text:
by Sundra Hominik
The world marked International Woman's Day on March 8 by celebrating the economic, political and social accomplishments of women. The special day falls during the month that's also set aside to honor women in history.
Women continue to make history today often by accepting new challenges and taking on important leadership positions.
Anjum Ali and Jessica Stewart of central Virginia are two minority women who have taken on unique roles in their communities. Both said their faith is what motivates them to work to try to make a difference.
Anjum Ali, born in the U.S., has lived and studied in Saudi Arabia and Canada. She earned a bachelor's degree in international relations and French culture and a master's in Islamic studies. She moved to Richmond 12 years ago. She is Pakistani-American.
A connection may start as two people in a grocery store's produce section talk about selecting the best peaches for a cobbler. Or a connection may start when one woman compliments another woman on the scarf she's wearing.
Anjum Ali, a Muslim, has been part of such conversations that started as polite exchanges and led to a better understanding between two people.
Ali is a board member of Initiatives of Change, which operates Hope in the Cities. That group started in 1990 in response to the need for racial healing in Richmond.
She also founded SpeakingUnites, which provides training and workshops about Muslims and Islam.
Henrico County organizations, including a mental health agency and a domestic violence alliance, have called on her to help with training or to lead conversations about diversity and inclusion.
Her passion is building understanding and trust across cultures, classes, races and especially religions.
"I just feel that maybe I've had a little bit of a talent to be able to convey to others what Islam is really about," she said. "Sometimes I like to say, 'I would be proud to show the true face of Islam.' "
Ali, who spent several years in New England, said she is sometimes surprised and appreciative of how polite people are in Virginia. Polite conversations can be excellent starting points for changing hearts and minds.
"I like to be treated with courtesy and politeness. And isn't that what we should all be trained to do anyway because there is something that … on that initial meeting that can open the doors towards people reconciling their differences," she said.
Ali is part of a growing immigrant and native-born Muslim population in central Virginia and the country.
Pew Research Center demographers estimate there were 2.75 million Muslims living in the U.S. in 2011. The Center estimates that less than .5 percent of people in Virginia are Muslims. Ali estimates about 20,000 Muslims live in the Richmond region.
As the Muslim population grows, people's curiosity increases. Many wonder what it means to be Muslim. That interest feeds popular culture such as the controversial TLC television show, "All-American Muslim."
When asked about the TV program and how it relates to her life in the Richmond area, Ali laughed, then she gave the region a good rating as a place to live and practice her faith.
"I have had a relatively positive experience here," she said. "I have had maybe only two or three, at the most, incidences where I felt that people where acting a little bit hateful or hurtful because of my faith or my identity as a Muslim. But overall I think central Virginia is a very interesting place to live."
She added that life here is not perfect. "There are doors that are definitely closed to you … but at the same time there's a lot to be said for the fact that people are trying more and more to slowly move their way into being more open-minded."
Jessica Stewart, born in Charles City County, earned her bachelor's degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in English and women's studies. She will earn her master's in elementary education from William & Mary in May. She is a Chickahominy Indian.
Charles City County, Henrico County's closest neighbor to the east, was a secure and comfortable place for Jessica Stewart to grow up. She was surrounded by extended family and many other Chickahominy Indians.
She grew up wanting to become a teacher like her two great aunts. Now, Stewart is a student teacher in New Kent County as she finishes her graduate work in elementary education.
Stewart also grew up wanting to be the first female chief of the Chickahominy tribe.
"I've always wanted to be on the [Tribal] Council, always wanted a leadership role," she said. "I want to be the chief. I want to be the first female chief of our tribe and it's something that I'm definitely going to work towards because I don't want the fire to be put out. I want to keep it going."
At 26 years old, Stewart is laying the foundation to reach her second dream.
She is the youngest member of the Chickahominy Tribal Council. She traveled to England as part of a delegation commemorating the 400th anniversary of the settling of Jamestown.
Stewart spends much of her time building awareness of Virginia Indian culture. At a recent multicultural event at the Science Museum of Virginia, Stewart, assistant chief Wayne Adkins and others shared Chickahominy's history and traditional dances.
Dancing at Pow Wows and other events is one way to teach others about her tribe, but Stewart said dancing also is a way to demonstrate her deep Christian faith.
"It's connected to my faith. When I dance, it's a prayer for me. It's praise for the Creator and very, very spiritual when you enter the dance circle," she said.
Virginia's Indian population is .4 percent, according to the U.S. Census. In Charles City, which is the Chickahominy's home county, the population is .3 percent. It's the same in Henrico County.
With such a small Indian population, making sure their history is remembered and honored is a challenge Stewart and the Tribal Council must face.
"Virginia has such a rich history … I just don't want that to be forgotten … that we were very instrumental in the formation of this nation, this great nation, and we did work together to build this. And I don't want that to be lost in the shuffle of things," Stewart said.
This story is part of the Virginia Tapestry: Reflecting Our Rich Diversity series produced by In Your Shoes Media.


text:
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - At the end of the first day and 36 holes, the Lipscomb men's golf team is in 14th place at the Eagle/Osprey Intercollegiate in Jacksonville, Fla.
The Bisons were in 11th place after the first round but a 313 on the second time through Deerwood Country Club dropped Lipscomb to a 617 total.
Lipscomb is led by Mikey Feher who is in 43rd place. Feher fired a 75 on the first 18 holes and a 78 on the next 18 for a 153 total.
Caston Roberts and Dowling Armstrong are just behind Feher with a 154. Both are in a tie for 51st. Roberts posted rounds of 74 and 80. Armstrong shot identical rounds of 77.
Paul Klein-Kracht fired a pair of 78s and is tied for 61st with a two-round total of 156. After shooting a 79 in the first round, Sydney Chung came back with an 80 in the second. Chung stands in a tie for 79th with a total of 159.
The Bisons return to the course on Tuesday to finish out the 54-hole tournament.
No. 18 Vanderbilt leads the intercollegiate by seven strokes after firing a 583 (292-291).
Individually Trey Rule of Mercer leads after shooting a 67 in round one and 75 in round two.
T43-Mikey Feher – 75-78 = 153 [+9]
T51-Caston Roberts – 74-80 = 154 [+10]
T51-Dowling Armstrong – 77-77 = 154 [+10]
T61-Paul Klein-Kracht – 78-78 = 156 [+12]
T79-Sydney Chung – 79-80 = 159 [+15]

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Wed 24 Jun, 9.00pm
POSTPONED, The Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Athens, Greece
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
John Eliot Gardiner - conductor
Beethoven Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, op. 60
Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, op. 67
Sir John Eliot Gardiner's approach to Beethoven takes us to the raison d'être of the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, transporting us to the time when Ludwig van Beethoven thrust his extraordinarily original music in front of his audience. The orchestra's recordings of the symphonies have been described (by Gramophone Magazine) as a "tour de force… played at white heat", "glorious" and "magnificent".
The 2020 performances will give audiences the chance to experience the full cycle of symphonies alongside lesser known works by Beethoven, including excerpts from his only full-length ballet, The Creatures of Prometheus. In select performances, the first Symphony will be paired with the Violin Concerto in D Major, with acclaimed violinist Isabelle Faust featuring as soloist. These works together express Beethoven's belief that love, faith and personal courage can overcome political or personal adversity – a message which now seems as urgent as ever.
In celebration of Beethoven's 250th anniversary year, this project will take MCO on a momentous worldwide tour, performing all nine symphonies to audiences across Europe and the United States. The Monteverdi Choir will join the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and John Eliot Gardiner for performances of the 9th symphony, alongside a stellar troupe of soloists.


text:
How do I retrieve mail from remote servers/accounts and file that mail into Citadel?
In the past, this was done using the popular fetchmail utility. However, this is no longer necessary, because Citadel now has this functionality built in.
In WebCit, imply navigate to the room into which you wish to fetch messages (usually your "Mail" room, i.e. your inbox) and select Advanced –> Edit or delete this room –> Remote retrieval, and then enter the hostname of your remote POP3 mail server, along with the username and password of your account there.
You will also notice that you can elect to keep messages on the remote server or delete them.
There is also an option to set the "interval" between collections. This setting is in seconds. If left at zero POP3 collection will occur at the system default interval. If set to a non zero value then POP3 collection for this room will occur at the configured interval. Note, however, that the system administrator can configure a low limit for this interval, if you configure an interval lower than the configured limit then this room will collect POP3 mail only at the interval limit set by the system administrator.
FreePOPs can be plugged between citadels pop3 aggregation service, and various web-email providers that don't offer pop-access. Note that you need to disable citadels pop3 (non ssl) service, so it can bind port 110.
RSS aggregation
Aggregating remote messages via RSS is done via the same method.
RSS feeds are collected at the interval configured as the "Network run frequency" which is configured by the system administrator.
citadel commandline
If you wish to use the text mode client to perform the same configuration, use the ".Enter remote POP3 accounts" command (type ".e3" at the keyboard).
If however your upstream provider doesn't support POP3, (and fetchmail is a bit more versatile here) This sample config snippet might help you with fetchmail:
poll someimapserver.org protocol imap username email@example.com is firstname.lastname@example.com here password Opensesame smtphost /var/run/citadel/lmtp.socket smtphost /usr/local/citadel/lmtp.socket
(the first smtphost is in LHFS Mode, the second in easy install mode)
fetchmail & domainpop
by danboid
Some oldfashioned providers just provide one account to poll per domain. Original Recipients are provided in a special header, that needs to be restored while delivering it to citserver. Heres a sample /etc/fetchmailrc:
set daemon 600 set postmaster "firstname.lastname@example.com" set no bouncemail set no spambounce set logfile /root/fetchlog poll mailhost.yourisp.com aka yourdomain.org envelope "X-Envelope-To" user "firstname.lastname@example.com" with pass "password" to * here fetchall dropdelivered smtphost /usr/local/citadel/lmtp.socket smtphost /var/run/citadel/lmtp.socket smtpaddress yourdomain.org
note that the token after aka is used to split the email address specified by the X-Envelope-To header.
X-Envelope-To may change depending on your provider.


text:
- News
- Business
- Sports
- Entertainment
- Lifestyle
- Health
- Travel
- Technology
Root veggies — those whose edible bits develop underground, such as carrots, beets, celeriac, turnips and parsnips — are favoured during the winter months partially because they tend to be plucked at the end of the harvest season, but also for their longevity.
(This group also includes bulbs, like onions, and tubers, like sweet potatoes, that differ botanically but not so much in the kitchen.)
All of the above last far longer in storage than other fresh produce, so once the tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant and fresh greens are long gone, root vegetables are what we're left with.
Which isn't a bad thing. Root vegetables are deliciously sweet, generally nutrient-dense and high in fibre. Their hardiness makes them a great Alberta crop — and an ideal candidate for roasting.
They can withstand high temperatures, which caramelize natural sugars, boosting flavour while maintaining nutrients.
Root vegetables can, of course, be roasted on their own, but because they're so similar in density and texture, they can also be roasted together as long as they're cut into similar-sized pieces.
Roasting root vegetables is fairly foolproof: peel and chop, toss with oil and roast on a rimmed baking sheet at a high temperature — typically 400 F (200 C) to 450 F (230 C) — until they're tender and golden. If you have a darker-coloured sheet, use it — it will retain and transfer heat better, more efficiently caramelizing your veggies.
If you haven't had roasted sweet potatoes yet, try poking a few small ones and roasting them directly on the oven rack, as you would bake white potatoes — at 350 F (180 C) for about an hour.
Split open and serve with butter and/or maple syrup.
Beets are also good candidates for roasting alone, since anything you cook along with them will turn out as brilliantly fuchsia as they are. To roast whole beets, trim their tops (and pointy root ends, if necessary) and wrap in foil — large ones individually, or two to three together if they're smaller.
Place directly on the oven rack and roast at 350 F (180 C) to 400 F (200 C) for about an hour, depending on their size, until they can easily be pierced with a fork.
Roasted beets can be stored in their foil (put them into a dish to prevent drips in the fridge) for up to a week; add directly to salads and soups, or dice and stir into a pan of roasted root veggies at the end of their cooking time, so that they all maintain the colour they started out with.
Roasted Root Veggies
Serve immediately. Serves 6.
Feel free to mix and match your root vegetables — quantities here are approximate. If you use red beets, wrap them, peeled and diced, in foil and roast alongside the baking sheet, directly on the oven rack. Add them to the mixture at the end, right before serving. To dress up your roasted veg, try tossing them with steamed couscous and crumbled feta while still warm, or drizzling with balsamic vinaigrette before serving.
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) pieces
2 to 3 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) pieces
2 to 3 golden beets, peeled and cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) pieces
1 smallish turnip or rutabaga, peeled and cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) pieces
1 to 2 parsnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) pieces
1/4 cup (50 mL) canola or olive oil, plus extra for the pan
1 purple onion, cut into 1/2-inch (1 cm) wedges
1 head of garlic, cloves separated and peeled
1 to 2 tbsp. (15 to 25 mL) chopped fresh rosemary (optional)
salt and freshly ground pepper
Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C). Toss the sweet potato, carrots, beets, turnip and parsnips together in a large bowl. Drizzle the oil over and toss with your hands to coat well. Drizzle a large, heavy baking sheet (or two, if you need to accommodate all the veggies in a single layer) with oil. Add the onion, garlic and rosemary to the veggies already in the bowl and pour it out onto the prepared sheet(s), spreading the contents into a single layer. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 45 to 60 minutes, stirring once or twice, until tender and golden on edges.
The Ultimate Sweet Potato Fries
Serve immediately. Serves 4.
Sweet potatoes are among the most nutritious winter vegetables, loaded with fibre and beta-carotene.
(Note: the larger, darker-fleshed variety is more nutrient-dense than the paler, longer ones.)
The biggest issue home cooks tend to have when making oven fries is sticking. The combination of a hot pan and hot oil prevents food from sticking on the stovetop — the same applies in the oven. While you cut your sweet potatoes into even sticks, preheat a rimmed baking sheet in the oven with a drizzle of oil, and your fries will flip freely.
canola oil, for cooking
1 large sweet potato
coarse salt
Preheat your oven to 450°F (230°C). Drizzle a rimmed baking sheet with oil, tilting to coat it.
Place it in the oven while you cut your sweet potato, peeled or not, into evenly sized sticks or wedges. Place in a bowl and drizzle with oil and salt to taste; toss with your fingers to coat. Remove pan from the oven and carefully spread the potatoes out in a single layer on it. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, flipping once or twice with a thin spatula, until the fries are golden.


text:
The day-to-day activities of the Cruwys/Cruse one-name study with occasional diversions into other topics of interest such as DNA testing and personal genomics
Saturday, 1 October 2011
IPM of Robert de Cruys of Nalle, Ireland 1292
4 comments:
- Karen Cruce said...
Have you studied the line of Mary Anne Cruys/Cruce/Cruice of Rathmore, daughter of Sir Christopher Cruce, held lands in Cruicetown and Cruice-Rath, Moydorragh, and the county of Meath. Very interestingly oral folklore and burial sites. My brother David and I would love to participate in your one name study. We are Kentucky Cruce Family.email me:
email@example.com Thank you!
- 12 April 2012 at 16:15
- Debbie Kennett said...
Hi Karen, I've sent you an e-mail. You can read about Sir Christopher Cruys, Lord of Rathmore, in an article in the Dublin University Magazine of 1854, starting on page 321. You can find the article here:
- 12 April 2012 at 21:27
- Unknown said...
I have found via ancestry.com that Christopher Cruce / Cruys is my 18th great grandfather and also awaiting my dna results. I would love to learn more.
Sandy Minder Barnett of Springfield Illinois
- 27 June 2012 at 00:08
- Debbie Kennett said...
Hi Sandy, You can read the article about Christopher Cruys from the link above. I would be very wary of a genealogy posted on Ancestry purporting to trace back to Sir Christopher Cruys. There are a lot of very dodgy pedigrees out there. Which DNA test have you taken and which DNA company have you tested with?
Best wishes
- 1 July 2012 at 23:24


text:
Tweezers, spring hooks and magnetic pick-up devices are among our most popular positioners and retrieval tools. These essential bits of kit give you the ability to easily collect or retrieve objects that would otherwise be too small or inaccessible. Positioners and retrieval tools are handy lightweight devices, ideal for tool bags and equipment boxes across a huge range of applications.
What types of pick-up tools are available, and how do they work?
We keep several types of positioning and retrieval tools in stock, with the ideal choice depending on the kind of objects you work with.
- Tweezers are go-to devices for retrieving or transferring small, fiddly, inaccessible or stuck items and components between locations. They're operated between thumb and index finger and sold in many shapes, sizes and point/tip types:
- Bent/Curved tweezers for accuracy and comfort
- Blunt tweezers for delicate or easily scratched items
- Cutting tweezers with sharp edges for clipping softer wire
- Flat tweezers for manipulating larger objects
- Pointed tweezers for enhanced precision and accessibility
- Round tweezers for general use can be fitted with various accessories and tips to meet specialised needs
- Wafer tweezers with flat tips for safe handling of silicon wafers in semiconductor assembly
- Pick-up tools are often designed with magnetic ends for retrieving metal objects or sprung clawed gripper ends for non-metallic items. They include:
- Telescopic pick-up tools for enhanced reach
- Bendable pick-up tools for access flexibility
- Hinged joint pick up tools for full 360-degree rotation
- Spring hooks help engineers, jewellers and model-makers lever springs into position, as well as directing/retrieving wiring and O-rings. They can be light-duty or heavy-duty, depending on the spring gauge.
- Single-ended spring hooks are sold in either push or pull configurations
- Push-pull spring hooks are double-ended and can perform both actions
... Read more


text:
Add the beauty of spring to your décor with the lovely Cherry Blossoms tapered drum shade on this brushed nickel ceiling light.
Additional Info:
Define your style with this made-to-order tapered drum shade semi-flushmount ceiling light. The design features an exclusive pattern printed on high-quality canvas. A white acrylic diffuser at the bottom of the shade prevents glare. The center finial, circular canopy, and drum shade repeat the designs smooth, modern curves. This item is custom made-to-order. U.S. Patent # 7,347,593.


text:
The popularity and creative evolution of the sport and hobby known as skateboarding is still on the rise as in previous years with many of our younger generations thriving on this now worldwide interest. While taking a ride on these skateboards, you will notice that they are all show and go too, as artists have embraced these street surfboards as a canvas to display their cultural artwork. Here are a few of those skateboards that have become a Lowrider influence amongst various artists.
The Art of SkateboardsLowrider Konnected
Load Next Article


text:
Augmented Reality Sandbox:
Video of a sandbox equipped with a Kinect 3D camera and a projector to project a real-time colored topographic map with contour lines onto the sand surface. The sandbox lets virtual water flow over the surface using a GPU-based simulation of the Saint-Venant set of shallow water equations.
Virtual Dam Failure and Fun with Water :
Another AR sandbox video, showing how to build and fill up a large reservoir to simulate a dam failure, and just general messing around with virtual water.
Find out more at:


text:
D-Link recently introduced a DCS-932L Wireless Day/Night Home Network Camera and with it revolutionized the nanny cam.
As Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of Splash Magazines Worldwide, when I find a service or hidden treasure I like to inform my readers and arm them with as much information as they need to make informed decisions and wise purchases.
As most know I travel often and while I never thought I needed a home monitoring system I'm a tech enthusiast so when I discovered the D-Link home Network camera that worked remotely and came with an app for easy alerts, well, I had to try it and like it so much, I felt it was worthy of showcasing.
The D-Link DCS-932L Camera, offers round the clock surveillance. The wireless N Day/Night Home Network camera is smaller than your average wallet, blends in if you are hoping to hide the camera and is perfect for your home, small office, even an office within the office. The built in IR LEDs let you see what is happening even if there is little or no light.
The D-Link DCS-932L Camera, has a compact design with an integrated antenna that allows you to place it almost anywhere, even in the smallest corner of your home and still easily see what's going on without having to be there either via the internet or from the mydlink app. The D-Link DCS-932L Camera, is truly effortless to use and install when I say DIY or do-it-yourself friendly, I mean it. Simple is probably the best description.
The D-Link DCS-932L Camera can be set up near the entryway or in any room to monitor any action around the house day or night and offers a wide angle "V" monitoring of one location. The D-Link DCS-932L Wireless N Day/Night Home Network Camera is ideal for every household and provides day and night infrared camera, color picture for day and black and white picture for night.
D-Link DCS-932L Wireless N Day/Night Home Network Camera provides instant email notification and more importantly D-Link Home Network camera provides peace of mind for parents, homeowners, renters, roomies and office mates.
DCS-932L Wireless Day/Night Home Network Camera comes with a mobile application that simplifies online monitoring management giving you quick access to your digital life all from one convenient location either by logging on to MYDLINK website, www.mydlink.com or opening the mydlink app.
DCS-932L Wireless Day/Night Home Network Camera package contains wireless n Day/night home network camera, Ethernet cable, power adapter, camera based and mounting kit, quick install guide, CD-ROM.
For more information: www.mydlink.com


text:
Although it might seem that your clients have little in common with the inside executives at Twitter, the company's initial public offering (IPO) documents would indicate otherwise.
The Twitter executives developed a plan to reduce their eventual gift and estate taxes in advance of their IPO, which could, of course, cause the value of the company to skyrocket.
(Indeed, the shares were trading around $43 Friday morning after the offering was priced Wednesday evening at $26 a share. But how the company performs in the longer term remains to be seen – Ed.)
A closer look at the planning strategies employed by Twitter shows that your client does not have to be sitting on the next hot silicon valley IPO to benefit from their use. Even if your client does not own pre-IPO shares, the freeze and discounting strategies used can save them from a hefty tax bill.
Twitter's Trust Strategy
Twitter's IPO documents indicate that both its chairman and largest shareholder have transferred substantial amounts of their stock holdings into what the documents call "annuity trusts," which are believed to be grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs). Further, the company's chief executive and his spouse transferred shares into an irrevocable gift trust.
The rationale behind these trust strategies is simple — the executives anticipated the value of their pre-IPO shares to grow substantially and logically wish to shelter this appreciation from taxes to the greatest extent possible.
The strategy works — and can work equally well for your clients — because it freezes the value of the shares at their pre-IPO prices for transfer tax purposes.
Mechanics of the Trusts
A GRAT essentially combines a trust that is established for a certain predetermined period of time with an annuity that pays the trust creator (the grantor) a set value each year of the trust's existence. This annuity payout is the grantor's retained interest. The remaining value passes to the grantor's beneficiaries, and, thus, out of the grantor's estate.
The value of the taxable gift to the GRAT beneficiaries is equal to the fair market value of the property transferred into the GRAT minus the grantor's retained interest. The grantor's retained interest is the actuarially calculated value of the annuity stream he will retain over the GRAT's life based on the Section 7520 rate in effect for the month in which the GRAT is created. In a low interest rate environment, the GRAT strategy can substantially reduce the value of the taxable gift, resulting in lower transfer taxes generally.
The primary downside of the GRAT strategy is that the grantor must outlive the trust term for it to work. In the case of the Twitter executives, who are all under 50 years old, the odds are good that the strategy will succeed.
The gift trust, similarly, seeks to move any post-IPO appreciation on the shares out of the eventual taxable estate, this time by taking advantage of the high gift-tax exemption levels that are currently in effect. The CEO of Twitter and his wife funded the gift trust with an amount that was about equal to the gift tax exemption—then around $10 million per couple—thereby freezing the value of the assets for tax purposes and keeping any subsequent appreciation out of their taxable estate.
Discounting Shares
The IPO documents also indicate that at least one Twitter executive combined his trust strategy with a strategy designed to discount the value of his shares. This strategy involves transferring ownership of the shares to a privately held limited liability company (LLC), which essentially reduces their value because they are less marketable than shares owned outright by an individual.
Rather than simply giving an outright ownership interest in the shares, which would cause them to be valued at their fair market value, the Twitter executive can give ownership interests in the LLC that controls those shares, thus reducing the value of the gift.
While this strategy can substantially reduce the transfer taxes on the gift, the downside is that control over the shares becomes more limited.
Your clients do not have to be multimillionaires in order for these strategies to work; any client who has assets that are expected to appreciate in value can benefit from a well-crafted trust strategy.
For more on GRATs, please see "The Clock Is Ticking on GRATs"
For additional coverage of this issue and similar ones, we invite you to sign up with AdvisorOne's Summit Business Media partner, National Underwriter Advanced Markets, for a free trial.
You may also be interested in signing up for a free trial with another Summit Business Media partner, Tax Facts Online.


text:
|System: PS3, X360, Wii, PS2, DS, PSP
|Review Rating Legend
|Dev: Incinerator Studios
|1.0 - 1.9 = Avoid
|4.0 - 4.4 = Great
|Pub: THQ
|2.0 - 2.4 = Poor
|4.5 - 4.9 = Must Buy
|Release: Oct 12, 2009
|2.5 - 2.9 = Average
|5.0 = The Best
|Players: 1-2
|3.0 - 3.4 = Fair
|ESRB Rating: Everyone
|3.5 - 3.9 = Good
There's also an arcade mode, in which you can race and play mini-games as more than 30 different characters, 15 of which are new. This includes two-player local multiplayer. There's nothing unique about the two-player games here (except maybe that you can race as a forklift), which include circuit and relay races, time trials, stunts, and various other challenges, but they're far from broken, and parents of siblings will be happy to keep two kids occupied at the same time. There is unfortunately no online support.
In terms of presentation, this game is a mixed bag. The graphics never astound, but for the most part they're quite competent. The shadows look nice, the surrounding area reflects on the polish of your car, and each world has a fair number of endearing quirks to its design. The framerate is fine in the vast majority of races, but for some reason, one of ours had hiccups of almost seizure-inducing frequency. The music fits the mood of each world and the sound effects are fine, but the voice-over sayings get repetitive and annoying in a hurry.
There are also some very good-looking and clever cutscenes, which lay out the lighthearted and proudly clichéd plot. As Lightning McQueen, you're preparing an academy of cars to win the Race-O-Rama competition, but so is your nemesis Chick Hicks. Each scene is filled with the kind of eye-rollingly cheesy one-liners that kids seem to love.
Racing game of the year? Definitely not. A decent effort that will entertain kids and tide fans of the movie and original game over until Cars 2? Definitely.
Robert VerBruggen
CCC Freelance Writer
Game Features:


text:
Alan Davies' Aussie 'Life is Pain' tour
Monday, November 21, 2011
My conversation with Alan Davies, regarding QI, Whites and his own stand-up tour, Life is Pain. Bits of it were Tweeted and Facebooked earlier on. As Alan tours Australia, with tickets to some shows still available, Here it is in its entirety. Enjoy!
"The logic of it fails me," Alan Davies insists.
Davies – Stephen Fry's excellent foil on QI and a comic in his own right – is currently in Australia. He came out to take part in a live QI tour and stayed on for his own stand-up tour. But our first topic of conversation is his most recent television project, the quite brilliant but sadly under-appreciated dramedy Whites, cancelled after its first season.
"Losing Whites is the biggest disappointment I've ever had in television."
According to Davies, Whites took four years to reach the screen. Writers Matt King (a regular on Peep Show and Spirited, as well as a stalwart on the Aussie stand-up scene some years ago) and Oliver Lansley started by writing "a taster", from which a pilot was commissioned. (They actually spent time training as chefs at one of Jamie Oliver's restaurants, to authentically capture the feel). A year later, the series was made, followed by another year before it was broadcast. "It's a long process," Davies continues. "You can't imagine a car company spending four years developing a car, putting it on sale, it proving really popular, and then stopping making it and deciding to make a different car. It just doesn't make any sense at all."
Not least of all because it was cancelled after the script for a second season was commissioned, and with nothing selected to replace it in the schedule. "It had been very successful with the audiences and critically. It was a real shock and a huge disappointment because it was an ensemble of actors who were the best and the nicest bunch of people I ever worked with."
Indeed. Isy Suttie, whom we also know as 'Dobbie' in Peep Show, was Kiki, the kooky waitress. More significantly, Katherine Parkinson – who'd replaced Julia Sawalha as Caroline Quentin's replacement as the female lead in the most recent instalment of Jonathan Creek – played restaurant manager and maitre d' Caroline.
"She's a super bright woman," Davies says of Katherine Parkinson. "Very smart, witty, great company and tremendous comedy actress. We're great fans of hers from the IT Crowd. She came in and auditioned for Whites. No airs and graces about Katherine at all. Hands down she was the best for the role. It's just part of the huge disappointment about the cancellation that we won't be able to do any more of those scenes or get those characters going again, because I thought they were really great. That's television, unfortunately. It's quite impenetrable at times, and even thought I've been working on television for nearly 20 years, I'm as baffled as anyone this time."
Jonathan Creek
Nearly 20 years in television, huh? That in itself is baffling, given Alan's perpetual youthfulness. Seems like only a couple of years ago he turned up as the tussle-haired lead with the cool accent in that – let's face it – rather wussy, English kind of X-Files-lite (meant in the best possible way, of course) known as Jonathan Creek. You know, where he plays a magician's assistant – the sort who helps devise the tricks offstage rather than donning lycra and tights to be sawed in half as part of them onstage – who also solves mysteries.
What was surprising was that – despite the presence of female lead Caroline Quentin, late of Men Behaving Badly, and the vaguely familiar Cleese-alike, in that first episode, who turned out to be an older Neil-of-the-Young Ones Nigel Planer – Jonathan Creek was 'light entertainment' more than 'comedy'. No, actually, that wasn't the surprise. The surprise was that, despite the show clearly being light entertainment rather than comedy, Alan Davies – whom we hardly knew in this country – started popping up in stand-up specials and shows that were more obviously sitcoms.
Turns out, hardcore comedy fans knew Alan Davies a lot better than TV viewers who'd stumbled onto Jonathan Creek. He had cut his stand-up comedy chops while developing his acting, as a student. Prior to Jonathan Creek, there was the excellent mini series Bob & Rose – as important a mainstream debut for writer Russell T. Davies as it was for actor Alan Davies. And as with Russell T's best work, the drama was so potent because it effortlessly combined comedy in the process. Perfect for Alan. "I did a lot of acting at university and I always wanted to write and perform comedy, so the two things were going on at the same time," he says. "I was okay in plays, but it was best if they were comedies."
Early stand-up
Alan gave comedy a proper go after he graduated in 1988. It was also the year Alan first visited Australia, where – it turns out – he had relatives.
"My mum died when I was only six and she had one sibling, my Aunt, who lived in Adelaide," Alan explains. "My Gran lived with her. To hear anything about my mum or get to know that side of the family meant coming to Australia."
After that initial visit, Davies returned repeatedly throughout the early 90s, gigging while here. Voted Best Young Comic by London's Time Out magazine in 1991, he was playing the Adelaide Fringe in a split show with Judith Lucy and Jimeoin in 1992 – "I knew Jimeoin from the UK and the Australian promoter put us together with Judith". He won the Critics Award for Comedy at Edinburgh Fringe in 1994, the same year he missed out on the Perrier (beaten by Aussies Lano & Woodley). He was at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in 1995, when it was still a comparatively "low-key affair".
And even though the success of Jonathan Creek meant slowing down a little – "it did take over my life a little bit and the stand-up started to fade" Alan continued visiting Australia, what with cousins dotted around the country and a best friend from his school days having emigrated to Sydney. Although things got a little busier of late, making his returns less frequent. "My wife and I came over in 2006 and we had Christmas in Adelaide. This is our fist trip since then," he says.
But it's only been five years since Alan Davies was last in Australia. It's been ten since he was regularly performing as a stand-up comic, and, he says, "I have missed doing it. I never really anticipated being away from it for ten years. I can't really see where those ten years have gone."
Hmmm. I think I can. The last eight have involved seasons of QI, the game show with a difference, since rather than rewarding intelligence, as game shows used to, or cunning, as they did most recently, QI demands only that the panelists be interesting.
Alan's involvement in the show came, he says, as a result of his late-'90s "move away from stand-up" when he "sold his soul" for four years, making television commercials for a bank. They were directed by John Lloyd, who'd produced such great comedy shows as Spitting Image, Not The Nine O'Clock News, Black Adder and the television version of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy but hadn't made a television show in a while, concentrating instead on advertisements.
"We got on very well while we were shooting things," Alan says, "and he had an idea for a panel show and said 'What do you think of a show where you get points for being interesting?' I immediately bought into it. We talked about it a lot in the long breaks on set when we were doing those ads."
A year later, Lloyd phoned Davies, announcing he'd "managed to get the money from the BBC" and was about to "make a pilot of the Quite Interesting Panel Show"; would Alan like to be involved? "I jumped at the chance," Alan says.
They've made a season every year since 2003. The secret to its success is not merely because it lives up to its name, of being quite interesting (that's what the 'QI' stands for) but, according to Alan, because of it's 'collaborative feel':
"We don't like feeling that people are elbowing each other aside for space and treading on each other trying to out-do one another. You can't get the questions right. You're very fortunate to even understand the questions, usually. It takes you into a topic where you don't know what's going to come next." In order to pull it off, there's "a huge amount of work" by a team of researchers, led by Jon Lloyd, "that goes on for months".
Although Stephen Fry is so natural in his delivery, and such an intellectual Renaissance man that you'd easily believe that he would know all of the information presented on the show, there are 'scripts' provided with all of the material. But, Alan explains, "Stephen's second to none at absorbing all this stuff and preparing the show. It looks like an effortless conversation, but there's a huge amount of preparation."
Meanwhile, the panelists are "totally in the dark". They have the option of seeing the questions just before taping begins, "but they don't make any sense to you". So, according to Alan, "you go and have a conversation off-the-cuff; the whole thing's spontaneous and really good fun to be part of."
If you go and buy the boxed set of the first three seasons (through Roadshow, available at your ABC Shop) you'll see some patterns emerge. Alan Davies loves doing his 'Mexican impression'; Rich Hall subverts expectations by playing the game virtually against the rules – all non sequiturs and absurd utterances; Jo Brand likewise can stop just about anyone in their tracks with an unexpected – but hilarious – comment; Bill Bailey's amoeba gag comes up a couple of times.
Alan agrees Rich Hall "has always been a minimalist contributor", throwing in the occasional line that always gets a laugh. "Many others are much chattier," he observes, noting that the show works best when you have "a good blend". What he loves most is the fact he knows most of the guests from his time on the comedy circuit. "It's like seeing old mates. It's a very relaxed environment."
Initially, they were "quite careful" about whom they invited on. After it became popular, people were "queuing up" for the opportunity. "There are still some people who you'd like to come on who won't," Alan admits. Who? Is he at liberty to say?
"Dawn French. I talked to Ricky Gervais a few years ago and he said, 'there's no way, I can't do what you guys do'. I think he could, but if he's not comfortable with these kinds of shows, don't do them. There's no need."
Daniel Kitson, likewise, eschews such television shows. Alan's been trying to get him on "for years, but he simply won't". Which is a pity – to my mind the show is practically designed for his intellect and humour, and Davies agrees. "He would flourish in that environment, and it would be lovely to have him there. But he has no interest in it."
Although, as Alan notes, it took a long time to get Ross Noble on QI. "He's started coming on in the last couple of years and he's been terrific. Hopefully Daniel will, eventually."
You can only imagine, when watching QI on television, that much more material is recorded than broadcast. Sometimes you can almost detect an abrupt edit. According to Alan, they record 90 minutes. Thus, "there's usually about an hour or more of stuff that's not broadcast. There are lots of opportunities in the show for us to do stuff that's unbroadcastable for the benefit of the studio audience. But they give themselves scope to edit down a really, really tight, funny half hour."
In more recent years, in addition to the 30-minute television version, there's been a 45-minute QI XL edit of each episode. Makes perfect sense to make the most of the material produced.
The pity of the Australian tour is that it was intended "just for the ticket-buying public"; not recorded for posterity, let alone for broadcast. No 'special Australian season' the way British comedy used to be manufactured, back in the day when it was still Pomedy rather than Britcom – Aussie episodes of Love Thy Neighbour, Father Dear Father and Are You Being Served. Even the first season of Blackadder was a co-production with the ATN Seven network in this country.
"We were hoping that we could salvage Whites that way," Alan says. "We did have a couple of conversations with the ABC about doing a second season on that basis, but so far that hasn't come to fruition." Clearly, the thing to have done was to tape the Aussie QI live season and package it up, to raise some coin for future seasons of Whites. Never mind. That's only one missed opportunity with this tour. The other – that I'm still bemoaning – is that it doesn't take in Sydney.
"That is a shame," Davies says. "There was the intention of doing a show in Sydney, but the issue is Stephen Fry's availability and the promoter failing to get a venue organised. My own promoter for my stand-up shows is very on the ball and she's now done everything that we needed to get done."
Whatever anxiety Alan had – and he admits there was a degree, having had such a long time away from stand-up – he's tried to "channel into positive energy", first with small UK gigs before arriving in Australia, and then with small club gigs before embarking on his stand-up tour proper, working up new material so that he'd be "nice and ready" to tour.
Some cheeky questions
Before I can leave Alan Davies to his own devices on it, I want to ask some downright cheeky questions. "May I?" I politely enquire.
"If you like," Alan says, graciously.
I begin with Lou and Andy on Little Britain. You know, the characters – who allegedly happen to be named after Lou Reed and Andy Warhol – consisting of a malingerer in a wheelchair and his carer. To my mind, if Daniel Kitson were to pretend to be disabled and Alan Davies was to wheel him around, they'd be Lou and Andy.
"I think you're stretching," Alan says. "I don't know who'd be more offended – me or Daniel," he adds.
My next cheeky observation: that kid who plays the middle, naughty child on Outnumbered. With that hair, that face, and indeed, those speech patterns, he could be Alan Davies' son.
"Yeah, well you're about the 95th… thousandth… person to say that…" Alan dismisses.
"Has anyone else brought the 'Lou and Andy' comparison up?" I wonder.
"That shows that you do have capacity as an original thinker; good for you on that one. But no, I'm afraid the curly-headed kid on Outnumbered – I get that on Twitter virtually every day and I can confirm to you that he is not my son. But he's a very good actor. He's better than me, anyway."
Well, we know that that's false modesty; there are things like Bob & Rose early on, and Whites quite recently that demonstrate how good Alan Davies is. And again, we're reminded how much of a pity it is that Whites ended when it did. It was a great show.
"It's very gratifying to hear that," Alan says. "I've had a lot of feedback from Australian viewers who were catching it, and now from people in the States who are fans of the new style of English comedy. It's very gratifying that people would like it. Part of the impetus for getting me back up on stage as a stand-up comedian is the frustration and disappointment of these decisions. At least as a stand-up I can go onstage and there's no one between me and the audience. I can go and say what I like, and that's a refreshing change."


text:
Sometimes, a name says it all.
Paul Van Haver chose to make music under the moniker Stromae, which is actually French slang for "Maestro". Now, he conducts an international symphony of hip-hop, indie, world music, pop, and electronic dance music speaking to social strife and personal struggles, while urging a universal outcry for hope.
His own background mirrors the diversity of his musical output. Stromae's mother is of Flemish-Belgian descent, while his dad hailed from Rwanda. Further heating up that cultural cauldron, Stromae spent his childhood growing up in a destitute lower class suburb of Brussels speaking French—and he still resides in Brussels to this day. In order to face the tumult of the world around him—including tragically losing his father in the Rwandan genocide in 1994—he turned to music, finding his own beat in the drums first.
Soon, he realized his talents behind the microphone as well, and songs became a catalyst for catharsis, nodding to the likes of Morrissey in terms of enigmatic emotionality and clever catchiness. Financing his first single from a fast food gig during the day, "Alors On Danse", translation "So We Dance", went on to be an international smash serving as a call-to-arms for people to let go of their problems and move. European albums Cheese and Racine Carrée would go on to receive unanimous acclaim as his voice resonated in the hearts of a generation overseas.
That escapism defines the worldwide 2013 hit "Papaoutai". The album went 16-times platinum in France and garnered praise from the likes of the NPR, New York Times, The Guardian, and BBC. A bouncy anthem juxtaposed with a heartbreaking narrative about absentee fathers, "Papaoutai" also racked up over 120 million YouTube views and counting.
Casablanca Records went on to sign Stromae for the U.S., releasing the song stateside in 2014. Now, this "Maestro" stands poised to inspire his biggest audience yet. This conductor has arrived.


text:
The G-20 Summit is wrapping up today. We can compare its performance to promises made in advance. Leaders discussed financial markets, of course, but they also made promises about jobs and work. Some highlights:
"3. We must promote employment through structural policies, active labour market policies, and training and education."
In other words, leading economies from China to Germany — 80 percent of the world economy! — recognize that the invisible hand can't work alone. Government doesn't always need to get out of the way. Sometimes it needs to take the lead.
-- What "active labour market policies" do we need in America? A higher minimum wage? Health care that isn't tied to your job? The Employee Free Choice Act to protect workers' right to form a union?
-- What does America need for "training and education"? More public funding for higher education? Even if it takes money from the banks?
-- What can other countries do? China can stop devaluing its currency or improve labor or safety standards so U.S. products compete on a more level playing field … but I'm not holding my breath.
"5. We will work to achieve high, stable and sustainable growth, which will require orderly rebalancing in global demand, removal of domestic barriers and promotion of the efficient functioning of global markets."
-- Does the G-20 realize that America can't stay a debtor nation forever? It's good for our lenders in the short run, but it's good for nobody in the long run.
-- We put it this way in our report, Pittsburgh, G-20 and the New Economy:
"The G-20 must … chart the process by which the global economy that emerges out of the crisis is more balanced, and no longer dependent on U.S. citizens spending more than they earn. That means the U.S. must invest more and consume less, make more and import less. And the surplus nations must do the reverse: consume more and buy more from abroad. This will require wrenching changes in policy and in attitudes. But if we are to move to growth that is sustainable in Pittsburgh as well as Beijing, we have little choice."
Did the G-20 Summiteers meet their goals? Is there a way to hold them to it?
Here's a step we can take at home. The next time domestic Republicans yell about "protectionism" and "get the government off my back," remind them how grown-up economies talk about government. "Active labour market policies" (#3) and "orderly rebalancing in global demand" (#5). Those are changes we need.


text: Grand Ole Opry is performing on Fri, 2 Oct at the Grand Ole Opry House, Nashville, TN. Ticket prices of country folk event vary depending on demand but right now you can get them for approximately $75. So hurry up and get your Grand Ole Opry tickets before they are sold out.


text:
AfriGeneas Genealogy and History Forum Archive
Re: Witherspoon Cemetery (Black)
In Response To: Re: Witherspoon Cemetery (Black) ()
Thanks Vivian for responding.
My great grandfather died in Lancaster County, SC at home in 1943. He never lived in Charlotte. My family remembers the undertaker being from either Lancaster County, SC, or Monroe NC. There were only one or two back then in these counties. I called every funeral home in Lancaster, and Monroe and none have any records on him. My family seems to think that the funeral Home that had his body does not exist today. I have requested my great grandmother's deach certificate(his wife)to see who was the undertaker for her assuming that it could have been the same for him. They died 3 years a part. Vital recrods found hers, and I am waiting to receive it. Every time I think I am close, the brick Wall hits me in the face.
Thanks for your help.
Messages In This Thread


text:
Watch CME Group Chief Economist Blu Putnam on Futures Institute discuss the impact of slow corporate profit growth on dividend payouts.
All examples in this report are hypothetical interpretations of situations and are used for explanation purposes only. The views in this report reflect solely those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of CME Group or its affiliated institutions. This report and the information herein should not be considered investment advice or the results of actual market experience.
Bluford "Blu" Putnam has served as Managing Director and Chief Economist of CME Group since May 2011. With more than 35 years of experience in the financial services industry and concentrations in central banking, investment research, and portfolio management, Blu serves as CME Group's spokesperson on global economic conditions.
View more reports from Blu Putnam, Managing Director and Chief Economist of CME Group.


text:
A total of 66 volunteers of all ages came out recently to plant 450 tree seedlings at Bethel Landfill in Hampton. The seedlings were planted in the buffer strip between the landfill and I-64. They were native evergreens with one exception, selected for their habitat value and their ability to help provide a screen between the landfill and the interstate.
The varieties planted were American holly, black haw viburnam, eastern redcedar, loblolly pine, and shortleaf pine. Upcoming plantings at the site will include longleaf pine, Virginia pine, and wax myrtle. Many thanks to Waste Management Inc. for purchasing the trees.
Tip from Kathy: I just purchased an eastern red cedar at Ken Matthews Garden Center in York County to plant in my own yard. These native cedars are durable, tolerating drought and tidal flooding. The berries on the females are loved by songbirds and their year-round dense green foliage provides shelter, nesting and protective cover for birds.
Volunteers representing Century Carpet Steamers, Hampton Grows, Hampton Master Gardeners, Langley Air Force Base, Peninsula Master Naturalists, Phenix School K-Kids, Tidewater Crop Mob, Waste Management, the Woman's Club of Hampton, and many other organizations came out in full force.
- See photos from the planting, visit this Facebook page link: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151284527336502.1073741829.252581721501&type=3&l=99e6df3117
- To sign up for our email list and receive postings of additional projects, go to http://www.hampton.gov/hccc/enews_form.php.
- For more information about this tree planting project and other Hampton Clean City Commission activities, explore our web page at www.hampton.gov/hccc or visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/HamptonCleanCityCommission.
Contact the commissoin at at firstname.lastname@example.com or 727-1130.
For More Information About Litter Prevention & Recycling, go to www.askhrgreen.org, www.keepvirginiabeautiful.org, and www.kab.org


text:
Snippet Name: Database Links
Description: Database Links are used to communicate between different databases.
Comment: (none)
Highlight Mode: PLSQL
Last Modified: March 06th, 2009
Description: Database Links are used to communicate between different databases.
How TO VIEW existing database links
SELECT * FROM user_db_links;
SELECT * FROM all_db_links;
CREATE a PUBLIC Database Link
conn / AS sysdba
CREATE PUBLIC DATABASE LINK publink
USING 'public_link';
CLOSE a database link
ALTER SESSION CLOSE DATABASE LINK test1_link;
DROP a database link
DROP DATABASE LINK test1_link;
SQL University.net courses meet the most demanding needs of the business world for advanced education
in a cost-effective manner. SQL University.net courses are available immediately for IT professionals
and can be taken without disruption of your workplace schedule or processes.
Compared to traditional travel-based training, SQL University.net saves time and valuable corporate
resources, allowing companies to do more with less. That's our mission, and that's what we deliver.


text:
How to RegisterClasses fill up months in advance, so reserve your spot in a class today!
To guarantee your place in class:
- Call, fax or fill out the online request form below
From outside of Mexico, first dial 011-52, then [9 am -12 noon, US Central time]: (415) 154-4017 [Afternoons]: Dial (415) 152-4728 When your application and check are received we will confirm your dates. Balance due in U.S. dollars on the first day of class.


text:
Moving Home
About TPG
TPG Network
Corporate Offices
Investor Relations
Media Releases
Career Opportunities
Personal & Small Office
Market leading Unlimited ADSL2+, NBN, Ethernet
and Fibre Optic Internet, Mobile, Phone services.
Personal & Business
Provider of ADSL2+, NBN and other communications
services with a focus on premium customer service.
Business, Enterprise & Government
Providing network services for some of Australia's largest government bodies and enterprise blue chip companies.
AAPT is a leading wholesale carrier which strives to deliver extreme performance for its customers.
Company Profile
TPG (ASX: TPM) is a force in the Australian telecommunications industry. Our people, products, network assets and innovation have enabled us to provide our customers with communication services that are reliable, fast and cost effective.
We provide a diverse range of communication services to residential users, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), government, large corporate enterprises and wholesale customers. TPG offers nationwide ADSL2+, NBN, Fibre Optic and Ethernet broadband access, telephony services, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), SIM Only Mobile plans and various business networking solutions.
TPG owns end-to-end network infrastructure which includes over 400 DSLAM enabled telephone exchanges across Australia, extensive inter-capital and metropolitan fibre optic networks, and the international PPC-1 submarine cable connecting Australia and Guam with onwards connectivity to USA and Asia.
As we own and operate our own carrier-grade voice, data and internet network infrastructure, we have the network capability to deliver exceptional performance across every level of the organisation and take end-to-end responsibility in the services we offer.
The TPG Journey
About TPG
Useful Links
ADSL2+ Coverage
DSLAM Rollout
NBN Coverage
Churn to TPG
Service Status
Online Safety
Copyright © 2020 TPG Internet Pty Ltd ABN 15 068 383 737 - All Rights Reserved |


text:
PeteShearer necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 227 diseños de 44 diseñadores freelance.
Influential Technologies, Inc
We are a development company specializing in assisting organizations in achieving success in their technology initiatives. We also develop tooling solutions to help the development community be more productive.
Companies who are in need of help in all phases of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
We have no existing logo or site. This logo will be the basis of our future design and everything else will need to complement it, so we want to get it right. We would like the winning logo in the native format (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc)
The right logo should:
Have a modern, even "Web 2.0" feel, though feel free to shoot for "Web 3.0" in your designs, we'd like this to not appear too "dated" in the future.
Colors: Should have a certain level of professional appearance, however, feel free to be creative and use complementary colors to create an outstanding logo. Please remember that this color pallet will be used in creating a site and marketing materials later.
We would like to avoid the "swooshes" that have been over used, see the logo for TechSkills (http://www.techskills.com/) and otgx (http://otgx.com/) for examples of what we'd like to avoid.
We are a technology company, so it would be nice if the logo contained some sort of embedded reference to something technology-related, for instance binary that spelled out the company's initials or a matrix barcode that meant something relevant. This is optional and we don't want it to appear "forced in", so if you can't figure out how to incorporate it naturally, we will definitely still consider your designs.
We will be monitoring this closely and providing feedback. If you have questions for us to clarify something, please leave them for us and we will respond very quickly.
Thank you.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


text:
1956 Ford Pickup - Heart Attack
A Second-Chance Romance
Your first ride always holds a special place in your heart, whether it was a total beater or something you thought really made you "big man on campus." Few can still say they still own their initial means of transportation. Instead, a disproportionately greater number of us just reminisce about it and grumble over "the one that got away." We fantasize about what we'd do to it if we still had it, how much money it'd be worth now, or just miss being able to relive nostalgia at our convenience.
Billy Templeton was 17 when he got his first ride, a '56 Ford pickup. His uncle gave it to him for helping him build a house. It had a three-on-the-tree, drifted like crazy because of the amount of play in the steering, and he had to push-start it to get it running, but hey, it was his. Even then, he knew there was something truly special about this fat-fendered piece of Dearborn steel with the overhung cab. After high school came the inevitable stringent economic times of his entry into early adulthood, and like many of us, Billy had to wave goodbye to his '56 and get something more practical. However, he knew that one day he'd get another.
Some 30 years went by and that day to recapture a part of his youth came to fruition. Billy's wife, Bonnie, decided to get him a '56 for his 48th birthday because she'd heard for years how badly he wanted to get one. About an hour from his home, they found what was to become Billy's second go with his first ride. No, it was not the exact same truck, but it was the same year and even though it was in some rough shape, Billy wasn't about to let this one go.
This time around, Billy wanted to do it right and turn this truck into the fast, red, street rod he always wanted. Bill Legg and Robbie Seals pulled out the tired old 272-inch Y-block and in went a crate 351 Windsor complete with a Holley 750, and all that backed by a C6 tranny. Thanks to Sammy Seay and Paul Newton, the chassis' dropped stance comes from a Mustang II IFS and a notched rear with blocks, with a '79 Grenada rearend that sits on top of the leaf springs. Exhaust is pumped through dual Flowmaster mufflers to rectangular stainless steel tips molded into the left and right running boards.
Billy's '56 didn't have the sleek body lines you see now when he bought the truck. The door front corners have been rounded, the driprails shaved, and the bed is courtesy of Dan Carpenter. The red oak planks in the bed by Roger Brown provide a unique and appropriate finishing touch.
Color choice was an important decision and Billy ultimately decided on '99 Ford Vermillion Red and a custom flame job on the inner fenders. When Billy saw it roll out of Shipley's bodyshop in Greenville, Tennessee, the color was so striking he said that someone could have a heart attack looking at it, hence the truck's name: Heart Attack. Add that to the Mid Fifty's headlights, LED taillights, pinstriping, American Racing Torq-Thrust wheels, and this truck has that subtle, yet classic, street rod look.
It took five years to build on top of a 30-plus year wait, but Billy is living large with the best birthday present he could ask for. And believe it or not, the uncle who gave him his first truck was around to see the finished product. His reaction almost gave the truck's nomenclature a literal status. We think now that Billy has what he had to part ways with; Thanks to his wife, Bonnie, and friend David Bailey it'll be getting lots of miles in the near future. At least the rest of us can live vicariously through someone else's ability to relive their youth.


text:
With that in mind there are some exciting new changes going to be made to our forum over the course of this summer. Not everything will be large in scope, but some things will. We'd like to make the forum more informative, more friendly to newcomers, and easier to navigate while still focusing on the things that make this site so great, community generated content.
So, without further delay, here is a breakdown of the changes made today:
- The creation of a new category in the forum entitled Information. This new category is intended to house the various forums that help members of the community both new and old find information on playing the game, learning new maps, answers to common questions, etc.
Added to the Information category are the Announcements, Newsletters, Strategy, and Questions & Answers forums. You will notice that the last two forums listed were previously sub-forums and have now been promoted to full forums to increase traffic, visibility, and usefulness.
A new forum entitled Newsletters has been created to house all three of the popular community generated newsletters that have been circulating for a long time now. We felt it was about time they had a home of their own where members can find old issues, ask questions, make suggestions, and participate in the newsletter experience. The main Newsletters forum is where all the polls, subscription threads, requests for interview questions, and general newsletter discussions will take place. Added to that main forum are dedicated sub-forums for each newsletter that display all current and previous issues for the community to peruse and enjoy.
The chief newsletter editors have been given a title under their username of "Newsletter Editor" if they so desire to bring attention to the dedicated work they have performed so far.
Inside of the Strategy forum there has been a new sub-forum created entitled Official Guides which houses the results of the strategy ad-hoc to this point. Over in the strategy ad-hoc they have been working to create a series of map specific strategy guides that will help the average user learn how to play any specific map and/or settings a little more efficiently. They are not intended to be comprehensive in all ways, and if you would like to help further this project please see the instructions on how to join the ad-hoc inside the Strategy forum. At the moment there are 10 completed guides, with many more soon to be released.
Last but not least, there has been a general shuffle of the order forums are displayed in the forum index. This has been done to get the forum ready for the next step of improvements down the line. It also has been designed to bring focus to areas that are heavily focused on user-generated content such as maps, tournaments, and individual training.
We hope you enjoy the changes, and we do understand it will take a little adjusting to the new order of things. We hope that the changes throughout the summer will help everyone to enjoy the community that much more.
Regards, Optimus Prime


text:
We were having a leakage issue in our basement that was due to moisture in our chimney. The frigid Chicago weather has caused quite a havoc this winter. Lindemann was able to diagnose the problem and ... - Steve M. (Chicago, IL)
My experience with Lindemann was excellent. They came out and did what no one else could. Mine was a smoke issue. After having a fire the entire house would smell of smoke. I could have hung pork bell... - Frank F. (Mount Prospect, IL)
These guys are great! We had our chimney inspected/cleaned by Jim who was extremely knowledgeable and super nice! Definitely recommend these guys! And free wood with the chimney cleaning! Super! ... - Steve S. (Chicago, IL)


text:
|This needs a stretch. (Feel free to remove when satisfied of completion.)
Gates of Gloom is the twenty-fourth episode of the second season of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, and the fiftieth episode overall in the series.
While Mystery Inc. are away, an earthquake sucks down citizens of Crystal Cove beneath the earth!
The gang arrives at an airport in Crystal Cove, alongside Mayor Nettles and Velma's mom. After dropping off Velma's mom at the Spook Museum, it's become clear that Crystal Cove has become deserted, and everyone in town has been "eaten" by the ground. Later that day, after witnessing Mayor Nettles and Sheriff Stone vanish, the gang goes to Fred's house to discuss the Planispheric Disc, Nibiru, the cursed treasure, and an upcoming planetary alignment. The ground then starts to shake and open, which fails to suck the gang. Soon an armored mole-like truck emerged from the hole and Kriegstaffebots went out, shooting at the gang. Fred uses the traps in his house to literally cut the robots into pieces.
The gang sets off beneath Crystal Cove, and discovers everyone in town working for Professor Pericles and the rest of the original Mystery Incorporated. After hearing a conversation between the old Mystery, Inc., the gang devise a tactical plan to bust everyone out and shut down the operation. Shaggy and Scooby go undercover as Kriegstaffelbots, while Fred and the girls use an now-heavily armored Mystery Machine to attack the robots. After the word is spread, the armored Mystery Machine invades the mines and attack the robots. At the same time, Sheriff Stone leads a rebellion against the Kriegstaffelbots and Pericles, destroying every Kriegstaffebot they encounter. Shaggy is discovered to be a fake and was ordered to be shot to death, but an angry Scooby defends his buddy and wildly shoots down all the Kriegstaffelbots aiming at Shaggy. The battle tilts in favor of the citizens of Crystal Cove as hundreds of Kriegstaffelbots were destroyed and the mines sabotaged. Soon, a remaining number of Kriegstaffelbots stop Fred, Velma, and Daphne in their tracks, forcing them to blow up the Mystery Machine (in which everyone thought they were). It turns out that the Mystery Machine was remotely controlled by Fred, Velma, and Daphne in a different car. After all is resolved and the doorway to the cursed treasure is opened, the gang gears up with the relics and follows the original Mystery Incorporated into the caverns.
Cast and characters
- Crystal Cove
- Crystal Cove Airport
- Crystal Cove Spook Museum
- Crystal Cove Police Department
- Jones mansion
- Underground caverns
- Mystery Inc., along with Angie, retrieved the Heart of the Jaguar from Yucatan Peninsula after traveling their in the previous episode; they were first told about it by the Nova possessed-Anunnaki in Nightmare in Red.
- Professor Pericles took command of the Kriegstaffebots in The Midnight Zone.
- Nova has been in the hospital since Dance of the Undead after being seriously wounded from falling out of a damaged helicopter in mid-flight and into the Horrible Herd's stampede in The Horrible Herd.
- Professor Pericles implanted cobra larvae in Mr. E's spinal column in The Devouring.
- Brad and Judy were surgically altered to look like Fred and an old Daphne, respectively, in The Man in the Mirror and are still waiting for Professor Pericles to approve the reversal procedure.
- Alice May was the Ghost Girl and Obliteratrix in The Legend Of Alice May and Pawn Of Shadows, respectively; some of her prison sentence was seen in Wrath of the Krampus
- Howard E. Roberts appeared in The Shrieking Madness.
- Curator Vronsky appeared in The House of the Nightmare Witch.
- Gorgeous G was Cassidy Williams's hairdresser in The Night the Clown Cried II - Tears of Doom!.
- J.R. Kipple was Mayor Nettles's publicist also in The Night the Clown Cried II - Tears of Doom!.
- Randy Warsaw appeared in Art of Darkness!.
- Dan Fluunk appeared in Night Terrors and Wrath of the Krampus, respectively.
- Blaine LeFranc appeared in Theater of Doom.
- This is the first in a three-part story which is continued in Through the Curtain and concluded in Come Undone.
- Scooby announces the "previously on..." recap.
- Space Kook makes an appearance in a now destroyed Spook Museum.
- The dialog between Fred and Daphne after the destruction of the Mystery Machine: "What have I done?" "What you had to do. What you always do, turn traps into a fighting chance to live," is a reference to similar words between Kirk and Bones after the destruction of the Enterprise in The Search for Spock.
Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches
- When at Jones' mansion Velma is talking to the rest of the gang, Shaggy's eyebrows are missing, and it is unlikely for his hair to hide them.
Inconsistences/continuity errors and/or goofs
- Velma substitutes the Spook Museum name for the Broken Spine which is actually the name for the bookstore within the museum (and where the gang primarily visits), but she addresses it as if the bookstore's name represented the entire museum.
In other languages
|L'Esercito Dei Robot
|The Army of Robots
|Spanish (Latin America)
|Las Puertas de la Oscuridad
|The Gates of Gloom
|Mørkets port
|The gate of darkness
|Οι Πύλες του Σκότους
|The Gates of Darkness
Home media
- Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: Season Two, Part 2 - Spooky Stampede DVD set released June 18, 2013.
- Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: The Complete Season 2 DVD set released October 7, 2014.
|Previous episode:
|Next episode:
|Dark Night of the Hunters
|Through the Curtain


text:
Joel Poindexter
August 18, 2012
Those who vote in presidential elections often describe the action as being part of their civic duty; it's something every good citizen must do. Others consider voting to be a right, and elections are something which every American should participate in. After all, they remind us, not everyone has this right in other countries. Still, there are others who see voting as both a duty and a right, as if it could be both at the same time.
So when voter turnout was abysmally poor during last week's primaries in Kansas and Missouri, many were upset. Talk radio hosts, Internet pundits, and members of the media all commented on the low participation rate, and quite a few were disturbed by the numbers. Kansas City, Missouri for instance, had a voter turnout of only 15%. Now, it's generally understood that primaries and midterms have lower voter participation rates than presidential election years, so this ought not to surprise anyone, but there is some hope this year's elections will have the lowest turnout of the last fifty.
When asked by USA Today and Suffolk University why they're not planning to vote this November, respondents answered that: "They're too busy. They aren't excited about either candidate. Their vote doesn't really matter. And nothing ever gets done, anyway." All are excellent reasons, especially the last two, for they lay bare the great lie that elections solve anything. The results of the poll indicate that some 90 million Americans have no intention to vote in this year's presidential election; let's hope that number swells over the coming months.
Curtis Gans, who is director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, had this to say regarding why so few are expected to vote:
There's a lot of lack of trust in our leaders, a lack of positive feelings about political institutions, a lack of quality education for large segments of the public, a lack of civic education, the fragmenting effects of waves of communications technology, the cynicism of the coverage of politics – I could go on with a long litany.
As far as a lack of civic education, this may be true, but it's not for a lack of trying on the part of the government school systems. In every election cycle students in government schools vote on the national candidates; being homeschooled I never participated in such conditioning, but I distinctly remember my second-grade friends voting in the 1992 election for Bill Clinton. Students even hold their own elections, to choose from within their own ranks politicians who're supposed to advocate for them with the administration, in order to get longer recess, treats in the cafeteria, and who knows what else. It's one of the more disturbing attempts to indoctrinate children in the civic religion of democracy. But it's not always successful.
One of those polled, Jamie Palmer, 35, has never voted, and good for her; if only I had could have such a clear conscience. When asked why she hadn't, her reply was "[politicians] say the same things; they make promises; they don't keep them. It's ridiculous. If I vote, nothing is going to come of it. It's just going to be like it is right now." Fortunately, she was never fooled by the teachers shilling for the state at her school.
When discussing the issue of politics most people will argue that if you don't vote it's because you're lazy, unpatriotic, or part of the problem with society. These are people who were taught what to think, not how to think.
As for the lazy charge, it may be true in many cases, but certainly not all of them. The USA Today poll indicated that at least some people didn't want to take the time to follow politics or go to the polls, so not voting was less a deliberate choice as opposed to simply being a low priority. But for the vast majority of non-voters that I know, it's a conscious choice they've made based on sound principles. They have clear and well thought out arguments against voting, but in no way could they be considered lazy. They are instead wrapped up in educating others, they are journalists, organizers, activists, and dedicated to fostering parallel institutions to compete with and hopefully replace those of the corporatist/statist system now in place.
It is indeed true that many who vote are patriots, but sadly their priorities are skewed. They conflate the government with society, believing the two are synonymous, and that to insult one is an equal affront to the other. In some ways they are correct, but only because government has fully usurped the authority of civil society and dictates virtually every human action. But this is not how things ought to be, for the state has no legitimate function in a free society. Voting only entrenches this concept, further legitimizing government as benevolent caretaker, or arbiter of justice; nothing could be more wrongheaded.
Since I've come to realize what an immoral institution government is, the idea that those who don't support it by voting are part of the problem seems ever more ridiculous. Americans are taught to believe that they "are the government." This no doubt comes from Abraham Lincoln's declaration that we have a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Given this misunderstanding of the state, coupled with the reality that no sector of our lives is free from its meddling, the logical conclusion is that voters, i.e. "government," are the problem. After all, they voted for all of this. So if they're unhappy with how the economy is being ran, how the environment is being neglected, or justice administered, it's really their own fault, and non-voters should be found blameless.
Of course "we" aren't the government. Strictly speaking, the bureaucracy is the real government, for it is the vast apparatus which carries out the daily operations of Leviathan, not some rent-seeking no-name congressman sitting in an office in D.C. But as mentioned above, electing that no-name congressman lends some credibility to the state. Without the blessing of the populace, the government would have no claim of consent, and lose any semblance of legitimate authority. This alone would not free us from sociopaths in capitols all around the world, but it would be a reflection of the attitude that the state is irrelevant.
By and large people vote because they (wrongly) believe that government is a necessary feature of society. They are unable to envision a land that doesn't rely on a government body to provide a court system or roads, so their only option, as far as they can see, is to vote. But a population that rejects the state will also reject the idea that voting is a duty, or a right, or, incredibly, both simultaneously.
Obviously not everyone surveyed is an anarchist who has chosen to opt out of the state, but the study revealed some encouraging data. For instance, one thing gleaned from the story is that barely half of those polled disagree that "there's not a dime's worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans." Exactly how many agree that no real difference exists is not clear, but knowing that so few see a difference is a positive sign for liberty.
Some other good tidbits: 40% of respondents said they won't vote "because my vote doesn't make any difference anyway." Sixty percent of those polled only have high school diplomas, an indicator that less time in the Academic-Indoctrination-Industrial-Complex may translate to a diminished interest in voting. Another sixty percent said they pay no attention because "nothing ever gets done." This is true to one extent, usually nothing good gets done, with a few rare exceptions.
Pick up the next evolution of activated nascent iodine today with Survival Shield X-3 now at 60% off!


text:
A few years ago, Robert Evans, the producer of films such as The Godfather and Chinatown, needed a script rewrite for a project about new York's famous Cotton Club, a place where white audiences paid top dollar to see black entertainment during the height of the Jazz Age.
Evans had worked with larger-than-life director Francis Coppola on The Godfather, and he called Coppola to get some suggestions for a good script doctor. Coppola, ever alert (and coming off a string of commercial disasters), quickly suggested himself. Thus commenced a series of events that probably made Evans wish he'd never heard of Coppola or the Cotton Club.
Before long, Coppola had thrown out the original screenplay (the film's "story" credit goes to Mario Puzo) and written a completely new script with Pulitzer Prize-winner William Kennedy. Then Coppola assumed the mantle of director, and the production of the film itself was beset by rising costs and constant script rewrites.
And somewhere in the midst of this Robert Evans went bye-bye. The lawsuits are now flying, but it's hard to imagine they will have any effect on what is already an incredibly expensive movie (something between $40 and $50 million, at last count).
Coppola seems to be attracted by this kind of guerrilla moviemaking, but whether or not it agrees with him is another matter. The films he produced while he played at being the mogul of his own hectic studio were almost wholly uninvolving.
With The Cotton Club, he's gotten himself interesting again. This film, which whips up a blend of gangsterism and musical comedy, clips along at a confident pace and has enough flavorful characters to fill a speakeasy.
Richard Gere plays a cornet player (and Gere plays his own horn solos, by golly) whose trajectory through the Jazz Age—in the film, from the late '20s through the early '30s—places him in close contact with such figures as gangster Dutch Schultz (rivetingly played by unctuous James Remar), the Dutchman's moll (Diane Lane), and the men who run the Cotton Club (Bob The Long Goodbye Hoskins and Fred "The Munsters" Gwynne, who make a great comedy team).
Gere's brother (Nicolas Cage, Coppola's cousin) is a hothead swept into the violent world around the Cotton Club, with bloody results. This story of the brothers is paralleled by a pair of dancing brothers (Gregory and Maurice Hines) who work their way up through the Cotton Club to different levels of stardom.
The film is obviously chock-full; unfortunately, as enjoyable as much of this is, Coppola has a tendency to rush past the building blocks of characterization. He has atmosphere (kudos to designer Richard Sylbert) and rat-a-tat action down pat, but once the smoke clears, I was left with the nagging feeling that the sound and fury didn't amount to too much.
The scope of the film calls for the three-hour Godfather sprawl, and Cotton Club clocks in at barely over two. Characters meet, split, and kiss and make up with not much validation for their behavior. Coppola asks you to take a lot for granted.
I wish the extra hour might have had more song-and-dance in it, too; although the film is full of terrific music, few numbers are presented in their entirety (Coppola enjoys cutting routines in pieces rather than letting them develop on their own). Still, Lonette McKee's "Ill Wind" is a stand-out, and the brothers Hines tread the boards with grace.
Coppola likes to describe himself as a ringmaster/magician of chaos. He may not quite prove that the hand is quicker than the eye in The Cotton Club, but at least he keeps all three rings of the circus busy at once.
First published in the Herald, December 15, 1984
As anybody who's ever seen this movie knows, you can forget about Gere and Lane: Bob Hoskins and Fred Gwynne are where the action is.


text:
Don't flash unless you absolutely need it to fix a problem. It's far too risky IMO after my experiences and other people's as well.
I would avoid the 8a Bios(es). They should not even have been released IMO and should be withdrawn.
Have you noticed how Gigabyte releases Bioses and then replaces the Bioses with different files with the same name and version number?
I have and I have several Bioses on my PC all with different Md5's yet the same stated Bios Version.
The files were downloaded several times from different servers and Md5's checked to make sure that the file was not corrupt. Currently, that is the only way to make sure that the Bios that you download is not corrupted while downloading.
My advice after personal experience and knowing other people's experience is not to flash the Bios for any reason unless absolutely necessary. It could destroy your system.


text:
Best Pizza in Monmouth County
Best Pizza in Monmouth County
Best Pizza in Monmouth County
Prevent airborne health issues with service from our air duct cleaners in Butler, New Jersey. Clean Air Technologies of Butler, New Jersey, provides customers with an efficient way to clear the air in their homes or businesses. Service includes helping you identify if you have a pollution problem.
We do thorough air duct and vent cleaning utilizing state-of-the-art equipment and proven techniques. Our service leaves the air in your residential or commercial property cleaner than ever.
Better Indoor Air Quality Begins with Us
We take on environmental issues to make our world a cleaner and safer place to live. Yet the most overlooked issue is the air that we breathe.
It's a Fact
The Environmental Protection Agency claims that indoor air has been found to be up to 70 times more polluted than outdoor air. Research also shows that most people spend between 60% and 90% of their time indoors, so the facts are alarming.
Considering that we spend so much time indoors, it makes perfect sense to clean the source of our indoor air quality problems--our air ducts. See for yourself why our satisfied customers call us again for service.


text:
Conversation with Tigers president/GM Dombrowski
Longtime executive talks Leyland, Selig, club's chances this postseason
OAKLAND -- Dave Dombrowski is finishing his 12th season as Tigers president and general manager, and during that period, the Tigers have been to the World Series twice and the playoffs four times, including the last three years in a row.
All those postseason appearances have come since Dombrowski hired Jim Leyland as manager in 2006, reuniting the pair that won the World Series together with the Marlins in 1997. The Tigers were swept by the Giants in last October's Fall Classic.
According to Dombrowski, the odd couple of the staid, pulled back president and the gruff manager won't be breaking up any time soon. Recently, Leyland has been working on a year-to-year contract and Dombrowski said just like the past offseason, he will have a discussion with Leyland again about the immediate future.
"This is a very demanding game as far as the travel is concerned, as far as the time frame is concerned," Dombrowski told MLB.com this week before the Tigers began their American League Division Series against the A's at O.co Coliseum. "So let's just play it out. He knows if he wants to manage, he can just keep managing."
Seated in the Tigers dugout, Dombrowski expanded upon Leyland's future, the pending retirement of Commissioner Bud Selig, his club's chances this postseason and the adjustments he has had to make in building a championship-caliber ballclub in this era.
MLB.com: So Jim's coming up on his 69th birthday and since 2010, we've written about the retirements of Joe Torre, Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, and most recently, Davey Johnson. Leyland is just about the last of that generation of managers. How long do you think wants to continue managing?
Dombrowski: Really, we sit down and talk about that after every season. He still has the passion and the drive. I don't think you ever know that answer. Something at the end of that year tells them it's time to go. So you sit down and talk to them about that. But I haven't noticed any change in Jim as far as the passion and the desire and the drive is concerned. As far as I know, he wants to keep going.
MLB.com: Why are you on a year-to-year contract with him?
Dombrowski: We've done that for about the last three or four years or so. We really felt like it was the right thing to take it year by year. Let's go through whole year and so what happens.
MLB.com: So what's your reaction to Bud formally saying he's actually retiring?
Dombrowski: He's made that statement before, but I think this is the strongest I've ever heard him make that statement. Time will tell, but I'm not one to question the Commissioner if he says this is it for him. It seems like in the past he opened the door a little more than he seemed to do at this time. And this time he sounds pretty adamant that this is it.
MLB.com: How do you sum up his 22-year tenure? You're probably one of the few guys who have been around for all of it.
Dombrowski: It's been outstanding. The game has grown by leaps and bounds in popularity, in attendance at the ballparks, in revenue production. There have been a lot of changes in the game that have helped the game to grow and continue to make it interesting to people. He's been an outstanding Commissioner. He's done a tremendous job. When you're in a situation like this, it's hard to imagine anybody doing a better job over what he has done in that time period.
MLB.com: How do you replace him?
Dombrowski: That's a decision the owners have to make. I don't have any input in that decision. It's going to be difficult.
MLB.com: So here you are again in another postseason.
Dombrowski: Well, we're happy to be back. It's exciting. You never want to take it for granted, which we didn't. No matter how people prognosticate about your club, it's hard to get here. And we'd like to take it another step this year.
MLB.com: What do you like about this club as opposed to the last two years, which were obviously very good clubs?
Dombrowski: First of all, we have more experience than the other clubs. I think our lineup is deeper than in the past with the addition of Torii Hunter and Victor Martinez coming back. When you look at our starters, we have four starters going out there that have pitched very well. We had that last year, but now they have the experience and the knowledge of knowing they can be successful in the postseason the way they've performed. The back end of our bullpen is also much stronger this year than it was last year. So I think that combination is a real good one for us.
MLB.com: How do you view this A's team that you're playing this year? Last year they took you to the limit in the first round.
Dombrowski: They are very good. They're a good ballclub. There's no question. One thing, they will not catch anybody by surprise. Not that they would have caught anybody by surprise last year because even then we thought they were good. I don't know if it's good or bad, but we just played them in late August at our ballpark and they beat us and hit us very well. I don't think there's anyone in our front office who would take them for granted. They have good pitching, good starting pitching. They're solid. They produce runs, too. They hit the long ball. They're balanced from the left-hand side and the right-hand side. They are a good test.
MLB.com: You say the back end of your bullpen is stronger now without Jose Valverde, who was a mainstay for you. Why?
Dombrowski: Well, he scuffled for us last year. Not over a long time period, but last year Jose really scuffled in the postseason. He scuffled a little bit down the stretch, but he did not have a good postseason for us. We've been in a position now where Joaquin Benoit has been throwing the ball so well. And then we have the combination of Drew Smyly and Jose Veras. He's a veteran who just joined us from Houston. He's another veteran out there, who has closed games, too, and pitched in close games the whole year. I also think a guy like Rick Porcello can play a key role for us in the bullpen. He did that last year. I think we're more stable at the back end of the bullpen than we were last year.
MLB.com: And you like the way the closer situation is working for you right now?
Dombrowski: Yes. Benoit has done a tremendous job for us. He's really thrown the ball well. He's reacted well to the role. You feel very comfortable with him taking the ball at the point in the game. He looks like an established closer. You'd never guess just watching him that he's only done it for half a season. We have more certainty back there this year. There was more uncertainty last year with the way Valverde was pitching. Guys have to step up just like every club at this time of year. But now we're in a spot where our guys can do it.
MLB.com: In your long experience with Chicago, Montreal, Miami and Detroit, has it become tougher to build a team in this era?
Dombrowski: I guess you just move as the environment changes. Rules change and that can affect you. I think it's tougher in the sense that more clubs are competitive now. With two Wild Cards, clubs aren't as willing to give up players as they have in the past. In turn, you're in a position in which acquiring talent and building clubs are not as easy. In the past, if you had more finances you could probably do that a bit easier. But it's never been easy. It's always a difficult chore. I tip my cap to clubs that do it year in and year out. It's very difficult to win.
MLB.com: As a guy who has been around for so long, how much does your club take advantage of newer metrics?
Dombrowski: We use it. We do use all of that. We have a couple of guys in our organization who do that for us and provide all the information. We've always provided statistical information to Jim Leyland. Even though he's perceived to be the old-time manager, he's always used matchups. But we use it. It complements our scouting staff. I think you would be foolish not to use every bit of information you can put your fingers on that would help assist you in any way. It's up to you to decide what are the most important bits of information you receive. But the more information you receive the better off you are. So we receive and use any and all type of information.
MLB.com: Talking to Leyland about it, he was saying there's no metric that judges a players' guts or heart or will to win.
Dombrowski: That's correct and those are all important parts of a team. Those are all parts of leadership, which is also not measured. Those are all essential elements that you need to have an instinct about, getting a pulse of those things and getting to know your players and other players and your scouts doing the same kind of thing. You may look at a guy on the downside of his career, who has all those qualities, but the statistical analysis doesn't show that. That's why I think you use all the information you can.
MLB.com: How do you measure all those things that can't be quantified?
Dombrowski: Well, throughout the years you just develop instincts about players as you're putting together a club. And you have to use those things. You get as much information together as you possibly can about the makeup of individuals and if you're comfortable with your assessment, then you go ahead and make those decisions.
It doesn't mean that you're always right. Statistically, you can say you're right, but then a guy doesn't perform up to the statistics you used in the evaluation. People don't talk about that, but that happens, too. I've seen that happen a lot. But I do think you never get to know a player as well until he's with you. That's why ideally, if you can grow your own talent you know those players better than anyone else you acquire.
MLB.com: So it's essential to draft well and develop most of your own players.
Dombrowski: There's no replacing that. You can say that about any walk of life. Until you live with somebody you don't know them in the same way. That's how life is and it's the same way for us. You have that person that grew up in your organization. You know them so much better than if they came from somewhere else. You really cannot replace that. You just try to do the best job you can in evaluating the individuals that you bring in. But in today's game, it's tough to grow a whole ballclub and put it together.