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From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...While this inexpensive casserole was not developed for peckish eaters, if you are feeding a gang or have teenagers at your table, you might want to give this simple recipe a try. You will need a blender and slow cooker to prepare this nearly effortless casserole. The recipe comes from Good Housekeeping magazine, and while it calls for chicken breasts, I actually prefer to use boneless thighs to make this dish. The chipotle chiles give the casserole some heat, but much of it is absorbed by the spaghetti as it cooks, so all but the very young will enjoy it. It is important not to over cook the thin spaghetti. Buy the product actually labeled thin spaghetti to assure proper cooking of the pasta. Avoid capellini at all costs if you decide to make this casserole. It will turn to mush and you will not speak or think kindly of me. If you are looking for an effortless and inexpensive family meal, this Frugal Foodie Friday recipe has you name on it. Here is how the casserole is made.
Southwestern Chicken Spaghetti...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite courtesy of Good Housekeeping magazine
1 can (28-ounce) fire-roasted tomatoes
2 green onions, trimmed and cut into thirds
2 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
2 tablespoons adobo sauce
2 cloves) garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon sweet smoked paprika
1 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1-1/4 pounds skinless, boneless chicken-breast halves
2 cups chicken broth
1 pound thin spaghetti, broken into thirds
1-1/2 cups finely shredded Monterey Jack cheese
2 green onions, thinly sliced, for garnish
Black pepper
1) Purée tomatoes, onions, chipotles, adobo sauce, garlic, paprika, chili powder, cumin, and 1 teaspoon salt in a blender until smooth.
2) Transfer purée to a 6 to 7-quart slow cooker bowl. Arrange chicken on top (do not submerge). Replace lid and cook on low for 3-1/2 hours or until chicken is cooked.
3) Transfer chicken to a cutting board and allow it to sit until it is cool enough to handle.
4) Meanwhile, combine broth, 1/2 cup water, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a measuring cup. Microwave on high 1 minute. Add to slow cooker. Add spaghetti, pushing down to fully submerge it. Replace lid and cook, stirring once, for 30 minutes, or until pasta is al dente and most of liquid has been absorbed.
5) While pasta cooks, pull chicken into chunks. Once pasta is cooked, return chicken to bowl, tossing to combine. To serve, top with cheese, sliced green onions, and cilantro. Yield: 8 servings.
Older Posts
One Year Ago Today: Two Years Ago Today:Gold Beach Winter Chowder West African Peanut Soup
Three Years Ago Today: Four Years Ago Today:Mexican Conchas Drop Biscuits with Cheddar and Garlic Butter


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ReleasesBack to
Joe Lovano
Joe Lovano's third album featuring his Us Five quintet, 2012's Cross Culture, furthers the adventurous collective aesthetic the saxophonist developed on 2009's Folk Art and 2011's Bird Songs. Once again working with drummers Francisco Mela and Otis Brown III, pianist James Weidman, and bassist Esperanza Spalding, Lovano also employs bassist Peter Slavov on a few tracks here, as well as West African guitarist Lionel Loueke. The result is an album of exploratory jazz that is often more about group interplay on various musical themes rather than straightforward improvisation on melodic compositions -- though there is that, too. Tracks like the frenetic "In a Spin" and the sinewy, rambling "Journey Within" sound like Lovano and Loueke might have written them on the spot together and, though thoughtfully composed, evince a conversational, stream-of-consciousness approach. Elsewhere, cuts like the ruminative and languid "Journey Within" and the atmospheric, dreamlike "Golden Horn" move back and forth from group interplay to extended solo sections. The musical boundary-crossing title of the album takes on more significance on "Drum Chant," in which Mela, playing the West African balafon (a kind of wooden xylophone), and Brown build an insistent rhythmic palette over which Lovano and Loueke add their knotty, free-leaning improvisational lines. Interestingly, Lovano switches to the double-soprano "autochrome" for his solo on "In a Spin," creating a bright, almost atonal sound that jumps out at you halfway through the track. The autochrome's sound also acts as a kind of response to Loueke's harplike, synthesizer-esque guitar style. In fact, both Loueke and Spalding utilize a percussive style here that complements the two-drummer approach and allows Lovano, who has always leaned more on the rhymically slippery, harmonically advanced end of the spectrum, a large musical bed to spring from. Ultimately, that's what Cross Culture is all about. ~ Matt Collar

subset: commoncrawl


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Discover what types of mixing systems are available, how to use them, and where you can get them.
Color-matching ink systems allow garment screen printers to create simulations of Pantone colors and, with custom-mixing capabilities, replicate a variety of customer-required colors and color palettes. These tools always seem to be a hot topic because they help screen printers manage what would otherwise be a difficult task. Printers who are prepared to work with color-matching ink systems will find that a good system can streamline the whole ink department. But getting to this point requires the proper setup of a color-matching area and the acquisition of the right equipment. The next steps involve using the system to accurately match colors and reassess the process when things don't look right.
This article will discuss ways to set up an effective mixing space, properly use a color-matching ink system, and troubleshoot the ink-mixing process. Let's start with a review of color terminology and attributes for ink mixing and matching.
How light creates the color in your inks
Human eyes are amazingly sensitive instruments. They can perceive millions of colors. Fortunately, you'll never have to match more than a fraction of these colors with inks! Most printers can get the job done with a group of inks in each major primary and secondary color (red, blue, yellow, orange, green, purple) and then mix the rest as needed.
An ink's composition is indicative of how it mixes to create additional colors. Inks comprise pigments suspended in clear or semi-opaque bases with other agents, depending on the type of ink in use (plastisol, water-based, etc). Inks don't actually produce color. The pigments in the ink reflect a wavelength of colored light while absorbing the rest. If all of the color is reflected it becomes white ink; if all wavelengths are trapped, then the ink appears black. A red ink absorbs all colors except for the red light.
To be even more specific, the pigment suspended in the base of the ink does the coloring. The reason this distinction is important is because there is always a quality to the pigment load itself, and the way it is distributed in the base will affect the ink's interaction with other inks. The attributes of ink's pigment load (Figure 1) can be categorized as follows:
• Hue This characteristic is where we get the name of the ink (red, blue, etc.). It is defined by the wavelength of light that the pigment reflects.
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Free Profit Magazine
September 3, 2008
Published quarterly, Profit Magazine is distributed to more than 110,000 C-level executives* and provides business leaders with a road map on turning their technology investments into top and bottom line advantages. Profit Magazine illuminates the business impact of technology and provides industry and line-of-business intelligence for your specific challenges. At the same time, Profit Magazine also wants to shed light on Oracle's product and service strategies and how they'll impact your business - today, and in the years to come.
Get your free magazine here.


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Mike Kus
Thanks for you're comment.
I agree with you. Like I said in the article, we need to think about why we use certain treatments in our web design and if that involves using gradients and shiny buttons, so be it. The key is to have good reasoning behind these choices.
I think it's a mistake to label certain web design as not 'user interface' design. Every website on the web is user interface design.


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Looking for a great place to network with your peers? The CAMFT Community is the place to be! The CAMFT Community provides a rich social networking opportunity and a more personalized, relevant experience for members. The CAMFT Community is a secure, member's only, private networking tool that allows members to connect and communicate with each other in new, more efficient, more personalized and user-friendly ways. To login, click here (make sure you bookmark the page for future reference). A step-by-step guide is posted in the library, under Community Documents, as is an activity guide to help you familiarize yourself with the CAMFT Community.
By joining the CAMFT Community you can:
Streamline your experience to make sure you receive the information that is most relevant to you. You control and manage how you receive notifications, so you receive focused information and not an endless barrage of unwanted updates.
You can create a personalized profile and build trusted networks around topics of common interest.
Through features like forums, groups, and wikis, you will be able to collaborate and share knowledge and ideas quickly.
Your username and password to the CAMFT Community is the same as your username and password for the Members Only section of the CAMFT website. We are excited to have you be part of the CAMFT Community and hope you agree that this is another example of CAMFT's commitment to meeting the current and future needs of our members through the adoption of technology that adds value to your CAMFT membership experience.
To request a username and password send an e-mail to email@example.com.
If you have questions, please send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com.
CAMFT Community Terms of Use


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Sunday, August 1, 2010
Hawaiian Punch With a Punch
To my faithful followers, I've been quite lax lately with my posting. I've had strep throat since Wednesday. Who gets strep throat in the middle of summer?? The poor kids have been dining on dinners of hot dogs, chicken nuggets, and whatever the husband can put together on his own. Unfortunately, the girls' birthday party doesn't wait for me to get feeling better. Thankfully, my mom made the cakes. So all I was charged with was decorations and drinks. Thing #3 wanted a luau theme, and Thing #4 wanted pink and purple. Thankfully, those were quite easy to merge. With a luau theme, the obvious drink was Hawaiian Punch. Well, sick or not, I can't sit aside and do nothing! So we made Hawaiian Punch with a Punch!
What you'll need:
Hawaiian Punch
Polar Punch
2-3 Oranges
1 Lemon
2 liter lemon/lime soda
The day before, fill a few ice trays with the Polar Punch and freeze.
To make the punch, slice up one orange and one lemon and place it bottom of pitcher. Fill up half way to three quarters with Hawaiian Punch. Let this sit in the refrigerator for 2 hours. To really infuse the citrus flavors, lightly press on the fruits with a wooden spoon before adding punch.
Fill the rest of the pitcher with soda. Garnish pitcher with a slice of fruit or two.
To serve, put a couple of the Polar Punch cubes into the cup and fill with Hawaiian Punch.
And if you're curious, here's how the cakes looked:
This post was linked to sites listed on this page
15 comments:
- Lana said...
Have any thoughts on November birthdays for girls? I am thinking we might have a hayride if it's not too cold.
- August 1, 2010 at 10:06 PM
- Jen said...
A good party theme for girls any time of year is a day at the spa. You can do manicures, pedicures, facials, etc!
- August 2, 2010 at 1:24 PM
- Brenda said...
Sounds wonderful!
- August 3, 2010 at 1:03 PM
- Proud Wifey And Mommii of 3 said...
I am your newest follower from FMBT. Look forward to reading more from your blog.
If you have time please check out my blog.
- August 3, 2010 at 1:17 PM
- furygirl3132 said...
This sounds really good and my girls would really love it!
I am a new follower from Follow Me Back Tuesday, so glad to have found your blog. Hope you have a wonderful day!
- August 3, 2010 at 2:30 PM
I'm your newest follower. http://moogieland.blogspot.com/
- August 3, 2010 at 5:05 PM
- Ava said...
new follower hi there
- August 3, 2010 at 8:00 PM
- JHill said...
Thanks for linking up to the Mad Skills party!
- August 3, 2010 at 8:20 PM
- Shining 2 Save said...
I'll have to try that! I am a new follower from Follow Me Back Tuesday
Hope you can stop by and visit my blog!
Have a great week!
- August 4, 2010 at 1:43 AM
- Ginger said...
Easy and fun! I like it! Thanks for linking up to Mad Skills Monday!
- August 4, 2010 at 7:13 PM
- Shelley said...
I am a new follower and I found you at the Social Parade. I hope you can check out my blog at http://mylifeadventurebyme.blogspot.com/ .
- August 5, 2010 at 9:42 PM
- Organic Girl said...
Happy Friday Follow Organic Girl andTodays Diva
- August 5, 2010 at 9:43 PM
- Lianne said...
New Follower,looks like we have some things in common, I'll be back to check out your blog often. Check out my blog as well http://familylife-lianne.blogspot.com/
Thanks Lianne
- August 5, 2010 at 10:07 PM
- Mom's Review for you said...
Just wanted to let you know that I am following. I would love it if you could follow me back!
- August 6, 2010 at 11:57 PM
- Its A Blog Party said...
What a great idea! It sounds delish!
Thanks for linking up!
- August 9, 2010 at 5:05 PM


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man and women in which
the Independence is Equal,
the Dependence mutual and
the Obligation Reciprocal".
Best wishes for Happy Wedding Anniversary.
Happy Anniversary and May your marriage be Blessed with love,
joy And companionship For all the years of your lives!
I LOVE U are words just three,
which mean so much on our ANNIVERSARY.
so this is what i want to say,
live in my heart n there 4 ever stay!
Long after our anniversary
Hoping that the love u shared years ago
Is still as strong today as it was
then Bringing u much joy , love
and happiness To celebrate again.
Happy Anniversary


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Welcome to GeorgiaWoodworkers.com
GeorgiaWoodworkers.com is a public resource for woodworkers in Georgia and for people looking for woodworkers in Georgia. Primarily GeorgiaWoodworkers.com lists all the woodworking clubs in Georgia plus woodworking related vendors and resources available to those woodworkers.
Would you like to join a local woodworking club in your area?
All the Georgia woodworking clubs are listed on GeorgiaWoodworkers.com.
Would your woodworking club like to get more visibility and recognition?
Post your articles on GeorgiaWoodworkers.com.
Does your woodworking club struggle to create and maintain a website?
Let GeorgiaWoodworkers.com help.
Are you looking for a skilled, reliable, recommended woodworker in Georgia for your home or business woodworking project?
GeorgiaWoodworkers.com can help you find the help you need.
We will progress to including information to help woodworkers learn new skills and sell their products. We will be working to help local instructors match their skills with the needs and interests of local woodworkers. If you have information we should list, please contact us so we can help others just like you.
If you are interested in advertising on this site, please contact us today for rates and details.
Paul Proffitt - (About GeorgiaWoodworkers.com )
The Mission of GeorgiaWoodworkers.com
The goals and benefits of the GeorgiaWoodworkers.com website are to:
- Make it easier for Georgia woodworkers to share ideas and find common interests
- Make it easier for Georgia woodworkers to find local woodworking clubs in their area
- Make it possible for the public in Georgia to find woodworkers for their projects
- Promote products and services from Georgia woodworkers
- Facilitate and promote the exchange of instructors among Georgia woodworking clubs
Comments, ideas, concerns, suggestions and opinions are always considered and appreciated. Please contact Paul Proffitt to help make this a better site for you and your local Georgia woodworking club.
GW Extras
Club Meetings
|Wed Jun 19 @ 7:00PM - 09:00PM
Atlanta Woodturners Guild
|Thu Jun 20 @ 6:30PM - 08:30PM
Georgia Assoc of Woodturners
|Sat Jun 22 @ 8:00AM - 09:30AM
Gwinnett Woodworkers Association
|Mon Jun 24 @ 6:00PM - 09:00PM
Classic City Woodturners
|Mon Jun 24 @ 6:00PM - 08:00PM
Blue Ridge Carvers
|Mon Jun 24 @ 6:00PM - 08:00PM
Flint River Wood Carvers
|Wed Jun 26 @12:01AM -
Low Country Turners
|Thu Jun 27 @ 1:30PM - 04:00PM
Tucker Chippers


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The best anniversaries get celebrated. Others get commemorated, observed or simply remembered. This is one of those.
Twenty-five years ago on this date, "Pistol" Pete Maravich died suddenly after a pick-up basketball game in Pasadena, Calif. He was 40 years old.
Lots of great things in NBA history happened on Jan. 5. Wilt Chamberlain scored 50 or more points on that day for four consecutive seasons (1960-1963). Magic Johnson dished 22 assists against Philadelphia on Jan. 5, 1983, then Nick Van Exel (1997) and Rajon Rondo (2011) pushed that to 23. Hall of Famer Alex English was born on Jan. 5, 1954 and four-time All-Star Spencer Haywood made his NBA debut on that day in 1971.
Maravich's plans for Jan. 5, 1988, though, were hardly memorable, his expectations low, as Bill Dwyre writes in the Los Angeles Times:
Everything seemed normal that morning in the gymnasium at the First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena. Maravich had flown in from his Louisiana home to do some radio work with James Dobson. Maravich had become a born-again Christian. Dobson was the nationally known head of Focus on the Family …
Dobson, 6 feet 5, was then 51, loved sports, was once captain of the tennis team at Pasadena City College and put together morning pickup basketball games at Nazarene on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. This was a Tuesday, but it was a special day.
The guy with the scraggly hair and floppy socks was joining the game.
Maravich had been out of the NBA for eight years, his dazzling professional career curtailed after 10 seasons by knee injuries. But when he played, and particularly when he felt healthy, there was no better show and few more effective scorers: Across seven seasons – from his third with Atlanta through his fifth with the New Orleans Jazz – the scrawny, 6-foot-5 gunner averaged 26.1 points with 4.5 rebounds, 5.8 assists and 1.4 steals in 38.7 minutes.
He also averaged 23.1 field-goal attempts – a significant drop from the 38.1 he launched in three seasons at LSU, when he set the NCAA career scoring mark of 44.2 points. Maravich was a five-time NBA All-Star who became the youngest person elected to the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1987, and he still ranks among the NBA's top 100 in several career categories (field goals, shots, free throws, assists per game), including 20th at 24.2 ppg.
None of that, however, even scratches the surface of the showmanship Maravich brought to the court as a ball handler and passer. "A white Globetrotter," Dwyre called him. And there was this:
He could spin the ball on his fingertip and dribble between his legs and behind his back as routinely as he could walk. His shooting range was anywhere inside the gymnasium.
A recent article by Yahoo.com's Jeff Eisenberg quoted former Georgia guard Herb White on the challenge of guarding Maravich, especially with the myriad screens set by LSU teammates.
"It was like trying to catch a housefly in a really dark room full of refrigerators," White said.
No one harbored ambitions like that when Maravich, Dobson, former UCLA center Ralph Drollinger and three others picked sides for some 3-on-3 action in Pasadena.
"Pete was the same," says Drollinger, who was 34 at the time. "Droopy socks, floppy hair. I always said you couldn't guard him by watching his hair. It always went the opposite way of his body."
They played three-on-three for about 20 minutes and took a break. Drollinger walked to a drinking fountain and then Maravich — standing near Dobson, and just after proclaiming "I feel great" — collapsed. There were a few seconds, Drollinger says, "when we all thought he was faking, just joking."
You can't fake foaming at the mouth, and soon, Dobson and Drollinger were doing CPR.
Maravich was gone. The trip to St. Luke's Hospital and two-hour wait was a formality. An autopsy, Dwyre wrote, revealed that Maravich, that whippet-thin court magician, had racked up all those minutes and highlights without a left coronary artery in his heart. His right coronary enlarged and ultimately gave out.
When the NBA named its Top 50 players in 1996, all of the league's legends were alive – George Mikan, Dolph Schayes, Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, Chamberlain and on and on – and most of them showed up at the 1997 All-Star Game in Cleveland. Except for Maravich, who was represented by his sons.
The Top 50 team was linked to the NBA's debut a half-century earlier (1946-47), part of an anniversary that truly was celebrated. The one on this day in 2013 is better off commemorated or simply observed: "Pistol" Pete Maravich, R.I.P. (June 22, 1947 – Jan. 5, 1988).


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Barton's father, Will, mother Marie Najera and stepfather R.J. Lonsdale were on hand along with family friends and supporters.
"This is just unbelievable," the senior Barton shouted over the music as he surveyed the jammed Humphreys Backstage Lounge.
Barton's 20-year-old son, a 2010 PLHS alum, was shot three times in the early morning hours of Oct. 29 as he walked to his dad's house after a late-night restaurant work shift. The shooter, a wanted criminal who mistook Barton for a police officer, was shot to death in a shootout with police on Halloween night in Barrio Logan.
Though the younger Barton was given less than a 1 percent chance of survival, Barton has watched his son fight through grave injuries to reach his current rehabilitation battle. One bullet remains lodged in his son's brain.
Three weeks in intensive care, multiple surgeries and the intense work of dozens of doctors and physical therapists has run up astronomical medical bills on Barton's insurance. Adding further stress, the insurance company has reportedly attempted to evict the younger Barton from the rehabilitation facility where he undergoes hours of daily work therapy while learning to walk again.
But on Jan. 19, the music of three different bands kept the energy level high inside the Shelter Island venue, as the six-hour event saw donors show up by the dozens from the moment doors opened.
A $10 donation was requested at the door by event organizer Rhonda Pitta and a crew of volunteers. Participants gingerly moved about the standing-room-only space, selling raffle tickets for items that were given away hourly during band breaks and changes.
In the facility's hallway, Pitta's helpers set up about three dozen donated items up for silent auction, including a one-week stay in a Vail, Colo. resort, sportfishing trips and much more. Donors swarmed over the items, adding their names to lists even after the auction prices had exceeded the items' stated values.
Lines at the lounge bar were six or more deep as Peninsula residents partied in support of one of their own.
Bands included Temple of the Dads, The Mike Britt Band and The Weener Pigs.
Humphreys donated the lounge's use.
Donations to assist with Barton's medical bills continue to be accepted through the "Friends of Will Barton Fund" at Chase Bank, 1740 Rosecrans St., San Diego 92106.
Cards and letters may be sent to Barton at 3366 Herman Ave., San Diego, 92104.


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Grant approved to build giant gator
When one thinks of 100-foot alligators, the first thing that probably comes to mind is a sci-fi horror flick. However, Gator Country, a Beaumont park and 15-acre reservation known for its alligators, crocodiles and snakes, plans to create such a monster.
At a June 17 Jefferson County Commissioners Court meeting, commissioners approved a Hotel Occupancy Tax grant recommended by the Jefferson County Tourism Committee in the amount of $3,000 for a Gator Country project that involves the construction of a 100-foot long alligator landmark. The open mouth of the gator will measure approximately 20 feet tall with the back measuring 12 to 14 feet tall, according to Gary Saurage, owner of Gator Country and cast member of CMT's "Gator 911." The gator will be a wooden structure finished with a 25-gauge non-corrugated metal. Saurage said he plans to erect the landmark facing eastbound I-10 traffic alongside the highway in front of the park's property at 21159 FM 365 to attract passersby.
"As you're coming from Houston into Beaumont, you'll see the big, open mouth of the alligator," he said.
Saurage, who compared his creation to the 67-foot-tall Sam Houston Statue in Huntsville, said the gator would attract families for a great photo opportunity.
"You'll be able to walk up into the mouth and take a picture in the mouth," Saurage said. "It's going to be something. It will be in every magazine you can imagine."
Volunteers and Saurage himself will perform the labor for the project, which is estimated to total 550 hours, he said.
"We're going to start next week, and we're going to push it hard so that we can get it done in 60 days before our tourism season is over."
Saurage said that a study by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) found that 1,857 vehicles pass Gator Country per hour. He said that the landmark would not only attract tourists to the park, but it would also help bring business to surrounding hotels and restaurants because after spending a few hours at the park, visitors might want to look for a place to eat in the area or a hotel to stay in.
"Our overall goal, as entities working together, is to try to get people to spend money in Jefferson County," he said.
Businesses from Southeast Texas are welcome to advertise their destination to tourists by placing signs on Gator Country's fence surrounding the park for no cost, Saurage said.
Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick said he hopes this 100-foot beast will benefit the county rather than terrorize it.
"What we'd like to see is our money being spent on things that will put heads in beds," Branick said. "This is one piece of the tourism pie. I guess at the end of the day, the question is going to be is it going to pay for itself or put people in hotel rooms. The tourism commission feels like it is a worthwhile endeavor. I hope that they're correct."
Bill Bianchi, vice chair of the Jefferson County Tourism Committee and VP/general manager at Eleganté Hotel and Conference Center, said Saurage brought a convincing proposal before the committee with the premise that the landmark would better attract tourism to Beaumont and that some motorists were currently overlooking his park.
"A majority of the commission basically agreed with him," Bianchi said.
The park applied for a $6,000 emergency Hotel Occupancy Tax grant June 11 through the county to help fund the $12,000 project, but the Jefferson County Tourism Commission only approved $3,000, said Kathi Hughes, liaison between the tourism committee and the Commissioners Court and director of the Ben J. Rogers Regional Visitors Center. The grant was considered an emergency grant because the application was not received during the normal two grant cycle months of March and September, she said.
The funds from the grant come from tax money collected from hotels in the county.
"When you stay in a hotel in Jefferson County, you pay 15 percent occupancy tax," Hughes said. "Out of that 15 percent, 6 percent goes to the state, 7 percent goes to the city and 2 percent goes to the county. It pays for the running of the Visitors Center, and the rest is given out as tourism-related grants. The Tourism Committee makes recommendations to Jefferson County Commissioners Court on grants."
The Beaumont Convention and Visitors Bureau is providing $5,000 to the project — money from the 7 percent the city of Beaumont receives from hotel taxes.
"We see it as an investment," said Dean Conwell, executive director of the Beaumont CVB and appointed member of the Jefferson County Tourism Committee. "We have problems getting people off the road because there is nothing that says this place is some place special. (The gator) gives us highway exposure. People are going to go over there, take a picture and put it on Facebook. People will get off the highway and hopefully spend some money with the county."
Gator Country will fund the remaining $4,000 and is looking for volunteers with carpentry knowledge to help construct the 100-foot structure. Interested parties should contact Gary Saurage at (409) 794-9453 for more information.


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First I read from the Seeds of Science book and YouTube video clips that I posted on the blog yesterday. Then we explored our candy!
I bought a huge pack of Wonka candy.... with Nerds, BottleCaps, Sweet Tarts and Laffy Taffy in it. We were able to see a reaction with all of the candy types except for the banana flavored Laffy Taffy. I wonder if it wasn't sour enough?
The reason for the reaction? Sour candy is made with citric acid from fruits like lime/lemons. When you mix the candy diluted in water with baking soda, it emits a gas. It only emits the gas if it encounters an acid.
We made a lot of observations - we noticed that a lot of the food coloring from the candy was diluted in the water. We noticed that the baking soda sunk and made clumps on the candy. We noticed many bubbles. Nerds made the most bubbles.
Here is how I set up the materials. I put the baking soda in the bowl with three spoons. I had a measuring cup with water in it and clear glasses. I also put the collection of candy on the tray. For listening purposes, we stated the directions one at a time:
1. Get a clear cup
2. Pick your candy
3. Pour the water in (you may want an adult to do this)
4. Put in a spoonful of baking soda.
5. Watch and Observe
After it was completed, we graphed our results according to the candies chosen. In this rotation, all the candies had a reaction.
It was a fun day! I did this five times - with five different classes for our "Math/Science Day".
Hope you will enjoy it too!


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Bobby (Nobody) Lee Pagan
Bobby (Nobody) Lee Pagan, age 81, of Arkadelphia passed from this life on Tuesday, December 24, 2013 at his home.
Funeral services will be held at 10:00 AM Saturday at Welch Funeral Home with Rev. Hollis McDermott officiating. Interment will be in the Golden Cemetery. Visitation will be from 9:00 AM until service time on Saturday. Memorials may be made to Golden Cemetery Fund c/o Elizabeth Garner, 6580 Hwy 8 West Arkadelphia AR 71923.Visit www.welchfh.net to sign the guest book and view the video tribute.


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I've still been around on twitter and tumblr and occasionally fotki but I've been missing posts longer than 140 characters that don't include cute bunnies eating bananas and the like.
Let's play catch up, shall we? ROLL THE HIGHLIGHTS!
Since my last post, I graduated from college (again!) on May 14, 2011!
And I turned in my creative thesis (i.e. my book of poetry) on November 15, 2011 and was officially awarded my Master of Fine Arts in Writing.
On Valentine's Day 2012, I finally started submitting my book out to publishing contests. Cross your fingers for me, okay? I really want to get this thing published! I need it!
*insert picture of YOU crossing your fingers*
Also, somewhere in that mix I was happy, sad, angry, sleepy, grumpy, perky, and I dyed my hair and it grew a lot, lol.
And here we are . . . May 9, 2012. I'm still a college professor (well, technically a "lecturer" but, eh, I like the sound of professor better, don't you?) and we're about to go on summer break. Yay for breaks! I've gone back to retail for the summer in a management position so I'm exhausted all the time but it's a good exhausted because they give me money, lol. Anyway, I have good news . . . CUE THE NEWS!
Sunday night it hit me -- I want to go to school again! Yeah, I know, I know . . . I'm a college professor so I'm in school all the time. What I mean is I want to be a student again . . . specifically a doctoral student. That's right . . . Ph. D. application time, baby!
So, I figured I'd dust this blog off . . . get to logging my experiences again. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll try to gussy up the place (I'm a bit over the large bee and yellow).
And for kicks . . . a cute bunny eating a banana!
TTYL - bsquared86


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Wabash Will Hold Its 167th Commencement Todayby Karen Handley • May 3, 2005 Share:
Wabash College will hold its 167th Commencement on Sunday, May 15. Baccalaureate will begin at 11 a.m. in the Chapel and Commencement, which includes the awarding of two honorary degrees, will take place at 2:30 p.m. on the College mall.
Receiving honorary degrees are Alecia A. DeCoudreaux and Lee S. Shulman.
DeCoudreaux is secretary and deputy general counsel of Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis. She graduated from Wellesley in 1976 and earned her law degree from the Indiana University School of Law. She joined Lilly first as an attorney, later as director of community relations, and earned eight promotions in just 12 years, representing Lilly and its Research Labs to the state and federal government. She is devoted to the Women's Fund of Central Indiana, the Women's Initiative of the United Way of Central Indiana, and Big Brothers, Big Sisters. She serves as a trustee of Wellesley; is a director of the Indiana University Foundation; serves as a member of the Indiana School of Law Board of Visitors; and is on the Indiana University President's Council.
Shulman is an author, scholar, and president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy and his doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Chicago. He founded the Institute for Research on Teaching at Michigan State University, and in 1982 began a distinguished career at Stanford University as teacher, scholar, and administrator. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash.
Thomas G. Long, Professor of Preaching at Candler Divinity School, Emory University, will deliver the Baccalaureate sermon on Sunday.
Commencement speakers are two of the 171-member graduating class, Ryan P. Feeback and Justin R. Grimmer.
Feeback is a Dean's List student who majored in religion at Wabash. A member and officer of Sigma Chi fraternity, Feeback participated in the Celebration of Student Research, Scholarship, and Creative Work. As a junior he was awarded the John N. Mills Prize in Religion. He is a native of Bluffton, Indiana, and is the son of Mr. and Mrs. David Feeback.
Grimmer is an honors graduate who majored in mathematics and political science. A native of Griffith, Indiana, he routinely made the Wabash Dean's List and presented at the Celebration of Student Research, Scholarship, and Creative Work. As a junior he received the Cassel Political Science Award, the Lewis Salter Memorial Award, and the Schmutte Award for the Outstanding Paper in Economics. He was also a columnist for The Bachelor. He is the son of Karl and Becky Grimmer.
Throughout the weekend there will be a variety of cultural events on campus including the Wabash Senior Art Majors' Exhibition in the Eric Dean Gallery in the Fine Arts Center. Featured will be James Ross, Shaylan Owen, Jacob Catt, and Shay Atkinson. Gallery hours are from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
The Wabash Bookstore will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and Saturday and from noon to 2:30 p.m. Sunday.


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Ex-magazine 2010
Once a year STAHL publishes the Ex-magazine. A valuable magazine for anyone dealing with explosion protection. In the various articles problems and solutions are discussed concerning issues which you may encounter in practice. Attention is also given to the development and interpretation of the Ex-standards.
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*** Remark for subscribers ***
Note: this year the magazine will not be sent automatically to the subscribers. Please order your copy online.


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Central Connecticut volleyball freshman Makenna Lommori was named Molten/Northeast Conference Rookie of the Week for the second time this season. She also picked up her first NEC Defensive Player of the Week honor for her performance over the weekend at the Temple Invitational. The NEC made the announcement on Monday in its weekly report.
Lommori was named the "Best Setter" at the Temple Invitational after recording 100 assists and a 9.09 assist/set average over three matches last week. She contributed match totals of 39, 37 and 24 assists, while also helping the offense with 12 kills and four aces.
On defense, Lommori displayed her well rounded game with 30 digs and 14 total blocks. Lommori opened the weekend with 12 digs and 6.0 blocks against Temple. The following day against Cornell she picked up nine digs and again had 6.0 blocks, but with two solo blocks. She completed the weekend with nine digs and 2.0 blocks against Navy.
For the season, Lommori has 391 assists and a 7.67 assist/set average. Over the last two weeks she is averaging 9.35 assists/set. She has also contributed 58 kills, 14 aces, 115 digs and 35 blocks this season.
Lommori and the Blue Devils will return to action this weekend with a pair of NEC road matches. Central will play at St. Francis (NY) on Saturday and Fairleigh Dickinson on Sunday.


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Why does a business needs an advisory board and How an advisory board can help your business reach higher goals?
Advisory Boards for Better Business
While watching this video I learned that many companies would never hire an advisory board because they fear someone disagreeing with them.
A CEO may feel that saying "I need help" is a discredit to themselves, but actually admitting that input from non-friends might be the best thing an owner could do.
If your business needs some outside opinions rather than Yes Men to get advice from…an Advisory Board may be just the answer.
Don't be afraid of others opinions, use them to build a better business!
Watch the video linked above to hear how an advisory board can help and how to find one that will fit your needs.


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Cortland Sling Adjustable Chaise Lounge
Sale price
Regular price
Cortland Sling Adjustable Chaise Lounge
A relaxed blend of cozy comfort and sophisticated style, Cortland takes the outdoors seriously. Constructed with beauty and longevity in mind, Cortland combines superb design and luscious fabrics with hefty welding and brilliant craftsmanship. With timeless details and a rust-proof, aluminum frame, this sizable collection from Woodard features countless fabric and finish options to suit varying tastes and needs.
Custom Order Lead Time 15- 20 Business Days.
Made in the USA.
Custom Options
Why have your patio or patio furniture look like everyone else's when you don't have to? At Danny Vegh's we offer a wide variety of quality patio furniture that you can customize and make your own.
Choose your frame style, finish, and fabric. Mix swivel dining chairs with stationary dining around a dining table or fire table. The possibilities are endless!
Our Sales Professionals are trained to know the latest trends and design styles to meet your design needs.
Stop by your local Danny Vegh's to see our selections and learn more on designing your dream patio!
About Woodard
For over 150 years, Woodard craftsmen have designed and manufactured products loyal to the timeless art of quality furniture design and construction. Using both the age-old art of hand forming and the latest in high-tech manufacturing processes, Woodard remains committed to creating products that will provide years of enjoyment.
Each piece of Iron is hand-formed using solid iron stock to ensure the strongest furniture in the industry. The handcrafted technique used to create intricate iron details has been handed down from generation to generation.
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Woodard All-Weather Woven furniture is constructed using cutting edge HDPE fibers, hand woven over a painted aluminum frame. With this combination of resilient, weather-resistant materials and Woodard's quality workmanship, our woven furniture will last for years.
Woodard furniture is available in a large selection of finishes and fabrics to fit any style or setting. Woodard also offers a wide variety of umbrellas and other accessory pieces that are sure to enhance any outdoor living space.
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Router with integrated switch reduces cyber attack risk
Moxa's EDR-810 is a Gigabit-performance secure router with built-in managed switch with industrial-grade 8+2G secure router and Firewall/NAT/VPN and managed L2 switching functions, which allows it to transmit data efficiently while protecting the network and critical devices from cyber attacks. Firewall policies can control network traffic between different trust zones, and Network Address Translation (NAT) shields the internal LAN from unauthorized activity from outside hosts which is a much more secure architecture than just NAT alone. Additionally, the EDR-810-2GSFP-VPN adds Virtual Private Networking (VPN) which is designed to provide users with secure communication tunnels when accessing a private network from the public Internet.
The EDR-810 is designed for networks that need secure remote access or remote monitoring of field assets, such as pumping/treatment systems in water stations, DCS systems in oil and gas applications, and PLC/SCADA systems in factory automation, the EDR-810 creates an electronic security perimeter to protect critical cyber assets. To secure Ethernet fieldbus networks that use Modbus TCP, the EDR-810 performs deep Modbus TCP protocol packet inspection using PacketGuard technology.
The EDR-810 can hazards such as high EMC interference and extreme temperatures from -40 to 75 C. (-40 to 165 F)
Moxa Americas Inc.
– See more Control Engineering industrial network products.
Want this article on your website? Click here to sign up for a free account in ContentStream® and make that happen.


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By Dorene Internicola
NEW YORK, March 17 (Reuters) - Time, money and the Internet are changing where Americans work out, fitness experts say.
Time-pressed fitness fans seeking short, focused workouts are flocking to boutique studios specializing in everything from indoor cycling to boot camp, and the no-frills gyms that burgeoned during the financial recession are still thriving in the recovery.
Cedric X. Bryant, chief science officer with the American Council on Exercise, believes fitness has taken a minimalist turn that encourages smaller venues.
"From a training perspective, we're going back to basics, away from more complex equipment," he said. "The simpler exercise approaches of popular trends like boot camp and CrossFit and High Intensity Interval Training require less space and less sophisticated equipment."
All of which, Bryant said, lends itself to economically sized, and priced, gyms. He expects the trend to continue because the workouts are effective.
"Time is always a big barrier for folks, so there will always be this lure to the minimal," Bryant said.
Nearly one in five Americans is a health club consumer, according to a 2014 report by IHRSA, the International Health and Racquet Club, an industry trade association.
While membership has remained more or less steady, IHRSA reports a shift in the past few years from large multipurpose clubs to smaller gyms, boutique or sport-specific studios and fitness-only facilities, many of which are franchised.
In the realm of no-frills gyms, Planet Fitness, which charges just $10 a month, is arguably king.
The company's chief executive officer, Chris Rondeau, recently announced the franchise had reached a milestone of 5 million members systemwide.
"I always say we're selling pizza, they're selling cheeseburgers," said Rondeau. "We're geared to the first-time exerciser, the beginner, as opposed to the more fanatical exercisers and the body builders."
To keep the price low, Planet Fitness has no personal trainers, daycare, pools or spas, and there are no group fitness classes and no plans to add any.
"We're keeping true to our low price point," Rondeau said.
Cost is the number one reason both men and women cancel gym memberships or refrain from purchasing one at all, according to IHRSA's 2014 trend report.
Even the big-box gyms are getting into the franchise game.
Donna Cyrus, senior vice president of programming at Crunch fitness centers, which has its own franchise model, Crunch Essentials, said these days there are many more options at lower price points.
"More people go to McDonald's than dine at higher-end restaurants," said Cyrus, adding that people just don't have to think that hard about spending $10 a month. "They forget it's even on their credit card, she said.
Cyrus believes the financial downturn was the tipping point. "That's when people started saying to themselves, 'They're taking $80 a month out of my Visa and I never go,'" she said.
Cyrus said the downside of cut-rate gyms is service and space. "You must keep the programming very limited," she said. "There are only so many treadmills, and often only one studio or one room."
Cyrus attributes the rise of the specialty studios at least partly to the time constraints of the Internet age.
"One-stop shopping is why small spaces are doing well. It's often the least amount of time for the maximum workout," she said. "These days you want to consolidate because the time you're exercising is that much time you're off Facebook or Twitter or whatever."
But she noted that many successful one-note studios are beginning to diversify, with indoor cycling venues adding barre classes and yoga-based programs.
"They are getting out of the box that people went to them for in the first place," Cyrus said. "When it's only one modality something is lost."
Cyrus, who has been in the business for 20 years, says fitness is like a wave: "It's like fashion. It comes and goes." (Editing by Patricia Reaney and Leslie Adler)


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derekhuether needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 106 designs submitted by 18 freelance designers.
The company is being launched to support a product being deployed in the next 30 days. In a nutshell, we created a flashcard engine. It's a scalable product that will allow us to create flashcards for any market and deploy to new websites or platforms. In the future, the flashcards will sync between desktop, web app, and mobile app. (Think Evernote) Each site will link back to HueCubed.com.
HueCubed is an ambiguous company name. This logo is for the company website. The audience will be people who have found me via twitter. http://twitter.com/derekhuether or from my website http://thecriticalpath.info. I work in the IT Project Management arena but don't let that be a distraction.
Based on analytics, there will be a lot of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari users. This isn't designed for IE6 users. There will also be a lot of iPhone users.
I'm looking for something with dimension to it. That could be as simple as a drop shadow. Or have a flat layer and then a dimensional layer with shine or gradient color(s). Look at http://www.huecubed.com and see what the site looks like. You'll notice it's very black and white. I want this logo to pop.
The original logo was comprised of the three uppercase letters "HUE" and one superscript three "³" (ALT+0179). The 2 original ideas I had were "Hue to the power of 3" or "a cube of color".
Again, surprise me! It's all about being creative.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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Green is the new school color at many universities. Education construction, which is valued at $53 billion for 2007, is the fastest growing sector for green building, according to McGraw-Hill Construction. In the past seven years, more than 8,000 new buildings have registered for Leadership in Energy Efficient Design (LEED) certification, and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), which awards LEED certifications, has awarded the certification to 1,059 of those buildings. About 7 percent of those projects are for colleges and universities, according to the USGBC, a nonprofit organization with 11,500 member organizations.
The green campus trend, which includes sustainable design for student recreation centers, will continue to grow if the 400 college and university presidents who are part of the Higher Education Associations' Sustainability Consortium (HEASC) have their way. Members of this group have pledged to pursue climate neutrality on their campuses. The presidents are developing their own comprehensive plans to achieve this goal for their campuses, but each president is also encouraged to establish a policy that all their new campus construction will be built to at least the LEED Silver standard or equivalent, according to Katherine Otten, spokesperson for the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA), which is a member of HEASC.
"This is an area that is only going to become more important and more 'real' to our members as college and university presidents commit to sustainability and begin to implement plans that affect the operations of the entire campus," Otten says.
NIRSA is working with its member colleges and universities to implement sustainable rec center design that improves air and water quality, conserves natural resources, reduces operating costs and optimizes life-cycle economic performance.
Student Support
The USGBC created a green building rating system as a voluntary, third-party certification to recognize high-performance green buildings that are more environmentally responsible, healthier and more profitable, according to the organization. Colleges and universities that are pursuing LEED certification can earn up to 69 points for each project. Depending upon the number of points earned, the facility will be awarded with a certification that ranges from the basic to the platinum level. (See "How to Earn LEED Points" on page 23.)
The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA, is just one college that has taken on the LEED challenge. Administrators there oversaw the design and construction of an $11.5 million rec center that included both a renovation of the existing building and a 40,000-square-foot addition. The project also involved recycled construction waste, conserved water usage, and installed carpet and paint with a low amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). For their conservation efforts, the college earned 29 LEED points for the project.
"I hope this is a trend that others will follow because there's a lot to be said for it," says Linda Knight, director of recreational sports for the college. "We know we did the right thing for our students both now and in the future. Our students are passionate about the environment, and they rallied behind the LEED certification."
Students at California State University-Fullerton (Cal State-Fullerton) are so passionate about their new rec center's green design that not one penny of the$40 million for the building came from the state of California. It was built, financed and operated solely by the students, who have been involved in the project since the beginning, says Andrea Willer, director of the rec center.
"They want to be responsible stewards of the environment and have given the design team the direction and authority to make responsible, environmentally friendly decisions," she says.
As of press time, the student rec center was at 70 percent completion. Willer plans to use the sustainable design choices in and around the center to educate students, faculty and staff as well as guests and visitors about sustainability. The educational outreach campaign, which includes print material, signage and tours, will start the first day the building is open for operation next spring.
"Our goal is to positively impact the decisions people make every day that affect our immediate environment and our world," Willer says.
Green building strategies result in long-term energy savings, but they often require an additional upfront investment. Administrators at Cal State-Fullerton paid $3,000 to register the project with the USGBC, says Jack Bage, associate director for design and construction for the university. The project's contractor also paid $50,000 to hire a consulting firm to facilitate the application and documentation process.
Higher initial cost was one of three challenges at William and Mary. The other challenges were the high level of documentation required for the project and the limited selection available in the environmentally friendly building materials, Knight says. Although going green is not the cheapest way to construct a rec center, Knight expects the energy savings will offset the upfront expense.
Energy Conservation
When a rec center decides to go green and pursue LEED certification, the university must earn points in five major areas: energy efficiency, water savings, material selection and resources, indoor environmental quality, and sustainable site development.
In the area of energy efficiency, university rec centers can trim electricity costs through the use of alternative energy or energy-efficient plants. The University of San Francisco installed photovoltaic panels on the rooftop of the Koret Health and Recreation Center. The panels, which are also on top of several other buildings on campus, will produce about 16 percent of the lower campus's peak electricity needs.
To conserve energy, the University of San Francisco operates a co-generation plant, which converts natural gas into electricity. Cal State-Fullerton went a similar route by investing $3.5 million in the construction of a stand-alone plant to serve the rec center and the neighboring student union. Supporting the union and the rec center through the cooling towers that serve the rest of the campus facilities would have overburdened cold water distribution systems designed to recharge during periods of non-peak utilities demand, says Kurt Borsting, director of the Titan Student Union.
The California State University system, which mandates green building projects on all of its campuses, is also constructing an energy-efficient rec center at California State University-Bakersfield. The project is part of a plan to reduce campus energy use by 15 percent and eliminate more than 2 million pounds of greenhouse emissions each year. Professional consultants identified areas of the campus where energy could be saved through modifications and upgrades. During the construction of the rec center, the design team will follow LEED guidelines.
Along with energy efficiency, universities are scoring additional LEED points with water conservation. Cal State-Fullerton will save about 200,000 gallons of water per year by installing low-flow toilets, urinals and shower heads. The university also conserved water by using low-flow irrigation. The system needs less water to perform the same function as a traditional spray system because the water is applied directly to the soil and eliminates the high evaporation rate of a spray system.
Another key element in the LEED certification process is material selection. University rec centers can earn points by using rapidly renewable materials as well as materials that are manufactured within 500 miles of the construction site. In the past, sustainable design was challenging due to the lack of core materials that were sustainable or recyclable, Willer says. Manufacturers, however, have changed their practices and now make products that have a payback from the start.
By renovating existing buildings rather than building new ones, universities can earn a point in the materials and resources category. William and Mary re-used75 percent of the existing building, and by not tearing down the facility, it saved energy and contributed to the rehabilitation of the structure, Knight says.
Moseley Architects, Virginia Beach, VA, designed the rec center for William and Mary. Jeff Hyder, project manager and architect for the company, says that the project involved the challenge of balancing energy efficiency with the energy required for air quality. In a rec center, it is important to have increased air movement, which requires more energy.
"It becomes challenging from the mechanical side," Hyder says. "Some of the points you would get in an office building aren't applicable to a rec center. You need to maximize the sustainability features in other areas of the building."
The William and Mary project team wanted to use the principle of daylighting, or maximizing the use of natural light, but faced a challenge because half of the first floor was underground. Cal State-Fullerton, however, was able to incorporate daylighting into its sustainable design. The university also improved the indoor-air quality with an efficiently designed air conditioning system that exhausts air from the showers and locker rooms directly outside. Fresh air is then mixed with the conditioned air to save energy.
Selecting paint, carpet, flooring and other materials with low VOC content levels is another way university rec centers can improve the indoor environmental quality in their facilities.
The USGBC not only emphasizes the importance of clean air, but it also awards points for alternative transportation as well as construction management recycling programs. At Cal State-Fullerton, the waste hauled from the job was separated at a material recycling facility and then sorted to determine the percentage of recyclable material. Of the 115 tons removed from the job site to date, the university is tracking a 71 percent waste diversion rate. By separating the recyclable and non-recyclable waste, a construction team can limit the amount of material that ends up at the landfill.
Commitment from Above
Despite the additional time and initial cost of sustainable design, university administrators, partially inspired by their students, have made sustainability a priority. University presidents have signed the Climate Commitment, which had 152 signatories in June 2007 and 400 as of press time. By signing the commitment, the university presidents pledge to complete an emissions inventory within two years, set a target date and interim guidelines for becoming climate neutral, take immediate steps to reduce greenhouse gases, integrate sustainability into the curriculum and make the action plan, inventory and progress reports publicly available.
Through these efforts to provide environmentally friendly facilities, universities can teach their students about energy conservation, Borsting says.
"By using the rec center, our students can learn that there are different ways to operate a building," he says. "They can carry that knowledge about sustainability into their businesses they run and the homes they own down the road."
How to Earn LEED Points
Universities can incorporate the following sustainability features into their rec centers to earn points toward Leadership in Energy Efficient Design (LEED) certification:
Sustainable Sites
- Public transportation, bicycle use, low-emitting and fuel-efficient vehicles
- Protection or restoration of habitat
- Maximization of open space
- Reduction of light pollution
- Joint use of facilities
Water Efficiency
- Water-efficient landscaping
- Innovative wastewater technologies
- Water-use reduction
Energy and Atmosphere
- Optimization of energy performance
- On-site renewable energy
- Green power
Materials and Resources
- Building re-use
- Construction waste management
- Materials re-use
- Recycled content
- Regional materials
- Rapidly renewable materials
Indoor Environmental Quality
- Increased ventilation
- Low-emitting materials
- Daylighting
- Lighting system design
- Mold prevention
Source: U.S. Green Building Council
LEED Point Levels
The level of Leadership in Energy Efficient Design (LEED) certification that university rec centers can receive depends on the number of points earned during the design and construction process. The four levels of certification are:
Certified: 26 to 32 points
Silver: 33 to 38 points
Gold: 39 to 51 points
Platinum: 52 points or more


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- / World & News
- / Countries of the World
- / Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
Facts & Figures
Sovereign: King Salman (2015)
Land area: 829,995 sq mi (2,149,690 sq km)
Population (2014 est.): 27,345,986 (growth rate: 1.49%); birth rate: 18.78/1000; infant mortality rate: 14.58/1000; life expectancy: 74.82; density per sq mi: 31
Capital and largest city (2011 est.): Riyadh, 5.451 million
Other large cities: Jeddah, 3.578 millioin; Makkah (Mecca), 1.591 million
Monetary unit: Riyal
- Saudi Arabia Main Page
- The Discovery of Oil and Political Evolution
- The Attacks of September 11, 2001, and Their Consequences
- King Shakes Up Government
- Saudi Arabi Makes Unprecedented Move at the UN
- Saudi Arabia Joins the Fight Against ISIS and Attacks Rebels in Yemen
- King Abdullah Dies and Landmark Election is Held in 2015
Saudi Arabia occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula, with the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba to the west and the Persian Gulf to the east. Neighboring countries are Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the Sultanate of Oman, Yemen, and Bahrain, connected to the Saudi mainland by a causeway. Saudi Arabia contains the world's largest continuous sand desert, the Rub Al-Khali, or Empty Quarter. Its oil region lies primarily in the eastern province along the Persian Gulf.
Saudi Arabia was an absolute monarchy until 1992, at which time the Saud royal family introduced the country's first constitution. The legal system is based on the sharia (Islamic law).
Saudi Arabia is not only the homeland of the Arab peoples—it is thought that the first Arabs originated on the Arabian Peninsula—but also the homeland of Islam, the world's second-largest religion. Muhammad founded Islam there, and it is the location of the two holy pilgrimage cities of Mecca and Medina. The Islamic calendar begins in 622, the year of the hegira, or Muhammad's flight from Mecca. A succession of invaders attempted to control the peninsula, but by 1517 the Ottoman Empire dominated, and in the middle of the 18th century, it was divided into separate principalities. In 1745 Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab began calling for the purification and reform of Islam, and the Wahhabi movement swept across Arabia. By 1811, Wahhabi leaders had waged a jihad—a holy war—against other forms of Islam on the peninsula and succeeded in uniting much of it. By 1818, however, the Wahhabis had been driven out of power again by the Ottomans and their Egyptian allies.
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is almost entirely the creation of King Ibn Saud (1882–1953). A descendant of Wahhabi leaders, he seized Riyadh in 1901 and set himself up as leader of the Arab nationalist movement. By 1906 he had established Wahhabi dominance in Nejd and conquered Hejaz in 1924–1925. The Hejaz and Nejd regions were merged to form the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, which was an absolute monarchy ruled by sharia. A year later the region of Asir was incorporated into the kingdom.
The Discovery of Oil and Political Evolution
Oil was discovered in 1936, and commercial production began during World War II. This oil-derived wealth allowed the country to provide free health care and education while not collecting any taxes from its people. Saudi Arabia was neutral until nearly the end of the war, but it was permitted to be a charter member of the United Nations. The country joined the Arab League in 1945 and took part in the 1948–1949 war against Israel. Saudi Arabia still does not recognize the state of Israel. On Ibn Saud's death in 1953, his eldest son, Saud, began an 11-year reign marked by an increasing hostility toward the radical Arabism of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser. In 1964, the ailing Saud was deposed and replaced by the prime minister, Crown Prince Faisal, who gave vocal support but no military help to Egypt in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
Faisal's assassination by a deranged kinsman in 1975 shook the Middle East, but it failed to alter his kingdom's course. His successor was his brother, Prince Khalid. Khalid gave influential support to Egypt during negotiations on Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Desert. King Khalid died of a heart attack in 1982, and he was succeeded by his half-brother, Prince Fahd bin 'Abdulaziz, who had exercised the real power throughout Khalid's reign. King Fahd chose his half-brother Abdullah as crown prince.
Saudi Arabia and the smaller oil-rich Arab states on the Persian Gulf, fearful that they might become Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's next targets if Iran conquered Iraq, made large financial contributions to the Iraqi war effort during the 1980s. At the same time, cheating by other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), competition from nonmember oil producers, and conservation efforts by consuming nations combined to drive down the world price of oil. At the time Saudi Arabia had one-third of all known oil reserves, but falling demand and rising production outside OPEC combined to reduce its oil revenues from $120 billion in 1980 to less than $25 billion in 1985, threatening the country with domestic unrest and undermining its influence in the Gulf area.
At the start of 1996, King Fahd passed authority to Crown Prince Abdullah, after suffering an incapacitating stroke. In 1998 the country's oil income fell by 40% because of a worldwide decline in prices, and it entered its first recession in six years.
In 2000, Saudi Arabia, along with other OPEC nations experiencing a recession, decided to reduce production to raise oil prices. In 2001, OPEC cut oil production three additional times.
The Attacks of September 11, 2001, and Their Consequences
Saudi Arabia's relations with the U.S. were strained after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks—15 of the 19 suicide bombers involved were Saudis. Despite the monarchy's close ties to the West, much of the extremely influential religious establishment has supported anti-Americanism and Islamic militancy. In Aug. 2003, following the U.S.-led war on Iraq in March and April 2003, the United States withdrew its troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. The U.S. had maintained troops in the country for the past decade, a source of great controversy in the strongly conservative Islamic country. One of the major reasons given for the Sept. 11 attacks by Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden was the presence of U.S. troops in the home of Islam's holiest sites, Medina and Mecca. On May 12, 2003, suicide bombers killed 34, including 8 Americans, at housing compounds for Westerners in Riyadh. Al-Qaeda was suspected. Saudi Arabia's commitment to antiterrorist measures was again called into question by the U.S. and other countries. In July, the U.S. Congress bitterly criticized Saudi Arabia's alleged financing of terrorist organizations. While the Saudi government arrested a sizable number of suspected terrorists, little was done to quell Islamic militancy in the kingdom. Several attacks against Westerners took place in 2003 and 2004.
In Feb. 2005, Saudi Arabia held its first elections ever: municipal council elections to choose half of the new council members in Riyadh. The other half continued to be appointed, in keeping with the previous Saudi system. Women were not eligible to vote, and less than a third of eligible voters registered.
In Aug. 2005, King Fahd bin 'Abdulaziz died. His half-brother Abdullah, who had been the de facto ruler of the country for the past decade, assumed the throne.
Saudi Arabia brokered talks between the Afghan government and Taliban leaders in September 2008. In the talks, the first attempt to end the protracted armed conflict, the Taliban said it is severing ties to al-Qaeda.
King Shakes Up Government
King Abdullah took bold steps to reshuffle his government in February 2009, promoting reformers, firing controversial officials, including the conservative head of the religious police and the country's most senior judge, and appointing his first-ever female minister, for women's education.
Saudi Arabia was largely spared the popular uprisings that spread throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa in early 2011, largely because King Abdullah remains popular among Saudis and the country's oil wealth provides a level stability not seen in countries such as Egypt. Nevertheless, unemployment among young Saudis is high, housing is in short supply, and there has been a push for broader civil liberties, particularly for women. In an attempt to prevent protests on Saudi soil, Abdullah, upon returning to Saudi Arabia after spending three months in Morocco recovering from back surgery, announced a $10 billion aid package that helps Saudis buy homes, start businesses, and marry.
In September 2011, King Abdullah granted women the right to vote and run for seats on the Shura council, which advises the King on policy issues. Women will not be allowed to vote until the next election cycle in 2015. Still, the decision is a significant victory for women in a country where they are not allowed to drive and must have a male chaperone with them in public at all times. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that has not granted women suffrage.
Saudi Arabia lifted the ban forbidding women from competing in the Olympic Games, and sent three athletes to London in 2012. In another advance for women's rights, 30 women took seats on the formerly all-male Shura council. It was an enormous step that met with opposition from conservative clerics. In October 2013, dozens of women got behind the wheel to protest the kingdom's ban on allowing women to drive. Police did little to stop the women from driving.
Saudi Arabi Makes Unprecedented Move at the UN
In the fall of 2013, Saudi Arabia became increasingly frustrated with the U.S.'s Middle East policy. First, Saudi Arabia, which supports the opposition in Syria, felt betrayed when President Obama backed off promises to aid the opposition. Saudi Arabia was further angered when Obama opted to pursue diplomacy over a military strike on Syria for its use of chemical weapons. In addition, Saudi Arabia felt threatened by the warming of relations between the U.S. and Iran, as well as by the reopening of multi-nation talks on Iran's nuclear weapons program. It feared that closer ties between the U.S. and Iran would compromise Saudi Arabia's standing in the Middle East. Finally, Saudi Arabia expressed frustration at the continued failure to achieve a deal on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. That anger played out at the United Nations. On Oct. 18, 2013, Saudi Arabia declined a nonpermanent seat on the Security Council, a position it had been working toward for several years. The unprecedented move stunned both the UN and U.S. diplomats. "Allowing the ruling regime in Syria to kill and burn its people by the chemical weapons, while the world stands idly, without applying deterrent sanctions against the Damascus regime, is also irrefutable evidence and proof of the inability of the Security Council to carry out its duties and responsibilities," the Saudi ambassador to the UN said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia Joins the Fight Against ISIS and Attacks Rebels in Yemen
In September 2014, Saudi Arabia joined the U.S.-led campaign in Syria against the radical Islamist group ISIS, which seeks to establish an Islamic state in the Middle East ruled by strict shariah law.
Houthi rebels gained considerable ground in Yemen in 2014 and 2015. In January 2015, they took over the capital, Sana, placed Yemeni president Abdel Rabbo Mansour Hadi under house arrest. The rebels then moved further south, engaging in battles with government troops. In an attempt to stop the Houthis from advancing further, Saudi Arabia led a coalition of Arab states in an offensive on Houthi targets in Yemen in late March 2015. More than 100 Saudi jets were involved in the airstrikes. A Saudi-led airstrike hit a camp for displaced civilians on March 30, killing as many as 40 people. The operation, called Decisive Storm, continued well into April but failed to stop the Houthis' advance. The fighting claimed hundreds of civilian lives, displaced as many as 150,000, and destroyed neighborhoods. An embargo of food and medicine, which the Saudis enforced, created a humanitarian crisis. On April 21, Saudi Arabia said the campaign, having achieved its goals, was over and the country would focus on a political solution. However, the main goals of the operation, to return President Hadi to office and rout the Houthis, were not achieved. Saudi Arabia resumed airstrikes the next day.
The Houthis are members of a political movement based in northern Yemen that have been challenging the government since 2004. They are backed by Iran and adhere to a branch of Shiite Islam, Zaydism. Saudi Arabia and other nations have accused Iran of arming the Houthis. The involvement of Saudi Arabia in the dispute runs the risk of inflaming tension or creating a broader conflict in the Middle East. Because of their religious beliefs, they are considered heretics by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which is also based in Yemen.
King Abdullah Dies and Landmark Election is Held in 2015
King Abdullah died on Jan. 23, 2015. He was believed to be 90. His half-brother, Crown Prince Salman, assumed the throne. Salman said he planned to continue with his predecessor's diplomatic and economic policies. In April 2015, King Salman reordered the of succession, naming Prince Mohammed bin Nayef as Crown Prince. Nayef is the first grandson of Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abdulaziz, to be Crown Prince. Nayef replaced Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, who was a protege of former King Abdullah.
For the first time, women in Saudi Arabia were allowed to vote and run for office in the milestone Dec. 2015 election. More than a dozen women won seats on local councils throughout the country. However, the newly elected female officials would only make up less than 1 percent of all council members and have limited power.
See also Encyclopedia: Saudi Arabia .
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes: Saudi Arabia
Central Department of Statistics http://www.planning.gov.sa/statistic/sindexe.htm


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A new study suggests Houma-Thibodaux has some of the unhappiest people in the country — among those on Twitter, anyway.
A new study suggests Houma-Thibodaux has some of the unhappiest people in the country — among those on Twitter, anyway.
The metro area, which includes all of Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes, ranks 10th lowest among 373 cities in the country in a study conducted by scientists from the University of Vermont that examined the emotions of the Twitterverse in 2011. They used a formula that quantifies the happiness of words and categorizes them by date, time and geography. Napa, Calif., topped the list as the happiest city.
Louisiana, in a similar study, was ranked the saddest state overall based on relative differences in the frequencies of happy and sad words on Twitter from 2008 to 2011. Hawaii topped the list as the happiest state.
The study looked at 10 million random geo-tagged tweets, or 80 million words, from Americans' smartphones, researchers wrote in the scientific journal PLoS ONE.
"Our overall objective is to use web-scale text analysis to remotely sense societal-scale levels of happiness using the singular source of the microblog and social networking service Twitter," the study's introduction says.
Volunteers for the study rated the sense of happiness of the various words using Amazon's Mechanical Turk, a Web service that enables humans to help machines perform human tasks.
"Laughter" got a high happiness score; "hate" a low one.
Lewis Mitchell, lead author of the study and post-doctoral researcher with the Computational Story Lab at the University of Vermont, said the tweets accounted for about 10 percent of all geo-tweets posted in 2011.
"Simply put, (the study) takes the words from those tweets, and it aims to produce an estimate of the average happy words in that city," Mitchell said.
For Houma, Mitchell said some of the words that contributed to the low happiness score include profanity and negative words such as "no," "don't," "not" and "bad."
"This is not to say that Houma is going to be a terrible place to be and that it's all going to be doom and gloom," he said. "This is a representation of the type of words people are using on Twitter," which may or may not be an indication of happiness in the city.
A flaw with the study, Mitchell said, is the context in which some words are used.
For instance, negative words used in a joke or for sarcasm may trigger a low score.
"We deliberately strip away all the context of the tweets we looked at," he said. "There is no meaning that we looked at. It is more like measuring temperature."
Mitchell said if researchers were going to give a one-number score to individual messages then the technique wouldn't be useful.
"It is only when we use hundreds of thousands of words that we start to find quantities that are more robust."
Though the study is interesting, it doesn't hold much clout, said Dean Hickman, department of psychiatry chairman at the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans.
It also directly contradicts a former study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which ranked Louisiana as the happiest state in the country in 2009, Hickman said.
The happiness ratings were based on a four-year survey of 1.3 million people across the country by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that asked people how satisfied they are with their lives.
The study indicated people who live in sunny, outdoorsy states — Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida — say they're the happiest Americans. The study ranked New York last in happiness.
"Houma's Twitterverse in 2011 likely was impacted by the BP spill," Hickman said. "Our climate, food, music and other aspects of our culture would counter this Twitter conclusion."
Lori Belanger, 28, of Houma, said the Twitter statistics are flawed.
"Sure, we have tons of problems with education, health care and constructive activities," she wrote on Facebook. "But who is mostly on Twitter? Youth, who think their life is over if they lose Internet privileges. In Houma, we face lots of adversity, but I see us as a happy place."
Belanger said local friends and family ties are strong, which contribute to people's collective happiness in Houma.
Mitchell agreed the study's method is still "very crude," but it's coming along.
"We are trying to quantify the unquantifiable," he said. "The grand idea is to come up with some society-level metric with this tool that measures how happy or sad people are."
In the future, Mitchell wants to be able look at other groups of words people look at online such as news articles or other academic journals and gauge their emotions.
"The interesting thing is looking beyond the one number and looking at the words that go into making up these scores," he said. "You can learn a lot from interpreting data from big sources like this."


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Last night's episode of Supernatural, "Of Grave Importance," demonstrated all the best and worst aspects of this season's take on monster-of-the-week episodes. The worldbuilding was great: With Bobby along for the ride, we got to learn a lot of fantastically interesting things about the (un)lives of ghosts. But at the same time, it was as if this break in the arc had given the writers license to throw out everything we know about Sam and Dean's history.
A cool setup
Let's begin with the best part of this episode, which was having Bobby around and so he could give us a tour of ghostworld. We begin with the boys getting a call from Annie, a hunter pal who is heading to a town nearby to investigate a haunted house. She's just heard about Bobby's death and wants to give the Winchesters some of his old things. Apparently she was an old flame of Bobby's, but in the course of an awkward conversation we find out that she slept with both Dean and Sam too (sadly not at the same time).
At any rate, before the boys can catch up with their badass, lusty pal, she's murdered by a ghost in the haunted house — a ghost whom we we've already seen killing a couple of teens making out on the mansion's decaying sofa, too. When Annie doesn't show up at the rendez-vous, the boys go hunting for her in the house, tailed by Bobby. Though Bobby still hasn't been able to convince Sam and Dean that he's there, he's stuck around and continued to try (and has helped them several times, without their realizing it). Too bad, because Bobby can see what the boys can't: The haunted house is lousy with ghosts. They are practically hanging off the rafters. What are they all doing there?
When Annie's ghost shows up, we quickly find out. The two of them talk to one of the few ghosts in the place who is still coherent, and can actually move things around. Turns out the house once belonged to Whitman Van Ness, the heir to a mining fortune who spent it all, turned the house into a speakeasy and brothel, and then died ignominiously in 1935. Apparently, he spent most of his adult life murdering everybody in the place whenever he could. He managed to pin the murders on his ex-con groundskeeper, but of course the ghost of a former "fancy lady" knows the truth — as do the rest of them.
The ghost who gives Annie and Bobby the lowdown also tells them a lot about ghost rules. First of all, you can only move objects if you are possessed of Zen-like calm (like our ghost infodumper) or are psychotically angry (like most poltergeists are). Also, ghosts who aren't exorcized or killed by Whitman grow old and eventually go crazy. "Ghost Alzheimers," growls Bobby, as he watches one afflicted ghost freak out, scream randomly, and disappear. So being a ghost is basically just like being a person, except it's really hard to move things around. Also, they've got to get the boys to kill Whitman before he does more nasty things to all the ghosts in the house — he seems to be using them to suck up their ghosty essences and make himself stronger.
A little history nitpicking
So all the ghosts in the house were killed by Whitman, during his adulthood when he spent the family money and started the brothel, etc. Given the history lesson we get when the boys go to a local museum, we know Whitman died in 1935 at the age of 40. So let's assume his killing days were probably between 1915 and 1935. And he wouldn't have even needed that speakeasy until 1919, when Prohibition went into effect in the U.S. So that would mean all the ghosts we see should be dressed pretty much like the cast of Boardwalk Empire, with some flappers and 1930s styles thrown in. And yet Victoria, the "fancy lady" murdered by Whitman, is in full Victorian Era regalia, circa 1880s. So are most of the other ghosts we see. Either these people were really into vintage styles in the 1920s, or the costume department decided anything before the Mad Men era was probably long skirts, bustles and corsets.
I will note that the ghost infodumper was dressed in respectable 1920s period gear, and there was one flapper briefly in the background. Still, general harumph for everybody.
Everything that was wrong, in slightly chronological order
So thanks to appropriately-dressed ghost infodumper, Bobby learns to communicate with Sam and Dean by writing in the steam on the bathroom mirror. "Annie trapped in house," he writes, signing the message with his name while Sam and Dean look on in growing horror. So now at least the boys know that Bobby is around and that Annie's ghost is in danger. They just need to figure out what Whitman is up to and burn his bones to stop him.
Here is the first thing that I just don't get: Once the boys realize that Bobby is there, why the 100% horror? I get that they are shocked, and they should be. But they have suspected he was there for a long time, and their fear should absolutely be tempered by joy. Yes, the situation is troubling, but they love Bobby and should be glad to have his help no matter what form he's taken. But they aren't. Nor do they seem to be aware that Bobby is with them all the time, even though they've figured out he's connected to the flask Dean carries around. They talk about Bobby as if he can't hear them, and act surprised every time he does something ghosty.
Here is another thing I don't get: OK, we've established Bobby is a ghost but still around. We've established that Annie is still around. Still, when one of the ghosts tosses a camera with revealing ghost footage on it to Sam and Dean, they act as if this is FREAKY SHIT. C'mon, guys. You are in Ghostville. We've seen you react with calm steadfastness when confronted by Lucifer, demons, and even angry archangels. But a little ghosty action is spooky? Really? Victoria the retro ghost has even told Sam and Dean basically what's going on, and they're still jumpy.
Luckily, despite these two weird issues, we get through most of the third act pretty quickly. Whitman figures out that Bobby and Annie have found the hidey hole where he stashes everybody's bones so he can keep them in the house and burn them when he feels like meting out punishment. There are a few shenanigans where Whitman tries to follow the boys by putting a haunted key in Sam's pocket, but once the brothers have put a few bullets into the key it's useless. Then, just as Whitman is about to suck out Bobby's ghosty soul, the boys burn Whitman's bones at the cemetery. Poof! That was easy. The whole ghost subplot was fun and I liked all the details about how ghosts really live.
In fact, sign me up for a spinoff urban fantasy book series full of ghosts whose rules match the ones in this episode.
There could be Zen movement training sequences, and intense emotional bits where they are coping with senility and stuff. Love it.
And now it's time to process our feelings in a way that makes ABSOLUTELY NO FREAKIN SENSE
I already talked about how the Winchesters behaved in ways that felt really out-of-character in regards to the ghosts in the episode. But then when they can finally see Bobby and talk to him, they really veer waaaaaay off the reservation. Dean is angry with Bobby, calls him "unnatural," and keeps emphasizing that they've never dealt with anything like this before. He even says, "You could be in Heaven right now," as if that's a GOOD THING! Haven't we already established that in Heaven you are trapped all alone in a bubble that reproduces your favorite place and time on Earth? Sure it's pretty. But more importantly, it's lonely and depressing and run by a bunch of militaristic psychos who are teetering on the brink of total social collapse. WHY WOULD DEAN WANT BOBBY TO BE STUCK THERE?!
Plus, that "unnatural" comment? HELLO?! Both Sam and Dean have come back from the dead. One of their best hunting buddies is a freakin' angel, and they've worked multiple times (including in the most recent episode) with demons. And they're questioning whether it's OK to work with the ghost of their friend? Sure, something bad might come out of it. Something bad ALWAYS comes out of everything they do. But why all the judgey judgey about what's natural, when Sam and Dean themselves could be considered revenants? What is going on here? I'm all for mixing things up and changing our characters over time, but this feels like seriously sloppy continuity. I am officially grouchy.


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Dan Walters
Dan Walters: Two bills bring reality to California colleges
The faculties and administrators of California's public institutions of higher learning often display a certain disdain for the real world.
Those in the cloisters of academe imply that students, their families – and taxpayers – should simply pony up whatever they say they need to operate, without considering competing public and private demands on limited resources.
Call it elitism, reality denial or whatever, but it's there. And it explains why the state's collegiate establishment, including academic unions, opposed two pieces of legislation aimed at imposing some reality on their operations.
The Legislature, to its credit, ignored the opposition and passed both measures, and Gov. Jerry Brown, to his credit, signed both.
One, Senate Bill 440, pushes the state university system to make transfers of community college students easier, as the 53-year-old Master Plan for Higher Education envisioned.
Its author, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, had tried in the past to streamline transfers, but ran into powerful opposition from turf-protecting academics.
As the Legislature's budget analyst, Mac Taylor, has observed, "CCC students often must navigate a complex maze of transfer course requirements, which can make accessing and completing a baccalaureate program difficult."
SB 440 places pressure on community college and state university officials to reconcile their offerings.
Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara, authored the second bill, Assembly Bill 955, to create a pilot program for local community colleges – during lulls in the academic year – to offer certain courses with fees high enough to cover their costs. The aim is allowing students to complete highly congested courses they need to pursue their careers or transfers to a four-year degree program.
Community college academics and administrators bitterly opposed the bill, fearing that it would undermine their pleas for more state money to expand capacity. But the Legislature and Brown enacted it anyway.
"This seems like a reasonable experiment," Brown said. "Why deny these campuses the opportunity to offer students access and financial assistance to courses not otherwise available?"
The community college teachers union denounced the enactment, saying it would "deny equal, open access to working-class Californians." In reality, however, it would reduce pressure on all students and, as Brown says, is a "reasonable experiment."
These bills are two small steps toward making the nation's largest array of public higher education institutions work more collaboratively and cost-efficiently. But they are just small steps and much more effort is needed to connect the University of California, the California State University System and the more than 100 locally directed community colleges with 21st-century reality.


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Big Boston mayoral field has big downside
Greetings from the land of Be-Careful-What-You-Wish-For.
I longed for a big, fat, juicy field to succeed Mayor Tom Menino, departing after 20 years in office. Stunted by an opponent-crushing incumbent, open political ambition has been in pathetically short supply around here for way too long. So, when an army of candidates emerged to vie for Boston's top job, I was thrilled. (Though not quite as thrilled as I would have been if there had been more than one woman among them. Seriously, people: 2013).
At last, we have the makings of a spirited debate over the city's future. But a huge field – 10 candidates so far, with five more awaiting certification – has a massive downside.
That was painfully evident at a Wednesday forum on development organized by the Boston Society of Architects. Eight candidates crowded onto the stage. A ninth, Councilor Charles Yancey, who has not officially declared his candidacy, was not invited. He showed up anyway, answering a couple of questions from the sidelines and protesting that he was being treated unfairly, to cringeful effect. (Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley had a scheduling conflict.) It was a battle for speaking time, as much as of ideas.
First, the ideas, some of which were delightful. Just about all of the candidates lamented the lack of predictability and openness in the city's permitting process. Councilor John Connolly, the only candidate to declare before Menino announced his exit, made his case most forcefully: "We have to get out of a system that is basically about who you know, rather than the merits of your project," he said. State Representative Marty Walsh called for bold architecture. He actually said, "We can't be afraid of height." John Barros, who heads the Dudley Square Neighborhood Initiative, argued that the city should separate planning and development, currently married at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, because tensions between those two missions compromise both. He also called for promoting more public art through permitting, which brought me close to joyful tears. None of the candidates shares my love for City Hall, but at least most of them rejected the idea of building a new one. "We can invest our money in other things," said former legislator Charlotte Golar Richie.
There was a spirited discussion about transportation. All of the candidates agreed a vital city (some even used the term 24-hour city!) depends on a boffo, well-funded public transit system. Though they disagreed on whether that funding should come from a bump in the gas tax, which some called regressive. Bill Walczak, a former health care executive and now vice president at Shawmut Construction, said he was "astonished the Legislature came out with" a transportation funding package which he rightly argued falls far short of the system's needs.
Still, it took an awfully long time for everybody to weigh in. At one point moderator Renee Loth, editor of the BSA's magazine and a Globe columnist, attempted to speed things along, telling Walczak that "we've heard from you," on the issue of MBTA funding.
"Thank you, but you haven't heard from me much at all," he objected.
Walczak, more than most other candidates, has good reason to be frustrated (though he might want to dial down the miffiness). Speaking time is far more valuable to some candidates than others. And that brings us to a downside of this huge field that goes way beyond debate logistics. Unlike elected officials, Walczak and other candidates running their first political races did not arrive in this contest with big public profiles, ready campaign funds, and established electoral machinery.
And in a field this big and a race this short (six months between Menino's announcement and the September preliminary), those things are even more important than usual. In the worst case scenario, a candidate could get into the final with as few as 20,000 to 30,000 votes. Established politicians can get close to that number just by working their machinery. The two candidates on the November ballot could land there simply by turning out their usual voters, rather than winning over new ones with their ideas.
That's a worry. We've just had 20 years of a mayor more famous for his machinery than his vision. Menino has done many great things for the city, but it would still be a crying shame if Boston's next mayor didn't tip the balance the other way.
Yvonne Abraham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.