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Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad
During a three-week reign of terror in October of 2002, the D.C. snipers gunned down 13 innocent people at random around the Washington, D.C. Beltway. Only three survived.
by Mark Pulham
Montgomery County, Maryland, is just north of Washington, D.C., one of the most affluent counties in the United States, and an ideal place to live. With an average homicide rate in the county of only 25 per year, Montgomery County was safe, and not the sort of place where a drive-by shooting would occur. Yet, in October, 2002, that was about to change.
It had been barely a year since the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, and those who lived in and around Washington, D.C. were still nervous about future terrorist action.
On Wednesday, October 2, 2002, around 5:20 p.m., someone took a shot at a Michael's Craft store in Aspen Hill, Maryland. The rifle bullet drilled a hole through the window, leaving minimal damage, but no one was hurt.
Just over an hour later, another shooting occurred, this time at the Glenmont Shopping Center at the junction of Randolph Road and Georgia Avenue. James Martin, a 55-year-old programs analyst for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was doing some grocery shopping at the Shoppers Food Warehouse, buying food for his church's youth group, before he headed home to his wife and 11-year- old son.
As he crossed the parking lot, there was the sound of a shot, and Martin crumbled to the ground. A police officer who heard the shot, rushed to the scene and tried to help. But it was no use, the bullet had entered Martin's chest, and he died within minutes.
It had the appearance of a drive-by shooting, but this doesn't happen in Montgomery County. There were other things wrong. Usually, someone sees something with a drive by, a car driving slowly, or someone running up to the victim and shooting. But no one saw anything other than the victim fall to the ground. And what was the motive? James Martin could hardly be thought of as a gang member or a drug dealer. The car park was checked for evidence, but nothing was found.
James Martin was just a prelude. The next morning would be the beginning of the real terror.
The Terror Begins
James Lynn "Sonny" Buchanan was a 39-year-old landscaper, the son of a Montgomery County police officer. As a favor to an old customer, Buchanan was mowing the strip of grass outside the Fitzgerald Auto Mall on Rockville Pike in White Flint. It was 7:41 a.m.
When neighbors saw him lying on the ground, they thought that something had happened with the lawnmower, and he had been injured. As soon as the paramedics arrived, it was clear that this was no lawnmower accident, Buchanan had been shot. He was rushed to hospital, but he had bled out. Drained of blood, his heart stopped. Once again, there was no motive. Robbery was immediately ruled out, nothing had been taken.
|Prekumar A. Walekar
At the Mobil Gas Station on Aspen Hill Road, taxi driver Prekumar A. Walekar pulled in to fill up. Caroline Namrow, a pediatrician, was also filling up at one of the pumps, and watching her 22-month-old daughter in her car seat. There was the sound of a gunshot, and Namrow looked up to see Walekar as he came staggering over toward her. He mouthed the words, "Call an ambulance." As he collapsed to the ground, she called 911. Namrow reached for his wrist and found only a faint pulse, then she began CPR. By the time the police arrived it was too late. Walekar, aged 54, died from a gunshot wound to the chest. The time was 8:12 a.m., barely half an hour after Sonny Buchanan's shooting.
In Silver Spring, 34-year-old Sarah Ramos had just got off a bus and was sitting on a bench outside a post office near Leisure World, a seniors housing complex at 3701 Rossmoor Boulevard. She was waiting for a ride to another job. Ramos had moved from El Salvador, where she had been a law student, to the United States. Her husband was an economics professor back in El Salvador, and although reluctant to leave their comfortable life, Ramos knew that America could offer more to their 7-year-old son, and he agreed to the move. To make ends meet, she was cleaning houses and babysitting.
As she sat on the bench reading a book, there was a crack of a rifle. The first thought of those who called 911 was that Ramos had shot herself, but the responders knew this was no suicide. This time, the bullet was found on the floor of a restaurant. The .223 round had passed through Ramos's forehead, shattering her skull, then gone through a window, and fell to the floor, where investigators had found it. The shot that killed Ramos was fired at 8:37 a.m.
The police were having a hard time keeping up. As they rushed to the scene of one shooting, more reports would come in about a shooting somewhere else.
|Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera
Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera had just dropped off her 3½-year-old daughter at day care before heading off to her work as a nanny. First, her minivan needed cleaning. At 9:58 a.m., 25-year-old Lewis-Rivera was in the Shell Gas Station at the intersection of Knowles and Connecticut Avenues in Kensington where she was vacuuming her Dodge Caravan. Once again, a shot rang out, and Lewis-Rivera collapsed.
Random Killings by a Serial Sniper
The police were baffled. There was no connection between any of the victims. They were Caucasian, Indian, Hispanic, old, young, male, female. There was no pattern to the killings, they were truly random.
It was clear that a serial sniper, a skilled marksman, was on the loose in Montgomery County, selecting random targets and gunning them down with a high powered weapon. No one was safe, and paranoia had swept the area.
The police sent out their own snipers to the crime scenes to give their own ideas of what went on. It was clear that there was nowhere in the areas that the sniper could be shooting from, that whoever was doing the shooting had to be doing it from a vehicle. In addition, it would be impossible for a lone man behind the wheel of a vehicle to be the shooter as there would be no room for him to maneuver. It had to be two people, one to sit behind the wheel, and one to shoot.
Reports had come in from the Sarah Ramos crime scene. Witnesses had reported seeing a blue Chevrolet Caprice leaving around the time of the shooting, but that was dismissed when a Caprice was found the next day, stolen and burned out. However, other witnesses saw a white box truck fleeing the scene. Inside, witnesses said, there were two men. It was the break the police had been hoping for. The problem was the number of white box trucks in the Washington D.C. area was astronomical.
The bodies of the victims would also provide clues. Angle of entry would determine whether the shooter was high or low and the autopsies on the five victims would determine that.
As the day turned to night, no more shootings had been reported. Was Lewis-Rivera the last victim? Was it all over?
The answer came at 9:20 p.m. On the corner of Georgia Avenue and Kalmia Road NW, 72-year-old retired handyman Pascal Charlot, a Haitian immigrant, was waiting for the lights to change so he could cross the road. He was just making a trip to a store. A bullet hit him in the neck and he collapsed to the ground. He died an hour later. The Charlot crime scene was just over the Montgomery County border with Washington D.C.
Fear now gripped the area. People stayed at home and schools went into lockdown. Those who had to go out walked down the streets a little faster, jinking from side to side, hoping the shooter would not be able to get a fix on them. People filling their cars at the gas pumps shifted and ducked all the time.
|Chief Charles Moose
With six people gunned down in less than 48 hours, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose was under pressure. There were no motives, no suspects, and apart from the white box truck, no leads. The forensic teams had come back with the autopsy results. All of the victims had been shot with a high powered rifle, possibly a Bushmaster. The autopsies also confirmed that the shots were not coming from high positions, such as rooftops.
The next day, October 4, another shooting took place, this time in Fredericksburg, almost 150 miles away. At 2:30 p.m., 43-year-old Caroline Seawell had been Halloween shopping and was loading her purchases, a scarecrow and a wreath, into her minivan. A bullet tore into her back. But the shooters had made a mistake. Seawell did not die, though she was in serious condition in hospital. The bullet recovered from the scene matched those of the other victims. The killers were travelling farther afield.
Leads Pour in
Speculation arose that the shooters were military trained, or maybe law enforcement or hunters. A profile of the shooters was also put together. White and middle aged. Authorities now had a fairly clear idea of the type of persons they were looking for. At the beginning of the shootings, it was thought that the killers were local, but the shooting in Fredericksburg now made them doubt that.
Moose asked the public for help and a tip line was set up. The response was overwhelming, with 1,900 calls in less than a minute, and an unbelievable 100,000 leads. There was some debate as to whether children were in danger. Should schools be closed? It was decided that the schools should stay open, but there would be no outdoor activities, no outdoor gym classes, and no outdoor recess.
The weekend was incident free, but on Monday morning, a fresh horror awaited. The week before, 13-year- old Iran Brown had been kicked off his school bus for eating candy, and was now being driven to school by his aunt Tanya, a nurse. On this Monday morning, October 7, she got him to school an hour early, as she had to get to work. She dropped him off at the Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Maryland, then left.
As she drove away, she glanced back in her rear view mirror, and saw Iran lying on the ground. She turned around and got him back in the car, then rushed him to hospital. Doctors saved his life by removing his spleen and parts of his pancreas and stomach. Iran became the second survivor of the shooters.
"Call Me God"
|The Tarot Card
The police and the community were stunned. The area was scoured, and the investigators turned up a bullet casing. More importantly, the shooters had left a message. A tarot card had been found, the "Death" card, a skeleton in armor riding a horse. On the front were the words "Call me God." On the back, in three lines, were "For you Mr Police, Code: Call me God and Do not release to the press."
Moose held a press conference. With tears running down his face, Moose said, "All of our victims have been innocent and defenceless, but now we're stepping over the line. Shooting a kid – it's getting to be really, really personal now."
It was clear that if the gunmen were willing to shoot children, then no one was safe. Although the police tried to comply with the gunmen's wishes and not get the media involved, somehow there was a leak. Moose tried to start a coded dialogue with the shooters. In his next press conference, Moose said, "You should understand that I hope to God that someday, we'll know why all this occurred." Some may have thought that Moose was having a religious moment, but the God reference was directed at the shooters.
|Dean Harold Meyers
Two days later, at 8:18 p.m. on October 9, Dean Harold Meyers pulled his Mazda into a Sunoco gas station on Sudley Road near Manassas, Prince William County. Meyers and death had crossed paths before. He was a decorated Vietnam veteran, who had received a Purple Heart for wounds he received in hostile action on March 8, 1970. The 53-year-old civil engineer was on his way home when he stopped for the gas. A bullet took him in the head. The next day, ballistics matched the bullet to the others.
That same day, the FBI released a composite drawing of the white "box truck" that had been seen in the area. Prince William County Police Chief Charles Deane made an appeal for the killers to stop, and said, "There's enough damage been done." But the shooters thought otherwise. Their response to Deane was another shooting.
|Ken Bridges
On October 11, at 9:30 that morning, Kenneth Bridges was pumping gas at an Exxon station just off Interstate 95 near Fredericksburg. Bridges, the co-founder of a marketing distribution company, was only in the area on a business trip. The 53-year-old had just spoken to his wife. A single shot took Bridges down. It had been 10 days since the first shooting, a reign of terror that didn't look like it would end. And the shooters were widening their target area.
On October 14, Ted and Linda Franklin had been shopping at a Home Depot store at the Seven Corners Shopping Center just outside Falls Church in Fairfax County, Virginia. They had just bought some shelves and, around 9:15 p.m., were loading them into their car. As Linda went around the back, she paused for a moment. She was motionless long enough for the crosshairs to settle on her. The bullet hit her in the head and the 47-year-old woman fell to the ground.
Her distraught husband called 911, his voice so high with distress that the dispatcher thought at first that it was a woman. It was a gruesome scene, the bullet had taken off the right side of her head. This death was close to home for investigators. Linda Franklin was an FBI intelligence analyst.
But the police seemed to have a piece of luck. A man named Matthew Dowdy came forward. He had seen everything, and said that he saw a man who he described as Middle Eastern looking. This man was crouched down in a white Chevy van with a burnt out rear light. Could this be the break they needed?
Investigators looked at the security tape, hoping to catch a glimpse of the gunman. Instead, they got footage of Matthew Dowdy leaving the store . . . three minutes after the shooting. Matthew Dowdy couldn't possibly have witnessed the shooting. Dowdy, it turned out, craved media attention, and it was all a lie. He was arrested for interfering with a police investigation.
Two Solid Leads Lost in the Shuffle
The call centers were overwhelmed with people reporting strange behavior and suspicious men. Many callers wanted to confess to the shootings. One call even tried to prove that he was the shooter by pointing them to a killing in Montgomery, Alabama at an ABC liquor store. The police called Montgomery, and there was a shooting, a robbery homicide on September 21. Two unidentified men had attempted to rob the store. During the robbery, 52-year-old liquor store clerk Claudine Parker was killed and her co-worker, 24-year-old Kellie Adams, was injured. However, this seemed to be just a robbery-homicide. The D.C. Snipers were not stealing from their victims. There didn't seem to be a connection.
Another lead was phoned in from Tacoma, Washington State. Robert Holmes had been following the shootings, and thought that it may be a friend of his named John Muhammad. They had been friends when they were in the army, and John was the owner of a long range rifle similar to the one the police suspected the shooters were using. Holmes called the hot line and gave his information. With so much other information coming in, his call was lost among the others.
On October 19, Jeffery and Stephanie Hopper were heading home to Florida when they passed through Ashland, Virginia, where they decided to stop to eat at a Ponderosa restaurant. At around 8 p.m., as they left and headed back to their car, a shot rang out, and Jeffery Hopper, 37, fell to the ground with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. It would take five operations over the next 18 days to save his life.
A Demand for $10 Million
In woods near the restaurant, a bullet casing was discovered, and pinned to a tree was a note left in a Ziploc bag. But this time, the shooters had left behind some vital evidence. On the Ziploc bag, one of them had left traces of DNA. Unfortunately, the DNA was not in the FBI database. The note, however, was of interest. It began: "For you Mr. Police. Call Me God." The shooters went on to blame the killings on the police and their failed attempts to communicate with them.
This time, the snipers also made demands. They wanted the police to deposit $10 million through a series of ATM machines to the account of a credit card that they had stolen the previous year. They would call the Ponderosa restaurant where Jeffery Hopper was shot at 6 a.m. But the police missed the call. Chief Moose gave a news conference and urged them to call back.
Two days later, they called, and repeated their demands, including that they announce to the media that the snipers had been caught "like a duck in a noose" and added the threat that children are not safe. Police were baffled by the duck in noose reference. It has never been explained, though some believe it referred to an old Cherokee fable.
The phone call was traced to a gas station, and police headed there. They came upon a white box truck with two men inside. Immediately, they took them into custody. But they turned out to be just two illegal immigrants who happened, coincidentally, to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The note left at the Ponderosa mentioned the Alabama killing again, and the police called once more. This time there was more information. A magazine had been dropped at the scene of the shooting, and a fingerprint was found on it. However, the local investigators had not yet processed the print. The magazine was flown to Washington where the print was run through a super computer that compared it with 40 million other prints.
The result came back. The print belonged to Lee Boyd Malvo, a 17-year-old from Jamaica. He had been fingerprinted by immigration officials in Bellingham, Washington State. The police believed that he must have someone with him and was not working alone. They needed to keep this information away from the media, fearing that if it leaked and the snipers heard about it, they would just vanish, and would reappear sometime later to begin the shootings again.
Moose tried to stall. At a press conference he said "We have researched the option you stated and found it is not possible, electronically, to comply in the manner you requested." The tactic backfired. The snipers response came the next morning.
Bus driver Conrad Johnson was standing in the stairwell of his bus at Grand Pre Road and Connecticut Avenue in Aspen Hill, Maryland. It was 5:59 on the morning of October 22. The 35-year-old man was shot in the stomach and killed. Another note was found at the scene. "Your incompetence has cost you another life," it stated.
But the investigation had taken a turn. The investigation into Lee Boyd Malvo had come up with another name, that of John Muhammad, who had often posed as Malvo's father. Someone recalled Muhammad's name in a tip on the hot line.
The tapes of the snipers phone calls were taken to Tacoma and played for Muhammad's friend, Robert Holmes. He recognized the voice on the tapes as that of Lee Boyd Malvo, whom Muhammad had called "my little sniper."
|Lee Boyd Malvo
Lee Boyd Malvo was born on February 18, 1985, in Kingston, Jamaica. His father, Leslie Malvo, was a mason while his mother, Una James, was a seamstress. The two had never married, and when Lee was still only a toddler, they separated. Leslie Malvo was close to his son and continued to help raise him until he was 5-years-old. But then Una kidnapped Lee and took him to a remote village. Leslie Malvo never saw his son again.
Una would often leave Lee with friends or relatives for lengthy periods of time, sometimes for over a year, while she went looking for work. When she came back, she would abruptly enter his life, reclaiming him as a son. Lee had a troubled life, and at the age of 12, had tried to kill himself.
They both left Jamaica when Lee was 14 years old, and moved to the island of Antigua, supposedly hoping for a better life. Lee wanted a father figure, and after school, he would visit an electronic store and watch a man there with his son. To Lee, he seemed an ideal father figure. The man was John Muhammad.
|John Allen Muhammad
Muhammad was born John Allen Williams on December 31, 1960, in Louisiana. Unlike Malvo, John's father wasn't interested in his son, and was never around. When his mother died from breast cancer when John was just 3 years old, he was raised by relatives in Baton Rouge, and at the age of 17, he joined the military, where he served as a combat engineer. He was troubled, hard to read, and had problems with authority. His volatile nature got him a court martial in 1982, after he struck an officer. However, that same year, for reasons unknown, he was reinstated.
During Desert Storm, in 1991, John's reputation for instability led to him being suspected of throwing a thermite grenade into a tent containing 16 of his fellow soldiers. Luckily, despite the intense heat and bullets from the ammunition pouches zipping around the tent, none of the soldiers were injured. Although he was led away in handcuffs, nothing could be proved and no charges were ever brought against him.
|Mildred Muhammad
Desert Storm had affected John emotionally and psychologically. He was finally discharged from the army in 1994. That same year, John and his second wife of six years, Mildred, moved to Tacoma, Washington State, where he ran a mobile car repair service. John had also begun using the surname Muhammad, after becoming part of the Nation of Islam, and officially converting to the faith in 1997. He would eventually change his name officially in October, 2001.
The Nation of Islam focuses on family values, and for a while, Muhammad was heavily influenced by this. But the marriage began to fall apart when he started having affairs, and finally, in 1999, he and Mildred parted. Muhammad became increasingly threatening to Mildred, and she got a restraining order against him. However, he still had partial custody of the children. On March 27, 2000, Muhammad picked up the kids to take them on a shopping trip. He never returned.
Muhammad had, instead, fled with his children to Antigua, where he supported himself and his children by making fake ID's and documents that would allow people to migrate to the United States illegally. One of his customers was Una James.
When she abandoned Lee once again, John stepped in and looked after the boy. Lee was suffering from rheumatic fever, and Muhammad took him back to the woman who was looking after his own children and asked her to care for him as if he were his own.
Muhammad and his children hid out in Antigua for 15 months before returning to the United States, to Bellingham, Washington, 103 miles north of Tacoma, where, for a few weeks, they stayed at a shelter called The Lighthouse Mission. Muhammad was obviously a homeless dad, who came across as a kind, gentle man who was a good father. No one could have known that he had actually kidnapped his own three children.
Muhammad then made a mistake. He applied for public assistance in August 2001, and the moment he did so, a flag went up. Within a few days, the authorities had found him and had taken away the children. On September 4, 2001, at Pierce County Superior Court, Muhammad's wife Mildred was given full custody of the children, and Muhammad would not be allowed to see them again. He seemed not to understand that he had lost his kids, and asked Judge Mark Gelman, to explain. Even then, he asked two more times before the end of the hearing, "So I can't see my children?"
Many of those who knew Muhammad the best believed that this was the stress point that finally caused him to snap. His life, already emotionally damaged, now turned bitter, not only over the laws that separated him from his beloved children, but also against the United States, and after the 911 attacks, just one week after the custody case, Muhammad was heard defending the terrorists. The Nation of Islam's message of family values was being overshadowed by its other message of anti-Americanism.
But the majority of his hate was aimed at his wife. For a few months, Muhammad went through all the legal motions to try and win back his children, Taalibah aged 8, Salena, 10, and 12-year-old John Jr., but it was no use. By this time, Mildred had left Washington State and had gone into hiding.
"My Little Sniper"
A hazy plan was forming in Muhammad's mind, and he needed Malvo to help.
Malvo had been in the United States, arriving as an illegal alien in Miami in 2001. In December of that year, he and his mother were both caught by the border patrol in Bellingham, and held. Malvo was released in January the following year on a $1,500 bond. He and Muhammad soon got back together.
Both were familiar figures in the Bellingham area, and many believed that Malvo was Muhammad's son. They would spend their time playing war video games at the local arcade, not for fun, but to help in training Malvo to become a killer. They spent long hours at a local shooting range, where Muhammad would use his military training to turn Lee Malvo into a sharpshooter. Eventually, Muhammad began to call Malvo "my little sniper."
In early 2002, Muhammad thought that Malvo was ready. All he had to do was pass a test.
On Saturday, February 16, 2002, 21-year-old Keenya Cook was staying at her aunt's house in Tacoma. On the kitchen stove, food was simmering, and upstairs, Keenya was getting her baby daughter, 6-month-old Angeleah, ready for a bath. Cook, a single mother, was alone with the baby. Her aunt, Isa Nichols, was out. It was around 7 p.m. when Keenya heard someone at the door.
Keenya left Angeleah on the bed for a moment while she ran down to see who it was. She opened the door, and there standing before her was Lee Boyd Malvo. In his ear was an earpiece, through which John Muhammad was giving instructions. According to Malvo, they chatted for a few minutes. Then Malvo raised his arm. In his hand was a .45 calibre pistol. He fired point blank into Keenya's face. The bullet entered just below her left eye.
The young woman crumpled to the floor, instantly killed by the shot. Muhammad was pleased, Malvo was able to take orders, and was willing and able to take a life. He had passed the test with flying colors.
But Keenya was not the target that night. Instead, it was her aunt, Isa Nichols, who had been the bookkeeper for the mobile car repair business. She was a friend and supporter of Mildred through the divorce and custody hearings and had testified against John Muhammad.
On the Road
|Jerry Ray Taylor
Now the two men travelled around the country, and in March they found themselves in Tucson, Arizona. At around lunchtime, on Tuesday, March 19, Jerry Ray Taylor, a frozen food salesman, pulled into the parking lot of the Fred Enke Golf Course. He left his silver Nissan pickup and went to the practice area. As the 61-year-old practiced chipping shots, there was a gunshot. Taylor was hit in the back, the bullet tearing through his heart. People heard the shot, but thought nothing of it. Gunshots were not unusual in the area, the nearby Davis-Monthan Air force base had a small arms range.
Around 2:30 that afternoon, Taylor's body was found by two golfers. It had been dragged away and hidden in some brush. Nearby, police found his wallet, with the cash and credit cards still intact.
Muhammad and Malvo left Tucson the following Monday, March 25 by Greyhound bus. The bus driver does not remember the two men, but she has a clear memory of that day. On that day, she left her knapsack on the seat behind her while she drove. When she looked later, she found that her credit cards that were in the pouch of the knapsack were gone. She immediately called the credit card companies and cancelled the cards, but forgot to cancel her Bank of America Platinum VISA card.
Months later, the two snipers would demand that the $10 million dollars be transferred to an account at the Bank of America. It was the bus driver's VISA account.
What happened during the next four months in unknown, but by August, they were in Hammond, Louisiana, some 40 miles east of Baton Rouge. On August 1, around 8:20 p.m., 50-year-old John Gaeta was at the Hammond Mall, and had just parked his truck before rushing into Sears to get a new pair of shoes. When he came out, he saw that one of his tires was flat. It had been slashed. Gaeta pulled up under a streetlight to change the tire.
It was around 9 p.m. when he saw a couple of men approach him. They asked him if the mall was still open. He said it was, and they left, but returned about five minutes later. They asked if he needed any help. He told them he was okay and they moved off. As Gaeta went to the back of the truck to get the spare, he saw one of the men approach. It was Lee Boyd Malvo. Gaeta asked what he was doing, and in response, Malvo raised a .22 calibre pistol and shot Gaeta from about five feet. The bullet passed through Gaeta's neck and out through his back. It had missed the jugular and his spine. Gaeta fell to the ground and pretended that he was dead. He knew that if he moved and showed that he wasn't badly hurt, the next bullet would end his life. Malvo went through Gaeta's pockets and took his wallet.
Once Muhammad and Malvo had fled, Gaeta got up and crossed to a gas station. Strange as it may seem, Gaeta was not in any pain, and even thought he may have been shot with a paintball gun. However, the gas station attendant pointed out that he was bleeding. Gaeta was extremely lucky, and spent only one hour at the hospital before being released.
By September, Muhammad and Malvo were in Maryland. On September 5, Paul J. LaRuffa was leaving his restaurant, Margellina's, in Clinton, Maryland. He had his laptop, and cash and credit receipts. He climbed inside his 1999 Chrysler sedan, and as he sat behind the steering wheel, a shadow appeared on his left. The window shattered and LaRuffa saw a flash of light. Six bullets entered LaRuffa's body. Miraculously, although shot in the stomach, chest, and spine, LaRuffa survived.
An employee had left the restaurant with LaRuffa and he witnessed it all. He told the police that he saw a kid run up to the car, fire the shots, and then take the briefcase and the laptop. The briefcase contained the cash from the day's takings, $3,500. Six weeks later, the briefcase and the empty deposit bags would be found in a wooded area a mile away. Clothing found nearby had traces of DNA which would later be traced to Lee Boyd Malvo.
The Blue Chevrolet Caprice
|The Blue Chevrolet Caprice
Five days after the LaRuffa shooting, Muhammad and Malvo bought a car in New Jersey, paying $250 for it. It was a twelve year old Chevrolet Caprice, dark blue. It matched the description of the vehicle leaving the Sarah Ramos crime scene, the one that was subsequently dismissed by the police.
Nine days later, they struck again, this time in Silver Spring. Twenty-two-year-old Rupinder "Benny" Oberoi worked at the Hillandale Beer and Wine store. It was just after 10 p.m. and he was standing outside the store with the owner, Arnie Zelkovitz. As Zelkovitz showed Rupinder how to lock the door, they both heard the sound of gunfire. Oberoi collapsed to the ground. The bullet had entered his back and splintered, missing his spinal cord but bruising his kidney and liver. Once again, the shooters had left a survivor. Rupinder spent one week in hospital. A Safeway worker from next door told the police that he saw an old model dark sedan leaving the parking lot.
|Sniper Trunk
The next day, September 15, 32-year-old Muhammad Rashid was locking the door of the Three Roads Liquor Store in Brandywine. He heard gunshots behind him and two bullets missed him by inches. As he turned, a young man rushed up and shot him in the stomach. As Rashid played dead, the young man stole his wallet. Once again, the victim survived and gave a description that fit Lee Boyd Malvo. Rashid also told the police that he had seen a dark American car idling behind the store.
It would be six days before they struck again, this time in Atlanta.
On September 21, 41-year-old Million A. Woldermariam was helping out the owner of Sammy's Package Store. Like himself, the owner was an Ethiopian who had immigrated to the United States. Earlier, Woldermariam had seen a suspicious looking car in the parking lot. He went inside and told the owner, and she told him not to hang around outside. Woldermariam dismissed the idea.
Around 12:15a.m., they closed the store. Woldermariam waited outside while the owner turned out all the lights. Suddenly, shots rang out, and Woldermariam fell to the rain soaked ground. One .22 calibre bullet had hit him in the back, another in the head. The owner rushed over and she kept calling his name, but it was no use. Woldermariam would never answer.
That same day, 19 hours later, the robbery that ended in the death of Claudine Parker, which the sniper had mentioned to the police, took place. Outside the ABC Liquor Store in Montgomery, Alabama, 52-year-old Claudine Parker and 24-year-old Kellie Adams were closing up. Parker was going to head off to a football game, while Adams was off to pick up her young daughter. As they locked the door, they were both shot from long range. Parker, a Sunday school teacher, was hit in the back, the bullet severing her spine and puncturing her lung, killing her. Another bullet went through Adams's neck and came out through her chin, breaking her jaw in two. Her face and teeth were shattered. She fell to the ground, but never lost consciousness. She later told police she had seen a slender black man approach.
While the rifle was being fired, Malvo was seen approaching the fallen women. A police car passed the scene almost immediately after the shooting, and the officers saw Malvo taking the purses of the women. They gave chase, but Malvo got away. It was at this point that he dropped the gun magazine that had his print on it.
Hong Im Ballenger had moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana after marrying an American GI in Korea. On September 23, two days after the Alabama shooting, the 45-year-old manager at the Beauty Depot, walked toward her car. It was 6:30 p.m. and she had closed the store for the day. Before she reached her car, a rifle bullet struck her in the back of the head and smashed through her jawbone. A few seconds later, a large, dark blue car was seen easing out of a field some 75 yards from where Ballenger lay dead. It was being driven by an African-American, and travelled just one block before picking up a second African-American, the second one holding Hong's purse. The car then sped away.
The two men began heading north, to the Washington D.C. area. The sniper killings were about to begin.
The Real Motive: Revenge
With the information from Robert Holmes, the police rapidly put the pieces together, including the fact that they were driving a Caprice. All this time spent looking for white males in a white panel truck was wasted. The description could not have been more wrong. In addition, a frightening motive began to emerge. The demand for $10 million may have just been an added afterthought by the two men. A more compelling motive was revenge.
When they were not carrying out a shooting, Muhammad and Malvo would just mingle with the community, seeming just like an ordinary father and son. Sometimes they asked if they could just park the car in mini malls and rest.
Surprisingly, the two men were stopped almost every day by the police, but as they showed respect and everything was in order, they were allowed to continue. At nights, they would use LaRuffa's stolen laptop to mark out the next days target areas and plan out their future kills.
One area they frequently cruised around was Clinton, and one resident who lived on Quiet Brook Lane, called the police after seeing the dark Blue Caprice parked nearby. It seemed to her that the occupants of the car put newspapers up to their faces to hide. It was not the first time the car had been seen in the area. The caller was Muhammad's ex-wife, Mildred. Muhammad had tracked her down through the Internet.
When police put the story together, they rushed to Mildred's home and took her and the children into protective custody. Many believe that Mildred was the planned target, and the other shootings were camouflage. All they had to do was wait until Mildred was in a public area, and then shoot her as they did the others. Her murder would be thought of as another sniper killing, and Muhammad would be free to get custody of his children. Mildred was only alive because she had not been anywhere public where the shooting could take place.
Capturing the Snipers
Chief Moose announced who they were looking for at a news conference, but held back the fact that they were driving a dark blue Caprice. Police felt that if the snipers were to hear that they were looking for the Caprice, it would immediately be dumped. But the police could not control the leaks, and soon, the media had details of the car and were broadcasting the description.
In the early hours of October 24, Whitney Donahue, a supermarket refrigerator mechanic, was driving home after a late shift at work. As he drove, he listened to the radio and heard the description of the car the police were searching for. Truck driver Ron Lantz was also driving and listening to the radio. Both men pulled into a rest stop along Interstate 70. As Donahue's van turned in, his lights swept across a car that was parked there. He saw it was a dark blue Caprice with New Jersey tags.
He knew that it was the suspects' car, and he picked up his cell phone to call 911.
Ron Lantz had also spotted the car. Just to check, he walked over to within 20 feet of the car and noted the New Jersey tags. He got back to his rig and called 911. The police asked him and a second trucker to block the exits to the rest area with their trucks.
It was 15 minutes before a takedown team arrived. They slowly moved in and began creeping up on the suspect vehicle. Both men were asleep in the Caprice. Within 30 seconds, they had captured Muhammad and Malvo without incident. It could have turned out much different. Malvo was on guard duty and should have seen them coming, but he had fallen asleep.
It had been three weeks since the first Beltway shooting, three weeks that saw 10 people die and three others suffer serious wounds, and with their shooting spree around the country adding five more dead and five more wounded, it was a tragically high count.
Police found a high powered rifle in the back on the car, hidden under the back seat. It was later determined to be the weapon, a Bushmaster .223 calibre rifle, that was used in the sniper attacks. In the trunk, the investigators found a hole had been made, about the size of a baseball, which had been stuffed with a sock. This was the killers' gun port. Malvo would lie in the trunk and point the barrel of the rifle through the hole. It allowed him to kill without anyone even noticing.
When he was interviewed, Malvo was completely loyal to his surrogate father. He boasted that it was he who pulled the trigger in all the shootings. His lawyers would later argue that Malvo suffered from "Stockholm syndrome" and had psychologically bonded with his abuser.
There was overwhelming evidence against the two men, including a confession by Malvo. Malvo pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. On December 18, 2003, Malvo was found guilty of murder. On March 10, 2004, he was formally sentenced to life in prison without parole. In October, he pleaded guilty to several other charges in the hope to avoid the death penalty. However, a Supreme Court decision in March 2005 prohibited the death penalty for crimes committed when under the age of 18. Malvo was only 17 when the sniper attacks occurred.
Malvo would later reveal Muhammad's plans. It involved three phases. Phase one concerned the meticulous planning of their killing spree around the Washington D.C. area. The goal was to kill six people every day over a 30-day period. This phase did not go as planned, due to traffic conditions, the inability to get clear shots, and difficulty in getting away from different locations.
Phase two was to be carried out in Baltimore, where it would begin by shooting a pregnant woman in the stomach, then kill a cop. The plan was to detonate several shrapnel bombs at the officers' funeral. The final phase was to extort millions of dollars from the government. The money would be used to finance a training camp where Muhammad would train young boys to kill, as he had done with Malvo, and then send them across the United States carrying out terror attacks.
Malvo has, in the last few years, shown some remorse for his actions. In October, 2007, he called one of his victims' daughters and apologized, and in a letter dated February 21, 2010, he apologized to John Gaeta. Malvo had believed that Gaeta was dead.
Malvo is currently incarcerated at the Red Onion State Prison in Virginia. He had petitioned the court for a name change as he felt he would be safer if other inmates did not know who he was. The request was denied on July 29, 2011.
Muhammad went on trial in October 2003, and for a short while represented himself, before switching back after his opening argument. Muhammad was convicted on November 17, 2003, and on March 9, 2004, a Virginia judge sentenced Muhammad to death. In prison, Muhammad was harassed by other inmates who called him a coward who lacked the guts to kill someone face to face.
At 9 p.m. on November 10, 2009, John Allen Muhammad was strapped to the table at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarrett, Virginia, and six minutes later, the lethal injection process was started. Five minutes later, at 9:11 p.m., he was dead.


text: Perfect design 5 The only thing really wrong with this holster is that there are no size versions. I would love a version with the same design and low weight, only 5 cm longer in the bottom. A raincover would be nice as well, but no big deal. Robin Lund Norway 2016-09-28

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Walking the red carpet at the Zurich Film Festival to pick up a Golden Icon Award for his big-screen work, Hugh Jackman had a little fun with journalist Rollo Ross when he reminded him of the fact that he used to be his P.E. instructor before he was famous!
Naturally, hilarity ensued.
"How is your education going?" the 44-year-old Hollywood star asked. "Did I set you up for life?"
"Oh, yes definitely!" said the red-faced reporter.
The two met when Ross was Jackman's student at Uppingham School in Rutland England way back in 1987.
Ross went on to pose a serious question to the X-Men actor about his latest role in the kidnapping thriller, Prisoners, wondering what makes him angry in real life. Jackman couldn't resist turning the tables and reverting to his old role.
"You know what makes me angry, Rollo? It's students who don't really listen. No, it's the kind of students who don't bring their kit and the kind of students who don't jump in the pool when I tell them to. That's what makes me angry, Rollo," a stern Jackman deadpanned.
"In fact, I'm remembering you more and more," he added, before flashing that mischievous smile of his.
Of course, it was all for a good laugh as Jackman is known as one of the nicest guys in showbiz.
No doubt, he burnished his reputation.
After the encounter went viral, Rollo told E! News that when the first X-Men movie was released, one of his childhood friends called and asked him if that was "their school teacher, Mr. Jackman, starring in the movie?" Rollo said that he didn't realize it prior to that call because "you just don't make the correlation that your teacher is now a movie star."
Ross reconnected with Jackman, however, when he interviewed the actor for X-Men: Days of Future Past, which recently wrapped production. According to the reporter, Jackman kept looking at him funny and said he knew him. When Rollo revealed that the latter was his teacher, he told E! News that Jackman was shocked and remembered, then laughed, and ever since has been giving him a hard time when they bump into each other.


text:
ALEX Toys Little Hands Clay Pictures
by ALEX Toys
Please check your favorite toy retailer for availability. Prices may vary.
Buy Online:
Product Description
Make clay art! 'Color' a picture with brightly colored clay you press into the mold. Just push and smush! Make pretty 3D pictures you can frame and hang on the wall! The soft clay never dries out, so you'll have art for years to come. Easy to follow instructions included.
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text:
M_o_R® is a route map for risk management, bringing together principles, an approach, a set of interrelated processes, and pointers to more detailed sources of advice on risk management techniques and specialisms.
The M_o_R Foundation course consists of ten sessions which covers the principles, approach, processes, embedding & reviewing and perspectives of the Management of Risk guidance. The course also looks at Risk Health Checks, the Management of Risk Maturity Model and Risk Management Specialisms.
Classroom courses are confirmed approximately three weeks before the actual start of the course, reaching the minimum number of participants required. For this reason, please, contact us before making any payments.
The key objectives of this course are:
Any organisation or individual seeing the need for guidance on a controlled approach to identifying, analysing and managing risk at strategic, programme, project and operational levels.
Provided material:
We recommend that you have basic knowledge and experience of risk management.
To be able to take the exam, it's required to have read and accepted the terms and conditions of the examination institute. The acceptance of such terms and conditions will have to be confirmed when taking the exam.
M_o_R Foundation official certificate


text:
Specifications subject to change without notice。
Related Information:
Description of the RG24-15 Aircraft Battery:
Recombinant Gas - The RG� Series are low resistance, valve regulated lead acid (VRLA) batteries.
NOTE: This aircraft battery is not designed or intended for turbine aircraft engine starting applications. Warranty coverage applies to reciprocating aircraft engine starting, and standby / essential power installations.
The data/information contained herein has been reviewed and approved for general release on the basis that this document contains no export-controlled information.


text:
Why Liverpool Fans Want Benitez To Do Well
In the moments and days leading up to Rafa Benitez being appointed Chelsea manager, the thoughts and feelings rushing through me seemed eerily familiar. I had been here before.
Questions were swirling through my mind, unable to grasp the concept of Benitez going to a team like Chelsea. Why would he want to go there? Their fans hate him. Why would he want to put up with Abramovich? A tyrannical owner that puts even Hicks and Gillett to shame. How could he go to a team that is such a rival of Liverpool's? (I realize many fans disagree that they are our rivals, but like it or not, a rivalry was created and means a lot to many fans). Why would he risk his career going to a club that would sack him for just about anything they wanted to? How did he become so desperate that he was willing to put aside his own visions and ambitions to join a club that clearly has eyes for a younger, more beautiful Spaniard?
Benitez's claims of wanting a project, to build a club dynasty from the academy to the first team, to have an owner that truly believed in his singular vision and supported him completely, all seemed like lies. He was joining the enemy. A club that epitomizes all that is wrong with football. And did I mention the fans abhor him?
When the news broke, I was crushed. I had convinced myself that through all these questions and belief in Benitez's own words and character, that he could never join a club like Chelsea. Many argued with me, stating he "needed a job, he couldn't wait forever, Liverpool didn't want him so he had to move on, he can win just about everything there with those resources, he will make enormous amounts of money no matter what happens, he's putting himself back into people's minds, etc." All valid and understandable arguments. But I still never thought Benitez would sell himself so short as to be desperate enough to take the Chelsea job. A club with no heart, no soul, and only a bottom-less checkbook to make up for that. This was not the Benitez I knew and loved.
Where had I seen this all before? A little less than two years earlier, another Liverpool man left Anfield for Stamford Bridge. Fernando Torres professed his love for the club and the fans, promising he would never leave. Shortly after, he left. The pain was palpable. I personally had never felt so hurt by a player leaving. I was devastated when I saw the ease with which he disappeared from Merseyside and sauntered down to London. Whatever the reasons, whatever the stories we still don't know and that no one, including Torres, seems interested in telling us, it hurt. He was going to the enemy. And he was giving the finger to all the loyal Liverpool fans, that stood by him through injury after injury, and sulk after sulk, in the process.
It's hard to even explain the feelings I had when Benitez became Chelsea manager. I was surprised, dismayed, disappointed, and painfully angry. Much the same feelings I had when Torres took his leave to the same place.
After a few days, I was able to reflect on all those aching feelings of despondency and I suddenly became happy for Benitez. Despite my hurt feelings, I only ever wanted the best for him, and I know I am not alone as a Liverpool fan in feeling this way. It's like seeing your first love go off with someone else, that you know is not good enough for them and will only hurt them in the end. But if you love and care for someone, you have to let them go.
It was difficult to stomach him going to Chelsea, and that nauseating feeling will never leave. But I want him to do well. He deserves it. Sadly, I don't feel the same about Torres and never will. While the feelings around them both going to Chelsea were similar, the ways in which they left Liverpool were very different.
Despite Benitez's poor last season at Liverpool, he is still incredibly revered by most of the fans. He gave the club some of its most wonderful memories and moments. Reading his book Champions League Dreams reminds me of all those wonderful times we enjoyed as Liverpool fans under him, and how that euphoria and pride has seemingly vanished since he's left. In some ways, I've found it difficult to read back in detail all the great moments he gave us without feeling incredibly depressed. It feels like a lifetime ago, when really, it was only three years.
Most Liverpool fans would agree, especially in hindsight, that Benitez should never have gone. He fought tooth and nail for the club and was subsequently dismissed by a club hierarchy that had driven Liverpool into near oblivion. What has followed since then has been nothing short of pure chaos. And all the while, a short ill-fated stint at Inter Milan aside, Benitez sat on the Wirral, awaiting the call that never came from his beloved club.
It is with that in mind that I don't completely blame him for going to Chelsea, even though it is a club and a fan-base to be completely despised. The fact that I, and many other Liverpool supporters, are willing to put our ire for Chelsea aside simply because we want Benitez to do well tells you how much he still means to the club and its fans.
So you might still be wondering why we would want him to do well at a club we hate, with fans that have summarily dismissed him before he even arrived and have booed his every presence in front of them. Because of what he gave Liverpool. Because he gave us Istanbul, Cardiff, 2nd place in the league, and he made us the team to fear across Europe again. He gave himself to Liverpool, made the club and city his home, and the fans his friends. Most telling of all, when he left the club, he gave £96,000 to the Hillsborough Family Support Group. A cause that was not his own, but that he felt incredibly moved by and attached to. This, amongst so many other things, shows the character of the man.
Yet despite all of that, and despite an excellent win percentage, a European cup, an FA Cup, two Champions League finals, and the highest Liverpool points tally in years, the press, and even some fans, never took to him and wanted him gone. Journalists and commentators found it difficult to hide their hatred for the man, their reasons for which I still don't know or understand. He was bullied, mocked, and turned into a joke by the English press. He received no respect from them throughout his time at Liverpool, and even less since he has left.
That, amongst so many other reasons, is why Liverpool fans want him to do well. He deserves better than the treatment he's received and if going to Chelsea and helping them win will force the press and fans into respecting him the way he should be, then I am all for it. At the end of his Liverpool reign, he was tossed aside like garbage. Looking back, it was so disgraceful and foolish, especially when you factor in who he was replaced by, it is hard to believe that's what actually happened.
The way he was treated by so many makes me sad, and I will never support Chelsea, but I will always support Benitez. A wonderful man, a compassionate human being, and a brilliant manager. Whatever happens, he will never walk alone for all that he gave to Liverpool Football Club.
4 Responses to "Why Liverpool Fans Want Benitez To Do Well"
Agree totally!
Absolutely spot on mate.I wish him well aswell.I think you have to understand him a little to feel that way.he likes nothing more than being backed into a corner with the odds stacked heavily against him and plotting his way out.I don't think he minds the fans not liking him,just adds to the challenge
Decent article and some good points, thanks. But your conclusion of "I will never support Chelsea, but I will always support Benitez" is a contradiction. They are two mutually exclusive stances, no (Rafa reference there)?
I still want him back home..


text:
Jellin wrote:Ive broken up alot of dog fights, with dogs that keep coming back. You ever try holding back 2 full grown male pits by yourself? You cant. Ive punched, kicked, gouged, choked, poked, screamed, used a hose, used a breaking stick and many more "methods" of getting 2 or more dogs to let go. Try using your breaking stick on a dog thats in a kennel and managed to grab a dog through the bars. Yea crawl in there and get on thier level with a stick leading the way and see if you dont get bit. Just because you can break up dog fights between YOUR dogs dosnt mean crap to me. I work with 40 pitbulls, all have been abused, beaten and starved. I already know whats coming next, "why dont you take precautions to prevent the fights?" we do. poop happens.
Heres one for you. I was putting up 2 female pits that got along great, in the same room was another pair of dogs that got along great. I was rotating them. As i walked into the room they were boarding in, (both females on leads) I went to put one of the pits up when all of a sudden one of the kenneled dogs lunged and knocked the entire front of his kennel down (he bent the 6 hooks that hold up the side straight) and went straight for one of the dogs. This was a 110lb american bulldog and had the entire head of one of the dogs in his mouth. One of his k9's going into the top of the dogs nose the other behind the ear (yes the dog was huge). I had to allow them to go at it for a split second while i put the dog i still had control of in her cage. This dog was not one you could use any kind of stick on. He attacked brooms, mops, anything like. After holding the dogs heads still as i could for what seemed like forever to reduce the damage to the pits snout, waiting for a release in pressure from the bully's jaws. I did get them broken up, by slapping the bully's ear with my hand cupped. In other words (to all you people who think chocolate dosnt happen) you do what you can to help the dogs from hurting eachother but most importantly from keeping them from HURTING YOU. You dont always have a hose (like inside) or a breaking stick, or a air horn or whatever method you use.
You have GOT to be kidding. I am a 52 Yrs old woman and have broken up 2 dogs MANY times ALL BY MYSELF. It's called experience and a BREAKSTICK. I have also broken dogs off that had one through a chain link kennel a couple times over the yrs.. A breakstick is invaluable. You stated you were dealing with American Bulldogs and Bullies maybe?
What kind of temperament do your dogs have anyway? Bite YOU? Their master/mistress? Not NO but Hell NO.
Choked, beat, screamed, poked, gouged, poked????? That was your FIRST mistake. Keep your mouth shut and use the dam breakstick. Yelling and screaming only incites the dogs further. They don't even FEEL the pokes and gouges in the heat of the moment. Yes, I understand the weight of the dogs you are dealing with is twice what I am dealing with, but the basics ARE the same. Please. Rethink.


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KNOXVILLE, Tennessee -- Coaching in the SEC means taking home some of the biggest paychecks in college football -- and managing some of the greatest expectations in the sport.
The Southeastern Conference will play for its seventh consecutive national title this year. As the championship total has increased, so has the pressure to win.
Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky and Tennessee fired their coaches this year. No other league has dismissed more than two coaches thus far.
"This league, it's a different world," Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart said.
This marks the first time the SEC's had as many as four coaching changes in one year since 2004. Before then, the last time the SEC had four vacancies in one season was 1961.
Kentucky went out and tapped Florida State defensive coordinator Mark Stoops. He replaces Joker Phillips, who posted a 13-24 record in three years.
Tennessee, Auburn and Arkansas are still looking.
Derek Dooley was let go at Tennessee after he went 15-21 in three seasons. Auburn's Gene Chizik, who owned a 33-19 record in four seasons, was fired just two years after leading the Tigers to a national title. Arkansas announced John L. Smith wouldn't return after he led the Razorbacks to a 4-8 mark in one season as an interim coach in place of Bobby Petrino.
"There seems to be a lot more pressure on winning and winning quickly," Vanderbilt athletic director David Williams said. "I think if you go way back, probably not that far back, people were generally going to give people four, five years. But I don't think that's the case anymore."
SEC schools aren't alone in that regard.
Jon Embree played for Colorado, but that didn't stop the Buffaloes from firing him after he went 4-21 in two years. Southern Mississippi dumped Ellis Johnso on on Tuesday after just one disastrous season, as the Golden Eagles went from 12-2 in 2011 to 0-12 this year.
Former Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer said the college football landscape has changed considerably. He posted a 152-52 record and won one national title in 17 seasons with the Volunteers before getting fired in 2008.
"There's a tremendous amount of financial pressure on athletic directors coming from all directions, from coaches wanting bigger and better facilities, fans wanting more and more wins, and donors wanting more return for their investment," he said.
That investment is particularly high in the SEC.
According to the USA Today database of coaching salaries released last week, four of the nation's eight highest-paid coaches this year were from the SEC: Alabama's Nick Saban, LSU's Les Miles, South Carolina's Steve Spurrier and Chizik. And Miles just got a raise. He agreed to a contract extension with LSU on Wednesday that will pay him around $4.3 million annually.
SEC coaches are even paid handsomely to go away.
Auburn, Kentucky and Tennessee are paying a combined $15 million in buyouts just to get rid of their head coaches.
But the big contracts come with big demands.
"It's probably more highlighted in the SEC," ESPN analyst and former Oregon coach Mike Bellotti said. "It's all about money. As coaches' salaries increase, the tolerance for losing decreases. The salaries are higher in the SEC typically -- not always, but generally it's one of the highest-paying conferences -- and one with the least tolerance level if you don't win."
That environment could affect what types of coaches are willing to pursue an SEC job.
"You do know the expectations around here at Tennessee, at Auburn and at Arkansas, I think people hiring you are expecting you to compete for a national championship," said Gary Danielson, the analyst for SEC games on CBS. "You don't have to win it every year, but you better be able to compete. So if you're going to leave a cozy job, you'd better know what you're getting into."
Hart considers that a selling point.
"This is the ultimate challenge, which competitors embrace," Hart said. "This is the ultimate challenge, for a football coach to come into this league. If you're a competitor and you want to prove your worth, come into the Southeastern Conference. Come to the University of Tennessee. You'll get that opportunity."
Kentucky didn't waste much time filling its vacancy.
Stoops was hired three days after Phillips' tenure officially ended with a 37-17 loss at Tennessee. Although his Florida State defense has allowed the second-fewest yards of any Football Bowl Subdivision team, Stoops has no previous head coaching experience and has never before worked at an SEC school.
Arkansas, Auburn and Tennessee figure to take more time and pursue bigger names with head coaching experience and/or ties to the SEC. Hart called previous head coaching experience "critically important" and said he wanted somebody who "knows the difficulty of climbing the ladder in the SEC and can appreciate and identify what that takes."
All three current SEC openings are at high-profile programs. Auburn captured a national title just two years ago. Tennessee won the 1998 national championship and collected at least eight wins every year from 1989 to 2004. Arkansas was ranked as high as eighth early this year.
Yet all three programs are coming off losing seasons. Any coach wondering whether to seek one of these jobs may want to heed the advice Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs offered during the news conference announcing Chizik's firing.
"Those that are faint of heart, they need not get in line," Jacobs said.


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IBM DS5020 and other announcements
Visits (12347)
Well, it's Tuesday again, and that means IBM announcements!
We've got a variety of storage-related items today, so here's my quick recap:
As people look towards deploying a dynamic infrastructure, these new offerings can be a smart fit.
technorati tags: IBM, DS5020, EXP520, DS-RSM, iSCSI, FCoE, FCoCEE, B04R, B08R, B16R, B32R, B24C, B24X, GbE, 10GbE, SFP, Hybrid Fiber, SERP, VMware, Hyper-V
YouTube to stop IE6 Support
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Eventually, there comes a time to drop support for older, outdated programs that don't meet the latest standards. I had several complain that they could not read my last post on Internet Explorer 6. The post reads fine on more modern browsers like Firefox 3 and even Google's Chrome browser, but not IE6. Google confirms that warnings are appearing: [Official: YouTube to stop IE6 support].
My choice is to either stop embedding YouTube videos, some of which are created by my own marketing team specifically on my behalf, or drop support for IE6. I choose the latter. If you are still using IE6, please consider switching to Firefox 3 or Google Chrome instead.
technorati tags: IBM, IE6, YouTube, Google, Chrome, Firefox
DNA Origami - A Scientific Breakthrough by IBM and Caltech
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This week, scientists at IBM Research and the California Institute of Technology announced a scientific advancement that could be a major breakthrough in enabling the semiconductor industry to pack more power and speed into tiny computer chips, while making them more energy efficient and less expensive to manufacture. IBM is a leader in solid-state technology, and this scientific breakthrough shows promise.
But first, a discussion of how solid-state chips are made in the first place. Basically, a round thin wafer is etched using [photolithography] with lots of tiny transistor circuits. The same chip is repeated over and over on a single wafer, and once the wafer is complete, it is chopped up into little individual squares. Wikipedia has a nice article on [semiconductor device fabrication], but I found this [YouTube video] more illuminating.
Up until now, the industry was able to get features down to 22 nanometers, and were hitting physical limitations to get down to anything smaller. The new development from IBM and Caltech is to use self-assembling DNA strands, folded into specific shapes using other strands that act as staples, and then using these folded structures as scaffolding to place in nanotubes. The result? Features as small as 6 nanometers. How cool is that? While NAND Flash Solid-State Drives are available today, this new technique can help develop newer, better technologies like Phase Change Memory (PCM).
To learn more, see the [IBM Press Release], or read the [Research Paper] published in Nature Nanotechnology.
technorati tags: IBM, Caltech, California Institute of Technology, DNA, origami, SSD, NAND, Flash, PCM
IBM has Scalable Backup Solutions
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Over on his Backup Blog, fellow blogger Scott Waterhouse from EMC has a post titled [Backup Sucks: Reason #38]. Here is an excerpt:
Unfortunately, we have not been able to successfully leverage economies of scale in the world of backup and recovery. If it costs you $5 to backup a given amount of data, it probably costs you $50 to back up 10 times that amount of data, and $500 to back up 100 times that amount of data.
I suspect that where Scott mentions we in the above excerpt, he is referring to EMC in general, with products like Legato. Fortunately, IBM has scalable backup solutions, using either a hardware approach, or one purely with software.
If your company is using a backup software product that doesn't scale well, perhaps now is a good time to switch over to IBM Tivoli Storage Manager. TSM is perhaps the most scalable backup software product in the marketplace, giving IBM an "irrefutable advantage" over the competition.
technorati tags: IBM, Scott Waterhouse, EMC, Legato, Tivoli, TSM, deduplication, ProtecTIER, N series, A-SIS
TechSelect University 2009
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This week, I was in the Phoenix area presenting at TechData's TechSelect University. TechData is one of IBM's IT distributors, and TechSelect is their community of 440 resellers and 20 vendors. This year they celebrate their 10 year anniversary of this event. I covered three particular topics, and I was videotaped for those who were not able to attend my session. (There were very few empty seats at my sessions)
The venue was the [Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort and Spa] in Chandler, just south of Phoenix. This compound includes [Rawhide], an 1800's era Western Town attraction, a rodeo arena, and a casino still under construction. Dinners were held nearby at the infamous [Rustler's Rooste] Steakhouse on South mountain.
technorati tags: IBM, TechData, TechSelect, SVC, DS3400, DS4700, DS5000, LTO, LTO-4, encryption, WORM, TKLM, Brocade, Cisco, Juniper Networks, SAN24B-4, Cisco 9124, CEE, CNA, SAN32B, 10GbE, FCoE, FCoCEE, Wild Horse Pass, Chandler, Phoenix, Arizona, Rawhide, Rustlers Rooste, South Mountain
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Move to MyDeveloperWorks Now Complete
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Back in June, I mentioned this blog was [Moving to MyDeveloperWorks] which is based on IBM Lotus Connections. Finally, the move is complete for all bloggers. If you are having problems with the redirects, you might need to unsubscribe and re-subscribe in your RSS feed reader. Here are the new links for several IBM bloggers that have moved over:
Let me know what you think of the "XIV" color scheme of Black and Orange. I have not yet "tricked out" the template with all the latest bells and whistles, widgets and so on, that is still work to do.
technorati tags: IBM, MyDeveloperWorks, Barry Whyte, Carlos Pratt, Elisabeth Stahl, XIV
Storage Symposium 2009 - Day4 SVC Questions Answered
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Continuing my week in Chicago, for the IBM Storage Symposium 2008, we had sessions that focused on individual products. IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller (SVC) was a popular topic.
technorati tags: IBM, SVC, Audacity of Cope, svc_snap, Flamingo pink, Raven black, non-disruptive, svctools, AlphaWorks[Read More]
Storage Symposium 2009 - Day3 XIV sessions
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Continuing my week in Chicago, for the IBM Storage Symposium 2008, I attended two presentations on XIV.
Not surprisingly, XIV was quite the popular topic here this week at the Storage Symposium. There were many moresessions, but these were the only two that I attended.
technorati tags: IBM, XIV, SATA, best practices, performance, Wilson Kipketer, massive parallelism, HBA, DBMS, Oracle, ASM, DB2, SVC, VMware, VMFS, TSM, Tivoli, SAP, Quicksizer, SAPS, PERFMON, iostat, Disk+Magic, TS7650G, ProtecTIER[Read More]
Storage Symposium 2009 - Day4 Linux Directions
Visits (10282)
Continuing my week in Chicago, at the IBM System x and BladeCenter Technical Conference, I attended an awesome session that summarized IBM's Linux directions. Pat Byers presented the global forces that are forcing customers to re-evaluate the TCO of their operating system choices, the need for rapid integration in an ever-changing business climate, government stimulus packages, and technology that has enabled much better solutions than we had during the last economic turn-down in 2001-2003.
IBM has been committed to Linux for over 10 years now. I was part of the initial IBM team in the 1990s to work on Linux for the mainframe. In various roles, I helped get Linux attachment tested for disk and tape systems, and helped get Linux selected as an operating system platform of choice for our storage management software. Today, Linux-based server generate $7 Billion US dollars in revenues. For UNIX customers, Linux provides greater flexibility for hardware platform. For Windows customers, Linux provides better security and reliability.
Initially, Linux was used for simple infrastructure applications, edge-of-the-network and Web-based workloads. This evolved to Application and Data serving, Enterprise applications like ERP, CRM and SCM. Today, Linux is well positioned to help IBM make our world a smarter planet, able to handle business-critical applications. It is the only operating system to scale to the full capability of the biggest IBM System x3950M2 server.
Pat gave an examples of IBM's work with Linux helping clients.
IBM's strategy has been to focus on working with two of the major Linux distributors: Red Hat and Novell. It also works with [Asianux] which is like the UnitedLinux for Asia, internationalized for Japan, Korea, and China. It handles special requests for other distributions, from CentOS to Ubuntu, as needed on a case by case basis. IBM's Linux Technology Center of 600 employees help to enable IBM products for Linux, make Linux a better operating system, expand Linux's reach, and help drive collaboration and innovation. In fact, IBM is the #3 corporate contributor to the open source Linux kernel, behind Red Hat (#1) and Novell (#2). For most IBM products, IBM tests with Linux as rigorously as it does Microsoft Windows. IBM offers complete RTS/ServicePac and SupportLine service and support contracts for Red Hat and Novell Linux.
At the IBM Solutions Center this week, several booths used Linux bootable USB sticks to run their software. [Novell SUSE Studio] was developed to help customize Linux to the specific needs for independent vendors.
Both Red Hat and Novell offer distributions in four categories:
A key difference between Red Hat and Novell appears to be on their strategy towards server virtualization. Red Hat wants to position itself as the hypervisor of choice, for both servers and desk top virtualization, announcing Kernel-based Virtual Machine [KVM] on their Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.4 release, and their new upcoming RHEV-V, a tight 128MB hypervisor to compete against VMware ESXi. Meanwhile, Novell is focusing SUSE to be the perfect virtual guest OS, being hypervisor-aware an dhaving consistent terms and licensing when run under any hypervisor, including VMware, Hyper-V, Citrix Xen, KVM or others.
IBM has tons of solutions that are based on Linux, including the IBM Information Server blade, the InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse, SAN Volume Controller (SVC), TS7650 ProtecTIER data deduplication virtual tape library, Grid Medical Archive Solution (GMAS), Scale-out File Services (SoFS), Lotus Foundations, and the IBM Smart Cube.
If you are interested in trying out Linux, IBM offers evaluation copies at no charge for 30 to 90 days. For more on how to deploy Linux successfully on IBM servers, see the [IBM Linux Blueprints] landing page.
technorati tags: IBM, Linux, UNIX, Windows, Solaris, SPARC, ERP, SRM, SCM, SAP, TCO, Stockholm Sweden, traffic, ConAgra Foods, NCSU, VCL, RedHat, RHEL, Novell, SUSE, xCAT, HPC, Real Time, VMware, ESXi, Hyper-V, Citrix, Xen, KVM, RHEV, RHEV-H, SVC, TS7650G, GMAS, SoFS, Lotus Foundations, Smart Cube


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Ingredients For Filling:(A)
1 lb ground pork
1 lb large shrimp,peel and chopped
1 stalk scallion,wash and chopped
1 can or 8 oz water chestnut,diced small or chopped
1 handful or 1/2 stick carrot ,peel and chopped
1 tbsp ground white pepper
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp sea salt
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp fine sugar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 large egg
1 pack dumpling wrapper,round shape skin
For the Soup:
2 liter water
2 cubes Knorr's Shrimp flavor
1 tbsp seasalt
2 small size rock sugar
2 tbsp sesame oil
200 gm Chinese chives,wash and cut 2 inch length each
1 handful shredder carrot
some fried shallot for garnishing
1:Prepare a large bowl,combine ingredients (A) mix well with clean hand.Check the seasoning.
2:Unwrap dumpling skin,cover loosely with moist clean towel or paper towel to prevent the skin from dry out.
3:Then lay a skin on your palm,use a teaspoon to scoop out the filling into the center of the wrapper,use some water to wet the side of the wrapper,then fold down the other side like scallop shape..Place the wrap dumpling on a large tray.Repeat the procedure until the filling finish.
4:Use a large stock pot or wok with water,add in some oil,about 2 tbsp,when water rolling boil,add in the wrapped dumpling one by one into the boiled water for about 10 minutes.Stir with spatula to prevent the dumpling from sticking on the bottom.When dumpling floated,dish out and set aside.
5:Meanwhile heat stock pot with 2 liters water .When water rolling boil,add in shrimp flavor cube and rock sugar into the stock pot.When the shrimp flavor cube and rock sugar dissolved,add in cooked dumpling,Chinese chives,shredder carrot and sesame oil.
6:Dish the dumpling out into individual bowl,garnish with fried shallot,serve warm.


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labby necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 67 diseños de 18 diseñadores freelance.
Give Me 10! The 10-minute solution to find balance and reach your goals
I am launching a website/blog, and I hope eventually a book, aimed at creative and ambitious mothers. I would like a logo and "identity toolkit" (font, color palette) that will be the first step to creating a brand that will inspire women to have fun, and be all they can be. The look will start on the website, carry through to the book, as well as other visual materials. Book jacket design experience encouraged.
Mothers, whose primary job is caring for the family (and often also have careers outside the home) but who still have their own hopes and dreams and goals that are usually pushed aside to get through the day-to-day essentials.
Give Me 10! Focuses on helping women keep those dreams alive and nurture them a little bit every day – learning to paint, taking time to read a good book, planning a trip to Europe, learning to play the piano, taking time for yoga.
Give Me 10! Provides advice and suggestions on how to take 10 minutes every day to take on those goals and achieve them slowly but surely.
You can get a feel for the site and the target audience at GiveMe10.info or GiveMe10blog.com. The logo would replace the portion of the screen that now has nature photos. Once I have a logo, I will probably create an intro page (the first screen of the site) that would have just a few words and almost all logo to establish the mood of the site.
The look I'm going for is fun, accessible, light, achievable and collegial. I'm trying to convey that anyone can do this, and that we're all in this (motherhood thing) together.\
NEW NOTE: My "colleagues" in the field are "mommy bloggers" whose look is somewhat cute and girly. Some examples include busymom.net, hipasiwannabe.com, and resourcefulmommy.com. I am looking to capture this type of look. I picture a logo featuring a caricature of a mom doing a variety of different goals -- in one she may be doing yoga, playing tennis, painting, skydiving. The caricature should like like "any mom" but cute and together. The words "Give Me 10!" are secondary to the pictures and can be small.
As said above, I'd like a logo, font, color palette that will become identifiable with the site. The logo will first appear on the website but I hope to carry it through to the book and other visual materials.
• CMYK image in PDF and Adobe Illustrator AI format.
• Layered RGB file in Photoshop PSD and JPEG.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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Results tagged ' blackahwks '
Rienzo, Teammates Ready to Even Series With Padres
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Today's News
Today's Game
White Sox vs. Padres at U.S. Cellular Field (1:05 p.m., CT, WGN) in the second game of the three-game series. RHP Andre Rienzo (4-1, 3.95) for the Sox, RHP Tyson Ross (5-4, 2.97) for San Diego.
Sox Starting Lineup: Eaton CF, Beckham 2B, Gillaspie 3B, Viciedo RF, Dunn 1B, Ramirez SS, Konerko DH, De Aza LF, Flowers C.
Plays of the Day
Despite getting the loss in last night's defeat, John Danks had another strong outing. He gave up only two runs, eight hits and a lone walk along with four strikeouts in seven innings pitched…Reminiscent of Mark Buehrle's "Play of the Year" (at least) on Opening Day, 2010, here's Gordon Beckham's amazing play in the third inning last night, which very well could have halted a big Padres inning.
Sox Notes of Note
White Sox starters now own a 2.21 ERA and a .197 opponents average in our last 10 games…Danks' eight quality starts marked the 1,000th quality start by the Sox since 2003. John has a 1.20 ERA over his last two starts and owns a 3.02 ERA in six starts at home…Daniel Webb owns a 1.29 ERA over his last 12 games.
Old Friends
It was great to say hello to two former White Sox before last night's game. Carlos Quentin was outside of our clubhouse before batting practice, while I caught up with Jose Valentin, now the Padres' first base coach, as San Diego took the field for BP. I still laugh about Jose's chest tap, imitating Sammy Sosa, that day at Wrigley Field.
The Draft: A Look Back
The First-Year Player Draft is just days away, beginning on Thursday, June 5. Here's a review of some of the Sox' most successful picks.
Sox and the (Second) City
Gordon and Robin Ventura pose with the cast of Second City and sportscasters/comedians, the Sklar Brothers (pictured on the right).
Blackhawks Still Very Much Alive!
The crowd gathers at the Chisox Bar & Grill following last night's Sox game to watch the Blackhawks force a Game 7 with the Kings tomorrow night at the UC. Go Hawks!
The Adventures of Jose Abreu
Jose Abreu took part in a simulated game before today's game as he prepares for a possible Monday return from the disabled list for a sore left ankle. Abreu faced live pitching in the form of two minor league right-handers brought up to throw in game conditions to him. I'm certain one kid's heart sank when he drilled Abreu just above the elbow in his second at-bat. Jose shook it off and took several more at-bats, lining a couple of singles and hitting at least two doubles to the wall … and most importantly, legging them out and running fine. He will repeat the drill tomorrow, hopefully without the HBP.
Think how this kid had to feel. Probably his first time on a big league mound. Silent ballpark on a Saturday morning. Everyone watching. And … BAM!
The young man shook hands with Abreu and said a few words after the simulated game. Well, that was probably a day he will never forget.
Quote of the Day
Chris Sale on the "K Zone for Sale," which will be in full force for his start tomorrow:
"It's cool. It's fun to have the excitement of that in the ballpark and hearing those guys go crazy every time there's a strikeout. It's fun to have people in the stands. Every time you get more people in the stands, it creates more energy and more excitement in the ballpark."
Tomorrow's Schedule
White Sox vs. Padres at U.S. Cellular Field (1:05 p.m., CT, CSN) in the finale of the three-game series and 10-game homestand. Starters: LHP Sale (4-0, 1.73) for the Sox, LHP Eric Stults (2-5, 4.92) for San Diego.
Photo of the Day
POTUS tries on a 2005 White Sox World Series ring during his recent trip to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown:


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Outfit Details:
vintage sweater - thrifted
cashmere sweater - courtesy of bebe
bow tie - borrowed from Bobby
bb dakota skirt - courtesy of ModCloth
tights - we love colors
Hawk wedges - courtesy of Seychelles
Ginger leather satchel - courtesy of Coach
True story: I watched a youtube video on how to tie a bow tie. I wanted to wear Bobby's but didn't know how to tie it. I still don't, because it looks wonky. I am impatient.
Bebe sent me this cashmere sweater and asked me to style it. I had about five minutes to come up with something and send it to them, and this is what I did - a little mix of schoolgirl and schoolboy. I'm actually allergic to wool (it's only a slight allergy), so I decided to layer it. But guess what? I layered it over a wool sweater. Needless to say, I shouldn't be allowed to make decisions at seven in the morning. I had the itchies afterward.
If you are feeling generous, please take a moment to like my selection (only if you actually like it, obviously) on bebe's page and check out the other gals! One of us will win a little prize (a flip cam and a gift card). While you're at it, please add me on facebook so we can keep in touch!


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flamingosoft necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
2 ganadores han sido elegidos entre 55 diseños de 15 diseñadores freelance.
Olivos del Sacramento
This is a family/life project. I am a single mom with two teenagers and have put my life savings on a olive tree small farm near Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. Olive trees take 7 years to mature and next year's will be our first almost-full-grown harvest (5 year old trees). This year we produced 500 liters of what turned out to be a premium quality olive oil, just enough to send to different olive oil experts to taste and give it away to create interest on our future harvests.
Uruguay is new to olive oil production, and the City of Colonia del Sacramento is a very special place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloni…Sacramento. It was founded in 1680 and its old city was designated World Historical Heritage by the UN.
Our market will be quality restaurants and delis and olive oil boutiques around the world.
We will sell on the strength of high ratings and quality, the result of traditional production process.
Our oil will be essentially the juice of olives, pressed on site, as soon as they are harvested with no chemical interventions or enhancement.
We would like something that refers to the country, since as I said Uruguay is new to the olive oil industry.
The name already makes reference to the region in Uruguay (Colonia del Sacramento) because of the "del Sacramento" part, but maybe using something that has the "historic flavor" would work well.
I am attaching a file with something I came up with, but I am a numbers person, SO YOU CAN FEEL FREE TO COMPLETELY IGNORE IT. In any case it is not appropriate for a logo (too much stuff, too big, more for a label), but you might want to design a logo keeping in mind that hopefully it will become part of a label that you will be requested to design too (and whatever else we will need to design if we are successful)
The rays of the sun I sketched attempt to be similar to the ones you can see in the Uruguayan flag, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:S…ruguay.svg
and the branches under the lettering are olive branches roughly similar to the ones appearing to the right of the Uruguayan coat of arms: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped…ay.svg.png
Underneath the sun I attempted to depict what an olive grove looks like. Olive trees are planted on a slope, in rows in the direction North-South.
These details aim at giving you a feel for the project, not required to incorporate to the design
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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Skip to content
plots, poetry and politics.
Voting for me, myself and I! The US Midterms.
Anarchy and punishment.
Not so surprising, Saudi Arabia?
The politics of reason – a rarity!
Brexit – stepping into the unknown.
Imagination vs Fear of the unknown. Brexit is certainly unknown.
The swedes swing right. A surprise?
The swedes swing right. A surprise?
The tribes of Israel
The rise of the right.
Truth, half truth and nothing but my truth.
The National Health Service – onward!
Borrow now, pay back never?
Left, Right or Centre, it's a new day.
A hard Brexit – maybe a wise choice!
Protecting Mr Trump.
Capitalism or Socialism or something else? Looking outside the box!
Dysfunctional Government
No wonder I'm confused!
Brexit, it's not about fish – entirely.
What do Trump and Putin have in common?
From Nobel Prize to Genocide. Please help!
4th March 1789
Aung San Suu Kyi
Why? What's the point of hate?
Cowardice no substitute for leadership.
US trumps the UK!
Snake oil, the White House, and the BBC
The British – the independants.
63 million refugees!
Are voters that stupid?
Left, right and centre!
UK political non-truths! Hiding behind Brexit.
The size of the UK cake?
100 days – from Pensylvania Avenue
Letter from Pensylvania Avenue
Another letter from the House in Pensylvania Avenue (Quay largo)
A letter from the Big House, Pennsylvania Avenue
A democratic folly!
Trump in Charge 2
Trump in charge
Brexit, Mountains and Molehills.
A Nation of Xenophobes.
A Nation of Xenophobes.
Gun boats and other fantasies
The lost Children of the Calais Jungle
The lost Children of the Calais Jungle
Brexit home to roost!
Brexit Jitters!
Exrtemism Left or Right. Ignorance is bliss.
Political shifts on both sides of the pond.
The Clintons, good or bad?
Now the battle begins
An unconventional Convention!
Democracy, democracy! What a lark?
Stymied! No government, opposition or plan
Sad America.
The World is dangerous Place.
The young should be ashamed
Cameron -Democracy! What a chancer.
Brexit- Chaos-Good or Bad?
Ignorance is not bliss
To bomb or not to bomb
Responding to ISIL
Organising the political agenda
Maintaining and mending the street.
A Politician who doesn't know the answers
Category: New Book
I'm going to die, are you?
April 1, 2020
Keeping the faith.
August 8, 2017
The Accidental Spy.
August 5, 2017
Rolling the stone up the hill.
August 2, 2017
Getting down to writing.
July 31, 2017
'It's the beginning of the end'
July 29, 2017
The Accidental Spy
March 25, 2017


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Tailored Living
Turn Your Home From a Cluttery Mess to a Charming Retreat
Clutter. It's the bane of many homeowners. And it seems just as the clutter has been cleared, more clutter arrives to take its place. Tailored Living has been helping area homeowners rediscover their homes and fall in love with them all over again. "Clutter gets in our way of seeing our homes for all they can be," said owner Dana Nuesca. "We can help you get a handle on your clutter and beautify your home too."
Getting started is the most difficult part. So Dana recommends starting with small tasks such as a corner or a drawer. "One task that has helped others is Toss 50, which means a homeowner will discard or recycle 50 items throughout the house during one week's time," offered Dana. "Get rid of broken items, discouraging items, and things that don't work. They're just dragging you down."
Once you clear up the clutter, know what you're keeping and have a pretty good idea of where you're going to keep it, Tailored Living will visit your home and design a storage solution just for you. "It's not helpful to purchase a cookie cutter storage solution," said Dana. "Tailored Living uses space design software so we can create a number of storage solutions and review them with the homeowners to make sure the chosen design meets their specific needs." She added, "Once homeowners cut through the clutter, they can see the inherent beauty in their homes."
Tailored Living of North County San Diego featuring PremierGarage began operation in 2014 and is owned and operated by Escondido residents Kalani and Dana Nuesca. The company proudly serves homeowners and businesses from all over North County, offering storage solutions for garages, closets, pantries, mudrooms, home offices, and even guest rooms through complimentary in-home estimates and consultations, professional measuring, and installation. For more information on Tailored Living of North County call 858-877-9005 or visit www.tailoredliving.com/carlsbad.
Special Offer: $250.00 off when you book two rooms. Must mention ZCode in order to receive discount.
858-877-9005 | www.tailoredliving.com/carlsbad


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after taking a few years off from dance
caroline has asked to return.
she went last night & took ballet, tap & jazz
& LOVED it!!
when i picked her up last night (after 3 hours of class),
she was meeting with the studio owner and one of the teachers back in the office.
they were praising her for being such a natural.
i looked over at caroline....
she was beaming & smiling & sweaty & so very happy.
it was a priceless moment.
in the 5th grade, she sits on the brink of those years
where their little self esteem can truly take a beating.
i really hope ( & plan on telling them) the two ladies
know what a seed they planted in her spirit last night.
how powerful the words we speak over a child.
the last few days i've thought so many times about the now famous words
of aibileen from The Help
"you is kind. you is smart. you is important."
aibileen whispered those words in mae mobley's ears over & over.
usually while she was being neglected by her own mama.
while i probably will never be anyone's hired help
i will have many come & go through my life.
i pray that i seize those fleeting moments when i have a child
or an adult for that matter
sitting in front of me
& like aibileen to mae mobley,
like the dance instructors to caroline
plant those priceless words of encouragement in that person's heart.
the last couple of days i have read some of the most tender comments, notes, emails and responses. so many of you, whether your personal mountain has been a walking through the valley of the shadow of death


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As frequent benefit-goers know, trading pajamas for party clothes can sometimes be a real hassle. Not so when Mayor John Hickenlooper, Walter Isenberg, Evan Makovsky and others committed to ending homelessness in Denver host their annual wing-ding at the downtown Residence Inn.
PJs are the suggested dress, and most everyone obliges by showing up in Dr. Dentons or something similar to kick back and have some fun while raising big bucks — this year, $200,000 — for Denver's Road Home.
The previous two years, the mayor has worn a red flannel night shirt made for him by his mother some 25 years ago. But this year, his 5-year-old son, Teddy, insisted he wear the snowman pajamas that had been the family's holiday sleepwear choice.
His main role at the party?
With many guests opting for higher-priced tickets that included an overnight at the Residence Inn (developers Isenberg and Makovsky donated all room proceeds for that night to the cause), Hickenlooper didn't have to be asked twice to record the greeting that those requesting wakeup calls heard the following morning.
Hickenlooper also presented an award to Jim Polsfut for his commitment to Denver's Road Home, an initiative that has already reduced the number of homeless by 11 percent. Polsfut chairs the community appeals team for Denver's Road Home, and attended the party with his 14-year-old son, Javier.
The 500-plus guests were treated to comfort food from Three Tomatoes catering; the buffet tables were stocked with green chile, fondue, cupcakes and lollipops. A silent auction included pajamas autographed by the Colorado Rockies' 2007 World Series team, Denver Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler and feminist Gloria Steinem.
There also was a raffle, and 10-year-old Molly Lucas appeared to be the champion ticket-seller with sales of $600 a good hour before the drawing was conducted.
Drag queen Nuclia Waste was there out of drag but colorful as always in pink flamingo PJs and his "killer rabbit" slippers. Denver City Councilwoman Marcia Johnson was "Your Worst Nightmare" with her face smeared with a pea-green masque and cucumber slices decorating the sleep mask worn headband-style just above her forehead. Bonfils-Stanton Foundation President Dorothy Horrell was the exact opposite: elegant in navy blue silk pajamas with matching robe and perfectly coiffed hair.
Other familiar faces in the crowd: Roxane White, Denver's manager of human services; Jamie Van Leeuwen, project manager for Denver's Road Home; Debbie Ortega, executive director of the Commission to End Homelessness; City Council members Carla Madison and Doug Linkhart; Barry Hirschfeld; Tami Door, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership; Gary Renville, director of development and marketing for Metro Volunteers; Josh Hanfling; Christie Isenberg; Evi Makovsky; Leanna Clark, co-owner of Schenkein public relations; and Robbie and Sharon Hahn.
Pictures taken at the Mayor's Pajama Party can be seen at denverpost.com/SeenGallery.
Denver Post Society Editor Joanne Davidson: 303-809-1314 or firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Mick Jagger Oversized Long Sleeve T-Shirt
Regular price
Unisex oversized tee with large front print. Model is 6' 1". One size.
John Shiner is a Rock & Roll Photographer from the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles. He was drawn to the music scene of 70's Hollywood. Young John would show up early at concert locations, and soon the gregarious white-blond 13 year old was making friends with some of the most seasoned professional Rock & Roll photographers. He became ubiquitous at L.A. rock shows, and would enter the venues mixed-in with the pros. Before long he was shooting virtually every Rock act that came in to town, his list of Subjects reading like a Who's Who of Rock royalty from the 1970's onward.


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For an overview map of all metered parking within the City of Austin, click here.
The below map is not a service of the City of Austin. The information is provided by ParkMe. The City of Austin does not endorse this product or guarantee the accuracy of the information provided. Please be safe while driving and use this service before heading to your destination, not while you are driving.


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Wildlife to the Rescue
Wildlife to the Rescue
*Help Save Koalas*
Since we launched our Help Save Koalas fundraising campaign, we've raised over $10,000 and sold out of Koalas! Not to worry, Koala's friends have come to the rescue!
Due to record-breaking wildfires and drought in Australia, an estimated 25,000 Koalas have perished and much of their habitat has been destroyed. For every 18" Oh-So-Soft Animal purchased, Vermont Teddy Bear will donate $5 to the Australian Koala Foundation. Together we can raise awareness and help the beloved Koala thrive once again.
4' Cuddle Puppy
4' Cuddle Bunny