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Filed under Attitude, Family, Home School, Homeschool, homeschooling, Life
Welllllllll! Hello again!!!
Yes, it's me……the girl who faithfully, unfaithfully always but rarely ever keeps on the planned path!
What happened to the days when I used to write a list, stick by the list, and ever-so-purposefully stay committed to a daily schedule?
What has happened to me?! All of the sudden, I find myself hardly even making it through my morning cup of coffee?! I start something but can't seem to get to the end of it. I'm failing at my goal of reading through the bible this year. I hardly ever write on this dusty blog anymore. I stopped counting carbs. I. even. almost. paid. the. car. payment. late. last. month! {gasp!}
This is not me! I am the "i" dotter, the "t" crosser, the list maker, the oh-so-organized one. I look for things to accomplish and pursue them. I don't live spontaneously……at least until now.
Could this be a mid-life crisis?! Could I actually be turning over a new "leaf", or rather bending the corner edge of it?
Maybe I've just fallen off the proverbial "deep end". I'm one stick short of ……. something. I've got a "loose screw". Somebody took it to the country, and duct taped it to the front door of our new little "paradise".
Our "paradise" is truly a "paradise", too…..with capital QUOTATION MARKS!
We are mooo-vin to the country, y'all.
Since the day we married 26+ years ago, the hubby and I have had a dream of owning land in the country. We have always wanted our kids to experience the freedom of running through a field, seeing stars at night, smelling fresh air and even, well…..the wonderful scent of cow poop!
We always wanted it, but life didn't make that happen until now.
Signing the papers this past week, we can now call our own piece of "heaven-on-earth" ours!
It has a huge pond! Ok, well, it will be huge when it starts raining again.
It has a beautiful hay field! Ok, well yes, it's covered in about a million and one grasshoppers at the moment.
It has a barn! Uh hum…….ok, PARTS of the barn are falling off right now, but we can and will fix that!
It has a house!…..a
big, beautiful two story house……..I mean a modest but cute three bedroom, two bath house….ok, I'll just spit it out as it is……a basically one room/one bathroom cabin.
Yes, we……all FOUR of us, plan to LIVE in that cabin for who knows how long until we can figure out a way to add on.
Lord help us.
Have we lost our MINDS?!
I go from excitement to times needing a time machine to take us back to one day before we signed the papers. I LOVE the land … not so fond of the house!
We may have to do as I recently read and cut hay with a weedeater. It was an article about some people who call themselves a bit "off their rocker". They went on to explain how having no hay equipment, they proceeded to cut their 10 acre field of hay with a weedeater. They hand raked the cut hay and then tossed it into a truck bed. Once at the barn, they loaded it onto a tarp that was raised to the hay loft in the barn for storage. Admittedly, they called themselves "crazy"! ( …and that may be just what we are too!?)
The "far and future" is full of plans and dreams. The "here and now" looks a little grim.
Thankfully, our first full weekend of demolition included the help of some great friends. We also took time to play and enjoy what we could. Lord help us…..we are determined to be happy in our little "paradise" 🙂
"Pretend your family has to leave your home quickly. You may take only one suitcase. What would you pack?"
This was the question on an assignment my boys had to complete and that I am just now grading. I chuckled when I read their answers:
LOL! My how priorities remain different for each of us! What was on your list?
I was thinking about pictures, important documents, my purse, etc. yet to young boys, action figures and video games remain as one of the most important things they own.
Recent tornadic events have swept away what alot of people would consider important. The residents of Diamond Creek in Forney, Texas are still picking through what is left of their material possessions. What may have seemed so important at the beginning of the year is probably very different for most right now.
Realizing that no one died or was seriously injured surely has caused our community to come back to the importance of life. Having our families, friends, and neighbors well and healthy brings about a new appreciation for the protection, love, and intervention of God.
Now that the clean up is mostly done and the rebuild is going on, what will we do with this memory? Will we do what we can to go back to life as it was before the tornado? Will we build our houses, both physically and spiritually, in such a way that we duplicate what was the "norm"? Just how long will it take for us to forget the blessings of the past weeks, and start to replace all the "stuff" God allowed to vanish?
I'm not just talking about houses, cars, clothes, and video games. The "stuff" I'm referring to is our need to gather all those things — the American dream, the desire toward pridefulness and power and position, and our insistence to keep up with "The Joneses".
Stuff like the comfortableness in which we live, or perhaps the wastefulness of our time…the hoarding of treasures and memories. The stuff we take for granted. Stuff that pales in comparison to life and relationships. Stuff comes in lots of forms: money, position, technology, business, paper, plastic, convenience, procrastination, beautiful colors, memoriable events, books, and ideals. It can permeate our lives before we even stop to realize that most of it is just "stuff".
A pastor of the local church we have recently visited took time to speak of such stuff and the effects it can have on our lives. His thought provoking question was "Is it eternal?"
The absolute answer to most of our "stuff" is "No, it's not."
We often, even unknowingly, use our stuff to set an image to others of what our life is like. These images are usually false and not at all a real representation.
Years ago, I realized that good friends in my life actually thought I was much more than I am. They were surprised to hear that my house is not always clean, my children do not always behave, and I, even I, made mistakes. {gasp!} I guess because of my quest for perfection at work, they believed my personal life was also that way.
(And now I just feel the need to break here and laugh out loud!!! Bwa hahahahaha!)
What my friends had no clue about was that I frequently mess up. I have baggage. My house is pretty much always a wreck (at least until I know someone is coming over, lol). Try as I may, I cannot clean enough around here. Try as I might, stuff creeps into my time and thoughts and many times prevents me from being what I know I should be.
Right now in my living room there are mounds of toys, video games, and a tent set up and encompassing the small amount of space still visible on the floor. There's dust on the ceiling fan and furniture, something stuck on the floor under the rocking chair, and toe prints from where the boys and grandchild have endlessly walked on the wooden floor. I have two sinks full of dirty dishes, things scattered across the kitchen counter, and a whole stack of papers to grade on the table. Outside, within my current view, is a bag of lawn clippings that need to be thrown out. There is also bits of fuzz scattered all over the back lawn from where the puppy decided to shred our grill cover…..again.
This is everyday life around here. If you called and said you were on the way to our house, I would most assuredly rush to put away all this stuff!
Still, even though rushing to clean up the house for you, I would hope that our lives represent a real-ness from the Lord. Even if you came unannounced, I would invite you in, longing to make you feel welcome and be attentive to the purpose for your visit. I would hope that even surrounded in my stuff, you would enjoy being here and look past my failures as a Domestic Engineer.
I wasn't always this way. I used to put only my best foot forward trying to impress and amaze. During that time, only the best of my stuff was on display. Nice dishes, perfectly folded towels, trophies, perfectly dressed children pre-scolded about their behavior lined up at the door to greet all who enter… these were part of the stuff I wanted people to see.
What hides behind a perfectly displayed life? How many times do we greet others masking the events of our personal life with a smile and a nod? Do we really expect our stuff to effectively shield true lives?
Our life is messy. I am definately not perfect. We have too much non-eternal stuff around here, and what I have figured out is that I don't have time to lead a non-eternal, stuff-filled life anymore.
Learning to look past stuff, taking moments to address stuff, and talking about how less important alot of stuff is in our lives has led us to alot of decisions. We have purposefully tried to let go of stuff and look toward only what God would set before us. These past few years have led us to leave alot behind. Whether purposefully removed by us or by God, we have found that our lives are becoming more of what they should be.
This is still transforming even now as we seek our next residence and ministry, but all I can say is "Wow, God really is better than our stuff!" His stuff is lasting. His provision is real. He really does know what it is we should be doing and how we should be doing it. We just have to lose our stuff to gain His.
There's still alot of unanswered questions about our immediate future but I honestly believe that wherever He takes us, it will be the right place. His allowing us to lose stuff in our lives is leading us to a better place. Although a bit painful at times, the journey is proving more eye-opening every day.
Sometimes we have to lose everything as we know it, or aspire it to be in order to gain just what He wants, and it is then that the eternal stuff starts to matter a great deal more.
Filed under Attitude, Blessings, Children, Church, Faith, Family, God, Home School, Homeschool, homeschooling, Humor, Life, money, Obedience, Parenting, Power, Priorities, Sin, Weather
Today was supposed to be my day off. Yes, I actually had plans to get out of this house, head to town and do a little shopping….for myself. {gasp!}
How often do I shop for myself? Oh, probably about once in every 4 or 5 years, it seems.
My closet is at its' lowest point ever in my life. Not that that's such a bad thing, I've never really been a "fashionista", but right now, I'm afraid, my family may nominate me for "What Not to Wear" at any given moment.
So…I actually got up today thinking I will take a shower and get ready then head into town to do something about it.
Then, I start to wonder what I can buy that won't make me feel guilty. This is part of my closet problem. When I do shop, I have no problem finding what my kids need, however when it comes to things for me, well, I end up talking myself out of spending the money. I'm such a penny pincher! This is good AND bad.
So….back to my day….
I paid the bills, carefully planning my little shopping trip today and looking forward to guilt-free purchases. Then we woke up this morning.
What was supposed to be our school-free day was already not. The boys did not complete their assignments yesterday, so they were expected to do so today. I had some hope that they would simply sit down at the table, check the list, and independently work while I prepared to leave.
That hope soon vanished as they snuck out to the trampoline, played with the grandbaby, turned on the Wii, and pretty much found any excuse they could to keep from doing their work.
So, "to the table", I demanded, and now my shopping time must be spent watching them, pencils in hand, staying on task.
This is what happens in homeschooling. It is a blessing and a curse, lol. I love the lights in their eyes as they learn something new and interesting, but also I realize that it is a commitment by the whole family to stay on task.
We can either excuse the day and head to town, or we can be disciplined and obedient to the call.
This is the way it is. Homeschooling is a job. It takes work…and time.
There have been days where we have set the schedule aside for fun. This day, however, is not one of them.
So I sit here, at the table, conversing and talking with my students as they complete their work. Hopefully someday they will do it faster and I will be able to do something about my closet.
For now, however, my day off is still a day on.
Filed under Attitude, Blessings, Children, Commitment, Family, Home School, Homeschool, homeschooling, Job, Life, Obedience, Parenting, Priorities
Some of the last words from Joshua: "Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:14-15
If you are reading the Chronological plan, these are the words you will see today. As I thought about them, it reminded me of how many "things" we let into our house. Good and bad, these things affect our lives in ways we don't often stop to…
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Filed under Attitude, Bible Study, Children, Commitment, Faith, Family, God, Home School, Homeschool, homeschooling, Life, Obedience, Parenting, Priorities, Resolutions, Sin, Time, Wholly, Wisdom
The Walmart checker who did not want to comp "Calabicita" for "Zucchini".
The same Walmart checker who did not want to comp 1lb of broccoli crowns for 1lb of broccoli crowns wrapped in plastic and on a styrofoam platter.
Walmart comp policy period. Why have the policy if you are going to give people a hard time when they try to do it?
Empty toilet paper roll on the dispenser. Again.
I bought this cereal……..yesterday!?
A Hubby who would clean the house on his day off.
It's March and I'm actually on schedule for my bible reading plan.
The granddaughter asking to go to "Mickey Donnells".
Cooking new things for dinner — I love to cook!
Three seriously the-boys-did-not-have-a-meltdown-nor-even-hardly-complain great school days in a row!
The smile of my grandson while I was singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" via Skype!
Filed under Attitude, Blessings, Children, Family, Gifts, God, Home School, Homeschool, homeschooling, Joy, Life, Love, Parenting
There! Somehow that made this homeschooling day a little bit better 🙂
Filed under Attitude, Children, Confession, Home School, Homeschool, homeschooling, Humor, Life, Stress, Trials


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INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana man was sentenced Friday to nearly six years in prison after pleading guilty to receiving child pornography.
This sentence resulted from an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Richard Zachary Gardner, 23, of Anderson, Ind., was sentenced March 14 to 70 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt, Southern District of Indiana.
"Through our Operation Community Watch initiative, we have joined with state and local partners to make clear that we will not tolerate child exploitation in Indiana," Hogsett said. "With innovation and vigilance, we are unmasking these online predators and holding them accountable for their criminal activity."
In August 2012, a detective with the Indiana State Police (ISP) was conducting undercover investigations into the sharing of child pornography on the Internet. The ISP detective downloaded files containing images of child pornography from a computer he later learned belonged to Gardner.
On Nov. 26, 2012, HSI special agents and ISP detectives went to Gardner's residence and were granted consent to enter and search the home. Law enforcement located a laptop computer inside the residence. A forensic analysis of this computer revealed hundreds of videos and images of child pornography, including depictions of sexual abuse against children younger than age 12 and sadistic and masochistic conduct. Gardner admitted downloading and receiving the images of child pornography located on the laptop.
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney MaryAnn T. Mindrum, who prosecuted the case, Gardner was also sentenced to 10 years of supervised release after he completes his prison term. He must also comply with state and federal requirements as a registered sexual offender.
This investigation was conducted under HSI's Operation Predator, an international initiative to protect children from sexual predators. Since the launch of Operation Predator in 2003, HSI has arrested more than 10,000 individuals for crimes against children, including the production and distribution of online child pornography, traveling overseas for sex with minors, and sex trafficking of children. In fiscal year 2013, more than 2,000 individuals were arrested by HSI special agents under this initiative.
HSI encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free Tip Line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE or by completing its online tip form. Both are staffed around the clock by investigators. Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, via its toll-free 24-hour hotline, 1-800-THE-LOST.
For additional information about wanted suspected child predators, download HSI's Operation Predator smartphone app or visit the online suspect alerts page.
HSI is a founding member and current chair of the Virtual Global Taskforce, an international alliance of law enforcement agencies and private industry sector partners working together to prevent and deter online child sexual abuse.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Janet Evanovich: Biography 22 apr 1943 Janet Evanovich entered the world on April 22, 1943 at South River, New Jersey, in the United States. From a child she had an active imagination and read books about horses and comics about Veronica and Betty, Lulu and Donald Duck. She later attended Douglas College at Rutgers University to study art. But, somehow, she did not feel that she wanted to be an artist and for a while she worked in an office. In her spare time, she began to write stories, but her pile of rejections grew until after a long time one of her books was eventually published. This started her off on writing romance novels which she did for quite some time under the pseudonym Steffie Hall. Much later, she switched to writing mystery stories. Janet Evanovich's first book appeared in 1987 and, since then, she has written prolifically to produce over forty titles plus another sixteen done in collaboration with other writers. Most of her stories are mysteries and appear in several series, with the most popular featuring Stephanie Plum, a female bounty hunter. Her books are a mix of adventure and romance and are action-packed with a good dose of humour and wit. Evanovich has over 200 million books in print several of which are bestsellers featured many times on the New York Times bestsellers list. Many of them have held the number one spot and her books have been translated into at least 40 languages. One of her books, one for the Money, was also made into a movie. Janet Evanovich married Pete in 1964 and they currently live in Florida with their two children. She has made her writing into a family business with each member playing having a different area of responsibility.


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125 Years of Eugene Frandzen
Beginning on Thursday evening, July 26, and running through Sunday, July 29, PulpFest 2018 will honor the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. On November 11, 1918, an armistice was signed that brought more than four years of hostilities to a close. The convention's focus will be the so-called "war pulps" of the early twentieth century. It will also explore the depiction of war in popular fiction and art.
One of the leading artists who brought The Great War alive for pulp readers was Eugene M. Frandzen. Born on April 13, 1893, today marks the 125th anniversary of his birth.
Orphaned in his early teens, Frandzen used his inheritance money to study at the Art Institute of Chicago. According to pulp art historian David Saunders, the artist moved to New York City in 1921 and opened an "illustration studio." Not long after, "his pen and ink story illustrations began to appear regularly in THE NEW YORK TIMES." While he continued his studies under Dean Cornwell and others, Frandzen found more work as a magazine illustrator. "From 1929 to 1939 his work regularly appeared as interior story illustrations and covers for many aviation pulp magazines, such as AIRPLANE STORIES, FLYING ACES, THE LONE EAGLE, SKY BIRDS, SKY FIGHTERS, WAR ACES, and WAR BIRDS.
During the 1930s, Eugene Frandzen became a mainstay for Ned Pines' Standard Magazines. The artist painted all of the covers for the Thrilling Group's SKY FIGHTERS beginning with its first issue — dated July 1932 — until he left the pulp field in 1939. Likewise, starting with the first issue of THE LONE EAGLE — dated September 1933 — Frandzen's cover art appeared on all but two issues of the magazine through its April 1939 number.
The artist returned to his native California in 1937 and turned to landscape art. He also taught a printmaking class at his home and regularly exhibited in both local and national art shows. Eugene M. Frandzen passed away on July 5, 1972.
Make your plans to celebrate "The Armistice that Ended The Great War" and "125 Years of Eugene Frandzen." We'll also be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of science fiction Grand Master Philip Jose Farmer and welcoming award-winning author Joe Lansdale as our guest of honor.
Please join us July 26 – 29 for PulpFest 2018 at the beautiful DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry, just outside Pennsylvania's Steel City. We hope to see you there.
(THE LONE EAGLE debuted with its September 1933 issue. It ran for 66 issues through its June 1941 number. The title was then changed to THE AMERICAN EAGLE for eight more issues. It finished its run as AMERICAN EAGLES with its Spring 1943 number. Telling the heroic adventures of Air Intelligence Agent John Masters, "the world's greatest Sky Fighter," the pulp debuted in the late summer of 1933.
Published by Standard Publications, many of the adventures of The Lone Eagle are believed to have been written by F. E. Rechnitzer. The "Lt. Scott Morgan" house name masked the author's true name. Robert Sidney Bowen probably contributed most of the later novels. In all, 75 tales of "the world's greatest Sky Fighter" would appear in the variously titled pulp, published for ten years by the Thrilling Group of magazines.)


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Good News for makeup maniacs :)
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
PR Info Lakmé 9 to 5 : The Office Stylist Range
Good News for makeup maniacs :)
12 comments:
Though m at a wrong place being a guy but the display of such beautiful products kept me long after the webpage got loaded.... Awesome one.ReplyDelete
Hi Thanks for dropping here and for your comment :)Delete
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You are here: Home » Progeny » Pure Crabbet progeny » Aurora Southern Star
2010 Pure Crabbet filly, (Silver Omen x Silver Crescent)
Star is a delightful filly. She was a late foal so is being given time to develop. I think she will be a top performer and has great conformation and movement.
Connect with us:.


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My wife is a teacher. She needed a system to run the games she organizes in class. These games are question-and-answer quizzes; the system had to be easy to use, reliable and wireless.
I chose NRF24L01+ modules for the wireless connection, which are cheap, easily available and interfaced with Atmel microcontrollers. These modules can handle up to six channels and advanced-communication mode.
In the project three channels in basic mode have been used. Each transmitter sends simply a string ("RED", "GREEN", "BLUE") to the receiver, which actives one of the three outputs turning on the related color (of a RGB led strip). After having pressed a button the other ones remain disabled, until the receiver is resetted by putting a hand near the IR proximity sensor (this creates a very impressive effect, kind of a magic show ;)).
The transmitters are supplied by a 3V-coin battery (CR2032). To obtain the maximum duration of the battery the ATtiny85 is normally kept in power down mode; pressing the switch button a reset pulse is generated. The micro controller then wakes up, sends the string and returns in his power down mode.
The transmitters' boxes are big colored rolls of adhesive tape; the receiver one is a spaghetti box (I'm Italian).
The code has been written using Arduino IDE 1.6.5 and the RF24 Library. Surviving several challenging games the system can be declared successfully tested!
I'll attach some pictures, schematics, sketches and firmware of the project.
Best regards, Anto
Kit with the PCBs, programmed controllers and wireless modules available at the Elektor shop.


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Episode 0092 (Catpeechino)
Recorded 11/11/12
(Play Or Download This Episode!)
The crew talk about their past few weeks. Paul allegedly doesn't sit down to pee but he does use the stall. Cat and her husband pumpkin chuckin, for real, like Kari Byron was there and everything. Mike does what he does best… he was Mike. Neil deGrasse Tyson teams up with the Man of Steel, Lots and I mean LOTS of bathroom talk, Sex Rig, Bat Wings, Sonic the Hedgetard, Bacon Bush, Dude or Douchbags, a new/old game called Fact of Fucktion, science talk, hedgehogs, and 2 songs round off this lengthy but very entertaining episode of OO.
Next show, on 11/18 Mike sits down for an interview with his friend who happens to host Radio from Hell and The Geek Show, one Mr. Kerry Jackson! Don't forget to join us in the chat and/or call in (484-334-2072) on our next show, Sunday, November 11th LIVE at 7pm EST on the Mediocre Radio Network!
Thank you for the listener participation, the iTunes reviews, the emails and the voicemails. Please keep up the good work, try to interact with us more on Facebook or Twitter. If you love the show, share it with your friends and family, leave us an iTunes review or voicemail. If you have anyone you'd like to hear interviewed on the show, drop Mike a line.
Neil Tyson, Man of Steel – www.geekosystem.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-found-krypton/
B.o.B. – Raybans


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Press Releases
EUROPORTS improves stuffing process of sawn timber
EUROPORTS Finland invests in Actiw LoadPlate to protect the covers and straps of timber packages and to improve safety and efficiency in stuffing process.
Actiw Loadplate installed to PERFINOR, Spain
PERFINOR gains operations efficiency by investing in Actiw LoadPlate for loading profiled metal products into containers. Learn more from our representatives site (in Spanish).
Save 2-8 % of product cost by automating truck and container loading
Actiw, a Finnish high-tech company specialized in intralogistics automation, is presenting their automated truck and container loading systems at MODEX 2014 in Atlanta, March 17-20.
Logistics operations gained increased attention across industries which were seeking sources of operational excellence and competitive edge. Today, logistics costs in certain product categories have grown to be over 50 % of total costs. The total benefits of loading automation add up to 2-8 % savings on delivered costs.
Truck and container loading automation, for instance, cuts personnel and machinery costs and reduces truck fleet size both for drop lot and short haul delivery operations with multiple daily runs by dramatically reducing turn-around times. In addition, automation of the loading process brings cost savings in other areas, e.g. product damage, health & safety and order accuracy.
When delivering special cargo, such as machinery or long goods such as steel and lumber products, Actiw LoadPlate provides the ability to use standard dry containers, instead of more expensive and scarce special containers (e.g. open-top containers or flat racks) cuts per container cost as well as added personnel and equipment needed to support loading.
Actiw LoadMatic is a new fully automated loading solution for palletized goods with the same simple loading abilities as LoadPlate. Pallets are automatically sequenced and transferred to LoadMatic and it simply loads the pallets into the truck or container in one push. LoadMatic can be seamlessly integrated to any automated production or warehouse systems.
LoadMatic's unique characteristics make it different from other loading solutions. It requires no alterations to containers or trailers, or special equipment at the receiving end. Unique sensing and positioning designs assure safe and accurate loading every time. The loading cycle is short, less than 5 minutes. The system has already proven its functionality and reliability with more than 100,000 loads completed in the United Arab Emirates.
New LoadPlates bring safer loading and unloading handling at Sandvik Materials Technology
Actiw Oy has supplied four LoadPlate container loading systems to Sandvik Materials Technology (SMT), Sweden. One LoadPlate has been in operation in Sandviken since 2007, and four more have been installed in SMT's warehouses around the world.
Sandvik Materials Technology's global project leader Stefan Lindberg, together with his colleagues, is responsible for the implementation of a new type of automated loading and unloading stations in the company's warehouses, called LoadPlate. With a large number of transported sea containers annually it was important to find a standard solution, which would work for their all warehouses. The project was named LoadPlate Global Container Solution and the purpose is to make SMT warehouses loading and unloading handling safer and more effective.
Current situation
Today a lot of the containers used are so called OT (open top containers). This causes a problem since the cost for OT is quite high, SMT cannot handle all loading in house and the flexibility and availability of these types of containers are poor. The situation creates a major risk for delays and increased costs for SMT.
The solution
By having LoadPlate stations SMT is able to load and unload standard containers in a much safer and efficient way than today. With all new LoadPlates, SMT will be able to change from OTs and use standard containers to a much greater extent.
Stefan Lindberg, Logistics, states; "By the implementation of LoadPlate stations for loading and unloading sea containers in China, India, USA and the Czech Republic we will reach our objectives to a safer container loading process for our employees. This together with a reduction in freight cost, claims and minimizing our dependencies of special equipment for sea shipments is an important investment for SMT and will make us more competitive."
Actiw Oy's CEO Reijo Viinonen says "Long and close cooperation with SMT and their feedback has helped us to develop product features that really match their needs. It has been pleasure to work with a demanding and professional team". He continues: "A lot has been done to improve storing and dispatching operations but container and truck loading are still done by traditional way. Actiw has developed technology that enables automation of loading into regular, unmodified containers and trucks. This provides more efficient loading operations with minimized handling damage and safer loading processes."
Actiw Oy – The logistics company of the year in Finland
The title of the Logistics Company of the year in Finland was awarded to Actiw Oy. The annual award was announced in May at the Logistics – Transport 2012 exhibition in Helsinki. Actiw Oy plans and sells automated storing, loadforming and loading systems for the international market.
The title of the Logistics Company of the year in Finland is awarded either on the basis of high-level, versatile and consistent development of logistics, or, on a concrete logistics development project and/or research which supports operational and economical profitability and generates new ideas and innovations.
Actiw Oy is a Finland based supplier of intelligent and sustainable automated warehouse and loading solutions that has been executing automated material handling projects since mid of 1980's. Actiw Oy has strongly invested in the development of automated storing, loadforming and loading systems of their own design for the international market.
The Logistics Company of the year is selected by Finnish Association of Purchasing and Logistics (LOGY) in cooperation with their forums.
Actiw Oy's Managing Director Reijo Viinonen comments that the award was a pleasant surprise, and continues: "It indicates that the development work we've done during the few years of our operation as an independent company has been the right choice, leading to success both in the domestic and international markets."


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- Sermon Notes
- Scripture
Grafted In
Romans 11:1-36
Paul has been telling us how concerned he is for his brethren, the Israelites because they do not have the surpassing victory which is ours in Christ Jesus
our Lord. His heart's desire and prayer to God for them is for their salvation, because they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.
They missed it, they stumbled over the stumbling stone. They took offense at God's Son, but He was God's answer so a sinner could have a relationship with
the holy, righteous God.
What a tragedy; the entire Old Testament points to Jesus Christ and they missed it. The problem was that they were hard of heart. God determined before
the foundation of the world that all who come to Him must come by faith, but they insisted on being defined by their works. They wanted to rest on
their own laurels; on their own accomplishments.
So what is God's response to Israel? They would not heed "the glad tidings of good things." They would not open their heart and so they didn't have faith.
But what does God do in response? Does He reject them? Is He done with Israel forever?
These are very important questions especially because of the times in which we are now living. More and more Israel is in the news and as we see the events
of the world unfolding before our eyes, we need to understand whether Israel is relevant any longer or if Israel has been cast aside.
One of the first places to start is in verse 21 of the last chapter, "But as for Israel He says, 'All day long I have stretched out My hands to be disobedient and obstinate people.'" He wouldn't stretch out His hands to them if He has rejected them. Once again we see God's grace extended.
Unfortunately there is a certain branch of theology today that declares that God has cast away His people, that the nation that bears the name Israel in
the Middle East today has no greater significance in God's agenda than, say, Canada, or Argentina.
But there are many students of the scriptures that are concerned about the events unfolding in the world today, and want to understand whether Israel has
any significance in biblical prophecy. Some try to spiritualize Israel and make any promises and prophecies regarding Israel be applied to the church.
Then there are those who seek to identify the so-called lost 10 tribes of Israel.
Some suggest the Anglo-Saxon nations are the lost tribes of Israel and they use such arguments as the nation of Denmark is actually the tribe of Dan. The
word 'ish" in Hebrew means man, so the Danish are the people of Dan. The Finish are another tribe, and the British, etc. All of which is actually fool-ish.
Paul is making the point with a big exclamation mark that God has not rejected His people. May it never be! When we understand God's heart toward Israel,
we also understand His heart toward us.
Understanding Israel is also a key to understanding the events of the last days. We are living in very troublesome times and in the midst of troubles,
some have shipwrecked their faith.
There is an interesting verse in Luke 18. Jesus asked, "When the Son of Man comes will He find faith on the earth?" When you see the faithfulness of God
in Romans 11 and realize that His heart is to strengthen our faith, it makes you want to open your heart to receive it. "Faith comes from hearing,
and hearing by the word of Christ," Paul said.
I. God is Committed in Advance
- God made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and determined in advance that He would bless their children forever.
- He knew they would reject His Messiah; He knows the end before there is a beginning, but His word stands forever and the gifts and calling of God
are irrevocable.
Jeremiah 31:31, "Behold, days are coming," declares the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah."
- The new covenant, through Jesus, is the fulfillment of God's promise to Israel and although they would reject that new covenant, God's word will
not fail.
A. God always has a remnant
- The old covenant has come to an end; Jesus is the grand finale. His blood is also the beginning of the new covenant and though most in Israel would
reject it, there would be some, a few, who would receive it.
Matthew 7:14, "The gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
- Paul uses himself as an example. He also brings up what happened to Elijah as an example of God keeping for Himself a remnant.
- Remember how he pleaded with God against Israel? They killed the prophets, they tore down the altars! Elijah hid himself thinking he alone was
- What was God's response? He told him to stand on that mountain before the Lord and a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking
it in pieces, but the Lord was not in the wind. And then an earthquake and then a fire, and after the fire the sound of a still small voice,
"What are you doing here, Elijah?" … "I have kept for Myself 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal."
- Elijah was frustrated. He saw the terrible condition of the nation and wanted God to bring some great demonstration of His power and might. "Bring a storm over this land, Lord! Shake these people with a mighty earthquake! Rain down fire from heaven and consume these hardhearted rebels!"
- We want to write the script that God should follow. The script we would write is the one where God moves in the greatness of His power and causes
everyone to stand in awe of His might!
- But does that really cause people to believe? Was there a revival after fire fell from heaven at Mount Carmel?
Luke 16:31, "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead."
- God told Elijah that He had 7,000 in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal. God was speaking to their hearts in a still small voice, and there
were some who were listening.
Romans 10:8, But whatdoes it say? "The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" —that is, the wordof faithwhichwe are preaching.
- The remnant of Israel was saved according to God graciously calling them out, and if by grace, then no longer is it on the basis of works; otherwise
grace is no longer grace.
- In other words, grace and works are mutually exclusive. If a person is trying to earn God's acceptance by their works, then grace has no effect.
Illus – It's like a young person wanting to be adopted and then mowing the lawn and washing the car hoping to be accepted. No, we adopted our boys and they didn't have to do a single thing but accept our offer.
- Verse 7 – that which Israel is seeking it has not obtained.
Ephesians 2:8-9, For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
C. Hard hearts get hardened
- Jesus said that if He was lifted up, He would draw all men to himself. Jesus on the cross carried the sin of the world and by God's amazing grace forgiveness
was offered to all.
- Jesus draws all men; He knocks on the door of their heart. But for some, it only makes their heart harder. What hardens their heart? That He continues
to knock, that He continues to speak to them about His love.
- Romans 10:21 – "All day long I have stretched out My hands…"
Illus – We had someone in our extended family that was about to make very poor decision and we all tried to open her eyes, but it only made her more determined.
- God speaks to hearts with a still small voice, but many people stop up their years and become dull of hearing.
II. Israel will be Grafted in Again
- In this last set of verses, Paul takes us to the end of the age and informs us that Israel will be restored.
- In fact, we find an amazing verse here, "Therefore all Israel will be saved." What can this mean?
- When you see God's heart for Israel that extends His grace to the end of the age, it completely strengthens faith. This world is going crazy, but God
has declared the end before the beginning and His sovereignty is over all the nations.
A. Be grafted into Christ; God's holy tree
- Verses 17-24 – Here Paul compares the natural branches that were broken off, that's Israel, and the wild olive branches that were grafted in, that's
us, the Gentile followers of Jesus Christ.
- They were broken off for their unbelief, we were grafted in by our faith. Paul wants us to understand this so that we appreciate what we have, we stay
humble of heart and don't have the wrong attitude toward Israel.
- That is exceptionally important to understand because unfortunately throughout the history of the church there's been a very unfortunate relationship
between the church and the Jews. I think you would be surprised how many pastors today are against Israel. At the same time there is a growing
trend against Israel throughout our country.
- Verse 25 – "I do not want you to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and thus all Israel will be saved."
- The hardening of Israel; their being cut off from the tree, is only temporary, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
Matthew 22:8-9, "Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main highways and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.'"
- God knows exactly how many Gentiles will come to the wedding feast and when the last Gentile has come in, God will move to restore Israel.
Illus – It's like being the 5 millionth visitor to Disneyland. They're counting the people as they're coming through.
B. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable
- I don't know how much more clear Paul can be than this. God is not finished with Israel. God has shut up all in disobedience that He might show mercy to all.
- But when God restores Israel, they will open their eyes from their blindness and receive their Messiah.
Zechariah 12:10, "I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son."
- In other words, they are restored only when they received their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ; and then they will be grafted again into that tree.
- In Isaiah God uses the same image but goes so far as to say that the entire tree is cut down. Rather than pruning a branch here and there, God cuts
it down to a stump.
- But from that stump sprouts a stem which turns into a mighty tree…
Isaiah 11:1-10 Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse…
- But the question is this, when Christ returns, will He find faith on the earth?
- Verse 33 – when you see the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God and how unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His
ways, your faith is strengthened.
- We are entering into very dangerous days and in all the craziness and turbulence, we need a rock on which to stand, and anchor for our soul.
Romans 11:1-36 NASB
1 I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2
God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against
Israel? 3 "Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life." 4 But what is
the divine response to him? "I have kept for Myself seven thousand men whohave not bowed the knee to Baal." 5 In the same way then, there has also
come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice. 6But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise
grace is no longer grace.
7 What then? What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened;
jealous. 12 Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be!
13 But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, 14 if somehow I might move to jealousy
my fellow countrymen and save some of them. 15 For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from
the dead? 16 If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are too.
of the olive tree, 18 do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root
supports you. 19 You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in." 20 Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief,
but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; 21 for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. 22 Behold
then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God's kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also
will be cut off. 23 And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24 For if
you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these
who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?
to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in;
26 and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written,
"The Deliverer will come from Zion,
He will remove ungodliness from Jacob."
29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of
their disobedience, 31 so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. 32 For God
has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.
the mind of the Lord, orwho became His counselor? 35 Or who has first given to Himthat itmight be paid back to him again? 36 For from Him and through
Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
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If you just read my Facebook post then you are probably itching to read the rest of the story of Kingdom Forgotten. You'll soon have your chance at the OFFICIAL book release party! Friday, November 21st Kingdom Forgotten will be available for purchase for $12.50 from 6-8pm in the Gateway Center. Books may also be purchased on Amazon beginning 11/21/14.
If you are looking for a good gift for Christmas or just need a good book to snuggle up to on one of our many soon-to-be winter evenings come join me for coffee, refreshments & the perfect book for you. Also if you have a copy of my first book, The Wooded King, bring it with you and I'd be happy to sign it (A very limited number of copies are available of The Wooded King for purchase for $5 as well).
Please let me know what you think! Write a review on amazon. I look forward to seeing you on November 21st.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Book Release Party for Kingdom Forgotten
Posted by Leslie Redden at 8:09 PM
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Category Archives: VIDEO
Zoo Wet Girls Video
Man on Fire (2004) HD – Full Movie by Tony Scott – Starring Denzel Washington
Boob Tube Roundup June 4, 2012 – Video
Nazi Border Pierced By Allied Might – Video
Universal Newsreel from December 4, 1944 showing the allied progress in the war as well as domestic news about a factory fire in Chigago, a plane crash in California, the Army/Navy football game and the swearing in of the new Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr.
War or Peace? 1950 Fateful Year – Universal newsreel
Universal Newsreels showing the highlights of world news of 1950, including Communist activities and convicted spy Gubitchev and the Korean War.
I'm A Fool – with James Dean and Natalie Wood – Full Theatre Film
A filmed theater production of General Electric True Theater. Starring James Dean and Natalie Wood and narrated by Eddie Albert. Hosted by Ronald Reagan.


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Best YouTube Moments in Oregon State Basketball: The NomineesPosted by Connor Pelton (@ConnorPelton28) on February 10th, 2014
Last month we introduced our new project, which is centered around determining the top YouTube moment in Pac-12 basketball history. We continue the nomination portion with Oregon State.
[ed note: These are just the top moments we could find on YouTube, which has a vast number and array of videos, but we won't be able to cover the entire 99 years of the conference.]
We open with perhaps the most explosive dunk in Beavers basketball history, courtesy of shooting guard Jared Cunningham. With three minutes left in the opening week of conference play, Oregon State was hanging onto a two-point lead against vaunted Arizona. Getting a running start from the three-point line, Cunningham read Joe Burton's missed jumper perfectly, rising over a pair of Wildcats and one of his own teammates to slam the ball home one-handed. If you were watching the game live, you'll remember how officials just stopped the game for a good 20 seconds because no one was quite sure what they just witnessed. There was no foul or timeout called, everyone just stopped playing. I thought that was pretty cool. If the Beavers wouldn't have pulled the upset, then the play would have just been remembered as a nice moment in an otherwise tough loss. But the offense continued to thrive down the stretch, and by the end of the night the Beavers were tied atop the league standings and owned the #6 play of the day on SportsCenter.
Our next clip can be viewed as one of the turning points in recent Beavers hoops history, lifting the program from the abysmal lows it suffered during the Jay John era. Going into the first USC game of Craig Robinson's initial season in Corvallis, Oregon State had lost 21 consecutive Pac-10 games. Roeland Schaftenaar played a huge role in changing that, draining a three-pointer off a nifty pick and roll with less than a second remaining to force overtime. The Beavers would go on to win, 62-58, a victory that would get the team rolling all the way to a CBI Championship in early April.
Up by one with 45 seconds remaining in the 325th battle of the Civil War, Beavers guard Chris Stephens drove to the basket looking to guarantee a win, or at least a trip to overtime, for his team. The attempt was too hard, and then something happened that will go down in Oregon State basketball lore. Sasa Cuic, along with two Ducks, swiped at the rebound, deflecting the ball high off the glass and into the hoop. Maarty Leunen knocked down two free throws at the other end to cut the deficit back to one, and after a pair of makes from the stripe for Stephens, Chamberlain Oguchi missed two three-point attempts to send the game to an extra five minutes. One rimmed out, the other was badly off, and seconds later the Beaver Dam rushed the court to celebrate the rivalry win on Senior Day.
Voting closes a week from now, and the top vote-getter advances to the tournament of champions.


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Acquisition Mgmt Advanced Training Course
The Acquisition advanced course of instruction is based on the information and practices contained in the IAITAM Best Practice Library (IBPL) Acquisition volume 10 which professes the Acquisition Manager to be the "Gatekeeper" for the application of all IT Asset Management strategies. Simply put, all IT assets should be ordered through the processes controlled by the Acquisitions Department.
A well defined Acquisition Process follows an established policy for purchasing IT assets in a disciplined and predictive manner that is in line with an organization's business objectives, in the most cost-effective and productive manner possible.
In this Advanced Course we will examine the fact that a mature IT asset acquisition process empowers the IT Asset Manager to function in an effective manner, while obtaining the best value in every IT asset purchase. We will also show specific criteria concerning requirement and selection guidelines, formal product reviews, approval process, negotiations and contract development processes.
- Review of ITAM Program Concepts
- Introduction to the ITAM Professional Code of Ethics
- Overview of Scope, Roles, and Definitions for this Key Process Area (KPA)
- Review of KPA Workflow
- Access to Best Practice Templates & Worksheets
- Development of Projects to Establish/Improve KPA
- Review of Available Technology to Support KPA
- Business Area Assessment Specific to Students Business
- Development of Buy-in Pitch based upon the Business Assessment
Discussion and sample projects including: Contract Review, Negotiation Practices, Acquisition Forms, Request for Proposal (RFP), Request for Information (RFI), Acquisition Process, Request Process, Approval Process, Redeployment Process, Asset Selection Process, Identify Suppliers, Justification Process, Key Vendors, Lease Process. Technology that will enhance the Acquisition Process Area, and Executive buy-in.
This Virtual IBPL Advanced Training course consists of the following:
- IAITAM Best Practice Library for this Key Process Area
- CD containing Policy Management Templates, Workflows, Diagrams and Whitepapers
- Series of video lectures
- Access to full time instructors as needed
- Review of ITAM concepts
- Self-evaluation exercise that incorporates best practices to uncover immediate business value for you and your organization


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"We can keep your backpack in the dickey", offered the conductor of the crowded mini-bus heading from Lumbini to Bhairawa. Any space was welcome in the can of sardines, so I obliged.
Gosh! That is how tourists are mugged – it was pointless, my bag was gone. I said a little prayer. Thankfully, my passport and money was on me. My trip to Lumbini had been in a similar bus…a small price to pay for tranquillity.
The previous evening on checking into the Lumbini Lodge, I came across a man enjoying his evening drink. We got talking. He was a retired Nepalese Captian, who had served in the British Brigade of Gorkhas. He was full of stories.
He said that he was in the UK for training. At that time, supplies and toiletries became scarce. Thanks to the Oil Crisis, due to an embargo by OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries).
He spoke of the restroom of a reputed hotel; about a signage stuck next to the toilet paper. "Use both-sides" He chuckled. "What was the fuss about? We just washed!" I wonder, where he found water next to a water closet of 1970s' Britannia?
Mr.Captain was seventy-six but he did not look a day over fifty. He picked up his full glass, as if he was in a health drink advertisement from the television. "Whisky quarter a day keeps doctors at bay!"
My mother would disapprove of the efficacy of my new-found fountain of youth.
The night at the lodge was uneventfully quiet. Hence, the morning was apt for exploration of Lumbini.
Lumbini has been divided into three zones; Sacred Garden, Monastic Zone and New Lumbini Village. Numerous Madheshi villages were resettled to make space for the international project. Can uprooting of native people be an apt preamble for the any dedication to Buddha?
The Sacred Garden was circular and was surrounded by a moat. At the heart of the garden lay Maya Devi Temple that held the marker stone (exact birth place of Gautama Buddha). Around the temple were the ruins of ancient monasteries and stupas, destroyed by the Mughal rulers of neighbouring India.
The Monastic zone contained monasteries belonging to several nations, showcasing their cultures and traditions. The zone was divided into Eastern and Western parts. The East houses Theravada monasteries, while Mahayana monasteries were in the west.
My guide cum rickshaw puller was from New Lumbini Village. He was called Raj Bhawan or royal palace. At least, his name reflected the opulence he possibly dreamt of.
The mini-bus had came to a halt.
A co-traveller reminded me that it was my stop. I was relieved to see my backpack. On my walk to Bhairawa Airport, I thought of my experience at Maya Devi Temple.
No sooner had I entered the shrine than silence engulfed me. My thoughts became the only sound; never heard myself so lucidly. I felt goose bumps on my arms. My strides towards the marker stone felt light, as if I was walking on air.The moment, I was face to face with the marker stone, a sudden wave of compassion seized me. Was it a divine presence or just the collective consciousness of believers?


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My book "The Cockroach Catcher" has stories of a few cases of Childhood Autism. The causes for the sharp increase in autism diagnoses were also discussed.
It took an article in a non medical magazine, Forbes Magazine, to make me understand the full scale of the problem. I am of course talking about money, and lots of it. In the
, attorneys specializing in Autism has apparently become a growth industry. US
"……Whatever the cause, the explosion in autism diagnoses has been a boon to lawyers who represent parents dissatisfied with the level of education their autistic kids are getting…………Two years ago Wyner hit the jackpot. He'd represented a grade-school autistic student who sued the
The reason for the success is this:
"……The suits arise out of a 1975 federal law declaring that every child is entitled to a "free, appropriate education," regardless of ability. That means that kids with learning problems such as dyslexia, speech difficulties or autism are entitled to have their public school systems pay for special services……"
Isn't it wonderful that the small people can win, given the right laws and the right attorneys?
Still, why is there such a jump in the number of children diagnosed with the condition?
It cannot really have anything to do with money, can it? Perhaps I should study law.
Here are some figures:
The number of autistic children in
1992 - 15,580
2005 - 193,637
Sources: CDC;
Autism posts:
Latest Autism Post


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Dr. Anne Luther spoke with Professor Yanni Loukissas by phone to discuss his research focus on critical data studies and local readings of data collections. Yanni Loukissas is an assistant professor of digital media in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech, where he directs the Local Data Design Lab. He teaches courses in Digital Media, Computational Media, Human-Computer Interaction, and Science, Technology, and Society.
Anne Luther: I would like to talk to you about your research focus and the Local Data Design Lab. What is the lab, and do you have a current research project you could introduce?
Yanni Loukissas: The term 'lab' has to be understood kind of broadly. It is basically an umbrella under which I can work with both Masters and PhD students, although I've occasionally had some undergrads tied to projects. The lab is, as you said, part of the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, which is a place for the humanities and social sciences at Georgia Tech, but one that treats media design as an integral part of scholarship and inquiry. My group is interested in what might be called humanistic and social perspectives on data. We often pursue this work through design, including data visualizations. But we treat data not simply as evidence that can help us objectively understand some external subject, but as subjects of inquiry themselves. Why are data created in certain ways by one organization and in different ways by another? Why have procedures for generating and managing data changed over time? When used critically, visualization allows us to turn our view back onto the data themselves. We often work in dialogue with the people who make data—whether at an institution like the Arnold Arboretum, where staff make and manage data about plant life, or within grassroots organizations like the Housing Justice League, where data are being used to contest inequitable development in the city of Atlanta. I see these as not only design projects but also data studies projects. At the end of the day, they seek to reveal something about data cultures and how they are changing.
Our work is done in the shadow of big data. I use that term to mean not just data that meet certain technical requirements in terms of their magnitude, but a whole rhetoric and culture emerging around data sets that are larger than those we've seen in the past—data sets that present new problems and new challenges for those who seek to understand them. Many of the data sets we work with are big, but only because they bring together smaller data sets from lots of different sources. In our work with metadata from the Digital Public Library of America and housing data from Zillow.com, the actual sources are distributed across the country. In the case of the arboretum, the data are drawn together from across time, stretching back almost 150 years. And really, even though it is one organization, there have been many different regimes of data collection over that time period. The heterogeneity of these data sets allows us to develop comparative perspectives on data and the cultures that produce them.
A.L.: I'm really fascinated by that, using the mixed-method approach in these research projects to integrate a qualitative research approach into researching big data and the visualization of quantitative data. In these projects, the boundary between those two research approaches completely seem to disappear. I would like to talk more about the idea of visualizing data from a social perspective. How can we bring an understanding of data as socially constructed to the field of data analysis, and how can we make data visual from a social perspective?
Y.L.: I think there are two ways we can advance a social perspective on data. One is to simply change the way we talk about data. Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the phrase "data set." The word "set" suggests a closed, discrete, mobile collection of things that are independent of their place of origin or the particular instruments that we use to manage them. This strikes me as a problematic way of talking about data. Instead of data sets, we might talk in terms of "data settings." After all, data are local. They are made by people and their dutiful machines at a time and in a place, using specific kinds of instruments, within existing organizations, and often for audiences that are conditioned to receive them. Data are very much grounded, and we need to understand their context. Talking about data in terms of their settings suggests that data are part of larger social and technical systems of people, instruments, and audiences. It would help us acknowledge that if we are moving data from one place to another, some kind of translation work will be necessary. We also have to think about what has to come along with the data. Do certain experts need to travel with the data? Do we need certain kinds of instruments to understand those data? These days, everything you need is too often just assumed to fit in a README file. People who work with data on a regular basis know that this is not really good enough. Making data visual from a social perspective means being in dialogue with those who live with the data and can act as guides.
The other thing we can do is try to develop visualization methods that acknowledge data settings, particularly when data are taken out of context. Often this means broadening the work of visualization to include other media, to include other kinds of annotations or textual accompaniments that put data back into a broader context. And often I think about other artistic genres that do this already. Documentary film, I think, is a nice model of an interpretive and reflexive way of handling evidence, which is essentially what data are. Contemporary documentaries consider the role of the filmmaker, and how she might be part of the film. Michael Moore, for instance, makes his documentaries all about the process, revealing the obstacles, frustrations and failures along the way. Another interesting genre that can offer something to data visualization is the biography. Catherine D'Ignazio introduced me to the term "data biography." What is the social life of a data set? Who made it, and who is making use of it? When we make visualizations, how do we think of that as the story of the data setting as opposed to just "letting the data speak for themselves," which is a phrase I often hear from technical people working in visualization.
A.L.: I'm thinking about your background in architecture and I read that place is a topic that is important to you. I'm curious if an outsider perspective to traditional computer sciences or design or other types of technical disciplines informs your curiosity for that cultural, social, and ethnographic research.
Y.L.: I try to make my research deliberately interdisciplinary, even though I think disciplines themselves are important and need boundaries. They have significant histories grounded in certain discourses, instruments, and places. But disciplines can talk to one another. You can move through them and combine them in different ways as long as you acknowledge their respective histories. I certainly bring certain practices and values intact from architecture. For example, I approach drawing is a way of thinking, rather than simply as a means of externalization or communication. When I use visualization it's not just a presentation technique, but a way of thinking through data. I also bring from architecture a concern for place, of course, and a sense of what it means to design for a local context. Most buildings are one-off designs that are tailored or customized for a particular location, time, and set of material resources. I am not necessarily interested in generalized tools. I am much more interested in ad hoc approaches and improvisational tools. I'm also often drawn to data sets that have an important geographic or space-related dimension that can help me think about space and place in new ways.
The other major field that contributed to my own sensibility is STS (science, technology, and society), which I studied during my time at MIT. That field is itself interdisciplinary: composed of anthropologists, sociologists, historians and increasingly artists and designers who are interested in the social and political implications of science and technology. My ethnographic interest in data comes from working in that field and training with people like Sherry Turkle and David Mindell. They have both helped me to ground my understanding of data in human life worlds. In that sense, I think of my visualization work as a means of doing social studies of data.
A.L.: Have you ever encountered disciplinary boundaries where you thought that this kind of interdisciplinary approach cannot bridge different disciplines?
Y.L.: Yes, this happens all the time. I'm constantly encountering new disciplinary languages and opaque ways of working that I have to grapple with. I see that both on the technical side, when I work with people and information visualization, and on the social science and humanities side, where people may have different expectations for what scholarship looks like. They may be working from a different lexicon or set of references. My approach may seem strange to them. But these differences are productive; if we didn't have differences, we wouldn't have anything to discuss. I think that preserving disciplinary distinctions is a means of acknowledging and protecting important epistemological histories and trajectories. If we erased all disciplinary boundaries, the trendiest and most business-friendly disciplines would take over the university the next day, because they have the most money, students, and space. The arts, humanities and social sciences are historically important ways of thinking and doing that need to be protected from market forces. They provide counter-narratives necessary to keep society from being corrupted by the profit motive.
A.L.: It kind of goes back to what you were saying before, because working with specific methodologies or with specific software already tells you something about the discipline or the locality where this research is coming from. Therefore, even having these disciplinary boundaries is a first step toward thinking about the research projects or where the questions are coming from. One project of yours that really fascinates me is The Life and Death of Data. Can you speak about the data visualization and the multi-format exploration that you developed online? How would you describe this format and why you chose it?
Y.L.: I wanted to make a born-digital work of scholarship that brought together qualitative and quantitative ways of looking at data. I was also in an unusual position at metaLAB@ Harvard when I began the project. I had the freedom to experiment. My work didn't need to fit into a conventional journal. In that sense, it was very exploratory. One of my graduate students at the Harvard School of Design, Krystelle Denis, helped me design and implement the project in JavaScript. She came on-board after I did some early visualizations using Processing (a Java-based programming environment). We worked together to iterate on those initial visualizations and create a series of alternatives. I wrote the text and added additional media, like photographs and maps. The idea for the format is to have these two columns that are speaking to one another, a visualization on one side and a written essay on the other. That was something I had in mind from the start.
The visualization (http://lifeanddeathofdata.org) is made using accessions data from the Arnold Arboretum, Harvard's "living collection" of trees, vines, and shrubs, which dates back more than 140 years. These plant records include details such as Latin and common names, dates of accession to the collection, and provenance or sources of origin. All this is incorporated into a timeline, with the y-axis representing the year of collection and the x-axis representing the days of the year. Each line is comparable to a tree ring in that it registers what happened at the Arboretum in the course of a year of the institution's life. I wanted to create an institutional portrait, which would let you read the history of the arboretum year by year. As you scroll over the timeline, you get these interactive section cuts through different years. Each cut tells the story of that year and what was collected. The text adds context about why and how the staff were collecting specific kinds of plants and how their collecting practices changed over time. It points to specific places in the history of accession. It also connects directly to the visualization at several moments, so as you scroll through the text the visualization changes to correspond with what the text is describing. Sometimes the text illuminates important fields in the data, like provenance type, which indicates how the plant was collected: either from the wild, from a nursery, or if the provenance is unknown, why that is the case. Other times, the text calls for the reader to look at data by individual collectors, by species, or by country of origin. There are a lot of different ways to take the data set apart and the text helps you do that. It also makes an argument for how we might use this kind of institutional portraiture to study collections in new ways, specifically using digital technologies.
A.L.: It is great to see that the project shows the data in a visual way without dismissing a textual understanding of the data. The interviews that you conducted with people who actually work in these places with this data, who really understand it from an insider perspective, were also an interesting part of the project to explore. It brings a holistic understanding of the data set but still grants you your own curiosity to take it apart with your own exploration and approach. What might be a future project that relates to these projects?
Y.L.: I am currently working on a book project with MIT Press called "All Data are Local," which will bring together a number of my own critical and creative studies of data, including work on the Arboretum, the Digital Public Library, NewsScape (a news archive), and Zillow (a marketplace for housing data). Each of these projects involves data from a variety of different sources. I use these cases make an argument about how and why we should look at data as local, with attachments to places, people, times, instruments, and audiences. The book is a combination of text and visualization. I also try to lay out a series of guidelines that readers can follow to develop their own local and critical sensibilities towards data. Building on these case studies and rules of practice, the book introduces an agenda for what I call "critical data pedagogy"…teaching people to understand data in ways that are more humanistic, more culturally attuned, and more sensitive to local sites of production and use. How can we reorient the culture around big data, to challenge the perception of data as homogeneous sources of information. In the coming years, as big data becomes something that the public engages with in their everyday lives, we need to build that capacity. I think we have to do that by changing the way we talk about data but also by visualizing it in new ways.


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- Published: 17 November 2016
SPRINGFIELD—This week, Senator Terry Link (D-Vernon Hills) voted with his colleagues to override the governor's veto and pass automatic voter registration.
Senate Bill 250 would automatically register a qualified voter who presents all the information necessary to register to a government agency. This would most commonly occur at the secretary of state's office who would then forward the information to the State Board of Elections for verification.
"We need to be opening doors and making it easier for our citizens to participate in their democracy," Link said. "This is about ensuring that those who should have a voice get their right to be heard at the ballot box."
The legislation now moves to the House for an override vote.


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Attorney Robert H. Shaer
Areas of Practice:
Bar Admissions:
- Massachusetts, 1979
- U.S. District Court District of Massachusetts, 1980
- U.S. Court of Appeals 1st Circuit, 1980
- U.S. Supreme Court, 1984
- Boston College Law School
Boston, Massachusetts
Juris Doctorate, 1979
- Bowdoin College
Brunswick, Maine
B.A. Government, 1976
Honors: Cum Laude
Robert H. Shaer
Phone: 617.723.7700
Fax: 617.227.0313
Bob is a founding partner at the Firm and also Chairs the Real Estate Department. His practice encompasses all aspects of real estate law, while focusing primarily on representing developers in the acquisition, development, financing, leasing, and sale of residential and commercial property, and on representing borrowers and lending institutions in commercial loan transactions. He also assists clients with their business law needs by reviewing and preparing corporate and limited liability company documents, such as shareholder agreements, employment agreements, operating and partnership agreements and by advising on a variety of business issues.
In addition to managing the Real Estate Department and assisting clients, Bob also assists with the management of the Firm's personnel and day-to-day business needs. A former professional tennis instructor, Bob enjoys playing golf and traveling with his wife.
Bob is rated "AV" by Martindale-Hubbell, the national directory of lawyers, which is the highest rating attainable.
Bob has been involved in projects such as:
- Representing a client in the acquisition and financing of a portfolio of college student housing in Worcester–comprised of eight multi-family buildings and 24 units;
- Representing a developer in the acquisition of a $50,000,000 suburban real estate portfolio, including industrial / warehouse space, vacant land and several residential apartment buildings;
- Representing developers in the acquisition, development, conversion and sale of a variety of residential condominium projects. Currently representing a developer in the creation of a newly-constructed, mixed-use condominium in East Boston, including the sale of 66 residential units and four ground-floor commercial units;
- Representing clients in the acquisition, development, financing, leasing and/or sale of various commercial office and retail buildings;
- Representing various partners and members in connection with real estate partnership disputes and so-called "business divorces."
- Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers Association
- National Association of Industrial and Office Properties
- Real Estate Bar Association of Massachusetts
- Massachusetts Bar Association
- American Bar Association
- Massachusetts Super Lawyer, Boston Magazine, 2004 – 2019
- AV Rated, Martindale-Hubbell
- Jocelyn J. Campbell
- Edward DelSignore
- Thomas David Duquette, Jr.
- Jonathon D. Friedmann
- George Georgountzos
- Ashley M. Green
- Michael S. Kalis
- William A. Korman
- Gary E. Lambert
- Bryan S. MacCormack
- John H. Rogers
- James L. Rudolph


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Our team is composed of highly skilled, board-certified medical professionals who have been specially trained in ICU. We provide high quality service 24 hours a day at Acute Care Hospitals, Long Term Acute Care Hospitals and Skilled Nursing Facilities as well as at home, using the best evidence–based medicine and cutting edge technology.
Our palliative care team offers guidance, compassion, and counseling with patient-centered care to our patients and their families.


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Established by INASP in 2007. Managed by Tribhuvan University Central Library.
Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL) is a service to provide online publication of Nepalese journals. For more information about NepJOL and how to join the service, see the About page.
Official publication of the Research Division of Tribhuvan University Kathmandu, Nepal. Articles available in full text.
Current Issue
Vol 32 No 2 (2018)


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Every year Bangladeshi potato farmers lose about 25-50% of their yield due to 'Late blight', a common and highly destructive fungal disease in potato crops. In order to reduce these losses and increase farmers' income, The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs has commissioned a new project within the 'Geodata for Agriculture and Water' program (G4AW) of the Netherlands Space Office: GEOPOTATO. BoP Innovation Center will participate in this new project by providing support to the implementing parties.
After rice, the second most important crop in Bangladesh is potato, represented by 450,000 hectares worked by 750,000 farmers. GEOPOTATO will develop and implement a decision-support service based on satellite images and weather forecasts for an optimal control strategy of 'Late blight'. This service will provide farmers with preventive spray advice when a late blight infection period is predicted to occur. GEOPOTATO is exploring different kinds of IT solutions such as SMS and voice messaging to reach as many farmers as possible with this service.
Farmers are often reluctant to change how they cultivate their crops due to misconceptions and risk aversive behavior. Making farmers aware about the importance of changing the type and dose of fungicides is not enough. In order to facilitate behavior change it is instrumental to understand their motivation and take into account the constraints that farmers face.
BoP Innovation Center will support Wageningen University, ICCO Bangladesh and the other consortium partners in conducting a Human Centred Design study among farmers to leverage insights on how to realise behaviour change based on local authorities and aspirational channels. In addition, BoP Innovation Center will support the development of a business model with the purpose of scaling up the service to 100,000 farmers in 3 years. This market-led behaviour change model will be piloted in 2017 among farmers who worked with the previous PROOFS program in which BoP Innovation Center has also been participating.
Earlier this month, BoP Innovation Center facilitated a kick-off workshop with participants from Wageningen University, ICCO and mPower. In this workshop the team identified the different challenges in the business model and explored potential business partners for additional revenue lines.
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John T. Worthington was born in 1826 into an extended Frederick County family of "prominent" farmers. John married Mary Ruth Delilah Simmons in 1856 and the couple eventually had four children, three of whom survived childhood. In 1862, Worthington purchased "Clifton Farm" adjacent to the Monocacy River, renamed it "Riverside Farm," and settled his family into their new home.
The morning of July 9, 1864 was spent preparing for the impending battle. Hoping to minimize his loss of property, Worthington instructed the family's slaves to gather wheat from the field, and then to take the horses to nearby Sugar Loaf Mountain and hide them in the "darkest and loneliest place you can find." However, Confederate soldiers discovered and confiscated all nine horses, at a substantial cost to John Worthington. After the horses were hidden, the slaves busied themselves placing tubs of water in the cellar and boarding up the windows.
During the Battle of Monocacy, Confederate troops crossed the Monocacy River onto the Worthington Farm, initiating three attacks from the farm fields. Worthington and his family took refuge in the cellar, and through the boarded-up windows, six-year-old Glenn Worthington watched intently as the fighting raged in front of the house. In his memoir Fighting For Time, Glenn Worthington recalls that, "Glimpses of blue could be seen as they passed windows. More than one received his death wound close to the house and fell there to die, in Worthington yard."
After the battle, John Worthington and his family assisted with the care of the wounded soldiers; in fact, Glenn and his seven-year-old brother Harry were sent into the nearby fields to gather sheaves of wheat for use as a bed for a wounded Confederate soldier.
While the wounded were being cared for, other Confederate soldiers gathered the muskets that had been thrown away by the retreating Union soldiers. The muskets were placed in a pile in Worthington's back yard and set on fire, leaving only the gun barrels and bayonets. Glenn desired one of these bayonets as a souvenir. He procured a stick and began to drag the bayonet from the embers, and as he stooped to retrieve his prize, an ember touched a discarded paper cartridge which exploded in his face. A Confederate soldier carried him, blinded and yelling, into the house. Luckily Glenn's eyesight was not damaged by the explosion and he made a full recovery.
After the Civil War, John Worthington continued to be a successful farmer, managing to acquire an additional farm as well as improve "Riverside Farm." The Worthingtons also maintained a townhouse in Frederick until the 1890s, which John inherited from his father, James W. Worthington. John and Mary Worthington remained at "Riverside Farm" until their deaths in 1902 (Mary) and 1905 (John). The farm passed to Glenn and his brother Clark, and although neither lived there, it remained in the Worthington family until 1953.
Impressed with the scene that was forever etched in his memory, Glenn grew up with a strong interest in the battle and its importance in saving Washington, D.C. In the late 1920s, he began to work for the creation of Monocacy as a battlefield park. He joined with others to form the Monocacy Battlefield Association and wrote a history of the battle entitled Fighting for Time. Worthington saw his dream of a battlefield park become a reality shortly before his death in 1934, when Congress established the park "to commemorate the Battle of Monocacy." Due to a lack of funds, however, Monocacy Battlefield was a park in name only.
Due to increasing development pressure, in the 1970s the National Park Service was finally authorized to establish the battlefield boundary, and began purchasing land after 1980. The Worthington Farm became part of the park in 1982, preserving for future generations the stories of both the soldiers who fought here and the family that called the farm home.
Last updated: April 10, 2015


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The sixth Startup Weekend Breck began Friday at the Breckenridge Backstage Theater. Around 60 people filled the theater chatting and drinking fresh Breckenridge Brewery IPA. As the official start time approached, an energy started shooting through the crowd as the presenters grabbed another drink or coolly meandered into the theater.
As the lights went down, the Startup Weekend facilitator, Jeremy Kennell, opened the night's activities with a collective icebreaker as attendees turned left and right to introduce themselves. Next up, Jeremy led a creativity warm-up called the "Half Baked Idea." It began as the audience yelled out nouns and adjectives that combined to form potential product ideas including "Fuzzy Brick," "Fast House" and "Sticky Mountain." Groups spread out to form sales pitches for these products and then presented them, with creative concepts ranging from width changing skis to smart, driverless cars. Now, the entrepreneurial minds were starting to fire in force.
The pitches for the night were varied, each with their own inspiration and excitement. The ideas ranged from online communities to iPhone apps to traditional brick and mortar businesses. These pitches focused both on serving the Breckenridge community and on reaching international ubiquity. Each brought a story from a local visionary intent on solving a problem (many that they themselves had experienced). The night wrapped up with voting and team creation for a weekend full of brainstorming, ideating, and building. The teams are working all weekend to bring their ideas to life at ELEVATE Breck.
Come join on Sunday night (Nov. 12) at the Breckenridge Theatre to hear the final pitches and start thinking up your own future venture. www.SWBreck.com