up on Staples (E-Way).
Bradley continues to carry the "stock items" listed below. For stock items send an email to Judi Wood with item and account number. Allow a day or two for delivery. Current pricing includes:
- 9 x 12 white catalog- $27.49/cs-500/pkg
- 10 x 13 white catalog-$15.00/bx-100/pkg
- Requisitions-$15.00/pk-100/pkg
- Laser BU mailing labels-$.30/sheet-6/sheet
- Laser BU name tags-$.30/sheet-8/sheet
- Laser all black BU name tags-$14.00/sheet
- 9V batteries-$1.27/ea
- AA batteries-$.52/ea
- AAA batteries-$.52/ea
- C batteries-$.80/ea
- D batteries-$.90/ea
- #122 generic BU envelopes-$36.44/bx-500/bx
- #122L generic BU Letterhead-$31.59/ream-500/rm
- Second sheet - $32.50/ream-500/rm
- #616 generic BU note cards-$.07/ea
- #617 generic BU note card envelopes-$.07/ea
- #578 generic BU business reply envelopes-$.05/ea or $24.55/bx
- #563 generic BU 6 3/4 envelopes-$43.15/bx-500/bx
- #563L generic BU 1/2 sheet letterhead-$16.20/ream-500/rm
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- Time cards-$4.50/pk-100/pkg BU hexagon pencils-$.21/ea
- BU round pencils-$.15/ea
All prices are subject to change, especially the paper products.


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Faustus, even after getting his degree of Doctorate and studying all the important branches of learning like Philosophy, Physics, Law and Divinity realizes that he is still but a man. All are inadequate and none of these subjects can help him to become as powerful on earth as Jove in sky. This inordinate desire to attain super-human powers is absolutely in keeping with the adventurous spirit of the age of Renaissance. And to attain this Faustus makes the supreme but tragic decision of his life.
A sound magician is a mighty god;
Here, Faustus, tire thy brain to gain a deity.
And he would attain this power at any cost, even by selling his soul to the Devil.
Knowledge is no doubt power; but Faustus, who is the embodiment of dreams and desires of the rising bourgeoisie of his age, forgets in his fit of passion that there is a limit to man's powers and possibilities and that knowledge may also become a source of ruin and destruction if it is abused. He ignores the fact that to make an attempt to fly near the sun with waxen wings means certain doom and destruction. Thus to Faustus:
Nothing so sweet as magic is to him,
Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss.
He discarded the advice of the Good Angel, rather turned a deaf ear to the voice of his conscience, and conjured up Mephistophilis, a deputy of great Lucifer, the Prince of the Devils. With his mastery over the black art and with the help of Mephistophilis, his constant slave, he gained super-human power and moved across the earth and sky to well-known cities, had a spirit of Helen, the matchless beauty and demonstrated miraculous feats before the kings and courtiers.
But ultimately the final hour approached when Faustus was to surrender his soul to the Devil. Horror of impending doom made him tragic and his terror-stricken soul fervently wished that movement of time might stop or the final hour might be lengthened so that he could have a last chance to repent and pray for God's mercy. But nothing is of any avail. The Devils appear and carry away his soul for eternal damnation.
Thus by depicting the terrible end of Doctor Faustus, Marlow presented in this drama the most awe-inspiring doctrine of the medieval Christianity that tells us that 'to practice more that heavenly power permits means eternal damnation'.
Faustus is gone, regard his hellish fall,
Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise,
Only to wonder at unlawful things,
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits, To practice more than heavenly power permits.


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|Importance of medication adherence in cardiovascular disease and the value of once-daily treatment regimens.
MedLine Citation:
|PMID: 17700384 Owner: NLM Status: MEDLINE
|An estimated 71 million individuals in the United States are currently diagnosed with cardiovascular disease (CVD). If untreated, CVD conditions such as systemic hypertension, coronary artery disease, and heart failure will have potentially serious and often fatal outcomes. Numerous clinical trials have established a variety of evidence-based medications that are efficacious in the treatment of CVD. These drugs will be ineffective, however, if patients have trouble adhering to their prescribed regimens. In patients with hypertension or heart failure, or in those who have suffered a myocardial infarction, poor adherence to therapies has been linked to a variety of problems, including poor blood pressure control, rehospitalization, and increased healthcare resource utilization. Both the asymptomatic nature of some forms of CVD and the high pill burden associated with certain therapies have been linked to poor adherence. Reducing pill burden through the use of once-daily formulations has proven valuable in improving adherence to evidence-based therapies. This review will discuss the impact of adherence to prescribed therapies for CVD, outline common barriers to adherence, and demonstrate the value of once-daily dosing regimens for improved patient adherence.
|William H Frishman
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Publication Detail:
|Type: Journal Article; Review
Journal Detail:
|Title: Cardiology in review Volume: 15 ISSN: 1538-4683 ISO Abbreviation: Cardiol Rev Publication Date: 2007 Sep-Oct
Date Detail:
|Created Date: 2007-08-16 Completed Date: 2007-09-06 Revised Date: 2007-11-15
Medline Journal Info:
|Nlm Unique ID: 9304686 Medline TA: Cardiol Rev Country: United States
Other Details:
|Languages: eng Pagination: 257-63 Citation Subset: IM
|Department of Medicine, New York Medical College/Westchester Medical Center, Valhalla, New York 10595, USA. firstname.lastname@example.com
Export Citation:
|APA/MLA Format Download EndNote Download BibTex
|MeSH Terms
Antihypertensive Agents
administration & dosage
Cardiovascular Diseases / drug therapy*
Chronic Disease
Delayed-Action Preparations
Drug Administration Schedule
Drug Therapy, Combination
Heart Failure / drug therapy, prevention & control
Hypertension / drug therapy, prevention & control
Myocardial Infarction / drug therapy, prevention & control
Patient Compliance* / psychology, statistics & numerical data
Patient Readmission / statistics & numerical data
Recurrence / prevention & control
Treatment Refusal / psychology, statistics & numerical data*
Reg. No./Substance:
|0/Antihypertensive Agents; 0/Delayed-Action Preparations; 0/Tablets
From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
Previous Document: Direct inhibition of renin as a cardiovascular pharmacotherapy: focus on aliskiren.
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text:
This is a test of the comment system. Please be advised this is only a test.
There are no upcoming events at this time.
"I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles, and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely with his lips, follow me."
Drowned by the screams of decadence. A call to arms...


text:
Plackers is a leading brand of consumer oral care products and a pioneer in dental flossers with the patent on the first disposable dental flosser. My kids (ages 6 and 3) were able to try out the Plackers kids. These flossers have fluoride, are mixed berry flavored and come in fun animal shapes. They make flossing fun! My six year old loved using them and he said they tasted great!
I got to try out Plackers also! I love the Plackers Gentleslide! I have some teeth in my mouth that are extremely close and it is difficult to get dental floss in between them. The Gentleslide had no issues! I love these convenient disposable flossers! They are also great when you travel, just use then and throw them away!
Van's Natural Foods is the market leader in gluten-free and allergy-friendly, natural and organic frozen breakfast foods including waffles, pancakes, English muffins, muffin crowns and French toast sticks. We tried the Wheat Gluten Free Blueberry Waffles in our house. Now we do not have any gluten or wheat allergies in our house, but the waffles tasted really delicious. I could not tell that they were gluten and wheat free. The blueberry taste was great topped with some butter and syrup!
I received the Plackers prize pack above as well as coupons to try Van's products. My opnions are my own and are not influenced in any way.


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Mel Gibson has been a repellent human being for so long it is getting hard to remember when he was not. But once upon a time, Gibson was positively adored, the hottest thing since sliced bread. As the historian AJP Taylor once put it, when something is now very much in the past, it is hard to remember that it was once still in the future. Thus it will shock many to learn that Gibson, like Paul McCartney and Sting and even Madonna, was once a breath of fresh air.
When Mad Max first started making the circuit in 1979, hipsters were all over it. Gibson also won over critics' hearts with his top-notch performances in Gallipoli and The Year of Living Dangerously, both directed by the very young, very gifted Peter Weir. At the dawn of his career, Gibson seemed like just what the film industry ordered: a cocky, likable Australian with easy charm. At that time Aussies with easy charm were a novelty in the film industry. No longer.
Now that Gibson's entire career is on hold, after the LA County sheriff's department investigated him this summer for alleged domestic violence, there is simply no telling whether he can return from the dead. The New York Times recently ran an extensive piece speculating that Gibson's career might actually be over – despite his forthcoming appearance in The Beaver, directed by Jodie Foster – a cumulative victim of his domestic problems, his family court problems, and his racist and antisemitic outbursts. Famous for making a nasty, Jew-baiting film in a town where Jews are by no means under-represented, and for subsequently attacking Jews during a 2006 driving-under-the-influence incident involving the Malibu police, even as prolific and successful a film-maker as Gibson may find that his star has finally set and his ship gone out to sea for good.
I have no way of knowing whether Gibson can find his way out of the mess he finds himself in. It's worth pointing out that the most popular football player in America at the present moment is a breathtakingly gifted 31-year-old man who spent 18 months in jail for torturing and killing dogs while operating a criminal dogfighting ring – and who may yet waltz off with the National Football League's most valuable player award this year. Proving, once again, that everybody, or at least most people, love a winner.
Were Gibson to make amends to his estranged girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, and their child, and to the ex-wife who bore him seven children, and to those seven children, and to the Jewish-American community, and to women in general, and to the Malibu police force, and then perhaps direct a stirring film on a par with Braveheart or The Patriot – a film about the Maccabees is one suggestion – he might still claw his way out of the hole he has dug himself into. But it's going to take some digging.
If the year 2010 is the year Gibson goes down for the count, that is not necessarily something to cheer about, at least not from the film buff's point of view. (I, for one, was really looking forward to his mysterious Leonardo DiCaprio Viking-era film, with dialogue conducted entirely in, well, Viking.) This is not an industry that can afford to lose talented actors and directors; it doesn't have that many of them. Moreover, you simply cannot talk about the last three decades of motion picture history without talking about Gibson's part in it. He is a linchpin of the industry, the kind of mainstream actor (not unlike John Wayne or Steve McQueen or Clint Eastwood) who does not himself win acting awards, but without whom there would be no actors making films. Whatever you may think of him, Mel Gibson is Hollywood.
Thus, if his career is coming to an unexpectedly early conclusion – an event many people in America and in the industry are hoping for – this will be a classic case of good love gone bad. Gibson is a very serviceable actor, a nuanced performer capable of playing both light and dark, as he has shown again and again in films as varied as The Bounty, The Man Without a Face, Bird on a Wire, Mrs Soffel, Maverick, What Women Want, Signs and, of course, the enormously successful Lethal Weapon series. Unlike Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford, whose work never had much appeal to the arty crowd, Gibson impressed them early on with the much- admired Gallipoli, and followed up with the thoughtful The Year of Living Dangerously. Then he made the second and third Mad Max films and became the Mel Gibson we all know. He has made plenty of mediocre films – the joke had worn thin by the time Lethal Weapon 3 rolled into production – and he has made some bad films – Payback, Conspiracy Theory – but he himself was not bad in them. The ratio of good Mel Gibson films to his total number of films is reasonably high; in this sense he resembles Michael Douglas.
Gibson has also on occasion been willing to put himself at risk – as he did in Hamlet, in which he joined a long list of actors who were either too old to play the part (Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh), or too obviously manipulative (Jude Law) to be the callow, indecisive Dane. If it is true that quite early in his career he came to rely on that impish eye-rolling, or keeping his mouth slightly ajar while conversing with others, or pulling his eyes away from other actors and then suddenly firing a sideways glance back at them, these tics were no more annoying than Eastwood's trademark squint or Cruise's high-beam smile. Gibson, like McQueen, is one of those actors who made his debut on screen equipped with a full complement of acting chops, and pretty much stayed the way he was for the next 30 years. Movie stars more than actors, these types of performers don't get any better, and they don't get any worse. If it worked at the beginning, it will work at the end.
Some, perhaps most, actors wear out their welcome on screen. But that did not happen with Gibson; he was as good in last year's generic Edge of Darkness as he was in Gallipoli and Mad Max. Unlike Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, who deliver one listless, fatigued, phoned-in performance after another at this stage in their careers, Gibson has always gone about his job in a professional fashion. He may be cynical in real life, but he is not cynical on screen.
Gibson is also a very fine, and in many ways daring director. Braveheart, a throwback film, is the kind of lusty historical epic that evokes Ben-Hur and Doctor Zhivago. The same is true of The Patriot and of his very strange, very entertaining Apocalypto, which contains no English dialogue. Indeed, one of the most troubling things about The Passion of the Christ, a film whose cavalier antisemitism makes it seem like something written in the Middle Ages by someone whose dad doesn't care much for Jews, is how well-made a film it is. In undertaking this benighted project, Gibson set out to show that the last 18 hours in the life of Jesus Christ were nauseatingly unpleasant. He most certainly succeeded.
Though The Passion of the Christ was an enormous financial success, it was a huge mistake from a public relations point of view. It ushered in the dark, disgraceful era in Gibson's life, a period from which he may never re-emerge. It was a stupid idea to make the film, Gibson's self-destructive decision evoking an interesting parallel between his career and the personalities of some of the characters he plays. Conspiracy Theory, a film about a man who seems to have taken leave of his senses, is the most obvious example. Mad Max, a film about one man against the world, is yet another.
But the most pertinent of all is Ransom, Ron Howard's dreary remake of Akira Kurosawa's brilliant High and Low, which stars Gibson as a tycoon who refuses to pay $2m for the return of his kidnapped son and instead puts a $2m bounty on the kidnappers' heads. Ransom is a movie about a pigheaded man who does something he will never be forgiven for, even if things ultimately turn out for the best. It is a film about a previously admired man who thumbs his nose at society's basic values in his determination to be proven right, and risks destroying his family in the process. The character Gibson plays in Ransom sounds an awful lot like the man who set out to make a film blaming Jews for killing Christ.
For years I have been struck by how much dislike of the British empire has coloured Gibson's films. Gallipoli is an indictment of British conduct during the first world war. The Patriot, whose emotional high point is a massacre perpetrated by the redcoats, displays a hatred of the English that rarely makes its way into American films, where the English are invariably portrayed as our haughty, biscuit-nibbling cousins, but never as monsters. The Bounty, suffused with antagonism between officers and deck hands, is an assault on the British class system, and Braveheart is an unsparing attack on England in general. This anti-Brit attitude is ironic because Gibson's career has come to resemble that of Henry VIII, who started out a flashy, dapper, much admired young chap, but ended up a sociopath who simply could not get along with women. Say what you will, both men had fascinating careers.
Henry VIII, by the way, saw his reign end in his 55th year. Mel Gibson will turn 55 in January.


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Bodyswitch reminded me a little of Dean Koontz. When I first started reading Koontz, I quickly realized that I could never know what his concept would be. Callinan, of course, has his own style and excellent writing, but his ideas are just as weird, wild and wonderful as Koontz, who quickly became a favorite author for me. The concepts for Bodyswitch are remarkable!
Amazon customer
Jack has entered the Limbo of the after life, and the other souls often do not see each other. His wifeKerry has died, killed by a reckless driver, Ernie, who was also killed. Jack and Kerry's baby has survived. Callinan has been able to portray jack, the struggling head if a shelter as a good man without being reduced to simpering sweetness. And Ernie, well Ernie isn't. He is brutal and cruel. A third character Abraham is a mysterious avatar of the life force of the universe. These three characters embark on a wrinkle in the laws of the universe so Jack can say goodbye to Kerry. This makes Ernie the placeholder for Jack's body,; and as with all exceptions, large issues ensue.
Amelia Gremelspacher – Amazon
Mike Delaney thriller
He's breathing on her neck, so close she can smell him. Can Delaney save her ?


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Lenovo to ship less than 10 million smartphones in 1Q15
Lenovo is expected to ship less than 10 million smartphones in the first quarter of 2015 due to high inventories left over from the previous quarter as well as its marketing strategy and pricing for Lenovo- and Motorola-brand products, according to Digitimes Research.
Lenovo managed to ship 15 million smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2014 thanks to increasing shipments of 4G models. It was expected to maintain its shipment momentum by shipping over 10 million units in the first quarter of 2015.
However, affected by adjustments in subsidy policy at China-based telecom operators, which has weakened contract sales of smartphones, Lenovo may see its smartphone shipments decline to 8-9 million units in the first quarter, Digitimes Research estimated.
Lenovo believed previously that its two brands would complement to each other in the global market. But sales of Motorola smartphones in the US have been steady recently, and the introduction of some entry-level models in emerging markets including India, Latin America and China has been successful. Thus, sales of Lenovo-brand smartphones have been squeezed by its sister brand, Digitimes Research commented.
via Digitimes Research: Lenovo to ship less than 10 million smartphones in 1Q15.
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Blockbuster, which had more than 9,000 retail stores across America just nine years ago, is closing the few hundred video-rental stores that it still has, the company's owner, Dish Network, said on Wednesday in a bittersweet but long-expected announcement.
Dish, which acquired Blockbuster through a bankruptcy auction in 2011, after the retailer had already been crushed by digital video distributors like Netflix, said it still saw value in the brand name and would use it in limited ways. But it will close all Blockbuster locations — it says there are about 300 left — and the distribution centers that support its DVD-by-mail service, which is also being dismantled.
The announcement amounted to a surrender: a statement that Netflix, symbolized by its little red envelopes and more recently its streaming service, had prevailed over the little blue boxes that Blockbuster VHS tapes and DVDs came in.
"This is not an easy decision," Joseph P. Clayton, the chief executive of Dish, said in a statement, "yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment."
Mr. Clayton added, "Despite our closing of the physical distribution elements of the business, we continue to see value in the Blockbuster brand, and we expect to leverage that brand as we continue to expand our digital offerings."
Dish still operates "Blockbuster @Home," a streaming film service for its satellite television subscribers, and "Blockbuster On Demand," a competitor to the iTunes Store. Dish said it would hold onto the rights it owns for streaming content.
When Dish took over Blockbuster in 2011, the company had about 1,700 stores, but many of them were closed shortly thereafter. After the remaining stores are closed, there will still be a handful left, because about 50 Blockbuster locations in the United States are owned by third-party franchisees and thus are not affected by Dish's decision.


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|From Drop Box
I plan to wear it every single day.
|From Drop Box
I want that hoodie! Strike that. I NEED that hoodie! I have a plan in the works ... which will involve cold, hard, CASH ... as opposed to me being all 'Morgan' and making one from scratch out of twigs and leaves ... you're so resourceful and crafty ... it kind of makes me sick ... in a good way though. You know I love you. This is NOT a hate comment, i reapeat, this is NOT a hate comment. ;) Miss your guts lady!
AHHHHH! Why must I be virtually incapable of sewing?! I am so jealous of you right now. SO jealous.
I NEED that hoodie. Okay so I have a gray jacket that looks very much so like that buy my buttons are black and I love the baby blue buttons...maybe I could swap them out. Maybe YOU could swap them out...
I love that hoodie! Awesome. I wish I could sew, but nope. Not me. You are amazing.


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Holy shit, those were the words I breathe at the end of Joe Penna's directorial debut. I don't usually like survival movies, I usually find them pretty boring but somehow I found Arctic so fascinating. From the visuals to the perfect performance from Mads Mikkelsen and the great story, Arctic wasn't even on my radar and ended up being one of the best surprises.
Arctic is almost silent, but there's also a lot of noise in it. With almost no dialogue, it's all on Mikkelsen to sell the film. Even when he is no longer alone, he has almost nothing to say. And yet, you understand everything that is happening. You get his pain, his relief, his guilt, every emotion that the character goes through, you get. That's how good he is in this role. It's his best performance to date without a doubt.
Watching the film, you can't help but be mesmerized by the amazing cinematography but at the same time, the cinematography is simply geography. The infinity of white that occupies this film is just plain beautiful. The plains, the rocks, even the storms are so beautiful that you can't help but be in awe of the terrain that they are on. Even when it almost kills them, it's beautiful.
My grief too often with these types of film is that they run too long. But Arctic runs long enough. Just as I was starting to think that this was enough, it just wraps everything up. It has a clear goal that is established and it does it beautifully. It never feels like the film is too much, even in the scenes that are difficult to watch, it's just enough. It's a beautiful balance really.
Arctic might have not even been on your radar, it wasn't on mine. But it's a beautiful tale of surviving that deserves your attention really.


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CLAREMONT, Calif. -- Playing another nationally ranked this season, the Caltech men's tennis fell to Pomona-Pitzer 9-0 in Saturday afternoon.
The Sagehens came into the match as the nation's No. 11 ranked squad.
Pomona-Pitzer grabbed control of the match by dropping just eight games in sweeping the three doubles matches.
The home squad continued their solid play during singles as they swept the six matches by dropping eight games during the matches.
Caltech plays another ranked team on Monday as they host #5 Cal Lutheran at 4:00 p.m.
Tennis Match Results
Pomona-Pitzer Caltech
4/14/2012 at Claremont, CA
#11 Pomona-Pitzer 9, Caltech 0
1) Connor Hudson/Kevin Wei (PP) def. Devashish Joshi/Luka Mernik (Caltech) 8-5
2) Michael Chang/Connor Sutton (PP) def. Anish Agarwal/Alex Runkel (Caltech) 8-2
3) Kevin Prescott/Ramsey Bernard (PP) def. Fred Zhao/Amol Kamat (Caltech) 8-1
1) Kevin Prescott (PP) def Devashish Joshi (Caltech) 6-0, 6-1
2) Kevin Wei (PP) def Luka Mernik (Caltech) 6-1, 6-0
3) Connor Sutton (PP) def Anish Agarwal (Caltech) 6-1, 6-1
4) Alex Groth (PP) def Alex Runkel (Caltech) 6-0, 6-0
5) Joey DeBruin (PP) def Jeff Shen (Caltech) 6-1, 6-3
6) Chris Walters (PP) def Brian Kim (Caltech) 6-0, 6-0
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Official-Caltech-Beavers-Athletics
Twitter - https://twitter.com/CaltechBeavers


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Office Phone: (719) 346-8946 ext. 310 Office Fax: (719) 346-6017
251 16th St Suite 102, Burlington, CO 80807
Office Hours Mon-Friday 8:00am - 4:00pm
Abbey Mullis, Assessor firstname.lastname@example.com
Welcome to the Kit Carson County Assessor Website
The Kit Carson County Assessor's Office staff strives to provide the most current and accurate information possible. The County Assessor is a constitutional officer, elected for a four-year term. The Assessor's Office discovers, lists, and values all real and taxable personal property located in the county. In addition, this office prepares the tax roll, transfers ownership of property, prepares the abstract of assessment and certifies values to all levying bodies in the county.
County Assessor's GIS Website and Property Record Search
Property data, maps, photos, tax districts, voting districts and more...
County Ownership plat maps are available for sale through Hendricks Realty (719) 346-7187 in Burlington; Smith Map Company (888) 765-4614 in Flagler; Colorado Land Investments in Burlington (719) 346-8661; or Western Cartographers (800) 752-3402.
Kit Carson County Sales: Sales are updated on a monthly basis:
TOWN SALES Updated 11-27-19
RURAL SALES Updated 11-27-19
|Change of Address
|Senior Exemption Application
|Abstract of Assessment
|change of address form
|Short Form
|2014 KCC Abstract
|Long Form
|2015 KCC Abstract
|Disabled Veteran
|2016 KCC Abstract
|Disabled Veteran Form
|2017 KCC Abstract
|2018 KCC Abstract


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From Sunday 7 January 2018 First have made timetable changes to the 1, 4, 6, 9 (Park & Ride), 11, 66, 66A, so they "are running more reliably"
Download changes to the bus times from the pdf here.
All of the new timetables are linked below and the City of York council have the information to update the stops, so you know what time to catch your bus!
|City, University and Park & Ride buses
|1 Wigginton – York City Centre – Chapelfields
4 York Clifford Street – Acomb via Foxwood Lane
6 Clifton Moor – University of York via York City Centre
11 Ashley Park – York City Centre – Bishopthorpe
66 York – York Sport Village via Railway Station and the University of York
66a York – University of York via Lawrence Street
9 Monks Cross – York City Centre* (Park & Ride)


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At least once per year, usually in the fourth quarter or the first quarter, credit card companies will send out what is called a "change of terms notice" to their cardholders. This letter will document the changes to your credit card agreement ranging from potential increases in fees to new clauses. Because these changes can be drastic, it is vital that you read the letter in full to understand the amendments being made to your credit card agreement. In this article, we will look at some of the typical changes.
Rising Annual Percentage Rates
Many credit card companies will use this notice to raise the annual percentage rates (APRs) that they charge on outstanding balances. This can be a substantial change because it increases your borrowing costs, especially if you tend to run balances from month to month.
In fact, to provide some perspective, suppose that a person carries a stable $10,000 balance over the course of a year and is under contract to pay 18% per annum in interest charges ($1,800), which, if not paid, are tacked on to the amount owing. Now suppose that that person's rate is raised to 23% per annum - the amount of interest added to the balance will jump to $2,300. That's an almost 28% increase in annual payments. (Note that credit card companies compute their interest in a variety of manners and this is just a simplistic look at the effect of changes to APR.)
So, keep an eye peeled for this in the fine print. If you see that the rate has increased substantially, it may be wise to transfer the balance to a card with a lower APR if you can.
Cash Advance Charges
Credit card companies have a tendency to use changes of terms notice as an opportunity to initiate or raise fees for other services.
For example, because cash advances have become so popular in recent years, some credit card companies are now charging a transaction fee every time you take a cash advance on your card. Depending on how often you use cash advances, it is important to keep an eye on this amount as it is money out of your pocket. Also, be sure to check for an increase in interest charges being levied on cash advances. Note that these rates may differ from the APR being charged for other balances.
Surprise Clauses
Even if a company doesn't change the APR it charges on its customers' balances, it may include a new clause in the revised agreement. For example, such a clause might say that if the customer is late making payments on two occasions over a rolling 12-month period, the company has the ability to raise the interest rate being charged on outstanding balances by a certain percentage.
While that might sound benign, in some cases that percentage might actually be huge! For example, one major credit card company that instituted this policy in 2008 would, in this situation, change the APR on the customer's outstanding balance from 23.99% to 32.24%.
Changing Benefits
These days, many of us use credit cards that help us pay down our mortgage or rack up sky or cruise miles, and that's a good thing. After all, why not earn back some money on your charges, right?
The trouble is that credit card companies may use a change in terms notice to alter those deals and give you less credit for each dollar you charge. They may also change how you can access these points from when you are able to use. As miles/benefits are typically a major reason for going with one card over another, make sure you keep an eye out for these kinds of changes.
Notification of Information Sharing
Some credit card companies may use a change in terms notice to let their customers know that they will be sharing your information with other service providers and/or telemarketers. That is, unless you opt out.
If you don't want the company to share your personal stats with others you may have to send in a letter requesting that it not be done, or fill out and send in a form letter. In short, be on the lookout for this change because failing to opt out may mean getting a mailbox full of junk mail and receiving a plethora of courtesy phone calls right around the dinner hour.
Changes in Dispute Deadlines
If a customer receives his or her monthly credit card bill and notes an error on it, it is usually possible to call the company and have it corrected. That is, provided the customer alerts the company to the error within a certain period of time, which may range between 30, 60 and 90 days. With that in mind, some credit card companies may use this opportunity to restructure their dispute deadlines and reduce the amount of time a customer has to alert the company of a mistake.
To be clear, such revisions do not preclude individuals from taking credit card companies to court in order to get them to make a valid correction. However, given that "fair" warning was in the notice, it will be tougher to prevail should the case head to trial. Also, no one likes the hassle, or the costs, of going to court. So keep an eye out for these changes.
The Bottom Line
Be sure to review any notice you receive from your credit card company regarding changes to the terms of your agreement. The company may make dramatic changes to the rates being charged on outstanding balances or cash advances. Additionally, new fees may be levied, and/or the company may also change other provisions of the agreement.


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Apple Remote Desktop
By Apple
Click on "Download Now" button under Icon to download this content for Free
Apple Remote Desktop is the best way to manage the Mac computers on your network. Distribute software, provide real-time online help to end-users, create detailed software and hardware reports, and automate routine management tasks — all from your own Mac.
Software Distribution
-Easily copy and install software on remote Mac systems.
-Encrypt network data when copying packages and files.
-Configure a Task Server to assist with package installations on offline computers.
Remote Assistance
-Observe and control your Mac computers.
-Transfer files between Mac computers using Drag and Drop.
-Copy and paste information between any two computers.
-Prevent end-users from viewing the screen while you control their systems with Curtain Mode.
-Control Virtual Network Computing (VNC)–enabled computers including Windows, Linux and UNIX systems.
Remote Administration
-Perform over a dozen commands securely on remote Mac systems.
-Remotely lock screens, sleep, wake, restart and shutdown of Mac systems.
-Execute UNIX shell scripts or commands on your client systems.
Asset Management and Reporting
-Perform lightning-fast searches with Remote Spotlight search.
-Gather reports on more than 200 Mac hardware attributes.
-See reports on user logins and application use.
-Use a Task Server to assemble inventory reports, even from mobile systems not connected to the network.
-Automate routine management tasks using Automator in OS X.
-Get started immediately with over 40 actions.
-Chain actions together to create powerful system administration workflows.
-Combine actions with other application actions to create end-to-end solutions.
-Save workflows as plug-ins to provide simple, customised interfaces to Apple Remote Desktop features.
What's new in Version 3.9
The Apple Remote Desktop 3.9 update improves usability, compatibility, and reliability and is recommended for all users.
This update:
• Allows users to export and restore an encrypted list of computers and user credentials
• Allows administrators to call attention to items on a remote screen using an assistant cursor
• Adds Touch Bar support for MacBook Pro (2016) computers
• Improves security when communicating with clients running OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 or later
• Adds an optional compatibility mode for communicating with clients running any version of OS X Mountain Lion 10.8, OS X Mavericks 10.9 or OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 and earlier
Customer Reviews
Hidden settings with Upgrade issue
I've been using Remote desktop for years (maybe over 10) It has had some isssues over the years. Currently people seem to have the same issue as me, the app forced an update on my computer but older comptuers can't update. You can go to prefrences and click on 'Allow Communication with older clients (less Secure)' THis will fix the issue. Then you can update the clients remotely if needed.
Forcing secure connections is what Apple and other companies need to do today. I am able to manage 60 computers remotley from diffrent locations, even thousands of miles away. Install, update, reboot and change configurations.
I think it's great, however, clients do disapper at times and need to be put back in. Reports hang at times but after a reboot work again. There are some bugs with the software. Over the years it seems that it has gotten more buggy. In all I use it everyday and when I do have a probelm I am able to fix it rather quickly by googling the issue.
Gone critical
I'm a professor. I've got a couple dozen iMacs to manage, with attendant students. ARD was critical in deploying software, shutting down, locking screens for lectures and tests, distributing files, on-screen help and discreet messagesfor individual students, student presentations and demo's. I've used it for years, forgiving it's little erratic stumbles and false problems, but the last upgrade (admin app) and update (client side) have ended all that. The dread "Failed to Authenticate" issue is sometimes a false problem you can ignore, but now almost always a critical fail. After getting blown around in the storm of on-line questions and solutions from all the other disappointed users, I've given up. I have cobbled together AirDrop, Bluetooth, thumb drive, and cloud work-arounds for some functionalities, but basically ARD has seriously degraded my ability to teach and manage the college studio courses. I depended on it all day every day, so I'm very sorry Apple hasn't come up with a solution. Such a pity for a company which successfully made education its core market....More
Just horrible
We use this in a public school district. Initially it worked great, but as time went on, newer versions became buggier and buggier. Right now we experience the following; 1. Machines constantly showing up as "Access Denied". Get info, enter the admin password and it's fine. Quit and reopen ARD and different machines will now show as "Access Denied". 2. Machines that show as "Offline" and remain offline until you quit and restart ARD, then it's active. 3. Dragging a small .pkg to one machine takes a minute to send and install. Dragging the same package to two machines at the same time takes 30 minutes (LAN, not wi-fi). 4. We have a Mac Mini we'd like to use as a Task Server to push .pkg files to remote laptops in mobile carts as they come online. Every week we fight with getting the Task Server to actually enable and more time getting our admin ARD clients to see that it's available. Wait a few days and "Task Server is unavailable". None of these problems existed in earlier versions of ARD 3.x....More
Customers Also Bought
- Mac App Store Price: $79.99
- Category: Utilities (Mac)
- Updated: Feb 21, 2017
- Version: 3.9
- Size: 13.4 MB
- Language: English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese
- Seller: Apple
- © 1994-2017 Apple Inc.
Requirements: OS X 10.10.5 or later


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Deceased March 14, 2009
View alumni profile (log in required)
In Memory
Our beloved classmate Nelson Sarris died peacefully March 14, 2009, a few weeks into hospice at his daughter Katherine's home in North Conway, N.H. The cause was recurrence of stomach cancer, which kindly granted him remission long enough for a joyful, 2008 full-family reunion in Mytiline, Greece, his birthplace. Son of the late James and Evantha Sarris, he is survived by Katherine Shaw '84, his son James of Hadley, a sister Evie Porter of Amherst and two grandsons. He was predeceased by his wife, Antoinette (Leto) Sarris.
To his classmates, Nel was "Mr. Amherst," a smiling, laughing, positive person who tirelessly handled arrangements for our Reunions and more. He grew up in Amherst, majored in geology (with an M.S. later from the Univ. of Massachusetts)—then worked for Standard Oil in Texas and Oklahoma, served in the U.S. Army and spent many years with New York Telephone, returning to Amherst on retirement in 1987. Active in Grace Episcopal Church, he also enjoyed traveling, golf and the theater.
Some reminiscences: Daughter Kate Shaw '84: "We all miss him dearly." Closest classmate Manson Hall: "We did much together, including a hilarious drive across the country after junior year. He was my roommate the one year he lived on campus. A shy person, he was most outgoing in a smaller circle." Rich Gray: "Nellie was our Amherst rock, a dependable feature in the New England peneplain, always willing to organize and oversee for the Class. I will miss his deft taps and rueful chuckles."
Philip W. Ransom, Jr. '53


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Steve Howell, head cowboy, and coiner of the famous acronym TOADs (tremendous outburst amplitude dwarf novae) welcomes everyone to the conference and explains where the bathrooms are.
His other main task for this conference seems to be getting everyone who wants one, a receipt for their expense reports. Poor Steve.
His poster on magnetic CVs has an awesome visualization. I'll try to get permission to reproduce it here. It is way cool....err, I mean hot.
Chritsian Knigge opens the paper session by reviewing what we know about the secondaries in CVs and their role in the evolution of these systems.
Check out the visualization of that bloated, star spotted, crazy looking secondary. Wild stars indeed!
More interesting is the fact that CV donor stars are larger and cooler than individual main sequence stars of equal mass. Observing these secondary properties may tell us a lot about the evolutionary track of these systems. Fascinating stuff presented very well. Two Simothumbs up for this one.
What's that? You say you don't understand magnetic braking? Don't worry, I'm in a room full of PhDs who will talk about it all day, but they don't understand it either!
Hands down winner of the animated visualizations for the conference thus far definitely goes to D.V. Bisikalo from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. His illustrations of accretion and the outflow of material into the envelope around the binary were fascinating to watch and quite detailed. The parameters and science used to achieve these results may be unrealistic, but the animations were glorious! Not only that, but watching the accretion overflow, I had an 'aha moment' for something I've been working on regarding Z Cam outbursts.
For those of you who remember my blog on 'Dusty Toads', here is one of the authors, Don Hoard, talking about surprising dusty environments around cataclysmic variables. They went hunting for information about the red secondary star of WZ Sge with the Spitzer Space Telescope and found so much dust they couldn't observe the secondary! A surprising result that may lead to, well, who knows?
I'll be interviewing Steve and Don about their dusty toads and where this new result may lead CV research.
On a personal note: it has been a lot of fun meeting the people and associating the names with the faces. I met several Japanese observers and important contributors to CVnet-Akira Arai, Hiroshima University, Izumi Hachisu, University of Tokyo, Akira Imada, Kagoshima University, Daisaku Nogami, Kwasan Observatory, Kyoto University. I also got to meet and talk with astronomers using AAVSO data for their papers here at this conference or elsewhere: Brad Schaefer, Louisiana State University, Christian Knigge, University of Southampton.
AAVSO was well represented with Arne Henden giving a poster presentation with hundreds of AAVSO light curves and Paula Szkody talking about pulsating white dwarfs in SDSS CVs.
Boris Gaensicke, who I met for the first time in Cambridge, UK last spring, seems to have his fingers in so many pies here it is quite remarkable. He is listed as a co-author or principle investigator on at least 40% (UNSCIENTIFIC SIMO-ESTIMATE) of the papers being presented.
And on a personal basis, I had the pleasure of meeting Kurtis Williams, of Professor Astronomy's Astronomy Blog .
He has been kind enough to support the AAVSO Writers Bureau with his blogs and is an all around nice guy who it is my pleasure to have met finally.
It's been a good time so far. More later.


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Gethu movie releasing on January 14
Udhayanithi stalin is back in Gethu after so many movies. In gethu udhayanithi is doing action role other than doing comedy film. For the first time he is doing movie without humor sense. Gethu is gonna release on January 14 2016, it is directed by Thirukumaran. The film features Udhayanithi stalin Emy Jackson, Sathyaraj, Vikranth in the lead role. Gethu is first movie, Udhayanithi and Emy Jackson working together. Their chemistry is good, we can see that in trailer. Wait till 16 jan and watch it out.
Music is composed by Harris Jayaraj, totally five songs in Gethu movie. The songs where released on 25th December regarding Christmas celebration. Music is perfect for love life of Udhayanithi stalin and Emy Jackson. And BGM is came out so good in all the fight scenes. Wait till 14-01-2016 and watch it on theaters. Gethu is releasing on Pongal festival so everyone can enjoy with your family.


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That's a Robin Williams reference. I may be dating myself here. A few times a week, we will be doing a review of Backtalk links and things you may enjoy! Come by, I'm pandering this week. Definitely read Clio's great story about Cumia's defense of his tweets. He blames gawker. It is so meta.
But we have other things! Really. Woobie the Lock an image from Bansky about the end of the World Cup.
Korben posted something about Snail Sex, which is hot, if you are a snail.
And I'm a little teapot, short, wrote about the best porn, food porn. Ok, there is other good porn but still, Food Porn is pretty awesome. CILANTRO!
Our theme of the week is Nic Cage. Why? Because it's hilarious. And something something representation of post-modernism.


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My husband Mike and I recently celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. We met and fell in love over the telephone in our mid-thirties. We had fast-paced careers, and knew we had lived very full and unusual lives. Mike worked for Joe Biden at the time and it was part of his job to get Joe on TV. I was in charge of news coverage at Philadelphia's top TV stations. We quickly learned how much we enjoyed talking with one another. Twenty-five years later, that is still true. We are still each other's soul mate. We have supported one another in the pursuit of our individual dreams. And when I get in the car at the end of a long day of ministry, I can't wait to call Mike to tell him all about it.
We have raised two daughters together. Morgan is 23 years old. She is a writer, a dreamer and deeply committed to her Goddess-centered spirituality. Morgan takes her time with life, savoring the pleasures of every day. Among her circle of friends, Morgan is the confidante and attentive listener. Alix is 20. She is an engineer and an artist, determined to make her mark as soon as she possibly can, and always eager to be further ahead with life than she already is. When she was a baby, she would wave her hands over her head in frustration, because she knew what she wanted to do but her little body couldn't yet execute her wishes.
As we launch our daughters into adulthood, Mike and I feel proud that we have been able to provide them with a stable, loving home. We know our children and they know us. Unlike many of our friends, we spent a lot of time with our kids as they grew up. Mike and I both worked from home for many of those years, and I homeschooled with them for most of their elementary school years and early high school. The time went by quickly, as our elders always told us it would, but I'm grateful we didn't miss their growing up.
Over breakfast this morning Mike and I talked about this. He and I did not know what it was to call one place "home." Both of us grew up in many different places, acutely aware of how little choice we had in the matter. We gave our children an experience of "home" we wanted them to have and in the process, we have given it to ourselves too.
As a child, I shuttled between Puerto Rico and New Jersey. We traveled widely and lived in different cultures. I grew up speaking three languages, including English and French, with my native language being Spanish. Later I studied Italian, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. I was privileged to receive high quality education.
Both of my parents died before I began my path to ministry, but they would have approved of Unitarian Universalism's commitment to diverse spiritual communities and traditions. My mother was an avowed atheist who shared her experience of seeing zombies in the Afro-Caribbean spirituality of her childhood. A courageous, Latinx feminist, she taught me to read SImone Beauvoir before I was 11 years old. My dad grew up in a charismatic Lutheran sect native to Lapland. I translated his lectures into Spanish so that he could deliver them at the University of Puerto Rico.
Unitarian Universalism gives me a sacred space to be who I am. It gives me something unaccountably precious to fight for and nurture. It holds me accountable for building community and living in right relationship. It calls me to re-imagine community so we can heal our human fractures and our fragile planet together.
I am persuaded by James Luther Adams' vision of a 'prophethood of all believers.' After six years on the path to ministry, I have now seen how this prophethood embraces and engages our people. I hope to serve this vision for the rest of my life, by continuing to teach, preach and walk with my fellow UUs through our sanctuary doors to face the pain in our world together. And I am wholeheartedly committed to evangelizing on behalf of this beloved movement. Our commitments will tell our story.


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Shattered Good
In times of trouble, eat. When you feel down, dig into something that makes you feel better. Why not, what could be wrong with that. Oh, it's ok. I admit I'm an addict. I love junk food, fast food, fake food and candy/sweets. I keep bags of candy within reach of the bed-- well, not as much as I used to, but pretty frequently.
When I was trapped in Chicago in the days following September 11, 2001 I really freaked out. That day was the day I was supposed to check out, but I tried to stay because I had no place to go, and the hotel threw me out. As I was ranting to Amy on the phone and shoving stuff into my bags, I realized my supply of candy was running short and I blurted-- "(Littany of things)...and I'm running out of candy! Where am I gonna find more candy now. Everybody has probably already stocked up."
So, while the BYC has been banged up, I made some candy. I had a sudden craving for peanut brittle. I came across an old family recipe that I mucked with, and it turned into an easy, dangerously quick treat. When dealing with cooked sugar mixtures always exercise extreme caution-- it's easy to get burned. Whatever you do-- resist the urge to lick the spoon or whatever you mix with-- the mixture and the spoon stay hot for a long time. It may spit a little when you add the vanilla, so watch out.
Microwave Peanut Brittle
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 cup peanuts
1 tsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 lightly greased cooking sheet
Microwave the sugar and the corn syrup on high for 9 minutes. Add the peanuts and microwave three minutes more. Add the vanilla and butter and cook for 1.5 minutes more. Slowly stir in the baking soda until the mixture foams and turn it out on a greased cookie sheet. Let it cool 30 minutes and shatter into bite-sized pieces. Note- My microwave is way old and is probably lower powered than yours, so keep an eye on things and adjust cooking times as you need.
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I write a lot of gassy posts on this blog, but the Blue Boar has summed up the best reasons for being Catholic in one wonderful picture.
This picture has it all. The peculiar Catholic union of ancient wisdom and youth, signified by the Holy Father's traditional garb and worn face, but a face more innocent and excited than a frat boy about to quaff his first Old Milwaukee. The union of sacrifice, signified by the red the Holy Father is wearing, and joy, signified in the golden brew. An unqualified embrace of creation, yet an embrace carrying the wisdom that knows that the world and its pleasures turn to dust unless they are returned to God.
The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man. - G.K. Chesterton
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Conspiracy Theories
I am sure someone has said this somewhere before, but my attitude toward conspiracy theories is this:
Never explain something by conspiracy when simple incompetence will suffice.
Posted by David T. at 5:06 AM 4 comments:
Labels: general philosophy
Friday, April 17, 2009
Comments email
I didn't realize blogger had a feature that would email me when someone comments. I've turned it on now.
For those who have commented on older posts and got no response, I wasn't ignoring you, I just didn't notice. Should get better now.
For those who have commented on older posts and got no response, I wasn't ignoring you, I just didn't notice. Should get better now.
Posted by David T. at 4:11 AM No comments:
Labels: administration
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Faith, Hope, Love and the USMC
I generally refrain from writing personal testimony on this blog, because I find myself the most boring of subjects. But I feel compelled to write the following so I can acknowledge a few people from whom I have learned so much.
As a young man, I was faithless, hopeless and loveless. I did not believe in God, my fellow man, or much else, but I saw my condition for what it was, one of despair, for which I can thank God (now - I didn't then). And I knew that I either must find something to believe in or continue the downward spiral of despair. About the only thing I did believe in was my country, so I applied for and was accepted to the USMC Officer Candidate Course starting on Oct. 8, 1986.
I learned the meaning of faith from Staff Sergeant Brown. Faith is putting yourself at risk on the basis of a conviction about the hidden nature of another.
I learned the meaning of hope from my wife. Hope is not optimism, but the conviction that circumstances, whatever they are, cannot possibly separate us from what is truly good.
I learned the meaning of love from my parents. Love means being for someone when they are not for anyone else or maybe even for themselves.
SSgt Brown was my platoon sergeant at Marine Officer Candidate School (OCS). During the final few weeks of OCS, after more than half of our original platoon of candidates had either quit or been kicked out, I became a special target of our platoon commander, a captain. He told me to my face that he was going to do everything he could to see that I left OCS. From then on, he played a series of mind games with me. Nonetheless, on Dec. 12, 1986, I managed to graduate, and I felt that I had gotten the better of the captain.
It turns out that I had not beaten the captain at all. Just after the graduation parade, SSgt Brown pulled me into his office, opened a drawer, and handed me a stack of papers. They were demerit chits, candidate violations, or whatever the things were called, that the captain had written against me in the final weeks, plenty enough to get me hauled up before the ninth week review board - an encounter I was expecting even though I didn't know about the stack of chits. One of the captain's games was to regularly tell me he was sending me before the review board, that I was doomed, and I might as well leave now and save myself the humiliation. SSgt Brown had actually submitted only a portion of the chits that had been written, and had hidden the rest in his desk. In effect he had emptied the captain's gun of its bullets. I knew the staff sergeant could have gotten in trouble for this, but he told me that he saw something in me, thought the captain was unjust, and did not want to see me leave. We walked outside, he gave me my first salute and then shook my hand:
In case you think the captain was just a jerk, as soon as I got my butter bars, he shook my hand and congratulated me. We later drank beer together when we both served at Camp Lejeune. That's the kind of people you meet in the Marine Corps.
I thought of SSgt Brown when watching the Passion of the Christ this past Saturday. When I think of faith and the Passion, I often think of the faith of Christ in God the Father. But perhaps Christ had another type of faith as well, faith in his fallible fellow men. I mean faith in Peter, faith in Caiaphas, faith in Pontius Pilate, even faith in Judas. God the Son took a chance on men, seeing in them the possibility of repentance and conversion, and so became incarnate in the hope that they would respond to him in kind with faith. He overlooked their sins and their faults, in a way of course more profound but still similar to the way SSgt Brown hid my demerit chits. SSgt Brown took a chance on me, and if I had failed during those final weeks of OCS, or folded under the captain's pressure, or later in my Marine Corps career, I would have embarrassed him. I know I didn't do the first two and hope I didn't do the latter.
I wonder if Christ was embarrassed during his Passion. Humiliated yes, but also embarrassed I think. Christ is man's advocate before God the Father. God the Son had so much faith in man that he became one of us, betting that we would respond in faith to him. Instead, we crucified him. I see him hoping that Pontius Pilate will not order his death, not so much to save himself from suffering, but because he knows that Pilate has it in him not to do it. When Pilate washes his hands, Christ is embarrassed for him before God the Father, the way SSgt Brown would have been embarrassed had I let him down those final weeks at OCS. Christ's embarrassment is all the more deep because he has become one of us, taken on the very nature that is now responding with so little faith. And Christ's faith is such that even when we betray him in faithlessness, he finds a way to save us anyway.
One thing that surprised me at OCS was the way I was able to put up with all the harrassment and abuse - plenty of it from SSgt Brown! Partly this was because I had psyched myself up before going in - they can kick me out, but I won't quit, that sort of thing. But it was also, I discovered, because I had met a girl in the few months prior to the start of OCS. Something unprecedented (for me) happened - love, I suppose, but I didn't know enough about it to tell one way or the other. What I did know was that she would be waiting for me however I got of OCS - kicked out, commissioned officer, or otherwise. She didn't care.
This was the "true good from which we cannot be separated by circumstance." Because I was certain of a good outcome to things, no matter what happened, I went through OCS with a certain fearlessness that I would not otherwise have had. I think the captain interpreted this as insolence or indifference, but it was far from it. It was hope. Whenever things got rough, I just thought of my girlfriend and it wouldn't bother me anymore. Chesterton discusses something similar in Orthodoxy with respect to the paradox of courage. The courageous man, he says, is the man who saves his life by being indifferent to it. If he thinks about the breadth of the chasm over which he must leap to save himself, and how horrible it would be to die, he will not be able to bring himself to make the leap and he will die on the mountain. If he forgets his life or has hope even in death, then he will make the leap with confidence and save himself. I went through OCS with a confidence I gained from the hope I had in the girl who was waiting for me no matter what.
Naturally I married her as soon as I could after graduating.
I learned about love from my parents. They have always been for me even when I was not for myself, or for them. It wasn't until I was well into adulthood that I realized this; actually, until I became a father myself. Now I know why God is imaged so often as a Father in the New Testament. Did God the Father suffer during the Passion of Christ? The only thing worse than being crucified is watching your son being crucified. The Passion of the Christ shows this dramatically through Mary, but what about Christ's Father? I don't know the theology on this.
After my experience at OCS I still did not believe in God. But I did believe in SSgt Brown, my wife, my parents and the U.S. Marine Corps.
Semper Fidelis.
Posted by David T. at 3:44 PM 2 comments:
Labels: Chesterton, family, Life, The Passion, USMC
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text:
Nearly everyone has something about themselves they are not particularly interested in sharing with the rest of the world. Being in financial difficulty can be one of those things. Whether you live in Illinois or any other state, the fear of being socially stigmatized by revelations of your situation can be enough to keep you from taking any action at all. That's not a good idea.
There can be no denying that there is a certain invasiveness that comes with filing for bankruptcy. As such, it is something that deserves to be examined carefully with an attorney's help if you are considering seeking the protections of bankruptcy. It is fair to balance if enduring a short period of transparency is worth the price of getting back on solid financial ground for the rest of your life.
To give you some insight into what you might have to deal with we offer these observations. But keep in mind that every case is different and so it is important to have the specifics of your situation fully assessed by someone with skill and experience.
A bankruptcy filing is a matter of public record. It has to be if it is to work. One of the key purposes of filing is to hold creditors at bay while you work with the court to find workable solutions to your difficulties. But because the case is indexed under your social security number, it's most likely that only your creditors will know about it.
In the case of Chapter 13, you will be expected to show that you have income enough to meet current living expenses and at least some surplus money each month to put toward paying your debts. Court oversight is such that you might have to get permission to spend anything outside of a court-approved budget during the period of bankruptcy — usually three to five years.
In Chapter 7, the exposure may be greater because a third party trustee will have authority to seek the sale of your assets of value in order to pay creditors.
The essential element when exploring debt relief options is to be sure you know what all the options are and what their ramifications may be for you.
Source: FindLaw, "Is Bankruptcy a Good Idea for You?" accessed Dec. 30, 2015