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Cameron to Walsh on Record 8,000-Meter Dive: You'd Have Loved It
The following is an email from James Cameron to Don Walsh, co-pilot of the bathyscaphe Trieste , following Cameron's successful 8,000-meter dive to the bottom of the New Britain Trench. Don Walsh will be joining the expedition in Guam, prior to Cameron's dive to the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench.
March 7, 2012
The 8000m dive went very well. Not an unqualified success, since the manip was balky and my push core sediment sample washed out on ascent because the sample door wouldn't stow all the way, and because of the speed of the flow over the vehicle on ascent (5 knots average). But overall the vehicle performed like a champ. Plenty of power, and even though I lost one thruster, I still had 11 left, so the massive-redundancy approach worked. I never lost functionality. All lights and cameras worked. Sonar was balky… that's going to need some work.
Bottom time close to 5 hours, range of exploration about 1.5 km horizontal, and about 300m vertical along the trench wall, which was like the Grand Canyon, vertical faces interspersed with angled scree slopes. Dramatic terrain.
The ponded sediment in the center of the trench was the finest I've ever seen. When the thrust-wash just barely kissed it, it formed silken veils undulating across the bottom, and then it would rise and hang in tendrils like ectoplasm. Not at all like the typical turbidite plains of abyssal depths. Where I dove the basin of ponded sediment was 1.5 km across, flat as a billiard table, and virtually featureless. It actually ended at a well-defined "beach" where the normal rocks and sediment commenced, terracing upward to the fault scarps. I explored up the scarps onto a plateau.
The small exposed rock faces had large communities of white anemones about 1 foot long. Hanging gardens. It was a completely distinct micro-habitat from the flat basin.
Out on the plain the dominant fauna were 1′ diameter jellies that would lie on the bottom or swim about 2 meters up. When disturbed they would fly off the bottom. There also were large numbers of amphipods in all sizes. The baited lander captured images of incredible aggregations, including individuals close to a foot long. I tried but was unable to rendezvous with the lander because the sonar was not cooperating. Normally the lander is a very bright target, and it should have been easy to find on that flat plain. But without sonar, nor accurate coordinates from the surface, it was a visual search, which is very limited. It might have been 50 meters to my left and I went right by it. I could have done an expanding-square search pattern, but I decided it wasn't the best use of my power, when there was real exploring to do.
Actual deepest depth for the dive was 26,791′ (8221m). Initial descent speed was 4.5 knots, attenuating near the bottom to about 1.5 kt, before I trimmed neutral with a few small shot dumps totalling about 50lbs. I drove the final 100m down on thrust, very slowly (because I didn't trust my altimeter yet… we'd just met and were only dating)… and parked on the bottom using about 10% downthrust.
Ascent speed was 5.7 knots slowing in the upper water column to 4.8. The soft ballast system functioned perfectly, giving the sub an additional 400kg of lift. The bag pops out automatically at about 200m depth and inflates slowly after the sub reaches the surface. It is an oil-over-gas system of our own design, which uses a spring-loaded poppet valve to open a bottle of nitrogen at 3500 psi when the external pressure balances on descent. The valve locks open, charging the bag, and a reservoir of silicon oil fills the tank so it doesn't implode at depth. On ascent, the gas boils out of the silicon, filling the float bag in about 3 minutes after surfacing.
Surfacing at 4.8 knots is dramatic. I point the boom camera and the 1000w spotlight straight up. I can see the surface shimmering from about 100′ down. There's a real sense of "ground rush" as the shimmering patch grows rapidly bigger, filling the "sky" above the sub. Then BWOOSH! an explosion of foam and bubbles, and the sub pogos back down about 5m, then rises again and comes to rest. I call it "Splash-up"… bastardizing a term from the 60′s space missions.
The only significant problem on the dive is that one of the six battery buses failed without adequate warning as I was making preparations to ascend. Some fault in the battery management system comms inside an external PBOF multi-bus box, probably related to water ingress, but I haven't gotten a report yet from the electronics guys.
Unfortunately the failure took out the A-comms system, which was on that particular bus, so I lost comms completely. Fortunately the back-up modem, which is powered with its own independent battery, kept transmitting, so they knew I was coming up when the depth numbers started changing. They cleared back about a klick from my last known position and waited. I surfaced about 1500m from the ship, but plainly visible. That's why I personally like night recoveries. The sub has so many lights and strobes it's like a UFO mothership, visible to the horizon at night, from the bridge wing of a ship the size of Mermaid Sapphire.
Sitting down there at 27000′, alone in the dark, with no comms, no contact whatsoever with the world so far above, and nothing but the ingenuity of the engineering to get me back… it's simultaneously scary and exhilarating. It's the precipice we put ourselves on by choice, to test ourselves and our machines. I configured the cameras to get a good shot of the weights coming off and hitting the seafloor in 3D, but I can't say I spent an undue amount of time on the lighting. I wanted to see those babies jettisoned as quick as possible. It's a good feeling when 350kg comes off, with the characteristic "SHOONK" as the weight carriages run down the slide-rails.
Then I pulled the breaker on the shot-hopper magnet, and let the other 150kg of shot pour out, watching on the boom camera as it spiraled down into darkness in the trailing vortices under the sub. Then I just powered down everything I didn't need and sat hunched in the dark, waiting… watching the numbers on the depth indicator count down toward the surface.
It was an interesting ascent. Virtually silent except for the soft whir of the scrubber fan, and the rustle of water vortexing down across the fairing at 5 knots. There was a slight rhythmic rock to the sub, due to vortex-shedding, which I normally didn't notice because I'm usually too busy doing things… comms, photography etc. But in this low power contingency, I was just sitting there in the dark listening and feeling the sub. It was fascinating to imagine 8 kilometers of water speeding by vertically. I imagined the pressure coming off slowly as the ocean loosened its iron fisted grip.
You'd have loved it.
More to come…
See you in Guam.


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Seven-year-old Tim Templeton has always been a boy of an overactive imagination, and for the past seven years, life was all peaches for him, getting all the love and affection from his caring parents. However, life will never be the same and Tim won't be the centre of attention anymore as the arrival of an improbable new brother named Boss Baby, dressed in a black suit complete with a tie and a briefcase, will shortly rob him of all love, as he takes over the whole Templetons' house. Nevertheless, although this may be true, soon, Tim and the new Boss in a diaper will need to put differences aside and join forces, as a sneaky scheme involving the head of Puppy Co. threatens to tilt the balance of power towards their insidiously adorable furry antagonists, not to mention that the next Pet Convention is in only two days.. Brothers, hurry up. Written by Nick Riganas
Sick, twisted and politically incorrect, the animated series features the adventures of the Griffin family. Endearingly ignorant Peter and his stay-at-home wife Lois reside in Quahog, R.I., and have three kids. Meg, the eldest child, is a social outcast, and teenage Chris is awkward and clueless when it comes to the opposite sex. The youngest, Stewie, is a genius baby bent on killing his mother and destroying the world. The talking dog, Brian, keeps Stewie in check while sipping martinis and sorting through his own life issues. Written by Jwelch5742
After he is fired from the Anti-Villain League for failing to take down the latest bad guy to threaten humanity, Gru finds himself in the midst of a major identity crisis. But when a mysterious stranger shows up to inform Gru that he has a long-lost twin brother-a brother who desperately wishes to follow in his twin's despicable footsteps-one former super-villain will rediscover just how good it feels to be bad.
An animated series on adult-swim about the infinite adventures of Rick, a genius alcoholic and careless scientist, with his grandson Morty, a 14 year-old anxious boy who is not so smart, but always tries to lead his grandfather with his own morale compass. Together, they explore the infinite universes; causing mayhem and running into trouble. Written by Ruben Galaviz
The curious, adventure-seeking, fourth grade group of boys, Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny, all join in in buffoonish adventures that sometimes evolve nothing. Sometimes something that was simple at the start, turns out to get out of control. Everything is odd in the small mountain town, South Park, and the boys always find something to do with it.
Blindsided by a new generation of blazing-fast racers, the legendary Lightning McQueen is suddenly pushed out of the sport he loves. To get back in the game, he will need the help of an eager young race technician with her own plan to win, inspiration from the late Fabulous Hudson Hornet, and a few unexpected turns. Proving that #95 isn't through yet will test the heart of a champion on Piston Cup Racing's biggest stage! Written by Pixar
The Simpsons is an animated sitcom about the antics of a dysfunctional family called the Simpsons (surprise surprise). Homer is the oafish unhealthy beer loving father, Marge is the hardworking homemaker wife, Bart is the ten year old underachiever (and proud of it), Lisa is the unappreciated eight year old genius, and Maggie is the cute, pacifier loving silent infant. Written by Sam Kelly
Two overly imaginative pranksters named George and Harold, hypnotize their principal into thinking he's a ridiculously enthusiastic, incredibly dimwitted superhero named Captain Underpants.
Moana Waialiki is a sea voyaging enthusiast and the only daughter of a chief in a long line of navigators. When her island's fishermen can't catch any fish and the crops fail, she learns that the demigod Maui caused the blight by stealing the heart of the goddess, Te Fiti. The only way to heal the island is to persuade Maui to return Te Fiti's heart, so Moana sets off on an epic journey across the Pacific. The film is based on stories from Polynesian mythology. Written by Anonumous
In the future, an outbreak of canine flu leads the mayor of a Japanese city to banish all dogs to an island that's a garbage dump. The outcasts must soon embark on an epic journey when a 12-year-old boy arrives on the island to find his beloved pet.
Stan Smith, who works for the CIA and is constantly on the alert for terrorist activity, will go to extremes to protect his beloved America from harm; as evidenced by the terror-alert color code on his fridge, and his frequent knee-jerk reaction of shooting holes in the toaster whenever the toast pops up. In addition to Stan's wife and teenage children, the Smith household has two rather unconventional members. There's Roger, the sarcastic space alien who rescued Stan from Area 51 who deeply resents the fact that he's not allowed to leave the house, and therefore, has been reduced to drinking wine and smoking cigarettes, and Klaus, a lascivious, German-speaking goldfish; the result of a CIA experiment gone seriously wrong where the CIA tried to give a fish a German man's brain. Stan's son is a dorky teenager who tries to be cool. His wife has had a past life of sex and drugs. Written by Anonymous
In antiquity, the Amazons defeat the war god, Ares, and Zeus charges them to hold him prisoner as eternally young warriors on the hidden island of Themyscira. Centuries later, US Air Force pilot Steve Trevor is lured to crash land on the island and the distraction of that trespass allows Ares to escape. In response, Princess Diana wins the responsibility to both take Trevor home and recapture the fugitive god. Steve Trevor offers to help and together this disparate pair must not only overcome Ares' efforts to achieve a bloody revenge, but also reconcile their own conflicting world views in an adventure that would be the first for the greatest of the female superheroes. Written by Kenneth Chisholm ([email protected])
The Emoji Movie unlocks the never-before-seen secret world inside your smartphone. Hidden within the messaging app is Textopolis, a bustling city where all your favorite emojis live, hoping to be selected by the phone's user. In this world, each emoji has only one facial expression - except for Gene, an exuberant emoji who was born without a filter and is bursting with multiple expressions. Determined to become "normal" like the other emojis, Gene enlists the help of his handy best friend Hi-5 and the notorious code breaker emoji Jailbreak. Together, they embark on an epic "app-venture" through the apps on the phone, each its own wild and fun world, to find the Code that will fix Gene. But when a greater danger threatens the phone, the fate of all emojis depends on these three unlikely friends who must save their world before it's deleted forever. Written by Sony Pictures Entertainment
Bob's Burgers centers on the Belcher family (consists of Bob, Linda, Tina, Gene and Louise) who own a hamburger restaurant. Bob's burgers are really delicious and appear to be better than his rivals' but when it comes to selling burgers, his kids aren't really helpful, as more customers head over to Jimmy Pesto's restaurant. Written by Campbell Talaepa
Batman, along with a number of his allies and adversaries, finds himself transplanted from modern Gotham City to feudal Japan.
The products at Shopwell's Grocery Store are made to believe a code that helps them live happy lives until it's time for them to leave the comfort of the supermarket and head for the great beyond. However, after a botched trip to the great beyond leaves one sausage named Frank and his companion Bun stranded, Frank goes to great lengths (pun intended) to return to his package and make another trip to the great beyond. But as Frank's journey takes him from one end of the supermarket to the other, Frank's quest to discover the truth about his existence as a sausage turns incredibly dark. Can he expose the truth to the rest of the supermarket and get his fellow products to rebel against their human masters? Written by halo1k
A young lion Prince is cast out of his pride by his cruel uncle, who claims he killed his father. While the uncle rules with an iron paw, the prince grows up beyond the Savannah, living by a philosophy: No worries for the rest of your days. But when his past comes to haunt him, the young Prince must decide his fate: will he remain an outcast, or face his demons and become what he needs to be? Written by femaledragon1234
Phillip Fry is a 25-year-old pizza delivery boy whose life is going nowhere. When he accidentally freezes himself on December 31, 1999, he wakes up 1,000 years in the future and has a chance to make a fresh start. He goes to work for the Planet Express Corporation, a futuristic delivery service that transports packages to all five quadrants of the universe. His companions include the delivery ship's captain, Leela, a beautiful one-eyed female alien who kicks some serious butt, and Bender, a robot with very human flaws. Written by Ronos
Despite his family's generation-old ban on music, Miguel dreams of becoming an accomplished musician like his idol Ernesto de la Cruz. Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the Land of the Dead. Along the way, he meets charming trickster Hector and together they set off on an extraordinary journey to unlock the real story behind Miguel's family history. Written by chris hackney
There are big changes brewing in Gotham City, and if he wants to save the city from The Joker's hostile takeover, Batman may have to drop the lone vigilante thing, try to work with others and maybe, just maybe, learn to lighten up.
At an international spy agency, global crises are merely opportunities for its highly trained employees to confuse, undermine, betray and royally screw each other. At the center of it all is suave master spy Sterling Archer, whose less-than-masculine code name is Duchess. Archer works with his domineering mother Malory, who also is his boss. He also has to deal with his ex-girlfriend, Agent Lana Kane and her new boyfriend, comptroller Cyril Figgis, as well as Malory's lovesick secretary, Cheryl. Written by Anonymous
Dracula, Mavis, Johnny and the rest of the Drac Pack take a vacation on a luxury Monster Cruise Ship, where Dracula falls in love with the ship's captain, Ericka, who's secretly a descendant of Abraham Van Helsing, the notorious monster slayer.
Having lived a life in selfishness, a young prince is cursed by a mysterious enchantress to having the appearance of a monstrous beast. His only hope is to learn to love a young woman and earn her love in return in order to redeem himself. Years later, his chance shows itself when a young maiden named Belle offers to take her ill father's place as his prisoner. With help from the castle's enchanted staff, Belle learns to appreciate her captor and immediately falls in love with him. Back in the village however, an unscrupulous hunter has his own plans for Belle. Written by Blazer346
The character-driven cartoon chronicles the nautical and often nonsensical adventures of SpongeBob, an incurably optimistic and earnest sea sponge, and his underwater friends. Dwelling a few fathoms beneath the tropical isle of Bikini Atoll in the sub-surface city of Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob lives in a two-story pineapple. Instead of taking the logical approach to everyday challenges, SpongeBob approaches life in a wayward and unconventional way. Whether searching for the ultimate spatula to perfect his burger flipping technique at the Krusty Krab or just hanging out with his best friend Patrick (an amiable starfish), SpongeBob's good intentions and overzealous approach to life usually create chaos in his underwater world. Written by Nickelodeon
The world is divided into four elemental nations: The Northern and Southern Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads. The Avatar upholds the balance between the nations, but everything changed when the Fire Nation invaded. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, can stop them. But when the world needs him most, he vanishes. A hundred years later Katara and Sokka discover the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. Together they must help Aang master the elements and save the world. Written by Kevin Jeremiah Gaona
King of the Hill is another animation hit for Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge, who also voices the starring character Hank Hill, a propane gas salesman in the fictional town Arlen, Texas. Hank is often besieged by the idiosyncrasies of society, but he finds (some) serenity in his home-life with his wife, substitute Spanish teacher Peggy, his awkward son Bobby and his live-in niece-in-law Luanne Platter. Adding flavor to the ordinary dish the series serves are Hank's friends, divorcee military barber Bill Dauterive, paranoid Dale Gribble (with an obsession with Government conspiracy theories) and gibberish spouting Boomhauer. Written by Ondre Lombard [email protected]
Meet the most beloved sitcom horse of the '90s - 20 years later. BoJack Horseman was the star of the hit TV show Horsin' Around, but today he's washed up, living in Hollywood, complaining about everything, and wearing colorful sweaters.
Taking place 70 years after the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender, this story follows the adventures of the Avatar after Aang - a passionate, rebellious, and fearless teenage girl from the Southern Water Tribe named Korra. With three of the four elements under her belt (Earth, Water, and Fire), Korra seeks to master the final element, Air. Her quest leads her to the epicenter of the modern Avatar world, Republic City - a metropolis that is fueled by steampunk technology. It is a virtual melting pot where benders and non-benders from all nations live and thrive. However, Korra discovers that Republic City is plagued by crime as well as a growing anti-bending revolution that threatens to rip it apart. Under the tutelage of Aang's son, Tenzin, Korra begins her airbending training while dealing with the dangers at large. Written by Nickelodeon Publicity
Naruto Uzumaki, is a loud, hyperactive, adolescent ninja who constantly searches for approval and recognition, as well as to become Hokage, who is acknowledged as the leader and strongest of all ninja in the village.

subset: commoncrawl


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The following pages offer a collection of wildflowers, mosses, ferns as well as mushrooms which can be found in and around the small village Muggendorf in Lower Austria.
Most of this site and especially the description of the flowers is in German. Nevertheless i hope you enjoy at least the photos.
Characteristic for the flora at the eastern border of the Alps in an area called "Gutensteiner Kalkvoralpen" is the crossing of different influences. Muggendorf is located at the western edge of the occurence of black-pine forests (Pinus niger), from the west alpine flowers find their way and from the east Pannonian flora is still present. A special forest type is Pine-Erica (Pinus sylvestris and Erica herbacea).
The flowers can be searched using a search mask (by color, time of year or habitate) or you can take a full tour through the images.
Furthermore you can access an index.
There are 448 species and more than 794 pictures in the database. On the right you see a small selection of currently blooming flowers.


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© Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis
Stewart Copeland is once again spreading his creative wings with a brand new project. The frankly infuriatingly talented sticksman is heading back into the world of theatre.
Copeland has put together a show based on Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. The Royal Opera House will host the work as part of the OperaShots season, which brings artists from all fields into the theatre.
We think Stewart's work looks fantastic, but we have to admit our eyes were also caught by former Monty Python man Terry Jones, which involves a doctor being struck off because he is a dog. We're not even joking.
For more on both, and the rest of the season, head to the Royal Opera House website.


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- Home
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- Early Voting
Early Voting
You do not need a reason to vote early! All voters may vote early, just like they are voting on Election Day. Voters who want to vote early for any election may do so in person at their parish Registrar of Voters Office or at designated locations in the parish from 14 to seven days prior to any scheduled election. When one or more state holidays fall within an early voting period, the first day for early voting will begin 15 days prior to the election.
Early Voting Hours
The West Baton Rouge Parish Registrar of Voters' office will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. for each day of early voting. If you are a registered voter within the jurisdiction for which election is being held, you may vote at our office during these times.
Sample Ballot
To view a sample ballot, log in to the Voter Portal
Early Voting Locations:
Registrar of Voters Office Courthouse Annex Building 883 7th Street, Suite A, Port Allen, LA | Brusly Early Voting Site WBR Water/Utilities - Brusly Office 158 E. St. Francis Street, Brusly, LA |
Note: Please remember to bring valid Louisiana Driver's License, special identification card, or other generally recognized picture identification card that includes your name and signature. A digital license via LA Wallet smartphone app is also accepted as a valid form of ID. If you do not have a photo ID, you will be required to provide identifying information and sign an identification affidavit before voting.
NEW! ImageCast X Voting Systems for Early Voting
For early voting beginning in the fall of 2019, all Louisiana voters began using the ImageCast® X (or "ICX") voting system leased from Dominion Voting Systems.
On this small and easy to operate touchscreen system, the voter will scroll through their entire ballot to vote. The election results are easily printed and stored on a cartridge that is delivered to the Parish Board of Election Supervisors for tabulation on Election Day.
The ICX unit was designed as a voting solution for all and offers several options for voters with accessibility needs to vote in a private and independent manner. The ICX offers the following user interfaces:
- - Visual mode: The voter navigates their ballot using one of the available accessibility tools and the visual display.
- - Audio mode: The visual display can be disabled, and the voter uses headphones to navigate an audio ballot using one of the available accessibility tools.
- - Visual and audio mode: The voter navigates their ballot using one of the available accessibility tools, the visual display and the audio ballot.
In addition to the touchscreen functionality, the ICX is compatible with a range of accessibility tools that voters can use to navigate through the ballot and make their selections. The system is compatible with accessibility devices such as the Audio Tactile Interface (ATI) handheld controller, a four-way joystick, a sip and puff device or a paddle device. The ATI has raised keys that are identifiable tactilely without activation (e.g., raised buttons of different shapes and colors, large or Braille numbers and letters), can be operated with one hand and includes a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The images below include what a voter selecting an accessible voting device will see on the machine and what the ATI looks like.


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Our Email Address: email@example.com
***when you order please tell me your phone number for shipping needs .(this is very important )
***The details of this dress***
Fabric:Chiffon,Lace, Satin, Tulle
Color:Color As Photo
Hemline:Length As Photo
Closure:Lace Up or Zipper
*** standard size or custom size ***
You can make the dress in standard size or custom size. If you choose the custom size, we
need the following size:
(u can add your sizes in Custom message to seller for this item )
1.Bust:=____________ inches/cm .
2.Waist: =_______________ inches/cm.
3.Hips: = ________________ inches/cm.
4. Your height without shoes:= ___________inches/cm.
(this size is from your top head to the floor without shoes) Important !
5.The height of shoes :________inches/cm
6.Dress color =______________(you can choose from my color chart,tell us number in chart)
*** Customers need to know ***
All of the dresses are new made .We strongly recommend you to select "Custom Made" to ensure
the dress will fit you when it arrives. .
By the way, you can order them in any size and color in our chart, and you can get your dress
within 20-25 days
***The Fast & Safe Delivery ***
Fast international Shipping is a great progress for us in nowadays! We work with the world
famous like DHL,UPS,FEDEX,TNT etc.
Step 1: click on "Add to cart"
Step 2: choose check out
Step 3: fill out your personal information, like shipping address and contact details.
Step 4: Select payment method and add notes of your size and color choice.
We accept payment via PayPal or credit card .
*** Shipping time : rush order within 15 days to arrive you (but you should tell us when
you order dress.)
*** usually need more than 25 days to arrive you .
Tailoring Time: 15-20 Days.
Shipping Time: 5-10 Days.
Total Time: 20 -30 Days.
if you are urgent to get the dress please tell me in advance .


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If you're an entrepreneur building a small business, you already know that it takes more than just spreadsheets, financial projections and a marketing push; it also takes passion, dedication and attention to details.
But long-term success requires even more.
In order to give your company a solid foundation, you must develop a clear mission, a well-articulated vision and values that resonate with the customers you're trying to reach.
The purpose of a mission statement is to provide a short summary of the business' purpose and focus. It can be complex or succinct, but it should never be more than one paragraph (and in many cases, more than one sentence).
It's OK to expound upon the overall mission once you've articulated its message, but the idea is for the mission statement to be simple enough to stand on its own. Although not essential, many mission statements identify the type of business they are, the products or services they sell, and/or the target market and customer base they're seeking.
Here are some examples of mission statements from some of the most popular and noteworthy brands:
- Amazon: When Amazon launched in 1995, it was with the mission "to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices."
- American Express: Our mission is helping others accomplish theirs.
- Google: Our company mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
- Iams: We deliver Tailored Nutrition to keep your pet healthy and happy for life.
- Patagonia: We're in business to save our home planet.
- Starbucks: To inspire and nurture the human spirit—one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.
- Uber: We ignite opportunity by setting the world in motion.
Think of your vision statement as a glimpse into your business's future. While the mission describes your company's focus and what it does, the vision for your company is its direction and identifies what you want it to become. The purpose of your vision statement is to pinpoint the goals and outcomes your business was created to achieve and outline how it will get there.
Your vision statement is important both internally and externally. It's both aspirational and inspirational. For your team, it lays out the picture of what the future looks like for your business and inspires them to help get it there. For your customers, it provides a picture of what your company is working toward and invites them along for the ride.
When crafting your vision statement, you and your team will want to ask some important questions about the future. Here some to get you started:
- What problems does our company want to solve?
- What does future success look like for our company?
- How many employees will our company have?
- How large will our customer base be?
- Does our vision align with our mission?
- What is the legacy you want your business to leave?
The vision statement will become a key component of your business's future identity, so you want to make sure it's vague enough to serve as an ideal, but specific enough that it motivates people to want to do business with you.
Here are some examples of vision statements from well-known brands:
- ASPCA: The vision of the ASPCA is that the United States is a humane community in which all animals are treated with respect and kindness.
- Caterpillar: Our vision is a world in which all people's basic needs – such as shelter, clean water, sanitation, food and reliable power – are fulfilled in an environmentally sustainable way and a company that improves the quality of the environment and the communities where we live and work.
- Charles Schwab: At Charles Schwab, our vision is to be the most trusted leader in investment services.
- Ford: To become the world's most trusted company.
- Ikea: To create a better everyday life for the many people', this is the IKEA vision.
Your business's values describe the morals, ethics and ideals that are important to your company. There are usually more than one or two, and they usually help to flesh out your mission and vision statements.
Many brands will use acronyms to make sure their values are memorable and shareable. For example, Avon Worldwide's values are embodied in the word, BIRTH, which stands for Belief, Integrity, Respect, Trust and Humility. Other companies will choose to keep their corporate values internal, opting to only share them with the team or its leaders.
Check out these core value statements, which perfectly sum up the culture of the organization they represent:
- Google: Ten things we know to be true
Google's "Ten things" is a great example of how values can be both internal and external.
- Intuit: Our Values: Integrity, Passion, Respect
As one of the world's leading business and financial software companies, Intuit has abided by the same operating values since it was founded in 1983. It even showcases them on the wall of its corporate offices in Mountain View, CA.
- JP Morgan Chase: Our Business Principles
JP Morgan Chase isn't known for its "warm and cuddly" culture, nor should it be. As one of the oldest banks in the nation, it's all business. But that doesn't mean it can't operate honestly and ethically, as its very simple and straightforward values convey.
- Whole Foods: Our Core Values
Whole Foods breaks its core values into six overarching credos that guide how the company does business no matter the situation.
Whatever approach you take, the values you choose to associate your business with will drive how you make decisions and determine the kind of culture you want to create. Your mission and vision answer the question, "Why?" but your values answer the question, "How?"
Whether your business is well established or just starting up, if you don't have mission and vision statements or a set of values to help guide decision-making, it'll be difficult for your company to thrive over the long-term. Fortunately, a SCORE mentor can walk you through the process, identify what's important to you and help your business grow. Reach out to a mentor today to get started!
Copyright © 2024 SCORE Association, SCORE.org
Funded, in part, through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.


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Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, located in New York City, has implemented software for use by faculty to measure student performance.
The New York City-based medical school is using software from ExamSoft to collect data from student exams and generate reports on what students can do to improve their performance. The exam management software is helping the school identify and better support struggling students, said David Lenihan, dean of preclinical medicine at the institution, in a statement issued Tuesday by ExamSoft.
"Tracking basic data at the end of a term, such as percentages or exam scores doesn't really mean anything," explained Lenihan, in a case study released this week by ExamSoft. "We wanted to measure each student's ability to answer a question, and start tracking predictive values for future performance. We needed to connect to specific student performance data earlier in the semester in order to make a real difference." Since adopting the software the school has cut its dropout rate from eight percent to two percent, according to Lenihan.
Instructors use ExamSoft to enter questions in an online test bank, assign category tags to the questions, then "create exams based on question performance and category content." After the test, the system will create a report for each student with personalized feedback on his or her performance, by category. The reports are designed to give students actionable insight on the areas where they need to improve.
Faculty members are also using the system's reports to evaluate curriculum effectiveness.
The Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, a division of Touro College, opened its doors in September 2007 in New York City's Harlem neighborhood. The school aims to recruit students who desire to practice medicine in underserved communities.
Additional information about ExamSoft, including the new case study, can be accessed at the company's Web site.
About the Author
Kanoe Namahoe is online editor for 1105 Media's Education Group. She can be reached at [email protected].
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In his first formal press conference in months, Barack Obama showed that getting re-elected can increase a president's confidence and combativeness. He staked out tough stands on several issues, especially on the looming budget negotiations.
Looking ahead to the "fiscal cliff" on Dec. 31, when the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire and sequestration cuts government spending sharply, Obama demanded $1.6 trillion of increased revenues as part of any budget bargain.
That's twice the number he and Speaker John Boehner agreed on in the grand bargain talks in the summer of 2011.
Those talks fell apart when Obama telephoned Boehner and raised his demand to $1.2 trillion. Boehner refused, and as Bob Woodward describes in "The Price of Politics," congressional leaders of both parties worked out their own approach. Sequestration, first suggested by Obama's budget director, became part of the deal.
There's a solid argument that limiting high earners' deductions could raise $800 billion or more. A $25,000 cap on deductions, according to The Wall Street Journal, would yield almost $1.3 trillion of additional revenue. The Simpson-Bowles commission showed that broadening the tax base could net $1.1 trillion.
And there's a solid argument that raising tax rates on high earners, in conjunction with the increase that's part of Obamacare, would slow down economic growth. That's because many small businesses are taxed at the individual income tax rate.
Obama once accepted that argument, albeit reluctantly, when he temporarily abandoned his quest for higher rates in December 2010. Raising them, he conceded, would hurt while economic growth was still sluggish.
It's actually more sluggish today than it was then, although as Obama pointed out in the press conference, we are further away from the sharp economic decline of 2008-09.
In effect, Obama is giving House Republicans a choice between a growth slowdown due to higher tax rates now and the much sharper slowdown that some economists predict — 5 percent is a number bandied about — if we go over the fiscal cliff.
The political leverage seems to be on Obama's side, or so he seems to believe. Most of the media inevitably blame Republicans when Republicans and Democrats are not able to reach agreement.
Politico reports that a number of House Republicans, including some staunch conservatives, think they'll have to give in on higher rates. Many members don't want to defend them back home.
But there is also a force working against Obama: the gravity of the government's fiscal condition. The president himself has recognized that entitlement programs are on an unsustainable trajectory.
Federal spending under Obama has been 24 percent to 25 percent of gross domestic product. Even in World War II, revenues never reached that level. Since that war, the highest level was 20.6 percent of GDP in 2000, when the government was flush with tax revenues from the capital gains of dot-com founders.
Growth does increase revenue in a progressive tax system like ours.
Several participants in the grand bargain negotiations, Woodward recounts, described them as trying to solve a Rubik's Cube. Republicans wanted lower tax rates with base-broadening tax reform to provide added revenues, and they wanted changes in the trajectory of entitlements.
Democrats wanted higher rates on high earners but were not averse to broadening the tax base and were at least talking about entitlements.
The problem is not just reaching agreement, but reaching agreement on something that can get majorities in both houses of Congress.
Some members of both parties won't vote for any bargain in which the other side gets something. So leaders of both parties have to persuade colleagues that they have made sufficient policy gains to warrant the policy concessions.
History shows that can happen. In Bill Clinton's second term, he and Newt Gingrich reached agreement, with the aid of then-Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, because there was something for both sides. Republicans got a capital gains tax cut, Democrats got S-CHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program), and they both got a balanced budget.
Clinton and Gingrich were even making progress on Medicare reform and negotiating about Social Security until the Lewinsky scandal erupted.
House Republicans have a majority and some leverage but cannot hope to prevail on all fronts. They may decide that higher tax rates are tolerable if they can make significant progress toward spending discipline and changing the trajectory of entitlements.
In summer 2001, Obama wasn't able to produce such a package. Will the second-term Obama succeed?
Michael Barone, senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner (www.washingtonexaminer.com), is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.


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NFL Sunday: 5 matchups to watch
With some help from the All-22 tape, here are five matchups I am looking at on the Week 9 Sunday schedule in the NFL—starting with Percy Harvin vs. the Seahawks' secondary.
1. Percy Harvin vs. Seahawks' secondary: From a pure matchup standpoint, I'm going to take Seattle's Sherman, Browner, Chancellor and Thomas vs. Minnesota's receivers. That's a legit secondary for Pete Carroll. However, with Harvin we have to think multiple alignments and schemes. The Vikings will use Harvin in the backfield, as a slot receiver, outside of the numbers, pre-snap movement, etc. Creative play calling that puts the football in his hands. There is no question Adrian Peterson could see 20-25 touches tomorrow, but when it comes to making plays in the passing game, Harvin has to be productive for the Vikes to win on the road.
All-22: Vikings' "Swap" Boot
Posse personnel (3WR-1TE-1RB) in a "Slot Open" alignment. Playing vs. Cover 0 pressure (blitz-man), the Vikings use the "Swap Boot" to get Harvin the ball. Tough assignment for any DB to work through the mess off of boot action and stick to coverage.
All-22: Vikings' "Tunnel" Screen
Posse personnel again with pre-snap motion to create a "Doubles Slot" alignment. Harvin (No.1) will run the screen with the slot WR blocking the CB and the LT working up to the second level of the defense. Use a simple screen (with closed side run action) to get the ball in Harvin's hands with open field (and blockers) in front of him.
2. Eli Manning vs. Steelers' pressure packages: Along with Cover 3 and 2-Man, Eli Manning has to prep for a variety of zone blitz concepts. Dick LeBeau's unit will show multiple fronts and use overload pressure looks. Plus, they will set some "traps" in the secondary based off their pre-snap disguise. For Manning, Cruz, Nix, etc., identifying pressure and adjusting their route concepts will be key to beating the Steelers' pressure.
All-22: Steelers' Overload "Gold"
Overload pressure with the SS and the Nickel showing to the closed (strong) side of the formation. Two inside "vertical hook" droppers (yellow) that will match to No.2 and No.3 with a 2-deep shell in the backend. However, the CB and the safety to closed side of the formation are playing "Gold" technique. Instead of jamming and re-routing No.1, the CB will play with a "soft squat" and read No.1 to No.2. Drop No.1 vertical and jump No.2 on the flat, smash, option, etc.
3. Julio Jones, Roddy White vs. Cowboys' man-coverage schemes: I'm interested to see how the Cowboys matchup in the secondary vs. Jones and White. Earlier this week, I broke down Jones' TD vs. Philly's Nnamdi Asomugha. Outside release, run the 9 (fade) route vs. press-man. For Cowboys' CBs Morris Claiborne and Brandon Carr this is a tough assignment in Cover 1 or if Dallas plays some quarters (Cover 4). And if the Cowboys bring pressure, the ability to flat-foot read, drive on the ball and play the sticks will key to winning on 3rd downs. Remember, Matt Ryan and the Falcons will mix their personnel and use different formation alignments. A lot to play for from the perspective of Rob Ryan's defense in a game the Cowboys need to have.
All-22: Falcons' Hi-Lo Opposite
Posse personnel in a 3x1 alignment with TE Tony Gonzalez removed from the core of the formation vs. man-free. Inside, the Falcons are running "Hi-Lo Opposite." An intermediate crossing route from Gonzalez (Hi) with White (reduced split) coming underneath on the shallow crosser (Lo).
Leverage. That's it. Asomugha is coached up to align with an outside shade and use his help in the middle of the field. When White breaks underneath, the CB is now caught trailing the route and has to make an immediate tackle after the catch—or this play is out the gate.
4. Packers' pass rush vs. Cardinals O-Line: Arizona has issues up front. We all know that. It impacts their ability to throw multiple breaking routes down the field plus it puts QB John Skelton in adverse third down situations. If the Packers can consistently get home with four tomorrow, look for Green Bay to sit in 2-Man on third downs and use a deep half safety over the top of Larry Fitzgerald. But let's not forget about Dom Capers' pressure schemes—both zone and man. A matchup where the Packers have the ability to dictate the flow of the game from a defensive perspective and put constant pressure on the QB.
All-22: Packers' zone pressure
Rush five, drop six (three-deep, three-under). That's pretty standard when we look at zone blitz concepts across the league. However, the Packers are showing overload pressure to the closed side of the formation vs. a bunch look. Create some confusion, get a free runner off the edge and force the QB to dump the ball.
5. Reggie Wayne vs. Miami's defensive game plan: Watching some Colts' tape, you have to account for Wayne within Indy's system outside of the numbers (standard route tree) and in the slot where the WR can win with a "two-way go" (inside or outside release). And I'm curious to see how the Dolphins will game plan Wayne from a scheme perspective when the WR is aligned inside of the numbers. How do you limit Wayne and take away one of Andrew Luck's top options in the passing game?
All-22: Colts' OVS (outside vertical stretch)
The "OVS" is a 9-7 (corner)-Flat combo you will see vs. 2-Man, Cover 2 and Cover 3. Run off the top of the defense with the clear out 9 route and target the 7 cut. With the Titans playing 2-Man, and Wayne in the slot, Luck can hit the WR on an outside breaking route vs. inside trail-man technique.
Follow me on Twitter: @MattBowen41


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Some of our in-jokes won't ever stick to the masses (a good thing), but as time goes by, videogameswill inevitablysecure a stronger influence on our culture's hive-database of quotable quotes. We, however, will always be the cool kids who were irritating each other with these gaming quips before the masses fully caught on.
%26ldquo;You have died of dysentery.%26rdquo; - The Oregon Trail
The first version of The Oregon Trail was developed in 19-fuggin'-71 – so it's like, really old, and stuff. It wasn't until the '80s, however, that it became the phenomenon it did. If you went to elementary school in the United States during the mid-'80s or early '90s, you probably played Oregon Trail. It was all sanctioned by the politickers ("Computers in the classroom, you say?! Well it's just so damncrazy it might work!"), but it felt like we were getting away with something when we named our settlers "Poop" and "Dick" and laughed when they died of horrible diseases. We learned nothing.
Pretty much any quote from the game deserves to be on this list, but "You have died of dysentery" is, for whatever reason, the one that became a million crappy t-shirts. But The Oregon Trail is more than that -it's a whole generation's first experience with personal computers, hunting, and infectious diseases.
%26ldquo;It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.%26rdquo; - Zork
Like Oregon Trail, Zork is one of the great grandfathers of gaming - practically just a legend to younger gamers. Even the name "Zork" is the product of obsolete slang – it was an MIT term for an unfinished piece of software and stuck at some point during the game's development (had it not stuck, the game would have been called the far-less-compelling "Dungeon").
Though it wasn't the first game ever made, the opening paragraph of Zork I is as significant to gaming as "We the people" is to the United States:
Such succinct power! But Zork's opening lines didn't stick quite as firmly as the ominous "grue" line, which is nowthe stuff of bumper stickers and coffee mugs.What is a grue? Zork explains:
The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is adventurers, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its fear of light. No grue has ever been seen by the light of day, and few have survived its fearsome jaws to tell the tale.
%26ldquo;Want some Rye? %26lsquo;Course ya do!%26rdquo; - Return to Zork
Yes, Zork again. Actually, Return to Zork - with graphics! Everyone who played this game remembers this puzzle and this oldbastard with a thing for whiskey. And even if you never played the game, you've probably heard the puzzle's irritating-as-shit repeated line:
If you want to relive the frustration, check the whole sequence below:
%26ldquo;Wakka wakka wakka%26rdquo; - Pac-Man
Pac-Man is what out-of-touch reporters continue to believe videogames are, because, along with Pong and a few others, Pac-Man was a cultural phenomenon up there with hula hoops and inline skates. Is "wakka" actually a quote? Maybe not, but just about anyone can mentally recreate the game's trademarksound, and that's pretty damninsane.
%26ldquo;It%26rsquo;s-a me, Mario!%26rdquo; - Mario Bros. Series
How many times in a row can you listen to this before you want to poke holes in your eardrums with pencils?
%26ldquo;But our princess is in another castle!%26rdquo; - Super Mario Bros.
Damn it! She's always in another damn castle! And not only that, but, as pointed out byTop Cultured, that bastard Toad thinks the whole thing is pretty fuggin' funny:


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My office, before Thanksgiving, had a potluck dinner. We were asked to bring a dish, so of course, I was ready and eager to bake! I found this great pumpkin cake recipe off of Culinary Concoctions by Peabody and went to work!
Pumpkin Cake
Source: Culinary Concoctions by PeabodyIngredients:
¼ pound unsalted butter (1 stick)
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground nutmeg (used 1 1/4 tsp. Penzey's cake spice)
½ tsp salt
¾ cup 100% natural solid pack pumpkin
½ cup nonfat buttermilk
½ cup tightly packed light brown sugar
½ cup sugar
2 large eggs
½ tsp vanilla extractDirections:
- Grease and flour a 9-inch round cake pan. Combine together in a medium bowl flour, baking soda, spices, and salt. Set aside.
- Place pumpkin and buttermilk in a small bowl and combine thoroughly. Set aside.
- In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment cream together the butter and sugars. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl .
- Increase speed to high and beat an additional 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl. Add the eggs and beat on medium for 30 seconds. Add the vanilla and beat on high for 30 seconds. With mixer on low alternate adding the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients into the mixing bowl.
- Mix until just combined. Remove the bowl from the mixer and use a rubber spatula to finish mixing the batter, until smooth and thoroughly combined.
- Immediately pour the cake into the prepared pan, spreading evenly. Bake on the center rack of a preheated 325F oven for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and cool in the pan for 15 minutes at room temperature.
- Invert cake onto a plate or cake circle. Turn the cake upright and refrigerate until needed.
I knew I wanted a cream cheese frosting for my cake. So, I adapted a Cream Cheese frosting recipe I found off of Allrecipes. I added 2 tsp. of Penzey's cake spice to the frosting and mmm, it was good!
Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
adapted from: AllrecipesIngredients:
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tsp. cake spice (mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, etc.)Directions:
In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.
Overall, this was a very well received cake. Coworkers loved it (as did I, obviously). What? Someone has to taste test the tops!! Mmm…


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Queen Victoria, My father and all his tobacco loved you, I love you too in all your forms, the slim and lovely virgin floating among German beer, the mean governess of the huge pink maps, the solitary mourner of a prince. |
Queen Victoria, I am cold and rainy, I am dirty as a glass roof in a train station, I feel like an empty cast iron exhibition, I want ornaments on everything, because my love, she gone with other boys. |
Queen Victoria, do you have a punishment under the white lace, will you be short with her, will you make her read those little Bibles, will you spank her with a mechanical corset. I want her pure as power, I want her skin slightly musty with petticoats will you wash the easy bidet out of her head? |
Queen Victoria, I'm not much nourished by modern love, will you come into my life with your sorrow and your black carriages, And your perfect memories. |
Queen Victoria, the Twentieth Century belongs to you and me. Let us be two severe giants not less lonely for our partnership, who discolour test tubes in the halls of Science, who turn up unwelcome at every World's Fair, heavy with proverbs and corrections, confusing the star-dazed tourists with our incomparable sense of loss. |
L. Cohen


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A Drive-In Movie Reaches for the Future
Former Library of Congress employee invests in his slice of Americana
If the drive-in movie theater survives as a viable commercial cinema venue, it will be in large part because of the pluck of people like Jim Kopp, a retired Library of Congress logistics manager who runs the Family Drive-In in Stephens City, Va.
"I always had a passion for drive-in theaters that started as a child," said Kopp, who bought his first drive-in with his wife, Megan, in Henderson, N.C., on eBay seven years ago.
In 2009, the couple purchased the Family Drive-In, and, after a couple of years going back and forth between Stephens City and the Raleigh Road Outdoor Theater, they sold the Henderson venue in 2011 and concentrated on the Family Drive-In, which is located about an hour and a half from Washington and holds about 400 cars.
The high-water mark for commercial drive-ins in the United States was 4,063, in 1958, according to the United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association. The association's most recent numbers, as of March 13, put the number at 357.
The industry touts figures showing the worst is behind it, with drive-ins reopening and new construction after decades of decline. But the challenges are still daunting.
"The real threat is the convergence to digital cinema," said April Wright, a filmmaker and director of "Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the American Drive-In Movie."
Indoor theaters face steep costs — ranging from $75,000 up — to convert to digital. Drive-ins face extra costs on top of that, because of the need to have special facilities that are safe for digital servers. "I think the industry is going to take a hit," Wright said.
However, such a conversion will likely help drive-ins in the long run. "The picture is perfect," she said of digital projection, adding that the threat of residual light that encroaches on drive-in screens is not as much of an issue with digital.
There's also the maintenance side. "You don't need the technical skills," she said, of knowing how to operate equipment that dates back sometimes more than half a century.
That brings the story back to Kopp, who, while technically retired, is investing in the Family Drive-In and hopes to make the transition from his 1940s-era Peerless film projector to digital in the next two months.
He estimates it will cost him about $139,800, and he's financing the change to stay in business.
Still, he acknowledges, not all drive-ins can do the same. "None of us are opposed to going digital. It's going to be real good. It'll save time. But the cost of it is a killer," he said. "Whenever you get a small-town theater that only brings in 30, 40 thousand dollars, it's going to be hard to spend that kind of money to invest. That's two Escalade Cadillacs!"
Still, Kopp says business is good. "My theater has seen some of the best attendance in years. … We're getting families that are coming here," he said, recounting the story of a man who brought his family and told Kopp he hadn't been to a drive-in in 30 years. After the show, he told Kopp he'd be back.
"We do have a very loyal customer base from Winchester, Shenandoah Valley," he said. "Usually, on the weekdays, I get the more local crowd. On the weekend we get people coming quite a ways."
Wright said the type of movies Hollywood is now specializing in lend well to drive-ins that show first- and second-run movies.
"Event kind of movies play well to the drive-in scene," she said, giving as examples animated and superhero fare.
Kopp agreed. "I've never seen so many animated films for families in the six years I've been doing this," he said, citing "Despicable Me 2" and "Monsters University" as recent examples. He also said serials like the "Fast and Furious" franchise play well. Such movies hark back to the heyday of exploitation drive-in days, when filmmakers like Roger Corman populated the screens with smash-em-up car movies and horror screamers.
Wright said the cyclical nature of the industry might swing back to drive-ins' favor, saying several cities are looking to repurpose land that is in disuse. "A lot of drive-ins fell to big-box retailers," as land costs soared and suburban sprawl overtook rural areas that provided drive-ins a haven, she said. Now a lot of those big-box stores have gone under, and the shopping centers they occupy are largely vacant. "I wonder," Wright mused, if some of those areas might revert.
In the meantime, expect Kopp to keep his drive-in open for anyone who's up for the truly all-American experience of watching a movie under the stars, despite the odds.
"Y'know. You gotta have some fun with it," he said.


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By Nicola GriffithApril 21, 2012
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
JEANETTE WINTERSON'S MEMOIR REVISITS the people and events familiar from her first and most famous work, the semi-autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. The two books cover similar ground, but they couldn't be more different. The first part of Why Be Happy, twice as long as the second, is a scraped clean, rewritten, and embellished palimpsest of Oranges:
I have done nothing about finding my past. It isn't "my past," is it? I have written over it. I have recorded on top of it. I have repainted it.
This repainting is much grimmer than the novel, which Winterson acknowledges.
And I suppose the saddest thing for me, thinking about the cover version that is Oranges, is that I wrote a story I could live with. The other one was too painful. I could not survive it.
Oranges, written when the author was just 24, is a lesbian artist's Bildungsroman. In 1960, the six-week old infant who will become Jeanette is adopted by a fanatically religious woman and her mostly absent husband. They raise her in Accrington, a working-class industrial town in the north of England, in a house without books. Jeanette falls secretly in love with literature, and less secretly with another girl; as a result she's exorcised then shunned by her church and driven from home by Mrs. Winterson.
Oranges fits snugly in the tradition of reader-friendly tales of triumph like Rita Mae Brown's 1973 classic, Rubyfruit Jungle. Its wit is mordant, its tone defiant, and its narrative path cuts as clean an arc as an arrow. Jeanette survives her bizarre and difficult upbringing, the "lost-loss" of adoption, to emerge shining and indomitable — made stronger, if anything, by her difference.
Decades after writing Oranges, Winterson stumbled over a hidden birth certificate in the effects of her father. Long-denied grief overwhelmed her. She began to lose her mind. As she went mad, Winterson kept real-time notes of unfolding events. She attempted suicide, fought to regain her sanity, fell in love with the psychotherapist Susie Orbach, and regressed to infantile helplessness during the harrowing process of finding her birth mother.
Winterson chronicles this journey in parallel with rewriting the story of her Accrington years. Why Be Happy is a mashup of these two narratives, joined at the seam by a two-page Intermission and ending with a short Coda.
Rewrites are as old as literature. In the early middle ages, monks wrote their Gospels on vellum with pigment-based inks. Vellum was high-quality parchment (mammal skin stretched, scraped, and processed to take ink): expensive. Gospels, when the doctrine changed, were not thrown away but scraped bare of the offending text. This reborn vellum, or palimpsest, could then be re-inked with the new, more splendid version, complete with gorgeously embellished initial capitals. However, after a while, the original text often began to bleed through. Some lines, where the original and the rewrite matched, appeared clear and strong and doubly real: other words, phrases, whole paragraphs became confused and contradictory, even unintelligible.
For Oranges, Winterson created characters who comforted the young Jeanette. In Why Be Happy, she finds solace in language, first through listening to her mother read from the King James Bible, and later by making her way through the library's collection of English Literature, A to Z. She comes to understand that literature is extra-somatic culture. Physically she was isolated from anything but her working-class and religious community, but her imagination thrived. She learnt the lessons of other people in other places and other times; she didn't have to leave Accrington to know how it felt to fall in love or venture onto the high seas.
The more I read, the more I felt connected across time to other lives and deeper sympathies. I felt less isolated...
Literature is common ground. It is ground not managed wholly by commercial interests, nor can it be strip-mined like popular culture — exploit the new thing then move on.
There's a lot of talk about the tame world versus the wild world. It is not only a wild nature that we need as human beings; it is the untamed open space of our imagination
Reading is where the wild things are.
And little Jeanette needed to break free. The Mrs W of Oranges was eccentric, but in Why Be Happy she is depressed and bitter, the dark star around which all else revolves. Little Jeanette's home life is bleak; she feels unloved, insecure, and — above all — the ever-present wound of "lost-loss": adoption.
Adopted children are self-invented because we have to be; there is an absence, a void, a question mark at the very beginning of our lives. A crucial part of our story is gone...
[A]doption drops you into the story after it has started. It's like reading a book with the first few pages missing. It's like arriving after curtain up. The feeling that something is missing never, ever leaves you — and it can't, and it shouldn't, because something is missing.
Winterson's observations about adoption are some of the clearest moments in the first part of the book; they shine like guide beacons through an otherwise murky narrative.
Good narrative grammar is the basic building block of story. It presents events and emotions in the order designed to generate a sense of cause and effect within the reader. The reader then understands why and how a given character believes, acts, or feels in particular ways. Good narrative grammar is what creates a reader's willing suspension of disbelief; it is what sets up the motifs, choices, and reversals and then pays them off. The reader's expectations are satisfied, or exceeded — or confounded to a purpose. The gun on the mantel or in the drawer should not remain unfired; but neither should it be pulled from the air.
Winterson isn't interested in narrative grammar:
Life is layers, fluid, unfixed, fragments. I never could write a story with a beginning, a middle and an end in the usual way because it felt untrue to me. That is why I write as I do and how I write as I do. It isn't really an ethos; it's me.
This out-of-order fragmentation prompts me to imagine Winterson, over the years, picking up the memory of this incident or that, examining it, putting it down again on the memory shelf at an odd angle to its neighbor. Some incidents, visited more often, are polished with use, others are blunt. The well-handled moments act like the bleeding-through of ghostly text. Some insights feel bold and powerful in their repetition, but some feel forced, over-emphasized. Some are downright confusing.
It is on page 119 that Winterson suggests why she ignores the constraints of storytelling:
Woolf and Stein were radical to use real people in their fictions and to muddle their facts — Orlando, with its actual photos of Vita Sackville-West, and Alice Toklas, the supposed writer, who is Stein's lover but not the writer...
For me, fascinated with identity, and how you define yourself, those books were crucial. Reading yourself as a fiction as well as a fact is the only way to keep the narrative open — the only way to stop the story running away under its own momentum, often towards an ending no one wants.
Grove markets the book as a memoir. Memoir is usually regarded as nonfiction. As Lee Gutkind pointed out in these pages last month, labeling a work "nonfiction" creates a pact with the reader that — as in the case of conventional narrative grammar — is only broken by the writer at great risk.
When people read nonfiction they expect it to be as accurate and as true as possible. That's the promise that nonfiction always makes: that the writing and reporting are as faithful as possible to fact, that truth and accuracy make a difference.
The hazards of ignoring narrative grammar and breaking the pact of nonfiction are that the reader becomes wary, less willing to suspend disbelief, more likely to hold herself apart from the text. Certainly this is how I began to respond. So I was astonished when, as Winterson embarked on the emotional journey of teenage love, I dropped my reservations in a haze of empathy and memory. Winterson absolutely nails how it feels to walk the streets in the dead of night, straining against the gravitational pull of family reality, trying to escape their event horizon and find one's own path. I am there. I can smell it, taste it, feel it. It feels unforced, uncluttered, and heart-squeezingly true.
But then young Winterson says goodbye to her mother and walks away for the last time. End of part one. Followed by a two-page "Intermission."
Creative work bridges times because the energy of art is not time-bound. If it were we should have no interest in the art of the past, except as history or documentary. ...
The womb to tomb of an interesting life — but I can't write my own; never could. Not Oranges. Not now. I would rather go on reading myself as fiction than as fact.
The fact is that I am going to miss out twenty-five years. Maybe later...
It felt like driving into a wall across the narrative. Was Winterson really going to set up Mrs Winterson as the dark star in her life and then skip her death, skip her own grief, anger, bewilderment and struggle to recover her balance from the sudden loss of gravity?
But perhaps the shock, this sudden confounding of my expectations, was the point. I'd recently read Pam Houston's self-interview in The Nervous Breakdown in which she discusses the power of non-logical, non-linear narrative:
What reading poetry has taught me, I think, is that when meaning gets made associatively, rather than logically or chronologically, we feel it in a different part of our bodies, and, I would argue, we feel it more strongly, like a punch.
I compared this to Winterson talking about poetry:
When people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn't be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying had had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language — and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers — a language powerful enough to say how it is.
It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place.
I began to understand: poetry as self-discovery, as psychotherapy. And hard on the heels of that thought, I read a discussion with Adam Phillips, on Prospero, the Economist's art blog, of how the constraints of poetry connect it to psychotherapy. Here are some pull quotes:
The most obvious link is that they are both linguistic arts. Freud suggests not exactly that we speak in poetry, because poetry has line-endings, but that we potentially speak with the type of incisiveness and ambiguity that we're most used to finding in poetry.
But the other thing that psychoanalysis does is [...] enable somebody to speak. It's the attempt to create the conditions in which somebody can speak themselves as fully as possible.
There is a thing Kafka says in his diaries which is something like "literature is an axe to break the sea frozen inside us."
Intrigued, with a new angle from which to view Winterson's approach, I picked up Why Be Happy again, and within a few pages hit the best writing in the book. It is very possibly the most honest writing Winterson has ever done: bone-hard, bone-naked brutal truth that hides nothing about the discovery process of finding her biological mother, and going mad. Here the narrative grammar is immaculate. Cause precedes effect; I always know what's going on, even — especially — when what is happening is terror and confusion and almost terminal ambivalence.
At its best, poetry evokes emotion and then leaps into the dark, hauling the reader along for the ride, skipping those way-points that aren't absolutely necessary. Evoking emotion in precisely the right order is one of the constraints that makes the form. Without form, poetry is just words. And that's the challenge Winterson sets herself and her readers. In this memoir, she refuses all constraint. She writes at book length, sometimes eschewing the constraint of narrative grammar. She writes memoir without the constraint of accuracy. She writes associatively without the constraint of precise word-choice. Sometimes the latter isn't terribly important, as when she confuses black holes with dark matter; we shrug and move on. But sometimes it's dangerously jarring, as when describing her ex-lover as a cuckoo, a word like a bomb in the context of adoption — the cuckoo famous for laying its eggs in other birds' nests. And sometimes it threatens the central metaphor of the book, as when the word "wound" means, variously, a scar or healed wound, and an open or eternally gaping hurt. Is Winterson hurt but healing, or bleeding to death? Or is she somehow occupying both states at once, as she writes both stories simultaneously, out of order?
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal's nature as palimpsest is both its central difficulty and its brilliance. It can be both astonishing and frustrating. When the past and present iterations of Jeannette Winterson are in accord, her observations read as verses of the King James Bible: bold, beautiful, and true. When they obscure one another, the meaning is lost. Occasionally, she is working with two layers at once. Depending on which the reader reads most easily, the ending could be happy or sad. We don't know. Winterson hasn't decided yet. As she says:
I have no idea what happens next.
LARB Contributor
Nicola Griffith is a novelist living in Seattle. She is the author of six novels (Hild, Ammonite, Slow River, The Blue Place, Stay, and Always) and a multi-media memoir (And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner notes to a writer's early life), and co-editor of the Bending the Landscape series of original queer f/sf/h stories. She is the winner of the Washington State Book Award, Nebula, Tiptree, World Fantasy, and 6 Lambda Literary Awards among others.
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Canadians will gather at cenotaphs and monuments across the country this morning to remember and honour those who took up arms — and in some cases paid the ultimate price — to defend this country and its way of life.
Thousands have begun to arrive at the National War Memorial in Ottawa for the national Remembrance Day ceremony, including a parade of veterans arrayed before the monument just off Parliament Hill, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau and Gov. Gen. Julie Payette will be among those laying wreaths in memory of those who died serving Canada.
Watch live: National #RemembranceDay Ceremony at the National War Memorial. https://t.co/FkWNSg9PFX #CanadaRemembers pic.twitter.com/xcaHlybAWH
— CanadianPM (@CanadianPM) November 11, 2019
"They fought for the ideals of peace and to defend our liberties," Payette said in a video message.
"Many were wounded in their body and in their soul. Too many paid the ultimate price. We owe them an immense debt of gratitude. We must never forget their sacrifice and the terrible costs of war. Let us never take freedom for granted and stand up for equality and tolerance."
Trudeau echoed those sentiments in a separate statement as he credited those who served in uniform with having built peace, defended democracy and enabled countless people to live in freedom in Canada and around the world.
"Today, we pay tribute to our veterans, to those who have been injured in the line of duty, and to all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice," he said. "They stood for liberty, and sacrificed their future for the future of others. Their selflessness and courage continue to inspire Canadians who serve today.
Today, as we observe the moment of silence, let us remember every Canadian Armed Forces member who keeps our country safe. Without them, we could not enjoy the freedom we have today. Let us never forget those who did not come home. Their sacrifice was not in vain. #LestWeForget pic.twitter.com/xAuPEazk8M
— Harjit Sajjan (@HarjitSajjan) November 11, 2019
Also present for this morning's national ceremony will be this year's Silver Cross Mother, Reine Samson Dawe, whose youngest son, Capt. Matthew Dawe, was killed in Afghanistan in 2007 alongside five other Canadian soldiers and an Afghan interpreter.
Samson Dawe will lay a wreath on behalf of all Canadian mothers who have lost children to war.
This year's Remembrance Day ceremony follows a major ceremony in France earlier this year marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day, when thousands of Canadian stormed the beaches of Normandy with their British and American allies to fight Nazi Germany.
It also comes exactly 101 years to the day after the end of the First World War.
The Canadian Press
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In addition to its other accomplishments (most notably publication of "Standards of Professional Conduct for Settlement Planners"), the Society of Settlement Planners (SSP) has distinguished itself by sponsoring educational programs addressing issues, featuring speakers and permitting perspectives the more defense-oriented National Structured Settlement Trade Association (NSSTA) traditionally has been reluctant or unwilling to offer.
SSP's 2014 Annual Conference, to be held April 27-29 in New Orleans, promises to continue this more open-minded educational tradition.
As one example, SSP's Secondary Market Panel discussion will feature two leading structured settlement transfer legal experts whose clients typically oppose each other in significant secondary market cases:
- Stephen R. Harris - among other roles and accomplishments, Stephen (a partner at Drinker Biddle whose clients include annuity providers) recently served as co-Chairman of NSSTA's Legal Committee.
- Earl S. Nesbitt - in addition to representing factoring companies, Earl (a founding partner of Nesbitt, Vasser & McCown) serves as Legal Counsel and Executive Director for the National Association of Settlement Purchasers (NASP).
SSP's Secondary Market Panel, which will be moderated by Patrick Hindert (S2KM's Managing Director and blog author), should be educational and entertaining - and hopefully somewhat controversial. Here are some of the questions the featured panelists will address.
- Is the secondary market good or bad for the primary structured settlement market?
- Among other objectives, IRC 5891 and the Model State Structured Settlement Protection Act (Model Act) were enacted to protect claimants from predatory secondary market business practices. Both NSSTA and NASP supported these statutes. How successfully have these statutes accomplished their objective to protect structured settlement recipients?
- Based upon your experience, what changes or amendments, if any, would improve the Model Act?
- Would adding a multiple bid requirement as part of the "best interest" test improve the secondary market?
Troubling Developments
- During NASP's 2013 annual conference, former NASP President Robin Shapiro expressed personal outrage about "troubling reports concerning the structured settlement factoring business" including:
- Falsified transfer orders.
- Inter-state forum shopping.
- Short-cutting waiting periods and disclosure requirements.
- Expediting hearing dates before preferred judges.
- "Competing bids" from the same company.
- How prevalent are these business practices?
- What have NASP, NSSTA and/or other primary market participants done to address these issues? What should they do?
Falsified Orders
- Reports indicate a former paralegal at the New York law firm Paris & Chaikin falsified as many as 100 transfer orders?
- What happened? What is the status?
- How will these events impact the secondary market and its various participants including: the law firm, its secondary market clients, the annuity providers and the structured settlement recipient/transferors?
Anti-Assignment Restrictions
- Recent (Brenston) and current class action (Sanders) cases in Illinois address the impact of "anti-assignment" restrictions on transfers of structured settlement payment rights.
- What is the status of these cases and related litigation? What are the issues?
- Does the recommended assignment language in NSSTA's Model Qualified Assignment and Release Agreement solve this problem - or is some other solution necessary?
- What case-specific responsibilities do structured settlement brokers, settlement planners and other plaintiff advisers have related to anti-assignment restrictions?
Primary Market Responses
- MetLife recently adopted controversial new business practices whereby it opposes transfers that involve split payments as well as court-approved servicing arrangements.
- What is MetLife's rationale and objective?
- How are these business practices impacting the secondary market?
- The Florida state legislature is considering a bill that would add a maximum discount rate (similar to North Carolina) to its existing protection act..
- Is this a good idea?
- How has the North Carolina provision impacted the secondary market in that state?
- Why haven't more annuity providers offered commutation-like alternatives to third party factoring transactions? What impact would such alternatives have on the existing primary and secondary markets?
RLS Arbitrations
- RLS (formerly Rapid Settlements) has attempted to use the Federal Arbitration Act to side step state structured settlement protection statute requirements.
- What is the status of the related RLS litigation?
- What other secondary market issues do you see as important for the future of structured settlements?
- What opportunities exist for primary and secondary structured settlement market cooperation? What is preventing this cooperation?
For background about these secondary market issues, see the structured settlement wiki and more specifically these prior S2KM blog posts:
- Structured Settlements 2013 - Secondary Market
- Secondary Market Update - February 3, 2014
- Sanders v. JGWPT Holdings
For more detailed analysis of secondary market issues, see Chapter 16 of "Structured Settlements and Periodic Payment Judgments" (S2P2J).


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Hidden Markov Model
From Bioinformatics.Org Wiki
Markov chains are named for Russian mathematician Andrei Markov (1856-1922), and they are defined as observed sequences. A Markov model is a system that produces a Markov chain, and a hidden Markov model is one where the rules for producing the chain are unknown or "hidden." The rules include two probabilities: (i) that there will be a certain observation and (ii) that there will be a certain state transition, given the state of the model at a certain time.[1]
The Hidden Markov Model (HMM) method is a mathematical approach to solving certain types of problems: (i) given the model, find the probability of the observations; (ii) given the model and the observations, find the most likely state transition trajectory; and (iii) maximize either i or ii by adjusting the model's parameters. For each of these problems, algorithms have been developed: (i) Forward-Backward, (ii) Viterbi, and (iii) Baum-Welch (and the Segmental K-means alternative).[1][2]
The HMM method has been traditionally used in signal processing, speech recognition, and, more recently, bioinformatics. It may generally be used in pattern recognition problems, anywhere there may be a model producing a sequence of observations. In bioinformatics, it has been used in sequence alignment, in silico gene detection, structure prediction, data-mining literature, and so on.
Here is a simple example of the use of the HMM method in in silico gene detection:
- Codons (or DNA triplets) are the observations.
- 64 codons equals a probability of 1/64.
- The DNA sequence is the Markov chain (set of observations).
- Switches from one genomic region to another are the state transitions.
Difficulties with the HMM method include the need for accurate, applicable, and sufficiently sized training sets of data. As for the example of gene detection, in order to accurately predict genes in the human genome, many genes in the genome must be accurately known.
- HMMER - Profile hidden Markov models for biological sequence analysis
- SAM - Sequence Alignment and Modeling System, a collection of flexible software tools for creating, refining, and using linear hidden Markov models for biological sequence analysis
- VEIL - A hidden Markov model for finding genes in vertebrate DNA
- UGENE - A free multi-platform graphical interface for algortihms based on HMMER2 and HMMER3 packages
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Dugad, R. and Desai, U.B. 1996. A Tutorial on Hidden Markov Models. http://vision.ai.uiuc.edu/dugad/hmm_tut.html
- ↑ Dean, T. et al. 1998. Hidden Markov Models. http://www.cs.brown.edu/research/ai/dynamics/tutorial/Documents/HiddenMarkovModels.html


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Stateline.org RSS - Florida |
Florida |
Saturday, 06 June 2009 |
Bankruptcy Resources |
Personal Injury Resources |
Stateline.org RSS - Florida |
Florida |
"We are a debt relief agency. We help people file for bankruptcy under the Bankruptcy Code."
"The hiring of a lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely on advertisements. Before you decide, ask us to send you free written information about our qualifications and experience." The Law Office of Timothy L. Dave, P.A., serves clients in the Central Florida area; including the cities of Orlando, Sanford, Lake Mary, Kissimmee, Altamonte Springs, Oviedo, St. Cloud, and the surrounding areas of Brevard, Duval, Volusia, and Hillsborough counties.
LEGAL NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER: The materials within this web site are for informational purposes only. They are not legal advice and should not be used as such. Transmission of the information in this web site is not intended to create, and receipt does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship. Internet users and readers should not act upon this information without first seeking professional legal counsel. The information in this web site is provided only as general information which may or may not reflect the most current legal developments.
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"A gay Christian movie like this just doesn't exist. If this had been out 7 to 10 years ago when I was struggling with my faith and sexuality, it would've really helped me" states Morales.
SAN ANTONIO, TX, September 29, 2020 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Brimo Morales, director of the Indie Film God Loves Chris, announces that the François Chalais Award Winner (Cannes Film Festival) Ricardo Jacques Galé has agreed to be Director of Photography for her film. God Loves Chris is a movie that is relevant and needed for the political climate of 2020. Whereas most films on this subject speak on the dangers of conversion therapy, this film shows the outcome on the other end of that spectrum…affirming love and acceptance. "A gay Christian movie like this just doesn't exist. If this had been out 7 to 10 years ago when I was struggling with my faith and sexuality, it would've really helped me," states Morales.
Instead of the usual tale of churches not accepting the LGBTQ+ community, this story shows the effects of a church that openly accepts and affirms those usually marginalized.
Chris, a Hispanic young lesbian pianist, has been ostracized from her church and kicked out of her home for being gay. To numb the pain, she spends her time drinking and having one night stands; until one day she meets a lesbian pastor and must question her whole worldview. Does God still love her as she is, or was what she was taught the ultimate truth?
God Loves Chris is an independent film, currently being produced, written and directed by indie filmmaker Brimo Morales. Local production company Mutt Productions has also signed on to shoot the project. Early pre-production has begun and shooting is expected to take place between December 2020 and February 2021.
God Loves Chris will be filmed on location here in San Antonio, Texas, as it is important to Brimo for the movie to take place in her hometown. For Morales, it wasn't just important to showcase the LGBT community's actual local gathering places, but also to showcase how progressive her city in central Texas has become.
Production Team (Highlights):
God Loves Chris is director Brimo Morales' first feature film, but she has made some award winning short films recognized at Los Angeles Cinefest and the AMFAA film festival. Director of Photography Ricardo Jacques Galé has won the François Chalais Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his work on "West Beirut" as well as The International Critics Award at the Toronto Film Festival. He's previously won the Best Cinematography award for "Touching Home" at the Toronto Film Festival as well. Executive producer Aaron Lee Lopez has produced 22 titles and won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the San Antonio Film Festival.
The film is currently in the fundraising stage of pre-production and has a Gofundme set up which can be seen here: https://gf.me/u/yq89dz
# # #


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Oxford University continues to be a hotbed of AI talent, fuelling not just academic research into AI but also the ambitions of startups and large technology companies alike. The latest Oxford-based AI startup to make headlines is Diffblue, a University of Oxford spin-out that is applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to software development.
The young company has raised $22 million in Series A funding, one year since leaving academia. The round is led by Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments, alongside Oxford Sciences Innovations (OSI), and the Oxford Technology and Innovations Fund (OTIF).
Born out of ten years of research, Diffblue describes its core AI as being able to build an exact mathematical model of any code base, with just a few examples provided. The resulting model then allows a deep semantic understanding of what a computer program is trying to do, from which a number of aspects of software development can be automated. Initially, Diffblue are working on three products built on the core AI engine.
The first is a testing product that automatically spots bugs and writes tests, which is one of the lower-hanging and most laborious parts of quality software development. It's also a crucial one, especially for mission-critical applications where a software failure can cost lives or huge amounts of money.
The second Diffblue product in the works is a security product that automatically flags up exploitable bugs and generates tests for those bugs.
The third product is a refactoring product that automatically rewrites badly expressed or out of date code (think: an AI that can automatically upgrade a codebase to support the latest implementation of a programming language or framework).
However, founder Daniel Kroening, who is Professor of Computer Science at University of Oxford, tells me the much bigger and more ambitious vision is that Diffblue can become smart enough to write entire computer programs on its own, just by being given a few examples of the desired outcome, such as writing bespoke software to control a smart home.
His broader thesis is that society will never produce enough software developers, despite the best efforts to do so over the last ten years. Therefore, the more that AI can augment or even replace existing software development, the better chance it has to scale in order to meet growing demand.


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Although they will only be juniors at Union City High School this fall, Daiquan Kelly and Steven Gonzalez are already causing quite a stir among major college football recruiting circles.
Kelly, a sure-handed, high-leaping wide receiver, and Gonzalez, a 6-foot-4, 310-pound offensive lineman, are gaining a lot of attention from the major colleges.
Gonzalez, a Union City native who admired fellow Union City lineman Josue Matias (now at Florida State) has already received seven scholarship offers from prestigious schools such as South Carolina, Louisville, Connecticut, Virginia, UMass, Boston College, and Rutgers.
Kelly, a native of Irvington who moved to Union City a few years ago, has solid offers from Virginia, UMass and Rutgers.
It's the first time that Union City has produced two NCAA Division I-level recruits from the same recruiting class – and they're only juniors.
Needless to say, Union City head football coach Wilber Valdez is ecstatic about the attention his players are receiving.
"I think it does say something about the program," said Valdez, who was a Division I recruit himself out of Hoboken, going to the University of Miami. "It says a lot about their talent and their development. It's good to know that college coaches think their games are polished enough to be Division I material. It's a very big deal for us. To have both of them in the same class is a pretty unique thing in Union City."
Kelly recently attended the Rutgers football camp and wowed everyone in attendance with his ability to run, catch and jump. Two major recruiting services ranked Kelly as the top receiver working out at Rutgers.
"He is what they're looking for," Valdez said of Kelly. "He's a big kid who can run, jump and catch the ball."
Kelly said that he was "pretty surprised" by all the attention.
"I didn't think I'd be able to get a scholarship," Kelly said. "I always dreamed of being a Division I athlete. When I was getting the offers, I didn't believe it. I was very excited to think these schools think so highly of me."
Kelly said that he had to escape from Irvington, so he encouraged the family's move to Union City.
"I had to get out of that environment if I wanted to become something," Kelly said. "There's too much drama there. Mentally, I had to find a place where I can develop as a football player and work on keeping my grades up. I know I will do the right things here and stay away from the bad crowd. I just have to do whatever Coach Valdez tells me to do."
As for getting the notoriety as one of the best football players in the state?
"It's a very good feeling, but it's still too early to rest on this," Kelly said. "I still have a lot to prove. I have to keep my head up, focus on my school work and keep my head in the game."
For Gonzalez, the series of scholarship offers fulfills a childhood dream.
"Josue Matias is someone I look up to and I always talk to him whenever I need advice," Gonzalez said. "I wanted to be like him. When I was in eighth grade, I remember watching Josue lift weights and watching him play. I wanted to be like him. In fact, I wanted to be better than him. I hope to leave a better legacy than he did."
Gonzalez, who will play tackle for the Soaring Eagles this fall, but more than likely will be a guard on the collegiate level, started to get an idea that he could be a top-flight college recruit last year.
"I really thought I could be Division I, but then Coach Valdez put it in my mind for sure," Gonzalez said.
Rutgers was the first to offer Gonzalez a scholarship.
"That was a sign that I had to keep working harder," Gonzalez said. "I'm really blessed that I'm getting this attention. It was very flattering to know that all these college coaches came to Union City to inquire about me."
Gonzalez said that it was nice to share the recruiting process with teammate Kelly.
"Who knows?" Gonzalez said. "We may end up at the same school. It's great for him that he's getting noticed as well. He's a great player. For both of us, it's a great achievement and it's great that we're bringing attention to the program."
But now that Kelly and Gonzalez have been labeled as Division I recruits, all eyes will be upon them when the games count come September.
"I do feel some pressure," Gonzalez said. "But I'm not going to let that effect me. I know what I have to do."
Valdez knows that the expectations will be higher for the Soaring Eagles in the fall, considering that they have two Division I prospects. There isn't another Hudson County school – outside of St. Peter's Prep – that can lay claim to having more than one top player.
"We want to have our kids shoot for two things, becoming a Division I player and winning a state championship," Valdez said. "This is why we do this as coaches. We want our players to have the same opportunity we had as players. We have other kids who will move on to college as well. It's a new reputation for Union City High School. Now we have two, then the sky's the limit."
Or, in Union City's case, they can at least go to the roof.
Now, it's up to Kelly, Gonzalez and the rest of the Soaring Eagles to apply their attention and reputation on the gridiron. It may be July, but the pieces are already in place. If you need proof, then check out what others are saying across the state about the talented two Soaring Eagle juniors.
Jim Hague can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com You can also read Jim's blog at www.jimhaguesports.blogspot.com.


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Good day!
I have a simple form for testing on displaying material data from barcode and I substr the value.
for example the barcode = '10001CHE00102401100200250000.50'
po_number = 10001
item_code = CHE001
supplier = 024
uom = 01
unique_id = 100200
qty = 250000.50
if the barcode has all its data or it has no problem or no missing info like po_number or item_code or the supplier from the database, it will display the information but if it is not match on the database data. I want to display a notification that the barcode is invalid.
I attached my code, database and sample screenshots my problem is on displaying the notification .
I tried to fix it but I can't figured out why it did not display.
Thank you.


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How cloud-friendly is traditional virtualization? As a matter of fact, all traditional virtualization technologies predate cloud era. Traditional virtualization has major advantage, they are backward compatible on binary level, making it easy to run in cloud any existing pre-cloud application. But what if backward compatability is not a requirement? What about new post-cloud applications, that are developed specifically for cloud? Is traditional virtualization still a good platform for them?
More information can be found on http://zerovm.org and in the discussion.